Catholic Church

By Stephen P. White, The Catholic Thing - In June, the USCCB took some modest, but important measures of its own. Pope Francis lifted the pontifical secret for several kinds of cases and accusations involving sexual abuse by clergy, raised the statutory age for the definition of child pornography (to 18 years, up from 14 years), and opened new roles for lay canonists in the trials of priests accused of abuse crimes… Taken individually, none of these might seem like a revolution, but taken together, these changes add up to something substantial.

By Stephanie Mann, National Catholic Register - When the Council of Ephesus reaffirmed the teaching of the Church regarding the Person of Jesus (as we proclaim it in the Nicene Creed on Sundays), the people of Ephesus rejoiced: And the populace of Ephesus were drawn to the Virgin Mother of God with such great piety, and burning with such ardent love, that when they understood the judgment passed by the Fathers of the Council, they hailed them with overflowing gladness of heart, and gathering round them in a body, bearing lighted torches in their hands, accompanied them home.

By Donald DeMarco, Crisis Magazine - Three notable Catholic thinkers drew considerable attention in the year of 2019: Saint John Henry Newman for his canonization, Bishop Fulton Sheen for the approval of his beatification, and G.K. Chesterton for his cause for sainthood being stalled. Although Newman is best identified as a theologian, Sheen as a preacher, and Chesterton as a journalist, they all had one important feature in common: they were all philosophers. And very good ones at that.

By Patrick Reilly, EWTN News - I love the six days between Christmas and New Year’s Day. The Son of God is with us! Now we get a short time to rev up our engines for the new year’s work of evangelization, as Christ commanded… I propose three resolutions for the Year 2020, under a single theme of education. Why education? The confusion, irreverence, dissent, scandal and blasphemy that we find within the Church today—and the extraordinary challenges of secularism and sexual perversion in our culture—exhibit widespread embrace of falsehood. More than 2,000 years since Christ was born, too few people know the truth of God and his creation.