Punditry

NINE SCOTTISH firefighters who refused to hand out flyers at a ‘gay pride’ event have been reprimanded and forced to attend ‘intensive’ diversity training. Several of the firefighters from the Cowcaddens fire station in Glasgow objected to giving out the leaflets on religious and moral grounds.

Others refused because of embarrassment and because they did not regard distributing leaflets to gay people as part of their core duties. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, the Most Rev Mario Conti, criticised the decision by Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service for disciplining the men. He said it was ‘alarming’ they were being made to attend diversity training, and added: “These men were asked, while in uniform, to hand out leaflets during a demonstration where they had legitimate concerns about being the subject of taunts and jokes, and in which, in some cases, their religious sensibilities would have been grossly offended by people dressed as priests and nuns lampooning the Church.”

But a statement from the Strathclyde Fire Service said the officers had carried out a ‘fundamental breach’ of one of their core responsibilities. It said: “Firefighters cannot, and will not, pick and choose to whom they offer fire safety advice. “Strathclyde Fire and Rescue has a responsibility to protect every one of the 2.3 million people it serves, irrespective of race, religion or sexuality.”

I am old enough to remember when intensive diversity training use to be called brainwashing. In related news Kathy Shaidle posted from an article about Christians in England facing court over Biblical quotes on flyers and other instances of not being PC. The kicker is of course there was no prosecution for a Muslim man saying much the same thing.

Dom blogs on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious annual assembly which could be advertised with "Got Liturgical Abuses?" One photo he linked to is worthy of a caption contest.

Now I am sure many will wonder exactly what liturgical act this shows? Applying olive oil for the communal salad? A new service for Jiffy Lube? Servicing an Olympic torch? Of course not. How could I have not seen it is a representation of "All of the assembly presenters were anointed with oil that had been blessed with the hopes and dreams of the assembly participants." Before Vatican II this rite was called "Extreme Dysfunction", but post Vatican II when done at a women’s religious conference is called "Anointing of the Chick." You can easily imagine what happens to this oil when blessed with "hopes and dreams" of these women religious. I bet the oil practically screams "Ordain me now!"

This is the annual tweaking of the nose of the LCWR president-elect, oh I mean anointing with hopes and dreams.

And who exactly decorated this object? Possibly someone who admires the decor at Chucky Cheeses or works at one of those party supply stores. "I need to decorate something for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious annual assembly. Why of course I need to get gold foil and multi-color streaming ribbons." It seems to me though that tinfoil would have been more appropriate.

And add some to the lectern for good measure. What more could they want besides possibly a Pope Benedict XVI pinata to bash open at the end of the conference. Well why of course Sr. Chitister addressing the conference with such profundities

"And feminism challenged the white male system and even the white male god."

"John Glenn, first American astronaut, took — from outer space — the first picture of the planet that had ever been taken, with a $45.00 camera that he bought at the local drugstore the night before the trip."

Wow I bet Alan Shepherd is bummed to hear that he wasn’t the first American astronaut. I guess Sr. Joan has the same level of knowledge of Church history as she does of space history.

The irony of her speech is that she parallels the last 40 years with the years of wandering in the wilderness. Her parallel is too apt, but not in the way she meant. Vatican II had a map for renewal of religious life that was pretty much ignored. The documents of Vatican II got as much attention as Joshua did when he described the inhabitants of the Holy Land. Instead many religious orders decided to make it up as they went along and and so it should be seen that much of the renewal as described in Perfectae Caritas has not been accomplished and most was totally ignored for whatever fad was currently popular in academic circles.

Sr. Joan Chitister of course peppers her speech with the word prophetic multiple times and seems to have no idea what the word means in relations to the Old Testament Prophets. Listening to her this word would mean someone calling the Church to something new and departing from what it has taught before. Nothing could be farther from the old prophets who constantly called the Israelites back to faithfulness to what had been passed down and taught. Their criticism of the Levitical priesthood was in the areas that they had departed from the faith. The prophets never added some new thing or demanded that the Israelites change to a more modern concept on par with the culture they lived in or the cultures around them. They have got the prophets exactly backwards. She says that Vatican II calls religious life “the prophetic dimension of the church.” The fact is that no such phrase exists in any Vatican II document. Though a similar phrase is used in Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Vita Consecrata, but not in the context she implies. In fact it is worthwhile quoting our late Holy Father on this.

