Video games promote a culture of violence but abortion doesn't?

Flipping through the news channels just the other day, I overheard a news-anchor assert that anyone who suggests there is a link between abortion and the killing spree which just took place in Newtown, Connecticut is "crazy."Really?This same woman, like so many others in the mainstream media who believe that their views are somehow more relevant because they reach beyond the end of a bar, declared that there is a connection between violent video...

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The "Social Gospel" is more concerned about an earthly future than eternity

Standing before a statue of Mary near the Spanish Steps on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Benedict XVI reminded his listeners that the Gospel is the good news of freedom from sin, that it is "the proclamation of the victory of grace over sin, of life over death."  Proponents of the "social gospel" have forgotten this.  The mission of the Church is not to eradicate poverty or social injustice.  As Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand explains, while "a deep interest in the earthly welfare of our neighbor is a central duty of...

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Mr. President....Do you really respect human life or were your tears simply an act?

"… If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?…Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion." - Mother Teresa of CalcuttaIt's not gun control we need Mr. President.  It's respect for the sanctity of all human life - from the first moment of conception...

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Broader participation of the laity in the apostolic life of the Church?

In an essay entitled, “The Case for the Latin Mass,” Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand explains that, “Those who rhapsodize on the new liturgy make much of the point that over the years the Mass had lost its communal character and had become an occasion for individualistic worship.  The new vernacular Mass, they insist, restores the sense of community by replacing private devotions with community participation.  Yet they forget that there are...

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Nine Day Novena to Our Lady of La Salette

The Nine Day Novena To Our Lady of LaSaletteDay OneTheme: Welcome Scripture Says: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light." (Mt. 11: 28, 30) Mary Said: "Come near, my children." Meditation: What a wonderful invitation! In all simplicity Mary at La Salette calls the two children to come near. Her words echo her Son's invitation to come to him that we may find rest from our burdens and refreshment for our spirits. This too is Mary's desire: that her children-meaning us as...

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Stephen Kent, in an essay entitled “A need for pro-active ethics,” writes, “Ethics are based on values. Values arise from foundational beliefs, the primary ones being the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of life as God’s creation. What advances this ideal is good, what hinders it is wrong.”Which is why it is most unfortunate that the Worcester Diocese [Massachusetts] continues to raise monies for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development,...

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"Only a robustly, unapologetically evangelical Catholicism..."

It was Jacques Maritain who said, “Christianity must inform or, rather, transpenetrate the world; not that this is its principal aim (although it is an indispensable secondary end), and not in order that the world become right now the kingdom of God, but in order that grace may be more and more effective in it, and in order that man may better live there his temporal life.”If grace is to be more and more effective in the world, if a new Christendom is to arise from the ashes of our morally-bankrupt, sin-sick society which subjects mankind to constant...

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Bishop Robert McManus, poor catechesis and the re-election of Barack Obama

An Associated Press article written by Rachel Zoll and entitled "Catholic Bishops stay course on gay marriage fight" notes that, "Obama won the overall Catholic vote, 50 percent to 48 percent...White Catholics supported Romney, 59 percent to 40 percent.  However, Latino Catholics went for Obama, 75 percent to 21 percent."  Which only serves to highlight the fact that the Republican Party needs to reach out to Hispanic voters and that the Catholic Church in the United States has done a very poor job of catechizing the faithful.In a speech...

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Americans choose the Way of Death...

The Didache, also known as The Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles, tells us that, "There are two Ways: a Way of Life and a Way of Death, and the difference between these two Ways is great.  The Way of Life is this: Thou shalt love first the Lord thy Creator, and secondly thy neighbor as thyself; and thou shalt do nothing to any man that thou wouldst not wish to be done to thyself...Commit no murder, adultery, sodomy, fornication, or theft.  Practise no magic, sorcery, abortion, or infanticide..."Once again, a majority of Americans (including...

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The Diocese of Worcester, Constructive Criticism and New Age Spirituality

In his Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis, No. 4, Pope John Paul II emphasized that the Church, “...should have a critical sense with regard to all that goes to make up her human character and activity and..should always be very demanding on herself.” Reminding the faithful that constructive criticism has a role within the Church, John Paul says in this same paragraph that such criticism “should have its just limits...otherwise it ceases to be constructive and does not reveal truth.”But the critical sense called for by Pope John Paul II is not...

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The Social "Gospel" spreads: Preparation for the Reign of Antichrist.

I've said it many times over the past twenty years, as we move toward one world government, the new humanitarian religion will become more and more aggressive. Catholicism, its greatest enemy, must be overcome at all cost. To this end, ecclesiastical masonry (see here and here) has inflitrated the Church.Through one of the characters in his book The Lord of the World, Robert Hugh Benson describes this humanitarian religion which is to overcome the Catholic Church: "Humanitarianism...is becoming an actual religion itself, though anti-supernatural....

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Letter submitted to the Editor of The Catholic Free Press

To the Editor:In his important work entitled The Devastated Vineyard, Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand examines three false responses to the devastation within the Catholic Church while emphasizing that, "the most dangerous one would be to imagine that there is no devastation of the vineyard of the Lord" and that "our task as laymen is simply to adhere with complete loyalty to whatever our bishop says." Dr. von Hildebrand warns that, "the basis of this attitude is a false idea of loyalty to the hierarchy." (p. 246).The Church's pastoral authority is...

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Father John Franck contradicts the Word of God in The Catholic Free Press

St. Alphonsus De Liguori, a Doctor of the Church and a moral theologian, explains that, "The Lord ordained in Leviticus that for the sin of a single priest a calf should be offered, as well as for the sins of the entire people. From this Innocent III concludes that the sin of a priest is as grievous as the sins of the whole people. The reason is, says the Pontiff, that by his sin the priest leads the entire people into sin ('Unde conjicitur quod peccatum Sacerdotis totius multitudinis peccato coaequatur, quia Sacerdos in suo peccato totam fecit...

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Calling all Catholics throughout North Central Massachusetts: Won't you spend one hour with Our Eucharistic Jesus?

Catechism on the Real PresenceExhortation to Promote the Cult of the EucharistFr. John A. Hardon, S.J.…104. Against what does Pope Paul VI especially warn the bishops? He warns them to be perfectly loyal to the teaching of Christ on the Real Presence and to promote tirelessly the worship of Jesus Christ who is living among us in the Blessed Sacrament. (MF 75) 105. What is the Holy Father's great hope for the faithful? His hope is that we may come...

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