AP: bishops meeting amid “turbulence”

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:42 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

Fasten your seatbelts: U.S. Roman Catholic bishops are gathering at a moment of turbulence for them and the American church, as Pope Francis moves toward crafting new policies for carrying out his mission of mercy — a prospect that has conservative Catholics and some bishops in an uproar. The assembly, which starts Monday in Baltimore, comes less than a month after Francis ended a dramatic Vatican meeting on how the church can more compassionately minister to Catholic families. The gathering in Rome... Read more

Kasper: “The pope is not a liberal. He is a radical.”

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:42 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

Details: Just days before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opens its annual fall meeting, German Cardinal Walter Kasper, often called the pope’s theologian, had a not-too-subtle message for the American church. Kasper told a standing-room-only crowd at Catholic University that Pope Francis wants a “missionary church” with an open door, not “a self-centered, self-pitying church immersed in its own suffering.” The cardinal, who was awarded the university’s medal for “excellence in scholarship and leadership in religious studies,” spoke Thursday... Read more

It’s official: Burke to Malta

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:42 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

After the longest run-up, the least surprising papal move of the year: At Roman Noon this Saturday, the Pope named Cardinal Raymond Burke as patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, removing the Wisconsin-born prelate from his role as the church’s “chief justice” as head of the Apostolic Signatura, where he’s served since 2008. …The wheels of the cardinal’s transfer from the church’s lead tribunal have been in motion for over a year. From the first months after Francis’ election, as... Read more

Homily for November 9, 2014: Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:42 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

This is one of the more unusual feasts on the Church calendar. It is one of those rare feasts, in fact, in which we honor not a person or an event or a theological idea, but a building. The building has a long name: its official title is the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist at the Lateran. But most of us know it simply as St. John Lateran, or the Lateran... Read more

“God is more important than sex”: Couple abstained from sex for 19 months while waiting for annulments

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 4:15 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

In our pelvic-centric age, some would find this unthinkable. Read on, from The Catholic Sentinel in Portland: Steve and Shaina Purves don’t consider themselves heroic. They say they simply lived out what the church teaches — and it was fantastic. For 19 months after Shaina entered the Catholic Church, the civilly-wed couple refrained from sexual contact while church authorities looked over their past marriages to see if they could be declared null. According to church law, a declaration of nullity, or annulment,... Read more

Denied job, “humanist chaplain” sues Navy for discrimination

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:42 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

From RNS: The Oxford-educated man who unsuccessfully sought to be the Navy’s first humanist chaplain is suing the Pentagon, claiming unconstitutional discrimination. Jason Heap is certified as a humanist celebrant by the Humanist Society, which joined in the suit and is challenging both the U.S. Navy and the Department of Defense for not recognizing the group as an endorser of chaplain candidates. “Dr. Heap’s qualifications and experience far exceed the standards articulated by the Navy for accepting applicants,” according to the suit, filed Wednesday... Read more

“I’m a social justice, anti-death penalty, seamless garment, pro-life Catholic”

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:42 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

Mark Miloscia, the man targeted in an anti-Catholic smear during the campaign, won his race for Washington state senate Tuesday night, and has given an interview about his life and politics—and why he switched from Democratic to Republican—to Aleteia: What I liked about the Democratic Party is that Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. came from a faith perspective. I don’t know any more if a Catholic like RFK or even his brother John could be in the Democratic Party,... Read more

Pope warns against becoming “pagan Christians”

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:42 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

From his homily this morning: Even today there are “pagan Christians” who “behave like enemies of the Cross of Christ”, said Pope Francis at morning Mass Friday at Casa Santa Marta, warning that we must guard against the temptations of a worldly society that lead us to ruin. Pope Francis was inspired by the words of St. Paul to the Philippians to dwell on two groups of Christians, still present today as they were in the time of the Apostle... Read more

Here I am, Lord: Dan Schutte, the man behind the music

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:42 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

He’s written some of the most familiar—and controversial—Catholic music of the last 40 years. This morning, a newspaper in Louisiana profiles him: Dan Schutte never envisioned fame or a lasting legacy as a music star. He just wanted to write spiritual music. He wrote a lot of it. Nowadays, four decades after he first began collaborating with the St. Louis Jesuits, fellow musicians who were studying for the priesthood in the 1970s and ’80s, Schutte can still walk through an... Read more

Cardinal Burke says he has no animosity toward pope, those who claim he does are trying to discredit him

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:42 pm By Deacon Greg Kandra

From Edward Pentin via Breitbart: Cardinal Raymond Burke has said he is at the service of Pope Francis, has no personal animosity towards him, and those who claim the American cardinal is an opponent of the Pontiff are trying to discredit him. The head of the Vatican’s highest court also told Breitbart Tuesday the Catholic Church risks schism if bishops are seen to “go contrary” to the Church’s established and unchangeable dogmas in the months ahead. The Vatican prelate was... Read more