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(OSV News)─ Prayer, sacramental grace and the cultivation of virtue are Catholics’ most effective responses to an upcoming satanist convention in Boston — and the event itself is an opportune moment for Catholics to give witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ, pastoral experts told OSV News. The Satanic Temple, based in Salem, Massachusetts, will host SatanCon 2023 April 28-30 at the Marriott Copley Place in downtown Boston. With a theme of “Hexennacht (Witches’ Night) in Boston,” the TST-organized conference includes lectures, panel discussions and entertainment. Among the scheduled presentations at the event, which organizers claim has been sold out, are “Hellbillies: Visible Satanism in Rural America,” “Deconstructing Your Religious Upbr...

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Adult altar server Rich Steimle swings a censer as he leads a eucharistic procession marking the feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in 2021, at St. Joseph Church in Kings Park, N.Y. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz) The very purpose of a monstrance is to show the Eucharist, “the living bread that came down from heaven” (Jn 6:51). The word monstrance comes from the Latin monstrare, which means “to make known” or “to reveal.” In the middle ages, monstrances were often shaped like little churches, making the connection between the worship that took place in the sacred place and the holiness of the Eucharist itself. Then, in one of the Church’s most beautiful examples of inculturation, Spanish missionaries began to shape monstrances like the sun in order to make the association betwe...

Saturday, April 15, 2023 Jim Davis – Florida Catholic Photographer: James Dwight Davis Jesus Gonzalez, left, and Fernando Perez of Servpro discuss the clean-up at St. Jerome Church, Fort Lauderdale, April 18, 2023. The device between them is a dehumidifier, one of several being used to dry out the church after its recent flooding. FORT LAUDERDALE | Barely a half-week after record-setting rainfall, St. Jerome Church is planning Sunday Mass. Last week, floodwater swamped the school and church buildings up to a foot deep, and the parking lot became a thigh-high lake. But after intensive cleaning and drying by a recovery company, the church has announced plans for Mass this weekend. Just as its pastor, Father Joseph Maalouf, said over the weekend – even as heavy trucks were still trying ...

COMMENTARY: In today’s Britain, Christian ceremony and tradition still has its place. The flags are up in the main streets of cities around Britain, and groups of enthusiasts in suburbs and villages around the country are planning street parties. Shops are selling souvenirs: tins of tea and of shortbread bearing pictures of King Charles III, packets of small flags to wave, paper crowns, commemorative mugs, tankards, tea towels and more. We will have special prayers at Mass during coronation weekend and at the main Masses probably also the national anthem. The trimmings of the coronation are all there: Huge crowds will be lining the route to Westminster Abbey for the ceremony. I plan to be among them, with a team of friends and family, a picnic basket, foldaway chairs and an umbrella, just ...

Plato thought it one of the most important things to get right in life: how we have conversations, and indeed arguments, with the people to whom we are closest. Our most significant conversations will usually have an element of ‘argument.’ This in itself is natural. By ‘argument’ here I simply mean a kind of friction in the opposition of thoughts or ideas. It should be no surprise that such opposition arises. Reality is complex, and people have different angles of insight. Add to this that communication of thoughts between people is always challenging. If we really want to get deeply into things, we have to be willing to ‘argue.’ That is, we have to do the hard work of making our thoughts known, and the harder work of trying to understand the thoughts of others. Then there are further comp...

The notion that someone would view the death of a human being as liberating may sound strange, but depending on the context of how the person died, I argue it would be cause for celebration. The irony here is that death as a liberating gift is precisely what Jesus Christ did when he entered Jerusalem to prepare for his crucifixion. The significance of his entrance into the holy city is Jesus’ preparation to carry our sins and destroy them by his sacrificial death. As a result of his crucifixion, the sting of death is destroyed; the gates of heaven are opened as paradise awaits those who choose to follow Jesus Christ. Death is no longer a finality but a beginning. Hence, those who had passed before the death of Christ faithfully living the law of God and preaching the coming of the Messiah ...

The famous journalist H.L. Mencken was convinced that Christianity was full of “imbecilities.” He believed that no intelligent person could believe a word of it, any more than an educated person could believe in a flat Earth. But he did have a higher view of the Catholic Church than of Protestantism, not because he thought it truer, but because he thought it more poetically wrong. He was wrong, but not entirely wrong. He was one of the most influential writers and editors in America from the 1920s to the early ’40s, for a reason, and we can learn something from him. In his error lay a real insight.   Mystery and Poetry In 1923, Mencken wrote an essay called “Holy Writ,” reviewing a new translation of the Bible. It appeared in Smart Set, of which he was an editor. The clearer the Bible...

Dennis Prager, a conservative author and talk radio host, is trending on social media for sharing what many see as an overly simplistic and undeniably problematic view of pornography. “Men want variety,” Prager said during a recent round-table discussion hosted by The Daily Wire’s Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist and author. Pornography, he went on to say, is “not awful,” so long as it’s used as a “substitute for adultery.” The problems in that statement alone are plentiful — but he continued. Listen to the latest episode of CBN’s Quick Start podcast 👇 Prager, a practicing Jew, told Peterson and his fellow panelists that looking at a woman lustfully is “not a sin in Judaism” — a diversion from the Christian belief taught by Jesus, who said, “Anyone who even looks at a ...

Divine Mercy SundayBy Fr. Victor Feltes During the Exodus, before descending in fire and smoke upon a trembling Mount Sinai, God gave instructions to prepare the Hebrews for this encounter. The Lord said to Moses: “Go to the people and have them sanctify themselves today and tomorrow. Have them wash their garments and be ready for the third day; for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. Set limits for the people all around, saying: ‘Take care not to go up the mountain, or even to touch its edge. All who touch the mountain must be put to death. No hand shall touch them, but they must be stoned to death or killed with arrows. Whether human being or beast, they must not be allowed to live.’ Only when the ram’s horn sounds may they go up on the...

Pietro Orlandi, the brother of Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old girl and Vatican citizen who went missing 40 years ago, insinuated this week that John Paul II secretly left the Vatican at night to engage in immoral behavior. Orlandi made the statement April 11 on the Italian television program Di Martedi, on which he appeared with his family’s lawyer, Laura Sgrò. Neither would disclose the source of the rumor. Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, who was John Paul II’s personal secretary for over three decades, said this week the rumors were “vile insinuations” and “false from beginning to end.” Orlandi, who has been trying to get answers to his sister’s disappearance for 40 years, met with the Vatican’s chief prosecutor for eight hours on April 11. Alessandro Diddi, prosecutor for the Vatican City ...