Guardian
This year is the centenary of one of Chesterton's oddest, but most intriguing, booksRenewal of interest in the work of GK Chesterton continues apace. The writer whose career began when he dictated his first story to his aunt Rose at the age of three started early and aimed high, and his intellectual development was among the more conspicuously interesting of the Edwardian age. His Orthodoxy of 1908 has become a sort of touchstone text during the present vogue for philosophical theology, much cited by the likes of Slavoj Zizek and the radical theologian John Milbank, while oddball novels such as The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) and The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) retain the power to entertain and bemuse in equal measure.This year, however, sees the centenary of one of his rather less high-profile publications. What's Wrong with the World represents an extrapolation of Chesterton's original response to a query posed in so many words by the Times to a selection of eminent writers and thinkers of the day. "Dear Sirs," ran GK's succinct rejoinder, "I am". The publication of the book suggested that, on reflection, there might have been more to say on the subject.The Chesterton offered us by his latter-day biographers and critics is a lost proto-radical, if we could but make him out as such. Along with his close friend Hilaire Belloc, he was the proponent of a species of Third Way politics avant la lettre, a plague-on-both-your-houses confutation of capitalism and socialism known as distributism. Drastically simplified, the vision was of an atomised entrepreneurialism in which as many individuals as possible pursued the goal of profit, so as to wrest capital accumulation from both a few vastly powerful interests (such as "Jewish banking families") and a monolithic socialist state.What's Wrong with the World opens with an analysis of the predicament of modern humanity, too obsessed in the great age of political idealism with visions of the future. Has the Enlightenment ideal of continual social progress been a reality, or has it all been a piece of western myth-making? "Are we still strong enough to spear mammoths, but now tender enough to spare them?" he wonders. But then again, "Does the cosmos contain any mammoth that we have either speared or spared?"What it does contain is the wreckage of half-realised ideals. There is a lack of conviction in attempts to enact the radical doctrines of Christianity or of political justice, and too often the espousal of great causes results in panic at the consequences of one's own actions. Where national leaders paid lip-service to such humanist ideals as egalitarianism, they came to rue their faith in humanity. "Joseph of Austria and Catherine of Russia quite agreed that the people should rule; what horrified them was that the people did."Much in the section on women would take a lot of swallowing today. Woman is naturally thrifty, as against the prodigality of man, "the aim of the good woman [being] to rummage in the dustbin". This is cognate with her moral inclination to chastity in the face of masculine concupiscence. There is scarcely any point in female suffrage (the burning question of the day) where it is so little wanted. The saving grace of not having the vote is that it allows a woman to remain above the level of the baying mob. What she really needs is liberation from drudgery. A paradise of domestic labour-saving devices will spread more spiritual freedom than would the vote. Where many saw the constitutional equality of the sexes as an ideal, meanwhile, Chesterton suspected only the urge to "plodding, elaborate, elephantine imitation" of the male by the female. "Boys play football, why shouldn't girls play football … boys go to Oxford, why shouldn't girls go to Oxford – in short, boys grow mustaches, why shouldn't girls grow mustaches[?]"The cumulative impact of the book is a little like reading a supremely elegant, aphoristic Nietzsche, but one domesticated for the English gentleman's study. There is the same vertiginous thrill at lurching from exemplary declarations of universalist ethics ("Men have never wearied of political justice; they have wearied of waiting for it") to the flared-nostrilled defence of Edwardian privilege, such as public schools. But for its sober humanism, as much as its infuriating patrician conservatism, it deserves to be read.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/jan/08/gk-chesterton-world-whats-wrong
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
Bombing In Thailand: Analysis of Islamist Presence There
By Martin Petty
BANGKOK, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Bombs killed one security officer and wounded another in Thailand's restive deep South on Thursday during a visit by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to promote an economic stimulus programme aimed at restoring peace.
The bombings underlined the failure of successive governments to tackle a separatist insurgency in the Malay Muslim-dominated region, which entered its sixth year on Monday with a death toll of nearly 4,000.
WHO IS BEHIND THE INSURGENCY?
No group has publicly come forward but most analysts believe the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) Coordinate is running the show, possibly in cooperation with remnants of the Patani United Liberation Front (PULO).
BRN is said to be a military offshoot of the Patani Malay National Revolutionary Front, a political movement established in the 1960s to seek independence, or at least autonomy, for the region's ethnic Malay Muslims.
The current leaders are unknown. The government believes they may be hiding in Malaysia, Indonesia or Europe. The authorities have long suspected prominent local politicians, religious leaders and Islamic teachers of involvement.
Link to original....
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2010/01/07/qa-whats-fuelling-insurgency-in-thailands-malay-muslim-south/
BANGKOK, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Bombs killed one security officer and wounded another in Thailand's restive deep South on Thursday during a visit by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to promote an economic stimulus programme aimed at restoring peace.
The bombings underlined the failure of successive governments to tackle a separatist insurgency in the Malay Muslim-dominated region, which entered its sixth year on Monday with a death toll of nearly 4,000.
WHO IS BEHIND THE INSURGENCY?
No group has publicly come forward but most analysts believe the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) Coordinate is running the show, possibly in cooperation with remnants of the Patani United Liberation Front (PULO).
BRN is said to be a military offshoot of the Patani Malay National Revolutionary Front, a political movement established in the 1960s to seek independence, or at least autonomy, for the region's ethnic Malay Muslims.
The current leaders are unknown. The government believes they may be hiding in Malaysia, Indonesia or Europe. The authorities have long suspected prominent local politicians, religious leaders and Islamic teachers of involvement.
Link to original....
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2010/01/07/qa-whats-fuelling-insurgency-in-thailands-malay-muslim-south/
He Knows His Neoconservative Bootlickers
Welcome to Vienna: If Cardinal Christoph Schönborn participates in the unrest of a foreign Diocese, then other Bishops may do the same in Vienna.
Kreuz.de Commentary
While photos are being published of the Vienese Cardinal in Medjugorje, there was a protest in Vienna.
It was directed against the honouring of a notorious child slaughterhouse by the unscrupulous Viennese blood-mayor.
The old liberal and politically devious Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn did everything in order to put stones in the way of the Catholic supervisors of the demonstration.
He even forbade admitting Salzburg's Bishop Andreas Laun to participate in the demonstration against the infamous commemoration.
In a private discussion the Cardinal explained himself in this way: „I won't permit in any event a bishop to drive here from three hundred kilometers away into my Diocese and blame the mayor.“
The Bishop obeyed.
Why, however, does Cardinal Schönborn travel 800 kilometers, in order to incite unrest in another Diocese: was it clear from the beginning that it would stir a wasp's nest?
The answer is found fast.
A goal of this exercise of the old liberal of a Cardinal was to pull disappointed neoconservative Catholics over the table.
Because in the meantime the most naive neoconservative truth denier must have recognized that Cardinal Schönborn works against the Church.
In December 2004 he stabbed the pro-life organization `Youth for Life' in the back, when it demonstrated against the introduction of the child slaughter at the Salzburg national hospital.
In October 2005 the sacrilegious pancake Consecration was effected by the Cardinal followed during one of his youth fairs.
In February 2006 Cardinal Schönborn permitted a homo-perverse mating in his Cathedral blessing.
In the December of the same year he defended deprivation of fluids and sustenance for the terminally ill.
When Catholics demonstrated in February 2007 before a child slaughterhouse in a Viennese shopping center, Cardinal Schönborn as expected, stabbed them into the back.
Then the inexpressible exhibition in the Viennese Cathedral museum in March 2008, which showed the Apostles as homo-perverse piglets and Christ as bound masochist with an erection.
