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Showing posts from February, 2014

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition: Dr Tom Mortier's mother was killed by Belgium's leading euthanasia doctor in 2012. An official complaint has now been launched against this doctor with Belgian medical authorities.

ALEX SCHADENBERG, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition: Dr Tom Mortier's mother was killed by Belgium's leading euthanasia doctor in 2012. An official complaint has now been launched against this doctor with Belgian medical authorities.

The world is definitely a strange place these days when a giraffe is more important than a child

Applying 'logic' to the question of the existence of God?

Fr. Pat Tait, Diocese of Pembroke R.I.P.

Fr. Pat Tait I ask you please to take a moment today and pray for the soul of Fr. Pat Tait, latterly pastor of Our Lady of Grace and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parishes of our diocese. Fr. Pat died this morning after a short battle with cancer. He was 66 years of age. Fr. Pat had been the rector of St. Columbkille's Cathedral in Pembroke for many years and served as Diocesan Administrator during the months before the ordination of Bishop M. Mulhall as our local ordinary. His body will lay in state in the Cathedral on Wednesday February 19th from 3 pm til 7 pm and from 9:30 am to 10:30 am on Thursday February 20th. His funeral mass will then be celebrated at 11 am with +Mulhall presiding. The Pembroke diocese has lost a great priest and brother of the presbyterate. May God grant him eternal rest in peace from his good labours. 

Bishop Fred Henry (Calgary): Unclear language clouds push for euthanasia

"Many people of my vintage developed in high school a working knowledge of basic Latin grammar, and we read and translated classical texts such as Cicero’s De Oratore. “Just as some women are said to be handsomer when unadorned — this very lack of ornament becomes them — so the plain style gives pleasure when unembellished ... All noticeable ornament, pearls as it were, will be excluded; not even curling irons will be used. All cosmetics, artificial white and red, will be rejected. Only elegance and neatness will remain. The language will be pure Latin, plain and clear; propriety will always be the chief aim.” Despite Cicero’s own linguistic elegance, he encouraged speech or writing that was simple, direct, clear, brief, sincere and unambiguous. Cicero would not be pleased with our modern day over-usage and misusage of euphemisms, e.g. “infected obstetrics” (botched abortion), “misstatement” (lie), “program misuse” (fraud), “collateral damage” (civilian death), and “gaming” (gam

Catholic Writing Today: Michael O’Brien | The Jesuit Post - an interview with a Valley author who's fame is well known everywhere but here in the region where he lives!!

Michael O'Brien Catholic Writing Today: Michael O’Brien | The Jesuit Post

What is a priest who has been convicted of a crime entitled to from his diocese?

In the wake of the tragic number of clergy who have been found guilty of crimes in recent years, a visitor to the blog sent me a question about what support such priests were entitled to receive from the Church after their conviction. In looking for the answer to that question I found a couple of articles that shed light on canon 281 of the Code of Canon Law which reads as follows: Can. 281 § 1 . Since clerics dedicate themselves to ecclesiastical ministry , they deserve remuneration which is consistent with their condition , taking into account the nature of their function and the conditions of places and times , and by which they can provide for the necessities of their life as well as for the equitable payment of those whose services they need . § 2 . Provision must also be made so that they possess that social assistance which provides for their needs suitably if they suffer from illness , incapacity , or old age . § 3 . Married deacons who devote

Professor Grayson’s Crusade | Web Exclusives | First Things

J. Paul Grayson, a sociology professor at York University in Toronto, received a request from a male student asking to be excused from participating in a group assignment, in which the student would have been obliged to converse with female students.   Grayson said no to the student but decided to use his request to test York University’s administration—beginning with his Dean—to see how they would deal with it. The administrators in fact decided that since no rights of female students were being withheld, the student’s request could be accommodated. At that point, Grayson seized the opportunity that the administration’s response afforded him and leaked the details of this case to the media, dragging half of Canada into a proverbial tempest in a teapot that centered on the looming supposed dangers of religious accommodation. The Quebec government—which is in the throes of proposing legislation intended to prevent people who wear religiously significant clothing from working in the publ

Pope pressured to act on abuse after UN rebuke

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis came under new pressure Wednesday to punish bishops who covered up for pedophile priests when a U.N. human rights panel accused the Vatican of systematically protecting its reputation instead of looking out for the safety of children. In a scathing report that thrilled victims and stunned the Vatican, the United Nations committee said the Holy See maintained a "code of silence" that enabled priests to sexually abuse tens of thousands of children worldwide over decades with impunity. Among other things, the panel called on the Vatican to immediately remove all priests known or suspected to be child molesters, open its archives on abusers and the bishops who covered up for them, and turn the abuse cases over to law enforcement authorities for investigation and prosecution. The committee largely brushed aside the Vatican's claims that it has already instituted new safeguards, and it accused the Roman Catholic Church of still harboring crimina

Ten Thousand Places: What It's Really All About - A reflection on a teaching from Catherine de Hueck Doherty

I think we should jump into God’s mercy, so to speak, as if it is a bottomless sea. It is not necessarily unpainful, because there is a mercy there, which I don’t even try to fathom, but it comes to me every time, because I am a Russian and his mercy means so much to me. But at the same time, every time I plunge into that mercy, somehow, somewhere, someplace, I find justice. The mercy always unbinds the hands of the justice, but the justice is there, and you kind of realize without realizing the depth of this mercy because it can untie the hands of his justice. It comes from the depths of his heart! Because if we were judged by his justice, we wouldn’t have a chance, let’s face it! But he unbinds the hands of his justice, like  Peguy  says, and opens the hands of his mercy, and you go deeper and deeper and it is bottomless, and somewhere the justice is going to show his mercy and the two will show his infinite love. And you kind of go into both and you stand there and thus kn

Ten Thousand Places: On the Virtues of Being Snowed In - a little something from Fr. Denis Lemieux which I post in honor of my sister

A road gets plowed in my sister's neighborhood after a recent storm. The gentleman on the bottom is 6'1" and that lady up top is 5'9". THANK GOD I don't live where she does!! Ten Thousand Places: On the Virtues of Being Snowed In

When the Church of Rome Forgave Second Marriages: from Sandro Magister

Sandro Magister When the Church of Rome Forgave Second Marriages