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All Catholic commentary from October 2007
"most priests were doing their best ..."
Emil Wcela, retired auxiliary bishop of Rockville Centre, has a smug article in the current America in which he reflects on the Mass in Latin and in the post-Conciliar vernacular. The following paragraph caught my attention: When Mass in English arrived (in hindsight, perhaps with insufficient...
just between us
The NCR's John Allen has a note on out-going Papal MC Piero Marini in which he floats the appalling possibility that Marini might succeed Cardinal Arinze as Prefect of the Congregation for Worship. Your Uncle Di hopes that rumor is a case of wishful thinking on the part of the clique of Roman...
more on the pelotte story
Things are sounding more and more bizarre in Gallup. Here's an update on Bishop Pelotte's nocturnal intruders. [Diocese of Gallup Bishop Donald] Pelotte called police before dawn last Thursday, reporting that there were four intruders inside who did not want to leave. Police responded within...
what some experts believe
Explaining the Connecticut bishops' decision to allow use of Plan B in Catholic hospitals, Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport blogs: What’s really at issue here is how much testing is appropriate to ensure that Plan B does not induce the chemical abortion of a fertilized ovum. Answer: a lot....
code blue
Now here's a pretty example of communication theory in action. It concerns a pederast priest named Nicolas Aguilar Rivera, whom a Mexican cardinal, also named Rivera, sent north to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Rivera the Cardinal insists he gave Cardinal Mahony a coded warning. Mahony denies...
couldn't have said it better myself
Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz has returned to Minsk, and Charter 97-- which, I admit, I don't read every day-- has the story with pictures. "At the beginning of the mess archbishop Tadeush Kandrusevich was welcomed from the depth of the heart by Bishop Antoni Dzyamyanka. In the answer...
and the winner is...
As we mentioned previously, Father Z took an unscientific poll of his readers' opinions on the best quick way of identifying the extraordinary form of the Mass. I even encouraged CWN readers to cast their votes. Now the results are in, and the clear winner is: Traditional Latin...
Resurgence of Reality in Russia
The resurgence of reality continues in surprising ways. Even as relatively abstract entities such as the United Nations and the European Union continually try to bully member states into full acceptance of the politics of sterility, at lower levels we may be seeing the opposite trend. This is...
faith no fancy
Before there were blogs, there were pamphlets. The 17th and early 18th centuries were especially fertile of theological attacks and counter-attacks carried out by preacher-pamphleteers. Concision of argument was not highly prized by the disputants, and one interesting feature (not without its...
the two-edged sword
Great days for ecumenism: today we're all the spiritual beneficiaries of joint efforts for justice. Remember the liberal Christians' rallying cry from the 1960s: "Practice unites, dogma divides"? Well those wonderful folks at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice are helping enlist...
no explicit teaching
In his effort to explain the Connecticut bishops' decision on use of Plan B at Catholic hospitals, Bishop Lori points out-- in boldface, no less: Indeed, the Church does not teach that it is intrinsically evil to administer Plan B without first giving an ovulation test or that those who do so...
thus saith the lord, for the time being
Writing in The Tablet, Timothy Lavin delivers the thoughts of the premier Mexican Anglican: Meanwhile, the Anglican Archbishop of Mexico, Carlos Touche-Porter, sought to promote a middle way that "celebrates diversity" for the Anglican Communion at a press conference in London this week,...
The Tomb of Jesus and the Christ Who Saves
Some months ago a reader asked me to say something about the Discovery Channel’s claim that the tomb of Jesus had been found in Jerusalem. I didn’t regard the request as urgent because the tomb of Jesus has been “found” many times and in many places, despite the complete absence of evidence. The...
all parties would benefit
Bishop Tod Brown's Diocese of Orange has agreed to pay $6,885,000 to settle four sex abuse lawsuits involving lay employees and four female victims. The settlement ends one chapter of an often farcical case involving fractious attorneys, clumsy grand-standing, and the perfectly-timed breakdown...
wishful punting
I was pleased to learn from the U.K. blogger Mulier Fortis that the Irish betting service Paddy Power makes the odds at 10-1 that Sydney's Cardinal George Pell will become the next Archbishop of Westminster. Clearly someone sees a gap in the field. Ok, it'll never happen, but the suggestion of...
multiculturally yours
It seems that every time a pope makes a trip to South America, there's a spate of news stories about Indians protesting the 16th century introduction of Christianity into the continent as a tool of colonialist oppression and an unprovoked assault on the indigenous spiritualies which flourished...
the jesuit and the skull
There's a new book on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin titled The Jesuit and the Skull, by Amir Aczel. It's reviewed in yesterday's LA Times by Jonathan Kirsch. Kirsch is enthusiastic about Teilhard and about the book; less so about the Church. Tall, dapper, handsome and aristocratic, Teilhard was...
who says you can't have it all?
