Category Archives: All Things Catholic

Andy Warhol – a Celibate Catholic? – Aleteia

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Andy Warhol – a Celibate Catholic? – Aleteia.
Beside his bed, Warhol placed a handmade plaster-of-paris shrine, with a crucifix and a worn prayer book on his bedside table. Under his white shirt, he wore a cross on a chain around his neck; and in his pocket, he carried a rosary.

Andy Warhol’s Catholicism was evident in his philanthropy as well as his personal piety. He was a generous supporter of several organizations including a soup kitchen operated by the Church of the Heavenly Rest, an Episcopal church on E. 90th Street. Not content to only help financially, Warhol volunteered at the soup kitchen, ladling soup or helping in any way he could. And when his nephew announced that he wanted to become a Catholic priest, Warhol stepped up to finance the young man’s years of seminary study.

In his eulogy at Warhol’s funeral, British art historian John Richardson said,
I’d like to recall a side of his character that he hid from all but his closest friends: his spiritual side. Those of you who knew him in circumstances that were the antithesis of spiritual may be surprised that such a side existed. But exist it did, and it’s key to the artist’s psyche.  

Although Andy was perceived – with some justice – as a passive observer who never imposed his beliefs on other people, he could on occasion be an effective proselytizer. To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion.

He took considerable pride in financing his nephew’s studies for the priesthood. And he regularly helped out at a shelter serving meals to the homeless and hungry. Trust Andy to have kept these activities in the dark. The knowledge of this secret piety inevitably changes our perception of an artist who fooled the world into believing that his only obsessions were money, fame, glamour, and that he could be cool to the point of callousness. Never take Andy at face value…

via Andy Warhol – a Celibate Catholic? – Aleteia.

Exclusive – Cardinal Burke: Church Risks Serious Tensions in Months Ahead

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via Exclusive – Cardinal Burke: Church Risks Serious Tensions in Months Ahead.”

Cardinal Raymond Burke has said he is at the service of Pope Francis, has no personal animosity towards him, and those who claim the American cardinal is an opponent of the Pontiff are trying to discredit him.

The head of the Vatican’s highest court also told Breitbart Tuesday the Catholic Church risks schism if bishops are seen to “go contrary” to the Church’s established and unchangeable dogmas in the months ahead.

The Vatican prelate was speaking in Vienna Tuesday, at the launch of the German translation of Remaining in the Truth of Christ, a book to which he contributed. The work is a response to Cardinal Walter Kasper’s proposal to allow some remarried divorcees to have access to holy Communion. The Catholic Church has always barred such a possibility, based on Christ’s teaching that remarrying after divorce constitutes adultery.

“Certain media simply want to keep portraying me as living my life as an opponent to Pope Francis,” he said. “I am not at all. I’ve been serving him in the Apostolic Signatura and in other ways I continue to serve him.”

The Wisconsin-born prelate was responding to comments he made in an interview he gave the Spanish weekly Vida Nueva last week. The article misconstrued him as criticizing the Pope–despite his stressing in the interview that he was not at odds with Francis.

He told the Spanish publication there is a “strong sense” the Church is like a “ship without a helm, whatever the reason for this may be.” But he made it clear in the interview he was not “speaking out” against the Pontiff. He said the Pope is right to call on Catholics to “go out to the peripheries” but added “we cannot go to the peripheries empty-handed.”

“I wasn’t saying that the Holy Father’s idea is this,” he explained, “but I’ve seen other people using his words to justify a kind of ‘accommodation’ of the faith to the culture which can never be so.”

Burke told Breitbart his wish is “to present the Church’s teaching around which there’s been a great deal of confusion.” He pointed to last month’s synod on the family in Rome as partly to blame, and said those who identify with a “so-called reformist agenda” of Pope Francis are now trying “to discredit what I say by attributing it to some personal animosity toward the Holy Father, and that’s not right.”

Asked about the singer Elton John’s recent praise of Pope Francis as a hero of gay rights, Burke said the Church needs to be “diligent” in explaining “very carefully” her teaching, making proper distinctions between the sinner and the sin. He also reasserted the Pope’s concern for people with same-sex attraction, one which “understands that even though they have this attraction, it is an attraction to disordered acts” and that they need to seek God’s “healing and grace” to deal with their “very profound suffering.”

