What a treasure! Alicia writes like I think, only better of course. I am a big fan. I was Catholic for a while after I married one. Then gradually we switched to Protestant, still miss the majesty of the Mass. Keep your eyes on the next pope, it could be very important.

This is a comforting message to me, a non-Catholic. I hope Alicia is correct that the new Pope will help the world battle socialism including us. Could the Holy Spirit turn the world over to it´s evil desires as it seems our country has been? I hope not.
I will look forward tomAlicia´s thoughts when the new Pope is announced.

So nice to hear from a practicing Catholic who knows what she´s talking about. Yes, Alicia, time to excommunicate Obama´s faux Catholic minions.

I´m not RC, but this article is spot on. I adored JPII, and love this paragraph:

Although some dispute his responsibility for the fall of communism in Russia along with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, I believe history will reflect that it is indeed the case.

As to the selection of the Pope, I really, really love this paragraph:

There have been immoral Popes who had the power to change the church but they did not because they could not. The Holy Spirit is in charge and it will be fascinating to see whom He picks in the next few weeks.

Our Alicia remains a treasure as ever.

Excellent column. She´s right about it all. Pray for the Cardinals, the next Pope, and the Church in America. Right now the battle for religious freedom is being waged in court. If things don´t go Obama´s way what happens then? If things do go his way what happens then? Will hospitals be sold or shut down? Will the phony baloney Catholics quit attacking the Church if they lose in court? With this administration I see nothing but battles large and small looming.

Wow, citing Boccacio in a column by a Catholic is very illuminating. Ms. Colon is more than a treasure, she´s a great teacher.

Great insight. I´m not a Catholic either but thought of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict as my spiritual leaders (of which another is my church pastor). I have thought for years that excommunication should be used to reprove rebellious Christians (whether RC or Protestant). They should be turned out. That´s what the Bible recommends and the fact that the Church no longer wields that power has harmed it immensely. Maybe the next Pope will use it to clean house. It needs to clean house in the American Catholic Church and then maybe that will give some Protestant churches the courage they need to remove heretics from their rolls.

Thank you, Lucianne, for always bringing articles like this for us to enjoy. I hope all Ldotters will reach into their pockets as I just did to contribute to your long reign.

Excellent column. And I chuckled at the end, when Ms Colon having that old time faith, referred to ´He´, the Holy Spirit.

WOW!!WOW!!WOW!! Alicia, always on the top of her game, knocks it out of the park with this one. Brilliant, wise, right on the money and the gospel truth. Yes, excommunicate these faux catholics (lower case intentional)God bless America, and God bless the new Pope.

My great aunt divorced an abusive husband in the late 1950´s. She married my wonderfully kind great uncle in a civil ceremony in the early 1960´s. They went to church every Sunday but were not allowed to receive communion. It broke their hearts but they followed the rules. When her ex-husband died, they remarried immediately in the Catholic Church and received communion for the first time in about 12 years, and lived happily ever after. I was amazed by the story.

Oh for the days of people with such faith and respect for the religion. Agree with Alicia. Excommunicate those politicians who spit on the rules of the Catholic Church.

Agreed that we should excommunicate those faux Catholic pols but also any priest or nun who defies the Church. Just clean the house. I bet more people would come to church if there were more devout and obedient servants of Christ. Let them form their own religion instead of forcing their heresies on the Bride.

Wonderful article. Alicia is a treasure for sure. I am praying daily for Benedict XVI and for the cardinals who will elect his successor. I know we will be surprised, and I pray that this new pope will be a spiritual warrior. We need one badly since the forces of darkness are looming ever near.

Here in boston there has been a lot of talk about our cardinal being a possible candidate for Pope. This cardinal "led" the area catholics, by closing a large number of churches and schools. And he did it in a way that caused the most harm. He went on to try to sell the hospital chain, caritas, to an abortion provider (someone finally broadcast this and he was forced to change his plans). He also presided over ted kennedy´s funeral and highly praised him.
I truly hope the Holy Spirit gives us a good man.....but it seems as though the devil has been winning all the battles recently.

