Morning Minute Retreat (July 19, 2026)

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While traveling through India, a man passed an elephant camp and suddenly stopped, puzzled by what he saw.
The enormous animals were not kept behind steel bars or restrained with heavy chains. Each elephant was held by nothing more than a thin rope tied around one front leg.
It was obvious that these powerful creatures could have snapped the rope in an instant and walked away. Yet none of them even tried.
The man noticed a trainer nearby and asked, “Why don’t the elephants break free? Surely they’re strong enough.”
The trainer smiled.
“When they are very young and much smaller, we tie them with ropes just like these. At that age, the rope is strong enough to hold them. They pull, struggle, and try to escape, but they cannot.”
“Eventually, they stop trying. As they grow larger and stronger, they continue believing the rope is more powerful than they are. They never test it again.”
The man was stunned.
These majestic animals were capable of freeing themselves at any moment. The rope was …More

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The Real Citizen Vigilantes Roaming Europe Are Armed Muslims Imposing Sharia Law

thefederalist.com

The Real 'Citizen Vigilantes' Roaming Europe Are Armed Muslims

German director Uwe Boll’s new hit movie Citizen Vigilante, in which (spoiler alert!) actor Armie Hammer shoots dead an entire family of Muslim immigrants in retaliation for one of their number’s brutal rape of a native white woman somewhere in continental Europe, has been controversial for many reasons: its violence, its alleged “racism,” and its supposed potential to inspire copycat crimes. An issue that should be causing far more controversy than the mere fictional vigilante violence depicted on-screen, however, may be the potential for real-life vigilante violence occurring off-screen, performed by Europe’s millions of imported Muslims. All over the continent in recent years, Muslims have been forming their own Citizen Vigilante-like mobs, which they claim are purely for innocent purposes of self-protection. I would suggest this is an issue of rather more valid public concern than a made-up movie in which a made-up white man shoots some made-up Muslims. Pillars of the Community…

Victor Davis Hanson: The World Is Becoming More Pro-American Than It Has Been in Years

dailysignal.com

Victor Davis Hanson: The World Is Becoming More Pro-American Than It Has Been in Years

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. The world that we’re looking at today is radically different than that of just five years ago, radically different in the sense that it is much more in the interest of the United States. And I know that seems controversial because [President Donald] Trump is written off as someone who is too fluid and volatile. His tweets, his verbiage, can put people off, but that’s the art-of-the-deal unpredictability of his nature. Some of it can be a drawback, some of it an advantage, but overall, it doesn’t help analysis to just look at what he says. It’s more important to see what he’s done. Let’s go through the world abroad as it is today systematically. Look at Latin America. Five years ago, the Chinese were controlling, through their surrogate companies, the entry and exit to Panama. Russia and China were the de facto rulers of Venezuela, with the second-largest oil reserves in the world. A slew of communist governments had taken over …

Democrats Are Panicking and Scrambling to Hide Something Big

pjmedia.com

Democrats Are Panicking and Scrambling to Hide Something Big

Things just keep getting worse for the Democratic Party, and at this rate, they may need a new metaphor because "keeps getting worse" barely covers it anymore. We already told you the polls are tightening heading into the midterms in November, which was bad enough on its own. Now it turns out the party's situation is so much worse than we already know, and the people running the show apparently don’t want you to know just how bad it really is In a bizarre move, the Democratic National Committee required its senior leadership to sign non-disclosure agreements before a private meeting on the party's finances, according to two people familiar with the conversations who spoke to Axios. That alone is a break from past practice. DNC officers are high-ranking members of chair Ken Martin's team, not entry-level staffers. Officers at that level don't typically get handed a confidentiality agreement before they can hear how much money they have in their piggy bank and what they plan to do about it. …

Morning Minute Retreat (July 18, 2026)

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Building a culture of vocations — the strategy behind diocesan vocational success: In some US dioceses, priestly vocations are thriving.

pillarcatholic.com

Building a culture of vocations — the strategy behind diocesan vocational success

In 2026, the Church in the United States saw 9% fewer priestly ordinations than it had 10 years earlier. According to the best numbers available, 342 men were ordained diocesan priests for U.S. dioceses this year. While that number represents a slight uptick from years prior, it also signifies a decline from a decade prior — in 2016, 376 men were ordained U.S. diocesan priests, about 9% more than this year. Experts cite a number of factors behind a trend of smaller U.S. ordination classes than in prior decades, including the 2018 abuse scandals in the Church, the Covid pandemic, a rise in secularism, the proliferation of pornography, and the breakdown in family life. But some dioceses have seen steady or even growing numbers of priestly vocations. The Pillar spoke with bishops and vocations directors from across the country about the contemporary obstacles to fostering vocations, and the factors that can help promote priestly vocations despite those challenges. Credit: Godong / Alamy.…

FULL SPEECH: U.S. Department of Homeland Security “Election security is national security” - 7/17/26

Video link here:
rumble.com/…-homeland-security-election-security-…

WATCH: President Trump Speaks at FIFA Reception in New York City - 7/17/26

Video link here:
rumble.com/…eaks-at-fifa-reception-in-new-york-ci…