If you don’t already have an audible.com account you can sign up for a 14 day free trial and download one book which you can keep.
There is a limited number of books in the various sections, but they do have Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth (Unabridged.)
The offer was made available via TWIT so you would need to sign in here.
*TWIT (This Week in Technology podcast)
Spanish sisters who drank beer for 45 days straight as part of a medical research project are part of a growing trend to study nuns whose unique healthy, celibate lifestyle makes them ideal for such purposes.
Every year hundreds of Catholic nuns are weighed, measured, poked and prodded in the name of medical research, the US ABC News reports.
In a study recently conducted by the Centre for Information on Beer and Health in Spain, 50 nuns drank a half-litre of beer every day for 45 days. Six months later they took 400 milligrams of hops, reported Reuters.
The study found that cholesterol rates fell by 6 percent in those sisters with high levels.
"We did it for the good of humanity," Sr Almerinda Alvarez told the newspaper El Pais.
Where can I sign up for a study like that! Purely in the interest of advancing science of course.
Dimitri Cavalli sent me a link to his article in WSJ’s Opinion Journal A Liberal Mix of Religion and Politics:
When Catholic politicians face excommunication. He goes into the history of when Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans excommunicated a Catholic politician and two activists after first warning them about their opposition to racial integration. This historical example has been mentioned before on my blog and by others, but this article gives some quotations of these men which are just about exactly identical ot pro-abortion Catholic politicians of today. Of course the New York Times at the time had the opposite take on this ecclesiastical punishment and praised it.
Since I subscribe to the Catholic Answers podcast I was delighted to find that Dawn Eden recently was on for a show. Dawn did a great job, but she needs some work on her book hawking skills. Repeatedly when asked by callers on chastity questions she referred them to other peoples books and not her own (of which I am glad to hear is in its fifth printing since December).
SALEM, Ore. (AP) – A man and three teens have been arrested in Salem, Oregon, after police say they stopped to try on the vestments they had stolen from a church.
The four are accused of breaking into a Methodist church late Monday night and taking several small items, including a ceramic set of praying hands. After that, police say the group broke into a nearby Catholic church and stole priests’ vestments and a three-liter bottle of sacramental wine.
Police say they arrested a transient and three 16-year-olds as they tried on the vestments in a park.
MANASSAS, VA – Today Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) President Patrick Reilly announced the hiring of author Dawn Eden to become CNS’s first Director of its new Love & Responsibility Program.
“We are thrilled that Dawn has agreed to join us as the head of our new Love & Responsibility Program,” said Reilly. “The combination of Dawn’s professional experience and natural ability to connect with students on a personal level will jump-start our work to promote authentic Catholic values on love, life and sexual ethics on Catholic campuses.”
Before joining the Cardinal Newman Society, Ms. Eden served as Deputy News Editor of the New York Daily News. She is the author of The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On (Thomas Nelson, 2006) and her writings have appeared in national publications such as the Sunday Times of London, The Wall Street Journal, Touchstone, Canada’s National Post, and National Review Online.
Ms. Eden is also in demand as a speaker, having given talks to college students and young-adult groups throughout the U.S. including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Newman Hall, Cleveland’s St. Mary Seminary, and Washington, D.C.’s Catholic Information Center, as well as Theology on Tap events around the country. She is a featured speaker at this weekend’s Legion of Mary Youth Conference in Dublin, Ireland and at next week’s 26th Annual G.K. Chesterton Conference in St. Paul, Minn.
The CNS Love & Responsibility Program seeks to reestablish chastity as the cornerstone of Catholic campus culture by proactively promoting Catholic values, such as those embodied in Pope John Paul II’s frequent exhortations on the “theology of the body” and Pope Benedict XVI’s recent encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love).
Ms. Eden will, among other things, advise, train and provide support for students at Catholic colleges who are developing student clubs, lectures or other campus events in support of Catholic teaching on love and sexuality.
For more information on the Cardinal Newman Society’s Love & Responsibility Program see www.cardinalnewmansociety.org.
Last week Paul Camarata from the SaintCast podcast had me on his show for a new segment he has developed where each week he is going to ask bloggers and others who there favorite saints are and some other questions.
Right click to download episode #61 of the SaintCast.
