A reader sent me a link to an excellent column by Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, S.T.D. at Catholic Exchange on priestly celibacy.
Fr. John Malloy, SDB chronicles the sad history of Catholic Charities and the Diocese of San Francisco in regards to homosexual acts and homosexual adoption.
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., called Pope Benedict XVI a leader who maintains a great sense of the continuity of tradition within the Catholic church and its original teachings, and who seeks to “preserve and apply” those teachings through his papal role, at a lecture on the “Ecclesiology of Pope Benedict XVI,” held June 2, on the Rose Hill campus.
Cardinal Dulles said that Pope Benedict XVI views the church as universal, deriving its spiritual authority, or essence, from Christ’s ascension and the original 12 disciples.
“[Pope Benedict XIV believes] the church is not a product of human creativity,” Cardinal Dulles said, “She does not become whatever the leaders and members wish to make of her. The church is prior to all human initiative. Ours is not to innovate, but to preserve and apply the church teachings.”
Several readers sent me a link to the following story.
Shortly after noon on Fridays, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding ties on a black headscarf, preparing to pray with her Muslim group on First Hill.
On Sunday mornings, Redding puts on the white collar of an Episcopal priest.
She does both, she says, because she’s Christian and Muslim.
Redding, who until recently was director of faith formation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, has been a priest for more than 20 years. Now she’s ready to tell people that, for the last 15 months, she’s also been a Muslim — drawn to the faith after an introduction to Islamic prayers left her profoundly moved.
Her announcement has provoked surprise and bewilderment in many, raising an obvious question: How can someone be both a Christian and a Muslim?
Well instead at looking a how ridiculous this is, let us look at the positive side of a Christian Muslim.
- When you issue a fatwa on yourself it is hard for you to hide from yourself so you won’t have a Salman Rushdie problem.
- If your suicide belt goes off prematurely you at least killed one Christian.
- You can pretty much preach any thing you want and on a given point be pro one day and con the other.
- You can engage in interfaith dialogue when you are by yourself.
- You can send money to both Jay Sekulow and CAIR.
- Preach that you can eat pork and preach that you can’t.
- Preach hat God is both one God and a Trinity of three persons. and then that Allah is one God and only one person.
- Preach that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected and then that “They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought they did.”
- Preach that Jesus was the Son of God and that he wasn’t.
- Preach that Mohammed was a deluded man with a heretical mix of Christianity and that he was the last Prophet sent by God.
- Preach about the inspiration of the New Testament and that it is the word of God and that it isn’t and in fact the Qur’an is.
- Preach that the Holy Spirit is the "other helper" and the that Muhammad is.
- Cheer for both sides of the Crusades.
- Call yourself an infidel.
- You can be a dhimmi to yourself.
- Have really really mixed feelings about Israel.
- Dip your fingers in a Holy Water font to make the sign of the cross and then wash your feet and pray before Mecca.
"The Holy Father responds when asked about the imminent release of the Motu Proprio"
Two lungs unite!
From part of a homily from Fr Tim Finigan at The hermeneutic of continuity:
….But the other day, I was being interviewed for a programme to be broadcast on EWTN and the interviewer spoke of the parish and asked about its “success.” I think it was a light given by the Holy Spirit which prompted me immediately to say that I will only know whether the parish has been a success at the last judgement when our Lord will show me how many parishioners have been saved.
Our “success” or “failure” as a parish is not measured by how we feel or how much money we raise or how many activities we can arrange. The true success of all our endeavours in the Church will be measured by how many of us are saved and go to heaven. A consequence of this view of “success” in a parish is that all our activities should be directed towards this final end.
A nice expansion of what Aeschylus
said and directed towards a parish and definitely a thought to remember in how we measure success.
Via Relapsed Catholic:
The Catholic League’s William Donohue is a touchy old grump, but once in a while he makes a good point:
"To begin with, there has not been a single abortionist killed in the U.S. since 1998. When there were killings in the mid-1990s, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, chairman of the Pro-Life Activities of the bishops’ conference, said that such shootings make ‘a mockery of everything we stand for.’ When there were two killings at Massachusetts abortion clinics, Cardinal Bernard Law not only denounced them, he ordered a moratorium on sidewalk protest vigils outside abortion clinics in Boston. Cardinal John O’Connor’s response in New York was profound: ‘If anyone has an urge to kill an abortionist, kill me instead.’
"Just this week, a report of Muslim violence against Iraqi Christians was released. The study, Incipient Genocide, describes in detail ‘the deaths of Christian children — including babies—laypeople, priests and nuns who were burned, beaten or blown up in car bombs throughout the past few years.’ Moreover, Christian girls are being raped and having nitric acid thrown in their faces for not wearing veils. And the Muslim silence is deafening.’"
As is usually the case Kathy Shaidle’s post titles makes a brilliant point
More abortion clinics have been bombed on "Law & Order" than in real life…
Canonist Ed Peters:
Boston politicos Peter & Rosanne Meade woke up one summer morning, saw the sun shining brightly, and concluded that God must have changed his mind about the travesty called "homosexual marriage". The Meades think that because the world did not come to an end when Massachusetts legalized "same-sex marriage", those ignorant Bible-thumpers were wrong about the consequences for societies that continually invent new ways to flout, well, just about everything.
But a pretty sunrise over Boston Harbor is not, in the slightest, a sign that God approves of what the chronically bizarre government of Massachusetts does in regard to "homosexual marriage", or anything else for that matter. Not at all.
The Meades need to read their Bible—no, not the parts about the earth opening up and swallowing sinners or raging floods wiping away the evil, as instructive as those passages might be—but rather, the places where Holy Writ reminds us that, in his wisdom, God lets the sun shine on the good and the bad alike, and that weeds will grow up alongside the wheat until, that is, the Day of Harvest, when the wheat will be gathered into barns, and the weeds torn out and burned.
But the Meades’ opinion column, as bad as it is (consider here provisions such as 1983 CIC 225, 227, and 747), provokes a deeper problem for the Church in Boston: Peter Meade is co-chair of the commission advising Cdl. O’Malley about the complex and crucial issue of parish-closings in the archdiocese.
Now, if one cannot think clearly about something as simple, and as obvious, and as anciently and universally honored as the fact that marriage is a "covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life" (1983 CIC 1055), then how can he or she can be taken seriously as an advisor to ecclesiastical leaders on any topic requiring the exercise of prudent judgment?
By their own words, the Meades have proclaimed themselves unfit to hold a position of influence in any particular Church, let alone one as prominent as Boston. If he won’t resign, Peter Meade should be removed from the cardinal’s advisory commission.
Cardinal Seán on his blog posts about "Disturbing news about marriage." and the statement the diocesan bishops in Massachusetts issued decrying the dominant Democratic legislatures blocking of a Democratic vote. Hopefully the Cardinal will also see that Peter Meade needs to resign.
Italian police officers detain an unidentified man a few minutes after Pope Benedict XVI left St. Mary Major Basilica where he celebrated the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, in Rome, Thursday, June 7, 2007. The man started shouting and tried to enter the locked basilica. When some in the crowd began calling for police, officers quickly arrived and grabbed the muscular-looking man. Rome police said they did not immediately have any information on the details. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
The shouted words heard by the crowd were “I must stop the Motu Proprio!”
The Pope winds up for a little too enthusiastic Confirmation slap.