Punditry

Some parents at a local middle school say people are pushing religion on their children and they say it’s happening too close to school grounds. We have the latest on the debate over religion in schools. The Gideons were giving out bibles to students on the sidewalk outside Nellie N. Coffman Middle School in Cathedral City.

Kids say they were handing the bibles without saying what they were. When parents picked them up, some felt offended, saying the bibles had been pushed on them on school grounds.

It’s a little book that causes so much controversy when it gets close to this a public middle school.

A mother and daughter spoke to us about the Gideons, who they say were handing out bibles to students. Witnesses say they came by Nellie Coffman as kids got off school.

"All they did was put it in my hand and said ‘this is a gift for you for the day’ and they never mentioned what it was," 8th grader Ariana Wilson told us.

Three families tell NewsChannel 3 they were offended when their kids came home with bibles in hand.

"They’re targeting minors, not giving parents materials to give to their children. It’s not their job to skip mom and dad and go straight to the kids," said Airana’s mother, Rachele. [Source]

Well since this didn’t actually happen on school property maybe the parents can push congress to enact a Federal Bible-Free School Zones act.

Interesting and apparently petty battle between the USCCB and Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center.

…From their battlements at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops they have been wagging a pettifoggers’ war with MRC over a nonsense at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to both and for nothing. MRC has a news service on the Internet, Cybercast News Service. It uses the name CNSNEWS.com and has been since 1998. Two years after it started, the bishops through their lawyers ordered MRC to cease and desist from using CNS in its name because the bishops’ Catholic News Service had earlier used the letters.

MRC refused, noting that several other news organizations used the same letters, for instance, a Protestant group, Charisma News Service, the Cox News Service, the China News Service. Pick on them was Bozell’s implicit challenge. Also Bozell discovered that the Catholic News Service never had the letters trademarked and believes they probably could not because of all the other organizations using these three letters. MRC proceeded to acquire its own trademark, "Cybercast News Service-CNSNews.com," along with a distinctive logo to distinguish itself from all the others. That did it. The bishops’ lawyers commenced a legal battle that has run up until this very month. So far, Bozell has beaten them twice. They tried to get revoked the CNSNEWS.com trademark. That case was subsequently dismissed. The bishops then sued in federal court. That suit has also been thrown out. What next?

The bishops have not sued the Chinese or Cox, only MRC. Some around MRC think this is politics. Petty bureaucrats in the Conference of Catholic Bishops do not approve of Bozell’s politics so they are going to harass him. I say it is just another example of the smugness of a group of men who have demonstrated colossal smugness for years. Their reluctance to respond when told for decades that there were priests in their parishes abusing young people is the most infamous example of the bishops’ insularity. This stupid legal battle with MRC is another example, a pettier example. [Source]

A reader
gave me a heads up with some details on a Fr.Tegeder in Minnesota who wrote an article in their local paper against a postcard campaign by the state’s bishop to place a marriage amendment on the ballot for November.

More recently, a group of ultra-conservative church leaders, joined by the Catholic bishops of Minnesota, is promoting an amendment to the state Constitution dictating that marriage is limited to one man and one woman.

After 150 years, is this addition needed in our core document? No, we already have state and federal laws so defining marriage. It seems to be using the Constitution to send a message telling gays and lesbians that they, their relationships and their families are suspect and second class.

In addition, the amendment would take away the possibility of rights enjoyed by other Minnesota families through civil union recognition. These include fundamental human rights that our church professes to uphold.

The usual hyperbole of equating a denial of same-sex marriage as an attack against people with same sex attraction. The last line is especially disingenuous in that in no way does the amendment deny any fundamental human rights that the Church upholds.

… Without the amendment, our church can continue to make distinctions between sacramental marriage, legal marriage and civil unions.

Wouldn’t the Church only classify marriage as sacramental or non-sacramental? Civil unions when between one man and one women can fall into those two categories. Civil unions have become a shortcut word for same-sex marriage and thus are no marriage at all.

