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The July 17 issue of Catholic San Francisco contained a laudatory 1,100 word article on San Francisco’s notorious Most Holy Redeemer parish, as well as its pastor and parochial vicar. The parish, which now describes itself online as “an LGBT affirming parish”— meaning it thinks homosexuality is OK — has a long history of celebrating events and hosting persons utterly in contradiction to the Catholic Church’s teaching on sexuality, marriage, and the family.Recent events include parishioners in 2013 forcing the former pastor Father Brian Costello to remove a portrait of the Pope Benedict XVI from the altar, because of His...

Church leaders must teach the true Faith even if it means "risking execution by the media"DÜSSELDORF, July 21, 2015 (ChurchMilitant.com) - In a recent interview with German newspaper Rheinische Post, retired German cardinal Walter Brandmüller urges the Church to stand up for the Faith against a "perverse lust for self-destruction" among some of Her members. Such a tendency, he observes, often manifests in "undermining the procreation of life in different ways and in putting into question the natural sexual identity of man and woman." Cardinal Brandmüller, former head of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, says Catholic leaders must reject...

July 23, 2015   Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Ex 19:1-2, 9-11, 16-20b In the third month after their departure from the land of Egypt,on its first day, the children of Israel came to the desert of Sinai.After the journey from Rephidim to the desert of Sinai,they pitched camp. While Israel was encamped here in front of the mountain,the LORD told Moses,“I am coming to you in a dense cloud,so that when the people hear me speaking with you,they may always have faith in you also.”When Moses, then, had reported to the LORD the...

Sadly, for President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, Planned Parenthood's policy of "harvesting" and selling the tissues and organs of aborted babies is a virtuous act of heroism by women, who have generously donated parts of their bodies, so that they can be sold by abortionists for medical research. After all, as Dr. Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death" at Auschwitz, pointed out, they were going to be killed anyway. So why not make some extra money from their deaths? And Catholic "pro-choice" politicians correctly point out that many bishops continue to acquiesce to their contention that the Eucharistic...

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision creating gay “marriage” nationwide, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., is leaving it unclear for now whether they intend to allow employees in same-sex “marriages” and offer them same-sex spousal benefits. In a blog post on June 26, the day of the ruling, Cardinal Donald Wuerl indicated the archdiocese is struggling over the issue.“On a very practical level, there is a concern about the new definition of ‘spouse’ and its legal ramifications,” he said. “In this area for example, we must find a way to balance two important values, the provision of appropriate...

Gallup has conducted a poll on the Pope's popularity, two months before he is due to visit New York, Washington and Philadelphia. Francis’ favourability rating in the US has dropped since February 2014 He is still popular, but not super-popular as he was a year ago. This is the picture that emerges from a poll conducted in the US between 8 and 12 July by consulting company Gallup. The results were published on Wednesday 22 July, just two months before Francis is due to arrive in the US, where he will be visiting New York, Washington and Philadelphia after his stop-over...

Things about to go nuclear with #PlannedParenthood. One unreleased video may show talk of 'racial characteristics'

Pope Francis is not as popular a pontiff as he used to be in the United States — especially among conservatives — according to a new Gallup survey out Wednesday. A larger share of American Catholics say they don’t have a favorable view of their church’s spiritual leader. A little more than seven in 10 (71 percent) have a favorable image of Francis, a drop of 18 percentage points from last year.

God Still Has His Seven Thousand – A Meditation for Those Who Feel Alone and Discouraged Msgr. Charles Pope • July 21, 2015 • Last week in the Office of Readings we read of the struggles of Elijah the Prophet, who spent his life fighting the influence of the Canaanite god Baal in Israel.Every now and again in times like these, times of cultural confusion, times when so many Catholics have fallen away from the practice of the faith or are so breezily dissenting, I think of the prophet Elijah at his lowest moment. He was in a cave, anxious...

Archbishop Georg Gänswein has questioned why some bishops-- particularly in his native Germany-- are proposing the admission of divorced and remarried Catholics to Communion, when that step is "not possible." The prefect of the pontifical household, who has worked closely with both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, also spoke about the similarities between the two in an interview with +1, a publication of the International University of Catalonia. Archbishop Gänswein said that speculative theories about the resignation of Pope Benedict, which point to some pressure or motivation beyond the outgoing Pope's brief resignation statement, are "altogether devoid of foundation."...

