Since others are having fun with the
Obama sign I thought I would join in.
Made me think of this.
Gateway Pundit thinks this is a gesture stolen
from the Star Trek “Space Hippies” episode.
One commenter said it stood for zero experience. Ha!
The religious left often makes me laugh;
this time on McCain’s “The One”
ad.
At best, this ad implies that those who
plan to support Senator Obama are looking for a new savior or a
replacement Messiah. But many are reading it even more darkly as an
attempt to portray Obama as an anti-Christ figure.
I guess we need the left’s secret decoder
ring
to find that hidden message. The ad pokes fun at how he
portrays himself, the language that he uses, and the language and
posters that his followers use to describe him. My blog-friend
Christopher Blosser has been chronicling this for awhile on the popular
Is
Barack Obama the Messiah blog so the McCain ad is not showing
anything new. As for Obama being the antichrist well St. John
described that there are many antichrists and not just the figure
foretold at the end of the world. Those that oppose Christ are in
effect an antichrist. People that support infanticide,
abortion, ESCR, cloning, euthanasia, and same-sex marriage are
opposing the will of Christ.
The biggest thing that annoys me about the
whole Obama messiah business is how he has reacted to it and even
played it up. Obama being a Christian this whole messiah
thing should really bother him. It should upset him that
people talk about him in this tone. John the Baptist when
confused with Christ said “I am not the Christ” and “He must increase,
but I must decrease.” Obama seems to have gotten that last one
backwards. St. Peter when he saw people seeing him wrongly
said “Stand up; I too am just a man.” Sen. Obama has done
nothing to discourage such comparisons. Obama should be
embarrassed by such treatment, instead he revels in it. In fact as the
McCain
ad shows Obama said:
“A light will shine down from
somewhere.
It will light upon you. You will experience an epiphany and you will
say to yourself, ‘I have to vote for Barack’,”
Besides Obama is too much of an amateur to
be “the” Antichrist. Though form over substance will certainly be an
attribute of the Antichrist and the fawning largely uncritical reaction
will likely be there also.
Fr. Finigan has released our secret plans for world domination.
The other day I posted on Nancy Pelosi
saying that she has not
encoutered difficulties in “her” Church about her support of abortion,
ESCR, same-sex marriage. The author of the following article
emailed me an interview he did with her pastor
Monsignor Joe Brenkle of St. Helena in San Francisco last year.
California Catholic Daily: “So you can
throw abortion out the window because you don’t like Bush and the war?”
Brenkle: “No, but you put up with the imperfections of politicians.
Nobody is perfect.”
California Catholic Daily: “Have you met Nancy Pelosi?”
Brenkle: “She’s a part-time member of our parish.”
California Catholic Daily: “Have you ever discussed her positions on
abortion and homosexual marriage with her?”
Brenkle: “I have not had an opportunity to do so.”
California Catholic Daily: “Do you allow her to come to Holy Communion
after the Church has taught that manifest public sinners who are
unrepentant are to be denied Holy Communion?”
Brenkle: “The Church has never taught that.”
California Catholic Daily: “I think the Archbishop of St. Louis would
disagree — and he’s a canon lawyer.”
Brenkle: “Yeah, well I happen to be a canon lawyer too, y’know, and I
think the bishops who said that are in a very minority position.”
California Catholic Daily: “Is that how we decide truth? Even our Holy
Father has said that truth is not determined by majority opinion.”
Brenkle: “You sound like somebody who, at the time of Jesus, would have
said, ‘Why is he sitting and eating with these public sinners?'”
California Catholic Daily: “Hopefully to convert them. Do you plan on
doing anything to try to convert Nancy Pelosi?”
Brenkle: “I’m certainly not going to convert her, but I certainly will
have an opportunity to talk with her as I had an opportunity to talk
with our own congressman here, Mike Thompson.”
California Catholic Daily: “Do you plan on discussing any of these
issues with her?”
