Punditry

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) – The Rev. John I. Jenkins, who came under fire for inviting President Barack Obama to the University of Notre Dame campus, has been re-elected to a second five-year term as president of the school.[reference]

Such a smooth move after loosing millions of dollars in donations. Keep up the great work!

The trustees also approved a resolution Friday expressing their “respect and full confidence” in Jenkins, saying he has nurtured an environment where “the Catholic faith and intellectual tradition are celebrated and lived.”

Yes Fr. Jenkins is the poster boy for “Catholic faith and intellectual tradition are celebrated and lived.” Arresting pro-life protesters is the mark of living your faith. Approving pornographic plays is a great way to live your faith. Having a campus where travel expenses to homosexual pride events is another mark of an authentic Catholic university. Honoring the most radically pro-abortion President ever who even supported infanticide is evidence to the Church’s teaching. Oh wait.

I do wonder why Sarah Silverman suggestion that the Vatican sell everything to help the poor keeps getting more and more news attention? I keep seeing stories covering it via Google News. Though in a world where CNN fact checks a Saturday Night Live parody piece on the President I guess it is par for the course for the media to cover the rantings of some shock Comedienne. We of course can’t expect them to actually fact check her routine.

Though it does remind me of the story of St. Laurence and the treasure of the Church. He was captured and told to bring the treasure of the Church to his captors. The following day he brought a bunch of poor people and told them that they were the treasure of the Church. Though I have the odd feeling that this wasn’t what Sarah Silverman had it mind.

I also doubt that she thought of or even knew of the efforts in the Vatican during World War II and this notable example.

Joseph Lichten records that on September 27, 1943, one of the Nazi commanders demanded of the Jewish community in Rome payment of one hundred pounds of gold within thirty-six hours or three hundred Jews would be taken prisoner. When the Jewish Community Council was only able to gather only seventy pounds of gold, they turned to the Vatican.

“In his memoirs, the then Chief Rabbi Zolli of Rome writes that he was sent to the Vatican, where arrangements had already been made to receive him as an ‘engineer’ called to survey a construction problem so that the Gestapo on watch at the Vatican would not bar his entry. He was met by the Vatican treasurer and secretary of state, who told him that the Holy Father himself had given orders for the deficit to be filled with gold vessels taken from the Treasury.

I guess it also escaped her attention that the largest organization in the world to help the poor is the Catholic Church. That it was Catholics throughout history who via very apostolates, ministries, and personal attention have always had a preferential love for the poor. When people are in need of help they go to the door of a Catholic institution or the rectory and not the local chapter of for example the Atheist Alliance International.

No doubt she is also unaware that the operating budget for the Vatican is around $260 million compared to Harvard’s annual budget is $1.3 billion. So I guess she means we are to sell off the artistic treasures in Vatican CIty and Catholic churches throughout the world. Hey great idea. Next time France has a budget deficit they should sell off the Louvre. Yell allowing people to see these artistic treasures is a bad idea and they should be distributed around the world locked up in private collections. Well how about Vatican owned real estate – well with a total value of $1 Billion and less than Oprah’s personal fortune it won’t go very far.

n September 15, “StandForMarriageMaine.com” released a television ad. In it, Scott Fitzgibbon, a professor at Boston College Law School (a Catholic institution), argued for the traditional understanding of marriage as between one man and one woman and in favor of an upcoming referendum to overturn a law passed by the Maine legislature legalizing same-sex marriage. The ad unleashed a fire storm, directed at the courageous professor.

Fellow professors at B.C. Law School – one hesitates to call them colleagues – contacted the dean to express their anger. So fiery was the blast that the dean was forced to issue a statement that defended Fitzgibbon’s academic freedom (or right to speak his mind). But the dean also later joined a statement from faculty and administrators assuring homosexual students (and staff) that they were welcome at BC Law. Apparently, it is no longer remarkable that a Catholic law school in this country prides itself upon being “one of the first” to set up a non-discrimination category for homosexuals at a time when everyone, including surely BC law professors, knows that just such a category in federal law will be the nail in the coffin of religious liberty for America’s Catholic institutions.

This is a highly instructive event that invites comment.