Despite world-wide protests the Cardinal did not stop this outrage.
Besides he denied the Church's mission to convert the Jews in April 2008.
The award of the Papal Gregorian Medal followed to the baby-murdering, Viennese Ideologue, Comrade Renate Brown in June 2008.
As a Pope Benedikt XVI, highly regarded priest of Windischgarten, Mons. Gerhard Wagner, appointed to Linz Diocese, found Cardinal Schönborn in prominent place busily preventing his appointment.
In May 2009 the honoring of the Viennese Martyr Sister Restituta Kafka followed. You Cardinal, seemed to miss the demonic and bare breasted representation, which got the name in Vienna of "Prostituta".
But the Cardinal is smart enough, in order to know that its neoconservative bootlickers have a short memory and are stupid.
It is sufficient to throw to them a Medjugorje bone at his feet so that they forget the old liberal changes of the church in Austria, he has made.
After his Medjugorje journey the Viennese Cardinal can turn, therefore, again unimpaired to the cocktail parties with comrades and abortion politicians and work on the next plot against Catholics.
Because the neoconservative dullards are for a further seven years in the seventh Medjugorje heaven.
However, the resounding slap, which the Cardinal received after his Medjugorje visit from bishop Ratko Perić from Mostar Duvno, neither will resound for long:
"I regret it that the Cardinal with its visit, his appearance and his explanations added the present suffering of the local Church anew, which does not contribute to the necessary peace and to the Diocese.“
Cardinal Schoenborn plans to return to Medjugorje.
Despite actual Vatican condemnation of the priest chiefly associatd with this "Apparition", the Cardinal actually intends on creating quite a bit of a fuss. The Catholic Online report reads:
The Catholic Review Online, the Baltimore Diocesan Newpaper has this interesting piece of information to add to the rest, despite going on a bit about the good things that are attributed to the shrine, which may, it is not reported, have more to do with the intention of the pilgrims and the pre-existing shrine than the things that Fr. Vlasic and the Seers are up to.
Kreuz.de Commentary
While photos are being published of the Vienese Cardinal in Medjugorje, there was a protest in Vienna.
It was directed against the honouring of a notorious child slaughterhouse by the unscrupulous Viennese blood-mayor.
The old liberal and politically devious Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn did everything in order to put stones in the way of the Catholic supervisors of the demonstration.
He even forbade admitting Salzburg's Bishop Andreas Laun to participate in the demonstration against the infamous commemoration.
In a private discussion the Cardinal explained himself in this way: „I won't permit in any event a bishop to drive here from three hundred kilometers away into my Diocese and blame the mayor.“
The Bishop obeyed.
Why, however, does Cardinal Schönborn travel 800 kilometers, in order to incite unrest in another Diocese: was it clear from the beginning that it would stir a wasp's nest?
The answer is found fast.
A goal of this exercise of the old liberal of a Cardinal was to pull disappointed neoconservative Catholics over the table.
Because in the meantime the most naive neoconservative truth denier must have recognized that Cardinal Schönborn works against the Church.
In December 2004 he stabbed the pro-life organization `Youth for Life' in the back, when it demonstrated against the introduction of the child slaughter at the Salzburg national hospital.
In October 2005 the sacrilegious pancake Consecration was effected by the Cardinal followed during one of his youth fairs.
In February 2006 Cardinal Schönborn permitted a homo-perverse mating in his Cathedral blessing.
In the December of the same year he defended deprivation of fluids and sustenance for the terminally ill.
When Catholics demonstrated in February 2007 before a child slaughterhouse in a Viennese shopping center, Cardinal Schönborn as expected, stabbed them into the back.
Then the inexpressible exhibition in the Viennese Cathedral museum in March 2008, which showed the Apostles as homo-perverse piglets and Christ as bound masochist with an erection.
Despite world-wide protests the Cardinal did not stop this outrage.
Besides he denied the Church's mission to convert the Jews in April 2008.
The award of the Papal Gregorian Medal followed to the baby-murdering, Viennese Ideologue, Comrade Renate Brown in June 2008.
As a Pope Benedikt XVI, highly regarded priest of Windischgarten, Mons. Gerhard Wagner, appointed to Linz Diocese, found Cardinal Schönborn in prominent place busily preventing his appointment.
In May 2009 the honoring of the Viennese Martyr Sister Restituta Kafka followed. You Cardinal, seemed to miss the demonic and bare breasted representation, which got the name in Vienna of "Prostituta".
But the Cardinal is smart enough, in order to know that its neoconservative bootlickers have a short memory and are stupid.
It is sufficient to throw to them a Medjugorje bone at his feet so that they forget the old liberal changes of the church in Austria, he has made.
After his Medjugorje journey the Viennese Cardinal can turn, therefore, again unimpaired to the cocktail parties with comrades and abortion politicians and work on the next plot against Catholics.
Because the neoconservative dullards are for a further seven years in the seventh Medjugorje heaven.
However, the resounding slap, which the Cardinal received after his Medjugorje visit from bishop Ratko Perić from Mostar Duvno, neither will resound for long:
"I regret it that the Cardinal with its visit, his appearance and his explanations added the present suffering of the local Church anew, which does not contribute to the necessary peace and to the Diocese.“
Cardinal Schoenborn plans to return to Medjugorje.
Despite actual Vatican condemnation of the priest chiefly associatd with this "Apparition", the Cardinal actually intends on creating quite a bit of a fuss. The Catholic Online report reads:
In a statement posted on the website of the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno, Bishop Peric explained that Fr Vlasic has been reported to the CDF "for the diffusion of dubious doctrine, manipulation of consciences, suspicious mysticism, disobedience toward legitimately issued orders", and accusations of sexual immorality.
The Catholic Review Online, the Baltimore Diocesan Newpaper has this interesting piece of information to add to the rest, despite going on a bit about the good things that are attributed to the shrine, which may, it is not reported, have more to do with the intention of the pilgrims and the pre-existing shrine than the things that Fr. Vlasic and the Seers are up to.
Bishop Peric, who repeatedly has questioned the authenticity of the apparitions and struggled to limit the influence of religious living in the diocese without permission, issued a statement Jan. 2 saying that while he recognized the right of a cardinal to celebrate Mass anywhere in the world, “there also exists a certain etiquette in the church” that encourages a visiting cardinal to discuss a visit with the local bishop. He said neither the cardinal nor anyone from his office contacted him.
In addition, Cardinal Schonborn’s visits to unauthorized religious communities “could be interpreted as supportive,” Bishop Peric said.
Boston College Feminist Dies
Mary Daly was a force for changing attitudes and diminishing the importance of the Catholic Faith at this Jesuit school. The editorial remarks about her contribution to the "vibrant debate". It's difficult to surmise from reading the article or assessing some of her positions just how her contribution was "vibrant", but the article is correct in that it identifies her presence as a sign that Boston College is a liberal institution. How it is that a woman whose very presence championed the normalization of homosexuality at a Catholic institution is a very curious indicator, but that she did it is still further proof that this allegedly Catholic and Jesuit institution is far removed from the namesakes that inspired the brick and mortar to house generations of the surrounding flower of youth the Irish-Catholic community of Boston had to offer.
One Jesuit commenter, "aidan01" wrote:
It's hard to take seriously the author's previous statements about Daly being a "joke of a human being" and then going on to praise her for her talent as a scholar and her contribution, but it highlights the point of confusion. No doubt, despite the Jesuit's contention that Boston College did not damage his faith, he seems to suffer from that lack of integrity which comes as a result of not really believing in anything with any conviction. His attitude plays into the rationale that the presence of instructors like Daly enrich the experience in a spirited dialogue when most of the students graduating from Boston College don't have the fundamentals to know the Catholic Faith which is supposed to be the reason behind the College's existence in the first place.
