In a recent U.S. Catholic survey, eighty percent of those questioned said that music at Mass was very important to them. However, only thirteen percent were totally satisfied with the music that they have and actually sing. The music at Mass is important, very important! It is not simply a performance by a soloist or choir, a background to accompany our prayer, a means to create a mood, or an incentive to shout and clap our hands. Music is integral to our liturgical worship.

Magazines, movies, television soap operas, and commercial advertisements for phones, household items, sports equipment, and clothing project an unrealistic standard of what it means to be a man or a woman. They have created the stereotype of slim women and muscular men as the ideal.

In 1859, Darwin published On The Origin of Species. His book brought into the open a conflict between science and religion that had been simmering below the surface since the days of the Enlightenment. It is a blood feud that many still fight in the attempt to prove that science is the only avenue to truth with certitude. According to the mindset of those who see fact and faith as irreconcilable, only what can be proven by science is true.