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Featured Term (selected at random:TEN PLAGUES  The ten calamities sent by God on the Egyptians to make Pharaoh release the children of Israel (Exodus 7, 12). Seven of the plagues were done through Moses or Moses and Aaron' the fourth, fifth, and tenth were directly worked by God. They were, in sequence: water turned to blood, multitude of frogs, swarms of gnats, pest of flies, disease that killed all the cattle, epidemic of boils, torrential hailstorm, plague of locusts, darkness for three days, death of all the firstborn among the Egyptians. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John...

July 14, 2014Memorial of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin    Reading 1 Is 1:10-17 Hear the word of the LORD,princes of Sodom!Listen to the instruction of our God,people of Gomorrah!What care I for the number of your sacrifices?says the LORD.I have had enough of whole-burnt ramsand fat of fatlings;In the blood of calves, lambs and goatsI find no pleasure. When you come in to visit me,who asks these things of you?Trample my courts no more!Bring no more worthless offerings;your incense is loathsome to me.New moon and sabbath, calling of assemblies,octaves with wickedness: these I cannot bear.Your new moons and festivals...

Photo gallery from the city's third 'Mass Mob' this summer. Nearly 2,000 people packed an historic Catholic Church for a regular Sunday Mass. It's the third time it's happened, with the crowds getting bigger each time. (Detroit Free Press had a great article on it here, but won't let folks post excerpts, so you'll have to read the article at the link: http://www.freep.com/article/20140713/NEWS05/307130141/Detroit-Mass-Mob-Sweetest-Heart )

Pope Francis promised "solutions" to the issue of priestly celibacy in an interview on Sunday that raised the possibility the Catholic Church could eventually lift a ban on married priests, but was quickly refuted by the VaticanVATICAN CITY: Pope Francis promised "solutions" to the issue of priestly celibacy in an interview on Sunday that raised the possibility the Catholic Church could eventually lift a ban on married priests, but was quickly refuted by the Vatican. Interviewed by Italy's La Repubblica daily, Francis also condemned child sex abuse as a "leprosy" in the Church and cited his aides as saying that...

July 13, 2014Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time    Reading 1 Is 55:10-11 Thus says the LORD:Just as from the heavensthe rain and snow come downand do not return theretill they have watered the earth,making it fertile and fruitful,giving seed to the one who sowsand bread to the one who eats,so shall my word bethat goes forth from my mouth;my word shall not return to me void,but shall do my will,achieving the end for which I sent it. Responsorial Psalm Ps 65:10, 11, 12-13, 14 R/ (Lk 8:8) The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.You...

Finding My Way Home The Eucharist drew me back. By: Johnnie BernhardI was baptized in the Catholic Church as an infant. My family later left the Church, and it took me fifty years to find my way home. Through all those years, I never forgot the peace I found in the Eucharist.Even as a practicing Protestant most of my adult life, I continued to search out Catholic churches wherever I lived, hiding in a pew in the back of the church, always a spectator, always longing to recapture the peace I found in the Eucharist. I could never really...

Featured Term (selected at random:CHAPTER HOUSE A building attached to a cathedral or monastery where certain meetings were held, business carried out, the martyrology read, and daily tasks assigned. the name arose from the practice of conducting the chapter of faults in this building. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

The Department of Homeland Security has asked Catholic churches in California to temporarily house and feed groups of Central American migrants until 2016, according to an official at the diocese of San Bernardino.But any unpaid cooperation is legally questionable, because it may be intended to bypass Congress’ authority to fund — or to not fund — federal agencies’ new practice of distributing the flood of migrant families to homes across the country.The department “has reached out to the diocese and the bishop, and asked us to shelter families in transition,” Maria Christina Mendez, at the Office of Hispanic Affairs, told...

July 12, 2014Saturday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time    Reading 1 Is 6:1-8 In the year King Uzziah died,I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,with the train of his garment filling the temple.Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings:with two they veiled their faces,with two they veiled their feet,and with two they hovered aloft. They cried one to the other,“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!All the earth is filled with his glory!”At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shookand the house was filled with...

