Two words that don't belong together

A reader sent me information about St. George Parish in  Baton Rouge and Dexter.  Now you might ask who is Dexter?

You guessed it.  Dexter is the lovable Puppet Dog that is used to explain the Mass and they stop the Mass for Dexter to weigh in.

The Children's puppet Masses (two words I hate putting together) are suppose to be so popular that for one weekend all Masses will include Dexter the Puppet Dog - at least I think it is a dog. Do not give what is holy to dogs, unless they are a puppet dog.  But hey it must be alright because he has a cool 12 on his shirt which is so scripturally based.  Now maybe in some wild way you can attempt to justify this for a children's Mass, but for all Masses during a weekend?  Hey let us get purple dinosaurs as altar-dinos because wow wouldn't that be fun and the children would love it.  They could sing little songs explaining what they are doing.  Besides what's the limit as long as children are learning something?  Besides isn't the combination of Mass and puppet - Muppet. 

Now puppets used as a teaching tool are probably a great idea if used in for example the parish hall, but puppetry and Calvary are a non-starter.  Now I grew up in children's theater and my father was both an actor and a puppeteer and I got to help him out at times.  So I don't have puppetphobia and think in the right setting an explanation of the Mass using puppets for children could be useful, but not during Mass.  Tommorow is the feast day for Saint John Bosco who was a juggler, magician, and acrobat and used these skills in his evangelization effort with children - but does anybody seriously think that he would ever have considred doing this during Mass?  I think the is more likely have turned his dog Grigio on any puppets trying to appear at Mass.

My reader informs me that  they have it on good authority that the Bishop of Baton Rouge knows about this and has no problem with its continued use.

I am starting to wonder if Louisiana is now the headquarters of the Puppet Mass since a Fr. Sweet in Shreveport is a ventriloquist who does Mass with his puppet Charlie.  I assume In Persona Puppet.

Update via a commenter: You say "the Bishop of Baton Rouge knows about this and has no problem with its continued use". But in fact the pastor was told the day after this occurred (some weeks ago, well before advent) by the chancery that it was not okay, and that it was never to happen again...the bishop's office was NOT okay with it. Apparently this was the idea of a lay ministry coordinator who doesn't know much about liturgy at all. The pastor and associate pastor (not to mention most of the parishioners, who were quite properly aghast) were very uncomfortable with it.

Update: People who defend this are blind. First, as a parishioner at this particular parish I'd like to correct some facts. Fr. Mike, our pastor, came to us in November of 2005 so he just celebrated his second anniversary as Pastor. Also, this puppet mass never happened before Fr. Mike was pastor. Last year was the first year this ocurred and this year was the second. It was after this year's Mass that it was announced that all Masses on one weekend would be puppet masses because of the "popularity." While some of us are truly outraged to make it look like this has been going on for many years and that the Pastor is trying to weed this stuff out is false. Such things as this, liturgical dance, and other abuses continue to be a problem in our parish and it seems that everyone wants to turn a blind eye.

I am very serious

Denver, Jan 29, 2008 (CNA).- At a press conference today on the Pope’s Lenten Message, Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes offered his support for Archbishop Charles Chaput’s recent stand against a potential Colorado law. The bill would eradicate Catholic Charities’ ability to ensure its employees follow Catholic beliefs when working on state funded projects.

Last week, Chaput objected to a proposed measure before the Colorado legislature which would bar charitable agencies that receive state funding from discrimination on the basis of religion in personnel policies. Chaput argued that such a measure would compromise the Catholic identity of church-run charities, and that he would rather see those charities stop delivering services rather than comply.

“This is not idle talk,” Chaput added. “I am very serious.”

According to the National Catholic Reporter, this morning in Rome, Cardinal Cordes expressed support for Chaput’s position. In response to a reporter’s question, Cordes stated: “This bishop is doing the right thing.”

The president of the papal charity Cor Unum continued, saying, “Theologically, charitable activity and the good deeds of the faithful are always connected to the proclamation of the Word. Jesus performed his works because he was moved by mercy, but also to proclaim the gospel. Service is always tied to testimony to the Word of God, and no one must break this connection.”

“This points to a great contemporary problem. Thanks to the generosity of many donors, the charitable agencies of the church are able to do their work. But this carries a risk that the spirit of a Catholic agency can become secularized, doing only what the donor has in view.”

I hadn't heard that Archbishop Chaput had said this.  Once again it proves what a great bishop he is and in this instance is following the footsteps of Cardinal O'Connor who threatened much the same thing in response to interference.  Cardinal O'Connor won out against the city and let us pray the same for Archbishop Chaput.

Bragging about disobedience

In spite  of Bishop Frank Dewane's ban on Fr. Charles Curran speaking on
Catholic property, Curran will be hosted by VOTF of SWFL as a guest
speaker in their 6th Annual Speakers Forum. Curran’s topic will be his
recent memoir, Loyal Dissent. Curran, one of the most influential Catholic
theologians in America is a priest of the Diocese of Rochester NY. In its
review of the book Commonweal stated "For an intellectually gifted young
man like Curran, there could be no going back to a time when theologians
simply submitted to ecclesiastical censorship.  Whether one ultimately
agrees with Curran or not, his story is a reminder that when ideas lose
their intrinsic power to command assent, authority can only do so much."

The presentation will take place at St. Katherine Greek Orthodox Church,
7100 Airport-Pulling Rd. N., Naples, FL, at 7:00 PM.  An open Q & A
session and a book signing will follow his lecture.

VOTF of SWFL's next speaker will be Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend who will
speak on her latest book, Failing America's Faithful. Kennedy-Townsend
will speak on February 28, 2008, at 7:00 PM at a venue that is yet to be
announced. For more information call Peg Clark @ 239- 417- 3077.

 Last spring, Dr. Anthony Padovano was the first Speakers Forum guest to
be banned in the history VOTF of SWFL's then 5 year history.  The Diocese
of Venice's new bishop now vets every speaker invited to speak on Catholic
property in the diocese.

All are welcome to listen and learn from our renowned Catholic speakers. A
free will donation will be collected.

  Peg Clark, President of VOTF of SWFL

Wow bravo to Bishop Frank Dewane for vetting speakers in his diocese! The choice of a Greek Orthodox Church as the venue is appropriate since VOTF is virtually in schism.  One of the most ironically named organizations continues to display what a joke they are by bragging about defying their bishop and by inviting Fr. Curran who questions the Church's teaching premarital sex, masturbation, contraception, abortion, homosexual acts, divorce, euthanasia and a politician like Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend who supports abortion, same-sex marriage, and embryonic stem-cell research.

Yes promoting acts that are intrinsically evil is really the act of the faithful.

"The priesthood is better than that"

Rich Leonardi posts on a Cincinnati television station which reports on the diocese there uptick in vocations.  He has links to a video and a transcript which are well done and quite positive.  The Archdiocese has really put a lot of emphasis on their vocations program and Fr. Kyle Schnippel is an excellent vocations director.

Fr. Kyle Schnippel also has a blog which I follow called Called by Name.

Not Rudy Tuesday

All I can say is whoever sold Mayor Giuliani on the Florida strategy or whether it was his own idea - good job! Anything that keeps a culture of death Republican from being the nominee is for me a good strategy.  I do wish though that the reason he failed was that he was not personally opposed to abortion and was not any kind of social conservative.  Though I think that was part of it, but most of the Republican establishment was not all that worried about breaking a pro-life precedence just as long as he promised to do what they want on national security and gave assurances about his judicial picks. The only talk show I have listened to that was actually worried about Rudy splitting the party and ending the Republican party as the party of life was Laura Ingraham.

As a critique of a campaign strategy and it easy to say now - what a maroon!  It seems to me that if you are going to run for President you need to run as president in all fifty states because even if you don't win the primaries at least you will have already set up networks and contacts when it comes to the general election.  Skipping states and concentrating on ones later on in the primary cycle also keeps you from getting all of the free press coverage and keeps your name out of the news. I am just glad in Rudy's case that he decided to put all of his eggs in one basket.

As a side issue it is also nice that we won't have a cafeteria Catholic being a nominee this time around.  We won't have the Communion wars as we did with Sen. Kerry since reportedly the Mayor does not go to Communion because of his current "marriage."

Who left the sign on?

 When meeting the pope it is customary to offer him a gift, and Benedict XVI has amassed many tokens of esteem. Former British prime minister Tony Blair gave him a painting of the Catholic convert Cardinal Newman and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah presented him with a jeweled scimitar.

When the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, met the pontiff he gave him the Holy Grail, a beer brewed in Masham, North Yorkshire.

It was the highlight of the archbishop's first trip to Rome to celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and to cement cordial relations between the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches.

Following their 15-minute chat in the Basilica di San Paolo Fuori le Mura, believed to be the burial place of St Paul, Sentamu said: "I told the brewery I was meeting the pope and they made a special brew for him. I heard he'd been given some Black Sheep ale and liked it. So I brought that and the Holy Grail."

The gifts pleased the pope, who is Bavarian by birth and prefers beer to wine and water. That the tipple was a one-off would have also suited a pontiff with designer flourishes. During a two-hour service, which was peppered with incense, chanting, coughing and ringtones, his ruby-red Prada loafers peeped out from under his ivory robes.

"I was very impressed by the pope," Sentamu said. "He cares about human beings. He is such a deep theologian, it drives him to compassion. He is not a starchy person, but people look at his writings, they are very precise, and think he is like that ... but he is very warm."

This is the beer given which includes the motto "Tempered over burning witches."  Which prompts the question "What is the speed of the unladen sparrow and are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will. "

Wow - let's get on the bandwagon

Sen. Kennedy's endorsement of Obama cracks me up

"And since that time, I have marveled at his grit and his grace as he traveled this country and inspired record turnouts of people of all ages, of all races, of all genders, of all parties, of all faiths to get fired up and ready to go,"

Wow, all genders!  Imagine a candidate that can bring both men and women to vote for him.  And I thought it couldn't be done. Wow and all faiths also.  I though I saw signs that said "Zoroastrians for Obama" and "Pagans for Obama."  People of all ages is also quite amazing I didn't know that the world's oldest person supported Obama or that babies in the crib were rooting for him also, at least the ones born alive and not allowed to be killed due to Obama's support of infanticide.

Pope Kirk I

American Papist has exclusive photographs of the pulpit, lectern, and chair that were chosen to be used for Pope Benedict's U.S. visit in DC.  Below is the winning design.

Makes me wonder how bad the losing designs were?  I could try to describe what my first impression was of the Pope's chair and the image that came to mind, but I think it is better to show you what came to mind.

The chair immediately reminds me of what I think would be the perfect chair if Captain James T. Kirk was elected Pope.  Surely he would feel right at home in such a chair.  I have commented on Kirk chairs used as celebrants chairs in the past, though this is the first Papal Kirk chair I have noticed.  Maybe IKEA is now designing liturgical furniture?

Now the design is not exactly ugly, but beauty does not come to my mind when I look at this rather cold and stark set.  The designs on the pulpit and lectern are kind of interesting, but incongruent and they bring nothing to mind of the Church.  They could easily be used in any non-liturgical setting without looking out of place in for example an auditorium.

It does make me wonder about Captain Kirk as Pope on the U.S.S. Vatican.  Currently though we do have theologians who have gone where no theologians have gone before  In fact I think many bishops have a Prime Directive towards theologians in their diocese - that is a non-interference policy - I guess in hope that one day they might develop intelligent life.

