86 years in a Cistercian monastery. she entered when she was 19. In 2011, Barajuen left the monastery for the first time in 40 years to meet retired Benedict XVI during a papal visit to Madrid. She had entered the monastery on the same day he was born.
Great tht a woman with a physical disability could win through – Miss Iowa pageant winner missing left forearm, to speak about disabilities After a grueling three-day competition, Nicole Kelly was named Miss Iowa on Saturday. The 23-year-old will go on to compete in the Miss America pageant, where she will speak about the importance … Read more
Great! Matt Birk is a Harvard graduate, six time Pro Bowl selection, has six children and his wife volunteers with a crisis pregnancy group. Retired Baltimore Ravens center Matt Birk, who won a Super Bowl with the team last year, skipped the team’s visit to the White House due to President Obama’s support for Planned … Read more
To my surprise, AMC is not showing "The Longest Day" today. Here's a post I put up last year on this day. D-Day 68 years ago – "the boy on the beach" And just a few days ago – Memorial Day – I posted about my namesake, Thomas C. Faranda, who was not killed on D-Day, … Read more
I never had Mr. Larkin, but I do remember him. This was his 50th year at Stepinac. Two very nice articles about him, especially the second one, which includes a video. A church-bombing in Birmingham, Ala., killed four African-American girls. The Beatles made their first appearance on U.S. television. “My Favorite Martian” premiered on CBS. … Read more
Well, that's capitalism for you. Bill Clinton’s Half-Million Dollar Speech Is Drawing Outrage in Israel
The Catholic priest author. Dead at 85. He'd been ill for awhile – had a fall getting out of a taxi and never fully recovered. A self-described "loud-mouthed Irish priest" ("And may they carve it on my gravestone!" he once quipped), the Rev. Andrew M. Greeley rejected a conventional definition of his vocation. Yes, he … Read more
Tomorrow Tim will be in the Varsity CHSAA (Catholic HS Athletic Association) Intersectional meet, which is all the Catholic high schools in the metropolitan area, including Long Island. Two weeks ago he won the sophomore intersectionals with consecutive PR throws, the last one being 145’7″. He had the three longest throws in the meet. The … Read more
Pretty amazing. I won't be trying it. The record may not stand long, since an 81 year old is trying to summit. Eighty-year-old Yuichiro Miura became the oldest person to climb Mount Everest on Thursday, reaching the summit just four months after undergoing heart surgery for an arrhythmia. Here's a little bio about Mr. Miura … Read more
69% of families claiming the adoption tax credit in 2011 (2012 tax filing season) were audited. So Congress implemented a tax credit to facilitate adoption – a process that is so extraordinarily expensive that it is out of reach for many middle-class families — and the IRS responded by implementing an audit campaign that delayed … Read more