The Pope's visit to the church is likely to be 'extremely quick' (CNS) Pope Francis will pay a brief “private visit” to the Italian church of a Pentecostal pastor he knew from Argentina, a Vatican spokesman has said.The visit to the Evangelical Church of Reconciliation in Caserta, about 130 miles south of Rome, “is under study and likely would take place July 26″, said Fr Federico Lombardi.Fr Lombardi said the Pope knew the church’s pastor, Giovanni Traettino, from Buenos Aires, where the Pentecostal pastor participated in ecumenical events with Catholics, especially Catholics belonging to the charismatic renewal movement. The then-Cardinal...

The conviction of Rolf Harris is a reminder that child abuse is an abuse of power. The crime persists because perpetrators are not challenged and dealt with speedily by the criminal justice system. Children are still abused in Ireland every day.

Featured Term (selected at random:ILLUMINISM A form of Gnosticism, it appears in the history of Christian heresy as a belief in one's own divine enlightenment, with a sense of mission to enlighten others, contrary to the express teachings of the Church's magisterium. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

July 11, 2014Memorial of Saint Benedict, Abbot    Reading 1 Hos 14:2-10 Thus says the LORD:Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God;you have collapsed through your guilt.Take with you words,and return to the LORD;Say to him, “Forgive all iniquity,and receive what is good, that we may renderas offerings the bullocks from our stalls.Assyria will not save us,nor shall we have horses to mount;We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’to the work of our hands;for in you the orphan finds compassion.”I will heal their defection, says the LORD,I will love them freely;for my wrath is turned away from them.I...

True reconciliation only begins with an apology. It takes more than saying one is sorry to heal the wounds that come from hurting others. That takes justice — a commitment to make things right, to change whatever actions have caused harm, and to hold those responsible for that harm accountable for their actions. Pope Francis on Monday met with a group of Roman Catholics who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy, and he offered a sweeping apology to them for the wrongs done against them when they were children.

Featured Term (selected at random:FETICIDE The direct killing of an unborn child. It is always murder and therefore gravely sinful. (Etym. Latin fetus, the young in the womb + -cidium, a killing.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission. 

Local Catholics protest outside Mayo-Franciscan hospital over the hospital's affiliation with Dr. Carl Rose. Local Wisconsin Catholics are organizing protests outside a La Crosse Catholic-affiliated hospital that they say is employing up to three abortionists on staff. While the protesters acknowledge that the abortionists don’t perform abortions at the Catholic hospital itself, they say it is unacceptable for the hospital to be affiliated with abortionists in any way, and are calling for the hospital to sever ties with the doctors. Leif and Karen Arvidson, who are spearheading the protests, say that they were galvanized into action after Dr. Carl Rose,...

July 10, 2014Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time   Reading 1 Hos 11:1-4, 8e-9 Thus says the LORD:When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son.The more I called them,the farther they went from me,Sacrificing to the Baalsand burning incense to idols.Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,who took them in my arms;I drew them with human cords,with bands of love;I fostered them like onewho raises an infant to his cheeks;Yet, though I stooped to feed my child,they did not know that I was their healer. My heart is...

I'm a big fan of absurdity in politics. But even absurdity has its limits, and the National Organization for Women has surpassed it in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. As part of its full-throated defense of ObamaCare's contraception mandate, NOW has a list of what it calls "The Dirty 100" — entities that have sued the Department of Health and Human Services and demanded exemptions on the basis of their First Amendment right to religious expression and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, the two firms that...

For the past four years, Flint Dollar has been teaching music at Mount de Sales Academy, a Catholic school in Macon, Ga. He is, by all accounts, beloved by his students. But Dollar won't be leading the band or teaching the chorus in the fall. His contract was not renewed after administrators found out he plans to marry a man. Under federal anti-discrimination laws, employers are not prohibited from hiring or firing people on the basis of sexual orientation. Dollar is working to change that. He says when he was hired, he was honest with school administrators about his sexual...

Featured Term (selected at random:TYCHISM A theory that chance is an objective fact in the universe and that it is not merly due to human ignorance. It is commonly associated with the idea that evolution takes place casually and without planned direction by some guiding intelligence. (Etym. Greek tyche, fortune, chance.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.