"We Need to Be Catholics First" - Archbishop Chaput

I want to share with you powerful homily recently given by Archbishop Charles Chaput during the Mass for his installation as the new head of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. I have respected and admired Archbishop Chaput for many years because of the courage he has shown in standing for the truth and defending the Church.

His homily further exemplified his courage and conviction as he addressed the beginning of his difficult task to rebuild an archdiocese that has been plagued with scandals. Below is my favorite quote from this inspirational homily:

But the Church is not defined by her failures.  And you and I are not defined by critics or by those who dislike us.  What we do in the coming months and years to respond to these challenges – that will define who we really are.  And in engaging that work, we need to be Catholics first.  Jesus Christ is the center of our lives, and the Church is our mother and teacher.  Everything we do should flow from that.

(Click here to read the full homily.)

We need to be Catholics first. Everything we do should flow from that. That is a message that we as Catholic men should always focus on, especially in a world were faith is under attack and belief in God is marginalized and even seen as offensive to some. It gives me a sense of hope to see our Church blessed with more leaders like Archbishop Chaput.

Please pray for God blessings on Archbishop Chaput as he faces the difficult challenges that lie ahead.

Encouraging our Priests

I want to spread the word about a great website and the wonderful work it is doing. EncouragePriests.org is a website and ministry created by Catholics Come Home which not only seeks to increase vocations, but also provides methods to encourage and thank the priests currently in the Church for everything they do. When we look at how our culture has become more hostile towards the Church and how thousands of innocent priests have also suffered because of the abuse scandal, the least we can do is to stop for a moment and thank our local priests. They are the unsung heroes whose tireless efforts and never ending work have brought countless people back to Christ. Please take a moment to visit the website and send a thank you to your local parish priest, and most important of all, remember them in your prayers.

Anti-Catholic Propaganda in the Main Stream Media

I can honestly say that I have lost all respect for the major news outlets in this country. Supposedly “unbiased” journalists demonstrated how they are nothing more than propaganda machines with their sickening infatuation with the Obama administration, liberal causes such as gay marriage, and their political correctness run amok over Islam. They stooped to new lows last March when, led by the NY Times, the news media unfairly implicated Pope Benedict in a few sex abuse cases. In my opinion, this was obviously timed to coincide with the Catholic Church’s opposition to Obamacare. It was propaganda, much like was seen in Nazi Germany, to destroy the credibility of the Pope and the Church.
But just when you think they can’t stoop any lower, CNN rolls out a series of articles and a TV special once again implicating the Pope in the sex abuse scandals. These supposed journalists have decided to drag out the same cases that the NY Times first surfaced in March. The most ridiculous part about this is that CNN delivered absolutely no new facts or information about these cases. The just rehashed the same false arguments all over again. These are the same accusations that were proven to be lies back in March by many prominent figures inside and outside the Church.

First, I want to get the facts straight. CNN, much like the anti-Catholic NY times, left out the important details that prove the Pope’s innocence. Both cases were covered up by Bishops who themselves were actively gay, credibly accused of sexual abuse, and resigned in shame, Rembert Weakland and Daniel Ryan. In both cases these bishops attempt to deflect the blame from themselves by implying that the Pope failed to protect children by not defrocking certain abusive priests in their diocese. In both cases, it was proven conclusively that these bishops covered up sexual predators in their diocese and failed to notify the police. These bishops deserve the blame because they failed to remove the abusive priests from active ministry. What then Cardinal Ratzinger did was to tell these bishops that he would not laicize these priests without the proper Canonical trial and that these bishops are responsible for handling this mess in their own diocese. The other important fact that the media left out was that neither the Bishop nor the Vatican needs to defrock a priest in order to remove him from active ministry and hand him over to authorities. Weakland and Ryan purposely chose to cover up the abuse by shuffling these priests to other parishes and then claim the Pope failed to act.