Saying she was right about things doesn't address whether she should have been at a Catholic College in the first place, or whether or not she helps the students do anything more than realize the pure vanity of religion in the first place. The only thing we suspect she was right about was her opposition to the evils of co-education.
Requiem for a feminist - The Boston Globe
One Jesuit commenter, "aidan01" wrote:
As a male seminarian taking classes at B.C. in the eighties I recall that men were banned from Daly's class. Of course none of us were interested in trying to set up a private tutorial with her. We all thought Daly was a joke of a human being, and that B.C. had been corrupted by liberals and didn't have the spheres to boot her to the curb. Mary Daly was a sign of the decline of Boston College's standing in the Catholic World.
Years later, as a cynical move to impress a radical feminist professor, I cited one of Daly's works in a paper. To make sure the Prof. questioned my motives I also cited Mary Ann Glendon, the very conservative Harvard Professor, and former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican. Interestingly, Daly and Glendon agreed completely in their blisteringly negative critiques of Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree", but Glendon was particularly cutting, and sounded even more "feminist" than Daly. Even the Professor was surprised by that. But, imagine my surprise when I couldn't put Daly's book down, even after writing the paper.
As strange and alienating as Mary Day was to many, she was a serious thinker and her ideas are worthy of consideration. [Really?] While reading her work did not push me to abandon my own thinking, or my faith, it did bring to light for me a perspective on the Church and Society that was illuminative and insightful. She was a very accomplished scholar, somewhat off the deep end, but she had insights that cannot be dismissed lightly, and she conveyed them with a wicked sense of humor. Mary was very funny, and when I think about her I have to smile because, although it kills me to admit it, her work contributed something significant and meaningful to my life.
It's hard to take seriously the author's previous statements about Daly being a "joke of a human being" and then going on to praise her for her talent as a scholar and her contribution, but it highlights the point of confusion. No doubt, despite the Jesuit's contention that Boston College did not damage his faith, he seems to suffer from that lack of integrity which comes as a result of not really believing in anything with any conviction. His attitude plays into the rationale that the presence of instructors like Daly enrich the experience in a spirited dialogue when most of the students graduating from Boston College don't have the fundamentals to know the Catholic Faith which is supposed to be the reason behind the College's existence in the first place.
Saying she was right about things doesn't address whether she should have been at a Catholic College in the first place, or whether or not she helps the students do anything more than realize the pure vanity of religion in the first place. The only thing we suspect she was right about was her opposition to the evils of co-education.
Requiem for a feminist - The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Tea at Trianon: Cathar Country
A new book by Elena Maria Vida tells the story of the war against the Cathars.
The modern vampire fascination as with much else in Catharism also includes a radical connection to the dark and anarchic associations of witchcraft which have haunted Europe even before Simon Magus challenged St. Peter, the Priests of Baal tried to vie with Elija, or Moses set the power of God against the vain sorcery of Pharoh's priests. It's not suprising, as Tea at Trianon reports that there is a strange kind of fascination for the Cathars of the Languedoc who don't know the consolations of the Faith, but only the restless curiositas of frenetic modernity.
Tea at Trianon: Cathar Country
The modern vampire fascination as with much else in Catharism also includes a radical connection to the dark and anarchic associations of witchcraft which have haunted Europe even before Simon Magus challenged St. Peter, the Priests of Baal tried to vie with Elija, or Moses set the power of God against the vain sorcery of Pharoh's priests. It's not suprising, as Tea at Trianon reports that there is a strange kind of fascination for the Cathars of the Languedoc who don't know the consolations of the Faith, but only the restless curiositas of frenetic modernity.
Tea at Trianon: Cathar Country
Come All Ye Faithful: Benedict's Counter-Reformation
William S. Lind is a doctrinaire sort of man with his own axe to grind. His prose resembles the stiff powder blue suit of an Evangelical protestant going door-to-door. We couldn't even finish reading his article, but made comments before we started to fall into a torpor of sleep by the protestantic contempt for the First Vatican Council which many Bishops and Cardinals, even those who resisted, backe with their lives, like the Cardinal of Paris who was murdered by the spiritual descendants of the Protestants, the Communists in the 1870 Commune. This periodical isn't conservative, it's dead.
When my mother was a young woman, in the 1930s, Cousin Lily, then in her 80s, gave her some sound advice: “Wherever you go, join the Episcopal Church and you will meet all the best people in town.” “Best” in this instance referred not to the Book of Life but the Social Register. The staid, proper, elevated Episcopal Church, the Republican Party at prayer, was respectability’s keep.
Starting sometime in the 1960s, God’s frozen people melted, generating the mother of all theological mud puddles. From the abandonment of Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer to the introduction of priestesses in the 1970s and the ongoing election of homosexual bishops, the Episcopal Church forsook traditional Christian doctrine in favor of its own invented religion. Not surprisingly, this apostasy fractured both the Episcopal Church and the larger Anglican Communion. The upshot has been a variety of continuing churches that maintain historic ties to Anglicanism, multiple movements within the Episcopal Church to restore orthodoxy, and the breaking away of many Anglican churches in the Third World, where most Anglicans now live.
On Oct. 20, Rome parachuted into this dogfight like a division of Fallschirmjager. [Yes, we wrote "Benedict's Ecumenical Blitzkrieg"] In a move that stunned the Archbishop of Canterbury, Anglicanism’s titular leader, Pope Benedict XVI, opened the Roman Catholic Church’s door to Anglicans as Anglicans. He invited them to move in—individuals, parishes, whole dioceses—while retaining their Anglican identity. They could keep their Book of Common Prayer, their liturgies, their priests—even married ones.
Importantly, Anglican parishes affiliating with Rome would not come under the authority of local Roman Catholic bishops. In the U.S. and UK, most of those bishops are liberals. They dislike traditional Anglicans as much as they dislike traditional Roman Catholics and the Latin Mass. Given the chance, they would simply close down any Anglican parish that swam the Tiber, telling the congregation to go to Roman Catholic churches. This would leave most former Anglicans unchurched, as few could stomach the snakebelly-low post-Vatican II vernacular Roman Mass. To Anglicans, no sin is more grievous than bad taste.
Not to worry: Anglicans rallying to Rome will stay under their own bishops, or priests acting as bishops, known as “ordinaries.” Pope Benedict knows his American and British bishops all too well. His whole package is neatly wrapped up just in time for Christmas in an Apostolic Constitution, the most definitive form of papal legislation. The rough American equivalent would be a constitutional amendment. It’s not just a bon-bon.
How Anglicans will react to Rome’s offer has yet to be seen. [Rome already knew how they would react, since there were many letters asking for this, and it was well known in the news that Liberal Prelatistas in the Magic Circle hated the idea that these people were coming. Anglican Bishop Ebbsfleet himself threatened to swim the Tiber and has yet to do so, although he said something last time about Advent.] Many details remain unclear. One problem is likely to be the doctrine of papal infallibility, [Not really, where do you people come from?] a 19th-century Roman innovation. [Is this really a conservative publication?] The Apostolic Constitution stipulates that Anglicans would have to accept “The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church as the authoritative expression of the Catholic faith professed by members of the ordinariate.” [Many of them already do] This could mean accepting papal infallibility as expressed in the catechism, and if Rome remains inflexible on that point, Pope Benedict’s initiative seems likely to fail. [Wishful thinking on your part, no doubt.]
