BOSTON MA. MARCH 14: Doors at Saint Teresa of Calcutta was vandalized on March 14, 2021 in Boston, MA. (Staff Photo By Nancy Lane/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)

Two more Catholic churches in Boston have been vandalized yet again, an “unsettling” pattern of incidents that police are investigating.

Both Dorchester’s St. Teresa of Calcutta Church and Southie’s St. Monica-Saint Augustine Church recently had their locks damaged on the same night, and a statue of the Virgin Mary was toppled at Saint Monica’s.

“It’s a sacred house, and it shouldn’t be damaged,” said Rich Gribaudo of Saint Teresa’s, adding, “It’s unsettling.”

Boston Police officers on Friday at 6:30 a.m. responded to St.Teresa’s and St. John Paul II Catholic Academy in the area of 800 Columbia Road. An unknown substance — some sort of sealant or putty — had been found on several door locks, preventing people from using keys to unlock the church and school building.

Then 90 minutes later, officers responded to another vandalism call at St. Monica’s. The same unknown substance had been found on all four door locks of the church, and a statue of the Virgin Mary had been knocked over. The same statue had also been toppled a week earlier, but that the incident had not been reported.

A church volunteer was helping repair the statue at St. Monica’s on Sunday.

Police are now looking for help in identifying a male suspect, whose image was captured on security cameras at the churches.

“We’re guessing it might be the same guy,” said Gribaudo, the business manager at St. Teresa’s. “It looked like he knew exactly where he was going, which leads you to believe he might be the same guy.

“We’re praying for him, and hope he gets the help he needs,” Gribaudo said. “It’s sad.”

This is the sixth time that St. Teresa’s has been targeted by vandals since July.

On three occasions in January, trash and eggs were thrown against the doors of St. Teresa’s. This was the second time in a week that a statue was knocked over at St. Monica’s.

The Catholic Action League called the incidents “appalling, senseless and malevolent crimes, which will continue as long as no one is apprehended and punished.”

Many thanks to the good souls at SSPX-MC for this video: 

Vatican Bars Gay-Union Blessings

March 15, 2021 by sd

From Associated Press:

The Vatican decreed Monday that the Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex unions since God “cannot bless sin.” The Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a formal response Monday to a question about whether Catholic clergy can bless gay unions.

The answer, contained in a two-page explanation published in seven languages and approved by Pope Francis, was “negative.” The decree distinguished between the Church’s welcoming and blessing of gay people, which it upheld, but not their unions.






From the Vatican:

The Church does not have the power to bless same-sex unions. Such blessings, therefore cannot “be considered licit”, according to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) which issued on Monday a Response to a dubium that had been presented. Therefore, it is not licit for priests to bless homosexual couples who ask for some type of religious recognition of their union. The CDF says Pope Francis was informed and “gave his assent” to the publication of the Response and an accompanying Explanatory Note signed by the Prefect, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, and the Secretary, Archbishop Giacomo Morandi. The Holy See Press Office also published an Article of Commentary on the Responsum ad dubium.

The statement is based on specific assertions and some actual practices. The document situates its Response into the context of the “sincere desire to welcome and accompany homosexual persons, to whom are proposed paths of growth in faith”, as expressed also in the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia, which speaks of “the assistance they [those who manifest a homosexual orientation] need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives.” Therefore, pastoral plans and proposals in this regard are to be evaluated, including those concerning the blessings of such unions.

Fundamental to the CDF’s Response is the distinction that must be made between ‘persons’ and ‘union’. The negative response given to the blessing of a union does not, in fact, imply a judgement regarding the individuals involved, who must be welcomed “with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” avoiding “every sign of unjust discrimination” as already written in Magisterial documents.

These are the motivations at the basis of the negative response. The first regards the truth and value of blessings, which are ‘sacramentals’, liturgical actions of the Church which require that what is being blessed be “objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation”. Relationships, even if stable, “that involve sexual activity outside of marriage” – meaning, outside “the indissoluble union of a man and a woman”, open to the transmission of life – do not respond to the “designs of God”, even if “positive elements” are present in those relationships. This consideration not only concerns same-sex couples, but also unions that involve the sexual activity outside of matrimony. Another reason for the negative response is the risk that the blessing of same-sex unions may be mistakenly associated with that of the Sacrament of Matrimony.

The CDF concludes by noting that the Response to the dubium does not preclude “the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations, who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God”, while it declares impermissible “any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such”.

From the Vatican Press Office:

The answer to the proposed dubium does not preclude the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations[10], who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching. Rather, it declares illicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such. In this case, in fact, the blessing would manifest not the intention to entrust such individual persons to the protection and help of God, in the sense mentioned above, but to approve and encourage a choice and a way of life that cannot be recognized as objectively ordered to the revealed plans of God[11].

At the same time, the Church recalls that God Himself never ceases to bless each of His pilgrim children in this world, because for Him “we are more important to God than all of the sins that we can commit”[12]. But he does not and cannot bless sin: he blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed by him. He in fact “takes us as we are, but never leaves us as we are”[13].

For the above mentioned reasons, the Church does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex in the sense intended above.

The Sovereign Pontiff Francis, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Secretary of this Congregation, was informed and gave his assent to the publication of the above-mentioned Responsum ad dubium, with the annexed Explanatory Note.

Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the 22nd of February 2021, Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle.


https://press.vatican.va/content/salasta...0315b.html

Taken from The Catacombs archived site: 

Generously assembled by Fr. Ruiz.
Thank you, Father!