So on November 6th the President of Catholic Answers, Christopher Check, will be at St. Stanislaus on Historic Mitchell Street to give a talk on Lepanto.
We welcome anyone and everyone to this talk which is sure to be a great time. We suggest a donation of $35 per person which will go towards restoring St. Stanislaus to its former beauty. However, if you are unable to donate in such quantity, discounts are likely to be made available. We really want people to hear this great speaker so invite anyone and everyone to come!
Also, Mass will be said at 6:30pm in the Main Church, with confessions a half an hour beforehand.
If you have any questions feel free to contact us at sursumcordamke@gmail.com
The flyer is below, feel free to share far and wide
“I have been asked to
explain something about myself which seems to be regarded as very
extraordinary. The problem has been presented to me in the form of a cutting
from a very flattering American article, which yet contained a certain
suggestion of wonder. So far as I can understand, it is thought extraordinary
that a man should be ordinary. I am ordinary in the correct sense of the term;
which means the acceptance of an order; a Creator and the Creation, the common sense of gratitude for
Creation, life and love as gifts permanently good, marriage and chivalry as
laws rightly controlling them, and the rest of the normal
traditions of our race and religion. It is also thought a little odd that I
regard the grass as green, even after some newly-discovered Slovak artist has
painted it grey; that I think daylight very tolerable in spite of thirteen
Lithuanian philosophers sitting in a row and cursing the light of day; and
that, in matters more polemical, I
actually prefer weddings to divorces and babies to Birth Control.These
eccentric views, which I share with the overwhelming majority of mankind, past
and present, I should not attempt to defend here one by one. And I only give a
general reply for a particular reason. I wish to make it unmistakably plain
that my defense of these sentiments is not sentimental. It would be easy to
gush about these things; but I defy the reader, after reading this, to find the
faintest trace of the tear of sensibility. I hold this
view not because it is sensibility, but because it is sense."
“After the funeral, Farley's mother asked Foley not to
give any interviews. The media was hungry for details of Farley's life and
death from anyone close to the comedian in his last days. He obliged.
Last year, though, Foley got a call from Mrs. Farley, who
asked him to participate in the "I Am Chris Farley" documentary. He
agreed and sat for a two-hour interview talking about his friend and
reminiscing about old times.
…
Like when Farley had just moved into a new apartment in
New York and asked his ordained friend to come bless it.
Foley was walking around the apartment sprinkling holy
water when he turned around and saw Farley following him, his hands folded like
an altar server, quietly reciting the Hail Mary and Our Father prayers to
himself.
"He was completely serious, but it cracked me up
because it was just the two of us there and he looked so funny with his hands
folded," Foley remembered. ‘But he was dead serious, and there was a tenderness
in his face. It was a beautiful thing.’”
“Once your baby starts to walk you’ll realize why cribs are
designed like prisons from the early 1900s. This is clearly because toddlers
are a danger to themselves. The main responsibility for a parent of a toddler
is to stop them from accidentally hurting or killing themselves. They are
superclumsy. If you don’t believe me, watch a two-year-old girl attempt to walk
up stairs in a long dress. It looks like a Carol Burnett sketch. Also, toddler
judgment is horrible. They don’t have any. Put a twelve-month-old on a bed, and
they will immediately try and crawl off headfirst like a lemming on a mindless
migration mission. But the toddler mission is never mindless. They have two
goals: find poison and find something to destroy.” - Jim Gaffigan
I had hoped that this would be rectified before I wrote on the matter, yet sadly Mr. Coren has chosen by his own free will to leave the Catholic faith for the Church of England.
You might know Mr. Coren from his literary works like "Why Catholics are Right" and "Heresy". His reasoning for departure from the sole fold of Christ has to do with secular ideals.
I was a little concerned about this new series just because I was not sure of the production quality and the story lines that would be seen within, but my goodness I LOVE this series!
The character stays true to the comics and this Catholic faith is a central point of the series.
It is a little darker than other Marvel films so I would not recommend it for those under 12, but it is a fantastic series! I would say that the series is closer to "The Dark Knight" films then any Marvel films I can think of.
Another interesting thing is the way they developed the characters within during season one. Both Matt Murdock and King Pin are intense figures with great depth. I would even say that King Pin is the best Marvel studios villain to date.
Have you ever wondered why the Catholic Church declared anglican orders to be invalid, therfore null and void?
