The Anchoress is running a poll for Catholics which you can anwer in her comment box or via her email address theanchoress@gmail.com.

WASHINGTON DC (Roto Reuters) With news this week that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said "The federal government should fund embryonic stem cell research" that uses leftover embryos from fertility clinics. Pro-life Republicans were initially shocked by this turn of events and surprised that he both says that life begins at conception and that we can use this leftover embryos because they were going to die anyway. Sen Frist further said:

"I also strongly believe, as do countless other scientists, clinicians and doctors, that embryonic stem cells uniquely hold specific promise for some therapies and potential cures that adult stem cells just cannot provide,"

After the initial surprise has warn off some have wondered about the possible use of embryonic stem-cells to cure a host a problems. Embryonic stem-cells are pluripotent and can eventually specialize in any bodily tissue. "What if we were able to grow spines in the Republican leadership?" said John Miltom from Americans for a Strong Republican Leadership. "Sure adult stem-cell have actually cured people and have even helped to heal those with damaged spines. But wouldn't you actually have to have a spine first for adult stem-cells to work? This would be a non-starter for the current GOP leadership today since we need to grow whole spines from scratch."

Though even some enthusiastic embryonic stem-cell proponents are not willing to jump on the bandwagon for the possibility of growing whole spines just yet. Dr. M. Brie Onyx stated that "Even when we do get to this point it is highly doubtful that these spines could be implanted successfully. There is a very high chance that these spines would be rejected since the GOP leadership has always been immune to spine cells. Treatments used to suppress their immune system would leave them weak and incoherent - meaning that they would be right back to their present condition."

I like this tag line from Veritas nunquam perit

I am a seminarian for the Memphis Diocese of the First Apostolic Full Gospel Church of Jesus Christ Unreformed--Roman Assembly, and attend St. Meinrad School of Theology in Indiana.

This reminds me of the naming of Catholic Apologist John Martignoni's apostolate called Bible Christian Society.

Update: Judging by the comments some people did not realize that the seminarian is truly a Catholic seminarian and that "First Apostolic Full Gospel Church of Jesus Christ Unreformed--Roman Assembly" is a parody based on Protestant church names, but if you look at it closely will realize that this is truly an accurate discription.

THE abortion rate hit a record high last year, according to government figures published yesterday that also show a sharp rise in terminations to girls aged under 14.

In 2004 the abortion rate rose by 2.1 per cent to 17.8 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, the highest recorded, according to the Department of Health. This resulted in 185,415 women resident in England and Wales having an abortion, compared with 181,600 in 2003.

The overall abortion rate among girls aged under 16 fell from 3.9 to 3.7 per 1,000, but the number of girls aged under 14 who had an abortion rose by 6 per cent last year to 157.

The findings provoked mixed reactions yesterday from people working in the family planning field. Some predicted that the rate would continue to rise as women increasingly regarded having a termination as a lifestyle choice.

Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, Britain’s leading abortion provider, noted that the rate was highest for those aged 18 to 24, at 31.9 terminations per 1,000 women.

This is part of a growing trend for women in this age bracket opting to end unwanted pregnancies, she said. Most women are at least 29 before they have a child and the increase in abortion rates of women aged 20 to 24 reflects that.

“Women today want to plan their families and, when contraception fails, they are prepared to use abortion to get back in control of their lives,” Ms Furedi said. [Source]

More proof that abortion is backup contraception. They are now willing to admit that a growing abortion rate can be linked to contraceptive failure. The Fact Is reported earlier this week that even the studies done by the pro-abortion founded Alan Guttmacher Institute show this.

The Alan Guttmacher Institute is the research arm of Planned Parenthood and openly supports abortion and widespread access to contraceptives. The report placed great emphasis on the fact that 48 percent of pregnancies in the US are unplanned. Of those unplanned pregnancies, 47 percent end in abortion, 40 percent are carried to full term and 13 percent end in miscarriage. Advocates of abortion often argue that to decrease abortions, unintended pregnancies must be reduced through increased access to contraceptives. But the Guttmacher Institute's research indicates that 53 percent of women who have unintended pregnancies used a contraceptive method during the month they got pregnant.

This of course is something that pro-lifers have argued for some time that the contraceptive mentality leads to an increase in abortions. So it is in fact those who call for more access to contraceptives are calling for us to throw gasoline on the fire to put it out.

David at Catholics in the Public Square also posted in response to the study:

The "95-10" Initiative, which the group, Democrats for Life, is promoting, includes health insurance coverage for contraception and increased federal money for pregnancy prevention education which would likely include information on the use of contraception. Will this data give them second thoughts on promoting contraception? Let us pray that it does. ]

From the Catholic League:

Senator Bill Frist formally broke today with the Bush administration’s opposition to embryonic stem cell research. Commenting on the break is Catholic League president William Donohue:

“Here is what Senator John Kerry said when running for president: ‘I believe life does begin at conception.’ Here is what Senator Bill Frist is now saying: ‘I believe human life begins at conception.’ They now agree on one more thing: They will do absolutely nothing to protect the beginning of innocent human life.

“Frist is worse than Kerry. Kerry, a lawyer, said his position on the beginning of human life was based on ‘my Catholic belief.’ Frist, a physician, says that while his Christian faith informs his position, there’s more to it: ‘But, to me, it isn’t just a matter of faith. It’s a fact of science.’

“And it’s a fact of politics that Frist is such a hypocrite. His change of heart has nothing to do with any scientific breakthrough: there is no new evidence suggesting that the human embryo does not constitute human life, nor is there any evidence that embryonic stem cell research can be performed without killing embryos. What’s changed is that Dr. Duplicity wants to be president.

“Frist still calls himself ‘strong[ly] pro-life,’ and says he gives ‘huge moral significance to the human embryo.’ Furthermore, he says the human embryo ‘is nascent human life,’ explaining that we should ‘treat that embryo with dignity, with respect.’ Which raises the question: If it’s okay to snuff out the beginning of human life, how much dignity and respect may logically be accorded the dead?

“Frist says he is not going to run for senator of Tennessee again. Now it’s up to the Republican leadership to make sure he has no future role to play in their party. Who knows, if Frist becomes increasingly Kerryesque, maybe the Dems will draft him?”

"Dr. Duplicity" is classic William Donahue. Whenever I hear a politician described as "strongly pro-life" my skepticism kicks into high gear. For example Senate Minority Leader Reid was described the same way and of course promptly worked to help to exclude any judge who might possibly diminish abortion in any way. Of course this type of hypocrisy is nothing new to the GOP either. From the President on down there have always been caveats when it comes to abortion as if a human person is less a human person if conceived via rape or incest. That the child should be executed for the crimes of the father. Rapists don't get the death penalty but their children are eligible for it. Politicians like the majority of Americans do not have a firm grasp that personhood begins at conception. They only truly accept that political careers begin at polling. Truly all we have now is poll-iticians and in the case of Bill Frist will abandon what should inform is though as both a doctor and a Christian for a possible presidential run. It reminds me of Chesterton's quip that is a shame how few politicians are hung.

Scrappleface has it's own hilarious take.

(2005-07-29) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist today announced his support for expanding federally-funded stem cell research in hopes of finding a cure for his own addiction to tax dollars.

"Although I am a conservative, my addiction drives me to steal money from average Americans and spend it on my pet projects," said Sen. Frist. "Perhaps government-owned scientists will be able to conquer this unfortunate condition by slicing up human embryos."

The Mighty Barrister also has more on Bill Frist's pro-life record and past statements.

Unam Santum reports on a school being reopened not under the direction of the diocese by a group of progressive nuns. he also notes this statement taken from Reconciling With the Land: A Lenten Reflection on the IHM website:

Recently, the members of the Earth Charter Committee decided to place a representative symbol of this community in their prayer corners. It is amazing how the presence of a giraffe, a turtle or a frog next to a candle or icon helps bring a deeper consciousness to our prayer. God is in us and in all. If we are polluting or wasting water, if we help destroy needed habitats by our demands for particular products, if we carelessly dispose of recyclable materials, our relationship to the earth community needs healing.

Well I guess that is appropriate. The giraffe symbolizes their sticking their necks out concerning heterodox theology. The turtle represents their true progress, even though they think they are going somewhere fast their actually crawling slowly along in not even the right direction. In fact it reminds me of an old children's story - The Tortoise and the Hare-sy. Now as for the frog it is rather easy to associate the frog with this old folk warning of which I have heard used many times by Catholics.

If you throw a frog in boiling water he will quickly jump out. But if you put a frog in a pan of cold water and raise the temperature ever so slowly, the gradual warming will make the frog doze happily . . . in fact, the frog will eventually cook to death, without ever waking up.

Now it certainly makes for a nice illustrative example, but unfortunately it suffers from not being scientifically true. A frog will indeed jump out of the water if the temperature starts to gradually rise. So I will go with another comparison for what the frog means in their prayer corners. You often hear that frog tastes just like chicken. Just as their school will seem to be Catholic without actually being Catholic. Just as frog meat is a poor substitute for chicken, especially when chicken is more easily available, so will their school be a poor substitute for a true Catholic education.

"our relationship to the earth community needs healing."

Maybe they can setup earth reconciliation rooms. Inside the rooms can be some animals, flowers, and dirt. They can choose to enter the reconciliation room face-to-earth or behind a screen. "Forgive me earth community for I have sinned. I have used a product without recycling.", "Say three Our Gaias and say an act of recycling."

The Catholic blog humorsphere keeps growing and one of the best new additions since the laugh-out-loud catholicnews.org is Musum Pontificalis a blog styled as if written by the Holy Father. The blog is written I believe by Rick Lugari of Unam Sanctum so I am not suprised by how funny this parody blog is.

The latest post on relativism and programming languages is also pretty funny and especially appealed to me.

If a computer programmer attempts to apply a Relativist philosophy to his craft, he will fail. A Relativist can try all he wants to force the computer to accept his irrational commands, but it simply won’t work. There is a specific code that the computer is designed to operate by, and that code means something.

Likewise, God, as the Supreme Programmer has written a code for us, it is a moral code (Morals++?), and it means something, and try as we might, we just won’t function properly, or be what we were intended to be without following the proper code.

Which makes me ponder that perhaps a daily examination of conscience is like a moral debugger. A debugger in coding is usually used to step through your code so that you can find where an error is and then to take corrective acton. Same thing with an examination of conscience. Going through the day and and finding those snippets of moral code that were not quite right or contrary to our basic operating instructions ("Love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves"). When we find these moral code errors during an examination of conscience we can then apply corrective action through the will and through prayer.

When testing out a program occasionally the program will throw an exception with the type of error and line it occurred on. Unfortunately our consciences are not quite so specific or maybe that is fortunate indeed. If we ignore those errors just like in programming it will eventually cause a crash. Repentance is the equivalent of rebooting, though if you run the same program in the exact same way without fixing it - it will crash again. It is amazing how much we do that in our lives hoping that the consequences of ours sins were just a glitch or a bug and not the necessary outcome of our actions.

Now if only I could write moral code snippets for my own life.

do while (true)
{
        ++holiness;
}

Well at least that's what came to my mind when I saw this photo at Quodlibeta.

Why is it that the word renovation has come to strike architectural fear in the hearts of many Catholics? Now I have mentioned my own parish before where the church which was already beautiful was made even more beautiful when it was truly renovated. Of course another loaded term has come to be "worship space" when you see a "church" referred to in this manner it is almost a guarantee of what those in charge of the renovation will do. For example The Church of the Resurrection has this "OUR NEW WORSHIP SPACE" Virtual Tour.

Now if someone unfamiliar with the sacraments compared the baptismal font and the Tabernacle, which do you think they would believe to have the pride of place and the higher importance?

Where one is prominently displayed as you enter the church and the other is off to the side in a reservation chapel. I guess they had reservations that this is truly the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ and that the Eucharist should be treated as such. If the second coming were to occur now would we politely ask Jesus to go stand in a side room?

