"A very evil law": Father Swink's homily on HHS Mandate:

Click on this link for the MP3 file for Father Swink's homily.

http://www.jesusdivineword.org/homilies/audio/2012/2012-01-29-PowerOfPreaching-also-EvilLaw-FrSwink-19.mp3

"Seek First the Kingdom": The Cardinal gives blogging a "Wuerl"

Cardinal Wuerl just launched his own blog, "Seek First the Kingdom". Check it out.

Manhood Mondays: Men are made to be heros

On Vatican infighting: "Give up your dreams of glory, Pope tells warring Vatican officials"

Meanwhile, one of the leakers has made an anonymous appearance on Italian television

By Paolo Gambi on Thursday, 23 February 2012

Benedict XVI at the consistory last weekend (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

A Vatican clerk has appeared anonymously on an Italian TV show as one of the 20 leakers. He claimed that the “Vatileaks” had taken place because of the kidnap of a girl, Emanuela Orlandi, 30 years ago and because of the 1998 Swiss Guard murders. He was talking through his hat. Everyone knows the leaks are being driven by a war between Vatican officials.

I have already said I would like to see the back of these leakers, but I am just an angry lay man. The Holy Father has shown a better attitude towards the problem. This attitude is summarised in his request for prayer: “Pray also for me, that I may continually offer to the People of God the witness of sound doctrine and guide holy Church with a firm and humble hand.” Let us see how this sound doctrine and his firm and humble hand apply to this internal war.

Talking to the new cardinals he commented on the “scene of the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, who are still pursuing dreams of glory beside Jesus. They ask him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory” (Mk 10:37)”. And he shows how this “erroneous logic” conquers the 12, who “began to be indignant at James and John” (Mk 10:41). Two thousand years ago the war had already begun.

Jesus’s answer is very clear: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” (Mk 10:43-44). Is the Pope talking to his bishops, showing them in the Gospel the way to stop this internal war? If so, there is a reason the Pope said: “These words shed light upon today’s public consistory with a particular intensity. They resound in the depths of the soul and represent an invitation and a reminder, a commission and an encouragement.”

Once again the Pope has subtly answered his critics. We have the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Father. And thank God they are on the same page.

Source: Catholic Herald

Benedict XVI on infertility: "procreation, consists not in a 'product', but in its connection with the conjugal act, an expression of love..."

Pope Benedict said : “The human and Christian dignity of procreation, consists not in a "product", but in its connection with the conjugal act, an expression of love of the spouses, their union which is not only biological but also spiritual”.

He said: “This approach is moved not only from the desire to gift the couple a child, but to restore fertility to couple and with it all the dignity of being responsible for their own reproductive choices, to be God's collaborators in the generation of a new human being. The search for a diagnosis and therapy is scientifically the correct approach to the issue of infertility, but it must also be respectful of the integral humanity of those involved. In fact, the union of man and woman in that community of love and life that is marriage, is the only "place" worthy for the call into existence of a new human being, which is always a gift”.

But what happens when even science cannot provide the answer to a couples desire for parenthood? Here the Pope warned against what he described as “the lure of the technology of artificial insemination” where “scientism and the logic of profit seem to dominate the field of infertility and human procreation, to the point of limiting many other areas of research”.

The Holy Father noted that “So I would like to remind the couples who are experiencing the condition of infertility, that their vocation to marriage is no less because of this. Spouses, for their own baptismal and marriage vocation, are called to cooperate with God in the creation of a new humanity. The vocation to love, in fact, is a vocation to the gift of self and this is a possibility that no organic condition can prevent. There, where science has not yet found an answer, the answer that gives light comes from Christ”.

-- Pope Benedict XVI, address on Saturday, February 25, 2012, to members of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Saint Patrick's, Fells Point, Baltimore, reopened after earthquake repairs

St. Patrick's Church in Fells Point, Baltimore, shorn of damaged Gothic stone gingerbread ornamentation on the steeple and facade in repairs following last summer's earthquake, has now been re-opened.

The Gothic decorative spire details visible in photo below taken after the summer 2011 earthquake have been removed from the bell tower.

Ssh! The Pope is speaking!: "Adult Faith" which means rejection of the Magisterium is not true emancipation

The Holy Father spoke these words at the lectio divina which he delivered yesterday at Paul VI audience hall (translation that of blog author.)

"Certainly, in these last decades we have seen another use of the word 'adult faith'. One speaks of 'adult faith' that is emancipated from the Magisterium of the Church: Until I am no longer under the mother, I am a boy, I need to free myself; when I have freed myself from the Magisterium, I am finally an adult.

"But the result is not an adult faith, the result is dependence upon the currents of the world, upon the opinions of the world, upon the dictates of the means of communication, upon the opinions of what everyone thinks and wants. It is not true emancipation, the emancipation from the Body of Christ!

"On the contrary, it is to fall under the dictatorship of the currents, of the winds of the world. The true emancipation is properly to liberate oneself from this dictatorship, in the liberty of the sons of God that believe together in the Body of Christ, with the risen Christ, and to see reality thus, and to have the capacity to respond to the challenges of our times.

"It seems to me that we must pray much to the Lord, that He might help us to be liberated in this sense, to be freed in this sense, with a faith which is truly adult, that sees, that makes one see and able to help others to arrive at true perfection, at the true stage of adulthood, in communion with Christ.

"In this context there is the beautiful expression "dell’aletheuein en te agape", to be truly in charity, is to live the truth, to be truth in charity: the two concepts go together. Today the concept of truth is somewhat under suspicion because some combine truth with violence.The truth cannot be imposed with other means, if not by itself. The truth must arrive solely transmitted of itself, with its own light. Without truth we are blind in the world, and we need a path.

"The great gift of Christ is properly that we see the Face of God, and, also if in an enigmatic way, very insufficiently, we know the goal, the essence of the truth in Christ, in His Body. And knowing this truth, we grow also in charity that is the legitimization of the truth and which shows us what truth is. This is to say really that charity, love, is the fruit of the truth – the tree is known by its fruit – and if there is not love, also the truth is not properly appropriated, seen; and where there is the truth, love is born.

"Thanks to God, we see it in every age: notwithstanding the negative facts, the fruit of love has always been present in Christianity and it is today! We see it in the martyrs, we see it in the many sisters, brothers and priests that humbly serve the poor, the sick, that are the presence of the love of Christ. And thus are the great sign that here is the truth. We pray to the Lord that He will help us to carry the fruit of love and to be thus witnesses of the truth. Thank you."

The complete text of the Holy Father's address in Italian is available at the Vatican website.

Video is available at this link.