This weekend, February 7-10, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is sponsoring the “Catholic Social Gathering” where prominent anti-Catholic bigots and progressives speak about social justice issues.
All this being sponsored by the USCCB and advertised as a Catholic event.
-Fr. Thomas Reese, who was forced to resign as editor of America Magazine by the Vatican for his refusal to stop publishing articles which question church orthodoxy on issues like contraception, human embryonic stem-cell research, same-sex marriage, homosexual priests, mandatory clerical celibacy, and whether Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be given communion
– Page six of the official “Catholic Social Gathering” program gives a schedule for the Catholic Labor Network Gathering. USCCB exec John Carr is scheduled to join Paul Booth on a panel discussion. Paul Booth and his wife Heather Booth (another prominent pro-abortion activist with ties to the National Organization for Women, who helped organize a group called “JANE”in 1965 which helped young women obtain illegal abortions) founded the Midwest Academy a training institute for progressive activists.
-Paul Booth and his wife have served as host committee members for the National Organization for Women‘s Intrepid Awards Gala.
Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com has been doing yeoman’s work, uncovering and shining a bright spotlight on the many anti-Catholic activities and persons that are done inside the USCCB.
For more information on continuing developments in the growing scandals from the USCCB click here.
Throughout the last few years and specifically the last decade or so, the voluminous number of kooky quotes and statements coming from religious believers (heterodox Catholics included) and non believers alike is mind boggling. It can’t but help push the reasonable minded into the Catholic Church. Most casual observers are familiar with the number of high profile converts and reverts to the Catholic Church in the last 25 years or so. They range from theological luminaries like Dr Scott Hahn and Dr Francis Beckwith to political figures like Deal Hudson, Laura Ingraham and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Many like them have come to the Church after years of study and reason, but many also have come to the Church after years of seeing their particular religious denomination become unrecognizable.
The latest world calamity has given us two examples of sheer kookery coming from a religious leader and a secular voice. After the horrific earthquake that left the western world’s most impoverished nation in tatters, the Reverend Pat Robertson chimed in with a quote that was not only tragically insensitive but historically inaccurate. The onetime presidential candidate (who actually came in second in the 1988 GOP Iowa Caucus) and a leading voice of the Evangelical world blamed the earthquake on Voodoo, a cult that sadly far too many people practice in Haiti. Robertson voiced his opinion on his popular 700 Club television program. Robertson repeated the fundamentalist canard that in the early 1800s the leaders of a slave revolt fighting against French colonial forces forged a pact with the Satan to thrown off the chains of their oppressors.
Hattip to Midwest Conservative Journal. The latest in my on-going series on the follies of some modern Jesuits. Proving yet again that they have the charism of being impervious to irony,the editorial board of America magazine announced that they were awarding the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the Campion Award. Considering the fact that Saint Edmund Campion, SJ, was martyred for his efforts to give spiritual succor to Catholics unwilling to desert the Faith for the Church of England, one might think that even the denizens of the editorial board of America might regard this as a trifle odd. However, it actually makes sense when you think about it. First, it allows them to take a backhanded slap at the Anglican initiative of the Pope, and, second, what the Church of England has morphed into, a left wing pressure group with prayers, is frankly what America has been championing for years in the Catholic Church. Their hopes have been crushed, but they can by this award salute Rowan Williams, and give another gesture to the Pope.
America, the Jesuit magazine, has an article against the new Roman Missal translation which attempts to rectify some of the truly wretched translations that the English speaking peoples of the world had foisted upon them in the Sixties. The piece is written by Father Michael G. Ryan. Little did he know that he was going to be subject to one of the best fisks ever delivered by the Master of the Fisk, Father Z.
“What if we, the parish priests of this country who will be charged with the implementation, were to find our voice and tell our bishops that we want to help them avert an almost certain fiasco? What if we told them that we think it unwise to implement these changes until our people have been consulted in an adult manner that truly honors their intelligence and their baptismal birthright? [What would that entail, this “consulting our people”? Would that mean, what… having our people do the translation? Would it involve, what… voting?] What if we just said, “Wait, not until our people are ready for the new translations, but until the translations are ready for our people”? [How would that work, exactly?]
