Benedict XVI responds to Mother Angelica's death Vatican City, Mar 28, 2016 / 02:54 pm ( CNA/EWTN News ).- Benedict XVI had a special response to Mother Angelica’s death falling on Easter Sunday: “it’s a gift.” Archbishop Georg Ganswein, Benedict’s personal secretary, told CNA about the Pope emeritus’ comment March 28. Mother Angelica, an Ohio-born Poor Clare nun, founded EWTN Global Catholic Network in Alabama in 1981. It has since become the largest religious media network in the world. She passed away March 27, Easter Sunday, at the age of 92. Her death prompted memorials, eulogies and remembrances from around the world. In Rome, Monsignor Dario Vigano, prefect of the Secretariat for Communications, pledged that he would pray for the repose of her soul. Many other priests, religious, and laity in Rome are praying for her. Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, president of the U.S. bishops' conference, said Mother Angelica was an “extraordinary...

Mother Angelica, foundress of EWTN, dies on Easter Irondale, Ala., Mar 27, 2016 / 07:00 pm ( EWTN News/CNA ) Mother Angelica. Credit: EWTN. Mother Angelica The Catholic Church in the United States has lost the Poor Clare nun who changed the face of Catholicism in the United States and around the world. Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, foundress of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), passed away on March 27 after a lengthy struggle with the aftereffects of a stroke. She was 92 years old. “Mother has always and will always personify EWTN, the network that God asked her to found,” said EWTN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Warsaw. “Her accomplishments and legacies in evangelization throughout the world are nothing short of miraculous and can only be attributed to divine Providence and her unwavering faithfulness to Our Lord.” In 1981, Mother Angelica launched Eternal Word Television Network, which today transmits 24-hour-a-day programming ...

In Obergefell v. Hodges, five un-elected Justices ignored the expressed will of an overwhelming majority of Americans, ruling that the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one women, which has existed for thousands of years, is unconstitutional. In the process the majority dispelled the concept “that we are a government of laws, not of men.” In dissent, Justice Scalia (may he rest in peace) wrote that the majority opinion is “a threat to American democracy,”  and “This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government…. A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.” We must recall that of the 35 States that voted on the issue of same-sex “marriage”, 32 States chose to preserve the traditional definition of marriage.  In Obergefell, the Court appraised the laws of Michigan, Oh...

R ecently  in an interview  with Fr. Jacques Servais, SJ,   Pope  emeritus Benedict XVI showed why he is one of the most perceptive minds on the planet. The Pope emphasized that both faith and the Church come from God, and are neither self-generating nor man-made:  “The Church must introduce the individual Christian into an encounter with Jesus Christ and bring Christians into His presence in the sacrament.”  He then focused on modern man's tendency to ignore any personal sin and need for justification, and to focus instead on the suffering in the world, believing that God has to justify himself for this suffering.  The emeritus Pope reflected that God “simply cannot leave 'as is' the mass of evil that comes from the freedom that he himself has granted. Only He, coming to share in the world's suffering, can redeem the world.” He concluded by again emphasizing that the true solution to evil is the love of Christ: “T...

FROM THE FORWARD OF MY BOOK: One of my favorite memories in my earthly existence is one of observing from my pew prior to the 6:30 am Mass in 1958 the Sisters of Notre Dame DeNamur entering St. Eugene’s from the front-side entrance of the Church, special to them for access from their one-room convent in the adjoining school. It was winter, and the church was dimly-lit. They entered with awe-inspiring reverence, processing in their full habits, the beads of their waist-draped rosaries colliding gently, genuflecting and kneeling in silent preparation for the soon to occur reenactment in a non-bloody manner of Our Lord’s eternal sacrifice first offered on Calvary for our salvation, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  The latent aroma of incense and the sight of fresh beeswax candles flickering on the altar, together with the sisters’ silent reverence and obvious practice of what they taught their first graders   –    the importance of reverence in the House of God ...

L et’ start with Mr. Trump, who has had multiple marriages and is an adulterer, of which he boasted in his first book . One is reminded of Our Lord’s words to the Samaritan woman: “Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.   The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.” Trump has made much of his fortune on the back of human imperfections via gambling casinos. His Atlantic City casino featured a virtual strip club. (Keep in mind that one who spends thousands of dollars in casinos that one’s family needs commits a sin ( Catechism of the Catholic Church  2413). Trump’s business successes have been supplemented by shady business practices (many of which have led to lawsuits), problematic associations, loan defaults, the use of political contacts to get what he wants (as with the much-publicized attempt to have eminent domain entreated against a widow who wouldn’t sell her property so he could expand ...

“ G o therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." It was thus that Jesus commanded his Apostles, giving them the Holy Spirit that they might explain with authority all that He had taught them. From the beginning, catechesis has always meant the Church’s effort to win disciples for Our Lord, to lead others to faith in Him as the Son of God that they might have the fullness of life in His name. It has also meant to teach these disciples to build up the Church, the Body of Christ, through teaching the Deposit of the Faith in an organic, systematic manner. Until Vatican II, catechesis was primarily doctrinal, consisting in instruction in the didache , the “Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles” before baptism. This doctrine was encapsulated in the Apostles Creed, the twelve fundamental doctrines wh...

Before 1970, the season of Lent had a slightly different structure than it does now. If you happen to look at a missal from back then, you'll notice that there are only four Sundays of Lent, followed by Passion Sunday, followed by Palm Sunday. In a current missal you will typically see that Palm Sunday is now labeled “Passion (Palm) Sunday”. Why is this? What did a separate day signify before 1970? According to Dom Gueranger in  The Liturgical Year,  “This Sunday is called  Passion Sunday , because the Church begins, on this day, to make the sufferings of our Redeemer her chief thought”. Traditionally, all statues and crucifixes were veiled at the Vespers for Passion Sunday. The Introit, Gradual and Tract all are petitions to save the just from the persecution of the unjust and the Tract even foreshadows the scourging. Our Gospel:  A Reading From the Holy Gospel According to St. John (St. John 8. 46-59) At that time Jesus said to the multitudes ...

From The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God: So it is that because of the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the Devil, many Catholics do not practice their faith to the point of standing out from those who are ignorant of Christ. In approaching the vexing questions of modern society, too many Catholics take positions based on a liberal-conservative spectrum, rather than on the teachings of Jesus Christ which come to us via His church. Only genuine conversion, metanoia , the fruit of evangelization, will change this reality, allowing Catholics to experience the joy of faithful discipleship. No ideology may substitute for real personal conversion. In essence, metanoia means to question one’s own way of living, to start to see life through God’s eyes, and turn away from conformity to this world. Genuine conversion predisposes us not to see ourselves as the measure of all things, but to a humility that trusts ourselves to God’s love, which becomes the measure of all thing...

A lways when I defend the truth about sex, as I did at length in the third chapter of my book, dissenters will say, "but Jesus never said much about sex," this to give assent to the morality of sins of the flesh (especially sodomy). But it is not true: Gospel for March 13th, 2016 - the Fifth Sunday of Lent John 8:1-11 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple; all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?" This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin amon...