Cardinal Pell Welcomes Gay Ban in Australia

CHARITIES and religious groups could discriminate against gay people or anyone else who might offend their values after a landmark decision quashed a finding in favour of a gay couple who wanted to become foster parents.

Both the Catholic and Anglican churches have praised the ruling and Cardinal George Pell said anti-discrimination cases threatened churches' ability to do charity work


Read more...

Egyptian Christians Fear More Muslim Violence

Egyptian Christians Fear More Muslim Violence

Pope Benedict asks Iran for More Freedom for Iranian Catholics

Pope Benedict asks Iranian Government for more freedoms for Iranian Catholics.

Remember that it was previously reported in this month that three Iranian Monarchists were under threat of a death setnence, and a fourth Iranian Monarchist are under a death sentence in Iran.

The Eponymous Flower: A Fourth Iranian Monarchist Militant Sentenced to Death

The Eponymous Flower: A Fourth Iranian Monarchist Militant Sentenced to Death

Death and the Connivance of Cremation

It's time for autumn and time to reflect on the last things, heaven, judgement, purgatory and hell. We have many obligations, but above all we need to obey the commandments as we prepare for death. One meditation might be to take some time and think about your funeral arrangements. Don't let Father Flapdoodle get involved and mess things up, and don't let your relatives send you to a crematorium where your body, which has received many benedictions and graces in itself, will be tossed into an enormous blender. It's one of those situations where you have to hold your nose and pretend that no one has said it's ok to be cremated. It's never been a Christian custom to be cremated, it is for pagans to do that, and more important, it's not all that expensive if you avoid the state-mandated vault or get put in a family crypt, or better yet, get buried inside the church itself. This article, by a secular journalist in the Philippines, asks his countrymen what they think. Thank God that the Philippines is still Catholic.

Belonging to a Christian nation, Filipinos have been accustomed to burying their deceased loved ones the traditional way because of the belief that the soul of the departed will continue to be with them even after death.

Aside from this, Filipinos believe that the burial site is a corporeal link between the departed loved one and the family members left behind.

That's why many Filipinos still prefer traditional burial since a buried body means the physical presence of the person they would love to cherish and remember.

However, over the years, traditional burial has been overshadowed by the growing number of people preferring to cremate their loved ones as a way of honoring their dead because of financial consideration. For them, cremation is also “more economical” in the long run.

We Respond:

Cremation was once forbidden by canon law, and like a lot of things that have changed in the last 40 years for arbitrary and unreasonable reasons, we don't understand it, and it doesn't seem that anyone is going to explain it to us either. We do believe that those in charge have done a poor job of explaining things. But we like how the journalist tries to give significance to the rite of burial by referring to local and presume ably pre-christian attitudes about burial.

For your perusal, here's the old canon law of 1917:

Canon 1203: "The bodies of the faithful must be buried, and cremation is reprobated. If anyone has in any manner ordered his body to be cremated, it shall be unlawful to execute his wish."

But, in line with the proper feeling of a Catholic conscience and the previous canons and customs of the ancient Church, the best answer is given by this interviewee,

Stephany Andem, 22, of Quezon City, said she wants her body to be buried the traditional way also because of her Catholic faith.

The rest of the article is here...

Of course, Gary North gives good advice, he's recommending that you buy an inexpensive coffin and do whatever you can to make your funeral inexpensive so as not to provide too large a burden on your heirs. The average American funeral runs at an exorbitant price, around $14,000 and that's if you don't want to fly people out to come and be part of it.

One cost-cutting gesture, in addition to not embalming if it's legally permissible, is to find a cheap coffin which you can get here at Trappist Coffins.

Hoax - Pope Condemns Halloween - Updated

Hoax - Pope Condemns Halloween - Updated

Wooo, a hoax. Catholic Key Blog says it's a hoax, but the general idea is still there about concerns with Halloween as legitimately voiced by the Spanish Bishop's conference out of concerns for a further invasion of spiritually debillitating American customs which need to be cauterized of their violent, occultic and materialist associations.

