News

It was a most unexpected blessing.

St. Peter’s Church took in two free truckloads, about 1,000 pounds, of Catholic books and devotional objects thanks to the efforts of a former altar boy.

David Soto, 32, an employee of a junk-collection company, contacted the Roman Catholic church after the company was hired to clear out the apartment of an elderly man who was moving into a nursing home.

The man, whom the company and church officials declined to identify, had amassed enough items to pack his apartment, floor to ceiling, with boxes and bags.

Items included crucifixes, crosses, rosaries, devotional cards, medals and icons. The collection also included an encyclopedia of saints and books on Augustinian and Carmelite spirituality.

The company delivered the items earlier this month.

Rev. Arthur Rojas said the books were high quality and speculated that the former owner _ coincidentally a former St. Peter’s parishioner _ might have once aspired to a life in the church.

‘For all we know there was a calling to the priesthood or monastic life that was never fully actualized,’ Rojas said.

Well if tonnage of books and devotional items was an actual sign of calling then there must be a lot of missed vocations in St. Blogs.

HARLINGEN, Texas A public television station owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese in Brownsville, Texas failed to run a "Frontline" program about the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston. The station instead repeated the previous week’s program.

Phil Zimmerman, a promotions assistant for "Frontline," says K-M-B-H T-V was one of only two P-B-S affiliates in the nation not to run "Hand of God." He says the other station didn’t air the program because of a scheduling conflict.

Gerald Brazier, a member of a local church reform group, says viewers who called K-M-B-H were told the station’s general manager wanted to preview "Hand of God" to see if it was appropriate for local viewers.

A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Brownsville says the Catholic church owns the station but does not influence programming decisions.

I do wonder how the heck the diocese ended up owning a public television station in the first place.

David Alexander wrote a critique of the documentary last week that invoked a spirited combox thread that included the documentaries director.

The UPDF on Friday had to rescue the Catholic Bishop of Kotido from a mob that pelted him with stones.

The Rt. Rev. Dennis Kiwanuka had a rough reception when he arrived at Morulem parish in Abim district last Friday for a meeting with his flock.

A mob of Catholic youth, women and middle-aged men descended upon him, threatening to lynch the policemen who had accompanied him.

The crowd destroyed the bishop’s pick-up truck, looted property at the church parish and made off with goats, chicken and sheep.

“They demonstrated because I had refused to ordain one of their sons to priesthood,” Bishop Kiwanuka commented by telephone. “That deacon knows very well why he cannot be ordained. He has some obstacles that he has to remove first,” he added, without giving details.

I guess they didn’t buy the "he who is without sin through the fist stone" thing.
According to Canon Law 1370 §2, those who use physical force against a bishop incurs a latae sententiae interdict and, if he is a cleric, also a latae sententiae suspension

Zeus Worshippers Demand Access to Temple

Trier, Germany (dpa) – A Polish Catholic clergyman on loan to Germany has been suspended from his priestly duties because he refuses to move out of a presbytery and go home, a spokesman for the German archdiocese of Trier said Monday.

I found the headline for the story rather funny "Immovable Polish priest in Germany suspended."
It brings to my imagination a priest frozen in position that nobody and lift up and move. Challenging people to lift him up if they can.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Internet-savvy leader of the fourth-largest U.S. Roman Catholic diocese, is bringing the church’s 2,000-year-old message to the world’s millions of iPod owners.

O’Malley will become the first of the Catholic Church’s 186 cardinals worldwide to launch a podcast and use the technology to reach followers, said Father Robert Reed, who runs a Web site that will distribute the podcasts, on Thursday.

Sorry Reuters, Cardinal Arinze has been podcasting for quite a while now.

The election of Pope Benedict XVI is a gift that keeps on giving. Latest proof is.

Midnight Mass Homily

Urbi et Orbi Blessing

A Parish priest in Kamuli recently sent his flock in bewilderment when he baptised over 80 children at the roadside.

Trouble started when the catechists failed to oblige to his prior instruction of dividing the children in groups (obubondo) of 20, in a bid to accumulate more funds from the expected 15,000 per kabondo.

Enraged by the loss, the priest removed his robes and left the church, entered his car and drove off.

He stopped a distance of four miles from the church after the parishioners rang him pleading with him to carry out the baptism.

He ordered them to take the children to where he had parked, and from his car, sprinkled jets of water on them and left, punctuating his exit with insults.

Hopefully they will get their children to be actually baptized since surely a group baptism is invalid. As far as I know the only group sacrament would be group absolution in an emergency situation, which still has to be followed up with individual confession if they survive.

BOSTON: Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley is going high-tech. He already has his own blog, now he plans to start podcasting to the masses, beginning with downloadable Christmas messages.

The video messages — in English, Spanish and Portuguese — are part of a broader effort by the Boston Archdiocese to embrace new technology as a way to spread the church’s message.

The archdiocese is overhauling its newspaper and television Web sites, including offering the downloadable podcasts. It has assigned e-mail addresses to all priests, a handful of whom have resisted using computers. It also has an intranet site that officials expect will replace the monthly mailings to clergy.

O’Malley, a Capuchin Franciscan friar who has taken a vow of poverty and is a frequent critic of consumer culture, is emerging as an unlikely technology pioneer.

That will make him the second Cardinal podcaster after Cardinal Arinze.

Here is Zenit’s translation of the Pope’s Pre-Christmas Reflection.

Here is just a sample to wet your whistle.

But the question is: Does humanity of our time still await a Savior? The impression is that many think that God is foreign to their own interests. It would seem they have no need of him; they live as if he did not exist and, worse still, as if he were an "obstacle" that must be removed so they can be fulfilled. Even among believers, we are certain, some allow themselves to be drawn by seductive chimeras and distracted by deceitful doctrines which propose illusory shortcuts to attain happiness.

However, despite its contradictions, anxieties and dramas, and perhaps because of them, today’s humanity seeks a way of renewal, of salvation, a Savior and awaits, sometimes unconsciously, the coming of the Lord who renews the world and our lives; the coming of Christ, the only true Redeemer of man and of all men. It is true, false prophets continue to propose a "cheap" salvation, which always ends by causing harsh deceptions. In fact, the history of the last 50 years shows the search for a "cheap" Savior and manifests all the disillusions that have derived from it.

We Christians have the task to spread, with the testimony of life, the truth of Christmas, which Christ brings to all men and women of good will. On being born in the poverty of the stable, Jesus comes to offer to all the only joy and peace that can satisfy the expectations of the human spirit.