Should Joe Biden Be Allowed Communion?

Wilton Gregory thinks so...

People who think pro-choice Catholic politicians like President-elect Joe Biden shouldn’t be given Communion are often accused of politicizing the sacrament. But the real politicizers are the accusers, who introduce politics into the discussion. The accused aren’t motivated by politics but by reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, much as St. Paul was in cautioning the Christians of Corinth against receiving it unworthily. (cf.1 Cor 11:27)

It helps to see these matters in the broader context of respect and disrespect for the Eucharist generally. There is a neat formulation of the problem in the newly published first volume of Cardinal George Pell’s Prison Journal. Speaking of the too-casual reception of the sacrament, which is common today, he says: “Every type of Catholic should realize there is an exclusion zone around the Eucharist, where adults without faith and without basic good practice should not enter.”

Then he quotes a prison warden’s explanation of why a prominent Catholic criminal attended Mass without receiving Communion. “Because he has faith,” the warden said.

 

But when all is said and done, the heart of this problem remains. It’s a grave scandal being given to Catholics – who are led to conclude that, when push comes to shove, neither the evil of abortion nor the holiness of the Eucharist is all that important to certain Church leaders.

On that point, give the final word to Cardinal Pell, still speaking about the problem posed by loose practice in regard to the Blessed Sacrament:

It will be very difficult pastorally to reform the “open house” inclusive approach, because many regard the reception of Communion as being like accepting a biscuit and a cup of tea. . . .In an age of religious indifference and ignorance, the indiscriminate reception of Holy Communion is against the tradition and bad for the spiritual health of the Church.

Wouldn’t you think it was time and then some for everyone – popes, bishops, priests – to do something about that?

The Vile Theodore McCarrick and the Alfred E. Neuman Cardinals and BIshops

Leading churchmen are denying the undeniable.
 
A few cardinals have roused themselves to respond to the month-old press disclosures that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is a pederast, whereas before he was merely well known as a serial sexual harasser. Their response is depressing in the extreme and should make any Catholic or person of good will wish for their immediate, tearful confessions of fault, and their resignations of high ecclesial office.

A Vile and Horrible Man

Before mainstream media outlets finally reported on his lewd and criminal behavior, McCarrick was the face of the American episcopacy’s response to the sex-abuse crisis in 2002. His lewd behavior with seminarians was an open secret among priests and informed laity. Expert witnesses in priest-abuse cases, such as Richard Sipe, had long ago publicized what they knew of the behavior of “Uncle Ted.” A concerned group of laity and clerics pleaded their case against him in Rome before his elevation to the College of Cardinals. Churchmen across the country who didn’t call him “Uncle Ted” with affection or disgust had another nickname related to his proclivities: “Blanche.”

Cardinal Weurl gets a particular beat-down:

American bishops now facing questions about what they knew and when have had to choose between looking clueless or complicit. So far, they are choosing the former. They are not, however, very persuasive in presenting themselves as ignorant of the rumors.


Cardinal Weurl gets a particular beat-down:

  Cardinal Wuerl said last month that he had reviewed the records of the Washington, D.C., archdiocese. “Based on that review,” he concluded, “I can report that no claim — credible or otherwise — has been made against Cardinal McCarrick during his time here in Washington.”
Some questions for Cardinal Wuerl might go something like this. The Vatican’s representative in Washington, D.C., knew about the legal settlements for McCarrick in 2004; when were you informed of them? If you were informed of these settlements, did you take that into consideration when Cardinal McCarrick requested to live in different seminaries that train priests for your diocese? If you did not know about them, did Bishop Joseph Tobin or his predecessors in Newark have a duty to inform you of them, given McCarrick’s living arrangements? Why, near the end of the last decade, was McCarrick suddenly asked to leave the seminary and reside instead at St. Thomas Woodley Park under Father Roderick McKee?

Cardinal "What? Me Worry? Wuerl

 Further, you are the American on the Congregation of Bishops in Rome. It’s widely reported that McCarrick’s lobbying for certain candidates for elevation in the Church was important. How many times did you receive him for an audience on these matters? What was the weight of his word in your own recommendations for Joseph Tobin, Kevin Farrell, and Blase Cupich? If you knew of these settlements, why did his word have any weight with the congregation and with the Vatican?

Personnally, I Would Rather Be in New York

New York City, N.Y., Jun 9, 2018 / 12:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Superior Court of New York ruled Friday in favor of Joan Sheen Cunningham, who had petitioned to move the body of her uncle, Venerable Fulton Sheen, to the Cathedral of St. Mary in Peoria. The body of the late archbishop is currently in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
The Diocese of Peoria welcomed the decision.
“This is the second time that the Superior Court of New York has ruled in favor of Joan Sheen Cunningham’s petition,” read a June 8 statement from the Peoria diocese.
The judge, Arlene Bluth, ruled that “the location of Archbishop Sheen's final resting place would not have been his primary concern” and that “it makes no sense, given his lifelong devotion to the Catholic Church, that he would choose a location over the chance to become a saint.”

