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The Dutch politician Lilliane Ploumen has been made a Dame in the pontifical Order of St Gregory the Great.Ploumen confirmed the award in an email to the Catholic Herald, saying that she was “very honoured” by the pontifical medal, which was sent via the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs last month.It is not known whether the Pope was aware of the decision.Ploumen, a senior Labour party figure who served as Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation until last year, has been criticised for her record on life issues.Last year she launched an international campaign to support abortion after the...

In November, two external researchers received a warning from the Catholic University of Milan because of their adherence to the Filial Correctio. Marco Tosatti has published a letter of one of them on his blog. In December, they discovered that they had been eliminated from the list of collaborators of the university. Contrary to what they were promised, they did not receive a contract for January. The two were never contacted personally. In the meantime, the university cancelled their previous activities from its webpage. One of the victims is Dr Giuseppe Reguzzoni. He was for more than twenty years an...

Where Are You from? A Reflection on Recent Tensions over Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity Msgr. Charles Pope • January 14, 2018 • A priest friend of mine who immigrated to this country from Jordan back in the 1970s is often asked, “Where are you from?” He humorously answers, “I am from my mother’s womb.”True enough! There is an even more fundamental answer, rooted in Scripture, which speaks to the origin of every human person: You are from the loving will and heart of God. Before you were ever formed in your mother’s womb, God knew you and thought about...

Editors Note: On January 13, Pope Francis appointed three consultors to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and named Cardinal Roger Mahony as his special envoy to the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Diocese of Scranton. Cardinal Mahony’s appointment as pontifical legate comes five years after his successor in Los Angeles, Archbishop José Gomez, relieved the cardinal of all public and administrative duties amid the release of files related to the clerical abuse scandal.

January 15, 2018Is the Face of the Migrant the Face of Jesus?William Kilpatrick In the face of increasing Muslim violence in Europe, Pope Francis has remained firm in his defense of mass migration.In his Urbi et Orbi Christmas message, he compared migrants to the Holy Family forced to journey to Bethlehem and unable to find a room in the inn. And in his January 1st message for the World Day of Peace, Francis denounced those who decry “the risks posed to national security” by mass migration. Such people, said the pope are guilty of “demeaning the human dignity due...

White Double TODAY, THE CHURCH honors the memory of one of those men who were expressly chosen by God to represent the sublime detachment from all things, which was to be taught to the world by the example of the Son of God, born in a Cave at Bethlehem. Paul the Hermit so prized the poverty of his Divine Master that he fled to the desert, where he could find nothing to possess and nothing to covet. He mad a mere cavern for his dwelling; a palm tree provided him with food and clothing; a fountain gave him wherewith...

SAINT MAURUS—one of the greatest masters of the Cenobitical Life, and the most illustrious of the Disciples of St. Benedict, the Patriarch of the Monks of the West—shares with the First Hermit the honors of this fifteenth day of January. Faithful, like the holy Hermit, to the lessons taught at Bethlehem, Maurus has a claim to have his Feast kept during the forty days which are sacred to the sweet Babe Jesus. He comes to us each January to bear witness to the power of that Babe’s humility. Who, forsooth, will dare to doubt of the triumphant power of...

January 15, 2018 Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 1 Sm 15:16-23 Samuel said to Saul:"Stop! Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night."Saul replied, "Speak!" Samuel then said: "Though little in your own esteem,are you not leader of the tribes of Israel?The LORD anointed you king of Israel and sent you on a mission, saying,'Go and put the sinful Amalekites under a ban of destruction.Fight against them until you have exterminated them.'Why then have you disobeyed the LORD?You have pounced on the spoil, thus displeasing the LORD."Saul answered Samuel: "I...

A New Year Prediction: Vatican Will Greenlight ‘Gay Unions’ in 2018 Bishop Bode put his stripy socks on, everybody. Time to listen up and take him seriously: GERMANY, January 10, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) –  Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, the Vice President of the German Bishops' Conference, has called for a discussion about the possibility of blessing homosexual relationships. He believes there to be “much [that is] positive” in such relationships.The new statement from Bishop Bode comes in the wake of a recent interview given to the German journal Herder Korrespondenz by Cardinal Reinhard Marx – President of the German Bishops' Conference and papal adviser – in which he...

Benedicite, glacies et nives, Domino . . . Father Brian Hess offers Holy Mass ad orientem amidst the beauty of God's Creation upon an altar made of snow in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, during this week's winter expedition for the freshman class of Wyoming Catholic College. Post title from the Benedicite, the Canticle of the Three Hebrew Children (Daniel chapter 3) -- "Bless ye the Lord, ice and snow . . . ." Photo reposted from Diocese of Cheyenne's Facebook page to which it was supplied by Father Hess. Labels: Ad orientem, education

The Catholic Church, which makes millions of dollars annually on refugee resettlement, is now saying that those who oppose the Muslim migrant influx are morally deficient. If you don’t want your land invaded by tens or hundreds of thousands of people with vastly different values, which they consider superior to yours, you are simply not a good Christian.Yet there is real cause for concern. Are Catholics to turn a blind eye to the fact that all of the jihadis who murdered 130 people in Paris in November 2015 had just entered Europe as refugees? Is it racism and xenophobia to...

