Portsmouth Roman Catholic

When you really appreciate what the Catholic Church is, when you really appreciate the role of God as Father, you know that you are part of a family.    And when you examine the history of the Church and realise the great love and devotion that was shown to Mary from earliest time, the great procession in the 4th century when she was at Ephesus declared the Mother of God we know that this was what the Holy Spirit and Jesus wanted for her.    And the Church had no hesitation in calling her the Mother of the faithful and the Mother of the Church,   You see no family is complete without the Mother, for a Father is seen as the judge and the disciplinarian of the family.   Hence Jesus has a role of judging the living and the dead.   So we can often approach him with guilt for the lives we live.    A mother however is the one who never judges you, who just wants to hug you and keep you safe and that has been the role of our Mother Mary in the Church.   She is there to guide you and bring you

                                                                        Mary of England, honoured was your name                                                                         When first the Saxons to our Island came                                                                         Kings knelt in homage, peasants sang your praise                                                                         O how they loved you in those bygone days                                                                         Through fields and woodland pilgrims made their way                                                                         Angelus bells rang, people bowed to pray                                                                         This was your Dowry your beautiful place                                                                         Mary of England, Hail full of grace.                                                          

Why go to Mary when you can go straight to Jesus is a very important question?    Did not Jesus tell us to come to him when we are weary and burdened?   It is a question my Protestant friends used to ask me when I was young.   I found there was some idea that Catholics who prayed to Mary always did so to the exclusion of Jesus.  But nothing could be further from the truth. When I was young I believed that Catholics were all united and happy and no questions were ever asked within the Church that were hostile to the Faith.    My first shock came when a priest who had one of those  tape recorders asked me to copy a speech by Cardinal Heenan to the priests of his diocese after he had returned from Vatican II.   I knew a little shorthand  and quickly copied the speech in one go.   It really really shocked me.  Cardinal Heenan was talking about the attack on Mary from mainly German bishops and the eventual withdrawal of a document on Mary from the Council.   The document on Our Lady they

This Sacred Council, following closely in the footsteps of the First Vatican Council, with that Council teaches and declares that Jesus Christ, the eternal Shepherd, established His holy Church, having sent forth the apostles as He Himself had been sent by the Father;(136) and He willed that their successors, namely the bishops, should be shepherds in His Church even to the consummation of the world. And in order that the episcopate itself might be one and undivided, He placed Blessed Peter over the other apostles, and instituted in him a permanent and visible source and foundation of unity of faith and communion.(1*) And all this teaching about the institution, the perpetuity, the meaning and reason for the sacred primacy of the Roman Pontiff and of his infallible magisterium, this Sacred Council again proposes to be firmly believed by all the faithful. Continuing in that same undertaking, this Council is resolved to declare and proclaim before all men the doctrine concerning bishops,

Doctors called Mark’s brain-cancer healing ‘miraculous’: I never told them who made it happen EDINBURGH, February 5, 2018 ( LifeSiteNews ) – If my husband’s recovery from brain surgery is a miracle, whose intercession do I thank?  When Mark was diagnosed with a brain tumor last March, nobody wanted to remove it. No matter how many operations he had — in total there were five — the surgeons thought excising the tumor was too dangerous. Instead, they made a hole in his brain to drain fluid, and when that stopped working, they put in a standard shunt. When that stopped working, they put in an adjustable shunt. When a tiny brain clot made Mark throw up, they removed the brain clot. Eventually, they sent Mark to a convalescent home, but I could tell he wasn’t improving.  All over the world, people prayed for Mark. Some were from Reformed traditions, most were Catholics. I’m a Catholic myself, and so I went on pilgrimage. The shrine of Venerable Margaret Sinclair is a five-mi

When the Church made itself manifest at Pentecost, it was the teaching and preaching of the Apostles that persuaded people to become Christian.    Peter, to whom Jesus had given the Keys of the Kingdom, the authority to rule in his absence, was called Ceplhas, the one who led the Apostles and yes he was not called Pope.   Having been personally taught by Jesus himself the other Apostles were in their own way inerrant in the teaching of Jesus.    So how did we get from Cephas to Pople?   There were many things that the Holy Spirit had to gradually develop in the Church as it grew and this was one question. Peter eventually went to Rome and was the leading Presbyter there for a time before he was executed.  But his successor in Rome was treated as Ceplhaso another Cephas.     The Presbyters in other parts of Christianity began to refer to Rome in disputes and questions on the Faith for as the successor of Peter they recognised he had succeeded Peter as Cephas.    As St Ignatius of An

Corpus Christi College, Westminster, changed the face of English Catholicism.    It was formed to teach the 'new thinking' of Vatican II and lasted from 1967 - 1974 before it was closed.  In that time it have invited schoolteachers. parish administrators, diocesan administrators, members of the clergy  and even bishops to explore the new teadhings.  The fruits of the college are worth mentioning.  the priest hired to introuduce the changes eventually ran off with a nun, and other vocations were lost.   One thing however should be noted, the changes they taught did not come from Vatican II, nor were they to be found in any Church authoritative document.     It was an attack on Catholic Teachings and Catholic practices.     The lay people attending Corpus Christi are not to blame for it was sanctioned by Cardinal Heenan although he did not know what was going on and many people were telling him but he did not believe it.   Eventually in 1974 he recognised the truth and closed Cor