Steve Skojec, 1 Peter 5: 15 years ago last August, as I walked the streets of Vienna with my college classmates, we stopped briefly before a plain, unassuming church with an exterior the color of freshly dug clay. In a city … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Saint Ambrose
O Happy Fault!
Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, eighty-six years-old, Archbishop of Bologna from 1984 to 2003, has just had published a series of twenty-two meditations that he composed for Lenten exercises in 1989 for Pope John Paul II and members of the Roman Curia. … Continue reading
Baptism of Desire: Its Origin and Abandonment in the Thought of Saint Augustine
Perish the thought that a person predestined to eternal life could be allowed to end this life without the sacrament of the mediator. (Saint Augustine) This article will focus on the question of explicit baptism of desire — as it … Continue reading
Happy Feast Day Saint Monica
I haven’t much time left in my workday to give enough praise to Saint Monica whose feast day we celebrate today, but I would like to emphasize a few of the virtues that made her so great. This is a … Continue reading
Mary’s Perpetual Virginity
“The friends of Christ refuse to admit subsequent marital relations between Joseph and Mary. Accordingly, those who denied the virginity post partum are not the friends of Christ; they are not true Christians.” (St. Basil the Great +379) People of … Continue reading
Is the Church a ‘Harlot’?
Alright, this is a very provocative title, I admit, but the name of the book about which I here write is even more so: Casta Meretrix, “The Chaste Whore,” An Essay on the Ecclesiology of St. Ambrose. This long and … Continue reading
Mary Ever Virgin
“The friends of Christ do not tolerate hearing that the Mother of God ever ceased to be a virgin.” -St. Basil the Great Introduction “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow … Continue reading
Holy Mary – the Flower of Carmel
Thy head is like Carmel: and the hairs of thy head as the purple of the king bound in the channels. (Cant. 7:5) In the ancient land of Palestine lies Mount Carmel (in Hebrew, Hakkarmel, “the garden”), the crown of … Continue reading
La Reconquistadora – The Virgin Mary and the Virtue of Fortitude
For the better part of eight hundred years, Catholic Spain fought to liberate herself from Islamic occupation. The Reconquista, or Reconquest, as this war of liberation was called, began to make great strides in the second half of the eleventh … Continue reading
The Fate of Unbaptized Infants In Light of the Universal Necessity of Baptism
In reply to the question concerning the salvation of aborted infants by virtue of a vicarious “baptism of desire” on the part of their parents or by “baptism of blood” on either their part or “on the part of the … Continue reading
The Fathers of the Church on Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus
Let us examine how “the Church over the centuries” has explained the dogma, Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus. This study will not only give us the “context of the entire teaching of the Church on this matter,” but will also enable … Continue reading
Doctrinal Summary: ‘Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus’
Editor’s Introduction: This “Doctrinal Summary” is an appendix to a work to be published at a future date: Father Feeney’s Doctrinal Case. The work is intended as a supplement to the larger volume by Brother Thomas Mary, They Fought the … Continue reading
Father Feeney and Catholic Doctrine
[This article was published in February, 1987 as a Res Fidei monograph. The Verbum in question (#24) is no longer available online. However, the offending article can be read here .]
