American Papist on the new Cathedral in Oakland currently being constructed.
And it’s not like we can hope for a natural disaster to free us of this aesthetic effrontery – it’s rated to withstand a 1000 year earthquake. Well, I guess we can always pray for a miracle.
My own theory is that they are working for bragging rights about who can build the ugliest cathedral in California.
ORANGE PARK, FL — After Robert Powell hit the Florida Lottery jackpot last month and took home more than $6 million, he thought of his church.
And he offered to drop his tithe, around $600,000, in the collection plate of First Baptist Orange Park.
But the church and Pastor David Tarkington politely declined and told Powell they will not accept the lottery winnings.
Hey Mr. Powell have you considered crossing the Tiber? Donations from lottery money, hey we’re down with that (with the caveat expressed in CCC 2413).
Via Lex Communis comes this article.
In most of the United States, 24 abortions are carried out for every 100 live births. In New York, 72 abortions occur for every 100 live births.
The continuing boom in abortions–90,157 were performed in the city in 2006, the last year for which statistics are available–apparently means that many women are using abortion as their birth control method of choice. That concerns health advocates, who point out that the procedure sometimes causes complications and is more expensive than contraception. The high rate also shows that these women are not protected against AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
“No doctor would ever tell a woman that abortion was one of the choices she should rely on for contraception,” says Iffath Hoskins, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn.
The high rate is especially troubling because it indicates that more city residents are turning to abortion. Years ago, most abortions in the city–up to two-thirds in some years–were performed on women from out of town who flocked to New York because of its liberal abortion policies. Now, however, 93% of the abortions in New York City are performed on city residents.
The easy availability of abortion and not enough access to affordable contraception may be reasons behind the city’s high abortion rate. An average of 250 abortions are performed in the city each day at more than 200 clinics and doctor’s offices. And even though free or low-cost contraception is offered through 59 publicly funded programs at 218 sites in New York state, mostly in New York City, more could be provided, says Deborah Kaplan, deputy commissioner of the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
“To me, the problem is access,” says Ms. Kaplan. “If we improved access to contraceptives, there would be a reduction in abortion.”
"I keep pouring gas on the fire and it keeps getting bigger. If only I had more gas."
The question for pro-choicers is why is a high rate of abortion troubling anyway? If it really is a morally neutral act than it doesn’t matter if there is one or one thousand. So what if it is a backup-contraceptive?
That would be good news to taxpayers. In a time of fiscal constraints, abortion is costing the state at least $16 million in Medicaid spending annually, and city taxpayers still more through a city Health and Hospitals Corp. policy that provides free abortions to poor women at its facilities. The surgical costs alone are between $1,000 and $1,800 per abortion, compared with the $425 average annual cost for birth control pills.
Whatever you subsidize you get more of.
But the biggest concern over the high abortion rate is the impact it is having on women’s health.
Most health experts agree that it is wise to keep abortion safe, legal and available in New York, but some are also concerned that too many women are not using other methods to prevent unwanted births.
Surgical abortion always carries risks, though slight, of complications–including ones that can tear or scar the uterus and compromise a woman’s ability to have healthy children in the future, Dr. Hoskins says.
What there are risks? How did did that make it into the aritcle, must be a mistake by the editors..Next we have one of the strangest bits of logic I have seen.
It may be especially difficult for black women in communities where men are scarce, due to incarceration or addiction problems, to insist that their partners use condoms.
Yes scarce men cause pregnancies.
Craptacular!
A reader sent me a link to a voters guide
from the Sisters, Servants of
the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Monroe, Michigan.
Catholic Answers in their voting guide
list five non-negotiable issues that are always intrinsically evil.
Abortion, Euthanasia, Embryonic Stem-Cell Research, Human
Cloning and Homosexual “Marriage.” The UCCB’s Faithful
Citizenship also mentions these issues with a lot of emphasis on
abortion and making it clear that it is not just one of several issues.
Now if I ask you how many of these items
made it into the Sister’s voting guide, what would be your answer.
If you answered zero then bingo – pat yourself on the back.
