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It came as a surprise to discover that monks were no longer involved in the beer-making at Trappist brewer Westmalle during a visit to research for a feature of Trappist beers. With the exception of small-scale Westvleteren that is pretty much the case at all seven Trappist breweries in Belgium and the Netherlands. It is largely the result of demographics – the average age of monks at many monasteries in western Europe is up in the 50s, 60s or 70s, hardly an age to be pushing around barrels. The modern brewery is also very much automated, requiring fewer people on...

President Obama’s highly controversial Safe Schools Czar, Kevin Jennings, is concerned about the heterosexual indoctrination of children in our public schools. In his bizarre view: “we all know what’s promoted in our schools: Heterosexuality is promoted in our schools. Every time kids read Romeo and Juliet or they’re encouraged to go to the prom or whatever it is, kids are aggressively recruited to be heterosexual in this country. And you know what, it doesn’t work. The reality is that if schools could affect your sexual orientation there would have been no gay people in the first place. But they’re still...

Vatican City, Oct 31, 2009 / 12:13 pm (CNA).- In an extensive clarification released on Saturday by the Vatican press office, Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. made clear, on behalf of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Levada, that there is no “celibacy issue” delaying the publication of the Constitution that will establish the context in which Anglicans can be received into the Catholic Church.In a statement released in English –breaking the common use of Italian- Fr. Lombardi explained that “there has been widespread speculation, based on supposedly knowledgeable remarks by an Italian...

One of the most controversial papal documents ever released was the bull Unam Sanctam, issued in 1302 by Pope Boniface VIII. Today the most controversial part of the bull is the following infallible pronouncement: "Now, therefore, we declare, say, define, and pronounce that for every human creature it Is altogether necessary for salvation to be subject to the authority of the Roman pontiff." This doctrine is extraordinarily controversial. Some Catholic extremists claim (contrary to further Church teaching, including a further infallible definition) that this means everyone who is not a full fledged, professing Catholic is damned. Non Catholics find the...

After the Pope, the Secretary of State, and the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the most influential man at the Vatican-- #4 on the overall list-- is the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. That congregation supervises the selection of bishops for dioceses all around the world; it's easy to see why the office is so important.The prefect today is Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. By reason of both tenure (he's just passed 9 years in that office) and age (he turns 76 in January), he is overdue for retirement. The prelate who succeeds him will...

After a three-year process, the Vatican recently decided to invite the world's 77 million Anglicans into the fold, offering full communion within the Roman Catholic Church while retaining Anglican liturgy and the married priesthood. While the decision will offer an opportunity to the worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion, representing 300,000 to 400,000 Anglicans who sought "full, corporate, sacramental union" with the Roman Catholic Church, it is not expected to dramatically affect the American Episcopal Church, according to area clergy who were pleased or disaffected by the news. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River reacted with cautious optimism, warning that much...

Christ and the Christian It would be impertinent to speak of a Christian without first trying to find out about Christ. Calling someone Christian only indicates that in some fashion he resembles Christ. But Who is Christ? Why are there millions of people who call themselves Christians? Philosophers have given their name to disciples who follow their system of thought Platonists, Thomists, Kantists, Marxists. None of these, however, have attained the prodigious continued devotion that Christ inspires in His followers. Even Buddhism, which demands a total surrender to its rules, has very little to say about Buddha himself, whose image...

This weekend’s feedback is in response to a number of queries about the Church of England (Anglicans) officially apologizing to Darwin. However, they don’t speak for all attenders of this church, since many of them are still faithful to Scripture and are appalled by their ‘leaders’. There are numerous mistakes in the article by the official CoE representative, a Rev. Dr Malcolm Brown, on the official CoE website, and Jonathan Sarfati replies point-by-point...

Castle Rock, Colorado—Despite the first major snowstorm of the season, and unrelenting efforts by malicious Darwinists to prevent people from registering, a huge crowd of around 1,000 people showed up Friday night to hear Dr. Stephen Meyer present the DNA evidence for intelligent design based on his new book Signature in the Cell. Meyer, Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and myself are in Colorado to speak at the Legacy of Darwin ID Conference sponsored by Shepherd Project Ministries. On Saturday, Michael Behe will present the evidence against modern Darwinism from his books Darwin’s Black Box and The Edge of Evolution;...

The Bible tells us that God made mankind—male and female—“in His image” (Genesis 1:26, 27). This gives us humans a special significance in the cosmos. However, modern secular (godless) thinking minimizes this significance. As Voyager 1 reached the edge of our solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan asked NASA to instruct Voyager to turn around and take a picture looking back towards Earth. The grainy image showed our home as a tiny pale blue dot. In a book written soon after, atheist Sagan wrote, “our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are...

This past Sunday, I deviated from my usual schedule of going to Noon Mass on Sunday at my parish and decided instead to go to 9 PM Sunday Mass at a local University's chapel. I am familiar with the college chapel's Mass- I've been to it a few times. Sometimes the Mass is recited outside the rubrics of the Novus Ordo liturgy, but the campus ministry program is run by genuinely good people. However, my perception of this college's campus ministry changed last night. During the prayer intentions after the Nicene Creed, the lector asked that we pray for all...

The Inquisition 1068. What about the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition? You have probably read many imaginary descriptions of that tribunal which pretend to be history. However let us be quiet about torture inflicted by Catholics four hundred years ago. Seventy years ago a young servant girl was transported for life to Tasmania for scorching linen while ironing, and that from England three centuries after the Reformation! We are rather in a glass house. In 1848 things occurred in Norfolk Island in the name of gentle English Protestant enlightenment which would make your hair stand on end. Here are...

November 2, 2009                                        The Commemoration of                                         All the Faithful Departed                                         (All Souls)                                                        (The following readings are selected                                                             from the options for this day.)             Reading 1Responsorial PsalmReading 2Gospel Reading 1Wis 3:1-9 The souls of the just are in the hand of God,and no torment shall touch them.They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;and...

November 2 All Souls Day  The death of one we love leaves us empty. Yearning for lost companionship, we grieve through remembrance, tears, and prayer. Whether death comes mercifully to end a long illness or ruthlessly in violence or accident, mourners struggle to live day by day without the person who made those days bright, who made them feel loved, and who lightened burdens like these. Catholics who grieve find comfort in faith. Belief in life after death helps us receive the loss of someone we love with anticipation. We believe we will reunite with those we love after death. Catholics...

According to media reports, Pope Benedict XVI is continuing his efforts to return some disaffected Catholic traditionalists to the “fold.” In the wake of the Second Vatican Council, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) were at odds with the papacy on several issues resulting from the council, which both sides viewed as fundamental.  Lefebvre and five others were automatically excommunicated in 1988, when he consecrated four bishops. However, the excommunication of the four surviving bishops was lifted earlier this year as part of the present pope’s outreach to the Traditionalist Catholics. According to the Associated...

Life is not a naturalistic phenomenon with unlimited evolutionary potential as Darwin proposed. It is intelligently designed, ruled by immutable laws, and survives only because it has a built-in facilitated variation mechanism for continually adapting to internal and external challenges and changes. The essential components are: functional molecular architecture and machinery, modular switching cascades that control the machinery and a signal network that coordinates everything. All three are required for survival, so they must have been present from the beginning—a conclusion that demands intelligent design. Life’s built-in ability to adapt and diversify looks like Darwinian evolution, but it is not....

York's Planned Parenthood protests a protestor Center cites priest's behavior and criminal past. Father Gabriel: 'I'm not backing down' By MELISSA NANN BURKE Daily Record/Sunday News It didn't take long for staff and volunteers at the York office of Planned Parenthood of Central Pennsylvania Inc. to take note of the Rev. Virgil Bradley Tetherow . Tetherow, known as Father Gabriel, first appeared on the sidewalks outside the clinic in the summer of 2008, often dressed in his vestments as if prepared to celebrate Mass. His behavior toward staff, volunteers and visitors set him apart from other clergy who came to...

In my homilies to you over the years, I’ve often spoke of our Catholic Faith, and sometimes of our Byzantine Tradition; but I have rarely spoken of the particular Church to which we belong, and of it’s history in Eastern Europe. Our Metropolitan Church is located entirely in the United States; and, the further you travel outside of Pennsylvania, the less you see of any ethnic identity among the members of our parishes; but, as you know, the ancestors of our Church’s original members came from an Orthodox Church which came into union with Rome in 1646 at the Union...

Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Psalm 103:1 This is the season when we in the United States tend to turn our thoughts to thankfulness for the blessings of prosperity and peacefulness. And well we should. Our country, with all of its struggles, is still the most emulated and sought after civilization of the modern world. And, in spite of the efforts on the part of some, it is still a nation of moral laws and religious stability. We have much to be thankful for...

An Ignorant Jesus?  Rev. William Most, Ph.d              Was Jesus confused? Did He know He was Messiah? or divine? Did He know much  about the afterlife? Did He have at least one superstition? Did He have only the mentality of a Jew of the first third of the first century? -- Wild as it may seem, some prominent scholars charge Him on all the above counts, and more too.              But: What does the Church teach on these things? Pope Pius XII, in his great Encyclical on the Mystical Body, on June 29, 1943, rejected all such charges. He taught:...

Saturday, October 31, 2009 Striving for Perfection A reflection by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB. Sometimes we're so impatient to be perfect even with our own selves. We want it done yesterday. Part of our own stability and perseverance has to do with the fact that we have to be stable in our perseverance. We have to go through it and not expect perfection so quickly. It's humiliating to be humble. It's in our nature to be want to be done with it so quickly that we don't have to deal with it anymore. And yet don't we find that when...

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC LECTIONARY WEBSITE by Felix Just, S.J., Ph.D.Lectionary StatisticsHow much of the Bible is included in the Lectionary for Mass? Not as much as you might think, yet far more than was included in the Roman Missal before the Second Vatican Council!The bishops assembled at Vatican II declared, "The treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly so that a richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God's word. In this way the more significant part of the Sacred Scriptures will be read to the people over a fixed...

Persecution 1062. Does the dictatorship of the Pope refer to spiritual things only? We cannot use the word dictatorship of the Pope in the ordinary sense of the word. The Pope has supreme authority according to the laws dictated by Christ in the constitution He gave to the Church. The authority of the Pope extends to both spiritual matters and to temporal matters in so far as they have connection with spiritual things. The Catholic Church is not a society of angelic beings, but of human beings who are composed of a spiritual soul and a material body. As...

"The only mistake in life is not to become a Saint." When I first heard the above quote (perhaps a FIT reader will recall who said it) as a student at the University of Notre Dame, it really made me think. It was at a time when, after falling away from my child-like enthusiasm for Catholicism, I was coming back to the Faith but struggling to accept it as a man. But just as those too-perfect pictures of the Saints had hooked me as a youth, the realistic struggles of the Saints to follow Christ was what sealed the...

November 1, 2009                                        Solemnity of All Saints       Reading 1Responsorial PsalmReading 2Gospel Reading 1Rv 7:2-4, 9-14 I, John, saw another angel come up from the East,holding the seal of the living God.He cried out in a loud voice to the four angelswho were given power to damage the land and the sea,“Do not damage the land or the sea or the treesuntil we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.”I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal,one hundred and forty-four thousand markedfrom every tribe of the children of...

Several commemorative events will be held in Augsburg, Germany, over the next two days to celebrate the signing of a landmark ecumenical agreement ten years ago between representatives of the the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Roman Catholic Church. It was on Oct. 31, 1999, that the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ), considered one of the most significant agreements since the Reformation, was signed by church officials from the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation, which claims to represent 66.7 million of the world's 70.2 million Lutherans. Members of the World Methodist Council later adopted the...

Oct 30, 2009 — “Plant fossils give first real picture of earliest Neotropical rainforests,” announced a press release from University of Florida.  The fossils from Colombia show that “many of the dominant plant families existing in today’s Neotropical rainforests – including legumes, palms, avocado and banana – have maintained their ecological dominance despite major changes in South America’s climate and geological structure.” The team found 2,000 megafossil specimens from the Paleocene, said to be 58 million years old.  This is only 5 to 8 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs according to conventional dating.  “The new study provides...

WASHINGTON – A proposed revision to the directives that guide Catholic heath care facilities would clarify that patients with chronic conditions who are not imminently dying should receive food and water by “medically assisted” means if they cannot take them normally. “As a general rule, there is an obligation to provide patients with food and water, including medically assisted nutrition and hydration for those who cannot take food orally,” says the revised text of the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” proposed by the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine. “This obligation extends to patients in chronic conditions...

Featured Term (selected at random):MUSICAM SACRAM Instruction on music in the liturgy of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. An extensive document giving general norms and applying them to every important aspect of liturgical music. Among other provisions there should be choirs, at least one or two properly trained singers especially in churches that cannot have even a small choir. The distinction between solemn, sung, and read Mass is retained; Gregorian chant should be given pride of place; adapting sacred music for regions having a musical tradition of their own requires "a very specialized preparation by experts"; and those instruments which...

Ratzinger's Faith Ratzinger's Faith By Dr. Jeff Mirus | October 30, 2009 4:36 PM I've just finished reading Tracey Rowland's Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology Pope Benedict XVI. Rowland is Dean and Associate Professor of Political Philosophy and Continental Theology at the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne, Australia. She is also on the editorial board of Communio, the theological journal founded by Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger. She had already written a critically-acclaimed book, Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II, as part of the Oxford University Press Radical Orthodoxy series. The book carries cover blurbs from...

A Trunk or Treat is a Halloween event that is often church or community-sponsored. People gather and park their cars in a large parking lot. They open their trunks or the backs of their vehicles and decorate them. Then they pass out candy from their trunks. The event provides a safe family environment for trick or treaters.... (see pictures!)

Haunted houses, ghosts, demons—our Western culture can’t seem to get enough of the spirit world. The latest Gallup poll indicates that 42% of Americans believe in demon possession, 37% believe in haunted houses, and 32% believe in ghosts. (Not just Americans are enthralled—40% of the British believe in haunted houses, too.) Though interest in the paranormal is widespread, the majority of people are skeptical. They discount all spirit activity, going so far as to deny the existence of Satan and demons. Atheists stated this view succinctly in a sign they planted next to a manger scene last Christmas at the...

By Marge FenelonClinics use innovative model to treat uninsured people Patients act as benefactors to pay for costs of those without coverage What started with tranquil contemplation of a pine tree in the woods surrounding Lake Tahoe may be a creative solution to the growing number of people who lack basic health care in the United States.Dr. Robert Forester was on vacation with his family in Lake Tahoe, Calif., in the summer of 2000. While relaxing on the cabin's porch and enjoying the beauty of the nature around him, a particular pine tree caught his attention and suddenly an idea...

(See all these news nuggets and more by clicking the excerpt link below): 1. BBC News: “Darwin Teaching ‘Divides Opinion’” Darwinism is a controversial topic, and many believe creation should be taught in the classroom. But why is that news? 2. ScienceDaily: “Junk DNA Mechanism that Prevents Two Species from Reproducing Discovered” Has the U.S. government finally supported creationist research? Alas, no, but the results of a National Institutes of Health study fit squarely within the young-earth creation framework. 3. PhysOrg: “Charles Darwin Really Did Have Advanced Ideas about the Origin of Life” Charles Darwin was convinced that life’s origin...

Cited by some U.S. bishops, the Catholic principle of subsidiarity is providing a new wrinkle in the health care debate The debate over health care reform is igniting another, related discussion: What is the proper role of government in the lives of a country's citizens? The Catholic Church endorses no specific political or economic system -- thus bishops and Catholic thinkers are drawing on Catholic social teaching to support sometimes conflicting solutions to find affordable health care for Americans without health insurance, who number 46.3 million according to the U.S. Census Bureau. There's little debate in the Church that some...

Thursday, October 29, 2009 Building a better marriage By Mary DeTurris Poust Ask any Catholic couple for the secret to their marital success and they're likely to focus on two key things: communication and faith. Without those crucial elements, marriage can quickly become a business partnership rather than the sacramental relationship it is meant to be. The Church tries to ensure, through Pre-Cana programs, that young couples are aware of that reality before they say walk down the aisle to say, "I do." Now the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y., is offering a DVD, "When Two Become One: An...

The Healing Power of Exorcism Oct 30th 2009 An Interview with Father Gary Thomas by Paul CiarciaThe day before I spoke with Father Gary Thomas was probably a typical weekday for most priests. For Father Thomas it was a typical weekday as well, except it involved a two hour-long, emotionally and physically draining battle with a horde of demons seeking to claim another person’s soul.“(The demons) operate in packs,” said Father Thomas. “The more powerful ones are over the less powerful ones.”“These demons have put up big fights,” Father Thomas said, recollecting the episode. “I think now we are...

October 31 Spiritual Bouquet: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Phil. 4:4 SAINT QUENTIN Apostle of Amiens, Martyr at Rome Saint Quentin was a Roman, descended from a senatorial family. Full of zeal for the kingdom of Jesus Christ, he left his country and went into Gaul, accompanied by eleven other apostles sent from Rome. They separated to extend their campaign of evangelization to the various regions of France. Saint Quentin remained at Amiens and endeavored by his prayers and labors to make that region part of Our Lord’s inheritance. By the force of his words and...

Following their exchange in July, author Moyra Doorly and Aidan Nichols discuss the merits of post-Vatican II liturgical reform Dear Fr Aidan, In your kind reply to my first letter you made the point that I was drawing "unnecessarily sharp" contrasts between a theology of "propitiation and supplication" on one hand, and teachings on the "fruits of Communion" on the other. But what I was trying to demonstrate is that the pre-Conciliar sources give ample teaching on both, whereas the documents of Vatican II ignore the theology of propitiation and supplication. Now, to me this represents a doctrinal discontinuity of...

The term "Halloween" comes from the phrase "All Hallows' Eve" which meens the eve of all Saints....

Launching An American Knight in Washington Written by John Horvat    Thursday, October 29, 2009 On October 27, the TFP Washington Bureau was filled with friends and supporters to hear a presentation on the book, An American Knight The Life of Colonel John W. Ripley, USMC just authored by TFP member Norman Fulkerson. The author presented the book to a full and lively auditorium of some 50 people and later personally signed copies. As a special guest, Duke Paul of Oldenburg from the German TFP, gave the opening remarks commenting on the meaning of chivalry today. Also attending was...

Norman Fulkerson, who has been voicing his conservative opinions on the Messenger-Inquirer editorial page for 11 years, has written a book about another conservative, Col. John W. Ripley USMC.... There was much to admire about Ripley, Fulkerson said, during a recent phone interview. Ripley's military career has been documented in other writings, Fulkerson said, but what he was most interested in was telling the other side of the war hero who in 1972 during the Easter Offensive in Dong Ha, Vietnam, blew up a bridge that "virtually halted the largest North Vietnamese offensive of the entire war." "An American Knight,...

Blasphemy in Spain, When Will the Hate Stop? Written by John Horvat    Thursday, October 29, 2009   According to press reports, homosexual groups in Spain published a calendar that has horrific blasphemies against Our Lady of Fatima and other Marian apparitions. Besides a man that is practically naked alongside Our Lady, the calendar has "images that are based on famous works of sacred art, especially apparitions of the Virgin Mary, but interpreted by transsexuals.� "In the 'Secular Calendar,' informs the BBC Brasil, “each month is represented by a free interpretation of famous scenes of Catholic imagery, such as Our...

October 31, 2009                                 Saturday of the Thirtieth Week                                 in Ordinary Time   Reading 1Responsorial PsalmGospel Reading 1Rom 11:1-2a, 11-12, 25-29 Brothers and sisters:I ask, then, has God rejected his people?  Of course not!For I too am a child of Israel, a descendant of Abraham,of the tribe of Benjamin.God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.Do you not know what the Scripture says about Elijah,how he pleads with God against Israel? Hence I ask, did they stumble so as to fall? Of course not!But...

Part Two:  Channels of Grace The Eucharist Table of Contents     The Holy Eucharist is unique among the sacraments. Even the variety of names by which it is called emphasizes the central position which it occupies in Catholic Christianity. It is the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord’s Supper, the Holy of Holies, the Table of the Lord, the Body and Blood of Christ, the Sacrifice of the Mass, Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, Viaticum, and the Real Presence – to mention only a few of the titles by which the Church has identified this central Mystery of Faith. Yet among...

US bishops conference mounts late drive against 'unacceptable' health-care reform October 29, 2009 The US bishops' conference is mounting a late drive to secure passage of a pro-life amendment to the health-care reform bill. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is asking pastors all across the country to include an insert in their weekly bulletins, urging parishioners to call their Congressional representatives and encourage a vote for a pro-life amendment. The USCCB's pro-life office has indicated that it will press bishops to promote the dissemination of these bulletin inserts. The insert exhorts parishioners to act immediately. "Congressional votes may...

All Hallows' Eve Issue: Is the celebration of Halloween a pagan feast? May a Catholic celebrate Halloween in good conscience? What is the history of this popular American holiday?Response: We celebrate Halloween on the evening before All Saints Day. The word itself is a shortened form of "All Hallows’ Eve," which quite literally means "the eve of All Saints." From the earliest days of the Feast of All Saints (mid 700s A.D.), Catholics observed October 31 as the vigil of this November 1 celebration. This feast commemorates the lives of Christians who lived exemplary lives of faith. Pope Sixtus IV...

Alongside all the public interest in sporting prowess, recent research has added significantly to our knowledge of how the human body actually works. Many characteristics we take for granted now appear to be critical success factors. Take, for example, our toes. We do not need long toes, like monkeys and apes, because our toes are not used for grasping branches. But are they vestigial - withered remnants of once-grand appendages? The answer is: most definitely not! Whilst it is possible to walk comfortably with longer toes, running is different. Increase toe length by just 20% and there is a doubling...

....the dates which were “Christianized” and now host Christian “Holy-Days” were originally utilized for “Pre-Christian” (“Pagan”) celebrations. This process reflects the wisdom of the Church and a missionary approach. She has “baptized” them, recognizing the seeds of what was good within them. By immersing them in the beauty of the proclamation of Jesus Christ, the fullness of truth and the source of all goodness, she transforms them into vehicles for transforming culture. The Church is His Body. She is meant to be the home of the whole human race. As the early fathers were fond of proclaiming, the Church is...

New York City, N.Y., Oct 30, 2009 / 11:14 am (CNA).- The New York Times declined to publish an op-ed presented by the Archbishop of New York, Most Reverend Timothy M. Dolan, in which he made the point that the “Gray Lady” has been reporting stories with a strong anti-Catholic bias. In his new blog on the archdiocese’s website, Archbishop Dolan explains that his article was submitted in a slightly shorter form to the New York Times as an op-ed, but the Times declined to publish it. In the blog version, Archbishop Dolan says that next to baseball, “sadly, America...