Punditry

FRANKFORT, Ky. – The state school board on Wednesday scrapped a plan to teach students about an alternative to the calendar terms B.C. and A.D., which carry religious overtones.

The board, with six new members appointed by Gov. Ernie Fletcher, reversed a decision two months ago that had sparked a religious debate in Kentucky.

The traditional B.C. and A.D. designations mean Before Christ and Anno Domini, Latin for "in the year of the Lord." The board on April 11 adopted curriculum changes that included teaching the designations B.C.E., for Before Common Era, and C.E., for Common Era.

The change drew criticism from some activist ministers and religious groups. Some conservative Christians complained the change was an attempt to sterilize a reference to Christ.

"It’s part of a larger effort to expunge religious references in our culture," said Martin Cothran, a policy analyst at The Family Foundation, a conservative group based in Lexington. "I think it’s not something that’s coming from regular people. It’s coming from certain other sectors of our society who think that we ought not to talk about religion in our public life."

The new abbreviations would have been added to the traditional B.C. and A.D. references.

State education officials have defended the new terms, saying they are coming into widespread use and would likely show up on college placement tests.

On Wednesday, the school board voted 10-0 in favor of abolishing any reference to B.C.E and C.E. and to preserve the traditional abbreviations.

This just proves that the whole B.C.E and C.E debacle proves that modern secularist are more gutless than their French Enlightenment Counterparts who created a totally new dating system not based on when Christ was born and changed the numbers of days in the week as an attack against the Church. To only change the abbreviation and not the central point that divides the two eras is just plain silliness since their new convention still points to Christ as the central event that brings us into the common era.

Though one of the funniest things I have seen is a Catholic school with the letters Built 2000 C.E. prominently displayed on the facade.

When I saw the The National Catholic Reporter’s piece yesterday called "Spin without end in abuse scandal" which was a response to an ad by the Catholic League I thought the title to be pretty ironic considering the heavy spin of their article. I knew Gerald would be quite capable of evaluating NCR’s spin since he has done yeoman’s work in evaluating and displaying the data from the John Jay study on the subject. He does not disappoint and shows the contrast between the raw data from the report compared to the very cherry-picked data NCR used. He also makes some good distinctions and I believe clearly shows that it is the NCR which is involved in spin control.

The National Catholic Reporter never ceases to amuse me in what it considers fit to print. Incidentally for the seventh year in a row the Catholic Press Association has once again given tem first place for general excellence. Obviously faithfulness to the Magisterium is not one of the checkboxes used by the judges. In the Quotable & Notable section they printed this quotation.

“I don’t care what is going on in the bedroom. … Those days are over. It is time for us to be concerned with what is going on in the kitchen.”

— The Rev. Lennox Yearwood of Washington’s youth-oriented Hip Hop Caucus who June 5 joined other religious leaders supporting the fifth annual National Hunger Awareness Day sponsored by food pantry supplier America’s Second Harvest

The above quotation I am sure met with their approval and I bet they included the quote right after it for ironic tension. The following quote was:

“Never before in history has human procreation, and therefore the family, which is its natural place, been so threatened as in today’s culture.”

— From the document “Family and Human Procreation,” issued June 6 by the Pontifical Council for the Family. It condemned any legal recognition of gay couples, stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination and artificial contraception.

I was curious as to the part the NCR put in ellipses right after bedroom in the first quote. Turns out it was " "I don’t care what is going on in the bedroom. I don’t care if there’s whips or chains or whatever." So I guess allusions to S&M are still not kosher for the NCR. Such prejudice towards a sexual minority is sad to see in such a progressive and sexually enlightened rag. Though I consider reading the NCR as S&M myself.

A federal judge on Monday rejected a lawsuit from an atheist who said having the phrase "In God We Trust" on U.S. coins and dollar bills violated his First Amendment rights.

U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. said the minted words amounted to a secular national slogan that did not trample on Michael Newdow’s avowed religious views.

"There is no proper allegation that the government compelled plaintiff to affirm a repugnant belief in monotheism," Damrell said in dismissing the suit.

Newdow, a Sacramento doctor and lawyer, also is engaged in an ongoing effort to have the Pledge of Allegiance banned from public schools because it contains the words "under God."

I hope he is a better doctor than he is a lawyer. If not interviewing his ex-patients might be difficult without breaking Levitical law about seances.

In an article with a provocative title Why we choose to raise a heretic proves once again that people rail against a faith they don’t even know.

Our baby is full of original sin. That’s right. Not yet eight months old, our daughter has yet to be baptized and will therefore never grace the gates of heaven. Some will no doubt rebuke our decision to turn away from the Catholic church. That’s fine. But reading the latest edict issued by the Vatican, my husband and I feel further justified in our resolve to raise a heretic.