Burke has been one of the most outspoken opponents of Kasper’s proposal, saying it is not Catholic, threatens the indissolubility of marriage, and is therefore unacceptable. “The Church must do everything she can when, once again, the integrity of marriage is under attack,” he told the Viennese audience.”

via Exclusive – Cardinal Burke: Church Risks Serious Tensions in Months Ahead.

 

Healing the Original Wound

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“If you have loved and been loved in return, you have some idea of what the promise of eternal life is.  You can think a little of the love of God.  If you feel that you have been unloved or have not really loved, then you have a great hunger inside of you for the mysterious love of God.  In either case, you know something about the imperative need, the restlessness, the hunger that we all have to find love, unfailing love, in the brief reality we call our lives.”

Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel

Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel died recently after a long life of love and service.  I’ve asked him to be my spiritual director now that he has eternity to answer my questions. I’ll start small with his book.

Read a bit more  about Fr. Groeschel

“Why I refuse to bless children at communion”

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A priest writes: “Why I refuse to bless children at communion” — UPDATED.

Here’s Father Cory Sticha on the topic:

I’ve been thinking more and more about my concerns around giving special blessings to children at Mass. There are a number of people here who are continuing to express concern because of my stance on not blessing children in the communion line. To be clear, this is a position taken not out of spite, but out of a respect for the liturgy and for the documents of the Second Vatican Council. In paragraph 22, Sacrosanctum Concilium states, “Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.” A priest does not have the authority to add a blessing to the liturgy for anyone, because a priest does not have the authority to add anything to the liturgy. It doesn’t matter if other priests go beyond their authority and do it in disobedience. In my mind, it is inappropriate, and I will not. Period."Read More:

On the Way to Heaven

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I like to think it’s all about transformation here or hereafter that is if we choose by our lives to love God. Here is a homily given on All Souls Day-2014 by  Fr. Michael DePalma
“-Padre Pio had many incredible, mystical gifts.  One such was the gift of being able to witness many souls in Purgatory who came to visit him during the course of a typical day.  Often they would just be there, asking him to pray for their intercession. Other Franciscan priests have verified this, because on occasion they themselves were also able to see the person who had come to visit Padre Pio.
-But on one occasion Padre Pio was in the choir loft after the church was locked saying his prayers when he heard what sounded like a candlestick falling.  He looked down from the loft and saw a Friar moving around the altar.  So he shouted down to him asking who he was and what was he doing there. The friar said that he was visiting.  Padre Pio came down the stairs and asked which monastery he was from.  The friar said, “This one.”  Padre Pio replied, “How could that be, I’ve been here for years and I have never seen you.”  The friar said, “I was here 100 years ago.  I was the sacristan.” It was then that Padre Pio noticed that the friar had been dusting the candlesticks on the altar.
-And the friar at the altar turned to Padre Pio and said that he was sent from Purgatory for he had been there 100 years and no one had ever prayed for him. He was requesting Padre’s prayers. Padre Pio asked the friar what did he do to merit Purgatory and the friar answered that when he was saying Mass, and when he was performing his duties as sacristan, he wasn’t always reverent to the Holy Eucharist.  He was very sloppy, especially around the altar.  The next morning Padre Pio said Mass for the intention of this friar, and he was able to mystically see this poor soul from Purgatory enter into heaven itself.
– “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”  Only the pure get to go to heaven.  That is why so many saints and theologians have said over the centuries that for those who will avoid going to hell, the majority of people will have to go through Purgatory first, before receiving the great reward of heaven.
-Though it sounds a bit cheesy, it is still true:  heaven is for people who are dying to get there.  And anything that gets in the way of us getting to our eternal home has to go, has to be removed—we have to die to ourselves.
-But most of us are not at that point yet.  We are still too attached to our ways:  to our hatred and anger, to our gossiping, to our lustfulness, to our overindulgences, to our selfish thoughts.
We need purification.  We need Purgatory.
-However, belief in Purgatory has declined in modern times because the modern mind has forgotten two extremely important things:  the purity of God, and the horror of sin.
-Because so many people today are used to getting away with so much that they should not be doing, we have to admit that our teachers, our bosses, our husbands or wives, our mothers or fathers would be amazed to know all of the stuff that we do behind their backs.  And we just continue with that attitude, going so far as to think that even God is not aware of what we are doing, or if He is, no worries, He will just let us slide. Continue reading →