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Hello everybody. The Supreme Court ruling in favor of same sex marriage occurred June 26, 2015. I do not agree with it. I have to say, the last few days, I have been kinda bummed out about it. I have thought and prayed much about it. Why is that? Oh, the bigoted, hateful guy didn't get his way? He hates gay people so much, he's sad that the Court didn't rule his way. Is that it? Easy. Let's all stop being armchair psychologists, alright. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ,...

Having read scores of essays, op-eds, and blog posts about the Obergefell decision, I keep coming back to this outstanding piece by Russell Moore, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s commission on ethics and religious liberty. Moore drives home the point that marriage will endure, and the Church will endure, because both are established by God, who is not subject to the velleities of Supreme Court justices. That does not mean the cultural change wrought by last week’s decision will be painless, Moore warns; on the contrary. But in the end, “the Gospel doesn’t need ‘family values’ to flourish."...

Liberals and conservatives have compared the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision with Obergefell v. Hodges. Both are landmark rulings, in which the high court takes sides in a fractious national debate that was far from decided in the minds of many voters. But Bill McGurn, the Wall Street Journal columnist, takes issue with that assessment, at least as it involves the likely impact of the court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage. McGurn does not dispute the grave immorality of legal abortion. Rather he argues that the weak, ambiguous language on free-exercise protections in Justice Kennedy's majority opinion in...

The Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on Friday raises troubling questions about the future of religious freedom in the United States. Most ominously, Justice Kennedy writing for the court seemed to circumscribe the freedom of religion as no longer the exercise of one’s faith, but merely the profession of it. All four of the dissenting justices wrote vehemently about the danger that this decision presents to the entire project of ordered liberty. Meanwhile, progressive organizations have made it clear that religious freedom is their next target now that same-sex marriage is the law of the land.Still, as we...

You may have heard about the highly offensive move of the Milwaukee Art Museum.  They displayed a “portrait” of Benedict XVI made from colored condoms.  That’s just plain nasty.The Vicar General of the Diocese of Madison, Msgr. James Bartylla, wrote a letter to the Museum.  He shared it with me.  I have his permission to share it with you.  He also wrote: [F]eel free to tell you readers that I encourage them to write to the Milwaukee Art Museum (mam@mam.org) to communicate their displeasure, with civility and respect (and with appropriate vigor and articulation), at this “artistic” display of such...

In Times Like These – A Scriptural Guide for Troubled and Confused Times Msgr. Charles Pope • June 29, 2015 • There’s an old hymn that says, “In times like these, you need a Savior, in times like these, you need an anchor. Be very sure, be very sure, Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock.” And indeed, there are very few faithful Catholics who are not astonished and dismayed at the rapidity of decline into confusion (sexual and otherwise) of a culture we once described as Judeo-Christian. Whatever our sectarian differences of the past (and honestly they were significant and...

The U.S. Supreme Court has just engaged in its latest unconstitutional exercise of raw judicial power and surely its most extravagant attempt to forcibly remake American culture since the 1973 Roe v. Wade/Doe v. Bolton abortion cases. The Obergefell v. Hodges decision on same-sex “marriage” was based on the notion of “substantive due process”—which essentially has meant rights that the Court, following the thinking of elite opinion-makers and organized interest groups, has read into the Constitution. While the first expression of substantive due process concerned a convoluted absolutist notion of property rights in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,...

Interview with the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch, Aphrem II: martyrdom is not a human sacrifice offered to God in order to obtain his favour. This is why it is blasphemous to call suicide bombers “martyrs”When we look at martyrs we see that the Church is not just one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Throughout its journey through history the Church has also been a suffering Church.” According to the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, martyrdom reveals an essential element of the nature of the Church. A connotation that could be added to those professed in the...

Chicago, Ill., Jun 28, 2015 / 06:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Seven monks of St. Procopius Abbey in Lisle, Ill. have filed suit against the leadership of Illinois’ Benedictine University, saying that the leadership has denied them their rights to help govern the university their abbey founded. Abbot Austin Murphy, who is also the university’s chancellor and a member of the board of trustees, said the dispute “goes to the very heart of maintaining the Catholic identity” of the university because of the monks’ oversight role in ensuring “that the university remains Catholic and Benedictine.” “They are surely not the only...

Nearly 5,000 people have signed a petition protesting a proposal to turn a Catholic hospital chapel into a Muslim prayer room.

