The passage in the photo is from Little Flowers of Francis of Assisi. A friar of his order was concerned about predestination. The devil visited Brother Ruffino appearing as a crucifix telling him he and everyone he knew were destined for hell. This upset Brother Ruffino greatly and he became overwhelmed with spiritual darkness. When Brother Ruffino visited St. Francis the Saint gave him some advice. I think it’s an appropriate response for those preaching damnation rather than salvation.

Today I went for a visit to a popular marian shrine in the city and saw this tender statue of Saint Joseph cradling the Lord Jesus against his chest ☺️

Went to Confession today after a really rough week that included a really hard decision. For my penance, the priest asked me to find a photo of myself when I was a child and pray with it, meditating on what I would tell my younger self about my life/this moment.

The best part about this whole story? I had taken an old photo of me when I had just started elementary school to work a few weeks back to hang on one of our poster boards (a “Back to School” board for all the employees) …and I realized in the pew that I had an extra one still in my wallet that I’d forgot to take out…Easily the most moving penance I’ve ever had, and, for me, a new way to pray! 🙂

Hi everyone, I’m just now getting into Catholicism from a leftist perspective. I am processing my first confession currently as I type this in 18 years. I’m 33. The priest was very sweet and for penance he asked me to pray the Our Father once and slowly and to really meditate on the words, their meaning and to pray to God in a way where I truly mean it. I wanted to ask how I can start? I want to study the bible but I also know there are so many versions and after so many years I don’t even know what the prayers are or what companion books I should have for mass. I love the faith and feel this calling back but what initially drove me away was the right wing politic, queer phobia, and anti feminist biases. I know there’s also different bibles like one where it highlights how we’re caretakers for the land I think it’s the green bible and a feminist bible I believe. I suppose I would like some advice on what reading materials are essential (ofc the bible) and anything else. I did grab a few pamphlets at the reconciliation chapel for the rosary and a mini my prayer book. Thank you.

Yeah i was kind of curious to what y'all think about him.

I have a question that I am not comfortable asking my parish priest and wanted to get some input. My husband and I are pursuing convalidation and our priest said he will need to get an annulment as he was
previously married in the Catholic church. He also advised us that neither of us can receive the Eucharist or absolution unless we vow to live celibately. I am completely fine with this but husband is struggling significantly. He is a lapsed Catholic that is doing this at my behest. We are both well beyond child rearing age so being open to life is not of concern. It is sending him into a spiral as intimacy is a how he process love and affection. I do not want to distance myself from God in the Eucharist or not be absolved during reconciliation. Do you have any advice?

Catholicism is imploding across the world because it doesn’t provide community to its members, fundamentally. Which is deeply ironic considering it is called The Church. Yet this is the truth.

Despite a wave of recent conversions, there’s no durable community to receive those converts, and many will wash out. Those that don’t, their children will leave the faith in droves, just like the children of current Catholics. No matter how devout they may be raised, Catholicism fails in the 21st century very simply because there isn’t a Catholic community.

I converted in 2020, and despite years of searching for community it was impossible to find. Eventually I gave up, and turned towards a Christopagan outlook and began worshipping Aphrodite in order to be free of a Catholic framework that made enormous demands on me, but which yet didn’t provide me with a community, didn’t provide me with people in my corner who would be nice and respectful and I could in turn serve. My current place where I’m at I am establishing a community for the worship of Aphrodite and so far it’s going good! I’ve got further with this than I ever did with a Catholic community where we have to seek permission to do anything and thus nothing ever gets done.

Catholicism offers good deeds for poor and indigent people, which is great and I tried that, and it’s awesome they don’t just serve themselves, but here’s the thing they don’t serve themselves they don’t foster their own people to take care of them. They don’t take care of their own family. It’s Mass and Confession and outside that you aren’t going to find much. I ultimately stopped serving the poor at my local Catholic food bank because I wasn’t making any friends doing that. It was a different set of volunteers every week. It’s something I would be willing to do if it was part of a greater mission with a group of us, but I am not willing to do that on my own indefinitely. And judging by what I saw, most people aren’t.

There are some young adult groups we tried but unfortunately we encountered cliques and it became a hierarchy and we were treated poorly and systematically excluded. We weren’t the only ones. We also witnessed extensive racism towards minorities from the right wing converts that came out overtly in private contexts but which came across in other contexts. A lot of these people didn’t convert believing in loving everyone they just wanted an ideology to allow them to feel righteous for hating on liberal values and that includes some racism.

But the right wing converts aren’t the real problem even, the real problem is they are the only ones even active in the Church because there isn’t any real Catholic community. The deadness of the Catholic community is why Catholicism is imploding and will probably continue to implode until they figure out how to integrate to be a real community. Without a radical reform I don’t think Catholicism will even survive to 2200. Christianity broadly WILL definitely survive to 2200 because they have small groups and even though many of them are toxic for profit business, there’s still enough there that through survival of the fittest Protestantism will evolve and wil survive and may even grow. I can’t say the same for Catholicism, which is a shame because it’s much deeper and more spiritual but it can’t seem to get its act together

i have a deep connection to St Dymphna and Our Blessed Mother, and i was thinking about what I want to be for Halloween and they popped into my mind. but idk if thats disrespectful?

Same as the honourable Barron ig

> Vance’s silence was even more apparent after another American high-profile Catholic, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, issued a statement on the pope’s cancer diagnosis.

> “Jeanette and I are united in prayer for @PONTIFEX’s health following his recent diagnosis,” Rubio wrote on his social media. “May the Lord give him strength and the Holy Spirit guide the medical professionals taking care of the Holy Father.”

