John Schultz: June 2006 Archives

From the WashTimes Politics Blog.

On the very day of Archbishop Wuerl’s installation, two of Massachusetts’ most pro-choice Catholics — Kerry and the state’s senior U.S. senator, Ted Kennedy — showed up and sat in the VIP section. Archbishop Wuerl shook their hands as he moved toward the altar. I didn’t see whether Kennedy took Communion, but I know Kerry did because I talked with him immediately afterward. He was there, he said, as a longtime friend of the archbishop’s.

Isn’t it odd that two of the Senate’s most liberal Catholics made time in their schedules to be at the installation Mass while their conservative Republican colleague from Pennsylvania, Sen. Rick Santorum, did not?

Santorum, I heard, had to stay close to his office for a vote. All the same, here were two Democratic senators giving the new archbishop notice that they intend to ignore any move to disenfranchise them from the Eucharist. No one could miss the message.
Welcome to Washington, Archbishop.

Good to see Card. O'Malley on the right side of this one.

Multifaith coalition targets O'Malley
In an unusual incidence of religious leaders in Massachusetts publicly criticizing one another, a multifaith coalition of clergy who support same-sex marriage plan to accuse Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley and other Catholic leaders of ``religious discrimination" today. ... more

"Multifaith" coalition? Is that like Multigrain cereal? With fruits and nuts?

Now you know.

Dell laptop explodes at Japanese conference.
Link. Includes. Photos.

Teresa and I were blest last weekend to attend the ordination of 7 priests in Arlington, VA. Among them was Father Bjorn Lundberg, who sang in my choir seven years ago while his application was being considered. He'll serve his first assignment at our cathedral. He has been a dear friend to us and will have many happy years of service.

He's got a wonderful singing voice, and also does an amazing impression of Mother Angelica, the Papal Nuncio, his Rector Fr. Rippy, and our own Bishop Loverde.

AUSTIN, Texas - Customers craving fresh crustaceans will have to look beyond Whole Foods Market Inc. after the natural-foods grocery chain decided Thursday to stop selling live lobsters and crabs on the grounds that it's inhumane.

The Austin-based grocer spent seven months studying the sale of live lobsters from ship to supermarket aisle, trying to determine whether the creatures suffer along the way.

In some stores, they experimented with "lobster condos," filling tanks with stacks of large pipes the critters can crawl inside. And they moved the tanks behind seafood counters and away from children's tapping fingers.

Ultimately, Whole Foods management decided to immediately stop selling live lobsters and soft-shell crabs, saying they could not ensure the creatures are treated with respect and compassion. ...more

So what's next? Beef? Pork sausage? Broccoli? Will Whole Foods stop selling cheese if they think the cows are under duress?

PETA is happy, of course:

"The ways that lobsters are treated would warrant felony cruelty to animals charges if they were dogs or cats," said Bruce Friedrich, a spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Note to PETA: we don't eat cats & dogs. We eat lobsters, softshell crabs, steaks, chops, ribs, roasts, drumsticks, & nuggets. Beef, pork, chicken, duck, goose, buffalo, moose. And they are tasty.

If anyone needs some lobster tanks, I know where you can get them. Cheap.

New Catholic Mass translation OK'd

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The nation's Roman Catholic bishops signed off Thursday on a new English translation for the Mass that would change prayers ingrained in the memories of millions of American parishioners. ...more

Gay Brownshirts on the March

Of course Gov. Ehrlich of Maryland would throw a political appointee in front of a bus when he expressed his Catholic belief about homosexual behavior. He's a Republican serving in a heavily democratic state.

Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. yesterday fired Robert J. Smith, his appointee on the Metro transit authority board, for referring to gay people as sexual deviants on a cable television show.

"Homosexual behavior, in my view, is deviant," he said. "I'm a Roman Catholic." Smith said his comments had been part of a discussion about a proposed ban on same-sex marriage. "The comments I make in public outside of my [Metro board job] I'm entitled to make," he said. His personal beliefs, he said, have "absolutely nothing to do with running trains and buses and have not affected my actions or decisions on this board."

I hope the Catholic League jumps all over this.

From BeliefNet

Though most of the changes are minor, they alter parts of the daily Mass so familiar to American Catholics that it could lead to a "liturgical disorientation," said Monsignor Kevin Irwin, an adviser to the bishops' liturgy committee and professor of liturgy and sacramental theology at Catholic University.

