A Treasure To Be Shared

This year marks the Council of Nicaea's 1700th anniversary (A.D. 325). Numerous micro-articles promoting revisionist histories have surfaced on X and other platforms, and they require correction. Certain voices are promoting revisionist histories for reasons that appear to be motivated by ill will. Fortunately, Mark Bonocore has conducted extensive research on the subject of authority in the ancient Church, offering a crucial correction that cuts through the mist of factually incorrect narratives. H/T Mark Bonocore for his article Does the Orthodox Church predate the Catholic Church? https://www.catholicbridge.com/orthodox/does-the-orthodox-church-predate-the-catholic-church.php Excerpt (T)he patriarchal authority of Jerusalem is an invention of the Council of Chalcedon. It did not exist before A.D. 451. The same is true of the so-called patriarchal authority of Constantinople. Despite medieval, state-sponsored legends (which have no basis in fact or ancient history), Byzantium had...

Say 'no' to communion in the hand... to say 'yes' to the profound adoration of God by receiving the Holy Eucharist on the tongue. I mention, for example, a change not proposed by the Council Fathers or by the Sacrosanctum Concilium, Holy Communion received in the hand. This has contributed to some extent to a weakening of faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This, and the removal of altar rails and kneelers in church and the introduction of practices which oblige the faithful to sit or stand at the elevation of the Sacred Host, weakens the genuine significance of the Eucharist and the Church’s profound sense of adoration for the Lord, the Only Son of God. Albert Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith (November, 2007) | Behind communion-in-the-hand – I wish to repeat and make as plain as I can – is a weakening, a conscious, a deliberate weakening of faith in the Real Presence.  Father John Hardon, S.J., November, 1997 |  One receives in the mouth what one believes ...

To walk together as disciples of Jesus is to walk first with Jesus Christ. In the Gospel, in John 14:6, we find the confirmation of Jesus: "I am the way, the truth and the life...". Then, in Acts 9:2, Saul uses the term "the path" in reference to following the Lord and His Gospel. So to follow Jesus, to be and live as Christians, means that we finally live as "congregants" and this already happens from the moment of our baptism. We all walk as the Church of Christ on a journey that we do together as Christians of course, but the question that should be asked from the beginning is this: "Journey with whom?" The word "synod" comes directly from the Greek meaning "to walk with...". However, what is important and the most fundamental (aspect), I would say, that must be clarified immediately in order not to skew our reflection on synodality, is the meaning and the real object of the Greek preposition "plus" (συν). It does...

A recent survey lists our excellent Bishop Steven J. Lopes in the upper precincts in which are found those USCCB prelates most orthodox and trustworthy. http://www.complicitclergy.com/2019/06/18/bishop-trust-survey-results/ Eleven respondents. Perhaps the less than perfect score can be attributed to a certain miniature train enthusiast (and constant curmudgeon) merely looking to kick (yet again) someone else's caboose. * While the survey gives a somewhat favourable rating for Bishop Lopes, such surveys can be notoriously biased and wildly stupid. (For context it may be useful to recall  Luke 6:26  in this instant!) Raising Cain? Some might rightly find such Rate-Your-Bishop surveys to be cruel and vindictive. Ask any teacher or public official - police officer, nurse, store clerk - who is routinely subject to the basest forms of human behaviour - i.e., revenge for giving a student a low grade; the rantings an entitled employee passed over for ...

Bishop Schneider (Auxiliary, Astana, Kazakhstan) : Pope Saint Agatho did not let himself be confused and shaken by the lamentable behavior of his predecessor Honorius I, who helped to spread heresy. In spite of this, Pope Agatho kept his supernatural view of the inerrancy of the See of Peter in teaching the Faith, as he wrote to the Emperors in Constantinople: “This is the rule of the true faith, which this spiritual mother of your most tranquil empire, the Apostolic Church of Christ (the See of Rome), has both in prosperity and in adversity always held and defended with energy; which, it will be proved, by the grace of Almighty God, has never erred from the path of the apostolic tradition, nor has she been depraved by yielding to heretical innovations, but from the beginning she has received the Christian faith from her founders, the princes of the Apostles of Christ, and remains undefiled unto the end, according to the divine promise of the Lord and Savior himself, which h...

At the joy filled moment when continuing Anglicans inaugurated the Anglican Church in North America, commonly known as ACNA, the wraith of women's ordination ambled among the attendees of the constitutional convention. When, during the convention, the question of women's ordination was put to Robert William Duncan, the first Archbishop (Primate) of ACNA, a strangely familiar answer was given. https://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2009/july/womens-ordination-crack-in-cathedral.html http://3riversepiscopal.blogspot.ca/2009_06_28_archive.html After the Anglican Church in North America’s (ACNA) momentous inaugural gathering, the verdict is out on whether the issue of women’s ordination will inhibit the budding alliance from moving forward. “For those who believe the ordination of women to be a grave error, and for those who believe it scripturally justifiable . . . we should be in mission together until God sorts us out,” said (Robert) Duncan in last week’s o...

Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. 2 Timothy 4:2 Catholics young and old deserve true teaching and true Liturgy, the school where we are formed for mission. Are the hierarchs listening to voices such as the one cited by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia? The good Archbishop, a clear voice of faith and reason who manages to navigate the waters made turbulent by less than credible witnesses to the Catholic Faith, has shared a letter from a man who articulates well the desire among young people for clarity. The question for the hierarchs of the Synod is: Are you listening? Will the Synod be a mirror of the facts, of the Spirit speaking through the courageous witness of faithful Catholics, or will the Synod be another muddled affair with a preordained outcome that merely coddles bad behaviour and gives tacit approval to a cafeteria catholicism that is the reason why ...