Return

John Betts of Just Your Average Catholic Guy is back after a three month hiatus.

Church to fortify Catholic education

Joe Galluzzo counts himself among the survivors of some of the fluffy religious education innovations of the 1970s and '80s.

"My Catholic education was not as well-grounded as some of the programs that we're involved with right now," the self-described baby boomer said.

While Galluzzo took matters into his own hands and enrolled in an archdiocesan school for adults, national church leaders hope imminent changes will mean other Catholics won't have to.

Content-light programs for children that came into vogue after Vatican II -- games instead of memorization, crafts instead of indoctrination -- are out. Replacing them: new classes for kids and for adults who need to learn basic doctrine.

It's a "huge shift," said Bishop Richard J. Malone, a regional bishop in the Archdiocese of Boston who serves on the national committee dealing with the changes. "We're trying desperately to get at the notion that this whole thing of religious education and formation is not just something for children -- it is a lifelong process."
[Full Story]

Courts will examine contraceptive laws

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — If you don't believe in the law, do you have to follow it?

That's the question before courts in New York and California, which are being asked to exempt branches of the Catholic Church from state laws requiring contraceptives be included in employee prescription drug plans. Under church doctrine, contraception is a sin.

"The Catholic Church explicitly teaches that artificial contraception is morally unacceptable and, if knowingly and freely engaged in, sinful," Catholic Charities of Sacramento attorney James Sweeney said.

After California's law was enacted in 2000, the group unsuccessfully sought a court ruling to bar the law from being enforced on the church's charity outreach programs. A state appeals court also denied the church relief. Now the California Supreme Court is set to hear the case Dec. 2

... An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union argued that siding with the Catholics would, in essence, impose the church's doctrine on thousands of non-Catholic women who work at the church's hospitals or social-service agencies.
[Full Story]

But I guess it is okay by the ACLU to enforce a secular doctrine on thousands of Catholics working in Catholic Charities and other Catholic organizations. I am glad to see Catholic Charities fighting this unjust law. I had wondered when they first passed the law whether they would respond.

Advent

As a beginning of a new church year starts I have created a new blog template with colors to reflect the liturgical season. My original template was kludged together from a blogstyle template and then modified. This time with the knowledge I gained from doing Movable Type templates for others I was able to build this one up totally myself.

Due to Kat Lively mentioning on her blog that Blessed Miguel Pro was called "God's Jester" I figured that I would designate a Blog Patron Saint to intercede for myself and those who read my blog.

Only 25 more praying days till Christmas so I hope to prepare myself for this wondrous celebration of the incarnation.

Priests seek optional orthodoxy

(Roto Reuters) A group of active and retired priests are asking for optional orthodoxy for new priests. A letter signed by about 85 people was sent to the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. These and similar letters have been sent by other groups of priests across the nation.

According to sources the letter asks that orthodoxy be optional, not mandatory, for candidates for the Roman Catholic priesthood.

The reverend Erik Tic said that the signers of the letter are concerned about there being to few priests to celebrate Mass and to meet the pastoral needs of their communities. "In this society it is unrealistic to demand orthodoxy for those desiring to be priests. It is just not natural to force priests to do something that the majority of the faithful eschews. By opening up the church via optional orthodoxy we will at least double the number of applicants. Many of us have already been practicing optional orthodoxy and optional obedience, so we would just like the Church hierarchy to acknowledge those trends already present in the Church."

Blog Diversity

TS O'Rama has some interesting thoughts on the diversity of what is known as St. Blogs

I'm surprised by the diversity within what's known as "St. Blog's". You would think that the self-selective nature of blogs combined with the further grouping of hard-practicin' Catlickers would lend a certain homogeneity. Sure, the blogs here are all friendly to orthodoxy. But variations within the terrarium are fascinating.

Those with the broadest appeal, Mark Shea and Amy Welborn, combine sound Catholic understanding with pleasing personalities. They avoid a knee-jerk conservatism or liberalism.

Other blogs explore the niches - amateur writers earnestly plying their trade, diarists, seekers of camaraderie or support, a half-dozen extremely bright people weighing in on the IOTD (issues o' the day), a couple prigs (AWOL from St. Killjoy's), converts and cradles and an uproariously funny ex-atheist, breast and bottle feeders, teetotalers and bingers, and Godly folk here or there whose blogs give off the perfume of saintliness.

Compared to the homogeneity I expected, St. Blog's nearly has the biodiversity of a good bar.

I have noticed the same thing. As an atheist I thought that religion would be small and narrow, not knowing that I had imagined a world so small that I could place my head into it. St. Blog's like the Catholic Church is wide and glorious.

"Do Not Quench the Spirit"

From a speech by Bishop Donald Trautman's at the annual Frederick A. McManus Award from the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions (FDLC) with commentary by Adoramus.

"Do not quench the Spirit", the bishop repeatedly exclaimed as he urged the FDLC members to resist what he termed "pullbacks" and "liturgical backsliding".

"When we encounter those who advocate a 'reform of the reform', we must say, 'Do not quench the Spirit'. The Holy Spirit was present at Vatican II and gave us new liturgical direction. When we encounter people who harken back to rigidity in rubrics, we must say. 'Do not quench the Spirit'. When inculturation is denied and one liturgical form is forced on all, we must say, 'Do not quench the Spirit'. When the Scripture translations in our Lectionary are flawed and not proclaimable, we must say, 'Give us the richness of God's Word: Do not quench the Spirit'. The Holy Spirit prompted the renewal and reform of the liturgy. Now, more than ever, we must say, 'Do not quench the Spirit'".

Who's Quenching? In the 1990s, Bishop Trautman led opposition to the Holy See's intervention in translation both of Scripture (Lectionary) and other liturgical translations (International Commission on English in the Liturgy's "Sacramentary" revision). The bishop, as head of the BCL and member of the Lectionary committee, was a strong proponent of so-called "inclusive language", and a free approach to translation. Recently he has published articles critical of the Instruction on translation, Liturgiam authenticam, issued in 2001.

Although Bishop Trautman did not directly accuse Pope John Paul II of "devotionalism" for strongly encouraging the revival of Eucharistic devotions, nor did he mention by name the Vatican cardinals he believes are responsible for impeding "progress" in translation and other aspects of the Liturgy, Bishop Trautman called for strong resistance to any perceived "pullback".

He singled out for particular concern the forthcoming "prescriptive" directives that the Holy Father called for in Ecclesia de Eucharistia, released in March 2003.

"A recent draft of a forthcoming Vatican instruction included several problematic elements -- elements which were neither pastorally sensitive nor liturgically correct" Bishop Trautman told the liturgists. "While we are thankfully reassured that more competent and more sensible judgments have prevailed, we need to ask how could such proposals be drafted and approved for submission in the first place?
[Full Story]

Still no room at the Inn or the corner of a lawn

Let hot heads cool during the holidays before risking rising tempers. So ruled the powers that be in the perennial debate that has become a Rossmoor Christmas tradition.

Though the fate of the crèche at Rossmoor lies in the hands of Rossmoor's governing board, the nativity scene, at least for this season, will be displayed at its traditional site -- at the corner of Rossmoor Parkway and Golden Rain Road.

Steve Adams, chief executive officer of Rossmoor's Golden Rain Foundation, said rather than drag the issue out over the holidays, the board decided that the retirement community's Policy Committee should discuss the issue and recommend a solution to the board in January.

The committee will review the holiday display policy, stating that appropriate holiday displays may be set up from Dec. 1 through Jan. 31 at the corner of Rossmoor Parkway and Golden Rain Road. The crèche is scheduled to go up Dec. 16.

"At this point, there's no preconceived idea on where the board is going to go with this," Adams said.

The governing board decided in the summer to return the crèche to its original site, after residents in favor of the crèche asked for it, Adams said.

Two years ago, the board voted to move the holiday display to the lawn of the Dollar Clubhouse, a more inconspicuous site.
[Full Story]

The original nativity scene was also in the most inconspicuous site. Bethlehem a small inconspicuous city in a small inconspicuous country largely ignored by the Roman world. In the most humble spot in this most humble city a child was born onto us. It is profoundly sad that Jesus is not loved, that perfect love is not responded to by love. In a culture that largely hates children it is no surprise that the Nativity scene with Christ as child is suppressed. The argument is made about the appropriateness of religious symbols and the attempt to make the world offense-free. Yet other religious symbols are not subjected to the same level of attack. The cultural shock of God not only becoming man but coming in the form first as newborn baby is too much. Herod's response to the good news was the killing of the innocents. We are not much different. In this culture the good news of pregnancy is often responded to by "no one else will be king during my life." All this should come of no surprise. Jesus himself said:

Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three; ] they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."

What's wrong with this picture

As a child I remember reading the Highlights magazine while waiting in the doctors office. They always had a page where you had to find the hidden pictures. These were items hidden that did not belong with the rest of the picture.

These two pictures also have something in them that doesn't belong.

Now I could take the cheap shot that I am glad that we sent the troops a turkey, but in the aftermath of turkey indulgence I am kindly disposed not to insult these tasty creatures.

When President George W. Bush landed on the carrier wearing a flight suit, reporters were outraged that the public didn't make the Dukakis tank connection. They wrongly assumed that Michael Dukakis' error was looking silly. Serving in the Navy from Carter to Clinton's second term the overwhelming message myself and those around me got from the Democratic parties leadership was embarrassment. They kind of knew they needed us but didn't want to do anything to support us. Sitting out in the Indian Ocean for months on end on the carrier U.S.S. Midway (CV-41) in response to Iran's taking of the hostages I got my first dose of this reality. We had been on our way to Australia when the hostages were taken and ended up spending 93 days at sea. President Carter's address was shown on the ship's TV system. I remember sitting in the lounge with others as President Carter referred to our ship not by name but as "the other carrier." Three months at sea and we were just the other carrier. After the initial anger had died down we resorted then to humor. Our ship's T-shirts that year proudly said U.S.S. Midway "The Other Carrier."

Under President Reagan I watched a Navy that had been demoralized, under-supported, and rife with drug problems change drastically. I am not really that concerned if presidents themselves were once in the military. Jimmy Carter was a Navy Veteran and Ronald Reagan made training films for the Air Force during WWII. Under Reagan we saw that not only was the military being supported but we knew that the president gave a damn about us. During Desert Storm President George H. Bush personally wrote letters to the families of the 300 plus military personnel killed. During Clinton's term it was back to "don't ask, don't tell" and no I am not talking about his policy on homosexuals in the military. Military personnel in the White House were asked not to wear their uniforms. When President Clinton visited my ship wearing a flight jacket he didn't look silly; it was more like seeing a PETA activist wearing a fur coat.

In related news: Thank you President Bush for spending Thanksgiving with our troops.

