TALLAHASSEE (AP) - Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill today increasing state oversight of abortion clinics that provide second-trimester abortions, saying he did so "gladly, with pride and conviction."

Bush said the new law wasn't related to his anti-abortion views but he later added that he was motivated, in part, by his desire "to create a culture of life in our state."

Based on a woman's right to choose, the U.S. Supreme Court has largely shielded first-trimester abortions from state regulation. Most of the nearly 85,000 abortions performed in Florida last year were done during the first trimester - or three months - of pregnancy.

States do have more leeway to regulate abortions later in a woman's pregnancy. Almost 9,000 of Florida's abortions are second-trimester abortions.

The new law, which takes effect July 1, will cover any abortion clinic that provides second-trimester abortions. The bill doesn't spell out the exact regulations but gives the state Agency for Health Care Administration directions on writing new rules covering a clinic's building, equipment and staffing, the procedure itself and post-abortion care. The agency is drafting regulations.

And of course we have the obligatory statement from someone at Planned Parenthood

She questioned the intent of the law, which is officially named the "Women's Health and Safety Act."

"I think it's ironic that it's called the Women's Health and Safety Act and the only health care issue it addresses is abortion," Grutman said.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black when many abortion centers call themselves women's health centers. That the phrase women's right to healthcare has become synonymous with abortion. It also includes this interesting passage:

One supporter on hand for Tuesday's signing was Dr. Randy Armstrong, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Hillsborough County who provides emergency room coverage at University Community Hospital.

Armstrong, who does not perform abortions, said he has seen "and continues to see" the problems that result from lack of regulations of abortion clinics. In the last six months of 2004, nearly three dozen women were admitted into the hospital because of complications from second-trimester abortions. [Source]

This is of course is probably one of the most underreported stories there are the routine medical complications that are hidden from the public and no investigative reported wants to report on.

Brian at Noetic Muse has some thoughts to the question "What is Man?" and what the triump of a secular culture would entail.

Via Captain's Quarters

Lawmakers voted Thursday to ban school districts from purchasing textbooks longer than 200 pages.

The bill, believed to be the first of its kind nationwide, was hailed by supporters as a way to revolutionize education. [Source]

That is is the first of its kind is no surprise since that happens a lot in California. Unfortunately like most bad trends initiated there they are sure to be coming to a state near you. I wonder what is next? Perhaps that all text be encapsulated in balloons like in comic books. But you know this plan will fall just as soon as one politically correct piece of information is snipped to fit When a Native Americans explanation of changing seasons is cut from a science book ore when one of myriad instances of "evil European settlers" is removed.

If I was living in California I would be tempted to request that they make all spending bills less than 200 pages also, but I know that if that happened they would be printed in a font size that would make microfiche look large by comparison.

The 200 page rule though has been a silent rule for many Catholic religious educators also. I have heard and read many times of those that complain that the Catechism is 800 pages and thus should be dismissed as being too big. Which I guess kind of leaves out the Bible also.

When he made his way to Blessed Trinity Catholic Church on April 24, Michael Gillis didn't know he was doing anything radical.

The church's pastor, the Rev. George Reger, had invited the Buffalo Adulterous Men's Chorus to sing a concert that night. Gillis sings baritone with the group. "I used to sing tenor," he jokes, "but the voice starts sagging along with everything else."

The concert was intended as a fund-raising event for Habitat for Humanity and for the crumbling roof of Blessed Trinity, one of the most exquisite churches on Buffalo's East Side.

Even though hundreds of people turned out to enjoy the music, the concert turned out to be trouble. A few dozen protesters greeted the singers with signs and shouts. The battle lines were drawn, with scores of vehement letters later sent to The Buffalo News for Everybody's Column.

A few weeks later, the chorus found itself in the headlines again. The Buffalo Jewish Review decided that it wouldn't run the group's ads. In protest of that move, Temple Beth Zion pulled its advertising from the Review.

In short, the Buffalo Adulterous Men's Chorus, formed four years ago, has become the center of controversy. Gillis can't get over the flap that started with the concert.

"It was so innocent," he says. "We just wanted this poor guy to get a roof on his church."

He had thought that attitudes toward adulterers had relaxed.

Let's get this straight: Parts of the city are turning into the Wild West, with murders and robberies on a large scale. Our county is broke. Our schools are struggling. And the big problem is that there's a group of Adulterous guys singing Schubert?

"It's painful thinking that concert turned into something it never should have been," says Barbara Wagner, who directs the chorus.

"It was all done with great love, a great sense of justice and truth. We love to sing together. It was such a good cause. And it's such a gorgeous church."

There's a good side, though, to the ruckus. The singers see how many friends they have, often in unlikely places.

"That really is a bold stance that (Temple) Beth Zion has taken - not just on our behalf, but for adulterous people everywhere," says Dave Gannon, the chorus' president.

Gannon, a tenor, was also heartened by the Catholics who supported the church concert. "People were saying, "You boys hang in there.' These were people in their 60s and 70s," he says. "There was a nun there. (And) I said, "Thank you for your support.' She said, "No - thank you.' "

The protesters argue that adultery is sinful, so the singers should have been barred from Blessed Trinity. [Source]

To be honest I modified this news story - I replaced the word gay used in the story with adulterous or adulterer. It is a strange thing today that a group of men who identify themselves primarily by their same-sex attraction is seen as not a problem by so many Catholics. The story had gone on to say "(The official Catholic position is that homosexual behavior is not approved, but the orientation is accepted.)" Which isn't exactly right since the Church does not teach that same-sex attraction is an orientation only that it is "an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex" and that homosexual acts are contrary to the natural law and intrinsically disordered. Adultery starts with a predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the opposite sex when and Jesus considered even those who had adulterous thoughts as already committing adultery. Most Catholics still see adultery as wrong, though many have less of a problem with serial adultery where people are divorced and remarried without the Church declaring their previous marriage to have never in fact existed through a decree of nullity. If this same group of men had called themselves for example the Buffalo Men's Choir or other such name, there probably would have been no problem (depending on the extent of their advocacy). This has been a tactic of the gay rights movement to primarily identify groups by their sexual attraction and then when anyone complains to through the homophobe charge at them and this has been a very effective tactic in culturally a very short time. About a year ago there was a similar story except that time a "Gay Men's Chorus" was singing at a Catholic school.

Great interview by John Hawkins of Right Wing News with Sen Sam Brownback. Especially interesting what his opinion about the need for a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage and that his number one priority if he was allowed to select legislation would be to protect the child in the womb and from human embryos being used as research. He was also a lot more forthcoming about Presidential ambitions then others currently being considered. I think he is a pretty good man (an a fairly recent Catholic convert to boot), but I don't think that Senator's make very good presidential candidates - as history bears out.

Here is an interesting site called "Jonah on the Web' which includes links to over 200 articles and 150 pictures on Jonah. The author of the site emailed me since he had included my "If Jonah had a Blog" as one of the links. This parody was a sequel to my "If Adam had a Blog."

Nice story about a group of cloistered nuns from the Netherlands who had been praying for the election of Josef Ratzinger.

My latest parody news story "Challenges to academic freedom" is up at Spero News.

ROME Joseph Ratzinger, as a theologian and cardinal, returned to the question often over the years. And now that he is Pope Benedict XVI, his paper trail on the issue provokes skepticism about him among more liberal Roman Catholics. The question, in his own words: "Is the church really going to get smaller?"

At another point, in an interview published in 1997 in "Salt of the Earth," he explained it this way: "Maybe we are facing a new and different kind of epoch in the church's history, where Christianity will again be characterized more by the mustard seed, where it will exist in small, seemingly insignificant groups that nonetheless live an intense struggle against evil and bring good into the world - that let God in."

The standard argument is that Benedict "wants a more fervent, orthodox, evangelical church - even if it drives people away," as a New Yorker headline put it recently.

Today Pope Benedict XVI revealed what he really meant and that he is ready for and committed to a smaller church as he presented a prototype smaller church. The large crowd at St. Peters square was stunned into silence as they pondered the meaning of a smaller church and that the idea will get some getting use to. Though some commented that it would sure cut down on maintenance and A/C and heating costs.

Critics have pointed out that even with the declining size of the priesthood that they would still not fit in this new church.

Some might consider this to be a radical idea, yet back in 1991 eminent American theologian Avery Cardinal Dulles anticipated this when he wrote Models of the Church.

Cardinal Mahoney of the Diocese of Los Angeles was also prepared to be in line with the Pope as he introduces his new smaller church which will be much more affordable considering all of the law suits he is going to need to settle. His liturgical scientists are still perfecting a way a way to miniaturize liturgical dancers through a technique similar to the what was in the movie Fantastic Voyage.

The smaller cathedral is also available for a price of $22 at the gift store.

L.A. Catholic points to a bizarre homily by a Father Kester who was on a leave of absence for awhile but is now back.

"[Those already baptized in another Christian faith] ... have to read this little thing that said 'I profess and believe all that the Catholic Church teaches and holds to be revealed by God.' I sat back there and I thought ... mmm ... [I'm] glad they didn't ask me to read that. I'd have to say ... I believe ... really ... a good part of it ... most of it [laughter]. I'm not sure I wanna stand up there and say I believe all [of it], everything."

"I once went and talked [about] this with my spiritual director ... [about] something I was having a little problem with, a little article of faith and he said, 'Kevin, faith is a gift from God and nobody can tell you you have to believe something. You either have the gift of faith to believe it or you don't.' I felt kind of good about that, that that would allow me to at least ponder these imponderables and not get too unglued."

He also links to an audio file of the homily. If spiritual directors could be sued for malpractice this one certainly could. To say that every article of faith requires a separate gift of faith is unbelievably dumb. As if each article of faith required a matching packet of faith to be sent to verify it. Kind of a faith protocol system sent along the grace backbone. That if there is a faith packet loss then you have a mismatch between what you should believe and what you can believe. The Catechism says:

Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason.

and

In faith, the human intellect and will co-operate with divine grace: "Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.

BARI, Italy (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI visited this eastern Italian port on his first papal trip Sunday and pledged to make healing the 1,000-year-old rift with the Orthodox church a "fundamental" commitment of his papacy.

Benedict made the pledge in a city closely tied to the Orthodox church. Bari, on Italy's Adriatic coast, is considered a "bridge" between East and West and is home to the relics of St. Nicholas of Myra, a fourth century saint who is one of the most popular in both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Benedict referred to Bari as a "land of meeting and dialogue" with the Orthodox in his homily at a Mass that closed a national conference on the Eucharist. It was his first pilgrimage outside Rome since being elected the 265th leader of the Roman Catholic Church on April 19.

"I want to repeat my willingness to assume as a fundamental commitment working to reconstitute the full and visible unity of all the followers of Christ, with all my energy," he said to applause from the estimated 200,000 people at the Mass.

Words aren't enough, he said, adding that "concrete gestures" were needed even from ordinary Catholics to reach out toward the Orthodox.

"I also ask all of you to decisively take the path of spiritual ecumenism, which in prayer will open the door to the Holy Spirit who alone can create unity," he said. [Source]

Catholic Analysis has a post up on Fr. Solanus Casey of whom he compares to the Curé d'Ars for his lack of academic capabilities and he includes some of his quotes. His post reminded me of an article that included the following from Fr. Benedict Groeschel relating to Fr. Casey.

A Living Saint

Among those who recognized the simple holiness of the tall, bearded priest is Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R., director of the Office for Spiritual Development of the Archdiocese of New York. Fr. Groeschel was eighteen years old in 1950 and in formation at St. Felix Capuchin Novitiate in Huntington, Indiana, where Fr. Solanus lived at the time.

Fr. Groeschel recalled one warm evening that year when, unable to sleep, he slipped into the chapel to pray. "After a few minutes of kneeling in the dark, I realized that someone else was in there. A bit startled, I turned on the spotlight and there was Fr. Solanus, kneeling on the top step of the altar with his arms extended and his eyes riveted on the tabernacle. He was in his late seventies and yet he didn't move a muscle. Although his eyes were open, he didn't know I was there, and he didn't seem to recognize that the light was on. He was a very humble man and he would have moved immediately if he knew that someone was watching him."

Fr. Groeschel could only conclude that the priest was in a kind of "ecstasy," a state of deep mystical prayer in which all his attention was absorbed in Christ. After a few minutes, feeling like an intruder, he turned the spotlight off and quietly left the chapel.

I believe I have heard Fr. Groeschel previously mention that Fr. Solanus would also play his violin in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In a room in the U.S. Capitol, set apart from hallways filled with tourists and tucked between committee hearing rooms, a Russian Orthodox woman, Natalia Tsarkova, unveiled her painting honoring Pope John Paul II May 19 before a small crowd that included a handful of government officials.

"This is an answer to prayer," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., before the painting, draped in red velvet, was shown to the luncheon crowd.

Brownback said he has been praying that "art would come back that presents the truth and presents it grandly" and added that the art world was in need of "wonderful, lasting art that appeals to the eye and the soul."

The oil painting is 5 feet 10 inches tall and called "La Madonna della Luce" (Our Lady of Light).

It depicts Pope John Paul's luminous mysteries of the rosary with an image of Mary holding the baby Jesus and surrounded by angels.

A miniature portrait of Pope John Paul is painted in the rim of one of the angel's trumpets. [Source]

FRAMINGHAM -- Appeal Committee members continue to check on whether a Communion service at St. Jeremiah Church meets a Catholic's weekly obligation to attend Sunday Mass after a canon lawyer told them it doesn't.

Charles M. Wilson, executive director of the Saint Joseph Foundation in San Antonio, told Appeal Committee co-Chairwoman Mary Beth Carmody this week that the consensus among foundation members is Mass is part of the weekly duty.

"The Foundation believes that (Communion) services do not satisfy the obligation and has said so publicly on a number of occasions," said Wilson in an e-mail sent to the Daily News yesterday.

Members at other parishes in vigil in the Archdiocese of Boston told the Appeal Committee that Communion services satisfy a Catholic's obligation to attend Mass of Sunday, said Carmody.

"I'm still trying to figure this whole thing out," she said. "I take this very seriously, and I want to find out the answer. I know it's within canon law. The only question is whether it meets the weekly obligation."

Last week, in a statement, Bishop Richard Lennon, the archdiocese's vicar general, said under Church law all Catholics have an obligation to participate at Sunday Mass unless it is impossible for them to attend.

Communion services do not fulfill one's obligation to participate at Sunday Mass, Lennon said. [Source]

If a Catholic is unable to attend Mass because of distance, health or lack of availability, then their Sunday obligation is already dispensed. A Communion service might be a good thing to have when there truly is no priest available for Mass within the area - but in no way is it or could ever be a substitute for the Sacrifice of the Mass. To many places see Communion services as a way for lay participation and are robbing the faithful of participation in the Sacrifice of the Mass. Especially since when they do this people don't take the effort to go to another parish that is actually offering Mass.

In the latest Newsweek Eleanor Clift ends an article called stem-cell hypocrisy with this.

If Bush and his allies on the right were completely sincere about their beliefs, they would ban in vitro fertilization. As Bernstein’s story shows, even when a child is born, a lot of embryos died in the process. If they truly believe that a collection of cells no bigger than the dot at the end of a sentence is imbued with personhood, ending the practice of in vitro would be their next frontier. The notion that women could be recruited to carry all the excess embryos to term--or that more than a fraction would survive the thawing and the transfer process--is ludicrous in the extreme. “I think it’s all about the radical right and their anti-abortion agenda,” says Bernstein. “They can’t give an inch to anything that destroys their argument that life begins at conception.

Funny how Newsweek found the alleged flushing of Korans something very serious and newsworthy and yet the purposeful destruction of human life in inconsequential. Though hating to say it Eleanor Clift has a point, though she is right for the wrong reason. IVF is just as scandalous and wrong as the harvesting of humans for supposed cures. We are mainly tempted to do ESCR because of the leftover human embryos because of IVF. People are more squeamish over clone and kill, yet these human embryos are "just going to die anyway" by popular opinion.

