Church – Peter Darcy

Christianity is not a private way of salvation and a guide to a pious life; it is a way of world salvation and a philosophy of total life. This makes it a sort of dynamite. So when you send missioners out to preach it, it is well to get ready for some explosions.
~Bishop James Edward Walsh, Founder of the Maryknoll Missionaries

An Unexpected Refresher Course on the Sacraments

By Peter Darcy|2020-08-29T04:32:13+00:00August 29th, 2020|

It was a bit shocking to read recently about the Detroit priest who discovered, three years after ordination, that he had never been validly baptized. The invalid baptism meant he was not a priest. As Fr. Matthew Hood was reviewing a video of his own baptism 30 years earlier, he heard with his own ears [...]

Matter and Form of the Seven Sacraments

By Peter Darcy|2020-08-29T04:45:47+00:00August 28th, 2020|

Matter and form are to the sacraments what money and a purchase agreement (contract) are to buying a house. These two elements (money/contract) are the minimum conditions for a legal act and allow the transfer of a thing from one owner to another. Sacraments work in a similar way. Matter (material or tangible element) [...]

Undoing the Knot of Clerical Scandals

By Peter Darcy|2019-07-01T01:54:44+00:00July 1st, 2019|

The Catholic priesthood is undoubtedly experiencing a profound crisis at this moment. The vast majority of good priests are tainted by the scandals, but Our Lady, Mother of Priests, does not give up hope for them, even though the world and some Catholics do. She can free the clergy of the weight of scandal and [...]

The Church’s First Novena

By Peter Darcy|2019-06-01T10:42:29+00:00June 1st, 2019|

Ascension Thursday begins what we may call the Church’s first novena. It is the nine-day period between Ascension Thursday and Pentecost Sunday in which the disciples were locked in the Upper Room, united in prayer with Our Lady, and obedient to the Lord’s wishes: “to wait for ‘the promise of the Father’” (Acts 1:4). This [...]

Clerical Contraception – the Other Priestly Scandal

By Peter Darcy|2019-03-07T12:53:05+00:00March 7th, 2019|

Among the many hard teachings of Christ that is deeply “offensive” to the dominant secular culture today is the Church’s age-old prohibition of the use of all forms of artificial contraception, which is a clearly-defined doctrine of the Church. How many people have left the Church or formally rejected the Church’s teaching on artificial contraception [...]

Undoing the Final Knot of Death

By Peter Darcy|2018-11-02T23:12:51+00:00November 2nd, 2018|

As we enter the month of November, the Church reminds us of our duty to pray for souls who have departed this life, both those who are related to us and even those we never knew. Our Lady, the Undoer of Knots, is perfectly suited to assist us in dissolving the last and most difficult [...]

The Exorcistic Power of Latin in the Latin Church

By Peter Darcy|2018-09-02T22:41:56+00:00September 2nd, 2018|

A thousand causative factors have led to the present clerical abuse crisis in the Church. But I believe there is one contributing spiritual factor that holds a critical place in the rise of the clerical problem: the absence of Latin in the Latin Church. This spiritual factor is causative in a way that all spiritual [...]

A Dozen Simons, One Peter

By Peter Darcy|2017-10-30T20:14:06+00:00October 30th, 2017|

Some years ago I walked into a Christian bookstore and a fascinating poster caught my eye. From a distance, it looked like an image of the holy face of Jesus, but as I drew closer I could see that the face was actually a composite of tiny faces that made up the contours and complexion [...]