June 2003 Archives

The Collect for the Solemnity today is an impressively inverted piece of Latin. Anybody want to help me parse it?

Deus, qui huius diei venerandam sanctamque laetitiam in apostolorum Petri et Pauli sollemnitate tribuisti, da Ecclesiae tuae eorum in omnibus sequi praeceptum, per quos religionis sumpsit exordium.

The petition is pretty straightforward:"grant to thy Church to follow their teaching in all things, by whom (She) took up the beginning (i.e., the introduction) of religion."

The tough part is the first long clause (up to tribuisti). I'm not really confident about venerandam -- does it modify laetitiam along with sanctam? What does venerandam laetitiam mean? And where does the genitive huius diei fit in?

CNS reported recently that the Archdiocese of Berlin is closing half its parishes because of overspending and faulty financial planning.

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican reaffirmed celibacy for priests Saturday, rejecting arguments that the Roman Catholic Church could resolve the "crisis" of decreasing numbers of clergy by opening the priesthood to married men.

Instead, the Vatican said, current priests should dedicate themselves to attracting more candidates by better explaining the priesthood to lay Catholics and encouraging families and children to consider religious vocations.

Mark Shea has posted a link to a piece written by Kevin Orlin Johnson for the Dallas Morning News called "Canon Lawyer: Publicity Alone Won't Remove Bishop Grahmann". Unfortunately, this piece is a prime example of what happens when Catholic writers play canonist in print. As many of you may remember, I had a similar run-in last fall with Bob Sungenis over the proper interpretation of canon 212. Anyway, I just fired off the following letter to Rod Dreher, who works for the Dallas Morning News and who I know had expressed similar concerns about the piece. I should probably point out that having worked with Rod in the past, I know he checks with canonical experts when wading into deep canonical territory.

To: Dallas Morning News
cc: Rod Dreher
Re: “Canon Lawyer: Publicity alone won't remove Bishop Grahmann”

Dear editor,

As a licensed canon lawyer, a layman and one of the Canon Law Society of America’s (CLSA) more outspoken and conservative active members, I have a number of concerns with your recent piece, “Canon Lawyer: Public alone won’t remove Bishop Grahmann”. Kevin Orlin Johnson, the author, quotes no canonist who was still living when Pope John Paul II promulgated the current Code of Canon Law, the title of this piece leaves the impression that Mr. Johnson is a canon lawyer.

Perhaps he is, however, he provides no credentials within his piece that would justify this conclusion. To begin, I checked my copy of the CLSA’s 2003 Membership Directory and Mr. Johnson does not list any canonical degree after his name. Additionally, a licensed canonist would normally join the CLSA as an active member. Mr. Johnson’s short bio at the end of his piece, on the other hand, states that he an associate member. According to the CLSA Constitution, “ASSOCIATE members are any others who wish to associate themselves with the purpose of the Society.” In other words, this class of membership is generally open to anybody.

Concerning the substance of Mr. Johnson’s piece, the removal of a bishop from office over a disciplinary issue would presumably take place through a penal process. Therefore, competency over the case does not fall within the normal tribunal system. As canon 1405, §1, 3̊ clearly states: “[...]the Roman Pontiff alone has the right to judge: Legates of the Holy See and, in penal cases, Bishops.”

Secondly, this past year has raised many reasons why the Roman Pontiff might consider removing a bishop from office. Sacrilegious desecration of the Blessed Sacrament (canon 1367), procuring an abortion (canon 1398), and clerical sexual misconduct against minors (canon 1395 §2) all come to mind as serious offences that should be brought to the attention of the Holy See.

By contrast, the misuse of extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist is rather innocuous. To draw a comparison to the civil law, most schools have enacted strong anti-drug laws to maintain discipline within our schools and to protect the well-being of our youth. Nevertheless, the violent gangster caught peddling cocaine on primary school property is not the same as the active high-school student who, shaking off a common cold, hides some over-the-counter cough medicine in his knapsack for his personal use because he does not wish to cut class. Common sense would tell you to treat these two scenarios differently, and canon 1317 reiterates the Church’s common sense approach as follows: “Penalties are to be established only in so far as they are really necessary for the better maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline.”

Most extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist are lay volunteers who assist the clergy with the distribution of communion at Mass or who bring communion to the sick and the elderly afterward. The Code provides for their usage (canons 230, 910, 911), their usage is subject to a broad interpretation (canon 18) and to local custom (canons 23-28), and the diocesan bishop may dispense from the Church’s universal law governing their usage for a good pastoral reason (canon 87 §1).

Everyday the Holy Father faces serious issues like the clerical sexual misconduct crisis in North America and the violent persecution of Christians in China and the Middle East. With this in mind, I cannot see where he would find time to judge bishops who occasionally misuse extraordinary ministers of the Eucharistic, especially as the Code more or less leaves their usage to the discretion of the local bishop.

Sincerely,

Pete Vere, JCL/M(Canon Law)
Nokomis, FL

"I will abandon myself fully to the Holy Spirit, allowing myself to be led wherever and whenever the Spirit wants, accompanying the Spirit, for my part, with effective and strong resolutions and serious discernment... The Holy Spirit descends upon us with great gentleness, never with a racket."--MotherCabrini

I can't think of a better artistic representation of the Christ's Church on Earth. The storm-tossed vessel with some tending to the oars and sails in perilous sea of the world and others huddled calmly around Our Lord. One thinks the Apostle at the rudder is Peter taking counsel from Jesus. So it is in our time.

I read something on a Catholic message board the other that chilled my blood. The mother of one of a cognitively challenged brother in Christ had posted my piece "Special Love for Special Children" to the board, letting others know about the work of the Order of Alhambra does among God's special children. Nothing unusual about that.

Nevertheless, one of the homosexual activists (at least it appears that way) on the list replied: "If I had Down's Syndrome, I would hope that my parents would have the good sense to abort me because I could not lead a productive life." This made me sick. Not only can we not reduce God's creation to mere utility, but we Alhambrans know from our service to God's special children that there would be much less Christ-like love in the world if we aborted all our special brothers and sisters in Christ. Yet such is the way of the culture of death.

