A nice reflection at Signum Magnum on New Years resolutions with some quotes from the Holy Father and St Josemaría Escrivá.

Additionally Dawn Eden has a great idea to spend New Year's Eve in intercessory prayer. So before the ball drops tonight let's not drop the ball in our prayer life.

Ashli puts a nice smack-down on the latest meme about pro-lifers. That once a child is born we don't give a damn about the child and it's health or education. Someone recently posted this meme in a comment box on one of my posts and so it was timely for Ashli to post on this. She makes some excellent points as to asking where is the pro-abortion crowd is after a women has an abortion and then has physical or emotional problems?

The abortion supporter is only there to put an arm around a grieving mother... so they can reach around and clap a hand over her wailing mouth. "Shut up," the abortion supporter sneers. "Your voice is not wanted. You made your bed, now lie in it. It was your choice. YOUR choice!"

The same people who would want to send in grief counselors if the family pet was run over will totally deny that women and those involved in the abortion can possibly have any grief. Their tactic is deny, deny, deny. Recently we have had multiple stories and constant cable news coverage on Celebrex at four times the dosage possibly leading to increased risk of heart attacks. Yet Mifeprex used for a chemical abortion at the normal dosage is much more likely to cause death then Celebrex. Where is the concern for the life of the mother in this case by pro-abortion types?

It is no surprise that the meme used against those who are pro-life is increasingly used. They usually frame the debate in government provided healthcare and education. One of the problems in modern discourse is that if you do not agree with someone's solution to a problem then you are automatically branded as not caring about the problem. For example if you don't accept a junk science fact on the environment then you must be for dirty air and water. If you don't believe that government provided health care is the best way to provide access to healthcare for everyone you must have disdain for the poor. We need to move the debate on both sides away from demonizing others about their concern about a problem and move the debate towards what is the more prudential answer to a problem.

MIAMI (Reuters) - The two U.S. and Russian astronauts on the International Space Station (news - web sites) had to rely on a candy-laden diet for five weeks because their predecessors raided the pantry.

"Both of us ended up losing a few pounds," U.S. astronaut Leroy Chiao said in a news conference from the station on Wednesday. "We looked at it as kind of a challenge, kind of a camping adventure, roughing it I guess."

Chiao and Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov, who arrived at the station in October, had to cut calories because the previous crew got into their food rations.

They had permission to do that but did not record how much they had eaten and "It was not until we got well into the mission, we started seeing on board we weren't going to have enough," Chiao said.

He and Sharipov inventoried the remaining food, which was heavy on candy and desserts, and worked out a diet to stretch their supplies until a new shipment of food arrived aboard a Russian cargo carrier on Saturday.

Carmelite Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity was also on a candy diet. She suffered from Addison's disease (which JFK also had) and eventuality died at the age of 26 from stomach cancer. Because she was unable to hold down most foods the nuns would give her expensive chocolates that were donated to them. This of course was a great trial for her since a diet of chocolate does not normally fit into a discalced Carmelite charism. So in her case her need to subsist on chocolate was actually purgative as she came in her humility to accept this special treatment.

And speaking of candy I reprint a recent post by SoDakMonk on the "Hierarchy of Candy."

All candy is not created equal. This should be self-evident. When one lives in a community, and said community receives large quantities of various candies at Christmastime, a clear rating system for candy quickly emerges. The first candies to disappear from common areas are the chocolates, the most expensive first. This could be related to the relatively small amount of gourmet chocolate that comes in each decorator package. The mid-range brands of chocolate perhaps offer the best value for the price. Beware the low-priced chocolate flavored waxy stuff - very bad! Just below chocolate in the hierarchy we find other rich, soft candy e.g. buttercreme mints, bonbons etc. These disappear at a slightly slower rate than the chocolate itself. As the high-quality candy becomes scarce, lower quality items such as mellowcremes, candy canes, etc show the first signs of numerical decline. By early January, the only items remaining are usually the lowest forms of candy: plain hard candy such as Lifesavers, sourballs etc. These items have a long shelf life, and sometimes need it. Keep in mind that Lent comes very early this year. Let's get eating out there! But be warned that excessive candy consumption correlates with tooth decay, tightening pants and sore spots on the tongue. It would appear there are no victimless sweets.

A nice Christmas reflection at the blog John the Mad [Via Paul Cella]

He also uses the same blog introductory quote that I used for my first blog entry.

G.K. Chesterton once wrote that "if something's worth doing, it's worth doing badly."

In an article by Sister Christine Vladimirof (who has previously refused a request coming from the Vatican) says: [Via Diogenes of Off teh Record]

She said that in addition to the "areas of energy and vision" that she sees among religious orders today, there are areas of struggle and concern. Among those is the decline in numbers of religious and the aging of religious communities.

But, she said, it is not only the religious communities, but the entire population in the U.S. that is aging.

She is on to a partial truth here. Both the general population and religious communities are aging and they both have the same underlying cause, though she doesn't make the leap to point it out. The graying to our culture is due to abortion, contraception, and a materialistic attitude that is not open to life. With such small families now is it any wonder that there are less people available for vocations to the priesthood or religious life. How many parents will encourage a vocation for a child when they might only have one or two? SInce the Erie Benedictines and especially some of its members are openly supportive of abortion it is no surprise that they do not make the connection between their own beliefs and the decline of their order.

Now I am no expert on Dominican history, but the following statement doesn't ring true to me.

"During the Reformation, the Dominicans were founded to preach and to help defend the faith. In this third millennium, maybe we have to re-found our institutions."

St. Dominic was preaching a couple hundred years before the Reformation and worked tirelessly to defeat the Albigensian heresy. If he was alive today he would probably start preaching in some Dominican and Benedictine con vents..

The institutional church is a human construct, she said, "fallible, provisional and in need of constant renewal."

"The structures and policies are always behind where the spirit is moving us," she said.

While it is certainly true that the Church is always in need of renewal (just as individually we are) I believe Jesus would be surprised that he founded a human construct.

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.

VALHALLA — At New York Medical College, there are clubs for Jewish students, lovers of ballroom dance and those who are passionate about neuroscience, orthopedics or pediatrics.

Until recently, gay students also had their own organization, one that the Catholic-affiliated college allowed to exist as long as there was nothing that hinted of homosexuality in the title, such as the words "pride" or "rainbow." But when the Student Support Club changed its name to Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender People in Medicine, it found it was not welcome on campus and was told to disband.

..."New York Medical College retains the right to conform all policies, practices and procedures in a manner that preserves its rights, character and identity as a health sciences university in the Catholic tradition," the statement said. "The college will neither sponsor nor support an organization whose objectives are incompatible with our institutional values."

The medical school, which was founded in 1860, began a relationship with the Archdiocese of New York in 1978. The archdiocese, according to the college's Web site, helped restructure the college's debt and added Catholic hospitals to those affiliated with the school.

"Truthfully, I didn't realize how Catholic it was," said Sahara, who is 27, grew up in Alaska and attended college in Hawaii.

Sahara joined the Student Support Club last year, which then had five members, and said he worked successfully to have a sexual orientation clause put into the university's anti-discrimination policy.

Emboldened, the group decided to change its name to Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender People in Medicine, which is similar to the names used by other such student groups nationwide. [Source]

"Truthfully, I didn't realize how Catholic it was" is probably a pretty accurate indictment of most Catholic schools or affiliated institutions. This is also a good case study on homosexual activism. First they fight for a sexual orientation clause. Second they start a club and use a name without gay buzzwords. Emboldened they change the name of the club to actually be more consistent with their agenda. The school was playing the emperors new clothes game in regards to this club as long as the title was OK. They pretended the group fell within Catholic teaching as long as the name wasn't too offensive. I doubt if they would have let a group of racists start a club with the name of Purity Support Club.

The bias in the article is also pretty funny. The writer starts off by putting an active homosexual club in a Catholic school on the same par as ballroom dancing or a club for Jewish students.

Dawn Eden post on the rapid selling of the PROLIFE wristband and also mentions a a group called Working for Change (funded by Ben & Jerry's "Ice Cream, You Scream, Silent Scream") which has created a "Never Surrender" wristband. The money is used to fund Planned Parenthood, NARAL, etc. Rather ironic wristband since abortion and contraception are always a surrender. For sex outside of marriage it is in effect a surrender to concupiscence. For children denying sex in marriage it is a surrender to selfishness. To go along with the culture of death is nothing radical and is just a bland conformity to a nihilistic sexual ethic. Of course the child in the womb is not asked if they will surrender their life to the cause of choice, but instead a surgical strike on their life is performed.

For each Never Surrender bracelet sold, Working Assets will donate $1 to nonprofit groups fighting to offset damage caused by our country's dangerous and inhumane policies. Never Surrender bracelets from Working Assets are made in the USA.

So exactly what inhumane policies are they talking about? If you consider partial birth abortion to be humane what can you consider to be inhumane? This is a twisted world when denying the "right" to vacuum out the brains of your child can be considered inhumane. But I guess since they are made in the US it's OK. They also suggest that you volunteer your time at Planned Parenthood and Sierra Club. This of course makes perfect sense in a demented way. First you go down to your local PP clinic to make sure that depopulation efforts of humans occurs efficiently and then go over to the Sierra Club to help nurture a endangered species back to health. After all - all life is precious except some life is just more precious than others. I can see this saying put up on the barn in a feminist version of Animal Farm by female pigs (obviously not a male chauvinist pig).

Nasty Chasuble Contest. The bunny rabbit on the back makes for a very implausible Chasuble

Fifty carolers joined the Pro-Life Action League for the second annual "Empty Manger" Christmas Caroling Day Saturday, Dec. 18. The group visited four different abortion mills in Chicago and gathered around a life-size empty manger to sing Christmas Carols about the Christ Child.

The empty manger was a symbol of the hope that a little baby can bring. But it was also a symbol of the empty space that is left when a little unborn baby is killed by abortion. The carolers hoped to reach abortion-bound women with a message of Christmas hope. At least one mother who heard the carolers decided not to abort her baby. [Source][Via Matt C. Abbott]

Empty manger reminds me of a Planned Parenthood card I once did.

You just have to love a post that starts off with:

This here is a flaming PC-free, Nativity creche friendly, winter solstice/Kwanzaa disdaining, stocking hanging, reindeer gaming, Joy to the World screeching, "Merry Christmas!" echoing, razzleberry dressing and wassail consuming, careening collision of Church and State, web-blog.

