Punditry

Religion reporting is often unintentionally funny and this article is no exception. Reporting on a San Diego woman having her first play-acting attempt at Mass.

A Roman Catholic canon says only baptized men may be ordained.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has not taken a formal position on the issue, but three of the American women who say they are ordained priests received letters from diocese officials warning that they had chosen to excommunicate themselves.

Well I guess that they mean by "A Roman Catholic canon" is that canon law talks about baptize males when it come to ordination. Though of course this is not the source of the injunction.

I had a good laugh about the statement that the USCCB has not taken a formal position on the issue. As much as I might critique the Bishop’s conference from time to time this simply is not true. The idea that a bishop’s conference could come up with their own position on a now settled issue just proves the total ignorance of most religion reporting on the Catholic Church.

One of the sad thing about these women besides their confusion and misunderstanding of the Church is that they are going to end up depriving people of the sacraments. Those that attend their "masses" will not receive the Eucharist, will receive not blessing, and will basically be deprived of the source and summit of the Church – the Eucharist.

George Neumayr the new editor of Catholic World Report has more on San Francico’s Catholic Charities adoption scandal. Moral theologian Monsignor William Smith describes the decision as a "distinction without a difference." CWR found out that the two moral theologian in this case that Archbishop Niederauer relied upon are not exactly known for orthodoxy when it comes to homosexuality and provides examples of what they have said in the past. I just wish that some of this was surprising, but unless your name is Pollyanna you will probably find that it is not.

A federal judge has ordered personal items seized in 1996 from Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski’s Montana cabin to be sold online.

U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. ruled Thursday that items belonging to Kaczynski – including books, tools, clothing and two checkbooks – should be sold at a "reasonably advertised Internet auction."

The auction will not include 100 items the government considers to be bomb-making materials, such as writings that contain diagrams and "recipes" for bombs.

I wonder how much Kaczynski’s personal heavily marked up copy of Al Gore’s "Earth in the balance" will go for?

Rich at Ten Reasons posts this:

The clothing-otional Franciscan is coming to Xavier (‘natch):

Xavier University will host two Franciscans to speak on Franciscans International’s work at the United Nations and at the grassroots level on behalf of the world’s most vulnerable.

The talk, at 7 p.m. next Saturday (Aug. 19) at the Schiff Family Conference Center in Xavier’s Cintas Center, is open to the public. A $20 donation is suggested with proceeds benefiting Franciscans International.The speakers will be the Rev. John Quigley, co-founder and executive director of Franciscans International, and the Rev. Richard Rohr, founder of the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati.

‘At times, nudity at the retreats is communal. We often have camp-fires, and I know some of you have been at these where it happens, so you know what I’m talking about. Always, always, there’s some guys — I mean, is it in their hard wiring? — They’ll strip and have to leap over that fire, burning their balls . . . .I don’t know what it is. They’re the ‘real’ men, who can leap over the fire, naked.’

Well I guess there is a Franciscan precedent since St. Francis did strip off all of his clothes and returned them to his father during a courtroom appearance. Somehow I don’t think that that was not meant to be added to the rule as part of the Franciscan charism.

Catholic News Agency has a good overview of Catholic Charity of San Francisco alliance with Family Builders for adoptions. Jill Jacobs, executive director of Family Builders in the article told the Bay Area Reporter that, “We’re about the gayest adoption agency in the country."

…“I ask myself, ‘How is this not supporting homosexual adoption?’” Vivian Dudro, a San Francisco resident, told CNA. Dudro, who has lived with her husband and four children in the area for the last ten years, says that her family has given to Catholic Charities through parish appeals nearly annually.

“When I found out that these adoptions had already been occurring I felt betrayed. Now I learn that (Catholic Charities employees) are going to continue to assist in placing children into the hands of homosexual couples and I just wonder, ‘What is going on? How is the Church’s teaching not clear?’”

Vivian, who works full time raising her children, is not alone in her confusion. Several moral theologians, familiar with Church teaching on the issue, are also unclear as to how the Catholic organization is rationalizing their participation. Dr. William May, a professor at the John Paul II Institute for the Study of Family and Marriage, told CNA that he’s not sure why Catholic Charities thinks they are not acting contrary to the Church’s teaching.

