open book

Aid to the Church in Need

Worth a bookmark, and a spot on your donation list: Aid to the Church in Need:

"Aid to the Church in Need" is an international pastoral aid organization of the Catholic Church, which yearly offers financial support to more than 8000 projects worldwide. We try to help Catholics in need wherever they are repressed or persecuted and therefore prevented from living according to their faith.
Following a 1984 decree of the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy, "Aid to the Church in Need" was recognized by the Catholic Church as a "universal public association of faithful".

Browse through the projects page. Check out the Children's Bible that they print in many different languages and distribute throughout the world. There's swo much wonderful energy and activity out there.

The Catholic Church is about evangelization, negative reports notwithstanding.  How can we doubt it? Because we US Catholics have become so self-absorbed? Is that the case?

My children have attended Catholic schools for the last...17 years. Not once, with the exception of the time my oldest was in the Catholic high school, were they invited to engage, in a personal way, with the activities of the Church around the world. Oh, yes, they did collect canned and non-perishable food items for the local poor a few times a year, and even slightly more imaginative things like personal items for a women's shelter and so on. But absolutely no attempt to broaden their horizons, to join them to the universal Church's efforts, to help them befriend, even through prayer, Catholic children around the world, something that could be done so easily now, what with this Internet thing and all.

"Pagan babies" is an insulting and patronizing way to go about it, I've no doubt. There's got to be a better way. However, total self-absorption isn't it.

The Young and the Sexless

That's the title of The Revealer's Jeff Sharlet's article over at Rolling Stone, in which Jeff infiltrates the world of young, hip evangelical Christians who've committed to chastity

Southern Baptist official Albert Mohler reacts, as does our CTWeblogging friend Ted Olsen, in a comment at The Revealer (scroll down) itself

The question is, in essence, why are these Young Abstainers so upfront and public about their commitment, about their struggle? Is there a political dimension?

I'm not so sure. I've got the Dummies answer to the question. The "movement" is unabashed and honest, and willing to talk about these issues straightforwardly because that's the nature of the culture. We're an open, blunt culture, at least where sex is concerned, and that's the language, that's the environment. It doesn't seem to me to be much more complex than that. A culture in which a film (The Moon is Blue - 1953) is scandalous because it uses the word "virgin" is , of course, a reticent culture, and such is the language Christians will speak. As the culture gets more in your face, Christians must, if they are to be heard, even by each other, adapt to the same tone.

A few years ago, I was talking to David Scott, who was then the editor of Our Sunday Visitor. I think the subject of the moment might have been a film review written, as it happens,  by a friend of this blog, who may come forward if he/she likes, of American Beauty. (A movie which I hated, by the way, but that's beside the point). The reviewer praised the movie  - with reservations, but those reservations did not include the sexual implications or content of the film, and readers were not pleased. Because, well, the average age of the OSV reader at the time was about 67, I think.

Our discussion revolved around the generational tolerance for various levels of cultural openness and content. Things that don't bother me (perhaps unfortunately) do bother someone thirty years older. Words that weren't mentioned in mixed company even thirty years ago...are. The culture is more open to addressing sexual issues openly, for good and for ill, and this is the culture in which these kids were raised (no matter how much their parents tried to shelter them), and so being publicly very real about sexual struggles is not a radical act.

I think the other thing that has changed, though, is the willingness of Christians (evangelical? All of us? I don't know) to be publicly honest about failure and weakness. Christians have always sat in Church and listened to sermons about how sinful they are and how much they need to repent. Christians have always read books inspiring them to be better people. But in the public conversation, in the process of creating an image for what Christians were, there was a hard shell of propriety, a deep desire not to show any fractures to the world, despite the bumper sticker sentiment, "Christians aren't perfect; just forgiven." I do think that the public image, as crafted and presented by Christians, of what the ideal Christian is, has shifted, or is in the process of doing so, and that image is far more likely to include public acknoweldgement of sin, temptation and weakness than it was a few decades ago.

That's intriguing.

There are a lot of other questions that Sharlet's article inspires. What, if anything, does this chastity talk among evangelicals, owe to Roman Catholic and Orthodox thinking? This guy? Is there any substantive shift in the way evangelicals are talking about chastity? Are they adopting a subtely sacramental tone? Is this perhaps another consequence of the insistence of engaging with the world rather than retreating from it?

And what about the Catholics, anyway? I'm sure there are some radical chaste Catholics out there making the scene, too.. and I'm not being sarcastic. Really!

An Early Word

John Allen got it done before the long weekend, this time

Conversations with a couple of archbishops, in town for their pallia, of course, an interesting note about the Mass yesterday:

After expressing greetings to Patriarch Bartholomew I in his homily, Benedict conceded that Rome and Constantinople are still divided over the interpretation of the Petrine office, but stressed a number of areas where there is strong agreement: "We are together in apostolic succession, we are profoundly united with one another in terms of episcopal ministry and the sacrament of the priesthood, and we confess together the same faith of the apostles as it is given to us by Scripture and as it is interpreted in the great Councils," the pope said, drawing strong applause.

Even Benedict XVI's body language bespoke ecumenical concern.

During the entrance procession at the beginning of the June 29 Mass, Benedict walked straight up the central aisle of St. Peter's Basilica. He made a point, however, of walking over to Metropolitan Johannes, who was leading the delegation from Constantinople, and shaking hands.

Later, when the Mass had ended and Benedict walked down under the main altar to pray briefly before the remains of St. Peter, he was positioned by papal liturgist Archbishop Piero Marini with Johannes behind him. Benedict shuffled to the side and motioned to Johannes to join him, and the two stood side by side.

More on the canonization process for JP2, a Scriptural conference held this week, and some notes on the Compendium and the Pope's new book.

Not forgotten

Catholic Relief Services has a page on their ongoing and long-term efforts to rebuild those areas impacted by last December's tsunami

Via Professor Bainbridge

Marriage, marriage everwhere

And not a mixed-gender couple in sight. Or whatever.

Canadian bill passes one house

Spain's parliament gives final approval.

Aside from the usual discussions that come with this territory, what I'm particularly interested in is the possibility of civil disobedience. Most of the civil servants in Spain are Roman Catholic. There are, of course, a few Catholics in Canada as well.  And in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Has the Church..aka local ordinaries..in these countries addressed the question of the participation of Catholic government employees in these unions? Where does this fall on the spectrum of conscience-bending activities that Catholics might "have to" participate in in order to keep their jobs or even just be a part of a civil society? (paying taxes that go to support causes that violate our conscience...dispensing contraceptives...etc)  How far will it go before people who are opposed to various government-supported and funded activities will have to check out? When will Caesar be asking too much? Or can he ever?

Did Bono Swim the Tiber

TMatt wonders, based on a Fred Barnes piece. I sort of don't think so...a lot of people assume Bono's Catholic. Irish = Catholic, Ian Paisley notwithstanding.

New ND Prez

Fr. John Jenkins replaces Fr. Malloy

He was actually elected over a year ago

A profile from the ND magazine

Jenkins joined the philosophy faculty in South Bend in 1990 and over the years has taught such courses as Faith and Reason; Wisdom: A Study of the Concept in the Bible, Plato and Nietzsche; and Human Inquiry and Divine Revelation. He is the author of Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas, published by Cambridge University Press in 1997. Last year, while on sabbatical, he continued work on a book about Saint Augustine.

Besides teaching philosophy, from 1997 until he joined the provost's office in 2000 Jenkins served as religious superior of Holy Cross priests and those brothers assigned to Notre Dame. One of the responsibilities that goes with this post is to serve as an ex-officio or non-elected member of the highest governing bodies of the University: the Board of Trustees and the Board of Fellows. The latter is a 12-member oversight body made up of six lay persons and six CSCs. It elects the trustees, among other functions. Jenkins relinquished those posts when he became vice president and associate provost four years ago.

On air

FYI...Jason Torres will be on Larry King Live tonight

Here's the transcript. Jason's brother Justin was on as well.

From Staten Island

Another article on the RE flap

Attendance at a total of three Saturday night masses and six Sunday masses at St. Charles averages about 3,500 per week, out of an approximate parish enrollment of 10,000 people.

"Everyone is struggling to get people in," the monsignor said. "We've got to do something."

The Rev. Michael Cichon, pastor of St. Joseph-St. Thomas R.C. Parish in Pleasant Plains, chose a radical course of action when he notified parents of 300 students in the religious education program that they weren't eligible for enrollment in the fall because they have been too often absent from the pews.

Father Cichon "did what a lot of us would like to do," Father Bergin said. "Most of us understand where he's coming from."

Parishes track mass attendance for children in their religious education programs and elementary schools, but Father Cichon is perhaps the first to remove students from the program. He said he will not budge from his stance, despite an outcry from the parents involved.

Talking Head

Yes, I spoke last night at a chapter meeting/dinner of Legatus - the Ann Arbor chapter. Very nice event, good people.

About a week ago, I spoke with a Legatus person, who said, "And you'll be speaking on "Prove It" stuff, right?"

Uh...right. That's it. Good thing he mentioned it, or I'd had have gone up, ready to do the DVC battle. As usual.

It turned out well, though. There were several teens and young adults present, and in the middle of the talk, a really important point came to me, one that ties together the Prove It kind of stuff with the Here Now kind of stuff, a point that I was able to end my talk with, even if I didn't develop it fully because, well, I'd just thought of it. But it intrigues me, and I'm grateful for that little flash. I'm going to try to write it up. Soon.

The dinner was preceded by a Mass, celebrated by an Italian priest who works with mentally disabled children and youth at a home a few miles west of Ann Arbor. There was another religious present - a brother - and on the way home I asked my host/driver who that was, and he told me of the "chain" of homes for "problem" youth from seriously troubled backgrounds that he runs, serving about 3,000 youth at any one time. The same host/driver's wife is working very hard to build up one of the Crisis Pregnancy Centers in Ann Arbor and making it more accessible/attractive to the college population who might need its services.

And I thought...the good that is being done all around us, so quietly, that never makes the papers, that we probably drive by all the time and never notice.

Well, okay, since it seems to fit this point, I'll tell you my little flash of cunning rhetoric that came to me.

My talk was all about answering questions...questions we're asked by non-believers (How can you believe in God? Are you stupid/blind or something) and non-Catholics (How can you claim that your non-Bible only Church is a Christian church at all? And you actually think you're saved?). I gave some general pointers.

But...you know what? As important as it is to meet this questions intelligently and confidently when we're asked, the greater responsibility of the disciple goes far deeper and beyond these issues of apologetics, as we call them.

We're called to be holy. To love God with our whole beings and to love our neighbors. To serve. To pour ourselves out, as Sts. Peter and Paul did. Our goal is to be asked questions...but perhaps another kind of question should be our hope.

For what happens when we encounter a person whom we know is holy?

Yes, we ask a question.

But it's a different sort of question.

Faced with a person of obvious holiness, we don't even ask, for a second, to ask them to "prove" what they believe is true, or try to convince them that what they profess is false or wrong-headed.

We ask a different sort of question.

We ask, "Where does your joy come from? Who gave it to you? Can I meet that person, too?"

Yes, we want questions. All the time. Preferably, the second kind, of course.

...Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope...(1 Peter 3:15, thanks to Fr. Wilson)

British Doctors Doing Their Best

Two stories:

British Medical Association drops euthanasia opposition

The same BMA overwhelmingly rejects calls to reduce the upper limit on abortions from 24 to 20 weeks

When Jesus Came To Surrey

Fascinating article about a British millionaire who has turned his estate into a venue for religiously-themed theater

The son of a market gardener, Hutley amassed a £110m fortune in property development, and bought Wintershall in the early 1960s. At the time, his wife, Ann, was suffering from depression. When she heard about sightings of the Virgin Mary at Medjugorje in Bosnia, she went on pilgrimage to the site, converted to Catholicism and was "cured". Her husband followed suit, and decided to dedicate his life to God.

He started writing plays for the Nativity and the Passion at Wintershall, but was inspired to write something much bigger after Pope John Paul II declared 1999 the year of preparation for the millennium. "Everyone was talking about parties and the Dome," says Hutley. "But there wouldn't be a millennium without Jesus."

It took him 14 months to write The Life of Christ; the response was astounding, and the play has run every year since. It regularly attracts audiences of 3,000, from all over the UK, Europe and even Australia. Hutley now employs a director, three assistant directors, nine stage managers and teams for sound production, props and wardrobe. "And, of course," he adds, "my own staff are trained in what has to be done and when."

Hutley is honest about his motives for The Life of Christ: "I'm not into theatre - I just wanted to reach as many people as possible. We all need Christianity to help us grow up. We're all babies. We need a daddy."

The estate's website

(They also produce organically produced beef)

Up and back

Went to Ann Arbor yesterday for a talk, now I'm back. Will be working and blogging this afternoon, especially since rain is a comin'

p:

Grandmother Nun

Up Milwaukee way..

When Regala's husband, Emilio Regala Jr., a physician, died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1992, she felt lost.

Her children were carrying on their lives, some living in Hawaii and Florida. So, she sold the family home in Hartford and went to Florida with Catholic Volunteers to provide health services for migrant workers' children after Hurricane Andrew. When she returned, she went on religious retreats, visited all of her children, and she explored some religious orders.

While in Milwaukee's SS Peter & Paul Church with her daughter in 1996, she saw a Salvatorian vocations card on a bulletin board and acted.

Now known as Sister Letty, she lives with other sisters at St. Pius X Parish in Wauwatosa, and she assists her order's vocations efforts. Her formation process has included serving as a chaplain and pastoral team member in Arizona, doing pastoral care in a Wisconsin nursing home, and having an immersion experience with Salvatorian sisters in Brazil.

George on Cuomo

At NRO, Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews Robert George in re/ Embyronic Stem Cells, and specifically Cuomo's NYT op-ed

Robert P. George: One really does wish that Governor Cuomo would defend his views with arguments. If he really thinks that human embryos are something other than human beings at the earliest stage of their natural development, he should state his reasons for believing such a thing. He should explain to us the basis of his judgment, if it is indeed his judgment, that every major text in the field of human embryology is simply in error on the point. After all, the question of whether a human embryo is or is not a whole living member of the species Homo sapiens is not one to be resolved in the mind of any conscientious citizen or morally serious policymaker by examining public-opinion polling data.

At the same time, it should be noted that Cuomo doesn't even manage to do justice to public-opinion polls on the question of embryo-killing. For what it is worth, polls stating the question in an unbiased fashion tend to show that a majority of Americans do not support the practice of destroying human embryos for biomedical research, and certainly oppose the creation of embryos by cloning for research — so-called "therapeutic cloning" — or any other purpose.

Busy day

After Mass, the Pope appeared at the Wednesday General Audience, in which he asked for the prayers of the people for him, the Bishop of Rome:

In a reference to ecumenical affairs, the Pope prayed "that the Virgin Mary will grant us that the Petrine ministry of the Bishop of Rome will not be considered a stumbing block but an aid on the path to unity." After the Angelus audience, the Pontiff went to the St. Martha residence, where he shared a midday meal with the members of the Orthodox delegation.

Many who like to spout of meaningless tropes have accused B16 of wanting to "take the Church back to the Middle Ages." Michael has maintained, and I agree that if you mean the Church of 1000....you might be right.

Story Time

One of the more fashionable ways of talking about faith these days is to use the image of the "story."

We're told that what faith is essentially all about is finding a "story" (or "narrative" or "myth") that is meaningful to you, that fits, that informs your life and gives you strength for your journey.

And, of course your story is not mine, nor is it necessarily anyone else's. And, since the meaningful story is so personal and individual, it is the height of intolerance to question anyone else's story into which they've chosen to live, pray and find meaning.

It's really important, for spiritual wholeness, that you find a meaningful story to give shape to your journey.

As for me, my life is already being poured away as a libation, and the time has come for me to be gone. I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith; all there is to come now is the crown of righteousness reserved for me, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that Day; and not only to me but to all those who have longed for his Appearing.
The Lord stood by me and gave me power, so that through me the whole message might be proclaimed for all the pagans to hear; and so I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from all evil attempts on me, and bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Well. Good for Paul and his story.

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets’. ‘But you,’ he said ‘who do you say I am?’ Then Simon Peter spoke up, ‘You are the Christ,’ he said ‘the Son of the living God’. Jesus replied, ‘Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.’

Ah. Good that Peter, too, found a meaningful story. Not that it was necessary, but it's nice that Jesus affirmed him in the story.

One can say much - quite a lot - about Sts. Peter and Paul. In them, we see the essence of the Christian life. They are a quick, dirty answer to the accusation that Christians are about unrealistic ideals, angelism and denial of the realities of human life: two admittedly flawed human beings, whose flaws Christian tradition has made no effort to hide, whom God used, not just despite, but somehow within and through their weakness - Peter's impetuousness and simplicity (in worldly terms), Paul's passion and personal history. This is what being a disciple is about: not denying who we are, but turning it over to God and letting Him use it. Pouring out the gift of life, so that God can bring even more, deeper and richer life out of it.

Returning to my original point, it's also a day to confront the lie, that has indeed infected the way Catholics talk about spirituality, that this journey is all about finding that blasted story. What an insult to the martyrs. What a violation of their experience of Christ, which was no page-turner, but the encounter with the Living One, whose impact on them was such that they could not but say "yes" when he called them to follow.

Not to just keep telling a story and inviting others to groove to it if they feel like it, either. But called to invite others to meet that same Living One and be saved, reconciled and redeemed by Him.

This day has been consecrated for us by the martyrdom of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. It is not some obscure martyrs we are talking about. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. These martyrs had seen what they proclaimed, they pursued justice by confessing the truth, by dying for the truth.

St. Augustine, from the Office of Readings for today

Roman Tidbits

Gleaned from a couple of entries from my dad's Rome journal:

The street shots are from our windows. One, of the two men, one standing and one seated, is of the mystery establishment. Ever since we arrived, we have been trying to figure out what was going on across the street. On many evenings, that table is there. At other times cars are parked inside the tub/shrub barriers. A few people move in and out. Is it an exclusive club? Staff are dressed in white shirts, red neckerchiefs and waist sashes. More recently, from time to time we hear a group singing lustily, often accompanied by an accordion--by the way, the accordion has not lost its popularity on the streets of Rome; there are even barely pubescent boys can be seen pumping away at the sidewalk tables of restaurants--and always including Volare. Hmmm. At 7:30 this evening a group of 42, no doubt a tour group we surmised, strolled down the street and inside. Sure enough, in what seemed to be no time at all, Volare!

And then, moments from the Italian Open:

Then we hopped a taxi to Foro Italico and picked up a couple of panini.There were a couple of interesting doubles matches on Pallacorda, so I started there and Hilary went to Campo Centrale for singles. The first match was Novak and Robredo vs. Bhupathi and Woodbridge. The second was the Bryan brothers vs. Paes and Zimonjic. Hilary came back over for that. We met and chatted with an American couple whose life in retirement is following tennis, especially the Bryan brothers, in the US and now and then abroad. They are here for the entire two weeks and are sitting in the foreground of the picture with Hilary concentrating on the match.

When it was over, we returned to center court for Agassi vs. Hrbaty and Nadal, a fabulous young Spanish player who later won the French Open, vs. Stepanek. Then it was arreviderci time. My new best friend, Maurizio Marucci, and I exchanged addresses. He had seats on the second row down from us with a gorgeous young woman with whom he, a portly and not very well dressed sort, was quite affectionate, and who left about halfway through the afternoons. Wow, I thought, these Italian guys really know how to get it done. Turns out she is his daughter who had to leave to go to work. But he kept her up to date re the matches via telephone. He has had week-long seats for both the men's and women's tournament for many years. Professionally, he is a financial journalist with Eilsole24Ore, a news service much like Bloomberg, covering the Chicago futures market.

On the way out, we ran into Bud Collins, the tennis journalist and commentator, and chatted with him a bit. Of course he did not remember us, but he was most pleasant as he had been in previous encounters in New York and Key Biscayne.

Another day in Rome

5/13....

San Clemente is small in size but especially rich in history, even for Rome. There are three levels open for examination. The church of today was built in the 12th century The next level down dates from the 4th century. Beneath that are a maze of chambers and corridors that in the 2nd century had housed a pagan temple dedicated to Mithras. Earlier than this, they are believed to have been the home of St. Clement.

We arrived at San Giovanni around 11 only to find numerous police and barricades all around. It turns out that the church has been cleared and closed to the public in anticipation of the pope's visit several hours later to meet with Rome's religious community. A crowd was already gathering--the picture of Hilary is on its fringe--in anticipation. It was at this event that Benedict announced that he was putting the beatification of JP II on a fast track. After walking from the rear of the church where the pope was to enter around to the front, we cut over to the stop for the tram that would take us directly to FAO. Fortunately, there was time enough before it came for Hilary to brighten the day of a young child in a stroller. Interestingly, we got into a conversation on the tram with an American now living in Guatemala whose son was about to graduate from John Cabot.

The massive FAO building, located near the Baths of Caracalla and Circus Maximus, dates back to the 1930s and was built to house the bureaucrats in charge of Mussolini's empire, namely Ethiopia. After we signed in, Miriam came down to meet us and we proceeded to the executive dining room. Very, very nice, but not elegant. There were just a few others dining there. The food was quite good, and Miriam was a gracious and interesting hostess. Without going into gruesome details here, she does not a great deal of confidence in the competence of those in charge of the organization.

After lunch we saw some of the building, took a couple of pictures, and stopped by Miriam's office. She is a dedicated collector of books, prints, posters and bric-a-brac of all kinds with very good taste. Her office shows it. I doubt that there are few offices of government bureaucrats anywhere in the world that could match hers in a decor contest. There was another stop along the way before we left, a shop operated by one of the FAO employee organizations, where Hilary was able to add to her purse collection, with a silk scarf to boot.

Update...

Well, not really an update, but some interesting information on the Staten Island parish in which the pastor expelled the 300 non-Mass attending families from religious ed.

Bill Cork found this article, from the NCR(egister), in which the pastor in question describes the positive effect Communion and Liberation has had on his parish.

Father Michael Cichon, pastor of St. Joseph and St. Thomas, approved the movement’s establishment there after speaking with Father Veras. He says Communion and Liberation has been a welcome addition to the parish. Living a Catholic way of life “is something the Gospel calls us to do” and groups such as Communion and Liberation are proof that the Holy Spirit is working in the Church today, he said.

The movement’s members at the parish “have opened themselves to a greater living of the Catholic lifestyle,” Father Cichon said. “They continually expand and invite other people through their devotion, their study of scripture, their active ministry and the style of their life.”

He said it’s especially important that younger members of the parish be involved in movements such as Communion and Liberation.

“It’s absolutely essential, not just of for the sake of the future but for the sake of what God offers a community like our parish today,” Father Cichon says. “We are people who need the graces of our young people to meet the challenges of what the Gospel calls us to do. They have insight that comes out through their enthusiasm and their sense of freedom. We can learn from that.”

I really would be interested in hearing more about what led up to his decision...if anyone runs across an article that's helpful, please post.

By "decision," I mean the original religious ed decision..not the C & L decision. To clarify.

Confirmation in Rome

In which Dad and Hilary stumble upon a bishop...

Our plan had been to go to St. Peter's for an 11 o'clock mass, but we were late in getting ready to go and did not leave ourselves time enough, given the vagaries of bus service on Sunday. So we decided to go on across the river as we had intended on doing after the service there. On Via della Trastevere, on our way to the bus stop, we passed by a small church dating back to the 8th century, San Crisogono. There was a procession forming outside the church featuring an older cleric in red vestments and white mitre. We made a quick decision to attend the service and found seats in the rear just before the procession entered.

It consisted of the priest we had first spotted, several others, and 12 young people being confirmed, two of whom were boys. (My impression last Sunday at first communion was that the girls vastly outnumbered the boys. Based upon the names listed in the program, I later concluded that the score was 27 girls and 8 boys.) I have no clue as to what accounts for these disparities.

The church is attractively decorated, appropriately lit, and quite small compared to Santa Maria, and it was packed. As the service proceeded, moved along at appropriate places by a small all female choir accompanied by a guitar providing music of a traditional sort, I was struck by continuing confusion on the part of our fellow worshipers as to when to stand, when to sit, and when to kneel. As non-Catholics, we look to parishioners for our cues, especially when the service is in a language foreign to us, but the cues we discerned usually were ambiguous, because the others were not sure what they were supposed to be doing either. It was different at Santa Maria. And the responses here were much weaker and more tentative than last Sunday.

Several nuns were in attendance more or less managing the confirmees, setting up and overseeing the table in the rear where each lit candles for placement at the alter, and no doubt cueing them in various ways.

We were curious as to the identity of the older priest who said the mass. It was obvious that he was an honored guest. When the service concluded, I moved to the front and addressed one of the younger priests who, unfortunately did not speak English. He turned to a parishioner standing nearby who had a bit of English, but not much, who in turn brought in his young daughter who proved to be an adequate translator. After the priest understood my interest, he excused himself and returned with a piece of note paper on which was written, "Filippo Giammini, vescovo emerito settore Centro di Roma." I think this translates into bishop emeritus of central Rome.

When the service concluded, we went just a few steps to a restaurant for lunch, which was quite decent. then a few steps further to the bus stop. But # H did not come, and did not come, so we grabbed a taxi for Piazza de Poppolo. We had a special mission to fulfill, successfully, at the leather shop, which I am not a liberty to reveal here. Fortunately, Hilary's new best friend from our last visit was there, and the picture records their reunion.

Then it was on to Spanish Steps. Hilary's coral purse acquired Friday at FAO naturally requires its own pair of gloves. Unfortunately, the glove shop was closed, and we settled for gelato.

Last night Stefano suggested we search the stalls at Piazza Repuiblica for prints. So we took the metro to Termini and walked to the piazza a couple of blocks away. Most stalls were closed, but we chatted with one voluble fellow who deals in used books and who has a deep interest in the War between the States. He related a very amusing anecdote about Gen. Ben Butler and a young Reb soldier after the war was over. If anyone wants it, let me know, but I won't bother to include it here.

Memorialize This

In NCR, Joe Feuerherd discusses the bishops' meeting, starting with the "Christ Has Died" question

The normally taciturn archbishop of New York, Cardinal Edward Egan, was positively animated. “I really believe the pastoral consideration has to prevail here,” implored the 73-year-old Egan. “We have to stop this… [and] not give the impression that everything is up for grabs.”

Egan’s topic at the June 16-18 meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was not consequences for priests who abuse minors, though that was the agenda. Nor was he addressing the death penalty, Catholic schools, lay ecclesial ministry or priestly formation -- all subjects of discussion and deliberation at the three-day meeting.

Instead, Egan’s passions were piqued by a proposal that would have scrapped “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again” as one of four “memorial acclamations” included in the Mass’s Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Egan had allies. It is “time for common sense” to prevail, said Youngstown, Ohio, Bishop Thomas Tobin, who rose in support of a prayer that “is very well known and very useful for our people.” Mobile Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb, calling it a “very valid act of faith,” offered a proposal to restore the acclamation.

Arguing for its elimination was Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pa., chairman of the bishops’ Liturgy Committee. The acclamation, first adopted in 1970, is not found in the Ordo Missae, the Order of the Mass, nor is it a translation from Latin, said Trautman. Further, said Trautman, unlike the other acclamations -- such as, “Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus” -- the “Christ has died” acclamation is “more an assertion of the Paschal Mystery, rather than a unique expression of the gathered assembly of its own incorporation into the Paschal Mystery.”

Chicago Cardinal Francis George, until recently chairman of the bishop’s Liturgy Committee, suggested that action on the recommendation might be premature, that it could wait until the new Latin language Roman Missal is received in the United States. Gently reminded that it was under his leadership that the committee initially made its recommendation to remove the acclamation, George looked surprised.

“I was wrong,” he deadpanned.

Cleared?

Grand Jury in Dallas delivers its findings

Dallas County District Attorney Bill Hill announced Monday that he will not bring charges against local Catholic leaders over their handling of sexual misconduct allegations.

A special grand jury impaneled in February "has found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of the diocese or its officials," the district attorney said in a news release

However....

From the DMN (requires registration)

The district attorney's office is continuing its prosecution of the Rev. Matthew Bagert, a Grand Prairie priest whose February arrest on child pornography charges helped trigger the broader investigation.

Father Bagert was not asked to testify before the special grand jury, said his attorney, Patrick McLain.

"I think there's still the possibility that this thing could rear its head again," the lawyer said, referring to prosecutors' broader investigation. "I know they haven't gotten to the bottom of things.

"I don't know whether they're interested in looking into the conduct of others, whether they're related to Father Matt or not."

Mr. McLain, who is Catholic and a former federal prosecutor, expressed dismay at the management of his denomination.

"There's just a lot of rot," he said. "I don't know if there's anyone interested, outside the Catholic faithful, in cleaning it up."

Sts. Peter and Paul

Big day in Rome, of course. Here are some links, with more coming:

During the Mass at St. Peter's , Pope Benedict bestowed the pallium on 32 Archbishops, including Fiorenza from Houston

Though it may be a long way to come to see a band of white wool be placed around a clerical neck, the event has drawn nearly 600 of the Houston-area's Catholic faithful.

"I think it is a great honor to have an archbishop," said Sandy Ramirez of St. John the Fisher Catholic Church in Richmond.

"To see him get vested, we are participating in history," added Cynthia Felan, a fellow St. John parishioner.

The practice of bestowing the pallium on new archbishops from around the world is an ancient tradition that was revived by Pope John Paul II, said the Rev. R. Troy Gately, vice chancellor of the archdiocese and leader of the local pilgrimage to Rome.

The ritual is observed annually on June 29, the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul.

The crowd from Galveston-Houston is expected to be one of the largest to attend the annual ritual in which newly named archbishops receive the sign of their office, Gately said.

And, consistent with tradition, he addressed the Orthodox who were present:

In his homily, Benedict stressed the unity and universality of the church, but acknowledged key differences over the clout of the pope. The Orthodox see equal distribution of power among their churches, although Bartholomew is considered "first among equals."

"In this time of the world full of skepticism and doubts, but also rich in the desire for God, let us recognize anew our mission to witness Christ the Lord together, and on the base of that unity that he has given us, to help the world believe," he said.

....During The Mass celebrated the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. At the end of the service, Benedict and the leader of the Orthodox delegation, Metropolitan John of Pergamon, prayed together underneath St. Peter's Basilica at the tomb the faithful believe houses the remains of the apostle Peter.

Heh

How long could Jim Manney run a blog without mentioning baseball?

Not long!

If the frame fits

As predicted in this space many times, the attempt to "reframe" the abortion issue in a way that supposedly appeals to those uncomfortable with abortion by acknowledging its morally problematic nature, is not universally welcomed by abortion rights activists.

Katha Pollit in The Nation

There's a word that doesn't show up much in the new abortion frames: women. Maybe it doesn't poll well. "Reframing" abortion is actually a kind of deframing, a way of taking it out of its real-life context, which is the experience of women, their bodies, their healthcare, their struggles, the caring work our society expects them to do for free. Lynn Paltrow, the brilliant lawyer who runs National Advocates for Pregnant Women, thinks the way to win grassroots support for abortion rights is to connect it to the whole range of reproductive and maternal rights: the right to have a home birth, to refuse a Caesarean section, to know that a miscarriage or stillbirth--or simply taking a drink--will not land you in jail. The same ideology of fetal protection that anti-choicers wield against abortion is used against women with wanted pregnancies. More broadly, Paltrow argues that the right to abortion would have more support if it were presented as just one of the things women need to care for their families, along with paid maternity leave, childcare, quality healthcare for all, economic and social support for mothers and children, strong environmental policies that protect fetuses and children.

But when was the last time you heard a Democrat talk about paid maternity leave? It's been reframed right out of the picture.

Aside from the central point, Katha, why should environmental policies protect fetuses? What's to protect? Who cares? Why?

Slow start

Had some computer problems this morning, but they seemed to be fixed. Will blog as fast as I can before other duties call...

There Ought to be a Law

2 Catholic women from opposites side of the globe are responsible for codifying the law of Uganda

Ann Bateson of Minnesota and Vastina Rukimirana Nsanze of Uganda have a lot in common besides the faith that sustains them. They are both attorneys in their late 50s who were brought together by an unusual goal: refining law and life in Uganda.

Nsanze, Uganda's commissioner of law revision since 1995, returned to Uganda this June after she and Bateson spent 10 years together compiling the scattered laws of Uganda into one cohesive database.

They first worked together 13 years ago when Bateson, now 59, spent a month in Uganda as a consultant to the government on law reform. Nsanze was executive secretary of the Uganda Law Reform Commission.

"My staff thought I was crazy to go," recalled Bateson, a member of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Roseville, who was Minnesota's deputy reviser of statutes for four years and teaches at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul.

Ugandan law had not been codified since 1964.

Moving Fast?

Bishop jointly appointed by Vatican and Chinese government

Mgr Giuseppe Xing Wenzhi, 42 years, was today ordained auxiliary bishop of Shanghai. The prelate said publicly that he received the nomination of the Holy See. In future, he will able to take the place of Mgr Aloysius Jin Luxian, who is now nearly 90 and very ill. Mgr Xing studied in the United States and until today, he was vicar-general of the diocese.

With this move, the Chinese government hopes to find a way of healing the rift between the underground – unofficial – Church and the official Church, which is recognised and registered by the government.

For the Chinese government, accepting a bishop recognised by the Holy See, means setting a single point of reference for the official and underground communities.

Also from AsiaNews: Uzbekistan gets its first RC bishop

Roamin' in Rome

From May 16:

The bus took us to Termini, the main railroad station. From there we walked down to Santa Maria Maggori on Esquiline Hill which dates from the fourth century. Magnificent art and architecture. Another overwhelming experience. Leaving the church, we picked up a few souvenir items in a little shop located in its lower level, then returned in the direction of the station. On the way, we popped into a place for a spot of lunch, IL Cingiale on Via Gioberti. We were going to take away, but the proprietor, or "the driver" as a young waiter labeled him, insisted that we sit down and eat--there were just a few tables there. He was gracious, witty and considerate, so amid much banter we each had a hot and delicious sandwich of ham, mozzarella and tomato, and free bottles of water, no gas, thrown in.

When we reached the station, we turned left toward Piazza Republica a couple of blocks away. We did the 10 or so stalls but found nothing interesting in the book and print department.

Santa Maria degli Angeli, which incorporates what remains of the Baths of Diolcletian, is just across the piazza. The interior of the church is super spare compared with most churches in Rome. The most interesting feature is La Meridiana, both a clock and calendar utilizing a small hole in the dome through which light flows making its mark on a long brass rod embedded in the floor of the right transept.

As we were examining this, we began to chat with a couple from Hutchinson, KS, he's an optometrist, who are on a 30 day pilgrimage around Italy seeking out the sites Eucharistic miracles. I don't know how Amy came up, but she did and the lady was absolutely stunned and thrilled to meet her dad and step mother in this particular place. She had read DVC and other Amy writings and can only be characterized as a true fan.

Leaving the church, we turned down Via Nazionale in the direction of Piazza Venezia, at some point turning north to go up Quirinale Hill to what is now the presidential palace, before that the king's, and before that a summer residence of popes. On the way, I had my picture taken with Carlo Alberto, who was king of part of what is now Italy in the first half of the 19th century and whose son was Vittorio Emanuelle I. The palace is beyond huge. Its main entrance, guarded by a handful of troops, is on a large open courtyard. It was about 2:45 when we arrived, and we strolled about and sat a bit on a bench to enjoy the sun, sharing it with a couple of men with suit coats on their arms. I was super curious about what went on inside the palace given its tremendous size and the rather limited role that the president of Italy plays, but the language barrier was at work and I failed to get the info I was looking for.

About this time, we noticed some additional police were on the scene, some barriers were being set up, and soon thereafter we were shooed out of the courtyard. We walked out with a fellow we had just met, Don Soeffing from Manhattan, "silver historian, author, lecturer, appraiser." As we crossed the street, drums sounded in the distance and came closer and closer. Up a curving street coming up from behind the palace was a military band of 30 or so followed by a troop of about 50 soldiers. The changing of the guard. They marched into the courtyard and took positions. Then out of the palace marched the troops being relieved, each carrying a blue standard. When all were in position, the troops collectively sang the national anthem. (Watching them marching in and out of the courtyard, I suspect that they were chosen more for their vocal than their fighting abilities.) After a fair amount of stomping about, more music, and exchange of standards, the relief troops entered the place and those relieved, led by the band, marched out of the courtyard onto the street and back down the hill. All in all, a fairly colorful scene. This was one of those unplanned and unexpected moments that add so much to wandering about a place like Rome.

As we moved down the hill to Venezia, I took an opportunity to vote against the European constitution.

We haven't forgotten Rome

My father has been updating his journal of their Rome trip, but I've been negligent about posting them...so here we go. I'm going to work backwards because I'm lazy, and some will just be posted in excerpts -  but here goes - May 18, their adventures in the seat of Italian government:

At dinner with Carole a week ago, she agreed to arrange for us to visit the Chamber of Deputies in session. She thought Wednesday would be best, because the most important matters usually are brought up in the middle of the week. They are in session Tuesday through Friday, with most members returning home on Friday. Many are not present for either Tuesday or Friday. We had not heard from her, so Hilary called at 8. She said call back in ten minutes, which Hilary did. The website, Carole said, showed nothing exciting, a non-controversial treaty ratification and an agro-tourism bill. She took our birth dates and passport numbers to fax in, which she would do immediately, and instructed us to go to the door on the Piazza del Parlamento side of the building marked #25 in time for the session scheduled to start at 11.

This proved to be a true E-tah-lee experience. We got to #25 at 10:30 or so, but it was locked. We went to #24 at the other end of the building. After going through security in a small lobby, we went to the "ticket window" and were met there with pleasant but firm nos. We were not on any list. Besides, the entrance for the likes of us was #25. Although their English was limited, the uniformed folks there seemed to understand what was going on and were sympathetic to our plight. Telephone calls were made. We were then taken a little further into the building where were turned over to a very nice reception official, also uniformed, who knew Carole. She had good English. After checking lists and making calls, she asked if she might call Carole which, of course, was fine. She did, and then I spoke with Carole. "They ----ed up," saith Carole, who is quite forthright. They lost her fax. She refaxed, and in ten minutes we had our approval. As we were leaving, Hilary admired the small bow in the colors of the Italian flag our fried was wearing on her uniform, which she generously presented to the American guest.

Then it was back to #25, where we were greeted with some deference and escorted up to the visitor's gallery.

It was now about 11, but the session did not get underway until 11:30. So we cooled our heels. As the session began, we were given very strict instructions re decorum--much like the US House and Senate. Here, however, men are not to cross their legs, and when I did, I was reprimanded. The ornate, paneled chamber is majestic, a high domed ceilinged amphitheater with tiered seating for members. The visitor boxes, each seating about 20 people ring the chamber above the members' seats. There were just a handful of us.

Debate was getting underway as we were seated and the business at hand, the treaty I assume, was taken up expeditiously. The government benches were sparsely attended. Across form them were seated the members managing the measure. About six of them spoke. There were frequent votes, 14 while we were there according to my count, conducted electronically. On these, there were around 400 of more than 600 members casting votes and they were all near unanimous.

After about 30 minutes, a recess was declared and we had to leave the chamber. According to the attendant, there was absolutely no way of predicting when they might resume. So we decided to leave. We had sampled the atmosphere of the place, and I had gotten an impression of the floor--the chatter, the buzz, taking and making phone calls, working on notebooks, ambling about greeting one another and whispering in one another's ears. It brought to mind the Texas House of Representatives in the 1950s when I worked two sessions there as a university student.

Our friend who arranged our entrance asked us to come back by when we were finished with the Chamber and she would show us around a bit. We did so for that purpose and to thank her again, but she had gone out.

We spent a little time in the Chamber's store in a nearby building and picked up a few small items. On our way out, we saw on the television feed that they were back at work, now on the agro-tourism bill, but we did not make an effort to go back in.

It was lunch time, and we searched the area for a place we had eaten in before and liked, but it was not to be found. We wound up at LaFonella on Piazza Borghese, an upscale place. We shared hot grilled vegetables. Hilary had spaghetti canbanara in a great sauce and a 4 euro Coke. I had gnocchi in black truffle sauce. After eating, since were at the piazza, we checked out the print and book stalls again to no avail.

Next stop was the Vatican, which we reached by taxi. I had forgotten that today is Wednesday, that there had been an audience this morning meaning that St. Peter's had been closed, and thus it was likely that the crowd this afternoon would be quit large. And it was when we got there around 3. It did not take us long to get in, hover, and we spent and hour and a half there, but essentially suffering the same problems and distractions that I described after our previous visit.

I was able to spend some quiet moments in the Chapel of St. Sebastian, however. The little fellow in the picture is the only person I saw truly at peace.

Shelby Foote, RIP

He passed away last night, at the age of 88.

You know him, of course, as a Civil War historian and narrator of the Ken Burns series. Some of us also know him as one of the late Walker Percy's closest friends - they met when they were teenagers in Greenville, Mississippi, Walker having moved there, in with his uncle William Alexander Percy, after the death, first of his father, and then his mother. Part of their correspondence is preserved in this book, well worth a read:

See..

Inspired by a comment.

With real, live destructive cults (see below) around, why do fiction writers (see.um...you know who)..have to create conspiracies where there are none?

