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by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Carnival of Homeschooling

Catholic Carnival

World of Good

A reader sent me a version of his very funny Gilbert & Sullivan
parody.

I am the very model of a RomanCatholicWomanpriest™
I have no valid sacramental ordination in the least
I celebrate Diversity supremely superficially
Conjoining L-G-B-T couples controversially

I’m very well acquainted, too, with Eco-Cycle-Mania
I generate more laughter than O-BER-on and Titania
I feel a Call To Action is required by the Spirit, now
As far as Modern Norms of Civil DisobediENCE Allow

As far as Modern Norms of Civil DisobediENCE Allow
As far as Modern Norms of Civil DisobediENCE Allow
As far as Modern Norms of Civil DisobediENCE
allow-alLOW-ALLOW-ALLOW-ALlow-allow

I’m very skilled at irritating stodgy old Conservatives
Prefer to buy All-Natural so I eschew preservatives
In short, in Matters Feminist, where Common Sense is now deceased
I am the very model of a RomanCatholicWomanpriest™

In short, in Matters Feminist, where Common Sense is now deceased
She is the very model of a RomanCatholicWomanpriest™

I know Mass rubrics well and I ignore them as traditional
I long for Inclusivity so I deplore Partitonal–
Division in the Worship Space or on a floating river craft
And had my feelings hurt when gentlemen like Father Rutler laughed

I practice Wiccan rituals like Harvesting the Springtime Mead
Don’t knock McBrien, Thomas Fox and other authors that I read
I advocate for Wymyn’s Health and Peace & Justices
issues, too
And whistle all the catchy tunes from OCP and Worship II

And whistle all the catchy tunes from OCP and Worship II
And whistle all the catchy tunes from OCP and Worship II
And whistle all the catchy tunes from OCP and Worship
II-tee-II-tee-II-tee-II-tee-II-tee-II

I tend to gossip with the girls; use caution when confessing
“sin”
My scarfish-stoles are chosen for the color of the season
w’r’in
In short, in Matters Feminist, where Common Sense is now deceased
I am the very model of a RomanCatholicWomanpriest™

In short, in Matters Feminist, where Common Sense is now deceased
She is the very model of a RomanCatholicWomanpriest™

I pretend that Mary was a priest but question Im-ma-CU-la-ty
“A Loving God/de won’t send to Hell” so
fear no Reprobacity
I know Reiki better than a Buddhist Monk from Katmandu
Western Civ is Dominating: don’t believe it’s worth
a Sou

I’m suspicious of the male, hierarchical autocracy
We believe our moral precepts should be churned out by democracy
And emasculate the NFL before the Y-chrom spreads some more
Being relegated to a convent just became an awful bore

Being relegated to a convent just became an awful bore
Being relegated to a convent just became an awful bore
Being relegated to a convent just became an awful awful awFUL AWFUL
AWFUL AWful bore

Despite my lack of formatory wisdom to be Presbyter
The bishops who ordain us remain hiding with the stench of fear
But still, in Matters Feminist, where Common Sense is now deceased
I am the very model of a RomanCatholicWomanpriest™

But still, in Matters Feminist, where Common Sense is now deceased
She is the very model of a RomanCatholicWomanpriest™

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Liturgy

Catholic Clergy Ask Bishops to Keep Mass HOLY

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

MARYSVILLE, PA, OCTOBER 30, 2007 – The
Confraternity of Catholic Clergy respectfully asks the Bishops of the
United States (USCCB) to disregard the recent letter from the National
Coalition of American Nuns on Liturgical Translations. We totally
disagree with their request to reject a literal and accurate English
version of the Roman Missal based on the typical Latin text. It is our
contention as ordained ministers who daily celebrate the sacred liturgy
and who serve the spiritual needs of the faithful that they deserve
nothing less than total and complete conformity to the authentic and
official texts approved by the Holy See.