My advice to our Catholic leaders is taken from one known to challenge the religious establishment of his day, "Do unto others as you would have done unto you."

My hope for my Catholic brothers and sisters is that we prayerfully consider, "What would Jesus do?" Let those without sin send the first postcard.

Well if I am sinning or living a lie I do hope somebody does chastise me so that I might have the opportunity to repent. Correction is a very charitable form of "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." "Let those without sin send the first postcard." well let’s up the ante Father – Let those without sin write the first editorial. Nice little line to end an editorial with. Though the Gospel story of the women caught in adultery also had a nice line at the end – "Go and sin no more." Once again this editorial does the same thing I noted below on a Commonweal article of not telling that they really believe. It is obvious from the parish site from his own writing and a Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, Trans-gender Families and Friends group that he is not just against the marriage amendment for prudent reasons but is actually against the Churches teaching.

Now as to the heads up a reader gave me he referred me to the website for Fr.Tegeder’s parish. Once again when you look at dissenters you don’t find one doctrinal issue on which they disagree but a cornucopia of issues and the normal narrowing of social justice.

– The Life and Dignity of ALL Human Persons
– the Call to Family, Community and Active Participation by ALL
– the Rights and Responsibilities of ALL people
– the Option for the Poor and Vulnerable
– the Dignity of Work and Rights of Workers
– SOLIDAIRTY with the human family in all walks of life and all over the world
– Care for God’s Creation

Yes we get it all means ALL! Maybe somebody can send them a donation to get the caps key problem fixed on their computer. Now of course all doesn’t really mean ALL. Under Respect Life Activities for October:

To come up with creative ways to raise awareness about our Catholic call to respect the dignity and quality of ALL life, from birth to death.

Yep we have ALL once again but this time it only includes from birth to death. This parish I guess is pro-born-life. They also talk about unwed mothers-to-be. Now it is a good thing that they recommend that they go to area pro-life Crisis Pregnancy Centers. Of course if you are pregnant you are already a mother – not a mother-to-be. Though I guess that is consistent with the whole birth to death definition of life.

The pastor also uses the politically correct BCE (Before Common Era). There is a Catholic school in my city that has 2000 CE prominently displayed on it. Now it is silly enough for secularist that try to develop a new dating system that tries to ignore Christ while at the same time adopting his birth as the dividing point.

Fr. Tegeder also wrote this highly dubious account of then Cardinal Ratzinger.

Along these lines it was interesting to learn that when the bishops of New York state made their "ad limina" visit with the new pope, Benedict, in June 2004, the then Cardinal Ratzinger asked them, "What do your people think about the restoration of the tradition of a married priesthood?" It was reported that after a stunned silence, he asked again, "I really would like to know what your people think on that issue." Bishop Clark of Rochester responded, "We just had a synod in our diocese where over 90 percent of the laity voted in favor of a married priesthood." The other bishops concurred. This reflects national polling.

This also reflects a statement attributed to the Pope a few years ago when he was still a cardinal, "If the Church cannot guarantee the Eucharist in every parish, she must change the conditions for access to the priesthood."

I think the Pope would be very surprised to learn what has been attributed to him. Of course it will be no surprise that Fr. Tegeder was less than thrilled with the election of Pope Benedict of whom he tries to infer that the Holy Spirit was not involved with his election. He uses the supposed quote of Cardinal Ratzinger "It is wrong to say that the Holy Spirit elects the pope because there have been popes the Holy Spirit would never elect." to make the case. The source of the quote is Fr. Greeley so whether he actually ever said this or not is up for grabs, but the idea is certainly true. But it is never a good idea to try to criticize the election of someone who the Holy Spirit might very well have had a hand in.

You can always count on Commonweal for theological humor. This time in relation to the recent Vatican document on seminarians concerning homosexuality. Now there is no surprise that they are not exactly thrilled with the document. At least though they were inventive and came up against a new excuse. Now the document is a – wait for it – a sin against hope.

