Catholic Church

By Msgr. Richard C. Antall, Crisis Magazine - In the Catholic Mass, the priest talks to God for and with the people, not to the people for God. The latter would be an appropriate phrase to summarize a typical Protestant approach as seen with the megachurch services. There is a reason that in many Protestant bodies the altar is much less important than the pulpit. It is also significant that the robes the minister wears (if he is not in street wear) are more like academic gowns, thus recalling the professors who first started the Reformation. ...

By Allan Ruhl, OnePeterFive - What is the future of the Church? Is it the Church where sexual sin doesn’t exist and doctrine is ignored? Or is it a Church where doctrine matters and pastoral activity is based on that doctrine? In other words, is it the church of Belgium and Germany, or the church of Cameroon and Poland? ....

By Aliénor Strentz, Aleteia - This battle is waged against “bitter enemies,” in the words of Fr. Lorenzo Scupoli, author of the famous 16th-century work “Spiritual Combat,” which was a classic of Christian literature for several centuries... These enemies are three in number: Satan, the angel who opposed God and still wants to drag all men into suffering and hell; the world (in the sense of a reality organized in a way hostile to God); and finally, “the flesh.”

By Matthew J. Ramage, Ph.D., Catholic World Report - In this reflection, we’ve examined one particularly powerful and often underappreciated way by which creation mirrors the Logos, which is to say through the Paschal Mystery woven into the fabric of the universe. Having drawn wisdom from both of “God’s two books” and highlighted some tangible examples from nature, it is clear that suffering and death not only play a pivotal role in nature but moreover point to something deeper about God’s design by which we may be led to eternal life. ....