I mean, in some cases, truth really is stranger than fiction.

But I guess Truth has better lawyers, too...

Decaloguing

In listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR yesterday, I heard one of the participants in the discussion on the 10 Commandments ruling opine that secularists were spending a lot of energy on religious symbols cases, and not coming out with any clear victories on them, and meanwhile they were losing in the more substantive area of government - religion interesection: school vouchers and government support for faith-based charities.

In other words, I suppose he was saying, stop wasting your time on granite plaques, secularists...

Discussions at SCOTUS and Mirror of Justice. From Rick Garnett at the latter:

For me, the most striking (for now, anyway) thing to come out of the decisions is Justice Breyer's putting at the center of the Establishment Clause inquiry his predictions and observations about "political divisiveness" and "social conflict."  In his view, it appears that avoiding social dissension is more than a policy desideratum or a prudent aspiration. It is, somehow, a fundamental, judicially enforceable religion clause "principle".  This view takes us back to then-Chief Justice Warren Burger's statement, in the landmark case of Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), that "political division along religious lines was one of the principal evils against which the First Amendment was intended to protect."  Burger foresaw "considerable political activity" on the part of "partisans of parochial schools," and would have none of it.  Such activity, he feared, "would tend to confuse and obscure other issues of great urgency."

As I've said before, it is not clear why our political, cultural, and other "divisions" should be relevant to the legal question of whether a particular policy is constitutionally permissible.

Losing Her Religion

Scientology Day, baby!

I guess we can all be grateful to Tom Cruise for bringing this fine "religion" into its most recent moment of glory.

Katie Holmes is from Toledo, so the Toledo paper took a look last week:

The open-ended view of God means that Scientology does not contradict any other religious tradition and that people of all faiths can practice Scientology, Ms. Stanard said.

"As Scientology deals with a person as a spiritual being, a person can be a member of another church as well as a Scientologist," she said.

Mike Delaware, an executive secretary of the church in Battle Creek, Mich., described Scientology as "all-denominational."

Many people who become Scientologists stay active in other faith communities, he said, adding that if Katie Holmes joins the Church of Scientology, there is no reason she could not continue to be a practicing Roman Catholic.

According to Mr. Bromley, however, it's doubtful that anyone who makes a genuine commitment to Scientology will continue practicing another faith.

Salon is in the midst of a 4-part series on Scientology (I haven't been reading Salon for ages...mostly because of the ad thing, which annoyed me, but also was hard to deal with on the Old Computer. But New Computer....aha!), and here's Laura Miller's fantastic piece on Dianetics

"Dianetics" belongs to a category of books that will be instantly familiar to anyone who's done time reading the slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts for a book publisher. This kind of book is typically an explanation of life, the universe and everything written by a choleric gentleman (often a retired military officer) who has holed up in a converted basement or former kid's bedroom to hammer out his ideas about how the world works -- ideas that have for too long been disregarded by the incompetents and assholes around him. (If you are not familiar with this sort of book, know that you have the slush pile readers of America to thank for that.)

(Heh. Michael can sympathize. And even in Catholic publishing - oh so true. If you throw in apparitions to the mix, of course)

Yesterday's story, in which another writer speculates on Cruise's status within Scientology

According to experts and the church's own literature, OT-VII ("OT" stands for Operating Thetan, "thetan" being the Scientology term for soul) is the penultimate tier in the church's spiritual hierarchy -- the exact details of which are fiercely guarded and forbidden to be discussed even among top members. It is where a Scientologist learns how to become free of the mortal confines of the body and is let into the last of the mysteries of the cosmology developed by the church's longtime leader, science fiction novelist and "Dianetics" author L. Ron Hubbard. This cosmology also famously holds that humans bear the noxious traces of an annihilated alien civilization that was brought to Earth by an intergalactic warlord millions of years ago.

....But one Scientologist who left the church in 2003 after 30 years -- and who had reached the OT-VII level and become a member of the church's governing Sea Org -- said it was his understanding that Cruise was very near completing, if he had not already completed, the OT-VII level. The former Scientologist would speak to Salon only on the condition of anonymity.

A current Scientologist who has reached the level OT-V, and who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that considering the amount of time Cruise has been in the church, an OT-VII status seems probable. And Stephen Kent, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta who has published articles on Scientology and Hollywood, also said that Cruise's behavior strongly suggests OT-VII.

One anti-Scientology site

The Lisa McPherson site (Lisa McPherson was a young woman who died in an untimely, mysterious fashion. Her family and friends blame Scientology)

Compendium Description

Also from VIS - it's not up on their page yet, but will be soon. If you'd like to receive their daily bulletins in your email, all you have to do is click on the link on this page.

Archbishop Angelo Amato S.D.B., secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, explained that the principal characteristics of the compendium are "its strict reliance on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, its text in the form of a dialogue, and its use of images for catechesis." He underlined the fact that this "is not an autonomous work and in no way aims to substitute the Catechism of the Catholic Church, on the contrary it constantly refers back to the Catechism, both by indicating reference numbers and by referring continuously to the structure, development and contents" of the Catechism. The new work, moreover, "aims to awaken a renewed interest and enthusiasm for the Catechism, which ... remains the basic text for ecclesial catechesis today."

  The compendium is divided into four parts, corresponding to the fundamental laws of the life of Christ. The first part, "Profession of Faith," provides a brief summary of the "lex credendi," in other words, the faith professed by the Catholic Church on the basis of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, "the constant proclamation of which in Christian assemblies keeps the principal truths of the faith alive in memory."

  The second part, "Celebration of the Christian Mystery," presents the essential elements of the "lex celebrandi," because "the announcement of the Gospel finds its authentic response in sacramental life, in which the faithful experience ... the salvific power of the Paschal mystery."

  "Life in Christ" is the title of the third part of the compendium, dedicated to the "'lex vivendi,' through which the baptized manifest their commitment to the faith they have professed and celebrated, through their actions and ethical choices."

  The final section, "Christian Prayer," summarizes the "lex orandi," the life of prayer. The Christian is called to a dialogue with God in prayer, one _expression of which is the Our Father, the prayer that Jesus Himself taught us.

  Referring to the fact that the text of the compendium takes the form of a dialogue, the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith noted how this "makes the text notable shorter, reducing it to what is essential. This may help the reader to grasp the contents and possibly to memorize them as well."

  In closing, Archbishop Amato explained the use of images in the book, inviting catechists to make use of the rich heritage of Christian iconography. "In the current culture of images," he observed, "a sacred image can express much more than words. ... It certainly has an aesthetic value, but above all its value is recollective (recalling the mysteries of salvation), catechetical (for teaching and instruction), and theological, because it presents in artistic form the facts and the various aspects of the doctrine of the faith."

More Compendium Presentation News

From the Vatican Information Service:

VATICAN CITY, JUN 28, 2005 (VIS) - This morning in the Clementine Hall, Benedict XVI presided at a liturgical celebration for the official presentation of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

  At the beginning of the ceremony, one of the cardinals who had been part of the special commission charged with compiling the compendium thanked the Holy Father for the book.

  Following the singing of a number of psalms and a reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians, the Pope pronounced his homily.

  Benedict XVI recalled how, ever since the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992, the need had been felt for "a brief, concise catechism, containing all and only the essential and fundamental elements of Catholic faith and morals, formulated in a simple, universally-accessible, clear and succinct manner."

   The Pope said that through the cardinals, bishops, priests, religious, catechists and lay people present at the ceremony, he wished "ideally to consign this compendium to all people of good will who wish to know the unfathomable richness of the salvific mystery of Jesus Christ."

  He continued: "This is certainly not a new catechism, but a compendium that faithfully reflects the Catechism of the Catholic Church" which "maintains intact, then, all its authority and importance, and will find in this summary a valuable support to become better-known and more widely used as a fundamental tool of education in the faith."

  After highlighting that the new compendium "is a renewed announcement of the Gospel," the Holy Father explained how it presents the faith "in a dialogic format" and how "the brevity of the responses favors the essential concision and clarity of communication."

  As for the sacred images that appear at the beginning of each section, Benedict XVI said that they too are "an announcement of the Gospel and express the splendor of Catholic truth, showing the supreme harmony between the good and the beautiful, between the 'via veritatis' and the 'via pulchritudinis'."

  The Pope concluded by thanking everyone who helped prepare the compendium, expressing the desire that it may serve as "a new impulse to evangelization and catechesis."

  Following his homily, the Holy Father distributed various copies of the compendium to a cardinal, a bishop, and various priests, religious and lay people.

Who won and lost

A lengthy article from Chiesa from Sandro Magister and another writer on the Italian Embryo Referendum

Compendium released

In Q & A format...In Italian

Here's the text of the Pope's speech presenting the Compendium...also in Italian

Here's the English

Questions of Governance

From the website Catholic Culture:

Pope John Paul II has been criticized both before and after his death as being a poor ruler because he was a poor disciplinarian. To say that he was a poor disciplinarian implies at least one of three things. First, the Pope was unaware of the need for discipline, out of touch with reality. Second, the Pope tried to discipline but didn’t have the stomach for it and was therefore ineffective. Third, the Pope was attentive to disciplinary matters but simply wasn’t any good at it.

Any of the above would imply that the Pope’s ability to govern effectively was compromised by his poor disciplinary ability. I subscribe to another theory: that the option of discipline in the typical sense was examined, and generally discarded as being inappropriate for the circumstances of our day.

The whole truth...

A reader comments:

This past Saturday night we attended the Mass for the 50th Anniversary of our parish, celebrated by the Archbishop, who introduced the new pastor, who will take over next month. Not mentioned by either the Archbishop or the pastor-designate, probably for obvious reasons, was the priest's last job, except for a veiled reference to "fine administrative work with a difficult situation".

I then read an interesting story on the front page of the Metro Section of this morning's NYT : http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/nyregion/27catholic.html .

The morning after our bishop and our new pastor were extending best wishes to one worshipping community in a rich suburb, these two leaders closed another worshipping community in a poorer part of the County, not all that far away.

I in no way envy them their unpleasant job of consolidating aging and shrinking parishes, but right now I feel that their hierarchical self-congratulations were the height of dishonesty. 

Related: Coping with parish closings in Toledo

This is unrelated to the correspondent's note, but just in general, about parish closings. So very much of this is demographics, and hardly anyone every tries to bring all the numbers together and make sense of it . Parishes bursting in NoVa and Houston (and countless other places), closing in Toledo, Boston, and so on...Given the capital, I've no doubt that you could open scores of new Catholic schools in the Sunbelt and the South, and they'd all be full in a week.

On Tour

St. Thomas relics in India

Warm receptions were accorded to the holy relics of St Thomas Apostle at various Forane Churches and other centres in the district today.

The holy relics were brought here yesterday from Orthona, Italy by Archbishop Mar Joseph Powathil. The relics were brought to the Athirampuzha Forane Church, accompanied by hundreds of vehicles from Nedumbasserry airport and later to the Lourde Forane Church.

Here, but not there...

If anyone would like to explain the 2 Supreme Court rulings on the public display of the 10 Commandments today...please do.

The way it is

In a diocese in Florida, a married priest (Lutheran convert) ministers in a parish. Nice article. He's not allowed to be the pastor of his parish, though.

That honor falls to a man arrested for exposing himself in a public park:

(From 11/15/91 Tampa Tribune)

A Roman Catholic priest from Sarasota pleaded no contest after being arrested during an investigation into complaints men were soliciting sex from other men at a south Hillsborough park and highway rest stop.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter announced the monthlong investigation Thursday. She said that George E. Brennan, 50, was charged Oct. 1 with lewd and lascivious behavior after exposing himself to an undercover deputy at a rest stop on Interstate 75 south .

One presumes that the prohibition of married priests serving as pastors is about "scandal" or "confusing the faithful" or something. I'm sure it is.

Unscientific survey

But still hopeful...from a reader:

Last week you reported a survey of Catholics saying on only 40-something % still believe in the real presence.  Well, this Sunday our Father Willy Raymond polled the congregation.  He reviewed all three questions first.  Then he asked, "who thinks the Eucharist is a great symbol?"  One person raised their hand.  Next, "does anyone think it's more of a 'memorial'?"  Another single congregant raised his hand.  Father Willy was stunned at this point, since the only question left was "who thinks Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, that it is the body and blood of our Lord?"   To that question about 600 raised their hands.   Father Willy smiled and stared at them for the longest moment.

We're talking Los Angeles.   Worse, the West side.   St. Monica's to be exact.  600 to 2.   We're talking the "youth friendly mass."  Teenagers mostly.  Graduates of Catholic Religious Education.  600 to 2.

I'd like to say our Religious Education is pretty good, but I'm more inclined to attribute this to the tears of St. Monica.  That's what brought me in the Church.

Book Notes

First, the Anchoress has kind words for my newest book - which isn't out yet, but actually should be in the next month and a half, or so

From a correspondent, on Here.Now: A Catholic Guide to the Good Life

I converted in 1996 and have been on a very intense and life changing walk ever since.  Of course the intensity changes seasonally, but in general for the last 10 years my life has been seriously oriented towards God and away from the world.  So, when I skimmed the book I thought "I already know all of this" - but I'll read it anyway.

Well, I was very pleasantly surprised!  Yes, I did already know and had in fact put into practice most of the things you mention, but it was very helpful to read your book and focus on "the good life" that comes through Christ.  Your book made me refocus on several parts of my discipleship and was very uplifting. ...

Anyway, thanks for a concise, thoughtful, and action provoking book that is appropriate for Catholics at many different stages of the journey.  I am sure that many folks will "tighten up" their walk and draw closer to Him, from whom all good things flow,  after reading it.

More Church Growth..

In Houston, now...

Monday notes:

Just a couple of re-posts from last week:

People of the Book: a new blog about Catholic publishing

The National Association for Pastoral Musicians wants your input on songs that have made a difference in your life

The Susan Torres Fund: for updates and an opportunity to donate

Supremes

I never blogged about one of the big topics du jour in the blogosphere last week - the Kelo decision, which, from my uninformed perspective seems to be pretty terrible. Would it be incorrect to call it the "Wal-Mart" decision? Or the "Gentrifying Waterfront Development" decision?

Anyway. At Mirror of Justice, much discussion from the Catholic legal perpsective (scroll down), and for today's end-of-term decisions, keep your eye here

Hardball

Staten Island pastor cleaning house

The pastor of a Staten Island Catholic church is playing holy hardball - kicking hundreds of kids out of religious ed classes because their families aren't showing up at Mass.

The Rev. Michael Cichon, pastor of St. Joseph/St. Thomas in Pleasant Plains, used each family's bar-coded donation envelope to track attendance.

He's tossed about 300 kids from classes and told them not to reapply until next April.

Without the classes, children cannot receive the sacraments, meaning some youngsters who thought they'd be making their First Communion next year will have to wait.

Several points:

1)This was not, as you can see from the rest of the article, tied to donations. The pastor says empty envelopes can be turned in - I'm guessing it's how he tracks attendance of registered members.

2) I'm a former DRE, and believe me, this is one of the most nagging and serious issues for all involved in religious ed, and it has a very practical dimension, not to speak of a theological one. Practically, when you have children in class maybe 20 times a year, and that's the time you have to teach them about, say, the Mass, and they're not going to Mass...your impact is, to put it mildly, limited.

3) However, this is the wrong tactic. (Although who knows, perhaps the pastor has tried other things and this is just the last straw) Instead of finding a better way to serve, the population won't be served, period.

4) 150 religious ed fee?

To me, this is symbolic of so much that is wrong with Catholic religious education. When I was DRE, I think I charged a 20 dollar fee to cover texts, and I would have dispensed with that if the pastor had let me. This business of Catholic churches charging for religious ed programs (of all kinds - charging to go to an adult ed session is not unheard of either) is one of the more counter-evangelizing practices out there. There are, of course, costs involved in running a program, but to charge parents, rather than say to the parish as a whole, saying, "This is your responsibility....pay up - (as in, increase your contributions)" - is just wrong and in the end, counterproductive.

I understand the pastor's frustration. The environment in Catholic parishes regarding children has become totally consumer-oriented, just as education in general has - provide this for my kid, give him the paper, so we can move on - and who knows what he's tried up to this point.

But it seems there could be a better way.

Closed Up

The Romanian convent where the nun was killed has been closed - this account at Orthodixie (is there a better blog title? I think not) makes clear it was really a place in the shadows from the word go.

Just As I Am?

Look, when I first read that story, blogged last week, about the Diocese of Brooklyn's reluctance to get officially involved in the Graham Crusade, my first reaction, was "Losers!" and echoed many of your comments along that line. I thought about it for a few minutes, however, and tried, as I usually do, to work it out practically - that's just my habit. I don't deal in the world of abstract statements and ideal situations. I come at things pastorally - how is this going to work out, in real life?

And I couldn't see it. Perhaps it's done elsewhere, but I just couldn't figure out how the Catholic Church could be "officially" involved in the Graham Crusade on terms acceptable to both - without seeming to endorse a theology unacceptable to Catholics or brining a vigorous Catholic presence in, which would probably be unacceptable to many from the Crusade organization, if not most. (For example, at altar call time, having Franciscan Friars of the Renewal ringing the stadium, ready to talk to the Catholics who've been moved by the mission? That would fly? I don't think so.)

Hence my post. And I don't really understand how that's a statement of disrespect for Reverend Graham. Look, there have been lots of great American Protestant preachers, from Jonathan Edwards to Dwight Moody to Billy Graham, and appreciating them on their own terms doesn't require us to join up.

And as I read the accounts of this weekend's Crusade, I felt...oh, shall we say vindicated?

The sermon the first night was on the subject of John 3 - the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. I don't have a text of the entire sermon, but the accounts I read emphasize, naturally enough, being born again. I don't know if he spoke of this part:

"Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.

That is, the "water" part. I don't know if these materials mentioned it:

About 3,000 people responded to the invitation to follow Jesus at the end of Graham's sermon. They were given copies of the Gospel of John and 30-day devotionals by counselors trained to help them clarify the decision they had made

Look, no one is saying that 3000 people coming to the beginnings of a relationship with Christ is a bad thing. No one is saying that the Catholic Church doesn't need to take some sort of lesson from the evangelizing spirit of evangelical preachers. But translating this into an official, sponsoring presence at a Crusade in which the Catholic understanding of rebirth, baptism and faith is undermined makes no sense.

Especially with a scene like this wrapping it up

Graham drew a big laugh from the former president -- who theatrically buried his face in his lap, then threw his head back and closed his eyes with mirth -- when he recalled once saying that Clinton should become an evangelist "and leave his wife to run the country."

"Because he has all the gifts," said Graham, who used a walker but spoke in a strong voice. Graham was effusive about both Clintons, returning to them after the altar call and telling the crowd, "I love them both with all my heart."

Oh, that would be a comfortable moment.

Dawn Eden has a bit more, as well as an account of her good news of beginning RCIA in the fall. Of course, her story begins with a perfect example of why Catholics need to listen to and take some kind of lesson from the Billy Grahams of this world:

I first inquired about RCIA in February at my favorite church, in midtown Manhattan. The parish's RCIA director never returned my message. I already had a bit of an inferiority complex about the place, so rather than try harder to insinuate myself, I decided to look elsewhere.

The rest of the story is better but, hey...parish staff members out there...return inquirers' calls, 'kay?

And congratulations to Dawn - and to all inquirers out there. We're looking forward to reading the RCIA experiences of such a thoughtful, honest writer. We might want to make it required reading for all involved in pastoral ministry out there. It might be good continuing education for them.

Update: Here's the Bishop of Brooklyn's letter on the matter. I had looked for it over the weekend, to no avail. Thanks to the commentor who posted it.

I am grateful to the organizers of the Crusade for their cooperation in offering to provide our Diocese the registration information for all Catholics who attend the Crusade. Plans are already under way by the Vicariate for Evangelization and Pastoral Life to provide follow-up pastoral care for all Catholics who may attend any of the Crusade events. Special listening sessions, local revival missions and Catholic evangelization prayer services will be held throughout the Diocese in the Fall for all who wish to attend, especially those who attended the Crusade. All pastors will also be forwarded the registration information for those who attended from their parish. I ask that a special effort be made to address these individuals’ spiritual and pastoral needs.

In the spirit of ecumenical cooperation, I warmly welcome Dr. Billy Graham to our Diocese during this special weekend. As a fellow Christian, I pray that the Lord will continue to bless him in his ministry to preach the Gospel to all who are willing to listen. He has been a faithful disciple of the Lord putting out into the deep for the many years of his exemplary evangelical career.

These final two paragraphs were preceded by a detailed explication of the differences between Graham's theology and the RC view. This strikes me as exactly the right tone and process.

The List

Michael's got a post up about the current top-10 Catholic bestsellers at Amazon, and what it reveals about what reading Catholics seem to be interested in.

Leaps and Bounds

WaPo article on the growth of the Catholic Church in NoVa

The world v. Mugabe

But is that enough?

A blogger gives an account of a recent interview that Arcbishop Ncube gave, calling for the arrest of Mugabe by international bodies

(Via Christopher Johnson)

What churches are doing in Zimbabwe in response to Mugabe's actions

Zimbabwe Pundit

Schismantics

Caught this short note in the Chicago Tribune

McHenry County Board members have approved a religious order's plans to build a retreat along Harmony Hill Road southeast of Marengo.

Members of Fraternite Notre Dame are expected to close on the property next month, said Joe Gottemoller, an attorney representing the order. The County Board voted 14-9 to approve the order's petition. The four board members representing the area where the religious complex would be built opposed the petition.

Among Fraternite of Notre Dame's plans for the 65 acres in Coral Township are 19 buildings, including chicken coops, barns, a beekeeper's cottage, print shop, bakery and quarters for 14 sisters, 12 priests and 10 cloistered sisters.

Ah, then the article notes, the order is "not affiliated" with the Roman Catholic Church. Nope, and the Archdiocese of Chicago has warned against them. The particular weirdness about this group is their various professed alliances with the United Nations. Not normally something you'd expect.

A thaw?

An LATimes piece on the changing Vatican-China relations

Twice a year, in May and September, the worlds of the patriotic and underground Catholic churches converge at Cross Mountain in Shaanxi province as thousands of faithful climb the mountain, carrying crucifixes and kneeling in prayer on the way up. At the top, priests hear confessions in the open air as a team of priests says mass. And in a Chinese touch, firecrackers are set off at the moment when the bread and wine are blessed, a traditional means of dispelling evil spirits.

The crowd is dotted with obvious undercover police in black shirts, expensive slacks and sunglasses, who mostly just observe the proceedings.

The festival is inspired by Liu Jialu, a priest who, while in Italy around 1717, asked the pope if he would designate a sacred place in China.

Li Duan, 89, a bishop in Fengxiang village in Shaanxi province, has spent much of his life navigating the divide between the underground and official churches.

Repeat after me: Hope is a virtue

My husband handed me this book by then-Cardinal Ratzinger today. He had a chapter marked for me to read - on the problems in catechesis. I'd be interested in it, he said.

So I took it with me up to the local college where Katie now has her piano lessons, and I sat on the nearly-empty campus in the 95 degree heat and read that chapter, and a few others. And I felt...depressed.

I told him later that I find that reading Ratzinger drives me into wild mood swings. He makes me very happy, but the whole experience is, in general, depressing.

Why? Because when I read him, and then observe the Church (in the US, at least), and what's going on, I see this incredible chasm. It is really like two different languages are being spoken. He begins a chapter on liturgy by talking about visiting some monastery somewhere that was built in the 12th century. He describes the art, as still reflective of the best of what we now define as Eastern and Western Christianity, then uses that to explain what the Mass is and what we're about as Church when we gather, and what is happening there, what we're entering into,...

And I know that over here, 90% of the people involved in directing our liturgical prayer have no use for this because it comes from Ratzinger and they've decided that he must be all about "putting the Church back before Vatican II" (a stance, incidentally, he explictly condemns), and they won't even listen and will just go on about their business as usual, tethering us even more tightly to the here and now and Jesus as The Best Darn Teacher Who Ever Lived, nothing cosmic about it, thank you very much.

Well, at least Katie likes her new piano teacher. That's a good thing. Possibly even in a cosmic kind of way.

The Catholic activist speaks

Well, the article about which Barbara Nicolosi has been blogging in such a highly entertaining fashion is finally out in the NYTimes

Though heavier than most on messianic zeal, Mr. Bannon - Roman Catholic filmmaker, conservative-film financier, Washington networker and Hollywood deal-chaser - is emblematic of a new wave in Hollywood, a group that intends to clean those media pipes with pictures that promote godliness, Pax Americana and its own view of family values.

You'll have to go read it to see how Barbara comes through - here's her blog, for comparison purposes. The article is really a whole lot of hot air, feverishly stirred up for nothing. People who really probably don't belong in the same category are pushed there, and unfairly. It's just tiresome to see the big scary spotlight shone on one set of political values while merely taking the existence of the other set as the norm, and not worth examining criticially.

Reader Bleg

I am writing in the hopes that you may know of either
web-sites or perhaps books on Proper ecclesial Latin?
It seems to be hidden well in the vaults, so to speak.
I would truly appreciate any help you may give.

Well?

Cause, forward

The canonization cause for Mother Theodore Guerin may be moving forward

Here's more information on Mother Guerin and another Indiana blessed, Bishop Simon Brute

The Death of Terri Schiavo

Fr. Rob discusses an article he wrote on the matter - link to article in the post at Thrownback.

Good, Sad Stuff

Because most of the good stuff is sad, at some level. Resolving the sad into the good is the point. This writer does.

Three priests walk into a restaurant

Via TSO

Trust Tom

He knows it all.

As we continue the fascinating awfulness of watching Tom Cruise enter Another Place, catch up with today's installment, complete with illustrations, here - a pictorially annotated transcipt of this morning's interview with Matt Lauer

Fabulousness all 'round

The public radio program Speaking of Faith is going to have a show dedicated to Paul Elie's great book The Life You Save May Be Your Own

Do you know how I learned about this? At a brand-new blog that should be of great interest to many readers of this one, judging from the activity we get around here when we talk about books and publishing, especially of the religious sort.

It's called People of the Book, "A blog for and about the Catholic book publishing community." The proprietor is Jim Manney, trade editorial director at Loyola Press. Jim has a long and interesting career in Catholic writing and publishing, and his blog promises to be an excellent spot to stop by and discuss Catholic books, who buys them and who doesn't...

ONLY A NOVEL

My size 7 foot - 1/3 of Canadians who've read it think the historical claims of DVC are true

The coast-to-coast survey for the National Geographic Channel conducted by Decima Research found that, among 1,005 adults surveyed June 9-12, 16 per cent had read the book in the past two years.

Among those readers, 32 per cent believed the story that "a holy bloodline exists and that this secret has been protected through the ages by a dedicated society," the television channel announced yesterday.

Hat tip blogger Clement Ng

St. John the Baptist

Michael highlights some interesting words by Benedict XVI on this feast

God and Man

Yesterday, I read a book with a title to delight many of you: God and Man at Georgetown Prep: How I Became a Catholic Despite Twenty Years of Catholic Schooling by Mark Gauvreau Judge.

The book is, in a way, an interesting companion piece to Matthew Lickona's Swimming with Scapulars - both sort of young men (although Judge is 40, closer to my age than Matthew's) who are unapologetically orthodox Catholics - Judge has more of a journey than Matthew , however, having gone away from practicing Catholicism, which Matthew never did.

The book was okay. I really thought it could have been structured more powerfully, to highlight the anecdotal, autobiographical material above the rather surprising amount of historical background Judge provides on the collapse of catechesis in the post-Vatican II era. That historical material is important (and available in other books), but there's just a lot of it, and since the book has hooked us on a personal level, we expect that to take center stage, and it really doesn't - it shares the stage equally with the historical material (even on the visual level - I found the book awkwardly designed) to the detriment of the book, I think.

With that caveat: Judge's tales of going to Georgetown Prep, Catholic U, and teaching at Georgetown U. are depressing - environments in which hardly anyone cared about teaching the faith to young people, and those who should have were too deeply enamored of their own (ahem) woundedness to bother to care.

Everytime I read something like this and reflect on my own experience, I'm left with two questions...how did this happen so fast? Judge describes national catechetical gatherings in the mid-60's that were already on the fast track to evisceration of content. We've discussed this before - there must have been some hollow core in what was going on in the U.S. Church up to that point - we can't completely blame the external landscape. There's no way those people, completely formed in pre-Vatican II institutions, would have rejected it so fast as "irrelevant" and missing the point if all was well.

Secondly, the supreme irony of Judge's "formation," as was the case for many of us, was that the goal of that post-V2 catechesis, on paper, was to introduce us more directly to Jesus, and get us to focus on Him.

The consequence? As Judge so aptly relates, it was the complete opposite. Something about all that happened relegated Jesus to a vague historical figure (who might or might not have done the stuff he's said to have done), and stripped Catholicism, as it was lived by most people, of its daily power, relegating it to a Sunday-only meeting. The complete opposite of what was needed. It's what I've seen in my work, and what I've tried to help correct.

Common to both Lickona's and Judge's books is the importance of fathers. Both men had faithful Catholic dads who approached the faith with intellectual vigor, deep spirituality and a who shared a holistic approach to faith - it permeated every nook and cranny of life, and it's this latter point that Judge particularly faults his catechesis for abandoning.

From that first beach week through the next ten years, this is basically what happened to me. My Catholic schooling simply did not educate me that joy, friendship, and the powerful attraction to the opposite sex were natural and healthy reactions to the manifestations of the Creator. These things were the best things in life, and Christ had been minimized to the point where I could not see him in the world. When this happens the things that God created offer diminishing returns. When there is no longer a hierarchy of loves with God at the top, those lesser loves become gods who cannot satisfy.

So, take note dads: You matter.

Sigh

One of the chores of blogging is the constant struggle to get everyone to understand where you're coming from. In other words, the continual re-introduction of yourself to new readers. Sometimes I try, most of the time I give up. Read the archives!

Anyway, over at Dawn Eden's blog, she posted about the latest Crisis e-letter in which Brian St. Paul remarked on the latest Orthodox troubles (blogged here earlier this week) in the context of the interest some RC's have felt about Orthodoxy in light of our own problems. It struck Dawn and many of her commentors as triumphalistic (someone posted the text of the letter in the comments) and one commentor brought me into it, specifically the post on the Kentucky Porsche-buying minister and his congregation's support for him, about which I commented "Of course."

Was I being triumphalistic? Well, here's where the "Get to Know Your Blogger" part comes in. Here's what I explained in the comments:

For the past three years a constant theme on my blog has been the Errant Cleric (usually RC) and The Congregation That Loves Him. That is, we get our stories of priests who have abused, embezzled and downloaded child pornography, and in a shocking number of circumstances that priest's parish rends its collective garments and gnashes its teeth in mourning - not at the priest's sins, but at the prospect of him being taken away from them. I've posted several articles about such priests being given standing ovations upon their return to parish life, or upon the occasion of their fairwell homilies.

That Kentucky pastor story was just the latest variation on a favorite (although regrettable) theme of my blog, and happened to be not a Catholic.

The broader theme, of great interest to me, is leadership in religious institutions, period, and how power (and there are different types of it) affects ministry, no matter what the denomination.

So true

...Everyone is fighting a great battle.

A Boston Globe article on baseball player John Olerud's family, and their support of their seriously disabled daughter

Fraud upon the Court?

Annie Banno has a lengthy post detailing what happened yesterday at the Senate subcommittee hearing at which Norma McCorvey and Sandra Cano (Roe and Doe, in case you're not aware of it)

Story of an Underground Priest

In China, via AsiaNews

I spent 5 years in the seminary of the underground Church.  Life was very difficult and very risky.  Wake-up time was 5 a.m.  After a half hour of meditation, we celebrated Mass and then Lauds.  After breakfast, we would clean up and then our studies would begin.  We would go to bed at 10 p.m.  Life in an underground seminary is a bit hard: we lived in a country house made available to us by a member of the faithful.  But when we got news that the police had discovered us, we were forced to flee and settle in another place.  In 5 years, we changed location 3 times.

We seminarians had to take care of the cleaning, but also the cooking, preparing meals for everyone.  From the material standpoint, life was truly difficult: little food, few vegetables, hardly ever meat; crowded rooms with no extra space... But, in my heart, I felt peace and even an entirely new joy, different from what I previously felt.  There was a strong friendship and sense of brotherhood among the seminarians.  Difficulties were quickly overcome since everyone was ready to love each other.

After 5 years of study, the day came for my priestly ordination.  There was a lot of tension at that time in my diocese and we risked being jailed by police.  Thus, we celebrated the ordination Mass at 4 o'clock in the morning: at that time everyone in China is asleep, even the policemen.

Do check out all of AsiaNews for a broader view of what's going on in the world these days.

Good news

Disputations alerts us to a (retitled) re-issue of A Memoir of Mary Ann, with an intro by Flannery O'Connor, offered by the Hawthorne Domincans (who, of course, cared for Mary Ann in their Atlanta facility)

Someone answer me..

In the bad books thread below, someone mentioned the two books by DCTalk, and said they were anti-Catholic. Can anyone who agrees with this explain? I've seen them all over the place, of course, but have never really read them.

Pope Visits Italian President

From the Vatican Information Service:

Pope Benedict XVI, returning the visit to the Vatican by Italian President Carlo Azeglio Campi on May 3, today went to the Quirinale Palace, home to Italy's presidents, where he met privately with Ciampi, following which there were official speeches in the "Salone delle Feste."

  The Pope left the Vatican at 10:30 a.m. in an open car. Just outside Vatican City, in Pius XII Square, he was greeted by a delegation of the Italian government led by Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini. The Holy Father's motor cavalcade stopped a second time in Piazza Venezia, near Rome's City Hall, where he was greeted by Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni. Upon his 11 a.m. arrival at the Quirinale, President Ciampi welcomed Benedict XVI and, once inside the palace, they were joined by former Italian presidents Francesco Cossiga and Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Among those present for the Vatican was Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

Today's visit was the eighth time a Pope has been to the Quirinale. The first was Pius XII in 1939. John Paul II went to the Quirinale in 1984, 1986 and again in 1998.

  Following greetings from President Ciampi, the Pope delivered his address, assuring citizens of Rome and Italy of his "commitment to work with all my strength for the religious and civil wellbeing of those the Lord has entrusted to my pastoral care."

  The Holy Father recalled how relations between the Church and the Italian State "are founded on the principle expressed during Vatican Council II, according to which 'the Church and the political community in their own fields are autonomous and independent from each other. Yet both, under different titles, are devoted to the personal and social vocation of the same people'."

  For this reason, the Pope went on, "a healthy laicism of the State" is legitimate, "by virtue of which temporal situations are governed according to their own norms, yet without excluding those ethical references whose ultimate foundations are to be found in religion. The autonomy of the temporal sphere does not exclude an intimate harmony with higher and more complex necessities deriving from an integral vision of man and of his eternal destiny."

  Benedict XVI expressed the hope that the Italian people, "not only do not deny the Christian heritage that makes up part of their history, but guard it jealously and bring it once again to produce fruits worthy of the past. I have faith that Italy, under the wise and exemplary guidance of those called to govern her, will continue to undertake the civilizing mission in the world, in which she has so distinguished herself over the centuries. By virtue of her history and culture, Italy can make a valid contribution, especially to Europe, helping it to rediscover those Christian roots that enabled it to be great in the past, and that still today can favor the profound unity of the continent."

  The Pope indicated that the numerous concerns of the start of his pontificate - concerns "that cannot but be of interest to leaders of public life" - include "the problem of safeguarding the family based on matrimony, as recognized by the Italian Constitution, the problem of the defense of human life, ... and the problem of education."

  The Church, he stressed, "sees in the family a very important value that must be defended from all attacks that aim to undermine its solidity and put its very existence in doubt. In human life, moreover, the Church recognizes a primary good, the basis for all other goods." On the subject of schooling, the Holy Father emphasized its role as a "natural expansion" of the formative role of the family. "While fully respecting the competency of the State to dictate general norms for education, I cannot but express the hope that the right of parents to a free educational choice be respected, without their having to support the additional weight of further burdens. I trust that Italian legislators, in their wisdom, know how to find 'human solutions' to these problems, in other words, solutions that respect the inviolable values implicated therein."

  Following his address, the Holy Father bid farewell to the Italian president before returning to the Vatican by open-top car.

American Secularism

Again from The Tablet

But whether we speak of America as a religious nation or secular one depends, of course, on what we mean by secular. As Oxford’s John Finnis noted in a 2003 address at Princeton University, the word “secular” was coined by Latin Christians to describe those things which “are not divine, sacred, or ecclesiastical”, and that its resonances were not always negative. Finnis then pointed out that Christian faith actually encourages “secularisation” in so far as this means the extension of human understanding and control over fields of life previously inaccessible to human science and technology, precisely because Christian faith insists on both God’s transcendence and the intelligibility of his creation through science.

There is a world of difference, however, between this understanding of the secular and what Princeton’s Robert P. George describes as “orthodox secularism”. By this, George means “a sectarian doctrine with its own metaphysical and moral presuppositions and foundations, with its own myths, and, one might even argue, its own rituals”. Implicitly atheistic, deeply utilitarian in its mode of reasoning, and profoundly influenced by David Hume’s philosophical scepticism, orthodox secularism, as portrayed by George and other American scholars, has two effects upon public debate.

Fr. Fessio

A profile in The Tablet

"Bring Your Sherpa!"

Okay, since Get Religion has broken the ice, in a way, I guess I can start talking about the new HBO show The Comeback, created by Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City) and Lisa Kudrow (Friends), the latter of whom stars as Valerie Cherish, has-been former 40-ish sitcom star, who's been hired as a fifth wheel in a ghastly new sitcom full of sexy young things ("Room and Bored"), and is having the comeback attempt filmed for a reality-tv series.

I'm thinking I'm loving this show.

I didn't expect to, and in fact hadn't really planned on watching it at all. I mean...can HBO please try to think of a sitcom that doesn't involve Hollywood? Please?

But I did watch it. And then I watched that first episode again later in the week.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Kudrow (whom I never saw in Friends because I never saw Friends) is brilliant. I heard the Fresh Air interview that Doug mentions and she describes the genesis of the character - whom she had created long ago, in improv. Just a completely self-deluded woman who is constantly humiliated, but who just comes back, stiff-upper lip intact every time. The detail in the performance is marvelous. In the second ep, she's going to the network upfronts in NYC, gets to the ticket counter and finds that her hairdresser, Mickey, has no seat, and the only seats are in coach or first class. You can see her mind working, and of course, Mickey's devotion requires no less than first class, and her final, lip-biting, bravura yet extremely reluctant  waving of her credit card and statement of "Let's do it. Let's have a treat!" is just perfectly delivered.

(The title of this post, by the way, is a quote from Mickey, who cheerfully yells it while climbing the stairs to Valerie's-dressing-room-in-exile, far away from where the Sexy Young Things are hanging out)

The themes? Well, it maybe an HBO-Hollywood sitcom, but it's about enough more to give it a poignancy and heft way beyond the meaningless sitcoms on network broadcast television. Valerie is ridiculous, but she is determined to maintain her dignity, and, up to this point, she doesn't seem as if she's got it in her to hurt anyone else in the process. It's not just about the vacuousness of popular entertainment - it's about the potential vacuousness of any of our earthly endeavors, and, perhaps unintentionally, forces us to ask the question...why do we put ourselves through this? What is it that we need from our "accomplishments," anyway?

Plus, Kudrow is fascinating to watch, and the supporting cast is crackerjack, as well. Oh, and the villains of the piece? The writers. The television writers.

Heh.

(Oh, and long-time readers may be wondering why I'm not talking about Six Feet Under...)

Boy, I really liked the first episode, but since then, I can honestly say...I care more about what happens to Valerie Cherish than I do to any one of the characters on 6FU this season.

Oh, there have been great moments - I love Ileana Douglas, and rejoice at her brief return, and her scene standing in front of the vending machine with Rico (what are Funyons, anyway?). Umm....poor George. The Catholic Singles scene in the last ep wasn't offensive, and "Haven't I seen you at the 10 o'clock Mass?" captured a lot. But...I just don't know so far. Et vous?

Good Thief

I'm going to steal an idea, so here ya go.

Some of you might know that Human Events issued a list of 10 Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Century, much discussed around various blogs. Jimmy Akin was one of the Catholic bloggers who ran a thread on it.

What I'm stealing is this blogger's idea of a "bottom ten list" for the Church. He's (as far as I can tell) a convert from the Episcopal Church to Eastern Orthodoxy, and his list is rather Protestant-skewed. I don't know if I can come up with 10, and I doubt I have enough energy to justify them at this time of night, but here goes. Oh, and mine's going to be popular and pastorally-oriented, and not particularly scholarly. And in no particular order, either.

1. Catholicism by Richard McBrien. Good historical material, and useful for that, but definitely harmful in the way McBrien evaluates the material and the context in which he places it all - a big grab bag of Catholic Stuff, in which nothing is really more true than anything else. A great irony of Catholic Life in the 90's was that the same people who hated, hated, hated and decried The Catechism of the Catholic Church pushed Catholicism on every would-be catechist and heck, Catholic, who came down the road. It wasn't a catechetical compendium that was the issue - it was whose.

