Posts Tagged ‘catholic’

Morning Joe religious and holiday double standard

Posted: December 16, 2010 by datechguy in Uncategorized, opinion/news, media
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Am I the only person watching Morning Joe today who notices the massive hypocrisy today?

They spend the whole first segment hitting Jim DeMint for calling Harry Reid’s Christmas move “Sacrilegious” and insist that he should apologize to Reid for “insulting his religion”.

Yet they tease an acrobat act before the pope as “Chippendale” and jokes are made about how “the Pope likes them more than the nuns” and about “ripped men”.

I guess Morning Joe has a flexible definition on what is “insulting” a religion. Calling Harry Reid out for extending the session though Christmas offensive to religion Homoerotic jokes about the leader of one billion Catholics all in good fun. The panel practically couldn’t contain their delight in the 2nd hour.

Why the difference? Because the MSNBC audience likes one but not the other and yes Joe if you want to call for an apology from DeMint how about an on air apology from yourself first, because I guarantee I’m going to call you out on my Christmas Day Radio show if you make one more call for DeMint to apologize without apologizing yourself.

The second piece is even more ridiculous. They are hitting DeMint because of the idea of working through Christmas, they are talking about the troops and bringing up e-mails from nurses etc about how “they work on holidays suck it up” forgetting that the democrats could have brought all of this stuff up BEFORE the lame duck session.

That’s isn’t the double standard, the double standard is the news media. This year Christmas and New Years is on a Saturday so it doesn’t apply so much but how many of these media guys take holidays off? the 4th of July is Monday this year. Let’s see if they have guest hosts. In fact this year I will check CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC, FOX and MSNBC and see how many of the crew who are so self-righteous this morning are hard at work.

Update: They went there again at the top of the hour right after homoerotic pope jokes again. Fine! I formally request an apology over the Pope stuff. I guarantee this will be a top on my Christmas Radio show on the War on The Church and the War on Christmas.

Update 2: Instalanche! Welcome all, come and take a peek. Check out Massachusetts Republicans rearming here. Lets play some word games and find out why Sarah Palin and the tea party are driving the lame duck session. Check out the latest episode of DaTechGuy on DaRadio which featured Pam Geller of Atlas Shrugs and Bob Belvedere of Camp of the Saints for the full hour. Make sure you check out this week’s show at 9 p.m. EST on 830 AM WCRN when our guests will be Dan Riehl for the full hour with special guest the Right Wing Gamer! And please patronize our advertisers of Christmas who make the show and me paying my mortgage possible.

Gospel commentary 3rd week of Advent Matthew 11:2-11

Posted: December 12, 2010 by datechguy in catholic, local stuff
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About once a month Fr. Bob decides to have a seat and Deacon Sal gives the homely at St. Anthony of Padua. Today was that day and he reflected on the Gospel and an interesting question from it.

The full Gospel is here but the relevant part are verses 2 and 3

When John heard in prison of the works of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to him with this question, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”

Deacon Sal talked about how all his life he has been one to ask questions. So the question came to him: “Since John baptized Jesus and saw the Glory of God, why did he need to send his disciples to ask if Jesus was the one to come?”

Sal’s idea was that John’s sent his disciples not for the sake of himself but for their benefit so that they would come to believe.

I’m not so sure myself, I think it is entirely consistent with Biblical precedent, Catholic tradition, and reality for even people who have seen to doubt.

Consider the children of Israel, they saw the plagues, they saw the Red Sea Parted, they saw God come through for them over and over again and what was the result? They doubted and rebelled over and over again.

And of course over and over again they repented and God forgave them. The cycle of faith, falling, repentance and forgiveness is not only repeated but is prophesied.

Consider Peter: He saw a miracle at his first meeting with Christ, He saw Christ walk on water and then lost faith and started to sink himself. After seeing everything that happened he denied Christ three times yet became the leader of the Apostles.

And during the time of persecution as tradition tells us Peter was fleeting and only turning back when he encountered Christ, asking “Domine Quo Vardis?” (Lord where are you going?) and getting the reply “Eo Romam iterum crucifigi.” (I go to Rome to be crucified once again.) Rising, failing and trying again, Peter was in the same boat as the rest of us.

As her diary tells us even Mother Theresa had her doubts on occasion, yet she continued to work through them and even in death reminded the world of the difference between fame and faith.

And of course it reflects the Sacrament of Confession, we fall, we repent, we are forgiven and we rise again.

And so we are back to John the Baptist. John after spending a lifetime serving God and preaching repentance finds himself in jail and destined for death. This is his lowest point, how strange would it be for him to despair (Remember Christ himself asked for the cup to be taken from him if possible). If a disciple like Peter who was with Christ every day could still have doubts, how odd would it be for John to have the same particularly at his lowest point?

And this is where verse 11 comes into play:

Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Why is this true? It’s true because the least in the Kingdom of Heaven has completed the trial of life, they have completed the race and stand before the glory of God.