Galileo Rock Opera

Jewish grandmothers, aging hippies and Jerry Seinfeld all filed into the auditorium of Manhattan's Asia Society last week for a $500-a-head benefit for CLAL, The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. Then the lights dimmed and a man with large hair took the stage, wearing tight black pants and a shimmering golden shirt unbuttoned halfway to his belly.

He was Joe Lynn Turner, former lead singer for the heavy metal band Deep Purple, which recorded such classics as "Lick it Up" and "Bad Attitude," and he was there to present the audience — including Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld, George Stephanopolous, and Robert DeNiro — with the world premiere of a rock opera about Galileo.

Rock geek Interjection: Well actually he did three albums with Deep Purple's guitarist Richie Blackmore in the group Rainbow, and one with a 1990 incarnation of Deep Purple, but the songs called "Lick it Up" and "Bad Attitude" were not done with him as the singer. The song with him as a singer that got airplay was "Stone Cold."

Departing from the old story of the enlightened intellectual, the improvised tale portrayed Galileo as an impetuous snob standing up to a righteous Catholic Church. Backed up by an eight-piece band, Turner sometimes assumed the role of stargazer, and sometimes the role of Pope Urban, using 1970s-style hip gyrations and disco arm swinging to dramatize the story.

I wish I had video of this, it must be a riot. Portraying Pope Urban with 1970's dance music I guess is true Urban Renewal. Actually I am waiting for a musical on St. Peter called "On this Rock Opera."

Billed as "an innovative program bringing together religion and science through the story of Galileo," the event, titled "In Concert for One People," was designed to honor "the diversity of the American Jewish community, and [celebrate] CLAL as a leading national voice for religious pluralism."

As a show of this commitment, after the performance the president of CLAL, Rabbi Irwin Kula, led a panel discussion with a Jesuit priest and an investigative reporter about the relevance of Galileo's story for a modern audience.
[Full Story]

Thankful for...

Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. --Colossians 1:12-20

• The infinite perfections of God
• Creation
• The Incarnation
• Christ's sacrificial death and our redemption
• The grace of conversion and faith
• Being a Catholic
• For my wife, children, and family
• For the Holy Father, my Bishop Victor, my parish priests
• The sacraments, especially the Eucharist
• Carmelite spirituality
• Books, Music, and laughter
• Our military men and women
• Those in religious life
• St. Blog's writers, readers, and commenters
• The Saints in Heaven
• My Guardian Angel
• God's word through the Bible and Sacred Tradition
• Partial Birth Abortion ban and other pro-life victories

I wish a joyful Thanksgiving to you and your families.

Politically Incorrect Hard Drives

Los Angeles County officials have gone PC (politically correct) on PCs (personal computers) -- banning as potentially "offensive or defamatory" the words master and slave from computer hard drives and video equipment where they are used to describe primary and secondary circuits.

Under orders from the affirmative action office, county departments have surveyed about 1,000 pieces of equipment and taped over "master/slave" and put "primary/secondary" on the equipment, officials said.

Joe Sandoval, division manager of purchasing and contract services in the Internal Services Department, started the flap with a memo to electronic equipment vendors saying the county wants master and slave labeling removed from computer equipment it buys.

"The County of Los Angeles actively promotes and is committed to ensure a work environment that is free from any discriminatory influence be it actual or perceived," he wrote in the Nov. 18 memo.
[Full Story]

What's next? Hard drive reparations. And what about computer monitors? Won't that make some over-sensitive person think of the "Monitor" and the Confederate ship the "Merrimack?"

The further adventures of Archbishop Emanuel Milingo

Archbishop Emanuel Milingo has done it again: run off with a woman. Vatican sources say that the Zambian archbishop, who has been under "monastery arrest" since returning from marriage to a Korean member of the Moonie sect, has absconded again.

He is reported to have fled from a religious community at Zagarolo, near Rome, to Lecco, north Italy, with a female painter, Alba Vitali. He has long known the painter - she did his portrait before the marriage. It is believed that she is convinced he needs a more congenial atmosphere than at Zagarolo, and also medical care.

The Vatican press office said it had nothing to say about Archbishop Milingo. His actions are a total surprise because only recently he received Vatican approval to visit Zambia early next year. He had complained publicly about the delay in granting this permission, which required the approval of other Zambian bishops and the Vatican representative there.
[Full Story]

That is too bad. The Vatican should have installed one of those house arrest tracking devices in his Roman collar to prevent him from being a Roaming Catholic.

Democrats losing the faithful

Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), the prototypical modern Democratic presidential candidate, was handed the hot potato in a recent Democratic debate. The question was, "Do you have a faith, and would you invoke the name of God when discussing a policy?"

Edwards, a longtime Methodist, responded like an artful dodger: "My religion does not inform my public policy, but it does inform my values."

Makes sense, that would mean that his public policy has no value.

...The poll asked voters whether they favor or oppose gay marriage. Even among Democrats who prefer a “generic” Democrat to Bush in the next election, 48 percent oppose gay marriages while 46 percent favor them. In short, this value-laden issue splits the Democratic base vote right down the middle because it violates religious beliefs. Many pious Democratic constituencies such as white Catholics, Southern black Protestants and religious Hispanics, are not inclined to endorse proposals that contradict their faiths.

Abortion and school prayer are two more value-laden issues that similarly split the Democrats.

That is good news at least that the Democratic voters aren't the monolithic block they are represented as. Maybe one day they might have some representatives in their own party that reflect pro-life and religious views.

You have to wonder why a leading Democrat with religious values doesn’t pick up an issue like one of these to distinguish him or herself from the pack. The answer might be that there are almost no leading Democrats with strong enough religious values.

In a way, there are few leading Democrats with even a religion. I looked this week at the official websites and biographies of all the Democratic candidates and found no mention of any church affiliations. Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (Conn.) site does make reference to the value of faith that he learned from his parents, but the others are silent.

Perhaps their religiosity is confusing to explain. For example, while retired Gen. Wesley Clark and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (Ill.) formally identify themselves as Catholic, they respectively attend Presbyterian and Episcopal churches. Or perhaps they would be justifiably embarrassed to claim a membership that has no substance. “I pray every night but don’t go to church very often,” confided former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
[Full Story]

Saint Mary's updates discrimination policy

SOUTH BEND -- Saint Mary's College recently added a statement to its employment policy stating the college is committed to avoiding discrimination based on sexual or political orientation.

The change was approved by the college's board of trustees during the summer.

...It's only fair to not discriminate against things you can't change. I think it's good they added these (items)," said freshman Lisa Teague, of New Bremen, Ohio. "It's a good step forward."

"It's definitely a liberal step to take. I don't know if I'm in support of it or not," said junior Brigid Kelly, of Cincinnati.

Sister Kathleen Dolphin thinks the new policy is a good idea.

"It contributes to a healthy sense of plurality at the college," said Dolphin, a member of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Dolphin is director of the college's Center for Spirituality and an instructor in the religious studies department.

The change is based on Catholic social teaching that views each human as being a valuable individual, Dolphin said.
[Full Story]

Political Orientation? I suffer from Conservative Philosophy Attraction (CPA), so it is a good thing that those like me could still get employment at a Catholic College. I don't think that Political Orientation is genetic since I once suffered from Liberal Philosophy Attraction or maybe my CPA was just in remission for a while. Or we can get the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove conservatism from their category of diseases. The APA could also deem that "conversion" or "reparative" therapy to convert Conservatives to a more politically correct outlook as unethical. We could then make a deal with liberals that if we stay out of their bedrooms, that they will stay out of our courtrooms.

My books on Catholicism must be out of date and I must be missing a supplement from the Catechism. I can't seem to find where plurality is a virtue. If someone is to teach religious studies who suffers from Same Sex Attraction and they are not living a chaste life then probably they will not teach Catholic truth. I doubt they would hire a holocaust-denying historian and then say under Catholic social teaching each human is viewed as being a valuable individual. Would the Harvey Milk High School in New York City hire a teacher who fervently believes that homosexual acts are disordered? This is just par for the course for in name only Catholic colleges.

Like a Wine-Stoned Cowboy

Country singer Glen Campbell spent several hours in a Maricopa County jail cell Monday evening on drunken driving, hit and run, and assault charges, after a series of incidents police say started with a minor car wreck near his Phoenix home.

Campbell finally went home after a magistrate set a $2,000 bond early Tuesday and ordered him to submit to alcohol and drug monitoring until his next court appearance.
[Full Story]

Amateur Exorcist

In a case that could revolve around the role of religion in mental health care, a Springfield psychologist is accused of violating professional standards by counseling a patient on demon possession and inviting her to a prayer group.

Psychologist Thomas DeVol markets himself as a Christian psychologist and, as part of his anti-divorce counseling, says he has invoked Jesus' name on dozens of occasions while commanding evil spirits to exit people.

The former Assemblies of God missionary considers it an appropriate method for healing people, noting the Bible contains numerous cases where Jesus dealt with demon possession.

But Attorney General Jay Nixon's office, in an administrative hearing beginning Monday, contends DeVol's demon discussions run contrary to current scientific and professional standards. If a hearing judge finds it a violation, the State Committee of Psychologists could revoke DeVol's license or impose any of several lesser penalties.
[Full Story]

I wonder if on his bill he itemizes per demon.

• First demon $50.00
• Each additional demon $45.00.
• Special group rate for a legion $500.00

U.S. covers Iraq's Ass

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Since guerrillas used donkeys to outwit the high-tech defences of the U.S. military in Iraq (news - web sites), the life of the beast of burden has never been so miserable.

Attackers used donkey carts to launch Katyusha rockets at the Oil Ministry and two fortified Baghdad hotels on Friday. Two other donkey carts were stopped -- one carrying more rockets, the other a donkey-bomb wired up with explosives.

Every donkey in Baghdad is suddenly under suspicion as U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) wages a global war on terror.

In a crackdown on an animal that already suffers multiple daily whippings, U.S. soldiers with automatic rifles regularly stop and search donkey carts for weapons.

Donkey owners say petrol stations have been refusing to sell them kerosene for resale since the rocket attacks. The animals salivate and wheeze with exhaustion as they pull their owners and heavy loads across the potholed streets of the Iraqi capital in a desperate search for kerosene.
[Full Story]

Leave it to Reuters to report a story from a donkey's point of view. I am not quite sure how a donkey suffers from soldiers searching donkey carts. Does the fact that the soldiers carry rifles somehow go agains donkey sensibilities?

Catholic Coffee

It is possible to do good and do well, and some people can start the process with their morning coffee.

On Tuesday, Catholic Relief Services Inc., will begin its CRS Coffee Project. The goal is to market coffee grown by small farmers around the world directly to the nation's 65 million Catholics.