"Liturgical Disorientation" - like...
1. When liturgical dancers show up unannounced?
2. When DRE's turn First Communion into "The First Communion Pageant & Reception" aka "Your Child Will Experience A Special Meal Today!"
3. When the priest drives a VW Bug up the aisle on Ascension Sunday (this actually happened in the 70's at a parish in Virginia.

Episcopalians weigh not having gay bishops

New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, pleaded with the church General Convention not to enact a ban. "Please, I beg you, let's say our prayers and stand up for right," he said, then adding, "The window treatments at this conference center are fabulous!"

A telling set of quotes on the Great Translation Vote of '06

The Vatican recently issued updated guidelines for the translation of the Latin texts with the goal of arriving at a more accurate translation, as well as one that reflects "a deeper language that's more expressive and more poetic," said Monsignor James. P. Moroney, who leads the liturgy office for the bishops' conference.

and

"My big concern is people are going to feel like they're being jerked around. They finally got used to the English translation and now they have to get used to another translation," said Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University and a Jesuit priest.

I'll take expressive, poetic and truer to the Latin any day.

Studio Script Notes on "The Passion" Dictated To Steve Martin ____________________________________

Dear Mel:

We love, LOVE the script! The ending works great. You'll be getting a call from us to start negotiations for the book rights.

Love the Jesus character. So likable. He can't seem to catch a break! We identify with him because of it. One thing, I think we need to clearly state "the rules." Why doesn't he use his super powers to save himself? The creative people suggest that you could simply cut away to two spectators:

Spectator one 'Why doesn't he use his super powers to save himself?'

... and here's the rest.

Yet another article about the St. Mary's by the Sea debacle, where a pastor has been removing folks who kneel during communion from the Pastoral Council, leading the altar boys, etc.

Here's the "Catholic Academia Spin^TM" on the issue. I've highlighted the dubious statements in italics and my comments in brackets.

At the center of the controversy is the church's concept of Christ, said Jesuit Father [You sure should we should trust this guy?] Lawrence J. Madden, director of the Georgetown Center for Liturgy at Georgetown University in Washington.

Because the earliest Christians viewed Christ as God and man, Madden said, they generally stood during worship services to show reverence and equality. [Maybe. Maybe not. Would love to see the real evidence for this.]

About the seventh century, however, Catholic theologians put more emphasis on Christ's divinity and introduced kneeling as the only appropriate posture at points in the Mass when God was believed to be present.

Things started to change in the 1960s, Madden said, when Vatican II began moving the church back to its earliest roots. [Is there a line anywhere in the Vatican II docs that says anything about "moving the church back to its earliest roots? That's such a dubious, dishonest assertion.] What has ensued, he said, is the predictable struggle of an institution revising centuries of religious practices.

The argument over kneeling, Madden said, is "a signal of the division in the church between two camps: those who have caught the spirit of Vatican II, and those who are a bit suspicious. Because it's so visible, what happens at the Sunday worship event is a lightning rod for lots of issues."

Now: why would the same folks who are crying that changes to the English text of the Mass used for 40 years are a serious problem, but changing the posture of the faithful that has been the norm for over 1,000 years is right, just and better reflects our relationship with God. And get on board or you're not welcome in our parish. Nothing to see here as long as you follow the rules about standing.

An even-handed article about the upcoming vote on translation changes for the Mass.

It has a perfectly awful example of gender-revisionist language, which happens to be very appropriate following Trinity Sunday, and one I could have gone my whole life without reading:

Consider the most common Catholic utterance: ''In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.'' It is translated, literally, as ''In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.''

To the horror of traditional Catholics, some groups — including Dignity USA, a coalition of gay and lesbian Catholics — offer ''In the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier'' as a gender-neutral alternative.

It has one sensible quote from Bob Sungenis, and another that attempts to boil down the translation issues a little too far:

'Modernists don't like redundancy,'' he said. ''Traditionalists love it because it reinforces in their mind the point to be made. The modernists want to streamline things. The problem with streamlining is you take away the effect, cadence and rhythm of words.''

Saying "modernists want to streamline things" is a bit like saying that Islamic terrorists want to "have a greater voice in the political struggles of the Middle East."

It will be interesting to see what happens with things like the Gloria settings for the last 40 years. Catholic hymnal publishers will need to clear cut hectares upon hectares for the reprints. I bet some pastors will be happy they have OCP's disposable hymnals.

My prediction: if the translation changes go thru, we'll have the same bishops who act as if the only change in the GIRM was to have congregants stand through communion come up with some convoluted reason to implement only a small amount of the changes.

