Hey, Steve Schultz, did you get a chance to sign on?
(via CWN)
Controversies: August 2004 Archives
Bill Cork has a link to a Washington Post article about how local radio stations are dropping the Evangelical group, Jesus for Jesus, ad.
The 60-second spot features two men debating whether Jesus is the Messiah and inviting listeners to "come, it's time to take a look, and think for yourself." They speak with "Yiddish accents" while klezmer music plays in the background, said Stephen Katz, Washington director of the San Francisco-based Jews for Jesus.I heard this commercial on WGMS yesterday and thought it was funny. Then again, I'm not Jewish.Joel Oxley, general manager of WGMS, dropped the commercial after a week, saying the station's "mission is not to offend." He added, "When people come to us, they want to be soothed and they want to hear the great classical music. It was not the case when they heard the advertising."
Not John Kerry. No. This has something to do with Catholicism. I went to a local parish yesterday for daily Mass and the Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist looked at me like I had nine heads when he saw that I was receiving our Lord on the tongue. I wasn't kneeling to receive or anything - I just didn't want to get Jesus on my unconsecrated hands. Is that too pious these days?
The Revealer's Jeff Sharlet complains that the WaPo put its Deal Hudson resignation story on page A-6 instead of some place more prominent:
Why is the resignation of the Bush's chief Catholic advisor -- a position of much greater power than the governorship of New Jersey -- getting so little attention?Already, I find it hard to take that seriously. Mr. Sharlet thinks having a conference call once a week with an assistant of Karl Rove makes you more powerful than the governor of a state of 8.6 million people. I'll be nice and say "Bunk."
Continue reading Obligatory post about the Deal Hudson case.
The Woodstock for religious orders was held in Fort Worth last weekend. Dom has his usual insightful insights which are linked above. I urge you to read his commentary on this story in the Dallas Morning News - "Among faithful, mum isn't the word."
The irony of the title is plain. Faithful who? The unfaithfully faithful? The religious who openly defy the bugaboo of modernity, the Vatican?
"Security in our church has come to be identified with the controlling power of the clergy to the detriment of the people in the pews," said the Rev. Michael Crosby, a priest from Milwaukee. "We are perishing numerically because we have not been public enough in our protest of patriarchy."
The security Fr. Crosby mentions was of the false kind. Some Bishops thought they could sweep the problems of sexual abuse under the proverbial rug. We know what the result is. Fr. Crosby speaks, though, as one who would give more power to the laity. But power to do what? Elect a pastor? Force a priest out they don't like? There are many who like to make the Church into a democracy and they would make the immutable truths of faith and morals as flighty as the age.
Fr. Crosby’s subsequent statement about the cause of the lack of vocations is incorrect. He says they haven’t been public enough in their protest of the patriarchy. I say many orders are dying on the vine because they have rejected their patrimony, traditions, and the patriarchy of the Church. The orders that embrace them are flourishing, such as the Nashville Dominicans and the CFR’s. The Legionaries of Christ and Opus Dei are other examples of groups that are truly faithful to the Church and thriving. I was considering entering the Legionaries, actually, but my hair is parted on the wrong side and I’m no good at soccer. But never you mind that – what I’m saying is Fr. Crosby and his confreres don’t see the writing on the wall.
Take the traditional habit, for example. It’s a symbol, it’s not just a garment. A symbol always leads one to the substantial meaning it symbolizes. That’s why it’s called a symbol. Religious habits are made in the form of a cross. The religious who wears a habit is truly taking up the Cross, putting it on, making the Cross central to their interior and exterior life.
The Claretian martyrs of Barbastro would disagree with the “progressive” religious of today. The Spanish Marxists killed some fifty Claretian seminarians in 1936 because they were faithful Catholics in formation for the priesthood and because they wore the cassock. Their lives would be spared, they were told, if they took off the cassock. The Claretians, truly faithful to the substance behind the symbol, refused and went to their death.
The Anti-Chomsky Reader edited by Peter Collier and David Horowitz.
Fr. Paul Mankowski on CatholicCulture.org.
Here's a snippet:
The housewife who complained that Father skipped the Creed at mass and the housewife who complained that Father groped her son had remarkably similar experiences of:
- being made to feel that they themselves were somehow in the wrong;
- that they had impugned the honor of virtuous men;
- that their complaints were an unwelcome interruption of more important business; — that the true situation was fully known to the chancery and completely under control;
- that the wider and more complete knowledge of higher ecclesiastics justified their apparent inaction;
- that to criticize the curate was to criticize the pastor was to criticize the regional vicar was to criticize the bishop;
- that to publicize one's dissatisfaction was to give scandal and
would positively harm discreet efforts at remedying the ills;
- that one's duty was to keep silence and trust that those officially charged with the pertinent responsibilities would execute them in their own time;
- that delayed correction of problems was sometimes necessary for the universal good of the Church.
Knave: N.J. Gov. James McGreevey, for heralding his gayness to hide his crookedness.And one from Thomas Sowell:
What is liberalism all about? Regardless of whether the particular issue is race, agriculture, housing or a thousand other things, liberalism is about the government telling people what to do in their lives and work.
Most liberals who are for ordering other people around know as little as Teresa Heinz Kerry. But they don't have to know.
It has been said knowledge is power but, politically, power trumps knowledge.
"I am resigning my position as the director of religious outreach because it is no longer possible for me to do my job effectively," Rev. [Brenda Bartella] Peterson said, as reported by Talon News. The Washington Post added Thursday that her decision was made "after the New York-based Catholic League issued three blistering news releases attacking her positions."
Blistering and but appropriate! If the democrats want to be taken seriously by people of faith they should hire a liason who at least believes in God.
"Why are Kerry and the DNC imploding on religion? Because too many of the elites running the show are devout secularists who put a premium on freedom from religion," [William] Donohue maintains. "Their idea of religious liberty is banning nativity scenes on public property. Their idea of diversity is censoring 'under God' from the Pledge. Their idea of tolerance is forbidding a moment of silence in the schools. Their idea of a good Catholic is Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice. Their idea of compassion is hiking taxes. Their idea of helping the poor is giving them directions to a soup kitchen. And their idea of choice is abortion, not school vouchers," he said.
Link via Bill Cork
A Gloucestershire vicar is to launch a nude calendar in his church after a group of 13 women posed naked to raise money for rape victims in Rwanda...."A lot of thought has gone into this and it is about empowering Rwandan women who have been so debased. It is about reasserting women's essential female selves," he said.
I just heard three U.S. Bishops have stated today they will deny pro-abort politicians communion. Ah, here's the link - on spiritdaily.com of all places.
Here's the end of the letter, signed by Most Reverend John F. Donoghue, Archbishop of Atlanta; Most Reverend Robert J. Baker, Bishop of Charleston; and Most Reverend Peter J. Jugis, Bishop of Charlotte.
Because of the influence that Catholics in public life have on the conduct of our daily lives and on the formation of our nation's future, we declare that Catholics serving in public life espousing positions contrary to the teaching of the Church on the sanctity and inviolability of human life, especially those running for or elected to public office are not to be admitted to Holy Communion in any Catholic church within our jurisdictions: the Archdiocese of Atlanta, the Dioceses of Charleston and Charlotte. Only after reconciliation with the Church has occurred, with the knowledge and consent of the local bishop, and public disavowal of former support for procured abortion, will the individual be permitted to approach the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.We undertake this action to safeguard the sacred dignity of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, to reassure the faithful, and to save sinners.
This is not going to play well with the Barney Jesus crowd.