Enjoy the following video on the issue put together by the late and great Michael Davies, and read the encyclical promulgated by Leo XII entitled Apostolicae Curae:
I'm sure many of you are aware of those apologists out there like George Weigel, Michael Novak and now [?] John Zmirak who hammer on the greatness of Americas founding and the egalitarian joys this country celebrates. If you love their work the following video is not for you [fyi]
The synopsis:
James Madison and The Federalist Papers were both instrumental in creating and achieving confirmation of the American Constitution. Dr. Bond shows how the ideas they expressed are very problematic for the Catholic world view. One special difficulty is, once again, their Lockean presumption that order is built upon maintaining and encouraging the disagreement and factionalism of many warring groups in society. Taken from: Regalism, Revolution, the Reign of Terror and the Assault on Catholicism (1648-1799) - 1998 VonHildebrand Institute
I came across this audio the otherday, and since this remains a hot topic I have put it on YouTube to be shared. He also mentions Fr. Fessio S.J. seeking his (Fr. Hardon's) approval for publishing Von Balthasar's works for Ignatius Press (you will find his answer to Fr. Fessio surprising):
I have also included some more videos on Topics Fr. Hardon Covered below
Roberto de Mattei)
By Vincent Chiarello
COSMOS CLUB, April 9, 2014—The stately Cosmos Club of Washington D.C., located
in “Embassy Row” of our nation’s capital was the site of a recent talk by the
Italian historian of religion, Roberto de Mattei. The attractive external
design of the Cosmos Club is reminiscent of French la belle époque style
architecture, and was constructed at the turn of the 20th century.
A crowd of more than 100, including at least four Catholic priests, attended
the one-hour lecture in which de Mattei laid out the consequences of Vatican
II, the expanded details of which are included in his recently published, The
Second Vatican Council, an Unwritten Story.
Roberto de Mattei serves as President of the Lepanto Foundation, which,
although American in its origins, maintains an office in Rome and is associated
with Italian Christian organizations such as Marcia per la Vita -
the March for Life.
He is the editor of the Italian journal,
Radici Cristiane (Christian Roots), and for his work with the
Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, the Holy See awarded him the
insignia of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great.
He is also the author of The Vicar of Christ: Between the Ordinary and
the Exceptional, and teaches Church History at the European University
of Rome,where he is the head of the Faculty of Historical
Sciences. De Mattei became a focus of attention when he
was recently relieved of his position at Radio Maria, a Vatican radio station,
after four years. He was told by Radio Maria’s Director, Fr. Livio Fanzaga, the priest who hired him, that
the principal reason for his dismissal was that he had not affirmed the
teaching of the Magisterium of the Church (my emphasis), something
that still puzzles de Mattei and many others. In an interview prior to his departure to the
U.S., de Mattei stated that he believes that his support in gathering
signatures in support of the Franciscans of the Immaculate to offer the
Tridentine Mass was “not liked by certain high ecclesiastics, who asked Fr.
Livio for my head.” He then added that since Vatican II, while calling for
“dialogue” with separated brethren, “...they (the anti-Traditionalists in the
Vatican) use a fist of iron toward those within the Church who do not want to
stray from the unchangeable Tradition of the Church.” Why he would become a troublemaker, subversive,
or even a heretic to certain members of the Vatican’s dicastri (departments)
was a theme, amongst others, that he would try to explain as part of the
lecture at the Cosmos Club. In attempting to describe the changes in the
Church over the past half century, Professor de Mattei sought to connect, as a
historian, not a theologian, the impact of other cataclysmic events such as the
French Revolution, “the mother of all revolutions,” to changing attitudes in
the Church, something that another contributor to The Remnant, Prof.
