Q. Why doesn’t the Catholic Church allow contraception?
A. Because the pleasure of the marital embrace was created by God for babies & bonding. It is a package deal. Anytime the pleasure of the sexual act is obtained while actively or purposely excluding either of these goods, it is a grave sin. The following acts are gravely sinful:
Below are sins that result from the pursuit of sexual pleasure alone while excluding both bonding and openness to procreation:
Packer, 81, is one of the most renowned evangelical theologians. He is joining a more orthodox traditional Anglican group - See this story.
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I am going to have a Mass offered for the intention of his conversion and those has influenced to the Catholic Church. Folks interested in doing the same can do so at the Catholic Near East Welfare Association where for $5 a priest in desperate need will be supported.
A major fire is testing the faith of a Catholic monastery near Eureka Springs. Flames destroyed the chapel and dining hall of Little Portion Hermitage just after midnight Tuesday.
Firefighters from four departments were able to keep the intense fire from spreading to the living quarters of its members. They lost their archives, library, and storeroom. Little Portion’s founder is recording artist John Michael Talbot, who says some at the monastery suffered from minor smoke inhalation.
If you’d like to make a donation for recovery and rebuilding, you can do so at Little Portion’s Web site.
H.G. Mar Bawai Soro and H.G. Mar Sarhad Y. Jammo are currently in Rome. On Sunday, April 27th, 2008, there was an ordination of 29 men into the priesthood. Many of our parish were happy to see him at that wonderful event. The following is a blog entry written by a certain blogger named “BaghdadHope”. I have reproduced it here as it is quite informative of recent going-ons with our diocese.
It is far more acceptable to leave the woman and the children and leave them without benefit of a father in the home and all the attendant risks of poverty for the woman and her children… (and yes, it is the women who suffer the most, they always do.) Ultimately, leaving the other parent of your children (and the children themselves!) for the new model is the new polygamy.
On the flip side of the coin, when Muslims (a lathe patriarch of the Bin Ladens) tire of their older infertile wives they say in quick succession (in front of a Muslim male witness):
I divorce you
I divorce you
I divorce you
and it is done. It is common for the divorced woman to then remain in the compound in her little apartment or home and to then be supported by her sons… (Anyone who thinks we don’t have this here needs to come to Ohio and visit the second largest Somali community outside of Somalia - those “sisters & cousins” are not sisters & cousins!
My friends’s husband has reared children from her previous marriages as his own… But the more normal and accepted pattern would be what my best friend in HS school experienced - his very well paid (6 figure) father divorced mom, managed to get a pittance of child-support obligation, and moved into the new suburb with the new wife in the new home with the step daughter three hours away in another city… Acceptably leaving his children and their mother to scrape by on a teacher’s salary. But hey, at least that isn’t polygamy! (Right?)
Now had the high school buddy’s father set up the mother of his children in a small home on the property where he could have attended to his fatherly duties and not allowed them to languish in poverty where groceries had to be placed of high interest credit cards and medical care had to be foregone at times when the choice was between paying the gas bill or dental work…
Well, where would that have fit into the grey area of today’s very acceptable proto-polygamy of abandoning one’s spouse and progeny? Very tricky isn’t it? I mean, vows are vows until “people gotta be people” and women need to prove they are no man’s woman or men need a new woman that Read the rest of this entry »
Among the suggestions he feels need to be thought about is the possibility of alternative oversight for the hold outs in the CofE who think oppose women’s ordination altogether.
Alternative oversight is just a temporary concession in the war of attrition.
Full steam down the slippery slope folks! In 1984 “Women will only ever be deacons” in 1993 “Women will only ever be priests” in 20XX “Women will only ever be auxiliary bishops!“???? Read the rest of this entry »
I came accross the webpage of this fantastic lay group and thought I would share.
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” For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.” [1 Corinthians 10:17]
One Bread is a Catholic lay evangelical organization dedicated to Christian unity in accordance with the will of Christ that all his followers be one [John 17:21]. It was started by Karen Matthews out of a desire in her heart to share the Catholic faith with others, a faith she grew to cherish. Read More
One Bread Board of Directors
One Bread is a US government recognized non-profit organization and as such is advised by a board of directors. Our board is comprised of lay Catholics of many walks in life who are zealous about spreading the good news of Jesus Christ and his Holy Catholic Church. Read more
SEE ALSO: FREE for non-Catholics where non-Catholics can get information about the Catholic Church.
A while back over at Catholic Answers Forum the question came up - what are the best arguments against homogenital sexual relations between the consenting that is not taken from a purely religious stand point.
