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Featured Term (selected at random):PASCENDI Encyclical letter of Pope St. Pius X condemning Modernism. Its full title is Pascendi Dominici Gregis, published September 8, 1907. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Part Two:  Channels of Grace Confirmation Table of Contents     “If there was ever a time when the Sacrament of Confirmation needed to be explained carefully, that time is now. All too many members of the Church neglect it altogether; and those who have received it or who plan to receive it, see it as something minor in their lives. There is need, then, for instruction on the nature, power, and dignity of this sacrament. Far from being neglected or received in a mere perfunctory way, Confirmation must be restored to the reverence and devotion it deserves.” These words introduced The...

<p>All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.</p>

Part Two:  Channels of Grace Baptism Table of Contents     Baptism was already prefigured in the Old Testament. Some of the ancient rites or events that anticipated Christian Baptism were circumcision (Colossians 2:11), the march of the Israelites through the Red Sea (I Corinthians 10:2), and across the Jordan (Joshua 3:14). What the church considers a formal prophecy of baptism was the oracle of Ezekiel regarding the New Israel. I shall pour clean water over you and you will be cleansed. I shall cleanse you of all defilement and all your idols. I shall give you a new heart and put...

SAN FRANCISCO, OCT. 27, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A new film on Mary’s apparitions in Fatima is being offered with an advance screening program for groups before the DVD is available to the public in North America. "The 13th Day" tells the true story of the May 13 - Oct. 17, 1917, apparitions to Lucia Santos and her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto. The film is based on the memoirs of Lucia after she became a nun. Ignatius Press, the North American distributor of the film, is offering dioceses, parishes, schools and other organizations an opportunity to show "The 13th Day" before...

A Sabbath Resurrectionand Wednesday Crucifixionof Yeshua the MessiahDaniel Gregg     This article begins with concessions to the traditional Friday afternoon crucifixion and Sunday morning resurrection point of view.   Why concede points to the Sunday resurrection?  Because whatever you heard or studied about this before, you've most likely studied an incomplete version of the Wednesday crucifixion and Sabbath resurrection that neglects these points.   These neglected points may serve as reason to reject the Sabbath resurrection.   On the other hand, the Wednesday scenario was always viable in spite of these difficulties, because the Friday arguments has problems of its own.   What is needed...

  For anyone who strongly identifies with traditional Christianity, the October 6-9 series on Fox News's Hannity, with Sean Hannity interviewing Michael Moore, was rich in irony and vaguely distressing. The occasion was Moore's new film, Capitalism: A Love Story.   Two bright, likable, and deeply sincere married men of middle age passionately argued the positions of the liberal Democrats or progressives (Moore) and the conservative Republicans (Hannity). What generated some irony was that both celebrity worldlings revealed themselves to be regular Sunday mass-goers. They viewed their years in Catholic schools warmly and with pride, and readily associated some...

Featured Term (selected at random): INEFFABLE That which is inexpressible. Only God is ultimately ineffable because only he cannot be fully comprehended by the finite mind. Since knowledge determines expression, the divine ineffability is a result of the divine incomprehensibility. In the words of St. Augustine, "More true than our speech about God is our thinking of Him, and more true than our thinking is His Being" (De Trinitate, VII, 4, 7). All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

A British bishop has been fined €12,000 after a German court found him guilty of denying the Holocaust.Richard Williamson received a letter today from the court in the Bavarian city of Regensburg informing him that he was being fined for incitement over his claim on Swedish television that fewer than 300,000 Jews died in Nazi death camps.In the interview, Williamson alleged that Nazi gas chambers had never existed and "only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews" had been killed by the Nazis.Holocaust denial is classed as a hate crime in Germany and because the interview took place in Regensburg, German prosecutors were...

Saints Simon and Jude                      SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE, APOSTLES From a commentary on the gospel of John by Saint Cyril of Alexandria, bishopAs the Father sent me, so I am sending you    Our Lord Jesus Christ has appointed certain men to be guides and teachers of the world and stewards of his divine mysteries. Now he bids them to shine out like lamps and to cast out their light not only over the land of the Jews but over every country under the sun and over people scattered in all directions and settled in distant lands.   That man...

Part Two:  Channels of Grace The Sacraments Table of Contents     The closing article of the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in life everlasting,” is also the opening door to the seven sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ. As we have seen, the eternal life that awaits those who believe in Christ is the supernatural life which He came into the world to restore to a fallen human race. That is why the Savior was so blunt in His explanation to Nicodemus about the need for being “born again”. I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born through water and the...

