Friday, November 17, 2006

Comin' Home?

No change on Anglican womanpriests expected
The Archbishop of Canterbury said that newspaper reports of any doubts over ordination of women are wilfully misleading.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams has dismissed as “wilfully misleading” newspaper reports that he is doubtful over the ordination of women to the priesthood, has ever felt that the ordination of women priests had been “'wrong” or believes that a revisiting of the question is likely, necessary or desirable.

Speaking during a visit to Manchester, Dr. Williams declared his continuing support for the ordination of women to the priesthood.
So there ya' have it! No change!

Backing up Fr. Trigilio...

Following Fr. Trigilio's response in my previous post...(with "Veil Tips" to a reader PML, The Weight of Glory-"Doxaweb", and Future Priests of the Third Millennium )

Good news out of St. Paul, MN!

(you need Real Player)
THEY ARE TOMORROW'S PRIESTS!
(My favorite seminarian quote--"I get to wear black everyday?")
YEA GOD!
Our prayers are truly being answered!
Can we send a copy to Commonweal editors@commonwealmagazine.org = )

Noted priest responds to editorial

From Matt Abbott...

Father John Trigilio has issued the following (unedited) response to a recent editorial in Commonweal magazine -"Tomorrow’s Priests"

Go Fr. Trigilio!

Thursday, November 16, 2006

"Dr. Death" & his "Plastinarium"-Disgusting!

"Beauty salon for the dead" opens in Germany
"I am a dresser of corpses who takes corpses and turns them into useful objects. This is an extension beyond death of the trend for beauty treatments," he said.

The eccentric man, invariably seen sporting a wide-brimmed hat, told reporters at the opening of his new center that the slices of bodies which he sells to schools and universities were no different than a slice of meat sold on a slab.

This is so very disgusting!

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D. comments in his article:
Bodies in plastic, morally problematic?
The exhibit is billed as an educational exhibit, teaching people about the internal structure and organization of their own bodies. As the director of the exhibit phrased it, “My aim is to illuminate and educate through the beautiful arrangement” of bodies. Yet some people find the exhibit “edgy,” causing more than a tinge of discomfort, and they wonder whether there aren’t ethical concerns associated with putting the human body on display in this way.

[ Editor’s note: The Body Worlds exhibit is on display at Boston’s Museum of Science now through Jan. 7, 2007]

Victory for Pro-Life Medical Professionals

Statute Protecting Pro-Life Medical Professionals Survives Court Challenge

A U.S. federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a pro-abortion group challenging an amendment that protects pro-life medical professionals from discrimination.The Weldon Amendment, which was signed into law in December 2005, is a federal statute that bars the U.S. government or state and local government entities receiving certain federal aid from discriminating against doctors and other medical professionals who refuse to perform abortions or who refuse to refer patients for abortions. The amendment faced a legal hurdle just days after it was enacted -- a court challenge brought by the pro-abortion National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA).

[snip]

Pro-family leader Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC), is
commending the legal defense that helped secure a pro-life victory in National Family Planning and Reproductive Health v. Gonzales. "While the number of doctors who oppose abortion has increased," he observes, it is thanks to attorneys like those at the Alliance Defense Fund and the Christian Legal Society that these pro-life medical professionals' vulnerability to lawsuits has not increased as well.

"The targets of the abortion movement have grown well beyond the unborn and now include pro-life doctors and nurses," the FRC spokesman points out. "These days, they too need protection -- from members of their own profession."

The Weldon Amendment "protects those who, based on personal convictions, refuse to perform or refer for abortions," Perkins notes. He agrees with the legal representatives who defended the statute, he says, "that doctors should not be held hostage to perform procedures that violate their religious beliefs."

Vatican reaffirms celibacy for priests

Need I say more?

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The Vatican on Thursday reaffirmed the value of celibacy for priests after a summit led by Pope Benedict XVI that was spurred by a married African archbishop who has been excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.

"The value of the choice of priestly celibacy, according to Catholic tradition, has been reaffirmed," the Vatican said in a brief statement summing up the three-day hour meeting of top Vatican prelates.

