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Showing posts from September, 2014

What does "extremist" mean?

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Sam Moqadam on Unsplash   If the members of ISIS, who are beheading Catholics in the Levant, are extremist Muslims and the Hindus, who are beheading Catholics in India and Pakistan, are extremist Hindus, then were the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes, who crucified Jesus extremist Jews?

The Pope-Eye View

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  A friend and I were talking today about events around the world and in our own country and how very little of it seems to affect the lives, thoughts, or actions of those we know and observe in our daily travels. It struck us that the Holy Father's view of all of this must be fairly distressing. To wit, in one half of the world Catholics are being slaughtered physically by the hundreds or even the thousands every day. Just a daily reading of the news blurbs coming across the Missio app makes clear the sheer horror these people are facing as they are being identified, culled, and killed. The Catholics in the other half of the world are being slaughtered spiritually. Consumerism, cynicism, self-hatred, incredibly poor catechesis, complacency, and countless other evils either have pushed Catholics out of the Church or have left them in the Church as cultural Catholics with no real attachment to the faith. While not as dramatic, so not the fodder of news editors, this slaught

God's Faithful Servant

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  Today is the feast of St. Peter Claver. Below is a quote of his. It behooves me always to imitate the example of the ass. He never complains in any circumstances, for he is only an ass. So also must God's servant, the priest, be. May God grant all of our bishops, priests, and ourselves the humility to imitate the example of the ass.