I just watched A Man for All Seasonstwo days ago and I must admit that I liked it very much. It is a relatively old movie (1966) but a good movie nevertheless. Personally, it was very inspirational to realize just how strong St. Thomas More’s faith was. In fact, his faith and love towards God was so strong that he preferred to be executed than to act against what he so firmly believed. Truly, St. Thomas More is a “Man for All Seasons”!
It is with great joy and hope that I write this post, for my brother is now a confirmed soldier of Christ.
My brother, Victor Flores, received the sacrament of Confirmation this past Monday (April 09) along with 60+ other young boys and girls. It was a beautiful celebration! All the people were fervently singing and praying; I have no doubt in my mind that the Holy Spirit was present in that holy place and that He was working in us.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Italy’s most prominent Muslim commentator is converting to Catholicism by being baptized by the pope at an Easter vigil, the Vatican announced Saturday.
Magdi Allam is the deputy editor of the Corriere della Sera newspaper and writes often on Muslim and Arab affairs. Born in Egypt, he has described himself as a non-practicing Muslim. He has long spoken out against extremism and in favor of tolerance.
Pope Benedict XVI was baptizing seven adults during the service, which marks the period between Good Friday, which commemorates Jesus’ crucifixion, and Easter Sunday, which marks his resurrection.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said of Allam before the service that anyone who chooses to become a Catholic of his or her own free will has the right to receive the sacrament.
Lombardi said the pope administers the sacrament “without making any ‘difference of people,’ that is, considering all equally important before the love of God and welcoming all in the community of the Church.”
Benedict opened the lengthy nighttime service by blessing a white candle, which he then carried down the main aisle of the darkened St. Peter’s Basilica. Slowly, the pews began to light up as his flame was shared with candles carried by the faithful, until the whole basilica twinkled and the main lights came on. READ ALL
May God grant him many years in health and happiness.
UPDATE: baptized by pope says life in danger “He said he made his decision to convert after years of deep soul searching and asserted that the Catholic Church has been ‘too prudent about conversions of Muslims.’”
BAKU, Azerbaijan, MARCH 9, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The peaceful coexistence of various religions is the rock upon which civilization depends, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said when inaugurating the first Catholic Church in Azerbaijan.
The Pope’s secretary of state said this Friday in Baku at the dedication ceremony of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, an event he said is “rich in meaning,” and “will leave its mark in the annals of history.”
“Almighty God, after a period of atheistic persecution and violence, allows us to realize a concrete sign of spiritual and moral rebirth,” the Vatican representative said.
“A church is a place where the community that God brings together for the praise and celebration of his love comes,” said the cardinal, but it is also “the image of that living edifice that is the Church herself, [...] community and family made up of individual believers, who celebrate the true rite that is pleasing to God, living consistently with their own faith.”
Cardinal Bertone thanked Azerbaijan’s president, IIham Aliyev, who attended the ceremony, for the country’s commitment to promote “an authentic religious tolerance in a land […] marked by the vocation of an ancient and consolidated cosmopolitanism, which has enriched it with various contributions.” (READ ALL)
The article title is slightly inaccurate… This is not the first Church in Azjerbajan… According to our pal Wikipedia:
Christians have been present in Azerbaijan since the 1st century A.D.[2] Starting from 1320, Catholic missionaries such as Jordanus and Odoric of Pordenone have visited what is now Azerbaijan and have established missions mostly in large cities. In the 14th century in Nakhichevan alone, there were 12 missions led by Dominicans, Jesuits, Capuchins, Augustinians, etc. In 1660 Superior of the Capuchin Mission at Isfahan, friar Raphaël du Mans reported Catholic parishes functioning in Baku and Shamakhi.[3] Polish Jesuits arrived and set a mission in Ganja in the 1680s.[4]
With the establishement of the Russian rule, these lands became a popular destination for members of various Christian denominations. Catholics were represented by ethnic Poles who started immigrating to Baku and Shemakhi in the mid-1800s, Ukrainians, Georgian Catholics, Armenian Catholics, as well as Western Europeans (mostly French) who stayed in Baku on a temporary or permanent basis.
Hello my brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ!I would like to share this youtube video with you.
Imagine if all that time and effort that is being put into creating these “little beauties” (read little skanks) was put into turning these girls into models of virtue. Imagine if these mothers, instead of instilling the love of worldy things into these children would instill in them the love of God and neighbor. Imagine the “caliber” of sanctity that these little girls would achieve!So, what do you guys think?
St. Ann instructing Mother Mary in the ways of the LORD.
I know we have been told for years that there are no vocations and that there is an immanent priest-shortage. Generally within the same breath people who assure us this let us know that we need to ordain married men, women, and have “greater lay participation. By the latter, as near as I can tell, they are generally pushing for a “clericalization of the laity”… No one who participates at Mass on the altar or in prayer in the pew can be said to NOT have great participation…
Anywho, for as long as people have been willing to listen to me, I have maintained that there ARE vocations, there IS growth, and that there will ALWAYS be a “vocations shortage” inasmuch as the field will always be ripe and we will never have enough workers. In other words, we can always use more!