After Paul had queried me about this I finally got around to picking up a USB microphone so that I could use Skype to so that he could record it for his show. Paul has the most wonderful voice and if he ever gives up his day job as neurosurgeon then I am sure he could make it doing voiceover work or as a D.J. Though more important Paul always puts on an entertaining show where he covers the saints that are being celebrated for the week and doing in depth segments on particular saints. He also has had quality people on his show, me being the exception, and a expert on relics. I have listened to his podcast since the first one he put out and the production values are quite high.
The SaintCast is part of the SQPN network home of other quality podcasts such as Fr Rodericks’ Daily Breakfast, Rosary Army, Catholics in a small town, Catholic Family Podcast, Catholic Under the Hood, TechnoPriest, Catholic Rockers, Into the Deep and other fine shows.
One of my commenters reported on a counter-demonstration to Call To Action.
For those who haven’t heard, when Call to Action learned we were organizing a show of support for our Bishop, they tried to preserve a monopoly on their sought after media attention by changing their protest to 11:00am. We learned about it just before 9:00am.
The signs were not yet printed! I was out collecting completed Petition pages! I couldn’t get to a computer! I was disheartened to say the least.
Well, the Holy Spirit took charge of the situation in no short order. A flurry of phone calls ensued. The signs would be ready for pick up at 10am in South Lincoln. The homeschoolers were called into action by Cheryl Winter. I made one call to her and with her directory in hand she made numerous calls. Liz Feuerborn phoned me on my cell and she sent out an urgent email to our homeschool group that reached many others as well.
I was hoping that we might have double their numbers at the 11:00am gathering. I was also concerned that our time would be drawn from petition gathering. I should not have worried! Here’s what happened:
About 116 red-shirted people showed up on a moment’s notice at the steps of the Chancery! Amazing! Call to Action again tried to lure the media away by changing their staging area (all 9 members of them!) to occur in front of the Cathedral parking lot instead of the Chancery. That meant it was time for a good old fashioned Catholic procession!
We were required by Lincoln Police (as they politely told us) to stay off of the public sidewalk. Off we went, filling the lawn in front of the Chancery, then in front of the Cathedral. We sang hymns, recited the Apostle’s Creed, we prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for the return to the Church of Call to Action members. It was such a blessed sight. One family drove all the way from Palmyra, another from Wahoo!
After numerous interviews, we finally dispersed and returned to the business of finishing the Petition gathering. At 2:00pm we met at Doug’s home. He and his wife, daughter and grandchildren worked very hard on the Petition drive and we are very thankful- they provided the backbone and inspiration for all of their efforts!
We went forward with our support gathering at 2:45pm. More praying, including the Chaplet at 3pm- again for the return of those who have left the Church and also for our Bishop. At about 3:20 the petitions were totaled.
Call to Action collected signatures since December, 2006 and had approximately 1000.
Our faithful lay Catholics collected 1452 in just over 31 hours!
Bishop Bruskewitz addressed our happy celebration, received our Petitions of support, thanked us and granted our request for a blessing.
It surely shows just how far CTA is on the decline when they hold a demonstration and ten times more people show up for the counter-demonstration.
Here is quite a confusing headline: Pope Benedict Martyrs Austrian Beheaded by Nazis
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI approved recognition of martyrdom for an Austrian who was beheaded by the Nazis for refusing to serve in Hitler’s army, a step toward possible sainthood.
…Benedict also approved martyrdom Friday for 188 Japanese who were decapitated, burned at the stake or scalded to death in volcanic hot springs in the early 1700s. Among them was a Jesuit priest, Peter Kibe, a convert to Christianity whose work as a missionary was opposed by authorities.
He and the other Japanese died for refusing to renounce their faith.
…The Rev. Dean Dombroski felt differently, removing her from the choir loft just before Thanksgiving and gradually taking away other church duties. Servais can no longer take pictures during First Communion services or lead the committee planning St. Joseph’s annual late-summer picnic.
Dombroski said he couldn’t discuss the situation because it involves personnel. But in a letter to his rural congregation, he wrote: "Linette is a consultant for a firm which sells products of a sexual nature that are not consistent with Church teachings. Because parish leaders are expected to model the teaching of our faith … she could stay on as the choir director/organist or she could continue to be a consultant but she could not do both."
The headline for the article was "Musician Canned for Focus on Wrong Organ."