A Beacon Of Light… Divine Light Shines Through The Sacraments

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON JR.

(Editor’s Note: 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.)

Today begins a series of articles on the seven sacraments and how each is a portal through which Divine Light shines!
What is a sacrament? According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a sacrament is: “An efficacious sign of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us through the Holy Spirit.”
The sacraments are active encounters with Christ. There are seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation (or Chrismation), the Eucharist, Reconciliation, the Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.
The seven sacraments touch all the important moments of Christian life. There is a certain connection between the stages of natural life and the stages of the spiritual life. To better understand this correlation, we will group the sacraments into a certain order.
First, we will examine each of the Sacraments of Initiation, namely, Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist. Second, we will examine each of the Sacraments of Healing: Penance and Anointing of the Sick. Last, we will examine each of the Sacraments of Service: Marriage and Holy Orders.
The sacraments are the vehicles through which we receive God’s grace. Grace is a gift God freely gives. Through the sacraments we receive sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace heals our human nature wounded by sin by giving us a share in the divine life of the Blessed Trinity.
In other words, the sacraments are God’s way of visibly expressing His love for us. Each sacrament expresses God’s love as we … Continue Reading

Religious Liberty Battles And The Corruption Of Children

By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD

It what appears to be foreshadowings of litigation to come, two cases have caught my attention recently.
In the first, Pastor James Domen is the founder and president of Church United in California. Formerly a homosexual, after finding Christianity, he rejected that lifestyle, married a woman, and fathered three children.
The purpose of Church United is to “equip faith leaders to positively impact the political and moral culture in their communities.” In his church’s online presence he talks about his past experience with homosexuality and how he overcame it.
That was until his online hosting service, Vimeo, decided that his videos were hate speech and defamatory, and violated Vimeo’s standards which forbid any content that promotes Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE). Vimeo then removed Domen’s account, deleted all 89 of his videos, and banned him from using its services.
Domen and his church filed a federal lawsuit in California, which was eventually transferred to New York. In the suit Domen claimed that Vimeo discriminated against him on the basis of sexual orientation and religion. In New York a magistrate judge dismissed the suit January 17. In granting the dismissal, the judge ruled that the Communications Decency Act (CDA) gave Vimeo, and other interactive service providers, immunity against such suits to ensure that they would not be liable for the content posted by others.
Naturally, Pastor Domen and the church appealed, the gist of which is the CDA does not give free rein to discriminate against subscribers. “Vimeo and other Internet giants are applying the CDA to shield themselves from liability for banning protected classes of customers based on discriminatory intent,” says Domen’s appeal brief.
The relevant sections of the CDA protect platforms such as Vimeo from claims for defamatory statements posted by third-party users and also to protect covered websites when they, in good faith, filter inappropriate content. Neither of which applies to Domen or his church since they are a primary user, and second they are not producing pornography or other inappropriate content. Thus, they argue, the suit was wrongly dismissed.
“Domen’s complaint alleged that Vimeo terminated their account and banned them … Continue Reading

Be Careful With Words?. . . John Roberts, Other Revolutionaries Twist Definitions

By DEXTER DUGGAN

Just to make sure they’re absolved of all their lurking racism and bigotry, will the former Dixie Chicks figure out they’ll have to rename themselves the Nancy Pelosi Chicks (or perhaps the Nancy Pelosi Old Hens), or maybe the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Birdies or Bernie Sanders Cluckers? (The Joe Biden Sick Man Chicks just won’t cut it.)
Somehow for year after year the title Dixie Chicks was accepted effortlessly for the very successful Texas-bred female trio. The name was regarded as denoting the easygoing, sweet-home South.
When the group became identified with opposing President George W. Bush’s Iraq war early in the new millennium and thereby won liberal plaudits, no lefties said the musicians couldn’t be real anti-warriors if they retained “Dixie” in their title.
Only with the arrival of the latest contrived super-moralism served up on a platter of carefree arson and cheerful looting, with firebombs as the relish, did the mere Dixie word become horrid and shameful.
So the trio rebranded themselves as merely The Chicks in late June. Not that everyone thought a little name trickery was worth much. Reader feedback at the hometown Dallas Morning News website included, “That certainly solves all the world’s problems,” and, “In other news, the South will now … Continue Reading