John Rao, has also described. As a historian he could see the early evidence
of those consequences as Vatican II unfolded over the arc of a half century,
and which are now clearly detectable to any observer. Noticeable changes from
the Church’s earlier attitudes, de Mattei emphasized, came about as the Church
increasingly adopted, perhaps unwittingly, the philosophical framework of the
Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci, who claimed that Socialism/Communism would
“march through the institutions,” but in a nonviolent way. Gramsci’s
philosophical victory, de Matttei maintains, is in claiming that “objective
truth” would overtake that of “supernatural truth,” and that religious belief
would slowly be replaced by a philosophical framework in which in order to
survive the Church must modernize. That transformation is described by de
Mattei as “principle giving way to praxis,” a situation in which the Church has
increasingly “ceased to fight” for its principles. The historical evidence of
that reversal, among other accommodations with modernism, “the synthesis of all
heresies,” can be found the documents of Vatican II. While it is fair to say, as one questioner did,
that although few recall the four Constitutions of the French Republic during
the Revolution, most recall at least one major historical consequence: the
guillotine. De Mattei reiterated that it makes little sense to examine the
documents of Vatican II in a vacuum; it is what has historically happened to
the Church in the intervening half century that really matters. To de Mattei
there could be no question that a “profound crisis within the Church” now
engulfs it. Many in the audience that night were aware of
the paper delivered by Walter Cardinal Kasper in February of this year to a
gathering at the Consistory on the topic of the family in preparation for the
Synod that will be held in the Vatican this coming October. The German
Cardinal’s paper expressed his (emphasis mine) belief that
there should be a willingness by the Church to allow divorced and remarried
Catholics to receive the sacraments of the Church, including communion. As if
on cue, major newspapers in the U.S. and Europe seized upon the prelate’s words
to theorize that the Church was, indeed, making an effort to accommodate its
principles with the modern world, a primary objective – aggiornamento –
of Pope John XXIII in convoking of the Second Vatican Council. Those in the
audience who wondered if de Mattei would broach that subject were not
disappointed, for Kasper’s proposal came under scrutiny almost at the start of
the historian’s talk. Referring to Cardinal Kasper’s approach as
“sociological,” de Mattei described the proposal as being framed in a way that
pits “Church doctrine versus real-life convictions of many Christians,” as if
one were at odds with the other. Further, the end result of such “situational
ethics” changes would, aside from its antithetical nature to Catholic dogma,
lead most certainly to “Catholic divorce” and permission of cohabitation.
Cardinal Kasper’s overall approach was, then, a plea which de Mattei described
as, “...the Church must adapt to the forces of history, not history to the
unchanging principles of the Church.” Cardinal Kasper’s novel approach to re-thinking
the sacrament of marriage is a direct historical result of Vatican II’s
emphasis on “pastoral orthodoxy” as being the sine qua non of
Church practice, even though it was patently antithetical to accepted Church
doctrine for centuries. For a Traditional comparison to Cardinal
Kasper’s proposal, de Mattei pointed to Pope Pius XII, who defined the morality
issue in marriage thus: “ Continence within and outside of marriage is
a Christian value; sexual union outside the sacrament of marriage of matrimony
is a grave sin.” What Kasper was proposing had eliminated those
differences, which had been “what the moralists always taught,” and at the same
time the German Cardinal was discarding the dogmatic teachings of the
pre-Vatican II Church, a major consequence of the Council. It is hard to
believe that the participants in that aggiornamento suspected
anything like the Kasper proposal would ever be considered, yet alone
discussed. In attempting to explain the apparent amnesia
that now is an integral part of current Church teaching, the lecturer devoted a
lengthy review of the Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes(Joys and
Hopes), which was “supposed to be the ‘first proving ground’ of the Church’s
capacity to enter into dialogue with the world,” or as described by one of the
participants, “the promised land of the Council.” Here de Mattei points an accusatory finger at
the Leon-Joseph Suenens, then Cardinal Archbishop of Brussels, who during the
Council deliberations was relentless in his effort to “connect the Church’s
teaching to the modern world,” and “became an icon of the Second Vatican
Council.” Historically, the primary purpose of Catholic
marriage was “to give children to God,” followed by the requirements of “mutual
love and respect,” but in July ‘64, Pope Paul VI approved theschema (outline
or preliminary text), drafted under the supervision of Cardinal Suenens which
omitted that priority and now placed “giving children to God” and “mutual love
and respect” on an equal footing. It also inserted that decisions regarding
marriage, which of course included the use of birth control, could be left “up
to the conscience” of the couple. The dominant role of the human conscience,
rather than the application of ethical rules, was a further demonstration that
the Council was now being orchestrated by prelates who had an aversion to
universal moral laws: individual conscience, not Church doctrine, was to be
sovereign in these matters. When Cardinal Suenens, in an impassioned plea to
the Council Fathers questioned the Church’s previous marital priority and
claimed that it had been, “over-emphasized to the detriment of the marital
union,” he drew an interesting analogy: “Let us avoid another Galileo trial.”
