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Pope Francis has been a breath of fresh air for many Catholics seeking greater liberty and a growing concern for conservative Christians who take issue with his comments about homosexuality and other cultural issues. But the pontiff's latest statement is sparking an uproar from believers around the world. Pope Francis sent a tweet Tuesday that absolutely violates the truth of Scripture: "The Christian who does not feel that the Virgin Mary is his or her mother is an orphan," Pope Francis tweeted. As of the time I wrote this column it had been retweeted about 4,000 times and many of...

Featured Term (selected at random:FATALISM Belief in the inevitability of all events, whether caused or uncaused. It differs from fate in that it provides for the inevitability on the basis of cause and effect relationship. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: Whoever lives beneath the cross of Jesus, and has discerned in the cross of Jesus the utter ungodliness of all people and of their own hearts, will find there is no sin that can ever be unfamiliar. Whoever has once been appalled by the horror of their own sin, which nailed Jesus to the cross, will no longer be appalled by even the most serious sin of another Christian; rather they know the human heart from the cross of Jesus. Such persons know how totally lost is the human heart in sin and weakness, how it...

Antwerp Bishop Johan Bonny has published a long letter on the upcoming Synod of Bishops urging the assembly to have the courage to bring the Church’s moral teachings more in line with the lived experience of the laity. "The Church must step away from its defensive, antithetical stance and seek anew the path of dialogue" on moral issues, he wrote in the 22-page letter posted on his diocese’s website in five languages. More Read the letter in full "It must dare once again to start with 'life' and then move on to 'teaching'. The Church has nothing to lose in...

THE “D’ESCOTO CASE” AND THOSE WHO WANT TO WIPE OUT THE WORK DONE BY JOHN PAUL II AND BENEDICT XVI Antonio Socci Libero September 7, 2014 In the era of Bergoglio, the Vatican has practically rehabilitated Liberation Theology, which came into existence in the 1960s and has caused untold disasters, mainly in Latin America, by fostering the Church’s subordination to Marxist thought. Over the past months there have been startling occurrences, such as the “landing” of Gustavo Gutierrez (“the father” of Liberation Theology) in the Vatican itself. A year ago, “L'Osservatore Romano” published large extracts from one of his books...

Featured Term (selected at random:MIRACLE OF GRACE A sudden and unexpected conversion form ignorance to faith, from doubt to certainty, from sinfulness to holiness. It is not due to ordinary causes but to God's particular special and unmerited grace. It is an effect of divine intervention beyond the ordinary working of Providence. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Featured Term (selected at random:SACRAMENTAL DISPOSITIONS Condition of the soul required for the valid and/or fruitful reception of the sacraments. The dispositions differ between minister and recipient. In the minister is required merely the faculty of conferring a given sacrament, and the willingness to carry out the intention of Christ or the Church, even just to satisfy another person's wish or desire. In the recipient who has the use of reason is required merely that no obstacles be placed in the way. Such obstacles are a lack of faith or sanctifying grace or of a right intention. All items in...

Movie : KJB: The Book That Changed the World Of all places, Hulu has this well done, interesting and edifying documentary (with ads) with actor John Rhys-Davies. Describes King James 1 upbringing and and political events, including the Gunpowder Plot and shows historical background and aspects which led to this translation. 1:33 long. Worth watching. Has ads (choose priceline ones)

Featured Term (selected at random:LEGEND OF THE SAINTS  Popular biographical stories of the saints. Not entirely fictitious, they possess a substratum of truth, usually under considerable embellishment. The Church has consistently sought to sift this substratum of truth from the legendary additions, as in the Breviary reform under St. Pius X and the total revision of the Liturgy of the Hours by pope Paul VI, according to the directives of the Constitution on the Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

This is the stupid apostate world we live in. The organizer of the St. Patrick's day parade who has include a gay identity group and is currently accepting applications from pro-abortion groups said this ridiculous thing. O’Reilly told CNA said the parade policy was changed due to Catholic teaching “about showing compassion and understanding to groups that don’t agree with all the Church’s teachings.” “I think, in part, the tone is changing within the Church, and I think Pope Francis has spoken about this, and Cardinal Dolan did last night,” O’Reilly said. “There is a sense among many Catholic leaders...