For them the most important issues are Militarism,
Immigration, Global Climate Change (bet you knew that would be in
there), and Peace.
Ironically their section on militarism
starts with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet
Union. I guess they thought this happened because people
threw some blood on some missiles or something. For them
militarism means actually having a military that might be able to
defend us.
Their section on immigration says that the
Minuteman “mounted their own attacks on immigrants” so their definition
of “attack” must be pretty loose. And of course the border
fence is all about racism doncha know. They cite Church
documents yet fail to find the fact that the Church says “Political
authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are
responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to
various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the subject to
various juridical conditions immigrants duties toward their country of
adoption.” The problem with so many social justice types is
that they are very selective on Church teaching. If they
advocated a very open immigration policy while at the same time
limiting illegal immigration they would be much closer to the mark.
In their section on global warming they quote Nobel Peace Prize winner
Wangari Maathai who thinks that HIV/AIDS was created by Western
governments to kill Africans. Well since she also believes in
global warming I guess she is consistent. At least they
mentioned the fact that biofuels are reducing food supplies and
increasing food prices. Though this is only the result of the
global warming hoax in the first place.
There section on Peace I think was written
by Rep. Dennis Kucinich
since it has that recommendation for the “Department of Peace” in it.
It is not that I disagree with everything they say in this document, it
is just so lopsided and sounds like it was issued by Sen. Obama instead
of an order of Sisters in the religious life. There was
another nun that talked about peace and set a much better example:
But I feel that the greatest destroyer
of
peace today is abortion,
because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent
child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can
kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one
another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always,
we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means
willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us.
So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love,
that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect
the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must
also give until it hurts.
We will certainly never move towards a
non-violent culture while we ignore the most violent of institutional
murder.
They also the follow the infallible guide to identify
progressive religlious orders. That is they have plenty of
links to the U.N. Millennium Development Goals and zero to
the Vatican. Sustainability gets 50 hits on a search while abortion
gets one and hen it is just included as a bunch of issues.
Though I guess the easier tell-tale sign is that no one wears
habits and it is impossible to differential pictures of a groups of
progressive nuns from a woman’s groups in a retirement home.
From an interview with Professor P.Z.
Myers from the National Catholic Register.
I decided to call his bluff. “Has
Christianity contributed anything to humanity?” I asked him.
“Well,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, “there is this general
property of religion — it’s great at building community. Religion has
been a good thing for many individuals; it has brought them together
and given them comfort. But over all, religion … holds back humanity.”
What, I asked, about the Church’s role in founding the first Western
hospitals, universities, banks and even many breakthroughs in science?
He interrupted me, irate and incredulous:
“No, people made those contributions to
Western Civilization.”
What a cringe-inducing answer. It really makes me sorry for
him that his hatred of Christianity has destroyed any vestige of
objectivity. Say for example somebody asked me.
“Do you think science has contributed to humanity?
What about science’s role in developing medicine, technology,
and helping us to come to a greater understanding of the universe?”
“No, people made those contributions to
Western Civilization.”
I would deserve a good slap to my head for
such an answer.
Jeff Gardner of NCR sums it up.
As I talked with Myers I was struck by
an
irony: For a scientist whose
job it is to observe cause and effect, he has a poor understanding of
the cause, Catholicism, and its effects on world culture. He does not
see Christianity as an elevating force in the world, but rather as a
strange superstition — akin to banging a pot to scare away the moon.
Fr. Stanley Jaki showed how it was the
Catholic Church because of her
theology became the midwife for the scientific method in the first
place in his must-read book “Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to
an Oscillating Universe” The title is a bit
off-putting, but it gives an in depth overview of cultures and how
their understanding kept them developing science. Carl Olson
comments on the article and
says:
Perhaps this will help do away with one of the greatest myths of our
time: that scientists are objective, ideologically-free, and
intellectually-balanced people who care only about the facts. Not so.
