Punditry

This year’s Templeton Prize winner
Catholic priest and cosmologist
Michael Heller on NPR says  “Science without religion
is not only meaningless, it’s lame.” You can listen to a short interview here.

Well I certainly agree with that and the
whole science versus religion thing is lame.  This would be
like trying to set up a dichotomy between and artist and his painting.
 It annoys me when some of the tech podcasts I listen to will
bring this up about people being anti-science when what they are
referring to are people who have ethical concerns of application of
science. Surely if we called them anti-ethics they would thing this
charge is unfair. But I guess it is easier to demonize others via this
charge instead of talking about ethical limits on scientific research.
 I guess anybody who objects to Dr. Frankenstein is
anti-science.

.. Some
claim that a performance of the play followed by a panel will engage
the culture and that out of such a discussion the truth will emerge.
Sadly, Ex Corde Ecclesiae is even cited in defense of this position.
But what makes a Catholic university distinctive is the conviction that
in the search for truth, we do not start from scratch; we start from
the truth that has been revealed to us in the Word of God, the person
of Jesus Christ, and the teaching of his church. The notion that truth
will emerge from a discussion in which many points of view are
represented both disrespects revealed truth and separates the search
for truth from the certainty of faith; instead, as Pope John Paul II
stated in Ex Corde Ecclesiae: A Catholic universitys privileged
task is to unite existentially by intellectual effort two orders of
reality that too frequently tend to be placed in opposition as though
they were antithetical: the search for truth, and the certainty of
already knowing the fount of truth. John Paul II, Discourse to the
Institut Catholique de Paris, June, 1, 1980, cited in Ex Corde
Ecclesiae, 1.

For these reasons, I believe that the performing of this play, even
with one or more persons willing to present Catholic teaching, is in
direct opposition to both the spirit and letter of Ex Corde
Ecclesiae. Also, because it depicts and endorses sinful sexual acts in
direct opposition to church teaching, I believe its performance to be
pornographic and spiritually harmful. This judgment is made after
prayer, reflection and dialogue and after preparing several statements
over many years.

Because of this pastoral finding, of which I am convinced, and keeping
in mind primarily the spiritual welfare of our young students, the good
name of Notre Dame and her well-earned position of academic and
Catholic leadership, and the blessed Easter week I remain hopeful
that Father Jenkins will reconsider his decision for this year and
future years. A decision not to sponsor the play is not only consistent
with academic freedom but is a right use of such freedom for it shows
respect for the truth, for the common good and the rights of others.
(ef. Ex Corde Ecclesiae, 12)

Exactly, the Bishop nails it.
 You can’t present spiritual poison and then have a panel
afterwards in the hope that the poison does not cause damage.
 Now if only Fr. Jenkins would realize that he has the perfect
out.  He can blame the bishop for stopping the performances.
Though I would surely wish that he would do this out of obedience.

[Via Jay Anderson]

A reader sent me a link to this story.

March 11, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The
Rainbow Sash Movement, a homosexual activist group, announced their
plans to protest Pope Benedict XVI’s opposition to homosexual behavior
during his April visit to the United States. 

The RSM plans to throw ashes at the Pope, because “ashes are an ancient
and appropriate greeting for a sinner who has caused the Church so much
division and pain,” stated the movement.

“We will also be greeting him with whistles; these were used by the
Polish People to show shame for the violation of human rights by the
Communist Government prior to the end of the cold war,” added a RSM
statement.

“We are a community of Catholic GLBT along with our allies who work for
change in the Church. To continue to hide our identity only enables
shame and homophobia.  We are committed to working from within
the Church,” says the movement.

Somehow I think they got this whole
concept backwards.  Traditionaly ashes were worn as a
sing of our sin and contrition.  We don’t throw ashes at
others because we think they they are in sin and don’t have contrition.
 By this silly logic counter-protesters could throw ashes at
the Rainbow Sash Movement.  Previously they have made a Sash
of themselves and they continue to make an ash of themselves. But I
guess their backwards concept makes change because instead of changing
themselves and growing in holiness, they have decided that the Church
must change.

There press release is rather ironic since
they are upset about the clergy abuse scandal which they said was
caused by clericalism.  Yeah clericalism caused the 81 percent
of sex crimes against pubescent boys (Ephebophilia).

Governor Spitzer what a maroon!
 I guess he forgot to go to the Governor indoctrination
course. Surely if he had he would have realized that governors are
allowed to cheat on their wives.  They are allowed to carry on
an affair for years and even have state troopers help you out gettting
new recruits.  Governors can be adulterers all they want just
as long as they don’t hire a prostitute.  In fact you can do
all this as a governor and later go on to be president. Or at
least I assume what the governor handbook must say.

Seriously thought my first response was to
pray for the man and his family (yes I am also amazed that this was my
first response so I guess Lent must not be a waste of time after all
this year.)  Though my thoughts go downhill from there to some
extent. I do not exactly have joy at his resignation, but I can’t say I
am unhappy about it at all.  I remember my first introduction
to him was that the first thing he did as Attorney General was to try
to close down crisis pregnancy centers.  He is about as
unapologetically pro-abortion as they come and hardly even pretends to
mince words on the subject.  The bill that he has declared a
top priority aim is to make abortion a fundamental right and to
eliminate any possible restrictions.   The question now
becomes how much of a pro-abort is the new Governor?  Though
it would be hard for him to be as pro-abortion as his predecesssor.

