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Home / 2019 / July
  • 31 July. Wednesday of Week 16

    The prospect of leaving all behind to embrace something radically new…

    Read More 31 July. Wednesday of Week 16Continue

  • 30 July. Tuesday of Week 17

    As Moses entered this tent, the column of cloud came down to its entrance, and there…

    Read More 30 July. Tuesday of Week 17Continue

  • 29 July. Saint Martha

    There is a fine appraisal of Martha and Mary by Saint Augustine, in today’s Liturgy of the Hours…

    Read More 29 July. Saint MarthaContinue

  • Editor's Choice | Liturgy | Presider's Page

    Presider’s Page for 28 July (Ordinary Time 17)

    We can ask God for help whenever we need to, today or any day. We gather this Sunday to worship God who is always concerned for us.

    Read More Presider’s Page for 28 July (Ordinary Time 17)Continue

  • Liturgy | Sunday Homily Resources

    28 July. 17th Sunday (C)

    The power of intercession for others, as an expression of love. The Gospel seems to commend both praying alone as well as in praying with others.

    Read More 28 July. 17th Sunday (C)Continue

  • 27 July. Saturday of Week 16

    Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn..

    Read More 27 July. Saturday of Week 16Continue

  • 26 July. Friday of Week 16

    We need to set the Decalogue alongside the parable of the sower and the seed. Morality is essentially linked to growth and development, to bear fruits of positive goodness, as God wants of us.

    Read More 26 July. Friday of Week 16Continue

  • 25 July. St James, apostle

    Today’s feast celebrates the more prominent James, the son of Zebedee, one of the twelve apostles. This “greater” James was one of the first disciples to join Jesus, in Capernaum.

    Read More 25 July. St James, apostleContinue

  • 24 July. Wednesday of Week 16

    Jesus had no illusions about the frailty of humankind — he met it every day. But he also recognised great potential in many ordinary people that he met…

    Read More 24 July. Wednesday of Week 16Continue

  • 23 July. St Bridget of Sweden, Patron of Europe

    1st Reading: Galatians 2:19-20 It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives…

    Read More 23 July. St Bridget of Sweden, Patron of EuropeContinue

  • 22 July. St Mary Magdalene

    As one who suffered in her mental health (being rid by Jesus of her “seven demons”) Mary Magdalene probably had to endure negative responses from others. Who would want to go near a madwoman? Yet Jesus reached out to her in kindness, reached out to the real Mary,..

    Read More 22 July. St Mary MagdaleneContinue

  • Editor's Choice | Liturgy | Presider's Page

    Presider’s Page for 21 July (Ordinary Time 16)

    As we gather for Mass today, we are challenged to be hospitable, welcoming people. We worship the God who always has a welcome for us.

    Read More Presider’s Page for 21 July (Ordinary Time 16)Continue

  • Liturgy | Sunday Homily Resources

    21 July. 16th Sunday (C)

    This story shows Jesus in an everyday setting among people that he loved and who loved him,,,

    Read More 21 July. 16th Sunday (C)Continue

  • 20 July. Saturday of Week 15

    Like Jesus we have some power to cure and heal, quietly, without ostentation…

    Read More 20 July. Saturday of Week 15Continue

  • 19 July. Friday of Week 15

    The Pharisees emphasised what was forbidden on the Sabbath than its purpose..

    Read More 19 July. Friday of Week 15Continue

  • 18 July. Thursday of Week 15

    The divine name, Yahweh, suggests that GOD will be continuously with his people…

    Read More 18 July. Thursday of Week 15Continue

  • 17 July. Wednesday of Week 15

    Each of us is invited into this bond of trust and love between Jesus and the Father..

    Read More 17 July. Wednesday of Week 15Continue

  • 16 July. Tuesday of Week 15

    Although reared in the luxury of Pharao’s palace, as a young man Moses showed a keen sense of justice…

    Read More 16 July. Tuesday of Week 15Continue

  • 15 July. Monday of Week 15

    Beginning today, the readings from the Book of Exodus lead up to the appearance of God on Mount Sinai (chap. 19), followed by the guidelines for keeping the covenant (chaps. 20-23), and its solemn ratification (chap. 24).

    Read More 15 July. Monday of Week 15Continue

  • Editor's Choice | Liturgy | Presider's Page

    Presider’s Page for 14 July (Ordinary Time 15)

    The beautiful story of the Good Samaritan is told again at today’s Mass, with its challenge to us to look after others, as the Good Samaritan did. We gather to worship God who showed us what love means.

