Bishop Thomas Olmsted of the Diocese of Phoenix held a press conference this afternoon and has stripped St. Joseph’s Medical Center of its status as being a Catholic hospital.

This is no surprise for anybody following the story as the Bishop has struggled with this hospital pretty much since his installment as bishop seven years ago.  This year as the result of the abortion performed there and the unapologetic nun who excommunicated herself by allowing it the whole thing has snowballed. Too bad it was not just one bad nun who did not understand Church teaching and its application but instead a cancer that had metastasized throughout Catholic Healthcare West (CHW).  The bishop in his statement lists several of formal cooperation with evil that the hospital was involved with and that the bishop had only recently learned of.  The hospital has been in violation of some Ethical Religious Directives (ERDs) issued by the U.S.C.C.B. over the years and we know learn the full extent of these violations.

The bishop led off with “Whatever you did for the least of my brothers and sisters, you did for me.” and makes the distinction between authentic Catholic healthcare and what CHW has been doing.

I am very thankful for the Bishop’s action, but I am not rejoicing that he had to take such a necessary action.  I think the Bishop feels the same way as evidenced by his letter.  This though is what makes him a good shepherd in that his actions primarily are directed towards protecting the flock and not just getting along with the wolves.

A Catholic hospital disobedient to both Church teaching and their local Bishop is no Catholic hospital at all, but just a hospital with some Catholic trappings and the name of a saint.  The action of the administration has been nothing but scandalous and their language the same as all dissidents use. They hide themselves in their own interpretation and then appeal only to those theologians who hold that exact same opinion.  It is consensus with only those who agree with them.

I applaud Bishop Olmsted for this slow and deliberate action in apparently doing all he could to not come to this point and then making the right decision when circumstances forced this.

If only he could strip them of the name St. Joseph also.  I would prefer they name themselves “Moloch R Us” in a bid to transparency and the reality of what they are willing to do.  There is great scandal in the name of medical institutions that murder the unborn having the name of a saint or Our Lord himself.  Jill Stanek blew the whistle on Christ Hospital performing infanticide.  These institutions should all rename themselves to more fitting titles, but I guess Mengele Hospital doesn’t succeed PR-wise.

Even sadder is that it is not just this one hospital so infected.  CHW runs over 30 medical institutions in California, Arizona, and Nevada and the problems that exist in this one hospital also exist to some degree in the other ones.  American Life League in just two days of investigation found multiple scandalous activities by CHW as evidence in this PDF.

I sincerely hope that more than just Bishop Olmstead work to resolve this problem to the extent possible.  CHW has ethically bloody hands in other diocese and their bishops need to act appropriately.  Besides CHW is not the only Catholic Health organization that has surrendered to the culture and betrayed Christ – Sister Carol Keehan anyone?

For anybody who want a more thorough look at this story and the implications involved I would highly recommend Jimmy Akin’s series on the subject: Parts in this series: one, two, three, four, five

One of the components of the so-called Christmas wars is the rise of the “new atheists”, the more vocal group of atheists that want to ban religion from the public square. Among this group is those atheists who patrol government buildings looking for any symbol of Christianity in particular to raise their angry fists at. The Christmas Tree is bad enough, but put a star or an Angel on it and it become offensive!!! Or the ones that demand at least that some display to reason itself is also displayed on government property next to a Menorah and a Nativity Scene.

Now if they are so offended by these symbols of Christianity and display of religion in the public square I suggest some other targets they should be offended by. How about hospitals and universities which were given to Western Civilization from the Church. These institutions grew organically from what the Church taught and lived. So they should shake an angry fist at public universities and public hospitals and be offended by them. Or how about charitable organizations? These organizations did not grow out of Paganism or from materialism. Soup kitchens and such should be offensive to the new atheist. If religion poisons everything than surely these vestiges of Christianity should be equally viewed as offensive. Of course the thing is the modern atheist is a Christianized atheist whose views have been influenced by Western Civilization.

Yesterday I had tweeted about iBooks for the iPad being updated with categorization and I was happy the 300 some books on my iPad could get some organization. A reply on Facebook mentioned a Catholic store owner recommended the person not get an eReader.

