Leading up to the beatification of Pope John Paul II on May 1st there has been a certain amount of grumbling about him being fast-tracked. Most of these grumbling set around the late popes administration regarding the abuse scandal and his association with Fr. Marcel. These criticisms range from Catholics to secular critics. Even Maureen Dowd has weighed in on this and you can guess her opinion. She plays devil’s advocate and as her columns show it is easy to be a devil’s advocate when you share his point of view.

A lot of these criticisms remind me of the misinformed Protestant understanding of papal infallibility which they confuse with impeccability. In Pope John Paul II case they seem to think that heroic sanctity means that you’re a perfect or near-perfect administrator and can read the souls of people you know. Personal holiness is to be thrown out if whatever you have a bone-to-pick with wasn’t picked in the manner and timeliness you wanted. People can certainly critique Pope John Paul II’s papacy as they can critique how any pope administers. There are certainly things I would critique during his time as pope, though I do not doubt his personal sanctity one bit and am filled with joy at his being beatified. Pope Celestine V is both a saint and in life he was also a horrible administrator. He knew this of himself which is why he resigned after 5 months of being the pope. He was picked for his holiness, but personal sanctity does not mean you have the full skill set to be an able administrator. Pope John Paul II was a true leader and an able administrator – just not a perfect one.

The other argument used is that the normal time requirement was waived int this case by Pope Benedict XVI as was also done for Blessed Mother Teresa. While certainly a five year cooling off period before any cause is started is a prudent choice in most cases it was not like Pope John Paul II’s life lacked investigation up to that point. Regardless though an in-depth investigation was still made as to whether he displayed heroic sanctity. In addition to the investigation there was of course also the cure of French nun Sister Marie Simon-Pierre due to the late pope’s intercession. The Church is very prudent in these cases that even when they conduct an investigation and find the proper result she still waits for God to weigh in on this. Is anybody arguing that God was pressured vi fast-tracking into performing a miracle via Pope John Paul II’s intercession?

Besides God seems to have set a precedence or two considering fast-tracking saints. Think about the case of St. Dismas the thief on the cross next to Jesus who repented. Jesus had just met the guy who was indeed a thief and yet he promised him that he would be in paradise with him “this day.” Talk about fast-tracking.

Earlier  this month on the Tavis Smiley show, Fr. Pfleger said:

“I want to try to stay in the Catholic Church,” Pfleger said. “If they say ‘You either take this principalship of [Leo High School] or pastorship there or leave,’ then I’ll have to look outside the church. I believe my calling is to be a pastor. I believe my calling is to be a voice for justice. I believe my calling is to preach the Gospel. In or out of the church, I’m going to continue to do that.”

At the time I had hoped that Cardinal George would respond to this. He has and in a letter written to F.r Phleger wrote:

That process has now been short-circuited by your remarks on national radio and in local newspapers that you will leave the Catholic Church if you are told to accept an assignment other than as pastor of Saint Sabina Parish. If that is truly your attitude, you have already left the Catholic Church and are therefore not able to pastor a Catholic parish. A Catholic priest’s inner life is governed by his promises, motivated by faith and love, to live chastely as a celibate man and to obey his bishop. Breaking either promise destroys his vocation and wounds the Church. Bishops are held responsible for their priests on the assumption that priests obey them. I have consistently supported your work for social justice and admired your passion for ministry. Many love and admire you because of your dedication to your people. Now, however, I am asking you to take a few weeks to pray over your priestly commitments in order to come to mutual agreement on how you understand personally the obligations that make you a member of the Chicago presbyterate and of the Catholic Church.

That statement is exactly right and truly it has been right about Fr. Pfleger for a long time. Cardinal George gave him a lifetime achievement award last year and he defended this saying in part.

Fr. Plfeger has spoken in anger, sometimes unjustly or uncharitably; and anger is easier to capture on the camera than is love.

