Sodomy and Privacy

Here is a little ditty sung to Stevie Wonder's and Sir Paul McCartneys "Ebony and Ivory"

We All Know
The government in the bedroom can't go
That Texas law, culture just says no
We need no reheasal,
To make a sweeping revesal
Slumping towards Gommorah we have arrived.

Sodomy and Privacy
Live Together In Perfect Harmony
Side By Side this 6-3 decree
Oh SCOTUS set us free
(Sodomy, Privacy Living In Perfect Harmony)
(Sodomy, Privacy)

We All Know
That the court used privacy just like Roe
Constitution not required just from cloth whole,
Just what is this stench
Legislating from the bench
State rights is a dream long expired

Sodomy and Privacy
Live Together In Perfect Harmony
Side By Side in jurisprudence lingo
Oh SCOTUS set us free
Slippery slope decree
Side By Side in jurisprudence lingo
Slippery slope decree

(Sodomy, Privacy Living In Perfect Harmony)
(Sodomy, Privacy Living In Perfect Harmony)
(Sodomy, Privacy Living In Perfect Harmony)
(Sodomy, Privacy Living In Perfect Harmony)
(Sodomy, Privacy Living In Perfect Harmony)

Man claiming to be Jesus causes scene

PORT ST. LUCIE -- A man claiming to be Jesus was free on bail Friday after jumping on a BMW, stopping traffic and punching a man in a road crew, according to an arrest report and a jail official.

Archilus A. Bryant, 52, of 262 S.W. Ray Ave., faces charges including disorderly conduct, criminal mischief, battery, resisting arrest with violence and battery on a law enforcement officer in connection with the events, which occurred Thursday morning in the 1600 block of Airoso Boulevard.

"Apparently, it initiated as a road-rage incident," said Officer Kacey Donnell, police spokesman. "He was jumping up and down on a [BMW]."

When an officer told Bryant not to spit on the interior window of a patrol car he refused, stating, "I am Jesus, I do not need to behave."

"I think it's safe to say that the suspect was not the Nazarene," Donnell said.

According to the report, Kenneth Durham, 46, said he saw Bryant "standing in the road stopping traffic." Durham told police he asked Bryant to get off the road, but Bryant responded, "I am the father."
[Full Story]

Bobblehead Patriarchs

Dan Foote wants to make biblical figures as popular as professional athletes.

So he took a cue from the latest marketing trend in major league sports and, with his partners, started a business that makes bobblehead dolls out of the men and women of the Bible.

Now he and his partners are selling 7-inch versions of Noah, Samson and Moses for $14.99 that come with a comic book summarizing each of their stories. If those dolls are strong sellers, Queen Esther, Daniel - and possibly Jesus - could be produced next, Foote said, although another company already sells a Jesus bobblehead.

"We want to create a hunger to go to God's word to learn more about these people," said Foote, a 43-year-old Christian cartoonist.

"God works in strange and mysterious ways, and we want to be a part of this strange and mysterious way."
[Full Story]

I think that the Virgin Mary would be appropriate as a Bobblehead. After all she was the only person to continually say yes to god. Most of us are wobble (east-west direction as in no) heads with an occasional bobble (yes) to God. I can imagine a child asking their mother after seeing one of these dolls in a car window, "Who is that mommy?", "Why that is Noah". "Then why does he keep shaking his head like Yes-a?" I wonder if the Samson character has long hair, if he does then he would probably look someone from Headbanger's Ball on MTV.

Bleak view of marriage

You know that an article that starts out with

"Christianity has always had a bleaker view of love - gay or straight - than any other faith"

is going to be a real treat. She selectively takes quotes from some Church Fathers to demonstrate this "negative" view of marriage. While it is true that some Church Fathers did to some extent hold this view this has nothing to do with constant church teaching. It is only with the Christian understanding of marriage does it reach it fullest understanding. That marriage is a reflection of the Trinity and the self-giving love that entails. Marriage that is not open to life, or pro-creation, cannot image the creative love of the Trinity. A purely secular understanding of marriage breaks down to feelings, pleasure, and convenience. Once the individual feels it is no longer convenient or that the pleasure is gone it breaks down in divorce.

...But in fact everybody reads the Bible selectively. If people followed every single biblical ruling to the letter, the world would be full of Christians who love their enemies and refuse to judge other people, which is plainly not the case. Christians would also be obliged to eat kosher meat (Acts 15:20) and stone their disobedient sons to death (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). The world has changed and practices that were acceptable 2,000 years ago have become abhorrent. We also have a more complex understanding of sexuality than the biblical writers.

"But in fact everybody reads the Bible selectively." Well she certainly proved here thesis with her interpretation. Acts 15:20 was a temporary proscription to not cause other believers to be scandalized. St. Paul talks about this principle in 1st Cor 8:7-13.

However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through being hitherto accustomed to idols, eat food as really offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. Only take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if any one sees you, a man of knowledge, at table in an idol's temple, might he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of my brother's falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall.

She also makes the common mistake of using the Mosaic laws as examples of what Christians should use today if they followed the Bible. The Mosaic covenant has been replaced by a new and permanent covenant which totally replaced the "works of Torah", but not the natural law which is "written on their hearts."

...Yet the Bible has to be read with care. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 condemns homosexual rape and the violation of the sacred rules of hospitality rather than homosexuality per se. It has nothing to say about the open, stable gay relationships that are essentially a feature of modern western society, and did not exist in their current form in the biblical world.

Well how about the command to be "fruitful and multiply", it wasn't "be a fruit and nullify." The same problem with contraception exists for homosexuality, that there is no possibility toward being open to life and that a fundamental purpose of the sex act is denied.

...The Bible is not a holy encyclopedia, giving clear and unequivocal information; nor is it a legal code that can be applied indiscriminately to our very different society. Lifting isolated texts out of their literary and cultural context can only distort its message. Instead, we should look at the underlying principles of biblical religion, and apply these creatively to our own situation.
[Full Story]

She wasn't doing too bad until she said "apply these creatively to our own situation." One of the great graces of being a Catholic is that we don't have figure out the Bible on our own. That we are also guided by Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium which helps us to eliminate possible meanings of the text. while the Magisterium will never define all texts or all possible interpretations, just knowing the faith and the constant teaching of the Church helps to guide us away from wrong exegesis. I know that when I first started to read the Bible outside of sacred tradition I inserted many heresies and misunderstandings into the text.

How is that for tolerance and diversity

Watch out, "American Idol." San Francisco's first "Gay Pride Idol" makes her debut at today's big parade and rally -- only guess what? She's not gay.

Or lesbian, bisexual or transgender, for that matter.

She's straight. And boy, are some people ticked.

"It is a huge slap in the face," fumed one losing "Pride Idol" contestant.

"Completely outraged," another Pride-proud woman from Corte Madera wrote in an e-mail to parade organizers. "This should have been an opportunity for someone . . . who lives their life as a Queer and feels the joys and the pain of being Queer."

Those are just some of the comments that newly crowned Pride Idol Marianne Kooken has faced this past week as she readied herself for the stage at today's big post-parade rally in Civic Center, where she'll be belting out three tunes.
[Full Story]

Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles

Reflecting on these two pillars of the Church who though very different in backgrounds and personality were used to help initially spread the Gospel, it is interesting to see how God chooses is so different from how we were to choose.

Peter's background and resume probably wouldn't get him into any top 500 company, yet he was chosen by Christ as the first Pope and to guide the start of the church. He was impetuous and always misinterpreting Jesus' words and when he tried to guess and to match the mercy of God in the way of forgiveness he fell way short. Guided by the Holy Spirit he would pronounce "You are the Christ the son of the living God" and a moment later have to be rebuked by Jesus "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men." As a result of a vision he realized that Gentiles were part of God's plan and then later had to be rebuked by St. Paul for not following through with his conduct. The selection of St. Peter is much like the case of Gideon being allowed to only have an army of three hundred to ensure that the resulting victory could not be assigned to Gideon or his men, but to God alone. A highly charismatic and intellectual first Pope could have been a problem with people assigning to him the glory instead of Jesus. Nobody would attribute the rise of the Church to St. Peter alone. This humble and simple man can still teach us "moderns" much in the way of obedience and understanding in relation to the Church. After Jesus taught the doctrine of the Eucharist in John Chapter 6 and many disciples left in disgust; when Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." This is great advice to those who don't understand Church teachings, for those scandalized by the situation, or by liturgical abuses. That the Church is true and understandable by reason and that in reality there is no alternative then Jesus who through his Church gives us the sacraments.

St. Paul is another of those choices that we wouldn't have made. A man who followed every part of the law as practiced by the pharisees. A man who was actively persecuting Christians and would not stop at anything to see them gone. His conversion I consider one of the great miracles in the Bible. Finding out your wrong and learning the truth is not what you believed is always difficult to accept and unlearning what you believed is even harder.

The conversion of St. Paul is interesting I think in relation to modern thinking on the preeminence of conscience. The belief that if someone thinks they are doing right then that makes it right for that person. St. Paul previously certainly thought he was following God and worked ardently to do what he perceived God wanted. You would think by modern belief that this was what was in the Book of Acts.

"As I made my journey and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, `Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' And I answered, `Whoever you are I am not persecuting anyone, I am following my conscience", and he said to me "Oops, then I am sorry about knocking you off your horse". I replied "That's Okay, and can you do something about this sudden blindness.", and he said to me "I will take care of that, sorry about this misunderstanding."

Blogging Geek

The new Google Toolbar 2.0 now has a Blogger button that allows you to reference the page you are currently on in a Blogger post. So those using blogger can now see how Google planned to do some integration with the company they bought. For those non-Bloggers the toolbar has a lot of nice options for searches.

Goodbye Byzantine Bingo

Advanced mathematics books are arranged closer to the mammoth desk than theological texts on the stately office's wall-to-wall bookshelves.

A math whiz and daredevil, the Rev. Andrew J. Deskevich may well have found a career in the world of calculus and trigonometry if God hadn't previously called his number for the priesthood.

The new pastor of SS. Peter and Paul Byzantine Rite Catholic Church, 3415 Wallace St., Deskevich left behind familiar territory and close friends in the Pittsburgh area to come to Erie in May.

His assignment: Take on a dwindling congregation of a little-known part of the Roman Catholic Church in the far corner of an enormous diocese.

The challenging odds of revitalizing and growing the church don't faze Deskevich, 33, because the faithful are so excited about his arrival.

"Any transition is difficult, but it's easier here because the people are so welcoming and enthusiastic," Deskevich said. "This is a very good move for me. The people are wonderful and eager to move into the future."

