May 2003 Archives

(Thanks to Una Voce Venice.) More photos here.

by Thomas Sowell in the WashTimes today. What do you think of a "National Slave Memorial" on the Washington Mall? Supporters say it will promote "reconciliation" and "healing." Sowell says just the opposite. I think he's absolutely right. Now if we could just change the culture so that guilt and victimhood weren't so dead sexy to everyone we might make some progress on this. Here's a somewhat related story for foxnews.com on an asinine law in L.A.

Regarding the popular appeal of victimhood, two generations of kids have grown up in the this country being taught two plus two equals "wah!!!" On one hand you've got a general feeling of victimhood and entitlement among those who have had priveleged lives compared to those people who grew up a few score, much less a couple hundred, years ago. On the other you've got scads of victims who wouldn't even admit they are victims, i.e. consumers and performers of pornography. Consider the real victims of abortion - mother, father, and unborn child. There are substantial numbers of people in this country who place the victimhood of things like trees and manatees above that of aborted children.

Was it Mother Teresa who said "God has lots of money"? Whatever - give the good folks at Envoy Magazine some help in their worthy ministry.

Please pray today for the newly-ordained Reverend Mister Augustine Minh-Hai Tran who is now a transitional Deacon for the Diocese of Arlington. I met him last Fall on the visit to Mt. Saint Mary's College Seminary and was very pleased to share in this triumph for the Church. Another man has been raised to the office of Deacon to bring souls to Christ and Christ to souls. For the next year he will continue his formation and, God-willing, will be ordained a priest.

THE DEACON The deacon will help the bishop and his body of priests as a minister of the Word, of the altar, and of charity. As a minister of the altar, he will proclaim the Gospel, prepare the sacrifice, and give the Lord's Body and Blood to the community of believers. It will also be his duty, at the bishop's direction, to bring God's word to believers and unbelievers alike, to preside over public prayer, to baptize, to assist at marriages and to bless them, to give Viaticum to the dying and to lead the rites of burial. Once he is consecrated by the laying on of hands that comes from the apostles and is bound more closely to the altar, he will perform works of charity in the name of the bishop and the pastor. By his own free choice he seeks to enter the order of deacon. It is a ministry which he will exercise in celibacy, which is a sign and an incentive of pastoral charity. Moved by a sincere love for Christ, he will make a new and special consecration of himself to Christ. By his life he will give witness that God must be loved above all else and that it is He whom he serves in others. cf. Rite for the Ordination of Deacons

I had the honor and pleasure of singing with the Diocesan Choir today for the Mass and Ordination. The Handbell Choir of the Cathedral of St. Thomas More played as well. They are the best handbell choir I've ever heard in Arlington, but the timbre of bell choirs, like flute choirs, is something I can only handle in small doses. I find the sound to cheechy and chongy - I'm sure outside of the choir loft they sounded glorious but sitting right in front of them made it unpleasantly penetrating and clangorous. After the Mass I was at the reception speaking with a friend of mine who is applying to be sponsored for the seminary by Arlington. He was dressed in black pants and a white shirt - the attire of a pre-theologian in the seminary. The Vocations Director of Arlington was walking by and greeted him.

"Getting ready for the seminary?" He asked.

"Yes, indeed!" He exclaimed. "I thought I would wear the team colors!"

And Kairos guy isn't kidding about being reviled for bringing those fats pills to work.

Meanwhile, Williamson continues on as always....

In the past week or two, even some of the most hardened traditionalists I know have complained about SSPX Bishop Williamson's latest monthly letter, in which he appears to take a very firm stand against the possibility of an SSPX reconciliation. Here's an excerpt:

Even if these Romans were to speak exactly the same language as the SSPX still, by their modernist religion, they would not be meaninq the same things. Therefore the "reconciliation" would be verbal, not real, and the SSPX would have lost the protection of its present marginalization.

This does not appear to be much different than his various negative comments about the Campos reconciliation. Williamson, as everyone knows, is from England and was raised (at least nominally) as an Anglican. Reportedly, he briefly passed through the Catholic Church on his way to the SSPX schism. He know runs the SSPX's American seminary, and his influence within North America appears to be quite strong.

On the other end of the spectrum, (which is surprising given his past reputation as a SSPX hardliner) L'Abbe Paul Aulagnier from France is now making some pretty strong statements in favor of reconciliation. To share a little of his background, he was one of the SSPX's first priests and has held the offices of District Superior of France (which if I understand correctly is sort of the position of "first among equals" when it comes to SSPX District Superiorships), District Superior of Belgium and Second Assistant to the Superior General. Here's a loose translation of an excerpt from a recent interview he gave ITEM, in which he tackles these same topics:

I am very happy with the positive reaction of Bishop Fellay. "The negotiations continue," he said, "they are not dead." This is something good. I am always very favorable towards these contacts with Rome. We cannot "separate" from Rome, "forget" Rome.

Thus the best thing is to keep things, it is to keep these contacts frequent. Otherwise our "battle" would lose its reason of being. Our goal, over and above the salvation of souls, is to see our Apostolic Tradition rekindle in Rome -- and from Rome to the entire Church.

All isolation is dangerous, and ours in particular.

If we were not to turn toward Rome, we could in time create "a little Church". [Basically a non-Catholic Church like the Old Catholics - PJV]

Then the schism would be consummated well and good. This is our danger. This is why I am happy about Bishop Fellay.

This is also why I'm happy with the "agreement" that Bishop Rangel worked to bring to a successful conclusion with Rome by creating a personal apostolic administration with an exclusive right to the Tridentine liturgy. I hope we will get there ourselves as well.

Granted, my translation isn't perfect, but you get the gist of what Fr. Aulagnier is saying. Despite couching his comments behind appeals to Bishop Fellay's recent comments, it has taken him great courage to state what he has stated in public. (Which is why I'm not gonna quibble with him over whether the SSPX is headed towards schism or already there -- suffice to say, it appears that we both agree the SSPX will end up there permanently in the future if negotiations and contacts aren't intensified.) My heart and prayers go out to Fr. Aulagnier and I pray he will be successful in urging the SSPX toward reconciliation.

Unfortunately, my head tells me that most SSPX clergy still stand behind Williamson, and that he will likely win out if we don't see a massive change of heart among these same clergy. My pessimism is further amplified by the fact Fr. Aulagnier was recently transfered to North America. This is not good in my opinion. I have always found the SSPX quite euro-centric and thus I would not venture to guess that this transfer to North America was a promotion -- especially as Aulagnier is now in the heart of Williamson's sphere of influence.

Which only raises the following question: whose side Bishop Fellay is really taking behind the scenes? In other words, if Bishop Fellay is really in favor reconciliation, why would he transfer the SSPX's most outspoken and well-respected reconciliarist ourside of his reported sphere influence after he appeared to break with the party line, when no action appears to have been taken against Bishop Williamson -- who appears to be the SSPX's most outspoken opponent to reconcilation?

This gives the appearance of a double-standard and sends a strong message to the outside world that Williamson's ideological influence has won out within the SSPX. In my opinion, traditionalists on both sides need to watch the SSPX's treatment of Fr. Aulagnier carefully, because it likely will be the litmus test of how serious the SSPX is in approaching negotiations. Those like myself at St. Blog who favor reconciliation need to make a strong statement in support of Aulagnier right now.

Hey Sal, why not come to Venice, Florida instead? I've got a big shipment of venison and buffalo arriving next week. We could throw it on the smoker....

Teresa and I are headed to Venice, Italy this afternoon for a week-long vacation. We're in Venice for 3 days and then 4 days down the Po River. Steve has kindly accepted the offer to stay at Taj MaSchultz and take care of our two cats.

Please pray for safe travel. We'll pray for you all while we're at San Marco in Venice.

A new feature on Catholic Light! We'll post the strangest referrals we're getting from other places on the net. Not links, mind you, but where a reader was before they got to CL.

I don't know how someone got here from there but man oh man you shouldn't wonder why the Brits lost the empire and that timeshare in Hong Kong! This one isn't bad, but view some of the other animations at your own risk!

This one of Pavarotti is quite funny. My advice after poking around a bit more on the site - don't click on anything else.

Read this article in the WashTimes on the poop storm created by the DNC over the layoff of ten minority employees and you'll see their priorities are so utterly out of whack they can't even decide who to hate.

Pew-sitter Kelly Clark notices how impatient we can be about receiving Holy Communion, but figures that catering to this impatience by adding Extraordinary Ministers doesn't really help. Comments continue over at Dom's.

