-
-
Featured Article
Mar
28
Holy See Press Office Responds to Complaints About Baptism
Filed Under Quotes & Excerpts | Leave a Comment
(From: http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/en1/Articolo.asp?c=195462)
Professor Aref Al Nayed has complained about the baptism by Pope Benedict XVI of Magdi Allam on the Easter Vigil. the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, issued this note in response…
The note by Professor Aref Ali Nayed concerning the Baptism administered by the Pope to Magdi Allam on the Easter vigil merits close consideration.
Let us, then, make a few observations.
Firstly, the most significant statement is without doubt the author’s affirmation of his will to continue the dialogue towards a more profound mutual knowledge between Muslims and Christians. He in no way questions the journey that began with the correspondence and the contacts established over the last year and a half, between the Muslim signatories of the well-known letters and the Vatican, in particular through the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue. This process must continue, it is extremely important, it must not be interrupted, and has priority over episodes that may be the subject of misunderstandings.
Secondly, administering Baptism to someone implies a recognition that that person has freely and sincerely accepted the Christian faith in its fundamental articles, as expressed in the “profession of faith” which is publicly proclaimed during the ceremony of Baptism. Of course, believers are free to maintain their own ideas on a vast range of questions and problems, on which legitimate pluralism exists among Christians. Welcoming a new believer into the Church clearly does not mean wedding all that person’s ideas and opinions, especially on political and social matters.
The Baptism of Magdi Cristiano Allam provides a good opportunity specifically to underline this fundamental principle. He has the right to express his own ideas. They remain his personal opinions without in any way becoming the official expression of the positions of the Pope or of the Holy See. Read more
Mar
28
Could the Pope Change the Law to Allow Women Priests?
Filed Under Quotes & Excerpts | Leave a Comment
Q1: Why did Pope John Paul II claim that he can’t allow women to be priests? If he’s the Pope, and has absolute authority, who can prevent him from changing the current rule? –Jennifer
Q2: How can it be that Catholics have the right to receive the sacraments, yet women cannot be ordained? I heard a woman arguing in support of women’s ordination in this way, and didn’t know how to respond. -Thomas
A: We have already seen in the December 1, 2007 column that the Code of Canon Law very clearly states that only a baptized male may be ordained (c. 1024). A woman, therefore, may go through all the external motions of a sacramental ordination, but the sacrament will still be invalid.
We have also seen that as the supreme legislator, the Pope may-and sometimes does-make changes to the code. So could the Holy Father conceivably change the law so as to permit women validly to be ordained as Catholic priests someday?
The answer hinges, as we saw in the February 8, 2008 column, on the origin of an existing law. If it is simply an ecclesiastical law, that was written and promulgated by human church authority, it can be changed. If, however, it has its origins in divine/natural law, there is no authority on earth that may alter it. So where did the Church’s law banning women from the priesthood originally come from?
Mar
28
Farewell Address | Avery Cardinal Dulles
Filed Under Events | Leave a Comment
| April 1, 2008 | ||
| 8:00 pm |
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., will give his Farewell Address as Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society (1988-2008) on Tuesday, April 1, at 8:00 p.m., at Leonard Theatre, Fordham Preparatory School, Bronx, NY. Response by Rev. Robert P. Imbelli, Associate Professor of Theology, Boston College. The lecture is free and open to the public. A reception will follow. For further information, please contact 718-817-4745 or email mcgchair@fordham.edu.
Mar
28
John 21: 1 - 14
Filed Under Today's Gospel | Leave a Comment
1 After this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tibe’ri-as; and he revealed himself in this way.
2 Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathan’a-el of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zeb’edee, and two others of his disciples were together.
3 Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat; but that night they caught nothing.
4 Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.
5 Jesus said to them, “Children, have you any fish?” They answered him, “No.”
6 He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, for the quantity of fish.
7 That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his clothes, for he was stripped for work, and sprang into the sea.
8 But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.
9 When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish lying on it, and bread.
10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.”
11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and although there were so many, the net was not torn.
12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord.
13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish.
14 This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
Mar
28
St. Francis de Sales
Filed Under The Wisdom of the Saints | Leave a Comment
You tell me you do not have the time to give two or three hours to prayer; who asks you to do so? No one can be excused from ejaculations because it can be made while coming and going about one’s business. Recommend yourself to God the first thing in the morning, protest that you do not wish to offend Him, and then go about your affairs, resolved, nevertheless, to raise your spirit to God, even amidst company.
