ABVM PARISH COMMUNITY

  FAITHFUL CITIZENSHIP The Church has a lot to say about the duties and rights of Catholic citizens.  She received from Jesus the Great Commandment, which is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Jesus said that the second is like it – you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  One of the ways to love one’s neighbor is to work towards the common good of society, which benefits all the people.  According to Pope St. John XXIII, the common good embraces “the sum total of all those conditions of social life which enable individuals, families, and organizations to achieve complete and effective fulfillment.”  For Catholics, the protection and advancement of the life and dignity of the human person at the personal and communal level must take first place in formulating social policy.  John XXIII wrote in his famous encyclical on social justice, Pacem in Terris , just what should be the priority in social policy: "the right to life, to bodily integri

  OCTOBER IS THE MONTH OF THE HOLY ROSARY The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary was instituted by Pope Saint Pius V originally as the feast of Our Lady of Victory in celebration of the defeat of the Ottoman Turks in the Battle of Lepanto, which took place off the southeastern coast of Greece on October 7, 1571.  The Turks were determined to invade Europe and impose Islam on the people, as they had already done elsewhere.  The Pope organized a multinational alliance called the Holy League to defend Christendom against the Muslims.  It consisted of the navies of the Spanish empire and the Italian maritime powers including Venice and Genoa.  The Ottomans were decisively defeated and their plans for the domination of Europe were crushed. Before the battle Pius V had organized a Rosary crusade to pray against the Turks.  The Rosary had developed as a popular form of prayer in the early Middle Ages and was especially promoted by the Spanish priest, Saint Dominic (d. 1221) and the religious ord

  GOOD POPE SAINT JOHN THE TWENTY-THIRD This past week it was my pleasure to celebrate the optional memorial on Tuesday of Pope Saint John XXIII, who died on June 3, 1963.  He was canonized along with Pope John Paul II by Pope Francis on April 27, 2014.  Normally the date of a saint’s death – considered to be the day of his or her birth into heaven – is chosen as the feast day, but October 11 was chosen for Pope John XXIII because it is the anniversary of the opening day of the Second Vatican Council in 1962.  His short five-year pontificate is mostly known for the inauguration of the Council, which was closed in 1965 by another holy pope, Paul VI. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was ordained a priest in 1904 and was made secretary to his bishop in northern Italy, working with him in his many apostolic endeavors until 1914.  During World War I he was called to serve as an army medic and then as a chaplain for miliary hospitals.  In 1920 he was asked by Pope Benedict XV to oversee the work

  GOVERNMENT INTIMIDATION AND ABUSE OF POWER On September 23, in Bucks County, a contingent of twenty or more FBI agents, with guns drawn, stormed the home of pro-life leader Mark Houck, who had no history of violence.  He was charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) by physically resisting a so-called “escort” of an abortion clinic in Philadelphia.  Houck denies the charge and has pleaded not guilty, since he and others were demonstrating but not blocking the entrance.  During the demonstration on October 13 last year a 72-year old male “escort” of the Planned Parenthood facility was pushed away by Mr. Houck because he was harassing his twelve-year old son.  The man fell to the ground and scraped his arm.  The Philadelphia District Attorney declined to press charges, and a law suit filed by the “escort” was thrown out of court. In May the Department of Justice informed Mr. Houck that he was the target of a grand jury investigation for violating F