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35 years after his assassination attempt, the catechesis and two important announcements JPII never made that fateful dayVATICAN CITY — Thirty-five years ago, on May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot as he made his way through St. Peter’s Square in the pope-mobile, responding to the warm greetings of the faithful and pilgrims before the general audience. At 5:19pm, the pope was the victim of an assassination attempt perpetrated by a young Turkish man named Mehmet Ali Agca. During the general audience, the Holy Father had intended to speak to the faithful about a theme very dear to...

What Does the Ascension Accomplish for Us? A Homily for the Feast of the Ascension Msgr. Charles Pope • May 7, 2016 • This marvelous feast is not merely about something that took place two thousand years ago. For although Christ our head has ascended, we the members of His body are ascending with Him. Because He ascended, we too have ascended. In my own life as a Christian, I am brought higher every year by the Lord, who is drawing me up with Him. This is not some mere slogan; it is something I am actually experiencing. An...

Remembering moms, dreams of motherhood lost Katie Scott | Catholic Herald Katie Scott | Catholic Herald Mary McCarthy Hines created a small shrine for her stillborn daughter, Virginia. Along with an ultrasound photo, angels and a porcelain shoe, a relic of St. Gerard once belonging to the Jesuit priest who baptized Hines remember the life of “Gigi.” Mother's Day can be painful for those who have lost their unborn babies — or their own moms. My son was born late last May, and this will be my first Mother’s Day with him outside the womb. Since my husband and I...

Pope Francis has again kissed the hands of Father Ernest Simoni, the Albanian priest who spent 28 years in prison for being faithful to the Church during the Communist regime.The visibly moved Bishop of Rome met the priest some days ago, after the general audience of April 20, in St. Peter’s Square.“This is an Albanian martyr,” the Pope said when he saw him.The Pope has met this priest before. And once again, he pressed his forehead to the forehead of the living martyr. They first met on Nov. 21, 2014, in Tirana; the Holy Father cried when Fr. Simoni...

Doubting Thomas Story of the apostle is not a validation for unbelief but a call to have faith in the risen Lord, his Church Msgr. Charles Pope 5/4/2016 Question: My father constantly holds up the example of St. Thomas the Apostle, who doubted that Jesus had risen even when the others said so. He says this is why it is OK that he should question everything — that doubt isn’t wrong even regarding the teachings of the Church.— Tom O’Neil, via email Answer: Yet the fact is, the Lord rebukes Thomas; he does not praise him for his stubbornness or...

Some Thoughts on Privacy - God Is Watching (And so Are Many Others) Msgr. Charles Pope • May 5, 2016 • 0 Comments At the bottom of this post is a 2010 CBS news story reporting hat anything you’ve copied on a digital copier going back years is stored on a hard drive inside the copier. These drives are evidently so large that they can store more than 20,000 documents and hundreds of thousands of pages.Hence if you have ever photocopied personal materials (e.g., social security numbers, checking info, personal data) it is likely on that hard drive. The...

Is It Ever Right to Bend the Law? Msgr. Charles Pope • May 4, 2016 • Our relationship with God’s law is complex and we don’t often get it right. When it comes to God’s law we cannot forget that it is personal. That is, it is given to us by a loving God who wants to save us. Therefore, it is important to know both the law and the lawgiver, who is God.In the Deuteronomic code, each law is often followed by the phrase “I am the Lord.” It is as if the Lord is saying, “This is...

Some Things You May Not Know About Vivaldi Msgr. Charles Pope • May 3, 2016 • One of my favorite composers is Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). While I love his secular pieces (such as The Four Seasons), I am especially fond of his Church music. It is so light, bright, and tuneful! Vivaldi loved to go up and down the musical scale, varying the theme a half step at a time.Ah, Vivaldi, he’s right up there with Handel, Bach, and Mozart! I consider him to be an especially Catholic treasure given his large body of sacred Latin liturgical music.Here are...

Pulling up Roots from Reality - A Review of a Cogent Analysis of the Post-Cartesian West Msgr. Charles Pope • May 2, 2016 • René DescartesOver the years I have attempted to trace the philosophical disaster of our modern world. Certainly the fundamental roots can be traced back to the breakdown of the medieval synthesis, the rise of nominalism, and the doubts of Descartes. These introduced a disconnect from reality. Descartes introduced a radical doubt in anything seen or experienced, and this disconnects us from reality. If we pull up roots from reality and the revelation of creation, we...

