Punditry

Via The Deacon’s Bench.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
said she, unlike other Catholic politicians who support abortion
rights, has not clashed with her church about receiving communion.

In an interview on C-SPAN that aired on Sunday, Pelosi was asked about
how some church officials have raised objections about whether former
presidential contenders — such as Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and former
New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) — should receive communion.

Pelosi, a Roman Catholic whose district includes most of San Francisco,
said she has not encountered such difficulties in her church.

“I think some of it is regional,” she said, “It depends on the bishop
of a certain region and fortunately for me, communion has not been
withheld and I’m a regular communicant so that would be a severe blow
to me if that were the case.”

The hour-long interview tackled religion, which is addressed throughout
the Speaker’s new book, “Know Your Power.”

Pelosi did not directly talk about how her view on abortion is at odds
with the Catholic Church. Instead, she noted that there are many issues
that the church cares about. Pelosi said the Bible mentions poverty
over 2,000 times, and referenced the Gospel of Matthew. She also
indicated the importance of recognizing God’s creations, citing the
environment.

The Speaker, who wrote in her book that “my parents didn’t raise me to
be Speaker, they raised me to be holy,” said if more people followed
the principles of love thy neighbor and do unto others as they would do
to you, “the world would be a better place.”

It is rather sad that she has not felt
any pressure on this.  I do wonder if her Bishop Archbishop
Niederauer has ever talked to her about this at all about this?
 He has talked to her in the past, but it was about
immigration.  Last year the Archbishop said:

We haven’t had an opportunity to talk
about the life issues. I would very much welcome that opportunity, but
I don’t believe that I am in a position to say what I understand her
stand to be, if I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it.”

I wonder if the Archbishop has heard of
Google or the myriad resources that would show her 100 percent
pro-abortion voting record. I guess the Archbishop doesn’t have the
time to discern her record, yet NARAL found the time to giver her a
100% score.  I guess having the majority leader living in your
diocese who supports many things that are intrinsically evil is
somewhere on the list.  Though for all I know maybe he has,
but if he has I wish he would be as upfront about it Naumann was with
Governor Sebelius.  In addition to the primary importance of
teh care of her soul there is also the issue of scandal to be addressed.

Mrs. Pelosi says that not receiving
Communion would be a great blow to her. Well maybe this act of charity
would get her to rethink supporting murdering the unborn.
 Look at the number of people excommunicated in Archbishop
Burke’s diocese that later were reconciled.  I guess as long
as ecclesial disciplines are shown as a punishment instead of as an aid
to help someone to repent we will continue to have such a negative
reaction to denial of Communion and excommunications.

I find it interesting that the media seems
to enjoy what they call the “Communion wars” and that they really build
it up when a pro-abortion politician is denied Communion or it is even
talked about.  They see that it is wrong for them to be denied
Communion and that giving them Communion is very important.
 Yet when some professor desecrate a host, then they really
don’t want to cover it at all.  The Eucharist is only
important to them when it comes to pro-abortion politicians.

Fr. John Mallow, SDB posts.

The State of California no longer
recognizes brides and grooms. I’m just doing a Marriage License for one
of this weekend’s weddings.

Where it used to say “Bride” and “Groom” it now says “Party A” and
“Party B.”

What no “Party C”, “Party
D”, “Party E”, “Party F”, …?  How
intolerant are those Californians?

Rich
Leonardi reports the latest news on the Sr.
Anne parish “Father” Joan pastoral administrator debacle.

The woman you are speaking about also
was seen wearing a t-shirt with an image of the nativity scene with one
major alteration – the words ‘Its a girl!’ and the Crucifix she wears
is different as well – the Corpus is not Christ, but clearly a woman.
She also shared in a meeting that she has been waiting since the 1970s
for the Church to ordain women and she thinks the time is finally upon
us. A letter is on the way to the Papal Nuncio’s office if it has not
yet arrived and attached are several signatures of eye-witnesses to
this nonsense.

Rich previously reported on what a now former  parishioner
had to say.

At the “third informational meeting”
held before she was officially acting as the administrator, she made 2
statements, in front of a good size representation of the congregation,
when asked if some of the previous traditional liturgical practices
would remain the same at Saint Anne’s. She replied, “I AM what I AM and
it IS what it IS”.

