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Canonist Ed Peters has comments on SCOTUS decision today.  Read the whole thing over there, but… here: Two thoughts re the Supreme Court decision on ‘same-sex marriage’[..]Of course, the Court has not yet reached the end of its marriage line, for yet to come are “marriages” between siblings, parents and children, groups of people, and so on, but come they will, [….]Anyway, I make here two points especially for Catholics.First, we need to recall that the State has long recognized as married some persons who are not married, namely, when the State allows divorced persons simply to remarry. We have lived...

“I’m blessed!” “That was such a blessing!” “Wow, you are blessed!”Whether some financial profit, a good meal, an ideal day, or finding our lost keys, we’ve all said it. And those things are blessings. But, too often we risk throwing around benedictory phrases with a shallow, man-centered carelessness.What does it mean to be “blessed”? What does God consider “blessing”? God’s definitions of blessing might not always fit the pop-definitions. One in particular, perhaps, counter-intuitive blessing is described from what is considered the greatest sermon ever preached: the Sermon on the Mount. Christ opened it with the declarative blessing, “Blessed are the poor in...

“The joys and hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the women and men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ” ("Gaudium et Spes," no. 1). With this now-famous line, the Second Vatican Council opened its “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (1965). This passage immediately came to mind this morning as I heard of the U. S. Supreme Court decision (Obergefell v. Hodges) that upheld the constitutional right to same-sex marriage. My personal response was...

June 25, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Following a declaration by the Mexican Supreme Court nullifying state laws prohibiting “marriage” to people of the same sex, Nuevo Laredo Bishop Gustavo Rodríguez Vega has issued his own declaration along with the clergy of his diocese, assuring the faithful that he will suffer imprisonment rather than cooperate with such unions. “They can’t require an institution like this Church to go against its principles,” the archdiocesan clergy are quoted as saying in various local and national news reports. “Let the Supreme Court send the bishops and the priests to jail, whomever they want, but the...

With same-sex marriage declared constitutional in all 50 states, some Supreme Court justices worry that religious freedom will face unprecedented challenges in coming years. In his dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Today’s decision, for example, creates serious questions about religious liberty. Many good and decent people oppose same-sex marriage as a tenet of faith, and their freedom to exercise religion is — unlike the right imagined by the majority — actually spelled out in the Constitution.”In his decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that those who object to same-sex marriage because of religious beliefs still enjoy constitutional rights to “advocate”...

Pope Francis’ new encyclical on the environment made an impact on UN negotiations this week. But in the rush to emphasize its input on climate change, his forceful condemnation of abortion and population control remain overlooked. At this week’s negotiations on sustainable development in the General Assembly, María Emma Mejía Vélez, ambassador of Colombia said the Pope’s encyclical on “climate change” was relevant to the UN development agenda. The new papal encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si,” has been described as a “massive coup” for those who emphasize the human causes of climate change. It has lent the moral backing...

Societies across the globe are engaged in conversations to redefine marriage. Media debates, election-day balloting, and governmental court rulings have provided the platform for this redefinition. We believe a biblical view of marriage involves a monogamous, covenantal relationship between a man and a woman. Jesus said, “At the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one...

LONDON, June 26, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- An LGBT group for Catholics supported by Britain’s most influential cardinal will participate as a registered group at a major ‘gay pride’ event this weekend. Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols says LGBT Catholics Westminster is hoping it will serve as an “opportunity for evangelization,” but also notes that they “arranged independently” to march in the event. The group’s leader, ex-priest Martin Prendergast, has been in a homosexual civil partnership with Julian Filochowski, the former head of Cafod, since 2006. Cafod is the official bishops’ conference charity for overseas development. Prendergast has claimed on film that...

Statement by the Chancery of the Diocese of Chicago and Mid-America on the Issue of Homosexual Marriage to the Clergy and Flock of the Diocese Statement from the Diocesan Chancery on the Contemporary Question of Homosexual Marriage to the Clergy and Flock of the Diocese March 16/29, 2013 Martyrs Sabinus and Papas Updated November 8/21, 2014 Archangel Michael and All the Bodiless Powers Updated June 13/26, 2015 Martyr Aquilina of Byblos in Syria Today the United States Supreme Court ruled that homosexual marriage is a constitutional right in the United States of America. Given the ubiquitous coverage the news media...