Since the Eucharistic Sacrifice is the ‘source and summit of
Christian life’, it is imperative that the Church’s
ministers celebrate ‘digne, atténte ac devote’ (worthily,
with attention and devotion). Reverence is achieved not only by
diligently following the rubrics but also by having accurate texts
which incorporate sacred language. Ritual (gestures) combines with Rite
(words) to make proper worship. ‘Full, conscious and active
participation’ by the faithful in the sacred liturgy is only possible
when pedestrian language and banal translations are abandoned once and
for all. The congregation is more educated and sophisticated than
purported by those who insist accurate and literal translations from
the Latin into English would be confusing at best and frustrating at
worst.

We live in a culture where the vulgar, crass and obscene are part of
everyday conversation. It proliferates the media at all levels: radio,
television, movies, theater, magazines, and the internet. Yet, good
taste and graceful language are not archaic. Sacred worship requires a
sacred vocabulary and nomenclature which expresses the value and need
for reverence for ‘the Holy’ and which transcends
the secular world and allows the worshipper to approach the threshold
of heaven. Accuracy demands that the word “consubstantial” be restored
to the Creed since the Council of Nicea (325) canonized the terms
‘homoouios’ (Greek) and ‘consubstantialem’ (Latin). Adjectives which
predicate the divinity of Christ, prominent in the Latin, need to be
reinserted into the English. ‘Holy’, ‘sacred’, ‘venerable’, and
‘immaculate’, etc., are not foreign terms to Catholic vocabulary.
Edified language “inspires the believer to aspire to those things which
are holy and sacred. Banal and pedestrian language lowers us into the
gutter. One can and ought to seek a poetic sacred language that uplifts
the human spirit to seek the divine rather than being content with the
mediocrity of mundane.

Contact: Confraternity of Catholic Clergy PA, US

Article

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Pro-life

We need a law to do what is right

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Rome, Oct. 30, 2007 (CWNews.com) –
Italy’s health minister has denounced a call by Pope Benedict XVI (bio
– news) for pharmacists to refrain from dispensing abortifacient pills.
“I don’t think his warning to pharmacists, to be conscientious
objectors to the morning-after pill, should be taken into
consideration,” the health minister, Livia Turco, told the daily
Corriere della Sera. Turco was responding to the statement made by the
Pontiff on October 29, in a meeting with members of the International
Federation of Catholic Pharmacists. The Pope had said that pharmacists
should never “collaborate directly or indirectly in supplying products
that have clearly immoral purposes.” If the laws allow for sales of
such products, Pope Benedict said, pharmacists must “face the question
of conscientious objection.”

Spokesmen for Italian pharmacists remarked that the country’s laws do
not provide a “conscience clause” allowing them to refuse dispensing
such pills. “The law obliges us to sell pharmaceuticals, whatever their
nature, if there is a doctor’s prescription,” Giacomo Leopardi told the
ANSA news service.

Another spokesman for a pharmacist’s group, Franco Caprino, said: “We
can’t be conscientious objectors unless the law is changed.” (Caprino
may have mistaken the meaning of the Pope’s statement, since
conscientious objection usually implies that an individual challenges
an existing regulation, accepting the legal consequences.)

CWN’s insertion of a little commentary
is mostly right.  You can be a conscientious objector within
the law where you are protected by the law to do so.  But of
course you can also be conscientious objector to protest an unjust law.
 The civil rights movement was quite effective in doing this.



What is sad though is the response of
the spokesman for the
 Italian pharmacists is that this issue had to be brought out
by the Pope, when it should have been something they should have been
fighting for from the time such a law came into place.  Using
a phrase like “whatever their nature” is rather scary when you think
about it.

“It is not possible to anaesthetise
the conscience, for example, when it comes to molecules whose aim is to
stop an embryo implanting or to cut short someone’s life,” the Pope
said.

I just love the way Pope Benedict puts
things into words.  Unfortunately so many go beyond just
anaesthetising
the conscience to having a consciencectomy to remove it entirely.