But should it succeed, Rome’s offer has implications far beyond Anglicanism. Pope Benedict just might have taken the first step toward a second Counter-Reformation. The split within Anglicanism between those who believe the Christian faith was revealed and is to be received and those who think you just make it up to accord with the temper of the times is duplicated within virtually every other denomination. [Yes, that was the problem in the first place]
The root cause is the cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School, [You'll probably never appreciate just how much the Frankfurt School is indebted to the Protestant Revolt] commonly known as political correctness. Following Antonio Gramsci’s plan for a “long march through the institutions,” cultural Marxists have penetrated every mainline church. Their driving force is political ideology, not theology. They view the church as just one more venue for radical politics.
Their goal is Nietzsche’s “transvaluation of all values,” where the old sins become virtues and the old virtues, sins. In churches where they take power, the Holy Trinity is replaced by a trio of bogeymen: racism, sexism, and homophobia. Every denomination so afflicted is bitterly split between remaining Christians and the politically correct. (No, you can’t be both, as Marxists would agree.)
What is now happening, and what Rome may have discerned, is that the people on each side of this division find they have more in common with those in other denominations who share their basic faith, Christianity or cultural Marxism, than with the people on the other side of that divide within their own churches. A potential is emerging for a vast realignment, one transcending the divisions that came out of the Reformation. [Uh, Protestant Revolt] That realignment, in which the remaining Christians in every church would gather in a single, new (small “c”) catholic church, needs a leader. Who better than Rome? Indeed, who other than Rome could possibly pull it off? [No one]
Seen in that light, the Pope’s offer to the Anglicans takes on broader meaning. Some observers have seen a parallel with the arrangement a number of Eastern Catholic Churches have had with Rome since 1595. Those Churches recognize their own liturgical rites, systems of canon law, and procedures for ordination. Immediately after the announcement of the constitution—before the document was published—Father Dwight Longenecker, a former Anglican now Roman Catholic priest, wrote on the Inside Catholic website:
He is willing to take risks to welcome those who follow the historic Christian faith, although separated from full communion with Rome. On the other hand, he sees those who prefer the modern gospel of relativism, sexual license, and a denial of the historic Christian faith that have taken over the mainstream Protestant churches. He knows there are plenty of them in the Catholic Church, and to them Benedict is quietly saying, “There’s the door.”
Yet what the Apostolic Constitution actually offers Anglicans is substantially less accommodating than Rome’s deal with the Eastern Rite churches. While Anglicans could keep their historic liturgical rite, Anglican churches affiliating with Rome would come under what are in effect non-geographical dioceses. That is a long way from the independence of the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches. [I'm not getting the relevance or truth value of this statement?]
Here we come to the crux of the matter: is Rome’s offer final, or is it negotiable, an opening gambit? If it is final, it is not likely to draw many Anglicans and would have virtually no appeal to other Protestants. Papal infallibility alone might doom it, and as a vehicle for Christian unity, it would prove, well, fallible. But let us hopefully assume that the Apostolic Constitution is not Rome’s last offer, that something closer to the arrangement given to the Eastern Rite churches could prove acceptable to Rome.
What then? It is possible to visualize not only Anglicans but all Protestants, in a new Counter-Reformation, leaving behind the cultural Marxists in the husks of their denominational institutions and joining in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. They could do so while remaining what they are—Lutherans and Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists, even some evangelicals—just as Greek Catholics remain in their Eastern rite. To Rome, they would give formal allegiance, recognizing the Pope as the titular and symbolic head of the Church. What both would gain would be a reunion of Christendom in the West in a church free of cultural Marxism—no small thing.
It is obvious that we are talking about a big leap for the Protestants. While few still speak openly of the “tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities,” that attitude has shaped their histories. [Much to the diminishment of European Civilization and involving the loss of many souls.] Interestingly, however, one of the more enthusiastic responses to the constitution came from the Methodists. A senior official told the Methodist Recorder that “[the constitution] may open up ways in which Methodism, whose origins were as a movement in the Church rather than a separate denomination, may find its place in future, as a Church, alongside others within the universal Church.”
Protestants’ usual Sunday services would have to alter little, if at all, except for communion services, which are infrequent. Less obvious, perhaps, is the height of the wall the Roman Catholic Church would have to vault. That barrier is built largely of beliefs that, in the Ultramontane years of the 19th century, were turned into formal doctrines. [These dogmas were defined because the world needed to understand them, things that Christians had always and everywhere believed] Neither Anglicans nor Protestants are likely to swear to any of them, although they ought to be willing to accept them as what they were before the 1800s, long-standing traditions that were widely believed. (Papal infallibility is an exception; it was an invention rammed through Vatican I in 1870.) [What's with this guy?]
For Rome, there is a possible way around this wall rather than over it: status quo ante. Anglican and Protestant congregations and jurisdictions joining in full communion with Rome would not be required to accept as doctrine anything postdating their split from Rome. The Catholic Church would lead a second Counter-Reformation by backing away from some of the first.
Before the Council of Trent (1545-63), which begat the Counter-Reformation, Rome’s hand rested lightly on national churches. For example, we think of the Roman Catholic Church as having a single rite, after Trent the Tridentine Rite and following Vatican II the sad and dispiriting Novus Ordo. Before Trent, Rome allowed a vast variety of rites, as she would again. England alone had three major rites and a host of minor ones in a country of 4 million people. Rome saw no problem as long as the rites for communion services followed what Dom Gregory Dix called “the shape of the liturgy.” Anglicans might again chant in the litany, “From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us.”
Pre-Trent, the same decentralization reigned in other matters as well. Kings generally had a good deal of say in who became a bishop. The Church might “volunteer” to pay some form of tax to a needy monarch. (After all, Church lands might make up a third of his kingdom.) When, occasionally, a Pope would overreach, king and bishops would come together to oppose him.
If Rome’s ambitions for a reunited Western Church go beyond Anglicans, and the Vatican is willing to bend beyond what the Apostolic Constitution currently offers, it may be time for Vatican III. The goal of such a council would be twofold: to sweep away obstacles to Christian unity stemming from the Council of Trent and Vatican I and reverse the disastrous consequences of Vatican II, including the vandalizing of the liturgy and abandonment of practices (such as fish on Friday) that buttressed Roman Catholic identity among laymen. Ultramontane doctrinal innovations would all have to be on the table; they might remain for Roman Catholics but would not be required of others seeking full communion with Rome.
Is all this just wishful thinking? The division between Christians and cultural Marxists in every denomination is certainly real: it screams from the religion page of every newspaper. With that division comes the potential for realignment and Christian reunion. Understanding the mind of the Curia is more difficult than penetrating North Korea, but Rome’s offer to the Anglicans suggests that Pope Benedict XVI is looking beyond the usual games. The ice has cracked, and a new spring may be coming.
Pope Benedict is a good German. Perhaps the question he could put to himself is this: who do I want to be, Kaiser Wilhelm II or Bismarck? Kaiser Wilhelm II was a bright and well-intentioned fellow. He was almost always right in what he wanted to do (including not going to war in 1914). But over and over he deferred to his advisers, who were almost always wrong. Bismarck, in contrast, knew exactly what he wanted—the reunification of Germany—and was both opportunistic and ruthless in making it happen. He brooked no opposition. As Kaiser Wilhem I once said, “Sometimes it is a hard thing, being a Kaiser under Bismarck.”
Now there’s a vision to gladden the heart: a German Pope proclaiming the reunion of the Western Church in the hall of mirrors at Versailles. Be a Bismarck, Benedict, be a Bismarck.
__________________________________________
William S. Lind is author, with Paul Weyrich, of The Next Conservatism.
The American Conservative...
