Tuesday 23rd July 2019

Home » Our Catholic Faith » Recent Articles:

Catholic Replies

June 14, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: Commenting on the Vatican accord last year to give the Communist regime in Red China a say in the naming of new Catholic bishops, Fr. George Rutler of the Church of St. Michael in New York City offered these trenchant comments in a recent bulletin: “While the Holy See invokes two thousand years of diplomatic experience, China beats that by more than twice, and has treated the 2018 agreement as tissue, tearing down churches and persecuting faithful Catholics, not to mention banishing over a million Uighur Muslims and Falun Gong cultists to concentration camps. The issue is not theology but control. The Vatican secretary of state said that ‘an act of faith is needed’ for the agreement to…Continue Reading

The Barbarians Have Won

June 12, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on The Barbarians Have Won

By DEACON JAMES H. TONER Part 1 (Editor’s Note: Deacon Toner has contributed numerous columns to The Catholic Thing, Crisis Magazine, and The Wanderer. He serves in the Diocese of Charlotte, N.C. This is a two-part article.) + + + Précis: Known as barbarians or heathens, the powerful enemies of the Church are both internal and external. There are many ideological symptoms of this hatred for Christ and His Church, but they may be subsumed under the heading of the principal source and cause of such anti-Catholic hostilities: modernism, which is the “synthesis of all heresies” (St. Pope Pius X) and of all “structures of sin” (Pope St. John Paul II). Among the spiritual weapons which the Church can deploy…Continue Reading

Jesus Is The Wisdom Of God

June 11, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Jesus Is The Wisdom Of God

BY FR. ROBERT ALTIER Solemnity Of The Most Holy Trinity (YR C) Readings: Prov. 8:22-34 Romans 5:1-5 John 16:12-15   In the first reading today we see the personification of Wisdom. We are told Wisdom was present with God before the Most High began His work of creation. The only way someone could be present with God before “the beginning of His ways” is if that one is uncreated. After all, if Wisdom was present before God began His creation, then Wisdom could not have been created. If Wisdom was created it would have to be said she was the first of His creation, or something to that effect. Instead, St. Paul clarifies the question for us in the first…Continue Reading

The Joy And Beauty Of Sacrificial Love

June 10, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on The Joy And Beauty Of Sacrificial Love

By JAMES MONTI There is something profoundly intimate about chapters 13 to 17 of the Gospel of St. John — the apostle’s meticulous account of Our Lord’s Farewell Discourse at the Last Supper. For those who might wonder where the Sacred Heart of Jesus is mentioned in the Gospels, they can find it in these pages. For it is here, as our Lord stands upon the threshold of His transitus, just hours away from His Passion and death on the cross, that He pours out His Heart, telling us how very much He loves us, and beseeching us to love Him in return: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love” (John 15:9);…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

June 7, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Q. A local newspaper columnist who is generally pro-life wrote that it is “immoral” to force “rape and incest victims to carry a baby to term resulting from a non-consensual violent act.” Is there a good response one can make to this argument? — G.V., via e-mail. A. You could start by asking whether it isn’t also immoral to kill an innocent unborn child because of the crime committed by his or her father. The baby did nothing wrong, so why should he or she be punished with a cruel death? Will the abortion make the trauma of rape go away? Not likely. What it will do is add another trauma to the life of the victimized woman — the…Continue Reading

Fewer Children Than Ever Before

June 5, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Fewer Children Than Ever Before

By FR. SHENAN J. BOQUET (Editor’s Note: Fr. Shenan Boquet is the president of Human Life International. This commentary first appeared May 27, 2019 at HLI.org and is reprinted here with permission. All rights reserved.) + + + Americans are having fewer children than ever before. According to new data released by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), for the fourth year in a row the number of children born in the United States has fallen. Last year, 3,788,235 babies were born in the U.S. — a drop of 2 percent from the previous year, and the lowest number in 32 years. Behind the drop in total births, however, is an even more dramatic and troubling statistic. The overall fertility…Continue Reading

The Workings Of The Holy Spirit

June 4, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on The Workings Of The Holy Spirit

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER The Solemnity Of Pentecost (YR C) Readings: Acts 2:1-11 1 Cor. 12:3b-7, 12-13 John 20:19-23 Today we celebrate the glorious day of the fulfillment of our Lord’s promise to His apostles that He would send the Holy Spirit upon them. The Spirit was given to lead them into all truth and to help them grow in holiness by conforming them to the will of God. This is true for us today just as much as it was for the apostles 2,000 years ago. When the Holy Spirit first appeared He allowed His presence to be known in extraordinary ways. In the first reading we hear about the loud sound and the apostles speaking in tongues to…Continue Reading

A Leaven In The World… The Humiliation Of Being Catholic

June 3, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on A Leaven In The World… The Humiliation Of Being Catholic

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK Being Catholic is quickly becoming unfashionable. At least as the Kennedys and Kerrys of this world have attempted to make it so. Add pro-abort Kirsten Gillibrand to that number. She’d be more honest as a truly hip Anglican than as a bad Catholic. The McCarrick affair is straining our vocabulary as we run out of superlatives to describe the slough of ignominy and, for some, despair, at the state of things at the highest levels of the Church. New documents out last week in the Figueiredo report confirm more of Archbishop Carlo Vigano’s claims about knowledge of McCarrick’s misdeeds in Rome. And at home. As some of you may know, Msgr. Anthony Figueiredo served as…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

May 31, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: Regarding a recent reply about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on a colt that had never been ridden, J.E. of Pennsylvania writes to say that in preparing for a presentation about things we usually overlook about Holy Week, “I learned from several reliable sources that by entering Jerusalem on a donkey, Jesus was acknowledging His kingship. In those days, a king entered a city on horseback if he were coming in war. The king entered on a donkey if he were coming in peace. Those kings always rode animals on which no one had ever sat.” Q. After reading the response from the bishop of Cleveland that the people in his diocese must remain standing after…Continue Reading

Filial Piety And National Patriotism . . . As Essential Virtues Of The Citizens Of Heaven At Work On Earth

May 29, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Filial Piety And National Patriotism . . . As Essential Virtues Of The Citizens Of Heaven At Work On Earth

By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE (Editor’s Note: Raymond Cardinal Burke gave the following address at the Rome Life Forum, Rome, May 17, 2019, at the Pontificia Università di San Tommaso d’Aquino [Angelicum]. LifeSiteNews published this commentary; see lifesitenews.com for a footnoted version of the text.) + + + Our happiness during our earthly pilgrim and at its destination, eternal life, depends on the conformity of our daily living with the truth, that is, with the good order with which God has created and sustains the world and, in a most particular way, man and woman. Our Lord Who alone is our salvation describes Himself as “the way, and the truth, and the life.” He also teaches us that the truth…Continue Reading