Contraception Gone Awry?

Doctor ordered to pay for unwanted baby
A court ruling which ordered a gynecologist to pay child support for up to 18 years as compensation for botching a contraceptive implant was condemned by the German media as scandalous on Wednesday.

Banking on Indian Umbilical Cords

An Indian blood bank plans to take advantage of the country's booming birth rate by opening a repository for blood taken from umbilical cords.

But critics worry that without proper oversight, the massive bank could put a price tag on umbilical cords, putting the country's millions of impoverished women and
children at risk of exploitation.

Cord blood is used in the treatment of many ailments, especially blood diseases like leukemia, thalassemia and sickle cell anemia.

With 43 million births a year, India is poised to be the largest supplier of umbilical cord blood in the world.

LifeCell, based here, hopes to open a cord-blood bank in December. The bank would serve anyone in the world with access to FedEx.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Susan G. Komen Foundation & Planned Parenthood

Susan G. Komen Foundation funding abortion

While we see all the pink ribbons all over the place-on grocery items - from cereal boxes to yogurt, lets remember where the $$ is going.

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation donated $25,000 to Planned Parenthood of Central and Northern Arizona, after the fundraiser Race for the Cure raised $1.8 million last month. The money was designated for programs providing "breast health education and early cancer detection in Coconino, Gila, Maricopa and Yavapai Counties."

And while I'm on this subject--make a note of groups that are asked to raise money for this "worthy cause". For example: Sororities are assisting the Susan G. Komen Foundation-as their National Philanthropy and in other fundraising functions.

[snip]

The Phoenix diocesan newspaper, with endorsement from the bishop, is urging area
Catholics to petition for an end to abortion clinic funding by the local branch of one of the largest breast cancer foundations in the country.

And one more news item on Breast Cancer found over at WebMD....
The Pill May Raise Breast Cancer Risk

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

USCCB & Update-MHR in San Francisco

As the USCCB wraps up their fall session with their documents...
(Bishop Bruskewitz was awesome--he reminded the conference of their place in the Church-
Problems continue to brew again....Fr. Stephen Meriwether RETURNS!
Welcome Back, Fr. Steve!
Fr. Steve returns for good this week from
his stint in Minnesota!
Welcome home!
"Veil Tip" to--The Lair of the Catholic Cavemen & Curt Jester to see if the scandalous pictures (Gay Pride Parade 2006) are removed from their site.
Look at their resources site. While I was awaiting Fr. Meriwether's (quick) return I happened upon this "lovely" article. Read what he thinks (2004) in interview-
Cross purposes - "The Vatican is about to issue a new directive condemning homosexuality and keeping gay priests out of the Catholic Church. In San Francisco, that would threaten one of the most vibrant Catholic parishes. "
(funny how timely this is today and obviously, the bishop's document today doesn't effect Fr. or the S.F. archdiocese either!)
On MHR:
For some, "Mass" became an ironically named, long-running Sunday-evening dance
party – and a religious experience of another kind.
[snip]

But since the ascension of Pope Benedict XVI this spring, and the move of San Francisco's Archbishop William Levada to Rome, the future of gays in the Catholic Church, and at Most Holy Redeemer, is very much in question. The new pope's record "has been one of unrelenting, venomous hatred for gay people," said Matt Foreman, head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. And that, coupled with the uncertainty of whom Pope Benedict will appoint to replace Levada as archbishop of San Francisco, has some MHR parishioners worried. "Now, more anxiety," Hopke said. "The new archbishop is like a 'gulp,' The pool of candidates is so conservative. I think we're going to have some tough times ahead."

