Blogposts

The U.S. bishops’ Conference voted 168-55 to draft a formal statement on receiving the Eucharist. Involved in this is Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law: It forbids the administration of Holy Communion to those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared or who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin. Catholic politicians have a serious obligation to protect human life and not cooperate either materially or formally with the taking of innocent human life in the womb. To materially or formally cooperate with abortion is grave sin.

We often hear about the will of God and we pray in the Our-Father that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. St. Cyprian tells us what that means in his reflection on the Our-Father:

This is not that God should do what he wills, but so that we may be able to do what God wills. For who could resist God in such a way as to prevent him doing what he wills? But since the devil hinders us from obeying, by thought and by deed, God’s will in all things, we pray and ask that God’s will may be done in us.

The Archbishop of Paris lamented an attack on Catholics taking part in a procession commemorating the city’s 19th-century martyrs. Archbishop Michel Aupetit deplored May 30 the “anger, contempt and violence” directed at the group of around 300 Catholics, including children and elderly people, taking part in the “March of the Martyrs.” “Last night, here, there was a demonstration of anger, contempt, and violence.” The archbishop was speaking at a Mass marking the 150th anniversary of the Catholic martyrs of the Paris Commune at the Church of Notre-Dame-des-Otages, built in honor of hostages killed on May 26, 1871.

They who want to win the world for Christ must have the courage to come into conflict with it. – Blessed Titus Brandsma O.Carm, Martyr

Hearing (Mark 8:34ff) the following hard words of Jesus hit home: For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

In a podcast for Radio Free Rome, Vatican-reporter Marco Tosatti, opined on the new bishop for Hong Kong. This transcript appeared on Signor Tosatti’s blog:

Hong Kong finally has a new bishop: Stephen Chow, a Jesuit. For two years there have been several moments in which it seemed that the appointment was about to be announced, followed punctually by reconsideration, but now finally the Holy See has made its choice.

In a letter dated March 30, 2021 Archbishop Gomez, the President of the Conference of U.S. Catholic Bishops informed the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that the American bishops will be taking up the issue of Catholic politicians who support abortion, euthanasia, or other moral evils. You can include in the category of other moral evils gender ideology, sodomy, and forced-compliance with sex-change surgeries to name a few. Cardinal Ladaria, Prefect of the Congregation, in his reply counseled dialogue and consensus among the American bishops in considering these issues and the worthiness to receive Communion.

In Dante’s depiction of Hell in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy, there is the Fifth Circle: In the swampy, stinking waters of the river Styx *– the Fifth Circle – the actively wrathful fight each other viciously on the surface of the slime, while the sullen (the passively wrathful) lie beneath the water, withdrawn, "into a black sulkiness which can find no joy in God or man or the universe". (Note: In Greek mythology Styx was the goddess that controlled the river that divides this world from the underworld) Catholic philosopher Edward Feser reflects below on this in looking at the social-media phenomenon Twitter. Here is an excerpt:

Indeed, the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the devil.
—1 John 3:8

Our contemporaries, including many Christians, reject the notion of hell as something incompatible with God’s love and mercy. In fact there have been those who have maintained that at the end even Satan will be reconciled to God, a theory called apocatastasis, meaning a restoration to the original state, that the Church has rejected as contrary to the teachings of the Faith.

St. Thomas Aquinas distinguished three dimensions in the act of faith: “It is one thing to say: ‘I believe in God’ (credo Deum), for this indicates the object. It is another thing to say: ‘I believe God’ (credo Deo), for this indicates the One who testifies. And it is yet another thing to say: ‘I believe unto God’ (credo in Deum), for this indicates the end or goal of faith.

Battling the Church

In February 1960, Nikita Khrushchev approved a super-secret plan for destroying the Vatican’s moral authority in Western Europe…Up until that time, the KGB had fought its “mortal enemy” in Eastern Europe, where the Holy See had been crudely attacked as a cesspool of espionage in the pay of American imperialism, and its representatives had been summarily jailed as spies. Now Moscow wanted the Vatican discredited by its own priests, on its home territory, as a bastion of Nazism.

The second precept of the Church (“You shall confess your sins at least once a year.") The third precept (“You shall humbly receive your Creator in Holy Communion at least during the Easter season.") The Easter Season for this purpose extends from the 1st Sunday of Lent until Trinity Sunday.

Objections to Confession and Catholic Responses

Objection #1 – Only God can forgive sin. It is true that only God can forgive sin (on His own authority). God is the Person forgiving sin in Confession.

It was a staple of the Church in the Cold War era to pray for the conversion of Russia. The Soviet regime was a fierce enemy of the Church and a great persecutor of Catholics and orthodox Christians. Josef Stalin was the architect of mass murder. Christians were murdered or sent to the Gulag, a network of concentration camps, which were in existence before the Nazi camps. Millions upon millions died in these camps. This was documented by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his book The Gulag Archipelago.

Our contemporaries, including sadly many Christians, reject the notion of hell as something incompatible with God’s love and mercy. In fact there have been those who maintain that, at the end, even Satan will be reconciled to God, a false-teaching called apocatastasis, meaning a restoration to the original state. The Church has rejected this as contrary to the teachings of the Faith.