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This Sunday, look to the consecrated for hope…
By Tom Hoopes, January 30, 2020 The Feast of the Presentation this Sunday shows how a single encounter with Jesus Christ can make a whole life worthwhile. In Sunday’s readings, the Holy Family meet two people who have no family. We will hear the same Sunday Gospel twice this year, once in December’s Feast of the Holy Family and this Sunday’s Presentation feast day, which is the World Day for Consecrated Life. The December feast will show what family intimacy with Christ looks like. This Sunday shows what intimacy with Christ looks like for religious. Simeon is a model religious. “This man was righteous and devout,” we learn, “and the Holy Spirit was upon him.” The Spirit is very strong with him. “It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had...
Kobe Bryant’s death ignites pro-life posts after ESPN anchor’s on-air testimony…
This is so beautiful! Kobe Bryant was the father to four young girls, which ignited amazingly pro-life posts dedicated to dads of girls this past week. The posts came in response to ESPN anchor Elle Duncan’s powerful testimony regarding Kobe Bryant as a “girl dad.” Bryant loved being a ‘girl dad’ so much that he told Duncan he would have five more girls if given the chance. First, listen to her testimony below: [embedded content]Click here if you cannot see the post above. We’ve gathered some popular posts on behalf of this recent #GirlDad trend. In the midst of this culture of death, this is a beautiful pro-life witness trending throughout the social media world. Here’s some #GirlDad posts below: Responding to Elle Duncan’s tweet of thanksgiving for the “outpouring of support behind” her ...
This is a time of great consternation — abide in the truth that liberates…
“The pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates. To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church’s shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals.” (CCC 890) As I have been reading Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s book, Christus Vincit, I am struck by the similarities between his experiences and mine. Although we come from very different parts of the world, we were born just a couple of months apart in 1961, at the end of an era in the Church. All through the sixties, changes kept coming. I remember receiving my First Holy Communion in 1968, kneeling at the altar rail of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glenview, Illinois. Our family relocated to Jacksonville, Florida, the next year, and...
Sunday is the Feast of the Presentation…
We have a truly unusual situation this Sunday. Under normal circumstances, it would be the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, but it just so happens that this year, the Feast of the Presentation (pegged to Feb. 2) falls on the Sunday and “outranks” the regular Lord’s Day obligation. The result is that many persons who do not regularly attend daily mass will have the rare experience of celebrating the full liturgy for the Feast of the Presentation. The Readings for this Feast Day focus on the theme of the priesthood of Christ, seeing a kind of sacerdotal significance to this first entrance of the Messiah into the Temple. These Readings prompt us to meditate firstly on how Jesus has served and continues to serve as our great High Priest, but also how his priesthood is li...
Boris, St. Boris, St. Boris and Brexit…
Boris Johnson stands in front of Saint Basil’s cathedral in Moscow, Dec. 22, 2017. (Photo by Stefan Rousseau/AFP via Getty Images) Boris, St. Boris, St. Boris and Brexit Given the history of the Brexit saga to date, Boris Johnson is going to need all the prayers he can get. During last year’s British general election Boris Johnson campaigned on a slogan of “Get Brexit Done!” After three years of interminable debate and delay about how to execute the result of the 2016 referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Union, that slogan worked at the ballot box for Johnson and the Conservative party. At 11:00 p.m. this evening, the U.K. will leave the EU. But, this is only the end of the beginning. The real process of Brexit must now commence — namely, the negotiated s...
Churches in central China closed as coronavirus continues to spread…
Countless Catholics and other Christians across China are facing a weekend without church services and changed Eucharistic practices after the coronavirus spread to every province, the infection rate surpassed SARS and the World Health Organization declared a global emergency. Human rights groups have become increasingly disturbed at controls being enforced by Chinese authorities, including heavy censorship, some of which are considered by medical experts to be counterproductive, as governments around the region scrambled to get citizens out of the Hubei province quarantine zone. The death toll had climbed to 213 in China with 9,692 infections as of Jan. 31. Hundreds more cases have been reported around the world and tens of thousands of people are under observation. The UK today reported ...
Blessed Franz Jägerstätter was a brave man surrounded by conventional cowards. That’s why his own words are so important…..