– St. Francis de Sales
Mar
27
The unrealistic demand that everything the Church teaches be lived completely and in all its fullness fails to take into account humanity as it actually is. There exists in every man a certain tension between that which the Church recognizes as what the Christian ought to be and do and that which the average Christian normally achieves. That is why penance and pardon are fundamental constants in the life og a Christian. In fact, the strength of the Church, the possibility of making her teachings more widely known to mankind, lies not so much in the extensive sphere of mass influence, but rather in the fact that she encounters people personally in the small communities in which they live. It is, indeed precisely the personal word, the personal pastoral care, and a renewed catechesis that reaches out to the children and cooperates with the parents that are fundamental in making people realize that they are not to be treated as children, but that, on the contrary, it is actually their own survival as men that is at stake. As a matter of fact, one may add here - and with some optimism - that we are once again becoming aware of this fact. The maxim “As technologists and scientists we do all we can do” is fatal to man. In this crisis of technical awareness in which we are learning again that we need other sources of life if we are to retain our value as men, another approach is to teach man once again to understand the importance of Christian values as hope and help.
From: Ordinariatskorrespondenz, June 3, 1977
Mar
27
| March 30, 2008 | ||
| 5:00 pm |
This coming Sunday, the 2nd Sunday of Easter, or Low Sunday a Solemn
Mass in according to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII will be
celebrated at the Church of Our Saviour in New York City at 5 PM.
The Church is located at Park Avenue and 38th Street in Manhattan.
The Mass will be followed by a lecture by Dino Marcantonio, AIA,
architect and lecturer at the Yale School of Architecture. Mr.
Marcantonio’
God.”
Dino Marcantonio is a long-time advocate of traditional architecture.
He has practiced architecture in New York and Washington, DC and
taught at Notre Dame and Yale. He has authored articles on the subject
of traditional architecture for such journals as Latin Mass, American
Arts Quarterly, Sacred Architecture, and The Classicist. He currently
teaches classicism in the graduate program at the Yale School of
Architecture.
The event is sponsored by the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny.
(http://hughofcluny.
Fr. Richard Cipolla (Deacon in that photo) is expected to celebrate
the Mass. Fr. Robert Boyd to be deacon and Fr. John Ringley to be
sub-deacon.
David Hughes, the organist and choirmaster of St. Mary’s Church in
Norwalk, will direct the music. (For a sample of his Church’s music
program visit http://www.stmaryno
Priests who wish to sit in choir should bring cassock, surplice,
and–if they have one–a biretta.
Mar
27
Luke 24: 35 - 48
Filed Under Today's Gospel | Leave a Comment
35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.
36 As they were saying this, Jesus himself stood among them.
37 But they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit.
38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts?
39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
41 And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”
42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish,
43 and he took it and ate before them.
44 Then he said to them, “These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.”
45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,
46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,
47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
48 You are witnesses of these things.
Mar
27
St. John Eudes
Filed Under The Wisdom of the Saints | Leave a Comment
A Christian has a union with Jesus Christ more noble, more intimate and more perfect than the members of a human body have with their head.
– St. John Eudes
Mar
26
Muslim baptized by pope says he wanted to show others not to fear
Filed Under News & Current Events | Leave a Comment
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) — The Muslim-born journalist baptized by Pope Benedict XVI at the Easter Vigil said he wanted a public conversion to convince other former Muslims not to be afraid of practicing their new Christian faith.
But a representative of a group of Muslim scholars who recently launched a new dialogue with the Vatican said the prominence given to the baptism of Magdi Allam, a frequent critic of Islam, raises disturbing questions.
Allam, 55, was one of seven adults baptized by the pope March 22 in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Aref Ali Nayed, a spokesman for the 138 Muslim scholars who initiated the Common Word dialogue project last October and who established the Catholic-Muslim Forum for dialogue with the Vatican in early March, said conversion is a private matter, but the very public way in which Allam was baptized appeared “deliberate and provocative.”
In a front-page editorial March 25, the Vatican newspaper said Allam’s baptism was given no greater emphasis during the vigil than the baptism of the other six adults Pope Benedict received into the church that night.
Allam’s decision to be baptized and the Vatican’s decision to include him in the papal ceremony did not carry with it any “hostile intention in the face of a great religion like Islam,” said the article signed by Giovanni Maria Vian, the editor of L’Osservatore Romano.
“For decades the Catholic Church has shown a desire to meet and dialogue with the Muslim world despite a thousand difficulties and obstacles,” he wrote. “But difficulties and obstacles must not obscure what we have in common.” Continue reading here…
