Punditry

In this screed by Harold Meyerson in the Washington Post, John Paul II is at fault for the latest Anglican schism in Virginia for the formation of the Orthodox International (OI).

The OI’s founding father was none other than Pope John Paul II, who spent much time and energy endeavoring to reconcile various orthodox Christian religions and whose ecumenism prompted him to warn the Anglicans not to ordain gay priests.

John Paul also sought to build his church in nations of the developing world where traditional morality and bigotry, most especially on matters sexual, were in greater supply than in secular Europe and the increasingly egalitarian United States, and more in sync with the Catholic Church’s inimitable backwardness. Now America’s schismatic Episcopalians are following in his footsteps — traditionalists of the two great Western hierarchical Christian churches searching the globe for sufficiently benighted bishops.

Gee who would have thought that we could blame an Anglican schism because Anglicans listened to the Pope.

Personally I am waiting for the new Fox series The O.I., no beach scenes but plenty of Tiber heresy smack-down action.

Deal Hudson bloging on the same stories said:

Meyerson cites once again a report I have seen before that Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, under whose authority some of these Episcopal parishes are putting themselves, is an advocate of laws against such things as homosexuals meeting openly in restaurants. As far as I am concerned, this is neither Christian nor orthodox. I await verification of Akinola’s position on such matters, but if it is true then I doubt if these break-away parishes will finally unite with the Nigerian archdiocese. They will find some other communion, or form one of their own.

These Episcopalians did not break away from one kind of nonsense to join forces with another.

Well, I’ll be.

For the longest time, I thought "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was a song from the Elizabethan era that contained seemingly secular symbols used by English Catholics to teach their children the Faith during a time of great persecution.

Boy, was I wrong. According to Sister Carol Gaeke, O.P., I wasn’t nearly perceptive enough. Thankfully, she sets the record straight in a December 15 editorial in Cincinnati’s Catholic Telegraph.

For instance, I had always thought that the "partridge in a pear tree" was Christ. Had I looked deeper, I would have discovered a "gold mine" beneath the pear tree "signifying the precious minerals of our planet."

In my benighted understanding of things, the "eight maids a’milking" represented the beatitudes. It’s not as simple as that. As it turns out, the cows being milked are "symbols of our earth that needs to be tended and nurtured, not used up and destroyed by greed."

What’s more, had I looked "beyond the surface gaety" of these symbols I would have discovered they form a puzzle, along the border of which are "global warfare, nuclear weapons, domestic violence, sexual, class and racial violence."

Thank goodness I now have both a deeper understanding and such incredibly rich imagery to go forth this Christmas and teach all nations.

Well actually Rich and the Nun are both wrong. The Twelve Days of Christmas was not a secret catechism song that Catholics used because of Anglican oppression. For one thing as the snopes article points out the origin of the song is probably French in the first place and second the items that supposedly had to be hidden are common to both Catholics and Anglicans in the first place.

Though I much prefer the Elizabethan urban legend to the politically correct version that says things like "Those three French hens in the tree have come from afar, like immigrants seeking to build a safe shelter in this wonderful place, far from horrendous war or grinding poverty that they have fled." Now I can easily believe that French hens would be running away from war. Besides things like the five golden rings obviously refer to the Olympics – duh.

LONDON (CNS) – A priest from the Diocese of East Anglia, England, has decided to replace a live Nativity scene for a replica of the wall encircling Bethlehem in protest of the Israeli separation barrier.

Each year hundreds of people come to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in St. Ives in Cambridgeshire to see the live sheep, a cow and donkey, and actors who occasionally have brought their newborn babies to play the role of Jesus for the Nativity scene.

But this year visitors will be staring up at an imposing gray replica of a portion of the wall built by the Israeli government in 2002 to keep Palestinian suicide bombers at bay.

Father Paul Maddison, the parish priest, made the decision to cancel because he wants to highlight the plight of the Palestinian people suffering as a result of the wall.

In place of the manger crib will be a grim assemblage, 24 feet high and 7 feet wide, of painted polystyrene stuffed with floor insulation materials. The wall will be flanked by protest banners and "stark photographs" to show how "desperate and ugly the situation is in the Holy Land," said a Dec. 11 statement by the priest.

Not to mention depriving Israelis the opportunity of being blown up by suicide bombers. Though I do understand why a good case can be made that the wall does more than just inconvenience some and will lead to a further reductions of Christians in Israel and other problems. The idea though of replacing a Nativity scene with a polystyrene wall is ridiculous. Symbolism over substance as if this will lend anything towards peace in the Holy Lands.

