I think its safe to say the Abraham religions have been the biggest problem of the world for far to long.. and this crazy minister is totally telling us that, he is totally going for his imaginary magic man comic book war bs.
Ugga Bugga wigga wagga

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An Italian right-wing minister has proposed adding the crucifix to Italy’s national flag, claiming the Christian symbol was part of Europe’s true identity.
“I believe that Europe has the right to recognise its true identity that we are starting to lose completely,” said Roberto Castelli, deputy minister for infrastructure and transportation.
Castelli is a member of the Northern League, a populist anti-immigrant party that is part of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s coalition.
His proposal to add a crucifix to the Italian flag comes after the European Court for Human Rights ruled earlier this month that crucifixes in Italian schools violated the rights of parents to educate their children according to their convictions and the right of children to freedom of religion.
However, an opinion poll showed that 84% of Italians are in favour of displaying crucifixes in schools.
More

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In 1958 a decision was made that has changed the entire course of humanity. When John 23rd, a known Mason, was elected Pope of the Catholic Church, he had the intention to change the Catholic Church –contrary to how She had stood for centuries. John 23rd, along with the Second Vatican Council succeeded not only in altering and destroying the most vital part of The Church, but they created a new church, a non-Catholic religion.

In 1959, John 23^rd had an “inspiration.”‘ He said that he wanted to ‘open the doors and windows of church.’ Paul VI, who was responsible for terminating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, commented after the Vatican II Council was over. Paul VI said regarding John 23rd, “ …he was opening a window to let some fresh air in, but through some crack or other in the temple of God, the smoke of Satan has entered.”  1

John the 23^rd convened the Second Vatican Council on October 11 1962 and it continued until Dec 8^th 1965. The Bishops of Vatican Two decided to build their own church and the result is a political Christian social club, not a Catholic Church. Modernists and Masons succeeded in dominating the Second Vatican council and almost all the bishops bowed to the will of the modernists. Why? They lost faith. Through long usage, the Mass had become almost meaningless to many of them. They adopted the error of,”The liturgy is just words, it won’t hurt to change it.” Pope Saint Pious the 5^th decreed that whoever changed the mass would incur the wrath of God, Saint Peter, Saint Paul and the apostles.

Due to the fact that Modernism and heresy are easier to live by, most Catholics embraced the changes. It’s easier to say Jesus saved us all, automatically, than it is to make our own sacrifice and to take up our cross and follow Him. It is easier for a priest to preside over a memorial meal than to take the responsibility to transform the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. It’s easier for people to take the Holy Eucharist in their hand while standing, than it is to kneel before the Presence of God and allow the Body of Christ to be placed on the tongue. It is easier for a priest to preside over a group reconciliation than to absolve a soul in torment by listening to his sins.  It is easier to pray for the sick than to take responsibility for the transition of a human soul from this world to the next.

It’s easier for married couples to simply abandon their marriage and be given an annulment by a priest than it is to adhere to their oath before God and to listen to the words of Christ about marriage. It’s more comfortable to the self for women to wear short dresses, low-cut blouses, and for men to throw on jeans and a tee-shirt for Mass, than it is for women to dress modestly before God and for men to show more respect when standing in front of Christ.

Modernism, heresy and Satan himself have always told us it’s easy –if you just abandon Jesus Christ.

Vatican Two was not Catholic. Vatican two moved so far from Catholicism that we hardly recognize the Catholic Church from Protestantism or Catholic Churches from Masonic temples. As The Vatican Two church continues to move farther and farther away from Jesus, it will not even be recognized as Christian at all, and as the Vatican unites itself more and more with the Jews, the church might one day bring us the antiChrist. Before you get all heated up with anger about this statement, remember that the Jews do not recognize Jesus as their Messiah. Jews are waiting for their Messiah to come. Jesus ALREADY came and the Jews have rejected Him. The “Second Coming” is not another visit to earth by Jesus. “The Second Coming” will be the end of the world –when souls will either enter Heaven and be with God, or will cancel themselves out.

Vatican Two’s Novus ordo “mass” is a NO mass. When you have the wrong mass and the wrong sacraments; it is the wrong church. These things are backed up by words of Jesus, the apostles, 2000 years of Catholic doctrine, and the writings of every Catholic theologian from Saint Thomas of Aquinas to bishop Fulton J. Sheen.

John 23^rd planned a new liturgy and promoted the destruction of the Sacraments. That is heresy and will lead to the ruin of souls.

