Here is the second in the series of Sunday Mass reflections put out by Professor Michael Barber and the students at John Paul the Great Catholic University. Good stuff. They need an RSS feed so that we can subscribe to this video feed weekly, or better yet turned into a video podcast on iTunes.
Liturgy Reflection: Sunday, July 19, 2009 from JP Catholic University on Vimeo.
They now have an RSS feed and are working on getting it submitted to iTunes.
Italy, July 18 – Pope Benedict XVI slept well and celebrated his regular daily mass Saturday with his wrist in plaster, the day after his operation on the fracture, his spokesman said.
“He is learning to live with a right wrist in plaster,” Federico Lombardi told AFP. “The most difficult thing for him is having to give up writing.”
Lombardi said the 82-year-old pontiff, who is on a two-week holiday in northern Italy, would fly by helicopter on Sunday as planned to Romano Canavese, in the neighbouring Piedmont region, to recite the evening Angelus prayer.
Some 10,000 people are expected at the ceremony in the town, the birthplace of Vatican number two Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
Lombardi said the rest of the pope’s programme during his vacation, which is due to end on July 29, was also unchanged.
The German-born pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church since April 2005, had two metal pins inserted into the broken bone in a “routine” operation under local anaesthetic at Aosta hospital on Friday.
He had slipped and fallen in his bedroom during the night, a Vatican statement said.
The headline for this was “Pope celebrates mass in plaster“, which is rather silly – though better than “Plastered Pope celebrates Mass.”
Reports also say that he uses a voice recorder to write things out, so hopefully his injury will not effect rumors that he is working on his book to followup “Jesus of Nazareth” during his vacation.
When candidate Obama was being embarrassed by the words of his pastor he later denied that he was there when he said those things. Pretty good timing that he managed to go that Chicago church regularly and just missed out on those days something controversial was said. Though I always thought this was a silly excuse even if true. This is to say that you go to a church for years and years and are friends with the pastor, but somehow don’t know about his controversial positions. So this either shows a situational stupidity of ineptness or just plain lying.
Judge Sotomayor seems to be taking a page out of Obama book. Today she testified about her involvement as a board member with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund where she had held multiple positions over the years. There were several PRLDEF briefs in support of abortion. In testimony to Sen. Hatch she repeatedly said she did not know anything about the contents of the briefs, just that they were filing briefs. Though earlier in her testimony she know they had filed briefs in support of abortion. So it certainly appears she contradicter herself and most likely committed perjury.
But again if she was telling the truth later about not knowing what was contained in the briefs then she is inept. If you are a board member of a group for a bit of time and don’t know what is going on – it does not show very favorably to your case. If she perjured herself she is unqualified to be a Judge of any stripe. If she did not know what was going on around her it also does not make her a very astute judge.
Dawn Eden has an in depth article at Americans United for Life on the testimony today and should be read.
Jill Stanek also has lots of information on Sotomayor’s testimony along with a detailed look at her work with the PRLDEF.
I have been slow to getting around to responding to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Newsweek piece calling Obama more Catholic than the Pope. It is so laughably bad that I first felt responding to it was overkill since it is such a target rich environment for stupidity.
But there they part ways. Politics requires the ability to listen to different points of view, to step into others’ shoes. Obama might call it empathy. While the pope preaches love, listening to the other has been a particular stumbling block for the Catholic hierarchy (as it is for many in power). The hierarchy ignores women’s equality and gays’ cry for justice because to heed them would require that it admit error and acknowledge that the self-satisfied edifice constructed around sex and gender has been grievously wrong. Before he became John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla had a telling all-or-nothing formulation: “If it should be decided that contraception is not an evil in itself then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit is on the side of the Protestant Churches.”
It is rather evident that Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has not read any of the Pope’s books and knows next to nothing about him. One of the Pope’s hallmarks is that he is a deep listener and fully engages people. As a theologian and scripture scholar he spends much time in reading those who he has a lot to disagree with. Yet as in his book “Jesus of Nazareth” he takes what is good from their writings into his own thought. He has the all to rare talent to not read into others, but to actually read others. His significant time as prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith had very little time spent to addressing dissenting theologians and even in those cases the conversations with them went on for years resulting in only a couple disciplinary actions. This is a man who will actually listens to different points of view and will take the truth from wherever it is found. But of course since he is not accepting of evils the culture promotes than he is not listening according to them.
