Daily Prayer for Priest O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church ... give us holy priests. You yourself maintain them in holiness.
O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil's traps and snares, which are continually being set for the souls of priests.
May the power of Your Mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring the naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of priest, for You can do all things. - St. Faustina (Diary, 1052)
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“Chastity And Purity Liberate Us, But Immorality Enslaves Us!”
From OSV Daily Take Blog.
Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan of New York got the attention of worshipers at St. Patrick’s Cathedral yesterday, when he started a homily the Daily News labeled as “fire-and-brimstone” by saying, “I’m going to preach about sex.” And he did.
From the Daily News story:
New York’s cardinal-to-be delivered a no-holds-barred sermon on morality Sunday, telling his flock to stand firm against popular culture’s message that sex outside marriage is okay.
“The one who, with God’s grace and mercy, tries his or her best to be pure and chaste is often thought of not as a hero, not a saint, but as a freak in our culture today,” Archbishop Timothy Dolan said at St. Patrick’s.
“The biblical teaching on sexual responsibility is counter-cultural,” he continued, hailing those who stay true to their moral compass.
“Anyone who tries his or her best to live it can expect a lot of temptation and even ridicule and criticism.”
Dolan linked “sexual immorality” with society’s ills — violence, sex crimes, disease and broken families — and called on priests to do a better job of encouraging the sexually virtuous.
…“The church has at times in the past, sadly, come across as some nay-saying, puritanical nag, always giving a big ‘No, no, no’ to one of life’s greatest joys,” he said.
But modern society often reduces sex to “animal rutting” or its “most popular contact sport,” he said.
He didn’t mention any one show or star by name, but Dolan clearly seemed to be targeting the bed
hopping that’s become regular fare on TV and reality shows like “Jersey Shore.”
“Truth be told, it is chastity and purity that liberates us, while immorality enslaves us,” he said.
Read the full story HERE.
What Is The True Meaning of Marriage?
 By Archbishop Timothy Dolan – The stampede is on. Our elected senators who have stood courageous in their refusal to capitulate on the state’s presumption to redefine marriage are reporting unrelenting pressure to cave-in.
The media, mainly sympathetic to this rush to tamper with a definition as old as human reason and ordered good, reports annoyance on the part of some senators that those in defense of traditional marriage just don’t see the light, as we persist in opposing this enlightened, progressive, cause.
But, really, shouldn’t we be more upset – and worried – about this perilous presumption of the state to re-invent the very definition of an undeniable truth – one man, one woman, united in lifelong love and fidelity, hoping for children – that has served as the very cornerstone of civilization and culture from the start?
Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in New York, in the United States of America – not in China or North Korea. In those countries, government presumes daily to “redefine” rights, relationships, values, and natural law. There, communiqués from the government can dictate the size of families, who lives and who dies, and what the very definition of “family” and “marriage” means.
But, please, not here! Our country’s founding principles speak of rights given by God, not invented by government, and certain noble values – life, home, family, marriage, children, faith – that are protected, not re-defined, by a state presuming omnipotence.
Please, not here! We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought; we acknowledge that not every desire, urge, want, or chic cause is automatically a “right.” And, what about other rights, like that of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and a dad?
Our beliefs should not be viewed as discrimination against homosexual people. The Church affirms the basic human rights of gay men and women, and the state has rightly changed many laws to offer these men and women hospital visitation rights, bereavement leave, death benefits, insurance benefits, and the like. This is not about denying rights. It is about upholding a truth about the human condition. Marriage is not simply a mechanism for delivering benefits: It is the union of a man and a woman in a loving, permanent, life-giving union to pro-create children. Please don’t vote to change that. If you do, you are claiming the power to change what is not into what is, simply because you say so. This is false, it is wrong, and it defies logic and common sense.
Yes, I admit, I come at this as a believer, who, along with other citizens of a diversity of creeds believe that God, not Albany, has settled the definition of marriage a long time ago. We believers worry not only about what this new intrusion will do to our common good, but also that we will be coerced to violate our deepest beliefs to accommodate the newest state decree. (If you think this paranoia, just ask believers in Canada and England what’s going on there to justify our apprehensions.)
