Author: Richard Chonak

Another inspection mission underway
Thanks to John, Teresa, and Steve for their kind welcome at St. Mark’s in Vienna (VA) Sunday morning and the breakfast afterward. It was worth the trip to hear Mrs. Schultz sing.
As you might expect from some of John’s posts about music performance, his tempos are indeed up-tempo: not that there’s anything wrong with that. John just prays faster than I do. It did work well for the chant-style Gloria which the parish choir sang from the RitualSong book, and if the result is good, you can call it “sprightly”. Sometimes when I hear a church musician moving that fast, it sounds like a hurry, and I wonder “who stuck her with a cattleprod?”
Since one of the songs sung at Mass was Here I Am, Lord, this might be a good time to post Fr. James Buffer’s amusing translation.

Deus maris et caeli
plorantes meos audivi
Habitans in tenebris
salvabitur
Stellas noctis qui feci
tenebras inlustrabo
Quis portabit meam lucem?
Iis mittam quem?
Ecce ego; sumne ille?
Te vocantem nocte audivi
Ibo, Domine, te ducente,
Gentem tuam corde tenebo.

(This is from memory, so pardon any errors.)

Word up from the WashTimes:

The Holy See will soon publish a new glossary of 90 words related to sexual and family issues, according to Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, director of the Pontifical Council for the Family.
The “Lexicon of the Family and Life” will also clarify the Catholic Church’s teachings on birth control, sex education, assisted procreation and homosexuality. The work intends to clarify “neologisms, ambiguous terms and difficult concepts in frequent use.”
Those terms include “voluntary interruption of pregnancy,” “reproductive health,” “matrimonial indissolubility,” “sexual education” and “conjugal love.” When bandied about in a global forum, they can cause “grave moral confusion,” the lexicon states.
The work has a waiting audience.
“It’s long overdue, but it’s a welcome initiative to clarify the political hijacking of the language,” said William Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

Sounds promising. The first step is calling things by their right names, eh?

Especially when you want an exorcism performed on you. This lady is protesting that Bp. Daniel Hart, of Norwich, wouldn’t agree to have her exorcised when it was just so obvious that she needed it.
I’m surprised she’s not suing: isn’t everybody? It’s another case of abuse that the bishops allowed to continue. Oh, man, the argument writes itself.
In the end, she got her demons expelled at a Protestant seminary. What shall we conclude?
Shall we say, then, that Protestants lacking apostolic authority can’t expel real demons, and therefore she didn’t have any? Given her continued antics, I have to figure she hasn’t quite been restored to sanity yet.

Amy spotted this one: Unitarian leader proposes adding “God” to the association’s statement of beliefs. This may be a radical move for the heart of liberal non-creedal religion in America.
I wonder if many of us American Catholics realize this, but some religious bodies are non-creedal: they not only have different beliefs from those the Catholic Church proclaims, but don’t have any creed to which members must subscribe. Surprisingly, the various Baptist denominations are the foremost example of this, for they make the freedom of believers in Christ a principle, and traditionally impose no statement of faith other than what is contained in the words of Scripture.
A story is told about President Harry Truman, a Baptist; some prominent Baptist proposed censuring him after it became known that Mr. Truman sometimes drank liquor, but Truman responded reasonably enough that he and his co-religionists were not required to believe in abstaining.
In practice, this is not working out for some of the Baptist denominations, since they actually do believe in Christ, and when disputes arise, they end up formulating statements of belief, as for example, that of the SBC.

Teresita Anez carries a crucifix at the beginning of an oversized Catholic rosary during a religious march organized by the opposition in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2003.(AP Photo/Leslie Mazoch)