There are many people that look down on the Catholic Church because of what they perceive as great wealth (I tried to counter this misconception four years ago in my weekly thought, The Riches of the Church). One person I have corresponded with over the years is fond of pointing out that the pope has the most expensive car in the world, the “popemobile.” Actually, there are a number of popemobiles. The popemobiles are expensive, but they are hardly the most expensive cars in the world. I’m guessing the fleet of presidential limousines are just as expensive, if not more expensive. I know that Airforce One is much more expensive than the private papal jet.

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I’ve been waiting and praying for this day for a number of years:

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Senator Barbara Boxer has been trashed my some pro-life activists lately regarding an example she gave about the possibility of, as the Washington Examiner put it, “a dangerous precedence of religious rights trumping the right to be insured.” I agree 100% with the validity of the example Senator Boxer gave; however, the conclusion is wrong.

This is a quote from the Washington Examiner:

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I have been reading with much interest about the developments in the States regarding the Obama Administration’s persecution of Christians in general and Catholics in particular. I believe that this is a defining moment in history for American Catholics (that Catholics that are American, not Americans that are Catholic). If you didn’t understand the last comment in parentheses, the article below by Louie Verrecchio will explain.

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Some Orthodox Christians may have been shocked to read in my post Ecumenism, Particularly Between East and West that at the Council of Florence, all but one of the Eastern bishops accepted the West’s use of the Filióque, the understanding of purgatory and papal primacy. If you are shocked, it is probably because you don’t really understand these issues and most likely are more acquainted with the distorted view of these issues. The Eastern bishops of the 15th century understood these issues; however, the Eastern laity did not; hence, lasting unity between East and West was not achieved at that time. We should do better.

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The Orthodox Church is evangelical, but not Protestant. It is orthodox, but not Jewish. It is catholic, but not Roman. It isn’t non-denominational – it is pre-denominational. It has believed, taught, preserved, defended and died for the Faith of the Apostles since the Day of Pentecost 2000 years ago.

I discovered the podcast Steve the Builder and subsequently Our Life In Christ, both of which are on Ancient Faith Radio, a while ago on, I believe, the Practical Ecumenism blog on the Holy Resurrection Monastery website; although, this blog had another name, which I can’t remember, when it directed me to the Steve the Builder podcast. Steve Robinson and Bill Gould are no longer producing the Our Life In Christ podcast; however, I’ve been going through their archives (I only have 30 more episodes to go). I thoroughly enjoy these podcasts, and even had a link to them on my list of links. I had to take this link off my list, however, as I was going through their archive of podcasts because I couldn’t in good conscience direct people there without a preface. This blog post is that preface, and the links are in this paragraph.

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The following quote of Pope Benedict XVI come from the story The Renewal Of Faith Must Be A Priority For Church Today on today’s Vatican Information Service:
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Extraordinary Prayer of all Churches for Reconciliation, Unity and Peace beginning in and proceeding from Jerusalem

I found the above website while checking my news feeds this morning. This was the headline and first paragraph of today’s top news post on this website:
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At the close of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, I want to give my thoughts on ecumenism. I must point out that these are my views and are not authoritative. I’m just a simple uneducated layman that is trying to be faithful to Christ and His Church. My views on ecumenism were a little different ten years ago, and even more different twenty years ago (it was nineteen years ago that I came into full union with the Pope of Rome). And, I predict that ten, twenty and fifty years from now, my views will be different than they are now.

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My priest friend in Ireland, Fr. Enzo, e-mailed my a very interesting article last night from Our Sunday Visitor. This kind of stuff fascinates me; although I don’t have much time to read about it.
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