American Papist has snagged an interview with Archbishop Chaput on the topic of voting. There are two interview segments on YouTube on his site.
Recently in Link Category
Leon Suprenant of CUF writes about the USCCB semi-annual meeting November 10-13th in Baltimore, the "practical and pastoral implications of political support for abortion." He also writes about three concerns that he has spoken to bishops about.
Nick Alexander has refreshed his site.
Matthew at Creative Minority Report turns in some more stunningly good writing on family.
John C. Wright on interpretation.
Interviewers frequently ask me how my conversion to Catholicism has influenced my writing. I tell them that writing the books is still pretty much the same, but that, now the I am Catholic, I am not allowed to interpret my own books, nor read them in English, but must have my books interpreted by the magisterium, based on the findings of a general council.
(On the other hand, if I had been a Protestant, I would have been able to interpret my own books howsoever the Spirit led me: but anything I said aloud and did not write down, things I said in interviews and stuff, I could not use.)
I agreed right away, of course, thinking that by the 'magisterium' they meant the sinister baddies from Pullman's GOLDEN COMPASS, who send out Jesuit ninja to kill people and stuff. I could not wait to perform my first intercission on some bratty girl or gypsy streetrat! But no, it was just some dumb teaching authority.
And all it teaches is the love and forgiveness fluffy-nuffy stuff that is so opposed to my cold and savage Romulan nature. What a letdown.
And here I thought the pope was going to be Darkseid seeking the Anti-Life Equation, and he turns out to be this nice old scholarly man of the cloth who does not approve of war, torture, sodomy or aborticide.
No interviewer has ever asked my what it is like being the chief of sinners, however. No one asks me why the Church is so beautiful, like a bride adorned for her wedding, or so frightening as a sharp and shining sword whose scabbard has been tossed away. In other words, they ask me about my religion, but not about my faith, if you see my meaning.
Father Powell, OP with 10 short points. Here is a sample:
9). The Catholic Church owes no one a revision of her doctrine or dogma. She didn't change to save most of Europe from becoming Protestant, why would you imagine that she would change just to get you in one of her parishes?
Creative Minority Report lets us know that only you can save the strawmen.
Dr. Thursday tries to answer the question "How would G.K. Chesterton handle an Islamist?"
Father Dwight Longenecker relates a story about a scene suggestion made to Mel Gibson for the Passion of the Christ. The scene added was one of my favorite parts of the movie.
Catholic Fire tagged me with what she called the Fat Chance
"If you should pass from our presence, what picture of you shall we use for your saint's card, should you be so elevated, and of what do you want to be patroness?"
Well a picture of me in a Jester's cap would be just fine. Surely I would want to be the patron saint of Catholic parody blogs. In fact I will even provide the quick prayer.
Curt Jester, Curt Jester
Please come down
I need a pun
Come up with one.
Christine at Confessions of a Hot Carmel Sundae tagged me with the Arte yPico meme. Don't know what to make of this meme with the odd picture and that links back to what I guess is a Spanish Language blog. But thanks Christine for thinking of my blog in relation to "creativity, design, interesting material, and overall contribution to the blogger community, regardless of the language."
I haven't specified other blogs in this meme since I pretty much let memes die like chain letters. Though I would be interested in comment box replies on whay you would want t be the patron saint of.
In other news Fr. Powell, O.P. is back blogging on a semi-regular basis again..
John Paul the Great Catholic University now has a faculty blog with posts from people like Michael Barber. Considering the focus of business, media, and faith of the university this will make for an interesting blog.
Creative Minority Reports does a nice catch when it notices that ABC News was using "pro-life" when it came to Democrats and "anti-abortion" in other cases. He writes a good letter to ABC News on the subject with examples included.
Jesuit John has joined the Catholic Illustrator's Guild blog.
Here is one heck of a homily that occurred last Sunday about Humanae Vitae.
The thing about Planned Parenthood is you wonder when they are going to hit the bottom of the slippery slope. Dawn Eden reports on a rather creepy spokesman.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker interviews Anne Rice in a very interesting interview.
The funny guys at Creative Minority Report do it again.
The latest Holy Whapping Television Network (HWTN) programming guiide.
So what does the Archdioces of Los Angeles paper do for the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae? Though part of the blame can be put on the USCCB's news service.
Kansas Catholic has a funny bit between the president of Ford and the Comic Book Guy.
Da Mihi Animas posts a video of the story of John Pridmore who went from gangster to evangelist.
Nancy C. Brown posts a copy of the letter Dale Ahlquist wrote to the New Yorker after a recent article tried to call G.K. and anti-Semite and that his fans should not defend against this charge.
The Stained Glass Buffalo blog has a picture of an actual stained glass window that he found in a Buffalo, NY church.
