Washing of the Feet on Holy Thursday And More on Days of Abstinence
Perhaps I should be embarassed, but I didn't know you shouldn't use chicken broth on days of abstinence.
‘Queer studies,’ Catholic Style – DePaul launches ‘LGBTQ’ minor
Father James Halstead, chairman of the school’s religious-studies department, said DePaul supports church teachings but also encourages critical, thoughtful learning about “any topic we can afford to teach.”He added that a university should not be an “indoctrination center.” Rather, students should have the opportunity to explore the “burning issues” of their time.
Isn't hell-fire a burning issue?
"A Catholic school presenting Fiddler on the Roof? It may seem unorthodox, but it's certainly kosher." ...full story
Belgian Priest to Stand Trial for Hatred for Citing Fears of Coming Islamic Persecution
I'm not sure what the photo on that page is about.
Here's the source of the problem:
His offending statement: “Every thoroughly islamized Muslim child that is born in Europe is a time bomb for Western children in the future. The latter will be persecuted when they have become a minority.”
VATICAN CITY (Catholic Online) – The Catholic Church needs to seek frank dialogue with Islam and must insist on reciprocity where rights of Christian and Muslim minorities are respected and protected, said a British cardinal.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminister, England, was interviewed March 27 by Vatican Radio here, during which he discussed the March 23 pre-consistory meeting of the pope and the world’s cardinals, reconciliation with Lefebvrite traditionalists, collegiality in the church, migrant works in London and dialogue with Islam.
He said that the situation of Muslim-Christian dialogue is “very complex,” but the church has to be clear not to allow religion to be used as an excuse for terrorism. ...more
This isn't going to help Apopka, Florida's reputation as a place where stupidity reigns in public life: school teachers put eighth-graders through an abusive day-long demonstration of discrimination.
Apparently it's OK for teachers and administrators to subject children to unjust treatment if they're doing it for a "progressive" purpose. I thought this sort of experiment was a fad that ended in the '70s, but officials in Florida still need to get some education themselves about Ethical Restrictions on Human Experimentation. To start with, experimenting on people without their consent has to be totally excluded.
Somebody please sic on the lawyers on these people.
This looks like it will be hard for even CNN to skew.
Cash-strapped Spokane Diocese has stopped paying its lawyers.
The diocese for the past 16 months has paid both its own legal bills and the bills of lawyers for victims, and is running out of money even as the two sides try to settle.
So let me get this straight: lawyers on each side get to keep billing until they settle. Spokane foots the bill. Anyone wonder why they are into their 2nd year of settlement talks?
Cuba's Catholic have more freedom since the mid 90s, but that doesn't mean the faith is alive and well there.
After a boom following the constitutional change and papal visit, church attendance has leveled off. Of the indicators used to measure church participation in Cuba's largest archdiocese of Havana, only the number of baptisms exceeds numbers in a comparable U.S. diocese. And though Havana's 34,000 baptisms in 2004 represented a sizable number, Becerril noted the special circumstances."Most people who bring their children for baptism are not practicing Catholics. They say to me, 'I don't want what happened to me to happen to my child.' They want to be ready if there is another period of repression."
The problem is that only 10 percent of baptized Catholics in Cuba are believed to attend Mass regularly, and, as the priest added, "the older they get, the less they participate." The number of confirmations bears him out: only 740 in all of Havana in 2004, this in an archdiocese of 85 parishes spanning three provinces with a population of over 3 million. The city's 413 Catholic marriages in 2004 was the lowest since 1993. ...full article
I was out of town last week when Bishop Loverde of Arlington conducted the greatest manuever in public relations ever. EVAH!
First, he announced that individual parishes would be permitted to have altar girls as long as the pastor, other clergy & pastoral council can come to a consensus about their desire to have them.
Then, he announced that two parishes would have permission to celebrate the 1962 Latin Mass. (press release here)
Reactions have been predictable:
Conversatives went "Yay!" then "Boo!"
Liberals went "Boo!" and then "Yay!"
Bishop Loverde and everyone at the chancery gave each other high fives and are still chortling about dodging the bullet with these two hot topics.
Some Arlington parishes already had altar girls at last Sunday's Masses and rushed to proclaim that "We're no longer gender-restricted." I'm sure I'll hear some misguided talk about women priests in the next several months (in which case I'll send them here.)
For another blogger perspective, visit Father Jim "Dappled Things" Tucker.