Funny that a TV appearance has been his downfall. Though previously when F. Pfleger previously supported women’s ordination it was not spoken in anger and was on video on the parish’s site.

Father Pfleger, I deeply regret that your public remarks have brought you to a moment of crisis that I pray will quickly pass. This conflict is not between you and me; it’s between you and the Church that ordained you a priest, between you and the faith that introduced you to Christ and gives you the right to preach and pastor in his name. If you now formally leave the Catholic Church and her priesthood, it’s your choice and no one else’s. You are not a victim of anyone or anything other than your own statements. To avoid misrepresentation and manipulation on anyone’s part, this letter will be released to the parish, which is to publish it in its entirety, and to the media after it has been delivered to you.

You remain in my prayers, and I hope I remain in yours.

Please remember to pray for Fr. Pfleger and that he does repent of his attitude. Like Father Bourgeois he will more than likely take the way of ego and Pfleger ego is one of those things you can see from space. But of course nothing is impossible with God.

In the meantime 100 of his previous parishioners demonstrated outside to Cardinal George’s residence protesting Fr. Pfleger’s suspension. To be expected when you turn the pastorate into a cult-of-personality. It is his very relationship with his parish that I think has caused Cardinal George let him be a public embarrassment over and over again to avoid a schism in St. Sabina like in the case Father George Augustus Stallings Jr. St. Sabina deserves better even if they don’t know it.

After the protest, Glover said he would likely remain in the parish even if Pfleger leaves, as long as Pfleger is treated with respect and Magwaza is allowed to take over, but he said he would probably leave the parish and perhaps the church if Pfleger left and Magwaza was not allowed to become pastor.

How prevalent this attitude is I certainly don’t know, but I suspect many of the Pfleger trained parishioners have been virtually in schism putting a pastor over the local bishop.

Vince A. Clark, an assistant to Pfleger, said the cardinal’s decision to suspend the priest has left his parishioners “shocked, devastated, hurt (and) angry.”

“We were totally blindsided by that,” Clark said, standing in front of the cardinal’s home on the Near North Side. “We did not see that decision coming.”

Too bad he wasn’t shocked by the appearance on the Tavis Smiley show by Fr. Pfleger. A pastor saying he will “look outside of the church” if he doesn’t get his way should have left him “shocked, devastated, hurt (and) angry.”

Considering some of Fr. Pfleger’s activism maybe the Cardinal could appoint him to the local chapter of the St. Gabriel Possenti Society.

A polar bear breaks a decorated Easter eggs with food inside at the zoo in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, April 21, 2011. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Because for the AP and apparently the Buenos Aires zoo nothing screams Easter like a polar bear eating an Easter Egg decorated with the iconic album cover picturing Jim Morrison.  If there were “riders on the storm”, Jesus would calm the story.  He did not have to break on through to the other side, but came from the other side to save us.  There is no limit to Jesus’ love for use and does not limit it to “love me two times.”  You can visit Jim Morrison grave at the Parisian cemetery Pere-Lachaise, Jesus’ tomb remains empty so that we might not be empty but filled with love.

Well maybe the reason they picked this egg for the polar bear is that Jesus and Jim Morrison were polar opposites.

Hat tip: Right Wing News

Pope Benedict appointed Texas priest Jose Auturo Cepeda as an auxiliary bishop of Detroit. At the age of 41, he will become the youngest bishop in the U.S.

Bishop-elect Cepeda currently serves as the rector of Assumption Seminary in San Antonio and is the third in a recent round of newly appointed auxiliary bishops for the Archdiocese of Detroit.

Upon news of his appointment on April 18, the bishop-elect – who has never visited the city outside of its airport – expressed excitement over his upcoming move.

“I will learn much from the Church of Detroit,” he said on Monday. “God is the One who does all the work and gives us all the grace we need. All we need to do is say ‘yes,’ just like Mary. That’s my attitude.”