The spiritual man judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. -- 1 Corinthians 2:15f. Suppose you're a typical dissenting Catholic and self-styled progressive who believes that the Roman...
double standard, example 6,487,312
Here's a rule of thumb in American political discourse: When a presidential candidate announces plans to act as an "instrument of God" and to create a "kingdom on earth," you can be quite sure he will be identified by the mass media as either a menace to world peace or... a liberal...
Creationism 101: Unscientific?
If you didn’t believe the evolution wars were heating up, you’ll believe it now: The Council of Europe has adopted a resolution calling upon all nations to firmly oppose the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in schools, which the CE regards as a dangerous and unscientific trend...
Creationism 102: A Threat to Human Rights?
As I noted in Creationism 101: Unscientific?, the Council of Europe recently declared that creationism and intelligent design should be barred from classrooms because “creationism could become a threat to human rights.” This is an indefensible position. The very idea of human rights grew out of...
one bread, one body?
Most Holy Redeemer is a truculently gay parish in San Francisco's Castro distinct, a notorious center of counter-Catholic activism, and the subject of an enthusiastic book called Gays and Grays, by Jesuit Father Donal Godfrey. Gerald Augustinus brings to our attention the fact that San...
worship canceled
The National Catholic Reporter tells us about a Protestant conventicle in California that decided to prune the deadwood and get back to basics. Jim Yelvington decided he would do something different with the launch of his new church in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. -- cancel Sunday worship...
the archbishop responds
LifeSite is in receipt of a statement from San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer explaining his having given communion to a pair of drag queens belonging to an anti-Catholic agit-prop group calling itself the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence: At Most Holy Redeemer Church Oct. 7, I noticed...
taking a stand
The Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy has plans to hold on a conference on the campus of Holy Cross ("a college in the monotheist tradition") in Worcester. Among the workshops scheduled are those sponsored by NARAL and Planned Parenthood. Diocese of Worcester Bishop Robert McManus has...
Relativism and the Rights of Man
At the same time the Council of Europe was condemning creationism as a threat to human rights, Pope Benedict was warning against moral relativism for the very same reason. An innocent bystander might be tempted to believe that Catholics are no better than secularists when it comes to attempting to...
tender compassion ... for those who were suffering
Today, boys and girls, we take up the edifying story of Father Andrew Christian Andersen, a former priest of the Diocese of Orange and a multiple molester of underage youths. Two years ago the L.A. Times gave us a synopsis of Andersen's adventures in pastoral ministry: It previously had been...
The Mystery and Power of Personal Prayer
I am continually amazed at how many Catholics forget the power of personal prayer. There are priestly, consecrated and lay apostles who make significant commitments to the active Christian life, including the Church’s liturgical life, but fail to nourish that commitment through personal...
for extra credit
Six Orthodox ecclesiastics with a collective mass of 500kg traveling eastward at 90 mph encounter a midwestern auxiliary bishop who is stationary and weightless. Assuming a frictionless plane, calculate the displacement caused by their ecumenical collision. Hint #1: A young Orthodox priest...
who really cares?
Most metropolitan areas in the U.S. have a large Catholic church near the city center -- perhaps a cathedral, shrine, or basilica -- that provides Mass and confessions more or less continually throughout the day. If you enter such a church while Mass is going on, you'll notice three distinct...
"especially suited"
Anita Henderson has a new dress. Her husband, a bishop in the Church of Ireland, thinks it suits her nicely. His friend, the Catholic Bishop of Killala, agrees. Oh wait. It's not Mrs. Henderson's dress that the two bishops are talking about. When they delicately observe that some things are...
The Bishop and the Jesuit: Robert McManus vs. Holy Cross
One could fill a book with the ways in which schools “in the Jesuit tradition” have deliberately and defiantly undermined the Catholic faith of their students over the past forty years. The most recent example is the decision of Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts to host a conference...
upward ever upward
Remember VOTF, the reform outfit that wants to "change Church structures" but won't let on as to which structures it wants to change? They're gathering, again, to call the Church to transparency. Voice of the Faithful, the organization of reform-minded lay Catholics spawned by the priest...
taking sides
Via Thomas Peters, we learn that the cross-dressing Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, two of whom received communion from the hand of Archbishop George Niederauer on October 7th, have posted a facetious press release concerning the incident, headlined "Sisters Upset Communion Being Turned...