They also probably were not concerned that what they have done also violates canon law. "The tabernacle in which the Most Holy Eucharist is reserved habitually is to be immovable,..." I don't know about you, but my definition of mobile does not include the ability for the Tabernacle to be easily carried off by even an octogenarian. Now I don't have a problem with large baptismal fonts. What goes on spiritual in baptism is an awesome thing to reflect upon and the design and beauty of the physical font used can help us to reflect on this. But the Eucharist as mystery is even more awesome and it is sad that in so many churches that the Sacrament of Baptism seems to have a higher emphasis than the sublime mystery of the Eucharist.

As you move toward the Altar you become aware that it occupies the place of greatest prominence in the room. The altar has been handcrafted by Martin Ratermann of solid black walnut. Although stone is a common material from which altars are constructed, our art and furnishings committee purposely chose wood so that our altar would more readily be associated with the Emmaus table of Luke’s Gospel, at which the two disciples recognized the risen Christ in the breaking of the bread.

Art and furnishing committee? I guess if you really want to screw something up appoint a committee. You know solid black walnut in an octagonal shape really reminds me of the table used at Emmaus. There are just so many reference to black walnut trees in the Bible that I have lost count.

Again it looks like canon law was not part of any consideration.

Can. 1236 §1. According to the traditional practice of the Church, the table of a fixed altar is to be of stone, and indeed of a single natural stone. Nevertheless, another worthy and solid material can also be used in the judgment of the conference of bishops. The supports or base, however, can be made of any material.

The US the Bishops conference says that the altar can be made of other materials with permission of the local ordinary. Of course the funny thing is that the document that allows this permission is called Built of Living Stones: Art, Architecture, and Worship.

"The octagon was a symbol used in the early Church for the Resurrection. Its eight sides symbolize the first seven days of the creation of the world as recorded in the Book of Genesis plus the first day of the New Creation, which is Easter."

I hadn't heard that before, but that does seem to be a fitting symbol.

Now with all of these modification you just know that there is no way in the world that there will be a crucifix within the sanctuary and you wouldn't be wrong.

When you stand in front of the altar platform you are standing in the center of the room. Facing the altar from this point, turn clockwise until you are facing the first grand window with its accompanying oculus window above. Here you find the bronze sculpture entitled “Christ Rising” by Fredrick Hart. It is not apparent whether the figure of Christ in this sculpture is being raised from the cross or if he is rising from the grave. In this work we simultaneously experience the anguish of Christ’s sacrifice and the power of his resurrection.

So I guess you don't know if Christ is coming or going much like most modern theology. I am more inclined to title this statue "Diving board Jesus."

What is it with the modern aversion to the cross? All of this "We are an Easter People" as if we got a Monopoly card that said "Go strait to Easter do not pass the Crucifixion." We all have an aversion to the cross and usually increase them by ignoring our crosses. Deemphasizing Jesus' death on the cross will also likely increase not decrease on own crosses. It is much harder for us to say "why me?" when we look up at our Lord on the crucifix.

Now I don't really know what to make of this final picture.

Other than that I suspect one of the parishioners objected to all of these modifications and was placed in carbonite like Hans Solo.

Roughly three years ago I started blogging (July 24, 2002) with my first blog Atheist to a Theist with the Chesterton quote "if something's worth doing, it's worth doing badly." My original intent was mainly to comment on the news of the day and as a fairly recent convert to exercise my faith in the discussion on the Church and politics. I had no intent on doing any sort of humor which just goes to show how little I know myself. An article on Catholic blogging by Tim Drake in the National Catholic Register was where I had first heard of Catholic blogging. I recognized Mark Shea's name in the article and so Googled it to find his blog. What I found had me hooked instantly and I explored the links in his sidebar to find other Catholic blogs. At that time there were considerably less Catholic blogs, probably between 50 and 100. Mark's and Amy's blogs were then as now the preeminent Catholic blogs, though it was Kathy Shaidle who started the first Catholic blog well over five years ago. Of course Mark has been on a writing sabbatical, but since he recently finished his book hopefully we will see him return soon. Like many bloggers I started by commenting in other's comment boxes and made the jump to starting my own blog because of the limitations of commenting and the vanity of having my thoughts in one place.

I remember when I use to receive 5 to 10 hits a day and was pretty happy that anybody was reading what I had to say. Now three years later with 3000 plus posts, 10,000 plus comments, and close to 600,000 total hits I am still pretty happy that anybody is still reading what I have to say. I never had any intentions in life to write anything. Of course I also never had any intentions to one day become a Catholic. I am a Catholic and I write though I don't consider myself to be a Catholic writer. I am humbled when those who can actually write link to my posts, though I know it is because of my parody and punditry and not because of my writing skills (of which I consider to be akin to grammatical speed bumps.) I have no problem when people correcting my grammatical errors in the comment boxes. Open source editing is fine with me since I need all the help I can get. I just hope it has improved a little bit over the last three years. I have no delusions of producing the great American novel and am pretty happy to tickle a funny bone once in a while or say something worth while however feebly the words are chosen.

So once again thanks to my readers and those bloggers who link to me. Some of the better comedy pieces I have produced were suggested to me by other bloggers or readers. On in particular I would like to remember is Michelle of "And Then!" A blog now sadly gone for over a year and she had many fine suggestions for me. Yearly I also always mention Victor Lams who is a major inspiration to me and who has been blogging for over four years. He is the blogger I also would most wish would come into a financial windfall. When Victor was unemployed for a bit of time after his company went down the tubes in an Enron like scandal his free time produced some of the most creative and funny posts ever seen. From Puppet blogging to his Lamstoons it was a sad day from a selfish prospective when he was once again gainfully employed.

I have put together a "best of" page to cover some of my more comedic posts over the last three years.

OTTAWA (CNS) -- While a keynote speaker at a conference on women's ordination warned delegates that the aging progressive Catholic movement desperately needed an infusion of youth, some participants said the women priest movement, in particular, did not resonate with young adults.
The 460 registered delegates attending the Women's Ordination Worldwide conference in Ottawa July 22-24 came from some 20 countries on five continents, but white women in their 50s and 60s dominated the gathering.

Fewer than a dozen conference delegates were under 30, prompting one of them to ask theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether what efforts were being made to recruit younger women.

Ruether, professor emeritus at the Pacific School of Religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif., and an author of more than two dozen books, said the progressive Catholic movement was mainly "gray-headed" and over 50.

She said that female doctoral students were leaving the church because they wanted to be ordained and have a job.

Many of the conference speakers acknowledged that their children were not remaining with the Catholic Church once they learned of its stance on birth control, for example.

"Young people don't have the same way of getting inculcated into the Catholic identity," Ruether said. "They simply won't tolerate this."

What a surprise that when you see at least on of your parents dissent from Church teaching on women's ordination that they could also balk at other Church teachings. It is difficult enough in this culture to teach the truth of sexuality and it is made more difficult by dissenters who pick in choose what they want to believe.

While the July 25 invalid ordination of four women as priests drew a barrage of mainstream media coverage, younger Catholic women interviewed by Canadian Catholic News did not seem to share the same interest in ordination or see it as an equality issue.

Patricia Murphy, who teaches ethics at St. Augustine Seminary at the University of Toronto, said most women born after the Second Vatican Council ended in 1965 have a different experience from women in their 50s and 60s who were "typically formed by what has been called a 'Catholic subculture.'"

"Many of the younger Catholics I know, both women and men, think they were never sufficiently educated in their own tradition," she said. "For them it is religious pluralism, not any distinctive 'Catholic subculture' that is a point of departure.

"They often come to theology to 'fill in the gaps,' to develop a mature -- and truly thoughtful -- understanding of their faith," stemming from a desire to "be more solidly grounded," she said.

Dorothy Cummings, who is pursuing a doctorate in theology at Boston College, said she believed most Catholics were uncomfortable with the invalid ordinations of women priests.

"The women who have been most loudly in favor of women's ordination have not been ones respected for their orthodoxy," she said.

There is a "yawning gulf" between baby boomers and those born after Vatican II, she said. "Younger women are interested in collegiality. They want to work with priests and bishops, not complain about them. [Source]

Well I think "yawning gulf' is a good term. Younger women are looking at this issue and yawning.

I have read the observation for years that groups like Call To Action, VOTF, and others are graying out with little infusion of young people. You know these groups aren't going to be called for a world youth day like conference anytime soon. Or if they do they can probably book a phone booth for the conference hall. Though I do think they have some opportunities for raising cash. For example they could do a partnership with Clairol Hair Coloring and Grecian Formula - Just For Men.

In late March of 2004 the design of the church for Ave Maria took heat from pundits (including me) for both an ugly design and the silliness of creating a glass building in Florida.

With the announcement of a newer design for the oratory critics are still not happy. Though critics have decided that it sucks less than the original so obviously progress is being made.

The design team feed up with the comments have decided that a more traditional approach was necessary but were hesitant to totally scrap the design. To return to old time religion what better than to appeal to old time radio and thus the new design concept has been unveiled.

The interior has also been redesigned to follow the new theme.

Soon be be unveiled will be the all new "Radio Stations of the Cross" to decorate the interior. Mass reading will be read by a professional announcer unseen by the participants and a sound effects crew armed with sheet metal for thunder and other sound effect props will be used to assist the priest in bringing the homilies alive. The clip-clop sound using coconuts can be used to bring St. Paul's conversion alive just prior to his falling off a horse which of course can be followed up with the crashing sounds as he hits the ground. The new radio theme will be used to bring about radio-active participation as called for by Vatican II.

Clayton tagged me with a meme, so here goes.

What I was doing 10 years ago -- In July of 1995, I was still a Navy Chief working in Norfolk, Va on a computer system (PDP-11) so old that Bill Gates had worked on the same model when he was originally cutting his teeth learning programming. I remember lamenting that the Navy should hire someone to rewrite the training applications and port them over to a PC, not knowing that I would be the one doing the work when I had retired and moved onto the civilian sector.

5 years ago -- Celebrated one year as part of the secular order of Discalced Carmelites on the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. I don't consider myself a third order Carmelite but a disordered one.

1 year ago -- Wrote the "Flip Flop Mysteries."

Yesterday -- Went to Mass where we had a priest I had not seen before. The third priest that we had helping out was a Redemptorist and finally got his wish to become a prison chaplain and has moved to work at the Staten Island prison. Fr. Mike was an excellent preacher it was only his voice that was disconcerting since it's timbre closely approximated Kermit the Frog. This new priest (or new for me since he is probably another retired priest helping out) prayed a beautiful and reverential Mass and his homily had me thinking long after we had left.

Now who should I inflict pass this Meme onto? How about some newer bloggers Catholic Pillow Fight, Holy Fool, and Dad29.

The Anchoress contrasts temporary vows in religious life to a news story title ''Til Death Do Us Part' Is Dying Out. From the article

Vows like "For as long as we continue to love each other," "For as long as our love shall last" and "Until our time together is over" are increasingly replacing the traditional to-the-grave vow — a switch that some call realistic and others call a recipe for failure.

The Anchoress nails it when she calls this a matrimonial loophole. In fact I would think that a vow such as this would mean that no valid marriage was ever contracted. This would certainly be a rejection of marriage on God's terms and specifically denies as Jesus says that two become one flesh. This type of vow is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. By having at the start such a temporary and really negative view of marriage it will become even easier to bail when you run into trouble. This form of a "vow" is just catching up to the reality of how marriage is being viewed in our society. The only good thing about it is that it acknowledges a true disposition towards marriage, though this view of marriage is objectively false.

Now I am not sure what the readings used for a wedding Mass are. For me it was a couple weeks shy of 25 years ago that I was married in a Catholic Church and being an atheist at the time I didn't pay any attention to the readings. If I was the one to pick the readings I would certainly include Luke 9:23 "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Liturgies have suffered because the idea and reality of sacrifice has largely been lost and the same goes for marriages. The idea of marriage without sacrifice is to have some idealized concept of marriage more suited to Ozzy and Harriet. Marriage is sacrificial because it is a total giving of self to another, not a mechanism for having every need meet to your requirements.

