Martyred monks film nabs second prize at Cannes festival :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Martyred monks film nabs second prize at Cannes festival :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Where did She go Wrong?

At Notre Dame I majored in theology and held an office in the campus prolife group. As a student there I had my world expanded exponentially, albeit still within the Catholic bubble. At Notre Dame I came across more permutations of Catholicity than I had ever imagined existed. On or near or passing through campus was a dizzying array of personalities and schools of thought and service groups and periodicals. Focolare, Opus Dei, Lawrence Cunningham, Jean Porter, Richard McBrien, Michael Buckley, Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Waldstein, CILA, the Thomas More Society, Crisis, NCR, the National Catholic Register, Commonweal, Lefebvrists, Marianists, millenialists, Lonerganians, Thomists, Balthasarians, the Theology of the Body, Feminists for Life, Comunione e Liberazione, Community of Sant’Egidio, Holy Cross Associates, High Mass in the Basilica, Wednesday night Masses in the chapel of Farley Hall...like I said, dizzying. One Thursday night I would be out to a fondue dinner with a friend and her father and a conference-attending Joseph Fessio, SJ (who fixed his traditionalist gaze on me and said, “So, just how bad is the Theology Department these days?”). The next morning might find me crashing a professional conference on medical ethics—sitting in the back row, taking it all in—before heading off to hear a speaker on liberation theology over at the Center for Social Concerns. During my time at Notre Dame a professor I asked to be my confessor steadily tried to bring me along from a stunted spirituality centered on self-discipline (I was very, very good at that) to a more expansive and far more challenging spirituality centered on the daunting gospel command to love—really love—God and neighbor. I left campus with my diploma and a handful of awards, one of them for being the top theology student. I hated leaving, and told everyone I felt like I had just started getting to the good stuff.

After a couple of weeks I drove my fondue friend to an order of female hermits in New York whom she was considering joining, and headed to the L’Arche community in Toronto, Canada, to live and work among the developmentally disabled. Daily Mass was again part of the mix, this time with Henri Nouwen as celebrant. When Henri was gone a few of us tried our hand at lay preaching. I’d like to think I did a passable job. After two years at L’Arche, not able to shake that “but I was just getting to the good stuff” feeling, I requested a deferral of admission to law school in order to continue theology studies. Fellowship in hand, I relocated to Boston and found my intellectual home in the work of Karl Rahner. Two years of studying theology and nothing but theology—and getting paid for it!—well, that was as sweet a deal as I had ever come across.

During my years in Boston I dated a couple of guys, one of them a former seminarian and fellow theology student. He and I attended a talk by Andrew Sullivan, then the editor of the New Republic and an out gay Catholic. I sat and listened, and knew for the first time with a semblance of peace what I had come to know in recent years in more conflicted fashion: that I was, and would always be, a gay Catholic.

I met my future partner some years later at a party thrown by a priest. The months that followed were excruciatingly difficult. It is one thing to be a gay Catholic, another to take the step of dating. I realized I would never have an answer for those who say, “God will give you the strength to bear whatever burden you have. He will give you the grace to be a faithful, celibate, gay woman. You need only pray and fast.” If I protest and say that I have prayed, I did fast (every Wednesday, for years!), my continued existence as an unrepentant gay Catholic simply provides them with their own ready answer: “You need only pray and fast more.” And who can disagree with that? I am reminded of the words of Rahner as he pondered embarking on the writing of his massive tome Foundations of Christian Faith:

Link to Commonweal...

Catholic historian examines civil jurisdiction over clerical sex abuse :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Catholic historian examines civil jurisdiction over clerical sex abuse :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Another Heretical Jesuit denies Transubstantiation

[Catholic Culture] Stating that “Catholics can become fanatical about one form of the Body of Christ in the bread of the Eucharist as the REAL presence of Christ,” Father Michael Kelly, the Jesuit CEO of the Asian Catholic news agency UCA News, criticized the doctrine of transubstantiation in a May 24 column.

In his column-- a critique of the new, more accurate liturgical translations that reflect the content and dignity of the original Latin-- Father Kelly writes:

Regrettably, all too frequently, the only Presence focused on is Christ’s presence in the elements of bread and wine. Inadequately described as the change of the “substance” (not the “accidents”) of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, the mystery of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist carries the intellectual baggage of a physics no one accepts. Aristotelian physics makes such nice, however implausible and now unintelligible, distinctions. They are meaningless in the post-Newtonian world of quantum physics, which is the scientific context we live in today.