INDIANAPOLIS — A lawsuit by a former Roman Catholic schoolteacher who says she was fired by a northern Indiana diocese for trying to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization can proceed to trial, a federal judge has ruled.In a mixed ruling this week, US District Judge Robert L. Miller Jr. in Fort Wayne said Emily Herx deserves a chance to prove her claim that her termination by the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend was based on sex discrimination.Herx, of Hoagland, Ind., sued the diocese in April 2012, alleging that her firing violated the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with...

Washington, D.C., September 05, 2014 (Zenit.org) | 3257 hits Below is a statement released Thursday by the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, regarding the next legal battles facing the diocese regarding the state supreme court's attempt to mandate breaking the seal of confession. The diocese reports that now the "Louisiana Supreme Court has directed the trial court to hold an evidentiary hearing and then to take the unprecedented step of deciding whether or not a sacrament actually took place."It notes that "civil courts are entirely without jurisdiction to decide what constitutes a sacrament in the Catholic Church."A statement on the case from July...

Featured Term (selected at random:REQUIEM A Mass celebrated for the dead. The name is derived from the firsrt word of the opening hymn in the Latin Rite Mass prior to the revision since the Second Vatican Council. The invocation said, "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine" (Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord). (Etym. Latin requies, rest after labor, relaxation.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

How did Cardinal Dolan ever acquire a reputation for seeming orthodoxy? He’s about as orthodox a Catholic as Katherine Jefferts Schori. And it seems if there is any crowd to be played to, any group to be appeased (save, of course, for faithful Catholics), Dolan is ever ready to surrender to the demands of the world, no matter how craven he appears, no matter how great the scandal he gives, in so doing. Of course, his short little Archie Bunker clone attack dog will always be there yipping at his heels a chorus of unwavering if incoherent support. Pathetic: The...

Featured Term (selected at random:EVANGELICA TESTIFICATIO Apostolic exhortation of Pope Paul VI on religious life. The most important single document on the subject since the Second Vatican Council. It recognizes that some are calling into question the very existence of religious life. Its main focus is to urge religious to be faithful to the charism of their respective founders and to cultivate a strong spiritual life, whose center is the Eucharist (June 29, 1971). All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

It is a disgraceful and a dangerous thing for an unbeliever to hear a Christian, presumably explaining science, nutrition, and medicine, talking nonsense on these topics. Many non-Christians are well-versed in Natural knowledge, so they can detect vast ignorance in such a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The danger is obvious-- the failure to conform interpretation to demonstrated knowledge opens the interpreter, and by extension, Christianity as a whole, to ridicule for being unlearned. All right, so St. Augustine didn't say "science, nutrition, and medicine," he said "the meaning of scripture." But other than that, he's describing a good...

Painting the Catholic Church as "out of touch" is like shooting fish in a barrel, what with the funny hats and gilded churches. And nothing makes it easier than the Church's stance against contraception. Many people, (including our editor) are wondering why the Catholic Church doesn't just ditch this requirement. They note that most Catholics ignore it, and that most everyone else finds it divisive, or "out-dated." C'mon! It's the 21st century, they say! Don't they SEE that it's STUPID, they scream. Here's the thing, though: the Catholic Church is the world's biggest and oldest organization. It has buried all...

Featured Term (selected at random:PENETRABILITY The capacity of a body to coincide with another body in such a way that both occupy the same space at the same time. Naturally this is impossible for ponderable matter, but is one of the qualities of a glorified body as witnessed after Christ's resurrection from the dead (John 20:19). All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

It seems that not a day passes without Pope Francis’s off-the-cuff homilies and remarks producing a theological embarrassment: Mary “perhaps” felt tricked by God when she saw Her son on the Cross (“Lies! I was cheated!”), Christ merely pretended to be angry with this disciples (“Jesus does not become angry, but pretends to”), Matthew clung to his money when Christ called him (“No, not me! No, this money is mine!”), rather than immediately heeding Our Lord’s call as the Gospel records (Matt. 9:9-13)­—and so on and so forth, day in and day out. Just yesterday Francis, resuming his morning Masses...

A little six-year-old Protestant boy had often heard his Catholic companions reciting the prayer “Hail Mary.” He liked it so much that he copied it, memorized it and would recite it every day. “Look, Mommy, what a beautiful prayer,” he said to his mother one day. “Never again say it,” answered the mother. “It is a superstitious prayer of Catholics who adore idols and think Mary a goddess. After all, she is a woman like any other. Come on, take this Bible and read it. It contains everything that we are bound to do and have to do.” From that...