I consider these the best books and resources for learning the Catholic faith:
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith, by Bishop Athanasius Schneider
Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, by
@goldenkey112
Protestant Christians don't seem to be aware that we Catholics are never required to say a single prayer to the Virgin Mary. Not once. The mention of Our Lady is in the Eucharistic Prayer, or Canon, of the Mass, and she's mentioned with a number of other saints.
Fact, peeps.
This evening I officially became a candidate for Benedictine oblate of Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey, a traditional Benedictine monastery in Oklahoma. I’ve followed Benedictine spirituality for years, but it’s time to make my oblation. I start the novitiate later this year.
@JamesMartinSJ
As a gay man, I found true dignity as a member of Courage, which taught me not to identify with my homosexuality, but to live a full, satisfying and holy life as a single, chaste Catholic man.
@BrotherRasheed
I was impressed with the portrait of Muhammad in Tariq Ramadan’s book, In the Footsteps of the Prophet, until I came to the part where Muhammad ordered a caravan to be raided as “compensation” for a past wrong. Oops.
@standev9
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre will be considered in the future -- and is by millions of Catholics now -- a modern Athanasius. I observe his feast as November 1st, along with all of the other non-canonized saints.
Marcel Lefebvre, pray for us.
@BrotherRasheed
I read about Islam this past summer, including the entire Qur’an and a good book about Muhammad, as well as Sunnah, and what I concluded is that Islam is the adoption of one man’s obsessive-compulsive disorder.
@FeserEdward
I'm gay and chaste. The priest at my traditional Latin Mass blesses me every Sunday at the end of Mass. NCR and America don't find that exciting, do they?
@ConallGulban
God raised up St. Joan of Arc to ensure that the English break with Rome in the following century would not drag France with it out of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
So God thinks your dream sux.
@HeidiSchlumpf
Okay. As a man with same-sex attraction, I learned early on from the immemorial tradition of the Catholic Church that I must remain chaste and single. So I have. That's it.
My only feedback for clergy is that they need to affirm the single state for those called to it.
@goldenkey112
A reminder, campers, that after sharing the truth with these folks, we must pray and offer our sufferings and voluntary sacrifices for them, especially united to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, asking God to give the actual graces they need to come to divine and Catholic faith.
@jennmorson
Imagine seeing an exemplary, sincere Catholic gentleman on X and reacting like a vicious harpy because the idea of supporting motherhood disgusts you.
@ctrlamb
@CNN
The Catholic Church has always been open to everyone. What you actually mean,
@ctrlamb
, is a new Church that condones mortal sin and assures people in habitual mortal sin that this perfectly alright and that they need not repent.
Francis wants deformation, not reform.
@fasc1nate
Feral boy who gets hair cuts on a regular basis. He comes down from the trees, wanders tentatively into the town, and scouts out the local barber, who cuts his hair for papaya.
@slandermepls
Are you sure he's a rapist? And if he is, are you sure he's unrepentant? Do you have the gift of reading souls, and across the Atlantic Ocean, no less?
You're a remarkable human being.
@NCRegister
What a joke. This is a total failure in reporting.
The document expressly says that same-sex couples may be blessed. Faithful Catholics don't care about metaphysical or semantic niceties.
Don't you dare accuse us of dishonesty. The reality is obvious to a child.
@pjfahey
I'm a Catholic man with SSA. Although I've had times of unchastity earlier in my life, I always confessed them and never doubted the Church's apostolic teaching that homosexual acts are gravely sinful. This document insults the sacrifice of faithful Catholics like me.
@USCatholic
Thanks, I’ll remember that and have a chuckle when I attend High Mass at my traditional Catholic parish tomorrow.
And yes, the 1,500+ year old liturgy that developed gradually under the influence of the Holy Spirit is superior to the one drafted in the late 1960’s by a committee
@NCRonline
I am same-sex attracted. I have been welcomed by the Catholic Church all my life. And I have brought my sins against chastity to the sacrament of penance for decades, where I was blessed while being absolved, every time. I’m also blessed along with everyone else when Mass ends.