Link to Catholic Culture...

Obama Administration Attempting to Protect the Vatican

[Catholic Culture] The Obama administration has weighed in strongly against efforts by abuse victims to bring suit against the Vatican.

In a brief filed with the US Supreme Court, the Justice Department asked for a reversal of a federal district court ruling that allowed the Vatican to be listed as a defendant in an Oregon case.

The brief does not directly address the questions that have been raised in a more recent case in Kentucky, in which plaintiffs argue that American bishops are in effect employees of the Holy See. In the Oregon case the Solicitor General argues that the plaintiffs have failed to match the standards required for bringing suit in US courts against another sovereign power.

Link to Catholic Culture...

Spokane Diocese To Hold C.C.H.D. Collection Despite Funding Of Pro-Abortion, Same-Sex Marriage Groups

Monday, May 24, 2010

Note the parallel between the U.S. Catholic Campaign for Human Development and the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace. Both of these so-called Catholic organizations fund groups which promote ideologies that contradict Catholic teaching. Both of them receive money from diocesan collections in their respective countries.

MEDIA RELEASE
http://all.org/article.php?id=12782

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
14 May 2010
CONTACT: Katie Walker
540.659.4942 kwalker@all.org

Read further at Milites Veritatis...

Arlington Catholic Herald - What makes a church look like a church? - catholicherald.com

Almost but not quite.

Arlington Catholic Herald - What makes a church look like a church? - catholicherald.com

Catholic Priest rejects Pope, 2,000 Years of Catholicism: Examiner slams Liberal Priest

In a paper not known for its friendliness to Catholicism, the San Francisco Examiner, Kevin Whiteman takes a liberal priest to task for liberal honesty and makes some interesting but oft omitted citations when it comes to liberal news media reporting.

According to 'Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church Since Vatican II' by Kenneth C. Jones, here are just a few examples of the grand and sweeping changes that have come about since the Second Vatican Council;

* Mass Attendence. In A 1958 Gallup Poll reported that 75% of Catholics attended church on Sundays. A recent study by the University of Notre Dame found that only 25% now attend.
* Priests. While the number of priests in the United States more than doubled to 58,000, between 1930 and 1965, since then that number has fallen to 45,000. By 2020, there will be only 31,000 priests left, and more than half of these priests will be over 70.
* Ordinations. In 1965, 1,575 new priests were ordained in the United States. In 2002, the number was 450. In 1965, only 1% of U.S. parishes were without a priest. Today, there are 3,000 priestless parishes, 15% of all U.S. parishes.
* Nuns. In 1965, there were 104,000 teaching nuns. Today, there are 8,200, a decline of 94% since the end of Vatican II.

Catholic Priest rejects Pope, 2,000 Years of Catholicism

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FSSP Priestly Ordinations

From Una Voce Carmel:

On the 22nd of May in the year of Our Lord 2010 at 10:00 am at the Cathedral of the Risen Christ in Lincoln Nebraska. His Ecellency Fabian Bruskewitz, Bishop of Lincoln, will confer Priestly Ordinations for the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. The following Deacons will be ordained to the Sacred Priesthood.

Rev. Mr. Peter Bauknect, FSSP

Rev. Mr. Simon Harkins, FSSP

Rev. Mr. Garrick Huang, FSSP

Rev. Mr. Rhone Lillard, FSSP

Rev. Mr. John Rickert, FSSP

Rev. Mr. John Shannon, FSSP

Please pray for the Deacons as they ascend to the Altar of Our Lord.

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Ordinations in Scotland and Ireland, here.

Here's the FSSP homepage, not seeing any photos, but keep checking back, here.

Check out Our Lady of Guadalupe website, the photos are here.

A Holy Alliance between Rome and Moscow

A Holy Alliance between Rome and Moscow Is Born

The common objective: the "new evangelization" of Europe. A delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church visits the Vatican, which publishes an anthology of the patriarch's writings. A meeting between Kirill and Benedict XVI keeps getting closer

by Sandro Magister, here.

