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July 10, 2016 Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Dt 30:10-14 Moses said to the people:"If only you would heed the voice of the LORD, your God,and keep his commandments and statutesthat are written in this book of the law,when you return to the LORD, your God,with all your heart and all your soul. "For this command that I enjoin on you todayis not too mysterious and remote for you.It is not up in the sky, that you should say,'Who will go up in the sky to get it for usand tell us of it, that we may...

Introduction : Saint Bridget, daughter of Birgir -- Royal Blood Prince of Sweden was born about the year 1302 of highly pious parents. Having lost her virtuous mother soon after birth, little Bridget was raised by one of her highly virtuous aunts. She could not speak before the age of 3, but as soon as she spoke, she began praising God. In early childhood, serious discourses on Religion pleased her and grace powerfully filled her heart so that only pious readings attracted her. At the age of 10, she was particularly touched by a sermon she heard on the Passion...

CFN intro: Leftist Cupich is notoriously pro-homosexual. He is now positioned by Francis to recommend men of his ilk to become bishops in the United States. The Francis disaster continues full throttle and will further poison the Church in America and worldwide. Oremus - jv Crux Staff, July 7, 2016 By naming Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago to the Vatican's all-important Congregation for Bishops, Pope Francis effectively has positioned him, in tandem with Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., to be the American "kingmakers" on this pope's watch. Pope Francis on Thursday named Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago to the...

A Catholic church in Lyon, France, has sold off statues of monks killed by Muslims, for fear they will provoke attacks. The statues, which were to be shown at Saint Louis church, honoured monks who were beheaded by Muslims in Algeria during the 1990s. The Algerian consul in the city responded with “fury” to the statues. The church sold the statues to an institute that hosts a private museum of Catholic artifacts to prevent conflict with local Muslims. Cardinal Barbarin approved the statues to be placed in the church’s grounds last year. But the more powerful Bishop of Lyon was...

Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the three children who witnessed the Marian apparitions at Fatima, died in 2005. But before her death, she predicted that the final battle between Christ and Satan would be over marriage and the family. So says Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, who reports that the visionary sent him a letter with this prediction when he was Archbishop of Bologna, Italy. This reported statement by Sister Lucia, expressed during the pontificate of Saint John Paul II, was recently revisited by the Desde la Fe (From the Faith) weekly of the Archdiocese of Mexico, in the midst of...

When Israel Was a Child I Loved Him - A Meditation on the Heavenly Father’s Love Msgr. Charles Pope • July 7, 2016 • We recently pondered the story of Hosea’s marriage and through it had a glimpse into the heart of God. In today’s reading from Hosea, we get another look into the heart of the Father, not from the perspective of God as husband, but as Father to Israel. In this passage we get another moving portrait of a God who loves tenderly and immensely but who is also grieved at His son’s rebelliousness and all the...

July 9, 2016 Saturday 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...

July 8, 2016 Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time 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...

Were the Pagan Gods Actually Demons? The Scriptural View and Why It Matters Msgr. Charles Pope • July 6, 2016 • There is a tendency for us to simplistically dismiss the gods of the ancient world as mere figments of human imagination, but the biblical approach is a bit more complex than that.To be clear, at no time in the Scriptures were these gods ever acknowledged to be gods in any true sense of the word. There is only one God and He is the LORD.Consider the following text by St. Paul:For although there may be so-called gods in...

During his recent presentation of the book Beyond the Crisis in the Church: The Pontificate of Benedict XVI, Monsignor Georg Ganswein, who serves as personal secretary to “Pope Emeritus” Benedict XVI, inexplicably and quite mysteriously provided new depth, and thus new impetus, to the novel idea that Benedict’s renunciation of the papacy was qualified by a “changed understanding” of the papacy, according to which Benedict retained a “passive” aspect of the Petrine office while turning over its active exercise to Francis. In the course of the book presentation Ganswein made remarks that surely reflect Benedict’s own understanding of his situation,...

