Call to Prayer: September 26
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News about Archbishop Cordileone in San Francisco
As you may remember from June, Archbishop Cordileone, the Chairman of the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, spoke at the March for Marriage. His participation was loudly protested by a number of public figures.
The news source Catholic San Francisco is running a three-part series on the origins of the protest, which was the group “Faithful America,” an organization that funds “LGBT” acceptance, intentionally using the language of faith to undermine Church teaching.
Read the full text here, and follow it as it continues: “The first part of the series… focuses on Faithful America. The second will focus specifically on the tactic of funding organizations which use the language of faith to attack Catholic teaching. The third part of the series will address the “hate” tactic by opponents of Catholic teaching on human sexuality.”
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Pope Francis Homily for Wedding
On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14, 2014) the Holy Father received the vows of 20 couples, joining in the Sacrament of Marriage. This is an excerpt from his homily, highlighting the beauty of sexual difference:
“The love of Christ, which has blessed and sanctified the union of husband and wife, is able to sustain their love and to renew it when, humanly speaking, it becomes lost, wounded or worn out. The love of Christ can restore to spouses the joy of journeying together. This is what marriage is all about: man and woman walking together, wherein the husband helps his wife to become ever more a woman, and wherein the woman has the task of helping her husband to become ever more a man. This is the task that you both share. “I love you, and for this love I help you to become ever more a woman”; “I love you, and for this love I help you to become ever more a man”. Here we see the reciprocity of differences. The path is not always a smooth one, free of disagreements, otherwise it would not be human. It is a demanding journey, at times difficult, and at times turbulent, but such is life!”
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Call to Prayer Friday Fast: September 12, 2014
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Cardinal George on “A Tale of Two Churches”
Cardinal George reflects in the Archdiocese of Chicago’s newspaper on the way that the current American culture requires us to choose between our faith and full civic participation, since the dominant ideology has become like a religion.
He writes: “Swimming against the tide… means that those who choose to live by the Catholic faith will not be welcomed as political candidates to national office, will not sit on editorial boards of major newspapers, will not be at home on most university faculties, will not have successful careers as actors and entertainers…. the practice of medicine and law will become more difficult for faithful Catholics. It already means in some States that those who run businesses must conform their activities to the official religion or be fined, as Christians and Jews are fined for their religion in countries governed by Sharia law.”
The Cardinal also points out that, “American civil law has done much to weaken and destroy what is the basic unit of every human society, the family. With the weakening of the internal restraints that healthy family life teaches, the State will need to impose more and more external restraints on everyone’s activities.”
Thanks to the Cardinal who has such a gift for seeing and guiding us! Let’s pray for him and all our bishops!
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Friday Fast: September 5, 2014
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Good News in Louisiana
For the first time since last summer’s Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Windsor, marriage advocates won a marriage case in federal court. In the case of Robicheaux v. Caldwell, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana ruled that Louisiana’s marriage amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman and disallowing the recognition of valid out-of-state same-sex “marriages” does not violate the U.S. Constitution.
Regarding the federal court decisions striking down state marriage laws, Judge Feldman said: “The federal court decisions thus far exemplify a pageant of empathy; decisions impelled by a response of innate pathos” (p. 26 of the opinion, available in full here).
He goes on to say: “Perhaps that is the next frontier, the next phase of some ‘evolving understanding of equality,’ where what is marriage will be explored. . . . For example, must the states permit or recognize a marriage between an aunt and niece? Aunt and nephew? Brother/brother? Father and child? May minors marry? Must marriage be limited to only two people? What about a transgender spouse? Is such a union same-gender or male-female? All such unions would undeniably be equally committed to love and caring for one another, just like the plaintiffs. Plaintiffs’ counsel was unable to answer such kinds of questions; the only hesitant response given was that such unions would result in ‘significant societal harms’ that the states could indeed regulate. But not same-gender unions. This Court is powerless to be indifferent to the unknown and possibly imprudent consequences of such a decision. A decision for which there remains the arena of democratic debate” (pp. 27-29).
Please see the USCCB media release, quoting Archbishop Cordileone!