“I find it difficult to reconcile the actions of Catholic Charities of San Francisco with the 2003 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” May said.

Dr. May pointed to a paragraph of the document which considers the fact that homosexual unions lack in both the biological and anthropological elements that make up a marriage. The CDF document states that children should not be placed into such a situation. “As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons,” it says. “They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood.” In other words, the best environment for raising children involves a mother and a father.

The document continues, “Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development.”

Such actions, the Vatican says, are “gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case.”

May also pointed to a paragraph of the document which discusses what action individual Catholics and Church organizations should take in situations, such as the ones which exist in Boston and San Francisco, in which governments recognize homosexual partnerships as equal to marriage. The document states that in such situations, “clear and emphatic opposition is a duty.”

What is more, the document says that, “One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application.”

I hope that this won’t be the last word on the subject especially being that this is Bishop Levada (Now prefect of the CDFs) last See. It is pretty hard to see how this is not formal material cooperation instead of it being just remote material cooperation.

…Cahill repeated his views in the Bay Area Reporter this week saying that adoption to homosexual couples has never been an issue for his staff. “It only came onto the radar after it became an issue in Rome,” he said.

“We should be praising (those adopting) regardless of sexual orientation and thanking them for what they are doing.”

Under the new agreement, Cahill said, his staff will, in the end, do more of what they want to do. “It’s impossible not to use the word ‘irony’ in this situation,” he remarked, “Out of what could have been a crisis came a great opportunity. We actually are going to increase our role in adoptions. And working with Family Builders will actually help them double and triple the number of kids who are up on their Web site.”

The Catholic Charities partnership may even result in more LGBT families adopting children than before, the Bay Area Reporter said.

That the directory of Catholic Charities has no problem saying this out in the open is a serious indicator of problems in the diocese.

…Reconciling questions such as Dudro’s will ultimately be the task Archbishop Niederauer. The archbishop is officially the Chairman of the Board of San Francisco Catholic Charities. However, Cahill has praised the Archbishop for his “hand’s off” approach to the decision.

Though not everybody is thrilled about the hand’s off approach.

“It seems that the leadership of the Archdiocese decided that they were willing to sacrifice the children and the lay faithful in the pews so as not to earn the displeasure of the politically powerful in this city,” Dudro said.

“It’s as if political power and money have overshadowed the Truth of the Church’s teaching.”

Unfortunately this is about exactly what was expected by many pundits when Archbishop Niederauer was announced as Archbishop Levada’s replacement. When he was the Archbishop of Salt Lake City he was praised by many homosexual organizations for his views which appeared to oppose the document on accepting homosexual’s to the priesthood. He also In 2004 publicly opposed a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage that appeared on the Utah state ballot, even though he opposed same-sex marriage. How he has so far handled the Catholic Charities fiasco seems to be an indicator that not much has changed. For his statements and actions Mr. Cahill needs to be dismissed and if this doesn’t happen than the Archbishop might be more of a politician than a shepherd. Please pray for the Archbishop. Being a bishop is a responsibility that I can only dimly imagine the strain of and being one in a Archdiocese such as San Francisco could make a man request a transfer to Sodom and Gomorrah as a cushier job.

A CONTROVERSIAL art exhibit depicting Jesus riding on top of a missile has been raising eyebrows at a city centre church. The unusual installation is part of the ‘Yesterday, Today, Forever’ exhibition at St Peter’s Church in Hereford and coincides with the city’s annual Three Choirs Festival. The piece entitled Gods of Glory by artist Andrew Found shows Jesus hanging off the top of a missile while a Muslim, Buddhist, and a grenade-wielding nun are wrestling below it. St Peter’s curate James Mercer said the missile exhibit was the most controversial of the 45-strong show.

He said: “The objective of the exhibition is to engage people in conversation, and the theme is a reference to the Kingdom of God, and we have some interesting pieces which explore that theme. “The whole exhibition is an expression of what it means to be a local church in 2006, how do we engage people in conversation about the Kingdom of God? “The piece is not saying one group is victorious over another, it’s sufficiently ambiguous to be interpreted in a variety of ways.”

Mr Mercer said other churches had expressed surprise about the content of the exhibition, but added it was an exciting, creative way of evangelising. One interpretation of the exhibit is the role that religion plays in causing war, and that different religions fight war in the name of their God.