As a bonus, instead of some far-flung spot in the 71-church eparchy, or diocese, this new flock is within driving distance of familiar skydiving and roller coaster sites whenever Deskevich feels in need of an adrenaline fix.

..."Father Andrew has a lot of great ideas to move the church forward into this century," Adams said. "He doesn't just tell us what to do, he gets his hands dirty. He's right in the middle of everything and involved."

...The new priest is "absolutely breathtaking," said Pauline Kowalski, a member for 27 years and president of the altar society for 20 years. "Even my 86-year-old father said he's 'absolutely awesome.' And my youngest daughter left her first confession with him and said she just loves him."

The praise is sweet music for the bearded Deskevich, who wants to evangelize and strengthen the church.

"I'll do everything we can to make it grow," he said. "We have entrusted to us a very small part of God's kingdom to build up. If we don't, we answer to him, so I'm jumping in feet first and face forward."

I thought the transition of these two paragraphs were funny since the reporter mentions the priest is bearded and the next line says "I'll do everything we can to make it grow."

...Services are heavy on formal ritual meant to inspire awe with the help of incense, candles, icons and chanting. "It's more traditional and more spiritual," said Kowalski, a former Roman Catholic. "You feel closer to God there. With the whole atmosphere you feel so lifted, so close to God. It's truly a very spiritual and fulfilling rite."

...Specific plans are still being formed, but some changes are already in place. Bingo is gone, and discussion has begun on how to re-emphasize Byzantine, or Eastern, elements of the church.
[Full Story]

Former Roman Catholic? Shouldn't that be a Catholic formerly of the Roman Rite. That is why use of the term Roman Catholic is so misleading and actually it was a termed first coined by Anglicans to separate themselves and to be distinct from Rome.

Carmelite nun nurtures community in KC area and in Guatemala

The complications in the life of Madre Marina Prado -- which are many -- might as well be dandelion seeds in the wind.

Her eyes, which witness the poverty and injustice afflicting her native Guatemala after more than three decades of civil war, shine with peace.

The contours of her hands and face are as soft as those of a woman half her 75 years. They don't show the toil of a servant who nurtures a community -- a pioneer who created a religious order that opened doors for women from her country's indigenous underclass.

Anyone who looks for hints of her bodily pain -- heart problems, a lifetime of ulcers, the slipped discs she carried in her back for 15 years before surgery a year ago -- will see only her effervescent smile.
[Full Story]

Those are babies that mommies didn't take care of

Larger-than-life images of aborted fetuses drew looks of disgust, shock, anger and sadness during the lunch hour yesterday in downtown Cleveland.

"Take a good look at your sin, Cleveland," a pastor shouted into a microphone, as a panel truck bearing the same graphic photos drove slowly around the protest in Public Square.

It was the first time the Cleveland-based LifeLink group took its in-your-face message to Public Square.

"What is that?" a young girl asked her mother.

"Those are babies that mommies didn't take care of," her mother said.

One father pulled his young sons toward him, shielding their eyes as he hustled them from the grisly scene.
[Full Story]

Saeed Sack

BAGHDAD — Saddam Hussein's former information minister said in television interviews yesterday that he plans to write a book about his experiences in which he will reveal details about the collapse of the Ba'athist regime.

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, who amused international audiences with his wildly inaccurate claims of Iraqi victory over U.S. troops during the war, went public yesterday after his release from a brief period of detention and interrogation by coalition forces.
[Full Story]

Will it be called "Living History", oh wait that was already used by a preeminent liar.

What a surprise, not.

Prisoners who take part in faith-based rehabilitation programs are much less likely to return to a life of crime, according to a new study.

The study, conducted by Byron Johnson of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society, found that graduates of Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship program are less likely than non-graduates to return to crime. The program provides spiritual counseling, job training and mentoring to prisoners nearing the end of their sentences.

Of the 177 ex-prisoners who participated in the study, the 75 who underwent biblical education and counseling were half as likely to be reincarcerated, the study found.
[Full Story]

Cardinal Newman Society

The Arlington Catholic Herald has a good article on the founder of the Cardinal Newman Society.

Is the National Catholic Reporter a Catholic parody?

Usually the National Catholic Reporter is good for some laughs but this article reads like a Chick Track. The title "Celibacy's history of power and money" was a clue to the potential stupidity of this article from the Unrational Catholic Distorter.

Whoa, slow down a minute on the celibacy talk and married priests. Let’s remind ourselves how the Catholic church got into the celibacy mess.

It didn’t have anything to do with sex, purity and holiness.

It was the money.

And when one mixes money and the Catholic church, there’s usually a mess. That’s how we got a Reformation. Selling indulgences -- guarantees of time off in purgatory.

If the church tried selling indulgences today it would be prosecuted under the RICO law.

Indulgences were and are guarantees signed and sealed by folks in no position to deliver on the promise. Indulgences were sold by those who had invented the idea of purgatory in the first place (there is no biblical basis for purgatory).

I guess there must not be any room in NCR's biblcal canon for 2 Maccabees and verses 12:38-46. I always thought that their bible might be missing something, like the first 74 books. To them the Gospels are called the Apocrypha.

...Martin Luther, a sort of one-man medieval equivalent of the Securities and Exchange Commission (indulgences division) blew the whistle. And signaled the fate of all future whistleblowers. Obloquy, and a formal apology 400 years too late.

Well actually Martin Luther was post medieval when he posted his list on the cathedral door.

Religions have always had a place for virgins. But it customarily meant women, as in pagan Rome’s vestal virgins. Emperor Augustus, incidentally, frowned on celibacy. Celibate males weren’t allowed to inherit property. (Hold that thought from Roman law. A thousand years later it gave us today’s problems.)
Then came Jesus, and then came priests.

I would like to see one case where somebody being celibate caused a problem, all of the sexual abuse cases arose out of them not being celibate.

St. Paul wasn’t arguing for celibacy. Admittedly, he said it was easier to be a member of a missionary group if you weren’t encumbered with a wife and children, but the CEO of many a corporation harbors the same feelings (though perhaps remains reluctant to voice them publicly).

Now where in 1st Corinthians does Paul talk about celibacy associated with missionary groups. Of course it is funny to think of celibacy if you want a "missionary position." What Paul actually said was:

The rest of the article just goes on with the canard about celibacy coming about to prevent the clergy from giving church property as inheritance to their children. That it was all about property and not propriety.

The Bishop dressed in white

From Karl Keating's latest E-letter.

A few years ago the Vatican released the text of the Third Secret of Fatima. You may remember the cover story we ran in "This Rock." The Third Secret concerns an attack on a "bishop dressed in white," and the Vatican said the image referred to the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.

Some Traditionalist groups, which have acted as though Fatima were their own wholly-owned subsidiary, objected to the Vatican's interpretation. They went so far as to claim that the Third Secret, as given by the Vatican, was bogus and that the real Third Secret has yet to be released.

Without quite saying it, they implied that the Holy Father and the prelates involved in the release of the Third Secret were liars inasmuch as they passed off as genuine a story that was quite false.

Now there is a new twist. Other Traditionalists are saying that the Third Secret, as given, is basically correct, but the "bishop dressed in white" is not to be understood as the Pope. That bishop really was Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of the Society of St. Pius X. (Lefebvre was excommunicated in 1988 when he consecrated four bishops without papal approval. He was not reconciled before his death.)

The people who are proposing this new interpretation say it explains why the Third Secret was kept secret for so long. Rome was embarrassed by Lefebvre's opposition to Vatican II and would have felt in an awkward position if it became known that Fatima, the Pope's favorite private revelation, gave an imprimatur to a prelate who was in opposition to the Pope.

Interesting idea, but it doesn't wash.

The Third Secret was given long before Vatican II and long before Marcel Lefebvre was known to anyone outside of the African see that he administered. If this Traditionalist interpretation were correct, the Third Secret would have been considered innocuous--almost meaningless--in, say, 1960, and there would have been no reason for Pope John XXIII to have kept it secret after he was presented with the text.

But the Third Secret was kept secret for another forty years, which suggests that he and his successors understood it to have a clear meaning, one which, for whatever reasons, they thought should be withheld from public consumption.

I appreciate the Lefebvrists' devotion to their leader, but they do their cause no favor by trying to shoehorn him into the Fatima revelation. In fact, they make their cause look a little ridiculous when they offer up their interpretation.

Still, I give them credit for cheekiness. I wonder whether someone at the other end of the spectrum will take a cue from them and will propose that the "bishop dressed in white" really was Joseph Bernardin.

What's up with this

Charmin has a new product, a personal toilet paper dispenser to carry with you called Charmin "To Go". Maybe it's just me but when I go to the public bathroom to use the toilet I don't think, gee I wish they had Charmin instead. Now I know that many public bathrooms use toilet paper that is rated by grit like sandpaper, but this just seems a little ridiculous.

Who you gonna call?

London: Supermodel Claudia Schiffer has called in ghost busters to rid her house of evil spirits.

According to a report in PeopleNews, a ghost club called "Spooky kooks" warned the German model that Coldham Hall, the Suffolk mansion she shares with husband Matthew Vaughn, is haunted.

A spectral nun called Penelope was believed to be haunting the place. The Vaughns had also been told to beware two cursed pictures, which might bring the couple and their new son bad luck if removed.

I wonder if the "spectral nun Penelope" carries a spectral ruler and wraps on the walls at night.

When a man ceases to believe in God, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in everything. -GK Chesterton

Ministry trumps morality

Certain words spring to mind in reaction to the story of Holy Family Church’s music director being fired last week because he could not promise to lead a “chaste” lifestyle.

Bill Stein is gay. He has had the same companion for 10 years. Asked point-blank to make the promise or lose his job, he had to choose the latter.

Immoral! Outrageous! Unfair! Wrong! Un-Christian! Ironic would apply as well, given the nationwide pedophile priest scandal and the church’s celebrated cover-ups and denials on that matter. Funny where lines are drawn.

Now it's un-Christian for a Church to follow Christianity and to fire someone who refused to be chaste? St. Paul in a situation where someone was being sexually immoral said:

It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father's wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

But there are two sides to every adjective that applies to this story, and Stein, 35, sees all the nuances.

Nothing to do with the moral law just nuances.

There are people who believe the gay lifestyle is immoral and deviant; in fact, that’s his church’s position. Some people would say it’s unfair to force parents into a situation where their children are taught by people who the parents believe are not good role models.

THERE ARE GOOD PEOPLE on both sides of the issue. Still, this situation is unsettling and unfortunate for Stein and for the many people who testify that they were touched by his ministry at Holy Family.