The bishops have done their best, [But apparently, they did a pretty bad job of it, according to the writer. Maybe “our people” can do a better job of making these decisions. Right! The bishops shouldn’t decide! “Our people” should decide! Down with the bishops! Up with “our people”! UNITE! Crush the IMPERIALIST…. er um… okay… sorry…. I digress….] but up to now they have not succeeded. Some of them, led by the courageous and outspoken former chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pa., [ROFL! You knew his name would pop up, right!] tried mightily[What a Hercules, he! What a David! What a … er… um…. sorry….] to stop the new translation train but to no avail. The bishops’ conference, marginalized and battle-weary, allowed itself slowly but steadily to be worn down. [By those wicked new translation loving types! DOWN WITH THEM!] After awhile the will to fight was simply not there. Acquiescence took over to the point that tiny gains (a word here, a comma there) were regarded as major victories. Without ever wanting to, the bishops abandoned their best pastoral instincts and in so doing gave up on the best interests of their people. [The writer is pretty worked up.]”
Go here to read the whole fisk. It is not to be missed.
I will be updating this post as often as I can throughout the day [Last update at 10:01pm CDT]. I’ll be reporting on reactions and news concerning this groundbreaking development that came from the Vatican this morning. The Vatican issued a note explaining a new provision in an upcoming Apostolic Constitution that will allow for a structure to be in place to receive Anglicans and Episcopalians into the Catholic Church. Basically a corporate reunion!
To read the full text of this announcement from the Vatican click here.
To read the full text of the joint press release of the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Gerard Nichols, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, click here.
Reaction and news from around the world [all emphasismine]:
Last Update of the day at 10:01pm CDT (Earlier updates further down this post)
Ruth Gledhill of the Times of London. Offers a brief history of what transpired the last couple of years between Anglo-Catholics, and those inside the Vatican, both faithful and dissident Catholics.
“Rome has parked its tanks on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s lawn[Interesting choice of words, but nonetheless accurate in my opinion] after manoeuvres undertaken by up to fifty bishops and begun two years ago by an Australian archbishop, John Hepworth [The leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion].”
To say that Sen. Kennedy was flawed is to say that he was a human being. To dismiss his career because of his stance on abortion is to be ignorant of the complicated way the issue of abortion manifested itself in the early 1970s: I think Kennedy got it wrong but I do not find it difficult to understand why and how he got it wrong. If the pro-life leaders would stop ranting for a second and study that history they might become more effective at advancing their cause. Besides, Ted Kennedy got many more things right than he got wrong.
Honestly, what does it mean to say that Kennedy “got many more things right than he got wrong”? I cannot tell that it means anything other than, “Kennedy is one of my political tribe, and so I find it easy to forgive his faults.” What, surely Winters does not propose something so trivializing as a weighted check list: “Kennedy was in favor of expanding welfare, and we’ll weight that at an 8. He was in favor of increased immigration, and we’ll give that a 10. Unfortunately, he was in favor of abortion, we’ll weight that at a 4. So far a +14 total, what next?” Read the rest of this entry »
Hattip to the ever alert Jay Anderson at Pro Ecclesia. Michael Sean Winters at the Jesuit publication America launched a diatribe at Patrick Madrid for his response to Sister Maureen Fiedler’s lament on the death of Senator Kennedy at National Catholic Reporter, He Made Me Proud to Be Catholic, in which Madrid pointed out the obvious: Kennedy was a total pro-abort. Poor Mr. Winters! He didn’t realize he was about to enter the fisk machine of Father Z! You may read the results here. Here is Madrid’s response. Note to liberal Catholics: if you are going to lionize a person like Kennedy, who was ever deaf to the cries of the unborn since his switch on the issue, see above letter, back in the early seventies, there are plenty of other Catholics who are going to point out this very unpleasant fact.