My reaction - altar girls have been inevitable since the Vatican ruled on the issue. The interesting issue with Arlington is there will be a divide among most parishes who allow them, and the several that won't. Letters will be written. Acrimonious pastoral council meetings will last late into the night. Some pastors will hold the line and not allow any sway. Most pastors will go with the flow.
The Tridentine Mass will be similar - the folks who want that will flock to the two parishes that celebrate, the rest of us will do latin and greek sparingly, or the more popular option: never. A "Kyrie" and "Angus Dei" here and there won't really add up to using chant and latin in the way that Church liturgy documents extol them. The divide will be greater, and the perennially discontented will continue to write letters, protest and generally disrupt life for the rest of us.
So who's going to have more latin at their standard Masses? Who's going to do more chant and sacred polyphony? Who's going to make sure altar servers are better trained and present themselves properly for their sacred work?
I'm sure for the vast majority of parishes it will be business as usual.
Still - changes in discipline (and both these items are related to Church disciplines and practices, not doctrinal items) are a good time to revisit what's really important and what needs to change.
Hopefully we can use this moment to make all Masses in Arlington more prayerful and sacred.
"Rome is young, the Church is always young again" ...more
Pope Benedict's liturgies to change, says papal master of ceremonies
Archbishop Marini said each pope is different in his approach to the liturgy, particularly the large international celebrations he is called to lead."With John Paul II, I was a bit freer; we had an implicit agreement because he was a man of prayer and not of liturgy," the archbishop said.
[irony]I guess we can say good bye to those loosey-goosey liturgies that Pope JPII was famous for[/irony]
Over the weekend, I transcribed Ed Peters' 1995 HPR essay, "The coming bishop crunch". At the time, Peters observed that two-thirds of America's bishops were scheduled to retire in a twelve-year period and the Church would have to replace them, with the "crunch" years falling now, from 2005 to 2007.
So where can the Church find 15 priests a year "outstanding for their solid faith, good morals, piety, zeal for souls, wisdom, prudence and other virtues and talents, possessing advanced degrees or true expertise in scripture, theology, canon law..." for the work of a bishop in this country? The piece offers bishops and laymen some suggestions on how they can help meet the shortage of candidates. The years of peak demand are upon us now, but the need isn't going away.
Today's Old Testament reading speaks of the sabbath:
Those who escaped the sword were carried captive to Babylon,
where they became servants of the king of the Chaldeans and his sons
until the kingdom of the Persians came to power.
All this was to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah:
“Until the land has retrieved its lost sabbaths,
during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest
while seventy years are fulfilled.”
The day of rest is worth remembering: it gives thanks for what God has given to us in the created world. It sets a limit to our sometimes constant labor: a limit to our using the world. It expresses a faith in God's providence, by desisting from work for a day.
The passage from 2 Chronicles presents the sabbath as something we owe the land. If I may return to Rod's book again: he's been thinking about what we owe the land too, in an excerpt about environmental conservation.
Blogger Stephen Hand's adult son is in the hospital with a brain injury; he commends him to our prayers.
In the Good Ideas Dept., Eric of the CF blog suggests that we ask for the intercession of Pope John Paul.
A priest charged with molesting three boys had been accused years before of having questionable conduct with a minor while he was in the seminary and was still allowed to be ordained, according to a report released Monday that outlines a widespread breakdown in communication at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. [...]
McCormack is accused of molesting three boys between September 2001 and January 2005.
Officials at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein were told McCormack acted inappropriately with two adult males and one adult minor in 1992, according to the report. McCormack was ordained in 1994.
Archdiocese spokesman Jim Dwyer said the allegation of questionable behavior with a minor was never fully developed. The report acknowledged that the archdiocese does not review seminary files.
In the whole piece, the name Bernardin (d. 1996) doesn't appear once.
Nate Nelson takes issue with several points I raised in a post about the French labor riots. He uses my words as a springboard for other commentaries. Fair enough; Lord knows I've done that before, too. But the ideas that Nathan indirectly ascribes to me are not my own.
For one thing, I don't think that employers should be able to fire workers "for any reason without even providing a reason." In the U.S., employers cannot terminate someone for having black skin, for being a woman, or having other immutable characteristics. This seems perfectly fair to me.
But I do think that companies should have the flexibility to dismiss employees when they see fit. The alternative, as in France, is that a government bureaucrat will second-guess the dismissal and possibly even prevent it. The bureaucrat probably has no particular expertise in the company's industry, and no direct responsibility for the company's prosperity. Yet he may reject a cost-cutting layoff because the company did not demonstrate to his satisfaction that it was justified.