This is one of the things I have learned to love about the Catholic faith is that there is a beautiful consistency to its doctrines. Every time I would go to research a Church teaching on some subject I was always awed by the truth that it taught. Before entering the Church I thought for sure at times I would find a 'gotcha' - something that would show some inconsistency. I always found the opposite in that it was myself instead who had the inconsistency.

Pope Paul VI was roundly mocked by the world when he published Humanae Vitae. He was also unfortunately mocked by other Christians who by embracing the pill also embraced an abortafacient - a form of chemical abortion. It is a sad fact that to this day that those who are otherwise against abortion and ESCR are still popping the pill. Pope Paul VI's encyclical was prophetic in what he said would happen and like most prophets he was also ignored. When the Church spoke against methods like IVF again it was ridiculed and yet again look at the results; 40,000 or more human beings frozen till they die of shelf life. Best born before the following date could be stamped on the containers bearing these children. Also unfortunately a large percentage of our Protestant brothers have largely cooperated with the culture of death by the teaching of the various congregations of their ready acceptance of contraception, divorce, and IVF. Of course that can also be said for a large number of Catholic also who don't follow the truth that the Church teaches.

The other day Jimmy Akin covered the topic on what would be permissible to do with frozen human embryos.

Update: Dev Thakur raises a point in the comments that the charge of hypocrisy of President Bush that "The President doesn't want to fund IVF either, but where the heck would he get the power to BAN it?" Well I am not so sure that the President is morally against IVF since he has said in the past that it is a "process … which helps so many couples conceive children." Federal health insurance programs are not mandated to allow IVF but are allowed to. Though of course the majority of these same plans also offer abortion and contraception. So even if the President was morally against IVF there really isn't anything he can do about it since direct Federal money isn't being used to support it.

There is somewhat a double standard in the pro-life community where abortion is fought, yet IVF is largely ignored. I have not heard of any protests outside of a clinic that offers IVF. Sure aborturaries kill on a much larger scale, but since when is proportionalism the standard?

The larger hypocrisy is though is on Eleanor Clift's side which talks about helping the little people and those without power to defend themselves, yet encourages the slaughter of children in the womb and the pulling of feeding tubes.

HENRIETTA -- There's no such thing as a guilty embryo, according to Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, 40, a neuroscientist who is director of education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pa.

"The embryo is always, always innocent," he said during an interview at a local restaurant.

Yet those arguing that it's moral to harvest embryonic stem cells are treating embryos -- innocent human beings -- as if they can be killed and used for any purpose that might benefit humanity, he said.

...Father Pacholczyk, a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., said scientists who argue for embryonic stem-cell harvesting and research downplay the humanity of the blastocyst, or five-day-old embryo, which has no discernible human features. However, such scientists are being disingenuous, he noted.

"Any scientist worth his salt knows that they were a blastocyst," he said. Pro-choice scientists really believe "in some instances, it should be allowable to destroy another member of the species because of the great good it will do."

He added that the role of scientists' egos in the stem-cell debate should not be overlooked. Some scientists would love to receive Nobel Prizes for advancing embryonic stem-cell research, he said.

"It's like splitting the atom," he said. When asked why scientists can't be content with focusing on adult stem-cell research, which raises no moral objections, Father Pacholcyzk chuckled and said that adult stem cells "just aren't as glamorous as" embryonic ones.

Scientists "are human like the rest of us," the priest said, adding that today's society treats scientists as the ancients did their religious high priests. However, he said, many scientists lack the moral tools to tackle the stem-cell debate. Father Pacholcyzk said that scientists need to become grounded in philosophy, bioethics and religious traditions in order to handle the debate.

"These questions do deal with the interface between science and religion and values and technology," he said. "These questions are critical for the future of mankind." [Source]

Catholic writer Danielle Bean has this funny prayer up today on her blog.

A MOTHER'S PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS (STOMACH FLU VERSION)

Lord,
Make me an instrument of Your healing love;
Where there is vomit let me bring Lysol;
Where there are boogers, Kleenex;
Where there is fever, Tylenol;
Where there is boredom, library books;
Where there are chills, warm blankets;
And where there is whininess, Scooby Doo.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be well-rested as to provide clean sheets,
To be appreciated as to disinfect the house,
To be showered as to give warm baths,
For it is in scrubbing out the bathroom that we are cleansed,
It is in sharing laps that we find comfort,
And it is after resting that we will return
To a normal life.

A reader sent me a like the the following story

The Rev. Malcolm Himschoot may be the closest thing to a rock star in the world of Protestant ministry: young, brainy, charming, subject of a new documentary, recently married -- and transgendered.

Now Himschoot, 27, is coming this summer not only to a theater near you, but also to a congregation: Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis, where in August he begins a two-year appointment as outreach minister.

He's one of only a few openly transgendered clergy members in the United States and may be the first to serve in the Twin Cities. The United Church of Christ (UCC), which ordained Himschoot, says it became the first mainline Christian denomination to ordain an openly transgendered minister a few years ago.

But that's not why Plymouth leaders chose Himschoot over other highly qualified candidates, said the Rev. James Gertmenian, Plymouth's senior minister.
Rev. Malcolm Himschoot and his wife

"It speaks to us of the self-insight and courage that he has, but it was not the driver in our decision," Gertmenian said. "He's got exceptional academic credentials. ... We were impressed he spent a year doing urban ministry in Denver, and he impressed us with the depth of his own spiritual vision."

Plymouth, an independent Congregational church, is a liberal congregation with 1,800 members that is known for its robust ministries in social justice and the arts. It's the home of VocalEssence, the award-winning choral group founded and directed by Plymouth organist and choirmaster Philip Brunelle.

Really? A liberal congregation - I would never have guessed that.

Himschoot, a Colorado native, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College in Amherst, Mass., and was student of the year at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. For the past year he has been associate pastor at Denver Inner City Parish, where he worked with students, seniors and ex-prisoners.

But he has drawn the most attention for "Call Me Malcolm," a documentary about his bodily change from a woman to a man and the cross-country trip he took to find support and acceptance. The film, produced by the UCC and directed by Joseph Parlagreco, won raves at recent film festivals in Los Angeles and Cleveland.

This is funny and sad at the same time. That psychiatric disorders are now accepted, that a deeply confused person is not told that they are confused, but affirmed in their disorder.

"If we didn't have the courage to hire this young man, what did that say?"

An aspect of courage is telling the truth even when it will deeply hurt someone. This must be done with charity, but not doing it is a sin against charity. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them, of course sometimes a gender mulligan can be called. I wonder if this will be the next tactic of the women's ordination movement kind of like Richard Raskind who became tennis star Dr. Renee Richards - except in the opposite direction.

Via Just One Minute comes the lie of the week.

WOODRUFF: Similarly, on the question of gay rights, aren't Democrats always going to be on the defensive? You now have 11 states that ban gay marriage. Should Democrats think about changing their position?

CLINTON: Well, I don't know many Democrats who support gay marriage. In fact, I don't and haven't for, you know, years before I became a senator. But I support giving people the right to enter into recognized relationships, that whether you call him civil unions or domestic partnerships, enable them to own property, to have hospital visitation. To me, that's a human rights issue.

Zadok the Roman has picture up of today's Corpus Domini procession in Rome with Pope Benedict XVI.

But the Corpus Christi procession, he said, is a moment when Catholics walk with the risen Lord, carrying him to the ends of the earth.

"One cannot eat the risen Lord present in the figure of bread as if it were simply a piece of bread," the pope said. "To eat this bread is to 'communicate,' to enter into communion with the person of the living Lord.

"This communion, this act of eating, is truly an encounter between two persons; it is allowing oneself to be penetrated by the life of the one who is Lord, the one who is my creator and redeemer," Pope Benedict said.

Going to the altar and receiving Communion, he said, is a sign that the faithful want to be transformed and conformed to Christ, "who is love alive."

"Communion implies adoration; it implies the desire to follow Christ," he said. [Source]

On the other end of the spectrum John Gibson has a series of stills from the Episcopalian clown Mass mentioned earlier this week at Open Book.

Happy 3 year blogiversary to Lane Core Jr.

From a column by Matt C. Abbott

A Catholic college in Vermont is getting an openly-homosexual dean, according to a story in 'Out in the Mountains,' Vermont’s “voice for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, [and] transgender people.”

The story, written by Stacey Horn, says that “Professor Jeffrey Trumbower, a gay man and a Unitarian, has been appointed dean of St. Michael’s College, a Catholic school established in 1904 by the Society of Saint Edmund, a French order of Catholic priests.

“Trumbower, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School, currently chairs the Religious Studies Department at St. Mike's, where he has been on the faculty for 16 years. Though he is not the first non-Catholic to be dean of the college, he is the first openly gay man in the position….

“According to search committee chair and political science professor Bill Grover, ‘We were very fortunate to have two terrific people [apply] and Jeff rose to the top.’ Grover said that religion was not a factor in choosing the dean and that the committee wanted a candidate who would ‘fit with the overall mission of the college.’ Of Trumbower, Grover said, ‘He's going to be a terrific dean….’

“Trumbower came to St. Mike's in 1989, after completing his dissertation. He was not familiar with the area before he came, and when he arrived, he ‘started going to the church at the head of church street. I resonated with that community and realized that I was home spiritually.’ Trumbower met his partner here in Vermont. They have been together for ten years.

“Jeff Trumbower… will assume his new position as dean of the Catholic college of St. Michael's on July 1.”

The teaching of the Catholic Church on homosexuality is as follows:

"Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved" (Catechism, no. 2357).

It is getting difficult to write parody when you have real news competing against you. This sounds like the beginning of a bad joke "A gay unitarian becomes a Catholic school president ..." Though the joke will likely be on any Catholic students attending. There is a certain logic to a homosexual unitarian though since unitarians deny the Trinity and thus the fact that God is also a family of persons. They wouldn't have to be concerned about imaging a unitarian God that does not generate the Holy Spirit. That their own lives would be just as sterile as this concept of God.

You just know that in these Catholic schools that everything is tolerated of course except being Catholic. You are encouraged to have an open mind, except towards the Catholic Church. The new evangelization will need to first send missionaries to Catholic schools where the extent of their Catholic indemnity is a blurb in their Mission statement about them having a Catholic identity. Though I suspect they might be treated like some missionaries in the past and the Church will have some new martyrs.

I have noticed that when it comes to discussions on liturgical music and church architecture on my blog and on others that there is a direct correlation between the theological views of the commenter and whether they like or dislike something pertaining to those subjects. Those that accept all Church teaching are usually critical of much of what goes for modern liturgical music and church architecture, while those that disagree with one or more Church teaching are generally approving of these forms.

Why is that? If beauty is suppose to be so subjective and in the eye (or ear) of the beholder, then why does opposing or support develop along theological fault lines? For the sake of shorthand I will use the terms conservatives and progressives even though they are an inexact and mainly political term. Plus maybe it is a little more charitable then dividing it between the faithful and the heretics.

If all of this was just a matter of taste then we should expect to see equal amount of like and dislike for modern liturgical music and church architecture among conservatives and progressives. Why is it that we never see a Bishop Bruskewitz or an Archbishop Chaput tearing up their Cathedrals, removing statues and kneelers, and putting in Mass in the round arrangements? Why is it that it is always the Cardinal Mahoney types that are constructing the Cathedral bunkers? I think it goes much farther then just that conservatives like older more traditional stuff and that progressives like less traditional modern stuff.

I don't pretend to have the answers totally for why this is. I can only speak for myself that I don't think I like Gregorian Chant and for example Romanesque architecture just because it was around before I was born. I am a geek who likes SF and music of the head banging variety, yet I discern that some forms a music are more applicable to worship then others. Sacred means to be set apart and music and architecture that can not be separated from the culture around it does not seem to me to be set apart and sacred. I have often read in defense of modern hymns that the form of music just doesn't matter. If that is true then why won't they simply accept chant and polyphony to make peace with those of us who think that it does matter?

One church that I sometimes go to adoration at has a more modern appearance throughout and a 3D mural in the back of the Sanctuary. The church is mainly simple in appearance and yet it helps me to worship. The mural which contains an embedded crucifix as part of it is not traditional but again it helps to turn my thoughts to God. I think that others that consider themselves to be traditionalists would also find beauty in this church. The other argument often made is that it doesn't matter what our churches look like. Again speaking for myself I need the equivalent of liturgical training wheels to help me in prayer. I am not advanced enough to walk of into the desert and to easily raise my heart to God. I think a specific test of church architecture is that you should be able to identify it as a church and not for example a modern art museum. Too many modern structures seem to be made more to worship the architectural prowess of the architect and not God. If you are thinking this is a daring structure are you really thinking about worship? Looking at the Oakland and L.A. Cathedrals the words beauty just does not come to my mind. Interesting structure perhaps, but are people going to want to get their pictures taken in front of it (other then for Halloween)? Do they elicit the same awe as the churches in Rome or other places? Would the majority of people want to have a screensaver of these structures on their computer?

As for the argument that the structure just doesn't matter I would whole-heartily disagree with. We are not just spirit and the idea that just as long as the Eucharist is being celebrated that the rest is of no concern. We have fallen natures that need all the help we can get. Our churches to celebrate the incarnation should be incarnational themselves. Sure during times of persecutions the faithful were happy to just be able to celebrate Mass whether it was out in field or secretly in someone's house. To pretend that whether Mass is celebrated in St. Peters or in a conference room that the faithful will have the same spiritual dispositions I believe is mistaken.

When God instructed Moses on the tent of the offering in the book of Exodus he did not just say "do what ever appeals to you since it just doesn't matter", but laid out specific instructions on how it was to be built and how parts of it was to be overlaid with gold and even mentioned the type of statuary that it was to be decorated with (two cherubim of gold).

The fact is that there is a divide in the appreciation of liturgical music and church architecture mainly along conservative/progressive lines and I would be interested in the insights that my readers may have for why this is.

This article links to blogs by three different Filipino bishops. I especially like The Meaning Bp. Jose R. Manguiran, DD which is subtitled "Life is meaningful only when it begins and ends with Christ." and this post called Connectedness.

JesterWare introduces the latest in interactive Cafeteria Catholicism using Flash animation.

Updated: Via reader suggestions, for Cafeteria Catholics the first message on the last page has had the Latin corrected and now includes an added welcome message when zero items are selected.

*Descriptions were take from the CCC and Catholic Answer's Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics. Descriptions were edited for length and any mistakes made our mine.

From Cardinal William H. Keeler.

A bill in Congress would offer federal grants to encourage researchers to destroy new human embryos from fertility clinics for their stem cells.

Such killing in the name of "prgress" crosses a fundamental moral line. Government has no business forcing taxpayers to subsidize the destruction of innocent human life. President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission conceded that human embryos "deserve respect as a form of human life." How does it show respect to treat human lives as mere crops for harvesting?

Those who say these embryos "would be discarded anyway" are wrong. Embryos that couples want discarded are barred from being used in research. In fact, many couples who initially chose to discard their "excess" embryos have later changed their minds and let them survive. But now, government-funded researchers would reach in and destroy these young lives before that can happen.

This bill would lead to much killing that would not otherwise happen. And since all the "spare" embryos available for research cannot provide enough stem cells to treat any major disease, the proposed law would inevitably lead to creating human lives in the laboratory solely to destroy them.

That hope of treating disease is the driving force behind this bill. Yet the "promise" of embryonic stem cell research has been exaggerated. The journal Science last week published a warning by Stanford University experts that "it is nearly certain that the clinical benefits of the research are years or maybe decades away." They added: "This is a message that desperate families and patients will not want to hear." But they need to hear it. They were led to support this unethical research by hyped promises of miracle cures.

Stem cells from umbilical-cord blood and adult tissues, posing no moral problem, have advanced quickly toward treating juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, sickle-cell anemia, cardiac damage and other conditions. The fixation on destroying embryos has diverted resources away from more promising therapies, and therefore ill serves suffering patients as well as embryonic human beings. Congress should reject this bill and support promising medical research that all Americans can live with.

