Just to prove to our friends on the Left that TBR and TBM are not simply an organ of right-wing-never-does wrong propaganda (as The Ugly American jokes), and to rebut the inevitable anti-Catholic rhetoric (thanks heaps Dahvid), I must take note of a disgraceful episode Thursday night regarding Mel Gibson. Apparently, the actor/director got blinding drunk, got caught DUI, and during the arrest repeatedly spouted anti-Semitic remarks. I'll let others get more detailed, and for my part simply and completely repudiate all Gibson's insane nonsense.
free keygen for swish 2.01Unfortunately, those of us - especially we Catholics - who defended Gibson in the past will be hurt by association here, regardless of what we say. His tirade makes it appear that all the evil designs that he denied while making The Passion of the Christ were actually true. He brings scandal to the Church, and our cries that Catholics aren't really secret anti-Semites - despite some terrible things we've been associated with in the past - will fall on even more deafened ears.
We can only repeat that this is not the case, renounce Gibson's drunken antics, and beg the forgiveness of the Jewish people for any real or perceived insults of the past.
Chris Burgwald at Veritas reprints a post with an apparently well-established - if not widely-disseminated - debunking.
If you asked anyone who knows anything about Church History in the West to pinpoint a specific moment or event which can be considered the beginning of the Reformation, the answer would probably be Martin Luther's posting of his 95 theses on indulgences on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. By this act, Luther is seen as rejecting the whole medieval system of indulgences and their associated doctrines and practices; in so doing, he makes his break from Rome, or at least begins to do so in a definitive way. In fact, many Protestant churches celebrate October 31st as "Reformation Day", indicating the importance of that date and Luther's actions on it in 1517 vis. the Reformation churches and communities. This date, then, has been widely regarded as the beginning of the Reformation. However...Interesting read - and the comments are quite amusing.In all likelihood, it never happened.
On the same day a cardinal at the Vatican made a statement that "the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer", a team of Polish archeologists say they have found the grave of Nicolaus Copernicus.
The Vatican project was inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun; church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.Ironic isn't it, that while Cardinal Poupard was trying to bury the ghost of all the trouble Copernicus caused the Church, today's scientists were digging him up.--
(Jerzy) Gassowski (head of an archaeology and anthropology institute in Pultusk, Poland) said police forensic experts used the skull to reconstruct a face that closely resembled the features - including a broken nose and scar above the left eye - on a Copernicus self-portrait. The experts also determined the skull belonged to a man who died at about age 70.
The grave was in bad condition and not all remains were found, Gassowski said, adding that his team will try to find relatives of Copernicus to do more accurate DNA identification.
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
Regardless of your personal faith, you really should read this funny post and its comments.
According to the film, over half a million priests and nuns have left the church since the early '60s, a loss known among Catholics as "the bleeding."If you're Catholic, you'll laugh. If you're not, you'll learn the one place you shouldn't get your information about Catholics: the mainstream press.
UPDATE: It just gets better. And in the comments:
What is next? The Bleeding 2: The Bloodening!
Posted by Chris at 02:02 AM
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
I've discussed before how some of the principles upon which the Republican Party was founded have endured the test of time, and how we've outgrown some prejudices that ought never have been a part of the Party of Lincoln in the first place. One of these positions was the initial anti-Catholic stance of most Republicans early in our history. Thankfully, we have outgrown that, and in fact we have long since reversed the trend with more and more practicing Catholics moving from the Democrat Party.
Note my differentiation by saying: "practicing". A good deal of the "Catholic vote" is still going to the Democratic Party. The problem is those people aren't Catholics as anyone should define them. Unlike many other religious or social affiliations, there actually is a simple litmus test for being Catholic: one must be a member of the Body of Christ, and the outward symbol of that membership (if I dare call it a mere "symbol") is the reception of the Holy Eucharist. What is beyond the understanding of many once-a-week and twice-a-year Catholics is even some of them aren't Catholic either. Without this becoming a long theology lesson, suffice to say there's a lot of faith required behind that act, and a lot more action required behind that faith, before your card is punched.
Especially in America today, we Catholics don't spend a whole lot of time talking about this self-amputation of our members, primarily because it would require us to make judgements about the nature and character of the faith of our brothers. But the Church does have a mechanism to shield the faithful from the most egregious of our erstwhile brethren, lest they drag us down with them: excommunication. By saying publicly that someone is not worthy of receiving the Holy Eucharist at this moment because of the example of his words or actions, the Church can show the faithful a clearly negative example of what it means not to be in union with the Body of Christ.
Here's where we get back to politics. Any political party not run exclusively by practicing Catholics will have policy positions that may run counter to Catholic teachings. And for many years, the Democrat's concentration on social welfare seemed to be as close a fit as one could make with Catholic doctrine. But those days have come and gone. Liberation theology has been repudiated as a serious economic system, leaving bare many of the Democrats' social positions - abortion primary among them - as seriously anti-Catholic in nature. Not to be rebuffed so easily, many Catholic Democrats have insisted that Rome ignore their voting records and rhetoric, trying to separate their public acts from their "private beliefs". (Nevermind for now the hypocritical concept that one should advocate something they personally disagree with.) But recently, bishops and priests have become more vocal in stating that they may need to use excommunication to chastise Catholic politicians who advocate positions contrary to the teachings of Catholic doctrine.