 Or as Cardinal Dolan says....
 
 Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York says he is happy to be a cardinal but that he is aiming for a higher calling.
“As grateful as I am for being a cardinal, I really want to be a saint,” Cardinal Dolan said to the media after the Feb. 18 ceremony. “I mean that, and I’ve got a long way to go, but it is all about holiness; it is all about friendship with Jesus, and it is all about being a saint. And that’s what I want to be.”

Gaudete Sunday with Cardinal Burke in Minneapolis

On Gaudete Sunday of 2017 All Saints celebrated the Anniversary of the Moto Proprio Summorum Pontificum, and the new parish status, with solemn vespers on the Saturday and Pontifical Solemn Mass celebrated by His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke on Sunday the 17th. The accomplished choir and schola, led by Mr. Jacob Flaherty and Mr. Benjamin Blackhawk, sang Palestrina's beautiful Missae Papae Marcelli polyphonic setting. Both Archbishop Hebda and Bishop Cozzens and many visiting clergy and seminarians participated. There is much to celebrate here at All Saints and, given the specific charism handed on to the FSSP by Pope John Paul II and then Cardinal Ratzinger, to promote and nurture the traditional liturgical forms. 

Cardinal Tobin Walks the Tightrope

The Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark 

Newark, N.J., Jun 20, 2017 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Last month Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark welcomed a pilgrimage of self-identified LGBT pilgrims, with an archdiocesan spokesman saying it should be seen in the context of welcoming everyone, not as archdiocese sponsorship of the event.

Cardinal Tobin

“I think that the central point that is missing from the majority of the media coverage and blog postings about this pilgrimage is that the cardinal was asked whether he might welcome a group of pilgrims who identify as LGBT. He said yes, we welcome all in the name of Christ,” James Goodness, communications director for the Archdiocese of Newark, told CNA.

“This was not an event sponsored by the archdiocese, and we did not promote or advertise it,” Goodness said. “It was a purely private event.

Some news coverage of the pilgrimage depicted it as a shift within the Church.

The Cardinal Takes a Flight of Fancy

 From the New York Post:

Timothy Cardinal Dolan, in his midnight homily at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, welcomed two “refugee families who are here tonight.”
“They’re being resettled by Catholic Charities,’’ he said.

 
Dolan said he would not mention their names or ask them to stand. One of the families, he said, was from El Salvador.
The other, the cardinal added, is “a Muslim family from the Ivory Coast,’’ in Africa.
“Jesus was born into a family that had to flee and become refugees,” Dolan told the congregation.
“We welcome them here tonight.’’

Sorry, Cardinal, but I think this is a bogus comparison.

First, El Salavador is more than 50% Catholic. Do they not provide social services to those in need? If not, why not? There was a brutal civil war raging there....which ended in 1992.  The CIA Fact Book states:

The smallest country in Central America geographically, El Salvador has the fourth largest economy in the region.

The oppressed Ivorians are from a country that is a MAJORITY Muslim. See comments abut the Church in El Salvador.

But here's the thing that sticks in my craw. To my way of thinking, Jesus was a refugee in a sense that an angel appeared to Joseph and told him to go to Egypt. Why?
 

“Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men.” (Matthew 2:6).

So there was a direct threat to the baby Jesus. And they moved to Egypt and lived happily ever after, right? NO. We all know that the Holy Family moved BACK to Nazareth. Any chance that Cardinal Dolan's refugees will ever return to their native lands?

And lastly....what's up with the rose chasuble? On Christmas Eve? NO! Liturgical abuse! Not really...my guess is the New York Post pulled some stock photo from Gaudete (or maybe Laetare) Sunday and didn't have any Catholics on the staff to correct the mistake.

Are You Drinking With Me, Jesus?

 Are you drinkin' with me Jesus
I can't see you very clear
If you're drinkin' with me Jesus
Would you buy a friend a beer.

Cardinal William Levada, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has admitted to an "error in judgment" after he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Police in Hawaii, where he was visiting, stopped Cardinal Levada after they observed him driving erratically. He was released on bail and will be required to appear in court to face formal charges in September. 

Cardinal Levada, a California native, was Archbishop of Portland, Oregon, and then of San Francisco before he was appointed prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. He resigned that post in 2012 at the age of 76, and now lives in retirement in San Francisco.

