Category: Columns

On
Michelle Nilsson

A call to study Vatican II

Year of Faith column logo

The Year of Faith was called for by our Holy Father to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council.

In the years following Vatican II, the council’s purpose and the documents it promulgated were poorly understood, leading to a vast range of interpretation and division. It is important to note that the “spirit” of Vatican II that is often referenced is none other than the Holy Spirit who has maintained unity and guidance to the Church and our Sacred Tradition both before and after Vatican II.

It is only fitting that our current Holy Father has called for this year as a year to revisit the Council and her documents and, as a result, grow in faith and in unity with one another under the guidance of the Holy See.

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Tony Magliano

An inspiring Christmas ceasefire

Making a Difference column logo

As the first Christmas of World War I approached, Pope Benedict XV on December 7, 1914, asked the leaders of all warring governments to agree to an official ceasefire. He begged “that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang.”

Sadly, his plea was ignored by government leaders. But many of the soldiers in the trenches declared their own unofficial truce.

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Lindsay Becher

Finding the heart of practicing our faith

Year of Faith column logo

During this Year of Faith, we are called to take time to consider what is at the heart of the practice of our Catholic faith.

Hopefully this season of Advent has been a chance to prayerfully think about this topic and wait in anticipation for the answer. This may have been a battle, as our world poses many challenges to this task. There are Christmas parties to attend, light displays to enjoy, trees needing to be trimmed, gifts waiting to be wrapped, and meals to be planned. The pre-Christmas to-do list goes on and on.

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Fr. Tad Pacholczyk

Taboos and tattoos

Making Sense out of Bioethics column by Fr. Tad Pacholczyk

On TV these days, we’re seeing more and more programs about “body art” and tattoo design. Despite the apparent widespread acceptance of the practice, there are several problems with tattooing that go beyond the sanitary issues, disease transmission, and unclean inking needles that can be found in second-rate tattoo parlors.

Tattoos, as some who have gotten them have recognized, have negative associations. An article in the Dallas Morning News a few years ago chronicled the story of a young man named Jesus Mendoza, who was “going to great lengths to remove the six tattoos that hint at his erstwhile gang involvement. . .. He feels branded. ‘It’s the stereotyping,’ he said. ‘The question is: What do you think when you see a young Hispanic male with tattoos? You’re going to think gangs. And I think that, too, now.’”

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On
Lindsay Becher, For the Catholic Herald

Has the faith changed

Year of Faith column logo“Families only had one car in those days. . .” Tom Delaney smiles as he recounts the details of proposing to his bride Nan over 50 years ago. Around Christmas of 1961, he asked her dad for permission to borrow her family’s car to take her to midnight Mass at Holy Hill. A bit flustered, he forgot to ask her dad for permission to marry her.

Despite the small blunder, on that Christmas Eve he offered her a diamond, and she accepted.

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George Weigel

Using sacred language for sacred acts

The Catholic Difference column by George Weigel

It was just about a year ago that U.S. parishes began using the new translations of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal — an implementation process that seems to have gone far more smoothly than some anticipated.

Wrinkles remain to be ironed out: there are precious few decent musical settings for the revised Ordinary of the Mass; the occasional celebrant (not infrequently with “S.J.” after his name) feels compelled to share his winsome personality with the congregation by free-lancing the priestly greetings and prayers of Mass.

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Abbot Marcel Rooney, OSB

Sacraments of Christian Initiation: baptism for infants

Year of Faith column logo

The previous installment in this series spoke of Baptism for Adults. The Church has shown its understanding of this sacrament’s importance by creating the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

But the Church has always had the tradition of baptizing infants and children also. Thus, Acts 16 and 18 speak of three instances in which the “whole household” was baptized. Patristic evidence assures us that the practice of Infant Baptism continued unbroken in the first centuries — and so it has been down through the ages.

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