At that point, enraged by the speaker’s tone Ernesto Cardinal Ruffini pounded
his fist on the table and later characterized Suenens’ words as, “horrendous,”
and sought them stricken from the debate. The Belgian’s rhetoric was so inflammatory that
even the pontiff upbraided the cardinal for his “lack of judgment.” Still,
efforts to defeat the proposed wording of the document failed, and on December
7, 1965 Gaudium et Spes became one of the landmark documents
of the Second Vatican Council. Can anyone today point to any aspect of Catholic
family life that is in any way better than it was before Gaudium et
Spes? In his talk, Roberto de Mattei highlighted the
history of some, but not all, of the baleful aspects of the Second Vatican
Council and the unraveling of Church doctrine and dogma, but he has only
scratched the surface. For example, the Church’s current position on ecumenism
flies in the face of centuries, if not millennia, of dogma and doctrine; yet,
any attempt to call attention the previous Church holdings on this matter is
brushed off as medieval in outlook, if not antediluvian. For a more nuanced and comprehensive analysis,
de Mattei’s book on Vatican II should be read by those who seek an
understanding of what happened at the Council meetings – and why. Still, in
ways that are incomprehensible to many of the Faithful, the Vatican’s hierarchy
has plunged the Church into an abyss that has had disastrous effects; yet, any
effort to connect the dots between the baleful effects of Vatican II and the
current disastrous decline of the Church in many areas is considered to be
almost sacrilegious. De Mattei’s treatment at Radio Maria bears witness to that
condition. Toward the end of his talk, de Mattei quoted a
French novelist who wrote, “It is necessary to live as one thinks, to avoid
winding up thinking as one lives.” To Roberto de Mattei, personal knowledge and
understanding are necessary in following the moral and ethical guidelines set
up by the Church to avoid a chaotic and uncertain morality. That fight has in
large part been lost by the withdrawal of the Catholic Church from the lists of
moral combat. In the end, however, de Mattei believes that the
Second Vatican Council was not only a historical event, but an amorphous
“Spirit” that has come down over the 50 years, a “Spirit” that has emphasized
practice and deemphasized doctrine, but he is firm in his conviction that
Christ will see to it that this “profound crisis within the Church” will not be
allowed to have its enemies prevail. Of that end de Mattei is certain. ■
Also take the time to read his works and support his cause for canonization if you feel called to. The official page for this is: http://www.hardonsj.org/
On the issues with the modern ecumenical movement:
On the Anglican hierarchy and the issues related
On the Methodist/Pentacostal hierarchy and related issues:
Its been a while since I wrote on Mr. William Buckley, but after Beck had some of the folks from the Ayn Rand center on his show to make him feel good about the positions he takes I thought it timely to look at libertarianism from the perspective of the founder of the once good National Review.
William F. Buckley, Jr.: Beware of Ayn Rand
I was an avid reader of the National Review for about 15 years in the 80s and 90s. For those of you not familar with this magazine, it was THE flagship conservative magazine for decades after its founding by William F. Buckley in 1955. In the editorial staff and content of National Review, Buckley did his best to hold together a very fractious conservative movement, made up of anti-Communist hawks, conservative Catholics, evangelical Protestants, libertarians, and free-market business types.
But there were certain 'conservatives' who Buckley did not try to hold within his coalition. To the contrary, he saw certain groups on the Right as so radical and extreme in their ideological leanings as to be dangerous to true conservatism. Two of those groups were the John Birch Society and the devotees centered about Ayn Rand.
Reading through a biography of William F. Buckley that I picked up recently at the wonderful St. Francis Episcopal Church booksale, I found the following description of his encounter with the Randians. (This is particularly helpful, given the influence of Ayn Rand among today's conservative movement and Republican Party.)
[Whittaker] Chambers wrote irregularly for National Review, starting but not finishing many articles. His columns on foreign policy were mediocre. He was not so much interested in reiterating the threat of communism as in examining what he believed to be the spiritual crisis of the West. His most impressive articles were a critique of Ayn Rand's didactic novel Atlas Shrugged and a defense of Alger Hiss' right to travel. In both cases, he was trying to challenge the assumptions of his readers and fellow editors about the nature of conservatism.
