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Full yet Lonely – A Picture of the Modern Person, as Seen in a Video Msgr. Charles Pope • August 21, 2015 • One of the great “evils” of our time is satiation. I put the word “evil” inside quotation marks to emphasize that no particular good thing that God has made is, in itself, evil. But on account of our own inordinate drives, we accumulate and indulge beyond reason. And in becoming satiated, we leave little room for God or other people.The more materially affluent we get, the more spiritually poor we seem to become. The higher our standard...

As of this writing the “Filial Petition” to Francis pleading with him to repair a “breach [that] has been opened within the Church that would accept adultery — by permitting divorced and then civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion — and would virtually accept even homosexual unions” has reached 471,000 signatures, including that of Bishop Athanasius Schneider. The Petition identifies the “breach” of which it complains with “information published on the last Synod,” meaning the disgraceful “midterm report” calling precisely for “permitting divorced and then civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion” and “virtual[ly] accept[ing] even homosexual unions.” Of...

August 22, 2015   Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary Reading 1 Ru 2:1-3, 8-11; 4:13-17 Naomi had a prominent kinsman named Boaz,of the clan of her husband Elimelech.Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi,“Let me go and glean ears of grain in the fieldof anyone who will allow me that favor.”Naomi said to her, “Go, my daughter,” and she went.The field she entered to glean after the harvestershappened to be the section belonging to Boazof the clan of Elimelech. Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter!Do not go to glean in anyone else’s field;you are not...

With his brash demeanor, rough language, womanizing, and general Trump-ness, you’d think evangelicals would loathe Trump. You’d be wrong. Evangelicals were supposed to hate Donald Trump. His ostentatious wealth, his colorful language, his serial marriages—he was supposed to be the anti-Huckabee, the candidate least appealing to conservative Christians and their reality TV-unfriendly sensibilities. Then there was Trump’s cavalier discussion of his faith at the Ames, Iowa, Family Leadership Summit in July—where he said he doesn’t ask God for forgiveness. The Washington Examiner’s Byron York argued that comment would hurt him more than his disparagement of Senator John McCain’s war record....

This popped up in my newsfeed this morning: part of a profile of writer, stand-up comic and cancer survivor Tig Notaro—who, not insignificantly, happens to be gay. She’s also about to get married to her longtime girlfriend, Stephanie: When Stephanie comes up, Tig’s face softens and she can’t help but smile. “We’re inseparable,” she says. “I’m never sick of that person.” She avoids the word fiancée because it sounds hoity-toity, but she’s pretty psyched about the word wife. They’re currently planning a wedding in Tig’s hometown of Pass Christian, Mississippi. More accurately, Stephanie and her mother are planning it with...

A federal appeals court that refused to exempt a group of nuns from Obamacare’s birth-control rules said Friday the sisters can duck the mandate and its hefty fines until the Supreme Court decides whether to take up their appeal. The Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged is among several nonprofit plaintiffs who’ve asked the justices to hear them out next term, saying the Obama administration hasn’t done enough to absolve them from providing birth control they find sinful, including morning-after pills that Catholic groups equate with abortion. “The federal government doesn’t need the Little Sisters or any...

In an August 19 press release, the Archdiocese of San Francisco announced the details of a collective bargaining agreement with its teacher’s union. The original proposal gained national attention when over 75 percent of the high school teachers signed a petition against Archbishop Cordileone’s efforts to add language to employment documents that specifically identified “hot button issues” (mostly around issues of human sexuality and reproduction) that they should not publicly contradict by word or example. Also at issue was how the private lives of teachers might impact their ability to teach in a Catholic school. Additionally, the union also...

The monastery was originally built in the fourth century Islamists destroy 5th-century Mar Elian monasteryISIS fighters have demolished a monastery in central Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.The Mar Elian monastery in the town of Qaryatain near Homs, was captured by the terrorists  from the Syrian Army two weeks ago. This week they used bulldozers to raze the holy site,Mar Elian is also where Fr Jacques Mourad was kidnapped in May. He remains one of six clergy in Syria who have been kidnapped by rebel groups, their fates unknown.Qaryatain is near a road linking the ancient...

"This is a Machiavellian Pope. His encyclical is a very good issue for us progressives.” ~Tom Hayden, 60s radical, former environmental advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown The echo chamber from the anarchists at Occupy Wall Street chanting ‘down with the 1%’ reverberates in the pontifical palaces at the Vatican. Although the ‘60s radicals are greying, they are still around wreaking havoc. In 2011, they dusted off their Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, armed with Molotov cocktails, drugs, and revolutionary rage, and headed for lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park. Make no mistake, the Occupy Wall Street (Occupy) movement was fomented by socialists from...