I don’t feel that it is any coincidence that the Second Vatican Council removed the prayer to Saint Michael for protection from being said after each Novus ordo mass. I also do not feel it is a coincidence that the world has become more rapidly evil since Vatican Two and the Novus Ordo mass. There was a time when the world was protected to a certain degree by The Tridentine (Traditional Latin Mass) being said throughout the world, in all places, and often simultaneously. Remove the protection of the Tridentine Mass and you make room for Satan to spread his evil and his demons, and to allow him to get his tentacles into places he has not been able to penetrate before, like the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church.

Please visit a new Blogsite: Apocalypticawareness. There you will find material rarely seen before, as well as the only photo of Jesus Christ, taken by Sor Anna Ali on Holy Friday, March 28 1987, in Porta Angelica Rome. Sor Anna Ali had a series of visions of the Holy Eucharist in Porta Angelica Rome, where the Host appeared to her suspended in the air parallel to a wall in the room. She then saw the prodigious appearance of Jesus, and a year later she saw again the Host, as well as Jesus crying tears of blood. Sor Anna Ali has recorded warnings given to her directly from Jesus The Christ. It is His Will that these warnings be given to all who love Jesus, and are even beneficial to those who do not know Jesus, but who know that the world is rapidly coming to a point in time where it may soon transform into another dimension and that all souls must come to God or parish.

Credibility for Sor Anna Ali and the warnings can be read by visiting . There you can also see the photo of Jesus. Please post your comments about the warnings given by Jesus through Sor Anna Ali at the Apocalyptic Awareness Blogsite. I do not run that Blog. The person who does run it has much more knowledge about the subject of the Apocalypse and Sor Anna Ali than I do. You can post comments about what I have written on this Blog at this Blogsite.

Source: “The Vacancy” documentary

Suggested reading:

What Has Happened to the Catholic Church? by Fathers Dominic and Francisco Radecki

“Tumultuous Times” by Fathers Dominic and Francisco Radecki

“The Rhine Flows into the Tiber” Father Ralph Witgen SVD

“Peter Lovest Thou Me” Abbe daniel Le Roux

“The Whole Truth About Fatima the Third Secret” Frere Michel de la Sainte Trinite

“Problems with the New Mass” Rama Coomaraswamy

“Goodbye Good Men” by Michael Rose

1. Pope Paul VI, 1972

I’m jonesing this weird thing for Pope Benedict XVI and I’m not even officially Catholic. Many of the first 15 Bennies were supposedly not all that fallable but this Holiness is something extra special.

Wasn’t it just last month that he kind of magically made the centuries-old Church of England disappear in a puff of smoke so those angry Anglicans could simply become Catholic again? His Holiness has his own website. How eternally cool is that? Yes, cool to Infinity. His website is translated into a bunch of languages.

You’ll probably want to click onto The Holy See for English. Sorry, there’s not Pig Latin. That could be really fun and I swear could drive some traffic to his site. I’ll Twitter tweet him that suggestion.

This week seated under Michaelangelo’s “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel, Pope Ben held an audience of 250 of the top contemporary artists, composers, filmmakers, dramatists and the like and invited them to embark on “a quest for beauty.”

The group included world-class cultural creatives like the Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid; Italian artist, Mimmo Paladino; America’s controversial video artist, Bill Viola; and one of my favorite 21st Century sculptors, Brit Anish Kapoor.

The aim of this earth-moving event was to re-establish a dialogue between the church and artists that the Vatican called “necessary and fertile for both.” It could well mean a return of the Catholic Church as a patron of contemporary art. Roll over Raphael and give Bernini the news.

This holiday, regardless of your faith or lack of, or your denomination, Southernness encourages you to explore the beauty of your local churches, cathedrals, temples and Druid caves. It could lift your holiday spirit. For the last several years, I have gone once a week to a Catholic prayer chapel.

I go at a time when I am generally alone with my thoughts semi-circumscribed by a curved wall of glorious, modern, stained glass created by man and then backlit by God’s sun. Superb collaboration.

If you are an artist, consider giving an example of beauty to your church. If you are an appreciator of artistic beauty, consider commissioning a work for your church.

When I was at my chapel this morning, I said a prayer of gratitude for the vision of groovy Pope Benedict XVI and for all artists on our earth who are pilgrims in this world of beauty.

Happy SEMISEPTCENTENNIAL Christmas Y’all,

Ben South

Southernness

Another article in the little Catholic newspaper that got me so cross.  This one blares the headline: “‘Real Women’ want to mind their children – feminist”.  WTF?

When you read the rest of the article, the point Christina Odone tried to make seems less contentious – but only a little bit.  A seemingly less biased view of the report and its findings (the link to the original pamphlet doesn’t work)  sheds even more light on what’s going on.  It seems a survey conducted by YouGov , a company which does internet-based polling, found only 12% of working mothers wanted to work full-time.  Odone looks at these figures and makes some claims I would disagree with:

the “overwhelming majority of women do not want to commit full-time to a job”.She calls this majority “real women” who want to lead a “full life”.

