Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s use of the image of nuclear fission—...in a positive sense, in order to explain the Eucharistic mystery—is contemporary and striking, and apt to convey the quiet, but immense, power of the Mass. The Sacra … [Read more...]
The Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary: Detecting a Pattern of Internal Consistency
May 24, 2014 by Jayson M. Brunelle, MEd, CAGS
Against the background of the words, Ave Maria, the principal events of the life of Jesus Christ pass before the eyes of the soul. They take shape in the complete series of the joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries, and they put us in … [Read more...]
Benedict XVI on Freedom in Obedience to the Truth: A Key for the New Evangelization
May 12, 2014 by Dr. Matthew J. Ramage, PhD
... the more fundamental task ... is to form human hearts, beginning with those who have already been evangelized and need to be “newly evangelized,” those who know something already, but are not living it; those who are showing up in the pe … [Read more...]
The Side Effects of the Pill: Why the Church Has So Much to Say about Contraception
March 21, 2014 by Dr. William Newton
The Church pays special attention to the issue of contraception ... because so many of the modern errors in moral theology converge in this particular question of conjugal morality. There is an impression out there–in the world and even w … [Read more...]
What Is the Right to Religious Freedom?
February 21, 2014 by Fr. Dylan Schrader
The most fundamental right in the area of religion is that which should be attributed to God, what we owe to God. God is absolutely sovereign. Catholics of the United States are more than ever asserting a right to religious freedom, … [Read more...]
To Jesus, Through Mary, in the Spirit of St. Joseph: The Wheat, the Rose, and the Lily
October 24, 2013 by Jayson M. Brunelle, MEd, CAGS
St. Louis de Montfort and St. Maximillian Kolbe . . . have consistently taught that the most appropriate response on our part to Mary's role as spiritual mother is filial entrustment, or “total consecration” to her. This perfect devotion of … [Read more...]
Fasting and the Call to Holiness
October 10, 2013 by John B. Buescher
Our salvation depends wholly on God’s grace, of which we are completely undeserving. But through fasting, as well as through prayer and almsgiving, we can open up space for God’s grace to enter. The Second Vatican Council’s document, … [Read more...]
“Humanae Vitae” and Sacred Scripture: A Missed Opportunity
July 20, 2013 by Rev. Ray E. Atwood
While prophetic in many ways, the most controversial encyclical of the twentieth century might have been better received had a stronger biblical argument been made in its favor. This July 2013 we commemorate the 45th anniversary of Pope … [Read more...]
Vocation for the Wives of Ordained Permanent Deacons
June 6, 2013 by Mary Gannon Kaufmann, MA, MS
Women who pray for the Church, and who are spouses of permanent deacons (or those in formation), are undoubtedly responding to a unique grace of personal mission that comes to them as a result of their baptism. I was at a retreat in … [Read more...]
An Ignatian Bishop of Rome
May 22, 2013 by Gregory Vall
Like Bergoglio’s choice of the name Francis—after the Poverello of Assisi rather than the Jesuit Francis Xavier—the phrase “presides in charity” and its evocation of “the other Ignatius” may turn out to be interpretive keys to the unpretenti … [Read more...]
The New Evangelization: The Holiness of the Church
April 22, 2013 by Michael Hull
The New Evangelization is our cooperation with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the 21st century ... an evangelization foreshadowed by Vatican II, according to Popes John XXIII and Paul VI ... an evangelization whose importance became m … [Read more...]
Fifty Years Later–Vatican II’s Unfinished Business
April 22, 2013 by Fr. Regis Scanlon, OFMCap
Today, 50 years after the opening of Vatican II, the misinterpretation of one of its most salient documents, Lumen Gentium, continues to drive a number of Catholics in the United States into one of two camps, the “right” or the “le … [Read more...]
The “Munus Regendi” of the Priest and the Vocation of the Laity
December 11, 2012 by Rev. Mr. Gaurav Shroff
...the priesthood as a whole, but especially in its exercise of the office of governance, is exercised with the full flowering of the vocation of the laity in mind. The goal of the priesthood is a mature and well-formed laity that embraces … [Read more...]
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