Punditry

As a high-school student in Baltimore, Tara Showalter admired the Dominican sisters who taught her. They were smart. They were good at sports. They were fun to hang out with.

But spend the rest of her life with them?

Nope, not what Showalter planned. She was going to college, intending to become a scientist, a wife and a mother.

But in late July, as Sister Maria Faustina, Showalter took permanent vows in the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, an order based in Ann Arbor Township.

"God puts this call in your heart; he places it there, and it’s a gentle call. You can choose to ignore it, and I tried to for three years," said Showalter, 27.

The Sisters of Mary, founded in 1997, are growing at a time when many other Catholic religious orders are shrinking or simply disappearing. Four young sisters, including Sister Maria, made perpetual vows in July and six more made their initial vows in August. A new group of 17 postulants – beginning sisters – is expected in September, which will bring the community total to 64.

To meet the growth, the Sisters of Mary are adding a new residential wing and a large, domed chapel to their property, essentially doubling the 26,500 square feet built by Tom Monaghan, a Catholic philanthropist and the founder of Domino’s Pizza.

When finished later this year, the convent will have space for 100 sisters.

The order is different from many others today in that members wear the traditional, floor-length habit; place strong emphasis on community life; and spend at least three hours each day in traditional, communal prayer, some in Latin.

Some church observers say that the sisters are attracting young women because they are doing something different – even countercultural – and their clear, strict standards appeal to such women. In a number of cases, the women have rejected religious orders that revised or moved away from traditional ways, including the habit, after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. The council relaxed some of the more strict, traditional rituals in the Catholic Church.

This newer crop of sisters deeply desires the traditional habit, the hours specifically set aside for communal prayer and communal life, said John J. Fialka, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the author of Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America.

Now an article of this type can’t be left alone with out the following near-mandantory statement..

Some church observers, however, question what they see as an attempt by small but wealthy and politically powerful groups to turn the faith clock back to a supposed golden age.

"There’s always been a rear-guard action among Catholics who don’t like Vatican II," said the Rev. Richard P. McBrien, the former chairman of the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and a longtime observer of Catholic life in America.

Get that. A growing convent is in response to rich and politically powerful groups who don’t like Vatican II. Funny though how a "rear-guard" action is larger than the supposed Vatican II (Spirit) embracing convents where the word novice has dropped from their lexicon. In fact to be a novice master in some of these convents is like getting the job of high-impact aerobics instructor at a nursing home.

"Young women are attracted to the total gift of self," said Sister Joseph Andrew Bogdanowicz, the vocations director for the Sisters of Mary. "They trust Christ and are willing to pour out their lives first to him, then through him, to all his people. This total commitment is most attractive to a generation starving for authenticity."

As a community, the sisters operate two Spiritus Sanctus Catholic elementary schools. Add to that the hours committed to prayer and the duties of running the convent, and the sisters put in long days.

Fialka, in an interview, compared such traditional religious life to another difficult one: "It’s like joining the Marines: full regalia, tough mission."

Teaching and nursing are burn-out jobs, Fialka said, but nuns can do it for 50 years. "The secret is prayer life, living together in the convent, bucking each other up."

Sister Ave Maria Hayes agrees.

Hayes, 33, came to the Sisters of Mary as a registered nurse a year out of Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. She had met Mother Mary Assumpta Long, a founder of the Sisters of Mary and now its prioress general, at a Mass arranged by Monaghan.

Long invited Hayes to a cookout at the convent. Later, she and the other sisters allowed Hayes and a roommate to live in a house next to the first Spiritus Sanctus Academy while they worked as nurses at the University of Michigan Hospitals.

These days, Hayes follows the Dominican tradition of teaching. The past two years, she has taught kindergarten. "I never would have guessed I could teach, much less kindergarten, but I’ve enjoyed it, loved it," she said.

The sisters acknowledge that life in a convent isn’t easy. Community time sometimes conflicts with desires to be alone. Personalities sometimes bump and scrape against each other. Schedules must be followed, and sometimes work assignments are just plain hard.