One of my favourite movies, its about dominican friars, joining antifascist guerilla, to fight right wing dictatorship in Brazil. If you like liberation theology, this is for you.

https://gloria.tv/post/LGwdoaz2ana23mm3xxtZkNwyK

In a joint ecumenical document, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Association of Evangelicals call for “compassion and wisdom” in the immigration debate affecting the country.

I am glad the church leadership is responding to immigration issues and the death penalty!

I think it is.

In fact, I think it's the most compatible political/economic system with Catholic teaching.

The opposite is Finance Capitalism which revolves around usury, which is obviously heretical, but it's never really challenged or scrutinized by most of catholic laity. Definitely not as much as socialism is.

I’ve been reading St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and The Secret of Mary, alongside St. John Eudes’ The Admirable Heart of Mary, and I think they offer a compelling answer to why a Catholic might consider Marian consecration. To bring that message to others, I wrote up some thoughts on why I think it’s a good and important practice!

The first thing worth clarifying is that, in de Montfort’s understanding, this is not a choice between belonging to Jesus and belonging to Mary. He explicitly writes that we consecrate ourselves to Mary because Jesus chose her as the means by which He united Himself to us, and we consecrate ourselves to Jesus because He is our ultimate end.

So what does consecration actually add?

De Montfort describes this devotion as a profound renewal of our baptismal promises. We have already given ourselves to Christ in Baptism, but do we always live with that commitment consciously before us? He argues that we can renew that commitment by deliberately entrusting ourselves to Jesus through Mary, including the spiritual value of our prayers, good works, sacrifices, and sufferings.

This is more than asking Mary to pray for us. It is a way of placing our entire spiritual life under her maternal care, trusting her to help direct it toward the glory of her Son. Mary’s role is to help form us in the likeness of Christ.

In The Secret of Mary, de Montfort describes the fruits of this devotion in concrete terms: greater purity of heart, humility, charity, singleness of purpose, and fruitfulness in good works. He writes that Mary helps form Christ’s life in the soul and brings the soul into deeper union with Him.

This is the part I find compelling. Marian consecration is not just about asking for her intercession. It is about learning from the woman whose entire life was oriented toward God, and entrusting ourselves to her guidance as we seek to become more like her Son.

St. John Eudes’ The Admirable Heart of Mary develops a similar theme. Mary’s heart is worthy of devotion because of its profound union with Jesus. Her virtues are not separate from Him; they reflect a heart wholly turned toward Him. Mary does not keep what we give her for herself. De Montfort makes this point especially clearly in True Devotion, paragraph 225: Mary is entirely oriented toward God. He describes her as an echo of God, returning praise to Him. When we honor her, she joins us in honoring Him.

That is the purpose of this devotion: not to put Mary in Christ’s place, but to give ourselves to Christ more completely through her.

Of course, this is a particular devotion, and we may live our faith through any devotions we please, but for anyone seeking a more deliberate, comprehensive way to renew their baptismal commitment, Marian consecration is worth considering.

The question is not whether we should belong to Jesus or Mary. It is whether we are willing to entrust ourselves to the maternal guidance of the woman who belonged to God so completely, so that we might belong to her Son more completely as well.

As someone whose family has a history of this - eldest daughter of eldest daughter of eldest daughter, like clockwork - and I am the eldest daughter, I was wondering what others made of this. I am epileptic and autistic which in other faiths is often regarded as a “shamanistic” power and/or the ability to travel between different levels of the world during episodes, and it is agreed throughout the family that I definitely have the strongest manifestation of it they’ve ever seen.

I experience routine detailed premonitions of events that go on to occur, have a very strange connection to my Ma (also obviously the eldest daughter) to the point that when one of us feels pain so does the other, we get a sense of unease if something is wrong with the other, etc, and I have never been really able to explain it in a way that ties in to my Catholic faith. In fact, it feels almost wrong.

Thoughts?

This has no doubt been asked before, but... How do we deal with the various genocides of the Old Testament (many of which seem to have the stamp of divine approval)?

It's always a hard question, but I was curious how this sub thought about it. (I think some of the Church Fathers maybe considered many of them symbolic?)

Everywhere I've looked so far, everything about me is wrong for the Church.

I had a hysterectomy primarily to treat hideous periods, with the absolute bonus of never having to risk conceiving a child on medications I can't stop that would hurt that child. But the Church wants me to be "open to life", as though being open to the young lives that humanity throws into foster care isn't enough. As though we absolutely must breed ourselves into infinity. Also, I'm on the ace spectrum. If I find someone I could conceivably live a long, happy, celibate life with, we're not allowed to call that marriage. It'll have to be civil-only for the protections of the government, but sacramentally I'm in error.

I have serious questions about why the papacy is stepping into the 21st century in certain respects but the laity is resisting so hard -- even the magisterium seems to be coming around (forevermore why would they have selected the last two Popes if not?). I am in love with the social justice teachings and ministries of the Church. This is the work I feel called to do. You don't just put your life on pause for four years to get a graduate degree if there's not a serious vocation in play.

I can make decent arguments for primacy of conscience on the matters where I disagree with Mother Church, and I can count them on one hand, which isn't terrible for a church with canons numbering into, what, the thousands? But I wonder if I'm wanted if my proclivity is to reason and consider what I am being told is right and just.

This is my literal heritage; my mother's entire family has been Catholic for as far back as we can count. There's a surname in my family -- on two sides!!! -- that implies that someone in it was involved with the Church in a not-insignificant way. But a heritage of faith, a valid baptism, the heartfelt desire to return but as myself, a fully-formed adult... this all seems blasphemous in many eyes.

How do I reconcile the longing and the apparent reality?