Tag: 2010

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial December 24, 2010 There is something beautifully symbolic about the tradition of Midnight Mass. It shows that Christians are so eager for Christmas to begin that they want to start celebrating on the first...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial December 17, 2010 The Advent season focuses our attention on the first, second and daily comings of the Lord Jesus as Savior of the world. At Christmas we turn our attention to the Babe wrapped in swaddling...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial December 10, 2010 Among the many means bishops have to form their people, one of the greatest teaching tools is the pastoral letter, in which the leader of a local church focuses the attention of the...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial December 3, 2010 On November 16, at the U.S. Bishops’ Conference’s annual meeting, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago gave his final address as president Conference. In it he looked back over his three-year...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial November 26, 2010 Last weekend, headlines focused on how Pope Benedict was apparently changing the Church’s teachings about the immorality of the use of condoms. The comments, excerpted from a book length...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial November 19, 2010 Last month we discussed the embarrassing results of the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which revealed that atheists and agnostics had a much...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial November 12, 2010 Halloween proved to be particularly ghastly for Syrian Catholics in Baghdad as they went to Church for the Sunday afternoon Mass. During the Eucharistic Celebration at Our Lady of...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial November 5, 2010 On Sunday, as we were being bombarded with robo-calls, advertisements, television news segments and special programs focused on Tuesday’s elections, a significant commemoration quietly took...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial October 29, 2010 Several state bishops conferences, including the four Massachusetts bishop who comprise the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, have published letters or guides to the Catholic faithful about...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial October 22, 2010 The October 13 rescue of the 33 miners trapped for 69 days in a subterranean dungeon of the San Jose mine in Atacama was one of the most moving, exciting and literally uplifting moments the...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial October 15, 2010 In 1949, an enormous controversy was ignited when the Nobel Foundation awarded its Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Dr. Antonio Egas Moniz for developing the technique of prefrontal...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial October 8, 2010 The September 28 publication of the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life lent itself to various surprising titles, many of which focused on how atheists...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial October 1, 2010 Last week we examined how Pope Benedict, in his visit to Great Britain, got the “whole country to sit up and think,” to use the appreciative words of Prime Minister David Cameron. He reminded...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial September 24, 2010 At the end of Pope Benedict’s highly successful four-day apostolic journey and state visit to Great Britain, British Prime Minister David Cameron, on behalf of all British citizens...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial September 17, 2010 Around the anniversary of September 11, the subject of Islam in America was very much in the news. There has been the on-going controversy surrounding the planned construction of the...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial September 10, 2010 What ought to be the response of Catholic believers to the rise of militant secularism in the West that is seeking to exile Christian faith from relevance, cultural history, and the public...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial September 3, 2010 Over the past several weeks, we have received a half-dozen phone calls, emails and letters about the paid advertisement that we have been running by the Love and Mercy Publications, found...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial August 27, 2010 There’s a common phenomenon that occurs when a movie is made based on a best-selling book. Those who have never read the book go to the movie and often appreciate the story on its own merits...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial August 20, 2010 During the summer months, as there has been much higher volume on local roads as people head to cookouts, travel to Cape Cod, drive to the many local beaches, go to summer camps, sporting...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial August 13, 2010 If pictures are said to be worth a thousand words, political cartoons are often far more visually voluble. In the immediate aftermath of Federal District Judge Vaughan R. Walker’s outrageous...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial August 6, 2010 On July 15, the Vatican released updated norms to handle what canon law calls “graviora delicta” or the “more serious crimes.” The publication of these new norms was occasioned above all...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial July 16, 2010 On June 28, at the Roman basilica built over the human remains of the great apostle St. Paul, Pope Benedict announced that he was founding a new Vatican dicastery, which will be called the...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial July 9, 2010 In gambling, the house always wins. That’s why it is particularly worrisome to see those we have elected to guide us wisely behaving like a desperate gambler in the false belief that casino...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial July 2, 2010 Recently the importance of priestly celibacy in the Church has been questioned from different quarters. Some, influenced by implicit Freudian premises, have suggested that priestly celibacy is a...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial June 25, 2010 One of the most pressing problems for our nation to solve is illegal immigration. Recent legislation in Arizona has brought the many social, political and moral issues regarding illegal...