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Earlier today, Pope Francis delivered an address to the Convention of the Italian Church held at the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Though he did not specifically mention by name the Synod on Marriage and Family, much less the anticipated Apostolic Exhortation that it allegedly inspired, Pope Francis did reveal, or perhaps more accurately said, he confirmed, his upcoming plan of attack aimed at removing and all obstacles that might stand between unrepentant public sinners (and eventually even non-Catholics) and the Most Holy Eucharist. On a number of occasions during the address, the humble Bishop of Rome...

Events of recent memory have left my head spinning in disbelief–”Caitlyn,” same-sex so-called “marriage,” three women “marrying” in South America, and, yes, “gay Catholics” and “chaste gay couples.” With me, you may wonder how all this has emerged in a short few decades of social upheaval.I may have an answer: Society has constructed an unreal cultural landscape in which things that are not sexuality are passed off as sexuality. Even a majority of Catholics are, perhaps unwittingly, swallowing this unreality, hook, line, and sinker.The fabric of this false landscape is language–language that frames everyone and everything in a way that...

The history of the Book of Genesis revolves around seven great men; Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. In the measure that the image of Christ was formed in them, to that degree they are typical men. All these were married men. We are not told how three of them got their wives, but this we are told about the other four. Each of these four received his wife through suffering. Adam did not suffer actually, but typically, and he suffered in the capacity of a king. Jacob suffered as a servant, Isaac as the only begotten son...

On November 2nd, approximately 85 Fort Hood Soldiers, civilians and Family members observed a solemn memorial tribute to the 1st Cavalry Division Soldiers who fell at the battle of Unsan, North Korea, 1-3 November, 1950. After attacking north to relieve South Korean Army elements along the Sino-Korean border, the 8th Cavalry Regiment found themselves surrounded by more than 40,000 Communist Chinese Forces and were ordered to retrograde to a more advantageous defensive position. The 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment was the last to withdraw, losing nearly 600 men while inflicting thousands of casualties upon the CCF. As the last Soldiers...

Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them. Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land,...

Editor's note: as with all stories attempting to uncover what is transpiring behind the scenes at the Vatican, this report includes, by necessity, a certain amount of speculation based on information gleaned from unnamed sources. While the Italian press appears to have long-since accepted the blurring of the lines between reporting and rumor that is unavoidable in covering Vatican politics, this can be uncomfortable for the uninitiated. We present the following report as something plausible but unable to be definitively verified. We have chosen to share this information with our audience because it potentially sheds light on the new direction...

I have learned a few tricks to help me beat the clock. They may be helpful to you. I realize that all my time is God's time and all my time is my time by His delegation. God owns me and my time. Yet, He has given me a measure of time over which I am a steward. I can commit that time to work for other people, visit other people, etc., but it is time for which I must give an account. Time can be redeemed by concentration and focus. One of the greatest wastes of time occurs in...

Love and Lament Alike – A Brief Reflection for All Who Care About the Church Msgr. Charles Pope • November 9, 2015 • As a priest and pastor I work very closely with others: clergy, religious, laity who work for the Church, and laity who volunteer. We all work for the Church because we love her and her people.But along with that love comes, at times, disappointment, hurt, or even disillusionment. Perhaps these feelings result from issues in the wider Church such as the betrayal of sexual abuse by clergy, the lack of courage and leadership from some bishops and...

Pope Francis has said it is "useless" to seek solutions to evils and problems in the Church through "conservatism and fundamentalism" and warned against a faith that is "locked in subjectivism"... ...both Pelagianism, a heresy that denies original sin, and Gnosticism, which denies Christ's divinity, are temptations that "defeat" a true Christian humanism. Pelagianism..."prompts the Church not to be humble, selfless and blessed. And it does so with the appearance of being a good." Such an approach..."brings us confidence in structures, organizations, in perfect planning because it's abstract." But often "it leads us also to take a controlling, hard, regulatory...

Archbishop-elect Jozef De Kesel also indicates his hope that the Church will soon allow "divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion."If an archbishop-elect thinks the word "mercy" is "somewhat condescending", what must he think of words such as "sin", "damnation", "hell", and "orthodoxy"? We don't know for certain, but perhaps that is just as well, if only for the sake of keeping one's stomach comments in place. The prelate in question is Jozef De Kesel of Mechelen-Brussels, interviewed by Kerknet and translated into English by Mark de Vries of "In Caelo et in Terra", who covers Catholic news in the...

