If only priests were as hard working to develop reverence in their parishes as they are to facilitate communion-no-matter-what and for-anyone-at-all. There is a piece at LifeSite, in which I am heavily quoted, about a priest who came up with wacky ideas – astonishingly tacky and irreverent – to facilitate Communion. It is hard to believe that anyone in this day and would do this. But, this is the depth to which we have sunk in some places. The priest put out a video, showing also a map with zones on the parish campus where people, divided into categories, had to be. Then his suggestions – I am NOT making this up: Every family will be provided with a ziplock ‘Mass bag’ which contains “everything you need for Mass except Holy Communion.” “Every family will be is...
Ennio Morricone at the Estadio Bicentenario de la Florida in 2013. (Wikimedia (CC BY 3.0).) COMMENTARY: The late composer’s score for The Mission is not only a masterful composition, it is truly sacred music. Father Raymond J. de Souza The death last week of the great composer Ennio Morricone was timely. His greatest work, the score for The Mission, addresses current controversies about missionary activity and indigenous peoples. The Mission is not about Spanish Franciscans in California, Alta and Baja, but Spanish Jesuits in Paraguay. The issues, though, are the same. And Morricone attempted to resolve them nobly with his music. Whether The Mission is the greatest Catholic film ever made, or second to A Man for All Seasons, is a matter for debate. Both of them were written by the brillian...
CNA Staff, Jul 15, 2020 / 04:00 am MT (CNA).- Citing the need to protect the unborn, the Tennessee governor has signed strong heartbeat-based abortion restrictions into law. However, a federal judge quickly placed a temporary injunction on the law. “We all have the responsibility to protect the most vulnerable in our community,” Governor Bill Lee said in a signing ceremony broadcast on Facebook Live July 14. “The most vulnerable in Tennessee includes the unborn.” With the signing of the bill, he said, Tennessee becomes “one of the most pro-life states in America”. Lee had previously made the bill a priority for the legislative session on the grounds that “every human life is precious, and we have a responsibility to protect it.” The Tennessee Senate passed a ban on abortion June 19 by a 23...
‘The Catholic writer is able to plunge more deeply into the enigma at the core of life,’ says sci-fi writer John C. Wright. (Courtesy of subject) Fictions and Faith: Catholic Sci-Fi Writer John C. Wright Discusses His Craft Convert-writer feels no need to hide his faith from his readers. K.V. Turley “No science fiction writer is imaginative enough to have pictured this combination of hysteria, incompetence, malice and affluence.” So says award-winning science fiction writer John C. Wright, down the line from his home in Virginia. In this time of pandemic, Wright was speaking to the Register June 20, just as the lockdown began to ease across the Western world. The obvious question to ask a writer of speculative fiction is how recent events — which for many have been surreal and at times rem...
A principal reason why the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was so successful both morally and practically was that it was led largely by people with a strong religious sensibility. The most notable of these leaders was, of course, Martin Luther King. To appreciate the subtle play between King’s religious commitment and his practical work, I would draw your attention to two texts—namely, his Letter from the Birmingham City Jail and his “I Have a Dream” speech, both from 1963. While imprisoned in Birmingham for leading a nonviolent protest, King responded to certain of his fellow Christian ministers who had criticized him for going too fast, expecting social change to happen overnight. The Baptist minister answered his critics in a perhaps surprising manner, invoking the aid of ...
The first reading at Tuesday’s daily Mass presents a complex picture, but its fundamental message is clear. Isaiah announces that there will be a period of political stability among the nations and enemies surrounding Israel. It is a time of favor during which Israel can repent of its injustice and infidelity. If they do not, however, Israel will be destroyed within sixty-five years. Here is an excerpt from the reading: Then the LORD said to Isaiah: Go out to meet Ahaz [King of Judah] … and say to him: Take care you remain tranquil and do not fear; let not your courage fail … Damascus is the capital of Aram, and Rezin is the head of Damascus; Samaria is the capital of Ephraim, and Remaliah’s son the head of Samaria. But within sixty years and five, Ephraim shall be crushed, no longer a nat...
[embedded content] Drawn from The Washingtons: Seven Generations of the Presidential Branch.
IMAGE: Duccio di Buoninsegna, “Appearance on the Mountain in Galilee,” c. 1310 6 Things to Keep in Mind When (Not If) the Church’s Human Element Lets You Down “Look to the light shining out of the darkness. For Christ crushes evil under his heel and makes all things new.” I know a devout Catholic so angry at her bishop for closing churches during the pandemic she can’t bring herself to go back to Mass. A friend of hers grumbles it’s no wonder we have a Eucharistic crisis in America when so many bishops seemed so willing to locked our church doors with barely a peep of protest. She thinks they should have kept the churches open and soothed COVID-terrified Americans by boldly proclaiming that Christ has defeated death and the Eucharist is the fountain of immortality. What can you say to peop...
Catholic churches and religious statues across the country were the target of vandalism, terrorism, and potential arson this last week as tensions concerning the removal of historical statues continue to rise. In Boston at St. Peter’s Parish Church, parts of a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary were scorched after being lit aflame. According to some at the Boston Fire Department Fire Investigation Unit, “an unknown suspect had set fire to plastic flowers, which were in the hands of the statue, causing the face and upper body of the statue to be burned.” “Whoever is responsible for the desecration of the Holy Mother’s statue is clearly a troubled soul,” Secretary for Communications & Public Affairs for the Archdiocese of Boston, Terrence C. Donilon, told the Daily Caller News Foundation....
The canonization portrait of Louis and Zélie Martin, parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, in St. Peter’s Square, on Oct. 16, 2015. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA) The Holy Lives and Passions of Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin The parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux were the first husband and wife canonized as a couple. They passed each other on a bridge one spring day — a distinguished, reserved, hardworking watchmaker who had tried and failed to become a monk and a lovely, intelligent, productive lacemaker who had been turned away by the Vincentian sisters. When St. Zélie first laid eyes on St. Louis she heard an interior voice, one that she had learned to trust, say, This is he whom I have prepared for you. Their life together began on July 12, 1858 — a date remembered by the Church as the feast day o...
Now is the time to take a close look at the first two of three secrets which we don’t want to hear about that Our Lady gave the children at Fatima over a century ago. Why do most people ignore the first and second of the three secrets given by Our Lady at Fatima on July 103 years ago? The first one is about hell. Do we really want to pay attention to that one? The answer seems to be ‘No.” The answer comes in the way the world has been heading, especially in the last few years. The First Secret In July 1941, Sister Lucia revealed the first two secrets in her Memoirs written at the direction of her bishop. She wrote, “The secret is made up of three distinct parts, two of which I am now going to reveal. The first part is the vision of hell.” Lucia went on with the description. “Our Lady showe...
A slew of Catholic churches from Florida to California were burned and vandalized over the weekend as police continue to investigate whether or not they are connected to protests targeting symbols and statues. Following George Floyd’s police-related death in May, Black Lives Matter leaders and protesters called for the toppling of statues, from Confederate symbols to former U.S. presidents and abolitionists. Activist Shaun King called for all images depicting Jesus as a “White European” and his mother to be torn down because they’re forms of “White supremacy” and “racist propaganda.” Meanwhile, people on social media point out the lack of mainstream coverage of the weekend incidents. “Churches are...