Here is a good letter to the editor to the local paper where former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent lived in response to their three days of one-sided coverage. Especially interesting I found was the following quote from Fr. Reese.

Only a few people in this century, like Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Archbishop Oscar Romero and Nelson Mandela have shown that it is possible to love one's opponents while struggling for truth against injustice.

Notably absent is Pope John Paul II from this list and many others of the literally thousands of Catholics who were martyred during the last century. No mention of Father Maximilian Kolbe or St. Edith Stein who both in their last days were beacons of Christ in showing love and struggling against evil.

The positive thing about Fay Vincent's resignation and his decline of a honor from a Catholic School is that he really shouldn't get one in the first place. Especially since he was all for pro-abortion Hillary Clinton speaking at a Catholic School and is also for women's ordination. Funny I don't remember that while he was baseball commissioner that he fought for having women's players? Where is the equality that they are prevented from the holy sacrifice of the bunt or a sacrifice fly?

Imagine a woven wooden basket that's 120 feet high, broad at the base and curving gently inward as it rises.

Now imagine that basket wrapped in opaque glass. In daylight the glass is a veil, shrouding what's within; but at night, light seeps out through the basket and the veil, glowing for all to see.

No, no, no I really don't want to imagine that it might give me nightmares.

That's the ethereal promise of the design for Oakland's Christ the Light Cathedral, which marked its ceremonial groundbreaking Saturday. For today's Bay Area, it's a uniquely adventurous work of architecture -- and the only high-profile one that isn't by a globe-trotting celebrity architect.

The design for the cathedral and its 2 1/2-acre complex alongside Lake Merritt is by Craig Hartman of the San Francisco office of Skidmore Owings & Merrill. Instead of traditional cathedral architecture, majestic and strong --

evoked so well in the recent Los Angeles cathedral designed by Spanish architect Rafael Moneo -- Hartman offers a vision of warm, delicate layers that hint at the mysteries of things unseen. [Source]

So if Oakland and L.A. were having an ugly cathedral contest, who would win?

Based on the aerial view Instead of cruciform we have football form and I have to admit that this design makes me call out Hail Mary!

The sensation will be one of being surrounded by blinds, not a solid wall -- each plank set at an angle, with open space between each one. And the planks will serve the same purpose as blinds, letting in sunlight without the glint of direct rays.

Ah that explains it, a case of the blinds leading the blind.

So the outside looks like something from Krypton in the Superman Movie and the inside is strait out of Woody Allen's Sleeper. It looks like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters exploded inside. Now I am not one to automatically equate modern with ugly and I think modern structures can be built with beauty that point us to God. In my opinion this is not an example of that, though I would defer to Erik Keilholtz on this.

I think my original opinion when the contract was first awarded still applies in that the architect said that architecture is "to inspire and ennoble the human spirit.” Possibly that might be true, but that is not the point of reference in building a church. Having our spirit ennobled sounds to much like the modern version of self-esteem and the point of worship is not to esteem ourselves but God.

Update:

A reader informed me about one of the designs that lost out by Domiane Forte, a graduate student of architecture at Notre Dame

No wonder it didn't win - it actually looks like a church and we can't have that you know.

A reader, John S, writes saying:

I am hoping that you can help me. I'm trying to figure out what a" faith community" is. I would be tempted to believe that it is the same thing as a "Church" or a "Parish", except that if someone wanted to say "Church" or "Parish," why would they say "faith community?"

I noted the term "faith community" on Dick Vosco's website. (I also noted that all of the "before" photos were grainy & depressing, while the "after" photos were bright & cheerful! It's amazing that his modernist faith community worship center designs even inspire the CCD arrays in digital cameras!).

In order to figure out this whole "faith community" vs. "parish" thing, I propose a Jeff Foxworthy approach:

Faith community seems to be one of those annoying terms used when people are unable to say church. People with this defect will also substitute Presider for Priest. I have wondered if a progressive with Tourette Syndrome might embarrass themselves and other by having the impulse to say things like "hierarchy", "obedience", "dogma", etc. This would be quite embarrassing in progressive company. The term faith community seems to be prevalent in places not exactly faithful to the magisterium, though I am also sure that there are those who use the term that are. I wonder if anybody ever says "It's time to get up and to get ready for faith community" or "What time does faith community start today?" The following list is some of my reader's helpful suggestions.

• If you can't find the tabernacle, you might be in a faith community
• If you don't know what a pew is, you might be in a faith community
• If you are Catholic and have ever heard the term "love offering", you might be in a faith community
• If your worship center distributes America magazine, you might be in a faith community
• If among the first communicants, more than three boys take the Christian name "Brandon", you might be in a faith community
• If among the first communicants, at least one girl takes the name "Brandon", you might be in a faith community
• If the baptismal font has running or heated water, you might be in a faith community
• If "Lamb of God" is used interchangeably with "Warming Wind", you might be in a faith community
• If the giant LCD monitor falls and crushes more than three liturgists, you might be in a faith community
• If the womens' club at your worship center distributes native american dreamcatchers, you might be in a faith community.
• If "dark night of the soul" is used as a euphemism for indigestion, you might be in a faith community

To which I will add a few of my own:

• If you believe the "Source and summit of the faith is dialogue", you might be in a faith community.
• If you have a rainbow altar cloth, you might be in a faith community.
• If Father McBrien was quoted so much that you thought he was one of the Apostles, you might be in a faith community.
• If you thought Natural Family Planning meant using organic contraceptives, you might be in a faith community.
• If you heard a scream from the rectory when Josef Ratzinger was chosen as Pope, you might be in a faith community.
• If you have never heard the word "conscience" preceded by the word "informed", you might be in a faith community.
• If those not wearing rainbows sashes are denied Communion, you might be in a faith community.
• If a large part of the church's budget goes to felt for banners, you might be in a faith community.
• If the kneelers are covered with barb wire to discourage use, you might be in a faith community.
• If after your new church is built you thought that you should recommend the architect to your boss for building the company's new warehouse, you might be in a faith community.
• If Father, Son and Holy Spirit is replaced by Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, you might be in a faith community.
• If you thought that you had possibly heard the hymn sung by Barney before, you might be in a faith community.
• If there are Planned Parenthood ads in the back of the bulletin, you might be in a faith community.
• If you have heard of the Catechism, but have never actually seen one or heard it quoted, you might be in a faith community.
• If Ms. Magazine is in the literature rack, you might be in a faith community.
• You see no anti-Catholic bias in the Boston Globe, you might be in a faith community.
• If your usher greets you saying "Hi my name is Bob and my enneagram type is the reformer", you might be in a faith community.
• If you have ever found marbles, sand, or goldfish* in your Holy Water font, you might be in a faith community.
• Your pretty sure the GIRM is on the Index librorum prohibitorum, you might be in a faith community.
• When discussing doctrine you have heard the term "Survey says!", you might be in a faith community.
• If the only Latin term you know is "Sensus Fidelium.", you might be in a faith community.

* I actually heard one caller into EWTN ask Fr. Trigilio about their pastor placing goldfish in the Holy Water font.

Recently Jimmy Akin posted in his Classics of Internet Humor series You might be a redneck Jedi if ... Here are some of my own additions:

• You have a lightsword rack in your pickup.
• You outfitted the Millennium Falcon with an 8-track deck.
• You used the force to crush a beer can on your head.
• You have tried to engage Yoda in a burping contest.
• Your X-Wing Navigation unit uses the term 'over yonder'
• You were trained by a Jedi Knight named Bubba
• Your R2D2 unit has a cup holder built in.

My latest parody for Spero News is up Hairshirt fashion: making penance fun!

Sometimes I like to watch really bad B movies and I always get a good kick out of the multiple incarnations of Godzilla movies. I like to play the home edition of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and make snarky comments while watching them. I figured NBC six-part series Revelations would be good fodder for this treatment and I certainly wasn't disappointed. If this show was intended as an outreach to religious people in the red states then I think it would have the same effect as playing minstrel shows to outreach to blacks. Now of course my inner theologian was screaming throughout the whole thing. A baby Jesus being born again and this time without the Angel Gabriel even asking permission. A dissident nun who knows better then the Church is searching for the child and of course once again the anti-Christ is being born which is not surprising since writer/creator David Seltzer also did "The Omen." I could hardly keep from laughing as Bill Pullman plays the skeptic working hard to look skeptical and confused. I guess I was skeptical and confused whether he was acting or still trying to believe the whole stupid script. Though there were some great lines like "If they kidnap the baby, they can hold Christianity hostage." I mean what were they going to do call God the Father and say "We have your son if you love him like you said you did in John 3:16 then you gotta pay a ransom." Of course God would be suitable upset since as 1st Timothy 2:6 says about Jesus "who gave himself as a ransom for all" and God would simply reply to them "been there - done that, besides I know where you are holding him - you know - omniscience and all that."

The last episode pretty much left everything unresolved since they are trying to continue this as a regular series on the Fall schedule. Six parts was penitential enough for me. The only positive thing in the show was that it had John Rhys-Davies in it who I always love to watch, but unfortunately he had only a small part in the series.

In front of religious leaders, friends, family and onlookers, Piotr Gnoinski knelt before Cardinal Francis George and surrendered his life to God and the Catholic Church on Saturday.

Moments later, Gnoinski stood up, leaving behind his life as a student and starting a new one as a priest.

The 26-year-old was among 16 men who were ordained Catholic priests during a stirring, three-hour ceremony at Holy Name Cathedral on the Near North Side.

"I am overjoyed," Gnoinski said afterward. "I am at peace now. For me, this is the beginning of a real life. I will go to my parish community and teach the love of God."

This year's group is Chicago's largest class to be ordained since 1986. The group is also the largest class for any of the 195 American Catholic dioceses or archdioceses, said Rev. Thomas Baima, the provost at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, where the new priests were trained.

"The most important thing is not just the number this year, but that this represents the continuation of a 15-year trend of growth," he said. "People need good priests. We're proud to say these men are ready."

For years, the number of ordained priests had been dwindling, Baima said. In 1990, the archdiocese ordained six priests, its smallest number.

But since then, the number has increased. Baima said he believes the growth is a result of programs that support men who decide to leave the workforce and enter the priesthood later in life. The new priests range in age from 25 to 46 and are from a variety of places, including Poland, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Chicago.

During the ceremony, the men wore plain white robes and listened as George explained their new roles: They will say mass, visit the sick, counsel parishioners and listen to confessions.

The men promised to serve the church, be obedient and respect religious leadership. Then they lay face down before the altar to symbolize their humility and willingness to surrender everything to God.

George placed his hands upon their heads, giving them a special blessing, then they were considered priests.

After the ordination, the men put on their new robes. They will begin serving their parishes on July 1.

Norman Hernan Moran Rosero of Ecuador was 15 when he took his First Communion, and even then he felt a calling to serve as a priest, he said.

"I think the best we can do for people is to serve them and meet their needs," he said. "The biggest need of people is spiritual."

Rosero, 28, will serve at St. Jerome Church in Chicago, where he'll develop ministries for young people, he said.

"I feel so blessed," he said. "I'm not worthy of this, but God is merciful. He chose me to serve him." [Source]

It seems we are seeing more and more stories lately of some diocese ordaining their largest class in years showing a general turn around. For example this story that the number of seminarians worldwide has doubled in the last 25 years. In the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis 15 men become priests on May 28th. In the Diocese of Covington this story also talks about improvement and contains this interesting piece.

Enzweiler majored in physics at Thomas More College and then earned a doctorate in physics at UC. In 1987 he began teaching at the State University of New York College at Cortland, where he taught for three years. He then returned home and taught at NKU until 2001. He took a leave of absence to enter the seminary, then resigned in 2002.

He wrote in his e-mail from Rome that he felt moved to address his journey from hard science to the priesthood because it may seem unusual to some and because of the ongoing national debate over intelligent design/creationism vs. evolution/science.

"For me, science is not the end all. It is one element that helps me understand the world. Physics is a big part of who I am and it always will be. But, it has its place, it can't answer everything. It complements, as does every other field of study. There is no contradiction for me. Natural science is a study of physical reality. Anything beyond the realm of physical reality is beyond the realm of natural science. It is just one of the complementary ways that we know and understand. Science helps me better appreciate who God is and what God has done. I can look at the sky with awe at its beauty and at the same time marvel at the understanding I have of God's creation. My faith is strengthened by science."

This story talks about a group of women who are part of the Seminarian Tea Committee. Each year these praiseworthy women throw a tea party that raises enough funds to put put one person completely through seminary. This story came out last month but I though it was an appropriate story for Trini-tea Sunday.

Another story earlier in the week posted at Amy Welborn's site was really joyful for me when I read it.

In fact, the seminarians at St. John Vianney in St. Paul were so jubilant on the day Cardinal Ratzinger was named pope that they got noise complaints from students and neighborhood residents.

After an evening Mass dedicated to Pope Benedict, rector Father Bill Baer led 80-some seminarians onto the roof of the seminary. The men yelled out the Apostle’s Creed and soon began to chant “Viva el Papa!”

“We were so loud that people in all the neighboring dorms started to stick their heads out the window,” said seminarian Stephen Nepil, 19. “They were like, ‘Yeah, Benedict!’

“It was a big deal in the seminary because we know how incredible of a pope he’ll be,” Nepil said. “We were so loud that we got noise complaints from the far end of the south campus. They sent security guards to take us off the roof.”

Now with all of this general positive news I wonder what this does for the Progressive meme about the need for married clergy and women's ordination? I probably do not need much of an imagination to do this though. It will be treated like how some Democrats treated positive news of the economy leading up to the presidential election. I wonder if those who identify themselves as progressives will call this a priestess recovery?

In preparation for Trinity Sunday there is lots of good stuff at Ut Umum Sint on Trinitarian heresies and passages from the Catechism.

Also Dr. Marchellino D'Ambrosio has a good section with multiple articles on the Trinity.

Fr. Sistare of "Not So Quiet' Catholic Corner has opened up a cafepress shop (SAINT's R' US) using his own personal illustration of St. Francis. Pretty impressive.

There is a celibrity tribute to Pope John Paul II that includes readings by: Deepak Chopra, Kirk Franklin, Vince Gill, Danny Glover, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Faith Hill & Tim McGraw, James Earl Jones, Monica, N’Sync, Edward James Olmos, Brooke Shields, Britney Spears, Steven Tyler & Joe Perry

Well since the universe didn't explode from a massive irony paradox I guess Britney Spears did not read from the Wednesday Audiences that were the basis of the Theology of the Body. Though I am curious what Steven Tyler & Joe Perry from Aerosmith read?

The Beer man has a column on Trappist's Beers.

And by the way did you know there is a Chesterton Beer Mug?

Which of course contains his quotation "We can thank God for beer and burgundy by not drinking too much of them."

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Friday said he would veto legislation that would loosen restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and expressed deep concern about human cloning research in South Korea.

"I'm very concerned about cloning," the president said. "I worry about a world in which cloning becomes accepted."

White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said the work in South Korea amounted to human cloning for the sole purpose of scientific research. "The president is opposed to that," Duffy said. "That represents exactly what we're opposed to."

South Korean researchers, funded by their government, reported producing human embryos through cloning and then extracting their stem cells. It is a major advancement in the quest to grow patients' own replacement tissue to treat diseases.

The president also threatened a veto of legislation that would clear the way for taxpayer money to be spent on embryonic stem cell research.

A measure by Reps. Mike Castle, R-Del., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., would lift Bush's 2001 ban on the use of federal dollars for research using any new embryonic stem cell lines.

"I made very clear to Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayer's money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life _ I'm against that," Bush said. "Therefore, if the bill does that, I would veto it." [Source]

Well if it does reach him and he vetoes it this would be, I believe, his first veto since becoming President.

As part of a new ad campaign Indra Nooyi, President and CFO of PepsiCo introduces a new product.

This analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents leaves the long, middle finger for North America, and, in particular, The United States. As the longest of the fingers, it really stands out. The middle finger anchors every function that the hand performs and is the key to all of the fingers working together efficiently and effectively. This is a really good thing, and has given the U.S. a leg-up in global business since the end of World War I.
However, if used inappropriately –just like the U.S. itself -- the middle finger can convey a negative message and get us in trouble. You know what I’m talking about. In fact, I suspect you’re hoping that I’ll demonstrate what I mean. And trust me, I’m not looking for volunteers to model.

Discretion being the better part of valor … I think I’ll pass.

What is most crucial to my analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents, is that each of us in the U.S. – the long middle finger – must be careful that when we extend our arm in either a business or political sense, we take pains to assure we are giving a hand … not the finger. Sometimes this is very difficult. Because the U.S. – the middle finger – sticks out so much, we can send the wrong message unintentionally.

Unfortunately, I think this is how the rest of the world looks at the U.S. right now. Not as part of the hand – giving strength and purpose to the rest of the fingers – but, instead, scratching our nose and sending a far different signal.

Yes Pepsi One a Pepsi for the Michael Moore generation. In fact if you have the girth of a nation like Michael, only one calorie can only be seen as positive. This new political Pepsi tastes just like Kool-Aid for those who just love drinking the Kool-Aid given them through Democratic talking points. After a hard day of protesting nothing will hit the spot like Pepsi One. Your parched throat will sing for joy after the many repetitions of hey, hey - ho ho. And who knows one day you too can become the president of a large American company and slam the U.S. also.

One symbolizes a quest for a one world government with the hope for it being under the United Nations controls so that one day we might be as peaceful as the Dafur region of Sudan. This is a drink not only for America, but for the world - it goes great with cheese and after a busy day of signing appeasement treaties you will be glad to slake your thirst as it easily runs down your throat as fast a the French from an invading army.

If you love our new product you might also want to check out some of our other fine re-branded products. Tora Bora Mountains Dew and We-hate-Condoleezza Rice-a-Roni.

If you love our new products please email us at boardofdirectors@pepsi.com

A proud sponsor of Moveon.org

Update: Welcome Hugh Hewitt fans (and thanks once again for a link Hugh). For those who have asked the statement in blue is take directly from her speech. We can be thankful once again to Power Line for originally breaking the story. Hugh also has her apology written in corporate-speak which includes:

"Over the years I've witnessed and advised others how a thoughtless gesture or comment can hurt good, caring people. Regrettably, I've proven my own point. I made a mistake and, again, I'm very sorry."

So working on and crafting a speech targeting an audience at the Columbia Business School is only a thoughtless gesture or comment. Wow that is pretty good that you can preplan and write a thoughtless speech

The incomparable Dale Price wrote a post on his experience with Feeneyites shortly after he was confirmed. For those who don't know, Feeneyites are followers of the late Fr. Feeny who held a rigorous view of the Church's teaching that there is "No salvation outside the Church." They held that people physically had to be members of the Church to be saved.

This Rock covers what the Church Fathers said about it here and the late Fr. Most has a good article on the subject here..

I wrote a parody news story on this subject a couple of years ago.

(Roto Reuters) A group calling themselves the Voice of the Feeneyites (VOTF) have chained themselves to the pews of a Catholic Church in Massachusetts. The spokesman for VOTF, Brother Yul B. Dammed, has stated that they have split from the Saint Benedict Center because of their liberal interpretation of Pope Eugene IV Bull Cantate Domino that outside of the Catholic Church their is no salvation. The group claims that only those who are physically inside of a Catholic Church will be saved and that those who go outside of a Catholic Church have lost their salvation. A statement from their spokesman reads "At the beginning of the Church they held Mass and were buried in the catacombs. The saints and many clerics have been buried in the church, so obviously they knew from apostolic tradition the true meaning of "no salvation outside of the Catholic Church". The new Cathedral in LA allows people to be buried in the Cathedral so obviously Cardinal Mahoney realizes the true meaning of this doctrine. We only want what is our right, to live and die in a church and thus gain our salvation". I contacted Brother Hugh Bris of the Saint Benedict Center for an official statement, he replied "VOTF is a lunatic-fringe group, obviously having such a narrow and rigorous view of this doctrine is ridiculous.

Fay Vincent, 67, the former baseball commissioner, has turned down an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Sacred Heart University, and also resigned from the Board of Trustees of Fairfield University, citing the Vatican's recent firing of the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the magazine America.

" I've been a supporter of America for 25 years," Vincent said in an interview from his Greenwich home on Monday. "This thing really bothered me terribly. I have read the magazine carefully and it was always respectful to the church. For me, not taking the degree was a matter of principle."

Well I guess he wasn't that careful of a reader since being respectful to the Church does not include advocating positions at odds with Church teaching and showing these positions as having equally valid weight. The response to the resigning of Fr. Reese continues to amaze me. I even saw a reference to it in Rolling Stone mixed in with music news. It is amazing that colleges and universities can ignore Church teaching and mock the latest papal encyclical and it doesn't bother many people. This university also has coed dormitories and this is no longer a shock to anybody but is the practice of the majority of Catholic schools. But if an editor of a magazine is forced to resign because of questionable editorial practices someone will shun an honorary degree. Talk about mixed priorities.

John Gibson at Musings of an Expagan takes a cue from my post that wonders about the Bishop's char and he shows us what are on the controls of the arm rest. Pretty funny!

John also has another funny post for a new product to extend your penance for those worried about their shortcomings.

The Pontificator will now be under the Pontiff. Al Kimel, a Episcopal priest posted.

Last night I tendered my resignation to the Vestry of St. Mark's Church, effective July 1st. It is my intention to renounce my orders as an Episcopal priest and to enter, for the sake of my salvation, into full communion with the Catholic Church. I freely affirm the Catholic Church to be the one true fold of Jesus Christ. It is also my intention to avail myself of the Pastoral Provision and to apply for ordination to the Catholic priesthood.

Dr. Philip Blosser has some good advice for him.

Dave Armstrong also weighs in with some thoughts about the Pontifications statement and has a post well worth reading.

For this masterful piece of satire The Society of St. Pius I. [Via Domenico Bettinelli Jr.]

I don't expect much of something coming out of Stanford, but this article is ridiculously funny and could just as well have been printed in the Onion.

Deep ecology: No more 'people'

What do I mean by “no more ‘people’ “?

The phrase could mean “no more people than we have now” — limiting our population for the sake of other species — or it even could mean “zero people.” There’s a group called the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement with the slogan, “May we live long and die out.”

What I really mean by “no more ‘people’ “ is something that both of these ideas exemplify: no more putting people first. Just as scientific discoveries prompted a shift in paradigms from a geocentric to a heliocentric solar system, discoveries about human relatedness with other species call for a shift in priorities from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism.

This is the heart of a philosophy I like very much: deep ecology. Its tenets include:

The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on earth have value in themselves.

The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.

....Some people find it depressing to think that “humans are just animals.” But if we appreciated the intelligence and importance of other animal species, the view could be, not “Oh, humans are just animals,” but rather “Wow! Humans are animals!”

Deep ecology can be a general return to eastern and earth-based religious practices. I personally don’t believe in “God,” but I certainly believe in the earth (I can see it, feel it, no one asks me whether I believe in it, etc.) and I have good reason to be grateful for it, since it provides for my needs and so forth. Lately, there’s been discussion (e.g. in “The God Gene”) — about our need to worship something. Why not “worship” the earth and the biosphere? Deep ecology is starting to sound like tribal religion.

Well this is deep, like something accidentally stepped in. If humans are just animals then either we can kill other humans for food sources or we have to stop eating animals out of solidarity. In fact we must prevent other animals from eating other animals. We are the more intelligent animal (or is that my human-centrism slipping in) so we must enlighten the other animals to stop this animal cannibalism. We must liberate the lion and tiger from using fellow animals as food sources and introduce them to yogurt, granola, and salads. In fact I nominate the writer of this article to feed her fellow carnivorous animals in this task Especially to hand feed alligators tofu turkeys.

Mark C. N. Sullivan of Irish Elk comments on the lastest Vosko deconstruction in what is suppose to be renovation of the Cathedral in Rochester, NY. When he said that the diocese encourages visitors to go on a "Holiness Hunt" in the renovated cathedral I thought that might be a just. Unfortunately that is the term they use. Though I think it is the perfect definition for what many have to go through to find the Tabernacle. The level of difficulty in playing Where's Jesus makes Where's Waldo simple simple by comparison. Mark links to various picture and articles about the Cathedral's renovation (which was fought for years by a group of parishioners) including this picture of a comparison old and new.

All I know is that if I walked into this Cathedral after not being there for a couple of years I would immediately call the police certain that thieves had ransacked it and carried away almost all the sacred items. Or possibly request "Beam it back down Scotty!" Speaking of Star Trek, maybe I am too much of a SF geek, but I find the new Bishop's chair to strike an amazing resemblance to Captains Kirk's chair.

As with many restorations the Tabernacle has been removed to a side chapel though at least they had managed to rescue a beautiful Tabernacle from a church that had burned down.

The voiceover on this page concerning the box altar said that the Church mandates that the altar with the presider be brought admist the people in this case into the center of the church. This is normally what annoys me the most is that they say that the Church has mandated or called for this type of change. I attended a Mass at one church just before they were to move into their new church. I remember being pretty steamed when the priest said that the Vatican had instructed that they had to move the Tabernacle from the center. Maybe that priest really believed this to be true, but it would have been nice if they had actually looked at the relevant documents before making the decision and passing out mistaken information. He also stated that many had complained about the change, but that there was nothing they could do about it. This was the same church (that I no longer go to) that has 2000 C.E in large letters displayed on their school. Using Common Era on a Catholic School is just one of the silliest things I have seen.

The Eastern Catholic Churches went though an iconoclastic period and corrected it with even more beautiful churches. Mark also linked to an Easter Orthodox Church in the same area. I can only hope that we in the West we make up for our own stark iconoclastic architecture.

My own parish was also recently restored. The difference, as you can see below, is that we didn't have a beauty-hating architect do it.

The latest book meme has been passed to my via Dev Thakur at Against a dictatorship of relativism .

Total number of books I've owned:
Not sure, but I expect that I would need to use an exponent to describe the number. Let us just say that God could have told Abraham that his descendents would be as numerous as amount of books that Jeff has owned.

Last book I bought:
Well the last haul contained Pope John Paul II's Memory and Identity and Cardinal Ratzinger's God and the World.

Last book I read:
Like some others I don't confine myself to reading one book at a time, though I normally limit this to one book per room. Recently I finished reading Our Lady and the Church by Hugo Rahner, A Tour of the Summa by Msgr Glenn, Hail Holy Queen by Scott Hahn, St. Benedict and St. Therese by Dwight Longenecker, Worthy is the Lamb by Thomas J. Nash.

Five books that mean a lot to me:

Like most book lists this one will include the caveat of not including the Bible or the Catechism since they are assumed.

R.A. Salvatore series (including the Icewind Dale Trilogy) about the Drow Elf Drizzt Do'urden. I started reading this series before my conversion, but it sparked some questions for me. Drizzt grows up as part of what is an evil race and struggles against his birth right to reject evil and to do good by helping others. I found some of themes and especially the chapter introductions to be very Catholic in their understanding sometimes. I was drawn to characters such as Drizzt who displayed heroic virtue when at times it would have been easier for him to take an easy road and avoid problems his ethical understandings brought him. This made my ponder in my own life why I was attracted to characters such as these, though I wasn't always doing the same in my own life.

Frank Sheed's Theology and Sanity which is just an amazing book in its very lucid and easy to understand treatment of theology. A must read for all.

G.K Chesterton's The Everlasting Man is the first book from him that I had read so it has a special place for me. He simply blew me away in that almost every paragraph made me pause and think. The view of history on a grand scale and his view of man made many things click for me. I was still on my way into the Church when I read this and after reading it I considered it almost criminal that before investigating the Catholic Church that I have never heard of him. Though it is understandable why a secular society would want to ignore his writings.

Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series. My love of reading started with SF as a child really took when reading his books. The idea that human civilization could be guided by a group of elites who helped them especially appealed to me when I was still a raging liberal. Of course his propensities for puns didn't turn me away either.

I declare a tie on this one between St. Teresa of Avila's autobiography and St. Augustine's Confessions St. Teresa's common sense, her humor, and her striving for perfection have made a big impact on me. This book humanized saints for me more than any other. St. Augustine's masterpiece spiritual biography also showed me that saints aren't just some plastic thing on a dashboard. The following quote really spoke to me since I had spent most of my life as an atheist.

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

I will inflict or pass this one to Victor Lams, Zorak (Happy Birthday), Dave Armstrong, Tom at Disputations and Christopher Blosser.

IT IS 9 A.M. on a recent Thursday, and seven frail workers file into a chilly, fluorescent-lit room to begin their daily work.

Until noon, they will mix batter, work with a scalding- hot bread iron, or sit for hours on end, silently counting hundreds of tiny baked products with aging hands, depositing them in decades-old shoe boxes.

The women will work without a break. Most are in their late 70s, some in their 80s.

They aren't paid a salary, and they are rarely ever seen in public.

Yet they smile as they scuttle around the outdated room crowded with old wooden school desks that serve as work tables, and push-pedal baking equipment that hasn't been updated since the 1950s.

They are doing God's work.

For decades, these same seven Poor Clare sisters, cloistered in the hushed grounds of the Monastery of Saint Clare near Langhorne, Bucks County, have been working side by side to make the tens of thousands of communion wafers used each year by churches, hospitals and nursing homes up and down the East Coast - and around the country.

The Franciscan order sisters don aprons over their beige habits five days a week to bake, a labor of love that earns not even a quarter of the money they need to live, eat and maintain the monastery. They depend on additional donations from the public to make ends meet.

The sisters have learned to talk about "clients," "accounts" and "rush deliveries." They know what time the UPS man comes every day. They track their inventory by computer. Their screen saver? It's more of a screen Savior: Christ's portrait. [Source]

Yes it is time for another VOTF survey that as Seekeroftheway says we can skew. And when it comes to VOTF I say skew you. There are only a couple of questions (around five) and they are as biased as the questions in any survey from the Main Stream Media.

They start off

With regards to Fr. Thomas Reese’s resignation from America, do you feel

Cue Peter Frampton and Do you Feel like we do. Not think or believe, but the oh so typical feel

It was appropriate – as a Jesuit priest, he should only reinforce Vatican teaching.

Get it - yep "Vatican teaching" as if this is somehow different and separate from Catholic teaching. Is it that I converted to the Vatican faith and would that make me a convert to Vatholicism?

It was the right action on his part to maintain the magazine’s autonomy.

No right answer for that one. Maintain the magazine's autonomy? This is like a planet leaving its orbit and wanting to still be considered part of the solar system. Autonomy from truth is slavery.

It was punishment because Fr. Reese challenged institutional Church’s authority.

For VOTF the word institutional is bandied about as a swear word - except of course when it comes to the institutional leadership of VOTF. Remember when you say institutional to grit your teeth a bit and get that certain look in your eyes and you too can be a leader in VOTF. This simplistic and silly view is that this is all just about a challenge to institutional Church’s authority. Like a father-son disagreement. Where the father must put the son in his place because he challenged his authority.

The following was my favorite question.

Is VOTF mainly made up of gray-haired heretics who are taking advantage of the priestly sex scandal to promote heterodox practices to try to Protestantize the Church?

Well maybe I only imagined the last question.

Here is a case happening in my neck of the woods.

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- 34-year old Scott Thomas married Liza Thomas in 2001.

They bought a home and had a baby boy.

But one September day, paramedics found Scott on his kitchen floor with several hairline fractures down the left side of his head.

Scott spent two months in a coma.

Scott's mom, Pamela Patton, says Liza had plans to put Scott in Community Hospice of Northeast Florida, so she filed for temporary guardianship in November and won.

For months, Pamela took care of Scott in her home, and worked with him every day.

"He watches you, he listens, he smiles, he cries," said Patton.

