A reader informs me that the Clear Creek Monastery is raising funds to build a new monastery. This is a group of Benedictine monk who celebrate the Tridentine Rite in Oklahoma.
This blog has an account of a visit there with plenty of photos.
Here is another article on them.
Thomas Hibbs at NRO has an article on The enduring significance of A Canticle for Leibowitz. As a SF fan I still can’t believe I never read this great book until earlier this year.
Emily Byer from The Parousian Post blog has a good article in the LSU newspaper on Planned Parenhood’s 90th anniversary and its founder Magaret Sanger. There have been several comments to her article, most positive, but one that is extremely scary.
But we ARE [at least physically] nothing more than highly civilized animals! Just another piece of the life-web that unluckily has too many members and the power to destroy all the web’s other members.
As for Eugenics – it is actually good, logical sense to let the infirm and addled live fulfilling fun live but NOT let them breed. How much strain would be taken off the healthcare system, how much misery avoided… In fact pre-WWII it was de-rigueur in most of US law; until Hitler became associated with the term. Tell us, really, what good does let 2 severally retarded and blind people reproduce do anyone?
Eugenics might be "playing God" but as Francis Crick said, "Someone has to." If that is not for you then fine; stick to your "alternate view" and beliefs and stay out of the way of the rest of us. Don’t like abortion – don’t have one. Don’t like sex – avoid it too.
As for socialism – some parts of that are quite fine – like socialized medicine.
Well I guess that is one way to defend racist eugenists Margaret Sanger. You just got to enjoy those bumper sticker platitudes like "Don’t like abortion – don’t have one." Don’t like slavery, don’t own one. Don’t like murder, don’t kill anyone. Though what immediately comes to mind is in this commenter’s case " Don’t like reason, don’t use it. "
AMDG notes that the USCCB’s site is listing the Call to Action conference on their November Calendar.
November 3-5 Call to Action National Conference: “Rise Up People of God,” Milwaukee, WI. Contact Linda Pieczynski, (630) 323-6924.
This year one of their sessions include:
Roman Catholic Women Priests Celebrate Eucharist
Roman Catholic Women Priests invite us to a Eucharistic liturgy in which women, equal and sacred symbols of the Roman Catholic Chuch <sic>, celebrate in an inclusive manner the Sacred Meal of Our Faith. They invite us to join them and “discover the future alive in the present.” Facilitating this liturgy will be six ordained R.C. Women Priests, pictured below: Bridget Mary Meehan of Global Ministries University; Eileen M. DiFranco of Philadelphia; Joan Clark Houk of Pittsburgh; Kathleen Strack Kunster, serving a small community in California; Regina Nicolosi of Red Wing, Minn., a nursing home chaplain; and Kathy Sullivan Vandenberg. There are also two ordained R.C. women deacons: Juanita Cordero, a liturgist, and Mary Ellen Robertson, a hospice chaplain. Sun., 7:45 AM (13.07)
What is interesting is that this event is not listed on their regular calendar. Also no other Catholic conferences are listed. Only Call to Actions out of all the hundreds of conferences each years gets a mention.
The USCCB gives contact information for Linda Pieczynski, the spokeswoman of Call to Action. Before Pope John Paul II died she said "What we are trying to do is survive and hold on until [the next pope]." Boy would I have liked to see her face when Pope Benedict was elected. After his election she said:
"Progressive Catholics are closely watching the first actions of the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI," stated Linda Pieczynski, the national spokesperson for Call To Action (CTA), the nation’s largest progressive Catholic reform group. She said, "The Spirit leads the church, which is the people of God, no matter who is Pope. Some issues in the Church just won’t go away. We still feel called to raise our issues even if the current Pope will not. Given our knowledge of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s prior positions as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the office of the notorious Holy Inquisition, we are guarded in our expectation that he will address any of the important changes we have called for."
Pieczynski continued, "Under Ratzinger’s leadership and with his approval, the discussion of women’s ordination has been forbidden; married priesthood is not under consideration; people who have ministered to the gay and lesbian community have been silenced; and theologians who have written about the good in other religions have been investigated. He is also personally responsible for derailing the canonical lawsuit filed by the victims of Fr. Maciel, former head of the Legionaries of Christ, an alleged serial pedophile. Finally, he led an effort for two decades to disempower national conferences of bishops, which conflicts with Vatican II’s principle of collegiality."
Update: The calendar item has now been removed. Hopefully this was addressed with whatever staffer thougtht this was worthy in the first place.
I mentioned some time back about a Tennessee man who created a Rosary out of bowling balls.
