Catalina Takes a Guilt Trip

Vatican City, Jan 25, 2017 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The theological commission of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved last week a miracle attributed to the intercession of Mother Catalina de María Rodríguez, foundress of the Slaves of the Heart of Jesus.

Following the Jan. 19 approval, the next step for her beatification is approval of the miracle by a commission of cardinals in the congregation.

Her name was Satna Rodriguez de Zavalia, and took the name Catalina de Maria in religious life.

This is why I am nominating her for Patron Saint of Guilt Tripper:

She dedicated herself to promoting the spiritual exercises and in 1852 she married Manuel Antonio de Zavalía, a widower with two children. She was strongly encouraged to do so by a secular priest, Fr. Tiburcio López, whom she had taken as her spiritual director when the Jesuits were expelled from Cordoba.

Zavalia had threatened suicide if Saturnina refused him, and Fr. López declared her responsible for the salvation of his soul, and she took the marriage to be God's will.

Catholics are Anti-Science

"God is sitting in Heaven when a scientist says to Him,"Lord we don't need you anymore. Science has finally figured out a way to make life out of nothing. Just like what you did it in the beginning." "Oh, is that so? Tell me..." God replies. "Well," says the scientist, "we take dirt and form it into a form of a man and breathe life into it, thus make life." "Show me" So the scientist bends down and picks up dirt and molds the soil. "Oh, no no no!" interrupts God. "Make your own dirt."

Sonja Henie's Tutu!

Not really. Rather, Ryan Zinke's socks.

Representative Zinke is Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of the Interior. His biography lists him as a Lutheran. So why was he wearing these socks to his confirmation hearings?

Safe Guard Kevlar Vest Feast of St. Sebastian, January 20

From Butler's Lives if the Saints, a brief synopsis of why I would not cut it as a martyr:

The legend of Sebastian’s death is frightening. Romans, the story goes, tied him naked to a tree and used him as a target for archery practice. Many Renaissance paintings portray this incident. After he was left to die, a widow came to bury him, but she was astonished to discover that somehow breath was still in him. She took him home and tended to his wounds. After his recovery, she pleaded with him to escape the risks of living as a Christian in Rome. Instead, he went to Diocletian and demanded that he stop persecuting Christians. Shocked to discover that the young man had survived the target practice, Diocletian ordered the immediate execution of Sebastian. He was then clubbed to death.

It is also the Feast of St. Fabian. Not to be confused with Fabian, the "Turn Me Loose" guy.

Unfortunately, NOT Eye of the Tiber Report

Has the Vatican lost its collective MIND? Who's next? Henry VIII?

January 17, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — If you happen to receive a piece of mail from the Vatican this year, don’t be surprised to see the face of Martin Luther.

The Vatican office charged with issuing stamps, known as the Philatelic and Numismatic Office, confirmed Tuesday to LifeSiteNews that Luther, who broke away from the Catholic Church in a schism 500 years ago, will be celebrated with a postage stamp in 2017. The office is in charge of the annual commission of stamps, coins, and other commemorative medals.

The Vatican regularly issues such memorabilia for special events, including papal trips and holy years. Honoring Luther and the Protestant Reformation is an unlikely choice, trumping other significant events in the Catholic Church such as the 100-year anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima and the 300-year anniversary of our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil.

The Patron Saint of Students is Fed Up

Speaking to fellow saints in Heaven today, Franciscan saint Joseph of Cupertino announced that he was “simply fed up” with bailing out lazy students who “hardly even cracked open their books to study.”

“Let me begin by saying that I am in no way telling people not to pray to me,” a visibly frustrated Joseph of Cupertino said as he levitated above reporters. “But if you think I’m stupid enough to continue helping you when you clearly haven’t helped yourself, well, you got another thing coming. And that thing is coming in the form of a big, fat, celestial ‘F.’ Got that?”

Joseph of Cupertino went on to confirm that he still does petition God on a lazy student’s behalf when he or she prays to him, but that he asks the Lord to flunk the living heck out of them.