To all of you who are worried that the secularists are stealing Christmas, I send the words of the angels: "Do Not Be Afraid!" The ACLU et al. is no match for the tiny, shivering, little, naked Deity in the manger at Bethlehem. [Barbara Nicolosi]

Those were also the words that Pope John Paul II started off with pontificate with "be not afraid." In this PC crazed world it can easily be re-phrased to "Be not afraid to offend." If you can live your faith without causing waves then you are probably not living your faith. The early Christians were at first a scandal to the Pagans. Later though the Pagans became scandalized by Paganism. Too many are living as secret Christians and we have surrendered too much to the culture for fear of offence and a go-along to get-along attitude. Barbara Nicolosi efforts with Act One are a template for all of us regardless of a field of endeavor. Whether we are artists or code-slingers we can be the yeast to make the whole loaf rise. Too often Christians have tried to bake the cultural loaf with all the yeast in one part only. By setting up walls or mirroring aspects of society they have failed to interact but instead have created a bunker Christianity.

Interesting reflection and nws from a priest serving in Iraq

Finding the reason for the seaons in Iraq. [Via Matt C. Abbott]

REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

1. “Adoro te devote, latens Deitas.”

“Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore.” On this night, the opening words of this celebrated Eucharistic hymn echo in my heart. These words accompany me daily in this year dedicated to the Eucharist.

In the Son of the Virgin, “wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Lk 2:12), we acknowledge and adore ”the Bread which came down from heaven” (Jn 6:41, 51), the Redeemer who came among us in order to bring life to the world.

2. Bethlehem! The city where Jesus was born in fulfilment of the Scriptures, in Hebrew means “house of bread.” It was there that the Messiah was to be born, the One who would say of himself: “I am the bread of life” (Jn 6:35, 48).

In Bethlehem was born the One who, under the sign of broken bread, would leave us the memorial of his Pasch. On this Holy Night, adoration of the Child Jesus becomes Eucharistic adoration.

3. We adore you, Lord, truly present in the Sacrament of the Altar, the living Bread which gives life to humanity. We acknowledge you as our one God, a little Child lying helpless in the manger! “In the fullness of time, you became a man among men, to unite the end to the beginning, that is, man to God” (cf. Saint Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, IV, 20, 4).

You are born on this Night, our divine Redeemer, and, in our journey along the paths of time, you become for us the food of eternal life.

Look upon us, eternal Son of God, who took flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary! All humanity, with its burden of trials and troubles, stands in need of you.

Stay with us, living Bread which came down from heaven for our salvation! Stay with us forever! Amen! [Source]

President Bush has implemented economic policies that resemble those of the Roman Empire, which forced the baby Jesus into homelessness on the night of his birth, former civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson said in a pre-Christmas rant late Thursday.

"In the last [Bush] budget, we cut housing again, and that was Jesus' dilemma. In Bethlehem, his family ended up homeless," Jackson told MSNBC's Campbell Brown.

"Rome was a wealthy country that left Jesus and Mary and Joseph, in a sense, homeless," he complained. "He was born an at-risk baby." [Source]

Like clockwork every year we seem to get Democrats saying dumb things like this. I also remember back in 1997 when Al Gore said something similar at a HUD conference.

"Speaking from my own religious tradition in this Christmas season, 2,000 years ago a homeless woman gave birth to a homeless child in a manger."

Of course the fact that Mary and Joseph already had a home and were unable to get accommodation when traveling doesn't seem to fae them when they want to use the miracle of the Incarnation to score political points. This year many people will come here to Jacksonville to see the Superbowl and I guess if they are unable to find a room that they would be seen as homeless by Al and Jessie.

The other irony is the reason for why Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem in the first place. The Romans were not having a census so as to determine how many more entitlement programs that the Jewish people could receive or to increase the amount of representatives for a Democratic government. No the fact is the Romans had a census to make sure that the Israelites were paying their fare share in taxes - something that Democrats should more readily identify with rather then put onto the Bush administration. Another irony is that it is liberal groups that have their own form of no room at the inn for the Christ child. In the modern case it has become no room on the lawn for a nativity scene on public property. Again the Holy Family is denied room and they must go elsewhere. Jesus once exclaimed that "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." Thanks to the ACLU it continues to this day that the head of the infant Jesus not lay in sight for possibly offending people. I don't even want to get into the advice of what the modern liberals would have offered Mary on news of her pregnancy.

They have owned remote convents, willow-shaded hospitals, and schools and orphanages on green campuses. For decades, nuns have been little-noticed stewards of the land.

Now, a group of nuns at a Plainville nature center is pushing to preserve properties owned by nuns and other religious groups, arguing that protecting open space is a worthy pursuit, even for those focused on a higher plane.

The Dominican nuns at the Crystal Spring Earth Learning Center have formed the Religious Lands Conservancy Project, a partnership with the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition. [Source]

Here is the site for the Crystal Spring Earth Learning Center. They seem to be heavily influenced by Fr. Thomas Berry. There is an article about him in the NC Reporter that includes this.

Rather than a theologian, Berry considers himself a cosmologist and “geologian,” an Earth scholar. He believes the only way to effectively function as individuals and as a species is to understand the history and functioning of our planet and of the wide universe itself, like sailors learning about their ship and the vast ocean on which it sails. “It takes a universe to make a child,” he says, adding that he is “trying to establish a functional cosmology, not a theology.” The amazing, mind-boggling cosmological perspective, he feels, can resuscitate human meaning and direction. The most important spiritual qualities, for Berry, are amazement and enchantment. Awe is healing. A sense of wonder is the therapy for spiritual autism.

In other words, caring for our planet and ascertaining where we are in the universe goes to the heart of what it means to be a faithful Christian. Nothing is really itself without everything else. Christianity’s task, if it is going to survive, will be to place itself within the context of science’s new story of our human origins and the evolution of the universe.

A geologian? That is just too funny. Here is one of his poems:

It Takes a Universe
by Thomas Berry

The child awakens to a universe.
The mind of the child to a world of meaning.
Imagination to a world of beauty.
Emotions to a world of intimacy.

It takes a universe to make a child
both in outer form and inner spirit.
It takes a universe to educate a child.
A universe to fulfill a child.

Gee I guess Hillary got it wrong, but maybe this is what she was thinking of for universal health care. I also guess people might become frustrated waiting for the universe to come and pick up their child to take them to universal day care.

Also on the nuns site from one of their newsletters was this piece of cosmic relativity.

As a species we are programmed to reflect on the reality that we experience. Out of our reflection we construct our meaning and create our cosmology. Our cosmology is our belief about the creation and purpose of the world.

In November they had "A Beautiful Gaia Concert" which promoted "Love Songs to Earth." O Beautiful Gaia. Of course they also link to multiple sites that reference sustainability (code words for abort to keep the population in control), reproductive health, and responsible reproduction.

Their attitude is like going to an art museum where all of the names of the artists were removed from their works. That the art exists as its own creation. I know this world view first hand. I have always loved the world of science and the awe of studying the complexity and wonders of the universe. I saw creation without a creator and the universal architecture without an architect. Many art historians study the biography and life of creator of a piece of art to try to more fully understand the art produced. Our eyes looking downwards to study the earth should also look upward to thank God for its wonders. Only by more deeply falling in love with God can we more deeply appreciated what he has created.

Growing up in a large Irish and Acadian family in northern New Brunswick, Judy Savoy remembers kneeling on the hard wooden floor to pray the rosary every night during Lent, singing in a girl's choir during Latin Mass, praying novenas, and going to Confession once a month.

She loved the majesty, the drama and pageantry of the Catholic Church and "the mystery that God could never be fully understood." But then, like many baby-boomers, she drifted away, lost her faith for a season, and then found it in a Protestant church.

Now, as Get Me Back to the Garden, I'm Choking on the Weeds, the one-woman-show she wrote and produced is showcasing her acting and comedic talents across Canada in mostly evangelical circles, she has returned to the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2002, Savoy moved to Halifax. In 2003, at a party, she met a Catholic priest.

"As we chatted, I found out that he had had a 'born-again' experience as an 18-year-old through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship through a friend of mine," Savoy said.

'Where you belong'

The priest, Father James Mallon, told her the Catholic Church represented her roots, her home. "Judy, we Catholics go off and become evangelized by other denominations. Now we need to come back and evangelize the Catholic Church. This is where you belong."

That summer, she went to do a musical in Prince Edward Island, and asked God where she should worship when she returned to Halifax.

At a three-day conference in Summerside, P.E.I., featuring a prophetic speaker, she recalls being deep in prayer, on her knees, while the speaker led worship. He said, "You do not need more teaching, you need to worship," and she felt as if those words were meant for her.

Then she says she felt something surge through her body like a bolt of lightning that started from the top of her head to her toes. She heard "The Catholic Church" three times.

"My response was 'you're kidding'," she says. [Source]

Here is a story about a handful of atheists protesting a nativity scene. These must have been very brave atheists because they protested near religious symbols. I am sure they were afraid that these symbols on public property might convert them against there will. This must be so since they believe that just the mere presence of a Nativity scene on public property is a sign that Congress has established a religion and that those who are not Christians have had their free exercise of religion prohibited.

Now when Christian religious symbols are on display during Christmas we often have other symbols like the Menorah or even Islamic symbols. Up to this point atheists have been left out of these public displays except on occasional poster board sign stating unbelief. I think they should put up some atheist creches so that they are not left out. These would be simple to erect. Simply dig a hole and poor some water in it to symbolize a primordial swamp. To complete the effect add some sort of clock next to it to symbolize billions of years.

Update: Scrappleface posted along the same lines for a primordial soup display earlier today.

Walking into many stores you have to walk through a labyrinth of store displays hawking many varieties of perfume to sell as Christmas gifts. The celebrity branded ones are to me the funniest and there is even a perfume by the guys at Orange County Choppers called Full Throttle. Recently I ran across this olfactory related story.

Want to feel closer to your religion? A South Dakota family says they have the perfect aromatic way to strengthen your faith. This is the season for candles. We're seeing all the usual holiday scents.

But one couple created a candle that's supposed to smell like Jesus Christ.

At Interiors Plus in Waseca, they sell typical holiday gifts. But owner Kim Foels has one thing no one else in Minnesota has, "His Essence."

...While reading The Bible, Karen learned that when the Messiah returns, his garments will smell like myrrh, aloe and cassia.

Karen said, "And I thought I wonder what they would smell like. It would have to be wonderful because of who they are representing." [Source]

Well I got to put in my two scents about this. I guess it is a good thing that they didn't create a candle that smelled like Jesus after he spent 40 days in the wilderness. This I guess to be a doorway into a whole new line of bracelets with the initials for How Would Jesus Smell.

And when the LORD smelled the pleasing odor, the LORD said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done." Gen 8: 21

They have ears, but do not hear;noses, but do not smell. Ps 115:6

And then there are multiple Old Testament mentions of sacrifices producing pleasing odors to the Lord, so why don't we have religiously themed perfumes?

Now if Calvin Klein had set up business during the first part of salvation history I am sure we would have had a perfume titled.

