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The question of invalid baptisms has been in the news recently. In my commentary on the question in La Civiltà Cattolica, I pointed out that the Vatican’s most recent document on the question, Gestis verbisque, gives renewed attention to the minister’s intention. For a sacrament to be valid, a minister must intend to do what the Church does when celebrating that sacrament. And that means that if he changes what the Church prescribes in her official liturgical texts–by inserting his own words or deleting something required to be there–then he manifests an intention to do something else. It’s just as straightforward as it sounds. The proof is not in the pudding, but in the action. Baptismal font, St. Peter’s Basilica Last week, however, another question was sent to the Vatican about what sor...

The following is adapted from a faculty reflection delivered at the Saint Mary’s College Pinning ceremony on May 17, 2024. ______________________________ Congratulations, class of 2024 nursing graduates! You made it!  Remember when I got to address you at your White Coat ceremony? Your first clinical courses were just under way, and maybe you were wondering if you’d survive until this day.   But you did! All the late-night study sessions and early clinicals, so many exams and papers, the good times and the not so good times, but now the joy – and relief – of here and now. You made it indeed! Praise God! It’s a tremendous honor to be addressing you as a class today – I am truly grateful. Before I begin, I want to make a quick ...

Dang it. It’s only been a week or two since I used the “lighthouse” parable to illustrate an important hole in a pop-culture phenomenon. That post had this headline: “Flashback: Where was God, after the Thanos ‘snap’?” Now, while Hollywood is enduring a season in box-office hades, we have “Inside Out 2” emerging as the year’s first billion-dollar hit (a success level that used to be rather common). Ah, but as Stephanie H. Murray asked in a must-read feature at The Dispatch (Yes, I have been on that website quite a bit in recent days) that ran with this double-decker headline: Where Are the Phones in ‘Inside Out 2’? Pixar’s sequel captures teen anxiety, not what American teenhood is like today And that question, friends and cyber-neighbors, brings me back to the “lighthouse” parable, which ...

Readings:Ezekiel 2:2–5Psalm 123:1–42 Corinthians 12:7–10Mark 6:1-6 As we’ve walked with the Apostles in the Gospels in recent weeks, we’ve witnessed Jesus command the wind and sea, and order a little girl to arise from the dead. But He seems to meet His match in His hometown of Nazareth. Today’s Gospel is blunt: “He was not able to perform any mighty deed there.” Why not? Because of the people’s lack of faith. They acknowledged the wisdom of His words, the power of His works. But they refused to recognize Him as a prophet come among them, a messenger sent by God. All they could see was how much “this man” was like them—a carpenter, the son of their neighbor, Mary, with brothers and sisters. Of course, Mary was ever-virgin and had no other children. The Gospel refers to Jesus’ brothers as P...

‘Christians are being persecuted more heavily than any other religious group in the world — thus, must be a higher priority for the Church…’ An Armenian citizen will serve 10 years in an Iranian prison after being prosecuted for alleged Christian evangelism. An Iranian judge sentenced Hakop Gochumyan to prison in February 2024 for committing “illegal Christian activities.” The judge invoked Article 160 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, which allows for decisions based on “personal intuition.” Gochumyan appealed in early June as the conviction lacked evidence, but he was unsuccessful. Gochumyan and his wife, Elisa Shahvardian, who is Iranian-Armenian, were arrested in August 2023 while they and their two children were staying at their friends’ house near Tehran. Agents from the Iranian Ministry...

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[embedded content] 5583 days (15,3 years) of growing in total. This is a compilation of some of my favorite videos I’ve done in the last 4 years, in no particular order. Many more to come! Services Marketplace – Listings, Bookings & Reviews Entertainment blogs & Forums

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio – articles – email ) | Jun 28, 2024 In a bizarre news story out of Belgium, a court has ruled that two Catholic bishops must pay financial damages to a woman who was denied a place in a training program for deacons. The logic of the ruling was that the Church’s teaching that only men can be ordained to the diaconate applies only to their ordination, not to admission to a training program which women might find to be otherwise useful. In other words, the court finds no legal connection between admission to a form of training for a specific purpose and the ability to undertake that purpose. The Church apparently must train everyone who wants to be trained for any ordained ministry without reference to their ability to undertake that ministry. The woman in ...

Paul Signac, Venice, The Pink Cloud, 1909. We are all looking for more happiness. I think the cultivation of beauty is one path to greater happiness. If we can notice more beauty around us, I think we will live happier lives. Even better, if we can contribute in small ways to the beauty of the world, ethically and aesthetically, I think we will find deeper satisfaction and purpose in life. Such a proposition does not rest on mere aestheticism. The call to notice and to cultivate beauty in the world—especially in the work of a beautiful life—requires intellectual and moral discipline that engages the whole of the human person. The Nature of Beauty What is beauty, though? That is a surprisingly complex philosophical question. But there are a few things we can say about it from the perspectiv...

By Bradley O’Neill Read time: 5 minutes For many travelers, summer is the most anticipated season of the year. It’s a time associated with warmer weather, outdoor activities, and epic vacations. And, luckily, it’s also when Mother Nature adds an extra magic touch to the natural world. From magnificent lavender blooms to a spotted lake and a rainbow river, these are seven natural wonders you can only see in summer.  Blooming Lavender Fields – Provence, France Credit: olgysha2008/ iStock via Getty Images  Between June and August every year, the countryside of the Provence region in the South of France turns into a mesmerizing patchwork of purple. Millions of lavender flowers bloom as far as the eye can see, creating scenes that have inspired artists such as Picasso and Van Go...

According to a source well-positioned to know, one of the behind-the-scenes dramas of the present pontificate involved Pope Francis’s determination to amend the Catechism of the Catholic Church and declare capital punishment an intrinsically evil act: something that can never be countenanced. After a lengthy and bruising argument over whether that was doctrinally possible, a compromise was reached and CCC 2267 now declares the death penalty “inadmissible” – a strong term, but one with no technical theological or doctrinal meaning. Has the papal campaign against capital punishment now achieved its objective through the recent declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Infinita (Infinite Dignity)? There, the Dicastery wrote that the death penalty “violates the inali...