Non Tasarmi, Fratello!

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, There’s always laughter and good red wine. At least I’ve always found it so. Benedicamus Domino!” Hillaire Belloc

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

HEY LOOK! A SQUIRREL!

The Pope is opining about economics again....

"In truth we know that almost every man and woman desires a secure and lasting relationship, a stable marriage and a happy family … The most effective witness to the blessing of marriage is the good life of Christian spouses and their families. The consecration of their love by God is the font of their peace and fidelity. To make these blessings more evident to the world, the equality enjoyed by the spouses must produce new fruit – equal opportunities in the workplace; a new valuing of motherhood and fatherhood; and a greater appreciation for the openness of families to those most in need."



Stating that the “Christian seed of radical equality between men and women must bring new fruits,” he also called for support for equal pay for equal work. “Disparity is a pure scandal.”





Of course, in the United States "disparity" is not "pure scandal". It's ILLEGAL.

 

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Speaking of Joan of Arc....

Remember when Father Z. asked for donations to have a custom made breastplate designed for a member of the Swiss Guard? No? Read about it here.

He provides an update (from Corporal Bergamin's wife):


Delivery of the breastplate will be next week, just before the swearing-in ceremony on 6 May. The Austrian brothers who handmade the breastplate will bring it to the Vatican. Dominic is so excited to wear it for the first time on this important occasion. This is happening years before we thought it would be possible and we thank you heartily and humbly with our prayers.

Joan of Arc on breastplate

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Today in Catholic History, April 29

From the History Channel website:

During the Hundred Years’ War, the 17-year-old French peasant Joan of Arc leads a French force in relieving the city of Orleans, besieged by the English since October.
Joan of Arc in Battle, painted by Stilke Hermann Anton


At the age of 16, “voices” of Christian saints told Joan to aid Charles, the French dauphin, in gaining the French throne and expelling the English from France. Convinced of the validity of her divine mission, Charles furnished Joan with a small force of troops. She led her troops to Orleans, and on April 29, as a French sortie distracted the English troops on the west side of the city, Joan entered unopposed by its eastern gate. Bringing needed supplies and troops into the besieged city, she also inspired the French to a passionate resistance and through the next week led the charge during a number of skirmishes and battles. On one occasion, she was even hit by an arrow, but after dressing her wounds she returned to the battle. On May 8, the siege of Orleans was broken, and the English retreated.

 
Orleans Cathedral, where Joan of Arc attended Mass on May 2, 1429

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Monday, April 27, 2015

Said the Theology Major

Pope Francis took a vow of poverty, and wants to make sure that we all share the wealth. Or whatever.

"As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems."

I'm guessing he isn't a fan of Friedrich Hayek.



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That Was Fast!

When Cardinal George died last week, I quoted him saying, "" I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”





And now this:

Coeur d‘Alene, Idaho, city officials have laid down the law to Christian pastors within their community, telling them bluntly via an ordinance that if they refuse to marry homosexuals, they will face jail time and fines.

The dictate comes on the heels of a legal battle with Donald and Evelyn Knapp, ordained ministers who own the Hitching Post wedding chapel in the city, but who oppose gay marriage, The Daily Caller reported.
A federal judge recently ruled that the state’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, while the city of Coeur d‘Alene has an ordinance that prevents discrimination based on sexual preference.
The Supreme Court’s recent refusal to take on gay rights’ appeals from five states has opened the doors for same-sex marriages to go forth.
The Knapps were just asked by a gay couple to perform their wedding ceremony, The Daily Caller reported.
“On Friday, a same-sex couple asked to be married by the Knapps, and the Knapps politely declined,” The Daily Signal reported. “The Knapps now face a 180-day jail term and a $1,000 fine for each day they decline to celebrate the same-sex wedding.”

 Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions. - G. K. Chesterton


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Friday, April 24, 2015

The Trouble With Jesuits, Part 32

The Jesuit school, Loyola University of New Orleans, has invited Paul Tagliabue to be their commencement speaker in May. He will be awarded an honorary degree.




Who, you ask? Paul Tagliabue is the former Commissioner of the National Football League. He is also a public advocate for same-sex marriage. In 2012 he donated $100,000 to a campaign to approve same-sex marriage in Maryland. He also donated a $1,000,000 to the LGBTQ Resource Center at Georgetown, another Jesuit University that purports to be Catholic.