I would like to see a Star Trek movie developed along Kirk as Pope lines - surely if the Enterprise could visit one planet with Cowboys and another with Gangsters, and so surely there is a parallel world that is explicitly Catholic. 

How about "The Wrath of Küng"?

Pope Kirk: Küng is denying my Papal authority again!  We must return to Switzerland.  Scotty give me warp factor nine and your opinion on Küng's latest treatise.

Cardinal Scotty: Captain, I am engineer not a theologian!

Liturgical Eye Candy

After seeing the pictures in the post below here are some pictures to cleanse your palate.   Te Deum laudamus! has some wonderful pictures of a wedding that took place using the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite at the Assumption Grotto in Detroit, Michigan.

This should make you feell better about the celebration of the Mass at your local parish

I am thinking of starting up a campaign to donate money to the the Cathedral of Auch in the Dioc�se of Gers.  Surely their funds must have run low and couldn't buy proper candle holders.  At least that is the most charitable explanation I could think of.

Though my charitable imagination fails at the other pictures in the series at Catholic Church Conservation which are not for the liturgical faint of heart.

With the last picture in the series I am really hoping that the ball shown is the one from the TV series The Prisoner and in this case is being used to pacify liturgical performers.

Saint Thomas Aquinas - Summa Wrestler

Another book meme

Mulier Fortis tagged me with yet another book meme.

1) Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?
Henry Nouwen - Once going to a retreat house I went to their book store and found books like Hitler's Pope,  Gary Wills stuff, a bunch of dissident garbage plus a lot of books by Henry Nouwen.  Sure it is irrational guilt by associations but there are lots of books to choose from.

2) If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?
Well the event would obviously be a world cruise since you then would get to spend the most time with them.   Just off the top of my head the characters would be Gandalf (great to have around for smoke rings),  the noble dark-elf ranger Drizzt Do'Urden,  and Chesterton's Innocent Smith.

3) (Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for a while, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?
Well I have no idea what the most boring novel on the planet.  Such a novel wouldn't get much publicity if it was truly boring.  Even badly written and poorly researched novels like The Da Vinci Code don't commit the sin of being boring.  Now if you have a category of books that would be quite purgatorial than I think it could be any of Fr. Andrew Greeley's bodice ripper novels.

4) Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?
I never pretend to read something.

5) You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (If you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead and personalise the VIP).
Orthodoxy, if he doesn't like it I probably would not have wanted to work for him anyway.

6) A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?
Too obvious - Latin.  Then I could start a new blog with one of those cool Latin names.

7) A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?
Well I don't know exactly why such a fairy would be labeled mischievous?  If a book isn't worth reading yearly it probably is not a good book. There are already several books that I read yearly.  Orthodoxy, Everlasting Man, Theology and Sanity, The Hobbit and the LOTR series. Than there are other books that I seem to have on two or three year cycles.

8) I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?
One thing I love about St. Blogs is that book recommendations from various bloggers has opened me up to multiple books that I would probably never have read.  For some dumb reason I had the idea that Dean Koontz was a second-rate Stephen King till I heard such good things about the Brother Odd series and his other books; boy was I wrong.  From fiction to theology I have been introduced to a bunch of great books.

9) That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leather bound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.
Well I would like to have a room with a dedicated library with walls of shelves with leather bound books instead of having satellite libraries all over the house.  Though a dream library would also have one of those big Print-On-Demand machines so I could dial up any book I wanted.  I would really like the library to have a secret passage and when you grab the right book opens up to another library!

Hospitality

PHOENIX -- Football fans struggling to find a place to stay for the Super Bowl may not be entirely out of luck: there are still beds available at the local monastery.

The Benedictine nuns of Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery in Phoenix are renting out rooms during Super Bowl week for $250 a night, plus $50 extra for each additional person. That's not an unreasonable fee, considering a nearby Super 8 Motel is charging $500 a night.

"It's a different twist for us in the sense that we've never opened the monastery for an event like the Super Bowl," said Sister Linda of the Benedictine Sisters of Phoenix. "It's just a different clientele than we're accustomed to."

The nuns said they plan to use the money to pay for some property they purchased adjacent to the monastery.

Though the sisters won't impose a curfew, lodgers at the monastery will have to abide by a few rules: no smoking, no rowdy behavior and most importantly, no alcohol.

Super Bowl fans will have to have their crazy fun elsewhere, but at least confession is conveniently located.

"I would think that God's got to be excited about the Super Bowl as well," Sister Linda said. "He wants people to enjoy life."

This makes sense since the rule of St. Benedict Chapter 53 says:

Let all Super Bowl fans who arrive be received as Christ, because He will say: "I was a stranger and you took Me in" (Mt 25:35). And let due honor be shown to all, especially to those fans of the opposing team to the one you like.

Let the kitchen of the Abbot and the guests be apart, that the brethren may not be disturbed by the guests who arrive at uncertain times because of Super Bowl parties and who are never wanting in the monastery. Let two brothers who are able to fulfill this office well go into the kitchen for a year to be able to provide the guests with appropriate snacks such as Buffalo Wings and a tray of cold cuts and cheeses.

Pro-choice Dolphins

New evidence has been compiled by marine scientists that prove the normally placid dolphin is capable of brutal attacks both on innocent fellow marine mammals and, more disturbingly, on its own kind.
     
Film taken of gangs of dolphins repeatedly ramming baby porpoises, tossing them in the air and pursuing them to the death has solved a long-term mystery of what causes the death of so many of these harmless mammals - but has left animal experts baffled as to the motive.

Another mystery is that the animal 'murders' have only been reported in two parts of the world - along Scotland's East Coast and in America off the beaches of Virginia, where even more alarmingly, the victims were scores of the dolphins' own young. 

Surely it is because Planned Parenthood has opened up new chapters for Dolphins off of Virginia and Scotland.   Never mind the fact that the U.S. Military were originally blamed for this.

Dolphins need a spiritual awakening and I would recommend my book The Porpoise Driven Life.

Here and there

Fr. Powell writes:

My senior/grad theology seminar here at the Univ of Dallas is called “Postmetaphysical
theologies.”  The class has a blogsite called “suppl(e)mental.”

A major part of the students’ grades hangs on “doing theology” in public.  My goal here is to
acquaint these budding Catholic theologians with the weirdnesses of reading, writing, and writing
about Christian theology for an audience outside the academy.

The theologies we will be covering in the seminar are decidedly non-Catholic, sometimes downright
(though never explicitly) anti-Catholic, and represent some of the best contemporary theology out
there.  My goal here is to introduce my very, very orthodox theologians-to-be to the veritable
circus of theological methods, vocabularies, personalities, and schools that push and pull the
faith of the Church in both creative and destructive directions.

I see myself as something of a “Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

The site is here.

Majorie Cambell posts that 

There's a new kid in town . . . opening in San Francisco on March 7, 2008:  the Cinema Vita Film Festival.   "The Cinema Vita Film Festival has been established to encourage young, emerging filmmakers and to showcase movies about contemporary issues concerning the meaning and value of life. Coordinated by the San Francisco Archdiocesan Office of Public Policy, the Oakland Diocesan Respect Life Ministry, Marriage for Life, and Ignatius Press, the festival is based on the recognition that art, especially the medium of film, shapes the popular imagination and has a tremendous influence on culture.

You can find details here.

In other news there will be a Catholic Writers' Conference Online from May 2-9 this year.  For those interested in this online conference you can find details here.

Censorship for you

Dawn Eden reports on Planned Parenthood Golden Gate chapter is currently attempting to censor the USCCB's pro-life ads.  Jill Stanek has more on this and truth checks Planned Parenthoods "truth check" of the USCCB's ads.  Their email letter to subscribers starts by saying:

Many supporters like you have informed us that the antis are back at it again.

Antis is some strange shortcut slang, but it sounds like something they would call us.  They will never see that us as pro-life, but anti-abortion so antis is the natural result.  So since they are against us pro-life supporters I guest that makes them anti-antis.

Page meme

Clayton tagged me with the Book Meme Rules.

1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people

Carthusians and a famous Hall of St. Mary which was filled with tapestries emblazoned with the Virgin's heavenly splendour.  At the time of More's visit the city was seized by a particularly severe fit of Mariolotry , with a Franciscan monk preaching the good news that whoever recited "psalterium beatae virginis" (by which he meant the rosary) each day could never be damned.

It is pretty interesting that out of the whole book which I really liked that this meme zeroed in on one series of sentences that I didn't quite agree with.  This would be considered Mariolotry  if someone strictly believed that this devotional practice on its own outside of Christ would lead someone to be saved.  This should be seen as a bit a hyperbole in that everyone who is faithful to praying the Rosary as a devotional practice likely will be saved when there is a conformity of their prayer life to their actions. 

Well at least that is a bit more interesting than what was in the second closest book to me "Cocoa programming for Mac OS X."

If anybody want to joint in to this meme in the comment box, fire away.

Conflict of interest

Jill Stanek reports on the Guttmacher Institute's most recent report indicating that by 2005 abortion had dropped 25% from its all time high of 1.6 million in 1990 to 1.2 million in 2005.  Guttmacher is Planned Parenthoods research arm and I am highly skeptical of anything that comes out of them.  I was a little surprised to see so many Catholic bloggers use the reported decline without the hefty barrels of salt that should be seen when coming out of them.  It is in Planned Parenthood's best interest for there to be a reported decline in abortion.  For one it helps to try to reduce it as a hot topic and to make it a seem that the number of abortions will decline by itself.  Another point is that they can claim that there blanketing of contraception is working.  In an election year they certainly want to make abortion less contentious among voters so that pro-abortion politicians can get elected and to secure Planned Parenthoods source of income as the largest abortion provider.

I surely want a decline in the number of abortions at a substantial rate to be true but it looks like in the case that Jill Stanek reports on that the statistics are quite questionable and while there has been some decrease it is not as much as they reported.  Jill had also made an astute observation about the previously reported baby bump and the decline of some levels of abortion.  Guttmacher claims that it is contraceptives and the lack of access to abortion clinics that is the cause of this reduction.  No surprise that they don't see there is more of a move to embrace life than to kill it.

What really drives me crazy about mainstream reporting on the Guttmacher Institute is that they almost never mention there connection to Planned Parenthood.  If an institute funded by a tobacco company released research that cigarettes were killing less people the media would laugh at such stories because of the massive conflict of interest.  But they don't see this conflict of interest because of their own conflict of interest.

4Give Count Redux

Brad Sutton a Point Church Pastor saw one of my previous parodies over at SperoNews and referred to in in a sermon and even created a new graphic for it that was much better than my original graphic.

You are a committed Christian and you really want to do what Jesus tells you to do, but sometimes scriptural passages are difficult to interpret.

For example Matthew 18:21-22 says:

    "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. "

Peter's measure definitely seems off and if you take the Bible literally it is pretty difficult to determine when you reach the limit of 70x7 (490). Just how do you know if you have accidentally forgiven somebody 491 times or more? This can be embarrassing in difficult relationship and what if you mistakenly undercount and stop offering forgiveness at a number below 490?

That was a messy and difficult problem. That was until we at Roncoe products made the 4GiveCount counter available at your local Christian bookstore.

With the 4GiveCount counter you will always know where you are at when it comes to forgiveness. No more messy mistakes and uncertainty when it comes to mercy.

Simply enter the names of those people you come into contact with into your computer or PDA's address book and download it via a USB cable into the 4GiveCount counter and your ready to start. Every time somebody does something and you forgive them all you have to do is select their name in the Forgive Person display and then click the forgiveness button located on the upper left side of our special counter. This will increment the forgiveness counter by one for the currently selected person.