A man named Milton Supman died last week. He died quietly, at 83. He'd grown up in the only Jewish family in a small North Carolina town, his father a dry goods merchant who had moved there from Hungary. His family gave him the handle which was to be the origin both of a stage name and of a peculiar, indescribably influential bond with millions of American children - Soupy. When Soupy Sales died last week, a lifelong friend of mine posted video clips of his work on her Facebook page. Her daughter, herself an adult now, added this comment:...

Mormon Apostle Dallin Oaks chose a friendly audience deep within the Book-of-Mormon-belt for his now controversial October 13 speech in defense of the Mormons’ ongoing fight against same-sex civil marriage. Speaking to students at Brigham Young University-Idaho, Oaks decried the continuing erosion of religious freedom and the declining influence of religion in the public sphere, before mounting a strongly-worded defense of “the ancient order” of marriage against the “alleged ‘civil right’ of same-gender couples to enjoy the privileges of marriage.” Elder Oaks recalled expressions of outrage directed at Mormons and acts of vandalism against Mormon temples and wardhouses committed after...

CNA STAFF, Oct 25, 2009 / 03:47 pm (CNA).- On Thursday, Catholics will celebrate the feast day of Helen Kafka, better known as Blessed Maria Restituta.  Working as a nurse in the 1940s, she was ordered by the Gestapo to remove crucifixes she had placed in several hospital rooms and was sentenced to death.  Pope John Paul II beatified her on June 21, 1998. Helen Kafka was born in 1894 to a shoemaker and grew up in Vienna, Austria.  At the age of 20, she decided to join the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity and took the name Restituta...

Featured Term (selected at random):INHERENCE Dependence on another being for its existence. Accidents naturally inhere in the substances they modify. By divine power, in the Holy Eucharist the accidents of bread and wine exist without inhering in their substance, which has been changed through transubstantiation into the substance of Christ's body and blood. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

What Is the Gospel that Jesus Christ Taught? If we are to understand the point of Jesus' teachings, message and mission, we need to be sure we understand the gospel—the good news—that He taught. by Scott Ashley What is the message Jesus Christ brought and taught? It seems like a simple enough question, but most people don't give it much thought. They know Jesus preached a "gospel"— which comes from the Old English godspel, meaning "good news" or "good message"—but what is that message? This is where things can get a little murky. Many think that the gospel of Christ...

There is a massive power shift underway in Washington D.C. today, which is leading our nation to abandon our Judean/ Christian heritage and founding principles at an alarming rate. Many evangelical Christians are seeing the exponential change in this country toward a secular, socialist state – especially in the last ten months – which is, quite frankly, scaring them to death. This concern is noteworthy and quite merited in light of the significant changes that are now happening, but many Evangelicals are ignorant the Scriptural prophecies (predictions) describing these very events. They are stumbling over and wondering what Almighty God...

A few years ago, I slipped into the back of a large Methodist church in the area to hear a sermon delivered by the pastor which had been advertised for several days on the marquee on the lawn in front of the handsome Neo-Gothic stone edifice. I really wanted to hear what he had to say on that particular Sunday. The occasion of this sermon was what Protestants celebrate as "Reformation Sunday," in remembrance of the sad, tragic rebellion against the Catholic Church. Of course, that's my take on what Reformation Sunday symbolizes. The pastor whose sermon I heard that...

... Galileo, both of whom, of course, are more famous—at least in popular culture—than the Polish genius. From a recent column: Copernicus, son of a Polish father and German mother, was a priest and the temporary administrator of the diocese of Frauenburg. As a Renaissance man, he put Leonardo da Vinci in the shade, although painting seems to be the one art that did not claim him as a master. After studies in the universities of Krakow (where Pope John Paul II studied and taught), Bologna, Padua and Ferrara, he became a prominent jurist and mathematician and also practiced medicine...