Said Ms Odone: “Instead of finding satisfaction in full-time work, most women realise themselves in their other roles as carers, partners, community members and above all mothers.”

There’s a whole lot of stuff here that Odone conveniently leaves out.  How did they get a hold of the parents who were polled, through a Catholic mailing list or something?  How do we know?  What age would the women be who were polled?  What age would their children be?  I would not be in the least surprised to hear most moms of small children want to be at home. I was adamant when my children were small, that I would not go out to work, but would look after them myself.  It wasn’t always easy, but we did it.  And I heard from more than one working mom of a small baby that they’d love to do the same.

I’m home for my kids even though they’re older (ages 8, 10 and 12), though in all fairness, my oldest son’s mild disability makes it impossible for me to work outside the home.  I would have loved to, if it was possible to find employment that left me free to be available for my children’s needs every second outside of school hours.  Mothers of older children might feel differently about work than the parents polled, especially if they’d had a chance to stay at home for the early years.

Again, on the face of it I agree with the recommendations Odone makes, which to me seem to boil down to giving greater support and recognition to moms who stay at home.  But to call those who work ‘not real women’ by implication, that’s just nasty.

I don’t know nearly enough about the policies she talks about to make any comments, but I can tell you from experience that I’ve met working moms who were aghast at the thought of staying home with their kids, and working moms who would give their eye teeth to stay at home with their kids.

What I wish is that women were in a position to choose freely, without money or the lack of it dictating their decisions.  I also really, REALLY wish everyone would just shut the fuck up about women, regardless of their choices.  I remember being sidelined and thought less of because I was a stay at home mom.  I get really angry when people criticise working moms as well, though.

In my experience, every parent simply makes the best choice they can under the circumstances.  Everyone is doing their utmost to live their lives to the greatest possible benefit of their children.  Nobody needs these horrible labels of being real or not real because of whether they want to work or not.

Shame on you, Alive! newspaper, for insulting women like that.

Every Advent since becoming Catholic, we have participated in a family advent project. I found a wooden box resembling a manger at St. Vincent de Paul store the first year. It sits empty on a table through advent, ready to receive our acts of love to the coming baby to soften his bed when he arrives. This year we are focusing on works of generosity, whether it is being generous with our time to read a book or play a game with a yearning little one, or letting someone else go first, have the last piece of pie, or the toy we really wanted to play with. True generosity involves personal sacrifice of our own desires. Every time we make such an effort, a little cotton ball goes into the manger. By Christmas, Baby Jesus will have a soft and cozy place to lay his little head.

I must admit, I need this season’s little lesson as much as any of the children. I have become too protective of my own belongings, time, and those leftovers I find myself particularly craving. None of this is good for my soul, but especially I find my faults reflected right back to me in infuriating detail in the six little lives we’ve welcomed to the family. So my prayer is that together, by being deliberately generous through these weeks until Christmas, we can mold happier habits of giving of ourselves and sacrificing for others.

The highlight of my day today was learning the word penguin (企鹅) in class and then seeing it in the subtitles of the NUMB3RS episode I was watching.  I saw it at the end of a line and thought, “Hey, that looks like the word for penguin!” before they said “penguin” in English.

Small victories. 

The second highlight of my day is probably the bottle of lemonade I’m drinking right now.  After the week or so where I tried all the bottled lemonade options, I just gave up.  Since then, milk tea has filled the void pretty well, but I have to go outside to get it.  I did, however, bring several of those little packets of Country Time Lemonade powder that you add to bottles of water, and decided to use one. 

Simple pleasures.

I’m currently working my way through the prayer of consecration in Chinese, looking up words I don’t know and trying to understand the translation.  My goal is to be through the rest of the Mass by the time I leave for Shanghai on Thursday morning.  I’ve added the ‘special’ words I’ve learned (generally related to Catholicism or engineering) to my flashcard program, so a typical run of flashcards is: “bookshelf”, “chicken”, “Jesus”, “magnetism”, “mercy”, “far”, “improve”, “torque”, “apostle”, “definitely”, “sand”, “number”, etc. 

Small steps.

I am getting pretty good at finding any sort of media I want on the Chinese internet.  I’ve downloaded just over two days’ worth of music, which makes up for not having a radio.  A couple recent downloads are from the Flight of the Conchords.  I highly recommend checking them out on YouTube, especially Most Beautiful Girl in the Room and I’m Not Crying.  They’re stupidly hilarious.

Simple minds.

