Strand magazine, Vol. 112, Issue 672, December 1946
Writing religion for sceptics has made C. S. Lewis a best-seller. His books on Christianity—chief among them “The Screwtape Letters”—sell better, and read more easily, than most crime stories. This sermon is a characteristic piece of writing by the Oxford don who has become the most entertaining missionary of our time. When I was asked to write a Christmas sermon for Pagans I accepted the job lightheartedly enough: but now that I sit down to tackle it I discover a difficulty. Are there any Pagans in England for me to write to? I know that people keep on telling us that this country is relapsing into Paganism. But they only mean it is ceasing to be Christian. And is that at all the same thing? Let us remember what a Pagan or Heathen (I use the words interchangeably) really was.
READ MOREThe reporting that the FBI was targeting traditional Catholics has led to an investigation by the House of Representatives. Also taking up this matter and commenting on the House-Investigation is the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Some of its commentary:
-There is a hate group inside the FBI that needs to be purged. It is targeting practicing Catholics and is relying on the Southern Poverty Law Center, Salon and The Atlantic to dig up dirt on them. The House Report on this issue is startling.
READ MORECardinal Müller is a theologian and formerly was the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. He recently gave an interview on various topics giving his views, but more importantly, clarifying Catholic teaching! Here are some excerpts. You can read the whole interview here: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/11/20/infallibilityand-the-limits-of-papal-power-an-interview-cardinal-gerhardmuller/ What follows are excerpts from the interview:
READ MOREInterview with Peter Kleponis, a Catholic psychotherapist who specializes in marriage and family therapy, men's issues and pornography addiction recovery.
ZENIT: If a person came to you and asked, "Am I addicted to pornography?" how would you define this for him?
Kleponis: A person who uses it on a regular basis is not necessarily addicted. What I ask is: Do you find yourself drawn to it? Do you find yourself thinking a lot about it? Do you find yourself looking forward to coming home from work at night and getting online and looking at the pornography? Do you rely upon it to deal with the stress of loneliness, male insecurity or job pressures? Is it very difficult for you to go several days without looking at pornography? If you're answering yes to these questions you very well may be addicted to pornography.
Peter Kleponis, a Catholic psychotherapist specializes in marriage and family therapy, men's issues and pornography addiction recovery. He gave this interview with ZENIT news:
ZENIT: How does this use compare between men and women? Kleponis: Currently about 83% of pornography addicts are men, and 17% are women. For women, it's the chat rooms rather than the visual pornography that they're looking at. Men and women are wired differently. Men are visually stimulated.
READ MOREThe Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) offers the following explanation: We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves . . . To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.” (CCC 1033)
READ MOREAyaan Hirsi Ali is an UnHerd-blog columnist. She is also a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Founder of the AHA Foundation, and host of The Ayaan Hirsi Ali Podcast. Her new book is Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights.
This is interesting testimony from a person who says she is now a Christian, although she does not mention Christ in her remarks. Perhaps in a future essay she will. This needs to be said, since, as the French writer Paul Claudel pointed out, Christianity is a face to face encounter with a Person, whose Name is Jesus Christ, and He lives!
READ MOREWhat the Church teaches about Purgatory can be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
III. The Final Purification, or Purgatory
1030 All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
READ MOREMarco Meschini, a professor at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, explains in his book "Il Jihad e La Crociata" (The Jihad and the Crusade) published by Edizioni Ares, says that jihad and the Crusades are asymmetric. In this interview he explains why.
READ MOREVatican commentator “Vaticanista” Sandro Magister wrote on October 25: At the Vatican the synod is heading into its final phase, which then again is not final, given that it will be reconvened in a year and only afterward will the pope, on his own, decide what conclusions to draw from it, at the tail end of a debate about which little or nothing is known, protected as it is by secrecy. But meanwhile there is also a synod “outside the walls,” of which the book … is a voice, on a topic, chastity, that has almost become a taboo for those in the Church who are calling for a “paradigm shift” in the Catholic doctrine on sexuality, led by that cardinal JeanClaude Hollerich whom Francis has put at the helm of the synod.
READ MOREThe context of the hard sayings: Therefore, Lord, we pray: graciously accept this oblation of our service, that of your whole family; order our days in your peace, and command that we be delivered from eternal damnation and counted among the flock of those you have chosen.
The First Eucharist Prayer/The Roman Canon
Years ago, a layman, Christian Browne, asked the question above in an essay in Crisis magazine. He quotes Jesus’ remark “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.” (Mk. 9:43)
READ MOREWho’s Elizabeth Anscombe you ask? She was one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century and a Catholic convert in her early teens. Why Elizabeth Anscombe? A great part of the crisis in the Church and in this Synod in Rome is the amount of people, who hold themselves out to be Catholic, who, in fact, reject Catholic teachings especially, the Church’s moral teachings on sexuality, contradicting the Scriptures and the apostolic Tradition of the Church. In that regard they are no longer Catholic. This group includes bishops and clergy as well as laity.
READ MOREThat the Angels conduct our souls to heaven is a traditional doctrine
... Today we hear a lot about angels, but from a perspective that is not that of the Church. There is a false devotion to the Angels, which consists in imagining them as mythological creatures attributing to them almost magical potentialities to fulfill our desires, appease our feelings, regardless of the observance of God’s universal law, that is, respect for the objective order of creation. In fact, according to Catholic doctrine, angels are the invisible ministers God uses to govern created things.
READ MOREThe Church Is Not an NGO* *NGO stands for non-governmental organization. While there is no universally agreed-upon definition of an NGO, typically it is a voluntary group or institution with a social mission, which operates independently from the government.
The Church appreciates the high human and moral values espoused by democracy, but she herself is not structured according to the principles of a secular political society. The Church, the mystery of the communion of humanity with God, receives her constitution from Christ. It is from him that she receives her internal structure and her principles of government. Public opinion cannot, therefore, play in the Church the determinative role that it legitimately plays in the political societies that rely on the principle of popular sovereignty,…(emphasis added) The International Theological Commission on the Sense of the Faith 114
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