TRIUMPHALIST--YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?

TRIUMPHALIST--YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? I believe that the Catholic Church was founded by Christ, on his Apostles, especially Peter, the first Pope. I believe in the teachings of the Ecumenical councils, I revere the Fathers of the Church, and I am an unapologetic Ultramontane Catholic. If you don't like it, too bad.


"I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF EXHORTATIONS TO SILENT! CRY OUR WITH A HUNDRED THOUSAND TONGUES. I SEE THE WORLD IS ROTTEN BECAUSE OF SILENCE."--St. Catherine of Sienna

Friday, February 19, 2010

Really, it's not about safety, or rights, they just hate Human Life.

That goes for the Demons and those human servants of Satan, who make such noise about "Aids Prevention".

It turns out that one of the bottle necks in distributing aid to Haiti, especially medical aid, has been the numbers of condoms clogging up the system and taking up storage space.

Here's a link: www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10021812.html . There's the story. Go read it.

Then reflect on this: people are dying of gangrene, infections, communicable diseases and trauma, for lack of even basic medical supplies. And these goobers send rubbers. And--they say we're the ones obsessed with sex?

Preparing for the New Missal

So the USCCB is preparing for the New Roman Missal to be implemented. That's good, in itself.

But I would feel better about their preparations if Dolly Sokol, PhD, weren't on the list as one of the Principal presenters. It seems that she is also deeply involved in the leadership of a group that advocates and "trains" laymen to preach at parish Liturgies--a practice that is contrary to Church discipline and usage. She in fact wishes Lay Preaching to to be norm in every parish.

And she's helping to implement the new translation?

Another speaker will be Brian Reynolds, EdD. he's the chancellor of the Archdiocese of Louisville. And it's chief administrator. If you scroll down a bit on today's postings, you can read something about the Cathedral, and maybe interpolate why I am less than thrilled.

Why do the foxes always end up watching the hen house in Catholic America?

Yes, as a matter of fact, it is bad for kids.

A symposium was organized by the Mexican Institute for Sexual Orientation. At this symposium new research was presented about the children of same sex couples.

The paper was presented by George A. Rekers, professor of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science at the University of South Carolina. The title of the paper is "Homosexual Adoption: What Science has Discovered".

Well, what the science has discovered is that children, male or female, who are adopted by same sex couples, (of either sex) show higher stress, to include much higher rates of suicide, attempted suicide and violence.

Since I have nephew who lives with his gay dad, and have seen what the changes were in his demeanor, I think that this is probably accurate.

KUDOS!

St Thomas Aquinas College in California is bucking the trend. It's being publicised on the net how many allegedly Catholic colleges have links to Planned Parenthood, either through internships, "health care" links, advocacy groups and like things.

St. Thomas Aquinas, on it's financial aid page, and in it's applications for student loans, lists which lenders contribute to and support The Culture of Death, and which don't.

They strongly recommend that students use those who don't.

Carbon and Lent

Well, it seems that an outreach of the California Bishops Conference is advocating a kind of Carbon Fast for lent.

Let me say this: a publicity stunt for a currently fashionable cause will do no good.

Yet if one accepts the premise of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), then it does make sense that one would need to take action. But unscrewing a light bulb in your house for a period of forty days won't really make a difference. So let me propose and justify another approach.

Ditch missalettes.

Yep, that's my prescription. Think about it. Missalettes are printed on newsprint, a high acid paper. To make newsprint requires some serious burning of fossil fuels, the main culprit in AGW. First there is all the fuel burned (very inefficiently!) in the two-cycle chainsaw engines that cut the wood for the wood pulp paper. Then the truck to the mill. Then the energy intense process of making the paper, frequently provided by the dirtiest of fuel, coal. Then more fuel to truck the paper to the printers, and the energy (again, most likely from fossil fuels) to print and assemble them, then shipping them to distribution points and on to parishes. Very dirty process, and wasteful. Then of course, there is the fact that these things are generally good for a single quarter of the year, some for six months and some even for one year. Then there is the energy to remove them to landfills or other disposal.

Even if they are made from recycled paper, or of recyclable paper, the energy expenditure is great. Not to mention, the problem of the dioxin and other nasty byproducts and pollutants of
the manufacturing process.

Solution? By hymnals for the church, once, and re-use them. This will eliminate the repetitious manufacture and printing of the missalette hymnal. Then, encourage the faithful to buy and use hand missals. This becomes more attractive when one realizes that the missalette was originally a way to fill the gap between the Old Mass, and every ones missal, to the New Mass and the unavailability of missals. Also, there was the consideration that the translation was meant as an interim translation in the first place, and now we are getting a final translation. This will put the texts of the Mass, (and incidentally, the rubrics!) into the hands of the faithful, and you can buy hand missals that have the texts in their entirety. It potentialy could reduce liturgical abuses.