The recipe of marriage is one man and one women both with original sin. The false modern view of marriage argues on a different composition or quantity, but all of the modern views ignore original sin. The only remedy for original sin is grace. The disciples understood the seriousness of Jesus's teaching on divorce when they replied "it is not expedient to marry." Going into a marriage denying the indissolubility of the marriage bond in a faux vow is the consequence of society's view of marriage. Long before the advent of same-sex unions and marriages we have been cutting away at the very foundations of marriage. The great scandal is that the majority of Christian churches allow divorce and remarriage without ever determining if a valid marriage ever came into existence. It is sad that so many Bible Christians have abandoned the Bible for a destructive and corrupt view of marriage. Marriage will always be under attack but worse is that the attacks have come from the interior of Christendom. No barbarians at the gate needed to apply.

One of the major problems of how the idea of love has come to mean is that it has become divorced (pun always intended) from the will. St. Thomas Aquinas defined love as "To love is to will the good of another." Love has been confused with an emotional gooey feeling. We can certainly feel the good and positive emotional effects of love, but should never forget that love can still be present without the warm feelings. The problem is that when we fall out of the honeymoon stage is that without a constant warm feeling that we can also consequently stop willing the good of another. That an effect of romantic love is confused with love itself. To say that you have fallen out of love is really to say that you have stopped willing to love. It is no surprise that this syrupy view of love has become so destructive to marriages. One of the most hideous movie lines ever devised was "Love means never having to say your sorry." I can imagine Satan having this quote in a frame done using needlepoint in his office in Hell.

Being the product of a divorced family I know from personal experience the tragedy of this view of marriage on children. I wonder what children of couples that take such phony vows must think? Each day they might wake up wondering if there parents had still "continue to love each other" or whether their parents might be moving on. They must also reason that if their parents can stop loving each other than they also can stop loving them. This is the obvious consequence of divorcing love from the will.

Michelle Malkin notes this comment to the above story (and she is about to have her 12th wedding anniversary).

The commenters at Absinthe and Cookies offer more alternatives. I liked this one:

"Until a 'home-cooked meal' means 'Hot Pockets'..."

In a wide-ranging, two-hour interview in which he discussed his vision and dreams for the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph as well as his decisions to reorganize some agencies within the chancery, Bishop Finn said he hopes to build on the diocese's legacy of lay empowerment to energize Catholics in their love of Jesus Christ to live their faith fully in the broader community.

"Jesus Christ is going to save us," he said. "Bishop Finn isn't going to save us. Salvation is going to be worked out in the context of the church. Jesus Christ established the church for us to know and love him, and ultimately to get to heaven."

Echoing a theme he delivered last year at a Mass for Catholic school principals and teachers at the opening of the 2004-05 school year, Bishop Finn said it is the vocation of every member of Christ's church to become saints themselves "and to bring as many people with them as possible."

"You can't say it more simply or profoundly than that," he said. "Our goal is to get ourselves and everyone else to heaven."

Bishop Finn said that ordained ministers alone can't transform American culture.

"We are in a culture of death. Who is going to change that?" he said.

"I can stand up and preach about it, but that's only going to go so far," Bishop Finn said.

"We have to understand where the power of the laity is," he said. "It's in the family, the workplace, the marketplace. That's where it has to happen.

"We need lay people in church leadership. But only a very small percentage of lay people will be involved in that," he said. "Sometimes, we tend to focus on that very small percentage and forget about the rest of the flock.

"But if we are not serious about those laity who do not work in the church, then we are missing the whole thing. We have to keep broadening our vision." [Source][Via Dappled Things]

The article continues with this:

Bishop Finn said he wants The Catholic Key to be an important component of ongoing diocesan catechesis and evangelization, and an instrument of reconciliation.

For that reason, he said, he directed The Key to discontinue Father Richard McBrien's often controversial syndicated column.

"Father McBrien likes to stir the pot," Bishop Finn said. "He approaches things with a certain skepticism and cynicism. You can get that in a lot of places, so go get it somewhere else.

"We need clear expressions of the meaning of faith, why we believe and how we can inspire each other," he said. "We've got to give people hope and direction, and we don't have a lot of time and space (in the newspaper) to do that. I think we can do a whole lot better."

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy. You can almost hear the whispering of progressives about the silencing and the coming inquisition. The cries about open dialogue and the restrictive narrow view being imposed. Though I am sure Father McBrien will continue to have an outlet for his columns in the LA diocese magazine The Tidings for years to come.

Today being the feast of St. Mary Magdalene Dr. Marcellinio D'Ambrosio posts a tribute to her by St. Gregory the Great.

When Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and did not find the Lord’s body, she thought it had been taken away and so informed the disciples. After they came and saw the tomb, they too believed what Mary had told them. The text then says: The disciples went back home, and it adds: but Mary wept and remained standing outside the tomb.

We should reflect on Mary’s attitude and the great love she felt for Christ; for though the disciples had left the tomb, she remained. She was still seeking the one she had not found, and while she sought she wept; burning with the fire of love, she longed for him who she thought had been taken away. And so it happened that the woman who stayed behind to seek Christ was the only one to see him. For perseverance is essential to any good deed, as the voice of truth tells us: Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved.

At first she sought but did not find, but when she persevered it happened that she found what she was looking for. When our desires are not satisfied, they grow stronger, and becoming stronger they take hold of their object. Holy desires likewise grow with anticipation, and if they do not grow they are not really desires. Anyone who succeeds in attaining the truth has burned with such a great love. As David says: My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? And so also in the Song of Songs the Church says: I was wounded by love; and again: My soul is melted with love.

Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek? She is asked why she is sorrowing so that her desire might be strengthened; for when she mentions whom she is seeking, her love is kindled all the more ardently.

Jesus says to her: Mary. Jesus is not recognised when he calls her “woman”; so he calls her by name, as though he were saying: Recognise me as I recognise you; for I do not know you as I know others; I know you as yourself. And so Mary, once addressed by name, recognises who is speaking. She immediately calls him rabboni, that is to say, teacher, because the one whom she sought outwardly was the one who inwardly taught her to keep on searching.

It is unfortunate and ironic to see dissenters who are disobedient the Christ and his Church hold up St. Mary Magdalene as a role model for them. So many have hijacked her from the likes of the Da Vinci Code to those who support women's ordination. It is also ironic that St. Mary Magdalene was originally unable to recognize Jesus when he first appeared that modern day admirers of the saint also don't seem to be able to recognize her. St. Mary Magdalene mistook Jesus for a gardener and moderns do her one better by mistaken St. Mary Magdalene for a radical feminist.

Also on site is an article by Amy Welborns on the Da Vinci Code

From an article in the Tablet about Charlie Angus who is the Canadian Catholic MP

No bishop will publicly contradict Bishop Henry’s damaging rhetoric, in large part because his template is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s rejection of same-sex marriage in “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons”. It is only the most glaring example of how the CDF document threatened the Canadian Church’s outreach to politicians – and, in the process, virtually scripted the drama surrounding Mr Angus’s vote.

The Church's outreach to politicians was threatened? Well I guess in fact truth usually does make outreach to politicians problematic. If only truth would stop getting in the way of Church/State relations.

To begin with, the document’s timing could not have been any worse. Exactly one week after its release in June, 2003, an Ontario court struck down the traditional definition of marriage because it violated gays and lesbians’ equality rights. Whatever the merits of their theological and anthropological arguments, its defenders now had to contend with the official verdict that heterosexual-only marriage was legally (and, by extension, politically) unacceptable in Canada.

Actually the document's timing was pretty good since it coincided with the legal maneuvering for same-sex unions and marriages. The Vatican is usually criticized for releasing documents long after a threat appears, for example just last year the Vatican was criticized just for that in relations to documents relating to radical feminism and new age movements. Of course the document proposed no new teachings and only affirmed what the Church has always taught, so it isn't exactly as if the document was any surprise theologically in any way.

As the policymakers started to react to the court rulings, the bishops’ lawyers urged them to plead the best case they had: that in a diverse, pluralistic country like Canada, the most equitable way to reconcile the equality demands of gays and lesbians with the vital need for freedom of religion and freedom of conscience was to take marriage out of the public realm and to adopt a new system of governance for adult interdependent relationships. Reportedly, several bishops – notably Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic of Toronto – quietly favoured this strategy.

In the end, though, it was something the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) proved unwilling to pursue, either in the courts or with politicians, many of whom liked the idea but needed the Church’s blessing to give it political life. Where their lawyers cited constitutional law, the bishops cited the CDF.

I am surprised that they didn't bring up the fact that when the document was released Cardinal Ratzinger was the head of the CDF.

I don't really expect cogent arguments when it comes to the LA Time's and this commentary maintains that consistency. The article titled "At risk: Roe, rights and religion" continues the screamfest about overturning Roe as if the majority of Americans were pro-abortion at all costs. In the last couple of days from Sen. Barbara Boxer down to many liberal pundits we have heard the cry of danger to abortion "rights" and they talk as if everybody is on their side and that everybody should be upset at this possibility. This is one instance when I hope that they are right and that our current abortion-on-demand laws are either seriously restricted or sent back for a state-by-state decision.

Getting back to the article of the three R's I wondered how they were going to say that under Judge Roberts that religion was at risk.

Third, religion. Though O'Connor voted with the conservatives to allow school vouchers to fund religious schools, she joined the moderates in enforcing the separation of church and state in other areas. Roberts wrote briefs for the George H.W. Bush administration urging a less rigid separation between church and state and argued in favor of permitting prayer at high school graduation ceremonies, a position the Supreme Court later rejected.

To the extent his views match his former boss', Roberts could provide the fifth vote to return prayer to schools, allow a significant expansion of government-sponsored religious displays and funnel more money to faith-based service providers. This agenda is crucially important to the religious right, which has been particularly aggrieved by O'Connor's middle-of-the-road church-state jurisprudence. In many cases that jurisprudence turns on one vote.

It is worth noting that Roberts was acting as a Bush administration lawyer when he took his positions against Roe and in favor of school prayer, and it may be that they do not reflect his personal beliefs. Nevertheless, it is all we have to go on at the moment — our best indication of his thinking.

And after actually reading the pertinent paragraph I am still wondering where the argument was that religion was at risk. Is the argument that religion is at risk if prayer is returned to school or that faith based organizations work with the government? Gee I would have thought that it was the other way around. Or perhaps the thrust is that liberal religion is at risk. That the sacrament of abortion is under fire and that the high priestesses at NOW and NARAL are upset at this possible infringement. A liberal religion that has no use for a God that knew us before we were knitted in our mother's womb. So if they are worried that a religion that worships a God who is down with aborting his individual unique persons is at risk, well it is always at risk without worrying about what Judge Roberts might do. This type of religion is always at risk in the light of day.

Coming home I was driving behind a truck that on it's back window was advertising Christian Karate. It also had various Bible verses written on the back also so that ruled out Christian simply being a last name. It got me wondering about what would be Christian Karate? Would it include a "turn the other cheek while delivering a round house kick" move? Would there be various levels of Bible belts from white to black awarded based on scriptural and martial knowledge? Maybe breaking concrete slabs with a picture of Satan on them with you bare hands formed together in the prayer posture. Training could involve carrying a really heavy cross daily to build up endurance.

Well I should have known it. Before speculating I could have Googled and found the Christian Karate Association

The Christian Karate Association stresses the importance of having a close relationship with God. During class, students will be required to read and memorize Bible verses along with learning different Christian Character Qualities. These will be required for passing each belt test. Some of the Character Qualities include: Endurance, Patience, Loyalty, Self-Control and Boldness.

GLENWOOD -- Pam Gardner is disturbed to the point of distraction every time a bell rings.

Gardner's property backs up to Mother of Good Shepherd Monastery, where the monks ring a pair of bells five times a day as a call to prayer. Residents of the rural area west of DeLand complain that the bells ring incessantly and so loudly that their windows rattle.

"This has really affected our lives," said Gardner, who lives on Ben Franklin Drive. "When I hear the call to prayer, I pray for those bells to stop."

Gardner is one of 31 residents who showed up at a Glenwood Civic Association meeting Monday to try to find a way to silence the bells.

