The Cross vs. Emotional Fulfillment in Marriage
By Fr. David Nix and Leila Miller As I have said in many sermons and blog posts, Catholics that use contraception have the same divorce rate as the rest of the United States—roughly 50%. Catholics who refrain from contraception have a divorce rate that is only 3%, even when all studies are averaged. But what about those 3% of Catholics who get a divorce while avoiding contraception? Crisis Magazine did a study about 15 years ago to ask why young Catholics who avoid contraception were getting divorces. The answer was one: They did not expect to suffer much in marriage. This blog post is written by my friend and author, mother and grandmother (and fellow Boston College grad) Leila Miller. Below, her words are in bold. My words are in italics. Mrs. Leila Miller: One really alarming trend I've seen [...]
GladTrad 10.1: Child Trafficking in the United States
On today’s podcast, Grace Williams, President of "Children of the Immaculate Heart" discusses what attracted her to the growing mission of rescue and recovery for the child victims of sex-slavery. The above featured image is a bedroom for formerly trafficked teens in CIH's home, "The Refuge." The National Human Trafficking Hotline is 1-888-3737-888.
Glad Trad 9.2: Br. Timothy, Diocesan Hermit
In today's podcast we hear more of the conversion of Br. Timothy and his advice on how to live the spiritual life.
Real Men of the Church Take Ownership
Real men take ownership. Cowards blame each other. In the below video, Navy Seal Jocko Willink describes a fire-fight in Iraq that went bad into a situation of deadly friendly-fire. At minute 8, Willink asks: "Who’s fault was this?” One Seal stood up and explained the deadly situation, adding: “…And it was my fault.” But then the next Navy Seal stands up and says: “It was my fault…” The next Navy Seal stands up and says: “No, it was my fault, because…” Again, watch time stamp 8:00 to 9:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljqra3BcqWM Contrast this to the below video from the 1960s where a young Irish priest asks an older Irish priest why so many changes were starting to take place in the Catholic Church in regards to altering dogma and an upcoming but total re-vamping of all ancient sacramental practices. The older [...]
3 Apologetics Points
There are many good books for Catholics to purchase to defend the Catholic Faith while talking to non-Catholics on topics such as the Resurrection of Jesus Christ or the Eucharist or the Immaculate Virgin Mary or even all Scriptural topics including Purgatory. But three debilitating moves for Catholics to use on Protestants while debating on-the-fly are as follows: 1) Disprove Sola Scriptura by reading Scripture Alone? 21 Reasons to Reject Sola Scriptura by Joel Peters. It can be found online or in $2 pamphlets from Amazon. It will take less than an hour to read, and it is undeniably the best little booklet to disprove the erroneous Protestant notion that Divine Revelation is found exclusively in the Bible. Consider St. Paul: "So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter."—2 [...]
Glad Trad 9.1: Br. Timothy Meets Mother Teresa of Kolkata
What happens when a NYC male-model meets Mother Theresa in Manhattan? Today's podcast recounts Br. Timothy's journey to become a diocesan hermit in Montana. We also tackle the question: Did Mother Teresa believe all religions are equal?
Does God Change His Mind Through Church History?
Two other titles I threw around for this blog post were, Was the early Church more traditional or charismatic? and Was the Early Catholic Church as Dogmatic as the Medieval Catholic Church? This is a long blog post, but if you follow it carefully to the end, I believe you'll be happy that you did. In the above picture, every domino represents a different century in Church history. I used to believe that liturgy and dogma in Catholic Church history followed an erratic pattern like the above picture of dominos, where every century differed from the next century. Where it is true that the politics of Church history have followed a pendulum from left to right and back again, dogma and liturgy have never followed such a pattern. In other words, the above is a false picture of Church history with [...]
Amazon Synod Podcast 3: Teilhard de Chardin vs. Our Lady of Good Success
Also RomeCast 20. In our featured image above is 20th century Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ and 16th century Mother Mariana Mother Mariana of Jesus Torres y Berriochoa. In today’s podcast we show that Our Lady of Good Success (who appeared to Mother Mariana) predicted that in 500 years we would see certain attempts to re-write the Catholic Faith and the sacraments. The solution is partly found in new catechism: "The sixth beatitude proclaims, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' 'Pure in heart' refers to those who have attuned their intellects and wills to the demands of God's holiness, chiefly in three areas: charity; chastity or sexual rectitude; love of truth and orthodoxy of faith. There is a connection between purity of heart, of body, and of faith: The faithful must believe the articles [...]
Why the Restoration of the Catholic Church Must Be Marian
Part I: A Night on the AmbulanceN.B. You can skip Part I if you do not want my real-life account of EMS from 20 years ago that got me thinking about the mystical body of Christ’s “anatomy.” The theology of this blog post is found exclusively in Part II: An Analogy In the Mystical Body. But Part I here does describe an epic fail in my life... While pre-med at Boston College, I worked as an EMT at night. Upon graduation, I returned back to Denver and went to paramedic school while discerning if I should continue in medicine or if I was in fact called to the Holy Priesthood. It was a fast-track program at Swedish hospital, so I graduated paramedic school the same year I graduated BC. Although we paramedics had more training than EMTs, I was still [...]
Amazon Synod Podcast 2: Syncretism vs. Salvation of Souls
In today’s podcast, we talk about first hand experiences of oppressive spirits in pagan roots until becoming Catholic. We also see how la Nouvelle Theologie led to a collapsing of the order of grace into the order of nature. This led to the false notion that all religions are equal, including paganism and New Age. Both of these notions are openly promoted in the Instrumentorum Laboris of the upcoming Amazon Synod, which we quote directly and generously. We also talk about the third-world missionary work of St. Francis Xavier and Archbishop Lefebvre. This is RomeCast 19. The Featured Image is the enormous Basilica of Our Lady of Aparacida in Brazil.