Dealing With Shakedown Artists

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

The current wave of violence riots, and looting often bring quieter accomplices. These can include various forms of intimidation that corrupt social comity but suffer no consequences for doing so. Let’s consider an example from south of our border.
In El Salvador, opening a business takes a lot of work. There’s a great sense of exhilaration when you open the doors on the first day.
But not for long. Soon a youngster stops by and offers to “take care of” your place. Keep it “safe.”
You laugh and tell him, “Everything’s OK, we already have insurance.”
Then he comes back with an older companion who is not so nice. The tough guy explains that his informal syndicate provides a different kind of “insurance.” They will make sure nothing will happen to your store from “bad people” in the neighborhood who often cause problems. “We provide this service to businesses in the whole area,” he says. “And you pay by the week, starting now.”
You get the message, and you pay.
After a few weeks, you’ve been laying … Continue Reading

A Book Review… A Very New Book About A Very Old Idea

By DEACON JAMES H. TONER

Integralism: A Manual of Political Philosophy by Thomas Crean and Alan Fimister. Editiones Scholasticae, 2020; paperback, 290 pages. Available at amazon.com.

One of Moliere’s characters — a certain M. Jourdain — is at once stunned and delighted to learn that he has spoken prose all his life. Practicing Catholics, similarly, should be stunned and delighted to learn that, by the grace of God, we have been integralists all our lives. In Christian Prayer, a volume used by many who pray the Liturgy of the Hours, there is a brief, but beautiful and meaningful, petition: “Form our lives in [Thy] truth, our hearts in [Thy] love” (p. 617).
Integralism, as the cover of this new volume tells us, “is the application to the temporal, political order of the full implications of the revelation of man’s supernatural end in Christ and of the divinely established means by which it is to be attained.” Isn’t that what our personal moral lives are all about as Catholics?
(Please read Catechism of the Catholic Church, nn. 1888, 2044, and 2105 as background to this review. It isn’t often that an article comes with “assigned reading”!)
The co-authors of Integralism: A Manual of Political Philosophy are Fr. Thomas Crean, who is a friar of the English Province of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), and Alan P. Fimister, who teaches at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. They are at pains both to explain what Integralism is, and what it is not. We Catholics are called to form ourselves in and through Christ the King, trying to make Him Lord of everything we think and say and do. There is no element or aspect of our lives, we hope, in which we seal off the call of Christ, relegating Him to second or third-class interest.
That includes, of course, business. And sex. And entertainment. And politics.
Integralism correctly teaches us that we must not segregate Christ and His Church into hermetically sealed domains, one marked “sacred,” and the other marked “secular.” Civil and canon law “should work in concord, while safeguarding the superior rights of the Church: since heavenly beatitude is … Continue Reading

As Nation’s Social Temperature Soars . . . Trump Takes Stage On A Summer Day In Southern Arizona

By DEXTER DUGGAN

PHOENIX — Life goes on at 110 degrees, this time every year.
It was a normal sunny, low-humidity June day In Phoenix at 107 degrees by mid-afternoon, with the temperature to edge a few degrees higher before starting to come down with the evening. It’s what desert-dwellers here expect annually, and accommodate routinely.
However, social temperatures had been turned sharply higher around the nation with violent leftist-incited tension by the time President Trump arrived here on June 23 to speak to cheering thousands of young people who Trump described as the future of the nation. KFYI Radio news (550 AM) said some of the attendees had lined up by 3 a.m. — more than 12 hours earlier.
Was the social boiling point also to become something that the nation had to tolerate routinely? No nation could long survive that way.
Arizona political consultant and former Republican state legislator Stan Barnes said on Phoenix radio the same day that suburban moms seeing looters recently at the local Scottsdale Fashion Square would turn Trump’s way when voting for president.
In May 1968 France had been convulsed by appalling youth-led protests, violence, occupations of property, and workers’ strikes. Capitalism and Americanism were denounced, and Marxist graffiti disfigured walls. Wikipedia recalls … Continue Reading

A Fitting Challenge

BY JOE SIXPACK

A missionary priest who worked among the native people of the Himalayan Mountains used to tell of an astounding custom among the people. Since murder was considered the most horrible crime that could be committed, the punishment was always death.
When a murder had been committed but no one knew who the murderer was, everybody in the village was obliged to pass by the victim’s body, which was placed in the main street, and as each person passed the body he placed his hand on the corpse and took a solemn vow that he had no part in the crime; an incredibly hard but fitting challenge for the guilty party.
The Fifth Commandment is: You shall not kill. As is true of all the Commandments, the Fifth Commandment implies so much more than simply murder. Indeed, this Commandment implies more than any of the other nine. Some of the sins forbidden by the Fifth Commandment are intentional homicide, abortion, euthanasia, child abuse, sterilization, suicide, and all that can lead to physical and spiritual harm to oneself or others. The latter includes anger, fighting, revenge, drunkenness, drug abuse, torments inflicted on mind and body, hatred, and bad example.
Since we now live in a culture of death, we’ll begin by looking at only a few of these this week.
Intentional homicide is the unjust taking of an innocent human life. That’s not to say that all killing is murder. The key to the mortal sin of murder is the word “innocent.” It can be lawful (God’s law — not necessarily man’s) to take the … Continue Reading

Beacon Of Light… Live Your Faith Brightly

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON JR.