    Read More Presider’s Page for 14 July (Ordinary Time 15)Continue

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  • 2 comments

    Seán Ó’Conaill: No Humility Without Humiliation

    July 12 2026
    Joe O'Leary
    St Bernadette Soubirous: “It takes many humiliations to make humility.” Karl Rahner: “There is no humble person who has not something to be humble about.” Leo XIV, in his encyclical, strikingly apologizes for the church’s entanglement in slavery all the way up to Leo XIII, something that apologists like Avery Dulles (whose Jesuit university owned slaves) covered up. Vatican II’s Declarations, Dignitatis Humanae and Nostra Aetate contradict millennia of malpractice against the Jew and against religious freedom, but with no acknowledgement of conversion or repentance (that had to wait for John Paul II’s “purification of memory”). The Vatican’s timid steps to welcoming lgbt folk is not accompanied by any acknowledgement of conversion or repentance. I would say that we were all educated in pride, not humility, when we internalized slogans such as: “The Church has never erred”, “The Roman Church alone possesses the fulness of Truth”; “The plurality of religions exists de facto, but not de iure”; “No salvation outside the Church”. Or consider the Syllabus of Errors of 1864: CONDEMNED: 15. Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true. — Allocution “Maxima quidem,” June 9, 1862; Damnatio “Multiplices inter,” June 10, 1851. 16. Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation. — Encyclical “Qui pluribus,” Nov. 9, 1846. 17. Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ. — Encyclical “Quanto conficiamur,” Aug. 10, 1863, etc. 18. Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church. — Encyclical “Noscitis,” Dec. 8, 1849. 19. The Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free- nor is she endowed with proper and perpetual rights of her own, conferred upon her by her Divine Founder; but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church, and the limits within which she may exercise those rights. — Allocution “Singulari quadam,&quuot; Dec. 9, 1854, etc. 20. The ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government. — Allocution “Meminit unusquisque,” Sept. 30, 1861. [This thinking is what underlay the idea that the civil power has no authority over the clergy — which led to the excommunication of Venice in 1605 for its refusal to hand over two clerics guilty of sexual crimes to the church for trial.] 26. The Church has no innate and legitimate right of acquiring and possessing property. — Allocution “Nunquam fore,” Dec. 15, 1856; Encyclical “Incredibili,” Sept. 7, 1863. [It was also reproached to Venice that it set limits to the church buying up land.] 30. The immunity of the Church and of ecclesiastical persons derived its origin from civil law. — Damnatio “Multiplices inter,” June 10, 1851. 31. The ecclesiastical forum or tribunal for the temporal causes, whether civil or criminal, of clerics, ought by all means to be abolished, even without consulting and against the protest of the Holy See. — Allocution “Nunquam fore,” Dec. 15, 1856; Allocution “Acerbissimum,” Sept. 27, 1852. 32. The personal immunity by which clerics are exonerated from military conscription and service in the army may be abolished without violation either of natural right or equity. Its abolition is called for by civil progress, especially in a society framed on the model of a liberal government. — Letter to the Bishop of Monreale “Singularis nobisque,” Sept. 29, 1864. 55. The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church. — Allocution “Acerbissimum,” Sept. 27, 1852. 76. The abolition of the temporal power of which the Apostolic See is possessed would contribute in the greatest degree to the liberty and prosperity of the Church. — Allocutions “Quibus quantisque,” April 20, 1849, “Si semper antea,” May 20, 1850. 77. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship. — Allocution “Nemo vestrum,” July 26, 1855. 78. Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship. — Allocution “Acerbissimum,” Sept. 27, 1852. 79. Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism. — Allocution “Nunquam fore,” Dec. 15, 1856. 80. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.- -Allocution “Jamdudum cernimus,” March 18, 1861. Is there any official account of what to make of these condemnations today? Or do we just count on them to remain a dead letter? The 1976 edition of Denzinger has a prefatory note: “It is clear that some of these propositions, of a more juridical or church-political bearing, depend greatly on the conditions of that time.” Nothing about hubris, conversion, repentance, or purification of memory. Claude.com says: 1. Since Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae (1965) affirmed religious liberty — seemingly contradicting the Syllabus’s condemnation of the proposition that states shouldn’t establish Catholicism exclusively — a major strand of post-conciliar Catholic scholarship (associated with thinkers like Basile Valuet and, in different ways, Cardinal Ratzinger and John Courtney Murray earlier) has argued there’s no real rupture. The claim is that Pius IX was condemning a specific 19th-century ideological liberalism (the Enlightenment claim that truth is whatever reason decides, indifferentism, and the notion the Church has no rights the state must respect) rather than religious liberty as such, and that Vatican II operated in a different register — prudential/pastoral rather than dogmatic. This reading treats the Syllabus as historically contingent polemic, not a timeless doctrinal wall, and is largely how the Vatican itself now frames it. 2. For groups like the Society of St. Pius X, Vatican II’s teaching on religious liberty does contradict the Syllabus and Quanta Cura, and later theologians are retroactively softening Pius IX to paper over a real doctrinal reversal. 3. Historians have noted that Pius IX issued the document while Rome was encircled by enemies, having suffered humiliation and losses to the new Italian state under Mazzini and Cavour, and read the Syllabus partly as a reaction to those political tormentors rather than a pure theological statement. On this reading, the Syllabus’s harshness owes as much to Pius IX’s personal and institutional crisis as to considered theology. The French bishop Dupanloup tried to blunt the Syllabus’s impact in an 1865 pamphlet by reframing it as a description of an unattainable “perfect society” ideal, not a practical political program — essentially the first attempt to relativize the document, which modern “hermeneutic of continuity” scholars echo in more sophisticated form. 4. A more academic-historical approach treats the Syllabus less as a coherent argument and more as a symptom of ultramontanism’s peak — useful for understanding 19th-century Catholic identity politics, the run-up to papal infallibility (1870), and Church-state conflicts (Kulturkampf, the Roman Question) rather than as a text to be philosophically parsed proposition-by-proposition.
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  • 3 comments

    Letter to Pope Leo from Be The Change…

    July 10 2026
    M G-B
    Thank you Paddy!
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  • 7 comments

    Brendan Hoban: History shows that tradition is not sacrosanct            

    June 28 2026
    M G-B
    Brendan, you wrote that we could welcome back married men who had left the Priesthood to boost declining numbers today. I thought it was so ironic to read that CORPUS: The National Association for an inclusive Priesthood formed by married former Priests interested in returning to service, disbands in 2024 after 50 years. Why? Aging membership and lack of new members.
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  • 3 comments

    Letter to Pope Leo from Be The Change…

    July 10 2026
    Paddy Ferry
    MGB, I am wondering if you have read the late Donald Cozzens wonderful book — recognised by many as the modern day classic on our priesthood — The Changing Face of the Priesthood? His other classic is Freeing Celibacy.
    Go To Comment
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