Talk here has been about Cardinal Dolan but he has done the same thing. Shutting schools in the inner city and selling property to the city. We need a real Catholic as Pope not someone who knows how to balance the books.

Love it, Alicia . . . as always. Nice concise history of the papacy during our lifetime. I greatly anticipate who God has in store for us next.

On the excommunication thing, though, by their very acts the CINOs excommunicate themselves. Public excommunication by a priest might make the rest of us feel better, but God doesn´t require it. Besides, imagine the difficulty in making split-second decisions as to which communicants in your Communion line are deserving and which are not. I know, I know, some of them are famous and very public with their heresies, but making what amounts to a political judgment call during the climax of the Mass while others are faithfully receiving the Eucharist may not be the best way to handle it. It would, paradoxically, actually serve the purpose of satan by stealing the spotlight from the Christ´s sacrifice and giving it to the publicity-whore politicians who would just LOVE to make it on the news when Father So-and-So refuses them Communion because of their stance on X, Y, or Z.

God will sort ´em all out. He doesn´t need human justice to be meted out to the ones we deem undeserving.

As to the comment above about betting that more people would come to church if there were more devout and obedient servants of Christ . . . that is a direct counter-example to Alicia´s point about Boccacio. It´s the very fact that the Church is full of sinners - yet we STILL believe - that makes it the perfect place for even the worst of us to one day find redemption. Only the Groom should lead us to his Bride . . . it shouldn´t matter if some of the guests at the reception are disobedient hypocrites.

i disagree that the priests should not deny communion to public figures who spit on it. Allowing them to receive is promoting blasphemy and showing the congregation a tacit approval of their action. Excommunication would deny them to participate in other sacraments so Pelosi would have a difficult time showing her face at family baptisms and marriages.

Excellent article, written by a great mind, for adult consumption and reflection...

Best I have read on the resignation of the Pope, and I agree with Alicia. The Church needs someone strong and healthy to defeat Socialism..and Barack Obama is the leader of the movement to defeat the church.

The Holy Spirit is a "He"...lol

The business of the bishops of the Christian Church have better things to do than to be involved in the petty political and economic machinations of humanity. Their job is to pray for God´s will to be done. If it´s God´s will that bishops might help people stumble through their lives, He will send those people to the bishop. There is nothing more.

Christopher Hitchens´ dying regret was that he had failed to outlive the person whom he hated most: Cardinal Ratzinger.

There will never be another Hitch.

There seems to be an endless supply of Popes.

St. Malachy says otherwise and for a much, much fuller look than the usually stellar reportage pf Alicia Colon, I refer you to the to-be-released book ... Exo-Vaticana.

#9 and #19, bless you, of course the Holy Spirit is to be addressed as "He". The Nicene Creed the whole congregation proclaims every Sunday in my Church --- and maybe yours, too --- calls the Holy Spirit "the Lord and Giver of Life". So He´s prayed to, properly speaking, "Our Lord the Holy Spirit."

Seems there is an endless supply of hate, too. Eh, 21?

The abdication of Benedict XVI is a problem for the Catholic Church because it represents a break with custom. B16 was the main defense we had against the resurgent Marxism we see in Obama, Hollande, Cristina Kirshner, Castro, Chavez and others.

#21, I miss Christoipher Hitchens, too.

One of my favorite priests, Fr. Robert Barron (google that) had a perhaps wry, but genuine appreciation for Hitch. He says that Hitch, for all his contrarilness, did love the truth: for instance, Hitch stated that an unborn human being is just that: an unborn human being>, and therefore not a candidate for laissez-faire extirpation by a professional killer with an MD and a lethal weapon.

So Hitch stated that human rights begin where human life begins, and that´s at the beginning. He "denied" God, but was loyal to the "image and likeness of God" in the unborn child.

