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Exonerated Finnish Politician and Bishop to Return to Court Over Biblical ‘Hate Speech’…
Räsänen’s alleged crime, according to prosecutors, stems from a 2004 pamphlet she wrote about the Lutheran teaching on sexuality, including the prohibition on homosexual activities. She then defended that teaching in a radio debate in 2019 and later posted a Tweet that criticized Lutheran participation in a gay pride parade and cited a Bible verse. Pohjola’s alleged crime is publishing the original pamphlet in 2004. The prosecutors allege in their charges that the speech is “likely to cause intolerance, contempt, and hatred toward homosexuals.” A district court dismissed the charges in March 2022, finding that it is not the judges’ job “to interpret biblical concepts.” In November 2023, an appellate court ruled it “has no reason … to assess the case in any respect differently from the Dist...
‘Fiducia Supplicans’ Signals Further Divisions Within Catholic Church…
VATICAN CITY — If the Vatican is serious about not allowing its recent controversial guidance on blessings for same-sex couples to lead to further confusion and division in the Catholic Church, experts worry that a vital element is still missing from its approach: enforcement. Since Fiducia Supplicans was released on Dec. 18, several priests have apparently defied the guidance. While the declaration allows for the possibility of spontaneous, nonliturgical blessings that don’t cause confusion about the Church’s teaching on sexuality and marriage, some priests have offered pre-planned blessings that have been highly publicized, while others have blessed same-sex couples in liturgical settings. Furthermore, Church leaders in Germany have indicated that they don’t see Fiducia Supplicans as an ...
Welcome your guardian angel — he’s stuck with you…
By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio – articles – email ) | Jan 12, 2024 Somewhere along the way I developed a relationship with my own personal guardian angel which goes beyond rattling off the “Angel of God” prayer. I think I first noticed this in my mid-30s, which is about the time I finally realized that I could not simply bull my way through life on my own strength. Some of us are a little slow. Anyway, at a certain point I became convinced that my angel’s name is “Joshua”. I can’t prove it, but I am absolutely certain that he does not object to me calling him by that name. (He’s allowed to call me “Jeff”, too, though the tone in which he says it…varies.) I don’t think I’ve ever had an unmistakable mental conversation with Joshua, and yet there is an almost instantaneous give-and-take ...
Make Sacramentals Fruitful Again…
Sacramentals: Their Meaning & Spiritual Use by Ralph Weimann Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2023. 368 pp. ISBN: 978-1644139493. $18.95 Paperback. After any given Sunday Mass, it is not unusual to see a person or a group of people holding up various religious medals, rosaries, etc. to be blessed by a priest. In a matter of minutes, typically one sees a priest make the sign of the cross while audibly offering some type of extemporaneous prayer regarding the object itself and the person who will use the religious article. On a rare occasion, you may see a priest use the Book of Blessings, sprinkle holy water, and wear a stole. All these activities are celebrations of sacramentals. The caricature within the Church is that the use of sacramentals and acts of piety is limited to old...
The Emanuela Orlandi case, the Vatican’s version of the Kennedy assassination, will be back in the spotlight in 2024…
ROME – If she’s somehow still alive, today would mark Emanuela Orlandi’s 56th birthday. In the popular mind, however, especially here in Italy, she remains forever fifteen, the age at which she vanished after a music lesson in June 1983, thereby creating the basis for the most celebrated unsolved Vatican mystery of the modern era. Orlandi, in the phrase made popular by a four-part Netflix series in 2022, was a “Vatican girl” — her father served as a clerk in the Prefecture of the Papal Household, and her family lived in an apartment inside the city-state. Over the forty years since she went missing, her fate has become the Vatican equivalent of the Kennedy assassination, meaning the mother of all mysteries and the focus of a never-ending series of plot twists, purported revelations and con...
‘For Glory and for Beauty’ — 150-Year-Old Vestment Maker Watts & Co. Is Driven by a Passion for Perfection…
Cecilia Rexworthy’s unexpected journey to the upper echelons of ecclesiastical couture began with a few basic keywords typed into a Google search: nice white silk fabric church. This was five years ago, when the Catholic mom of four, a former book editor living on the outskirts of London, was making a switch to a new career as a needleworker and needed special material for some embroidery work she was doing for her parish. The search results led her to 7 Tufton St., London, the unassuming storefront of Watts & Co., a church vestment manufacturer tucked away in the shadow of Westminster Abbey. Its front door, Rexworthy discovered, was a portal to a bygone age of English craftsmanship. Inside, she found seamstresses and embroiderers creating some of the most exquisite handmade chasubles,...