"We think that this project is important because it has the potential to positively affect the lives of small-scale farmers around the world," said Joan Neal, the Baltimore-based agency's deputy executive director for U.S. operations. "It ensures that their families have enough food to eat, and the basics to live are available to them.

"It is a way for individuals and groups to make a profound difference in the lives of coffee farmers and their families," Neal said.
[Full Story]

Actually I am still waiting for the Trini-TEA.

Lost in Worship Space

In the classic 1960's TV Series Lost in Space, if the B-9 robot had been equipped with schism and orthodox detection modules, than I am sure this would have been said instead of the classic "Danger Will Robinson!, Danger! The robot might have been named B-9, but this threat to the Episcopalians is not benign

Good deeds and a candle in the smoke

Story about the Cigarette Sister

It is Time to Excommunicate the Politicians

Pete Vere has a good article on Catholic Exchange about the cannon laws pertaining to abortion and what Bishops can do about those public figures like politicians who support the culture of death.

Update: Pete must have struck a nerve since I have see this same article linked to on multiple parishioners of St. Blogs.

40 years ago

Lane Core Jr. reminds us of someone else who died 40 years ago today, C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), with a selection of five sonnets.

From the Rockford Files

Responding to the Holy Father's clear teaching on the grave evil of so-called pro-abortion Catholic politicians, the Diocese of Rockford this week has said that they are implementing a new policy that bans pro-abortion speakers from all Catholic institutions.

Responding to inquiries from Sen. Patrick O'Malley, Patricia Pitkus Bainbridge, M.A., of the Rockford Diocese Respect Life Office provided the following policy, which was developed this week.

“In the Diocese of Rockford permission to speak at or use diocesan, parish, or institutional property shall not be granted to individuals who hold any view that is contrary to the Catholic Magisterium’s moral teaching and practice.”

Ms. Bainbridge went on to say, "My hope is that all other Dioceses in the state will also adopt the same or similar statement and in my position as Chairman of the Department for Life/Catholic Conference of Illinois, I will continue to encourage this action."
[Full Story]

Seven Means to Seven Sorrows

Steve of The Fifth Column offers an excellent post that starts from the musical octive to the discordant Seven Sorrows.

For whom the bells toll

The bells of SS Peter and Paul Church in San Francisco's North Beach ring a bit too loudly and a bit too often for Alan Coe, who lives a half-block away.

They're so annoying, he says, that the church should stop the chiming during funeral services. Sunday morning clanging should be scaled back, too, Coe said, because the racket is ruining his girlfriend's slumber on the rare day she can sleep in.
[Full Story]

I wonder why it is that I have no sympathy for someone whose live-in girlfirend can't sleep in.

Thinking inside the Booth

This is an article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called Catholic confession has evolved over time. Judging from the lack of research that went into this article the paper is aptly named it is now past intelligence and indeed is post intelligence.

In the late '60s, when the Rev. Jan Larson was a new Roman Catholic priest, he would sit in a dark confessional for hours and listen to people rattle off a "grocery list" of sins. They had impure thoughts, said "damn" three times or chewed gum during a fast.

Today, he's lucky if two people show up for confession at his Snoqualmie parish, and the sins he absolves are more complex. Yet, he sometimes hears about the small stuff, especially from older people who might say they skipped Mass.

In the span of a half-century, the sacrament of penance, as confession is officially called, has evolved drastically, from a rigid, foreboding ritual to a looser, therapeutic practice. Instead of a fearful cataloging of sins, it now emphasizes spiritual guidance and mercy. And it no longer occurs in the booth.

Spiritual guidance and mercy is nothing new in the confessional. It has always been the sacrament of mercy and is totally driven by God's mercy for the forgiveness of sin and grace given to continue to turn away from sin. Many great saints would be totally surprised to hear that spiritual guidance is now something new. What has changed in this "foreboding ritual?" We still must confess any mortal sins, be repentant of those sins, and intend not to continue in them. The priest must still absolve you of those sins unless he determines that your are not contrite. You still must do any penance assigned to you. So the truth and the conductance of this sacrament has not changed. Only externals such as rooms for reconciliation and the option of face to face confession has changed. How could any of these transform this awesome sacrament of God's mercy into mere therapeutic practice? And the last line about it no longer occurring in the booth is just inaccurate. The confessional booth might be rarer in churches today but it is still around.

"I'm just waiting for Hollywood to get it right. They always have the dark box, and the gangster gets in, and the grill slides open," said Roger O'Brien, a retired priest who is writing an article about the sacrament for the Archdiocese of Seattle.

Confession, which is often called "reconciliation," now takes place in a quiet, well-lighted room or chapel, in which a parishioner faces a priest. (If they want to remain anonymous, however, they still have the option of kneeling before a screen).

The changes have occurred as the number of Catholics attending regular confession has declined. In 1965, nearly 40 percent of American Catholics said they went to confession monthly, according to the National Opinion Research Center. Today, sociologists estimate that fewer than 25 percent of Catholics regularly go to confession, and that nearly 60 percent never or almost never go.

"One thing you hear about confession vanishing is if Catholics have lost their sense of sin. Well, I don't think so," said Larson, who also ministers to parishes in Duvall and Carnation.

He noted that communal services on forgiveness, similar to those offered by many Protestant churches, are often packed. He said Catholics have more options for absolution, because church officials now say forgiveness can come through Mass or private prayer, instead of only through one-on-one confession.

I have to respectfully disagree on this one. The majority of Catholics I believe have lost the sense of sin. They might believe that other people sin or that in some nebulous way that they also are sinners, but the true sense of what sin is has been lost. We believe that Jesus shed tears, yet it is not quite connected to our own actions. Going to a reconciliation service fits in with this nebulous sense of sin since you don't really have to detail what it is that you have done wrong. Going as a group allows you to see this as a group abstraction, vice the personal wound on the mystical body of Christ. To say that Catholics have not lost the meaning of sin with the fact that few go to confession is mistaken. If we had a lot of people suffering from disease and very few went to the doctor would we then say that people have not lot their sense of disease?

For a priest writing an article on confession these statements are pretty misleading. If a reconciliation service does not end in individual sacramental confession then those people have been fooled. It might feel nice to go to this service or to write down your sins and have these pieces of paper then burned as a group, but this is not a sacrament and it does not normally forgive sin. In a emergency situation or case of imminent death a priest can give absolution to a group, but if they survive they must still go to regular confession. It is true that saying the act of contrition at Mass and then receiving the Eucharist can forgive those acknowledged venial sins, but not mortal sin. Private prayer will lead you to acknowledge your sins and lead you to the disposition to confess your sins, but private prayer alone will not give you absolution of your sins. Even if you have perfect contrition for a mortal sin, you must still go to confession. This statement "church officials now say forgiveness can come through Mass or private prayer, instead of only through one-on-one confession" is spiritual malpractice. Private prayer instead of one-on-one confession is not an option for mortal sin.

If I was to move to a new city. The first thing I would do is call up the local TV and newspaper reporters and ask them what priests they go to for story information. Once I got this list I would then cross them off a master list of priests of whom to go to for spiritual direction. Reporters are like liberal divining rods that can always find the Chittister's and O'Brien's and never the Hardon's and Dulles'

And some religious experts say there is a resurgence in confession-going among young Catholics, who are praying the rosary and doing other devotional acts that their baby-boomer parents abandoned.

"Most Catholics who grew up in the '50 and '60s would rather go to the dentist than confession," said Greg Magnoni, Archdiocese of Seattle spokesman. "But today, that's changed, and the sacrament of reconciliation is a celebration of God's grace and mercy."

On a recent Saturday, the traditional day to confess, Keith Abrahams let in a gust of cold air as he rushed inside St. James Cathedral to wait for a priest. He joined about 10 people, who sat in silence, bundled in coats.

Since when is Saturday a traditional day to confess? It is a rather new tradition born more of convenience to overworked priests and the lack of demand by Catholics.

A retired mental-health therapist and former Army first sergeant, Abrahams said he goes to confession every two weeks and that it helps him understand and forgive himself. He likes the modern way of facing a priest, viewing it as a spiritual therapy session.

"It helps me to avoid doing the same things over and over again," said Abrahams, 62. "I feel relief and forgiveness."

Nick Coffman, a 19-year-old Seattle University student, waited his turn nearby. Longhaired and dressed all in black, Coffman plays guitar, studies philosophy and would be right at home in a hip coffeehouse.

He grew up Catholic, but was an agnostic for a while in high school. Now he works as a sacristan, or a chapel assistant, and goes to confession every two weeks.

"I do find a healing and a merciful forgiveness," Coffman said. "Really, it speaks to my whole person." But he recognized that going to confession is difficult.

"It really requires looking at yourself and asking where you can be more virtuous, where you can positively embrace God's love," he said.

At Seattle University, administrators say they've noticed that more students are going to Mass and confession than in the past. Many of the students grew up with parents who offered a "smorgasbord approach" to religion or told them, "When you're old enough, you can choose for yourself," said Sheila Barnes, the school's faith-formation coordinator.

Those students are now searching for more meaning in their faith, she said.

"For a lot of young Catholics, there's a feeling that Catholicism has been watered down, and it's gotten really confusing what it means to be Catholic," said G De Castro, the school's chapel coordinator.

He said going to confession and doing other traditional religious practices are "kind of an attempt to solidify the Catholic identity in an external way."

Sacramental confession it not just a "traditional religious practice" but the normative means of forgiveness given to the Church by Christ.

Religion experts say the overall decline in confession-going stems from a broader notion of sin. In the past two centuries, Catholics were less educated and didn't distinguish between small and big sins. So, in order to avoid going to hell, they confessed often and to everything.

Here is a infallible guide in life. If you see the words "Religion expert" used you can guarantee something really stupid will immediately follow. Catholics in the past were probably more educated on their faith or at least knew they should go to confession. If we were really more educated we would be going to confession more frequently or the same rate as before. While having a scrupulous conscience is not a good thing, never seeing anything as a sin and never confessing is much worse. Some "more educated" priests turn people away from confession if they "only" had venial sins. I only added a thorn to the crown of thorns, it is not like I crucified you or something.

Now, "people are more likely to make personal judgments about their sinfulness, rather than going off and running to confession," Larson said.

He said many people who go to confession tend to be at a crossroad in life and need both forgiveness and counseling. In the past, when a parishioner said, "Father, I drink every other day, and I'm drunk at home," a priest would give him penance for committing "the sin of drunkenness," he said.

Now, Larson would help him find community resources to fight addiction. Priests also advise parishioners to do acts of contrition, from saying prayers to contributing to a charity.

In a few weeks, when Advent, the penitential season before Christmas, starts, parishes will prepare for their communal absolution services. The Vatican wants priests to offer one-on-one confession time as part of these services. But many priests, particularly those of large parishes, say they can't accommodate everyone.

