At 2 pm on Sunday, October 21 some 75 people-18 from SJA--attended the sharing of the personal journeys of SJA parishioner Carol Curoe and her father, Robert [Bob], 82. The journey was of Carol's coming out as a Lesbian to her family, friends and work colleagues. She and her father's journey is now documented in a just-published book titled Are There Closets in Heaven? A Catholic Father and Lesbian Daughter Share Their Story.
More liberal goofiness from the infamous St. Joan of Arc "Catholic Faith Community" in Minneapolis, MN. Once was a time that debutantes made their debuts at balls sponsored by their parents. Now dads "debut" their daughters "coming out" as lesbians at "Catholic" churches.
Well, there's a new Sheriff in town:
November 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a recent column in the local diocesan newspaper, Minneapolis/St. Paul Coadjuter [sic] Archbishop John C. Nienstedt concisely explained the Church's teaching regarding both a homosexual's obligation to chastity and the Church's obligation to support and encourage such a chaste lifestyle. The column has caused a backlash of harsh criticism from the 'homosexual community' in what has until recently been known as a notoriously liberal Catholic diocese.
Hmmm... With the imminent retirement of Abp. Flynn, I'm wondering if there going to be a request to visit the chancery issued to to pastor of St. Joan's. One can only hope.
There, I said it. I despise Bill Gates and his evil empire. I am sure that his evil reign will not be forever because after all wasn't it Jesus, Himself, who said: "The Gates of hell will not prevail"? :)
Recently I decided to play around with a TV card and install DVR software into my Fedora Core 6 box. This was the MythTV software which is incredible. It is flexible, easy to use but best of all, it's free.
Our family doesn't watch a lot of TV. We have "lifeline" cable service which gets us the top 14 channels in Time-Warner's lineup. However, my wife and I have our favorites. She loves Dancing with the Stars, and Ugly Betty and I like Heroes, Reaper and Supernatural.
The DVR keeps us from having to plan our lives around our favorite shows. We can go on our Monday night "date night" attending RCIA, and our shows are happily being streamed to disk.
Now to sidetrack a bit. Karen Hall from Some Have Hats is a television show writer. Her union is currently on strike looking for royalties which should be paid for television shows that are streamed on the internet. Internet royalties, as they currently stand for the writers, is 0%. That's right, they get nothing, zip, nada.
At first, my attitude was: "If you are an employee, and you write X number of words, and get paid X dollars as you agreed, then you really have no right to dip into other revenue streams that your employer happens to discover." I was applying the intellectual property rules under which a software designer usually labors. I sign an intellectual property agreement giving my employer ownership of my work in return for a weekly (or bi-weekly) paycheck for as many dollars as I'm able to negotiate. The employer is free to use my work any way they desire and reap the fiduciary benefits.
However, this is not the way it works for writers (authors and TV writers). What is being done to the writers is comparable to a publisher of hardcover and soft cover books by Stephen King selling an e-book of one of his novels and not giving Mr. King any money from it. Mr. King has the right to object, and sue the publisher to enforce his rights.
Sure, the publisher could say it wasn't in the contract, but fairness dictates that if Mr. King is paid as a percentage of a certain "thing" (be it hardcover, paperback, audio book, etc.) that same percentage should apply to any new technology that comes out.
It appears that the TV writers are paid that way. I don't know all the details. Maybe it's a buck or so every time the show is aired. Maybe it's a percentage of revenue generated by the show by the advertisers. In any case the TV execs are saying that the internet is new technology, and they don't know how much revenue they are going to produce from it, so they can't offer the writers anything yet.
Bullsh*t.
Last week, my DVR horked up the recording of Heroes. I got half way through, and it started speeding up and going out of sync like the chipmunks. So I went on to NBC.com and watched the show online. During the show there were at least a half dozen small commercials. I don't believe the network was showing those commercials for free, so if the network is making money on the writers' work, and their compensation is based on a percentage of "whatever", they ought to get that percentage every time the show is "aired" (streamed). Maybe they need to find the number of TV watchers of a certain show, and discover the per-viewer royalties and apply them to internet viewings. I'd imagine that a network who can create a TV show viewer where you have to watch the commercials, can embed some sort of accounting scheme to pay the writers what they have coming.
If you believe, like I do, that the TV networks are being unfair, my suggestion for all of us is to keep watching the internet shows, but note the advertisers and let them know that you will not be buying any of their products until the writers are fairly compensated for their work.
First, no-fault divorce frequently means unilateral divorce: One party wants a divorce against the wishes of the other, who wants to stay married. This fact means that the divorce has to be enforced. The coercive machinery of the state is wheeled into action to separate the reluctantly divorced party from the joint assets of the marriage, typically the home and the children. Involving the family court in the minutiae of family life amounts to an unprecedented blurring of the boundaries between public and private life. People under the jurisdiction of the family courts can have virtually all of their private lives subject to its scrutiny. If the courts are influenced by feminist ideology, that ideology can extend its reach into every bedroom and kitchen in America. Thus, the social experiment of no-fault divorce, which was supposed to increase personal liberty has had the unintended consequence of empowering the state.