That being said, John Pacheco a good friend of mine (and future Godfather to the daughter Sonya and I are expecting in November) in Ottawa is trying to organize a Eucharist Procession on Parliament Hill in order to assert the Culture of Life against the continuous on-slaught from the culture of death. Of course, John is hoping our American brethren will support us as well. He's got a number of local priests backing him, but still needs signatures to bring the Archbishop when he asks for permission. You can check out the petition here:

http://www.catholic-legate.com/main.html

And you can sign the petition by emailing him at: john@catholic-legate.com

Please give John your name, the name of your spouse and/or family members who support this effort as well, the name of the parish you attend, your city and state/province. Please pass this on to others whom you know would be interested as well. If this gets off the ground, we would love for you to come out if you can make it, and pray for the success of this event if you cannot.

Mark Sullivan has change the name of his blog from "Ad Orientem" to "Irish Elk." Why, Mark?

The constitutional-penumbral "right of privacy" just got bigger, thanks to the Supreme Court. We can look forward to lawsuits, probably soon, that attempt to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act and state marriage laws. The slide continues.

I really ought to have more understanding and sympathy for my pastor. He's an old military guy who would like to give his bones a rest, but instead has two city parishes to take care of.

Somebody mentioned after Mass on Sunday that a certain parishioner had sent a letter to him -- make that another letter -- saying there's too much noise in church, and that he should do something about the women who don't wear veils (!)

The pastor walked by him and said, "I got your very nice letter -- and, no, I didn't throw it out!"

ORLANDO, Fla. — A severely retarded rape victim who was thrust into an abortion debate when Gov. Jeb Bush said he wanted a guardian appointed for her fetus will carry her pregnancy to term under a plan approved by a judge Wednesday.

Boy Scout Police Program Shocker

At least a dozen teenagers assigned to work with police departments as part of the Boy Scouts' Law Enforcement Explorers program have allegedly been sexually abused by officers during the past year. In the past five years, such molestations number at least 25, according to criminologists' research being released Wednesday.

Get a load of these Incredible Hulk green foam hands! Wear these to your next department meeting and watch heads turn!

(Is there a Catholic connection here? Lou Ferrigno, maybe?)

Finally my CD of Melkite Byzantine chant came! (Check out the sound clips.) It's in Greek and Arabic, but I've been going to enough of these to follow it by now, and besides, there's a booklet with the texts.

I hope Fr. Sibley will like the copy I sent him.

Are comments that don't depend on the alignment of Jupiter and the constellation Leo to work properly. Come on over, Mark!

Hi, neighbor!

Robert Diaz is moving his Caritate Dei blog from Blogspot to caritatedei.stblogs.org. A big stblogs.org welcome to Robert!

An Italian priest is going to preside over his town's beauty pageant:

"If you look at the girls in an innocent way it's not a sin but a way of thanking the Lord," Carlo Crucianelli, a priest in the central Italian town of Civita Castellana, told ANSA.

Anybody want to spin a theory about how Catholic countries have an advantage in international beauty pageants?

Now, this liturgical dance I like!

At a recent Baccalaureate (Debacle-laureate?) one of the 'spiritual representatives' (btw, there were NO priests) told those of us assembled about his church's 'Peace Pole'.

"What is it?" I hear many of you cry, anxious to be Enlightened At Last. Really, if you hadn't let you subscription to Commonweal lapse, you would already know... but I will tell you anyway. The 'classic' pole (so designated by the Peace Poles website) is approximately 8 feet high, with four sides. Each side has the message "Let Peace Prevail on Earth" inscribed on a brass plate in a different language. Really, the choice of languages to choose from is appaling... I mean amazing. It goes from Albanian to Zuni, with everything in between. Of course, for some of the more exotic languages (exotic to us, not to the 50 people who speak them) you can expect to pay $28.00 extra (I wonder if the Holy Spirit charged extra for His services to the few speakers of Ibo who were present in the crowds at Pentecost?)

Why didn't I think of this? How did I miss out on this astonishingly simple plan to make a billion dollars by simply going to one of the 43 Home Depot locations near me and buying some oversized tomato stakes and a wood-burning kit?

Well, anyway, after you choose which four languages you want to have screwed to your pole, you have to choose the finish: glossy white, glossy black, or your choice of three different resins (I know what you are thinking, but, no, Ikea doesn't make the poles.) Of course, all peace poles are crafted out of renewable resources (apparently, a peace pole made out of Brazilian rosewood would be a spiritual Faux Pas) and come in a variety of finishes. For the Very Diverse, there is an octagonal pole, which sports an impressive 8 languages of your choice! And all of this for a mere $1,300.00! The Peace Pole Maintenance Kit is an additional $20.00.

If planting a wooden stake in your front yard isn't your thing (well, what's wrong with you?) you can order a variety of other products. There are mini-peace poles to put on your desk... the website doesn't say if these are as effective as the full size model. There are pencils and tote bags and a full line of clothing (for you, not the pole.)

All I can say is that I know GIA is Kicking Themselves over missing out on this. Watch for a slew of Marty Haugen anthems, suitable to be sung in the shade of the Peace Pole.

This is a photo from the Cathedral of Corpus Christi in Cozumel. The Crucifix behind the altar is built into the window. Click on the thumbnail for a full-size image.

As Sal notes below, Fr. Rob has a happening thread on the topic of co-habitation before marriage the negative effects it bears. Yet because so many couples are doing it, what's a pastor to do? Unfortunately, since Catholics have a right to the sacraments, and because only the Holy See can establish impediments to marriage, a pastor can delay marriage, but he cannot stop it. This means that if the parties are free to marry, then sooner or later the pastor must proceed with the wedding.

However, not all is lost. As damaging as pre-marital sex is to marriage, in my personal opinion it is still second to the damage caused by contraception. Thus the idea of sending couples to NFP counseling is a good one, since from my experience in marriage ministry, the practice of NFP within marriage reverses much of the damage of pre-marital sex. NFP goes a long way in helping couples to become self-giving in the marriage, so that they give themself over to the other spouse completely - spiritually, physically, emotionally, psychologically. Thus the couple sbed the selfish approach to sexual relations that they first learn through pre-marital relations. In fact, I've seen numerous marriages healed through NFP that had been damaged through pre-marital sexual activity and contraception earlier during the marriage.

For an excellent (and true) story about how NFP healed an adulterous marriage on the verge of divorce that had begun through premarital co-habitation and contraception, call 1-800-55-ENVOY and order a copy of Surprised by Truth 3. This volume, which also includes my own reversion experience from the SSPX, features the story of Greg and Julie Alexander who, through NFP, found God's grace to save their marriage after already having decided to divorce.