Dialogue with Islam: A Strategy of Hope
There is a good deal of debate among Catholics concerning the fruitfulness of dialogue with Muslims. Obviously, Muslims have often regarded the “Christian West” as an enemy to be destroyed. But Muslim nations and the Holy See have also found common ground in resisting the sexual ideology of the...
witness
Sjödin's Casual Minister line of clerical leisure wear hasn't made it to the apparel department of my local Wal-Mart yet, but for all that it suggests the ancient quarrel between the urgency of Christian discipleship and the comforts of worldliness has, in some quarters at least, been put to...
Authority and the Logic of Revelation
The rejection of religious authority by Catholics never ceases to amaze me. Whenever I remark on the need for some bishop to enforce a proper understanding of Catholicism, I hear from those who detect in my comments the foul odor of authoritarianism. Such persons perceive authority as driven...
take my case, for instance ...
"Can you imagine what kind of candidates we would attract to the U.S. Senate, for example, or to any other high-ranking political, corporate or academic office if a commitment to lifelong celibacy were an essential, non-negotiable requirement?" -- Father Richard McBrien, addressing the Voice of...
tolerance, 21st-century style
Bigotry is bad. We teach our children to avoid bigots, to hold them in contempt. If the schoolteacher encourages students to fight against bigotry, we applaud that effort. We want bigotry to vanish. Because the word provokes that sort of reaction, it's important to be mindful about what...
attn: california bishops
A thought experiment. Suppose there exists a big city police force whose reputation has been damaged by corruption scandals, most particularly by active collaboration with organized crime. Suppose too that several policemen turn out to have direct ties to Cosa Nostra families and, after being...
obeisance
Astute observation by Dale Price: Voice of the Faithful is focused on grasping at the levers of ecclesial power -- the dread clericalization of the laity which changes "kiss my ring" to "genuflect before my...
Teach the children
The Portland Maine school committee voted 7 to 2 last week to authorize the distribution of contraceptives to young teenagers without acquiring parental consent. The response from Bishop Richard Malone was swift… "I join the number of parents who have expressed their outrage and disbelief at the...
entente cordiale
Remember Michelle Bachelet, the fashion-conscious socialist and President of Chile? She showed up at the Vatican last week to discuss copper smelting with the Pope. The conversation was "cordial." As is customary, there was an exchange of...
you must remember this: a list is just a list
The newly-famous Msgr. Tommaso Stenico claims to have "a detailed dossier" of all the homosexual clerics in the Vatican "with a list of names and circumstances implicating a certain number of priests and even bishops working at the Curia" -- a report (we're told) that will make...
The Habit of Fidelity
Some years ago, the parish where my parents had retired used a rather strange “altar bread”. It was so sweet that it seemed to have substantially more in it than wheat flour and water. When the oldest priest of the parish said Mass, he always brought his own traditional hosts. He never said...
amazing coincidence
Here is the web site for the Planned Parenthood clinic in Worcester, Massachusetts. Make a note of the phone number for local calls: (508) 854-3300. Now here is the web site for student health services at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. Notice the number recommended to students who...
as our betters deem appropriate
I wonder to what extent the press services that provide news photos are willing to vouch for the accuracy of the text that accompanies their offerings. The photo above, found at the BBC website via Agence France-Presse, is captioned thus: A homeless woman sits on a footpath in Paris as...
ransomed
Reminding us yet again that the Church spreads AIDS by discountenancing the condom, public health wonks are concerned that it's those individuals rigidly scrupulous about Catholic doctrine, like Magic Johnson, who put themselves at risk of infection: The rapid spread in Latin America of the...
Conscience and Authority: The Protestant Dilemma
After writing last week’s column (Authority and the Logic of Revelation) I was distressed to read Gilbert Meilaender’s article in the November issue of First Things, entitled “Conscience and Authority”. Meilaender is a learned and deeply religious man who teaches Christian Ethics at Valparaiso...
the future is now
If, in 1997, you claimed the day was nigh in which guardians would be compelled to give their foster children gay-positive education, you'd have been denounced as a hate-monger, as someone trying to frighten the gullible with a maliciously improbable scenario. In the U.K., it appears, that...
in it for the money
Kansas pro-lifers succeeding in collecting the signatures on a petition forcing Sedgwick County to create a grand jury to investigate the case of Wichita's notorious abortionist George Tiller. Tiller claims the pro-lifer's action was brought in bad faith and wants the Kansas Supreme Court to halt...
off to school
In the Sapientia et Doctrina section of the university newsletter Inside Fordham, professor of theology Fr. Joseph Lienhard, S.J., begins a guest column with the following gambit: I invite you to imagine a letter home from a freshman at a university: Dear Mom and Dad,Thanks for the money. I...
you're not what was wanted, i'm afraid
Catholic News Service has an unsigned article about three Anglican parishes in Ireland that have asked to be received into full communion with the Catholic Church. For the most part the piece is factual and objective, if somewhat stiff. Then we come upon the following paragraph: Pope Benedict...
biffed!