Calvin Klein Immolation - a pleasing odor to the LORD.

Now for those of us with a traditionalist bent I can think of a good product for us. A perfume that smells just like the incense used at Mass and delivered via a bottle in the shape of a very POD censer. We could dab this on ourselves before going to a liturgically deprived parish so as not to be too liturgically impoverished.

Smell and Bells would be another good brand name. The bottle would be shaped like a bell with a small clapper and ringing the bell would cause an aspirator to dispense the fragrance.

Then for progressives they could make "Scent of Vatican II." This perfume would be totally odorless and you would just have to imagine what you want it to smell like. This shouldn't be too much of a stretch for them since they have developed a good imagination in regards to the texts of Vatican II.

Each November, members of the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Colorado gather for a "Red Mass" commemorating the martyrdom of St. Thomas More, a lawyer who was beheaded in 1535 after refusing to renounce his faith to the king of England.

Next year, the fraternal organization probably will need to find a new venue and a new celebrant.

The Denver Roman Catholic Archdiocese is distancing itself from the group after its board of directors, in an emotional meeting Nov. 30, decided not to give Archbishop Charles Chaput final say on who receives its two annual awards.

Chaput made it clear to the group that he was upset that Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar was chosen in 2003 for an award named for More, said Laura Tighe, the guild's incoming president.

Salazar, a Democrat and Catholic who will become a U.S. senator next month, supports abortion rights, in conflict with church teaching.

In the end, a consensus of board members voted to seek Chaput's guidance in future award-selection processes but the group would ultimately select the winners.

"Our group felt we wanted independence," Tighe said.

"We are obviously very distinctively Catholic, but there's a great difference on how we exercise our Catholicism. We understand the ramifications of our decision, and we will go on."

Michael Carrigan, a guild board member and former president who was recently elected to the University of Colorado Board of Regents, said the group does not look at someone's abortion position in handing out awards, and he hopes that continues.

..."As a lifelong Catholic, I have come to recognize that the Catholic Church's calls for social justice encompass more than one or two issues," said Carrigan, who supports abortion rights and enthusiastically introduced Salazar at the 2003 awards. [Source]

In other parts of the article lawyers worried about adopting decisions against abortion and other issues consistent with church teaching since they don't want to hurt their chances of becoming judges. While it is true that consistent Catholics are more and more facing an unconstitutional religion test it is also true that it will only get worse if they knuckle under to society. I wonder if any of these lawyers have actually read the life of Thomas More? They have inverted St. Thomas More's last words from " “I am the Kings good servant but Gods first” to "I am Gods good servant, but political correctness first." Again kudos to Archbishop Charles Chaput for consistently being a true shepherd of his flock.

"The sisters have been developing ecological awareness since the 1980s," said Turgi, who is a Holy Cross sister. "In the last four or five years, it has really taken off."

She said that as the sisters worked on social justice, they began to feel that as long as the Earth is degraded, they weren't going to really get anywhere.

"If there is no Earth, there is no social justice," she said.

"You do find the poorest people live in the most ecologically degraded part of countries," Oestreich said.

"We also found it was part of our spirituality," she continued. " 'Save the rain forest' is also 'Thou shalt not kill.' The Earth is part of what is loved and cherished by God."

The justice work of the Holy Cross congregations -- which include the Sisters of the Holy Cross, the Brothers of the Holy Cross and the Canadian order the Sisters of Holy Cross and the Marianites of Holy Cross, has been reorganized around the Earth Charter.

The Sisters of the Holy Cross signed the charter in April 2000, and the justice office endorsed it with approval of the other congregations later.

Turgi remembers the congregation seeing the turkey vultures who live near the college flying around outside the Church of Our Lady of Loretto on the Saint Mary's College campus while the charter was being signed inside. She said it was almost as though they knew and approved.

That document, which covers social and environmental justice issues, grew out of an effort started by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development.

Turgi and Oestreich did a lot of research before writing educational materials to send to other congregations.

They also began to integrate ecological concerns into their prayer and rituals.

"We decided if we were going to educate, we needed to do it not just with words but through prayer and ritual too," Turgi said.

During Lent last year, the Saint Mary's campus did the traditional Stations of the Cross and a new Earth Stations.

Turgi said the Earth Stations recalled the suffering of the Earth as the body of God. [Source]

We are all called to prudent stewardship of what God has created and given to us but this loony environmental linkage is just another symptom of dwindling religious life. Their link page unsurprisingly links to sites promoting abortion, contraception, homosexual activists, and organizations concerned about human population. Why is it that these social justice outfits are never concerned about justice for the unborn? They have inverted the hierarchy of truth where the earth is preeminent and humans are just parasites mucking it up.

The following is a commentary by CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer.

If I wished you a merry Christmas, some would say, `Well, how improper. He's throwing his religion in my face.' But I hope I'm not, because to me the Christmas story is a message of love and forgiveness. To me, that means tolerance and respect for others. These are wonderful thoughts but no more admirable than Judaism's emphasis on values or Islam's command to help the poor, which to me are just different ways of saying the same thing.

I have come to believe that all the great religions are basically true, all part of the same peace, a conclusion I neither ask nor expect anyone to share. If it matters to you, I am a believer but, like Kirkegaard, I am suspicious of all organized religion because too often it professes to know the mind of God and who could know that?

Well one way would be for God to become incarnate and to tell us. The other way is through scriptural revelation. The whole process of divine revelation is specifically to reveal to us what is on God's mind. He inspired all the prophets up to and including John the Baptist to preach his revelation. Then he cut out the middleman and told us himself. While it is true that all religions have some aspect of truth, it is also true that different religions have contradictory beliefs. Thus either all religions are wrong or one conforms more to the hierarchy of truths than the others and some contain little truth.

To me, the greatest misunderstanding of religion is held by those who try to impose their beliefs on others and teach their children they are somehow superior to those who do not believe as they believe, which would seem to miss the point of all religion.

I agree with this statement to an extent, but probably not the extent to which he implies. He more than likely has a definition of impose different then mine. Obviously forced conversions are deeply wrong, but many people take this to the extreme where they will not even teach their children what they believe since they should just decide for themselves only. Some people also seem to define impose as any public display of religious beliefs. I would also agree that we should never have a superior attitude over religious beliefs.To be Catholic should be to be deeply humble. That sinners such as us should be allowed under his roof should invoke nothing but thankful praise and to in return pray for all to have the fullness of truth.

Rather than arguing over the details, wouldn't we all be better off to focus on the values that all great religions share? We'll find out later who got the details right. The one sure thing I know about all this is that the Christmas story helps me. It reminds me that I am happier when I try to be forgiving rather than revengeful, when I try to be helpful instead of judgmental.

It is also good to see what we share, but to ignore serious differences is to live in a church with rose colored stained glass windows. To find out later who got the details right is a little too late. This ridiculous attitude puts the faith of a suicide bomber on a equal footing with someone transformed by God's grace. The Christmas story should remind us that we are sinners requiring Jesus death on a cross. The Christmas story starts out in a cradle and ends on a cross and that we should give forgiveness for others because Christ first forgave us. The Christmas story also reminds us that all religions are not the same for some see Jesus as only a man, or s prophet though not a messiah, or an enlightened guru, and Christianity as God incarnate.

So I do wish you a merry Christmas, if you know what I mean.

This would make a perfect secular Christmas card "Merry Christmas, if you know what I mean. (wink, wink)"

A Republican in the blue state of New Jersey is bucking what some decry as a national trend to eradicate all traces of religion in public places.

Steve Lonegan, who is running for the Republican nomination for New Jersey governor, is defying a school-district edict that bans religious music from holiday-season celebrations this year.

Mr. Lonegan has asked local residents of all religions to join him at 5 p.m. tomorrow "to sing and listen to" songs such as George Frederick Handel's "Messiah" and "Silent Night," which have been banned from schools, even in instrumental form, by the South Orange/Maplewood School District.

Residents will sing and hear Christmas, Hanukkah and other music outside Columbia High School, where students and parents will assemble later that night for the school's official holiday concert.

"The school district's decision to prohibit even instrumental versions of classic Christmas tunes shows that those who claim to speak for tolerance are, in fact, the most intolerant," Mr. Lonegan said.

"It's time people lighten up and enjoy the Christmas and Hanukkah season, instead of denying the religious foundation of our nation and the holiday season," said Mr. Lonegan, who is mayor of Bogota, a small town across the Hudson River from New York. [Source]

THE promotion of Ruth Kelly to education secretary has led to a bout of backstabbing by female colleagues on Labour’s back benches.

After three days of tributes to the 36-year-old mother of four, the claws are out over her rapid rise to such a big spending department.

Women MPs were left railing when Kelly leapfrogged more experienced and “sisterly” colleagues in a cabinet reshuffle following David Blunkett’s resignation.

Some of the “Blair babes” are disappointed that despite being a working mum she has not been more forthright about women’s issues. “How has she managed to get so far when she’s had so much maternity leave?” asked one female colleague.

A Roman Catholic, Kelly opposes abortion and euthanasia and once told Tony Blair that she could never support stem cell research. Some MPs fear her religion may cloud her judgment on issues such as sex education. She was last week excused the three-line whip vote on living wills.

She reportedly attends meetings of a secretive ultra-conservative Catholic group, Opus Dei, which features in the best-selling thriller The Da Vinci Code. [Source]

The attitudes in this article are just ridiculous. liberals have often fought for maternity leave paid for by the employer and yet if someone actually requires the use of maternity leave (especially more than once) they are attacked. But the silliest is the Opus Dei reference (which got qualified by two verbs). Surprisingly they didn't link her to any albino assassins (maybe that would explain her rapid rise). This also demonstrated the increasing trend here and in Europe that being a Catholic that follows Church teaching is immediately seen as a problem. Judge Prior here in the U.S. and Rocco Buttiglione the rejected EU commissioner had committed the sin of being Catholic and actually said things that were consistent with Church teaching. For the secular elite religious belief is fine just as long as it doesn't get in the way of modern secular dogmas.

For her son's school "holiday party" last week, Julie West baked a birthday cake for the baby Jesus - a gesture of defiance both against his teachers and the growing campaign in America to remove any trace of Christmas from public life.

Six-year-old Aaron had brought home a note from his school, in Washington state, that asked parents to provide food that their family traditionally enjoyed during the holiday season.

"He asked for the cake I make at Christmas with the words 'Happy Birthday Jesus'," said Ms West. "I called the school to let them know, but a few days later the teacher phoned back to say that I couldn't bring the cake as the party was not a religious event."

Ms West, who attends a non-denominational church in Edmonds, near Seattle, was amazed. "It wasn't an attempt to impose my beliefs on anyone. It was just a cake," she said. "I think all traditions and religions should be celebrated at this time of year."

