Fishers of men
April 7, 2008
A very good friend and colleague of mine sent me the video below. It was commissioned by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. It is a must see. And if you know any men between the ages of 8-55, invite them to watch this video:
The True Church
July 17, 2007
This past week I have received a number of pieces of correspondence from parishioners asking about the recently released document from the Vatican regarding the Church in the world. Perhaps many of you have seen the headlines in the Winnipeg Free Press, or the National Post, or at the website of CBC; headlines such as: “The Roman Catholic Church is the only true Church, says Vatican” (this one appeared on the CBC website on July 10, 2007). The news articles may have stated that the Roman Catholic Church has entered into a new state of pompousness in claiming that it is the only church that can actually call itself a church. Unfortunately, and as usual, the secular media has misreported the document from Rome and mixed in its own biases ultimately creating something very confused.
In order to set the record straight, and to use this as a teaching moment for us all, I want to go over the document simply and to dispel some of the confusion. In the first place, the document in question is, Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church. It was released on July 10, 2007 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This Congregation often makes statements and/or clarifications on doctrinal statements and writings. This particular statement answers five questions and clarifies a specific term that was laid down 43 years ago at the Second Vatican Council in the document Lumen Gentium. The term in question is this: The Church of Christ that He established, “constituted and organized in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church.”
The following is the beginning of a great article by Kevin R. Yurkus on the Eastern Churches. Click the link below for the full article.
As millions watched the funeral for Pope John Paul II, many were confused by the concluding Panakhyda celebrated not in Latin, but in Greek and Arabic by hierarchs in black hoods, turbans, crowns, and unusual vestments. Was this not the responsibility of the cardinals? And were those clerics even Catholic?
The answer may surprise you, as Catholics are generally unaware that they have millions of coreligionists who are not themselves part of the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, even the term “Roman Catholic” isn’t quite right—it was actually a derogatory label assigned to us by Anglican Protestants, trying to legitimize their own use of the term “Catholic” over and against that foreign Church loyal to the pope of Rome.
In point of fact, the Catholic Church directly under the jurisdiction of Rome is properly and canonically termed the Latin Church. All official Church documents simply use the term, “Catholic Church.” And contrary to popular belief, most of the day-to-day work preformed by the Holy Father is not in his role as pope and pastor of the Universal Church but in his position in the Latin Church as the bishop of Rome and the patriarch of the West.
So who are these “other” Catholics? They have their own hierarchies and liturgies, as well as their own distinct apostolic lineages. They may look and act like Eastern Orthodox churches, but they recognize the pope of Rome as the head of the visible Church on earth and have suffered for the cause of that unity.
Meet the Catholic Churches. There are more of them than you think.
