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Vatican releases “Sacramentum Caritatis” with press conference Vatican City, March 13 (CNA) - In the Holy See Press Office at 11.30 a.m. today, the presentation took place of the post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation "Sacramentum Caritatis," on the Eucharist, source and summit of the life and mission of the Church. Participating in the press conference were Cardinal Angelo Scola, patriarch of Venice, Italy and relater general of the 11th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, as well as Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops. The exhortation, which is dated February 22, Feast of the of the...

The idea that anti-Catholicism is a significant force in American life today is a complete canard, perpetrated by theologically and politically right-wing Roman Catholics--a minority among the Catholic laity--and aimed at anyone who stands up to the Church's continuing attempts to impose its values on all Americans. The people who scream "anti-Catholicism" at every opportunity use the same tactics as right-wing Jews who charge that any criticism of Israeli policies is anti-Semitic. And just as the Jewish Right attacks liberal Jews, the Catholic Right attacks liberal Catholics as well as liberal non-Catholics. The major organization promoting the falsehood that there...

NEW YORK, March 13, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Last Friday, the President of Human Life International, Fr. Tom Euteneuer used his weekly column to point out the hypocrisy of Catholic celebrity Sean Hannity, one of the stars of Fox News' Hannity and Colmes show. Hannity had, on a show the week before, made a big deal of apologizing for having inadvertently eaten a couple of bites of a meat sandwich on a Friday during Lent.  In his column, Fr. Euteneuer pointed out that the meat incident was not sinful at all, and "If apologies are the order of the day,...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pope Benedict XVI met Tuesday for the highest-level Kremlin-Vatican talks in more than three years, focusing on easing tension between Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians and finding common ground in denouncing intolerance and extremism.A Vatican statement issued after the meeting — which included 25 minutes of private talks — made no mention of an invitation by Putin for the pope to visit Russia. Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said a visit had not come up.Still, the talks appeared to have met Vatican expectations, with the statement saying they were held in a "very positive...

Bishop Mario Moronta Caracas, Mar 13, 2007 / 10:09 am (CNA).- In an article published this week Bishop Mario Moronta of San Cristobal warned against misinterpreting the person of Jesus as “a Socialist,” a “guru,” or “hippie” and encouraged the faithful to constantly recall that Jesus is Lord, the Son of God. “The person of Jesus, with his actions and teachings, has always inspired amazement and admiration in many, as well as questioning and even rejection in others,” the bishop wrote in an article for the diocesan newspaper. “In modern times as well,” Bishop Moronta said, “the question about Jesus...

SAN ANTONIO — Archbishop Jose Gomez only has to recall his childhood in Mexico to recognize that people don’t go to confession like they used to.“In Latin America, it’s part of the culture,” said the Archbishop of San Antonio, Texas. “When I was a kid, the priests would hear confessions on first Thursdays from 4 to 10 p.m. In the U.S., people won’t dare to look for a priest in the confessional unless it’s in the bulletin.”But things may be changing. Signs abound that confession is making a comeback:• In the Chicago Archdiocese, St. Mary’s Church in Lake Forest, Ill.,...

Reports that the current Pope loathes Bob Dylan should be taken with a grain of salt. Pope Benedict XVI is about to release a book entitled My Beloved Predecessor. In it -- according to English newspapers -- he discloses an earth-shattering secret. Relying on anonymous sources, the journalists paint a dramatic picture of a rift between two of the greatest Catholic intellects in the past century. Over what? Not over liberation theology, not over the Iraq War, not over Third World poverty, not over Hans Küng, not over Islam. Yes, you guessed it. It was over Bob Dylan. Remember back...

The Pontifical Household Preacher Fr Raniero Cantalamessa has said the theory suggesting that Jesus was a typical Jew of the time is "historically indefensible." In a reading during Sunday’s liturgy Fr Cantalamessa said Jesus’ words regarding John the Baptist (Luke 7:28 and Luke 16:16) tell of a “qualitative leap” between Judaism and Christianity. “Here we see how historically indefensible is the thesis of those who want to enclose Jesus in the world of the Judaism of his time, making him a Jew just like the others, one who did not intend to make a break with the past or to...

A protestant pastor who was praying with a group of sick people was brutally beaten with iron rods by nationalist militants in the western state of Rajasthan. Pastor Reginald Howell of Good Shepherd Community Church was holding a prayer meeting March 7th with a group of disabled people from Hanumangarh: other Christians from his community volunteers within the community were with him at the time. Shortly after opening the meeting, a group of armed activists erupted into the prayer hall, beating the pastor on his back with iron rods. Following the attack the pastor made his way to the local...

"They're loud, they're obnoxious, they're disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco,” said California Assemblyman Mark Leno last year of the evangelical Protestant BattleCry rally, which drew about 25,000 youth for a weekend of Christian pop culture and speakers. Despite Leno’s less-than-welcoming words, BattleCry returned to San Francisco this year. On March 9, Ron Luce, founder of the Texas-based Teen Mania, which puts on the BattleCry events, joined thousands of youth in a rally outside San Francisco’s city hall, where they decried same-sex unions. The following day, over 22,000 youth from up and down the West Coast gathered...