When my mother was a young woman, in the 1930s, Cousin Lily, then in her 80s, gave her some sound advice: “Wherever you go, join the Episcopal Church and you will meet all the best people in town.” “Best” in this instance referred not to the Book of Life but the Social Register. The staid, proper, elevated Episcopal Church, the Republican Party at prayer, was respectability’s keep.
Starting sometime in the 1960s, God’s frozen people melted, generating the mother of all theological mud puddles. From the abandonment of Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer to the introduction of priestesses in the 1970s and the ongoing election of homosexual bishops, the Episcopal Church forsook traditional Christian doctrine in favor of its own invented religion. Not surprisingly, this apostasy fractured both the Episcopal Church and the larger Anglican Communion. The upshot has been a variety of continuing churches that maintain historic ties to Anglicanism, multiple movements within the Episcopal Church to restore orthodoxy, and the breaking away of many Anglican churches in the Third World, where most Anglicans now live.
On Oct. 20, Rome parachuted into this dogfight like a division of Fallschirmjager. [Yes, we wrote "Benedict's Ecumenical Blitzkrieg"] In a move that stunned the Archbishop of Canterbury, Anglicanism’s titular leader, Pope Benedict XVI, opened the Roman Catholic Church’s door to Anglicans as Anglicans. He invited them to move in—individuals, parishes, whole dioceses—while retaining their Anglican identity. They could keep their Book of Common Prayer, their liturgies, their priests—even married ones.
Importantly, Anglican parishes affiliating with Rome would not come under the authority of local Roman Catholic bishops. In the U.S. and UK, most of those bishops are liberals. They dislike traditional Anglicans as much as they dislike traditional Roman Catholics and the Latin Mass. Given the chance, they would simply close down any Anglican parish that swam the Tiber, telling the congregation to go to Roman Catholic churches. This would leave most former Anglicans unchurched, as few could stomach the snakebelly-low post-Vatican II vernacular Roman Mass. To Anglicans, no sin is more grievous than bad taste.
Not to worry: Anglicans rallying to Rome will stay under their own bishops, or priests acting as bishops, known as “ordinaries.” Pope Benedict knows his American and British bishops all too well. His whole package is neatly wrapped up just in time for Christmas in an Apostolic Constitution, the most definitive form of papal legislation. The rough American equivalent would be a constitutional amendment. It’s not just a bon-bon.
How Anglicans will react to Rome’s offer has yet to be seen. [Rome already knew how they would react, since there were many letters asking for this, and it was well known in the news that Liberal Prelatistas in the Magic Circle hated the idea that these people were coming. Anglican Bishop Ebbsfleet himself threatened to swim the Tiber and has yet to do so, although he said something last time about Advent.] Many details remain unclear. One problem is likely to be the doctrine of papal infallibility, [Not really, where do you people come from?] a 19th-century Roman innovation. [Is this really a conservative publication?] The Apostolic Constitution stipulates that Anglicans would have to accept “The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church as the authoritative expression of the Catholic faith professed by members of the ordinariate.” [Many of them already do] This could mean accepting papal infallibility as expressed in the catechism, and if Rome remains inflexible on that point, Pope Benedict’s initiative seems likely to fail. [Wishful thinking on your part, no doubt.]
But should it succeed, Rome’s offer has implications far beyond Anglicanism. Pope Benedict just might have taken the first step toward a second Counter-Reformation. The split within Anglicanism between those who believe the Christian faith was revealed and is to be received and those who think you just make it up to accord with the temper of the times is duplicated within virtually every other denomination. [Yes, that was the problem in the first place]
The root cause is the cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School, [You'll probably never appreciate just how much the Frankfurt School is indebted to the Protestant Revolt] commonly known as political correctness. Following Antonio Gramsci’s plan for a “long march through the institutions,” cultural Marxists have penetrated every mainline church. Their driving force is political ideology, not theology. They view the church as just one more venue for radical politics.
Their goal is Nietzsche’s “transvaluation of all values,” where the old sins become virtues and the old virtues, sins. In churches where they take power, the Holy Trinity is replaced by a trio of bogeymen: racism, sexism, and homophobia. Every denomination so afflicted is bitterly split between remaining Christians and the politically correct. (No, you can’t be both, as Marxists would agree.)
What is now happening, and what Rome may have discerned, is that the people on each side of this division find they have more in common with those in other denominations who share their basic faith, Christianity or cultural Marxism, than with the people on the other side of that divide within their own churches. A potential is emerging for a vast realignment, one transcending the divisions that came out of the Reformation. [Uh, Protestant Revolt] That realignment, in which the remaining Christians in every church would gather in a single, new (small “c”) catholic church, needs a leader. Who better than Rome? Indeed, who other than Rome could possibly pull it off? [No one]
Seen in that light, the Pope’s offer to the Anglicans takes on broader meaning. Some observers have seen a parallel with the arrangement a number of Eastern Catholic Churches have had with Rome since 1595. Those Churches recognize their own liturgical rites, systems of canon law, and procedures for ordination. Immediately after the announcement of the constitution—before the document was published—Father Dwight Longenecker, a former Anglican now Roman Catholic priest, wrote on the Inside Catholic website:
It has always been Benedict’s view that the way forward ecumenically is to replicate the existing structures that the Eastern Rite churches enjoy, and that this can be done with new flexibility and creativity.
He is willing to take risks to welcome those who follow the historic Christian faith, although separated from full communion with Rome. On the other hand, he sees those who prefer the modern gospel of relativism, sexual license, and a denial of the historic Christian faith that have taken over the mainstream Protestant churches. He knows there are plenty of them in the Catholic Church, and to them Benedict is quietly saying, “There’s the door.”
Yet what the Apostolic Constitution actually offers Anglicans is substantially less accommodating than Rome’s deal with the Eastern Rite churches. While Anglicans could keep their historic liturgical rite, Anglican churches affiliating with Rome would come under what are in effect non-geographical dioceses. That is a long way from the independence of the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches. [I'm not getting the relevance or truth value of this statement?]
Here we come to the crux of the matter: is Rome’s offer final, or is it negotiable, an opening gambit? If it is final, it is not likely to draw many Anglicans and would have virtually no appeal to other Protestants. Papal infallibility alone might doom it, and as a vehicle for Christian unity, it would prove, well, fallible. But let us hopefully assume that the Apostolic Constitution is not Rome’s last offer, that something closer to the arrangement given to the Eastern Rite churches could prove acceptable to Rome.
What then? It is possible to visualize not only Anglicans but all Protestants, in a new Counter-Reformation, leaving behind the cultural Marxists in the husks of their denominational institutions and joining in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. They could do so while remaining what they are—Lutherans and Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists, even some evangelicals—just as Greek Catholics remain in their Eastern rite. To Rome, they would give formal allegiance, recognizing the Pope as the titular and symbolic head of the Church. What both would gain would be a reunion of Christendom in the West in a church free of cultural Marxism—no small thing.
It is obvious that we are talking about a big leap for the Protestants. While few still speak openly of the “tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities,” that attitude has shaped their histories. [Much to the diminishment of European Civilization and involving the loss of many souls.] Interestingly, however, one of the more enthusiastic responses to the constitution came from the Methodists. A senior official told the Methodist Recorder that “[the constitution] may open up ways in which Methodism, whose origins were as a movement in the Church rather than a separate denomination, may find its place in future, as a Church, alongside others within the universal Church.”
