News

By Msgr. Charles Pope - Yesterday we pondered the fear of death and some understandable reasons for it, but we also considered how a lack of lively faith can lead to a fear of death that is unchristian. As St. Paul admonishes regarding death, We do not want you to … grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep (1 Thess 4:13-14).

By David Warren, The Catholic Thing - For we are a kingdom, not a republic or democracy. We are united under the Kingship of Christ, and our government is a hierarchy descending from Him… In the Catholic view, in Christ is our freedom… The pope, on this view, is head of the Church on this planet, but under Christ, not vice versa… Rome has become a town in which they hold lots of meetings, and something is expected to come of them. Calling them “synods” somehow makes it worse, and filling them with clerics who have an “agenda” makes it worse still… these synods are called to propose “developments of doctrine” – using that phrase of Saint John Henry Newman in a sense precisely opposite to the way he used it.

By Michael Pakaluk, Crisis Magazine - “Considered in itself, idolatry is the greatest of mortal sins.” So begins the old Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on the topic. I was surprised to read that this is the greatest of all mortal sins. Was it worse than murder? Worse even than the sexual abuse of minors?... “For it is, by definition,” the entry continues, an inroad on God’s sovereignty over the world, an attempt on His divine majesty, a rebellious setting up of a creature on the throne that belongs to Him alone. Even the simulation of idolatry, in order to escape death during persecution, is a mortal sin, because of the pernicious falsehood it involves and the scandal it causes.

By Diane Montagna, LifeSiteNews - Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is urging the re-consecration of St. Peter’s Basilica, in light of what he calls “the appalling idolatrous profanations” that have been committed in its walls through the veneration of the Pachamama statue… In a new interview on the Amazon Synod with LifeSiteNews, Archbishop Viganò has said: “The abomination of idolatrous rites has entered the sanctuary of God and has given rise to a new form of apostasy whose seeds, which have been active for a long time, are growing with renewed vigor and effectiveness.”