2. Christ Among Us by Anthony Wilhelm. My primary, foundational text for all four years of Catholic high school, as it was for many of you, I imagine. Very much in the "Many Catholics believe" genre of catechetical writing.

3. Environment and Art in Catholic Worship   'Nuf said about that around here.

4. Human Sexuality by the CTSA, edited by Anthony Kosnik

5. The Sexual Celibate by Daniel Goergen and The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen. I have much admiration for Nouwen, but I am sorry to say that I think this book had seriously negative, completely unintended consequences for those engaged in ministry in this country, and combined with the impact of the first title....disaster.

6. Sexism and God-Talk by Rosemary Radford Reuther. I'm not ashamed to call myself a feminist (on my own terms), and I'm quite interested in issues related to women and religion (the subject of my MA thesis), and while interest in women's issues and perpsectives have revealed much of importance, the whole direction taken by the early thinkers like Reuther ended up throwing things off track and wasted a whole lot of time and energy. IMHO.

7. The Joshua books by Joseph Girzone. In this review , I relate asking Michael why he thought they were so popular. He said, "Because people don't read the Gospels, that's why." Why are they damaging? Because, in essence, they concretize the supposed opposition between spirituality and organized religion, in which the latter always comes out as the bad guy, made it immensely popular and beloved among ill-educated catechists of all ages.

8. The Da Vinci Code. Okay, I had to throw that in there. Even though I really don't know if I'd put it on the list. Yeah, maybe I would.

9. The works of Malachi Martin (Thanks to Tom for the suggestion)

10.....You fill in the blank. And argue intensely about it.

Progress?

Shangai bishop seeks to heal division

He's been called a counterfeit cleric, a usurper who betrayed the Catholic Church while others languished due to their loyalty to the pope.

Shanghai Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian's 27 years in prison and labor camps have done little to ease the bitterness of supporters of China's underground church. Nor has more than a decade of hard work spent rebuilding the Shanghai Diocese through the official Communist Party-recognized Catholic association.

Now at age 89, Jin says a tacit agreement between Rome and Beijing on his successor may help heal some of the division — although he doubts the two sides will be reconciled soon.

"The pope in Rome wanted to establish diplomatic relations with other countries, including China," Jin told The Associated Press in an interview this month at his office beside Shanghai's century-old cathedral.

"If both sides don't make some concessions, normalization won't come about immediately," he said.

Lie down...Lie down..

Everyone in this house, it seems, makes fun of me because that is the phrase I've hit upon to try to lull the baby back to sleep. It's uncomplicated, and much of the time it works.

But they all think it's funny to hear me at 1 am saying, "Lie down...lie down....

Ha. Ha.

(I hasten to add that Michael does, indeed, do his part. I'm not in this alone, although sometimes it feels that way...)

Well.

The National Association of Pastoral Musicians would like to know what you think.

Really.

They have a survey up, in which you can tell them the name of a liturgical "song"  that's made a difference in your life. With the reasons. Go for it.

(Note: Bloggers post links to surveys for a couple of reasons. Sometimes they simply want to alert their readers to a survey that really is attempting to get a cross-section opinion, and the blogger wants to make sure that his or her readers' opinions are noted. Sometimes bloggers post links to surveys because they want to skew the results for an organization they don't like. The latter rationale is juvenile and borderline unethical, no matter how you feel about the sponsoring organization. I'm posting this for neither of those reasons. Musicians, as highly criticized as they are from the pews, tend to live in a bubble of their own creation. It is a hard balance for them to select music that's of quality and that people will sing and that their ensembles can manage. Honestly. If you have a favorite piece of sacred music, whether it was written 300 years ago or last year (and there is quality contemporary sacred music)...let them know)

Church cool to Graham crusade

Didn't help invite folks

Catholics are still welcome to attend, but the lack of official involvement amazed Graham biographer Bill Martin, who characterized the archdiocese's reasoning as a "change in policy" from Mr. Graham's 1991 Central Park crusade. Back then, he said, 630 Catholic churches cooperated with the crusade and information on the meetings was handed out at St. Patrick's Cathedral.
    That 1991 stance had been a huge shift from Mr. Graham's first New York crusade in 1957, he said, when Catholics boycotted the event and Catholic clergy were instructed on how to counter Mr. Graham's preaching.
    "So maybe something's come down from above saying not to be involved in this," Mr. Martin added.
    Mr. Zwilling said he didn't remember any such cooperation from churches back then, but Catholic clergy in 1991 did receive names of Catholics who answered Mr. Graham's altar calls at the Central Park event.
    In a column to be released Saturday in the diocesan newspaper the Tablet, Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio outlined the significant divide over how Catholics and Protestants understand salvation.
    The bishop said he welcomed Mr. Graham into the area and promised to follow up on any names given to them by crusade organizers.

This, of course, has been an interesting issue for years. Graham has been stigmatized by some other Protestants because of his cooperation with Catholics in the past, and the Crusade's practice, as the article notes, of passing on the names of Catholics who come forward to Catholic churches.

But I actually do see the dioceses' point. This is a Protestant evangelical event. Why should a Catholic diocese work hard to get its people out to it? It should understand that a lot of people going will be Catholic, and should be ready to meet the needs that might be exposed by the event, but as important a figure as Billy Graham is...we wouldn't expect the Diocese of Brooklyn to work hard to get folks out to a Jerry Falwell crusade, would we?

Too inclusive?

A not-meeting of minds in South Carolina

When the Rev. John Parker was asked to say the benediction at the graduation rite for the Medical School of South Carolina, he did what any Eastern Orthodox priest would do.

He went straight to "The Great Book of Needs," a four-volume set of prayers collected over two millennia for use during every imaginable kind of ritual.

It was easy to find prayers about Jesus and healing, including: "Do now, O Lord, give your grace to all those here gathered who have labored and studied hour upon hour, to go into all the world, and also to heal by the talent You have given to each of them. Strengthen them, by your strength, to fear no evil or disease, enlighten them to do no evil by the works of their hands and preserve them and those they serve in peace, for You are our God, and we know no other."

Then he received a letter from the president's office offering guidelines for prayers at this public school in Charleston, S.C. It required inclusive language such as "Holy God, Holy One, Creator, Sustainer" rather than prayers mentioning Jesus, Allah, the Trinity or other specific divine references.

Oriana Fallaci on the Pope

From the WSJ:

"I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger." I had asked Ms. Fallaci whether there was any contemporary leader she admired, and Pope Benedict XVI was evidently a man in whom she reposed some trust. "I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion."

Ms. Fallaci, who made her name by interviewing numerous statesmen (and not a few tyrants), believes that ours is "an age without leaders. We stopped having leaders at the end of the 20th century." Of George Bush, she will concede only that he has "vigor," and that he is "obstinate" (in her book a compliment) and "gutsy. . . . Nobody obliged him to do anything about Terri Schiavo, or to take a stand on stem cells. But he did."

But it is "Ratzinger" (as she insists on calling the pope) who is her soulmate. John Paul II--"Wojtyla"--was a "warrior, who did more to end the Soviet Union than even America," but she will not forgive him for his "weakness toward the Islamic world. Why, why was he so weak?"

The scant hopes that she has for the West she rests on his successor. As a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI wrote frequently on the European (and the Western) condition. Last year, he wrote an essay titled "If Europe Hates Itself," from which Ms. Fallaci reads this to me: "The West reveals . . . a hatred of itself, which is strange and can only be considered pathological; the West . . . no longer loves itself; in its own history, it now sees only what is deplorable and destructive, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure."

"Ecco!" she says. A man after her own heart. "Ecco!" But I cannot be certain whether I see triumph in her eyes, or pain.

Watch Fr. Stan

Fr. Stan Fortuna is in Poland this weekend, at a "Song of Songs" Festival. The folks at Francesco Productions say:

Fr. Stan's concert will be broadcast
live through their website in streaming video.  Here is our
understanding of the schedule:

Fr Stan's concert will divided into two parts. First at 7:45 PM (1:45
PM Eastern Standard Time) for 40 minutes.   After, there is TV concert where he will appear with other musicians. Then, at 10:30 PM (4:30 PM Eastern Standard Time), he will be performing in the second part of the concert for 30 minutes.

You can watch the festivities on the Song of Songs website

Reacting to Mario

Interesting set of letters in reaction to Cuomo's op-ed.

I like this from the first letter:

Mr. Cuomo, the former New York governor, repeatedly refers to "potential," but all in the context of the medical benefits of stem cells. But this potential is hypothetical, based on the faith of scientists regarding where their research will lead (and on a corresponding lack of faith in the potential of adult stem cells).

Mr. Cuomo ignores the time-tested potential of implanted embryos to generally produce viable infants.

And then there's this one. Note the writer:

Mario M. Cuomo mars his well-reasoned essay on the use of embryonic stem cells by characterizing the crucial moral issue as whether "human life starts at conception."

Even the earliest embryo conceived of human parents is alive and a member of Homo sapiens, and that is enough, in the eyes of many, to make it a living human being.

The crucial moral question is not when human life begins, but when human life reaches the point at which it merits protection.

It is to that question that the significance of consciousness and viability, discussed by Mr. Cuomo, should be addressed.

Unless we separate these two questions - when does life begin, and when does it merit protection? - we are unlikely to achieve any clarity about the moral status of embryos.

Peter Singer
Princeton, N.J., June 20, 2005

Anyone who's read a lot of beginning-of-life bioethics, both professional and popular, knows Singer's position, and that it is shared by the more honest of his colleagues, and always has been. I've read quite a lot of writings in support of abortion rights, especially the important stuff from the 70's and 80's, and none of them blink at admitting the fact of unique biological human life of the embryo and fetus. The question is just as Singer states it. And the puzzling thing is that they don't see that they're not the first people to think this way...

Building a base in Iraq

Evangelicals, that is

"Evangelicals come here and I would like to ask: Why do you come here? For what reason?" said Patriarch Emmanuel Delly, head of the Eastern rite Chaldean Catholic Church, Iraq's largest Christian community.

In interviews, Delly and Sleiman were torn between their belief in religious freedom and the threat they see from the new evangelicalism. They also expressed anger and resentment at what they perceive as the evangelicals' assumption that members of old-line denominations are not true Christians.

"If we are not Christians, you should tell us so we will find the right path," Delly said sarcastically. "I'm not against the evangelicals. If they go to an atheist country to promote Christ, we would help them ourselves."

Sleiman charged that the new churches were sowing "a new division" among Christians because "churches here mean a big community with tradition, language and culture, not simply a building with some people worshiping. If you want to help Christians here, help through the churches [already] here."

Still, the Roman Catholic prelate said he could not oppose the evangelicals because "we ask for freedom of conscience." He also said he respected how they appear "ready to die" for their beliefs. "Sometimes I'm telling myself they are more zealous than me, and we can profit from this positive dimension of their mission."

Some Iraqi Christians expressed fear that the evangelicals would undermine Christian-Muslim harmony here, which rests on a long-standing, tacit agreement not to proselytize each other. "There is an informal agreement that says we have nothing to do with your religion and faith," said Yonadam Kanna, one of six Christians elected to Iraq's parliament. "We are brothers but we don't interfere in your religion."

Delly said that "even if a Muslim comes to me and said, 'I want to be Christian,' I would not accept. I would tell him to go back and try to be a good Muslim and God will accept you." Trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, he added, "is not acceptable."

Signs your pastor is doing something fishy

1) He fires the general contractor on the building expansion project and hires himself as a replacement

2) He buys a Porsche

Kentucky Baptist minister accused

Church supports him. Of course!

I'm not sure exactly what this means..

Because I haven't been following the Anglican troubles as closely as I should the past few months. But the Anglican Consultative Council, a leadership body, heard the Episcopalians and the Anglicans of Canada making their case, and voted to exclude them from that body until the next Lambeth meeting, in 2008.

I think.

Christopher Johnson

TitusOneNine

Mere Comments

And I'm sure there's much, much more out there...

For All Seasons

Late in the day, I bring to your attention the excellent website for the Center for Thomas More Studies.

Fertility Timebomb?

In Britain?

Britain is facing an infertility crisis, with the number of couples who experience problems conceiving expected to double within the next 10 years.

A leading fertility expert warned yesterday that, by 2015, one in three couples may need IVF treatment or similar fertility procedures. The low success rates of such treatments means soaring numbers will be left childless. Professor Bill Ledger predicted a looming "infertility timebomb", with thousands of couples forced to go through physically and mentally draining treatment, at a cost of millions of pounds to the NHS each year.

He blamed the soaring rates of fertility problems on modern lifestyle factors such as obesity, women delaying starting a family, falling sperm counts among men and rising rates of sexually transmitted infections, particularly chlamydia. Smoking is also a main factor in infertility in men and women. Professor Ledger, of the University of Sheffield, called for the Government to recognise infertility as a "disease".

P.D.James: prophet?

The Cause

Website taking testimony, prayers and such for the canonization cause of John Paul II

Where is this going to end?

I ask that out of curiosity and a sincere interest in these knotty matters of religious and government. In our religiously diverse country, what is going to happen in regard situations like this?

State court officers don't plan to act immediately on an Islamic group's request to allow use of the Islamic holy book when administering courtroom oaths, an official said Wednesday.

"There is no (statewide) policy ... and there is no particular plan in place to write a policy," said Dick Ellis, spokesman for the Administrative Office of the Courts. "We haven't gotten to the point yet that something has to be done."

Judges in Guilford County told a Greensboro Islamic center last week that they would not allow people to be sworn in with a Quran rather than a Bible.

In response, the Washington-based Council on Amerian-Islamic Relations asked Tuesday for a statewide policy allowing oaths to be taken on the Quran.

V2: The Real Untold Story?

Magister on Ruini on Marchetto - the author of a new history of the Council contra the predominant narrative of the past forty years:

In conclusion, Ruini again contested the contrast made between John XXIII and Paul VI, as seen in the history of Vatican II produced by Alberigo and the Bologna School.

And although this history continues to dominate the scene, he practically declared its doom:

“The interpretation of the council as a rupture and a new beginning is coming to an end. This interpretation is very feeble today, and has no real foothold within the body of the Church. It is time for historiography to produce a new reconstruction of Vatican II which will also be, finally, a true story.”

Why not Orthodoxy?

At Pontifications, Al Kimel answers the question - what is moving him to Roman Catholicism rather than Eastern Orthodoxy from where he stands in the Anglican tradition? It's interesting - as are most of the 412 comments on the post.

Those candles

From Get Religion, a link to a story on those candles you see everywhere now - the glass pillars with pictures of saints, etc. printed on the front. An interesting history is related in the story:

Scholars and candle industry folks find their origin hard to pinpoint. According to Sister Schodts Reed, chief executive officer of the Reed Candle Factory in San Antonio, her Mexican-born father-in-law, Peter Doan Reed, invented the prayer candle in the late 1940s.

The elder Reed started making votive candles -- which are always burned in glass and are so named for their use when making a vow or petition -- in 1938. But after about a decade of making standard votives, Reed, in 1947, came up with a tall jar model that could burn for seven days and bore a picture of a spiritual figure along with a prayer.

"His goal was to allow people to have their particular patron saint with the image on the candle so that they could light it and have their prayer on it," Reed said. "That way they have a silent prayer that is continuing even after they are done praying."

Reed said her father-in-law's company started out selling just a few types of silk-screened prayer candles and now they produce 350 saint varieties alone, many with paper labels. And this doesn't count the mystical varieties made by their subsidiary, Mission Candles.

Papal Audience

Geldof wants Pope to join anti-poverty march

Is the Reformation Over

Long, meaty Books and Culture piece by Mark Noll and Carol Nystrom, adapted from their book of the same title

It examines various evangelical stances toward Catholicism, from hostility to conversion.

Here's a link to the book, due to be released next week.

The conversion stories range from Peter Kreeft to the Hahns to John Michael Talbot. All speak, interestingly, not only of what they have gained, but what they feel they've lost - and most of the loss is related to local church life: music, fellowship, and even the strength of faith of the local community.

Pope Post

The Pope's new book

The book covers many of the themes Benedict has already focused on in his two months in office: the role of Christianity in Europe and the need to respect life from conception to its natural death. It also explores faith and what it means to be Christian.

It's an easy, 149-page read, written in Italian in 1992, 1997 and earlier this year, according to the Cantagalli publishers, which was releasing the book along with the Vatican's publishing office, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, at a ceremony Tuesday

I'm guessing this is the publisher

Then today, at the Wednesday General Audience:

Pope continues plan for African synod

Pope Benedict announced on Wednesday that he would summon a special synod of Roman Catholic bishops to discuss the church's role in solving the problems of Africa.

Benedict told pilgrims at his weekly general audience that he planned to follow through with the intention of his predecessor, John Paul, to hold such a meeting.

His public commitment to Africa comes less than two weeks after finance ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations agreed ahead of next month's summit to huge debt relief in a drive to free Africa from hunger and disease.

Synods are major gatherings of Roman Catholic bishops to discuss a specific theme or region. They usually last about a month and are usually held at the Vatican.

"I hope this meeting will mark another impulse for the African continent for evangelization, the consolidation and growth of the Church and the promotion of reconciliation and peace," he said of the synod.

Helena Love

Thanks to Matthew at Holy Whapping for a nice review of Loyola's edition of Helena

Amazon link

Loyola link over there on the right - click on the logo.

Preferential Option

Over at Against the Grain, Christopher has a long post about the concept and term "preferential option for the poor"

Catholics who are the least bit aquainted with the social doctrine of the Church have encountered the term "preferential option for the poor." According to Charles Curran, the phrase has its origins in the "liberation theology" espoused by radical Catholic theologians in Latin America (excerpt from Catholic Social Teaching Georgetown UP, 2002).

In an article for the U.S. Catholic (Why the preferential option for the poor is not optional, November 1997), Jack Jezreel chronicles the use of the phrase from a 1979 pastoral document by the Latin American Bishops, to the 1986 statement "Economic Justice for All", revisited in 1994's "Communities of Salt and Light", as well as pontificate of Pope John Paul II.

Pope John Paul II spoke of this preferential option on many occasions, preferring the term "preferential love for the poor" --

And they are discussing it at Mirror of Justice here and here

Chaput on Immigrants

Legal and not

(from a few weeks ago, but just ran across it via Godspy)

(Context: murder of police officer by an illegal immigrant)

Americans have a right to secure borders, especially in a time of anti-American violence. We have a right to reasonably regulate our immigration policies. We have a right to exclude criminals and protect the health of our public institutions and services. We have a right to verify foreign visitors and guest workers, and to expect their compliance with the law.

But we can't have it both ways. The vast majority of undocumented Hispanic immigrants in the United States never commit a violent act, have no desire to undermine the common good and contribute vitally to American prosperity. Thousands of farmers and businessmen rely on their services. The life many of us enjoy depends, in part, on the labor of "illegals." Taking advantage of their work, and then blaming them for being here, is a uniquely unworthy form of hypocrisy.

Not important

..or is it? Who knows.

But this Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes things is cree-py.

More Sin

Brandon Evans of the Criterion sends along a link to the CNN story on Cardinal Sin and wonders about the caption under the photo. So this is news?

This blogger has a good quote from Cardinal Sin and more links

Are you a Papist?

At the Corner

HATE SPEECH? [John Derbyshire]
A reader has chid me for using the term "Papist" in a private exchange, to refer to Roman Catholics (of which he is one).

Is this unacceptable? I am always way behind the curve on this stuff. I caused a stunned silence in company a few years ago by using the word "Jewess" in all innocence. (One of the stunnees, a Jewish lady, explained to me afterwards: "I can use that word, but you can't." I have stopped using it.)

I mean "Papist" light-heartedly, as ought to be clear from the fact that I refer to persons of my own persuasion as "Prods." There is, however and alas, not much light-heartedness in the area of self-identification nowadays, and for all I know I may be causing people to gasp, sputter, and swoon. Let me know, please.

Ramesh doesn't mind. I do, especially when it comes from an Anglican Brit (even one who calls himself a "Prod" [and...btw...I always thought that Anglicans virulently reject placing themselves in the "Protestant" category...but I suppose there are different levels of that, as well] - any Catholic ethnic identity I have is all French-Canadian, and it's implanted a knee-jerk reaction to what the Johnny Bulls (as my mother said they used to call the Anglo-Saxon Protestants in Maine) have to say about me.

Working for Women

Vatican-sponsored conference on women on the streets

The Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers hosted its first international meeting June 20-21 on "The Pastoral Care for the Liberation of Street Women." Fifty women and men who are active in offering care and assistance to prostitutes attended the conference to offer their reflections and ideas.

"Everyone says being a woman on the street is bad, but when I see six cars all lined up for a 14-year-old girl, why don't we hear that it's the man on the street that is worse?" said Italian Consolata Sister Eugenia Bonetti, head of anti-trafficking initiatives for the Italian Union of Major Superiors.

Speaking of young adults

Steve Skojec has thoughts..

I’m not alone. Young Catholics feel hungry because we’re being fed candy when we want steak. We feel talked down to because the faith has been made juvenile to appeal to our pop-culture interests. We are immersed in pop-culture, every day. We want to know that our religion transcends fashion and trends, that it is unique and worthy of respect, that it is the one religion out of thousands of competing religions that God wants us to belong to. We want a religion that hasn’t been dumbed-down, painstakingly stripped of every shred of mystery and remade in the image and likeness of men. We want the True Faith, not, as one of my theology professors called it, “a bubble-gum chewing religion of suburban good cheer.”

It’s an insult to our intelligence to say we won’t be compelled by the real thing. Give us substance and we will fill the pews.

Now how does this mesh with the burgeoning interest in Emergent Church stuff in the evangelical world, in which everything, including a heavy dose of pop culture is brought into worship (see this interesting article on the Mars Hill Church up Michigan way)

I agree with Steve, but I can't deny the popularity (at least for now) of the engagement-with-pop-culture style of many protestant churches. Trying to make sense of it....

Clarifying

I posted the story about my son, mostly as a meditation on irony and unintended consequences, not as a paean to walking out of Mass. Given the fact that he left to simply head over to the (later) Mass he usually attends anyway, I didn't see that as the focus.

The focus was, as I said, the irony, that the young person with cultural tastes that are, let's say, pretty far from mine, who wouldn't throw on any Chant on his car CD player, and is a quite socially active, engaged young adult, was, as he said, "offended" by this liturgy. It wasn't his aesthetics that were insulted, it was this, as I wrote to someone associated with the parish who wrote to me.

What he finds insulting (as he told me last night) is the assumption that this is what it takes to engage young adults in their faith. He's likes to have a good time as much as anyone - more, perhaps - but he's been through stuff, and he's got a rather serious, reflective core. He's also busy, and Sunday Mass is the time during the week when he can - because he's forced to - sit still, be quiet, and lay out his life before God. In this, I would suggest, he's thoroughly typical. He understands that Mass isn't a me-n-God thing to the exclusion of the total Body of Christ (not that he would put it that way!) but you can probably see his point.

What he wants, is a time when the connections between all of this  - the mysteries of his life, God, and the rest of the world - are clarified, rather than obscured. A baptism during the Sunday liturgy can certainly help in that regard, as it puts before our eyes the beginnings, not just of someone else's journey, but the reality of ours as well. This is what it means to belong to Christ. This is how it began. How's it going for me now? How will it end? What are my responsibilities towards others like this new little one just brought into Christ?

But not when the seriousness of the sacrament and its real meaning is obscured.

That's it. It's not about leave me alone. It is, as we have discussed so frequently here, is trust the liturgy, trust God to work, trust in His Real Presence...and get out of the way.

Not bad for a donkey movie

On the DVD release of a Bresson film..

When the Museum of Modern Art announced "The Hidden God," a major faith and film series featuring titles as diverse as Magnolia, Andrei Roublev and Groundhog Day, the curators said the one film which clearly had to be included was Robert Bresson's masterpiece, Au Hasard Balthazar. The New York Times recently proclaimed, "Forget the Sith, Tom and Katie, the big movie news this summer is the release on DVD of one of the greatest films in history: Au Hasard Balthazar."

Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer writes: "No film I have ever seen has come so close to convulsing my entire being. Bresson's Christian spirituality finds its most earthy, layered and life-giving expression. Grace has never been dramatized more lucidly, or more movingly, than it is here."

Not bad for a donkey movie. This unadorned 95-minute story follows the young colt Balthazar's adoption as a family pet, through the hands of many masters, to the moment of his eventual death. It is a fragmentary portrait of a French village in the mid-sixties, tracing the interwoven lives of eight characters. It's a study of human weakness and cruelty, it's a portrait of Christ the suffering servant, it's the heartbreaking story of a young girl's descent from innocence to despair. But above all, it's a movie about a donkey.

Bresson was a French Catholic who made his greatest and most deeply Christian films in the two decades following World War Two. Afficionados would be hard-pressed to choose his masterpiece—A Man Escaped, Diary of a Country Priest, The Trial of Joan of Arc and Pickpocket all have their advocates—but Au Hasard Balthazar may be his most resonant and profoundly spiritual work. It is certainly his most affecting. Film scholar Donald Richie describes the film's final moments: "The combination of something awful and something wonderful going together defeats any critical acumen I may have. It reduces me to an emotional human being—which I think was Bresson's intention in making this picture."

Trotsky and St.Benedict

Furious and fascinating piece from Books and Culture (a CT brand), a review of two books, including Jim Wallis'. You can get a taste from the opening para:

I didn't vote last November 2nd. Not that friends and colleagues didn't beg me to perform my "civic duty." To them, Every Vote Counted in an epic conflict between the forces of light and darkness; to me, it was Imperialism, Plutocracy, and Capital Punishment versus Imperialism, Plutocracy, and Abortion. Eclipsed by those triads of iniquities, "my vision," to borrow Jim Wallis' words, "was not running in this election." So I stayed home on election night, watched a movie on the couch with my beloved wife, and retired in the knowledge that the empire would remain in someone's untrustworthy hands. (I also won $50 predicting both the winner and the margin of victory. Why should William Bennett have all the fun?)

The triumphant triad was the right-wing version of our nation's civil religion, the perverse religiosity of late-capitalist America, the current incarnation of the earthly city marked, as Augustine wrote, by "its lust after domination." That civil religion—whose sectarian disputes are the "culture wars"—defines redemption as inclusion in the capitalist market and pledges allegiance to what Philip Bobbitt has called a "market state," which facilitates capital mobility and labor "flexibility" while promising a bare and ever-shrinking minimum of justice and protection. Whatever the name of the covenant theology—"globalization," "neo-liberalism," "democratic capitalism"—its beatific vision is the worldwide expansion of individual "choices," whose mediation through "values" occasions the virulent but circumscribed sectarian differences. Its most compact creedal statement, promulgated by the Bush Administration in the fall of 2002, is the National Security Strategy of the United States, outlining the doctrines of "preemption"—what William Kristol of The Weekly Standard has candidly termed imperialism—and of "opening societies" to "the single sustainable model for national success": "free markets and free trade," i.e., deference to unfettered corporate prerogatives in investment and labor practices.

As its clerisy, the civil religion features a punditocracy whose job it is to control and patrol the borders of permissible discussion. These ubiquitous commentators do have their quarrels and indeed may be cast as bitter antagonists, conservative versus liberal, religious versus secular. And yet, oddly enough, wherever they take their stand in the culture wars, they never compromise their underlying commitment to the Empire of Expanding Choices.

Do read the whole thing before you comment.

To Moscow

Cardinal Kaspar to meet with Russian Orthodox

The Vatican has deployed an envoy of senior officials to visit Moscow on a four-day trip. The move comes amid increasing tensions between the Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches.

The visit to Russia will see Cardinal Walter Kasper meet with Metropolitan Kirill, but he will not be able to speak directly with the Orthodox leader, Patriarch Alexy II.

Two brothers, one mission

Column from the Rochester paper about two elderly brother priests

Bernard, 84, and Tom, 78, both joined the Oblates Order of Mary Immaculate and became Roman Catholic priests — Bernard in 1948, Tom in 1955.

"I don't know how, but even as a child, I wanted to go north," Bernard says. So he accepted an assignment to build a mission in Colville Lake, 35 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Canada's Northwest Territory. When he arrived 57 years ago, "there was just one Catholic family," he says. "Today, there are 120 people" in the mission community known as Our Lady of the Snows.

In 1949, Tom hired on as a stevedore on a missionary supply ship to visit Bernard up north. It was not for him. "After seeing it, he gave his verdict," Bernard says. "Negative."

Tom did follow Bernard to ordination, but opted to work in Sao Paolo, Brazil, where he is pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians Parish — with 50,000 Catholics, more than the total population of the Northwest Territories.

How do you handle a parish of 50,000? I ask. "They handle me," he says with a grin.

Tom prefers the warm climate and the warmth of the Brazilian people. Bernard likes the quiet of the Arctic and the stoicism of the Eskimo people.

Bernard's story is particularly interesting.

Life and its quality

The reader who sent this in titled his email: Three days, two stories, one existential chasm, same newspaper.

(The paper requires registration, btw)

Peter Singer spoke to an audience of 900

(See, that in itself is frightening to me. Singer can get 900 out in Nebraska at a talk sponsored by Unitarians?)

Singer's 50-minute speech, followed by a question-and-answer session, marked the kickoff of the Holland Lecture Series sponsored by the First Unitarian Church of Omaha. Singer drew sustained applause at the evening's conclusion.

Whether discussing the point where death occurs, stem-cell research, abortion or euthanasia, Singer painstakingly defended his views and contrasted them with what he called the traditionalist idea of "all life being sacred" no matter its quality.

"I believe the view I'm putting forward is more defensible than the traditional position," Singer said. "We need to have this debate and discussion so that we can work things out."

Quality of life, Singer said, is an important measuring stick when discussing when life begins and ends.

A father's greatest gift: a man stays by his infant son's side

Jake Lee Brethauer was born with Down syndrome on March 1 in North Platte. Eight weeks early, the red-haired, blue-eyed baby weighed 3 pounds, ¹/₂ ounce. Doctors had to resuscitate him twice.

Jake soon was on a plane to Omaha and the neonatal intensive care unit at the Nebraska Medical Center. Doctors inserted a feeding tube because his esophagus wasn't attached to his stomach.

The infant has been in the NICU ever since. His mom stayed for the first month. As the family's primary wage-earner, she had to return to her nursing job in North Platte.

Dad stayed behind. For the moment, he's Jake's primary parent, spending nine-hour days in the NICU among doctors and nurses more used to dealing with moms than dads.

Jack lives alone for five days each week at the Ronald McDonald House. By 8:30, he's with Jake, where he remains unless he's eating meals or taking a short break. He leaves about 9 each night after bath time.

This isn't how Jack and his wife, Monica, saw parenthood when they married 13 years ago. They decided to wait several years to have children. They were getting established - Monica as a psych nurse, Jack as a machinist with Union Pacific.

But Jack hurt his back and hip joint in 2000, the year they planned to start their family. Four years of hospital stays and surgeries followed; Jack now is on permanent disability.

It made sense for him to stay with Jake.

B-16 on Foie Gras

Reader James wrote and asked me if I knew the source of a quote from the Pope at Andrew Sullivan's site - he gets it from a PETA-related site

The new Pope has spoken movingly about the exploitation of all beings, particularly of farmed animals. When he was asked about the rights of animals in a 2002 interview, he said, "That is a very serious question. At any rate, we can see that they are given into our care, that we cannot just do whatever we want with them. Animals, too, are God's creatures . . . Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible."

Well, I saw it identified elsewhere as from an "interview with Peter Seewald," so, if was 2002, I guess it must be from God and the World, but I'm not sure.

For your consideration on the topic: Matthew Scully, author of the book, Dominon: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals and the Call to Mercy

A recent article by Scully

We are told “they’re just pigs” or cows or chickens or whatever and that only urbanites worry about such things, estranged as they are from the realities of rural life. Actually, all of factory farming proceeds by a massive denial of reality—the reality that pigs and other animals are not just production units to be endlessly exploited but living creatures with natures and needs. The very modesty of those needs—their humble desires for straw, soil, sunshine—is the gravest indictment of the men who deny them.

Conservatives are supposed to revere tradition. Factory farming has no traditions, no rules, no codes of honor, no little decencies to spare for a fellow creature. The whole thing is an abandonment of rural values and a betrayal of honorable animal husbandry—to say nothing of veterinary medicine, with its sworn oath to “protect animal health” and to “relieve animal suffering.”

Terri Schiavo's remains buried

Michael Schiavo - who said he promised his wife he would not keep her alive artificially - also listed Feb. 25, 1990, as the date his wife "Departed this Earth."

Patterico's take

More on the Memorial Acclamation

at Dom's

Working on your US bishops

Well, Grand Rapids finally got someone, at least..

- Accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the diocese of Reno, U.S.A., presented by Bishop Phillip Francis Straling, in accordance with Canon 401, para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law.

(§2 A diocesan Bishop who, because of illness or some other grave reason, has become unsuited for the fulfilment of his office, is earnestly requested to offer his resignation from office.)

- Appointed Bishop Walter Allison Hurley, auxiliary of the archdiocese of Detroit, U.S.A., as bishop of Grand Rapids (area 17,592, population 1,283,717, Catholics 162,670, priests 136, permanent deacons 29, religious 289), U.S.A.

- Appointed Msgr. John Gerard Noonan, president-rector of the Saint John Vianney College Seminary, as auxiliary of the archdiocese of Miami (area 12,836, population 4,036,799, Catholics 856,783, priests 361, permanent deacons 142, religious 509), U.S.A. The bishop-elect was born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1951 and ordained a priest in 1983.

Pasolini-Fest

Peter Chattaway has been attending a retrospective of the films of Pier Paulo Pasolini, and blogs at that link about the Gospel According to St. Matthew and the documentary Pasolini made about searching for locations for that film in the Holy Land (it was, of course, eventually shot in Italy)

High Living

Priest indicted for stealing 2 mil

New Perspectives on Paul

I've just learned about this controversy, and am trying to get up to speed on it. No, it's not an RC thing - it's a theological dispute within Protestant denominations, especially of the Reformed traditions (I think) about interpreting Pauline theology.

Am I right so far?

From The Paul Page, dedicated solely to the "New Perspective"

Over the last three decades, a revolutionary breakthrough in New Testament scholarship has been rocking the academic Christian world. The scholars at the forefront of the revolution -- E.P. Sanders, James D.G. Dunn, N.T. Wright, and others -- have been pioneering a new approach to the letters of the first-century apostle to the Gentiles, Paul of Tarsus.

These Protestants are engaging first-century Judaism on its own terms, not in the context of the Protestant-Catholic debates of the sixteenth century. The result: A new historical perspective on the meaning of Paul's polemic against the Judaizers which occupies so much of his recorded correspondence.

What is this new perspective? At its core is the recognition that Judaism is not a religion of self-righteousness whereby humankind seeks to merit salvation before God. Paul's argument with the Judaizers was not about Christian grace versus Jewish legalism. His argument was rather about the status of Gentiles in the church. Paul's doctrine of justification, therefore, had far more to do with Jewish-Gentile issues than with questions of the individual's status before God.

Okay, the "during the past three decades" part makes me feel, frankly, stupid and myopic, but I'll try to move on.

A bit more about what's at stake, from an article (one of many good ones) linked on the site

Secondly – and this is amply catalogued, in Re-reading Paul – there is the centrality of Paul and Paul’s writings to the Reformation, the most significant event in Western Christianity since the Middle Ages. It is well known that the original Reformer, Martin Luther, came to believe that what he found objectionable – and therefore clamouring for reform – in certain aspects of late medieval Catholicism was exactly what Paul found objectionable in certain aspects of his own ancestral Judaism. Luther believed that in his personal struggle for righteousness by faith he was recalling Christians to the truth of the gospel as preached by Paul. This means, of course, that Paul – or a distinctive understanding of Paul – stands at the heart of the Reformation and so is absolutely central to the self-understanding and identity of the Christian confessions that are heirs of the Reformation. Touch Paul and you touch their very identity and self-understanding. Hence the controversy – and the delicacy – of the “New Perspective on Paul” for these churches, especially those of an Evangelical persuasion.

And from N.T.Wright, one of the central figures:

I end with a plea. I have lived most of my life in and around evangelical circles in which I have come to recognise a strange phenomenon. It is commonly assumed that Luther and Calvin got Paul right. But often when people think of Luther and Calvin they see them, and hence Paul, through three subsequent lenses provided by western culture. The Enlightenment highlighted the abstract truths of reason over against the messy facts of history; many Protestants have put Lessing and Luther together and still thought they were reading Paul. The Romantic movement highlighted inner feeling over against outer, physical reality; many have thence supposed that this was what Paul, and Luther and Calvin, were really saying (hence the knee-jerk protestant anti-sacramentalism). More recently, existentialism has insisted that what matters is being true to my inner self, rather than being conditioned by history, mine or anyone else’s; many people, not only Rudolf Bultmann, have read Paul and Luther in that light.

At a popular level, this mess and muddle shows up in a general sense that anything inward, anything to do with strong religious emotion, anything which downplays outward observance, must be striking a blow for the Pauline gospel of justification by faith. This is as worrying as it is absurd. All these movements are forms of dualism, where Paul believed in the goodness and God-givenness of creation, and in its eventual promised renewal. Together they reinforce that gnosticism which is a poison at the heart of much contemporary culture, including soi-disant Christian culture.

It is time to turn away from all this; to rub our eyes, and look clearly at the path by which we and our culture have come.

Finally, a response from Dr. Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Convention here, from his blog, with some links

Controversy over the so-called 'New Perspective' on Paul has grown in recent years, as revisionist understandings of Paul and his understanding of the Gospel have gained ground among some evangelicals. In my judgment, the New Perspective represents a repudiation of the Gospel as it was recovered, taught, and defended by the Reformers in the 16th century. In other words, I believe that Luther, in his own time, understood Paul better than the New Perspectivists do now. No doubt, those promoting the New Perspective intend to recover what they believe to be the biblical Gospel. Nevertheless, good intention is no assurance of good effect. In rejecting some of the misunderstandings of the Gospel common among some evangelicals, this group has gone on to do great damage to the Gospel itself. Nothing less than the doctrine of justification is at stake.

This is quite interesting to me, and while I'll be looking into it more and trying to understand it more deeply, if anyone can explain it briefly, especially addressing the following points...

1)Is this "new perspective" closer to the traditional Catholic understanding of Paul (if there is such a thing as a single Catholic understanding of Paul)

2)Are there any Roman Catholic scholars interested in this, or is it only a Protestant/Anglican thing?

3)Is Mohler right? Is this a serious challenge to the traditional Reformation concept of justification?

RIP, Cardinal Sin

Passed away after a long illness

Finding My Religion

A piece from the SF paper about a musician's journey:

 

Classical pianist Jacqueline Chew rebelled against her Christian upbringing and became an atheist while attending the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in the 1970s. But her love of music eventually led her back to a spiritual life.

Chew was so taken with the work of Olivier Messiaen, a pioneering French composer known for his sacred Catholic music, that after hearing his composition "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus" ("Twenty Contemplations of the Infant Jesus"), she began questioning her belief that God does not exist. The more she learned about the music, the more religious she became.

Next month, Chew, who released a CD of "Vingt Regards" last year, will take her interest in Catholicism to a new level. She will be received as an oblate, a layperson living outside a monastery who promises to follow the rules of St. Benedict in her private life, at the New Camaldoli Hermitage, a community of monks in Big Sur.

Alternative Therapy

For infertility

I find it a bit confusing - I can't quite figure out what it is - a more detailed observation system, but where does the progesterone come in?

A Message from the Foof

An afternoon at the "Sprayground"

Go ahead. You know you want to. Take some time...relax.

Color Him Dad

Great story from Detroit about a stay-at-home dad of 6, including one set of twins and one of triplets...with another on the way.

(Do check out the photo slideshow - quite charming)

Favorite detail: bathtime. Very funny, but efficient and pretty smart.

Least favorite detail: obnoxious remarks of observers. Why do people care? How could people look at this lovely family and valiant parents without smiling and wishing them well?

My son walked out of Mass

No, really.

First, let me tell you about this one - the oldest. He's 22, almost 23, a sports lover, a video editor, loves horrible music, goes to Atlanta and other points north,south, east and west all the time for concerts of that same music, etc. He has a pierced ear, and works out and is just the most regular young man around.

And yesterday, he walked out of Mass.

Why?

"It was a circus. It was all about being social."

Knock me down with a feather.

He usually doesn't go to the campus parish because, well, he doesn't like it, but yesterday, the Mass time was good for his plans for the rest of the day. So he went. What I could get out of him was that there was a baptism during Mass, and the priest went all call-and-response, had the people repeat their responses to the baptismal promise renewals, shouting, encouraging hollering, and so on, and that after the baptism the priest took a little break to go get some paperwork or something (I'm kind of fuzzy at this point) and people were wandering around the gathering space, socializing, and it was pretty raucus.

"I was offended."

That's exactly what he said.

So he walked out. He said, "I got some dirty looks, but I just said, go ahead and have a good time at your hootenanny." (Actually, he didn't say "hootenanny," but I can't recall exactly what he said right this second)

And off he went to the Cathedral. The boy likes his church to be church.

Here's what I say  - it's not my particular influence. I've been clear when I see liturgical insanity, but I also have tried to spin the same line I do here - Mass is Mass: pray, join with others in that prayer, focus on Jesus. We've always attended just really normal parishes, for good or for ill.