If I had to say, in a single word, why homosexuality should be avoided, and if that is one’s primary orientation, celibacy should be adhered to it would be this: health.
Well before the dawn of HIV/AIDS, this sort of sexual expression has lent itself to a myriad of problematic health and wellness issues. I will look to see if I can’t find the study that discusses the average lifespan of an active homosexual. As I recall, it is around the age of 38, with a scant 2% of self-identified “gay men” who are homo-genitially sexually active living past age 65. There is mention of this study on the www.catholic.com (CAF’s parent website) in an article opposing gay marriage. Read the rest of this entry »
Project Number: 11909 Project Title: Keep Babel Open Description: Baghdad’s Babel College for Philosophy and Theology, which educates Iraq’s seminarians, has been forced to relocate to Arbil. Help keep its doors open. Amount requested: $15,000.00 Contributions from donors: $4,244.10 Amount needed to complete the project: $10,755.90
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NOTE TO READERS: If you have any suggestions for orders or communities you feel should be highlighted for TCB’s “Vocations Tuesday” please Contact us! @ ASimpleSinner@gmail.com! Include “VOCATIONS TUESDAY” in the subject line please!
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It can also be filed under “Things Simple has said for years - that he learned from bishops who already understood it!”
Very simply, the diocesan vocations director should contact each pastor of each parish (each year) and ask for a 3-5 name “short list” of young men. Several times a year using the contact info they should be invited to the Cathedral for Mass, and dinner at the Episcopal residence or in some restaurant that has a private dining room where the bishop himself can say “I invite you to pray and consider this”.
14ish years ago I was 18 and working with a buddy of mine on a volunteer project on a Saturday afternoon at an inner city parish. We were doing some landscaping on a really beautiful day when we could have been playing some softball or drinking some beers one of our older brothers scored for us… but there we were. Read the rest of this entry »
I do feel for her predicament but not in the way she argues her point:
initially i just felt my heart racing and i got so angry, the adrenline rushing to my brain and images flashing of punching the driver while yelling at him about his ignorance and sense of entitlement…
i certainly don’t regret abortion, i am thankful i was able to make that choice. i am sick of being told i should be ashamed of it, or regret it, or how to feel about it by people in the street with grotesque pictures of aborted fetuses, media pundits and now even disembodied messages in traffic.
I feel for her situation in that she has been reminded of something that she would prefer not to be. And, she was caught off guard. That would make me uncomfortable. But she was not accosted by a gruesome image, a judgment of her by others, but rather the judgment of others upon themselves. Perhaps the owner of the car regretted her own abortion or the abortion of his girlfriend. And, if the person has regretted the abortion he or she participated in, isn’t there a moral duty to warn others?
However, our blogger’s claim that she has nothing to regret, is what I find regrettable. If there is nothing to regret about abortion, then she nor anyone should have any qualms about being reminded of it. If I dont regret having eaten a chocolate sundae, then being reminded of it should be either pleasant or neutral. Only if I regret having eaten the whole thing would a bumper sticker associating the sundae with my spare tire cause me any uneasiness.
If there is nothing regrettable about abortion, one should have no problems being reminded of it. However, if reminders of it cause anger, arouse violent thoughts, etc. then perhaps this is the first sign of the regret one is working so hard to deny. That regret is the first step toward healing, which I wish for our dear blogger. Keep her in your prayers.
A. Jesus’ choice to be born male was not accidental or arbitrary. First of all, in the sacrificial system of Israel the Sin Offering and the Passover Lamb were always perfect MALE. Other offerings could be either male or female but not the Passover Lamb or the Sin Offering. Therefore, since, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ fulfills all the sacrifices, but most especially the Sin offering and the Passover lamb HE was incarnated as a MAN.
Also, the people of God, both Israel and the Church, have always been imaged in sacred scripture as a Bride with God as the Bridegroom (Is 62:5 and Rev. 21:9). In the Catholic faith the priest acts in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) as Jesus celebrates the sacraments for His bride, the Church, through the actions of the male priest. The Church, as bride, is in a spousal relationship with Christ the bridegroom. This beautiful image culminates in the wedding feast of the Lamb at the end of time. This typology of the spousal relationship is fittingly imaged by the male priest. Priestesses or womenpriests would project another typology altogether but it would not be Holy Matrimony.
Q. Aren’t women second-class citizens in the Catholic Church?
A. Absolutely not. The most revered status in the Catholic Church is open to both men and women. Contrary to popular opinion the Pope, although highly honored is exceeded in honor by the Saints and the Doctors of the Church. There are hundreds of female saints. And, out of 33 Doctors of the Church, three are women. Also, the most highly honored human person (excluding Jesus) in the history of the Church is a woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
This summer our African Missionary in the Ivory Coast, West Africa, travelled north in his country to the city of Mandallah, and the St. John the Baptist Mission to delivery 688 bibles in two native languages spoken by the villagers.