Prepare for Mass

December 6, 2009 – (12/6/2009)
Second Sunday of Advent Year C

Sunday December 6 2009 is the 2nd Sunday of Advent Year C

Bar 5:1-9
Ps 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6
Phil 1:4-6, 8-11
Lk 3:1-6

God will make a way for us

God is leading us and filling in the potholes so that we may be secure in his Glory.

The Glory of God

leads us in joy and he comforts us

with his

mercy
and
justice

Catholic Faith Education – catholicfaitheducation.blogspot.com

A voice of one crying out in the desert:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.
Every valley shall be filled
and every mountain and hill shall be made low.
The winding roads shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

Jerusalem, take off your robe of mourning and misery put on the splendor of glory from God forever

Wrapped in the cloak of justice from God, bear on your head the mitre that displays the glory of the eternal name.

For God will show all the earth your splendor

you will be named by God forever the peace of justice, the glory of God’s worship.

look to the east and see your children

Gathered from the east and the west at the word of the Holy One,

rejoicing that they are remembered by God.

For God is leading Israel in joy by the light of his glory, with his mercy and justice for company.

The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

GOD BLESS YOU

watch CatholicTV

Mass Preparation for this Sunday

The Center for Liturgy at St Louis University

Fr Tommy Lane
St Charles Borromeo Catholic Church – www.scborromeo.org
LifeTeen
Catholic Doors Homilies
Loyola Press Sunday Connection
Catholic Faith Education

MERCY

JUSTICE

PEACE

JOY

Taken from The Little Blue Book
©Diocese of Saginaw

Advent/Christmas Plans

Spend today’s six minutes with the Lord sketching below some ideas on how you can spend these 26 days of Advent well.  Your plans can include items that are spiritual (deciding where and when you will pray each day)…practical (your gift list)…personal (sending a Christmas card to someone with whom you’ve not been on good terms)…charitable (doing something for the poor)…

[Before you write anything, spend a few quiet moments with the Lord and ask for help.]

Luke’s Infancy Narrative

Scholars tell us that Luke probably wrote his Gospel some 55 years after the Resurrection.  Therefore, it is unlikely that he witness the ministry of Jesus.  But he assures us in the early verses of his Gospel that he has examined things “from the beginning” and has gone over “everything” and made sure to do so “accurately.”

The Church teaches that Luke and the other biblical authors were “inspired.”  This doesn’t mean that God dictated word for word, but rather that the Holy Spirit gave special guidance to the authors so that they (each with their own style and limitations) ultimately taught what God wanted taught.

We also believe that this same Spirit is active in us when we read Scripture.

As I begin to walk day by day through the first part of Luke’s Gospel, it might be a good idea to begin with a prayer – something like: “Help me, God, with these six minutes a day.  Open my mind and heart to your Spirit.  May all my thoughts have their origin in you.”

That’s a fine approach not only when praying the Scriptures, but when walking through each day of my life.  Like today.

Today marks the beginning of the new liturgical year, and the start of the season of Advent.  Today at Mass, Fr. Brian talked about Advent being an underutilized season of the liturgical year.  There’s so much “stuff” going on – from Christmas shopping to plans to work to family obligations – that we forget this is a time for waiting in anticipation of the coming of Christ…at His birth, at the end of time, and into our hearts.

For the days of Advent, I’ll be posting reflections from The Little Blue Book, out of the Diocese of Saginaw.

The reflections take about six minutes, a great way to work prayer and spiritual thinking into your daily life.  This is something I struggle with; between all of the duties of being a wife and mother and student I forget to make time for me – not “me” time to do things like spa retreats or self-indulgences (althought these are okay once in a while) – but time for me to do what I need most to make me a better wife, mother and student: prayer.  Contemplation with Scripture and time with our Lord.

‘And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room . . . ‘ (Acts 1:13)

The Day of Pentecost marks the birth of the apostolic Church of the New Testament. According to the Lukan narrative in the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Ghost swept into the Upper Room where the disciples abode and where the disciples gathered with the female followers and relatives of Christ, including His mother. In this sacred space, cloven tongues of fire appeared above those who tarried for the Father’s promise, and they were filled with the Holy Ghost, speaking in other tongues. In this dramatic moment, the everlasting Church was established, and the Upper Room became one of the most hallowed sites of Christianity.

Today, pilgrims and tourists daily fill a 45’ x 29.5 ‘Gothic room built in the 14th century to commemorate the descent of the Spirit following Christ’s resurrection. In Catholic tradition the Upper Room is known as the Cenacle, derived from a Latin word for dining and is believed to be the site of the Last Supper and the place where the Apostles gathered and lived. As such, the ancient building that stood in the chapel’s place was the site of many of the most important events in the Gospel, including the washing of the disciples’ feet, the appearance of Christ after His resurrection, and the ratification of Matthias as a replacement for Judas Iscariot (Meagher 232). The Upper Room is hailed as the epicenter of formative Christianity and the worldwide revival that emanated from the initial descent of the Holy Ghost in Acts 2.1-4.