I can’t say I am all to impressed with President Obama’s ability as a listener. He makes noises about respecting your opinion while not changing his in any way. With the majority of American being pro-life, how much listening has he done in that direction? As for him admitting error, when faced with the proof of his vote for infanticide that the text of the bill was identical to the one unanimously passed – he said that the NRLC was lying.
Actually that supplied quote is reported to be from a minority report written by two men which included Karol Wojtyla and defended the Church’s truth on contraception. I can’t find any actual copies of the text for the minority report for the Humanae Vitae commission and the text is only cited by dubious sources as far as I could see. Of course it also does not mean what she thinks it means if accurate. The minority report as reported was guided by then-Cardinal Wojtyla thoughts and was totally in support of this truth of the Church. When it comes to the truth it is often an all or nothing prospect. Either the Church teaches the truth and is guided by the Holy Spirit or she is not. If the Church can teach that a good intended by God is a grave sin then she is not the Church of Christ – thus no reason to be Catholic in the first place.
That attitude has resulted in some heinous decisions. Most famously, in the lead up to the encyclical “Humanae Vitae” in 1968, an advisory body of theologians and laity empaneled by the pope advised that the church should reverse its position on birth control and concede that the issue should be a question for morality and for science. But authority–not truth, not love–prevailed: Pope Paul VI, listening to the advice of Wojtyla, disagreed with the majority of these advisers, who had voted 69 to 10 for change, fretting that to change this position would weaken his authority.
The purpose of the commission was not to determine if teaching on contraception was true. This teaching was already infallible by the ordinary magisterium. The purpose was to determine if the pill was morally different from other methods of contraception. While it appears the majority of the people involved in this thought that it was not, that actual report has never been released – only some appendices leaked to the press. Theology is not a democratic action. When Jesus asked the Apostles who people said he was, all but Peter got the answer wrong. Plus Peter had help from the Holy Spirit in this case. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend calls the support of Church teaching a heinous decision. Hey remember all the promises by supporters of the pill – none that have come true. We have an abortafacient chemical that has resulted in evils upon evils in its destruction of society. The left likes to speak of being prophetic, yet ignore true prophecy contained in Humanae Vitae.
In the same vein, American bishops in the 1970s struggled to produce a paper that would address the concerns of women. After nine years of effort, they gave up. Why? According to Bishop P. Francis Murphy, bishops see themselves as “teachers, not learners: truth can not emerge through consultation.” Pope Benedict, having lived in the safety and security of the Vatican for much of his professional life, is part of this culture that silences dissent. (His last job was as the enforcer of doctrine.)
Pretty funny for a Kennedy talking about somebody living in “safety and security”. As if she has ever lived apart from the echo chamber of Kennedy liberalism. Cardinal Ratzinger was really good on “silencing dissent” that is why we never hear any dissent – oh wait.
In 1979, Sister Theresa Kane, the head of the Sisters of Mercy and the president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, greeted Pope John Paul II on his first visit to the United States by proposing that the Church provide “for the possibility of women as persons being included in all ministries of our Church,” including the priesthood. This was greeted with revulsion at the Vatican, which insists that the only people who can represent God in the priestly role are those with male sex organs.
Yes the same leadership conference currently undergoing a visitation by the Vatican because of their doctrinal and obedience problems. The last line is so stupid and offensive in that it takes in no account why the Church reserves the priesthood for men. I wish supporters of women’s ordination would spend at least half their time trying to understand this truth instead of whining about it. They never address any real theology or the fact that this is simply the will of Christ and the Church can’t change it. But yeah make some snarky remarks about “male sex organs” instead will do.
