Protestant Mother, Fasting & Shorts

Dear Tradition in Action,

Thank you for posting Fr. Sretenovic’s answers to questions about divorced parents.

My question is: Should a son or daughter financially support a protestant mother who has been divorced and ‘remarried’ and is now publicly supporting the divorce of her son after 20 years of marriage and his very public adultery? Her divorced son is now living with another divorced woman and her young children.

My husband and I have helped my mother who now lives on social security in subsidized housing over the years. She is almost 80, lives 1,500 miles away and may soon need medical help. Her other children rarely provide her with financial support and her son has an excellent six-figure income.

My mother is very supportive of all of her divorced and ‘remarried’ children, and VERY unhappy that my husband and I have condemned the divorce and adultery.

My husband and I entered the Catholic Church eight years ago. My parents are very anti-Catholic. We are the only couple still married in my family.

Please advise us of our natural law duty to a parent in this situation and of our divine law duty to God.

     In Christ,

     L.O.


TIA responds:

Dear L.O.,

We had submitted your question to a good friend of TIA, Br. Theodore Roriz, O.C., who is a Carmelite hermit living in a solitary place in Brazil. He is quite sound in Catholic Morals and has offered his assistance to help TIA and its readers. What follows is his answer. The Editor.

Doctrine:

1. According to Natural Law, each of us has the obligation to support – physically and spiritually – his parents in their old age. This obligation born from respect, also obeys a precept of natural justice, because we are returning the favor they made to us by giving us life and support in our childhood and youth.
   
   This conduct is reinforced by the Fourth Commandment – Honor thy father and mother – which confers a supernatural character to our obligations. When we honor our parents as our superiors, we honor the hierarchy God put in creation and, indirectly, we honor Him in our parents. Thus, what was a mere act of natural respect for our parents becomes a supernatural act of veneration for all inequalities, and our parents appear as ministers of God who transmitted life to us. Also, what was natural justice, becomes supernatural justice, and counts as one of the five cardinal virtues that must be practiced by every Catholic.
   
   
2. We should not support those who give public scandal. Now then, to be divorced and “re-married” according to the civil law, disregarding the doctrine of the Catholic Church, is equivalent of living in concubinage, or adultery. This characterizes public scandal, because such persons are living in sin and invite others to do the same.
   
   
3. We should not support heretics, particularly when they take an aggressive position against those who, to be faithful Catholics, face many difficulties in our days. In other words, these heretics carry out the general persecution made by the world and the Progressivist Church against those who fight to be faithful to the Faith as it was taught by the Catholic Church until Vatican II.

Application:

1. Your husband and you should continue to support your mother until another solution is found. But, you should not deprive you and your family of what is indispensable.
   
   
2. Your husband and you should make arrangements with the wealthier member of your family to see whether or not he can take on the responsibility of supporting your mother. You do not need to give all of this doctrinal explanation to him, because it will not help to reach a solution. Instead, you should give the honest practical reasons.
   
   
3. If he does not agree to help, you may try to interest the other members of your family to contribute to a common fund to cover the expenses of your mother.
   
   
4. If hypothesis 2 works, you will be completly free from the onus of paying all your mother’s expenses; if hypothesis 3 works, you will be partially relieved.
   
   
5. If nothing works, continue to support her, and offer the sacrifice to Our Lady.

     Br. Theodore Roriz, O.C.

Dear TIA,

I came across this today – another outrage of ecumania – ‘sacred music’ made by Prague’s Scola Gregoriana and the Buddhist Tendai Monks from Japan. Sad to say, the monks looks less sacral than the Buddhist on the CD cover, below.

     M.G.

Dear TIA-Team,

Just for the record, yet another dancing and singing priest. When will this ever stop?

The link is here.

     Kind regards,

     F.R.

Mr. Atila,

Re: The song on the Chouans

La plus belle CHANSON du monde, c'est la notre [the most beautiful SONG in the world is ours]. It permeated my soul with its splendor, grace, delight! And the will to give all to Our Lady! Accept my deep gratitude for posting it. I listened to it three times in succession, and will do so ad infinitum.

     In Domina,

     Lyle Arnold

TIA,

As a 75 year old, is it a mortal sin to:

1. Eat meat on Friday at a staff bbq?
   
   
2. Break a fast from 3hrs to one?
   
   
3. Wear knee hi shorts in our senior compound?

     Prayerfully,

     I.D.


TIA responds:

I.D.,

We are answering your questions in the order you presented them:

1. The law of abstinence in the Church applies for all those who are more than age 18 until the end of their lives. The law of fasting applies to those between ages 18 and 60. Therefore, you are excluded from the fasting, but not from the abstinence.
   
   The three canons of the Code of 1983 that deal with abstinence follow:
   
   Canon 1250 - All Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days and times throughout the entire Church.
   
   Canon 1251 - Abstinence from eating meat or another food according to the prescriptions of the conference of bishops is to be observed on Fridays throughout the year unless (nisi) they are solemnities; abstinence and fast are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on the Friday of the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
   
   Canon 1252 - The Law of abstinence binds those who have completed their fourteenth year of age. The law of fasting, however, binds all those who have attained their majority until the beginning of their sixtieth year. Nevertheless, pastors of souls and parents are to take care of minors not bound by the law of fast and abstinence are also educated in a genuine sense of penance.
   
   
2. The rules of fasting were modified by Paul VI from three hours to one. Therefore, whoever wants to make three hours of fasting or 12 hours, as once regulated, he can do so as an act of piety and reverence for the Holy Sacrament, but there is no mortal sin involved according to the law of the Church. The law only obliges one hour of fasting before Communion.
   
   
3. It is better for you to not wear shorts showing your legs. This falls under immoral and undignified dress for women. You know the complaint of Our Lady of Fatima about immoral fashions. Women wearing shorts make up part of the wave of these new fashions. We advise you to wear modest and dignified clothes if you want to have Our Lady as advocate at your side at your private judgment.

     Cordially,

     TIA correspondence desk