Punditry

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.

I guess it is a good thing Michael Richards never directed a movie on the life of Christ – or otherwise his racist outburst against blacks at the Laugh Factory would be getting a whole lot of media attention.

*Title came from Steve Dillard’s post at Southern Appeal.

 I wonder if the is the first Ad Orientum Time Cover?

There cover story on the Pope and Islam as he gets ready to go to Turkey includes What the Pope Gets Right by Fr. Neuhaus and of course the Muslim balance of And Where He’s Still in the Dark. Rather ironic title considering that the author of it is the one in dark as far as the Regensburg speech goes.

But Benedict’s speech implicitly suggested that he believes that Islam has no such relationship with reason–and thus is excluded from being European.

He frames the Pope’s whole speech on being European centric and says that Benedict is a "profoundly European Pope." That he whole speech was about European identity. It is amazing how so many can read the same speech and then talk about as if they read a totally different one. He then goes on to what Kathy Shaidle would describe as "They invented Chess you know" defense of Islam with a list of influential Muslim scholars – though it seems to me most of them were greatly influenced by Greek thought in the first place. One he mentions kind of makes the Pope’s point about reason. Avicenna believed that human minds were not in themselves capable of abstract thought, only potentially and only when illuminated by an angel – the Tenth Intellect.

Gerald has a copy of a letter that Father Joseph Patrick Breen has sent to Cardinal Levada, who he refers to as "Cardinal Bill", who he went to seminary with. The letter is typical boilerplate dissident advocacy talking points. On of Gerald readers wondered how the letter was leaked – whether it was the CDF or someone in his parish. I pretty much doubt that this letter was leaked at all. There is a full story on him in his advocacy in his local newspaper. The newspaper also has a PDF of his letter.

The article included:

In 1993, Breen was asked by former Nashville Bishop Edward Kmiec to sign a pledge refraining from advocating that the church’s celibacy rule be changed to ease a priest shortage.

The prohibition came shortly after Breen had mailed a letter to Catholic bishops outlining his views. The year before, 780 members of Breen’s church signed a petition to the pope with the same request.

The gag order was quietly lifted two years later, and Breen continued his fight, writing to Catholic newspapers and talking with fellow priests.

Then last month, Breen celebrated the 45th anniversary of his ordination in Rome with fellow seminarians, including Cardinal Bill Levada, who now heads the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which sets policies on faith and morals for Catholics worldwide.

Breen handed Levada a letter that said there was consensus among Catholics for married priests, artificial birth control, a greater acceptance of divorced people and women deaconesses.

In Athanasius time there was also a consensus among Catholics that God the Father and the Son were not co-eternal and that Jesus though a divine being was created and inferior to God the father. This only goes to show that modern dissidents are much more boring than previous ones like Arius.

The headline of the article is "Priest not afraid to advocate change." Exactly what would he be afraid of? He is not exactly a martyr and will get headlines not a headsman’s axe. In the modern climate dissent is punished by indifference.

Via Kathy Shaidle

Quite possibly the world’s stupidest Muslim guy actually asks, with a straight face, one presumes:

"Why has the [Nobel] Prize been awarded to 167 Jews and only 4 Arabs?"

Because you don’t get the Nobel for perfecting suicide bomber belts and making explosive shoes. This maybe also explains why the issuance of patents to those in Arab countries has slowed to a crawl. I read this tidbit before.

According to the 2003 Arab Human Development Report, between 1980 and 1999 the nine leading Arab economies registered 370 patents (in the US) for new inventions. Patents are a good measure of a society’s education quality, entrepreneurship, rule of law and innovation. During that same 20-year period, South Korea registered 16,328 patents for inventions. You don’t run into a lot of South Koreans who want to be martyrs.

A talking Jesus doll has been turned down by the Marine Reserves’ Toys for Tots program.

A suburban Los Angeles company offered to donate 4,000 of the foot- tall dolls, which quote Bible verses, for distribution to needy children this holiday season. The battery-powered Jesus is one of several dolls manufactured by one2believe, a division of the Valencia- based Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Co., based on Biblical figures.

But the charity balked because of the dolls’ religious nature.

Toys are donated to kids based on financial need and "we don’t know anything about their background, their religious affiliations," said Bill Grein, vice president of Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, in Quantico, Va.

As a government entity, Marines "don’t profess one religion over another," Grein said Tuesday. "We can’t take a chance on sending a talking Jesus doll to a Jewish family or a Muslim family."

Do Jews and Muslims give toys on Christmas? The Marine’s Toy for Tots Mission statement says they "Distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community in which the campaign is conducted." Political correctness where Jesus dolls are outlawed on Jesus’ birthday is exactly the type of contradictions we expect today. It is just so dangerous to have proselytizing plastic doll’s converting children against their parents will. Talking Jesus dolls are scarier then an alive Chucky doll to many secular parents.

The company that provides these dolls also makes other ones from the Old and New Testament. Too bad they don’t have an Abraham doll since that would be acceptable for Christian, Jewish, and Muslim children. They could donate them instead and see what excuse they come up with next.

Amy Welborn has been providing excellent coverage of the bishop’s conference and today includes this:

Archbishop Burke is speaking about Courage and EnCourage . It seems as if his amendment is calling for explicit recognition of the ministry. Saying that there is no support group that is more faithful or has more history.

Bishop Serratelli: says the committee agrees with Bishop Burke. It’s not a question of the group. The committee felt with a generic statement and not to recommend or mention any particular group.

Bishop Paproki gets up and speaks in support of Archbishop Burke and poitns out since this is a document for bishops, it would be helpful to have specific suggestions.

Bishop Niederauer speaks against Archbishop Burke’s amendment. I want to support the committee’s judgment for a generic mention. No reason given.

Why am I not surprised ?

…Cardinal George: in favor of the amendment, strongly, saying that Courage has been unjustly attacked and falsely misrepresented. The effectiveness of the group has struck him: "they are not only striving to be chaste, but they are striving to be saints. They are holy people."

Thank you Cardinal George for speaking the truth. The amendment though was defeated 121 to 105, but they did approve mention of Courage and Encourage as a footnote. Maybe they should start a new group called Discourage since they seem to want to discourage those with same-sex attraction from living a chaste life.

American Papist has also been providing good coverage of the conference.

A parish web site with pictures of men kissing and the pastor blessing the participants of a gay pride parade must of course be the infamous Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in San Francisco. [Via The Lair of the Catholic Cavemen]

The pastor Fr. Meriwether is reportedly on leave from his duties after so many complaints to the Archdiocese for this parish allowing the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence holding bingo games with sex toy prizes in the parish hall. Unfortunately it appears the Archdiocese is now allowing Fr. Meriwether to return to his parish. This Sunday they are holding a pancake breakfast in honor of his return. So now that the media attention has gone away from the last fiasco it appears that everything is back to what can be called normal there. People thought that the infamous St. Joan parish with it’s rainbow flag was scandalous, but this parishes web site puts them into the bush leagues.

Not surprising this parish also has monthly Monthly Celebration of the Anointing of the Sick where all are invited to come and participate. Somehow I don’t think the parish is populated by one hundred percent of people who are "dangerously ill" in regards to canon law.

Please send a polite email to the archdiocese about this scandalous situation.

Archbishop George Niederauer and Bishop John Wester
Bishop Ignatius Wang.