The rest of the article talks about the new 57-page document released by the Vatican that only reiterates Catholic teaching and why this spurred their decision. Her saying their un-baptized daughter could never enter Heaven is only the first of the mistakes. Just how is it that someone raised Catholic all of a sudden is upset by a document that only restates what has always been taught? I guess simply because they were not exposed to what the Church teaches or if so not very deeply. She goes on to talk about contraception, condoms, IVF, same-sex marriage and as usual in articles of this type never actually address the arguments used by the Church for these issues. Repeated over and over is the phrase "Call us liberal extremists, but we don’t believe it’s immoral…" to preface every issue without ever stating one reason for defense of these beliefs. The issue of the priestly abuse scandal is once again is brought up to prove somehow that this invalidates the truth.

Now of course in an article of this type you don’t expect a prolonged theological discussion of these issues, but it would be nice every once in a while if they would offer any defense at all other than stating their opposition.

Last week there was plenty of coverage of the interview with Wolf Blitzer and Theodore Cardinal McCarrick on the Federal Marriage Amendment. I’d did not post about the Cardinal’s remarks because I figured within a short time he would issue a statement clarifying them. The part of the transcript that made the rounds was the following:

BLITZER: Another very sensitive issue that’s being dealt with in the Senate right now involves a constitutional ban on same sex marriage. Senator Ted Kennedy said this yesterday. He said, "A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry, pure and simple." You disagree with him, don’t you?

MCCARRICK: On this one, I do. Ted and I have — do have differences from time to time. And this is a real big one. It seems to me that we really have to continue to define marriage as we’ve defined marriage for thousands of years as a union between a man and a woman.

Now, I think the legislation as it is proposed would not throw out the possibility of a civil union. And I think we can — we can live with that if this is what — if this is what the Constitution will provide for. But to say that you can take this concept of marriage, this word of marriage and use it in ways that it has never been used before, as far as I know, in the history of the world, I think that makes no sense.

BLITZER: So just explain. You think that you could live with — you could support civil unions between gays and lesbians, but you wouldn’t like them to get formally married, is that right?

MCCARRICK: Yes. I think — I think basically the ideal would be that everybody was — was able to enter a union with a man and a woman and bring children into the world and have the wonderful relationship of man and wife that is so mutually supportive and is really so much part of our society and what keeps our society together. That’s the ideal.

If you can’t meet that ideal, if there are people who for one reason or another just cannot do that or feel they cannot do that, then in order to protect their right to take care of each other, in order to take care of their right to have visitation in a hospital or something like that, I think that you could allow, not the ideal, but you could allow for that for a civil union.

But if you begin to fool around with the whole — the whole nature of marriage, then you’re doing something which effects the whole culture and denigrates what is so important for us. Marriage is the basic foundation of our family structure. And if we lose that, then I think we become a society that’s in real trouble.

The Cardinal starts off pretty good, but it goes down hill from there. Some have described the Cardinal as a man of the middle, but from his previous statements I think he is more of a man of the muddle. He didn’t quite translate the direct wording of then-Cardinal Ratzinger leader to him to the other bishops and in this case he again quite muddled on Catholic teaching. Besides the whole issue of requiring civil unions to provide for hospital visitations is a red-herring in the first place. As if this would be the only legal remedy for such situations which are mainly hyped up anyway.

Now the expected clarification has arrived.

“I’m afraid that I misspoke last Wednesday when I was being interviewed on CNN.

“We were talking about the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment and the protection of marriage between a man and a woman. Here is what I said: ‘We really have to continue to define marriage as we have defined marriage for thousands of years as a union between a man and a woman.’

“After that, I spoke of the legislation as it had been proposed and that it would not eliminate the possibility of civil unions. I said, ‘If this is what the legislation would provide for, I think we can live with that.’

“My point was that the wording of the proposed legislation to protect marriage, which did not eliminate civil unions, might be necessary in order to have the votes needed to pass it. I added, ‘to say that you can take the concept of marriage and use it in ways that it has never been used before, as far as I know, in the history of the world, I think makes no sense.’

“When probed further on the question of civil unions, which came up because the wording of the constitutional amendment did not seem to eliminate them, I returned to the ideal – that everybody should be ‘able to enter a union with a man and a woman and that would bring children into the world and have the wonderful relationship of man and wife that is so mutually supportive and is really so much part of our society and what keeps society together.’

“I added, ‘If you fool around with the whole nature of marriage, then you are doing something which affects the whole culture and denigrates what is so important for us. Marriage is the basic foundation of our family structure and if we lose that, then I think we become a society that is in real trouble.’

“In trying to reply to a question, I mentioned people who may need the right to take care of each other when they are grievously ill and hospitalized, but it was always in the context of the proposed legislation and in no way in favor of a lifestyle that is contrary to the teaching of the Church and Scripture. I realized that my words could have given the wrong impression to someone who did not take my remarks in context.