One local priest says that tension between the Vatican and some parishes is a "landmine." And some hard-liners say the communal services -- without individual confessions -- offer "cheap grace."

To tell the truth now makes you a hard-liner? Obedience to the church is now seen as stodgy and out-of-touch. Maybe they should have a confession lottery at these large communal absolution services where those lucky few get to actually have their sins absolved. Oh sorry your still in sin, better luck next time. If they truly can't accommodate the number of people then they should limit the size of these services.

But O'Brien said the services are powerful, with songs, homilies and prayers.

Sorry no homily no matter how well preached can forgive sin. No song no matter how well sung will forgive sin. I might agree that singing some of these songs could be given as a penance.

"They're healthy," he said. "That's an encouraging thing for us to experience that sacrament that way."

If there is no individual confession than there was no sacrament for them to experience. These people are like used car salesmen practicing the bait and switch. You think your going to be forgiven, but you walk off the lot with something less than forgiveness. You might have noticed that this subject irks me. I am extremely saddened that this beautiful sacrament is ignored, misrepresented, not preached about, and is not at the forefront of Catholic parish life. The reform of the reform needs to start with bringing this sacrament back to it's proper place in our life of grace.

I can't be a hate crime, after all it is only Catholic Churches

A string of attacks on Catholic shrines has damaged pews, statues. Police doubt the incidents are related.

They usually come under the shroud of darkness, late at night when no one is around, and approach the shrines as assailants.

They leave behind relatively minor physical damage — hands dislodged from a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, or statues toppled into pools. They defaced walls in one instance and burned a church pew in another.

But the insult runs deep, scarring the souls of the faithful.

"It's become an issue," said Father Richard Kennedy, pastor of St. Barbara's Catholic Church in Santa Ana, one of three Orange County parishes that have endured a string of apparently unrelated vandalism attacks in recent weeks. "Different [parishioners] come up and say they want to pay for surveillance and stuff like that. They get pretty upset."

Vandals have struck at St. Callistus Church in Garden Grove, causing minor damage by setting fire to a pew, and at St. Barbara's and Our Lady of La Vang in western Santa Ana, where icons and statues have been damaged or stolen.

Police and church officials believe that the incidents are unrelated and that each church's problems are isolated. They do not consider them hate crimes.
[Full Story (Subscription Required)]

The best church security actually costs nothing. 24 hour Eucharistic Adoration can lead to both external and eternal security.

Trash talk

BERLIN (AP) - Fed up with garbage-strewn streets? Berlin thinks it has found a solution - trash cans that say thank you.

Starting next spring, the German capital's trash service will build electronics into a handful of the city's 20,000 street-side wastebaskets that will allow them to speak or sing to the public, a spokesman said Thursday.

"We want to encourage people in a nice, funny way to throw their trash in the baskets and not on the street," said the official, Bernd Mueller. The talking trash cans - powered by solar cells - are meant to show that Berlin is "a modern city with high-tech services, and that it is also very cosmopolitan," he added.
[Full Story]

Media Matters

Looking at the headlines on Michael Jackson it is interesting that the word pedophile is never used in connection with him. Google News returns about 8,000 stories on Michael Jackson and they use molestation and 0 stories with the terms Michael Jackson and pedophile. The terms priest and pedophile turns up 70 stories over the last couple of days. Funny how the media can always remember to use the term pedophile for priest and almost never the word alleged and then have a convenient memory lapse in Mr. Jackson's case.

Memo Impossible

New York City, NY (ROTO REUTERS) Top scientist working for the Democrat National Committee Laboratories to develop a better leak proof memo have made a major breakthrough. Dr. Noah Judges reported "With all those embarrassing leaked memos in the last couple of weeks I thought that there must be a better way. We want to keep subverting the national security and judicial process to our own ends, but we don't want it pushed in our faces. What right do Republicans have to reveal our real motives. While watching an episode of Mission Impossible it dawned on me that was the answer. We developed a memo chip etched to create a dense series of microscopic channels and introduced a magnetic material into the chips and poured a solution onto the chips that, when dried, left gadolinium nitrate in the channels. These tiny channels increased the surface area of the silicon in the same way grinding charcoal does for gunpowder and the nitrate played the same chemical role as saltpeter. After the memo is activated and completes the auditory alarm voices "This memo will self destruct in five seconds.""

Walking evangelist has a question for a name

He was barefoot, wearing a white robe and carrying a Bible and a laminated road map. His brown hair hung to his shoulders and a thick beard obscured his face.

It wasn't really Jesus, of course, but a pretty good likeness. A good enough likeness to attract stares from motorists as he tromped through Massey Hill on his way to an appointment in Hope Mills.

This "Jesus'' is a self-styled evangelist who goes by the unlikely name of "What's Your Name?'' He was in Fayetteville this week to spread the gospel in his unique way.

The robed evangelist has made news before. He's been featured in Time magazine, on ABC News and in dozens of newspapers across the country and indeed, the world.

You can read some of those articles on his Web site, www.whatsyournameonline.com - yes, this Jesus lookalike has a Web site.
[Full Story]

Boy would Abbot and Costello have fun with this one. What's your Name needs some apostles traveling along with him with names like "No, You First", "None of your business", and "Please introduce yourself."

One Child Policy, and I am not talking about China

Priests in the Philippines found to have fathered a child will not be automatically defrocked but those with two will be immediately asked to leave the Catholic Church.

Those found committing homosexual acts will be sent to a rehabilitation center run by the Church, but if they repeat the offense they will be expelled at once.

The offenses and their penalties are contained in an 18-page “Pastoral Guidelines on Sexual Abuses and Misconduct by the Clergy” released by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines on Wednesday.

The CBCP was forced to issue the protocol after two prominent bishops earlier this year figured in sex scandals.
[Full Story]

New Movie

Meshuggahnuns

"Meshuggahnuns" is the fifth installment of Dan Goggin's Nunsense series -- a safari into ecumenical silliness that this time places the nuns on a cruise ship, the USS Golden Delicious. The cruise was designed as an interfaith journey where, each week, a different religion is featured in a musical comedy. This week, however, all of the "Fiddler on the Roof" cast has fallen ill except for Howard Liszt (Richard Frederick), the nice Jewish man playing Tevye.

So, since there's no supporting cast to lift him onto the roof, Howard enlists the help of Reverend Mother (Amy L. Washburn) and Sisters Hubert (Cathleen Riddley), Amnesia (Mindy Stover) and Robert Anne (Diane Torres Koss), to create a vaudeville show that highlights the two faiths.

And that is the central plot of this show.

Not that it matters. The "Nunsense" musicals have never exactly been plot-heavy. So by having essentially no plot at all, "Meshuggahnuns" cuts directly to the chase and becomes a two-hour vaudeville show with religiously themed bits that, except for the intermission and bingo game, give the passengers on the ship (us) a wide ranging series of sketches with no more ambition than to entertain and paste smiles on the faces of the faithful.

It's a formula that has worked for Goggin for the past quarter century, and in "Meshuggahnuns" it works just as well as always, charming the audience as only four slightly addled nuns and one confused Jewish actor can.
[Full Story]

I shouldn't have done it

"I struck her various times on the head with my hand. I shouldn't have done it," Father Antonio Caetano told daily newspaper Jornal de Noticias.

Caetano said he became angered when the 39-year-old woman refused to leave his private residence in the northern village of Souto Redondo where she had come to request that her daughter be allowed to attend his weekly religious studies classes.

Maria de Fatima told the paper the priest tried to push her out the door after the argument became heated but when she still did not move he began hitting her on the head.

The woman, who has filed a complaint with the local bishop, sought hospital treatment for minor bruises and was immediately released, the paper said.

Caetano said he would be "very happy" to be relocated.

"I have been asking for a long time to leave this parish," he said.
[Full Story]

Well maybe in his next parish women should wear hard hats under their chapel veils.

A Tale of Two Dictionaries

Here is a interesting guest column on NRO about the differences between the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English, by A. S. Hornby (3rd edition; 7th impression, 1977) and the Oxford Student's Dictionary of Current English: Special Edition for the USSR by one A. S. Hornby (3rd revised and updated impression, 1981). The differences between these two editions for words like communism and capitalism are extreme.

A soldier and his medal

Here is an article about a Catholic Medal of Honor winner who had a total of over 400 bullet holes in three airfcrafts in just one day as a medivac pilot.

Hope

Last week a post by Mark Shea received many comments as if he had guaranteed Nat a ticket to heaven.

I hope Atheist Nat Henthoff has the Grand Surprise of Waking up in Heaven on the Day He Dies

Then the atheist will say to the King, "Lord, when did I see you being murdered by thirst or in the womb and speak out to save you?"

And the King will say to him, "Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me."

I also have great hope for all those in conscience who seek the truth. My invincible ignorance detector is broken and in the shop for repair so I mainly rely on prayer and hope for those currently outside the visible membership of Christ's mystical body. Coming into the Church from atheism one of my favorite parables is the following.

For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place; and to them he said, `You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.' So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. [6] And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing; and he said to them, `Why do you stand here idle all day?' They said to him, `Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, `You go into the vineyard too.' And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, `Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.' And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the householder, saying, `These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' But he replied to one of them, `Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you, and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?' So the last will be first, and the first last." --Matt 20

I don't know if I was called in the 6th or 9th hour of my life, but I do know that I am unbelievably thankful. Those who have been forgiven much, love much. I am still working on my end of the deal. I read things from self-identified atheists and it doesn't anger me, but only saddens me and makes me turn to intercessory prayer. It is too easy for most of us to want to condemn someone and I think about a pre-conversion atheist like Edith Stein and just look at the wonders of God's grace on those seeking the truth. My own son is an avowed atheist and it is annoying to hear the same things that come out of his mouth as came out of my own. To hear my own previous arguments repeated back to me is bothersome, but my conversion gives me great hope. I know God loves my son infinitely and will give him the grace required. He is fervently seeking the truth and since Christ is the way, the truth and the light, I know that one day he will find him. St. Monica spent many years in intercessory prayer for her son St. Augustine conversion which is the model for all of us.

Miss Mongolia, Look at the Humps on her

BEIJING (AP)--Shiny hair. Upright humps. Sharp outfits. And definitely no swimsuit competition. If you're in the market for a beautiful camel, those are apparently the things you might want to consider. And in northern China, they're doing just that--holding a dromedary beauty contest as part of what is billed as ``the first international camel festival.''

The beauty competition in the Inner Mongolia region attracted nearly 100 dressed-up camels ``as well as more than 2,000 fans,'' the official Xinhua News Agency said Saturday. It didn't specify who the ``fans'' were or where they came from.

