All Saints, All Family!

On November 1 we honor all saints...our brothers and sisters!

Yeah, sure, we don't know that all of our deceased friends and family members have entered the Kingdom. But what we do know is that those who have are our relatives...our siblings!

We're all of us children of God our Father. Ergo (I love using words like "ergo") the saints in Heaven are our brothers and sisters. It's sorta like a family reunion!

And, during this month of November, there's no need to fear about those we're not sure have been purified enough to enter Heaven. Heaven's no! This month, especially, has been set aside by Holy Mother Church to pray especially for the holy souls in Purgatory — a favorite intention of mine, and I hope yours.

So, enjoy November — our family month. Thank the saints...

...excuse me, a parenthetical comment is coming up here...

(and by the way, when I say "saints," I know that you know that I don't mean I'm talking just about those who have been canonized by the Church...I'm talking about all of God's children who have, since time was created by our God, have entered into everlasting glory...canonized or not)

...for showing us the way, and for interceding for us.

Ask them, too, to pray for those who are waiting to be purified enough to behold the Beatific Vision! In other words, devote this month in praying for those souls in Purgatory. And as long as we're at it, ask the saints to pray for us! I don't think I'm being selfish or greedy here, do you?

After all...when the saints go marching in, don't we want to be in their number?

Canadian Kill People Bill Debated

Father Dowd of "Waiting in Joyful Hope" warns of a proposed bill slated to be debated in the Canadian National Parliment tomorrow, October 31, which will legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.

For some reason, this proposed law isn't getting much publicity.

Details — and, action items for Canadians — can be found at Father Dowd's blog.

Why is this fellow a Catholic, never mind a priest?

From the Reverend Robert E. Nee, a public supporter of "same-sex marriage":

''The church is a human organization and, like any human organization, its investment in the status quo is a political reality," Father Nee says. ''In the history of the church, when has dissent ever been welcome?"

He's spending the semester at Harvard Divinity, where he hopes to get sociologists to study the "fallout" of the 58 priests who signed a letter calling for Cardinal Law's resignation. (He's one of them, natch.)

He's also studying gender and moral theology.

Any questions?

Source: Eileen McNamara, Boston Globe columnist

Pro-life mom has "history of complaints"

A Planned Parenthood escort who also taught at a Catholic prep school in Sacramento recently got canned by Bishop William Weigand. Sadly...this is news. It should be business as usual, but there you are.

"I am directing you, under the provisions of Code of Canon Law ... to dismiss Ms. Bain with all deliberate speed." The letter also states that the termination should be handled with "dignity, sensitivity and appropriate decorum."

What is business as usual...

The media is blaming the mom who blew the whistle on the teacher. She has "a history of complaints."

I could only find one other incidence of this woman's "history" of complaints. Seems the woman dared to gripe about a brochure listing Planned Parenthood as "go-to" agency for domestic violence concerns. Indeed.

An interesting thing:

Her daughter's a blogger.

If nothing else, you've gotta see how Halo Scan can handle multi-hundreds of comments!

I wouldn't bother reading them all unless you've got a few days with nothing to do staring you in the face.

But I do wish you'd stop by 15-year-old Katelyn Sills' blog: Stand Up and Speak Out, and at least scan the last three or so posts. And check out at least some of the comments this kid -- no, not kid, -- sensible young woman -- has had to put up with.

God bless you, Katelyn.

My "inspiration" (I've been tagged)

Brendan Allen in Dublin tagged me with this meme:

"What inspired the title of my blog?"

It's embarrassingly simple, actually. My greatest joy is being in the pew of a Catholic church. That's how I participate. As my website fine print reads, I'm your basic nobody. No parish pastoral councils for me, thanks. No Leadership Positions. The only organization I care to belong to is the Roman Catholic Church.

('Course, the fact that I'm also a tad lazy might play a small part in all this.)

Speaking o' names...I'm wondering how the Summa Mamas came up with theirs?

Hey, Jude!