Our Ambrosian correspondent Nicola de’ Grandi was recently in Paris, and took these photographs of some of the ancient Christian artworks kept at the Louvre Museum. A gilded piece of glass of the type frequent used as grave markers in ancient Christian burial sites; this was a fairly precious object both for its gold, but also because glass was difficult to make in antiquity, and considered a kind of jewel. The image is of the Prophet Jonah being thrown out of the boat, and swallowed by the “whale”, here a large sea monster. (The Hebrew word “bechamah” can also mean either. Jonah...

Thirty kilometers southwest of Siena, among the hills of Tuscany, are the ruins of an ancient Cistercian Gothic abbey. In one of the nearby chapels you will find one of the most remarkable relics of the Middle Ages: the sword of St. Galgano Guidotti.When tourists visiting Siena wonder what can be seen in the city, apart from the beautiful hills and villas, one answer is “visit the village of Chiusdino” for the magnificent medieval architecture, its outdoor opera festivals and to see the real sword in the stone.Yes: the sword of St. Galgano is buried to the hilt in...

On the Need to Be More Urgent in Preparing for Final Judgment Msgr. Charles Pope • May 1, 2016 • At every funeral I celebrate, I spend a good portion of the sermon urging everyone, including myself, to be more intent on preparing for death and judgement. I remind the assembled of Jesus’ numerous parables on this theme. I remind them that no one loves them more than does Jesus, and yet no one issued more warnings of judgment and Hell than He did. I do this at funerals because the overwhelming majority of people I see there do...

Four Gifts of Grace – A Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter Msgr. Charles Pope • April 30, 2016 • The Gospel for today has a number of “sayings” of the Lord Jesus, which all amount to a kind of litany of love. It is a setting forth of the gifts that He, by His grace, is accomplishing and will accomplish in us. Let’s get right to work and consider the wonderful gifts of grace.I. Power – Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever loves me will keep my word”Here is a fundamental theology of grace: keeping the commandments...

Why the New Evangelization Is Necessary, as Seen in a Cartoon Msgr. Charles Pope • April 29, 2016 • The animated short video below is a humorous reminder that when technology changes so rapidly, some of us can easily get left behind.In it, there is also something of an admonition to the Church, that we not act too much like the man in the video. 1. It would seem that the old man has been sheltered away in his apartment for too long while the world has passed him by. We in the Church also have been hunkered down...

Chipping Away Everything That Is Not of God or of You - A Meditation on God as Sculptor Msgr. Charles Pope • April 28, 2016 • Michelangelo was asked how he could make a beautiful sculpture like his “Moses” out of a block of marble. His famous response was that he simply chipped away everything that wasn’t “Moses.”This is a paradigm for us in two senses.First, the Lord must chip away everything within us that is not Jesus. Yes, everything that is not of the Lord must go. St. Paul said, “I live; no not I, Christ lives in...

The Secret of Modesty Msgr. Charles Pope • April 27, 2016 • The following post contains some adult content. There is nothing inappropriate, but it does speak frankly to an aspect of sexual desire. Exercise caution if reading it to younger children.There is a secret, once known and widely shared among women, that the best way to get and hold a man’s attention is through modesty. Near nakedness can get a man’s attention, but it is modesty that will hold it.Why is this so? It is because mystery is powerfully attractive. It entices; it draws and holds one in...

A Look at the Early Catholic Church from the Acts of the Apostles Msgr. Charles Pope • April 26, 2016 • The second reading from last Sunday’s Mass (5th Sunday of Easter) is very Catholic, and too informative to merely pass up. It presents the Church as rather highly organized and possessed of some of the structures we know today in full form. Granted, some of these structures are in seminal form, but they are there.We will also notice qualities of the original kerygma that are at variance with what some modern thinkers declare should be the methodology of...

What Will Our Resurrected Bodies Be Like? Msgr. Charles Pope • April 25, 2016 • When I gave a talk recently at the Institute of Catholic Culture on the subject of the Second Coming, I was I asked to describe what our resurrected bodies will be like. Here is an article I wrote a few years back that details some aspects of our resurrected bodies:St Paul writes to the Philippians of the glory that our currently lowly bodies will one day enjoy:He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified Body by the power that enables him...

There is a common misperception among Orthodox Christians that the reason why Orthodox Easter (i.e. Pascha) often occurs so much later than Western Christian Easter is because the Orthodox Church abides by the rules for calculating the date of Pascha issued by the 1st Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325 AD and thus the Orthodox must wait for Passover to be celebrated by the Jewish community before Pascha can occur. Despite this view being held by so many Orthodox Christians as well as being promoted in popular essays written by some Orthodox priests, it is not accurate. The reason why...

The perennial discipline of the Catholic Church on the admissibility to Holy Communion of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics living in adulterous, or irregular, second unions was succinctly spelled out by St. John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio: “[T]he Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is...