There were a few speed issues with the website of late and so the website has been updated to a new WordPress hosting package which should make it more responsive and a little faster. I will now continue to upload Dom Prosper Gueranger’s commentaries and prayers for the season of Advent. Thank you for your patience. May God bless you. John Lacken
The Majesty of God“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (John 1:1-5) The opening sentences of St John’s Gospel, beautifully and simply … Read More
This Bishop is in DenialThis week, I would like to thank those of you who have written to Bishop Raymond Browne, the Bishop of Kerry, regarding the promotion of the LGBT agenda to the youth of his diocese. I would also like to encourage more of you to get in contact with him. Bishop Browne has responded by saying; “Be assured that the diocese and I uphold fully the Church’s teaching on sexuality. We seek as best we can to … Read More
Those Who Promote Marriage will be AttackedI am conscious that I have been repeating Sr Lucia’s words to Cardinal Caffara regularly in my talks and in my articles. She said that “anyone who works for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be fought and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue.” I have begun lately to notice that we are indeed under attack. The attacks take on various forms. Some are personal in the … Read More
Great ConferenceIt was great to meet up with so many Catholic Voice readers at last Saturday’s conference in Limerick. For those who were unable to attend, I would like to give an extract from my talk in which we made a very important announcement for next year. Today, those who are leading the main attack on Catholic teaching on marriage and family life come from within the ranks of the Catholic church herself, with many senior prelates contradicting the constant … Read More
My 100th Article for Catholic VoiceToday marks another milestone in my journey with the Catholic Voice newspaper. This is my one hundredth article in Catholic Voice. A centenary of articles during the centenary of Fatima! What began as a simple question to Anthony Murphy, “would you be interested in some articles on marriage and family?”, with the reply, “send me in something and we’ll see”, has turned into a journey of faith exploration. In these turbulent times for the Catholic … Read More
Address to Fathers of FamiliesAt last year’s Catholic Voice conference in Limerick, I made the following address to fathers of families. I am not ignoring mothers, but fathers need to be given a wake-up call because the father is the spiritual and physical head of his family. Make Sure You Know What the Catholic Church Teaches“Fathers, make sure that you are fully conversant with what the Church teaches you about your role as Man, Husband and Father. Make sure that … Read More
The Light of FaithIf you pass by a house during the daytime, and a light happens to be left on in the front room, you will not notice it. Pass by the same house at night, and the same light will be noticeable from far away. The light has not gotten any brighter, but it shines even more clearly because of the surrounding darkness. I think the same is true of our Catholic faith, as the darkness of apostasy grows, … Read More
Filial CorrectionI begin writing this article having just read the “Filial Correction of Pope Francis For the Propagation of Heresies” which has been signed by 62 Catholic academics and pastors from 20 countries. The document begins “With profound grief, but moved by fidelity to our Lord Jesus Christ, by love for the Church…” These words “with profound grief” caused me to reflect on something I noticed some time ago. I have developed a custom whereby after attending Holy Mass in … Read More
Lack of Catechesis I have had some very interesting phone calls recently concerning marriage. One person asked me to write about annulment as there is a perception in some quarters that it is just a form of Catholic divorce. Another person has asked me to write about consent, or rather the lack of it, and the important need for priests to make sure that the proper consent is there, before a marriage takes place. Many years ago, this second person … Read More
Cardinal Schonborn’s ErrorsIn my last article, I spoke about a senior cardinal who recently visited Ireland and who erroneously, and contrary to Catholic Church teaching said, that it is possible to answer ‘Yes’ to the first of the five dubia that were submitted to Pope Francis by four other cardinals, one of whom, Cardinal Raymond Burke, is well known to Catholic Voice readers. Normally I do not name the personages concerned in these cases because I want to focus on … Read More
The Confused & Confusing Cardinal A recent headline in an Irish weekly newspaper stated “Children must be priority when marriages fail – top cardinal”. The article then went on to state “One of the Pope’s closest advisers on the family has insisted that when dealing with marital breakdown, the Church must put the needs of children ahead of a simplistic application of rules.” I have to say that I find this problematic, but first I also want to look at … Read More
Many Faithful Catholics feel Isolated and Alone I attended a Mass recently which was celebrated by Fr Shenan Boquet, the president of Human Life International. During the course of his sermon, Fr Boquet told us that we are not alone in this battle. He mentioned how he travels around the world spreading the Gospel of Life and that in each country he visits, there is a group of people who are fighting the battle for life. They may be just … Read More
Thank You for Your Support As I begin writing this article we are just one week into our fund raising campaign for ‘The Lumen Fidei Institute’. In just one week we have managed to raise almost one third of our initial target of €25,000. To those of you who have responded so promptly to this call, a big thank you. Your support and encouragement means so much, not just to me, but to my wife and family as well. I … Read More
Morning Meditation on the Gospel Just over a year ago, as part of my effort to keep up the practice of a daily morning meditation, I decided to take the time to read through St Matthew’s Gospel taking it one chapter at a time. I highly recommend this practice of getting to know the Gospels, with the Catholic caveat, that we are not free to interpret the Gospel’s meaning according to what we think it means, but must always bow … Read More
The Manchester Bombing On Monday 22nd May 2017 at approximately 10.30 in the evening, just after a concert in the Manchester Arena by the American singer Ariana Grande, a suicide bomber detonated a home made explosive device killing himself and twenty two other people and injuring over one hundred others. The ISIS organisation claimed responsibility for the attack. I ask your prayers for all involved in this horrible tragedy. It is somewhat easy to be dispassionate about this event because … Read More
Lack of Ability to Think Rationally In this article I want to cover a couple of different strands of thought which have come up on account of some recent events in my life and which I want to relate to my most recent articles covering lack of catechesis, the failure of the Irish ‘catholic’ education system to pass on the faith to the children that are taught in those schools, and the surrendering of what I called ‘catholic territory’ to … Read More
No Mass in the Diocese As I write this article, we are just leaving a week whereby two of our national newspapers reported that an Irish diocese would not be celebrating Holy Mass on Tuesday 25th April 2017 because the bishop was holding a meeting with the priests of his diocese and because he also wanted to prepare the laity for a future wherein Holy Mass may not be available every day by holding lay led liturgies. The lay led … Read More
Choosing a Topic I find that having to write a fortnightly article for the Catholic Voice is a great discipline. Often times, if I am not writing on a particular theme, I do not know exactly what I will write about from one fortnight to another. But, because I know that I have an article to write, I will be mulling things over in my head wondering if this topic or that subject matter would be suitable for an article. … Read More
Cardinal Caffare & Sister Lucia of Fatima Recently, I mentioned that Cardinal Carlo Caffara received a letter from Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the seers of Fatima, stating that, “the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family.” I think that the significance of this simple statement is lost on many people given that sacramental marriage is no longer held in the high esteem in which it should be held. … Read More