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Featured Term (selected at random:FETICIDE The direct killing of an unborn child. It is always murder and therefore gravely sinful. (Etym. Latin fetus, the young in the womb + -cidium, a killing.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission. 

Patriotism is a great virtue. To be a patriot is to love one’s fatherland. This means that it is to love the land of the people that sired you. Patriotism is a natural overflow of the virtue of piety — that is, the virtue of the home. As piety would have us rendering what is due in justice to parents and other family members, patriotism would have us render the same to our nation, its government, and our fellow citizens. Both of these are a matter of justice, for the virtues of piety and patriotism are parts of that cardinal...

Featured Term (selected at random:TYCHISM A theory that chance is an objective fact in the universe and that it is not merly due to human ignorance. It is commonly associated with the idea that evolution takes place casually and without planned direction by some guiding intelligence. (Etym. Greek tyche, fortune, chance.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Featured Term (selected at random:MANTELLETTA A sleeveless outer garment fastened at the neck, reaching to the knees, open in front, worn by cardinals, bishops, abbots, and certain prelates of the papal court. (Etym. Latin dimin. of mantellum, cloak, veil.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Featured Term (selected at random:BAPTISM OF MARTYRDOM  Also called baptism of blood. It is the patient endurance of fatal torture inflicted out of hatred for Christ or the Christian faith or Christian virtue. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

The leader of the Philippines' Catholic Church, which routinely denounces abortion and contraception, called for the clergy on Saturday to listen more and condemn less, in the latest sign of a liberal shift in the powerful institution. Church leaders exert vast influence in the conservative Philippines, Asia's bastion of Catholicism and the only state apart from Vatican that still outlaws both divorce and terminations. But with many modern Filipino Catholics embracing attitudes that were once considered taboo or frowned upon, and the more conciliatory tone of the Vatican under Pope Francis, there are signs that the Philippine church is softening...

Why We Should Go Back To the Traditional Reception of Holy CommunionThe Traditional Reception of Holy CommunionThroughout the history of the Catholic Faith specifically in the Roman Rite of the Mass, the reception of Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue is the established tradition. This has been true for various centuries dating as far back as the Early Church. This is itself the tradition of the Church and is still the norm in the Extra-Ordinary form of the Mass. It was not until the ecclesiastical revolts and dissent during the 1960s and 1970s in which this tradition started falling...

Featured Term (selected at random:OUR LADY OF LUJÁN Argentine shrine, forty miles west of Buenos Aires. Its main object of devotion is a small doll-like statue of the Blessed Virgin; her head is surrounded by a golden aureole and is crowned with hundreds of diamonds and other precious stones. The Basilica of Our Lady of Luján is the most important pilgrimage center in Argentina. According to legend, in 1639 a peasant from Cordova, wishing to revive his neighbors' "belief in their early faith," ordered two statues from Brazil, one of the Immaculate Conception, the other the Blessed Virgin and her...

May 25, 1793: Catholic priest ordained in America   In Baltimore, Maryland, Father Stephen Theodore Badin becomes the first Catholic priest to be ordained in the United States. Badin was ordained by Bishop John Carroll, an early advocate of American Catholicism, and appointed to the Catholic mission in Kentucky.In colonial America, there were few English-speaking Catholics outside of Maryland, which was established in 1634 as a haven for Roman Catholics persecuted in England. In 1735, some 100 years after the establishment of Maryland, John Carroll was born in Baltimore into a prominent Catholic family. As secondary Catholic education was...

After losing a copyright infringement lawsuit to prevent the posting of videos alleging contradictions in different versions of his once famous “Jihad to Jesus” testimony, a Georgia Baptist college president now must pay more than $34,000 in attorney fees, a federal judge ruled July 1. U.S. District Judge Norman Moon in Lynchburg, Va., said he believes Brewton-Parker College President Ergun Caner’s lawsuit filed against two bloggers in 2013 was intended to silence critics and not a legitimate copyright claim. Caner filed a lawsuit in Texas in June 2013 followed by an amended complaint four months later seeking a permanent injunction...