Yet polls bear out that American Catholics do not want to be told by the Vatican how to think. Despite the rhetoric of love and truth, the Vatican shows disdain (if not disgust) toward gays. But 54 percent of American Catholics find gay relationships to be morally acceptable, according to a 2009 Gallup poll. Meanwhile, against all scientific evidence and protestations from clergy on the ground, the pope claims that condoms aggravate the spread of AIDS. Seventy-nine percent of American Catholics disagree, according to a 2007 poll by Catholics for Choice.
No we want to be told by Kennedy’s how to think. It is rather obvious that she has not read one Church document that addresses those who suffer with same-sex attraction. The document written by then-Cardinal Ratzinger shows not disdain or disgust in any way. But she must set up her strawmen, in fact she seems to be grasping at strawmen. When you have to resort to a group that advocates murder of the innocent, you pretty much give up the right to say that the Church is not listening to the Holy Spirit.
Notre Dame awarded the president an honorary degree because it saw the need to highlight the best of Catholic teaching as applied to politics: the ability to open the eyes of those who would prefer to keep them closed, and to open the hearts of those who would prefer not to know the pain that their actions cause. The pope has a lot to learn about Catholic politics in America. Barack Obama can teach him.
It is the supporters of abortion who need to heed “open the hearts of those who would prefer not to know the pain that their actions cause.” The President can certainly teach the President about many Catholics in America. The President does represent many American Catholics, though this is not to his good. Too many Catholics do not know their faith and they betray it for some pottage of promises. The title of the Newsweek piece is “Why Barack Obama represents American Catholics better than the pope does.” Again the President does represent those Catholics who see themselves as American’s first or that “American Catholic” is some flavor of the Catholic Church. Americanism is not a knew thing as Pope Leo XII well knew.
I get a somewhat steady requests to do book reviews from publishers and authors. Not a large volume by any means, but enough that I turn some down. One publisher must not have done any research about my blog when I got a request once to do a review on some new-age style Mary Magdalene book. I recently got a request to review a book and when I saw in the summary it was a historical novel involving the Crusades and Templer Knights I though this was one I would give a pass to. I certainly love historical novels and the subject matter of the Crusades is quite interesting. The poor Templer Knights though have been have received about every possible slander from the mild to wacky conspiracy theories. I love books involving swords just as much as the next guy, but am not interested in Templer bashing or some view of the Crusades such as we might see on the History Channel.
That was until I saw one of the supporting reviews for the book.
Nathan Sadasivan has a rare, raw talent and Crown of the World is a rip-roaring success. A saga of Christendom told with a breadth of historical knowledge and a depth of empathy and understanding, this novel transports us to a time of turbulence and faith. A work of such accomplishment from a writer of such youth is simply astonishing. I hope and pray that this is the first of many more to follow. –Professor Joseph Pearce, Ave Maria University, author of The Quest for Shakespeare
If I can’t trust Joseph Pearce on the literary merits of a book I can’t trust anybody. After receiving and reading “Crown of the World–Book 1: Knight of the Temple
” I am very glad that I did not reject this book to review.
The novel takes place in the time between the 2nd and 3rd Crusades in the Holy Lands and the lands around it. The story revolves around Godfrey de Monteferrat a young Templar Knight. Godfrey is as idealistic as they come wanting to become a great hero. He has grown up hearing the stories of the heroes in the Crusades along with the stories of the saints. He puts his idealism into practice, but the character is not drawn as a stereotype. This is a deeply layered person with his own struggles. Though he is also no dark hero or anti-hero which we get way too many of today in our fiction and our movies.
The characters around him including the historical figures are richly drawn and just about everything in the novel fascinates. Now I am certainly no Crusades scholar and my knowledge extends to what I have read in books such as the excellent ones by Thomas F. Madden. That being said I found nothing out of place in the novel historically which seems to get the era right. This is such an interesting time in history with all the political intrigues and the battles themselves. For the most part the Crusades were a history of inept leaders and betrayals and you certainly see that in the story.