I thought the Spanish Bishop's Conference was sounding rather, well, protestantic, but if this "story" shows anything, it's the undependabillity of the Osservatore Romano.

Here's another article.

A Day without a Mexican (A New Film?)

Day without a Mexican shot in 2004 is a film with the premise of how terrible life would be without illegal aliens around. I can see Cardinal Mahoney watching the film approvingly and scowling disapprovingly at those who might find the intrusion of a group of people that systematically abuses social services and breaks laws with rabid frequency a little much, forgetting of course, his own mistreatment of his largely immigrant Mexican (and presumably legal) workforce.

It strikes us as odd that people, like Catholic Bishops, would want this situation to prevail, especially since Illegals engage disproportionately in organized crime, have high incarceration rates, abuse of social services, lowering of the cost of labor and raise the expense of health care when they receive treatments for procedures they aren't insured for or intend to pay.

Illegals kill!

It's at this point when we wonder what life would be like without a Mexican and you could imagine a film with a similiar premise, but contradictory conclusion. Life without Mexicans wouldn't be too bad. You could start by asking the recently murdered New Jersey priest, Fr Ed Hinds, (white like the ghost of Jacob Marley) who confronted a man named Jose Feliciano because of his history of fake identities, and for previous to his employment, indecent assault and corrupting a minor. Father Hinds was just firing him, nothing to lose your life over. Sure, it's not clear whether or not the murderer was an Illegal Alien, but since he had a few fake identities, it's entirely possible that he had a fake SSN and ID, a common practice among Illegals.

The Catholic Council of Bishops is very eager to defend the rights of these people who break the laws of the country they find themselves. It's strange that they're willing to lend their spiritual capital, as depleted and devalued as it is to this date, to a cause that is so clearly aligned to Marxist front groups like La Rasa or the Southern Poverty Law Center who love, with sickening predictability, to take on cases like these for the "poor and downtrodden" like a latter day Lillian Helman.

It's really little different than other liberals who favor attitudes and legislation promoting the degradation of the society and increasing disrespect for the rule of law, and as it so happens, disrespect for the lives of others.

You might also ask any number of other Americans what they think life without a Mexican would be like. Just ask the liberal writer Adrian Shelly, who wrote and appeared in the film Waitress in 2004 and was herself murdered by an Illegal. Heck, while we're at it, we might ask any one of the 9,000 Americans murdered every year by Illegals what they think.

Since the beginning of the War on Terror, more Americans have been killed by Illegals than by Insurgents. Perhaps they are one in the same? It's not as if La Rasa identifies itself with the USA, they detest it.

Cardinal Kasper denies Rumours of a Pending Retirement.

Cardinal Kasper denies rumours of his retirement next month and wonders who in the world would have said it. Of course, he quips, no one would be more pleased to retire than I.

He is responding, of course, to rumours last week on Bavarian radio that he would be replaced at the end of this November by Regensburg Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller. The Cardinal is, after all, 77 years old.

Link to original.

Christians Uphold Long and Sacred Heritage in Syria

SYRIA, Damascus — [Fox News] The Syrian Ministry of Tourism invited journalists from Tehran to Tunis to check out its top attractions during a trip to the normally reclusive country. Fox News hopped a caravan and went along for the ride.

Syrians are proud of the fact that Christians and Muslims have traditionally lived together in harmony in Syria. The historical monuments alone tell the story of the intertwining of faiths.

Just to mention a few things that the article left out in reference to the Melkites in Syria, unified to the Universal Church in Rome:

The current Greek Catholic (Melkite) presence in union with the Catholic Church is in Syria a strong and a not insignficant part of the 10% of the Syrian-Christian Population, although most reside now in Iraq, which unfortunately is also dwindling due to increasing persecution.

It has a beautiful Cathedral in the old city of Damascus.