I found this over at the Free Dominion website.....

Fr. Rob posted yesterday about the challenge of preparing couples for marriage that won’t abide by Church teachings on pre-marital sexual relations. I don’t have any of my own wisdom to impart, but rather the wisdom of a couple of priests I know who speak about this pastoral predicament as Fr. Rob does.

It might be true that every Catholic has a right to be married in the Church. They don’t have a right to a fantasy bridezilla and frankengroom wedding. Couples get caught up in the worldly specialness of that special day. But what makes it a “special day” anyhow? It’s not the flowers, the accoutrement, the photos, the cake, the patriarch of the family singing “My Way” during the Preparation of the Gifts, the bride being showered with attention, or the bridal party getting hammered at the reception. It’s the Sacrament. A couple must understand the grace of the Sacrament in order to avail themselves of it. I’d think that being in a state of mortal sin would be a terrible impediment to this. Matrimony, like the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, confers God’s grace in a manner that is accepted by the recipient at once but discovered anew in the challenges of Christian living. As Pete Vere and Fr. Rob have stated, pre-marital sexual relations are a factor in most, if not all, annulment cases. Fr. Rob is right, this isn’t a coincidence, this is a case where the couples where not open to the grace of the Sacrament.

Not only must the couple be open to the grace, they must understand what marriage is. It’s a covenant, not a contract or a convenience. I realize the alliteration is making me sound like a Catholic Jesse Jackson, but you faithful members of tribus noster know what I’m talking about. A covenant establishes a life-long relationship, not a civil arrangement. To quote Scot Hahn, “Contractual relations usually exchange property, exchange goods and services, whereas covenants exchange persons. So when people enter into a covenant, they say, ‘I am yours and you are mine.’ So God uses the covenant to enter into a relationship with those whom he created in his own image: humanity and all human persons…” and “Based on the scholarship of countless scholars over the decades, covenant can be properly understood . . . to be a sacred family bond.”

Back to my first point - being married in the Church doesn’t mean that a couple is entitled to their own Big Fat Greek Wedding. I know one priest who has told couples that if they insist on creating scandal for themselves by living together before the wedding, that he will not allow them to create scandal for the Church by performing the wedding in front of a large assembly of friends and family. He tells them they will be married in the chapel or the Sacristy in front of two witnesses and that is all he can do under the circumstances. Does this approach really change the minds and hearts of couples in marriage prep? I don’t know. I’ll ask him what the couples’ reactions have been to this. I think the biggest hurdle here is that they might not understand or accept what the source of the scandal is.

From the NY Times.

"We are witnessing an old-new, escalating, global and even lethal anti-Semitism," Irwin Cotler, a Canadian member of Parliament, said in a speech to the conference today. Its chief characteristic, Mr. Cotler and other delegates argued, is that it singles out Israel for criticism and condemnation beyond any other nation, and asserts that a Jewish homeland, by its nature and the nature of its citizens, violates the rights of others.

"It is anti-Semitism under the banner of human rights at a time when human rights is the new secular religion," Mr. Cotler said.

Our own Pete Vere at Envoy Encore on Canada's destruction of the institution of Marriage.

Amy Welborn at her joint on lay ministry and Rome's perspective on our country's bishops' sticky wicket.

Fr. Rob on marriage prep, cohabitation, and extra-marital sexual relations - known to everyone in the whole wide, fallen world as just plain "sex" though that is only one meaning of the word. I'll post my take on this later today.

In other news, I ate way too much for breakfast. I'm going to pop.

From the Curt Jester

A Few Bad Shepherds - from an Op-ed from the Washtimes

When appointed last year, Mr. Keating said that, "The Church needs a thorough scrubbing." This was a call to clean up immorality, not to do away with moral standards, as some of the dissenters are trying to do. The response to hypocrisy cannot be relativism. The scandals have given many leftists a club with which to take whacks at an institution that stands against much that is bad in our culture. By their lack of contrition, many bishops have aided and abetted the revolutionaries in their pews. Mr. Keating's frustrated probe, and the politics behind it, signal more troubles for the Catholic Church in the future.

A friend of mine who is a priest has a saying, "It's going to get worse before it gets worse."

Chief 'show me the money' Moose has resigned rather than comply with a local county ethics commission ruling that barred him from writing a book about the DC Sniper ordeal last Fall.

See Michelle Malkin's scathing commentary on Moose's unapologetic and atrocious opportunism. A few highlights:

He is an outlaw opportunist.

He is an ineffective, absent leader.

He is a money-grubbing menace who has put his personal ambition over public safety.

And what would this game of political poker be without someone playing the race card?

Instead of following the law, he and his big-mouthed wife, an image consultant and CEO of Chief Moose Inc., have hurled reckless charges of racism at county employees. Mrs. Moose whined to the panel that the couple resented having to answer to "a fully white group to give him permission to make some money." She likened her spouse to Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela as a civil-rights trailblazer who "stood for principle."

Mrs. Moose equates principle with abusing one's position as a government employee to profit from the publicity of heinous crimes and put the trial of the perpetrators in jeopardy. I wish Dr. King were alive today to rebuke the both of them.

Well folks, this just isn't a Canadian problem anymore.... American homosexuals are now crossing into Canada to marry...

if one day the Hubble Space Telescope will snap a picture of what the universe looked like in its infancy and God will be back smiling at the camera?

Brought to you by Josh from Saint Some Days (apparently not today!)

How do you keep a southern baptist from drinking all of your beer on a fishing trip? Bring along another southern baptist!

Adoremus in aeternum Sacratissimum Sacramentum!

A blessed Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ to all our readers (in countries where feasts are celebrated on the days assigned to them by the universal Roman calendar)!

How could I have missed this local story? Once there was Our Lady of Clearwater; then Our Lady of the Fencepost, and now Mark Sullivan tips us off about the Madonna of Milton, Mass.: a blur in a hospital window that to some poor dear souls looks for all the world like the Mother of God.

Report: Gore Looking to Start News Channel

Possible slogans:
"We Report - You Snooze"
"Because NBC, CBS and ABC Are Part of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy"
"A Desperate Cry for Help"
"Watch This Network or We'll Go Back to Losing Elections"
"I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!"

