Punditry

A couple who withheld a donation to their church and instead left a note protesting the closure of a Roman Catholic high school were suspended by the pastor.

“You raise your hand to strike at the parish that has nourished your faith through the years. That says volumes,” The Rev. Thomas Cappelloni of Our Lady of Grace church in Hazleton wrote in a letter to the couple. He said the parishioners should have talked to him if they were concerned about the closure of Bishop Hafey High School.

Cappelloni said he was temporarily suspending the couple’s registration at the parish “as long as you willfully seek to harm Our Lady of Grace by your nonsupport” and the termination would be permanent if the decision were not reconsidered. He added in a postscript that theirs was the only envelope out of 960 mailed out in which such a stand was taken.

The woman who sent the note told the Standard-Speaker of Hazleton that she was disappointed by the pastor’s response.
[Via The World IMHO]

Regardless of the prudence of the couples act (which I don’t agree with), I would think that the pastor is wrong in was he has done. First off the whole issue of registration is that it is an administrative invention and is something nowhere stated in Canon Law. It is a useful administrative tool to help give the parish and the bishop an idea of how many people attend a Church and is usually something a parish requires before someone can receive sacraments such as baptism and confirmation. Fr. Tucker had a good post on this subject before.

So exactly what does this pastor mean by a revoking of registration? If this meant that the couple was no longer allowed to attend that parish or to participate in Mass, then that is something just not possible for him to do. For this to happen there would have to be, I believe, an interdict against entering the church or a particular personal interdict. Though these types of interdicts can only be inflicted by the local bishop, not the pastor. Of course what they have done does not come close to being so grave as to require an ecclesial penalty in the first place.

“This is a matter between a pastor and a parishioner,” diocese spokesman Bill Genello said. “The pastor intends to discuss this with the parishioner.”

Translation: This is rather messy and we really don’t want to get involved regardless of the rights of the couple.

THE assistant general secretary of the Catholic bishop’s conference of England & Wales has praised the contribution that Anglican clergymen have made to Christian Unity through their conversion to Catholicism.

Mgr Andrew Faley said there had been a positive impact since that Anglican priests first started making approaches to convert to Rome around 15 years ago.
He said: “It’s had a very good impact on the Catholic Church in that most of the candidates who have been received, formed and ordained, who were former Anglican clergymen, have brought a huge wealth of pastoral sensitivity, experience and wisdom into the Catholic Church.

He added: “The bishops were always aware that it wasn’t a good enough reason for a man who was a former Anglican, became Catholic and wished to be considered for the Catholic priesthood, to do so because he didn’t approve of women as priests. That’s not the issue.

“
The issue is clearly to do with what it means to belong to the universal church and the decisions made within a particular church, in this case, the Anglican Church, to ordain women to the priesthood.

“
That decision is much more deeply engrained as a reason for the deeper reflection that it stirred in Catholics, Anglicans and other Christians as to what it means to belong to a Church that believes itself to be universal, in communion through the bishops with the Holy Father as the first among equals.”

Praising Anglicans for conversion of their members to the Catholic Church and contributing to Christian unity seems to me to be a back-handed compliment. Though he is certainly right that the issue of women priests is not a sufficient reason for conversion. Though this issue along with others just helps to many to reevaluate the authority of the Anglican churches and when you start questioning on the issue of authority this generally leads to the Catholic Church. Looking around at the issue of authority in other Protestant churches only reveals the same problem.

Maybe we can start passing out "Pushing them across the Tiber" awards to select Anglican bishops. It really seems at time that some are doing everything they can in this regard. It is like they are saying "Here is the Tiber, a boat prepared for you, and this is the direction to row to."

From an article in Commonweal called Praying to Buddha by the wonderfully named Peter Phan from Georgetown the theoretically Catholic University.

For example, Dominus Iesus, the declaration issued in 2000 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, asserts that “if it is true that the followers of other religions can receive divine grace, it is also certain that objectively speaking they are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the church, have the fullness of the means of salvation.” As I was writing this essay, meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that official Saudi first-grade textbooks for Islamic studies affirm that “every religion other than Islam is false.” My point is not that Dominus Iesus and Saudi religious textbooks are parallel. Rather, it is that the Dominus Iesus statement will be read and understood one way in the corridors of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and in another, quite different way in the context of a dialogue with Islam-and specifically in a contemporary geopolitical context inflamed by the notion of a “clash of civilizations” that pits Muslim against Christian. Furthermore, it is only after serious and prolonged dialogues of life, action, and religious experience that one can say with any degree of certainty whether a devout Muslim is always and “objectively speaking” in “a gravely deficient situation” and necessarily worse off than a Catholic who has at his or her disposal “the fullness of the means of salvation.”

I also bet that Dominus Iesus will be read one way in the "corridors of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and in another, quite different way" in the corridors of Commonweal.

I would think that a truly devout Muslim compared to a devout Catholic would still be objectively deficient. They might both make it to heaven, but in their life other believers are still handicapped as compared to a Catholic that avails themselves and lives the teachings of the Church and the sacraments. For example MacGyver might be able to easily get himself out of a burning room with some duct tape and a Swiss Army knife and whatever he finds available in the room. As for myself I would much prefer access to an oxygen mask and the switch to trigger a Halon system. Being faithful and living the sacraments is a surefire way to avoid fire.

