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Catholic Replies

September 15, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. The email and postal addresses are given at the end of this column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 53-59) All acts that have only morally good effects may be done, and acts which have only morally bad effects may not be done. But what do you do when faced with an action that has both a good effect and a bad effect? The answer can be found in what is known as the principle of the double effect. Before…Continue Reading

Color Politics An Impediment To Faith

September 14, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Color Politics An Impediment To Faith

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The USCCB is rightly concerned about racism, as they should be about any sin. In the 2018 statement Open Wide Our Hearts, they affirm the dignity of every human person: “But racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart. This evil causes great harm to its victims, and it corrupts the souls of those who harbor racist or prejudicial thoughts. The persistence of the evil of racism is why we are writing this letter now.The fight against racism in the Church, however, overlaps with an abuse of concerns about racial interrelations in society by means of malevolent political movements such as BLM. The color politics that do not…Continue Reading

Trademarks Of The True Messiah

September 13, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Trademarks Of The True Messiah

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on September 2, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + In Sunday’s Gospel the Lord firmly sets before us the need for the cross, not as an end in itself, but as the way to glory. Let’s consider the Gospel in three stages.First: The Pattern That Is Announced — The text says, “Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.”The Lord announces not only the Cross but also the Resurrection. In effect, He announces the pattern of the Christian life,…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… The Holy Cross And Jesus’ Unconditional Love

September 12, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on A Beacon Of Light… The Holy Cross And Jesus’ Unconditional Love

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON Each year on September 14 the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. The Feast Day of the Triumph of the Holy Cross commemorates the day St. Helen found the True Cross. It is fitting then, that today we should focus on the final moments of Jesus’ life on the Cross and their significance for us in our lives.First and foremost, we must remember that the events of Calvary are re-presented each time we participate in the celebration of Holy Mass. For us as Catholics, this is essential to who we are. In this way Jesus spoke from the Cross reminding us of the importance of what was happening.“Father, forgive…Continue Reading

Our Ways Must Become More Like God’s Ways

September 11, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Our Ways Must Become More Like God’s Ways

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9Phil. 1:20c-24, 27aMatt. 20:1-16a In the first reading today, God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially when we look at what the Lord says next: “As high as the Heavens are above the Earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.”Since God is infinitely greater than we are, it is only natural that He thinks and acts in ways that are very different from the way we might think and act.We see this, for instance, in…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

September 8, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Q. Concerning your statement in a recent column that Jesus was circumcised in Bethlehem on the eighth day after His birth, no location is given in the Gospel of Luke. Jerusalem is only six miles from Bethlehem. Wouldn’t Mary and Joseph have wanted to travel there for Jesus’ circumcision? Jerusalem was very special to Jewish families. Moreover, rooms continued to be scarce in Bethlehem after Jesus’ birth. Is there evidence of Bethlehem over Jerusalem for the place of Jesus’ circumcision? — M.A.G., Kansas.A. No, there isn’t, but it would make more practical sense to circumcise the eight-day-old Child in the small town where He was born than travel to a large city like Jerusalem, especially since the Holy Family would…Continue Reading

Excommunicating Jesus

September 7, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Excommunicating Jesus

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK Pope Francis regularly curses the “rigid,” “backward-looking” Catholics, as he calls them, who love and revere our Catholic tradition, and all that has been handed down by means of it.Strange conception of the papacy, this. Rather than pastoral chief shepherd of the worldwide flock we seem to have instead an angry and scolding martinet. One who should be seen as a loving servant of all emits instead a constant drumbeat of negative and discriminatory vituperation against one group within the Church, a group defined by its desire to do what the Church always did, and still does. Selecting out one group within the whole for special abuse resembles more a Marxist political campaign than a…Continue Reading

Of Peter And The Papacy

September 6, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Of Peter And The Papacy

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on August 26, for the twenty-first Sunday of the Year, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + The Gospel today sets forth the biblical basis for the Office of Peter, the Office of the Papacy, for Peter’s Successors are the Popes. The word “pope” is simply an English version (via Anglo-Saxon and Germanic tongues) of the word “papa.” The Pope is affectionately called “Papa” in Italian and Spanish as an indication that he is the father of the family, the Church.Let’s look at the basic establishment of the Office of Peter in three steps.I. The Inquiry that Illustrates — The text says, Jesus went into the region of…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… The Power That Comes From The Eucharist

September 5, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on A Beacon Of Light… The Power That Comes From The Eucharist

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON It’s the summer of 1804. Pope Pius VII is the Roman Pontiff and Thomas Jefferson is president of the United States. A young and beautiful Episcopalian widow of New York high society sits in St. Paul’s Chapel near Wall Street at the typical Sunday service. Yet, she finds herself staring out the window across the street at St. Peter’s Catholic Church and begins praying to the Blessed Sacrament.You see, she has just returned from Italy and has been heavily influenced by the Eucharistic piety of her Italian Catholic friends. Their witness was the seedbed for this young widow’s gradual conversion to Catholicism and it all began with their deep devotion to the Mass and our…Continue Reading

Let Go Of Anger

September 4, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Let Go Of Anger

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Fourth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Sirach 27:30-28:7Romans 14:7-9Matt. 18:21-35 In the second reading, St. Paul says: “None of us lives for oneself…we live for the Lord.” Is this true? How many of us can actually say that? Considering that we live in the most selfish society in the history of the world, how many of us are so unaffected by the situation around us that we can honestly say we are living for the Lord and not for the self?I think we would all like to live for the Lord and, hopefully, that is what we are trying to do. Certainly, our Lord is of great importance in our lives, but that is…Continue Reading