A Priest Life ((((,,))))

Wednesday, July 8, 2026

How the synodal church will ensure traditional young men won’t be ordained priests

The report of Synod Study Group 4 is, in effect, the instruction manual to carry out these plans.

Man praying in Catholic churchEdijs K/Shutterstock

Father Enoch

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Fri Jun 26, 2026 - 12:11 pm EDT

Editor’s note: This is Part 2 of a two-part essay. Please read Part 1 here first.

(LifeSiteNews) — Part I of the Synod report on priestly formation, titled “Ecclesiological-Pastoral Preamble,” speaks of the need to restructure and broaden seminary formation to include not only education in theological studies and helping men live a celibate life, but also to become effective workers in a “synodal church” which strives for “flourishing interpersonal relationships,” a church that will be “more participatory and missionary so that it can walk with every man and woman” (quoting FD no. 28).[1]

Ordained ministry must be “redefined” and be viewed as “in and from” the People of God; and priests must “open themselves to a synodal style” and foster interpersonal relationships by being “welcoming and listening to all” (cf. FD no. 72).[2] This necessitates that the “structure of priestly formation” be “recalibrate[ed] … according to this relational identity,” because “fraternity with the People of God and with every brother and sister cannot be suspended or remain marginal during the time of initial formation.” Continuing, it condescendingly asserts:

Overcoming the temptation to place the priest in isolation and in a sacra aura ‘ahead of’ and ‘above’ the People of God, we must therefore realign the priestly ministry, precisely because of its special sacramental configuration to Christ the Head, Servant and Shepherd, at the feet of the brothers and sisters of the People of God.[3]

To this proposed “recalibration” of priestly formation I respond with a resounding “No!” Led by the Holy Spirit, the Church since the Council of Trent has seen great value in seminary training, where not only the minds of men are formed in the sacred science of theology (and its handmaid, philosophy), but their characters are formed by dedicated, orthodox priestly faculty to help them become other Christs – following the example of Jesus Himself who called His Apostles and disciples to separate themselves from their homes and families in order to be formed by Him for their priestly ministry: the proclamation of the Kingdom of God and the salvation of souls (cf. Mt 10:5-15) – something, curiously, that is never mentioned in the report.

In these above-quoted words we also see an attack on the sublime dignity of the priesthood, and the love, respect, high honor and esteem generally accorded to priests by the faithful whom they serve – something very beautiful, and no doubt pleasing to Jesus, the Eternal High Priest, but obviously distasteful to the promoters of the “synodal church.”

More: https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/how-the-synodal-church-will-ensure-traditional-young-men-wont-be-ordained-priests/

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

“I am a Catholic”

“Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative.”

— Hilaire Belloc responding to his anti-Catholic opponent for MP

Monday, July 6, 2026

No to a Church that moves with the world

“We do not want a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world. The great marches of civilization have not come from the clever, the adaptable, or the fashionable. They have come from men who stood still while the rest of the world rushed past them, and who held fast to certain moral truths as to a rock. Progress itself depends upon the retention of permanent things. A civilization is not destroyed by wicked men; it is destroyed by weak men who cannot defend what is good.”

— G. K. Chesterton

Sunday, July 5, 2026

The ideology is the issue

“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it… No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”

— Winston Churchill

Saturday, July 4, 2026

Meet the real Islam

HORRIFYING: Yasmeen Khan, owner of a beauty salon, offered free courses to young Christian and Hindu women to lure them in. Once there, she drugged their drinks. When they lost consciousness, she called her husband Mohammed Khan, who raped them while she stood watch at the entrance.

They recorded the abuses to blackmail them and force them to have relations with more Muslim men. When questioned, Yasmeen justified the crimes by saying that helping to rape "infidel girls" would lead her to Paradise.

This is Islam.

Source: Dr Malouf @realMalouf

Friday, July 3, 2026

‘Help me!’: Botched euthanasia exposes the horrific reality behind ‘medical aid in dying’

Euthanasia advocates hate these stories because people catch an unvarnished glimpse at what is going on behind all the soothing, medicalized language: killing people.

H_Ko/Shutterstock.com

Jonathon Van Maren

(LifeSiteNews) — The great victory of suicide activists has been to sanitize and medicalize the killing of human beings. We cannot use words like “suicide” or “killing”; we must instead use false, propagandistic language like “medical aid in dying” or, preferably, the official-sounding acronym “MAID.” Suicide and killing still make us uncomfortable, and so the terms have been whisked carefully out of sight.

The propaganda constantly being pumped into the public is that a death by lethal injection is not only morally acceptable, but beautiful and peaceful. Conversely, dying naturally is presented as grim, painful, and horrible both for the person who is dying and for his or her family. The CBC and other press outlets have consistently presented restrictions on euthanasia as cruel measures that force people to experience awful pain.

Occasionally, we catch glimpses of the truth. “An Ontario man groaned, grimaced and repeated ‘help me’ while undergoing doctor-assisted death after one of the drugs didn’t produce the anticipated level of sedation, initially leaving him conscious,” Sharon Kirkey reported in the National Post on June 3.

The man, referred to as Mr. D., “experienced signs of physical and psychological distress, including groaning, guarding (tensing muscles) and grimacing,” and his “behavioral signs of distress escalated to repeated verbalizations, including ‘help me’ that continued until sedation was achieved with propofol and a comatose state was confirmed.” The family’s final memories of their father are traumatic.

Suddenly, it was clear that Mr. D. was not just dying—he was being killed, and the doctor was botching it. His last words, it seems, were calls to his family for help.

Another example from Kirkey: “Cases of MAID that do not proceed as planned were highlighted last week in media reports involving the 2024 death of Bradley Stewart, an Ontario man who resumed breathing after being pronounced dead by a London, Ont., family doctor and MAID provider — a traumatic experience his siblings who witnessed his mishandled death are still recovering from.”

One sibling noted that at first, “we couldn’t talk about it… Going through MAID and losing somebody twice in a matter of a couple of hours” was “too much.” After Stewart began breathing again, the doctor—James MacLean, who recently attracted international attention after approving a man for euthanasia in a Tim Horton’s parking lot—had to come back and kill him again. MacLean continues to kill, but now under clinical supervision.

These stories reminded me of the botched Belgian euthanasia in 2022. Thirty-six-year-old Alexina Wattiez decided to die by lethal injection after a cancer diagnosis. The family expected her death to be swift and silent; they left the room. After a moment, they heard screams. “I recognized her voice,” her partner said. “Afterwards we saw her lying on the bed with her eyes and mouth open.”

A post-mortem examination revealed the truth: Alexina had been suffocated to death. Some news reports indicate that the doctor used a pillow when the drugs failed to kill her; others say that the nurses took turns holding the pillow over the young woman’s face until she asphyxiated.