Benedict XVI: Media Must Form and Inform

The Christian faith, the Pope has said, shares a fundamental structure with communication: the fact that the means and the message coincide. Indeed the Son of God is, at one and the same time, the…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The precise reason Padre Pio refused absolution to a woman who had an abortion and why he eventually granted her absolution

Image
Throughout my adult life I've been surrounded by young female friends who tell me that they view me as a Latin Mass Catholic who takes sin and the sin of abortion in particular too seriously. They wear rictus smiles and claim it's not really so dire a sin when a woman employs a doctor to slaughter the little one inside her because she wants to prioritise her career or doesn't want a child with her current boyfriend. Or they reiterate the reason that I heard from the lips of hundreds of women when I was with them during their crisis pregnancies: that they can have a baby and provide for one, but they do not feel ready. 

In response I have often tried to defend the Church's teachings on the gravity of abortion as a mortal sin by reminding my coffee companions and colleagues that Padre Pio took the sin of abortion so deathly seriously that he was known to have refused absolution if a penitent confessed to having had an abortion.
While this has led to the smiles melting fro…
Read more

I do not believe The Third Secret of Fatima came to pass with the attempted assassination of John Paul II in 1981

Image
I may sound alarmist but heart and soul I believe the Third Secret of Fatima has not yet fully come to pass: that the bloodbath foretold by Our Lady when she appeared to Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco has not reached its bitter conclusion which will be marked by a massacre of the Holy Father, bishops, men and women religious and lay faithful. Indeed, I believe that this rude shock is ahead of us, not behind us.

A full 100 years ago this year Our Lady cautioned that if humankind did not turn from sin, repent and offer prayers and penance in reparation all the while honouring her specific requests then the contents of the Third Secret would be our fate.


That faithful  day on the hillside Our Lady revealed a vision to the 3 children which was later relayed (fully or edited; many of us are not quite sure) by the last surviving seer, Sr Lucia. Relying on Lucia's words, our mental cinema can create a surreal sequence of events where the Holy Father in a trembling and down-trod…
Read more

Our Lady appeared on the 13th of the month at Fatima so we may avoid the fate of Judas

Image
100 years ago today Our Lady appeared at Fatima and gave the world a sign so as that we may believe. What came to be known as "the miracle of the sun" occurred when the sun burst from behind a curtain of dark clouds, the sun shook and shivered, then became a spinning circle of silver. To quote an eye-witness, the father of Jacinta and Francisco, "then at a certain moment, the sun appeared to stop spinning. It then began to move and to dance in the sky until it seemed to detach itself from its place and fall upon us. It was a terrible moment."

How amazing to think this was happening on this very day - October 13th - 100 years ago. The date begs the question, why the 13th?  The number 13 is so closely associated with Our Lady and yet us Catholics are silent when asked as to its significance. We are confused, too, because the number 13 is roundly regarded as "unlucky". There were 13 people present at The Last Supper including Judas who had already agreed to…
Read more