Catholic Church

By Louise Merrie, Catholic Exchange - I first learned of the importance of praying for the souls in Purgatory as a child from my mother. She prayed every day for all the people she loved who had died, for all the souls in Purgatory, and for the most forgotten souls who have no one to pray for them. She arranged for Masses to be offered for deceased relatives, and every November, she sent a list of the names of people to be remembered in the annual Masses for the poor souls offered by some of the religious orders she regularly supported.

By Sarah Cain, Crisis Magazine - Almost a quarter of children in the United States live with only one parent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s the world’s highest rate. It’s heart-wrenching; for single-parent homes are connected with higher rates of substance abuse, criminality, suicide, and poverty. If outcome is indicative of oppression, as many claim, then the most oppressive start is single parenthood. Despite this data being well known, almost half of all babies born in the U.S. were born to unmarried women in 2019.

By Stephen P. White, The Catholic Thing - Last week, the Holy See announced that Pope Francis has decided to waive the statute of limitations on allegations against the former Jesuit and celebrity artist, Fr. Marko Rupnik. Rupnik, as you may recall, has been accused by more than two dozen women of sexual, spiritual, and psychological abuse over the course of several decades. The pope’s decision to waive the statute of limitations in this case is a welcome one.

By James Kalb, Catholic World Report - God is not a means. He is the goal. When we forget that, our faith no longer does anything for us. We need to do whatever is necessary to keep it in our consciousness... We see that in politics, with democracy as an obvious example. It wants the people to rule. But the people can’t possibly rule, certainly not in an immensely complex global society dominated by huge organizations with worldwide interests. How can they collectively know enough or find enough unity to make coherent decisions and see them through?