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Priests agree 25% drop in personal income and voluntary redundancy scheme in place Catholic Church donations have plummeted in Dublin during the Covid-19 outbreak, falling by as much as 80 per cent. The Dublin Archdiocese said the need to close churches had “resulted in very serious consequences” for its income stream. A restructuring strategy to address “this urgent situation” is now under way to reduce costs, it said. This is expected to take some months to complete. Two donation streams – the “common fund” collection for priests and the “support for share” fund – have dropped by 70 and 80...

While the Irish island of Little Skellig was long thought to have been inhabited by nothing but a variety of seabirds, a new archaeological discovery demonstrates that monastics once labored in asceticism on the inaccessible crag. The archaeologist Michael Gibbons and a group of climbers recently located the remains of an early Christian church located on a narrow precipice overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, reports Afloat. Gibbons estimates that the church dates to the late 7th-early 8th century, when there was already a functioning monastery on nearby Skellig Michael. He described the location, 8 miles west of the Iveragh Peninsula...

A California bishop challenged Catholics online to “cut it out” and better represent their Christian faith through their social media engagement. On Tuesday, Bishop Robert Barron, an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, issued a “pastoral cry of the heart” to encourage Catholics to stop tearing each other apart online and instead provide well structured and charitable arguments. “I understand that people are passionate, especially about religious matters, but when it comes to this commentary we always must keep truth and love in the forefront,” he said. Speaking of social media, Bishop Barron said that “I must admit the vitriol, negativity,...

Posted on July 7, 2020 by Msgr. Charles Pope Sobering Spiritual Truths According to St. John of the Cross In today’s post I would like to ponder some hard and sobering spiritual truths, but ones that will set us free.In calling them “hard truths”, I mean that they are not the usual cozy bromides that many seek. They speak bluntly about the more irksome and difficult realities we face. If we come to accept them, though, they have a strange way of bringing serenity by getting us to focus us on the right things rather than spending our time...

July 9 2020 Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Hos 11:1-4, 8e-9 Thus says the LORD: When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they went from me, Sacrificing to the Baals and burning incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet, though I stooped to feed my...

‘It is extremely concerning that there may now be some further delay in allowing the return to public worship,’ wrote Father Michael J. Kane, pastor of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church in Coatbridge. ‘It is deeply distressing that Catholics cannot receive the Sacraments.’COATBRIDGE, Scotland, July 7, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) ― A Catholic priest has published an objection to the Scottish government’s continuing ban on public church services. Father Michael J. Kane is the pastor of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church in Coatbridge, a town about 10 miles east of Glasgow. In a June 26 open letter to Member of Scottish Parliament (MSP) Fulton...

'No absolute religious freedom since Henry VIII' LONDON (ChurchMilitant.com) - Protestant England never enjoyed absolute religious freedom since Henry VIII broke with Rome, a top evangelical leader is conceding, as 25 Christian leaders — including a Catholic theologian — challenge the churches' lockdown as a breach of the Magna Carta. Church leaders who have launched a judicial review of the lockdown are contending that the state criminalized Sunday worship for the first time in centuries — despite the government allowing churches to reopen July 4 under strict guidelines. Churches should never have been shut in the first place and "this...

Local bishop calls-out Catholic charity leader who said Church is ‘racist’ 'Dr. McCann’s blunt presentation was interpreted by many as levying false accusations against ‘whites’ and the Catholic Church' Bishop John Daly of the Diocese of Spokane SPOKANE, Washington, July 8, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — A Catholic bishop has publicly called-out the President and CEO of Catholic Charities Eastern Washington after he recently declared that the Catholic Church is “racist” because Jesus was ‘white’ in a video now viewed over 40,000 times online. Bishop John Daly of the Diocese of Spokane, where the charity is based, said that the Catholic community...

WEDNESDAY OF THE FOURTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME MATTHEW 10:1-7 Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus summoned apostles whom he shaped and sent on mission. Priests, through the centuries—from Augustine and Aquinas, to Francis Xavier and John Henry Newman, to John Paul II—are the descendants of those first friends and apprentices of the Lord. They have been needed in every age, and they are needed today, for the kingdom of heaven must be proclaimed, the poor must be served, God must be worshiped, and the sacraments must be administered. Spiritual fathers are required especially in our time, when a rising tide...

Antonio Socci: The Mystery of the Sunday Angelus What are the true contents of the still secret agreement between the Vatican and the Chinese Communist regime? And why, after two years, is it still hidden? What is there to hide? The question is ever more pressing, because last Sunday a true detective story unfolded. Immediately following the Sunday Angelus, Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti, on his widely followed blog Stilum Curiae, revealed that in the bulletin distributed to journalists before the Pope’s prayer, there were some important remarks prepared on the crisis of Hong Kong, where the Beijing regime is definitively...

