Author: S&P
Synodality: A coming tribulation?
By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio – articles – email ) | Feb 15, 2022 A former German prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has stated that faithful Catholics are going through “a time of tribulation and psychological terror” owing to leadership by cardinals, bishops and theology professors who do not believe what the Church teaches. This assertion was made by Cardinal Gerhar...
The (canon) laws, they are a-changin’: A complete guide to the Pope’s canonical revisions…
Pope Francis on Tuesday made a series of changes to the Church’s universal canon law, which he said were aimed at fostering a healthy decentralization in the life of the Church. The changes are kind of a grab bag, touching on several areas of Church governance. Want to know ‘em all? The Pillar brings you the best guide to the Feb. 15 changes you’ll find anywhere, guaranteed. The Code of Canon Law....
The Church Must Lead the World into Peace (Ephesians 4:1-3)
Everyone wants unity, but nobody really knows how to achieve it. Most people today seem to think that unity requires conformity. We think that unity is achieved when everybody thinks the same way, talks the same way, dresses the same way, and has the same opinions. Where differences occur, division results, and unity dies. And some people seek to achieve unity by silencing and cancelling those who...
Bishops’ gambit: Will Francis’ changes to canon law hand the USCCB a win?
The pope’s changes Tuesday to the Church’s canon law could signal a shift in a long-rumbling dispute between the Vatican and the U.S. bishops, and possibly even a rare Roman climbdown, as bishops and the Vatican remain at loggerheads over a set of draft guidelines for the formation of seminarians. The new canonical norms modify the kind of oversight the Vatican gives to national norms for priestly...
Take ‘The Big Here Quiz’ to see how much you know about the place you live…
You live in the big here. Wherever you live, your tiny spot is deeply intertwined within a larger place, imbedded fractal-like into a whole system called a watershed, which is itself integrated with other watersheds into a tightly interdependent biome. At the ultimate level, your home is a cell in an organism called a planet. All these levels interconnect. What do you know about the dynamics of th...
Finnish Inquisition: Lutheran Bishop, Member of Parliament Await Verdict After Being Prosecuted for Quoting Bible on Homosexuality…
A verdict in the closely watched trial of a Christian MP in Finland is expected in March. The trial of Päivi Räsänen, a physician and mother of five, ended on Feb. 14 at Helsinki District Court. Also standing trial was Juhana Pohjola, a bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland. The charges against Räsänen relate to her comments in a 2004 pamphlet, her appearance on a 2018 tele...
This chart showing the ages of moms when kids are born in the U.S. is eye-opening…
People have kids at a wide range of ages, but the moments tend towards where we are in life. There are social norms and biological norms. Based on data from the National Center for Health Statistics, we can see how these ranges shift by child number. Based on live births between 2016 and 2020, the median age of first-time moms was 27, and the median age of moms having more children gets older than...
An interview with Father Matt Hood, the priest who discovered he was invalidly baptized (and ordained)…
For a man who had just been baptized, confirmed, ordained and catapulted into the headlines in the space of two weeks, the Rev. Matt Hood of St. Lawrence Parish in Utica, Mich., sounded remarkably relaxed. I caught the 30-year-old priest on the phone while he and his father drove to Minnesota, where they were going to pick up a puppy named Sherman. Father Hood’s story is no shaggy dog tale, though...
In my search to discover the true lines of manliness, something has become clear to me…..
If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage.Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well There is often fear in marriage, and it can be of several kinds. I think Shakespeare’s object here is perhaps the primary fear attending marriage, even those going ‘well.’ Will this marriage be what it really can and should be? Men, feeling a special responsibility in marriage, expe...
There’s an ‘imponderable’ movement shaping history in the newest Catholic census numbers…
ROME – An old saying has it that “journalism is the first draft of history.” Frankly, I’ve always been a bit dubious about that claim. In my experience, and to paraphrase John Lennon, history often seems to be what happens while journalists are talking about other things. Here’s a quote from historian Arnold J. Toynbee in his book Civilization on Trial which I try to take to heart. “The things tha...
Respect Life Radio: How the Chinese Communist Party threatens liberty…
February 14, 2022 “The Chinese Communist Party [is] not only posing a threat from far away, they are penetrating deeply in our society already, in every sphere of our society,” said Bob Fu, Ph.D., founder and president of ChinaAid, based in Midland, Texas. Fu, a pastor and author, is Senior Fellow for International Religious Freedom at Family Research Council and “was a student leader during...
Cardinal Becciu’s ‘Classified’ Tech Company Linked to Trump-Russia Allegations…
The technology company to which Cardinal Angelo Becciu authorized millions of dollars of payments in Australia has been named in an emerging U.S. political scandal, raising new questions about the Vatican’s business with the firm. Servers. Credit: dariorug via Flickr (CC BY 2.0) Share Neustar, a technology and security company, has been named in pretrial motions filed by John Durham, the spe...