Rand, a Russian émigré, had used her novels to proselytize for a philosophy of economic individualism that she called "objectivism," and she had assembled a devoted intellectual following. On purely economic issues, she differed little fromNational Review, but unlike National Review's editors, who tried to balance their economic individualism with a traditional conservatism, she made her economic views the basis of a psychology and politics that extolled selfishness and damned religion. Her movement's emblem was a gold brooch with a dollar sign, rather than a cross, dangling from it. (The first time she had met Buckley, she had not edeared herself to him by remarking, "You are too intelligent to believe in God!")
Chambers, like the other National Review editors, had come to the Right as a counterrevolutionary idealist. Like Schlamm and Burhnham he had no particular fondness for the rich. He saw economic freedom and capitalist individualism not as a path to wealth, but as the antithesis of Communist totalitarianism. Individualism was not good in itself, but only as a means to civic and religious virtue. Chambers condemned objectivism as a cousin of Marxism. "Randian man, like Marxian man, is made the center of a Godless world," Chambers wrote.
Rand and her followers were stung by Chambers' attack. Rand's young disciple, economist Alan Greenspan, who later became President Gerlad Ford's chief economist [and the Fed chair under Bush, Clinton, and Bush], wrote Buckley, "This man is beneath contempt and I would not honor his 'review' of Ayn Rand's magnificent masterpiece by even commenting on it." Rand herself complained aloud, "What would you expect from an ex-Communist writing in Buckley's Catholic magazine?" She never talked to Buckley again and refused to enter any room in which he was present.
But Buckley was not moved by their protests. For Buckley, Chambers' essay revealed a way to reconcile conservatism with the Catholic critique of laissez-faire capitalism. Chambers had not demonstrated that individualism was wrong, but only that it was wrong if taken as an end in itself. He applauded Chambers' attempt to "read Miss Rand right out of the conservative movement." "Her exclusion from the conservative movement," he wrote later, "was, I am sure, in part the result of her desiccated philosophy's conclusive incompatibility with the conservative's emphasis on transcendence, intellectual and moral."
My thoughts exactly. Wish you were still around, Mr. Buckley.
Another fun thing to think about was how he Euligized her upon her passing:
“Ayn Rand is dead. So, incidentally, is the philosophy she sought to launch dead; it was in fact stillborn.”
A believe it was the socialist Franklin Delano Roosevelt who
said we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
This is fantastic rhetoric. You
even see commercials for google using the speech for its own ends. But as something to live by its nothing but
rat poison.
While I don’t live in fear of what is to come tomorrow I can
understand how some are fearful especially if they have families. St. Paul draws a similar thought when
speaking of celibacy. He notes that
celibacy frees up a man to pursue God while the married man is conflicted with
pleasing his wife and maintaining his household. I am not saying that marriage is foolish,
this is a false notion. Rather it is the
responsibility, to a greater degree, for the unwed are less bound to the fears
that plague many of us.
We are called to run the race, to climb the grand mountains
and scale the cliffs in life with a healthy fear of the Lord. Christ calls us
to take up the cross and follow him. I don’t
know about you but the idea of taking up a cross doesn’t seem like a survivable
endeavor to me. It’s a matter of risking
it all in pursuit of the truth. We are
sheep and we can only serve one master, are we willing to risk it all or pursue
the wide comfortable paths merely to survive?
I have many fears that too often hold me back from pursuing
truth:
I don’t want to offend anyone
I don’t want to be a burden for
anyone
Afraid to step on others shoes
Fear of creating unnecessary
rupture
Afraid of stepping out of my lazy
comfort zone
Want to be liked by others
All of these have one thing in common. They are selfish pursuits or non-pursuits for
that matter. I like to fancy myself as
orginal in many things because I don’t try to be original but just do things
(like the Joker I guess). Right now I
have an incredible problem on my mind which I don’t know what to do with. The problem is that I work two part time jobs
and don’t get insurance through either of them unless I want to work another
ten hours. Now I know this sounds like whining
but I am already working 60 hours a week and my mind is dry by the end of it
and my body is sore. The problem rests
in how Barrycare has created the necessity for all insurers to provide plans
that mandatorily provide contraceptive and abortive aspects. This is direct material support of evil, but
the insurers have no say in the matter.
And I being the end user have zero say as well. Im told by my parents I need the health
insurance just in case, well that’s great but what does it profit a man to live
20 more days yet lose his soul? I know that the Bishops think that pursuing
this problem in a constitutional way but in all honesty if its just a matter of
“religious freedom” as recognized by the bill of rights who’s to say that the
government doesn’t just say well its inconvenient to provide the right to
religious convictions? Will the Bishops
hold to their stance or crumble under the foot of Big Brother government and
business?