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial June 18, 2010 Last month, we noted the irony that Mother’s Day fell on the 50th anniversary of FDA’s approval of something that symbolizes the antithesis of motherhood, the birth control pill. This month, as...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial June 11, 2010 Today the Year for Priests comes to a close. In the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict is offering Mass with several thousand concelebrating priests joined by the prayers and gratitude...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial June 4, 2010 On behalf of the U.S. Bishops Conference, three leading prelates —Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Houston, Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Center and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City —...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial May 28, 2010 The mission of Catholic schools emanates from the mission of the Catholic Church, commissioned by Jesus to “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial May 21, 2010 The Solemn Feast of Pentecost, which the Church celebrates on Sunday, is an annual opportunity for authentic ecclesial renewal. This year the need for the Church to beg the Holy Spirit for the...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial May 14, 2010 On Sunday our nation celebrated Mother’s Day. It’s highly fitting that we stop, at least one day a year, to express our gratitude to and for our mothers, because so often so many children can...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial May 7, 2010 The May 1 Vatican communiqué in response to the Apostolic Visitation of the Legionaries of Christ was a powerful indication of Pope Benedict’s resolve to clean up what he described in his 2005...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial April 30, 2010 Last week, we examined the Pope’s meeting with Maltese victims of clergy sexual abuse as well as the comments of retired Vatican Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos about the relationship between...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial April 23, 2010 Concentration on the Church’s response to the evil of the sexual abuse of minors by clergy has continued unabated. In the past week, among other headlines, there has been much attention given...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial April 16, 2010 Today is Pope Benedict’s 83rd birthday. The last few weeks have likely seemed for him as long as years, but some semblance of sanity seems to be returning, at least among those who take an...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial April 9, 2010 Lent continues for the Church. The coverage of the Sacred Triduum from the Vatican focused very little on the events of the Lord’s suffering, death and resurrection, but mainly on what Benedict...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial April 2, 2010 Today the whole Church somberly meditates on the Passion of the Lord Jesus. We focus anew on how the chief priests of the temple and others plotted to get him killed: how they put Jesus on a...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial March 26, 2010 Pope Benedict’s March 19 pastoral letter to the Church of Ireland was an unprecedentedly candid and direct condemnation of the double-evil of the clerical sexual abuse of minors and of the...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial March 19, 2010 On Monday, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, published a lengthy statement — entitled “The Cost is Too High; The Loss is Too...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial March 12, 2010 As President Obama and the Democratic leaders of Congress continue to approach the artificial deadline of March 18 to have the House of Representatives pass the Senate version of the Health...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial March 5, 2010 Fifty years ago this September, while campaigning for the presidency, John F. Kennedy went to Houston to try to convince the Protestant Ministers of the Great Houston Ministerial Association...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial February 26, 2010 The richness, depth and clarity of the homilies and catecheses Pope Benedict has given during his first five years as the successor of St. Peter have provoked several experts in Church...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial February 19, 2010 The Catholic Church as a whole has its work cut out to respond adequately to the secularizing push of American culture. In Catholic homes, parishes, schools, religious education programs...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial February 12, 2010 Ever since the Bush Administration and a cooperative Congress increased funding for abstinence-only education programs, there has been a concerted effort to try to say that such instruction...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial February 5, 2010 Last year, for his annual message for World Communications Day, Pope Benedict made a powerful appeal to young Catholics to become the apostles of the new communications frontier produced by...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial January 29, 2010 Scott Brown’s victory over Martha Coakley in the special election for U.S. Senate has not only massive national ramifications but perhaps even more pronounced statewide implications. January...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial January 22, 2010 We have all been watching with tear-filled eyes and pierced hearts the scenes of devastation coming from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We’re staggered by the estimated death toll of 200,000. Our...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial January 15, 2010 When civil governments declare a special year — like last year’s celebrations of the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln — it generally remains on the periphery of most people’s...

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial January 8, 2010 On December 9, in the days of preparation for Christmas, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published the results of a survey that suggested that theological confusion may pose a larger...