Bishops Condemn UK Television Ads for Abortion, Banned in Northern Ireland

Bishops Condemn UK Television Ads for Abortion, Banned in Northern Ireland

Universities ‘must stress Catholic identity’

Universities ‘must stress Catholic identity’

Cardinal George Denies Rainbow Sashers Communion

By Peter J. Smith

CHICAGO, May 18, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Homosexualist activists belonging to the Rainbow Sash Movement (RSM) are planning to demonstrate at Catholic Cathedrals and parishes across the United States this Sunday. They have targeted particularly Cardinal Francis George of the Chicago Archdiocese, since he is the head of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has publically engaged in promoting and preserving the natural definition of marriage and family in civil law.

The RSM is an organization of activists that link together and coordinate through the internet. Ordinarily they wear a 2-inch wide ribbon of rainbow colors across their shoulders, and on Pentecost Sunday they present themselves to receive Holy Communion in Cathedrals and parishes across the nation while wearing the sash.

The protest challenges the Church's teaching that engaging in homosexual behavior is harmful and constitutes a “mortal sin.” Under Church teaching, a Catholic cannot receive Holy Communion while in a state of mortal sin, and must first repent of the sin and confess it to a priest before he can be re-admitted to the sacrament.

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A priest speaks on the situation of Christians in Iraq

The following is an interview by Katholische Nachrichten Agentur about the situation in Iraq.

Translation by staff translator: MD

"Europeans do not know who we are"

Saturday, 22. Mai 2010 um 08:19

There are few Christians in Baghdad. Saad Sirop Hanna (45) is one of the last priests in the Iraqi capital. He heads the Chaldean Catholic community of St. Joseph. Hanna, who himself comes from Baghdad, has decided after studying aeronautical engineering to theology and the priesthood. In the interview, the Catholic News Agency (KNA) Hanna reports on the life of the last Christians in Baghdad.(Image: Flag of the Chaldean Catholic Church)

KNA: What is the situation in your community here in Baghdad?

Hanna: We are Chaldeans, our church was built in 1959 and is the largest church in Baghdad. Because of emigration are now living in our community still about 400 to 500 families. Previously we had up to 1,500 families. As you saw, our churches are under police protection. The officials in front of the church are Christians in the police service.

KNA: When you decided in 1995 to become a priest, it was a very difficult time for Iraq.

Hanna: Yes, yes, we lived under a ban. But in terms of safety, it was better then than now. Since 2003, there is unfortunately no security in Baghdad, nor in most other cities of Iraq. There was bad and even worse years since then. 2004 and 2005, it was not as bad as 2006 and 2007, for example. 2008 there was again a bit better because the government campaigned for reconciliation. But it is still difficult. There are so many fanatical Muslims who now live completely different from our Muslim brothers and friends from the past. They think differently and they behave differently towards us Christians.

KNA: Why this change? What happened?

Hanna: After 2003 there is a misconception among the Muslims about the identity of Christian community here in Iraq. Many Muslims consider us as people from the West because we are Christians. It will bring us to the Americans and British in connection, because this way we are Christians. But we are different, and we constantly try to make that clear. Yes, we Christians like the Americans and Brits are, but we are Iraqis. Christianity in Iraq dates back to the first Century back, it is 1900 years old. The other issue is the political conflict between the Iraqi parties. A reconciliation between the Sunnis and Shiites is hard and we are in between.

KNA: Does the lack of knowledge about the Christians in Iraq to do with lack of education?

Hanna: I can only agree to a lack of education, humanitarian education. How to evaluate a person as a person and not whether he's Christian or Muslim. In general, the educational situation is very bad in Iraq. There is a lack of good schools, good teachers and good textbooks. In this respect things must necessarily change.

KNA: Many Christians have been threatened, kidnapped, killed. Have you had bad personal experience?

Hanna: Yes, I was on 15 August 2006 kidnapped. I was the first priest in Baghdad who was abducted. 28 days I was in the hands of a fanatical Muslim group. In that time I have learned a lot about myself and about the relationship between the religions. 2008 I came back to Baghdad, because I love Baghdad. , I love Iraq and I love my people, so I wanted to continue working here as a priest. I also have a lot of Muslim friends here.

KNA: Do you feel sometimes forgotten by the Christians in Europe?

Hanna: Sometimes yes, even if we have a few priests and organizations, especially from Germany really good relationship. For example "the Church in Need helps many people here in Iraq and has also helped me. But sometimes I get the impression that in Europe does not understand the history of Christians in Iraq. The Europeans do not know who we are, how we live here, what we do here, they know our church does not, they do not know how to pray. It is so important to exchange ideas in order to understand how faith has been implemented in different societies. (By Karin Leukefeld - CBA)

Interview from KNA cited on the Angelus Press German Site of the SSPX.