When asked about wanting to become a priest, she announced quite
boldly, “It is no secret that since 1975, I have wanted to become a
priest.” When asked by a parishoner if she understood that this was
against the acceptance of the Catholic Church, she told the parishoner
that he was “out of line”. This was very confusing to many of us, as we
still cannot figure out exactly what or who, it IS she THINKS she IS.

I wonder how many people in this diocese have the date of the Bishop’s
75th Clarks birthday memorized?

London, Jul. 28, 2008 (CNA/CWNews.com)
– The largest Catholic adoption agency in England and Wales has decided
to implement an adoption policy that does not rule out same-sex couples
in the face of new laws that forbid such screening. The change in its
adoption policy was made with the full support of the bishops who
oversee the agency.

The decision, made by the Catholic Children’s Society of Arundel and
Brighton, Portsmouth and Southwark (A&BSP) means the society
will not turn away any homosexual couples who present themselves as
potential adopters.

Terry Connor, chief executive of the society, explained to The Universe
that any changes would not start until January and were a direct result
of the recent Sexual Orientation Regulations which enforced “rights”
for same sex couples who wish to adopt.

The move will undoubtedly be seen as controversial in some quarters. In
January 2007, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor wrote to the-then Prime
Minister Tony Blair suggesting that Catholic adoption agencies in
England and Wales would be forced to close down if they were not
allowed to opt out of new gay rights laws, which he said contradicted
Catholic teaching.

The cardinal said forcing people to act against their consciences would
mean discrimination on the grounds of belief, adding that it would be
an “unnecessary tragedy” if Catholic agencies were forced to
close. 

Remind me again why we have martyrs in the
Church?  I guess
caving to an unjust law is quite acceptable, hey what was St. Thomas
More thinking?

So much for what then-Cardinal Ratzinger
wrote in Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give
Legal  Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons

As experience has shown, the absence of
sexual complementarity in these
unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who
would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of
the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to
be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing
violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of
dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not
conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and
in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests
of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the
paramount consideration in every case.

In contrast to the rest of the writers for the National Catholic Reporter, John Allen Jr. turns in a good column on Humanae Vitae for the New York TImes.

A reader points to the comment section at Commonweal on this article. Pretty sad that a reporter being faithful to Church teaching is so derided.

I am a bit surprised that John Allen’s Sunday Times op-ed has not yet occasioned comment at dotCom. I found it disappointing and, at points, quite strange-I’ll try to say more about why later. In the meantime, pop over to Pontifications for David Gibson’s astute analysis:

Yes not being a dissident on contraception is “disappointing” and “quite strange” for the Commonweal crowd. I guess following Vatican II and giving “Religious submission of mind and of will” to this teaching is not for “thinking” Catholics. David Gibson’s astute analysis is nothing of the kind but pablum. When you have to refer to Steinfell and McBrien you know you are on shaky ground.

Father Z does an excellent fisk of
a editorial from the National Catholic Reporter staff marking the 40th
anniversary of Humanae Vitae.  As you would expect they didn’t
break out a birthday cake to celebrate this anniversary, but snipe at
it instead. Like most gutless progressives they never actually deny the
teaching they just try to give it the death of a thousand cuts by
trying to undermine how the encyclical happened and then the reaction to
it.

So the great theological reasoning they
give us is polling.  As I have said before the only poll in
the New Testament only Peter got it right and he had help.
 Once again we get the whole “lived experience” thing as if
this is any kind of criteria that has ever been used in the history of
Christendom.  Should we appeal to the lived experience of the
Church when many of it’s members had fallen into Arianism?
 Hey many Catholics are not much into sacrificial giving and
the preferential love of the poor so I guess we should dump these ideas
because of the lived experience.  When it comes to the
teaching Jesus gave us on adultery there is as NCR would put it “a gulf
between official church teachings and Catholic practice.”  How
about loving our enemies?  Once again the “lived experience”
of Catholics does not match the doctrine.

