What People are Commenting
Robots, Marriage as Cross & Dissidents
Marriage Is a Cross, Not a Love Story
Dear TIA,
I was looking for the Croatian tradition of considering the marriage a cross, and I found these two posts on the web.
I am sending them to you because this perspective seemed to me deeply Catholic, and we should imitate it to avoid so many marriages that fail because are based upon romantic feelings that shortly vanish.
The first one I found on the website Non Veni Pacem [1]; the second one the St. Mary of the Assumption [2] facebook.
I hope you could transcribe both for the benefit of your readers and all Catholics.
Best regards,
P.M.
1. Taking up of the Cross in Marriage
(Borrowed from Scott Hahn’s Facebook page)
According to Croatian tradition, when a couple gets married, the priest doesn’t tell them that they have found the perfect person. On the contrary! Instead, he says to them: “You have found your cross. It is a cross to love, to carry it with you, a cross that is not to throw away but to treasure.”
In Herzegovina, the Cross represents the greatest love and the crucifix is the treasure of the house.
When the bride and groom enter the church on their wedding day, they carry a crucifix with them. The priest blesses the crucifix. When the time comes to exchange their vows, the bride puts her right hand on the crucifix and the groom puts his hand on hers, so that both hands are joined together on the crucifix.
The priest covers their hands with his stole as they exchange their vows, according to the rite of the Church, to be faithful to each other, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, till death do them part.
Then, instead of kissing each other, the bride and groom kiss the crucifix. Those who witness the ceremony understand from it that if one of them leaves the other, he or she leaves Christ on the Cross.
After the ceremony, the newlyweds bring the crucifix to their home and put it in a place of honor. It will forever be the point of reference and the place of family prayer. In times of difficulty, the family does not go to the lawyer or the psychiatrist, but kneel down together before the crucifix in search of help from Jesus Christ. They kneel down and maybe even cry and open their hearts asking the Lord and each other for forgiveness. They go to sleep with peace in their hearts because they have received forgiveness from the only one who has the power to save.
Husband and wife will teach their children to kiss the crucifix every day and not to go to sleep like pagans, without first giving thanks to Jesus. They know that Jesus is holding them in His arms and there is nothing to fear.
H/t Toby Kenobe
2. Croatian Marriage Crucifix Tradition at St Mary's Wedding
Hannah and Chris got married at St Mary’s yesterday and incorporated the beautiful Croatian tradition of the Marriage Crucifix into their ceremony.
It was a reminder to them and to all of us that real love requires selflessness and sacrifice on the part of both husband and wife, imitating the Love of Christ who poured out his life for us on the Cross. May Hannah and Chris, always love each other as Christ loves!
I was looking for the Croatian tradition of considering the marriage a cross, and I found these two posts on the web.
I am sending them to you because this perspective seemed to me deeply Catholic, and we should imitate it to avoid so many marriages that fail because are based upon romantic feelings that shortly vanish.
The first one I found on the website Non Veni Pacem [1]; the second one the St. Mary of the Assumption [2] facebook.
I hope you could transcribe both for the benefit of your readers and all Catholics.
Best regards,
P.M.
(Borrowed from Scott Hahn’s Facebook page)
According to Croatian tradition, when a couple gets married, the priest doesn’t tell them that they have found the perfect person. On the contrary! Instead, he says to them: “You have found your cross. It is a cross to love, to carry it with you, a cross that is not to throw away but to treasure.”
In Herzegovina, the Cross represents the greatest love and the crucifix is the treasure of the house.
When the bride and groom enter the church on their wedding day, they carry a crucifix with them. The priest blesses the crucifix. When the time comes to exchange their vows, the bride puts her right hand on the crucifix and the groom puts his hand on hers, so that both hands are joined together on the crucifix.

Then, instead of kissing each other, the bride and groom kiss the crucifix. Those who witness the ceremony understand from it that if one of them leaves the other, he or she leaves Christ on the Cross.