Again morality doesn't matter as long as you are "good people", but of course they would not want to have to define good.

Stein was not fired for anything he did, but for who he is.

Excuse me, he was fired for something he did and was going to continue to do, shacking up with his male lover. Same sex attraction is not a "who" it is not the bedrock of identity for people who suffer with it.

“I never made my lifestyle a part of the job,” he said. “It doesn’t belong as part of my job, but it was forced into the job in an ugly way.”

After five years in his position — he calls music ministry his “call,” his way to serve God — he was sacked on the spot with two weeks’ pay.
[Full Story]

War Angel

Nice Story about Sister Mary Lucy Dosh who treated soldiers during the Civil War.

Abortion likened to modern day holocaust

That there were doctors in New Zealand prepared to kill 17,400 unborn children last year is sickening and beyond understanding, South Canterbury branch president of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child Carmel Armstrong said on Monday.

And so was the silence by those like the Medical Council, politicians, and the Abortion Supervisory Committee, she said.

"Not one of these bodies, to my knowledge, has expressed any concern about what can truly be said to be a modern day holocaust.

"In fact, recently the chairman of the Abortion Supervisory Committee had the audacity to recommend that the salaries of abortion certifying consultants should be doubled.

"Could this be because she is not only the chair of that committee but a certifying consultant as well."

Mrs Armstrong said the fact New Zealanders were prepared to kill a quarter of the next generation by abortion in a climate where demographers were warning of the problems the country will face in the not too distant future due to an aging population, showed how ostrich-like New Zealanders had become.

"We are not slow in condemning the Bush and Blair governments for attacking Iraq which resulted in the deaths of civilians, yet we don't want to see the truth that abortion kills innocent human beings in far larger numbers every year than were killed in that war."

Abortion has for years been a weapon of mass destruction, Mrs Armstrong said.
[Full Story]

Crisis pregnancy center offers help

Instead "crisis pregnancy centers," such as this one in the 1000 block of East Lincoln Highway, have started obtaining medical center status in the hopes that new services they can offer with that classification will draw new clientele.

Through the recent medical designation, ultrasounds are now offered to select clients free of charge, along with a host of other free services, including pregnancy testing, counseling, childbirth classes, parenting classes, post-abortion counseling and referrals. Attendance at classes earns expectant mothers "parent pay" they can use to obtain clothing and baby supplies at no cost.

The ultrasounds are given to women deemed "abortion-minded" or "abortion-vulnerable" by counselors at the center, who make it a goal to dissuade their clients from taking that step.

"For many women, it is finding out the truth that there really is a baby in there," said Pennell. "They can see what the baby looks like. It takes away the mystery."
[Full Story]

Pagan inclusive language

(Stonehenge) A group of Pagan protesters are outside the ancient ruins protesting the treatment of male Pagans. Their spokesman Drew Edd had this to say, "We are fed up with the unequal treatment of males in both language and practices. We think the exclusive use of female gender names such as Mother Earth disparages male wisdom, why not Father Earth? And the term Gaiea again is just too feminine influenced, it just sounds gay-a. We prefer another name for the intricate process of earth interlocking processes - George. This is now the 21st century but sexual stereotypes are still in place in Pagan worship. Is is fair that some parts of our worship can only be inhabited by female virgins. All are called to ministry and to exempt one part of the population because of some traditions and prejudices is simply wrong-headed. We must be open minded and start also sacrificing male virgins, after all it is just as hard to find virgins of either sex. Allowing male human sacrifices would be true sexual equality and justice. The ritual sacrifice of humans is the preeminent part of our worship and because of the human sacrifice shortage people are not gaining access to our rituals. We should also allow married people to become human sacrifices. Celibacy for human sacrifices is unnatural and we could rapidly increase the pool of available sacrifices by not making restrictions based on sex or married state. Who knows all of the psychological problems that might be based on us restricting our sacrifices to be celibate, though normally we don't have problems with them after they have been part of the altar ceremony."

Suspend Abortion Compact

A group protesting abortion made its way across the Twin Cities on Thursday with a life-size depiction of the Virgin Mary.

Members of Suspend Abortion Compact in Minneapolis and some Catholic Church members visited clinics and churches that they say they feel have deviated from Catholic doctrine.

...Julie Madden, peace and justice coordinator at St. Joan of Arc Church, said the church community was not offended by the protesters' presence Thursday morning.

"We could choose to interpret [what they're doing] as a disrespect for the work that we do, but I don't believe it is. I really don't," she said while observing a group prayer in the church parking lot in south Minneapolis. "As a community, I believe that we are very vital in the Catholic Church, and the larger community. We have done a lot of significant work on behalf of capital punishment, children, immigrants and the homeless."

Madden said the church embraces a "consistent life ethic," which means it acknowledges all life as scared.
[Full Story]

This misspelling "all life as scared" is really accurate. If I was a fetus (again) in this culture I would be really scared also. Hey mommy, what's that man doing with that scalpel - ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I knew that St. Joan of Arc's parishioners were living in their own world but the line "We choose to interpret" nails it. If a group comes to your parish with a 4x6 foot picture of Our Lady praying for you to return to the Catholic faith, take my word for it, they are not there affirming your okayness.

What in the world does a "peace and justice coordinator" do in a parish anyway. Do they work to avoid interpew warfare? Do they mediate treaties between the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's sides of the church? Do they setup Patriot batteries to shoot down incoming missalettes?

Where would you have a diversity camp witch which includes a talk about Wicca. You guessed it, a Catholic College.

DALLAS TWP. - A self-proclaimed witch's talk this week about Wicca at College Misericordia's Diversity Camp was so popular with high school students that it was expanded by a half-hour.

Others, however, say Tom Jarmiolowski's discussion about his religion on Monday should not have taken place at the camp.

Dallas Baptist Church pastor Ernest Jackson said Wicca should be classified with other "occultlike religious groups" and should not have been included in the camp's efforts to spread diversity.

"We over-emphasize diversity sometimes to the exclusion of what the mainstream population believes and understands," he said. "Wicca is contrary to (what) all Christians stand for and we would not support anything like that."

Maria Orzel, executive director of communications for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton, said she didn't understand why religion was included among the camp's topics. She released this statement:

"There probably exist a number of misconceptions about Wicca which are listed among the participants in the parliament of world religions. We continue to learn more about its particular practices, rituals and beliefs. But in the context of a diversity multicultural event, I question why a religious group was included in the program."

Orzel declined to comment further.

Jackson and Orzel seem to be in the minority because Jarmiolowski's discussion is popular. This year, the session was extended from 30 minutes to an hour after last year's question-and-answer segment ran longer than the allotted time.

Diversity camper Sister Barbara Craig, a nun with the College Misericordia- affiliated Sisters of Mercy, said she was glad to have an opportunity to learn more about Wicca.
[Full Story]

This Catholic college started by the Sisters of Mercy also has a Diversity Institute which includes this

A PLEDGE OF ACCEPTANCE

I pledge allegiance to you, my neighbor, to do my part, with the ideals of justice and compassion for all humanity as my guide, to accept you for who you are as you accept me for who I am, and to help shape a community that reflects these ideals.

Yes, that great moral virtue acceptance - right up there with tolerance.

Abortion ship sets sail for Poland

AMSTERDAM — Despite a failed maiden voyage to Ireland in 2001, the Dutch "abortion ship" has departed for Catholic Poland to offer pregnancy terminations to Polish women in international waters.

The ship, operated by the Women on Waves foundation, is expected to arrive in the Polish harbour Wladyslawowo on Saturday and will remain there for two weeks. Polish law only allows abortion in limited cases such as after rape or for health reasons.
[Full Story]

Don't just sit there, pray something.

Update: WLADYSLAWOWO, Poland (Reuters) - The crew of a Dutch floating abortion clinic accused Poland on Saturday of denying their ship entry into a port in the Roman Catholic country which has strict laws on terminating pregnancy.
[Full Story]

Nostradamus move over

Shawn McElhinney of Rerum Novarum does an analysis of my predictions I made at the beginning of the year on my old blog Atheist to a Theist now archived here.

Previously Shawn also reciprocated with his own predictions. His predictions were also of the variety where he hoped they were wrong. I will use his scoring system:

Ones that have come to pass already will be marked with a "Y", the ones which have clearly failed - or are on the verge of it - will be marked with a "N." The ones where the jury remains out on will be marked with a "U."

Congress will *not* make deep and permanent tax cuts.

Rating: Y - No question this is a yes, though we did get some piddly improvements in that area.

Congress will *not* make drug testing mandatory for all foreign born residents of this county.

Rating: Y

Congress will *not* allow for oil drilling on US soil insofar as we can stop pretending to "need" foreign oil. (And thereby drop gas prices to below a dollar a gallon easily.)

Rating: Y - I feel confident that this one will not change by the end of the year.

The Supreme Court will *not* overturn Roe v. Wade

Rating: A sad Y for this one.

President Bush's first Supreme Court nominee *will* be a Hispanic.

Rating: U - But could by a Y by the end of the year.

Catholic Apologetics International *will* end 2003 retaining a red light rating from Petersnet.

Rating: U - Have to wait for the end of the year here. I suspect by the end of the year Bob Sungenis will say that the universe revolves around him. Mr. Sungenis sometimes confuses himself with large gravitational objects since things seem like CAI seem to colaspse around him. Snide comments aside, would love be wrong here.

There will *not* be a successful accord worked out between the SSPX and Rome. (And at least one article on the 1988 consecrations *will* eminate from an influential cleric in the SSPX before the year is out which will be published either in the Angeles or one of the "encyclical letters" of their bishops, or district superiors.)

Rating: U moving daily towards a Y

The US Bishops will *not* hold a much-needed Plenary Council in 2003.

Rating: U - We will know by the end of the week on this one, but even if they decide on one it most likely won't be this year.

Your rating Shawn is 4-0-4 with a possible 8-0-0 by years end, and by the way the Jesse Jackson prediction is a Y since Jessie threats to NASCAR ended with a $150,000 payout contribution.

Women paid not to abort

An Australian woman and her husband were paid $1,000 by pro-life demonstrators not to go through with a planned abortion, reports The Age.

The paper, quoting abortion clinic officials, says a group of pro-life activists approached the middle-aged couple as they were approaching the Marie Stopes clinic in Brisbane, Australia, last month.

A clinic staffer says the couple, who reportedly were having financial difficulties, were given "false and misleading information" about the effects of an abortion on future fertility, complications associated with the procedure and the risk of breast cancer, according to the report.

