Blogposts

Without a doubt parental rights in the rearing and education of their children have become a political issue in the country and in the upcoming election. They are under attack. Laws are being proposed in various jurisdictions to usurp parental rights, in schools especially, to promote gender ideology and puberty blockers in service of this agenda. Along with this is the attempt to sexualize children at a young age in favor of this same ideology in schools and libraries with so called “drag-queen reading sessions” and other perversities. It’s important to deal with a sometime objection from people that they don’t come to church to hear politics. They want to forget about politics.

Another priest has been kidnapped in Nigeria. Go here for more information: churchinneed.org.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to commit genocide and engage in the systemic rape and torture of Muslim Ugyhurs.In addition, the CCP has been tramping the rights of faithful Catholics. Leaders like Cardinal Zen, the 90-year-old retired Bishop of Hong Kong, and seven other Catholic Bishops are imprisoned in China right now. Cardinal Zen will soon be on trial for being a Christian and standing in solidarity with the vulnerable and human rights protestors in Hong Kong.

Our Lady of Lourdes is one of the most famous appearances of the Blessed Virgin.  She told St. Bernadette when asked her name: I am the Immaculate Conception.  Millions of pilgrims visit Lourdes  and many have been cured in the waters provided for by the Blessed Virgin.  Go to the link below to send your intentions or light a candle or both.  Our Lady of Lourdes pray for us. St. Bernadette pray for us. 

www.lourdes-france.org/en

One of the thinkers who had great influence on Pope Benedict XVI was Fr. Romano Guardini. Below is an excerpt about the challenges we face as Christians in this post-modern world.

From Fr. Romano Guardini’s The End of the Modern World, “The Dissolution of the Modern World”:

The Faith of Christian men will need to take on a new decisiveness. It must strip itself of all secularism, all analogies with the secular world, all flabbiness and eclectic mixtures. Here, it seems to me, we have solid reasons for confidence. The Christian has always found it difficult to come to an understanding of modern attitudes, but we touch an issue here which needs more exact consideration.

*Note: This editorial is for general information and instruction and NOT because these abuses occur in our parish.

A Letter from Our Cathedral Rector

Dear Parishioners,

I want to thank all of you who have recently started receiving Holy Communion on the tongue, not to mention those of you who already had been. This subject has generated a lot of buzz over the past few weeks, the vast majority of which has been overwhelmingly positive. While my main objective in encouraging reception on the tongue is to deepen appreciation for the Eucharist, I also have a pastoral responsibility to eliminate abuses common to receiving in the hand. Such abuses are no doubt unintentional. Nevertheless, what I witness troubles me. And I’m not alone. In 2004, responding to the problem of Eucharistic profanation, the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacrament released an official instruction entitled REDEMPTIONIS SACRAMENTUM: On certain matters to be observed or to be avoided regarding the Most Holy Eucharist.

Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony of Jesus. (emphasis added) Revelation 12:17 The real opposition to things Christian comes not from dogma, but from revolt against the majesty of the revealing God… Fr Romano Guardini, The Faith and Modern Man p.113 1952

St. Maximillian Kolbe was shocked when he saw that “In the years preceding the war, in Rome, the capital of Christianity, the massonic mafia, repeatedly disapproved of by the Pontiffs, was dominating in an ever more brazen manner. (Writings 1328) The brothers with the apron "were celebrating in honor of Giordano Bruno, sporting a black banner with the image of St. Michael the Archangel under the feet of Lucifer and waving their banner in front of the windows of the Vatican”.…which is the center of Christianity. The young cleric immediately began to study their methods and purposes. (Note: Giordano Bruno was a former Dominican friar in the 16th century, who became a heretic and rejected the Catholic Faith.)

A Jesus who agrees with everything and everyone, a Jesus without his holy wrath, without the harshness of truth and true love is not the real Jesus as the Scripture shows but a miserable caricature. A conception of “gospel” in which the seriousness of God’s wrath is absent has nothing to do with the biblical Gospel.
— Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Look Upon Christ

Only a blind man can deny that there's now in the Church great confusion.
— Cardinal Carlo Caffarra

Cardinal John Henry Newman (now St. John Henry Newman) was an inspiration of Germany's greatest heroine in defying Adolf Hitler, scholars have claimed. New documents unearthed by German academics have revealed that the writings of the 19th-century English theologian were a direct influence on Sophie Scholl, who was beheaded for circulating leaflets urging students at Munich University to rise up against Nazi terror.

It’s not uncommon to hear people including unfortunately Catholics who approach morality from a strictly personal viewpoint: “I’ll decide what’s right and wrong for me” Or “The Church can’t tell me what to do. I decide according to my own conscience.” The Irish Conference of Catholic Bishops years ago published a masterful summary of Catholic teaching about telling right from wrong. These principles of Catholic teaching follow below:

One of the premier Catholic thinkers and philosophers in our country is Edward Feser. He recently published an essay called “Perfect World Disorder” where he talks about the meaning of order and disorder and its effects on our country. You can read the whole essay here: postliberalorder.substack.com/p/perfect-world-disorder.  But for purposes here, some bullet points and observations from his essay and Frank Sheed’s Society and Sanity.

Christ entrusted to the Apostles the mission of proclaiming the Kingdom of God and preaching the Gospel of conversion (cf. Mk 16:15; Mt 28:18-20). On the evening of the day of his Resurrection, as the apostolic mission is about to begin, Jesus grants the Apostles, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the authority to reconcile repentant sinners with God and the Church: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn 20:22-23). Through the centuries, the celebration of the Sacrament of Penance has developed in different forms, but it has always kept the same basic structure: it necessarily entails not only the action of a Bishop or priest, who judges and absolves, tends and heals in the name of Christ – but also the actions of the penitent: contrition, confession and satisfaction.

These virtues are called theological because they tie us directly to God.

Before applying a particular examination to my own spiritual life, it is well to first ask myself, "What are the virtues that I know from experience I most need to develop?" The reason why this question should first be answered is that no two of us are equally prone to commit the same kind of sins. Nor are we personally always tempted in the same direction. There is wisdom in first knowing enough about myself, to be able to get to the root of my own moral weakness. Otherwise, I may be ignoring what really needs attention in my spiritual life and concentrating on what is not so necessary for me at this time in my service of God.

Pope Benedict while Cardinal Ratzinger expressed himself on the title of this essay in a book called The Ratzinger Report. He said: It seemed exaggerated to me. So it was difficult for mater to understand the true meaning of another famous expression…the declaration that designated the Virgin Mary as the “conqueror of all heresies.” Now in this confused period where truly every type of heretical aberration seems to be pressing upon the doors of the authentic faith-now I understand that it was not a matter of pious exaggerations, but of truths that today are more valid than ever.

The two meanings of sexuality are procreation and rearing of children and the union of man and woman in lifelong marriage. This is rooted in human nature as God created it and is the teaching of the Church defending the natural order.

A generation ago, American politicians debated about the Cold War and the Vietnam conflict, the problems of poverty and racism, and the challenges of the space program. But back in 1968, did anyone forecast that we would soon be talking about a general breakdown in ordinary family life? Yes, someone did. Some 30 years ago, Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae an encyclical letter which upheld the time-tested Christian teaching that artificial contraception is morally wrong.