They rise at 5 or 6 a.m. each day, depending on the time of year. They meet in the chapel for prayer and Mass, then usually go off to school, or in the case of novices, remain at the convent for theology classes. Noon brings more prayer as well as lunch; teaching sisters remain at school until the late afternoon, when the community gathers for spiritual reading and more prayer.

At dinner in the convent refectory, the sisters listen to spiritual instruction either recorded or read aloud. Afterward, there is another hour of recreation followed by a last hour of prayer.

At 8 p.m., community silence begins, and lights are turned out at 10.

The sisters organize their days with careful thought. They say that there is never enough time for all that needs to be done. "But when you’re giving a total gift, and can’t give more," Sister Maria said, "God takes care of the rest." [Source]

Commenter Venerable Aussie called my attention to a vocations video put out by the Diocese of New York. The video shows a procession of people carrying the Blessed Sacrament through the streets of New York. It is narrated partly by Fr. Benedict Groeschel and the voice of our late Holy Father. Overall an excellent video and I hope it gets wide dissemination.

On the other hand Blogging Ex Cathedra takes aim at the USCCB’s 17 minute long vocation video "You Could Make a Difference." saying it will Not Making a Difference. Judging by the parts of it available online I would partly agree with his critique. It was not exactly a rousing call to consider you have a vocation. I am sure that Jesus is mentioned in it somewhere also, though I can’t vouch for that.

I believe the Diocese of New York got it right and the USCCB’s one is a possible example of what not to do.

It just goes to show sometimes how much we don’t know. I had no idea that President Bush had moved the city of New Orleans to a spot below sea level and prone to hurricanes. At least that is what I conclude must have happened based on the many criticisms I have read. Even worse he must have used mind control to force state officials to call for an evacuation at almost the last moment. But unbelievably he somehow also forced people to stay behind in the area despite the warnings. But the most despicable thing he had done must was to remove the distributors from hundreds of school buses that might have been used for evacuation instead of being left behind – at least that is what must have happened to keep local officials from using them for evacuations. And just think of what his policies have done to some of the populace – people so confused that they mistook televisions and DVD players for food and water. Impeach Bush now and stop his city moving and mind control abilities now!

Besides, who knew that local, state, and federal government bureaucracies could be inept at times? What a shock!

In related news Hurricane Katrina Damage Caused by Hurricane, According to NOAA.

You just know an article that bandies about the word theocracy in the title is going to be a real treat.

Just as the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, so, too, does it recognize the right to be free from religion. The Radical Right wants prayer in public schools, but only Christian prayers. These extremists would scream bloody murder if Muslim schoolchildren were to bow down and praise Allah or Jewish children were to lead their classrooms in Hebrew prayers.

Free from religion is usually a code word meaning to be free from others with religious views. That you can be religious all you want just don’t express it publicly or let your life be informed by it. And of course she offers no evidence or even antidotes for how the "radical right" is doing this. The movement of asking for prayer in school has been concentrated on allowing kids to be able to do silent prayers or a moment of reflection. Not to lead the class in a specific prayer. I would guess off hand that a moment of reflection would be easily amendable to Christians, Muslims, and Jewish children. Of course the bumper sticker joke is that as long as there are tests in schools there will also be prayers in school.

We are a nation of people who adhere to many faiths, including Christianity. But we are not a Christian nation. But as far as the Radical Right is concerned, there is only one true religion, orthodox Christianity.

Aren’t the Jewish so-called neocons part of the religious right? Besides a recent study said that 85 percent of americans identified themselves as Christians you might think that would would somewhat support the label even if those same 85 percent don’t exactly always live a Christian life. Even those on the religious left believe there is only one true religion – the one that they hold. Though I don’t quite understand the snipe at "orthodox Christianity" since orthodox means right doctrine.

On the Radical Right’s enemy list is Cindy Sheehan, a mother who lost her son in the war in Iraq. She and her supporters have camped out near the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. But the radicals can’t see her pain or get past her disagreement with their spiritual leader, George W. Bush. In another time, they might have burned Sheehan as a witch just to shut her up.