The Evolution of Hate

Some thoughts. First, tweets from Father Morris. You may have seen him on FOX News:

  
Fr. Jonathan Morris ‏@fatherjonathan

Walking down Broadway and 22nd St just now, I ran into gay marriage parade. Two men walked by and spat on me. Oh well... I deserve worse.

 The two men who spat on me are probably very good man caught up in excitement and past resentment. Most in that parade would not do that.

 The Episcopal Church sponsored float in gay parade with dancing man or woman (not sure) with short skirt and g-string. Something is wrong.

I agree with David French, who writes for the National Review:

 Christians often strive to be seen as the “nicest” or “most loving” people in their communities. Especially among Evangelicals, there is a naïve belief that if only we were winsome enough, kind enough, and compassionate enough, the culture would welcome us with open arms. But now our love — expressed in the fullness of a Gospel that identifies homosexual conduct as sin but then provides eternal hope through justification and sanctification — is hate. Christians who’ve not suffered for their faith often romanticize persecution. They imagine themselves willing to lose their jobs, their liberty, or even their lives for standing up for the Gospel. Yet when the moment comes, at least here in the United States, they often find that they simply can’t abide being called “hateful.” It creates a desperate, panicked response. “No, you don’t understand. I’m not like those people — the religious right.” Thus, at the end of the day, a church that descends from apostles who withstood beatings finds itself unable to withstand tweetings. Social scorn is worse than the lash. This is the era of sexual liberty — the marriage of hedonism to meaning — and the establishment of a new civic religion. The black-robed priesthood has spoken. Will the church bow before their new masters?

Cardianl George may have been a prophet:

 “I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.”

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

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.”

It's Worse Than I Thought

The newspapers are full of the "conflict" between Cardinal Burke and Pope Francis. Originally, Cardinal Burke was reported to have been "demoted " from "Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostalic Signatura" to patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta." But Eye of the Tiber reports it's even worse than I thought:

Akron, OH–Pope Francis has reportedly planned to remove Cardinal Raymond Burke from head of the Apostolic Signatura, demoting him to the largely ceremonial role as Head Chaplain for the Akron RubberDucks minor league baseball team.
Although his removal from the Roman Curia (the body of Vatican-based Cardinals who are close advisers to the Pope,) appears to be a slight to many conservative Catholics, some Akron-based Catholic  RubberDucks fans believe Burke’s new role as chaplain and adviser to the minor league team will help revitalize the beloved Double-A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians.
President of the Akron RubberDucks Jacob Wallace told EOTT this morning that the team has been playing liberally in the past few years, and that it was time for a change. “We need to begin playing a lot more conservative…the way we used to play when were winning,” Wallace said. “We believe that his spiritual impact on the team will help us reduce errors. I have personally spoken to Cardinal Burke and he has assured me that there will no longer be anymore stealing bases. Anyone caught stealing will be removed from the team immediately. If we’re going to win, we’re going to win with integrity.”
Burke, who is not only a liturgical conservative, but also a baseball conservative, is also expected to change the RubberDucks jersey back to the old-fashioned retro jerseys the team wore when it was founded in 1997.

Two And A Half Men...and a Bishop

I don't understand this article. Is the quest for sainthood for Bishop Sheen derailed because Cardinal Dolan won't send back the remains?

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The canonization cause of Archbishop Fulton Sheen has been suspended indefinitely, according to a statement issued Sept. 3 by the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, where the archbishop was born. 


The diocesan statement said the Archdiocese of New York denied a request from Bishop Daniel R. Jenky of Peoria, president of the Archbishop Sheen Foundation, to move the archbishop's body to Peoria.

Islamic Outreach, Part XXXV

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...

President Barack Obama's policies "have become progressively more hostile toward Christian civilization," Cardinal Raymond Burke, the Vatican's chief justice, said this week.
"He appears to be a totally secularized man who aggressively promotes anti-life and anti-family policies," Burke, president of the Apostolic Signatura, said in an interview published Thursday by LifeSiteNews.com. "Now he wants to restrict the exercise of the freedom of religion to freedom of worship.
"He holds that one is free to act according to his conscience within the confines of his place of worship but that, once the person leaves the place of worship, the government can constrain him to act against his rightly-formed conscience, even in the most serious of moral questions," Burke said.


What do YOU think about your fellow Muslim, Angry Jihad Guy?