Six weeks ago, Scott's traech was removed. Now he's in Brooks Rehabilitation.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.

Patton's guardianship could end in a few weeks.

Patton fears Liza will remove Scott's feeding tube.

The Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation has stepped in.

"They don't wish to poke their noses into somebody else's business, but they do want to plead to this woman to please think about what she's doing," said Pamela Hennessy, spokeswoman for the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation.

The Foundation is urging DCF to investigate the circumstances surrounding Scott's injuries.

According to Patton, Liza says Scott fell in the kitchen, but doctors tell Scott's mother his injuries are consistent with a head trauma, not a fall. [Source]

A reader sent me a link to the following story (which unfortunately is on a paid subscription site).

PAXTON— Praying to the east, the north, the south and the west while burning medicinal cedar on the podium, Sister Kateri Mitchell of the Mohawk Nation Turtle Clan sought the blessings of the Creator for graduates at the 56th annual commencement at Anna Maria College yesterday.

As the afternoon darkened with threatening clouds, parents and friends of the 300 graduates crowded under a huge white tent on a field next to the college and cheered on the members of the class of 2005.

President William D. McGarry told the graduates the day marked the end of an important part of their lives, but was the first step on an even more important journey. While the diploma they received would open doors to new careers, he said, “what you do from this day forward will determine what this diploma really means.”

Reflecting on the four years the students have been at Anna Maria, Mr. McGarry said the world has changed in many ways. In those four years, there was the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the explosion of the Columbia space shuttle, the attack on Iraq and the death of a pope.

“Pope John Paul II, the only pope many of you have ever known, taught us with his actions how to live and, when the time came, how to die,” Mr. McGarry said.

He urged the students to remember what they had learned at Anna Maria and to carry it with them.

“You will forever be a member of the Anna Maria College family,” he said. “No matter how far away you go, we expect to hear from you.”

During her Prayer to the Four Directions, in which she was joined by other Sisters of St. Anne, Sister Kateri had members of the audience stand and face each direction as the prayer was recited.

Facing east, the sisters said the rising sun reminds them each day to thank the Creator for his goodness.

Turning south, they said the soft winds and rains are like the goodness in our hearts and the gentleness of our speech.

Facing west, they noted that the brilliance of the setting sun shows beauty and harmony.

“We pray, Great Spirit, that our journey through life will know the harmony and peace of the setting sun,” they said.

Facing north, they said it is during the times of great storms from the north that we hear the Creator speak. It is then, they said, that the Creator calms our fears and anxieties and gives us strength and courage.

During much of her speech, Sister Kateri banged on an Indian drum in a slow, steady rhythm. The drumbeat, she told the graduates, signifies the beating of their own hearts.

“As we continue on our journey, our sacred journey of life, let us get in touch, let us get in tune with our own heartbeat,” she said. It is our heartbeat that connects us with Mother Earth and the sacred Creator, she said.

She also called on the graduates to share their faith throughout their lives.

“Call out to all, reach out to all, even those who do not feel they are part of the sacred circle,” she said.

Here is a picture of Sister Kateri Mitchell.from her site.

And an example of one of her poems.

Kateri Tekakwitha
Noble Turtle, Mother Earth
Gathers Her People
East, South, West and North

We can be thankful to Father Raymond Bucko, S.J. for managing her page and his own "Fr. Bucko's Mighty Home Page". They seem to have got the opposite lesson from the life of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha a Mohawk Indian who became Catholic since they seem to be Catholics who are converting to Mohawk spirituality. And what is the fascination with compass directions and why aren't they more inclusive towards for example the NE, SW, etc. Why should only directions 90 degrees apart get all the attention? Maybe they are part of the Compass Crusade for Christ.

I can't help thinking of Terry Pratchett's hilarious Diskworld series when I see Noble Turtle, Mother Earth. Sister Mitchell might make a fine character in one of his novels.

Brooksville, Florida - It looks as though a A Florida resident has posted a potato for sale on eBay. The seller claims it looks like the Sacred Heart of Jesus. What do you think? Click on our poll and tell us.

On the eBay listing - it says:
" The interesting thing about this potato is that it came to us we feel as an answer to prayer, and to let us and the world know that Jesus loves us and that all things are possible to those who believe." [Source]

(CNSNews.com) - Pro-life activists say a Catholic college in Baltimore, Md., has no business inviting Rudy Giuliani to speak at its commencement exercises. The former New York City mayor also will receive an honorary degree from Loyola College on Friday, May 20.

"It is unconscionable for Loyola College -- a Catholic institution -- to host Rudy Giuliani given his outspoken support of abortion-on-demand, which stands in direct opposition to the infallible teachings of the Catholic Church and his own self-proclaimed faith," said Jack Ames, founder of the Maryland group Defend Life.

Loyola's Interim President David Haddad calls Giuliani a "courageous figure, a man whose leadership and resolute response to the attacks of September 11 represents the ideal of citizenship and public service."

Students in Loyola's graduating class of 2005 were in the first week of their freshman year when the terrorist attacks happened - and many them are from the New York and Washington areas, the college noted.

"The mayor's presence will no doubt be both inspirational and meaningful to them and to their families," Haddad said in a statement on the college's website.

Defend Life said Giuliani's leadership is not the issue; his support of abortion-on-demand is the problem:

"Loyola's rationale for inviting Giuliani is exactly why he should be disqualified," Ames said. "While recognizing the impact that 9/11 -- which took the lives of over 3,000 innocent Americans -- has had on these graduates, Loyola is failing to realize the unmistakable impact that legalized abortion has had on that entire generation."

Ames said every day, more than 3,500 babies are killed by surgical abortion - "meaning a full one-third of this graduating class's generation has been eliminated because of those who support so-called 'choice.'" [Source]

Rudy Giuliani has described himself “I’m pro-choice. I’m pro-gay rights,” and when asked about partial-birth abortion ban replied “No, I have not supported that, and I don’t see my position on that changing,” He is more then just a Republican version of John Kerry, he is perhaps worse since he doesn't even try to dodge behind the ole "personally opposed, but.." line.

Via Domenico Bettinelli is a story about Harvard hiring a secular humanist chaplain and I am sure it will come as no shock to my readers that this chaplain is an ex-priest who left the church over contraception. Now this story opens up a rich vein of possible comedy of which I will try to tap a bit.

I mean a secular humanist chaplain at Harvard is the epitome of overkill. The secular equivalent of preaching to the choir. I wonder how much call there is for a SH Chaplain though? Not exactly comforting for those who are terminally ill "Cheer up you will soon be in oblivion. You will cease to exist, kaput, that's it. You will no longer feel pain, in fact you will no longer feel or be anything. All that you are will vanish forever just like all the other flukes of the universe that have accidentally come into existence. Now I am not just saying all of this to cheer you up - I really believe it!"

A SH Chaplain could counsel students about the importance of not having faith and to absolve them of 'sins' like not buying a product in a biodegradable container. Console and counsel students who have fallen into faith, have doubts about secularism, or have experienced dryness in confidence that government and other human institutions can lead to a perfectible human society. Help them to pick courses that won't be detrimental to secularism or challenged their belief system. To give a proper respect for scientists and to emphasize that while not all are called to be scientists that everyone is called to the labhood of the lack-of-faithful. That we are a scientific people. To have faith in reason.

The article talked about how Roméo Dallaire gave a sermon in an auditorium to a group of agnostic and atheist students. They could decorate the auditorium to make sure it was a cold sterile and very rational looking place that would never make you look up or to get down on your knees. In fact they could not go wrong using NCCB's Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy document "Environment and Art in Catholic Worship" In fact all they need to do is black out part of the title and use the contents verbatim to achieve the cold sterile effect. This stark effect seen in many Catholic Churches might be too much for even the most austere secularist and some more traditional secularists might prefer retaining some stained-glass windows of Voltaire and Frederick Nietzsche. They could have inter-communion with the Democratic Party when it comes to the sacrament of abortion. Of course country-club materialistic Republicans would also be well received as long as they weren't one of those social-conservatives.

It might be difficult trying to determine where to send secular humanist missionaries. Though there are still some backward places where the message of secular humanism has not yet prevailed. They could work with the natives and do things like translate the New York Times into their language and perhaps smuggle american textbooks across the border. To provide staples like condoms and the pill. After all the best way to teach the message that humans are basically decent is to make sure that there are not to many of them getting into each others hair.

This story also makes me wonder about the opposite scenario where secular humanist parents send their kid off to a secular school and their kid 's come back home religious.

Mom: I was going through Johnny's room to gather up his laundry and I found something extremely disturbing.

Dad: We told him in the past he doesn't have to hide recreational drug use from us, so what is the problem?

Mom: It's not drugs, I found a, how can I say this, well - a bible.

Dad: What! Well maybe it was for some literature class where they deconstruct all those silly myths.

Mom: That's what I had hoped it meant at first. But no, there are highlighted passages and he has handwritten notes in the columns that weren't about deconstruction, but were actually devotional!

Dad: How could this happen? We have done our best for him. Sending him to public school, keeping him away from the Boy Scouts, and then on to a fine Ivy League School. He certainly didn't pick up this bad habit from our example. We've taught him to be tolerant and open minded so how could he do this to us? We spent all that money to send our son to get the finest in secular education and what happens? I feel so betrayed. I mean what kind of school allows this to happen. Is there no supervision of Freshmen there. Is there not enough schoolwork and parties that they find enough time to go - to go to a church? This is just plain criminal negligence on their part.

Mom: I should have seen the warning signs when he came home at the end of the semester. First he acted more respectfully to us and he also stopped swearing all the time.

Dad: I blame myself. I must have been in denial to have missed the danger signs. I just thought, or maybe it was wishful thinking, that going away to school had disoriented him and he was just getting his bearings. Who could have thought that after all we had done to teach and to reinforce secular humanism could be destroyed in only one semester?

Mom: I wish that was the end of it. I also found a Rosary.

Dad: Is this some kind of sick joke or the all-time worst practical joke? I mean ha-ha, please tell me yo are joking?

Mom: I wish I was. I could almost handle him having some nebulous belief in some kind of outside force, but Catholic in this day and age? What will the neighbors think? Perhaps some church he could go to on Sundays that make no demands on the rest of the week.

Dad: We have to do an intervention. We will get some of his professors and old friends together and confront him with what he is doing.

Mom: Maybe this is a rebellious stage where he is just rejecting are values. If we push him it might just drive him further into religion. Possibly we can take a softer approach. For example occasionally leave a Carl Sagan book in his room and reset his radio presets to just NPR

Dad: That might be a good idea, but if that doesn't work we are going to have to do some tough love, like threaten to stop paying his tuition unless he kicks this religion habit.

David Morrison at Sed Contra covers some of the Rainbow Sash silliness and unpacks some quotes.

Amy Welborn posts a commenter's first hand account in St Paul-Minneapolis:

From an introduction to the document "Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ", the work of the Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC),

How does the Mary document approach the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception (defined in 1854) and the Assumption of Mary (defined in 1950)? What agreement is ARCIC able to reach in this regard? What can we affirm together?

The convergence which is set forward in the first two sections of the text provides foundations within which to approach the two dogmas. The third section begins by looking at Mary and her role in the history of salvation within the framework of 'a theology of grace and hope'. The text appeals to St Paul's letter to the Romans (8:30), wherein he sets forward a pattern of grace and hope operative in the relationship between God and humanity: 'those whom God predestined he also called; those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified' (Romans 8:30).

This pattern is clearly seen in the life of Mary. She was 'marked out from the beginning as the one chosen, called and graced by God through the Holy Spirit for the task that lay ahead of her' (paragraph 54). In Mary's freely uttered fiat - “let it be done to me according to your word' (Luke 1:38) - we see 'the fruit of her prior preparation, signified in Gabriel's affirmation of her as 'graced'” (paragraph 55). In paragraph 59, the text links this affirmation to what is being professed in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary:

“In view of her vocation to be the mother of the Holy One (Luke 1:35), we can affirm together that Christ's redeeming work reached 'back in Mary to the depths of her being, and to her earliest beginnings. This is not contrary to the teaching of Scripture, and can only be understood in the light of Scripture. Roman Catholics can recognize in this what is affirmed by the dogma - namely 'preserved from all stain of original sin' and 'from the first moment of her conception.'”

In turn, the document proposes that just as grace was operative and the beginning of Mary's life, so too does Scripture offer foundations for trusting that those who follow God's purposes faithfully will be drawn into God's presence. While 'there is no direct testimony in Scripture concerning the end of Mary?s life' (paragraph 56), 'when Christians from East and West through the generations have pondered God's work in Mary, they have discerned in faith ... that it is fitting that the Lord gathered her wholly to himself: in Christ, she is already a new creation...' (paragraph 58). Again making a connection between this understanding of grace and hope operative in Mary's life and the dogma of the Assumption of Mary, the text notes:

“we can affirm together the teaching that God has taken the Blessed Virgin Mary in the fullness of her person into his glory as consonant with Scripture and that it can, indeed, only be understood in the light of Scripture. Roman Catholics can recognize that this teaching about Mary is contained in the dogma” (paragraph 58).

The Commission does not entirely resolve the differences between Anglicans and Catholics regarding the two dogmas, for the above conclusions pertain to the Marian content of the dogmas, not the authority by which they were defined. Nonetheless, ARCIC's drafters feel confident in proposing that if the arguments laid forth in the Mary document were accepted by the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church, this 'would place the questions about authority which arise from the two definitions of 1854 and 1950 in a new ecumenical context' (paragraph 78; cf. paragraphs 61-63)

OAKLAND — Houses of worship are turning to a new marketing tool in an effort to build church membership and give congregations a way to express their beliefs.

Avunda Ambers, a 39-year-old entrepreneur, has been busy selling "Faith Frames" — attractive plastic bordering for vehicle license plates. The name of a church appears across the bottom, and the motorist can select a few spiritual words for the top of the frame, such as "Jesus Saves Souls."

The frames come in various colors with bold lettering in chrome or brass.

Personalized frames are not new. Colleges sell alumni frames and Oakland Raiders fans often have Raider Nation frames on their vehicles.

Now, Ambers and pastors are tapping into church members who are equally passionate.

"I think it's a great way to spread the good news about churches," said the Rev. John Cooper of Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church. "We can win souls."

Anita Ray, who attends services at First Morning Star Baptist Church, sees a fair amount of traffic as a bus driver for AC Transit. "(Faith Frames) get your attention. It makes you aware of churches, and that's really needed today." [Source]

Here are some Faith Frames that I would like to see.

Weekly church sermons that can be downloaded from the Internet and played on portable audio players have become the Podcasts most in demand, according to analysis of search results at Lycos.com.

"During the past month, searches for Godcasts have risen over 355 percent," said Dean Tsouvalas, writer of the Lycos 50 report. "There are no specific 'Pod preachers' being queried, but it's only a matter of time before the 'Billy Graham' of Podcasts emerges," he wrote in an e-mail.

In the past week, searches for Godcasts were as popular as queries about TV's "ER" and model Naomi Campbell. [Source]

Very few Catholic priests seem to be getting involved in audio recordings of their homilies published as podcasts. A couple make them available as mp3s though without a subscription for podcasts.

Here are some that I like.

Fr. Robert Barron from the Archdiocese of Chicago publishes his homilies weekly at Word on Fire and I have listened to two of his homilies on Pope Benedict XVI and found them to be really good. Technically the sound quality is very good and include a Catholic commercial at the end. That is a commercial for a cemetery and I find a commercial for a cemetery to be very Catholic. After all St. Thomas Aquinas kept a skull on his desk to remind him of the end of earthly life. [Hat tip to Sr. Lorraine of Open wide the doors to Christ! for posting about Fr. Barons site]

Fr. Bryce Sibley of a A Saintly Salmagundi has been publishing his homilies here.

Fr Jim Tucker of Dappled Things occasionally publishes podcasts here via RSS.