But lest anyone think that we are not getting more or that there are none out there, take a look at these two stories.
VATICAN CITY, FEB. 29, 2008 (Zenit.org)From year-end 2005 to year-end 2006, the latest date for which numbers are available,, the number of Catholics in the world increased from 1.115 billion to 1.131 billion, a growth of 1.4%.
Over the same period, the number of bishops grew to 4,898 from 4,841, an increase of 1.2%.The number of religious and diocesan priests passed from 406,411 in 2005 to 407,262 in 2006 (a growth of 0.21%).
The number of priests has grown steadily from 2000 to 2006.However, the distribution of priests differs from continent to continent. Their numbers have fallen in Europe and America, and increased in Africa and Asia.
Students of philosophy and theology in diocesan and religious seminaries number 115,480, an increase of 0.9% from year-end 2005 to year-end 2006.Read the rest here.
Of course it goes without saying that as they rise, inquiries have to rise… More on that:
Catholic News Agency STAFF, Feb 29, 2008 (CNA).- A new survey has revealed that Catholic religious communities in the United States have increased the number of individuals they have in initial formation by 30 percent. Furthermore, 62 percent of communities participating in the survey reported an increase in vocation inquiries last year.The figures come from the VocationMatch.com Second Annual Survey on Trends in Religious Vocation. The survey was sponsored by VISION Vocation Guide and published by TrueQuest Communications of Chicago on behalf of the National Religious Vocation Conference.
The results come from surveys of 1096 discerners, of whom 320 responded, and 476 vocation directors, of whom 225 responded. Researchers also examined and compared, inquirer profiles, using 3,422 profiles from late 2007 to mid-2008 and 5,591 profiles from late 2006 to mid-2007. (READ ALL…)
No, this is not a photo from decades ago. This is not a photo of a church getting stripped before being torn down or sold.
Check out the photos posted over at the venerable blog Creative Minority Report for more details.
Not bad for a girl from Canton, Ohio! Then again, you should NEVER underestimate the resolve of Ohio-bred Catholics. To do so is just plain foolish.
Yes, Americans are now sending back missionaries of a sort to Europe. The sisters in France now, represent the rebuilding of their order, where their order was established.
People need to remember that Mother Angelica founded EWTN, in the heart of the deep South, in a diocese that is located in a place that is 2% Catholic, out of a “studio” built by cement blocks intended to be a garage. Not a very hopeful begining where one would expect success.
They also need to remember that while she built EWTN from that humble begining, at the same time the USCCB was attempting to create a Catholic network beamed by sattelite to places that had a sattelite dish - a very hopeful begining, with their money and clout, where one would expect success.
They utterly and unequivicobly failed - no two ways about it. She has been an unqualified success.
No word just yet as to the future of EWTN en français… but I would expect it to happen sooner rather than later.
I know it strains my charity a bit, but every time dissidents wince at the mention of Mother A’s name, I just curl my toes.
Stopping by the website http://www.websitepulse.com/help/testtools.china-test.html one is able to enter the address of any website and find out if the website is banned in China where the state still filters as best they can. Most of the blocked content is - by all accounts - blocked due to having “problematic words and phrases” I believe. As far as I can tell each and every web address isn’t tediously reviewed by some functionary serving in “People’s Revolutionary Interweb Council”…
That being the case, I am happy to report the content of PC makes it inaccessible in the People’s Republic of China. I wish the content of PC were available to the fine folks of the Middle Kingdom… All things considered though, I am honored.
I had hoped my blogging efforts, in addition to being recreational, would on occasion direct our 12 faithful readers to check out some other cool sites and resources and maybe learn about some of ASimpleSinner’s favorite saints and beati…
To be a danger to the Revolution, really, that is just the icing on the cake! We stand humbly along side some remarkably good company. Maybe I am just a huge reactionary nerd, but I have been bragging all day long that I am banned in China. Their loss!
Much sabre rattling is to be heard in some areas of Russia where there is displeasure that the Catholic Church has resumed activity with the fall of the USSR. Every so often, it is lamented in some quarters that a hierarchy and parishes have been re-erected for the nation’s 600,000+ Catholics. The fact of the matter is that before the revolution, there were as many as 3,000,000 Catholics in Russia - ethnic Germans, Poles, Lithuanians…
If today some believe that their presence is a threat to be excoriated, these same folks should consider how likely suppressing their Church will lead to the Catholic faithful there simply abandoning the practice of religion or entering Orthodoxy. Dare I suggest that these Catholics are not the biggest threat to Orthodox hegemony, and there are far bigger fish to fry?