This paragraph occurs only a few lines after she says the "Radical Right" engages in "character assassination." You can be sure that whenever you see this phrase you will then see some good examples of character assassination committed by the same author.

The Radical Right pits mother against mother. It hails Terri Schiavo’s mother, a Catholic, while condemning Sheehan, also Catholic. The disabled and deceased Schiavo became a symbol for the national pro-life movement that had open support from Florida’s Republican governor.

Now which way is it. The left attacked supporters of Terri for publicizing a mother’ grief and at the same time say that this one mother’s grief should be very public. Exactly who are the members of the religious right condemning Cindy Sheehan? Sure people have criticized the media circus that eschewed or some of the anti-Semetic and silly statements that she has made, but who exactly has condemned her or her right to protest the war? Every commentator I have read or heard makes the distinctions between condemning Cindy Sheehan and some of the ideas she has expressed. I do remember thinking it was pretty funny when Maureen Dowd said that Mrs. Sheehan had "absolute moral authority." Who knew that Maureen Down believed in absolutes, much less in connection with morals. It does make me wonder if two mother’s who have both lost a son in Iraq, but have opposing views on the war, which one’s moral authority is more absolute? There was a time when the words Cindy and Crawford used together brought to mind a super model and not an exploitive media event taking advantage of a grieving mother.

Sheehan’s son went from altar boy to casualty of war and then a symbol for a national anti-war movement. Sheehan uses the same symbolic crosses for her cause as have been used for years throughout the country to represent unborn children lost to abortions. Can you recall anyone driving a truck over them, as happened with the Crawford crosses?

The idiot that did that did that was not defended by anybody I am aware of. Though since she asks if I can remember similar events, why yes I can and you would think a reporter with Lexus-Nexus access would be able to determine that memorials to the unborn have been desecrated many times across the country. In fact earlier this year not just one idiot with a pickup truck but multiple vandals damaged 3,000 to 4,000 crosses at LSU. This same thing happened in my own diocese where crosses dedicated to the unborn were destroyed at the site of the first Mass in America. Pro-life displays have been ripped-up or destroyed time and time again all over the country. So yes I can recall the same and worse happening.

The Radical Right won’t rest until they’ve converted – or subverted – their enemies. As a Catholic mother with children in religious schools, I find this movement reprehensible and suspicious. Do you really believe that the sudden interest Republicans have in attracting black and Hispanic voters has to do with anything other than religion?

I should have know that the writer would turn out to be a Catholic, but yes I do believe that the motives are other than just religion. Just from a purely pragmatic motive it is done to receive a larger number of votes. The fact that some blacks and Hispanics are feeling alienated by the Democratic Party just makes it easier for the Republicans to attract them. The study from the Pew Research Center released today said that only 29% of respondents view the Democrats as religion-friendly, down from 40% just a year ago.

So what to do? Allow them to subvert the Constitution and continue their bloodless coup without a challenge? No, we must urge them to form their own party. Think of Greens and you think of the environment. The zealots should call themselves Theocrat’s. They should leave the Democrats and Republicans to fend for themselves. Such defections have happened before. (See Whigs).

If a Theocrat like televangelist Pat Robertson calls for assassinating a foreign dignitary, Republicans wouldn’t have to explain. Let Theocrats adopt as their mascot a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

If the Theocratic Party succeeds, it will be through votes of the people, through democracy, not deception. Heaven knows, they’ve deceived us enough already.

I really remember the rousing cry of defense for Pat Robertson in the conservative blogosphere, well actually he was pretty much slammed just like almost every time he opens his mouth and says something stupid (though maybe that is repetitive). Though Pat Robertson is not the right’s Michael Moore. He is more like the nutty grandfather that might be part of your family, you just kind of put up with him. Michael Moore gets to sit next to President Carter at the Democratic Convention and his nutty conspiracy theories are almost never condemned by the left. Of course when Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos publicly argued for the assassination of Saddam Hussien in 1997 I also don’t remember the liberal media outcry. that

Anyway the whole idea of the religious right wanting to establish a theocracy is just so much conspiracy hot air more appropriate to wearers of hats made by Alcoa. What do you get when you put 20 Christians in a room? Disagreement. One of the last things Christians would ever want is a theocracy. We can’t even agree if it is permissible to baptize babies yet we are all going to get together to impose a theocracy? We are just doing all we can to keep from having and atheocracy imposed where only secular-humanism is endorsed by the state and religious faith must be kept private.

