The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name Christian, but do not profess the Catholic Faith in it’s entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter. Those who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect communion with the Catholic Church.

Protestantism is an extremely complex entity. On one hand there are the traditional protestant - Lutheran, reformed, Methodist, Presbyterian and so on. Who are to a great extent are facing a crisis in many parts of the world. Here there has been an observable shift in protestantism, to the pentacostal, and fundamentalist protestant faiths which is recasting to some degree the historical emphases. The evangelicals and fundamentalist always used to be typical leaders of opposition to the Papacy. But there have been astonishing changes there, because they can see that the Pope is actually the Rock who asserts before the entire world what they confess in opposing, to modern versions of watered-down Christianity.

So from a certain point of view, they see the Pope as their strong ally, even though their old reservations have not been cleared away. So the whole picture is moving and changing. What we dare to hope for we should wait confidently, but with great patience.  

Well everyone I am back from Europe and I have to say it is quite a shock for a Catholic that lives in the Bible Belt to go to Countrys where there is a Catholic Church on every street. Another shock was how beautiful every single church was. The churches were filled with such beautiful art and so many statues of saints and even some relics.

 You don’t get to ever see anything like that if you live in the Bible belt, which is hell for devout Catholics. Anyway the Catholic atmosphere in Europe is quite good. I was in Munich, Germany on Pentecost Sunday and the four churches I went into were all packed. But the following Sunday I attended mass in Switzerland. I walked to the local cathedral and the church was about ¼ full. This kind of disappointed me but I also remembered that I passed about 2 other Catholic Churches on my ½ mile walk to the cathedral. During the mass, which was very beautiful, I noticed that I was the youngest person in the Church. There weren’t even any babies because most of Europe’s birth rate has seen a huge loss.

The Holy Father has addressed this issue in his Wednesday audience. So we Catholics in the United States should keep our brothers and sisters in Christ in our prayers so that the faith will be renewed and that birth rate in European Catholic countries increases.

My next report will be on the crisis in protestantism.

Currently Reading The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth By Scott Hahn see related

Today I will go over how the Church produced the Bible and not vice-versa.

            The doctrine of sola scriptura overlooks the fact that the Catholic Church came before the bible, and not the other way around. It was the Catholic Church, in effect, which wrote the bible under the inspiration of almighty God: the Israelites as the Old Testament church (or “Pre-Catholics”) and the early Catholics as the New Testament Church.

            In the pages of the New Testament we note that Our Lord gives a certain primacy to the teaching authority of His Church and its proclamation in His name. For instance, in Matthews 28:20 we see Our Lord commissioning the Apostles to go and TEACH in His name, making disciples of all nations. In Mark 16:15 we note that the Apostles are commanded to go and PREACH to the entire world. And in Luke 10:16 we see that whoever HEARS the seventy-two hears Our Lord. These facts are most telling, as now do we see Our Lord commissioning His Apostles to evangelize the world by writing in His name. The emphasis is always on preaching the Gospel, not no printing and distributing it.
            Thus it follows that the leadership and teaching authority of the Church are indispensable elements in the means whereby the Gospel message is to reach the ends of the earth. Since the Church produced the Scriptures, it is quite biblical, logical and reasonable to say that the Church alone has the authority to interpret properly and apply them. And if this is so, then by reason of its origin and nature, the bible cannot serve as the only rule of faith for Christian believers. In other words, by producing the scriptures, the Church does not eliminate the need for itself as teacher and interpreter of those Scriptures.

            Moreover, is it not unreasonable to say that simply by putting Apostolic teaching into writing, the Church somehow made that written teaching superior to her oral teaching? Like the teaching organization Our Lord established, his Word is authoritative, but because that Word is in one form rather than another does not mean one form is to be is to be subjugated to the other. Since God’s one Revelation is twofold in form, to deny the authority of the other form as well. The forms of God’s Word are complementary, not competitive. Thus, if there is a need for Scriptures, there is also a need for the teaching authority, which produced them.

This coming week I shall be traveling to Europe I will be in the following countries Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France, England, and Vatican City. I ask for your prayers so that I may have a safe trip and that my visit to the Vatican will help me discern my vocation for a life in the Church.

God Bless.     

In the Letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33) we see the relationship between Christ and the Church as is the relationship between husband and wife, also makes reference to the institution of marriage as a primordial sacrament with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:27; 5:1). This comparison in the Letter to the Ephesians gives perfect clearness to what is decisive for the dignity of woman both in the eyes of God and in the human beings. In God’s eternal plan, woman is the one in whom the Order of Love belongs to the close life of God himself, the life of the Trinity. In the intimate life of God, the Holy Spirit is the personal hypostasis of love. Through the Spirit, uncreated Gift, love becomes a gift for created persons. Love, which is of God, speaks itself to us. “ God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5)

The calling of woman into existence at man's side as "a helper fit for him" (Gen 2:18) in the "unity of the two", provides the visible world of creatures with particular conditions so that "the love of God may be poured into the hearts" of the beings created in his image. When the author of the Letter to the Ephesians calls Christ "the Bridegroom" and the Church "the Bride", he indirectly confirms through this analogy the truth about woman as bride. The Bridegroom is the one who loves. The Bride is loved: it is she who receives love, in order to love in return.

Rereading Genesis in light of the spousal symbol in the Letter to the Ephesians enables us to grasp a truth which seems to determine in an essential manner the question of women's dignity, and, subsequently, also the question of their vocation: the dignity of women is measured by the order of love, which is essentially the order of justice and charity.58

Only a person can love and only a person can be loved. This statement is primarily ontological in nature, and it gives rise to an ethical affirmation. Love is an ontological and ethical requirement of the person. The person must be loved, since love alone corresponds to what the person is. This explains the commandment of love, known already in the Old Testament (cf. Deut 6:5; Lev 19:18) and placed by Christ at the very centre of the Gospel "ethos" (cf. Mt 22:36-40; Mk 12:28-34). This also explains the primacy of love expressed by Saint Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians: "the greatest of these is love" (cf. 13:13).

Unless we refer to this order and primacy we cannot give a complete and adequate answer to the question about women's dignity and vocation. When we say that the woman is the one who receives love in order to love in return, this refers not only or above all to the specific spousal relationship of marriage. It means something more universal, based on the very fact of her being a woman within all the interpersonal relationships which, in the most varied ways, shape society and structure the interaction between all persons - men and women. In this broad and diversified context, a woman represents a particular value by the fact that she is a human person, and, at the same time, this particular person, by the fact of her femininity. This concerns each and every woman, independently of the cultural context in which she lives, and independently of her spiritual, psychological and physical characteristics, as for example, age, education, health, work, and whether she is married or single.

The passage from the Letter to the Ephesians, which we have been considering, enables us to think of a special kind of "prophetism" that belongs to women in their femininity. The analogy of the Bridegroom and the Bride speaks of the love with which God in Christ loves every human being -man and woman -. But in the context of the biblical analogy and the text's interior logic, it is precisely the woman - the bride - who manifests this truth to everyone. This "prophetic" character of women in their femininity finds its highest expression in the Virgin Mother of God. She emphasizes, in the fullest and most direct way, the intimate linking of the order of love - which enters the world of human persons through a Woman - with the Holy Spirit. At the Annunciation Mary hears the words: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you" (Lk 1:35).

Apostolic Letter

Pope John Paul II