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How One Man’s Conversion Renewed The Faith Of An Entire City

May 29, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on How One Man’s Conversion Renewed The Faith Of An Entire City

By JAMES MONTI The beauty of the house of God, often enough, has a story behind it, the story of a people’s love for God, a story of real men and women who have sought as best they could to give tangible expression to what thrives in the depths of their hearts, devoting to this endeavor sometimes a widow’s mite, sometimes untold riches. There is a special intensity to the beauty of the house of God to be seen in many an “Old World” church of Spain, churches where the iconoclastic frenzy of modernism has not yet succeeded in destroying centuries of devotional religious art and architecture. What is particularly gratifying in reading about these artistic manifestations of “Golden Age”…Continue Reading

As Public Mass Reopens . . . People Get To Bring Their Personal Presence Before Divine Presence

May 28, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on As Public Mass Reopens . . . People Get To Bring Their Personal Presence Before Divine Presence

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — Catholics able to return to attending limited public Masses as dioceses start to reopen from the COVID-19 pandemic will feel the sensation of three-dimensionality again, being surrounded by the atmosphere of the worship hall instead of watching a flat-screen livestream. The celebrant’s face in the sanctuary may be 70 or more feet distant, rather than the close-up image they recently may have become used to thanks to cameras. To compare with a secular activity, a fan in football-stadium seating isn’t right down in the huddle. Even while many Americans were under lockdown orders or somewhat less restricted during pandemic uncertainties, they still could watch the celebration of the Mass even miles away. But now in…Continue Reading

Mary, The Saints, And Sacred Images

May 27, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on Mary, The Saints, And Sacred Images

By JOE SIXPACK Two things we Catholics are often criticized about are our honoring of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints, and our use of images. Non-Catholic Christians say that what we do is a pagan violation of the First Commandment. They say that honoring Mary and the saints is tantamount to divination because we’re praying to people who are dead. The First Commandment most certainly permits us to honor Mary and the saints, and Sacred Scripture even encourages us to do so. In speaking of the just who have passed from this mortal life, Sirach writes: “Their bodies were buried in peace, and their names live to all generations. Peoples will declare their wisdom, and the congregation proclaims…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… Every Journey Has A Beginning

May 26, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on A Beacon Of Light… Every Journey Has A Beginning

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON JR. (Editor’s Note: The Wanderer on page 1A of its April 23, 2020 issue featured an article by Fr. Richard Breton on his experience of administering the Anointing of the Sick and bestowing the Apostolic Pardon on a dying 94-year-old woman with COVID-19. (Fr. Richard D. Breton Jr. is a priest of the Diocese of Norwich, Conn. He is currently the parochial vicar of St. Andrew Parish in Colchester and St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Lebanon. He received his BA in religious studies and his MA in dogmatic theology from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Conn. (This is the first one of his weekly columns for The Wanderer.) + + + A…Continue Reading

What More Can They Do To Our Kids?

May 25, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on What More Can They Do To Our Kids?

By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD I’m beginning to wonder what the legal/political system and the transgender community is doing to our children. There seems to be a never-ending string of stories about parents and students seeking justice in our courts only to have judges immediately adopt the “trans” view of the world. The latest is Connecticut Federal District Judge Robert N. Chatigny, a Clinton appointee. He was later an Obama nominee to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals whose nomination died in the Senate after his fitness to serve was questioned over several matters that he handled in his district courtroom. Judge Chatigny is presiding over the case of three high school girls who are suing to prevent boys, claiming…Continue Reading

Red Straws In The Wind In California Politics?. . . Has Dem-Media Hammering Of Conservatives Caused Blowback?

May 24, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on Red Straws In The Wind In California Politics?. . . Has Dem-Media Hammering Of Conservatives Caused Blowback?

By DEXTER DUGGAN After the leftist Democrat-media corruption corporation did all it could to destroy Donald Trump and conservatives even before he was elected president in 2016, what are the portents for the national election this fall? Events are sifted for bold and mild significance. Three recent elections in California give Democrats little to celebrate. These are no guarantee of November outcomes, but they did occur in the blue paradise of California, which takes its color even more from pro-Dem voting results than from the Pacific Ocean. Following year after year of media hammering against them, Trump and his Republicans still scooped up some victories in no less than the Golden State. Is this a sign that some voters have…Continue Reading

A Book Review . . . St. Augustine Press Hits Another Home Run

May 23, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on A Book Review . . . St. Augustine Press Hits Another Home Run

By CHRISTOPHER MANION Gerard V. Bradley: Unquiet Americans: U.S. Catholics, Moral Truth, and the Preservation Of Civil Liberties [South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press; $22.00 on Amazon]. The speaker was Clarence Manion, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame. The occasion was on August 1938, when he delivered a challenge to a convocation of Catholic educators: “ ‘We need a political philosophy that is more Catholic and more humane . . . which treats man as a free moral personality, the creature of God in the maker of his own destiny,’ writes British historian Christopher Dawson. “Well, my friends, we do have such a political philosophy in America . . . our governmental principle is most Catholic and…Continue Reading

Luther’s Last Chance To Recant . . . Five Hundred Years Have Passed Since Exsurge Domine

May 22, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on Luther’s Last Chance To Recant . . . Five Hundred Years Have Passed Since Exsurge Domine

By RAY CAVANAUGH It was the Church’s first formal pronouncement on Martin Luther and the fulfillment of a two-year investigation. On June 15, 1520, Pope Leo X issued the papal bull Exsurge Domine, which condemned 41 of Luther’s written propositions as “either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth.” Earlier in 1520, a papal consistory had assembled to formally assess Luther’s possible infidelity to Church doctrine. In the wake of this assessment, however, Church officials decided that a more comprehensive analysis was needed. At this juncture, a Catholic prelate by the name of John Eck (Johann Maier von Eck) began to take an assertive role in the proceedings against Luther. Eck,…Continue Reading

St. Thomas Aquinas . . . “Trying To Know God, Love God, And Help Others Get There”

May 21, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on St. Thomas Aquinas . . . “Trying To Know God, Love God, And Help Others Get There”

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — The ultimate purpose of theology isn’t probing religious theories or citing the Bible, but gaining the unimaginable joys of Heaven. That seemed to be the message of a presentation on the Catholic Church’s “premier theologian,” St. Thomas Aquinas, livestreamed on May 2 because of the pandemic by the Institute of Catholic Theology (ICT), an adult education program based at St. Thomas the Apostle Church here. In medieval ages when university graduates with their licentiates or doctorates were expected to be able to converse about all the knowledge of the time, that period’s St. Thomas Aquinas still had a remarkable degree of scholarship that earned him recognition as “the greatest teacher the Church has ever known,”…Continue Reading

A Primer On Conscience

May 20, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on A Primer On Conscience

By JOE SIXPACK Catholics have always been taught that we must follow our conscience, but an unfortunate reality of modern culture is that many Catholics today have a poorly formed conscience. How well is your conscience formed? Well, let’s find out. “Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1778). In other words, when we consider what we learned about natural law last week, your conscience is that still small voice inside you that warns you when something is wrong or tells you when something is right. After…Continue Reading