Rome, Italy, Jun 25, 2016 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- What is Benedict XVI's own view of his historical resignation? What has the fall-out been from his secretary Archbishop Georg Gänswein's controversial remark on an “expanded petrine office”? What about the “Prophesy of Malachy,” which allegedly sees Francis as the last pontiff? In a recent and candid conversation, veteran journalist and EWTN Rome correspondent Paul Badde sat down with Archbishop Gänswein, who gave his take on these and a number of other questions. The German archbishop currently serves Pope Francis as Prefect of the Papal Household, and has also maintained...

<p>Last week, the Navy released the results of a lengthy investigation it had completed, concerning the conduct of one officer and nine enlisted sailors after they willingly surrendered their two Riverine Patrol Craft to the Iranians and were subsequently detained for 15 hours in the Persian Gulf last January.</p>

July 7, 2016 Thursday 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...

The Story of Hosea and What It Teaches About God and Holy Matrimony Msgr. Charles Pope • July 5, 2016 • We are currently reading from the Book of the Prophet Hosea at daily Mass. The story of the Prophet Hosea’s troubled marriage is a powerful testimony to two things: our own tendency to be unfaithful to God, but also of God’s passionate love for us. We do well to recall the story, especially given the “great debate” among some in the Church today over the question of divorce and remarriage. And while there are many painful stories of...

July 6, 2016 Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Hos 10:1-3, 7-8, 12 Israel is a luxuriant vinewhose fruit matches its growth.The more abundant his fruit,the more altars he built;The more productive his land,the more sacred pillars he set up.Their heart is false,now they pay for their guilt;God shall break down their altarsand destroy their sacred pillars.If they would say,“We have no king”—Since they do not fear the LORD,what can the king do for them? The king of Samaria shall disappear,like foam upon the waters.The high places of Aven shall be destroyed,the sin of Israel;thorns...

Has Francis’ self-styled theology of mercy blinded him to the need for justice for the Church’s violent betrayal of children? Has mercy replaced justice in the lexicon of papal rules necessary to protect children? Is clergy sex abuse too bothersome and unfashionable for the popular globalist media star fixated on global warming and income redistribution? Or, is he simply the mercy impostor, unwilling to address the crisis, similar to his years in Argentina? Francis’ mercy minions may be shocked, but in the opinion of abuse survivors, the Francis “peripheries” don’t include the victims of clerical sexual predators. Several speakers denounced...

Let Us Fall by the Hand of God Rather than by Man - A Meditation on the Paradoxical Mercy of God’s Punishments Msgr. Charles Pope • July 4, 2016 • One of the paradoxes of God’s mercy is that through it He punishes wrongdoing. At first glance, mercy and punishment seem contradictory.But the apparent contradiction is rooted in the premise that punishment is the same as vengeance. This premise holds that the one who punishes is merely exacting revenge for some offense, or that the punishment is merely a way for the more powerful to vent their anger on...

July 5, 2016 Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Hos 8:4-7, 11-13 Thus says the LORD:They made kings in Israel, but not by my authority;they established princes, but without my approval.With their silver and gold they madeidols for themselves, to their own destruction.Cast away your calf, O Samaria!my wrath is kindled against them;How long will they be unable to attaininnocence in Israel?The work of an artisan,no god at all,Destined for the flames—such is the calf of Samaria! When they sow the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind;The stalk of grain that forms no earcan yield...

In my essay “10 Things You Should Know About the American Founding” I focused on some little-known facts about the American Founding in general. The final three of those “10 things” mentioned Catholics and Catholicism, including how “every colony had some form of anti-Catholic law, except for Pennsylvania. The farther north one journeyed, the stronger the anti-Catholicism became.” This is not to suggest that Catholicism is incompatible with the Founding, but simply to note that Catholics were usually, at best, the odd men out and were to many colonists the dire symbol of all that was wrong with the world....

I learned of this site today at the irreplaceable One Peter Five by Steve Skojec [ http://www.onepeterfive.com/ ]. The site follows the Drudge format, with a page of links to stories and websites. This will be of most interest to Catholic Conservatives faithful to the Magisterium.