Our counter can be set to one of three forgiveness modes.

    * Peter - If you are like St. Peter and believe that seven is a generous limit for forgiveness then select the Peter mode.
    * Literal - To follow just what Jesus said in the Bible select the literal 70x7 mode.
    * Jesus - Some biblical interpreters hold that Jesus' statement was meant to be symbolic by giving us a relatively high number. If you follow this interrelation select the Jesus Infinity mode. *

When you increment the forgiveness counter and it detects that you have forgiven them past the upper limit as determined by the selected forgiveness mode- the Mercy Overload lamp will start to flash to warn you that you need not offer forgiveness. That's all there is to it and you will always be sure you have done your part.

But wait there is more!!! If you order your own 4GiveCount counter by midnight tonight we will throw in a blessing counter. You are always being told to count your blessings and it is just so easy in the rush of everyday life to loose track. With our reliable and durable blessing counter you will always know just how blessed you are!
 

* If you select the Jesus Infinity mode and you notice that no matter how many times you increment a persons forgiveness index that the Mercy Overload lamp never comes on - don't worry this is normal operation. This accurately simulates Jesus in that no matter how high your current forgiveness index is, his Mercy Overload lamp also never lights.

You stole my heart

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - The heart of a revered 19th century Argentine friar and patriot was stolen from an urn in the Franciscan monastery where it was kept for years as a religious relic, a church official said.

Whoever scooped up friar Mamerto Esquiu's heart on Tuesday left the urn it was stored in behind, said Jorge Martinez, head of the San Francisco monastery in the northwestern province of Catamarca.

"The theft was carried out because of the heart -- nothing else was stolen," he told local reporters. "It's very sad."

Witnesses reported seeing a bearded man run from the monastery around the time the heart went missing, but no one had been arrested, the Catamarca daily El Ancasti said.

Tuesday's theft marks the second time since 1990 that the friar's heart was mysteriously spirited away, the newspaper said.

Born in Catamarca in 1826, Esquiu entered the monastery at a young age and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1848. He gave stirring speeches supporting Argentine unity and its 1853 constitution, becoming a famed religious leader and patriot.

Esquiu died in 1883. When his body was exhumed for an autopsy shortly thereafter, church authorities said his heart showed no signs of decomposition. It was removed and given to the monastery where he had begun his religious studies.

Esquiu's body is entombed at a cathedral in the neighboring province of Cordoba.

Vatican authorities in recent years began to consider Esquiu for possible beatification, a step toward sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

"Denying the possibility of conversion is to deny the possibility of grace"

Here is a wonderful guest opinion on the Washington Post/Newsweek site by Dr. William Blazek, a Jesuit scholastic and physician.

...A further note on killing the other person: As a practicing physician licensed to care for pregnant women, I believe that abortions kill a living human being in the earliest stages of development. The moral question at hand is not if we are killing; it is whether the victims have any claims as persons or not. While the U.S. legal balance is at present skewed towards the denial of rights for the unborn, Catholics and many Evangelical Christians argue that both the mother and the unborn have rights. On a spiritual level, a woman seeking an abortion should recognize that exercising her “choice” will kill a vulnerable and defenseless human being. There is no doubt about this. There is also no doubt that an action can be legal and at the same time be wrong.

Final point, we kill the Church when, in ignorance, we hold it up to ridicule. Last Spring, I asked several medical students in a seminar whether they rejected Catholic teachings regarding reproduction and artificial contraception. Several raised their hands. I prompted them to articulate the position and to give their critique of it. Conversation languished for some while. None in that group of graduating physicians had an answer, yet these well-educated role models were willing to publicly disagree with an argument they could not explain. At a recent Christmas party, a gentlemen identifying himself as a Catholic biologist was railing for research that would result in the death of frozen human embryos. He justified the exploitation, “because they are just sitting there.” I advised him that the Church’s reverence for the protected status of a human person is not based on level of activity but on an intrinsic dignity. He agreed to consider that.

Hat tip Karen Hall.

Don't send in the clowns

I don't know whether to call this liturgical Jekyll and Hyde syndrome, a liturgically accommodating bishop,  or something else entirely.  Do a compare and contrast for these two stories.

Last Sunday, Diocese of Venice Bishop Frank Dewane celebrated Mass at a Sarasota church accompanied by priests wearing colorful Ferris wheels, clowns, giraffes, unicycles, lions and merry-go-rounds on their vestments.

This was the annual circus Mass, Dewane said, honoring the nearly 100-year history of the Ringling family on Florida’s west coast and the importance of itinerant people like circus performers to the Catholic universal church.

and

Bishop Dewayne of Venice, Florida, requires daily mass in the Extraordinary Form at Ave Maria University:

“Due to the demand for the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, both from Catholics residents in Ave Maria Town as well as from students, faculty, and staff at Ave Maria University, and in accordance with ‘Summorum Pontificum’, it is fitting that a Sunday Mass be celebrated on campus in the Extraordinary Form. In keeping with the same manifest desire, it would seem opportune that the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite be celebrated on a daily basis at the University, and at a convenient time. Further, it is noted that, in accordance with ‘Summorum Pontificum’, unscheduled Masses can also be celebrated by priests on campus, in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.”

Well I guess priests wearing vestments like that would be an extraordinary form of the Mass.  I have never really understood these circus or clown themed Masses anyway.  For example for the annual Red Mass they don't wear vestments with law books, blind lady justices, bar exams,  or courtrooms.   I am pretty sure Masses celebrated on Navy bases or at sea don't have priest's wearing vestments with various classes of ships, missiles, carrier aircraft, and various insignia of rank.  So exactly why is it that a parish closely associated with care of Catholic working with Ringling Brothers Circus get this kind of treatment?

I believe the Church involved is St. Martha Catholic Church staffed by the Pallottine Fathers (shouldn't that be Pantomine Fathers) which calls itself the  U.S.A. Circus Church. They have a "full-sized, restored and gaily painted wagon wheels mounted on the wall behind the altar."  I do wonder if Catholics involved with the circus like having a liturgy like this?  It would seem to me that if you worked at the circus all day the last thing you would want to see is vestments with clowns and unicycles.  This seems to me something that would be seen as more fun by the priests involved than the community they are pastoring.  It does make me wonder if in May they have a Clowning of Mary.

The picture above is from another Florida parish Holy Name of Jesus Parish in Indialantic in the Diocese of Orlando.

Welcome to the Monkey House

PWTN's new schedule

Progressive Word Television Network (PWTN)  which has brought you such hits as Earth Mother Joan Live and Journey from Rome now has a brand new line up of great shows.

Because of the writers strike we have decided to devote our new schedule to reality shows.  We need writers for our regular shows since we write our theology as we go.

Regardless we are sure you will love our new top of the line show Liturgical Dancing with the Stars!

The new show pairs a number of celebrities with groups of professional liturgical dancers, who each week compete by performing the latest in liturgical dances with and without banners and other props, which are then given scores by our special panel of judges. Viewers are given a certain amount of time to place votes on their favorite liturgical dancers, either by telephone or Internet. The liturgical dancing group with the lowest combined score (judges plus viewers) is eliminated and does not go on to the next week. This process continues until there are only two or three liturgical dancing groups left, at which point one group is declared the champion.

We also have the greatest group of judges to judge liturgical dancers ever.  Each week you will delight in the acerbic wit of Sister Joan D. Chittister, OSB, the Most Revd Dr Thomas Gumbleton, and the Most Reverend Donald W. Trautman, S.T.D., S.S.L.  Bishop Trautman is a real down to earth guy that will never use any big words to confuse you and when it comes to judging liturgical dancers he will never quench the spirit.

We don't want to spill the beans too much on what stars we will have this season but the following photo will give you some idea of the A-List talent we have.

Interpreting Scripture through movement can be done by anyone who can pull on some leotards and wave their arms and body around during Mass, but you will love to see the professionals along with your favorite stars show you how it can be done.  Liturgical Dancing with the Stars will kick off with a live show on Feb 28th filmed at the  Los Angeles
Religious Education Congress which has been a great showcase for liturgical dance in the past.

Wait it gets even better.  Besides your favorite stars from the state and the screen we also will have as guests some of your favorite liturgical dancers from within the Church.

Such as the famous pirouetting Jesuit Father Saju George S.J. 

And who can forget Br. Angel Mendez, OP of the Southern Dominican Province Canadian Dominican-can dancer who will be appearing.

So make sure to set your TIVO or watch live the next best thing on PWTN with audience participation.  Along with Liturgical Dancing with the Stars we have some other great reality shows that demonstrate the latest in prophetic scheduling.

You will just love our new audience participation show called "Sensus Fidelium (Sorry about the Latin)". Each week a prophetic panel appears to discuss which direction the church should take on a hot button issue.  After the panel makes their brave arguments for change on issues the audience can then vote on it via their phone or SMS text messaging.  Each weeks results  "Sensus Fidelium (Sorry about the Latin)" will be sent to the Papal Nuncio and the Vatican.

Or how about "Survivor: Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska" In this show progressive Catholics are isolated in Bishop Bruskewitz's diocese and must go without internet connectivity and their subscription to National Catholic Reporter and other of their favorite magazines and newspapers.  Each week tune in to see whether contestants can survive Masses celebrated totally in accordance to the GIRM and with exactly zero creative liturgical changes.  In one grueling episode the contestants visit a seminary busting to the seams with seminarians who share the same knee-jerk "obedience" to the church as their Bishop does.  A seminary full of young-fogeys is a difficult prospect to face.  If you are a progressive Catholics who thinks they have what it takes for "Survivor: Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska" then please attend our tryouts.  But it certainly is not for the faint of heart.

After such a grueling show you will be able to sit back and relax to American Catholic Idol where each week amateur contestants belt our classic songs such as "Here I Am Lord", "Ashes", "Shine, Jesus, Shine"  and multiple other songs you have come to know and  love at your local Catholic Church. A panel of songwriters from OCP and GIA will judge these performers as to capability and to how well they perform with acoustic guitars, tambourines, and any other hand-held percussion instruments.  You will laugh as less than talented singers try their hand at a Marty Haugen song or thrill when a singer nails "On Eagle's Wing."  Join is for the wild ride of emotionalism in all of your favorite modern Catholic hymns.

There is lots to love this year at Progressive Word Television Network (PWTN) so come an join us!

Kill humans and ration heating

In a new book of interviews with celebrities called "Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth?" there is one by Phillip Pullman that includes:

..."This is a crisis as big as war and you couldn't trade your ration book in the wartime. You were allowed three ounces of butter a week, or whatever, and that was it. And this is what it should be like with carbon. None of this carbon trading. We should have a fixed limit and if you use it all up in October, then tough, you shiver for the rest of the year."

..."If the polar bears leapt from the pages of my fiction into reality and saw what was happening," reckons Pullman, "they'd eat us. Eat as many of us as quickly as they possibly could. And good luck to them."

Well it looks like Mr. Pulman has found religion - global climate change.

Reform

Karen Hall at Some Have Hats has started a cleverly titled new blog covering Jesuits called Some Wear Clerics.  As fans of Karen know she often posts on Jesuit subjects and has many friends and acquaintances within the Society of Jesus. Her co-blogger Joe Garcia   The purpose of the new blog is in part.

This blog, or at least my posts thereto, will require something of the reader if he is to remain sane: two-fold courage. Courage to admit there are things deeply wrong with the current Society of Jesus and many of its members, and courage to believe these problems, with God's grace, will one day find relief. ...