The controversy began when three monks moved their monastery from Peaks Island, Maine, to an 11-acre tract at 2075 Mercers Fernery Road in June 2004. Two bells, one of which weighs 4,000 pounds, are rung at 8 a.m., 9 a.m., noon, 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Volusia County code-enforcement officers cited the monastery for running a religious establishment in a residential neighborhood. The monks stopped ringing the bells and hired an attorney, who convinced county officials that federal law required them to allow the monastery in the neighborhood. The bells resumed in December.

Residents who live near the monastery complain that the bells toll anywhere from 60 to 300 peals each ringing. Ross Kasparek knows precisely because he keeps a list posted in his garage counting the number of rings.

"If I blow my horn or play loud music, there's an ordinance to stop me," said Kasparek, who lives across the street from the monastery. "But they are really obstinate; they won't stop."

Some residents said they look forward to the bell ringing.

Shirley Ann Sodaro, who lives on Trinidad Street, said she finds the bells "pleasant."

"I can't imagine why they're making such a big deal about this," she said. [Source]

More evidence that George W. Bush is different than his father. Thank you President Bush for selecting Judge Roberts, someone who actually believes in the Constitution as it was written. I know for myself if I ever saw a living Constitution I would get out my Holy Water and dowse it generously. So it will be good to have another pro-Constitution judge especially since this also means a pro-life judge. The fact that his wife Jane has served as executive vice president of Feminists for Life is also a good sign.

That the President didn't bow to political correctness and think that he had to replace a women with a women is amazing in this day in age. Not that there weren't some good women on the short list, but it looks like W was playing rope-a-dope with us today with all the talk about Edith Clement being the pick. That we were soon to have a potential Ms. Souter.

Like I quipped before in before in Cacciaguida's comment box. "You can't have your court and Edith too."

Anyway more details over at Catholics in the Public Square and of course Southern Appeal.

A reader sent along this request from the Rosary Army considering the devastation in Cuba specifically to the Archdiocese of Cienfuegos due to hurricane Dennis.

The trend in recent years has been to have women's ordination ceremonies at sea. Until now these ceremonies have been low-key on smaller boats such as in the following example.

While this option might be fine for some, why not go for the full extravaganza. We at Princess Priestess Cruise Lines are here to fill that niche and provide you with a quality and relaxing ordination experience. In fact send in your entries now for our priestess sweepstakes!

Yes you can win a seven day and seven night cruise on our latest beautiful addition the Sea Priestess. No more cheap river boats moored on the Danube River between Germany and Austria like the seven women ordained in June of 2002 or like the latest example in international waters between the Ontario and United States border. Do it with dash and panache with one of our custom packages.

With either our priestly or episcopal women's ordination packages you have your choice between a "women bishop" or your choice of a male bishop from a schismatic sect such as the Old Catholic Church. Your ordination will be videotaped from our crew documentary cameraman so that you can share the joy of your ordination with friends and others over and over again. Check out the colorful stoles worn by some our crew bishops! Our specially trained crew knows how to do it right and no one will bring up Ordinatio Sacerdotalis while your with us.

After your ordination relax and join into our karaoke party and sing songs such as On Eagles Wings, Ashes, and Faith of our Mothers to your hearts delights. We also provide a free snack bar with crackers and kool aid.

Ordinations can be really long and tiring so we provide special mattresses made out of felt banners with those syrupy messages you learned and loved in 1970's Catholic schools. Here are some recently ordained women enjoying their nap time.

After a restful nap come to our chapel and celebrate your first Mass and select from a range of stoles from simple white to color coordinated stoles, shoes, and handbags.

And to make your ordination experience complete we will include a framed excommunication letter from the Bishop of your diocese at no extra cost! So why wait? Act now, after all Pope Benedict XVI isn't going to change Scripture, Apostolic tradition, and 2000 years of constant teaching just for you anytime soon. Nothing to lose but to enjoy your very own ordination cruise with memories and keepsakes for years to come. Instead of being a stowaway you will be a stole-away from becoming a priestess. Instead of the Holy See be on the Holy Sea on the Bark of Petrina.

But that is not all! Check out our Olympic size baptism pool! Nothing is like a full immersion baptism off a diving board. Start with your first sacraments in style. We at Priestess Cruise Lines will do everything to make your ordination cruise memorable and fun. So call now while it is still summer for our latest priestess cruise package.

* Hat tip to RC at Catholic Light for suggesting something along this line to me.

My latest parody piece is up at Spero News.

As a strange inside the bag of fertilizer graphic that I started with already said "super natural" on it, so there was a kind of comedic divine providence in starting with that image.

From time to time you see some Catholic bloggers ask about a location of a good parish in a city they will be visiting or talk about finding one good parish in their area. This is a sad indictment about the state of liturgy in a universal church. Many liturgists always talk about community to justify their fiddling with the liturgy at a local church, yet this very act reduces the liturgy to the local community. I doubt that progressive Catholic bloggers experience the same problem from their point of view. It seems that that majority of liturgies have gone down that same path of Masses with some local improvisation or quirk added to them. I know that in my own experience of about six churches in my area that only one of them is one hundred percent faithful to the GIRM and it also happens to be the only one that has music that doesn't give me flashbacks of being in an elevator. There is really just no reason that the rubrics of the liturgy should be different from diocese to diocese within the same rite of the Church. Now there will always be variances in liturgies to some extent. Some priests are more gifted homilists than others and some choirs are more talented than others.

By the way speaking about gifted homilists have you ever noticed that many Protestant Church's the name of the pastor is prominently displayed on a sign in front, whereas in my limited experience I have never seen this associated with a Catholic Church. I think this is because in the Catholic Church the emphasis is on the Mass and not just the homily. Of course in non-liturgical churches it follows that all the attention is paid towards the pastor.

I was fairly impressed with the document Instrumentum laboris and the issues that it brought up in the celebration of the Eucharist. This document is the working copy produced for the Bishop's synod that deals with "The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church." Obviously from the submissions made for this document many other bishops see some of the same problems in the Church's liturgical life. It will be interesting to see the final document produced, but more importantly whether any of the suggestions made will be instituted by the Church. I am too much of a cynic to believe that most Vatican documents have much effect on local liturgies. Though I have seen some corrections made to certain liturgical abuses that were addressed in Redemptionis Sacramentum in some local churches. Bishops and priests who are willing to ignore and downplay some of the Church's teaching are not going to be worried about following liturgical laws. The document addresses such topics as to whether moving the tabernacle from the center of the sanctuary to less prominent places has deemphasized the role of the Eucharist and other church architecture related topics. Gregorian chant was also addressed and the suitability of some musical instruments for sacred music and also the uses of a Church for purposes other than the liturgy (note to Cardinal Mahony). The document has a good grasp as to the problems, but mostly does not address what to do about them so we will need to see how this will translate into something more easily understood at the local level. It also address some of the more positive movements in the Church such as the increase of Eucharistic adoration. As much as I might gripe about the liturgy - God stills brings people towards himself despite our flaws.

O, most beautiful flower of Mount Carmel,
Fruit of the Vine, splendorous of Heaven.
Blessed Mother of the Son of God,
Immaculate Virgin,
assist me in this my necessity.
O, Star of the Sea, help me
and show herein you are my mother.
O, Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and earth,
I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart
to succour me in my necessity.
There are none that can withstand your power,
O, show me here you are my mother.
O, Mary, conceived without sin,
pray for us who have recourse to Thee.
Sweet Mother, I place this cause in your hands.
Amen.

Here is an introductory history on Carmelites I wrote a couple of years back.

People always cry at weddings, but Father Brian Kane hopes they'll be tears of happiness when he celebrates the wedding Mass today for Erik Zlomke and Sarah Hoffman.
Father Brian Kane, left, a chaplain in the Army National Guard, will officiate at Sgt. Eric Zlomke's wedding Saturday, July 16, 2005. The two will report for active duty on Sunday to go to Iraq, where Zlomke will act as Kane's assistant and bodyguard. (Eric Gregory)

On Sunday, both Kane and Zlomke will report for duty with the Army National Guard in preparation for deployment to Iraq.

Kane will be going as a chaplain and Zlomke will be his assistant, which means he'll act as Kane's bodyguard because military chaplains don't carry weapons. Kane, who holds the rank of captain, and Zlomke, a sergeant, will both be assigned to the 67th Area Support Group which will ship off to Iraq later this year.

As chaplain, Kane will minister to the spiritual needs of the troops at a base but also will perform Masses, hear confessions, provide counseling and other religious services to men in the field.

"Wherever he goes I'll be with him," Zlomke said. "There's definitely danger, especially when we're traveling. My main job will be to be sure that he makes it from point A to point B safely."

Zlomke, who joined the Army Guard three and a half years ago, has served a tour of duty as a medic in Bosnia. Kane was commissioned as a chaplain in March 2003 and had two summers of training at Fort Jackson, S.C.

Zlomke, 27, was a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln but was unsure of his career plans when he decided to join the guard. "It was a way to see a few things," he said.

As a medic in Bosnia, he discovered he had an aptitude for working with the sick and injured. Now he's studying nursing while his fiancee has one more semester to finish her degree in business administration.

They've been a couple for three years, and had planned to get married after one of them had graduated. But when Zlomke got his deployment orders a month ago, "we talked about it and we both felt it would be a good thing for both of us if we were married" before he left, he said. They've only been officially engaged for three weeks.

They both attend St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, also known as the Newman Center, the Catholic student ministry where Kane has been assistant pastor. Since Zlomke and Kane will be almost constant companions in the Army, it was only fitting that he perform the ceremony.

"It will be a pretty small wedding," Zlomke said. "Just mainly our family. When I get back from Iraq we'll renew our vows and it'll be more of a big affair."

When he became a priest five years ago, Kane had no thoughts of joining the military, but while on the staff of the Newman Center he met many guard members who told him about the lack of Catholic chaplains, so he felt the call to serve. [Source]

I got to go on a cruise for my honeymoon. Unfortunately it was on an aircraft carrier without my wife and deployed to the Indian Ocean during the Iranian hostage crisis.

I learned today that a women my wife and I knew from our parish had died recently. Pearl was elderly and had been sick during the last year. She was a wonderful women who outlived two husbands and was a cradle Catholic. We met her while going through RCIA. She was living in an apartment building close to our Church (the same Church she had been married in) and during the years became a sponsor to multiple people for RCIA. She would evangelize both lapsed Catholics and others and get them to attend RCIA. She was quiet and unassuming but her life spoke volumes. So if your could offer a prayer or two to speed her on the way I would appreciate it.

WASHINGTON -- There was a rare personal attack on the floor of the Senate.

Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy accused Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum of being self-righteous and insensitive for a column he'd written three years ago.

In that column, Santorum linked Boston's liberalism with the sex abuse scandal in its Catholic diocese. Santorum had written that promoting alternative lifestyles feeds such aberrant behavior as priests molesting children.

"Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture," Santorum wrote. "When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."

Kennedy is calling for Santorum to retract his remarks and apologize to the people of Boston and Massachusetts -- and the nation.

A spokesman for Santorum said his boss recognizes that the church abuse scandal was not just in Boston, but all over the country. The spokesman said Santorum "was speaking to a broader cultural argument." [Source]

Complaining about a three year old column? Wouldn't that be water under the bridge? (Sorry couldn't avoid Chappaquiddick reference) Well the scandal certainly was all over the country, but it certainly appears to be more heavily concentrated in less than orthodox diocese and it should be no surprise that people willing to abandon the faith in one area will be less constrained to abandon it in others. This is not to say that there haven't been fairly orthodox priest who have fallen in this direction, but they do seem to be the minority in these cases. Temptation to sin is an equal opportunity employer and it is only through the grace of the faith, prayer, and the sacraments that these temptations can be destroyed. Once you weaken the ability to resist temptation obviously there will be problems.

Update: WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., yesterday accused Democrats of dredging up 3-year-old remarks on the Catholic Church's clergy sex-abuse scandal for purely partisan reasons.

Santorum refused to apologize for statements that blamed the church's scandal on Boston's liberalism.

Santorum, a devout Catholic, shot back at U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who upbraided Santorum Wednesday in an unusually personal attack on the Senate floor.

