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Heaven is an Acquired Taste Msgr. Charles Pope • July 30, 2017 • There is a tendency today to forget that Heaven is an acquired taste; not everyone wants what God offers. While everyone wants to be happy, often happiness is conceived of in an egocentric way. Heaven is thought of as a personally designed paradise where we will be happy on our own terms.But that is not what Heaven is. Heaven is the Kingdom of God in all its fullness. Its values and qualities are manifold but include many things that are not immediately desirable to those who...

Paul Shanley, a priest convicted of multiple counts of child rape, has walked free, as reported by FOX8. Shanley, 86, has spent the last 12 years behind bars after being convicted in 2005 of two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child and two counts of rape and abuse of a child, according to the sex offender registry. The Massachusetts man now begins 10 years of supervised probation, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement. Shanley was one of a number of Catholic priests convicted of child rape, the fallout from an infamous Boston Globe investigation...

July 31, 2017 Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Priest Reading 1 Ex 32:15-24, 30-34Moses turned and came down the mountainwith the two tablets of the commandments in his hands,tablets that were written on both sides, front and back;tablets that were made by God,having inscriptions on them that were engraved by God himself.Now, when Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting,he said to Moses, "That sounds like a battle in the camp."But Moses answered, "It does not sound like cries of victory,nor does it sound like cries of defeat;the sounds that I hear are cries of revelry."As he...

A Lenten retreat on the message of Fatima.

Give Me Jesus – A Sermon for the 17th Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope • July 29, 2017 • Scots’ Church, MelbourneThe Gospel today asks a fundamental question: “What is it that you value most?” In other words, He’s asking us what we want most. We tend to answer questions like this the way we think we should, rather than genuinely. When we’re with the doctor (and Jesus is our doctor) our best bet is to answer honestly so that we can begin a true healing process. The fact is, we all need a heart transplant; we...

July 30, 2017 Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12The LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, "Ask something of me and I will give it to you." Solomon answered:"O LORD, my God, you have made me, your servant, kingto succeed my father David;but I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act. I serve you in the midst of the people whom you have chosen,a people so vast that it cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heartto judge your people and to...

The Power of Repentance to Rewrite the Record Msgr. Charles Pope • July 28, 2017 • This animated short contrasts the consuming quality of envy, anger, and hate with the overwhelming power of love and forgiveness. It also depicts the possibility of repentance upon recognizing the damage caused.In the video, a little girl’s written resentments of her older sister spring forth from her diary to wreak their havoc. Witnessing the frightening result and trying to halt the damage, the young girl tears the passages from her journal. She then attempts to create a repentant, loving message from the shredded...

The Story of Charlie Gard (as reported by EWTN News)

July 29, 2017 Memorial of Saint Martha Reading 1 Ex 24:3-8When Moses came to the peopleand related all the words and ordinances of the LORD, they all answered with one voice,"We will do everything that the LORD has told us."Moses then wrote down all the words of the LORD and,rising early the next day,he erected at the foot of the mountain an altarand twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. Then, having sent certain young men of the children of Israelto offer burnt offerings and sacrifice young bullsas peace offerings to the LORD,Moses took half of the blood...

Despite strong protests, local Caritas office sponsors Emma Bonino to speak on immigration with the approval of the parish priest while the local bishop chooses to remain silent. In the face of strong opposition, one of Italy’s most notorious pro-abortionists spoke in a Catholic church on Wednesday while pro-life Catholics were locked out, silenced or ejected. Emma Bonino addressed the issue of immigration at the July 26 event, on the feast of St. Anne and St. Joachim, at the church of San Defendente in San Rocco di Cossato in the diocese of Biella, northern Italy (see video here). The church...

What Does It Mean to Trust God? Maybe Not What You Think Msgr. Charles Pope • July 27, 2017 • We are often told to trust in God, and many of us have counseled others who are anxious or downcast to do so. But what does that mean?In some cases, when people give this counsel they mean this: Don’t worry, God will eventually give you what want. God will come around to your way of thinking at some point. Hang in there and wait for God to answer (your way). He’ll take care of things (in a way that...

July 28, 2017 Friday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Ex 20:1-17In those days:God delivered all these commandments: "I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.You shall not have other gods besides me.You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them.For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers' wickedness...

The Infant of PragueFr. William Saunders Q: My grandmother has always had a statue of Jesus as a child dressed up like a little king with a crown. She even has different outfits for him which are very elaborate. Can you tell me anything about this?From the description given in the question, the statue is one of the Infant of Prague. Devotion to the Holy Child Jesus is a long-standing tradition in our Catholic spirituality. The early Church Fathers, like St. Athanasius and St. Jerome, had a special devotion to the Holy Child Jesus. Some of the later great saints,...

Three Characteristics of the Diabolic That Are Widely Evident Today Msgr. Charles Pope • July 26, 2017 • door panel, Pisa BaptisteryThe video at the bottom of this post is of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. It is a fascinating excerpt from a longer presentation he did. In it, he analyzes the diabolic (anything of or relating to the Devil) from several different perspectives. Archbishop Sheen identifies three characteristics of the diabolic by examining the story of the Gerasene demoniac, which is presented in the synoptic Gospels. Here is the beginning of the story as it appears in the Gospel...

The head of the Lutheran World Federation has called on theologians to remove the obstacles that hinder unity with the Catholic Church. Rev. Dr. Martin Junge made his remarks in a letter commemorating the 50th anniversary of official Lutheran dialogue with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. “Our task as theologians and as pastors should never be to provide explanations as to why unity is not yet possible; our task shall be to creatively and courageously remove the obstacles that still prevent us from the enjoyment of God’s gift of unity,” wrote Junge. He added, “Decades of ecumenical dialogue,...

July 27, 2017 Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Ex 19:1-2, 9-11, 16-20bIn 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 response of...

William Inge (1860-1954), Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University and Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, was frequently in the literary crosshairs of G.K. Chesterton for his anti-Catholic polemics and strident promotion of eugenics. Fortunately, Chesterton also rejected his advocacy of nudism. Given Dean Inge’s eclectic version of progressivism, one is struck by his cynicism about faddish thinking: “Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.” Exactly fifty years ago, fads ran wild at the “Land O’Lakes Conference” in Wisconsin organized by Father Theodore Hesburgh of the University of Notre Dame to update the...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the Bedford Cheese Shop, a store with locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan: If the Bedford Cheese Shop did this to some other religious figure, the owner would be in serious trouble. But she chose to defile Mother Teresa, which is why there will be no physical retaliation. They should nonetheless be punished by everyone, not just Catholics: a boycott is in order. At the Manhattan store, the card display of Brebirousse D’argental cheese says, “The texture is as close to heaven that we have found here on earth. Kinda like going down on...

Suffering for the Gospel: Pondering a Picture of Apostolic Times Msgr. Charles Pope • July 25, 2017 • Death of St. James by Stefan Lochner (c. 1435)Writing as I am on the Feast of Saint James, likely the first Apostle to be martyred, I’d like to ponder the kinds of sufferings the Apostles endured in order to announce the Gospel and win souls for Christ. In the “softer” Church of the declining West, it is hard for us even to imagine. How many Catholics today can barely rouse themselves to get to an hour-long Mass on Sunday? How many...

July 18, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — For 12 years before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex "marriage" in 2015, I wrote and lectured extensively on why this development would be fraught with peril. I even recorded a three CD set on the topic for Catholic Answers in 2011. As the General Counsel for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) in California, I also campaigned extensively for the passage of Proposition 8. This State Constitutional Amendment passed with a majority vote in liberal California, as did similar ones in 30 other states. Yet, by a mere vote of 5-4, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all of those state...