Thursday, August 29, 2013

Another bishop gone bad

Here's another delightful example of a Bishop who doesn't have a good grasp of the Church's teachings, and even if he did, he wouldn't be likely to think it his duty to support them.


The Bishop conflates two separate issues which the Church's moral teaching depends upon keeping separate: a inclination to sin, which involves no guilt; and giving in to that inclination, which does.

I can't help but think of the many defenses offered after Pope Francis' ill-considered remarks on the plane coming back from Rio's WYD, the infamous "Who am I to judge?" statement. Notice that the secular reporter prefaces his question with a reference to that very statement.

So here's the thing. The laity is constantly reminded that the Bishops are successors of the Apostles. At that point, the conversation is usually headed for some variant of "And so don't criticize your Bishops when they fail to uphold clear and firmly held teachings." That would sit better if the Bishops were subject to ANY discipline. In secular corporate terms, we have something like a team of regional Vice Presidents who are autonomous and above correction or removal if they start to go off the rails. Oh, you might be transferred to another Diocese, perhaps a less prestigious one, but that's the extent of it. I know, I know, the Church isn't a secular corporation. But is that really a good reason why it should be run with less accountability than a secular corporation?

Can someone explain to me why Bishops are allowed to wallow in error for years, while the laity in their dioceses are told to shut up because their Bishops will eventually reach mandatory retirement age after doing just a few more years — or decades — of damage to souls? (Roger Mahony comes to mind). If the Apostle your bishop chooses to model himself after is Judas, is there no recourse?

Thursday, August 22, 2013

What I wish I could tell Mark Ruffalo

It seems that actor and renowned deep thinker Mark Ruffalo is proud of his mother for aborting one of her children, i.e., a brother or sister of his. He pads out his defense of the indefensible with the same hackneyed nonsense slogans that pro-abortion people have used for forty years.

The LifeNews article about this incident mentions what is, to my mind, a polite but too-mild response from Students for Life America's Kristan Hawkins. Here's what I'd like to say to Ruffalo:

Your mom killed a brother or sister of yours, and you're proud of it. She was tired of seeing herself as a mere possession, so she fixed that by treating another person as a mere possession. You say her abortion experience, apparently pre-Roe, was dirty, dangerous, and demeaning. You might ask some of Kermit Gosnell's victims if things have changed much after forty years of legalized child-killing. That's because although the legalities have changed, the kind of doctor who would kill children is still the same. The kind of man who would applaud the murder of his brother hasn't changed, either.

'via Blog this'

Friday, August 16, 2013

Game of Thrones v. Lord of the Rings

George R. R. Martin's brutal, ugly tales of his imaginary world of Westeros are making piles of money for him and many others.

This post from MercatorNet gives us a glimpse into the vastly different worldviews of Martin and J. R. R. Tolkien, and why, a century from now, Tolkien will still be an honored genius, and Martin will be a footnote in a forgotten Wikipedia article.

More on this later, I hope.

Thursday, August 08, 2013

USAID Rep Shuts Down Workshop on Abortion Complications

Remember that pesky, outmoded First Amendment? What a drag, if you're into a woman's right to choose! It's such a relief that the current administration has found intrepid people willing to advance abortion women's health by muzzling unwelcome speech, even in the context of scientific presentations by physicians.

Via C-FAM.

Friday, August 02, 2013

E for Effort



In the wake of Pope Francis' ill-considered off-the-cuff remarks ("... who am I to judge?) to the press on his way home from Rio, the popular blogging Deacon, Greg Kandra, has the right idea about expressing the Church's teaching about homosexuality more clearly. But in the CNS video I link to here, even his version seems to wander a bit.

Unless I'm reading my Catechism of the Catholic Church wrongly, it all comes down to these bullet points:

  1. One kind of sexual relations is pleasing to God: the kind that happens between one man and one woman in the context of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Nothing else.
  2. Any other kind of sexual relations — heterosexual, homosexual, or what-have-you-sexual — displeases Him. Not because He wants to spoil all our fun, but because He knows how those things trap us in distortions of our true human nature, which He understands far more profoundly than we do.
  3. So, since we have a duty to God to resist any inclination to displease Him, we have a duty to resist any inclination to have some other kind of sex, no matter what it is, who (or what) it's with, or how good it feels.
Now, one may not agree with those teachings. Many Americans don't. Heck, even a lot of baptized Catholics certainly behave as if they don't. But, when put briefly and clearly like this, at least we're clear about what we're defending, and what we're not.

Conan O'Brien dips a toe in the cesspool

The Catholic League has correctly identified yet another example of people enjoying the last broadly permissible bigotry, this time via Conan O'Brien:
It was the one-liner subtitle about children being molested by priests that was a low blow: “Kids can opt out of fondling by texting #nothanks to the Vatican.”

Religious profiling—portraying all priests as molesters—is not out-of-bounds with late-night hosts. Now if Conan had said, “Kids can opt out of fondling by texting #nothanks to gay priests,” he may have been fired. But just smearing all priests is considered perfectly acceptable. These are the rules in liberal land.

Thursday, August 01, 2013

Pro-abortion mob in Chile vandalizes cathedral during Mass

Via LifeSiteNews (but also available via the Washington Post, for those who might be skeptical of a Catholic news source): "Mob of pro-abortion protesters storm, vandalize Cathedral in Santiago de Chile during homily."

According to the cited story, the mob numbered about 300. Now, I admit that seeing 300 weirdos stream into my church in the middle of Mass would have taken me aback, too. But I'd like to think that after those initial moments of stunned immobility, my first impulse would have been to leave my pew to help throw them out physically.

The thing that puzzles me is that this was allowed to happen in a Latin American country, where men are supposedly so proud, even "macho." How many men were present in the congregation? I mean, real MEN? Yes, I understand that some formed a protective cordon around the main altar, and thereby prevented even worse abuse from happening. Good start. But what was the rest of the congregation doing, while the confessional was being tipped over, and while an altar was being defaced, while pews were being ripped out and carted into the street? I can understand being surprised for a moment, but then... well, the proper response of Godly men to goons like these was recorded 2,000 years ago in I Maccabees 3: "...be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar."

And ladies, I mean no disrespect to you by speaking of men, above; it's just that it's our job as men to sacrifice our lives for you, our families, and our Church. When we've all gone down fighting, it'll be your turn. Just let us have the first crack at 'em.

Such things are coming to your town and to your parish church, too. It's only a matter of time. We need to be in readiness. We've been warned.