Many things can be said about the Vatican’s Instruction on gay candidates for the priesthood. Here I want to argue that it is a failure against hope. It indulges, at least materially, in one of the two cardinal sins against hope, presumption. Aquinas, in the Summa Theologiae, wrote of this sin that “one thinks one has…greater knowledge…than one has.” Jesuit philosopher William Lynch noted that hope “keeps reality open and keeps declaring that not all the facts are in.” In at least two places, the Instruction engages in presumption.

First, this is the only Vatican document on homosexuality in recent decades that does not allude, in any respect, to the possibility that we have more to learn about homosexuality. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says of homosexuality that “its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained.” The source of this acknowledgment is surely the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s request that theologians “deepen…their reflections on the true meaning of human sexuality,” and, as a result, “make an important contribution in this particular area of pastoral care,” a request expressed in its 1986 letter to Catholic bishops on The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.

This criticism seems to me to be especially silly. The document from Congregation for Catholic Education references seminary admissions and is not suppose to be an all inclusive document on homosexuality. Besides considering the admission of those with "deep seated homosexual tendencies" to the priesthood does it really matter what the underlying "psychological genesis" is or that we need to learn more on the subject? Alcoholism is suppose to have a component of genetic disposition. But would a seminary care if an alcoholic was predisposed to alcoholism at birth or had developed the problem through free will? Root causes are important to learn about, but they don’t matter when it comes to determining a suitability of a candidate for any profession much less a vocation to the priesthood.

It is also interesting what they left out in the context of the quote they used from the CDF’s letter.

They are encouraged to call on the assistance of all Catholic theologians who, by teaching what the Church teaches, and by deepening their reflections on the true meaning of human sexuality and Christian marriage with the virtues it engenders, will make an important contribution in this particular area of pastoral care

Commonweal isn’t much for "teaching what the Church teaches" and the fact that human sexuality should only be expressed within marriage. His statement that this is the only document in recent decades not alluding the possibility of learning more about homosexuality is also wrong. The Vatican’s document on same-sex marriage does not in any way address root causes or talk about learning more about homosexuality. Just like the recent document it is strait forward in addressing just the topic it brings up.

Furthermore, why would anyone seeking to foster hope, especially in a homosexual person, trust the Vatican on this? To do so might even lead to what Aquinas calls the other cardinal sin against hope, despair. Of that sin Aquinas wrote: “one who despairs judges…that for him, in that state, on account of some particular disposition, there is no hope of the divine mercy.” I am not saying that I fully understand homosexuality, but I am saying that the Instruction’s bald assertions might rob some homosexual persons of hope.

Despair of what? Not being a seminarian? Is the theoretical virtue of hope dependent on seminary admission. Well I guess women also should then despair since they have no hope of ever entering a seminary. In fact I am dispairing with no hope of ever entering a seminary. Just because I am married and have no vocation to the priesthood why should that bar me?

Mainly though what annoys me about these articles is their underlying dishonesty. One of the authors of this article, William McDonough, constantly speaks on "gay and lesbian" issues including supporting same-sex marriage. In these articles even though they will selectively quote from the Catechism and Church document they don’t accept what the Church truly teaches. That the homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered”and homosexual practices are “sins gravely contrary to chastity.” The fact is that they have a problem with the document is because they think that no homosexual regardless of whether they are chaste or not should be barred from the seminary. We are suppose to accept an honest critiques when the underlying theological assumptions they make are severely mistaken. Garbage in – garbage out. It would be much more honest if they would just come out and say they don’t support what the Church teaches instead of playing theological footsies. More any more we hear stores of priest "coming out" and then announcing they have been chaste. But you never hear them clearly elucidate what the Church teaches. They almost never call their own inclination objectively disordered and instead tie their very identity to their disorder. It is time for writers in dissident rags like Commonweal to come out of the theological closet and write what they truly believe instead of constantly skirting around the issues while taking potshots at the Vatican.