"I don't think Ted Kennedy lecturing me on the teachings of the church and how the church should handle these problems is something I'm going to take particularly seriously," Santorum said during a conference call with Catholic media.

Santorum also questioned Kennedy's following of church doctrine and said he is unaware of Kennedy or Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., getting involved to address the church's problem. [Source]

Archbishop Chaput is what I consider a complete bishop. His columns are always edifying and cover the range of the Gospel. His column this week is "Homelessness: Issue goes to the heart of living the Gospel."

Dawn Eden earlier this week posted a story about NARAL picketing outside of a crisis-pregnancy center with signs such as "FAKE CLINIC." It reminds me of the ridiculousness of our current laws. Pro-abortion supporters can protest directly outside a pro-life clinic without breaking the law, but pro-life supporters are forced to protest at the distance of a buffer zone from an abortion clinic. The Supreme Court has certainly handed down some outrageous decisions and the though of a buffer zone is certainly on of the most outrageous. Where is the equal protection when only one form of protest is singled out for special rules against free speech.

Their carrying signs that said "FAKE CLINIC" is especially ironic. Aborturaries don't offer medical services that perform healing. They don't heal what is broken, rather they kill both the life of the child and as a consequence do serious damage to the psychological health of the mother and can cause other possible medical side effect. A clinic where you are worse off when you came out then when you went in is by definition a "FAKE CLINIC." The other irony is that the "health of the mother" clause has been used to keep abortion legal for all circumstances. The clause has been legally extended to the psychological health of the mother. The irony is that this extension of the clause to psychological health should result in the stopping of abortion not the extension of it. Again our laws have gotten it totally backwards.

Abortion supporters though have built up an immunization to irony. Only someone who is irony-impaired can call themselves "pro-choice" and protest against one side of the equation of choice. They dislike being called pro-abortion and want us to believe that pro-choice means that the mother can choose between continuing a pregnancy or abortion. Yet what was the last time you drove by a Planned Parenthood Maternity Ward or a NARAL sponsored crisis-pregnancy center.

Hub voters would be asked if the Archdiocese of Boston ``has failed'' in its handling of church closings in neighborhoods under a nonbinding ballot question to be proposed by a trio of city councilors today.

``In the past we've had nothing but failure and breakdown in communication and in the future we need to have better communication,'' said Brighton City Councilor Jerry P. McDermott, the lead sponsor.

The measure, which will be introduced at today's City Council meeting, will be on the Nov. 8 ballot if it passes. Also sponsoring it are South Boston City Councilor James M. Kelly and North End Councilor Paul J. Scapicchio.

Councilors said the archdiocese has gone ahead with closings without thought for the city's most vulnerable citizens, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, who use church-based food pantries and 12-step programs.

An Archdiocese spokesman could not be reached for comment yesterday. [Source]

Still waiting for separation of church and state activists to get riled up about this one - definitely not a breath holding moment.

On the heels of Christoph Cardinal Schönborn's letter on evolution.

WASHINGTON Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick says Catholics don't have to believe in Creationism -- the Bible's account of God creating Adam and Eve and the universe in six days.

McCarrick told reporters at the National Press Club that instead of what he called "the beautiful story of Genesis," Catholics can believe in evolution -- as long as it's understood to have been guided by God rather than chance.

The archbishop of Washington said that was the view of the late Pope John Paul, which was echoed last week by a leading European cardinal.

Cardinal McCarrick said the church cannot accept the belief that "this is all an accident." But he added that "as long as in every understanding of evolution, the hand of God is recognized as being present, we can accept that." [Source]

One thing cool about being Catholic is that I am free to believe in a literal six day creation or a God guided evolution. Or if another new and better scientific theory comes out I am also free to accept that too. I was a lot less free and more dogmatic when I was an atheist. Meaningless random evolution was pretty much all I was allowed or allowed myself to believe. As a Catholic I am free to believe in miracles and in certain Church approved apparitions, though I am also free to disbelieve those apparitions. As an atheist I was not free to believe in apparitions or miracles. Yet it is generally Catholic who are called dogmatists. Chesterton said that man is a creature who creates dogmas and that is certainly true since everybody holds to dogmas, they just vary on what are to be held as dogmas. Or they at least hold to the dogma that there are no dogmas.

One quibble that I have with with what Cardinal McCarrick said is "the beautiful story of Genesis," which might have not been the most enlightening or prudential choice of words in front of the National Press Club. The modern idea of story is mainly confined to fiction and using story in this context can be misleading. The Genesis account is likely a story in the mode of the story that the Prophet of Nathan told to King David about the rich man who took the poor man's ewe lamb. The story represented the factual truths of what King David had done by having Uriah killed and taking Bathsheba as his wife in a figurative way. The Genesis account also relates factual truths in the mode of a story of what could be called true myth. But unfortunately the word myth has also come to mean totally not real and we have mainly lost the concept of true myth.

Karen Hall is having a caption contest, so go there and add your own.

Here are some of my suggestions.

• "I know there is a tabernacle somewhere in the Cathedral."
• "Have you seen my moral compass?" (I stole that one from the tagline of Karen's old blog Disordered Affections)
• "I know I left my faith around here somewhere."
• "Quick hide - the Pope is coming!"
• "The Cardinal takes cover as several whirling liturgical dances spin out of control"
  

Well I have become an iPod people despite my previous post on the subject. For the last couple of months I had been looking for a good hard drive based digital music player. I have been ripping CDs to my hard drive for many years now and I have also maintained copies of these files on my work computer so that I would also have my whole music library there also. I had almost filled up the drive on my computer at work and knew it was time to go with another solution. When iTunes 4.9 was released with Podcasting I decided to check it out its capabilities as a music library. Not having to run a separate program for detecting and downloading new Podcasts is definitely a more integrated idea. I have used many different software players with various music libraries over the years. I had used Winamp back when it was version 1 to play back songs in wav format I had recorded to my hard drive to practice playing my guitar with.

I found that the iTunes music library was on par with Winamp's and I liked how it could easily select by genre. My music collection is rather diverse from Classical, Chant, Mississippi delta blues, Classic Rock, to heavier rock and the ability to separate the music is a plus. One nice feature is its Podcasting playback is that if you leave a downloaded Podcast in the middle of playing it to play something else, that if you go back and play it again it starts where it left off. Though I do have some gripes about iTunes. How in the world do you make a software based player now without it being skinable? There is also no easy way to go from normal mode to mini-mode except to select the player and Ctrl-M. I would think that there should be a button to easily do this. Another thing missing is a right-click context menu listing various features. The same goes for mini-mode. Another annoyance is that if you choose to convert an mp3 to aac it won't automatically delete it afterwards. There should be an option to choose how you want this to happen. What I consider to be pretty silly is that you can have album art for a song, yet there is no way to automatically get the album art. You would think they would have this linked to the iTunes website. You have to get the art yourself and then drag it into the album art area. One interesting thing is that it actually stores the album art within the tracks ID3 tag and the album art is displayed on the new iPods along with the song information. Overall I was impressed enough with iTunes to make it my primary music manager, though it took quite a while (about two days) to convert all my CDs in wma format to aac.

The other factor that got me to finally consider the iPod was the new larger hard drive sizes. A 20gig iPod was pretty much worthless to me considering I already had a 30gig plus music collection. I have also been using solid-state mp3 players to transfer files back and forth from work and so I wanted to also have plenty of room to do this also. Being that I am pretty cheap (my CD collection is primarily used CDs) the price factor on the 60gig iPod was rather steep, though considering that for $100 more you get three times the space available as the normal iPod and it has room to grow with my music collection I bit the bullet. Overall I am pretty impressed with the iPod. The color screen is really nice and even has the ability to view photos. Once you get use to the touch sensitive click wheel you can really appreciate how innovative this technology is to rapidly interact with your music library and to set the various options.

The only real faults I have with the iPod is that for such a pricey gadget that it doesn't include a case. I have had multiple players and every single one from my first mp3 CD player on up had a case. Another annoyance is that when you plug it into your computer and later detach it that it does not remember where you left off. So if you were in the middle of a playlist or an audio recording you have to manually select it again. It would be nice if it worked similar to the way iTunes does with Podcasts in remembering the position you left off. For the last couple of months I have been using text-to-speech software to convert articles and other material to mp3s. I converted the new Vatican document INSTRUMENTUM LABORIS to mp3 to listen to while I work out. The mp3 was about 3 hours long and while the click dial is overall excellent for rapidly panning through a digital sound file it would be nicer to not have to do it.

Now if I am wrong about any of my critiques please let me know.

ROME, JULY 11, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Edith Stein, the Carmelite saint and co-patroness of Europe, could be a very engaging figure for some of the 800,000 expected to attend World Youth Day next month in Germany.

That is the opinion of Father Luis Aróstegui Gamboa, superior general of the Discalced Carmelites. "The search for Truth of Edith Stein -- Teresa Benedicta of the Cross -- could be a stimulus for young people who will go to Cologne, where she lived in the Carmel," he told ZENIT.

"Edith Stein is a very different figure from Thérèse of Lisieux, also a Carmelite saint, who enthused young people at Paris' World Youth Day," Father Aróstegui said.

"In the same way," he added, "I think that there are some young people, perhaps not all, who might be attracted by Stein's figure, as she is modern and her biography is very interesting in the best sense of the term: Jewish, German, seeker, who lost her faith and found it."

The Carmelite religious died in Auschwitz in August 1942.

Into contemplation

"She accepted her death in the concentration camp as communion with the cross of Christ, for her people and for peace in the world," said the superior general of the Order of Discalced Carmelites. "This is impressive."

"Edith Stein was a person who was very committed to her faith and an exceptional personality; she was called to give lectures and classes when this was unusual, and she defended woman's rights and dignity," he said.

"This faith and fidelity, but at the same time reflection with freedom and responsibility, might be very attractive to young people," Father Aróstegui added.

He continued: "Moreover, her continuity of life when she entered the Cologne Carmel is also very interesting, as it was not a rejection of the intellectual life but, on the contrary, an entering more intensely into contemplation, which isn't inaction. In fact, her superiors asked her to continue with her intellectual work and she did so, in union with the Church and the needs of the world.

"Above all, the fact that she was a seeker and integrated values in her life and thought, and her profundity in the faith are very good for the world of young people who will meet in her native Germany." [Source]

Here is a short interview with Fr. Fessio which ends with an interesting reason for why he became a priest.

Christopher at Against the Grain has a Pope Benedict XVI roundup that includes information about why some of the facts in an article (posted below) in the American Spectator about the Holy Fathers' time in Tübingen was factually incorrect.

ON THE eve of a critical vote on the creation of women bishops in the Church of England, a senior figure has warned he and hundreds of priests will quit if the move is approved.

Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet, this weekend becomes the first leading churchman to state that he would be likely to defect to the Roman Catholic Church.

The General Synod will tomorrow be asked to vote on the first stage of the process for “removing the legal obstacles to the ordination of women to the episcopate”. A vote in favour will set in train church legislation that may take three years.

“A woman bishop wouldn’t be a bishop because a bishop is someone whose ministry is acceptable through the ages to all other bishops,” said Burnham. “A Church of England with women bishops would no longer have a united episcopate. Bishops would no longer be what they say they are. I would have to leave.”

He said he would be forced to quit if Anglicans did not make proper provision for opponents of women bishops, and indicated that he believed 800 priests would follow suit. [Source]

I just don't understand the problem here. Once you have abandoned scripture and apostolic tradition enable to ordain women as priests - what is to prevent the view that women's episcopal ordination would also be valid? It seems to me that originally the women as priests and not as bishops was a compromise solution and that its only goal was to prevent more people from leaving. Just what theological, scriptural or quote from the Church Fathers could you use to split those hairs in the first place? Surely those who stayed in the Anglican Church because they didn't ordain women bishops at that time knew that eventually that day would come. Though I guess we all blind ourselves to consequence when they become uncomfortable for us.

Though in some ways an Anglican church that continues down this path does more for Anglican to Catholic conversions than just about anything we have done apologetically. A hundred years ago the branch theory could be bought without too much contradiction. Now the branch theory applies to Anglicanism itself since it keeps splitting off with new branches, such as provinces. As in this case some want a third province in addition to Canterbury and York that would only have male bishops.