Gerald Hiestand has just published a two-part article on justication (part 1 and part 2). Hiestand seeks to defend St Augustine’s reading of St Paul on the question of effective justification. He concludes: Thus ontological renewal is not ancillary to justification, but is in fact an essential (pun intended) element of justification. For Paul, the executive nature of justification does not look only to the resurrection of the body and the final reward of eternal life. We do not need to wait until we die to be “rewarded as righteous.” Paul very much views the present spiritual regeneration afforded through...

AINKAWA, IRAQ — Sunday evenings in this quiet Christian town in the north of Iraq have a serene feel about them. As the light fades, parishioners gather on the steps of St. Elias's church, congratulating the priest on that day's sermon. Their children play in the adjacent park beneath a giant artificial tree with the number "2007" on it. If it weren't for the two men with Kalashnikov rifles standing guard over it all, it could be a scene outside a church anywhere in the world. Iraq's Christians, however, are a community under siege. Few of those who attend mass...

MUMBAI, India (UCAN): A Catholic group's claim that its protest forced a television channel from broadcasting a controversial documentary on Jesus' tomb has resulted in the channel threatening to take legal action. Catholic Secular Forum (CSF), a Catholic group based in Bombay archdiocese in western India, said in a March 2 press release that following its protests, the Discovery Channel had agreed not to broadcast the documentary. Bombay is the old name for Mumbai. The Discovery Channel on March 4 broadcast the documentary internationally, but not in India. However, it said the protest was not the reason for the non-broadcast,...

March 13, 2007 Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent Psalm: Tuesday 9 Reading 1Dn 3:25, 34-43 Azariah stood up in the fire and prayed aloud: “For your name’s sake, O Lord, do not deliver us up forever,or make void your covenant.Do not take away your mercy from us,for the sake of Abraham, your beloved,Isaac your servant, and Israel your holy one,To whom you promised to multiply their offspringlike the stars of heaven,or the sand on the shore of the sea.For we are reduced, O Lord, beyond any other nation,brought low everywhere in the world this daybecause of our sins.We...

POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXHORTATIONSACRAMENTUM CARITATIS OF THE HOLY FATHERBENEDICT XVI TO THE BISHOPS, CLERGY, CONSECRATED PERSONS AND THE LAY FAITHFUL ON THE EUCHARIST AS THE SOURCE AND SUMMIT OF THE CHURCH'S LIFE AND MISSION  INDEXIntroduction [1] The food of truth [2] The development of the eucharistic rite [3] The Synod of Bishops and the Year of the Eucharist [4] The purpose of the present Exhortation [5] PART ONE:THE EUCHARIST, A MYSTERY TO BE BELIEVED The Church's eucharistic faith [6] The blessed Trinity and the Eucharist The bread come down from heaven [7] A free gift of the Blessed Trinity [8] The...

Ready for a short lesson in Catholic canon law? There’s a reason that officials with the Diocese of Buffalo keep using the term “merger” when describing instances in which a church will close. Closing a parish is a rare and rather involved legal process that extends all the way to the Vatican. What is happening in the diocese is a realignment of parish geographic boundaries, said the Rev. Paul A. Litwin, chancellor for the diocese and a canon lawyer. “No parish is really ever closed unless there are no Catholics left there,” said Litwin. “In reality, what seem to be...

On a recent Friday, most Curran Middle School students chomped happily on cheeseburgers during lunch. But a few, such as sixth-grader Maria Sahagun, left their burgers untouched. Many Catholics don't eat meat during Lent -- the 40-day period from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday, the day before Easter. Before this school year, the Bakersfield City School District served meatless lunches on Fridays during Lent. This year, however, the district has a new food services director who has ended that practice. "She doesn't want to start the precedent that for every religious belief we have to change our menu," said district...

The saga continues. In the latest development, Fox News analyst Father Jonathan Morris, a priest with the Legionaries of Christ — whose founder, Father Marcial Maciel, had multiple accusations of sexual abuse made against him and was disciplined by the Vatican — wrote an "open letter" defending Sean Hannity and criticizing Father Tom Euteneuer. Morris' letter can be found here. Euteneuer has responded, writing his own "open letter" to Morris: Dear Father Jonathan, Your letter to Sean Hannity indicates that you did not know that I asked to speak to him in private about this matter in 2004 otherwise you...

As voters head to the polls today, the jockeying over a ballot measure to extend the Penny for Pinellas sales tax continued with vigor Monday. Last-minute moves by Penny backers included a string of automated phone calls to voters funded by a new political action committee, and a county commissioner's retort to the area's top Catholic leader, who last week weighed in against the Penny. At issue is whether to continue the 1-cent on the dollar sales tax from 2010, when it's set to expire, to 2020. If the Penny is defeated, Pinellas governments will lose an estimated $2-billion in...

The Meaning of the Bridge of Angels The Bridge of Angels (in Italian, Ponte Sant'Angelo) spans the Tiber River in Rome. Only a few steps away from St. Peter's Basilica, the bridge reflects the psychological shift from secular to sacred the occurs when pilgrims crossed from the busy streets of Rome over to the churches of the Vatican. Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the famed Italian sculptor, originally designed the bridge's angel sculptures in the seventeenth century. Though few of the angels standing today were done by his hand, Bernini's vision for the bridge lives on. Five angel sculptures flank each...