But I also come at this as an American citizen, who reads our formative principles as limiting government, not unleashing it to tamper with life’s most basic values.
Archbishop Dolan – “Social Engineering
About The Nature and Purpose of
Marriage Is Perilous To All Of Us.”
By Archbishop Dolan - It was one of the more uncomfortable moments in my life.
 Archbishop Timothy Dolan Outside of St. John the Evangelist Cathedral in Milwaukee, where I, as archbishop, was celebrating Sunday Mass on an otherwise magnificent Wisconsin autumn day, were a couple dozen very vocal protestors, representing some off-brand denomination, shouting vicious chants and holding hateful signs with words I thought had gone the way of burning-crosses and white hoods.
This frenzied group, taunting the people as they left Mass, were rabid in criticizing the Catholic Church, especially her bishops, for our teaching that homosexuals deserve dignity and respect.
To be more precise, this group was yelling at us because, they objected, the Catholic Church was so friendly, welcoming, and defensive of gay (they used other foul words) people. They waved placards explicitly quoting and condemning #2358 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which affirms the dignity of those with same-sex attraction, and warns against any form of prejudice, hatred, or unjust discrimination against them, and insists that homosexual acts, not persons, are not in conformity with God’s design.
Never have I faced such a vitriolic crowd, blasting the Church for simply following the teaching of Jesus by loving and respecting people regardless of anything, including their sexual orientation.
When a reporter asked me for a comment, I replied, “They’re right: we do love and respect homosexual people. These protestors understand Church teaching very well.”
I’ve been recalling that episode often of late, because now I hear Catholics, — and, I am quick to add, Jews, other Christians, Muslims, and men and women of no faith at all — who have thoughtfully expressed grave disapproval of the current rush to redefine marriage, branded as bigots and bullies who hate gays.
Nonsense! We are not anti anybody; we are pro-marriage. The definition of marriage is a given: it is a lifelong union of love and fidelity leading, please God, to children, between one man and one woman.
History, Natural Law, the Bible (if you’re so inclined), the religions of the world, human experience, and just plain gumption tell us this is so. The definition of marriage is hardwired into our human reason.
To uphold that traditional definition, to strengthen it, and to defend it is not a posture of bigotry or bullying. Nor is it a denial of the “right” of anybody. As the philosophers remind us, in a civilized, moral society, we have the right to do what we ought, not to do whatever we want. Not every desire is a right.
To tamper with that definition, or to engage in some Orwellian social engineering about the nature and purpose of marriage, is perilous to all of us. If the definition of marriage is continually being altered, could it not in the future be morphed again to include multiple spouses or even family members?
Nor is it “imposing” some narrow outmoded religious conviction. One might well ask just who is doing the “imposing” here: those who simply defend what the human drama has accepted from the start, a belief embedded in nature and at the core of every civilization — the definition of marriage — or those who all of a sudden want to scrap it because “progressive, enlightened, tolerant culture” calls for it.
Sadly, as we see in countries where such a redefinition has occurred, “tolerance” is hardly the result, as those who hold to the given definition of marriage now become harassed and penalized.
If big, intrusive government can re-define the most basic, accepted, revealed truth that marriage simply means one man + one woman + (hopefully) children, in a loving family, then, I’m afraid, Orwell’s works will no longer be on the fiction shelf. As someone commented to me the other day, “Wouldn’t it be better for our government to work on fixing schools than on redefining marriage?”
And resistance to this rush to radically redefining the ingrained meaning of marriage cannot be reduced to an act of prejudice against people with a same-sex attraction.
“I Owe My Blessed Mother a Visit.
She Has Never Let Me Down”
Have You Made a Pilgrimage To Visit Your Mother Lately?
By Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan – Since 1972, when I was 22 and left home for the North American College in Rome to finish my last four years of priestly preparation, I have lived in the same area as my mom for only nine happy years.
Thus, for me, to go home—to mom’s house—is unfailingly a joy, something I always look forward to. There, I’m in very comfortable and fa
 Archbishop Dolan Praising Our Lady miliar surroundings, with a woman who knows me better than anybody else. She’s been conscious of me a lot longer than I have of myself!