“I regret any confusion my words may have caused because I did not make myself sufficiently clear.”

All clear now? Man of the muddle indeed. Noticeably absent is any clarification about people "who can’t make the idea" or "feel that" they can’t make it. Instead he concentrated on the later part of the same paragraph. Also noticeably absent is any theological point of view or any restatement of Catholic teaching, instead there is a more generic defense of marriage from societies view.

It will be interesting to see how Bishop Wuerl will handle his responsibilities as the face of the Catholic Church as he Theodore Cardinal McCarrick’s place on the 22nd of this month.

One thing I can say though is that the good Bishop can really swing a thurible.

The Denver Roman Catholic Archdiocese on Thursday announced a $3 million voucher program to help parents who can’t afford Catholic schooling for their children.

Church officials said they modeled the privately funded grant program after an embattled public-voucher system, which the Catholic Church supported, that never went into effect in Colorado. The state Supreme Court ruled the program unconstitutional in 2004.

This defeat created a need, Archbishop Charles Chaput said.

"I think if we had government vouchers, our Catholic schools would be full," he said.

Chaput said giving charitable funds in the form of vouchers is not a political statement. The church intended to give parents the financial power to choose where to send their kids and how to nurture their spirituality, he said.

It is good to see the Archbishop not waiting around for the government to do what should be done and to help ensure the availability of a Catholic education to those who can’t afford it (or at least not while simultaneously paying properties taxes to provide money to send other people’s kids to public schools.) Being that this is the Archdiocese of Denver the Catholic schools there probably even provide a solid Catholic education

Gerald posts on a banquet that had Sr. Joan Chittister joining in with Orbis Books marketing director Patti Byrns in singing a fist-pumping rendition of "I Am Woman." Now a video of that would be something worthy of a Lenten dicipline.

It does remind me in a very oblique way of the first song parody on my blog.

I am Roman, hear me roar
In rants too sharp to ignore
And I know too much to go back an’ pretend
’cause I’ve heard all the heresies before
And I’ve been down there on my knees
and won’t get up until the end

CHORUS
Oh yes the Church is wise
But it’s wisdom born of revelation
Yes, Jesus paid the price
But look at our salvation
If I have to, I can move mountains
I am holy (holy)
I am Catholic (Catholic)
I am Roman

You can bend but never break me
the gates of hell will never take me
More determined to achieve my final goal
Because Jesus will never forsake me
Not unrepentant any longer
’cause you’ve sanctified my soul

CHORUS

FADE
I am Roman
I am infallible
I am universal
I am Roman

Via Fr. Tucker is the text of a speech by Cardinal Kasper on the ordination of women to the episcopacy. It is interesting and makes some good points and mainly argues about the prudence of not doing this for the sake of unity.

The snarky part of me would quip that their ordination of women to the episcopacy is just as valid as their ordination of men to the episcopacy or for that matter the priesthood. What exactly is the theological reasoning in allowing women to the priesthood and not the episcopacy? It seems to me that this decision was made not on theological grounds but to prevent a larger number of members from leaving. It is obvious that it is only a matter of time till they will cave on this also as they go with the flow of the tide of modernity. Cardinal Kasper says that this will lead "not only to a short-lived cold, but to a serious and long-lasting chill." No doubt the Anglican ice age will continue to small groups and individuals to come out from the cold and come home.

I saw this story at Amy Welborn’s site earlier this week.

In an effort to rid his church of the sight of young women’s bare midriffs, a Catholic priest in Cinisello Balsamo, Italy posted a sign at the entrance of his church that reads: "God knew what your navel looked like even before you were born, so there is no need to expose it in church.” Although guards at major churches in Italy routinely keep out people wearing skimpy attire, the priest says he resorted to the signs because his parish cannot “afford guards to keep out the low-cut jeans and high-cut tops.”

And it reminds me of one of my favorite stories about St. John Vianney. In Ars at the time a form of dance was introduced that the saint considered quite immoral and though probably quite tame by today’s standards he was certainly right. He took action by both preaching against it and by hanging a sign on the neck of the statue of St. John the Baptist in the church. The sign read "He lost his head over a dance." He would also at times pay the fiddler engaged for dance as much or more than he normally earned to stay away from the dance.

My own parish has a poster as you enter the door that says something to the extent of "Out of respect for Our Lord…" and then describes what forms of clothing are not appropriate. Not that it has had much effect. It never ceases to amaze me what people choose to wear to Mass. Clothes so immodest that only a floor length chapel veil would be of any help. Though of course immodest clothing is not restricted to just women. The clothes people wear in Florida are quite casual as it is and so you can’t say dress up as you would for going out for dinner since they in effect already do that. Though it always seems that it is the poorer members of our parish that dress up the most. I have heard Fr. Groeschel make the same observation that the more materially rich the parish is the more casual the clothing.