As the synod approaches, defenders of traditional marriage may take heart:  the Church will uphold Her teaching on marriage and family vs . the onslaught of a secular understanding of the institution, this is the face of  growing speculation that the bishops--and ultimately the Pope--will change certain rules, in particular, allowing divorced Catholics who have remarried without first getting an annulment to receive Communion.  Nor is She likely to allow for a non-celibate clergy ....

In his book The Future Church , The Globe's John Allen identifies the biotech revolution as one among ten trends in which the Catholic Church is "upside down in the twenty-first century." Seems to me this is the right way to be, as principalities endeavor to stand traditional morality on its head. Consider these powerful reflections on the fruits of one element of the biotech revolution: IVF .

First Grade Girls At Toronto Catholic School Forced To Share Bathroom With Boy | Truth Revolt

"Nuff Said' Just click and read for yourself.... Mom Bakes Vagina Cookies For Second Graders :

Continued from September 14.... T hrough the Church’s teachings, God has also revealed his truth on how humanity can live happily. What is so little understood by Catholics and Christians is that doctrinal revelations that come through the Church come out of God’s very Self. They are not tied to culturally constructed norms! Read Vatican II’s   Dei Verbum : “by divine revelation God wished to manifest and communicate both himself and the eternal decrees of his will concerning the salvation of humankind.” Our Lord’s Church derives its basic vision not from mere human speculation, which would be tentative and uncertain, but from God’s own testimony—from a historically given divine revelation.  Thus Catholics believe that just as God himself is immutable, so, too, are His teachings as revealed through the Church because they come from him. As I discuss in my book, although the Church does not change its central teachings, we do see the theological principle of “devel...

( Continued  from   September  13 )  T he Church believes that we can change. She teachs that all sacraments, but most importantly the Eucharist, can and do change our lives. This belief in the power of the Eucharist is manifest in Thomas Merton, the great twentieth-century Catholic mystic: “the grace of the Eucharist is not confined to the moments of thanksgiving after Mass and communion, but reaches out into our whole day and into all the affairs of our life, in order to sanctify and transform them in Christ.” Change, conversion through the Eucharist does not happen overnight. But the Church believes at her core that Her sacramental life, over time, leads us towards holiness, the call of Vatican II. At the same time, we as Catholics scrap the idea that as a society we will ever arrive at a Morean utopia. To cite only one example, Jesus said: “you always will have the poor with you” (Mark 14:7). Pope Paul VI, about whom I wrote my book, stated in his 1971 en...

“When will the Catholic Church   come into the twenty-first century?” is a sentiment often expressed in the media these days, suggestive of a set of issues that are known to  Christians : same-sex “marriage,” contraception, and divorce (to name only a few). Because the teachings of the Church on these subjects are at odds with the increasingly secular culture, non-Catholics—and even many Catholics—are left frustrated, even angry as to why the Church doesn’t finally come to the same conclusions as does the secular worldview. Historically, since the Enlightenment western secular culture has presumed (erroneously) that we are progressing slowly toward a perfected humanity. They believe that, given enough time, willpower, money, technological advancements, and scientific breakthroughs, it is believed that we will be able to dig our way out of our brutal past pockmarked by wars, poverty, disease, and social injustice to arrive at a just society. Another presumption ...

The Archdiocese of Vancouver is celebrating educational diversity in new ways, all because a family and their lawyer believe in celebrating diversity — and if you object because of your Catholic faith, they will sue you until you are forced to comply. In a joint statement the Catholic Independent Schools of the Vancouver Archdiocese and the family of Tracey Wilson, an 11-year-old diagnosed with gender dysphoria who had attended a Catholic school, announced the CISVA approval of a new policy that accommodates gender expression and students with gender dysphoria. The Wilson family is applauding the CISVA for paving the way towards accepting gender expression and gender dysphoria in youth. It will be the first Catholic school district in Canada to have such a policy. The new policy was developed after Tracey, who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, filed a human rights complaint because her school did not accommodate her request to be treated as a girl. The human rights compl...

I am very tired of hearing that Our Lord's  Church  regards homosexuality as a sin. Let's be clear--as a result Original Sin and our fallen, wounded nature, we are afflicted by all kinds of disorders that are not of our own making—physical, mental, emotional, sexual, you name it. In Catholic teaching, what governs whether something is naturally disordered is whether or not it is working according to its proper end, whether it is properly ordered to its natural purpose. If it is not, we call it “disordered”. Inclinations with respect to any of our faculties which make us want to use those faculties in a way inconsistent with their proper end are not sinful; they simply reflect our own disorder, our lack of perfect integrity. Such predispositions often become major temptations, and if we continue to indulge an inclination to act in a manner inconsistent with the relevant proper ends, we sin. The Church does not hold a homosexual inclination (orientation) to be sinf...

At present many Catholics and non-Catholics like have little to no understanding of the emotional causes of homosexual attractions and behavior, largely due to spiritual laziness or lack of will to do extensive research into causes of the disorder.  Nor is there an awareness of the powerful role that Catholic spirituality can play in the healing of this disorder. In fairness, the reasons for this state of ignorance include the scant literature available on the value of the Catholic Faith and the sacraments in the resolution of homosexual attractions and acts, this in spite of the hundreds of success stories for those seeking to resolve the disorder--hence this blog post. Furthermore, traditional therapy has failed to resolve homosexual behavior, because by definition there is an all-powerful divine element excluded from the process. Add to this the views within the media and educational, social service, health and political fields, and the matter grows more complex. It is no s...

In his daily homily on Thursday, Sept. 4, Pope Francis spoke on the importance of having an encounter with Christ, saying without it one becomes lukewarm and unable to evangelize. “If a Christian is not able to feel themselves a sinner and saved by the blood of Christ, this crucified one, they are a half-way Christian, a tepid Christian,” Pope Francis told mass attendees. “When we find decadent churches, when we find decadent parishes, decadent institutions, surely the Christians who are there have never encountered Jesus Christ or have forgotten about this encounter with Jesus Christ.” Pope Francis took his cue from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians in the first reading when he says that “If anyone among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool, so as to become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God.” In my experience there are many, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, who all-too-readily consider themselves wis...