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USCCB and Catholic Charities Received $449 Million by Exploiting Migrant Children - Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective

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My Birthday: Deo Gratis - Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective

I was born in 1962, twelve years into my parents’ marriage. They were older when I came along, and their lives were already marked by hardship and sacrifice. My father had served as a corporal in Korea, all of my uncles fought in World War II, and my grandfather immigrated from Germany fatherless during World War I. My mother, who grew up in Galveston, remembered watching the girls her age walking off to Catholic school in their uniforms, something she longed for and later passed on to me.
My father liked to say he wasn’t raising a hippie. At the time, I didn’t even know what a hippie was, but I knew I didn’t want to be one. My parents made countless sacrifices to send me and my siblings to Catholic schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade. My dad was not Catholic, but he supported my mother’s conviction. There were no fancy houses, bass boats, or country club memberships. Their hope was simply that their children would have a better life.
My father used the GI Bill to study …

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Pope Leo XIV The First 100 Days VI - Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective

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The Name of Leo: Continuity and His First Words
When Robert Prevost stepped onto the loggia of Saint Peter’s Basilica on May 8, 2025, the announcement of his chosen name startled and delighted the faithful. Leo the Fourteenth. By selecting Leo, he placed himself in continuity with some of the Church’s most towering figures. Papal names are never random. They are catechetical in themselves, telling the faithful what a new pope values and what he hopes to embody. ¹ In this case, the choice signals strength in doctrine, clarity in teaching, and pastoral courage in times of upheaval.
The Significance of Choosing “Leo”
Names in the papacy are markers of identity. Some popes honor their immediate predecessor to show continuity. Others reach back centuries to align with a model of holiness or reform. By taking the name Leo, Prevost was identifying with men who had guided the Church through crisis and renewal. The name “Leo” itself means “lion,” evoking courage, guardianship …

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The Saint Andrew Christmas Novena - Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective

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Micah Reading Isaiah 6: The Call—The Pedagogy of God - Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective

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Isaiah 6 (ESV)
Isaiah’s Vision of the Lord
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
Isaiah’s Commission from …

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Pope Leo XIV The First 100 Days V - Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective

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Notable Lived Experiences (Peru) (lived response pastoral ministry)
Peru was more than a mission field for Robert Prevost. It was a crucible where spiritual reality, beauty, danger, and the miraculous all pressed upon a man formed to be a shepherd. As friends on this journey, we can walk through three moments from his Peruvian life—some ordinary and some that verge on supernatural—and see what they tell us about Pope Leo XIV.
The Eucharistic Miracle in Etén
One of the most striking supernatural markers in his ministry was his promotion of the Eucharistic Miracle in Etén. For centuries, the faithful in Etén have believed that in a consecrated host Christ made Himself visibly present in a miraculous manner. Over 370 years there has been continuous devotion. In 2019, then-Bishop Prevost officially presented to the Vatican a dossier—more than 20,000 testimonies—seeking formal recognition of the miracle.¹ He described the devotion as an expression of popular faith that must …

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Isaiah 6: The Call—The Pedagogy of God X - Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective

Made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26), every person is summoned to holiness. Jesus, true God and true man, is our flawless pattern (Phil. 2:5–11). As “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2), He lived what He taught, formed in the hidden years by Mary and Joseph’s fidelity, love, and sacrifice (Luke 2:51–52). Their home was the first school of discernment, obedience, and perseverance virtues that prepared Him for His public mission.
The baptism of Jesus mirrors the structure of Isaiah’s call (Isa. 6:1–9). In Isaiah’s vision, the prophet beholds God’s glory, receives purification through the seraph’s coal, and is commissioned for his mission. At the Jordan, the heavens open (vision), the Spirit descends (purification and anointing), and the Father’s voice sends forth the Son (commission) (Matt. 3:16–17; Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–22). Though without sin, Jesus humbly submits to baptism in solidarity with sinners, fulfilling the Law and sanctifying the waters …

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Why They Are Taking Away Your Traditional Latin Mass

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WATCH: Catholic Charities Receives $1.5 Million In Taxpayer Funds To Help Fight Deportations

Catholic Charities of the Central Coast has received $1.5 million in state funding to expand legal services for immigrant families across the region.
The funding is part of a $25 million allocation by the state to provide legal support to immigrants, and a portion of it has now been granted to Catholic Charities. California Assemblymember Dawn Addis highlighted the need for this funding after learning about a woman’s struggle to obtain legal assistance. Advertisement
“When I was doing former community organizing, I was asked to get involved with a woman who was facing deportation proceedings for months, if not years,” Addis said. “She thought that she was paying an attorney to file forms for her, and when we looked at who that person was, they were listed on the website as having already lost their license.”
Catholic Charities staff currently includes three attorneys and nine Department of Justice staff serving Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito, and San Luis Obispo counties.
“So we’re …

lifesitenews.com

Fr. Ripperger calls bad clergy the 'worst chastisement' from God - LifeSite

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Pope Leo XIV The First 100 Days IV - Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective

The world into which Pope Leo XIV was being formed was not one of calm certainty. After the Second Vatican Council the Church saw waves of change—many welcomed, others deeply disorienting. The years of his formation were marked by dramatic tension: religious orders struggling with declining vocations, formation houses beset by novelty, doctrinal confusion, and in some cases, revelations of abuse. ¹ These were not abstract issues; they shaped the lived reality of every aspirant, every brother, every priest.
When Prevost became Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine in 2001, he inherited more than governance. He inherited crisis, expectation, suspicion. His term (2001-2013) lay across some of the Church’s most scrutinized decades. ² Vocations were dropping. In 2023, for example, 87 percent of religious superiors in the U.S. reported that their institutes had
Formation houses often became battlegrounds for competing visions of religious life. Some embraced liturgical and theological …

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Pope Leo XIV The First 100 Days III - Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective

When Robert Prevost entered the
Augustine himself was no stranger to questions of reason and number. In his work
This Augustinian insight resonated deeply with a young man who had earned his degree in mathematics before donning the Augustinian habit. Prevost, who had spent years working with the certainty of equations, saw in Augustine’s thought a philosophical echo of what he already knew intuitively: truth is not malleable. It does not bend to culture, politics, or power. Truth has a source beyond us, and that source is God. ⁴
In another of Augustine’s great works,
Prevost’s formation as an Augustinian friar deepened this conviction. Community life demanded humility. Teaching demanded clarity. Leadership demanded obedience rooted in charity. He learned, as Augustine had taught, that authority in the Church is never for domination but for service. Truth, too, is never a possession but a gift entrusted to the community of believers. ⁶
This
In today’s culture, where truth is often seen …