Above, at a special Mass at which the bibles were presented to the congregation, the altar servers carried some of the bibles to the altar.
The grant to purchase these bibles for the mission was provided by a Catholic foundation in Raleigh, North Carolina. The congregation was most grateful and will use these bibles in their catechism classes.
Below One Bread’s African representative, Bekoli Boika, presents the bibles to the priest in front of the congregation.
The Congregation of St John the Baptist Mission at the start of the Mass at which the bibles were presented.
To request materials for use in Africa, please contact: Mr. Boika Bekoli Louis
One Bread Lay Apostolate-Africa
25 BP 1100 Abidjan 25
Ivory Coast, West Africa 1bread-africa@excite.com
(+225) 07845050
I am the most casual of amature “Anglican watchers”… As a Catholic, looking at what is going on over in TEC causes me no glee, but honestly I see the writing on the wall. (Feel free to weigh in with disagreement - that is what comboxes are for!)
A Lutheran watcher, I am not at any level - amature or otherwise. Recently, however, I am having a spell of being, I dunno “Lutheran Curious” as I see snippets here and there of things coming out of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) - America’s largest Lutheran body of just under 4.77M members, formed in 1988 with the merging of three Lutheran bodies, they are in full communion with the Episcopal Church.
Again, as a rank amature with no vested interest in the internal politics of this community myself (save a desire/fantasy - I admit - to see an end to the divisions and a return to Catholic unity on the part of all baptized).
But in the past few weeks of looking at some things that are coming out of some blogs and news sources here and there about the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, I have come up with the following questions:
What trajectory has the ELCA taken on the GLBT issue? Today it appears they are about three to five years behind the Episcopal Church on the matter, with affirming clergy being lined up to shore up support of what seems to be an affirming stance that is coming…
TEC and ELCA have an inter-communion and pulpit sharing arrangement… What influence has this had? Some speculate that this re-enforces and re-affirms the influences of pro-GLBT parties within the ELCA… The TEC and ELCA in 2008 both have more clergy than ever, as their memberships both decline. An observation that has been made by some is that in some diocese the TEC has rostered a good number of clergy who are not needed or used for parochial assignments, but serve - in effect - to “weight the strength of certain ideological agendas”… The ordinands have no or little parochial responsibility… but when it comes time to gather the rostered clergy to vote, they are votes that can be counted on. “Stacking the deck” so to speak. Is this a trend we have seen in the ELCA?
Has clergy sharing had this influence or allowed for re-enforcements to be sent into ELCA synods from TEC for similar stacking?
What trends have we seen with ELCA congregations re-aligning in other synods? (The number of re-aligning congregations seems to have increased each year since 2002.)
Has the divisions between Lutheran bodies like WELS, Missouri Synod and the ELCA had an effect on how the situation in the ELCA has played out in these last ten years? That is to say at the time of formation of the ELCA, WELS & the Missouri Synod did not opt to join back in 1988… That being the case, is it already a de factosituation that folks who self-describe as conservative Lutherans are already pre-divided into other non-ELCA bodies allowing for smooth transitions into a female-minister dominated body that is traveling in a trajectory to be widely and openly affirming of pro-GLBT (Affirming of homogenital sex acts)?
Continental Lutheranism (Germany and Scandinavia) has already gone the direction of the “mainline moderns”… African Lutheranism - like African Anglicanism - seems to be more rooted in concepts of “Protestant Orthodoxy” with the eschewing of women’s ordination and pro-homosexual theologies. Yet being that there is no “big tent Lutheran communion” analogous to what we see in Anglicanism with the world-wide communion and Lambeth, it would seem that neither Continental nor African bodies are in a position to exert pressures on the ELCA one way or another in the dramatic fashion that a global confrontation in The Anglican Communion has forced the hand of the TEC (in a fashion) to take a definative stand that (supposedly) will have an influence on TEC membership in the Anglican Communion. As of 2008, I am sceptical this is going to happen in a fashion as dramatic as some predict - 11th hour comprimises seem to be the standard in the history of confrontations that liberal and affirming clergy and communities always recieve in a slow - if somewhat recently accelerated - war of attrition. They always win.) Has this lack of a sense of world communion been a factor in the directions the ELCA has taken and will take?