In a related note. Welcome home Al Kimmel of Pontifications who was received into full communion with the Catholic Church a month ago.

Five of the nine Catholic priests who signed the pro-gay Phoenix Declaration no longer are on active duty in the Phoenix Diocese.

Three of those who have left active duty say they were forced out by Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted. One other is seriously ill, and the fifth resigned on his own, in part because of philosophical differences with the bishop. They all signed a 2003 declaration endorsing civil rights for gays and lesbians that was endorsed by clergy members from several Christian denominations.

Philosophical differences? Too bad Arius didn't have a press agent to make heresy sound better.

The ousted men are among at least 11 Catholic priests who have left active ministry since Olmsted became bishop in late 2003. Their departures further exacerbate a shortage of priests in the diocese, which has several parish vacancies.

Well it is only fitting that once you depart from the faith that you also depart from the active priesthood.

The Rev. Fred Adamson, vicar general and second in command of the diocese, said the departures were not related to the Phoenix Declaration or any other single reason. "Each one of these is a different, individual case," he said.

Why not? Why are most diocese so reluctant to admit that actions have consequences. Now there are probably individual reasons for each case, but signing the declaration and not repenting of the action should be cause enough for dismissal.

But some church insiders believe the recent ousters are an indication that Olmsted is cracking down on liberal-minded priests, and possibly all of the Phoenix Declaration signers. Olmsted is known for his orthodox ways. He has put a stop to what he considers liturgical violations, has brought back Mass in Latin and has written three articles about church teachings against homosexuality.

"I believe he wants to purify the church," said the Rev. Ken Van de Ven, a declaration signer who was forced to resign as pastor of Glendale's St. James in March.

The writer of this article must be aspiring for working for the Boston Globe or perhaps Newsday. Inclusions of unnecessary phrases such as "what he considers to be liturgical violations" and the hand wringing in "further exacerbate a shortage of priests." Allowing the Latin Mass and writing three articles about the Church's teaching on homosexuality is suppose to be a negative in this writers opinion.

he Phoenix Declaration had 169 signers, including the nine Catholics, and was put out in January 2003 by an organization called No Longer Silent, which includes as members several Catholic priests and Protestant clergy.

The bishop at the time, Thomas J. O'Brien, took no position on the matter. But when Olmsted took over, he asked the priests who signed the document to remove their names in late April 2004, four months after he arrived.

This of course was the hit-and-run Bishop who was in charge of producing the incredibly mistaken "Always Our Children: A Pastoral Message to Parents of Homosexual Children and Suggestions for Pastoral Ministers." so it is no wonder that Bishop Olmsted has had to work to counteract what was going on in the Diocese of Phoenix.

"It appears this bishop is punishing some priests for conduct that his predecessor, Bishop O'Brien, felt did not warrant any remedial action," Cunningham said. "Expressions of independent thought or progressive writing seems to be a capital offense." [Source]

Using Bishop O'Brien as a standard for the approval of conduct is a pretty laughable standard. What is it with some people's love affair of the word independent in regards to Church teaching? The National Catholic Reporter proudly announces itself as "The Independent Newsweekly." Using the word independent in this context is like an anti-imprimatur. The usage guarantees departure from Church teaching will be found within or adhered to. Independence from truth is actually slavery.

Sometimes those that call themselves pro-choice let the mask slip a little and we see behind the false words and platitudes. A case in point is this banner [via K Lopez at The Corner]

As President Aristotle said "Well, we always knew that our pro-abortion friends had a couple screws loose" and that the "screwy attitudes of the NARAL clinch the point."

Many times those of use who are called pro-life call the other side pro-abortion. More accurately they are "pro-sex without babies." Abortion and contraception support is a consequence of this view. Their view on abstinence follows the same path and instead of saying what they are really advocating they hide behind strange theories. For example their hatred of abstinence is shrouded under the champaign view of sexuality. That is if you don't pop the cork early it is going to explode. Since abstinence education has mainly been at the high school level it also betrays their view that sex among teenagers is to be encouraged and that nothing must get in the way of it. They have reversed Darwin. We have not evolved from the animals but are moving back towards them. That if we don't have sex worse things will happen to us. They attack abstinence because they say people won't be prepared when they fall and then will have "unsafe" sex. Of course to them unsafe sex is more than STDs it includes pregnancy. They deny that man is a moral creature that can control its appetites or behaviors. Yet at the same time they think that we can control our appetites and behaviors by first training us to use a condom and other anti-baby control measures. We have devolved back to animal instinct since "we are going to do it anyway." Of course their Screw Abstinence Party is restricted to those aged 21 or older which is ironic considering their stance on sex education. If sexually explicit sex ed in high schools with the agenda of encouragingly sexual activity is perfectly acceptable than why should they restrict access to their raunchy party with sex toys? If teenage sexuality activity is perfectly fine then why is there this demarcation of adults only?

When I first saw this banner I thought of doing some really snarky banner such as "Nail NARAL" or something in that vein. I quickly realized that this is the wrong approach.

Update: Updated the banner due to reader suggestions to make it less ambiguous.

Aristotle A. Esguerra of Confessions of a Recovering Choir Director has saved me the trouble by intelligently fisking an article about Fr. Jan Michael Joncas' plenum address on differences of musical style.

Update: Due to a misspelling in my title (which I will leave as is) Alicia ask "is the word 'impoverising' a cross between improvising and impoverishing? If so, brilliant!" Unfortunately I can't claim credit for the slip, but I like Alicia's interpretation as directed towards the liturgy and 'Impoverising' is a good word-merge to describe it.

For David Rider, performing in the national touring company's production of the Broadway hit "42nd Street" was the chance of a lifetime. But the 20-year-old hoofer from Hyde Park is not hanging his hopes on the kind of discovery that catapulted "42nd Street" ingenue character Peggy Sawyer to stardom.

He has a still higher calling in mind.

Last month, Rider enrolled in a seminary in Cheshire, Conn., to become a Catholic priest. He left behind a promising career as a professional tap dancer — Dance Spirit magazine recently named him one of its "20 Hot Tappers 20 and Under" — and David Rider's World of Tap, the studio he founded (with his mom's help) at the age of 16. It is a seemingly unlikely career twist, especially in an era when priestly ordinations continue to decline. After all, as Rider said, "The world I'm about to go into and the world I'm leaving are very different."

Still, he said, the decision was clear.

"I love the church, I love Catholicism," he said in an interview at his office. On his desk were a framed photograph of Gene Kelly, a small painting of Jesus and a plastic bottle of holy water. "I enjoy tap dancing."

...Growing up, he was a "lukewarm Catholic," Rider said. Masses were rare events and confessions even rarer. His parents, David and Kathy, a social worker and dietician, respectively, said they avoided doctrine.

"We're children of the '60s," Kathy Rider said. "We wanted to let them do their own thinking and draw their own conclusions."

The younger David said somehow he always sensed he would go on to become a priest. The turning point came in his junior year at Our Lady of Lourdes High School. He credits religion teacher Peter Lyons with helping him work through doubts that fogged his faith.

Then, "I was overcome by grace," he said.

Once he had fully committed to his faith, the priesthood seemed the only logical conclusion.

He kept his plans secret, enrolling at Fordham University in the Bronx to study theology. In November, he called his parents from the road to tell them he wanted to enroll in the seminary of the Legionaries of Christ as soon as he finished "42nd Street," after just one year of college. [Source]

Being that he is joining the Legionaries of Christ he will probably not be doing the theological tap dancing of dancing around theology so prevalent in the sixties and seventies and I doubt we will see the advent of liturgical tap dancing. Though the image of a priest tap dancing at the consecration for emphasis in lieu of having some chimes rung is pretty scary.

An influential cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, which has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution, is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith.

The cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, a theologian who is close to Pope Benedict XVI, staked out his position in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Thursday, writing, "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not."

In a telephone interview from a monastery in Austria, where he was on retreat, the cardinal said that his essay had not been approved by the Vatican, but that two or three weeks before Pope Benedict XVI's election in April, he spoke with the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, about the church's position on evolution. "I said I would like to have a more explicit statement about that, and he encouraged me to go on," said Cardinal Schönborn.

He said that he had been "angry" for years about writers and theologians, many Catholics, who he said had "misrepresented" the church's position as endorsing the idea of evolution as a random process.

Opponents of Darwinian evolution said they were gratified by Cardinal Schönborn's essay. But scientists and science teachers reacted with confusion, dismay and even anger. Some said they feared the cardinal's sentiments would cause religious scientists to question their faiths. [Source]

If your a religious scientist that believes we came about via a totally unguided and random twist of fate than I would suspect that he has already lost his faith. Now as I have said before, however God brought us into existence I am down with. Now there is a part of me that would like to see it all wrapped up in a simple package. For example finding a giant name plate that said "Created by God" in some wondrous before unknown material. Something that once and for all would be an undeniable proof that we are creatures designed by our creator. Though in many ways God has already done this and the universe shouts to us of design and it is only the earwax of modernity that prevents many from hearing it.

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements -- surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? "Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, `Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed'? "Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? It is changed like clay under the seal,
and it is dyed like a garment. From the wicked their light is withheld, and their uplifted arm is broken. "Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?Declare, if you know all this.

But as God rebuked Job, I just say thanks God and however you did it is fine with me!

Interesting article in the American Spectator called What Made Benedict Conservative? I goes into more of the background of what happened at Tubingen with the student protests. Though I do think the concept of Josef Ratzinger being once a progressive becoming a conservative is mistaken. More likely it was his views that did not change, but the labels around him that were shifting.

You have ordered those DVDs and video tapes off late night TV always looking for the latest thrill. After a while though you wait for something new and daring that hasn't been done before. That is you have waited until now for our great new set of DVD titles.

Jesuits Gone Wild!

We have taken our video cameras to Jesuit institutions across the United States to bring you the latest in entertainment. What you ask - Jesuit Universities? - how boring. These are not your daddy's Jesuit Universities!!!

* Pictures from here

Volume 1 takes you inside the annual drag show at Santa Clara University - you guessed it - a Jesuit institution. Now you might balk that these were officially sanctioned by the university and that we are selling these videos under false pretenses. Not only is Santa Clara University officially approve these events they are also promoted as educational.

Primarily, the Drag Show/Lip Sync is an event that serves to advertise events of Queer Awareness Week on the Santa Clara campus, which include a panel discussion, an ally workshop, and a day of silence. Because the event is widely popular and a lot of fun for everyone, it can reach a larger university audience--an audience that might not ordinarily attend a workshop or discussion on homophobia.

People come to the drag show to be entertained. One of the biggest complaints at Santa Clara University is a lack of on-campus social events--probably a leading cause of the dangerously high levels of underage and binge drinking. Our goal is that students are safely entertained, leaving with not only a smile on their face, but also with a broader understanding of gender diversity.

The university's web page says that drag shows are "A Celebration of History", "A Celebration of Diversity", and a "A Critique of Gender Binarism" So besides are videos being entertaining there are also educational!

What's more we have plenty of fun and wackiness to choose from with 35 Catholic campuses performing the "V-Monologues" and most Jesuit institutions honoring pro-abortion politicians and celebrities you just know you won't be bored. You can bet you socks none of this is orthodox. You'll just love all the Jesuit institutions with coed dorms dedicated to educating students for competence, conscience, and compassion. Two of Georgetown University women’s studies professors are also employees of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America so you just know the new Jesuit tradition is unrestrained sex without consequence which our cameras have captured.

Enjoy the Jesuit advantage that has long dropped stiff and rigid views of sexual morality. Increase your intellectual and spiritual strength and at the same time give into your libido.

So order now though there is no hurry since the odds of most bishops following and enforcing Ex Corde Ecclesiae is lower than the chance of Cardinal Mahony celebrating the Mass in Latin or the Bishops Conference doing something other than appointing another commission to study something.

From an article by Mark Shea in the National Catholic Register [Via Diary of a Suburban Priest].