Eusebius (d. 339), who chronicled early Christian history, is credited with identifying the site as the “Holy Church of God.” In his Catechetical Lectures, Cyril (d. 386) called the building “the Upper Church of the Apostles.” Epiphanus (d. 403), who was Bishop of Caesarea, said that the small church survived the decimating attacks of Titus and Hadrian on Jerusalem. Theodosius called the Cenacle “mater omnium ecclesarium,” the “Mother of all Churches.”

Following the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., it was St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, who went to Jerusalem in an effort to rediscover the ancient Christian landmarks. Under her direction, the Cenacle was purified and consecrated, and masses were said in the small church (Meagher 233). In 350 A.D., the church was restored; and in 390, a large basilica known as Hagia Sion (Holy Zion) was erected nearby (Lussier 332-333). The traditional Upper Room became a cathedral and flourished until 636 A.D., when Jerusalem was overtaken by the Moslem invaders. Omar, cousin of the Mohammed, negotiated with the Jerusalem Christians and allowed them to retain the Cenacle as a church, but the influence of Christianity was stymied by the Moslem occupancy (Meagher 233).

When the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099, they found the Upper Room and Holy Zion in ruins. A Romanesque structure was erected at the site of the basilica, but this was again destroyed by invaders when the Sultan of Damascus conquered Jerusalem in 1219 (Lussier 332-333).

In 1342, the Franciscans were granted perpetual custody of the Cenacle by a papal bull issued by Clement VI. The order erected the present Gothic chapel. Interestingly, during the Byzantine period, it became popularly believed that King David was also entombed at the site of the Upper Room. When the occupying Moslems learned of the tradition, Suliman the Magnificent, hastily ejected the Franciscans, an effort to protect the sacred soil of David’s bones. In a missal to the Governor of Damascus, he wrote:

By the receipt of this august and imperial sign, know that by the request addressed to our Sublime Porte we have been made aware that near to the noble city of Jerusalem there is the tomb of the Prophet David . . . and that the convent and church of Mount Sion, possessed and inhabited by the religious Franks, are next to the tomb. The latter, in making the processions required by their false beliefs, cross the earth, which covers the tomb of the Prophet David—may peace be upon him. It is neither just nor appropriate that this most noble place remain in the hands of the infidels, and that in obedience to their impious customs, their feet foul the places sanctified by the prophets who have a right to our complete veneration. We order, then, upon receipt of this august order, that you expel from the church and convent immediately and without delay the religious and all those who reside there. (qtd. in Cunliffe 105)

For a time, Franciscans were still allowed to live in a nearby house but were finally evicted in 1551. In 1936, the Franciscans were permitted to return to a monastery near the Cenacle, but they evacuated during the conflicts of 1948. In 1960, they regained occupancy of both the monastery and the Cenacle, which had been badly damaged by mortar fire and continue as custodians of the structure today (Lussier 332-333).

Though the biblical site of the Upper Room described in Acts 2 is in some doubt, the legacy of that sacred space is unquestionable. Whether the Spirit fell in the exact location of today’s Franciscan chapel or on another Jerusalem tract, we know that the chamber where the 120 followers of the resurrected Christ gathered became the birthing room of the invincible Apostolic Church. With rushing wind and cloven tongues of fire, the Jerusalem saints were baptized with the Spirit. The tourist experience of standing in a place that may have been the point of that first Pentecostal visitation pales in comparison to the Upper Room experience recreated in countless lives as the miracle of Pentecost is repeated in the seeking souls and the believing hearts of the faithful. Every time we witness the outpouring of God’s Spirit, evidenced by speaking in tongues, we return to the Upper Room and relive the seminal moment when the Holy Ghost first empowered the Church with the enflaming presence of the Comforter and began the spiritual conflagration that now engulfs the globe in end-time revival! The authenticity of the Cenacle is in dispute but the authenticity of the Apostolic experience is incontrovertible.

Sources:

Cunliffe, Barry, ed. Oxford Archaeological Guides: the Holy Land. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Germano, Michael P. “The Ancient Church of the Apostles: Revisiting Jerusalem’s Cenacle and David’s Tomb.” Biblical Archaeology.

Lussier, E. “Cenacle.” New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 332-333. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. Ball State University. 9 Nov. 2009 <http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=GVRL&u=munc80314>.

Meagher, James. How Christ Said the First Mass, or the Lord’s Last Supper. New York: Christian Press Association Publishing Company, 1908.

Tertullian of Carthage (circa A.D. 150-220)

A collection of quotes from Tertullian that shed light on what he thought of the “rock” of Matt 16:18 and related issues.