I also don’t understand why he went to so much work to create this instead of simply going to Wallmart.

Wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Mr Abbott, get your rosaries off my ovaries" does not amount to the religious vilification of Catholics, a Victorian tribunal has ruled.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has struck out a case brought by pro-life campaigner Babette Francis, who had sought to have the T-shirts banned.

The T-shirts were produced by the YWCA during last year’s public debate over who should control access to the RU486 abortion pill and refer to federal Health Minister Tony Abbott, a practising Catholic.

One of the T-shirts was worn in federal parliament’s upper house by Greens senator Kerry Anne Nettle.

"I do not think that the sale and distribution of T-shirts containing it (the slogan) incite hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of Mr Abbott, Mrs Francis or any other Catholic," he ruled.

I still say requesting a Catholic to keep their Rosaries off their ovaries has got to be the easiest request ever made of any of us. While I think it is a bad idea to spend time trying to ban t-shirts with contemptuous slogans in the first place it certainly seems that the slogan does indicate contempt. What in effect the slogan says is that Mr. Abbot should not be allowed to pray the Rosary to end abortion. That he should have no religious freedom to practice his beliefs.

On another note when is the YWCA going to officially change their name? Shouldn’t it be Young Women’s Pagan Association or some such name? Just what do you have to do to earn a radical feminist badge?

A reader sent me the following article from the Washington Post’s On Faith section which is an example of how some love to editorialize when the facts are against them.

Pope Benedict’s speech has done irreparable damage to Christian-Muslim relations. No amount of apology can undo the harm the irresponsible comments about Islam and its founder have done to the prospects of dialogue between these two Abrahamic traditions.

The more one tries to defend the Pope’s remarks as being made “inadvertently,” the more the transparency of their real intention becomes obvious: To close the door on the dialogue between Muslims and Catholics permanently.

It will be hard on those who firmly believe that the solution to the world peace is the message that undergirds pluralism: Live, and let live!

It is unthinkable that in a speech in which the argument was to open the doors for theological studies in the secular universities on the grounds that faith and reason are both divine gifts to further a coexistence that has been rarely experienced in the Christian academic culture, can actually become an irrational polemical tone implicating Islamic rather than Catholic tradition, in the battle against violence in the name of God.

Even the formulated question this week for the “On Faith” forum is not free of such preconceptions about the sources of violence, and, assumes as if the Pope’s polemics were supposed to “refashion” Muslim militants into less violent and more civil elements.

The Pope had no such noble intention to change the minds and hearts of Muslim militants. Quite to the contrary, the comments were meant to provide a conclusive argument that Muslims and Islam had no place in “civilized” and “rational” Christian Europe: an argument made last year by the present Pope against the membership of Turkey in EU.

It is such an assessment of Islam and Muslims that makes the papal invitation to “serious, sincere dialogue” in Ankara a non-substantiated call.

The world community needs interfaith dialogue today. But if the religious leaders themselves demonstrate disrespect for other faith communities and stoop to insult their faith and reason, then it is doubtful that there can ever be a dialogue between faith-communities. A precondition in a dialogue is equal respect to all the parties in a dialogue. The moment one party assumes a moral high position it changes the dialogue to a monologue, just as the Pope did in his lecture at the University of Regensburg in Germany on September 12, 2006.

Just as no self-righteous attitude among Muslim leaders can ever further dialogue with other communities, the attitude adopted by Vatican at this time is least conducive to dialogue.

When pretty much all of the coverage of the Pope’s Apostolic Journey ended up pretty positive to his trip, some have to once again go back to the Regensburg address and to subsequently mischaracterized it to make the Pope the baddy in inter-religious dialogue.

He also might want to get his facts straight. The Pope did not make an argument last year against Turkey’s membership in the EU. It was over two years ago before he was elected. This writer who cares so much about plurality and dialogue among religions might want to turn his pen against Turkey instead which does not allow Christians, Jews and other religious minorities recognition under Turkish law and to own property for churches or synagogues, schools and hospitals. A country where those who convert from Islam and flee to Turkey are extradited back to their home country. A country where last week two Christian converts were put on trial for insulting ‘Turkishness.’

