Archive for the ‘catholic’ Category

Georgetown going Notre Dame?

Posted: April 16, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news
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I don’t have a problem with the president giving an economic talk at a Catholic University, it was certainly not inappropriate for Georgetown to welcome him for his speech but I do object to this:

Georgetown University says it covered over the monogram “IHS”–symbolizing the name of Jesus Christ—because it was inscribed on a pediment on the stage where President Obama spoke at the university on Tuesday and the White House had asked Georgetown to cover up all signs and symbols there.

National Review is not impressed.

What was that verse?

Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.Matt 10:32-33

You know the more I read about Catholic Colleges the better Fitchburg State keeps looking.

Update: There can be only one!

Update 2: Don Surber notices and more importantly (Sorry Don) does Drudge.

Update 3: The Green Room notices and asks…

Imagine if Obama were to give a speech at the Islamic Center of Washington, DC. Would members of that community approve the covering of the Shahada?

The sin of Covetousness: a primer

Posted: April 14, 2009 by datechguy in catholic
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Inside Catholic has a first rate article on the 10th commandment and the sin of covetousness, an excerpt:

In a world filled with tremendous greed and the celebration of wealth amassed by wicked people using unscrupulous means, it becomes extremely easy to justify covetousness. But covetousness is perhaps the most fruitless form of sin there is. With greed, you at least experience possession (though not real enjoyment) of the thing you own. With lust, you at least get sexual pleasure now and then, though not love. With gluttony, you get the taste of food, though not the satisfaction. But with covetousness, you get only the raw envy of the other, with no compensation at all. A jealous man can at least use his jealousy to go out, work hard, and get the same car his neighbor has. An envious man sits there doing nothing, waits till it is night, and then slashes the tires on his neighbor’s car instead of lifting a finger to accomplish any good at all. Jealousy can be redeemed. Envy must simply be destroyed.

Hell is an equal opportunity landlord. As the article says:

The sin of covetousness is typically the sin of the poor and weak, just as the sin of greed is typically the sin of the rich and powerful.

Both are wanted down below. The good move is to decline the invitation.

The logical outcome at Notre Dame

Posted: April 14, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news
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Catholic and Enjoying it points out the logical conclusion from the nonsensical argument that because president Obama is not a Catholic.

I think a better example would be the a Leni Riefenstahl Chair for film excellence. After all she was clearly a genius and an important person in film history. So she was friend with Hitler and company and her greatest film was a piece of Nazi propaganda.

Meanwhile rather than simple mockery that I am using Edward Peters actually addresses this nonsense:

It is paradigmatic of the theological Left to ignore canon law when it poses the slightest inconvenience for its plans, but to hide behind canons (or at least behind canonists, even anonymous ones) when they afford some cover (however thin) for obvious blunders or malfeasance. And so Jenkins, invoking unidentified canon lawyers, holds that the USCCB’s 2004 statement, “Catholics in Political Life”, merely restricts Catholic institutions from honoring Catholics whose public record evidences disdain for fundamental moral principles.

Is the man serious?

Does Jenkins really think that Catholic bishops would countenance a Catholic institution honoring a philanthropic murderer, or a free-speech crusading pornographer, or a right-to-privacy pimp, provided merely that the awardee was not a Catholic? Really, that’s too bizarre for words.

I think the problem now is the sin of pride. Any retreat would be an embarrassment for Fr. Jenkins and that embarrassment trumps theology. Peters an expert of Canon Law has a solution:

Seriously, what I wonder is, why, amid the canon lawyers Jenkins claims to have consulted, not one, it seems, pointed out the most obvious solutions to their client’s problem:

The USCCB’s statement applies only to “Catholic institutions”, right? Well, all Jenkins and the ND board need do is declare that Notre Dame is not a “Catholic institution”, and poof! all these problems disappear. Notre Dame could confer honorary doctorates in law on anybody it wants after that, even on people who have built a career out of denying unborn babies the protection of law, and nary a bishop would say a word about it.

Of course then ND just becomes a college with a declining football program.

I can believe it aparently you can’t…

Posted: April 10, 2009 by datechguy in catholic
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…at least if you work for CNN. If you do apparently that basic Christian belief that prayer makes a difference and can change hearts and minds is not something that you can handle:

ROESGEN: A spokesman for the university says there no plans to un-invite the president, but protesters say they will say one million rosaries until graduation day — praying that the president will become pro-life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN: Can you believe that, Wolf, they’re actually praying that God will change the heart and mind of President Obama to make him pro-life?

Oddly enough after confession today I was chatting with my confessor and we talked about how we are laughed at by society today. He was very distressed and adamant about it as he was born in Vietnam and had to deal with a dictatorship. He commented that compared to US society it was easier to keep the faith there.

Ms. Roesgen should rejoice in the freedom that America gives to her to publicly ridicule Catholics’ on national television and be well paid for it. She has the rest of her life to continue to do so…

…after that she is on her own, but before that point I think a prayer or two for her is in order. They apparently are very much needed.

By an odd coincidence here is an excerpt from the Pope’s sermon yesterday:

‘Jesus is humiliated in new ways even today – when things that are most holy and profound in the faith are being trivialised, the sense of the sacred is allowed to erode,’ he said.

‘Everything in public life risks being desacralised – persons, places, pledges, prayers, practices, words, sacred writings, religious formulae, symbols, ceremonies. Our life together is being increasingly secularised.

‘Religious life grows diffident. Thus we see the most momentous matters placed among trifles, and trivialities glorified.

‘Values and norms that held societies together and drew people to higher ideals are laughed at and thrown overboard. Jesus continues to be ridiculed.’

The Pope, who turns 82 later this month, prayed that Christians would respond to the problem by growing in faith.

‘May we never question or mock serious things in life like a cynic,’ he said.

Good advice.

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