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Monday, April 20, 2015

Coffee With Jesus

Click to Embiggen.

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Islamic Outreach, Part LXII

From an earlier post on this blog:

Pope Francis spoke to the diplomatic corps and amongst other things, said, "Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam."

Meanwhile.....



Italian police arrested 15 Muslim immigrants on April 16 after a brutal incident in which at least a dozen Christians were thrown overboard from a boat leaving carrying refugees from Libya to Italy.
Witnesses reported that gangs of refugees turned against passengers from other nations, throwing some from the vessel and prompting others to escape onto flimsy life rafts. As many as 40 people may have drowned before Italian authorities intervened to rescue the survivors.
The suspects were charged with multiple homicides, carried out “for reasons of religious hatred.

Do you think it was religious hatred, Angry Islamic Guy?


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Rest in Peace, Francis Cardinal George



Cardinal Francis E. George, who was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago for 17 years and helped shape the American Catholic bishops’ response to the child sexual abuse scandal and their resistance to the Obama health plan’s contraception coverage, died on Friday at his residence in Chicago. He was 78.
The cause was cancer, the archdiocese said. Discovered in 2006, the cancer originated in his bladder and spread. But Cardinal George continued to work until November, when he stepped down. In December he announced that experimental treatments he had received had failed.
A quiet, cerebral man, Cardinal George was appointed to lead the Chicago archdiocese by Pope John Paul II. He was the first Chicago native to hold the seat.



In recent years, Cardinal George frequently sounded the theme that religious freedom was under threat by encroaching secularism and intrusive government. His years as a leader in his order, traveling the globe, had brought him into contact with Catholics who had risked their lives and faced persecution for their faith. He said he admired them and identified with them.
“If you tell the truth,” he told a class of new priests in an ordination homily in 2009, “you may be killed by those whose position you threaten. If you give your life to people for the love of God, they may betray you. It is all part of priestly life. You know this; your formation has prepared you to live this life. Now it is your life.”

He also said, " I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

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Sunday, April 12, 2015

If the Song is Correct, There's No Beer Either







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Jihad Versus The Crusade

I watched a brief history of the jihad/Crusades by Dr. Bill Warner of the Center for the Study of Political Islam today. I present it here. It is very interesting.




 Remember when Barak Obama said that the current massacres by Islamics are bad but, " ...lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place…remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ."?


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Wednesday, April 08, 2015

I Wonder Why?

Research shows that almost 9 out of 10 Catholic men don’t participate in a Catholic activity outside of attending Mass; if men aren’t being reached in the Mass, they aren’t being reached...

 While a complex set of forces have driven the Catholic “man-crisis”, including both massive cultural changes outside the Church and serious missteps within the Church, the lack of engagement of men in the Mass is a major contributing factor: men don’t understand the Mass and well-meaning, but misinformed priests in many parishes have de-sacralized the Mass causing many men to simply “drift away.” 

Yes. It is a mystery. ALthough here's something form St. Patrick Catholic Church in Seattle - I present, the Easter Vigil Mass. It might be a clue...



Make sure you watch long enough to catch the tambourine and bongos!

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More Mush From the Wimps

 INDIANPOLIS (CNS) -- Indiana's Catholic bishops April 1 urged people to show mutual respect for one another and allow "the necessary dialogue" to take place to make sure no one in the state will face discrimination, "whether it is for their sexual orientation or for living their religious beliefs." Remarking on the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed into law March 26, they said it "appears to have divided the people of our state like few other issues in recent memory." 


Stop right there, says R.R. Reno, Editor of First Things:
 
As I expected, the leaders of the Catholic Church have done everything they can to avoid saying anything in response to the furor over the Indiana RFRA. Their counsel is “dialogue,” an unfortunate weasel word long used by administrators who don't want to take a stand.
On its face, the wording of this bland statement suggests the bishops believe the Indiana law could permit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. (They're calling for “dialogue” to make sure that doesn't happen.) But this is an over-reading of the statement. It's really just a political evasion of responsibility searching for words.
Some months ago, I predicted that Catholicism in America would basically accommodate itself to whatever sexual regime dominates our society. The accommodation won't be explicit. The Church won't endorse homosexuality or gay marriage. Instead, the bishops will step aside, avoid controversy, and just stop talking about things that carry a high price for dissent. This duck-and-cover non-statement fits perfectly into this trajectory.

 

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The Way I see South America Sometimes

Two unemployed people from Argentina, in a 1980 van, driving their four children to Philadelphia to see the Pope. Who is from Argentina.

Makes sense to me!



PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — As many as two million people are expected to be in Philadelphia for the visit by Pope Francis and the World Meeting of Families in September. But it’s unlikely any of them will have a journey as long — or as remarkable — as one family from Argentina.
Packed in a 1980 VW minibus are Noël Zemborain; her husband, Alfredo Walker (nicknamed ‘Catire’); and their four kids: Carmin, 2; Mia, 5; Dimas, 8; and Cala, 12.
“It’s a very big family,” says Noël. “A very intense family experience.”
That’s putting it mildly.
In March, mom and dad ditched their jobs, drained their savings, and told their three girls and one boy that they were about to embark on the trip of a lifetime.
“We are traveling all through the continents toward Philadelphia,” says Noël. “We are meeting people, we are learning things about them, and getting to know other ways of living.”

Thursday, April 02, 2015

The Trouble With Jesuits, Part 31 - Mandatum Edition!


First, a definition:

The mandatum is fundamentally an acknowledgment by church authority that a Catholic professor of a theological discipline is teaching within the full communion of the Catholic Church.


 The Salesian Archbishop of Santiago de Chile, Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, made waves last week in the Hispanic Catholic world when he refused to renew the mandatum of one of South America's most high-profile and liberal theological dissidents, Fr. Jorge Costadoat SJ.

He wrote:

 The academic path of Professor J. Costadoat includes unwise affirmations that blurred the magisterial teaching of the Church in various central points of the same, generating enough reasons to affirm that he has not sufficiently laid down in his positions the basic principle that, "the theological disciplines, in the light of faith and under the guidance of the magisterium of the Church, should be so taught that the students will correctly draw out Catholic doctrine from divine revelation" (Vatican Council II, Decree on Priestly Training [Optatam Totius], n. 16). Taking into consideration this situation, in the year 2012, following a dialogue with him, aware of the difficulties that he has, and in an act of trust, I granted him the canonical mandatum for 3 years, under the assumption that his work would be carried our and would advance with the aim to overcome the aforementioned difficulties.

With the passage of the established period, I have had to ponder the situation once again. After evaluating that his theological activity did not overcome the difficulties mentioned in the above paragraph, I have decided to not renew his canonical mandatum to teach, with the certainty that the teaching position of professor J. Costadoat, in the current state of affairs, is far -- as it had already been said -- from the theological teaching that is expected from a university that has the characteristic, and the demands, of being Catholic and Pontifical.

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Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Don't You Know Who I AM????

Sure! You are Pope Francis! And you're washing that woman's feet last Maundy Thursday!


So what? Here's Father Z's take:


In the Roman Rite, the washing of feet on Holy Thursday is an option.  It may be left out without disturbing the integrity of the Holy Thursday Mass of the Last Supper (otherwise, it wouldn’t be a legitimate option).
Watch now as all sorts of people demand that bishops and priests violate the law because of what His Holiness Pope Francis did last year and plans to do this year.  Watch as all manner of clerics hide behind the Pope when they choose openly to break the law and violate their promise to uphold the Church’s laws.
The problem with that is, liturgical law is real law.  It must be obeyed.

 The Church’s liturgical law is not ambiguous: only males can be chosen for this optional rite, and they should be men: viri selecti.  Vir means “man”.   Vir cannot, period, mean a female.  And despite what Facebook says, there are two sexes, not dozens.  Also, you really don’t get to choose which you are.  Vir is male.
 
Also, lest it go unsaid, I am not speciesist, but the Church still limits this foot-washing rite to human beings.
Next, the Pope, who is the Church’s Legislator, can do A, B or C as it pleaseth him to do.  If he wants to set aside the law, so be it.
The rest of us, however, are obligedto obey the law.  The ordained made promises at ordination to obey the Church’s laws.

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