With mom, at her house, there is no need to impress anybody. Why even bother to try to impress the woman who changed my diapers? The place is familiar, the conversation natural, the thoughts go back to where I came from, the food tastes better, someone loves me unconditionally, and even my old ball glove is there. I always leave refreshed and renewed, wondering why I do not do it more often, and anxious about the sad day sure-to-come when mom will not be at home any more—at least in her earthly one.
To go to mom’s house is a blessing indeed, a gift, a renewal. I am reminded of who I am, where I came from, and where I’ve gone—right and wrong—since leaving there.
This week’s column comes from my spiritual mother’s house, at least one of her many…
I write from Lourdes, where I am on pilgrimage with the Knights and Dames of Malta, and hundreds of sick people from across our nation.
I’ve been here before. What visiting my mom back in Missouri does for me naturally, being with my blessed Mother, Mary, in this small mountain village in southwestern France, where she once appeared, does for me supernaturally.
I go to Lourdes because I owe my Blessed Mother a visit. She has never let me down, and I am in deep debt to her. She has gotten me out of jams, helped a lot of people I love and referred to her, and at times gotten me back on the right path. The conversation is great here, as I spend a lot of time talking with her and her son, Jesus, who is my best friend—as well as my Lord and my God.
She loves me unconditionally. She listens while I pour out my guts. She is not bored when I tell her what I’m worried about. She promises me she’ll help.
She washes me clean in cold, spring water, as I bathe in the miraculous waters and become once again like a baby at the baptismal font.
She catches me crying and asks what’s wrong. She listens as I tell her ways I’m afraid I’ve hurt her Son and her other children. She’ll encourage me to tell her Son “I’m sorry” in the sacrament of penance, and I stand in line with hundreds of others to do so in one of the dozens of languages He understands.
We’re having a family reunion while I’m here at her house at Lourdes, as thousands will come, since May is her month, and I see the family in all its “catholic” diversity again, especially the sick and the searching. We recall all the times she was there with Jesus, especially Christmas, Cana, the cross, Easter and with the Apostles at Pentecost. We’ll gather in her home at the table of her Son, at the Holy Eucharist.
We get together and sing to her every evening as we carry candles and belt out her Rosary in half-a-dozen languages.
I go to Lourdes because she lives here. It was in 1858 that she appeared here to St. Bernadette Soubirous. She has other homes: Fatima, Czestochowa, Knock, Guadalupe, Pompei, Loretto, even here in New York in our parish shrines, in our backyard grottos, and under her image in our homes.
I go with the Knights and Dames of Malta, dedicated men and women devoted to Christ, His Church, His sick, and His mother, who try to make a pilgrimage here annually around the first days of May, the month devoted to her.
I go to Lourdes because I need it…I need to tell my Blessed Mother that I love her, I need her, I thank her, and that I always feel at home with her.
And you all are here with me!
Ave Maria!
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Archbishop Timothy Dolan Has Been Elected President
Of The United States Conference Of Catholic Bishops!
Well this is a pleasant surprise.
What do you think? Sound off and leave a comment.
Scourged at the Pillar
And Crowned with Thorns
Michael Ventura writes–Archbishop Timothy Dolan defended Pope Benedict XVI during Palm Sunday Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral amid a growing church abuse scandal that’s aimed directly at the Vatican.
Dolan called on Catholics to pray for the pontiff and compared the Pope’s plight to that of Jesus Christ, in that both faced unjust accusations, according to news reports.
“[Reforms] could never have happened without the insistence and support of the very man now being daily crowned with thorns by groundless innuendo,” Dolan said during the service, the Daily News reported.
The Pope is accused of looking the other way when, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was allegedly presented with evidence of child abuse among priests in Ireland, Germany and Milwaukee, Wisc.
“The somberness of Holy Week is intensified for Catholics this year,” Dolan said, according to NBC New York. “The recent tidal wave of headlines about abuse of minors by some few priests, this time in Ireland, Germany and a re-run of an old story from Wisconsin, has knocked us to our knees once again.”