I think this is pretty funny that after NPR did a report on an evangelical church that has become so large it is establishing branch campuses that some listeners wrote to complain about them proselytizing.

Tony Wright

I just finished reading your column on religion reporting and I must agree with the sentiment of many of the listeners you quoted. NPR’s coverage of religion, especially Catholicism, has increased at an alarming rate. Sylvia Poggioli’s near-daily reporting of the Pope’s schedule is disturbing. I cannot remember the last time I heard about the travels of leaders of the worlds other prominent religions. What’s the Dalai Lama up to these days? Does anyone at NPR know?

From Terri Dziekonski:

I have lately come to believe that the "R" in NPR stands for religion. Why do we have to have a comment from a conservative minister on almost every news item reported? And, why does everything that goes on of a religious bent have to be reported in great detail. The coverage of the Pope’s death was not the only incidence of this. There seems to me to be a distinctly right leaning to the reporting on NPR these days and I, for one, am not happy with it.

And from Jo Sullivan:

I did not write last week, but I too am dismayed and disgusted by the outpouring of religion that you have put on your programs in recent months. I do not listen to NPR to be proselytized. Christians have their own stations, and spend billions to get their message out. Why give them a free venue? Are you catering the current administration?

Reporting Is Not Preaching

Walter Watson is the senior producer of Weekend All Things Considered. He disagrees that the aim of the report was to proselytize:

Religion — and not just Protestantism — plays an increasingly important part of American life in politics, education and culture. We thought it was important to show how some churches are growing quickly, and how they plan to extend their influence. Some public radio listeners may object to hearing about this, but we think that it’s significant and we need to report it, even if it may make some of our long-time listeners uncomfortable.

It is true that NPR has deliberately increased its coverage of religion compared to a few years ago. The roles of religion in America and in the Middle East must be followed; they are news stories that affect the listeners. A complete list of stories on religion can be found on the NPR.org Religion topic page (see link below). Unquestionably, there has been a lot of reporting on the topic.

Too Much of a ‘God’ Thing?

I don’t doubt Walter Watson when he says the church story was valuable. But the sheer volume of stories about religion is overwhelming many listeners. Perhaps NPR News should monitor the overall amount of airtime devoted to this one subject. (I am not counting the reports of NPR’s Barbara Bradley-Hagerty, whose religion reporting is erudite and balanced).

Even as many listeners sense that NPR is giving too much airtime to prominent religious groups, they also ask that NPR report on developments in other religions that address the spiritual questions of the day.

To which, one can only say, "Amen."

I wonder what "sheer volume of stories about religion is overwhelming many listeners" would be for NPR? Two or three stories in a week unless of course it is the Dalai Lama, Buddhist, or new age related. No doubt the complainers are the same people who are always invoking multiculturalism ,tolerance, and understanding. Even funnier is that they want a program called “All things considered” to not consider all things.

AgapePress) – A conservative United Methodist activist is skeptical about the impact of the latest installments in a series of television advertisements the United Methodist Church (UMC) is running, which tout its slogan "Open hearts, Open minds, Open Doors." A new two million-dollar extension of the church’s ad campaign will begin airing today (August 29) and will run through September 18.

According to the United Methodist Communications office, the new series of ads called "The Journey" features various "people following different paths until, ultimately, they join together with an invitation to visit a United Methodist Church." But Mark Tooley, who heads the United Methodist Action Committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, feels many UMC "elites" are overly preoccupied with diversity, and this latest church public relations campaign may be a rather disingenuous example of that preoccupation.

Well I am surprised they didn’t have the Church be at the peak of a mountain and have people following different paths reach it. Though I guess it is rather ironic for a church with syncretism impulses to advertise in the first place.

If only they had come to me I would have provided them some slogans free of charge.