But for an environmental solution to be viable, it must also be cost effective. So her's a consideration. Instead of expending cash every 4 months to a year on missalettes, you can buy a set of hymnals that will last decades. I mean, I've seen old church hymnals, in my parish, that are nearly a century old, and still readable and whole. That's a lot of cash that could be put to other uses.

There is even a good musical reason to do this. Parishes that are addicted to missalettes (heh! I said addicted! Really though, if we can be called addicted to fossil fuels because they are convenient, what about missalettes?) tend not to sing well as congregations. This is a byproduct of that fondness for novelty that St. Paul warned of. Basically, a music minister sees new songs, and introduces them to the congregation, most of whom do not read music and have poor opportunity to learn these songs. So they don't sing them. This would help that out, a lot!

So there you have it, an affordable way to reduce a parishes hidden carbon footprint, it's displaced pollutant emissions, and improve it's singing and knowledge of the liturgy.

But I bet they never, ever think of that!

Gay Friendly Parishes

It seems that a group called "New Ways Ministry" has published a national list of parishes that are "Gay Friendly". There are only three parishes listed in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

One of these parishes is the Cathedral of the Assumption, the Archdiocesan Cathedral for the See of Louisville. And no one is really surprised. After all, our Archbishop recently wrote a letter about the undesirability of gay marriage. In it's story about the event, the Courier-Journal, the local paper, quoted the fellow who is in charge of the GLBT ministry at the cathedral as saying how mistaken the Archbishop was.

And I have seen or heard nothing about him being replaced, moved or disciplined.

Our bishops need to realize something: talk is cheap, and we've heard it all before. Now is the time for deeds, and if the local ordinary cannot screw up the courage (yes, that's intended) to correct someone who is conducting a ministry in his cathedral church, technically in his name, we will lose the battle of morality and faith to relativists.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

My Ash Wednesday Post.

It's the time of year when people comment on how many people turned out for Ash Wednesday, a day that's not even a Holy Day of Obligation, and how many of them haven't been seen in the Church since Christmas, and then go into a long discourse on C.A.P.E. Catholics--those who seem to show up in the Church only on Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday and Easter.

Last year I read one of these things, written by a priest, that suggested that since the latter three were the only time the church gives out things that's why they came. He also tied the Christmas things to presents.

Sorry, I think this is the wrong approach. It's not a good time to bash the lukewarm, for we're all lukewarm in one way or another. But we need to look at something else. Those we call C.A.P.E. Catholics are showing us something important: That the mysteries of the Incarnation, the Passion, and the Resurrection are really the foundations of our faith, and that the call to repentance is our fundamental response to it.

These people are responding to these mysteries, and to our response to them. However spotty their adherence, or dim their understanding, they are participation in the Mystery of Salvation. Perhaps many of us who are accustomed to weekly Mass, all the Holy Days, frequent confession and a regular prayer life would do well to think for a second: We can go to Mass on autopilot. We can even meet all the requirements of the Precepts of the Church, and exceed them, with very little more than inertia and membership in a sub-culture that is so habitual that we don't think about it. But someone who goes to Mass four times a year has to make a reasoned, thought out decision to do so. They have to affect their lifestyle to do so.

Maybe, if instead of looking down our noses at them and saying "tut-tut", we could try to make friends with them? Include them in other things? Make regular participation the Mass and the Sacraments something to be desired instead of a dreary routine?

And besides, we should at this time of year really be looking at our own tendencies to habitual sin, to our own lukewarmness, to our own tendencies to accomodationism.

After all, Lent isn't about "them", it is the only liturgical season that is about "me". "Me" and what I need to change, what I need to redirect, what I need to repent of, so as to be more open to The Lord.

This is nice!

Down in Dixie, Norcross GA to be precise, there is a parish named Mary Our Queen. It has outgrown it's parish Church, and is in need of larger premises.

In recent times, that meant a trip to some architect who seemed to specialize in mall and medical offices to design and erect an edifice with all the charm of ...well, malls and medical offices. These edifices don't really elevate the mind and heart to god, they lend themselves to shallow and banal things.

But the people of Mary Our Queen have another idea: They are having a parish church in Buffalo NY, one of the older churches that have been closed due to the wreckage and ruin of northeastern Catholicism disassembled. And moved to their 15 acre lot and reassembled. It's a way to preserve the artistic and architectural heritage of American Catholicism, and a way to get a larger church.

This is neat!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

I'm Trying to Change My Town!

I try very hard to take in information and opinions from sources I know I disagree with. I read America, I listen to NPR and watch PBS. I got to American Catholic, and so forth.

This helps me make up my own mind, and lets me see what the other side is saying. Some times it makes me reconsider opinions. And from time to time, I even gain something of value.

Like the bumper sticker that reads: "BE the Change you want to SEE!".

And now I'm trying it out.