African cardinal criticizes Black Lives Matter movement for ‘dismantling’ civilization July 7, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – South African Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier strongly criticized the Black Lives Matter movement for its “dismantling” of civilizations and cultures.  Napier, himself a black man and archbishop of Durban on the South African coast, tweeted that a “ brief study of the founding statement of ‘Black Lives Matter’ indicates the movement is being hijacked by the interests & parties committed to dismantling the very values, structure & institutions which have over the centuries undergird the best civilisations & cultures!” After his original tweet on July...

July 8 2020 Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Hos 10:1-3, 7-8, 12 Israel is a luxuriant vine whose fruit matches its growth. The more abundant his fruit, the more altars he built; The more productive his land, the more sacred pillars he set up. Their heart is false, now they pay for their guilt; God shall break down their altars and destroy their sacred pillars. If they would say, “We have no king”— Since they do not fear the LORD, what can the king do for them?The king of Samaria shall disappear, like foam...

The Coming Storm: St. Louis St. Louis.This is what the streets are going to be like, more and more often.There is clearly a demonic component to this.Language alert. BLM, ladies and gentlemen, whose mission statement specifically aims at the destruction of the nuclear family.Remember what Sr. Lucia wrote to Card. Caffarra?

Allegedly, on July 5 a paragraph of a pre-written speech by the Pope where he supported freedom in Hong Kong was not read by Francis. To avoid further wild speculations, the Vatican may publish the text of the 2018 China deal.On July 5, a mysterious incident that would have pleased a Dan Brown happened in the Vatican. Speeches by the Pope are distributed to journalists “embargoed,” meaning that media can quote them only after the Pope had pronounced them. In the past, journalists who violated the embargoes lost their credentials with the Vatican. Allegedly, the embargoed text in Italian of...

Open letter exposes seminary cover-upAfter being forced out of the Pontifical North American College (NAC) in Rome, former seminarian Anthony Gorgia has launched a GoFundMe account to finance legal action against "culpable Church leaders who will listen ... when faced with a lawsuit." Gorgia, once an exemplary seminarian, was forced to leave the NAC during the 2018–2019 school year after witnessing the seminary's vice-rector inappropriately touching a seminarian in his care. Gorgia's impeccable record of service, coupled with love and admiration of professionals and people who know him, were no deterrent to his bishop, Cdl. Timothy Dolan of New York....

May I Attend SSPX Masses? Editor’s Note: The simplest answer is that, YES, Catholics may attend Mass and receive Holy Communion at the chapels of the Society of St. Pius X without incurring any penalty, stigma or sin. As this is an involved topic, one article would be too long to cover this subject matter. Hence we will be posting these articles as a series over numerous days. We will cover such issues as schism, “full communion,” valid and licit sacraments, true obedience, Vatican II, excommunication and more. If you are interested in these topics, please read on! Part I...

The next pope: are we facing the nightmare of a Parolin pontificate? Vatican officials are anxious to get their hands on an advance copy of The Next Pope, a survey of 19 leading contenders to succeed Pope Francis scheduled for publication next month. The author, Edward Pentin, discusses these papable cardinals in today's episode of Holy Smoke.The full list is still under wraps, but inevitably we talk about Cardinal Robert Sarah, the African-born apocalyptic visionary whom liberals most fear. (If you doubt that, read this despicable and semi-literate hatchet job on Sarah by Christopher Lamb in The Tablet.) Equally inevitably,...

Dueling Protests Follow Suspension of Indiana Priest Fr. Theodore Rothrock: leftists 'serpents in the garden' CARMEL, Ind. (ChurchMilitant.com) - Protests and counterprotests are erupting over the suspension of a faithful Indiana cleric, days after his denunciation of radical leftist groups. On Sunday, supporters and critics of Fr. Theodore Rothrock faced off outside St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church in Carmel. One contingent shouted "Black Lives Matter!" while the other cheered, "Go, Fr. Ted!" Father Rothrock was suspended last week after condemning anarchist groups. "Black Lives Matter, Antifa and the other nefarious acolytes of their persuasion are not the friends or allies we have been led to believe," he warned in his...

[Catholic Caucus] Big Troubles: Now, Francis’ Much Praised “Poverty” Becomes a Reality Father Juan Guerrero, the Prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy, sent a May 8 letter asking all dicasteries of the Roman Curia to move their money to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA).In other words: The money of the Roman Curia must exclusively be kept in the APSA, the Vatican investment bank, not in foreign financial institutions, not even in the Vatican Bank.The letter was published on MarcoTosatti.com (July 7). It implies according to Tosatti that the Holy See “is in desperate...

Posts Posted on July 6, 2020July 6, 2020 What Does It Mean to Trust in God? We are often told to trust in God, and many of us have counseled others who are anxious or downcast to do so. But what does that mean?In some cases, when people give this counsel they mean this: Don’t worry, God will eventually give you what want. God will come around to your way of thinking at some point. Hang in there and wait for God to answer (your way). He’ll take care of things (in a way that pleases you).This is not...