What is a heresy, and who is a heretic? Rev. John P. Cush is a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn. He serves as Academic Dean and as a formation advisor at the Pontifical North American College, Vatican City-State. Fr. Cush holds the Doctorate in Sacred Theology (STD) from the Pontifical Gregorian University, where he also teaches as an adjunct professor of Theology and U.S. Catholic Church History. He has served as a parish priest, high school seminary teacher, and as a Censor Librorum for his Diocese, as well as a theological consultant for NET TV. Fr. Cush is a …
Category: Apologetics
How can I explain transubstantiation?
Father Cal Christiansen is pastor of St. Pius X Parish in Mountlake Terrace Q: The other day I was trying to explain the eucharistic doctrine of transubstantiation to a coworker who is not Catholic, and I’m afraid she was more confused by the end of our conversation than when we started! How can I explain this doctrine to non-Catholics in a way that they can understand? A: When the disciples sat down with Jesus at the Last Supper, they were preparing to celebrate the Jewish Passover with him. Jesus, however, had something more in mind. “While they were eating, Jesus …
The Scourge of Pope Francis by Antonio Socci
Ambiguity and confusion reign under this pontificate The revelations made by Eugenio Scalfari about the personal (mis)beliefs of Pope Bergoglio continue. This week he dropped another bomb. Whoever has had, as I have several times, the fortune of meeting him and speaking to him with the maximum cultural trust, knows that Pope Francis conceives of the Christ as Jesus of Nazareth, man, not God incarnate. Once he has become incarnate, Jesus ceases to be a God and becomes a man up until his death on the cross. First, the journalist summarized a conversation in his own words: Whoever has had, as I have several …
Protestantism Made Me Catholic
Casey Chalk is a senior writer at Crisis and a graduate student at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Theology at Christendom College. First Things has been running a fascinating and provocative series of articles that question the principles and beliefs of most of its readers. In May, it published “Why I Became Muslim” by one Jacob Williams, a Brit who grew up Anglican and then converted to Islam. More recently, the magazine published “Catholicism Made Me Protestant,” a reflection by Onsi A. Kamel, who grew up a “non-denominational, baptistic evangelical,” then seriously considered Catholicism before returning to Protestantism, though …
Viganò Speaks: the “Infiltration” Is Real
Julia Meloni writes from the Pacific Northwest. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Yale and a master’s degree in English from Harvard. Jonah began his journey through the city, and when he had gone only a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. (Jonah 3:4-6) A year after his …
Cardinal Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider Announce Crusade of Prayer and Fasting
Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider citing “serious theological errors and heresies” in the Amazon Synod’s working document, called on the faithful to pray and fast over a 40 day period to prevent such errors being approved. Edward Pentin Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider have issued an eight-page declaration warning against six “serious theological errors and heresies” they say are contained in the Amazonian Synod working document, and calling for prayer and fasting to prevent them being approved. Cardinal Burke, patron of the Sovereign Order of Malta, and Bishop Schneider, auxiliary of Astana, Kazakhstan, have also published the appeal so Pope …
Noted Catholic Theologian Withdraws From German Synodal Path
Marianne Schlosser, a member of the International Theological Commission of the bishops’ conference of Austria, was awarded the 2018 Ratzinger Prize. Catholic News Agency VATICAN CITY — A member of the International Theological Commission has announced that she is no longer available to participate in the “binding synodal path” undertaken by the bishops’ conference of Germany. Marianne Schlosser, a member of the International Theological Commission, cited concerns over both the approach and methodology of the “synodal path” when she announced that she could no longer participate. Schlosser, a professor of theology at the University of Vienna and the recipient of …
Cardinal Sarah’s Cri de Coeur: The Catholic Church Has Lost Its Sense of the Sacred
Exclusive interview with the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Edward Pentin Cardinal Robert Sarah has said the Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazon Region, being a regional assembly of bishops, is not the forum to discuss priestly celibacy — a subject that is “unbearable” for the modern world because “some Westerners can no longer tolerate this scandal of the cross.” The subject is one of many the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments discusses in this exclusive Sept. 13 interview with Register Rome correspondent Edward …
Fr. Rutler’s Guide to Virtue-Signalling
By Fr. George W. Rutler Fr. George W. Rutler is pastor of St. Michael’s church in New York City. He is the author of many books including Principalities and Powers: Spiritual Combat 1942-1943 (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press) and Hints of Heaven (Sophia Institute Press). His latest books are He Spoke To Us (Ignatius, 2016); The Stories of Hymns (EWTN Publishing, 2017); and Calm in Chaos (Ignatius, 2018). Truths become truisms by being true. Shakespeare may have got some of his Aristotle through Ben Jonson; but, in any case, he has Polonius quoting the philosopher’s truism about night following …
Thomism and Political Liberalism, Part 1
Joseph G. Trabbic is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ave Maria University and is the assistant editor of Thomistica.net, a website for the academic study of St. Thomas Aquinas. Professor Trabbic earned his doctorate from Fordham University in 2008. Why do we – or better: why should we – live together in communities, make laws, and appoint leaders to govern us? The Catholic debate about the value of political and economic liberalism ebbs and flows. In the past few years in the U.S. it has become particularly public and intense. One of the highlights of this latest phase of the …