Supporting Catholic book stores is a real good thing on multiple levels. People behind these stores didn’t start them to get rich and many of them struggle along. My favorite Catholic book store in my city closed down which I lamented. There selection of books was excellent with solid orthodox content. So I can sympathize with store owners concerned that eBooks will have an impact on their business. Patrick Madrid when referencing a book always encourages people to get them from their local Catholic book stores and I would mostly concur.

There will always be people who prefer regular books and a good Catholic book store can help their customers by answering questions and helping them find good books to inform their faith. Certainly though eBooks will have more of an impact as they become more accepted. I would though encourage these stores to do what they can to embrace eBooks. Ignatius Press, St. Benedict Press, Tan and other publishers have embraced eBooks and Catholic stores like Aquinas & More are selling them. For my part when I buy a Catholic eBook I look to buy them from the publisher or a Catholic book store. Amazon will sell them cheaper, but the difference in price is only a couple of bucks and I want to support them. Plus the Catholic sources sell the books without Digital Rights Management so that you will be able to read the book on any device of your choosing now and into the future.

Local Catholic stores need to get involved in eBooks. There are certainly problems in making this happen. Running an e-Commerce web site certainly adds cost to a local Catholic book store. Many Catholic publishers have not yet made their catalogs available as eBooks and much has to be done in regards with Catholic publishers working with Catholic book stores in making the books available to them for sale. Maybe they could even be sold in store on CDs where the store downloads the book from a publisher site for the customer. Regardless Catholic book stores need to embrace eBooks as much as they can because they are not going away and I don’t want local Catholic book stores to be going away. Complaining about eBooks and eBook Readers will just put you in the Buggy Whip camp.

I love real books, but have come to prefer eBooks since they are much more convenient for me. I have instant access to many of my books wherever I go and searching for something becomes super easy. Marking up books with notes and highlights becomes more useful since your notes become simple to find and access. When it comes to Catholic books re-reading is common and I don’t have to look through stacks or boxes to find the book to read once again. A couple of months ago I had a stack of books fall on my and slightly injure my hand. I guess if I dropped my iPad on my foot it would hurt – but not as much as that stack of books. For book hoarders such as myself – eBooks are a good thing. It’s not a real book vs. eBook thing anyway. I say both/and it’s all good.

Face it: The war on Christmas is lost.

When did it end? Well, there won’t be any official declaration of surrender from churches, so it’s hard to pin down. There will be no C.E. Day (Christmas Ends.) But, in my mind, the war was decided this year. This year almost every major department story put up its red-and-green decorations the day after Halloween; most marketers had expunged references to the Christian feast in their generic ads; “Cyber Monday” became a definitive addition to the lexicon as one more day to consume, and several years had passed since “Black Friday” became not simply a day to shop for bargains, but a time when Americans expect stories of shoppers being trampled (sometimes to death) at 4 a.m.

The rest of Fr. Martin S.J.’s post references dealing with the commercialism of Christmas and there is much I agree with there. As for the War on Christmas being over – I say not so fast.

What happened with Major retailers who switched to talking about holiday gifts, etc is that there was an outcry against the banning of the word Christmas and the associated Political Correctness. Many retailers responded to the so-called Christmas Wars and backtracked to some extent. The problem is that the underlying assumptions that brought this on in the first place are still there.

Retailers wised up because it was hitting their pocketbook. Unfortunately government entities have not signed a truce on Christmas. Whether it is local governments or public schools this attitude is firmly in place. The changing of Tulsa’s “Christmas Parade of Lights” to “Holiday Parade of Lights” is a typical example. The banning of Christmas nativity scenes and other Christian symbols is still going on. Boca Raton bought and displays Menorah’s, but refuses to do the same for Nativity scenes. They even argue the Menorah is a secular symbol despite an appeals court ruling that it was a religious symbol. Public schools are even worse and have not only not issued a cease fire on this “war”, but have renewed the battles.

The workplace is also an area where this “war” has continued. Companies so worried about complaints from non-Christians about creating a “hostile workplace” is that they surrender ahead of time and just make a blanket policy about decorations and the naming of parties. So that one person might not be offended, the majority are allowed to be offended. There is massive cowardice in surrendering to political correctness and the worries about lawsuits. Though considering how some courts have ruled, unfortunately it can be a valid concern.

