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How Envy is Different from Jealously and Is a Diabolical Sin Msgr. Charles Pope • April 18, 2016 • A short while back, we read from First Samuel at daily Mass and encountered an envious Saul. Upon David’s return from slaying Goliath, the women sing a song praising him. Saul should rejoice with all Israel but instead he is resentful and envies David: Saul was very angry and resentful of the song, for he thought, “They give David ten thousands, but only thousands to me. All that remains for him is the kingship.” And from that day on, Saul...

"But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit," - Titus 3:4-5 The Gospel is the ultimate rags-to-riches story. We were pitiful, poor, blind, and naked, deserving death because of our sins, and unable to help ourselves. We felt unloved and in turn were unloving. This bleak existence of dust-to-dust was all there was.  And then Jesus came. He revealed to us a loving Daddy in heaven who...

China's fame will soon be delivered, A shot from My quiver, For where there has been scorn against My Word, A standard shall be heard, Revival , restoration My kingdom taking hold, Destroying this kingdom of old, Soon a new leader will show His face, The Lord Almighty in battle filled with Grace ! No longer will man stand where I have placed my throne, I am threshing this floor for my very own, The cries of the righteous have come unto me, Now watch beauty come from the ashes that must be, A joy in my children from under...

All Together Now: What the Catechism Has to Say on Assessing Moral Acts Msgr. Charles Pope • April 18, 2016 • The Catechism of the Catholic Church states the following regarding moral acts:The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the “sources,” or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts (CCC # 1750).Note, therefore, that in assessing a particular moral act we must look not only to what is done, but also to the circumstances under which it is done, and to the intention of the one doing it.For example, to steal is wrong. However, one’s culpability...

What Did Jesus Call Me? A Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter Msgr. Charles Pope • April 16, 2016 • The Lord says, “My sheep hear my voice…” That’s right, He called you a sheep. Now come on, get a little indignant with me here! The Lord is comparing us, not to the swift eagle, the beautiful gazelle, the swift horse, the powerful bear, the mighty lion, or the clever dog. No, He looks at us as says we’re like sheep. Hmm … While reality may hurt, the truth can also liberate. For the fact is that although...

Well, Cardinal Kasper certainly seems pleased with the exhortation. It’s almost as though Christmas came early for him: Cardinal Walter Kasper explained that the Pope’s apostolic exhortation “doesn’t change anything of church doctrine or of canon law – but it changes everything”. The retired cardinal has been influential on Francis’ thinking on marriage and those living in “irregular situations” and it was he who the Pope asked to address a consistory of cardinals in February 2014 on how communion might be given to divorced and remarried couples. That address kicked off the Synod of Bishops discussions on the family, a...

Incorruptibles? Q. Can you explain about the incorruptibles? I know that some saints are given that designation, but is it part of the process of canonization? What does it mean spiritually if a body is incorrupt? Was St. John XXIII found to be incorrupt?Name withheld by request, via e-mail A. The normal process of decay for the human body, especially before embalming was common, was for the remains of a cadaver to be largely skeletonized within just a few years after death. In certain rare cases, however, the usual process of decay seems arrested and the bodies are preserved largely...

Is the Spanish Episcopal Conference forging the path that the whole Church will soon be using to follow the Apostolic Letter Amoris Laetitia? Yesterday Archbishop Carlos Osoro of Madrid, the deputy president of the Spanish Bishops' Conference held a press conference yesterday. He was accompanied by the rector of the seminary of his archdiocese, a professor of the Pontifical University of Salamanca, José María Gil Tamayo, Secretary General of the Episcopal Conference and two Jesuits who played an important role. Ambiguities of "Amoris Laetitia" bring Archbishop of Madrid to embarrassment One wants to "value" the Exhortation of Pope Francis explained...

There Has Been No Loss of Wonders, Only a Loss of Wonder - A Brief Summons to Awe Msgr. Charles Pope • April 14, 2016 • A big problem today is that of rampant boredom. One would think, with all the diversions available to us, we would be one of the least bored generations in history. There are various forms of entertainment available to us quite literally at our fingertips: television, radio, the Internet, Netflix, video games, and more.Yet it still seems that we moderns are often bored. The reason for this, I think, is that we are overstimulated.The...

For years there has been disagreement between Catholics and some non-Catholic groups about the Catholic ChurchÂ’s teaching on the Marian Dogmas, particularly, the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Mother. This will attempt to clear up some of the confusion. Catholics have always held that Mary remained a virgin before, during, and following the birth of Jesus. Many non-Catholics contend that scripture proves that she did not and points to several instances of people being called brothers or sisters of Jesus. When we study the scriptures carefully, paying particular attention to the order of sentences and view the language with precision,...

