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For the 35th year in a row, the St. Louis Archdiocese this Sunday will hold a special mass honoring the life and works of Martin Luther King Jr. And for the third year in a row, the blog St. Louis Catholic is bitching about it. Why? Because, per St. Louis Catholic, "it is grossly inappropriate to celebrate a Mass 'in honor' of a non-Catholic. Period." The St. Louis Catholic notes that while MLK Jr. did accomplish "wonderful things" in the field of civil rights, there were "certain sinful behaviors in his personal life" that shouldn't be overlooked. Moreover, how can...

Church officials say 87,000 Austrian Catholics left in 2010. That's a 64 per cent increase over the 53,000 who formally had their names struck from church registries in 2009. [SNIP] Austrian law forces residents registered as followers of most recognized religions to pay a small percentage of their earnings toward support of their churches or temples.

What did Jesus (not) say about... His mother, Mary? "You know what you lot's problem is? You just don't think enough about My mother." I've often had two thoughts about Mary: I dearly hope that her heavenly bliss has not been spoiled by the knowledge of how monstrously men came to pervert her significance and place in relation to her Son. And... In that view, I've thought that my article on Mary in a Bible dictionary might read, "The mother of Jesus. A pivotal yet minor figure in the New Testament, mentioned by name in only four books." On the...

In the sermon descriptively entitled, “That Hearing and Keeping the Word of God Renders a Person More Blessed Than Any Other Privilege That Ever God Bestowed on Any of the Children of Men,” Jonathan Edwards writes: The hearing and keeping the word of God brings the happiness of a spiritual union and communion with God. ‘Tis a greater blessedness to have spiritual communion with God and to have a saving intercourse with him by the instances of his Spirit and by the exercise of true devotion than it is to converse with God externally, to see the visible representation and...

Roman Catholics constantly attack the Protestant distinction between the visible and invisible aspects of the church. For a classic statement of the Protestant distinction, see chap. 5 of the Westminster Confession. Bryan Cross has coined the phrase “Ecclesial “Docetism” (doesn’t that just send shivers up your spine!) to designate this altogether appalling distinction. But what’s ironic about all this is that Catholic epologists like Bryan have a conception of The One True Church® which is at least as dualistic or “Docetic” as the Protestant conception (or their caricature of the Protestant conception). Catholic apologists constantly alternate between two One Church(es)....

............The Historical Evidence The Roman Catholic Church claims that this doctrine, like all of their other distinctive doctrines, has the “unanimous consent of the Fathers” (contra unanimen consensum Patrum).[10] They argue that what they teach concerning the Immaculate Conception has been the historic belief of the Christian Church since the very beginning. As Ineffabilis Deus puts it, The Catholic Church, directed by the Holy Spirit of God… has ever held as divinely revealed and as contained in the deposit of heavenly revelation this doctrine concerning the original innocence of the august Virgin… and thus has never ceased to explain, to...

1 Timothy 2:5 ...one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. There is NO debate here: God's Word clearly points out who the mediator is between God and men: i.e., Christ Jesus If you believe in God's Word, who is Christ Jesus: The Word of God, then 1 Timothy 2:5 will be easily be understood as Christ the mediator.

22 July 2010 NY Times, Boston Globe and THEIR “Zero Tolerance” rule CATEGORY: Biased Media Coverage — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 12:32 pm From The Catholic League with my emphases and comments: BOSTON GLOBE & NYT LACK "ZERO TOLERANCE" RULE Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows: Yesterday, a Boston Globe editorial unfavorably compared the Vatican to the American bishops, saying that "Until the church adopts a zero-tolerance policy, justice cannot be served…." On July 9 and July 17, the New York Times, which owns the Globe, ran editorials voicing the same criticism. The Times editorial of July 17...

Quixicated emphases in color and/or bold appear below within some paragraphs. The headings in bold are in the original. Some extra paragraphing also injected.].... Every time I hear someone claim to be an “ex-Catholic”, a sense of sadness comes over me.  In just about every case, people leave the Catholic Faith due to a lack of understanding.  What unmitigated balderdash! What a cop-out! What a brazen distortion of reality! Far from "just about every case," probably a major chunk of such folks were heavily well trained in the hallowed halls of the Institution. Many were instructors--even Catechism instructors for...

Are the Belgian judicial authorities gunning for Godfried? It looks like Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the popular grandfatherly Catholic prelate who stepped down in January as archbishop of Brussels-Mechelen after three decades, is the main target of the incredible “tomb raider” sweeps that shocked the Church last Thursday. The police who swooped down on the diocesan headquarters in Mechelen, Danneels’s own apartment nearby and the offices of the Church commission on abuse in Leuven did not suspect the cardinal of abuse himself. But it seems the investigating magistrate behind the raid is convinced that Danneels hushed up cases during his long...