The judges, mostly experienced camel herders, described the criteria for victory to Xinhua: The camels, they said, ``should have good appearance--shiny hair and upright humps--and should be good dressers wearing beautiful halters and saddles in a proper way.''
[Full Story]

A Priest who takes St. Paul's words seriously

SAN LUIS OBISPO - When Maureen Phelan learned that her 79-year-old brother planned to run the Dublin marathon -- all 26.2 miles of it -- she thought he was crazy.

"In Ireland, anything can happen," Phelan said. "A week before the race, we had a whole day of sleet, snow, thunder and rain, all mixed up together."

But the Rev. Michael O'Sullivan, retired pastor of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Arroyo Grande, was determined.

"I was getting old and needed a challenge," said O'Sullivan, a Nipomo Mesa resident who has been running for years. He had not competed in a marathon, however, for 15 years.

But with his doctor's blessing, the slight, white-haired priest took off Oct. 27. And while he was but one in a pack of more than 8,000 runners in Dublin, Ireland, he's a hometown hero back in San Luis Obispo County.

Not only did O'Sullivan cross the finish line, completing the course in just over seven hours, he single-handedly raised $20,000 in pledges for the American Cancer Society.
[Full Story]

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Biblical Mothers

The Summa Mamas, always an enjoyable read, has posted some humor on mothers from history. To which I now add my own.

Apostle John's Mother: Stop reading all of those horror comic books, it will give you bad dreams.

Jesus' Mother: Okay I know your God, but you still have to clean behind your ears.

John the Baptist's Mother: No kid of mine is going outside dressed like that. I don't care if the other kids are also wearing camel's hair. You are just always losing your head.

Samson's Mother: Your going to sit still for the picture of your first hair cut and I do not want want to hear anymore "But I am a Nazarite" stuff.

David's Mother: Get out into the field and tend the sheep. All of your practicing on the harp in the garage will come to nothing. There are millions who try to become the King's harp player to soothe the King and their now living in the poor district. Stick with sheep son.

Solomon's Mother: I am getting tired of going to all of your weddings. This constant planning and help with every new wife is just so time intensive and draining. Why can't you only have eight wives like your father?

Elijah's Mother: Always work hard son. God is not going to provide you with a Golden Chariot.

Joshua's Mother: You need to prepare yourself, time doesn't stop for anyone.

Moses' Mother: I was always planning on you going on a nice cruise, sorry it had to be like this.

Moses' Mother Part II: You have to learn to swim. It is not like the sea is going to part for you.

Abraham's Mother: All this traveling and your self-importance of being the father of nations, and yet still you have not given us any grandchildren.

Isaac's Mother: All father and son trips aren't like the last one. Next time your father asks you to go up a mountain carrying wood on your back, just ask him if you can go fishing instead.

Shadrach's Mother: Careful with the Bar-B-Que grill, you'll burn yourself.

Methusulah's Mother: Your already 180 years old. Don't you think it time to settle down and have a family before you get to be be middle aged at 400?

Cain and Abel's Mother: Eat your fruits or you get no dessert.

Update: Commenters have added some of their own biblical mothers.

Blogging to Live

From a Religious Orders Study.

The priests and nuns are an especially good group to study, he says, because they live in almost identical socioeconomic and social worlds.

He and his colleagues noted when some of the subjects died -- 164 of them did -- and looked at tests measuring their level of negative feelings and their ability to express it. Their findings appear in the current issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Over an average period of five years, the 10 percent of the subjects with the greatest tendency to keep negative emotions bottled up -- those who "sit and stew" -- were twice as likely to die as the 10 percent on the other end of the scale.

The winners in the life-span sweepstakes were those who said, "'I get angry and I slam a door, I curse a lot,'" Wilson says.

Cursing? Priests and nuns? Yes, indeed. "The Catholic clergymen and nuns feel the full range of emotion that everybody else feels," he says.
[Full Story]

Well I don't keep things bottled up or curse, after all I have a blog. Sometimes I will read a story and will grow angry after reading it. I will then set to posting about it. The process of trying to say something intelligent about the story usually causes me to calm down and in some cases not to post anything at all.

Judicial Nominees

Priscilla Owen, Janice Brown and Carolyn Kuhl

Miguel Estrada

After the votes, top Democratic senators stuck to their guns. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., said Democrats will continue to resist what he describes as "any Neanderthal" the president nominates.

Noting that Thanksgiving is coming up, Kennedy called on Bush to release his "right-wing turkeys."
[Full Story]

Where is the NAACP when you need them? I think we need a new organization called Neanderthals Against Arrogant Corrupt Politicians (NAACP).

Blogging Geek

If you are a blogger using blogger.com or other web publishing tools that don't have an RSS feed then here is a good solution to create your own feed. RSS feeds allow other people to easily determine if your site has fresh content using an aggregator.

Feedster has a simple wizard used to help create a feed and the code to add to your template.

There have been other solutions such as Blog Matrix but I have found that these do not generate reliable feeds. The information displayed in an aggregator from these feeds do not always update. The Feedster solution looks good since your RSS feed will be updated when you publish a new post. Additionally this can be setup to ping weblogs.com which allows users looking for updated content to find your blog.

The blog Adjutorium Nostrum + In Nomine Domini maintains a list of St. Blog's RSS feeds that can be imported into an aggregator for viewing. You can get an aggregator software for free like at News Desk, FeedDemon, or one that works online like Bloglines.

Bootism

If you think the phrase you can never be too rich, too thin or have too many shoes rings true, you just might be a bootist.

In Bootism: A Shoe Religion (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $10.95), authors Michael Duranko and Penina Goodman explore the world of the footwear-obsessed.

Like any religion, bootism comes with its own set of commandments ("A bootist shall not kill . . . unless someone is about to snag the last pair on sale in your size. A bootist shall not tell lies, . . . but you can misplace the receipt. A bootist shall not speak of others' errors or faults, . . . however, judging their shoes is different").

And mantras are common: "I will shoe-shop daily. I will honor my collection. I will revere Manolo Blahnik. There is always room for one more pair."
[Full Story]

This people are in danger of losing their sole, which is no small feet.

Keep on Trucking Jesus

Was Jesus Hispanic or Asian or Aryan? Was he married? Did he have shoulder-length sandy blond hair, like Bon Jovi, or did it cascade down his back in funky dreadlocks, like the early Lenny Kravitz?

Nobody knows for sure, but historians, artists and religious provocateurs have suggested all of the above, and more. At least one painter depicted the Christian savior as a woman.

But you don't have to travel to the Guggenheim or the Louvre to see a peculiar artistic rendering of Jesus.

Take a drive out to Corinth Presbyterian Church in Parker or First Baptist Church Hebron in Carrollton or First Christian Church in Allen.

There, in stained glass, Jesus has six toes.

"The legend is that the artist who made the windows had a six-toed brother," said Tom Keener, an amateur historian and the Allen Public Library's development coordinator. "And to honor his brother, who many people considered deformed, he painted six toes on Jesus."
[Full Story]

The only Biblical figure with six toes was in Gath where a giant with six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot who after taunting Israel was slew by David's brother.

Bishop's statement

Between Man and Woman: Questions and Answers about Marriage and Same-Sex Unions. The Bishops have issued a very good one page statement on Same-Sex Unions. Nice overview on the Catholic view of marriage.
[Via Bill Cork]

Committees

JACKSON, Tenn. — Messengers to the Tennessee Baptist Convention's annual meeting elected the Rev. Mike Boyd of Knoxville as the convention's new state leader at its annual convention here in Jackson, but many Baptists are looking to votes today to see if a major shift may soon occur in Tennessee Baptist life.

Among those expecting votes by two committees are members of Concerned Tennessee Baptists, a new group advocating for more conservative leadership in the state Baptist convention.

More than 1,850 messengers representing 678 churches from across the state are attending the meeting at the West Jackson Baptist Church.

The committees being watched are the Committee on Committees and the Committee on Boards, which appoint people to every significant committee in the Tennessee Baptist Convention, including boards of the three universities, the Tennessee Baptist Children's Homes and the convention's executive board.
[Full Story]

Something about the idea of the "Committee on Committees" seems absurd and makes me laugh. I wonder who oversees them? Possibly the Committee on Committees on Committee.

Playlistism

On college campuses, for example, a new form of bigotry called "playlistism" is emerging.

The invention of students at Wesleyan University, playlistism was first reported by Stephen Aubrey, a 20-year-old student and columnist for The Wesleyan Argus.

Playlistism, Aubrey explained, is discrimination based not on race, sex or religion, but on someone's terrible taste in music, as revealed by their iTunes music library.

Aubrey said an iTunes music library tells a lot more about people than the clothes they wear or the books they carry.

"It's the T-shirt, plus the book, plus the haircut," Aubrey said. "It's everything."

Aubrey said Wesleyan students are enjoying a new parlor game -- going through music libraries trying to guess what their owners are like. At any one time, 30 or 40 iTunes libraries are available on the campus network, which is shared by about 2,000 students.

"This one playlist had a lot of German techno," Aubrey said. "We predicted this was a kid wearing a mesh shirt who wanted to be a Nazi." At a party shortly afterward, Aubrey recognized the playlist and asked whose music it was. "They pointed to this kid in a mesh shirt with a swastika on his arm," Aubrey said.

When Aubrey showed his own music library to a friend, she said it belonged to a "wimpy, skinny kid who liked to sit in his room a lot, which is myself."

"We were right on several counts," he said.
[Full Story]

Anti-Catholic History

Most of the verbal fireworks over Colorado's school voucher bill have centered on whether parents may use state money to send children to private religious schools. And never mind that the U.S. Supreme Court last year upheld the legality of a similar program in Cleveland. Opponents in Colorado cite a particularly obnoxious clause in the state Constitution - a clause steeped in 19th century anti-Catholic bigotry - as reason to kill the voucher law and thus limit educational choice for poor children.
[Full Story]

Here is some information on the Blaine admendment which was incorporated into Colorado's state constitution.

Rep. James G. Blaine (1830-1893) of Maine proposed the following constitutional amendment on December 14, 1875 in reaction to efforts of, in particular, the Catholic Church to establish parochial schools. The amendment was passed by the House on August 4, 1876 by an overwhelming majority (180 votes in favor, 7 votes opposed), but failed to muster the necessary two-thirds vote in the Senate (28 votes in favor, 16 votes opposed). Afterwards, the Blaine Amendment was incorporated into a number of state constitutions, especially in the West, where its inclusion was often a prerequisite for consideration for statehood. Many First Amendment scholars consider the Blaine Amendment unconstitutional because it requires government to discriminate against religious groups.

No State shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; and no money raised by taxation in any State, for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefor, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect, nor shall any money so raised, or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations.

Political correctness gone mad

The British Red Cross has been criticised for banning Christian symbols from its shops for fear of offending minority faiths.