True prophecy is born of God, from friendship with him, from attentive listening to his word in the different circumstances of history. Prophets feel in their hearts a burning desire for the holiness of God and, having heard his word in the dialogue of prayer, they proclaim that word with their lives, with their lips and with their actions, becoming people who speak for God against evil and sin. Prophetic witness requires the constant and passionate search for God’s will, for self-giving, for unfailing communion in the Church, for the practice of spiritual discernment and love of the truth. It is also expressed through the denunciation of all that is contrary to the divine will and through the exploration of new ways to apply the Gospel in history, in expectation of the coming of God’s Kingdom.

Sister Joan Chitister: "The function of religious community is to give light and balm and direction to model courage and conscience not to exist for itself alone."

Perfectae Caritis: "…the ultimate norm of the religious life is the following of Christ set forth in the Gospels, let this be held by all institutes as the highest rule."

I beg you, my sisters, if religious life is to be religious life, form your communities to climb and climb and climb to that new land where God awaits us even yet, even now. And do it courageously and with confidence. Why? Because the cure for anxiety is not nostalgia for the past. Because the Chinese say that if we stay on the road we are on we shall surely get where we are going.

Well to quote Robert Plant from Stairway to Heaven "Yes there are two paths you can go by but in the long run,
There’s still time to change the road you’re on." If I get on I-95 and head North to get to Miami, I will never get there regardless of how long I stay on that road. Sister please make a U-Turn.

Update: Gerald also blogs on Dom’s post and says: "A yes, those 60s revival get togethers are still quite popular.
"

"The Pope, supposedly a highly moral figure who’s being listened to especially in poor countries is committing mass murder with his totally outdated morality codex and his ignorance and lying when it comes to AIDS and condom use; planned and targeted mass murder. To me, Ratzinger is a mass murder of the scale of Hitler and Stalin."
[Via The Cafeteria is Closed]

In the story I posted the other day on John Paul II square:

"Delanoe is honoring an assassin," some chanted, saying John Paul’s opposition to condoms, along with other forms of contraception, was responsible for hundreds, even thousands of deaths to AIDS and other diseases.

The mass murderer/assassin meme has been constantly building up steam over the last couple of years. For Example Sir Elton John rant against the Catholic Church and blaming it for the death of 60 friends.

The concept of personal responsibility has been taking increasing hits over the last several decades where someone else is always to blame for the acts of another. If it isn’t the government’s fault a good fallback has been the Vatican. This meme is just so dumb it is like an anti-mystery. The more you think about it the dumber it gets and is laughable on so many levels that it is hard to plumb its stupidity. To believe this you have to believe that people who are not following Christ’s teaching on human sexuality in the first place are going to be deterred by what any Pope has said. That they see Church teaching and come away with a fornication good/condoms bad concept. What it comes down to is that the Church is at fault because they didn’t follow what the Church said. This is like getting a F on a test in class and then blaming the teacher when they choose all the answers the opposite of what the teacher taught.

The mass murderer/assassin meme is really a boomerang ideology. If you can directly call someone an assassin or infer an equivalency with Stalin for teaching something that leads to the death of many then these same activists have much to atone for. In some bathrooms they have little mirrors that on them say "The face of Aids." How about we get some that say "The face of an assassin." and place them in bathrooms. After all only abstinence and true faithfulness in marriage are 100 percent sure ways of not picking up Aids by sexual intercourse. Any other method in less than 100 percent effective and anybody that promotes them has picked some people as acceptable losses. Condom collateral damage. Would anybody allow a loved one in a chamber with nerve gas using a gas mask with the same failure rate as condoms? Yet in reality this is what these activists are proposing. This though does not make these activists Stalins and assassins. Misguided certainly, but if they accept the premise of the meme then they must first accuse themselves.

It seems to me that CathNews.com is spinning Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks at the 2006 St Egidio conference For a World of Peace, Religions and culture in dialogue. This is the 20th anniversary of the same conference in Assisi that has so many radical traditionalist up in arms. Not their has been some valid critiques of the original conference including then-Cardinal Ratzinger. Back to the my original question CathNews reports.

