V atican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi has strongly criticised an article on Pope Francis that appears in the latest edition of Rolling Stone magazine. Although he acknowledged that the Holy Father’s appearance on the publication’s front cover shows a diverse interest in the Pope, the Jesuit spokesman denounced the article's negative portrayal of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s pontificate, saying the piece disqualifies itself as serious journalism. “Unfortunately, the article disqualifies itself, falling into the usual mistake of a superficial journalism, which in order to highlight the positive aspects of Pope Francis, thinks it should describe in a negative way the pontificate of Pope Benedict, and does so with a surprising crudeness,” Fr. Lombardi said in a statement. In the piece  titled "Pope Francis: The Times They Are A-Changin'", author Mark Binelli calls Benedict’s papacy “disastrous” and goes so far as to attack the former pontiff’s appearance and...

It occurred to me that if anyone read Stringtickler's comment on the previous post, one might think him or her crazy. For nought- read here .

Fr. D has spoken- " This article for Aleteia pinpoints ten reasons why the March for Life if important and will prevail. Go  here  to read the article." The Let me say up front; I am COMPLETELY pro-life...no exceptions...rape, incest, anti-contraception; anti-gay marriage, etc. It is for those reasons that I am sad to say that the hope surrounding this year's march and the large attendance by youngsters is a bunch of hype. How many of them accept gay marriage; contraception; exceptions such as rape, incest, etc? Until we AS A CHURCH get off our rear-ends and start preaching FROM THE PULPIT and in forums such as this one about the real evils that surround us...and the core of those evils...then all we are doing is fooling ourselves with "feel good" commentary. We have a thread to pull here...WE NEED TO PULL IT!! Yes, it's great that all those kids were out there....but do they REALLY understand? Do they really grasp the concept(s)...I am a youth Catechist,...

I was saddened to hear of the following death of a great evangelizer.. .

It is right to continually give praise to the Father that He gave us His Son to redeem us from our prideful natures, the “original wound.” In the end we are not saved by Our Savior’s dynamic words, but by His passion, death and resurrection. But Christ’s obedient self-sacrifice must be responded to by repentance and conversion on our part. As Peter Kreeft has written, this new life in Christ “comes into us by faith, through us by hope, and out of us by the works of love…but many Catholics think we’re saved by good intentions, or being nice, … or doing a sufficient number of good deeds.” And what does true discipleship, our new life in Him, save us from? Hell. Unless we are saved from the kingdom of darkness by faith through grace working in love, this state of hell will become stronger and in time everlasting: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” In our...

I am not the slightest bit hesitant to say that I believe with the Church that we humans live in a world characterized by a spiritual war, and thus as baptized Catholics we are called to “put on the armor of God.” In an Augustinian sense we must decide where our allegiance lies: are we citizens of God’s kingdom, who happen temporarily to reside in a civil society, or are we full-fledged citizens of the city of men, making room for God when we are able? Catholic teaching on original sin continues to shed light on man’s position in the world. As a result of the Fall, Satan has acquired “a certain domination over man” in spite of our free will . Widespread ignorance of this teaching is the root cause of the crisis of faith facing The Church today. The Catechism teaches the reality of this spiritual combat: The whole of man's history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding...