Punditry

Jeff of El Camino Real links to a story about a printer who refused to print Invites to Same-Sex Wedding ends with apology and agreement not to discriminate Jeff adds “Apparently the Canadian tolerance police have now crossed the border:”

The tolerance police have long been setting up cells across the country waiting to attack all those who don’t hold homosexuality as the greatest thing there can be. Would Seattle have forced a black printer to print copies of racist literature? Would a Jewish printer be forced to print copies of Mein Kampf? Would a homosexual printer be forced to print fliers for that idiotic “God hates fags” group? I think not.

The ordinance they cited was Seattle’s Open Housing Public Accommodations Ordinance. There is quite a big difference between denying individuals the right to housing and not being able to have something printed by a specific company. No one should be denied housing or access to any material goods, but to twist this into forcing people to cooperate against their conscience is totally wrong Even stranger in that case involved invitations for a same-sex wedding. There is no same-sex marriage in Washington State (yet), so why does somebody have to apologize for not printing an invitation to what is an illegal event? Seattle’s ordinance also mentions no discrimination based on creed. Do they think that Creed is just a grunge-rock group out of Florida. Yet Seattle has in fact discriminated based on creed by forcing someone to work against their religious convictions.

Just another case of tolerance for me, but not for thee.

Quenta Narwenion links to this story about a priest in her diocese and as she says these misguided folks are in need of some prayers. If this article was a parody it would be pretty funny, as it is it is just plain sad.

Several hundred people attended the first service of an independent church founded by a priest who broke from the Catholic Church, despite warnings that Catholics who affiliated with the new church risked excommunicating themselves.

“The only reason for coming to church is to learn how to love,” the Rev. Bill Hausen preached at Christ Hope Ecumenical Catholic Church, which met at the Sewickley Country Inn.

“God does not need praise. God has all the praise he needs. We don’t have to love God, because God is love.”

…Hausen told reporters that he believed 500 to 600 people attended the service. There were empty seats in the room with a posted seating capacity of 400; the Post-Gazette estimated attendance closer to 300.

It was the miracle of 600 hundred sitting in the area of only 300 hundred.

Many people said they were visiting out of curiosity or to show support for Hausen. Those included 18 Unitarians from Slippery Rock who had skipped their own service at Ginger Hill Unitarian-Universalist Church.

Unitarians from Slippery Rock must be the best congregation and geographic match up I have ever heard.

…I feel that the greatest theology today will come from your experience of yourself . . . not from above or from someone imposing stuff on us,” he said.

This isn’t preaching to the choir it is preaching towards your inner child.

Here is an article on Bishop Thomas Olmsted. His pro-life stance and preaching on contraception, homosexuality, and the death penalty gets him branded an ultra-conservative.

Not surprisingly everyone who was interviewed in the article are critical of the new Bishop. After the years of turmoil caused by their previous Bishop I bet you could easily find many people in Phoenix joyous to finally have a Bishop that truly teaches the Catholic faith. After three very short paragraphs that are an overview of the Bishops las four months we get the mandatory line: “Others are critical of his conservative actions.”

…From leading a high-profile vigil in protest at an abortion center to speaking out against capital punishment and contraception, the 57-year-old bishop has supported traditional Vatican positions –much to the disappointment of Catholics seeking reforms in the more than 1 billionmember worldwide church.
Though the “season of conflict” related to sexual misconduct seems over, “we are not through the darkness yet,” said Mary Jane Benton, a Scottsdale Catholic. “Our new bishop has given out rules and regulations, instead of healing and compassion as Jesus modeled.”

I often wonder if there are another four Gospels out there that are different from the various Bibles that I have. Healing comes about when people know they are sick and need a doctor. Compassion comes about when we help those who sufferand need our help. Spiritual healing and compassion does not occur when we deny sinful behavior and normalize behaviors in contradiction to God’s law. Jesus emphasized that in the call to holiness that first you must obey the Ten Commandment. That divorce was not possible for a valid marriage. That the path to heaven was narrow. Were these also just rules and regulations? Was “Go and sin no more” an edict or actually the greatest words of charity. Of course the next paragraphs informs us that Benton is part of Called to Action.

Olmsted�s suspension of the Rev. Cunningham in Gilbert has irked some parishioners.