Catholic Insider (which has a cool entry page) is a podcast by father Roderick Vonhögen, catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Utrecht, The Netherlands. I just found this site though what I heard so far is good. He actually recorded a podcast right under the balcony when when Pope Benedict XVI was selected and you can hear his joy at the selection of Cardinal Ratzinger and he interviews other people there also overjoyed at the news. (Scroll down here to Habemus Papam to hear it) Here is the url to subscribe if you are using podcast software to track subscriptions.

I have mentioned Jayson Franklin's fine show The Catholic Cast before and here is the subscription url.

PodcastPickle has a couple links to Catholic podcasts.

Obviously there is a lot of room for Catholics to grow in this medium and with the great interest in Godcasts I hope that we don't lag far behind our Protestant brothers in taking advantage of this. The Vatican website should definitely get on this bandwagon (or is that bandwidthwagon?) and make audio translations of all the Pope's audiences and homilies rapidly available. Or at least take advantage of using some of the newer generations of text to speech software available to make these files. Though of course maybe they already do and I just can't find them using the interface on the Vatican's web site. I am convinced they hired a Gnostic web designer because you require hidden knowledge to navigate the site.

As heard on the Hugh Hewitt Show

Hugh: Benedict the Sixteenth announced opening of the cause for Beatification of John Paul the Second. He is waiving the normal waiting period of five years - which means you can now become a saint quicker then you can be confirmed a federal judge.

Another great song parody by treefrog at Thumos. This one is called My Congregation and is based on a classic song by The Who. Now I happen to be a Who fan (Quadrophenia being one of my all time favorite recordings) and so I decided to reply in kind with my own song parody.

Won't get fooled again

We'll be populating the streets
With many children at our feet
And with morals they will worship and be drawn
And the priests who spurred us on
Open to life, we are strong
World-wide culture of life is our song

I'll tip my hat to the Dogmatic Constitution
Translated in Latin as Lumen Gentium
People of God change the world all around
Pick up my Rosary and pray
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
Vatican II wasn't wrong
It was misrepresented all told, that's all
And the Church is just the same
And teachings can't be changed
'Cause the Spirit, protects it from Hell's door

I'll tip my hat to the Dogmatic Constitution
Translated in Latin as Lumen Gentium
People of God change the world all around
Pick up my Rosary and pray
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
Culture of death don't want us alive
I'll will meditate and Christ not deny
Though I know that the catechized never lie
Do ya?

There's no zing in deceit
Heresy not any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And Progressives on the left
Are now Rad Trads on the right
And dissent from both sides just ain't right

I'll tip my hat to the Dogmatic Constitution
Translated in Latin as Lumen Gentium
People of God change the world all around
Pick up my Rosary and pray
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new dross
Same as the dross

Cacciaguida has has passed on to me the Caesar's Bath Meme "List five things that people in your circle of friends or peer group are wild about, but you can't really understand the fuss over. To use the words of Caesar (from History of the World Part I), 'Nice. Nice. Not thrilling . . . but nice.'" Here were his answers.

1. Bottled Water: This one is just beyond me in its appeal. Just the thought of paying the same thing for a bottle of water as for a bottle of soda shows that society is wacky. To actually have a favorite brand of water makes me laugh. "Ah 2005 this is a good year with full taste and a fine aroma." Especially since tests have shown that the majority of bottled waters have the same levels of contaminates as tap water.
2. Country Music: I was traumatized by the show He Haw as a kid - enough said.
3. Sushi:I am convinced some lazy chef came up with this one. "Wow if I didn't have to cook my job would be much easier." Raw fish by any other name is still raw fish people. I lived in Japan for two years and loved the culture but raw fish and seaweed is not for me. I have often thought that the mother of invention in not necessity but laziness instead.
4. Radical Materialism: I am technically a boomer, but a reluctant one. Growing up in the me-me-me generation with radical individualism Through yuppies with their beamers and the hyper-concentration on things that pass away. On this subject I am like an ex-cigarette smoker on this subject since I previously was a devotee of Ayn Rand (yes I am still doing penance for this.)
5. Reality Television: An oxymoron to say the least. This is like Candid Camera being out in the open and people still cooperating in the ridiculous circumstances setup. Though maybe it is an object lesson in what people are willing to do for money. I can see why some like this as a form of entertainment, it is just not for me.

I pass on the Caesar's Bath baton to My Domestic Church and The Cafeteria is Closed.

The Pope has now officially appointed Archbishop William J. Levada of San Francisco to be the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith so the rumor mill was correct. When I first heard the rumor I had thought "Can any good thing come out of Portland and San Francisco?" and then realized I don't want to make the same mistake that Nathanael did. Maybe a Bishop who has had experience in dioceses not exactly brimming with orthodoxy is good experience for a head of the CDF. He certainly will not be bringing rose colored glasses with him to the job. So please pray for Archbishop Levada in his new role as a guardian of the Church's doctrine. We should all be junior members of the CDF in this role.

Dom had a good post the other day on the some of the griping about, at the time, the possible appointment of Archbishop Levada and asked "If St. Peter himself came down from heaven to take up his office again, would we be happy with his curial appointments?"

I can almost imagine some posts if there had been blogs 2000 years ago about St. Peter becoming the first Pope.

ROME — Pope Benedict XVI said Friday he had begun the process for the sainthood of Pope John Paul II, overriding the usual five-year waiting period following the death of a possible candidate.

The pope made the announcement during a meeting with the Roman clergy at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, first telling the assembled priests, "and now I have a very joyous piece of news for you."

Immediately following Pope John Paul's death on April 2, there were calls from faithful for his sainthood. At his funeral Mass, pilgrims held up banners saying "Santo Subito" ("Immediate Sainthood").

The announcement came on the anniversary of an 1981 assassination attempt by a Turkish gunman against John Paul in St. Peter's Square.

The pope read a letter in Latin in which the Vatican official in charge of sainthood, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, announced that Benedict himself had authorized the beginning of John Paul's path to sainthood. The announcement drew a standing ovation from the Roman priests.

Benedict, who had been seated, stood up to join the clergy in applauding the major tribute to his predecessor. [Source]

This is not exactly a surprise, but cool none the less.

When the internal report on the NYTs came out the other day one of the suggestions was to increase its religion coverage to reach out. You just know these attempts at reaching out will be as laughable as the mini-series Revelations reaching out to red state viewers. I just know the type of articles that will result will be very similar to the following one in Slate.

The Power of the Mustard Seed, Why strict churches are strong.

It isn't easy to explain why some people submit enthusiastically to religious law, especially when you're talking to people who have never had the slightest desire to do so. Why limit yourself to a "theology of the body," as the late Pope John Paul II called it, when birth control and stem-cell research promise relief from two of the most painful vicissitudes of bodily existence, unwanted pregnancy and degenerative disease? Why restrict yourself to kosher food, when kashrut relies on zoological classifications that went out of date thousands of years ago?

'Are you pregnant? No I am having a painful vicissitudes of bodily existence'

...The example Iannacone gives for a church whose strictness may have backfired is the Catholic Church, which has been having a hard time holding on to followers in Europe and attracting men to the priesthood in America. Traditionalists blame the church's difficulties on the reforms of Vatican II, when the Mass began to be said in the vernacular and priests and nuns shed their otherworldly clothes. Would-be reformers blame church officials' refusal to yield to popular opinion on contraception, homosexuality, and priestly celibacy. Iannacone says both are right. "The Catholic church may have managed to arrive at a remarkable, 'worst-of-both-worlds' position," he writes, "discarding cherished distinctiveness in the areas of liturgy, theology, and lifestyle, while at the same time maintaining the very demands that its members and clergy are least willing to accept."

The article is mainly trying to advance the thesis that strictness and rigidity in itself is the reason for the continued growth of some churches compared to others. As if just being strict is sufficient. This really worked in the case of the Manicheas and I have not noticed any neighborhood Albigensian churches either. There is some truth in the claim though. People are more drawn to a church that believes the same thing from week to week. What they miss is that more liberal churches are just as dogmatic and rigid as those that teach a more traditional moral ethic. A very rigid set of beliefs regarding sexual morality and abortion is preached. Go into some mainline Protestant congregations believing that fornication and homosexuality are sinful and you will soon find out how welcoming they are (as long as you consider being called a Neanderthal welcoming). A more rigid lifestyle is demanded in regards to environmental concerns. SUVs and logging are the modern version of the anti-Christ. Non-free range chickens are to be abstained from everyday and not just Fridays in Lent. Miracles are to be accepted since you must believe that embryonic stem-cell research will result in curing everything. Constant acts of faith are required in that you must believe that socialism as a system can work despite the history of the world. The fact is that there is strictness in all churches it is just that what they are strict on is different. The writer just don't understand that what is strict upon is important. Moral relativism has caused a similar blindness in many.

The article suggests that "liberal churches" must build their own rituals to use as theater to send the message they want. What is considered most important is presentation. In previous elections when Democrat lost they normally blame it that there message did not get out. Again the same excuse is basically being made here that some churches are not growing because they don't have attractive rituals and a form of piety that makes them feel invested. Externals are seen as the problem and not that the message is what is wrong.

At View from the Pew Keli takes a look at Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality a spirituality ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Paul Province. Much of the site is all too familiar if you have explored the web sites of progressive sisters before. They default links to the UN Earth Charter and Green Peace and the headquarters of most of these orders - the United Nations.

Q: On your website I noticed that about once/month there is a drum circle and sometimes drum making offered. Why do you celebrate a Native American tradition? Thank you, Samantha.

A: Dear Samantha, It is interesting that you ask about drum making and the drumming circle we have each month. It is true that we associate this with the traditions of our Native People...However, you might be surprised to know that all cultures at one time created their sacred drums. So, when you make your own drum you are taking that which has died (the elk or deer and the maple tree) and using your energy to stretch and shape a new creation. When we beat our drums, we create new energy of healing and life. Prayer, meditation, Tai chi, reflective walking--these are all ways in which we connect with God, the Sacred, the Love that unfolds all creation. Drumming is another way to connect with and spread this Love.

Wow I wish I would have know that when I was a kid. When told to stop banging on some bongo drums I could have replied that I am using my energy to stretch and shape a new creation and not just making noise. The only problem with this stuff is that even when I do what should be obvious parodies on my Thoroughly Modern Mary progressive nun parody blog that too often people can't differentiate parody from what is written on these sites.

And no the CJ is not Curt Jester, this is one of their rotating banners for the Sacred Circle Dance "All are welcome--no epxerience [sic] necessary!" Wow who would have thought that you didn't require experience to walk around in a circle. 'Are we done yet! No just a little farther we are almost at the end.' I have heard of circular reasoning, but not circular meditations.

And of course what is a modern spiritual retreat center without a labyrinth. There they give you instructions on how to create your very own personal five foot square hand-painted floor labyrinths. I wonder if any of them manage to get lost in a five foot square labyrinth. If you have your own personal labyrinth maybe they can have Paul McCartney come and sing "Baby, I'm a maze."

Update: Roman Catholic Blog has a post on Where Have All The Sisters Gone?

Victor Lams has been doing a series of songs called Catechism Rock for Jayson Franklin's Catholic Cast. His first one on Purgatory was great and this week's Flying House of Loreto is also fun. Victor is now also maintaining a Catechism Rock! blog where he will also release these songs after they have first been released on Jayson's show. Imagine if Frank Zappa had been a devout Catholic and you will get somewhat of an idea of what is in store.

Go here for Jayson's latest show which also has an interesting interview with a Shroud of Turin expert.

The Denver Catholic Register has a good article on ENDOW, an acronym for “educating on the nature and dignity of women” a nonprofit Catholic organization that shares the Church’s teachings on women.

David of Catholics in the Public Square has put together a Report on Catholic Members of the House of Representatives. He lists his methodology and then provides a report for all 131 Catholic members of congress in a couple different formats. Unlike the sham of the report put out in the election year by the Democrats - this one does not include minimum wage laws as a dogmatic teaching of the Church.

Thomas Szyszkiewicz of Epiphany has an article on his brush with liberation theology which includes some interesting first hand observations about it.

The Nassau County executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, proposed a plan yesterday to reduce abortions, delivering a speech that he called an attempt "to find some common ground" on a divisive issue.

Speaking before more than 100 invited guests at Adelphi University in Garden City, Mr. Suozzi said he hoped to bring together opposing sides in "this ever-escalating debate" in hopes of creating "a world with fewer abortions."

He has been torn over the issue, Mr. Suozzi said.

"As a Democrat," he said, "I do not often find it easy to talk with other Democrats about our need to affirm our commitment to the respect for life and how we need to emphasize our party's firm belief in the worth of every human being." unless they are inconvenient

He continued, "As a Catholic, I do not often find it easy to talk with other Catholics about my feeling that abortion should and will remain safe and legal and that we should instead focus our efforts on creating a better world where there are fewer unplanned pregnancies."

The speech drew a standing ovation.

Of course if if anybody was standing and happened to be ovulating and a child was later conceived they are entitled to kill that child.

I almost enjoy the rhetoric about "safe abortions." This is like describing a robbery where the person being robbed was killed, but the robber walked safely away. Again why do we need a world with fewer abortions if there is nothing wrong with abortion? Would this approach have been acceptable for slavery where we instead concentrated on working to change economic reasons for the continuation of slavery? Where we conducted 5 year long surveys to find out what lead slave owners to procuring slaves. We must keep slavery safe, legal, and rare. The rightful answer is that slavery is a moral evil and even a reduced number of total slaves is unconscionable. As great an evil that slavery was and is, abortion is even worse. Children in the womb have no underground railroad to escape a decree of death by their "owner" and of course there are similar parallels in that again a person is treated as property and again the Supreme Court was involved in declaring a person a piece of property that can be disposed of by the owner.

All this talk on reaching a "common ground" on abortion is so surreal. That piece of common ground they refer to happens to be a patch of land inside the operating room of an abortion clinic. Reducing the number of abortions is commendable, but it should never be forgotten that the goal is the end to legal abortion since it is intrinsically evil.

...And later the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, William Murphy, called it "important and, on the whole, very helpful." He said that Mr. Suozzi "deserves our gratitude for exercising this kind of political leadership." [Source]

From an article in The Boston Globe [Via Ten Reasons]

"It would be hard for any Catholic editor not to say, 'Well, if this happened to America magazine, perhaps it could happen to others,' ' said the Rev. Pat McCloskey, the editor of St. Anthony Messenger, a 311,000-circulation Franciscan monthly based in Cincinnati.

You know I really don't believe the Catholic editors at Crisis, This Rock, Catholic World Report, etc are worrying that this will happen to them.

''I'm afraid that a move like this one will cause more and more Catholic thinkers to say that they want to write for publications that are not identified as Catholic and to teach at schools that are not identified as Catholic, because there is more freedom there.'"

So what exactly would be the change? Many modern theologians write for Catholic periodicals that really can't be identified as Catholic or teach in Catholic schools that can't really be identified as Catholic. And why if St. Anthony Messenger believes that they are printing a Catholic magazine that they are worried about something similar happening to them?. I think the lady doth protest too much. Obviously they realize that they are have been thinking outside of the box, or really outside of the dox as in orthodox. That is the frustrating part of many of these periodicals like this that I have read. They seem Catholic but it is a Catholicism slightly out of focus and makes your eyes water reading it. They also often have some very solid articles but others seem to dance around orthodoxy and try to both disparage and defend Catholic teaching at the same time. For example reading Sister Joan Chittister's articles (folks don't try this at home I am a professional pundit) since the election of Pope Benedict XVI have been really funny in what was not said. You can almost see the restraint waiting to break out in every sentence of what she really feels about it.

Publications such as Commonweal, an influential opinion journal produced by lay Catholics, are less vulnerable to pressure from the Vatican because they are independently incorporated and not controlled by a religious order or diocese. Nonetheless, the editor, Paul Baumann, arrived at work yesterday to find the threatening e-mail from a critic.

''It's hard to imagine how any church authority can shut down the sorts of debates that thinking Catholics are engaged in," Baumann said. ''What's most troublesome is that for the ordained, for those theologians who are priests, and for people working in Catholic universities, this will inhibit the honest exchange of views."

