Category Archives: Adult Catholic Education
A Man’s Intellectual Journey to Catholicism
How Ireland Moved to the Left: ‘The Demise of the “Catholic” Church’
DUBLIN — When Ailbhe Smyth was 37, voters in Ireland approved a constitutional amendment that banned abortion in nearly all cases and committed the nation to the principle that a pregnant woman and her fetus have an “equal right to life.”
Next year, when Ms. Smyth, a former professor and chairwoman of the Coalition to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, will be 72, Irish voters are expected to remove or alter that amendment in a new referendum that could give Ireland’s Parliament the freedom to legislate on the issue and write more flexible abortion laws.
What are the driving forces behind this significant shift in voter attitudes toward abortion and other social issues?
Ireland was long a bastion of Catholic conservatism, a place where pedestrians might tip their hats and hop off the footpath when a priest walked past. But economic and technological changes helped propel a shift in attitudes that accelerated with the unfolding of far-reaching abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church in the 1990s.
Over a generation, Ireland transformed from a country where 67 percent of voters approved the constitutional abortion ban to one where, in 2015, 62 percent voted to legalize same-sex marriage.
Ireland moved to the left on other social issues, too. It decriminalized homosexuality in 1992, removed restrictions on the sale of contraception in 1993 and legalized divorce in 1996. The Irish voted twice, in 1992 and 2002, to permit abortion if the mother were deemed a suicide risk. In 2015, the country passed a gender identity law favored by transgender rights groups.
‘A Disastrous Effect’
Priests once enjoyed great social and political power in Ireland, but the abuse scandal led to “the demise of the church,” the center-right prime minister, Leo Varadkar, who is 38, biracial and gay, said in an interview in September.
That would have been a politically unspeakable phrase for an Irish leader in the not-too-distant past.
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Satan is Highly Intelligent—and an Arrogant Idiot
Blogs | Nov. 27, 2017
Satan is Highly Intelligent—and an Arrogant Idiot
The devil is a pathetic joke and a cosmic fool and failure.
Dave Armstrong
Satan was silly enough to actually think that he could entice Jesus to sin and diversion from His ministry. He was too ignorant in his evil irrationality to know that his scheme was doomed to failure from the beginning. We give the devil too much credit. He is an idiot and simpleton as well as a “bad guy.”
I say he’s stupid. How else should we describe a creature who was present with God as His highest angel, yet chose to give that up and rebel? I can think of nothing dumber and more ridiculous. The devil is more pathetic than anything else. He hates when people don’t cringe in fear before him (assuming they believe in him in the first place).
A Contemporary Examination of Conscience – The Catholic Thing
A Contemporary Examination of Conscience
Marian Crowe
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
I recently decided to go to Confession – or Reconciliation as it is now called. Because I hadn’t been to the sacrament for a long time, I looked for one of those guides for preparing for confession. The one I found, however, had an examination of conscience that seemed hopelessly out of date. I decided to make up my own, one that adequately reflects a contemporary understanding of morality. In the old days the idea…
Source: A Contemporary Examination of Conscience – The Catholic Thing
Dr Edward Sri: Who Am I to Judge – Catholic Answers Live – 03/08/17
Dr. Peter Kreeft’s conversion to Catholicism from Protestantism
Year 3 TMIY – Revelation of the Father
7 Reasons Why Everyone Should Be Catholic by Dr Peter Kreeft
Dr. Peter Kreeft gave this Keynote address, 7 Reasons Why
Everyone Should Be Catholic, to over 1,100 who attended
the 2017 Diocesan Men’s Conference in the Diocese of
Harrisburg.
Symbolon, The Catholic Faith Explained, Starts May 6th, See you bright and early.