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A House Divided

June 5, 2018 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on A House Divided

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Tenth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR B) Readings: Gen. 3:9-15 2 Cor. 4:13-5:1 Mark 3:20-35 In the Gospel reading today our Lord states that if a house is divided against itself, it cannot stand. The context of this statement is the accusation leveled against Jesus that He was driving out demons by Beelzebul. So our Lord said if Satan has risen against himself, he cannot stand; it is the end of him. Unfortunately, the vile creature does not appear to be divided against himself at the present time. Instead, it appears he has been granted a fair amount of leeway to cause havoc for God’s people and for the world. If he has been given this…Continue Reading

A Leaven In The World… Ireland Has Rejected God

June 4, 2018 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on A Leaven In The World… Ireland Has Rejected God

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK It’s nothing these days for a child to move through the putative Catholic educational system and then graduate with odium fidei, a hatred of the Catholic faith. If you are militantly pro-redefinition of marriage and pro-abortion you have a hatred of the Catholic faith and that is the position of many young people today, including a large number who claim a Catholic education. Or, at least a college education “in the Jesuit tradition.” Such is the fashion, after all. I’ve seen it happen. Expensive Catholic grade school in the right high-priced neighborhood, desirable high school in the right county with the right sports and programs or a boys’ high school in the city which boasts…Continue Reading

The New Testament And The Sacrament Of Confession

June 3, 2018 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on The New Testament And The Sacrament Of Confession

By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM Part 31 In the previous article we have seen how the people of the Old Testament confessed their sins, and how Sacred Scripture admonished them to do so. But to whom did they confess their sins? To the next-door neighbor, the nearest street vendor or to the town motel owner? Not at all. They confessed their sins to the priests, according to the law of Moses. See how Jesus Himself kept the Law of Moses, as we read in the Gospel of St. Luke (17:11-15): “And it came to pass, as He was going to Jerusalem, He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as He entered into a certain town, there met…Continue Reading

Blessed Are The Peacemakers

June 2, 2018 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Blessed Are The Peacemakers

By DON FIER In last week’s consideration of the sixth Beatitude: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8), we saw that “the organ for seeing God is the heart” (Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth [vol. 1], p. 92). The heart — which is representative of the whole man in biblical language — is the very center of the human person’s affective, moral, and spiritual life. Purity in heart, which indicates that one is unsullied by any trace of self-interest or ulterior motive, is the precondition for the vision of God. In other words, “the heart — the wholeness of man — must be pure, interiorly open and free, in order for man…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

June 1, 2018 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Q. Can you tell me something about the four military chaplains who gave up their lives when their ship was attacked during World War II? Were they all Catholics? — T.L., New York. A. No, only one of them — Lt. John P. Washington — was a Catholic. The other three were Lt. Clark V. Poling, a minister in the Reformed Church of America; Lt. Alexander D. Goode, a Jewish rabbi; and Lt. George L. Fox, a Methodist minister. Here is the story behind their heroic sacrifice. The four were assigned to the U.S. Army transport vessel Dorchester, which was carrying 902 military and civilian passengers to Greenland when it was struck by German torpedoes in the North Atlantic on…Continue Reading

Unpublished Lecture From Cardinal Caffarra . . . Explains What “Conscience” Actually Means

May 30, 2018 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Unpublished Lecture From Cardinal Caffarra . . . Explains What “Conscience” Actually Means

By CLAIRE CHRETIEN (Wanderer Editor’s Note: For the footnoted version of this lecture, please see LifeSiteNews.com for May 18, 2018.) + + + (LifeSiteNews) — The former president of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family read to the Rome Life Forum on May 18 parts of a previously unpublished lecture by the deceased Dubia signer Carlo Cardinal Caffarra, explaining the true Catholic understanding of conscience. For ten years, Msgr. Livio Melina was the president of the John Paul II Institute, which in 2017 Pope Francis gutted and replaced with a school focused on the approach of Amoris Laetitia. Msgr. Melina joined the Rome Life Forum on that day to outline the proper foundations upon which…Continue Reading

Blood And Covenant

May 29, 2018 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Blood And Covenant

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Solemnity Of Corpus Christi (YR B) Readings: Exodus 24:3-8 Heb. 9:11-15 Mark 14:12-16, 22-26 As we celebrate this glorious Solemnity of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord truly present in the Most Holy Eucharist, the readings today focus on two things: blood and covenant. These two are inseparable from one another in the sense that covenants are sealed in blood. This is why, in the first reading, Moses took the blood from the bulls and sprinkled it on the altar and on the people. The altar belongs to God, so this signifies God’s half of the covenant; the sprinkling on the people demonstrates that the people have entered into the covenant. You…Continue Reading

A Leaven In The World… Human Communio Needs Divine Communion

May 28, 2018 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on A Leaven In The World… Human Communio Needs Divine Communion

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The fires deep within the Earth which, while controlled, do great good for our planet can sometimes break free from their bounds and wreak widespread destruction. Molten lava consumes and destroys all in its path; homes, cars, trees, human beings, and all living things are melted and burned to cinders as fuel to feed its ferocious fires. As we see with the recent eruptions of the volcano in Hawaii, what is good and necessary for the benefit of our green Earth at the same time also possesses the power to eradicate life and flourishing once loosed upon the land, freed from the strictures put in place to guide it toward a beneficial outcome. So, also,…Continue Reading

The Sacraments Instituted By Christ… The Sacrament Of Confession

May 27, 2018 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on The Sacraments Instituted By Christ… The Sacrament Of Confession

By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM Part 30 Confession is certainly the most controversial of all sacraments that Christ instituted for our salvation, especially among Protestants of every denomination. The most common objection is, “Why should I confess my sins to a man just like me, and perhaps a worse sinner?” The objector misses the point completely, since Confession is not an event comparable to a visit to a psychiatrist or to a psychologist or even to a friend with a view to seek his counsel. The essential point here is this: Does that man to whom I go to confess my sins — the priest in the confessional — have the power to forgive my sins? Yea or nay? As…Continue Reading

Blessed Are The Pure In Heart

May 26, 2018 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Blessed Are The Pure In Heart

By DON FIER In our treatment up until now of the eight Beatitudes, it has been demonstrated that the first three, in keeping with the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, are mainly associated with “flight from and deliverance from sin. The next two…are the beatitudes of the active life of a Christian who, freed from evil, engages in the pursuit of good with all the ardor of his heart” (Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, Christian Perfection and Contemplation [CPC], p. 333). Moreover, we have seen that one’s hunger and thirst for righteousness or justice in the active apostolate “should not become a bitter zeal with regard to the guilty” (ibid.). Rather, the Beatitude which we examined last week: “Blessed are the…Continue Reading