Do you know what day it is? Do you know what month it is? Finding the answer to these questions is very simple. All we do is look at the calendar! What about if we asked these same questions, but asked them about the Church’s calendar? Do you know what day the Church is celebrating today? Do you know what season the Church is celebrating?
The answer to these questions is very similar to the previous two questions. We look at the Church calendar!
The Church’s calendar begins on the First Sunday of Advent and concludes with the celebration of the Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe, which is usually the last weekend in November. The Church year is broken up into five seasons: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Ordinary Time.
Within the course of these seasons we also celebrate the Solemnities of the Lord and of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Feasts of Apostles and Martyrs, Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, and various other saints.
Having celebrated the Solemnity of Pentecost, we enter Ordinary Time until late November. Ordinary Time is far from being ordinary. I find it filled with great opportunities to come to understand our faith better. I like to think of Ordinary Time as Jesus’ time to shine!
How did Jesus teach the multitudes about the Kingdom of God? He used stories, or parables. Jesus understands human nature better than we do. That’s because He was part of our creation. Jesus recognized the benefit of teaching through parables. He used simple parables to illustrate either a moral attitude or a religious principle to follow.
Jesus teaches so much about the Kingdom of God. He also teaches about God’s intimate relationship of love with His people.
One parable in Matthew’s Gospel is particularly relevant: The Parable of the Light. This parable begins in chapter five with verses 14-16. Here is what Jesus says:
“You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. (15) Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. (16) So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
I love how the Lord challenges us to live our faith. He tells us to live our faith brightly! The imagery used is very easy to understand. We are the light of the world because we have the Light of Christ within us. The light within us cannot be hidden. So often we hide our faith from others. We put our faith under a … Continue Reading

But The Dictionary Says…

By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD

The Supreme Court, in its ruling that “sex” is equivalent to “gender identity” or “transgender,” has set the stage for years of political and legal warfare that will not only swamp the courts but dominate the electoral map for years to come. And it will bring to a head the thorny question of what constitutes religious liberties in an era when gender is considered fluid, and little boys and grown men can become female whenever the fancy strikes them.

I’m sure everybody who reads this publication knows by now that on June 15 the Supreme Court did the unthinkable. In Bostock v. Clayton County, the consolidation of three cases involving the dismissal of homosexual or transgendered employees, the court found as follows:
“We agree that homosexuality and transgender status are distinct concepts from sex. But, as we’ve seen, discrimination … Continue Reading

Who Would Have Thought It?. . . Is U.S. Starting Down Road To Become Another Venezuela?

By DEXTER DUGGAN

Amid other recent shocks to the U.S. social system, the weird possibility that the nation actually could fall to a political coup began to be pondered more seriously. A Venezuelan told Phoenix radio talk host James T. Harris (KFYI, 550 AM) on June 23 that her countrymen didn’t think they’d be taken over, either, but they were, by Marxists.
The parallels don’t have to be exact among different countries in order to see warning signs of the virus of tough dictatorship or even totalitarianism.
Germany’s supposedly civilizing education and culture, a Russian background of serfdom, Chinese Confucianism, among various examples, all ended up in oceans of blood captained by ruthless masters.
Italy may have been where it was hard even to make the trains run on time, whereas Germany was known for Prussian efficiency, but these two dissimilar nations were the European basis of the Axis alliance for World War II.
Hardly had handcuffed George Floyd died in police custody on Memorial Day in Minneapolis than retaliatory rioters, looters, and weapons-toters began to burst out not only around the U.S. but also many other places.
And often, as in Minneapolis itself, the areas to suffer were those governed by the very political liberals that one might imagine would long ago have ameliorated grievances — like Seattle, Portland, Ore., and New York City.
Meanwhile, even more powerful shocking news of an attempted political coup continued to emerge as official inquiries showed that in early 2017, outgoing Democrat President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and top-echelon officials including FBI Director James Comey, plotted to … Continue Reading