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Dare we hope that the rich who ignore the poor will be saved?
Dare we hope that the rich who ignore those suffering on their doorstep will be saved? Certainly not, says Jesus — especially when that rich person is us. St. Paul and the Old Testament heartily agree on the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The real hope for the world comes from the saints who throughout history have unambiguously warned us that we are courting destruction. Jesus tells a parable (or perhaps a true story?) in the Gospel this Sunday that we can easily apply to ourselves. The story certainly sounds like a parable, but Jesus never names people in his other parables. He doesn’t name the rich man in this one. We know only that he “dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day,” and lived apart from his father and five brothers. Jesus does name the poor ma...
What does Sunday night’s celestial event have to do with Church history?
When you look at Jupiter and its moons, think of the role that those dots of light have played in Church history See Part I of this series here. So what does seeing Jupiter’s moons have to do with Church history, other than perhaps the Galileo connection? It’s those dots of light, and their sizes, that are the history connection. They have played a role in discussions of Genesis, and in the Church’s opposition to Galileo’s ideas. In Genesis 1:14 God says, “let there be lights in the dome of the sky.” Genesis 1:16 says, “God made the two great lights … and he made the stars.” If the sky is a dome, this is all straightforward. The sun, our moon and the stars are lights on that dome, all the same distance from Earth. Their sizes are therefore just as they appear — the sun and moon appea...
Pope Francis Appeals for the Release of Kidnapped Catholics in Cameroon…
By Courtney Mares Rome Newsroom, Sep 25, 2022 / 07:00 am Pope Francis has appealed for the release of nine Catholics kidnapped in southwest Cameroon. “I join in the appeal of the bishops of Cameroon for the liberation of some people kidnapped in the diocese of Mamfe, including five priests and a religious sister,” the pope said on Sept. 25. Speaking in his Angelus address at the end of a Mass in the southern Italian city of Matera, the pope said that he was praying that the Lord may grant peace to Cameroon, where a civil war has been raging since 2017. Gunmen set fire to St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Nchang, Cameroon, on the night of Sept. 16 and kidnapped five priests, a religious sister, a cook, a catechist, and a 15-year-old girl living at the convent, according to Vatican News. Join Ou...
Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral was strikingly Christian…
It was the grandest state funeral in history for history’s longest-serving monarch. First and last, though, it was a Christian funeral. The Church of England rendered a signal service to all Christians in providing a model for how funerals ought to be conducted, in a time when both sacred and civic funeral liturgies have become rather emaciated. The Priority of Prayer The Queen was rightly and well eulogized in various ceremonies in the past week. The day of her funeral was a day for prayer. From the moment the funeral cortege entered Westminster Abbey to the singing of I Am the Resurrection and the Life, the mystery of death and eternal life took precedence over all others. “We will all face the merciful judgment of God,” preached the archbishop of Cant...
Two Commentaries on Bishops “Blessing” Same-Sex “Unions”…
Stephen P. White The Flemish bishops of Belgium published a document this week on pastoral care for homosexual persons. The most notable aspect of the document is its inclusion of a text for blessing same-sex couples. The bishops plan to present the text to Pope Francis when they travel to Rome for their ad limina visit later this year. One of the more exasperating particulars in this case is that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a response to questions about the blessing of same-sex unions just last year. That document, published with the express approval of Pope Francis, makes clear that, “the Church does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex.” If one were to read the CDF’s document and the Flemish bishops’ side by side, n...
How super-recognizers — people with a rare and uncanny ability to remember faces — are helping police solve crimes…
It was news that captured attention around the world: In March 2018, former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by a nerve agent in Salisbury, England. Suspicions quickly mounted that Russia was responsible for the attack. The victims spent weeks in critical condition. Ultimately, they survived, but police were left with a lot of unanswered questions about the suspects. Officials began collecting thousands of hours of video surveillance footage from ports, train stations, car dashboards, storefronts, and the streets surrounding Skripal’s home. To help sift through the vast amount of data, London’s Metropolitan Police Service turned to an unusual unit within the force: the super-recognizers, people with a rare and uncanny ability to reme...