Pope Benedict thus also took the opportunity to note that the original inter-faith meeting organised by the Community of St Egidio avoided any "streaks of syncretism" and its successors needed to continue to do so.

From what I have read of the remarks in other sources it certainly does not appear that syncretism was mentioned in a context saying the that the first meeting avoided them. AsiaNews.it quotes the Pope as saying.

…Already in 1986, continued Benedict XVI, attention was drawn to the fact that “the inter-faith prayer meeting should not lend itself to syncretistic interpretations, founded on a relativistic concept.”

Pope Ratzinger did not mention them but at the time, and even later, there were controversies about this. It was probably these controversies that prompted the pope to emphasize, when greeting people attending events in Assisi organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio, “the duty” even now to “avoid inopportune confusions. This is why even when people come together to pray for peace, prayer should unfold according to the distinct journeys that belong to each religion. This was the choice of 1986 and it was a decision that cannot but remain valid still today. The convergence of what is different should not give the impression of ceding to that relativism that denies the very meaning of truth and the possibility of drawing from it.”

What the Pope said and goes on to say does not seem to be any kind of pass on the original meeting and was more a kindly rebuke of passed excesses. The Pope is not directly saying that the first meeting was syncretistic, but he is not giving it a pass that CathNews alleges. This is a continual correction and the Pope last year placed the Franciscans in Assisi under the threefold control of a new local bishop, the Italian Bishops Conference and a yet-to-be-named papal overseer.

This is not the first time that I have noticed the Australian CathNews spinning things and I suspect it won’t be the last.

Kathy Shaidle has had several posts relating to forced conversion and in the update of one mentions Caption Ed of Captains Quarters post on this issue.

UPDATE: and with all due respect to the usually right headed Captain Ed: you have it completely backwards. Perhaps you haven’t heard the famous expression "the seed of the Church is the blood of the martyrs." And frankly, I suspect that David Warren knows much more about the early history of Church than you have forgotten, and read about it in Greek and Latin primary sources…

She also posts from the Magic Statistics blog:

"Captain Ed’s implicit equivalence between martyrdom and ‘mindlessly dying’ is, to put it mildly, problematic. As far as I’m aware, no Christian suffered martyrdom without considering whether the situation warranted such a sacrifice. Indeed, Jesus himself warned all who would follow him to give careful thought to possible consequences of so doing. (See St Luke 14:25-33 and St Matthew 8:18-22.)

"As a matter of fact, Christians were indeed subject to sudden and often apparently random attacks, both from Roman governing authorities and town mobs. Many were martyred in just such circumstances. Sporadic but widespread official anti-Christian persecutions during the first three centuries AD resulted in the deaths of countless thousands of ordinary Christians. Surely Ed has heard of the men, women, and children thrown to the lions simply for refusing to deny Christ?"

I have been a consistent reader of Captain’s Quarters for over three years and have been usually pleased by what Captain Ed had to say when he would post on matters relating to Catholicism. This though was not one of them. Especially wrong-headed was his saying "Christianity did not survive because of martyrdom; it survived despite it, and the martyrs prepared themselves for the task." "…who argues that religious fanaticism must be fought with more religious fanaticism." and "not by mindlessly dying for Christianity." This to me seems to be a slander of the martyrs and a relativistic equivocation between giving all for Christ and true fanaticism.

I certainly doubt that Saint Thomas More saw himself as mindlessly dying. He certainly did not run towards it and did what he could to avoid it, but he would not betray his conscience to be let go. To play along and sign a document so that he may go home. Most Catholics when reading stories of the martyrs wonder how they would react in the same situation. If he would have had Captain Ed as a counselor and took his advice he would have betrayed his own conscience and there would likely be no St. Thomas More. St. Thomas More is someone Captain Ed has called one of his heroes so there seems to be some confusion in his own thought.

Many Catholics when reading stories of the martyrs wonder how they would react in the same situation. We can easily imagine our own weakness when facing a convert or die situation. What we can’t usually imagine though is the grace that God gives those martyrs in these situations. It is not just a matter of preparedness, unless you see growth in holiness as preparedness.

Jimmy Akin previously took up this topic of martyrdom and with his usual skill writes on The Martyr’s Dilemma.

