February 12, 2018
A Warning to Aspiring Entrepreneurs and Society at Large: The Abuse of the Justice System to Advance Political Aspirations. Howard Root was an accomplished lawyer when he gambled his career on becoming a medical device entrepreneur. A Warning to Aspiring Entrepreneurs and Society at Large: The Abuse of the Justice System to Advance Political Aspirations. Howard Root was an accomplished...
December 8, 2017
It has been a particularly busy time of travel, events and family activities. We are in my favorite time of the year – the holiday season. It’s because it leads up to the most important event in human history – the birth of Jesus Christ. The season evokes thoughts of those closest to us – our family. As St. It...
View Articles If you’ve met Tim, you know that his life was shaped by good values that were imparted to him by his parents and he...
October 5, 2017
The Modernist heresy is the most important factor shaping today’s American political landscape. The word “heresy” enjoys scant popularity today because it is generally associated with ancient religious disputes seemingly unrelated to current events. Ironically, modern-day heresies are the most causal variables driving today’s attacks that occur not only on religion—but also on democracy, capitalism and religious liberty. Many who...
October 2, 2017
The writer Flannery O’Connor, in her wit, did not think highly of local Catholic newspapers. They devoted more space to advertisements such as “Let a Catholic exterminator get rid of your pests” than to illuminating discussion of great issues. Much ecclesiastical “happy news” gingerly sidesteps challenging thought, churning out folksy columns as if to prove Chesterton’s definition of journalism as...
September 26, 2017
Every organizational leader of even average talent knows that an essential element of leadership is what we often refer to as “energy management.” In simplest terms, this means finding ways to instill positive energy in your employees and your customers while eliminating negative sources of energy, or at least re-channeling negative energy into positive directions or outcomes. Dealing with negative...
September 26, 2017
By Fr. George W. Rutler, S.T.D. The current mania for tearing down statues and stifling free speech by cultural ingénues ignorant of history and logic, has reached a stellar absurdity in demands to censure “The Star Spangled Banner” on lame claims that it is racist. If ignorance is bliss, then those who indulge their revisionism, must be in Nirvana. Francis...
View Articles Father Rutler was ordained to the diaconate in Rome by His Eminence William Cardinal Baum in 1980 and received priestly ordination in St. Patrick's...
September 26, 2017
In 1912 the father of an old friend contemplated a political career. In his idealism he traveled to Chicago for the Bull Moose Convention of the National Progressive Party. Its delegates announced that they were “battling for the Lord” and that the campaign would be a new Battle of Armageddon. The spectacle of many hundreds of portly men smoking cigars...
View Articles Father Rutler was ordained to the diaconate in Rome by His Eminence William Cardinal Baum in 1980 and received priestly ordination in St. Patrick's...
September 18, 2017
In 1912 the father of an old friend contemplated a political career. In his idealism he traveled to Chicago for the Bull Moose Convention of the National Progressive Party. Its delegates announced that they were “battling for the Lord” and that the campaign would be a new Battle of Armageddon. The spectacle of many hundreds of portly men smoking cigars...
September 14, 2017
It’s football season again and I’ve finally crossed the threshold. For years I’ve been threatening a personal boycott of the National Football League. During August, after much deliberation, I took the leap. I will not attend any more professional games. Nor will I watch any professional football games on television, the internet, or through any other means. Before you jump...
September 11, 2017
Just days ago, on Wednesday, September 6, 2017, Senator Diane Feinstein pronounced that Amy Barrett, a respected law professor at Notre Dame, may have excluded herself from a federal judgeship by virtue of being a faithful Catholic. Senator Al Franken then accused Barrett of (This is an especially critical read for all Catholics, especially Catholic business professionals. Please share with...
September 11, 2017
In the tumultuous eleventh century, seven monks including Saint Bruno formed the Carthusian order, dedicated to prayer for the serenity of souls, taking as their motto: “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis” — the Cross stands as the world spins. September’s Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross would seem a curiosity, were it not that Christ used that most cruel...
September 5, 2017
Special to the Catholic Business Journal— NAPA, CA – Syndicated columnist, NBC News Vatican analyst, and Catholic Theologian, George Weigel, spoke to an overflow crowd on “The Next Great Awakening?” at the 2017 Annual Napa Institute. Weigel began by noting that the vulgarity of today’s political culture has been on full display since the beginning of the 2016 election cycle....
August 28, 2017
‘Right-sizing’ has to be one of the more detested words in modern business language, mostly because the use of it often indicates a lack of courage. Rather than come right out and say ‘lay-off’ or ‘firing,’ too many leaders announce that they are going to right-size their organization, as though this will somehow change the reality of what they are...
August 22, 2017
Most Americans want basically the same things: general prosperity, a reasonably well-educated populace that is steadily becoming healthier, a responsive government that is neither bloated nor corrupt, a social environment that is both safe and free, and a sustainable natural environment. However, the political arena through which most of this must be achieved is now so hopelessly divided that our...
August 15, 2017
NAPA, CA – Four bishops—Most Reverend Borys Gudziak, Eparch of the Ukrainian Greek Eparchy of Paris, Most Reverend Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, Most Reverend Samuel Aquila of Denver, and Most Reverend Thomas Paprocki of Springfield—joined by George Weigel, a distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, on the closing day of this year’s Napa Institute to...
August 8, 2017
The illusion of one being perpetually young was shattered in my case recently when a publishing firm asked me to write some advice to a young priest from the perspective of an elder. For me, youth was a permanent state. I was the very youngest in my college class and, in my Anglican years, at twenty-six I was the youngest...
August 6, 2017
The Transfiguration of our Lord did not change him into another form of nature. After the event he was the same man taking the apostles down the mountain as he was when he took them up. As for us, said St. Thomas Aquinas: “Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.” Christ was already perfect, and the light that transfigured...
August 3, 2017
Special to the Catholic Business Journal—NAPA, CA – Author, Senior Research Fellow at the Faith and Reason Institute and former Senior Fellow at the Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Mary Eberstadt, addressed an overflow crowd Friday at the Napa Institute with a provocative talk on what unites the forces that are attacking Christianity. Eberstadt began by noting that the tectonic plates...
August 1, 2017
We returned on July 29 from the funeral of an exemplary Catholic businessman – Emil Ogden of College Station, Texas. It was not just his hard-earned financial success in the always turbulent oil and gas industry or his lifelong quest for knowledge to advance his career and personal growth, but it was his steadfastness and commitment to his family and...
View Articles If you’ve met Tim, you know that his life was shaped by good values that were imparted to him by his parents and he...
July 30, 2017
Jan Struther (1901-1953) wrote popular hymns but is best known for the book that became the 1942 film Mrs. Miniver, starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. The Dunkirk evacuation figures in it and was emotive propaganda as the United States was just getting involved in the war. A new film about Dunkirk is educating many young people who never knew...