After researching the issue on the internet she contacted the Rutherford Institute, a mainstream pressure group that defends religious freedom. It assured her that even though the American constitution bans the promotion of religion by the government, simply bringing a cake iced with "Happy Birthday Jesus" into the school broke no laws. "So I took the cake in for the party on Tuesday and none of the other parents or children were offended," she said. "The only comment was how delicious it was. [Source]

Now a theologically correct birthday cake cake for Jesus I think would include the following. Three layers to reflect the Trinity and two flavors of frosting to represent the two natures of Jesus. While Angels food cake wouldn't be mandated, devils food would be out for sure. Now candles would really be a tricky situation. You would have to have infinite candles to reflect Jesus' divine nature or 2000 plus candles to reflect his human nature.

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Father Robert J. Vitillo, executive director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development for the past eight years, will take up a new post with Caritas Internationalis in Geneva, Switzerland, in February.

He will serve as full-time special adviser on HIV and AIDS to Caritas, the Vatican-based global confederation of national Catholic social service and development organizations that operate in some 200 countries.

Sometime it would be nice to be wrong in my skepticism. Unfortunately it did not take me long to verify what I already suspected - that Fr. Vitillo would support the use of condoms for preventing HIV and also support modern sex education.

I am convinced that the pandemic of HIV/AIDS will force theologians to grapple more seriously with the fundamental theological premises related to human nature, and, more specifically, related to human sexuality. Notice that I have placed the need for theological reflection related to sexuality within the fundamental rather than the moral order. It seems to me that theologians have not yet faced the daunting task of elaborating a substantive theology of human sexuality as a creation of God who willed this to be such a strong, dominant, and constitutive element of human nature. Nor have we sufficiently considered how God’s grace has elevated the totality of the human person (including his/her sexuality) to a level which is different from the rest of animal or plant life. [Source]

Traditional Catholic teaching in itself if followed would eliminate HIV, but if you want a deeper theology on sexuality we don't have to go far to find the Pope's Theology of the Body to start that deeper understanding. What most progressives want in not a deeper theological understanding of human sexuality, but instead a white flag to surrender to our concupiscence.

In a related story for what appears to be an approach more in line with Church teaching:

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican established a foundation Friday to fund Catholic organizations assisting AIDS victims, urging people to contribute even if they object to the Church's opposition to the use of condoms to fight the spread of the disease.

Pope John Paul II has set aside $132,000 for the Good Samaritan Foundation and is asking "all people of good will, particularly those in the economically advanced nations, to contribute," said Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan.

The Catholic Church has repeatedly rebuffed campaigns for it to endorse the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS. The Vatican holds that condoms cannot be used to help prevent the spread of the disease because they are a form of artificial birth control.

The pope repeated the Vatican position in a message for the Church's World Day of the Sick in September, saying cases of AIDS spread via intercourse "are best avoided above all through responsible conduct and the observance of the virtue of chastity."

Barragan, head of the pontifical council on health issues, said discussions of the moral issues around AIDS should not prevent people from contributing to the fund.

"Another thing is to help those who are sick, who are dying, while one is discussing condoms yes, condoms no. I don't care, what matters to me is that people are dying and we must help them," he said.

WOODBRIDGE, N.J. -- Officials have fired a nun at a Roman Catholic school in Woodbridge who is accused of threatening to give a sixth-grader a knuckle sandwich. Sister Catherine Iacouzze was an assistant principal and the disciplinarian at Saint Cecelia School. The 69-year-old was relieved of her teaching duties nearly a month after she allegedly told a pupil she would knock his teeth out. The boy had allegedly used the wrong stairwell. [Source]

Must these Muslim communities adapt to fit into Europe?

The question, indeed the challenge, is not so much one of adapting Islam to our European society but of adapting our society to Islam. [Source]

I have been reading the Divine Office for a couple of years now and I guess I have been doing Vespers all wrong. I must have missed out on the dance steps in the guide book I buy each year. Just look through these photographs of some Canadian Dominicans doing Vespers starting here. [Via Being! or Nothingness]

Update: Somehow I think original sin might be involved in this, but I just couldn't stop myself from creating the following animated gif I call the Domini can - can. To see it check out the extended entry.

WATERBURY, Conn. -- A Waterbury woman believes that someone divine has come knocking on her door.

When she came home from church on Monday, Matilda Munoz said she found markings on her door that looked like Jesus.

She said she immediately got chills.

The door has been drawing dozens of visitors from across the city to the woman's Wall Street home. But the Catholic Church isn't weighing in just yet.

The church has a long process for determining if something is a true apparition, said pastor Kevin Gray of Sacred Heart, who visited Munoz Tuesday morning. [Source]

I think this is a case of confused literalism. We are suppose to adore Jesus, not that Jesus is a door. Of course Jesus did say "I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture." There are also other questions. Would it be sacrilegious to knock on this door? Definitely putting a nail in it to hang up Christmas decorations would be wrong. Jesus has already had enough of nails being driven through him.

Lying naked in a manger in a Northern Hemisphere winter meant baby Jesus would have certainly suffered from hypothermia, say Australian researchers.

They analysed how Jesus appeared in nativity paintings, compared with what the temperature would have been on 25 December, publishing their research in this week's Medical Journal of Australia.

Neonatologist Dr Tieh-Hee Koh from Townsville Hospital in Northern Queensland and his co-researcher Marion Koh, wife and mother, wrote:

"As we are experienced in looking after sick newborn babies, we have been impressed every year by the fact that, in depictions of the nativity scene on Christmas cards we receive, the newborn Jesus is almost always naked."

They said they were concerned as the temperature in Bethlehem was probably 7°C on 25 December, yet keeping babies warm was a basic principle of looking after newborn babies.

Their review of 20 paintings by Old Masters at London's National Gallery showed Jesus was naked or only scantily clothed in 90% of them.

The baby Jesus looked large for a newborn in 55% of the paintings, but premature in 10%.

He had a halo in 40% of paintings and was placed on the floor in 60% of paintings.

So, they concluded Jesus was probably hypothermic at birth, and very much so if also premature.

"[One explanation] more symbolic than pragmatic, is that he was born into this world without any earthly possessions," the authors wrote.

"In a similar vein, to the unscientifically inclined the halo and the pedigree of Jesus' birth might suggest a neutral thermal zone, making the ambient temperature irrelevant." [Source]

Usually we get some really dumb articles at this time of year, but this paper in a medical journal is beyond parody. Maybe next year they will analyze icons and Byzantine art and come to the conclusions that the majority of saints had strange birth defects because of their distorted physical proportions.

One of the strange things about how society has evolved into a tolerant(intolerant) thin-skinned easy offended group is what happens during Advent leading up to Christmas. Now when I cheerily reply with a Merry Christmas, sometimes I feel more like a kid who has just said his first swear word in front of adults. That just wishing a Merry Christmas has become counter-cultural which greatly appeals to my fallen nature. I have yet to run into anybody that was offended by this exchange and usually it seemed to be meet with a sigh of relief by store employees that seemed to have been ordered to use Happy Holidays instead.

Here is something I did last year along the same theme.

Yes it is that time of year again to celebrate the seasons and remember the words in the bible like:

You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored?

During this time we greet those unsung heroes that spice up our food daily and for our taste-buds to praise them.

Remember the reason for the season - to make food taste better!

The three wise men we sing about while celebrating the seasons knew the importance of seasons and brought some famous infant both frankincense and myrrh.

So as your walking along and someone calls to you "Seasons Greetings", with glee in your heart and a smile on your lips reply back "And a howdy-do to your salt and pepper also!"

SodakMonk has some interesting thoughts on the Church today:

I've been thinking about the discussions that go on when parishes have to be closed, like in Boston. Some of this will be coming to almost everywhere in the future, so it's good to think about it in advance. I like to emphasize that we are reaping what we have sowed for the last generation. For roughly 40 years now we have been building a Church where:

1. The priesthood is de-emphasized

2. Celibacy is de-emphasized

3. Sacrifice in general is de-emphasized

4. Faith is seen primarily as providing people with comfort

5. Popular models of spirituality are effeminate, that is, they lack appropriate masculinity.

All these trends have brought us to where we are today. Ironic, isn't it, that a Church where nobody was told to sacrifice eventually becomes a Church where many people will lose their local parish, a big sacrifice in their eyes.

To this good list I would add "obedience and orthodoxy is de-emphasized." The hierarchy has been extremely slow in most cases to act in situations where public members of the Church, especially theologians, have dissented from the Church on issues that brook no leeway. The very public dissent on contraception and lack of response encouraged this behavior. While it is understandable of not wanting to develop a smack-down attitude for dissenters - the kindest thing truly is to rebuke them for these severe errors. From the progressive theologians first came excuses for why Church teaching did not have to be followed. This flowed down through the seminaries and to the religious educators. Since no one was willing to put their finger in the dam these errors then flowed through the Catholic population. These progressive ideas became just another take on Catholic doctrine instead of being seen as outright transgressions of it.

Seeing all the stories on parish closing especially in Boston, it makes me wish that these Catholics were as loyal to the universal Church as they are to their local parish. I can understand the anguish of a church closing, especially if it was one you were baptized in or had attended most of you life. If this seeming fervent loyalty had been redirected earlier to praying for vocations and in following what the Church teaches this predicament would not have come. Fr. Kowalski is exactly right in that sacrifice the lack of sacrifice leads to losing a local parish. This is no surprise since the Mass is itself a sacrifice and when the meaning of sacrifice is lost we also lose the meaning of the Mass. The lack of sacrifice and deemphasis of sin results in a religion that is more a communal gathering then something that has a real purpose. When the church becomes nothing more then a glorified Elk's Lodge is it no wonder that it at the same time becomes empty?

Today being the memorial of St. John of the Cross it reminds me that one of the reasons that Saint is prefixed before his name is that in life "of the Cross" was truly lived. When he was unfairly suppressed and later imprisoned by his order, it resulted not in disobedience and anger - but instead in some of the greatest writing and poetry the faith has ever produced. This deep connection between sacrifice and obedience produced a greater love for God that burned throughout the rest of his days. There is no "St. John of the Comfy Chair" and in our own lives we must reflect what truly is appended to our names - of the Cross" or "of the Stratolounger."

Don't forget to pick up your St. John of the Cross Night Light for all of your Dark Night of the Hallway needs.

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- A Christmas tree that decorated the lobby in new federal courthouse downtown has been removed.

Late last week the Government Services Administration, the agency that maintains the building, acted on direction from the Chief Judge to pull the tree. A lighted snowman, reindeer and sleigh has replaced the tree.

A spokesperson for the GSA could not give specifics on why the tree was taken down. Gary Mote who handles Public Affairs from the Southeast Sunbelt Region says the decision was to "...make sure no one is offended."

