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Only Almighty God has and offers the answers that we so desperately need today. WITHOUT Almighty God’s Word and revelation ALL is a mystery! ALL is unanswerable! ALL is despair! ALL is hopeless! A man, woman, boy or girl MUST be born again to FULLY comprehend Almighty God's revelation and see the ETERNAL picture of our day (John 3:3-7, Rom. 8:5-9, 1 Cor. 2:9-16). My friend, do not deceive yourselves with false hopes, false vain ambitions, false saviors, and false Utopian visions that can NEVER come to pass in this sin ravished world (Gal. 1:4). My friend, do the very...

He is probably known among Catholics almost entirely as the man who last July gave the Holy Father a high five. I happened to meet the Evangelical evangelist James Robison recently at a gathering to discuss a common project, and was surprised when he said, to a group mixing conservative Evangelicals and Catholics (two of us converts), “I’ve met the pope. I love that man.” The high five, which left some Catholics I know muttering, he explained in the Huffington Post a few days afterward. At a three-hour meeting at the Vatican, Francis listened to several Evangelical leaders talk...

CHICAGO — Back in 1997, journalist Jonathan Kwitny published a biography of Pope John Paul II called “Man of the Century.” The idea was that the biography of John Paul cut across all the great dramas of the 20th century, from Nazism and Communism to the upheaval in the Catholic Church caused by the Second Vatican Council. By the same logic, one could argue that Cardinal Francis George of Chicago was the American churchman of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, because there’s almost no story in which he wasn’t a lead actor. George played a key role in...

In addition to the three main languages, Italian, English and Spanish, plus a recently launched section in Arabic, the website will now also offer some of its content in Chinese, widening its international readership even further. Half of Vatican Insider’s readers reside outside ItalySpeaking to journalists on the return flight from South Korea to Rome last August, Pope Francis answered a question about the Vatican’s dialogue with China. He said he prayed when his plane entered Chinese airspace (this was the first time a Pope had flown over China) on the way to South Korea. “I went back to my...

Yesterday, Archbishop Blase Cupich began his tenure as the Archdiocese of Chicago’s 9th prelate. My wife and I were blessed a few weeks ago to attend one final young adult “Pub Night” with the archbishop before he vacated his seat as Bishop of the Diocese of Spokane, where he spoke on the Pope’s encyclical “Joy of the Gospel” and took questions from the audience on anything and everything. Lots of people have been saying lots of things about Pope Francis’ recent selection – good and bad, Christian and un-Christian, smart and dumb – but at the end of the day,...

Being married to two wives is biblically permitted but rabinically prohibited in Ashkenazi circles since the prohibition of Rabbeinu Gershom in the tenth century. Even under biblical law however, a man may not be married to two wives who are sisters. Neither may a man divorce his wife and marry her sister. Such a marriage belongs to the category of arayot, carries the punishment of karet, and is ineffective. The only situation in which a man may marry his wife’s sister is after his wife is no longer alive. Yibum, levirate marriage, cannot be entered into with a woman whose...

Featured Term (selected at random:ELDERS The older men in a community acting as a governing body (I Samuel 16:4). The Sanhedrin, for instance, was made up of elders (Exodus 3:16). they were mentioned in Matthew as joining the chief priests in challenging Jesus during his ministry (Matthew 27:12). The traditional system carried over into Christian communities. The Apostles appointed elders to take charge of each church (Acts 14:23). According to the Council of Trent, the elders mentioned by St. James as administrators of the sacrament of anointing (James 5:14) "does not refer to the older men nor to the more...

A New York high school has rejected a student's request to have a Christian club on campus, prompting possible legal action by a Texas-based organization. Wantagh High School of the Wantagh Union Free School District recently denied official recognition for Elizabeth Loverde's proposed club "Dare to Believe." In response to the rejection, Loverde and her family contacted the Plano, Texas-based Liberty Institute, which sent a letter Monday to the principal, as well as to other school district officials. "Once a secondary school such as yours creates a limited open forum, it cannot deny equal access to student groups on the...