Jesus died so that heterosexual and homosexual sinners might be saved. Jesus created sexuality, and has a clear will for how it is to be experienced in holiness and joy. His will is that a man might leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and that the two become one flesh (Mark 10:6–9). In this union, sexuality finds its God-appointed meaning, whether in personal-physical unification, symbolic representation, sensual jubilation, or fruitful procreation. For those who have forsaken God’s path of sexual fulfillment, and walked into homosexual intercourse or heterosexual extramarital fornication or adultery, Jesus offers astonishing mercy....

Our Lady of Good Success Date: very early 17th c., first approved 1611 Place: Quito, Ecuador Visionary: Venerable Mother Mariana de Jesus TorresThe story of Our Lady of Good Success is a most fascinating one -- and incredibly important and timely, as many of the prophecies of our Lady and our Lord given to Mariana pertain explicitly to the 20th c. and thereafter. Mother Mariana was a Spanish Conceptionist nun, blessed with the charismata of discernment and prophecy, who ran a convent in Quito, Ecuador. First, Our Lady told her to make a life-sized statue of her holding the...

Hi I don't post on here much anymore but in the wake of this decision I thought I might as well. Civil partnership is not a religious marriage, and a religious marriage is not a civil contract. They are not, and never EVER should've been, merged and confused in the first place. Half the mess the world is in now, and the reason marriage is so under threat, is because even on the freedom loving Christian right of politics, too many people don't seem to grasp that ANY regulation of marriage at ANY level (states or federal) is an intrusion...

Maybe I should be upset and disheartened at today's Supreme Court decision. But I'm smiling. And I don't feel sad. I feel strangely excited. I remember the night that Obama was elected for his second term. I went to bed early, sick to my stomach, depressed and afraid. It was truly awful. I felt a dark shroud had descended on our nation, the America that I love so much. But I have grown and changed. The ins and outs of politics and courts and men do not bother me so much anymore. And in this case, I find myself untroubled....

Most were not surprised by the Supreme Court decision today. Court watchers who had attended the hearings earlier this year were rather certain that the mood of the court was to find a constitutional right to marriage and extend it to those with same-sex attraction.  I am not a lawyer and will not therefore speak to the legal demerits of this decision. Others, including the minority on the Court, can speak to that.  But as a citizen I wonder how we have come to a place in our legal and legislative system where unelected judges for life, who in...

Please see link I'm not good at posting text And no humble gunner it's not my blog

Earlier this week, religious employers suffered another loss at the hands of the coercive Obamacare Health and Human Services mandate. A U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit panel ruled against East Texas Baptist University and a group of other non-profit religious employers in their challenge to the Obamacare requirement that they facilitate health care coverage for employees that includes contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs and devices, or fill out a form notifying the Department of Health and Human Services that they have a religious objection to providing such coverage. This so-called “accommodation” then initiates the process of the government...

The marriage battle was lost in the culture long before it was lost in the courts. An opponent of same-sex marriage protests outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington June 18.(CNS photo/Carlos Barria, Reuters) In the wake of the Supreme Court’s marriage decision, these sober thoughts occur: (1) The Supreme Court of the United States [SCOTUS] has rendered a decision that puts the Court at odds with the Constitution, with reason, and with biblical religion. (2) SCOTUS has gotten it wrong before. It got it wrong on race in Dred Scott and it repeated the mistake in Plessy vs. Ferguson...

Another day, another mind-boggling remark from Francis. The scenario is by now quite familiar: the Pope decides he will speak in Spanish so that he can “speak from the heart,” and the Church braces for the next explosion. This time it was remarks in Spanish to the World Retreat of Priests at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran on June 12. Francis said this about quarrels among members of the Church: “There are quarrels and arguments in the Church? Well, it makes good news! This is so since the beginning… A church without quarrels is a dead church. Do you...

From the USCCB: WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court decision, June 26, interpreting the U.S. Constitution to require all states to license and recognize same-sex “marriage” “is a tragic error that harms the common good and most vulnerable among us,” said Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).The full statement follows:Regardless of what a narrow majority of the Supreme Court may declare at this moment in history, the nature of the human person and marriage remains unchanged and unchangeable. Just as Roe v. Wade did not settle the question of abortion over forty...

Earlier this week, the head of the Democratic party attempted to force Americans,including churches, to pay for abortions. On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee considered the bill making appropriations for Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. The legislation contains a number of important pro-life policies and Democrat Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz filed an amendment to strike the conscience protections contained in Sec. 530 of the appropriations bill. The language in that section comes from a pro-life bill, H.R. 940, the Healthcare Conscience Rights Act, and provides relief from the conscience violations imposed by the HHS Preventive Services Mandate. It...