My seminarian friend Bro. Matt tells a story: he went to a weekday Mass once and found that he and two ladies were the whole congregation. The two were apparently parish regulars used to serving as EMEs, so at the usual time they went forward to the sanctuary, ostensibly to assist Father. The two ladies gave the Sacrament to each other, and the priest gave Holy Communion to Matt. He says in that Mass he was the Extraordinary Recipient of the Eucharist.

Or rather, a new chapel, for a college devoted to the transmission of Western and Christian culture.

Good Heavens: a baldachino!

Our links are fixed now. RC is happy. And you know our motto is "we're not happy unless RC is not happy!"

The press can't find out what denomination Deacon Steven Anderson served before as a minister, 'cause he's not doing interviews yet.

Normally that detail is the kind of thing one could ferret out with the help of Google, but searching for a common name like "Rev. Steven Anderson" doesn't narrow things down much. Let's guess: was he Lutheran, perhaps?

[spotted via Sullivan]

Update: Fr. Johansen identifies the mystery denomination in the comments.

Try: "Ketchup is a Vegetable"

Is it, btw.

via Foxnews.com

MAZATLAN, Mexico — A former priest who fled to Mexico to escape U.S. sex abuse charges died after jumping from the third-story balcony of a hotel as police closed in, authorities said Monday.

Siegfried F. Widera (search), 62, faced dozens of child molestation charges in California and Wisconsin.

Police surrounded the beachside hotel and planned to arrest Widera in this resort city on Mexico's Pacific coast, the Mexican judicial authorities said.

Minutes after authorities arrived, Widera ran to the balcony of his room and jumped, said Marta Gutierrez, a spokesman for the attorney general's office in Sinaloa state. She said it was unclear why he jumped, saying that he might have been trying to escape.

He died of head injuries Sunday on his way to a hospital, she said.

I thought I had seen everything there was to see on the net. I found the hobbit name generator.

Alexandra Baldwin - Rosie-Posie Gamgee-Took of Bywater
Bryan Baldwin - Todo Gamgee-Took of Bywater
Pete Vere - Orgulas Chubb
Eric Johnson - Fredegar Brandybuck of Buckland
Sal Ravilla - Mungo Trample of Woody End
Richard Chonak - Marroc Moss of Lake-by-Downs

And the greatest hobbit name of all time is John Schultz's -

Olo Sackville-Baggins

I suggest, Olo, that you ditch the hyphen and just go with "Baggins."

Here's one parish development project Michael Graves hasn't gotten into: St. Veronica's in Herndon, VA.

Here are some drawings of the plan. Click on the thumbnails to see how utterly appropriate the architecture is!

And a view from the top. A church shaped like a cross! What will they think of next?

I can't wait for part 2!

Cdl. Arinze's exhortation to fidelity at Georgetown last week brought forth in response this liberal cat-scratch:

Ed Ingebretsen, a professor of English at Georgetown and a priest in the American Catholic Church, said on Wednesday that Cardinal Arinze's remarks were in line with Catholic doctrine, but nonetheless seemed out of place at the commencement ceremony.

"These things are exactly what he's paid to say," Professor Ingebretsen said. "[But] it's a graduation; why he decided to do the pro-family thing no one seems to know."

Professor Ingebretsen said he was compelled, as a writer, to post a short apology on the email subscription list "on behalf of Catholics" for Cardinal Arinze's "insensitive remarks", which he termed "un-Christian".

Now, an exercise for the reader: which is in a better position to speak "on behalf of Catholics": (a) a Cardinal of the Roman Church; or (b) the ex-Jesuit minister of some gay-oriented mini-sect? It's a toughie, I know.

Speaking of snacks, I've been surfing the net looking for good places to buy buffalo meat and/or moose meat here in the good ol' USA. I'm not familiar with any of the companies I've surfed on the net, so I thought I would ask our readership since I love buffalo meat. Is there a company anyone has experience buying from and would reccomend?

now that I have seen the "Gallery of Regrettable Food." The Meat Meat Meat! sections contain "the finest examples of hideously glistening meatage" I have ever seen. Serve up this duo the next time the in-laws come over and they'll never be dining at your house again!

BATTLE OF THE BULGE COLONEL CREIGHTON ABRAMS, US ARMY

"And when he gets to Heavan,
To St Peter he will tell:
'One more Marine reporting Sir.
I've served my time in Hell.' "

Inscription on the grave of US Marine Pfc. Cameron,1942

"When you go home
Tell them of us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today"

If you have a broadband connection to the net download and listen to this rendition of Lincoln Portrait by Aaron Copland, narrated by James Earl Jones.

" -that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion" - The Gettysburg Address

ZENIT reports on Cardinal Castrillon's celebration of the old form of Mass at the Basilica of St. Mary Major. Here's the musical program: the plainchant was to be sung by the Benedictine monks of San Anselmo Abbey in Rome, and the polyphony by the Schola Sainte-Cécile from Paris.

"The old Roman rite preserves its right of citizenship in the Church and cannot be considered extinguished," Cardinal Castrillón said Saturday during the sermon, the only part of the Mass not in Latin....

What "unites the variety of rites is the same faith in the eucharistic mystery," the cardinal said. The St. Pius V rite was used before the liturgical reform introduced by the Second Vatican Council.

The celebrant read a message from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican Secretary of State, transmitting the Pope's blessing to those present.

The solemn celebration was attended by five cardinals: Bernard Law, archbishop emeritus of Boston; and William Baum, major penitentiary emeritus; Jorge Arturo Medina Estévez, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments; Alfons Maria Stickler, archivist and librarian emeritus of the Holy Roman Church; and Armand Gaetan Razafindratandra, archbishop emeritus of Antananarivo, Madagascar.

Also present was Archbishop Julián Herranz, president of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts.

If you like squirrels....

A friend sent me this link of some nuttiness one of her friends has gotten into. All the squirrels in the neighborhood know where to get their fix now! Don't miss the movie.

Blogger problems!

First, access to sites on blogspot.com has been spotty this past week. Second, our permalinks aren't posting properly so you can't link back to individual posts. Third, I can't edit the template. Bah! I think RC has a plan to move us to another blog system and our own server. I can't wait!

As I lay dying of laughter -or- The well-oiled Catholic

Last night I had the pleasure of dining in the rectory of one of the churches in Arlington. A friend of mine is the Parochial Vicar and he invited me over for a visit. I was regaled with wonderful stories like this one:

A retired priest was living in the rectory of one of these priests. He visited a nursing home once a week but was so forgetful about who he was supposed to see. The elderly padre was going on vacation and the pastor told him to anoint every Catholic in the nursing home before he left.

That Sunday a man came up to the pastor after Mass, told him that his father was at the nursing home and was near death. He asked if the pastor would give him last rites. The pastor said he was sure the man’s father had been anointed. “Are you denying my father the sacraments?” The man asked. The pastor didn’t want to get in a row with this man so he agreed to anoint his father.

The next day the man called the rectory and asked for the other priest. He asked again if his father could be anointed. The conversation went exactly as it had on Sunday with the pastor, and the priest went to anoint the dying man.

The next four days the man called around to other churches to have other priests anoint his father. They all complied.

One Friday the man’s father passed on. He had been giving last rites five times before he died.

At the funeral the pastor eulogized him in this way:

“When we lose a loved one it is normal to ask ‘is my father in Heaven now?’ I can say with great faith that you father is certainly in Heaven. He was anointed so many times before he died that he slid in!”

Bp. Lennon ordained nine new priests today at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross; it's a bigger crop than some recent years have seen, but as Fr. Wilson points out, St. John's Seminary so far has no entering students for the fall term.

Since John will be interested, here's a list of the music in the 2 1/2-hour service:

Procession: Festival Canticle ("This is the feast of victory")
Kyrie XVI with English tropes; simple ending.
Melodic Gloria by J. Chepponis
Psalm 89, setting by R. Twynham: too elaborate for ordinary parish use, but the text is suited for ordinations.
Gospel Acclamation by the late great Theodore Marier, from his Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Canticles

Litany of the Saints: just the usual English version.
It was interesting to hear the optional names in the list presumably added at the request of the ordinandi: St. Pio, St. Escriva, Bl. Andre Bessette, St. Faustina, St. John Vianney!