Today we celebrate the memorials of Saints Jude and Simon the Zealot. I don't much about the latter (except he was either a member of a certain political party or was simply a man filled with zeal). I do know -- as you probably do, too -- that the former is the patron of hopeless and desperate cases. He's often called "the saint of last resort," tradition tell us, since in the early days of the Church, people confused him with Judas Iscariot.

Speaking of confusing...is this Jude the same one who wrote this short letter? It's one of my favorite parts of the Bible.

Saints Jude and Simon, pray for us.

Confessing those same old sins, over, and over and...

...over again.

Are you like me? Do you tend to commit the same sins repeatedly, despite a "firm resolve to sin no more" after confessing them?

Probably not. But just in case you happen to know somebody like me, you might want to point him or her to John Mallon's latest Catholic Online's "Reality Check" column: Confessing the Same Old "Sticky" Sins.

Is Archbishop O'Malley thinking like LBJ?

Church turns to critic to aid Catholic schools

(If you don't get the allusion, try googling the words LBJ, tent, and Hoover.)

An unholy purge?

A reader writes:

This "Commentary" [note: requires free registration by the Philadelphia Inquirer] was published hot on the heels of the uproar created by the grand jury report and in the midst of editorial sympathy towards striking down statutes of limitation that prevent charges from being filed and lawsuits filed. It interested me for several reasons. First, it caused me to wonder if there might not be some sort of loose coordination within certain groups so that anti-Church articles appear at about the same time (such as the Catholic Charities piece and others you cite). Second, there are several factual errors circulated here by editors who are sympathetic to attacks on the Church. For example, Briggs says "The first count of scapegoating is the shameless effort to blame homosexuality for child abuse. No credible study supports that view, but the Vatican reinforces that erroneous conclusion anyway. It's flagrantly unjust." This ignores the existence of the only "credible study", the John Jay College USCCB report, that found that over 80% of the allegations concerned homosexual abuse of adolescents. Also, for example, I doubt - but can't prove - that Paul VI ever "sided with nature over nurture".

I can't answer this lady's questions. A "loose coordination" of anti-Catholic mainstream media articles? Maybe. But I'm thinking that Catholicism is, as has been said many times, the last acceptable bigotry target, and maybe that's all there is to it. Maybe not.

Maybe, as the editorial headline writer put it, without thinking, that there is an "unholy purge"...against the Church, that is, not against "chaste gays."

Which gets me to my only point. The column, as the reader indicates, is filled with holes. The biggest one being the term "chaste gays." That's like saying "dark light," or "male woman," or "cool heat." Or "square triangle." You get what I mean. There's no such thing.

The opening graph is sort of a giveaway, I think:

Picture a journeyman priest called Father Cronin who has served the church faithfully and well for decades. He is gay - a matter he shares only with God - and has heard that the Vatican intends to stop homosexuals at the seminary door and root out gays who had made it inside. He wonders, "Will they come for me next?"

"A matter he shares only with God?" Doesn't look like it, does it?

If you can offer anything to help the reader -- and me, too -- fire away. Thanks.

Another reason to take Prominent Catholic[TM] Peter Meade behind the woodshed...

...and to expel "Catholic Charities" from the Roman Catholic Church.

"Even Catholic Charities Knows the Vatican is Wrong"

"Catholic Charities" chooses Caesar over Christ

The Boston Globe gleefully reports that Catholic Charities, Boston, pretty much trashes Church teaching on homosexual activity by adopting out 13 foster children over the past 10 years...because the state's Department of Social Services said it had to.

This broke my heart:

The children placed with the gay couples are among those most difficult to place, either because they have physical or emotional problems or they are older.

This is "charity?"

In a typical display of missing the point, Prominent Catholic[TM] and Catholic Charities board chairman Peter Meade weighs in:

Peter Meade, who is chairman of the board, said he believes that the agency should welcome same-sex couples to adopt, and not just because of a contractual requirement with DSS.

''What we do is facilitate adoptions to loving couples," he said. ''I see no evidence that any child is being harmed."

I see no evidence why Peter Meade shouldn't be relieved of his duties immediately.

Source: The Boston Globe

Wait a bleepin' minute MATT VISOR!