Cardinal Burke Loads a Canon

 

Pelosi

Q & A with Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome
Q. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, when recently questioned at a press briefing about the moral difference between what Dr. Gosnell did in murdering a baby born alive at 23 weeks as compared to the practice of aborting a baby moments before birth, refused to answer. Instead she is reported to have responded: “ As a practicing and respectful Catholic this is sacred ground to me when we talk about this. I don’t think it should have anything to do with politics.” How are we to react to such a seemingly scandalous statement? Is this a case where Canon 915 might properly be applied? [Editor’s Note:Canon 915 of the Church’s Code of Canon Law states that those who are “ obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”]

Cardinal Burke

 A. Certainly this is a case when Canon 915 must be applied. This is a person who obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin — cooperating with the crime of procured abortion — and still professes to be a devout Catholic. This is a prime example of what Blessed John Paul II referred to as the situation of Catholics who have divorced their faith from their public life and therefore are not serving their brothers and sisters in the way that they must — in safeguarding and promoting the life of the innocent and defenseless unborn, in safeguarding and promoting the integrity of marriage and the family.
What Congresswoman Pelosi is speaking of is not particular confessional beliefs or practices of the Catholic Church. It belongs to the natural moral law which is written on every human heart and which the Catholic Church obviously also teaches: that natural moral law which is so wonderfully illumined for us by Our Lord Jesus Christ by His saving teaching, but most of all by His Passion and death.
To say that these are simply questions of Catholic Faith which have no part in politics is just false and wrong. I fear for Congresswoman Pelosi if she does not come to understand how gravely in error she is. I invite her to reflect upon the example of St. Thomas More who acted rightly in a similar situation even at the cost of his life.

Thomas More

Shut up, I Explained Part 4

See, the ICIRR receives money from the CCHD, and Billy is upset....

Start over. There's this group called the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Right off the bat, I don't like them - I distrust any organization that has "Coalition" or "Action" or or "People's" in its title. Anyway, in their fight for "Rights" for "Immigrants and Refugees", they made the following statement:

"As an organization dedicated to the full inclusion of all Americans, whether foreign-born or native-born, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) supports marriage equality. 

ICIRR believes that full equality and civic participation should extend to recognition of all families, including those involving same-sex partnerships."
  
This did not sit well withe the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), to wit:

"Donors to the CCHD give to this anti-poverty organization with the understanding that their money will be passed on to organizations that respect the teachings of the Catholic faith. Organizations that apply for funds do so agreeing to this condition.
On May 23, the ICIRR board broke faith with its member organizations when it publicly supported so called “same-sex marriage.” For its own political advantage, it introduced a matter extraneous to its own purpose and betrayed its own members, who were not consulted.
The CCHD had no choice but to respect the unilateral decision of the ICIRR board that effectively cut off funding from groups that remain affiliated with ICIRR."

That sounds reasonable, right? Not to Gubernatorial Hopeful, Bill Daley! 

  He wrote to Cardinal George:

As a lifelong Roman Catholic, Daley said he was “proud our church has been such a leader on the issue of comprehensive immigration reform.“But for the church to turn its back on its long-standing work with groups that aid the poor over a completely unrelated issue is an injustice, plain and simple.”  

The open letter was signed by a bunch of other Democrat political hacks, some of whom claim to be Catholic.

Cardinal George CLOBBERED them:


" It is intellectually and morally dishonest to use the witness of the Church’s concern for the poor as an excuse to attack the Church’s teaching on the nature of marriage...  Those who signed the open letter in the Tribune proclaimed their adherence to the Catholic faith even as they cynically called upon others to reject the Church’s bishops. The Church is no one’s private club; she is the Body of Christ, who tells us he is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Because the signers of the letters are Catholic, they know that in a few years, like each of us, they will stand before this same Christ to give an account of their stewardship. Jesus is merciful, but he is not stupid; he knows the difference between right and wrong. Manipulating both immigrants and the Church for political advantage is wrong."

Read the whole letter here!






 

Octuria (Gang of Octo)

 From the Vatican Insider:

Pope’s eight cardinal advisors say the Curia is not the only thing they’ll be reforming

 Although their official meeting will be in October, they are already moving full steam ahead with their work and will use the summer months to prepare thoroughly for their first meeting. The eight cardinals Francis chose as his advisors last 13 April, exactly one month after his election, are currently mulling over ideas and proposals. And they will not just be dealing with Curia reform.
 
When the Vatican Secretariat of State announced Francis’ decision to set up the advisory group, it specified that it was established “to advise him [the Pope] in the government of the universal Church and to study a plan for revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, 'Pastor Bonus'.” Advising the Pope on the running of the universal Church is certainly no less important than the council’s task of reforming the Curia, but the latter will be the council’s main focus.

So who's on the team? 

The Captain of the team is Cardinal Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of  Teguciggalpa, Honduras. 

Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, President of the Pontifical Commission  for the Vatcian City State and President of the Governate of the Vatican City State.

Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, Archbishop Emeritus of Santiago, Chile.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay, India

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany






     



 Cardinal Laurent Pasinya, Archbishop of Kinshasa and de facto Primate of the Democratic Republic of Congo

Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston

Cardinal George, Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, Australia