Not even close. They put on their pocket protectors one pocket at a
time, just like the rest of us, and some of them, like Myers, are
intellectually brilliant in this or that scientific discipline, but are
completely clueless about nearly anything else, including basic respect
and common civility. That we are shocked that Myers talks and acts as
he does indicates that the joke is on us–except, of course, it isn’t a
joke. It is, I think, far more common than most people realize. Perhaps
it’s time we stopped buying the bill of goods sold by those like Myers
who claim to be intellectually superior and scientifically objective
while all they really want to do is gleefully slash our tires. Kudos to
Gardner for helping expose this jerk.
The Catholic Diocese of Dallas warned parishioners Monday that a man appears to be posing as a bishop and charging up to $200 to perform illegitimate sacraments at Dallas area hotels.
At least four people have called local parishes during the past month after becoming suspicious of a man who claimed to be a Mexican bishop and charged $100 to $200 to perform the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and Holy Communion.
Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas said the Archbishop of Acapulco, Mexico reported that a man named Martin Davila Gandara may be operating in the Dallas area.
I recently read Jesus
and First-Century Christianity in Jerusalem
Mcnamer and Bargil Pixner that
was sent to me for review by Paulist Press. The book starts with an
overview of the Essenes and then the Nazoreans and then goes on to give
a historical overview that includes Jesus’ public years and then
concentrates mainly on the Church in Jerusalem up to the year 135.
The overview of Jesus and subsequent resurrection is mainly
straight-forward account as is the subsequent years of the Church in
Jerusalem. The book uses as source materials text such a
the Protoevangelium of James and historians of the era such
as Jophesus and later Eusebius along with others of that time
period along of course with the Gospels. So there is a lot of
good information about the early Church specifically in regards to the
Christians in Jerusalem.
I was glad to see the retelling of Jesus’
public years was surprisingly
free of sneering skepticism and it kept to the facts as told in the
Gospels, though there were some exceptions. Such as “Jesus
may have had a life changing experience as he went to the Jordan near
Jericho as he was baptized by John the Baptist.” This
sentence made me laugh and sounds like the kind of stuff taught by
those who say Jesus was ignorant they were God and many of the authors
of some of the references do hold to such a view. Later on we
get a sentence questioning whether if some of the early presiders were
women and then a confusion on the role of women deaconesses.
But this type of stuff was mostly the exception.
Also included was the standard fare about
the Q document the mythical lost document used by Matthew and Luke.
Along with some rather late datings of the Gospels with for
example Luke being dated at 85 A.D with the phase “scholars say.”
“Scholars say” is used quite a lot in this book with no
mention that this is by no means unanimous. It really means
“scholars who I am inclined to believe say.” In fact whenever I see
this phrase it is a cue for me to dig deeper. So much of
historical-criticism denies miracles and prophesies and so they are
forced to argue for a much later dating after the year 70 when
Jerusalem was destroyed. That the prophesy of this
destruction proves that it had to be after the event. Though
I think this “later Gospel” phase is receding and much better
scholarship is being done now that puts them at a much earlier period
of time. Michael Barber in his excellent book book Coming
Soon: Unlocking the Book of Revelation and Applying Its Lessons Today
argues, I believe, persuasively for a dating of the Book of Revelation
pre-70 A.D. While this book dates the Gospel of John as being done
between 90 and 110. A.D. Well scholars say!
The biggest weakness of this book is that
it sees Essenes everywhere. “I see dead Essenes” could have
been the tagline of the book. While some of the conjecture was quite
interesting and some of it might actually be true. There was
just a bias to always interpret something to mean that it was
influenced from the Essenes somehow. Often we get this with
John the Baptist, but in this case it extended to the family of Mary.
Even the date of the Last Supper was suppose to be Essene
influenced which this books happened on Wednesday or on Tuesday night.
That the man carrying a jug of water that Jesus sent his disciples to
find must have been a Essene priest since only women carried water.
Or Acts 6:7 about a great number of priests converting to
the faith must have been Essene priests since it was doubtful that
Saducees would do so. This totally leaves out the fact that
there were about 2000 ordinary Temple priests in Jerusalem.
