Certainly, it is difficult to make the demands of the Gospel understandable to secularized people. But this pastoral difficulty must not lead to compromises with the truth.
“What is perfection in love? Love your enemies in such a way that you would desire to make them your brothers … For so did He love, Who hanging on the Cross, said ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” (Luke 23:34)
For many people today, practical atheism is the normal rule of life...If this attitude becomes a general existential position, then freedom no longer has any standards, then everyting is possible and permissible.
Those who with God's help have welcomed Christ's call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world.
Celibacy is always, shall we say, an affront to what man normally thinks. It is something that can be done, and is only credible, if there is a God and if celibacy is my doorway into the kingdom of God.
There really is never good news whenever one of the prince-of-heresy Cardinal Mars opens his rather evil mouth, or so it seems. I am not the only one to have discovered this, obviously:
Wise words from the future Pope Benedict XVI on fasting, reflecting on a conversation he had previously had with an Orthodox patriarch:
Distinctions Matter
Distinctions Matter Forward
Missale Romanum
Pre-1951 Calendar