Spiritual mapping, in the Church, and through the minefield…
By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio – articles – email ) | Jan 04, 2024 Let us consider for a moment those of us Catholics who accept all the teachings of the Church. Anyone in that category will be deeply concerned about the need for reform and renewal so that the Church, especially in her primary ministers and ministries but also in the particular charisms and apostolates of her members, will more effectively communicate the truth, grace and very identity of Jesus Christ. But we also need to be aware of our own danger, for we are walking continually through a spiritual minefield. At any moment, we can be both injured and blasted off-track by the vast number of demons and particular temptations which attempt to impede our progress. Indeed, these may injure us morally or even blow us to sp...
Witnessing to Christ…
2nd Sunday in Ordinary TimeBy Fr. Victor Feltes St. John the Baptist once saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! He is the one of whom I said, ‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’ …I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from the sky and remain upon him. …The one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.” John was not afraid to acknowledge Jesus Christ before others. John said, ‘I am not the Messiah, I am not Elijah, and I am not the prophet of whom Moses spoke.’ But he affirmed, “I am ‘the voice of one crying out in the ...
Bishop Rolando Álvarez and 18 Others Released From Prison, Exiled to Vatican by Nicaragua’s Ortega Regime…
Bishop Álvarez freed in Nicaragua, exiled to Vatican Skip to content The regime of Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega freed the imprisoned Bishop Rolando José Álvarez of Matagalpa on Sunday, and expelled the prelate from the country. Álvarez arrived in Vatican City Jan. 14, directly after his release. The bishop had been sentenced to 26 years in prison, and has been a political prisoner in Nicaragua since August 2022, along with 18 other priests and seminarians who were imprisoned in December 2023. Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa. Pillar file photo. Among the clerics exiled with Álvarez is Bishop Isidoro Mora, of the Diocese of Siuna, along with 14 priests and two seminarians who were also being held as political prisoners. Since that group of priests and seminarians was det...
What Do Atheists Believe?
Words are the way we communicate from one mind to another. A word is external expression of an internal idea, but it is not a mechanical or quantifiable act in binary code with precise meaning. The same word can mean different things to different people. To “believe” is such a word. Previously (What is Atheism?), I used Graham Oppy’s book, Atheism: The Basics, for the definition of atheism. “Atheists do not believe in God.” According to Oppy, this means an atheist fails to believe or disbelieves that gods exist because arguments for theism are unconvincing. Oppy distinguishes atheists from “innocents” who are incapable of considering the question and agnostics who have considered the question but not made a judgement. Atheists can and have concluded that they do not believe gods exist. But...
“Contextual” theology and Fiducia Supplicans…
In the apostolic letter Ad Theologiam Promovendam (To Promote Theology), issued by Pope Francis on Nov. 1, 2023, the Church was urged to do theology contextually: as the motu proprio put it, theology must be “fundamentally contextual…capable of reading and interpreting the Gospel in the conditions in which men and women live daily, in different geographical, social and cultural environments.” How well does Fiducia Supplicans (Supplicating Trust), the Declaration on “blessings” issued by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) on Dec. 18, 2023, meet that standard? Not very well at all. Consider the “contexts” Fiducia Supplicans ignores. The Media Context. According to the instantaneous media take on it, the Pope, in Fiducia Supplicans, aut...
Vatican’s Doctrinal Office Preparing ‘Very Important Document on Human Dignity,’ Cardinal Fernández Says…
The prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said in a new interview that the document would address ‘moral questions such as sex-change surgery, surrogacy, and gender ideology.’ VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s doctrinal chief has revealed that his dicastery is writing “a very important document on human dignity” that contains “a strong criticism” of immoral trends in contemporary society. Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Vatican’s prefect at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), told the Spanish news agency EFE on Friday that the new document will include “not only social issues but also a strong criticism of moral questions such as sex-change surgery, surrogacy, and gender ideology.” The news comes days after Pope Francis spoke out against surrogate motherhoo...