After the ceremony, the newlyweds bring the crucifix to their home and put it in a place of honor. It will forever be the point of reference and the place of family prayer. In times of difficulty, the family does not go to the lawyer or the psychiatrist, but kneel down together before the crucifix in search of help from Jesus Christ. They kneel down and maybe even cry and open their hearts asking the Lord and each other for forgiveness. They go to sleep with peace in their hearts because they have received forgiveness from the only one who has the power to save.
Husband and wife will teach their children to kiss the crucifix every day and not to go to sleep like pagans, without first giving thanks to Jesus. They know that Jesus is holding them in His arms and there is nothing to fear.
H/t Toby Kenobe
Hannah and Chris got married at St Mary’s yesterday and incorporated the beautiful Croatian tradition of the Marriage Crucifix into their ceremony.
It was a reminder to them and to all of us that real love requires selflessness and sacrifice on the part of both husband and wife, imitating the Love of Christ who poured out his life for us on the Cross. May Hannah and Chris, always love each other as Christ loves!

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Who Gives Money to the Catholic Left?
Hello,
I believe you will like this posting. We are against Progressivism in the United States. But it would not exist if the wealthy people would not finance it. So, the fish rots from its head…
T.H.
The Elite Foundations Fund Catholic Dissidents
Bill Donohue
July 8, 2025 - Catholic dissidents are a motley crew. They include ex-Catholics, Catholics in name only, and some who attend Mass. They are lay men and women, nuns and priests; more than a few are ex-nuns and ex-priests. What they have in common is anger: they are very angry at the Catholic Church. What do they want? They want to gut its moral theology and Protestantize it.
Practicing Catholics do not fund Catholic dissident organizations, so where do they get their cash? From elite foundations bent on undermining Catholicism. There are many of them, but the number-one contributor to these “organizations” (they are more like letterheads with an email address and a website) is the Arcus Foundation.
Arcus funds We Are Church, DignityUSA, New Ways Ministry, Catholics for Choice and the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual. All reject the Church’s teachings on marriage, the family, sexuality and ordination, yet claim to be Catholic.
Jon Stryker created the Arcus Foundation in 2000 to focus on queer causes and the preservation of the great apes. We are not sure how well he has done on the latter goal, but we are certain that he has succeeded in funding anti-Catholicism. A homosexual billionaire, in 2023 he gave a total of more than $42 million in grants and operating expenses to various organizations, some of which are dissident Catholic groups.
We Are Church is an umbrella group of ex-Catholics and Catholic malcontents. It is a member of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, a pro-homosexual outfit. Its leaders have tried very hard to mobilize everyday Catholics to join their efforts to radically change the Church from top to bottom. They have failed repeatedly, but they still try to tear it apart.
New Ways Ministry was founded in 1977 by Father Robert Nugent and Sister Jeannine Gramick. Their goal is to normalize homosexuality and to get the Church to change its teachings on sodomy. For decades this outfit has been roundly condemned by cardinals and bishops in Rome and the U.S., but in 2021 Pope Francis spoke positively of Gramick. Indeed, he warmly embraced her.
DignityUSA is another pro-homosexual entity. At one time its New York chaplain was Father Paul Shanley, the Boston child rapist who was thrown out of the priesthood after many clerics covered up for him.
Catholics for Choice is a pro-abortion and anti-Catholic letterhead. Frances Kissling, an ex-nun, succeeded in putting it on the map decades ago. The media love them, and no elite donor has been a steadier supporter of its policies more than the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation is so ideologically corrupt that Henry Ford II quit in protest in the 1970s.
Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) wants a woman to be pope, provided it is a woman who rejects the teachings of the Church on sexuality; it will settle for women priests right now.
Other dissident groups that are funded by the establishment include the National Coalition of American Nuns – it is openly pro-abortion – the Women’s Ordination Conference and NETWORK; the latter was run for many years by Sister Simone – Nuns-on-the-Bus – Campbell (the Democratic operative thinks abortion should be legal).
Arcus and the Ford Foundation are not alone in keeping these rogue groups alive. As expected, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations are donors to these anti-Catholic causes, as are the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (Warren is a big abortion fan), the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Huber Foundation.
