By Merrilee Gasser, Just the News – The Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that would make illegal immigration a state crime after a heated debate where one Democrat called the bill “extremist legislation.”… House Bill 4156 makes “impermissible occupation” a criminal act… It passed its third reading by a 77-20 vote and now moves on to the Senate for consideration.

By Stephen P. White, The Catholic Thing – For the better part of two generations, the pro-life movement in the U.S. was galvanized by a shared commitment to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Thanks to the Dobbs decision of 2022, Roe is now gone, and abortion policy in the United States has been returned to the democratic process… If Dobbs represented a generational legal victory for the pro-life movement, the ensuing two years have also revealed some of the massive political and cultural obstacles facing the pro-life cause. …

By Emily Zanotti, National Catholic Register – The (birth control) pill is known to have a number of side effects. The Mayo Clinic acknowledges that women may suffer everything from minor headaches, stomach pain, and breakthrough bleeding, to heart attacks and strokes, deep vein thrombosis, and liver disorders. It also lists several of the most common influencer complaints as potentially concerning developments in need of immediate medical attention: headaches, belly pain, dizziness, nausea and depression.

By Harrison Pitt, The European Conservative – I often wonder whether those who campaigned for Brexit should have predicted that it would be hijacked by globalist drones… As everyone ought to know by now, NatCon Brussels went ahead this week in an unusually raucous fashion. What many of us have grown accustomed to enjoying as a fount of ideas and a source of rejuvenation became a grotesque spectacle of tyranny in action.

By Daniel B. Gallagher, Catholic World Report – How can a magisterial document with a subheading consisting of three short paragraphs dedicated to the “relational structure of the human person” not even mention the family?… The expressed intent of the recent declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is to “illuminate different facets of human dignity that might be obscured in many people’s consciousness” (Dignitas Infinita, Presentation). To the extent that the Declaration—though not intended to be comprehensive—selects topics that are indeed heavily “obscured” today, it succeeds.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – A new poll shows more Americans side with former President Donald Trump than with Joe Biden on who should decide abortion law… In recent comments, Trump indicated he thought states should decide the issue of abortion law and whether to protect babies from abortion. Biden,on the other hand, wants Congress to pass a law re-implementing Roe v. Wade and allowing abortions up to birth… But a new Newsweek poll shows more Americans believe abortion restrictions should be decided by states rather than the federal government.

By Calvin Freiburger, LifeSite News – The Louisiana Senate unanimously passed legislation Tuesday to criminalize giving a pregnant woman abortion-inducing drugs without her knowledge or consent, motivated by the personal ordeal of the lead sponsor’s own sister… Abortion is generally illegal in the Bayou State, but SB 276 would establish the additional crime of “coerced criminal abortion by means of fraud,” defined as “knowingly and intentionally engag(ing) in the use or attempted use of an abortion-inducing drug on a pregnant woman, without her knowledge or consent, to cause an abortion.”

By Eddie Scarry, The Federalist – House Speaker Mike Johnson supported shutting down the Southern border until it got in the way of his real priorities: sending money abroad.
There’s a very simple logic to the Democrat position on Ukraine: Its continued welfare sponsored by American taxpayers is very important, but it’s not more important than maintaining an open Southern border for the world’s criminal and destitute to flood the nation (again, sponsored by American taxpayers). ….

By Lauren De Witt, Crisis Magazine – Bill Maher, of all people, exposed the lie behind the Republicans’ supposed opposition to abortion… HBO’s Real Time host and longtime leftist Bill Maher made headlines this past weekend when he chastised Republicans’ ever-shifting stance on abortion in a panel discussion on the Arizona Supreme Court’s recent landmark ruling upholding a near-total abortion ban. The Arizona Court took up the case in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which Republicans, including former President Trump, rightly take credit for.

By Carl R. Trueman, First Things – I recently revisited a book that I had not read for many years: Robert P. Ericksen’s Theologians Under Hitler. It is a study of how three intellectuals, Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emanuel Hirsch—scholars of the Old Testament, Luther, and Kierkegaard, respectively—came to support Hitler in 1933 and ultimately be identified with an evil ideology that cost millions of lives, both in the death camps and in the war that German expansionism precipitated… It is a troubling book …

By John M. Grondelski, Ph.D., Catholic World Report – Carney’s book is a superbly written tour de force contending that multiple cumulative socio-cultural factors are responsible for the current family-unfriendly environment. Culture is like the atmosphere: it’s usually invisible but necessary—and when contaminants get into it, they spread in many unforeseen ways, often overlapping with each other while boosting their mutual toxicity. Carney insists that what ails family formation and support in the United States today is, at root, cultural. That’s important, because it saves us from spinning our wheels ineffectively in places that won’t ultimately effect change (e.g., government or economics). …

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – John 6:44-51 – No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, `And they shall all be taught by God.’ Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. ….

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – The battle this ‘wartime speaker’ is ready to fight isn’t at home for his voters but nearly 5,000 miles and an ocean away… Before Republican Rep. Mike Johnson became speaker of the House, he wasn’t an open proponent of bankrolling the Russia-Ukraine war. Even the Louisiana native’s first few months with the gavel were marked by his repeated pledge that the lower chamber would not pass legislation promising money to secure other nation’s borders while ours was still under attack. ….

By Larry Chapp, EWTN News – When I was in Rome last October covering the Synod on Synodality I had dinner with a rather well-known priest friend who is frequently, but mildly, critical of Pope Francis… I asked him why his critique of the Pope is not as harsh as some others who accuse this Pope of heresy. He responded by saying that “it is important to keep in mind that we want an intact papacy left in place once this Pope is gone.” Therefore, he continued, accusations of papal heresy from various sectors, mainly on the internet, serve no valuable purpose and actually work to undermine the legitimacy of the office itself.

By Brittany M. Hughes, MRCTV – We may be spending tens of billions’ of dollars housing and feeing and clothing the millions of illegal aliens who’ve been pouring across Joe Biden’s open border for the past three years – but the unlawful border jumpers aren’t happy with the care they’ve received, and hundreds of them swarmed City Hall in New York City this week to let officials know their tax-funded arrangements aren’t up to snuff. …