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Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster has announced that Masses in Soho organised for gay people are to end. He also revealed that the church where the Masses took place will be entrusted to the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. The fortnightly “Soho Masses” at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Warwick Street were established by the diocese almost six years ago. They were intended to be “particularly welcoming to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Catholics, their parents, friends and families”. Archbishop Nichols said today that, while the Masses will stop, pastoral care of the community will continue at...

We are approaching, in this series, Pope Leo XIII’s great encyclical Rerum Novarum, on the condition of the working classes. I’ve been maintaining that it is impossible to discuss Catholic Social Teaching without specifying what Catholics understand as a society. I’ve also insisted upon the wise dictum of Saint Thomas, that grace perfects nature, which alone suffices to instruct the attentive Catholic that to sever faith from civic life is artificial and unnatural. Now it’s time to look at two societies which the Pope holds up for our affection and admiration: the Christian family, and the Church. Far from seeing...

Chicago's Cardinal Francis George and his six auxiliary bishops officially entered Illinois' gay marriage fray Tuesday, issuing a letter that urges parishioners to contact state legislators and voice opposition to a legalization bill that could face a vote this week. "Civil laws that establish 'same-sex marriage' create a legal fiction," George and the bishops wrote in a letter sent to priests Tuesday. "The state has no power to create something that nature itself tells us is impossible." State Sen. Heather Steans, a Democrat from Chicago, said she plans to introduce the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act to legalize same-sex...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem A New Journey…The Names of God in The Scriptures The Sun of RighteousnessMalachai 4:2,3 But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed calves. You shall trample the wicked, For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet On the day that I do this," Says the LORD of hosts.

He Withholds No Good Thing Today's Scripture For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. Psalm 84:11, NIV. Today's Word from Joel and Victoria What do you need from the Lord today? Do you need peace, provision or guidance? The Word of God promises that no good thing will He withhold from those who walk blamelessly before Him. Now you may be thinking, “Joel, I’m not perfect. How can I have a blameless walk?” The Good News is that when...

Will You Go Out Without Knowing? "He went out, not knowing where he was going" —Hebrews 11:8 Have you ever “gone out” in this way? If so, there is no logical answer possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the most difficult questions to answer in Christian work is, “What do you expect to do?”You don’t know what you are going to do. The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continually examine your attitude toward God to see if you are willing to “go out” in every area of...

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson says he chafed for several years at being branded the first openly gay bishop of the Anglican Church until he realized that he was wasting a pulpit from which he could advocate for equality. "I'd been given this really remarkable opportunity and it would be selfish of me not to be the best steward of that opportunity," he recently told The Associated Press in an interview as he prepares to retire in January. "We went from my consecration, which set off this international controversy, to nine years later seeing gay, lesbian and transgender congregants...

January 2, 2013 Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church     Reading 1 1 Jn 2:22-28 Beloved:Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist. Anyone who denies the Son does not have the Father,but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well. Let what you heard from the beginning remain in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you,then you will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is the...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTyQr-U_bJE&list=UUM6L02IavEXd8IxrZF75dMw&index=3

The term “social justice”… is the key term and concept of Catholic social teaching … with all the other aspects of the Church’s social doctrine—the principle of subsidiarity, the just wage or the right to private property—are related to, and rely, on the existence of social justice. The term “social justice,” though common enough today, is little understood by most of those who use it—whether they consider themselves friends and practitioners of social justice, or they regard it as a suspect term of probably socialist origin. But the term does have a precise meaning. That meaning and the significance of...

  Mariaphobic Response Syndrome: Part TwoIn my last column, I remarked that the surprise for many Evangelical converts to the Catholic faith is how much smaller Mary is to the Catholic than she is to the Evangelical. For the Evangelical, "the Catholic Mary" looms large as a kind of ur-goddess. The fear that pre-occupies the Evangelical imagination is that, say what Catholics will, once the convert is safely inside the Church, the priest will produce the brain chip implant and you will be reprogrammed to adore and worship Mary by the Vatican's Mind Control Laser Platform in Geosynchronous Orbit above...

 Mariaphobic Response Syndrome: Part OneRecently, I participated in an online conversation about the Blessed Virgin. As an Evangelical convert to the Catholic faith, I can empathize with the deep fears many Evangelicals have about Mary. It's a terror that runs way down into the guts and marrow of many Evangelicals. It's a deep, unreasoning and nameless fear that does not lose any of its power even when every so-called "basis" for the fear is debunked. And like many irrational fears, it has the odd quality of distracting us from reality and clear thinking.To illustrate what I mean, let me sum...

Featured Term (selected at random):TRICLINIUM Originally the dining room of a Roman house which provided for nine persons to recline three each on three seats. Used of the refectory of a monastery. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Elizabeth, a 13-year-old British girl, had a favorite poem, which was published in a small book, titled “The Desert,” which was authored by a hardly-known poetess, Minnie Louise Haskins. “Lilebet,” as the young lass was affectionate known by her family, so loved the poem that she shared it with her father. And he, in turn, shared it with all of Britannia. You see Lilibet’s dad was King George VI. And in a 1939 broadcast, marking the holiday season, he read aloud the poem his daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth II, entrusted to him. Haskins’ Spirit-filled prose resonated with the British...

In early December the independent and very liberal National Catholic Reporter weekly newspaper published a long, carefully reasoned editorial declaring that “The Ordination of Women Would Correct an Injustice.” If the Church were deliberately perpetrating an injustice in the matter of ordination, of course, it would be a serious matter. The NCR editorial was a response to the earlier “excommunication, dismissal, and laicization” of Roy Bourgeois, who as a Maryknoll priest had long and defiantly—and in spite of numerous warnings—engaged in what was officially described as a “campaign against the teachings of the Catholic Church”—he repeatedly and obstinately engaged in...

(CNN)– The billionaire founder of Domino's Pizza has won a temporary court victory, with a federal judge blocking enforcement of part of the health care reform bill requiring most employers to provide a range of contraception and reproductive health services. Some business owners and their staff see that as a violation of their religious rights. Federal Judge Lawrence Zatkoff issued his order late Sunday, saying Thomas Monaghan had "shown that abiding by the mandate will substantially burden his exercise of religion." "The (federal) government has failed to satisfy its burden of showing that its actions were narrowly tailored to serve...

I clicked on my Centro Televisivo Vaticano player for 1st Vespers from St. Peter’s Basilica. The Holy Father presides.The chant by the schola is improving. They are singing alternately with the congregation. From what I can tell, quite a few of the congregation are singing.People will get used to singing at these events until it is again normal.It is fun to spot people I know in the crowd. Te Deum! 

Photo: Diane M. Korzeniewski, OCDSWe at the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny are honored to sponsor the visit to Brooklyn, Norwalk and New York of his Excellency Athanasius Schneider ORC, auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan and titular of Celerina. Bishop Schneider is a noted author and speaker. His best known work is Dominus Est – It is the Lord! – a defense of the Traditional discipline of receiving communion.On Saturday, January 5, at 2 PM, Bishop Schneider will celebrate a pontifical liturgy at the Cathedral of St. James in Brooklyn. Afterwards, Bishop Schneider will give a lecture on “Holy...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem A New Journey…The Names of God in The Scriptures Hiding PlacePsalm 32:7 You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah