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Moscow, November 7, Interfax - The Growth Party supports the idea of burying the body of Vladimir Lenin, which is now in the Mausoleum on the Red Square, Boris Titov, the party's chairman and business ombudsman, told Interfax. "Burying Lenin will reduce division in society, it will stop the reproduction of the centuries-old war between the 'red' and 'white', it will make it possible to give more energy to creation, to building our country's future," Titov said. Titov spoke about the importance of symbols to Russia, adding that "some part of us continues to mentally live in the USSR as...

On the Fear of Death Msgr. Charles Pope • November 6, 2017 • This is the second in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.For the faithful, the day we die is the greatest day of our life on this earth. Even if some final purifications await us, the beatific vision for which we long lies just ahead; our exile in this valley of tears is ended.Is calling the day we die the greatest day of our life too strong a statement? I have seen some fellow Christians wince at this statement....

Ratzinger was 'the only man with the stature, the wisdom and the necessary experience', Pope Francis saidPope Francis has revealed that he urged his fellow cardinals to back Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to become Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. He said he had felt that the time was not yet right for a Latin American pope. The revelation comes in a new interview book by an Argentinian journalist, Latinoamérica: Conversaciones con Hernán Reyes Alcaide. Reyes is the Rome correspondent of the Argentine news agency Telam. The interview marked the tenth anniversary of a highly significant general conference of the Latin-American bishops...

The Mystery of Life and Death Msgr. Charles Pope • November 5, 2017 • This is the first in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.Note: I wrote this post prior to the terrible shooting that occurred Sunday in Texas. Once again we are confronted with terrible violence and the specter of sudden death. Please offer your prayers for those who have died and their families. As we begin here a series on the Four Last Things, a shooting like this confronts us not only with the death and life, but also...

Teachings On Authority – A Homily for the 31st Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope • November 4, 2017 • The Gospel this Sunday is familiar to many Catholics (in a negative way) because many Protestants use the verse Call no one on earth your father, to assail the Catholic practice of calling priests “Father.” Never mind that the text also says that we should call no one on earth “teacher.” Never mind that the New Testament contains almost 200 uses of the word “father” to refer to earthly males. Apparently Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John along with...

Active intercession? Question: Are the saints in heaven active in the affairs of Earth? — Robert Bonsignore, Brooklyn, New York Answer: Yes, we have a lot of evidence for that. But exactly how and to what extent they are aware and active is not fully known to us. It seems unlikely that the saints can merely look down and watch us as though they were watching a movie, or that they can know our inmost thoughts. Such things are probably beyond their capacity and might even be considered intrusive of our privacy. It seems safer to assume that the saints...

Sometimes I wish I'd become an archaeologist. Imagine discovering something like, oh, I don't know, Naboth's vineyard from 1 Kings. Here at BreakPoint, we love to tell you about the ways that archaeology is confirming the biblical narrative, and, judging by the response, you love to hear about it. Well, the latest discovery is one of the coolest yet. It's possible confirmation of one of the most memorable stories in the Bible: Ahab and Naboth's vineyard. First Kings 21 tells the story of Naboth the Jezreelite who had the misfortune to own a vineyard near king Ahab's palace. Ahab coveted...

Praying for Those Who Have Died Is a Work of Mercy Msgr. Charles Pope • November 2, 2017 • What is the value of one prayer? I suspect it is far greater than any of us imagine. Prayer changes things, sometimes in obvious ways, but more often in subtle and even paradoxical ways. But prayer is surely important, even when we don’t experience its immediate effects. Perhaps this is why Jesus taught us to pray always and never to lose heart (cf. Luke 18:1). St. Paul echoed this with the simple exhortation, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). St....

ROME, October 25, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Gerhard Müller has rebuked the secretary-general of the Italian Episcopal Conference for claiming that the Protestant Reformation was an “event of the Holy Spirit.” It is “unacceptable to assert that Luther's reform ‘was an event of the Holy Spirit,’" wrote Cardinal Müller, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a recent article published in the Italian newspaper La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana. (LifeSite provides a full English translation of the cardinal's article here.) "On the contrary, it was against the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit helps the...

On the Feast of All Saints, a Pastoral Letter on Racism Reminds Us of the Communion of the Saints Msgr. Charles Pope • November 1, 2017 • On the Feast of All Saints we celebrate men and women of every place and time who lived with great sanctity. Many of them are known to us and are among our great heroes of the Faith; even more are unknown to us.The most common hymn for this feast day is “For All the Saints.” It is interesting that the name of the tune to which the lyrics are set is “Sine...

Quite a banquet will take place Thursday night in London to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration. That’s the letter in which Britain announced its support for the establishment in Palestine of what became the state of Israel. The letter was sent a century ago to a leader of British Jewry, Lord Rothschild, from Britain’s foreign minister, Lord Balfour. The nub: “His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” Its enormous impact was acknowledgment by the world’s then-mightiest empire of the legitimacy of Jewish claims to Israel. That the...

Monday was the 61st anniversary of the popular uprising against Communist rule in Hungary. The speech below was delivered for the occasion by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the square next to the Museum of Terror in Budapest. In his speech Mr. Orbán mentions the thirty-foot bronze statue of Stalin that was demolished during the Revolution of 1956. The dictator’s boots were all that remained, and the citizens of Budapest scaled the plinth beneath the truncated statue to place Hungarian flags in them. The photo at the top of this post shows the moment just before those flags were...

A monument dedicated to the victims of political repression was opened yesterday in Moscow by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and President Vladimir Putin. The patriarch urged all gathered for the opening of the “Wall of Sorrow” to never forget the terrible repressions of the previous century, and that the victims were real people and the ancestors of Russians living today, reports Interfax-Religion. “Memorials are needed for people’s healing. Coming here, recalling the tragic events of our history, people should not feel despondency and despair, but should think about their descendants and about what kind...

St. Jude: What’s in a Name?Cari Donaldson What’s in a name? As Shakespeare famously noted, a rose would still have the same fragrance no matter what we call it, so does it really matter which name we pick?Any advertising executive or PR rep would tell you differently though, arguing that names hold the power to shape and warp the world’s perception of the object, and today’s saint may be inclined to agree.St. Jude Thaddeus was one of Christ’s Apostles, this much is clear. Equally certain was that he was the brother of James and was present at Pentecost. Following that,...

Tuesday marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. While Martin Luther deserves special recognition on this Reformation Day, the Protestant Reformation involved many more great pastors and thinkers. It would be unfair to them to focus all attention on Luther. Below is PJ Media's list of ten lesser-known but vitally important Reformation figures. There are hundreds of men and women who led the charge to return to a Bible-based Christianity following the five "Solas" (Sola Fide or Faith Alone, Sola Scriptura or the Bible Alone, Sola...

Four Common Tactics of the Devil Msgr. Charles Pope • October 31, 2017 • One of the key elements in any contest is understanding the strategy of your opponent. In the spiritual battle of life, we must be able to recognize, name, and understand the subtleties of the Devil’s tactics. While we often emphasize his more obvious and frightening maneuvers (especially on Halloween), his usual tactics are subtler and more pervasive.A 2011 book by Fr. Louis Cameli, The Devil You Don’t Know, is of great assistance in this matter. Having read it a few years ago, I think it...

ROME, October 31, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican today announced it will be issuing a special postage stamp depicting Luther at the foot of the Cross, to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. The 1.00 euro postage stamp issued by the Holy See’s Philatelic Office depicts in the foreground Jesus Crucified, and in the background “a golden and timeless view of the city of Wittenberg,” the Vatican’s description read. It continued: “With a penitential disposition, kneeling respectively on the left and right of the cross, Martin Luther holds the Bible, source and destination of his doctrine, while...

Critics of the Reformation enjoy referencing the paucity of evangelism among the major Reformers. The inconsistency of Luther in his emphasis on sola fide, salvation through faith alone, while continuing to baptize infants, is a case in point where almost all the major Reformers in their compromises were hurtful to the cause of evangelism. That said, however, the Reformers were not without an evangelistic impulse. Consider the following points. Martin Luther’s transition from Augustinian monk to cogent Reformer began with a dark night of the soul. As this monk grappled with the question of how to be acceptable to God,...

On the Loss of Humor in a Very Serious Age Msgr. Charles Pope • October 30, 2017 • One of the more irritating and sadder characteristics of our times is that we seem to have lost our collective sense of humor. Our ability to laugh at ourselves appears to be gone, replaced by “frowny-faced” political correctness; there are seemingly endless rules about what can be said about whom, when, where, and using what terminology. On college campuses, young people demand “safe zones,” where nothing can be said that might cause them to feel “unsafe.” In media circles, outrage is...

It has been 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. And with that simple act on October 31, 1517, the Protestant Reformation was off and running.Luther's righteous act led to the birth of Lutheranism and Calvinism as two major branches on the tree of Christianity. The good news of the Gospel once again became front and center, just as it had been when Jesus got the ball rolling 1500 years earlier. And this Gospel renewal was sorely needed. But as with every period of spiritual awakening, it was...