Last month, Fox Searchlight Productions released Terrence Malick’s new film A Hidden Life, about Austrian conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter. Jägerstätter was executed in 1943 for refusing to fight for the German state. Malick’s film portrays the effects of this act of resistance, especially the devastating effects on Jägerstätter’s wife and his children. It is an important film which shows the real-life implications of resisting the state in a totalitarian world. The film shows us the great difficulty of holding to one’s principles in the face of draconian and violent punishment heaped upon those who refuse to participate in the state’s designs. Unfortunately, the film’s subtlety and focus on the emotional states of the protagonists left many rev...
Interview with Terese Piccola, a woman who experienced exorcism…
“Oftentimes what happens when we’re abused, or something evil happens to us, if we don’t respond in the correct manner, we leave ourselves open to that weakness, and to looking for things outside of the Church,” said Terese Piccola. “And that’s exactly what happened to me.” Her story was recently recounted by the … “Oftentimes what happens when we’re abused, or something evil happens to us, if we don’t respond in the correct manner, we leave ourselves open to that weakness, and to looking for things outside of the Church,” said Terese Piccola. “And that’s exactly what happened to me.” Her story was recently recounted by the National Catholic Register in a blog post titled, “Wife and Mo...
German ‘synodal path’ aims to shape Vatican decisions, says plan’s architect…
German ‘Synodal Path’ Aims to Shape Vatican Decisions, Says Plan’s Architect ‘We believe it is unacceptable that all issues decided in Rome, now and in the future, should be taken largely without the participation of the local Churches,’ Jesuit Father Hans Langendörfer told a German newspaper. One of the chief architects of the German Church’s synodal path which begins today has said an important novelty of the process is that it aims to influence papal and curial decisions, even if it cannot be binding on matters concerning the universal Church. In a revealing interview, Jesuit Father Hans Langendörfer, the influential secretary of the German bishops’ conference, told Bonn’s General Anzeiger newspaper Jan. 27 that those organizing the synodal path “don’t assume Rome must implement what we...
Dawn in a bleared world: Hopkins and Monet…
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), an Oxford convert mentored by St. John Henry Newman, stands among the greatest Catholic poets in the English language. After teaching at Newman’s oratory in Birmingham, Hopkins entered the Jesuits and, after numerous teaching positions in Britain, was sent as a professor of Greek and Latin to the university Newman founded in Dublin, The Catholic University of Ireland, where he died prematurely. Hopkins lived in Victorian England and Ireland and witnessed the social and environmental changes that accompanied the Industrial Revolution. The economic changes of this revolution stand for more than mere external change. The movements of modern secularism had begun to transform the daily life of the average person–explosions of cities and the social problems that ...
In reaction to coronavirus scare, bishops in the Philippines and Singapore ban Communion on the tongue…
In the Philippines and Singapore, the bishops say communion must be distributed by hands. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines launches an Oratio Imperata for victims of the virus. In Malaysia, people with flu-like symptoms who cannot attend Mass are encouraged to perform an act of spiritual communion. Manila (AsiaNews) – In a world anxious over the health crisis caused by the 2019-nCoV outbreak, the Catholic Church in Southeast Asia is taking a number of steps to avoid contagion among the faithful, including prophylactic measures touching prayers and the holy communion. In the Philippines, no case of coronavirus-related pneumonia has been reported yet; however, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has issued some directives. Communion must ...
Cardinal Barbarin of Lyon, France, acquitted by appeals court of failing to report abuse…
Lyon, France, Jan 30, 2020 / 07:45 am (CNA).- Cardinal Philipe Barbarin has been acquitted by a French appeals court of failing to report sexual abuse by a diocesan priest. The Archbishop of Lyon was convicted in March, 2019, of “of non-denunciation of ill-treatment” of a minor and given a six-month suspended prison sentence. The decision Jan. 30 by the appeals court in Lyon was reached after prosecutors in the case sought the Cardinal’s vindication. The cardinal’s lawyer called the result “logical,” saying that Barbarin had been the subject of “calumny” over the course of the trial. At the time of his conviction in March last year, five other archdiocesan officials on trial with Barbarin were acquitted. Barbarin’s acquittal was widely expected on appeal after the prosecutor in the case ar...
