Why Worry About Hell Now?

In 1990, my friend and I drove from Toronto to Florida in my three-year-old Mustang. I asked him, “Do you think I should spray the underside of my car to keep it from rusting?”

“Why worry about that now?” he responded.

Twenty-two years later, I’m still driving that car. It hasn’t rusted out, because I did worry about it, and spent the time and money to rust proof it every fall.

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In 1968, Something Terrible Happened in the Church

https://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=2782389d-da2c-40ce-8d7f-071d2345291c

 

Humanae Vitae
The Year of the Peirasmòs — 1968
By Cardinal James Francis Stafford

“Lead us not into temptation” is the sixth petition of the Our Father. Peirasmòs, the Greek word used in this passage for ‘temptation,’ means a trial or test. Disciples petition God to be protected against the supreme test of ungodly powers. The trial is related to Jesus’s cup in Gethsemane, the same cup which his disciples would also taste (Mk 10: 35-45). The dark side of the interior of the cup is an abyss. It reveals the awful consequences of God’s judgment upon sinful humanity. In August 1968, the weight of the evangelical Peirasmòs fell on many priests, including myself.

It was the year of the bad war, of complex innocence that sanctified the shedding of blood. English historian Paul Johnson dubs 1968 as the year of “America’s Suicide Attempt.” It included the Tet offensive in Vietnam with its tsunami-like effects in American life and politics, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee; the tumult in American cities on Palm Sunday weekend; and the June assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Southern California. It was also the year in which Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical letter on transmitting human life, Humanae Vitae (HV). He met immediate, premeditated, and unprecedented opposition from some American theologians and pastors. By any measure, 1968 was a bitter cup.

On the fortieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, I have been asked to reflect on one event of that year, the doctrinal dissent among some priests and theologians in an American archdiocese on the occasion of its publication. It is not an easy or welcome task. But since it may help some followers of Jesus to live what Pope Paul VI called a more “disciplined” life (HV 21), I will explore that event.

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HHS Mandate

 

by Ben Johnson

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/hhs-mandate-could-close-13-percent-of-the-nations-hospitals

 

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 6, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com)—The nation’s Catholic bishops have vowed to close their religious institutions rather than comply with the HHS mandate that they provide insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. In a column printed on CatholicNewWorld, Francis Cardinal George urged people to purchase a copy of the Archdiocesan directory “as a souvenir,” because in two years the page containing a list of Catholic hospitals and health care institutions “will be blank.”  

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Bach choir

Brompton Oratory 16th May 2012   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKjJrdeyC8Y

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St. Padre Pio

St. Padre Pio

Incorrupt body put on display after having died 40 years ago.     St. Padre Pio – Pray for us!  

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Caught on Tape, Canadian Bishops

Caught on tape: Canadian bishops-backed group doles out free contraception

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/caught-on-tape-canadian-bishops-backed-group-doles-out-free-contraception

ORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 5, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – While the U.S. bishops valiantly fight a mandate by the Obama administration forcing people of faith to cover contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs, the Canadian bishops’ international development arm is supporting a Haitian group that has been caught handing out free contraceptives.

Archbishop Richard Smith (L) and Archbishop Paul-André Durocher (R) are guided by APROSIFA coordinator Lody Auguste (centre) through the group’s art exhibit.

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“I’m my own God”

Religious people are often comforted by statistics which show that the vast majority of people still “believe in God.” However, let’s take a closer look at the nature of this “belief.” A tiny minority believes in God according to the traditional Catholic faith. Many more are “cafeteria Catholics” who pick and choose which parts of the faith they will accept and which they will reject. Many cafeteria Catholics will still warm a pew on Sunday mornings. However, they tend to reject aspects of the faith that “don’t make any sense” to them. The next type represents the vast majority of “believers.” They claim to believe in God, but are uninterested in or hostile to all organized religion. “I keep faith in my own way,” they say.

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