Find within these pages a clearinghouse of articles, news, links, events, collaboration tools and other resources shared with fellow priests. New pages every week — look forward to an expanding toolbox of practical resources at your fingertips!
Guide for Pro-life Preaching
The group Priests for Life has completed a project to assist clergy to preach on abortion and the culture of life. Father Frank Pavone, national director of the group, has written homily hints for the readings of each Sunday of the three-year cycle. "These homily hints can be used as each cycle continues to repeat through the years," he said. The reflections are available online. Clergy and parish ministers can also receive a weekly e-mail with the homily hints for upcoming Sundays. They can register at clergy@priestsforlife.org.
News Bytes for Your Parish Bulletin
- Iraqi Christians, Muslims Unite in Seeking Peace
- World Family Meeting Seeks 7,000 Family Photos
- Pope Promotes Gospel Witness in Universities
- Irish Bishop Highly Recommends the Priesthood
Toward an Upright Conscience
Two key errors concerning conscience -- that it is infallible and, on the other hand, that is a mere vestige of Freudian superego -- are even more prevalent today than they were 30 years ago, warns a theologian. Legionary of Christ Father Thomas D. Williams, a Vatican analyst for CBS News and a professor at Rome's Regina Apostolorum university, makes his case in a new book, "Knowing Right From Wrong: A Christian Guide to Conscience." Father Williams observes: "While this first error [of infallibility] overvalues conscience, making it into an infallible god, accountable only to itself, the second error [of Freudian bent] undervalues conscience, placing it among the undesirable and irrational remnants of an earlier stage of humanity's moral evolution."
Healing From Within
Christ is not a healer in the way that the world expects, says Pope Benedict XVI. In his homily at a Mass for the sick, in Lourdes, France, the Holy Father asserted that Christ, in order to heal us, does not remain outside the suffering that is experienced. "He eases it," the Pontiff said, "by coming to dwell within the one stricken by illness, to bear it and live it with him. Christ's presence comes to break the isolation which pain induces."