The old "nobody ought to have to stay in a marriage if they are not 'happy'" canard. Oh, sure, and I know that there are many cases of abuse, both physical and emotional against wives by husbands, but there are also cases of boredom on the part of wives who want a more "exciting" husband, and like the idea of taking half of what the current guy owns before she moves on.
The state currently supports the spouse who wants to leave. This, as far as I know, is the only "contract" in which that is the case. In every other case, it is incumbent on the person who wishes to get out of the contract to prove that the other party breached it. If they can't prove that, they need to either 1) stay in the contract until its natural termination, or 2) unilaterally break the contract and suffer the penalties spelled out within.
In my opinion, if our society is to survive, the focus needs to be placed not on what is best for the individual in all cases, but what is best for the family, town, state and country. Basically this usually means that the state stays out of our business, unless someone else is violating our rights. In a marriage, this means stay out of it until provable abuse happens, adultery, or something that breaches the marriage contract.
As a Christian, one is supposed to advocate turning the other cheek, but some cases just cry out for retribution in kind.
When we first moved into the house in which we are living, my daughter struck up a friendship with a neighbor girl. This girl was pretty, petite, popular, and evil to the core.
Thay had an on-again, off-again friendship, and during one of on-again periods (I assume), my daughter was IMing with "the devil's daughter", and she was trying to hook my daughter into a negative conversation about another girl. My daughter took the bait, and to her horror, found out that this other girl was sitting behind "the devil's daughter" at her house watching the screen.
This led to a discussion with both of my girls about the evils of gossip, and if my daughters refused to talk about others negatively behind their back, this sort of thing would never happen.
"The devil's daughter" then started a spree of online harassment using screen names for which she had hacked the passwords. These were screen names my daugher knew and trusted. The screen names were saying hateful things that my daughter assumed came from the people she knew owned the names.
My next lesson was: "On the internet, nobody is as they seem. If they are talking out of character, they might be an entirely different person.".
What this little "unspayed female dog" didn't realize was that I was experienced in internet forensics. I tied all of the screen names to the same IP address using the IM TCP connections, and turned this girl into AOL for violation of her AUP (acceptable use policy).
This was my first experience with cyber bullying.
A current case that mirrors it is the case of Megan Meier. She was a 13 year old girl who hanged herself in her closet after being spurned by a boy online that she had met 6 weeks prior and with whom she had struck up a friendship.
The Meier suicide occurred in October 2006, but it did not become widely known until last Sunday when the Suburban Journals newspapers, which cover the St. Louis suburbs, published a lengthy article detailing the hoax involving a fictitious 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans, who contacted Megan on MySpace.com.
Their communication lasted six weeks, according to the Journal article, and ended with a string of disturbing messages from Josh and postings that read Megan was "fat" and "a slut."
The story reported Ron Meier, Megan's father, saying the final posting on the MySpace account read "The world would be a better place without you."
Late on the afternoon of Oct. 16, 2006, Ron and Tina Meier discovered Megan had hanged herself in her closet. Megan, who died the following day, was a few weeks shy of her 14th birthday.
The story gets worse.
The death of Megan Meier in Dardenne Prairie, Mo., went beyond the growing phenomenon of cyber-bullying because the alleged instigators of the hoax were not only adults, but parents of a classmate of Megan's, who lived just down the street from her. [ed.- to be fair, it was the wife, with some help from an employee from her business]
It was an adult who behaved like "the devil's daughter" who was 14 at the time.
Megan's parents discovered that they could not prosecute the mother of a friend with whom Megan decided to end a friendship. The papers who reported this story decided not to divulge the names of the perpetrators to protect the anonymity of their teenaged daughter.
This community's patience has dried up. The furious neighbors -- and in the wake of recent media reports, an outraged public -- are taking matters into their own hands.
In an outburst of virtual vigilantism, readers of blogs such as RottenNeighbor.com and hitsusa.com have posted the Drews' home address, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and photographs.
Dozens of people allegedly have called local businesses that work with the family's advertising booklet firm, and flooded the phone lines this week at the local Burlington Coat Factory, where Curt Drew reportedly works.
"I posted that, where Curt works. I'm not ashamed to admit that," said Trever Buckles, 40, a neighbor whose two teenage boys grew up with Megan. "Why? Because there's never been any sense of remorse or public apology from the Drews, no 'maybe we made a mistake.' "
Local teenagers and residents protest just steps from the Drews' tiny porch. A fake 911 call, claiming a man had been shot inside the Drew home, sent law enforcement officers to surround the one-story, white-sided house. People drive through the neighborhood in the middle of the night, screaming, "Murderer!"
The Drews, who have mounted cameras and recording devices onto the roof of their house to track the movements of their neighbors, declined to comment for this article.
My, this is a rough one. Random anonymous people threatening and ganging up on you. You'll learn how to deal with it. Hopefully better than Megan did.
At the risk of being somewhat provocative, I suspect the older form, the TLM will become (at least for a while) the "grown up Mass", while the Novus Ordo, still reverent and sound in so many ways, will be lighter, less challenging.