Bishop-elect Cepeda will join Bishop-elects Monsignor Donald Hanchon and Michael Byrnes in being ordained bishops on May 5 at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron welcomed the appointment and said that the new bishop-elect “comes to us with an apostolic mission to use all of his many gifts and talents for the service of the whole People of God in Southeast Michigan – with particular attention to that portion of our family which is Hispanic.”

“He is a true son of Our Lady of Guadalupe,” Archbishop Vigneron added. “I know she will help him to share his gifts with us, so that all of us – from so many diverse cultures – will share our gifts of grace with one another.”

Archbishop Jose Gomez, the former head of the San Antonio archdiocese who is now leading the Church in Los Angeles, told CNA, “The appointment of Fr. Cepeda gives me great joy.” [Source]

I am not automatically filled with confidence when I see “youngest bishop” assigned. Detroit previously had a “youngest bishop” assigned – his name was Bishop Thomas Gumbleton. Gumbleton because of his heterodoxy never became more than an auxiliary bishop luckily. Then there were some other great young bishops like Cardinal Mahony and Bishop Clark of Rochester whose age allowed them to damage a diocese for multiple decades. Though in this case there is a great difference. That era was stamped by the late Papal Nuncio Jean Jardot who put his mark on the selection of bishops in the United States. No doubt Fr. Jose Auturo Cepeda will add to the list of excellent Benedict Bishops.

A sophomore at a local private high school thinks an effort to make Easter politically correct is ridiculous.
Jessica, 16, told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show that a week before spring break, the students commit to a week-long community service project. She decided to volunteer in a third grade class at a public school, which she would like to remain nameless.

“At the end of the week I had an idea to fill little plastic eggs with treats and jelly beans and other candy, but I was kind of unsure how the teacher would feel about that,” Jessica said.

She was concerned how the teacher might react to the eggs after of a meeting earlier in the week where she learned about “their abstract behavior rules.”

“I went to the teacher to get her approval and she wanted to ask the administration to see if it was okay,” Jessica explained. “She said that I could do it as long as I called this treat ‘spring spheres.’ I couldn’t call them Easter eggs.”

Rather than question the decision, Jessica opted to “roll with it.” But the third graders had other ideas.

“When I took them out of the bag, the teacher said, ‘Oh look, spring spheres’ and all the kids were like ‘Wow, Easter eggs.’ So they knew,” Jessica said.

The Seattle elementary school isn’t the only government organization using spring over Easter. The city’s parks department has removed Easter from all of its advertised egg hunts. [Source]

I’m shocked, shocked I tell you. How dare they attack geometry by referring to an egg as a sphere when it is in fact a prolate ellipsoid. A sphere is a perfectly round geometrical object. I am quite upset and will be sending an email to the Geometry League immediately. I suspect this is part of the Multi-geometry movement.

An electrician faces the sack for displaying a small palm cross on the dashboard of his company van.

Former soldier Colin Atkinson has been summoned to a disciplinary hearing by the giant housing association where he has been employed for 15 years because he refuses to remove the symbol.

Mr Atkinson, a regular worshipper at church, said: ‘The treatment of Christians in this country is becoming diabolical…but I will stand up for my faith.’

Throughout his time at work, he has had an 8in-long cross made from woven palm leaves attached to the dashboard shelf below his windscreen without receiving a single complaint.

But his bosses at publicly funded Wakefield and District Housing (WDH) in West Yorkshire – the fifth-biggest housing organisation in England – have demanded he remove the cross on the grounds it may offend people or suggest the organisation is Christian. Mr Atkinson’s union representative said he faces a full disciplinary hearing next month for gross misconduct, which could result in dismissal.

The association strongly promotes ‘inclusive’ policies and allows employees to wear religious symbols at work.

It has provided stalls at gay pride events, held ‘diversity days’ for travellers, and hosted a gender reassignment event entitled A World That Includes Transpeople. [Source]

Well at least this story doesn’t include geometric relativism.

Once again Animal Farm provides the key. With multiculturalism some cultures are more equal than others.