Smart companies do not fire people for trivial reasons. Layoffs are often a sign of a troubled corporation, and they devastate morale among the remaining employees. They will only undertake such a measure if they are convinced it is essential to their long-term survival. That is why smart companies survive, and stupid ones eventually die or stave off destruction by creating iPods.
The question of whether capitalist or statist economies are more effective at creating prosperity. France enjoys roughly the same standard of living as Alabama, which is a fine American state but not exactly an economic powerhouse. The countries that have adopted a free-market model are the ones on the rise -- the U.K, Australia, Ireland, India, etc. They are also the ones that offer the best hope for their poorer citizens to be gainfully employed. Merely observing those facts isn't "a glorification of laissez-faire capitalism."
Nate says that "Eric Johnson and other Catholic conservatives can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong" about us never having had a minimum wage job, or send our kids to crappy schools, etc. I'm not sure who else Nate is addressing, but as for myself, I started making minimum wage back in 1987 when it was $3.35 an hour. But like most other minimum wage earners, I soon made more, and also like most, I wasn't suppporting a family.
Productivity is the key to making the poor more prosperous. That usually means education, combined with diligence, prudence, and avoiding the social pathologies that are pandemic in poor communities (alcoholism, drug abuse, illegitimacy, crime, gangs). If someone's labor is worth more, companies can afford to pay him more.
Twenty minutes before the evening Mass:
Director: OK, you've got the psalm refrain there...
[The text is: "Lord, you have the words of everlasting life."]
Director: I want you to make a separation before "of". I don't want to hear any "word-zuv", but "words. of." And, uh, I think let's do the same for "ever-" too, OK?
Choir member: Couldn't we slur our words in honor of St. Patrick's Day?
Showing their mastery of Cartesian logic, French students and labor unions took to the streets to engage in rational dialogue with their government over changes in employment legislation.
Wait, sorry! The French are screaming and burning things to protect their sclerotic society. The main problem with France's economy is that French companies don't want to hire new workers unless they are absolutely forced to do so. That is because French workers are very costly due to the glorious Republic's "social policies," mandating strict limits on work hours and lavish benefits.
Plus, you can't fire French workers, even for gross incompetence. We're not talking about government workers, either — these are private-sector jobs. Every sentient being who has studied this problem agrees that employment laws are the reason that a quarter of young Frenchmen are unemployed. (The generous unemployment benefits play a part, too.)
So the "conservative" government of France has proposed some tiny little free-market reforms to loosen labor markets in France, and a half-million people protest and riot. Inevitably, they have torched a McDonald's. (Is there a French law requiring demonstrators to attack McDonald's? Does Ronald's funny hair make them crazy?)
And what is driving them to the streets?
The law would allow businesses to fire young workers in the first two years on a job without giving a reason, removing them from protections that restrict layoffs of regular employees.
The worker has to make sure his labor meets the standards of his employer. But it works both ways, as the employer has to make sure that working conditions are safe and humane, and that its workers are compensated fairly. Otherwise, the workers will walk away in favor of a better employer. There are moral considerations that come into play on both sides. Employers have a responsibility not to cheat their employees, who in turn have a responsibility to work honestly and diligently for their employers.
"Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages," Pope Leo XIII wrote in his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. Leo took on the question of human labor at a time when the balance of power was skewed toward employers. Today, in the U.S. and other free-market economies, the balance has shifted closer to equilibrium, and in many sectors, it favors the workers over employers. The system rewards virtues, particularly diligence, severely punishes sloth, and works to suppress other personal vices, as people who can be fired are generally on their best behavior.
Plainly, the French malcontents understand none of this. They regard employment, not as an opportunity to exchange their time and skills for sustenance, but as a kind of birthright. And why wouldn't they? In the socialist scheme of things, the state makes a bargain with its populace: you give up your economic freedom, and we will provide the benefits of prosperity, without all of the messy uncertainties of life. It is a parody of "give us this day our daily bread," and a parody of Divine Providence. The younger generation is looking at their parents' generation, retiring at age 55 with full pensions, and wonders why they aren't getting a piece of that scam.
You can only maintain a socialist economy if you have a wealthy society and a high proportion of workers to retirees. Yet the primary mechanism of socialism is to transfer wealth from productive citizens to unproductive citizens. That might work for a while longer, if the French were making enough new Frenchmen, but they are not — like every other European population save little Ireland, their population is declining.
