SCCR Parish Blog

  In October, we begin Respect Life Month , a time our U.S. Bishops have asked us to pray and act to rebuild a culture in which all human life is respected, cherished and protected, from the moment of conception until God desires to take that life home to Himself.   Because we are in the Year of St. Joseph, the Bishops have taken as their theme this month, "St. Joseph, defender of life, pray for us!" 

  As I have written about earlier, the current President and Congress are moving quickly to force taxpayer funding of the terrible evil of abortion. This letter from the U.S. Conference of Bishops (below) encourages all the faithful to act quickly to stop this and to protect innocent lives and our religious liberty.  Please make sure your voice is heard! ================================================ Congress pushes taxpayer-funded abortion Congress is moving forward on paying for abortion with your tax dollars!  Babies and their moms urgently need your help. Congress is advancing appropriations bill this week that would essentially  force taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions  in D.C., through foreign assistance, and in federal employee health plans. And this is just the start. Easily send a quick, pre-written email by clicking the button below.  Your members of Congress need to hear from you  before they go any further . Don't let Congress vote for an appropriations bill that i

  The U.B. Bishops' Conference has designated this week (July 22-29) as Religious Freedom Week -- a special time to pray and act to preserve our own religious freedom.  It's also a good time to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ who don't enjoy the same measure of freedoms that we do in the U.S.  Check out their resources on their  religious freedom week webpage .

 UPDATED: 21 January to include Nine Days of Life Novena This is the last in my series of prolife posts for the week, in preparation for the National Day of Prayer and Penance for the Legal Protection of the Unborn. In conjunction with that special day, our U.S. Bishops have strongly encouraged all of the faithful to participate in the 9-Day Novena for Life.   (A novena is a nine-day consecutive prayer for an urgent intention).   In order to pray it together with fellow citizens from across the nation, they are recommending starting today, January 21st, and concluding on January 29th.   You can find information on that novena -- including prayers and suggested penances -- at respectlife.org. This year, there is a special urgency in praying the novena as we have just inaugurated a strongly pro-abortion presidential administration. On that note, Archbishop Gomez, the president of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops (a collaborative body of all the American bishops), recently issued a

  A while back, I wrote on the scandal of the likelihood of a baptized Catholic President contradicting the teaching of the Church in his policies and political agenda.  The always prayerful and thoughtful Archbishop Charles Chaput, former Archbishop of Philadelphia, has written a good short article about this in a fine journal on religion and public life entitled First Things .  He is a very clear and cogent writer.  As an aside, I recommend his book on the interaction of Christians and the government entitled, Render Unto Caesar . Here are a few excerpts from his article. The implications [of the Vatican's teaching on Communion to public figures who oppose the Church] for the present moment are clear. Public figures who identify as “Catholic” give scandal to the faithful when receiving Communion by creating the impression that the moral laws of the Church are optional. And bishops give similar scandal by not speaking up publicly about the issue and danger of sacrilege. This

  Throughout the year, but especially during election times, Catholics ask themselves, "How can I be a faith-filled citizen and a faithful citizen."  To help answer that question, our United States college of Catholic bishops (USCCB) has recently published a paper regarding principles that Catholic should use in deciding how to vote for candidates and issues before them. It is a complex topic, so I am posting the full document here and also will publish  some excerpts from it later.  Feel free to check back later. There is also a resource page regarding this topic available.