Could have used more Cowbell and less Autotune, but still enjoyable.
The text for the Instruction on Summorum Pontificum (“Universae Ecclesiae”) has been released and it some tweaks to the original instruction.
Father Z has the text and analysis.
Tom at Disputations asks “What the hell is the matter with Republican Catholics?” Because both parties have their favorite intrinsic evils that must be supported with few exemptions on either side. When the party faith collides with the Catholic faith we get another “Catholic” politician and another “Catholic” faithful who defends the politician as to why an intrinsic evil is not really an intrinsic evil.
The Rev. Michael Pfleger said Tuesday in a meeting with parishioners that if he is not reinstated as pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church by this weekend, he will begin to preach at other churches.
In his first in-depth public remarks about his suspension by Cardinal Francis George, Pfleger told a group of about 150 people that he has received numerous offers to preach from churches throughout the city and the country and needs to get back to preaching.
He did not specify at what churches he might speak or their denominations.
Still, Pfleger insisted that the only way he will leave St. Sabina is if he is thrown out or if he believes God wants him to go.
“This has been very painful,” Pfleger said, choking back tears.
Jesus told the Apostles “He who hears you hears me.” If Fr. Pfleger wants to know God’s will for him he only has to follow his bishop. The road to sanctity follows the road of obedience to your bishop and obedience does not mean you follow only what prudential decisions you agree with. The wide path is the way of ego of making yourself preeminent over proper authority. A parish priest who is disobedient to his bishop is disobedient to God.
But for Fr. Pfleger and his Me-gisterium it is “He who hears me is better off” and his preaching must go on. I guess preaching on obedience will not be one of the topics covered.
So how long before he becomes an Episcopalian? Though I pray he repents and becomes submissive to his bishop and to Christ.
Pfleger spent about 90 minutes talking to the group and answering questions about his suspension and the future of the church.
He insisted that George never ordered him to become president of nearby Leo High School. Pfleger also said he did not disobey the cardinal by saying he was not qualified for such an assignment.
Pfleger added that the media received the letter from George suspending him before he did and that he never threatened to leave the Catholic Church if he were removed.
In fact, Pfleger told radio show hosts Tavis Smiley and Cornel West in April that he would look outside the Catholic Church if offered no other choice but to work at the Catholic high school.
While he has consulted with lawyers who told him that George had no legal right to suspend him, he had no intention of suing the Catholic Church, Pfleger said.
But Pfleger said one of his lawyers would send a letter to George saying he violated canonical law by suspending him.
Yes when you have a conflict with your bishop run to the lawyers. Surely that is what St. Padre Pio did when he had his priestly faculties suspended. St. Padre Pio had false charges ascribed to him, yet in obedience he was totally faithful and never complained. In contrast are the actions of Fr. Pfleger.
His answers are just so Clintonian.
[Source]
Earlier this year I reviewed Looking for the King and a new novel also from Ignatius Press Toward the Gleam: A Novel
The story takes place in closer to modern times and in the period from WWI up to WWII. The initial story involves a professor carrying some object desires to talk to the abbot of an English monastery in regards to that object. The professor presents himself as “John Hill” which is a pseudonym he had used earlier during his investigation of this ancient artifact. The professor is a famous historical figure and I felt rather foolish the length of time it took me to realize who the person was considering the number of clues provided. Though I found that some reviewers like Joseph Pearce identify him in their reviews. The professor begins to tell his story from his time in WWI, the finding of the artifact, and the drama that unfolded in connection to it.
As the professor spends more time studying the artifact he comes to realize he needs help in deciphering it and so he seeks out various experts in their fields to ask them question while avoiding revealing the existence of this artifact. This investigation quickly leads him into the path of one of the experts who is a criminal mastermind with interests that intersect this artifact and the power that he would want to use from the civilization that produced it. Though he only suspects what the professor has and this is enough to put them on a collision course of life and death since he will stop at nothing to get what he wants. The conversations this professor has with these experts are very interesting since they espouse the spirits of the time that produced so many “isms” in regards to moral relativism. The conversations are crafter in such a way to advance the story and to argue philosophical ideas, but without that sock puppet feel of an author just interjecting philosophical arguments into a story. The evil mastermind is a intricate character and a very dangerous man and a person that is more than a match for the professor.