The analogy of a parish having a children's Mass and a solemn Mass on a Sunday limps terribly, but it is close to what I am getting at.
Think of how St. Paul speaks to his beloved spiritual children who are being fed milk by him because they are not ready for "solid food". Get my drift? This would not mean that the Novus Ordo is bad (and that is what some trads will conclude from this analogy - and they would be dead wrong and will have missed my point). Think of it this way: little children need food for children. They don't benefit from what the adults should eating… yet. They are not little adults: they are children. Children aren’t defective. You don't put a rare T-bone in front of a 1 year old. That is not what he needs. You don't give pureed carrots to an adult, unless his jaw is broken or he is ill. Unless he is, in some way, defective. Once people grow up, they normally stop wanting baby food. They can survive on it for a time, but they won't thrive.
This is what I have desired for my parish. Even though there isn't a lot of Latin, the Holy Mass is celebrated very reverently, and the homilies are with few exceptions, extraordinary. We have gone from pureed carrots to small chunks of beef in gravy. As much as I'd like to sink my teeth into a nice juicy T-bone steak, I have to remember my fellow travelers, and not let my personal preferences get in the way of their spiritual growth.
If I have a burning desire to attend a Latin Mass, I can always go to a hermitage within 20 minutes, or a TLM every Sunday at another parish (which has been celebrating the TLM under indult by our local ordinary long before the Pope's Motu Proprio).
Now I'm content with an occasional "Agus Dei" and an entire chant setting on Holy Thursday (including the obligatory Pange Lingua). We also will probably sing Adeste Fidelis on Christmas with plenty of strong voices from the congregation.
Though being a faithful Catholic, and engaging in the current political process in the United States makes me ill at times. I was reading on Intentional Disciples, the following:
A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on. Such cases are not infrequent. . . In a case like the one just mentioned, when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects. [ed. - emphasis, mine.]
"Limiting the evil aspects". I believe that is where we're at as Catholic when it comes to voting. We have differing viewpoints with regard to the hierarchy of evil, and therefore have different "agendas" with regard to the politicians we support. We are called to utilize out informed Catholic consciences to vote for the politician who has the best chance at minimizing evil.
One of the issues that has been causing me consternation is the insistence of the powers that be to back the "Rudy juggernaut". I believe much of it is driven by a fatalistic pragmatism. The "doomsday scenario" goes like this:
The daughter of Satan, Hillary Clinton, is poised to take her party's nomination
America's Mayor™, Rudy Giuliani, is the only one able to beat her in the general election
It's acknowledged that Rudy has a lot of socially liberal baggage that follows along with him. Though he has promised to nominate strict constructionist judges, there are no guarantees, and if elected, one would guess that there will be a huge increase in "gay rights" and other issues we social conservatives disagree with
If Rudy is nominated, prominent social conservative (mostly Evangelical Christian) leaders have promised to run a third party candidate against him, giving social conservatives two bad choices. Vote for Rudy, when you know in your heart of hearts the other guy is the better man, or vote for the better man, handing the country to Hillary
So here is where I have a problem. Paul, the regular guy and someone who I consider a "blog friend", will refuse to vote for Rudy. He believes (as I do) that a "President Giuliani" will be a death knell for the pro-life wing of the GOP. I have even gone so far as to state that I think that it would be better to vote for a pro-abortion Democrat than a pro-abortion Republican.
I will never support Giuliani in the primary. Currently my favorite is Fred Thompson, followed by Huckabee, Romney and McCain. My goal is to see Rudy beaten soundly in the primary. I believe all faithful Catholics should be doing the same.
However, where the rubber meets the road, should Giuliani be nominated, and I were to salve my conscience by voting for a pro-life third party candidate, I would know in my heart of hearts that I was casting half a vote for Hillary. If she got into the White House, especially if Democrats retained control of the House and Senate, we could expect countless more babies to die than under a President Giuliani. We can expect increased funding for Planned Parenthood, federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, "fairness doctrine"-like attacks on our free speech rights, many new and varied taxes and social programs, and new attacks on pro-life activists and groups.
And I know that I would have been responsible for that and when I die, I would have to explain it to Jesus and the countless innocent victims of abortion in heaven.
I can't do that.
Though I would love to poke my finger in the eye of the Republican party for forgetting their loyal base, I can't get that sort of satisfaction on the backs of dead babies.
I will fight, with every fiber of my being, a Giuliani nomination. If however, he is nominated, I will be pulling his lever.
The Holy Sprit that is, is at work in the life of Barbara Curtis, blogger at Mommy Life.
I mixed it up with her last year, almost to the day when she gave some advice to a Catholic reader who e-mailed her to which I took exception.
Second, I strongly recommend that you look outside Catholicism for a church that will feed you spiritually and help you set down the roots you need.
I commented on her weblog which I believe she classified as a "drive by" and moderated it out of existance. As I'm wont to do at time, when I have something to say, and I am denied a forum elsewhere, I will comment here.
She is being assailed by "Christians"1 on all sides trying to turn her away from her path, and she is in dire need of our prayers. Let me add mine here:
St. Michael, the Archangel, defend Barabara in battle. Be her defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, I humbly pray, and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who prowl about the woeld for the ruin of souls. Amen.