Everything is seen through Essene colored glasses with no
caveats. No doubt this is because one of the authors who is
an ex Benedictine Monk has worked as an archaeologist in the Essene
quarter. There are certain some interesting correlations
between the Essenes writings and some of what happened, but because of
the bias it is hard to tell objectively what role they played which in
this book is to a large extent.
This is a larger sized book with plenty of
beautiful pictures included relating to Jerusalem. Often
though the pictures seemed to be included just to have pictures and
didn’t really relate to the text on the page they were on. The book
piqued my interest into the early Church in Jerusalem, unfortunately it
makes me have to look elsewhere to fulfill it.
Yesterday my wife and I were down in the
Orlando area and decided to attend the Vigil Mass, at the National
Shrine of Mary, Queen of
the Universe – a Church not far from Disney World and which
primarily
serves the tourists. I have been to their excellent gift shop
a couple of times which has a pretty good selection of solid Catholic
books along with other items. The church itself is quite nice
looking for a modern Church though the furnishing in the sanctuary
leave something to be desired. But the stained glass windows
are quite beautiful and the chapel is also very nice. The constructions
is such that the chapel is behind the Tabernacle that goes through the
wall and on the Chapel side they have a monstrance. Though on
that side they also have a transparent door on the tabernacle which is
not allowed by Canon law 938.
The Mass was said by an Irish priest who
started with what I guess you could call a census (people never learn from King David). “How many
of you are from out of town?” pretty much everybody raised their hands.
“How many of you are from outside the U.S.?” He then
proceeded down the isle extracting country of origin from a number of
people who raised their hands. We are no five minutes into
the Mass. Next it was “How many are married over 50 years
please stand up.” Followed by encouragement for applause and
then “Stand up if you are a grandparent” Here he inserts mandatory joke
about them being free babysitters.” Then we had the
“everybody introduce yourself to the people around you .” I
had heard of this practice at some parishes, but never had to suffer
through this false bit of community that has everybody glad handing the
other (I though this was reserved for the Kiss of Peace). We
are now ten minutes into the start of Mass and we haven’t even got to
the confeitor yet. Now if priests are going to act like a
Vegas lounge act can I also be a heckler? Unfortunately a
Vegas lounge act all to accurately describes this type of behavior at
the beginning of Mass, though some do this type of thing at the end of
Mass. He used the type of jokes that would make Hennyman
groan.
Surprisingly the rest of the Mass was
without experimentation and according to the GIRM. The music
was also totally without standard Haugen/Haas fare with no hymns newer
than a hundred years old sung by an older gentlemen with a rich voice
as he played the organ. Though the first and last hymns were standard
Protestant ones. The homily though was quite a different
matter.
The priest really opened my eyes to
Matthew 14 and 1st Kings 19. The stepping out in faith of
Peter is really all about steeping out in faith in your community for
comprehensive healthcare doncha know, fair business practices, violence
and other bits of social justice. No mention of pro-life or
other social justice items though. But I was trying to be
fair to what the priest was saying and not to impose or read too much
into what he was saying. Then he got to the “still small
voice” where he said he had a still small voice and that it was called
a “vote” and that we all needed to be registered to vote as he was to
exclaim your still small voice in the voting booth. Again he
reiterated comprehensive healthcare and this time being a community
activist in your neighborhood along with the list of social justice
issues minus the social justice issues that are actually intrinsically
evil. So I guess this was the only vote for Obama homily I have had the
non-privilege of hearing. So aren’t you all glad that you now
know that stepping out in faith means and what the still small voice is?
The National Catholic Reporter reporting
on the latest priestette “ordination” this time in a Universalist
church in Lexington, Ky.
… She said that at the end of the
ceremony,
Sevre-Duszynska told the congregation that she often thinks of
something Dominican Sr. Marge Tuite told her many years ago: “Never
stop making the connections between sexism, racism, militarism,
nationalism and all forms of violence.”
Making those connections, Maguire said, was really the theme of the
day’s ordination. “Roy and Janice represent the merging of these
(struggles of justice), of making these connections,” Maguire
said.
Yeah what is with that sexist Jesus guy?
