Catholic Church

By Steven D. Greydanus, National Catholic Register - To bury the dead is one of the seven corporal works of mercy, and to bury one’s parents is also an act of filial piety, of the honor or reverence that we owe to our parents under the fourth commandment… To care for our aging parents, and to bury them at death, are among the most necessary duties that we owe to our parents — and, if anything, this duty was even more deeply felt in Jesus’ day than in ours… Jesus took very seriously the obligation to provide for one’s aging parents. This is what he blasted the Pharisees for not doing.

By Max Bindernagel, Crisis Magazine - For news outlets hungry for a story, the narrative wrote itself: a teacher at Indianapolis’ Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School had entered into a same-sex “marriage,” the Archdiocese demanded said teacher’s termination, and the school’s refusal in that matter precipitated the Archdiocese’s decree that it could no longer recognize Brebeuf as Catholic.

By Kathy Schiffer, National Catholic Register - Every year, 19 days after Pentecost, the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But where did that tradition originate?... Devotion to the wounded heart of Jesus has its origins in the eleventh century, when pious Christians meditated on the Five Wounds of Christ. There grew up among the faithful prayers to the Sacred Heart, prayers to the Shoulder Wound of Christ—private devotions which helped Christians to focus on the passion and death of Christ, and thus to grow in love for our Savior who had suffered and died for us.