There is also a St. Lucy, but I think not a St. Schroeder.
Jennifer of the Conversion Diary has a good article titled "Google and Ye Shall Find: The Internet and the New Evangelization" at Inside Catholic.
Fr. James Martin, S.J. is on a blog tour to promote the release of his book My Life With the Saints
June 2: Some Have Hats
June 3: A Nun's Life
June 4: The Dawn Patrol
June 5: The Anchoress
June 6: Happy Catholic
He will be answering questions in the comboxes.
A total shutout of blogs written by men. I demand equality!!! Actually I really liked his book My Life With the Saints
His Catholic upbringing was rather sparse and surprisingly he discovered many saints for the first time while in seminary, even those these saints are not exactly obscure - but really quite well known. I would give one caveat about his book though. While it is mostly free of liberal Catholic bias (he identified himself a liberal Catholic on the NYT Pope blog), there are a couple of instances of it. Though I would still highly recommend his book. At one points he talks about being obedient by mentioning his superiors warned him about writing on topics that would be considered "controversial" (read dissent). In my mind it seems to me that obedience would be better met by not saying you are being obedient and then inferring you hold opinions contrary to Church teaching. The other annoying thing is that some times he would try to make conflicts saints had with the Church to be almost a blanket apology for dissent.
Regardless, check out all of these blogs for his blog tour. * A Nuns Life is more in the progressive camp.
Dawn's Eden's book The Thrill of the Chaste has now been printed in Poland. Not sure what to make of the cover since it seems to me to have been conceived by fictional West German television talk show host Sprokets from SNL.
Creative Minority Report comes up with an idea for a new website.
MyCustomizedCatholic.com will also have an online directory of dissident priests that you can hire to bring the Sacra-ligious-ments™ to your faith community.
Podcaster extraordinaire Fr. Roderick has recently started blogging and today he translates an article of an interview with Vatican astronomer Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes that appeared in the Osservatore Romano.
The Star Wars Ewok Gospel goes perfectly with this story.
the winners of the 2008 Cannonball Catholic Awards.
Join Fathers Ken Brighenti & John Trigilo on a pilgrimage to Fatima and Lourdes this year starting Nov 3.
Upcoming Humane Vitae conference to celebrate the 40th year anniversary of this document with great speakers such as Archbishop Raymond Burke, Ralph McInerny, and Janet Smith.
Jennifer at "Et Tu" has a wonderful post on Reason, wonder and Pope Benedict XVI
Nathan Kennedy at Genesis and Eschaton came into the Church this Easter and gives us his conversion story and his account of entering the Church during the Easter vigil. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and writes of his difficulties concerning the opposition by his family.
Cardinal Zen's Stations of the Cross
Clayton has put together Via Crucis - a multimedia meditation using scenes from Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. Well worth your time.
Paraclete Press has made available a Passion Narrative according to the Gospel of John chanted by monastic members of the Gloriae Dei Cantores Schola, in Latin, in Gregorian chant.
The Eagle and Elephant blog has a series of Triduum mediations.
It appears that three times the charm in regards to making Dr. Suess' movies in recent years. The Jim Carrey Grinch move was just bad, The Cat in the Hat went beyond bad into hateful. I heard Steven D. Greydanus review on Catholics Answer for Horton Hears a Who! and I was delighted at the very positive review. I love his reviews because they are enjoyable in and of themselves even if you have no desire to see the movie reviewed. This time he gives a review using Suessian verse and it is a wonder in itself.
The blogger at Ukok's Place has a Credo Christian E-Cards site. Check it out.
Apoloblogology covers the phony seven deadly sins dust up.
Some new sites:
The Apostolic Post a nicely designed news source. Though it needs an RSS feed.
You can listen to the upcoming album of Catholic recording artist Matt Maher here.
Another Blosser has entered the blogosphere. Tea and Sympathy is a new literary blog devoted to Evelyn Waugh and others.
So, here I am. I'm attaching myself to a blog so that I might discuss literature with other people who want to discuss literature. My primary focus is Evelyn Waugh because I believe him to be the author of the finest English novels that have ever been penned. I like other authors too, of course, such as Oscar Wilde, Anthony Burgess, Jane Austen, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, and William Shakespeare. Let's talk about books.
The excellent Southern Appeal blog is not back after a year of break. So welcome back Steve "Feddie" Dillard and friends back to the blogosphere.
There is a new Catholic School of Theology opening in Champaign, IL which looks to be quite solid.
Matt Swain at Apoloblogology is running a Joel Osteen or Barak Obama quotation contest which is quite challenging.
Congratulations to Dom and Melanie Bettinelli on the birth of their daughter Sophia Therese.
Dawn Eden has an article up on MSNBC on her book "The thrill of the chaste"
From her appearance on the Today Show.
She gives background on her appearance here.
Fr. Jay Toborowsky has some useful "Reflections on Penance Services" at Young Fogeys. He raises some interesting questions that really should be addressed.
Once again Fr. Philip Powell, OP has a great post and this time he covers a three year plan for Faith Formation. His initial critique includes:
That we need a top-to-bottom, radical overhaul of the entire catechetical enterprise in this country is as obvious as a rabid possum in the outhouse and as pressing as finding that possum another home…quickly.
And goes on with many concrete recommendations which include specific reading, an outline of curriculum, and other suggestions.
The Catholic Herald has a nice article on Fr. Z on both his background and great blog.
Moloch has officially come out and endorsed Sen. Obama.
rejection of Papist related head gear. Now someone needs to tell Jimmy Akin that he is wearing a symbol of "our great free churches."
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.
John C. Wright responding to a materialist.
...Let us assume you had the power, the Thought Control Helmet, to reorganize at will any brain you came across, so that the ideas in that brain would conform to whatever conclusions and ideas you preferred. The moment you use it, you are treating people like rocks: they would for all practical purposes be inert material, robots or animals, things without any moral or human meaning to you. If you used the Mind Helmet on Trilby to make her fall in love with you, it would have no more meaning to you than if you wrote a love letter to your self and forged her name on it. It would not represent any judgment or thought or honest emotion on her part. It would be fan-fiction, but one where you put yourself in as a character and get Uhura to kiss you.
You would never discuss or debate or disagree with anyone again. Instead of the frustration of trying to make your ideas clear to them in words, you could merely zap them with the helmet-ray, and their thoughts would be whatever you wished. You could perhaps as a game pretend these robot people were real, and let them say and think whatever nature had randomly written into their brain-mechanisms, but it would be you pretending they were human. It would not even be a game. It would be a pastime, like solitaire. Their words and ideas would have no truth value to you.
But no matter how you treated other people, you could not treat yourself the same way; you would not use your Mind Control Helmet to force yourself to think certain ideas, because the ideas would have no truth-value to you if you imposed them on yourself in that fashion. I am not saying the owner of such a machine might not want to lie to himself in his own thoughts, or bury an unhappy memory--but the utility of ideas qua ideas, the usefulness we seek from the process of reasoning, would be lost.
Ideas that are imposed on you by the helmet, if you knew they were imposed, would not persuade you that they were true. If you did not know they were imposed, but thought you had reasoned your way to their conclusion, you were merely be deceived and insane. You could no longer trust your own thoughts to be corresponding to reality. If you eliminated from yourself the desire to have trustworthy thoughts or to have them correspond to reality, or if you eliminate your awareness of what you had done to yourself, at that point you are a muppet.
The reason why materialism is self-contradictory is that you are in effect telling me that your thoughts are controlled by a Mind Control Helmet that runs without an operator, merely Mother Nature blinding sending out unintentional thought-control-signals. But, if you actually believed that, you would conclude that your thoughts have no truth value.
Whether John C. Wright is speaking on the Space Princess movement or materialism he is always fun to read and his recent series of posts responding to materialism are quite good.
Greg and Jennifer of the Rosary Army have constantly entertained and informed me since they started their podcast. But I have to admit that they have exceeded themselves in their 200th show "Rosary Army: The Musical." A Podcast Opera with multiple songs detailing their life that would make Peter Townsend say "Wow!" I especially liked the song "What would Scott Hahn" do.
Rosary Army and SQPN are currently in a fund drive and you can now get the episodes of That Catholic Show on DVD.
The Poems of Hilarie Belloc can be found here and easily accessed.
Marcel LeJeune has started a new site The Catholic Evangelist. Marcel is also available to speak at parishes, conferences, etc.
Alive and Young has created some T-Shirt designs for Planned Parenthood's contest.
Catholic Carnival
Carnival of Homeschooling
World of Good
Rubrics for Toddlers
Catholic Freebies is a new site that has a weekly drawing to give stuff away such as books and DVDs.
The people behind the excellent free Catholic choral music streaming radio station Choral Treasures have started The Catholic Music Shop to help you to find great music by category. I have listened to Choral Treasures for years and have no doubt about the quality of their tastes.
Carnival of Homeschooling
World of Good
Rubrics for Toddlers
Catholic Freebies is a new site that has a weekly drawing to give stuff away such as books and DVDs.
The people behind the excellent free Catholic choral music streaming radio station Choral Treasures have started The Catholic Music Shop to help you to find great music by category. I have listened to Choral Treasures for years and have no doubt about the quality of their tastes.
Ian at Musings from a Catholic Book Store has a post on the The History of Christmas Cards that is quite interesting.
The Ironic Catholic has more.