Don't take my word for it.

Take Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel-Karim Delly's of Baghdad:

The death of the Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq and the filling of the last posts in the Iraqi cabinet brings “hope that violence may come to an end,” said the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church here. ...more

Looks like Geno's is taking matters into his own hands.

English only at Philly cheesesteak joint

Situated in a South Philadelphia immigrant neighborhood, Geno's — which together with its chief rival, Pat's King of Steaks, forms the epicenter of an area described as "ground zero for cheesesteaks" — has posted small signs telling customers, "This Is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING `SPEAK ENGLISH.'"

You can't have a policy like that without a journalist taking a swipe:

Of course, it's not as if native Philadelphians speak the King's English either. A Philadelphian might order a cheesesteak by saying something like, "Yo, gimme a cheesesteak wit, will youse?" ("Wit," or "with," means with fried onions.) To which the counterman might reply: "Youse want fries widdat?"

I would say that learning the word "Cheesesteak" will start an immigrant on his way to enjoying the many gastronomical delights we have here in the USA.

And "yooze guyz" is a perfectly acceptable way of addressing your homies.

Republican U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave's re-election campaign was already heated, and it just got smelly as well: Her staff accused a Democratic activist Thursday of leaving an envelope full of dog feces at Musgrave's Greeley office.

Musgrave spokesman Shaun Kenney said someone stuffed the envelope through the mail slot in the door on May 31 and then sped away in a car. Kenney said most of the preprinted return address was blacked out, but staffers used the nine-digit ZIP code to trace it to Kathleen Ensz, a Weld County Democratic volunteer.

Ensz told The Associated Press she left the envelope at Musgrave's office but said it "wasn't in the office doors, it was in the foyer." Asked what she meant by the act, she declined comment. ...more

I suppose it speaks for itself. I'm just amazed she admitted to doing something so juvenile, tasteless and unsanitary.

I caught a glimpse of a headshot of Cardinal McCarrick on FoxNews with the trademark line underneath: It said something like "Cardinal for Gay Unions?"

Here's the sad scoop of what happens when one tries to be "moderate."

From CWN

Without benefit of clergy: McCarrick stumps for same-sex unions

Theodore McCarrick, the tardily retired Archbishop of Washington, musters "defenses" of Church teaching so lousy, so mind-numbingly feeble, that they look like arguments for the other side. Yesterday CNN quizzed the Demosthenes of Dupont Circle on the Federal Marriage Amendment. (Tip to Gerald Augustinus).

BLITZER: So just explain. You think that you could live with -- you could support civil unions between gays and lesbians, but you wouldn't like them to get formally married, is that right?

MCCARRICK: Yes. I think -- I think basically the ideal would be that everybody was -- was able to enter a union with a man and a woman and bring children into the world and have the wonderful relationship of man and wife that is so mutually supportive and is really so much part of our society and what keeps our society together. That's the ideal.

Really so much part of our society. You'd think he were talking about the ability to make a right turn on red.

If you can't meet that ideal, if there are people who for one reason or another just cannot do that or feel they cannot do that, then in order to protect their right to take care of each other, in order to take care of their right to have visitation in a hospital or something like that, I think that you could allow, not the ideal, but you could allow for that for a civil union.

Inspiring. I don't remember St. Paul's urging the Corinthians to accept a wee bit o' sodomy to expedite sick calls, but then McCarrick, the centrist, seems always to read from a different text. As a general rule, incidentally, whenever you hear a moralist use the word "ideal," you know the argument has gone off the rails.

But if you begin to fool around with the whole -- the whole nature of marriage, then you're doing something which effects the whole culture and denigrates what is so important for us. Marriage is the basic foundation of our family structure. And if we lose that, then I think we become a society that's in real trouble.

So we're to understand that civilly legitimating male-male and female-female pairings is not "fooling around" with the whole nature of marriage? Pointless to ask, of course. That whole paragraph could have come verbatim from an Eighth Grade classroom debate. More significant is what goes unmentioned, viz., that souls are imperiled by giving consent to a life of mortal sin -- something you'd have thought a Catholic might have an opinion about. But this is McCarrick. The centrist.

The Canadian author Stephen Leacock offered a cheerful and memorable explanation of his status as emeritus professor: "Emeritus comes from two Latin words. E, 'out,' plus meritus, 'and rightly so.'" Obliged to continue listening to the egregiously emeritus Archbishop of Washington, one is moved to wonder, not why he's out, but how in God's name he ever got in.