Portsmouth Roman Catholic

In the 1970's and early 1980's I knew 5 single parent families.   I watched their children grow up to be single parents also.  And then their children grew up to be single parents.   It was quite obvious to me the there was a pattern here, and that something was missing in their lives.   The answer was of course quite obvious, they all lacked a father.   I remember a former Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police commenting on TV when asked about the knifing gangs telling the listeners that the majority lacked parenting from a Father.    He was quickly cut off, for the secular world does not see the role of a father as any different from the role of a mother.   Indeed in their left wing dogma, marriage itself is about the dominance of a man over a woman, and its elimination was seen as the first step towards equality.    So when we talk about the poor families who go to food banks, it is not in the interests of left wing politics ...

 I am sure that my former Post in which I compared the conscience of a Holocaust perpetrator to the conscience of a follower of the New Way of judging morality, would have brought derision from those who support Fr James Martin.    'An informed conscience is the final arbiter of a moral life' said Fr James Martin in his letter..    There are four words to note "informed conscience' and 'final arbiter'.  He then goes on to tell you to make your own study and draw your own conclusions, but do not let any bishop, priest, interfere with your conclusions.    In other words be and adult and make up  your own mind. Now when Hitler took power in Germany, a purge of the Universities and Schools started, and safe and sound people were installed to educate the young in Hitler's viewpoint that the Jews were scum who had betrayed the German people.  But even worse, they were a throwback in evolution and just animals without humanity.    So ...

Conscience was discussed by people like Thomas Aquinas and Carinal Newman as speculative theology, concerned with the question 'Could an individual who was living a good life and a practicing Catholic ever find themselves in a position where he was in disagreement with the Church and that his conscience was such the it justified this disagreement.  They agreed it was possible and perhaps in such circumstances he should follow his conscience.    No individual was named nor circumstances mentioned, for to disagree with the Christ and His Church was a very serious matter indeed, though the conscience of people outside the Church could be justified.    It was when the question of Contraception came to for in 1968 that the enemy within saw its chance.  Paul VI published the encyclical 'Humanae Vitae ' which continued to forbid contraception in the Church.    The 'educated elite' in the Church had assured Catholics that there was no problem, it would be...

"I followed faithfully the new Catholic Way of following my conscience above everything.   I did  follow the teachings of bishops and priests, I proved myself an adult. 

Dear friends: Neither a bishop, nor a priest, nor a sister, nor anyone, can or should tell you how to vote. They can point out the important issues at stake, and educate you on church teaching, but how to vote is up to your conscience. Know the Gospels and church teaching, study the issues, and then vote as your own conscience demands. An informed conscience is the final arbiter of the moral life. St. Thomas Aquinas famously said he'd rather go against church teaching than his conscience. And here is Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger commenting on the Second Vatican Council's statements on the primacy of conscience: “Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. Conscience confronts [the individual] with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external soc...

 " Have you not heard that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and that he said 'This is why a man leaves his father and mother and becomes attached to his wife, they are no longer two therefore but one flesh, so therefore what God has united, human beings should not divide"   They said to him "Then why did Moses command that a writ of dismissal should be given in cases of Divorce"   He said to them 'It was because you were so hard hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but it was not like this from the beginning.  Now I say to you anyone who divorces his wife - I am not speaking of an illicit Marriage - and marries another, is guilty of Adultery. Now to many of the Jews gathered there to listen to Jesus, many who might well have had a writ of divorce from their wives, his words must have been very challenging indeed.   It would have been for them a hard saying, and many would have deci...

...for I have given them the teachings you have given to me..keep those you have given me true to your name so that they may be one like us....I passed your word on to them and the world hated them because they belong to the world no more than I belonged to the world, I am not asking ou to remove them from the world but to protect them from the Evil One, they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world, Consecrate them in truth, your world is truth......   John 17 If someone belongs to the world what does that mean?    It means that they take their values and morality from the world.   Is the world today any different from what  it was 2,000 years ago when Jesus said these words quoted by St John.   There was contraception, there was abortion, and in addition just leaving born babies somewhere to die.   There was adultery, there was divorce and unfaithfulness, there was promiscuity and homosexuality, and the abuse of t...

The statement that outside the Church there is no salvation goes back to the early Church and it has been taught and clarified down the ages. But it must be properly understood, lest it lead to the radical conclusion of your friend that there are only Catholics in heaven. Among the early Fathers who taught that outside the Church there is no salvation, St Fulgentius of Ruspe, around the year 500, is one of the strongest: “Not only all pagans, but also all Jews and all heretics and schismatics, who finish their lives outside the Catholic Church, will go into eternal fire…” (On Faith, to Peter 38.81). As for popes, Pope Eugene IV in the Bull Cantate Domino (1441), using the same terms as St Fulgentius, taught in an infallible definition: “The Most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, heretics, and schismatics can ever be partakers of eternal life, but that they are to go into the...

...I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins... When John was baptising in the Jordan he told his followers "I baptise you with water, but one is coming after me who will baptise you with the Holy Spirit"    That this was important was emphasise by Jesus Himself who said to Nathaniel "Unless you are born again of water and the Holy Spirit, you cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven".   There are therefore two elements to this baptism there is a cleansing and then  the Holy Spirit coming into the soul in a special way So what is this cleansing?   We know that when mankind was created they were born as perfect as God could make them.   They were totally pleasing to God.  But then in some way man used his free will to rebel and tainted his own nature.  This we read in the Bible as the Fall, but the story in the Bible of Adam and Eve was some kind of prosaic writing to explain something that not even the writer knew.   He only k...

And I look forward to the Resurrection of the Dead and Life Everlasting Now we all accept that when we initially die we will have a judgement.   But there is that day when Jesus will 'come again in Glory to judge the living and the Dead'.   We read in Matthew that he will gather all the nations before Him, and he will separate them, the sheep from the goats.   The measure of his judgement will be the love within each person with which they served the poor.   "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was naked and you clothed me...."   It seems so easy then.   You gave money to the poor, you opened soup kitchens, you were admired by so many people for the good person you saw yourself.   So you must go straight to Heaven.   But this is the sticky part that the judgement will reveal.   Did you really love the people you were helping?   It is so easy to give to the poor from our excess of wealth, seeki...

        ...And in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church..                                                                                                                                                                     Where have we been so far?   We discussed the Holy Spirit and how He was to keep the Church faithful to Christ in all His teachings and His commandments.   We looked at the Christian scene, how nobody seemed to agree, yet everyone claiming to be guided by the Holy Spirit, then along came the scholars and presented a sort of jig...

..And in the Holy Spirit the Lord the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and Son is adored and glorified, He has Spoken through the Prophets.... "All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to me.   Go therefore and make disciples of all Nations, baptising them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AND TEACH THEM TO OBSERVE ALL THE COMMANDS I GAVE YOU, and look I am with you always, yes, to the end of the world" Now when we look at what Christ said at the Ascension, and we look at how the Disciples were in the upper room before Easter waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit to set them on fire, do you not get the feeling that something has gone wrong?   I mean Christ hated Divorce, but there are many christians who ignore this commandment while holding aloft the Bible as the Word of God.   And when Jesus says, "Thou shall not kill"  there are many Christians who say it is OK ...