The Origin of Sun/Sunday Worship

5 "Sacred" Papal Symbols and Their Significance

The ancient office of the pope is rich in symbols and insignia.

Dave Roos

VINCENZO PINTO/AFP via Getty Images

Published: April 23, 2025

Last Updated: April 23, 2025

In the Roman Catholic Church, the pope is the sucessor to St. Peter, who was given authority by Jesus to establish His church on Earth, according to the New Testament. The pope is the Bishop of Rome and the chief pastor of the Roman Catholic Church, which claims nearly 1.4 billion adherents worldwide.

The ancient office of the pope, also known as the Holy See, is rich in symbols and insignia. Here are some of the most visible and meaningful of the papal symbols.

1.

The Papal Tiara

Known as the papal tiara or the “Triple Crown,” this historic headdress is the most revered and sacred symbol of the papacy. In addition to appearing prominently on papal emblems and coats of arms, the tiara was also a physical crown worn by popes for more than 1,000 years.

The Latin name of the papal tiara is the triregnum or “triple reign.” It’s a cone-shaped headdress composed of three layers, giving the impression of an elaborate beehive adorned with gold and precious gems.

According to historians, the tiara didn’t always have three layers. The earliest versions, dating back to the fourth century, were inspired by a conical Greco-Roman headdress called a Phrygian cap, as well as a Byzantine hat known as a camelaucum.

The tiara got its first ringed “crown” in the 900s to represent the pope’s authority over the Papal States, large swaths of land in central Italy that included Rome. Even though they weren’t kings, popes in the Middle Ages enjoyed a certain level of earthly power, says Christopher Bellitto, a historian at Kean University.

The second crown debuted on the tiara of Pope Boniface VIII in 1298, who wanted to emphasize the spiritual dominion of the pope. A third crown was added a century later, perhaps to indicate the pope’s supreme spiritual and moral authority over earthly kings.

Over time, the papal tiara became more and more elaborate and bejeweled. Pope Julius II was crowned with a tiara in 1503 that was valued by a Milan jeweler at 200,000 ducats (each ducat was 3.5 grams of pure gold). Each new pope was crowned with a tiara at their coronation and wore it during special processions from St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

The physical tiara was removed as part of the pope’s official vestments as part of the Vatican II reforms of the 1960s.

“The last pope who had the tiara put on his head was Paul VI in 1963,” says Bellitto, author of 101 Questions & Answers on Popes and the Papacy. Paul VI’s stunning golden tiara is on display at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

As an emblem of the papacy, the tiara is depicted as three tiered crowns topped with an orb and a cross representing the dominion of Jesus over the world. The papal tiara figures prominently on the coat of arms of the Holy See.

The papal tiara of Pope Francis.
CLAUDIO ONORATI/AFP via Getty Images

Is the Roman Catholic Church Christian? | What Catholics Believe

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How Dangerous Is The Pope?

  Alltime Conspiracies

Published on Sep 6, 2016


Historically, the Pope as the head of the Catholic church waged wars on opponents, hired assassins to kill those who undermine him and generally acted like a badass. But just how dangerous is the Pope now?

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The Catholic Church no meat on Friday, no shopping on Sunday Guadalajara Mexico

400constantine

Published on Apr 19, 2013

http://www.youtube.com/user/mhfm1
Some friends and I (Jorge & Emilio) were not aware of the teachings of the Church as regards meat on Friday and shopping on Sunday. This ignorance of Church teaching has caused us to commit sins against God, and has also caused us to miss out on great graces from God that we could have otherwise taken advantage of.
We are sharing this information in case there are others out there who are committing sins and missing out on great graces from God because of their ignorance in this matter.
Jorge:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MrJorgecl..

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Is the Roman Catholic Church Christian? | What Catholics Believe

Prophetic Alert

Published on Jun 5, 2015


Is Roman Catholicism Christian? By comparing what the Roman Catholic Church teaches against the teachings of the Bible, we can conclude that the Catholic Church is not Christian. It is a mystery religion that promotes the spirit of antichrist. It encourages the worship of idols,and the worship of men who claim to be gods. It must therefore be rejected as representing the Christian faith.

THIS VIDEO IS AVAILABLE ON DVD FOR WORLDWIDE DISTRIBUTION.

Visit PropheticAlert at http://propheticalert.net

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Pope Francis to All Catholics: The Eucharist Is Jesus Christ

RELIGION

AUGUST 17, 2015


The Pope's Sunday Angelus address

DIANE MONTAGNA

AFP



VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday reminded all Catholics of the Church’s teaching on the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, stressing that at the Holy Mass, the sacred host is “really his Body given for us” and the chalice of what appears as wine “is really his Blood poured out for us.”

Speaking to pilgrims from his studio in the apostolic palace before praying the noonday Angelus, the Pope commented on Jesus’ bread of life discourse contained in the Gospel of St. John, chapter 6.

The Holy Father acknowledged that some in the crowd were shocked and even scandalized by the Lord’s words: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (Jn 5:51-54).

But he said the Lord’s teaching is clear: The Eucharist is neither a symbol nor even a thing, but rather a divine Person who desires that we live in intimate communion with Him.

“The Eucharist is Jesus who gives himself entirely to us,” the Pope said. “Feeding on Him and abiding in Him through Eucharistic communion — if we do so in faith — transforms our lives into a gift to God and to our brothers and sisters.”

For a Catholic, receiving Holy Communion in a state of grace and with faith and love therefore means “entering into harmony with the heart of Christ, assimilating his choices, his thoughts, his behavior. It means entering a dynamism of love and becoming people of peace, people of forgiveness, reconciliation,” he said.

While the Pope acknowledged the astonishment of Jesus’ listeners was understandable,” nonetheless he said the Lord used “a style typical of the prophets to provoke questions in the people — and also in us — and ultimately, to provoke a decision.”

Some reports estimate that only 30% of Catholics in the West today believe in the True Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.

Yet the Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 1374) clearly states the Church’s teaching: “In the most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist ‘the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” [Council of Trent (1551): DS 1651.]

The Catechism goes on to explain: “This presence is called ‘real’ — by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” [Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei, 39.]

Here below we publish a translation of the Pope’s Angelus address.

****

Dear brothers and sisters,

Good day. This Sunday the liturgy sets before us, from the Gospel of John, Jesus’ discourse on the Bread of life which is Jesus himself, and which is also the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Today’s passage (John 6:51-58) presents the final part of this discourse, and makes reference to several among the people who were scandalized because Jesus said: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn 5:51-54).

The astonishment of the listeners is understandable. In fact, Jesus uses the style typical of the prophets to provoke questions in the people—and also in us—and ultimately, to provoke a decision.

First, the questions: What does it mean “to eat Jesus’ flesh and drink his blood? Is it only an image, a way of speaking, a symbol, or does it indicate something real? To respond, we need to understand what is happening in the Heart of Jesus as he is breaking the bread before for the hungry crowd.