Clearly what is going on here is an effort to “shame” Professor Fitzgibbon (and those who agree with him) into silence. The assumption by the angry members of the BC Law “community” is that his views are so far outside the “mainstream” that all right-thinking persons must reject them. They are so poisonous, on this view, that they make civic life impossible; anyone who holds them should be ashamed; they are intolerable. [reference]

Wow here is a director who really understands how to make movies for children and has a proper undertanding of issues that concern parents.

Jonze: What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?

Sendak: I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.

Jonze: Because kids can handle it?

Sendak: If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered. [reference]

So surprised that Pixar hasn’t hired him yet.

Manassas, Va. – The University of Notre Dame gave financial assistance to five students to participate in Sunday’s national gay rights demonstration, which was organized in part to advocate homosexual “marriage,” a campus newspaper has reported.

The “National Equality March” on Sunday, October 11, in Washington, D.C., was sponsored by Equality Across America, which aims to build a national grassroots network asserting homosexual couples’ “right to marry” as well as other demands. The Catholic Church believes that marriage is possible only between a man and a woman.

“Faithful Catholics will ask whether Notre Dame has learned its lesson from the scandalous commencement ceremony last spring,” said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. “What university seeking to reassure families of its Catholic identity would pay for students to attack the family and oppose Catholic teachings on marriage?”

Students from Notre Dame’s Progressive Student Alliance (PSA) petitioned the Student Activities Office and were granted funding to travel to and participate in the demonstration. The Notre Dame students marched two miles across D.C. and then joined gay rights activists for a Capitol Hill rally.

The president of the Progressive Students Alliance told The Observer, “The fact that we were University-approved was surprising but it was a wonderful surprise. The University hasn’t always been entirely receptive in the past.” [reference]

One of the parishes we sometimes go to has a school next it that was built in 2000. When the school was completed under the name of the school in big letters was 2000 C.E. C.E. stands for Common Era which is a secular way not to have to refer to Christ. Though I always thought it was rather silly since it starts as what was reckoned as the birth of Christ. I guess they couldn’t go whole hog like the French Revolution that increased the number of the days of the week and changed the names in the calendar. I mean if you were to really choose a date for the common era it would certainly start sooner than zero A.D.

Regardless every time I would see C.E. used on this Catholic school it always puts me in a mood for a rant which is not a good thing on the way to Mass. Today I was in for a pleasant surprise. The C.E. had been replaced by A.D. (Anno Domini – Year of the Lord). I guess I was not the only person annoyed by this.

Now many people mistake A.D. for meaning After Death as I use to think. I was wondering if maybe we should apply the same style mistake to the secular B.C.E and C.E. Anybody that has to work in a secular environment having to use this can just refer to them as Before Christ Era and Christ Era. We should do it often enough that it sticks and the secular form is forgotten. After all the secular world has stolen a bunch of stuff from us so why not reverse this?

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) – The newly-formed Virginia Chapter of a more than 50-year-old Catholic peace movement, Pax Christi, was refused access to Holy Family Church in Virginia Beach for their organizational meeting in the Diocese of Richmond as they were not a diocesan organization.

Retired Richmond Bishop Walter Sullivan, a former president of the international movement, was one of the featured speakers. He, along with Marie Dennis, the global-concerns director for Maryknoll, a Catholic religious community of priests, nuns and laypeople, keynoted the event, which was held at Virginia Wesleyan College.

Asked Tuesday by Steven Vegh, a reporter from the Virginian Pilot, why the event was rejected, Vincent Sansone, the diocesan theologian stated that Pax Christi is not a diocesan organization.

Bishop Sullivan and other chapter organizers expressed surprise at the decision of the diocese.

The “Guidelines for Speakers in the Richmond Diocese” state that those “from outside the diocese must be approved through the Office of the Diocesan Theologian. Keep in mind that the approval process must be completed and the proposed speaker must be approved before an invitation is extended to the speaker.”

According to the qualifications instituted shortly after the installation of Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo in 2004, speakers must be in good standing in the Church, possess proof that they have taken a course regarding child abuse, provide their curriculum vitae and a letter of confirmation regarding their orthodoxy from a bishop or pastor. [reference]

Well considering the dubious orthodoxy of so many in Pax Christi this decision is not surprising. Pax Christi concentrates on a subset of social justice issues and has been know to support contraception and homosexual acts. It is also not surprising that Bishop Sullivan is associated with them.

From the Catholic parody paper, the National Catholic Reporter.

