Category: Pastor’s Column

A weekly column I put in my parish bulletin.

Pastor Column: Qui Pluribus

Posted on by Father Albert
From the bulletin of September 6, 2020      Now for the documents themselves. We’ll start with some of the documents of Blessed Pope Pius IX. You may remember that he was the Pope who first used his power of teaching ex cathedra to solemnly define the Immaculate Conception of Mary as a dogma. Well, he is also the first pope to really expand the practice of writing encyclicals to the whole Church, ultimately writing 38 of them over the course of his time as Pope.      Pius IX’s primary concern was to teach the truth of the faith. Most of...Read More

Pastor’s Column: Different Kinds of Documents

Posted on by Father Albert
From the bulletin of August 30, 2020      As we journey through some of the more recent Papal teachings, it is also important to understand the different kinds of documents a pope can write. Last week’s survey of the Marian doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption were drawn from the kind of document called an “Apostolic Constitution.” This is considered the highest level of document which can be used for infallible teachings and for other very important decisions about things in the universal Church. Even when the teaching is not specifically formulated as an infallible dogma, they are...Read More

Pastor Column: Infallible Marian Teachings

Posted on by Father Albert
From the bulletin of August 23, 2020      Now that we’ve learned a little about Papal Infallibility, let’s look at some examples. You may recall I wrote that Papal Infallibility only applies in very specific circumstances and that it doesn’t extend to everything he says and does. In fact, the circumstances are so specific that there are only two examples of an undisputed infallible teaching from the Pope. This doesn’t mean that nothing else they’ve said and done has any authority, but that there are only two examples where he used the power of teaching doctrine ex cathedra (from the...Read More

Pastor Column: Papal Infallibility II

Posted on by Father Albert
From the bulletin of August 16, 2020      Continuing our study of Papal Infallibility, this week we’ll consider the way this has been misunderstood and misused. You may recall that some of the people who objected to the decision of Vatican I to proclaim this doctrine did so because they were worried about it being misunderstood. They believed the Holy Spirit infallibly protected the teachings of the Church and that the pope had a special charism to carry out this protection. What they feared was that people would interpret this declaration to mean that everything the pope said had to...Read More

Pastor Column: Papal Infallibility

Posted on by Father Albert
From the bulletin of August 9, 2020      As we learned last week, the First Vatican Council was most famous for solemnly declaring that the Pope had the ability to teach doctrine infallibly. It is often called the charism of infallibility. That word “charism” is used by the Church to refer to spiritual gifts and in this case means that the Pope, because of the authority he inherits as successor to St. Peter, has the spiritual gift of teaching without error. Now, it is important to remember that, whenever the Church defines a doctrine, she is not changing what we’ve...Read More

Pastor Column: Vatican I

Posted on by Father Albert
From the bulletin of August 2, 2020      Perhaps you’ve heard of the Second Vatican Council, or simply “Vatican II.” Many of you lived through it and remember the impact it had on the Church at large. When we do get to that council, we will spend a lot of time going through it, but our historical tour hasn’t gotten there just yet. We’re still in the 1800s and now we’re going to take a look at the First Vatican Council. It was called on December 8, 1864 by Pope Pius IX in response to the rising influence of various...Read More

Pastor Column: John Henry Newman

Posted on by Father Albert
From the bulletin of July 12, 2020      Our next stop in the tour of the Church’s tradition is the life of John Henry Newman, an English convert to Catholicism, a Cardinal, and a saint. Born in 1801, John Henry Newman became an Anglican priest and taught at Oxford. While there, he led the Oxford Movement, which led many in the Church of England to emphasize the more traditional beliefs and practices of Christianity. It eventually led him and several followers to convert to Catholicism in 1845 because they recognized it as the Church with the most legitimate claim to...Read More

Pastor Column: Little Way

Posted on by Father Albert
From the Bulletin of July 5, 2020      Recall that we learned about Jansenism last week. That particular heresy greatly impacted French Catholicism and the parts of the world influenced by it, including our own Acadiana. With its emphasis on our unworthiness, it caused a lot of scrupulosity and fear so that many Catholics considered their faith a burden rather than a blessing. The Church, as guardian of the truth, did condemn this error and work to undo it’s effects, but our faith is not a list of ideas. Our doctrines and teachings mean very little unless they are lived...Read More

Jansenism

Posted on by Father Albert
From the Bulletin of June 28, 2020      As we continue our journey through the Church’s history and tradition, we come to a movement that has some influence on our local culture by way of its influence on French culture in the 1600s. That movement is called Jansenism, named after a Dutch theologian Cornelius Jansen. Ultimately, this movement was declared a heresy - a false teaching, but not before it led many people into error.      Essentially, Jansenism over-emphasized the doctrine of Original Sin to the point of considering human nature as totally depraved. They tried to use the teachings...Read More

Science vs. Faith?

Posted on by Father Albert
From the Bulletin of June 21, 2020     Last week, I briefly highlighted some great saints to emphasize that God always sends more grace in times when we need it more. The list was woefully short and didn’t even address other well-known saints like John Fisher, Thomas More, John of Avila, Charles Borromeo, Aloysius Gonzaga, and Philip Neri. Towards the end of this tumultuous century, there is another saint named St. Robert Bellarmine, who plays a role what we’re looking at today: the Galileo Controversy.      Spend just a few minutes looking for atheists online and you’ll quickly come across...Read More