Islamists destroy 5th-century Mar Elian monasteryISIS fighters have demolished a monastery in central Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Mar Elian monastery in the town of Qaryatain near Homs, was captured by the terrorists from the Syrian Army two weeks ago. This week they used bulldozers to raze the holy site. Mar Elian is also where Fr Jacques Mourad was kidnapped in May. He remains one of six clergy in Syria who have been kidnapped by rebel groups, their fates unknown.

Answering Those Who Say There Is Only One Mediator Msgr. Charles Pope • August 20, 2015 • There is a common Protestant claim that there is one (sole) mediator between God and Man—Jesus. Therefore, they say, asking the saints to pray for us is useless, wrong, and maybe even sinful. Those who object, usually cite some of the following texts: For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:5).Come to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the...

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I will keep this very brief, with the help of my column this month, at The Catholic Answer: For most of my life, the assumption of Mary existed as little more, for me, than a head-scratcher of a dogma.I understood that Elijah and Enoch had been assumed into heaven, so if I considered Mary’s assumption at all, it was simply to shrug it off: “Mary was assumed into heaven. Sure, why not?” The whys and wherefores of the matter were so far above my paygrade that they didn’t seem worth pondering.All of that...

The Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund and a major U.S. foundation have helped fund an LGBT activist project intended to counter West African bishops at the Catholic Church’s Synod on the Family. The Netherlands-based European Forum of LGBT Christian Groups originally planned to make a documentary film of self-identified LGBT Catholics in Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon. “Reacting to the extremely negative influence from bishops from Western Africa on the final document of the Family Synod 14, we found it important to bring the voices of LGBT Catholics from this region to broader attention,” the European Forum said in its...

Today, after repeatedly insisting that His disciples must eat His flesh and drink His blood, Jesus asks, “Does this shock you?” Well, yes.Gospel (Read Jn 6:60-69) In the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus has been speaking to a mixed crowd. There were “the Jews” who had tracked Him down after the feeding of the five thousand. There were also His “disciples,” people who had already started to follow Him. Among these, of course, were the Twelve. It was common for rabbis in Judah to attract disciples; recall that John the Baptist also had disciples. These were men eager to learn...

August 21, 2015   Memorial of Saint Pius X, Pope Reading 1 Ru 1:1, 3-6, 14b-16, 22 Once in the time of the judges there was a famine in the land;so a man from Bethlehem of Judahdeparted with his wife and two sonsto reside on the plateau of Moab.Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died,and she was left with her two sons, who married Moabite women,one named Orpah, the other Ruth.When they had lived there about ten years,both Mahlon and Chilion died also,and the woman was left with neither her two sons nor her husband.She then made ready to go...

For 18 months, since Pope Francis invited Cardinal Walter Kasper to address the February 2014 consistory of cardinals, the question of whether the divorced and civilly remarried can receive the sacraments has been front and centre. Every time the “Kasper proposal” has been rejected, Pope Francis has kept the discussion going, to the extent that it will now dominate the synod on the family to be held in October. Francis did not express himself directly on the question during months of debate, leaving Catholics to speculate on what he thought. In his general audience on August 5 he address­ed it...

Kathmandu -- The church in Nepal is on the edge as Nepal struggles to finalize its much-awaited new constitution amid sporadic protests, violent clashes and shut downs in several districts over demarcation of the provinces under the draft constitution.   "There is lot of tension, both good news and bad news for us on the constitution [making] front," Father Silas Bogati, vicar general of the Vicariate of Nepal told Aleteia August 19 — a day after as a young protester died in police firing.   On the positive side, Father Bogati pointed out that: "At least church and Christianity will...

Happiness is a big deal to Americans.  Our country was founded, in part, on the right to pursue it.  But how many of us have actually found the key to true and lasting contentment?  According to one recent study, the answer might be found in the pews of our churches on Sunday mornings.   The Washington Post reports:   A study in the  American Journal of Epidemiology by researchers at the London School of Economics and Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands found that the secret to sustained happiness lies in participation in religion.   “The church appears to...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Wednesday praised hard work as an essential aspect of God’s design for the family, and he applauded personal readiness to contribute to the common good rather than “Iiving off the backs” of others. Speaking to pilgrims in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall during his weekly catechesis, the Pope said “the nicest thing one can say about a serious, honest person is: ‘he’s a worker.’” The Pope denounced idleness, citing St. Paul’s injunction to the early Christians: “If anyone will not work, let him not eat” (2 Thess. 3:10).  “That’s a recipe for losing...

Donald Trump has revealed he would warn the Pope that ISIS were out to get him if they meet next month. In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Chris Cuomo asked the billionaire businessman what he would say in to Pope Francis if he came face-to face with him during his visit to the United States in September. The Republican presidential hopeful admitted he was a protestant, but said he thought the Pontiff was a 'good guy' because he is becoming very 'political'.