Posts Tagged ‘catholic’

I didn’t gasp

Posted: July 6, 2010 by datechguy in fun, opinion/news
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at the final shot of the two towers from this embed at Little Miss Attila’s site. I won’t give the other side the satisfaction, I’m just pissed they haven’t been rebuilt. As a computer guy I did get a real kick out of seeing the old punch cards. There was still a single card reader when I started at Raytheon in 1985.

Nor does the Anchoress links to Burke’s marvelous series (that deserves more attention) cause shock, as a regular reader and as a person who is into history I know the vast contributions that the Church has given civilization.

But this should be required watching for school students everywhere. You can find more here. I suspect it would get more respect from the tea parties than from elsewhere.

Now if they only would release Steve Allen’s Meeting of Minds….

This is a rather cynical post…

Posted: June 27, 2010 by datechguy in catholic, local issues
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and perhaps even a tad cruel.

I got up for morning mass today but my youngest son who was at a party till very late asked if he could go to 11/12 at St. Bernards since it was closing.

I said sure and decided to go with him although I was never really into St. Bernards. Well as it got near time to leave my wife mentioned that my mother would be going to the 2 p.m. at Madonna of the Holy Rosary also that last mass at that closing church, so at my son’s request we went there.

I used to go to that church every now and again, it was close to my house as a kid and my grandparents belonged to it after it was built close to their neighborhood plus it was a missionary church of St. Anthony’s so there was a connection.

The Mass was absolutely packed, the music was inspiring and the very long sermon of the priest who was retiring was one of the best he ever gave (he was an associated priest in my youth at St. Anthonys so I was very familiar with him.). There was an incensing of the altar, a sprinkling of holy water and an procession of adoration to our lady After the profession of faith he had everyone kneel and I saw something I never saw before, he started to recite an act of contrition and a fair amount of the congregation (those who knew it anyway) recited it as well, he absolved us and gave us a penance and continued the mass. At the end of the 2 1/2 hours the entire congregation stayed till the very end of the last note of the final hymn before going to a reception after mass downstairs.

It was very beautiful but I found myself leaving the church very cynical.

During the very fine homily the Pastor he departed from the gospel and readings for a moment and talked about the parish he had been pastor of for 16 years. He talked of the Garlic Festival and the famous Fish fry and how had people worked on them etc etc etc, but that was one of the things that struck me. When speaking of the church, he didn’t talk of weddings, funerals, and masses, it was the festivals the parties. It reminded me of something I overheard a few months ago concerning the church closings. Somebody was going on about shocked he was that Holy Rosary was closing, how much money they had in the bank, how new the building was (it is the youngest parish in town) and how big and well attended the festivals were. The person he was talking to replied, yes, those things were true, if only the masses were as well attended as the festivals.

It was like a few months ago at St. Bernards, I had two different first communions to attend, one at St. Bernards and one at St. Anthony’s both have catholic schools that feed them children but St. Bernards is a much bigger church that has been around for 70 years longer, in fact it is the mother church of the city. Yet The church was not very full and the first communion class was smaller than St. Anthony’s which due to the number of kids receiving had to split things into two masses to accommodate everyone.

The church is not about the size of the place, or the parties, it’s about the sacraments, the devotions and the worship. The other things are fine but one they take precedence over the actual worship of God then the church has already closed, the people just don’t know it yet.

In various denominations we see it where social acceptance is more important than the word, in fact today there was a story about a church that took down its cross because it wanted to be “open to all views“. Once that happens its no longer a church, it’s a social club. There is nothing wrong with social clubs, but if your goal is salvation, a social club can’t deliver. The Lutherans, the Anglicans all have had this issue, and from my experience so do some Catholic Colleges.

It’s sad but that’s the way it is, our fate is in our own hands, may we have the wisdom to choose the right one.

These two paragraphs at the American Papist

Posted: June 22, 2010 by datechguy in catholic
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from this post reflect the question of “Why I’m no longer a democrat?” better than anything else. First the bigotry against us:

But here’s what I really meant: because I am a faithful Catholic, who believes what the Church teaches (and has taught for over two thousand years) – many people today consider me to be a bigot, and would consider my children to be bigots if they grew up to inherit my (Catholic) views on the nature of human sexuality and the meaning of marriage. I wrote nothing mean or hateful in my original post, yet the vast majority of negative comments I have received are obviously hateful (foul language, intimations about my personal morality, family history, etc).

And the actions of those who oppose us:

Second, if the arguments for state-sanctioned homosexual unions are so crystal clear – why the violence, and why the anger directed at anyone who dares to support arguments against the proposition? This is not an example of me being thin-skinned (over five years of blogging my Catholic convictions has toughened me up plenty); rather, the verbal and public abuse that has become acceptable against proponents of traditional marriage is shameful. Even Newsweek published a story last week about this growing, troubling phenomenon

Yup that makes nails it. As long as the Democratic party makes it clear that believing Roman Catholics are not welcome, them I’m not interested.

An interesting parallel

Posted: June 17, 2010 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news
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Although I cast doubt upon the veracity of Ahmed Aboul Gheit claim concerning the president. I see an interesting parallel between the tactics.

In Egypt we have this story via Pajamas Media:

The head of the Coptic Church in Egypt has rejected a court ruling that orders the church to allow divorced Copts to remarry in the church emphasis mine. In a press conference held on Tuesday June 8, Pope Shenouda [III], reading from the statement issued by the Holy Synod’s 91 Bishops, including himself, said: “The Coptic Church respects the law, but does not accept rulings which are against the Bible and against its religious freedom which is guaranteed by the Constitution.”

Mind you divorce has always been legal, this rules order the church to accept divorce in its doctrine. As PJ Media points out concerning the Coptic Pope :

he is not enforcing a totalitarian law that Copts must accept; he is simply saying that, in accordance to the Bible (e.g., Matt 5:32), and except in certain justifiable circumstances (e.g., adultery), Copts cannot remarry in the church: “Let whoever wants to remarry to do it away from us. There are many ways and churches to marry in. Whoever wants to remain within the church has to abide by its laws.”

If this still sounds a tad “non-pluralistic,” know that at least Copts have a way out: quit the church. No such way out for Muslims: Sharia law — Egypt’s “primal source of legislation” — mandates death for Muslims who wish to quit Islam.

The Coptic pope is not taking this laying down:

Pope Shenouda further threatened to defrock any priest who allows a divorced Christian to remarry, except in cases where the divorce was on the grounds of adultery. Those that have remarried after divorce will not be allowed in Church.

On the heels of regular persecution of Coptics in Egypt this ruling seems a thinly veiled attempt to divide the strongest Christian church in the area.

Meanwhile in the US we see divide and conquer in another context

The first point to understand is that Obama knows about the debate Catholics are having over him.

That’s why he usually talks only to Catholics who share his agenda. He has been careful to ensure that the terms of his debate with Catholics have always been on his terms. He sends CHA a video and gives Sr. Keehan a pen because he knows that these individuals chose to follow him instead of the bishops. So he makes a place at his table for them and rewards what he sees as their loyalty.

The Bishops however are very clear on what is what.

In April, three bishops of the USCCB ad hoc Health Care Concerns Committee, Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Kevin Vann of Fort Worth and Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, also met with Sr. Keehan to try to make her understand the bishop’s concerns and thus bring CHA back in line with Church teachings, however the meeting concluded with “the same frustrating results.”

The president of the USCCB reiterated the bishop’s fundamental opposition to the health care reform. “The bill which was passed is fundamentally flawed. The Executive Order is meaningless. Sr. Carol is mistaken in thinking that this is pro-life legislation,” Cardinal George emphatically said.

The cardinal also expressed disappointment with CHA “and other co-called Catholic groups” because, “in the end, they have weakened the moral voice of the bishops in the U.S.”

In that regard, Cardinal George highlighted that the USCCB and CHA’s positions on Obama’s health care are not just “two equally valid conclusions inspired in the same Catholic teaching,” and reiterated that what the bishops said on May 21 in their statement “Setting the record Straight” is and will remain the official position of the USCCB on the contentious issue.

The president knows and understands this. It is not possible for a faithful Catholic to support abortion in this manor, thus the attempt to divide the church is what this president and the pseudo catholic organizations. The American Papist again:

I have yet to hear a Catholic who supports the Obama agenda say, “I like Obama’s agenda, but of course I don’t believe what he thinks about or how he acts towards the Church.” It seems that the Catholics who support Obama’s agenda, or the individuals who criticize Catholics for not supporting his agenda, very often couch their support for him in political, not religious terms. But Obama has made religious claims, and overstepped religious boundaries, in pursuit of his political goals. In the ensuing mix-up, there can be no complaint that Catholics who oppose Obama are confusing politics with religion, for when Obama places himself against the authority of the bishops, he has stepped into the Catholic scene.

To provide a couple brief parallel (and purely hypothetical) examples, what if Obama sent a message to a group of orthodox jews who violate kosher laws and praised them for supporting his domestic initiative of promoting American pork consumption?

To put it simply the president understands that a strong and faithful American Catholic Church is going to be a problem for him (as does the media) and his agenda and any attempt to divide or weaken it is in his political interest.

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