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The Sunday Gospel invites us to wrestle with these fundamental, essential, focal questions: “What does Heaven cost?” and “Am I willing to pay it?” I. Problematic Pondering – A rich man asks Jesus, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Though his question is a good one, it is problematic because he couches it in terms of his own personal power and achievement. He wonders what he himself must do to attain eternal life. The problem is that none of us has the holiness, the spiritual wealth, or the power to attain Heaven based merely on what we do. The kind of righteousness we need can come only from God. The misguided question of the rich man betrays two common misunderstandings that people bring to the question of salvation and the need for r...

As Catholics around the world celebrate October, the month of the holy Rosary, actor and director David Henrie recently shared with Our Sunday Visitor how this powerful prayer has impacted his life. Known for his roles in Disney’s “Wizards of Waverly Place” and the CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” Henrie has been open about the central role that the Rosary plays in his personal and family life, describing it as “non-negotiable” for him and his loved ones. Henrie’s commitment to the Rosary began long before he became a husband and father, but it has deepened with time, especially as he seeks to lead his family in prayer. He recalls that the Rosary brought him and his wife together early in their relationship. Henrie told Our Sunday Visitor that he proposed to her on the feast of Our Lady...

How ‘Wir sind Papst!’ became a headline for the ages Skip to content Hours after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005, the German journalist Georg Streiter came up with a headline that’s still remembered almost 20 years later. Pope Benedict XVI, pictured on Jan. 20, 2006. Giuseppe Ruggirello via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0). Streiter, the political editor of the Bild newspaper, condensed Germany’s excitement at the election of its first native son in 482 years into three words: “Wir sind Papst!” (“We are pope”). Share Bild’s front-page headline on April 20, 2005, the day after Pope Benedict XVI’s election, brought a smile to the faces of millions of Germans and was shared around the world.  Streiter died in August this year, at the age of 68, but his headline lives on. Germa...

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio – articles – email ) | Oct 07, 2024 Patients use Internet medical portals to make appointments, ask questions of medical personnel, and check laboratory results. But do the medical portal masters follow the science? The portal masters now ask: What was your sex assigned at birth? (Me: “I don’t remember.”) What are your preferred pronouns? (Me: “Huh? Your Highness?”) Upload a picture of yourself. (I uploaded a picture of my dog.) The portal masters accepted the image without question, so the algorithm recognized my self-identification as a dog. I was horrified. Many medical folks don’t follow the science. When I went to the non-Catholic doctor for treatment, he was understandably curious (with a hint of skepticism) about his new priest-patient. A prie...

[embedded content] St. Francis of Assisi truly changed the world with his radical poverty, love of God, and JOY. I am SO excited for this episode on one of my favorite saints! Even better, this episode was filmed over the summer in Assisi while I was leading a pilgrimage through Italy. Services Marketplace – Listings, Bookings & Reviews Entertainment blogs & Forums

[embedded content] Not long ago, I was invited to appear on Cross Examined—the podcast of Protestant apologist Dr. Frank Turek—to talk about issues that many Protestants misunderstand about Catholicism. It was very kind of Frank to invite me on his show, and we had a really cordial discussion! Here’s a taste of what a gracious host he was! Frank: Today we want to talk about what Protestants may misunderstand about Roman Catholicism. Now, I’m not a Roman Catholic, although I came out of Roman Catholicism. Jimmy was a Protestant and became a Roman Catholic. In fact, Jimmy, this is odd that we’re even doing this show. If anybody should be a Catholic apologist, it should be me, a guy from New Jersey who went to Catholic high school, and you should be the Protestant apologist because you grew u...

Please allow me a moment of grief and frustration. I am, you see, worrying about friends who are missing and, to be blunt, no one knows if some of them will be fatalities in the the great Hurricane Helene catastrophe in the mountains of Western North Carolina. But this is a Rational Sheep post. This is a story about mass media, screens culture and our lives. I am poised, this week, to move into a house in the Tri-Cities of Northeast Tennessee in a neighborhood that was flooded at the end of last week. Our house survived, but we have work to do. Can we move our big furniture in this week as scheduled? It certainly is an interesting time to move to a community that dates back to the American Revolution. What we have here is a painful two-part post — with one truly American story and the othe...

‘In all my years knowing him, Archbishop Chaput witnessed to a joyful heart, even in the difficult times…’ Editor’s Note: Bishop James D. Conley celebrated Mass commemorating Archbishop Charles J. Chaput’s 80th birthday on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. Please find the full text of the homily below printed with permission.  Today’s Scriptures speak about the generosity of the Holy Spirit, bestowing gifts on those who are near the teacher, Moses and Jesus respectively, so it is fitting that all of us are gathered here in honor of one of the great teachers of our time. Each of us in our own way are beneficiaries of a grace that flowed from his ministry. Each of us is like Eldad and Medad in the Old Testament reading, and the unnamed person in today’s Gospel who ...

In a recent interview with The Pillar, Dr. Frank Ronge, a veteran German Catholic bureaucrat who coordinates the German Synodal Path, described the Synodaler Weg’s rationale and work. Many of those deeply engaged in the Synodal Path imagine it as a model for the world Church – or at least those parts of the world Church that aren’t a bit behind the cultural curve as construed by enlightened Germans. It’s thus worth asking some questions about the German experience of “synodality,” with an eye to what that experience might suggest about other paths of renewal in other ecclesial circumstances – or indeed about the path to be taken by Synod 2024 in Rome over the next month. The first question involves the origins of the Synodaler Weg, which began, Dr. Ronge said, as a response to revelations ...

By Phil Lawler ( bio – articles – email ) | Sep 25, 2024 If you count the flight home, Pope Francis made two shocking statements during his recent trip to Asia and Oceania: first telling an audience in Singapore that all religions are paths to God, then suggesting that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are morally equivalent. Those two statements were of course highly questionable, and have been widely questioned. But before we forget the papal voyage and turn our attention to other subjects, could I point out a third controversial statement that the Pontiff made—and the media coverage generally missed? “How wonderful that here in East Timor there are so many children,” Pope Francis said during a homily preached at an outdoor Mass on September 10. That sentence is not taken out of...

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio – articles – email ) | Sep 30, 2024 Most pastors are familiar with the unpleasantries of patrolling parish grounds after dark. After disrupting a young couple seeking privacy in the darkness of the parking lot, a young man rolls down the car window. As he zooms away he yells, “I’ll see you in hell!” Many may not believe in God, but they believe in hell. It’s a good start. The Gospel directs our attention to the reality of hell with the words of Jesus. Jesus refers to the everlasting fires of Gehenna for unrepented sins. Traditionally, we’ve translated that word as “Hell.” The words are interchangeable. Gehenna was a fiery pit of child sacrifice and a metaphor for the everlasting torment of those who offered their children to the Demon Moloch. Jesus w...

Gonzaga president on board of Arlington nuns’ non-profit Skip to content In the latest development of a story rife with surprises, the president of the Jesuit-run Gonzaga University sits on the board of directors for a recently formed Texas non-profit, which was created to hold property for a controversial convent of Carmelite nuns of Arlington, Texas. Thayne McCulloh, president of Gonzaga University. Credit: Gonzaga University/YouTube. Along with his wife Julie, Gonzaga’s President Thayne McCulloh is listed as a board member of the Friends of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Arlington, which in April became the legal title holder for the Carmelite Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity.  After CBS News published a list of board members Sept. 29, the McCullohs’ membership on the board was ...