I am a very old woman (I am over eighty years old). When I did the catechism I remember that it was said that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church. Now it seems that no one is claiming such a thing anymore. Has the doctrine changed? But if it has really changed, who tells us that what is being said today is more true than what was being said in my day? Help me understand.
The Papal Encyclicals have changed a lot in recent centuries. They usually occupied one page; today they have a hundred or more pages. Previously, they often addressed specific international issues; today they deal mostly with our relationship with God or with the demands of Christian life. Fundamentally, the language of the Encyclicals have changed radically!
our life on earth is a sports arena and we need to train ourselves well in order to win over our competitors. But our competitors are not people around us – it’s our ego and the devil – because the devil is always waiting to catch us unawares. “Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (I Peter 5:8).
Pope St John Paul II, in his homily on the day of the canonization of Daniel Comboni, on 5 October 2003, said, “We need evangelizers with the enthusiasm and apostolic outreach of Bishop Daniel Comboni, an apostle of Christ among the Africans. He relied on the resources of his rich personality and solid spirituality to make Christ known and welcomed in Africa, a continent he loved deeply.”
On Tuesday, October 12th, the Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Aparecida, the Solemnity of the Queen and Patron of Brazil.
Lord, I love You, and I want to love You more. I want to love You with my whole being. Help me to realize that following You requires a radical and complete gift of myself to You. May I be ready and willing to let go of any attachment in life that keeps me from following You. Jesus, I trust in You.
Born in Macau, Father Stephen Tong will assume the role of Provincial of the Chinese Province of the Society of Jesus on November 1st, succeeding the Bishop-elect of Hong Kong, Stephen Chow. “A man of intelligence and good reasoning,” Tong Chak-long faces a delicate and challenging mission, fellow Jesuít Luís Sequeira told O Clarim.
Starting on October 19th and until mid-April 2022, Father Andrzej Blazkiewicz wants to discuss the various meanings of human love in the Divine Plan with local Catholics. The Polish priest will promote a series of workshops – one per week – based on the book Male and Female He Created Them, a compendium of Pope John Paul II’s teachings on love and sexuality, in which the Polish pontiff discusses issues such as the human condition or human dignity.
For St Thomas Aquinas, theology and spiritual theology are “one and the same thing.” Similar is the stand of St Bonaventure. For both doctors of the Church and the traditions they represent, theology is one, not yet divided at their time between dogmatic and moral theology. Spiritual theology permeated the different theological treatises such as the Trinity, Creation, Christology, grace and the sacraments, prayer, etc. It was – and is – more closely connected with moral theology or Christian ethics.
“An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.”