Laying on of Hands: Veni Sancte Spiritus, in English with Latin refrain ("Veni Sancte Spiritus/da perenne gaudium"), arranged by Leo Abbott.
Investiture: Veni Creator Spiritus, plainchant
Anointing of Hands: Psalm 110 ("You are a priest forever"), setting by John Schiavone
Pax: Psalm 100 ("God is our shepherd, and we the flock"), setting by Howard Hughes, S.M.

Preparation of Gifts: a choir anthem, O How Amiable by R. Vaughan Williams
Sanctus/Memorial/Amen from Mass for the City, R. Proulx
Lamb of God: Holy Cross Mass, Isele

Communion:
I Am The Good Shepherd, Hytrek
There Is No Greater Love, Joncas
Magnificat, Chepponis

Recessional: Crucifer ("Lift high the cross")

, my own comments in between):

Never before has he complained about debating Catholic Traditionalists. He debated Gerry Matatics many times after Mr. Matatics embraced Traditional Catholicism in the early 1990s. Mr. Matatics is also favorable to Geocentrism and does his share of critiquing the Zionist movement as well. Yet we have heard no complaints from White.

Two points: First, it is not White who is complaining, but rather his audience (both Catholic and Protestant). As a staunch Calvinist, White would likely consider the debate between orthodox Catholics and radical traditionalists something to be worked out on the Catholic side of the fence. It is not a matter of which side within the Catholic debate holds true, as White rejects both as false. (I should note that White is incorrect in this assumption, however, it is what he believes.) Thus in asserting his Calvinist position, he is trying to reach as wide a Catholic audience as possible. If CAI is no longer accepted among mainstream Catholics who follow the apologetics movement, then any head-to-head with Sungenis on White's part will simply be ignored or dismissed by most Catholics, and subsequently, most Protestants as well. Despite being an out-spoken Reformed Calvinist apologist, even White has enough Roman sensibility to recognize this. In short, when you become the Catholic equivalent to Peter Ruckman, others tune out.

Secondly, I find it interesting that Sungenis publicly claims that Matatics is also favorable to geocentrism. While this wouldn't surprise me, given that much of the modern push for geocentrism among a certain segment of the traditionalist population arises from Solange Hertz, and given that only a couple of years ago Matatics was hosting a weekly Solange Hertz study group in the Scranton area, I wonder whether there is a source to Sungenis' claim vis-a-vis Matatics and geocentrism? I mean, has Matatics commented publicly about geocentrism? If so, where? (Again, I'm not denying the possibility of such references; but if they exist, I would like to know where.)

Lidless Eyes and the Jews

Against the Grain, which is the blog of the Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club, posts some interesting comments on certain Dubious sources in Catholic Family News. Being a traditionalist myself, and having publicly confronted Michael Hoffman over this same issue on a traddy email discussion list five or six years ago, I can agree with Christopher's following conclusion: "Traditionalists may have legitimate grievances about the post-Vatican II church and the right to express them -- and it is entirely possible to do so in a respectul and credible manner. However, one can only conclude that Vennari's high praise of such a controversial source as 'one of the finest contemporary books on the subject of the Talmud' in the pages of Catholic Family News can only result in the further tarnishing and discrediting of the Catholic traditionalist movement."

As many Catholic Light readers are aware, this problem is nothing new when it comes to the fringes of the traditionalist movement (which is why I stick pretty closely to more moderate Ecclesia Dei organizations.) Here's an interesting little piece Michael J. Mazza wrote some time ago for Fidelity Magazine entitled No Ordinary Bishop.

L'espresso

St. Mary Major’s is the only of the great Roman basilicas left that celebrates the liturgy according to the classical tradition of Gregorian chant and polyphony.

Fact: Two years ago, when another Roman basilica wanted to accompany its Holy Week liturgies with this form of music, it had to turn to Germany and the excellent singers of the “Singer Pur” choir, invited by Brandmüller.

Another, more striking fact: the metamorphosis imposed on the Cappella Sistina, the choir that accompanies papal liturgies.

The coup de grace came in 1997 with the firing of the Sistina’s director, Maestro Domenico Bartolucci, an extraordinary interpreter of the great Roman tradition of sacred music. Since then, the papal rites – music included – have as their unchallenged director Bishop Piero Marini, the maestro of pontifical liturgical celebrations.

A great way to get rid of zits!

For some reason, I occasionally get these white-heads and black-heads on my nose. I think it is the hot and humid Florida climate. Anyway, my wife introduced me to a great way of getting rid of them today. Basically, take our toddler's liquid glue dispenser and rub some across my nose. Then when the glue solidifies into a film, peel it off and presto! All gone! Believe it or not, it worked...

OK, Sal, here you go!

You may wish you hadn't asked, because I'm writing of Milwaukee, Weakland, and Dolan.

I criticized the former Archbishop of Milwaukee in a comment below and was told that I should not dredge up what had been dredged before and that I get my facts straight. I was not callously criticizing; I simply wished to express my support of Archbishop Dolan, who, by all that I can see, is infinitely more suited to his current position than was his predecessor.

The age of the male person was not the issue. That the archbishop wrote (or attempted to write; it makes no difference) him a check out of diocesan funds was. He (Weakland) further showed his stripes by saying that he had given so much of his money to the diocese over the years that it was acceptable for the diocese to pay the male person. That is sophomoric reasoning at its best.

I am not judging the state of Archbishop Weakland's soul. I am saying that his actions are inconsistant with those of a man of faith who happens to be a shepherd of souls. What the archbishop has done publicly has caused scandal. I hope he has repented.

Now, as to the comments about the cathedral renovation (sought by Weakland, denounced by Rome, finshished by Weakland anyway, and I do mean any way):

The comment about the jacuzzi was meant to be sarcastic. I don't think there is any architectural reason to install a full-immersion baptismal pool in the aisle of a cathedral, notwithstanding the description of the baptistry found on the Cathedral's web page that says "Situated prominently in the Cathedral, the baptistry now takes its proper place in the celebrations of the community of believers."

What garbage.

That the pillars surrounding this wading pool (that's also sarcastic, of course) have been fashioned from the baldacchino is an additional insult.

That the choir has been moved out of its loft to be a visual center of attention is silly.

The Dali-esque "crucifix" with its giant crown of thorns, which has replaced the original, is so stylized as to be useless in a liturgical setting.

There are many more problems with the new interior of the cathedral, including the location of the altar, the seating, the pastels, &c. Go have a look at the website (and remember Lex orandi, lex credendi).

Finally, as for the soon-to-be installed portrait of Archbishop Dolan, I know the best location for it: at the back on the north side, right over that of his predecessor.

Cooking with Dom Bettinelli

He's got VOTF's recipe for half-baked reform over at his blog today.

Today on the CWN blog, Fr. Wilson referred us to the Dallas diocesan paper, whose editor, with a shaky finger, accuses the bishop's critics of "sliding ethics". It's an embarrassing rant, and the awkward writing makes you wonder what qualifications said editor has for his post:

Other TV stations are likely to take their cue from Belo’s operations unless they have a rare independently-minded [sic] manager....So much has changed corporately [sic]. The New York Times owns the Boston Globe...We could tell all that we know, but our Christian ethics guides us [sic] to be charitable.

Y'know, progressive types are fond of reminding us how well educated the Catholic laity is these days; so why does the diocese of Dallas insult the faithful with such schlock?

Mike Wendland (Detroit Free Press):

Now there is online grieving and virtual visitation for deceased loved ones.

Across metro Detroit and the nation, funeral homes are building tribute Web sites and putting up online guest books to share memories and honor the dead.

It's a growing trend. And despite some industry concerns over privacy, some homes are using live webcams in the visitation room and streaming video of funeral services...

The company captures funerals with a digital camera and broadcasts them live for seven funeral homes in South Dakota.

Its clients include funeral director Daryl Isburg, of Hot Springs, who heard about Chapelview during a conference and decided to give it a try.

Isburg said families often ask for a tape of the service to send to loved ones who couldn't be there. Relatives and friends who want to watch it online will be given a password.

Not everyone is sold on the idea.

"So will it come to: 'Hey, Mom's funeral got 40,000 hits?"' asked Tim Wingen, managing partner of Miller Funeral Home in Sioux Falls.

Announcement!

Forthwith all other Catholic Lighters are sacked and henceforth this blog shall be called "In Between Snacks." I'm going solo. I need some new graphics and your prayers. St. Drogo and St. Dymphna, pray for me!

chirp chirp

I'm going to invite some crickets to join the blog if my fellow Catholic Lighters don't post anything!