The charity has told volunteers not to create Nativity scenes or put up advent calendars if they have pictures of Mary, Joseph or the three wise men.

Christmas cards sold by the charity will not have a religious message, but will instead say "Season's Greetings".

The British Red Cross earns about £30 million a year from its 392 shops. It says the policy is designed to underline its reputation for impartiality which allows it to work in some of the world's most dangerous places.

But now it is facing demands from MPs to overturn the decision.

Tory backbencher Nigel Evans said the policy was political correctness gone mad.

The MP, who was in the shadow cabinet until Monday's reshuffle, said: "This is simply beyond the pale. How can the Red Cross, sporting a Christian symbol as both its name and logo, possibly exclude Jesus, or other religious symbols, from the holiday celebrating his birth?
[Full Story]

Straight Plan for the Gay Man

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. cable network Comedy Central is planning to turn the American make-over hit "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" upside down with a new show called "Straight Plan for the Gay Man."

Debuting in February, the new show will parody the Bravo channel's "Queer Eye" series and male stereotypes in general as a team of straight comedians -- the "Flab 4" -- teaches a succession of gay men how to pass as heterosexuals.

The make-overs include lessons in such areas as spartan home decorating, oafish manners, less-than-fashionable wardrobes, and an overdeveloped ego to mask all personal failings, production executive Lou Wallach told Reuters on Monday.

He said the network is currently producing three hour-long episodes centring on three gay men looking to go straight for a day to satisfy some personal curiosity about life on the "other team."

I like the show ideas that David Morrison had posted earler in response to the original show better.

And curiously I don't think the reality make over show would be nearly as acceptable in the other direction Suppose, for example, a show in which a group of five self-identified straight men traveled about helping men assumed to live with SSA to do stereotypically masculine things like fix their cars or throw baseballs or bait fishing hooks? Do you think the use of stereotypes so freely in that show would get anything like a positive review?

Dedicated organist

From an interesting article about a woman organist.

Horvath has found such a strong connection to her faith in music that she once left her organist's bench one Sunday morning to go straight to the hospital to deliver one of her nine children.
[Full Story]

What is truth?

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The bishop heading the U.S. bishops' Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism criticized the quality of many high school catechetical textbooks currently in wide use throughout the United States.

Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes of New Orleans said the ad hoc committee had reviewed 25 high school catechetical texts since mid-2001 and found most lacking in key doctrinal areas. He did not name any specific books or publishers, however.

After his remarks outlining some of the deficiencies, two bishops wondered aloud whether the U.S. bishops should publish their own textbook.

...Among his examples of deficiencies, the archbishop said that the Catholic Church is described in some texts as "one church among many churches. Our young people are not learning what it means to say that sole church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church."

Doctrinal matter was introduced to students with "tentative language," he added, giving the impression that Catholic doctrine is one position among others "rather than a matter of truth."

Sacramental matters, according to Archbishop Hughes, were "seriously flawed" in the texts, leading students to think that the sacraments were developed "over an extended period of time with the implication they can still be changed" and that sacraments celebrate "moments in life" and not that they are an encounter with Christ.

Some texts suggest, he said, that "it is the community who baptizes, or confects the Eucharist." Further, Catholic teaching on women's ordination in the texts is "ambiguous or even misleading," the archbishop charged, while the sacrament of marriage is referred to in terms of "partners" rather than to "man and woman or husband and wife."

On sexual teaching, "there seems to be reluctance to name premarital or extramarital intercourse as sinful," Archbishop Hughes said, with morality presented as "a matter of options and personal choice," while the "relationship between the moral life in this world and in the life to come is often not treated."

In teaching about the nature of God, some books try to "avoid masculine titles" so that God the father is referred to only as "God," while some texts "speak of Jesus without noting his sonship or divinity," Archbishop Hughes said, adding that "the third person of the Trinity" is often referred to as "the Spirit of God, or God's Spirit."

Scriptures, the archbishop said, are defined as, "to a large degree, merely human texts," while the religion books try to make miracles seem ordinary, with some of "the miracles of Jesus explained as a result of lucky timing," he added, eliciting chuckles from some of the bishops.

Bishop William K. Weigand of Sacramento, Calif., and Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe, N.M., asked whether it might be time for the bishops to consider publishing a high school catechetical text of their own.

"If we can't rely on Catholic publishers to provide sound texts for our children, then it's very serious," Archbishop Sheehan said.
[Full Story]

I wonder if we we could rely on some committee put together by the Bishops to be able to provide sound text for our children? Judging by such documents as "Always Our Children" and other items that came out of committees but never received all ofthe Bishops endorsements, it is questionable. They have been working on a National Adult Catechism since 2000 and are going have to wait for 2004 to present a third draft. I am certainly glad to see that they are serious about reviewing the currently available catechetical textbooks, but I wonder what they will actually do about the ones determined to be deficient? The Bishops coming up with their own text books and then mandating them for use across the United States might be the only answer to getting rid of these other problematic text books.

Thank You

Veterans Tim Rain (L) of Michigan City, Indiana, Charles Martin (C), also of Michigan City, and Jerry Scrivnor (R) of Laport, Indiana, salute US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) during Veterans Day Ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetary.(AFP/Tim Sloan)

16-year-old high school student Mathew Bedore stands guard at a make-shift underwater cenotaph, during a Remembrance Day ceremony to honor soldiers lost at sea, in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, November 11, 2003. Remembrance Day and Veterans Day are observed in many countries to commemorate the casualties of war. REUTERS/Christinne Muschi

Refer to me as the artist formally known as Episcopal

Two Fayette County churches are dropping the word "Episcopal'' from common use of their names as they distance themselves from the national Episcopal Church amid controversy over the appointment of an openly gay bishop.

The churches now refer to themselves as St. Peter's Church in Uniontown and Christ Church in Brownsville. After their names, both add they are "a parish of the Anglican communion.''

"This is done as a protest," said the Rev. Thomas R. Finnie, pastor of St. Peter's Church. "We do not accept national church policies on a number of issues regarding how they read the Bible and apply it. We believe in the traditional, fundamental doctrine of the church.''
[Full Story]

One thing I have noticed in articles and in discussion on the radio about the turmoil in the Anglican communion is the increasing use of the word traditional by those conservative who disagree with the road the Episcopal church in America has taken. Sometimes they will use the word historical instead but it seems that using the word traditional is become less toxic to some Protestants. When Sola Scriptura falls on it's face when two Bible believing groups come to different interpretations, the conservative will start to appeal to the difference between their interpretation and historical Christianity.

LDS on LSD

If you ever wondered if their was a satrical Mormon web magazine, well the anwer is yes and it's called the sugar beet. It contains some funny articles like the following:

Stake Members Asked to Stop Praying for Middle East Peace

THORNTON, CO—After hearing prayers for peace in the Middle East in three different wards during the past month, North Denver stake president David Welch asked all stake members to refrain from such prayers. “We know from revelation that the Middle East has to go to hell in a hand basket before the Savior can return,” said President Welch. “Praying for humans to find a successful resolution is relying on the arm of flesh. People may as well just pray that the Lord’s Second Coming will be delayed. Let those folks fight it out until it gets bad enough for the Savior to step in.”

Catholics seek recruits in cyberspace

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Some Catholic religious orders, shaken by church sex scandals and a drop in priesthood volunteers, are turning to cyberspace to attract new vocations, church officials say.

Among those taking to the Internet for new recruits are the Congregation of the Mission, the Vincentian order of priests and monks who follow the teachings of St. Vincent de Paul.

"Like most religious communities, we've gotten smaller and grayer," said the Rev. John Maher, director of the Vincentian vocation ministry for the Philadelphia-based Eastern Province USA, which has seen its membership shrink from 400 in 1976 to fewer than 200 today.

The order, founded in the 1600s to minister to the poor, has launched its own Web site at www.vincentians.net and begun distributing CD-Roms to prospects. It is also planning an advertising campaign in January.

"More religious communities and dioceses are doing it than not. The Jesuits, the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Benedictines -- they're all doing it," said Maher.
[Full Story]

The Juggling Priest

Nicole of Notes to Myself has the article and link to the video.

The threefold nature of the ordained priesthood

Kenneth Allen has a good post today on titled Priest, Prophet, King

Holy Halloween

Growing up a member of the Adams family, The Rev. Dave Adams got kidded about the old TV show featuring creepy family members who snapped their fingers in unison and were particularly popular during Halloween.

The holiday was always "a big deal" in this home with spooky sounds from a tape recorder, and a lurking cast of Halloween characters - Dracula, Frankenstein, mummies and werewolves.

Years later, after he was ordained a Catholic priest, "Father Dave" as he is affectionately known, saw a change. The monsters, such as Freddy and Jason, were more violent and more shallow - just "gash, dash, bash and slash," he said.

"When I was a kid there wasn't this emphasis on blood and special effects," said Adams, the parochial vicar at Sacred Heart Church in Mount Holly.

The early monster movies focused on how the characters got to be the way they were and there were lessons to be learned, he said. He began sharing them during Sunday Mass and campfire Masses with area Boy Scouts.

The response, he said, was so encouraging that two years ago he put together "Holy Halloween!" a one-hour, light-hearted look at the Christian messages lurking in All Hallows Eve. Word of the presentation spread and other parishes invited him to speak, so he now takes his Halloween show on the road.

Last week he took his props and visual effects to St. Ann's Roman Catholic Church in Lawrence for an entertaining, informative, inspiring - and a bit nostalgic - show.

Old monsters, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy and Werewolf are different from the new characters, which are "very shallow, and the plot line is an excuse for a lot of blood and screams," he said. "If we can get back to the original, not just the plot, but the characters and what makes them tick, we can draw lessons out of it."
[Full Story]

The good news is that it appears that this was a talk and not a Mass, though dressing up in preistly garb and given this talk from behind the altar is pretty questionable.

The Bible Belt

Equip yourself for the Christian life with these new Bible Belts™ for every person and occasion so that that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. A just man's pants fall seven times a day so keep that from happening with these great Bible Belts™. Are you at work or in a grocery store and somebody challenges your faith? Are you always prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you? Sure you have tried the normal pocket Bibles, but they are just too hard to read. Why not go with the real thing that will be in front of you ready for any occasion. King James Bible Belt™. Do you enjoy the beautiful language of the KJV? Then this is the belt for you. Comes with a spring loaded cover ready for that fast paced game of Bible Ping Pong. Pages are specially treated to help you to quickly get to the verse you want. Our Price: $29:99 Catholic Family Bible Belt™. Yes even Catholics can read the Bible! This Bible is heavily indexed since you know the verse you want is in there somewhere. Now with seven more books then the KJV! This belt has plenty of room to attach Holy Water Fonts, Reliquaries, and you favorite Holy Cards. Also comes with a sewing kit for those Scapular cord emergencies. Our Price: $39:99 Apologist's Bible Belt™. Comes with King James Version, Catholic RSV and Strong's Bible Concordance. If your a professional apologist then this is the Bible Belt for you. Be prepared for those Bible Tag Team matches and be ready for any move. Our Price: $69:99 Compact Men's Bible Belt™ Select the Bible version that you want for those who want a fashion conscious belt. Our Price: $29:99 Women's Fashion Bible Belt™ Comes in only the most trendy Biblical Translations that never make you look fat. Our Price: $39:99 And if you act now with every order you will receive our new teflon coated sandals absolutely free!. Dust will not adhere to them so that when you preach to a town that will not hear the Gospel there is not dust to have to knock off at the end.

