To my son, Timothy, my daughter, Laney, and any and all subsequent children the Lord should bless us with, With any luck, by the time you’re each of the age when everything in this letter will truly matter to you, I’ll have done my job as a good Catholic father, and the two of you will have grown into faithful, devout Catholics, followers of our Lord Jesus Christ, and confirmed by His Holy Catholic Church. Hopefully my own downfalls as... Read more
Something I often rant against in my Catholic writing is the practice of putting political bias before the Church. Though it is absolutely a two way street, I’ve witnessed more conservative Catholics call for the excommunication of Biden and Pelosi for their stance on abortion, yet say not a word about Rick Santorum and his support of torture. Both abortion and torture are expressly forbidden in the Catechism, yet somehow, Santorum, and other conservative Catholic politicians like him, seem to... Read more
The original purpose behind the Mackerel Snapper Blog was to reach out to other individuals like myself who were considering joining the Catholic Church or were already in the process of doing so. My goal was to explain the Catholic faith from a convert’s perspective and present it in a simple, Joe Anybody manner that’s easy to understand and digest. Since anyone currently going through RCIA is now about halfway through their classes, I thought I’d tackle one of the... Read more
It’s widely known that the Catholic Church doesn’t allow non-Catholics to receive the Eucharist (read about it here), but what about the flip side of that coin? If for some reason a Catholic is attending a Protestant service, can they partake in communion? No, they cannot. Under no circumstances are Catholics to receive communion from a Protestant denomination. The rule is outline in the Code of Canon Law 844: Catholic ministers administer the sacraments licitly to Catholic members of the Christian faithful alone,... Read more
I actually wanted to post about the Gospel readings for Nov 11 the day of, but I never got around to it. Thank God for a universal Gospel, right? The reading was from Luke 17, and goes as follows: Jesus said to the Apostles: “Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? Would he not rather say to him,‘Prepare something for... Read more
Trust the Pope. That’s all any Catholic needs to do about this situation. No more speculating about Francis’ completely made up “liberal agenda” or some other conspiracy, heretical nonsense. He’s the Pope. We’re the laity. Trust the Holy Spirit’s guidance. On another note, it would do the laity a massive amount of good to stop trying to segment in the Church into “liberal” and “conservative” factions. I doubt you can find an article online that doesn’t mention Cardinal Burke as... Read more
In June of this year, the largest Presbyterian denomination in America voted to allow their clergy to perform same-sex “marriages” within the church, thus joining the ranks of other Protestant denominations, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Episcopalian Church, and United Church of Christ. This “evolution” of theology and “modernizing” of church doctrine is a trend that I predict we’ll continue to see in non-Catholic Christian circles for years to come, and not just with marriage. Today, nearly all Protestant... Read more
Any long time followers of this blog should be pretty familiar with my pro-life stance and how it reaches far beyond just opposing abortion. To call oneself pro-life means to see the dignity and sanctity in all life from conception to natural death. For me, and many Catholics, part of this manifests itself in an absolute rejection of unjust war and the death penalty. So of course, I’m always happy to hear the Holy Father talk about such issues. Recently,... Read more
Though we are one, Holy, and apostolic Catholic Church, we still have our own internal spats. Arguments about this doctrine or that discipline can be found in every spectrum of the Catholic blogosphere. While a great many disputes can be settled by simply referring to the Catechism, there still exist some rifts between the Church faithful — and some of those rifts can become downright nasty. Perhaps one of the biggest points of contention between Catholics today is over Second... Read more
I’ve personally never had a difficult time believing in God, and for that I consider myself blessed. Even in the particularly difficult times of my life, times when God felt eons away, I have never been able to simply relinquish my faith in His existence. For me, it’s all too reasonable. Yet, for so many, this is not the case. For them, believing in God poses much more of a challenge, and it’s not so much that they’re unwilling to... Read more
Mackerel Snapper
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