A wonderful post by Mark Shea

Linked to offset my surly demeanor this morning.

If you are called, you are gifted and if you are gifted, you have been called. Now the task is to discern what your call and your gifts are.

What a crock!

Former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair said he "couldn't stop laughing" when the newspaper corrected his fraudulent description of an American POW's home in West Virginia, according to excerpts of an interview with the New York Observer.

"That's my favorite, just because the description was so far off from the reality. And the way they described it in The Times story -- someone read a portion of it to me -- I couldn't stop laughing," Blair said in an interview scheduled for publication Wednesday. The newspaper made excerpts available to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

In one of his few interviews since resigning from the Times on May 1, Blair told the Observer that he "fooled some of the most brilliant people in journalism" with his reporting.

According to excerpts from the Observer, Blair said his deceptions stemmed from personal problems.

"I was either going to kill myself or I was going to kill the journalist persona," he said. "So Jayson Blair the human being could live, Jayson Blair the journalist had to die."

The problem with the "Blair Affair" is that other than losing his job, Jayson Blair had faced no serious consequences for his deception. Well, other than interviews, book and movie deals. A suggestion for the Times: sue the guy. Make it hurt. It's not enough to say "you'll never work in this town again."

Getting our priorities straight...

The home page of my old Parish in Alexandria, VA contains this memorable quote from the Pastor:

"A parish in the tradition of the Second Vatican Council, Someplace Special, where Jesus is Lord and Pittsburgh is number one!" -- Rev. George Griffin, Pastor

If I was preaching during fútbal americano season I would say "God is not a Steelers fan - he's a you fan." ¡Que profunda!

Commencement at Mount St. Mary's College and Seminary

Inside the Beltway today in the WashTimes

Surprise honors
Few in the audience for Sunday's commencement at Mount St. Mary's College and Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., recognized a man seated politely at the dais.
His identity became clear only when outgoing college President George R. Houston Jr. diverted from the program to announce that he was awarding a presidential medal to Mohammed Odeh Al Rehaief, the Iraqi lawyer who risked his life by urging U.S. Special Forces teams to make a daring predawn rescue of captured and wounded Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch.
"At first there was stunned silence — it was a complete surprise," Catherine Bartos, whose daughter received her diploma, tells Inside the Beltway. "Then this small man stood up and the place just exploded with applause — five minutes of sustained applause and tears — that went on and on and on and on. It was wonderful.
"Finally, at least a part of the American public was able to thank him for what he did for one of our own."

Ship of fools

LONDON (Reuters) -- A ship full of poets, video artists, painters, photographers and composers will set sail for the Arctic next week in a bid to get British schoolchildren interested in issues like global warming.

The artists, accompanied by scientists, will sail 200 miles (320 km) in a 93-year-old schooner, the Noorderlicht, from northern Norway to Spitsbergen in the Arctic.

As well as carrying out scientific experiments, the crew will take photographs, paint pictures and write about their experiences in one of the most inhospitable places on earth.

They plan to use their material to make a multi-media educational pack to be used in schools in Britain.

One of the crew members, film producer Colin Izod, told a news conference that a lot of educational material currently available to children is produced by "money-grubbing businessman flogging stuff to schools because they see a market there."

Of course he's a self-righteous penguin-hugging lefty flogging stuff to schools because it makes him feel better. Whew! It's way too early in the morning to be so nasty! God, forgive me!

Greetings from sunny Kuwait

So I'm sitting here in a cool, air-conditioned double-wide trailer, using a Dell workstation to type this. Quite a change from being in a combat zone, I can tell you. It's almost a little too much -- I even had pizza for lunch. A few weeks ago, I was happy to get my first shower in 37 days, and now I'm enjoying the higher creature comforts.

As you can probably tell, I am perfectly okay -- other than a few bruises and scratches which have healed, I suffered no injuries whatsoever. I appreciate everyone's prayers on my behalf, more than you can know, and I believe they were answered. When I get more time (probably when I get home), I will write about some of my experiences in Iraq and Kuwait, which hopefully will be of some interest.

My best to all of you, and please pray that I might return soon. We're in kind of a holding pattern right now, and trying to get a firm date for when we're going home. Among other things, I'd really like to meet Christopher Stephen Johnson, the son I've never met. I hear he's eager to meet me, too.

Mark Shea reports that some atheist out there recently urged his co-(anti)religionists to Be Kind To Believers by finding something nice to say about their blogs. One of them gave it a try, delivering a little love-bombing to CL and two other sites. But he just didn't feel right about it.

Father Gee rocks!

Make Fr. Gee's blog "The Mission" one of your frequent stops. He's a priest in the Diocese of Arlington on a missionary assignment in the Dominican Republic. He used to be the Parochial Vicar at Our Lady of Angels in Woodbridge. He's got audio posts and some great pictures. Pray for him and send him Spam of the Lite variety. How does one say "priestly spam" in Latin? "Sacerdotalis Spam"?

Happy Birthday, John Paul II!

The Pontiff is 83 years old today!

	Anyone remember this biographical comic book of JP II published by Marvel around 1983? I bought it when I was a kid. I wish I still had it!

Please Keep These Folks in Prayer

As I mentioned earlier, after doing a spate of annulment cases for various tribunals that involve people who were either addicted to pornography or involved in some capacity with the so-called "adult entertainment" industry, I'm hoping to write some sort of article in the next year. Anyway, after a couple of bad starts while trying to conduct research (and a sharp increase of the worst types of porn spam to my email account), I'm managed to find a number of pro-Christian as well as feminist sites that both offer hard statistics and share the experiences of those who are victims of pornography. Here's one particularly good website: Victims of Pornography. For those who think that pornography is mostly harmless, here's one particularly haunting testimony of child pornography:

I am thirty years old, married, with two young children, and have been on disability due to mental illness for the past eight years. I was born into an insane family where my grandfather physically and sexually abused me from a young age until I was fifteen. Part of what he did was send me to strangers' homes for child prostitution where I was also used for child pornography. My grandfather would take pictures of me, as well as show me haunting pictures of other kids who looked drugged and dazed.

May is Victims of Pornography Month. By victims, we should include the so-called performers. One of the ugliest truths I've discovered from a goverment report is that my hometown, Sudbury, is Canada's child-prostitution capital. (I found this even more disturbing than Christianity Today's following survey which determined that one in three ministers visited on-line pornography websites in the past year.) From the various feminist websites, I also came across various statistics corroborating my former experiences with Pentecostal street ministry as well as my current experiences in tribunal ministry, in that the vast majority of so-called "adult entertainers" are victims of childhood sexual abuse. Another interesting fact I dug up from ABC news is that our national security is at risk because of pornography. As veteran journalist Mike Malone asks in The Murder of Innocents, "Do you think it is a coincidence that al Qaeda hid its e-mails behind porn pictures?"

It's official -- after intensive research, scientists have concluded that politicians lie.

The recording on the USMC answering machine [WAV file]

The voice sounds like it could be Victor Lams.

Dude, where's my stoa?

The Old Oligarch posts a lenghty review of The Matrix: Reloaded. Why does the story of a Messiah or Savior have such mass appeal? It's simple: whether we recognize it or not, we need one.

OO posits that Fr. Jim Tucker was Keanu Reeves's stunt double. That can't be true. Don Jim is easily twice as tall as Reeves. And unlike the wooden Reeves, The good padre has complete control over over his facial muscles.

Catholics used to opening their web browsers and reading the Outrage Of The Day were greeted with this manifesto today, purporting to be the work of gay priests in the Altoona diocese. The document criticizes Bishop Adamec for kowtowing to the demands of "conservative" Catholics, ordaining men of "rigid" views as priests, and failing to defend the interests of priests accused of sexual abuse. Now, this is strange, because the "conservative Catholic" activists in that diocese, including the folks at the "Diocese Report" web site, have been making more or less the opposite complaints against the bishop for some time.

It looks like the folks at DR believe it's for real, and even Dom of CWN took it at face value for a while, but the text doesn't look legit to me. The writing's bad and it doesn't use the terminology you'd expect to find. It reads like some critic's not-too-sharp idea of "this is how the liberals really think".

So be on guard. My guess is that the statement is disinformation from some "conservative-Catholic" activist, somewhere between a joke and a smear. More at Dom's.

Is it me?

Or does this invention detail how lazy and wasteful our society can be?

