News - February 2022 RSS Feed

Last week I wrote a column introducing our most recent Doctor of the Church: St. Irenaeus of Lyon. This week I want to write about what he taught and why he is still significant. Some Doctors of the Church (like St. Augustine) left us with a massive library of works. Others (like St. Thérèse of Lisieux) had a more limited input. In the case of St. Irenaeus, aside from a few letters, most of what survives from his teachings are a collection of books entitled Against Heresies, written around 180.

On January 21, 2022 Pope Francis issued a decree declaring Saint Irenaeus to be a Doctor of the Church after receiving and accepting a proposal to that effect from the Congregation of the Saints. Irenaeus is the first Doctor of the Church believed to have been a martyr. Since he died around 202, Irenaeus holds the distinction of being the most ancient of the Church’s now thirty-seven Doctors of the Church. Saint Irenaeus would be most remembered today as the earliest systematic theologian for his authentic teaching of the Church’s faith and defense of it in the face of errors that were emerging in the late second and early third centuries. St. Irenaeus remains a relevant model for bishops, apologists, catechists, and theologians owing to his articulation of the Gnostic heresies that are still with us today in various forms.

The turning of the calendar to February means Lent is just around the corner. This also means it is the time of year when I will again ask you to make a gift to the Annual Appeal in support of the many charitable works of our Archdiocese.

Recently I have received a number of questions about our parish pastoral council. Let me pose some of those questions now and supply some answers based on the Archdiocese of Washington Parish Pastoral Council Policy and Implementation Guide issued in 2013.