"Open minds, empty pews"
"We don’t need not stinkin’ doctrine"

I have already considered some Catholic Church ads here.

In an otherwise informative article on the early history of the Urseline nuns in the United States comes to whopper.

An interesting footnote: In the 1844 elections, the Nativists formed the Republican Party, allied with the Whigs, and defeated the Democratic Party. And we thought Karl Rove was bad.

Especially since the height of the Nativist success was the Election of 1856 and they had all but disappeared by the Election of 1860, when most of their anti-slavery members went to the new Republican Party. In the period before 1854 they were still mainly secret societies who through their weight behind sympathetic candidates. As a result of the election of 1854 they formed the American Party (popularly called the Know-Nothings) and swallowed many members of the now nearly-defunct Whig party, as well as a significant number of Democrats, especially Northern Democrats. After the election 1860 they were no longer a serious national movement but became just a local political party in New York City

So to say that the Nativist movement formed the GOP is just plain silly considering that they became a political party ten years later than that. The Republican party was not formed until the early 1850’s and did not have it’s first meeting until 1854 and its first national election till 1856. That there were Nativist in both the Democratic Party and what became the Republican Party is obviously true, but this simplistic statement that it was the Nativists who formed the GOP (even discounting the time error) just shows a need for a fact-checker maybe in this case the writer just didn’t know nothing.

I was going to send the paper a comment about the error in this story but clicking the Questions/Comments page says "You have tried to access a page that does not exist." If that isn’t a metaphor for the MSM I don’t know what is.

Of course the Know-Nothing’s were primarily an anti-Catholic party who distrusted the Pope and were convinced that the Pope was waiting for the right time to regain lost temporal powers. There are inheritors to the Know-Nothings around today though. You can spot them especially during judicial hearings. People like Chuck Shumer who were concerned about Bill Pryor’s deeply held beliefs and thus thinks that since Bill Pryor appeared to be a devout Catholic that this in itself disqualifies him. The modern Know-Nothings though are more inclusive in being accepting of Catholics that aren’t accepting of all that the Church teaches.

In related news the Urseline Sister have been closely tied to New Orleans since they first landed there in August of 1727. So it will be appropriate to pray to Our Lady of Prompt Succor with Hurricane Katrina approaching there. Naming a hurricane Katrina is ironically appropriate since there was a group in the 80s called Katrina and the Waves (considering the impending storm surge), but also that their one hit was Walking on Sunshine. Being a resident of Florida tracking hurricanes has only shown me how shallow and selfish I am. Once the path is not in my direction there is a sigh of relief that is not always followed up with prayer for those who are in the path.

From a 2001 interview with Alice Von Hildebrand in The Latin Mass magazine [via Plato’s Stepchild]

TLM: Did your husband think that the decline in a sense of the supernatural began around that time, and if so, how did he explain it?

AVH: No, he believed that after Pius X’s condemnation of the heresy of Modernism, its proponents merely went underground. He would say that they then took a much more subtle and practical approach. They spread doubt simply by raising questions about the great supernatural interventions throughout salvation history, such as the Virgin Birth and Our Lady’s perpetual virginity, as well as the Resurrection, and the Holy Eucharist. They knew that once faith – the foundation – totters, the liturgy and the moral teachings of the Church would follow suit. My husband entitled one of his books The Devastated Vineyard. After Vatican II, a tornado seemed to have hit the Church.

Modernism itself was the fruit of the calamity of the Renaissance and the Protestant Revolt, and it took a long historical process to unfold. If you were to ask a typical Catholic in the Middle Ages to name a hero or heroine, he would answer with the name of a saint. The Renaissance began to change that. Instead of a saint, people would think of geniuses as persons to emulate, and with the oncoming of the industrial age, they would answer with the name of a great scientist. Today, they would answer with a sports figure or cinema personality. In other words, the loss of the sense of the supernatural has brought an inversion of the hierarchy of values.

Even the pagan Plato was open to a sense of the supernatural. He spoke of the weakness, frailty and cowardice often evidenced in human nature. He was asked by a critic to explain why he had such a low opinion of humanity. He replied that he was not denigrating man, only comparing him to God.

