Catholic Church

By Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, Human Life International - The dismal state of the Church in the U.S. was illustrated recently by the truly discouraging findings of a Pew Research poll. That poll found that fully 69% of self-described Catholics believe during Holy Mass that the bread and wine used for Holy Communion are just “symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” In other words, seven out of ten Catholics do not believe in one of the single most central tenets of the Catholic faith – that during Holy Mass, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ. Ouch.

By John-Henry Westen, LifeSiteNews - Diane Montagna is LifeSite's Rome correspondent. Before joining LifeSite, she translated papal addresses under the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI for Zenit News Agency. She has also served as a translator for the English edition of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. In this episode 22 of the John-Henry Westen Show, she talked to me about the controversy surrounding the "purge" taking place at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Rome.

By George Weigel, First Things - There will be much more to be said in the weeks and months ahead about the rejection of Cardinal George Pell’s appeal of his conviction for “historic sexual abuse,” by the 2-1 vote of a three-judge panel of the Supreme Court of Victoria. For the moment, this astonishing, indeed incomprehensible, decision calls into the gravest doubt the quality of justice in Australia—and the possibility of any Catholic cleric charged with sexual abuse to receive a fair trial or a fair consideration of the probity of his trial.

August 6 was the liturgical Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ. On that date in 1945, the transfigured face of God, reflected in His children, was disfigured with the devastating explosion of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, in Japan, which exterminated nearly 140,000 men, women, and children… At a distance of only eight blocks from ground zero of the explosion, a church where eight Jesuit missionary priests lived remained standing and practically intact, unlike buildings three times farther away that were completely destroyed. These Jesuits went down in history as the Hiroshima Eight.