@antanchor
And thank God he is.
@JoshuaTCharles
is helping thousands of people to embrace the fullness of Christianity, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
@AP
I've attended the traditional Latin Mass since 2007. Until then, my only experience of that mystery, beauty and transcendence had been at the Divine Liturgy in the Eastern Rite. Then I discovered that we had it in the Latin Church, too, but that it had been replaced by Hallmark
@NCRegister
@john_bursch
Right. Priests are authorized to bless the same-sex COUPLE, not their UNION.
This is what’s known in legal and philosophical circles as “a distinction without a difference.”
Don’t insult us. I know you think you’re shoring up Catholic faith, but you’re helping to deceive us.
@Michael_J_Matt
The easiest thing to do is to require that those in same-sex couples be blessed separately, one after the other. There is no reason for insisting that they be blessed *as a couple* aside from wanting to affirm these inherently sinful relationships.
In short, they are full of it.
@reginaclaire143
@ChivalryFella
Please, I entreat you, stop using the confessional to have your hand held in a 20 minute tea-and-sympathy session. Just confess your SINS and LEAVE after absolution. Thanks so much.
@dodo
Pit bulls can indeed be gentle and loving, but the problem is that, even after years of that, they snap and maul their owners and their family members.
@CatholicOrca
The Catholic Sun, by Hilaire Belloc
Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!
@CDamianWrites
As a gay man adhering to the teaching of the Catholic Church and wanting to go to heaven, I found friendship, acceptance and support with the men of the Philadelphia chapter of Courage. Find a chapter near you and celebrate the richness of a Catholic life.
@NCRegister
Priests should serve as priests. Research and drafting Supreme Court opinions is not a priestly function. This is the province of the Catholic laity, and their vocation to bring Christ into the world as laypeople. It's an extremely important task. But it's the lay vocation,
@americamag
I find Gloria Purvis's agitation to be extremely destructive, and, in fact, racist. I don't see it conducing to justice at all. In discussions on X, she has refused to specify precisely the instances of racism in the Church that she has in mind. I consider her to be a
@jshocds
Catholics are not required to believe in any apparitions or private revelations. Refusal to believe in these cases is not a failure of divine and Catholic faith in any way whatsoever.
I’m sure you know this, Father, but I’m clarifying this for those who’ll read your post.
@engl1shtradcat
The article is false. Our Lord allegedly promised that if a Catholic goes to confession and receives communion that day, all temporal punishment due for past sins is remitted. There was no assurance of salvation afterward.
You violate the 8th Commandment by posting this.
@standev9
Yes, sir.
His excommunication was canonically irregular and invalid for that and other reasons. He and St. Joan of Arc, who also died excommunicate, are both in glory.
@Michael_J_Matt
Because the traditional Latin Mass indicts the desacralization, commonness, mundaneness, casualness, horizontalism and banality of the Novus Ordo, along with the praxis and ideology associated with it.
@ctrlamb
Bishop Strickland has never questioned the “legitimacy” of Pope Francis. He has stated that Pope Francis is undermining the Catholic faith, and he is. It’s lazy and calumnious to accuse him of sedevacantism because he exercised his rights under Code of Canon Law 212 §3.
@standev9
And you don't get to pronounce on the life work and sanctity of this man. Read this biography. (Even your man Pope Francis read it twice.) You're a pathetic midget next to Marcel Lefebvre. Knock it off and find another whipping boy for your virtue signaling.
@HeidiSchlumpf
Heidi, please direct Catholics with same-sex attraction to the Courage apostolate. I was an active member of the Philadelphia chapter for years and found tremendous support. Good priests strongly recommend Courage.
@MLJHaynes
@CardJosephZen
Cardinal Zen put his finger on Michael Lofton's fundamental error: he accords every teaching equal weight, dogmatizing every papal musing.