But at the same time, I was aware that, precisely because the media’s portrayals of Pope Benedict were so unrealistic, there was a danger that even the people who were delighted with his election were delighted for unrealistic reasons as well.

The more I listened to Internet chatter, the more it seemed to me that many of his fans assumed he would apply the full might of the papal office to the task of rooting out all the bad Catholics and sending them packing. Depending on their theological perspective, Catholics were filled with hope or fear that he was at long last going to inaugurate the show trials, purges and excommunications.

The Church was about to pass through the Great Benedictine Cleansing Fire!

This seemed to me as wildly unrealistic as the hysterical notions that Benedict was the enemy of democracy who wanted homosexuals stoned to death, women barefoot and pregnant, and Protestants burned at the stake. As the gleeful hope for The Purge continued to rise on one side, I made a prediction on an Internet forum to the effect that, within six months, many of those cheering Benedict’s election would be complaining about his failure to be Der PanzerPapa.

I was wrong. It only took about two weeks.

Internet critics whose sense of failure, doom and despair sustains them through moments of hope and happiness soon began to sniff that, “Many of us have greatly lowered our expectations of this Pope.”

Now as I posted on the day of his election that I was jumping up and down in my living room as I first heard the word Joseph announced. Though I had no expectations of some great purge with massive condemnations, excommunication, and interdicts occurring. Despite the cries of some progressives about the coming inquisition I realized that this was quite silly. I am by no means an expert of then-Cardinal Ratzinger, but I had read many of his books and judging by his leadership as head of the CDF I saw that these nasty stereotypes of him were just plain false. Only after adequate deliberations and plenty of time and in very few circumstances were there people disciplined by the Vatican. The National Catholic Reporter previously published this really short list of of theologians disciplined in the 26 years the Cardinal Ratzinger was the the head of the CDF. It is not that now he is Pope Benedict XVI that he is starting to act more pastorally. The truth is that he has always acted pastorally by both investigating and giving adequate time and opportunity to those being investigated to respond. It would not be very difficult to compile a very large list of of just U.S. theologians. who have wondered into outright heresy.

G.K. Chesterton said "The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right." I think that Pope Benedict XVI is the rarest of people in that not only does he know what is wrong, he is also right about what needs to be done. Now I am not saying that I know all that needs to be done, I just suspect that he does. He was intimately involved in Vatican II and saw the aftermath of changes made just for change sake (which had nothing to do with the Council) and the effects that they had. I suspect that there are many things liturgically that he would like to change, yet he is not going to make the mistake of rapid change that will further disrupt the liturgy. Even positive changes made all at once can be disruptive and even damaging. Previously reading The Spirit of the Liturgy I read that he favored a return to Ad Orientum, though I would be really surprised (though happily) if he made this change any time soon. He has previously spoken of a reform of the reform and not of a rapid reform of the reform. As a papa he knows his children can only take so much change at a time and will prepare us and prudentially make those changes. The changes will be way to slow for the impatient ones (such as myself), but we must realize that we are not a Church of individuals to be satisfied but the Mystical Body of Christ that must be shepherded to as to lead the whole flock.

FORT WAYNE, IN (Roto Reuters) A resolution on same-sex unions passed Monday at the United Church of Christ's 25th annual General Synod meeting will be sure to cause rifts both locally and nationally.

The resolution advocates for policies that "do not discriminate against couples based on gender," and encourages member churches to support legislation giving equal rights to gay and lesbian couples who wish to marry. UCC member churches are independent entities and can choose whether to acknowledge same-sex unions at their respective congregations.

Despite the recent decision, members of Faith UCC have said they do not endorse same-sex unions.

This is not the first controversial decision made by the leadership of the UCC. The United Church of Christ has affirmed and re-affirmed since 1971 that access to safe and legal abortion is consistent with a woman’s right to follow the dictates of her own faith and beliefs in determining when and if she should have children, and has supported comprehensive sexuality education as one measure to prevent unwanted or unplanned pregnancies.

The final resolution passed on Monday was to drop the word Christ from the denominations names. Rev. Lee. Thomas, General Minister and President, said "We have just moved so far away from so-called traditional Christianity and were feeling just a bit uncomfortable being bound to Jesus's words and actions in the Gospel and all that. So we decided to just drop the pretence and move on."

Some of the new names proposed and voted on were "United Church of Whatever Seems Good At This Moment of Time", "United Church of Secularists", "Not So United Church of Rapidly Shrinking Congregations" , with "United Church of Progressive Pagans" winning out. The UCPP has also dropped its motto "That they may be one" in favor of "That there be one individual and personal faith per member."

A committee was also set up to come up with a common paragraph reference system for sacred texts. Up to now there has been no common system for referring to articles in the New York Times other than by date, column title, and author. Possible new systems will be studied so the member interested in NYT exegesis will have a better system to better be able to refer to important articles amongst themselves. In addition Sunday reading will include a page one articles, something from the letters of Krugman, ending with a selection from the Gospel of Dowd.[Source]

Charlie Angus and Celina Symmonds had their lives turned upside down when they were told by their parish priests that they could no longer take communion because their stands on social issues conflicted with church teachings.

Only fitting since they have turned the teachings of the Church upside down.

Angus, a New Democrat MP who represents a northern Ontario riding, ran afoul of the Roman Catholic church over his support for the federal government's controversial same-sex marriage bill.

"It's quite disturbing,'' said Angus, pointing to what he called "the rising militancy of language within the church. I went to Ottawa feeling that I would be speaking as someone rooted in a faith tradition and rooted in a justice tradition.

"Then your involvement in the sacraments becomes a political pressure point. It was unacceptable.''

Maybe one day they will realize that this was a mercy - to be spared receiving Communion unworthily. Unfortunately they will not experience mercy from many parishes who instead will affirm them in their sinful support of laws contrary to both the natural law and the Church.

Symmonds, who once managed the now closed Planned Parenthood office in Medicine Hat, Alta., had to find another place to be married about a month before her wedding in September 2002 after her priest discovered from a newspaper article that she was pro-choice on abortion.

"I was shocked,'' says Symmonds. "When you grow up Catholic you grow up awaiting the day where you can walk into that great big cathedral with your husband. It's something you dream of as a little girl.

"And it got crushed within seconds.''

An all too common idea of the Church as just a beautiful building to hold social events in with no connection to the moral order.

Angus, who represents the riding of Timmins James-Bay and lives in New Liskeard, has only attended mass a couple of times since the incident in the spring. "I haven't accepted communion,'' he said. His wife and three daughters have stayed away from mass.

"It's something I don't feel very comfortable discussing,'' he said, his voice quavering. "So much of politics is spin ... party position ... (or) having some one-liners. But when it speaks to the essence of what you feel and what you believe, it's very hard to rationalize it or to articulate it.''

Symmonds remembers well the day when the priest's assistant phoned, and she hasn't attended church since the incident. "It hurts that you're told that you're not welcome to be a part of something that was very precious in your life,'' she said, her voice trembling.

"Getting the courage to go back, it's tough because you feel ostracized as far as what you believe ... You become intimidated going into a church because you don't know, will I be welcome, will I be stared at?'' [Source]

Maybe one day more people will realize that Communion actually means communion with both the mystical body of Christ and the teachings of Christ's Church. The idea of community has been excessively stressed as the local body of believers to the detriment of its fuller Catholic meaning of believers united in truth and worship of God.

The summer before his senior season, Joe Freedy approached his personal line of scrimmage and surveyed the field. The University at Buffalo quarterback knew the options at his disposal.

Freedy peered to his right and found comfort that a primary route was starting a family with the girlfriend everyone adored. He glanced to his left and recognized he could use his communications degree for a possible career in sales.

He then swallowed hard and made one of the most momentous audibles a man could imagine. He checked off the possibility of a wife and children, checked off on the sales gig, checked off on a life virtually everyone else in the world would consider normal.

Freedy, the starting quarterback of a Division I football team and big man on campus, decided to become a priest.

"It was a huge tug on my heart," Freedy said, "but the Lord was calling me to this."

Freedy is studying at the epicenter of an extraordinary time in the Roman Catholic Church. Since graduating from UB in 2002 as one of the school's top all-time passers, he received his master's degree in philosophy from Duquesne and last August was assigned to the Pontifical North American College at the Vatican.

He twice met Pope John Paul II and was in Rome for the pontiff's death and stirring funeral.

The 26-year-old from suburban Pittsburgh also saw the white smoke billow and stood beneath the window when Pope Benedict XVI gave his first papal blessing. Freedy on Wednesday served Benedict XVI during the Solemn Mass of Sts. Peter and Paul in St. Peter's Basilica.

...The seminal moment of Joe Freedy's epiphany could be traced to a book his dad gave him during Christmas break of his junior year.

"The Lamb's Supper," by Scott Hahn, details in layman's terms the Eucharist, the sacred portion of the Catholic Mass that re-enacts the Last Supper and transforms bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.

Freedy compared "The Lamb's Supper" to a football playbook drawn up for fans.

"Before I read this book," Freedy said, "I'd go to church every Sunday for an hour, I'd be bored, listen to some bad music, finish, and as soon as I was done I would forget about God until the next week. (The book) just takes the reality of the Mass and it explains it in very simple terms, but in a powerful way."

Read the full article here.

I did not truly appreciate being an American until through the Navy I had been in multiple countries. Today reading this story of a former atheist and now a priest in the underground Catholic Church in China also makes me remember how blessed we our in this country. I don't have a 'my country right or wrong' philosophy and while I recognize some of the truly great problems with the United States I am also so glad to be a citizen. As my pastor (who is from Spain, but now an American citizen) said at Mass today -"There are no perfect countries. God Bless America and forgive us our faults."

My latest parody piece for a Electronic Group Rosary is up at Spero News.

When the British Medical Association met last week, Prof. Stuart Campbell had reason to be optimistic doctors would vote to change the upper limit for abortions due to social reasons from 24 to 20 weeks – after all, stunning 4-D ultrasound images created from a technique he pioneered, showing fetuses stretching, kicking and leaping at 12 weeks, had spawned that debate.

But 77 percent of BMA members voted to continue aborting babies at 24 weeks, a position Campbell believes goes "against British public opinion."

"I was particularly surprised because of the huge success of the [television] program Life Before Birth, which of course used my ultrasound images," Campbell tells the Glasgow Sunday Herald. "So many people told me that they felt very emotional about it. [Source]

Prof. Stuart Campbell is rather naive to think that the abortion debate is about facts or science. Fr. Pavone of Priests for Life mentioned before that when he would talk to doctors about science they would switch to philosophy and the topic of personhood.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poles already make up a quarter of Europe's Roman Catholic clergy and interest in vocation for the priesthood is on the rise after the death of compatriot Pope John Paul, church officials said on Monday.

John Paul's death three months ago sparked an unprecedented emotional outpouring in Poland, with millions drawn to the church for prayers for Karol Wojtyla, a man credited with inspiring the peaceful revolution that toppled communism.

Daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported that in some dioceses twice as many students were interested in studying for the priesthood than a year ago.

Pilgrims walk under a poster of the late Pope John II in Chestochowa, southern Poland in this June 28, 2005 file photo.

" This year's recruitment is not yet finished but we already see much higher interest," Father Andrzej Szcieszko, head of the Lodz seminary in central Poland, told Reuters.

"Surely this is linked to the death of Pope John Paul. Through his death we have been endowed with Divine Grace and we should pray for these young boys."

Gazeta said about 1,400 Poles started in priesthood seminaries last year, the second highest figure in Europe after Ukraine, a predominantly Orthodox country with a large Catholic minority. [Source]

"My decision to leave Korn was hard in early 2004 to think about, but at the end of 2004 it was quite simple, actually. I wanted to learn how to be the best dad that I could be to my beautiful little girl.

"Right before I quit Korn, I caught my daughter walking around my house one day singing songs about sex and death that came from my band. I wasn't having that anymore. When you have a 5-year-old daughter singing 'All Day I Dream About Sex', and 'Dead Bodies Everywhere' etc., it's going to have an effect on you as a parent. Also, I was sick and tired of being a slave to the ol' mighty buck at the expense of my family, my music, my happiness, my health, and my morals.