Anniversary for Abducted Student throws Long Shadows on Dying Benedictine Monastery

The fading Monastery, Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville has been the home of many revolutionaries both political and cultural. Its numbers have been, predictably, declining steadily over the years, perhaps owing to this singular but all-too-common fact that Catholic religious orders, in so far as they have departed from the vision of their founders, are dying. It shouldn't take a sociological study to know that the students who matriculate from the college know nothing of the School's proclaimed religious affiliation when they leave, and if they were Catholic to begin with, many are not by the time they do depart with a diploma in their hand on the way to success and family.

In the mechanics of espionage there is no better cover than a monastery or a pastorage. There have been many suspicious figures in St. John's history, who've either been involved supporting insurgencies against American interests in Central America, putting on disgracefully vulgar plays like Vagina Monolouges at the neighboring women's college, St. Benedict, or featuring irreligious works by Bauhaus architects at great expense and atheistic calligraphers for 30 pieces of silver. From Vatican Peritus, Father Godfrey Diekman (Reformer, Revolutionary), Br. Frank Kacmarcik (artist), Fr. Virgil Michel (Social Reformer, Philosopher, Liturgist), late Senator Eugene McCarthy (Liberal opponent of Vietnam War), reclusive artist Fr. Jerome Tupa there are an entire host of suspicious and curious individuals both past and present working toward the emasculation of American Civilization and Religion.

It's not surprising then that one of the students should go missing and given the Abbey's difficulties with regard to orthodoxy and continence, it's not surprising that events like this sadly take place, leaving a bereaved family and an increasingly sceptical surrounding community.


"Justice for Josh"

October 29, 2009

PRESS RELEASE

* Joshua Guimond disappeared while at St. John's University in Collegeville, MN in 2002.

* November 7, 2009 is the inaugural "Justice for Josh" march and will take place at noon.

* St. John's recently denied a request by the Guimond family to mark the anniversary with an on-campus walk to raise awareness, claiming such an event "would not be productive".

* The seven year anniversary of Joshua's disappearance is November 10th.

* Supporters will meet near St. John's University at noon, followed by a march at the Stearns County Sheriff's office at 2pm.

* Several facts and new information regarding Joshua's disappearance will be made public during the event.

Background

In 2002, 20 year old Joshua Guimond left a small card party at a friend's apartment on the St. John's University campus in Collegeville, MN around midnight on November 9, 2002. His friends believed he was just making a trip to the bathroom, but when he did not come back after 15 minutes, they assumed he had just walked back to his dorm room. He has not been seen since. Joshua did not have his glasses or contact lenses, his car, credit cards, or even a coat that was appropriate for the weather. Nothing was missing from his dorm room. His parents remain convinced that he was taken against his will.

Justice for Josh March

Joshua Guimond's family along with supporters, advocates and other victims of campus crime are flying in from around the country and uniting to remember Joshua. A petition will be presented to the Sheriff demanding accountability.

St. John's University recently denied a request by the family to begin the Justice for Josh march on campus, at the site where Joshua was last seen. According to University representative Shawn Vierzba, such a march, "would not be productive, and that the speculation and conjecture likely generated by such a march could in the end be more harmful to the efforts to find Josh".

According to Joshua's father, Brian Guimond, "One of several new facts regarding Joshua's disappearance that we need to explore involves 11 known sex offenders who resided on campus when Joshua disappeared. If that is the case, we may never know the truth. The University and Abbey have a long history of withholding information from the public and law enforcement authorities." The actual
number of sexual victims would appear to be 100 plus. The public needs to be aware of this..

The march will continue at the Stearns County Sheriffs office, where organizers will demand that law enforcement agencies release all information regarding Joshua's disappearance and that St. John's immediately release the names of all personnel who have had credible assault allegations made against them. A dinner and prayer service will follow. Copies of the full schedule and applicable documents will be made available online and on the day of the march.

Bob Guimond
bobg1123@yahoo.com
507-530-4399

More information: http://www.findjoshua.com

Pope Condemns Halloween

[Mail Online UK] The Vatican today slammed Halloween as 'anti-Christian' and 'dangerous' for its links to the occult.

