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Mortal or Not, Sin Always Causes Harm Msgr. Charles Pope • July 23, 2018 • For several generations, the Church has used a kind of shorthand in referring to mortal sin, for example, “X is a mortal sin.” The problem is that this general statement is an oversimplification. In order for the individual committing a particular act to be guilty of a mortal sin, three conditions are necessary: grave matter (the act must be intrinsically evil), full knowledge, and deliberate consent (CCC 1857).It is important to emphasize that even if a particular sinful act does not rise to the...

A Brief Reflection on Mortal Sin Msgr. Charles Pope • July 18, 2018 • The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches,[M]ortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him. In mortal sin the will sets itself upon something that is of its nature incompatible with the charity that orients man toward his ultimate end. As such, the sin is mortal by its very object whether it contradicts the love of God,...

Speaking of his faith, Mr. Carter said in his career as a politician he never ran across "any really serious conflicts between my political obligations and my religious faith." Asked about gay marriage, he replied that it is "no problem with me. I think everybody should have a right to get married regardless of their sex." Regarding whether he thinks Jesus would approve of gay marriage, Carter replied "I don’t have any verse in Scripture," but added, "I believe that Jesus would approve of gay marriage." "I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere...

IV. Sin Boldly: A Detailed Analysis The Letter to Melanchthon ends with the famous “sin boldly” statement: “If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly,  but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here [in this world]  we have to sin. This life is...

Spain laid claim to the Island of Jamaica from the time Columbus landed there in 1494. In 1503, Columbus was shipwrecked there for a year. In 1655, Jamaica was captured by British Admiral William Penn, the father of Pennsylvania’s founder. Jamaica was too far from England to defend, so the inhabitants turned to privateers, freebooters, buccaneers and pirates for protection. The likes of Blackbeard, Calico Jack and Captain Henry Morgan, namesake of the rum, attacked Spanish ships and settlements, then returned to Jamaica with their booty. The skull pirate flag, called the “Jolly Roger,” was adapted from the flag of...

Following the most recent school mass shooting – this time in Santa Fe, Texas, where 10 students and teachers were killed and 10 were wounded Friday – family members, friends and investigators find themselves searching for illusive answers. Why did this happen? How do you make sense of such a senseless tragedy? Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pointed out that unlike other recent mass shootings, “there were not those types of warning signs. The red-flag warnings were either nonexistent or very imperceptible.” The accused shooter’s parents said the media reports of the shooting seemed “incompatible with the boy (they) love,” and...

Two weeks ago we endured the third anniversary of the death of my beloved pastor and father-in-law, David Fitzpatrick. David was killed by an impaired (alcohol and drugs), hit-and-run motorist. David’s killer pleaded guilty to first degree vehicular homicide, among other charges, and is now spending many years in prison. … I recall vividly the gut-wrenching moments on May 4, 2015 when we knew there was a bicyclist down in the area where my father-in-law used to ride. The calls to David’s cell phone that would never be answered; the rushed and lonely drive from my job to the crash...

Pope Francis has reportedly told a gay man that "God made you that way and loves you as you are," apparently pushing the pontiff's acceptance of homosexuality to a new level. Francis made the comments to Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean victim of priestly sexual abuse who recently spent days with the pope at the Vatican to discuss his ordeal as the pontiff moves to tackle decades of coverups and ostracism of victims in the Chilean church, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais. Cruz was quoted as having discussed his homosexuality with Francis. "He told me: 'Juan Carlos, I...

A survivor of clerical sexual abuse has said Pope Francis told him that God had made him gay and loved him, in arguably the most strikingly accepting comments about homosexuality to be uttered by the leader of the Roman Catholic church. Juan Carlos Cruz, who spoke privately with the pope two weeks ago about the abuse he suffered at the hands of one of Chile’s most notorious paedophiles, said the issue of his sexuality had arisen because some of the Latin American country’s bishops had sought to depict him as a pervert as they accused him of lying about the...

A famous Argentinian nun has said that Pope Francis told her that several forms of contraception could be permissible to stop those women who want to avoid pregnancy from choosing abortion. It wasn’t long ago that the idea of a pope promoting contraceptive use — an intrinsic evil, condemned infallibly by the Church — would have seemed impossible. But in recent years, we have seen multiple indications that for Francis, the existing boundaries on moral teaching are far too rigid for his liking.In 2016, in the wake of a scare that the Zika virus was causing serious birth defects in the babies...

In a story distributed for Good Friday, the Associated Press claims Mary Magdalene was a biblical “Me Too” figure who was “long maligned” by the West.The story, filed from Israel with the headline “Long-maligned Mary Magdalene now seen as stalwart disciple,” asserts that Magdalene was not a reformed prostitute but rather a “strong, independent woman” who supported Jesus.The article also conflates the virtues of Magdalene’s figure with the “Me Too” movement. This latest iteration of U.S. feminism uses the hashtag #MeToo on Twitter and other social media to publicize the prevalence of sexual assault and harassment in the wake of...