Learning from babies

Nice article on parenthood from a father's eyes.

Blessed be your bandwidth

An artist has created a website offering to give internet surfers religious blessings online.

Shilpa Gupta's site lets visitors pick a religion and watch videos of computer cables being blessed at religious sites in her home city of Bombay, or Mumbai.

Users can put their heads against their computer screens before printing out a certificate promising happiness.

Blessed-bandwidth.net was commissioned from the 26-year-old artist for the Tate galleries' Net Art site.

Visitors are asked to choose between the Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Buddhist faiths and the site pledges to bring "instant peace and happiness".
[Full Story]

Fired Teacher Sues Archdiocese

WILMINGTON (AP) A woman who was fired from an all-girls Catholic school in Wilmington after expressing support for abortion rights, filed a lawsuit Friday against the Archdiocese of Wilmington and its bishop.

Michele Curay-Cramer was fired in January on orders of Bishop Michael Saltarelli after a pro-choice newspaper advertisement containing her name appeared in a Wilmington newspaper.

Curay-Cramer was fired after she refused to recant her pro-choice views. She claims that her speech and advocacy for abortion rights is protected by the civil rights act of 1964 and the federal pregnancy discrimination act.
[Full Story]

Thank you Bishop Michael Angelo Saltarelli.

Poor Pagans

MILTON, Fla. -- Santa Rosa County's zoning board unanimously refused to let a Wiccan church meet in a residential neighborhood, a decision applauded by about 200 opponents.

One opponent held up a Bible and pointed to it in front of about a dozen Pagans who attended the board's meeting Thursday.

Others said it wasn't a religious issue, arguing that a residential area is inappropriate for a church, citing traffic as a major problem.

The Rev. William E. Livingston, chancellor of the Fire Dance Church of Wicca, said he will appeal the decision.

"They stepped all over my civil liberties tonight, and my church's civil liberties," Livingston said after the vote. "This will not be over until we win. We'll never let it go."
[Full Story]

Well at least these are socially conscious pagans since they have a Pagan Pantry dedicated to local pagans in need and then there is also the Pensacola Pagan Pride/Green Earth Fellowship. Fire dance seems appropriate, but I would recommend that they be careful and not make that an eternal dance step.

Admirable Women

At the prompting of a panelist, the candidates each offered their picks for the women in history who they most admire. Moseley Braun chose Sojourner Truth, the African-American activist. Kucinich named Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Workers Movement. Clark selected California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is actually supporting Kerry's campaign. Kerry thanked Clark for his wonderful pick and then offered up his: former first lady Abigail Adams. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean selected Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a founder of the women's rights movement, and added former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt to his answer. And Edwards jokingly barked at Dean for stealing his selection: Roosevelt.
[Full Story]

Interesting since Elizabeth Cady Stanton was anti-abortion and had said "When we consider that women have been treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit." I wasn't aware of this quote before but I knew that all of the early feminist leaders were anti-abortion it didn't take me long to find this. Dorothy Day had an abortion early in her life and later fought against abortion.

Moved

Fr. Bryce Sibley has moved:

A Saintly Salmagundi
RSS Feed

One Man's Hero

Check out Dom's blog to see what you can do about getting a good Catholic movie that has been shelved out for distribution.

Charity for Johns

In a first for the largely Roman Catholic country of Italy, a charity has launched a helpline for the clients of prostitutes, citing the torment they endure.

"It's no longer possible to face up to the problem of prostitution without analysing and helping the clients of prostitutes," Don Giovanni Sandona, head of the Catholic charity Caritas, said on Monday.

"We're talking about thousands of ignored people," he said, evoking the suffering of people who pay for sex.

Caritas' service will be available anonymously over the internet or by text messaging over a mobile phone.

Caritas, a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social service organisations "working to build a better world", will propose, among other things, the possiblity of finding help from family therapy specialists in a Venice institute.

First reactions have been positive, according to the charity: men have called expressing the need to help the young women they seek out on the streets.
[Full Story]

Kid Rights

Children will be allowed to vote in Germany if some leading members of the country's parliament have their way.

The proposal, seen as a counter-balance to an aging population resistant to welfare cuts, would give parents one proxy vote per child, according to Reuters.

But at least one proponent – Michael Kruse, deputy head of the German Children's Charity – thinks children should do the voting themselves in order to avoid conflict in families.

Reuters said 47 MPs support a cross-party motion calling for the right to vote from birth.

'A fifth of the population is excluded from elections,' said Klaus Haupt of the Free Democrats party, a leader of the initiative.

"Two hundred years ago nobody could imagine that every male citizen would be able to vote and 100 years ago people couldn't imagine that every woman should vote," he said, according to Reuters. "Now they can't imagine that everybody should vote from birth."
[Full Story]

After they ask the parents the name for the Birth certificate I guess they will now ask the baby what party they want to register for voting. "What was that? Whaaaa, Whaaaa, Whaaaa. If they want a tax but before there umbilical cord is cut, then it's another Republican. Oh another Democrat." There will also be the special interest kids groups like Kindergarten lobbyists who will lobby for increased nap time and play time during class. They will also need kid lawyers to sue the courts to advance their special interests and I guess they would have to pass the monkey bar exam first.

Some Pro-Life News

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) - A state circuit judge Wednesday refused to block an effort by the parents of a brain-damage woman to try to get her husband removed as her legal guardian.

Attorneys for Michael Schiavo now have to respond in court to charges in the petition that he withheld proper care and therapy from his wife, Terri Schiavo, and that he has a conflict of interest because he's in a romantic relationship with another woman.

Bob and Mary Schindler, parents of Terri Schiavo, asked Circuit Judge George W. Greer to appoint Terri's brother or sister as guardian instead.

Schiavo had asked for the Schindler's request to be dismissed, but Greer refused.
[Full Story]

The conservative, pro-family residents of Austin, Texas, are shouting "Not in my back yard," to Planned Parenthood and builders as far away as San Antonio are listening.

As News 8 Austin first reported, the general contractor overseeing the construction of an abortion clinic has pulled out amid a burgeoning boycott by subcontractors.

Browning Construction confirms for WorldNetDaily it has abandoned Planned Parenthood's $6.2 million "Choice Project," but has not commented as to why. Company employees directed inquiries to owner James Browning, who was unavailable for comment.
[Full Story]

WASHINGTON – President Bush on Wednesday signed legislation banning partial-birth abortion, handing its opponents a long-sought victory even as a federal judge sharply questioned the constitutionality of the new law.

"For years, a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are inches from birth while the law looked the other way," Bush said.
[Full Story]

LINCOLN, Neb. -- A federal judge in Lincoln issued an injunction Wednesday, blocking implementation of a ban on certain late-term abortions, but his ruling likely will not apply nationwide.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf said his ruling would likely apply only to Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Bellevue, Neb., and three other physicians who perform abortions. Those doctors are licensed to practice in Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, New York, South Carolina and Virginia. That means Kopf's ruling potentially could extend to those states.

Carhart challenged Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban and as a result the U.S. Supreme Court overturned it in 2000. The high court said the law and others like it passed by other states were an "undue burden" on women's rights.
[Full Story]

Please pray for this judge and these three abortionists.

How not to get the Southern vote

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean told a Tallahassee audience today that southerners have to quit basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays."
[Full Story]

I guess he is doing his Democratic penance for saying last week that he wants "to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks." And as for God, leave him out of your voting practices, that way we can get you to vote Democrat. What does God have to do with morality anyway?

Real intelligent way to appeal to southerners by implying they are racist. Southern states have elected more non-whites to high government positions including governor by far than any northern state especially like Vermont.

And please vote Democrat where we now base our votes on "Abortion on demand, Abortion on demand, Abortion on demand, and least we forget Abortion on demand."

Denmark to Accept Norse God Marriages

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Home to the Vikings of yore, Denmark said Wednesday it will let a group that worships Thor, Odin and other Norse gods conduct legally-recognized marriages.

``To me, it would be wrong if the indigenous religion of this country wasn't recognized,'' Tove Fergo, the minister for Ecclesiastic Affairs and a Lutheran priest, told The Associated Press.

Under Danish law, the state Evangelical Lutheran Church has sole authority to recognize other religious communities.

The 240-member Forn Sidr, which worships Odin, Thor, Freya and the other members of the Norse pantheon, sought recognition in 1999, said Tissel Jacobsen, the group's president.

Last year, an Ecclesiastic Affairs panel of scholars recommended that Forn Sidr, whose name mean ``Old Custom'' in old Norse, be approved, but only if their rituals were clearly detailed in its bylaws.
[Full Story]

Panting after God?

This is on the main page of the True Religion Brand Jeans site.

The entire world is about jeans. They're the true religion of clothing. They're bighearted--everyone wears them. My jeans--True Religion Brand Jeans--are the most generous of all --they want EVERYBODY to wear them. But they are not for everybody.

Do you think I make this up? NO! My jeans have a soul. They have a life. They want to give you more style than you've ever had before. They fit amazingly. They are the very best quality, made only in the U.S.A.; Go ahead and tour my website. Learn how to be one with your jeans.

I think it was St. Thomas Aquinas who had explained that there our plant souls, animal souls, and human souls. Was that a misspelling and did he mean pant instead of plant? Jeans have always been part of religion, after all Mose and his brother were from the tribe of Levi and I seem to remember something about Calvinism Klien. But I also think that before I became one with my jeans that I would probably take them off and wash em.

Therapy Dog Warming Homeless Hearts

Here's a story that's sure to warm your heart on a cold day. It's about a dog whose love means everything to many who have next to nothing.

It’s a place that has gone to the dogs, well just one dog, named Truman.

Jim Upton, Truman's Owner: “As soon as we walk on the property people are hollering for him from the sidewalk. We’ll drive down the street and everybody will be hollering, ‘Hey Truman, Hey Truman.’”

Truman's owner, Jim Upton, is a program coordinator for Catholic Community Services, a homeless outreach program in Salt Lake City. Upton first brought Truman here a year ago. Since then the Golden Retriever has quickly become everybody's dog.