"Disney to Begin Renting 'Self-Destructing' DVDs"

Maybe they could make Michael Moore's planned agitprop, er... documentary self-destruct before getting released?

You all have been a great congregation!!! Thanks, I'll be here all week!!!

Zorak asks,

Any suggestions on how to stop the congregation from bursting into applause after Mass? Seriously. It's a good mass (or at least, good enough, musical style is charismatic but no guitars and content of songs is not heretical, strong faithful homilies, tabernacle in the right place) but they CLAP at the end which is so deeply annoying, like they just saw a theater performance. Or, any suggestions on how I can get over this?

Applause used to happen after every Mass at Saint Mark's. The pastor got tired of it for the reasons listed above and started a campaign. First, he preached about how applause is not an effective reaction to the Gospel and how if they thought they could just clap-n-go and not live out the Gospel, they were fooling themselves. He had announcement read at the beginning of Mass on successive weeks by the cantor, choir director or organist. We were asked to put them in our own words in order to make sure they were communicated sincerely.

After about 3 weeks - no more applause. It had actually tapered off each week as people get the clue. I heard a few parishoners complain about it, but now we don't miss it and there's not the feeling of leaving a concert hall or theater at the end of Mass.

So it worked out fine. Just took a conscious effort by pastor, priests and liturgy staff to discourage it.

Related to the latest Moran affair during which the Representative tried to turn Mass into a campaign stop, Frs. Belli and Dobbins are now being called Frs. "Shock" and "Awe."

One of the points of concern mentioned in Cardinal Maida's letter below is this:

Most distressing however, is the fact that Dr. Padovano continues to celebrate Mass publicly at "The Inclusive Community" as "Pastor" in Nutley, NJ, although he was laicized in 1974 and married soon afterwards.

In 1986, an ordained UCC pastor, a woman whom I had taught at Ramapo College of New Jersey, invited me to share with her the co-pastorate of First Congregational Church in Passaic, New Jersey. A year-long dialogue had led the Protestant community there to invite a Catholic priest to lead them, together with the Protestant pastor. The Community would re-name itself The Inclusive Community and it would invite Catholics and Protestants to join it as Catholics and Protestants. The Catholic priest would be evaluated by a search committee, the Church Council and, finally, by the Congregation. If the candidate was approved by these three bodies, he would be appointed by the Congregation as the Catholic Pastor of The Inclusive Community. This process was completed after a vote of the Congregation on November 2, 1986.

This Community meets in the chapel of a regular UCC congregation in Nutley, New Jersey -- and surely there couldn't be a more fitting place name. Dr. Padovano himself, on the Catholic Light evaluation scale, ranks as a solid 8, earning the rating .

This came in the mail today:

Want to join the missions without leaving home: by offering your creative skills to evangelize and catechize?

Founded in 1998 by the Legionaries of Christ, Catholic World Mission seeks to effect long-term transformation of poverty of body, mind and spirit by bringing emergency aid, education, the Gospel, and spiritual and human support to those most in need. Our aim: To Conquer Poverty with the Richness of Our Catholic Faith.

Catholic World Mission supports over 10,000 poor children in 18 Mano Amiga ("Helping Hand") schools throughout Latin America, as well as over 1,000 Lay Missionaries working full-time in more than 600 parishes and 40 dioceses in Latin America, bringing the Faith to over one million people, and sends medical missions and aid to parishes serving the poorest of the poor.

Will you help us to help our poor brothers and sisters in Christ?

Here's what you can do:
* Catholic World Mission has launched a series of bi-lingual children's coloring books telling the lives of the saints and generating enthusiasm to support their mission work. The first two books have already shipped over 25,000 copies and the next three books will be released in time for Christmas.
* These books are also made into radio dramas called "Glory Stories," which have already been played on Catholic radio stations coast-to-coast.

These books and radio dramas are a series--each one teaching a Truth of the Faith, a Catholic virtue, and energizing children (and their parents) to spread the Faith in their families, parishes, and through Catholic World Mission--among the destitute throughout the world. Funds raised through donations for these items goes to support our mission work, building schools, supporting local priests and bishops, and sending medical missions wherever they are needed.

Are you a writer? Would you volunteer to write a 1,000 word children's coloring book, capturing a child's imagination with the excitement of the saints?

Are you an artist? Could you create 30 line drawings to illustrate a coloring book, illuminating the wonder of the Gospel in action?

Are you a recording artist? Would you lend your voice or musical talents for a "Glory Story" to bring beauty and enchantment to young listeners?

What a great project to have your talent and name linked with--and you'll get full credit for your creativity with your picture and biography inside every product you help us produce.

Contact Ken Davison, Executive Director of Catholic World Mission at 203-287-6323 or via email. Visit us on the web at www.catholicworldmission.org.

The Anglican Archbishop of Porn

It is not very often that I become this judgmental or resort to such angry language, but I'm extremely upset at the moment. Since I first began tribunal ministry, I've often heard first hand the negative effects of pornography addiction on marriage. I've also, albeit not as often, heard heart-wrenching stories from former prostitutes and/or so-called adult entertainers. In reviewing their testimony, regardless of whatever tribunal happens to be doing the case, a pattern of abuse (physical, sexual and emotional) and exploitation almost always arises. Both confidentiality and common decency forbid me from going into any details.

Anyway, not too long ago I began thinking about researching and writing a piece concerning the effects of pornography on marriage. After my first attempt at a google search yielded some results with which I was most uncomfortable, I added the word "Christian" to the other search terms I was employing. To my great disgust, here's what came up: Spong.

Reverend Robert Ruedisueli, Pastor St. Mark Parish
4257 Bart Avenue
Warren, MI 48091-1977

Dear Father Ruedisueli

Recently it has come to my attention that your parish will be hosting Dr. Anthony Padovano for a full day lecture series entitled: "Finding Optimism and Hope for the Future Church" on May 14th, from 9:30am. until 3:00 pm. Although Ms. JoAnn Loria is listed on the promotional literature as the person responsible for information, I presume that you, as Pastor, have given consent for the lecture series. As chief Teacher and Pastor of the Archdiocese, I must ask that you cancel Dr. Padovano's lecture. I do not undertake this matter without due consideration for you, as Pastor, and the practical and personal difficulties you may encounter in fulfilling my directive.

You may not be aware of the range of Dr. Padovano's theological views, some of which are clearly in opposition to the authoritative teaching of the Church. Among such positions are his advocacy for the ordination of women and his view that the celebration of the Eucharist need not be limited to ordained ministry. According to the National Catholic Reporter (March 14, 2003, p. 11) he is a "National Tour Co-sponsor" for the "Rev. Ida Raming, Ph.D., noted Catholic theologian and women's ordination pioneer. Dr. Raming [will speak] about her experience of ordination, excommunication, and the future of women's ministry in the Roman Catholic Church."

Other doctrinal ambiguities concern Dr. Padovano's understanding of original sin, the virginal conception of Jesus, the importance of the physical resurrection of Jesus, apostolic succession as essential for the validity of Holy Orders, as wellas positions concerning contraception and abortion.

Most distressing however, is the fact that Dr. Padovano continues to celebrate Mass publicly at "The Inclusive Community" as "Pastor" in Nutley, NJ, although he was laicized in 1974 and married soon afterwards.

You may not be aware that Dr. Padovano helped to establish CORPUS (Corps of Retired Priests United for Service) soon after his laicization as an advocacy group for married priests. A review of the CORPUS homepage indicates active web-links to "Catholics for a Free Choice," "Dignity" and other advocacy groups which promote doctrines and social policies contrary to the teachings of the Church. I fully recognize that such web-links do not, of themselves, necessarily indicate any heterodox position held by Dr. Padovano himself on such matters. However, Dr. Padovano has identified Dignity and the Women's Ordination Conference, among other groups, as 'the synagogues of the renewal(National Catholic Reporter, November 12, 1.999, cover story).

In review of the serious concerns which Dr. Padovano's writings and advocacy efforts present, especially in matters ecclesiological, I believe that the potential harm caused to the lay faithful by his lecture series at your parish outweighs the potential benefit envisioned.

Pastoral prudence and my obligation as Archbishop require me to direct you to cancel Dr. Padovano's engagement at your parish on May 14th .I have asked Bishop Blair to be available to meet with you to discuss any questions or concerns you may have.