Similar article from the Tablet, UK, which claims that a younger priest of the same name was murdered last year. Father Hanna was kidnapped, but released by his captors, thank God.

Russia establishes new religious Holiday

As Patrick Hall has said, Obama's made June, National Perversion Month, so why can't Russia do something contrary?

Does the ACLU have any offices in Russia?

"Day of the Baptism of Russia" will be celebrated on the 28th of July

Moscow (www.kathnet/KNA) The Russian Parliament has raised the annual celebration of the Baptism of the Land to a National Holiday. 422 of 450 of the delegates voted yes, that the State celebrate "Day of the Baptism of Russia" effective 28th July as a Feast Day.

The celebrations on "Day of the Baptism of Russia" are financed by law according to the State. The Holiday goes back to a corresponding initiative launched by the Russian-Orthodox Church in 2008. They concluded with President Dmitri Medvedev and Minister President Vladimir Putin.

The Grand Duke of Kiev, Vladimir, was baptised on the 28th of July according to the Byzantine Rite and declared Christianity the state religion of Russia. The Kievian Rus is the predecessor of Russia, the Ukraine and White Russia. The tradition of the orthodox Church accorded St. Vladimir as the occasion of his marriage to Princess Anne of Byzantium. The Ukraine has celebrated the anniversary of Christianising as a legal Holiday since 2008.

Original, here.

(C) 2010 KNA Katholische Nachrichten-Agentur GmbH.

New Vocation a Tribute to the Work of Msgr Bandas of St. Agnes

It's a great time of celebration for the Parish of St. Agnes whose Slovene, Austrian and Hungarian descendants have held out in a time of religious rebellion and urban decline. It's not popular in certain circles to point out the sorry state of things as they were in the late 60s when Msgr Bandas, a Peritus at the Second Vatican Council, who predicted all the bad things that happened, and yet, had the foresight to put something in place that would survive him and yield fruit in the coming years. The few post-conciliar years left to him were bitter and hard; a desert for a man who was reviled in his own land by his brother priests and superiors.

It's a tribute to the man that he built a bulwark against the Liberalism that surrounded him on all sides and made it so that new flowers could grow and flourish in time. St. Agnes Parish has produced many vocations over the years and accounts for about 10% of the Archdiocese's seminarians at any time.

It shouldn't surprise any one that there are no altar girls at this historic edifice.

Raised Lutheran, Deacon Doug Pierce considered careers in chemistry, classics, math and music. He thought about getting married and having a big family.

dcnpierce_2009_011.jpg

Deacon Doug Pierce

Age: 26

Hometown: Princeton

Home parish: St. Agnes, St. Paul

Parents: Todd and Patricia

Education: Two years at St. Olaf College in Northfield, bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of St. Thomas, 2006

Former job: I worked as an organist at my Lutheran churches for a number of years before college

Teaching parish: St. Bernard in St. Paul

Pastoral internship experiences: Clinical pastoral experience at Minneapolis VA Medical Center, summer diaconate placement at Divine Mercy, Faribault

Hobbies: Playing organ and piano, listening to music, drawing and painting, running, swimming, weightlifting, reading, camping, horseback riding

Favorite seminary class: “Eucharist” with Father Andrew Cozzens

Favorite book: Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.”

Favorite movie: Alfred Hitchcock’s “I Confess.”

Volunteer work: Little Sisters of the Poor and St. Mary’s Home, St. Pau

Thanksgiving Masses:

» 10 a.m. Sunday, May 30 at St. Agnes, St. Paul

» 10 a.m. and noon (Spanish), Sunday, June 6 at Divine Mercy, Faribault

» 10:30 a.m., Sunday, June 13, St. Bernard, St. Paul

But after he became Catholic in 2002, Deacon Pierce felt called to priesthood.

“I decided that I wanted to be able to live a celibate life,” he said, “because in that way, I’d be able to serve God in a unique way that I wouldn’t be able to if I had a family.”

Deacon Pierce was an undergraduate student at St. Olaf College in Northfield when he decided to convert. Amid the college life, he went to daily Mass and adoration, and discerned his vocation.

