Catholic Fire

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix released for the first time ever in its history a documentary-style short film that seeks to create awareness of a crisis in masculinity found in today’s society. This is an amazing, powerful, and uplifting short film! This film, titled “A Call to Battle,” is available for viewing in English with Spanish subtitles at http://www.IntoTheBreach.net. Released only a few weeks after the promulgation of Bishop Olmsted’s apostolic exhortation “Into the Breach,” the new short film shows the urgency of the Diocese of Phoenix to confront head on today’s crisis in masculinity. With regards to this crisis highlighted by the film, Michael Phelan, director of the Marriage and Respect Life Office said, “Historical circumstances have periodically devastated families, but we have never seen the disparagement of masculinity and fatherhood, or abandonment of men’s responsibilities that we are seeing now. It calls for an unprecedented response from the Church...

Obama, if fatherhood begins at conception... Just up on YouTube by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council , this is absolutely fabulous... Via Jill Stanek.

At Catholic Exchange: Fathers, Sons and Pews by Terry Mattingly National Catholic Register: The 10 Paradoxes of Fatherhood Musings from A Catholic Bookstore: Happy Father's Day Insight Scoop: Discovering the Fatherhood of God in a Gender-Neutral Society Spero News: Happy Father's Day - God? Coming Home Journal: St. Joseph: The World's Greatest Father by Steve Wood Catholic Analysis: The Pope Series: The Parable of the Two Brothers and the Good Father SFO Mom: Father's Day Cards

Joseph, the husband of our Lady, foster-father of our Lord, guardian of the Holy Family, is honored liturgically on March 19 as patron of the universal Church. The memorial of St. Joseph the Worker is on May 1. This quiet, just, humble man, protector of families and patron of fathers, is also invoked for a happy death. Most of our reliable information on St. Joseph is contained in the first two chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Here we discover that Joseph was of royal descent from David, that the family was from Bethlehem in Judea and that Joseph, who was a builder, had moved from Bethlehem to Nazareth in Galilee. Joseph was engaged to Mary and upon learning that she was pregnant; he had plans to divorce her. Described in Matthew as a righteous man, he intended to dismiss her quietly. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream to tell him, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she ...