Featured Term (selected at random):CANONICAL PENANCE The specified penance, corresponding to the nature and gravity of the sin, prescribed by confessors in the sacrament of penance. These penances were listed in penitential books. Celtic in origin, the earliest canonical lists are ascribed to St. Patrick and date from the fifth century. In time the practice spread throughout Europe. The best known penitential book is that ascribed to Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury (602-90). All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Crusader friar of Habsburg Austria London barrister and historian James Bogle discusses here the life and times of a great Catholic: Blessed Mark of Aviano (Marco d’Aviano in the original Italian), who deserves to be much better known in the English-speaking world.    On 27 April 2003, Pope John Paul II beatified Rev Fr Mark of Aviano OFMCap (1631-99). The ceremony occurred without any world-wide protest from Muslims, and certainly nothing of the sort that accompanied the considerably more innocuous recent commentary of Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg.Mark of Aviano was a Capuchin friar, born Carlo Domenico, in Aviano in...

The Jewel of Celibacy by Dr. Jeff Mirus, October 23, 2009 Phil Lawler is undoubtedly correct that the rule of celibacy will not be relaxed for Catholics of the Roman Rite when married Anglican priests begin to appear under a new Catholic ordinariate. He may also be correct that Eastern Rite churches will gradually permit more of their married clergy to serve in the West as we become accustomed to married clergy through a growing familiarity with our Anglo-Catholic brethren. (See The Anglicans and the Eastern Churches.) But the official policies of the Roman Rite and the Eastern Rite churches...

Part One:  The Apostles’ Creed 12.   “ Life Everlasting” Table of Contents     The closing article of the Apostles’ Creed is also the opening door to our spiritual life. In fact, in one sense everlasting life is the spiritual life. As understood in the Sacred Scriptures, eternal life begins at baptism (Romans 6:4). It is a new life, initiated by union with the death of Christ, which is symbolized and effected by baptism (Romans 6:4). It is death according to the flesh (Romans 8:12), but it is a resurrection from the life of sin (Romans 6:13). It is therefore a life...

[T]radition and [t]radition By Dr. Jeff Mirus | October 23, 2009 11:18 AM Yes, I know you’re tired of hearing about it, but one of our most faithful supporters, and a man whose opinion I deeply respect, has posted two highly critical comments in Sound Off in response to my In Depth Analysis from September 23rd, On Waffling, Tradition, and the Magisterium. Both posts challenge not just this particular article but more generally the manner in which I have always portrayed the conflict between Traditionalists and the Church.The posted criticisms assert three points: First, that my use of the term...

Featured Term (selected at random):NEPOTISM Preferment in ecclesiastical practice based on blood or family relationship rather than merit. Applied especially to the conferral of Church offices. Historically nepotism plagued the Church for centuries, was practiced by some of the popes, many bishops, and was one of the factors that led to the legislation of celibacy in the Western Church and to the Protestant Reformation. The most important legislation against nepotism was the bull Romanum decet Pontificem in 1692, of Pope Innocent XII. (Etym. Latin nepos, nephew.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, ©...

There aren’t many churches in Christendom where the person sitting next to you is likely a star of stage, screen or television. St. Malachy’s Church, located on 49th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, founded in 1902, is a little jewel box of a church and an essential and important aspect of New York City’s theatrical community.Because of its location in the midst of the Theatre District — and the number of actors who have graced its precincts — it has come to be known as the Actors’ Chapel. Prior to 1920, St. Malachy’s was a working-class Irish-Italian parish....

Veterans Day is coming up, but there are few vets who have a story to tell like Mario Avignone.His life was changed during World War II when he was stationed near the monastery inhabited by St. Pio of Pietrelcina. Avignone, a salt-of-the-earth Chicagoan, and two fellow soldiers befriended the stigmatic miracle worker. Since then, he expresses his devotion to the saint by sharing his experiences with others, visiting the sick, and praying with the aid of relics.After a talk Avignone gave at St. Mary of the Angels Church on the city’s North Side, the 90-year-old veteran, over a meal...

Part One:  The Apostles’ Creed 11.   “ The Resurrection of the Body” Table of Contents     We not only believe that the human soul is immortal, but that the human body is destined to rise immortal from the grave. Unlike our souls, which as spiritual substances are naturally immortal, our bodies are mortal by nature. They were not created subject to death, according to God’s original plan for mankind. But the sin of our first parents deprived them and their descendants of the gift of bodily immortality. All of us must die because we are all sinners.One of the great benefits...

“Protestantism will be absorbed into the ‘mother’ church—and totally abolished,� wrote Herbert W. Armstrong—the founder of the Trumpet’s predecessor, the Plain Truth—48 years ago. The Vatican unveiled plans to do just that, on Tuesday. In a press conference at the Vatican, Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, announced that the Catholic Church will open the door for Anglicans dissatisfied with the Church of England to return to the fold without making any major changes to their beliefs. The new legal framework, or apostolic constitution, will allow married priests to keep their wives...