In some ways the egalitarian of Americans can be applauded as a well-meaning effort to appeal to and include everyone. The reality though is that it creates thin-skinned people easily offended by the beliefs of others. Multiculturalism quickly descends into playing favorites with some segments and diminishing other. So we get celebration of Muslim Holy Days and Happy Holidays for Christmas and the atheists who case out government buildings looking for a star or an Angel on a Christmas tree such as the one in Sonama that got such decorations removed because they so offended him. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Survival of the whiniest. Anybody so bothered and upset by either the display of religious belief or the display of lack of religious belief needs an actual version of tolerance training. I just don’t get this – as an atheist and thorough going secularist displays of religious belief whether I lived in the U.S. or Japan never bothered me other than the wish for their enlightenment. I felt no need to stuff out such displays, especially considering that life was short and then that’s it – so why waste time in such an effort.

In other news Calif. Judge OK’d Seinfeld’s ‘Festivus’ as Legitimate Religion, Ordered Special Meals for Inmate

I have yet to hear anybody saying Merry Christmas to me this year, how is your mileage?

Yes it is Bishop Noonan who will be installed in the Diocese of Orlando Thursday. Picture taken during a roast given him by employees of the Pastoral Center in Miami.

So which is sillier? The Mickey Miter or the one worn by Archbishop Dolan after he was installed as Bishop in Milwaukee (he put it on briefly during a homily)?

Yes bishops are also allowed to have fun.

Tis the season for … “Holiday” movies. Yes every year at this time we get a proliferation of somewhat related to Christmas movies. Now I am a fool for these movies, even some of the worse of them the B movies of the season. The nebulous message of family is important is indeed an important message and considering the themes of so many movies, this aspect is a least welcome. Though while I can enjoy a badly made movie purely for the enjoyment of its b-ness, I of course also enjoy the movie that is artfully made with good scriptwriting, directing, acting, etc.

Now I don’t pretend to be a movie critic or play one since my abilities are lacking in that direction and I am unable to dissect a movie as to what makes it good or bad at a high level. Regardless I will forge ahead.

I was thinking on the topic of what are the best Christmas movies and for the most part I could only really think of what are my favorite Christmas movies have little to do with the celebration of Christ being born – though there is often at least some connection however thin.

It seems that most of these movies spend more time proving that Santa is real. Writers seem to be firmly of the Santa Clause apologists camp. “Yes Virginia, Santa Claus is real.” Now interacting with myths and playacting this type of belief is no problem with me. A good imagination can enjoy the Faery Story and have fun with believing Fairies are real in imaginative playacting. Movies though in the vein of showing that Jesus is true and in fact Truth himself are rather scarce and especially scarce during Christmas.

Now for me the perfect Christmas movie would involve the very themes regarding the Christ child. Now this does not mean that it must be a movie based on the actual event of the Nativity of Christ. Advent is the season of joyful waiting for the Incarnation and the Incarnation itself something we can meditate on endlessly. God became man not to just hang out with his creation, but he came as the Messiah, a redeemer to redeem us from our sins. Redemption from our sins is the one gift nobody could give us on Christmas, but Jesus. Plus Jesus continues to give us this gift through the sacraments and the priesthood he also gave us as a gift. We are sinners and we need redemption and the Incarnation and later Crucifixion and Resurrection are the crucial events in human history. So again for me a perfect Christmas movie would involve acknowledgment of sin and our redemption and the very mercy of God that made this possible.

Maybe Dickens’ The Christmas Carol is one of the most popular Christmas stories because it touches on these themes. Scrooge the greedy sinner treats others as objects in attainment of more money. The three spirits show him the errors of his ways and he repents of his sins and becomes giving to others on Christmas Day the Feast of the Incarnation.

Every year I once again watch “It’s a Wonderful Life”, but it’s not the perfect Christmas movie. George Bailey the compassionate man who gives himself for others and puts aside his own ambition to help others gets caught up in the tide of events moving against him and attempts suicide only to be stopped by an Angel who shows how his life had impacted others to the good. There is much in this movie that I so love, but sin and redemption is not much of a factor.