Jesus was perhaps one of the world’s first health care reformers. During a time in history when Greeks and Romans often traveled to a temple with offerings in exchange for healing, Jesus and his early followers healed free of charge wherever they encountered the sick, often at great peril to themselves.

In fact, healing is a constitutive element of Jesus’ ministry. His first miracles in the Gospel of Mark are casting a demon from a man and healing a woman with a fever. In the whole of the gospels, there are 41 distinct stories of physical or mental healing. Jesus heals the blind, cures the withered hand and stops the bleeding.

He called his followers to do the same. Jesus instructed his disciples to go into towns and “cure the sick who are there” (Luke 10:9). Religion, caste or payment is not a consideration; instead, mercy and healing is extended to everyone.

I wish that were true in the United States.

What fine reasoning. Who Would Jesus Bill? Yes let us make healthcare policy decisions based on Jesus’ miraculous healings. Jesus didn’t heal any rich people so no health care for the rich. Jesus didn’t use medicine so we shouldn’t either. Well actually we would be allowed to use dirt and saliva as Jesus did in one case.

Thankfully Creative Minority Report gave this thought process the parody it deserves. Pretty funny.

The silly thing about But Nicole Sotelo of the National Catholic Reporter is that I guess she has no idea what free means because surely she is not suggesting that doctors, nurses, pharmacists, research labs, medical equipment makers, etc should all work for free? The idea that any government service is in fact free is to totally misunderstand economics. Free does not mean forcing one group of people to pay for something just as charity does not mean just paying your taxes.

• Videos show Planned Parenthood’s attempts to cover up statutory rape.
• Videos show ACORN workers willing to go along with importing 13 year old sex slaves and to give advice.
• The defense by many to excuse the behavior of Roman Polanski in the drugging, rape, and sodomizing of a 13 year old girl.

It is not that these people think that that that this is a fine thing, it is just that they are willing to excuse the behavior for something they support. I am sure they would be properly outraged if a conservative did such a despicable thing.

But modern liberalism seems to mean never having to say your sorry about murderous regimes and sexual perverts just as long as they are on your side. That you can go around wearing Che t-shirts and Chairman Mao handbags and not even think about their victims.

International Blasphemy Day is not just a day. It is a movement to dismantle the wall which exists between religion and criticism.

The primary focus of the Blasphemy Day movement and indeed this website is not to debate the existence of any gods or deities (there is an abundance of fantastic websites which deal explicitly with that argument all over the internet, check the Web Links section).

The objective of International Blasphemy Day is to open up all religious beliefs to the same level of free inquiry, discussion and criticism to which all other areas of academic interest are subjected.

Why September 30? The last day in September is the anniversary of the original publication of Danish cartoons in 2005 depicting the prophet Muhammad’s face. Any visual depiction of Muhammad is considered a grave offence under Islamic law

Well I can get behind them as far a free speech goes and think laws on blasphemy are stupid.

Blasphemy is a joyous, funny, socially progressive, and profoundly moral act. It deserves its own day. Join the group. Spread the word.

Well if God does not exist then cursing him is not a moral act, just a wasted one. Defiling sacred things if they are in fact not sacred is time spent in your very short lifetime. The main purpose of a blasphemy day is for atheists to call attention to themselves to mock theists. And of course P.Z. Myers has to weigh in.

I only have one reservation. Every day should be Blasphemy Day

Well as a former atheist I can also speak some atheist blasphemies.

• Darwin not only did not come up with evolution, but he said some racist things and lived a double life to hide his convictions.
• Schopenhauer, Nitsche, and Rand and countless other atheistic philosophers were all selfish jerks who alienated those around them and died miserable.
• Theists are free to believe or disbelieve whether a miracle occurred in a specific circumstance. Atheists must dogmatically reject that a miracle occurred.
• Theists are free to accept or reject evolutions based on evaluating the scientific evidence. Atheists are not free to reject evolution.
• Freethinkers are not free to believe in God.
• The scientific method is a fruit of the theology of Christianity. The scientific method was stillborn in all other cultures because of their philosophy.
• If extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, then where is the extraordinary evidence that matter could be ex nihilo – out of nothing.

Of course the main focus of Blasphemy day is Christian Blasphemy Day. As Chesterton said:

Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends upon a philosophic conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family will find him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion.