Church

• Fr Jay Scott Newman on valid and invalid marriages, the latter as an excuse to stay out of the church.
• Pastor Paul Gregory Alms (LCMS) quotes First Things’ Russell Saltzman on the problem with modern Western funerals: they’re eulogies (not allowed at Catholic funerals) that are on-the-spot canonisations and not requiems and other prayers asking God for mercy on the person (real Catholic funerals). What did I hear? I heard a sort of logical progression on the virtue of being nice. I heard the dead person was a nice man, a nice woman, now rewarded with something nicer than this life. That is not the gospel. If it’s not universalism it’s more like – ick – ‘imagine there’s no heaven’ (an evil song); the service is only to make the mourners feel better.

Labels: the Catholic faith