Primetime Programming:
8:00pm Down and Dirty With Chuck Schumer
9:00pm Martha Stewart's Wall Street Report
9:30pm The Special Interest Free-For-All Show
10:00pm Just Colmes
10:30pm The Phil Donahue Ratings Debacle
11:00pm Let's Watch CNN Together

In the past week, there's been a fuss over claims that the US Bishops and the ADL had criticized Mel Gibson's upcoming movie The Passion as anti-Semitic. People huffed and puffed in e-mails and on various fora about how foolish the bishops were -- that they were criticizing a well-intended and pious movie, when there are all sorts of social trends and pronouncements more deserving of rebuke.

As is usual in such cases, the story was pretty garbled: the criticism didn't come from any statement by the bishops, or by a committee of the bishops, but from some group of "scholars" picked jointly by a priest on the USCCB staff and a rabbi with the ADL. And they based their criticism on a draft version of the script that doesn't reflect the actual movie all that well.

The Register reports that USCCB counsel Mark Chopko has apologized for the whole affair. That's a pretty good outcome: maybe the folks at the USCCB are starting to understand that their functionaries create a lot of confusion when their statements and actions go out to the public and are treated as statements by "the bishops".

Fr. Sibley's going to like this web site, I know it: every sappy or goofy image of our Lord that you ever saw, and much, much more. Boy, He puts up with an awful lot.

New England readers will be interested to know that Prof. Scott Hahn is giving a day of talks at St. Joseph Church in Charlton, MA (that's near Sturbridge) on Saturday, June 28. Tickets are $10, and if you're interested, read on for the details:

Update on Smeary - she died around noon at the vet. My wife had just gotten there and the vet said she wasn't going to get any better. Teresa started petting her and she meowed a couple of times and then died.

First time I've had a pet die since I never had pets until we get married. I'm more upset than I thought I would be.

Here's a picture, she's curled up against my laptop - the same laptop I use at home to post to CatholicLight.

And here's a picture we sent with last year's Christmas cards: our dog Eva and Smeary under the Christmas tree. Smeary is rolling around on the carpet - something she did that was always really cute.

Israeli Antiquities Authority Says 'James Ossuary' a Phony foxnews.com

JERUSALEM — An ancient burial box purported to have held the bones of Jesus' brother, James, is a fake, Israel's Antiquities Authority (search) said Wednesday.

The ossuary, which bore the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," had been touted by some scholars as the oldest archaeological link to New Testament (search) figures.

But Israeli officials described that inscription, as well as another purported archaeological marvel, the "Yoash inscription," as "forgeries."

I received this from another Latinate counterrevolutionary yesterday. It is part of a sermon on Pentecost by Fr. Anthony Brankin of St. Thomas More parish in Chicago. Fr. Brankin has been pastor there for 14 years. Cardinal Bernardin gave them permission about 10 years ago for an indult Tridentine Mass. About 300 people attend it every week.

"It is my firm conviction that the Catholic beauty that has been part of all of our lives for so long has not been accomplished just to adorn our buildings or to fill up some empty spaces. I am convinced that a wordless communication takes place between God and us—through the medium of visuals and aurals.

And nowhere is this seen more clearly than in this so-called Latin Mass—the words of which are really secondary when you think about it. It may be in Latin, but that Latin is either whispered or chanted—and only sometimes clearly spoken in a language that very few of us understand well. And yet because of the movements, the vestments, the candles, the orientation, the Gregorian chant, the hymns, could anyone deny that God is speaking and that his people are understanding?

Or have our hearts grown so cold and stony that what we see and hear at Mass— unless it is in baby English—says nothing to us? Have we become so modern that unless it is written down in a brochure—with simple words and phrases—we can understand nothing? Have we become so obtuse that nothing can pepenetrate our hearts unless it looks like a newspaper or a magazine?

Think of all our ancestors over all these years who saw the Beauties of the Catholic Faith and came thereby to know the True God —who heard the sublimities of Catholic music and understood exactly what was being preached without needing a line-by-line translation."

To read the whole sermon click below.

Yesterday at Mass, my father in law passed out. He's 93 and is in excellent health in body and in mind, but the heat must have gotten to him and before the first reading the celebrant announced that medical personnel were needed in the back of the church. My wife could see that it was her dad, and went to the back of the church. Just before the homily, the paramedics came and took him to the hospital. I left Mass at that time and followed. By the time he got to the hospital, he was fine and after some tests he was sent home to celebrate the rest of Father's Day with the admonition that he not get too riled up. We had a great time with family on both sides and he did great the rest of the day.

We went to bed early because it had been a tiring day. Around 12:30am one of our cats started crying. Teresa turned on the light and noticed the cat was trying to walk around the bedroom floor but seemed to have a broken front leg.

Thanks be to God: Fr. Dominic Luong, born in North Vietnam but now of New Orleans was consecrated a bishop this week. He will be serving as an auxiliary in Orange, CA.
Update: I've corrected the name of the diocese.

UPDATE: In response to this threat, John Pacheco has founded the Canadian Catholic Action League

I don't yet know if they will publish it or not, since I just finished it, but here's a sneak peak of the latest piece I just submitted to the Wanderer:

O Canada!
Our Homosexualist Land?

Pete Vere, JCL

As a Canadian living in the United States, a number of things make me homesick for the Great White North. Off the top of my head, I can think of St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, French-Canadian culture in Quebec and moose-meat in Northern Ontario. There are also my buddies among the Catholic apologetics scene in Ottawa, where I first cut my teeth as a Catholic writer while studying canon law.

So while surfing the internet the other day, I dropped by Catholic-Legate.com to check in on the gang back home. Rather than make me feel homesick, however, what I read at the website simply made me feel sick. I now live in America and the majority of The Wanderer’s readership is American. Under the present circumstances, this is a good thing since it affords me the protection of the First Amendment. Yet as one of Canada’s most popular websites of Catholic apologetics, Catholic-Legate enjoys no such protection. For if Canada’s political institutions get their way, Catholic-Legate could soon become one of many religious websites targeted under new hate crime legislation being railroaded through the Canadian legislature. How I long for the religious sensibility and moral self-restraint of the Clinton administration in comparison to those who have hijacked the Canadian political system!

Let me explain a little. This is the same political regime that recently ordered the Saskatoon StarPhoenix newspaper and Hugh Owens of Regina to pay $1,500 to three homosexual activists. Their crime? Publishing an advertisement quoting verses from Holy Scripture. According to LifeSiteNews.com: “The purpose of the ad was to indicate that the Bible says no to homosexual behaviour. The advertisement displayed references to four Bible passages: Romans 1, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 [...]”

