A corporal work of mercy.

A corporal work of mercy.
Click on photo for this corporal work of mercy!
Showing posts with label Catholic Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catholic Canada. Show all posts

Wednesday 27 January 2016

Bishop Fred Henry - A man with a pair ... (of letters)

The first one is here!

The new letter is below. Bishop Fred Henry is responding to the totalitarian actions of the socialist government in Alberta attempting to force the homosexualist and transgendered agenda on Catholic schools. The trustees and school board chairs have shown themselves to be defiant and badly catechized Catholics. The bishops are reaping what they have sowed and it is hard to be sympathetic to them for their half century of catechetical malfeasance.

Still, one must appaud when it is meet to do and Bishop Fred Henry must be supported in prayer and in action.

God bless him, I say.




Totalitarianism in Alberta - Part II
In my recent Pastoral Letter, I wrote that the Alberta Government Gender Guidelines issued on January 13 show no evidence of consultation with, or sensitivity to, the Catholic community. They breathe pure secularism. This approach and directive smack of the madness of relativism and the forceful imposition of a particular narrow-minded anti-Catholic ideology.

If you are reading this piece in the hopes of discovering an apology and/or a retraction, you might as well stop reading right now. That's simply not going to happen.

I have received considerable support for what I said and the way in which I said it. Nevertheless, there were a few "nay-sayers" ­ some have called for my resignation, others have resorted to unpublishable name calling, and of course, there were several references to the famous catch-all these days, "Who are you to judge?" The later suggesting that I was espousing a teaching contrary to the openness of Pope Francis.

In point of fact, Pope Francis has said quite a bit about gender. "The acceptance of our bodies as God's gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the ­Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation. Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology. Also, valuing one's own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment. It is not a healthy attitude which would seek to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it" [Laudato Si 155].

Furthermore, in Sacred Scripture there are different but interrelated sets of texts about judgment. Without attempting to be exhaustive, there are at least three that are especially noteworthy:

1) Warnings about judgment: "Stop judging that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged...." This is not an injunction against judgment, but a warning that the judgment should be rendered with a good heart free from hypocrisy, arrogance, meanness of spirit, or hate. Consequently, "remove the beam from your own eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother's eye." The principal purpose of a judgment is to help a brother or sister avoid debilitating actions and improve. The awesome burden of judging is the realization that we will be "judged as we have judged." Some cite the incident of the woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus by those who would stone her as evidence that we should not judge others. Nothing could be further from the truth. The incident manifests God's mercy and loathing of hypocrisy, but he did judge her behavior as evidenced by his admonition: "Go and sin no more."

2) Instances of judgment abound: ­Peter to Simon the magician "...for your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness of yours... for I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chain of wickedness" [Acts 8: 20-23]. Paul to Elymas, "you son of the devil, you enemy of all that is right, full of every sort of deceit and fraud. Will you not stop twisting the straight paths of the Lord?" [Acts 13:9-10]; and Paul to Peter, "But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he clearly was wrong" [Gal 2:11].

3) Cautions particularly to overseers or leaders about judgments: "Thus says the Lord: you, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel; when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me if I tell the wicked, 'oh, wicked one, you shall surely die,' and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked one from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death. But if you warn the wicked, trying to turn him from his way, and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but you shall save yourself" [Ezekiel 33: 7-9].
Paul's advice to Timothy is difficult for some of us: "Avoid foolish and ignorant debates, for you know that they breed quarrels. A slave of the Lord should not quarrel, but should be gentle with everyone, able to teach, tolerant, correcting opponents with kindness. It may be that God will grant them repentance that leads to knowledge of the truth, and that they may return to their senses out of the devil's snare, where they are entrapped by him, for his will" [2 Tim 2: 23-26].

Only God can judge the state of the human soul but it is pure nonsense to suggest we cannot and should not judge human behaviour. Reluctance to judge moral behaviour is the inevitable consequence of moral relativism and moral subjectivism that has eroded confidence in the ability to determine objective moral truth on which sound judgment is based.

The last word on this subject belongs to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: "How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves ­ thrown from one extreme to the other.... Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error [cf Ephesians 4, 14].

Having a clear Faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labelled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires. However, we have a different goal: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. Being an 'Adult' means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today's fashions or the latest novelties.

A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth" [Way of the Cross in 2005 for Good Friday].

F. B. Henry
Bishop of Calgary


Bishop Henry can be reached at:
bishop.henry@calgarydiocese.ca

Telephone: (403) 218-5526
Fax:              (403) 264-0272

How wonderful that his brother Bishops in Canada are lining up behind him. Oh, you mean they're contacting him and encouraging him and offering Mass for him, just not speaking out and standing beside him? 

Oh, well; I guess the dog's got them.


Thursday 21 January 2016

Catholics of Sudbury - Get thee to the Latin Mass!

Let us rejoice with some good news for the Catholics of Sudbury, a vibrant city in northern Ontario which has given, or I should say, sold to the world much of what it sits on. A few months ago, I had heard through some contacts there and in the liturgical movement in Canada that after many years, a traditional Latin Mass was to be held regularly. 

