Punditry

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.

It is good news when columnist Nick
Coleman of the Star Tribune is
unhappy with changes at a Minneapolis parish.
 Previously
Coleman wrote quite a negative column on his Excellency Most Reverend
John Nienstedt, Coadjutor Archbp. of St. Paul and Minneapolis for
actually accepting the truth of the Church’s view on homosexual acts.
 Nick Coleman displays his same accuracy in his political
columns as he does on the few columns he writes concerning the Church.
 His political columns have long been fisked in the
conservative blogosphere and he is working for the same reputation in
St. Blogs.

This time he upset about changes at St
Stephens in Minneapolis which seems to be the same type of
parish as St. Joans and St. Frances Cabrini also in Minneapolis.
 Where the word inclusive means accepting homosexual acts, but
not being inclusive towards orthodoxy.  Inclusive communities
are usually much more dogmatic on the issues they want to be dogmatic
on.  Try going to one of these parishes and dissent on their
teaching on homosexual acts or some of the other typical issues and you
will find out just how “inclusive” they are.

It looks like change are being made there
with the appointment of Fr. Joseph William effective Easter Friday,
March 28, 2008.  A 9. a.m. Mass (Coleman calls it a prayer
service) has now been canceled.  We will let Coleman describe
this Mass for us:

“They
all have to play with the same playbook,” says Dennis McGrath,
spokesman for the archdiocese. “They’ve had plenty of warnings to get
their act together.”

The “playbook” is the GIRM —
“General Instructions of the Roman Missal” — which spells out the
rubrics for worship services. After the Second Ecumenical Vatican
Council in the early 1960s, the orthodoxies loosened and churches,
especially ones in needy neighborhoods like St. Stephen’s, put more
emphasis on carrying out the message of the Gospels than following the
rubrics.

The 9 a.m. service in the school gym
(there’s also a 9 a.m. Spanish-language mass in the church sanctuary)
became a place where all were welcomed, the wording of prayers was
changed to make them inclusive (“Our Father and Mother, Who Art in
Heaven,” for example), women had leadership roles in services, and
simple ceramics were used instead of chalices of precious metal, as
called for in the rubrics.

Coleman writing just cracks me up. Phrases
like “the orthodoxies loosened” show exactly his mindset.  The
idea that Orthodoxy or “right thinking” should be loosened and I guess
substituted for wrong thinking is always unintentionally funny.
 I saw let the orthodoxies be loosed not loosened.
 There is also other typical liberal thought shown here with
the incredibly false idea that before Vatican II that the Gospel was
not carried out and somehow it was prevented from being preached
because of those nasty binding rubrics.  As if great Saints
like Saint Vincent de Paul and countless others could not preach the
Gospel and help the poor because of the rubrics of the Mass.
 Coleman has a Protestant mindset and seems to have no
understanding of the Catholic “Et … et” – the both/and approach that
we take more often.  Helping the poor in needy neighborhoods
is not the reciprocal of following the rubrics and following the
rubrics does not prevent you from living and preaching the Gospel.
 Though as with most inclusive parishes they have their own
rubrics that must be followed.  For example using ceramics and
so-called inclusive language.

Coleman also complains about the
parishioners who will be leaving the parish to go somewhere else five
blocks away with the
same “spirituality” that they were use to at St Stephen’s.

You know the kind of service: with
guitars, lay people giving homilies, dancing in the aisles with people
who have mental and physical disabilities, gay couples openly
participating in worship, along with ex-priests, ex-nuns and sundry
other spiritual wanderers. 

This 9 AM Mass has been going on for forty
years (about time they got out of the wilderness of progressive
liturgy) and so it is understandable that some of the parishioners
would be upset at the change.  It is only too bad that such
nonsense was not stopped much earlier to prevent these types of
defections where it looks like some of them will now being going to a
non-Catholic service.  They should never have been able to get
use to such open dissent and liturgical abuse in the first place.

“It’s incredibly sad,” says Mary Condon
Peters of Golden Valley, who has belonged to St. Stephen’s for 16 years
and served on its parish council. “All these years, there was room in
the big old Catholic tent for all of us. And now there isn’t. And they
gave us three weeks’ notice.”

It was on Feb. 5 that Flynn met with parish representatives and
instructed them that the 9 a.m. prayer service must end. McGrath says
that “nothing of substance” will change, and that the parish outreach
to the poor, the homeless and the Hispanic community will go on.

What you mean that unloosening “the
orthodoxies” does not halt outreach to the poor and others?
 Who would have thunk it?

Clayton who gave me the heads up for this
story will be commenting on it later today.

a band plays “Obama-alujah” and thousands stand in the chill night ready to be rapturous.

As the New York Times continues the Obama as Messiah meme.

Well for one thing I would really like an Obama rapture just as long as it occurs before election day and his true believers are taken up from earth. Though instead of "Left" Behind I guess it would be the right that would be left behind.

I think the most interesting thing about the Obama messiah meme is that so far it seems none of the MSM has asked Obama about his reaction to people speaking a about him in messianic terms and of course there is all the Obama iconography that has appeared and is associated with his campaign. He says he is a Christian and surely is aware of the context in which he is being described. It certainly seems to me that a Christian would be quite embarrassed about anybody speaking of them in messianic terms and would request that it would be stopped. Obama-alujah is pretty over the top and soon they will be throwing palm leaves in his path. Surely St. John the Baptist was embarrassed about this confusion in his own time in people thinking he was the Messiah and he quickly put them straight. Though unlike St. John the Baptist I guess his motto is "I must increase."

Via "Is Obama the Messiah?"

Excerpts from the Ecological Stations of the Cross

Second Station: Jesus Embraces the Cross
(Earth as Suffering Servant—Isaiah)

Meditation:
Mother Earth, you are alive with Christ’s Spirit. You, like Christ, are the suffering servant. You serve all Earth’s creatures so splendidly and graciously, but we often treat you as nothing more than a storehouse of goods. May we awaken to see both your suffering and your generosity. May we only harvest wood from your forests in ways that are sustainable and may we leave your ancient, mystical, old-growth forests to grow in peace.

Eighth Station: Jesus Speaks to the Women of Jerusalem
(Women and Education, Hunger, Poverty and Sustainable Population Growth)

Reflection:
Christ, you look with compassion on women: the birth-givers, the nurturers, and the comforters. May we commit to sustainable world population growth by bringing women out of poverty; by providing adequate nutrition, health care and education, and by honoring the lives of all women.

Point to Ponder:
Unsustainable population growth is a direct result of poverty, hunger and illiteracy, especially for women. Without food, economic security, and education, no amount of family planning programs will curb high birth rates.

These Ecological Stations of the cross are reportedly from Immaculate Conception Church in Durham, NC. These were sent in from a reader of Fr. Zuhisdorf and I think Fr. Z was right to wonder if someone was putting him on.

Unfortunately these don’t appear to be parody and it looks like the Ecological Stations of the Cross was a project of St. Elizabeth Garden of Learning in Oakland, Calif. This center is part of St Elizabeth’s Church in Oakland. The National Catholic Reporter previously had an article on these "stations of the cross" so these are all too real. Almost as strange is this mosaic above the Church’s altar at St. Elizabeth which is an emerging Peace dove is destroying a U.S. Military 9 mm Beretta pistol.

These stations as "Collaborative Public Sculpture" were sponsored by the Office of Peace, Justice, and Integrity of Creation, of the Franciscan Province of St. Barbara. Pope Benedict previously referred to a statement by Bishop Sorrentino of Assisi about the "abuse" of the figure of St. Francis. This abuse is mostly of seeing St. Francis first and foremost as a radical environmentalist which loses its proper order of his love of creation principally as a fruit of the love of the creator. Much of environmental spirituality is like hanging great paintings in a museum and putting the tag of "anonymous" underneath them. They have made God the anonymous author of creation and if he is mentioned at all it is sort of as a footnote.

As a side note it really saddens me to see terms like "family planning" and "population growth" used in a Stations of the Cross. It is as if they agree that Hell is other people and the number of people as a great evil. They seem to forget the history of environmental scare mongering and how all the dire predictions of the past never happened. It reminds me of "prophets" who make predictions of the end of the world and when it doesn’t pan out set new dates.

Let us love God first and foremost and then our neighbors and be proper stewards of all the gifts that God has given us in creation. It is when this order is reversed or torn asunder that things go wrong.