Free Republic

That’s the title of an interesting and thought-provoking post by Justin Taylor at The Gospel Coalition. Justin embedded a video interview left on the cutting-room-floor of the forthcoming documentary Hellbound. In the video (embedded below), Justin grapples with a question I often receive — is a God who only saves some of His children a moral monster?I’m not going to pretend to be a theologian and wholeheartedly recommend watching Justin’s response (as well as reading his blog), but I will make an observation or two through the prism of my legal training. First, much of what we believe is right...

Read paragraph #234 of the Catechism and a powerful recent message from Our Lord's mother about the Holy Trinity, given on Trinity Sunday. Look how far we have gone away, we do not have a choice for a Christian leader and so few care. ~ ~ ~ Message of Our Lady - Mary, Full of Grace The Advent of the New World - Words of Our Lady THE TIME OF PREPARATION FOR THE PURIFICATION OF HUMANITY June 3, 2012 - Feast of the Holy Trinity Dear children, today, the day of the Lord, with much love and affection I come...

Featured Term (selected at random):PASSIONTIDE The week before Easter from Passion Palm Sunday to and including the Easter Vigil. It was formerly the last two weeks before Easter Sunday. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Today’s readings feature two “hard sayings,” one on the Eucharist, the other on marriage. One is hard because it defies our sensibilities, the other is hard because it is out of season and politically incorrect.The first hard saying is Jesus’ insistence that the Eucharist is actually his Body and Blood and that we must eat his true Flesh and drink his true Blood as our true food, as our necessary manna to sustain us in our journey through the desert of this life to the Promised Land of Heaven. We have examined this teaching extensively in previous weeks and it...

Don’t Be Afraid To “Cross The Line” For Jesus! Jul 3rd, 2012by Gary Zimak. “There was a preacher once who was saying to the congregation, ‘It is wrong to steal horses.’ The congregation answered, ‘Amen,amen.’ ‘It is wrong to steal cows.’ ‘Amen, Amen!’ Then he said, ‘It is wrong to steal chickens.’ And someone shouted back, ‘Now he is meddling.’ Up until that point, conscience was not touched.” (Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen)I recently wrote a blog post about the need for Catholics to take action against some of President Obama’s policies, mainly his health care plan and the HHS...

Featured Term (selected at random):TEN TRIBES The ten social units of Israel that, after the death of Solomon (933 B.C.), separated from the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin to form the Kingdom of Israel. Those two tribes formed the Kingdom of Judah. When Israel was conquered by the Assyrians in 721 B.C., many of the more prominent Jews were exiled to Assyria, and their descendants either merged with the Gentiles or became part of the later Jewish Diaspora. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Rebecca Julius sent me the following letter and gave me permission to share it with you. Rebecca is a student at an ELCA college. I praise God for Rebecca and pray God will raise up faithful men and women to stand up with her. In first Corinthians 5, Paul writes to God's people concerning sexual immorality, and chastises them for their pride and boasting over something evil. He talks about judgement - not hating or being hypocritical, but keeping those who profess Christ's name accountable to their faith and fellowship. Too often today, Christians that oppose homosexuality and same-sex marriage...

Featured Term (selected at random):ACTUAL INTENTION The intention that a person freely makes to perform a given action, and that exists and influences him at the time he is doing the action, e.g., administering a sacrament. See Also: HABITUAL INTENTION,See Also: INTENTION,See Also: INTERPRETATIVE INTENTION,See Also: VIRTUAL INTENTION All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Perhaps this article by Dr. Michael Milton, the chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary, will be of some benefit to Reformed brothers involved in politics: http://michaelmilton.org/2012/08/17/being-a-pastor-and-speaking-out-in-todays-culture/ Dr. Milton is much more important than me. If "Two Kingdoms" people want to argue that the views of the chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary are not Reformed, that would make for an interesting debate. I have my own problems with RTS, but this article isn't one of them. Key quote: "... if the matter is important enough for me to address in preaching or writing, I believe I am just being pastoral to God’s...

Featured Term (selected at random):PROPAGATION OF THE FAITH An international association for the assistance, by prayers and alms, of Catholic missionaries throughout the world. Founded in 1822 at Lyons, France, by Pauline Jaricot. It is now under the auspices of the Sacred Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (Propagation of the Faith). All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Five prominent Catholic apologists share their methods of spreading the Good News and defending the Faith. Left to right: Austen Ivereigh, Dave Armstrong, Tom Peterson, Patrick Coffin In a meeting last year with Church leaders involved in the New Evangelization, Pope Benedict XVI said, “Today’s world needs people who proclaim and testify that it is Christ who teaches the art of living, the way of true happiness, because he himself is the path of life.” “Dear friends, being evangelizers is not a privilege but a commitment that comes from faith,” the Holy Father continued. “To the question the Lord addresses...

Featured Term (selected at random):IDOL Any creature that is given divine honors. It need not be a figure or representation, and may be a person. In fact, it may be oneself, or some creation of one's own mind or will. An object becomes an idol when it is treated as an end in itself, with no reference to God. (Etym. Latin idolum, image, picture, idol; from Greek eid_lon, phantom, idol.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

– Catholic schools that fail to uphold Church teaching may be stripped of their affiliation with the Church, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) warned last week. “If we are a Catholic school, we should not teach anything contrary to the official teaching of the Church,” Archbishop Jose Palma, the CBCP’s president, told CBCPNews, the conference’s official news service. Stressing that parents who send their children to Catholic schools expect the schools to be faithful to the teachings of the Church, Archbishop Palma, who heads the Cebu archdiocese, said, “They are hoping that their children will learn the...

Featured Term (selected at random):CAPITAL PUNISHMENT The death penalty imposed by the state for the punishment of grave crimes. It is certain from Scripture that civil authorities may lawfully put malefactors to death. Capital punishment was enacted for certain grievous crimes in the Old Law, e.g., blasphemy, sorcery, adultery, and murder. Christian dispensation made no essential change in this respect, as St. Paul expressly says: "The state is there to serve God for your benefit. If you break the law, however, you may well have fear: the bearing of the sword has its significance" (Romans 13:4). Among the errors of...

eatured Term (selected at random):SEGNATURA APOSTOLICA The highest tribunal of the Holy See; its origins go back to Pope Eugenius IV (reigned 1431-47). As reconstituted by Pope Paul VI in 1967, the Segnatura has two areas of competency, namely: 1. over tribunals already established, pilgrimages to Rome, matrimonial cases of nullity, erection of regional and interregional tribunals, handling cases involving concordats between various nations and the Holy See; 2. settling disputes arising from acts of administrative ecclesiastical power as a court of appeal, deciding on administrative controversies sent to it by the congregations of the Roman Curia, and judging on...

dropboxdropboxdropbox

An organization devoted to helping health care professionals who have been falsely accused of medical misconduct declared that “doctors are approximately 9,000 times more likely to accidentally kill someone than gun owners.” Humm, so guns don’t kill people; doctors kill people. (Semmelweis Society International.) It seems some medical doctors have no shame as proved when they took advantage of the mass shooting of six Sikhs at their temple in Wisconsin by a nut case. I always expect shameless politicians to take advantage of any tragedy to grab guns but they will never use such experiences as a platform to demand...

Featured Term (selected at random):SARAI See: SARAH All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

dropbox

The readings from the Feast of the Assumption still echo in my mind. I am particularly mindful of their announcement of victory: I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed One. Rev (12:10) Then comes the end, when [Christ] hands over the Kingdom to his God and Father, when he has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for...