You know better,
@reasontheology
. You're destroying people's faith by convincing them that they have to choose between error and being
@a_westgate
I respect and know the Orthodox manner of making the sign of the Cross, but here, for the information of Western Christians, is the correct Catholic manner:
@CoffinMedia
The first half of the Hail Mary is directly from the Gospel of St. Luke, merely repeating what St. Gabriel and St. Elizabeth told Our Lady.
Second half: Holy Mary (no question about that), Mother of God (Council of Ephesus), pray for us sinners,now (we all pray for others).
Note the young priest. Couldn’t be more than 28. The average age of SSPX priests is quite young, whereas in the Novus Ordo it’s around 65+.
#SSPX
#vocations
@pontificatormax
All this week is a single day: Easter. It is not appropriate to fast or abstain on Friday this week. And yes, I abstain on all other Fridays of the year.
@lpoolcatholic
Okay, my favorite memory was taken already so I’ll share another. I’m so grateful for the way he destroyed the charism of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate by forbidding them from offering both the Ordinary and Extraodinary forms of the Mass.
@ArchCordileone
@PillarCatholic
Thank you, Archbishop Cordileone. And thank you for your visit to my traditional Catholic parish, Epiphany of Our Lord Catholic Church in Tampa, several months ago. We were so pleased to welcome you.
@RussNRoses
You’re not at all required or expected to put money in the collection, unless you really want to. Only Catholics are obligated to support the Church (which is one of 5 precepts of the Church), and many of us give online. No one will think twice if you don’t.
@kobe_sylvester
Yeah, Sylvester, let’s take St. Therese of Lisieux off the calendar. “Little way”? Hilarious. Don’t get me started on her parents, Louis and Zelie Martin. And St. Dominic Savio? What did he ever do, really? Come on, folks. This is all just fin de siecle sentimentality.
@latinafemcel
Excellent decision. I returned to the Catholic Church because of the incessant Orthodox denigration of the entire Western liturgical, theological, and spiritual tradition, including the dismissal of the great Catholic saints as “being in prelest,” rang so completely false based
@Trent_Horn
Hi Trent. I'm a traditional Catholic, not a sedevacantist.
Buffoonery in priests -- including making a joke of the sign of the cross -- is not what we need. It just isn't.
There's a reason St Benedict proscribes this in his Rule. It's antithetical to spiritual life. Ch. 6:
@austeni
You’re projecting your own misunderstanding of Catholicism as a political spectrum.
And your bitterness at this woman’s joyful reception into the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church puts you squarely among the demons.
@realJohnDouglas
Who’s glorified? Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, reposed in the golden tabernacle in the center?
@JoshuaTCharles
I pray this Pentecost that each of our non-Catholic brethren who follow your account, Joshua, will someday be with us “all together in one place,” Acts 2:1, for the Feast of Pentecost, as Our Lord intends for them.
Catholics, it is the Vigil of Pentecost. We chant the ancient hymn Veni Creator Spiritus (Come, Creator Spirit) at Vespers this evening. What a joy to invoke the Holy Spirit as he’s been invoked for over 1,000 years.
Ask Him to fill us this Pentecost.
@triana160
Yes, but only when he teaches ex cathedra. The pope has only taught ex cathedra once in the last century: Pope Pius XII's definition of the dogma of the Assumption in 1950. Some argue that Pope John Paul II did as well when he definitely excluded women from the priesthood.
@MichaelSWinters
Here's the correct take on that Mass. And if you think that the way the Catholic Church worshipped for over 1,500 years is weird, you're in the wrong Church, buddy.
The mysterious, dreadful, yet encouraging saying of Abba Ischyrion, from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (transl., Benedicta Ward), which clearly foretells our time:
“The holy Fathers were making predictions about the last generation. They said, ‘What have we ourselves done?’