The election of the new Jesuit Father General seems like business as usual, but as I commented over at Karen's blog I doubt if the reform of the Jesuits was going to be a top-down affair anyway.  More than likely it  could be bottom-up with the the infusion of younger Jesuits who are much more inclined to be faithful to the Magisterium of the Church who will in part help to reform it.

I do wonder if historically if there have ever been a major reform of a large order that had become worldly without a split.  Off hand I can think of the Discalced Carmelites and the Capuchins of examples of splits from the parent order that resulted when the parent order was losing their charism.  Historically often these splits helped to also reform the parent order as a result.  There is often a great animosity towards those working to reform an order as in the case of St. John of the Cross that ended up getting locked up for almost a year until he escaped.  Fr. Groeschel who was once a Capuchin labored for years for reform within his order before making what he calls a very difficult decision to leave and co-found the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.

So it will be interesting to see if reform does occur what model it follows and I do hope that it can be one without a split.  As easy as Jesuit bashing is I would love to see the order as a whole make the contribution to the Church they once did instead of keeping the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith busy.

March for Life coverage

This year their is an interesting juxtaposition of MLK's birthday and tomorrows walk for life which is the great civil rights movement of today.  Though as bad as segregation was the intentional murder of innocents is so much worse.

Margaret Cabaniss at Inside Catholic was shocked to see an actual sympathetic column from the Washington Post on people involved in the March for Life.  Here is a great quote from it.

Valentine, who is majoring in human life studies at a Catholic college in Ohio, said that every time he and his friends persuade a young woman not to have an abortion, they throw her a baby shower to make sure she and the newborn start out with the necessities.

He noted that the antiabortion movement is becoming predominantly youthful while the abortion rights movement is aging. "This conference shows that the youth are not the future of the pro-life movement," he said. "We are the movement." 

Dawn Eden has a wonderful story an a Supreme Irony on someone involved in the March for Life.

Gerald at the Cafeteria is Closed has some good pictures of the San Francisco Walk for Life here and here.

American Papist who will be at the march will be maintaining constant coverage of the even.

In other news a speech by abortionist Alberto Hodari, captured on video and posted on YouTube and the Students for Life of America Web site  includes this:

"I'm not joking. I believed because it was new, we used to let the boyfriend or husbands come into the room when we were doing the abortion. It was that they heard that Caesarian section or doctors allowed husbands in the delivery room. When I came to America, nowhere. They wouldn't even let me go see my wife deliver a baby and I was a doctor. 'Now you, stay outside.' So gradually it became we were very modern we let the boyfriends come in and they all passed out. And more, one sued me because he fall, he broke his tooth, he sued me. And so what do I do now if somebody comes? The state says 'no.' The state doesn't say 'no', but I blame the state. They don't bother to check with the state. My wife says we doctors have a license to lie, and it's true. It's absolutely true. Sometimes you need to lie to a patient about things they want to do or no."

Dawn Eden reports on a Planned Parenthood's worker who in a blog entry mentions covering up the reporting of child rape.  Planned Parenthood is very consistent in this.

Cocaine priest not a priest

A Dutch man was arrested after pretending to be a Catholic priest and hiding cocaine in his robes.

The suspect raised suspicion when he refused to have a routine body check at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport "for religious reasons".

After attempting to go through a different gate, the man was searched and Dutch police found seven lbs of cocaine taped to his body.

Police spokesman Robert van Kapel said: "We've seen a lot of things, baseballs filled with cocaine, wine bottles, plaster casts, but this is a first."

The man, who was travelling from Bolivia, has now complained his rights have been violated by the mandatory search, but Van Kapel said he will have to present his case to a judge.

What a maroon! Everybody knows that if you want to reduce your risk of being searched you dress as a Muslim cleric instead.

Habemus Papam Nigrum

Earlier today their was a dip in global internet bandwidth as thousands of Catholic bloggers clogged the web googling to find out about the new Jesuit Father General is Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, SJ.

Fr. Adolfo Nicolas was wearing clerics when elected though.  This makes me wonder if men being nominated as Father General if they wear clerics under their civilian clothes.  Kind of like Superman wearing his blue tights and cape under his suit.  This would make sense since for too many Jesuits their Jesuit identity is in fact a secret identity.   I knew it was too much to hope for an equivalent of a Fr. Fessio, Fr. Pacwa or the theological acumen of Cardinal Dulles or any number of Jesuits around the world who would be recognized as Jesuits by Saint Ignatius.

Well that is enough Jesuit bashing and with Karen I am cautiously pessimistic and the new Jesuit General needs are prayers and we certainly hope he heeds to the message that the Pope delivered to them.

As is usually the case American Papist has a good roundup.

*I stole "Habemus Papam Nigrum" from  Zadok the Roman.

I can't say that John Allen Jr. report makes me less pessimistic in his post titled New Jesuit leader a progressive shaped by Asia.  . In the article where prophetic is tossed about multiple times, in response to the Pope's letter:

While Nicolás will certainly not lead the Jesuits in any direct challenge to those points, observers say, his election is nevertheless a choice for a "forward thinking" outlook, as well as for a sensibility to the realities of Catholicism outside the West.

Does anybody really think that if St. Francis Xavier had taken to the "sensibility to the realities of Catholicism outside the West" that they would have found Japanese Catholics later on who kept to their Catholicism for two hundred years without a priest?  His missionary work had to be diminished by a fervent persecution whereas liberal Catholicism can be wiped out  by a light breeze.  It is traditional Christianity that is growing by leaps and bounds in China and not liberal Christianity more concerned with stepping on cultural toes than preaching the Gospel.  I lived in Japan for a couple of years and it seems so odd to me that in a culture that seems to adapt to and mix in so much from western culture (often in quite odd ways) is impregnable to the Gospel truth without the watering down of most cultural adaptation (not that sometimes their are not valid cultural adaptations).

Protestantism leads to ...

rejection of Papist related head gear. Now someone needs to tell Jimmy Akin that he is wearing a symbol of "our great free churches."

Why did the chicken/saint cross the road?

The spouse of the Ironic Catholic has a funny two-part post on "Why did the chicken cross" the road from the perspective of saints, theologians, etc.

Here is just a small sample to whet your appetite.

Augustine: Late have I crossed the road, so ancient and so new. Late have I crossed you.

Francis of Assisi: It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching. Therefore, I crossed the road.

Flannery O'Connor: The chicken was struck by a truck while crossing the road, but experienced a flash of grace in the instant of its death. I prefer peacocks anyway.

• Karl Rahner - If the chicken has made a fundamental option to cross the road then he will indeed cross the road
• G.K. Chesterton - A chicken decided to go to a foreign country and to invent his own heresies. What the chicken found instead is that in fact he had never left his country and had crossed the road and discovered that his heresies were orthodoxy.
• Therese de Lisieux - If the chicken decides to make himself small, God will lift him up and place him on the other side of the road.
• Sister Joan D. Chittister - The chicken crossed the road as a sign of prophetic road crossing to get away from the male dominated hierarchy
• Saint Benedict - The chicken crossed the road to get away from me even though I assured him I was not the Benedict assocated with eggs.
• Saint Jerome - The chicken crossed the road since some fool left the vulgate open and he escaped.
• Saint Ignatius - The chicken crossed the road out of obedience to the Holy Father. The chicken should always be disposed to believe that that crossing the road is good, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides. 
• Blessed Mother Teresa - The chicken crossed the road to help the poorest of the poor chickens.
• Saint John of the Cross - The chicken crossed the road because he realized he was attached to this side of the road.  The chicken that is attached to one side of the road however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. 
• Saint Anthony the Great - Obviously the chicken crossed the road to get to the desert to purge himself because he suffered from boredom, laziness, and the phantoms of hens.
• Saint Domenic - I suspect that the chicken had Albigensian sympathies since he crossed the road when he saw me coming to preach.
• Saint Anthony of Padua - I have no idea why the chicken crossed the road, but fish I have experience preaching to.
• Saint Joseph - The chicken received a dream over the night warning him to cross the road.

Update: Alive and Young has some examples from other perspectives.

Caption Contest

When Pope Benedict XVI new Papal Sombrero started to make
him fly like the Flying Nun Msgr. George Gaenswein and a
bystander help to anchor him.

Homophobia

Increasingly over the years anyone who does not agree that homosexuality is not perfectly normal are met with denouncements as a homophobe.  The homophobe tag is now thrown along quite freely at anyone who dares to accept accept homosexuality or even worse saying it is sinful.  Say anything negative about homosexuality and you are instantly branded a homophobe.  This is an annoying trend, but even worse is the trend to try to litigate if you do not accept gay orthodoxy.  The misnamed Human Rights Council in Canada has been doing just that in regards to commits against homosexuality and the same types of things are now happening in England.

I think though that we can take a page out of the homosexual activists play book and defend ourselves against charges of homophobia.  They are not going to accept natural law arguments or arguments from scripture so lets use their own arguments. 

Here is what you do.  If accused of homophobia simply say that you were born with it and that you did not choose to be a homophobe and that you find the term itself to be hateful and judgmental.  If they bring up the fact that their is no medical evidence of the genetic origin of homophobia, you say that there is just as much evidence of it than for the genetic origin of homosexuality.  If they say that twins aren't always both homophobes, you remind them the same is true in the cases of twins and homosexuality.

Now there next line of attack might be that even if you are born with a genetic preposition towards homophobia, it does not mean you should act on it.  After all there might be a genetic preposition towards alcoholism, but that does not mean the person has to become an alcoholic.  You then remind them that the same would be true if there was an actual genetic preposition towards homosexuality.

You could say that even if homophobia has no genetic origin that you identify yourself as being in opposition to homosexual acts and that this opposition is just another lifestyle choice in a pluralistic society.  Why should you give into their demand for you to change when they should just be tolerant instead.  Shouldn't young people in our public schools who oppose homosexual acts be allowed to express their view in a tolerant environment instead of being told to shut up and to hide their views in a closet? 

They might tell you that the diagnosis of homosexuality as a psychological disorder is no longer made by the American Psychiatric Association, you can tell them that there is no diagnosis of homophobia either.   

Tell them not be be a hater or a homophobepbobe.

Catholic identity in the American Public Arena

Archbishop Chaput is such a wonderful speaker and First Things posts his January 11, 2008, presentation in New Orleans, “Catholic Identity in the American Public Arena.”  I was going to post snippets from it, but it is all too good to choose from.

1. George Orwell said that one of the biggest dangers for modern democratic life is dishonest political language. Dishonest language leads to dishonest politics—which then leads to bad public policy and bad law. So we need to speak and act in a spirit of truth.

With the presidential election upon us this year this point is quite appropriate.  "Dishonest language leads to dishonest politics" is exactly right.  So often language is used to obfuscate instead of to communicate.  Whether it is "choice", "therapeutic cloning", "death with dignity", etc; words are used to direct us from the reality of what they are talking about.

2. Catholic is a word that has real meaning. We don’t control or invent that meaning as individuals. We inherit it from the gospel and the experience of the Church over the centuries. We can choose to be something else, but if we choose to call ourselves Catholic, then that word has consequences for what we believe and how we act. We can’t truthfully claim to be Catholic and then act as though we’re not.

3. Being a Catholic is a bit like being married. We have a relationship with the Church and with Jesus Christ that’s similar to being a spouse. If a man says he loves his wife, his wife will want to see the evidence in his love and fidelity. The same applies to our relationship with God. If we say we’re Catholic, we need to show that by our love for the Church and our fidelity to what she teaches and believes. Otherwise we’re just fooling ourselves, because God certainly won’t be fooled.

