Catholic Church

By Marcellino D'Ambrosio, Ph.D., Catholic Exchange - Beatitude, according to Webster, means perfect blessedness or happiness.  But when you read the beatitudes, you seemingly find anything but.  It is the poor, the hungry, the weeping and the persecuted who are blessed.  In Luke’s gospel (Lk 6:20-26), Jesus even adds woes for those who are rich, full, mirthful and popular... I once heard a preacher say that many of God’s people look more liked they’ve been baptized in pickle juice than in water.  Is this holiness?  Is piety all about being miserable and glum?  What are we to make of these alarming words of Jesus?

By Msgr. Charles Pope - The Gospel passage this Sunday is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. Being paradoxical, they are difficult to understand. We do not usually refer to the poor as blessed, but rather the well off; we do not typically call those who mourn blessed, but rather the joyful... The word “beatitude” itself means “supreme blessedness.” In ancient Greek, makarios (blessed) referred to a deep, serene, and stable happiness largely unaffected by external matters. It also corresponds to the Hebrew word asher, which is more of an exclamation.

By Hannah Brockhaus,  CNA - Pope Francis and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ordered this week the laicization of Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal and archbishop emeritus of Washington, and a once powerful figure in ecclesiastical, diplomatic, and political circles in the U.S. and around the world... The decision followed an administrative penal process conducted by the CDF, which found McCarrick guilty of “solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power,” according to a February 16 Vatican communique.