Well here is another one in Michigan.
NAPOLEON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — When a man forges a 70-foot, 700-pound rosary out of bowling balls in his front yard, you just know there’s a story behind it.
This one involves Ralph Kluk, 76 — a Poland native, pack rat, polka player and pen pal of the late Pope John Paul II.
Kluk is a character. He also is known to ride about town with one. If you spy a guy tooling around in a black Chevy 1500 pickup with a 3-foot tall Scooby Doo plush toy strapped into the passenger’s seat, chances are you’ve just seen Kluk.
"I do crazy things," the Jackson County grandfather admits, with a twinkle in his eye. "But they’re not really crazy."
Turns out, there’s actually a simple mathematical formula to building a bowling-ball rosary.
Take 59 balls, 20 cans of pastel spray paint, 40 feet of black piping, add a wooden cross and voila! You have a unique interpretation of Roman Catholic catechism that Kluk calls "The Final Strike."
Anchoring the balls in the ground with 9-inch metal stakes was key, he says. They almost rolled off his 30 acres and onto Horton Road.
NOKOMIS – Hail Mary, full of grace ? and if you sinners out there try to pray this particular rosary, you are going to need a back brace.
Not that fingering the 59 beads is the point here, of course. The rosary that retired quarry worker Bernard "Chub" Clark has created in his rural three acre yard near Nokomis is made of old bowling balls and probably weighs close to 1,000 pounds, give or take.
Behind the rosary is a cautionary sign, stark black letters against a white backdrop: "You know not the hour Jesus will come – please pray." Clark hopes the message rather than the rosary will weigh heavily on the conscience of rubber-necking motorists passing by on Hillside Avenue. Clark believes mankind has strayed further and further into the gutter and our Father, who art displeased in heaven, is getting ready to bowl us over for our wickedness.
Well the one advantage is that if you happen to drop this Rosary when you yell Jesus! it won’t be too out of place.
From a Letter to the Editor by Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Diocese of Providence.
I write about the highly publicized attempt of two Rhode Island women to enter into a "same-sex marriage" in Massachusetts.
I’d like to stress that my remarks aren’t aimed personally at the individuals in question. I wish them no harm and I sincerely pray that God will bless them and the children with them with much health and happiness. Nonetheless, their attempt to have the state ratify their homosexual relationship is disturbing and morally objectionable.
God’s plan for the human race is obvious and immutable: "God created man in his image, in the divine image he created them, male and female he created them. . . . For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh." This clear testimony of the Bible is supported by the constant teaching of the church, the law of nature, the reality of biology and common sense. Males and females are complementary; they are designed for union with one another. The traditional concept of marriage, based on that relationship, is normative, fundamental to the human person and essential for the common good of society.
Contrary to some current ideologies, this teaching does not discriminate against homosexual persons. The Catholic Church has consistently taught that homosexual persons are children of God, our brothers and sisters, and must be respected. Nonetheless we have to recognize the possibility, sometimes even the necessity, of respecting individuals even while opposing their immoral behavior. Likewise, it’s not a question of civil rights as some have claimed. There’s never a right to do something wrong. Human freedom is not unbridled license; it must be grounded in truth.
The facts are these: Homosexual acts are contrary to the law of nature and gravely immoral; The notion of gay marriage or civil unions is spiritually harmful to individuals and families and erodes the foundation of society; The state has no business encouraging immoral behavior or ratifying illicit unions.
I hope and pray that the State of Rhode Island will not follow Massachusetts in traveling down this dangerous and dead-end highway.
THOMAS J. TOBIN
WARSAW, Poland –Poland’s central bank on Monday issued 2 million collectors’ bank notes bearing the image of the late Pope John Paul II, marking the 28th anniversary of the late pontiff’s election.
John Paul, born Karol Wojtyla in the Polish town of Wadowice, is revered in his homeland, where he helped to inspire the pro-democracy Solidarity movement in the 1980s.
The National Bank of Poland’s special notes have a face value of $16, and sell for $29.
The front of the bills feature an image of John Paul II holding his crucifix-topped staff against a background of the world map.
On the back, John Paul is depicted kissing the hand of a Polish cardinal. The design includes a quote from the late pontiff: "There would not be a Polish pope at the Holy See if not for your faith, not backing down when faced with prison and suffering, your heroic hope."
Vuong Anh Toan, 39, who has lived in Poland since moving from Vietnam 10 years ago, bought three bills for his wife and son.
"I’m not a Catholic, my wife is, but I loved the pope," he said.