The artificial tree that was decorated with non religious ornaments has been placed in storage. [Source]

Well I guess they failed then since for what I have heard on a local talk radio show there are many people that were offended by this politically correct sanitizing of Christmas. I wonder if these federal judges will also demand that they remove the National Christmas Tree? From what I have heard they received complaints that some people were offended by this display and complained which is why it ended up at the Federal Court level. Maybe in the future we will not have to be worried about munitions like cruise missiles launched at us. They will simply air drop Christmas Trees, Menorahs, Highway Memorial White Crosses on us. By that time so many people will be so greatly offended that they will become immobilized since wherever they try to run a religious symbol blocks their way. Our country has cease to be a melting pot but instead of medical centrifuge where every component is separated.

Here was a letter to the Editor complaining about Michael Rose's new architecture site dellachiesa.com.

Dear Editor

Why would you send a flyer condemning what you (your group) feel is ugly? If the exterior of a building is not "traditionally" attractive, yet its interior inspires and uplifts people to be moved toward a closer relationship with God, why the condemnation?

Jesus used a simple upper room for the Last Supper. He used knolls and the desert as his pulpit. Your flyer and your website appear to be very arrogant and judgmental. To assume "traditional" architecture is the best for our churches reflects a lack of depth of understanding how the heart can be moved by God. Ultimately, its the people who gather who uplift and proclaim God's greatness. The church is not simply a monument, but a tool to help people become community who gather not only for the sacred, but to proclaim with joy thanksgiving for the gifts God gives us.

There is no need to "restore" beauty to our churches. Rather, the need seems to be for you to restore your relationship with God, without the "crutch" of architecture. When the community becomes as high or a higher priority than the building, you will then have your priorities in order. You don't seem to understand the theology that acknowledges the value of the community. That is the good and genuine theology expressed in Vatican II.

This is really funny since usually architects and liturgist use the excuse for their Church designs as ways of enhancing community. That the church in the round concepts reinforce the church as community. Now this priest wants to say that the church architecture doesn't matter at all and we only need to restore our relationship with God. While there is a partial truth in this it forgets the fact that we are body and soul and that the church needs to reflect these aspects also. But at the same time he was saying that this modern architecture can uplift people. Isn't he trying to have it both ways here?

Visual beauty can reinforce spiritual truth. I have heard and read many conversion stories where people who first found themselves attracted to the beauty of a Church later found the beauty in the truth of the Church. Have you ever heard a similar conversion story that started out with an attraction to a cement box style building? Most of use are not like the desert fathers who can find God easily in a stark dry environment. If beautiful architecture is only a crutch then it is a crutch that is needed to help us stand upright in worship of God. If is rather difficult to read the Old Testament and to come to the conclusion that God expressed no preference in liturgical architecture whether it be a tent or a temple. King David was rebuked not for wanting to build a temple for God, but because he was not the person to do it and it was passed down to his Son to do. If it was only a matter of a spiritual relationship with God then no building would have been erected and no details such as the Ark of the Convenent would have been given. Instead we had explicit details as far as the wood used, how it was to be covered and gold and that statues of angels were to be placed above it.

Thank you for letting me make a comment on your "mission." It appears you choose to cast judgement, rather than allow all people to find the path to God that is most fulfilling.

I hope God will bless you and guide you to a more enlightened form of ministry.

Peace,

Fr. Steven O'Brien

Many pundits have talked about whether the comment by minority leader Harry Reid concerning that Justice Clarence Thomas was an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. Paul at Southern Appeal argues that it isn't racism and that it reflects the belief that Thomas is some intellectual dullard. Now it is quite true that liberals often frame conservatives of necessarily being dumb, yet Harry Reid also went on to praise Justice Scalia as "one smart guy."

I myself think that Reid's comment were a form of racism. Not the type of racism that sees blacks as inferior, but the type that sees blacks as being tied to a political party. Many liberals seem to feel that being black automatically means that you have to support all the ideas of the modern Democratic Party. That they see blacks as a fully owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. Now every proponent of a political party believes their side to be correct and that all people should hold to their correct position. So why do they reserve so much anger for blacks who do not hold to their view? Partially I believe this is because they have come to believe the ahistorical idea that the Democrats have always been the party of civil rights. So for a black to disagree with their positions shows a disregard for the thanks they feel they deserve. This to me is almost a slave owner's idea of possession and that his slaves should be thankful for what they have. That blacks should fully belong to the Democratic party and when they stray of the plantation often the most hateful rhetoric is use to show their displeasure at what they have done.This I think would explain why statements and editorial cartoons will portray the most racist stereotypes. I think it is rather ironic that they will use the term Uncle Tom's to describe black conservatives since they are actually upset that these blacks aren't being obedient to their commands.

When some members of Amor de Dios United Methodist Church in Little Village elected to move a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe into the sanctuary last year, the icon spawned an exodus.

Turned off by the introduction of a Roman Catholic tradition to a Protestant congregation, most of the church's 15 founding parishioners drifted away. To them, venerating the Virgin Mary and reciting the rosary did not belong in a Methodist church.

Pastors of other Hispanic Methodist congregations objected too. They said praying to the Virgin equaled idolatry.

And Roman Catholics in the neighborhood worried that the church might be selling itself as something it was not.

Still, Rev. Jose Landaverde allowed the statue to stay. He says he sees no harm in embracing a tradition--the Virgin is an unofficial national symbol of Mexico--that might bring people closer to God.

"It's coming from the people, which is the real presence of the Holy Spirit," said Landaverde, 31, a student pastor from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. "You cannot bring theological debates to the people when they need spiritual assistance."

Since his arrival in June 2003, the congregation has swelled to 150 members and about 100 regular Sunday visitors.

This month, parishioners celebrated their first novena in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe by parading the 2-foot-high statue around the neighborhood, singing songs and reciting the rosary. About two dozen parishioners weathered the chill each night to deliver the statue to a different living room, where it was surrounded by garland, twinkling lights, roses and poinsettias.

On Sunday, parishioners will commence the traditional Feast Day for the Virgin of Guadalupe and, through prayers, mariachi music, drama and dancing, pay homage.

"The Virgin understands our suffering and she accompanies us everywhere we go," said church member Oscar Hernandez, who grew up Roman Catholic in El Salvador but now considers himself a Methodist. "We don't want to take away the faith that this community has, but we want to nourish it." [Source]

A seminarian reader sent me along this link to a very funny video clip by his fellow seminarian Jeff Geerling:

Howard Dean Talking Christmas Tree

June Ramos was studying to be a Benedictine monk when he joined the Marines. He wants to be a chaplain, but for now he's a rank-and-file Marine.

HASWAH, Iraq - His flak jacket was covered in dried blood, his blood. Look at the stains, Marine Lance Cpl. June N. Ramos said, pointing. There were dark red smears all over the front of his camouflage vest.

Ramos reached into the pocket of the flak jacket and pulled out a small silver tin wrapped in a plastic bag. He opened the container, which held a half-dozen Communion wafers.

"Instead of putting a grenade in here," Ramos said, fastening the pocket of his vest, "I put the body of Christ."

They call him the "warrior monk." Ramos, 32, was studying to be a Benedictine monk when he joined the Marines in 2003. He wants to be a chaplain, but first, he said, he must live the life of a Marine grunt.

So this is where he was on a crisp morning in Iraq, guarding a police station in this city 25 miles south of the capital, barbed wire surrounding the complex where he had slept fitfully in the cold air.

"I'm a Filipino citizen, serving in the United States Marines, fighting for the United States," he said, his body upright and at attention while he talked.

...The hospital in Baghdad where Ramos recovered from the bomb blast in October had a special hallway reserved for insurgents who had been wounded and were being patched up by military doctors. Ramos said he was angry, hurt, in pain, but he decided to walk down that hallway.

"God told me not to be angry, "Ramos said. "I pretty much quoted what Jesus said on the cross. I prayed that they would know the real presence of God, that God would guard them and protect them."

He came back to his unit about two weeks ago, a man who had forgiven and was ready to fight again, Ramos said. He would not dream of being anyplace else.

"I trust in God and keep the faith," Ramos said. "If God is with me, who can be against me, right? Be not afraid, that's what I say." [Source]

Christmas services at a New Mexico church will include use of a hallucinogenic tea for the first time in years under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued Friday.

The justices lifted a temporary stay the government had won last week, allowing the Santa Fe church, Brazil-based O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, to use hoasca tea.

"They're delighted," Albuquerque attorney Nancy Hollander, who represents the church, said. "They're so thrilled that they can celebrate Christmas for the first time since 1998."

"We cherish our freedom of religion in this country and these people had been denied that," Hollander said.
The Bush administration contends the hoasca tea used by the church is illegal and dangerous.

Hollander said the sacrament is central to the religion.

"One wouldn't say a Catholic had fully celebrated their religion if they weren't allowed to receive communion," she said.

Sacramental hallucinogenic tea? I guess not only would they have a high priest, but also a high congregation. Uniao do Vegetal (UDV) translation from the Portuguese means "union of the plants." Now Jesus did use many example of farming and planting but these example were to lead to union with him and not plants. I think the guests at the wedding of Cana would not exactly have been thrilled to have the water turned to tea. The Gospel would really have sounded strange to hear:

"Neither is new tea put into old tea bags; if it is, the bags burst, and the tea is spilled, and the tea bags are destroyed; but new tea is put into fresh tea bags, and so both are preserved."

I could also imagine all the problems if God had ordained tea as one of the elements for communion. You could definitely burn your fingers if you used intinction. Of course the tea pot whistling could replace ringing bells at the consecration. And what would you do with the left over tea leaves. Would the priest one of the EEMs have to swallow them? The thought of a tea ball in a monstrance is not exactly inspiring. I also wonder if they would sing the Tea Deum afterwards to the Holy Trini-Tea?

You wonder if there was a moment when someone shouted "Divine inspiration!" as the production staff sat around in the scrubbed little studios of Salt+Light Television watching the playback of the pilot segment of Cooking with Saints.

The set: a kitchen -- with stained-glass windows.

The culinary celebrant: Roberto Martella of Toronto's Grano restaurant -- a made-for-television natural, effusively lecturing on the risks posed by globalization to traditional food while preparing tagliatelle Frassati with Piemontese mushroom sauce from a recipe divined by the Blessed Giorgio Frassati himself.

The homilist and creator of the show (and just about everything else on Salt+Light): station CEO Father Thomas Rosica, whose vocation in the priesthood denied God knows how many other professions of a luminary (what he could have done with mutual funds can only be imagined), patting the corners of his mouth with a starched white napkin before reading from the Blessed Frassati's writings.

Toronto-based Salt+Light went national this week, bouncing brassily into the digital universe as the reincarnation of the Inner Peace Television Network.