The October 31st ritual falls before the deeply significant Roman Catholic holy day of All Saints this Sunday.

The Pope's condemnation follows on from similar criticism from Catholic bishops in Spain who earlier this week urged parents not to let their children dress up as ghosts and goblins.

Read more


And a related story here by Mathew Hay Brown.

Pope Benedict to Meet with Archbishop Rowan Williams in November

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI will meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury next month in the leaders' first encounter since the Catholic church moved to make it easier for disenchanted Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, a Vatican spokesman said Friday.

Archbishop Rowan Williams, the Anglican leader, was already due to visit Rome in November for ceremonies at a pontifical university to honor a late cardinal who worked for Christian unity, said the spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi. Taking advantage of the archbishop's presence in Rome, Benedict will receive Williams on Nov. 21 at the Vatican, Lombardi said in a telephone interview.

Read Further...

Osservatore Romano Criticizes Dissident Theologian Hans Küng

The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has criticised the Swiss-born Roman Catholic theologian Hans Küng after he accused Pope Benedict XVI of an "unecumenical luring away" of discontented Anglicans by setting up a special structure to admit them into the Catholic Church.

New York Times Refuses Archbishop Dolan's Editorial Reply

It's alright for Jews to trash the Catholic Church, vandalize Catholic holy sites like they did in the Russian Revolution or in the Spanish Civil War, or more recently when Larry David urinated on a kitchy painting of Jesus Christ, unbelievably hung in someone's bathroom.

It's ok to run newstories by the minute and comment on clerical Catholic pederasts, who are, after all, a relatively small number of allegedly Catholic homosexuals who hypocritically draw a paycheck from an institution most of them don't really believe in anyway, but no one, at least not where there's all the news that's fit to print, does anyone seem to care if pederasty is rampant in Orthodox Jewish communities in New York.

At least leftist editor, Arthur "Pinchy" Sulzberger of the New York Times refused to post his Lordship's article, we've decided to post it here for the few who might find it illuminating:


October 29, 2009

The following article was submitted in a slightly shorter form to the New York Times as an op-ed article. The Times declined to publish it. I thought you might be interested in reading it.

FOUL BALL!

By Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
Archbishop of New York

October is the month we relish the highpoint of our national pastime, especially when one of our own New York teams is in the World Series!

Sadly, America has another national pastime, this one not pleasant at all: anti-catholicism.

It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime. Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” while John Higham described it as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” “The anti-semitism of the left,” is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins sub-titles his book on the topic “the last acceptable prejudice.”

If you want recent evidence of this unfairness against the Catholic Church, look no further than a few of these following examples of occurrences over the last couple weeks:

On October 14, in the pages of the New York Times, reporter Paul Vitello exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community. According to the article, there were forty cases of such abuse in this tiny community last year alone. Yet the Times did not demand what it has called for incessantly when addressing the same kind of abuse by a tiny minority of priests: release of names of abusers, rollback of statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records, and total transparency. Instead, an attorney is quoted urging law enforcement officials to recognize “religious sensitivities,” and no criticism was offered of the DA’s office for allowing Orthodox rabbis to settle these cases “internally.” Given the Catholic Church’s own recent horrible experience, I am hardly in any position to criticize our Orthodox Jewish neighbors, and have no wish to do so . . . but I can criticize this kind of “selective outrage.”

Of course, this selective outrage probably should not surprise us at all, as we have seen many other examples of the phenomenon in recent years when it comes to the issue of sexual abuse. To cite but two: In 2004, Professor Carol Shakeshaft documented the wide-spread problem of sexual abuse of minors in our nation’s public schools (the study can be found here). In 2007, the Associated Press issued a series of investigative reports that also showed the numerous examples of sexual abuse by educators against public school students. Both the Shakeshaft study and the AP reports were essentially ignored, as papers such as the New York Times only seem to have priests in their crosshairs.

