Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 30, 2025 Column Father De Celles
Back from Retreat. I had another exceptional retreat at the priest retreat house kept by the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of Apostles in Gower, Mo., a joyful and faithful group of cloistered nuns who are dedicated to the Traditional Latin Liturgy and the Rule of St. Benedict. I prayed for you all, and offered Masses for the Parish, our staff, and our Altar Servers.
Scholarships to Catholic Schools. You all know my deep concerns about sending our children to the government-run, radical-leftist-controlled Fairfax County Public Schools, including my concern that it might be a mortal sin to send our children to these schools. But at the same time I recognize that many parents believe they simply can’t afford, financially or otherwise, the alternatives. While many parents recognize the problem and dedicate themselves to offsetting the nonsense of the schools by aggressively countering these errors at home and in the parish, I’m afraid that doesn’t work for most parents, for various reasons.
So, the parish offers scholarships to all qualified parishioners who attend Catholic schools: $1,000 for grade school and $2,000 for high school, renewable every year, and subject only to minimal qualification terms.
Also, additional financial aid is available to families that truly can’t afford Catholic school, even with the above scholarships. These decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.
Also, similar financial assistance to cover direct educational costs is also available to folks who homeschool.
Finally, we will double the scholarship for the first year for each child (a parishioner) who switches from public school (k-12) to Catholic school this year. That means, for Catholic grade school the scholarship will be $2,000 and for Catholic high school it will be $4,000.
Just contact me or the parish office to apply.
Baptizing Babies ASAP! There is a growing tendency of parents to postpone the baptism of their babies for months after birth. This is a huge risk—and normally a mortal sin.
Baptism is not merely a nice symbolic rite of passage. Rather it is a necessary sacrament, which washes away original sin and gives a share in the Eternal Life of God to the baptized. The grace of Baptism is necessary for salvation, as Christ taught: “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit” (John 3:5). And while the Church teaches that God sometimes gives the grace of Baptism in extraordinary ways, e.g., martyrdom, the Church has always maintained that it does not know if anything like that applies to babies who die without baptism.
Because of this, and with loving concern for the eternal souls of babies, the Church requires [Can. 867 §1]: “Parents are obliged to see that their infants are baptized within the first few weeks” after birth. Note, not the first few months.
Humanae Vitae. This last Friday, July 25, was the anniversary of Humanae Vitae, Pope St. Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical reaffirming the ancient and apostolic teaching of the Church that contraception is a grave sin. In the years since, his words have been largely ignored by the world, even by Catholics. But they still remain as true today as ever. Moreover, his explanations of the reasons for and the consequences of disregarding this teaching have been proven out over the years. He warned that it would lead to increased sexual infidelity and “the general lowering of morality,” especially among young men, and that eventually men would lose respect for women, seeing them only as object of selfish enjoyment. Elsewhere he would specifically point to the immediate connection between contraception and abortion.
Over the last 57 years we have seen this all bear out as we’ve seen the dramatic and catastrophic increase in divorce, marital infidelity, pornography, abortion, prostitution, teenage pregnancy and promiscuity, child abuse, wife abuse, and acceptance of homosexuality and transgenderism.
But St. Pope Paul also recognized that it was morally acceptable, for a “just reason,” to “regulate birth” using methods that take into account the “natural rhythms” of the fertility cycle of women. Today several highly scientific methods are available to couples in this regard, usually referred to as “Natural Family Planning” (NFP). These are very effective as a moral methods of both postponing and promoting conception.
Perverse Double Standard. Did you read about this story, here excerpted from The Pillar:
“A priest who was jailed in Vatican City for possession and distribution of child pornography has returned to work in the Holy See’s diplomatic service.
“Father Carlo Alberto Capella, formerly a high ranking diplomat in the apostolic nunciature in Washington, D.C., was in 2018 sentenced to five years in prison by a Vatican City court for ‘possession and distribution of child pornography with the aggravating circumstance of its large quantity.’
“After serving his sentence in Vatican City, in a cell in the barracks of the Vatican gendarmerie, The Pillar has confirmed he has remained in Vatican City and was allowed to resume work in the second section of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, the diplomatic department…
“Sources close to the Secretariat of State told The Pillar that Capella was permitted to return to work at the department in 2023, after the end of his prison sentence, and had been reintroduced to the office in ‘an act of mercy.’ …
“‘It was clearly presented as an act of mercy,’ the official said. ‘The intention was that this man, who had not been laicized but clearly could not return to his diocese or serve in a parish, could collaborate in the office, and remain in the Vatican where he is effectively secluded, but without a formal office.’
“Another official told The Pillar that after Capella’s release from prison, the priest ‘had to go somewhere, and has to do something’ ….
“Capella made international headlines in 2017, when the priest…was arrested by Vatican officials the next year on charges of child pornography possession…During a two-day trial, Capella admitted to possessing and viewing the images ….The priest expressed regret for his actions during the trial, and called his crimes a ‘bump in the road’ not reflective of his priestly vocation.
“Vatican prosecutors found more than 40 criminal images and videos on devices belonging to the priest…with the most serious showing a minor engaged in a direct sexual act with an adult.
“‘But it is most likely the case that this is just another example of the Secretariat of State having its own rules,’ [a Vatican] official speculated. Officials at the DDF have, for years, complained privately of attempted interference in reserved cases by the Secretariat of State, either through attempting to influence and pressure dicastery officials or, in some instances, by attempting to void the DDF’s decisions outright….”
Oremus pro invicem. Fr. De Celles