Socialism destroys wealth. Socialism weakens families and social networks, including churches. Socialism kills society, and thus it is nothing more than a slow-motion suicide pact.
(P.S. Read Rerum Novarum when you get a chance. It isn't a tough read, and the principles Leo explains are still valid today.)
In Tuesday's column, Maggie Gallagher told us "Why I am not a Crunchy Con". I think she's missing something in her response to Rod Dreher's book
If you want the key to Rod and his fellow crunchy cons, I think it is in statements like, "Beauty is more important than efficiency." Well, gee sure, but only if you live in a society where the great public health threat to the poor is obesity. This level of affluence is what allows educated women to stay home, throw organic dinner parties, and home school their children instead of spending time at the hard labor of spinning wool, churning butter and chicken-farming. Rod knows this, of course.
Is Ms. Gallagher suggesting that concern about beauty in everyday life is mainly a luxury of rich moderns? I don't believe that our immigrant forebears in America and Europe cared nothing about the quality of what they ate and where they lived. They didn't always live in great places, but they cared about these things.
Gallagher also seems to argue that caring about beauty and dignity and living with a sense of cultural tradition are not really the American way:
But in his restless, dissatisfied search for Something More, Rod appears to me as less a traditionalist than a fellow postmodern, rootless, cosmopolitan American desperately seeking an identity group where he can believe and belong.
This is not his fault. Whether we like it or not, this is the American condition. We live in a society where ultimately our sense of who we are is self-created, not something that can be given at birth....
The real American tradition, for better or worse, was captured in the 1985 novella, "The Man Who Loved Levittown." Tommy DiMaria, World War II vet, retired Grumman aircraft worker, describes his first glimpse of his own personal paradise, carved out of Long Island potato fields: "Down the street is a Quonset hut with a long line of men waiting out front, half of them still in uniform. Waiting for jobs, I figure, like in the Depression ... here we go again." Finally it dawns on him: "What these men are lined up for isn't work, it's homes!" But 32 years later, the wife is dead and the kids are gone to find their own Levittown: maybe a McMansion in Arlington, Va., or maybe a Dallas Arts and Crafts bungalow.
As far as I can tell, that's the only available American way.
In a sense, she's right: the standard "American dream" is one of material prosperity, not of maintaining traditions and developing virtues. But she doesn't question whether this is really a good thing, so I dropped her a note about it, along the following lines:
Maggie's response to Rod's Crunchy Cons acknowledges that the American way of life has made us rootless, but doesn't offer any comment about how the culture got to be this way.
I recently re-read Professor John Rao's old essay about "Americanism", and was reminded that the US, even though secularized, is still based on atomistic Puritanism at heart.
It's no wonder Americans lack an experience of cultural and religious tradition: if the individual is the only important thing before God, then all the intermediate communities that carry tradition (Church, school, polis) are usurpers of individual rights, rather than mediators of divine truth and goodness.
No wonder Americans make material prosperity the high good around which all are to unite (the "American dream"): the country's national identity and mythos is based on the English heritage, with its distrust of ideas and with its Anglican compromise downplaying the importance of truth and error in a bid to preserve social peace.
If I get Maggie's drift, American rootlessness and "self-created" identity are just an unchangeable part of the culture. But (and I hope she'll agree) from a Catholic point of view, man is meant to live in communities, and a "self-created" identity is impoverished.
Follow-up: Since a friend has pointed out some intemperate talk about Pope John Paul II on Dr. Rao's web site, I want to express some reserve. By citing his essay above, I'm not endorsing his views in general; I haven't kept up with them in the years since I heard him speak at one of William Marra's conferences in NY.
Jihad and suicide bombers, Osama bin Laden and terrorism: That image of Islam, prevalent in the West, may not be representative of the majority of Muslims in the world.
But neither is it a false image, says Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros...
Archbishop Bustros, the eparch for Melkite Greek-Catholics in the US, gives Americans a thumbnail sketch on the relation of Islam and Christianity:
Although Islam calls itself a religion of peace, the peace it preaches is the literal interpretation of Islam, which means "surrender to the will of God."
"The peace in Islam is based on the surrender of all people to Islam and to God's power based on Islamic law," Archbishop Bustros said. "They have to defend this peace of God even by force."