Wayne Laugesen at the National Catholic Register has some of the canonical detailsof the case of the priest in my diocese, Father Rouville Fisher, who joined Rent-a-Priest and is planning to get married.

Father Jason Gray, a canon lawyer and adjutant judicial vicar for the Diocese of Peoria, Ill., told the National Catholic Register that any Latin-rite priest is automatically suspended under Canon Law 1394 the moment he gets “married.” He said the more severe punishment of excommunication “is a very rare and remarkable event.”

Canon Law 1394 states: “A cleric who attempts marriage, even if only civilly, incurs a latae sententiae (automatic) suspension. If, after warning, he has not reformed and continues to give scandal, he can be progressively punished by deprivations, or even by dismissal from the clerical state.”

“In the Latin Rite, one can become a priest only if he promises celibacy, with very few exceptions,” Father Gray said, explaining that rare exceptions have been made for married Anglican priests who convert to Catholicism. “Breaking that promise results in automatic suspension. Excommunication is an even more serious consequence than suspension.”

Father Gray said a married priest, and even an excommunicated married priest, remains a priest. However, some sacraments administered by a married priest, whether excommunicated or merely suspended, are invalid. Others are valid but illicit, under canon law.

“When a sacrament is invalid, it means nothing happened,” Father Gray said. “A sacrament that’s valid but illicit means the sacrament occurred, but it was against canon law. In general, baptism by a suspended or excommunicated priest would be valid, but illicit. Marriage would be invalid. Last rites would be valid, but illicit. Confession would be invalid. Mass would be valid, but totally, completely illicit and absolutely should not take place.”

Unlike a priest who’s merely suspended automatically by canon law, Father Gray said, an excommunicated priest cannot receive any church sacraments – up to and including Communion.

“Though he’s suspended and excommunicated, he’s still a priest,” Father Gray said. “Dismissal from the clerical state would be an even more serious penalty. Unlike dismissal from the clerical state, excommunication can be lifted if he were to repent and turn things around to the satisfaction of his bishop.”

There are of course others reasons why someone using one of the rent-a-priests would result in an invalid marriage. More than likely those seeking their services couldn’t get married in a Catholic church in the first place because of some other impediment such as a previous marriage. Another would be a lack of canonical form and Catholics in seeking to use Rent-a-Priests are not exactly likely to get a dispensation from canonical form from their bishops.

THE Church is facing another onslaught from film-makers. After the furore over The Da Vinci Code, it is now contending with an allegedly blasphemous account of the life of St Teresa of Ávila.

Geraldine Chaplin heads the cast of Teresa: Death and Life, a feature film about one of the great Christian figures.

The writings of the saint — a mystic who said that Christ conversed with her — are revered as spiritual masterpieces four centuries after her death.

But film-makers don’t do spirituality as easily as sexuality and, in exploring the saint’s sex life, they find themselves accused of treading sacrilegiously.

The film was denounced by Benedicta Ward, a nun and Reader in the History of Christian Spirituality in the Theology Faculty at Oxford University, who wrote the introduction to a recent edition of the saint’s celebrated work, Life.

On being told about the film’s content, she said: “The stress on her virginity and her sexuality are entirely modern interests — as if she were living now. That’s not fair. She is the greatest of the mystics. She has visions and writes about them and analyses them in an extraordinary way.”

The film, a Spanish, French and British co-production, is written and directed by Ray Loriga, who worked with Pedro Almodóvar on the script of Live Flesh.

He was prepared for a possible controversy, but said: “The vision we have been offered of St Teresa is very close to a holy image. So far, everybody has been careful not to touch on certain uncomfortable subjects — her sexuality, her relationship with God, which was so close, nearly skin to skin.

Alright first I must calm down and say three times slowly the words of St. Teresa “Let nothing disturb thee; Let nothing dismay thee; All thing pass” Okay I am breathing normally again.

Loriga said: “I’m convinced she’ll be the sexiest Saint Teresa ever seen on screen. Teresa was also a very pretty woman. In my opinion, her pleasing aspect helped to save her from the stake. Very likely, plainer and less sassy women were burnt alive for less.”

He said he had taken care not to portray the Church as the “bad guy”, but added: “I think that the conflict between the Catholic Church and women hasn’t been resolved.

