Archives for 2020

The Trinitarian Theology of the Eucharist according to St. Catherine of Siena

A little over fifty years ago, the Second Vatican Council declared the Eucharist “the source and summit of the Christian life.” Prior to this Council, in 1902, Pope Leo XIII described the Eucharist as “the very soul of the Church” which “bri … [Read more...]

Exchanging Truth for a Lie

The Pan-Amazonian Plan to Eliminate God, the Church, and Salvation

Now that the Pan-Amazon Synod is over in Rome, we should not be surprised at the strange and unsettling things that we are seeing and hearing in relation to it. The Pre-Synodal Instrumentum Laboris (hereafter IL) forewarned us quite … [Read more...]

Book Reviews – February 2020

Habits for a Healthy Marriage: A Handbook for Catholic Couples By Richard P. Fitzgibbons. Reviewed by Christopher Siuzdak. (skip to review) Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination By John Corvino, Ryan Anderson, and Sherif … [Read more...]

The Novus Ordo at 50: Loss or Gain?

A Reply to Prof. Mary Healy

The recent half-century of Pope Paul VI’s reformed (“Ordinary Form,” or OF) Mass, which came shortly after the twelfth anniversary of the liberalization of the previous (“Extraordinary Form,” or EF) form of Mass, should stimulate us to engag … [Read more...]

Accompanying, Discerning, and Integrating Weakness in Marriage

Chapter eight and its footnotes of Amoris Laetitia begins with the above title and has been pilloried extensively by much of the people of God’s thinkers due to some ambiguities in light of sacred Tradition. However, the title is a m … [Read more...]

Newman‘s Concept of Conscience in His Quest for Moral Truth

The question about truth is vividly present in the teachings of the Catholic Church throughout the ages. The discourse on truth — which resounds in the question posed to Christ, “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38) — has been heard throughout the cen … [Read more...]

Conscience as Relationship, Part II

A Dialogue through Which God Takes Us beyond Ourselves

In the second of these two articles on conscience[1. See Francis Etheredge, “Conscience as Relationship, Part I: General Principles and Personal Experience,” Homiletic & Pastoral Review (Jan 2020), hpr … [Read more...]

Questions Answered – February 2020

Purgatory and Filthy Lucre Question: I teach RCIA and a catechumen in my class said he was taught that Catholics dreamed up Purgatory as a way to get money from people. I know Purgatory is referred to in Maccabees and responded that … [Read more...]

Homilies for February 2020

For Presentation of the Lord, February 9, February 16, and February 23. Feast of the Presentation of the Lord – February 2, 2020   Readings: Mal 3:1–4 • Ps 24:7–10 • Heb 2:14–18 • Lk 2:22–40 (or 2:22–32)   usccb.org/bible/rea … [Read more...]

Pastoral Care of Women Who Have Left the Convent

In the fall of 2014, I got on a train to enter the convent. I was happy and healthy, with an intact family, great friends, a list of accomplishments I was proud of, and no history of mental health trouble, having passed my psychological … [Read more...]

Well Directed — Lessons Learned
from Saint Paul

The Importance of Spiritual Direction in the Ministry and Mission of Evangelization in Light of the Life and Ministry of the Apostle Paul

We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may … [Read more...]

The Heart of a Priest

St. John Vianney

Father Patrice Chocholski is the successor of St. John Vianney as the pastor of the Parish of St. Sixtus in Ars, France. In July of 2018, Fr. Patrice brought the relic of the heart of St. John Vianney to the United States on a pilgrimage … [Read more...]

Benedict XVI on Self-“Excommunication”

In his Encyclical Eccelsia De Eucharista, Saint John Paul II reiterated the proclamation of the Second Vatican Council that the celebration of the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.”[1. Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia De … [Read more...]

Conscience as Relationship, Part I

General Principles and Personal Experience

As regards the discernment of what is actually good amidst the multitude of the many possible goods arising out of the “results of physics, genetics, and neuroscience, as well as of increasingly powerful computing capabilities, [and the] p … [Read more...]