By Diogenes
Showing most recent 47 items by this author.
graywash
When you paint a wall covered in tar with white paint you get a gray mess, but the wall will look less black. Now, take the brush with the gray mess, dip it into a bucket with white paint and then paint over a nice white door ... you get a graywash. In essence, a graywash in reporting at...
The R word
You know the smear. If you're white and disagree with Obamacare, you're a RACIST. If you're black and disagree with Obamacare, you're an Uncle Tom, and deserve a beating for being an uppity negro. If you're a free range bishop who disagrees with Obamacare, you’re a REPUBLICAN. Read...
Miller's analogy
Boys and girls, it's that time of year again to practice for those pesky analogy problems on college entrance exams. Here's problem #1. Listen carefully. Disgraced former archbishop of Milwaukee, Rembert Weakland, lobbying for the Church to "endorse the 'physical, genital expression'”...
diagnostic error
Folks have been reacting to the Christopher West imbroglio partly because of the ludicrous identification of the early thought of Karol Wojtyla and Hugh Hefner--a comparison that West regrets. But leaving aside any comparison of the...
hope for a change
Fr. Imbelli wants to see a glimmer of pro-life hope in the POTUS sermon on the Notre Dame mount: Finally, President Obama appealed to “the law that binds people of all faith and no faith together… It is, of course, the Golden Rule—the call to treat one another as we...
South Bend on the Land O’Lakes—or, it’s in the fine print.
Notre Dame University’s invitation to honor President Obama at this year’s graduation ceremony has caused quite a roil among conservative Catholics and the pro-life community. Your Uncle Di was certainly in a tiff when he first learned about it. George Weigel called it a “very...
discrete observations on convention wisdom
Thoroughly disproving the nostrum that the apple never falls far from the tree, US Senator "finger puppet" Bob Casey Jr.--son of the late Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey--rose to the Democrat Convention podium giving a speech suggesting that the Democrat party is becoming pro-life....
bombs away
Tom Roeser reports that two seminarians enrolled in Mundelein seminary were talking about touching with a Rockford, Illinois youth when their h-bombs went off. According to Roeser, Bishop Doran of Rockford withdrew all of his students from Mundelein. Fear of radiation contamination could be a...
run of the mill
When burglars broke into the residence of Archbishop John Nienstedt and stole irreplaceable ecclesiastical treasures, police first commented on how well the crime had been planned. The burglars seemed to know just where to go, police observed, and how to break through extra-thick window glass...
Oops! Forgot my cloak of invisibility
And now we return to the case of Father Robert Whipkey, the Denver priest whose efforts to avoid excessive perspiration by jogging in the nude last June drew a harsh reaction from local law-enforcement officials. We later learned that Whipkey's behavior on this occasion conformed to a previous...
Does this sound like a consensus?
Ideological allies? Absolutely not. But although they disagree on many other things, these voices are singing in tune on one topic. See if you can pick out the dominant note: Voice of the Faithful press release: Voice of the Faithful has publicly called for the Holy Father to ask for the...
good news
If the papal visit hasn't already helped you to feel good about the Catholic faith this week, click...
the minutes seem like hours...
Pope to begin three-day visit to United States That's the headline atop a story in the Belfast Telegraph The Pope arrives today: Tuesday, April 15. He leaves Sunday, April 20. You do the math. Update National Public Radio offers a contrasting analysis: Pope Embarks on Weeklong...
the core of the faith
"Poll Finds Most Catholics Are Observant" That's the headline for a story from The Bulletin, which serves "Philadelphia's most discerning readers." Discerning readers might wonder what it means to be an "observant" Catholic, and if they worked their way down the page they'd find an answer of...
in cold blood
Responding to a long series of killings by two rival families involved in the Irish drug trade, Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick has come out squarely in opposition to murder and mayhem: To kill another human being in cold blood and to regard that deed as something acceptable is a denial of the...
question for the day
As we celebrate the feast of St. Stanislaus, patron of Poland, I can't help wondering whether he was comfortable when he rebuked King Boleslaw....
