Lives of the Saints Index

Lives of the Saints Index
Lives of the Saints
by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. edition
[1894]

This is the Benziger Brothers edition of Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints. Butler (1711-1773), was an English Roman Catholic priest. This, his principal literary work, was published between 1756 and 1759. Lives of the Saints has hundreds of capsule descriptions of Catholic saints, organized by the saint's day of the year. The 1894 Benziger Brothers edition, originally published in 1878, was heavily edited by John Gilmary Shea (here uncredited. Source: MELVYL). The 'Reflections' were not in the original Butler text, and were probably added by Shea.
The full text of Alban Butlers' work, which occupies over 1,200 pages of two-column small type, will have to wait for another time. However this imprimatur edition was apparently widely used by American Catholics at the turn of the 20th century, and remains accessible to contemporary readers.

Click on the link above to go to the site with this wonderful resource. Stick around and explore the site to read the Church Fathers, Encyclicals, and more...

The Way of the Fathers � Baby Names of the Early Christians

The Way of the Fathers � Baby Names of the Early Christians
Click on the link to read the rest. This is a fascinating article about our roots and, of course, the link to Lent for all of us.

Baby Names of the Early Christians
Monday February 12th 2007, 3:06 am Filed under: Patristics, Books, Archeology
Last week I mentioned a promising new book, The Christian Catacombs of Rome: History, Decoration, Inscriptions, co-authored by three members of the Pontifical Commission on Sacred Archeology. Over the weekend I was able to borrow a copy from Lea Ravotti, the great contemporary Christian artist and premiere interpreter of ancient Christian art. The book is the stuff of which obsessions are made. I could blog on it for a year and never want for good material. I hope, at some point, to do a more in-depth review for Touchstone magazine. In the meantime, I’ll post occasional bits from this lavishly illustrated coffee-table volume.
Certainly the book benefits from the, um, depth of the knowledge of its authors. They’re in situ, living, teaching, noting correspondences in the many miles of underground corridors. From their intimate knowledge of thousands of inscriptions, artifacts, bone fragments, and artworks, they’re able to give us brief and brilliant glimpses of the ordinary lives of the early Christians. What kind of work did they do? Were they poor? rich? middle-class? How old were they when they married? What did they value in their spouses? In their children? In their priests? How did they die? Answers to all these questions arise from the epitaphs in the Catacombs.

Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog: He's surprised. But why?

Insight Scoop The Ignatius Press Blog: He's surprised. But why?: http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/16146070

Greg Kandra spent nearly 25 years working for CBS News and is now an editor for "Couric & Co.," the CBS News blog. Kandra is Catholic and will soon be ordained a permanent deacon. In a blog entry titled "The Last Acceptable Prejudice," Kandra comments on the John Edwards' Catholic-Bashing Bloggers Fiasco:

But the episode has drawn attention to an issue that strikes close to my own
life – and the lives of about 60 million other Americans. It involves a
particularly insidious form of bigotry, and the nagging suspicion that there is
one remaining permissible prejudice in America. It is anti-Catholicism.

I say this as a person who has spent a quarter of a century working in network
news, and as a man who, in three months, will become an ordained member of the
Catholic clergy. (On May 19th I’ll be ordained a permanent deacon.) Straddling
these two worlds, I’ve seen my share of controversies, scandals and public
outcries over the Church and how it is treated by both the public and the media.
But the Edwards debacle is something I never quite anticipated.

I would not have believed that a candidate for President (and a previous candidate for Vice President) would have hired a writer, Melissa McEwan, who had described
President Bush’s supporters as a “wingnut Christofacist base.” I did not think a
person of Edwards seriousness and experience would condone welcoming onto his
payroll a second writer, Amanda Marcotte, who wrote on her blog “the Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.”

This is also the writer who wrote: “What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? You’d have to justify your misogyny
with another ancient mythology.” (And then there’s this pearl of wisdom: One thing I vow here and now–you motherf*** who want to ban birth control will never sleep. I will f*** without making children day in and out and you will know it and you won’t be able to stop it. Toss and turn, you mean, jealous motherf****. I’m not going to be “punished” with babies. Which makes all your efforts a failure. Some non-procreating women escaped. So give up now. You’ll never catch all of us. Give up now.”)

I certainly would not have imagined that a serious candidate for President would
have kept on his payroll people who write things so blatantly, outrageously
hateful towards a particular religion.

Why God is Father and Not Mother (Part 1) | Mark Brumley | IgnatiusInsight.com

Why God is Father and Not Mother (Part 1) Mark Brumley IgnatiusInsight.com

Why God is Father and Not Mother Mark Brumley IgnatiusInsight.com

"The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man" is how the 19th century liberal Protestant theologian Adolph Harnack once summarized the Christian faith. Nowadays Harnack would find his brand of reductionist religion dismissed as hopelessly sexist and exclusive by many feminist theologians. The "brotherhood of man" might be reworked into "the family of humanity" or its equivalent. But what would they do about the Fatherhood of God? Can we replace the allegedly "sexist" language of Divine Fatherhood with so-called gender-inclusive or gender-neutral terms such as Father/Mother or Heavenly Parent without further ado?

Click the link to see the rest of this article:

Beatification cause opened for courageous Argentinean mother who rejected abortion

Mother delayed cancer treatments in order to save her daughter

Buenos Aires, Feb 6, 2007 / 12:45 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Guillermo Jose Garlatti of Bahia Blanca has opened the cause for beatification of the Servant of God, Maria Cecilia Perrin de Buide who refused cancer treatments in order save her unborn daughter Augustina.

The tribunal that will investigate the heroism of Cecilia Perrin, who was a member of the Focolare movement, will include Father Marino Giampetruzzi, Father Elio Ricca and Alejandra Belfoire.

Cecilia Perrin died on March 1, 1985 at the age of 28, when she gave up her life for her daughter and refused to undergo an abortion. In February of 1984, while already pregnant, Perrin was diagnosed with cancer. Her daughter Agustina was born in July of 1984. By the time she gave birth, however, the cancer had already progressed to an untreatable stage, and Cecilia died eight months later.

Her remains are interred at the Mariapolis Lia Cemetery in the Buenos Aires province and hundreds visit the place each year, especially pregnant women who pray for her intercession. On November 10, 2005 the Holy See declared Perrin a Servant of God, thus paving the way for the opening of her cause for beatification and canonization.