Continue reading

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Catechism of the Catholic Church - Social justice

PART THREE

LIFE IN CHRIST

SECTION ONE

MAN'S VOCATION LIFE IN THE SPIRIT

CHAPTER TWO

THE HUMAN COMMUNION

ARTICLE 3

SOCIAL JUSTICE

1928 Society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority.

I. RESPECT FOR THE HUMAN PERSON

1929 Social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him:

What is at stake is the dignity of the human person, whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt.35

1930 Respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognized by it. They are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to recognize them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy.36 If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects. It is the Church's role to remind men of good will of these rights and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims.

1931 Respect for the human person proceeds by way of respect for the principle that "everyone should look upon his neighbor (without any exception) as 'another self,' above all bearing in mind his life and the means necessary for living it with dignity."37 No legislation could by itself do away with the fears, prejudices, and attitudes of pride and selfishness which obstruct the establishment of truly fraternal societies. Such behavior will cease only through the charity that finds in every man a "neighbor," a brother.

1932 The duty of making oneself a neighbor to others and actively serving them becomes even more urgent when it involves the disadvantaged, in whatever area this may be. "As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."38

1933 This same duty extends to those who think or act differently from us. The teaching of Christ goes so far as to require the forgiveness of offenses. He extends the commandment of love, which is that of the New Law, to all enemies.39 Liberation in the spirit of the Gospel is incompatible with hatred of one's enemy as a person, but not with hatred of the evil that he does as an enemy.

II. EQUALITY AND DIFFERENCES AMONG MEN

1934 Created in the image of the one God and equally endowed with rational souls, all men have the same nature and the same origin. Redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, all are called to participate in the same divine beatitude: all therefore enjoy an equal dignity.

1935 The equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it:

Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God's design.40

1936 On coming into the world, man is not equipped with everything he needs for developing his bodily and spiritual life. He needs others. Differences appear tied to age, physical abilities, intellectual or moral aptitudes, the benefits derived from social commerce, and the distribution of wealth.41 The "talents" are not distributed equally.42

1937 These differences belong to God's plan, who wills that each receive what he needs from others, and that those endowed with particular "talents" share the benefits with those who need them. These differences encourage and often oblige persons to practice generosity, kindness, and sharing of goods; they foster the mutual enrichment of cultures:

I distribute the virtues quite diversely; I do not give all of them to each person, but some to one, some to others. . . . I shall give principally charity to one; justice to another; humility to this one, a living faith to that one. . . . And so I have given many gifts and graces, both spiritual and temporal, with such diversity that I have not given everything to one single person, so that you may be constrained to practice charity towards one another. . . . I have willed that one should need another and that all should be my ministers in distributing the graces and gifts they have received from me.43

1938 There exist also sinful inequalities that affect millions of men and women. These are in open contradiction of the Gospel:

Their equal dignity as persons demands that we strive for fairer and more humane conditions. Excessive economic and social disparity between individuals and peoples of the one human race is a source of scandal and militates against social justice, equity, human dignity, as well as social and international peace.44

III. HUMAN SOLIDARITY

1939 The principle of solidarity, also articulated in terms of "friendship" or "social charity," is a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood.45

An error, "today abundantly widespread, is disregard for the law of human solidarity and charity, dictated and imposed both by our common origin and by the equality in rational nature of all men, whatever nation they belong to. This law is sealed by the sacrifice of redemption offered by Jesus Christ on the altar of the Cross to his heavenly Father, on behalf of sinful humanity."46

1940 Solidarity is manifested in the first place by the distribution of goods and remuneration for work. It also presupposes the effort for a more just social order where tensions are better able to be reduced and conflicts more readily settled by negotiation.

1941 Socio-economic problems can be resolved only with the help of all the forms of solidarity: solidarity of the poor among themselves, between rich and poor, of workers among themselves, between employers and employees in a business, solidarity among nations and peoples. International solidarity is a requirement of the moral order; world peace depends in part upon this.

1942 The virtue of solidarity goes beyond material goods. In spreading the spiritual goods of the faith, the Church has promoted, and often opened new paths for, the development of temporal goods as well. And so throughout the centuries has the Lord's saying been verified: "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well":47

For two thousand years this sentiment has lived and endured in the soul of the Church, impelling souls then and now to the heroic charity of monastic farmers, liberators of slaves, healers of the sick, and messengers of faith, civilization, and science to all generations and all peoples for the sake of creating the social conditions capable of offering to everyone possible a life worthy of man and of a Christian.48

IN BRIEF

1943 Society ensures social justice by providing the conditions that allow associations and individuals to obtain their due.

1944 Respect for the human person considers the other "another self." It presupposes respect for the fundamental rights that flow from the dignity intrinsic of the person.

1945 The equality of men concerns their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it.

1946 The differences among persons belong to God's plan, who wills that we should need one another. These differences should encourage charity.

1947 The equal dignity of human persons requires the effort to reduce excessive social and economic inequalities. It gives urgency to the elimination of sinful inequalities.

1948 Solidarity is an eminently Christian virtue. It practices the sharing of spiritual goods even more than material ones.



35 John Paul II, SRS 47.
36 Cf. John XXIII, PT 65.
37 GS 27 § 1.
38 Mt 25:40.
39 Cf. Mt 5:43-44.
40 GS 29 § 2.
41 Cf. GS 29 § 2.
42 Cf. Mt 25:14-30; Lk 19:27.
43 St. Catherine of Siena, Dial. I,7.
44 CS 29 § 3.
45 Cf. John Paul II, SRS 38-40; CA 10.
46 Pius XII, Summi pontificatus, October 20, 1939; AAS 31 (1939) 423 ff.
47 Mt 6:33.
48 Pius XII, Discourse, June 1, 1941.

Source

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What Is Social Justice?

April 10, 2013
From Taparelli to John XXIII
J. J. Ziegler





(Part One of a three-part series)

Few terms have become as unmoored from their Catholic origins, and have thus lent themselves to misunderstanding in contemporary discourse, as has the term “social justice.” What does the term mean when it appears in papal documents—particularly when it appeared in the formative years of Catholic social teaching?

It is an important question, because all of the Christian faithful, according to the Code of Canon Law, are “obliged to promote social justice and, mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor from their own resources” (Code of Canon Law 222 §2; Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches 25 §2). Pastors of parishes are obliged “to foster works through which the spirit of the Gospel is promoted, even in what pertains to social justice” (Code of Canon Law 528 §1). It is also “desirable that the Catholic faithful undertake any project in which they could cooperate with other Christians, not alone but together, such as works for charity and social justice” (Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches 908).

In his Church, State, and Society: An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine (Catholic University of America Press, 2011), J. Brian Benestad of the University of Scranton notes that “a Jesuit philosopher by the name of Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio was the first to use the concept of social justice in his major work, Saggio teoretico di diritto.” Father Taparelli (1793-1862) served as rector of the Roman College and helped found La CiviltÀ Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit periodical.

“For Taparelli, social justice is not a metaphor, nor the extension of virtue language to anthropomorphized collectives,” Thomas C. Behr of the University of Houston said in a paper delivered in 2003 at the annual conference of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. According to Behr, Taparelli held that social justice is distinct from both commutative justice (defined by the late Father John Hardon as “the virtue that regulates those actions which involve the rights between one individual and another individual”) and distributive justice (defined as “the virtue that regulates those actions which involve the rights that an individual may claim from society”).