  Does Islam need a Reformation? Not unless you think it would benefit from additional dollops of Puritanism; further encouragement to smash altars, stained glass, and other forms of "idolatry"; prodding to ban riotous celebrations like Christmas and Easter; and support for fundamentalist Islamic schools that insist on sola Korana and sola Sunnah. Indeed, it would seem that Islam has already had its reformers. Railing against the corruption of the West (let's call it "Rome" for short) have been such modern Islamic Luthers as the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the cave-dwelling Osama bin Laden, the voice of young Islam --...

The generations following the sin of Adam and Eve proceeded upon a path of moral degeneration. Cain, in a jealous rage, impulsively killed his brother Abel. In the next generation, Tuvel-Kain perfected the crime of Cain through manufacturing weapons. Then, Lemach boasted to his wives of committing pre-meditative murder. Idolatry flourished during the time of Enosh. Organized crime was established by a group of hoodlums called "The sons of El-ohim." Sexual perversion was rampant in Noah's generation. Torah (Biblical) tradition teaches that there are three cardinal sins that a person should choose death rather than be forced to commit. They...

Featured Term (selected at random):EXTRAORDINARY MAGISTERIUM The Church's teaching office exercised in a solemn way, as in formal declarations of the Pope or of ecumenical councils of bishops approved by the Pope. When the extraordinary magisterium takes the form of papal definitions or conciliar decisions binding on the consciences of all the faithful in matters of faith and morals, it is infallible. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Part One:  The Apostles’ Creed 10.   “ The Forgiveness of Sins” Table of Contents     It is deeply significant that the Apostles’ Creed affirms our belief in the forgiveness of sins immediately after professing our faith in the holy Catholic Church. These two mysteries belong together. On Easter Sunday, Jesus told the two saddened disciples on the way to Emmaus: “You see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that in His name repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem”...

Featured Term (selected at random): LEGATE A LATERE A papal legate deputed by the Holy See for important missions of a temporary character. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

The Torah portion describing Creation is behind us and now, before we delve into the roots of the Nation of Israel, the Torah's second portion - Noach - describes the beginnings of humanity at large. One point that is obvious in this Torah portion is that since its inception, the human race has been searching for its place in the face of the Creator. And the entire earth was one language and of one speech. (Genesis 11:1) Fukuyama called it "the end of history." The Soviet Union collapsed, the language that rules is internet English, the only thing that matters...

Part One:  The Apostles’ Creed 9.   “ The Holy Catholic Church: the Communion of Saints” Table of Contents     Having professed our faith in the Holy Spirit, we continue by professing to believe in the Holy Catholic Church, of which the Holy Spirit is the soul or source of her corporate life. In one sense, the Church began with the origins of the human race. God wants to save people not only as individuals but as members of society. Consequently the Church corresponds on the level of grace to our social existence on the level of nature.The foreshadowing of the Church...

On St. Bernard of Clairvaux "Faith Is Above All a Personal, Intimate Encounter With Jesus" VATICAN CITY, OCT. 21, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of Benedict XVI's address today during the general audience in St. Peter's Square. * * * Dear brothers and sisters, Today I would like to speak about St. Bernard of Clairvaux, called "the last father" of the Church, because in the 12th century he renewed once again and rendered present the great theology of the Fathers. We do not know details about the years of his boyhood. We know, nevertheless, that he was born in...

It is my pleasure to be able to write on a subject where we as Catholics share so much common ground with our Reformed brothers, and even with most Evangelicals. In fact, it is no small thing that we agree upon foundational truths contra mundum in a time when even many Christians deny them.This article intends to show that, though Protestants agree with the Catholic Church on the basic truths about Scripture and its authority, the Reformed view of Scripture errs in three respects: in its assumption about the canon of Scripture, in its view of the authority of Scripture,...

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Fatima apparitions. The actual event took place on October 13th, 1917, in Fatima, Portugal. I have written extensively on this subject and although I didn’t BLOG on it yesterday, I will do so today. I received a comment from Matt, who pointed me to the trailer, for the up and coming movie about Fatima. Thanks Matt! www.the13thday.com Here’s a thumbnail sketch of the events of Fatima. According to those who witnessed it, the Virgin Mary appeared to three children on October 13. Upwards of 70,000 people had waited for her appearance and the promised...