What's really clear to me is that someone else is at working here, and I'm thinking it must be his grandmother, my mother, (whose cause and pain was the liturgy),  praying for him, from heaven, watching over him, still having an impact on him.

I really think so.

And I'm glad. And grateful.

And still in a mild state of shock.

(p.s.) - it's not that I'm an advocate of leaving Mass (note that he did go to another whole Mass somewhere else - 1 1/2 Masses for him on Sunday!), but that he's taking the whole thing quite seriously - I'm so very happy to see that...

Dark Night of the Soul

Former Review Board member reflects on his experience

Twenty years as a canon and civil lawyer for Catholic institutions did not prepare Nicholas Cafardi for what he encountered as a member and chairman of the National Review Board charged with overseeing the U.S. bishops' response to accusations of sexual abuse by priests.

"It's been a dark night of the soul," said Cafardi, 56, dean emeritus of the Duquesne University School of Law. He has just completed a three-year term on the board, including a final stint as chairman. Now he is on an academic sabbatical in Rome, where he will do a doctoral thesis on the early but ineffective attempts by U.S. bishops to respond to accusations of child sexual abuse.

The argument over Plan B

Scientists seeking to dispel the abortifacient impression

Amid a heated national debate over emergency contraception, some scientists are marshaling evidence to challenge the belief that the "morning-after pill" is equivalent to abortion.

Abortion opponents object to the pills, saying they work by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg in the womb and thus destroy an early embryo. Some pharmacists are refusing on moral grounds to dispense emergency contraception.

But the scientists say there is no scientific evidence the pills prevent implantation--and considerable evidence they work mainly by blocking the release of an egg from the woman's ovary, so no embryo is formed.

"The pervasive myth out there is that emergency contraception is an abortifacient," said Dr. David Archer, director of clinical research at the Contraceptive Research and Development Program of Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk.

"But there's no evidence scientifically that that's true."

For one thing, Archer points out, emergency contraception generally doesn't work if taken after a woman has ovulated.

On the other hand, no one can prove that the pill doesn't interfere with implantation.

IVF Questions..

What's the truth about the results?

Based on their analysis, the researchers concluded that IVF might result in more pregnancies than other treatment options for unexplained fertility, but this remains uncertain and more research is needed on birth rates, adverse outcomes, and costs.

As outcomes, future trials should use adverse effects and cost of treatments as well as birth rates.

For now, said Dr. Pandian, "IVF is becoming popular when there is no specific explanation for infertility and it may be able to overcome a variety of problems. However, it is expensive, complicated, and can have many adverse effects, such as multiple births."

In Conclusion

A summary of the Bishops' meeting from CNS

Short-term missions

What's the Impact?

This study shows that short-term missions as done now are not having the impact that people think or want, even if done to levels of excellence," says Ver Beek. "If that's true, it requires a whole rethinking of whether or not we're going to do this, and if so, how."

His proposal: It's not enough to stress the importance of orientation and debriefing as ways of augmenting the short-term mission experience—something you'll hear from any STM expert worth her salt. Instead, the STM needs to be treated as one small module that augments a much longer and more intense course of learning.

Peterson, for his part, applauds Ver Beek's attempts to verify giving reports and fill in the third-world side of the equation, but questions some of his calculations. "The data appears to be manipulated with a strong bias," he says.

Ver Beek freely admits that others could interpret his data differently. "It's true, there was a small increase in giving. But after all the time and effort and money spent on these trips, is an increase of a few dollars success?"

For Ver Beek, who has lived in Honduras for most of the last 20 years and worked closely with community development organizations, the answer is no.

Peterson, president of STM sending agency STEM Ministries, also questions the assumption that the money raised for STMs would be available for direct donation to third world organizations. Most people are simply less willing to aid a distant cause than to help a friend or coworker go on a trip, he says.

More on Spain

Robert Duncan at Spero News on the march in Spain - do go read for a first-hand account.

The Black Legend

Interesting work on the origins of the condemnation of Pius XII's "silence" or whatever you would like to call it, regarding Nazi persecution

The article, by Magister, reprints another, scholarly article with the following details:

In Spadolini’s article, the perceived origins of the accusations against pope Pacelli are clear: firstly, between 1939 and 1951, there are the two French Catholic intellectuals Mounier and Mauriac; then there is the soviet propaganda of the war years, and more generally the communist propaganda in the post-war period and during the cold war.

The debate was accentuated after the death of Pius XII and during the very different pontificate of John XXIII, and then exploded definitively during the time of Paul VI. It then became linked with the contrasting Pacelli and Roncalli pontificates, which, amongst other factors, in 1965 led to pope Montini introducing the causes for beatification for this two predecessors simultaneously:

“In this way, the wish that was expressed for both of theses by so many voices shall be fulfilled; in this way, their spiritual patrimony shall be kept safe for history; in this way, it will be ensured that these authentic and dear characters will not be reinterpreted and will only be remembered through the cult of true sanctity and thus the glory of God, for our veneration and for that of future generations”.

With the passing of time, the question of Pius XII’s silence has become increasingly complicated, because the repeated accusations against pope Pacelli have turned into a “black legend”. This has certainly not helped the new, positive relations between the Catholic Church and Judaism. In the meantime, the origins of the accusations – born in Catholic circles and promoted above all through soviet and communist propaganda and those who have a sense of nostalgia for it, and will not forgive Pius XII for his anticommunism.

Thanks, Mario

Mario Cuomo chimes in on the ECSR debate :

To extricate himself from an untenable position, the president should start by following the successful pattern established in other areas of dealing with the clash of religious and political questions, including the law concerning abortion. The right of true believers to live by their own religious beliefs will be guaranteed: no one will be compelled to use stem cell research or its products, just as no one will ever be compelled to have an abortion. And the nation will respect the right of believers to advocate for changes in our civil law that correspond with their own view of morality.

But our pluralistic political system adopts rights that arise out of consensus, not the dictates of religious orthodoxy; and if such rights are adopted - approving abortions or financing stem cell research on leftover embryos - they will be the law of the land, even if religious dissenters, through their tax dollars, end up helping to pay for things that they find anathema. Every day Americans who abhor the death penalty, contraceptives, abortions and war are required to pay taxes used in part for purposes they consider offensive. That is part of the price we pay for this uniquely successful democracy.

So far neither Mr. Bush nor religious believers have convinced a majority of Americans that the use of embryonic stem cells inevitably entails the murder of a human being. Most Americans, vividly aware of the millions of tragic victims of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer and spinal cord injuries, believe that embryonic stem cell research may provide cures. They will demand that Congress act to realize that potential.

If the president vetoes a bill that advances that potential, he will have to provide more than sincere religiosity to prove that human life exists as early as fertilization, a proposition that even the Roman Catholic Church and other religions have historically disputed.

The best way to test that proposition would be to employ a panel of respected scientists, humanists and religious leaders to consider testimony from bioscience experts describing when consciousness first appears, when viability outside the womb usually occurs, and how other religions treat the subject. They would then provide their conclusions to lawmakers.

Um, okay.

Exit Strategy?

No, not that one - from U.S. public schools.

It will be a subject for discussion this week at the Southern Baptist Convention. Mere Comments...comments that this might be the most contentious subject of the gathering. Should Southern Baptist parents give up and pull out of public schools?

So....

It's okay for religion to guide scientific research as long as it's....Buddhism? Or Confucianism?

Okay. Got it.

Gaelic Gospel?

Mark Butterworth has a fascinating post on possible links between Southern Gospel music styles and one form of traditional Gailic singing from the Western Isles

Sad Songs

Barbara Nicolosi has a post on sad songs. The post is based on an article in the Guardian in which the author runs through a list of what he says are the saddest songs out there. Yeah, he skimps on some genres, but the main problem is that he seems to focus on bad sad songs - (Earworm: We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun!).

For your consideration, what I think is one of the saddest songs ever, and it's a good song, too:

Everything that Glitters is Not Gold by Dan Seals. Oh my word, the first time I heard this, I was driving home from somewhere late at night, it came up on the radio, I'd never heard it before, and boy there was I was on 92 coming into Lakeland, dern tears just streaming down my face. Good Lord. Talk about sad.

He has one Harry Chapin song on there, but really, which of his songs is authentically, truly sadder than Cat's in the Cradle?

I also like what Barbara has to say about the kinds of music you fill your house with...

Any way you can

Michael The Baby is seven months old today. Oh, time is going too quickly. As much as you want them to just move on to the next stage, to a little more independence, you still can't bear to see them grow up. So goes the toothless mouth - two little white pearls are on the lower gum now, and you don't even have to pry to see them. He pulls up on everything, and has even figured out how to lower himself, gently, without banging his head (although that still happens sometimes)

Of course, movement is the real delight and tremendous thrill. Joseph was a roller, but Michael has never bothered with that. He's beyond the soldier's belly crawl, as well. He flops. He pulls himself up on his arms and then (really) throws himself forward, sometimes with such force that his legs go flying up in the air.

And that's what we all have to do at times, when moving forward is a challenge.

Just throw yourself out there, and trust.

End is near...

Tomorrow's my deadline for the chapter I have to write. Need to go over it one more time tonight, then again tomorrow (afternoon - boys' medical checkups tomorrow), and then off. And then I'm sort of free, except for a couple of articles I have to write...and that's pretty free.

And Joseph's enthusiastic about going to a new sitter a few mornings a week (his sitter of three years is moving to Cincinnati)...and that's real freedom. You'd be amazed at what 3 hours of quiet can do for an introvert soul.

Another Rome Journey

Bill Cork went, has an interesting account and photos

Demotion

Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem "demoted" to monk

Defiant to the end, the former head of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, Irenaios, yesterday asked Israeli police to bring him 14 bodyguards after an ecclesiastical tribunal officially defrocked him, demoting him to the rank of a simple monk.

Meanwhile, Irenaios’s aide Meletios — a former Arab archimandrite who was deposed earlier this week — called for a “religious intifada” against Greek Orthodox authorities and for a stop to Greek administration of the Jerusalem Patriarchate’s property.

Meletios issued the appeals while leading a march of around 200 Orthodox believers, who were protesting against his own ouster, to the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

I don't know...this sounds potentially explosive, to me.

A piece in the Scotsman on the Greek church's trials

HIGH-RANKING priests caught on video dressed in latex g-strings? Financial embezzlement? Welcome to the crisis-ridden world of the established Orthodox Church to which, by law, ordinary Greeks must pay financial dues.

All year Greeks have been watching flabbergasted as horrific tales of their priesthood's private lifestyles have erupted on their television screens - it is usually unheard of for the conservative Greek media to expose church scandals. Secret tape recordings have alleged widespread homosexuality among senior clerics who, unlike ordinary priests, take a vow of celibacy. And splashed across the front page of a mass-selling Athens daily were shots of a 91-year-old metropolitan bishop caught in fragrante with a young female.

Typical is the case of Metropolitan Panteleimon of Attica, who headed Greece's richest parish. He was stripped of his title over tape recordings which revealed "lewd exchanges with young men" and charges that he had embezzled around £3 million in church funds for "his old age".

Exorcising Dissent

Exorcism..crucifixion...Romanian horror

Sociologist Alred Bulai said that corporal punishment was still commonly used in certain Romanian monasteries.

"It's happening particularly in the isolated monasteries, where the superiors have difficulty understanding the current realities and adapting themselves to modern life," Bulai said.

It was not clear why Father Daniel believed the nun was possessed. One parishoner, Dora, said the nun "had to be punished, she had an argument with the Father during a Sunday mass and insulted him in front of the congregation."

....

Vitalie Danciu, the superior of a nearby monastery at Golia, called the crucifixion "inexcusable," but a spokesman for the Orthodox patriarchate in Bucharest refused to condemn it.

"I don't know what this young woman did," Bogdan Teleanu said.

The Rain in Spain

As you might or might know, there was an large protest against gay marriage in Madrid yestserday.

Backstory here:

The same-sex marriage legislation still must be passed by the Senate, after being approved earlier this spring by parliament in a 183-136 vote, with six abstentions. The Senate vote is scheduled for June 22, and had been seen as a mere formality. Protestors hope the demonstrations will cause Senators to think twice before voting for the bill

Now, for the coverage, here and elsewhere. Early estimates I've seen put the crowd figures between 200,000-half a million. I don't know if anyone is claiming that they met the 1 million figure they had hoped for.

First, there's nothing on the Reuters page. Not a word. Not an article, not a photo - nothing comes up in the search. Blackout there.

Next, on to the Yahoo news photo feed, which I always find interesting. Enter "spain" and "gay" and you come up with 9 photos from yesterday. One is a tight shot of the anti-gay-marriage rally. The other 8 are of a pro-gay-marriage rally, including a couple of pictures of cute babies.

Here's an article from a Spanish paper and a rather lengthy photo slideshow

US coverage: Boston Globe, lengthy and pretty fair

NYTimes

LATimes gives a bit broader context

The law would be one of the most liberal marriage statutes in Europe. It would grant full marriage rights to same-sex couples, including the right to adopt children. It has been approved by the lower house of parliament and is expected to pass the Senate in the next few weeks. Polls have shown a large majority of the Spanish public favors allowing gay marriage.

Judging from Saturday's protest, the adoption clause may be the most controversial. Demonstrators hoisted posters depicting a youngster with the words "I am a child, not an experiment." A waist-high boy held a sign almost lost in the crowd that read, "Zapatero had a mother and a father. Why can't I?"

"Homosexuals are human beings with a right to form a couple but nothing more," said Adela Rodriguez, a 55-year-old nurse from Madrid. "Don't touch the children!"

Finally, in the NYTimes magazine a lengthy piece examining some Christian anti-gay marriage activists (although this excerpt begins with a quote from a pro)

When I last spoke with Lisa Polyak, she said she was pleased that the Legislature had shown courage in addressing the civil rights of gay couples but sickened that conservative activists and the state's governor wanted to deny them those rights. Oddly enough, though, Polyak, who once thought of this whole issue as essentially about civil rights, says that she is now in it for something more profound: she doesn't want her children to grow up with a stigma. ''I want to lift the psychic burden on my family,'' she said.

That means changing hearts. How difficult that will be was illustrated by a single vignette. When I met Polyak, she told me how, when she first testified before a legislative committee, an anti-gay-marriage activist, a woman, confronted her with bitter language, asking her why she was ''doing this'' to the woman's children and grandchildren. Polyak said the encounter left her shaken. A few days later, as I sat in Evalena Gray's Christmas-lighted basement office, she told me a story of how during the same testimony she approached a blond lesbian and talked to her about the effect that gay marriage would have on her grandchildren. ''Then I hugged her neck,'' she said, ''and I said, 'We love you.' I was kind of consoling her to some extent, out of compassion.''

I realized I was hearing about the same encounter from both sides. What was expressed as love was received as something close to hate. That's a hard gap to bridge.

"Filth"

Ever more tensions in Zimbabwe

EVERY morning Father Michael looks out of the window of his Harare parish house and sees an ever larger crowd of homeless families outside. “I feel helpless,” said the Jesuit priest, who was too terrified to give his real name.

“I keep telling them my little homilies, that the violent will not win, they will have to answer for what they have done, but I see a city ringed by fire.

“People who worked to look after their families — carpenters, metalworkers, street vendors and caterers — have been turned into beggars by their own government. This is a crime against humanity and all we can do is give them black plastic sheeting.”

As Operation Murambatsvina or “drive out filth”, moves into its second month, as many as a 1m city-dwellers have been made homeless by government bulldozers and axe-wielding police.

Churches have become the only refuge for people who have lost everything. But priests have now been warned not to help by the government of President Robert Mugabe.

Park Police

In Houston, questions about naming a park after JP2. The commissioner who recommended it responds to criticism

Jerry Brown's wedding

At age 67....

The wedding was attended by almost 600 guests, including former Gov. Gray Davis, and three past and present San Francisco mayors, Willie Brown, Gavin Newsom and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who conducted the precisely planned ceremony (the second marriage she's conducted). The readings from the Old and New Testaments, Gregorian chants by Exaudi nos and Cum jubilo, brass fanfare by the Whole Noyse and selections of medieval music sung by Melanie Spiller and Jennifer Lane were planned by Brown.

The groom's earliest plan for the event was for a pre-Tridentine wedding, harking back to the era before the Council of Trent made weddings church business. But "I told him it wouldn't feel real if he didn't get married in church,'' said his friend Alioto. So after the Rotunda Building ceremony and reception, the couple came to San Francisco, where they were married at 5 p.m. in a much smaller religious ceremony at St. Agnes, where Brown's parents had married and where he was baptized.

Growth in Arlington

Catholic population up 42% in ten years, 1/3 of the diocese's population is Hispanic

This figure is consistent with national figures, cited here and here. The latter study suggests that in a generation, 1/2 of U.S. Catholics will be Hispanic.

I always wonder, as I contemplate these figures, why this presence is so underrepresented in the instutional Church in this country. Are 1/3 of priests Hispanic? 1/3 of pastoral ministers of any type? Is the presence of the Church in heavily Hispanic areas of the same type that it was in the heavily immigrant areas of the 19th and early 20th centuries? The Church poured out its resources during those decades to serve immigrant populations in substantial ways that weren't "programs," but were schools and hospitals and parishes.

The 21st century U.S. Church is working hard to keep up, in most places, I know, but it seems, in very general tgerms, that there is a  difference in the type of service and ministry and presence to this immigrant population than there was to earlier groups. Is this an accurate perception, or not? In my town, the Hispanic population is growing dramaticially, but the Roman Catholic Hispanic community gets shifted around to various parishes, has few if any native speaker priests or religious serving it, and right now meets in a parish church with a big empty school attached, which it seems to me, seventy-five years ago, would have been filled with students from the immigrant population it - St. Patrick's - served.

Yes, life is more complicated and expensive now, but the lack of imagination, at least in this area, of ministering to this growing segment of the Catholic population, is startling...espcially if we know that in a generation, they will be half of "us." Why don't we treat them as "us?"

Our day

Michael and Joseph here

The preparation

Katie, the baby and me: piano lesson (first with a new teacher - at a local college. Big transition, but looks good so far), grocery story, Laura, via Netflix, and now for her, Road to Morocco, via TCM. I've got other stuff to do...awaiting the return of the big men, hoping that all survived...

Bishops Wrap-Up

Not much news out of this meeting, but one that has raised questions among some readers was the offhand mention in some stories about an issue related to the "Christ has died" memorial acclamation.

For example in this story:

Also Friday, the bishops voted to move back to committee a proposal to eliminate the popular mass acclamation, "Christ has died. Christ is risen, Christ will come again."

The Liturgy Committee chairman, Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pa., argued that the text is not "theologically suitable" because it does not originate from Latin script.

Liturgists chime in, but I think the basic question is that this particular memorial acclamation is not in the Latin text of the liturgy. (I don't know which ones are), in addition to the theological issues. Here are a couple of older discussions:

From 1996, from Adoremus

From 2004, also from Adoremus

And then, from NCR(eporter) a couple of days ago:

The US bishops will vote June 17 on adaptations to the Order of the Mass, following the International Committee on English in the Liturgy’s submission of a draft translation of the Ordo Missae to English-speaking bishops conferences’.

The memorial acclamation should be eliminated, Bishop Donald Trautman, chairman of the Liturgy Committee, told the assembled bishops because it is not a translation of any of the acclamations found in the Ordo Missae. Further, according to the Liturgy Committee memorandum, “it has not been retained for a theological reason.” Unlike the other acclamations (i.e. “Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life….) “’Christ has died…’ is more an assertion of the Paschal Mystery, rather than a unique expression of the gathered assembly of its incorporation into the Paschal Mystery.”

There are no other significant changes proposed to the Order of the M ass. Assuming the bishops' conference approves the proposal, it will be submitted to Rome for a recognitzio, or approval.

A Toledo Blade story with a bit more detail on other actions:

Among other actions taken yesterday, the bishops:

*Issued a statement in which they acknowledged and apologized for, individually and collectively, mistakes made by some bishops in transferring priests who had abused minors to new assignments.

*Made the ad hoc committee on sexual abuse a permanent committee.

*Tabled until November a motion to remove an acclamation from the Mass, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” The liturgy committee said it is not theologically sound.

*Approved a statement renewing their commitment to Catholic elementary and secondary education in the new millennium.
The bishops are scheduled to conclude their spring session today with an executive session that is closed to the media.

Cultures of Devotion

Fascinating website.

A DMN story:

Many Latin Americans revere folk saints or "santos populares" – an array of healers, political renegades and heroes who helped the poor. Most devotees are Catholic, but these saints aren't recognized by the church. Frank Graziano, a professor of Hispanic studies at Connecticut College, spent years studying folk saints in five countries, and he shares his photos and findings in this fascinating site.

Among those featured on the site are the Niño Fidencio, an early 20th-century healer whose shrine is in Nuevo León, Mexico, and Difunta Correa, an Argentine folk saint who reportedly died of exhaustion in the desert while pursuing her husband, who was forcibly conscripted into the troops of Facundo Quiroga around 1835.

Some will test visitors' multicultural understanding. There's a photo of one folk saint, Niño Compadrito – the skeleton of a child adorned with bejeweled garments and enshrined in Cuzco, Peru. Eyelashes, teeth, hair and glass eyes have been added by devotees in response to requests revealed in dreams. It's a bit ghastly to American sensibilities, but the photos of Niño's devotees, and the colorful assortment of plastic toys left as offerings, make it a little less so.

One more reading post

Heard about this a couple of weeks ago, it's appropriate to post it today:

Guys Read is a website and initiative started by Jon Scieszka (author of the Time Warp Trio books, among others) to encourage boys to read.

Reading Bleg

My almost-14 year old daughter is a heavy reader. We're running up a bit of a problem because I can't quite figure out where to guide her next, in terms of transitioning to reading more adult fiction. So I'm looking for suggestions.

When I was her age, mysteries were the road I took - I loved Rex Stout, Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen the most. They were my transitional reads, the first books I checked out of the adult section. She doesn't like mysteries very much. Her tastes run to historical fiction and fantasy. The suggestions I'm looking for are not of the more well known writers - she's read Tolkien, Wynne-Jones, etc.,etc. (and likes to re-read them, as well), but titles from those two genres, in particular, that would be age-appropriate for her, but still challenging and enjoyable. (And I ask because 1)I don't know Fantasy  and 2)the historical fiction I read would probably, at this point, bore her to tears)

The best way to put the question is this: What's next for a girl who read and loved Gone With the Wind when she was 12?

Move over, Dan

The Michaelangelo Code?

When faced with the paintings and photographs of the anatomical body part side-by-side, Barreto and Oliveira's theory is conceivable, although some matches require a little bit of creativity. Some might say too much.

"The problem, and art historians too are certainly often guilty of this, is simply that we often see what we want to see," said Dennis Geronimus, a specialist on Renaissance art at New York University who had a chance to examine some of Barreto and Oliveira's "de-coded" matches.

Their proposals, he said, "stretch the visual evidence far beyond Michelangelo's own specific vocabulary of poses, gestures and symbolic relationships."

Indeed, why would Michelangelo hide drawings of human organs in the Sistine Chapel?

Rifts in the GOP marriage?

Or whatever.

An article on Missouri politics

Because of this marriage within the party, Republicans now control the General Assembly and the governorship for the first time since 1922. But in recent months there have been signs that the marriage is in trouble. At the center of this growing storm is Gov. Matt Blunt, who attends Second Baptist Church, Springfield.

Blunt refers to himself as “pro-life” and a “Southern Baptist,” as he did in a recent editorial published in The Springfield News-Leader. The governor is clearly anti-abortion and a defender of human life in accordance with his religious beliefs. However, he is strongly pro-business and the embryonic stem cell issue is putting him increasingly at odds with a powerful constituency – pro-life evangelicals and Catholics – who helped put him in office. Why? Because the governor does not believe destruction of the embryo is taking a life, allowing him to support the influential business interests linked to the push for embryonic stem cell research at Washington University, St. Louis, and the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City.

Ironically, the governor’s position has put him at odds with his father, Republican Congressman Roy Blunt, who voted against an embryonic stem cell research bill in May and President George W. Bush, who has threatened to veto any embryonic stem cell bill. Both Roy Blunt and Bush favor adult stem cell research, which does not require the destruction of the embryo and actually holds more promise for medical research. Missouri Right to Life, National Review and conservative publications and organizations have pointed out that the governor holds to incongruent beliefs on life. Pathway Editor Don Hinkle was among the first to point out the governor’s inconsistent view on the matter and that has since been followed by a May article in National Review, considered the “bible” of conservative thought, criticizing the governor, calling his position “an incoherent mess.”

"pro-business"

"influential business interests"

Here's the missing piece in most of the reporting on this issue: following the money. You'd think, in a climate that is so often fixated on "exposing" the monetary interests of those espousing various ideological positions, this would head the list. The nexis of high-sounding ideals and potential profit would be irresisitible fodder, yes?

No.

More protesters

American Life League will protest the bishops today, and they had a full page ad in the Sun-Times today focusing on Dick Durbin

Another fallout from the priest shortage

Priests being made pastors much earlier, with much less experience

The Rev. Bill Rose figured it was divine intervention when he was put in charge of St. Rose Catholic Church in the western Ohio city of Lima.

But as the youngest pastor in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Toledo, he was in over his head. He inherited a debt and had to lay off workers and cut costs. ''It was overwhelming," the 38-year-old said.

In the 1950s, Rose would have spent years as an apprentice under several pastors to learn the skills of running a parish. Now, with a shortage of priests, young clergymen are being promoted much earlier, and dioceses have begun training priests in business practices as their careers are beginning, or while they are still in the seminary.

Bishops' Business

A couple of articles on what's going on in Chicago:

Some changes to the protection policy approved

The bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse accepted 28 out of 60 proposals for modifications to the charter, said the committee chairman, Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Although Flynn did not reveal the nature of the suggestions rejected, it was indicated that many prelates favor the option of allowing priests who have been "rehabilitated" back into ministry.

George said in the future there was a possibility these men could be assigned to a "supervised sort of ministry," but not to another parish.

"If that would be possible, in time I think many would like to continue to look at that, but not right now," he said.

From Stammer at the LATimes:

Levada, in an interview with reporters, said Thursday that he felt the tension between the Christian teaching of forgiveness and the need to hold offending priests accountable for their crimes.

"I think it's [tension] sharpened very much in this particular constellation of issues because we're dealing here with victims of a crime that is contrary to the very purpose and nature of the church and its priesthood," he said in a hotel suite overlooking the Chicago River.

Some accompanying commentary on the proposal to be voted on today notes that some bishops hoped that priests who had abused children many years ago might be returned to some form of ministry not involving children. However, Levada said he didn't think that was a strong sentiment among bishops.

Keeping the total ban, he said, "is a part of keeping faith with the people whom we serve, to say that a priest who was guilty of that kind of a lapse, even a long time ago, that we are going to tell you that that priest is not going to be in public ministry and at your service again."

The articles indicate that there were Call To Action protesters there demanding the resignation of 7 bishops they say are particularly guilty of covering up abuse. I can't find any mention of who's on there list. Does anyone know?

As it stands..

A Tablet article looks at the present status of the Tridentine Rite, especially among the young

WHEN tens – maybe even hundreds – of thousands of young people gather in Cologne next August for World Youth Day, one group will stand out from the crowd. For the first time, an estimated 2,000 or more youngsters will come together from some 20 countries to form Juventutem, an assemblage of various traditionalist movements that regularly celebrate the old Latin Mass, something most Catholics around the world have not done since 1965. And they will come with the Vatican’s blessing, having obtained the support of three cardinals – including the prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship – and several other bishops who will preside at different Tridentine Rite liturgies the group plan to celebrate in the course of their WYD pilgrimage.

Cardinal Francis Arinze, the head of the Vatican’s worship office, and the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, are scheduled to celebrate solemn vespers with the group, while Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, will lead them in the recitation of the rosary. Bishop Fernando Arêas Rifan of Brazil (see panel below) and two other bishops will celebrate Masses in the Old Rite for the group of young traditionalists, while at least three other bishops from France, the United States and Poland are to give lectures to the Tridentine youngsters.

One of our favorite subjects:

YA Fiction (or - to the uninitiated - Young Adult)

Ann Hulbert has a Slate piece on the problems with Problem YA Fiction

(riffing off of an earlier NYTimes article on a book being removed from a school's reading list)

Hulbert's point is that "objectionable" content is one thing, but just as pressing - is literary quality, or lack thereof.

I am in the 11^th grade," Hunsicker complained after her recitation. "I had to read this junk." Set aside what might well be the prim tone of a girl who had recently been on a church mission, and the truth is, Hunsicker has a good point: Why are some 16- and 17-year-olds being assigned forgettable YA fare to analyze in English class—especially when other high-school juniors are wrestling with, say, The Grapes of Wrath, or even Moby Dick? The standard pitch for what are sometimes also called "issues" novels, as Frances FitzGerald explained in an essay on the evolution of the YA genre, is that they engage teens by serving up, in an accessible style, "hard-edged" topics relevant to adolescents in today's troubled world.

The cohort of parents who have joined Hunsicker's cause worry that YA literature like The Buffalo Tree exposes a vulnerable young audience to moral decadence; given that the readers who choose these thin books with catchy covers are generally between 11 and 14 (not exactly "young adults"), the content can indeed be pretty lurid—from fraught sexuality and awful divorces to child abuse. But the real trouble with such issues-oriented contemporary fiction is that it encourages what you might call (in Jeanne Kirkpatrick style) literary equivalence: The genre, as teachers have discovered with the help of accompanying guides, lends itself to trendy and tidy didacticism. And so the books can end up as assigned reading for older kids precisely when these students deserve to be discovering the difference between real literature and the melodramatic fictional equivalent of an Afterschool Special.

There's much more, with references to a couple of good books on the subject.

Cinderella Man

Our friend Victor Morton at The Fact Is on Cinderella Man

Book Wars

An Iowa library is a pamphlet battleground

But no one really knew.

This is the oddest story. Well, not the oddest, but perhaps the definition of "slow news day."

Some of the books in the religious section of the West Des Moines Public Library recently had Christian pamphlets stuffed inside, while others contained cards stamped with the message of secular organization.

Patrons at the library last week said neither approach is a good way to spread ideas.

Christian pamphlets with titles such as "Jesus Christ is God" were placed in about 50 library books about Judaism and Buddhism. The pamphlets were printed by the Voice of God Recordings, which is headquartered in Jeffersonville, Ind.

Other books in the library's religion section showed a small plastic card with the wording, "You do not need a god to live a good life." That card noted the Web site for the Iowa Secularist organization based in Iowa City.

The kicker? The librarian didn't know, the related religious and non-religious groups didn't know, library patrons didn't know - no one knew about this until the reporter asked them about it. And who told him? The guy who did it?

Hint: a better way to spend your writing time: write a short story about the same situation. Could be fun.

St. Anthony in Lahore

Devotion knows no bounds.

A Word With You

Word From Rome, up a bit early

Mostly referendum business, with some other points. Then he's off to Spain to cover the rally there on Saturday.

From Russia, With Love

On the plight of Russian orphans:

Baker founded his charity after he learned about the awful conditions of Russian and Romanian orphanages from the TV news series 20/20. He saw naked, underfed children sitting in their own feces and urine, and infants starving to death because of treatable conditions such as cerebral palsy and anemia.

While many nonprofit organizations try to improve orphanage conditions with more medical equipment and information, Baker believes the problem is not that these institutions need change, but that they exist at all. Orphanages should be replaced with rehabilitation centers so that children can live at home, he says. The state can't substitute for families. Rather, he says, it must help them support their children.

The website for the Firefly Children's Network

Okay...

My son, the aspiring filmmaker (as opposed to my other son, the aspiring film editor - see what happens when you restrict your kids' television viewing?) sent me, on a DVD, three films he'd made for various classes last semester.

(None of them film classes. A couple were "project" assignments, the other he deal he struck - instead of a paper, could he make a film on the same subject)

One, I was able to watch. Of the other two, the one on Peer Gynt, I could only get audio - the picture didn't come through. The other was an interpretation of some aspect of the character of the Knight in The Knight's Tale. I got the audio, and the video part was these constantly moving, spirograph-type lines. I was kind of surprised because I thought he'd told me about filming that one. Oh well. I watched it, and was just really, really impressed, because it all seemed to fit so well together - it was abstract, but I thought, wow, he really captured something here.

Uh, no. As he told me tonight, the lines are just what Windows Media player does when it doesn't understand the video.

Oh.

Ah well. Perhaps it's still ingenious once the real video is attached. (Get the newest version of the player is what I'm told I need to do.)

I was, however, also impressed by the voices - which were all his, he says. Always rather an introvert (albeit an energetic one, if that makes sense), what I heard of Peer Gynt was pretty marvelous, if I do say so myself...and he told me that his Modern Drama teacher had made the same remark.

You never know where life will take you....

Prayers Requested

For Dom Bettinelli's 41-year old brother who had a heart attack earlier today.

At the other end of line

Cancer-stricken religious sister got that cel phone call from the Pope.

So...

are you California people getting nervous? Or is this just business as usual?

Casting Call

CBS to produce John Paul II miniseries

CBS television has given producers the go-ahead for a big-budget miniseries charting the life of the late Pope John Paul II, with guidance from the Vatican, the network said on Thursday.

The four-hour, fact-based drama, tentatively titled "Pope John Paul II," will chronicle the story of Karol Wojtyla from his youth in Poland through his more than 26-year reign as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The program is being made by the producers behind the network's hit miniseries "Jesus," which aired several years ago and starred Jeremy Sisto in the title role and Debra Messing from the TV sitcom "Will & Grace" as Mary Magdalene.

Well, we can hope that the inherent drama of the pope's life will carry this project. Never saw the Jesus miniseries, although it was greatly mocked at the time, I do believe. I'm sure it will be fine. Really!

Make up yer dern mind

This week has been volleyball camp for Katie. Every evening, 5-8, at a local high school. It's been a litany of complaints, as well. She hasn't felt well (true - one of those early summer colds). She's tired (3 hours on the VBS playground in the morning). She only has one friend there.

Tonight was the last night. She says, upon getting in the car:

"I'm going to miss volleyball camp."

She's got that "human nature" thing down pat, doesn't she?

WYD to Big Brother

No thanks

On the autopsy

Not Dead Yet

Michelle Malkin

Poor Clares in Galway

Cloistered on Nun Island

The Poor Clare monastery sits in the heart of Galway city on the aptly named Nuns' Island.

While the hustle and bustle of life goes on around it, the silent monastery takes in every sight and sound from within its ancient walls. Seventeen nuns call the big white monastery home, and every day they rise joyfully to pray and give thanks to God, for this is what they have dedicated their lives to.

Sr Faustina always had a sense of being called to something. While her vocation may not have been clear to her at a young age, in retrospect she can see the signs were always there. She remembers fondly her national school days and the Presentation nuns reading excerpts from the autobiography of St Therese of Lisieux, a contemplative nun, and somehow as a nine-year-old she identified with the stories...

You know we love our Catholic lawyers..

Because without them, this blog would have 7 readers, tops. And no commentors.

Here's a new Catholic lawyer blog!

Magister on Ruini and Embryos

Interesting article on the way to the Referendum

This grassroots mobilization of the Catholic world received little national media coverage, but it was responsible in great part for the result of the June 12-13 referendum.

For example, Radio Maria, which is directed by Fr. Lino Fanzaga and counts six million faithful listeners, began promoting the boycott of the vote last November, with an impressive intensification coming in the last weeks. The radio network issued an invitation to fast on bread and water the Wednesday and Friday before June 12, in the name of defending unborn life, and on Sunday it suggested that everyone make a pilgrimage to one of the five thousand Marian shrines in Italy.

The two hundred thousand Charismatics of Renewal in the Spirit arranged to meet in churches on the evening before the vote for an entire night of prayer.

And that same night, sixty-five thousand pilgrims, many of them from Communion and Liberation, walked from Macerata to the sanctuary of Loreto, led by the patriarch of Venice, Angelo Scola.

For months, the Catholic world was given a thorough education on the difficult topics that were the object of the referendum. There were thousands of gatherings in the parishes to discuss the theology, philosophy, and science involved, all at the initiative of individuals or of existing or newly formed groups. The promoters of these initiatives were decidedly young on the average.

Some speakers who previously had been unknown achieved astonishing success, sweeping through all of Italy: for example, Dominican Fr. Giorgio Maria Carbone, a theologian and bioethicist; Francesco Agnoli, a professor of history in Trent; and Mario Palmaro, a jurist, together with his committee Truth and Life.

Weirdest spam ever...

Now it's coming over the name of Arafat's wife...

This letter may not be surprising to you if you have been following current events in the international media with reference to the Middle East and Palestine in particular.I am Mrs. SUHA ARAFAT, the wife of YASSER ARAFAT, the Palestine leader who died recently in Paris.Since his death and  even prior to the announcement, i have been thrown into a state of antagonism,confusion, humiliation, frustration and hopelessness by the present leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the new Prime Minister.
I got your contact in the course of my search for a reliable person with whom to handle a very confidential transaction involving the sum of of $45.5million dollars(fourty-five million ,five hundred thousand dollars) into a private account for safe keeping.

Don't Mention It

At Get Religion, a comparison of two stories on the same event - the closing of an abortion clinic in Kansas City - and what one left out.

Meet in the Middle?

An evangelical pastor and a Reform rabbi try to see the other side, as do others

The Rev. Rob Schenck is an evangelical Christian and a leader of the religious right. Rabbi David Saperstein is a Reform Jew and a leader of the religious left. Both head political advocacy groups in Washington, and they have battled for years over abortion, gay rights, stem cell research and school prayer.

This summer, each intends to preach a bit of the other's usual message.

Schenck said he plans to tell young evangelicals at a Christian music festival on July 1 that homosexuality is not a choice but a "predisposition," something "deeply rooted" in many people. "That may not sound shocking to you, but it will be shocking to my audience," he said.

Saperstein said he is circulating a paper urging political moderates and liberals to "demonstrate their commitment to reduce abortions" by starting a campaign to reduce the number by half within two years.

Schenck and Saperstein disclosed their plans in separate interviews. They are not working together. The minister remains a die-hard opponent of same-sex marriage; the rabbi staunchly supports a woman's constitutional right to choose an abortion. But both are trying to find common ground between liberals and conservatives on moral issues -- and they are not alone.

City of God?

A rather long article from the Boston Phoenix on Tom Monaghan, his university and his town

(By the way, the town (houses go on sale in 2007, apparently) has a website)

Lots of really, really scary stuff:

There’s an obvious precedent for Monaghan’s endeavors. During the Cold War, some East European dissidents challenged the Soviet Union by creating a "parallel polis" — a network of institutions that would let them disengage from Communist society and live in relative freedom. For Monaghan, the enemy is the morally corroded secularism of modern America, and the freedom he seeks is the freedom to fully obey the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. Still, his method is strikingly similar.

The resemblance may not end there. Hundreds of years from now, dissenters like Václav Havel will be remembered for helping to foster communism’s demise. And Monaghan, as improbable as it may seem today, could be remembered as the man who helped transform America into a theocracy.

My emphasis, obviously.

Windy City

Bishops are in Chicago:

Here's the schedule

Unifying

Pope meets with head of WCC

Hey!

I figured out what to call my dad's Rome notes:

The Word From Rome!

No?

Oh, okay.

Anyway, here's another one. Remember, they're already back - but he's taking a lot of care in getting this down right for the ages...This one is from May 4, the date of a Wednesday General Audience:

We left the apartment at 9:15 bound for Vaticano via #23. It was a delightful sunny day, and the audience was outside, so the tickets Stefano got for us yesterday were not needed. There, I would guess, a couple of thousand folding chairs set up, and we found seats about middle way down and a little to the right. The chairs were bisected by a cleared path, or little street, that ran about 40-50 feet in front of us. Just behind us was a couple from Central Europe, to the left a couple from Australia, and to our right a couple from Ireland.

As the people gathered in the square, ultimately around 15,000, the air of anticipation heightened, especially with the periodic entrance of couples dressed in wedding clothes who entered the square from the Sistine Chapel area and walked along the corridor in front of us and made their way to the platform accompanied by cheers and applause, and with the gathering of other members of the platform party as they took their places.

Precisely at 10:30, Benedict entered the square standing in his popemobile from a street running along the left side of the basilica as you are facing it. He slowly made his way around the square along the edges of the crowd, circled back, then cut through the corridor in front of us. If you look carefully at the picture with people standing in front of us, you can see the pope's face. Then he turned down the central aisle and up the incline to his chair. All of this was accompanied by waves of applause and cheers.

Click on photo for a larger version

It was announced that his commentary that day would be on Psalms 120. Although I could not understand the words, I was impressed with his style of delivery as it came across on the television screen nearest us--cadence and pace, inflection, the hand gestures for emphasis. Altogether, as my high school speech teacher would say, he was very good at projecting in a quiet but forceful manner.

After the commentary, a large number of groups from many countries were recognized, mostly school groups. As they were recognized in turn, each would stand with a cheer before receiving a blessing in their own language.  At the conclusion of this there was a general blessing and benediction. At this point, the pope moved through those seated on the platform, there were a couple of hundred it seemed, and appeared to greet and bless each one individually, including our newly weds. The platform population was largely composed of religious--priests, nuns, cardinals, etc.--and disabled. At around 11:30, the pope departed.

