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Pope Francis has issued a long apostolic letter on holiness in today’s world, in which he emphasizes the universal call to sanctity, highlights the pitfalls to achieving it, and recalls that the Christian life is one of constant battle against the devil and the forces of evil. Running at just over 22,000 words, Gaudete et Exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad) — The Call to Holiness in Today’s World — contains many themes the Holy Father has repeated over the past five years: an emphasis on the importance of discernment, warnings against Gnosticism and neo-Pelagianism, rigidity, doing things as they have...

Pope Francis made global news in 2016 with a high-level document on family life meant to bring the church into modern times. It emphasized the need for priests to welcome divorced Catholics who remarry outside the church and many others in what the church calls “irregular situations.”Francis fans cheered his emphasis on inclusion. Critics rued his lack of clarity.Two years later, Washington’s archbishop, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, has released one of the most comprehensive responses from a Catholic leader on how to implement the pope’s more lofty and theoretical document.Like the pope’s, Wuerl’s document sidesteps giving a specific answer to the...

The Francis Effect meeting the German Heresiarchy leads to an explosive decision of cataclysmic consequences. Naturally, this Rome will not reject this aberration. This Vatican will welcome it. This pontificate will rejoice in it. Report and translations from CNA/EWTN:

Six Principles of Discernment Msgr. Charles Pope • January 30, 2018 • As a priest and pastor I am often called to spend time with people as they discern the voice and the will of God in their life. I have about twenty lay people for whom I provide spiritual direction. In addition, I am sometimes approached by people who are facing a critical time in their life (e.g., a family crisis, an important career decision, discerning a vocation) and would like careful guidance as they discern the best course of action or the best decision.Thank God that many...

BRAGA, Portugal (ChurchMilitant.com) - The archbishop of Braga is leaving it up to civilly divorced and remarried Catholics to decide for themselves if they are "integrated" into the Church and can receive Holy Communion. A January 17 document [English translation], titled, "Guidance Document of the Family Pastoral Care," is outlining how Abp. Jorge Ortiga intents to implement Amoris Laetitia (AL) in the diocese. Free clip from CHURCH MILITANT Premium WATCH MORE LIKE THIS   In a press conference, Ortiga outlined how people in "irregular unions" would be able to discern for themselves if they can receive the Holy Eucharist. He announced the...

Pope Francis told a group of newly ordained bishops that “authentic discernment” cannot be reduced to repeating “rigid” moral formulas to persons whose situations “can’t be reduced to black and white.” Discernment, the pope said, “can’t be reduced to repeating formulas such as ‘high clouds send little rain’ to a concrete person, who’s often immersed in a reality that can’t be reduced to black and white.” He cautioned bishops against being “imprisoned by nostalgia for being able to give just one answer to apply in all cases,” adding that discernment is an “antidote against rigidity, because the same solutions aren’t...

In spite of the original date, this was an excerpt on The Aquila Report today, assuming because it is about to be released as a movie. _______________________________________________ The publishing world sees very few books reach blockbuster status, but William Paul Young’s The Shack has now exceeded even that. The book, originally self-published by Young and two friends, has now sold more than 10 million copies and has been translated into over thirty languages. It is now one of the best-selling paperback books of all time, and its readers are enthusiastic. According to Young, the book was originally written for his...

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.( I John 5:2-3)The Apostle John wrote an epistle to restore the faith of those who had been ravaged by the distorted spirituality of the gnostics. As part of the cure, he declared three statements about the nature of the only true God; God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all, God is Love, and finally, Jesus Christ has come (and...

God created us in His image—with a mind to know Him, a heart to love Him, and a will to obey Him—in order that we might enjoy a living, personal relationship with Him. Hence, the Christian life is not a lifestyle, but fellowship with a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. This Person, to whom we are joined by faith in Him, is to have the preeminence in our life—not prominence, one among many, but preeminence—there is no one else! Thus, our very being is to be captivated by Him and enthralled with the altogether Lovely One. And our lives are...

What Did the Saints Say about Islam? 187 By Andrew Bieszad on August 12, 2014 Evangelization, Interfaith, Islam 2.9K SHARES juanderibera St. Juan de Ribera, Viceroy and Bishop of Valencia (1568-1611), Supervising the Expulsion of Moriscos; Francisco Domingo Marques, 1912 For Islamic scholars, there is a statement in the apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, which is particularly troubling: Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence. (p. 253)...

How can I know when I have the Spirit of the Lord with me? I’m a college student having a lot of new experiences, and sometimes I can’t tell if I’m just feeling “good” or if my feelings are genuinely righteous. Don Norton, English Department, Brigham Young University I’ve heard this question from dozens of young adults who are making all sorts of discoveries about themselves. Indeed it is a very important question. Since in this life “it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things” (2 Ne. 2:11; italics added), it must needs be that we...

Someone I know recently expressed an opinion that surprised and in some ways disappointed me. I said to myself, “I thought he would have more discernment than that.” The experience caused me to reflect on the importance of discernment and the lack of it in our world. We know that people often do not see issues clearly and are easily misled because they do not think biblically. But, sadly, one cannot help reflecting on how true this is of the church community, too. Most of us doubtless want to distance ourselves from what might be regarded as “the lunatic fringe”...

I was at the grocery store the other day when I was unexpectedly confronted with an adult-oriented magazine located right next to the vitamin section. I immediately had to look away from the front cover, which featured a scantily clad, seductively posed, sex symbol. Yet it was only a few weeks ago that I read an article about how this same sex symbol loves to speak in tongues and has to restrain herself from outbursts in tongues while attending church services. What? This is actually a perfect illustration of American charismatic Christianity, where you can say you love Jesus (like...

“Don’t judge me!” shouted to obese mother of what I estimated to be a dozen ill-mannered proto juvenile delinquents. Her charming tats aside, she otherwise was a model of incivility, bordering disheveled as she stashed a poorly covered ’40 into a bag while fishing for her EBT card. Had she been talking to me I would have politely informed her that, yes, I’ll judge her and everyone else. I damn well hope people judge me as well. This modern disinclination to judge is as antithetical to normal social functioning as is socialism, and perhaps as evil. Relying on quaint tools,...

One of the criteria that the prudence of the exorcist will take into account when discerning whether or not someone is being harassed by Satan is the ability of the candidate for exorcism to discover the reality behind known unknowns or even of unknown unknowns.You just can’t beat the absolute logic of Donny Rumsfeld as United States Secretary of Defense during a press conference at NATO Headquarters in Brussels back on June 6, 2002 (bracketed numbers added): Now what is the message there? The message is that there are no “knowns.” [1] There are things we know that we know....

When I first read the title of the book, "The Message Behind The Movie", my initial response to the title was, the message behind all the movies made today is bad! Now I don't claim to be a movie critic, but I do admit to being very critical of the product put out by Hollywood these days. It's not an opinion I've had all my life however. Truth is, until I gave my life to Christ I was more of an agnostic when it came to my opinion of movies. Like many Americans, I was oblivious to the influence movies...

We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.(I John 5:18-21)The Apostle John wrote his...

They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.( I John 4:5-6)Recently I have had several occasions in which I have had to contrast true christian teaching with varieties of heresy. This experience has brought me to some general conclusions about false teaching. It doesn’t matter what the particular teaching is, all false teaching seems to spring from a common spiritual condition,...

The average American and most Christians have grown up with a “smorgasbord theology.” As a result, they can no longer tell the real from the counterfeit. The writer to the Hebrew Christians describes this mind-set. He stops in mid-thought, wanting to explain the priesthood of Jesus and how it is similar to the priesthood of Melchizedek. He recognizes that their spiritual discernment makes what he wants to write “hard to explain” (Heb. 5:11). What had happened to these converts? They had become “dull of hearing” (Heb. 5:11). By this time in their Christian walk they should have matured, advancing from...

Don’t tell Mary Anne Marks the Catholic Church is an oppressive, misogynistic disaster. She knows better. And she’s got a Harvard degree, too. Miss Marks, a native of Queens, N.Y., graduated from Harvard University this past semester with an undergraduate degree in classics and English, delivering her commencement address in Latin. This fall, she begins a new life, discerning her future consecrated to Christ as a Catholic religious sister with the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, in Ann Arbor, Mich. She and I are alumnae of the same high school, Dominican Academy, in Manhattan. Before heading to...