My best to you, Barbara. You have my prayers and the prayers of my family.
-- [1] The word "Christians" is in quotes because many of the comments she has received are uncharitable in the extreme. Not very Christ-like.
"At our church, if we absolutely can't avoid the folk mass (and it's a desperate choice, believe me. The first time the tubby guy in jeans whipped out his banjo, my 5-year-old son gave my husband such a look of comic bewilderment, I had to pretend I was sneezing to hide my giggles. When my son, who sometimes goes by the name "Farty McBeanfart," can tell that something's not reverent, you know you've gone astray), we console each other by pointing out that every single picker, tooter, twanger, and tambourine man on the platform is gray, gray, gray." -- Simcha, from I have to sit down.
IT'S been said that there are two types of women - the ones men want to marry and the ones they want to have sex with.
And it is common knowledge among women that men are reluctant to combine the two -- right?
Actually you have it wrong. Most men, if you ask them out of earshot of other men will tell you that they really have no interest in marrying a woman who will give herself to anybody. Oh, heck, many of them will "play" with her if she allows it. It is the nature of our particular sex, a nature that is played on 24/7 by modern entertainment and advertising.
Men very much love to have sex with the woman they marry, who bear their children and love them even with their many faults.
Modern women's sexual liberation is a farce.
Truer words were never spake. But I wouldn't imagine in the context that Ms. Burns utters them.
Modern women's "sexual liberation" is a farce. It is not liberating. All you have to do is watch "Sex and the City". The "professional women" portrayed on that show go from man to man and are more miserable after each "relationship", shallow as it is, ends.
This is not "liberation", it's "enslavement". It is enslavement to an "ideal" which is light years away from ideal. It is subscribing to the bill of good sold by the latest radical feminist with a PC and a publisher.
Sex is a simple act, but as long as women think monogamous sex equals love and multiple partners equals deviance, we will never find fulfilment.
Did she just say "woman are simple"? I had always thought men were simple. If women feed us, make love to us occasionally and show us a modicum of respect, we're content. I had always thought that women were complicated. I guess I'm just going to have to completely re-think all that I thought I knew about the fairer sex.
I guess the way to fulfill a woman is to shag as many of them as you can so they have a nice selection of partners. I can hear the collective "Ya-HOO!!!" from the adolescent contingent (of any chronological age) of the male sex. It's time to fulfill the women. Gentlemen, start your engines.
Why do we feel dirty if we shag numerous sexual partners -- or worse -- show disgust for fellow femmes if they "sleep around"?
Because the law of God is written on the human heart, whether you want to admit it or not. When you do things contrary to this law, you feel bad about it. This is called "conscience" for those who have never experienced its twinges. To be joyful (as opposed to "happy"), what you ought to be doing is cultivating that small voice, not muffling it.
We don't need to convince the blokes of this. I am guessing they will lose that mother complex quick smart if women had sex like men.
Nope. We "blokes" are discriminating. We understand that there are women who will give their heart and share their bodies with one and only one man. And as in the case of Dawn, this attitude adjustment can happen after some time of "indiscretion".
But many of us "blokes" don't believe that sex is "simple". We don't find fulfillment, like you appear to, in "rubbing pee-pees". Oh some will take the occasional "no strings" sex if you offer it. But in their heart of hearts, they'll feel guilty about it. The difference is they'll get over it quickly. My guess is you won't.
What they will not do is marry a woman who gives the impression to him that he is one of her "conquests". We don't like being sex objects either.
So Andrea (can I call you "Andrea"?), the problem is not with your attitude. It's with the "blokes". You can change your behavior all you like, but you're not going to change the "blokes". As long as there are women in the world who respect themselves, and respect the men who court them, those are the women that will attract the "blokes" to marry them like bees to honey. The only way you are going to get the "blokes" to lower their standards, is to reduce the number of women like Wendy, Dawn, Laura and countless others who are leading the charge for chastity, modesty and feminity.
One of my absolutely favorite reads, Francis Parretto from Eternity Road has a challenge for American men:
I call upon black (70%) and white (25%) American men who father children and then, for whatever reason, do not marry the moms, to step up to the plate, flash the middle finger at the government give-aways and say, "We are men and we will take responsibility for our children. These children are our future - the future of our nation. I want my children to carry my last name by law."
I know American men can do this. And clearly 75% of white fathers and 30% of black fathers are being fathers in the most legal and legitimate ways possible. Cut down on the unwed mother population, cut down on the bastard population. Since the women seem not to want to be responsible, then American men must become a dominant force again and say, "No babies UNLESS we are married!"
In other words, men saying to the women, "You can't use me as a sex object to give you a child and keys to the welfare trough then kick me to the curb. No marriage, no babies!"
Now, wouldn't that be a great switch? Male dominance, birth control (not abortion), and the men putting their foot down - No marriage, no baby!
What a switch. Let me add to this. "I will not trust you to use artificial birth control. I will not use a condom that might break. I will not have sex with you and take a chance on producing children until we are married".
