News

No Reincarnation Zone

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.

“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.

I can imagine a Chinese official at the second coming saying to Jesus "You up there, do you have a permit for that?"

Res Publica et Cetera
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Other

A great Oratorian

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Fr. George Rutler sent me an article about Oratorian Fr Sir Hugh Barrett-Lennard when he died.

Father Sir Hugh Barrett-Lennard, 6th Bt, who has died aged 89, was a greatly admired if highly eccentric priest of the London Oratory.

Pursuing a busy and eclectic apostolate in Knightsbridge, he was a dedicated parish visitor, so unconcerned about his appearance that he sometimes wore odd shoes; thus attired he would knock firmly on the doors of rich and poor alike.

He visited the Household Cavalry, and served as a chaplain to both the local St Thomas More school and the St Christopher cycling club, though his cassock occasionally became tangled in a bicycle wheel and had to be cut free. For a time (until his absentmindedness with keys led to concerns about security) he acted as an unofficial chaplain at Wormwood Scrubs prison, where his masses were said to be served by two prisoners known as Hammer and Sickle. He enjoyed recalling how he had once been served at Benediction by a thurifer who was a murderer and by two acolytes who had been convicted of causing grievous bodily harm.
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In addition Barrett-Lennard gave devoted service as prefect of the lay organisation, the Brothers of the Little Oratory. He accompanied its youth club to the Isle of Eigg in the Inner Hebrides, where he was known as the "Pope of Eigg" and was in the habit of organising hunts for an imaginary haggis, which he encouraged with high-pitched shrieks like a peacock.

Noted for his piety, he was also admired for his unshockability and flexibility. He was once summoned to a room at the Oratory to find a woman who had removed all her clothes; Barrett-Lennard swathed her in a carpet. On another occasion, during the 1950s, a woman asked for confession outside church and he held up a tennis racket to serve as a grille, so that the separation of confessor and penitent was maintained.

As they say, read the whole thing.

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Book Review

The Love That Satisfies

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

I received Christopher West’s latest book The Love That Satisfies: Reflections on Eros and Agape for review and I found this to be a wonderful book. I have never read any of Christopher West’s books before, but was aware of his work as one of the foremost teachers and populizer of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. His latest book takes Pope Benedict XVI first encyclical Deus Caritas Est for use as a guiding template on the topics of Eros and Agape. He selected 63 key quotes from the first part of Deus Caritas Est which mainly deals with the relationship of Eros and Agape and unpacks them in easily understandable language.

Reading Deus Caritas Est before I never realized how it matches up so closely to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. Though this is not surprising and any way and Pope John Paul II’s understanding is quite useful in understanding and getting the most out of Pope Benedict’s first encyclical. While Deus Caritas Est is not that difficult to read, it is nice to take a more leisurely stroll through some of the key ideas in the first part and to explore them more closely in the context of our society today. The book’s nine chapters prominently deal with Eros and Agape, what they are, their proper relationship, and their common misunderstandings. Like just about everything in the Catholic faith once again it is a case of both/and and not the divisive separation the so-called sexual revolution has give them. It is not Eros that was poisoned by Christians, but Agape that was poisoned and a wedge driven between Agape and Eros by our culture.

Throughout the book Christopher West looks at the fruits of the “sexual revolution” which he says should be called the “pornographic revolution.” Like many revolutions they often end up with a dictator in control, and this case it was the dictatorship of libido. He uses the examples of people like St. Augustine, Hugh Hefner, Bono, Truman Burbank (from the movie The Truman Show), and others to illustrate his points. The book though does not take a confrontational view in the culture wars, but gives us a proper understanding and the hope that goes with it. He also describes the tendencies to either Angelism (spirit against the body) or animalism (body to the neglect of the spirit) and the damage these unbalanced views cause. As with all heresies and errors it is the exaggeration of one truth and the diminishing of another that provides the most potent damage. It is only when we start to realize God’s love for us that we can learn to respond in a fully human manner where Eros and Agape our properly balanced.

Christopher West as produced a quite magnificent book that takes serious theological ideas down to a level easily absorbed. I truly got a lot out of this book and it has given me much to think about and makes me want to read the Pope’s encyclical once again to get even more out of it.

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Liturgy

Mimefield

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Catholic Church Conservation finds some scary things, but this one is quite scary.

Friends don’t let mimes preach the homily. Gilibrand also has more pictures of pantomime preaching which are not for the faint of heart. Now it is often attributed to St. Francis the saying "Preach the Gospel always, and if your a mime, please , please, please use words!"

If you see mime in the sanctuary pretending they are trapped in a confessional it is time to run. But then again when you see a mime in the sanctuary run!

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News

This guy needs a devotion to St. Dismas

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

SEGUIN — Some people will steal anything, and it doesn’t get much lower than the theft reported recently at Wal-Mart.

Store employees reported someone stole several statues of Our Lady of Guadalupe from in front of the store’s garden center Thursday.

The statues, made of weighted plastic and painted, are around three feet tall. They were marked down from $49.83 to $37 as part of a clearance special, but even that price wasn’t low enough to suit whoever took them, police say.

The only description available was that the suspect was a Hispanic male. Nothing was known of the vehicle he was in or whether he worked alone in the heist.

Seguin Police Detective Sgt. Johnny San Miguel said it was unclear just how many of the statues were stolen.

He said he would work hard to find out who committed the theft.

“I hope I catch him,” Miguel said.

But either way, the thief will have to live with his conscience — if he has one.

“The man upstairs works in mysterious ways,” Miguel said. “He will deal with this.”

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Liturgy

What are you in for?

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Two nuns in India’s Mayurbhanj district were arrested on Saturday for allegedly making two non-Christian girls sing hymns in praise of Christ.

The arrests were made after complaints from the students of a Catholic residential school – Sarojini Murmu, 12, and Anjana Behera, 10.

The students reported that they were compelled to sing hymns and participate in prayers against their will.

The nuns were booked under Sections 323 (causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 4 (forcibly attempting conversion) of the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act.

After the arrests, Fr Isaac of the Catholic Diocese in Balasore rushed to Mayurbhanhj in support of the nuns. He said the charges were "cooked up".

The issue came to light after the students ran away from the school hostel.

I wonder if we can get choir directors arrested for forcing us to sing hymns about ourselves?

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Pro-life

You mean the short-term promises were exaggerated?

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, JULY 29, 2007 (Zenit.org).- A prominent bioethicist says he hopes that the closure of ES Cell International, a leading embryonic stem cell research facility, is a sign of growing realism.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk commented on the closure of the biotechnology firm in Singapore, telling ZENIT, "We can only hope that a certain realism may finally be sinking in, as Wall Street types recognize that the timeline for clinical therapies is likely to be quite long."

The firm closed when investors concluded that "the likelihood of having products in the clinic in the short term was vanishingly small," Alan Colman, former chief executive of ES Cell International, told Science magazine…

Jester Hat Tip: A.M.D.G.

As A.M.D.G. comments we hope this is a trend, but surely ESCR advocates will only put more pressure on state and federal governments here and the U.S. and governments throughout the world to fund this research. Too bad it was economics not ethics that lead to this. Unfortunately neither ethics or economics are deterrents to governments.

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