The St. Joseph Novena begins today (March 10-18)! If you would like to pray this novena leading up to St. Joseph's feast day on March 19, use the link below! (Click to learn more about novenas.)

St. Joseph Novena

(Thanks to Linda D.)

From LifeSiteNews:

Washington State’s health department has now released their first annual report for the Death with Dignity Act, the voter-approved law that legalized assisted suicide in 2008 and went into effect on March 5, 2009.

The State Department of Health reports that 63 individuals requested and received lethal prescriptions to kill themselves under the Act for the year 2009. Forty-seven individuals have died. Of these 36 patients were confirmed to have killed themselves by ingesting the poisonous medicine. (Statistics available here)

Sixteen patients still have a status that is “unknown at this time.” The health department speculates some of these “participants” may have opted to “wait to use the medication” or “choose not to use it.” It further adds that some may have taken the lethal doses and died, but that the Department of Health has not yet received the After Death Reporting Form (due 30 days after death) and the Death Certificate (due 60 days after death.)

Last year's Parish Summer Camp was a lot of fun and a huge success! It was a great time of playing games, praying and learning about the faith and for parishioners to get to know each other. We just put some pictures up (thanks to Lee Anne M.) to give you an idea of what to expect this year! Mark your calendars—this year's Parish Summer Camp will be the weekend of June 18th through the 20th!

See the entire photo album of last year's summer camp.

In theme again with the Catholics Come Home campaign, we turn to a little lesson in apologetics. Deal Hudson has written an article called, "12 Claims Every Catholic Should Know" that is worth sharing:

Freedom of speech is a great thing. Unfortunately, it comes at an unavoidable price: When citizens are free to say what they want, they’ll sometimes use that freedom to say some pretty silly things. And that’s the case with the 12 claims we’re about to cover.

Some of them are made over and over, others are rare. Either way, while the proponents of these errors are free to promote them, we as Catholics have a duty to respond.

1. “There’s no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me.”

People use this argument a lot when they disagree with a statement and have no other way to support their idea. After all, if nothing is true for everyone, then they can believe whatever they want and there’s nothing you can say to make them change their minds.

But look at that statement again: “There’s no such thing as absolute truth.” Isn’t that, in itself, a statement that’s being made absolutely? In other words, it applies some rule or standard to everyone across the board — exactly what the relativists say is impossible. They have undone their own argument simply by stating their case.