Behr wrote that the definition of social justice

can be stated succinctly thus: a legal order and normative ideal within a society by which individuals and their various associations are given the maximum range of liberty in pursuit of their proper ends, with a minimum of interference from superior authorities, i.e., only to the extent necessary to orient general activity towards the common good, and governed by the principles of conflicting rights, prudence, and, ultimately, of charity. This is not the only way that Taparelli uses the term, but it is arguably the most important of his uses.

Perhaps the earliest appearance of “social justice” in a curial document was in 1894, when the Sacred Congregation of the Council, ruling on a canonical question, stated that “a new practice of social justice was born from that principle ‘the despoiled before all things ought to be restored’” (Acta Sanctae Sedis, 1894-95, p. 131). The term appeared again in the 1904 encyclical Iucunda Sane, when Pope Pius X wrote that Pope St. Gregory the Great acted as a “public defender of social justice” [publicus iustitiae socialis adsertor] during his years as a legate in Byzantium.

Pius XI: The pope of social justice

The term “social justice” came to the fore during the pontificate of Pius XI (1922-39). InStudiorum Ducem, his 1923 encyclical on St. Thomas Aquinas, Pope Pius wrote that “Thomas refutes the theories propounded by Modernists in every sphere…in sociology and law, by laying down sound principles of legal and social, commutative and distributive, justice and explaining the relations between justice and charity.”

Asked what Pope Pius meant when he spoke of St. Thomas’ “sound principles of social justice,” Dr. Anthony Andres, a faculty member at Thomas Aquinas College, said, “I think that the principles which Pius XI is referring to are specifically those which are denied by the most prominent modern political philosophers, from Hobbes and Locke to Hegel and Marx.”

“The first is that the common good of the political community is more desirable for each individual than his own private good,” Andres told CWR. “This splits the difference between two false views, one in which the common good is understood to be merely a means for the individual attaining his private good, or another in which the common good is seen as opposed to the good of the individual. St. Thomas thinks that the common good is not opposed to the good of the individual, but instead is the most fulfilling good that he can participate in.”

“The second is that the temporal common good of the political community should be ordered to a higher common good, the eternal salvation offered by God to men through Christ and his Church,” Andres added. “Modern political philosophers either subordinate religion and the Church to the political authority, or take atheism as a first principle in politics.”

Pope Pius referred repeatedly to social justice in Quadragesimo Anno, his 1931 encyclical on the reconstruction of the social order. Linking the “law of social justice” to the common good, he stated that

not every distribution among human beings of property and wealth is of a character to attain either completely or to a satisfactory degree of perfection the end which God intends. Therefore, the riches that economic-social developments constantly increase ought to be so distributed among individual persons and classes that the common advantage of all, which Leo XIII had praised, will be safeguarded; in other words, that the common good of all society will be kept inviolate.

By this law of social justice, one class is forbidden to exclude the other from sharing in the benefits. Hence the class of the wealthy violates this law no less, when, as if free from care on account of its wealth, it thinks it the right order of things for it to get everything and the worker nothing, than does the non-owning working class when, angered deeply at outraged justice and too ready to assert wrongly the one right it is conscious of, it demands for itself everything as if produced by its own hands, and attacks and seeks to abolish, therefore, all property and returns or incomes, of whatever kind they are or whatever the function they perform in human society, that have not been obtained by labor, and for no other reason save that they are of such a nature. (no. 57).

“To each, therefore, must be given his own share of goods, and the distribution of created goods, which, as every discerning person knows, is laboring today under the gravest evils due to the huge disparity between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered propertyless, must be effectively called back to and brought into conformity with the norms of the common good, that is, social justice,” Pope Pius continued (no. 58).

Later in the encyclical, Pope Pius applied this norm of social justice to the question of wages:

Every effort must therefore be made that fathers of families receive a wage large enough to meet ordinary family needs adequately. But if this cannot always be done under existing circumstances, social justice demands that changes be introduced as soon as possible whereby such a wage will be assured to every adult workingman. (no. 71)

It is contrary to social justice when, for the sake of personal gain and without regard for the common good, wages and salaries are excessively lowered or raised; and this same social justice demands that wages and salaries be so managed, through agreement of plans and wills, in so far as can be done, as to offer to the greatest possible number the opportunity of getting work and obtaining suitable means of livelihood. (no. 74)

Considering the larger question of the ordering of society, Pope Pius believed that while “free competition” (liberum certamen) and political power over the economy (oeconomicus potentatus) justly hold a limited place, neither is able on its own to direct society towards the common good. Both need social justice as a “directive principle”:

It is most necessary that economic life be again subjected to and governed by a true and effective directing principle. This function is one that the economic dictatorship [potentantus, perhaps better rendered “power”] which has recently displaced free competition can still less perform, since it is a headstrong power and a violent energy that, to benefit people, needs to be strongly curbed and wisely ruled. But it cannot curb and rule itself. Loftier and nobler principles—social justice and social charity—must, therefore, be sought whereby this dictatorship [potentatus] may be governed firmly and fully. Hence, the institutions themselves of peoples and, particularly those of all social life, ought to be penetrated with this justice, and it is most necessary that it be truly effective, that is, establish a juridical and social order which will, as it were, give form and shape to all economic life. Social charity, moreover, ought to be as the soul of this order. (no. 88)

A capitalist economic system, Pius explained, “is not of its own nature vicious. But it does violate right order when capital hires workers, that is, the non-owning working class, with a view to and under such terms that it directs business and even the whole economic system according to its own will and advantage, scorning the human dignity of the workers, the social character of economic activity and social justice itself, and the common good” (no. 101).

“So as to avoid the reefs of individualism and collectivism, the twofold character, that is individual and social, both of capital or ownership and of work or labor must be given due and rightful weight,” Pope Pius said as he continued his reflections on social justice. “The public institutions themselves, of peoples, moreover, ought to make all human society conform to the needs of the common good, that is, to the norm of social justice. If this is done, that most important division of social life, namely, economic activity, cannot fail likewise to return to right and sound order” (no. 110).

In his final mention of “social justice” in the encyclical, Pope Pius speaks of the “ranks of those who, zealously following the admonitions which Leo [XIII] promulgated [in his 1893 encyclical Rerum Novarum] and We have solemnly repeated, are striving to restore society according to the mind of the Church on the firmly established basis of social justice and social charity” (no. 126).

Pope Pius XI returned to the theme of social justice in two later encyclicals: Divini Redemptoris, his 1937 encyclical on atheistic Communism, and Firmissimam Constantiam, issued nine days later, on the religious situation in Mexico.

In Divini Redemptoris, Pope Pius recalled the teaching of Quadragesimo Anno: “We have shown that the means of saving the world of today from the lamentable ruin into which a moral liberalism has plunged us, are neither the class-struggle nor terror, nor yet the autocratic abuse of state power, but rather the infusion of social justice and the sentiment of Christian love into the social-economic order” (no. 32), to quote the loose but generally accurate English translation of the paragraph on the Vatican website. (Readers of Latin can find the official version of the encyclical in volume 29 of Acta Apostolicae Sedis.)

