This is a homily given by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger a month prior to his election as Pope Benedict XVI (March 18, 2005) at St. Peter's Basilica. It address the meaning and importance of Gaudium et Spes, Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the...
Leo the Great on the seventh of the Beatitudes, "blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God." Those who have inner peace due to submission to the will of God are the ones who can create true harmony in the...
Leo's exegesis of these important verses of St. Matthew's Gospel is one of the most important patristic commentaries on the Beatitudes. Christ, the New Moses chooses to give his Sermon on a Mount to show that he is the new Moses, teaching the newRegarding...
Augustine shows that even if some pastors are wicked, seeking their own interests rather than Christ's, the Catholic Church herself is Mother and Shepherd who seeks out the straying sheep, cares for the sick and strengthens the weak. She is also like a vine which...
Augustine, in his sermon 46 to Pastors, reflects upon the mandate from the Lord, found in Ezekiel, for shepherds to seek out the lost sheep, even if those sheep seem to want to be lost....
The Filioque: A Church Dividing Issue? An Agreed Statement by the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation 2003 that uncovers a misunderstanding that is thought by many to lie at the root of the schism between the Orthodox east and the Roman Catholic West commonly thought...
Gregory the Great here notes the obligation of a pastor to preach with courage, boldness, and fortitude warning his people when they are on the wrong path and need to repent. To fail to speak out and reproach people for their faults is cowardice...
St. Peter Claver was a Spanish Jesuit who came to the New World in the early 17th century and dedicated his life as an evangelist and pastor to black slaves and worked at the same time as a tireless advocate on their behalf. His...
Gregory the Great comments on the famous passage in Ezekiel 33 in which God calls the prophet to be a watchman for the house of Israel. Saint Gregory reflects on how this applies to himself as bishop of Rome and protests his inadequacy for the...
Here Leo the Great comments on the fourth, fifth and sixth of the Beatitudes, explaining why those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed as well as the merciful and the pure of heart....