Protestants’ usual Sunday services would have to alter little, if at all, except for communion services, which are infrequent. Less obvious, perhaps, is the height of the wall the Roman Catholic Church would have to vault. That barrier is built largely of beliefs that, in the Ultramontane years of the 19th century, were turned into formal doctrines. [These dogmas were defined because the world needed to understand them, things that Christians had always and everywhere believed] Neither Anglicans nor Protestants are likely to swear to any of them, although they ought to be willing to accept them as what they were before the 1800s, long-standing traditions that were widely believed. (Papal infallibility is an exception; it was an invention rammed through Vatican I in 1870.) [What's with this guy?]
For Rome, there is a possible way around this wall rather than over it: status quo ante. Anglican and Protestant congregations and jurisdictions joining in full communion with Rome would not be required to accept as doctrine anything postdating their split from Rome. The Catholic Church would lead a second Counter-Reformation by backing away from some of the first.
Before the Council of Trent (1545-63), which begat the Counter-Reformation, Rome’s hand rested lightly on national churches. For example, we think of the Roman Catholic Church as having a single rite, after Trent the Tridentine Rite and following Vatican II the sad and dispiriting Novus Ordo. Before Trent, Rome allowed a vast variety of rites, as she would again. England alone had three major rites and a host of minor ones in a country of 4 million people. Rome saw no problem as long as the rites for communion services followed what Dom Gregory Dix called “the shape of the liturgy.” Anglicans might again chant in the litany, “From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us.”
Pre-Trent, the same decentralization reigned in other matters as well. Kings generally had a good deal of say in who became a bishop. The Church might “volunteer” to pay some form of tax to a needy monarch. (After all, Church lands might make up a third of his kingdom.) When, occasionally, a Pope would overreach, king and bishops would come together to oppose him.
If Rome’s ambitions for a reunited Western Church go beyond Anglicans, and the Vatican is willing to bend beyond what the Apostolic Constitution currently offers, it may be time for Vatican III. The goal of such a council would be twofold: to sweep away obstacles to Christian unity stemming from the Council of Trent and Vatican I and reverse the disastrous consequences of Vatican II, including the vandalizing of the liturgy and abandonment of practices (such as fish on Friday) that buttressed Roman Catholic identity among laymen. Ultramontane doctrinal innovations would all have to be on the table; they might remain for Roman Catholics but would not be required of others seeking full communion with Rome.
Is all this just wishful thinking? The division between Christians and cultural Marxists in every denomination is certainly real: it screams from the religion page of every newspaper. With that division comes the potential for realignment and Christian reunion. Understanding the mind of the Curia is more difficult than penetrating North Korea, but Rome’s offer to the Anglicans suggests that Pope Benedict XVI is looking beyond the usual games. The ice has cracked, and a new spring may be coming.
Pope Benedict is a good German. Perhaps the question he could put to himself is this: who do I want to be, Kaiser Wilhelm II or Bismarck? Kaiser Wilhelm II was a bright and well-intentioned fellow. He was almost always right in what he wanted to do (including not going to war in 1914). But over and over he deferred to his advisers, who were almost always wrong. Bismarck, in contrast, knew exactly what he wanted—the reunification of Germany—and was both opportunistic and ruthless in making it happen. He brooked no opposition. As Kaiser Wilhem I once said, “Sometimes it is a hard thing, being a Kaiser under Bismarck.”
Now there’s a vision to gladden the heart: a German Pope proclaiming the reunion of the Western Church in the hall of mirrors at Versailles. Be a Bismarck, Benedict, be a Bismarck.
__________________________________________
William S. Lind is author, with Paul Weyrich, of The Next Conservatism.
The American Conservative...
San Francisco Archdiocese Reinvestigates, Approves Pro-Abortion CCHD Grantee
by Katie Walker
Released January 4, 2010
Washington, D.C. (04 January 2010) – The Catholic Campaign for Human Development and the Archdiocese of San Francisco continue to support an organization that helped create and promote contraception, elective-abortion and sex-education programs for kids, American Life League has learned.
In November, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development issued “For the Record – The Truth about CCHD Funding” in response to criticism that the group funds organizations that support pro-abortion programs.
The document contains this defense of the San Francisco Organizing Project:
The initial investigation conducted by the Reform CCHD Now campaign (of which American Life League is a member) revealed the SFOP’s strong support for health care facilities that provide family planning and “emergency” contraception.
Further investigation reveals the SFOP was instrumental in establishing the Healthy Kids and Healthy San Francisco insurance programs. Covering the full range of birth control, from drugs to devices, and elective abortion, SFOP worked to launch Healthy Kids, enrolling over 2,000 children through the San Francisco Health Plan. SFOP not only engaged in public campaigns to get Healthy San Francisco, which also covers birth control and elective abortion, passed, but a member of SFOP served on the Healthy San Francisco Advisory Board, which provided expert consultation on "implementation of employer spending mandate, membership, benefits, provider network, utilization, costs, and evaluation."
“The SFOP was cleared for funding after a reinvestigation – how could the Archdiocese of San Francisco not know about SFOP’s involvement in Healthy Kids and Healthy San Francisco?” asked Michael Hichborn, American Life League’s lead researcher on the CCHD.
In August, Bellermine Veritas Ministry, another participant in the Reform CCHD Now campaign, released its first report on the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the CCHD, showing that the CCHD-funded organizations "Young Workers United" and the "Chinese Progressive Association" issued 2008 voter guides advocating abortion, homosexual marriage and decriminalized prostitution. The report prompted the CCHD to defund them.
“Given that the CCHD and the Archdiocese of San Francisco have a history of clearing pro-abortion groups for funding, a disturbing pattern is beginning to emerge,” said Hichborn. “Bishop Roger Morin (chairman of the USCCB’s Subcommittee on the CCHD) called our charges against the CCHD ‘outrageous.’ In light of the latest revelations, he and Archbishop Niederauer owe Catholics across the country an explanation,” Hichborn said.
American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
•American Life League: CCHD http://www.all.org/cchd
•Reform CCHD Now: http://reformcchdnow.com/
•Bellarmine Veritas Ministry: CCHD
http://bellarmineveritasministry.org/campaigns/cchd/
Released January 4, 2010
Washington, D.C. (04 January 2010) – The Catholic Campaign for Human Development and the Archdiocese of San Francisco continue to support an organization that helped create and promote contraception, elective-abortion and sex-education programs for kids, American Life League has learned.
In November, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development issued “For the Record – The Truth about CCHD Funding” in response to criticism that the group funds organizations that support pro-abortion programs.
The document contains this defense of the San Francisco Organizing Project:
Archdiocese of San Francisco strongly supports the work of the SFOP to expand access to health care to children. Both Archbishop Levada and Archbishop Niederauer have spoken at SFOP events; SFOP has met regularly with [a]rchdiocesan staff to coordinate work on health care access and other issues that affect the poor and immigrant families.
The initial investigation conducted by the Reform CCHD Now campaign (of which American Life League is a member) revealed the SFOP’s strong support for health care facilities that provide family planning and “emergency” contraception.
Further investigation reveals the SFOP was instrumental in establishing the Healthy Kids and Healthy San Francisco insurance programs. Covering the full range of birth control, from drugs to devices, and elective abortion, SFOP worked to launch Healthy Kids, enrolling over 2,000 children through the San Francisco Health Plan. SFOP not only engaged in public campaigns to get Healthy San Francisco, which also covers birth control and elective abortion, passed, but a member of SFOP served on the Healthy San Francisco Advisory Board, which provided expert consultation on "implementation of employer spending mandate, membership, benefits, provider network, utilization, costs, and evaluation."
“The SFOP was cleared for funding after a reinvestigation – how could the Archdiocese of San Francisco not know about SFOP’s involvement in Healthy Kids and Healthy San Francisco?” asked Michael Hichborn, American Life League’s lead researcher on the CCHD.