With the loss of a sense of the supernatural, there is a loss of the sense of a need for sacrifice today. The closer one comes to God, the greater should be one’s sense of sinfulness. The further one gets from God, as today, the more we hear the philosophy of the new age: “I’m OK, You’re OK.” This loss of the inclination to sacrifice has led to the obscuring of the Church’s redemptive mission. Where the Cross is downplayed, our need for redemption is given hardly a thought.

The aversion to sacrifice and redemption has assisted the secularization of the Church from within. We have been hearing for many years from priests and bishops about the need for the Church to adapt herself to the world. Great popes like St. Pius X said just the opposite: the world must adapt itself to the Church.

The "loss of the inclination to sacrifice has led to the obscuring of the Church’s redemptive mission" is right on. This same loss has been a catalyst for much of societies ills especially marriage. When we lose or obsure the transforming power of sacrifice we move towards a fast-food concept where hapiness is based only on getting what you want now and very quickly. The concept of marriage and life without sacrifice is like training for a marathon by watching tv from your couch while eating potato chips. The concept of a sacificial-lite Christianity is the same thing. Jesus would never have gotten a job on Madison avenue. His saying "pick up your cross daily" is akin to a fried chicken chain with a motto of "This will make you fat and contribute to clogging our arteries."

She is also correct on the closer one gets to God the greater one is aware of their sinfulness. When St. Peter more fully realized who stood before he said “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man." The loss of sin goes hand and hand with the loss of a need for a redeemer. Is it no wonder the crucifix has disappeared from so many churches? Especially since we do not want to be reminded that sin not only has consequences but required Our Lord and Savior to die on the cross for them.

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Anytime a local bishop denies Communion to a politician because of his stand on abortion, the decision can have "national ramifications," Bishop Donald W. Wuerl of Pittsburgh said in a statement exploring ways the U.S. bishops could reach a more united approach to such decisions.

"There must be some way in which the bishops can establish a process, mechanism or procedure" for appropriate national consistency, he said.

"Given the mobility of the population and the ubiquity and influence of the means of social communications," he said, "actions taken by one bishop within a diocese can have immediate national impact and affect the bishops of the rest of the dioceses throughout the country, especially neighboring dioceses which share the same media market."

Bishop Wuerl released his 2,800-word statement to Catholic News Service in Washington in mid-August. He said the issue was highlighted "in last year’s election and the controversy surrounding (Democratic presidential candidate) Sen. John Kerry," a Catholic who has consistently opposed legal restrictions on abortion.

Each bishop has the proper power and responsibility for pastoral ministry and church order in his own diocese, Bishop Wuerl noted. But he stressed that, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, "All the bishops, in fact, have a duty to promote and defend the unity of faith and discipline common to the whole church."

Commenting on that passage, he said, "There are often specific issues of a doctrinal and moral nature which are current in a territory that, because of the nature of the subject and the wide spectrum of peoples and circumstances that will be affected, necessitate a greater cooperation among the bishops of a given territory."

In January 2003 the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said Catholics in public life have a grave obligation to oppose legislation that contradicts fundamental moral principles such as the evil of abortion and euthanasia.

That fall the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops formed a task force to study how U.S. bishops should deal with such politicians.

The task force, headed by Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, originally was not to report back to the bishops until mid-November of 2004, after the presidential election was over.

Controversy over the Kerry candidacy forced the issue, however. Partisans on one side berated bishops who would not deny Communion to Kerry or similar politicians as cowardly. Partisans on the other side accused bishops who would do so of crossing church-state lines or politicizing the Eucharist.

It became national news each weekend whether Kerry attended Mass and received Communion. Reporters across the country began pressing bishops for what they would do about giving Communion to Kerry or other Catholic politicians with similar positions.

The McCarrick task force gave an extensive interim report to the bishops in June and the bishops issued a statement warning politicians who act "consistently to support abortion on demand" that they risk "cooperating in evil and sinning against the common good."

The statement went on to say, however, that "given the wide range of circumstances involved in arriving at a prudential judgment" in each case, decisions concerning the fitness of a particular person to receive Communion "rest with the individual bishop."