In a subsequent paragraph (no. 51), however, the English translation errs in conveying Pope Pius’ description of the essence of social justice, as Thomas Storck pointed out ina recent article in Homiletic and Pastoral Review. The Latin text literally says, “But in fact, besides the justice that they call commutative, social justice, which indeed demands its own duties, ought to be cultivated, from which duties neither artificers nor owners are able to remove themselves. And indeed it is [the essence] of social justice to demand from individuals everything that is necessary for the common good.”

“If social justice be satisfied, the result will be an intense activity in economic life as a whole, pursued in tranquility and order,” the Vatican website’s English translation continues. “But social justice cannot be said to have been satisfied as long as workingmen are denied a salary that will enable them to secure proper sustenance for themselves and for their families; as long as they are denied the opportunity of acquiring a modest fortune and forestalling the plague of universal pauperism; as long as they cannot make suitable provision through public or private insurance for old age, for periods of illness and unemployment” (no. 52).

In Firmissimam Constantiam, Pope Pius discussed the relation of social justice and the right to private property. “While saving the essence of the primary and fundamental rights, such as the right of ownership, remember that at times the common good imposes restrictions on such rights as a recourse more frequent than in the past to the applications of social justice,” he wrote to the bishops of Mexico. “You must assist [the laborer] materially and religiously. Materially, bringing about in his favor the practice not only of commutative justice but also of social justice, that is, all those provisions which aim at relieving the condition of the proletarian; and then, religiously, giving him again the religious comforts without which he will struggle in a materialism that brutalizes him and degrades him” (no. 16).

Pope Pius XI’s multifaceted reflections on social justice have led different writers and scholars of undoubted fidelity to the Church’s teaching to define the term “social justice” with slightly different nuances. Thomas Storck writes that social justice, although “concerned with the duties of the individual to the common good, concerns not individual actions, such as paying taxes, but the fostering and establishment of organizations and institutions of society which contribute toward the common good.” In Church, State, and Society, J. Brian Benestad writes that “social justice is a virtue inclining persons and groups to work for the common good of the family, the professions, voluntary associations, schools, neighborhoods, and the political community on the local, national, or international level.” In a paper presented at the 2008 assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Russell Hittinger of the University of Tulsa said that “for Pius XI, social justice is that kind of order than ensues when each person is capacitated to ‘contribute to the common good according to his proper office and role (function) … Social justice is the virtue whereby all persons (not just the state) refer the ensemble of their relations to the common good.”

Popes Pius XII and John XXIII

Venerable Pius XII (1939-58) employed the term “social justice” with less frequency than did his predecessor. In his November 1939 encyclical, Sertum Laetitiae, he used the term in quoting his predecessor’s teaching on the family wage. Addressing Croatian pilgrims four days after the encyclical’s publication, Pius XII referred to the Roman Church as the “infallible interpreter of eternal truth, the powerful patron of social justice, the indefatigable support of concord among nations.”

In a 1944 allocution to Roman parish priests, Pius XII quoted again from his predecessor’s teaching on social justice and said that the Church seeks to “achieve an economic order that through its very structure creates for the working class a secure and stable condition, all according to the maxims of social justice expressed and exhibited by our predecessor.” Five years later, in his letter to the German hierarchyTestes obsequii, Pius XII wrote that social justice, “in ordering well the division and use of resources, ought to watch over and bring about a most beautiful alliance of wisdom and benevolence and uprightness.”

In a 1952 letter, Pius XII exhorted members of Marian sodalities to excel “in universal apostolic zeal directed especially to society, which ought to be renewed according to principles of charity and social justice.”

“We strive to hasten the arrival of a time when…liberty might be joined with social justice in a beautiful alliance,” Pope Pius added in Hadriatici Maris urbs, his 1956 letter on the fifth centenary of the death of St. Lawrence Giustiniani.

The term “social justice” appeared again in the writings of Blessed John XXIII (1958-63), though inexact English translations of his encyclicals have the potential to obscure his teaching. In popular English translations of two of his encyclicals, the term “social justice” appears in English where it does not appear in the Latin, and in one place the term does not appear in the English where it does appear in the Latin (Mater et Magistra, no. 73).

In his 1959 encyclical Mater et Magistra, Blessed John wrote (in a literal, if stilted, translation from the Latin) that Pope Pius XI

enjoins that, whether in public institutions or in freely established institutions, in individual states as among nations, under the auspice of social justice, that order of law ought to be established in which those who work in economic matters might be able to join fittingly their own advantages to themselves with common benefits to all. (no. 40)

Blessed John added that it is “a most grave precept of social justice” that “increases of economic condition always should be not only joined to, but at the same time applied to, increases of social condition; so indeed, from an increased abundance of riches in a republic, all orders of citizens certainly should obtain fair gains” (no. 73).

Later, in a 1960 radio address at the conclusion of a Eucharistic Congress in Bavaria, Blessed John prayed that Christians might “offer to fellow citizens examples of all virtues, in the first place social justice and charity.”

In contemporary political discourse, discussions about social justice often revolve around particular government programs. For the popes who guided the Church during the formative years of the development of Catholic social doctrine, social justice is something far richer, far more demanding: it is a virtue that, while not defined with crystalline precision, challenges all participants in society to seek the common good.  Ziegler writes from North Carolina.




About the Author
J. J. Ziegler

J. J. Ziegler writes from North Carolina.

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Pope at Santa Marta: Learning from Our Lady of Sorrows

Pope Francis celebrates Mass at Santa Marta
15/09/2014


(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis marked the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows during Monday morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta, with a reflection on how Mary learned, obeyed and suffered at the foot of the Cross.

The Holy Father said that in the liturgy of the day first we are shown the glorious Cross, then the meek ​​and humble Mother. In the Letter to the Hebrews, "Paul emphasizes three strong words": he says that Jesus "learned, obeyed and suffered". "It’s the opposite of what had happened to our father Adam, who did not want to learn what the Lord commanded, who did not want to suffer, or obey." Instead, even though Jesus is God, He "is annihilated, He humbled Himself and became a servant. This is the glory of the Cross of Jesus":

"Jesus came into the world to learn how to be a man, and by being a man, walk with men. He came into the world to obey, and He obeyed. But he learned this obedience from suffering. Adam left Paradise with a promise, a promise that lasted for so many centuries. Today, through this obedience, this self-abnegation, this humiliation, through Jesus, that promise becomes hope. And the people of God walk with sure hope. Even the Mother, 'the New Eve', as Paul himself calls her, in order to participate in her Son’s journey, learned, suffered and obeyed. And thus she becomes Mother”.

The Gospel shows us Mary at the foot of the Cross. Jesus says to John, "Behold your mother." Mary - the Pope said - "is anointed Mother"

"And this is our hope. We are not orphans, we have Mothers: Mother Mary. But the Church is Mother and the Mother Church is anointed when it takes the same path of Jesus and Mary: the path of obedience, the path of suffering, and when she has that attitude of continually learning the path of the Lord. These two women - Mary and the Church - carry on the hope that is Christ, they give us Christ, they bring forth Christ in us. Without Mary, there would be no Jesus Christ; without the Church, we cannot go forward".

"Two women and two mothers" - continued the Pope Francis - and next to them our soul, which in the words of Isaac, the abbot of Stella, is "feminine" and is like "Mary and the Church".

