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It was a hot day in July, a Saturday afternoon, and Kim James was bored. Her older sisters had taken her to a church event in their small hometown in Indiana, where the girls were spending their summer. Her parents were back in Bangladesh, working at the remote Baptist missionary compound where the family had lived, on and off, for five years. For an adventurous and high-spirited 13-year-old like Kim, Indiana seemed dull compared to Bangladesh. She missed her friends, the dozen or so missionary kids everybody called “MKs.” She missed the menagerie her parents let her keep: goats, cows,...

June 21, 2017 Memorial of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious Reading 1 2 Cor 9:6-11Brothers and sisters, consider this:whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion,for God loves a cheerful giver.Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you,so that in all things, always having all you need,you may have an abundance for every good work.As it is written: He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor;his righteousness endures forever. The one who supplies seed to the sower and bread for foodwill supply...

Network of Dissident Groups Launch ‘Laudato Si’ Website by Trey Elmore"  •  ChurchMilitant.com  •  June 19, 2017    0 Comments Website calls for Catholics to "fast for climate justice" DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - An organization calling itself the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) has launched a website on the anniversary of Pope Francis' encyclical on climate change, Laudato Si. The website, LiveLaudatoSi.org, features a pledge to "Pray for and with creation, Live more simply, Advocate to protect our common home." On the site, Catholics are encouraged to participate in an interfaith "Fast for Climate Justice" and to give up meat on...

Christian School Told They Can’t Teach Bible Verses That Offend Homosexual’s!

What is Sacred Music? The History Is More Complex Than You Might Think Msgr. Charles Pope • June 19, 2017 • Note to readers: The following article is long (3500 words). This is because I have been adding to it over the years as my research has continued. I am by avocation a church musician. Before my ordination, I was a Choir director and an organist. Like most of you, I have my preferences in the area of Church music, but we must be careful not merely to dogmatize them. If we are going to talk intelligently about Church...

A top Vatican official explained a decision last week to name an abortion supporter to the Catholic Church’s Pontifical Academy for Life. Last week, LifeNews and others questioned Pope Francis’s decision to name Nigel Biggar to the pro-life academy. Biggar, a professor of theology at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, made statements in the past supporting abortion up to 18 weeks of pregnancy, The National Catholic Register reports. The Pontifical Academy for Life promotes protections for human life at all stages and conducts research on moral and bioethical issues. It is influential world-wide in promoting Catholic teachings...

June 20, 2017 Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 2 Cor 8:1-9We want you to know, brothers and sisters, of the grace of Godthat has been given to the churches of Macedonia,for in a severe test of affliction,the abundance of their joy and their profound povertyoverflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.For according to their means, I can testify,and beyond their means, spontaneously,they begged us insistently for the favor of taking partin the service to the holy ones,and this, not as we expected,but they gave themselves first to the Lordand to us through...

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, has doubled down in defending a new member appointed by Pope Francis to the Academy who has argued that abortion should be legal until “18 weeks after conception.” Paglia said that while the appointee’s pro-abortion stance is “not my personal position, and much less the Academy,” he nevertheless defended the recent selection of pro-abortion University of Oxford Professor Nigel Biggar.

Faithful Fathers Msgr. Charles Pope • June 18, 2017 • Priesthood Ordination 2017 – Photo Credit: Daphne StubboloSunday’s Feast of Corpus Christi brought the first Masses of the new priests ordained here in Washington. It was also Father’s Day. The readings for Corpus Christi suggest a kind of threefold office for the priest (related to teaching, governing, and sanctifying). I thought it might be good to present some of the notes from that homily on the blog today. Here, then, are three facets of a faithful Father—of a faithful priest.I. The Priest Announces the Truth – Throughout the readings...

Exorcists who reportedly worship the devil and believe its former leader controls climate change are being investigated by the Vatican. The Brazil-based group of exorcists, known as the Heralds of the Gospel, are said to use rogue exorcism practices to possess people. They are also said to believe their former leader Dr Plinio Correa de Oliveira, who died in 1995, is in close contact with Satan. Even in death, Dr Plinio is said to possess the ability to control climate change and is plotting towards the death of Pope Francis. The Vatican's investigation was launched as video emerged online purporting...

