Homily: The Fence Between Heaven and Hell
This is the last homily Father Mark Beard gave before he died on August 2, 2023 in a car accident.
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Three Part Series on the Holy Sacrifice of the…
THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS:
Toward a deeper understanding of the Extraordinary Form of the Holy Mass
Presented by the Msgr. C. Eugene Morris, Rector, at Saint Luke the Evangelist, the Oratory of Ss. Gregory and Augustine. Read more “Three Part Series on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass”
Churches Band Together, Illinois Concedes
By Paul Murano at ChurchMilitant.com • June 1, 2020
CHICAGO – “This is a total and complete victory for people of faith,” declared Thomas More Society vice president and senior counsel Peter Breen.
After a lawsuit claiming religious discrimination and the violation of the state and U.S. constitutions, the state of Illinois has backed down from its imbalanced mandates with regard to religious houses of worship. Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker reversed his bans on drive-in services and small group services of up to 10 people.
Pritzker announced in his daily press briefing on May 28 that he is withdrawing mandates on Illinois churches and replacing them with health department “guidelines” for places of worship. Read more “Churches Band Together, Illinois Concedes”
Faith and Creeds
To close this Year of Faith, we thought we should hearken back to the last Year of Faith and talk a little about creeds. We presume everyone reading this knows the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. There is also the so-called Athanasian Creed. At the close of the Council of Trent, a new creed was published, ditto at the close of Vatican I. New creeds tend to deal with “the problem du jour” — the Nicene Creed dealt with the procession of the Holy Spirit; the Athanasian Creed, deals (again) with Trinitarian Theology (especially contra Arius), and the necessity of the Church for salvation. The Trent Creed dealt with claims of the Protestants. After the close of Vatican II, Pope Paul VI published what can be fairly called The Creed of Paul VI or maybe The Pauline Creed, published for the first Year of Faith in 1968. Although it is mainly an expansion on the Nicene creed, true to form it deals with problems of the day: Modernism and other theological speculations, and the balance between concern for the world, and concern for the Kingdom. Read more “Faith and Creeds”
Prudential Judgment and the Death Penalty
Frodo: I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum. … he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.
Gandalf: Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it.
— J.R.R. Tolkein. The Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship of the Ring. Book One. II. The Shadow of the Past
The Great State of Missouri executed three men since November and that prompted me to get down to work on this essay again. It had been cooking in my mind since this past summer. I don’t recall the circumstances, but a conversation had turned to the topic of capital punishment. I’d cited the Catechism on the point, and asserted that in Missouri in 2013 capital punishment isn’t licit. I heard something like this in reply:
The Church is not against the death penalty – she leaves it as a matter prudential judgment by Catholics, and that means the plain, everyday Catholics. The Church does not tell them they have to take college courses in theology, or do advanced research before making prudential judgments; she trusts them to make these prudential decisions for themselves. My prudential judgment is for capital punishment. Read more “Prudential Judgment and the Death Penalty”