Quote 1:

“Was anything withheld from the knowledge of Peter, who is called ‘the rock on which the church should be built,’ who also ‘obtained the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ with the power of ‘loosing and binding in heaven and on earth.’”

(Prescription Against Heretics, Ch. 22; circa A.D. 199)

Here, in a quote from one of Tertullian’s earlier works, we see him quite clearly identifying the “rock” of Matt 16:18 as Peter himself.

Quote 2:

“Peter alone do I find married, and through mention of his mother-in-law. I presume he was a monogamist; for the church, built upon him, would for the future appoint to every degree of orders none but monogamists.”

(On Monogamy, Ch. 8; circa A.D. 208)

Although not quite as explicit as the first quotation, Tertullian again seems to portray the “rock” of Matt 16:18 as Peter.

Quote 3:

“In opposition to this (modesty), could I not have acted the dissembler?  I hear that there has even been an edict set forth, and a peremptory one too. The Pontifex Maximus —that is, the bishop of bishops — issues an edict:  ‘I remit, to such as have discharged (the requirements of) repentance, the sins both of adultery and of fornication.’ …

If, because the Lord has said to Peter, ‘Upon this rock will I build My Church,’ or, ‘Whatsoever thou shalt have bound or loosed in earth, shall be bound or loosed in the heavens,’ you therefore presume that the power of binding and loosing has derived to you, that is, to every Church akin to Peter, what sort of man are you, subverting and wholly changing the manifest intention of the Lord, conferring (as that intention did) this (gift) personally upon Peter?  ‘On thee,’ He says, ‘will I build My Church;’ and, ‘I will give to thee the keys,’ not to the Church; and, ‘Whatsoever thou shalt have loosed or bound,’ not what they shall have loosed or bound.  For so withal the result teaches.  In (Peter) himself the Church was reared; that is, through (Peter) himself.” (On Modesty, Ch. 7, 21; circa A.D. 215)

I have seen this last quotation of Tertullian’s being thrown around as proof that not only did he believe Peter is the “rock”, but that he also believed that Peter had a line of successors who occupied the office of the Bishop of Rome who had supreme jurisdiction over the universal Church.

In the previous passage Tertullian was speaking about Callistus who was Bishop of Rome from A.D. 217-222. However, I think an important point to know is that at this time the title of “Pontifex Maximus” was a heathen appellation of the pagan Roman state religion. The context of Tertullian’s writings shows that he was using this title towards Callistus in a completely derogatory way and not in an honorific confessing way. In short, Callistus had issued an edict of pardon to persons guilty of sexual immorality on due performance of the prescribed penance. Tertullian was opposed to the edict, one reason was that it was Callistus’ attempted exercise of authority outside of his jurisdiction. So Tertullian mockingly and sarcastically called Callistus “Pontifex Maximus” and “Bishop of Bishops.”

Note: Even though Tertullian had embraced the Montanist heresy sometime around the turn of the third century, it did not affect most of Tertullian’s theology.

While perusing random blogs, I came across one where a woman chronicled her dilemma with the script for a Christmas play she was putting together.

Well, we got through 95% of the play and then it all went downhill from there. The play suddenly took on a very Catholic feel. It started talking about the Christ Child and how Mary performed miracles and the Madonna statue, and it went on and on. So we obviously couldn’t do this play.

She then went on to say how she asked the company for a refund on the scripts, and the woman she spoke with exclaimed how she didn’t necessarily see the inclusion of Mary as a Catholic thing, but simply a, “pretty unbelievably miraculous story
about a baby named Jesus and his Mommy Mary.”

Disgruntled Bloggerette simply ends her post with, “Wow…”

I fail to see the problem with protestant denominations celebrating Mary. Did God not separate her from every other woman on this planet and give her a divine duty? Did she not put aside her own fears, her reputation as a woman yet to be wed, and accept the plans that God had for her?

She is the Mother of your Savior, Jesus Christ. At the very least you acknowledge her. And say Thank You while you’re at it.

The latest report on child abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese does not fail to shock. The abuse itself is chilling, depressing and appalling, but compounding it is the behaviour of senior bishops and cardinals as they conspired – over a 40 year period – to cover up the scale of the scandal throughout the Dublin area. A new word has been added to the common lexicon – “mental reservation“: where bishops could freely excuse themselves from telling the truth when under pressure to do so. The welfare of children was of little importance to these men, and the resultant suffering is incalculable.

Mary Raftery neatly sums up the gravity of this report and it’s implications for the Catholic Church in Ireland. One passage in particular stands out:

What emerges most clearly from the report is that priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals had the greatest difficulty in telling right from wrong, and crucially that their determination of what constituted wrongdoing was vastly different from that of the population at large.