Sincerely yours in the Lord,
Cardinal Adam Maida, Detroit

cc: Bishop Blair

RESPONSE BY ANTHONY PADOVANO

Cardinal Adam Maida
Archdiocese of Detroit
1234 Washington Blvd.
Detroit, Michigan 48226

Dear Adam,

Your April 28 letter to the pastor of St. Mark Parish canceling my lecture on "Optimism and Hope in the Church" left me perplexed and disappointed. The cancellation of a talk on hope in such a season of cynicism and despair in the Church is especially mystifying. Just thirteen days before, on April 15, your auxiliary bishop, Tom Gumbleton, who knows my work well, and I met in New Jersey during his lecture on non-violence.He told me he knew of my scheduled talk, was delighted I was coming to Detroit and welcomed me to the archdiocese.

I find the letter disappointing because there was no effort to deal with me directly.I was never informed of your concerns or invited to address them.Did I not deserve that?Is it really just, under canon or civil lawor even just plain human decency and courtesy, to criticize me in absentia in a letter from one Church official to another?Should I not have had some say in a decision by you of what I teach and what I believe?

I am writing this letter on Sunday, May 11, Mothers Day; the Sunday Gospel is the Good Shepherd.Such a contrast!I was taught to see the Church as Mother Church and the ministers of the Church as shepherds.How many Catholics today, loyal, faithful, intelligent, find such images alien to their experience of the Church, partly because of letters written in the spirit of your April 28 letter?

The charges the letter raised are so many and so generic that a defense would be a burden for me and would amount to an irrelevance for you because you have already judged me, without a hearing, from newspaper accounts, hearsay, and critics whose grasp of theology is often ideological or uninformed.I expected more from a canon lawyer, a cardinal, a colleague, a pastor.

The letter is astonishing in its sense of fear and misinformation.I do not feel anger over this, only disappointment.The letter recognizes "ambiguities" in my theology and notes that my writing is not necessarily "heterodox".So there was a lot of room for discussion and distinction and definition.None of this occurred.In place of truth, we got judgment.

Allow me to chose one instance of misinformation.

There is a citation of your being troubled by my views on contraception.Actually, I hold on contraception the same position found in Human Life in Our Day, the l968 pastoral letter of the American Catholic bishops.As you know, I wrote that letter and I included in it the rules for legitimate theological dissent, rules I have followed.All this was approved as the authentic teaching of the American Catholic hierarchy.In that letter, it was affirmed that a married couple might be faced with a conflict between papal teaching, the needs of the marriage and the inability responsibly to have more children.In such instances, they should address such "agonizing crises of conscience" with a certitude that they will find compassion from Church ministers and from Christ. Other hierarchies, such as the French, dealing with the same dilemma, asked couples to let their consciences decide the issue.

Indeed, as late as June of l995, some 52 American bishops asked for greater dialogue in their meetings and less fear of Rome as they discussed some fifteen points of contested teaching, covering indeed most of the items listed in your letter of disapproval. I suspect that the vast majority of priests and laity in Detroit think as I do on this and many other issues.

In any case, this is not a point-by-point letter.It is meant to illustrate briefly how differently you might have seen things if we had had a chance to talk before judgments were made.

I am especially disturbed by your use of terms such as "laicization" when the Code and Catholic teaching make it clear that a priest can never be made a lay person.I filed for a dispensation and I received it.I am always a priest.Why would such inaccurate terminology have been used in your letter, indeed terminology that is against authoritative teaching of the Church?The implication furthmore that a priest is punished by being made a lay person is offensive to every baptized Christian.

I am concerned that CORPUS is defined exclusively as an advocacy group.It was established as a place of healing and witness for Catholic priests who married, a pastoral resource for priests who were abused, in many instances, by the Church and especially by its bishops.If we call for a married priesthood, we are calling for something that already exists among Eastern Catholics and, in the West, among former Protestant pastors.Indeed a married priesthood was the norm during the entire apostolic period of the Church.

We need not go on, Adam, because your letter implies that you prefer to judge me, indeed to pre-judge me, without reference to my own testimony.

I am mindful of the fact that when we were students in Rome, authentic papal teaching moved in a very different direction from where it is now.Vatican II reversed this former teaching on many issues.Were the theologians who advocated their positions before Vatican II so much out of the tradition then?Or were the popes further from the present teaching than they now are willing to admit?

You are the Archbishop of Detroit and you have been there a long time.It astounds me that my being there for one day might unsettle the laity so unduly that you feel it necessary to prohibit even one day of exposure to what might be an alternative way of addressing our common Catholic faith. As you know, the lecture will go on, with even more laity in attendance, at a different venue.It seems sadly patronizing to be so concerned about the laity as though they are not adults.You are not concerned about the clergy although, as you know, many, if not most, think as I do.

I am concerned for the humiliation the pastor of St. Mark Church must feel at this public rejection of his pastoral decision to invite me to his parish and to his rectory.He knows the people of his own parish better than anyone else.He was not troubled about their hearing me.

The fact that this decision was delayed until almost the last moment, even though the invitation to lecture was begun seven months ago, is especially insensitive.

Adam, you need to live with the pastoral consequences of your own decisions.No doubt, you feel justified in what you are doing. The fact that so many others in your diocese disagree with you must cause you some concern.There was a more gentle and compassionate and Christ-like way for you to have handled this issue.The fact that you chose not to follow that path saddens me.

Dr. Anthony T. Padovano
Catholic Theologian
9 Millstone Drive
Morris Plains, New Jersey 07950

Jim Moran allegedly put his foot in his mouth yet again: "You priests don't know anything about abortion."

For the Wash Times Inside the Beltway today:

Here's what we know: Two days before Election Day in Alexandria, Mr. Moran, who is Catholic, took Virginia's visiting Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine, and Alexandria city councilman and Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Euille (who is not Catholic and won the election) to Mass with him "to shake a few hands," says our source close to Mr. Euille.

In fact, Roll Call newspaper reported that Mr. Moran asked that Mr. Euille be recognized during the Mass, a request that the parish rebuffed.

With the three politicians seated before him, the Rev. Bryan Belli delivered the sermon, part of which touched on pro-life issues and Catholic politicians who ignore church teachings. Mr. Moran's spokesman, Dan Drummond, was quoted in Roll Call as saying that it is unethical and possibly illegal for Father Belli to attack the Democratic Party from the pulpit.

After the 9 a.m. Mass, according to the newspaper, a "red-faced" Mr. Moran exchanged heated words with the Rev. Michael Dobbins, with Mr. Moran "screaming and pointing his finger at him."

"How can you reconcile yourself as a Catholic with your views on abortion?" the priest is reported to have asked Mr. Moran, who is said to have shot back, "You priests don't know anything about abortion."

"Congressman, put away the talking points. Talk to me as your priest," Father Dobbins told his parishioner. Mr. Moran is reported to have replied that there was "not enough time" and walked off but not before hearing the priest say: "Congressman, one day you will need me, and I will be here."

"That's what these pro-abortion 'Catholics' seem to forget," Mrs. Brown [Judie Brown, president of the American Life League] said yesterday. "The pastor is not interested in the politician's voting record but his soul. It is a credit to Bishop Loverde's leadership that his priests are confident enough to boldly proclaim the Gospel, even in the face of elected leaders who claim to have a mandate from the people for their immoral positions on abortion."

In America, they would have made it so tacky.

Postscript: Come to think of it, haven't we all wanted to blow up a parish from time to time?

Over at Chez Shea

Writing about the state of the Church:

"Our present problem is that we are sacramentalized but uncatechized--and that the people doing the catechesis brilliantly think the solution is embrace TV wisdom and call it progress."

True, true, true.

Is that a donut in your holster, or are you happy to see me?

Teen Forced to Pay Cop for Calling Him 'Fat'

LONDON (Reuters) - Judges ordered a British teenager to pay $160 to a policeman for "mental anguish" after calling him "fat," the Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

"Sure, I enjoy the odd curry and a pint or two, but I am not fat at all. That's unfair," he said. "I play cricket for my local club and coach junior football, so if anything, I think I am quite sporty."

One question: if you are "quite sporty" then why did you suffer from mental anquish when a drunken teenager called you fat?

I wonder if 30 people got up yesterday and said, "Hey, I think I'll commit de facto schism over at the Elks' Lodge." A sympathetic article has this:

[The Rev. Ronald] Ingalls' wife, Sheila, said she didn't want the service to be too conventional.

"I wanted it to be special," said Sheila Ingalls, manager of online banking at Middlesex Savings Bank in Natick.