All in all, the quite eclectic congregation produced a rather festive spirit. There was cheering and flag and hat waving at appropriate times joined with a more reverent and respectful mood, especially after the pope appeared. One does want to go too far with this, but the pope, always seemingly at ease and assured, seemed to draw strength and energy from the gathering.

It was a special occasion for us. I will always remember my Irish neighbor. This was his first trip to Rome--he was middle-aged--and regretted not coming during JP II's time, but was truly thrilled to have this opportunity and was especially thrilled when I was able to get a shot with his camera of a small crucifix he had just bought with the pope in his chair in the background.

Having done the sacred, now it was time for the profane--tennis at Foro Italico. We took #23 north to a point where, I had determined from my transit material, we could transfer to a #280. We got off, and wandered around looking for a #280 stop. No luck. Finally, Hilary went into a clothing shop for aid in calling a taxi, which the staff were happy to provide. In no time we were entering the grounds. The matches on Campo Centrale were Roddick and Costa; Gasquet, the young French phenom, and Agassi; and Volandri, the number one Italian player, and Gaudio. Very good tennis, as one would expect.

Before going into the stadium, we got sandwiches for lunch after a rather lengthy wait--in addition, we always have water, fruit, cheese, crackers and candy bars with us.

A very pleasant afternoon.

A side note. When we go to major tournaments, I pick up souvenirs for my Saturday morning bunch and the odd t-shirt, sweatshirt, key chain and towel, as does Hilary. There are no such items available at this tournament. I suppose the attendance is not big enough to support that kind of business. There were quite a few commercial exhibitors, some providing freebies. Although Hilary worked hard at it, her take was rather meager.

An uneventful bus ride home, sandwiches picked up along the way, and relaxation in the not so quiet comfort of our home away from home. The not so quiet reference is to the heavy street, mostly pedestrian, traffic flowing under our windows and stopping at our fountain. It is noisy, but not offensive. We find it fascinating, in fact.

Saint Gianna...

pray for them. As we do.

A USA Today piece on Susan and Jason Torres, and their baby...

Remember, contributions to the Susan Torres Fund are tax-deductible:

The Susan M. Torres Fund
P.O. Box 34105
Washington, D.C. 20043-0105

Website for the Susan Torres Fund

A Washington Times story, also from today, on the situation

Moving Targets

Focus on an Oregon Catholic Charities program serving migrant workers.

(One of many throughout the country, of course)

Which kind of catholic?

Strengthened by vouchers, Milwaukee's urban Catholic schools struggle with identity

Working Parents

A Wired article about the struggles of juggling your family life and your online porn business

In general, webmasters said they keep outsiders in the dark along with family members, especially little kids. Richard Buss of porn affiliate site [deleted] keeps his home office in Phoenix locked tight and has no plans to ever tell his preschool-age daughter what he does for a living.

"I don't want her to know, whether she's 21 or 25," he said. "I think it's the proper way to do things."

Nosy parkers tend to get nothing more than vague talk about "website marketing" and "internet consulting" from porn webmasters. Even people who Google their suspicious neighbor may not find anything: Many of the speakers at Cybernet seminars use a pseudonym or their first name and last initial.

"I don't tell, not because I'm ashamed of it. I don't tell to protect my daughter and my livelihood," said "Lori Z." who runs [deleted], a resource site for porn webmasters. She also has a preschool-age child she eventually plans to tell about her job, and is active at her local school, where she keeps her work life secret.

See, here's the problem: the basis of any real community is being able to see that everyone is someone's child, someone's son or daughter, someone's sister, and everyone is a child of God, therefore your brother or sister. If it's important to shield your own child from this, it's just as important to shield other children, too.

Why has that become rocket science?

Hmmmm...

Pope denies BMW connection....

Now listening to...

I've added a very brief Typelist over on the left, connected to the two wonderful radio stations I can now listen to with abandon, thanks to the Internet - one from Knoxville, the other from Tampa. Sigh. I can barely say "W...M...N...F..." without collapsing into a nostalgic puddle. Ah, the concerts at Skippers! Ah, having Merry Christmas from the Family on my radio every 30 minutes during December!

Reward?

SNAP, meeting in Chicago ahead of the bishops, wonders if offering a reward would help:

A reward fund, even starting with something as modest as $5,000, would "encourage whistle blowers," she told reporters at a sidewalk news conference outside a Chicago hotel where the U.S. Catholic bishops were gathering for three days of meetings.

There was no immediate response from the bishops, who at their sessions will re-examine the policies they set up three years ago in response to the scandal that has cost the church heavily in both money to settle suits and in its public image.

Speaking of children's...

....television programming, Matthew at Holy Whapping has an extended exegisis of one of the best children's shows ever, The Adventures of Pete and Pete.

Speaking of children's literature

Daniel Pinkwater is a twisted genius, of course, and yesterday, I startled many on my walking path around Foster Park when I burst into loud, sudden laughter, for apparently no reason - ah, but there was a reason. I was listening to this, and the Marilyn Monroe anecdote was just too much.

As I was saying...

One of the regular, if intermittent (hmmm...) features of this blog before the whirlwind of news precipitated by Terri Schiavo/John Paul II and Benedict XVI was a look a children's books. I'm not an expert by any means, but for some reason people ask me  to talk about children's books from time to time. So I like to just tell you about the good stuff Joseph's been reading. This isn't about the classics - it's about new stuff that your children might enjoy.

One of my rules of thumb regarding any kind of children's literature is We Hate Messages. I call it "prescriptive literature" - books as medicine to fix what's wrong with you. Of course literature teaches and heals, but books that expressly set out to do so usually fail, especially as literature.

Over the past fifteen years or so, children's literature has, of course, been intent of fixing the ill of "intolerance" by pushing "diversity" in children's stories. And I don't mean simply presenting the world as it is (which is, by definition and experience, diverse) by by telling us all What a Good Thing It Is To Be Diverse, etc.

Those books are lame.

However - I'm always on the lookout for good stories from different cultures, and that present little Farmer Joe from Indiana with a wider vision of life (although I must say, down at the playground on Sunday afternoons, he's usually the whitest boy there by a long shot), and here are a couple of recent finds:

Papa, Do You Love Me? really grabbed me - set in the Maasi culture, it's this absolutely wonderful conversation between father and son - far better than most of those "I love you thiiiiiis much" books - in which the father explains his love for his son completely within the context of their culture, but still totally understandable by Farmer Joe. It's a sequel to Mama, Do You Love Me (linked on that page), set in Alaksa.

Let's Eat covers a week in the life of a family in a Spanish village. Every day, the mother tells her son to gather up the extended family for dinner, and every time one can't make it. On the next-to-last day, Mama herself isn't there - because she's off having a baby, but on the next Sunday, everyone is there together. It's a warm portrayal of a lively, energetic family, casual descriptions of their food, from empanadas to sardinas, all focused in on how good it is for us to all be together. Charming.

Not on the diversity front (unless you're an amphibian), I have to mention this new one we read tonight, Tadpole's Promise which currently has two terrible reviews from Amazon reviewers, but I thought it was hysterical. It starts out being, you think, all about change, etc...and it threatens to be prescriptive, although it's so well told, you can forgive it. And then there's this...twist at the end. That one reviewer found inappropriate for the young 'uns, but, as I said, I found quite funny. And almost a purposeful snipe at Good For You books.

Lava Lamps?

Every time I think I might have a grasp on what the Emergent Church movement is all about, I run across something like this, which confuses me.

Embryphilia

I'm waiting for someone to coin that word. One of the many out there who sneer at certain parties' fixation with those damn clumps of cells while gosh, there are people starving in Darfur and Uganda.

(Side note: In my experience, most of the care for the starving ex-embryos seems to come out of traditions that insist on respecting the embryos. It's an odd, stubborn and mysterious connection, don't you think?)

Here's the thing.

Labs full of embryos, some of which are being harvested for stem cells, others of which are being cloned, others of which are just being played with.

When they get too big and they've not been used yet, they're destroyed. Dumped down the drain maybe?

Big old embryo farms, where they're made, gestated, used and destroyed. Coming to a lab near you.

Is that what you want? Because that's the future. And then why stop with embryos? I mean, who has the right to draw that line except the scientists, who know everything anyway? If we get the technology it would be quite interesting to study the development of an embryo in a lab as far as it...could...go.

Why the heck not?

What's at stake are first, individual human beings. But beyond that, what's at stake is the right to draw a line. We care about the embryos because we don't believe that it's moral to create human lives, experiment on them and destroy them.

While the proponents are telling us - what? Think about it. What they are telling us is either a)there is no line when it comes to pre-born human life or b)they are the only ones with the right to determine what that line is.

So what I'm still waiting for is proponents of research involving human embryos to explain:

1) If experimentation on embryos is ethical, is experimentation on a living 3-week old fetus ethical? Why or why not?

2) If a technique that can be developed to "end" a pregnancy by transfering a living fetus to a medium in which it can be a subject of experimentation or an organ donor instead of crushing/dismembering it - would you support that? Why or why not?

Where's the line? Who's drawing it?

A positive way?

A comment from an RC priest at the Pontifcation blog:

Now, for those who are trapped in a parish that was designed by Mike Brady and decorated by Marsha, with a liturgy designed by Bozo and celebrated by Dr. Phil, what counsel would I give?

Click above to read the answer.

Via this blogger. Who comments here, too. I think. I'm getting so many new commenters (yay) that I'm starting to lose track.

From a reader:

Check it out:

Catholic Girl Talk (http://www.catholicgirltalk.blogspot.com) and Catholicae Testudines (http://www.catholicaetestudines.blogs.com), the sister and brother blog of students and alumni at the Catholic Student Center at the University of Maryland, are hosting an online Catholic Summer Book Club and we hope as many readers as possible can contribute to our discussion.

Our book for June is Pope John Paul II's last book, "Memory and
Identity." We will start discussing it on Catholic Girl Talk this
Wednesday, June 15.

Our book for July will be Frank Miller's graphic novel "The Dark
Knight Returns" (to complement this summer's Batman Begins movie) and our book for August will be "In the Beginning: A Catholic
Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall," by the then
Cardinal Ratzinger.

Please stop by to contribute to what promises to be interesting and
informative discussions on these works!

He should post it at Fark

British lawyer quits over joke about death and the Pope.

Not the first time something like this happened.

Thanks to someone with a rather weird monikker who has started sending me good article links...

Pellicano Solitudinis?

A different angle on DVC

NYtimes op-ed writer compares various types of half-truths:

More than 60 percent of the American people don't trust the press. Why should they? They've been reading "The Da Vinci Code" and marveling at its historical insights. I have nothing against a fine thriller, especially one that claims the highest of literary honors: it's a movie on the page. But "The Da Vinci Code" is not a work of nonfiction. If one more person talks to me about Dan Brown's crackerjack research I'm shooting on sight.

The novel's success does point up something critical. We're happier to swallow a half-baked Renaissance religious conspiracy theory than to examine the historical fiction we're living (and dying for) today. And not only is it remarkably easy to believe what we want to believe. It's remarkably easy to find someone who will back us up. Twenty-five years ago George W. S. Trow meditated on this in "Within the Context of No Context." Then it indeed appeared that authority and orthodoxy were wilting in the glare of television. Have we exterminated reason in the meantime?

There's a downside?

Who'd have thought.

A Guardian story on polygamy's "lost boys."

Up to 1,000 teenage boys have been separated from their parents and thrown out of their communities by a polygamous sect to make more young women available for older men, Utah officials claim.

Many of these "Lost Boys", some as young as 13, have simply been dumped on the side of the road in Arizona and Utah, by the leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), and told they will never see their families again or go to heaven.

Compromise

I haven't been following the Boston-Archdiocese-Closes-School-Early-And-Little-Kids-Graduate-In-The-Parking-Lot business, but...

it's been resolved.

Does the Archdiocese of Boston chancery run on the Peter Principle, exculsively?

Consciometer?

In Slate:

But now, scientists are getting a better grip on consciousness even as viability is becoming mushier, moving up in the second trimester as medical improvements keep alive ever-younger premature babies. This volatility (and the health problems of tiny preemies) makes viability less attractive as a legal marker. The consciometer, on the other hand, will offer firmer, more stable physiological criteria to determine the start of morally significant human life—the clear dividing line that courts have long sought. And the line will be drawn farther along into pregnancy. As leading neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga, a member of President Bush's Council on Bioethics, describes in his book The Ethical Brain, current neurology suggests that a fetus doesn't possess enough neural structure to harbor consciousness until about 26 weeks, when it first seems to react to pain. Before that, the fetal neural structure is about as sophisticated as that of a sea slug and its EEG as flat and unorganized as that of someone brain-dead.

Oh. I thought abortion didn't have a moral dimension. Or -wait - I thought the morality of abortion was a personal matter, and not dependent on external markers, rooted in something like science.

So the question is:

If conception isn't the beginning of "morally significant" life, why is this particular measure of consciousness? And who got to decide that the moral significance of "consciousness" defined thusly trumps the moral signicance of conception?

The Hugging Saint

Visits SF

 

Thousands of followers of India's "hugging saint" have come during the past week to a barn-like temple tucked away in the East Bay hills, looking for a little love.

"People wait 10 hours for a three-second hug," said Bill Gasko, 65, a physicist from Massachusetts who also goes by "Suchindra."

They are here to see Amma, a 51-year-old woman from a poor fishing village in southern India who presides over a network of schools, hospitals, soup kitchens, orphanages and shrines covered with photos of her own smiling face.

Many Amma devotees once were devotees of Indian gurus with checkered pasts -- including the late Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the late Swami Muktananda Paramahansa.

She's on tour in the US through June and July. Go see where you can get your hug.

Weekly Darfur Post

At the Coalition for Darfur

Darfur is an anomaly only to the extent that it has managed to generate a significant amount of coverage and global attention. But if the world does not act soon to address this genocide in Sudan, is it all but inevitable that it too will eventually evolve into years-long, seemingly intractable conflict such as those found in Uganda and Congo.

And as we've seen with Congo and Uganda, once that happens, the world will stop paying attention entirely.

Just a reminder...

...of the potential conflicts of interest in the Schiavo case.

Blogs for Terri has some links (and will undoubtedly add more) - to Fr. Pavone's statement, and to the autopsy report itself.

Heads Up

Someone posted a link to one of our Schiavo threads over at Fark, and it explains the trolls heading over here and hurling insults. Go read the thread - kind of appalling, including the Photoshops. You pro-remove-the-tube folks can revel in that company  - your allies - for a while. I'm shutting down the Schiavo threads here til this passes over.

Oh, and please note - there is lots of disagreement on these threads about this case, and has been since the beginning. The comments board here is not one-note or monolithic in the least. But I do try to keep it respectful and reasoned. The Fark commentors are neither.

More Nursing Tales

A good, lengthy blog post on the subject

An interview with the woman who says she was The Woman With the Baby who gave Barbara Walters the creeps.

Crisis

Interesting articles in Crisis now online:

Patrick O'Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society looks at the number of experts associated with Catholic institutions who supported the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration from Terri Schiavo

Elizabeth Thecla Maura has a nice piece on baseball, and she also has a blog here and also won a CPA award for a book (noted on her blog)

Terri Schiavo's autopsy

Just released

Headline on this story: "Schiavo did not starve to death."

Later in the text:  She died of "marked dehydration,"

Oh. Well, as long as she didn't starve to death.

Thanks to Brandon Evans of the Criterion, the Indy Archdiocesan paper, for pointing that out to me.

Roman Holiday

As regular readers know, my dad and his wife Hilary spent part of April and May in Rome (after the election of B16). He's back, of course, but is very slowly putting his daily journal down on cyber-paper and sending it to me. Today's entry was about a trip to the Vatican, with a guide, no less - but it still sounds less than ideal. Is there a way to see it without being in massive crowds?

Stefano arrived promptly at 7:45 with a bottle of wine in hand for us. We took a taxi to the Vatican Museum and were in line a little after 8. In fairly short order, the line began to move, and with his guide credentials we were wisked inside in short order. In the course of our association with him, he explained the quite rigorous hurdles that had to be jumped and examinations passed to receive certification from the Commune of Rome and the Vatican. We were in the museum for approximately two hours, and it was thronged. As we had to keep moving, one could only grasp impressions of the fragment to which we were exposed. The structure is huge and magnificent in so many ways. The books say this, but appreciation of the reality can only come from being there.

We first passed through a very long corridor with, as I recall, artifacts from ancient Rome and another corridor with large maps on the wall depicting the areas of papal sovereignty in the 17th century--H took all the guide books to DC with her, so I am short of reference resources. And she paid a price last Sunday--I am now in the present-- $30 for overweight luggage! Ironically, these maps were done by the Dominicans using "modern" scientific techniques not too long after doing the job on Galileo. Then we went through the rooms of Julius II, the Raphael rooms, then the Borgia apartments. This area was of special interest to me, as I was then and still am reading a book on the Borgias. On to the Sistine Chapel. Here the problems with visiting the museum were compounded. We were elbow to elbow with other tourists, all of whom seemed armed with digital cameras which kept flashing, despite the admonitions of the guards and attendants. It was impossible to stand in one place and contemplate and appreciate the place.

All I wanted to do was to get out of there.

Which we did in short order. Remember the tv images of the gentlemen carrying the body of JP 2 from the chapel to St. Peter's down this incredibly long staircase. In fact, there are several long stair cases weaving back and forth leading to ground level. Traversing them, I admired all the more for their strength and their balance in executing the movement of the body without mishap.

As we were exiting into the square, Stefano stopped for consultation with one of the Swiss guards and came away with tickets for tomorrow's audience. More about that, well, tomorrow.

Then to St. Peter's. Three long lines. One for the dome. Another for the crypt. The third just for the basilica, which was for us. More of the same. Too crowded. Too many digital cameras. Stefano helped us through as best he could but, again, we could only glimpse the main elements. There was no space for quiet and thoughtful contemplation of what was there. Amy, I did seek out the niche of St. Helena for special attention, however.

We left with the intention of returning at a less busy time.

If the Catholic Church is in extremis, why are thousands of people a day pouring through its center? What other site, other than Medina during the hajj--do I have this right?--attracts such throngs?

This is a serio-comic report. You have read the serio, now the comic.

We left the Vatican about noon, and it was time for lunch. I had identified from a restaurant guide an interesting place on Via della Lungara which, more or less, less as it turns out, runs down from the Vatican to Trastevere. So we set out for home base, intending to stop there for lunch. But I missed a turn, and we found ourselves hiking up a hill, Janiculum, not one of Rome's seven as it is across the river, but steep, as no emperor was motivated to shear its top for a construction project.

So we chugged up until we reached a park between a very large pediatric hospital on the right and the river and Rome on the other side, with a kiosk serving panino and such. We finally figured out an order and how to pay for it, refused the offer to sit at a table for a fee, given that there were park benches nearby, and had our lunch. We shared our bench, all of us eating our sandwiches, with some young people in nurses garb who, as it turned out, were students at the hospital. Two females and one male, he from the Congo, and in Rome for about 10 years, and, the others, one from Nigeria and the other also from the Congo. We talked about their experiences and aspirations. They were most interested in moving to the US, Canada or Australia for their careers, although the fellow from the Congo indicated a strong tug to return to help in that so desperate country. An impressive group of truly sharp young people who, by their presence and ambitions underscored the tragic dysfunctions of sub-Saharan African states.

After eating, we resumed the trek up the hill. I had noticed that there were buses going by. Rome has a terrific public transport system, buses, trams, metro and trains. So, we huffed further up the hill for a bus stop, where we might catch a #115, a kind of mini-circular bus. I had seen it going up, and reasoned that one, eventually, must come our way going down. Thankfully, one finally came, and we were the only passengers in the care of a most friendly and voluble driver, who delivered us just a few blocks from home.

Do No Harm

We've been talking a lot about embryo-destructive stem cell research here, and have been for a while. In case you're fuzzy on what's going on with this, I'll point you to a couple of sites with more information:

Do No Harm

The National Right to Life site

(yes, they are coming at it from a particular perspective.)

Meanwhile:

Delaware approves bill

South Korean cloner and RC Archbishop meet:

The Seoul National University professor had an hour-long closed-door meeting with Seoul Archbishop Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk, who has been opposed to Hwang¡¯s embryonic stem cell experiments.

The one-on-one discussion at the archbishop¡¯s office in downtown Seoul, however, failed to produce any tangible results.

According to the Seoul Diocese, Hwang and Cheong talked on a variety of topics such as whether or not cloned embryos should be viewed as living and ethical disputes using human eggs in stem cell tests.

``Cheong said he is not against stem cell research itself, as long as it does not involve embryos, which are living beings. It is not true that we totally object to Hwang¡¯s research,¡¯¡¯ Seoul Diocese spokesman Hur Yeong-yup said.

Cool Pope Photos of the Day

Most Wednesdays, we get one. Today, we get two:

What's happening here? Michael has the answer, and a great headline.

Ready to put out some fires.

(Welcome Corner readers...and please stay awhile, feel free to comment, and check out my books over there on the right rail.)

Africa stories

David Brooks on AIDS in Mozambique:

This week in Africa, I've been impressed by the level of medical expertise and depressed by the lack of moral, sociological, psychological and cultural expertise. The most subtle analysis of human nature I heard came in that church made of sticks.

In the Congo, 1,000 people a day are dying. Does anyone care?

 

With an estimated 1,000 people dying there every day as a result of hunger and disease caused by war, it is an appropriate question. But the extent of this coverage of noncoverage is reaching the absurd: print, radio, TV, Internet - they all want to know why they themselves are not writing articles and broadcasting programs about the Congo.

And it is not just me noticing this. In March, Reuters even held a seminar on "forgotten crises," at which the Congo topped the list, and on BBC World Service the other day, I heard a newscaster ask: "Shouldn't this be getting more attention?"

Indeed. What the world media are missing is one of the deadliest conflicts since World War II: 3.8 million people have died in the Congo since 1998, dwarfing not only the biggest of natural catastrophes, such as December's South Asia tsunami, but also other manmade horrors, such as Darfur.

Robes of the Vicar

Review of several pope books from the New York Sun

The author takes the re-issue of the John Allen bio of Ratzinger to task, but doesn't know that Allen himself has explained that the book was rushed back into print with absolutely no input from him.

I've read both Allen's new book and the Moynihan book this reviewer mentions. To regular readers of Allen's work at NCR there isn't much new, although his reconstruction of the conclave is rather interesting. The Moynihan is primarily a compilation of excerpts from Ratzinger's work.

From a reader

Whatever help you can give - do! I gotta write about B16...

I got myself in a little over my head yesterday in a discussion (on a secular wedding forum called thenest.com) about sola fida with a couple of evangelicals.  The first of the two I managed to silence by saying "As my mother says, even the devil believes."  The second of the two took about an hour to respond, but this is what she wrote:

    "The statement you said your mom made is taken from James in the Bible, in the very section which talks about faith and works. James' book stresses the          importance of works to complement faith and basically says that you can believe in God but if you don't act on it and show it, your belief isn't real faith, because real faith shows works and "fruit". He says in chapter 2, "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder."

    There are many who say they believe in God - to me, from reading the Bible, that means they believe God is there and exists. That could even mean believing God is poweful and strong. Yes, even the demons believe that and shudder [in fear or hatred]. He makes that point to say that it isn't enough to have this "belief" in God for salvation. All men have been given a knowledge of God, whether they acknowledge that or not. All men do not have saving faith though. Saving faith is necessary and different from a belief that God is there. Saving faith is that which holds to the hope of Christ's return and the faith in Christ's death on the cross to save sinners. It's a faith that acknowledges that I am a sinner in need of a Savior.

    I'm guessing that you perhaps equate believing IN God (as demons do) as the faith that we're dicussing today and the faith in "sola fide". Based on what the Bible says, I believe those two things are different. Just as you believe that a chair next to you exists but you don't believe that it would hold you up if you sat in it. Believing that if you sat in the chair, it would hold you up, is like saving faith - believing that God can save you from your sins.

    I also read your comment about saying that someone can't say "I believe!" and be saved. I do, if that belief is a belief in Christ and His saving work on the cross. if it's just someone saying I believe in God, or in a god, then you are right, that isn't a saving belief. I think a lot of it comes down to what is being affirmed when someone says I believe. As someone else pointed out, the thief who hung next to Jesus as He died made a statement which affirmed his belief in Christ as the Savior, and Christ told him he would be with him in Paradise, with no works having been done."

How do I answer this?

Imams and Priests

George Neumayr looks at the Italian situation and compares the attitude of Italian secularists to Catholic religious leaders to their stance to Muslim authority - as in decry Vatican "influence" but then stand by as Oriana Fallaci is put on trial:

As secularists regroup, what can be expected? One certainty is that the "outrages against religion" Europe's liberals are not permitting Oriana Fallaci will multiply against the Church. Terms they can't bring themselves to use against militant Islam -- dangerous, fanatical, irrational -- will fall easily from their mouths on Pope Benedict as they try desperately to consolidate secularist gains. Though the liberals of Europe would never dare call Islam illiberal, they speak of the religion that gave birth to civilized Europe in that language, and wouldn't even permit a direct historical mention of it in the European Union Constitution (also failing to impress weary Europeans in referendums).

Fallaci is known as a liberal but of a vanishing species, one who sees that fellow liberals are playing dupes to the most alien and illiberal ideology in Europe. This rebuke cannot be abided, and so Europe's liberals, who are far more wildly authoritarian than the conservative authorities they displaced, are putting her on trial, once again exposing their rhetoric of liberty as a sham. And they can even drum up another charge against her: she sided with the odious Catholic Church in Italy's referendum fight.

"Behind this referendum is a project to reinvent man in the laboratory, to transform him into a product to sell like steak or a bomb. Here we return to Nazism," she wrote. The children of Voltaire won't fight to the death for her free speech. Under a death wish of another sort, now they prosecute it.

Thinking..

In  a rather brief, but quite good piece in the current issue of America, Fr. John Kavanaugh S.J. of St. Louis U. lays out the embryonic stem cell issue quite nicely.

Since (sigh) the full text is available only to subscribers, I'll summarize. It won't take long.

1. There's no excuse for being ill-informed on the issue. The Council on Bioethics has all the documents and texts important to tease this out online or available in other ways, for free.

2. The belief that a unique human life begins at conception is not a matter of religious faith, and those who wish to present this idea in a scientific context  are well advised to study the arguments against it as presently being offered.

3. There is nothing "dogmatic" about asking questions about research on human embryos. It is "dogmatic" to refuse to entertain any ethical questions.

4. The president's stand against funding further research raises the question, naturally enough, why permit the research at all, in the private sector?

I'll quote the last couple of paragraphs:

Many Republicans, by joining with Democrats to pass a House bill that would allow cell-extraction from “discarded” embryos destined to be “thrown away” or to “die anyway,” have broken away from the president’s full position. But they, with their coalition Democrats, ought to examine the full implication of this position. The problem is not that we are all going to “die anyway,” or even that our bodies are going to be thrown away without our getting maximal use from them.

The big problem is with all those fetuses—not embryos—that are thrown away and wasted by abortion. Think of the scientific wonders we might work if we could only harvest the organs or immature reproductive cells of a 15-week fetus destined for the suction machine. Does it not make more sense to harvest their organs than toss them into garbage cans? Little hearts, livers, lungs could be transplanted to save lives or further research. This scenario might be for some researchers the fulfillment of their fondest dream. For me it is a moral nightmare.

There is almost a surreal quality to the embryonic stem cell debate. But at least it is a debate, the debate we never had about abortion itself. As it stands, stem cells strangely compel us to think about what we are doing. In the case of abortion, human fetuses amount to legal nullities. Perhaps something might be done to protect them better. If not, you can be sure that in 10 years’ time, under the imperatives of research, we will be putting them to much better use than just being “thrown away.”

Check it out

Go visit new blogger DarwinCatholic, to see his comment on a WSJ story (reprinted in another paper, so you needn't have a subscription) about an African girl's struggle to overcome

(Related to a subject we blogged on earlier this week)

Not giving up

Installation a week away, Belleville priests still arguing with Braxton appointment

A group have met with Cardinal George and the Papal Nuncio.

Now, now...

Ted Olsen at CT Weblog muses on the "don't vote" strategy:

Turnout is thought to have been affected by both a call for abstention made by the Catholic Church … as well as voter apathy," says the BBC, which in an earlier dispatch really played up the lethargy angle ("Apathy hits Italy fertility vote" was its initial headline).

Could laziness be the key to a new strategy for Catholic leaders? Imagine the campaigns:

• Condoms: Those wrappers are just too hard to open.
  
• You're going to take that pill every day?
  
• Don't want to mow the lawn? Have more kids.
  
• The Da Vinci Code: 454 pages long. The New Testament: About 421 pages.

Ha ha. Funny.

(And of course, go to the Weblog for so many religion links you'll be glad you have these long summer days to digest them all)

I did hear on the radio this morning that Italians are, in general, referendum-sick, and the last referendum to get above 50% voter turnout was ten years ago anyway. Can't verify that, but if true, it really does shed a slightly different light on this - as in the light of "not such a big scary deal."

Oh, on that VBS thing..

It went very well. He had a good time, and was ready to go back this morning. The theme is safaris or something, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what he's being told about, you know, God. But then, he is four and perhaps not the best reporter of events.

Although, as my husband says, "He's a very good spy" - as in, he will detail what someone's been up to while you're out of the room.

He did report that "da priest" came and participated both days so far. Which is more than I can say for the priests in the parish where I did VBS. The one priest who probably would have come and contributed his two cents was always on vacation or sabbatical during that time, and the others? Never saw one. Not once.

Quotable quotes

I'm drowning in Lexis-Nexis at the moment, researching this chapter which is due (ahem) on Monday, and I ran across yet another striking example of the profundity of Larry King, from 3/31:

BROWN: Delia, we'll talk more about that as the night goes on, on a special edition of "NEWSNIGHT," 11 p.m. Eastern time, tonight, 8 o'clock out on the coast. We'll look at the pope'shealth and, of course, the pope's impact, Larry. It's hard not to, when you see pictures of the pope, some from just a couple years ago, how much different he looks, just a year or so ago, than he looked yesterday when he stood at the window.

KING: Aging ain't easy.

Now, is he wrong? Of course not. So doubters, be silent.

Love and Faith

True Love, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Scientology, blah, blah, blah.

aka, very public Train Wreck.

Free Katie!

By the way...did you know Greta Van Susteren is a Scientologist?

Fr. Stan on WNBC

The video of the piece on Fr. Stan Fortuna on the WNBC morning show, out of NY.

Not this time

Father Lastiri declines his new post

Short version: This is the priest who was discovered to be trolling for sex on the internet and who misspent 60,000 of his parish's money on personal expenses. He went to St. Luke's for treatment, and was to be reassigned in a new parish. He's withdrawn. The bishop's statement:

In his letter to parishioners, Steinbock said Lastiri's downfall centered on compulsive behavior for which he sought counseling since his departure from Merced.

"The issue with Father Lastiri has been one of addiction, not criminal sexual behavior. It has been addiction both to the fantasy world of the Internet and to the spending of money," Steinbock wrote.

Lastiri was to start his new work in Bakersfield this week, but Steinbock said "a good deal of gossip and misinformation have distorted public perception," creating an environment that linked Lastiri to Catholic child sex abuse scandals.

Steinbock specifically said Lastiri did not harm children, and the bishop praised Lastiri for his "exemplary" work in the diocese.

Steinbock implored parishioners to pray for Lastiri "as he simply seeks to continue to serve the Lord, giving thanks to him for the power of love and mercy in his own personal life."

Guilty!

I didn't watch any live-as-it-happened cable news coverage of the verdict drama yesterday. I haven't even really followed the trial. I heard that the mother's shady past and questionable role is being blamed, etc, casting reasonable doubt. Etc.

(I would remind you that pedophiles like to select victims whose pasts and present would make them seem "less credible" if accusations come to light. It's part of the plan.)

So, no, a jury found Michael Jackson not guilty. But he is. And we are.

Guilty - of creating a culture and a society in which judgment is the greatest sin and normality is a forbidden concept. Yes, "normality" can evolve into something oppressive. Since the beginning of time, people have fled small towns for that very reason, had to strike out on their own and go far afield to be free from the irrational prejudices of the small-minded. But something is seriously wrong when Michael Jackson, obviously mentally ill, a middle aged man who shares his life and his bed with young men, can continue to do what he likes, shielded from consequences by his money and by our delicacy.

Yes, he was brought to trial, it's true. And yes, the evidence, such as it is - real evidence - is not strong, I suppose.  But our disapproval of Jackson, as a society, is insufficiently serious. It is jokey and nervous, it taps on the shoulder rather than pushes hard against the gate of Neverland, nervous about issues of race, parental and personal rights. It ultimately shrugs in the shadow of cash, saying, well that's the way it is in this country. The wealthy have their ways and means.

Michael Jackson should be institutionalized. The money that is, I have no doubt, poured out to his "supporters" should be exposed. The community should find a way to shut down Neverland, to strip him of his HQ, and no other community should let him start another. Pipe dreams, I know. Based on wishes and hopes rather than the truth about what it takes to do such things in a system of law.

Not guilty?

I don't think so.

Not him, and not, in the end - us, either.

Casey at the Bat

Baseball player and priest fight hunger

''I do think God gives people gifts. Do I think God wanted Sean Casey to be a baseball player? I think that's quite possible. And then the question is, with any gift, the way you measure anything you're doing is whether you are using the gift well. It's very simple to autograph some things for charity. It's very simple to be associated with a charity, but to actively do something creative and significant, that's the challenge."

That challenge was embraced when Father O'Brien came to his friends, a circle that included Sean Casey and Conan O'Brien and Mike Toth, whose Concord-based Toth Brand Imaging made household names out of J Crew and Tommy Hilfiger, and Father Paul's brother, Dan O'Brien, a management consultant, and Conan's brother, Luke, a lawyer, and some other talented and committed people.

Their idea was simple: Attract young people, the necessary commandos in their battle to draw attention to their cause, with these T-shirts that turn the labeling in society on its head. They wanted to show that behind ''addict" and ''homeless" and ''prisoner" and, yes, ''jock," said Casey, displaying one such T-shirt, there are human beings far more complex, and needy, than the names we attach to them. The idea took hold. Street teams of teens sold the T-shirts to their friends and neighbors; Casey, who could have just written a check, did that, but also said, ''I want to be on a street team," which is why the cubicles of his Reds teammates all seem to have at least one T-shirt from Labels.

Website of Labels are for Jars

Labels Are For Jars provides money to feed the hungry through Cor Unum in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Lawrence is the poorest city in Massachusetts and one of the poorest in the United States. In Lawrence, 21 percent of the people, and an overwhelming 31.7 percent of children, live below the poverty line. Approximately 75 percent of school-age children in Lawrence are at risk of hunger. A number of food and meal programs work to feed the hungry in Lawrence, but the needs of the hungry are much greater than current resources are able to address.

The Cor Unum Meal Center was established to provide hot meals three times a day, seven days a week, to anyone and everyone who is hungry in Lawrence. To build the meal center and to undermine the negative labeling that exists in our society, a dynamic group of young professionals started the innovative Labels Are For Jars project.

Our group merchandises T-shirts printed with different societal labels on the front and "Labels Are For Jars" on the back. The shirts are cleverly packaged in clear plastic jars with a coin slot cut into a plastic screw top. Buyers are encouraged to fill the jars with donations from family, friends, co-workers, etc, and to send the funds to Cor Unum in order to keep feeding the hungry.

Called to...Fix a Mess

An article about Bishop Foys of Covington

(no, we can 't go a day without a Covington article)

Thirty-five Covington priests have had allegations made against them. That's almost as many as the 38 in the Archdiocese of New York, which has 30 times as many Catholic households.

About three-quarters of the incidents of abuse happened between 1960 and 1979, when Richard Ackerman was the bishop of Covington. But according to the diocese, most were reported in the 1990s.

Although Foys didn't have anything to do with the priest-abuse mess, he has the job of cleaning it up.

"Bishop Foys was dealt a very difficult hand when he came to Covington," said Carrie Huff, the Chicago attorney who represented the diocese in the case. "Even before he had a chance to get situated in his new role as bishop, he was faced with a multitude of sexual abuse claims and contentious litigation."

Huff said Foys hit the ground running. He got personally involved in all the major settlement meetings and followed the negotiations closely, almost daily. He didn't hand off the negotiations to subordinates, as some other bishops have done.

"Whenever we got hung up on particular issues, and the discussions were on the verge o breaking down, he would continually remind us that we were losing sight of the victims, who had already waited too long for a resolution," Huff said.

100 years - Same Church

Renton parish sees demographics change, faith remain

A hundred years ago, Italian was sprinkled among the English spoken at St. Anthony's Catholic Church in downtown Renton.

Now the life of the church is enriched with the sounds of Spanish, Vietnamese, Filipino and many other foreign tongues mostly unheard in Renton just a few decades ago.

But it's Spanish that dominates, so much so that Father Gary Zender leaves a greeting on his answering machine in both English and Spanish. A Spanish Mass on Sunday evenings draws anywhere from 350 to 500 parishioners.

St. Anthony's will spend the next year marking its 100th anniversary. During those decades it has been buffeted by changes secular -- Boeing downturns -- and religious -- new edicts from the Vatican.

But it's the growth of the Hispanic population and other immigrant groups in the parish and throughout the region that has changed the way religion is practiced in Western Washington

Going to School

Two Catholic school stories:

Chicago works hard to keep pupils from closed schools in the fold; succeeds, apparently

Unhappy compromise on same-sex parents in OC Catholic school

The May 6 memo, obtained by The Times from a parent at the school, states: "Practically speaking this means: The children adopted by a same-sex couple" may enroll "on the condition that the same-sex couple agree not to present themselves as a couple at school functions."

Calls to school officials and to the conservative Norbertine order that runs it for the diocese were not returned.

Some parents say Sister Mary Vianney, the school's principal for 31 years, has not had her contract renewed after she objected to the new attendance requirements. The parents held a candlelight vigil Saturday and have asked Orange County Diocese Bishop Tod D. Brown to intervene.

"The ball is in the court of the St. John the Baptist parish and the Norbertine community," said Father Joe Fenton, a spokesman for the Diocese of Orange, which has declined in the past to get involved in the controversy at its 550-student school.

Vianney couldn't be reached for comment.

Mandatory Pregnancy

If by "mandatory" you mean "freely chosen."

Sheesh. Will Saletan vents his spleen about the Italian referendum in an article tastefully called "Take this Embryo and Shove It: Italy's Mandatory Pregnancy Law."

Imagine lying on a table at a fertility clinic. Across the room are three Petri dishes containing embryos made from your eggs. Given your genetic history, at least one of the embryos probably has a fatal blood disease. You don't want to implant the sick embryo or embryos, but the law says you have to. On a judge's orders, every one of those embryos will be inserted through a catheter into your womb, whether you like it or not.

Is this Rosemary's Baby? The Handmaid's Tale? Nope. It happened last year to an Italian woman under that country's IVF law. Today, Italians held a referendum on whether to change the law. Thanks in part to vigorous opposition from the Catholic Church, the referendum failed.

This is a lesson in what can happen to the United States and other countries if religious conservatives get their way. Conservatives fear a slippery slope from IVF and pre-implantation genetic testing to eugenics and dehumanization. Their fears are well-founded. But they've overlooked a law of geology: Every slope has at least two sides. Legislation designed to stop us from sliding down one slope can push us down the other. That's what has happened to the Italians. And if we don't learn from their tragedy, it could happen to us.

Never mind that this was a referendum. You know - a vote by people not compelled to do this. If this is what the people decided (even by their absence) - who the heck is Will Saletan to ...uh...judge?

Show Me the Money

Bishop Pilla sued

A lawsuit filed by 36 members of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland accuses Bishop Anthony M. Pilla of allowing three financial officers to divert about $2 million in diocesan funds to their private businesses.

The parishioners ask for the diocese to be reimbursed by the officers in the lawsuit filed Monday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court by attorney Santiago Feliciano Jr., the former director of the Cleveland diocese's legal office.

The lawsuit accuses Joseph H. Smith, the former chief financial officer of the diocese, of diverting more than $678,000; Thomas J. Kelley, the director of the Catholic Cemetery Association for the diocese, of improperly taking more than $331,000; and Anton Zgoznik, the assistant treasurer of the diocese, of taking $1 million.

Smith was fired by Cleveland, picked up by Columbus.

Ball for Life

Annie Banno's account of attending this fundraiser for the Good Counsel Homes

"Real Hope"

Goldman Sachs and the Church

It will take much more concentration than I have at the moment to absorb this interesting article from Joe Feuerherd on a new idea regarding church finances

"We believe that the Catholic church has tremendous resources that, if presented appropriately, will enable dioceses across the country to access capital at the lowest cost with significantly more attractive terms than current funding vehicles can provide," said Goldman's Rudy.

Goldman's Rudy, in his midsummer pitch to Mengeling, laid out the background of the Austin deal and its potential implications for dioceses across the country.

A Goldman-Sachs presentation to credit agencies interested in backing the Austin deal pointed the way. "The … presentation was a unique and compelling story that we believe will cause the credit markets and lenders to look at the church in a new light."