For the fourth time in American history*, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President is Catholic (or, at least, he says he is). But John Kerry has suggested that his Catholic faith is his "bedrock of values, of sureness about who I am," even though he takes the standard anti-Catholic Democratic position on euthanasia, homosexual "rights", and (of course) abortion.
* In reverse order, the previous three Catholic nominees for president were: John Kennedy (1960), Al Smith (1928), and Charles O'Conor (1872).
EDIT: I added a line in the sixth paragraph that completes a thought I left floating in the wind.
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
Just yesterday I confused Steve for an entire lunch by trying to describe the contradictions of Liberation Theology. I should have waited a day and sent him to the Wall Street Journal.
And yes Steve, I see that "Father Aristide" was a Silesian, not a Jesuit. How could I tell with the hammer and sickle over his vestment? For the record, Fr. Sirico, the author of the op-ed, is apparently a Franciscan.
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
Charles Krauthammer is a man I greatly respect. So, is it my respect for him or is it his excellent writing skills turning the issue in a slightly different way that creates real self-doubt for the first time since The Passion business all came up?
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
Now we turn - merely as an interlude, of course - to the heart of the matter. Daniel Henninger lays out for us a scene very reminiscent of the last time the Supreme Court made a judgment over the worth of a human soul.
The men who made the American Constitution understood that nothing in the pristine vapors of their nation was so special or unique as to ensure that Jack would never despise the opinions of Tom--and more than anything would like to shut Tom up, for starters. It is clear in the Federalist Papers that the Founders, above all, tried to reduce the destruction often done to civil life by political factions. I don't know that James Madison is spinning in his grave over the factionalism washing through U.S. politics, but surely he is heaving heavy sighs.Of course, there are also differences. In 1860, the problem had permeated all facets of the two very different cultures that then existed in our country. The problem was resident in our homes, our fields, and our legislatures. Nowadays, it simply exists in our courts, where most people assume they have no rights other than those that are argued by a high-priced lawyer, or adjudicated by a federal judge.
I think many people who don't get paid for waging politics are becoming quite frustrated with dysfunctional legislatures that are now polarized--as in Congress or in California--essentially along the cultural faultlines created by 30 years of allowing judges to pre-empt the broader community's ability to discover, or re-examine, its social beliefs. These legislators have become little more than clerks to judges and the complainants in their courts--the law as not much more than a brief. When this happens, citizens lose their status as voters or electors and become mere courtroom spectators. How can this be good?The question is, will Americans continue to allow this "war" described by Mr. Henninger to rage in their courts? Or will they rise up in defense of their "public property rights"?
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
Almost 1,000 years ago, the Christian Church (as it was a singular institution in those days) passed a requirement that all priests take a vow of celibacy prior to ordination. In the feudal structure of the society at the time, too many young men were left without anything to do, having been deprived of land and position by the strict inheritance laws. Many of them, seeing the potential for power, influence, and upward mobility, were becoming priests as their choice of career, with barely a thought to the spiritual component to the profession. The heirarchical clergy of the time decided the most efficient means to separate the devout from the social climbers was to deprive all priests of the pleasures of the flesh - at least officially. It was a brilliant political maneuver, conveniently supported by Scripture. ("Each one should lead the life the Lord has assigned him, continuing as he was when the Lord called him." 1 Cor 7, 17)
Some of the problems the Catholic Church has today are wholly man's problem, and this is one of them. The very passage that supports the celibacy of its priests makes no requirement beyond that of "continuing as he was". Paul goes on to say that it would be better if a man were unmarried, but admits all the other Apostles did not follow that path as he did, because "It is better to marry than to be on fire."
Oh, how prescient that statement is for us today - yet, the church leaders deny it. Why? They say it is just because we're not holy enough, that if more more Catholics were more devout, we just wouldn't have a problem.
'The problems in the church today are not caused by the teaching of Jesus and of his church, but by lack of fidelity to them,' Archbishop Dolan wrote. 'The recent sad scandal of clerical sexual abuse of minors, as the professionals have documented, has nothing to do with our celibate commitment.'So it would seem that the Church leaders believe we get what we deserve. If no one wants to live under the yoke they say Scripture imposes, we have no one to blame but ourselves for our lack of fidelity to the Word.
As the bishops reaffirmed a requirement that has been part of church practice for nearly 1,000 years, priests and laypeople added their voices to those in Milwaukee calling for change. According to the National Federation of Priests Councils, associations of priests in Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Charleston, and in the states of New York and Illinois, are all considering issuing manifestos like the one issued in Milwaukee.
Bishop Gregory and Archbishop Dolan both argued that the shortage of Catholic clergy has little to do with celibacy, and is a problem shared by many Christian denominations and even Jewish synagogues.
However, Dean R. Hoge, a sociologist at The Catholic University of America who has studied clergy in Catholic and Protestant churches for more than 30 years, said that the shortage of priests in the Catholic church is 'far more severe' than any other denomination in the United States. He said that for every 100 priests who die or leave ministry today, Catholic seminaries are now training only 30 or 40 to replace them.