Featured Term (selected at random:ETHOS  The spirit of a people or culture, or, more technically, the totality of the ideas and attitudes held by a specific community in relation to behavior. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission. 

Q: My family is doing genealogical research, and we’ve discovered discrepancies in the birth-dates of a couple of our great-grandparents…. They married very young, and depending on which birth-dates are correct, we’re thinking it’s possible they may really have been too young to marry validly in the Church. If a marriage is invalid due to the age of the spouses, does it automatically become valid when they’re old enough? Or do they need to have another wedding ceremony once they’ve reached the minimum age? –Frank

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "We are not isolated and we are not Christians individually, each on his or her own". Instead, we are all part of the Church, "a large family, where one is welcomed," where "one learns to live as believers and disciples of the Lord Jesus," Pope Francis said. Speaking in the last general audience before the July break, the Holy Father devoted his catechesis to the Church before a crowd of 35,000 in St Peter's Square. Despite a few drops of rain, he walked extensively among the assembled faithful. In his address, he warned against those who...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that the Supreme Court's Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby decision makes the United States akin to extremist authoritarian and theocratic nations that restrict women's rights. When asked Monday about the Court's decision, Clinton, who may run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, said, "it is a disturbing trend that you see in a lot of societies that are very unstable, anti-democratic, and frankly prone to extremism, where women and women's bodies are used as the defining and unifying issue to bring together people, men, to get them to behave in ways that are...

Featured Term (selected at random:VOW OF POVERTY The vow by which a person freely gives up the ownership, or at least the independent use and administration, of temporal goods. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Featured Term (selected at random:NOBLE GUARDS The highest ranking corps of the papal ministry service. It originated in the light cavalry that was a mounted guard for the Pope and had been reorganized many times. Pope Leo XIII gave them their modern name. The Pope appointed the commander, who was always a Roman prince. All members were to show a sixty-year line of nobility recognized by the papacy. They appeared with the Pope at public functions and left always with him. They were privileged to convey the tidings to newly appointed cardinals of their appointments. The Noble Guards were abolished...

Bl. Junípero Serra and the Holy Family Sean FitzpatrickOn September 25th, 1988, Pope St. John Paul II beatified a swarthy, Spanish, asthmatic priest of small stature who was a dazzling scholar, a tireless apostle, and the founder of many missionaries from San Diego to San Francisco—Junípero Serra, who walked the western desert to irrigate souls with the water that becomes a spring welling up to eternal life.Born Miguel Jose Serra Ferrer on November 14, 1730, in Petra, Majorca, Spain, this servant of God and God’s people became a Franciscan after a brilliant career as a scholar of philosophy, taking...

Featured Term (selected at random:SEVEN HEAVENS A popular belief, never confirmed by the Church, that heaven is divided into seven levesl of beatitude, the highest being the seventh. The expression "seventh heaven" is a remnant of this belief. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

The Generosity of Catholic Family Planning Caitlin Marchand In a contraceptive culture it is little wonder that natural family planning is often in the Catholic spotlight.  Perhaps it is also little wonder that we accidentally slip into using the secular world’s terms or attitudes when discussing it.  It is well established to anybody willing to hear that NFP is a licit practice.  In fact, it is not merely an acceptable but second rate choice made by second rate Catholics but can and should be undertaken in such a spirit as to be equally receptive to God’s will and lovingly exercise...

History of Head Covering and ScriptureFor over 2000 years Christian women have covered their heads during Mass, sacred rites, as well as prayer and adoration. In most instances this was done by wearing a veil, as it tended to be the most convenient way. It was not until recently that many women stopped wearing the veil or any head covering for that manner. This is true especially during the post Vatican II epoch and during the women’s lib movement during the 1960s and 1970s.Old TestamentIn the book of Genesis 24 when Rebecca meats Isaac she veils herself. “Rebecca too looked...