Amen.

4. The Church is not a political organism. She has no interest in partisanship because getting power or running governments is not what she’s about, and the more closely she identifies herself with any single party, the fewer people she can effectively reach.

5. Scripture and Catholic teaching, however, do have public consequences because they guide us in how we should act in relation to one another. Loving God requires that we also love the people He created, which means we need to treat them with justice, charity, and mercy. Being a Catholic involves solidarity with other people. The Catholic faith has implications for social justice—and that means it also has cultural, economic and political implications. The Catholic faith is never primarily about politics; but Catholic social action, including political action, is a natural byproduct of the Church’s moral message. We can’t call ourselves Catholic, and then simply stand by while immigrants get mistreated, or the poor get robbed, or unborn children get killed. The Catholic faith is always personal but never private. If our faith is real, then it will bear fruit in our public decisions and behaviors, including our political choices.

This is the same point that Pope Benedict makes in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est.

6. Each of us needs to follow our own conscience. But conscience doesn’t emerge from a vacuum. It’s not a matter or personal opinion or preference. If our conscience has the habit of telling us what we want to hear on difficult issues, then it’s probably badly formed. A healthy conscience is the voice of God’s truth in our hearts, and it should usually make us uncomfortable, because none of us is yet a saint. The way we get a healthy conscience is by submitting it and shaping it to God’s will; and the way we find God’s will is by conforming our lives to the counsel and guidance of the Church that Jesus left us. If we find ourselves disagreeing as Catholics with the teaching of the Church on a serious matter, it’s probably not the Church that’s wrong. The problem is much more likely with us.

Preaching on what conscience actually is is so important considering how "following your conscience" has become synonymous with license.

7. But how do we make good political choices when so many different issues are so important and complex? The first principle of Christian social thought is: Don’t deliberately kill the innocent, and don’t collude in allowing somebody else to do it. The right to life is the foundation of every other human right. The reason the abortion issue is so foundational is not because Catholics love little babies—although we certainly do—but because revoking the personhood of unborn children makes every other definition of personhood and human rights politically contingent.

8. So can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate? The answer is: I can’t, and I won’t. But I do know some serious Catholics—people whom I admire—who may. I think their reasoning is mistaken, but at least they sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain. And most important: They don’t keep quiet about it; they don’t give up; they keep lobbying their party and their representatives to change their pro-abortion views and protect the unborn. Catholics can vote for pro-choice candidates if they vote for them despite—not because of—their pro-choice views. And they also need a proportionate reason to justify it.

9. What is a proportionate reason when it comes to abortion? It’s the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them in the next life—which we certainly will. If we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives, then we can proceed.

10. The heart of truly faithful citizenship is this: We’re better citizens when we’re more faithful Catholics. The more authentically Catholic we are in our lives, choices, actions and convictions, the more truly we will contribute to the moral and political life of our nation.

His reference to proportionate reason he has used before, but it is still the purest definition there is.

Culture of divorce

The latest Inside Catholic has a cover story by Anthony Esolen  on the Culture of Divorce. This article contains wonderful writing on his wife's parents difficult marriage combined with a discussion of culture of divorce and the theological reality of marriage.

Sure, I can pray for you

MIAMI (AP) — With his plan for winning the GOP presidential nomination riding largely on a Florida victory at the end of the month, Rudy Giuliani asked an evangelical congregation for prayers instead of votes Sunday and quoted scripture to evoke a message of hope and perseverance.

"I'm not coming here to ask for your vote," he said. "That's up to you and it's not the right place. But I am coming here to ask you for something very special and more important: I'm asking for your prayers."

Mark Shea

Women priests become Catholics

Damian Thompson reports:

At least two Anglican women priests have become Roman Catholics because they are �fed up with being treated like dirt in their own Church,� according to Fr Michael Seed, the Franciscan friar who is ecumenical adviser to Cardinal Murphy-O�Connor.

Fr Seed � a deeply inspiring priest who has received many Anglicans into communion with Rome � reveals this extraordinary detail in an interview with the Independent, which has buried it away in a feature. He received two women himself � and has now told the Catholic Herald that other female priests have come over to Rome as a result of �persecution�.

This treatment is explained:

Christina Rees of Women and the Church says: �Every woman who is ordained as a priest in the Church of England knows in one sense there is still a question mark hanging over her orders in a way which does not hang over the order of her male colleagues.�

Anglican orders for women are just as valid as Anglican orders for men.  So there is a strange but unintentional equality within Anglican orders since for the most part their male priests are not validly ordained in the first place. There are exceptions since some Anglican bishops have confused the issue by having Orthodox bishops with valid orders participate in their ordinations, though of course this doesn't matter in the case of attempted ordination of women.

It is rather interesting that in this environment of doubt that these women would decide to come into the Catholic Church where there is no doubt on the issue except within progressive elements who act as their own magisterium.   I bet though that progressives will see these conversions of Anglican priestesses the same way Democrats seek black conservatives.

Benedict XVI is an enemy of science and reason

 ...Their charge? That Benedict XVI is an enemy of science and reason.

Specifically, the letter points to a speech given on March 15, 1990, by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in Parma, Italy, in which he addressed the notorious Galileo case. On that occasion, Ratzinger quoted Austrian philosopher Paul Feyerabend that �the church�s verdict against Gaileo was rational and just.�

The physics professors described themselves as �indignant as scientists faithful to reason, and as teachers who dedicate our lives to the advancement and diffusion of knowledge. These words offend and humiliate us. In the name of the secularity of science, we hope that this incongruous event can still be cancelled.�

In media interviews, the professors have also cited Benedict�s recent encyclical, Spe Salvi, as hostile to modern science.

...The 18-year-old speech cited by the pope�s critics, for example, offered a reflection by Ratzinger on what he saw as a change in the secular intellectual climate, re-evaluating Galileo as part of a growing awareness of the ambivalence of scientific progress -- especially under the shadow of the bomb. In that context, Benedict quoted the judgment of Feyerabend, an agnostic and skeptic, on Galileo, along with similar statements from Ernst Bloch and C.F. Von Weizsacker.

Here's what Feyerabend wrote, as quoted by Ratzinger: "�The church at the time of Galileo was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself, and also took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo�s doctrine. Its verdict against Gaileo was rational and just, and revisionism can be legitimized solely for motives of political opportunism.�

Ratzinger actually called the statement �drastic" -- upon reflection, a fairly striking term from a figure who, at the time, headed the historical successor to the Inquisition.

Ratzinger concluded the speech by saying, �It would be absurd, on the basis of these affirmations, to construct a hurried apologetics. The faith does not grow from resentment and the rejection of rationality, but from its fundamental affirmation, and from being rooted in a still greater form of reason.�

In a nutshell, therefore, Benedict is being faulted by the physics professors for quoting somebody else�s words, which his full text suggests he does not completely share. (Readers who remember Regensburg can be forgiven a sense of d�j�-vu.)

Mr. Allen nailed that one since once again the Pope is taken to task for quoting someone else with much less than full agreement.   The part in Spe Salvi that they object to is:

�Francis Bacon and those who followed in the intellectual current of modernity that he inspired were wrong to believe that man would be redeemed through science. Such an expectation asks too much of science; this kind of hope is deceptive. Science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the world unless it is steered by forces that lie outside it.�

The objection to this is hard to fathom unless they really do see science as replacing redemption.

The reason modern scientists chaff is the same reason that Galileo did and both display the same arrogance.  Galileo got in trouble for leaving the sphere of science and entering the sphere of theology with his interpretation of scripture.  He also left the sphere of science by teaching as fact what would not be proven to way over a hundred years after his death.  Many modern scientists so much of the same by entering the sphere of theology and trying to define what is ethical and what is not.  To demand the ability to experiment without moral restraint is not science, but scientism.  The truth is that it is the scientist who would define theological truths and not the Church wanting to define scientific truths.

Academic freedom

A reader sent me an interesting story bout St. Vincent College using Internet filters to block porn and gambling sites on campus.

"I realize that we are in the minority of Catholic colleges and universities, but I like where we are," he said. "I think our Catholic identity and mission compel us to give this witness to our students that our community is not going to be complicit in this spreading of pornography."

  Academic freedom has been used to justify a lot of things on Catholic campuses and I will think that you will not be surprised that an argument of academic freedom is used here in opposition of the filtering along with other arguments such as made by George Leiner, chair and associate professor of philosophy:

"I do think it has a chilling effect on the exploration young adults need to make as they are determining what positions to take on important matters in culture, whether they are academic, political, moral," he said.

Yes, access to porn sites is needed to learn what "positions" to take.  It is pornography that has a chilling effect in its moral destruction.

The president of the college applied to this line of reasoning saying.

"I think academic freedom is an extremely important issue, but it's not an absolute," he said. "When you come to a Catholic college ... you have to look at the moral content of the education."

The article mentions that Franciscan University of Steubenville also uses filters in some of their systems, but that University of Notre Dame and Boston College don't.

Update: Marcel LeJeune has a good post in response to this subject.

Facing East

There has been a lot of buzz in St. Blogs over the Pope celebrating the Solemnity of the Baptism of our Lord using the Sistine Chapel's original altar and praying the Mass Ad Orientum.  In previous years a wooden platform was built over the original altar with a smaller altar placed on it.

Zadok the Roman has found and example of highly ironic reporting on this.

In a departure from tradition, Benedict did not celebrate the Mass at a small altar set up to face the congregation. 

No doubt we are in for a rash of stories of the Pope turning his back on the people as we got as journalistic boilerplate in coverage of the Motu Proprio.   Anybody who has read then-Cardinal Ratzinger's book Spirit of the Liturgy know precisely the Pope's view of celebrating Mass Ad Orientum.  Fr. Z. says "I contend that more damage was done by turning around the orientation of Mass than perhaps any single other change." and I am inclined to agree with him. Facing the people can too easily lead to "Ad Entertainer."

Good coverage of this can be found at:

CANON 915 MILLSTONE MEMORIAL DEDICATED

Romney, WV – 8 Jan 2008)  A time capsule was placed under a bronze medallion bearing the inscription “CANON 915,” at the center of a Millstone which is part of a Memorial to the Unborn at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Romney, West Virginia. 

The time capsule was sealed with the bronze medallion on January 7th, 2008, the Feast of Saint Raymond of Pennafort, Patron of Canon Lawyers.

The capsule contains Church Documents, the Code of Canon Law, Bishop’s statements, various articles and other items connected to contemporary news regarding Canon 915.

The marker and capsule are especially meant to bring attention to the present scandal by which some of the faithful may be caused to falter in their belief in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  This ‘stumbling block’ comes at a time when surveys suggest many Catholics do not realize:   “The most August sacrament is the Most Holy Eucharist in which Christ the Lord Himself is contained, offered, and received and by which the Church continually lives and grows…” [Can.  897]

In particular, this disbelief is reinforced and deepened when Catholic politicians who publicly support the “grave sin of abortion or euthanasia” are allowed to receive Holy Communion, despite their gross disregard for Catholic teaching.  According to (then) Cardinal Ratzinger, their “formal cooperation becomes manifest - understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws…” [Memo to U.S. Bishops, 2004]

Some of the faithful in witnessing “manifest grave sinners” receiving Holy Communion are confronted with the temptation to question; 1. the gravity of the abomination of abortion, and 2. the Holiness and Presence of Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  They may even fall into to thinking; “If these politicians don’t have to listen to Church teaching and can still receive Holy Communion, why can’t I?”