June 19, 2017 Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 2 Cor 6:1-10Brothers and sisters:As your fellow workers, we appeal to younot to receive the grace of God in vain.For he says: In an acceptable time I heard you,and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is a very acceptable time;behold, now is the day of salvation.We cause no one to stumble in anything,in order that no fault may be found with our ministry;on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselvesas ministers of God, through much endurance,in afflictions, hardships, constraints,beatings, imprisonments, riots,labors, vigils,...

Husbands Day JENNIFER ROBACK MORSE Father's Day is a day for honoring fathers. But I would like to take a step back and honor men as husbands. In our enlightened, liberated era, we have a tendency to overlook men as husbands, since the father is so often not the husband of the mother. But without some kind of connection between the man and the woman, there is quite literally, no child. I'd like to make the case that the most important thing fathers can do for their children is to love their mother. And likewise, among the many things...

A Jesuit scholar with expertise in Islam is explaining why Muslims are terroristic and is warning members of his faith not to be taken in by the “liberal-left ideology” that advocates “tolerance” and “concessions.” The verdict and warning comes from Egyptian Greek Melkite Jesuit Father Henri Boulad, who was interviewed by the National Catholic Register. First, the reason for the terrorism is simple, said Boulad, 85, whose relative, Father Samir Khalil Samir, also is a Jesuit scholar of Islam. The Quran orders Muslims to inflict “terror.” *snip* The church should not defend Islam “at all costs” and seek to “exonerate...

Are You a Mouse or A Man? A Homily for The Feast of Corpus Christi Msgr. Charles Pope • June 17, 2017 • In many places this Sunday, the (moved) Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ Our Lord is celebrated.While you may puzzle over my title for today’s blog, allow me to delay the explanation to a bit later. On a solemn feast like this, many things might be preached and taught. Let’s look at three areas for reflection: the Reality of the Eucharist, the Requirement of the Eucharist, and the Remembrance of the Eucharist.I....

June 18, 2017 Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ Reading 1 Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16aMoses said to the people:"Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God,has directed all your journeying in the desert,so as to test you by afflictionand find out whether or not it was your intentionto keep his commandments. He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger,and then fed you with manna,a food unknown to you and your fathers,in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live,but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD. "Do...

Corpus Christi FATHER GEORGE W. RUTLER When Jesus had given instructions sending two of his disciples into Jerusalem where they would find an upper room in which he would institute the Eucharist, "The disciples went out and came to the city, and found everything just as he had told them" (Mark 14:16). Similarly, the liturgical cycle follows a pattern based on this economy that was planned and predicted by God. Ten days after the celebration of the Ascension, the Church celebrates her birth in the flames and wind of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And then comes Trinity Sunday....

Our Interconnectedness as seen in a Commercial Msgr. Charles Pope • June 16, 2017 • The commercial below reminds us that the products we use don’t just come out of nowhere. Good goes around and around. The Cheerios in the cereal box started out as seeds in the ground, but the commercial stops well short of showing everyone we should thank for the final product.• Before sowing the seed, the ground has to be tilled and prepared.o Thank you to the farmers as well as those who invented, designed, and build the plows. o Thanks to the steel workers...

The cardinal said that omitting Jesus's 'hard sayings' is not charitableCardinal Robert Sarah has said that gay people are called to chastity, and that “we demean them if we think they cannot attain this virtue.” Describing chastity as “a virtue for all disciples”, the Vatican liturgy chief argued that clergy deprive gay people of the fullness of the Gospel if they do not call them to live chastely. In a foreword to the book Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay by Daniel Mattson, the cardinal writes: “To omit the “hard sayings” of Christ and His Church is not charity. Indeed,...

June 17, 2017 Saturday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 2 Cor 5:14-21Brothers and sisters:The love of Christ impels us,once we have come to the conviction that one died for all;therefore, all have died.He indeed died for all,so that those who live might no longer live for themselvesbut for him who for their sake died and was raised. Consequently, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh;even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh,yet now we know him so no longer.So whoever is in Christ is a new creation:the old things...

Fr. Don Miller, OFM Image: Stained glass of Apostle to the English | photo by Lawrence, OPSaint Augustine of Canterbury Saint of the Day for May 27 (? – May 26, 605)  Saint Augustine of Canterbury’s Story In the year 596, some 40 monks set out from Rome to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England. Leading the group was Augustine, the prior of their monastery. Hardly had he and his men reached Gaul when they heard stories of the ferocity of the Anglo-Saxons and of the treacherous waters of the English Channel. Augustine returned to Rome and to Gregory the...