Blogposts

Madi grew up in a religious home, blessed with attentive parents who took the dangers of technology seriously. They installed filters on her devices and required her to hand in her phone every night. Yet, when she was thirteen, she encountered pornography for the first time through her social media feed. She probed further, finding ways around the parental controls. Before long, she was in the throes of a porn addiction that lasted for five years. The paragraph above describes the depth of the porn addiction problem in our world and the effects of this addiction on young people. This was reported in First Things magazine.

Q. The natural law, what is it?
A. The natural law is morality which reason can determine from the nature of man, without the assistance of God's revelation. An example is the right to life. Almost all human societies throughout history, both religious and non-religious, have recognized that it is wrong to kill an innocent person. This is a conclusion which reason can easily come to, since all human beings have an inborn desire to live. From this natural law principle we can easily see that any action that directly kills an innocent person is an unjust taking of a human life. Therefore, withdrawing food and water from anyone who is not about to die and who can still tolerate it, has no other reasonable name than murder. and intentionally

The death of Terri Schiavo years ago raised a number of issues, moral, legal and constitutional, about the right to life and the so-called right to die. Most coverage of the case focused on the question of her guardian's right to decide according to her alleged wishes and the due process of the judicial proceedings. However, at base, the question was a moral, not a legal, one: under what conditions, if any, may a patient, a guardian, medical personnel or civil-authorities, withhold or withdraw nutrition and hydration

The central question of our time is that of Christ, even within a sickly Christianity. We do not realize that by dint of opening ourselves to everyone, we end up marginalizing Christ, we consider him superfluous, optional in the mechanism of salvation.

By Giacomo Cardinal Biffi (excerpts)

The three levels of Church-authority:

1. The Extraordinary (or Solemn) Magisterium: This category of magisterial teaching is infallible and is the easiest to identify as being such because of its explicit and definitive nature. It is exercised by either the pope alone (e.g., the papal definitions of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary), or by the whole college of bishops, with the pope as their head — as, for example, when specific doctrines are defined in an ecumenical council (e.g., the Council of Florence on the necessity of the Church for salvation, Vatican I on papal infallibility, etc.).

“Again you have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ 34But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.[i] Matthew 5:33- 37

The numbers in parentheses refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Pope Francis writes letter in support of persecuted Catholics in Nicaragua

A report from Life Site News edited

'I wish to convey to you my closeness and the assurance that I unceasingly pray to the Blessed Virgin to console and accompany you, confirming you in your faith,' Pope Francis wrote to Nicaragua's Catholic community.

Visiting a Greek Orthodox or Byzantine Catholic church, you will find an iconostasis, or screen of icons, placed in between the nave and the sanctuary, separating off the “holy of holies” from the rest of the space. The sanctuary represents the divine liturgy in the heavenly Jerusalem, in which we participate “at a distance” while we are still in this life of pilgrimage. Meanwhile the clergy can enter through the iconostasis and go even unto the altar, because they are acting in persona Christi, in the person of Christ and as His representatives…