The bond market, said Rudy, should treat dioceses - whose congregants are akin to taxpayers - less like nonprofit entities and more like a government, which typically get the most favorable interest rates and repayment terms on their bonds. "Goldman Sachs and OFK have been making the case that while the Catholic church does not have unlimited taxing authority like a state or municipal government, the church should be viewed as closer to that end of the spectrum," wrote Rudy.

In the text

I am currently reading Bart Ehrman's latest - not due out until November - The Monk and the Messiah, which seems to be a distillation, for a popular audience (218 pp of text) of his work in textual criticism. It begins with an interesting account of his own journey - from enthusiastic Moody Bible Institute grad, convinced of word-for-word literal inerrancy, to Princeton grad, not quite convinced any longer, viewing the Scriptures as purely human documents.

I will have more to say about this after I finish reading it - but I would be interested to know if anyone has any leads on critiques of Ehrman's past work on textual criticism. Gotta go.

Mother of the Year

This is via Jonathon Last at Galley Slaves:

There really are no words to describe this...

A mother was "so concerned" about her dangerous pit bulls that she...shut her son in the basement while she did errands. The son got out, the dog mauled him to death. Her response:

"It's Nicky's time to go," she said in the interview. "When you're born you're destined to go and this was his time."

Meanwhile in the Philippines

Troops surround seminary

SIX truckloads of heavily armed soldiers and two Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) have been sent to a Philippine Catholic seminary on Monday where a former official of the National Bureau of Investigation is holed up after releasing purported tapes of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo conspiring to cheat in elections.

Samuel Ong, ex-NBI deputy director, holed up in the seminary since Friday, claimed that he was with one Sergeant Vidal Doble, an agent of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP), who allegedly turned over to him wiretapped conversations, which would prove that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo cheated in the May 2004 election.

More from Italy

According to another major Italian daily, "Il Corriere della Sera", here
several political leaders opposed to the referendum are crediting
Cardinal Ruini as being the major author of this huge defeat for the
proponents of the yes vote.  Also, the presidents of both the Chamber
of deputies and the senates did not vote and were praised by many Catholic politicians, such as Rocco Buttiglione.

There is also a sense that Italians have clearly rejected the
referendum as a means to decide on major issues.  I had told you in a thread a couple of weeks ago that Italians are tired of referendums, so this is a big blow to that avenue as well.

The more I read that more I am convinced that this result was not due
to apathy, but is a strong political message about both the issue and the
method.

Incidentally, not a single Italian province (there are over 90) reached
the 50% limit.  The highest was 47% in Emilia, a traditional site for
anti-Church and leftist sentiments.  The max 30% I quoted earlier
seemed to refer to regions (these are larger segments and there are 20 of
them).

The rejection was unanimous, although at different levels, throughout
Italy.

On Oprah today

Abuse victims of a priest from the Diocese of Toledo

News from Italy

A kind reader is passing articles along. I'm just going to cut n' paste his letter:

The Italian daily "La Repubblica" has a good website at:

http://www.repubblica.it/

In their "live coverage" they are quoting several politicians who had
advocated a Yes vote as acknowledging a heavy defeat.  The official
percentage of voters is 25.5% and there is no news yet about the
results of the vote, although one would expect the yes to be ahead, since the
abstentions were favoured by the no side.  The percentage was similar
in all parts of Italy, but more votes were registered in the North (max
about 30%) than in the South.

The minister of welfare, Roberto Maroni, claims that the people have
not "felt" the arguments for the referendum.  The "equal opportunities
minister" Stefania Prestigiacomo, who was part of a group called "Women
for yes" claims that the vote will have no political implications.

External affairs minister Gianfranco Fini, who had strongly favoured a
yes vote, claims that he worked according to his conscience and that he
will not submit his resignations.

CNN does not seem to have anything on the issue yet, while the BBC has
this article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4086296.stm

Contrary to what they claim, I don't think that it was mostly apathy:
from what my folks in Italy tell me it was a deliberate choice and a
deliberate message that accepted the position advocated by the Church,
but not only by the Church.

This article from the BBC, while written before the results were known,
has some interesting thoughts on the Church's influence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4087420.stm

Of course I mean interesting as a study of secular media

Reviewing the Situation

New members and chair for the Bishops' National Review Board

Periodic Enjoyment

For your perusal:

America's editors state their mission in Light of Recent Events:

Since Paul confronted Peter, the church has known diverse tendencies within it: Jews and Greeks, Alexandrians and Antiochenes, Greeks and Latins, monks and Scholastics, Franciscans and Dominicans, Rahnerians and Balthazarians. The Catholic tradition has been enriched by all of these. Sometimes they have grown so fractious that popes and councils have had to settle disputes among them. Within the discipline of the church and the bonds of charity, however, different schools of theology, traditions of spirituality and Catholic social movements should thrive. Faith and Christian freedom should nourish each other.

Theological argument and moral reasoning are integral to the Catholic way of being Christian. Catholics believe that faith and reason are compatible. Christians in other traditions look to us because of our historic respect for intelligence in the service of faith. Unfortunately, there are some in the church who would reduce the faith to pious simplicities and partisan political slogans. But slogans are no substitute for genuine doctrine, and litmus tests function only as polemical weapons, not as instruments of faith-filled inquiry. They are the war cries of a spurious orthodoxy, advanced by religious controversialists, uninterested in Catholicism’s rich complexity.

At America we will continue to promote the exchange of ideas among thinking Catholics. With a Catholic “both/and,” we will be faithful to authentic Catholic teachings and committed to airing legitimately diverse views. Because we appreciate the relation between “the foundation of the Christian faith” and “the hierarchy of truths” (Vatican II, “Decree on Ecumenism”), we will neither mistake diversity for dissent, nor do the opposite. With the great English Dominican Thomas Gilby, we believe that church and world both benefit when civilized people are “locked together in argument.”

The editorial goes on to say that the magazine will resist the temptation to divide the church into parties, a claim which stumbles a bit as we read another article in the piece on "Orthodoxy Online" - a look at the most popular Catholic websites: (the full text of the article is not, unfortunately, online)

Despite the breadth of material that can be found online, the most popular Catholic Web sites all have a very similar agenda and approach. The top five Catholic sites, as reported by www.catholicrankings.com in December 2004, are Catholic Exchange, EWTN, Catholic Answers, Catholic Online and New Advent. The password for many of these sites is orthodoxy.

"Orthodoxy" as an "agenda?"

This isn't "divisive" language?

Hmm.

And elsewhere - way elsewhere on the Catholic periodical front - The New Oxford Review has a new website . Many of the articles aren't fully accessible to non-subscribers, but some - as in the Michael Rose piece on the LC - are.

Window to the Gospel

Priest will be offering an educational series on the lovely, rich windows in the cathedral of the diocese of Covington

Referendum fails

It looks though the turnout for the Italian Embryo Referendum was way below 50%. More links later.

Go out and market to all nations

The nexus of evangelization and marketing is a frequent subject for discussion on these blogs. When the primary means of communication in a culture involve, by necessity, the market - when getting the message out requires one to use commerce - the risk, temptation and reality are always present, must always be checked.

Two related stories come to me today:

First, the invitation of Grace Hill Media, a consulting firm hired by studios to market their films to Christians, to individuals and groups to become "Narniacs."

The Ground Force Network (GFN), a service partner of Strategic Marketing Solutions, is an organization of volunteers who "want to use their faith to make a difference in their communities and collectively on a larger scale" through "guerilla" marketing for faith-related projects. (Other projects include the "Die Saved" campaign and The Maker's Diet campaign.)

GFN is currently inviting Christians to become "Narnia Generals," people who will "take a very active role" in stoking the fires of enthusiasm for director Andrew Adamson's adaptation of C. S. Lewis's fantasy classic. The e-mail appeal for volunteers promises that the film "will be nothing short of a masterpiece"—an interesting claim, considering the film is still in production. Beginning July 11, the Network will strive, in association with Disney, Walden Media, and Motive Entertainment, to train individuals for a grassroots marketing campaign, promising "incredible opportunities to be on the 'inside track'." Benefits will reportedly include "exclusive movie materials," possible cash prizes, "intern credit" that "looks GREAT on a résumé," and more.

Secondly - a blog entry on Pyromarketing and the Purpose-Driven Life

(I came across this link on another blog, but I can't remember which. Forgive me for not giving credit, something I try to be careful about!)

It's very interesting, especially for those of us involved in Catholic publishing - of course the success of this book was no accident. Warren was already popular, was already an admired and imitated figure, and what Zondervan did was to build on this:

Just as fire depends on fuel, so does marketing. Just as ignition temperatures vary from one fuel to the next, so do the "ignition points" of consumers. And just as fire spreads, so excitement about products spreads. "In PyroMarketing consumers are the fuel and their ignition points also differ widely. There is money stored in their wallets, but there is a very strong bond between consumers and their money." This approach attempts to create "consumer evangelists" who will do the most important and effective marketing on a product's behalf. The four steps of this marketing approach mimic the steps of building a fire:

1. Gather the driest tinder. In this first step, Zondervan sought out the people who were most likely to respond to their marketing campaign. They found 1200 pastors whose congregations totaled some 400,000 people. Rick Warren, using his existing credibility gained through his prior book The Purpose Driven Church and Purpose Driven seminars, convinced 1200 pastors to begin a "40 Days of Purpose" campaign in their churches. These people were gathered with the promise (or at least suggestion) of success - that by following this campaign they would have bigger, stronger, more successful churches. The tinder was ready to be struck by a match.

2. Touch it with the match. This step includes reaching the market, which in this case is the church. Having found 1200 pastors who would lead their churches in this campaign, Zondervan produced commercial spots and had them played on Christian radio stations in target areas. This generated some excitement about the program and even provided a small amount of brand recognition. They did not actively promote the book, but the campaigns that were beginning in local churches. For six weeks, following a video introduction by Rick Warren, those churches taught messages prepared by him and studied his book in small groups. Zondervan discounted the book to just $7 (from the usual $20) to promote it to the 400,000 people attending these 1200 churches. The flame was now burning, if only in a small way.

3. Fan the flames. Zondervan fanned the flames by promoting the book and the associated programs as evangelism. They told how this book had changed lives and grown churches within those 1200 congregations that formed the initial campaign. A company called Outreach marketing produced posters and door hangers and other items to assist churches as they spread the word. Zondervan provided retailers with marketing tools like postcards and emails along with a list of participating churches so they could sell them any additional copies they needed. The pastors and laypeople who had already completed the program, largely unknowingly, became consumer evangelists. The flames spread.

Now, what's the line? It's evangelism, sure...but Zondervan's making money. (the comments to this post, until they go off track, grapple with this matter).

And is this kind of technique possible to imitate in the Catholic market? Is it worthy of imitation?

Been there, done that

This morning, I was briefly immersed in two situations that brought memories - and relief that the memories weren't going to be revisited any time soon, if ever.

First was Vacation Bible School at which Katie's a helper and Joseph is attending. This is the first time he has ever gone to anything like this - he's gone to a sitter three mornings a week for three years with two other children, but never anything more than that. (He will be going to preschool this fall - either the public Montessori preschool, God willing - he's on the waiting list, and not too far down - or a Catholic school that has a preschool - not ours, of course.)

He's been excited, but as I walked out the door, and he was sitting there (with Katie still at his side), looking around, I could see his brows slowly start to knit, and a dawning realization come to him: Other kids. Lots.

I booked it.

But oh, the days of being a DRE and pulling together Vacation Bible School. Not the most unpleasant task on the job description, by any means, but chaotic and hot and (repeat) chaotic. Do we have the snacks? Where's the helper for this class? His mom is twenty minutes late to pick him up! Where is she?

God bless 'em.

Next stop was one of the local Catholic high schools to sign Katie up for a couple of sports camp. Oh, oh, oh....the cheerleaders in their tiny shorts practicing (i.e., these days bumping and grinding) in the lobby, met with delight by their large coach who couldn't jump two inches if she tried and who struck me as just one more example of the type - these are the girls who hated her/ignored her in high school, and now's her chance to befriend/lord it over them.

There were crews cleaning out lockers - that end of the year trash that is inevitable. Stacks of ratty books. The very loud echoes of teachers' sighs of relief still bouncing off the walls. Agan - God bless 'em. And pay them more. And if you know a teacher - buy them a nice summer drink, their choice.

Prayers Answered?

Vouchers have given a boost to DC Archdiocesan schools

Of the 983 students in the voucher program, which provides federal grants to District children to use toward tuition and fees at private or religious schools, 61 percent are attending Catholic schools -- a percentage that is expected to remain roughly the same when the program expands to about 1,600 students this fall.

Education analysts say it is no surprise that the Archdiocese of Washington schools are so heavily involved in the experiment. Their tuition rates are usually less than the $7,500 maximum that voucher students are allotted, while tuition at the city's elite private schools is much higher. And several of the Catholic schools are in poor neighborhoods where parents dissatisfied with public schools are most likely to reside.

The first comprehensive study of whether the new scholarships are boosting student achievement won't be issued for 18 months. But it is already clear that the program is a boon for the archdiocese. Its D.C. elementary school enrollment increased last fall after three decades of steady decline, and the influx of students has helped revive more than a dozen schools that at one point were candidates for closure.

Interesting - the Archdiocese doesn't release average school test scores saying, in regard to the vouchers, that they are for students, not schools, anyway, and if parents are dissatisfied with the school, they can take the voucher elsewhere.

St. Anthony

Today is the memorial of St. Anthony of Padua.

The webpage of St. Anthony Messenger has lots of related stories, of course

Oh by the way

...My dad's already made their air reservations for a month in Italy next spring.

Guess they liked it.

On having a muscial pope

Patrick O'Hannigan

The great thing about Benedict's musicianship is how well it works metaphorically and theologically. The man plays piano, drinks beer, and writes fearless books. I suspect that music is more than a welcome diversion, given that his prowess extends beyond "Chopsticks" and "Amazing Grace." Not to speculate too wildly, but I'd bet the pope and his inner circle understand both how much and how little we know of God, because they read, because they pray, and because they know from experience that speech is no substitute for music.

Try again

Judge rejects Covington deal

Calling the $120 million Covington Diocese settlement "a sound bite," Senior Judge John Potter rejected it, saying both sets of lawyers were fooling victims of sexual abuse.

Potter, of Louisville, said that while the proposed settlement was a good first step, it could collapse and end up in a trial - because only $40 million is immediately available for the claims.

Potter didn't discount the chance that the remaining $80 million could be collected through litigation with insurers. "It may, in the future at some point, become a $120 million settlement."

The judge said he wanted to make sure that no victim of sexual abuse by a priest became dispirited about his comment, but that it was better the victims understand up front that there isn't yet $120 million to be doled out.

Healer update

That Cleveland doctor, remember? Career woes and legal problems trail him.

The Catholic Church, AIDS and Africa

If anyone can understand this letter to a British paper, bully for you!

Go RP, Go RP

Regular commentor and resident of the neighboring state of Ohio, RP Burke has a lovely, gentle letter to the editor in the new issue of America

The contribution of the St. Louis Jesuits is not completely negative, but it turned the development of new music for Catholic worship in a direction that has proved to be a disaster (“Sing a New Song,” by Jim McDermott, S.J., 5/30). Dan Schutte and his friends caught on to something important—emphasis on Scripture—and pushed, by example, the new music of their day away from its touchy-feely essence back to a focus on Christ. But musically speaking, they are amateurs, and their popularity—owing largely to a lack of alternatives—sent the entire enterprise of music for worship into a tailspin of overwhelming dominance of amateurs and hacks.

Because musical standards did not seem to matter—after all, weren’t the St. Louis Jesuits popular?—no other standards seemed to matter either. The long-term consequence has been a devolution to the supremacy of attempts at music that fail to meet most reasonable musical or liturgical standards. The St. Louis Jesuits were not totally responsible for the mess we are in, but their popularity was the fulcrum on which our 30-year pilgrimage to musical and liturgical incompetence turned.

Bishop Meet-Up

This week, in Chicago. (Starting Thursday). Of course it's not a "meeting" as the fall gathering is. It's more of a retreat.

Is it being held here? Oh, that would be nice! Good choice, since you'll be in Chicago. And it's like, a retreat.

Uh, no...this would be the place. I did a search for available rooms Thursday and Friday. Cheapest was 309/night.

Sweet!

Or maybe they should just pray

Those Hamlins (see below)  had the wrong idea. Who needs medicine?

This Indiana sect doesn't

At their weekly Thursday night service, the church's members prayed that God's comfort would come to the parents of the two children who have died most recently. And there were acknowledgements of the church's grief over the losses.

But at the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, these tragedies are seen through another lens, too. In each case, the parents sought no medical assistance for their children, relying instead solely on providence to save their babies or take them home.

In this little church on Lick Creek Road, such fateful choices are seen as testimonies to a healthy faith. At Thursday's service, one man praying publicly thanked God for the example set by Dewayne and Maleta Schmidt, the rural Franklin couple convicted last month of reckless homicide after they sought no medical care for their struggling newborn in 2003.

The Illiterate Surgeon

Nicholas Kristof writes about a woman, once a patient, now a practictioner in repairing obstetric fistulas:

Ms. Mamitu was exceptionally lucky in that she was brought to a hospital here in Addis Ababa that offered free surgery by a saintly husband and wife pair of gynecologists from Australia, Reginald and Catherine Hamlin. Reg is now dead, while Catherine is the Mother Teresa of our time and is long overdue for a Nobel Peace Prize.

After that operation, 42 years ago, Ms. Mamitu was given a job making beds in the hospital. Then she began helping out during surgeries, and after a couple of years of watching she was asked by Dr. Reg Hamlin to cut some stitches. Eventually, Ms. Mamitu was routinely performing the entire fistula repair herself.

Over the decades, Ms. Mamitu has gradually become one of the world's most experienced fistula surgeons. Gynecologists from around the world go to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital to train in fistula repair, and typically their teacher is Ms. Mamitu.

Not bad for an illiterate Ethiopian peasant who as a child never went to a day of school.

The website for the hospital and a group supporting it.

Catherine Hamlin's book about her hospital

Synchronicity

Today, went to Mass at our real, official parish down the street. 10:30 Mass, which we usually avoid, since it's the Mad Hoopla Mass. Anything that needs to happen, happens at that liturgy, usually - there have been occassions on which we've had an RCIA rite, a special performance by the children's bell choir, full adult choir music, and a special talk on something (stewardship probably!) all during that liturgy.

But today there wasn't much happening - including the air conditioning, I want to add. Which didn't bother me too much, but Joseph was a dripping puddle by the end of it.

The rather charming thing that happened was this:

Our pastor wasn't available, being as he was out celebrating the diocesan TV Mass. So a retired priest was called in - retired from the diocese of Gary, but living in Fort Wayne (there used to be just one diocese in this part of the state). I usually want priests to just stick to the rubrics and not, repeat not chat with us at the beginning, but this was rather irresistable: this elderly priest telling us that when the pastor invited him to celebrate this Mass, he didn't know that this day was the 56th anniversary of his first Mass - celebrated in this church!

It was a liturgy plagued by slight troubles. No AC. The sound on his body mike wasn't quite right, so when he wasn't at the ambo, he couldn't be heard very well. He misplaced his homily notes.

But what I heard of his brief homily - about the cost of discipleship, and the personal fruit: "God is enough" - fit quite well with the rest of the experience and packed a quietly powerful punch. As we follow, as we seek to serve, our efforts are flawed and imperfect. We mess up and circumstances are difficult. We lose our notes and forget what it was we so carefully planned to say. But, in the midst of it all, the Spirit moves in the strange way - both and because of us and despite us - that it does.

Let the Little Children Come to Me

From the Angelus, today:

We Christians cannot live without Sunday.

This is why parents are called to enable their children to discover the value and significance of responding to Christ’s invitation to bring the entire Christian family together for Sunday Mass. A crucial leg in this educational journey is first Holy Communion, a real celebration for the parish community as it welcomes its youngest children to the Lord’s Table for the first time. God willing, to highlight the importance of this event for the family and parish, I will hold a special catechetical encounter on 15 October here in the Vatican for children who received their first Communion this year, especially those from Rome and Lazio. This joyous meeting will take place nearly at the end of the Eucharistic Year, when the Ordinary Assembly of the Bishops’ Synod focused on the Eucharistic mystery will be under way.

It will be a timely and beautiful occasion to reaffirm the essential role the sacrament of the Eucharist plays in the formation and spiritual growth of boys and girls.

From now, I entrust this meeting to the Virgin Mary, so that it may teach us to love Jesus ever more in the constant meditation of His Word and in the adoration of his Eucharistic presence, and so that it may help us to enable younger generations to discover the “precious pearl” of the Eucharist, which gives real and full sense to life.

As we go to Mass today..

(although most of you have already been by the time you read this!)

From the Office of Readings today, from St. Cyprian

When we meet together with the brethren in one place, and celebrate divine sacrifices with God’s priest, we should remember our modesty and discipline, not to broadcast our prayers at the tops of our voices, nor to throw before God, with undisciplined long-windedness, a petition that would be better made with more modesty: for after all God does not listen to the voice but to the heart, and he who sees our thoughts should not be pestered by our voices, as the Lord proves when he says: Why do you think evil in your hearts? – or again, All the churches shall know that it is I who test your motives and your thoughts.

In the first book of the Kings, Hannah, who is a type of the Church, observes that she prays to God not with loud petitions but silently and modestly within the very recesses of her heart. She spoke with hidden prayer but with manifest faith. She spoke not with her voice but with her heart, because she knew that that is how God hears, and she received what she sought because she asked for it with belief. The divine Scripture asserts this when it says: She spoke in her heart, and her lips moved, and her voice was not audible; and God listened to her. And we read in the Psalms: Speak in your hearts and in your beds, and be pierced. Again, the Holy Spirit teaches the same things through Jeremiah, saying: But it is in the heart that you should be worshipped, O Lord.

Beloved brethren, let the worshipper not forget how the publican prayed with the Pharisee in the temple – not with his eyes boldly raised up to heaven, nor with hands held up in pride; but beating his breast and confessing the sins within, he implored the help of the divine mercy. While the Pharisee was pleased with himself, it was the publican who deserved to be sanctified, since he placed his hope of salvation not in his confidence of innocence – since no-one is innocent – but he prayed, humbly confessing his sins, and he who pardons the humble heard his prayer.

Sweet Dreams

WaPo article about one of the many baby-sleeping coaches out there - this one in the DC area

Sleep?

Sleep?

Bah.

Writer's Passion

At his blog, Peter Chattaway posts a link to a panel discussion including Passion screenwriter Benedict Fitzgerald and others involved in the production. Chattaway summarizes some important points.

(In case you didn't know, Fitzgerald is the sone of Robert and Sally Fitzgerald, and Flannery O'Connor was his godmother)

Speaking of Merton

A conference of the Thomas Merton Society is this weekend in San Diego

Can I Live, redux

Just  a reminder, if you missed it yesterday, to go watch Nick Cannon's powerful video Can I Live . Also, go to the message board on his site and read what fans are saying about it - the pain out there among aborted women is heartbreaking.

Another link to the video - perhaps easier to see here.

Merton's secretary

From the Lextington paper:

In 1968, Hart had gone to Rome to fulfill his dream of studying Celtic monasticism when he was called back unexpectedly to Gethsemani.

Abbot Flavian Burns told Hart that "Father Louis will be traveling, and he asked you to be his secretary."

Merton had admired Hart's editorial skills, and he needed someone to handle his correspondence. Merton was about to leave on his journey to the East, where he died from accidental electrocution in Bangkok, Thailand on Dec. 10, 1968, at age 53.

"I said, 'My work's over,'" Hart said, "but it just began."

Food for Thought

On "poaching" in Bolivia

My wife and I are acquainted with Frank Lyons, the Anglican
Bishop of Bolivia; he was our parish priest for a time.
(We're Episcopalian, though I hate to admit that these days.)
Frank's based in the capital city of Bolivia.  And on the
topic of evangelizing Catholics, he's unapologetic about it--
the reason being that Catholicism, as practiced in Bolivia,
has become heavily syncretized.  He had tales to tell that
would curl your hair about a variety of social and cultural
practices, some of which take place in and around more normal
Catholic services, that are a clear holdover from the local
pre-Christian religion.

I suppose one could say the same about Christmas trees and
Easter eggs--but there's a spiritual depth and a sense of
sacrifice and expectation about these practices that's
disturbing.  I wish I could remember the details well enough
to relate them to you; I remember bits and pieces, but not
enough to tell a coherent story.

Anyway, Frank's point of view is that the Catholic Church
has had hundreds of years to bring her people out of this
kind of bondage--and hasn't managed to do it, and isn't
likely to.  So his goal is not only to bring people to
Christ, but also in so doing to bring them out of bondage to
evil spirits.  He's not one who would say that Catholics
aren't Christians--he's a good friend of Al Kimel the
Pontificator, as it happens--but he's not Roman Catholic,
and he sees that the vineyard needs laborers.

Second thoughts

A report that a beatification is being postponed because of the discovery of anti-Semitic writings

Father Leon Dehon (1843-1925) was to be put on the road to sainthood on April 24 thanks to his pioneering social and spiritual work. The ceremony was postponed, officially because of Pope John Paul’s death on April 2.

It has now emerged that an historian had found anti-Semitic writings by Dehon from the late 1800s and informed Church officials late in March. They told Vatican officials, including the influential Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

The cardinal, who was later elected Pope Benedict on April 19, “was informed and was shocked,” French Bishops’ Conference spokeswoman Marie-Caroline de Marliave told Reuters.

“The issue is being studied now,” she said. Any decision to proceed with or drop the beatification “is up to Rome.”

Here's the report in the French newspaper

A page on Fr. Dehon from his order's website

On the Family

The English text of Benedict's talk from earlier this week:

Part 1

Part 2

Icons on the Gulf

Via Catholic Light, a really interesting story about Greeks settling outside Mobile, building up a sizeable plantation/cannery, etc., and having a lovely Orthodox church built on the property.

On a much smaller scale...we went to the liturgy at a tiny Russian Orthodox monastery planted in the midst of the strawberry fields of Plant City, Florida, once. Really. Onion dome and all. It was my introduction to live Russian Orthodox chant, and it was breathtaking - and there only 4 or 5 people chanting, to boot.

News to me!

Japanese women dancing around the tomb of Jesus Christ:

The link to the photo

An article about the tradition

So what do the, mainly Buddhist, people of the town really make of this tale? I asked Sato-san who is in charge of tourism to the site at Shingo Council. Looking slightly embarrassed, he lowered his eyes before suppressing a smile and said that they really want to believe this story. “It’s a nice thing to have associated with your town,” he offered. Apparently so, while much of the town lies in desperate need of a slap of paint or some signposts, this memorial site and decade- old museum sits spangling on the hill, painstakingly cared for awaiting the 30,000 tourists who attend every year.

A Christ Festival, or Kuristo Matsuri, is held every June and mixes Shinto and Christian prayers, Sato-san explained. The guidebooks – those which pass reference on Aomori – note it for being an area lively in its celebrations of summer festivals. Although on a much smaller scale than the August Nebuta festivals found in the nearby Aomori and Hirosaki cities, the museum video of the Kuristo Matsuri shows a lively bunch parading the tombs. Their multicoloured costumes and vigorous dancing are an interesting departure from the festivals traditionally held to celebrate Christ, but nonetheless, likely to pull in a crowd.

A Boy's Guide to Fishing

Michael came home from work, experienced the overtired-enthusiastic-frantic Joseph for about 30 seconds, looked at him and said, "Come on, let's go somewhere."

Down to the river - whichever one runs around Foster Park - St. Mary's, I guess - was the destination. Get the worms out of the fridge (still alive!), go down to see what they could get.

In the end, you win some, you lose some. You win a fish, and since no one would eat it anyway, the fish wins, too, after a brief scare. But - you lose the fishing pole. But perhaps someone else will tell that story.

The Wet Engine

Excellent (Catholic) writer Brian Doyle has a new book out, rooted in his son's heart problems

"God gave me one gift, to smell and take delight in stories,” said Mr. Doyle, whose newest book, The Wet Engine: Exploring the Mad, Wild Miracle of the Heart, was released by Paraclete Press in May. The book is a collection of anecdotes that grew from the author’s experience with the life-threatening heart condition of his son, Liam.

Don’t mistake The Wet Engine for a simple feel-good tale of a little boy’s triumph over death. Liam’s story is the vehicle for Mr. Doyle’s meditation on the nature of love, suffering, commitment and grace told in word-riffs on topics circling around the theme of heart, the biological organ, and heart, the metaphysical site of deepest feeling. Mr. Doyle says the book is a “prayer” of gratitude for Liam’s doctor, pediatric cardiologist Dave McIrvin.

That the book evolved in ways Mr. Doyle hadn’t anticipated doesn’t surprise him.

Schiavo in Queens?

A quite interesting post at the Benedict Blog about a contentious family/nutrition and hydration case decided by a judge who took a far, far different path than Judge Greer, and actually, among other points, took the family's (Orthodox Jewish) faith into account in making the decision.

Responsibility?

At Slate, Will Saletan on NARAL's new tactic

That's where the new message comes in. Here's how the poll puts it: "We should promote a culture of freedom and responsibility by focusing on preventing unintended pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion through increasing access to family planning services, access to affordable birth control and by providing comprehensive age appropriate sex education in schools." The poll asks people to choose between this and "a culture of life that recognizes the importance of every human life," including the belief that "life begins at conception." The culture of freedom and responsibility beats the culture of life, 61 to 27 percent. The pro-choice minority becomes a pro-choice majority.

At the press conference, NARAL strategists talk up various aspects of the message: prevention, common ground, solving problems. But the numbers tell the real story. When you pose the same question without the phrase "culture of freedom and responsibility," the pro-choice advantage drops from 61-27 to 53-37. Same policies, take out the value words, and you lose most of your margin. Values rule.

Lost in the Cosmos

The new blogger at Lost in the Cosmos pointed me to this post at Bene Diction about an internet radio program in which Jeff Sharlet makes some rather exaggerated statements about a couple of blogs.

Lego Polycarp

Yup.

Here. (the martyrdom in reverse)

Via Eve

Of course, there is lots of religion-related Lego stylings out there.

Lego Church

Lego Luther

And the GrandDaddy of them all, the Brick Testament

At Catholic Exchange

Rich Leonardi on his visit to the Rochester Cathedral

Terry Mattingly on seminary questions: "Can't Ask, Can't Tell"

Howl's Moving Castle

Slightly different views on the movie, based on a book by Diane Wynne-Jones (not read by me, but much loved by my daughter) from Frederica Mathewes-Green and Thomas Hibbs

Love With The Proper Stranger

Wlady Pleszczynski wonders why that film is missing from some recent Steve McQueen love.

I can see his point, but it also strikes me that if the film does, indeed present the classic "back-alley" abortion, wouldn't that balance out, for snippy programmers,  any hint that abortion might be a bad choice?

Why are Indians good spellers?

From the WSJ, by Tunku Varadarajan

But Nehru would have approved of spelling bees. Indian pedagogy relies heavily on rote memorization--the result of a fusion of Victorian teaching methods imposed by the British and ancient Hindu practice, in which the guru (or teacher) imparted his learning to pupils via an oral tradition. (The Victorians, for their part, regarded correct spelling almost as a moral virtue, and certainly as a caste "signifier," to use a clumsy anthropological term.)

So the act of sitting down for months with dictionary on lap, chanting aloud the spellings of abstruse words and then committing them to memory probably taps into an atavistic stream coursing through the veins of Indian bee-children. A friend tells the story of how, in his childhood, he'd had an Indian boy home for a sleep-over. He awoke in the middle of the night to find his guest poring over the host family's Random House dictionary. "I own an Oxford dictionary," the boy had said, by way of bizarre, nocturnal explanation. "This American dictionary is so different!"

I'm so Multicultural

We went to Sam's last night for the monthly bottled-water and whatever-other-huge-box-of-something we want. In the checkout line was a family - I couldn't quite tell the ethnicity or nationality. Kuwaiti, perhaps.  Father, two boys, and two women. Perhaps one of the women was a daughter, the other wife. Or wife and one of the adult's mother. I don't know.

The males were in full western dress. The boys in shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops, the dad in his khakis and checked shirt. The women - not. They were both in full length garb, one robed and a veil over the head, the other in full burqa. I mean - the kind you see on television dispatches from Taliban land, with a slit for eyes. I know, I know. I've read enough. The women will say they like it, they appreciate it, and what's so great about slouching around in jeans and a t-shirt anyway. But why are the males allowed to westernize?

Whither the Synagogues of Egypt?

In today's WSJ:

I knew that we had arrived at our destination when I saw an armed guard on patrol. Cairo has many Jewish houses of worship where no worship has taken place in decades. Yet these abandoned hulks are fiercely protected. The Nasser regime may have thrown out Egypt's Jews, but the Mubarak regime seems to be devoting immense resources to protecting what remains of their legacy.

Still, Rav Moshe is a shambles. The roof of the sanctuary where I had prayed as a child caved in years ago. What survives is the ark that once housed the Torah scrolls. I wanted to see the shrine but had to stop. The basement was flooded. I stepped across a plank and stood on a bench in the room where I had slept as a child. There were no blankets or mattresses now, no holy oil, no Maimonides.

Speaking of Rap

Fr. Stan Fortuna taped a segment for a morning show that airs on the New York NBC station, I guess:

As of right now, the segment is scheduled to air on Tuesday morning,
June 14th on Today in New York.  The show broadcasts from 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM and we were told that Fr. Stan's segment will air sometime between 6:30 AM and 7:00 AM.  So, if you are in the tri-state area, set your VCR's and alarm clocks and check it out!!!!

Can I Live

Fantastic, moving powerful pro-life rap video. Watch it and pass it on.

Comment of the Day

From one of the breastfeeding threads:

Having nursed off and on for a dozen years I often feel like placid ol' Bessie the cow. It seems as if it would be almost natural to just bend down and munch a few mouthfuls of grass. So for everyone who suggests that breastfeeding is kind of ah err umm- ahem- well, you know ... thanks.

Heh. You know, there's actually a lot of humor in those comments, most from past and present nursing moms who have an excellent sense of humor - how could we survive if we didn't?

That They May Be One

Benedictines try to encourage understanding in Northern Ireland

Bishops condemn Mugabe

..for destruction and displacement

ALL NINE of Zimbabwe’s Catholic bishops have forthrightly condemned their Government’s recent two-week campaign to “beautify” the country’s urban areas by destroying slums and informal markets.

“We, the members of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference, hereby register our dismay at the current ‘clean up’ operation, dubbed ‘Operation Restore Order’,” said their statement last week. It continued: “We are surprised that this operation is being carried out without enough warning and without Government offering alternative accommodation and sources of income to the affected huge number of people.”

A Word With You

The Word From Rome:

Earlier this week, headlines in the American press reported that Pope Benedict XVI had attacked gay marriage. Though the statement fell into the "Dog Bites Man" category of utterly predictable news, it nevertheless illustrates how any pronouncement by an official of the Catholic church on a sexual topic will draw attention.

One point perhaps worth noting: In his 48,978 words of teaching as of June 9, Benedict XVI had used the word "sex" exactly once, while the word "Africa," mostly in the context of an appeal for attention to the problems of Africa, appeared 11 times. It's no mystery which has been given greater prominence in the international press.

A question everyone's asking

Well, the 16 people really interested in such things - what about Archbishop Marini? When is his time up as coordinator of pontifical liturgies?

Magister suggests soon

Well, that part of the article is all speculation, and obviously just the hook. The bulk of it is excerpted from a Civilta Cattolica article by another author about the how-to of the televising of the papal liturgies, particularly those of the last two months:

Thanks to this work of collaboration, it was possible to bring the idea of resurrection to life during the funeral broadcasts through the juxtaposition of the image of the cypress coffin placed at the center of the courtyard and that of the Paschal candle burning beside it.

Another significant juxtaposition could be found in the close-up images of the open book of the Gospels on the coffin, its pages ruffled by a brisk wind, and the images of another such book being carried in procession by the deacon for the Gospel reading: the Word of the Lord proclaimed in the liturgy and carried out in life.

The first rows of the faithful present were intentionally avoided in order to emphasize the encounter between the principal celebrant, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and the entire assembly. Careful use was made of the iconographic material gathered around the altar: the great wooden crucifix, the tapestry with the image of the risen Christ hanging from the basilica's central gallery, the icon of Mary that was shown during the singing of the Magnificat.

Very interesting.

Basil Pennington

Michael mentions that Basil Pennington passed away last week - I hadn't heard.

The Polygamist Next Door

Originally published in the DMN

About a year and a half ago, several men representing a company called YFZ Land LLC arrived in Eldorado, looking to buy a ranch outside town. They told real-estate agents and local police they were planning to open a hunting retreat. They were lying. Scores of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) have begun to descend on this sleepy West Texas town and are planning to make a permanent home for hundreds of their members - to be called Yearning for Zion (YFZ).

Earlier this year, rumors flew that the leader of the secretive polygamous sect, self-proclaimed prophet Warren Jeffs, may be planning some kind of Waco-style violent end for the members.

Town members have so far been relieved that the church members are keeping relatively quiet. A local sheriff's deputy told the Associated Press that they seem to be "hardworking folks" and "awesome contractors, great at what they do."

Schleicher County Judge Johnny Griffin told a reporter that "they've done nothing to warrant any kind of great fear." And that any legal action might threaten the members' rights to privacy and religious freedom.

It is perhaps commendable that the people of Eldorado want to be as welcoming as possible to their new neighbors - local clergy have tried to go introduce themselves - and believe that they are entitled to practice whatever religion they like.

But the people of Eldorado should not be lulled into complacence. They have a serious crisis brewing in their back yard.

Why so emotional?

Fabulous Lactivism discussion!

I'm going to attempt to move it up here by gathering some thoughts on the comments.

As I stated below, I'm a firm believer in Breast is Best, but don't begrudge others their decisions on this matter because life and parenthood is tough, and you do what you have to do.

So, for the record, my question about breastfeeding and sin didn't come out of my beliefs, but just out of stuff I thought I had read somewhere. Just wondering if anyone else had seen such.

BUT, I will say, that while parenthood in general has taught me what I know are much-needed lessons in sacrifice and the real purpose of life, those lessons are borne for me most starkly in, I think, in nursing. In nursing, I have to very physically put my babies first over what I would like, and it's hard sometimes. I'm not saying, as I just pointed out that every dimension of parenthood, every day, at every stage, doesn't afford the same opportunity for spiritual growth. It does, of course. But for me, breastfeeding is a particularly powerful moment of realizing the primacy and fruit of self-giving.

Which is why, in art, the virtue of Charity is represented by a nursing mother.

But the question came up down there - why do people get so emotional about this? It's one of those things I wonder about, too, and about parenting discussions in general. On another blog, there was a rather intense kerfuffle about co-sleeping (formerly known as the family bed), and I wrote to the blog proprietor, rather puzzled as to why anyone cares. I mean - I can't see getting upset about it one way or the other, and it's the same with breastfeeding. I have a former student who is a hard core nurser, but even she wrote once of sitting in Starbucks (yes), nursing, and having people say nice things to her, complimenting her for nursing. She didn't get it - "I'm just feeding my baby. Why is this a big deal?"

I do think that most of the emotional reaction on the Lactivist side is defensive, really. Part of it is an irritated version of my students' reaction, but part probably comes out of the frustration of doing a good thing - making a new person, giving him life, nurturing him, giving up a lot to do so, probably being really tired, for some, living a relatively isolated existence, and here it is, you finally get out of the house, hauling all the baby stuff, praying that the baby will keep it together long enough for you to even half-enjoy dinner, or pray for 30 seconds during Mass or enjoy a little bit of sunshine and damn it if someone can only take offense and make your already-challenging life just that much more difficult.

Yeah.

(Not that it's happened to me - really!)

Levada Speaks

Interview with CNS

He said one of the "negative aspects" of the congregation's work is that it must occasionally intervene and ask theologians how they justify their positions or square them with the faith. That can be misunderstood as a form of repression, he said.

"I think people have sometimes gotten the idea that if you don't let every theologian say everything that he or she thinks, or if you challenge them in any way and say, 'That's not correct,' that somehow you are impeding freedom of conscience or freedom of inquiry," he said.

"But that's not the case. We have freedom to inquire. But a theologian himself or herself is called to discriminate between where that inquiry leads and how it corresponds to the faith that the church continues to receive and to live by. Otherwise they would not be doing true theology, it seems to me," he said.

"Theology itself is in dialogue with revelation, which has some things to say. And you can't just say that revelation says anything you want it to say," he said.

Via Rocco

AIDS in Mozambique

Interesting article in Slate about the efforts of the Franciscans and the Community of Sant'Egidio. Short version: they're proactive and work outside the government. Government says their efforts are careless and haphazard.

Patients lined up to meet with doctors and get supplies of ARVs, as well as antibiotics and TB drugs. Sant'Egidio also provides its patients with food: sugar, flour, oil, beans, and, for nursing mothers, formula and a filter that makes water safe to mix it with. It's what Capparucci calls the "golden standard," treatment equal to Western norms. "We could do the minimum, but it's not our philosophy," he said. "We hope in the future we will be here to do the golden standard for everybody." Sant'Egidio's drug regimen costs $300 per person per year, almost half the cost of the cheapest drugs the U.S. government buys to treat AIDS patients overseas. Add in care and lab tests, and treating an AIDS patient costs them $700 a year.

