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I got a request to create an ebook version of the “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.” Since this was a document I had been meaning to read myself I went ahead and created it with a fully indexed table of contents.
ePub version – iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch/Nook/Sony Reader/Kobo
Note: While a dedicated e-reader is the preferred device for reading ebooks, you can also use various free desktop apps to do the same.
Kindle Reading Apps: Kindle Cloud Reader | PC | Mac
This is the third volume of The Weekly Benedict ebook which is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc which I pull from Jimmy Akin’s The Weekly Benedict.
At the Adoration Chapel my wife and I go to there is a sign on the door that basically states that if you leave and are the last one there that you place a veil over the monstrance first before leaving.
This rather disturbs me on a couple of levels. For one it reminds me of putting a cloth over a parakeet cage to put the bird to sleep.
Plus “Redemptionis Sacramentum” is clear, in No. 138:
“Still, the Most Holy Sacrament, when exposed, must never be left unattended even for the briefest space of time. It should therefore be arranged that at least some of the faithful always be present at fixed times, even if they take alternating turns.”
Now I have never seen this chapel unattended and they do make an effort to ensure that someone is signed up 24 hours a day. But really there needs to be another procedure other than placing a veil over the monstrance and leaving. What would actually need to happen is either that somebody is present or that the host must be returned to the tabernacle.
Now this post is not just a rant on this subject, but a look a the silliness of my own interior life. Knowing that the veil procedure is problematic it is often in the back of my mind during adoration. What if everybody leaves leaving me an my wife alone? I would not put the veil on an leave and would be forced to stay until somebody showed up. Thinking these thoughts I realized just how ridiculous they are. Jesus complained that the Apostles would not stay awake one hour with him. Here I was complaining that sure I want to make a Holy Hour, but not a Holy Hour and some unspecified length of time until somebody showed up. As if adoring Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament would become an infringement on my time.
Today at adoration that situation did come about where we were the only ones left and I was towards the end of the third of the four mysteries of the Rosary. I was aware of every sound in the building straining to hear if somebody else would come into the adoration chapel. Finally a young woman came in and I was tempted to say “Tag you’re it” and exit the chapel. I managed to restrain myself and continue on in distracted prayer. Then she left and I was back to the same panic that we were the only ones in the chapel. Though two men later came in as we were finishing up our prayers. I’m just glad I can laugh at myself, though less glad I give myself so many opportunities to do so.
As a Catholic one of the most annoying things is to hear what some Catholic politicians has to say on the subject of life or many other moral questions. On both sides of the political divide they almost always induce a cringe for faithful Catholics. The occasion of a Catholic politician saying something totally in conformity with the faith and being able to correctly nuance more difficult questions is a rare event. When it comes to Catholics running for president that rarity becomes nonexistent.
So am I talking about a new brain-numbing dump reply by Nancy Pelos? Nope this time it’s Newt Gingrich.
TAPPER: Abortion is a big issue here in Iowa among conservative Republican voters and Rick Santorum has said you are inconsistent. The big argument here is that you have supported in the past embryonic stem cell research and you made a comment about how these fertilized eggs, these embryos are not yet “pre-human” because they have not been implanted. This has upset conservatives in this state who worry you don’t see these fertilized eggs as human life. When do you think human life begins?
GINGRICH: Well, I think the question of being implanted is a very big question. My friends who have ideological positions that sound good don’t then follow through the logic of: ‘So how many additional potential lives are they talking about? What are they going to do as a practical matter to make this real?’ I think that if you take a position when a woman has fertilized egg and that’s been successfully implanted that now you’re dealing with life. because otherwise you’re going to open up an extraordinary range of very difficult questions.
Another case of nuancing yourself into stupidity. Life at implantation is the ideological position purposely created to confuse people. It is not science, but ideology. There is no special magic that happens when an embryo implants. At fertilization a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed. Implantation does not change or add to the human organism already in development.