VATICAN CITY (AP) - The pope on Sunday called the raids carried out by Belgian police investigating priestly sex abuse "deplorable" and asserted the right of the Catholic Church to investigate abuse alongside civil law enforcement authorities. Pope Benedict XVI issued a message Sunday to the head of the Belgian bishops' conference, Monsignor Andre-Joseph Leonard, expressing his solidarity with all Belgian bishops "in this sad moment." The June 24 raids targeted the home and office of a retired archbishop and also the graves of two prelates. The Vatican has slowly ratcheted up its criticism of the searches...

Queen of controversy Lady Gaga is making headlines for yet another racy video featuring highly sexualized material combined with religious imagery. But while some argue Gaga has crossed the line between edgy and tasteless, her use of distorted Catholic imagery speaks to a rising trend in Hollywood. The pop princess, real name Stefani Germanotta, recently released the music video for her single “Alejandro” and has sparked quite the outcry given its saturation of controversial imagery, including her swallowing rosary beads in a latex-version of a nun’s habit, holding the crucifix in front of her crotch and simulating group sex with...

Catholic scholar George Weigel. Washington D.C., Jun 8, 2010 / 06:10 am (CNA).- Noted Catholic scholar and commentator George Weigel has reacted to strongly to Time Magazine's recent 10-page spread criticizing the Catholic Church as “nonsense,” and has offered counter points to several accusations the magazine raised.In a National Review Online article last week, Weigel addressed Time's June 7 cover story titled, “Why Being Pope Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry,” and responded to what he believes to be multiple erroneous claims that the feature story presented. According to the scholar, Time printed “significant misunderstandings” about the Catholic...

GIVE IT ALL TO . . . ? . . . . --A Research Thread-- . . . . 7 “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. 8 Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! 9 Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. 10 May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. 11...

Perhaps the term "bigot" is overused these days, particularly by the libertine left when referring to those of us who oppose the homosexual lobby, which in turn promotes the homosexual lifestyle and same-sex "marriage" and denigrates the traditional family unit. (The homosexual lobby often supports the abortion industry as well.) Yet bigotry does exist — and we orthodox Christians bear the brunt of it. Consider: Abortion and homosexual activists frequently exhibit bigotry toward us. Vicious secular humanists such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins frequently exhibit bigotry toward us. And then there's the bigotry exhibited by some Protestants toward Catholics...

Roseanne: "The pedo priests are trying to cover up the number of LITTLE GIRLS they have molested too, as if that doesn't matter as much as what happens to boys. Trust me, the number of girls raped and molested by priests is at least double the boys. They are trying to cover it all up so that they can end up purging gay priests, and laying the blame on them. The fact is pedos like to rape both boys and girls, and only a small number of pedos are exclusively into male children. I am starting to think that any...

Rabbi Jack Bemporad. Carlstadt, N.J., Apr 7, 2010 / 03:05 am (CNA).- In an interview with CNA on Tuesday, Rabbi Jack Bemporad commented on the recent media onslaught concerning the Holy Father, calling the coverage “one dimensional” and saying that the depiction of the Church in the media has not been given “proper context.”Rabbi Bemporad, director of the New Jersey-based Center for Interreligious Understanding, was recently quoted as a lone voice in an Associated Press article in which other Jewish leaders denounced the papal preacher, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, for his comments likening the media depiction of the Church to...

Nurse Shirley Chaplin. London, England, Apr 7, 2010 / 12:46 am (CNA).- A Christian nurse in Britain lost a discrimination claim on Tuesday after fighting a policy that barred her from wearing her crucifix to work.Shirley Chaplin, 54, was told by the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust Hospital last year that the crucifix she has worn for almost 40 years on the job without incident needed to be removed for “health and safety reasons.” Chaplin refused to comply and consequently took the hospital to an Employment Tribunal which ruled on Tuesday that Chaplin is not facing discrimination, as...

Bill McGurn New York City, N.Y., Apr 7, 2010 / 06:31 am (CNA).- Claims that Pope Benedict declined to defrock a Milwaukee priest who molested deaf students rely upon documents supplied by a leading lawyer in lawsuits against the Catholic Church, Bill McGurn reports. He charges that the New York Times did not sufficiently disclose this connection and advises more “journalistic skepticism” about the narrative of an attorney who stands to make millions. The attorney in question has charged that Pope Benedict is the head of an “international conspiracy” to cover up crimes and evade the law.In a Tuesday...

On her April 5 satellite radio show, Rosie O'Donnell took her anti-Catholicism to a new level by likening the Catholic Church to the Jonestown cult. As Brian Maloney of The Radio Equalizer put it, "in Rosie's twisted world, there's really no distinction to be made between the Pope and Jim Jones, murderous cult leader responsible for the deaths of more than 900 people in the Guyanese jungle." O'Donnell certainly has a past of Catholic/Christian bashing. On the April 19, 2007 edition of ABC's The View, she expressed her concern that having five Catholic Supreme Court justice somehow violated the separation...