"smoking ceremony"
This remarkable CWN story from Australia must have escaped the notice of most readers. Otherwise, I feel sure, the "Sound Off" circuits would be overloaded with expressions of outrage and dismay. There were apparently at least two (allegedly) Catholic bishops in attendance at this ceremony, in...
the anti-bigot
The top aide to New York's new governor, Charles O'Byrne, is a former Jesuit priest, the New York Times helpfully reminds us. O'Byrne left the Jesuit order and the priesthood because he doesn't approve of the Church's stand on-- now brace yourself for a shock-- sexuality. He explored his own...
another slippery slope
If the bishops of England and Wales have not already persuaded you to oppose the pending legislation on embryo research and assisted reproduction, consider this BBC report: New fertility legislation will make it illegal to use embryos with a known genetic abnormality in IVF treatment when ones...
snake oil
Imagine that a slick salesman knocks on your door and tells you that he has devised a medical program guaranteed to prevent cancer. He has an honest face, so you shell out a few dollars to buy the pamphlet he's peddling. As he disappears over the horizon, you settle down to read it, expecting to...
a-traction
You're hopelessly stuck in the scandal rut when, five years after Dallas, and four years after the first National Review Board report, you get your own three-link section in today's Drudge Report....
G) L.A. Cardinal Assaulted on Street over Church Abuse...
a)
Paprocki's Science of Right
The Chicago Tribune reports on a Red Mass sermon by Chicago Bishop Thomas Paprocki concerning the legal attacks leveled at the Church since the Boston massacre was reported in 2002. Bishop Tom sees the recent legal attacks as two-pronged: "The settlement or award of civil damages (for...
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...
no sweat – the saga continues.
In the August 9 posting “no sweat,” your Uncle Di observed that one Rev. Mr. Robert Whipkey, 53, was charged with indecent exposure. Fr. Bob admitted to police that he cast aside his clothing, modesty and morals, and in light of the bizarre nature of the admitted behavior, we wondered aloud...
no sweat
Fr. Bob admitted to the police the illicit pleasures of jogging... on an outdoor track... at a high school... in a small town... during the wee hours of the mornin... buck naked. Fr. Bob also admitted that his frolic was "wrong" but that he "didn't think anyone...
"PQ"
Several years back the Left fired a shotgun load of lurid comedic attacks at the Boy Scouts, and missed. These attacks found their epitome in a sexual parody by Elton John (no pun intended) that ended with a sex dance by a gang of male strippers dressed as teenage Boy Scouts--hilarious stuff it...
percents
Fifth graders find it difficult to master the idea of a ratio because they don't at first grasp the idea that changing the denominator can produce changes in the entire ratio just as much as changing the numerator. The same rules and misunderstandings apply when computing percents. This may...
cassocks-only....
Chris Weinkopf, the editorial-page editor of the Los Angeles Daily News, interviewed Cdl Mahony yesterday, and logs this gem: Weinkopf: What about the charge that the problem is a lack of discipline and orthodoxy in the seminaries? Mahony: Well, first of all that's one of the things that we...
go figure
Time: 8:15a Date: July 16, 2007 Place: St Luke’s Elementary School Class: 8th grade arithmetic, just after morning prayer. Teacher: Sister Mary OK class, take out your paper and a pencil. Here’s the quiz problem for the day. Pay attention, it’s a word problem with rounding. The new...
dream land
Your Uncle Di had a dream the other night that he was the proverbial fly on the wall in a rectory office, listening as one Fr. Mike shuffles into the room to dial up his voice-mail: Beep, beep, beep... beep, beep, beep, beep... (irksome female computer voice) "Please enter your...
annex
Well, Fr Nick is history at St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Severn, Maryland (Archdiocese of Baltimore) Bishop Rozanski's spokesman was uncharacteristically declarative (for a bishop or his spokesman): "Not only was the pastor being compensated unfairly -- neither was he present and...
it's about time$
The patience of catholic college faculty and administrators is nearly limitless. Indeed, how many times have your heard them complain about the lack of respect and understanding secularists display about the purpose and the methods of the catholic college? Your Uncle Di has been listening for 40...
