Author: Richard Chonak

On Holy Saturday 1993, three Orthodox monks of Russia’s Optina Pustyn monastery were killed by some Satanist kook. Perhaps one day they will be canonized saints. Ten years later, these “new martyrs'” stories are being told. The Voice of Russia’s weekly religious program recalls one of them, and his life seems to take on a mythic glow already.
For the audio, follow this link, scroll down, and play the program for 0900 Saturday. The religious segment of the program starts at 31 minutes, 30 seconds into the hour, so use your RealPlayer or WMPlayer to skip to that point.
(Holy new martyrs, pray for us.)

Some Biblical names do not carry with them an air of sanctity. What were this lady’s parents thinking?

On May 1, London-based military-data giant Jane’s Information Group and Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) are cosponsoring “Companies on the Ground: The Challenges for Business in Rebuilding Iraq.” Registration: $528 to $1,100. The partnership began planning after the war started. “Bush seemed prepared to use the private sector in ways we haven’t seen before,” says Bathsheba Crocker, a CSIS fellow. (Newsweek)

I hope nobody out there named their girl Rahab.

Protestant missionary station HCJB has been broadcasting evangelical programs worldwide via shortwave from “high in the Andes, at Quito, Ecuador” since 1931, but is ending its transmissions in English and French this year. Media technology has changed and the needs of the audience have changed: the shortwave audience for both languages has dropped, and many places that formerly had no Christian local radio now do have it. Perhaps the first missionary shortwave station, they were also the best, often with a gentle and positive approach that even non-believers didn’t mind hearing. HCJB is focusing its resources on other languages and on producing programs to be aired on local radio in various parts of the world.
Catholic missionary radio will need to make the same transition. While shortwave can still reach some fair-sized audiences in Latin America, Africa, and much of Asia, broadcasting to the tiny SW audiences in North America, Japan, and Western Europe is already not an effective use of missionary donations. I sometimes wonder whether it was wise for EWTN to build a shortwave station when that technology was already on the wane. But the folks at EWTN radio know the trend, and they are offering their programming to Europe via satellite services.
Internet audio is becoming more prominent. Some of the countries in Asia are highly wired: South Korea has an amazing 19 broadband drops for every 100 people.
But how to get Catholic radio into people’s cars? The US satellite services XM and Sirius have both been struggling financially, it seems; but those carriers would give a Catholic channel instant nationwide reach, a feat that is probably unattainable by building an AM/FM network.

Some dame in Philly claims that a Jesuit priest “ordained” her 23 years ago. (Hey, it was 1980; the fringe types would try anything back then.)
Here’s some of her reasoning:

“I don’t want to be excommunicated, but I decided that you can’t be excommunicated from something you are,” Heffernan said. “And the doctrine of the church is that we are the church.”

Now, let’s parse this closely: she seems to be figuring as follows: (a) we are the church; (b) I am part of “we”; (c) therefore I am part of the church; also, (d) the church cannot excommunicate itself; “therefore”, (e) the church cannot excommunicate me and did not excommunicate me for schism, simulation of a sacrament, or whatever offense. Just flip through the Code of Canon Law and point to a page at random, and you’ll probably find some violation there.
I guess there is no such thing as excommunication under this gal’s logic, so, hey: I feel a song comin’ on. Everybody join hands and sing along (We Are The World):

We are the Church,
We’re priests, we’re women,
There is no excommunication
and there is no sinnin’:
It’s our voice we’re raisin’,
We’re savin’ our own souls,
We’re gonna have the Church our way eventually…

Eurgh.

The CWN blog cites a Catholic Herald (UK) story claiming that the Pope is preparing to issue a “universal indult” allowing priests to freely celebrate the old form of Mass. The web site is hard to reach at times, so I’ll quote it here:

Pope prepares to lift restrictions on Tridentine Mass
English bishops request secret report from Latin Mass Society
By Simon Caldwell
The Pope might soon allow the world’s Catholic priests the right to celebrate the old rite Latin Mass on Sundays and holy days without the permission of their bishops, according to sources close to the Vatican.
John Paul II is understood to be ready to grant a “universal indult” by the end of the year to permit all priests to choose freely between the celebration of Mass in the so-called Tridentine rite used up to 1962 – before the disciplinary reforms of the Second Vatican Council – and the novus ordo Mass used after 1970.
It will mean that a priest who wants to celebrate old rite Masses will no longer need to apply for an indult to Ecclesia Dei, a pontifical commission set up to study the implications of the Lefebvrist schism, after first gaining permission from his bishop.
The indult may be announced as part of the publication of forthcoming juridical notes on Ecclesia de Eucharistia, the new encyclical on the Eucharist, published on Holy Thursday, in which the Pope affirmed the Church’s traditional teaching of the sacrificial nature of the Mass.
It might also be announced at the Basilica of St Mary Major in Rome on May 24, when Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the Prefect for the Congregation of the Clergy and the president of Ecclesia Dei, becomes the first cardinal prefect to celebrate an old rite Mass in a main Roman basilica for 30 years. Organised by the Latin Mass movement, Una Voce, the event is one of many indications that Rome is dropping restrictions on the celebration of the old rite.
Last month, the Holy Father, who celebrated a Tridentine Mass last summer, published a command called Rescriptum ex Audientia to authorise the celebration of the old rite Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, Rome, by any priest who possessed an indult.
The Vatican also asked the Scottish bishops, ahead of their five-yearly ad limina visit to Rome in March, to reveal what provisions they made for the celebration of the old rite Mass in their dioceses. Since the meeting, the Scottish bishops have stepped up their provision from just four a year in the whole of the country to at least one a month in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
The same requests have been made in a questionnaire to the English and Welsh bishops, whose next ad limina visit to Rome will take place in the autumn. The bishops have invited the Latin Mass Society (LMS), set up to promote the practice of the old rite, to submit a report on the provision of the Tridentine Mass ahead of their low week meeting in London this week when they were scheduled to discuss the issue.
John Medlin, LMS development officer, confirmed that a “full document” had been circulated to the bishops but refused to discuss its contents.

Incidentally, note that bit of good news about St. Peter’s: in the past, the clergy who run the Basilica had resisted letting priests on pilgrimage celebrate according to the old rite there, as if doing so would have been some sort of protest.