Think of the Roman Catholic Church with nose-studs, and you more or less get the programming rhythm: pop music, news, documentaries, talk shows, meditations, moral and theological instruction, films with a religious message and saint-food. All with a beat. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa. All Catholic. [Source]

Maybe after Cooking with the saints they can do some biography's called "Cooking the saints." St. Lawrence who was tied to a grill over a slow fire to be roasted famously said "turn me over." Don't tell me the church doesn't have a sense of humor since St. Lawrence is also the patron saint of cooks.

Matt C. Abbott has a positive review of Canon Lawyer and blogger Pete Vere's new book called Surprised by Canon Law. Definitely a book I will be interested in reading.

This evening my wife and I went to the Mass at our parish church Immaculate Conception which is celebrating its 150th anniversary. Our Bishop Victor Galeone celebrated the Mass along with our previous bishop and many other priests from our diocese elsewhere. The Mass was very beautiful and reverent. The choir had been practicing for this event for some time and had previously raised funds to buy the excellent St. Gregory' Catholic choir book and did one of Mozart's Mass settings. The Catholic nerd in me loved the fact that the Kyrie Eleison took at least five minutes to perform. We also had members of the the Jacksonville Philharmonic orchestra accompanying the choir. Some people complain about the modern Mass, but I think it has been more of a problem of radical experimentation and lack of reverence then the new order of Mass itself. I have found that the Masses celebrated at this church have been just as spiritually powerful to me as the Latin Masses which they also have. Though I will be happier when they have revised the translations used.

One really strange think occurred during the Mass. During the hymns that were sung attending parishioners actually joined in and sang along with the choir! I was not use the phenomenon of Catholics actually singing. I myself love to sing and I try to make up for the dearth of people singing around me. So this was rather joyful to actually have the majority of people singing the hymns also. At first I was disoriented by this occurrence and thought that something might have gone wrong with the universe. That perhaps I had accidentally entered the bearded Spock universe where everything seems to be reversed. I thought that perhaps to test this alternate universe hypothesis that if I walked into a Protestant church that I would find them as mute as most Catholic churches.

Bishop Galeone started out the homily by saying he was not going to be talking about this parish or its history, but that he would be concentrating on the readings for the Immaculate Conception. He started by telling the story of St. Bernadette and how Fr. Peyramale had asked her to ask the lady her name. When she came back and said that she told her "I am the Immaculate Conception" he supposedly replied "You can't be a verb." Bishop Galeone said that he would have told the good father that Jesus referred to himself also with an abstract title when he said "I am the resurrection and the light." The Bishop then went to the beginning of salvation history as per the first reading where our first parents fell into sin. He talked about how the Church fathers called Mary the second Eve and went through the comparisons of Mary carrying Jesus and the Ark of the Covenant. This is standard fare for those who have heard apologists such as Scott Hahn go through the many similarities between Mary and the Ark, but I still like hearing this again in a homily. Closing he quoted from Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and his comparison of Mary being like the Moon and Jesus like the Sun. That Mary gives off no light of her own, that all light comes from Jesus and that she in turn reflects it.

This in turn got me thinking that Mary must have an albedo of 1. Albedo is the measure of the reflectiveness of an object. An albedo of 1 indicates a perfect mirror and Mary is the perfect mirror of God's grace. A perfect black body that absorbs all light falling on it has an albedo of 0. So morally an albedo of 0 might relate to mortal sin where you currently reflect none of God's grace. That what you absorb is really only yourself as in being self absorbed. To reflect God's love is to first in turn to accept it and then to return it. The amount that we reflect back is the measurement of our moral albedo. When we don't cooperate with grace we in fact absorb it and we do not return that grace to God or our neighbor. I doubt that if that there was a machine that measured this type of albedo that we would be too eager to see the results.

Here is an article in our local paper that talks about the history of the Immaculate Conception Church and the anniversary. This church has been called one the most beautiful Catholic churches in the South. The recent renovation took away none of the beauty and instead repaired and enhanced it. This effort was what I consider the very model of how a renovation should be done. I never had any worries about the repair and construction since Rev. Antonio Leon has been like a guardian to this church.

I've heard from the bishop that this church is not going to close, not like other downtown churches up north," Leon said as he brandished a letter saying as much from Bishop Victor Galeone.

And why would it? The parish has about 800 registered families and has seen steady growth in membership for at least the last five years, Leon said.

The reasons are varied. After people began moving out of downtown in the 1950s and '60s, the parish school eventually closed, as did a convent on the property. But those empty spaces were made available to several groups, such as Catholic charities and the meetings of spiritual groups like the Knights of Columbus, the Franciscan and Carmelite orders, Leon said.

The church became a virtual "school of spirituality," Leon said, "and that revitalized the parish."

The shell of Immaculate Conception remained after the church was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1901. The statue of the Virgin Mary above the entrance survived. An earlier wooden structure was burned by Union troops during the Civil War.

Then minority groups, such as Filipino and Hispanic Catholics, began using the facilities for cultural events and worship. A weekly Latin Mass was eventually offered, and the parish began offering more Masses and confession times, which began attracting Catholics from the suburbs as well as some of the thousands of people who work downtown, Leon said.

"All these different groups have enriched the parish," Leon said.

School of spirituality is exactly right. I have written before about this holy priest who earlier this year celebrated 30 years at Immaculate Conception. If parishes in this country our looking for a model to help revive their churches then I can think of nothing better then the model that Fr. Leon has followed.

Mary, Ark of the Covenant - Scott Hahn

All hell breaks loose as nuns shake their buns

AN unholy row has erupted over Brumby's bakery's latest television campaign, which depicts nuns singing the praises of their bread products.

In the offending gospel-inspired advertisement, a choir – including of habit-wearing nuns – sing "Give us this day our daily bread" as they sing and dance around Brumby's products.

Brumby's managing director Michael Sherlock said Victorian-based Missionary Sisters of Service nun Sister Marcia McMahon had complained to the Advertising Standards Bureau, saying the ad was offensive and made a mockery of the Celebration of the Eucharist.

Mr Sherlock said the ad was loosely based on the Blues Brothers film and was designed to be memorable, not controversial.

"We can see their point, but we're not denigrating (nuns) in any way," he said.

"We've gone back and reviewed what we did and we feel we haven't deliberately set out to offend anybody and we feel on reflection it doesn't offend most people."

Mr Sherlock said the complaint was an "overreaction' and there was no suggestion Brumby's would pull the ad, which had received a lot of positive feedback.

"It's working well for us. We've examined it to see if there is any offence and we're satisfied it doesn't," he said.

Hey it is working well with us to sell bread so to heck with anybody that has a problem with it and it doesn't offend most people. Yep, that is a great advertising maxim - not offending most people. Now I am not usually easily offended by the secular use of Catholic imagery. I don't see all commercials involving nuns as an attack. It is interesting though just how many advertisers have this fascination with Catholic nuns that doesn't seem to apply to other religions. Just placing nuns in any secular setting is suppose to elicit some laughs. The image of nuns dancing around with loaves of bread and singing is pretty silly, though not really an attack against the Eucharist. Just an attempt at cheap laughs when advertising ideas run out.

LONDON (Reuters) - A Christmas "immaculate contraception" campaign for a morning-after pill has been pulled by a drug company after causing religious offence.

The poster, which appeared on London Underground trains, asked: "Immaculate contraception? If only."

"It might be Christmas time," it continued, "but condoms still split and pills still get forgotten. So if your contraception lets you down, ask your pharmacist for Levonelle One Step."

Schering Health Care, a subsidiary of Schering of Germany, said in a statement it had decided to withdraw the "inappropriate" advert after receiving several letters.

"We take this step as a responsible manufacturer in recognition of the religious concerns expressed to us," it said.

"This advertisement was intended as a play on words to indicate that there is no such thing as immaculate contraception," it added.

The poster also prompted 109 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which has launched a formal investigation into the advert. [Source]

Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister espoused the usual nonsense in the latest NCR.

Congratulations on 40 years of truth telling, transformation and voice. In the face of growing attempts at U.S. hegemony around the world, the ethical questions surrounding the genetic manipulation of food production, the oppression of sexual minorities, the religious polarizations concerning definitions of life, the unraveling of basic democratic principles in the United States itself, the oppression of the feminine -- its values, its goals, its agendas -- everywhere, our blatant disregard for the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions, the emergence of a new Puritanism and an old isolationism in American politics: NCR stand up, speak out and speak on.

Be who you are, be who you have always been. And if you really love the church, whatever you do, NCR, for the sake of the Galilean, for the sake of the next kid with a gleam in her eye. Whatever you do, don’t lose your nerve now.

Funny how when she looked back at the highlights she could not find protecting the unborn or defending orthodoxy - not that she would have found it lately in any of their pages. First off she lists the fight against genetic manipulation of food production while they have been very soft when it comes to genetic manipulation of humans. Embryonic stem-cell research can be promoted, but new crops of corn to feed starving people must be fought. I am sorry but the NCR standing up and speaking out should really be sit down and shut up.

I wonder when the heck NRO will finally get around to renaming Kerry Spot? I am sure they have noticed that November 2nd has come and passed. I certainly hope they are waiting for a couple of years to rename it Hillary Spot - or maybe more appropriate for Lady Macbeth would be "Out damn spot." By the way how does management punish bloggers at NRO? They can't tell them to go to the corner. Now as for a new name I think that combining Geraghty and Spot to make G-Spot probably wouldn't be a very good idea. Personally I think the term "pajamahadeen" that he coined would be good if not for fact that it would require an even larger tab at the top of he Corner.

As we progress down the road of Advent towards Christmas and as we prepare ourselves spiritual to again ponder the majesty of the incarnation we also can feel that we do not have enough time to adequately prepare. But we should rejoice that for us Advent is only four weeks long. The first note of Advent was struck in Genesis 3:15 when God said:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head,and you shall bruise his heel."

This passage is called the protoevangelium because it is the first announcement of the coming Messiah. Between this passage and the words of John the Baptist calling repent, repent - we have an extremely long historical season of Advent. The whole Old Testament is a developing Advent where the Israelites came to understand more and more about the coming Messiah. Especially in the Psalms in Isaiah there were more an more clues pertaining to the redeemer.

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called " Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

Despite the scriptural clues that the Messiah would not be a secular king but a suffering servant the Israelites missed those clues. Much like our intelligence agencies prior to 9-11 they did not connect the dots and frame the information to their own view points. Though we shouldn't be very hard on them for missing what we now see to be obvious. The New Testaments tell us much about suffering and picking up the Cross, yet we seldom seem to connect the dots to our own lives. We also frame the Gospels into what we want them to mean instead of accepting those hard truths.

In the Gospel of Luke we receive the story of Simeon whose whole life was an Advent in preparation for the incarnation.