Clinic personnel found out about the incident when the woman two weeks later went to the Children by Choice facility for counseling.

The pro-choice activists condemned the practice of paying a woman to bring her baby to term.
[Full Story]

It would be just so such more ethical for the couple to pay them to kill it instead.

Founder of Flight 93 chapel leaving the Church

SHANKSVILLE, Pa. (AP) - Tired of not being able to practice as an active priest, the founder of a chapel honoring the passenger and crew of Flight 93 says he's leaving the Roman Catholic Church for another church.

The Rev. Al Mascherino renovated a century-old former chapel three miles from the Sept. 11, 2001, crash site in rural southwestern Pennsylvania to honor the 40 passengers and crew members of United Airlines Flight 93.

But the priest, who remains unassigned by the Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese, says he has made a personal decision to join the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, which follows most Catholic teachings but is more liberal with church sacraments such as communion, baptism and marriage

...In a written statement, the diocese's Bishop Joseph Adamec welcomed Vellone, but said that, "the Old Roman Catholic Church is not the same as the Roman Catholic Church."

I can agree with that.

Adamec said Roman Catholics can attend Sunday's event at the chapel but warned the Old Roman Catholic Church "is not in union" with the Vatican and Pope John Paul II.
[Full Story]

Trying hard not to mention that the Old Roman Catholic Church is not the only organization not in union with the Pope in this diocese - oops I guess I failed.

I don't want my DNCTV

Catholic Light does a humorous take on Al Gore's TV network proposal.

I can just imagine the first ratings period and them screaming "The ratings were stolen from us - we are actually number one." They will get really upset when ‘Buchanan and Press’ comes up number one in Palm Beach.

Some other possible shows are:

Pork and Mindy - About a women who houses an alien politician that manages to get many stupid financial aid bills passed for his district. Filmed on location in West Virginia. In related news President Bush who is getting tired of the attacks from a certain U.S. Senator proposes "To Kill a Mocking Byrd."

Democratic C.S.I. - In the first episode the team finds a dead body of a White House staff member in Ft. Marcy park and after finding no bullet, blood or dirt on the man's shoes rule it a suicide.

Buffy the Campfire Killer - An environmentalist wacko goes on a crusade chasing people out of state parks to preserve a pristine uncontaminated by humans look.

Star Dreck - Celebrities discuss their political opinions.

Dragnet - The foibles of a group of transvestite police officers and their struggles to properly accessorize items with the color blue.

Three's Company - Bill and Hillary and a special guest intern each week.

Fantasy Island - Each week a group of liberal politicians go to a special island where their Social Security and health care schemes actually work.

The Amazing Race Card - Contestants go around the world accusing others of racism to get ahead.

Survivor - A group of candidates fight it out for the privilege to lose to George W. Bush.

Rome Improvement - A group of liberal Catholics plot how to take over and improve on the Church.

Dumb and Dumber - DNC roundtable chat

Alf Gore - A furry little alien with presidential pretensions takes up residence with a family. His humorous catch phrase is "I invented that!"

Matrix: Unloaded - A group of gun-control zealots help Agent Smith to disarm and defeat Neoconservative.

Believe it or Not - Weekly New York Times news magazine.

I'll stick with the PastChurch

FutureChurch has named June 22nd, the feast of Corpus Christi (June 22) as a national day of study, reflection and prayer about the Eucharist (the Catholic Mass) and the future of the Catholic Priesthood. Referring to a recent papal encyclical on the Eucharist, FutureChurch director Sr. Christine Schenk said: "While the Pope writes beautiful statements about what the Eucharist means for Catholics, most Catholics in the world have no regular access to Mass at all." She cited recent statistics from the Vatican showing 105, 530 of the world¹s 218,196 parishes do not have a resident priest. The 2001 Vatican yearbook reported that the world¹s Catholics increased by 15 million to 1.06 billion worldwide but the number of priests declined by 111 to only 404, 956. By contrast, the number of lay people people involved in pastoral care rose from 3.6 million catechists, nuns and deacons in 2000, to 3.9 million in 2001.
[Source]

The group Save Our Church is planning a prayer/protest at St. Marks parish in Cleveland, Ohio home of FutureChurch. I like Save Our Church's motto "Ecumenical not heretical!"

The idea of NoFutureChuch conducting a day of study on the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ is a big sham. This group denies the miracle of transubstantiation and will feature a speaker that has written to that effect. This is just a scam under the guise of increasing access to the Eucharist to try to sneak in women priests.

National Right to Life to meet in St. Louis

National Right to Life, the nation's largest anti-abortion group, will celebrate its 30th anniversary by holding its national convention in St. Louis over the July 4 holiday.

At least 1,000 anti-abortion activists are expected to attend the three-day event, scheduled to run July 3-5 at the Hyatt Regency at Union Station.

"We hadn't been in St. Louis in 25 years," said national field coordinator Holly Miller. Citing the region's active anti-abortion groups, she added, "It seemed the right place to be."

The dozens of scheduled speakers include entertainer Ben Stein and commentator Michael Medved, both outspoken opponents of abortion. Appearances also are planned by Archbishop Justin Rigali and Missouri Secretary of State Matt Blunt, a Republican expected to run for governor next year.
[Full Story]

Midwives hoping to open free clinic

FORT WORTH - At the corner of Rosedale Street and New York Avenue, in an area where more babies die than in any other area in Tarrant County, six women have decided to take a stand.

All midwives and all accustomed to delivering babies in suburban houses in Euless, Grapevine and Keller, they are working to open a free clinic on Fort Worth's south side to treat pregnant women who are poor.
[Full Story]

This scientist is making an asteroid of himself and I will comet further

An asteroid which exploded like a nuclear bomb may have converted the Roman emperor Constantine to Christianity it is now being claimed.

Scientists have discovered an impact crater dating from the fourth of fifth century in the Italian Apennine mountains.

They believe the crater in the Sirente mountains, which is larger than a football field, could explain the legend of Constantine's conversion.

Accounts from the 4th century describe how barbarians stood at the gates of the Roman empire while a Christian movement threatened its stability from within.

It is said the emperor saw an amazing vision in the sky, converted to Christianity on the spot, and led his army to victory under the sign of the cross.

Swedish geologist Jens Ormo discovered the crater after spotting a photograph of an unusually round lake in Italy's Sirente-Velino Regional Park.

A visit to the site quickly identified several tell-tale features of an impact crater, New Scientist magazine reported.

The seasonal lake, 140 metres across, had a pronounced raised rim and no inlet or outlet, being filled by rainfall.

Ormo's team believe they were made when an asteroid about 10 metres in diameter shattered during entry into the atmosphere.

New Scientist said: "From the crater size, Ormo estimates that the impact had an explosive force of a kiloton - equivalent to a very small nuclear weapon. Indeed, it would have looked like a nuclear blast, with shock waves, earthquakes and a mushroom cloud."
[Full Story]

I would much prefer that these scientists totally doubt the legend of the sign that Constantine saw then to explain it away with this drivel. Let's see this might have happened in the fourth or fifth century and so a span of two hundred years can be tied directly to Constantine's purported vision. Maybe if he carried aloft a large mushroom cloud on a banner into battle this story could be plausible. But then again maybe Constantine misheard the Gospel of John and thought Jesus said "In my Father's house are many mushrooms."

Active female participation blah blah blah

Cherie Blair attacked the Roman Catholic Church last night for its failure to promote women.

The Prime Minister's wife voiced her disappointment that, although the Pope talked about acknowledging women, she noticed little feminine influence in the Vatican when she visited Rome this year with her husband.

What was she looking for, a giant bow atop St. Peter's dome or missalette doilies? If I was to walk into your average parish for daily Mass I would assume by the people there that the church is dominated by mainly older women and that as a man if you wanted to come into the church you would have to be elderly and wear a polyester habit kept up by suspenders. If I would look at the names of the people involved in the parish I would find it mainly dominated by female names. If anything the church in it's devotions and practices are more in the feminine direction. If men ran devotions we would have rosaries comprised of little baseballs/footballs and devotion to the Sacred Hands that knocked about the tables of the money sellers.

While there was greater involvement by lay people, Church leaders still ignored women's intelligence and leadership qualities, she said in the annual Tyburn lecture.

You know she's right, the institutional male dominated patriarchal church would never canonize someone with great intellectual abilities like Edith Stein - oh wait I guess that's St. Edith Stein. The Church is scared to death of brilliant women and fears female leaders and would never recognize women as Doctors of the Church, except of course St. Therese, St. Teresa of Avila, and St Catherine of Sienna. The most famous and recognized religious person in the world this last century was of course a man, Brother Teresa - though why people called him Mother and he looked like an old women is beyond me; but that male dominated church put him on the fast track for sainthood.

Her forthright comments will fuel the growing criticism that the Church's leadership is too conservative and will encourage liberal campaigners for the ordination of women as Catholic priests.

You just know they wouldn't be classified as forthright comments if she was presenting an orthodox view.

"There is still a sense in which some in the Church see women as the 'praying Church' and the 'working Church' but not the 'thinking Church'," said Mrs Blair.

"They are embraced as handmaidens but not as thinkers or leaders. Women are still seen as progressing the ideas of the masculine other in the Church rather than being acknowledged for what the 'feminine genius' can contribute in its own right to the Church.

This last two paragraphs are like a anti-mandelbrot set. At first looks it appears profound but as you zoom in closer for more detail the less intelligible it becomes.

"On my recent visit, I thought there could be greater scope for active female participation." Mrs Blair, a practising Catholic, made an historic trip to Rome earlier this year for a private meeting with Pope John Paul II.
[Full Story]

Pope taps Sheehan

Archbishop Michael Sheehan, credited with righting New Mexico's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese after a devastating priest sex abuse scandal a decade ago, is being asked to stabilize another trouble spot.

The Vatican has appointed Sheehan, head of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, as apostolic administrator of the troubled Diocese of Phoenix.

The archdiocese made the announcement early today after Pope John Paul II accepted the resignation of Bishop Thomas O'Brien of Phoenix, who has been charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
[Full Story]

Archbishop Michael Sheehan is a good choice to temporarily head up this troubled diocese. My prayers go out to him and the people of Phoenix.

Pray and you wil be filled with high quality indelible ink

Tucked away in the hills of Wisconsin is a group of monks who have decided that jumping on the imaging and printing bandwagon would be a financially rewarding way to support their monastery, the Cistercian Abbey.

Good-bye illuminated manuscripts, hello inkjets.