Let’s think about that, for a second. The Catholic Church, like most religions, believes that the greatest value it confers to society is its ability to guide people in distinguishing right from wrong. And yet, it’s most eminent leaders and scholars behaved – and still behave – in a way that would lead you to the firm conclusion that, despite their years of learning, refinement and experience, they have no clue as to what is commonly accepted as morally acceptable or morally abhorrent behaviour. If the very leaders of this church can’t distinguish between right and wrong, what use is Catholicism at all? Why should any sane society uncritically accept the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church in our schools? What real benefit does it offer our children?

The implications of the report are clear: The Church badly needs to be removed from the affairs of the Irish State. Let the parents and teachers teach our children right from wrong – they will do a better job. The churchmen had their chance for long time and they blew it. Enough is enough.

So much is passing and ephemeral. Spiritual questions remain. I participated in an interesting discussion of sola scriptura over at Protestant Pontifications. Enjoy.

Marcus and I realized yesterday, for the first time, that our five year old has ears.  And that she uses them to listen to us when we don’t think she’s paying us any attention.

My grandfather has been ill recently, and we’ve been making extra trips to visit.  He’s at his home, in a hospital bed set up in the living room.  Though I was nervous about how the girls would do, they’ve done a great job.  They sing him Christmas songs (the other day he sang along and even danced a little!), talk to him and tell him about school, and bring him pictures.  They are quiet when we ask them to be, and our visits have been good ones.  It really lifts his spirits, and I am thankful for these precious memories with my grandfather and my children.

But when we left from our visit yesterday, I was a bit teary-eyed at the thought of my grandfather so sick.  I stood outside the car for a few minutes with Marcus before we got in.

When we got inside, Erica (3) said, “Mommy, are you sad because Granddaddy is sick and is going to die?”

Samantha (5) stepped in, “I just told her that, Mommy.  Is that right?”

I suspect her words were a combination of those little ears that we don’t think are listening and a recent conversation after we watched the movie Up.

Marcus was the one to respond, because her words were so innocent, and so sad, for me.  He is such an amazing father–I’m proud to call him my husband.

In the future, I suppose we’ll be more mindful of those little ears.

In the meantime, if any of you have an extra prayer to spare for my granddaddy, I know he and my family would all appreciate it.

Grandaddy, 2005

Gospel: Jesus said to his disciples: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Luke 21:33

Word: word – a distinct unit of language (sounds in speech or written letters) with a particular meaning

I’ve recently finished watching the new six hour Monty Python documentary, which was very much like experiencing heaven on this humble planet. When it came time to discuss Python’s Life of Brian [which began as Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory] Eric Idle opened his mouth, and a great truth came out, “We found that Jesus Christ was not pervious to comedy. There’s nothing he says that you can laugh at.”

Director Brian Terry Jones followed up Idle’s thought by saying, “We wanted to focus on what was funny. And what is funny isn’t what Jesus says, it’s about how people misinterpret that.”

Die-hard Python fan or not, I can’t help but agree with Idle and Jones, especially with the recent hullabaloo the Catholic Church has caused. In today’s Gospel, Jesus was and is right – his words haven’t passed away. Unfortunately, his words have of late been overshadowed by men’s words – like Bishop Tobin, Gov Carcieri, and the Diocese of Washington, DC – which are words of hate.

For now, I’d like to take a closer look at the exchange between Bishop Tobin and Rep Patrick Kennedy, which resulted in Tobin publicly barring Kennedy from receiving Holy Communion. Tobin claims Kennedy is a “poor Catholic” because he disagrees with the Church’s teaching on abortion (though Kennedy has never said himself if he is pro-choice or anti-abortion, Tobin has simply focused on Kennedy’s voting record).

The Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion are purely man made – Jesus nor anyone else in the Bible spoke about abortion or preserving life from “womb to tomb.” This is a creation of men in the Catholic Church, of an interpretation of verses in the Bible. The Church cites the commandment against murder and verses in Psalm’s which speak of God creating someone in their mother’s womb (though I can’t really think of any other place for humans to be created, but that’s me being all narrow again).

Catholic Catechism also cites numerous other sources which condemn abortion, and my eyes might be deceiving me here, but not one of them is written by a women and, though they are not in the Bible, they were voted to be canonized, and, it probably goes without saying, women cannot vote on canonization.

I can only assume that my humble thoughts here can and will be read as whining liberal rubbish, and that if one decides to unravel the validity of the Bible then what’s the point in being Catholic, but hear me out.