On October 16, Laurie Goodstein of the Times offered a front page, above-the-fold story on the sad episode of a Franciscan priest who had fathered a child. Even taking into account that the relationship with the mother was consensual and between two adults, and that the Franciscans have attempted to deal justly with the errant priest’s responsibilities to his son, this action is still sinful, scandalous, and indefensible. However, one still has to wonder why a quarter-century old story of a sin by a priest is now suddenly more pressing and newsworthy than the war in Afghanistan, health care, and starvation–genocide in Sudan. No other cleric from religions other than Catholic ever seems to merit such attention.

Five days later, October 21, the Times gave its major headline to the decision by the Vatican to welcome Anglicans who had requested union with Rome. Fair enough. Unfair, though, was the article’s observation that the Holy See lured and bid for the Anglicans. Of course, the reality is simply that for years thousands of Anglicans have been asking Rome to be accepted into the Catholic Church with a special sensitivity for their own tradition. As Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist, observed, “We are not fishing in the Anglican pond.” Not enough for the Times; for them, this was another case of the conniving Vatican luring and bidding unsuspecting, good people, greedily capitalizing on the current internal tensions in Anglicanism.

Finally, the most combustible example of all came Sunday with an intemperate and scurrilous piece by Maureen Dowd on the opinion pages of the Times. In a diatribe that rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish, or African-American religious issue, she digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription -- along with every other German teenage boy -- into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans.

True enough, the matter that triggered her spasm -- the current visitation of women religious by Vatican representatives -- is well-worth discussing, and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning. But her prejudice, while maybe appropriate for the Know-Nothing newspaper of the 1850’s, the Menace, has no place in a major publication today.

I do not mean to suggest that anti-catholicism is confined to the pages New York Times. Unfortunately, abundant examples can be found in many different venues. I will not even begin to try and list the many cases of anti-catholicism in the so-called entertainment media, as they are so prevalent they sometimes seem almost routine and obligatory. Elsewhere, last week, Representative Patrick Kennedy made some incredibly inaccurate and uncalled-for remarks concerning the Catholic bishops, as mentioned in this blog on Monday. Also, the New York State Legislature has levied a special payroll tax to help the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fund its deficit. This legislation calls for the public schools to be reimbursed the cost of the tax; Catholic schools, and other private schools, will not receive the reimbursement, costing each of the schools thousands – in some cases tens of thousands – of dollars, money that the parents and schools can hardly afford. (Nor can the archdiocese, which already underwrites the schools by $30 million annually.) Is it not an issue of basic fairness for ALL school-children and their parents to be treated equally?

The Catholic Church is not above criticism. We Catholics do a fair amount of it ourselves. We welcome and expect it. All we ask is that such critique be fair, rational, and accurate, what we would expect for anybody. The suspicion and bias against the Church is a national pastime that should be “rained out” for good.

I guess my own background in American history should caution me not to hold my breath.

Then again, yesterday was the Feast of Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes.

Archbishop's Blog.

Canada is getting new Nuncio

Father Raymond J. de Souza: The Vatican's man in Canada
Posted: October 29, 2009, 8:38 AM by NP Editor
Filed under: Father Raymond J. De Souza


This week, the diplomatic corps is bidding farewell to Archbishop Luigi Ventura, the apostolic nuncio to Canada for the past eight years and the most influential Catholic in Canada this young century.

The apostolic nuncio is generally thought of as ambassador of one state to another, but that is not quite right. The Vatican City State does not have diplomatic relations with any country. Diplomatic relations are with the Holy See.

What's the difference? The Holy See is the legal expression of the pope's role as universal pastor of the Church. States maintain diplomatic relations with the supreme authority of the Catholic Church, which is recognized as a sovereign power in international law.

Read more...

According to the Office of the Apostolic Nuncio, we do not know who the new Nuncio for Canada is as of yet as the former Nuncio, Archbishop Ventura, goes to Paris.