So he was a kind of covert believer...in God? Well, how about in "the least of His brethren." That gives a bit of hope, since Christ says that how we will all be judged in he end.

I cannot give my support fully to the church´s correct stand on abortion, same sex marriage until the Cinos in the house and senate and Obamas minnions, until they are excommunitated; then I will believe the church really means what they preach.

Do the pro-abortion, pro-recreational-sodomy, "Catholic" apostates even go to Mass and receives Communion anymore? I can´t say for sure that any of them do.

In any case, there would be a way for the priest to deny the apostate Catholic Communion without insulting him, disrupting a sacred moment or causing a political ruckus: send a server or deacon to give him a polite note before Mass, as he´s sitting in the poe, stating, "If you approach a Eucharistic Minister at the distribution of Holy Eucharist, you will be given the blessing for those who cannot receive. If you wish to receive Communion, please see me after the Liturgy: The Sacrament of Penance (Confession) will be available. I am praying sincerely for your well-being and redemption. (signed) (The pastor of this parish.)

Excommunication is a legitimate tool of discipline in the Church which has not been used in recent years. It is true that people excommunicate themselves automatically for certain offences ( participation in Abortion ) but is is often appropriate in the case of public figures where scandal is likely, to make the excommunication official publicly. Modern gutless bishops very seldom do this. As for instant decisions by the priest as the line comes up for communion most priests would do this only after speaking with the individual privately and warning them not to present themselves for communion.

#26, Have you seen Fr. Barron´s excellent series "Catholicism"? My parish started a series of weekly viewings and group discussions on the series just this week. We´ll meet once a week until Pentecost when the series will be completed. If you haven´t seen it, it´s available on DVD.

My guess is the next Pontiff will be Cardinal Agostino Villani who was born in the province of Rome!

Despite all the speculation about who´s the next Pope, the moment of truth will come when they open the envelope and say,"The Winner Is"...!

As Alicia said...the next Pope will be a surprise...there is an old saying:

"He who enters the conclave a Pope, leaves a cardinal"

#25 I agree that Benedict´s abdication is a break with tradition, but its a small "t" tradition. In the entire scope of the history of the Catholic Church, 600 years isn´t so much a tradition as a trend.

Thank you, Alicia, for the best article regarding the abdication that I´ve read, and I have also been dismayed at the uninformed articles and comments coming from the socialist press.

My favorite priest once told me that his proof of the power of the Holy Spirit is that the laity have kept the Faith going for 2,000 years, despite the clery. Truth is Truth. The power of satan and evil is rising now and the battle is fierce, but we´ve read the end of The Book and know who wins.

"The gates of hell will not prevail against the Church." Gates are a defensive position, so this passage really refers to the fact that the Church is the one that is on the offensive. It is now time for the Soliders of Christ to put on the Full Armor of God.

Thank you Alicia, for this article. Extremely well written and to the fact. J.M.J

The next Pope will have to be vigorous and healthy because the church is at war. It has always been at war against the forces of evil and totalitarianism and has been instrumental in the failures of socialism. But John Paul II had Ronald Reagan in his corner and this Pope has instead a man who is determined to neutralize the Catholic Church - Barack Obama.

Wouldn´t it be great to elect a pope that was willing to go to war with Obama and his ilk? Maybe it would awakening all of the Catholics that still voted for Obama in 2012?

#8 -- Your story about your aunt divorcing but remaining faithful to the Church without being able to receive Communion tracks nearly exactly with the life of my father and our family.

My father divorced a sleep-around woman in the late 1940s and married a saint who took him and his two children as her own.

Not only did they attend Mass every Sunday, despite my mother not having been raised Catholic, but all 6 of us children went to Catholic elementary schools, to Mass every week, and during our entire childhood, my father never received Communion because he had been excommunicated.

Ultimately, a priest for whom my father helped out in the parish told him to simply start receiving Communion, and my mother was baptized Catholic at that time also.

Life in the Word and the Church has been good for us all...