It is not the first time the church has staged a controversial exhibition. Last Christmas a sculpture of Jesus in a waste paper bin was displayed at the church. Meanwhile another work by Andrew Found depicting a laughing Jesus on the cross caused controversy two years ago.
[Via TheWorld…IMHO]

But the question is was it the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch being depicted.

Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, "Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals … Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it." — Monty Python, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

Jesus on a Missile could also explain the Ascension and would also explain the Second Coming bringing the end of the world.

On a more serious note the curate saying "it’s sufficiently ambiguous to be interpreted in a variety of ways” is not exactly high praise. Art that can mean anything in reality means nothing. It is like having a thesaurus that lists every word in the dictionary as a synonym for any word given. Though the artists intention and the curate interpretation are probably not one in the same.

Gerald posts on the Catholic Theological Society of America honoring Sister Sandra Schneiders. His post is in depth with lots of background. As you would expect with the CTSA the Sister is the typical radical feminist with the normal laundry list of where the Church must change to match society. The typical talk about the"institutional church." You know like when Jesus told Peter on this rock I will build my "institutional church." Or Matthew 18 when we are told when all efforts fail to take it to the "institutional church." How exactly did the word institution become ominous a kind of progressive four letter word? Or is it just the aspect of institutions that are related to authority? Since she wants to get rid of the Pope and the bishops this could be it. People against any kind of authority truly just want to replace some form of authority with their own. To quote G.K. Chesterton "In truth there are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it and those who accept dogmas and don’t know it."

For my own part I rejoice that Holy Mother Church is an institution. It would be pretty hard when attempts at rebuking your brother fail to take the matter to some amorphous body of all believers. If you think you have problems with the Curia as a bureaucracy, try getting something done with a whole body of believers. Speaking of Holy Mother Church have you ever heard that term used by these feminists in theologians clothing. The divine feminine is applied to everything, but the Church. Mother is applied willy-nilly to God, but not to the Church. As Cyprian put it, "He who does not have the Church as Mother cannot have God as Father." Though I guess they are not really thrilled with the language of the second part of the equation anyway.

The article Gerald points to compares the Sister to Saint Catherine of Siena. The only real comparison that I can come with is that they are both women and they both don’t have their heads firmly attached.

As to this honor Kevin Miller puts it very charitably:

It certainly isn’t impossible to find, among well-known (nominally) Catholic theologians whose scholarly output is fairly prolific, someone whose work has been less intellectually, morally, and religiously serious, someone less deserving of such a high honor. It takes a bit of work, though.

…What, exactly, is Catholic about the CTSA, except for the fact that a few of the regulars happen to be Catholic?

Sister Sandra Schneiders has also been a speaker at Call to Action. CTA recently has given its leadership award to Cindy Sheehan. Now I can understand why they might be attracted to her. Her idea of a fast is appealing. Recently she went on a one day fast that included Jamba Juice and Vanilla ice cream. Obviously choosing Vanilla over other flavors is quite penitential. Though you would think that after Mel Gibson’s unfortunate remarks that they might not want to back Cindy Sheehan who has talked of Jewish cabals and dark conspiracies theories and is closely associated with groups that call for the elimination of Israel. Unlike Mel she hasn’t blamed all war on the Jewish people, but definitely blames the Iraqi war on them, "My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel".

Gubernatorial candidate Mark Green says it’s "just plain stupid" that the Knights of Columbus is no longer a recognized student group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The university told the group this summer that it cannot be a recognized student organization because it does not allow all students to participate, the group told The Associated Press.

Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s fraternal benefit society, has been a recognized student organization for 30 years. But this summer, the university said that because the group only allows Catholic males as members, it violates university policy. The group has been told it may not recruit members on campus or use university buildings for their meetings.

Another Christian group on campus, the UW Roman Catholic Foundation, has also been told it will not be recognized. That group is preparing to challenge the decision.

The groups are citing a recent 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that forced Southern Illinois University to recognize the Christian Legal Society despite its requirement that members pledge to adhere to Christian beliefs.

So I guess to be consistent they will also be canceling football this year. Those all-male Badgers really need to taught a lesson about tolerance.