In the past few years we have seen well over 25 clergy and notable theologians from American Lutheranism embrace the Catholic Faith. Has this exodus hindered movements within the ELCA to ?
Worth looking at:
LUTHERAN CHURCH MISSOURI SYNOD BLASTS ELCA OVER GAY STANCE
Statement regarding 2007 ELCA Churchwide Assembly Action
JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, APRIL 21, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A parish priest from the Diocese of Jaffna was killed in a landmine blast at Ambalkulam as he returned home from Mass.
Father M.X. Karunaratnam, the parish priest of Vavunikkulam, was returning from saying Mass Sunday at Mallavi, when he was killed in a claymore blast, an antipersonnel mine. The separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam control the Mallavi–Vavunikkulam Road he was traveling on.
Neither the Sri Lankan military nor the Tiger rebels have claimed responsibility for the attack.
The mortal remains of Father Karunaratnam were brought to St. Theresa’s Church at Kilinochchi.
Father Karunaratnam is the founder and chairman of the North East Secretariat on Human Rights, a Sri Lankan group that reports on rights issues related to minority ethnic Tamils. He had been transferred in 2006 from Jaffna to Vavunikkulam.
In 2006, Father Jim Brown, 34, and a lay coworker, the father of five children, went missing amid escalated warfare between the security forces and separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
In 2007, Father Nicholaspillai Packiyaranjith was killed in a claymore bomb explosion on the Pooneryn (Poonakari) Road, at Kalvi’laan, when he was taking relief food and humanitarian supplies to the refugee camp and to the Orphanage at Vidathalvu.
This past Sunday 29 deacons were ordained to the priesthood at Saint Peter’s in Rome by HH Benedict XVI. Among the priests was an Iraqi of the Chaldean Catholic Church - which has suffered in the martyrdom of one archbishop, one priest, and 3 subdeacons in the last 12 months.
Rather a bold move with a bold message by a pope who is developping a reputation for such! And a clear message at that - Catholics will not be driven underground in fear, Iraq’s Catholic Community is close to the heart of the Holy Father. Public reception of Moslem converts and public support for those who are persecuted my Moslems will be the norm.
Interestingly, among the guests in attendance for the ordination was none other than Assyrian Church of the East bishop Mar Bawai Soro - who has made known his intentions to bring his flock of some 6 priests, 30 deacons and 3,000 faithful in America into the Catholic Church via the Chaldean Catholic Church.
My, but doesn’t this picture speak volumes? Here’s the official photo caption:
New ordained priest Jarjis Robert Sayd of Iraq looks on during a ceremony lead by Pope Benedict XVI in which he ordained 29 new priests, in St. Peter Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, April 27, 2008.
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What also speaks volumes is the presense - along side the Chaldean Catholic bishops at the Mass - of Bishop Mar Bawai Soro. Mar Bawai - a bishop coming out of the Church of the East - had made it known in January of this year that it is his intention - along with the faithful of his diocese - to enter into full communion with the Holy See by way of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Iraqi Christian blogger Baghdadhope righty and interestingly asks:
Equally certainly his very presence in the Vatican and the place of honor reserved to him by the ceremonial could be interpreted as a signal of “unofficial” welcome. Maybe the Holy Church is preparing to welcome among its loving arms a new bishop besides 29 new priests?
Mar Bawai and his faithful - one of whom a proud Cordelia preparing his first post on TBC - have been in my prayers for some time now. I invite all to join me in those prayers that these aspirations for full communion will be achieved.
If you hadn’t heard of this movement before… well you are not alone. Not one other Catholic blogger seems to have embedded the following video as content.
“Father Samuel Dinkha speaks to the San Jose congregation regarding H.G. Mar Bawai and his supporters “declaration of intent” to pursue full communion with the Catholic Church and unity with the Chaldean Catholic Church of the East.”
Many years to Father Jarjis Robert Sayd, Mar Bawai, and all the newly ordained priests!
I am running hot and cold on the “Possibly Related Posts” that just up and appeared (gee, thanks WordPress)…
It is an all or nothing sort of thing - if you opt out of it, your posts never get linked elsewhere… OTOH, if you just want to remove a particular link because you don’t want to be associated with that content… you seem to be out of luck.
I will try to give it a week… After that, I may have to sit this out until “Possibly Related Posts 2.0″ comes out and I have a little more editorial control as to what is getting attached to our work.
Q. Why is Natural Family Planning OK but contraception is a grave sin? What is the difference?
A. The difference is that one is indulgence in pleasure and the other practices self control. Both methods have the same effect, limiting family size, but that does not make them equal morally. For instance, if Grandma is terminally ill you could kill her or allow her to die naturally. The end result is the same but the moral difference could not be greater. Never do evil so that good may come.
