Monday 14th June 2021

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Catholic Replies

June 11, 2021 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Q. When was the Catholic Church born? Was it when Jesus proclaimed, “The kingdom of God is at hand,” when the side of Jesus was pierced and blood and water flowed, or at Pentecost? — J.B., Washington State.A. According to Pope Pius XII, all three of those events signaled the birth of the Church. Writing in his 1943 encyclical on the Mystical Body (Mystici Corporis), the Holy Father said:“As We set out briefly to expound in what sense Christ founded His social Body, the following thought of Our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, occurs to Us at once: ‘The Church which, already conceived, came forth from the side of the second Adam in His sleep on the Cross, first…Continue Reading

Turning Holy Mother Church Into A Repressive State

June 10, 2021 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Turning Holy Mother Church Into A Repressive State

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK A most un-Catholic spirit is abroad in Rome, seeking to devour legitimate Catholic freedoms. It reveals itself as a repressive regime which values obedience to arbitrary human preference among legitimate options over the free, unchecked movement of the Holy Spirit among the People of God. This approach threatens to choke out the freshness and life which ensure the flourishing and fruitfulness of the vineyard of faith.As Scripture instructs, we must “test everything; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21). When it comes to the liturgy, however, handed down from the beginning and organically developed, one must be most careful, receiving respectfully, and preserving carefully, the source itself of the Lord’s Body and Blood…Continue Reading

The Usual Suspects

June 9, 2021 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on The Usual Suspects

By FR. JAMES ALTMAN Dear family, in our English lexicon is found the phrase: “The Usual Suspects.” Most often it seems to be a phrase that evokes scorn or, at the very least, significant dismay. “The Usual Suspects” typically is understood in the same vein as “the same cast of characters.” In simple terms, it means that the same set of folks are doing the same bad thing — again. Sooner or later — if we are paying even the slightest attention, it should be sooner — we figure out that these same “birds of a feather” are up to their old tricks. So it is, yet again, with the recent letter signed by Wilton Gregory, Blase Cupich, and more…Continue Reading

The Kingdom Of God Within

June 7, 2021 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on The Kingdom Of God Within

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Eleventh Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR B) Readings: Ezek. 17:22-242 Cor. 5:6-10Mark 4:26-32 In the readings today we have two complementary perspectives regarding the Kingdom of God on Earth. One is more objective and focuses on the Church while the other is subjective and focuses on each person. Regarding the Church, God tells the Prophet Ezekiel that He is going to break off a shoot from the top of a cedar tree and plant it on the mountains of Israel. This shoot is to grow into a majestic cedar and bear fruit. The shoot that was broken off from the cedar and transplanted is the Church.Research has demonstrated that cedar trees can be started from even…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

June 4, 2021 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: Sheila Kippley is an authority on Natural Family Planning (she and her husband John co-founded NFP International) and on the benefits of breastfeeding (see her book The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding). She has summarized these benefits in an article (“Breastfeeding Does Space Babies and So Much More”) in the online edition of Homiletic & Pastoral Review. You can read the article at www.hprweb.com. Q. In the Scriptures, Jesus says that the souls in Hell scream and grind their teeth. Does this imply that they are in a physical state? — J.D., Pennsylvania.A. No, since those in Hell, like those in Heaven, will not have their physical bodies until after the final judgment at the end of the…Continue Reading

A Leaven In The World . . . Grave Neglect To Avoid Abortion-Communion Debate

June 3, 2021 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on A Leaven In The World . . . Grave Neglect To Avoid Abortion-Communion Debate

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK There is nothing to debate.Abortion is killing and a grave moral evil, thus supporting it is also gravely wrong and sinful.Communion is for the growth in grace for those in a state of grace. A person who supports abortion is not in a state of grace. Confession is the sacrament of which Catholics who are pro-abortion stand in need. Not Communion.So, there’s actually nothing to debate. (See p. 1A for an update on the bishops’ plans for their June meeting.)But, because in the sad state of the Church today bishops are divided, the debate is about whether to stop debating about giving Communion to pro-abortion politicians. The bishops’ inaction, and in some cases their active…Continue Reading

Do Not Mess With Sacred Tradition

June 2, 2021 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Do Not Mess With Sacred Tradition

By FR. JAMES ALTMAN As a preface to this meditation, here is a short but decisive quote from a meme someone recently sent to me: “The number of followers you have doesn’t make you more important. Hitler had millions. Jesus had 12.” The brilliant point of that meme, dear family, is as I repeatedly have said: Jesus does not need numbers, Jesus needs only a few faithful. It is the lesson of Gideon. Gideon started with 32,000 men, and God whittled them down to just 300. Gideon had just 300 men to face over 100,000 Midianites. But, as St. Paul put it so succinctly: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). So let us always…Continue Reading

The New Covenant And Corpus Christi

May 31, 2021 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on The New Covenant And Corpus Christi

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER The Most Holy Body And Blood Of Christ (YR B) Readings: Exodus 24:3-8Heb. 9:11-15Mark 14:12-16, 22-26 As we celebrate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, one would expect that the focus of the readings would be on the Blessed Sacrament. In the Gospel we do have the recounting of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, but the focus of the readings seems to be on the New Covenant made in and through the Blood of our Lord. All three readings specifically mention this point.While this may not appear to be about the Eucharist, it actually is. Jesus is the Covenant and the Eucharist is the Lord. So, in truth, the New Covenant in the Blood of Jesus…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

May 28, 2021 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Q. Did Moses write the Book of Genesis? — T.D., via e-mail.A. Moses is regarded as the principal author of the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). However, says Scott Hahn’s Catholic Bible Dictionary, “the longstanding tradition of Moses as the author of Genesis does not insist that he wrote every word of the book. Rather, the essence of Genesis is dated to the time of Moses in the fifteenth century B.C. (or perhaps the thirteenth century B.C.). He would have been responsible for compiling, editing, and organizing assorted family records and archives as well as handing on oral traditions” (p. 307). Q. I heard that at one time there were 40 Stations of…Continue Reading

Marking Twenty Years In The Wanderer

May 27, 2021 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Marking Twenty Years In The Wanderer

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK Then and now.Then, Fr. Robert D. Smith, and now, this humble scribbler.It was 2001 and, after many years at this space in The Wanderer, the longtime columnist Fr. Smith suddenly took sick and stepped aside, dying by December 2001.I was stationed at the time with the Navy on active duty in Naples, Italy. A friend who had written for the paper helped the editors at The Wanderer to locate me. I had written a piece or two for the paper as early as 1993 and had expressed interest in publishing regularly in these pages, but was informed that the paper limited space for clergy to two columns. But now one of the spaces had opened…Continue Reading