A Reader Writes: "Taking Someone's Job Away Is An Aggressive Attack on the Individual" (So Why Does Pope Francis Say God Never Throws Anyone Away?)

Joshua McElwee reports that in his weekly audience today, Pope Francis told those gathered in St. Peter's Square that God never throws away or discards anyone:

National Catholic Reporter Announces It Will Restrict Its Commenting Services, Due to "Dramatic Increase in Trolls and Disruptive Comments"

Last week, I pointed you to some valuable (and worrisome) commentary about how trolls are trashing open discussion spaces online and causing some news sites to shut down their commentary threads. 

Charles Pierce on Hispanic Catholics As Key to "Catholic Vote" in 2016 Elections

Non-white Catholics are voting 71% for Clinton & 13% for Trump. @PRRIPoll

— Thomas Reese, S.J. (@ThomasReeseSJ) August 28, 2016

White Catholics are voting 44% for Clinton & 41% for Trump. @PRRIPoll

— Thomas Reese, S.J. (@ThomasReeseSJ) August 28, 2016

Yesterday, I wrote, 

In New Jersey and Virginia, Lawsuits Filed Against Catholic Institutions Firing Gay Employees: Pretty Talk Not Getting Us Down the Road to Mercy and Justice

Last week, I pointed you to a story recounted at the Bondings 2.0 website about the firing of Paramus Catholic high school (New Jersey) teacher Kate Drumgoole after the school found out that she had married her same-sex partner Jaclyn Vanore. Today, Bob Shine reports at Bondings on the firing of John M. Murphy by the Saint Francis Home (a care facility for the elderly) and the Catholic diocese of Richmond, Virginia. 

In the News: Slight But Discernible Trend of White Catholics Away from Trump — What Does It Mean?

The Blogger platform (which I use here) has a new feature that allows bloggers to designate a "featured post" on the blog's homepage. Some readers may have noticed that I've been using the new feature, and yesterday, I chose to feature a post I wrote at the end of July taking note of an article Father Thomas Reese had just published then, noting that the Catholic vote might well determine the outcome of the 2016 presidential elections. Reese asks,

Parramatta (Australia) Diocesan Newspaper Catholic Outlook Back Online, with Text of Bishop Vincent Long's Ann D. Clark Lecture Calling for Catholic Church to Reassess Approach to Gay Folks

For those who may not have seen the note I added last night to my posting earlier yesterday noting that Bishop Vincent Long's Ann D. Clark lecture had once again disappeared from the website of his diocesan newspaper Catholic Outlook (and, indeed, h/t to Bose, that the entire website was down):

Text of Bishop Vincent Long's Lecture Calling for Reassessment of Catholic Cruelty to Gay People Has Disappeared Again

The text of Bishop Vincent Long's recent Ann D. Clark lecture in Penrith, Australia, about which I blogged recently, has once again disappeared from the website of his diocesan newspaper Catholic Outlook. As I noted in the posting I've just linked, Catholic Outlook published the text on 19 August, the day after Bishop Long presented the lecture, and within a day, after the lecture began circulating and being commented about online, it vanished from the Catholic Outlook site. It then popped back up briefly, only to be removed from the website again.