Svend Robinson, a member of the Canadian parliament, is now following up on this ruling that criminalizes the Natural Law. He has introduced Bill C-250 before the Canadian legislature, which potentially makes speaking out against “sexual orientation” a hate crime. Mr. Robinson, for our American audience, is Canada’s first openly homosexual member of parliament. Not surprisingly, he also belongs to Canada’s openly socialist party. Even Monica Lewinsky would blush in modest embarrassment with some of Mr. Robinson’s past reported shenanigans.

Perhaps this is why the Canadian federal government will not be appealing a recent judicial decision of Ontario’s highest court – a decision legalizing so-called marriage for homosexual couples. "The existing common law definition of marriage violates the couple's equality rights on the basis of sexual orientation under [the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms]," this ruling stated.

And what about the proposed definition of “sexual orientation”? According to Catholic-Legate, “It was reported that Beth Phinney, Liberal MP for Hamilton Mountain, was in a meeting with a constituent concerning the implications of C-250. Ms. Phinney was asked if the term ‘sexual orientation’ included heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, trisexual, bestiality, pedophilia, incest, polygamy, sadomasochism, etc? The constituent was quite disturbed when this Liberal MP confirmed that ‘all of these sexual behaviours would be included under the category of sexual orientation’.” Within the context of the Natural Law this strikes me more as a practical definition of sexual disorientation.

Fortunately, I now live in America. The First Amendment protects my religious freedom to express my opinion in the media – even from the long wrist of Svend Robinson. North of the boarder, however, my friend Chris Beneteau may not find himself so lucky in the future.

“Whether or not homosexuality is a choice is irrelevant,” Chris writes in one particularly pointed Catholic-Legate commentary. “Homosexuals as well as heterosexuals can both choose to avoid sexual behaviours (such as sodomy) which the weight of scientific evidence suggest are dangerous and potentially fatal. [...] It is one thing for people to do whatever they want behind closed doors, yet it is another thing to force the rest of society to embrace the behaviours. While I agree that the government does not belong in the bedrooms of the nation, I also do not think that they should open the doors and force us to peek in.”

I fear even more for John Pacheco, both the founder of Catholic-Legate and the Godfather to my daughter Angela. “Over the past few years,” John writes, “religious freedom in this country has come under increasing attack by a wicked and perverse judiciary with an anti-life, anti-religious political agenda. All people of Faith need to band together, and fight this menace head on [...] To our Protestant, Muslim, and Jewish counterparts, please help us protect the sanctity of the human family and the dignity of marriage!

“Bill C-250 would add ‘sexual orientation’ to the list of protected classes in the hate propaganda sections of the Criminal Code which could criminalize any criticisms of homosexuality or homosexual activity. This could be used to threaten with prosecution [...] any church that holds homosexual activities to be disordered and immoral; or any citizen who simply philosophically disagrees with the legal, financial or employment ‘rights’ being sought by gay lobbying group (e.g. adoption, spousal benefits, marriage status, etc.). It could lead to parts of the Bible being labeled ‘hate literature’ and references made to them in church statements or homilies as propagating hate.

“As a Roman Catholic Apologist, I consider this legislation to be a direct assault on my freedom of speech and my Constitutional right to practice my religion. The persons who are propagating such insidious legislation are engaging in religious persecution. What is the government going to do? Ban the Bible from the country? How about the Catechism of the Catholic Church? Is the government going to start arresting Catholic priests who cite the Catechism in rejecting the homosexual lifestyle?”

Love the sinner, but hate the sin. As Catholics, Christ calls us to love our homosexual neighbor and seek the salvation of his soul. We accomplish this task in exhorting those affected by this disorder to live chastely within the boundaries of the Natural Law. Unfortunately, this new piece of proposed Canadian legislation fails to take this distinction into account. Which is not surprising when, in the process of accommodating an ivory-basement judiciary that dissents from our traditional Judeo-Christian morality, our Canadian politicians confuse the boundaries between decriminalization, legalization, and the criminalization of the Natural Law.

This is a picture of Teresa and me on our anniversary. We've had 4 happy years together and have just started helping with the pre-Cana ministry at our parish.

Apparently his super powers are neutralized in the presence of his wife.

At CWN's Off the Record, Fr. Wilson mentions that the Anglican-use Book of Divine Worship is going to appear in print Real Soon Now. If the sample files on the web are any indication, it's going to be an attractive volume coming in at over 700 pages. Since I'm in San Antonio this week, I'm going to deliver an advance order to the publisher in person.

Update: At Sunday Mass on the 15th, Fr. Phillips said that the book is going to be over 1000 pages, and the price will likely be around $25! Send him an e-mail to let him know, as he says, "how many copies" you'll want.

By the way, get a look at the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Atonement Church.

A reader told us that the new format didn't work well with WebTV, which has a screen resolution of 544 x 372, so I'm offering CL in an alternative format suitable for narrow-screen browsers, at http://catholiclight.stblogs.org/webtv.html. I don't have a WebTV set to test this with, so if this doesn't work quite right yet, specific feedback from readers will help.

While some of the pieces on the Ancient Echoes album are arrangements of Hebrew melodies transcribed by researcher Abraham Idelsohn about 100 years ago, most are not Middle Eastern: they're original work by Christopher Moroney, the leader of the performing group SAVAE. Perhaps the centerpiece of the album is his presentation of the Our Father, or from the first word of the Aramaic text, Abwoon ("Father"). This rendition starts with a minute of creepy group-chanting -- it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at it -- and goes on to a male voice pronouncing the text.

Here's the "translation" presented in the album notes:

O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos,
focus your light within us. Create your reign of unity now.
Your one desire then acts with ours,
as in all light, so in all forms.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight.
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others' guilt.
Don't let surface things delude us,
but free us from what holds us back.
From You is born all ruling will, the power and the life to do,
the song that beautifies all, from age to age it renews.
Truly -- power to these statements -- may they be the ground
from which all our actions grow. Amen.

That's from the modern Sufi author and Creation Spirituality teacher Neil Douglas-Klotz, whose book Prayers of the Cosmos inspired the album. Isn't it nice that we can get some insight from Sufis about what Jesus really meant?

Let's stop for a moment and remember that this is coming from the top publisher of parish music and missalettes, and it's being pitched to the liturgy types in your parish and mine.

