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Posted by bcadmin | Oct 6, 2020 | Abortion, Biden, Catholic vote, News, US elections 2020 |
Biden says he remains opposed to abortion personally, but he has promised to abolish the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for abortion.
The post Biden ad campaign woos Catholic voters, stays silent on abortion appeared first on Catholic Herald.
Read MoreKimberly Hahn has spent decades sharing her personal experiences and the inspired wisdom of Scripture with women striving to live out their call to be daughters of God. Now, she’s bringing this wisdom to light for women in all walks of life with her new ministry, Beloved and Blessed. There are a plethora of
Read MoreIssued by Cardinal Charles Bo, Archbishop of Yangon
The post Myanmar Church Reports on Response to Pandemic appeared first on ZENIT – English.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Oct 6, 2020 | capital punishment, Change, Death penalty, Doctrine, dogma, Featured, Featured Commentary, Infallibility, Infallible, News |
I’ve already written at length about the longstanding Catholic teaching about the death penalty and why Pope Francis is wrong in his attempts to change it. I won’t, therefore, rehash those arguments here. For the purposes of this particular debate, […]
The post Why the Death Penalty Teaching Change Is a Perfect Doctrinal Trojan Horse appeared first on OnePeterFive.
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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 6, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- In his new encyclical, Pope Francis reiterated that the death penalty is “inadmissible.” Did the pope change centuries of Church teaching with that statement? A leading theologian told CNA that the pope’s teaching was a development, not a rupture with the Church’s past.
In Fratelli Tutti, released on Sunday, Pope Francis cited both Pope St. John Paul II and new language added to the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty, calling the practice “inadmissible” and urging for its abolition worldwide.
“Saint John Paul II stated clearly and firmly that the death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice. There can be no stepping back from this position,” Pope Francis wrote in paragraph 263 of the encyclical.
“Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible’ and the Church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide,” he said.
Some Catholic commenters have claimed that Pope Francis’ statement constituted a “definitive change” in Church teaching.
But the pope’s teaching was a development in line with statements of recent popes, not a rupture from doctrine, theologian Fr. Thomas Petri told CNA.
Fr. Petri is dean and acting president of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.
“When you talk about the development of teaching, you’re always talking about growing from what has come before, and never sort of a rupture,” he said.
“I definitely think it’s in the line of what previous popes have taught,” Fr. Petri told CNA, pointing to Popes St. John Paul II and St. Paul VI as examples. “There has been an increasing hesitation about the use of the death penalty by the state.”
The Church’s position on the death penalty has always been part of the ordinary magisterium, Petri said, the teaching that “states have the right to inflict the penalty of death.” St. Paul admonished Christians about the legitimate power of the state to “bear the sword,” in chapter 13 of his letter to the Romans, which Pope Francis cites in Fratelli Tutti.
Many saints and popes have upheld this right of the state to punish justly, Petri said, and “no pope can somehow come out and contradict that”—an act which would indeed be a “rupture” in Church teaching, the theologian said.
Pope Francis, he said, did not contradict Catholic teaching. In the 2018 revision to the Catechism, the pope referred to the death penalty as “inadmissible” but did not call it “intrinsically evil”—and this was a significant choice in words.
“There was a clear message of not using that word [intrinsically evil], when I think a lot of people would have liked him to use that word,” Petri said.
Petri told CNA that Pope Francis is speaking in continuity with recent popes including Pope St. John Paul II, who issued “a very strong statement” about capital punishment in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae; he said that the death penalty should only be used “when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society,” but added that because of improved security in prisons, “such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”
Popes John Paul II and Francis have worked with the “prudential application” of the Church’s magisterial teaching on the authority of the state, Fr. Petri said, and not reversed it.
The Church has historically taught that the “primary reason for punishment” is “retribution,” he said, which is not revenge but “the idea that the punishment has to fit the gravity of the crime.” Secondary reasons for punishment included the rehabilitation of the criminal and the protection of society.
John Paul II put “protecting society” at the “front and center” of the Church’s teaching on punishment, Petri said, and Pope Francis has continued this teaching in his magisterium, which reflects a new understanding of punishment.
Many in society view the death penalty now “simply about protecting society from killers and people who are dangerous, being a deterrent, and maybe rehabilitation,” Petri said, and supporters of the death penalty’s continued use should consider if “it cultivates or curries in them emotions of revenge,” which “is not retribution.”
While Popes Francis and John Paul II are making prudential applications of the Church’s teaching in areas of faith and morals, the level of assent required to their teaching is not just “prudential,” Petri explained.
When a cleric takes a profession of faith before becoming a pastor or a dean of a seminary, he said, he must assent to not only divine revelation and definitive propositions of Church teaching on faith and morals, he said, but also the teaching of the pope and bishops exercising the authentic magisterium.
“That’s more than just giving it the benefit of the doubt, it’s basically saying ‘I’m going to subscribe my intellect and will to what you’re teaching even if I don’t understand it, I’m going to try to understand it.’”
For a teaching that has been repeated frequently in statements and high-level documents, including in the Catechism, it’s hard to dismiss assent as merely a matter of prudence, Petri said.
“You can probably disagree with whether or not there should be life prison terms, but not this. I don’t think you can say this about the death penalty issue.”
Democratic space continues to contract as media self-censors, says special rapporteur
Read MoreCardinal Pell’s accuser has denied he was bribed into make allegations of abuse, after Italian newspapers speculated that Cardinal Angelo Becciu may have sent money …
The post Pell accuser denies bribery allegations appeared first on Catholic Herald.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Oct 6, 2020 | Faith & Spirituality, Featured, Marian apparitions, Mary, News, Prayer, Sophia Excerpts |
When we pray with Mary, we pray with Christ, for their intentions are one and the same. Mary flies to our aid because this is what mothers do when their children are in trouble.
Posted by bcadmin | Oct 6, 2020 | Articles, Featured Highlights, News |
Over the past week, Pope Francis has issued not one but two relatively “major” documents, along with the standard fare of other routine Papal speeches, homilies, etc. which come out at the pace of about a document a day, on average. A Catholic who attempts to keep abreast of Papal teaching but has limited time[…]
The post What and Why to Read from the Current Magisterium appeared first on Catholic Insight.
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CNA Staff, Oct 6, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).-
At an outdoor rosary rally and Mass held Oct. 3, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone encouraged Catholics to renew their respect and devotion to the Eucharist as indoor Masses resume across the city.
“Have we accepted this fast from the Eucharist as an opportunity God has given us to renew our devotion and love for the sacrament?” Cordileone said during his homily at the rally outside the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption.
The office of San Francisco’s mayor announced Sept. 29 that places of worship will be permitted to hold services indoors at 25% capacity, up to 100 people, beginning Sept. 30.
The city had been allowing only one worshipper at a time in places of worship, regardless of the building’s size, while allowing multiple patrons in other indoor establishments. Parishes in San Francisco had been adapting to the restrictions by holding multiple concurrent, outdoor Masses each Sunday.
The Oct. 3 annual rosary rally began at St. Anthony of Padua Church in the city’s mission district with a procession to the cathedral.
Reflecting on the city’s namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, Cordileone held up Francis’ devotion to the Eucharist as an example, and noted that in times of scandal, corruption and division within the Church, the temptation can arise to criticize and “do things our own way.”
“Instead, let us take our lead from the poor man of Assisi, and tend to the inner work: prayer, fasting, love and respect for the Blessed Sacrament, embracing and serving the poor,” he said.
“The real work of reform begins within each soul and within the heart of the church.”
Cordileone urged Catholics to prepare for receiving Communion by frequently going to confession, praying and attending Eucharistic adoration, CatholicSF reported. Worshippers should be prayerfully silent whenever they are in the presence of the Eucharist and should dress properly for Mass, Cordileone said.
At the rosary rally, five families were selected to pray each decade in a different language: English, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Latin.
At the end of the rosary, Archbishop Cordileone renewed the archdiocese’s consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which was first done in 2017, CatholicSF reported.
Cordileone also encouraged Catholics to participate in a national virtual rosary, to be led by Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles Oct. 7, on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
Beginning Sept. 30, outdoor worship services in San Francisco may host up to 200 people. Singing or chanting indoors will be prohibited, and “the place of worship must conduct a health check of patrons before they enter the facility.”
An estimated 1,500 Catholics in San Francisco had marched in Eucharistic processions across the city Sept. 20 to protest the city’s continued restrictions on public worship.
“One person at a time in this great Cathedral to pray? What an insult. This is a mockery. They are mocking you, and even worse, they are mocking God,” Cordileone said at the Mass following the processions Sept. 20.
The US Department of Justice had on Sept. 25 warned San Francisco officials that its restrictions on public worship in the city may have been unconstitutional.
The DOJ on Sept. 25 sent a letter to Mayor London Breed, warning that the city’s rule allowing only “one worshipper” in places of worship at a time regardless of their size— while allowing multiple patrons in other indoor establishments— is “draconian” and “contrary to the Constitution and the nation’s best tradition of religious freedom.”
Archbishop Cordileone said last week that “respect for each other’s rights and compassion for each other’s needs are core San Francisco values. God bless Mayor Breed for responding to her constituents’ call.”
He added, however, that “California’s limit of no more than 100 people inside of a house of worship regardless of the size of the building is still unjust. We want and we intend to worship God safely: with masks, social distancing, sanitation, ventilation, and other such safety protocols. But we will not accept believers being treated more severely than other, comparable secular activities.”
On this crisp Fall day of October the 6th, we fittingly celebrate Saint Bruno (+1101), teacher, bishop, confidante of the Pope and, perhaps most pertinent to the history of Christendom, the founder of the Carthusians, the only Order in the Church never to have been reformed, in large part since they never needed reforming. They[…]
The post Bruno’s Great Silence appeared first on Catholic Insight.
Read MoreReading 1 GAL 1:13-24
Brothers and sisters:
You heard of my former way of life in Judaism,
how I persecuted the Church of God beyond measure
and tried to destroy it,
and progressed in Judaism
beyond many of my contemporaries among m…
Posted by bcadmin | Oct 6, 2020 | 2020 election, Donald J. Trump, Featured, Joe Biden, News, Politics, Weekly Headlines |
Perhaps the nicest thing that could be said about the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was that it was a mess. This takeaway from the debate misses the bigger point that Republicans and conservatives need to see: the Democrats are following a script and it’s completely at odds with reality. The […]
Clarissa Combs, former program manager of Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, was sentenced to nearly six years in prison, and ordered to pay restitution of $684,081.90.
Read MoreGov. Andrew Cuomo of New York has announced the closing of all public and private schools in certain zip codes. There has been only one case of Covid at the four Catholic schools.
Read MoreThe law required abortionists to tell mothers about the potential reversal of medication abortions.
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