The business, which operates LaserMonks, offers up to 75 percent discounts for businesses and individuals on printing and imaging supplies, including toner cartridges, inkjet cartridges, refill kits, copier toner, even cash register ribbons.
[Full Story][www.lasermonks.com]

Be wary of this ossuary

At a press conference held this morning in Jerusalem, officials from the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced that an ancient stone box with the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," was a fake. The authority also determined that the "Joash inscription," a stone tablet with fifteen lines of ancient Hebrew detailing improvements at the Temple, was a forgery. Israel Insider reported details proving the ossuary a fake last November.

The inscriptions on both items were made "in the modern era," the Antiquities Authority announced.

The stone burial box, known as an ossuary, attracted international attention when the Biblical Archaeological Review announced its discovery and it was thought to be one of the oldest archaeological links to the biblical figures.

But doubts as to the ossuary's authenticity arose soon after the announcement. Excerpts like Rochelle I. Altman, writing for Israel Insider, determined that the inscription linking the ossuary to James was actually written by two different people, and the Jesus reference was apparently added later.
[Full Story]

Points of conversion

With all of the posts recently on Bishop O'Brien and the hit and run it has got me thinking about something that happened to me. I will not spill any internet ink on the case of Bishop O'Brien but will keep in my intentions the family of the man killed.

While serving on the U.S.S. Eisenhower (CVN-69) I use to ride my bike to and from work since it was only about five miles to the carrier pier. One morning I was riding to work when as I was coming to the end of a block I saw a car coming directly towards me from the right. The man in the car was speeding to get on the main road before traffic appeared and did not notice me. I calculated that there was no way that I could avoid getting hit and could take not action. In those seconds my whole life did not come before my eyes but only the sure thought that I was going to be killed.

The car hit me dead on and I went up onto the hood and then I guess knocked into the street. My first reaction was surprise, surprise that I was alive. Many people stopped and a crowd came to my assistance and to determine my condition. The driver that hit me pulled into the parking lot initially, but while people were paying attention to me he took off. A female Chief and a couple of other people put me in her car to drive me to the Navy clinic which was only about a mile away. I escaped any serious injury and ended up only with deep bruises and a bunch of cuts requiring stitches.

I count that day as a turning point in my life. Already some of the intellectual reasons for believing in God had come to my mind through various sources. This incident put things into perspective for me. Whether there was or wasn't a God became a serious question and not just an idle intellectual exercise. This also happened at the point in my life where I was doing everything I could to buttress my atheism intellectually. I was reading books on atheism and was delving into the writings of Ayn Rand. After the accident I realized that I had not been trying so much as to intellectualize my atheism but to revive my atheistic faith which I had already lost. It still took me another four years to find my way into the Catholic Church. I have never held any animosity towards this hit and run driver who was never caught and I can almost count myself thankful to him. God can bring good out of an evil act and even though I was metaphorically thrown down a well by my brothers I now say with Joseph "...you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good."

Code of Ethics

The diocese of Portland (Maine) has published a code of ethics

Some parts of it struck me, especially how sad that these items must be spelled out.

8. Discussing one's own sexual orientation, preferences or activities with minors or vulnerable adults is prohibited. Discussing celibacy in the context of the priestly or religious life is, however, appropriate.

You can see how effective the homosexual lobby has been when we now adopt their language such as sexual orientation.

3. Appropriate affection between Diocesan personnel and minors is often important for a child's development and is a positive part of Church life and ministry. The following forms of affection are regarded as appropriate examples for most Church sponsored and affiliated programs:

§ Normal Hugs.
§ Side, or shoulder to shoulder hugs.
§ Pats on the shoulder or back.
§ Handshakes.
§ "High-fives" and hand slapping.
§ Verbal praise.
§ Touching hands, faces, shoulders and arms of minors.
§ Holding hands while walking with small children.
§ Sitting beside small children.
§ Kneeling or bending down for hugs with small children.
§ Holding hands during prayer.
§ Pats on the head when culturally appropriate. (For example, this gesture should typically be avoided in some Asian or Muslim communities.)

4. The following are examples of contact that are

not to be used in Church sponsored and affiliated programs:

§ Inappropriate or lengthy hugs or embraces.
§ Kisses on the mouth.
§ Holding minors, above the approximate age of 5, on one's lap. Note: The holding of minors in one's lap should only be done in the context of consoling an obviously distressed child.
§ Touching buttocks, genital areas, or girl's chests.
§ Showing physical displays of affection in isolated areas of the premises such as bedrooms, closets, staff only areas, or other private rooms.
§ Sleeping in bed with a minor.
§ Touching knees or legs of minors, as a show of affection.
§ Wrestling with minors, except for legitimate sports coaching, in which case another adult should be present.
§ Tickling minors.
§ Piggyback rides.
§ Any type of massage given by minor to adult.
§ Any type of massage given by adult to minor.
§ Any display of unwanted affection.
§ Compliments that relate to sexual attractiveness or sexual development.

Bishops we deserve

Mark Shea in the past has posted that we get the bishops we deserve and he recently posted a quote from Scott Hahn:

"God's wrath, throughout history, basically means giving us what we want."

I can understand how this well might be true. When looking at the current scandals in the Church we see that some priests were moved around from parish to parish when it was known that they were fallen from their priestly vows. I would really doubt that Bishops moved these priests around because they wanted to cause scandal or to victimize parishioners so there obviously were other reasons.

1. God's grace and forgiveness and the ability to transform people is something Christians believe wholeheartedly and I can understand that with a seemingly repentant priest that a Bishop would take this in to account.

2. The science of psychology also played a factor where bishops relied on their diagnosis of fallen priests who had supposedly been rehabilitated, this also plays back on the first item. (See update at bottom)

3. Another factor I believe is the pressure of the shortage of priests. If there had been a large pool of priests available, would the Bishops then have acted more prudently and decided not to move these priest around. Would they have been less influenced by item 2 and have seen item 1 in it correct proportion as compared to protecting the laity?

This is where I believe the laity is complicit. I think the number one factor to the priestly shortage is the contraceptive attitude in Catholic families. Smaller families usually don't encourage vocations to priestly or religious life because of the desire of grandchildren. There is a selfishness in the desire to control family size so as to have more material gains. A larger family in and of itself is not the goal but the attitude of openess to life. The majority of Catholics practice some form of birth control which means that that same majority also receive communion. Since contraception is a grave sin they are in effect committing a "Real Sacrilege". The Catholic encyclopedia defines this as:

Real Sacrilege. Real sacrilege is the irreverent treatment of sacred things as distinguished from places and persons. This can happen first of all by the administration or reception of the sacraments (or in the case of the Holy Eucharist by celebration) in the state of mortal sin, as also by advertently doing any of those things invalidly.

The culture of dissent which mainly started against the Churches teaching on contraception has bore its rotten fruit. Many Catholic don't understand or believe that contraception is a grave sin so they might not be a culpable as to the level of mortal sin, but regardless this is a blight on the church that has blurred many eyes to the truth.

I can well understand the resistance to larger families that happens in our society. Before my conversion I was a card-carrying member of the culture of death. After the birth of our second child I went and had a vasectomy some 20 years ago. Even though I love our children I was selfish and indoctrinated in relation to family size. The seventies were loaded with doom and population bomb thinking. I did not believe in God but I believed in replacement levels for a population equilibrium. I thought well we have two children, one boy and one girl - a matched set and I have bagged my quota. People talk of trophy wives and I think our society views children as either trophies or something you should have just as long as they are not too many of them, especially since they consume resources better spent on yourself. There was absolutely nothing coming from society saying I should question my decision or that there was any ethical dimension to this. In a distorted way I also thought that by getting a vasectomy that I was showing commitment to my wife by showing that I only planned to have children by her and that I was saving her from having to get an operation or to take the pill. While I have done much that has weighed down on my soul, the consequences of this act of self-multilation weighs the heaviest.

With Catholics getting divorced and remarried at roughly the same rate as non-Catholics and with Catholics in general not being open to life then why should we be surprised at the priests and then bishops this culture can generate. We expect to go on living highly secular lives and to do what we please and define our own truths and then also to expect holy priests and bishops. There is a saying that "Holy priests make holy people and that holy people make holy priests. The real surprise is not that there are some bad bishops, but that despite the lack of faithfulness that we have so many good bishops.

Update: I updated point two since I was hasty and used an overly broad brush on psychology. I stand corrected and defer to Gregory Popcak's statement he made in the comments. That clericalism was also tied up in some of these treatment centers which were run by clergy.

Opus Dei the new boogeyman

Had John J. Myers become Newark archbishop a few weeks sooner, he could have witnessed the terrifying collapse of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, from the tower of Sacred Heart Cathedral.

He took over as head of the nation's seventh-largest Roman Catholic archdiocese while his new territory was still under the pall of the fires smoldering across the Hudson River. He found a flock dazed with grief, searching for answers.

...For those looking for answers, his is a voice of clarity.

For those seeking change, it is the voice of adversity.

Above all, say both his critics and his supporters -- Myers is the voice of Catholic orthodoxy, a man deeply and unapologetically committed to the Vatican hard-line.

...Already he has restricted eulogies at the funeral Mass, banished reform groups from church property and reiterated that anyone who even favors discussion of abortion, noncelibate priests, women's ordination, homosexuality or other hot-button issues is "not fully with the Catholic Church."

None of this should be a surprise coming from a man who is the highest-ranking American churchman affiliated with Opus Dei, an influential and deeply conservative Roman Catholic group that has been praised by Pope John Paul II and denounced by its critics as highly secretive and elitist.

Everyone needs to look under their beds as night to make sure there aren't any Opus Dei members hiding about.

...He has been praised for his support of priests, but condemned for his handling of the ongoing sex scandal. His financial acumen has been described as "impressive," but his grasp of urban demographics and public relations have been called "seriously wanting."
[Full Story]

The understanding of urban demographics is preeminent for a Bishop. Remember when Jesus asked Peter. "Simon, son of John, do Do you understand urban demographics more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I understand urban demographics." He said to him, "Then do gant charts." A second time he said to him, "Simon, son of John, do you understand urban demographics?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I understand urban demographics." He said to him, "Tend my pie charts" He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do understand urban demographics?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you understand urban demographics?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I understand urban demographics." Jesus said to him, "Then do a Powerpoint presentation.

Memorial dedicated to unborn babies

IRONTON -- Abortion may be legal, but it isn’t moral, said the Most Rev. Daniel Conlon, bishop of the diocese of Steubenville.

Conlon dedicated a memorial Saturday morning to the unborn in the yard beside St. Lawrence O’Toole church in Ironton. He accepted an invitation from the Knights of Columbus council 1405 in Ironton to bless the memorial as a symbol of the local Catholic community’s opposition to abortion.