A boom box, taking the organist's place, played tapes with songs for everyone to sing including, "Come As You Are," which expressed the sentiment of the congregation.

Yesterday the Globe teased some results of its recent poll of Catholics, saying that 39% would support an American Catholic church independent of the Vatican. (Never mind that 52% would oppose this.) But today the details show who's behind those numbers. People who attend Mass less than monthly -- non-practicing Catholics -- support such a suggestion (no surprise there). People to whom the faith is "very important" reject it (62% vs. 26%). So to all of you people who never attend Mass: have a nice day.

Says Gregory Wolfe, editor of Image Journal, an arts and religion quarterly: "In the Catholic tradition, faith is about making the invisible present. Catholicism celebrates the physicality of the sacraments — Christ's body and blood in the bread and wine. We witness through our bodies to others.

"What we see when we see the pope is the way time reveals what lies beneath the externals. Our existence is a kind of testing and refining, a purifying that shows what we are really made of," Wolfe says.

With you a lifetime
Malcolm Ritter
AP in the Washtimes

This Mother's Day, there's some news for moms to reflect on — the kind only they can truly appreciate: Even if a woman's children have grown up and moved away, they probably still carry a part of mom with them, but not in the way one might think. What's more, mothers probably still carry a part of their children.
It turns out that even decades after a woman gives birth, she can still have cells in her blood and tissues that came from her children during pregnancy.
And by the same token, many adults appear to harbor such cells they picked up from mom during their time in the womb.

A few too many Star Trek Conventions...

Klingon Interpreter Needed for Ore. Mental Patients

The language created for the Star Trek TV series and movies is one of about 55 needed by the office that treats mental health patients in metropolitan Multnomah County.

"We have to provide information in all the languages our clients speak," said Jerry Jelusich, a procurement specialist for the county Department of Human Services, which serves about 60,000 mental health clients.

Although created for works of fiction, Klingon was designed to have a consistent grammar, syntax and vocabulary.

And now Multnomah County research has found that many people — and not just fans — consider it a complete language.

Good thing my parish doesn't have a Klingon outreach program...

On the topic of discernment

Several brother bloggers have chimed in lately about discernment and vocations to the priesthood:

Karl from Summa Contra Mundum gives some directions to solving the priest shortage in his diocese. His first point is that if you a single guy you owe it to God to ask if he is calling you to the priesthood. If you think the answer might be yes you must come to understand that you don't have a better plan for your life than God does. Pray and earnestly seek God's will in the matter. He will take your measly five loaves and two fishes and multiply them in ways you can't imagine.

Fr. Sibley also has a post on the topic, quoting Hans urs von Balthasar:

In obeying his calling a person fulfills his essence, although he would never have been able to discover this, his own archetype and ideal within himself, in his nature, by descending into the center of his natural being, his superego, his subconscious or superconscious, by studying his pre-dispositions, yearning, talents, his potential. Simon the fisherman could have explored every region of his ego prior to his encounter with Christ, but he would not have found "Peter" there; for the present, the "form" summed up in the name "Peter", the particular mission reserved for him alone, is hidden in the mystery of Christ's soul. - From Hans urs von Balthasar's Prayer

Daily spam

I'm going to up RC's ante with this spam that in various forms comes copiously out of Africa:

Dear Sal Ravilla

Thanks to a piece of information I gathered about you
through the Togolese Chamber of Commerce and
Industry,Although I did not leave any clue as to the
reason for my enquiry bearing in mind the
confidentiality required in this absolute risk-free
Business.

He goes to say I could share in an unclaimed fortune that is sitting in Togolese bank account if I would just give him my account number. How in the name of Heaven did the Togolese Chamber of Commerce and Industry get any information about me? Anyone with cognitive ability greater than bathroom tile knows this is a trick - my address ended up on this Swindler's List so that he could bilk me of the $313.17 in my checking account. Good thing Padre Ravilla taught young Sal well!

The only other practicing Catholic where I work is from Ghana. Whenever I get this spam at work I blame it on him. He thinks it's funny. "Look," I say. "If you need money for lunch just ask!"

Where in Hell are you? According to the "Dante's Inferno" Test, I'll be in Purgatory. Hooray!

Call me judgmental, but it looks like the author of the following badly-spelled spam is buckin' for a permanent spot Down There.

Subject: Has Your Life Been Ruined by Evil?

Have you really, really, really been hurt to the point where your live is a living hell?

~ Has somebody or something drastically altered your life? ~
~ Would you give anything to take back your stolen life? ~
~ What if there was a way to undo all done to you for $100,000? ~

What I am referring to is something which is well covered up from the general public! I have access to the way, and need just one single person to work with.

Who I pick will be determined on the severity of their situation. This is your one and only chance to live life over, and take control over what was stolen from you. Mentally stable open minded individuals a must! Someone close to the Boston area is preferred.

If you want your life back and would like for me to consider you, email a brief description of your situation to me at powercrystals@firemail.de .

Yuck

How utterly revolting. Almost as revolting as Sinead O'Connor teaching religion...

As everybody has noticed, that poor wandering soul Sinead O'Connor wants to take up a new career teaching religion to primary-school children. How many parents will agree to that?

Springfield (MA) Bishop Thomas Dupre's announcement that he may retire would make it a clean sweep: all four Massachusetts dioceses will be getting new bishops. Are readers seeing turnover like this elsewhere?

I usually attend Mass at a church in Boston, but just got a letter from the local parish finance council out here in the suburbs, asking for a $200 donation to help meet a budget shortfall. Mass attendance and donations are off 25% this year in a parish hard hit by the sex-abuse scandals. The committee says that if they can't make ends meet, the parish will have to lay off some staff in the areas of "liturgy, youth ministry, ministry formation, and education".

As it happens, this parish is known across the diocese for its awful music: the music director can't play, or teach, or even count the beat well. So I'm thinking of offering $500 if they lay her off! This could be the salvation of the parish!

I'm impressed with the way the writer of this story about a sloppy abortionist de-emphasizes the baby-killing angle. Normally any story involving "the procedure" is hot news, but here the headline and the first paragraph refer to mere "surgeries". We wouldn't want the public to get the idea that abortion providers are less than perfectly compassionate, competent, and unmercenary physicians, would we?

A song parody takes a potshot at Reformed theology -- and scores!

Jesus loves me, this I think,
If I'm wrong, to hell I’ll sink,
Little ones to Him belong,
To save or damn, for He is strong!

May

May got off to a bad start, in terms of honoring Our Lady. I had planning on having the choir do the Aichinger "Regina Caeli" as a choral prelude on Sunday and the organ preludes went a bit long and the entire liturgy staff was on edge because we had First Communions and that can sometimes mean liturgical mayhem. It translated into Mass starting a bit early with no prelude.

Then I had the flash - we'll make it a postlude. Why not? There's a handful of folks who didn't leave after communion and didn't dash out the door that are still in the church by the time we're done with the last stanza. But the postlude didn't happen either because the pastor didn't process out - there were photos to be taken and they had to happen in front of the sanctuary right after Mass. So a postlude would have interrupted the directions: "Katelyn, go stand next to Father." "Cooper - get back here now!" "Colton, put your white bowtie back on!"

To top it off, I had been at a parish the night before when they had actually done the May crowning at the beginning of Mass. I had never seen that done at Mass before - I'm sure there's some liturgists out there who would say it's not appropriate because of it's devotional nature - but at least the heart is in the right place. The only problem with the May crowning had to do with a miserly approach to the hymns: we did only two verses of "Hail Holy Queen" and the crowners were crowning in silence. Note to the misers: Hymns are prayers. Don't be stingy. They are not meant to give everyone something to do while there is movement around the church.

This week we'll do the Jaeggi arrangement of the "Salve Mater" - I promise.

Prayers Needed

My wife and I have a friend named Marcella Morocco that is dying of emphazema. Please keep her in your prayers and entrust her to the mercy of God.

Now, THAT'S Dual-Use Facility

"You'll never guess where I'm typing this email from!"

This article will be of interest to all Web users. You can propose some other trade names in the comment boxes below.

Newsweek provides us this quote:

“I just don’t think that you should eat anything that’s Jesus. It’s OK to eat the cross as long as God is not on it.”
--Liz Samuel, a supervisor at the Gertrude Hawk Chocolates store in Langhorne, Pa., on the store’s selling chocolate statues of Jesus

For convenience, you might press our Lord's image into a chocolate coin so that you could receive it whole and entire -- that would go over better. If you wanted, you could even put Caesar on one side and Christ on the other.

eje asks: "If they made a statue of John the Baptist, would it be appropriate to eat the head first?"

