Scranton's Bishop Instructs Ministers: No Communion for Public Sinners

Scranton's Bishop Instructs Ministers: No Communion for Public Sinners

Feb. 27, 2009 (CWNews.com) - Bishop Joseph Martino-- who has emerged during the past year as the American bishop most determined to call pro-abortion politicians to account-- has now issued an order that in his Scranton, Pennsylvania diocese, "Those whose unworthiness to receive Holy Communion is known publicly to the Church must be refused Holy Communion in order to prevent sacrilege and to prevent the Catholic in question from committing further grave sin through unworthy reception."

Bishop Martino's directive was conveyed by the diocesan chancellor, James Earley, in an official notice dated February 26. The crucial concluding portion of notice reads:

Therefore, His Excellency, the Most Reverend Joseph F. Martino, Bishop of Scranton, reminds all ministers of Holy Communion, ordinary and extraordinary, that:

1. To administer the Sacred Body and Blood of the Lord is a serious duty which they have received from the Church, and no one having accepted this responsibility has the right to ignore the Church’s law in this regard;

2. Those whose unworthiness to receive Holy Communion is known publicly to the Church must be refused Holy Communion in order to prevent sacrilege and to prevent the Catholic in question from committing further grave sin through unworthy reception.

PLEASE KEEP THIS BISHOP IN YOUR PRAYERS

Blessed Daniel Brottier - 28th February 2009

Born in France in 1876, Daniel was ordained in 1899 and began a teaching career. That didn’t satisfy him long. He wanted to use his zeal for the gospel far beyond the classroom. He joined the missionary Congregation of the Holy Spirit, which sent him to Senegal, West Africa.

The name “Holy Ghost Fada” is a household name in Sierra Leone. Spiritans, as they are known today, were founded by a young French man Francis Claude Poullart des Place on Pentecost Sunday in 1703. Later in 1848, a Jewish-French man, Francis Mary Paul Libermann, merged his congregation – Society of the Holy Heart of Mary – to Poullart des Places’ Holy Spirit Congregation thus taking a new name – Congregation of the Holy Ghost under the Protection of the Holy Heart of Mary. They have been in Sierra Leone since 1864 and their contribution to primary and secondary school and the overall evangelization task of the Church can never be over estimated. Spiritans work in over 50 countries in all five continents.

After eight years in Senegal, his health was suffering. He was forced to return to France, where he helped raise funds for the construction of a new cathedral in Senegal. He was the builder of the great cathedral of Our Lady of Victories. Dakar, Senegal.

At the outbreak of World War I Daniel became a volunteer chaplain and spent four years at the front. He did not shrink from his duties. Indeed, he risked his life time and again in ministering to the suffering and dying. It was miraculous that he did not suffer a single wound during his 52 months in the heart of battle.

After the war he was invited to help establish a project for orphaned and abandoned children in a Paris suburb. He spent the final 13 years of his life there. He died in 1936 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Paris only 48 years later.

(I do love his long beard)

Blessed Luke Belludi - 24th February 2009

In 1220, St. Anthony was preaching conversion to the inhabitants of Padua when a young nobleman, Luke Belludi, came up to him and humbly asked to receive the habit of the followers of St. Francis. Anthony liked the talented, well-educated Luke and personally recommended him to St. Francis, who then received him into the Franciscan Order.

Luke, then only 20, was to be Anthony's companion in his travels and in his preaching, tending to him in his last days and taking Anthony's place upon his death. He was appointed guardian of the Friars Minor in the city of Padua. In 1239 the city fell into the hands of its enemies. Nobles were put to death, the mayor and council were banished, the great university of Padua gradually closed and the church dedicated to St. Anthony was left unfinished. Luke himself was expelled from the city but secretly returned. At night he and the new guardian would visit the tomb of St. Anthony in the unfinished shrine to pray for his help. One night a voice came from the tomb assuring them that the city would soon be delivered from its evil tyrant.

After the fulfillment of the prophetic message, Luke was elected provincial minister and furthered the completion of the great basilica in honor of Anthony, his teacher. He founded many convents of the order and had, as Anthony, the gift of miracles. Upon his death he was laid to rest in the basilica that he had helped finish and has had a continual veneration up to the present time.