John B. Manos
For your Phone: Annunciation Novena (March 17 to March 25)
I like to have prayers on my iPhone for the convenience. I will take a picture of the prayer in the prayer book, missal, whatever, and then save the picture into an album. It makes it easy to find the prayer later, and it is convenient because the prayer is right on the phone. Tomorrow, the Annunciation…
Vatican smacks down Medjugorje Ivan talk in St. Louis
In case you missed it earlier this week, there is a bunch of ruffled feathers in the land of major googoo. St. Louis archdiocese sent a reminder to the faithful this week that we should not be promoting the story fantasies of this alleged vision. Probably because they’ve read the lives of the visionaries as…
Mocking the Church, Modern Style
Political correctness be damned. This is absurd. At some point, you have to tell people, “Go home, girls, you’re drunk!” Even at the risk of sounding like the old guy yelling “Get off my lawn!” Fantasyland is rife with new players everyday. It doesn’t really need much explanation — for a church that no longer believes…
A Jesuit to the Core: Pope Francis Manifests Sincere Practice of Exercises
Too traditional to be understood today in American Catholicism, and despite the constant grind against him by the news, and the ill feelings generated by those within the Church, Francis is teaching well, thank God — A Jubilee of Mercy and why his thoughts of death produced it.
Oh, that Death Penalty Thing Again…
It has been a couple years since the last death penalty confusion amassed, so it seems that once again, people are kicking dust up trying to make it seem like the death penalty is immoral. Surely they jest, right? But, the Catholic newspapers, all of them it seems, have rallied around taking a stance against it this…
Eternal Rest, Professor Rice
It is with saddened hearts that we learned of the passing last night of our Chairman, Professor Charles E. Rice. May God grant his soul to rest in a place of just repose. For us, Professor Rice has been a blessing to the Forum over the decades. He had a quick wit and always had God’s interests…
PSA: Ember Days Start Tomorrow, but who cares?
In a day and age where it seems like our own bishops aren’t fans of asking the faithful to fast, and when the purpose of Ember days was specifically to help Mother Church strengthen herself in her clergy, we should look at how we’ve done since abandoning this practice. In 1964, the United States had…
New! Now 36 Doctors of the Church- Armenian Narek added
Surprise! We now have 36 doctors of the Church! Reported today, Pope Francis has named St. Gregory of Narek to be a doctor of the Universal Church. This move is interesting on many levels, partly because of when Narek lived: he was born a mere 58 years before the Great Schism. So his life straddled the oncoming schism, but…
Lent: Crush the heads of invisible dragons
From the Melkite weekday services in Lent, known as the Presanctified Liturgy, the closing prayer: ALMIGHTY LORD who created the whole universe in wisdom; who by your ineffable providence and great goodness have brought us to these salutary days for the purification of our souls and bodies, for the control of our passions and for hope…
Father Hardon on Lent and his 7 Rules of Penance
Fr. Hardon gives the basis of penance as a Divine Law that each of us must do, or perish. We may voluntarily do penance now – with his 7 rules of penance – or forcefully have it done to us later.