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And inspired by the Spirit he came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel."

As the chapter on Advent on a large part of salvation history was closed, Simeon was content to depart earthly life revealed in the glorious baby Jesus. The Church provides for us the liturgical year so that we too can experience this expectation and ultimate joy. To again live out the joy at the means of our salvation. Good things come in small packages and if fact the greatest thing ever given to us came first to us as a baby.

But to have this feeling of expectation in the midst of the bustle of life is sometimes difficult. We can look back to our childhood and the expectation of Christmas morning and the gifts that we would receive. The key to preparing for Christmas is to receive this as a child.

"Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."

We have to become child-like to prepare for the true wonder of Christmas. To again let the wonder of the Christmas story fill our souls. Too often our society does give its sons a stone instead of a fish. In childhood the story of Santa Claus has replaced a even more wondrous story. The story of a man who knows if we are naughty or nice and who gives us gifts accordingly one day a year has superseded the true story of a man who also knows if we are naughty or nice and can give us the gift of grace everyday. Even those who deserve a moral lump of coal are maintained in the gift of existence and the necessary grace leading to repentance.

But we need to do more then to just catch the feeling of a child's expectation towards Christmas in regards to its true meaning. We must become small and humble so that our prideful shell may slough off around us. To ponder again or the for the first time that Christ's love for us required not a noble birth in a five-star Bethlehem hotel, but instead a manger in a cave. We need to become like the humble shepherds who were the first to receive the news of this gift to men of good will. There is so much rich mystery here for us to contemplate and if we are being too much the Martha in this season - we need to put the brakes on Martha a bit and to increase the Mary. Why not as adults that we should again have a child-like expectations towards the birth of Christ?

And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

is the Archdiocese of Chicago promoting Kwanzaa?

Kwanzaa was invented out of thin air (not African traditions) in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga. The Archdiocese page says:

The Kwanzaa holiday is probably the most important African American holiday because it transcends religious, ideological, regional, and class boundaries. The celebration of Kwanzaa combines elements from of the African culture and African American experience.

This is just unbelievable that they would give the Hallmark version of this holiday and not the truth. Dr. Karenga was the Marxist leader of the black nationalist United Slaves and was convicted of torturing two women. Does the Archdiocese really think that a holiday created to replace Christmas by a person who burned a women's face with a soldering iron is a good idea? We all have our vices but this guy placed a women's toe in a vice. Beyond the inventor of Kwanzaa problems the truth is that Africans never celebrated anything remotely like this made-up holiday. For one thing no one celebrates a harvest festival at the winter's solstice. Even sillier is that the celebration uses ears of corn set aside for each family member - of course corn is not indigenous to Africa. You can read more about these inconsistencies and just plain lies in the following articles.

Tony Snow's The TRUTH about Kwanzaa.
Front page Happy Kwanzaa

Also Kathy Shaidle of Relapsed Catholic posted this hilarious piece of doggerel last year called Kwanzaa Komedy.

If you would like to give your opinion about this to the Office for Catechesis of the Archdiocese of Chicagohere you go.

PARIS (Reuters) - A Vatican diplomatic campaign to have "Christianophobia" recognised as an evil equal to hatred of Jews and
Muslims is causing concern among some Christian activists and diplomats who draft new human rights rules.

The discrete drive, which the Roman Catholic Church first mentioned publicly last Friday, seeks official recognition by the United
Nations and other international organisations of discrimination against and persecution of Christians.

The Holy See is pressing this point despite two setbacks this year when the European Union refused to refer to the continent's
Christian heritage in its new constitution and turned down a traditionalist Catholic as a new commissioner.

In discussing religious bias, the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva now speaks of "anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and Christianophobia," terms the current General Assembly in New York is due to approve later this month. [Source]

I really dislike the term Christianophobia. This plays right into the semantic hands of those who brandy about the term homophobia and seems more like a revenge term then a accurate description for anti-Christian beliefs.

A phobia is defined as:

A persistent, abnormal, and irrational fear of a specific thing or situation that compels one to avoid it, despite the awareness and reassurance that it is not dangerous.

While it is possible that there are people who actually have a phobia when it comes to Christianity, most people who disagree with Christianity have many other reasons for doing so. Appending the term phobia to the end of something invokes a judgment upon that persons mental health for the position that they hold.

We should not reply tit for tat by using the same phrasing that homosexual advocates use to belittle those who don't believe that active homosexuality is one of the greatest gifts to the world. It is no surprise that they use this word since words mean something. Just calling someone a homophobe means that you have already framed the debate by saying that they can have no valid arguments against your position because they are by the very definition wrong and irrational. It is so much easier to put people on the defensive with this style of verbal warfare instead of defending why they believe that active homosexuality is a rational position. It is rather ironic that the same people who call others homophobes also talk about not judging others when this very word implies a judgment that they are extremely unlikely to be able to prove.

Here is a great essay by Paul Cella at TCS about Stem Cells and Philosophy. [Via El Camino]

You can also find Paul Cella's well-worth reading blog here. Especially good is his latest post on Chesterton and birth control. I just wish that he would activate his RSS feed since I had gotten out of the habit of reading his site since I look at most blog's through an aggregator. Update: He now has an RSS feed.

Update: Small but Disorganized offers some other comments in reference to Paul Cella's article, including.

Basically, the proponents of scientism believe that what we should do should be determined by science. In other words, if science can do it, we should do it. Just because we can do something, ought we do it? That question is a non-sequitur to many unconscious proponents of scientism.

However, I wonder how many true proponents of scientism there are? How many of those who favor fetal stem cell research in order to apply it to curing various diseases would also favor continued nuclear energy research, for example, in order to apply it to building safer and more numerous nuclear power reactors to cure our dependency on fossil fuels?

I think the difference in those two examples are this: fetal stem cell research only violates a human life… the life that gets destroyed for the sacred liturgy of research at the altar of scientism. Nuclear reactors are seen as a threat to humanity as a group… as a collective.

I think he hits the nail on the head when he compares the zeal for science when it comes to ESCR with the very contrained view of science when it comes to things such as nuclear power. Though I think it goes farther then to just things that might threaten humanity as a group. The outcry against DDT as a pesticide was mainly seen as a threat to some species. The fact that the banning of DDT has resulted in thousands of deaths due to malaria is not a concern to them in this case. Even scientism is restrained by whatever views the person holds. Their advocacy of science for science sake hits a wall when to comes to environmental causes. What is comes down to is that in reality everybody actually believes that philosophy should come before science, it is only what philosophies we should adhere to that are disagreed on. Even scientism is a philosophy and not a science and those who truly advocate a unstrained scientism are advocating the philosophy of scientism.

Here is a picture of a beautiful corpus inside of a newly constructed St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church in Westfield, In. Though I honestly don't know what to make of the guy in the lab coat standing next to it and whether he is wearing anything underneath it. Maybe he was dressing light to make Jesus more comfortable in that Jesus is only wearing a loin cloth.

In a post by Dawn Eden about men and Planned Parenthoods' choice for men.

"It may be easier for men to leave contraception up to women, but there have been some recent surveys that suggest the majority of men are willing to share in the responsibility for family planning," Cullins said. "And I think if you talk to men who are in situations where they didn't want to have a child, I think some of those men would tell you they definitely would've wanted to have had either shared in, or made, that decision themselves."

So Margaret Sanger's organization does believe men should have a voice in whether or not they become fathers—as long as that voice says the word "no."

When men do have the option of a contraceptive, women who want to become mothers will have one more obstacle to overcome: dissuading their husbands of the temptation to make themselves infertile. What is a "choice" for men—infertility—instantly denies women their choice to become mothers.

How interesting that Planned Parenthood idea of "choice" operates only in favor of death.

I think that I will open up a travel agency in the mode of Planned Parenthood. I will offer travel planning. I will charge people who come in a fee and we will go over maps and schedules and places to go. Of course there will actually be no travel involved and when the people complain I will simply tell them that I operate just like Planned Parenthood's concept of family planning. In their case family planning consists of contraceptives and abortions or anything to support not having a family. Travel planning without actually going anywhere is consistent with that philosophy. In fact I can advertise this as safe travel since not going anywhere must be safer. If they counter that one of the purposes of traveling is to actually go somewhere I can reply that one of the reasons God created sex was for procreation. If you can deny one of the ends of sex then I can deny my clients one of the ends of travel. Contraception divorces sex from procreation so why can't I divorce travel from geography?

Dawn's post also reminded me of an article I had read in Envoy Magazine some time back. Looking back at the article I see it is written by the same Steve Kellmeyer who writes wonderful essays at The Fifth Column. Steve offers a wonderful dialog that leads you through the the logical inconsistencies of those who are pro-abortion and also want the father to pay for the abortion or to pay for the raising of the child.

To see how this works, consider the following conversation between Rachel, a pro-life college student and Bill, her pro-abortion classmate:

Rachel: "Is the choice to have sex a choice to have a child?"

Bill: "No."

Rachel: "And you believe that at conception, the 'thing' conceived is not a child, right?"

Bill: "Exactly."

Rachel: "So, when exactly would you say that a child begins to exist?"

(NOTE: How Bill answers doesn't really matter. Rachel agrees, for the sake of argument, to use whatever time frame he chooses.)

Rachel: "And you believe that a woman may have an abortion for whatever reason she chooses?"

Bill: "Of course."

Rachel: "Do you believe men and women have equal rights?"

Bill: "As long as abortion is legal, yes."

Rachel: "All right. Who creates children?"

Bill: "What do you mean?"

Rachel: "Well, if there's no child at conception, the 'product of conception' has to become a child at some point before it's born. Therefore, the woman alone 'creates' the child through the act of gestation."

Bill: "Er, what are you driving at?"

Rachel: "It's simple. Your pro-abortion position entails the concept that sexual intercourse doesn't create children, gestation creates children. Intercourse merely creates a fertilized ovum, a 'tissue mass.' Men don't get pregnant. Men don't create children. Men simply provide one-half of a set of blueprints. The woman provides not only the other half, but the building site, the construction materials, she oversees the project, and she can destroy the whole thing anytime she wants. The man has got nothing to do with it. The existence of a child is not his responsibility - he has no choice in the matter, right? He's done nothing to create, and you already said that the decision to have sex is not a decision to have children. So, the idea of compelling child support from the man is really a carry-over from patriarchy, when men were thought to share responsibility for the existence of a child. Now that legal abortion has liberated us from those archaic ideas, we should throw away the last remnants of the old oppression. If the question of allowing the unborn child to live or be killed through abortion is the sole decision of the woman, it makes sense to ask why the man should be made to pay to support her lifestyle, her choice? If she can have an abortion for whatever reason she wants, then she is having a child for whatever reason she wants. In neither case does it have anything to do with the man."

