On Marriage and Family

Today should one attend a wedding, it is quite possible that the parents of either the bride or groom in attendance will be married, either in the Catholic Church or outside it, to someone other than the one they were first married to. In such a case, one would find oneself praying that the offspring of said marriage will not meet with the same fate.

The state of marriage today is what it is in part due to poor sacramental preparation in the years immediately following Vatican II for reasons I take up in my book, another fruit of the “sexual revolution”. Sad, but as is well-known, many young Catholics these days are delaying marriage, hooking up, practicing birth control, and cohabiting before getting married. Traditional marriage is under assault, and many baptized Catholics are joining in the attack, especially in favoring “same-sex marriage.” Thus it is inspiring to see the shepherds of the flocks gathering in synod to discuss “the pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization.’ I say again, the synod will deal with the family in its various aspects – not with the single issue of Communion for the divorced and remarried.

Fr. Reese at National Catholic Reporter has described the document as “boring and joyless.” Well, I find the situation described in the first paragraph of this post as such. Boring might only be true for the synod if one did not understand the genre of the document or if one was indifferent to the pastoral concerns of the shepherds. The bishops (and I) have the joy of hope for “a new springtime for the family,” which they believe will be led by young people who appreciate the value of a stable, enduring relationship, and express a real desire to marry and form a family.

From what I can gather, the bishops see the need for an encounter with Christ on a personal and communal level. True, the lack of comprehension of the biblical and magisterial teaching on the family is legion; in addition, many Catholics lack a felt encounter with Christ and his Church, and so in turn misunderstand who man is, and who he is to God and to his community. From Part I of the Catechism on the Profession of Faith:

Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony, and his Passion and gave himself up for each one of us: “The Son of God . . . loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20) He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation (cf. Jn 19:34) “is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that . . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings” without exception.

Significantly, the bishops also express a desire “to defend and encourage forms of popular piety in support of the family". I for one have always preferred the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as it serves as a reminder to wish to be with Christ, to make one’s heart like his.While Fr. Reese may ridicule the hope of the Synod, I find it joyful to see that the Church herself always tries to make her heart like Christ’s.

Comments

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

To Fighting Irish, Francis Spikes the Ball... For the Bishops

I have been commenting here on the recent Rolling Stone article on the Holy Father, who recently hosted the big cheeses from our premier "Catholic" University... Speaking of premier, h ere is the premier blogger on this very topic!

Rolling Stone Gathers Pope Francis

Final thoughts on the Rolling Stone feature on Pope Francis… The article attempts to show Francis’ break from the supposedly “conservative” Church of old, in the process remaking Pope Francis as the hero of the liberal left. It uses the scandals of Vatican finance and sexual abuse, coupled with old stories about Opus Dei and the Latin Mass, to fashion Pope Benedict XVI as a “conservative” conniver. In short, Francis is portrayed as the populist leader of a movement to “liberalize” the Catholic Church. Certainly the article contains a great deal of untruth. Inconvenient facts, like Francis’ theological orthodoxy, are ignored. Rolling Stone draws arbitrary conclusions from selected illustrations drawn from the Pope’s life. Why would this pop cultural icon do this? Easy. Sexual and social relativists wish to refashion Christianity such that they may claim Christ, and his vicar, as their supporters, for their social agenda is more appetizing to people if it complements, r...

Sr. Cecilia. Ora pro nobis

Who smiles like this at the moment of death? Sister Cecilia, of the Carmel of Santa Fe in Argentina, witnessed to her love for Christ in her struggle with lung cancer Aleteia June 25, 2016 Facebook 4k 12 Death is a tragedy for mortal man, and yet with faith in eternity and anticipation of the embrace of our heavenly Father, death becomes radiant. We share today the news of the death of Sister Cecilia, a Carmelite of Santa Fe in Argentina, who suffered from lung cancer. She astonished those who surrounded her in her agony, as her face was transformed by a tender smile as she closed her eyes to this world. As you can see in the photograph, she looks like a lover who has arrived to the encounter she has long been yearning for. The Carmel of Santa Fe announced the death of Sister Cecilia to their brothers and sisters and friends of the Carmel, with a brief, but profound, note. Dear brothers, sisters and friends: Jesus! Just...

Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor

Tucker Carlson: The Biden Scandal Is Real And Not Going Away Posted By Ian Schwartz On Date October 30, 2020 TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: It's been obvious for decades now that the Biden family has gotten rich from selling influence abroad. Joe Biden held a series of high level jobs in the U.S. government. Based on that fact and that fact alone, Biden's son and brother approached foreign governments and companies, sovereign wealth funds, energy conglomerates, Third World oligarchs and dictators, and they offered to exchange favors from Joe Biden for cash. The polite term for that practice is influence-peddling. Sometimes it is legal under American law, sometimes it is not. But it has always been the economic engine of the Biden family. They've never done anything else. Until recently, no one debated this fact. Several liberal news organizations, in fact, have written detailed stories about the Biden secret business dealings over the years. Look them up, assuming you still c...

Dancing with Mr. D: Gender Ideology

In a private conversation with Bishop Andreas Laun on January 30 as part of the Austrian bishops’ ad limina visit , Pope Francis strongly condemned “gender ideology.” In so doing he follows the example of Pope Benedict, who is on record as saying that gender ideology is “a negative trend for humankind,” and a “profound falsehood,” which “it is the duty of pastors of the Church” to put the faithful “on guard against.” Bishop Laun The Austrian bishop stated, “In response to my questioning, Pope Francis said, ‘Gender ideology is demonic!’” As I have chronicled on these pages, the Holy Father often refers to the work of the devil. Of gender ideology, Bishop Laun explained that “the core thesis of this sick product of reason is the end result of a radical feminism which the homosexual lobby has made its own.” “It asserts that there are not only Man and Woman, but also other ‘genders’. And furthermore: every person canchoose his or her gender,” he added. “Today,” he said, ...

The Dragon would have us think it PEDOPHILIA

In the first chapter of my reflections on the Church in the U.S. since Vatican II I wrote: “…. the moral crisis facing the Church, … is not “pedophilia” but stems from an inordinate amount of active homosexuals as ordained priests and some inattentive bishops who have run interference for them, all the consequences of a failure to uphold and live the Church’s sexual moral teaching”. George Weigel in a piece for National Review has noted this recently, and if one doubts, try and obtain a copy of Fr. Rueda’s The Homosexual Network . It is fascinating reading and will leave the reader flabbergasted. Phillip Jenkins corroborates here . As Fr. Z has summarized in relating Weigel: Most clerical abusers were not pedophiles , that is, men with a chronic and strong sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children . Most of those abused ( 51 percent) were aged eleven to fourteen and 27 percent of victims were fifteen to seventeen ; [78% o...

Et Lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt

What Is the Source of This Darkness of Our Times? |Blogs | NCRegister.com : What prompted me to write a book about the current spiritual war ongoing in the world in which we live? Stumbling upon this quote by the Pope of the council, Pope Paul VI : We have the impression that through some cracks in the wall the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: it is doubt, uncertainty, questioning, dissatisfaction, confrontation. And how did this come about? We will confide to you the thought that may be, we ourselves admit in free discussion, that may be unfounded, and that is that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the devil. We thought that after the Council a day of sunshine would have dawned for the history of the Church. What dawned instead was a day of clouds and storms, of darkness, of searching and uncertainties . I am an avid reader of Msgr. Charles Pope, who has written recently on this our adversary in ...

Frankly, HBO, You Don't Give a Damn

This week HBO Max announced that it is pulling the 1939 classic film ‘Gone With The Wind’ from its streaming service amidst the racial turmoil gripping the nation. This is not a new issue--over the past decades debate has swirled over erasing or retiring problematic art, be it statues, books, or movies. But in this case the cancellation has a unique and almost cruel twist. The first black actor to ever win an Oscar did so for her part in ‘Gone With Wind,’ and shedoes not deserve to have that performance disappeared.

Nuns' Story Dominican Style

In my book I quoted the late Fr. Benedict Groescel as follows: A surprising and welcome development at the present time is the emergence of a whole wave of young men and women interested in authentic religious life. They provide proof of the ongoing presence of God’s grace…. These young people surprise us by their willingness to join even communities beset by obvious theological confusion and little observance of their traditional rule. If they manage to survive for twenty years, the appearance of the sinking communities may change. In some communities there is an absurd phenomenon similar to a theological sandwich: The youngest and the oldest, who are in agreement, are like slices of bread. The age group in the middle reminds us of mayonnaise. Something in human nature has been calling people to religious life for thousands of years—and gospel teaching and church tradition have aimed this human hunger at a strong form of Christian dedication. We should have le...

Search This Blog