Blogposts

Catholics and Politics: Reminders THE THREE NON-NEGOTIABLES

10-06-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

Other matters may be relevant, but a present-day Catholic citizen should never place issues of lesser importance at the same level of "the three non-negotiables": As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable. Among these the following emerge clearly today:

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26th Sunday in Ordinary Time - October 1, 2023

09-29-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. Luke 23:31-32

Jesus Said I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, No One Comes to the Father except through me.

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Rosa Mystica, Akita, Mother All-Merciful, No to Assasinations!

09-22-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

In a flurry of approvals the Holy See through the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) has given approvals to two additional apparitions of our Lady and with the death of Sr. Agnes Saragawa age 93, the apparition of our Lady at Akita Japan also should be recalled. The two additional apparitions are referred to as Our Lady of the Rock, Rosa Mystica and Our Lady of Mercy the first in Italy, the second in France.

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Listen with our Hearts

09-15-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

In a video message accompanying his prayer intention for September, Pope Francis prays that "each of us might listen with our hearts to the cry of the earth and of the victims of environmental disasters and climate change, making a personal commitment to care for the world we inhabit." In a press release accompanying the Pope’s video-message, Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J., says, “Creation is groaning. Its suffering is caused by humans who were originally its guardian and are now its subjugator”. Concern and care for the environment is one thing the claim of climate change (rising temperatures) caused by humans is another. Commentators tend to claim every extreme weather-event is being caused by human produced climate change. However, if every such event is climate-change, then nothing is climate change and we enter the realm of ideology rather than science.

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Nicaragua and the Persecuted Church. The Price of the Pact with the Devil

09-08-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard Villa

Recently an essay appeared by Julio Loredo about the persecution of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua. What follows are some points and information about this persecution and the silence of the Holy See based on a misguided policy with respect to communist governments which Loredo calls “a pact with the devil.” https://www.aldomariavalli.it/2024/08/31/ilnicaragua-e-la-chiesa-perseguitata-il-prezzo-del-patto-coldiavolo/

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Parental Rights

09-01-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

VOTE TO PROTECT PARENTAL RIGHTS

Parents, by natural-right and Church-teaching, are the primary educators of their children NOT the State or schools.

VOTE NO TO PROPOSAL NUMBER ONE

Proposal Number One is a proposed-amendment to the NY State Constitution. It singles out both age and gender identity and expression; it opens the door for judges to permit minor children to make life-altering decisions about their bodies without any parental approval or notification. It is a ploy to impose gender ideology on children in the schools overriding the rights of parents!

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Communism/Socialism No Friend of Family or Religion

08-25-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

“Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist” Communism is intrinsically wrong. Pope Pius XI

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The Meaning of the Lord’s Day and Its Frequent Violation

08-18-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

St Thomas Aquinas reminds us that religion has as its object the honor, reverence, and worship due to God. Religion is the chief of the moral virtues because its acts are directed immediately to God’s honor and glory, Do not be afraid to give your time to Christ. Yes, let us open our time to Christ, that he may cast light upon it and give it direction. He is the One who knows the secret of time and the secret of eternity, and he gives us “his day” as an ever new gift of his love.

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Old hatreds of the Church alive and well in Paris

08-11-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

We don't live in a carefree society. Our lives are really part of a merciless struggle against infernal powers, all the more dangerous because they are invisible and all the more powerful because they effectively influence a certain number of people. The Word of God teaches us this through the mouth of Saint Paul: "We do not have to fight (only) against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of this dark world, against the evil spirits that are in the air" (Eph. 6:12).

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The Church in the Stormy Seas of Heresy and Apostasy

08-04-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

And, I rejoice to say, to one great mischief I have from the first opposed myself. For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of liberalism in religion….The Biglietto-Speech St John Henry Newman

Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion, as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy….

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