You can see how the conversation would end up. Rachel's line of questioning shows the inconsistency of Bill's position. Bear in mind that these points are given for effect, in order to show the internal inconsistency of the pro-abortion arguments and how they're actually inconsistent with the radical feminist ideology that propels the pro-abortion movement.

Don't expect these answers to pro-abortion arguments to change hearts in minutes. They won't. But clear xposition of the life-affirming teachings of the Church, even when presented in a secular style such as this, will sway people in the long run. Pro-abortion advocates often accept many of the underlying principles espoused by pro-life advocates, though their rhetoric often contradicts it. When you demonstrate the inconsistency of the pro-abortion position, you'll take another step toward leading people back to the path of sanity.

(CNSNews.com) - Fifteen years after clashing with the Catholic Church over her support for abortion rights, the newly appointed president of NARAL Pro-Choice America boasts of the incident in her biography, claiming "she stood up to a public effort to excommunicate her." But a spokesman for the Catholic diocese of Helena, Mont., denies there was any attempt to kick Nancy Keenan out of the Church.

Keenan was appointed on Nov. 19 to head NARAL Pro-Choice America. The press release announcing her arrival describes her experience as a Montana state legislator and as state superintendent of education. According to the biography, Keenan "also showed the force of her pro-choice commitment and the strength of her personal leadership when she stood up to a public effort to excommunicate her from the Catholic Church."

There's no disagreement over what precipitated the flap between Keenan and the Church; she had spoken at a pro-abortion rally on Nov. 12, 1989, while a member of the Montana Legislature.

But Wednesday, Eric Schiedermayer, director of communications for the Helena, Mont., Catholic Diocese, told CNSNews.com that the Church had merely tried to "help [Keenan] understand" its disapproval of her public support for abortion rights.

Following the 1989 rally, according to Schiedermayer, Bishop Elden Curtiss offered to meet with Keenan and a colleague of hers to discuss their views on subjects such as abortion.

Keenan met with the bishop in her office on Nov. 28, 1989, Schiedermayer said, during which time Curtiss submitted to her a list of exploratory questions regarding her pro-abortion views. These questions were reportedly an effort to show Keenan how she had deviated from Catholic Church teachings.

Schiedermayer said he is unsure whether Keenan ever replied to the questions privately, but he added, "Certainly not publicly."

According to a November 1989 article in the Montana Catholic newspaper, Keenan admitted that she was personally supportive of the Church's teaching on abortion, but was unwilling to "impose that belief on others." In the same article, Curtiss criticized Keenan for separating her personal and political views. "I cannot accept the dichotomy between public and private morality," Curtiss reportedly said at the time.

Keenan accused Curtiss of overstepping his authority. "It's one thing for the bishop to silence dissent in the Church," she reportedly told the Montana Catholic. "It's another thing when the Church enters the halls of the capitol to silence dissent in the public arena."

Despite the disagreement, Schiedermayer said there was no public or official excommunication of Keenan. "Publicly, all of the statements are not anywhere near threats of excommunication. In fact, there are no threats of sanctions at all," he said. [Source]

I had thought the story of her alleged excommunication sounded rather fishy when I read it before. I am aware of no Catholic Politicians of having been publicly excommunicated for supporting abortion. The only example I can think of is that some Louisiana politicians were excommunicated in 1962 by Archbishop Rummel for opposing desegregation. Now we actually have a case of somebody who once said they were personally opposed to abortion now heading one of the largest abortion advocacy agencies. If this isn't the perfect example of that monumental lie, then I don't know what is. It is not quite clear whether Keenan still considers herself a Catholic or goes to a Catholic Church.

Christopher Blosser of The Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club is interviewed by Ignatius Insight in a two part interview. I had not realized that my fellow Catholics in the Public Square editor had come into the Church in 1997. With his wealth of knowledge I had assumed he had been a Catholic much longer then that. There is also a picture of him over at his father's blog.

A reader had sent me a couple of links including the story about euthanized babies in the Netherlands. This story has gotten much coverage in parts of the blogosphere and talk radio, though nowhere in the main stream press. Hugh Hewitt on his show the other day mentioned how newspapers like the L.A. Times managed to cover stores like "Salmon and Steelhead May Lose Protection" but had a virtual blackout on the Netherlands story.

When I first read this story I would like to say that it shocked me, yet unfortunately it was just zero surprise to me. After all the Netherlands was the first to legalized euthanasia and many pundits said that this is exactly where it would lead. When socialized medical costs meet expensive health care situations you know who is going to lose and pay with their life. Liberals send out so many mixed messages. It is alright to spend billions to reduce some pollutant down a another thousands of a percent even if the scientific case is rather dubious. But to spend money to keep someone living another day is just too extreme. Reasonable medical attention should be given but when it comes to government coffers you will soon need a coffin.

The other question is why isn't this more an outrage here and internationally? If a gunmen had walked into the hospital maternity ward and started to shoot babies - this would have been front page news everywhere. Since instead it was just a team of doctors who vote on the decision to essentially do the same thing it is somehow alright. Part of the problems in the culture of death is that all life (except our own) becomes less precious. Terms such as quality of life are banded about as if having life isn't a quality all its own. Stephen Hawking probably has a whole different understanding of quality of life compared to somebody else who is not in the same condition

The other factor of course is abortion. People like Dr. Singer have advanced the philosophical notion that abortion and infanticide are equivocal and that people should just accept abortion and not feel queasy about killing your child after birth. Killing a child five minutes before birth or five minutes after is not any different. Dr. Singer is at least consistent in this view but it is quite a scary consistency. His conclusion is wrong because his acceptance of abortion is wrong. Those that are against infanticide and yet accept abortion, especially partial-birth abortion, have an inconsistency that is also scary. Pro-abortion advocates also realize this inconsistency but will not make any public acknowledgement of the fact. Instead when a story comes out like this they are only horrified that somehow it might infringe on legal abortion.

Pain medicine for the child being aborted must be refused because it acknowledges that there is a person feeling pain. Laws against fetal murder by third parties must be voted against because there again it implies a person instead of a tissue. Anything that might dampen access to abortion must be ignored. Giving abortion risk accessments are struck down from judges because they say it puts an undue burden on the person seeking an abortion. To keep abortion legal everything else becomes acceptable. This is why countries like China can do forcible sterilizations and abortion without hardly any outcry. Women's groups and outfits like Planned Parenthood don't care about choice just as long as it ends up in abortion. They don't see forced sterilization as a great evil since having a permanent contraceptive state to them is seen only as a bonus. Forced abortions are also fine since who wants to be burdened with a child and hey you are allowed one after all.

The attitude of only having perfect little children also factors in. When you only desire a very small family - what family you have should be just as perfect as if you went shopping at your car dealer for the model you wanted. When they are good and ready they want the perfect little Stepherd child. And if the child is not up to snuff well then you can just snuff it out. I have grown tired of hearing every child a wanted child. Wanting something is an exercise of the will. Any child will be wanted when the parent chooses to want it. This is not a defect of the child for not being wanted and is a defect of the parent.

The reader also sent me a link to an article from from the Catholic Exchange called Dealers of Death. This article goes over the case of Terri Schiavo and lists a bunch of cases where people survived their deadly diagnoses. Also on the Hugh Hewitt show I heard callers relate stories about themselves or the children who were born with some some defect and how in many of these cases the doctors were wrong. Regardless though of whether an infant has only days, weeks, or years to live we have no right to end that life. It does not matter if the doctors prognosis is accurate since in reality we are all suffering with a terminal decease and know not the hours we have left to live. Surprisingly I think one of the most pro-life stories on TV that I every saw was an episodes or Roseanne. Darlene gives birth to a very premature baby and the family spends time with the child while it is dying. This was a very positive depiction of a very difficult situation. Senator Santorum's wife Karen wrote a very beautiful book called "Letters to Gabriel" about when this same situation happened to them. If the new style doctors had there way children would be aborted at the slightest detection of an imperfection on an ultrasound. That they would deprive a family of the short time on earth that a family gets to welcome that life.

Glenn Reynolds wonders if this example is really a case of abortion mission creep as pro-lifer's have pointed out. He points to an article saying that abortion is somewhat harder to obtain in Europe compare to here. In 1981 contraception became free of charge and abortion had been free for year and was codified in law in 1981. I certainly think it is a case of creeps with a mission. The trend always starts with contraception, then backup contraception (abortion), then euthanasia for the terminally ill, so on an so one. Do you think they will euthanize babies in Portugal where abortion is illegal? I think not, only countries that have already swallowed abortion and some form of euthanasia will take it to the next step.

Dawn Eden had also aleady made some good points about this story and euthanasia as supported by Planned Parenthood.

SEATTLE - Hoping to keep more Internet users in its branded universe, Microsoft Corp. has become the latest company to offer blogging to the masses.

MSN Spaces makes it easy to set up Web journals without needing highly technical skills. It is targeted at home users who want to share vacation pictures, text journals or a list of favorite songs.

It is free to anyone with a Hotmail e-mail or MSN Messenger account, both of which also are free. MSN Spaces will be supported by banner ads. [Source]

I decided to preview the features and see if I could recommend it to current or potential bloggers. It truly was easy to set up and has some really good features for selecting a template and quickly modifying it to your individual desires. Some wizards help you to maintain a blogroll and it also has built in comment moderation to prevent spam. I imported a selection of my posts into it and you can see my effort here.

The small box came in the mail, addressed to Jesus Christ.

At first, Clinton’s Catholic school secretary Laurie Mohr wasn’t sure what to do.

Should she open it?

Even though she believes the Lord lives in her heart, and the hallways of Prince of Peace Catholic Academy and College Preparatory, Mohr conceded that she didn’t know how to hand-deliver His mail.

“Inside, there’s a small pot with dirt and an old dry bulb to plant,” she said. “It says, ‘Thank you for supporting Mother Nature.’”

Is that all the thanks He gets?

They’re still laughing about this at Prince of Peace and at Alliant Energy, which sent the package through its SecondNature program.

Alliant Energy spokesman Scott Drzycimski said the letters were mailed out to churches and religious organizations last week, seeking donations for the company’s environmental projects.

“How did the Lord’s name make it onto a box?” he asked, laughing into the telephone. “That’s kind of unique.”

After some checking, he found out the computer system apparently shortened the school’s name to fit the mailing label for the school and the Jesus Christ Prince of Peace Parish office.

A letter inside the box asks Jesus “to contribute to cleaner air, lakes and land,” and says “Have faith in Mother Nature.”

“I think He already has,” Mohr said. [Source]

I also wonder how many times in our prayers and devotions we also approach God in a manner as impersonal and cold as a form letter. That we give him a list of demands or requests as if we were writing a bunch of businesses hoping for a donation. Dear <Insert Name Here> please help me.