"Today, looking at this woman by the Cross, steadfast in following her Son in His suffering to learn obedience, looking at her we see the Church and look at our Mother. And also, we look at our little soul that will never be lost, if it continues to be a woman close to these two great women who accompany us in life: Mary and the Church. And just as our fathers left Paradise with a promise, today we can go forward with a hope: the hope that our Mother Mary, steadfast at the Cross, and our Holy Mother, the hierarchical Church, give us. "


(Emer McCarthy)


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Why is this Lord’s Day no different from any other day?

Thoughts on the Third Commandment



by Steven D. Greydanus

Saturday, September 06, 2014 2:15 PM

In our neighborhood, on almost any day of the week, you might walk into a supermarket and notice a conservatively dressed woman with a hat and skirt and a rather large number of children in tow, and you might make a shrewd guess that she was a conservative or orthodox Jew, and there’s a good chance that you would be right.

On almost any day, that is, except the Sabbath. From sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, those women and their children vanish. The kosher aisle is deserted, the kosher deli shuttered. Conservative and orthodox Jews take the Sabbath seriously.

The Muslim women are easier to spot. The women wear the hijab or head scarf, sometimes with Western clothes, sometimes with the abaya (cloak); a few wear the naqib or face veil. (Years ago, the first time one of our younger boys saw that, his eyes widened and he asked if she was a ninja!) You might see them at the supermarket any day of the week — but not so much on Fridays, their day of prayer. (Friday in Muslim tradition is not an official “day of rest,” but in practice it is often observed in a similar way.)

Sunday, of course, is a different story.

A few decades ago the stores were all closed on Sundays. Even if they were open, they weren’t busy. Now, of course, the stores are mobbed on Sundays. It might be the biggest shopping day of the week. Even churchgoing Catholics and Protestants often treat Sunday as no different from any other day, except for the hour or so we spend in church.

It’s true that Sunday rest in the United States has historically been colored by Puritan piety and legalism. It was a matter of avoiding certain forbidden activities. If you’ve read the Little House books, as I have to my kids any number of times, you may recall that Laura was not allowed to run or shout or engage in noisy play on Sundays, and in her grandfather’s day even laughter and smiling were not allowed. Only reading the Bible and the catechism were allowed. This is not Catholic piety.

Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about the Lord’s Day (CCC §2184ff):


The institution of the Lord’s Day helps everyone enjoy adequate rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social, and religious lives.

On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body. Family needs or important social service can legitimately excuse from the obligation of Sunday rest. The faithful should see to it that legitimate excuses do not lead to habits prejudicial to religion, family life, and health.

What does this look like in practice?

I don’t have any revelatory answers. I don’t want to judge anyone else. I’m trying to figure it out myself. (I gave the example of grocery shopping above, not because there’s anything in the Catechism or other official church teachings forbidding grocery shopping on Sundays, but because it’s a relatively visible example.) I would welcome comments and thoughts as well as your own practices in the combox.

One thing Suz and I have tried to do in our family is to try to make Sunday mornings before 10:30am Mass a time of preparation for Mass, nothing more. For me, that generally means, for example, staying away from social media, except perhaps to tweet an inspirational message or something. (At least, that’s the plan. Whether I always stick to it is another question.) The kids don’t play games, watch TV or read books for entertainment.

I know good Catholic families for whom Sunday morning is often co-opted by kids’ sports commitments. I get that sports is really important to some families, and demand for access to sports facilities is high, so sports teams need to get access whenever they can. To be involved in sports is thus a serious commitment to make yourself available early in the morning, late in the evening, on any day of the week, to potentially drive significant distances on a regular basis, etc.

That, in part, is why we’ve never done organized sports. Speaking only for myself, I could never make that commitment. Our family’s Sunday morning ritual is our priority; we will defend and maintain that to the best of our ability. Obviously if Suz goes back to nursing work someday, that may be compromised. But we’ve tried to structure our lives in such a way that church is not something we fit into our personal plans on Sunday; our personal plans have to be fitted around our plans for Mass.

Obviously there are exceptions here and there. Occasionally we’re traveling on a Sunday morning. I have yet to do a film festival, but on very rare occasions I’ve gone to a film screening on a Sunday morning while the rest of the family went to Mass.

But just as Sunday is a day set apart in the week, some Sundays and other days in the year are set aside in a sense more solemn than usual. Of these, Easter, the feast of the Resurrection, has the greatest place, along with the preceding days of Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday).

Short of a medical emergency or some other dire crisis, there is no way I’m not going to be at our parish on Easter Sunday morning. Just this year I passed on a movie screening that fell on Holy Thursday. I’ve seen Catholic families attend non-religious cultural events on Good Friday evening. I don’t understand that at all.

What about Sunday afternoons and evenings? An observation from a friend I’ve always found interesting is that what constitutes “leisure” can depend on what the rest of your week looks like. If you sit at a desk all week, and every evening coming home you give a rueful glance at the neglected garden you’d love to spend an hour or two with, digging in the dirt might constitute leisure for you, whereas it obviously wouldn’t be leisure for a landscaper.

Not doing my 9 to 5 day job on Sundays isn’t a problem for me — but my life involves a lot of reading, writing and watching movies, and I don’t think I could or would want to structure my life so that I didn’t do any of those things on Sundays.

Going forward, as it happens, it’s going to include even more of those things, since, as of this week — here’s one of the announcements I teased in last week’s post — in addition to my current work for the Register and other venues, I’ll also be writing regularly for the Boston Globe’s new Catholicism-focused website Crux. (My first piece at Crux is on the saint film Life for Life: Maximilian Kolbe, starring Christoph Waltz, new on DVD from Ignatius Press. Check it out!)

Even so, I will continue to try to avoid writing for money on Sunday. I don’t know that I can swear off writing for my diaconal classes, but that’s in the Lord’s service and I hope it will enhance rather than detract from my observance of the Lord’s Day. And if I watch a movie, I might try to pick something I can watch with the family rather than by myself.

Those are a few examples of some ways I try make Sunday different. How about you?

More from Pope John Paul II and Jimmy Akin.


Source: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/steven-greydanus/lords-day#ixzz3CmH4vXOG
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Supreme Court asked to defend Seal of Confession in La. case

By Matt Hadro

United States Supreme Court.




Baton Rouge, La., Sep 6, 2014 / 07:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to review a ruling that a diocesan priest may be forced to break the Seal of Confession.

“This case concerns who – the Church or the state – gets to determine the meaning, content, and requirements of the Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation – one of the Church’s most sacred and central practices,” the diocese’s appeal read.

Back in May, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that a priest of the Baton Rouge Diocese, Father Jeff Bayhi, could be forced to testify in court about a supposed confession made by a minor allegedly regarding her sexual abuse at the hands of a parishioner.

A state appeals court initially ruled that the alleged confession was “confidential” and thus Fr. Bayhi did not have to testify in court as to its alleged contents or whether it even took place.

However, the state Supreme Court reversed that decision, saying that the seal of confession did not shield Fr. Bayhi from mandatory reporting laws.

Louisiana law states that a “member of the clergy” must report allegations of sexual abuse, except in the case of “confidential” conversations made in private “and not intended for further disclosure except to other persons present in furtherance of the purpose of the communication.” In addition, a priest “is presumed to have the authority to claim the privilege” of confidentiality “on behalf of the person or deceased person.”