A Reflection on Perhaps the “Meanest” and Most Shocking Thing Jesus Ever Said By: Msgr. Charles PopeThe Gospel from today’s Mass (Wed. of the 33rd Week – Luke 19:11-27) is known as the “Parable of the Ten Gold Coins.” It is similar to Matthew’s “Parable of the Talents” from Sunday, but with certain significant differences and an ending so shocking that, when I read it at daily Mass some years ago, a young child said audibly to her mother, “Wow, that’s mean!”I’d like to take a look at it and ponder its shocking ending.As I said, the parable is similar...

Two Episcopalian priests have urged American ministers of all Christian communities to join them in a pledge “to separate civil marriage from Christian marriage” by refusing to acts as “agents of the state” by signing marriage certificates. The “Marriage Pledge” initiated by the two clerics appears on the web site of First Things, an influential ecumenical journal. R.R. Reno, the editor of First Things, introduces the effort with his own supportive comment. “As the legal reality of marriage changes, we must act,” he writes. “If the churches continue as if nothing has changed, the message is that for all our...

Cardinal Raymond Burke has urged Pope Francis to take the issues of Communion for the divorced and remarried, cohabitation and same-sex marriage “off the table” for next year’s Synod of Bishops. Addressing more than 300 delegates at a family and marriage conference, organised by Catholic Voice, in Limerick on November 15, the American cardinal said these issues had distracted the work of the synod in its first session in October. Warning that Satan was sowing confusion and error about matrimony, the cardinal patron of the Knights of Malta said, “Even within the church there are those who would obscure the...

VATICAN CITY — We’ve all received gifts we can’t use or frankly just don’t like. They get stuffed away in a back closet or sold. Some are eventually re-gifted to unsuspecting relatives or friends. But if you are the pope, getting rid of unwanted gifts is not as easy as that, what with the Spartan living conditions and protocol and all. So Pope Francis has found a way to turn the generosity of others into good luck for a few. Starting this week, the Vatican is raffling off tickets for a chance to win unwanted papal gifts that Francis doesn’t...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Jobs In The Bible Slave (New International Version (NIV) "Very well, then," he said, "let it be as you say. Whoever is found to have it will become my slave; the rest of you will be free from blame." (Genesis 44:10)

November 19, 2014Wednesday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time    Reading 1 Rv 4:1-11 I, John, had a vision of an open door to heaven,and I heard the trumpetlike voicethat had spoken to me before, saying,“Come up here and I will show you what must happen afterwards.”At once I was caught up in spirit. A throne was there in heaven, and on the throne sat onewhose appearance sparkled like jasper and carnelian.Around the throne was a halo as brilliant as an emerald.Surrounding the throne I saw twenty-four other throneson which twenty-four elders sat,dressed in white garments and with...

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena has filed a bankruptcy reorganization plan that proposes a $16.4 million settlement for hundreds of people who said clergy members sexually abused them for decades while the church covered it up.

Like a Flood Today's Scripture “...When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.” (Isaiah 59:19, KJV) Today's Word from Joel and Victoria We all have times when we feel overwhelmed by life. You get a bad report, unexpected news, or someone you trusted wrongs you. What does God do? He doesn’t sit back and think, “Too bad. Sorry your life is so difficult.” No, when the enemy comes in like a flood, God raises up a barrier. In other words, that injustice, that bad break, that...

Winning into Freedom " If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. —John 8:36 " If there is even a trace of individual self-satisfaction left in us, it always says, “I can’t surrender,” or “I can’t be free.” But the spiritual part of our being never says “I can’t”; it simply soaks up everything around it. Our spirit hungers for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him. God delivers us...

A colleague offers the following capsule summary of Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield's latest report on Pope Francis, in which the pontiff's defense of traditional church teaching seems to baffle the Vatican correspondent: Francis is a RADICAL – no, no, sorry about that–he is now a conservative who sounds just like Benedict -- NO, WAIT -- he really is a liberal at heart, but he is being FORCED by those evil, evil right-wing conservatives to cave--he is at WAR with his own CDF chief (you know, the one he re-confirmed -- but never mind) -- AT WAR, I TELL YOU!...

VATICAN CITY — Children have the right to be raised by a mother and a father, Pope Francis said, emphasizing that “the family is the foundation of coexistence and a remedy against social fragmentation.” The Pope made these remarks on Nov. 17, at the opening of the three-day international, interfaith colloquium entitled “The Complementarity of Man and Woman,” currently under way in the Vatican.