I cant be the only one in this predicament. I’m frustrated but I recognize that there
might come a time to act in a risky manner not only forgoing coverage and
risking bankruptcy but perhaps jail time in refusing to pay an unjust fine for
a system based on deception and cruelty.
I want to be like Peter initially when he gets out of the
boat and walks on the water towards our Lord but the worries of the world suck
me down drowning my mind in selfish concerns.
The fear of losing it all scares me.
I will say that a week ago I wouldn’t even allow myself to contemplate
the matter, so I have moved on and challenged myself, but scaling this and any
cliff that Christ grants us is terrifying.
As the world strips us of our worldly dignity are willing to
be fools for Christ? Am I a Slave to the
world or a Slave for Christ in his grand procession? I need prayers for discernment. But enough
about me, pray for the Syrian Church and the Coptics!
Sure it is. Our Lord made clear in Matthew 20: 24-28
And the ten hearing it, were moved with indignation against the two brethren. 25But Jesus called them to him, and said: You know that the princes of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that are the greater, exercise power upon them. 26It shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister: 27And he that will be first among you, shall be your servant. 28Even as the Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a redemption for many.
Now the question is why is there a perception within the flock that clericalism has recently taken over?
There seems to be this incessant need to identify anything bespeaking of traditional doctrines or practice as being clericalism. Wearing cassocks is seen as snooty, as being elitist. Withholding communion from public unrepentant sinners is seen as being uncharitable and judgmental. Kissing the ring of a Bishop or even the Pope is now frowned upon as being midevel or lording their beings over the others.
Terry talked about the latter issue in two posts you can find here and here. I cannot even begin to say how it bothers me how Bishops and even the Holy Father today are unsettled by kissing their ring or feet. People in modernity are so concerned with the perceptions of others that they forget the faith is not about them as a person but about God and that which he gives to his Church, specifically offices. I myself would have no problem kissing the feet of the Holy Father (as long as they are somewhat clean of course :-P) but modernity cannot fathom a reason for recognizing authority. We see authority through the eyes of the egalitarian, that no one is more important than the other, and to take advantage of such a situation is lording it over the brethren.
Either Christ established the Church or he didn't. Either Francis is "My sweet Jesus on Earth" or he isn't. But if he established the church and granted to certain people within it authority then why are we so afraid to recognize this authority with mental consent and with physical acts of piety. I love the pictures of the Pre-concilliar popes riding on the papal throne flanked by fans on either side. Do we look at the Pope on the personal level and proclaim him important above else because of his humanity? Of course not, its because of his office that we give doubly the honor to him which St. Paul himself calls on all Christians to give, and this can take different forms, but dont discard something because your comprehension of the action is lack-luster.
I wont take up the issue of granting public sinners communion because it has been talked about so much over the years. Suffice it to say scandal seems to be more welcome than the charity of correction in today's church.
I was also thinking of writing something about cassocks but I came across a fantastic, let me repeat FANTASTIC sermon that just came out on the importance of religious garb to the faith. You can find it here.
Are there clerics that think themselves important and above the rest of the fold? Most definitely and they need to be reminded that authority is for service. But it is also important to recognize that clericalism is not limited to those with collars to to laymen who in their ignorance or active dissent want to drive every part of the faith down to their own desires, often stripping the faith down, even past its foundations, to create a comfortable faith that doesn't offend our modern sensibilities because after all we are so enlightened unlike the knuckle draggers of years gone by.
In a soundbite culture its hard to get people to listen to or read information that will be helpful to them in knowing and defending something as complex as the Catholic Faith.
I have seen some attempts to simplify the issues for such a culture from a Youtuber going under the alias Dragamedood. His site deals with a couple things Catholic, but his approach lately seems to be focused on challenging atheism.
I hope to provide short Catholic answers coming from the one and only Fr. John Hardon S.J. whose cause for canonization is in its beginnings.
Here are a couple videos to begin with:
On protestant communion, and potential graces therefrom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEJZDiRRqzw
On the Real Environmental Crisis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asc4l6a7hfY
On Priestly Celibacy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y44ac-3Nuuo
On the heresies present in "Amazing Grace"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqkjEZXF9Y0
Im sorry the videos wouldnt embed...I dont know why they wont