As a historical novel many historical figures are introduced and the professor has many conversations with such characters including some he never met in real life, but it is plausible in some of the cases that he met them. One quibble I had with the novel is that the number of these figures are only introduced by their first name so you know right away they are such since their last names are never mentioned. Figuring who these people are is simple in some cases and harder in others depending on your knowledge of this literary history of the time and in one case the background of a saint. One of the “what if” aspects of the book is quite spectacular and enjoyable on multiple levels. The historical aspects are quite well done, but some of the fictional and historical elements don’t quite dovetail if you know some of the details of this professor and his literary works. A good job is done here, but it doesn’t mesh as perfectly as a Tim Powers novel. Tim Powers can take his imaginative plots and history and mesh them in such a way that his histories seem to explain more and be more real than the actual history.
As the plot progresses the danger increases to such a crescendo that there is plenty of tension created into how it will resolve. I especially like how the professors family life was portrayed and the way it made his wife an important part of the novel in such an authentic way. The craft involved in making conversations with so many historical and predominantly literary figures sound right is difficult and the author pulls it off. There was nothing in these conversations that did not sound as if they could come off the lips of the people involved. One thing I found odd though that since the professor was a serious Catholic as were many of the book’s figures that elements of Catholicism other than the philosophical arguments seemed to be missing from their lives. Maybe this one done to make the novel accessible to a larger group of people, but for me it marred it a bit in what otherwise had a good degree of authenticity regarding the professor.
Overall this was a very fine novel that kept me intrigued throughout with an appreciation of the imaginative elements introduced. There are serious spiritual and philosophical underpinnings that add to the novel especially in regards to temptation. I listened to the 15 and half hour audiobook version of Toward the Gleam read by Kevin O’Brien. As always Kevin has done a professional job with this multitude of character voices adding to the enjoyment of the story. The book is available by Ignatius Press as a hardcover, ebook, and audiobook along with other sources.
Disclaimer: Kevin O’Brien sent me the audiobook version to review.
At first glance the new Catechism would give me 70s flashbacks and the thoughts of felt banners. I mean a youth catechism called YOUCAT
There was some scandal dealing with the translation of the Italian edition of the YOUCAT and the criticism of the translation was well deserved since it suggested that contraception could be used within marriage. The english version does not have this problem as it addresses the question “May a Christian married couple regulate the number of children they have?” correctly in regards to Church teaching.
As with the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) the Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church (YOUCAT) was edited by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn. Here in the states the english version is put out by Ignatius Press which for me put me at ease about the YOUCAT.
So here are my thoughts after reading through the YOUCAT. For one this is a high quality piece of publishing. This book was meant to be read and thumbed through and referred to again and again without falling apart. The paper is also glossy and highly durable. The content follows the standard four parts of the CCC and traditional Catechisms with similar sections. It is kind of a cross between the brevity of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCCC) and the CCC. The format is a question followed by a short summation of the answer with references to the CCC. In most cases this is followed by one or more paragraphs going into slightly more detail. Normally this is limited to one short paragraph.
The layout is a major departure from previous catechisms in that it is much more aesthetically appealing. The page is split up into sections with several quotes along the left or right margins and the content using black text on a darker yellow background. This makes the page pop out and I found it to be easily readable and pleasant to look at. New to a catechism our doodles. Yes doodles, there are plenty of doodle are throughout this catechism. This are doodles of the stick figure variety that sometimes are used to amplify the text and sometimes just decorative. After reading a third of this catechism it donned on me that the doodle are on the bottom right page were intended to be used as a flipbook animation. Sure enough if you grasp the YOUCAT between your thumb and fingers and let the corner page flip by you will see an animation of the stick figure moving along the page. Now as a board certified Catholic pundit I should have all kinds of vitriolic comments about such a thing in a Catholic Catechism and be declaring anathema to all doodles! That the person responsible for the horrible clipart and line art used in so many parish bulletins got assigned to the YOUCAT. My actual opinion is that the doodles don’t really distract from this catechism and even add some character to it. You mileage may differ and that is totally understandable.
