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Dr. Holly Ordway Growing up, Holly Ordway was convinced God was little more than superstition, completely unsupported by evidence or reason. She later attained a PhD in literature, traveled the country as a competitive fencer, and became a college English professor, none of which left room for God.But one day a smart and respected friend surprisingly revealed he was a Christian. That sent Holly on a search for the truth about God, one that weaved through literature, aesthetics, imagination, and history. It culminated in 2012 when she entered the Catholic Church.Holly recounts her probing journey in a new memoir, Not God's Type:...

Traditions of a Global Flood by John D. Morris, Ph.D. * Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? (1 Corinthians 1:20) One of the strongest evidences for the global Flood that annihilated all people on Earth except for Noah and his family has been the presence of flood legends in the folklore of people groups from around the world. And the stories are all so similar. Local geography and cultural aspects may be present, but they all seem to be telling the...

The Road to Hell is Paved With…Indifference. A Meditation on a Warning by Jesus By: Msgr. Charles PopeThe Gospel from today’s Mass (Tuesday of the 31st week of the year) features the familiar Lucan version of the parable of a certain man (in the Matthew version (Mat 22:2), Jesus calls him a king) who gave a banquet. But when all was prepared and the servants were sent out to fetch the invited guests, many of them made excuses, preferring not to come:The first said to him,‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it;I ask you, consider...

The recent Synod on the Family, part one, created confusion among many people from the moment it was announced. In addition, not everyone knew that “the Extraordinary General Assembly would be followed by an Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2015, on the same topics.” The events this past October were nothing more than round one on Catholic doctrine, pastoral leadership, and subjects related to the family. But what also became clear is that some of the topics addressed by the bishops at the synod are more than a little contentious. Among these are the questions...

Featured Term (selected at random:BIBLICAL UNIVERSALISM The anti-nationalist teaching of the Hebrew prophets that God's salvific will included other nations, and not only the people of Israel. This is particularly true of the prophet Jonah. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Why Did Paul Get Arrested at Philippi, and What Can a Sometimes Timid Church Learn From It? By: Msgr. Charles PopeThere is a story of St. Paul’s arrest, beating, and imprisonment at Philippi that serves as a kind of metaphor for the radical nature of true Christianity and why it so perturbs many in this world. The Christian faith, its message, and the transformation it can effect can be very unsettling to a world that figuratively and literally “banks on” sin. Let’s consider this lesser- known story of Paul and see what it ought to mean for us if we take the Christian...

Featured Term (selected at random:DOUAY BIBLE The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English translation of the Bible, begun at the English College, Douai, Flanders. The college was later moved to Reims, where the New Testament was completed and published. The Old Testament translation was issued some years later, when the college returned to Douai. The translation, which sought for accuracy rather than literary style, was made from the Latin Vulgate, careful[ly] compared with the original Hebrew and Greek. It was mainly the work of Gregory Martin (d. 1582). In the eighteenth century it was considerably revised by Bishop Challoner (1691-1781) and until...

A post Satan did not want published? But Here it is anyway: In These Dark Days, the Church Needs Her Men to be Men By: Msgr. Charles PopeThis is a post that Satan apparently did not like. When I posted it last Thursday, the Server of the Archdiocese (literally) burnt up within an hour or two of posting. And while things are slowly coming back online, the post you are about to read could not be found in the archive file, anywhere. Thanks be to God some intrepid readers (at dclatinmass.com) had saved the post which I had not had...

Coming Wednesday Cardinal Raymond Burke was supposed to celebrate an old-rite Mass in the Vienna parish church of St. Leopold which belongs to the very rich monastery of Klosterneuburg. But the Mass was cancelled. The provost of Klosterneuburg, Father Bernhard Backovsky has personally forbidden the local pastor to allow the Cardinal to celebrate.

On All Souls Day, the Catholic Church offers prayers and liturgies for the repose of the dead. As Catholics, we are called by the Church to focus our spiritual energies to assist these poor souls, who, though saved, are still in need of purification. Our prayers and sacrifices assist them in this process of purification as a means used by God to communicate purifying grace to them. After all, He is the vine, we are the branches so that He produces his fruits of grace through us. The practice of praying for the dead actually predates Christianity. In 2 Maccabees...