The newly-installed bishop of the Portuguese city of Porto, Manuel Linda, appeared to reject the Catholic doctrine that divorced and invalidly remarried Catholics should abstain from sexual intercourse. He stated in a recent interview, “I’m convinced that it isn’t really a family” if they do so.  “I know that there are some remarried couples, who were previously in a canonical marriage and who later reconstructed their lives and are in another marriage that is not canonical, who for motives of faith and of interior conviction and of conscience, in fact live in sexual abstinence. But we have to ask ourselves:...

March 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A French priest has announced in a televised interview that Pope Francis approved of his blessing of homosexual couples. The news comes in the wake of silence from the Pope at the suggestion of one of his main advisor Cardinals that spiritual encouragement of homosexual couples should be undertaken and blessings for homosexual couples should not be ruled out. Father Daniel Duigou, priest of the Church Saint-Merry in Paris, France, is a late vocation and a former journalist who holds progressive views. According to a recent interview he gave to the international news service Konbini...

In his homily for Palm Sunday, His Humbleness once again succumbed to the temptation to use the occasion to insult faithful Catholics – i.e., those who oppose his program of destruction, both lay and ordained – under the guise of preaching on holy things.Either he has deluded himself into believing that we’re not smart enough to recognize his act, or being so enamored with himself that he simply doesn’t care.Ostensibly in reference to the crowds that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem, Francis remarked:All this joy and praise is a source of unease, scandal and upset for those who consider themselves...

The theologian criticized by Pope Emeritus Benedict in his recent controversy-causing letter to the head of Vatican communications is a major influence on Pope Francis’s theology of marriage.  German theologian Peter Hünermann, 89, was mentioned by name in Benedict’s letter, which was on the topic of an 11-volume series on Pope Francis’ theology which Benedict declined to read. The Pope Emeritus expressed surprise that Hünermann had been asked to write a volume. This section of the letter was originally omitted from the public by the Vatican.  Hünermann had led “anti-papal initiatives,” Benedict stated in his letter, and “virulently attacked the magisterial authority of the...

MEXICO, March 23, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Vatican archbishop Vincenzo Paglia expressed his frustration at the widespread controversy caused by Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia during a recent stop on a Vatican campaign to secure acceptance of the document among the clergy.  “Enough of debating all of this!” shouted Paglia before an audience gathered in the seminary of the Mexican diocese of Queretaro. “Enough!” he repeated. People are living in an “existential tragedy” in second marriages, and “it’s time to put an end to this discussion” and to “begin to receive people” in such situations into the Church, Paglia said....

March 19, 2018 (Lepanto Institute) – Caritas Internationalis, which is the Vatican-run confederation of Catholic international aid and development agencies, is on the board of directors of The Sphere Project, whose central purpose is to promote a standard handbook for aid and development work. The handbook strongly advocates for the use of contraception, including so-called "emergency" contraceptives for victims of rape. The Sphere Project says that it is: a voluntary initiative that brings a wide range of humanitarian agencies together around a common aim – to improve the quality of humanitarian assistance and the accountability of humanitarian actors to their...

Moral Theologian: Francis Is Leading the Church Into "Spiritual Catastrophe" The so called "new paradigm” drawn from Amoris Laetitia, suggests that some Catholics are not required to submit to the divine and natural laws, Christian Brugger, a father of five children who taught moral theology and served as a theological consultant to the US bishops, writes on ncregister.com (March 19). Brugger appeals to the bishops to resist this “new paradigm” whose logic "will surely be applied to contraceptive acts, homosexual behavior, and to other traditionally rejected behaviors”. He believes that only such an intervention can avert what otherwise will be...

It is confirmed. Next April 7, the Saturday of Easter Week, a very special conference will be held in Rome. The intention of which will be to show the Catholic Church the way to go, after the uncertain journey of the first five years of the pontificate of Pope Francis.The reckoning of this five-year period, in fact, is rather critical, to judge from the title of the conference:“Catholic Church, where are you going?”And even more so if one looks at the subtitle: “Only a blind man can deny that in the Church there is great confusion.” This is taken from...

The conversation has become predictable. A friendly acquaintance — a neighbor, a fellow parent, our real estate agent — asks about my work. I say I’ve been writing a book about the pope, and the acquaintance smiles and nods and says “Isn’t he so wonderful?” or, “That must be an inspiring thing,” or, “I have a friend who would love to read it.” And then eventually I find myself saying, uncomfortably, “Well, they should know that it’s not entirely favorable.”