And from his farewell address, he writes some fairly amazing words, particularly the following quoting Spanish writer, J.M. Prada

We are not without our challenges even today, and we know that they are not small. The principal challenge of our age seems to me to be anthropological, a hegemonic vision of the world that transforms the human person into a socially engineered object. A new anthropology imposes cultural paradigms that are unattackable and indisputable. One offers, according to the inspired expression of a young Spanish philosopher, "the opportunity to transform one’s interest and one’s desires into liberties and rights. However these are not more inherent to nature but they become gracious concessions of a power that legally consecrates them" (J. M. de Prada).

Full article here...

Gonzaga or Seattle U, for better or worse.

There are all kinds of snide comments that could have been put in between the lines here. It's hard to imagine that the Pope's stormtroopers could have founded institutions that were as Catholic as these, but we're hoping for a counter-revolution to take all of the "responsible" academics who run these "Catholic" institutions out from behind desks and put them in a hot field on a sunny day, being watched suspiciously by 16 year olds with Kalishnivoks.

We spoke recently to a man whose daughter returned home from such an institution, and after 4 years the pretty flower no longer believed in God and had a boyfriend with more heavy metal in his face than a nuclear reactor.

The Jesuits "keep cranking out the hits" as Mark Shea once put it on his "Catholic and Enjoying it" blog, however, and you can even vote on a poll. Please vote in the poll. We did, several times. It was like the last election.

In related news, we still haven't heard or received anything about Cormac Brissett, a very talented writer and journalist currently in the Jesuit Novitiate.

That this is the case isn't at all surprising, we've just been informed, perhaps you already know, that Jesuit run Georgetown University has its own GLBT Department. We can't imagine that St. Ignatius ever thought he'd see that at one of his Universities, but there it is.

Comparing two Catholic colleges: Gonzaga and Seattle U

By Seamus McKeon

Share this article Published: Wednesday, October 28, 2009

What do you think of Seattle U's Catholic nature? [We're tired of people who ought to know better telling us things that aren't true. Aren't you?]

Be it location, athletics or campus culture, the differences and similarities between Gonzaga University and Seattle U are common knowledge for students and collegiate professionals alike. However, one of the most defining contrasts between the Northwest’s two Jesuit Catholic institutions is just that—Catholicism. [Really?]

While both schools maintain a strong reputation as Jesuit Catholic [Sic] universities, the expression and focus of the faith at the two institutions take somewhat different routes, both in the administrative approach to this fundamental characteristic and the culture that surrounds it.

Read more... if you must.

Revolution was a 'mistake' says French 'King'

As France groans under the weight of public debt and moral decay, one man is ready to unite the masses and lead the nation to a brighter new dawn.

Anglican churches in Waltham Forest could move en masse to the Catholic Church after a decree issued by Pope Benedict XVI [The Guardian]

St Margaret's, in Woodhouse Road, Leytonstone, St Michael's, in Palmerston Road, Walthamstow, and St Saviour's, in Markhouse Road, Walthamstow, all look set to take the Pope up on his offer.

But some Anglicans believe the Catholic Church’s opposition to the ordination of women and gay rights will be a stumbling block.

Read More...

Somewhere in Switzerland: Theologian complains about Benedict's success.

Somewhere in Switzerland, an elderly, EX-theologian ponders a cup of coffee laced with liberal amounts of Jägermeister and looks out of his window, reflectively like you'd expect an ex-theologian would, to those legendary Swiss Alps. Suddenly, the phone rings. He lays aside the copy of America Magazine and answers the phone.



"Hey, Hans. This is Mori, from your publisher Burns and Oats."

"Yes, hello."

"I need you to do something for me. I want you to write something about this Anglican Reunimaccallit."

"Ok. Have you sent my royalty check?"

There's a long pause.

"Don't worry, it should be there any day."

After about five minutes of effort, he hits the "send" key on his brand-new MacBook, as easyKüng99@yahoo.com and you can read it here:

Link

Beginning of end of English Reformation - Commentary

Beginning of end of English Reformation - Commentary