“Of course the Lord won’t deliberately fail anyone, but being a saint and all, I like to think my prayers carry some weight. If they didn’t, why would all these TAC students be bombarding me with prayers now?”

At press time, Joseph of Cupertino is just happy that the majority of students attending large Catholic universities like Notre Dame, Georgetown, and Boston College have no idea what prayer is, let alone who the heck he is.

The Pope, Mother Cabrini, and Immigration

Vatican City, Jan 15, 2017 / 05:10 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Pope Francis pointed to St. Frances Cabrini as an example of how to treat foreigners, calling her a “courageous” woman who knew how to bring God’s love to those who were lonely and in hardship.

After praying the Angelus with pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square Jan. 15, Pope Francis sent a special greeting to members of different ethnic communities gathered who had gathered in honor of the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

This courageous Sister dedicated her life to bringing the love of Christ to those who were far from their homeland and families,” he said, adding that her witness can help us learn “to take care of our foreign brother, in whom Jesus is present, often suffering, rejected and humiliated.”

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Mother Cabrini worked almost exclusively Italians who were:

1) Catholic (and therefore did not reject Jesus as the Son of God),

2) In the country legally, and

3) unlike the wave of immigrants in Europe, were looking for work.

Mother Cabrini's biggest contribution was educating and cathecizing the Italian immigrants to the United States, many of whom were here when she arrived.

Who Sponsors the Sponsors?

I have been entering the baptismal records of St. Joseph church into a searchable data base and it got be wondering about who can be a sponsor. Not surprisingly, there are canon laws:

Can. 872 In so far as possible, a person being baptized is to be assigned a sponsor. In the case of an adult baptism, the sponsor's role is to assist the person in Christian initiation. In the case of an infant baptism, the role is together with the parents to present the child for baptism, and to help it to live a Christian life befitting the baptized and faithfully to fulfill the duties inherent in baptism.

Can. 873 One sponsor, male or female, is sufficient; but there may be two, one of each sex.

Can. 874 §1 To be admitted to undertake the office of sponsor, a person must:

1° be appointed by the candidate for baptism, or by the parents or whoever stands in their place, or failing these, by the parish priest or the minister; to be appointed the person must be suitable for this role and have the intention of fulfilling it;

2° be not less than sixteen years of age, unless a different age has been stipulated by the diocesan Bishop, or unless the parish priest or the minister considers that there is a just reason for an exception to be made;

3° be a catholic who has been confirmed and has received the blessed Eucharist, and who lives a life of faith which befits the role to be undertaken;

4° not labor under a canonical penalty, whether imposed or declared;

5° not be either the father or the mother of the person to be baptized.

§2 A baptized person who belongs to a non-Catholic ecclesial community may be admitted only in company with a catholic sponsor, and then simply as a witness to the baptism. 

No Comment

Read the whole thing (from The Spectator). I am reserving comment. I like the drawing, though..

For more than two years, leading Catholics have been at each other’s throats over a plan — surreptitiously supported by the Pope — to allow divorced-and-remarried Mass-goers to receive Holy Communion. The secular media have treated this, understandably, as an inside-the-beltway story. It’s difficult to make headlines out of a controversy that even theologians find hard to grasp.

At the end of last year, however, the communion row began to overlap with other controversies, all of which raised questions not only about the Pope’s judgment but also about his state of mind.

Islamic Outreach, Part XCV

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....

 A passage from the Koran that denies one of the central tenets of the Christian faith was sung aloud at a cathedral service in Scotland.

The passage from Surah 19, which specifically denies that Jesus was the Son of God and says He should not be worshipped, was sung during a Eucharist service at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow to mark the feast of the Epiphany.

Remember that when some one says we worship the same God.

John 1  2: 22-23
22
 Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist.23No one who denies the Son has the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.

Via Duck?

Paterson, N.J., Jan 11, 2017 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Catholic hospital faces an anti-discrimination lawsuit for cancelling a surgery to remove a uterus from a female who identifies as a man. The surgery was meant to treat gender dysphoria.

“This case involves whether a Catholic hospital can be compelled to perform a procedure that violates its sincerely-held religious beliefs,” Matt Sharp, legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, told CNA.