What also needs to happen is a change in "no fault" divorce laws. We need to stop single party (usually the woman) action against men, sometimes with unprovable allegations of "emotional abuse" just to kick him out of his house and take him to the cleaners, stealing his money and not allowing him appropriate access to his children.
Government is culpable in this problem. If men step up to the plate and get married, they need to be protected. What a strange juxtaposition of the way marriage used to be, a financial protection for a woman who gave up her earning potential to take care of a man's home for him. But currently, marriage is a danger for a man, and many men are not stepping up to the marriage plate because of the financial danger he puts himself in by doing so. Beside, in todays "sex and the city" society, why should a man "buy the cow when he's getting the milk for free".
Because it's the right thing to do for the woman, and any children she and he produce.
Update: Mea culpa. It wasn't Fran Parretto who wrote this, it was Conservative Beach Girl (who writes at Eternity Road sometimes). I've been meaning to talk to Fran about the fact that the authors of the articles don't appear in his RSS feed which I use to do most of my blogging.
I have been a Catholic all of my life. And it's interesting when someone says something to you that just makes light bulbs go off. Jennifer from Et Tu? does that on a consistent basis.
She writes:
As I was thinking about this, at some point the thought popped into my head: so if God made himself a man like the Christians say he did, that means...that means that God, the Creator of the entire universe, chose his own mom. Whoa! "I want to know more about her," I immediately thought.
God picked His own mom. What kind of mom would God have picked for Himself? Our separated bretheren claim He picked a fallen human, just like the rest of us. I don't buy it.
The other issue is that every Christian creed I've heard of (and non-Catholic Christians can correct me if I'm wrong), but the term is "conceived by the Holy Spirit". "Conceived" means an egg was fertilized and grew within Mary's womb. Did God inject a "holy egg"? I don't buy it.
If He didn't, then Jesus was made of the same human stuff as Mary. The "God" part was from God, the "man" part was from Mary. If Jesus was sinless, He could not have been tainted by the corruption of original sin. Hence, Mary was conceived sinless.
Jesus was true God, true man, with an immaculately conceived mother.
Todd at Catholic Sensibility has a great post up regarding some suggestions on how to improve your parish music program. This is in response to a new document coming out of the USCCB (U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops).
Rather than predictions to fuel heated gossip, I’d prefer to offer suggestions on what will really make liturgical music better:
1. Bishops could found regional institutes for liturgy and music, and foster vocations to the ministries of the liturgical arts.
Excellent idea. The main idea of liturgical music is to bring people closer to God. It doesn't mean they have to be able to sing every song, or musically like every song (contrary to what those who misinterpret the meaning of "active participation" might say).
Regional institutes make more sense. And that doesn't exclude chant scholas if that is supportable in the region. But trying to cram chant down parishes' throats when they don't have the directorship or the training to do it is counter productive, and does not bring either the music ministers or the congregation closer to God.
2. Bishops and pastors could commission outstanding composers to write good and needed church music, bypassing some of the market-driven aspects of promotion and acquisition.
Wow. Arts partonage. The only patronage of the arts I've heard about recently has been by the government and resulted in our cricified Lord in a jar of urine and his holy mother covered in elephant dung.
This idea is really cool.
3. Pay church musicians a just wage.
If you want people with technical quality, you need to pay those people what they are worth, or someone else will, like the Methodist church down the street who values music more than your parish.
I understand that some parishes are not wealthy. Also some parishes have to rely completely on volunteers. In my current parish, I have sung in both a huge and diverse choir, and a small group of dedicated people. I felt a greater connection to God in the small group, and the people in the pews felt it too, judging from their comments.
4. Explore ways in which volunteer musicians in small rural and urban parishes could develop their skills and leadership, perhaps partnering with larger wealthy parishes.
We are being forced to do something of the sort with a sister parish with which we are linked. Though the musical integration has not worked to well as of late, but the attempt is young and there's time to do it.
In striving for quality, musicians will be far more inspired than some half-hearted appeal to loyalty to a document or to a new layer of Roman bureaucracy.
And this is the money quote.
The main advocacy of the NLM guys seems to be a desire for a Moses who will come down from the mountain with 10 musical commandments and shove it up the collective $#%es of those parishes who don't toe their particular line.
What we need is an example of a better way to sing to the Lord. And you can't do that by pointing out what's wrong, you have to point out what's right, and if nothing right exists, you need to either create it, or have it created.
What are the qualities of the old hymns that make them transcendental?
I don't think it's Latin, or someone would simply translate "On Eagle's Wings" into Latin and it'll magically turn it into good liturgical music. People seem to forget that polyphony was fought tooth and nail when it was first developed.
Once those attributes are developed, we can use them as a pattern for all subsequent liturgical music.
If we want more organists, we may have to pay for volunteers from the church to take organ lessons. Until then, four chords on a guitar might be the best a church can do.
But when our choir's (the six of us) harmonies are perfect, and the hair stands up in the back of our neck, I tell them that that is the breath of the Holy Spirit. And isn't that why we sing to our God?
Each branch of Christianity deals with divorce in its own way: Catholicism bans it entirely, but many divorced and remarried couples nonetheless find that their conscience permits them to take Communion.
