Lucky immigrants can skip boring Catholic mass, at least in this one diocese in California.
The bishop saw they were suffering so he spared them the additional torture that comes from attending the mass.
The bishop saw they were suffering so he spared them the additional torture that comes from attending the mass.
Quote:A Catholic bishop in California has issued a rare decree allowing parishioners to miss Mass due to fears of raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“All members of the faithful in the Diocese of San Bernardino who, due to genuine fear of immigration enforcement actions, are unable to attend Sunday Mass or Masses on holy days of obligation are dispensed from this obligation, as provided for in Canon 1247, until such time as this decree is revoked or amended,” Rojas wrote in the decree released Tuesday.
The exemption is a remarkable step for Rojas to take because observant Catholics are required to attend Sunday Mass and certain holy days of obligation, such as All Saints’ Day on Nov. 1 and Christmas on Dec. 25.
Failure to attend Mass “unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor” is a mortal sin, according to the Roman Catholic Catechism.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/09/trump-ca...-mass.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