“As I was beginning to think about it, people would mention that, ‘Maybe that’s what God is calling you to,’” he said, “even without me asking about it.”

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Photos from Orbis Catholicus.

Teachers in Trouble for Sprinkling Holy Water on Atheist

POMPANO BEACH — Two teachers accused of sprinkling holy water onto an avowed atheist colleague have been removed from the classroom, and may be fired.

The teacher who was allegedly sprinkled filed a complaint with the Broward County school district, which is investigating the incident as an act of bullying.

At the center of the investigation are Blanche Ely High School reading teachers Leslie Rainer and Djuna Robinson, who profess that they are Christians. They are accused of sprinkling holy water onto fellow teacher Schandra Tompkinsel Rodriguez.

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Liberal Catholicism is Dead

[Time] He may not have been thinking about it at the time, but Pope Benedict, in the course of his recent U.S. visit may have dealt a knockout blow to the liberal American Catholicism that has challenged Rome since the early 1960s. He did so by speaking frankly and forcefully of his "deep shame" during his meeting with victims of the Church's sex-abuse scandal. By demonstrating that he "gets" this most visceral of issues, the pontiff may have successfully mollified a good many alienated believers — and in the process, neutralized the last great rallying point for what was once a feisty and optimistic style of progressivism.

The liberal rebellion in American Catholicism has dogged Benedict and his predecessors since the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65. "Vatican II," which overhauled much of Catholic teaching and ritual, had a revolutionary impact on the Church as a whole. It enabled people to hear the Mass in their own languages; embraced the principle of religious freedom; rejected anti-Semitism; and permitted Catholic scholars to grapple with modernity.

But Vatican II meant even more to a generation of devout but restless young people in the U.S. Rather than a course correction, Terrence Tilley, now head of the Fordham University's theology department, wrote recently, his generation perceived "an interruption of history, a divine typhoon that left only the keel and structure of the church unchanged." They discerned in the Council a call to greater church democracy, and an assertion of individual conscience that could stand up to the authority of even the Pope. So, they battled the Vatican's birth-control ban, its rejection of female priests and insistence on celibacy, and its authoritarianism.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1737323,00.html#ixzz0omkvqiOp

Malta's Doing it Right: Cohabiting Couples may not receive Holy Communion

Cohabiting couples should not receive Holy Communion, the bishops said in a statement yesterday.

The bishops said the Church does not impose this sanction as a punishment, but because "the way of life" of such people violated the sacrament of marriage.

The Church would continue to offer such couples spiritual help and encouraged them to go to Mass, Archbishop Paul Cremona and Gozo Bishop Mario Grech said.

"However, the Catholic Church insists that couples who live together without being married should not receive Holy Communion," they said.

The statement was released in the wake of comments made by Fr George Dalli who said he was prepared to administer the sacra-ment of the Holy Communion to cohabiting couples.

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Bryan Hehir Exposed: Exposing the words and deeds of Fr. J. Bryan

by Joe Sacerdo
May 22, 2010

The storyline on this whole Catholic schools fracas in the Archdiocese of Boston just keeps getting more full of contradictions when you look at what Cardinal Sean O’Malley published on Wednesday, what Fr. Bryan Hehir said on Thursday, what The Pilot published Friday, and what Fr. Rafferty just disclosed has happened to his parish. Readers, we have a major crisis here in Boston, so it is urgent that readers Take Action this weekend.

On Wednesday, Cardinal Sean O’Malley said “we have never had categories of people who were excluded” (a factually true statement reflecting the past), but he also said we have to maintain our responsibility to teach the truths of our faith on sexual morality and marriage “courageously.” He also said Boston should look to the precedent set by the Archdiocse of Denver (which does not allow children of same-sex couples): “…their positions and rationale must be seriously considered” as Boston works on our policy.

On Thursday, Fr. Bryan Hehir–who the Cardinal recently described as “strategic advisor” with “vast understanding of the important place our Church has in society” who brings “fidelity to the work of the Church” and whose “voice brings clarity to our message and mission in serving the Catholic community in Boston”–obfuscated, overshadowed, and contradicted the Cardinal with a message on WBUR that admitting kids of gay couples is a done deal already and what happened in Denver in reality doesn’t matter at all to the Cardinal. People I know in the business world say publicly undermining or correcting the boss on an issue of international visibiliy like this and making it clear that either one or the other is lying should get Hehir fired immediately....

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