Sant'Egidio also trains Mozambican volunteers to work in their communities, educating people about AIDS and bringing sick people to the clinics. Most are HIV-positive women who Sant'Egidio has restored to life with ARVs. As we walked past an open-air, metal-roofed waiting area, one volunteer whose daughter died of AIDS read aloud to the group, translating a Portuguese text on health and hygiene into the local language. She was an older woman, full of enthusiasm. "Oh, how I love this grandmother," Stefano beamed. The feeling was mutual. The volunteers ran to greet Stefano when we arrived, and kissed me hello, thinking I was also Sant'Egidio.

Not everyone is so magnanimous.

Casual bleg

I'm working on a chapter for a book - and yes, in case the editor's reading this, I am working, thanks to the new babysitter. The topic I'm grappling with is what the press missed in its coverage of the death of JP2 and election of B16. In other words, what the press didn't "get." I have five points I've decided to focus on, but any thoughts you have would be welcome. Please note that this is not about bias (although the blindness might well sometimes be rooted in that) - it's about aspects of the stories that were missed, neglected, overlooked and minimized in relation to their real importance.

Oh, and it's not about punditry or editorials either - news coverage, as much as it can be teased out from that.

The Lactivist Thread is still going...

And Charlotte Allen has chimed in!

Varia

The Anchoress somehow has what I don't - the actual comments from the CPA judges on De-Coding, and a recommendation of another CPA-awardee book.

But Welborn’s book goes beyond apologetics to provide information that is interesting and readable in itself. Because Brown’s book continues to impact public perceptions and sow confusion as to both minor and major historic events, Welborn meets a clear and compelling informational need.

Yesterday, I linked to a site of "Maria Lactans" art. The page is at a site , "Apologia" advocating traditional (non-schismatic) Catholicism. The site is also increasingly expensive to run because of bandwidth needs - who knows how we contributed to that problem yesterday! If you look over the site and decide it's something you can give support to click here to do so.

Oh, and while you're at the Anchoress' spot, please read this moving post on AIDS, death...and life.

Pope meets with Jewish leaders

Promises continued close relations

The Pope added that "remembrance of the past remains for both communities a moral imperative." That remembrance, he said, "must include a continued reflection on the profound historical, moral and theological questions presented by the experience of the Shoah." Speaking in English, the Pontiff remarked that this year brings the 40th anniversary of the Vatican II statement Nostra Aetate (doc), which has formed the basis for Catholic relations with Jews in the subsequent years. "At the very beginning of my pontificate," he said, I wish to assure you that the Church remains firmly committed, in her catechesis and in every aspect of her life, to implementing this decisive teaching." In Nostra Aetate, Pope Benedict observed, the Council strongly affirmed that God's plan for salvation was first introduced to mankind to the people of Israel. The Church also condemned all forms of hatred and adverse discrimination against Jews.

Mom's House

Nice story from Toledo, about a center for single mothers, begun by a Catholic parish

Only young mothers enrolled full-time in high school or college are eligible to receive the free day-care service. They also must attend mandatory meetings, maintain a passing grade-point average, and perform household chores at the facility.

Average cost for a similar day-care service would be about $15,000 a year, Mrs. Ford said.

Mrs. Ford often talks extensively about the facility's success stories, but she noted that there is a waiting list and it is sometimes a struggle to raise money.

"We don't accept any government money because we are a faith-based and abstinence-based organization - and an alternative to abortion," she said. "We believe a choice for life is not a choice for poverty."

The American Church

Via Mirror of Justice

Study of Christianity in the US, focus on church attendance - interesting maps included.

Speaking of Latin America

Archbishop sends priests packing

Dozens of residents in the Quito neighborhood known as “Struggle of the Poor” marched through the streets carrying signs in support of the decision of Archbishop Raul Vela Chiriboga to send two Spanish priests back to Spain for neglecting to carry out their pastoral duties at a local parish and instead engaging in social activism.

The two Spanish priests, Father Jose Luis Molina and Father Miguel Angel, adherents of Marxist liberation theology, returned to their own diocese of Jerez, Spain.

Numerous families gathered outside the archdiocesan chancery in Quito to express their support for the decision of Archbishop Vela to send the priests back to Spain for neglecting the pastoral life of the parish of Santa Maria del Inti.

Supporters expressed their disagreement with the direction of the Spanish priests, who disobeyed directives from the archdiocese and even neglected to celebrate Sunday Mass at the parish.

I missed Chris Matthews on Opus Dei!

Why didn't anyone tell me???

Here's an article that gives a hint of what was on. Post if you saw it.

Compare and Contrast

Is the US falling behind on Embryonic Stem Cell research? Really?

But the concern about falling behind the rest of the world may be overblown. In fact, the United States appears to be a relatively hospitable place for embryonic stem cell research, especially compared to Canada and some nations in Europe where governments not only refuse financial support for human cloning to produce stem cells, they outlaw the practice.

In Canada, scientists who violate the ban can be jailed for 10 years and fined $500,000. "You can bet that with these harsh sanctions scientists are complying," said Rosario M. Isasi, an attorney who works on medical ethics issues at the University of Montreal.

Poaching

What is evangelization? Is it proper to evangelize Christians of other denominations? The question is raging below, particularly in regard to Catholics being the target.

(correction - proselytizing. But if a nominal Catholic doesn't practice or know his or faith isn't it, in fact, evangelizing?)

Well, I think it's legitimate to look at it from the perspective of the would-be "poacher" whether he or she be eying Catholic villagers in Bolivia or the Catholic teen down the street in Raleigh. From their perspective, this Catholic might know Christ, but, again, from their perspective, might not, and their life might seem to show it. We talk a lot here about the real definition of love and charity which involves truth-telling. The Poaching Baptists feel the same way. If Catholicism in that Bolivian or Guatamalan village means an earthly life that is miserably sinful, involving alcoholism and neglect of family, knows no catechesis, and sees a priest once or twice a year...who can blaim them from believing that these are people who haven't been given the opportunity to really know Christ?

This is different, of course, from an institutional belief that by definition a Catholic is not a Christian, which is a conviction that permeates many Southern Baptist, Assembly of God, etc. denominations. But I'm just saying. On the ground - if you think you know Christ, and he has changed your life, brought you joy, and you see others in misery - what's the charitable stance towards them? To keep silent, or to share?

Secondly, the dissing of Protestant mission work is just wrong. Protestants have done valiant mission work in tough conditions since the 19th century. We're not talking about the 2-week mission camp (which is not a bad thing, by the way, and something that many Catholics do as well), but about whole families who have lived their lives in rugged, dangerous territory, serving. Sure, there can be many, many legitimate questions raised about what's going on today - from the depth of "conversion" going on, to the hostility to Catholicism as Catholicism, etc, but the history of Protestant missions in Asia and Africa from the 19th century to today  is a fascinating and noble one.

The bottom line  - oh, and how often, have we spoken of this!  - North American Catholics can be easy pickings for evangelical Protestants for a number of reasons, and the reasons cited for leaving vary, but one of the big ones, aside from marriage and kids' programs, is the centrality of Christ. Is Christ preached in your parish? Is the life you and your fellow parishioners live now, in 2005, being actively engaged and enlightened by the Gospels and the richness and wisdom of 2000 years of tradition and, in the end, drawn to the reality of Christ in the Eucharist, here and now? Is Christ being preached as your savior, as the way, as the One to strengthen and guide you out of a place in which you are lost? Not in my parish, not in many parishes I've been in.

Note from a reader, edited a bit at his request, to protect those involved:

Two dear friends, a married couple, have served as overseas missionaries their entire adult lives.  They began in Mexico, in an isolated part of ________ state, where by their description Christianity in any form had little presence, and the dominant religions were various animisms.  They served their for a decade or so, leaving only because of real danger to themselves and their children.  They went to the Honduras-Nicaragua border, where they worked with refugees of the Sandinista-Contra in the Miskito area.  They've spent the last 10+ years in a certain very large Asian nation where Christians are kept under tight control, officially teaching English ..... and working very quietly as to spread the gospel.  It's all very one-to-one work since they can't organize congregations openly.  They're Free Methodists with a charismatic tinge, not exactly the fiercest sort of American Protestant.  I wish they would come home:  we need them here, too.

From what they tell me, there are a lot of Western missionaries in permanent or semi-permanent residence overseas.  There's an extensive support network, with boarding schools for their children, medical care, and conferences.  A lot of activity flies under the radar of the world-since some of them work in dangerous places, they tend to avoid Web sites that might tell unfriendly governments too much. 

PA Confidential

News from the Keystone State:

Vatican affirms Scranton diocesan decision to supress Society of St. John

Liberatore (also Scranton) pleads guilty

An earlier story on Liberatore

Philadelphia priest accused, laicized (at his own request), turns up teaching in private schools

Protection Racket

Not just a clerical problem, of course. Professionals almost always are dedicated to protecting their own. Here's a horror story from Australia (that began in the U.S.)

Pulling up

This from the comments thread below, which I am going to close and direct up here.

(Diane's comment is fascinating. I lean towards the "reap what you sow" school of thought on this, as in...if Catholicism in Latin America (or anywhere) has grown a lot of weeds because of the lack of clergy and religious, poor catechesis, a lack of focus on Christ and the usually deadening effect of habit and cultural embedeness...what do we expect? But I'm still intrigued by this comment:)

This is a subject close to my heart, because I live in rural North Carolina. My neighbors are devout Pentecostals. My boss is a fervent Southern Baptist. And we buy our *Wordly Wise* books (for homsechool) from a bookstore that stocks row upon row of Chick tracts and Dave Hunt screeds and videos warning of the papist dangers lurking just below the celluloid surface of the movie *The Passion of the Christ.* (I am not making this up.)

Our next-door-neighbor's daughter is taking a summer missionary trip to Panama. She sent us a letter asking if we would help finance this "opportunity to bring the Gospel to the unsaved."

Meanwhile, my boss's brother is busy saving Catholics and Orthodox in the Ukraine. And my boss's daughter, IIRC, is saving up for her own missions trip to Costa Rica.

These folks never seem to go to Uzbekistan or Tibet or some other genuinely non-Chrisian place. Nope. It's always someplace where the Gospel has already been planted, so all they have to do is water the plant. Ugh. Sorry, I have a jaundiced view. It just gets old after a while. (My kids and I even have a song about it, sung to the tune of [i]The Ride of the Valkyrie,[/i] a/k/a "Kill the Rabbit": "Save the Catholics! Save the Catholics! (etc. etc.)"

I know we Catholics bear much of the blame, what with poor catechesis and anemic outreach. But...but...but...the "save the Catholics" evangelicals aren't blameless, either, believe me. They really *do* target Catholics--at least partly, IMHO, because it's a heck of lot easier than risking life and limb to preach the Gospel, say, in Iran or Somalia. And they also employ rather questionable methods, IMHO, even here at home in the goold old USA. (My boss's church stages concerts for the general public, and then, when they've got the audience nicely captive, they make 'em fill out little cards relating whether they've ever "made a decision or Christ" and, if so, when (dates, please!). A colleague who attended one of these concerts said she felt so "had" that she became enraged, tore the card up, and left in a huff. I can't say I particularly blame her.)

At the same time, though, I think we may be exaggerating the effectiveness of these dudes, leastwise in Latin America. A very sage poster on another board, whose wife is a Latin American-born Pentecostal, testifies that global Pentecostalism peaked a few years ago and now is actually slipping in popularity. It has been racked by scandals, and its shallowness has perhaps begun to wear on people.

Moreover, in some Latin American counties, I'm told, Catholic piety is resurgent.

Obviously, we Catholics need to do much, much more--not only to stanch the bleeding but also to engage in active evangelical outreach to Latin America. We also need to do more here at home, where the Iglesia Bautista down the street is only too ready to snatch uncatechized or marginalized sheep.

But at the same time, please let's not beat ourselves up too badly here. As Catholics, we're used to playing fair. Many of the sheep-stealers play pretty dirty. That takes us by surprise and puts us at a disadvantage. But do we really want to adopt their methods? As a Bible Belt resident who has herself been targeted by those methods, I can safely say they're not 100% worth emulating. And I'm not sure they're always 100% effective, either.

Meeting with the gov.

American Life League youth to meet with Schwarzenegger

Outreach to the Lost

Baptists to Catholics, that is:

Trustees of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board appointed 116 missionaries—the second-largest group of new missionaries in board history—during their May 19-21 meeting in Midland, Texas.

They also adopted guidelines for cooperating with other Great Commission Christian partners overseas; elected new officers for 2005-06; received reports on the board’s finances and missionary personnel; and heard from IMB President Jerry Rankin about the necessity of ongoing evangelical mission efforts in Roman Catholic countries.

...

Rankin, in his president’s report to trustees, noted the passing of Pope John Paul II, a man beloved by millions of Protestants and evangelicals “for his zeal, his personal warmth and his unyielding stand for human dignity, the sanctity of life and many other moral convictions shared in common.”

Rankin added that nearly 1,200 Southern Baptist missionaries continue to serve in 65 predominately Roman Catholic countries where 852 million people live.

“Why would we invest such efforts in Catholic countries? The answer is quite simple: It is because they are lost,” Rankin said. “The people may be identified as cultural Christians since that is their socio-religious profile, but most of them do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.... They, too, deserve an opportunity to hear, understand and respond to the life-changing message of the Gospel. They cannot be ignored in our commitment that all peoples would know our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Can a Lactivism Post Beat the Gay Post?

Let's see!

I will set myself apart from other "conservative" commentors (although I mightily resist that monikker myself - but please, let's not get off there) by saying I'm with the Lactivists all the way.

And please don't try to compare breastfeeding an infant with defecating. I mean - just don't.

Yeah, decorum and modesty and consideration of the feelings of others (which is why I drape) but never, in 20+ years of off and on nursing, have I ever retired to a restroom to nurse. I've even nursed, standing up, walking through an art museum. Don't remember which one, but I do remember doing so. Blanket drape, yes indeed, but I am not going to shunted off to a closet just because my baby's hungry.

I'm no romantic about nursing. I've known women who were and get terrifically sentimental about it. I'm not. It's all about the food and practicality to me. I also don't get nursing three-year olds, but oh well. There's a fight for the Lactivists to pick with me.

But poor Barbara Walters. You have the right to your Vaseline lens, the babies have a right to eat, okay? If Chavez can deal, so can you.

Yup, I'm so nurturing!

A scholarly paper on the image of nursing as a way to represent the virtue of Charity

Maria Lactans: A comprehensive collection of art

The Ninth Day

Steven Greydanus on the new film

Director Volker Schlöndorff’s award-winning film The Ninth Day was inspired by a real-life incident from the prison diary of Abbé Jean Bernard, a survivor of the infamous “priest block” at the Dachau concentration camp. The film opened in limited release in the United States May 27 and is expanding to other markets in coming weeks.

Coalition for Darfur

Weekly post:

The big news regarding Darfur this week is that the International Criminal Court has formally announced that it is conducting an investigation into allegations of crimes against humanity in the region.

Not quite

By now you might have heard of the latest would-be female ordinations, up Canada way. The reader who sent this particular link was struck, rightfully so, by the opening paragraph:

Nine women, including one Canadian and one American, plan to defy the Vatican and become the first female Roman Catholic priests and deacons ordained in North America during a ceremony on a boat on the St. Lawrence River next month.

No, that's not the way it works.

Won me an award

Some of you might have missed it, because I originally posted on a weekend, but I'm rather proud to say that De-Coding da Vinci won a Catholic Press Association award: Second place in "Best Popular Presentation of the Catholic Faith," a recognition which pleased me because, really, that's what I was trying to do in the book - not just be all down on Brown and his nonsense, but to use the moment to teach the truth. I guess it got through.

Here's the list of all book winners (the preceding link was to OSV winners), and when you look over it just remember...only books that are submitted can be judged, of course, and by no means do all Catholic publishers participate in the festivities. But despite that, I was struck by how, at least in the non-scholarly books, mine seemed to stand out as trying to communicate something solid in a sea of squish.

Fair and Balanced

In the NPR post below, a commentor attempted to balance out the props I gave to a few segments on some NPR segments with a report on some anti-Christian stuff (although I heard the Speaking of Faith program on Doubt when it first aired months ago - the author of the book in question, Jennifer Hecht - was at the Sewannee Writer's Workshop the year I went.) We've had the NPR discussion before, so as usual I simply maintain that grown-ups can discern wheat from chaff even during the same hour.

I also maintain that some of the most vigorous Catholic-bashing, as in specific slams at Pope John Paul II, over the past few years as come from none other than Bill O'Reilly of FoxNews..and I think his audience is a lot larger than Krista Tippet's.

Obviously...

Today is a day of Fried Brain. Baby (as in "You're going down!") took a long break from sleeping last night. Nice for him, as his little head bops around like a prairie dog's, turning this way and that, exploring Life After Dark. Bad for us. Michael got a new bike yesterday and had told me that his plan was going to be to start riding before work. I'm not sure but I don't think he made it this morning.

Cause? Teeth, I imagine. One popped through a few days ago, and the other bottom critter is edging up now. I could just feel the tip of it this morning. I guess that would make for a fitful sleep. For all of us.

On their doorstep

A contest for immigrant souls on the Vatican's doorstep

Catholics are trying hard to serve the immigrants here, and provide a warm and helpful atmosphere. But the demands of surviving in Rome makes every outreach difficult.

The biggest movement to build a community of worshipers is led by the Rev. Antonio Guidolin, a member of the Scalabrinian missionary order who founded a Rome mission in 2002. The group runs 18 centers for Latin American immigrants, helping them with work, clothing, food and spiritual outreach.

Some 100 lay volunteers go out each week seeking immigrants who have fallen away from their faith. A smaller group of priests - many from the same nations as the immigrants - celebrates Mass for their countrymen.

"It is important for them to see a Salvadoran priest," said Father Ayala Benítez. "I knew the reality of why they migrate here. It is easier to be in solidarity with them."

Yet the demands of work and the stress of being in a foreign culture take a toll on many immigrants, and often keep them from church. At a recent meeting of the priests involved in the Rome mission, there were laments that immigrants were sometimes more interested in having the church get them a job than in saving their souls. And often, many of them lived far from the Rome parish where the missionary group offered a variety of social services.

Father Antonio, normally an impish ball of energy, grew quiet when he considered all the difficulties in building a community even here, so close to the seat of Catholicism.

"To be a missionary today, we have to travel within the church and the world," he said during a meeting of priests. "If we are not missionaries, what kind of Christians are we? What message are we taking to the world?"

Get Your Pope Photos Here

I just discovered this resource - helpful. I'll still search Yahoo news photos, but there's some interesting stuff here.

More on the Pope

From David Morrison

NPR Notes

Some stuff worth listening to over the past couple of days:

On Monday, Diane Rehm interviewed Beth Nielsen Chapman

Yesterday, Terry Gross interviewed John Allen. Nothing really new, except it was interesting to hear how he fielded her questions with a skillful blend of clarity and nuance. If that makes sense.

Alicia's Story: Writing About Cancer from Day to Day. A quite moving story of a 23-year old copy editor at a SF paper who was diagnosed with a rather serious form of cancer, and is writing about it. Links included to the stories in the paper, but really do listen to the broadcast. It's not very long, and the young woman's attitude is bracing.

Justice?

An interesting case from the College of St. Benedict in MN

The reader who passed it on writes:

At St John's University/College of St Benedict in Minnesota, there has been a Bible study group called Magis that was cited for a human rights violation by the schools after the leadership of the group asked one of its leaders to resign her position after she came out as a lesbian.

What surprises me about this is the passion of both the official and
student government response--they really believe that what this group perceives as Biblical teaching about sexuality is not only wrong but must almost be suppressed. If you were to go through the various articles/letters about this you will find that some of the most strongly worded objections to the group's actions come from the school chaplain and from a member of the theology department.

From a procedural perspective, I think the Bible study group has been wronged--they made very clear what their beliefs are, and expectations of their leaders were, and, for better or worse, the officer in question made a break with them in her thinking.

I'm more ambivalent about the larger issue of whether they are truely being just toward this woman. What interests me, however, is how little ambivalence the spiritual leadership of the school seems to have--this is an interesting case study on the interaction of liberal and traditional Christians.

From Zimbawe

A Dominican sister writes about what happened to a camp which she and her sisters had been tending to for a decade

Via Zimbabwean Pundit

More insanity

In Texas, a young man gets life in prison for killing her unborn kids at her request.

Erica Basoria, 17, acknowledged asking Flores to help end her pregnancy; she could not be prosecuted because of her legal right to abortion

Church meets Bollywood!

Church funds film in India

The film is low-budget, costing just 13 million rupees (288,000 dollars). But the film-makers have been helped by maverick Bollywood producer-director Mahesh Bhatt, whose company, Vishesh Films, is known for its steamy suspense hits, and who will be responsible for the launch and publicity.

Bhatt's involvement was aimed at ensuring the film "does not become preachy... but retains its place in the genre of entertainment," says Emmanuel. Convincing the church hierarchy about the viability of the project was not difficult. But he did encounter sceptics who wondered what he and the church were doing in commercial film production. 

He had a ready answer: "Films are the most popular medium in India ... You find more people in the cinema than in the church. So why should the church not reach where you get the masses? "Profit certainly is not the motive of making this film. It is just using the vehicle of entertainment to put across a message."

Good Question

Get your story straight:

A group of local Catholics plans to ask the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops how the Archdiocese of Boston can close more than a quarter of its parishes by claiming it owns the properties while the conference's own president is trying to fend off lawsuits by clergy-abuse victims by claiming church assets belong to parishioners.

     ``To us, this is just a glaring inconsistency,'' said Peter Borre of the Council of Parishes. ``We're going to . . . demand that this issue be resolved.''

From All Sides

Catholics for Free Choices inaugurates "Pope Watch"

The Heresies of Pope Benedict XVI

Words to drop everything by

"You're going down, Baby!"

Crossing the Border

German officials on the lookout

 

FOREIGN tourists requesting visas to visit Germany for the Pope’s first pilgrimage abroad are being asked searching questions about their knowledge of Christianity.

The measure by Germany is designed to prevent a wave of illegal immigration, especially from the Balkans.

More than a million young believers are expected to attend the World Youth Conference in Cologne in August, when Pope Benedict XVI will make his first papal trip.

Germans are concerned that the religious festival will be exploited by people because of their country’s fast-lane visa regulations.

The thing I like about summer...

...is that 3 o'clock is no longer the magic time at which everything has to stop or shift gears. No one has to be picked up, or waited for at home, we can just do what we're doing...and keep doing it!

Not to speak of doing my work on the porch with the laptop and the Wi-Fi, baby chewing on Star Wars toys, boy playing with same, fighting Darth Vadar with the help of (warning: malapropism of the the day ahead) "Hungry." (He means, of course..."Chewie." as in Chewbacca.)

Delicacy

Kevin Miller blogs on this item, related to the prez of Saint Louis University:

At the meeting, the Rev. Larry Biondi of St. Louis University said: "I am not a delicate person, but I am in a delicate situation" with the Vatican on the stem cell issue. Biondi supports the research.

Fr. Biondi's attitude to life issues has been questioned for some time. One example cited in this Crisis article:

Last summer, members of the Cardinal Newman Society and pro-life activists sent hundreds of letters and e-mail messages to Biondi, urging him to forego reelection to the Tenet board. Biondi refused and was reelected last July. Was his later resignation driven in part by the public embarrassment the protest caused him and the Catholic university he represents? Possibly not. After all, this is the linguistics scholar who responded to protesters with the assurance that he is “pro-life and anti-abortion…[believing] in the universal sanctity of human life from birth until death.” Birth until death? Despite several protesters’ requests for clarification, Biondi never corrected the statement and repeated it in communications with protesters throughout the summer and fall.

The Vatican and the Vaticanisti

Fascinating stuff from Sandro Magister

Navarro has turned the Vatican’s grey press office into a full-scale factory of the pope’s public image. Everything comes second to this objective: sometimes, even the factuality of the information that he himself provides. The most famous case of the imaginary news presented as accurate by Navarro was the make-believe audience which John Paul II supposedly gave to the Nobel peace prize winner Rigoberta Menchú, in Guatemala City in 1996. The meeting never took place, but Navarro gave journalists a detailed account of it, making it credible by quoting from the conversation the two allegedly had.

As an editorial promoter, Navarro thought up and in 1994 launched the most widely read and translated book by John Paul II: the interview conducted by Vittorio Messori entitled “Crossing the threshold of hope”.

However, he was rather less successful in a different instance. As a counter-blow to the best-seller about the assassination of pope Albino Luciani, “In God’s Name” by the Englishman David Yallop, Navarro called on the help of another Brit, John Cornwell, the brother of the famous crime writer John Le Carré. The end result? In this counter-book “A Thief in the Night”, Cornwell discredits the murder theory, but describes a Vatican curia so cynical and cruel that it actually caused pope Luciani to die of a broken heart.

Oh my

Too funny. Sad in a way, too. But really funny.

Who's going to pay?

Questions in Covington

The Diocese of Covington could wind up paying little or nothing into a $120 million fund to settle a lawsuit with victims of priestly sexual abuse if it can come up with enough insurance to pay off claims, according to documents filed Monday in Boone Circuit Court.

But at least two of the diocese's three insurance companies are balking at paying, according to court documents.

Habemus Pope Books

From USA Today, via Michael

Covers 'em all.

Anarchy?

In an address last night at St. John Lateran, Benedict spoke on the family:

What he said:

  He starts by saying that "the human being has been created in the image and likeness of God and God Himself is Love. Thus, the vocation to love is what makes man the authentic image of God. ... From this basic link between God and man comes another: the indissoluble link between spirit and body."

  "The totality of man," he continues, "includes the dimension of time and man's 'yes' ... means 'always', it is the space of fidelity. Only within it can one grow in faith." He adds that "the greatest _expression of freedom ... is the capacity to choose a definitive gift in which freedom, giving of itself, fully finds itself. Concretely, the personal and reciprocal  'yes' between a man and a woman ... is destined to the gift of a new life" and it is also a "public 'yes' with which the spouses take on the public responsibility of fidelity."

  Benedict XVI underscored that "the various forms of dissolving marriages today, as well as the free unions and the 'trial marriages', including pseudo-marriage between people of the same sex, are, rather, expressions of an anarchical freedom, which passes itself off, wrongly, for a true liberation of man. Such pseudo-freedom is based on making the body banal, which inevitably includes making man banal."

  Marriage and the Family in the History of Salvation.

  The Pope recalled that "biblical revelation, in fact, is above all the _expression of a story of love, the story of the covenant of God with man; therefore the story of the love and union between a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage was able to be assumed by God as a symbol of the history of salvation."

  "In the same way that the Incarnation of the Son of God reveals its true meaning in the cross, authentic human love is the giving of oneself and cannot exist if a person wishes to rid himself of the cross."

  The Holy Father underscored several negative tendencies that are in opposition to "the profound link between God and man, between God's love and human love. ...The depreciation of human love, the suppression of the authentic capacity to love is revealed, in fact, in our times as the most adept and efficacious arm to remove God from man, to distance Him from man's gaze and from his heart."

  Children.

  "Even in generating children marriage reflects its divine model, the love of God for man. In man and woman, paternity and maternity, as the body and as love, do not let themselves be limited to the biological: life is given entirely only when, with birth, love and the sense that make it possible to say yes to this life are also given. Precisely in this way does it become clear how contrary to human love, to the profound vocation of a man and a women, it is when the union is closed to the gift of life, or worse yet, suppresses or manipulates unborn life. ... For this reason the building of every single Christian family is placed within the larger context of the great family of the Church, which sustains it and bears it within itself."

Andrew Sullivan bristles:

But at first blush, I would think that "anarchy" would better describe a world in which gay people have no context for their relationships, no social support for connecting sex with love, no chance of being fully a part of their own families. But I'm hardly surprised by the inflammatory rhetoric or the contempt for modernity and for human freedom voiced by this Pope. We knew what we were getting. Is he persuasive? Well, for that he would need an argument, an engagement with the social forces that have propelled gay relationships to the forefront of contemporary debate. Easier to pontificate and condemn. And he sure knows how to do both of those. Meanwhile, Europe continues to ignore him. Close to 60 percent of the Swiss just voted to allow gay couples to have most of the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage. If I'd stayed in Britain, I'd only have to wait a few months for full legal marriage rights. Maybe if the Pope voiced a little more charity and listened a tiny bit more, more people would listen back.

What Sullivan, as many other commentors don't or choose not to understand is the context and meaning of "anarchy" here. The simple version is: once you have untied marriage from the vision of Genesis: male, female, (even within the context of Old Testament polygamy) created by God to be fertile and multiply and be companions, imaging God's love....where are the boundaries? On what are any boundaries based? There are none. Once marriage is no longer about male and female as rooted in God's intentions for his creation...on what do you base the definition?

Now, if you are not of this Judeo-Christian worldview, and are rooted, instead, in contemporary Western secularism, that's another thing entirely. Such a worldview doesn't make gay "marriage" necessary, but I suppose it makes it possible. Then, I supposed, untethered by that you may define this thing called "marriage" any way you like (although that's still questionable, historically speaking), between any individuals you choose. But - in the Judeo-Christian vision that his deeply, historically rooted and takes revelation seriously and as definitive and authoritative, to attempt to define marriage any other way does, indeed, pave the road for anarchy - as in any or all definitions are fair game.

Oh, and one more point: Benedict speaks about...oh, materialism, sometimes. The vast majority of Catholics (ahem) totally ignore him, as we pursue Our Stuff. So? Does that mean he should like, "listen" to us and get on board and proclaim that it's all good?

Update: Obviously, I felt the comments thread here had run its course. If anyone has something really substantive to say, or would like, for example to respond to the post of David Delaney, near the end, with specifics, let me know via email, and I will gladly post it.

Fr. Lastiri, Risen

We blogged about this fellow last year:

here and here.

Short version: RCF and/or parishioners (I'm not sure which..or both) uncovered ads for sex that he'd posted. He "misused" 60,000 of church funds.

He's back (link requires registration)

The Rev. Jean-Michael Lastiri will be joining St. Philip the Apostle Church on June 15, Monsignor Ronald Swett confirmed Monday.

Lastiri left St. Patrick's Parish in Merced in July 2004 after parishioners accused him of participating in sexual conversations on Internet chat sites and seeking gay lovers on the Web, the Merced Sun-Star reported in May.

Lastiri, who served at St. Patrick's for about 11 years, also is suspected of using parish money for personal expenses, the Sun-Star reported. Lastiri is currently under bishop's review for his spending.

Lastiri could not be reached for comment.

Swett said all questions should be referred to the Diocese of Fresno. No one was available for comment at the diocese.

Bishop John Steinbock could not be reached for comment on Monday.

In July 2004, in a statement published in the Modesto Bee, Steinbock called Lastiri's actions compulsive and addictive and sent him to St. Luke's Institute for spiritual counseling.

Another story:

He was Monsignor Ron Swett's associate pastor when he first came to St. Philip The Apostle almost 20 years ago.

Swett calls Lastiri a "wonderful and experienced" priest.

Deacon Jess Avila of the Fresno Archdiocese says Lastiri was on a voluntary leave of absence and was eligible to come off it on June 15.

Theocracy Watch, II

David Schifflet in the National Review:

It seems we are in the midst of a new Red Scare — with Commies being replaced by Red State Christians and their allies in the Blue zone.

Yet in the course of reporting a new book (Exodus: Why Americans are Leaving Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity) I found little evidence of a crusading spirit here in Jesusland. Quite the contrary. Not long ago, many people who are today called fanatical believers would have been labeled fully formed heretics. They may take their faith seriously, but they don’t take it to the streets.

Second part of the article

Mitchell Hadley has thoughts

The articles are, as he states, the fruit of research for a book. I'm trying to fit the two articles together, without much success, though. The first articles looks at the stats for those who claim to be "born again" and finds that their beliefs don't differ substantially from the general public on little issues like Jesus' sinlessness, and so on.

But then the second article re-reports the well-known figures about church growth: it's the narrow-road churches that are growing, while the watered-down churches aren't. But the megachurches - some of which are independent, many of which are associated (as much as they seek to minimize the relationship) with Southern Baptists and Assemblises of God and others, are growing, espouse (on paper) the narrow road...but 30% of their adherents are comfortable espousing views at odds with their church's professed beliefs?

Hmmm.

Righteous Gentile

The American Spectator has posted a review of The Pius War:

In The Pius War, an impressive collection of previously published reviews, a team of scholars, journalists, and lawyers reveal the shortcomings of these books, which often escape the attention of gullible reviewers in the liberal press.

Renovation

Church of the Masses has a nifty new look.

CSpanish

If anyone saw Fr. Neuhaus on C-Span yesterday or last night (or whenever - you can watch it through a link found here, post. There are a couple of comments scattered below on it, but discuss here, if you like. I haven't seen it yet. Three hours is a long time for me to sit still at this point in my life. Although, I admit, I sat still for two hours on Saturday night re-watching the last 2 episodes of last season's Six Feet Under.

So shoot me.

Marvelous

Wonderful, wonderful piece by a columnist at the Scotsman on seeing the Pope on Corpus Christi

And it did not end there. As it was Corpus Christi, when mass was over, the Pope, holding aloft the monstrance containing the blessed sacrament, came slowly down the steps to get into an open-topped Popemobile, a prie-dieu protected by a golden canopy settled on its flat-back. He was very close and looked very serious.

THEN Signora Wild Boar called out his name - "Benedetto!" - and as he turned to acknowledge us, his face lightened and he smiled a smile of delighted sweetness before raising his arm to indicate that the blessed sacrament was more worthy of our attention.

And get this lovely piece of writing:

I was filled with a faith as strong as the childish faith of those wide-eyed first communicants, but much deeper, as if all those roots put down in my childhood had suddenly been watered.

Deeply moving. Huge hat tip to Bill Cork for posting it.

Semantics

Grrr. At Extreme Catholic, Patrick Sweeney links to another tale of diocesan obfuscation - in Lexington.

More on comments

Actually, what I think I'm going to do more of is delay opening comments on posts. I'll give us a chance to think about the story and ponder our reactions before we're able to post. I think that should help.

So, now, comments on the Fort Worth article are open.

Sabbatical

A lot of you don't like the perspective of the LACatholic blogger, but ah well. You know, I link to anyone with an interesting story. And he's got one today:

Cardinal Mahony has announced that one of his auxiliaries is going on sabbatical

Cardinal Mahony announced in the June 3 issue of THE TIDINGS that his auxiliary bishop, Gabino Zavala, will be taking a sabbatical from July to December. According to the report, the purpose of the sabbatical will be "to provide [Zavala] time for spiritual and theological renewal, an ecclesial experience and time for the exploration of personal interests and talents."

As the blogger notes, this is odd and sudden, and not business as usual. The article he cites and quotes from is not online.

Alternatives

Piece from the Iowa paper on alternative Catholic groups

A former Des Moines diocese priest, citing the priest abuse scandal and the conservative direction of the Roman Catholic Church, has left the church and become a pastor in one of about 100 splinter Catholic organizations in the United States.

The Rev. Ray McHenry, who served as a parish priest in West Des Moines, Carter Lake and Council Bluffs, has renounced the Roman Catholic Church and joined a small group of disenchanted Catholics who seek more inclusive beliefs and are part of a growing independent Catholic church movement.

McHenry, 52, of Bellevue, Neb., is now a priest in the National Catholic Church of America, a denomination that has no pope, ordains women, marries couples regardless of gender and makes celibacy optional.

The National Catholic Church of America began as a Catholic religious community in 1944 and became a church in 1998. It has fewer than a dozen parishes in eight states and no count of members. It is among more than 100 "expressions of Catholicism" in the United States, some more conservative than the Roman Catholic Church, some more liberal, McHenry said.

The NCCA website

What's amusing to me is the persistence of elaborate ecclesiastical titles. Seems to me that if you're all about being inclusive and stuff that would be one of the first things to go. But I suppose it's all about hanging on to just the right things that you think will make you identifiably Catholic.

Another, similar group. Another one.

Way to broaden the base

The governor of Texas signed a couple of bills - on abortion and same-sex marriage - in the gym of an evangelical church

This strikes me as just incredibly stupid. For the sake of playing to the presumed base, you alienate lots of others, and not just the reflexive anti-religious leftist. Further, if I were involved in pro-life activism in Texas, I would be distressed at this as well...one of our biggest challenges in the movement is to help people understand that the right to life is not a religious issue, but a human rights issue. This does nothing to help in that regard, and goes a long way to hurt.

Just stay in the statehouse and be done with it.

Wow

The Holy Fool has really nice to things to say about Here.Now....confirming my rationale and motivation for writing it!

Thanks so much!

Removed...and not

Chicago priests removed from their parishes

In Maine, a painful past

Butkowski's mother later filled in some of the gaps about that day in 1958 when Trish came home crying: The family's doctor said Trish was bruised and swollen and had been sexually molested.

Her parents went to police and then to the Roman Catholic bishop in Portland. They felt assured that Sabatino would be kept away from other children.

He wasn't. Instead, the young priest was transferred to a parish in Portland, where he had plenty of access to young girls.

Preach It

I appreciated this portion of a post at Mere Comments on preaching, and how various denominations' particular ways of preaching can go astray:

Preaching degenerates, even where theology is conservative, along the lines of what I think of as denominational personality flaws. Baptist preaching becomes loud and thoughtless, Presbyterians desiccate, and Anglicans become spineless and prettified. None of this is bad because it is “liberal”—the attempt of apostasy to reinvest itself with Christian symbols. It is unchristian in another way. And I will say here that while I have read good Catholic sermons, and know they are in some places preached, I have actually heard only one. The timid, petty moralizing I have encountered at the several dozen masses I have attended, and of which I hear Catholic friends complain—especially when they have been exposed to good Protestant preaching—appears to be the regular and expected fare. Perhaps Catholics could adduce yet another claim for the truth of their faith—that only in the True Church could God’s sheep survive on such thin pasturage. I say this without prejudice or animus to the Catholic Church. For God’s sake, brethren, do something about the preaching.

More book-buying

On how those books get good display space at Borders

Political Mysteries

Two related pieces, I believe:

Excellent, meaty stuff from Terry Teachout in the WSJ on political art:

Plays like "I Am My Own Wife" and "A Bad Friend," as well as films like those made by the left-wing director-screenwriter John Sayles, remind us that political art need not be simpleminded, much less uncreative, in its view of human behavior. Asked by an interviewer why so few American directors make political movies, Sayles replied, "I think more than being political or not political, it's often the problem of being complex: The characters aren't heroic. Sometimes they do things you don't like, even if you may like them, and it's hard to know exactly who the good guys and bad guys are, because everybody is a little bit compromised." I can't think of a more concise way to sum up the difference between "I Am My Own Wife" and "Angels in America," or between "A Bad Friend" and "The God of Hell." The biggest problem with such political artists as Tony Kushner, Sam Shepard, and Tim Robbins is not that they are leftists, but that they coast on their leftism. Their plays are as self-satisfied as they are simpleminded--and self-satisfaction is the death of serious art and creativity more generally.

Barbara Nicolosi on what Cinderella Man revealed to her about...something missing.

Closed Book?

(2 days late. Sorry)

In the May 30 issue of Publishers' Weekly, Lauren Winner has an article on Why Don't Catholics Buy More Catholic Books? A matter of interest around here, of course.

The article isn't online, of course, but I'll summarize and comment for you anyway.

Here's the theme:

And yet... in the Christian market, it seems that some folks are doing more reading, or at least more buying, than others. According to the Gallup Organization, evangelicals make up about 21% of the U.S. population and Catholics about 25%, but a look at the bestseller lists of PW , the New York Times and other general-market sources confirms that many more evangelical Christian books are being sold than those published for Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans and other liturgy-oriented Christians.

First problem, never really teased out or discussed:

Is the question whether Catholics buy religious books in general, or whether Catholic books sell?

You see where I'm going, right?

For you see, just because those titles may be evangelical or come from evangelical publishers..does that mean Catholics aren't buying them?

The data I've seen suggests...no. Catholics do buy religious books and read them. They read Rick Warren, Left Behind and Max Lucado. They buy devotionals by Joyce Meyer and T.D. Jakes. They buy and read Jeanette Oakes and Frank Peretti.

In fact, the common view, among Catholic and CBA folks alike, is that Catholic patronage of CBA stores (Family Christian, etc) and products is proportionate to their presence in the demographic.

It's rather surprising that this article misses this angle on the story - I've no doubt that Zondervan, Tyndale, Eerdmans and Nelson have plenty of data on their Catholic customer base. Whether they'd be willing to share is another story. But from this side, knowing what evangelical publishers have reached out to what Catholic publishers with the desire to do joint ventures (some accepted, others declined), we know they know that we're buying their product.

So, then, the next question is the Catholic market for Catholic books published by Catholic publishers. And actually, you could pose the question much more bluntly.

Why do Catholic books, in general, not sell? Why, when you take out the issue du jour (popes dead and alive, the Catechism, DVC) is a print run of 10,000 copies of a book considered large in the Catholic market, when in the CBA market, 100,000 print runs are not terribly unusual? Why, with a couple of exceptions, are the best-selling Catholic authors of even recent years all dead? (Merton and Nouwen)

(And please - forget fiction - that is really not the topic here.)