I have a soft spot for Commonweal since they previously took the time to attack my humor in their print magazine. Now I am partially open to means of humiliation and critiques, unfortunately getting zinged by Commonweal to me is more like an imprimatur. I have mixed feelings about these periodicals worrying about what they print. Part of me wants them to totally come out and print what they are thinking instead of the false fencing that often gets engaged in. To give them the proverbial rope to hang themselves. This is not a very charitable attitude and the other part of me struggles to pray for them that the full truth may be proclaimed.

I believe G.K. Chesterton compared the Church to a large playground and I think this is a very apt analogy. Just why so many want to dance on or beyond the fences is difficult for me to understand.

I have also been meaning to link to this very funny song parody at Thumos called Both Sides Then (as sung by Thomas Reese)

Jamie at Ad Limina has some questions for a scrupulosity index. Funny and he also makes a great point at the end of it.

PITTSBURGH - It was a year ago that an outspoken Roman Catholic priest broke away from the church to form his own.

Now, the Rev. William Hausen's Christ Hope Ecumenical Catholic Church has 300 members. The church is still meeting weekly at a hotel.

Hausen left the Roman Catholic church because he favors marriage for priests, the ordination of women and debate on birth control. He was excommunicated, and the Pittsburgh diocese said anyone following Hausen also would be excommunicated.

Anna Villella, a medical receptionist and mother of two, said she supported Hausen for being outspoken about the church sex-abuse scandal.

" I just decided to walk this journey with him," she told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "I do not feel that I am excommunicated, and still feel as if I am a Catholic." [Source]

Oh that is a sure sign when you feel you are not excommunicated. I just wonder how does it feel to be excommunicated? Does anybody ever ask their spouse how are they feeling and they reply "You know I am feeling a little excommunicated today" or "I feel just a bit schismatic."

You just know an article like this has to end with the following:

Jennifer Blewitt, a 19-year-old Duquesne University student, said she likes Hausen's church because everyone is welcome there.

"It's the way Jesus was," Blewitt said.

Sometimes I wonder If I happen to have a different Bible version than others. It is always mentioned that Jesus eat with tax collectors and other outcasts, but they never pair it with the fact that these people were also seeking the truth and were repenting of their sins. He was not very welcoming to those scribes and pharisees who wanted to brandish their own version of the truth. Last I knew "You brood of vipers" was not a very welcoming statement. Jesus was not very welcoming to the goats in the parable of the sheep and goats. Again "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" does not a first blush sound very welcoming to me. The truth is that Jesus is welcoming, but it is a conditional welcome in our exercise of free will working in grace through the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. “But nothing unclean shall enter it [Heaven].” The Gospel is not preached so that we might find a church that we are comfortable with and reflects what we want, but to help heal us as the sinners we are and to “Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”

Jesus also said "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me." This is the problem with those in schism is that they become deaf to part of the truth that is in Christ's Church. By rejecting the Church they have at least partially rejected the truth that Christ has given us through Sacred Scripture and Apostolic Tradition.

I had posted before about the Rev. Hausen when he originally went into schism. That post included the following:

It will be a church that will "act on our own informed conscience" and "profess no dogmas," Hausen said. The church will "reject absolute statements and decrees. Absolute utterances are the weakest form of argument," he said.

His first decree is that there are no decrees. The first dogma is that there are no dogmas. Absolute utterances are not allowed unless they are about a female priesthood.

Update: Classic comment by Catholic writer Jeff Childers in my comment box.

What a mess! Good thing I do don't have to worry about it, though, cause I feeling canonized today.

Valerie Schmalz of Ignatius Insight is doing a series called Invasion of the Catholic Bloggers. This is a series of interview questions for some of the winners of this years Catholic Blog awards. This week they asked myself and others "why do you blog?" There are many interesting and fun answers to this week's question from the Catholic bloggers interviewed.

Living Catholicism has this weeks Catholic Carnival - version XXIX. Once again proving how diverse and talented St. Blogs is.

My Moloch Now blog has been updated. Moloch has a few thoughts on our new Pope.

First we had Cardinal Ratzinger's old car sell for about a quarter of a million dollars and now Pope John Paul II's car is for sale.

I just wonder how much Mary's Fiat would go for?

I also posted about Bernadette Subaru before.

Jimmy Akin previously posted that VW was going to build the next popemobile which will be a pickup like vehicle. A papal pickup would be cool if it included a monstrance rack.

My latest parody piece about the Tith-O-Matic is up at Spero News.

Clayton at The Weight of Glory has put together a fun Flash animation on the election of Pope Benedict XVI called ratzenfreude.

A reader alerted me to the National Organization of Women (NOW) Mother's Day gift ideas. Under jewelry they suggested this product.

Whoever selected this item has a severe irony impairment. Can you even imagine somebody giving this to their mother? We are certainly glad that we were wanted and not born at an inconvenient time in your career path mom! Maybe this is the perfect gift from children who don't want any younger siblings to compete against.

Now of course what is a charm bracelet without additional charms you can put on it. How about:

Charms with dates of when a child was aborted.

Precious feet

Anti-Mom charm

To signify the increased risk drug and alcohol abuse for those who are post-abortive.

To signify increased risk for breast cancer and psychological problems.

To represent symptoms of bouts of crying, depression, intense grief/sadness, and emotional numbness

This post is definitely in jest of NOW's just plain sick Mother's Day ideas, but post-abortion trauma itself is no laughing matter. After Abortion links to good resources such as Rachel's Vineyard for those men and women who are suffering from post-abortion trauma.

A commenter linked to this Methodist church website which has got to have the most ridiculous logo I have ever seen. A clown with arms outstretched in a fructified position is just too silly. I wonder if they require their congregation to have a circuscision prior to becoming members?


We are a welcoming all-inclusive congregation that....

Now even being inclusive is not enough it has to be all-inclusive. There is a liturgical dance group, Shehkinah (“The feminine face of God”) Spiral women’s discussion group, and the Busy Bees who make the "famous Clown Dolls." Of course as Catholics we can't laugh too hard because at least their pastor is not dressed in a clown suit. Though happily clown Masses seem to be on the downswing.

It does remind me of what I call Tharp's law. Fr. Shane Tharp from Catholic Ragemonkey left this in another post.

"For every one good Jesuit you encounter there are at least two celebrating a Clown Mass somewhere."

Here is a real cool telescope-to-microscope animation from 10 million light years away down to quarks. [Tip of the Jester hat to The Paragraph Farmer]

A new fine young weblog "The Cafeteria is closed" has opened up a cafepress shop with some shirts available. I especially like this one which says The Cafeteria is Closed,. eat what's on the table kids! This new blogger is blogging at a prestigious pace and I hope that like others that started off with so many posts we don't soon see the notorious "I have been a terrible blogger in not blogging for a while." Anyway give a warm St. Blogs welcome to Gerald Augustinus.

David Morrision comments on an article that asks "Why Don't Gay Activists Picket Mosques?" A commenter to the original article thought that it might be because of possible violence from Muslims in reaction to it. I think it goes a lot further than just that. When the Church issued via the CDF Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons there was a massive outcry in the media about homophobia. Yet when the Dalai Lama called homosexual activity "sexual misconduct" and also condemned oral and anal sex there was zero outcry. There is also no demand that the next Dalai Lama should be a women or outcries that Buddhist monks should be allowed to be married. There is I believe a back-handed compliment paid when Christianity, especially the Catholic Church, is attacked.

Headlines and blogs are full of the story about the Rev. Thomas J. Resse resigning as editor of the the Jesuit magazine America. I find it interesting that this story is getting the amount of national publicity that it is. That a magazine that the large amount of people have never even heard of is a headline on Drudge. It is obvious of course that the reason this is is that the story is really framed about the hidden hand of Pope Benedict XVI forcing him to resign. That the inquisition has started and that this is the first head to roll. This view is rather silly to infer that the Pope looked at the world and then saw the editor of a magazine with a circulation of 48,538 needed special attention. What actually appears to have happened is that some American Bishops had written complaints to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith over the tenor of many of the articles that had appeared in the magazine. Maybe the most surprising aspect of the story is that come bishops actually complained. This is always a fairly slow process and it might appear that in this case after many years that these complaints were sent to Jesuit superior general in Rome and that Fr. Reese was asked to resign. What actually happened is difficult to know since the reporting of this has been in the NYT and National Catholic Reporter - unreliable sources to say the least. We do know that the Church through the CDF has been very deliberate in its investigations allowing adequate time for responses by anybody being investigated for going outside Church's teaching. Looking at the list provided by the National Catholic Reporter of then-Cardinal Ratzingers tenure at the CDF we see a very short list of Catholic theologian who had in fact been disciplined. You would think by the tone of the NYT article that the Pope has transferred his personal Iron Maiden and rack to the papal apartments.

The story is also framed that it is about the elimination of healthy intellectual debate and will have a chilling effect on "critical questions." The problem is actually that the editorials in America magazine did not confine themselves to unsettled theological questions, but also presented debates on settled questions in Catholic theology. Dissenters often want to cover themselves with the words, debate, dialogue, presenting both sides, etc. Though of course the articles never debated racism or caring for the poor. Rightly they would see that presenting both sides of racism as ridiculous and out of the range of true debate within Church teaching. Yet they do not understand this when it comes to settled questions such as women's ordination, same-sex marriage, and stem-cell research that involves the destruction of embryos.

There are so many mysteries of the faith and we can never intellectually exhaust them Yet our human intellects can advance further into these deep mysteries and that should be the task of all of us and especially the Church's theologians. To further map out the depth of mysteries instead of coming up with contrary opinions to Church teaching. There are many unsettled theological questions that need to further explored and to waste time being apologists for homosexual marriage is a waste of intellectual abilities.

I have often wondered why a Jesuit Magazine choose the name America? Their site only mentions that it was suggested by Thomas J. Gannon, S.J. in 1909. Whatever the initial rationale was it is now indicative of what the magazine became. That they narrowed the universatility of Catholic truth to a very regional understanding and AmChurch view of what the Catholic Church should teach.

Diogenes at CWN said:

The point is that America's notion of what counts as a hot topic is selective and ideologically slanted against the Holy See. The true contrast is not between openness and dogma, but between rival systems of dogma: a public one (Catholic), versus a clandestine one (behind or beneath America). And remember that America is not a secular journal of ideas but is trading on the ecclesial prestige accorded its Jesuit sponsorship. That means, when it's Catholic doctrine that's under assault, it's not really even-handed -- as would be the case for The New Republic -- to give space to a professor to attack the doctrine and equal space to a Vatican official to defend it. Simply by presenting the disputants as representatives of different opinions the doctrine is viewed as up for grabs, i.e., as something less than doctrine. The net result is almost always erosion of Catholic belief.

Amy Welborn also posts mentioning a variety of information on the coverage and also want to know what really happened.

The Anchoress also sees the faintly veiled attempt at the story being about the Pope forcing the editor out of the job.

But this story is trying very hard to suggest that the editor of America Magazine, Rev. Reese, is being forced out of his job by the new pope. They can’t quite pull it off, as they are bound to report that the impetus for his resignation has less to do with Rome and more to do with the fact that Bishops right here in America had expressed concerns about the content of the journal. And they are also bound to mention that Reese left Rome, after the election of the new pope, “with the idea that he would be resigning…”

The assistant editor Fr. Christiansen is going to take over as the editor of the magazine and as Patrick Madrid said:

Let's pray for Fr. Christiansen. He has a big challenge handed to him. I hope he's up to it.

Dawn Eden points out that Planned Parenthood has helpfully defined when a person begins.

Q: My friend says that life begins when the egg and sperm join together. I say that it begins when a baby takes its first breath. Which of us is right?

"Most medical authorities and Planned Parenthood agree that it starts when a baby takes its first breath." [Source]

I guess once outside air is introduced into the babies respiration system it must mix with another component and personhood is spontaneously created. This works kind of like what occurs in a binary chemical weapon. This also means that if you gag the baby as it is born you can still kill it because personhood hasn't occurred yet. Why go through the mess of partial-birth abortion when you can just strangle it before it takes its first breath.

Now we just need to know when rationality begins in a Planned Parenthood representative. Unfortunately there is not a known sample group on which to be able to do a scientifically measured study of.

If you want to read a truly sane explanation of when personhood begins read Peter Kreeft's Human Personhood begins at Conception

A 40-foot perimeter fence was discovered missing at Ghar Hasan yesterday, in yet another case of vandalism.

The fence was erected after a large piece of the rock-face crashed into the sea last November, brought down by the pounding waves. Workers from the Resources and Infrastructure Ministry were putting a new fence in place yesterday as a precautionary measure. [Source]

I just want to know how to you get rid of a stolen fence? Do you have to find a fence to buy your fence. This could be really confusing for the criminals involved. 'Now that we got this we need a fence. But we already have a fence. No I mean a fence to sell the fence. You mean we need a fence fence?"

TALLAHASSEE -- Lawmakers agreed Thursday to sweeping changes in Florida abortion laws, including a voter-mandated requirement that doctors must notify the parent or guardian of girls who want to end their pregnancies.

The Legislature also sent to Gov. Jeb Bush a bill that creates stricter regulations for some abortion clinics.

And in another measure sought by anti-abortion activists, legislators approved a bill saying a person who assaults a pregnant woman can, in certain cases, be charged with murder if the fetus dies.

The bills were considered a victory for Christian conservatives and Republican leaders who tried unsuccessfully earlier this year to pass a law to help Terri Schiavo's parents keep their brain-damaged daughter alive against her husband's wishes.

The debate over Schiavo's case, which nearly brought the legislative session to a halt in March, became a rallying cry for what Christian conservatives and some lawmakers call the "culture of life."

The aftermath of that debate could have helped along those bills, some lawmakers said.

"Because of the Schiavo vote, some probably felt it might be a good idea to address some of these issues to sort of balance things out," said Rep. Jeff Kottkamp, R-Cape Coral, who sponsored the bill to mandate parental notification before abortions. "There may have been some pressure felt to pass some legislation that would be viewed favorably to the pro-life folks." [Source]

It seems these positive changes are being advanced more for political reasons than to bring about a culture of life. The language used of balancing things out and legislation that would be viewed favorably by pro-life folks certainly speaks mainly of of political tone.

Christian-Themed Apparel Sees Popularity Surge

NEW ORLEANS -- The archbishop of New Orleans on Thursday rebuked Loyola University over an honor for the family of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and her brother, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, obliquely criticizing them for supporting abortion rights.

Loyola announced Wednesday it would award a collective honorary doctorate to the Landrieus for their public service - that of former Mayor Moon Landrieu, his wife and their nine children, including the senator and lieutenant governor.

Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes said he had told Loyola's president Rev. Kevin Wildes of his disappointment over the honor, and indirectly criticized the abortion stance of the senator and her brother.

"Not all members of the family have been faithful to the church's teaching regarding public policy," Hughes said in a statement. He added that he would boycott commencement exercises because he didn't want to "confuse the faithful" by giving the "impression that it is appropriate to include in an honor anyone who dissents publicly from Church teaching." [Source]

Kids say the Kids say the darndest things at Unam Sanctum with a new title for the Pope.
Barbara Nicolosi blogs a friends of her letter to the Hollywood Reporter in regards to Kingdom of Heaven.
The Chesterton Diet at Flying Stars.
On Being Neither Liberal nor Conservative by Fr. James V. Schall, S. J. at Ignatius Insight.
George Weigel Baseball, theology, and guilds

And if you are as cheap as me here is some excellent free software.

Paint.NET A classroom project to provide a photoediting program with advanced features comparable to Photoshop. Pretty powerful and it works with layers

FileZilla An excellent open source FTP client that is both powerful and easy to use.

Web-Email-Cloaker Simple tool provides code to cloak HTML email addresses to prevent harvesting by spam spiders. You download the program enter your email and paste the results into your blog template.

