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January 16, 2017 Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Heb5:1-10Brothers and sisters:Every high priest is taken from among menand made their representative before God,to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring,for he himself is beset by weaknessand so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himselfas well as for the people.No one takes this honor upon himselfbut only when called by God,just as Aaron was.In the same way,it was not Christ who glorified himself in becoming high priest,but rather the one who said to him:You...

The “lineamenta” (guidelines) of the forthcoming synod on young people, published January13, paved the way to a new path for the synod. Much has changed since the times when it was thought that the Synod of Bishops was going to gain more importance in the Curia – the chair of the first meetings of the heads of Vatican dicasteries under Pope Francis was Cardinal Baldisseri, the General Secretary of the Synod of Bishops. In the meantime, a major role for the Synod of Bishops in papal elections, on the basis of a plan of Pope Paul VI, was rumored. At...

Under another entry here a commentator asked: Can absolution be granted where no purpose of amendment exists? If granted, with no purpose of amendment, does it even ‘take’? No. And No.In normal circumstances, when there isn’t danger or some other odd condition, in order to absolve a penitent who is sui compos (conscious, able to make a confession, etc.) the priest must be reasonably certain that the penitent 1) has actually confessed a sin (even a previously confessed and absolved sin is enough), 2) has, in that moment, at least imperfect sorrow for sin (attrition – fear of punishment), and...

“A number of miracle stories turn out in the light of form criticism to be projections of the experiences of Easter back into the earthly life of Jesus, or anticipatory representations of the exalted Christ. Among these epiphany stories we should probably include the stilling of the storm, the transfiguration, Jesus’ walking on the lake, the feeding of the four (or five) thousand and the miraculous draught of fishes. The clear purpose of the stories of the raising from the dead of Jairus’s daughter, the widow’s son at Naim and Lazarus is to present Jesus as Lord over life and...

Vatican City, Jan 14, 2017 / 10:39 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Saturday it was announced that Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston has yet another reason to come to Rome, with his appointment as the newest member of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Already a member of the Pope’s Council of Cardinals and President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, O’Malley’s appointment to the CDF, announced in a Jan. 14 communique from the Vatican, adds yet another major role to the list of duties he is accumulating. Headed by Cardinal Gerhard Muller, the CDF...

It's being reported the Archbishop of Canterbury is to express regret over the Reformation period, where thousands were murdered for their religious beliefs. According to the Mail on Sunday, Most Rev Justin Welby is due to issue a joint statement with the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu, expressing remorse over the time when various people challenged and abandoned Catholic Church teachings. Significant moments of the period include German priest Martin Luther's nailing of an academic paper to a a church in Wittenberg, outlining his opposition to certain Catholic theology, and King Henry VIII's formation of the Church of England....

Pastor J.D. focuses in on the significance of all that's happened in just the first fifteen days of the year, namely, that of the unprecedented UN Resolution and Paris Peace Summit, taking place at the time of today’s prophecy update.

Most of my readers have never been pope, and probably only one or two ever will be, so you don't realise how difficult the job of a pope is. You probably think that it just involves sitting around in Rome eating pasta, going to Mass, and occasionally saying something about Catholic doctrine. And the latter ought to be easy enough, as just about every issue under the sun has been discussed by previous popes, so you don't have to say anything original, although you can of course rephrase things in your own words. On no account try to change any...

CNN)Bishop Eddie Long, the controversial leader of one of the nation's largest megachurches, has died, according to the suburban Atlanta church he presided over. He was 63. Long died after a battle with an aggressive form of cancer, according to a statement by the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Long was a national figure and one of the most innovative and polarizing pastors in the contemporary church. He was also a paradox. He was a preacher who led an infamous march against same-sex marriage and denounced homosexuality, but he also settled a lawsuit by four young men who said he...

January 15, 2017. 70 Nations are gathering in France to discuss a "Final Solution" for the Israel-Palestinian conflict. And we can promise you, it is not favorable to the Israeli people. Remember, Hitler also proposed a "Final Solution." 'Nuff said. John looks at this issue, along with an analysis of an Iranian-Israeli nuclear conflict, plus another tortorous glimpse into the continuing absurdity of our nation's leaders who are dead set on inflicting as much damage as possible on God's chosen nation. January 20th cannot come soon enough for those who love Israel and her people.