Now, he'd be bittersweet.

Ecclesia Dei vs. a Reform of the Reform?

Concerning the discussion below on the universal indult reportedly being considered, and whether it is better to focus on the Ecclesia Dei indult or a reform of the Novus Ordo as it is currently celebrated in most parishes, keep in mind that some liturgical adaptation in line with Sacrosanctum Concilium is permitted to the Ecclesia Dei indult. In fact, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei has conceded to a number of Benedictine monasteries who come under the auspices of the Ecclesia Dei indult, as well as to the Society of St. John and many other indult communities that have requested it, the following liturgical adaptations of the 1962 typical edition of the Roman Missal when celebrating their sung conventual Mass. This may also be followed at any high Mass, if I recal correctly. The order that may be followed at the sung conventual Mass is as follows:

1. When the conventual Mass follows some part of the Divine Office, the Mass may begin with the “Introit.” The chant and the prayers at the foot of the altar for the beginning of Mass are omitted.
2. The Liturgy of the Word may be celebrated at the chair.
3. The Readings may be proclaimed facing the people, either in Latin or in the vernacular. The celebrant does not repeat either the Readings or the chants that belong to the choir or to the people.
4. The Prayer of the Faithful can be used in its proper place after the "Oremus" before the Offertory. It is to be in accord with the examples found in the approved liturgical books or with duly approved examples found elsewhere.
5. The "Oratio super oblata" (Prayer Over The Gifts) may be sung.
6. The doxology, "Per ipsum," may be sung by the celebrating priest while he raises on high the chalice and host above the altar. He keeps them raised on high until the end of the doxology as the choir responds "Amen."
7. The "Pater Noster" may be sung by all along with the celebrant.
8. The final blessing may be sung. And after it is sung, the Reading of the beginning of the Gospel according to John is omitted.

Additionally, in response to requests from local Ecclesia Dei communities as well as in virtue of local custom, the PCED has approved the use of the old Lectionary in the vernacular. Further, the use of Mass formularies from the new Missal and the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary may also be used with the 1962 Missal.

On Holy Saturday 1993, three Orthodox monks of Russia's Optina Pustyn monastery were killed by some Satanist kook. Perhaps one day they will be canonized saints. Ten years later, these "new martyrs'" stories are being told. The Voice of Russia's weekly religious program recalls one of them, and his life seems to take on a mythic glow already.

For the audio, follow this link, scroll down, and play the program for 0900 Saturday. The religious segment of the program starts at 31 minutes, 30 seconds into the hour, so use your RealPlayer or WMPlayer to skip to that point.

(Holy new martyrs, pray for us.)

Some Biblical names do not carry with them an air of sanctity. What were this lady's parents thinking?

On May 1, London-based military-data giant Jane’s Information Group and Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) are cosponsoring “Companies on the Ground: The Challenges for Business in Rebuilding Iraq.” Registration: $528 to $1,100. The partnership began planning after the war started. “Bush seemed prepared to use the private sector in ways we haven’t seen before,” says Bathsheba Crocker, a CSIS fellow. (Newsweek)

Protestant missionary station HCJB has been broadcasting evangelical programs worldwide via shortwave from "high in the Andes, at Quito, Ecuador" since 1931, but is ending its transmissions in English and French this year. Media technology has changed and the needs of the audience have changed: the shortwave audience for both languages has dropped, and many places that formerly had no Christian local radio now do have it. Perhaps the first missionary shortwave station, they were also the best, often with a gentle and positive approach that even non-believers didn't mind hearing. HCJB is focusing its resources on other languages and on producing programs to be aired on local radio in various parts of the world.

Catholic missionary radio will need to make the same transition. While shortwave can still reach some fair-sized audiences in Latin America, Africa, and much of Asia, broadcasting to the tiny SW audiences in North America, Japan, and Western Europe is already not an effective use of missionary donations. I sometimes wonder whether it was wise for EWTN to build a shortwave station when that technology was already on the wane. But the folks at EWTN radio know the trend, and they are offering their programming to Europe via satellite services.

Internet audio is becoming more prominent. Some of the countries in Asia are highly wired: South Korea has an amazing 19 broadband drops for every 100 people.

But how to get Catholic radio into people's cars? The US satellite services XM and Sirius have both been struggling financially, it seems; but those carriers would give a Catholic channel instant nationwide reach, a feat that is probably unattainable by building an AM/FM network.

Some dame in Philly claims that a Jesuit priest "ordained" her 23 years ago. (Hey, it was 1980; the fringe types would try anything back then.)

Here's some of her reasoning:

"I don't want to be excommunicated, but I decided that you can't be excommunicated from something you are," Heffernan said. "And the doctrine of the church is that we are the church."

I guess there is no such thing as excommunication under this gal's logic, so, hey: I feel a song comin' on. Everybody join hands and sing along (We Are The World):

We are the Church,
We're priests, we're women,
There is no excommunication
and there is no sinnin':
It's our voice we're raisin',
We're savin' our own souls,
We're gonna have the Church our way eventually...

The CWN blog cites a Catholic Herald (UK) story claiming that the Pope is preparing to issue a "universal indult" allowing priests to freely celebrate the old form of Mass. The web site is hard to reach at times, so I'll quote it here:

Pope prepares to lift restrictions on Tridentine Mass
English bishops request secret report from Latin Mass Society
By Simon Caldwell

The Pope might soon allow the world's Catholic priests the right to celebrate the old rite Latin Mass on Sundays and holy days without the permission of their bishops, according to sources close to the Vatican.

John Paul II is understood to be ready to grant a "universal indult" by the end of the year to permit all priests to choose freely between the celebration of Mass in the so-called Tridentine rite used up to 1962 - before the disciplinary reforms of the Second Vatican Council - and the novus ordo Mass used after 1970.

It will mean that a priest who wants to celebrate old rite Masses will no longer need to apply for an indult to Ecclesia Dei, a pontifical commission set up to study the implications of the Lefebvrist schism, after first gaining permission from his bishop.
The indult may be announced as part of the publication of forthcoming juridical notes on Ecclesia de Eucharistia, the new encyclical on the Eucharist, published on Holy Thursday, in which the Pope affirmed the Church's traditional teaching of the sacrificial nature of the Mass.

It might also be announced at the Basilica of St Mary Major in Rome on May 24, when Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the Prefect for the Congregation of the Clergy and the president of Ecclesia Dei, becomes the first cardinal prefect to celebrate an old rite Mass in a main Roman basilica for 30 years. Organised by the Latin Mass movement, Una Voce, the event is one of many indications that Rome is dropping restrictions on the celebration of the old rite.

Last month, the Holy Father, who celebrated a Tridentine Mass last summer, published a command called Rescriptum ex Audientia to authorise the celebration of the old rite Mass in St Peter's Basilica, Rome, by any priest who possessed an indult.
The Vatican also asked the Scottish bishops, ahead of their five-yearly ad limina visit to Rome in March, to reveal what provisions they made for the celebration of the old rite Mass in their dioceses. Since the meeting, the Scottish bishops have stepped up their provision from just four a year in the whole of the country to at least one a month in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The same requests have been made in a questionnaire to the English and Welsh bishops, whose next ad limina visit to Rome will take place in the autumn. The bishops have invited the Latin Mass Society (LMS), set up to promote the practice of the old rite, to submit a report on the provision of the Tridentine Mass ahead of their low week meeting in London this week when they were scheduled to discuss the issue.

John Medlin, LMS development officer, confirmed that a "full document" had been circulated to the bishops but refused to discuss its contents.

Manatee, Cow of the Sea

Are they more important than people? My sources say "yes!" The next step is suffrage for sea cows - one manatee, one vote!

[linked via Rod on The Corner]

Eric's new address

This from Eric's wife Paige:

Eric has a new address. The mail situation has been particularly bad for the 4th CAG because they were so spread out around Iraq. Now they are all in Al Kut and their mail is supposedly going through a new FPO. Here it is if you want to write to him again. He really does appreciate mail.

Sgt. Eric M Johnson
IMEF-CE
4th Civil Affairs Group
UIC 43601 Box 001
FPO AP 96613-001

Zenit: Msgr. Peter Elliott looks at Sacrosanctum Concilium, 40 years later

Catholic World Report: organist Michael Olbash on the state of music in parishes. (via Dom)