Sample page from the YOUCAT.
Baring in mind the translation problems of the Italian version of the YOUCAT I didn’t find any really major problems with the text of the Ignatius Press version. With shorter paragraphs you don’t always get the level of detail for an answer you might want, but there are the CCC references and of course the YOUCAT is not meant to be a replacement for the CCC. The estimable Fr. Finegan had some valid questions concerning one item, but the paragraph of text after what he quoted from had more detail on the answer – though maybe not to the level he was looking for. I did not find it as problematic, but someone could come away confusing natural and artificial as the distinguishing emphasis between a contraceptive act and NFP.
Now the question is would I recommend the YOUCAT? Well I could be as blithe as saying “Different strokes for different folks. Most people aren’t like me and they see the size of the CCC to be rather daunting. Being a constant reader the size of the CCC to me was an argument in its favor. I also liked the Adult Catechism the USCCB put out, but it is only slightly smaller than the CCC. The Compendium is the shortest read with the YOUCAT being the second shortest. I am not the intended audience of the YOUCAT being a 52 year old man and I am still waiting for the Get Off My Lawn Catechism of the Catholic Church. Regardless I see the YOUCAT as viable for many youth, but with the variance of people some youths might prefer the CCC or Compendium instead. Ideally the YOUCAT should be used with the CCC where someone can read and look through various questions and dive down into the CCC for a more in-depth treatments of subject via the CCC paragraph references.
I certainly think the YOUCAT has its place and I would like to see some aspects of it in the CCC. No not the doodles, but I loved the quality paper and use of layout and colors to make it aesthetically pleasing. The selection of quotes along the margins are of a wide variety and I thought very well selected as they were correlated with the text of the section they were in. There are a lot of great quotes here where again and again I wanted to copy them down.
The intent of this post is not intended to mock those who have the cross of same-sex attraction (SSA), but to mock one of the latest arguments in favor of homosexual acts.
I saw a tweet the other day that was referencing what somebody else had said.
Brilliant! “How Many Gays Must God Create Before We Accept That He Wants Them Around?”
Brilliant was not the first thought that came to my mind. Apparently State Rep. Steve Simon recently offered up this line at a Minnesota Civil Law committee in regards to a Constitutional Amendment “Marriage recognized as only a union between one man and one woman.” Since then a YouTube video of this has gone viral to some extent along with being quoted extensively in tens of thousands of sources.
Unsurprisingly many of the sources passing on this phrase run to the secular and those who normally have no room for God in anything else.
As an argument I did LOL upon hearing it mainly because it was such a bad argument.
First off using this logic:
- God loves gays more than lesbians because he “created” more gays than lesbians.
- God loves heterosexual more than gays and lesbians because he “created” only a small percentage of gays and lesbians.
Or since alcoholism seems to have a genetic disposition does that mean God wants alcoholics around and that we must do nothing to impede their alcoholism. The above argument would say so since there are more alcoholics that the number of people who have SSA. Plus of course the argument can be seen a rediculous with simple substitutions such as “How Many Adulteress Must God Create Before We Accept That He Wants Them Around?”
Than there is the idea of God “creating gays”. Scientific research so far has not identified any genetic disposition towards same-sex attraction. So the idea of God creating persons with same-sex attraction is problematic on multiple levels including a scientific one. If there is no genetic predisposition to SSA than in what sense did God create “gays”? Does God decide when he ensouls life to give one a “gay soul”, another a “lesbian soul”, “bisexual soul”, or mainly a “heterosexual soul? Perhaps they mean that since God does directly give each person life and that some people go on to have SSA that this means SSA is totally acceptable. Though that argument would not differentiate between God’s ordained and permissive will.