In August, Bellermine Veritas Ministry, another participant in the Reform CCHD Now campaign, released its first report on the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the CCHD, showing that the CCHD-funded organizations "Young Workers United" and the "Chinese Progressive Association" issued 2008 voter guides advocating abortion, homosexual marriage and decriminalized prostitution. The report prompted the CCHD to defund them.
“Given that the CCHD and the Archdiocese of San Francisco have a history of clearing pro-abortion groups for funding, a disturbing pattern is beginning to emerge,” said Hichborn. “Bishop Roger Morin (chairman of the USCCB’s Subcommittee on the CCHD) called our charges against the CCHD ‘outrageous.’ In light of the latest revelations, he and Archbishop Niederauer owe Catholics across the country an explanation,” Hichborn said.
American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
•American Life League: CCHD http://www.all.org/cchd
•Reform CCHD Now: http://reformcchdnow.com/
•Bellarmine Veritas Ministry: CCHD
http://bellarmineveritasministry.org/campaigns/cchd/
Monarchy, Versailles, Museums, Jesuits and Mystery Science 2000
Catholic Caveman has found an article by California Catholic on the most recent foray of the Society of Jesus into art, scandal and sacrilege. The Jesuits in California are doing scary things while turning sacred space into a cultural venue for fascinating multi-cultural goings on, as if the originators of the event had taken a page from Harvey Cox's Secular City.
We thought the above pictured pagan idol reminded us a lot of Crow from Mystery Science 2000.
It may be true that museum goers need not have a religious bent to enjoy sacred art, but we wonder whether these California Jesuits at St. Ignatius Church in San Franciso have a properly formed sensus catholicus. No doubt, their desire to shock and break with tradition have all but completely overwhelmed their stated purpose of doing everything for the glory of God.
In a related event at Versailles, France, a similar kind of artistic, cultural terrorism is happening, which may afright and confuse those of us who are accustomed to a more or less conventional experience. It really is a tribute in a way to the revolutionary nature of Museums in the first place, which were really designed according to an Enlightenment idea that the public could be educated by herding them into large public buildings to view art, apart from their privileged and aristocratic associations.
The Measure
In his New York Times decade-in-art retrospective, Holland Cotter singled out the Jeff Koons exhibition at Versailles as the most significant exhibition of the aughts, and next fall Japanese Pop art star Takashi Murakami (pictured) will have an opportunity to set the tone for the 2010s. (The other contemporary artist to have a show at Versailles, French conceptualist Xavier Veilhan, was featured there in 2009.) Agence France Presse reported yesterday that the Murakami retrospective that was first announced last summer will open on September 12, 2010 and run for three months at the palace outside Paris.
Sadly, [happily for us] because the French have a serious complex about the former seat of their dearly departed monarchy, the art shown therein must be as tame as possible. Or, as AFP puts it:
the palace, a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy, is being careful to avoid displaying works with pornographic or morbid connotations that might offend some visitors.
Papal liturgist endorses 'reform of the reform' | National Catholic Reporter
Papal liturgist endorses 'reform of the reform' | National Catholic Reporter
The fun part is reading all of the whinging from the local leftist yokels who are happy with praise and worship at the peace pulpit.
The fun part is reading all of the whinging from the local leftist yokels who are happy with praise and worship at the peace pulpit.
Copts Clash with Egyptian Police
CAIRO — Clashes erupted on Thursday as thousands of Coptic Christians in a southern Egyptian village gathered to bury six of their number gunned down on Coptic Christmas Eve by men believed to be Muslims, security officials said.
Officials and the local bishop said three men in a car had raked pedestrians with gunfire along a street containing two churches and a shopping precinct late on Wednesday.
Bishop Kirilos said the victims were people who had just emerged from church after attending a Christmas Eve service, and the proximity of the shopping area might have drawn some of them to it.
Six Copts and a Muslim policeman were killed, while at least nine more Copts were wounded, two of them seriously, a security official said.
Read further...
Officials and the local bishop said three men in a car had raked pedestrians with gunfire along a street containing two churches and a shopping precinct late on Wednesday.
Bishop Kirilos said the victims were people who had just emerged from church after attending a Christmas Eve service, and the proximity of the shopping area might have drawn some of them to it.
Six Copts and a Muslim policeman were killed, while at least nine more Copts were wounded, two of them seriously, a security official said.
Read further...
Quaker group nominates excommunicated priest for Nobel Peace Prize :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)
Modernism is a dragon that must be relentlessly pursued and destroyed. Its many heads rear up to attack the Church and its allies are many. Father Roy Bourgeois, another freeze dried hippie priest left over from radical days is being honored by another increasingly elderly and soon to be non-existent group, the Quakers. Why anyone would want a Nobel Prize and sit in the same company with Jimmy Carter, Yasser Arrafat and Obama is beyond us. The Nobel Prize is more of a target than a honor.
We'd like you to see a confluence between various cultural and political attacks resulting in the cultural and political decline of society at large abetted by Catholic priests of a radical stripe who ordinarily receive such uncritical praise from the main news organs that it's difficult for many people to disassociate them in their minds from an authentic Catholic identity. Father Bourgeois is, not surprisingly, a proponent of women's ordination.
Fortunately, he was excommunicated for his pains, but unfortunately, there are quite a few more like him posing as Catholic Priests and we dare say it, Bishops as well to say nothing of all aspects of Catholic social work and education where a Catholic professor or healthcare provider is often the exception rather than the rule. We hope you bear that in mind before you send your children there to have their innocense destroyed and their abillity to think critically seriously undermined, or send your money to causes which are Catholic in name only.
Quaker group nominates excommunicated priest for Nobel Peace Prize :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)
We'd like you to see a confluence between various cultural and political attacks resulting in the cultural and political decline of society at large abetted by Catholic priests of a radical stripe who ordinarily receive such uncritical praise from the main news organs that it's difficult for many people to disassociate them in their minds from an authentic Catholic identity. Father Bourgeois is, not surprisingly, a proponent of women's ordination.
Fortunately, he was excommunicated for his pains, but unfortunately, there are quite a few more like him posing as Catholic Priests and we dare say it, Bishops as well to say nothing of all aspects of Catholic social work and education where a Catholic professor or healthcare provider is often the exception rather than the rule. We hope you bear that in mind before you send your children there to have their innocense destroyed and their abillity to think critically seriously undermined, or send your money to causes which are Catholic in name only.
Quaker group nominates excommunicated priest for Nobel Peace Prize :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)
Copts Clash with Egyptian Police
At last, there's wider recognition of this problem.
CAIRO — Clashes erupted on Thursday as thousands of Coptic Christians in a southern Egyptian village gathered to bury six of their number gunned down on Coptic Christmas Eve by men believed to be Muslims, security officials said.
Officials and the local bishop said three men in a car had raked pedestrians with gunfire along a street containing two churches and a shopping precinct late on Wednesday.
Bishop Kirilos said the victims were people who had just emerged from church after attending a Christmas Eve service, and the proximity of the shopping area might have drawn some of them to it.
Six Copts and a Muslim policeman were killed, while at least nine more Copts were wounded, two of them seriously, a security official said.
Read further...
CAIRO — Clashes erupted on Thursday as thousands of Coptic Christians in a southern Egyptian village gathered to bury six of their number gunned down on Coptic Christmas Eve by men believed to be Muslims, security officials said.
Officials and the local bishop said three men in a car had raked pedestrians with gunfire along a street containing two churches and a shopping precinct late on Wednesday.
Bishop Kirilos said the victims were people who had just emerged from church after attending a Christmas Eve service, and the proximity of the shopping area might have drawn some of them to it.
