“A Plea for Intolerance”: A Catholic Moral Reflection on Truth, Error, and the Crisis of Moral Indifference
©2016 Victor R. Claveau, MJ “America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance. It is not. It is suffering from tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so much overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded… In the face […]
The Ten Commandments in Judaism
By Rabbi Ronald H. Isaacs My Jewish Learning There are 13 sentences in the accepted Jewish version of the Ten Commandments (17 in the Christian). The division and structure has been open to interpretation throughout history. The division of the commandments themselves is not at all certain. There are 13 sentences in the accepted Jewish version […]
THE GREAT SAINTS OF THE SECOND CENTURY
Chief amongst the martyrs of the second century were St. Polycarp of Smyrna and St. Ignatius of Antioch, both of whom are said to have received their mission direct from St. John the Evangelist. St. Polycarp, who is supposed to have lived from 69 to 155, may justly be called a link between apostolic times […]
“Outside the Church there is no salvation”
How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body: Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one […]
Monstrance
From the Latin “To Show.” This is a sacred vessel used to display the Eucharist for adoration. It is usually gold, often decorated with precious stones with rays emanating from a glass in the center beneath which the Sacred Host is reserved. The monstrance is used for the ceremony of blessing with the Eucharist known […]
All Hallows’ Eve
We celebrate Halloween on the evening before All Saints Day. The word itself is a shortened form of “All Hallows’ Eve,” which quite literally means “the eve of All Saints.” From the earliest days of the Feast of All Saints (mid 700s A.D.), Catholics observed October 31 as the vigil of this November 1 celebration. […]
Report from Auschwitz
Stanislawa Leszczynska. In my 35 years of work as a midwife, I spend 2 years as a midwife-prisoner in a women’s concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Among many transports arriving to the camp there were lots of pregnant women. I was assigned a position of a midwife on 3 separate barracks, which were similar in a structure and the […]
Brokeback Syndrome — More Than One Way Off the Mountain
Warren Throckmorton By now, the plot line of Brokeback Mountain is well known. For those just returning from another planet, here it is: in the early 1960s, two young, male sheep herders, Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar become sexually involved for a summer on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming. Then, with no strings attached, they move on to marry […]