"I loved money more than everything in my life. Money was my god and it was going to kill me if I didn't get my life in the correct order it needed to be in. I played Mr. Angry for too long. I wanted to feel love again in my heart.

"I'm not an angry Christian. I'm not better than anyone. Christians are supposed to despise the principalities that hurt the people in the world, not despise the people in the world. I think some Christians and non-Christian people are very confused about that.

"I left Korn because my child was starting to imitate her dad. I left Korn because i wasn't happy anymore. I left Korn because I was supposed to leave Korn. I would still be in Korn right now if I was meant to be.

"After I left, Jesus healed me from a major alcohol and drug addiction, and most of all a broken heart.

"I feel like some people want me and my former bandmates to not get along like it's some kind of battle between good and evil. Words in magazines get all twisted around. It's lame! The stuff that was said in some recent interviews that I did wasn't said in the context that it was written. I did say a couple things a few months ago, but I've apologized for them and I've moved on.

"I love all my brothers in Korn. I was just as much of a whiny rock star as they were. The lifestyle made us that way. I heard that those guys are closer than ever now. That makes me happy and sad at the same time. I'm happy because they are happy, but I'm sad because I'm not there with them in the happiness. All I know for sure is that I love Jesus and my baby girl with all my heart. [Source]

LYON, France --A French woman defied a threat of excommunication by the Roman Catholic Church and held a ceremony proclaiming herself a priest on Saturday.
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In a small ceremony on a boat, Genevieve Beney was joined by other women from around the world who have taken similar dramatic action to draw attention to the church's policy against women priests.

"This is not a rupture with the Roman Catholic Church," Beney said in a statement read aloud before she boarded the boat. "If there is a rupture on my part, it is with a situation that I consider to be obsolete and unjust to women." [Source][Via Dei Gratia]

What is it with women's ordinations and being on a boat anyway? Is it a pun on the Sea of Peter or is a a subconscious acknowledgment of a watered down theology that is overboard? The title of the story is "French woman ordains herself a priest." Judging by the story I don't know if that is an accurate description of what they thought to have happened, but I do think someone ordaining themselves a priest is the perfect analogy of what is wrong with so many modern religious concepts. That it it is break from apostolic succession and becomes a parody as part of of radical individualism. After all when you break from the constant teaching of the Church and its authority then why even play the game of finding a faux bishop to ordain you - just ordain yourself. But why she stopped at just ordaining herself a priest I don't know. Or does she wait a day or two to ordain herself a bishop. After all she has already become her own pope. I wonder if she laid hands on herself? Instead of being sent she sends herself.

I can just imagine the inner conversation of a women priest before being called to be ordained a bishop.

"I have decided that I will ordain myself a bishop"

"I am not worthy for this honor but since I have been called by myself I will submit out of obedience with due humility to myself."

Judging by this picture I do feel sorry for what occurs from the oppression of women priests. They can't go to Gammarelli Ecclesiastical Tailoring and find matching handbags for their robes and obviously are wearing inferior products.

Anyway this picture demands a part II for the captions contest started previously and for the record I protest the Angry Twins comparing them to the Three Stooges. What did the Stooges ever do to them to elicit such an unfair comparison?

Anyway to get the contest started.

"Believe us - the blue Deacon Stole Life Preserver your wearing will prevent you from drowning."

"When do I get my own red moo-moo?"

I thinks I will get involved with a new and probably profitable career path. I think I will become a Ten Commandments Feng Shui expert. Now you might ask what the heck is that and what would be the need for one? Well the Supreme Court basically said that each government sponsored Ten Commandments exhibit demands scrutiny to determine whether it goes too far in amounting to a governmental promotion of religion. That each display should be resolved on a case by case-by-case basis. Looking over the decision how this is to be done is more of an art than a science. It depends on both location and and being contexualized with other documents. In the Kentucky case the display was revised to include nine framed documents which included the KJ version of the commandments in a display labeled "The Foundations of American Law and Government Display." and this also did not meet approval.

So how do states determine if their displays are constitutional especially since it doesn't depend on the Constitution or the First Amendment? That is where Ten Commandments Feng Shui enters in. I would look for a harmonious display that reflects the balance of nature in the displays depending on the amount of wood, fire, earth, metal and water used in their compositions. I will check for Constitutional Yin and Yang and if I find the necessary are elements present and that they have the proper flow I would then give them a certificate of blessing. The great thing about this scam - I mean job - is that no one can argue with your Ten Commandments Feng Shui interpretation using the text of the courts decision. I mean good luck figuring that one out and determining any real guidelines.

There is a Black Hat Sect school of Feng Shui and I will be starting the Black Robe school of Ten Commandments Feng Shui. The great thing about calling it Ten Commandments Feng Shui is that it will keep the ACLU off my back. As long as it sounds new agey and not Christian in any way they won't bother me. So state governments give me a call and I will come and apply the art of Ten Commandments Feng Shui and make any necessary recommendations so that they meet with the optimum flow of Constitutional qi.

Interesting article of a painting of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg as Saint Jerome by Lucas Cranach the Elder and the symbolism of the painting.

Interactive link of painting.

ETHICISTS are concerned that Australia's first religiously affiliated medical school may limit students' training in order to abide by Catholic beliefs.

In an article in the Medical Journal of Australia, bioethicist Ian Kerridge and colleagues claim the West Australian-based University of Notre Dame medical school may threaten just provision of health care.

The Sydney University academics wrote that the school's affiliation with the Catholic Church could undermine the medical education provided, resulting in limitations on patient access to health services and provision of comprehensive care.

"It is reasonable to assume that all physicians should receive appropriate education about the range of healthcare services publicly available in Australia, including termination of pregnancy, provision of contraception, assisted reproductive technologies, genetic counselling, prenatal diagnosis and end-of-life care," they wrote. [Source]

It is always the same philosophy - kill them at the beginning, kill them at the end, or prevent life from occurring. Soon the life sciences will by necessity need to be called the death sciences.

Los Angeles, Jul. 01 (CWNews.com) - A prominent American pro-life leader has called for the resignation of Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, after an incident in which young pro-life activists were threatened with arrest when they sought
to enter the Los Angeles cathedral.

The young people, participants in the American Life League's Crusade for the Defense of our Catholic Church, were planning to attend the inauguration ceremonies for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaralgosa, a Catholic who favors legal abortion. The demonstrators were gathering at the cathedral, wearing shirts that red: "You can't be Catholic and pro-abortion." But they were denied entry by cathedral ushers, and threatened with arrest when they pressed their argument to be admitted. (Eventually the Los Angeles city police intervened to defuse the confrontation, and the young demonstrators were allowed into the cathedral.) [Source] [Via Angry Twins]

So let me get this strait. If you wear a rainbow sash supporting homosexual activity you will get a nice letter from diocese saying you will receive no opposition, but if you wear a t-shirt with a message inline with Church teaching you will be barred from entry.

In an article in the Tidings by Father Richard P. McBrien.

I published an article almost 13 years ago in America magazine (8/22/92) entitled, "Conflict in the Church: Redefining the Center." I may be presumptuous in saying so, but I believe that the article is even more relevant today.

It began with a reference to a familiar Scholastic axiom that truth is found in the middle, somewhere between two extremes. Many Catholics in the middle-aged and senior generations heard that axiom frequently repeated in their seminary, college and university classes, where they were admonished to always look for truth and virtue in the center, while avoiding the extremes.

Well it doesn't mater how many times this axiom was muttered it is pretty much without value. As Dietrich Von Hildebrand use to say is that truth does not lie between two extremes it transcends them. Sometimes the truth is both extremely radical and surprising. The measure of whether something is true is not the measure of its extremity but the measure of the fact that it indeed is true. If we use the example of women's ordination we could state that at one pole it is not possible and the other pole that it is. So what would be the centrist position between yes and no? To take a firm stance on maybe? Have you ever heard of a martyr described as a great centrist or perhaps St. Paul described that way?

The center that we should seek is the center of God's will.

In a later interview with an Italian journalist in 1989, John Paul II returned to the topic of polarization, insisting that his many trips around the world were designed in part to prevent a "confrontation" between the two wings of the church.

Significantly, the pope identified the right wing with the schismatic (and subsequently excommunicated) Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and those who are "afraid of change as represented by the council." On the left wing he placed those who "already hoped for a Third Vatican Council or who are guilty of reducing everything to the particular [that is, local] church."

It is funny reading Fr. McBrien using the word schismatic as if it was something bad.

Canon Law #751 says "Schism is the withdrawal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or from communion with the members of the Church subject to him."

After all he was one of the signers of Fr. Curran's letter that dissented from Pope's Paul VI encyclical Humunae Vitae when the Pope clearly reiterated the Church's teaching that contraception is sinful. Submitting to the Holy Father only on issues you agree with is not submission. And of course he doesn't mention the case of Fr. Tissa Belasuriya who was also excommunicated (though later reconciled) for his heterodox views. In the latest This Rock magazine they have an excellent article on Fr. McBrien, if you don't already subscribe (and you really should) you will have to wait three months till it is released on the internet.

The pope offered no examples of left-wing Catholics, but if the late Archbishop Lefebvre and his followers constitute the right wing of the Church, would that not mean that Opus Dei, the Legionaries of Christ, Crisis, Communio and First Things magazines, as well as most of the bishops appointed and/or promoted by John Paul II occupy the center?

And if such individuals, groups, and publications are in the center of the Catholic Church, it would also follow that the late Cardinals Joseph Bernardin and John Dearden and such bishops as John Quinn and the late James Malone --- all former presidents of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops --- as well as the Catholic Theological Society of America, the drafters and supporters of the U.S. Catholic bishops' pastoral letters on peace and the economy, and Commonweal and America magazines are left-wing and, therefore, out of the Catholic mainstream.

Again the use of center of the Church is worthless is on one side you put schismatic dissenters and on the other end you have progressive dissenter who are virtually in schism. The only true parallel is that between the left and right wings of a bird lies its heart and its the living breathing heart of the Church that we need to be in. Though fathers assertion that by this definition that some bishops and America and Commonweal magazine our out of the Catholic mainstream is true.

Some genuine centrists are more liberal than conservative. Others are more conservative than liberal. But both centrist groups --- the center-left and the center-right --- are basically supportive of Vatican II. They understand and accept its main teachings as the council's majority understood those teachings, and they embrace the shift in understanding the nature and mission of the church which the council brought about.

Catholics of the center-left and the center-right differ only on the pace of change and the details of implementation. The center-left, for example, favors a much quicker time-line for a change in the discipline of clerical celibacy and in the church's official stance on the ordination of women.

Catholics of the center-right (which includes the shrinking band of so-called moderate bishops, many of whom were appointed by Pope Paul VI) prefer a more cautious course, stressing continuity more than change, while not opposing the two.

This real Catholic center needs to be re-claimed.

Again those who are pushing for women's ordination are not just left of center they are advocates of heresy. What needs to be reclaimed is adherence to Catholic truth and not positions based on political leanings. It is our belief on the truth of the Church that should influence our political decisions and not the other way around.

Spain's social revolution has continued with the Spanish Parliament granting couples the right to no-fault, fast-track divorces.

In contrast to the fierce reaction that greeted legislation allowing gay marriage, and despite muted opposition from the Catholic church, the changes to Spain's divorce laws have caused barely a ripple.

The new law - which the Government says is needed to bring Spanish laws "up to date with modern society" - removes the requirement that couples be separated for a year before a divorce can be granted. When the law comes into effect, only three months of separation will be required.

Spain's lower house on Thursday legalised gay marriage and granted full adoption rights to gay couples. [Source]

This story did get less attention than legalizing same-sex marriage even though it is also very scandalous. Though it is consistent with the approval of same-sex marriage. Why not do a full scale barrage against the God-given institution of marriage? Spain didn't go in for half measures and while this is sad legislation it fits in with whole scheme.

I wonder what the Spanish Muslims reaction to this is? It is ironic that after an act of terrorism that lead to an act of appeasement in the voter booth- results in laws that can only make many Muslims see the West as becoming even more decadent.