The writer also does not understand that you can believe your faith to be true and still have respect for those in other religions. That the Pope believes the Catholic Church to be the one true Church is seen as an attitude of superiority. Any religious believer who does not believe his faith to be true is a fraud and to see this as problem is silly unless you are a syncretist. Though since he is a professor of Religious Studies this might be the case. The old joke about studying comparative religions is that you become comparatively religious.

WASHINGTON–Last week, Andrew M. Greeley, the well-known liberal priest and sociologist of all things Catholic, gave a celebrity interview to his fans. Though his main interlocutor was Robert Orsi, the chairman of the religion department at Harvard, Father Greeley also took some questions from the audience, most of whose members were gathered here for the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion. One person asked about the potential for the lay group Voice of the Faithful to transform the church, another about whether nuns should return to wearing habits. Then a middle-aged woman in the back of the room asked Father Greeley about the changing face of the Catholic Church. The greatest growth in the world-wide Catholic population, she noted, has been coming for some years from new believers in South America and Africa, and the trend shows no signs of abating. What effect would this have on the church?

"We will depend on them for vitality," Father Greeley predicted. "But they will continue to depend on us for the ideas."

Well bad ideas are still ideas. Fr. Greeley and many like him do have a sort of reverse charism of infallibility. If you have a list of ideas to preach the Gospel and to help the Church grow you can always match it to one of his ideas and immediately cross it off your list. So in some ways they are a real time saver in eliminating failed ideas.

The current issue of First Things contains a quote from Fr. Greeley in 1987. He was asked to look 20 years ahead and tell what it would be like in 2007. He replied:

"The power of the pope definitely will shrink. Today we are experiencing the last gasp of a dying order, and in 20 years it will be gone."

Does Pope Benedict know he only has a month left? If only Fr. Greeley had been talking about himself and those sympathetic to him and he could have been a prophet.

Jay Anderson emphasizes parts of a Jeff Israely article on the Apostolic Journey.

Long known for his rigid thinking, Benedict XVI shows new flexibility in trying to mend fences in the wake of his controversial speech about Islam.

Joseph Ratzinger has never been known for his flexibility. As a university theologian and the Vatican’s top doctrinal watchdog, the German prelate consistently stuck to his intellectual guns, sometimes stepping on sensibilities in the process. That unbendable belief in his own truth may have indeed gotten the now Pope Benedict XVI into trouble with his provocative September speech about faith and violence that sparked anger throughout the Muslim world. But the papacy often requires old men to learn new tricks. And so on Tuesday, as he set off on the most delicate mission of his life, the 79-year-old Pontiff was showing a very different side, one that reflects a growing awareness of his new role.

This is the same Jeff Israely that on Sep 13th wrote a very favorable piece on the Pope’s Regensburg address and then on Sep 19th blamed the Pope for not foreseeing the reaction by many in the Muslim world – something he himself didn’t see in his first column.

tmatt at Get Religion also comments on the same article.

The Time piece by Jeff Israely focuses totally on Islam and politics, with little or no content on the original papal goal of pushing for human rights and religious liberty in Turkey (with a special emphasis on the plight of Orthodox Christians). Everything starts with the headline, which is “The Pope Tones Down His Act in Turkey — Long known for his rigid thinking, Benedict XVI shows new flexibility in trying to mend fences in the wake of his controversial speech about Islam.”

No, I didn’t’t make that up. Read the article for yourself.

Must be rigid thinking that makes you emphasize the small part of the story over the actual reason for the Pope’s visit.

The article later goes on to say:

The pope planned to travel to Istanbul later Wednesday to meet Bartholomew I, leader of the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians. The two major branches of Christianity represented by Bartholomew and Benedict split in 1054 over differences in opinion on the power of the papacy. The two spiritual heads will meet in an attempt to breach the divide and reunite the churches.

Which has got to be the lamest analysis of the schism I have ever seen. Bartholomew I is not exactly the head of the Orthodox churches. He is seen as the primus inter pares ("first among equals"), which indicates his seniority among all Orthodox bishops. As Wikipedia notes:

This unique role often sees the Ecumenical Patriarch referred to as the "spiritual leader" of the Orthodox Church in some sources, though this is not an official title of the patriarch nor is it usually used in scholarly sources on the patriarchate. Such a title is not incorrect if it refers to this unique role, but it sometimes leads to a belief that the office is thus the equivalent of an Orthodox papacy, an impression sometimes given from unqualified references in the press. [Emphasis added]

Via Catholic Pillow Fight this editorial from NCReporter.