I keep our walk shoveled and de-iced. Because:

ON Beechwood Ave in New Albany IN, I have the ONLY shoveled walk for the length of the street! OK you Lazy white trash (&$%(*&)@ers, shovel your damned walks! I haven't been to the Library in two weeks because the walk is over a mile on packed snow and ice! And don't leave shit in the middle of the sidewalk. And don't build snow sculptures in it either you dumbos! Sheesh! is it so hard? I"m over 50, I smoke, I have arthritis in my hands and shoulders, I have a chronic non-union in my right arm and I shovel my damned walk!

No wonder people in surrounding communities think we're all white trash!

Oh--and pick up you trash and keep control of your mutts, too!

Our Senator

Senator Evan Bayh has announced that he will not run for re-election. This isn't a case of a Senator whose seat is precarious not running to preserve his political future from an ignominious defeat--his seat wasn't in danger.

But he went on record as saying he was no longer interested in serving in Congress because of partisanship. At first glance is was unimpressed, but as I read more, i become impressed and saddened. Senator Bayh is leaving not because of "right wing vitriol", but because he feels it is impossible to make any progress on centrist policies and goals.

This is especially sad, when you consider that his own party is in control of congress, and is proving itself incapable of working with the minority party, because it have become so enamored of "progressivism" that it cannot see that it's recent victories weren't an endorsement of their policies, but an expression of war weariness.

The Dems are likely to lose their majority, just as they have lost their super-majority, through simply deciding that centrists and independents don't have opinions.

Congratulations, Our Lady of the Annunciation Abbey!

Our Lady of the Annunciation Abbey, in Clear Creek OK has been elevated to the dignity of an Abbey within the Benedictine Congregations of Solemses. Yippee!

This Abbey started in 1999 with 12 monks and some old farm buildings. It has grown to 33 monks, and they are far ahead of their planned progress in building the permanent Church and structures of the Abbey. This place is dedicated, explicitly, to a close observance of the Rule of St. Benedict, and the preservation and celebration of the corpus of Gregorian Chant.

I am so pleased!

I'm writing this section in italics because I wanted to keep it separate from the congratulations of the Abbey.

I have noticed something. Those Religious Houses, Institutes, Congregations and Orders that have a clear commitment to Traditional Religious Life, that are staunchly orthodox in their faith, and are apologetically Catholic are doing well. The Abbey at Clear Creek that has experienced almost a three fold increase in ten years, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, the Congregation of St. John, the Sisters of Life....all are growing rapidly.

Contrast this to those orders that are lukewarm in their commitment to the Faith, who have "experimented" their religious observances away. They are not even holding their own. And they steadfastly refuse to look to those groups that are growing and flourishing. In fact, I had the opportunity to speak with a former Novice Master for the Midwestern Dominicans--his take was that they were just "letting anyone in" which would hurt them because "religion attracts a lot of nuts".

That almost made me laugh! If you want to know why, I suggest you look into egregious violations of the teachings of the Faith, Law and Morality, by religious order, congregation, institute and houses. Divide the numbers between the numbers of members and get a per capita rate. It will show you something: The Faithful Religious communities have a much lower rate than the modernizing communities. This applies to to Diocesan priests as well--the diocese with the lowest incidence of shenanigans is also the most traditional diocese in the U.S.: Lincoln Nebraska.

But the modernizers look everywhere but at their own lives and ministries for the explanation, and ignore the obvious. The obvious being that vocations come from God, and the Holy Spirit isn't going to move very many people to dedicate their entire lives to tearing down the Faith and confusing the Mystical Body of Christ.

Good News, Bad News

The good news is that Bishop Vasa, of Baker Oregon has ended the Dioceses relationship with St. Charles Medical Center in Bend Oregon. He has done so because the center has persisted in performing sterilizations despite his objections. This hospital is now, officially, a non-catholic institution. That should hurt it's fund raising efforts. It should also, and much more importantly, signal to other institutions within the Diocese that they cannot ignore and flaunt Catholic teaching, and provide services that are intrinsically evil and remain in the good graces of the Church--which will hurt their bottom line, and the professional prospects of their managers and directors. It's about time Bishops started doing this. If they had done so 35-40 years ago, things would be much better.

The Bad news comes from Michigan. It seems that Sienna Heights University posits "safe sex" as one of it's top ten health tips. This university is allegedly Catholic, with ties to the Adrian Dominicans. I took a quick look at their web site--middle aged and elderly women with no visible signs of their "consecrated life" and lots of "justice and peace" stuff, about what you would expect.

Maybe their bishop could get a pointer from Bishop Vasa?

Blame Canada!

Yes, I blame them. Those vindictive, vengeful petty Canooks have done it to us!

Not able to get past the fact that we have twice invaded them--during the Revolution and again in the War--actually starting the war, according to some--of 1812, they have persisted in sending south wave after wave of arctic air, that combines with the rich, smooth, civilized moisture laden air of our beloved homeland, to cover us in inches and endless inches of snow, which I believe to be actually Canadian Duck Dandruff.

We should just take our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq and take over Canada. Then it would be warmer up there and they could play real sports, like Motocross and Baseball.