St. Philip Institute News

The president and his administration have been asked by some governors to lift the ban on aborted fetal cell research to help fight the COVID crisis. What if you found out that aborted fetal cells were used in the next vaccine for the Coronavirus? Would you take it?

Pope St. John Paul wrote in his seminal encyclical on life, “To claim the right to abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin’ ( John 8:34).”

Along with Christopher Kaczor, PhD, Cynthia Hunt, MD, George D. Santos, MD, Joseph Meaney, PhD, Charleta Guillory, MD, MPH, FAAP, and Paul J. Carson, MD, FACP, Stacy Trasancos presented two talks at the Converging Roads conference in Houston on March 28, 2020. The topics were “Medical Marijuana and CBD Oil: In Conflict with Hippocratic Medicine?” and “Vaccine Ethics: A View through Catholic Social Teaching.”

Read Bishop Joseph Strickland’s announcement to the Diocese of Tyler following Holy Mass for the Fifth Sunday of Lent. The announcement is in English and Spanish.

“When evening had come” (Mk 4:35). The Gospel passage we have just heard begins like this. For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. On this boat… are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with one voice, saying “We are perishing” (v. 38), so we too have realized that we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this.

On the weekend of the 5th and 6th of March, we welcomed 22 couples to our Three to Get Married retreat at the Cathedral Center, where they were given time to reconnect, ask questions about each other and learn the role Christ has in their Marriage. Preparing them to take the step into Holy Matrimony. We were blessed to have couples from various parts of the Diocese of Tyler with us, and Bishop Strickland. Check Out our Events page for future retreats and other events like this.

El retiro de formation matrimonial “Son Tres Los Que Se Casan” es una oportunidad para parejas aprender como tener un matrimonio Cristocentrico mientras se preparan para el Sacramento del Sagrado Matrimonio. Este fin de semana estábamos en Athens con 24 parejas comprometidas, 4 parejas mentoras y un equipo maravilloso. Las parejas tuvieron tiempo para reconectarse, preguntarse preguntas uno al otro, y aprender él papel qué Cristo tiene en sus Matrimonios. Estamos bendecidos de tener parejas de varias partes en Diócesis de Tyler con nosotros.

On February 8, The Diocese of Tyler celebrated its annual World Marriage Day Mass with 105 couples from all around the diocese.

On February 5, Mikki Sciba visited the St. John Paul II Catholic Campus Ministry in Tyler where she gave the talk titled “The Soul of a Woman”.