Bishop Wuerl described the importance of bishops’ conferences in promoting the unity of bishops among themselves and with the pope and fostering collaboration and collegial planning and decision-making among the bishops. But he said that in light of church teaching and law on the responsibilities of diocesan bishops and the limits on the authority of bishops’ conferences, the conference "does not act as a substitute for the diocesan bishop, but, rather, as a help to him."

Since "there are always going to be national ramifications" to any individual bishop’s way of handling the abortion-and-politicians issue, however, "one may understand the benefit of consultation among the bishops of the episcopal conference for a more effective unity in handling such a matter," he said.

He proposed two possible ways for the bishops’ conference to find "a practical pastoral manner to express the collegial spirit that is to be the hallmark of episcopal pastoral ministry."

"One such approach would be an actual mechanism of the conference to facilitate some consensus and unified pastoral practice," he said. "Another approach, which would be less formal but perhaps more effective, would be the commitment on the part of all the bishops to discuss beforehand, through some conference structure, decisions that will impact all of the bishops and the church as a whole."

He said a formal mechanism of review by the conference before barring a politician from Communion would require either a two-thirds vote of the bishops and a mandate from the Vatican or a completely unanimous decision by the bishops.

The less formal approach would require all bishops to agree not to make such decisions without prior consultation through procedures agreed by the conference. "The advantage of the second option is found in its ability both to recognize the responsibility of the individual bishop within his diocese and also to provide a context for the communal exercise of that episcopal responsibility," Bishop Wuerl wrote.

Gee where do I start? I guess bishops acting like shepherds protecting their flock can make other bishops who allow the wolves in look bad. He has it exactly backwards. It is not the bishops who denied communion communion to pro-abortion Catholic politicians (after communication to them first) that is the national problem, it is the bishops who decided that these Catholic politicians receiving Communion was not a scandal and did not act in a manner consistent with the care of that politician’s soul. My reading of his statements (and I could be wrong) is that the concern is more about national attention and "media markets" than souls.

Letters and statements by Cardinal Arinze and the letter by then-Cardinal Ratzinger to Cardinal McCarrick make it very plain what the response should be in these occasions. The model should be those like Archbishop Burke who first communicated to those Catholic politicians in their diocese that they were acting on positions contrary to their Catholic faith. The scandal was not the subsequent actions of Archbishop Burke, but how few acted like him.

This is collegiality run amok when this bishop would even suggest that either a unanimous or a two-thirds vote be taken first by the bishops conference, though I am sure that Arius would have like this procedure. So would have King Henry the VIII who only had Bishop St. John Fisher stand up to him. Jesus didn’t have two much luck getting a two-thirds vote from the Apostles when he asked "Who do you say that I am?", in fact just one out of twelve got it right. I would sometimes wonder if we could get a two-thirds vote by the bishops on some of the fundamentals of the faith, though maybe that is overly cynical and snarky.

Though to be fair Bishop does contrast the responsibility of individual bishops and that the Bishop’s conference is suppose to help and support them as a unified whole. Unfortunately bureaucracy always has a tendency to take the path of least resistance instead of strongly taking and unequivocal position. When the bishops meet in July of 2004 on this matter and issued a letter on Catholics in Political Life they basically punted and the statements they made about not honoring those who act in defiance of fundamental moral principles was full of loopholes so large that the camel can avoid the eye of the needle entirely an cruise right through with a whole caravan.

In the post below we played "guess the mystery object" when it came to two tabernacles. The blogger at American Inquisition sent me a photo of a tabernacle that would on first site appear to be photoshopped if it were not for the act that it appear on Saint Malachy Church’s website. The architecture of the church is bizarre, so bizarre that it won Honorable Mention prize in an international architectural competition (a kiss of death for beauty). The church integrates strange elements with more traditional ones. But I must say their tabernacle takes the cake.

Now any SF geek worth their salt would instantly identify this as the ship used by the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation and I am rather surprised that paramount hasn’t sent them a letter for copyright infringement.

(This is the Borg ship from TNG)