“I have never been so upset with a bishop” in a lifetime of being Catholic, said Ray Rafford of Mesa.

After all these years of abuse and cover-ups under Bishop Thomas O’Brien this parishioner has a problem with Bishop Olmsted?

“What you are seeing is a move by the ultra-conservative branch of the Catholic Church to bring the parish priests in line to the bishop�s thinking,” he said. “Father John has a history of reaching out to all religions in a spirit of the overall love of God.”

This is a common element that people often use. That whenever a Bishop actually follows the teachings of the Church they say that it is only the bishop’s thinking. As if the Bishop made this stuff up once he got there. The Bishop is a true Apostle when they are in union with what the Church and teaches and what belongs to the deposit of the faith. When this is true there is nothing better than bringing the thinking of the priests in line with the Bishop, especially if the Bishop is in line with Christ.

…Based on information in a 1997 “Good Morning America” report on infertility, D’Arcy said he believed Snyderman holds views on abortion he finds unacceptable – and incompatible with those of the Catholic Church.

On Wednesday, D’Arcy said he never asked or suggested Snyderman be dropped from commencement, only that he would not attend.

Snyderman was stunned by Kriss’ decision and said D’Arcy took the news report out of scientific context.

If that is true then why has she not come out and said that she is totally against abortion to set the record straight? This defense seems pretty weak. If someone had accused me unjustly of being for abortion I sure would want to set the record straight with the truth.

The university erred by scheduling people with different views to speak on the same podium, Kriss said.

So if Bishop D’Arcy had not been invited then Snyderman speaking would have been OK?

D’Arcy was to receive an honorary degree and make brief remarks, as is U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd District.

“We did not research the situation to the extent we should have, and I take full responsibility for this mistake,” Kriss said. The university will develop better procedures in the future.

Kriss apologized to Snyderman and D’Arcy.

“I want everyone to know that our action, although necessary for the university, was not directed at her personally,” Kriss said.
[Full Story]

Fr. Rob has an excellent post on the “seamless garment” argument and the moral relativism that it employs.

Just today you can see this moral relativism and the issues Fr. Robb talked about in in various articles and editorials.

And what about all of the other issues the Catholic Church views as priorities? Why don’t we see Catholic Republican politicians criticized on some of them (such as the death penalty or the Iraq war) [source]

and

The weekly National Catholic Reporter, a leading voice of liberal Catholics, took issue in an editorial last week with “those among the Catholic laity and hierarchy . . . who argue that abortion trumps all other issues in the upcoming election.”

The editorial reminded Catholics that there are “other issues — war and peace, immigration, tax cuts, housing, the death penalty, economic justice, welfare reform, the federal deficit, civil liberties, education, health care, crime, and on and on.” [source]

and

As a lifelong, practicing Catholic, I have been appalled by the Catholic Church’s discourse regarding Catholics in public life. Why is no one calling to prohibit Catholic politicians from receiving Holy Communion because they support the death penalty or voted for the Iraq war, two positions that are in direct opposition to the Vatican? It is disheartening to see the anti-abortion movement consistently dominate Catholic political debate at the expense of Catholic social teaching as a whole. [source]

These types of arguments when advanced by Catholics I find to be extremely irritating, especially since these arguments can not pass even a casual glance compared to what the Church teaches. Cardinal Bernadine first proposed the seamless garment argument which entailed naming a list of about sixteen social issues. These included abortion, homelessness, poverty, problems in countries overseas, capital punishment, nuclear disarmament, and others. In effect giving these issues equal weight or that at least is how how it has become to be used.

Abortion = Death penalty = War in Iraq = etc

This algebraic statement can only be evaluated as true under moral relativism.

Abortion – always wrong in every circumstance
Death penalty – “rare” necessity of the death penalty today and requires prudential to determine
War – can be just and requires prudential decision to determine

Death Penalty – 859 Executions since 1977, with 71 in 2002
Abortion – 44,000,000 Executions since 1973 with 1,313,000 in 2003

So every half hour as many children are aborted as are executed on death row in a year.

