DISCERNMENT IS ESSENTIAL

Today, many psychologists confuse spiritual problems with psychological ones, and this confusion ultimately harms the individual. Not every inner conflict stems from an emotional wound, childhood trauma, or a chemical imbalance. Some struggles are rooted in conscience, moral life, the relationship with God, and the ultimate meaning of life. When everything is psychologized, what is actually spiritual disorder, objective guilt, temptation, or a lack of inner life ends up being treated as pathology.

Modern psychology, having lost its holistic anthropology, tends to interpret all anguish as a symptom, all inner demands as repression, and all moral struggles as neurotic conflict. Thus, a person living in contradiction with their conscience is soothed instead of being helped to order their life. The discomfort is anesthetized without discerning its cause. But some suffering persists because it doesn't originate from a wound, but from an inner rupture between what is experienced and what is known to be right. This cannot be healed simply by talking;  Healing comes through conversion, ordering, and taking responsibility.

Saint Anthony the Abbot said that it is important to soberly distinguish between human frailty and spiritual combat. He taught that the devil acts primarily in our thoughts, taking advantage of laziness, pride, and lack of vigilance. If the problem is spiritual, the remedy is not exclusively psychological: it is prayer, the sacraments, inner discipline, and living truth. Treating this as a “disorder” disorients the soul.

This does not mean disregarding psychology or denying real disorders. There is clinical anxiety, pathological depression, and deep wounds that require serious professional intervention. The error lies in not knowing how to discern. When a psychologist does not believe in the spiritual dimension of humankind, they interpret everything from an emotional or behavioral perspective. And thus, the person becomes trapped in endless therapies for a problem that is not clinical, but existential and spiritual.

Knowing how to differentiate is an act of professional and human responsibility. Good accompaniment distinguishes between what is addressed with therapy and what is confronted with conversion, spiritual life, and moral order.  Not everything can be cured with techniques, just as not everything can be resolved through prayer alone. But when a spiritual struggle is confused with a psychological problem, the person is deprived of the remedy they truly need. True help integrates, it doesn't diminish; it illuminates the full reality of the person and doesn't mutilate an essential part of their inner life.

The Catholic Psychologist

Retracing History (Beautiful video)

 

Merry Christmas to our readers and friends

 On this holy night, allow the Christ Child to be born in your heart and in your home, and never let Him go. 

 Let the world continue its course, while you and your family step away from its whirlwind to silently and reverently adore the Child born in the humblest manger. Afterward, with fervor, sing to Him and lull Him to sleep with Christmas carols, and pray, thanking Him for all the blessings He brings. This is not just another family dinner: it is a family gathering to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child. 

 Saint Alphonsus Liguori teaches us: "Only in this Child did the eternal Father find his delight, because, as Saint Gregory says, only in him did he find no sin. Let us, therefore, miserable sinners, take comfort, for this divine Infant has come from heaven to communicate his innocence to us through his Passion. His merits, if we only knew how to value them, can transform us from sinners into saints and innocents; let us place our trust in them, let us always ask the eternal Father for grace through them, and we will obtain everything."

HUMILITY

   “To be humble is to desire God’s esteem and despise that of men. ‘Love being ignored and considered nothing’: therefore, we must strive to deny all influence over our hearts to words like ‘promotions,’ ‘popularity,’ ‘esteem,’ and other such formulas. Christ was numbered among the criminals: why do we so desperately want to be numbered among the best?” 

 Fr. Edouard Poppe

A WORD OF ADVICE FROM THE CURÉ OF ARS FOR THE END OF THE YEAR

 “Many Christians work only to satisfy this corpse [he always called the body a ‘corpse’] that will soon rot in the earth; and yet they do not think of their poor soul, which must be eternally happy or unhappy. They lack spirit and common sense: this is terrifying! You see, my children, we must remember that we have a soul to save and an eternity that awaits us. The world, riches, pleasures, and honors will pass away, but heaven and hell will never pass away. Let us be careful!” 

 Saint Curé of Ars

Bishop Schneider met with the Pope, presumably to request that he liberate the Traditional Latin Mass and not appoint bishops who are veritable heretical wolves.

This article from last July sheds light on the topics discussed by the bishop with Leo XIV in their recent meeting:

Mons.  𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐞𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐮𝐧 𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐨 𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐚𝐩𝐚 𝐋𝐞𝐨́𝐧 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐪𝐮𝐞 “𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐚 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐚  𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥

By Emily Mangiaracina, LifeSiteNews 07/16/2025

Bishop Schneider urged Pope Leo XIV to ‘protect’ the lay faithful who are being ‘persecuted’ by the suppression of the Traditional Latin Massendt of the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima brought up the TLM crackdown prompted by Pope Francis’ document 

Traditionis.“It is an injustice. We must publicly say this,” said Bishop Schneider, the auxiliary of the Diocese of Astana in Kazakhstan. He pointed out that the TLM suppression is particularly unjust during a time when, as under Francis, the top levels of the Church declare the importance of listening to all the lay faithful and accepting their “proposals and desires,” as he noted.

“But only one category is punished, and marginalized. These are the faithful priests who only wish to pray and to celebrate Mass, to assist Mass, and it was done during… almost a millennium, and by the saints,” he said. 

When asked what the Holy Father should do in response, Bishop Schneider urged him to “protect” his “daughters and sons” who are being “persecuted” by the bishops throttling access to the TLM, such as in the Archdiocese of Detroit, where as of July 1, TLMs were banned in all of its 28 parish locations and delegated to a mere four locations.

“This is unbearable. It is a great injustice towards good faithful who only desire to pray as did their forefathers,” lamented Bishop Schneider. “Nothing more. Who love the pope, who love their bishop.”

The prelate declared that it is “urgent” for the pope to protect the faithful who are being treated as “second class” Catholics and called upon the faithful to pray for Pope Leo “that he may recognize this injustice” and “have the courage” to free the Latin Mass through an act of his magisterium.

Bishop Schneider pointed out that Pope Pius V had “solemnly canonized” the Traditional Latin Mass in his bull Quo Primum, which declared in an “extraordinary” way that “no one can be forbidden, even in future,” to offer the Tridentine Mass. 

Quo Primum ordains that, “in perpetuity,” the Missal of the Tridentine Mass “is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used” and that “this present document cannot be revoked or modified, but remains always valid and retains its full force.”

Quo Primum ordains “in perpetuity,”

The Astana bishop expressed hope that Pope Leo XIV stop the “persecution” of the TLM, something Catholics have implored him to do in a letter campaign. Leo XIV has not yet responded or given any indication he will recognize the authority of Quo Primum by declaring Traditionis Custodes invalid. Instead, by granting a TLM in Texas a two-year extension, he appears to be recognizing the dictates of Traditionis Custodes.

Wendt continued on to ask if Bishop Schneider thought it was fair to “evaluate” Leo XIV by his clerical appointments, something he began to participate in as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops.

The bishop said that by appointing bishops “who are promoting confusion and ambiguities or even errors which were known before the appointment,” that is, “dubious candidates, ambiguous candidates or openly heterodox candidates,” the pope is “opening the door” to let “wolves” enter into the flock.

Orthodox Catholics and clergy such as Bishop Joseph Strickland have already raised concerns about the doctrinal fidelity of clerical appointments of Leo XIV, including for example his appointment of Bishop Shane Mackinlay, who has publicly expressed support for the possibility of “ordaining” women to the diaconate, as archbishop of Brisbane.

Bishop Schneider believes God will hold every pope to account “about his appointments.”

Father Pio said