Six Copts and a Muslim policeman were killed, while at least nine more Copts were wounded, two of them seriously, a security official said.
Read further...
US Bishops Seeking Immigration Reform in '10
More Immigration "Reform" being pushed by the usual suspects at the USCCB.
WASHINGTON, D.C., JAN. 6, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The U.S. bishops are seeking legislation to reform immigration policy in 2010, saying migration should be a choice, not a necessity.
The bishops' conference announced today the beginning of a postcard campaign and two Web sites to help build momentum in the effort to bring reform to immigration laws this year.
Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, Utah, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Migration, and Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, New York, chairman of the bishops' International Policy Committee, made the announcement. The campaign comes as National Migration Week is under way through Saturday, focused on "Renewing Hope, Seeking Justice."
"It is our view, and that of others, that the American public, including the Catholic and other faith communities, want a humane and comprehensive solution to the problems which beset our immigration system, and they want Congress to address this issue,” said Bishop Wester.
Read further...
h/t Saint Paul TODAY, here.
USCCB, Immigration Reform, a failure of Imagination.
WASHINGTON, D.C., JAN. 6, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The U.S. bishops are seeking legislation to reform immigration policy in 2010, saying migration should be a choice, not a necessity.
The bishops' conference announced today the beginning of a postcard campaign and two Web sites to help build momentum in the effort to bring reform to immigration laws this year.
Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, Utah, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Migration, and Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, New York, chairman of the bishops' International Policy Committee, made the announcement. The campaign comes as National Migration Week is under way through Saturday, focused on "Renewing Hope, Seeking Justice."
"It is our view, and that of others, that the American public, including the Catholic and other faith communities, want a humane and comprehensive solution to the problems which beset our immigration system, and they want Congress to address this issue,” said Bishop Wester.
Read further...
h/t Saint Paul TODAY, here.
USCCB, Immigration Reform, a failure of Imagination.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
"Pray, Tell", Collegeville's Answer to Liturgical Restoration
The good folks at Commonweal are talking about a campy new blog from Collegeville and Liturgical Press called, "Pray, Tell". Perhaps it should be "Prey".
The Jesuit editor of America, Father James Martin SJ, thinks it's worth a look. He goes more deeply, if less revealingly than he ought, to discuss the blog's connection with Worship:
The blog chiefs quote from the first issue of Orate, Fratres, one of the great liturgical magazines (now Worship) that helped foster the liturgical renewal that led to the Second Vatican Council's document Sacrosanctum Concilium. "Our general aim is develop a better understanding of the spiritual import of the liturgy. … [We hope] that many persons may find in the liturgy the first answer to the intimate need of their souls for a closer contact and union with the spiritual and the divine.” The new blog, the progeny of Orate, Fratres, is nothing if not candid
The New Liturgical Movement reports on it as well, and is less enthusiastic, some of the commenters note the unwillingness of the moderator to allow dissent, despite the Blog's claims of "openness".
What NLM doesn't tell you, and what Father Martin above omits to say is the connection of the Blog's print publication, Worship (Previously Orate Fratres when it was founded by Fr. Virgil Michel in 1929 at St. John's Abbey in Minnesota), to one of its editors, a credibly accused homosexual Fr. Dunstan Moorse, or one of the notorious and early collaborators who designed the cover art for the first issue of the magazine, Eric Gill, whose own revolutionary liturgical efforts are no less suspicious than the current sponsors of "Prey, Tell".
Deal Says the USCCB Had to Keep Stupak on Task
From tomorrow's New York Times comes a story by Jodi Kantor about Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI).
It contains the following very interesting tidbit:
The parenthesis are from the original story. Why are they there? Perhaps Kantor did not know what a bombshell this statement from Stupak would be among many Catholics.
It makes you wonder what Stupak thought the USCCB should be tougher about? The abortion issue? Or abortion and other issues as well? And did Stupak mean the USCCB should be tougher behind the scenes or in the public eye?
But if Stupak feels he is hanging tougher than the USCCB then how do you make sense of all those stories about lobbyists from the USCCB keeping Stupak on message?
Certainly the USCCB has studiously avoided a tough public stance, preferring not to risk their internal negotiating position.
I wish Kantor explored Stupak's meaning here -- perhaps Stupak went off the record at this point, and Kantor had to call the USCCB and National Right to Life for comment.
That the USCCB did not return her call is surprising given the prominence of the NYT and the importance of the issue raised by Stupak.
Link to original Inside Catholic...
It contains the following very interesting tidbit:
Mr. Stupak says he urged the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to toughen its stance on the legislation; representatives from the conference and the National Right to Life Committee did not return calls
The parenthesis are from the original story. Why are they there? Perhaps Kantor did not know what a bombshell this statement from Stupak would be among many Catholics.
It makes you wonder what Stupak thought the USCCB should be tougher about? The abortion issue? Or abortion and other issues as well? And did Stupak mean the USCCB should be tougher behind the scenes or in the public eye?
But if Stupak feels he is hanging tougher than the USCCB then how do you make sense of all those stories about lobbyists from the USCCB keeping Stupak on message?
Certainly the USCCB has studiously avoided a tough public stance, preferring not to risk their internal negotiating position.
I wish Kantor explored Stupak's meaning here -- perhaps Stupak went off the record at this point, and Kantor had to call the USCCB and National Right to Life for comment.
That the USCCB did not return her call is surprising given the prominence of the NYT and the importance of the issue raised by Stupak.
Link to original Inside Catholic...
A Few Anesthetized Souls Plan to Celebrate Archbishop Weakland's Defense of Children in Milwaukee
If Flannery O'Connor or Evelyn Waugh had been as hostile to the Catholic Church as they were to the world around it, they would have written a story like that of Archbishop Weakland. The Irony of him speaking at the unveiling of his own bronze image in a cathedral he virtually destroyed might give some hope to many of you who are morally attuned enough to realize the insanity of the situation. Enjoy the irony we say for God's vengeance can't be far behind in this story.
Link to story, and photos showing the artwork commissioned by Blessed Rembert who is depicted giving shelter to innocent children. It nearly rivals Ferdinand Marcos' own memorial which features Mozart's Requiem being played day and night for eternity.
We suspect that these are the signs of the depravity accompanying the death of Faith in the West when men no longer fear God and worship false idols.
Link to story, and photos showing the artwork commissioned by Blessed Rembert who is depicted giving shelter to innocent children. It nearly rivals Ferdinand Marcos' own memorial which features Mozart's Requiem being played day and night for eternity.
We suspect that these are the signs of the depravity accompanying the death of Faith in the West when men no longer fear God and worship false idols.
Anglican Church in Crisis
Roger Gray / KETK News
December 11, 2009 - 10:18pm
The Episcopal Church is in a crisis. The election of a second gay bishop has many wondering about the future of the denomination…
More US Presidents have been Episcopalians than any other faith, but the modern church us splintering fast.
I’ll confess upfront, I am what is known as a cradle Episcopalian. And I like many Anglicans, wonder where the church is going…
In 2003, the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire selected an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, and ignited a firestorm in a denomination formed from the old Church of England right after the revolution.
h/t: Virtue Online
Read further...
December 11, 2009 - 10:18pm
The Episcopal Church is in a crisis. The election of a second gay bishop has many wondering about the future of the denomination…
More US Presidents have been Episcopalians than any other faith, but the modern church us splintering fast.
I’ll confess upfront, I am what is known as a cradle Episcopalian. And I like many Anglicans, wonder where the church is going…
In 2003, the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire selected an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, and ignited a firestorm in a denomination formed from the old Church of England right after the revolution.
h/t: Virtue Online
Read further...
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