...Fr. Kuchinsky noted:  “It is shameful that many of those who are entrusted with the custody of ‘the Mystery of Faith’ would permit people so obviously tied up with such a demonic project as the systematic destruction of the unborn to approach the sanctuary to receive the Bread of Life.  This scandalous situation is a grievous one and greatly offensive to the faithful who have any measure of piety for the Holy Eucharist.  Yes, we pray for the lost souls who enable the heinous crime of abortion.  But, I also pray that one day those who are uncomfortable enforcing Church law in this the most important of issues will also understand the great sorrow, scandal and confusion they have caused for so many of the faithful by their failure to act and rally the other ministers of Holy Communion to defend the Holy of Holies from sacrilege.”

Archbishop Burke last year wrote an extensive article on  The Discipline Regarding the Denial of Holy Communion to Those Obstinately Persevering in Manifest Grave Sin

I have a suggestion

I know the following story is a couple of days old, but it is quite good.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The reverence and awe of Catholics who truly believe they are receiving Jesus in the Eucharist should lead them to kneel and receive Communion on their tongues, said a bishop writing in the Vatican newspaper."

If some nonbeliever arrived and observed such an act of adoration perhaps he, too, would 'fall down and worship God, declaring, God is really in your midst,'" wrote Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan, quoting from the First Letter to the Corinthians.

... Bishop Schneider said that just as a baby opens his mouth to receive nourishment from his mother, so should Catholics open their mouths to receive nourishment from Jesus.

"Christ truly nourishes us with his body and blood in holy Communion and, in the patristic era, it was compared to maternal breastfeeding," he said.

"The awareness of the greatness of the eucharistic mystery is demonstrated in a special way by the manner in which the body of the Lord is distributed and received," the bishop wrote.

In addition to demonstrating true adoration by kneeling, he said, receiving Communion on the tongue also avoids concerns about people receiving the body of Christ with dirty hands or of losing particles of the Eucharist, concerns that make sense if people truly believe in the sacrament.

"Wouldn't it correspond better to the deepest reality and truth about the consecrated bread if even today the faithful would kneel on the ground to receive it, opening their mouths like the prophet receiving the word of God and allowing themselves to be nourished like a child?" Bishop Schneider asked.

What the Bishop says totally resonates with me. Especially considering last weeks feast of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seaton whose path to conversion to the Catholic Church was in part sparked by seeing how people were receiving Communion. I idea of conversions because of Communion reverence observed in the majority of parishes seems quite unlikely.

Let me make a couple of clarifications first. Since I have come into the Church I have always received on the tongue, but don't have any problem with people receiving in their hands if done correctly. This is a valid option, though most people probably don't realize that Communion in the hand is not the ordinary means for receiving and required an indult in the United States and other countries. Receiving on the tongue is the ordinary form for receiving Communion. Receiving Communion in the hand though obviously goes back to the first Mass and is attested to specifically by some of the early Church fathers. Saying that though I much prefer receiving on the tongue and the practice of course pretty much preventing people from taking concentrated Communion hosts away from the Church.

As for kneeling when I first came into the Church this was my practice in receiving Communion until the Bishops conference changed the GIRM though an approved adaptation.

The norm for reception of Holy Communion in the dioceses of the United States is standing. Communicants should not be denied Holy Communion because they kneel. Rather, such instances should be addressed pastorally, by providing the faithful with proper catechesis on the reasons for this norm.|

When receiving Holy Communion, the communicant bows his or her head before the sacrament as a gesture of reverence and receives the Body of the Lord from the minister. The consecrated host may be received either on the tongue or in the hand at the discretion of each communicant. When Holy Communion is received under both kinds, the sign of reverence is also made before receiving the Precious Blood.

I realize that if I wouldn't be denied Communion if I kneeled to receive, but what good is obedience if you are only obedient on what you like. I totally disagree with the USCCB limiting reception to only the norm of standing and I hope this is changed one day to allow the Communicant to choose. They had no problem with reception via the tongue or the hands, so why limit this? But if you are going to set a bow as the norm, then why not a profound bow instead of just the nod of the head?

Ideally I have a much better solution. Let's bring back altar rails for reception of Communion. The Communion line has become so much like an assembly line with people shuffling to receive like they were in a fast food line. The times I have received Communion at a Communion rail during the TLM have been some of my better experiences receiving Communion. I can first kneel and prepare myself better before receiving Communion and then after receiving I can spend some time in joy and adoration before immediately moving back to the pew. Sure I can partly prepare myself in a Communion line and then spend time in adoration and thanksgiving once I return to the pew, but the find it not the same as receiving at a Communion rail. Postures help us and as I have said before we need those liturgical training wheels to help us. On a practical level the Communion rail is as fast if not faster as a method to giving Communion to everybody in a short period of time.

One of the reasons that Communion rail use after Vatican II went by the wayside is the use of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion and the distribution of the Precious Blood. Though I think the use of Intinction at the Communion rail would be a great idea. Plus you could still use EMHC's if actually required to help with one side of the Communion rail, but of course you would only need one.

I think the use of the Communion rail really enhances reverence and would make it much more apparent to others how Catholics view the Eucharist. I doubt though that I will see a return to the altar rail outside of the TLM in my lifetime, but I can hope.

A true shepherd

St. Louis Catholic posts the following story.

St. Louis Catholic has learned that Sr. Louise Lears, a member of the "Pastoral Team" at St. Cronan Parish has been issued a summons and canonical admonition by His Grace, Archbishop Raymond L. Burke. Sr. Lears has been summoned to appear to answer the charges of rejection of a truth of faith under canon 750, and of causing grave scandal, thus implicating the penalties for a scandalous external violation of canon law under canon 1399.

...I am unable to ascertain the exact factual allegations underlying the charges at this time, but readers of this blog will remember that Sr. Lears was present at the Advent vespers protest outside of St. Cronan's last month. This event occurred, and was presided over by Sr. Lears, despite the request of the Archbishop that St. Cronan's rescind its invitation to Rabbi Susan Talve to lead this event. Rabbi Talve and her congregation hosted the infamous pretend ordination of would-be priestesses Rose Hudson and Elsie McGrath. As an aside, both Hudson and McGrath were also present at the vespers protest.

Once again Archbishop Burke acts as a true shepherd. In another Archbishop Burke story.

After consultation with St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, the Aquinas Institute of Theology has canceled its annual Aquinas Lecture for 2008.

The Rev. Peter Phan, a Georgetown University professor and former president of the Theological Society of America, was scheduled to give the prestigious lecture in about three weeks.

The Rev. Peter Phan was recently criticized for his book by the USCCB doctrinal committee and is still being investigated by the CDF.

McCain

With Sen. McCain's win in New Hampshire there have been a bunch of posts in St. Blogs about McCain's suitability from a pro-life perspective. Christopher Blosser posting at Catholics in the Public Square blog has another one of his good round-up posts on the subject.

As many know Sen. McCain's pro-life voting record is quite good except for the glaring example of voting for and supporting embryonic stem-cell research. Christopher posts the following from McCain's site.

Addressing the Moral Concerns of Advanced Technology

Stem cell research offers tremendous hope for those suffering from a variety of deadly diseases - hope for both cures and life-extending treatments. However, the compassion to relieve suffering and to cure deadly disease cannot erode moral and ethical principles.

For this reason, John McCain opposes the intentional creation of human embryos for research purposes. To that end, Senator McCain voted to ban the practice of "fetal farming," making it a federal crime for researchers to use cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes. Furthermore, he voted to ban attempts to use or obtain human cells gestated in animals. Finally, John McCain strongly opposes human cloning and voted to ban the practice, and any related experimentation, under federal law.

As president, John McCain will strongly support funding for promising research programs, including amniotic fluid and adult stem cell research and other types of scientific study that do not involve the use of human embryos.

Where federal funds are used for stem cell research, Senator McCain believes clear lines should be drawn that reflect a refusal to sacrifice moral values and ethical principles for the sake of scientific progress, and that any such research should be subject to strict federal guidelines.

Some have said with the very pro-life Sen. Brownback supporting Sen. McCain that the Senator now has a more restrictive view on ESCR than what he once held. The question is what does the above statement mean in the real world. If he is actually against human cloning and the intentional creation of human embryos than how does this effect actual research?

One of the reasons that cloning has become the grail for promoters of embryonic stem-cell research is that there are immunological issues associated with putting cells derived from one person into the body of another. These are not minor considerations and one easily solved and are the primary reason that so-called "therapeutic cloning" from the patients own tissue is the primary focus. You don't have immunological issues if a clone is made of yourself and they kill your twin to get embryonic stem-cells. Using large scale genetic engineering to modify embryonic stem-cells from other sources is highly dubious, if possible at all, and could very well introduce genetic mutations The other possibility is as in organ transplants is finding a good match for the patient and would obviously require a large supply of embryos to make practicable.

So if the Senator is against both cloning and creation of embryos then where exactly are the embryos suppose to come from that he can approve research from? If the statement is actually represents his belief the only alternative is so-called "leftover" embryos from In Virtro Fertilization. If this is the case why doesn't he just say so. If this is his position it would make it identical to Gov. Mitt Romney's in that he specifically only supports ESCR with embryos from IVF.

This is a position that has been staked out by other politicians and one that I think makes not only no moral sense, but also no practical sense. Leaving aside moral concerns of using these embryos, say for example that there were sufficient human embryos that were released by the parents for use in research and that this research actually led to actual cures using embryonic stem-cells. This would then create a instant demand for human embryo's that could not be met by the supply provided from research as a result of IVF. So by supporting use of these human embryos for research you are really automatically supporting the demand for human embryos from other sources.

As a side note it really is I think surprising how IVF seemed to fly in under the moral radar in the first place with very little outcry over it. Once again is is only the Catholic Church that is consistent and she publicly condemned the use of IVF while for the most-part Protestants have no problems with it. I think it is unfortunate the the pro-life community has hardly touched on this issue and I have never heard of demonstrations outside of clinics where IVF is done. Here we have a case where multiple embryos are created and then several embryos are implanted into the womb in the hope that one survives. When too many (by their standards) survive than "elective fetal reductions" are performed. Then of course there are also the other human beings that aren't implanted who are placed into the "freezer." It is because of IVF that we have had part of the temptations to use these persons. The argument being that they are going to die anyway so I guess we should harvest the organs of prisoners about to be executed or experiment on people with terminal cancer since they are also all going to die anyway. Though of course all of us are going to die anyway.

As for myself I have a host of issues with Sen. McCain, though if he was the GOP nominee is would support him against the Democratic candidate who will be not pro-life at all. For the primaries though I will vote for someone much more pro-life even if they are a Don Quixote candidate.

Sen. McCain on his site also says he will protect marriage though he voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, though he defends this as a state's rights issue. He did support Arizona's proposition to outlaw same-sex marriage which was narrowly defeated.

This is another issue that annoys me among some of the GOP's nominees. For example not supporting changes in the Constitution in regards to abortion and marriage. They say these are state's rights issues only and should be left to each individual state to decide. It seems rather dumb to me that you could get married and then go across a state lines and have a marriage not recognized. But even if you could make the case for this when it comes to abortion we need to ultimately have Federal action done to protect life. Nobody now would accept a situation where slavery was once more condoned depending on the state. This was the situation before where slavery was legal in some states and outlawed in others. As a moral issue abortion is much worse than the great evil of abortion and to say it is only a states-rights issue is quite problematic. On a prudential level I will be quite happy if Roe v. Wade is overturned and the legality abortion once again be determined by each state since it is so much easier to fight against abortion at a state level. Ultimately thought anybody against abortion should see that the protection of life needs to be done at the Federal level. We amended the Constitution to outlaw slavery and we should do the same for abortion. Murdering children is not a states rights issue.

