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Catholic Replies

September 1, 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. Our postal address and our email address are given at the bottom of the column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 43-51) In the depths of our conscience, there is a natural law, a law embedded in our human nature, which summons us to do good and avoid evil. We are not talking about the laws of nature, which are physical and biological, but rather the law which God puts in our hearts that tells us that certain actions are…Continue Reading

Vocations Dearth Killing Parishes

August 31, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Vocations Dearth Killing Parishes

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The victims of the Maui fire jumped into the water to flee the hellish conflagration all around them. Souls are abandoning the Barque of Peter as heresy and lack of priests threaten parish viability. The synods welcome a priest shortage so that they “fix” it by further multiplying the already ubiquitous lay “ministers.” The Church teaches officially that there are only three ministries in the Church: bishop, priest, and deacon.Lay attendance at Mass is commonly acknowledged to be in freefall. Join lack of priestly vocations to that and you have a looming disaster.“The Episcopal Conference of France has published their figures for priestly Ordinations: There are 88 new priests in 2023, as compared with 130…Continue Reading

While On Others Thou Art Calling, Do Not Pass Me By

August 30, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on While On Others Thou Art Calling, Do Not Pass Me By

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Pope posted this reflection on August 19, for the twentieth Sunday of the Year, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + The Gospel this Sunday teaches us to pray always and not to lose heart. It is about being tenacious in prayer, continuing to beseech the Lord even when the results are discouraging. It is also about the Lord’s will to extend the Gospel to all the nations and to make the Church truly catholic.Let’s look at this Gospel in five stages.TRAVELS — The text says, At that time, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Jesus goes north of Israel into the territory we know today as Lebanon.Matthew…Continue Reading

Cardinal Burke Warns That Synod… Is Part Of “Revolution” To “Radically” Change The Catholic Church

August 29, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Cardinal Burke Warns That Synod… Is Part Of “Revolution” To “Radically” Change The Catholic Church

By MICHAEL HAYNES VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) –— The prominent American prelate Raymond Cardinal Burke has warned that “Synodality” and “synodal” have become “slogans” used as a front to “change radically the Church’s self-understanding, in accord with a contemporary ideology which denies much of what the Church has always taught and practiced.”The cardinal’s stern criticism of the current Synod on Synodality comes in the foreword to a recently published book on the Synod. Written by researchers and theologians José Antonio Ureta and Julio Loredo de Izcue, the book is titled The Synodal Process Is A Pandora’s Box.The book is described by the authors as “a cry of alarm” in the face of the “heretical voices within the Catholic Church” who are…Continue Reading

Charity Has Grown Cold.

August 28, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Charity Has Grown Cold.

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Third Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Ezek. 33:7-9Romans 13:8-10Matt. 18:15-20 In the second reading today, St. Paul tells us that we should owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another. We live in a society that is based, to a great degree, on debt, that is, many people owe a lot to many other people. At the same time, the charity in our society has, in many ways, grown cold. I think there is a correlation between these two realities.It is not a direct correlation which would suggest that debt automatically causes one to lose charity. Rather, when we look at the debt that many people have incurred, we find the reason is…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

August 25, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Q. If each properly celebrated Mass is of infinite value, why would someone want or need to have more than one holy Mass offered for the salvation of the soul of someone? Why a second or third or twentieth anniversary Mass if the first offered Mass is the perfect sacrifice? — J.H.T., via e-mail.A. Yes, each Mass is of infinite value and may indeed be sufficient to release a soul from Purgatory, but perhaps anniversary Masses are about the person scheduling them. We can see three positive things coming from this practice. First, the person asking for the Masses is gaining many graces for carrying out the spiritual work of mercy of praying for the living and dead. Second, he…Continue Reading

How It Will Be In Paradise

August 24, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on How It Will Be In Paradise

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe is rightly famous for his outstanding devotion to Our Lady and for his heroic virtue crowned with the glory of martyrdom. He offers a meditation appropriate in this season of the Assumption as we meditate on Our Lady and her place now in Heaven where she intercedes for us, the reward of a most humble and obedient life here on Earth by which she guides us.“On the 15th day of this month, the Holy Church, celebrating the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, sings with exultation: ‘Mary has been assumed into Heaven, the angels rejoice, praise and bless the Lord’.”Spontaneously on that day we make an effort to reproduce in our…Continue Reading

Fix Your Focus — A Homily For The 19th Sunday Of The Year

August 23, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Fix Your Focus — A Homily For The 19th Sunday Of The Year

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Pope posted this commentary on August 12 and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + The Gospel today is about faith and about focus. It teaches that although storms and struggles inevitably arise, we have a choice as to whether we focus on them or on Jesus. The message is clear: “Keep your eyes on the prize. Hold on!”Let’s look at this Gospel in three stages: Perceived Distance, Produced Distress, and Point of Decision. I have also included a fourth section for more in-depth study: Process of Development.Perceived Distance — The text tells us that Jesus drew back from the disciples and sent them to make the crossing of the lake on…Continue Reading

Cincinnati Archbishop Urges Catholics… Reject State Abortion Amendment In November

August 22, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Cincinnati Archbishop Urges Catholics… Reject State Abortion Amendment In November

By DANIEL PAYNE WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNA) — Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis Schnurr on Saturday, August 12 urged Catholics in the state of Ohio to reject a November ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights under the state’s constitution.The prelate said in a letter posted to the archdiocesan website that the proposed amendment, titled the “Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety,” would legalize the right to “take the lives of innocent children in the womb while harming women and families in the process.”The amendment, if passed, would dictate that Ohio “shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against” a woman’s attempt to get an abortion.State law currently prohibits abortion after the point at…Continue Reading

Rejoice By Sharing In The Lord’s Passion

August 21, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Rejoice By Sharing In The Lord’s Passion

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Second Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Jeremiah 20:7-9Romans 12:1-2Matt. 16:21-27 In the first reading today, we hear one of my favorite lines in all of Scripture: “You duped me Lord, and I let myself be duped.” I suspect all of us have felt this way at some point in our spiritual journey; perhaps we have even said something similar. But has God actually duped us? I think the problem is that we dupe ourselves.When we read the Prophet Jeremiah, God told him what to expect right from the beginning. Jeremiah was called to go and preach, but the people would not listen to him. Nonetheless, God would make the prophet like a wall of…Continue Reading