“So far, they’ve only offered two models to women — The Virgin Mother, which, in my opinion, is an aberration and quite harmful to women, and the redeemed whore symbolised by Mary Magdalene. These role models worry me. The Church hasn’t been able to find a better explanation for women within the context of our relationship with God.”

Oops there goes the heart rate again. Bad enough to go after St. Teresa, but to say the model of the Virgin Mary is quite harmful to women is over the top. Plus the stupidity to say that the Church has only offered two models to women ignores the multitude of women canonized and three women Doctors of the Church.

The problem with most modern filmmakers is that they can only see things through modern eyes. Every strong women in history must be translated into some kind of proto-feminist. Look at all the modern films of Joan of Arc; none which are worth seeing and nothing to come close to the masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc. Mark Twain and George Bernard Shaw were both able to write of St. Joan of Arc and not translate their own atheistic biases onto them. This ability has pretty much not been brought into modern times with film makers seeing through morose colored glasses where the idea of the joy of the true mystic can not shine through.

Future saint Edith Stein read St. Teresa’s autobiography in one night and proclaimed “This is truth!,” people watching this movie on the life of St. Teresa will proclaim “This is crap!” It is amazing how they can do movies on Kinsey and the Marque de Sade and make them into a hagiography, yet a true saint and mystic they have to go the other way.

There is an eight part Spanish mini-series called “Teresa de Jesús” (1984) which sometimes runs on EWTN. This series for me really catches the heart of St. Teresa. There are some great scenes in it. For instance one where they have started up their first Discalced Carmelite convent and are singing a song about their itchy habits and bugs. For me it captured the humor of St. Teresa and I could easily imagine the scene occurring.

St. Teresa of Avila pray for us.

Yes I know I will go to any lengths for a pun. But considering the Washington Post’s editorial admission that the whole Valerie Plame affair was much ado about nothing. I really regret knowing all the intricacies and the ins and out of this story via such good sources as JustOneMinute. What a colossal waste of time. It is finally good to see somebody in the MSM admitting that Joe Wilson lied about his report and that it was no pro-Bush administration official that leaked the story to Robert Novak. Or that basically everything that has been alleged during the last two years simply was not true.

Michelle Malkin and Lorie Byrd both call this a Emily Litella moment. The only difference is that I got a good laugh when Gilda Radner said never mind.

Gerald posts on a commenter at NCR Cafe who was axed for basically posting from actual Church documents and upholding the faith.

NCR Cafe has got to be one of the most accurately named forums. Cafe is obviously short for the Cafeteria Catholicism they hold.

Jimmy Akin has a good post on Exorcist Fr. Gabriele Amorth who is in the news once again for claiming that Hitler and Stalin were possessed.

The fact is that Fr. Amorth is an individual given to making sweeping statements that are not firmly grounded and that are subject to a credulous mindset that is too ready to see possession (full-blown or not).

How else can one explain his claim–in his book An Exorcist Tells His Story–to have performed thirty THOUSAND exorcisms in a nine year period? That’s nine exorcisms PER DAY for nine years–Sundays included!

If this claim is remotely accurate then the man is a walking exorcism factory.

Especially since each exorcism requires canonical approval his bishop would also have to be one exorcism permitting factory also. Though now his claims are 50,000 served as if he is competing with McDonalds. Dr.Ed Peters had previously reviewed Fr. Amorth’s book and noted:

I begin by noting that Fr. Benedict Groeschel wrote one of the most tepid forewords to a book I have ever seen. “At first I declined,” he noted, and then he continued, “…I have difficulties with Fr. Amorth’s approach. He writes of this intriguing subject in ways quite foreign to the ideas of the English-speaking world…he uses rhetoric foreign to most of us and even theological concepts alien to our way of thinking…” Groeschel’s concerns are justified, and the cultural oddities are many. See, for example, Amorth’s comments on gypsies, mentioned only because “they are everywhere in Europe”, and whom he lumps together with “card readers and scoundrels” (p. 161), or his brief but confused discussion of the stereotypically Italian “evil eye” (p. 132). But bothersome as such details are, the problems are deeper than this.

Now what do you do with an out of control exorcist? If his bishop removed his faculties as an exorcist would this be considered repossession? Or do you hope for a Megan to come along and a bad fall?