Rome, Italy, Sep 17, 2019 / 03:18 pm (CNA).- St. Robert Bellarmine, whose feast is celebrated Sept. 17 on the General Roman Calendar, was a Jesuit and a cardinal who used his incredible intellect to defend Catholic teaching, largely through responses to the Church’s opponents in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation.

In all his writings, St. Bellarmine “maintained a charitable disputation that kept the focus on the theological issues,” according to Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J.

Munich, Germany, Sep 16, 2019 / 11:45 am (CNA).- The head of the German bishops’ conference told Vatican officials last week that addressing controversial theological topics during the German bishops’ proposed “binding synodal path” will be a service to the universal Church.

“We hope that the results of forming an opinion [on these matters] in our country will also be helpful for the guidance of the Universal Church and for other episcopal conferences on a case-by-case basis. In any case, I cannot see why questions about which the Magisterium has made determinations should be withdrawn from any debate, as your writings suggest,” Cardinal Reinhard Marx wrote in a Sept. 12 letter to Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who is head of the Vatican’ Congregation for Bishops.

Vatican City, Sep 12, 2019 / 01:18 pm (CNA).- In a letter sent to German bishops last week, the Vatican has said that plans for a binding Church synod in Germany are “not ecclesiologically valid.” 

Plans for a “binding synodal process” were first announced by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, head of the German episcopal conference, earlier this year. 

Every hope I had for true, authentic sisterhood where women built each other up was shattered by the words of women who put themselves and others down. I lived in the comfort of shallow female friendships that only knew me by my appearance, not my heart.

We “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) regardless of how large or small we believe that sin to be. But it is the cross that changes everything!

If Jesus is Lord, everything changes. Jesus being God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, means that you are infinitely loved by your Father in heaven and are given the Church through the Holy Spirit to live a fulfilling and meaningful life in Christ.

This week’s poem in the Catholic Poetry Room is by Doug Taylor-Weiss.                                                                                                 [...]

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Dear Sister Timothy Marie, Sister Timothy, are you a nun? Dear Friend, Well, I do wear a long brown habit and I have professed three vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, in consecration to God forever. But am I a nun?  My name is SISTER Timothy Marie. But am I a nun? Here is the answer. In a practical, everyday [...]

The post Ask a Carmelite — Is There a Difference Between a Nun and a Sister? appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25) But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are [...]

The post The Exaltation of the Holy Cross appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

This week’s poem in the Catholic Poetry Room is by Doug Taylor-Weiss.                                                                                                 [...]

The post Son of the Father appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

Dear Sister Timothy Marie, Sister Timothy, are you a nun? Dear Friend, Well, I do wear a long brown habit and I have professed three vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, in consecration to God forever. But am I a nun?  My name is SISTER Timothy Marie. But am I a nun? Here is the answer. In a practical, everyday [...]

The post Ask a Carmelite — Is There a Difference Between a Nun and a Sister? appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25) But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are [...]

The post The Exaltation of the Holy Cross appeared first on Integrated Catholic Life™.

The reading at Mass today from the First Letter of St. Paul to Timothy enumerates the virtues required of a bishop. Among these we find that he should be “temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach.” These traits, most outstandingly the last, accurately characterize the saint whom the Church celebrates today. St. Robert Bellarmine was a diocesan bishop for only two brief periods of a few years each, but during these times—and indeed throughout his life—he distinguished himself for his zeal and ability in preaching and teaching the faith. Born in Montepulciano in Italy, he joined the Jesuits at a young age. He played an important role in all the great theological controversies of his day, and he used his abilities and erudition to serve the Church well in many important and high-profile positions. Among these were the chair of controversies at the Roman College, trusted consultant to…

This is not your grandmother. This is a guy who lived a pretty squalid life for a while and then, through the secretive, inner workings of God, alongside a fair amount of philosophical probing, came to embrace an entirely new mode of roaming the earth, one that is far more eurythmic with how life, I believe, is objectively meant to be lived, and still sensational, still fun. No, I didn’t discover nirvana (though I did try, once). Rather, at the age of twenty-eight, I became Catholic. With a background in philosophy, influenced heavily by those garrulous old atheists, I spent a substantial proportion of life thinking existence was absurd. So, I lived however I wanted. I wasn’t a heroin addict, and I didn’t rob banks. But I was pretty selfish and gross. I didn’t like to share. I didn’t like to give. I was a hedonist. (Once, I made liberal…

Saint John Chrysostom tells us that “it is not so much sin as despair that casts us into hell.” How can this be? Despair is not the most serious of sins, but in the Christian life, it can be the most dangerous, for to despair is to anticipate damnation. Saint Thomas Aquinas considers despair a major factor in the “sin against the Holy Spirit” that Jesus speaks of in the Scriptures (ST II-II q. 14, a. 2): And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. (Matt. 12:32) What is despair but a final resistance to the gift of grace? It is the radical decision of a soul that no longer wishes to share the life of God, but desires to spend its life, and…

For as long as I can remember, I have loved the saints. I remember poring over children’s lives of the saints at a Catholic bookstore my parents visited. I was drawn to their stories — stories of men and women who loved and longed for God. At the most difficult moments of life, the saints […]

Sometimes I feel surly because the majority of saints don’t look like me.  They’re not married, or they don’t have large families, or they lived a long time ago in Europe or something, and generally didn’t have to deal with the spiraling decay of modern life while still striving for heaven. I think they all […]

“No one cares about reality anymore…” A character in Terrence Malick’s 2015 film, Knight of Cups, uses that memorable phrase to describe a pleasure-soaked Los Angeles, in which the movie’s main character, a screenwriter played by Christian Bale, has lost himself. Numbed by malaise, he wanders as a passive observer from experience to experience and […]