So has Gingrich flip-flopped on this? No he has been consistently stupid as he said back in 2001 “I have a 100 percent pro-life voting record, but I’ve always drawn a distinction at implantation.”
In addition I would say that I’ve never been for embryonic stem cell research per se. I have been for, there are a lot of different ways to get embryonic stem cells. I think if you can get embryonic stem cells for example from placental blood if you can get it in ways that do not involve the loss of a life that’s a perfectly legitimate avenue of approach.
What I reject is the idea that we’re going to take one life for the purpose of doing research for other purposes and I think that crosses a threshold of de-humanizing us that’s very very dangerous
But dehumanizing the not yet implanted is not dangerous? Plus whenever a politician adds the words “per se” you know they are lying. He did support distruction of embryos for research from fertility clinics. He also said in 2001:
But for many of us, there’s a very, very real distinction between doing something with an unborn child, a fetus that is implanted, and doing something with cells in a fertility clinic that are otherwise going to be destroyed.
So Newt Gingrich’s conversion for the Catholic Church has not affected his stance and just made him more of a hypocrite. He has touted his conversion to the Catholic Faith and produced a movie on Blessed John Paul II’s role in the overthrow of Communism. He just might want to pick up his Catechism.
2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.
Matthew at Creative Minority Report writes: “I don’t see how I could possibly look past this. Newt should remember a candidate isn’t really a nominee until he implants.”
Spokesperson and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks said “As long as we can speak out, as long as we can publish, and as long as the Internet remains free, we will continue to fight back, armed with the truth. No longer will workers who receive inferior gifts have to wonder who the scrooge was in his company.”
“We, journalists, are at our best when we share with activists and lawyers the goal of exposing bad gift giving and wrong-doing; when we help to hold others to account. We hope to send people the message to transform the bad old days of “Secret Santas” and move to fully accountable and open “Transparent Santas.” WikiLeaks believes good gift givers should be acknowledged for their efforts and bad gift givers held up for ridicule and accountability.”
Oddly news of this latest data dump has temporarily caused a rise in sales in stores across the world from companies affected by the leaks as workers went to stores to return gifts to buy betters ones.
Ask Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant for the iPhone, for ideas on where to eat dinner or whether you need an umbrella, and it will deliver helpful localized suggestions.
But try asking it to find a local abortion clinic, and the software turns up a puzzling blank — even in areas that clearly have such clinics. The response in Manhattan is: “Sorry, I couldn’t find any abortion clinics.” [Matthew Warner]
As a software developer this is a time when I can say “that is not a bug, it is a feature” with no irony attached.
Though I have to think how sad it is that somebody was testing this feature out and some abortion supporters are upset about it. Come on really? Some women thwarted from getting an abortion because her phone wouldn’t tell her where an abortion clinic is? You know it is just one of those spur of the moment things where you don’t want to have to do any research.
Considering the recent Steve Jobs biography “I wanted to meet [her] mostly to see if she was OK and to thank her, because I’m glad I didn’t end up as an abortion,..” maybe this is more than a bug.
Though after some investigation myself I have determined it is the semantic problem with the virtual assistant’s speech recognition algorithm.
Here is my test script and the result.
Test: “I want to murder the unborn child in my womb”
Siri: “Oh you want Planned Parenthood they murder more children than anybody else.”
Test: “Where can I have an innocent unborn child sliced up and disposed of.”
Siri: “You want the abortuary at 4131 University Blvd S # 2, Jacksonville, Fl.”
Creative Minority Report – reports that Danielle Bean of DanielleBean.com and Faith & Family Live fame is taking over leadership of the Catholic Digest.
Considering that I have found Catholic Digest indigestible in the past this is very good news.
I suspect Danielle’s influence will be felt immediately at the Catholic Digest. This is great news for Catholic media. Now, if Pat and I could just take over the National Catholic Reporter we’d all be set.