I’ve also watch Elf on Christmas Eve every year since it came out and I always enjoy it. The six foot “Elf” who leaves the North Pole to find his father is quite funny situationally and Will Farrell really pulls of Buddy the Elf – something he is very hit and miss with regarding his characters. It is part of the Santa Clause is real and family is important camp.

One of the worst Christmas movies is “Jingle all the way” with Arnold Swartzenegger and Sinbad. This movie is so bad that of course I watch it every year and provide my own Mystery Science Theatre 3000 soundtrack. This one falls in the perils of materialism and family is important camp. Though I have my limits on bad Christmas movies and thus have not seen “Christmas with the Kranks”, “Surviving Christmas”, and “Deck the Halls.”

You might think “The Nativity Story” would place itself well having actual Christmas themes. This is one case where I am at odds with Catholic film critic Steven Greydanus who views the film more favorable then myself. I regard Steven Greydanus as the film critic whose taste most matches my own and have found his reviews to greatly inform me. The times when I have ignored his advice on a movie has always been to my detriment. I re-watched “The Nativity Story” last year and my original feelings were reinforced. The theological arguments against the movie were not the reason and I think Mr Greydanus wrote a very good article on the subject of the Virgin Mary and birthing pains. A Virgin Mary with teenage angst was a bit much for me. Plus the visuals were so underwhelming in regards to the angels, especially only having one Angel talk to the shepherds. No multitude of Angels showing the glory of God. Now I can see some argument for understating a miracle visually since you are never going to fully reflect it, still this is a scene I have meditate on and those words bring so much more to me than understated visuals in the film. I think I am more annoyed at what they could have done with the film than what was actually done. I didn’t hate the movie and some parts were nicely done such as the Visitation (though a Visitation without the Magnificat). Plus the movie’s failure at the box office ensures we will not see the story retold by someone more fully capable artistically.

I’ve only watched “A Christmas Story” twice. I was initially prejudiced against it since any movie Ted Turner decided should be played for 24 hours on Christmas must be problematic. The Christmas Story is hardly a Christmas story, though there are certainly some pretty funny scenes in it along with many lines that have crept into the culture. Plus I mostly like anything with Darren McGavin in it since Kolchak: The Night Stalker was one of my favorite series growing up. This one is partly in the family is important camp. I would also put National Lampoon’s “Christmas Vacation
as being close to “A Christmas Story” in tone and the type of humor.

The animated version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is a classic for good reasons, though once again this is a movie in the family is important camp and the decrying of the materialistic aspects of Christmas. But it does contain a conversion story in it and as such like The Christmas Carol could partly explain why this is such a classic. The movie version though while touching on the same themes is just plain horrible – Anathema Sit Ron Howard

The original version of “Miracle on 34th Street” is still a good watch, but again part of the Santa is real and family is important genre. The parent of the little (Natalie Wood) will not play along with the idea of Santa since it would involve lying to her daughter. I was reminded of this because of a caller from an eleven year old to Jimmy Akin on Catholic answers. The boy asked if telling a child about Santa was a sin. Jimmy’s answers was appropriately nuanced, but he said if he ever has kids that he would not lie to them about this. Though he went on to explain that when the child was of an age to understand that playing along with it was fine. This playing along I would imagine to be at the same level when we play along with the Santa is real movies knowing the difference between the historical Saint Nicholas and the various mythical legends that arose later. This though is a prudential question for parents as Jimmy Akin also explained.

Then of course there are the Tim Allen Christmas movies “Stinkin’ up Christmas since …” Yet more movies in the Santa is real and family is important genre weakened by a divorced family. To be fair the first The Santa Clause movie was an okay film and even re-watchable. The same can not be said for the second one and the third one was disastrously bad. Luckily the series stopped, but Tim Allen did not stop making bad Christmas movies.

Secular Christmas movies are nothing new and even some great films considered Christmas movies such as “Christmas in Connecticut”, “White Christmas”, “Holiday Inn”, etc.

Even the first Die Hard is in the family is important genre as a Christmas movie.

Being a film lover, but not a film geek I wonder what are the films that have themes of sin and redemption that are connected to Jesus who made that redemption possible and what are your favorite Christmas movies?