We know of no organized effort to effectively assault the beliefs and practices of Jews, Muslims or Protestants. Just Catholics.
So while conservatives are rightly happy that there are some needed cultural shifts going on, they would be foolish to think that the enemies of Christianity, especially Catholicism, will go quietly into the night.
Termites have a way of hanging around.
I believe you will like this posting. We are against Progressivism in the United States. But it would not exist if the wealthy people would not finance it. So, the fish rots from its head…
T.H.
Bill Donohue
July 8, 2025 - Catholic dissidents are a motley crew. They include ex-Catholics, Catholics in name only, and some who attend Mass. They are lay men and women, nuns and priests; more than a few are ex-nuns and ex-priests. What they have in common is anger: they are very angry at the Catholic Church. What do they want? They want to gut its moral theology and Protestantize it.
Practicing Catholics do not fund Catholic dissident organizations, so where do they get their cash? From elite foundations bent on undermining Catholicism. There are many of them, but the number-one contributor to these “organizations” (they are more like letterheads with an email address and a website) is the Arcus Foundation.
Arcus funds We Are Church, DignityUSA, New Ways Ministry, Catholics for Choice and the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual. All reject the Church’s teachings on marriage, the family, sexuality and ordination, yet claim to be Catholic.
Jon Stryker created the Arcus Foundation in 2000 to focus on queer causes and the preservation of the great apes. We are not sure how well he has done on the latter goal, but we are certain that he has succeeded in funding anti-Catholicism. A homosexual billionaire, in 2023 he gave a total of more than $42 million in grants and operating expenses to various organizations, some of which are dissident Catholic groups.
We Are Church is an umbrella group of ex-Catholics and Catholic malcontents. It is a member of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, a pro-homosexual outfit. Its leaders have tried very hard to mobilize everyday Catholics to join their efforts to radically change the Church from top to bottom. They have failed repeatedly, but they still try to tear it apart.
New Ways Ministry was founded in 1977 by Father Robert Nugent and Sister Jeannine Gramick. Their goal is to normalize homosexuality and to get the Church to change its teachings on sodomy. For decades this outfit has been roundly condemned by cardinals and bishops in Rome and the U.S., but in 2021 Pope Francis spoke positively of Gramick. Indeed, he warmly embraced her.
DignityUSA is another pro-homosexual entity. At one time its New York chaplain was Father Paul Shanley, the Boston child rapist who was thrown out of the priesthood after many clerics covered up for him.
Catholics for Choice is a pro-abortion and anti-Catholic letterhead. Frances Kissling, an ex-nun, succeeded in putting it on the map decades ago. The media love them, and no elite donor has been a steadier supporter of its policies more than the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation is so ideologically corrupt that Henry Ford II quit in protest in the 1970s.
Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) wants a woman to be pope, provided it is a woman who rejects the teachings of the Church on sexuality; it will settle for women priests right now.
Other dissident groups that are funded by the establishment include the National Coalition of American Nuns – it is openly pro-abortion – the Women’s Ordination Conference and NETWORK; the latter was run for many years by Sister Simone – Nuns-on-the-Bus – Campbell (the Democratic operative thinks abortion should be legal).
Arcus and the Ford Foundation are not alone in keeping these rogue groups alive. As expected, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations are donors to these anti-Catholic causes, as are the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (Warren is a big abortion fan), the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Huber Foundation.
We know of no organized effort to effectively assault the beliefs and practices of Jews, Muslims or Protestants. Just Catholics.
So while conservatives are rightly happy that there are some needed cultural shifts going on, they would be foolish to think that the enemies of Christianity, especially Catholicism, will go quietly into the night.
Termites have a way of hanging around.
Posted July 31, 2025

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The opinions expressed in this section - What People Are Commenting - do not necessarily express those of TIA
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AI Control of the U.S. Military
This Greg Reese Report is less than 5 minutes...
Much to ponder. All is being actively developed now. This overcomes the innate reluctance of a man to kill another human being by supplanting men with AI to achieve the highest possible kill rate.
No more ethics.
Sharing,
God bless you,
In Maria!
E.Z., Ph.D.