July 22, 2015 Memorial of Saint Mary Magdalene Reading 1 Ex 16:1-5, 9-15 The children of Israel set out from Elim, and came into the desert of Sin,which is between Elim and Sinai,on the fifteenth day of the second monthafter their departure from the land of Egypt.Here in the desert the whole assembly of the children of Israelgrumbled against Moses and Aaron.The children of Israel said to them,“Would that we had died at the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt,as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread!But you had to lead us into this...

The most common Bible verse used against the very Catholic and very biblical doctrines concerning mortal and venial sin is James 2:10-11: For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” said also, “Do not kill.” The argument is made from this text that all sins are the same before God. Is this true? Two Points in Response: First, the context of James 2 reveals St. James to have been talking about showing partiality for the first nine verses leading up to verses...

Sanders’ full remarks, reprinted below and are worth reading, but in addition to global warming he said he and the pope agree that “casino-type capitalism” and income inequality are a scourge on society, that senior citizens are too often abandoned and alone, and that young people are losing hope because they have few concrete prospects for a full life.

How to Go to Heaven Jimmy Akin May 12, 2015 | Sometimes people make it sound like the Catholic understanding of how to get to heaven is really complex.It’s not.While you can go into any of Christ’s teachings in a lot of very rich detail, he made sure that this one can be understood even by a child.I can summarize it in two sentences. The two sentences are these: To come to God and be saved, you need to repent, have faith, and be baptized. If you commit mortal sin, you need to repent, have faith, and go to...

The remarks come from a "National Geographic" piece, which posits that Francis was elected by "more progressive cardinals" Pope Francis speaks to journalists aboard his flight from Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, to Rome June 6. At left is Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) The August 2015 edition of National Geographic has a lengthy essay, "Will the Pope Change the Vatican? Or Will the Vatican Change the Pope?", that has some of the usual stuff—Francis emphasizes the poor over doctrine, he has lots of Protestant/Pentecostal friends, he lives simply—but also a few things of interest. For example, the...

As Catholics we believe in the sanctity of life - from conception to natural death, right? For the most part it is, but not always. I cannot count the times I’ve spoken to parishioners that say, “I might not agree with abortion, but I support a woman’s right to choose,” or “I think abortion is wrong, except in certain cases, such as rape.” This kind of thinking not only impedes progress in the fight for life, but is also in direct conflict with the Church’s teaching. The Catechism is very clear, “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the...

Fortitude, Patience, and Meekness: Three Virtues We Often Separate, but That Belong Together Msgr. Charles Pope • July 20, 2015 • There is an important interplay and balance between the virtues that many modern minds set in opposition to one another. False dichotomies often prevail when the subtlety of virtues are lost or their meanings are grasped in simplistic or inaccurate ways.Consider three virtues that are related and which enable and moderate one other: fortitude, patience, and meekness. To most people, these virtues seem more opposed than related. Today, fortitude conjures up an image of a fearless warrior in battle,...

Don’t let the understated headline fool you. There’s dynamite in this CWN headline story. It’s not big news that the director of the Vatican press office admits he is “confused” by Pope Francis. We’re all confused. Join the club, Father Lombardi. But when the Vatican’s chief spokesman reveals that he doesn’t know what’s on the Pope’s schedule—and no one else knows, either, except the Pope himself—that’s astonishing. Indeed all of the remarks by Father Federico Lombardi, as quoted in an otherwise unremarkable article in National Geographic are eye-opening. The papal spokesman limns a picture of a leader who doesn’t give...

Gov Jerry Brown was speaking ahead of meetings organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on climate changePope Francis’s encyclical letter on the environment was “appropriate and absolutely essential” for waking people up to the dangers of climate change, the Governor of California has said. “The world is going its merry way, with a few notable exceptions, and climate change is building up in very soon-to-be irreversible ways that will very dramatically increase human suffering,” the 77-year-old governor Jerry Brown told Catholic News Service in Rome. Brown was scheduled to speak from July 21 and 22 at meetings organised by...

ROME – This morning, Pope Francis formally announced Father Robert Barron's appointment as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Bishop-Elect Barron is the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, host of the award-winning CATHOLICISM film series, and since 2012 has served as the Rector/President of the University of Saint Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary outside of Chicago, IL. His website, WordOnFire.org, reaches millions of people each year. His regular YouTube videos have been viewed over 13 million times. Next to Pope Francis, he is the most-followed Catholic leader on social media.