Sandro Magister posts a very interesting review of the "pungent, ironic, and anti-conformist" memoirs of Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, former Archbishop of Bologna and the most prominent living conservative among the Italian bishops. It appears that Biffi is well aware of the liberty of expression...
noted
Professional scowler Pete Hamill is quoted by the New York Times: "They [the Catholic elementary schools] had a kind of madrassa in the morning: 'Hail Mary, full of grace.' It's like these kids you see in Pakistan learning things by rote. But I ended up in a Jesuit high school and the Jesuits...
The Church Hurts Our Eyes
In a recent episode of Boston Legal, a 15-year-old girl sues her high school for letting her catch AIDS by teaching sexual abstinence instead of promoting condoms. No, I don’t waste my time watching such programs; I learned about this elsewhere. But the argument apparently has a certain...
second collection
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development is the Plymouth Duster of the U.S. Bishops Conference, a relic of early-1970s social activism that -- except for its value as a fashion statement -- was a disappointment when it was launched and hasn't improved with age. Yesterday we were given our...
the low-testosterone Bible
From today's Gospel: Luke 13:6-9, as given us by the RNAB Lectionary: And he told them this parable: "There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, 'For three years now I have come in search...
georgetown & friends
Ah, yes. Education in the Jesuit Tradition. Facing a difficult challenge mounted by students affronted by Catholic moral teaching, the Georgetown administration musters its formidable theological resources ... and folds. From the Georgetown Voice: Georgetown University President John...
the ministry of presence
Promoter of up-to-date spirituality Ronald Rolheiser reports on the strange reluctance of younger priests to accept the eager ministrations of their elders: At a workshop recently, as we were discussing the tension that often exists today between younger and older clergy, a middle-aged priest...
America ♥ Gordon
America Magazine is editorially enraptured by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The son of a Presbyterian minister, Brown seems guided by a moral vision that sees it as the government's duty to help the less fortunate. Translation: he's...
The Buck Seldom Stops with Pharmacists
Speaking to the International Federation of Catholic Pharmacists earlier today, Pope Benedict XVI urged pharmacists to conscientiously object to the dispensing of drugs prescribed to induce abortion or euthanasia. This puts pharmacists in a tough spot, because many of them don’t have the luxury of...
unintimidated
"Pell Backs Discrimination against Gays" gasps the headline of this Simon Lauder story from Australia. Sydney's archbishop appears to realize perfectly well that, by upholding Church teaching in the public sphere, he's being painted as the first cousin to a klansman. Doesn't seem to rattle...
Atheism for Christmas?
On December 7th, New Line Cinema will release a film called “The Golden Compass” based on Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. The books are vehemently anti-Catholic and anti-God but the movie has been altered somewhat. The final result remains to be seen. I guess it will come as a sort of...
hit me
A California priest threatens to hold back a treat unless his congregation agrees to play ball: Troubles at St. Anne Catholic School in Santa Monica were so dire at one point that Father Michael D. Gutierrez turned to his congregation for help. He refused to give his sermon until at least 10...
the state be with you
A trenchant observation by James Taranto. The Concord (N.H.) Monitor reports on a hilarious pronouncement from the lovely and talented John Edwards:Like other Democrats, Edwards named his top three priorities as ending the war in Iraq, enacting universal health care and overhauling the American...
decisions, decisions ...
Remember the counter-behaviorist paradox called Buridan's Ass: the hypothesis that a donkey placed between two equidistant bales of hay would starve, because the exactly counterpoised stimuli of attraction could give him no cause to go for Bale A rather than Bale B? Your Uncle Di thinks this...
male and female He created them
The Religion News Service brings us the happy news about the former Rev. Ann Gordon, now known to the world as Rev. Drew Phoenix: About 18 months ago, after 46 years of feeling trapped in the wrong body, the Methodist minister had sexual reassignment surgery, at last aligning psyche and...
dash-2 too
The Bishop of Breda (Netherlands) Martinus "Tiny" Muskens caught our attention earlier this year with a number of consciously provocative remarks, among them the suggestion that popes should have a term limit of ten to fifteen years. OTR modestly suggested that Tiny put his guilders where his...
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