Throughout the two “synods on the family” held in Rome in October 2014 and October 2015 there was intense pressure for the Church to change her immutable teaching on homosexuality and homosexual unions. This pressure came not only from “LGBT” activists but also from those responsible for preparing the official synodal documents. The approach to homosexual unions in the synod documents See the appendix at the end of the article for fuller extracts from the synodal documents. 1. The Extraordinary Synod’s interim Relatio post disceptationem affirmed “that unions between people of the same sex cannot be considered on the same...

It is our pleasure to present the commentaries of some reflective people in Europe and in the U.S. who are knowledgeable experts when it comes to the Vatican and the Catholic Faith. Each was asked to write a brief commentary to the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, and they have generously responded. We are very honored and happily present to our readers, without further analysis, these commentaries that speak for themselves. We are especially grateful for the willingness of these men to offer their considered positions, inasmuch as the prelates of the Church have been troublingly quiet. Father Brian Harrison, O.S.,...

The publication of Amoris Laetitia has provoked an entirely predictable cyclone of competing opinions ranging from “nothing to see here,” to “not magisterial,” to “catastrophe” to “revolutionary.” Every one of these opinions is correct. Which means — and this should be no surprise to any observer of the post-conciliar epoch — that what we have here is a massive new addition to The Great Façade of non-binding ecclesial novelties, not one of which was ever seen in the Church before that great epoch of enlightenment known as the Sixties. The trick, you see, is to promulgate the latest novelty and...

As Catholics around the world debate the implications of Pope Francis’ controversial apostolic exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia, two of his close collaborators are suggesting that he has indeed opened the door to the possibility of granting Communion to remarried divorcees – a practice condemned by previous popes as a violation of Scripture and Church teaching. Both Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, who the pope chose to present the exhortation last week, and Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, a close advisor of the pope who reportedly helped draft the exhortation, have made that claim in recent days. Spadaro, editor of La Civiltà...

Pope Francis’ long-awaited Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, Amoris Laetitia (AL), was finally been released on Friday, April 8, 2016. A proper understanding, appreciation and evaluation of this lengthy document will require considerable time, study and prayerful reflection. But it is already quite clear from certain key passages that, with carefully crafted language, plausible arguments and persuasive rhetoric, the Holy Father is quietly introducing revolutionary change into the heart of the Catholic Church’s moral teaching and pastoral/sacramental practice. He is not repudiating in principle the objective truth of any revealed dogma or moral norm; but at the level of praxis...

Priest and Victim Are One and the Same – A Meditation on Offering Our Lives to God as Members of a Royal Priesthood Msgr. Charles Pope • April 13, 2016 • A key aspect of the priesthood, set forth by Jesus in the New Covenant, is that priest and victim are one and the same. Prior to this, the priests of the Old Covenant sacrificed animals: lambs, bulls, goats, turtle doves, etc. But in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, the priesthood of the New Covenant, the priest offers himself as victim.Regarding Jesus and His priesthood, Scripture says,For it is...

Our time, though intimidating, may be one of the best for evangelism. Let me explain. A headline from my much beloved [!] BBC just revealed a troubling state of affairs: “Gender identity clinic for young people sees referrals double.” The number of young people referred to England’s only gender-identity clinic has doubled this past year to nearly 1,400. That is one clinic in one year with a 100% rise in gender confusion issues. This is clearly a significant cultural trend. The head of the clinic puts a positive spin on the data: “Young people now have more freedom to define...

If Catholics who have divorced and remarried without obtaining an annulment can in some cases be given permission to receive communion, will this do more harm than good? That’s the question at the heart of the controversy over Pope Francis’ post synodal apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia. Other questions are so easily answered that we can skim over them very quickly. For example: 1. Is the text too long? It is long, yes. It used 95 pages coming out of my printer, with 391 footnotes. But it is not out of keeping with other post-synodal apostolic exhortations on complex topics, for...

The Magisterium of the Catholic Church, the teaching authority left by Jesus Christ to his Church and principally exercised by popes and the college of bishops, proceeds in two ways: ordinarily, the Magisterium proceeds ‘ordinarily’; extraordinarily, the Magisterium proceeds ‘extraordinarily’. Bear with me. Ex cathedra pontifical pronouncements and solemn decrees of ecumenical councils—the two great expressions of the extraordinary Magisterium—get the headlines, but such statements are, well, extraordinary and hence relatively rare. In contrast, the day-in day-out, oft-repeated, variously-phrased and then re-phrased teachings put out (principally) by popes and bishops engaged in the public exercise of their offices constitute the...

1. An apostolic exhortation is not, by its very nature, a non-magisterial document. It is the content of a papal document that reveals its magisterial relevance, not its name or category -- no one doubts Familiaris Consortio, the John Paul II exhortation on his synod on the family, was extremely relevant in sorting out important Magisterial points. Amoris Laetitia itself does not say that it is not itself magisterial: what it says, in its highly explosive paragraph 3, is that the Magisterium does not need to be invoked or suffer intervention to sort all Catholic questions. On the other hand,...