A Roman Catholic bishop will be forced
to explain himself to MPs today over fears that he is imposing
religious “fundamentalism” on children.

Patrick O’Donoghue, the Bishop of Lancaster, will be questioned over
his ban on what he calls “values-free” sex education in Catholic
schools in his diocese and his order to put up crucifixes in every
classroom.

His summons to appear before the House of Commons select committee on
children, schools and families follows a 66-page document he produced
last year which angered some MPs because of its strict line on sexual
morality.

In the document, called Fit for Mission?, Bishop O’Donoghue wrote: “The
secular view on sex outside marriage, artificial contraception,
sexually transmitted disease, including HIV and Aids, and abortion, may
not be presented as neutral information.”

He said “so-called” safe sex was based on the “deluded theory that the
condom can provide adequate protection against Aids”.

And he added: “Schools and colleges must not support charities or
groups that promote or fund anti-life policies, such as Red Nose Day
and Amnesty International, which now advocates abortion.”

Although sex education is mandatory in all secondary schools, Bishop
O’Donoghue insisted that in every lesson – even science classes – it
must be taught solely in the context of “the sacrament of marriage”.

… He said Whitehall’s sex education policies had failed and 30 years
of “throwing condoms at children” had simply resulted in increasing
levels of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Bishop O’Donoghue added: “But they (the MPs) see me as a fundamentalist
and that is a pejorative word these days with connotations of
terrorism, violence and irrationality. I will say I reject these
connotations

That is quite clear and concise
and the Bishop certainly seems “Fit for mission.”

Maybe Bishop O’Donoghue can give a pep
talk to Father Jenkins president of Notre Dame who once again explains
why the performances of the Vagina Monologues is an “indispensable part of the mission of a
Catholic University.“

Articles are marking the rounds from
various news sources about Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the
Apostolic Penitentiary, week-long Lenten seminar for priests that
included talks on confession and mortal sins.  The news
agencies are casting this as a new list of the seven deadly sins even
though it is no such thing.

Different news agencies choose their
emphasis such as the Telegraph choose to headline that not recycling is
a mortal sin and the Times says new deadly sins include “Sins Including
Abortion, Contraception and Drug-Dealing.” This is of course quite
silly and religion reporting is notoriously bad and British religious
reporting even worse.  “Ruining the environment” is not the
same thing as not recycling and of course abortion, contraception, etc
are not new sins 

The last line of the article said:

Eastern Catholics do not recognize
the same distinction between mortal and venial sins as the Western or
Latin Church does, nor do they believe that those people who die in a
state of sin are condemned to automatic damnation.

Now I understand the theology of
Eastern Catholics churches and
Orthodox Churches don’t use those words to make distinctions in sins,
but the last line about ‘automatic damnation” seems to be quite off to
me in relation to Easter Catholic churches since obviously the same
Catechism applies to the whole Church and it is Canon Law and some
differences in emphasis in regard to theology that mark this.
 Now the Wikipedia article on this makes the same claim so I
would bet that this is where the article picked it up and in fact it
looks to me that much of the article was lifted from Wikipedia.
 So if
any of my readers could clear this up I would be interested in how
accurate this is.

Zadok the Roman also
posts on this and wonders “Is it ignorance or malice that’s
responsible for the poor standard of religious reporting?” How about
both/and?

Karen Hall links to a post by a
High School student at a Jesuit High
School where they partook in a “Day of Silence” promoted by
homosexual organizations.

The post by the student is nicely balanced
and proposed that students wear a red tie to school that day to
commemorate victims of the “Gay agenda.”  One piece of good
news is the while the administration of the school is backing this is
that he says the majority of the students are not buying it.
 So I guess some Catholic schools are becoming school versions
of the television show Family Ties.

Yes like Nixon doing Disco is just like
Democrats quoting scripture.

“I believe in civil unions that allow a
same-sex couple to visit each
other in a hospital or transfer property to each other,” he said,
referring to unions that grant all the legal benefits of marriage,
minus the name. “I don’t think it should be called marriage, but I
think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized
by the state. If people find that controversial, then I would just
refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind,
for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans. That’s my
view. But we can have a respectful disagreement on that.”

Well maybe he is thinking of the Sermon on
the Brokeback Mount.

As
GetReligion notes several news outlets
try to figure out what part of the Sermon on the Mount he was
referencing and they came up with a different scripture.
 Seems that they might have asked his campaign that question.

Barack takes the  same strange
approach that several others have taken.  That is support of
civil unions and not same-sex marriage.  There is not much
support of same-marriage within the black community and surely he knows
this.  But this position as a self-proclaimed Christian is
that he is denying that homosexuals can get married so he must
be endorsing homosexual fornication.  Yeah there is a lot of
scriptural references in support of fornication. This surely can’t make
homosexual activists happy since they claim that homosexual couples are
exactly the same as a heterosexual couple and in effect Obama is
denying this.  Or maybe they understand that this is just
political talk and accept that he is being disingenuous on this issue.
 In fact just three days ago he said in a long letter to the
homosexual community.