However, the high court ruled that Fr. Bayhi can only invoke confidentiality if the girl refuses to disclose their conversation, and since she waived her confidentiality privilege, he is subject to the mandatory sexual abuse reporting laws.

In the appeal, the diocese stated that even to admit the conversation took place – much less reveal its alleged contents – would involve Fr. Bayhi breaking the Seal of Confession, which no priest is allowed to do, even under threat of civil penalty or imprisonment.

The existence and/or contents of the alleged conversation is “knowledge that under church law he [Fr. Bayhi] is absolutely forbidden to share with others for any reason under penalty of automatic excommunication,” the appeal stated.

“The Louisiana Supreme Court’s decision cannot stand,” the appeal stated. “It conflicts with long-standing authority of this and other courts and threatens church autonomy.”

The diocese has previously emphasized that the priest is under the gravest of oaths not to reveal the contents of a confession or if the confession even took place.

“If necessary, the priest would have to suffer a finding of contempt in a civil court and suffer imprisonment rather than violate his sacred duty and violate the seal of confession and his duty to the penitent.”

“A foundational doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church for thousands of years mandates that the seal of confession is absolute and inviolable,” the diocese stressed, also saying that the “matter is of serious consequence to all religions, not just the Catholic faith.”

In a September 4 statement, the diocese said the court’s ruling “strikes a very hard blow against religious freedom, and one which the diocese and Father Bayhi feel compelled to vigorously protest.”

The diocese also spoke out against the court’s “unprecedented” ruling that the trial court decide “whether or not a sacrament actually took place.”

“Doing so allows the state to override the religion’s own determination of what its beliefs and practices require and destroys the sacred seal of confession in the process,” the appeal stated.

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Saints and Social Justice, A Guide to Changing the World by Brandon Vogt

Written by 4virtu Team on July 21, 2014




Brandon Vogt is sounding a call for readers to become Saints and take real action to change the world. In his book, Saints and Social Justice, A Guide to Changing the World, Vogt gives real world examples of people practicing Catholic Social Teaching. He also demonstrates how the lives of the Saints can be lived in our daily lives.

For each of the Church’s teachings on social justice, Vogt chose two saints whose lives highlighted a particular principle.

The most important of the Church’s social teachings is belief in the dignity of the human person, which Vogt called “the first and most fundamental principle.”

“We believe that, for instance, it’s wrong to kill an unborn child, or an elderly person constrained to a wheelchair, because every person has inviolable dignity that was a result of them being created in the image and likeness of God,” he said.

“It’s that principle that drives everything that Catholics do to help the world whereas non-believers really don’t have a basis in the same way that religious people do, especially Catholics.”

Vogt chose Saints such as Mother Teresa and St. Peter Claver to highlight the principles. He is also donating all of the proceeds to the book to Catholic Charities.

Read the interview with Brandon Vogt at Catholic News Agency

More on BrandonVogt.com

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The true battle is for life

At the General Audience Pope Francis calls the faithful to pray for victims in Damascus and the Philippines

The true battle is for life

Continuing his catechesis on the Creed he describes Baptism as the Christian's identity card

Baptism is the "identity card of the Christian, his birth certificate". The Pope said this during his catechesis at the General Audience on Wednesday, 13 November, in St Peter's Square. He also made an appeal to pray for the victims of mortar attacks in Damascus and for those suffering in the Philippines from the typhoon that devastated the country. He called people to pray for victims and join forces with those working to save lives in the aftermath: "These are the true battles to fight. For life! Never for death!". The following is a translation of the Pope's catechesis, which was delivered in Italian.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

In the Creed, through which we make our Profession of Faith every Sunday, we state: "I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins". It is the only explicit reference to a Sacrament contained in the Creed. Indeed, Baptism is the "door" of faith and of Christian life. The Risen Jesus left the Apostles with this charge: "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole of creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved" (Mk 16:15-16). The Church's mission is to evangelize and remit sins through the Sacrament of Baptism. But let us return to the words of the Creed. The expression can be divided into three points: "I confess"; "one Baptism"; "for the remission of sins".

1. "I profess". What does this mean? It is a solemn term that indicates the great importance of the object, that is, of Baptism. In fact, by pronouncing these words we affirm our true identity as children of God. Baptism is in a certain sense the identity card of the Christian, his birth certificate, and the act of his birth into the Church. All of you know the day on which you were born and you celebrate it as your birthday, don't you? We all celebrate our birthday. I ask you a question, that I have already asked several times, but I'll ask it again: who among you remembers the date of your Baptism? Raise your hands: they are few (and I am not asking the Bishops so as not to embarrass them...). Let's do something: today, when you go home, find out what day you were baptized, look for it, because this is your second birthday. The first birthday is the day you came into life and the second birthday is the one on which you came into the Church. Will you do this? This is your homework: find out the day on which you were born to the Church, and give thanks to the Lord, because at Baptism he has opened the door of his Church to us. At the same time, Baptism is tied to our faith in the remission of sins. The Sacrament of Penance or Confession is, in fact, like a "second baptism" that refers back always to the first to strengthen and renew it. In this sense, the day of our Baptism is the point of departure for this most beautiful journey, a journey towards God that lasts a lifetime, a journey of conversion that is continually sustained by the Sacrament of Penance. Think about this: when we go to confess our weaknesses, our sins, we go to ask the pardon of Jesus, but we also go to renew our Baptism through his forgiveness. And this is beautiful, it is like celebrating the day of Baptism in every Confession. Therefore, Confession is not a matter of sitting down in a torture chamber, rather it is a celebration. Confession is for the baptized! To keep clean the white garment of our Christian dignity!

2. The second element: "one Baptism". This expression refers that of St Paul: "one Lord, one faith, one Baptism" (Eph 4:5). The word "Baptism" literally means "immersion", and in fact this Sacrament constitutes a true spiritual immersion in the death of Christ, from which one rises with Him like a new creation (cf. Rom 6:4). It is the washing of regeneration and of illumination. Regeneration because it actuates that birth by water and the Spirit without which no one may enter the Kingdom of Heaven (cf. Jn 3:5). Illumination because through Baptism the human person becomes filled with the grace of Christ, "the true light that enlightens every man" (Jn 1:9) and dispels the shadows of sin. That is why in the ceremony of Baptism the parents are given a lit candle, to signify this illumination; Baptism illuminates us from within with the light of Jesus. In virtue of this gift the baptized are called to become themselves "light" - the light of the faith they have received - for their brothers, especially for those who are in darkness and see no glimmer of light on the horizon of their lives.
We can ask ourselves: is Baptism, for me, a fact of the past, relegated to a date, that date which you are going to go look for today, or is it a living reality, that pertains to my present, to every moment? Do you feel strong, with the strength that Christ gave you by his death and his Resurrection? Or do you feel low, without strength? Baptism gives strength and it gives light. Do you feel enlightened, with that light that comes from Christ? Are you a man or woman of light? Or are you a dark person, without the light of Jesus? We need to take the grace of Baptism, which is a gift, and become a light for all people!

