Portsmouth Roman Catholic

As I have said I am studying the Early Church and finding out just how Catholic it was.   Little wonder that many Evangelicals in America who did the same found themselves compelled to convert to Rome.   But let me talk about the Mass. A Protestant Early Church historian J.N.D Kelly.   "...the eucharist was regarded as the distinctively Christian sacrifice.   Malachi predicted (Malachi 1:10 -11) that God would reject Jewish sacrifices and instead would have a 'pure offering' made to Him by the gentiles was seized upon in every place by Christians, the Didache actually apples this term 'thusia' or sacrifice to the Eucharist.............the bread and wine moreover are offered 'for a memorial' a phrase which in view of his identification of them with the body and blood implies much more than an actual of purely spiritual recollection"   But let us quote from the Fathers. ST Clement.  A contemporary of the Apostles and the third successor of Peter in ...

n comments following the opening session of Francis’s Feb. 21-24 summit on the protection of minors in the Church, abuse survivor and co-founder of the U.S. branch of the Ending Clergy Abuse advocacy group, Peter Isely, said the pope’s list contains “not-very-concrete points,” despite a statement from Francis earlier in the day that people want “concrete, effective” measures. The suggestions are not a sign of progress, Isley said, because “they don’t go anywhere, they’re not moving the line anywhere.” “There’s nothing different in here than there was yesterday. Where is it in these points that if you’re a bishop or a cardinal and you’ve covered up child sex crimes, that you’re going to be removed from the priesthood or that any action will be taken against you?” he said. “That’s not in here at all, so that’s not accountability and that’s not zero tolerance,” he said. Speaking of point 15 on Francis’s list, which suggests that the Church’s traditional principle of “proportional...

elow is Abp. Viganò's letter to the presidents of the conferences of bishops gathered in Rome: We cannot avoid seeing as a sign of Providence that you, Pope Francis, and brother Bishops representing the entire Church have come together on the very day on which we celebrate the memory of St. Peter Damian. This great monk in the 11th century put all his strength and apostolic zeal into renewing the Church in his time, so deeply corrupted by sins of sodomy and simony. He did that with the help of faithful Bishops and lay people, especially with the support of Abbot Hildebrand of the Abbey of St Paul  extra muros , the future Pope St. Gregory the Great.     Allow me to propose for our meditation the words of our dear Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI addressed to the people of God in the General Audience of Wednesday, May 17, 2006, commenting on the very passage of the Gospel of Mark 8:27–33 that we proclaimed on today's Mass. Peter was to live anoth...

God forbid that they should offend the secular media by talking about the homosexuals in their midst with any criticism.   So Capuch frightened no doubt to do this, just avoided the question of homosexual predators which the Court at Pennsylvania had spoken about.   Let us not get into homosexuality.    Then of course there is the question of 'cover up'    What cover ups in the Catholic Church?   We will not even discuss that.   It seems that there arenasty people in the Churh making this up.   And thank you of course for your apology to the victims.   What you have said will fill them with confidence.  There is really no problem at all.

The question of Homosexuality is a divisive one and alas even within the Catholic Church where there are many who have fallen to what is called 'human compassion'.   Indeed there is a large scale battle in the Church over 'homosexual clergy'   This was not true in the early Church, where the teaching of the Fathers was very much to condemn the practice and perhaps in a what would be called today a very 'uncharitable manner". Letter of Barnabas (AD 75)   "You shall not be a corrupter of boys, nor like unto such" Tertullian of Carthage (Modesty 4, c. AD 220)  " All the other frenzies of passion -impious both towards the bodies and the sexes - beyond the laws of nature, we banish not only from the threshold - but from all shelter of the Church because they are not sins but monstrosities". St Cyprian of Carthage (Letters 1;8 C. 240AD)   "Then you look to the abominations of another spectacle to be deplored......Men are emasculated and...

Six Million Jews died in the Nazi death camps.  I prayed for them on Holocaust memorial day, but there were also many others who died in the camps and suffered under German persecution.  The Polish people were not part of the white master race and therefore fit for extinction or to be used as slaves.   This is not remembered and when the nations like Hungary, Only freed from Islamic rule after WWI, and Poland dare to put their Catholic values first they are attacked by the EU whom they thought would help bu instead treat them as the Nazis, backward people who will not embrace their secular values...........................................      WARSAW, Poland, February 14, 2019 ( LifeSiteNews ) ― I woke up this morning to discover that MSNBC reporter  Andrea Mitchell  who at 72 is surely old enough to know better, stated on television last night that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was against the  "Polish and Nazi regime"  during World War I...

WHO DO THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE? IF THEY DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH THEY SHOULD HAVE THE PERSONAL INTEGRITY TO LEAVE  BEHIND THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST AND THE CHURCH AND NOT DEMAND THAT THEIR VIEW MUST BE HELD.........The bishop of Charlotte is backing a Dominican nun who has been at the center of a fiery controversy since last month when she gave a speech promoting Catholic teaching on sexuality to students at Charlotte Catholic High School.  After a public meet ing with diocesan and school officials turned ugly, with parents and students alike shouting at administrators over what they perceived as “hateful” remarks criticizing homosexual behavior, divorce and extra-marital sex, a spokesman for the diocese told LifeSiteNews that the nun in question, Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel, did nothing wrong and will be welcome to speak on the issue again if she chooses. “Nothing in Sister’s talk opposed Church teaching,” Diocese of Charlotte Communi...

I was watching an afternoon soap put on by the BBC called Doctors today.   I do not watch it often but most of the time it is a well informed program.  Today however the question of Abortion came up.   A young girl from Norther Ireland came to visit her sister in the UK.   She was pregnant and was looking for an abortion.    The difficulty she had was that the baby she was carrying was not that of her boyfriend.   When she went back to Northern Ireland she had an affair with a married man.   Eventually she told a nurse her problem.   She did not want her baby to grow up and find out who her father was.   The child would turn against her.    A nurse listening to her said that obviously she had thought through the issues and knew what she was doing so she should go ahead with an abortion if she so wished.    Outside the clinic there was a pro-lifer sitting with a board reading "Protect the Unborn'  whom she simply ...

Were I to ask the question in our secular and politicised society what is the greatest cause of poverty, I would get many answers, its the Government, it is the workers earning low pay, it is this, that, and the next thing.   Regrettably I would receive the same answers from many in the Catholic Church, who ignoring the teaching of Jesus seek to fill the Church with the values of the secular state.   Yet Catholics who are loyal to Jesus will listen to his words on Divorce in Matthew 19 and Mark 10 and realise that he hated Divorce and the misery it caused.  We know he also admonished the rich young man not to commit adultery.   Yet how easy it is for some, who cry "Lord, Lord" and claim they are not going to do what the Church wants of them because they are grown adults and 'the Church is not going to tell them what to do'.   Yes, and how many 'priests' promote adultery by telling anxious parents not to be upset by their young adults living together because it...

In Mark 10 a rich young man approached Jesus and asked him "Good Master what must I do to gain Eternal Life'  Jesus replied "Why do you call me good, only God is good.   You know the commandments ' thou shalt not kill, thou shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not defraud, honour your father and your mother".   And the young man said "All these I have kept since my earliest days.   JESUS LOOKED STEADY AT HIM AND WAS FILLED WITH LOVE FOR HIM.... When I read this account from Mark I am struck by the words in capitals.  Jesus looked steadily on him and was filled with love for him.   In the early Church there was a man called Marcellus who led a heresy in which he said that sins were not important it was all about 'giving to the poor'   This was condemned as a heresy and yet today that heresy has returned and bishops, priests, and schoolteachers are ignoring Jesus.   They regard the commandment...