Knock yourself out

...My analysis is that crying didn't get Sen. Clinton more than just a few new votes. What put Clinton over the top in New Hampshire yesterday was that she cast doubt on Sen. Obama's pro-abortion credentials. Less than with Republicans, abortion is the still THE litmus-test issue for Democrats. They may forgive a vote for "Mr. Bush's War", but they'll never forgive a lapse in promoting or defending abortion.

No doubt that among so many Democrat voters that protecting abortion is such a major concern for them. I for one would like to see this as an issue between Senators Hillary and Obama in the primaries since what they say can hurt themselves in the general election. Sen. Hillary has already started making this an issue with push calls and bringing it up in her stump speeches. Though I guess a stump speeches is an ironically important place for referring to the right to dismember babies.

Over the last two years Sen. Hillary has tried to move to the middle on abortion by saying such things as "abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many" and holding to her husbands line about wishing for the day "when abortion is truly safe, legal, and rare." They never explain though how a "right" can be tragic and should be made rare. Though there has never been much frankness in support of abortion in the Democratic Party with much obfuscation such as "personally opposed", etc. Out of the current slate of Democratic Presidential Candidates only Bill Richardson is "personally opposed" to abortion this time. I guess it is only Catholic Democrats that have to add the "personally opposed" caveat which in itself is rather interesting that other candidates who say they are Christian feel no need to use such a modifier. This election though we have a strange switch with a Catholic who is a Democrat saying that he is personally opposed but will support abortion and a Republican who is Catholic saying he is personally for, but will vote against it.

In the general election though ardent support of abortion is an albatross so I say let the Democrats knock themselves out in portraying their loyalty to abortion in the primaries.

Listening always seems to be one sided

...First, stop thinking about God as a super-scientist or master craftsman, who designs our nervous and circulatory systems and gives us brains by which to read the stars and thus reason to His existence, but as an artist, and writer, like Shakespeare, who wants to come and live with us. Not because He's lonely or wants to teach us something, but just because He loves us so much he wants to live our lives -- and suffer our death.

Well if Shakespeare does want to come and live with me I won't even charge him rent. Roy Schroth in a article on a new book by George Dennis O'brien says he wishes the above analogy was his own. As an analogy though it isn't very good and you want to shout BOTH/AND at him. But I did have a pretty large guffaw at the "Not because He's lonely" line. Does he perhaps think that God submitted a classified ad known to us as the Bible because of his loneliness? EGSE - Eternal GOd Seeking Everybody. TOP (Trinity of Person) seeking companionship.

...The American bishops, he says, have lost their public voice not merely because of the sexual abuse scandal. Even though American Mass attendance surpasses that of de-Christianized Europe, here the younger generation is falling away from Christian belief. One reason is that once the Vatican Council closed, "the spirit of dialogue evaporated." John Paul II and then Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, conducted a teaching papacy, not a learning papacy, as if they feared open discussion.

Yes let is have an open discussion on issues. First off let us all get together and decide if racism is really all that bad in the first place. We can get groups on both sides of the question get together and have a dialogue on racism. There hasn't been any infallible statements made or encyclicals specifically referencing racism so it must be an open issue. So what if racism as a sin is a consistent teaching of the Church. If Ordinatio Sacerdotalis doesn't close the door on the discussion of women's ordination then surely there is nothing to prevent a frank open discussion in support of racism.

While we are at it how about the preferential option for the poor. Isn't it time that we stop stigmatizing selfish people as greedy? Have we sufficiently walked in a greedy man's patent leather shoes to understand his desire to ignore the poor. Shouldn't greedophobia be inspected in light of modern times? Surely the Sensus Fidelium has moved from a individual preferential love of the poor to a "isn't there a government program to take care of them?" If we have a prophetic and listening heart then no doubt we will come to realize that a individual responsibility towards our neighbors is a tradition that should now be reevaluated.

I only throw these example out since for some strange reasons progressives always want to have dialog on the same predictable subjects. If you don't want to have a discussion on racism and greed then you are closed minded and dogmatic on these subjects.

...Thanks to modern communication techniques, the Pope has become the public "voice" of the church. The trouble with this, suggests O'Brien, is that of the many "voices" the Pope could use he has chosen those that cannot be heard effectively in the modern world. We have become accustomed to the Pope as "super-professor" or "judge." He writes long encyclicals and delivers homilies in which he tells us definitively -- sometimes infallibly -- what to think. At one time he said the issue of women's ordination was settled, and not to be discussed.

But our experience of the professor and judge model is that they are not infallible. Historians, for example, admit there is much they don't know and invite colleagues to correct them. O'Brien suggests that the Pope play the role of "patriarch," a "father" who has authority in his family based on his love for them, even though good fathers are sometimes wrong.

In our experience not only is the professor and judge model not infallible, but neither are Commonweal writers, critics of the Pope, etc. In fact I will go so far as to say that you can name any profession and say that are not infallible. But then again Vatican I did not look at scripture and Apostolic tradition and decide that professors and judges are infallible.

...O'Brien closes with the suggestion that the Pope every five years should invite the world's leading intellectuals, including both Catholic theologians and those who opposed the church's teachings, to a meeting in the Sistine Chapel, where, under Michelangelo's Last Judgment, they discuss the world's biggest problems. The Pope's role is to sit quietly and listen. Then consider all they have said, and publish their papers with his replies.

I don't know about you but I would pay to see a Sistine Chapel cage match on PPV between faithful and dissident theologians.

The silliness of this whole idea is that it is not the role of the Pope to keep revisiting Church teaching, but to go deeper into the deposit of faith that is the Church's heritage. When it comes to the deposit of faith progressives keep wanting to make a withdrawal.

This article was titled Can the "Church learn to listen?" and listening was the main brunt of it. I just want to know why progressive who won't listen to the Pope and the teaching authority of the Church and are tone deaf to the consistent teaching of the Church should be lecturing us on listening anyway?

Carl Olson has also fisked this article and surely there is enough material for multiple fiskings.

Change

Here are some quick general reflections on the presidential race.

Whenever I hear politicians talk about change I think change is what is left in my pocket from my paycheck by the time they get done.

When I hear Sen. Hillary talking about President Johnson passing the Civil Rights act I remember the final Senate vote.

The original House version:

* Democratic Party: 164-96 (64%-39%)
* Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)

The Senate version:

* Democratic Party: 46-22 (68%-32%)
* Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)

The Senate version, voted on by the House:

* Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
* Republican Party: 186-35 (80%-20%)

The Hillary crying incident doesn't bother me since if she is elected President I might cry also.

I wish that a half-Black half-Spanish lesbian was elected president. We could get so many firsts out of the way so that people can get back to voting based on a candidates position vice other attributes.

Pagan emptiness

Rich Leonardi posts a contrast between Rochester's Bishop Matthew Clark crucial diocesan-wide effort and Cardinal Pell's comments on the same subject. I am convinced a star ship could be powered by these two men if we could harness orthodox matter and anti-orthodox matter interactions.

Ephipany

"I am going to try to be so persuasive, so that those of you who are still wavering . . . will suddenly come to the conclusion -- a light beam will shine through -- will light you up -- and you will experience an epiphany -- 'I have to vote for Mike Huckabee!' "

Well actually this explicit religious appeal was made by Barack Obama. But as Deal Hudson referenced this won't set the theocracy watch types into any kind of frenzy. Well I already had a epiphany with Barack when Gerald Augustinus aptly wrote "That he's more pro-abortion than Planned Parenthood, ..." A nice bright light beam powered by a 100 watt incandescent bulb no less shined through since that it was good true rhetoric does.

I found it rather strange with Hillary's push calls challenging Obama's abortion record. Let them get into a who is more pro-abortion fight. While it might help them in the primaries this type of debate would be poison in the General Election since it nulls out all of those references about wanting abortion to be rare, etc. Hillary voted in favor of the Born Alive Infants Act while Obama just voted "present" on a similar bill in the Illinois version of the act.

One thing about the abortion debate in politics today is what candidates can get away with saying. They are allowed to say things that are so incoherent that it would give debate teams strokes and yet interviewers will sit there like they just said something sane and rational.

For example I saw an interview where Obama said that abortion is a moral question, but that we should trust women to make the right decision. Why don't we trust women when it comes to murder of their spouses or boyfriends? If something is a moral question it is objective instead of being subjective. If in fact if we can just trust women to make the right decision on a issues, then why can't we just trust men on other issues. This logic leads in fact to the idea that we don't really need laws in the first place since we should just trust people to do the good.

In a sane world the interviewer would have dropped his jaw in disbelief at such an answer. A rational interviewer would have followed up asking why it was a moral questions and if this moral question is seen as murder why would it be left up to an individual within a gender group to make it?

Think with the Church

Speaking out of what he called “sadness and anxiety,” the Vatican’s top official for religious life has called upon the Jesuit order to obey the hierarchy, to defend church teaching and to deepen its commitment to “think with the church.”

Slovenian Cardinal Franc Rodé specifically urged the Jesuits to greater fidelity in theological work as well as in “your magazines and publications,” both areas of tension between the Jesuits and the Vatican in recent years.

The comments came in Rodé’s homily for the opening Mass this morning in Rome of the 35th General Congregation of the Jesuits. The gathering of 225 Jesuits representing the entire order, which is expected to last at least a month, will elect a new leader to replace Dutch Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach and set policy for the next couple of decades.

In effect, Rodé’s homily represents the Vatican’s attempt to help frame the agenda for the Jesuits’ deliberations.

Noting that the Jesuits exercise wide influence through their seminaries, colleges and universities, Rodé said he wanted to share both his “joys and hopes” and his “sorrows and anguishes” as the General Congregation gets underway.

After praising the order for “thousands of religious who generously respond to the Lord’s call,” Rodé cited several areas of concern.

First, he warned of a waning sense of sentire cum ecclesia, meaning “to think with the church.” Love for the church, Rodé argued, was central to the vision of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits in the 16th century.

“It is with sorrow and anxiety that I see that the sentire cum ecclesia of which your founder frequently spoke is diminishing even in some members of religious families,” Rodé said. “The Church is waiting for a light from you to restore the sensus ecclesiae.”

Rodé also bluntly called for greater obedience to the hierarchy.

“With sadness and anxiety, I also see a growing distancing from the hierarchy,” he told the Jesuits. “The Ignatian spirituality of apostolic service ‘under the Roman Pontiff’ does not allow for this separation.”

“The fundamental nucleus of Ignatian spirituality consists in uniting the love for God with love for the hierarchical Church,” Rodé said.

Cardinal Rodé has said exactly what needed to be said as the Jesuits meet to choose the new Jesuit General.

When it is on the other foot

Edwards responded sharply to a Clinton aide's criticism today, intensifying a back-and-forth that began at last night's debate, after Clinton said Nataline Sarkisyan could be alive if the patients bill of rights, which he'd boasted of championing, had passed.

"The Clinton campaign has no conscience," Edwards said, after Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said Edwards does no more than "read articles about people who need help and talk about them."

I found this rather funny considering what John Edwards said four years ago.

Edwards said Reeve, who died Sunday, "was a powerful voice for the need to do stem cell research and change the lives of people like him.

"If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again," Edwards said.

Not on this rock music

Phoenix, Jan. 4, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Church leaders in Phoenix, Arizona, are discouraging Catholics from attending non-denominational services conducted by a suspended priest, the Arizona Republic reports.