Hmm, that is a nice Catholic blogosphere style fantasy of taking over the National Catholic Reporter. It would be great to hold a staff meeting after the take over. “John Allen, Jr. you can stay, as for the rest of you maybe America magazine or U.S. Catholic is hiring.” The first order of business would be to get a priest and lots of Holy Water.
Though now that I think about it I dreamed of this possibility back when EWTN took over the National Catholic Register.
If I was wealthy enough to buy it, I would certainly have fun with it. Though I would slowly work with the subscriber base. Like a nicotine patch I would slowly introduce orthodox doctrine and opinion. A small drip of radical ideas like obedience to the teaching magisterium of the Church. Small changes like showing the Pope in a positive light.
I wouldn’t have to fire John Allen, Jr – but the rest of the staff would be pretty hard to keep on. I would have to write all new columns, but until they were comfortable I would have for example a “Joan Chiittiister” – nobody would hardly notice the last name was spelled different. Over time this columnist could introduce ideas like the habit is a good thing and that there was a reason Jesus only choose men for the priesthood and we can’t change it. Again it would have to be a real slow change or the dissidents would go into convulsions at the idea. Maybe a Michael Sean Joe Bob Winters whose angry tone would mellow over time and actually exposes the idea that being pro-life and supporting pro-aborts is non-sensical. Maybe a Bishop Gumblehalfaton could bit by bit introduce such concepts that social justice includes saving the unborn. One writer could drip-by-drip introduce concepts like maybe Bishop Olmsted was absolutely right in his decision regarding St. Joseph’s hospital.
This would really be a tough job since my goal is always to bring more people to the truth, not just cast them out because of their dissident ideas. Brining that group to orthodoxy would need the help of a platoon of contemplative nuns.
One a side note I was thinking about the Bearded Spock universe and wondering if there is a universe where the National Catholic Reporter is called Ultra-Montanists by their distractors. A universe where Hans Kung supports papal infallibility and Joseph Ratzinger supports woman’s ordination. In this universe you could go to a Jesuit University and actually be taught the faith. But I guess I would be a dissident in that universe so I don’t want to dwell on this idea other than to apologize for any of my dissident-selves in the multiverse.
I just got the Foursquare Eschatology app. Ultimately you can only check-in to Heaven or Hell. On the way to Heaven you could also possibly become the Mayor of Purgatory.
From time to time on Patrick Madrid’s Open Line show on EWTN or as part of Catholic Answers I have heard him refer callers to a book named Spiritual Theology (Stagbooks)
First off my impression of the book is simply wow! I have been using it for spiritual reading over the last month and I was just totally impressed by it. The late Fr. Aumann takes the categories of Ascetical and Mystical theology and treats it under the category of spiritual theology. This is like a catechism of spiritual theology and provides an in-depth coverage of the subject. Since it was written by an Dominican of course you can expect lots of distinctions, something I really like. The best thing is just how accessible it is considering this is such a complex subject. He refrains from using philosophical technical terms when not required and fully explains them when he does use them. This is a book I think would be beneficial for all and one that can be also used as a reference considering its broad range.
As an interested layman and very amateur theologian I was also very happy to find beyond the accessibility of the book that there was nothing I could consider dubious that would set off my theological spider senses. When a theological proposition is uncertain he says so frankly and so you always know what is Church teaching and what is theological speculation. The book is filled with the wisdom of the Doctors of the Church and you find referenced particularly St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, the Carmelite Doctors, St. Ignatius of Loloya, and St. France de Sales. As such he provides an amazing synthesis of the teachings of these Doctors as it applies to spiritual theology. At 448 pages this is not a quick read, but one totally worthy of study and as a reference to come back to.
Considering that is book is available online and also as a zip file here I don’t think there are any problems with me providing an ebook edition of it. The online edition contains some formatting errors as it was probably scanned in using OCR. Regardless these formatting errors are very minor and infrequent and do not distract from a reading of the text.
Spiritual Theology – ePub version