"Life is a gift from God," Conlon said. "Many people have (had abortions) and turned their backs on God. Life is precious."
[Full Story]

Leftover humans or I thought I thaw you at the clinic

For the first time, it's now known how many frozen human embryos created for infertility treatments are being stored in the United States -- 400,000, twice as high as previous estimates.

Many of the embryos will not survive the thawing process but, as the number of "leftovers" left in freezers continues to rise, there are calls to minimize embryo production, put limits on storage time, and to have couples donate the embryos for use in research or for the infertility treatment of other couples.

The last choice has been embraced by the federal government, which is spending $1 million to foster public awareness of the "embryo-adoption" option for infertile couples.

...Lori A. Marshall, MD, head of reproductive endocrinology at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, said one point lost in the debate is how many of the embryos actually have the potential to develop into a child.

"I think that's a misperception: that 400,000 embryos means there could be 400,000 people out there," she said. "About 35% don't survive the thawing process."

Okay so there could be 260,000 more people and 140,000 who died in the process. But actually the death count rises since they implant multiple embryos and hope that at least one survives.

..There is not much complaint about the program's goal, just its use of the word "adoption," which in some people's minds politicizes the process.

"The use of the term 'adoption' is loaded," Dr. Murphy said. "It suggests that there is a recognizable human being in ethics and law, and that's disputable."
[Full Story]

Words are used as armour to protect people from truths they would rather not think about. If the truth is bothersome lets call the word loaded or that it politicizes the process. lets not discuss the fact that we have callously frozen human beings and put them into freezers to eventually die or if they are lucky to be experimented on by modern Dr. Josef Mengeles to see if they can find anything useful to do with their little carcasses.

Only in California

What normally is a legislative slam-dunk – a resolution honoring dads for Father's Day – turned into a debate on "alternative lifestyles" in the California state Assembly.

According to a report in the Stockton Record, Republicans this week either withheld their support of voted against the resolution because it focused on "nontraditional" dads, including families with two fathers.

...The resolution, sponsored by lesbian Democratic Assemblywoman Christine Kehoe, mentions stepfathers, foster fathers, single fathers and families headed by two fathers, the paper reports. However, it fails to cite traditional fathers who are married to the mother of their children.
[Full Story]

Cardinal Mahony critical of Gov. Keating's statement

LOS ANGELES (AP) One of the most powerful Roman Catholic leaders in the nation said in an interview published Friday that he may ask fellow bishops to consider removing former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating as head of a national panel reviewing priest abuse allegations.

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony said he was outraged by a statement that Keating made this week comparing some unnamed members of the church heirarchy to the Mafia.

''All I can say is, from the bishops I've listened to and several called me this morning this is the last straw,'' Mahony told the Los Angeles Times. ''To make statements such as these I don't know how he can continue to have the support of the bishops. I don't know how you back up from this.''

The bishops meet next week in St. Louis, and Mahony told the newspaper he is considering raising the question of whether Keating, a former FBI agent and federal prosecutor, should remain in his appointed role as head of the National Review Board.

Keating had told the Times earlier this week: ''I certainly have concluded that a number of serious officials in my faith have very clay feet. To act like La Cosa Nostra and hide and suppress, I think, is very unhealthy.'
[Full Story]

I don't think Keating's statement was that over the top. He was not comparing some members of the episcopacy to the Mafia but to one specific behavior of the Mafia. It might not have been a prudent statement but I think that Cardinal Mahony doth protests too much. This reporter needs an editor or a spellchecker since he misspelled hierarchy. Maybe a heirarchy is where you are governed by your relatives.

Your crazy, you need to see a Psychiatrist. Oh, you are a psychiatrist.

(CNSNews.com) - In a step critics charge could result in decriminalizing sexual contact between adults and children, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) recently sponsored a symposium in which participants discussed the removal of pedophilia from an upcoming edition of the psychiatric manual of mental disorders.

Psychiatrists attending an annual APA convention May 19 in San Francisco proposed removing several long-recognized categories of mental illness - including pedophilia, exhibitionism, fetishism, transvestism, voyeurism and sadomasochism - from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
[Full Story]

Hush, little baby don't say a word. Nurse will adhevise tape you so you can't be heard

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German nurse driven to distraction by the wails of a newborn baby, used sticking adhesive bandages to pacify it, a hospital in the western city of Kassel said on Thursday.

The shocked parents discovered the four-day-old boy in the post-natal ward with a pacifier taped to his mouth.

The nurse, who has since been moved from the children's ward, has admitted responsibility and will be disciplined, the hospital said.

"She just made a mistake," a hospital spokeswoman told Reuters. The child was unharmed in the incident.
[Full Story]

If the hospital consider this to be "just a mistake", I wonder what it would take for something to be considered serious.

Parody of Matthew

Here is an article on the historicity of the Gospel of Matthew which contains.

...In an essay written for the book Passover and Easter: Origin and History to Modern Times, Israel J. Yuval of Jerusalem's Hebrew University reported a find in the Talmud that appears to show Matthew could have been written earlier than some scholars contend.

Yuval wrote that a leading rabbinical scholar of the time was "considered to have authored a sophisticated parody of the Gospel according to Matthew."

The parody, written by a rabbi known as Gamaliel, is believed by some well-respected liberal Christian scholars to have been written about A.D. 73 or earlier.

The fact the parody exists and the date when it was believed to be written "would undercut badly (biblical critics') claims of a late date of A.D. 85-90 or later," said Bob Newman, professor of New Testament at Biblical Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.

Interesting, yet with phrases like "reported to find", "considered to have", and "believed by some" it doesn't sound very convincing; not that I need any convincing on Matthew but it would be a good apologetics tool if true.

What, I can't make myself a Bishop?

The Catholic Church has excommunicated a priest who tried to have himself made a bishop without the Pope's permission.

Wollongong Bishop Peter Ingham announced the excommunication of Father Malcolm Broussard - a follower of the Little Pebble cult - and any Catholic who adheres to him.

But the Little Pebble, William Kamm, said yesterday the excommunication was invalid and revealed plans to sue the church for "defamation, religious persecution and . . . other things".
[Full Story

This doomsday cult goes under the name of Our Lady of the Ark and operates in Australia. Little pebble must be the mistranslation that some people use of the Greek word used when Jesus refers to Peter as the rock. Father Malcolm Broussard goes under the name "Little Bartholomew." If they have a little Pebble I wonder if there is also a little Bam Bam or maybe this is a Robin Hood themed cult and I wonder who Little John might be. Since this is a doomsday cult they might have a Little Chicken or Chicken Little. Maybe they do readings from "Little Men" and "Little Women". That is enough I will belittle them no further.

Obedience

Shawn of Rerum Novarum has done an excellent series of posts on obedience.

One of my favorite stories on obedience is that of Fr. Regis Scanlon is where he was told by his superior that it was okay to dissent from the Pope and that he didn't have to be obedient to him. The next time his superior told him to do something he told him "I dissent from you." Normally those that teach dissent are not okay with people dissenting from them.

Floridian saint?

He may have done much of his life's work elsewhere, but the story of Felix Varela is a source of pride for the Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine.

Varela, a 19th-century Cuban priest who lived in St. Augustine as a child and later retired and was temporarily buried there, is on the road to possible sainthood today with the presentation of an official church document on his life to Victor Galeone, bishop of the diocese.

"Hometown boy makes good" is how Galeone described Varela's recognition. Although he died 150 years ago, Varela remains a popular figure, Galeone said.

...Varela returned to St. Augustine when his health deteriorated toward the end of his life to escape the cold of New York winters. He died in the city and was buried there until 1911, when his body was returned to Cuba.
[Full Story]

Cool, this is my home diocese and what could be more appropriate for Florida then a possible saint who moved here when they were older.

Fetal harvest

A SYDNEY company is involved in a secret plan to collect tissue from aborted babies and export it for medical experiments.

The sensitive proposal, to harvest some of the 90,000 foetuses aborted in Australia each year has been condemned by pro-life groups for fostering an international trade in human body parts.

The Daily Telegraph has established that a Dutch bio-tech company, Crucell, working through a Sydney contract research organisation, Parexel International, has applied to the ethics committee of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide for access to foetal material.
[Full Story]

Cultural redefinition

Colin Dwyer has no regrets about banishing 300 senior students from the school grounds for two days last week.

Speaking the day after addressing a 90-minute meeting of more than 400 parents, the principal of Canberra's best-known Catholic college, St Edmunds, said there was already a "marked improvement" in student behaviour.

But, he concedes, some might see his actions as "drastic". And, with hindsight, he probably would have done things a little differently.

...A suggestion that a cultural change consultant be appointed was yet to be considered. But parents made it clear at the meeting that they wanted to be consulted before future decisions were made.

...Staff, parents and students would now embark on a process of "cultural redefinition", the principal said.
[Sydney Morning Herald, Australia]

Where do you go to school to become a "cultural change consultant" to perform "cultural redefinition"?

Group Protests Townsend As Graduation Speaker

BETHESDA, Md. -- Former Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has been keeping a low profile since losing the race for the governor's office last fall -- but that may be changing.

She is scheduled to give a graduation address Wednesday at the all-girls Catholic high school in Bethesda that she attended as a teenager, but her critics are planning a protest rally outside the ceremonies.

They said Townsend is a poor role model for Catholic women because of her pro-choice views. But officials at the Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart said Townsend's political stances were not part of the decision to invite her to speak. They said she will not be discussing abortion during her remarks.
[Full Story]

So I guess it would be okay to invite a white supremacist as long as they didn't speak about racism.

Ton of Clinton

The last couple of days of news coverage kind of reminded me of the Old MacDonald song. Here a Clinton, there a Clinton, everywhere a Clinton... I can hardly wait for the hoopla both positive and negative to ho away on Hillary's book. It was reported the other day that Bill Clinton advised the NYT not to fire Howell Raines and now there is a story that he called Sammy Sosa to sympathize with him for negative coverage. Can Bill Clinton not keep himself from being involved in everything to always trying to make it about him? The other day Gerard Serafin of A Catholic Blog for Lovers posted a story of various religious beliefs including Kennedy Worshippers. There is also now a religion called Clintholicism, of course Bill belongs to the branch described as Woman Clintholicism.

Hamburgers, Hotdogs, and Rock n' Roll

HEALTH watchdogs last night blasted an “irresponsible” new pop song that glorifies fast food.

The lyrics continually repeat the names of chains like McDonald’s.

