Catholic Church

By David G. Bonagura, Jr., Catholic Culture – For just over 100 years, beginning in 1849, the universal Church celebrated the feast of the Most Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in July. Then it fell victim of a strange irony: the post-Vatican II commission that was established for revising the liturgy, while seeking to implement Sacrosanctum Concilium 55 that admitted the faithful to receive the precious Blood of Christ at certain Masses, eliminated the feast of the Most Precious Blood, which had a double first-class rank.

By Hannah Brockhaus , Valentina di Donato, Catholic World Report – The leader of Africa’s Catholic bishops pushed back Tuesday on the narrative that it was only Africans who objected to a 2023 Vatican declaration permitting blessings for same-sex couples… “The position taken by Africa [on the declaration] was also the position of so many bishops here in Europe. It’s not just an African exception,” Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, OFM Cap, told EWTN News on July 1.

By Diane Montagna, Substack – New evidence has come to light that exposes major cracks in the foundation of Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis’ 2021 decree that restricted the traditional Roman liturgy… This journalist has obtained the Vatican’s overall assessment of the consultation of bishops that was said to have “prompted” Pope Francis to revoke Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI’s 2007 apostolic letter liberalizing the vetus ordo, more commonly known as the “Traditional Latin Mass” and sacraments.

By Sarah Cain, Crisis Magazine – The Church has never and will never change her teaching on the unworthy reception of Holy Communion—she can’t. But our Bishops must change their 60’s-rooted praxis of allowing it to happen… It is a strange feature of our times that when a priest fulfills his sacred duty it becomes news. Such is the case with Fr. Ian Vane, who rightly refused Holy Communion to British MP Chris Coghlan after Coghlan’s public support for assisted suicide. Such an action by a priest should be common—as common as “Catholics” who promote evils while maintaining a public platform are today.

By Emily Malloy, National Catholic Register – Laughter and music filled every inch of our house the weekend we moved in. It was a gathering for visiting missionaries during their two-week door-to-door ministry. The delightful sounds arose from 60 people, both parishioners and religious: the Sister Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará and seminarians from the Institute of the Incarnate Word. Prayer, song, food and friendship marked the evening. I am hard-pressed to conceive of a better way to have spent the first weekend in our new home.

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture – Hopefully this goes a long way toward explaining why Pope Leo refers to synodality as a style or an attitude. Presumably this pope has far too much missionary experience to resort to badly-orchestrated group-think to get things done. As the Pope recently reminded us by parsing the word “synod” into its Greek roots, “synodality” means that we Catholics are on “a way together” which benefits from the active participation of all—not so much in discussions or planning sessions but in the “way together” itself, that is, in ongoing apostolic work, ongoing witness to Christ.

By Dann Aungst, The Stream – Forgiveness is not just a part of the Christian life—it is at the very heart of it. From the moment sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, humanity has needed healing, reconciliation, and restoration. Baptism cleanses us from original sin, but we continue to wrestle with concupiscence—the ongoing inclination toward sin. This interior battle makes the call to forgiveness all the more urgent and necessary for our spiritual health and eternal destiny.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – There’s one drum I won’t stop banging, because it’s a righteous call to war: The Left is not a secular, rationalistic, science-driven movement — though for the sake of social prestige and power it still pretends to be. But in fact, it never was… At every point since the invention of the Left/Right spectrum in the fevered, bloodthirsty frenzy of the French Revolution, the Left has been a post-Christian heresy. It’s a cargo cult that cherrypicks from the gospels shiny moral sentiments and glittering aspirations, like the work of some mindless magpie.

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – The Senate, with the help of Vice President J.D. Vance’s tiebreaking vote, voted on Tuesday to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, effectively defunding abortion giant Planned Parenthood for one year… The House version of President Donald Trump’s legislative package promised that no Medicaid dollars “shall be used to make payments to a prohibited entity for items and services furnished during [a] 10-year period.” The Senate version, however, cut that provision down to prohibit only twelve months of taxpayer-funded abortion. …

By John Grondelski, National Catholic Register – It’s not coincidental that today’s (June 30th) optional memorial follows the Solemnity of Peter and Paul. Sts. Peter and Paul stand at the head of the first Christian martyrs: the Pope crucified upside down on Vatican Hill, the preacher to the nations beheaded in Rome… As we saw from Paul’s journeys, Christianity spread quickly in the Roman Empire, especially in the cities, so there was no way it would not reach the most important city of all: Rome.