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A Vatican department allegedly intercepted over a hundred copies of a new book written by five cardinals to prevent it being read by the majority of participants of a synod last October called by Pope Francis. “Remaining in the Truth of Christ,” a commercially successful book reaffirming Catholic teaching on marriage and the family, was mailed to all the synod fathers in the Paul VI Hall, where the meeting was taking place. Reliable and high level sources allege the head of secretariat of the synod of bishops, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, ordered they be intercepted because they would “interfere with the...

HOLY ORDERS St. Pius X on Priestly SanctityThe Ordination into the Priesthood is the Sacrament known as Holy Orders. This sacrament is administered by the 'laying of hands', the candidate Deacons for Priesthood, kneel before the Bishop. In silence the Bishop lays his hands upon the head of each individual candidate. The prayer belonging to the imposition of hands is said by the Bishop; by this, the Holy Spirit then enters the candidate imparting on him all Priestly powers. The Sacrament of Holy Orders confers Sanctifying Grace to the recipient. The Bishop, through his power of ordaining, is enabled...

A GAY Roman Catholic priest on trial for sex abuse has admitted being shown a child porn film by a close friend. Tony McSweeney, 68, was father at St Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Eastwood Road North, Eastwood, before being moved from the church in 1998, just months after his cleaner found pornographic video tapes at his home. McSweeney denies molesting three youngsters at Grafton Close Children’s Home in Hounslow, West London, between 1979 and 1981. He admitted being shown a child sex porn film by close friend and care home manager John Stingemore, 72, and broke down in tears...

Lines from the Lord's Prayer, in various languages. From the Eucharist Door at the Glory Facade of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain. It's Lent in Rome. That means it's time for one of the great Roman traditions: station churches. Each morning, English-speaking pilgrims walk to a different church for Mass. This morning, on the way to St. Anastasia's, I was once again struck by a line in the Our Father: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” That's a hard thing to pray, It doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room. Even the Catechism...

A priest who witnessed a miracle in communist Czechoslovakia in the 1940s was tortured and beaten to death for refusing to recant what he’d seen. And now Catholics from the country are honoring his heroic virtue and pushing for him to be recognized as a martyr. At a recent gathering in Číhošť commemorating the priest’s brutal death, his current successor at the parish church says he’s grateful for efforts to overturn the decades-long silence on atrocities against Catholics in the 20th century. “Naturally, I am glad that the issue of Father Josef Toufar is starting to be resolved in which...

The words of Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23 are often quoted, but commonly misapplied. In this familiar passage our Lord declared, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" Unfortunately, this passage is often presented to genuine believers...

I have wanted to write about this for soooooo long now. Kathnet broke this, in German HERE. Remember the Five Cardinals Book™? Remaining in the Truth of Christ: Marriage and Communion in the Catholic Church helped to turn the tide – in a good way – during last October’s Synod of Bishops... ...It contains essays of five cardinals, of the archbishop secretary of the Vatican congregation for the Oriental Churches, and of three scholars direct at the notions suggested by Walter Card. Kasper in the opening discourse of the consistory in February 2014. It blew the Kasper proposals and arguments...

Featured Term selected at random:CARDIOGNOSIS Literally "knowledge of the heart." The special charism that God confers on some people as recorded in the lives of the saints, to know the moral and spiritual condition of a person without self-manifestation. As an extraordinary supernatural gift, it must be distinguished from the psychological phenomenon of being able to shrewdly estimate someone's minimal external evidence. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Disappointing progressives yet again, Pope Francis has now condemned contemporary gender theory as denying “the order of creation.” In an interview published in a new book, Pope Francis: This Economy Kills, by Andrea Tornielli and Giacomo Galeazzi, (portions of which were also published last month in the Italian daily La Stampa), Pope Francis appears to reject the postmodern conceptualization of gender as a moveable point along a spectrum that is fluid and changeable. He does not accept the progressive claim that gender is socially constructed rather than God-given and instead appears to embrace gender in a traditional “binary” category of...

Officials quiet about status of discussion after several scholars voice concernOfficials at the University of Notre Dame are contemplating opening a satellite campus in China, but the discussion has prompted concern among some faculty who say the notion runs afoul of the school’s Catholic identity and, if approved, would appear to condone some of the communist country’s anti-Catholic policies. The partnership under consideration would be a joint residential liberal arts college with Zhejiang University at the school’s new international campus in Haining, China. The college would open for the 2017-18 academic year and is projected to admit 1,000 undergraduate students,...

How Does Pride Accumulate in Our Life? A Reflection on a Teaching by St. Bernard of Clairvaux By: Msgr. Charles PopeSo you think the idea of the “Twelve Steps” is new? Well, if you think you’ve got a new idea, go back and see how the Greeks put it, or in this case how the Medieval Latins put it. St. Bernard of Clairvaux identified twelve steps up the mountain of pride in his work Steps of Humility and Pride.In today’s post, we focus on the Twelve Steps of Pride. Tomorrow, we’ll tackle the Twelve Steps of Humility (from St. Benedict’s rule). ...

Yesterday, on February 23, it was reported that Pope Francis formally declared Gregory of Narek to be a Doctor of the Universal Church. Gregory of Narek was an Armenian priest, monk, and poet who is greatly revered by Armenians but virtually unknown otherwise. So far as I can tell, he is the first and only non-Catholic among only 36 doctors of the Church. He lived and died in the bosom of a schismatic jurisdiction, and he was most likely an adherent of the Miaphysite heresy. Traditionally, a Doctor of the Church is chosen only among recognized Catholic saints. Is this...

The Orans Position and holding hands during the Our Father[caption id="attachment_1144" align="alignnone" width="300"] Dominican Orans position at the Unde et Memores[/caption] Most people who attend a Novus Ordo parish or who simply attend Mass in what is known as the Ordinary Form (which most people attend) encounter two specific types of hand gestures that many of the laity engage in. The first type of hand gesture is that which is known as the "Orans Position" (praying with elevated hands). This type of gesture can be seen in several parts of the Mass such as when one of the laity elevates...

February 25, 2015Wednesday of the First Week in Lent    Reading 1 Jon 3:1-10 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time:“Set out for the great city of Nineveh,and announce to it the message that I will tell you.”So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh,according to the LORD’s bidding.Now Nineveh was an enormously large city;it took three days to go through it.Jonah began his journey through the city,and had gone but a single day’s walk announcing,“Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,”when the people of Nineveh believed God;they proclaimed a fastand all of them,...

Requesting prayers for my Father. Dad is an 87 yr old Army Vet. Dad was injured in an explosion in the Philippines in 1946 during the Huk rebellion. Came home, earned a Doctorate from Georgetown and taught Philosophy for 40 yrs at the university level. He is having surgery for recurrent hernias and we don't know yet what it will entail. Thank you all.

The Fr Thomas Rosica 'case' now covered by quite a few sites disturbs me greatly. The idea that a Catholic layperson can voice his concerns at what certainly appears to be the public statement of doctrinal positions that deviate from the Magisterium, only to then be issued with a lawsuit from a priest is quite unbelievable. This news ties in with the latest reports of the wrecking ball approach of the Commissioner of the Franciscans of the Immaculate. This is getting really very ugly. A papacy that was meant to embody 'mercy' more and more appears to be used -...

Reasons for inner discord The greatest paradox of our life is that while we all instinctively strive for happiness, most of the time we are unhappy and dissatisfied even when no danger threatens us. Philosophy is helpless in satisfactorily clarifying the reason for this paradox. The Christian faith, however, explains that the reason for our dissatisfaction and dark feelings lies within ourselves. It results from our sinfulness — not only from our personal sins but also from our very nature that is marred by the primordial sin. Sinful corruption is the main source of our grief and suffering. Sin is...

Now there can be no doubt—Timothy Cardinal Dolan has been played for a sucker by the organizers of the 2015 New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade. He must step down as Grand Marshal.According to reports, parade organizers are engaged in last-minute negotiations with city officials to allow additional Irish LGBT advocacy organizations to march in this year’s parade. Such groups had been prohibited from marching by a long-standing ban on explicitly political banners in the parade, a policy that also kept pro-life groups off Fifth Avenue.In September, the parade committee announced that a single group, OUT@NBCUniversal, would be allowed...

St Gregory of Narek. Credit: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons. Vatican City, Feb 23, 2015 / 04:37 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- St. Gregory of Narek – a tenth century priest, monk, mystic, and poet beloved among Armenian Christians – has become the first Armenian to be named a Doctor of the Church. “It is a great honor for the Armenian Church to contribute to this very important rank of saints who have enriched the Catholic Church with their teachings,” Armenian Catholic priest Father Thomas Garabedian told CNA Feb. 23. “Certainly this is a big honor for us Armenian-Americans,” said Fr. Garabedian, who is...

Emergency Contraception at Catholic Institutions: Bishops Can No Longer Claim Ignorance by Dr. Brian KoppFebruary 24, 2015Photo courtesy of Mike Mozart. The February 2015 Linacre Quarterly (the official journal of the Catholic Medical Association) features a groundbreaking study by Chris Kahlenborn, MD of The Polycarp Research Institute titled Mechanism of action of levonorgestrel emergency contraception. The study, contrasting the theoretical basis on which emergency contraception (otherwise known as “Plan B”) is claimed to function with the facts and statistics of the most recent research outlining the mechanism by which they cause early abortions, is sure to cause heartburn among...