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Pope Benedict XVI warned visiting US bishops that “radical secularism” threatens the core values of American culture, and he called on the church in America, including politicians and other laypeople, to render “public moral witness” on crucial social issues.

The pope spoke Jan. 19 to a group of US bishops who were in Rome for their periodic “ad limina” visits, which included meetings with the pope and Vatican officials, covering a wide range of pastoral matters.

Opening with a dire assessment of the state of American society, the pope told the bishops that “powerful new cultural currents” have worn away the country’s traditional moral consensus, which was originally based on religious faith as well as ethical principles derived from natural law.

Whether they claim the authority of science or democracy, the pope said, militant secularists seek to stifle the church’s proclamation of these “unchanging moral truths.” Such a movement inevitably leads to the prevalence of “reductionist and totalitarian readings of the human person and the nature of society.”

The pope drew an opposition between current “notions of freedom detached from moral truth” and Catholicism’s “rational perspective” on morality, founded on the conviction that the “cosmos is possessed of an inner logic accessible to human reasoning.” Using the “language” of natural law, he said, the church should promote social justice by “proposing rational arguments in public square.”

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So, the Coffeehouse has gone completely stagnant in the last year. After the move of my crossfire.org domain from christianwebhost.com to ipage.com, I never could get the site running like it used to, and frankly, I really just gave up trying. There were a number of issues preventing me from getting the site working again and I just didn't have the time to work them all out. A few months ago I decided to put together a new site for my Knights of Columbus district, and had to start from scratch again to figure out everything I needed to do to get the site working on ipage. The combination of new & improved software, and good motivation proved successful, and my new Knights site is up and running. At that point I started looking at the Coffeehouse again.

I had thought for a while about retiring the Coffeehouse completely, but after praying about it, I just can't. This site has overall been good for us as a community, and I just couldn't say goodbye to it. So instead I decided it was worth the effort to rebuild it completely. Beth and I are still working on it and there's still a lot left to do, but I hope you enjoy the new Coffeehouse and maybe it'll once again be an active online meeting place for our Covenant.

Note:  Even if you already had an account on the old Coffeehouse, you'll still have to re-register for the new one.  Sorry, fresh start.