Tag: featured

Pope Posting

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One of the reasons I began this blog was in response to repeated Papal exhortations for Catholics to engage the digital world. There were other reasons why I started which I have mentioned before, but that was definitely one of them.

At the end of last month, Pope Benedict issued a document for World Communications Day. I have posted the document in its entirety below, underlining the parts which I thought were really important.

I think it should be required reading for all Catholics who have a Facebook account…

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Introduction to Islam (Part 2 of 5: Revelation)

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In yesterday’s blog post I began a brief introduction to Islam.  I focussed primarily on the founding of Islam and Muhammad.

Today I would like to look at the divine revelation which Islam claims to have received, which is found principally in the Qur’an/Koran.

As I said yesterday, I have done my best to ensure factual accuracy in all these posts and have used Islamic sources as much as possible to ensure that I’m not propagating Christian misconceptions of Islam.  I did send this to some Muslim friends for comment, but I have yet to hear back. If you are a follower of Islam and believe that I have misrepresented your religion, please drop me an email and I will remedy the situation.

The Qur’an

As mentioned in my previous post, the Qur’an (literally, “the recitation”) is a compilation of the messages given to Muhammad.

Christians and Muslims understand the concept of scripture differently.  Christians describe the Bible, in the words of St. Paul, as being “God breathed” (theopneustos).  As Dei Verbum explains:

“In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted” – Dei Verbum, Chapter 3

Muslims, on the other hand, view the Qur’an as the word of God in the most literal sense, believing that the text bears no imprint of the writer’s character whatsoever. Rather, they believe that the Qur’an is the literal word of God, dictated to Muhammad, written down verbatim.

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Roman Catholics Say The Darndest Things: Part 2

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A few days ago I began responding to the common reactions I hear when a Roman-Rite Catholic visits an Eastern-Rite parish for the first time. Last time I covered numbers 1-10 and today I’m going to finish the list with numbers 11-20 for “Roman Catholics Say The Dardnest Things”:

11. “What are the circles on sticks being carried around?”
These are called “rapidia” (or “flabella”). They are carried by altar servers in the Gospel procession and again when the bread and wine are brought to the altar. On them are pictures of angels. Symbolically, they remind us that our earthly liturgy touches Heaven.

ripidion

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The Orthodox Position on Contraception

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OCMCI’m reading a few books at the moment, but the one I’d like to mention today is Orthodox Christianity, Marriage & Contraception by Anthony Stehlin. I’m only about a third of the way through it so far, but I really wanted to do a short post concerning something mentioned in the first chapter….

A few months ago I decided to join an Eastern Orthodox online forum to try and soak up some more eastern knowledge. I actually found the group incredibly hostile to Catholics (especially Eastern Catholics), but that’s a post for another time.

Members of the group stated again and again that teaching in Eastern Orthodoxy has never changed, something which they contrasted to the supposed deviations of Catholicism. In response to this, I asked the group about the Eastern Orthodox position concerning contraception…

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Empty chairs at empty altars: Part 3

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Yesterday I discussed Mike’s view of the Church and the awkward predicament which comes about from his belief in the conclusion of the sacraments, the papacy, the priesthood and apostolic succession. Today I’d like to finish off by looking at Mike’s treatment of Pope Benedict (who was Pope at the time of our correspondence).

Thus speaketh The Google!

Mike asked me “Why do you think you get over 1,000.000 hits … when you Google … ‘Benedict XVI is a heretic’?”. I said that the answer to that was easy! There are a lot of people non-Catholics out there who think Benedict is a heretic! I would suggest that, since these people would not be Catholic, Mike would probably regard such people as heretics themselves!

Additionally, it’s worth knowing that such a Google query would also return pages which speak of Pope Benedict fighting against heresy. But rather than spend time explaining in more detail how Google determines its search results, I decided to use Mike’s test and apply it to himself…

When I typed into Google the phrase “Mike is a heretic” I found I got 2,540,000 results! That’s over double the number of pages! So…what does that prove? Well, I’d say it probably proves about as much as Mike’s Google query for Pope Benedict…

Benedict XVI

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Catholic Family Tree

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Last Thursday I celebrated the Feast of Theophany at Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Parish with four of my Roman Rite friends. While we were there I attempted to explain how all the different rites of the Catholic Church relate to one another. I don’t think I did a very good job at explaining it, so I’m going to have another go now…

The Church began in Jerusalem (Acts 2) and, over time, major Christian centres developed in the cities of Rome, Antioch and Alexandria. It was from these cities that the major rites of the Church developed. This can be seen more clearly from the following diagram I found on a friend’s Facebook page:

Catholic Rites

The Second Vatican Council had this to say concerning the different rites of the Church:

“[In] faithful obedience to tradition, the sacred Council declares that Holy Mother Church holds all lawfully recognized rites to be of equal right and dignity, and that she wishes to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way”

– Sacrosanctum Concilium

So, although the Catholic Church is one Church, it is also a communion of Churches.

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