“As your President, I will use the
bully
pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in
their family and adoption laws,” he wrote. “I personally believe that
civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But
I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way
of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality
for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic
partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage.

I am shocked,  shocked I tell
you.  To one audience he says one thing about homosexual
marriage and says something different to another.  Just ignore
this and repeat the mantra “change we can believe in.”

Even stranger though is Obama calling the
passage in Romans that addresses homosexuality as obscure.
 Rather ironic for a Protestant to call anything in Romans
obscure considering Martin Luther’s pretty much building Protestantism
from his faulty interpretation of an “obscure” passage in Romans.

Obama also defended his backing of
abortion rights.

“[W]e should prevent it as much as possible by making sure that young
people are engaging in responsible behavior and that we are encouraging
the kinds of good decisions that prevent unwanted pregnancies and that
we are encouraging adoption as an alternative,” he said. “But I think
that at the bottom line is that in the end I think women, in
consultation with their pastors, and their doctors and their family,
are in a better position to make these decisions than some bureaucrat
in Washington.

“That’s my view. Again, I respect people who may disagree, but I
certainly don’t think it makes me less Christian.” 

Yes support of the murder of the innocent
doesn’t make someone less Christian.  So much for “Whatever
you do to the least of them, you do to me” or from the Sermon of the
Mount “Blessed are the merciful.”  Yes mercy is ripping apart
infants in the womb with medical instruments. No support of murder of
the innocent doesn’t make him less of a Christian, it makes him a bad
Christian who supports an intrinsic evil.

He is also once again taking up the
“trusting women to make their own decision” tact as he has done before.
 Though I consider it ironic his bringing up a bureaucrat in
Washington when it was Judges and not the American people who brought
us legalized abortion in the first place.  Hey let us let all
women who are currently in prison for murder or for any other crime
since surely we can trust women to make these decisions.

This evening at a parish I went to at the
end of Mass they passed
around letters to be signed to go to our to Senators in support of the
Global Poverty Act. The Senate Bill was introduced by U.S. Senators
Barack Obama (D-IL), Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA).
 Reading through the bill it sounds like another boondoggle in
support of the The United Nations Millennium Development Goals which
will be just as ineffective and wasteful as President Johnson’s “War on
Poverty.”  The bill mentions HIV/AIDS and prevention several
times and since abstinence and faithfulness are free you can easily
imagine how the money would be directed towards condoms and
“reproductive health.”  Especially since part of the The
United Nations Millennium Development Goals  includes
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against
Women (CEDAW) which is cover for abortion rights.

I just don’t see how further funneling our
money via the bureaucracies of our government and the United Nations is
going to be all that effective in reducing poverty other than filling
the pockets of bureaucrats.  Remember the U.N. Oil for Food
program and how that money ended in so many peoples accounts while food
was not delivered to Iraq?

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Actor Martin Sheen,
also known for his work as an
activist, will be honored by the University of Notre Dame with its
Laetare Medal.

The school announced Sunday it will present the actor, who played a
U.S. president who graduated from Notre Dame in the TV series “West
Wing,” with the medal at its May 18 commencement.

Since 1883, the Laetare Medal has been awarded annually to a Catholic
“whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the
ideals of the church and enriched the heritage of humanity.”

Oh great.  The man who last year called conservatives
“bastards” and a “dangerous bunch of fascists” and spoke at a LGBT
fundraiser and is supporter of “gay rights” is being honored.
 He is also has his doubts about 9/11 “chief among them is
Building 7 – how did they rig that building so that it came down on the
evening of the day?”

Q: What are your views on abortion?

Sheen: I cannot make a choice for a women, particularly a black or
brown or poor pregnant woman. I would not make a judgment in the case.
As a father and a grandfather, I have had experience with children who
don’t always come when they are planned, and I have experienced the
great joy of God’s presence in my children, so I’m inclined to be
against abortion of any life. But I am equally against the death
penalty or war– anywhere people are sacrificed for some end justifying
a means. I don’t think abortion is a good idea. I personally am opposed
to abortion, but I will not judge anybody else’s right in that regard
because I am not a woman and I could never face the actual reality of
it.

Q: Which politicians do you admire?

Sheen: I don’t really have a great deal of confidence in politics or
politicians, but there are certain elected officials that I admire very
much, such as Dennis Kucinich from Ohio, Barbara Lee, Congresswoman
from Oakland, Howard Dean, who I’m supporting for President.

Personally opposed, but blah, blah blah.
 Though I am thankful
for when he spoke out on Terri Schiavo – oh wait that didn’t happen.
He backed pro-abortion John Kerry and this year he was a backer of
pro-abortion Bill Richardson for president.  Well I guess
since he has done good work in helping to raise money for retired
religious, I guess supporting pro-aborts is no big deal.

The bishop in their document Catholics in
Political Life said:

The Catholic community and Catholic
institutions should not honor those
who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should
not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support
for their actions.