Our atheistic friends would love to make our doubts define us but for centuries some of the most educated and greatest minds man has seen went through the same circular process only to arrive back home to faith.

John the Baptist was simply doing what we all should, when faced with doubt asking Christ for reassurance. May we always follow his example.

Stacy McCain explains the difference between radical Islam and Catholics in one easy step

Posted: December 12, 2010 by datechguy in catholic, culture, internet/free speech, media, war
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Stacy McCain while writing on the subject of Frank Rich’s column ( a painful task always since it involves reading it) accidentally or on purpose crystallizes the difference between Radical Islam and mainstream religion that Pam Geller made points about yesterday on my show.

Rich decries the pulling of a taxpayer-funded Christmas exhibit that had ants crawling over a crucifix and called those who demanded it be removed bigots and homophobes.

Stacy’s take-down of the self-righteous Mr. Rich should of course be read in full but it is this sentence that is of interest to me.

That article prompted William Donohue of the Catholic League to send suicide-bombers to maim and murder innocent women and children ask Catholics to call the museum and complain.

And herein lies the difference. Roman Catholics call and complain, radical jihadists don’t.

By an odd coincidence an even better example of this difference became apparent yesterday. Another person acting on behalf of a different religion that Mr. Rich doesn’t deign to critique decided to voice his objects to a set of cartoons in a slightly different fashion as reported by Mr. Rich’s own paper:

One man was killed and two other people were injured when two explosions hit the heart of Stockholm’s city-center shopping district on Saturday evening, the police in the Swedish capital said. The country’s foreign minister called the blasts a terrorist attack, and an e-mail to news organizations minutes before the blasts seemed to link them to anger over anti-Islamic cartoons and the war in Afghanistan.

Although many right leaning bloggers decided to condemn this act of barbarous terror Mr. Rich has however decided to courageously spend his time critiquing American citizens who object to their tax dollars being used to offend them and decided to peacefully exercise their 1st amendment rights to make their objections known.

Mr. Rich, as an elite journalist of the left, has the courage to see beyond mere murder to locate the real danger to our society.

Plus he knows Catholics won’t harm him for criticizing them.

Any questions?

Some Clarification on the Blessed Mother and Catholic belief

Posted: December 9, 2010 by datechguy in catholic
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I think this is an opportune time to instruct non-Catholics on Marian and saintly prayer.

Here is the best online summary I’ve found:

* “It is forbidden to give divine honour or worship to the angels and saints for this belongs to God alone.”
* “We should pay to the angels and saints an inferior honour or worship, for this is due to them as the servants and special friends of God.”
* “We should give to relics, crucifixes and holy pictures a relative honour, as they relate to Christ and his saints and are memorials of them.”
* “We do not pray to relics or images, for they can neither see nor hear nor help us.”

True devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort also addresses this:

14. With the whole Church I acknowledge that Mary, being a mere creature fashioned by the hands of God is, compared to his infinite majesty, less than an atom, or rather is simply nothing, since he alone can say, “I am he who is”. Consequently, this great Lord, who is ever independent and self-sufficient, never had and does not now have any absolute need of the Blessed Virgin for the accomplishment of his will and the manifestation of his glory. To do all things he has only to will them.

15. However, I declare that, considering things as they are, because God has decided to begin and accomplish his greatest works through the Blessed Virgin ever since he created her, we can safely believe that he will not change his plan in the time to come, for he is God and therefore does not change in his thoughts or his way of acting.

16. God the Father gave his only Son to the world only through Mary. Whatever desires the patriarchs may have cherished, whatever entreaties the prophets and saints of the Old Law may have had for 4,000 years to obtain that treasure, it was Mary alone who merited it and found grace before God by the power of her prayers and the perfection of her virtues. “The world being unworthy,” said Saint Augustine, “to receive the Son of God directly from the hands of the Father, he gave his Son to Mary for the world to receive him from her.”

The Son of God became man for our salvation but only in Mary and through Mary.

God the Holy Spirit formed Jesus Christ in Mary but only after having asked her consent through one of the chief ministers of his court.

That last part is significant. In the sermon for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception Fr. Bob noted that the Angel Gabriel referred to Mary as “full of grace” even before the actual incarnation. That is very important.

When we give devotion to saint we invariably ask the to pray for us. (just as a friend might ask you to pray for them). Consider the actual words of the Hail Mary:

Hail Mary Full of Grace the Lord is with thee, Blessed art thou among women…

Direct Biblical quote, no problem there.

…and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

That would also go without saying for any Protestant. No problem there.

Holy Mary; Mother of God…

Again simple fact. Mary is Holy, no question about that, and she is the Mother of Christ who IS God so no question there either.

…Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amem

Pray for us sinners. That says it all. We ask through this prayer that the one who was full of grace even before the Holy Spirit came upon her, the single person closest to Christ to pray for us.

If that doesn’t make sense I’d like to know what does.

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