A reader has kindly sent me there new web page. The community is known as the Mater Dei Latin Mass Community and Mass it twice per week; a Read Mass on Wednesday at 5:00 P.M. and a Sung Mass with incense on Sundays at 5:00 P.M. The Masses are offered at St. Casimir's Church at 210 Paris Street.  

The community has a Facebook page and their web page which can be found at http://www.materdeiparish.ca/.

God bless the people who have made this possible.

+JMJ+
My friends, greetings! My name is Fr. Vince Fiore.
Please take a moment to read this. Thank you.
Installed by the Catholic Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie, I am the new pastor of the MATER DEI LATIN MASS COMMUNITY in Sudbury, Ontario.
Mater Dei (Mother of God) is a brand new community that will offer a weekly option of attending the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass in the Traditional Latin Rite on Sundays at 5:00 P.M., beginning:
When: Sunday, 17 January 2016
Where: St. Casimir Church, 210 Paris Street, Sudbury, Ontario (parking lot in back, accessible from Van Horne, then Solidarity Lane).
Attending Mass in the Traditional Rite FULFILLS THE CATHOLIC SUNDAY OBLIGATION TO ATTEND MASS.
We are very excited and are diligently working to be able to offer to Almighty God the fullness of the splendour of this extraordinary Liturgy which, thanks to Dr. David Buley, professor of Music Education at Laurentian University, includes an exquisite integration of Gregorian Chant.
A Low Mass will be offered weekly as well, at St. Casimir on Wednesdays at 5:00 P.M.. This is also often referred to as a 'quiet Mass', that is, without the chanting and incensing one would normally experience at a Sunday High Mass and other 'High Feast Days'.
Sacrament of Penance (Confession) will be made available before Mass on Sunday and Wednesday at 4:00 P.M..
We are totally dependent on the generosity of others. Please remember the Mater Dei Latin Mass Community in your prayers. As usual, a collection will be taken up at the Sunday Masses, please give as generously as possible. Thank you.
As well, please consider Mater Dei as a charitable option, monthly or as regular as possible. It is amazing, as you know, how quickly and wildly costs will mount. Tax receipts will be issued. Donations can be made out and sent to:
Mater Dei Latin Mass
c/o 21 Ste. Anne Road
Sudbury, Ontario
P3C 5P6
This is a Diocesan-wide initiative. Please feel free to come and experience the Divine Liturgy as the Saints you know and love would have known it.
Do not have concerns such as "I won't know what to do", or, "I don't understand Latin". To follow along, resources will be provided. Myself, the servers and the musicians are learning, too. So, be at peace and know that we will be growing in this endeavour together. Very exciting!
We are currently working on our website.
Thank you to Almighty God and Our Lady for this extraordinary opportunity!
Thank you and Dominus Vobiscum! (The Lord be with you!)
Please help spread the word!
Through Him, With Him, and In Him,
Pater Vincenzo Fiore
(Father Vince Fiore)
Mater Dei, ora pro nobis! Mother of God, pray for us!

Sunday 23 March 2014

A road begun at First Communion

What wonderful joy in Ottawa this past week on the Solemnity of St. Joseph with the consecration of the new Auxilliary Bishop of Ottawa, His Excellency Christian Reisbeck of the Companions of the Cross.  One of the unique circumstances of the evening was the presence of the His Excellency Thomas Dowd, Auxilliary Bishop of Montreal and the revelation that came from it. Not only are these two Canada's youngest, but they are the youngest bishops in North America and to to top it off, they attended the same elementary school in Ottawa and were in the same First Communion class!




Friday 11 October 2013

Pope Francis to declare Canadian, "Servant of God"

Let the little children come to me," said Jesus to his disciples (Luke 18, 16) . To achieve this commitment to the children of the diocese of Rimouski, God prepared a wonderful woman of tenderness and solicitude Elisabeth Turgeon. This woman, in poor health, but the keen intelligence and wise and generous heart, was born in Beaumont (Quebec) February 7, 1840. His parents, Louis-Marc Turgeon and Angèle Labrecque, gave their nine children education stronger.
Elizabeth was 15 years old when his father died prematurely. Five years later, she entered the Ecole Normale Laval in Quebec City. After graduating in 1862, she taught successively in Saint-Romuald, Quebec City and Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.April 3, 1875, at the invitation of Bishop Jean Langevin, Bishop of Rimouski, she joins a group of girls together, according to the desire of the bishop, in order to train qualified teachers for schools parishes in the diocese of Rimouski.
September 12, 1879, with twelve of his companions, Elizabeth is dedicated to the Lord by the vows [] . The same day, she was appointed the first superior of the Congregation. She agreed to send sisters, two by two, into a very poor school in three parishes: St. Gabriel, St. Godfrey and Port-Daniel. Then she opens aindependent school [?] Rimouski to prepare novices [?] teaching.
Her maternal tenderness as his unshakable confidence are endless, but his physical strength is already exhausted. Mother Mary Elizabeth (his religious name) died on August 17, 1881.