A Picture of a Prophet - A Homily for the Second Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope • January 13, 2018 • The Calling of Samuel, by Joshua ReynoldsThe first reading for Sunday Mass speaks to us of the call of Samuel. In examining it, we can see what it is that makes a great prophet. Put more theologically, we can see the ways in which God’s graces form a great prophet.Samuel was surely one of the most significant prophets of the Old Testament and lived at a critical time, as Israel shifted from the time of the...

ROME - In a sense, every papal liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica has symbolic value, but rarely was that symbolism more overtly on display than on Sunday, when Pope Francis led a Mass for the Catholic Church’s Jan. 14 World Day of Migrants and Refugees. Obviously intended to drive home the message that migrants are refugees and not just abstractions for Catholicism, but part of its family of faith, there were representatives of 49 nations on hand in the basilica, including 2,000 immigrants and refugees from the Philippines, more than 1,200 Ukrainians, 800 Romanians, 650 Indians, as well as groups...

IN MOSUL, Iraq’s second largest city, Christmas bells rang out again this year for the first time in four years. During the preceding years this once so familiar sound had no longer been heard. Now, thanks to the ouster of ISIS from the city, Christians were able to celebrate Christmas Mass in the church of Mar Boulus (Saint Paul) in the Al-Mundshen suburb of Mosul. However, the joyful event almost didn’t happen. Right up until Christmas it had been nearly impossible for Christians to clean their church in Mosul. But then a group of young Muslims took the initiative, helping...

ROME - These days, Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Abuja is deeply hesitant to be drawn into talking about the troubled Nigerian diocese of Ahiara, saying his role as Apostolic Administrator there ended a year ago when Pope Francis took the situation in his own hands, and not wanting to aggravate what’s already perhaps the most painful, and extraordinary, Catholic storyline in Africa. Onaiyekan reluctantly agreed to discuss the situation with Crux on Jan. 9, mostly because he believes a core principle is at stake, which is that “the pope appoints bishops and nobody else.” “We need to handle this seriously...

Pro-life leaders view Trump as the "most pro-life president in modern history"The U.S. bishops continue to attack their president on social justice issues like immigration, health care, gun control, climate change and tax reform while turning a blind eye to his many pro-life accomplishments. Pro-life leaders, in reviewing this past year's pro-life accomplishments of President Donald Trump, hail him as the most pro-life president in modern history. Troy Newman, president of the pro-life organization Operation Rescue, noticed that President Trump "has proven to be the most pro-life president we have had in modern history and has backed up his pro-life...

Is Pope Francis a "Atheist" according Pope John Paul II? "When mortal men try to live without God, they infallibly succumb to megalomania or eratomania or both. The raised fist or the raised phallus; Nietzsche or D. H. Lawrence" (Malcolm Muggeridge) Certain teachings in Amoris Laetitia are exactly the opposite of Church doctrine in Familiaris Consortio and "explicitly atheist" according to Veritatis Splendor. Father Raymond J. de Souza said: "Veritatis Splendor, entitled 'Lest the Cross of Christ Be Emptied of Its Power,' warns precisely against the view that the demands of the moral life are too difficult and cannot be lived...

January 14, 2018 Second Sunday of Ordinary Time Reading 1 1 Sm 3:3b-10, 19 Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the LORDwhere the ark of God was.The LORD called to Samuel, who answered, "Here I am."Samuel ran to Eli and said, "Here I am. You called me.""I did not call you, " Eli said. "Go back to sleep."So he went back to sleep.Again the LORD called Samuel, who rose and went to Eli."Here I am, " he said. "You called me."But Eli answered, "I did not call you, my son. Go back to sleep." At that time Samuel...

Green Semidouble THE THIRD MYSTERY of the Epiphany shows us the completion of the merciful designs of God upon the world, at the same time that it manifests to us, for the third time, the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Star has led the soul to faith; the sanctified Waters of the Jordan have conferred purity upon her; the Marriage Feast unites her to her God. We have been considering, during this Octave, the Bridegroom revealing himself to the Spouse; we have heard him calling her to come to him from the heights of Libanus;...

White Double AFTER HAVING CONSECRATED the joyous Octave of the Epiphany to the glory of the Emmanuel who was manifested to the earth, the Church—incessantly occupied with the Divine Child and his august Mother during the whole time from Christmas Day to that whereon Mary will bring Jesus to the Temple, there to be offered to God as the law prescribes—the Church, we say, has on her Calendar of this portion of the year the names of many glorious Saints who shine like so many stars on the path which leads us from the joys of the Nativity of...