Author: John Schultz

Is Islam a religion of peace? Nope. Just ask Cardinal Pells of Australia. And the Koran.

“In my own reading of the Koran, I began to note down invocations to violence,” he said. “There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages.”
He discussed the perceived differences between parts of the Koran written during Mohammed’s years in Mecca – when his position was weak and he was still hoping to win converts, including Christians and Jews – and those written during his subsequent years in Medina, when “the spread of Islam through conquest and coercion began.”
[The differences in the text from those two periods hold apparent contradictions between, for example, the concept of “jihad,” meaning striving or waging war. Some verses counsel a patient response to mockery from unbelievers; others incite warfare against them. The question of whether the Medina chapters (suras) replaced and revoked the Mecca ones have long exercised scholars.]
“The predominant grammatical form in which jihad is used in the Koran carries the sense of fighting or waging war,” Pell said.
It was legitimate to ask “our Islamic partners in dialogue” for their views on these matters.
“Do they believe that the peaceful suras of the Koran are abrogated by the verses of the sword?” he asked. …more.

A very valuable question to ask.
He did make some comments about environmentalism that probably needed more explanation. Think about this coming from the USCCB – would that make you laugh, or cry?

In a section of the speech dealing with what he called the “emptiness” of secularism, he said “some of the hysteric and extreme claims about global warming are also a symptom of pagan emptiness, of Western fear when confronted by the immense and basically uncontrollable forces of nature.”

Excommunications in Roman Catholic history

The Wall Street Journal has an article about the roadkill of the information superhighway: the worst businesses launched on the internet.
And they did stink. The iLoo. Flooz. CueCat. You can read all about how moronic they were from conception thru to losing millions.
But it looks like some people never learn. See bold below:

“I would have wanted a different outcome,” said Mr. Levitan [formerly of Flooz], who has since moved on to start-up Pando Networks Inc., which aims to simplify the sending of email attachments.

Click paper clip icon. Browse for files. Hit “attach.” Send.
How do you simplify that?
And someone has already given them $4M. Suckers!

As an Easter gift, my wife bought Fr. Cantalamessa’s “Come, Creator Spirit” for me.
It’s the mother lode of meditations on Veni Creator Spiritus
Here’s a tidbit from page 2:

“… the Veni Creator has enjoyed extraordinary success even out Church circles. Goethe produced a splendid German translation of it, as did the poets and mystics Tersteegen and Angelus Silesius. Composers showed their interest in it. Bach set Luther’s translation to music; Gustav Mahler chose the hymn as libretto for his choral work Symphony of a Thousand, to say nothing of the many other authors of lesser note. Yet none of them so far has managed to equal the simple fascination of the Gregorian melody that seems to have come to birth in the same creative act as produced the words. To listen to this melody at the beginning of a retreat or at a priestly ordination is, as it were, to enter without further ado into an atmosphere charged with mystery and with the presence of the Spirit.

Thanks to all who posted on the text read during the dressing of the altar. The consensus is it stinks. It’s just not worthy of the Mass, isn’t allowed for to begin with, and makes no mention of what the Mass and the Eucharist really are.
The actual execution of it on Sunday was worse than I imagined. The renegade DRE (originally responsible for this being done) gathered up all the kids during the Creed and ushered them into the back to prepare for her production. Right in the middle of the creed, on a Sunday where it’s particularly important to affirm what the Church teaches and believes.
I haven’t had contact with the DRE – it turns out she’s less than a year from retirement and has a sour disposition. So – our liturgy director gives her a wide berth. Nice: no one wants to engage the DRE because she’s so defensive about what she does.
I’m sure options will be kicked around for next year that don’t include this. Hopefully the kids and their parents can focus on the sacrament instead of being involved in a big, meaningles production that detracts from the sacrament.