Medical triage was developed from the need to prioritize the care of those injured. If a medical team was rushed to an area with 70 casualties instead of an area with over a million casualties then there priorities would be seen as disordered. Even if abortion and the death penalty were exactly morally equivalent, societal triage would require the brunt of its effort’s to be on abortion. This does not mean that we don’t work towards both eliminating abortion and making the death penalty rare. If we truly work towards a culture of life where we don’t kill our children we will also be a culture that will not want the death penalty in most circumstances. Every state has legalized abortion, but not every state even has the death penalty and some of those states that do rarely exercise it.

Unlike the Roman guards at the crucifixion we must rip the seamless garment in two and work towards the goals it entails by the priorities they deserve. A society willing to kill its children is a society that will become and has become warped in other ways. You can judge a society by how it treats its prisoners and how it treats its most innocent members, the unborn. Looking at these realities it is hard for me to understand why these morally equivalent arguments are used in the first place? Fr. Rob ponders the same thing and I concur with what he say.

As I said above, I do not doubt the sincerity of many Catholics who are concerned about things like the death penalty. And by saying that issues like the death penalty are of less importance than abortion I’m not saying they are trivial. They are just less important. But I cannot help but wonder at the motivations of some of the advocates of the so-called “seamless garment” approach. Why is it that their seamless garment always seems to result in downplaying, or even dismissing, the protection of the unborn? Why is it that protection of the innocent always ends up on the fringes, the tattered edges, of their “seamless garment”, if not trimmed off altogether? I cannot help but think that, at least sometimes, it is because they really think that issues such as the death penalty, poverty, saving the whales, etc., are more important than the lives of unborn children. I cannot help but suspect that, for such people, voting for the Democratic Party, and what it represents for them, weighs more in the balance than innocent human life. I hope that this is not the case, for those who do so are indeed selling their birthright for a mess of pottage.

Tom of Disputations has some thoughts on the subject in a post called “What I like about grave evil.” Well what I like about Disputations is the quality of monkey wrenches he is able to throw into a discussion.

Founder of the Jesus Seminar, ex-priest John Dominic Crossan, talks about some portrayals of the Gospels in books and movies.

Crossan described “The DaVinci Code” as “a fast read, … magnificently written to be filmed” but with a “nonchalant indifference to basic details.” He was not impressed with the theology or the history in the book, saying, “The religion in there is junk religion.”

…As for “Glorious Appearing,” he saw a portrayal of “God doing ethic cleansing — you take away all the good people and to hell, literally — with everybody else. That’s a ghastly vision.”

Ethic cleansing – that is a rather funny line. It is strange to hear Crossan call something junk religion when he himself says that Jesus was eaten by dogs. Maybe it is because Dan Brown just doesn’t go for the same whacked out theories as he does.

Also in this article:

I take seriously the fact that there are four Gospels,” said John Dominic Crossan, a best-selling author of books on the historical Jesus.

This might seem to be a basic fact, but for those like Crossan this is surprising considering that his Jesus Seminar heavily promoted the Gospel of Thomas as part of the “five” Gospels.

FITCHBURG — The Rev. Richard P. Lewandowski doesn’t consider himself a dissident.

He doesn’t think he’s “unorthodox ” either, though some Catholics have accused the priest of abandoning his church’s teachings on homosexuality.

“Those are all the buzz words to try to dismiss me, but the fact is, instead of dismiss, why don’t we dialogue,” said Lewandowski, pastor of St. Camillus di Lellis Parish on Mechanic Street. “Everything that I’ve been doing in this parish has been according to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.”

… why don’t we dialogue? Talk about a phrase that can be a litmus test for those who are not orthodox. Complain that they are saying things contrary to the teaching of the Church and we will hear how we need to dialog on them. I doubt that everything he is doing in his Church is according to Church teachings. He was one of the priests that testified to the Massachusetts Legislature in support of same-sex marriage.

When the political arm of the state’s four Catholic dioceses, the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, distributed a video denouncing gay marriage, Lewandowski apologized to gays and lesbians for “the hurt” he said the organization caused.

Fr. Lewandowski goes on not to say what parts of the video were hurtful, but just calls it troubling. He also says “That’s not the Catholic teaching,” Lewandowski said. “There are some people that think that it is. It’s not.” Again no specifics on what it is he considers is against Church teaching.”

He goes on to say:

His church, he says, has always come to his side.

This is probably true, unfortunately.