The article starts off by talking about his Catholic mother who once would have totally segregated herself from for example Buddhists and is now willing to give money to Buddhists nuns and call Buddha a holy man. The contention is that in her youth she was taught "Catholicism-was the true religion, and all other religions the work of the devil."

How, then, could an old woman like my mother, God-loving and church-fearing, a twice-a-day churchgoer raised to believe that no one except Catholics can be saved, do what she did that day in that pagoda? And what, exactly, happened between the 1960s and 2000 that enabled her to honor the Buddhist nun, pray to the Buddha, and contribute money to the maintenance of the pagoda? The answer lies in the dramatic expansion during our era of interreligious dialogue, particularly as it has been espoused by the church since Vatican II.

I think he is just building up a straw man. While it is quite possible that she might have been taught this, you can’t really say this is what the Church has taught. For example before Vatican II Fr. Feeney S.J. was excommunicated in 1953 for having a rigid interpretation of the Catholic doctrine extra ecclesiam nulla salus, or "outside the church there is no salvation", denying baptism of blood and baptism of desire as "heretical innovations" and believing that all unbaptized human beings were not saved.

Now as to praying to Buddha. I guess it is possible to pray to him in a fully Catholic sense in the same way that you might ask a relative who has passed on to pray for you. You have no guarantee that they are able to pray for you, but there is really nothing wrong with this practice and a lot of good to recommend it. If you personally believe that Buddha is now part of the Communion of Saints and want to specifically ask for his intercession with Jesus off the top of my head I wouldn’t raise an objection. Though of course there is a truly a danger to praying to him outside of a Catholic sense. With so many sure saints surely it is much better to seek their intercession.

The Washington Post has an article on a church actually called "Inclusive Community" which contains Catholic priests who left to marry and other cultural Catholics who don’t like the baggage of Christ’s actual teachings. As is usually the case the word inclusive can easily be substituted for liberal. Their views are never inclusive enough to believe all that the magisterium of the Church teaches is true. To not deny any teachings of the faith would be inclusive, once you start snipping some of you become exclusive by the very act of excluding them.

She grew up Roman Catholic, but like millions of others, Rebecca Ortelli came to disagree with church teachings on contraception, communion and priestly celibacy, among other things.

Many Catholics drift away from the church or join other denominations. But Ortelli, 57, wanted to maintain both her Catholic identity and her worldview. And she didn’t want to feel one was inconsistent with the other.

So 20 years ago, she did what a small number of defiant Catholics are doing. She joined a church with many lifelong Catholics of similar views, a church that borrows heavily from Catholic rituals even though it’s not part of a Catholic diocese.

"I don’t think I should have to give up my Catholicism. That’s part of who I am. It makes me who I choose to be," said Ortelli, whose church, in Nutley, N.J., is called the Inclusive Community. "I like some of the rituals that we have. They’re important."

The cultural Catholic phenomenon is kind of like the Urban Cowboy one. People dressing up in Cowboy hats and boots who have never ridden a horse or lived on a ranch. That by performing some rituals or putting on a cowboy hat you can call yourself either a Catholic or a cowboy. In some ways this shows the power of rituals and how they shape us, but rituals ripped from their context and roots become pretty empty and devoid an any real meaning. This might explain why their services receive a whopping 15 members.

MANITOWOC – Kathy Sullivan Vandenberg will describe her journey to the unsanctioned priesthood for a woman in the Catholic Church at an engagement set for 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 25, at the Holiday Inn.

So I guess there is the priesthood of the faithful, ministerial priesthood, and the unsanctioned priesthood. The event for "priestess" Kathy Sullivan Vandenberg is being sponsored by Pax Christi.

A recent Commonweal article by Fr. Francis X. Clooney, SJ on interreligious dialogue and mean-old-bruske Pope Benedict contained the following:

While few sensible Christians would be so brusque today, the question of the meaning of Islam for Christians is still with us, particularly if (by tradition, habit, or conviction) many Christian leaders avoid speaking of the Qur’an as revelation or of Mohammed as a true prophet.

Now I really don’t have much expectation for much of anything written in Commonweal, but this sentence makes my jaw drop to shoe level. Whattaya know Christian leaders don’t refer to a false prophet and his false revelations as being real – you learn something everyday.

Luckily I don’t have to spend the time to rip up this article because the master Dale Price already took to it. Whoever came up with the pen is mightier than the sword had Dale in mind. The rest of the article is also pretty mind-numbing.

The Webmaster at Semper Fi Catholic sent me this story.

The letter "X" soon may be banned in Saudi Arabia because it resembles the mother of all banned religious symbols in the oil kingdom: the cross.

The new development came with the issuing of another mind-bending fatwa, or religious edict, by the infamous Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — the group of senior Islamic clergy that reigns supreme on all legal, civil, and governance matters in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The commission’s damning of the letter "X" came in response to a Ministry of Trade query about whether it should grant trademark protection to a Saudi businessman for a new service carrying the English name "Explorer."