I am torn between this being really cool or an opportunist money making gimmick to take advantage of the late Pope’s popularity . And in this case they are literally making money to make money.
TAMPA,Fla. (The Florida Catholic) – David and Carmen Cartaya own a business here called David’s Pharmacy. But they make it clear they are not the boss.
God is.
“The No. 1 thing in David’s and my life is God and religion,” Carmen, 57, said. “No. 2: the family. No. 3 is extended family. No. 4 is more family. And No. 5 is our job. Our profession.”
They also make it clear that life matters.
Stop by their store, at the corner of West Martin Luther King Boulevard and North Armenia Avenue, and this fact becomes immediately clear – from the pro-life pamphlets and videos to the fetal models to the large banner inside the store that reads, “If you’re pregnant, it’s a baby. Choose life.”
As devout Catholics, they practice what they preach. When they got married in 1969, they did not use contraception, but followed natural family planning, David, 61, said. In the years that followed, three sons became part of their family.
When David became a pharmacist, he worked for several companies, but the couple decided in the mid-1970s to start their business. As owners, the couple decided not to sell birth control pills or other contraceptives, a practice they have kept to for about 30 years now.
“We wanted to please God first before men,” David said. “God’s laws and our faith meant more than anything else.”
The couple, who were born in Cuba and met each other in Tampa, do not know how many lives they have touched because of their pro-life witness, which is offered in English and in Spanish.
“Only God knows,” David said.
But Carmen recalls one woman who came into the store who considered the fetus growing inside her as “real and alive,” but her friends kept telling her to have an abortion because, if she didn’t, she would be “crazy.” The woman happened to see one of the pro-life signs at David’s Pharmacy, Carmen said, and told her friends, “Somebody else doesn’t think I’m crazy.” And she decided to keep the baby.
Bureaucracies are like dinosaurs because the bigger they get the smaller their brains are. Case in point is the USCCB.
Previously the USCCB went after the Verbum Domini podcast which broadcast the daily readings from the New American Bible and demanded that he stop using the NAB. Great move against a podcast listened to by people who are unable to attend Mass. They subsequently put on their site.
Permission may not be granted to post or podcast the complete NAB (or complete books of the NAB) or the daily or Sunday readings.
Now since the USCCB is the copyright holder of the NAB they certainly have the legal right to defend their copyright. It is also understandable how they might want to prevent the misuse of this translation (though in this case the translators of the NAB already did that). It seems to me reasonable that that they should grant permission to a podcast only after an investigation as to how it is used. Instead they just have a blanket NO. Go out into the whole world and spread the Gospel unless of course it has been copyrighted by the USCCB.
Now Jeff Mirus of Catholic Culture reports that the USCCB is now going after websites that post USCCB documents.
We used to include many significant documents in our database from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, but not any more. The USCCB goes after web sites which make use of USCCB documents, threatening legal action for copyright violations. This policy is in marked contrast to that of the Vatican, which enforces copyrights only to prevent others from releasing advance copies of documents before their official promulgation dates.
Many organizations, including Trinity Communications, have received letters from the USCCB listing the unauthorized documents displayed on their web sites, and requesting immediate removal. USCCB staff actually track this stuff down. Clearly this is within the USCCB’s rights under copyright law, but just as clearly it is a short-sighted policy which significantly limits the circulation of episcopal documents. If other web sites were allowed to post them, these documents would be substantially more widely read among the Catholic faithful.
Mark Shea says in response:
One of their many stupid, counter-productive, turf-guarding policies is to criminalize the use of USCCB documents (including the Catechism) and to waste our tithe money assigning staff to track down those nefarious Catholics out on the web who, like, quote the Catechism. One almost gets the impression the USCCB doesn’t *want* people to know what the Church teaches.
Congratulations to Greg and Jennifer of Rosary Army which recently released their 100th podcasts. I listen to a lot of podcasts, predominately Catholic ones, and the Rosary Army podcast is definitely one of my favorites. Their apostolate of making Rosaries with the motto "Make them. Pray them. Give them away." only gives you a slight indicator of what their podcast is like. They have described their podcast as a Catholic reality show as it follows the joyful and sad events in their life. They do it with great humor and you never know from week to week what their topic of discussion or on what tangent they once again embark. If you have never listened to their podcast the 100th episode it a good introduction to them since it wonderfully displays their talent and includes segments of past shows.
I have also finally gotten around to making a banner for them in my Catholic podcast section along with two others of my favorite podcasts from their joint effort of SQPN.