In another article published back when Always Our Children came out he excused homosexual sex by saying we are not talking about heterosexual sex outside of marriage. This is the old “other people are doing it” argument and just holds no wait. Though a lot of parishes are at fault for not talking about the sin of fornication and pretty much looking the other way. Either way the Catechism is very clear on both of these subjects.

And of course the article goes on to interview his parishioners that really just do not have a problem with their pastor.

“He’s an activist priest. He’s got a lot of enthusiasm,” she said. “I don’t always agree with everything he says, but people can’t always agree. I don’t feel as though I need to change my church.”

I find this statement sad. Too many times when we hear about fallen priest we also hear he had a lot of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm without orthodoxy is pretty much like being a snake oil peddler. They also had a lot of enthusiasm for their false products.

The priest got help from the diocese to form an organization, Gay/Lesbian Outreach (GLO), that meets at the church and works with gay people and their families.

This organization looks like it concentrates on suicide and acceptance of homosexual acts. Chastity does not appear to be part of the program. They really had no reason to start a new program. They could have started a Courage chapter instead. But since Courage is actually faithful to church teaching that might not have been an option for them. I am greatly leary of apostolates for those with same sex attraction who adopt the words of gay activists. Especially since often they adopt more than just the language of these activists.

[Full Story]

As with most conservative pundits the news of Air America being yanked off two stations because it is alleged they have not paid their security deposit brought a smile to my face. I especially enjoyed the delicious agency of a company called Multicultural Broadcasting being the one to take them off the air.

The following statement from Air America VP/General Counsel David Goodfriend was I thought very enlightening of the attitude of modern day liberalism.

“To shut off a broadcast that listeners rely on without warning and in the middle of discussions is the height of irresponsibility and a slap in the face of the media industry.”

A broadcast that listeners “rely on” is the key phrase. Liberals often say the listeners of conservative talk shows are just sheep that will think whatever Rush or Sean tell them. Yet here they are saying that their listeners rely on them. Without them their listeners would be lost. This attitude of elitism is very prevalent in many liberal politicians where we are not smart enough to take care of ourselves and the head nannies must step in to help us out.

As to their financial difficulties it is hard to tell what actually is the story. Though I can easily imagine how they might fall into problems. They were probably waiting for the government to step in and raise taxes to fund them. Maybe one of their cronies can bring up a bill to fund them from the infamous top one percent of tax payers. I am surprised that they have to pay stations to carry their full programming, especially in places like Portland, Or. Maybe they had to do this because they knew they could not compete in the marketplace where stations wanted you because of advertising dollars.

They also seem to have a total lack of imagination in the names chose for their programming. The O’Franken Factor with the Zero Spin Zone a take off on The O’Reilly Factor and Morning Sedition copied from NPR’s Morning Edition. Also there is “The Majority Report” probably also copied from Spielberg’s “Minority Report.” Though I do find it funny that the The O’Franken Factor is advertised as “Drug-Free Radio.” Did they figure this caveat necessary? Maybe they are right.

The Rev. William C. Hausen thinks of the Roman Catholic Church as an institution of the Middle Ages, an entity that shuns new ideas and contrary positions.

Of course positions contrary to his views will not be allowed in his new church.

“I think the institution of the church has used fear and guilt to manipulate and coerce people into not thinking for themselves,” said Hausen, 65, of Sewickley.

So Hausen is breaking away, risking a pension earned over 40 years as a Catholic priest, to form Christ Hope Ecumenical Catholic Church. Services are to be held starting May 2. The move prompted the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh to warn the outspoken priest and his potential Catholic parishioners that leaving the church means excommunication.

…As a pastor at St. James Catholic Church in Sewickley, Hausen on Easter 2002 professed in a fiery homily his opposition to the church barring female priests and marriage for priests. He also told parishioners they should be “pissed off” about the state of the church. He later apologized for using profanity and for voicing his opinions from the pulpit.

Bishop Donald Wuerl quickly reassigned Hausen to Sacred Heart Parish in Shadyside.

The diocese in October placed Hausen on administrative leave. He believes the move was due partly to his battle with alcoholism but also because officials disagreed with his views. Lengwin declined to discuss the decision, but said Hausen has been prohibited from wearing the Roman collar, publicly celebrating the sacraments or presenting himself as a priest in good standing.

It will be a church that will “act on our own informed conscience” and “profess no dogmas,” Hausen said. The church will “reject absolute statements and decrees. Absolute utterances are the weakest form of argument,” he said.