Words are powerful, and, in the end, no matter how much we try to communicate with them, they fail us. While the Bible holds many truths, in the end it is a collection of works (written by men), at times mistranslated, and were never written to be collected and arranged as they are now. Is the Bible inspired? I would say yes. Is it also flawed? I’d say yes again.

So, what now? Focus on what’s important. I can’t help but think if Jesus merely said what he said and never acted on it, he’d simply be a Wikipedia entry, not the international superstar deity he is today. He touched people who society had rejected. He came to those without money or food or shelter or health and, when he got there, he loved them, wholly without any hesitation.

In the seventh chapter of Matthew, Jesus says, “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye?”

It’s a really too bad that men’s actions like Tobin’s actions speak louder than Jesus’ words.

A perfect example of miscommunication of a good thing:

After having been made aware of this film – containing an extensive debate between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson – I found the internet correspondence which prompted its recording. The issue concerns the question of whether Christianity is, in Wilson’s words, “good for the world”. The internet communication contains a number of arguments and counters which will be broken down and presented by my particularly analytically skilled, and as I’m continually informed, small head… Ok, maybe it’s just small.

Hitchens’ first argument:

Although Christianity is often credited (or credits itself) with spreading moral precepts such as “Love thy neighbor”, I know of no evidence that such precepts derive from Christianity. To take one instance from each Testament, I cannot believe that the followers of Moses had been indifferent to murder and theft and perjury until they arrived at Sinai, and I notice that the parable of the good Samaritan is told of someone who by definition cannot have been a Christian.

To these obvious points, I add that the “Golden Rule” is much older than any monotheism, and that no human society would have been possible or even thinkable without elementary solidarity (which also allows for self-interest) between its members. Though it is not strictly relevant to the ethical dimension, I would further say that neither the fable of Moses nor the wildly discrepant Gospel accounts of Jesus of Nazareth may claim the virtue of being historically true. I am aware that many Christians also doubt the literal truth of the tales but this seems to me to be a problem for them rather than a difficulty for me. Even if I accepted that Jesus—like almost every other prophet on record—was born of a virgin, I cannot think that this proves the divinity of his father or the truth of his teachings. The same would be true if I accepted that he had been resurrected. There are too many resurrections in the New Testament for me to put my trust in any one of them, let alone to employ them as a basis for something as integral to me as my morality.

The Logic Police’s Reconstruction:

• P1. If moral behaviour predates Christianity then Christianity is not a necessary condition for moral goodness.
• P2. Moral behaviour predates Christianity.
• Conclusion. Christianity is a not a necessary condition for moral goodness.

Hitchens is also making the claim that:

• P3. The existence of a Human Society is a sufficient condition for the existence of some moral goodness.

This is good news for Hitchens since if Conclusion and P3 are true he has denied Wilson the possibility of claiming that Christianity is a necessary condition for moral goodness.

Wilson’s first counter:

Your first point was that the Christian faith cannot credit itself for all that “Love your neighbor” stuff, not to mention the Golden Rule, and the reason for this is that such moral precepts have been self-evident to everybody throughout history who wanted to have a stable society. You then move on to the second point, which contains the idea that the teachings of Christianity are “incredibly immoral.” In your book, you make the same point about other religions. Apparently, basic morality is not all that self-evident. So my first question is: Which way do you want to argue this? Do all human societies have a grasp of basic morality, which is the theme of your first point, or has religion poisoned everything, which is the thesis of your book?

The Logic Police’s Reconstruction:

Notice that although Wilson alludes to Hitchens’ first argument he does not address it directly. Wilson avoids doing so because he believes that two of Hitchens’ premises are in logical contradiction:

• P3 (Wilson’s altered version). The existence of a Human Society is a sufficient condition for the existence of moral goodness.
• P4. Many Human Societies are incredibly immoral.

By accusing Hitchens of believing both these premises, Wilson makes it seem as if Hitchens is claiming that a society’s existence guarantees its moral goodness, which, in turn, rules out the possibility of it being ‘incredibly immoral’. Since this involves a contradiction, either P3 or P4 must be false and Hitchens must decide which to abandon.

However, and here is the logical sleight of hand, Wilson can only make this accusation after removing Hitchens’ existential quantifier in Premise 3 — the word ‘some’. Without doing so P3 and P4 are not in direct logical tension since an ‘incredibly immoral’ society may contain some moral goodness. Of course, this is precisely what Hitchens believes. In removing the requisite quantifier Wilson has violated the principle of charity and either intentionally misrepresented Hitchens’ argument or committed a relatively shabby logical error. The contradiction is spurious and, as a consequence, provides no legitimate challenge to Hitchens’ original argument.

As it stands the score is as follows:

• Hitchens: 1   Wilson: 0

Make sure you check back for the Logic Police’s second installment of the Wilson Vs. Hitchens debate!