Islam also is an "absolutist faith" that merges religion and politics — quite a different understanding from the Western concept of separation of church and state.
"In the Islamic conception, there is no separation between God and Caesar. Caesar is governing in the name of God," Archbishop Bustros said. Consequently, "they don't differentiate between the West and Christianity."
(Hat tip to CWN.)
A physics web site has an item about a Greek Orthodox monk whose body was found to be incorrupt fifteen years after his death.
We may have a case of incorruption here in Boston too: a 25-year-old priest named Patrick Power died of consumption in 1869, but when some healings were reported through his intercession in 1929, a million visitors thronged to his grave until the site was closed by order of Cardinal O'Connell.
88-year-old Fr. Bernard Shea was 12 years old at the time, and related the events in a lecture at my parish Sunday: the body was relocated to a nearby site in the same cemetery, and placed under a new monument surrounded by an iron fence. During the transfer, the body was found to be intact, though the simple casket containing it had long decayed.
Pilgrims still come to Fr. Power's grave to pray and ask for prayers.
The newsroom of the Washington Post is getting smaller, and I couldn't be happier.
This isn't schadenfreude (did I spell that right?) It isn't as if workers are being thrown out on the street — they're either taking early retirement, or they aren't being replaced when they switch jobs. No individuals will be harmed in the downsizing of this media property.
I grew up reading the Washington Post, starting with the comic section in 1977, graduating to Sports, then the "Style" section (as opposed to "substance," to be sure). When I was a teenager, I started devouring the front section. Although the Post approached the news with a liberal slant, it was hardly the Village Voice. Yes, they downplayed the evils of communism, and they were relentless cheerleaders for feminism, and shameless apologists for racial favoritism, but the reporting was (mostly) intellectually honest enough to mention the other side.
Not today. I have nothing but contempt for the Washington Post, and I hope I live long enough to see the company fail, or at least transformed into something less odious. My visceral dislike began almost three years ago in Al Kut, Iraq, where my Marine unit was administering one of the provinces. Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran visited the city for a few hours, then went back to Baghdad to file a story about how the civilians hated us and we were afraid to mess with a local thug who took over city hall and proclaimed himself mayor.
The truth, as I wrote in June 2004, was that almost all of the civilians were friendly, except for the thug and his small number of supporters. A short time after Chandrasekaran's article appeared, the "occupation" of city hall ended with the thug slinking away without a fight.
My article made the rounds in the blogosphere, prompting dozens of people to e-mail me with encouraging messages. However, Tom Ricks, the Post's senior military correspondent, sent me a message disputing my account of the events in Al Kut in spring of 2003. Was Ricks in Al Kut back then? No. Did he have other sources disputing what I said? No. Did he raise any logical or chronological questions about my account? No.
What it came down to, for Ricks, was that Chandrasekaran was a reporter for the Washington Post, and I was not. Furthermore, Ricks thought I sounded like a "staff guy" who gave upbeat press briefings.
In real life, during the war I was a sergeant who carried a rifle 24 hours a day and went 37 days without showering. My civil affairs team were all awarded combat action ribbons, which you don't get for being a "staff guy" (unlike combat pay, you only get that ribbon if somebody is actually trying to kill you.) Tom Ricks, senior defense correspondent for the second-most-important American newspaper, didn't bother to figure that out. Nor, when I sent a polite response informing him of this, did he deign to respond.
When the Post has journalists like this on its payroll, and abject buffoons like Dana Milbank covering the White House, it is not entitled to anyone's respect or deference. Not to mention the paper's role in the various trumped-up "scandals" like "domestic spying," to name one of many.
I used to regard Post-haters with bewilderment: who could hate a left-of-center but basically responsible newspaper with such a great Food section? Now, I reluctantly count myself as a detractor. Eighty fewer people at the Post is a mighty good start, as far as I'm concerned.
Fantastic! Bishop Slattery of Tulsa, unlike most bishops, is doing something about Church music: he's urging the clergy and musicians to actually read what the recent Council wrote on the subject! What a good example!
(Hat tips to Fr. Keyes, to Gerald Augustinus, and to Fr. Zuhlsdorf.)
There have been three arrests in the case of nine church burnings in Alabama. So far it looks like it's the work of college kids who started it for thrills, burning five churches in two days; then they burned four more in another part of the state in an attempt to distract the police.
These crimes may provide a case study in how evil operates. It wasn't about race: half the churches were white. It may have been about the denomination: they were all Baptist -- but then, that's the main denomination in rural Alabama.