...And his friends are grateful. Most of them are homeless, yet they'll spend what little extra money they have to buy Truman toys and treats.

Jim Upton: "He also gets Christmas cards every year. His name is normally first--Truman and Jim."
[Full Story]

Next to our parish is a food kitchen run by our church. In a garden area outside the side entrance of the church would congregate homeless men begging for money. Our pastor had posted on the doors not to give these men money since their clothing and food was already being provided by the church. One of these homeless men had a dog resembling a German Shepard. As we went into the door he would ask for money to buy food for his dog and he stated right out that the church was providing him food. We would occasionally give him some money for dog food and would greet him each day as we went to Mass. It was my wife's idea to buy some cans of dog food, can opener, and a bowl. When we saw him we handed him this bag and I tried to tell him that we cared about him and that these gifts for his dog in no way was saying that his dog was more important than he was. He thanked us and after that I didn't see him around. A couple of weeks later while in Mass a seeming stranger came up to me while I was knelling in the pew before Mass. He started to talk to me and told me how much he appreciated what we had done for him and the hope it had given him. I was totally confused and it finally dawned on me that this man now cleanly shaved with a hair cut and presentable clothes was this very same man with the dog. I can hardly explain the feelings that swept through me. The joy of seeing the change in this man, but at the same time feeling totally unworthy of this man thanks. It was truly my wife's charity and not mine that he was thanking us for and I alone would probably never have taken that step. That day as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta would say, I truly saw Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor. I have a terrible memory for names and I wish that I could remember his as I thank him for the gift he had given me.

Extending the joy of the Mass

Nice article on the recenty ordained Bishop Peter Jugis of the Diocese of Charlotte.

Theological Medical Breakthrough

Are dogmas dogging you down. Do you get your theology from ABC? Do you think that Jesus had a wife? Are the Gnostics not caustic to you? Is New Age all the rage? Do you find the resurrection of the dead silly but firmly believe in reincarnation and soul traveling? Does every TV special that starts with "The Real ..." lead you to more unsound ideas? Are you constantly looking for a church that matches your infallible theological interpretations. Have you ever said "Hey, it's the 21st century; surely we don't still believe that?" Do you feel the desire to scratch your ears when hearing any new fly-by-night theology?

If you answered yes to any of these questions you are suffering from the itching ears virus. The technical name for this disease is hereticitis and results from an inner ear theological imbalance. Just as sometimes when suffering from an ear infection or blowing your nose it can cause you to lose balance and the world to spin in front of your eyes; hereticitis causes a theological imbalance because of the spin placed on the truth. The imbalance of theological fluids in your inner ear causes you try to remove the irritation by scratching your itchy ears. This is not a new disease but has been around for centuries as St. Paul attests to when he said "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings."

Now that you know the cause you ask "Well what can I do about it and how can I return to sound doctrine?" The answer is this amazing new "Itching Ear Cream" made with totally organic components. We mixed equal parts of sacred scripture and sacred tradition with just the right amounts of magisterial teaching, obedience, and charity to come up with this amazing formula. To use this cream you only need to supply the humility to go with it. Each tube comes with a paperback edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to help you on the road to recovery.

Now available in both regular and Bishop strength. A special bulk order discount is currently available for American Episcopalians now through the end of the year.

Caution: If after ten days you still do not show signs of accepting sound doctrine please increase the does of humility and follow up with a visit to your family theologian (One free from hereticitis).

He who has itching ears, let them hear

God Provides

Today at Mass we had a priest who was visiting from the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska. He was in the area visiting a friend and was not use to the traffic and thus missed morning Mass. He got on to the internet to look at Mass Times for this city and found the 12:00 Mass at the church I go to. When he got there he informed them that he was there and wanted to co-celebrate the Mass. For what ever reason our Pastor was not able to make it there to celebrate Mass and if this priest had not shown up we would have had to have a communion service instead. This was very fortunate since this Mass was to be said for the repose of the souls of my wife's parents. He chanted the Mass beautifully and I was able to lower my liturgical abuse detectors and pray the Mass.

Pathetic Prophetic

Call to Action is back with an upcoming conference and a celibacy petition drive. One of the latest buzz words I have seen on sites that are at odds with church teaching is "prophetic". Call to Fraction is now using "Prophetic Leadership for World and Church." The Old Testament Prophets called people back to God's will and told them of the future consequences if they didn't repent. The progressive prophets call people back to their own will and tell of the future consequence if they don't reinvent. The Old Testament prophets reminded people of what God had revealed. This CTA prophets call people to what they have revealed. Their revelations of women priests, contraception, abortion, homosexual sex, and divorce is contrary to both sacred scripture and sacred tradition. If John the Baptist had been a CTA member he would not have lost his head for complaining about Herod's marriage arrangement, but he would also then have not said "He must increase, but I must decrease." CTA's real motto should be "He must decrease, but I must increase."

Mass Ramblings

Going to Mass today at my favorite church here in Jacksonville, we walked in to discover scaffolding everywhere. This is a beautiful Romanesque style church that is roughly 90 years old and they are doing restoration of the ceiling's plaster work. A few years back one of the florette on the ceiling gave way and fell to the ground. Communion had just ended and there was no one there standing when it fell to where Holy Communion was just given.

The amount of scaffolding there was rather distracting, but it did get me thinking about the virtues. As a convert sometimes you think that once you have faith and try to cooperate with grace that all of your faults will just give way That instantaneously you can be tested and not fall. Time and experience soon destroys that idea. Today I realized that virtues are much like the scaffolding of the Christian life. Scaffolding is not placed in for support in only one piece, but it is slowly added in and the scaffolding builds on top of the other pieces to both grow and to provide greater support. A virtue is a habit consonance with right reason that further disposes us toward good. Building on a established virtue not only increases us toward the good but also lays the foundation or builds up other virtues. If a virtue has not been built up, then when that area is challenged it will fall. When it has been built up then that consistent habit toward good will not crash toward the ground, but will resist the force upon it.

On the first Sundays of the month this Church does a combination Latin/English Mass like what is done at EWTN. The choir over the couple years that I have attended has grown steadily better. Originally they were often out of key with each other. I don't have perfect pitch but I can tell when things are not quite right tonally. They were especially good today and their selection of music used both Latin text songs and some older English songs. Unfortunately they capped all of this off with On Eagles WIngs and last month it ended with Shine Jesus Shine. To my way of thinking this is like topping a banana split with a pickle. Another thing I enjoy about this Church is that the choir is in the balcony. Many churches even with choir lofts instead crowd them into the Sanctuary. Music directors then seem to want to treat us like an audience and get the idea that they got to do something like wave their arms around to direct us. There is also the temptation by the people at Mass to then applaud when a seemingly difficult piece was sung. Choirs can help to provide the soundtrack to the Mass, but should not become the performers on stage. There is an old saying that children should be seen, not heard. I am of the opinion that church choir's should be heard, not seen.

No King but Caesar Chavez

I was reading this article on a new daily prayer site from the Benedictine Sisters of Erie and thought I would check it out. On the bottom of their prayer page is:

Let prayer change you. Do something:

Read a book about the life of a modern day saint�Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., Caesar Chavez, for example.

The Pope has canonized 464 people during his pontificate and he can't even get one on their short list for modern saints.

They also have retreats that let you "Walk and dance our outdoor labyrinth in celebration of summer days" also "contemplative walking" and "movement prayer." I wonder if I can do contemplative walking on my treadmill, that would kill two birds with one stone.

Then I read that Joan Chittister, OSB was part of this community and it all fit into place. Previously she was going to attend a Women's Ordination Conference in Dublin, Ireland and the Vatican wrote her superior to keep Sister Joan at Home. The prioress refused the Vatican's request and wrote a letter back to them. All but one nun in the community signed the letter. The superior's statement explaining her reasons for disobeying the Vatican is a most extraordinary document. It was "out of the Benedictine tradition of obedience," she says, that she formed her decision. Sister Christine Vladimiroff is still the prioress of this community.

Being a 'cool' Catholic

Rap music.

A "Ferris wheel of faith."

A shaggy-haired DJ wearing a "Got God?" T-shirt - a spoof of the popular milk ads - while introducing a group of stomp dancers.

This was not your traditional Catholic Church.

Nor was it supposed to be.

Youth Day at Navy Pier, sponsored by the Archdiocese of Chicago, was planned specifically to appeal to teens - a group with waning interest Catholic leaders acknowledge they are trying to court.
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The rest of the article goes on with some interviewed teens (from Catholic High Schools) who whine about the Mass not being more contemporary and that the church is too traditional and needs to do something to infuse enthusiasm.

This is an approach that has been done by many Protestant Churches. Driving around town I see signs that advertise "Contemporary Worship Services" on the front lawns of churches. Normally they might initially draw interest and start to grow, but judging just by parking lots the attendance eventually fades. Making a church and it's services not really any different from the society around it leads to question, if the church and the society are the same then, why go to church? Using gimmicks to draw people to the Christian life I believe will result in what happens in the parable of the sower; that soon these people will be choked on weeds and fall away.

After Pentecost the miracle that occurred was that each person hearing the Apostles preach, heard it in their own language. The miracle was not that each person heard the worship music that they preferred. I have been know also to whine from time to time about the music during Mass, but it has absolutely no effect on my going to Mass on Sundays.

When Catholic High Schools students complain about needing something to give them enthusiasm, I would offer one word "Eucharist." Jesus is sacramentally present Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity whether there is Gregorian Chant or a OCP/GIA special. Whether everyone sang along, or no one did. Whether the homily taught the faith or just droned on. Whether the church was in a traditional style or it's interior looked like wall-to-wall white refrigerators with nary a magnet to decorate it.

The Statue of Imitations

GRAND FORKS (AP) -- A Fargo activist has asked a University of North Dakota law professor to help him sue to remove the statue of a Greek goddess from the top of the Grand Forks County Courthouse.

Martin Wishnatsky is using a legal argument similar to the one used to try to remove a display of the Ten Commandments in Fargo.

Wishnatsky wrote to Laura Rovner, director of the clinical education program at the UND law school, asking her help in a lawsuit to have a statue of the goddess Themis removed.

Themis, the ancient Greek goddess of law and order, traditionally has been a symbol at U.S. courthouses, her eyes blindfolded and holding the scales of justice. Her statue has been atop the Grand Forks County Courthouse for nearly 90 years.

"As a Christian, I find such representations of pagan religious figures in public places very distressing," Wishnatsky wrote to Rovner.
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When a Christian can look at their city and then find that the thing to spend his time on is removing Greek statues, then that person needs to revaluate their priorities. Much more distressing should be the three abortion clinics in Grand Fords.