“CANON V. If any one saith, that on account of heresy, or irksome cohabitation, or the affected absence of one of the parties, the bond of matrimony may be dissolved; let him be anathema.” “CANON XII. If any one saith, that matrimonial causes do not belong to ecclesiastical judges; let him be anathema.” – Council…
“And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.” – Jesus (Matthew 19:9) “It’s now a new situation of a marriage. They are living together, they love each other,…
For he hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up: lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon. – Psalms 90:11-13 (Douay Rheims)…
Saint Jerome famously said, “Ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” Equally memorable to me was the retort of a friend—a priest of high academic credentials—when I mentioned the tendency among Catholic biblical scholars to dismiss as “proof-texting” the use of Scripture in support of doctrine. I told him of the seminary instructor who…
One of the chief arguments for the traditional Christian practice of celebrating the Eucharist ad orientem — the priest and people together facing the same direction, toward the liturgical “east” of the apse — is that the Mass is a sacrifice offered up to God. The German liturgical scholar Msgr. Klaus Gamber († 1989) observes: You stand before…
There’s a scene in Evelyn Waugh’s masterpiece novel, Brideshead Revisited, that I often recall, to my amusement. Father Mowbray is giving instructions in the Catholic faith to a lapsed Protestant named Rex Mottram. Mister Mottram isn’t really sincere in his conversion (in fact he’s completely disinterested in spiritual matters), but he very much wants to…