And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling...

Why Does Jesus Tell Us to Use "Dishonest Wealth"? Msgr. Charles Pope • November 8, 2015 • There was a puzzling reference in Saturday morning's Gospel (Saturday of the 31st week in Ordinary Time) in which Jesus says,I tell you, make friends for yourselves by your use of dishonest wealth, so that, when it fails, they will welcome you to eternal dwellings (Luke 16:9).What does He mean by "dishonest wealth"?The Greek expression μαμωνᾶ τῆς ἀδικίας (mamona tes adikias) is more literally translated as “mammon of unrighteousness.” Mammon is a Hebrew and Aramaic word that has a wider meaning than just...

Time is the great leveler. It is the one resource that is allocated in absolute egalitarian terms. Every living person has the same number of hours to use in every day. Busy people are not given a special bonus added on to the hours of the day. The clock plays no favorites. We all have an equal measure of time in every day. Where we differ from one another is in how we redeem the time allotted. When something is redeemed, it is rescued or purchased from some negative condition. The basic negative condition we are concerned with is the...

How do you know that you really get the gospel, that you really understand and believe it? Or perhaps better said, how do you know that the gospel has really gotten you, that it has taken hold of you and begun to permanently transform you? I found myself pondering this question last week and was soon thinking about people I have known who once professed faith, but who eventually grew cold, grew distant, and fell away. If you have been a Christian for any length of time, you, too, have known people like this. Over time it became clear that...

What exactly did Jesus look like? Both as a child and then as an adult? It's a question that's been asked for centuries. An Italian scientific team decided to look into it, using the latest technology. The team used the Holy Shroud as a starting point to try and depict Jesus' appearance. GIOVANNI TESSITORE Technical Director, Italian State Dept. "One of the tasks this police department carries out quite often is facial reconstruction. So everything from describing facial features to comparing them. This is our starting point, so we used the Holy Shroud as our base and went from there."...

The Christian includes, he does not close the door to anyone, even if this provokes resistance. He who excludes, because he believes himself to be better, generates conflicts and divisions, and does not consider the fact that "we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God." That was the message of Pope Francis during Thursday morning's Mass at Casa Santa Marta. The attitude of Christ is to include In the Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul exhorts us not to judge and not to despise our brothers, because, the Pope said, this leads to excluding them from "our little...

Los Angeles, Calif., Nov 6, 2015 / 12:24 am (CNA).- The miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is centuries old and her message to St. Juan Diego has been translated into numerous languages over the years. Countless books have been written about the apparition, and the tilma itself has been intensely scrutinized by scientists. So what more can we learn about Our Lady of Guadalupe and her message? Plenty, says Supreme Knight Carl Anderson, who along with postulator for St. Juan Diego's cause for canonization, Msgr. Eduardo Chavez Sanchez, has produced the new documentary, "Guadalupe: The Miracle and the...

Archdiocese of Washington The Paradox of Poverty -- A Homily for the 32nd Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope • November 7, 2015 • The first reading in today's Mass, from 1st Kings, speaks to us of the paradox of poverty. And the paradox is this: it is often our poverty, our neediness, that provides a doorway for God to bless us with true riches. It is our emptiness that provides room for God to go to work.Yes, in our riches we have "too much to lose." To the rich and worldly minded, the Gospel seems too demanding. But...

And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal:(Ezekiel 38:1-3)Ezekiel 34-39 is a panoramic revelation of the things which must take place leading to the full restoration of Israel.First, in chapter 34, he addresses the Shepherds of Israel for they are the ones He holds responsible for scattering the flock,and particularly the last scattering of...

During his General Audience of Wednesday, October 28, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, otherwise known as Pope Francis, delivered what may rightly be considered a concise “Profession of Faith” for the One-World Religion of Apostate Rome; let us call it the Conciliar Creed of the Church of Man. Certainly, Francis is not the first bishop in white to embrace the Church of Man that emerged after Vatican Council II and its anthropocentric tenets, but he is by far its boldest evangelist to date. As such, he is rather plainspoken (at least for those with ears to hear) about his desire to lure...