Archbishop Chaput's latest column The Crusades: The truth makes a difference: Christians obligated to keep alive the real facts of real history is excellent as usual. [Via AMDG]

Since the new movie shows Christians as the aggressors against Muslims it reminds me about the controversy of The Passion of the Christ. Yet this time there will be no screaming by the liberal media about possibly provoking hatred of Christians. The USCCB will issue no pamphlets this explaining the history of the Crusades to correct the misinformation. Boston College will issue no viewer's guides as they did for Mel Gibson's movie. Instead what was originally a Protestant polemic and revision of history has been accepted a common history and only a very few Bishops like the Archbishop Chaput will see this "teaching moment" to correct this historical ignorance. I doubt that this movie will make radical Muslims more radical, but it could also probably be shown as part of the curriculum in a radicalized madrassa.

SHORELINE, Wash. (CNS) -- She was an 11-year-old girl when the newly ordained priest came to her village parish on his first assignment.

Over the years, they have stayed in touch, through letters and personal visits.

The parish priest whom Sister Emmanuel, a Discalced Carmelite now living in Washington state, met five decades ago is now Pope Benedict XVI.

"He'll be great," she said in an interview with The Catholic Northwest Progress, Seattle archdiocesan newspaper, at the Carmelite Monastery in the Seattle suburb of Shoreline.

"We need a pope to lead us to Christ," she said about the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

"He is rock-solid and we really need that." [Source]

In fact he is On this Rock-solid.

Update: Via Open Book today at Castle Gandolfo.

I am convinced that if we passed out blessed balloons on Ascension Thursday that Mass attendance would be equal to the non-Holy Day of Obligation Ash Wednesday. Or possibly even Holy Water balloons as a new method of aspersion.

The priest would recite:

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Sama'ria and to the end of the earth." And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes,[and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."

And then we could all release our balloons on cue.

ELYRIA -- A Vietnam Veteran who went to war for his country finds himself in another fight.

It’s over a sign the Veteran wants to put in his window. It's a sign with the word “Jesus” on it.

Most of the homes at Twin Lakes Park are neat, with a minimum of ornamentation and no signs.

Property owner Bill Kriso wants to put a sign in the front window saying “Thank You Jesus for Our New Home.”

“If you would have put that sign up, you would be aggravating some people in the park," the park owner said.

Regulations for the park say no “for sale” signs, but say nothing about signs of any other kind.

At Twin Lakes, it’s apparently okay to have a Happy Mother’s Day banner in your front door window, or an Ohio State logo in your front window ... it’s just not okay to have a sign that says “Thank You Jesus.”

Bill and his wife prayed for a quiet place they could afford. Bill is a totally disabled Vietnam vet with a plate in his head and bullets in his gut.

“We’re just so thrilled and so happy that the Lord gave us the gift of the house we’ve been looking for,” Kriso said.

Stories like this are always so odd. That this could in any way be controversial.

Now I want to know how did Jesus get him the house? I didn't even know Jesus was involved in real estate, well besides creating it all. If he was a real estate agent it certainly would give new meaning to the great commission. Though having Jesus as a real estate agent would be pretty cool. He wouldn't have to mess with those oversized locks they put on the doors and with his glorified body could go through the wall and let you in through the back door. With omniscience you wouldn't even need a home inspector - he could tell you everything that is wrong. Plus if you needed substantiative renovation he could destroy the house and rebuild it in three days! He could even tell you if interest rates were going to rise or fall in the near term (or long term for that matter) His business card could say "Specializing in real estate and the Real Presence."

Speaking of real estate I have been noticing a trend lately of seeing a specific type of sign offering to buy your house. I would like to see this idea of buying ugly houses expanded to other types of buildings. In fact here is one sign that I would like to see in front of the new L.A. Cathedral.

Cacciaguida caught a pre-release screening of "Kingdom of Heaven" and gives us a review and it is about as I suspected - a European Christian men behaving badly epic.

Crisis Magazine did a good short piece previously called The Real History of the Crusades

WEST Australian Opposition Leader Matt Birney suggested yesterday that the Pope was married - a blunder that shocked even his Liberal colleagues.

In a case of either sheer ignorance or dreadful taste, Mr Birney was last night refusing to apologise for the gaffe he made while defending his decision to take his girlfriend on a taxpayer-funded trip to Greece.

Asked by a caller on ABC talkback radio whether it would be appropriate to take his partner to meet the Pope, Mr Birney replied: "It's a very hypothetical question. If it were the sort of function where it was appropriate to have partners there, ie, if the Pope happened to have his partner there, then yes, absolutely," he replied, seemingly unaware of the Catholic clerical vow of celibacy. [Source]

Catechumen
Your mentor and brethren have been captured by the demon possessed Roman soldiers. It is your job to work you way through the catacombs of Rome to free them. Satan has a powerful hand in the Roman Empire and has powerful foes to block your every effort. From the prison, in which your mentor is kept, he sends a plea for help to you. According to Acts 26:18kj. Our Catechumen is sent to open their eyes (the Roman Soldiers), and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins. Prepare to save your mentor and battle the forces of evil in this epic journey, Catechumen.

Not a parody, but a real game and here is a C/NET article on how it came about.

Some people have been wondering whatever happened to Sister Mary Biko, PhD? Well she is back with a progressive roundup.

I am in Catholic nerd heaven. While watching EWTN Live I just heard Fr. Fessio asking Fr. Pacwa if he had seen something going around called Humanae Vitaemins and Vitamin B16. This is an obvious reference to my Now with B16! post. Plus it was cool seeing two Jesuits who both love the Holy Father and are faithful to the Church. Though I was worried if an accident happened this would wipe the majority of faithful Jesuits. Okay that was a cheap Jesuit shot, but Fr. Fessio made a similar comment at the end of the show in mentioning the fact that there were two Jesuits who love the Pope in the same room.

I have just fixed a problem with trackbacks to my posts. So if you had previously had problems it should be fixed now. My cgi file that controlled it was corrupted. This file had been seen hanging around with a bad crowd of files lately and you know bad company corrupts good files.

In a increasingly violent workplace such as in Washington D.C. this book answers a timely need of what to do in critical situations. For years attention has been paid to postal workers and yet the dangerous life of a bureaucrat has been ignored. Thankfully due to current confirmation hearing this hidden problem is finally coming out in tothe light. Those that have had to silently suffer with threatening postures in the workplace finally have a voice and are being heard.

Here is information from just one chapter of this book that goes on to describe the philosophy behind Bureaucrat Do - the art of fighting in a bureaucracy.

Defending yourself against John R. Bolton

We realize that this is a bureaucrat's nightmare scenario, but we believe that if you can prepare yourself for someone like John Bolton you will be prepared for lesser emergencies.

*** Warning the following graphic displays a violent workplace posture ****

"Dreaded hands-on-hip style"

The good news is that even this bureaucratic infighting style can be defended against. This senate testimony scared many of us when Mr. Fingar told of his horrifying experience with the hands-on-hip style and the body language it implied.

If you encounter this posture:

• First control your breathing and do not panic - breath deeply.
• Always be aware of your surroundings by keeping track of emergency exits.
• Watch for accompanying escalating signs.

If hands-on-hip style starts is accompanied by a raised voice or worse a disagreement with your policy position.

• Head to the closes emergency exit and then call 911.
• Only if you are unable to safely escape will you try to attempt the hands-on-hip counter fighting style.

Extend you arm and pull one arm of the assailing bureaucrat's hip.

Then yank the other hand on a hip off and place a kick in the shins.

Follow the instructions in the above illustration to throw the offending bureaucrat on floor. When the bureaucrat is down and daze run for your life and call your local police. Do not stay on the scene for you could be treated with a posture such as the wagging finger and verbal dress down.

If you feel discomfort with the above defensive action there is another long used bureaucratic tactic that can be taken advantage of besides the typical back stab. Simply wait till the offending supervisor is up for a post where he needs to be confirmed first and testify and make charges against him.

This and many other chapters are available in this valuable book - so act now!

BERLIN (AFP) - Interest in Pope Benedict XVI's old Volkswagen, currently on offer on eBay Germany, has smashed all records for the Internet auction site with nearly four million hits, the company said.

" It was viewed more often than any other item we have ever had on eBay Germany," the Berlin headquarters said.

The bidding for the metallic gray 1999 Golf IV in mint condition started at 9,999 euros (about 12,800 dollars), and by Monday, with more than 136 registered offers, had reached 62,595 euros.

Because the auction is not due to end until Thursday -- Ascension Day -- eBay expects the price to continue to rise.

The Golf is being offered by Benjamin Halbe, 21, who bought it in January from a used car dealer having no idea that its previous owner, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, would become pope.

"It's a heavenly ride," Halbe said. [Source]

Well not all people thinks that it is a heavenly ride. I can imagine some on the left taking a test drive and reporting that it's seating is hard and rigid while others will be pleased that it's steering is unable to make left turns or complete u-turns - though it can continue to drive deeper into mysteries.

It does make me wonder if one day Pope Benedict is canonized a saint whether this car then becomes a relic? Now that would be pretty POD to be able to drive around in a relic. Even cooler would be the need for a reliquary door opener for when you come home to park the car in the reliquary. And if somebody calls your old car a relic you can say "Thank you."

To bad this is happening on ebay which has turned to the dark side in its refusal to outright deny the sale of consecrated hosts.

Update: eBay has changed their policy to prevent this from happening in the future.

Catholic Carnival XVIII is up at DeoOmnisGloria.com.

Aristotle Esquerra of "Confessions of a Recovering Choir Director" is raising funds that himself and four other young adults can take part in World Youth Day 2005. As for me I am still waiting for World Middle Age Day.

Ignatius Press is now distribution a new film on Bernadette from French filmmaker Jean Delannoy. Here is some more info.

From Jean Delannoy, one of France’s foremost filmmakers, comes this top quality feature film production of the story of St. Bernadette and the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes. Actress Sydney Penny gives a beautiful performance as Bernadette, and the rest of the cast is equally superb. Also stars Roland Lesaffre and Michele Simonnet. It is highly recommended by the Vatican as a “sensitive portrayal of a very moving story that deserves a wide audience.” Shot on location in France with outstanding cinematography and a beautiful music score, this is the film that was chosen to be shown daily at the shrine in Lourdes.

John Gibson of Musings of an ExPagan was kind enough to make me a new web medallion for my site in response to this post. Maybe I can now take the Flip Wilson tack for my bad puns "The Devil made me do it." I guess it is a good thing that my angry Angel defending commenter didn't see my Moloch Now blog or he would have really gone al Dana Carvey over me.

By the way you can read John's amazing conversion story in Envoy Magazine here.

Someone who is either not use to my blog or has had his funny bone surgically removed sent me the following:

You, the person of this website. You should be ashamed of yourself for portraying yourself as a Guardian angel, considering the fact that YOUR OWN guardian angel has probably helped you out in so many ways in your life, without you even knowing it. Have you thought about how he or she has even helped you out during your life?? Probably not. And let me tell correct you on a few things, okay?? The Seraphim are NOT pompous, Gabriel does not brag about ANYTHING in any form, and Uriel is not and never has been the Virgin Mary's guardian angel! Do you realize you got the idea for this evil website from satan himself?? Probably not. I mean, think about it for a minute. You called the Seraphim pompous, you told a lie about Gabriel and about the other angels not getting a promotion, and about Uriel being Mary's guardian angel. If you do not remove this website from the website, on Judgement day, you'll not have God and the Lord to deal with, but also a bunch of countless angels breathing down your neck as well. God help you and may you think before you react to my message to warn you

This was response to an older post titled "A day in the life of a Guardian Angel." Now I can appreciate the person for sticking up for Guardian Angels but this email was over-the-top and besides I had Gabriel as Mary's Guardian Angel in the post.

NEW YORK -- Secular humanists and leftist activists convened here over the weekend to strategize how to counter what they contend is a growing political threat from Christian conservatives.

Understanding and answering the "religious far right" that propelled President Bush's re-election is key to preventing a "theocracy" from governing the nation, speakers argued at a weekend conference.

"The religious right now has an unprecedented influence on American politics and policy," said Ralph White, co-founder of the Open Center, a New York City institution focused on holistic learning. "It is incumbent upon all of us to understand as precisely as possible its aims, methods, beliefs, theology and psychology."

... "This may be the darkest time in our history," said Bob Edgar, general secretary of the left-leaning National Council of Churches and former six-term Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania. "The religious right have been systematically working at this for 40 years. The question is, where is the religious left?" [Source][Via Hugh Hewitt]

This article came out after I had submitted my latest piece to Spero News "Theopoly board game soon to be a reality".

WASHINGTON -- God does not side with the Republicans, Sen. John Kerry said in a fiery speech last week, accusing Republican leaders of politicizing religion to further their agenda.

This week, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy quoted Jesus from the Bible. It was a rebuttal, he said, of Republicans' claims that Democrats are "against people of faith."

Rep. John W. Olver, an Amherst Democrat, said he's considered buying an "anthology of good Biblical quotations" that he'd use to neutralize Republicans' religious references.

Some observers and lawmakers say the Democrats' use of religious language reflects an adjustment following their electoral losses last fall. President Bush, who ended a speech on Wednesday with "God bless you all," successfully mobilized the evangelical right in the November elections.

"I think there's certainly been a sense in the Democratic Party that they've allowed the Republican Party to be perceived as the religious party," said Alan Wolfe, director of the Center for Religion and American Life at Boston College. "And that's a mistake."

Although the parties generally attract different denominations, neither can be described as more or less religious, Wolfe said.

Still, to counter the perception, there's been talk among Democrats about emphasizing values, morals and religion, some lawmakers said.

"Most of us do not think we are godless people, and there are many people of good faith," Olver said in an interview. "It may be that we have not carried that on (our) sleeve."

Olver, who lists his religion as "unspecified," admitted that his internal catalogue of biblical references is thin. That led to the anthology idea.

"What I hear every once in a while is a Republican making a righteous statement and citing the quotation, and thinking there's a quotation that offers quite the opposite," he said.

Pretty funny someone saying they are not godless and then lists their religion as "unspecified" and has some nebulous belief that there must be some quotations somewhere in the Bible to counter with. Needing an anthology of scriptural quotations will really prove his case that religion is important. Important that is when you want to counter a political foe. But their needing help with scripture quotes is not surprising when their own party head's favorite New Testament book is Job. True that they may not wear their religion on their sleeve, but Congressman John W. Olver has had no problem wearing abortion support on his sleeve, pantleg or any other article of clothing. They are just looking for those value voters whose values include abortion, homosexuality, destruction of marriage, radical secularism.

SCOTTISH parliament bosses have banned ministers and priests from addressing MSPs unless they refrain from attacking homosexuals and other minorities.

The new guidelines, which were a response to Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s recent speech at Time For Reflection, Holyrood’s four-minute prayer slot, have prompted the Catholic Church to call for the fixture to be scrapped.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland had used his short speech last December to claim that gays and lesbians were “captives to sexual aberration”.

He also compared non- heterosexuals to prisoners in Edinburgh’s Saughton jail who were waiting to be “set free”.

His remarks infuriated officials who believed the cardinal had taken advantage of a privileged speaking slot by attacking one of Scotland’s most vulnerable communities.

Angry politicians then signed Green MSP Patrick Harvie’s motion condemning O’Brien’s “gratuitous insult”, a petition that attracted cross-party support.

Now MSPs have acted to prevent a repeat episode by tightening the rules for guests at the Time For Reflection.

In revised guidance agreed earlier this month by the parliamentary bureau, the body that dictates chamber business, Holyrood officials have clamped down on offensive speeches by religious figures.

It now reads: “[Contributions] will be consistent with the principle of equal opportunities for all and should not include remarks or comments which are discriminatory.” . [Source]

So banning religious speech is this context is not discriminatory? Maybe we need a new category of crime called a Love Crime. A love crime is where you love the sinner enough to rebuke the sin, also known as love speech. We definitely need love crime legislation now to stop these growing incidences of speech motivated by love.