@EricRSammons
One reason a saint is canonized is that he already has a reputation for sanctity, e.g. Padre Pio. The faithful can draw appropriate conclusions, even if they are not authoritative. The woman is incorrupt.
@MichaelSWinters
Code of Canon Law can. 212 sec. 3 guarantees Cardinal Burke's right to raise concerns about the Pope's direction or what you call "opposition."
But I guess you're one of the Brown Shirts, so you don't pay that no nevermind.
@DebatingChris
I'm same-sex attracted and have known this since 1976. I completely accept myself, including my sexual attraction to men. But I'm chaste, because sex is reserved to lifelong marriage between a man and a woman open to life.
Do you think I have a pathological fear of myself?
@joelorenzo12
@HeidiSchlumpf
I’m not closeted at all. I’m open here on X and in my life about being gay. And I prove I love myself by doing what’s necessary to remain in a state of grace. Why is that wrong?
@holysmoke
Cupich will do nothing — except, perhaps, send these women warm congratulations and, eventually, assist this priest’s career in some manner.
Nor will the Dicastery or other bishops do anything. They’ll certainly ignore this, except for Bishop Strickland, who’ll mention it on YT.
@Burgess7281975
Even most Catholics don’t understand why sacrifice has always been required by God for worship of Him. These pages from Christ the Life of the Soul, by Bl. Columba Marmion, are extremely illuminating. I recommend this book constantly to all Catholics and others to understand us.
@AnthonyEsolen
I’m a traditional Catholic with SSA, who has been chaste for many years. I acknowledge this on X to give a good example, as well as to refute those who seem to think that chastity for those with SSA is impossible or torture. I often post links to Courage. Should I stop?
@ZZZELCH84
Welcome to the religion of constantly proliferating schism, internal theological contention, jurisdictionalism, phyletism, caesaro-papism, self-absorption, paralysis, and adulterous unions. You have chosen wisely.
Not.
@Church_Militant
I am effectively without the traditional Mass. I attend the Novus Ordo now with my elderly parents. Trads generally do not say the Novus Ordo is “invalid.” We say it’s deficient. The traditional Mass has mystery, beauty, and conduces much more to prayer. N.O. is “banal.” — BXVI.
@CrisisMag
So many in these replies fail to comprehend that any Catholic, and certainly a bishop, has a right to criticize the Pope under Code of Canon Law 212 §3.
@JalamaDreams
Sedevacantist churches are schismatic. It would therefore be a sin to attend one.
I would advise you to attend the earliest Mass at the Novus Ordo church, because it's likely to have the least nonsense.
@Truth_matters20
@RussNRoses
Meanwhile,
@Truth_matters20
, back in reality, here’s the first known icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ, painted in the Roman catacomb of Priscilla in the 2nd century (that’s the 100’s, for those of you who are educationally challenged).
You’re a liar and
@frobrien
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, instead, they all prayed Vespers together, praising God with the Psalms and prayers of the Church, rather than this emotive hootenanny?
@Protestia
They’re not worshipping Our Lady. She’s in their midst, as she was at Pentecost.
You know, lying is a violation of one of the Ten Commandments.
@JLLiedl
If this is so, why not instead call for those in same-sex unions to come to confession, the sacrament of mercy?
Answer: Because they don’t want it.
@JonnyRoot_
Wouldn’t it have been braver and more honest to include these remarks in the text he submitted for approval, and then to wage the ensuing battle?
What he did was dishonest, in my view, and that’s not the greatest witness to Christ.
@BishopBarron
I think what you're seeing in 95% of these comments, Bishop Barron, is that the sensus fidei has not been extinguished, and that we will oppose this disgrace just as the lay faithful opposed the Arian bishops and priests.
You're on the losing side, I can tell you right now.
@BishStrickland
Thank you, your Excellency, for fulfilling in such an exemplary way your duty as bishop to teach the traditional Catholic faith. I offered my rosary for you last night, asking Our Lady to pray that you continue public ministry in some way. We greatly need and value your ministry.