The couple who practices NFP abstains from pleasure in order to limit family size while the contracepting couple indulges in pleasure stripped from its meaning and purpose.
The NFP couple practices total self giving love in their union but the contracepting couple rejects the fertility of their mate and so the union is incomplete.
God designed sex and eating to be pleasurable so that we would not forget to procreate and nourish our bodies. Stripping the pleasure of sex away from its God-given purpose is disordered just like attempting to get the pleasure out of eating but avoiding the natural purpose by throwing up after every meal.
God created the marital union to be a tri-unity of pleasure, bonding and openess to children. The attempt to extract pleasure and bypass the purpose of sex and eating is called lust and bulimia.
Commonly known to Lutherans or Anglicans?
Sometimes known as the “Anglican rosary,” “Christian prayer beads,” or “ecumenical prayer beads,” Anglican prayer beads are a loop of strung beads which Anglicans and other Christians use as a focus for prayer. Anglican prayer beads were developed in the mid-1980s by Episcopalians participating in a study group dealing with methods of prayer. SOURCE
Is the US losing its hegemony over the title “World’s Bully” in the eyes of the liberal elite? I doubt it. Somehow when individual nations or the UN push abortion or homosexual rights on nations that have other inclinations, that is seen as ok, even good.
If it weren’t for the smarter people in the EU or the UN or Scandanavia who are far more elightened than dirty over-producing brown people in South America or backward Poles trapped in their Catholicism… Well who who else but these wealthier (but dying) nations can enlighten the unwashed masses, eh?
It used to be the case that you could count on a coalition of South American and Islamic countries in the UN to put a stop to this sort of thing… Nowadays, perhaps the Islamic nations have realized that it is better to leave well enough alone and focus most of their UN efforts on Israel. Give Europe and the West enough rope to embrace the noose of infertility and sterility, and the homes in Europe will get cheaper still! And the burgeoning, pro-fertility Islamic nations are going to need to expand…
Who knew that in our selfishness we would one day end up selling Europe so cheaply?
Poland Pressured on Abortion and Sexual Orientation by UN Human Rights Committee
Canada pushes Poland to advance homosexual rights
By Maciej Golubiewski
WASHINGTON, DC, April 24, 2008 (C-FAM.org)- The government of Poland was pressed on the issue of abortion and sexual orientation by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last week. The grilling came during something called the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a process mandated by the UN General Assembly.
I never say no to my sheep. They love me and I love them and I do anything they want. When the wolf comes I smile and say hello and welcome him into the flock because my flock is inclusive and welcoming.
Other shepherds are not nice. They are divisive and bullying. They have rules for the sheep. They do not accept the wolf and do not let the sheep play with him.
I am the Nice Shepherd. I lay down for the sheep and the wolf. They love me lots and call me by my first name. We love ourselves and we form community. We do not like those other sheep who will not play with the wolf. We do not have them in our flock. We call them names and show them they are unwelcome because they are not welcoming like us.”
I thought we were done with hearing about this new age crap… I hadn’t heard anyone mention the “E” word since I was making fun of it 12 years ago in seminary… It was - at best - passe then. Now I come to read that someone somewhere is still having to deal with this TOTAL crap in a diaconate formation program.
It just goes to show that there is nothing new under the sun (Eccl. 1:9)..
So below are listed some decent articles to take a look at… Articles I thought for sure no one would be reading 10 years ago because I thought no one would still be messing around with this new age silliness. 80s modernism dies hard in some places I suppose.
How long before the media quits alluding to all sorts of “child rape” and “pedophilia” and simply publishes real ages?
Among the demographic most common where I live, being pregnant at 16 (in order to be a grandma by 32) is fairly common… OTOH, among the demographic I am a member of (Jebbie-educated 30somethings) the trend is more for “double-income, no kids”/”have our babies when we our forty+”…
Being that the ranks of the ruling elite are drawn from my more “enlightened” pals, I can understand how confounded they
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Apologetics | 
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Posted by bfhu
I am going to have a Mass offered for the intention of his conversion and those has influenced to the Catholic Church. Folks interested in doing the same can do so at the 
Blessed Pauline von Mallinkrodt, 1817 - 1881
Father Jeffrey Steel over at 
Blessed 
Blessed Jozef Cebula, O.M.I., 1902 - 1941
Is the US losing its hegemony over the title “World’s Bully” in the eyes of the liberal elite? I doubt it. Somehow when individual nations or the UN push abortion or homosexual rights on nations that have other inclinations, that is seen as ok, even good.