Some have seen this as a shot across
the bow for the Connecticut Bishop Conference for their latest decision
to allow Plan B in Catholic hospitals. I suspect that the Pope
has a much larger context for his statements since this applies across
the world. Though it certainly undermines the bishops decision that has
been pretty much universally condemned or called into question.



American Papist, as usual, has a good and expansive posts on this subject.

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Other

Priesthood Sunday

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Today being Priesthood Sunday I would like to once again thank the
wonderful and holy priests that I have known.  I have written
before about my pastor Antonio Leon and Father Keene.  We have
a new assistant pastor that I am also quite impressed with.
 Fr. Ed Murphy gives wonderful homilies and is not afraid to
bring up the topics of abortion and contraception.  In the
short time he has been at my parish he has started a Courage Chapter
and a Tuesday night class in apologetics.  We have been quite
blessed with good and holy priests at my parish including Fr. Powers
who ran the RCIA class I attended before moving to another parish.

In another parish I sometimes attend they now have a new pastor who
took over this month.  He is originally from Poland and is an
organist with a degree in music.  I heard that he wanted to
have the organ in the parish fixed since it hasn’t been used in years.
 

The previous Pastor, Fr. Sullivan I must admit use to drive me crazy.
This parish use to have a convenient evening daily Mass until they got
rid of it so I heard a lot of Fr. Sullivan. He  could
certainly be described as a man of the left, but for the most part he
kept these leanings out of the homilies.  What use to so annoy
me is that he would deliver his homilies by leaving the sanctuary and
coming out a good distance into the pews. While giving the homily he
would swing his robe belt constantly in a circle which was quite
distracting.  Once on Ash Wednesday he described how he forgot
about the fast and had cooked up a pot of chili with meat for a class
he was giving that night.  He then said he cooked some more
chili and would label them liberal chili and conservative chili.
 On the Sunday after Josef Ratzinger was elected Pope he gave
a rambling homily that fully showed all of his progressive leanings.
 He described his election like being in a car wreck –
something you just had to accept and to get use to.  He then
rambled about divorce and remarriage and homosexual marriage.

Now you might be wondering what a rant against a priest in a post about
Priesthood Sunday is doing here.  Like I said Fr. Sullivan use
to drive me crazy with his constant irreverence, but he also had quite
some good things to say in his homilies and there are quite a few
things from his homilies I still remember that were quite good.
 Some time ago I also started to pray for him as I try to do
for the priests of the parishes I attend.  A couple of months
ago I was surprised to find how my attitude had changed towards Fr.
Sullivan. Before seeing him with his idiosyncrasies and casual
treatment of the Mass could cause me to get rather heated inside, but
instead I started to become more aware of the positive things that he
did and the negative ones made less of an impression on me or I could
more easily ignore.  He is now retired after 80 years of
service to the Church with several of them as a missionary in Korea.

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Punditry

Interior Desecrations

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Where I went to Mass today they had both of the side altars decorated with plenty of pumpkins, gourds, and corn stalks.  At least there weren’t Jack-o-lanterns.  Now I have nothing against Halloween themes generally, but please leave them for home decoration and not the sanctuary of a church.  I am not worried about any Pagan connections, I just find this decorating theme rather bizzare for a Catholic church.

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News

Italy Moved by Teen Who Offers Life for the Church and the Pope

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Rome, Oct 24, 2007 / 03:22 pm (CNA).-
In October of 2006, Carlo Acutis was 15 years old and was fading fast
from leukemia. A native of Milan, Acutis touched family members and
friends with his witness of offering the sufferings of his illness for
the Church and the Pope. His testimony of faith, which could lead to
his beatification in the coming years, has moved Italy.

“The Eucharist: My Road to Heaven: A Biography of Carlo
Acutis” is the title of the book by Nicola Gori, a writer for
the L’Osservatore Romano, and published by Ediciones San
Pablo.