Surely he knew the
“prophetic voice” that would arise 2000 years after he was crucified
and died for our sins. Didn’t he know that these women would
come along and interpret his will correctly for him?
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Lexington
condemned the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement as “in opposition to
the church’s authentic teaching” and warned that “members of the
Catholic faithful should not support or participate in Saturday’s
event.” Participation in the event, “carries with it very serious penal
sanctions in Church Law,” a statement on the diocese’s Web site warned.
I read that paragraph and thought that
what the diocese was saying was not quite right since
the excommunicaton
applies to “he who shall have attempted to confer holy orders on a
woman, as well as the woman who may have attempted to receive Holy
Orders, incurs in a latae sententiae excommunication, reserved to the
Apostolic See.” Not to everybody that participates in the
event. In this case we just have a really badly constructed
paragraph that does not accurately reflect what
the Archbishop wrote.
In the Roman Catholic Church, only a
baptized male is capable of receiving the Sacrament of Holy Orders
validly. What will take place on Saturday, August 9, 2008, has no
connection to Roman Catholic Liturgy or Sacraments and cannot in any
way be recognized as a valid reception of Sacred Orders. Simulation of
a sacrament carries with it very serious penal sanctions in Church Law.
Members of the Catholic Faithful should not support or participate in
Saturday’s event.
He certainly did not imply that imply that
all people who attended the event came under penal sanctions of Church
law. Though certainly their support of this is quite sinful.
In a previous article NCR interviewed
Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois.
In an interview Aug. 7, two days before
the ordination, Bourgeois told NCR that he had thought long and hard
about participating after receiving an invitation to the ceremony. “I
consulted a lot of friends, I’ve done a lot of discernment, spoken with
a lot of women friends. I felt in conscience — this matter of
conscience keeps coming up and I don’t know what other word to use —
if I didn’t attend her ordination, I would have to stop addressing this
issue as I do” in speaking engagements at parishes and other Catholic
venues around the country.
Oh great he has been going around the
country supporting this falsehood. My conscience tells me if
I ever run across this guy to give him a swift kick in the butt. Surely
he will support my conscience in this action even if it is an
impropertly formed conscience.
“Over the years and listening to women
friends – if one listens, just shuts up and listens to their stories,
their faith journey and, in some cases, their call by God to ordination
to the priesthood in the Catholic church – there is a problem for us
guys in the church. What are we saying? God is calling us but not you?
This is heresy. We’re tampering with the sacred here.”
Hey and what about all those guys like me
who don’t have a calling to the priesthood. God is calling
other, but not me. This is heresy and tampering with the
sacred if every person in the world is not called to the ordained
priesthood. I better get to the seminary fast before it fills
up with 5 billion plus people.
The hierarchy will say, “It is the
tradition of the church not to ordain women.” I grew up in a small town
in Louisiana and often heard, “It is the tradition of the South to have
segregated schools.” It was also “the tradition” in our Catholic church
to have the Black members seated in the last five pews of the church.
What a poorly catechized priest who can’t
tell the difference between so-called big-T traditions and small-T
tradition. Or if he does it is even worse to use such an
argument to equate Apostolic Tradition with “tradition of men.”
But all this talk of equality does makes me realize something.
Women have something I will never have (besides certain body
parts) – being called a Mother. And I am not talking about being called
a Mother with a certain expletive following it. I am
restricted to being called a Father. Everybody knows Fathers
Day is a second rate holiday compared to Mothers Day. You can
imagine my hurt over the years when my children were in school and they
would have them make Mothers Day cards to take home. Fathers
Day was deliberately put in June when school was out so that they would
never have to do this for their fathers. What an unfair act
of discrimination! Now I understand the role of mother is
tied with them actually giving birth to a child and so I find yet
another unfair act of discrimination in that I can’t get
pregnant. So I am starting the “Mens Pregnancy Conference”
and the organization “Roman Catholic Pregnant-men.” We will
have ceremonies naming us capable of bearing children where three
midwives will place hands on our tummies and confer pregnancy on us.
What you think this is silly? I assure you
ontologically I can become pregnant to the same level that
women can be ordained priests. Oh wait.