Winner's article, when it veers in this direction, has a couple of answers:

Why? The answer is in part historical and theological. Evangelicals have emphasized preaching, Bible study, the Word. Sometimes a Protestant church, with parishioners faithfully scribbling down sermon notes in their pew Bibles, can look as much like a lecture hall as a house of worship. The theological emphasis on word and study, on reading and understanding Scripture for one's self, has blossomed into an evangelical proclivity for religion-related reading. Mickey Maudlin, executive editor of Harper San Francisco, explains, "Protestantism has been much more of a word-based spirituality, and reading has always been a central component of Protestant spirituality. Catholic spirituality has been more centered on practice—going to church, going to confession, saying your prayers. Protestants developed a huge program of book publishing and distribution and sales, whereas Catholic churches did not make book publishing a priority." Brazos Books editor and co-founder Rodney Clapp notes that evangelicals may buy more religion books because "reading is an individual activity and evangelicalism is a more individualistic religion."

It's also worth noting that evangelicals have always been known for their entrepreneurialism. Evangelicals' emphasis on evangelism has created a religious culture in which people are often trying to promote—even sell—their faith, and to accomplish this, have developed a sophisticated machinery of book publishing and distribution that far outstrips the Catholic publishing world. And unlike their evangelical counterparts, Catholic bookstores have yet to band together in any purposeful way. CBA was formed in 1953, but it was only a few years ago that a Catholic booksellers association began to be formed, and it is still a nascent organization.

With all due respect, this is an astonishingly ill-informed contention. The implication is that American Catholics have never read and that books have never been important to Catholic life.

Bosh.

For the fact is, mid-century Catholic publishing was terrifically lively in this country. Sheed and Ward, Our Sunday Visitor, Herder and Herder, Bruce, are only a few. Read Paul Elie's The Life You Save May Be Your Own to get a taste of mid-century Catholic literary life, and not just for elites. The Seven-Storey Mountain was a terrific best seller. The works of Fulton Sheen. All of these were books and religious writers that had a presence, not just in Catholic consciousness, but in the American consciousness in general.

Has everyone forgotten that one of the most important imprints of Doubleday, through much of the 20th century was Image, a specifically Catholic imprint that published a wide range of indispensible titles, reasonably priced?

No. Many of these houses were formed around the same time - the evangelical and Catholic ones. The evangelicals have grown, while the Catholic houses have, for the most part, maintained, or even shrunk. Again, the question is...why?

(Short answer: ideological divisiveness over the past 40 years, naval-gazing, focus on institutional problems, which is not an environment to produce good, interesting writing with broad appeal.)

The other major flaw in this article is that Winner doesn't look at the Catholic books that do, indeed sell. Not a mention of Hahn's Doubleday deal, and how well that has done. Nothing about Ignatius and the B-16 phenomenon. Gosh - someone's buying those books, right? No discussion of Catholic writers who do sell well, and dependably so - Kreeft, Groeschel, Hahn (again), Girzone (as much as I hate to say it), Greely..No discussion of the means by which Catholics learn about books they might want to buy. What role does  the Catholic press play in this?

(Another, related missed angle is a whole category of Catholic-themed books, published by secular publishers, that have, in fact, to the chagrin of some around here, sold very well in recent years: the books of Garry Wills, John Cornwell and James Carroll. Of course, not all the readers of these books are Catholic, but I'd bet the majority are.)

She mentions priests:

Catholic priests also have had a greater role—as mediators, interpreters, spiritual guides, confessors—than most Protestant clergy. The Catholic respect for authority and tradition may discourage the independent seeking and searching that goes hand–in-hand with religious reading. But today, that deferential clericalism is being challenged in American Catholic churches. Especially after the pedophilia scandals, many commentators see greater lay involvement in American Catholic parishes. And, as Andrew Yankech, director of marketing at Catholic publisher ACTA Publications, says, "With that greater lay involvement will come a greater desire for Catholic laity to read about the Bible and spirituality,"—that is, to figure out their spiritual lives for themselves. ACTA has launched a series, The American Catholic Experience, that taps into a greater interest in the lives of Catholic laypeople. The series offers spiritual memoirs of people in the pew, including The Spiritual Apprenticeship of a Curious Catholic by trial lawyer Jerry Hurtubise and Finding My Way in a Grace-Filled World by William L. Droel.

This is another bizarre paragraph. Clergy held much more authority and stood on much higher pedestals in, say, the 1950's than they do now, and that's a period in which Catholic book publishing was flourishing, especially relative to the present day. This paragraph isn't just bizarre, it's frankly insulting. The tradition that out which came writers like Theresa of Avila, Merton, Waugh, O'Connor, Greene, Maritain, Mauriac, Frank Sheed, Fulton Sheen, Hopkins...all of whom have been read and are popular among Catholics is presented as one that is intellectually repressive? And I'm not even touching on the theologians.

And the implication is...priests discouraged reading? And the laity are kinda slow in figuring out what to read without the clerical encouragement, even though the clerics never really encouraged them anyway?

What?

Well, it's late, and I must go before the next clarion call comes to me from the baby room. Get my nightly ten minutes of sleep in, you know. All told, I'm greatly disappointed in this article: its lack of hard data, its lack of historical awareness, its narrow view of the present situation. Too bad. It's a subject worth a much more thorough treatment.

Busy Schedule

At Mirror of Justice, Rick Garnett posts on a quite interesting-sounding conference he attended last week.

Finally, Dr. William Hudson, of Providence College, got my blood boiling – but in a good way – with his paper, “President Bush, the Ownership Society, and the Catholic Understanding of the Common Good,” in which he tried to establish that the President’s Ownership Society agenda – e.g., private retirement accounts, health savings accounts, school choice – was (a) unlikely to achieve the goods toward which it purports to aim and (b) that the Agenda, both in theory and in its predicted effects, is contrary to the Catholic Social Teaching principle of solidarity and inconsistent with the preferential option for the poor. His presentation was clear, genial, and engaging, but I came away quite unconvinced.

A word on comments

Some readers and I have noticed a bit of heightened negative energy in these comments boxes over the past month. Let's blame the Pope!

No, who knows why - but for that reason, I'm going to be a bit more selective on which posts are open to comments.

Happy Nun Dance

At a youth celebration in Poland....

Blinded By Faith?

A searing piece in the Fort Worth paper today. That paper requires registration, so I'll send you to the SNAP website, which has it reprinted in its entirety

Short version: Guy is ordained despite questions about his relationships with adolescent males. Years later, as a priest, he comes to a diocese, looking for work. Has been kicked out of previous diocese after allegations, turned down by two others. Accepted into Fort Worth after bishop is assured by therapist that "immaturity" issues have been resolved. Placed in rural parish, no supervision, parishes aren't told of his background, and are not informed, midstream, when he's convicted, back in the old diocese of contributing to the deliquency of a minor.

Etc.

It is a complicated situations, with lots of conflicting claims.

But what's not complicated is this: Can we trust that bishops are no longer ordaining men who admit to being attracted to and are spending inordinate amounts of time with adolescent males? And can we trust that bishops will be aggressive and say to these guys, "No, not here, not anywhere in our Church. Priest shortage be damned. Go get a job as an accountant, and by the way, now that you've come to our attention, we'll try, best we can, to inform the folks at your next stop to keep an eye on you."

I'm hoping. Aren't you?

Back in business...

...I hope. This weekend has been strange. Absolutely nothing of interest has occurred, but I've just felt as if my brain was handcuffed all weekend. Don't ask me why.  But now perhaps I can blog.

We went to Mass at the Cathedral today - because we went to our normal alternative parish for the 9:15, but found that it had been cancelled because of the German Mass (it's the German parish, and this German Mass at 11 is one of the inaugural events of Germanfest). So then we went to the traditional Irish parish, which is now mostly Hispanic and Vietnamese, saw that their Mass wasn't until 10:30 or something, and then headed to the Cathedral, which had a 9:30. Tells you how close these parishes are that we made that circuit in ten minutes, and could have added another parish to the route and made it eleven minutes, tops.

Heard, as a prelude, one of the Worst Catholic Songs Ever. Typical muzak-y tune, and the lyrics were all "Let me be his light to you" and "Let me let him dry your tears through me" or some such rot. It was jaw-droppingly egocentric, with evidently no Scriptural or traditional inspiration. I am fairly sure it did not directly mention God.

Cherie on her Catholicism

Cherie Blair, in first person

(link might only be available for a day or so)

There are, I suppose, two main reasons why I'm still a Catholic. The first is that I was born and brought up one and have never reached a point in my life when I have seriously considered giving it up. There is that basic family pull which, in its simplest form, means that to stop would be to let down my grandmother who brought me up Catholic.

And the second reason is to do with being a parent. When I had my children, I wanted them to be Catholics too. Part of it was inevitably wanting them to think like me, but also I didn't want them to be too comfortable. I wanted them to have that little bit of grit in their lives that is there in Catholicism, especially in its social teaching.

Rape in Darfur

Nicholas Kristof, who has been writing frequently of the genocide of late

In his Web Journal, he gives many links to organizations trying to help the people involved in this tragedy

Leap of Faith

WaPo story about a fellow working to overcome great obstacles in his studies for (lay) ministry

Closed

Clayton reports on the really interesting news that the ordinations in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles will be ticketed events

And no, it's not because there are so many. Five. That's it.

Settling

Covington diocese offers massive, odd settlement

The relatively small Roman Catholic diocese of Covington, Ky., said yesterday that it has agreed to create a record-setting $120 million fund to settle a class-action lawsuit over sexual abuse by priests.

The potential payout by the northern Kentucky diocese, which has about 90,000 parishioners, is 40 percent larger than the $85 million settlement negotiated in 2003 by the Boston Archdiocese, which has 2.1 million Catholics. The previous record was a $100 million settlement reached by the diocese of Orange County, Calif., in December.

"This is a very important and in many ways unprecedented result in an extremely difficult matter," Stanley Chesley, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

But lawyers and victims' advocates said there is a fundamental difference between the Covington settlement and other large settlements across the country. The fund created by the Kentucky diocese is the maximum amount it will have to pay. Depending on how many alleged victims come forward, it may spend less than the full $120 million. Any unused money will revert to the diocese.

You might recall that a few months ago, the diocese revealed it was moving its diocesan offices to a hospital. An apt metaphor, we reflected.

Okay...

11:50, and alone at last.

(It's heck being an introvert, as defined by the Myers-Briggs, introvert meaning, not that you're shy, but that you get your energy from time alone, and are drained by time with others. Yup.)

Tonight, Katie and I walked down to church to see a youth choir from St. Louis perform. I had hoped they were going to sing religious music, but no, it was sort of Up With People rock n' roll kind of stuff. I was struck, once again, by the persistence of what I've come to call the John Belushi Effect. (Or the John Candy/Chris Farley effect) Seems as if any kind of choral group I go see (and since Katie likes Show Choir kind of things...we go), there's always a big, heavyset lad who's the life of the party - the most animated, most fearlessly energetic. Why is that?

Big posts comin'

Eventually, tonight...

On Lauren Winner's PW piece on Catholic publishing which, with all due respect to Winner, whom I like, I thought was way off and missed much of the story

On Catholic stuff in general, frustration, hope and questions inspired by a Detroit Free-Press article sent to me by 2 people on this emergent, pomo church in Grand Rapids

Book Tag

Michael has answered the book tag

or

3 hours with Fr. Neuhaus

On BookTV/CSpan2 this weekend

Was Jesus an Embryo?

Well, yes, no, maybe and ..duh!

Oh, and a commentor invites us to enter the Fray at Slate..

Usually Saletan's articles bring out a swarm of responses on both sides. Does the lack of response by those who wish to rein in IVF mean that this is an issue in which Dubya has finally gone too far? Can it be that you have to be a loon to think that leftover IVF embryos are actually people with rights? Go there to answer the question.

Embryos, rising

Michelle Cottle in TNR, on a road similar to Saletan's

If DeLay, Santorum, and Bush were really concerned about the welfare of zygotes, they could push to regulate in vitro as has been done in Italy. Just last year, Italian lawmakers imposed a raft of restrictions on fertility medicine, including a provision that prohibits couples seeking in vitro treatments from having more than three eggs fertilized at one time and requires all of the zygotes to be implanted together in the uterus. Voila. No excess embryos kept in icy limbo for years. No abandoned "lives" tossed out with the trash. And no tantalizing clusters of stem cells for political activists to squabble over.

Of course, any U.S. pol who proposed such limits on Americans' right to make babies would find himself out of a job. (Even Italy's law is already under fire, with a national referendum later this month on whether to repeal parts of it.) When Santorum self-righteously scolded stem-cell research advocates that "Just because you can do something, that doesn't mean you should," he certainly didn't intend for anyone to apply that same logic to fertility medicine. In this country, we tend to regard biological parenthood as an end justifying whatever means necessary.

But conservative politicians don't shy away from discussing the moral implications of in vitro just because the topic is a political loser. It's also because, for many social conservatives, promoting a "culture of life" means promoting traditional families consisting of Mommy, Daddy, and babies--even if Mommy and Daddy have to get those babies through untraditional, potentially troubling methods.

On May 24, Bush hosted a schmaltzy photo op at the White House, featuring adorable tots born from "embryo adoptions," the process by which in vitro clients donate their frozen leftovers to other couples. "The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo," gushed the president, with a jab at supporters of the new stem-cell bill. "These lives are not raw material to be exploited, but gifts." What a lovely sentiment. Unfortunately, a tiny number of in vitro embryos wind up in "adoptions" (only 2 percent of the stockpile is even available for such transfers), and it's scorchingly disingenuous of Bush to disregard the far-less-cuddly future awaiting the remainder.

If stem cell research is an example of science run amok and the ends justifying the means, then so is in vitro fertilization--at least as practiced in this country. But if Bush's first term revealed anything, it was this president's amazing capacity to disregard any facts that don't fit his version of reality. Thus, Bush likes to paint the stem-cell struggle as the by-product of an encroaching culture of death that values cold, hard science over warm, snuggly babies. In reality, it is precisely the impulse to have one's own snuggly babies that has created the thousands upon thousands of surplus embryos whose ultimate disposition is now so hotly debated. Many honest conservatives would acknowledge this to be the morally problematic downside of the "culture of life." President Bush, by contrast, would clearly prefer not to acknowledge it at all.

The coming war...

over IVF. Will Saletan in Slate

Some pro-lifers have already decided. Louisiana has outlawed the intentional destruction of "a viable in vitro fertilized human ovum." A bill in Kentucky would make it a felony to "fertilize more than one (1) egg" during IVF. Five days ago, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., suggested that the United States should follow countries that "limit the number" of embryos fertilized in vitro to "one or two at a time." DeLay wants medical associations to require pre-emptive counseling to couples about creating and abandoning leftover embryos. Failing that, he warns that Congress's "next step is to look at" the issue. Thirty states already mandate counseling or waiting periods for abortion. The logical thing to do, if you think embryos deserve the same respect, is to mandate counseling and waiting periods for IVF.

Bush's views about embryos—that all are real human lives, and none are spares—put him squarely on this path. Still, he resists. Last week, a reporter asked him whether IVF parents "have an obligation to ensure that [their embryos] are brought to term." Bush changed the subject to public funding of stem-cell research. Another reporter asked White House spokesman Scott McClellan whether Bush thought leftover embryos whose parents refused to put them up for adoption "should just be held forever." "No, that's the choice of the parents," said McClellan, adding that Bush "supports in vitro fertilization."

Bonanzum Verbi

Second Word from Rome this week!

This week, John Allen looks at the 45-day mark in B-16's papacy, and examines it in terms of the traditional role of the pope: to teach, to govern, to sanctify:

Second, it's interesting to note that despite Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's frequent criticism of what he described as hasty or excessive reforms following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), Vatican II is by far the most-cited source in Pope Benedict's teaching other than his immediate predecessor, John Paul II. So far, the pope has explicitly cited Vatican II fifteen times. That seems a signal that Benedict, who was a peritus, or theological expert, at Vatican II, intends to align himself with the council, at least as he understands and interprets it.

Allen goes on to tease out what he sees as the 5 "big ideas" of the papacy...so far.

Tagged

Tim Drake has tagged me with the Book Tag Meme, so here goes:

Total number of books I own: By myself, in the sense of books I owned before we got married...probably 800 or so. Now...a couple of thousand, since marriage involves joint property.

Last Book I Bought: The Betrothed and Never Let Me Go

Last Book I read: Late I Have Loved Thee by Ethel Mannin

Books I'm reading now: The White Stone  by Carlo Coccioli and The Left Hand of God by William Barrett.

Books that have been important to me: Bible, Augustine's Confessions, The Habit of Being by Flannery O'Connor, The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene and Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. Yup!

(Sorry no links at the last...got to go)

Tagged: Michael, Rich, Matthew and Rachel

An interview with the Cardinal

With Rodriguez of Honduras, in The Tablet

He becomes more animated as he speaks about Latin America, pushing his large glasses closer to his eyes as though straining to see the problems more clearly. What particularly concerned him, he said, was the threat to democracy on the continent. Bolivia, Venezuela and Colombia were all beset by trouble. Central America’s governments were for the most part ineffectual.

“When you see the map, you see that all except one nation [Cuba] in Latin America is a democracy but these are democracies in an intensive care unit because all of them are so weak and fragile,” said Cardinal Rodríguez. “People prefer a better economy than to be free of dictatorships. It is a pity, starting the century with this kind of thinking.”

The biggest exports from Latin America, he said, were drugs and people. The continent was either losing its young people to the drugs they were consuming or to its northern neighbour.

Dziwisz to Krakow

The Holy Father appointed Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, adjunct prefect of the Pontifical Household, as metropolitan archbishop of Krakow (area 5,730, population 1,618,593, Catholics 1,566,555, priests 2,026, religous 4,841), Poland. The metropolitan archbishop-elect was born in Raba Wyzna, Poland, in 1939. From 1966 to 1978 he acted as private secretary to Archbishop Karol Wojtyla of Krakow and, following the latter's election as Pope John Paul II, continued to act as his private secretary throughout his pontificate from 1978 to 2005. He was ordained a bishop by John Paul II in 1998 and elevated to the dignity of archbishop in 2003. He succeeds Cardinal Franciszek Macharski, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese was accepted by the Holy Father, upon having reached the age limit.

Blogs Away

Another new blogger -not on her own, but as a part of Joshua Micah Marshall's endeavor: Annie Lamott

Oh.

Did you know Matthew Fox has a blog? And he's been in Wittenberg of late, posting his new, improved 95 Theses?

I didn't, but thanks to Christopher Johnson, I do now.

St. Brigid's blues

The fight to save a Manhattan parish

A carnival atmosphere prevailed in the sunshine, but one placard summed up the current mood of the parishioners: "Just as Jesus was betrayed, the parishioners of St. Brigid's have been betrayed."

The parishioners had raised just under $100,000, which independent assessors said would go much of the way toward repairing a cracked back wall in the 1848 church.

The locals won support for their campaign from leading New York City preservationists, but archdiocese officials said that re-opening the church would cost too much.

"It's not like any other church," said County Waterford native Jim Power, listening to the speeches.

"It's a priceless past that has to be preserved. The Irish saved this country at Gettysburg. We need the Irish now to save this church," added Power, a mosaic artist.

Out of Omaha?

Archbishop Curtiss asks Father Stravinskas to leave?

The Rev. Peter Stravinskas remains temporary administrator of St. Anthony Catholic Church, 32nd and S Streets. But Curtiss has reported to a gathering of archdiocesan priests that he "suggested to Father Peter (Stravinskas) that he needed to locate in another diocese," according to minutes of the gathering.

Stravinskas, a noted Catholic author and defender of the faith's traditions, is not a priest of the Omaha Archdiocese. Technically, he is a priest of the Diocese of Boise, Idaho, although he has not served there for many years.

Curtiss brought Stravinskas to Omaha from Pennsylvania. As a priest from another diocese, Stravinskas serves at the invitation of the local bishop.

Curtiss declined to be interviewed. He said through the Rev. Gregory Baxter, chancellor of the archdiocese, that he would have no comment until after the Omaha police complete their investigation.

Reached by telephone at St. Anthony's rectory, Stravinskas declined to comment on Curtiss' report to fellow clerics or the police investigation.

The St. Anthony issue came up in a May 3 meeting Curtiss had with more than 20 archdiocesan priests. Curtiss' remarks about having told Stravinskas that he needs to locate in another diocese were included in meeting minutes that have circulated in the archdiocese. The minutes did not mention when Stravinskas might leave Omaha.

The minutes also said that Curtiss told the priests, "Internal audit suggests there was poor bookkeeping but no theft."

"The archbishop thinks that this matter will be dropped," the minutes said. "There are no criminal charges filed."

Second Thoughts

A slight mix-up?

A conservative Catholic magazine and think tank that advertised a "White House briefing" in exchange for a hefty contribution was forced to cancel the event yesterday after the White House suddenly backed out of the deal.
    Crisis magazine and its affiliated think tank, the Morley Institute for Church and Culture, had advertised Monday's seventh annual 36-hole Lazarus Golf Tournament benefit at the Bull Run Country Club in Haymarket, Va., as including a White House briefing the next day.
A letter announcing the event, signed by Morley Institute director Deal Hudson, told golfers that they could bring guests to the White House. Officials slated to be at the event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building included Jim Towey of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
    The tab for the golf tournament was $2,000 for one person, $3,500 for a twosome or $6,000 for a foursome. A priest could be sponsored for $1,500.
    After being questioned by The Washington Times yesterday afternoon about the briefing, White House officials quickly canceled the event.

Dom has more

Counsel of Trent

An interesting piece from the UK Spectator on Benedict. Sharp, at times.

Writing in 1991, the then Cardinal Ratzinger warned European Churches that they ‘must not allow themselves to be downgraded to a mere means for making society moral, as the liberal state wishes; still less should they want to justify themselves through the usefulness of their social work’. But that is precisely how the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and its ‘agencies’ spend their time, issuing self-justifying reports and consultation documents that pathetically try to reconcile Catholic teaching with the latest Islingtonian piety.

This dreary culture could be eradicated instantly if Benedict were to take an axe to the bishops’ conferences. Alas, that is a practical impossibility, so he will probably take the slower route of instructing the conferences to dismantle their sillier committees. He will also appoint brighter bishops. (That shouldn’t be difficult in England and Wales: sticking a pin in the Catholic Directory would produce a better hierarchy than the present system of consultation.)

Benedict’s other priority is to improve the quality of the Church’s greatest service, the liturgy of the Eucharist. This is a project far closer to his heart than, say, various sexual prohibitions (about which he thinks ‘perhaps too much has been said and too often’). Because he is an unusually frank writer and interviewee, we already know the drastic nature of the reforms he has in mind. Whether he will be able to implement them is another question, since they amount to the overturning of the post-conciliar culture of the Church, and the Pope is so old (78) that — as his brother thoughtfully pointed out — he cannot even be sure of waking up in the morning.

Did I link this before?

I kind of think I did, but I'm not sure. Anyhow, here it is again, via Relapsed Catholic,who says the piece was also in the National Post, but not in its complete form, as it's been posted at the Free Republic, written by an atheist who nonetheless, after critiquing the human cost of banning DDT, and laying out the condom-AIDS issue (Is a man who has non-consensual sex with a woman or girl going to be influenced in any way by the Church's advice on condoms, no matter what it is?), concludes:

The Catholic Church has been an immeasurable force for good in Africa. It has educated, treated, fed and brought hope to a multitude of Africans. It has quietly worked against evil systems, such as apartheid and African tyranny, in just the same way that the great John Paul II worked against communism. While rich young things from international aid agencies flit briefly through Africa in designer safari jackets and air-conditioned 4x4s before settling down to cosy careers in the rich countries, humble priests and nuns spend heroic lives in little villages in the hills and bushes of Africa spreading a gospel of learning, medicine, nutrition and decency, and preaching the equal worth of all men and the promise of redemption for everybody.

If you saw...

...a 4-year old boy weeping copious tears on Wentworth Street in Chicago's Chinatown about 11:30 this morning because his parents wouldn't buy him a backscratcher right that minute...

You should have said hi.

Ah, but here's the funny thing. Later, among other trinkets, Michael picked out one of those wrapped-in-newspaper 99-cent "surprise packages" at the register of one of the Chinatown shops, filled, we can presume with stuff that can't be sold otherwise.  We got home, he gave it to Joseph, who unwrapped it and found...

a backscratcher. Of course.

Wandered about, had a good lunch here, peeked in here, went into a Buddhist information center/prayer space kind of place, with big golden Buddhas and such, complete with offerings of vegetation spread out before the statues.

It prompted me to think, as such visits always do, about subcultures, immigration and assimilation, a subject that fascinates me for some reason. I'm half French-Canadian - my mother was the first generation of her family born in the US - New Hampshire, to be specific, and all of her relations were French-speaking, as was she, although not as fluently. When she went to Catholic gradeschool in Maine, half of the school day was conducted in English and half (including religion) in French.  She spoke of the resentment against "Johnny Bulls." On my one visit to Quebec, to see some 3rd cousins, I think, in Sayabec, they spoke of having lived in the States (probably in the late 50's and 60's) - in Lewiston - and never having had to speak a word of English the entire time.

Around here, I observe the various cultures at play, even in a town that some think of totally whitebread - there is no such thing anymore, I don't think. In the park near our house, on the weekends, the picnic areas and volleyball courts are filled with huge groups of Burmese and Hispanics. I watch the Burmese women, in their traditional skirts, squatting in groups with their little ones, talking, while their older children run around in Western dress, yelling at each other in American slang, with not an accent to be heard. I drive by the English Lutheran Church, a remnant, I'm assuming, of a time in which many, if not most Lutheran services were conducted in German. I attend (as I will this weekend), a German-language Mass at St. Peter's Church, to kick off our town's Germanfest, and marvel that about the only remnant of German culture in this town is a love for brats, but this is the midwest, so what else is new? But then, outside the zoo, I might see, as I did last week, an Amish family settling down for a picnic, in full dress, the only sign of assimilation being their Pringles' potato chips.

Today, elderly Chinese women with their shopping bags shared the sidewalk with their grandchildren in low-slung jeans and piercings. The old women waited for their duck to be chopped into pieces, the youth sat inside, chatting on cel phones, eating their noodles. The beat goes on, and I keep wondering...how to preserve culture without ossifying? How to go forward without losing it all? As for me, I might say I'm half French-Canadian, but the only hint of it lies in my real first name, and a decent accent when I try to speak what little French I know. It's inevitable, but it's still rather sad.

Fr. Jim thinks about multilingualism, etc..here.

One more...

I am hoping that you can help me find some information either in book  or preferably online article form about a proper Catholic response to  the secular world's understanding of what a wedding should be. I am  not getting into the liturgical aspects, but rather the financial and  other aspects. For example, when you check out what the MSM or the  wedding gurus say, I have seen them hold the position that this is  your night at the Oscars, your walk down the red carpet, live it up,  nothing is too much, whatever the bride wants goes! I think it is  this attitude that has led to so many Bridezillas on the loose. What  would be a more Catholic response?

I realize that matrimony is a 
sacrament and that we believe it will only happen once, but so is 
Baptism, First Communion, First Confession, etc... My personal 
feeling is that we should look at it like a priest at his ordination. 
It is celebrated but not extravagantly. People are in their finest 
and are very respectful, but the thought of spending a ton of money 
to entertain them would be  considered sinful. How much is too much 
and has anyone written any thoughtful advice on what to keep in 
perspective? You would think that the "Good Catholics" out there 
would be the ones who already had an understanding of this, but it 
seems like the ones I know are the worst. Since they truly believe 
this is their one chance and they are so specific about how they want 
the sacrament administered, it seems to have encouraged them in 
thinking that nothing is too much and they should have whatever they 
want. I would love to know your thoughts and maybe others as well.

P.S. I remember some time back you posted an article that mentioned a 
controversy in a U.S. diocese because the bishop sounded as though he 
was forbidding brides to walk with their fathers. I am not talking 
about any traditions and/or customs other than the usually expensive 
ones that the secular world seems to expect in order to fulfill the 
fantasy in the bride's head? I tell my children all the time that 
they can't have everything they want. God gives us what we need and 
that sometimes too much of what we want can be harmful. If my child 
wanted to eat a five pound bag of M&M's to celebrate his First 
Communion I wouldn't let him. What is it about weddings that we say, 
"Whatever the bride wants?"

Yet Another Reader Bleg

I am wondering what parishes and schools are doing this fall in
preparation of December movie release of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". Are there good childrens' study guides that
explain the Christian allegory perspective?
This resource looks interesting, but I am looking for other resources
as well.

The trailer

Another Reader Bleg

(They've been piling up over the past few days)

My dear mum sent me the following request, figuring that if it's on the
internet I'd know about it.  (Ah, faith...)  Well, of course I don't,
butI thought that if such a thing exists, your readers would know about it:

"Someone on our parish's education committee contacted me because they got the idea that they'd like to put  laminated cards in the pews with information about the Mass for visitors and ignorant parishioners. They want something that explains the different parts of the Mass and gives a little historical info and which also explains who can and can't
receive Communion.

"They figure they can't have been the first people to have this idea,
and that something like this must have been published somewhere.
Consequently, they want me to search the Internet for something like
this they could buy."

Anyway, if you felt able to post this for your readers to provide
feedback, I'd must appreciate it.  Dunno if it's be better to just post
it and tell anyone who knows anything to email me (brendan@papalimages.com)

Reader Bleg

....a pressing concern of our first-rate pastor is to make our church more actively evangelistic.  After some investigation, our pastor has decided that the Paulist program, Disciples in Mission, would strengthen our efforts by providing training and method.  As I understand it, the costs of materials and instructural support for this program will amount to a major expense for our parish. From what background
research I have done, the Disciples in Mission program looks very popular, in fact, the program in vogue in evangelization.  I had never heard of  it before, but given its popularity the program would seem to be positioned to become a force at the parish level across the country.   

We would appreciate feedback from your readers as to their encounters with this program at their parish, and whether they found it to be worthwhile or otherwise.  Also, if anyone has had a worthwhile experience with another evangelization training program, we would appreciate the lead. 

The Word from Bari

John Allen had an early report this week:

During the week-long eucharistic congress that led up to the May 29 papal visit, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's top ecumenical official, led an ecumenical vespers service. Kasper used the occasion to announce a "well-founded hope" that the international theological dialogue between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy will resume in the fall, which had broken down in disagreements over "proselytism" and other issues.

Kasper also issued a bold proposal. Noting that Bari in 1098 hosted a synod of Greek and Latin bishops, he asked why we couldn't hope that in 2098 (or before), Bari could host a "synod of reconciliation" between Orthodox and Catholic prelates.

Modern Times

Paul McHugh in Commentary:

So what, our imagined M&M conference leaders might ask, can one learn from this story? When I first considered this question along with several other doctors and nurses experienced in hospice care, we were nonplussed. Although we had treated hundreds of patients like Terri Schiavo, none of us had experienced a failure like this one. Our first thought was that other matters must have been at work—old resentments, unacknowledged jealousies, envy, bitter conflicts over money—to generate the kind of abuse of a patient so visible here. Only gradually, with publication of the reports, decisions, and interviews, did the explanation become clear.

As soon as Terri Schiavo’s case moved into the law courts of Florida, the concept of “life under altered circumstances” went by the boards—and so, necessarily, did any consideration of how to serve such life. Both had been trumped by the concept of “life unworthy of life,” and how to end it.

We're back

Comments open.

Martyrs of Lyons

Today, we remember the Martyrs of Lyons. So often, when we think of the Roman persecution of Christians, we think of..well...Rome. Or perhaps of northern Africa. But of course, since, the Empire was vast, persecution of Christians, while sporadic and localized for the most part, could occur anywhere the Empire existed.

So the martyrs of Lyons, the victims of a vicious persecution that occurred in the late 2nd century, and that is particularly well-documented.

In his History of the Church, Eusebius reproduces a letter from the churches of Vienne and Lyons describing the perscutions. The name that is most-well known from this event is that of a slave, Blandina:

After all these, on the last day of the gladiatorial shows, Blandina was again brought in along with Ponticus, a boy of about fifteen years of age. These two had been taken daily to the amphitheater to see the tortures which the rest endured. The authorities tried to force Blandina and Ponticus to swear by the heathen idols. But they remained steadfastly refused. So the multitude were furious against them. They had no compassion for the youth of the boy or respect for the sex of the woman. Therefore they exposed them to every terror and all the terrible sufferings and took them through every round of torture. Repeatedly they tried to compel them to swear to the idols. But it didn't work. Ponticus was encouraged by his sister; even the heathens saw that she encouraged and strengthened him. After enduring nobly every kind of torture, he died. But the blessed Blandina, the last one left, having, like a noble mother, encouraged her children and sent them on before her victorious to the King, endured herself the same conflicts. She hurried on to them with joy and exultation at her departure. It was as if she were called to a marriage supper rather than cast to wild beasts. After she had been scourged and exposed to the wild beasts, and roasted in the iron chair, she was at last enclosed in a net and cast before a bull. She was tossed by the bull. But she didn't feel the things which were happening to her. This was because of her hope and firm hold of what had been entrusted to her and her communion with Christ. Thus, she also was sacrificed. The heathens themselves confessed that never among them did woman endure so many and such terrible tortures.

  Yet not even in this was their madness and their savage hatred to the saints satisfied. For wild and barbarous tribes, when excited by the Wild Beast, were not easily appeased. Their insulting conduct expressed itself still again in the way they treated the dead bodies of the Witnesses. For, through their lack of human reason, they were not even ashamed that it was actually as if they had been conquered themselves. Their defeat only inflamed their rage more. Governor and people, like a wild beast, showed a similar unjust hatred of us, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still."6 For they threw to the dogs those who had been suffocated in prison. They carefully watched them day and night, so that none of them should be buried by us. They then laid out the bodies of the others-the mangled remains left by the wild beasts, the scorched remains left by the fire, and the heads of the rest along with their trunks, and for many days they had military guards see to it that we did not bury them. There were some who raged and gnashed their teeth at them, seeking to get from them further vengeance. Others laughed and mocked them, at the same time magnifying their own idols, and attributing to them the punishment inflicted on the Christians. Even the more reasonable and those somewhat sympathetic frequently reproached them saying, "Where now is their God? What good have they got from that religion which they chose in preference to their life?" Their conduct toward us was indeed confused! But our state was one of deep sorrow that we could not bury the bodies. For night did not help us in this matter; money failed to persuade; and entreaty did move them to compassion. But they kept up the guard in every way, as if they were to gain some great advantage from the bodies of the Christians not receiving burial...

Bonus

Archdiocese of NY Head Start directors fired for siphoning off funds

Two longtime officials of a federally funded Head Start program run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York siphoned more than $800,000 from the program, an archdiocese spokesman said yesterday.

Booklist

I'm looking at the fall trends..one word:

Narnia.

Not a surprise, since The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is due out December 9. Who knows if it will even approach LOTRMania...I doubt it,but the number of related titles is pretty impressive, coming from every direction.

One non-Narnia title to put on your to-buy list, IMHO is How on Earth Did Jesus Become God? by Larry Hurtado, which seems to be a scaled-down, (240 page) popularly accessible version of his very long (768-page) Lord Jesus Christ, a rather masterful tome that makes the strong case for devotion to Jesus as Lord by early Christians (as opposed to...mild interest in Jesus as a cool teacher, promoted by some). It's a quite important issue, and looks like a book that will be very valuable to have and share.

(There are more, but the catalogs are in the room where the baby's sleeping, and no way am I setting foot in there right now)

It's Raining Books

As it always is, book-signing at the RBTE was a super-fast ride down the Free Book train. The authors/recording artists are at tables lining this big banquet hall, and the dealers (and anyone else who's around) line up to score their free, signed books. The normally good-tempered MJ was - not - today, so I had to do much of my signing with him on my lap (because Katie was going around...getting books, per my instructions). Jill Kurtz of OSV marketing was a great help with Joseph, eventually coming up with the idea of having him stand on a chair and help hand out copies of the Pope Benedict book. He did a good job, as far as I could tell, sometimes informing people that the pope's name was Benedict, sometimes that his old name was Joseph, just like him, and at other times letting them know that the old pope had died. Everyone appreciated the updates.

Didn't meet John Powers, durn it - by the time I got done, the Loyola table had been cleared, cleaned and everyone had disappeared. I did meet Michael Leach, Susan Conroy, and Peter Vere and Michael Trueman. I saw from the program that Lauren Winner was supposed to be there, but Katie claims she couldn't find her, so perhaps she was unable to come.

It's nice to meet the bookstore owners, for they are doing good work in a difficult business environment. They're also the unknown, unappreciated catechists in the Church today - Catholic bookstore owners probably field as many questions about the faith on a daily basis as an average-sized parish, and perhaps even more. God bless 'em.

A mother's last act of love

Justin Torres on his sister-in-law's battle

But I wonder. Fifty years ago, medicine could not have done what we are trying to do. But I suspect that if it could have been done, no one then would have hesitated. The answer would have been, Of course, we must try to save the child, because saving children is what medicine is meant to do.

Thirty years after Roe, we have not yet fully come to understand all the ways that abortion has distorted our culture, coarsened it, made it less loving and less noble. The moment of hesitation I describe is the culture of death whispering insinuations at us. It is important that we continue to shout truth from the rooftops to drown out its voice.

Religious Books, part I

Do you want a Pope Benedict XVI book?

Don't worry - you could probably get a different one to read every day of the week.

And no, I don't mean the Ignatius titles - I mean the plethora, flood and onslaught of B-16, the man, the myth and the pontiff books. Lots.

Just had a chance for a quick look, and will peruse catalogs more carefully later. My first impression, as it often is, concerns Eerdmans and Inter-Varsity Press, which are both putting out some of the more inriguing and well-done Catholic-interest books out there. (example) And if you know what Eerdmanns and IVP are, you will know why that observation is borne out of frustration. But anyway, good for them.

Saw Loyola peeps, Mark Neilsen of Living Faith devotions, met and chatted with Steve Kellemeyer, and saw, as well, some lovely devotional art which I will blog on when I have the catalogs in front of me and can direct you to the right place. Mass book signing is tonight (they have all the authors in a big room ringed with tables, and the dealers go from table to table, getting their signed books to pile into their rolling crates and suitcaseds), at which I'm looking forward to meeting Peter Vere and John Powers.

Andrew at Whapping has a great recipe for concocting a bad, but sadly typical, contemporary liturgical song.

Theocracy Watch

CT Weblog observes that it may not all it's cracked up to be - or feared

Those worried that evangelicals' participation in politics may produce a theocracy may take comfort from Western Europe, where church and state have mingled for centuries. The closer church and state get, the more the church looks like the state.

Rights to the Pope

Michael has the text to today's announcement regarding the copyrights to the pope's pre-pontificate work, and Whispers has a comment. I have no idea what this means for Ignatius - the implication from the wording is..nothing. I think, but that will probaby be clearer in short order.

The case

Jason Berry on the Maciel case

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the agency responsible for judging such cases, has remained mum on the case and refused to comment on the recent confusion about the Vatican and Legionaries announcements.

By failing to clarify what the investigation by Scicluna, the promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had found, the Vatican statement left significant questions unanswered. In recent weeks, Scicluna interviewed at least 32 people in America and Mexico about Maciel, telling them it was for a report to the pope.

Justin Martyr

Today is the feast of St. Justin Martyr, a philosopher and apologist who was (of course) martyred in the mid-2nd century

Justin Martyr was a saint I discovered early on in college (to tell the truth, of course I'd not known about many saints at all up to that point, despite 4 years in Catholic high school.), and his writing was certainly revelatory to me. Oh, not the apologetics so much, but the passages in his writing for which he's most well known: his description of the liturgy.

It was the late 1970's, and I was quite interested in both history and liturgy, the latter from mostly a lived perspective. By that time, my mother had stopped going to Mass, partly because of her health, and partly because she'd reached the point of despair regarding the way that liturgical changes had been implemented...although I have to say that in our diocese, it wasn't so bad, from my perspective at least, and even in hindsight.

No, I loved going to Mass at the Catholic student center, and singing the St. Louis Jesuit songs, being with my friends, "planning" the liturgies. In terms of the present moment, I was there.

Eventually, in the context of a great course in the history of Christianity (part of a three-course sequence, taught by, as far as I could tell, a non-believer who nonetheless was a Meister Eckhart scholar and communicated the greatest enthusiasm for his subject..it worked. For me, at least), I had to read Justin, and  was totally blown away:

And this food is called among us Euxaristi/a [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, "This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body; "and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood; "and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn.

Chapter LXVII - Weekly Worship of the Christians

And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.

From the First Apology

Now I knew - when I went to Mass, it wasn't just about the now and the peace I felt in that context. It was about a profound connection to Christians across the centuries, back to the beginning, and to Christ himself.

Don't forget...

comments are closed until Thursday. For my selfish convenience, purely!

Wednesday's plan

...letting the children swim in the morning, then off to RBTE, for browsing, meeting up, and late in the afternoon, signing books. It will all be interesting, especially in light of the Lauren Winner article in the new PW about why Catholics don't buy Catholic books, an article which I have not yet read...but hopefully will be floating around the show tomorrow.