June 30, 2015 Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Gn 19:15-29 As dawn was breaking, the angels urged Lot on, saying, “On your way! Take with you your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of Sodom.” When he hesitated, the men, by the LORD’s mercy, seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters and led them to safety outside the city. As soon as they had been brought outside, he was told: “Flee for your life! Don’t look back or...

Editor’s note: This was originally given in Rome May 8, 2015 during the Rome Life Forum.ROME, June 24, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- In this presentation I intend to give a brief overview of events before and during the Extraordinary Synod held in October 2014. On March 17 2013, four days after his election as Pope and during his first Angelus address in St Peter’s Square, the Holy Father drew attention to a recently published book by Walter Cardinal Kasper and strongly praised it. He said: In these days I have been able to read a book by a Cardinal – Cardinal...

Since the promulgation of Obergefell v. Hodges, the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the definition of State-defined marriage, a growing number of U.S. Catholic prelates have been issuing their own statements about this abominable decision by five justices of the Court (two of whom are baptized Catholics, including the majority opinion's author himself). Some forthrightly condemned the decision's injustice and immorality. Others restated Catholic doctrine clearly, but without the forcefulness clearly warranted by the situation. Others offered decidedly lukewarm, limp-wristed statements that repeated a minimum of orthodox doctrine in as inoffensive and unconvincing a manner...

The ink was barely dry on last week’s Supreme Court ruling when Father James Martin, SJ, began scolding Catholics who were, from his decorous perspective, too strident in denouncing the decision. ”No issue brings out so much hatred from so many Catholics as homosexuality,” Father Martin told his Facebook followers. He repeated the same message several times throughout the day, warning commenters that they must not indulge in “homophobia” and suggesting that someone who questioned whether we were all expected to sing “Kumbaya” was illustrating his point. So is sarcasm now prima facie evidence of hatred? In my own surfing...

“When we look at martyrs we see that the Church is not just one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Throughout its journey through history the Church has also been a suffering Church.” According to the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, martyrdom reveals an essential element of the nature of the Church. A connotation that could be added to those professed in the Creed and which always accompanies those who follow in Christ’s footsteps, whatever life throws at them, acting as his disciples. This is a distinctive trait which can be clearly seen now in many...

Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay in July A Bolivian government official has claimed that Pope Francis has said he would like to chew coca leaves when he visits the country next month.According to Reuters, Culture Minister Marko Machicao, speaking on state television and radio on Sunday, said that the Pontiff asked to be provided with coca leaves upon his arrival in Bolivia in July in order to help combat altitude sickness.“We offered (the Pope) coca tea or something for the altitude,” said Machicao. “He has specifically requested that he wants to chew coca, so we...

Joseph Edward StricklandBy the Grace of God and the Apostolic SeeBishop of TylerTO THE PRIESTS, DEACONS, CONSECRATED RELIGIOUS AND CATHOLIC FAITHFUL OF THE DIOCESE OF TYLER, OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF OTHER FAITH TRADITIONS, AND ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL IN THE THIRTY-THREE COUNTIES OF NORTHEAST TEXAS THAT MAKE UP THE DIOCESE OF TYLER:On the morning of June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a 5-4 decision establishing the legal right of two individuals of the same sex to legally marry in all 50 states. By doing so, the Court has acted in contradiction to...

An historic meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church is "getting closer every day," a senior Orthodox prelate said in an interview published on Sunday. The unprecedented meeting would be a significant step towards healing the 1,000-year-old rift between the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity, which split in the Great Schism of 1054. "Now such a meeting is getting closer every day but it must be well prepared," Metropolitan Hilarion, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church's foreign relations department, said in an interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper. He said the meeting...

German media are reporting on a fiftieth anniversary panel discussion of Nostra aetate, the “Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions” of the Second Vatican Council, organized by the German Catholic bishops’ conference. It was meant to be a respectful look back and a celebration of good relationship between Christians and Jews in Germany. But it turned out differently than planned. Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews, unexpectedly called for the revocation of the newly formulated Good Friday petition for the Jews which Pope Benedict wrote in 2008. Even more unexpected, Bishop Heinrich...

Fix Me, Jesus; Fix Me – Three Reasons Why Even Our Spiritual Life Needs Fixing Msgr. Charles Pope • June 28, 2015 • When I was a good bit younger, in college actually, I had to take a few economics and marketing courses. At that time I thought to myself, “God has a bad marketing department,” since things like Scripture and prayer were often so difficult to understand and do. God seemed to insist that we pray, but everyone I ever asked admitted that prayer was difficult. And while many had reasons they offered as to why prayer was difficult, I still wondered...