Featured Term (selected at random):POPE Title of the visible head of the Catholic Church. He is called Pope (Greek pappas, a child's word for father) because his authority is supreme and because it is to be exercised in a paternal way, after the example of Christ. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Part One:  The Apostles’ Creed 8.   “ I Believe in the Holy Spirit” Table of Contents     The best way to understand what we mean by our profession of faith in the Holy Spirit is to compare it with our faith in the Son of God. In God there is intellect and will, corresponding to thinking and loving in human beings. Scripture identifies the mind of God with the Word of God, as St. John tells us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). “So, just as the Word...

IN COMMON with a few other inventions that I could name, Scotland makes a spurious claim to have created the world's first Christmas card. Supposedly invented by Charles Drummond of Leith, the cards issued in 1841 were not in fact Christmas cards, for a very good reason. Back then, good old Presbyterian Scotland did not actually celebrate Christmas very much, if at all, and the actual words on the card stated 'A Guid New Year and mony o' them'. The first seasonal cards, therefore, were plainly good Scottish New Year's greetings, but they proved popular and two years later in...

n recent years, Christians have interpreted Romans 13 as a command for unlimited submission to government by God. Many proponents of this belief have sat passively by, in the soft pews of their place of worship, while evil has triumphed in most areas of family and church life. In our pacifistic smugness, many have allowed government to become god without even knowing. Yet, when confronted with the true meaning of Romans 13, absurd accusations are shouted in religious rhetoric toward those who would dare to break an unjust law or even to question the almighty government. The opponents of unlimited...

Review of The 13th Day by John Vennari In the spring of this year, I saw the riveting trailer for The 13th Day, and looked forward to its release with great anticipation. I recently viewed the movie itself. The film is good, though there are some aspects I found disappointing. The 13th Day has many fine moments. The actress who portrays Lucia’s mother is superb, and even a bit terrifying. The movie contains the best portrayal of the Miracle of the Sun I’ve seen. It is filmed in black and white, except when Our Lady brings everything to color, which...

Featured Term (selected at random):FEELING A conscious state or experience. More particularly in scholastic philosophy an experience of the external or internal senses, namely of sight, smell, touch, hearing, taste, and bodily, or somatic, sensation. Feeling is often simply equated with emotion, but emotion can also be spiritual, whereas feeling is, properly speaking, in the material order. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Church members from Utah and abroad gathered on Friday to hear some Book of Mormon stories their teachers have never told them. The lessons centered around Mesoamerica, including Mexico and Guatemala, as the most likely setting for Book of Mormon peoples and events at the 7th annual Book of Mormon Lands Conference at the Red Lion Hotel in Salt Lake City. The conference drew 280 attendees — the conference’s biggest crowd ever — as a result of key speakers such as Dr. John L. Lund, Joseph Allen and Jerry L. Ainsworth, said Stephen L. Carr, senior vice president of the...

Pope Benedict XVI has offered to establish “Personal Ordinariates” within which to care for Anglicans while enabling them to maintain the liturgical and spiritual unique distinctives of their tradition. That is correct, the Roman Catholic Church by way of an “Apostolic Constitution” will provide the process which will allow for Anglican Christians to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith said this in a statement just released: “In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates which...

This past week, Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church raised a strong voice of warning in defense of religious freedom... Those who see his talk solely, or even primarily, as a reaction to the Proposition 8 battle in California and its aftermath either have not read the talk or willingly wish to minimize its importance. SNIP It is fair to say that no other religious group in the history of the America has greater standing to rise to the defense of religious liberty than do the Latter-day Saints. SNIP Without meaning...

A record number of people - 1.5 million visitors - came to the Western Wall during the Hebrew month of Tishrei, according to figures from the Western Wall Heritage Foundation and the Israel Police. The rabbi of the Kotel (Western Wall), Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz, commented that "these figures are evidence that the Western Wall is the spiritual home for Jews from all around the world, regardless of their background."

Part One:  The Apostles’ Creed 7.   “ From Thence He Shall Come to Judge the Living and the Dead” Table of Contents     There is only one final judge of the human race. It is God by whom the world was first created and to whom we are destined in eternity to return. What may be less obvious is that this same Almighty God became man in the person of Christ. Consequently, Jesus Christ has the divine right to judge all mankind. Immediately we distinguish between the Lord judging us individually at the moment of death, and judging us as the...