According to the publishers, Carlo “was a teen of our times,
like many others. He tried hard in school, with his friends, [and] he
loved computers. At the same time he was a great friend of Jesus
Christ, he was a daily communicant and he trusted in the Virgin Mary.
Succumbing to leukemia at the age of 15, he offered his life for the
Pope and for the Church. Those who have read about his life are moved
to profound admiration. The book was born of a desire to tell everyone
his simple and incredible human and profoundly Christian
story.”

“As a little boy, especially after his First Communion, he
never missed his daily appointment with the Holy Mass and the Rosary,
followed by a moment of Eucharistic adoration,” recalls his
mother, Antonia Acutis.

“With this intense spiritual life, Carlo has fully and
generously lived his fifteen years of life, leaving a profound impact
on those who knew him. He was an expert with computers, he read books
on computer engineering and left everyone in awe, but he put his gift
at the service of others and used it to help his friends,”
she added.

“His immense generosity made him interested in everyone: the
foreigners, the handicapped, children, beggars. To be close to Carlo
was to be close to a fountain of fresh water,” his mother
said.

Antonia recalls clearly that “shortly before his death, Carlo
offered his sufferings for the Pope and the Church. Surely the heroism
with which he faced his illness and death has convinced many that he
was truly somebody special. When the doctor that was treating him asked
him if he was suffering a lot, Carlo answered: ‘There are
people who suffer much more than me!”

…

Article

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Link

Thanks for showing us how deep the problem is

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Rev. Paul Scalia,  a graduate from Holy Cross, wrote a letter
in response to the college’s president regarding the Planned
Parenthood/NARAL use of school property.

Despite its profound errors and certain
academic haughtiness, Professor
David O’Brien’s response to Bishop McManus still provides a
valuable service. It not only crystallizes what intellectual problems
exist at Holy Cross, but also reveals how deeply entrenched they are.

The who letter is a pleasure to read as he takes the school to
task  for endless questions without supplying any answers.

And yes Rev Paul Scalia is the son of Antonin Scalia.

PDF of the letter

Via Inside Catholic

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News

The time has come to reveal what is the true diabolical nature of the United Nations

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

A reader sent me a link to this article

Fr. Thomas Kocherry – Redemptorist priest and well known human rights activist – has refused a prize from the United Nations Foundation who wanted to fund his projects in favour of Indian fishermen. He explains to AsiaNews, that money comes from the multinationals who dominate the UN and who have no interest in the world’s problems: it would never bear fruit.

New Delhi (AsiaNews) – The UN “is controlled by the multinational companies and they are buying off people with ideas different their own to block all forms of social justice, instead of thinking of the common good. This is why I refused the donation they wanted to award me to continue my work: its dirty money”. The priest renounced a prize fund of 646 thousand Euros, to be divided amongst other winners.

This is how Fr. Thomas Kocherry – Redemptorist priest and well known human rights activist – explained to AsiaNews why he refused a prize from the United Nations Foundation who wanted to fund his projects in favour of Indian fishermen. The foundation born in 1988 thanks to the record donation of a billion dollars from the American magnate Ted Turner chooses the worthiest projects and funds them, on the advice of a United Nations panel of directors.

The priest however underlines that “that money cannot be accepted because they come from a group of people who do not have the real problems of the world at heart. Financial groups are now in command : they are very good at buying people over with prizes and funding, like those they wanted to award me, but in the meantime they have distanced from the highest directional levels all of those who really did something for the less fortunate of the world, to use the UN as they wish”.

According to Fr. Kocherry, “the time has come to reveal what is the true diabolical nature of the United Nations and all of its collaborators. I will go on doing what I have always done, maybe with the few resources that I have at my disposal but with a clean conscience, without falling into the trap of greed for money. We are in search of the Divine Kingdom and its justice, but we know that it’s a long and difficult process which foresees the cross”.

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