Anyway, the drummers come in for a minute or so with some movin' beats, and then Mrs. Moroney ad libs her solo version of the text. Groovy, and no doubt very spiritual.

Continuing with the Ancient Echoes album, here are samples from a couple of pleasant secular numbers: Song of Seikilos, whose Greek tune and text were inscribed on a burial stele; and Arabian Dance, another tune collected by the musicologist Idelsohn. OK, readers, help me out: which opera does this little tune remind you of?

My buddy Dave Alexander blogs some interesting comments about liturgical dancing. Just one quick comment; I thought the joke was suppose to go "Why don't young Baptist newlyweds consummate their marriage standing up?"

Link via Mark's blog. The sculpture that has replaced the simulacrum of Saddam Hussien was inspired by various church tabernacles in Northern VA.

Now, let me guess - that's the Trinity right?

First off, my sincere apologies to Kevin Miller and our readers from HMS Weblog who came over to hear my thoughts about North American tribunals and annulments. Unfortunately, we had a disk error on our new server, which we have now fixed, but in so doing had to revert to a back-up copy of the blog from Sunday.

That being said, here's some thoughts on the annulment issue from the recent CUF-Tucson conference.

Additionally, here's some thoughts from an editorial I wrote for The Wanderer last year:

“What is the main cause of so many annulments?” As both a canon lawyer and a married layman, this is the question I most often encounter when conversing with other Catholics. Now the Code of Canon Law lists many grounds upon which the Church may declare a marriage invalid. The more commonly used grounds concern the psychological maturity of the spouses at the time of the wedding, or else their intention going into the marriage. Nevertheless, rather than bore you with technical canonical jargon, let me identify one of two issues which, in my opinion, lay at the root of most annulments.

This issue is pre-marital sex. (The other, which I will save for another editorial, is contraception.) Although this is something society has come to expect of young couples today, given that pornography is currently the wallpaper of our culture, we cannot begin to measure the toll this takes on modern marriages. This is why when interviewing someone seeking to have their marriage declared invalid by the Church, I ask questions concerning pre-martial relations. This is because most problems that lead to the breakdown of a marriage are already noticeable during the courtship. Yet when the couple engage in pre-marital relations, these problems are usually overlooked during the courtship, and unresolved going into the marriage. “I knew this was a problem,” many women tell me, “but I overlooked it because I had already invested so much into our relationship.” Similarly, I often hear the following from guys: “I had my doubts because our disagreements, but I felt obliged to marry her because we were sleeping together.”

And this leads me to a second problem caused by pre-marital relations: In creating a false intimacy within an insecure relationship, the couple who engage in it often feel compelled to marry. This compulsion comes not out of love or a desire to spend the rest of one’s life with the another, but rather out of a sense of obligation to correct a morally sinful situation. Hence the romance deteriorates within the relationship before the vows are even exchanged. In fact, I quite often discover from friends and family members within their witness testimony that the couple never displayed simple acts of affection during their marriage such as holding hands and addressing one another by pet names.

Yet how does this affect the validity of marriage? Numerous scenarios are possible. A couple hesitantly approaching the altar, because their relationship lacks love, will often not want to bring children into a marriage unless it proves stable over time. Canonists call this partial-simulation, due to the fact the couple display an intention against children at the time they exchange their wedding vows, as well as an intention against permanence in that the couple hold divorce as an option if the marriage does not work out. From my Tribunal experience, a lot of partial-simulation is rooted in pre-marital sex.

Therefore, in reflecting upon what leads to the break down of so many marriages, we draw a simple conclusion: ignoring chastity during the courtship prevents love from blossoming into a marriage.

The ice cream man has been circling my neighborhood for the last hour. If I hear the medley cranked out by the speakers on his van one more time I will have a conniption. I’m not sure if he’s hoping all the families in the neighborhood will finish dinner and buy his wares for dessert. Or he could be one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse waiting for War, Famine, and Death to drive over in their ice cream trucks. Hey, harbingers of doom have to make a living somehow, right?

"What the heck are you talking about, Sal?" You say out loud to no one in particular.

I was just reading some articles and news stories on the net and I got increasingly agitated, partly from the subject matter and partly from something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Finally it crossed the threshold of my awareness – it sounded like a bell choir playing Marty Haugen from a great distance. I listened more closely. “Three blind mice.” Then “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Then “It’s Raining Men.” Haha – that’s just a joke. It wasn’t “It’s Raining Men” it was the happy sound of Hillary Clinton laughing all the way to the bank with her “memoir” unfittingly named “Living History.”
“Bending History” is more like it. Two hundred thousand copies of the book have been sold since its release last week. Bling-bling. The publisher has ordered more copies. Hillary goes on the campaign trail book tour because a bunch of us just can’t wait to see what she has to say about her husband’s philandering. The everyman goes on a daytime talk show to proudly air his dirty laundry. Hillary, the liberal ubergal, gets eight million bones to tell a story most of us are so sick of we’d rather wax Saddam Hussein’s mustache than hear it again. Some of us wouldn’t stop with the mustache if it would make Hillary put a cork in it. I think Fr. Rob Johansen could be one of those people.

I’d be delighted if someone wrote a book about the Clinton Years focusing on the downright dastardly things Bubba and his cronies did called “Enemy of the People.” The public has no appetite for that kind of historical work, however. The Oprah Nation wants to read the book cooked by Hillary’s ghostwriters about how she got the proverbial short end of the stick.

Fr. Rob is dead on about the democrats. The big tent has become a big brothel; a party that has sold its soul and sold out on its core constituents. The party platform boils down to this - leave no child behind except the unwanted unborn child. So, between elections Hillary is hawking her book. Harbingers of doom have to make a living somehow, you know.

I'm in San Antonio this week attending the Usenix technical conference, so
this is a good time for me to give a listen to an album by the San Antonio
Vocal Arts Ensemble, an early-music group based in this city.

"Ancient Echoes" (from World Library Publications -- yes, the missalette publisher) is an attempt to present some very early music: Jewish music as it might have been heard in the time of our Lord. Some of it's good, and some of it's not quite as good. Let's start with a sample.

I had lunch with Spirit-filled Christian Guy on Friday. We started talking about prayer and I brought up praying for the dead. He said, "There ain't no such place as purgatory!" I told him I wasn't talking about Purgatory. One of the merits of praying for the dead is that God, who is outside of time, takes into account our prayers for someone who has passed on at the time they are judged, even if that is in the past. I think this is sensible and true. He disagreed.