Yup and many pedophiles find that their conscience permits them to take Communion.
Your point, Time Magazine?
This is what happens when you combine human propensity to sin, human desire to feel good about oneself and personal interpretation of the Bible. I really don't understand how you can interpret around this:
Matthew 19:3-4 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"
"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
Then the Phrisees ask the age old question:
Matthew 19:7-12"Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"
Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."
The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry."
Jesus replied, "Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage[c]because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."
Oh, but I'm sure they can with a little help from Uncle Screwtape.
I watched the video (available on Fr. Z's blog) and then Fr. Z. said: "Okay… now that you are angry, go learn more at Unam Sanctam Catholicam."
There's some accusations of abuse during the current conference. Read it, but keep an open mind.
Normally I'd comment on Fr. Z's blog, but he has closed comments for that entry (seems like for obvious reasons).
I watched the video. I really wasn't offended. I couldn't tell what the "liturgical style was", because the only liturgy I saw in the video was snippets. In the parts that I could identify as Mass parts, I saw:
1. Hordes of priests in beautiful gold vestments.
2. The Word of God being reverently and ceremoniously carried (probably to the designated sanctuary area) amid 4 foot candles.
3. Proper matter, vessels, and demeanor in handling the blessed sacrament.
4. Incense.
I also saw other parts that did not appear to be Mass parts. These included:
1. Rock music.
2. Intrepretive dance.
3. Evangelical like swaying.
4. A full and vested choir (appeaing to be singing praise music).
This doesn't offend me. If young people want to get together for a "Catholic tent revival", I don't have a problem with it. Hundreds of young people, excited by Christ, and sharing him with one another seems to me a good thing.
As long as the Holy sacrifice of the Mass was not "mixed in with" or "polluted by" this other stuff, then I thought it was far too cool. I think what these people want to do before "In the name of the Father..." and "The Mass is ended..." is their business. And wanting to do Jesus based activities is bad, why?
When I first became interested in exploring Christianity, I hardly knew any Christians, and the ones I did know weren't actively practicing their faith at that time. When I started to be drawn to the Catholic Church, I was even more lost. We had a few Catholic friends but none of them lived close by, and I didn't know any of them well enough to open up about the details of my potential conversion, which at the time I considered to be a very private matter.
So, in typical me fashion, I turned to the internet. I had no idea how one would go about finding blogs by practicing Catholics, so I just Googled stuff like "Catholic mom blog", "Catholic blog", "Christian mom blogs", etc. It took me a while to find what I was looking for, but I finally found a few blogs written by Catholic and other Christian women. I added them to my bookmarks, sat back, and read. I almost never commented. I just quietly watched their lives unfold, like an anthropologist studying a new culture. Almost everything they did was so foreign to me -- they casually mentioned praying about this or that, wrote about the goings on at their churches, discussed how they turned to God in tough times and disappointment, etc. I had never known anyone who did things like this (at least not that they shared with me), so I was fascinated.
And this is how it begins. The journey home (or back home as the case may be) is facilitated by breadcrumbs dropped by Catholic bloggers who have no idea of the impact of their apostolate.
The internet (namely the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic1) was the jump start of my journey back home.
But Jen wonders:
Since then I've been wondering: is there any sort of Christian duty when it comes to blogging?
Well, it's the same as the duty a follower of Christ has as they journey into the world; make disciples of all nations. Is there an obligation to blog about Catholicism? I don't believe so. St. Francis said: "Preach the gospel always, use words when necessary".
-- [1] I left a link out for a reason. This is a very nasty venue populated mostly by Catholic-hating "Christians" and atheists. Pursue it and enter at your own risk.
This is how I feel whenever I go out of town and must attend a new church.
This last Sunday we went to a baptism at a church out of town. As we drove up the street that the church was on, we saw this huge, sweeping baroque building. I gasped. It looked like the Catholic churches of my youth, when faith filled immigrants with the sweat of their brow and the treasure of their wallets built edifices worthy of our Lord and God.
We walked in, and were greeted with beautiful stained glass, full sized marble statues, a correctly appointed high altar, matching marble side altars to the Blessed Virgin and her most chaste spouse.
In the high altar, there was a recessed square where the tabernacle would normally reside.
It was not there.
Each side altar had what appeared to be a tabernacle, but one had a glass door and contained the holy oils, and the other had a golden door but no red sanctuary light.
During Mass we had the standard assortment of Haugen, Haas, and St. Louis Jesuits for music. After the profession of faith, the priest led everyone in a Hail Mary. Maybe I committed a sin, but I did not participate in that. But at the end of Mass, there was a closing song that was printed in the "worship aid" but had no music. I looked in the GIA hymnal and couldn't find it so I figured I'd just wing it.
When the song started, I realized the tune was the same one as "To Jesus Christ, Our Sovereign King...", so I got into the song. The words were out of my mouth before I realized that I had referred to Jesus Christ, one of the Persons of the Holy Trinity as:
"...the man who lived for others".
The WHAT?!?!?!?!