These were all small parishes, compared to what we're used to: congregations of a hundred or so -- in one case as few as 30 -- with aged buildings whose doors couldn't withstand a kick: probably not wealthy churches.
They were burned down by a pre-med student, son of a doctor; a theater major on scholarship, and a campus actor-rocker who had been student president at his high school.
If they're found guilty -- one has confessed already -- 90-to-135-year sentences should be adequate.
According to an article in the evangelical magazine Faith Today, two groups shifted markedly in the recent federal elections: practicing Protestants across the continent swung to the Conservatives (64%, up from 51%) and practicing Catholics in Quebec abandoned the Liberals (their 56% support in 2004 fell to 29%). Andrew Grenville says that "conscience, corruption, and the Church" made the difference.
I'm sorry. He didn't get arrested for his music. It's a domestic violence arrest.
I've been asked by several parties, including the parents, to assist in the Phoenix case involving the autistic boy who cannot receive Holy Communion. Therefore I am not in a position to comment. Nevertheless, here is an earlier essay I co-authored on the issue of sacramental reception for those with special mental or cognitive needs.
That being said, please keep me in prayer as this is the most difficult case I have ever been involved with.
Want to slip out of your obligations? Just apply some WWJD-40: details at the Curt Jester.
Three Jewish Attackers Toss Firecrackers Into Nazareth Church, Sparking Riot
What could these three people possibly want? International recognition of the plight of Israel? Additional foreign aid? 15 minutes of fame?
One thing's for sure: if this happened in another part of Israel and was perpetrated by others, it wouldn't have involved firecrackers.
The well-known homilist Fr. Robert Altier is under orders from his Minnesota bishop to stop distributing his talks via internet. We don't know the rationale for this yet, so I have snapped up a copy of his audio files (without his knowledge, of course) and saved it at my home machine (subject to change). I haven't listened to much there, but I'm favorably impressed so far. The audio files use a proprietary commercial format called DSS, so you'll probably need to install the "Olympus DSS Lite" player.
Note to downloaders: Limit your downloading to one connection at a time. A guy in Florida is currently reading five files at once and eating my home machine's entire bandwidth.
Other than their religion, they're not much different than the Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Socialists, Natives and Atheists tunneling under my home. That's what happens when you come from a mining town. Anyway, you can read Mark Shea's full entry here.
What the heck was I thinking? I was being accosted by the most rabid form of Bible fundamentalist the other day, you know, a former Catholic who is also divorced-and-remarried outside of the Church. I kept thinking of Mark Shea's maxim "Heresy begins in the groin" as the fundy yabbered away about Sola Scriptura.
When I blurted out without thinking: "You can justify anything using the Bible alone, including same-sex marriage. This is why we need Tradition."
He laughed. "The Bible has plenty to say on that topic," he said.
To my disbelieving ears, I replied: "Show me."
He couldn't. He showed me many passages where Scripture condemns homosexual acts of sexual nature, as well as many passages where the Bible speaks of marriage between a man and a woman.
Nevertheless, his smug expression soon turned to frantic fluster as he was unable to find a single passage where the Bible condemns same-sex marriage.
"But you gotta be reasonable," he said in a moment of frustration, "you just can't take the Bible at its letter alone." It then dawned on him what he had said.
But yes, this is why we need Tradition. This is also why the Church needs a teaching magisterium. I was stunned to discover that the Bible Alone does not condemn ssm, but rather we know ssm is wrong because of both Scripture and Tradition.
Here's a story I wrote about Charlie Hatchko, the man whom I consider the best Catholic Bible apologist in North America. No, he's neither a Scripture scholar nor a theologian. Rather he's a retired truck driver with a grade eight education.
Fr. Richard Rohr, that guru of fuzzy thinking and cuddly spirituality, has visited the Gulf Coast several times lately, so Fr. Bryce Sibley of Parks, LA, decided to find out more about his views. The results of his study are in the March NOR.
The rumor about a Catholic Charities board rebellion against the Church has not panned out, at least in public. Instead seven of the Board's 42 members have quit in the face of the bishops' stand against gay adoptions. Dom has the details.
From the life of St. Senan, Bishop (c. 488-560)
As a boy of Magh Lacha, Ireland, Senan was so precocious in his piety that once, while walking with his mother, having observed her eating berries that she had plucked along the way, he reprimanded her for snacking between meals.
from the March 2006 Magnificat.