"No! Nein! Nyet!" was the commission’s categorical answer.

Why?

Well, never mind that none of the so-called scholars manning the upper ranks of the religious outfit can speak or read a word of English. But their experts who examined the English word "explorer" were struck by how suspicious that "X" appeared. In a kingdom where Friday preachers routinely refer to Christians as pigs and infidel crusaders, even a twisted cross ranks as an abomination.

So after waiting a year, the Saudi businessman, Amru Mohammad Faisal, got his answer: No.

Quick nobody tell them about the Tau and St. Francis. We need to speak up against this alphabetical jihad against the letter X. Sure this letter has fallen on hard times with it’s association with a rating and the small number of words that start with this letter. I mean if we let them be prejudicial against some letters then what’s next? Will they move from consonants to perhaps disemvowel an a? Ah the irony of a letter derived from the Phoenician alphabet being discriminated against by Arabs.

A Catholic bishop in Nigeria has instructed parishioners to show they have registered to vote in elections this April or be banned from communion, a newspaper This Day reported on Tuesday.

Bishop Francis Okobo, who oversees the diocese of Nsukka in the southeastern state of Enugu, authorised the circulation of a bulletin in Catholic churches on Sunday telling the faithful that they had to make their vote count in this year’s elections.

Parishioners were told not to be put off by the outcome of past elections in which the votes of the people did not count because of massive vote rigging.

"Whoever has not collected the voter’s card after February 7 has automatically alienated himself or herself from the community, the Church, the nation and will not be allowed to receive the holy communion," the bulletin said according to This Day.

I would like to see the opposite program here for Catholic politicians. No vote, receive Communion. In issues driven by the Culture of Death the best thing most Catholic politicians could do was not to vote. Unfortunately mostly we have "Vote however you want and still receive Communion program" in most diocese. Partial birth abortion, no problem come right in. Federal funding of ESCR, it’s not my style to deny Communion so come right this way and commit sacrilege and scandal.

LOS ANGELES – When people talk about seeing holy signs, they don’t usually mean "Your Ad HERE."

That was the message which appeared Wednesday evening as a 50-foot projected image on the bell tower of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, headquarters of the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese.

Visible to thousands of commuters on a nearby freeway, the sign was gone the next day.

It wasn’t authorized by the archdiocese, spokesman Tod Tamberg said.

"A church tower is different from a billboard. If it wasn’t, we would have been selling ad space 2,000 years ago," he said. "There are plenty of ways to communicate without making ad space out of your sanctuaries. I think most people would react negatively to that."

Turns out, the sign wasn’t really trolling for advertisers. It was a guerrilla art piece by James Cui.

"I’m flattered you noticed," the 28-year-old Highland Park graphic artist told the Los Angeles Times, which called a telephone number listed on the sign.

"I hoped I was hitting a lot of people with it," Cui said. "That’s the trick in L.A. The only way to hit a lot of people is on the freeway."

Cui uses a laptop computer, a video projector and a portable electric generator to cast the images on blank walls.

This was really a wasted opportunity of the signs that could have been placed on the Taj Mahony. Such as perhaps "Ugly Cathedral for sale, Our Lady of Cement Blocks, or Our Lady of the Angles as some have called it. I am sure my readers could come up with a few more.

From an article about Holy Angels Church –
An Ecumenical Catholic Community (first off never trust a Church whose parish website is on geocites) about their new "Deacons."

She said she encouraged her husband to become a deacon. He wanted her to become one as well.

"It seemed the right thing and the right time and place," she said. "Because really all it is, in some ways, is the formalization of what we already are, as opposed to something entirely new. It was a natural progression."

Most of the training was background material for Donald Metz.

"I’ve been president of the parish council liturgy boards and the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, and for each had lots of training programs, and that’s training which is spread throughout a lifetime," he said.

Yea all that background with liturgy and the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine really paid off in joining a faux Catholic church founded by Reverend Patricia A. Zorn who specializes in products like "Flower Essences for Animal." She does have some profound things to say about the meaning of life though.

Baptism/Baby Naming Ceremony: Life is Hello!

Bereavement: Life is Goodbye!

Now I am confused which is it? Maybe she is well versed in those two pop theologians Paul McCartney and John Lennon (who was bigger than Jesus you know).

You say yes, I say no
You say stop and I say go, go, go
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don’t know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Hello, hello
I don’t know why you say goodbye
I say hello

Part of their Mission Statement also made me laugh.

We are a Community of Believers, members of all religious faiths, and from every walk of life.
We are deeply rooted in Holy Scripture and firmly grounded in Christian Tradition.

Wow this must be a really really large church. Members from all religious faiths? Hindus, Gnostics, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Pagans, Pantheists, Falun Gong, Taoism, Baptists, Russian Orthodox, Catholics, etc all in one church founded in Holy Scripture and Christian tradition. Not to mentions from every walk of life. Considering the thousand of professions this is really quite an accomplishment. I wonder what there mission statement was before they found that next to last person from a walk of life or religion. Gee if we could just find a Sunni who is also a shoemaker we will finally have them all.