The Vatican will once again be used as a forum to advance population control. Pro-abortion advocate Paul Ehrlich, father of the modern population control movement and author of the 1968 best-seller "The Population Bomb," has been invited to speak at the Vatican during the February 27-March 1 conference that will discuss "how to save the natural world." This is deplorable when we consider the possible millions of deaths globally that he and his ideas may have indirectly been responsible for over the past five decades. Is the Vatican deliberately seeking to put the unborn to death? The Stanford biologist, who...

"[God] made known the mystery of His will according to His kind intention which He purposed in [Christ] with a view to an administration suitable to the fulness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth" (Eph. 1:9-10). God is intimately involved in the flow of human history and is directing its course toward a specific, predetermined climax. For centuries men of various philosophical schools have debated the cause, course, and climax of human history. Some deny God and therefore deny any divine involvement in history....

“Let your way of life be free from the love of money, being content with what you have” (Hebrews 13:5). If you are content with what God has given you, you will not be a person who is covetous or a lover of money. I once had a man come into my church office and confess the sin of gluttony. When I told him he did not look overweight, he answered, “I know. It is not that I eat too much but that I want to. I continually crave food. It’s an obsession.” Covetousness is very similar to that man’s...

If, as a result of the process of discernment, undertaken with "humility, discretion and love for the Church and her teaching, in a sincere search for God’s will and a desire to make a more perfect response to it" (AL 300), a separated or divorced person who is living in a new relationship manages, with an informed and enlightened conscience, to acknowledge and believe that he or she are at peace with God, he or she cannot be precluded from participating in the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist (see AL, notes 336 and 351).» In brief: yes to communion...

Pope Francis is extending his controversial overhaul of the Vatican's liturgy department, adding a host of new advisers after an initial shake-up removed some leading conservative cardinals.

Just yesterday I was lamenting to some colleagues about how weary I've become of the ongoing and escalating debate over Amoris Laetitia and its interpretation. "I would be happy," I said, "to not write of it again." Knowing full well the topic was not going away. Quite the contrary. So, I am not happy. But this really isn't about feelings, is it? Or is it? The bishops of Malta, in a pastoral letter signed January 8th by the Archbishop of Malta, Charles J. Scicluna, and the Bishop of Gozo, Mario Grech, have offered their "Criteria for the Application of Chapter...

Distinguished canonist Ed Peters, at his indispensable blog In The Light Of The Law, has posted in the wake of what we must now call…The Maltese FiascoThe Bishops of Malta issued a dreadful set of guidelines for the implementation of the objectively ambiguous bits of Amoris laetitia, Ch. 8. These are the bits that the Four Cardinals (Brandmüller, Burke, Caffarra, Meisner) – and the rest of the rational, honest world – want clarified. The Four Cardinals submitted five formal questions or Dubia to the Holy Father and to the CDF. Since its release, Amoris laetitia has caused confusion, anxiety,...

Day 3: Winning the Lottery My Kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place. John 18:36 For those of us who so love this country, it’s easy to forget that America is not “the promised land.” Certainly, this exceptional nation was founded on religious freedom and God has abundantly blessed it. As Americans, we have enormous responsibility and a privilege that – compared to the rest of the world – is hard to calculate. A friend said, “Being born...

It strikes me that it’s not much fun being a Catholic in France these days. Strolling back to my apartment in Paris on Christmas Eve, for example, I passed my local church. Inside a midnight Mass was in progress; outside a policeman stood guard.It was the same across France, an army of gun-toting men and women protecting the nation’s cathedrals and churches. They’ll be back at Easter, and on the Ascension and the Assumption. For how long? Who knows how long the country that is known as ‘the eldest daughter of the church’ because of its Christian heritage will need...

In January, 2015, Fr. Gallagher caught a visiting priest from India showing homosexual pornography to a 14 year old boy. Fr. Gallagher rightly went straight to the police. However, in doing so, this good priest felt the wrath of the local Bishop, Gerald Barbarito. It seems the bishop was not at all happy that Fr. Gallagher had had this vile sodomite arrested. Apparently, the Diocese had preferred to spirit the sodomite out of the country, back to India. Barbarito responded to Fr Gallagher's righteous actions to go straight to the police by releasing his underlings - clerical and lay -in...