Can the Catholic Church help an addicted generation? :: Catholic News Agency (CNA) : 'via Blog this'

Blessed Sacrament Cathedral I graduated from St. Eugene’s in 1966, when the liturgical changes after the close of the council promulgated in Sacrosanctum Concilium to the best of my memory had not yet been thoroughly implemented. I journeyed off to Detroit Cathedral High School downtown, where my experience of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist began to fade, as I no longer was required (sadly, in retrospect) to attend daily Mass, and cannot to save my life remember one thing taught to me in high school religion class by my teacher, who was also the Business Ed. and Typing teacher and track coach. A rumination of the yearbooks for these years reveals photo captions such as “DC Sodality Men Reach Out,” and “Fr. Trainor Celebrates Mass Facing the Seniors as he Closes the Senior Retreat.” To be sure, in my adolescent years I hadn’t the foggiest idea of what was happening in the Church in the United States after the Council, and, after seeing a pretty, red-headed Sophomore on th...

St. Gabriel's Today Like many of the twenty-five percent or so of the American people who would respond with “Roman Catholic” when asked their religion in an emergency room, I am a “cradle Catholic,” born into an Irish-American family in Detroit as a baby boomer in 1952, baptized at St. Gabriel’s on the southwest side in the same year. I first received the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in second grade at St. Eugene’s parish in northwest Detroit, for which the Sisters of Notre Dame DeNamur admirably prepared me. I still stand amazed at the reverence instilled in the second-graders in the black-and-white photos shot by my father, Don, that day. I was also confirmed at St. Eugene’s parish in the fourth grade, after which my mother, Ann, took me out for my favorite breakfast, strawberry pancakes, where I played “Fun, Fun, Fun” by the Beach Boys at least twice. Since my return and faithful assent to all that the Catholic Church teaches in 199...

So moving

There are many similarities between Catholic schooling and its public K-12 counterpart, but the two also have profound differences. In addition to providing students with the academic knowledge and skills they need to prosper, Catholic schools have a unique spiritual and moral mission to nurture faith and prepare students to live lives illuminated by a Catholic worldview. The Common Core national standards have been adopted by hundreds of Catholic elementary and high schools. ... Thus, this letter takes on importance of the highest magnitude; Gerard V. Bradley, Professor of Law c/o University of Notre Dame,  The Law School 3156 Eck Hall of Law,  PO Box 780 Notre Dame, IN 46556  October 16, 2013 (This letter was sent individually to each Catholic bishop in the United States. 132 Catholic professors signed the letter).  Your Excellency: We are Catholic scholars who have taught for years in America’s colleges and universities. Most of us have ...

Of late the New York Times' Catholic writer has written of: ....my sudden fears for the church’s unity, in the years of Francis and under papacies to come. Divisions there will always be, but these divisions are simply deeper than I had (fondly? naively?) imagined. And nothing in Catholic history suggests that the church is exempt from Jesus’s warning about a house divided, or from the consequences when those divisions can no longer be denied.  Douthat frequently couches his perspective on the present divisions within  Church in terms of "liberal" and "conservative" Catholics (of which he styles himself one).  Thus the schema of “liberal” (progressive, left) vs. conservative (traditional, right) which followed upon the close of Vatican II is wholly inadequate for explaining the present-day crisis of faith within the Church of Jesus Christ, though it is most unfortunate that usage of these terms persist among many Catholics and in the media today. Divisio...

In The Screwtape Letters , C.S. Lewis’ use of irony exemplifies distinctions between God and Satan’s attitude toward human beings; Lewis does this through the use of innuendos, sarcasm, and ironic inversions. I recently stumbled on a three-part series which builds on the truth in Lewis' writing here , here and here . Good Advent reflection!

Humanae Vitae  maintained, under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, the teaching of the Church from its inception until the end of time, for as Jesus said “For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” ( Matthew 5:18 ).  When Humanae Vitae  was promulgated, Paul VI made four alarming predictions about the use of contraceptives that have come to devastating fruition in the decades between the publication of his encyclical and now. They are as follows: 1.      The Church has always taught that contraception is a serious evil and with serious evil comes grave consequences. Pope Paul VI’s first warning was that contraception use would “lead to conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality.” These two things go hand in hand; one not need look further than the dramatic increase in divorce, abortion, and disease since 1968 to see the vivid accuracy of Paul’s war...