Stephen at For God, For Country and For Yale posted parts of an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal regarding a Catholic professor who previously at evangelical Wheaton College. He had become a Catholic while there and was fired after he could not affirm their statement of faith centered on “sola scriptura”. One interesting quote from the article was “Wheaton hasn’t replaced Mr. Hochschild. One obstacle: Most scholars of medieval philosophy are Catholics.” While I don’t know if this statement is true, it would definitely seem to follow. As John Henry Cardinal Newman said "To be deep into history is to cease to be Protestant."

A fairly recent book by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization is a book I will eventually buy and get to that partly addresses this subject. Recently Fr. Pacwa interviewed him on EWTN Live (available in rm format) and the author has an article in this months This Rock magazine. He starts off with a quote from Will Roger "The problem with this country isn’t so much what people don’t know, it’s what people think they know that just ain’t so." Though when it comes to Church history it is a combination of the two. I am still annoyed by the Church sized hole in history that I was given in public school. Talk about censorship. Of course though we did get one piece of Church history – the extremely distorted version of the Galileo affair. Sometimes it seems I have spent most of my life unlearning what I thought I knew.

The author says in the article in This Rock magazine "Again, none of this history proves the Church’s claims about herself, but it does lend some support to those claims." Now having read the majority of Warren Carroll’s wonderful and highly recommended series of history books on Christendom I think it is the negative aspects of the Catholic Church that are the most powerful apologetically. Others long before me have remarked after either reading Church history or having some involvement with the Vatican that the only way that the Catholic Church has become the longest living human institution is that it is not just a human institution. If the Holy Spirit had not been guiding the Church it would have long since become a historical footnote.

Rev. Scott Gale spent six months at Marathon’s Holy Saviour Church before making a surprising announcement to parishioners. As Rev. Scott Gale strode through Marathon’s Holy Saviour church Thursday morning, a parishioner sitting in a pew caught his eye and said quietly, “See you on Sunday.”

Sundays are typically busy for the outspoken Gale. But the day after tomorrow will be different — likely the last time the veteran cleric will address a congregation as an active priest. Gale, 47, resigned last month after revealing he is gay, and that he is no longer able to commit to being celibate. Most of Holy Saviour’s parishioners learned of Gale’s decision to pursue his “longing for a loving relationship” as they sat in the pews during regular services on New Year’s Day.

“
It has become increasingly difficult for me to be an official representative of a church which does not accept and value my sexual orientation,” Gale declared in a two-page letter he read aloud. Many parishioners couldn’t believe their ears as Gale, who only arrived in Marathon last summer, delivered the startling news. [Source]

Again "the document" seems to be having a greater effect than I thought it would. Though sad it is good that he is living the priesthood before ditching celibacy. Just too bad that his “longing for a loving relationship” didn’t include Jesus. It also offers more proof that those who have same-sex attraction often becomes dissidents (he wrote a letter previously in support of same-sex marriage). This is not surprising since we all try to minimize our own sins and it doesn’t help when society is helping us in our efforts. It becomes a conflict of interest or really a conflict of "self-interest" in many of these cases where personal inclinations override Church teaching. Again an again they only prove the need of "the document" and do not help their case at all.

I think the name of a course in a Catholics Returning Home is kind of funny.

Session 5 — "Tips on Sinning," Explanation of Reconciliation/Confession, Q&A

I thought from the title of this news story that this might be another vandalism story.

Some have never noticed them. Others want to get rid of them. But one thing is for sure: Everyone has an opinion about them.

Five swastika-emblazoned discs found near the roof line of St. Mary’s Cathedral in downtown St. Cloud will finally be replaced after years of debate and fund raising.

Tainted by its association with Nazi atrocities, "the symbol itself can never mean what it used to mean in terms of a decorative cross or a German symbol of good luck," the Rev. Steve Binsfeld said.

St. Cloud-area Catholics and Jews, among others, recently raised the estimated $14,000 to replace the discs on the building’s north and south facades. The work will begin when weather permits with warmer temperatures.