Gender dysphoria used to be called “gender identity disorder.” But the mismatch between body and internal sense of gender is not a mental illness. Instead, what need to be addressed are the stress, anxiety, and depression that go along with it.

I suffer stress and anxiety from not being a duck.

Streep Takes on Cardinal Burke

Meryl Streep

Just moments after being honored at the Golden Globes for her lifetime of work, actress Meryl Streep took the opportunity to make a sustained attack on Cardinal Burke’s dubia.

In her four-minute address while accepting the award, the actress denounced Burke’s traditionalist rhetoric and criticized him for trying to bully the Pope.

“There was one performance this year that stunned me,” Streep said. “It sank its hooks in my heart. It was that moment when the person who once sat in one of the highest seats in the Vatican questioned Pope Francis. It kind of broke my heart when I read about the dubia and I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie, it was real life. This instinct to humiliate and fraternally correct someone who hasn’t the power to answer the questions posed…it filters down into everyone’s spiritual life because it kind of gives permission for other people to dubia the Pope.”

Streep also went on to use her speech to highlight the importance of Catholic culture, pointing out how important it is, especially when it does not “in any way” intrude on the personal lives and choices of others.

“The Church is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, people they call nominals, and if you kick them all out of the communion lines, you’ll have nobody in your churches,” Streep said to huge applause from the room. “When the intellectually powerful use their position to bully others into justifying their actions, we all lose.”

Translacion

Manila, Philippines, Jan 5, 2017 / 04:27 pm (CNA).- For over four centuries, a historical and iconic miraculous statue of Jesus Christ carrying his Cross has become an emblem of passion, struggle and faith for Filipino Catholics.

The life-size statue of Jesus is enshrined in the famous minor basilica popularly known as the Quiapo Church, located in the Archdiocese of Manila. The statue has survived the blazing fires that destroyed the church twice, two earthquakes, the floods of numerous typhoons and bombings during World War II.

The church which hosts the statue never sleeps. It welcomes devotees early in the morning till late evening. During the day, it holds continuous Masses and healing services. During the night, the church shelters poor homeless people. In the early morning, the church is cleaned and again reaches out to the pilgrims and devotees.

Every year on Jan. 9, the annual feast day, millions of devotees gather to celebrate the Feast of the Black Nazarene. They take part in the spectacular religious procession known locally as the “Traslacion,” during which devotees carry a replica of the statue across Manila.

Up to 18 million participants are expected to take part in this year's procession and the festivities that surround it.

Actually, it looks kinda frightening.

Old Spice Feast St. Thorfinn, January 8

"Gentle Natured" St. Thorfinn

From Butler's Lives of the Saints:

The Norwegian Thorfinn died at a Cistercian monastery in Belgium. During his life he did not attract much attention, and after he was buried, most people all but forgot him. About fifty years later construction workers accidentally broke open his tomb. Instead of a disagreeable odor, there was a strong, pleasing scent. The abbot asked his monks about the man interred on the site and found one of them, the aged Walter de Muda, who remembered Thorfinn. Walter recalled that Thorfinn had impressed the community with his gentle, yet strong personality. De Muda had actually written a little poem praising Thorfinn that was entombed with him. Searchers found this poem on parchment, undeteriorated after five decades. The abbot took this as a sign that it was important to perpetuate the memory of Thorfinn, and asked Walter to write everything he could remember about him. All that we know about this saint today may be read in Walter’s sketchy recollections and the tribute he paid him with his poem. He remembered Thorfinn as a kind, patient, generous man, whose gentle nature was combined with a strong moral character.

Mixed Messages

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Thousands of singing and dancing devils took taken over a mountain town in Ecuador for six days of revelry in the streets.

The procession of dancers in elaborate devil masks is the centerpiece of an annual festival in the town of Pillaro in the Ecuadorean Andes.