His first decree is that there are no decrees. The first dogma is that there are no dogmas. Absolute utterances are not allowed unless they are about a female priesthood.

Virginia Walker, 65, of Sewickley, was baptized at St. James parish, where Hausen was an assistant pastor for two years. She attended eight years of school and received her first communion there.

“I’m really a St. James girl,” she said.

But on May 2, she’s ready to become a Christ Hope girl, angered by a Catholic church she describes as a monarchy working with antiquated laws.

“I’ve been very unhappy with some of the things going on in the church,” Walker said. “There are a lot of people like me.”

She questions the logic of a church that moved priests accused of sexually assaulting children from parish to parish.

But I guess she is okay with the Bishop moving priests around that are theologically assaulting their parishioners.

“I don’t understand how the Catholic church could have been moving all these priests around who were guilty of terrible things, but they want to excommunicate (Hausen) because he wants to start a church,” she said. “I believe what (Hausen) is doing is reaching out to these people — people who are married and divorced and can’t receive the sacraments.”
[Full Story]

They are not barred from the sacrament of reconciliation if they are repentant and remove themselves from a sinful state. The Church does not bar individuals from the acraments, individuals through free will bar themselves from the sacraments. Allowing people who are living a lie and are committing an objectively grave sin to receive the sacrament of communion is not reaching out. Jesus said “go and sin no more” not “carry on.”

For the most part Andy Rooney’s article on our soldiers in Iraq is self-fisking and drivel just not worth messing with. One part though showed just how bad he is at analyzing data and making a conclusion.

One indication that not all soldiers in Iraq are happy warriors is the report recently released by the Army showing that 23 of them committed suicide there last year. This is a dismaying figure. If 22 young men and one woman killed themselves because they couldn’t take it, think how many more are desperately unhappy but unwilling to die.

The facts of suicides are always a great sadness and no less when they occur among military personnel. In twenty years of service I remember those of my fellow shipmates who had committed suicide. One of the stranger facts that I encountered is that we had more suicides when we were back home in the states then when we were at sea. When we would dry-dock in Portsmouth, Va our suicide rates would climb. Did this make Portsmouth a quagmire or that the mission of the military during that time made people unhappy warriors? Actually I find the number of 23 to be lower than what I would expect based on my own experience. There are many sad facts in the events of those who commit suicide and I would guess that the current mission is not that high of a factor. By his analysis would he say that the majority of women supported the mission since only one women committed suicide. Sorry this is just lousy reasoning.

I find his slander and calumny of those men and women serving in Iraq to be just plain sick. Mr. Rooney has said many dumb things in the past and they have been escalating in their stupidity, but this just tops the cake of stupidity.

About 40 percent of our soldiers in Iraq enlisted in the National Guard or the Army Reserve to pick up some extra money and never thought they’d be called on to fight.

I know many military personnel whose initial goals into coming into the military were for things such as a getting money for education. This applies to whether they were active duty or reserves. I was one of those whose initial goal was to enlist for a couple of years and then get out and go to college. I knew plenty who enlisted initially for various incentives but who latter reenlisted because they understood the purpose our military serves and felt called to that obligation. That we may remain free. Free so that Mr. Rooney can write inane and mean-spirited columns denigrating those magnificent men in women serving our country.

Most people in the military will never be called to perform individual acts of personal bravery. Yet all are called to live a life a sacrifice to protect our country from harm. We received pay that in most cases was not commensurate with civilian pay. Moved where we were told to go. Received medical care that was often far from sterling. Left our families for months on end and even when we were at our home-base we were away from home on duty days. Read newspapers and saw television broadcasts that for the most part attacked those in uniform. Times were few when we could wear our uniforms gladly without being mocked in our own communities. I wonder if Mr. Rooney ever returned home and saw his wife and children after being away for six months. To look at your children and be awed by how much they had grown and how much they had learned since you last saw them. And then to realize that that time with them was forever gone and you had missed out on all those experiences. To be in the middle of a deployment and to receive news that a child was sick and waiting for the next delayed mail call to find out if everything was now okay or not. Are not those who put themselves into harms way and sacrifice their time for us heroes?

Bravo Zulu to our Armed Forces wherever they are serving!

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” –G.K. Chesterton