In a novel involving the Knight Templars you would expect battle scenes and this book does not disappoint in the descriptions along with the strategy involved. Yet the book goes way beyond being just a military novel. There is a serious spiritual dimension to it that is not just knock-you-over-the-head piety. The author also gives you a good understanding of the times without lengthy character exposition explaining everything to you.
It is rather cliche to say you had a hard time putting a book down, but I guess I will cliche away and say just that. I read the near 300 page book over the weekend and certainly felt that bittersweet feeling you get when you reach the end — which was certainly climatic. The last part of the book involves Godfrey’s involvement protecting a very young Baldwin who later becomes Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. Since this book is the first book of a trilogy I really look forward for the next book – which can’t come soon enough in my opinion.
One of the most surprising aspects of this book is that it was written by a nineteen year old who started working on it at 15 while being homeschooled. The novel has every mark as being written by a seasoned author and none of the marks as being written by a beginner. To put it simply this is one of the most enjoyable books I have read.
Thankfully within the halls of the institutional church there has been more and more talk of gender equality. This is a breath of fresh air compared to how the all male hierarchy has responded in the past. Though sadly there is still resistance in one area that is still totally dominated by men. I find it even more sad that those groups who are so open to things like women in the priesthood have overlooked one important area of gender disparity that our prophetic voices need to cry out to Heaven about.
You might wonder what I am talking about. Sometimes areas of justice inequality happen right underneath our noses and societal stereotypes in gender roles make us miss them even if we are more finely tuned to gender disparity than others. I am speaking about ushers. Have you ever seen a female usher. Maybe some diocese are more enlightened than mine, but I have only seen male ushers. From the ultra-traditionalist ushers wearing suits to more laid back males wearing a variety of clothing. But what they all have in common is they all have two distinct sex chromosomes (XY), and are of the heterogametic sex.
This seems to be a small t tradition and there are not even any Vatican document regulating this. Though of course even if this had been a long tradition of the church and even considered part of Apostolic Tradition we would be able to override this just as in women’s ordination. When it comes to ushers to paraphrase St. Paul their are neither Jew or Greek. Some might argue that it is not the will of Christ that there be women ushers. But scripture is silent as to the sex of any ushers at the last supper. While Old Testament usher (doorkeepers/gatekeepers) were male this was just a cultural bias like the all male priesthood in Mosaic law.
Historically Ustiarius Theodora is the inscription on a 9th century mosaic in the St. Zeno Chapel of the Church of St. Praxedis in Rome. Historically, Ustiarius was the mother of Pope Paschal I, and he created the chapel for her. This is certainly proof that there were women ushers as the name shows.
Ontologically women are just as capable of taking money from others as men are. Some would make the case that they are even more capable at doing this than most men. Physically women are also just as able to pass the basket as they walk up and down the aisle so there can be no case made against them here. Women are often excellent greeters and pointing out empty seats comes naturally to them.
The Catholic Church must continue to adapt itself to changing times in order to remain prophetic. We must let go of past prejudices and fully embrace women ushers into our churches. Let go of past gender preferences and false gender roles. There will be no justice until there are women usher. So I call all women who feel they have a vocation to be an usher to let their prophetic voice guide them and to stand up and greet people as they come into the churches. Let not the gender conventions of the past deter you and rise up against male hierarchical thinking that uses their power to keep you from becoming ushers.
I am not one much for reading a book of essays. I have a different opinion when it comes to reading a book of essays by Scott Hahn that mainly address scripture. “Spirt & LIfe: Interpreting the Bible in Ordinary TIme” sounds like a mouthful, but it is quite accessible. In other words if I found the book easy to read while at the same time learning a lot, I think most people would have the same experience.
Those familiar with Scott Hahn will be use to the threads that he ties his works together. In fact if you play along with the Scott Hahn drinking game (Take a sip every time you read the words “Covenant”), you will be quite soused. So you will see common themes in this essays and they are common because they are so integral to understanding scripture.
One of the essays I enjoyed most was “The Person and Prayer of Jesus. Reflections on the Biblical Christology of Pope Benedict XVI. Yeah another mouthful, but lots of interesting insights on the scripture worldview that so informs the Pope’s writing.