It's quiz time
Class, pay attention! The news article headline reads as follows: Gay-Rights Activists Arrested After Sit-In at Seminary Now, which seminary is it? (a) Mount St. Mary's Seminary Emmitsburg, MD (b) University of St. Mary of the Lake (Mundelein Seminary) (c) St....
oversight
A recent editorial by the National Catholic Reporter on financial auditing of parishes concludes with the following point: Transparency is essential to the health of the community. Your Uncle Di couldn't agree more. The Left's commitment to the process of auditing does have limits,...
handed over
Bishops ought to think carefully before handing over Holy Communion to “manifest grave sinners,” like civil authorities who publicly promote contraception, abortion and same sex marriage. (Can. 915). Jesus was surely referring to the “chief priests” when He said to Pilate “he who handed me over to...
It's Ritter time
This according to Saturday's Rocky Mountain News: Here's a look at next week's (Jan 9) festivities, as Colorado gets a new governor: Tuesday • 8 a.m. - Gov.-elect Bill Ritter's family celebrates Mass at Holy Ghost Catholic Church, 1900 California St. • 10-11 a.m. - Musical...
sing around the campfire
Pascal Couchepin, the Swiss interior minister: explains why he agreed with the thrust of the Pope's Regensburg address: Whoever refuses to debate, reduces religion to emotions. And you'd then end up with a priest, an imam and a Buddhist monk sitting round a campfire singing songs together....
the cardinal corrected
A 17th century spiritual writer falls into the hands of the Language Gelding Gang, blades at the ready. The result isn't pretty. Jesus Christ is God's gift to humankind and humankind's gift to God. He is God's gift to humankind; he puts himself into the hands of human beings through the...
WMD
Since the French riots by Muslim youth last fall, several articles have been published that point to the problem of European demographics--a problem that will not be long in waiting in the United States too. In theory, the issue is uncomplicated: western societies as a group are becoming...
cowpokes: take two
So the Bishops of the United States, through their office, have rendered their opinion on the newest gay pic about your everyday 1960s cowboys Ennis and Jack, from Brokeback Mountain: The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is L (limited adult audience, films whose problematic...
The sixth way.
Your Uncle Di fondly remembers those days of undergraduate study in cosmology and causality, parsing the tight packaging of St. Thomas' proofs for the existence of God, such as his Fifth Way. The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack...
Exhibit A: Affective immaturity
Andrew Sullivan... The sheer accumulation of unfounded slurs, malicious smears and unsubstantiated prejudice should remove from any reasonable person's mind the notion that the Vatican is not now a repository for bigotry and hatred of the clearest kind. The new policy is a betrayal of charity, of...
very, very convinced
Three years ago, a Chicago detective gave a brief character sketch of the late Mary Stachowicz: "She would definitely let you know what her religious beliefs were and would certainly want you to listen and to follow," he said. "As the detectives said from the [statement] that was made, she...
true love
Bishop McManus of the Worcester Diocese has leaned into a journalistic thrashing that we can hope he will survive. The press is giving decidedly unsympathetic description of his sermons at a Westborough MA parish last weekend, that stated in no uncertain terms that he was not about to flee...
assurances
The New York Times delivers another catechetical instruction on the formation of the gay sub-culture in the priesthood: Homosexual men are socialized differently," he (a seminarian) said . "We have spent our whole lives living and working with other men. We've been on the same school teams,...
what Roberts might have said
Ace Catholic baiter, Senator Charles Schumer, in one of many moments of exasperation during his interrogation of Judge John Roberts, found no solace in metaphor: SCHUMER: You agree we should be finding out your philosophy and method of legal reasoning, modesty, stability, but when we try to...
Snowed under in New Orleans
Disaster brings out the best and the worst in people. We have heard numerous stories of heroic generosity and perseverance by the souls of New Orleans, and then we read this: If the first dose was not enough, I gave a double dose. And at night I prayed to God to have mercy on my soul. Thus...
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