I was thinking more about the whole women ordination movement and some further thoughts came to me on the subject. Groups like the Women’s Ordination Conference who advocate for priestesses within the Catholic Church are really missing key components. Say for example that you buy the premise that women can be ordained as priests, which I certainly don’t. Then why would the process for women entering the priesthood be so different from men then? Why aren’t they building seminaries to train them first? Shouldn’t there be some kind of discernment other than just the feeling of a call? Do they believe that all women who feel this call are always being called by God to the priesthood? Jesus said in John 15:16 "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you." So there has to be a process of discernment to determine if someone is called to the priesthood or not. There has to be a sifting out to determine someone’s vocation. In Catholic seminaries not every male who enters goes on to be ordained. Ultimately it is the bishop of the diocese or head of a religious order that makes this decision.

Do they believe that these women require zero training in theology, philosophy, the pastoral life, etc first? If they do and they believe in equality then why aren’t they demanding that the Church drops seminaries and that any man who feels he should be a priest is immediately ordained? That these men should just seek out any sympathetic bishop regardless of the church they belong to and be ordained immediately.

If they did start seminaries exactly what would be their ecclesiology. I have often mentioned that dissenting Catholics have no rational ecclesiology. That the Church is the true except the parts you disagree with is not exactly a deep ecclesiology. That the Holy Spirit guides Holy Mother Church in all truth except when he doesn’t. I think they would have a difficult time determining what to teach in the first place. Martin Luther soon found out that that everybody has a "pope in their belly" and so would these women find out the same thing. When you cut yourself of from the magisterium there should be no surprise that you start to drift. The magisterium is the anchor of the Bark of Peter. How do you settle theological arguments when each individual is their own magisterium? No surprise that the women’s ordination movement would have the same problems of Protestantism, they are just less honest than Martin Luther was. By their own actions they believe that you can just get ordained and setup shop where ever you want. So I guess you also don’t need a diocese with a Bishop in the first place since you don’t really need any sort of permission from the local ordinary. You can also do away with the Pope since if you don’t have to be obedient to him, then he is just a figurehead that can be done without.

Now another question I have is that if these women can just determine of their own volition that they are called to the priesthood, then why can’t I just show up there and tell them that I was called to be their bishop and start ordering them about ? Do you think that they would buy that one? I think not, but I don’t see how they could discredit my argument without invalidating theirs. Again it is hard to appeal to authority or tradition when you yourself deny such an appeal by your actions. Dissent is in the eye of the beholder. When you are the one dissenting it is a wonderful and brave thing, when someone dissents from you it is not quite viewed the same way.

"My sister Teresa and I attended his talk and a few other TOT talks. After we heard how heretical and mocking of Church teaching these speakers were, we decided to make a couple of signs to hold out in front of Holy Name Cathedral for TOT’s concluding Mass. Our signs simply read ‘FOR TRUE CHURCH ANSWERS READ THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH’ and ‘QUESTION THE AGENDA OF THEOLOGY ON TAP.’

"We remained on the sidewalk, out of the way of pedestrians, and spoke to people who wanted to chat with us about their experience with TOT. We had the Catechism of the Catholic Church with us and showed it to those with whom we spoke. The associate director of the Young Adult Ministry, Kate DeVries, came out and demanded to know what we were doing there; she stomped off while we were answering her.

"The Chicago police arrived shortly after and ordered us off the sidewalk. They said there is an ordinance prohibiting demonstrations near church services. Remember, however, that SNAP and Rainbow Sash demonstrations — or those by any other group that wants to protest Catholic teaching and practice — are always seemingly ‘welcome.’

"The police made us go to the other side of the street where our signs couldn’t be seen by those whom we were trying to influence. Father John Cusick, director of the Young Adult Ministry, came out after Mass and gave the police a big ‘atta-boy’ pat on the back and hand shake for making us move. This whole program is nothing but political conditioning.

"Pay Byrnes and another speaker, Friar John Paul Cafiero, both ridiculed and dismissed the Catechism as ‘their’ rule book. Somehow the suggestion of the Catechism in any way at TOT really hits a nerve.

"We are currently composing a letter to Cardinal George about our experience. We thought you would like to hear our story; and we thought you would appreciate that there were others who also were uncomfortable with the TOT program."

This program is hot – that is Heterodoxy On Tap. I guess though it might take a few beers for this type of theology to start to make sense.