Brenkle: “I’m going to look for that opportunity. I’ve only met her
outside of Church for about two minutes. I’m not about to refuse her
Communion, because if I did that, I’d have to take a litmus test on
everybody. We have people there that are totally against immigrants and
all this stuff…”
California Catholic Daily: “But how many of them are people that take a
public stance, seen by the entire free world, supporting the
infanticide of children? There have been over 40 million children
killed by abortion.”
Brenkle: “I think you have my take on this and it’s been good talking
to you.”
So much for the spiritual act of mercy to admonish sinners. I
guess this is trumped by “don’t make waves.”
Priests at the London Oratory have
called for prayers of reparation after a consecrated Host was allegedly
stolen during High Mass and desecrated by an atheist professor in
America.
Several priests have celebrated Masses of reparation this week
responding to a video posted on the internet of a young man taking the
Host and later placing it next to a condom, claiming he was holding it
“hostage” inside the prophylactic until the Pope changed his policy on
contraception in light of Africa’s Aids epidemic.
An evening of reparation with Mass and Adoration with prayers, litanies
and silent meditation is planned for next Wednesday. Oratorians have
also called on the faithful to make personal acts of reparation this
week and next “for all the outrages against the Blessed Sacrament
around the world”.
“Close observation of the film and of the facts seems to suggest that
this is not an elaborate hoax, but depicts something that really
occurred,” said the e-mail asking people to make acts of reparation. It
also asked people to pray for “the conversion of the culprits, that
they will answer God’s call to repentance and open their hearts to
receive His forgiveness”.
The incident took place during the Oratory’s High Mass on July 13 and
was posted on the internet soon after. It said: “The Catholic Church
forfeits all rights to respect for its ludicrous beliefs, including
‘transubstantiation’, while its anti-condom campaign in Africa results
in tens of thousands of deaths.”
What only tens of thousands of deaths?
The claim is usually “millions of deaths” so this guy needs
to get on the same page with the other raving lunatics. Now raving
lunatics might seem rather uncharitable, but I think it is a charitable
interpretation of such an understanding that the Church’s opposition to
condoms is what causes deaths from AIDS.
They have to believe that the Pope has the
power to stop people from using condoms while at the same time having
no power to deter people from having sex outside of marriage.
That people will be willing to commit the grave sin of
adultery/fornication but then their conscience stops them from using a
condom because they heard the Pope was against it. Yeah this
is impeccable logic. So I guess we need to write the pope and to tell
him to use the same
powers he has concerning condoms and do it with other areas of Church
teaching.
By this logic safe driving is when a
reckless driver has an airbag. It is not behavior that
matters, but having protection for bad behavior.
They also never explain how a couple
actually following Church teaching and only have relations in the
context of marriage would ever need a condom to protect them from STDs.
So I guess instead of getting upset by people not being
faithful to Church teaching if they are really worried about deaths
from STDs they should be upset that people aren’t following Church
teaching if they are going to be consistent.
They also don’t feel responsible for
people who used condoms and then received AIDS anyway. They
would never drink some liquid that had a 80 to 90 percent of not
killing you, yet somehow recommending a condom with failure rates like
that is acceptable. Liberals will go crazy about .000001
percent of something in the water supply, but condom failures are
acceptable.
The putting together of the Eucharist and
the condom is sign and anti-sign. Jesus is the way the truth
and the life, and the condom is the symbol against life. Life
to be prevented and a symbol to the cult of pleasure without
consequences. The condom is a separation and a barrier, while
Jesus became man to remove all separation and barriers between God and
us.
At least we now know who supplied the host
to P.Z. Myers so that we can also add our prayers for him.
Via The Deacon’s Bench.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
said she, unlike other Catholic politicians who support abortion
rights, has not clashed with her church about receiving communion.
In an interview on C-SPAN that aired on Sunday, Pelosi was asked about
how some church officials have raised objections about whether former
presidential contenders — such as Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and former
New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) — should receive communion.
Pelosi, a Roman Catholic whose district includes most of San Francisco,
said she has not encountered such difficulties in her church.