Diet experts fear the song will encourage kids to eat unhealthily

...Frontman Martin Roycroft and pals sing “McDonald’s, McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut”, and “I want it I need it, Nothing else can beat it”.

I don't know what to say about a band (Fast Food Rockers) that dresses as a kind of futuristic/retro fast food servers with a mascot called hotdog.

Catholic HEART Work Camp

What are your kids doing on their vacation? A few hundred are spending part of their summer in the Low Country around Beaufort County, but not on the beaches, golf courses or tennis courts. Instead, they're working hard and making a difference. These teenagers are lending a helping hand, and making a big difference for Ruby Singleton, as they repair her home.

"The porch and in the outside, they're doing a beautiful job," she said.

These high schoolers are among nearly 350 teenagers throughout the country who are dedicating their time and energy this week to helping beautify the Low Country as part of the Catholic HEART Work Camp. It's week-long camp, in which teenagers like Lauren Lassiter from Nashville, Tennessee, come to make a difference.
[Full Story]

Hear Kitty Kitty

A German acoustics expert has invented a hearing aid for cats.

The tiny device, which is implanted in the cat's outer ear, was developed by Hans-Rainer Kurz, who has already had success with a similar aid for dogs.

Although Mr Kurz admits the device will not cure totally deaf cats he says it will help those with severe hearing difficulties.
[Full Story]

It has a special filament resonator precisely attuned to only hear the sound of can openers and to ignore the human voice, just like in real cat ears.

We need More like him

Good article on St. Thomas More and Modern Martyrdom in the Seattle Catholic.

Counsels on Discipline and Love

Steven Riddle of Flos Carmeli posts about St. John of the Cross and some of his Counsels on Discipline and Love. Some excellent insights into this great saint's words.

Post-abortion counseling

Here is a judgmental article on how abortion (which isn' wrong after all) counseling shouldn't be judgmental.

When it comes to abortion, the issue is most often seen as a black-or-white, right-and-wrong, us-against-them political debate.

Aspen Baker realized this several years ago when she went to a bookstore looking for medical information after she had an abortion. What she found surprised her: all the books on abortion were in the politics section of the store, not the women's health section.

This article talks about a counseling service called Exhale which describes itself.

"We're not a political organization and we're not a pro-choice organization," Baker says adamantly. However, counselors must be committed to reproductive freedom and are screened on their ability to provide non-judgmental support to all callers, especially in regards to callers whose decisions fall outside social norms, such as callers who are young or have had several abortions.

Exhale runs off two truths, Baker says: Abortion is legal and abortion is normal.

Yep, that sure is my definition of a group that is not pro-choice. Abortion as reproductive freedom and stating that it is normal could easily be confused with the pro-life platform.
[Full Story][Exhale News]

Counter-Revolutionary John Paul II

Will they seek a clone of the autocratic Polish Pope who has sat on the throne of Peter for the past 25 years, or look to the reforming vision of a Pope who died 40 years ago this month?

One Pope started a revolution, the other initiated a counter-revolution.

The big question for the Catholic Church in the 21st century is which papal blueprint to opt for?

Will it be the Roncalli model or the Wojtyla model?

I wonder if future historians might think that there were two John Paul IIs, one who is autocratic and overbearing and the other a liberal progressive. Either description is hopelessly inept.

...The publication of Humanae Vitae in July 1968 was to prove a watershed for millions of Catholics.

For many, it meant conscience prevailing over blind obedience to church authority.

Today, astonishingly, John Paul II still insists on obedience to the teaching of Humanae Vitae

I love that the pope sticking to church teaching is described as "astonishingly."

...By a Pope who is an autocrat, and for whom the world's bishops are merely glorified altar boys, or by a Pope who sits in a college with these same bishops, exercising collegial rule as primus inter pares?

Someone send this reporter a thesaurus so that he can find other words than autocrat. The rest of the article isn't worth digesting since it just goes on about the marginalization of woman by not ordaining them and the issues of married clergy becoming the norm.

It takes a pillage

As a pundit it is required by contract to put in my two cents on Hillary's auto-by-proxy biography "Living History." I am surprised that an avowed feminist she did not do the silly substitution and name it "Living Herstory." Of course from what has been released so for it would be most aptly called "Revising History." It is rumored that making of Ghostbuster 3 was put off because of the large number of ghosts employed as writers by Hillary.

If the New York Times wants to do damage control on their reputation by accurately portraying the news, they would put her book on the New York Times best sellers list under fiction. It makes you wonder if Jayson Blair was not one of her ghostwriters. He could have fit right into myth making based on historical events.

Now obviously I have no intention to read her book and find out how she reacted to her husband's infidelity and how the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (now changed to network) perverted the constitution and unfairly dogged them. Or how she couldn't get health care reform through a Democratic Congress and Senate with her husband as President. For a feminist role model to portrays herself as hopelessly naive when it came to Monica and also as a victim of political action just doesn't ring true.

It is said that Hillary has a polarizing effect. I can agree with that since I feel like a political electron flying through the circuity of the government towards negative pole. Her political views are much the same as other liberals in her party so I shouldn't be more upset at her than to any other Democrat. But she greatly annoys me from what I perceive as elitism and willing to do anything to achieve an end to help out is ignorant little people. So while I greatly disagree with her views I try not to resort to name calling, though it has taken much self-control.

New Bishop for Boston?

BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- A new leader for the Archdiocese of Boston, rocked last year by a clergy sexual abuse crisis that reverberated throughout the Catholic Church, may be selected as early as this week, and the bishop of Pittsburgh is seen as the front-runner, The Boston Globe reported Sunday.
[Full Story]

Voice of the Bureaucrats

EWTON -- Vowing to change the church from the ground up, one parish at a time, 300 members of the lay Catholic group Voice of the Faithful met in Newton yesterday to draft a ''blueprint for change,'' saying Boston's new archbishop cannot solve the problems of the archdiocese alone.

Wow a whopping 300, next they can go to D.C. with the 0.0003 millionth Man March.

...Still, some members spoke of progress, and suggested policies to promote safe church environments. One plan, developed by Concord Area Voice of The Faithful members, recommends that parishes each form two new councils, one to oversee staffing decisions, and another to write policies on safety and act on abuse allegations.

Yes forming new parish councils and more bureaucratic control will really reduce the failure of a small amount of priests; just look what it had done for the Federal Government. The problem with VOTF is that they are not grounded in the Catholic belief of personal sanctity and prayer, they believe that the Holy Spirit sits in at board meetings.
[Full Story][Via Domenico Bettinelli ]

Father of 10 to become Father to more

DENVER (AP) - John O'Shea came close to retiring to Florida after his wife's death six years ago. Instead, at 69, the father of 10 and former deputy police chief is now embarking on his fourth career: a Roman Catholic priest.

O'Shea, one of four new priests ordained Saturday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, is the only active priest with children in the Archdiocese of Denver.

''I didn't plan any of it - it happened,'' said O'Shea. ''God is so good to me. I don't know if I can measure up.
[Full Story]

New and improved ultra-orthodoxy

Here is some real objective reporting on the Legion of Christ by Newsweek; or in this case News-weak.

Rise of the Catholic Right

For a sense of the new forces stirring inside Mexico today, consider the Legion of Christ. The once obscure religious order, founded 62 years ago in the basement of a Mexico City town house, ranks as the world’s fastest-growing branch of Roman Catholicism. It attracts more recruits to the church’s aging priesthood than any other Catholic congregation on the planet, per capita. The legion’s ultra-orthodox doctrine mirrors that of Pope John Paul II, and its influence reaches into the highest echelons of Mexico’s business and political elites.

This demonstrates the problems with secular writers covering religion and in most cases some basic background information is not even looked for. Calling the Legion of Christ a branch of the Church shows that misunderstanding. The use of the term ultra-orthodox means absolutely nothing. If orthodox means adhering to the accepted or traditional and established faith then how can you adhere toward it extremely. You are either orthodox in your belief or you are not.

There is a darker, even somewhat medieval side to the Legion of Christ. Former members of the order say that young seminarians to this day are required to practice self-flagellation as a way of atoning for their sins; many wear an uncomfortable device around their thighs to discourage so-called impure thoughts. Legion officials have reportedly hired private detectives to snoop on some of their own priests. In a 1997 investigative report in a U.S newspaper, nine ex-legionnaires accused Maciel himself of sexual abuse, a charge he has indignantly denied. That same article revealed the Vatican had absolved Maciel of similar charges in an investigation in the 1950s.
[Full Story]

Nice use of sliding "so-called" in before "impure thoughts", a good technique in objective reporting. Even before as an atheist I would never had slid so-called before my decidedly impure thoughts, I knew they were impure. This reporter would probably have written Jesus' words as " But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman with so-called lust has already committed so-called adultery with her in his heart."

Chant and Rant

An article from Adoramus called What's so Sacred about Sacred Music?

Today at Mass for the most part the music selected was truly sacred music and the singing and accompaniment by organ was professionally done. The only exception was that they sang "Shine, Jesus, Shine", and even though it was done in four part harmony, artistic performance could not overcome the songs "show tune" like qualities. I ponder what Jesus might say in reaction to the "Shine, Jesus, Shine" chorus of this song. Perhaps it might be "I will wash your feet but your shoes you must shine yourself."

Witness to Pope

A good article on George Weigel's talk on Pope John Paul II in Milwaukee.

Random thought

Could the religious right be considered as kneel-cons?

We have issues

Here is an update on the group that was holding Mass in a Elk's club.

FRAMINGHAM -- The First Parish in Framingham, where Temple Beth Am first met and First Baptist Church of Framingham was formed, is again opening its doors to a religious group seeking a home.

..."All are welcome at the alternate Catholic Mass offered by married priests, including those with issues regarding clergy sexual abuse, divorce/remarriage, interfaith marriage, birth control, sexual orientation, abortion and disillusionment regarding the political agenda of the hierarchy," Haggett said. (emphasis added)
[Full Story]

Well that is apt, they are already well on their way to Protestantism anyway. I wonder if they all wear mitres since they have all elected themselves popes. Maybe there is a traffic jam of popemobiles leaving after the services.

Learn to juggle

Here is a cool juggling simulator that helps to teach you how to juggle.

When I was in high school I tried out for a part in a play based on Commedia dell Arte a type of comedy popular in Italy in the 1500s and 1600s, performed by specialty troupes who improvised on stock characters in stock situations. One of the character had to juggle so I taught myself how to juggle. I didn't get the part but I still can juggle three items.

St. Leonie Aviat's Second Miracle

Cool story on the result of a novena

Cristo Rey

For years Rosa Malcangi stashed away small amounts of money in a pressure cooker, waiting for the day she could do something special with the last of her savings.

