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Sudbury's Marie Evans Bouclin has become the second woman in Canada to be ordained a Roman Catholic priest. Bouclin was one of three women called to the priesthood by Bishop Patricia Fresen at an ordination ceremony at West Hill United Church in Scarborough on Sunday afternoon. The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church does not recognize the validity of the positions Bouclin and Fresen hold in the church, but there was no mistaking where the congregation at Sunday's service stood on the issue. The standing-room-only crowd of a couple of hundred people, many from Sudbury, burst into spontaneous applause on...

Torture and Torquemada crossed paths and pathology with the Catholic Church on the ruinous road to the Inquisition as the Spanish steps toward ethnic cleansing sent non-Catholics careening into a tailspin of fiery 15th-century moral turpitude. It is no secret that the Spanish Inquisition's inequities inveighed against its Jews, forced to convert or be condemned by a church hell-bent on hewing to an unconscionable moral code that tore Torah from its roots and offered Jews a catechism of catastrophe. What is surprising is how seemingly interminable the Inquisition proved to be, lasting 600 years and encompassing enough countries to form...

WARS have been fought over them, pilgrims trudged thousands of miles just for a glimpse - and millions of Christians believe they have miraculous powers. Every item associated with the very first Easter, when Christ was crucified, has become a holy relic. The Spear of Destiny is venerated in Vienna and Crown of Thorns are treasured in Paris. And tiny pieces of the True Cross hold places of honour in churches around the world. There are so many relics that even in the 16th century, Dutch philosopher Erasmus remarked: "There was so much wood from the Cross, Christ must have...

I hadn’t spoken those words in years, but they came back to me immediately. It’s the Lord’s prayer, the way Jesus told people to pray. Growing up Catholic instilled this prayer in me, but the fact that I can still recall it without having been to Mass in years speaks volumes. While growing up, I said the prayer routinely, but there was no meaning behind it. I did it because I was taught to do it. I stopped saying it when I left the Roman Catholic Church in 2001, right after high school. That isn’t uncommon; a lot of Catholics...

CINCINNATI, Ohio (St. Anthony Messenger) – Is it true that Sunday Mass attendance has fallen? Four sources – Gallup, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), USA Today and the National Catholic Reporter - say “yes” and can document the decline in numbers. In fall 2006, CARA published an analysis of its 2005 findings, noting that some people do more than skip Mass – they lie about it! The Georgetown-based researchers kindly call it the “social desirability effect.” People don’t want telephone pollsters to think them less than faithful—so they give the same answer they would probably give...

NEW YORK, Feb. 22 /Catholic Newswire/ -- Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented today on the retirement party for Frances Kissling, head of Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC), scheduled for March 2, two days after she resigns: "In 1993, and again in 2000, U.S. Catholic bishops, represented by the bishops' conference, denounced CFFC as a fraud. And well they should have. Funded almost exclusively by fat-cat bigots like those at the Ford Foundation (they gave CFFC $2 million in 2005, which was more than it gave to all but five of 141 organizations it allotted grants to in its...

Walking away from mass on Ash Wednesday, I found myself examining my belief in the Catholic faith. While I felt proud to sport my new "smudge" — the term my roommates gave the ashen cross on my forehead — and even became angry when others looked at me with confusion. I realized that I do not agree with what the Catholic faith stands for. From the time I was born up until my senior year of high school my parents made me attend mass with them every Sunday morning. They staunchly believed that the teachings would instill a sense of...

Carnival stealth priestess in the Church of St Francis in Wels "celebrates" Carnival last Tuesday with Communion from the tabernacle. The Church were the servers wear tiaras and the ministers funny hats

For generations, Roman Catholic schoolchildren in this country were taught to pray for the conversion of England. Their prayers may soon be answered: as talk of an Anglican schism grows, a leaked report hints that the Church of England may recognise a modified form of the papacy. This may seem an unlikely development in view of ancient prejudices: Anglicans inveighed against "the whore of Babylon", while Catholics scorned their Anglican brethren as heretics. But, at a time when both Churches suffer from falling vocations, dwindling attendance and depleted coffers, this marriage of convenience may not sound such a bad idea....

The first statement Pope Leo X made after being elected to the papacy, according to the Venetian ambassador, was “Now that God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it.” That was the attitude of many Roman Catholic Popes, and on Oct. 31, 1517, Martin Luther picked up his hammer and nail and drove his point into the church door at Wittenberg and into the heart of the Roman Church. Then began the Reformation although there were stirrings of reform many years earlier with Wycliffe, Tyndale, Knox, Calvin, etc., who responded to Catholic heresy and gross immorality in the...

Homosexual rights campaigners have gained permission from the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales to hold Mass for gay parishioners. While the Church has allowed celibate gays to receive holy communion, traditionalist Catholics believe that practising homosexuals should be barred from the sacramental rite because their way of life defies Church teaching. Now, however, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor has taken the controversial step of allowing fortnightly Masses in his Westminster diocese specifically for homosexuals. A statement from the diocese stressed that the move did not represent a shift in Church teaching, which says that homosexual practice is a...

We hear it from some religious pulpits, and we think it’s the ‘gospel’ truth. But the real truth is you never really know what a Catholic believes, unless you are one. Unfortunately the majority religion of Congress is Catholic, but you’d never know by the legislation delivered. Currently, well over 100 members of Congress claim to be Catholic. Catholicism has five “non-negotiables” which are inherently evil. Those include abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, cloning, and embryonic stem cell research(not adult stem cell research). Those few tend to eliminate a number of congress people from the practice of Catholicism. A few of...

A PRIEST was jailed for 14 years yesterday for killing a nun by crucifixion during an exorcism. Maricica Irina Cornici, 23, died after five days hanging on a cross with no food or water and gagged with a towel. Father Petru Corogeanu, 31, told the court: "She was acting as if she had supernatural powers and I realised she was possessed by a demon." The monk blamed paramedics for giving Cornici too much adrenaline when they tried to resuscitate her. Corogeanu was convicted of depriving the nun of her freedom. Four nuns were also jailed for their part in the...

TONY EASTLEY: Reports of a possible re-unification of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, have been played down by the senior international body co-ordinating relations between the two. A newspaper in London claimed senior Bishops on both sides are considering repairing the split that occurred at the time of Reformation. But a South African Anglican Bishop, who co-chairs the special bi-lateral body reportedly behind the move, has told AM any possible merger is a long way off. Europe Correspondent Rafael Epstein. RAFAEL EPSTEIN: There's been an official dialogue for 40 years, and in 2000 the then Pope John Paul the...

ROME – It is sometimes said that Italy has two main religions – Catholicism and football. Now the two will come together when the country, the current holder of the World Cup, hosts the first international championship for student priests. 'Clericus Cup' will see teams from Rome's many seminaries battling it out with amateur soccer players from 50 nations taking part. The tournament kicks off on Saturday with a team mostly made up of Brazilians taking on a largely Mexican side. The final is scheduled for the end of June. 'We want to raise the awareness of current and future...

NOTEThis Thread Is Offered As A Companion Thread To Islam, Protestantism and Divergence from Catholicism The Papacy and Islam by Richard Bennett and Robert J. Nicholson New Partnership with MuslimsIn his message to the predominately Muslim nation of Kazakhstan twelve days after the horrors of September 11 th , 2001, the Pope declared, "'There is one God'. The Apostle proclaims before all else the absolute oneness of God. This is a truth which Christians inherited from the children of Israel and which they share with Muslims: it is faith in the one God, 'Lord of heaven and earth' (Lk.10:21), almighty...