3. Lastly, a brief mention of the third element: "for the remission of sins". In the Sacrament of Baptism all sins are remitted, original sin and all of our personal sins, as well as the suffering of sin. With Baptism the door to an effectively new life is opened, one which is not burdened by the weight of a negative past, but rather already feels the beauty and the goodness of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the powerful intervention of God's mercy in our lives, to save us. This saving intervention does not take away our human nature and its weakness - we are all weak and we are all sinners - and it does not take from us our responsibility to ask for forgiveness every time we err! I cannot be baptized many times, but I can go to Confession and by doing so renew the grace of Baptism. It is as though I were being baptized for a second time. The Lord Jesus is very very good and never tires of forgiving us. Even when the door that Baptism opens to us in order to enter the Church is a little closed, due to our weaknesses and our sins. Confession reopens it, precisely because it is a second Baptism that forgives us of everything and illuminates us to go forward with the light of the Lord. Let us go forward in this way, joyfully, because life should be lived with the joy of Jesus Christ; and this is a grace of the Lord.

SPECIAL GROUPS I offer an affectionate greeting to all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at today's Audience, including those from England, Scotland, Denmark, Australia, Japan, Taiwan and the United States. May Jesus Christ confirm you in faith and make you witnesses of his love and mercy to all people. God bless you all!

The Pope made the following appeal:

Dear Brothers and Sisters, I learned with great sorrow that two days ago in Damascus mortars rounds killed several children returning home from school as well as the school bus driver. Other children were left wounded. Please, these tragedies must never happen, ever! Let us pray intensely! In these days we are praying and joining forces to help our brothers and sisters in the Philippines, struck by a typhoon. These are the true battles to fight. For life! Never for death!

(©L'Osservatore Romano - 15 November 2013)


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Even if they don’t follow its rules, Catholics stick with their church

Dmitry Lovetsky/AP - The full moon is seen above the St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, early Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013.



By Lisa Miller, Published: March 1


American Catholics are famously indifferent to the directives of their leaders. They don’t follow the rule book on much of anything: birth control, legal abortion, premarital sex, divorce.

They wish, by a wide margin, that their bishops were talking more about social justice issues such as poverty and less about culture-war issues such as abortion. When asked what matters to them most about being Catholic, they overwhelmingly say the resurrection of Jesus, not Vatican authority or celibate, male priests.

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Unam Sanctam

http://www.historytoday.com/sites/default/files/478px-Bonifatius_VIII_Grabstatue.JPG

Unam Sanctam — Papal Bull of Pope Boniface VIII

by Pope Boniface VIII March 16, 2005

WE ARE COMPELLED, OUR FAITH URGING us, to believe and to hold—and we do firmly believe and simply confess—that there is one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, outside of which there is neither salvation nor remission of sins; her Spouse proclaiming it in the canticles, “My dove, my undefiled is but one, she is the choice one of her that bore her”; which represents one mystical body, of which body the head is Christ, but of Christ, God.

In this Church there is one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism.

There was one ark of Noah, indeed, at the time of the flood, symbolizing one Church; and this being finished in one cubit had, namely, one Noah as helmsman and commander. And, with the exception of this ark, all things existing upon the earth were, as we read, destroyed.

This Church, moreover, we venerate as the only one, the Lord saying through His prophet, “Deliver my soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog.” He prayed at the same time for His Soul—that is, for Himself the Head, and for His Body— which Body, namely, He called the one and only Church on account of the unity of the Faith promised, of the sacraments, and of the love of the Church. She is that seamless garment of the Lord which was not cut but which fell by lot. Therefore of this one and only Church there is one body and one head—not two heads as if it were a monster: Christ, namely, and the vicar of Christ, Saint Peter, “Feed my sheep.” My sheep, He said, using a general term, and not designating these or those particular sheep; from which it is plain that He committed to him all His sheep.

If, then, the Greeks or others say that they were not committed to the care of Peter and his successors, they necessarily confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ; for the Lord says, in John, that there is one fold, one shepherd, and one only.

We are told by the word of the Gospel that in this His fold there are two swords—a spiritual, namely, and a temporal. For when the apostles said, “Behold here are two swords”—the Lord did not reply that this was too much, but enough. Surely he who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter wrongly interprets the word of the Lord when He says, “Put up thy sword in its scabbard.” Both swords, the spiritual and the material, therefore, are in the power of the Church; the one, indeed, to be wielded for the Church, the other by the Church; the one by the hand of the priest, the other by the hand of kings and knights, but at the will and sufferance of the priest. One sword, moreover, ought to be under the other, and the temporal authority to be subjected to the spiritual. For when the Apostle says “There is no power but of God, and the powers that are of God are ordained,” they would not be ordained unless sword were under sword and the lesser one, as it were, were led by the other to great deeds.

For according to St. Dionysius the law of Divinity is to lead the lowest through the intermediate to the highest things. Not, therefore, according to the law of the universe are all things reduced to order equally and immediately; but the lowest through the intermediate, the intermediate through the higher. But that the spiritual exceeds any earthly power in dignity and nobility we ought the more openly to confess, the more spiritual things excel temporal ones. This also is made plain to our eyes from the giving of tithes, and the benediction and the sanctification; from the acceptation of this same power, from the control over those same things. For, the truth bearing witness, the spiritual power has to establish the earthly power, and to judge if it be not good. Thus, concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power, is verified the prophecy of Jeremias: “See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms,” and the other things which follow.

Therefore if the earthly power err, it shall be judged by the spiritual power; but if the lesser spiritual power err, by the greater. But if the greatest, it can be judged by God alone, not by man, the Apostle hearing witness. A spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one. This authority, moreover, even though it is given to man and exercised through man, is not human but rather divine, being given by divine lips to Peter and founded on a rock for him and his successors through Christ Himself whom He has confessed; the Lord Himself saying to Peter: “Whatsoever thou shalt bind,” etc. Whoever, therefore, resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordination of God, unless he makes believe, like the Manichean, that there are two beginnings. This we consider false and heretical, since by the testimony of Moses, not “in the beginnings,” but “in the beginning” God created the heavens and the earth.

Indeed we declare, say, pronounce, and define that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.

The Lateran, November 14, in our eighth year. As a perpetual memorial of this matter.

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Vatican says US nuns must promote church teachings

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press – 1 day ago

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican insisted after a high level meeting Tuesday that American nuns must faithfully promote age-old church teachings, after the women were accused by Rome of flouting core doctrine and taking an overly liberal "feminist" bent.

Sister Pat Farrell and Sister Janet Mock, respectively president and executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) met with the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Levada and the American bishop tasked by the Vatican to overhaul the group which represents about 80 percent of American sisters.

Farrell and Mock came to Rome to present their concerns about the Vatican's April decision to reform the LCWR from the ground up. Levada's office had determined that the LCWR had strayed too far from church doctrine and was imposing certain "radical feminist themes" that were incompatible with Catholicism.

The LCWR had termed the Vatican assessment flawed and unsubstantiated, and said Tuesday that Farrell and Mock had brought those concerns directly to Levada and Archbishop Peter Sartain, who, along with two other bishops, will overhaul the group, rewrite its statutes and review its plans and programs.

