This Christmas, the Church will also be celebrating during the special “Holy Year of Mercy” called by Pope Francis. What does mercy mean to this Pope? A great deal, for he experienced mercy himself, and it changed him forever... “When I see the sick, the elderly, a caress comes spontaneously to me. A caress is... the [...]
Pope Paul VI promulgated the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, known by its first words Lumen Gentium (“The Light of the Nations”) on November 21, 1964 —51 years ago. What did it say? “Christ is the Light of nations.” —First words of Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, promulgated by Pope [...]
October 30, 2015, Friday — Francis and The Face of Christ "Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian faith." —Pope Francis, first words of the bull of indiction for the Holy Year of Mercy, entitled Misericordiae Vultus, April 11, 2015 "'Patient and merciful.' [...]
October 27, 2015, Tuesday — The Withdrawal of the Logos "In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum..." ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God..." or "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos [...]
October 24, 2015, Saturday — Three Less Unanimous Paragraphs (with Vote Total "While insisting on God’s love for homosexual persons and the obligation to respect their dignity, the report also insisted homosexual unions could not be recognized as marriages and denounced as 'totally unacceptable' governments or international organizations making recognition of 'marriage’ between persons of the [...]
October 24, 2015, Saturday — The Pope's Final Discourse Today At eh end of the Synod, Pope Francis gave a final discourse in the presence of 265 bishops attending the final session, which ended just a few minutes ago. The press conference to sum up the final document and the 94 propositions that were approved is [...]
October 24, 2015, Saturday — Final Synod Document Approved The Bishops' Synod on the Family has ended. The final document has been approved. All 94 points have been approved by more than a 2/3 majority. A final closing discourse by Pope Francis received enthusiastic applause. In the next hour, the final document will be published, incuding [...]
October 23, 2015, Friday — From Russia to Rome "The word mother can be traced back cleanly to Proto-Indo-European, as can father, brother and sister -- it appears in cognate form in languages like Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and so forth, and it may go back further." —Discussion of the origin of the word "mother" on an [...]
October 21, 2015, Wednesday — A Japanese Doctor in a Helicopter... It seems like the beginning of a bad joke. And, in fact, it is. A very bad joke, in fact... All of Rome this morning was in an uproar about the story that a Japanese doctor based in the United States who works in an [...]
October 19, 2015, Thursday — The Best Talk at the Synod "My father was a Christian political leader, who was imprisoned by the communists for 17 years. My parents were engaged to marry, but their wedding took place 17 years later. My mother waited all those years for my father, although she didn’t even know if [...]