So I guess we need to stop giving to the
needy, that we don’t need to love the poor and we can wish ill for our
enemies.  Plus since we don’t love one another as Christ has
loved us we also don’t have to love one another to a a more perfected
degree.  Most people do not pick up their crosses daily, but
try to run from them so we can throw that doctrine on the fire along
with the others. Hey Christianity gets easier and easier to practice
everyday.  Just dump the doctrines that are difficult and it
is suprisingly easy.

“The Christian ideal has not been tried
and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” –
G.K. Chesterton

But for the National Catholic Reporter it
is the negative reaction and living apart from Church teaching that is
the criteria as to whether a doctrine is true or not.  Not
scripture, apostolic tradition, nor the magisterium – but polling.
 Gallop eccelesiology is rather a strange view of how the
Church arrives at her doctrines.

The dishonesty of their article is
staggering.  They set up a strawman argument that was a parady
of what Pope Paul Vi said and then say that it was the main thrust of
the encyclical.  They describe everything in terms of power as
most dissidents see the Church.  They never address the
predictions that the encyclical made and have all come true.
 No mention of the state  of family life since the
wide-spread use of contraceptives. No mention of the further
degradation of women.  I guess the breakdown of the family and
increased divorce is beneath the notice of the NCR.  Though
rampant divorce and destruction of the family is not the “lived
experience” so now I guess should become doctrine.

Last week biology professor P.Z. Myers
desecrated the Eucharist by
first piercing it with a rusty nail (well we pierced Jesus with a nail
before) and then tossed it in a garbage can and covered it with coffee
grounds and a banana peel.

Catholics for the most part have responded
by praying for the man and
committing themselves to doing reparations for the desecration of the
Eucharist. We don’t issue fatwas though we might understandably write
letters to the state university he is employed by for violating their
conduct code. Even if we see him as an attention grabbing jerk he is
still a person in the image of the God he denies and out of love for
him we pray for his conversion.  In fact the first comment on
his blog entry was “May God have mercy on your soul.”

He mocks what we know is sacred out of a
misguided materialist view and our of a faith in science that he wants
to have answer more than it can answer. Dr. Anthony Rizzi who is a
physicist writes in his outstanding book The
Science Before Science: A Guide to Thinking in the 21st Century about the
tunnel vision that
scientists often develop in their empiro-metric view of the world.
 For them philosophy is not a science at all though they live
by philosophy of scientism.  Out of ignorance they don’t know
that modern science grew out of Christianity and that it was clergy and
Catholic layman that were behind so many discoveries that further
developed the scientific method.  They forget that it is
because of our non-material intellect that we can even do science to
investigate the material world in the first place.

Since Mr. Myers has so little appreciation
of Catholics since we are so stupid and he is so superior I though was
would someone as stupid as myself do to get back at Mr. Myers for this
desecration.  I though hey “An eye for an eye” and all of
that.  So what might a biology professor like P.Z. Myers hold
sacred?  I though obviously a microscope since without it his
field would not have gone very far.   So I asked my readers if
somebody could provide me with a microscope and one person slipped me
one

To show that this device has no power of
its own without a non-material intellect I first pierced it with a
rusty nail, and then desecrated it with holy water since obviously a
practice such as that offends scientism.  I then tossed it in
the trash with a banana peel.

Science did not prevent me from doing any
of this and the microscope and every other tool is just a construct of
our immaterial intellects. So free yourself from scientism  
The scientific method is itself a being of reason and not
provable
by the scientific method.  The
empiro-metric method while quite useful for studying the
intelligibility of the world comes short when it come to ontology.
Ontological question are aided by these branches of science but the
empiro-metric view can’t be used to prove ontological questions.
 The three layers of abstraction Metaphysical, Mathematica,
and Physica are not at odds to each other and we need to return to the
view that theology is the queen of the sciences, though this does not
change the importance of the other sciences.  Faith vs.
science is a silly debate when there is not a “versus” only an “and.”

By the way I do highly recommend The
Science Before Science: A Guide to Thinking in the 21st Century which I
recently read. It is a great introduction both to philosophy and how it
relates to the sciences.  A densely packed read, but highly
worthwhile.

Indulgences, which give Catholics time off Purgatory for good behaviour, are making a comeback under Pope Benedict XVI.

The article gets a little better, but you have to get to the end before anything resembling Church teaching starts to get inadequately explained.