Of course really the main thing is that this is an emotional rhetorical argument and not one that is suppose to be analyzed.
Now as for God wanting “gays” around, God loves each and everyone one of us regardless of whatever labels are placed on us. He created each and every one of us by first creating the world and then on an individual level giving us a soul. SSA is a cross I can’t imagine having to carry, but we are all called to carry a cross not to say our crosses are socially acceptable so that we don’t have anything to repent of. Those that support homosexuality should be embarrassed that such a lame argument is being used to advance their cause.
I decided to write on this subject since I got an email from SNAP which is promoting what the legislator said. You wouldn’t think this would be part of SNAP’s agenda at first blush, but I guess they must do all they can to downplay certain aspects of the 2004 John Jay report on priestly abuse.
I do not normally take delight in the death of a fellow human being. Nor do I support the death penalty. But, if there was one man on the planet whom it was important to kill, not to just let die, it was Osama bin Laden. You should not be able to murder well nigh to 3,000 Americans and others with impunity. If you commit such a crime, you should fear every moment of every day that U.S. Special Forces will come crashing through the door to bring you to justice. I am sure bin Laden knew better than to be captured alive. (Given the legal nightmare of Guantanamo, thank God he was killed on the spot!) It took a long time to track bin Laden down, too long, and it is impossible not to think that we might have reached this happy day earlier if we had not detoured through Baghdad. But, this is no time for recriminations. It is time to celebrate.
As I write these words, images of young people streaming into the streets in front of the White House chanting “USA” and singing the National Anthem are coming onto the television screen. If it were not so late and I did not have an early morning, I would drive down myself. Vengeance is not a healthy emotion, I know. Assassination is against the law, to be sure. But, better to indulge and go to confession. I am glad Osama bin Laden did not die in his bed, as I am glad Hitler did not die in his bed and as I am distressed hat Stalin and Mao did. Men who commit such evil do not deserve normal considerations of human sympathy or civilized respect. The world is well rid of bin Laden. It is a great day to be alive.
This is from a typical right-wing Catholic blogger. Oh wait it was from Michael Sean Winters of in the National Catholic Reporter. The Vatican’s statement was.
Osama bin Laden, as we all know, bore the most serious responsibility for spreading divisions and hatred among populations, causing the deaths of innumerable people, and manipulating religions for this purpose.
In the face of a man’s death, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibilities of each person before God and before men, and hopes and works so that every event may be the occasion for the further growth of peace and not of hatred.
No doubt Michael Sean Winters read this and immediately decided to do the opposite. If the Vatican urged us to celebrate his death he would take the opposite tone. Rather interesting that out of almost every single response I read on Catholic blogs his was the most militant and one that did not even offer a prayer for Osama’s soul.
We can certainly be glad that this threat was removed and human justice served. This was a man who did great evil and supported others to do the same. I don’t take any joy that he was killed on the spot while resisting and possibly using a woman as a hostage to protect himself. I am very happy to know that it was a Seal Team that carried out the operation considering that my fellow sailors were killed in the USS Cole attack.
I find it very interesting the reactions of liberals to this. Here was an operation with intelligence from secret foreign prisons and Gitmo where torture was used that then used the military to kill several people without even notifying the government these people were in. It looks like information about the courier that led to this operation came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who was tortured. Yet no cries of Obama the cowboy and human rights violator approving a mission without U.N. approval. There is some dispute about whether any of the information did indeed come about via so-called “enhanced interrogations”, but I don’t buy Sen. Feinstein’s denials as to this. When politicians use terms like enhanced and harsh instead of torture I simply don’t believe them. An intrinsic evil is still an evil even if you put a verbal bow on it.
Michael Sean Winters is against the death penalty, but he found an exception. So I guess he is now effectively on the side of Catholics who also think that generally the death penalty should be restricted, but that there are situations that can call for it – which is basically what the Church allows us to believe anyway. Mr. Winters talks you can not kill 3,000 people with impunity. Yet he supported Obama who is the most pro-abortion president in history and around 3,000 people die daily from abortion totally supported by the party he identifies with. Osama has less blood on his hands then the politicians and justices who gave us and kept legal abortion.
THE Catholic Bishop of Toowoomba, William Morris, has been effectively sacked by Pope Benedict XVI over doctrinal disobedience for his support for ordaining women priests and other liberal reform.
In a highly unusual move, Bishop Morris complained in a letter to his followers that he was leaving unwillingly and claimed he had been denied natural justice.
The developments have led to an incipient revolt among at least some sections of the church.
In the letter read out to all congregations in the diocese at weekend masses, pre-empting a Vatican announcement tonight, Bishop Morris, 67, said he had taken early retirement because “it has been determined by Pope Benedict that the diocese would be better served by the leadership of a new bishop”.
It is understood that one of Brisbane’s auxiliary bishops will step into the diocese temporarily as administrator until a new bishop is appointed. Bishops normally do not retire until at least 75.
The usual suspects including those in the diocese are shocked at this action, though they didn’t seem that way over the bishops previous letter.
The bishop’s letter shows things had reached a stalemate after he had been talking to the Vatican for five years.”
In his letter, Bishop Morris said the Vatican’s decision was sparked by complaints to Rome about an Advent letter he wrote in 2006. In that letter, he argued that with an ageing clergy the church should be open to all eventualities, including ordaining women, ordaining married men, welcoming back former priests and recognising the validity of Anglican, Lutheran and Uniting Church orders.
Yes another bishop with a vocation to the papacy.
In contrast to some other provincial dioceses, the priest shortage has been exacerbated by Toowoomba’s appalling record over recent years in attracting virtually no new vocations.
The dearth of vocations in a diocese is almost an infallible indicator of a bishop’s orthodoxy. In fact you could almost measure a bishops heterodoxy using a ratio of priests and pastoral associates. It did not take me long to verify that this was a diocese big on pastoral associates and an extreme lack of priests. Of course there are many factors for the priest shortage but it does seem that in heterodox diocese such as Bishop Morris and Bishop Clarke of Rochester that they seem to create a priest shortage to push reasons to use other than celibate men as priests.
Ironically a lay group might have been partly responsible concerning this forced retirement.
This is the third bishop that we know of who was dismissed this year by the Pope. This is a serious action that no doubt was made as a last straw because removing a bishop from a diocese is about as serious as you get. It’s not like replacing a CEO, it’s more like removing a father from a home. Unfortunately that indeed is required at times.
When I get a unrelated comment on post I am rather suspicious.
What do you think of http://www.sealofconfession.com ? Looks legit…
Especially when the site in question says:
Traditionally, you would need to go to Church, and wait in line at the confessional to speak to a priest about your sins. We have a network of priests who receive your e-mail, pray for you, and reconcile your sins with God.
Before going to confession, a Catholic might “examine her conscience” by reviewing past actions, thoughts, and patterns of behavior. Some Catholics evaluate their behavior in light of the Ten Commandments. Confession of ALL mortal sins is required, but confession of venial sins is optional. However, for every venial sin confessed, God gives grace to help one overcome it. You should be as descriptive as possible. Most Catholics confess DAILY.
Most of the text for this appears to taken from Yahoo! Answers. The site is an obvious scam and was created a couple of days ago. I guess some people might be deceived by such a thing, though a site telling you to write down your mortal sins daily and being loaded with Google Ads is a pretty obvious con. To add to the phoniness they have a testimonial from Rev. Chuck Slawsky, OR. Of course there is no Fr. Slawsky in Oregon or elsewhere.
Update: I see that Fr. Cory already outed this site and found additional information of it’s new age association.