"Someone is either going to heaven or hell based on whether or not they accept Christ while they are alive. You are just wasting your time if you're praying for the dead!"

I appreciate any thoughts or Scriptural passages that might help me out. Thanks!

For all your ladies'-bonnet and men's-zipperless-pants needs.


Beards not included.

Maine town is center of solar system - cnn.com

Maggie Gallagher notices a court case in Kentucky in which an unusual pre-nuptial agreement was upheld. It provided that the husband's financial liability to the wife would be higher if he sought a divorce for grounds other than adultery. Can the pre-nup turn into an instrument for strengthening the commitment of couples to permanent marriage?

I just got email from Sgt. Eric Johnson, our Catholic Light cohort who is currently with the marines in Kuwait. He doing well but he's anxious to get home to see Paige and the kids. Please pray that he returns safe, sound and soon!

I also gave him all the info for our new home, so we might see some posts from him soon.

From Holland's De Telegraaf:

BREDA - For the first time in its 700-year existence, the former Norbertine nuns' cloister, later the Cloister Barracks on Cloister Square in Breda, has a public function. After two years of renovation at a cost of 55 million Euros, Holland Casino Breda opens its doors to the public on Friday.

With a gaming area of 13,000 square meters, it is the largest casino in Europe. In renovating the Cloister Barracks, architect Dirk Jan Postel arranged everything so as to preserve the character of the cloister building. For example, several secco paintings discovered during the restoration of the chapel were spared destruction and restored.

Considering that this is Holland, I wouldn't be surprised if the cloister and the casino were operated simultaneously. And in America, who knows what's possible? :-)

(Thanks to The Antipodean for finding the story.)

Virgin-born, we bow before thee Setting by R. Vaughan William - click to download MP3

1. Virgin-born, we bow before thee:
Blessed was the womb that bore thee;
Mary, Mother meek and mild,
Blessed was she in her Child.
Blessed was the breast that fed thee;
Blessed was the hand that led thee;
Blessed was the parent's eye
That watched thy slumbering infancy.

2. Blessed she by all creation,
Who brought forth the world's salvation,
And blessed they - for ever blest,
Who love thee most and serve thee best.
Virgin-born, we bow before thee;
Blessed was the womb that bore thee;
Mary, Mother meek and mild,
Blessed was she in her Child.

I've posted a little manifesto for people interested in bringing a blog to stblogs.org.

As some of you may have heard, this has been a rather rough week for the Anglican communion which is now threatening to split along continental lines over the issue of homosexuality. Here's my thought on the subject... click

John Pacheco and Bob Sungenis are going at it for another round, this time over the topic of Religious Liberty and the Ecumenical Gatherings at Assisi. John offers a number of choice comments here, of which my favorite is the following:

If you are really interested in winning souls for Jesus Christ, you preach love, forgiveness, peace, mercy and the rest of the things the Pope preached. You do this because the world already knows all about damnation. We are damning each other to hell every day. The world needs to hear about God's MERCY too and not just about judgement. That's why we have a feast of Divine Mercy. We are talking about a tactical way of winning converts to the faith. The over bearing hermeneutic of damnation that you operate under is not as effective today as it once was.

This debate is fascinating for a number of reasons, one of which is the great familiarity of each principle party with the other. Throughout the years, many Catholic apologists have passed through CAI. Yet Sungenis and Pacheco were probably the two mainstays, as President and Vice-President of CAI respectively. When John made the difficult decision last Autumn to leave CAI and found Catholic-Legate.com, most of CAI-Canada followed him over. I hate to sound melodramatic, but in reading this dialogue there is a Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader feeling about it, in that John respects Bob as one of his mentors in the apologetics world and is now trying to rescue him from the dark side of radtradism.

Meenwhile, the Lidless-Eye Inquisition also has a number of great threads going on as usual.

Additionally, one of my favorite blogs, namely, Against the Grain from the Ratzinger Fan Club also has an excellent entry in response to various radtrad attacks that explains The Meaning of the Word Subsists.

I will post about Arlington's ordinations today in a moment. First, a blurb about a rabble-rouser in the parking lot today who was handing out "report cards" on the Diocesan clergy after Mass. The man, someone who I've sung Latin with in a local schola, was handing this drek out while a woman next to him, somenoe who I also know from my parish, was standing right next to him asking people not to read it when he handed it to them. I passed them as I was leaving the parking lot and thought the man had something useful. I looked at it quickly as I heard the woman saying a short prayer to Our Lady. She then said, "Don't read that - you don't want that on your heart." I have spoken with this woman many times and in my humble opinion she's a saint. I quickly gave it to her and crushed it in her hand. Both were standing in the pouring rain.

One of my friends later told me a priest had walked into the reception with one of these sheets and was totally disgusted.

If I ever see that man again I will ask him what he was trying to prove. When I see this holy woman again at Mass I will thank her.

A few weeks ago, we noticed a fringe group starting up its own illicit Mass with a married ex-cleric at a suburban Boston Elks' club. Now they're moving up in the world, and finding themselves a more suitable worship space: the local Unitarian meeting hall. A few observations:

1. It's not very nice, as a matter of inter-religious relations, for Unitarians to help a group that's trying to start a schism in the Catholic Church. However, this is not surprising, since the UUA has in the past subsidized frauds like "Catholics for a Free Choice".


2. The celebrant of their first Mass in the new location is someone named Ed Minderlein, whose writing for VOTF urges people to leave "the current pyramid hierarchical structure" and "move into small healthy communities" like the Reverend Ed's fringe group where they "espouse the theology of personal freedom".

   This is a clarifying little event that shows what kind of thinking shapes the agenda at VOTF: they're reaching the stage of overt rebellion against the Church. They're not far from certain fundamentalists who hand out tracts and urge Catholics to "come out from among Babylon".

(Thanks to Jeff Miller for the link.)

Maybe we should start a movement to identify and expose popular myths. We could call it STULTUS, for "STamp out Urban Legends Totally (US)".

You've probably heard this one before: a frog dropped into boiling water will jump out, but a frog placed in tepid water and slowly heated will fail to notice, and eventually succumb and become frog soup. This is usually presented as a warning against becoming too tolerant of evils.

Numerous preachers who have used the example will be disappointed to learn it's not true.

That's not a big deal, but a few times I've heard a preacher repeat an urban legend that's embarrassingly false or even slanderous. So what do you do then?

