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News Bytes for Your Parish Bulletin
Ingredients for a Homily
A good homily requires the foundation of the priest's personal Christian witness and a clear and concrete message, says a specialist in communications. Father Dario Viganò is president of an Italian foundation dedicated to the cinema, as well as president of the Redemptor Hominis Pontifical Institute at the Pontifical Lateran University. He insists that a good homily is not a copy or adaptation of discourses found in the media. Rather, he says in an interview with L'Osservatore Romano, homilies have the "profile of a communication that is sacramental," and that should enable the listener "to hear God, who speaks."
What Christianity Isn't
Christianity is not a moral code or a philosophy, but an encounter with a person, says Pope Benedict XVI. The Holy Father affirmed this as part of his ongoing catechesis on the life of St. Paul. Referring to the then Saul's experience of Christ on the road to Damascus and his consequent conversion, the Pontiff said: "This transformation of his whole being was not the result of a psychological process, of a maturation or intellectual and moral evolution, but it came from outside: It was not the result of his thinking but of the encounter with Jesus Christ."
News Bytes for Your Parish Bulletin
- Aid Clarifies Church's Teaching on Brain Death
- Indian Christians Ready to Keep Laying Down Lives
- Rosary-Prayers Aiming to Break Record
- Pope Calls Politics a Big Part of Lay Vocation
Setting the Record Straight
The Speaker of the House misrepresented Church teaching on abortion during an interview on national TV, according to U.S. bishops. Nancy Pelosi, asked to comment on when life begins, responded that she had studied the issue and found that "the doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition." But Cardinal Justin Rigali and Bishop William Lori, chairmen of the U.S. bishops' committee on Pro-Life Activities and on Doctrine, respectively, said Mrs. Pelosi's answer "misrepresented the history and nature of the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church against abortion." They noted that the Catechism teaches, "Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion."
Cross Purposes
Taking up one's cross isn't an option, but rather a mission that beckons all Christians, says Pope Benedict XVI. In an Angelus address, the Holy Father commented on St. Peter's desire to spare Christ from the cross. Jesus knew that his heavenly Father sent him to give his life for men, to overcome the evil of sin through his passion and death. "But the battle is not over," the Pontiff said. "Evil exists and resists in every generation, even in our own. ... To complete the work of salvation, the Redeemer continues to draw to himself and his mission men and women who are ready to take up the cross and follow him."