Catholic Church

By Joseph Pronechen, National Catholic Register - As a person, as a country, as a world, do we not need God’s mercy more and more in these times? For the sake of our souls, can we afford not to listen to what Jesus told us through St. Faustina about his mercy and what our response to is should be?... Benedict told us “It is a really central message for our time: Mercy as the force of God, as the divine limit against the evil of the world.”… Let’s remind ourselves right now. Or learn the highlights for the first time. Divine Mercy Sunday is the perfect day to start listening to what Jesus himself tells us…

By Fr. Gerald E. Murray, The Catholic Thing - The publication of From the Depths of Our Hearts – Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church written by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Robert Cardinal Sarah, caused great unease among promoters of the ordination of married men to the priesthood in the Amazon region (and, surprise, everywhere else). Now that the controversy over the joint authorship has receded, it’s worth looking at what the two distinguished churchmen actually said on the subject.

By Michael Warren Davis, Crisis Magazine - I’m ambivalent about that most common pro-life argument: that, because life begins at conception, to abort a pregnancy is to commit murder. That’s not to say I don’t believe it’s true. On the contrary: it’s not only true, it’s obviously true. It’s one of the few points upon which credible scientists and ethicists can agree. What gives me pause about this argument is what inevitably follows from it.

By David Carlin, The Catholic Thing - One of the distinctive things about Catholic moral doctrine is that it has a number of absolute or exceptionless rules, many of them involving or at least associated with sexual matters… Most people, I believe, including most people who are on the whole sympathetic to the prohibitions just outlined, feel that some exceptions should be made to the above prohibitions. But their sympathies are partly misguided, and warrant serious clarification…