The article includes a bunch of pictures of people dressing up as devils for six days in a row to bring good luck upon themselves. But the real head-scratcher to me was why they are dressing up like devils in a city that has a church like this:

Basilica of the National Vow

Take This and Eat of It

Unlike The rest of Rome, It will be cheap and CLEAN

Rome, Italy, Jan 4, 2017 / 11:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Last week's opening of a McDonald's in a Vatican-owned property just around the corner from St. Peter's Square has been both welcomed and decried by Rome's locals.

Some Romans have expressed joy on social media at the new restaurant, noting that the area around the Vatican is filled with overpriced restaurants catering to tourists, and suggesting the McDonald's could actually be more discreet.

 Dubbed by som as "McVatican,” the new restaurant is located in a Vatican property in Rome, at the intersection of the Borgo Pio and Via del Mascheriny, just a few minutes' walk from St. Peter’s Basilica.

After having received numerous requests from different companies to move into the vacant space, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), which oversees the Vatican's assets, chose to rent it to McDonald’s for 30,000 euros ($31,400) a month. The decision was announced in October 2016.

I an a Bas Rutten Fan. I've Been a Fan Since ...20 Minutes Ago.

For MMA fans, Bas Rutten needs no introduction. But for those who may not be familiar with the sport, suffice it to say that he is one of the most legendary fighters in the game, known for his devastating strikes, aggressive and versatile style, and long string of victories—not to mention his showmanship and charisma. Recently inducted into the UFC hall of fame, Bas is recognized around the world as one of the founding fathers of Mixed Martial Arts.

What many may not realize, however, is that Bas Rutten is a devout, daily rosary praying, Mass-attending Catholic who brings all the intensity of a fighter to his spiritual life. He prays in Latin just because it makes the demons squirm, quotes St. Thomas Aquinas, studies the faith constantly, and can’t wait to tell anyone who will listen about the riches the Catholic faith has to offer.

You say frequently, “Deo gratias!” This is Latin for “Thanks be to God.” Just curious: Do you happen to go to a Mass that is in Latin?

Yes, I do. I also do my rosary in Latin and learned a whole bunch of other prayers in Latin as well. It’s the language demons fear the most, and the universal language of the Church.  I find it more reverent and a higher form of prayer.

December 14 Flashback!

Back on the 14th of December, I posted a history lesson on the Blaine Amendment. It has reared it's ugly head again in Georgia!

Atlanta, Ga., Jan 3, 2017 / 07:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An amendment from the 1870s that was once used to target Catholics is now being invoked in Georgia once again to challenge a scholarship program allowing children to attend religious schools.

And the use of the amendment is deeply unacceptable, religious freedom advocates say.

“Georgia’s program is helping low-income children. It would be a terrible mistake to use a bigoted law from the nineteenth century to hurt schoolchildren today,” said Lori Windham, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed an amicus brief supporting the state’s program in December.

“This law is a ghost from Georgia’s past. It shouldn’t be dredged up to haunt education in Georgia today,” Windham continued.

Who Knew "60 Minutes" Was Still a Thing?

Here was the headline to a story linked to by the Drudge Report:

Chicago priest puts a "bounty" on heads of killers

While reporting on Chicago's surge in violence, 60 Minutes producers meet a priest who isn't waiting for a savior to stop murderers

I don't get the play on "savior".  And there are two GLARING mistakes in the story. First of all, it's not a "bounty", it's a reward for information. The second thing mistaken is to refer to Michael Pfleger as a "priest". Although technically, I guess that's correct.

Pfleger and friend

Geneology.Com Feast of St. Basil, January 2

St. Basil is a Doctor of the Church, but he comes from some serious Catholic stock:

Father : St. Basil the Elder
Mother : St. Emmelia of Caesarea
Grandmother : St. Marina the Elder
Brothers : St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Peter of Sebaste
Sister : St. Macrina the Younger

Think about that the next time someone brags he is distantly related to Daniel Boone.

A Protestant has a Catholic Moment

James Lileks has a Catholic moment during his New Year's resolutions:

 I resolve that when I pick up something at the grocery store aisle that fell on the floor, I don't congratulate myself for doing a Good Thing on par with Mother Teresa washing the feet of lepers.