Meanwhile, in Rome, the Pope said during Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square that he would not be “intimidated” by “petty gossip” from the abuse scandal, the News reported.
Still, Dolan said the church should face scrutiny for the abuse scandals, but that the Catholic Church was not to blame for every incidence of child abuse that “has cursed every culture, religion, organization, institution, school, agency and family in the world,” the News reported.
Michael Ventura (with slight editing)
Let us pray for our Pope and bishops and all our clergy so that they will be strengthened and that the church will emerge from this crisis holier and stronger than ever. Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have Mercy on Us. Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pray for Us.
Should Receive Awards From a Catholic Institution
If They Stand In Opposition to Church Teaching!
NEW YORK, February 26, 2010 Following a period of relative silence since his installation last year, New York  Archbishop Timothy Dolan eagerly took an opportunity to set forth Church teaching on controversial points, including the forbidding of public honors for pro-abortion politicians, in a recent interview with NY1. The bishop also asserted that his outspokenness on such issues was simply part of his job as shepherd and teacher of the faith.
When NY1 News reporter Roma Torre asked whether a pro-abortion Catholic should be invited to a “Catholic event” such as the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Dolan’s response was unequivocal.
“Actually, Roma, I don’t think we should invite anybody that would take a stance [in favor of] abortion, because this is not a Catholic issue,” he replied.
The archbishop later clarified that his answer pertained to giving public honors to such persons.
“In our mind, being opposed to abortion, is a civil rights issue, it’s a natural law issue, it’s not a Catholic issue,” Dolan continued. “We’d be uncomfortable in anybody that would, say, promote a stand that would be for bigotry, or against civil rights, because that’s contrary not only to the teaching of the Church but to what we would call civil rights and the natural law.”
The archbishop said that a pro-abortion Catholic such as New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would be “welcome” to a Catholic event – but “there’s a difference between everybody being welcome, and providing somebody who is dramatically, radically, publically at odds with the Church on a particularly given issue to have a place of prominence and to receive an award.”
When the University of Notre Dame announced last year that the pro-abortion President Obama would offer the commencement address and receive an honorary law degree at the school, the New York archbishop condemned the invitation as a “big mistake.”
Dolan, who has earned a reputation for outspokenness promoting Catholic orthodoxy on life and family issues, explained that his goal is not to “look for headlines.” It was because of his office as teacher, he said, that he “won’t duck the tough issues.”
“It’s not like I sit down and say: How can I grab some headlines, how can I really cause a splash,” Dolan said. “You just try to do your work, and sometimes things get attention. …
“If people ask me, I feel obliged as a teacher, as the official teacher of the Archdiocese of New York, to try my best to give the Church’s wisdom here.”
Dolan noted that he was “grateful” that the New York legislature struck down a same-sex “marriage” bill last year. He also affirmed that the St. Patrick’s Day Parade should continue disallowing a gay pride banner, which would conflict with the parade’s “strong Christian identity.”
But, he said, it would be a mistake to understand the Church’s stance against such matters as mere naysaying.
Instead, he said: “the Church in a way is one big yes: one big yes to human life, one big yes to anything that advances, lifts up, enlightens, liberates legitimate human identity. We’re in the ‘yes’ business, not the ‘no’ business.
“So I get frustrated sometimes, when that’s interpreted as being ‘anti-gay,’ that’s where we kinda cringe,” he continued, “because believe it or not, we get attacked from the other extreme for defending the rights of gays and for the strong Church teaching that every single human being … is a child of God, deserving of dignity and respect.”
Dolan called the late John Cardinal O’Connor of New York, who was outspokenly pro-life, his “hero” – and acknowledged that his office calls for a “prophetic” voice, although he prefers using a persuasive tone when possible.
“There’s always a little bit of tension between those two,” said Dolan. “But occasions might call that I’ll have to be prophetic. I’m sure there’s gonna be times … that I’m gonna have to be a bit of a pitbull. In general, I like to be an Irish Setter.”
By Kathleen Gilbert LifeSiteNews
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