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The month of June is dedicated to The Sacred Heart of Jesus.Highlights
June 13 St. Anthony
Called the Wonder Worker, he is one of the most popular saints in the Catholic Church and is implored as the patron of lost things and a hundred other causes. He was a preacher and theologian and was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XII.
Recipe of the Month
Nameday Cookies
To different saints' days, make sugar cookie dough and roll out with symbolic cookie cutters.
Activity of the Month
Stitching Feast-Day SymbolsResearch with your children the different symbols for saints and feast days, and do some stitching of the symbols.
Symbols
St. Boniface The Archbishop of Mentz established the foundation for Christianity in Germany. His emblem refers to his defense of the Gospel as he met the blow of death while confirming baptized converts.
St. Barnabas One of the Apostolic Fathers, whose feast day in olden times was celebrated by young lads and clerks bedecked with roses. This shield is divided.
St. Peter & St. PaulThe interwoven symbols of Sts. Peter and Paul are used at Winchester, where the cathedral church is dedicated to these saints.The Trinity The triquetra is one of the many symbols that clearly express the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place my trust in Thee.
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An interview with Eugeniusz Mróz, who lived in Wadowice in the same tenement house as Wojty?a's family. He attended high school with Karol Wojty?a. The two remained friends for 70 years.
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This Declaration was issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on April 2, 2024 as approved by Pope Francis in an audience of March 25, 2024, and publicly released on April 8, 2024. It emphasizes the dignity of each human person as created by God and itemizes a large number of violations of human dignity, including modern forms of gender manipulation. The genesis of the text is recounted in the initial Presentation section. For an an overview of both its genesis and its contents, see our Catholic World News analysis Vatican document condemns assaults on human dignity.
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The author explains the genesis of this study on brain death as follows:
In February 1997, my article "Recovery from ?Brain Death': A Neurologist's Apologia" was published in the Linacre Quarterly 64(1):30-96 (the official journal of the Catholic Medical Association). It recounts my conceptual journey from being a vocal advocate of "brain death" to a vocal critic.
The article explains my early interest in things neurological and later in "brain death." The year I began my academic career, 1981, witnessed the publication of the milestone monograph on "brain death" by the President's Commission, which endorsed the biological rationale of the brain as central integrator of the body. This explanation impressed me, but I was also impressed by a parallel line of reasoning that the brain, specifically its neocortex, is necessary for awareness and thought, so that without neocortical function, there is no longer a human mind, regardless of the biological status of the body.
In 1985 I published a lengthy article in The Thomist, proposing a thought experiment that I considered the strongest reason for equating "brain death" with death. An extension of the thought experiment implied that patients with intact brainstems but extensive destruction of the neocortex (clinically in a "permanent vegetative state") were also dead, by virtue of an Aristotelian substantial change to a subhuman form of living organism. A few years later, an encounter with congenitally decorticate children who were clearly conscious forced me to reject the "cortex-consciousness connection" and that extension of the thought experiment. Thus, at the 1989 Pontifical Academy of Sciences' Working Group on "brain death," to which I had been invited, I proposed a modified version of the thought experiment that I believed accounted for both loss of human personhood and cessation of the organism as a whole.
I then became concerned about the possibility of "conceptual false positive error": if I (and official neurology) had been wrong about something so fundamental as the "cortex-consciousness connection," how could I be sure that I was not also wrong about "brain death" being death? An epiphany came in 1992, when it occurred to me that patients with functional or structural disconnection of the brain (physiologically identical to destruction of the brain from the body's perspective) were not just conscious bags of loosely interacting organs and tissues, but living though disabled "organisms as a whole." The body has no "central integrator" organ after all. Later that year I encountered clinical confirmation of that realization: a 14-year-old boy diagnosed "brain dead," who had not "dis-integrated" but was stable at a long-term-care facility and even began puberty while "brain dead."
For the next several years I lay low on the topic, while playing a merciless devil's advocate with myself. By 1996 I was prepared to publicly renounce my previously published convictions through the "Apologia." Since then, much "brain death" water has passed under the bridge, and my insights from 1992 have matured.
There has been recent interest in having the "Apologia" reprinted and more readily available. With permission from Sage Publications, I created a pdf version formatted with the same pagination but with typesetting errors corrected. Where an update or clarification was appropriate, an endnote was inserted. This corrected and updated version is now freely available here.
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This is the speech given by Cardinal Ratzinger at the Rimini Meeting for Friendship among Peoples on September 1, 1990. Its subject is the renewal of the Church, and its need to be rooted in Christ with a spirituality of wonder open to the action of God, rather than being rooted in human plans and strategies with a non-spirituality of human activism. This is one of a dozen texts included in Robert Cardinal Sarah's outstanding appreciation of Benedict XVI, published by Ignatius Press in 2023 and available for purchase through this link: He Gave Us So Much: A Tribute to Benedict XVI. Ignatius Press gave permission for the use of their translation here.
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An overview of the liturgical season of Lent which is represented by the liturgical color purple -- a symbol of penance, mortification and the sorrow of a contrite heart. Includes a collection of Activities, Customs, Prayers, Blessing & Hymns to help families prepare for Easter.
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This new statement on brain death by Joseph M. Eble, MD, John A. Di Camillo, PhD, and Peter J. Colosi, PhD has been signed by over 150 scholars, civic and religious leaders, and pro-life activists in order to warn of the dangers of using brain death as a test of human mortality. Existing criteria for determining brain death have been proven inadequate to determine whether a person is truly dead, and since it is morally wrong to harvest vital organs from a living donor, the signatories call for a cessation of organ transplants from "brain dead" donors. The statement offers action recommendations for personal health care decision-making, for stakeholders and policy makers, for Catholics engaged in faith formation and pastoral guidance, for health care professionals, for health care institutions, and for individual or organizational Catholic leaders. The list of signatories follows the statement.
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This is a well-researched study of the impossibility of using the concept of "brain death" as a clear indicator of the actual death of the person. The author is a medical doctor, the Managing Partner of Fidelis Radiology and President of the Tulsa Guild of the Catholic Medical Association.
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This Address was given by Cardinal Raymond Burke at the International Conference "The Synodal Babel" held at Teatro Ghione, Via delle Fornaci 37, Rome on October 3, 2023.
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The month of July is dedicated to The Precious Blood of Jesus.
Highlights
July 16 Our Lady of Mount CarmelThe Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Simon Stock, holding in her hand a scapular, and directed him to found a Confraternity whose members should wear this scapular and consecrate themselves to her service.
Recipe of the Month
Summer Apple Cake
The food associated with St. Swithin in legend and poetry is the apple, and his blessing is asked each year by the apple growers.
Activity of the MonthFamily and Friends of Jesus Scrapbook Album
Recording the "memories" of Jesus' life with His friends and family is a wonderful way to gain more knowledge of Christ and enter more closely into the Paschal Mystery. Summer is a good time to start this project with your family.
Symbols
St. Anne
The mother of Our Lady, whose loving care of her daughter is shown by the silver border with black masonry. The lily refers to the girlhood of the Virgin.
St. IgnatiusThe Founder of the Society of Jesus, and writer of the "Spiritual Exercises." "IHS" and rays, with the letters "AMDG" meaning "To the greater glory of God".
St. Thomas
The patron of builders. He is said to have built a Church with his own hands in East India. The spear refers to the instrument of his martyrdom.
St. Martha, St. Mary and St. Lazarus
St. Martha is mentioned as serving Christ with refreshment. A covered table with cloth, cups, pitcher and bowl containing fruit -- all symbols of St. Martha's service.
Blood of Christ, Eucharistic drink and refreshment of souls, save us.
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