Category: Uncategorized

This looks like the sort of conversion story that St. Francis would bring about. Actually, it looks like he did.
A blessed Triduum to you all!

Catholic Leaders Will Keep No Communion Instruction for Pro-Abortion Sebelius

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Should pro-abortion Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius become President Barack Obama’s health secretary, she will likely be asked to continue refraining from receiving communion at Washington-area Catholic churches. In May 2008, her own archbishop told her to not present herself for communion.
Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City called on Sebelius to take the “necessary steps for amendment of her life” because of her strongly pro-abortion position.
He said Sebelius needs to refrain from receiving communion until she changes her position supporting abortion.
Now, two Washington area bishops, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington and Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, Virginia, both said they would enforce the communion request Naumann put in place if Sebelius lives within their jurisdictions.

Benedict prays for John Paul’s beatification.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI marked the fourth anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II with a memorial Mass on Thursday and new prayers for the Polish pontiff’s beatification.
Later, Benedict descended to the grottos underneath St. Peter’s and knelt for a few minutes of silent prayer before his predecessor’s simple, marble tomb, decorated with a red rose. The pope sprinkled holy water in blessing before returning to the basilica upstairs and greeting some of the pilgrims.
The pope told Polish pilgrims on Wednesday he was praying for John Paul’s beatification, the first step to possible sainthood.

At first you might be thinking – what? Can’t Pope Benedict just declare Pope John Paul II a saint? What happened to Santo Subito?
And the answer is: that’s not how it works, even for Pope John Paul II, The Great.

His cause for canonization is proceeding like any other. So keep up the prayers!

The Patriarch of Georgia was concerned about the low birth rate in that Caucasus nation, so he offered to be the godfather for any third child born to a Georgian family. Swiftly the nation’s birth rate shot up 20% and the Patriarch found himself godfather to over 2,000 children whose baptisms he performed!
(source: BBC: scroll down for the story)

Boston Catholic Television, the little diocesan-owned cable service here, has had viewers outside of Massachusetts for a long time: it was carried on cable systems in neighboring states and as far away as Montreal for years. It lived off donations from the “shut-ins” who were its main viewers, and its production values were on par with a good public-access show.
Now they want to expand their audience and present themselves nationally in a more serious way. They’ve dropped the “Boston” from their title and are billing themselves as simply “Catholic TV“. The sets are looking better, and the director, Fr. Robert Reed, shows a bit of humor in his presentation. They’re feeding the service to more cable systems and streaming their video over the net.
Well, good enough: there’s certainly room out there in the US media world for another Catholic cable service in addition to EWTN.
Now they’ve hired a publicist to promote their website to bloggers.
Ahem. This screenshot shows what video on the site looks like:

For some reason, they think nobody will notice or mind that the video they’re streaming is being stretched horizontally by 33% to fill the display box. I mean, Fr. Hesburgh — the mover and shaker who made Notre Dame what it is today (sigh) — is no glamour plate, but he’s not as unsightly as they’re making him in that image. No, really.
The technical reason for this is that standard TV images form a rectangle with a 4-to-3 ratio of width to length. HDTV video has a wider 16-to-9 aspect ratio. CTV apparently wanted the fancy new wide format on their website, but their actual programming is in the standard format. To make it fit, they are, in Procrustean fashion, stretching the h*ll out of their video: making it 33% wider than it should be, and figuring that the viewers will just put up with it.
Great media savvy, guys. It really proves you’re ready for the big time.
Mm, no. The correct way to convert 4×3 video into 16×9 video is to “letterbox” it. That is, you make it wider by adding empty space to the left and right of the image. Conversely, to convert 16×9 video into 4×3 format, you’d add empty space to the top and bottom of the image.
What is wrong with these people? The site has been like this since it debuted in October. Do the clergy in Boston think that they can make things better by issuing press releases instead of curing problems?
Hey, don’t answer that!