[snip]
I guess they haven't been tough enough....the times that is...Most Rev. George H. Niederauer, D.D., Ph. D what is happening?
[snip]
Still, on a recent Sunday morning, Hopke and his group were in front of the Blessed Virgin Mother statue in the bright sunlight. More people were arriving. "God's inclusive love proclaimed here," the parish bulletin said. They clumped in groups of three or four on the sidewalk. Chatting. Laughing. Before mass, at the top of the big stairs leading to the sanctuary, Meriwether stood greeting the arrivals. The parishioners renovated the building in 2000 and rearranged the sanctuary so it would seem less daunting. The pews now surround the altar on three sides so the priest can stand out in the middle of the congregation.
[snip]
Most Holy Redeemer's organizers say that about two thirds of the 900-member congregation is gay or lesbian. Almost all the members are people who call themselves "cradle Catholics," people who were brought up in the Church.
But many, usually when they started thinking of themselves as gay, drifted away.
Now, they say, they've come back because Most Holy Redeemer welcomes them.
[snip]
"Which of course frightens even people at MHR. They're always wondering, 'When is it going to happen to us?" " Meriwether told me. "Because they can't be happy with us.... I think the diocese would like to see us keep a very low profile.... What does that mean, you're supposed to crawl under a rock? You can't ask people to do that. It's a very ambivalent attitude."

Meriwether thinks that even though the Vatican's policy on gay priests hasn't been released yet, "what they're saying is that if you're willing to deny it, then that's OK."
What the archdiocese could easily do, Meriwether said, is to muzzle the congregation by forbidding members to march in the gay pride parade, which they do every June, and by forbidding them to place their advertising in gay newspapers like the Bay Area Reporter. By making them less visible, it could push MHR's parishioners back toward the closet and again make the people whom the Church drove away once, painfully reconsider their decision to come back. And it could cause those people a lot of pain.

"Most Holy Redeemer is a real flash point for conservative Catholics," Meriwether said.
[snip]
If the archdiocese came down hard on Most Holy Redeemer, how would he feel? "Very compromised.... As pastor, yes, you have to uphold the teaching and the discipline of the Church, but you also have to be a father to your parishioners," he said. Would Most Holy Redeemer be closed entirely? Ironically, because MHR isn't financially successful, that seems unlikely. Meriwether said that, at least in part because, unlike Saint Brigid, which had about $750,000 in its bank account when it was closed, MHR still owes for the 2000 renovation – about a million dollars.
It does not appear to me that they have been shut down at all!
And the real reason it won't get shut down.....$$$$!
WHERE ARE OUR LEADERS-OUR SHEPHERDS?
HAVE MERCY LORD! LORD HAVE MERCY!

Monday, November 13, 2006

Christian Judgment on Neo-liberalism

Christian Judgment on Neo-liberalism
Address by Rodney Moss

The text of an address given by professor Rodney Moss, of St. Augustine College, at a theologians videoconference. The Oct. 31 videoconference was organized by the Vatican Congregation for Clergy.

ALL urges Catholic bishops to uphold faith

See the ad

We would have never heard...

this 20 years ago Widows Sue Over Wicca Symbol, Headstones.

The widows of two combat veterans sued the government Monday for not allowing Wiccan symbols on their husbands' military headstones.

Scary!

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Gay agenda sways Catholic bishops

Randy Engel- author of the book “The Rite of Sodomy", director of the U.S. Coalition for Life and activist gives her perspective, and calls for action, on John Jay Report to USCCB.

“American Bishops Vote Down Proposals for ‘Gay’ Pastoral/Ministry Guidelines and Funding for new John Jay Report”If these are the headlines you want to read on the front page of The Washington Post on November 16, 2006 – ACT NOW!

Urge your bishop to vote “NO” on "Ministry to Persons With a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care” and Vote “NO” on the new John Jay Study on Clerical Sexual Abuse.

The vote will take place at the November 13-16, 2006 fall meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to be held at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, 700 Aliceanna Street, Baltimore, MD 21202. Letters, phone calls and faxes urging a “NO” vote on these two important agenda items are needed both before your bishop leaves his diocese for Baltimore and after he arrives at the hotel.

Please pray and fast this week for the Bishops' meeting.

Dança Liturgica #4

Unfortunately there's more here.- (see right side bar)

LORD HAVE MERCY!