CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - Catholic Online contributing writer Father James Farfaglia interviews Albert Hughes, author of an exciting new book entitled Paradise Commander.
Fr. James: I enjoyed reading Paradise Commander. I know from personal experience that writing a book is quite an amazing adventure. What inspired you to write a book about your own personal conversion?
Al Hughes: While commanding Antigua Air Station, West Indies, so much happened, often humorous, I often said without real intent, "I could write a book!" As my conversion began with a flood of miraculous events, "I could write a book" began to take hold of my life. From time to time I wrote notes and snippets, drafted chapters; established a chapter sequence that kept changing on me. The manuscript was a long time coming. In retrospect, Paradise Commander could not have been completed without the insights gained in my religious calling: my post- Air Force 25 year avocation as a lay catechist and retreat master.
Fr. James: In the preamble of your book you write, "It was no surprise that from the ripe old age of 14, I declared myself an agnostic." Can you explain to me and to our Catholic Online readers what it is like to be an agnostic? What goes on inside the soul of someone who claims to be an agnostic?
HAMILTON, ONTARIO, CANADA (Catholic Online) - "Ecce homo," "Behold the man!" These were the words spoken by Pontius Pilate when he presented a scourged Jesus Christ to a hostile mob shortly before his crucifixion. The same words aptly apply today to Pope Benedict XVI, as he is being held up to unprecedented ridicule and scorn by some members of a hateful press and misunderstood in a world out of touch with its spiritual nature and moral being. One can almost hear Jesus saying to the peaceful and benevolent pope: "If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first" (John 15:18).
Pope Benedict XVI's decision to abdicate the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, comes at a time when there is a ferocious battle going on within the Catholic Church and a rising tide of hatred towards authentic Christianity from outside. The pope has had to endure much in his heroic efforts to steer the Barque of Peter away from the errors and influence of the progressives, atheists, and other dissidents.
Valentine was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marius and his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome, who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith ineffectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and afterwards, to be beheaded, which was executed on February 14, about the year 270. Pope Julius I is said to have built a church near Ponte Mole to his memory, which for a long time gave name to the gate now called Porta del Popolo, formerly, Porta Valetini. The greatest part of his relics are now in the church of St. Praxedes. His name is celebrated as that of an illustrious martyr in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, the Roman Missal of Thomasius, in the calendar of F. Fronto and that of Allatius, in Bede, Usuard, Ado, Notker and all other martyrologies on this day. To abolish the heathens lewd superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls, in honor of their goddess Februata Juno, on the fifteenth of this month, several zealous pastors substituted the names of saints in billets given on this day.