"It was an open meeting and we were able to directly express our concerns to Cardinal Levada and Archbishop Sartain," Farrell said in a statement. Stopped by reporters outside Levada's office, Farrell said she was "grateful for the opportunity for open dialogue" and said she and Mock would now report back to the LCWR board "to decide how to proceed from here."

The Vatican said the meeting was conducted in an atmosphere of "openness and cordiality." But in its own statement, it stressed that the LCWR must promote church unity by stressing core church teachings.

It noted that the LCWR was created by the Vatican in 1956 and remains under its direction. The purpose of the Vatican's assessment, it said, "is to assist the LCWR in this important mission by promoting a vision of ecclesial communion founded on faith in Jesus Christ and the teachings of the church as faithfully taught through the ages under the guidance of the Magisterium."

The Vatican's crackdown on the nuns has prompted a remarkable outpouring of support from ordinary Catholics and clergy alike, who have touted the good work the sisters do in education, health care and tending to the poor. Mock told reporters such support has been "very affirming" for the sisters.

The dispute with the American sisters goes back decades.

Theological conservatives have long complained that in the years since the revolutionizing reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council, American sisters' congregations have become secular and political, while abandoning traditional prayer life and faith. The nuns insisted prayer and Christ were central to their work.

In 1992, the Vatican created another umbrella group of women's religious orders for sisters with a more traditional approach to religious life and church authority. That group, the Conference of Major Superiors of Women Religious, is significantly smaller than the LCWR. But a recent study found these smaller, more traditional religious orders are having greater success attracting new candidates.

Then, under the tradition-minded Pope Benedict XVI, the conflict reached a turning point.

Around 2008, the Vatican announced the doctrinal review of the LCWR and also launched an investigation of all U.S. women's congregations. That inquiry looked at quality of life, the response to dissent and "the soundness of doctrine held and taught" by the women. Results of the wider inquiry have not been released.

But for the next five years, the LCWR will effectively be under Vatican receivership.

___

Rachel Zoll contributed from New York.

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Mortgage Crisis Inspires Churches to Send Lenten Season Message to Banks

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
Published: March 9, 2012

During the recent weeks of Lent, the Rev. Ryan Bell has led his Southern California congregation into the penitential spirit of the season. He has preached about the prophet Isaiah’s admonition “to loose the bonds of injustice.” He has replaced his church’s ebullient praise songs with somber, reflective music. He has sent his members a list of ordinary comforts to give up until Easter, with suggestions from caffeine to Facebook.

Ramin Rahimian for The New York Times

The Rev. Robert Rien closed a church bank account.

“To right the wrongs of the world is as much a part of the Lenten experience as to repent ourselves,” Mr. Bell, 40, the pastor of Hollywood Adventist Church near Los Angeles said in a phone interview this week. “During this season, when we individually are examining our lives, we think it’s appropriate for the institutions that affect us to examine theirs.”

Across the country, dozens of other clergy members and congregations have taken similar action over the past three years. Beginning with two ministers in a bedroom suburb outside Oakland, the movement has grown to encompass about 25 congregations, according to the PICO National Network, a coalition of congregations involved in social justice that has taken up the campaign. By PICO’s estimate, congregations have withdrawn $16 million, and their individual members and organizational partners an additional $15 million, from banks deeply implicated in the foreclosure crisis — primarily Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase.

The effort has become so closely conflated with Lent this year that a group of San Francisco clergy members spilled symbolic ashes outside a Wells Fargo A.T.M. in an Ash Wednesday protest. The ministers called for a “foreclosure sabbatical” — invoking the biblical term for the ancient Judaic concept of forgiving debts every seventh year.

The Rev. Richard Smith of St. John the Evangelist, an Episcopal church in San Francisco, likened the divestment campaign and public protests to early Christianity’s ritual of “reconciliation of the penitents.” Far from taking place in the private sanctity of the confessional, that rite occurred in public, with the penitent overseen by a priest and required to present himself before a bishop.

“It seemed like a parallel to us,” said Mr. Smith, 62. “Our banks have done a great deal of damage in a very public way. So it seems appropriate as we enter into a season of penitence that we invite those who separated themselves from the community to repent with us. It’s basically Ethics 101.”

Last month, federal and state officials reached a provisional accord with five banks — Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally Financial — for a $26 billion settlement that includes reducing mortgage principal for homeowners in danger of default because of the steep decline in property values.

T. J. Crawford, a spokesman for Bank of America, said that even before that accord was reached the bank had modified the mortgage loans of one million customers and had met with PICO and other religion-based groups. “We value all of our relations,” he said, “and would prefer dialogue to divestiture.”

For the clergy members and churches active on the foreclosure issue, however, the animosity began building years ago. The current campaign may have had its genesis on the Sunday in 2008 when a 10-year-old girl named Jeannette walked up to her pastor after church to say goodbye because her family was moving.

As soon as the child spoke to him, the Rev. Mario Howell of Antioch Church Family in the East Bay area of Northern California recently recalled, he realized that Jeanette’s parents had not been at worship that morning. What, he asked her, was going on? The girl explained that her mother and father — a teacher and probation officer, respectively — had lost their home to foreclosure.

Soon enough, Mr. Howell said, he heard similar stories from other members, all of them employed, most of them first-time homeowners who had striven to move out of Oakland. During 2010, the church’s monthly intake from tithes and offerings fell by half to $14,000, far below its own mortgage payment of $23,000. Last March, Mr. Howell had to sell the building to a religious order, the Wesleyans, which is allowing the congregation to remain there. The church recently pulled out $175,000 in savings from the local Bank of America branch.

During the same few years, the Rev. Robert Rien of St. Ignatius of Antioch, a Roman Catholic church across town from Mr. Howell’s, was learning that 24 families from the 1,000 in his congregation were threatened with foreclosure. He accompanied many of them to meetings with their mortgage banks to try to renegotiate terms.

“You would’ve thought the collar would have some influence,” said Father Rien, 65. “It didn’t. These people were engineers, accountants, working in medical offices, in the building trades. No matter how they pleaded with the banks, they didn’t find any understanding. It was ruthless behavior. I had the scales pulled off my eyes.”

Father Rien met Mr. Howell through a local interfaith coalition that is part of the PICO network. He wrote about the banks’ behavior in the church bulletin and preached about it from the pulpit. In late 2009, with the endorsement of the congregation’s trustees and pastoral council, he pulled out $135,000 from Bank of America.

“It’s a grain of sand to Bank of America,” Father Rien said, “but we needed to send a message that you can’t do this to people.”

With coverage in the religion media and organizational contacts through the PICO network, that message spread from the East Bay in late 2008 and early 2009, expanding into the national movement of this Lent.

“I can say that it’s caught on, but not enough,” said Mr. Howell, 61. “There’s still not enough churches that understand the plight of their people — that if one family loses their home, it’s like all of us go down.”

E-mail: sgf1@columbia.edu

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 9, 2012

A previous version of this story said federal officials had reached a provisional accord with four banks for a $25 million settlement. The agreement was with five banks for a $26 billion settlement.

A version of this article appeared in print on March 10, 2012, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Mortgage Crisis Inspires Churches to Send Lenten Season Message to Banks.

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