A friend forwarded this the other day. CNS columnist Fr. Eugene Hemrick salutes the seminarians of the North American College:

I came to Rome for spiritual renewal, rest and quiet; not to be with the seminarians or faculty of NAC; not to study the college or analyze its student body. However, when you experience wholesome goodness as I did, you cant keep it to yourself. I hope the following column does justice to you, the college and especially the wonderful men I met.

Gene Hemrick

A View of Tomorrow's Priests
By Father Eugene Hemrick
Catholic News Service

This column is part of the CNS columns package.

Sociological studies I have conducted and the scuttlebutt among older priests have been highly critical of today's seminarians. Many are considered rigid, pietistic, out of touch and clerical. Some label them a generation that "doesn't wash windows" or "pick up pennies."

Recently I had the opportunity to go beyond our sociological studies and live an entire month with our seminarians at the North American College in Rome. What I experienced were seminarians who were kind, talented, prayerful and down to earth.

Moveable Type rocks. It kicks blogger's behind up and down the block. You should all give it a shot. RC might be able to help you find a friendly home for you blog at stblogs.org. That was the plan, RC, wasn't it?

I think he's responsible for global warming...

Hill cool to Clinton's president-term idea - WashTimes

Last week, Mr. Clinton told an audience at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston that the amendment, which limits presidents to serving two elected terms, should be changed only to limit a president to two consecutive terms.
"There may come a time when we elect a president at age 45 or 50, and then 20 years later the country comes up against the same kind of problems the president faced before," he said. "People would like to bring that man or woman back but they would have no way to do so."

The same problemsthe president faced before? I hope the moral and ethical problems Bubba had as president are never repeated!

And the Republican reaction:

Mr. DeLay said he agrees the amendment should be changed, but he wants to do away with it entirely. He said Mr. Clinton should join him in that effort.
"If he would help me maybe we could repeal the 22nd Amendment and then he can run again and we can beat him once and for all," Mr. DeLay said.
Other Republicans just dismissed Mr. Clinton's remarks.
"I think two terms is quite enough," said Sen. Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican.
"I just say good try, Mr. President, good try," said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican.
Mr. Hatch is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would have to approve any change, and he said that's just not going to happen.
"Nobody's going to do that," he said.

The funny thing about Sen. Orrin Hatch is that the Republicans can't always count on him to vote with the party on tough issues. "Don't count your Hatches before they chicken," they say.

The world premiere of Alexandra's Symphony for Band was tonight! Congratulations! Please write about it, Alex, and let us all know how it went!

Joanna Bogle on the truly under-served population among Catholics: young men.

It's funny, but over the last couple days I've been reflecting on the SSPX situation, and how its various leaders are now quoting Archbishop Lefebvre to justify contradictory offers. Some, like Fr. Aulagnier if I am not mistaken, feel that Lefebvre would have accepted Rome's recent offer. Others don't. Who is right?

In a limited way, probably both. We humans are self-contradictory at times; we also like to create God in our own image. This is why Christ gave us the Roman papacy, so we would always know where the Church is. Take your eye off the papacy and you get chaos and contradiction.

Fr. Angelo D'Agostino, SJ, a doctor and missionary working in Kenya, visited our parish this weekend. He spoke about the orphanage he runs and how the AIDS epidemic will cause 40 million children to be orphaned in the next decade. The magnitude of this crisis is something the world has never seen. What can be done? Fr. D'Agostino asked first and foremost for our prayers. He was grateful for the generosity the parish showed the last time he visited, and greatly encouraged by the bill recently signed into law by President Bush.

You know what God might ask us when we get to Heaven?

"What about those orphans? What did you do for them?"

"They weren't my kids," someone might say.

"No, they were mine. What did you do?"

From cnn.com

Peterson, 30, is accused of killing his wife, Laci, and unborn son, Conner, who disappeared from their Modesto home on Christmas Eve and washed out of the San Francisco Bay in April. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Peterson as in Scott. Laci as in Scott Peterson's murdered wife. Conner as in the Peterson's unborn son. I don't know anything about California law with regard to what age a fetus must be to be considered a murder victim, but this unborn victim has a name and the mainstream media isn't shy about printing it. Is this is the culture of death changing for the better?

Hey guys,

forget my last email... I think I have the new administrative panel figured out after all. Looks great! On another note, I guess we won't be exposing Rich's real identity as the Easter Bunny...

Pax,
PJV

about the renovation at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Alexandria. Word on the street here in Arlington is that the Tabernacle was moved recently into the Sanctuary way ahead of the parish renovations because the roof of the adoration "closet" began to cave in when one of the priests was in there praying. Talk about a sign from God! "Rebuild my Church" indeed! Incredible!

Here's a picture of what it used to look like pre-cataclysm:

Maybe I will do a little recon this week and get a picture of the new placement of the Tabernacle.

The renovation project has been a point of terrible contention for the parish. It has even spawned a website for those who oppose it, www.bsforum.org, that claims to be "an independent source of news and views about Blessed Sacrament Catholic Community in Alexandria, Virginia." See the Washington Post article from March 2003 for some rather stilted reporting on the debacle.

I might post some thoughts on this later today along with some terrible things I learned about the AIDS epidemic in Africa today from a visiting priest at our parish.

Fun for the whole robotic family!

Mark Shea has a terrific article in Crisis Magazine this month all about blogging and St. Blog's parish! If you aren't already a subscriber, you can read it next month on the website.

May we all rise to Heaven with our Risen Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to the clip art on the my parish's program this morning, has four digits on his hands and three on his feet, no wounds, and was accompanied by midget crab-angels with claws instead of hands. I think the anatomically incorrect illustration of Christ is standing on cloud, but that could be a puddle or a hairless bear skin rug.

I wish someone out there with some talent would produce better art for liturgical supplements. It doesn't have to be complex or colorful, but make Jesus look like Jesus for goodness sake! This piece looks like Marty Haugen's music sounds. I think they are both published by OCP.

Pardon me if you find the above representation uplifting, thought-provoking, spiritually fulfilling or otherwise excellent. I think it is meritless. Of all the challenges we have in the Church and in ministry today I know this is small beans, but man this stuff really fries my ham and the rest of my luncheon meat.

UPDATE: Gerard Serafin posted a wonderful icon on his site today that is much more appealing than the Catholic throw-away art I posted above.