The diocese of CiudaddelEste, near Paraguay’s borders with Argentina and Brazil, has a flourishing Faith community, but a glaring shortage of priests to serve the 800,000 souls who live there. Of the 76 priests serving this massive flock, just 16 are diocesan priests. But Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano has now opened a diocesan seminary, temporarily housed in a retreat centre. Some 72 students have undergone a rigorous, year-long selection process and are now being trained under the watchful eye of the dedicated and highly experienced academic staff. But, with almost half the population living below the poverty line, the diocese is reliant on outside help to subsidise what local funding it can get. Aid to the Church in Need has promised the bishop $30,800 ($405.27 per seminarian!) to train these young priests of tomorrow. Now we are turning to you, our generous benefactors. Please quote the reference “233-02-70″
Donations could be made to
Aid to the Church in Need (US OFFICE)
RE: Code: 135-01-11
725 Leonard Street
PO Box 220384
Brooklyn, NY 11222
800-628-6333
info@acnusa.org
Prayers accepted via all the usual routes. Ss. Roch Gonzalez, Aiphonsus Rodriguez, and Juan deCastilo, the Martyrs of Paraguay, may be especially interested.
On Thursday; January 17, 2008, the “Day of Thanksgiving” of the Rogation of the Ninevites, for which day the Gospel says, “On that day you will not question me about anything. Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you” (John 16:23), the Clergy Conference of the Assyrian Catholic Apostolic Diocese (ACAD) met in Dublin, California, to discuss the current situation and consider future plans for reestablishing communion with other Christians, in order to end their ecclesial isolation.
After praying to the Father and reflecting on the Scriptures and Tradition, the attendees unanimously adopted a “Declaration of Intention” in which they state their resolution “to enter full communion with the Catholic Church” and “to resume church unity with the Chaldean Catholic Church.” As a result, they foresee that this declaration will initiate a process of negotiation with respective Church authorities to define a concrete model of this union, in which the particularity of our apostolic tradition is preserved.
Present at this Clergy Conference were H.G. Bishop Mar Bawai Soro, four priests and sixteen deacons. Two more priests and fourteen other deacons of ACAD have also sent in advance their signed proxies in support of this Declaration. The gathered members ask all their brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for this noble intention so that each and every effort will contribute to the glory of God and the fulfillment of Christ’s prayer for His Holy Church “That they all may be one”. (John 17:21) Read All
Also worth taking a look at, http://www.marbawai.com/, the blogspot of His Grace Mar Bawai Soro where the press release and some of his writings can be found.
Additionally, Zenit reports have offered some small amount of news on Roman efforts to regularize and make canonical the situation of a group of Traditionalist Catholics who have sought to repair their fractured with the Holy See. No details have been released.
Plans to further work with Traditional Anglican Communion, it has also been whispered are in fact proceeding in Rome as well. No details have been released.
Please pray for all those listed above and for all the folks who are working to promote Catholic unity.
A gem found in the com box over at TitusOneNine in an article about the conversion of Bishop John Lispscomb, formerly of TEC. Levi Silliman Ives (1797-1867), Bishop of North Carolina 1831-1852, resigned in 1852 to become a Catholic; he was subsequently Prof. of Homiletics at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York City. (His wife, a daughter of the famous PECUSA Bishop of New York, John Henry Hobart [d. 1830] converted with him.)
Frederick Joseph Kinsman (1866-1944), Bishop of Delaware 1908-1919, resigned in 1919 to become a Catholic; he was subsequently Professor of Church History at The Catholic University of America.
Ives explained and justified his conversion in his *The Trials of a Mind in its Progress to the Catholic Faith* (1853), Kinsman in his Salve Mater (Longmans, Green & Co., 1920).
Godfrey Goodman (1583-1656), Bishop of Gloucester in the Church of England from 1626, became a Catholic shortly before his death. Graham Leonard, Bishop of London from 1981 to 1991, became a Catholic in 1994, after his retirement. Richard Rutt, bishop of Leicester from 1979 to 1991, became a Catholic in 1995. Two English Anglican suffragan bishops, John Klyberg of Fulham and Conrad Meyer of Dorchester, both became Catholics in that year as well, and I think that they both resigned to do so.
No bishop of the Anglican Communion has ever become Orthodox, I think (although Bishop Rutt of Leicester’s becoming a Catholic rather than an Orthodox in 1995 was a surprise to many, as he had previously been Patron of the very Orthodoxophile “Anglo-Orthodox Society”), but one Continuing Anglican bishop has: Robert Waggener, a bishop of the Anglican Province of Christ the King and later of the Diocese of the Holy Cross, became Orthodox about a year ago and is currently pastor of a Western-Rite Antiochian Orthodox parish in Alabama.
I always enjoy Dr. Tighe’s comments, wherever I may find them.
PC readers may recall a previous post about Father Nicholas Schofield over at Roman Miscellany and his adventures in the Gulf. See here.
Father is going back to the Gulf for ten days to help the Apostolic Vicariate of Arabia with their annual ‘Christian Formation Conference.’ A lot of people don’t know about how needed this work is. In fact the Catholic population on the Arabian Peninsula is growing… More on that here:
Please keep Father’s safe passage and missionary success in your prayers. And keep your eye on his blog for some great photos and stories. He has posted the following previously, I hope he shares more!
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Anglican and Episcopal, Catholic, General, Growth, Saints and Sainthood | Tagged: AnglicanChurch, England, JorgeF, Movies, ThomasMore | 
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