In January of this year, I published a series of six posts, titled Nostra aetate 1-6, about the current fashion for saying that there are still Two Covenants; the Jewish and the Christian; and that each conveys Salvation ... which leads to the conclusions that there is no need for Jews to become Christians, and that it is offensive for Christians to include Jews in their Mission. Jewry, it follows, is the only race in the whole world to which the Gospel should not be preached. Hottentots need it; and Americans; and even the Welsh ... and they can't do...

suppose they hoped that with passage of time, the interest of many Catholics might have waned. Well, some of us do have attention spans longer than those of ants. Recall that the synod fathers voted two weeks ago to remove particularly heretical paragraphs. The announcement came that they would remain, with the vote counts next to each. The votes appear at the bottom of the document. I share Father Z's disappointment that we don't know who voted which way. Why the big secret? Well, that last part didn't happen on this English version from the website of the Vatican Press...

Featured Term (selected at random:SINS CRYING TO HEAVEN The four sins traditionally said to cry to heaven for vengeance, namely: 1. willful murder (Genesis 4:10); 2. sodomy or homosexuality (Genesis 18:20); 3. oppression of the poor (Exodus 2:23); and 4. defrauding laborers of their wages (James 5:4). All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

We cannot believe this wondrous event is almost here! How blessed Washington is to receive this theological giant of mercy, who truly is a light-bearer. A reminder: Next Thursday, November 6, Walter Cardinal Kasper will receive a prestigious award from the Catholic University of America's theology school, delivering a lecture there on the "theological background of the ecclesiological and ecumenical vision of Pope Francis." About the award: For Excellence in Scholarship and Leadership in Religious Studies Established in 1985 as the only academic award given by The Catholic University of America’s School of Theology and Religious Studies, the Quasten Medal...

Pope Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter's Square before the Wednesday general audience on October 2, 2013. Credit: Elise Harris/CNA. Vatican City, Oct 31, 2014 / 01:34 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Christians who cling to the law and not to love are like the hypocrite Pharisees in the Gospel, Pope Francis said in today’s homily. After Jesus meets a sick person in a Pharisee’s home on the Sabbath day in Luke 14:1-6, he asks the Pharisees and scholars of the Jewish law present: “Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath or not?” Receiving only silent stares, Jesus heals the man...

According to the Archbishop of Washington, the recent Synod on the Family worked to address the challenge that many young people today don’t fully understand the nature of marriage. “There were a good number of us within the synod who felt, given the heavily secular climate today in which so many of our young people are living – what they see in media, television, electronic print, in movies, the music they listen to, the world they’re engaged in – (that) the idea of a permanent, enduring bond that would be life-giving and at the same time be indissoluble is not...

VATICAN CITY (RNS) American Cardinal Raymond Burke, the feisty former archbishop of St. Louis who has emerged as the face of the opposition to Pope Francis’ reformist agenda, likened the Roman Catholic Church to “a ship without a rudder” in a fresh attack on the pope’s leadership. In an interview with the Spanish Catholic weekly Vida Nueva, published Thursday (Oct. 30), Burke insisted he was not speaking out against the pope personally but raising concern about his leadership. “Many have expressed their concerns to me. At this very critical moment, there is a strong sense that the church is like...

A Reformation Day homily: By 1520 the storm Martin Luther stirred up was threatening to become a tsunami engulfing all the Western Church. He still didn’t seem to have the first clue about the threat he’d proven to Church officials and he thought that if the pope himself just heard of this joy that was now his, all would come out okay. So he pens a little book and dedicates it, of all things, to Pope Leo X from his dutiful servant, Martin Luther. And as he thought about how to encapsulate everything he’d been rejoicing in, it came down...

Featured Term (selected at random:LITANY OF OUR LADY In its present form it was approved and indulgenced by Pope Sixtus V in 1587, and again by pope Clement VIII in 1601. It is a series of invocations of the Blessed Virgin, each with the response, "Pray for us." Successive popes have added new invocations, e.g., "Mother of Good Counsel," by Pope Leo XIII, "Queen of Peace," by Pope Benedict XV, and "Queen Assumed into Heaven," by Pope Pius XII. It is a simplified version of older Litanies of Our Lady that were known already in the twelfth century. All items...

Halloween and All Saints Day Fr. William Saunders Q: What are the origins of All Saints Day and All Souls Day? Are these linked with paganism and Halloween?Both the feast of All Saints and the feast of All Souls evolved in the life of the Church independently of paganism and Halloween. Let us first address the feast of All Saints. The exact origins of this celebration are uncertain, although, after the legalization of Christianity in A.D. 313, a common commemoration of the saints, especially the martyrs, appeared in various areas throughout the Church. For instance in the East, the city...