Day II of what Catholics are saying on the passing away of Edward Moore Kennedy around the web (will be continuously updated until tonight at 7:00 pm CST):
[Updated as of 8-26-2009 AD at 6:01 pm CST, see below]
Bishop D’Arcy pens an article in the dissident Catholic Jesuit-run magazine, America, by rapping the University of Notre Dame in it’s failure in being a witness to the Gospel by honoring the most anti-life president in the history of the United States.
He goes on to single out Father John Jenkins for his failure in leading as a man of faith and to the board of trustees for their deafening silence.
Finally he asks the University of Notre Dame, but also other Catholic universities, whether they will follow the Land O’Lakes Statement, which proclaimed in ambiguous language that it was ‘ok’ to dissent from Catholic teaching, or adhere to Ex Corde Ecclesiae, where Catholic teaching and identity must be a priori.
Part 7 of my continuing series commenting upon the follies of modern day Jesuits. None of the following of course applies to Jesuits who are orthodox in their faith and are often among the harshest critics of the antics perpetrated by their brethren. An editorial in America, the Jesuit magazine, expresses concern about the dangers of polarization in the Catholic Church in America. Father Z, the Master of the Fisk, in one of his finest efforts, gives the editorial a fisking to remember here.
Another segment in my series on the follies of modern Jesuits, with no slight intended to the orthodox Jesuits who soldier on under often grim circumstances. America, the Jesuit publication, has an article by Thomas G. Casey, SJ, an associate professor at the Gregorian University in Rome in which he suggests dumping Latin as the official language of the Church for English. Rather convenient for English speaking Jesuits, and also rather convenient for people who would like to ram down the memory hole the history of the Church up to Vatican II. Father Z does an effective fisking of the article here. The only addition I have is that Father Z is correct as to the Roman soldiers in Palestine speaking Latin at the time of Christ. Wherever recruited, Latin was the language of command in the Roman Legions and auxilliary units. The recruits, if they did not speak Latin, quickly picked up what was often referred to as soldier Latin. That was the language they spoke while on duty. It was a rather meaningless aside in Casey’s article, but he was wrong on that point.
Part three of my ongoingseries on the Jesuits. The magazine America, the Jesuit journal which has tirelessly defended, with honorable exceptions such as the late Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, the magisterium of the New York Timesfor decades, has an editorial here in which they compare Catholics who protested Notre Dame honoring the most pro-abortion President in our nation’s history to the Donatist schismatics. You might well wonder what relationship exists between schismatics from Fourth Century North Africa and orthodox Catholics upholding the teaching of the Church on abortion. Why none of course. This is merely a smear employed by the Jesuit scribes at America to run interference for Obama and the Catholics who support him.
I was going to write a lengthy post on this subject but Dale Price, at Dyspeptic Mutterings, beat me to the punch in his brilliant post Seinfeldian Catholicism. Dale is one of my favorite Catholic bloggers. He is one of those rare freaks of nature: a lawyer who writes well. I stop by his blog every day in hopes of reading one of his fine posts, he does not post every day, and steal—-er, that is, borrow blogging ideas. Seinfeldian Catholicism is, in my opinion, his finest effort and should not be missed.
Doug Kmiec has a rather bizarre article up at America entitled The Case For Empathy: Why a Much-Maligned Value Is a Crucial Qualification for the Supreme Court. If the article is any indication, I suppose we should be thankful Obama didn’t make any off-hand remarks suggesting ‘creativity’ or ‘imagination’ were traits he would look for in a potential Supreme Court justice, if only because it might have lead to more essays like this one. After some preliminary gushing about, you guessed it, empathy, Kmiec explains what an empathetic justice would accomplish:
To do this, it is possible that [Obama] will mine for legal talent in unusual places, but it is more likely he will attempt to find a nominee with appellate court experience whose skill set also shows the capability of challenging methods of interpretation that otherwise wouldn’t give empathy the time of day. If Obama succeeds even with this more limited challenge,he will have exploded the notion that swapping out a Souter for a new, most likely younger and intellectually energetic, justice is without effect.
Posted by Tito Edwards 
The American Catholic 