As is often the case with Scott Hahn’s writings his love for Scripture and the Church is quite infectious. You get carried away with him in the excitement of these topics. For those displeased by Scott’s propensity to pun you will be happy with these essays since he does not do so here. For those like myself who like his puns, oh well.
This review was written as part of the Catholic book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Spirit and Life.
Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A “Planetary Regime” with the power of life and death over American citizens.
The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?
These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology — informally known as the United States’ Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:
• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.
Impossible, you say? That must be an exaggeration or a hoax. No one in their right mind would say such things.
Well, I hate to break the news to you, but it is no hoax, no exaggeration. John Holdren really did say those things, and this report contains the proof. Below you will find photographs, scans, and transcriptions of pages in the book Ecoscience, co-authored in 1977 by John Holdren and his close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich. The scans and photos are provided to supply conclusive evidence that the words attributed to Holdren are unaltered and accurately transcribed.[reference]
The way the Obama Administration has been going can we apply for exemptions to Godwin’s Law.
It has been a good week for eugenics. Earlier this week we had Justice Ginsburg saying concerning Roe v. Wade :
Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.
Surely Margaret Sanger would approve of both Ginsburg and Holdren. The Culture of Death keeps rolling along while the media stares pointedly away.
Best advice I have seen so far regarding reading Caritas in Veritate.
11) It is quite likely that a person reading the encyclical will find himself challenged at various points, no matter what his native political instincts are. This is part of the pope’s intention. He wants to challenge everybody and shake them out of the uncritical political orbits that people find themselves sliding into. One should therefore avoid two mistakes in reading the document: (a) One should not casually dismiss things that seem to conflict with one’s previous views; this is the Vicar of Christ talking, and we need to take what he says seriously. (b) One should not simply seize on things that seem to confirm one’s prior views and absolutize them; there is a very substantial element of nuance to what the pope says, he is deliberately leaving room for legitimate diversity of opinion even as he makes certain proposals, and he is not attempting to engage his infallibility and thus is deliberately leaving much of what he says open to future revision.
12) The most constructive course is not to rush to conclusions regarding the encyclical but to read it, meditate on it, take a willing, open perspective, and allow oneself to be challenged by what it has to say, regardless of where one is coming from.
Another good bit of advice was Tom from Disputations who tweeted this “A corollary of the principle of subsidiarity: Do your own thinking.” (Yes you can say intelligent things on Twitter and not just tweet what you had for lunch.)
As a fan of G.K. Chesterton and his works I was quite interested to receive The Inconvenient Adventures of Uncle Chestnut
Four chapters tell the story of a young man’s relationship and his adventures of everyday life with his Uncle Chestnut. Where the book succeeds is in describing the real Chesterton’s relationship with children. While he and his wife Francis never had any children of their own he spent plenty of time with children telling stories, putting on puppet shows, and not doubt teaching them his own upside-down perspective of life. His absentmindedness is of course portrayed and of some of the funniest stories about him involve this, such as telegraming his wife asking her where he was suppose to be.
Trying to give a Chestertonian outlook and a book to children is not the easiest task, I think for the most part the book does so in the limited aspects of his thoughts the book uses in the stories. I do like how this is done in a manner that is not artificial and I think that children would learn something from it. The last chapter in this short book was especially good in this regards. The stories do not really address Chesterton love of paradoxes to explain things, though it is understandable in a book of this type. There is certainly Chesterton’s view of looking at things in a different way and to see the seeming ordinary and average as part of the adventure of life.
At the end there is a short biography of G.K. Chesterton along with a couple pages of selected quotes.
The book is written as if Chesterton is living in the present day so there are some references to modern culture used to make the points. As someone who has read much about him along with his writings it was rather disconcerting since I always frame him in the time he lived in. I can certainly recommend this book as an introduction to G.K. Chesterton for children. The problem is once you get them interested what can you have them read of his works? The Father Brown Reader: Stories from Chesterton
One caveat, two spelling errors in the book mar an otherwise good resource. Update: Apparently this was fixed in editions available now.