What happens if you fall on a cruise ship?
[embedded content] In this video, we investigate what happens when someone falls overboard from a ship. We look at the immediate actions taken by the bridge team, as well as subsequent man overboard maneuvers and search patterns. Join Our Telegram Group : Salvation & Prosperity
Cardinal Zen is going to trial, “I think,” says the Pope…..
By Phil Lawler ( bio – articles – email ) | Sep 21, 2022 The trial of Cardinal Joseph Zen has been postponed, but the indomitable 90-year-old prelate will face judgment soon enough, under the draconian new “security laws” imposed on Hong Kong by the Chinese government. Meanwhile Pope Francis faces his own judgment, in the court of public opinion, for his failure to defend Cardinal Zen—or, for that matter, to criticize the regime that is prosecuting him. When questioned about the trial, by a reporter who accompanied him on his flight home from Kazakhstan, the Pontiff gave this utterly unsatisfactory reply: Cardinal Zen is going to trial these days, I think. And he says what he feels, and you can see that there are limitations there. More than qualifying, because it is difficult,...
Founder of Catholic Apostolate ‘The King’s Men’ Charged With Violating FACE Act With Alleged 2021 Assault on Abortion Clinic Escort…
She said that multiple agencies were present at the arrest and that she was handed a warrant after she requested to see it. The FBI confirmed to CNA Friday that Houck was arrested outside his residence Friday morning “without incident.” In a press release, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said that Houck is being charged with a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, more commonly referred to as the FACE Act. The federal indictment says that Houck twice assaulted a 72-year-old man who was a patient escort at a Planned Parenthood clinic at 1144 Locust St. in Philadelphia on Oct. 13, 2021. First, Houck shoved the escort, identified only with the initials B.L., to the ground as B.L was attempting to escort two patients, the indictment say...
The triumph of failure: A tale of two bishops…
“If we achieve great things outside of ourselves, and the achieving of them does not effect any change or development in ourselves, we have done nothing. Life’s purpose is to purify us, not gratify us.” So says Father Edward Leen reflecting on “the triumph of failure,” the way in which God’s work in the soul, and correspondingly in the world, cannot be judged on the surface (see his book In the Likeness of Christ). Judged rightly, Leen tells us that “there is nothing so sad as the sight of those who once pressed forward to the goal of perfection frittering away the days and hours in silly preoccupation about things that are futile, transient and unsubstantial.” Those are precisely the things that take up most of our attention! The things we seek to avoid — suffering, misunderstanding, and ...
Bishop Kevin Rhoades approves cause of Holy Cross Brother Columba O’Neill, who gained a reputation as a miracle worker for thousands who wrote to him at Notre Dame…
Servant of God Brother Columba O’Neill, CSC. University of Notre Dame/Facebook screengrab With the acceptance and approval of Most Rev. Kevin C. Rhoades, bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, a new American canonization cause was formally opened in the summer of 2022. The cause of Servant of God Brother Columba O’Neill, CSC, who lived in the diocese for many years at the University of Notre Dame, is being petitioned by the Congregation of Holy Cross, the religious community that operates the university and to which O’Neill belonged as a consecrated religious brother. A portrait of the founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Father Basile-Antoine Marie Moreau, is seen at his beatification ceremony in Le Mans, France, in 2007. (CNS photo/Steven Scardina) Holy Cross has a handful of ac...
Evangelization, yes — but with what message and by what means?
At the “information meeting” of the College of Cardinals this past Aug. 29-30, there was considerable agreement that evangelization is Catholicism’s prime imperative for the 21st century — a consensus understandably gratifying to the author of a 2013 book with the then-provocative title, Evangelical Catholicism. Within that consensus, however, serious questions remain to be resolved. Surveying the world Catholic scene today, and considering the past decade of ecclesiastical air turbulence, there are four “what” questions and one “when” question to be settled, if the consensus on the necessity of evangelization is to be fruitful in drawing others to, or back to, Christ. The first “what” question is Christological: Can the Church evangelize if it does not propose Jesus Christ as the definiti...