The cathedral’s plan is to replace the discs with symbols that would portray the "Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary" named by Pope John Paul II a few years ago.

Marilu Hornstein of St. Joseph celebrates noon Mass at the church on Eighth Avenue South whenever she has the chance, but she didn’t notice the swastikas until recently.

"I read about it in the St. Cloud Times, and I thought, ‘My goodness! How did I miss it!’" said Hornstein, a lifelong Catholic who attended St. Mary’s grade school as a child.

A Cold Spring Granite Co. artist whose son attends St. Mary’s Cathedral will design the discs’ replacements, which will be done in limestone to match the building’s architecture. [Source]

This is certainly some much needed renovation, but even cooler their replacing them with scenes from the Luminous Mysteries.

I am not quite sure what to make of this story of Father Beltran who works with the poorest of the poor in the Philippines who are garbage dump scavengers.

"We’re talking about thousands of families buying thousands of pesos of basic commodities, the poor helping the poor and the parishes benefiting. Even if your baptisms and marriages are free, you’ll be able to run the parish in the black," he said. "We’ll liberate the parishes for enterprise development and job creation. And we’ll tell people that if they don’t buy our organic health soap it will be 10 more years in purgatory for them. That’s what the priests should be saying. They’re good for more than praying the rosary. They can be very good sales agents who use the social networks they have."

Father Beltran said Asians have improved the Latin American model of the liberation theology movement. He said Latin Americans jumped right to politics and did not focus on economics.

They also used "Marxist jargon even though there’s Catholic jargon that means the same thing and doesn’t antagonize the powers," said Father Beltran, who received a doctorate in systematic theology from Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University and taught at a Philippine seminary before becoming pastor of the dump parish.

He seems to have some good ideas for helping the poor, I just hope he is kidding abut threatening more years in purgatory for those who don’t buy his organic soap. The problem with liberation theology was not just the politics of it but the theology of it. Though his approach is directed towards globalization and not socialization.

Father Beltran said the residents of Smokey Mountain should not be confused with that biblical character who found himself living in a garbage dump.

"I don’t like Job. I prefer the Resurrection story, which also took place in a garbage dump. The Resurrection is a better story than Job, which is just about resignation. We don’t need Job around here. We need resurrection," Father Beltran said.

Job found himself living in a garbage dump? Now some interpreters see Job sitting in ashes scraping off his sores with a potsherd as a reference to a garbage dump since they would obviously burn their own garbage, but to say that this is where is lived I think goes to far. I also miss how the resurrection occurred in a garbage dump? Gehenna was a garbage dump that Jesus used as a metaphor for Hell. But Jesus unlike many who were crucified was not burned there, but instead the resurrection occurred in the tomb of a wealthy man.

Now I would agree that the resurrection is a better story than Job, you just can’t get any better than having God saving and redeeming us. But I certainly don’t think you can remove resignation from the resurrection since the crucifixion was certainly a resignation to the will of the Father. Hard to think of the Agony in the Garden without thinking of resignation.

I was thinking about the first time I heard about Priest for Life. I saw Fr. Frank Pavone on EWTN and as he was introduced I misunderstood what Priests for Life meant. I thought well it was good that an organization encouraged priests to remain priests for life, but I thought it was bad theology since a priest is a priest forever like Melchesidec. It wasn’t until much later that it finally dawned on me that they meant priests supporting the pro-life movement.

On a related note they are having a discernment retreat later this week for potential seminarians because they are starting a new community called the Missionaries of the Gospel of Life. I just hope one of those with a vocation for the priesthood might also be a web designer. The Priests for Life site really needs some healing. It looks like it was designed on Geocities circa 1996. For a site that has 35,000 daily visitors – well you wouldn’t think it would look so – well – amateurish. Though I guess it is a lot better than the majority of sites for individual Catholic Churches where not only is the design minimalistic but the bulletin in PDF format is almost guaranteed to be six months old.