Msgr. Dale Fushek, who has been suspended from public ministry by the Phoenix diocese, continues to lead services at the Mesa Convention Center, drawing several hundred participants, the newspaper reports. The flamboyant priest, who gained national prominence as the founder of the LifeTeen program, risks further disciplinary action by defying the terms of his suspension to preach at "Praise and Worship" services.

Well LifeTeen was never an organization much for obedience considering illicit practices such as gathering around the altar, so this is not exactly a surprise.

Now I understand you can certainly separate a group from its leader, but I have never been a fan of LifeTeen in the first place. The parish I went to with my mother as a young atheist was pretty much a perfect match for what LifeTeen would become when it was established in 1985. This parish had lots of rock music and I sang with a small ensemble in the sanctuary. Looking back I realize now that I sang more religious hymns in my public high school choir than I did at this parish. This entertainment focused parish with two cool priests who could relate to youth did nothing to make me take Catholicism seriously. I just loved to sing and would put up with going with my mother to Mass after she converted to Catholicism because the music was quite secular and there was nothing to bother my atheistic faith. I guess it was the same in some ways for the two priests since they both left the priesthood and got married. This parish also had lots of events, but none of them seemed to be ordered to Catholicism and the year and a half I sang with the parish and participated in some events I knew just as little about the Catholic Church as I did at the start. I have no doubt my mother's R.C.I.A. was quite low on doctrine since she saw no problem with me as a proudly atheist proclaiming son receiving Communion even though the extent of my religious experience was being baptized in a Methodist church as an infant. To this day I regret all of those Communions I received unworthily.

I think there is a fundamental problem with the concept of LifeTeen in the first place. Customizing the liturgy for an age group is mostly a mistake. Now the Church does have valid Children's Masses where parts of the liturgy are shortened, but it does not specify that Barney be used in the hymnal. If you are going to have LifeTeen, why not LifeFogey, LifeMiddleAge, etc. A case can be made as Saint Paul said that sometimes milk has to be given before solid food. But surely teenagers are quite open to truth and beauty and you don't have to musically pander to them. If teens only go to the Mass because of the music are they going to keep going to Mass when the Mass no longer has the music they came for? If you want to train teens to appreciate the Mass, shouldn't it be for the same Mass they will go to as they get older? When it comes to the liturgy they deserve to be treated as adults.

Now I have no problems with youth groups using secular or for example Christian rock outside of the liturgy with concerts, youth conferences, etc. I just don't thinks power chords and Calvary are a match. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass needs reverence and we need music that promotes beauty and reverence and not just an emotional response. I don't want to be tapping my foot as I enter the eternal sacrifice.

New document from Ecclesia Dei commision

Vatican, Dec. 31, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican will soon issue a new document clarifying the terms of Summum Pontificum, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has revealed.

Confirming reports that have circulated around Rome in recent weeks, the Vatican Secretary of State told the Italian weekly Famiglia Cristiana that the Ecclesia Dei commission will issue instructions to "clarify the criteria for the application of the motu proprio" in which Pope Benedict XVI broadened access to the traditional Latin Mass.

Cardinal Bertone said that the new document was needed because there have been some "confused reactions" to the motu proprio. In fact some Vatican officials-- most notably Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship-- have energetically criticized bishops who have failed to accept the papal directive.

This news came out earlier this week, but I have been working with my contacts to try to get more information. In a world exclusive I have gotten hold of the new document which is being released in a format that up to now has never been used before by the Vatican. I don't know how it will be received by some bishops, but I think the new format will be helpful for them.

And here is a sample page.

Catholic Media Review

Our hope is that there also will be some discussion about what makes a good movie. We'll be looking not only at which movies might have a positive impact on society (The Passion of the Christ, Amazing Grace, Into Great Silence, Bella) but also highlighting when secular mainstream films have underlying themes that support Christian values in general or those of the Catholic Church in particular. For example, Waitress and Juno have had their pro-life messages touted widely but few people are talking about the Christian themes underlying I Am Legend or Sweeney Todd.

Although movies are the reason the blog was begun, we'll also be looking at other art (media) because we're as passionate about those as we are about our faith and movies. Music, podcasts, books, television, and more will all be reviewed and reflected upon at Catholic Media Review.

Stop by for a Catholic Media Review for a visit - there are some exciting movie reviews up already. Some of the reviews already posted include: National Treasure, Juno, I Am Legend, Bella, Enchanted, and The Water House - Legend of the Deep.

Bloggers involved include:
Catholic Fire - Jean
Cause Nostrae Laetitiae - Leticia
Good News Film Reviews - Scott
Mad Tea Party - March Hare
The World ... IMHO - Christine
Julie D. at Happy Catholic

Fly the too friendly skies

Dawn Eden posts a YoutTube video of an new San Francicso Planned Parenthood ad that takes place in a airplane with a flagrantly homosexual flight attendant showering condoms, pills, and patches on couples for getting ready for the mile high club.

I do find it highly ironic for a company named Planned Parenthood directing their ad in parts to homosexuals. Talk about naturally contraceptive sex. I guess this is just the altruistic part of their everybody have sex with anyone anytime message since they don't get their mark ups from abortion, pills and patches from this group.

I do think their was something missing from Planned Parenthood airlines. For example their was no cart going down the aisle with a portable suction device for when contraception fails. No message from the pilot calling "Is their an abortion doctor onboard?" Besides the pills, patches, and condoms falling from the ceiling compartment they forgot such necessities as drugs to treat STDs and the three-drug HIV cocktail. Also missing were the flight attendant counselors for women who later regret their abortions or the men who suffer from this "choice." Though there is one accurate thing about their airline was that there were not children. This is surely evidence of a PP airline.

We want young people to take control of their sexual health and well-being by using prevention every time they have sex.

Yes promoting promiscuous sex is really talking about control. As G.K. Chesteton said "Normal and real birth control is called self control."

As Dawn Eden mentions Planned Parenthood Golden Gate budget is 50 percent payed for by taxpayers which is mostly true for all of PP's branches. Go to her site for information on backing Sen. Brownback's effort to defund Planned Parenthood.

March for Life

For those attending the March for Life this year:

The Catholic Information Center, downtown Washington's "street parish" — thought to be the first U.S. Catholic bookstore on Facebook — is poised to be "Blogger Central" on the day of the 2008 March for Life, with free wireless Internet, a 15% discount for pro-life bloggers, and a tea party, plus celebrity book and DVD signings.

"Our store and chapel have traditionally been a respite stop for March-for-Life participants," noted CIC manager Kevin Jones. "This year, we wanted to do something more, so—since we already offer free wireless internet—we decided to create some special incentives to encourage marchers to show their support for the Culture of Life on the web."

The 15% discount for pro-life bloggers will apply all day on January 21-22. To receive the discount, pro-life bloggers must register in advance by e-mailing their name and blog URL to info@cicdc.org by Friday, January 18. On the day of the march, those who have registered may give their name to the CIC cashier to receive the discount on anything the store sells, including books, rosaries, jewelry, prayer cards, religious decorations, and stationery.

For the purpose of this discount, and to encourage pro-lifers to have a strong Web presence, the CIC is defining a "pro-life blog" as any family-friendly Web site that actively promotes the culture of life. This includes MySpace and Facebook pages, so long as they contain a prominently displayed pro-life item.

The bookstore recently augmented its own Web site, www.cicdc.org, with a "Catholic Information Center" Facebook page — believed to be the first-ever Facebook fan club for a U.S. Catholic bookstore.

Bloggers who visit the CIC during the afternoon of January 22 will find a special treat: a tea party immediately following the March for Life, from 3-6 p.m., hosted by Dawn Patrol blogger Dawn Eden. Eden, who has appeared on EWTN's "Life on the Rock," will be signing copies of her book The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On, which will be available for 25% off the cover price.

"I can't wait to meet fellow pro-life bloggers from around the country and connect faces to names," said Eden. "Many of us are already planning to come to the Blogs4Life conference at the Family Research Council earlier that morning, before the March. The tea party is a great change to relax and get to know each other better after the long day and, thanks to the wi-fi, do some 'liveblogging' for the folks back home."

The CIC is located at 1501 K Street NW, and will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the day of the march. Mass will be in the chapel at 12:05 p.m., and the Blessed Sacrament will be exposed there from 1-4 p.m. For more information, contact CIC manager Kevin Jones, (202) 783-2062, or e-mail

Philosophical product placement

SF Signal asks several SF authors If you ran Hollywood, what changes would you make? What would stay the same?

John C. Wright has an excellent response which centers around his complaint of "philosophical product placement" a term I find perfect in describing how so many films are ruined.

...Bollywood, movies from India, are more wholesome, more family-friendly, have better song and dance numbers, and notably more attractive actresses. The weft of the Culture of Death hangs over our Hollywood films, which I do not scent from these overseas films. It has been many a year since I have seen a Hollywood film that does not use "philosophical product placement" to thrust one or another particularly annoying little ad for their materialistic, mildly pinko, morally relative, or anti-American world view in my face. We see such things as would make Cicero or Marcus Aurelius blush with anger, not to mention John Adams and Tom Jefferson.

I am not talking about deliberately politicized films whose anti-American bias is bold and clear, like V for Vendetta or Starship Troopers. I am talking about a universal atmosphere. Even lighthearted kiddie fare like Happy Feet or space opera like Revenge of the Sith or epics like Beowulf cannot be told in a straightforward and honest fashion, a story for the sake of a story, but some little message has to be inserted either mocking religion, or sneering at George Bush, or belittling Christianity. I call it "product placement" because it is the intrusion, never where needed, of one extraneous line or extra quip that allows the film-maker to display his political correctness. And we all know that moral relativism and multiculturalism are good right? Because only a Sith would speak in absolutes.

His comments are not all negatives and lists that almost all of the top 20 films are science fiction and fantasy extravaganzas and that the quality of Babylon 5 and the new Battlestar Gallatica match anything else quality wise. He follows up his interview with a post on his blog answering a complaint.

...The first comment in the comments box chides me for not admiring the healthy dissent and vibrancy created by the willingness of mainstream cinema to call into question the core values of the society. Myself, I would retort that this is exactly my complaint: the core values of society are countercultural, and they are expressed with a lockstep uniformity I find both non-vibrant to the point of boring and non-healthy to the point of morbid.

In the past, the values of the culture and the counterculture were at odds, but were not necessarily enemies. The culture prized things like modesty, fidelity, sobriety, and thrift; the counterculture was kept in check until holidays or late nights after work was done, and it was permitted to express itself. The counterculture prizes things like bragging, sexual nonchalance, wild fun, and immediate self-gratification: it is the culture of Just Do It and of Fa-La-La Live For Today. The counterculture expressed itself in off-duty hours and drinking songs in much the same way the culture expressed itself in hymns and austere public monuments. The speeches made at graduation ceremonies are solemn (and forgettable) precisely because they are the most pure expression of the culture: graduation speeches are the last opportunity for the elders of the tribe to impart their wisdom to the next generation, to transmit the values of the culture. The ribald lyrics, mocking altar and crown, that workingmen sing over their mugs of beer at the public house after the children are abed, were an expression of the counterculture.

In terms of religion, the culture believed in things like the Holy Ghost, and the counterculture believed in things like ghost stories. No one wants to hear about saints when they are drinking a pint; but they don't mind hearing about some eerie Oriental spiritualism. It is no coincidence that rock stars and film stars go in for Zen Zoroastrianism or the study of Wiccan Cabalism rather than Rotary Club Episcopalianism.

Wow