“I think some of it is regional,” she said, “It depends on the bishop
of a certain region and fortunately for me, communion has not been
withheld and I’m a regular communicant so that would be a severe blow
to me if that were the case.”
The hour-long interview tackled religion, which is addressed throughout
the Speaker’s new book, “Know Your Power.”
Pelosi did not directly talk about how her view on abortion is at odds
with the Catholic Church. Instead, she noted that there are many issues
that the church cares about. Pelosi said the Bible mentions poverty
over 2,000 times, and referenced the Gospel of Matthew. She also
indicated the importance of recognizing God’s creations, citing the
environment.
The Speaker, who wrote in her book that “my parents didn’t raise me to
be Speaker, they raised me to be holy,” said if more people followed
the principles of love thy neighbor and do unto others as they would do
to you, “the world would be a better place.”
It is rather sad that she has not felt
any pressure on this. I do wonder if her Bishop Archbishop
Niederauer has ever talked to her about this at all about this?
He has talked to her in the past, but it was about
immigration. Last year the Archbishop said:
We haven’t had an opportunity to talk
about the life issues. I would very much welcome that opportunity, but
I don’t believe that I am in a position to say what I understand her
stand to be, if I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it.”
I wonder if the Archbishop has heard of
Google or the myriad resources that would show her 100 percent
pro-abortion voting record. I guess the Archbishop doesn’t have the
time to discern her record, yet NARAL found the time to giver her a
100% score. I guess having the majority leader living in your
diocese who supports many things that are intrinsically evil is
somewhere on the list. Though for all I know maybe he has,
but if he has I wish he would be as upfront about it Naumann was with
Governor Sebelius. In addition to the primary importance of
teh care of her soul there is also the issue of scandal to be addressed.
Mrs. Pelosi says that not receiving
Communion would be a great blow to her. Well maybe this act of charity
would get her to rethink supporting murdering the unborn.
Look at the number of people excommunicated in Archbishop
Burke’s diocese that later were reconciled. I guess as long
as ecclesial disciplines are shown as a punishment instead of as an aid
to help someone to repent we will continue to have such a negative
reaction to denial of Communion and excommunications.
I find it interesting that the media seems
to enjoy what they call the “Communion wars” and that they really build
it up when a pro-abortion politician is denied Communion or it is even
talked about. They see that it is wrong for them to be denied
Communion and that giving them Communion is very important.
Yet when some professor desecrate a host, then they really
don’t want to cover it at all. The Eucharist is only
important to them when it comes to pro-abortion politicians.
Congratulations to Greg and Jennifer of
the Rosary
Army apostolate and podcast since they will be hosting a
three hour show five days a week on Sirius Radio in September.
Good decision Sirius. I have long been a fan of
their show and got to briefly meet Greg at the Catholic New Media
Celebration in Atlanta. The show will be called “The Catholics Next
Door.” Though secularists might think this sounds like a Wes Craven
film.
Carson Weber let me know that there is a
new blog to support RCIA team members called simply “The Blog
That’s All About R.C.I.A.” Looks quite solid.
I received a paper copy of Heaven’s
Song: Sexual Love as It Was Meant to Be
Christopher West which will be published in September of this year.
Once again he has done a great job of teaching the Theology
of the Body as developed by John Paul II in an accessible manner.
The new book is based on the so-called
“hidden” talks of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. These
undelivered addresses were discovered in the Vatican archive
and until recently were only in the Polish edition of “A Theology of
the Body.” Michael Waldstein translated these into English in
2006 in the book Man
and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body
The new material goes into the Song of Songs and
the Old Testament marriage of Tobias and Sarah from the book of Tobit
along with material that would have not been appropriate for
a General Audience.
The format of the book is that he starts
with short stories of real life people
and their common difficulties and then how they addressed using the
Theology of the Body and then goes on from there. Each
chapter also ends with a section
for reflections and a prayer. Christopher West then explains Pope John
Paul II’s teaching starting off with the Song of Song. This
Old Testament book is often passed over by many because we miss the
deeper meaning of the book and people can be put of by the erotic
poetry it contains. They mystics though often included the
Song of Songs as one of their favorites and wrote on it.