On Tuesday, the 93-year-old Lansing woman unveiled a $21,000 gift for the Cristo Rey Community Center: a 5-foot, 750-pound granite statue of Jesus Christ titled "Christ the King."

Malcangi, an Italian immigrant who has owned her northside home for 67 years, wanted to reward Cristo Rey for being a good neighbor. The Christ figure, with arms outspread, sits above the center's main sign on its front lawn along High Street.

Cristo Rey means Christ the King in Spanish.
[Full Story]

Convent-ional humor

The sermon went on and on, and a little boy in the front row started talking during Mass.

Sister Adelle told the child sitting next to her to go up and tell him to keep quiet.

The boy dutifully walked up to the front, then past the boy in the first row and up to the lectern. There he told the priest, "Sister said you should stop talking."

...Sister Mary Adelle intended to speak to just one boy who was fooling around during Mass when she leaned forward and said in a loud whisper, "Neil!"

Immediately, the whole class knelt, she reported.

The idea for the book came from stories sisters shared about their exploits in the classroom around dining-room tables and in Christmas letters the sisters from different residences mailed to one another.

Most of the stories are from sisters in the 420-member Christ the King Province headquartered in Chardon, but Notre Dame nuns from around the country responded to Glavich's e-mail for anecdotes
[Full Story]

Save the (small amount of) Children

neocon of Effectus Geminus - Double Effect has an interesting but sad post called SAVE THE CHILDREN!... by annihilating them.

Holy Cards on acid

Brother Michael O'Neill McGrath has a series of Holy Kardz (his spelling). Some of them just freak me out.

St. Patrick looks like such a doofus.

I can't even describe the look on the face of Saint Athanasius

Legionaries of Christ to build university

MOUNT PLEASANT — A fast-growing order of Roman Catholic priests that is known for its strict orthodoxy and favorite-son status at the Vatican has proposed building an elite liberal arts university in Thornwood.

Westchester University, its working name, would be a proudly conservative Catholic institution, but open to all. Plans call for the Legionaries of Christ to break ground in 2006 and to develop graduate and undergraduate programs for about 3,000 students in five phases over 30 years.

The Legionaries, a relatively young order founded in Mexico in 1941, already run 11 institutions of higher education around the world. They recently announced plans for their first American university in Sacramento, Calif
[Full Story]

The C-SPAN miracle

Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review relays of story of Sen. Santorum after the 1998 vote on partial birth abortion to try to override the President's veto.

….And we finished up the Senate and closed it down, and the next day the vote came, [and] not one vote changed. But five days later, I got an e-mail from a young man at Michigan State University. And this is what the e-mail said: "Senator, on Thursday night I was watching television with my girlfriend. We were flipping through the channels and we saw you standing there on the floor of the United States Senate with a picture of a baby next to you. And so we listened for a while and the more we listened the more we got interested in what you were saying. After a while I looked down at my girlfriend, and she had tears running down her face. And I asked her what was wrong, and she looked up at me and said, 'I'm pregnant, and tomorrow I was going to have an abortion, and I wasn't going to tell you, but I'm not going to have an abortion now.' "

In April of that year, a little girl was born and given up for adoption. She is four years old today. Now according to the world, when I spoke on the floor of the Senate that night, I had failed. I did not succeed. But God gave me a gift that many of you as you stand and fight the causes that you believe in may never get, He gave me the gift of knowing that faithfulness to what you believe in can lead to wonderful acts and wonderful miracles.
[Full Story]

Spike wants to spike Spike TV

NEW YORK (AP) -- Filmmaker Spike Lee has sued Viacom Inc. over plans to rename its TNN cable channel Spike TV as part of its campaign to attract male viewers.

...Viacom bought TNN in 2000, and said in April that it would change the channel's name to Spike TV on June 16 in an attempt to increase the number of men in an audience that is already about two-thirds male. It said on Tuesday that it was confident the court would reject Lee's claims to the name Spike.
[Full Story]

Beer flavored ice cream

Newcastle Brown Ale flavoured ice cream was launched on Tuesday by Doddington Dairies, and will only be available during the summer months.

The makers say the handmade ice cream reflects the region's identity, and was even handed out to the European Capital of Culture 2008 judges on their last visit.
[Full Story]

Sign of the end times

John da Fiesole of Disputations does some hilarious captions for a series of illustrations.

Crucicell

W hat would Jesus do if he knew that a church in Lakeway had disguised the new cell phone tower on church grounds to look like a 125-foot cross?

Simple. Because of the improved reception, he'd buy a new cell phone. Then, because it's Lakeway, a golfing community, he'd get a new set of clubs and a cart.

...Some of the neighbors who agree with McCabe that his new cross/cell tower is like sewage have called the church to complain. He said one woman was extremely concerned. "The first complaint is that it's going to radiate her," he said. Maybe so, but at least now her phone won't break up when she calls the hospital.
[Full Story]

Here is their web site (which does not have a picture of the new cross/cell tower). Now you might think it is improper to have a cross/cell tower but remember the words of Jesus to the rich young man "If you want to be perfect Cell all you have."

Here is a inadvertent heretical statement at their site.

The Eucharistic Ministers at Emmaus become the Body of Christ at the Eucharist and in return for this great gift share it with the rest of the community so that we may all become one in Him.

Instead of the Host the EEMs become the body of Christ? I wonder if as you walk up you just politely bite off a piece of ear lobe or an offered finger. They must have a high turnaround of EEMs there.

Dance the rite away

Samantha Melendez, 15, dances with the Borinquen Dance Theatre during the Lord’s Prayer at the 13th annual Caribbean Mass St. Monica Church, 831 Genesee St., Sunday afternoon.

(June 2, 2003) — Borinquen Dance Theatre dancers moved to the beat of a steel drum band.

Worshipers read biblical lessons in Spanish, French and English -- the three languages spoken on the Caribbean islands.

No matter the language or music, the message was clear at the 13th annual Caribbean Mass.
[Full Story]

I've complained about hand-holding during the Our Father but this takes the cake. Liturgical dance and a steel drum band together, wow.

NATIONAL CONFERENCE of CATHOLIC BISHOPS, all dancing, (ballet, children's gesture as dancing, the clown liturgy) are not permitted to be "introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever." [NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS (BISHOPS' COMMITTEE on the LITURGY) NEWSLETTER. APRIL/MAY 1982.]

Most people don't know it that there is one exception allowed all throughout the Church; on Sundays and other holy days of obligation; attendance.

Random thoughts

Is dieting a form of girth control? If it is, can you space your meals for a good and valid reason as long as you don't have a contradigestive attitude?

Is a story on a slow news day braking news?

We judge Father Geoghan to be clinically quite safe to resume his pastoral ministry

An article in The New Yorker on How the Church used psychiatry to care for—and protect—abusive priests

That they may be one refrigerator

...As a sacramental church, we look for effective signs of our union. Oddly, the strongest "sacrament" of our union is found not in our worship space, but in our kitchen. For years, our double-sized fridge with its two sliding-glass doors had two sides, the Anglican side and the Lutheran side, holding Anglican cream and Lutheran pickles and only occasionally an ecumenical cake. Down the counter a few metres were the separate Anglican and Lutheran coffee cupboards, containing different coffee brands and cookie packages (it is probably just a matter of taste, but the Anglicans had better coffee, while the Lutherans were much more adventurous cookie purchasers). We now have a very catholic fridge, in which everything belongs to all. Even better, our shared coffee cupboard stands side by side with an equally ecumenical, and particularly well-stocked, cookie and snack cupboard. This is the fruit of the Waterloo Declaration at its most immediate.
[Full Story]

This could have chilling effects on ecumenism.

Letters of St. Augustine

This letter of St. Augustine which denounced a little known heresy practiced during his time has recently been uncovered. This had previously been confused with a better known work Against the Manichees.

Against the Manikins

You say that Christ did not come in the flesh but only appeared as an animated manikin. That the purity of God could not be merged with sinful flesh and thus only appeared exteriorly to be human. You claim that God being spirit could not be incarnated as man or woman but could only have the non-distinguishing sexual appearance of a manikin. That Christ could only walk on walk because his body was in fact lighter than water. You err grievously both in your understanding of Holy Scripture and of our redemption. If Christ did not come in the flesh than the sacrifice was of no avail. If he did not shed true blood and did not share our nature than we our still in our sins. If Christ truly came as a manikin then only those stoic non moving personages in department stores are saved. The Apostle John said "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father." Christ after the resurrection said "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have." Jesus himself taught "he who eats of my flesh will have eternal life" he did not say "he who eats of my hardened plastic body like appendages will have eternal life." You mistake our sinful will as being equated with being in the flesh. When God created the world and Adam and Eve he said that all he had created was good. You ignore the whole of scripture and only quote St. Paul saying " those who are in the flesh cannot please God." Repent of your heresy which is of no avail to your salvation and remember that Christ was like us in all things but sin.

Catholic Light

Catholic Light has moved to then own server and our now using Movable Type for blog publishing. So update your bookmarks to http://catholiclight.stblogs.org/.

Sal Ravilla also has a good story on a parish's tabernacle placement. Everybody seems to be coming out of the closet these days.

Kernels of truth?

Here are excerpts from an interesting graduation speech.

Monsignor John J. Bendik, pastor of St. John's Church and vice president of the Board of Pastors of Seton Catholic, delivered the homily during liturgy and reminded the graduates of their transformation - physically, intellectually, spiritually and socially - throughout the past four years.

Monsignor Bendik compared the graduates' situation to a bag of popping corn. While some kernels are transformed into popcorn, others remain apparently unchanged by the process.

He advised graduates that even the unpopped kernels, having a purpose, can be planted and will eventually produce a plant.

The following would probably give Nihil Obstat a coronary.

Monsignor Bendik lightheartedly referred to his "special prayer" and "motto," telling the graduates, "Be what you is, because if you be what you ain't, you ain't what you is."

Bravo to this parish priest

Paris - A French couple has been refused a religious wedding ceremony by the Catholic church because they said they did not want to have children, Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper reported on Sunday.

The pair - named only as Anne and Christophe - told the parish priest in Saint-Remi de Forbach in northeastern France that they were afraid of passing on a nervous disorder from which Anne suffered.

"However, it was not a genetic illness. It posed a real problem because what they said is incompatible with canon law," said Philippe Hiegel, spokesperson for the Metz diocese.

In the Catholic marriage ceremony bride and groom must declare that they intend to have children and that they accept the "responsibility of spouse and parent," church officials told the paper.
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