The Vatican - Pope Sends New Year’s Greetings to Jews. How Recent Popes Differ on Key Issues - Interactive Feature. Catholic Online. Roman Catholic Church. Catholicism - About Catholicism and the Catholic Church. Homily of Pope Francis at the Vigil of Prayer and Fasting in Saint Peter's Square - International. May the noise of weapons cease! War always marks the failure of peace, it is always a defeat for humanity We have perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened our ideas to justify ourselves. As if it were normal, we continue to sow destruction, pain, death!
Violence and war lead only to death, they speak of death! Violence and war are the language of death! At this point I ask myself: Is it possible to change direction? Can we get out of this spiral of sorrow and death? VATICAN CITY (Catholic Online) - We offer below the Vatican translation of the full Homily of His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vigil of Prayer and Fasting in Saint Peter's Square, Saturday 7 September 2013 "And God saw that it was good" (Gen 1:12, 18, 21, 25). 1. This evening, in reflection, fasting and prayer, each of us deep down should ask ourselves: Is this really the world that I desire? 2. It is exactly in this chaos that God asks man's conscience: "Where is Abel your brother?
" 3. Historic Christian town of Maaloula seized by Islamist rebels in Syria - International. What seizure bodes for Christian residents remains uncertain It's time to make room in our prayers for the Christian residents of Maaloula in Syria: Islamist rebels of the al-Nusra Front have seized control of the town this weekend. The al Qaeda-linked rebel group has reportedly seized control of the historic Christian town of Maaloula from regime forces. Some Christians fear radical Islamists have been swelling rebel ranks. LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "We cleansed Maaloula from all the Assad dogs and all his thugs," a rebel commander declared online on a video posted online. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the recent videos posted on YouTube showed fighting between rebels and government forces in the remote town, which is an hour's drive from the capital Damascus. The government and the opposition welcome and need Christian support, as the 18-month-long Syrian conflict continues to roil.
Christians make up roughly 10 percent of the population. The U.S. Religions - Christianity: Original sin. Original Sin. I. Meaning II. Principal Adversaries III. Original Sin in Scripture IV. Original Sin in Tradition V. Original Sin in face of the Objections of Human Reason VI. Meaning Original sin may be taken to mean: (1) the sin that Adam committed; (2) a consequence of this first sin , the hereditary stain with which we are born on account of our origin or descent from Adam . From the earliest times the latter sense of the word was more common, as may be seen by St. Principal adversaries Theodorus of Mopsuestia opened this controversy by denying that the sin of Adam was the origin of death.
After some time the Pelagians admitted the transmission of death — this being more easily understood as we see that parents transmit to their children hereditary diseases — but they still violently attacked the transmission of sin ( St. Original sin in Scripture The classical text is Romans 5:12 sqq. We shall now show what, in the text, is opposed to the three Pelagian positions: Original sin in tradition St.