From St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Saint Louis
de Montfort, St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguor and others were nourished by
these texts. Christopher West refers to these saints as he
expands upon the work of Pope John Paul II. Sometimes people are
scandalized by the comparison of the sexual union of man and life as a
metaphor for the relationship of God and man. Some
Protestants are scandalized by the writings of St. Alphonsus
Maria de Liguor and I have seen his writings quoted by anti-Catholics.
The total misunderstanding of sex goes
through all levels of society
from the secular to the religious. The book explores the
deeper meaning of sex as being sacred and how the Song of Songs relates
to this. This is really a wonderful scripture study of the
Song of Songs that opens it up and helps you see past the
prose that looks quite awkward through modern eyes. These
sections are worth the price of the book in themselves. Once
I first read the Book of Tobit it quick became one of my favorite Old
Testament books, but I certainly missed much of the meaning of the
book. Pope John Paul II’s catechesis relating to Tobit is a
treasure and one that all married couples and those preparing for
marriage need to be introduced this understanding.
Christopher West has a great talent in
presenting deep theology in such a way that you are not put off, but
are drawn deeper into it. His latest book is no exception and
like all of his book you don’t need to read anything of his beforehand
– they all stand alone. I highly recommend Heaven’s Song.
If Pope John Paul II ever becomes a Doctor
of the Church it will be because of The Theology of the Body which is a
great gift to the Church and one that the world certainly needs.
This review is part of the Catholic Company’s Product Review Program.
Front Royal, Va, Aug 3, 2008 / 01:37 pm
(CNA).- In this weekly email newsletter, President of Human Life
International, Father Thomas J. Euteneuer, shared a letter he received
that caused him “to shed tears of gratitude.” The author, a
former priest who had protested Humanae Vitae in 1968, had written to
tell Fr. Euteneuer about his conversion from dissident priest to his
acceptance of the controversial and prophetic encyclical.
The writer of the letter had decided to sign HLI’s “Humanae Vitae
Pledge,” promising loyalty to the teachings of the Catholic Church,
obedience to the teachings of Humanae Vitae, and “to embrace God’s
precious gift of life.”
“There is for me a special significance in signing this Pledge, and
[it] will give me a peace of mind and heart that I have not experienced
since 1968. In 1968 I was a young Franciscan priest studying in the
Graduate School of Religious Education at Catholic University,” the man
wrote.
The writer knew many who signed the document in protest of Humanae
Vitae such as Fr. Charles Curran, Fr. Dan Maguire, and Fr. Robert
Faricy, S.J. “Since they, as well as many other professors and graduate
students were signing the Protest Document, I went along and did so
also.”
“In 1975 for personal reasons not related to any doubts or questions
about the Faith, or the Church, or the Religious Life…I requested and
obtained…a dispensation from Pope Paul VI returning me to the Lay
State. Later, I was married in the Church and raised my two children in
the Faith….I have had many conversations with my Pastor and with his
assistant (who is my spiritual director) about my days as a Franciscan
Priest, and have been active in many of our parish’s lay apostolate and
ministries.”
“But I have always regretted having signed the Protest Document against
Pope Paul’s teaching in 1968, and having learned a few years ago that
Fr. Faricy had publicly repudiated signing the Protest, I had wished
that I, too, could repudiate in some official way, having signed the
Protest….And so your ‘Pledge’ document offers me an opportunity to
correct my mistake, and find healing – and telling you about all this
helps me to feel that my repudiation of the Protest is now known and
accepted in a kind of semi-official sort of way by an ‘authority’ in
the Church.”
“And thank you for reading this, thereby humoring an old man, who
despite everything else, knows that he is a ‘priest forever, according
to the Order of Melchizedek.'”
Fr. Euteneuer explains that this conversion story demonstrates that:
“in Christ’s Kingdom it is never too late, even after forty years, to
fully embrace the Truth. All of us make mistakes and all of us sin, but
He gives us all a chance to be reconciled with Him and turn our sorrow
into joy.”