So why again? Apparently the bishops feel that people just aren’t listening. If that’s their hunch, we’d agree. Why aren’t they listening? Let’s consider for starters the document on contraception. A lot of the U.S. bishops today might say there are a lot of bad, or at least ignorant, Catholics out there, Catholics influenced by the contraceptive culture, for instance, who no longer know good from evil.

Maybe they’re right. More likely, though, it’s because the teaching makes little sense, doesn’t match the experience of lay Catholics and tends to reduce all of human love to the act of breeding.

You just have to laugh at people who put up an argument against contraception that it "doesn’t match the experience of lay Catholics." Well lying is quite common so I guess that means lying isn’t a sin. We should just wipe off the 8th Commandment of the list because bearing false witness does not match the lived experience of most Catholics. Lust, greed, pride, envy, sloth etc are also all part of the lived experience of most people so lets just wipe those off those map – just think how easy it is to memorize the Zero Deadly Sins. I had never realized lived experience was a component of Catholic theology in the first place or maybe they had some fancy Latin phrase for it I am unaware of. Those long words like concupiscence can also just get jettisoned and next in line of course would be repentance.

I also find it humorous the charge of the Church reducing human love to breeding or the phrase sometime bandied about "pelvic orthodoxy." It seems to me that progressives often reduce acts of love to sex since they argue that those with same sex attraction can’t be fulfilled unless they have sex. That there is no problem with cohabitating because they "love" each other. That a celibate priesthood is disordered and leads to problems. Chaste love is not exactly in their lexicon. This is why they are so opposed to good orthodox Catholic groups like Courage.

A reader sent me a link to this story.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Rare Abyssinian lion cubs are being poisoned at a zoo in Ethiopia and sold to taxidermists because there isn’t enough money to care for the animals, the facility’s administrator said Wednesday.

Famous for their black manes, the lions are revered in Ethiopia, adorning statues and the national currency. Wildlife experts estimate only 1,000 of the animals, which are smaller than other lions, remain in the wild.

"These animals are the pride of our country, but our only alternative right now is to send them to the taxidermist," said Muhedin Abdulaziz, who heads the Lion Zoo in the capital, Addis Ababa.

Animal conservation groups expressed outrage at the killings.

James Isiche, regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Nairobi, Kenya, said the zoo should prevent the animals from breeding if it can’t care for them.

Where is a animal version of Planned Parenthood when you need them, or would that be Pride Parenthood in this case.

Dear Amy: Our 24-year-old daughter has declared to us that she is in love with a 50-year-old Catholic priest. She says that he has told her that he loves her, too, though she doesn’t know if he would leave the priesthood for her.

I threatened to call the bishop and tell him what is going on, but my daughter works at the diocesan office, where she met this priest, and she says that I could get her fired.

My husband and I have told her how disturbed we are, but she says that his affection, support and attention are important to her. She ignores our concerns.

Are we right to distrust him?

Should we confront him?

– Anonymous

Dear Anonymous: I shared your letter with the Rev. Richard McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. Father McBrien and I agree that your daughter has a right to mess up her life by falling in love with the wrong person.

McBrien says, "The daughter is an adult and needs to work this out on her own. However, the parents have every right to offer their advice. But they should do nothing beyond that. We may be dealing here with irresponsible behavior but surely not criminal behavior."

McBrien adds, "I am not defending the priest, and I agree that it is probably a dead-end relationship. If the priest is her superior, then this relationship is also unethical. This young woman needs to talk with a professional counselor who could help her to work this thing out in her own mind. The parents, however, lack the necessary objectivity, even if their concerns are valid and they are only looking out for her well-being." [Source]

"probably a dead-end relationship"? So if the priest wasn’t her superior the behavior would be ethical? Fine, fornicate just as long as somebody isn’t in your supervisory chain of command. As always the more you hear from Father McBrien, the less you want to hear from Father McBrien. The idea that a situation involving two people committing objectively grave sin requires little action is un-Christian. What about Matthew 18 of going to the sinner and rebuking them, and if they don’t repent to go higher? What about the scandal of people knowing about this relationship? Father McBrien espouses the exact same response that has lead so many diocese to have to file for bankruptcy, of course after having filed moral bankruptcy.

Not surprisingly Fr. McBrien also writes a glowing review of Father Donald Cozzens new book "Freeing Celibacy" in this weeks Tidings. He managers to mention part of Fr. Cozzens biography without of course his loss of faculties to teach in a Catholic school. The 50 year old priest in the story is freeing celibacy indeed.