Ok, a little liturgical abuse I can handle. But I draw the line at heresy. Arianism was quashed almost 1700 years ago, and I wanted to tell these people:
"Jesus is not just a man. He is also God and he did not 'lived' in the past tense, he lives!"
I spoke with a parishioner after Mass and asked him where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved. He told me: "It's in the Marian Chapel, it's right down that hallway." So I went down the hall and visited my Lord in I have to admit, a nice chapel. The tabernacle had that odd new-agey look you find in a lot of newer tabernacles. It made an odd sort of theological sense having him reserved inside the chapel dedicated to His mother.
I'd like to know if the Vatican has ever come up with a rite of exorcism to deal with the lingering "spirit of Vatican II".
The "reform of the reform" seems to be used to refer to a desire to see changes in the current missal to bring it more into line with the 1962 missal -- or more properly, into line with what might have been the result had the post-conciliar liturgical committees stuck to a faithful and straightforward implementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium in making changes to the 1962 missal.
"Do the red, say the black", or DTRSTB, is used to cover the range of things under general heading of celebrating the current missal without informal additions, without abuses, and as much in tune with the traditional manner of Roman liturgy as possible (due place to Latin, chant where appropriate, incense at high masses, etc.)
One of the things that has struck me in watching these debates is that in many ways I find myself in the peculiar position of defending the new missal because of conservative liturgical principles.
I have absolutely no problem with the new Missal. If priests had done the red and said the black from the beginning, we probably would not have (or need) a New Liturgical Movement or a papal Motu Proprio. The corollary to this is "don't do what's not red, and don't say what's not black".
One of the huge problems I have seen (and the NLM folks hope to see corrected by the Motu Proprio) is individual priests taking abusive liberties with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We are fallen humans. When the pope promulgates a new missal, you know the Holy Spirit is guiding him. When Fr. X makes an "modification" to the Mass, especially if he does it on the urging of a lay committee of fallen humans, you can't be sure that it is what our Lord wants.
This is one of the attractions of the Vetus Ordo (Old Order). There was not this "flexibility" for individual priests to make changes to the Mass. Oh, they could do things like during the "secret prayer" thank God in Latin for the golf game they were going to enjoy after the Mass was finished. Even if they did that it did not scandalize the faithful or lead them astray.
This was also the beauty of Latin. Few priests were fluent enough in Latin to "improvise" the prayers. They were somewhat forced to "stick with the program". With the switch to the vernacular, it opened up a whole smörgåsbord of possible abuses.
I know that in our church we have a pastor who is liturgically orthodox. He does what is required of the missal, his homilies are engaging and relevant to the day's readings, and the music follows the current liturgical norms. Our parish is blessed.
But when a priest improvises (whether he is actually allowed to or not) you never know what you are going to get. This is especially true when the priests is trying to "maximize butts in the pews" rather than teaching God's Truth boldly, charitably and effectively.
Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord!" says the presiding Priest...
"Thanks be to God," is how we all respond.
in my question about prayer after Mass, below, Tony came in from Catholic Pillow Fight, as he is wont to do when there is a discussion about The Church [ed.- Yup, I pop up like some sort of evil genie. :)], and in his parting comments said
I guess I did misunderstand you. After the priest says: "The Mass is ended, go in peace to love and serve the Lord" and processes out, you can pray however you'd like.
my whole point was how nice it would be if the priest could stay at the front of the church and call people up who desired prayer or being prayed over or for (if the intercessory prayers didn't quite cover it for them for whatever reason), but Tony's viewpoint is that it should be left in our hands to do whatever we want after the priest processes out, or to meet up with people afterward and have our own prayer service.
Precisely. The Mass is the Mass. The Missal is promulgated by the Pope beneath the wings, and inspired by the breath of the Holy Spirit. It is sufficient and complete exactly as it has been promulgated.
I guess I did understand you correctly.
what if something stirred within me during the Mass? isn't it best to do things when the Spirit moves you to do so? are we not to be guided by the Holy Spirit at all times?
Sure, but if you are guided by the Holy Spirit, and He is telling you to do something different from the Vicar of Christ and the Magesterium of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, then either you are wrong, or he is wrong. If you assume that he is wrong, then you open up a whole Pandora's box of doubt about the divine inspiration of the Pope and Christ's Church. If you don't believe that the Pope is correct about this, how can you be Catholic? This is fundamental. All Catholics have to come to grips with Apostolic authority. The whole "keys to the Kingdom" thing.
i can't say that the Spirit would be willing once the doors are closed or that It wouldn't; what i am saying is it seems to me we are missing a great opportunity of reaching people who are hurting, who lead fractured lives that could use a healing touch...people could come up for prayer without even saying what is *wrong* with them - they may not even know themselves - but could God not use someone in a huge and mighty way at that moment in time because it was appointed as such?
It all depends on what "spirit" is moving you. Is it the Holy Spirit, member with Jesus and The Father of The Trinity? Or is it some other spirit, such as the "spirit" of Vatican II?
Those who are hurting and lead fractured lives are prime candidates for frequent Confession. This is the perfect mechanism, designed by God, to promote healing. Or if they need more "intense therapy", they could find a spiritual director. You can tell your sins to anyone you want and ask for advice. Only a spiritual director cannot grant sacramental absolution unless he is also a priest. You can have a spiritual director pray over you, or possibly even bless you if they are a priest of deacon.
I'm going to take the opportunity to nit-pick (big surprise), and say that if you are talking about the Holy Spirit, it's "He" (but I did notice the capitalization of "It", which I have to assume is to acknowledge His Godhood but still avoid that hated pronoun).
i don't know - i feel like it should be a "strike while the iron is hot" opportunity for those who wish for prayer to be able to approach during their time of need, and there would be no better time than after Mass has concluded, after we have listened to the Word and received Jesus in the Eucharist: Jesus in me meeting the Jesus in you.
Well, you "do" have a captive audience. That's one reason why many priests give announcements after Communion and before the final dismissal (not really licit). But why subject people to the way the "spirit" moves you?
I think it would be neato to do Eucharistic Benediction immediately after Communion and before the final dismissal. Heck, it'll only take an extra 15 minutes, and I think it would benefit you too. What would be better than to worship our God in the Blessed Sacrament that He just provided to us?
Well, my idea is a no-no because it's illicit.
what could be more peace-filled than that?
An hour of adoration. Was that a trick question?
Update: I misrepresented Penni. She corrected me:
and by the way -- i do believe in the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. and i do happen to refer to God as my Father, and the Spirit as a "He." what i wrote was a typo
Our poor Junior Senator from New York is being piled on by all those mean boy candidates. They should play nice with her, after all, she's a girl.
Right.
Her feminist supporters should rightly be putting a finger in their mouth and making gagging sounds.
She's a "strong woman". She's "just as good as the men". Let's see some of it. If those men get in your face, get right back in theirs. That's how we boys do it on the school yard. I give you a shove, you give me a shove, maybe it escalates to punching, and at the end, the onlookers decide who won the contest.
That's what it is. A contest.
Russert's comments and the followup by the other candidates were light slaps. Not much more than love taps. She is going to be in a whole different league if she goes up against someone like Giuliani. She'll be in for an eye-gouging, ball-kicking, slugfest. And she'd better be up to the task.
America's watching. How will she face down Osama if she can't even face down Obama?
So Senator Clinton, if you want to run with the big dogs of national politics, you'd better get off the porch.
They would give 11 year olds the keys to the car, show them how to start it, where the gas and brakes are, and then tell them to buckle their seat belt if they decide to get behind the wheel.
To my male readers, I AM sorry that I equated masculinity with machismo and negativity. Here is where you can educate me. What do YOU my male readers think makes a truly masculine man?
I have to tell you right up front: When I start hearing words like "power" "leadership" etc, I cringe. So to help me out, I need you to define what you think those mean in terms of the household relationships.
A good description of masculinity and leadership in terms of a household relationship track closely to Peter Leeson's essay An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization (PDF). To sidetrack, one would think that an economics paper would be dry as a bone, but it was a facinating read for me, especially after watching Pirates of the Carribean.
The paper outlines the role of the Quartermaster and the Captain.
For the Punishment of small Offences . . . there is a principal Officer among the Pyrates, called the Quarter-Master, of the Men's own choosing, who claims all Authority this Way, (excepting in Time of Battle:) If they disobey his Command, are quarrelsome and mutinous with one another, misuse Prisoners, plunder beyond his Order, and in particular, if they be negligent of their Arms, which he musters at Discretion, he punishes at his own dare without incurring the Lash from all the Ship's Company: In short, this Officer is Trustee for the whole, is the first on board any Prize, separating for the Company's Use, what he pleases, and returning what he thinks fit to the Owners, excepting Gold and Silver, which they have voted not returnable (Johnson 1726-1728: 213).
The Quartermaster deals with the men on a day to day basis. He is democratically elected, he decides how the men are punished for offenses, how the money is divvied up, and which jobs were assigned to whom.
However, the captain had full authority in times of battle. He gave the commands, assigned battle stations, and fought alongside his men.
This would describe my idea of leadership with regard to household relationships. I would consider myself the "captain" of my "ship". My wife would be the "quartermaster". She gives assignments "aboard ship", she divvies up our "treasure" and she and I decide how our "pirates" are disciplined.
However, in the case of a crisis (as in a natural disaster, fire, flood, etc.) I would expect to be obeyed immediately and completely by all members of my "ship". I would be in front of them, facing the danger first and doing my utmost to protect them.
Once the crisis was over, the authority would revert back to the "quartermaster".
That is the essence of leadership to me. The analogy is somewhat simplistic, but I hope the generalities are easy to grasp. Basically, I believe every household need to have a designated leader, and the most natural person in the household to do this is the dad by virtue of how he is wired.
However, men are not tyrants. They are called by St. Paul in the next line of that offensive statement to "...love your wives, as Christ loves his Church and died for her...". Men who are abusive to their wives are simply bullies, and should be taken behind the woodshed and be horsewhipped.
So go ahead on over to Radical Catholic Mom's blog and give her your comments about masculinity as it relates to household leadership.
