Sunday Meditation: Reflecting on the Good Shepherd

"I know my sheep and they know me." John 10:14 

Does your diocese have a good shepherd? Does your parish? How can you tell? Scripture says, "By their fruits you shall know them." The measure of a good shepherd is how zealously he defends the faith and protects his flock from scandal. If you are fortunate enough to have a good shepherd, be sure to express your gratitude.

And now I have a story to tell from my own two dioceses, Richmond and Arlington. Arlington is blessed to have many faithful priests. How grateful I am for them because they have kept Arlington from going the way of so many places that have essentially lost the faith altogether. Fr. John Hardon, S.J. warned about the crisis of faith for years and predicted that entire dioceses would lose the faith. Has that happened in your diocese? He described the crisis in a 1997 article that outlined what has become ever more obvious. Who can deny it today?

Our Lepanto Moment: The Splash Heard Round the World

This is the lead article from the Fall issue of the Les Femmes newsletter which isn't on line yet. You can check out past issues in our archive of articles.

When Alexander Tschugguel traveled from Austria to Rome to attend a conference prior to the Amazon Synod, he had no notion of making a big splash in the Catholic World. But when he saw the Pachamama idols desecrating the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, the 26-year-old felt he had to act. He told his wife he thought he should remove the idols. She advised him to consult a priest. Is it morally licit? They prayed many rosaries and he asked a trusted priest. “May I remove Pachamama from the church?” The priest’s swift reply? “You may not do it; you must do it!” And so he did. Splash!

From Abortion to Euthanasia: Pushing the Unwanted Over the Cliff

From the Les Femmes newsletter, The Truth, Vol. 20 #2, Summer 2015

by Mary Ann Kreitzer

   In 1973, prior to Roe v. Wade, only 17 states allowed abortion (except for life of the mother) and one, New York, had voted to repeal its law.[i] Only a veto by Nelson Rockefeller allowed the killing to continue in the Empire State.[ii] On January 22, 1973, however, all of that changed. Seven men on the Supreme Court imposed abortion-on-demand for the entire country, in effect, legislating under what conditions the states could “limit” the act. The companion ruling Doe v. Bolton, answered that question defining “health” so broadly that no abortion up to birth could be refused if a doctor were willing to do it.[iii] And, in fact, over the years it became obvious that many abortionists, like George Tiller, Kermit Gosnell, and Leroy Carhart would kill babies even days before birth inventing the particularly gruesome Partial Birth Abortion (PBA) method to ensure that potentially viable infants could be murdered in the birth canal by stabbing them in the upper neck and sucking out their brains avoiding the “complication” of a live birth. PBA not only ensured delivery of a dead baby, but provided an “intact specimen” for fetal wholesalers like Opening Lines which began trafficking in baby body parts in 1989.[iv]

Yes, Virginia, Sometimes You Can Stop a Scandal!

A priest friend once told me, "If you can't stop a scandal, the next best thing is to shine light on it." Note the order here: try to stop the scandal first. If that fails, then expose it bigtime - with as much fanfare condemnig it as possible. Why? To prevent people from being confused and led into sin..... Continued on the Les Femmes website. Click on E-Letter.