Are you the same Matt Visor who works for the "unbiased" Boston Globe, and who also works for The Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry?

If so, that sucks. And is also not all that cool, unbiasedly speaking.

'Fess up, Matt.

'Course he could very well be two different people...uh-huh.

Update:

Dom points out that the Globe reporter didn't write the article for the homosexual group...the group apparently just reprinted the article on its site without attributing credit to the Globe.

My apologies to Matt Visor.

Because there haven't been enough Harriet Miers stories...

...let me fill the gap.

Harriet Miers was never a Catholic.

Sorry to get you all worked up and hot 'n bothered over this late breaking report. ;-)

Source: Catholic News Service

Why Father Cuenin's "supporters" are really mad

The very badly described "welcoming" parishioners of Our Lady Help of Christians claim they are mad because their pastor was taken away from them. The story that Father Cuenin evidently wants to die simply won't. According to gay activist and parishioner Larry Kessler:

"People are feeling really hurt, angry, enraged, and some of them are leaving."

You know why they're mad?

Because certain parishioners were led to believe that they would be the ones to choose Father Cuenin's successor. From the minutes of an OLHC "Voice of the Faithful(sic)" meeting in July, 2002:

“We cannot force the hierarchical structure of the church to change if we cannot coordinate meaningful change within our parishes. That is one of the reasons that OLV [i.e., the parish VOTF chapter] has focused on such issues as the role of the faithful in pastoral selection.”

“Working from existing structures, we can create new processes and structures that will empower us to have some say in who ministers to our community, and some recourse if our views are dismissed. We must begin to implement the pastoral selection process now at Our Lady's, because the process we laid out in the paper will take all the time available until Fr. Cuenin moves on.”[my emphasis]

Over three years ago, the parish activists were anticipating the "moving on" of their pastor and anticipating the power to choose his successor. They got the rug pulled out from under them.

That's why they're so ticked off.

For the Kessler quote and other bilge, check out today's Boston Globe.

The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have

My sister-in-law has Downs syndrome. The experts told her family not to expect her to live much beyond adolescence.

She's almost 60 years old, works, lives alone, enjoys her friends, and in fact, enjoys life.

You don't see too many Downs syndrome children these days. Prenatal testing and a society that demands what it defines as "perfection" are killing them off before they're born.

Which is society's loss. Pity it doesn't realize it.

Washington Post columnist Patricia Bauer's daughter Margaret is a Downs syndrome child. With admirable restraint, Bauer describes what it's like to be regarded by society as lacking in sense....and to see her beloved daughter viewed as a "tragic mistake."

She unerringly nails the hypocrisy of these folks when she writes:

I have to think that there are many pro-choicers who, while paying obeisance to the rights of people with disabilities, want at the same time to preserve their right to ensure that no one with disabilities will be born into their own families.

Read the whole column here.

Saint Luke. Evangelist, Physician, Sailor...and Painter?

Oh, well, of course we shouldn't have a "favorite Gospel."

I do though...Saint Luke's.

Probably because he wrote, or rather the Holy Spirit wrote through him, so much about Our Lady. It is via Luke's Gospel that we receive Mary's Magnificat, for example.

We know that Luke was a doctor, and a sailor (great shipwreck account in Acts 27!). But legend has it that he was also a painter of portraits. In fact, a painting of the Blessed Mother at Saint Mary Major in Rome is attributed to him.

Saint Luke, pray for us!

"Catholic Identity Theft"

The Curt Jester introduces us to "Benedict Homes of the St. Anthony Detective Agency." One specialty of Detective -- or, as his friends have jokingly called him, "Dei-tective" -- Homes is dealing with the Catholic Identity Theft which has become alarmingly prevalent among students at "Catholic" universities.

Another fun-but-edgy piece by Jeff Miller.

Cardinal Arinze makes sense...again

Tridentine Mass "Not a Priority," Says Cardinal Arinze.

There's no problem with the Tridentine Mass, I gather...it's a non-issue, actually. Cardinal Arinze:

"If there are groups that desire the Tridentine Mass, this is already provided for," he said. "Bishops may allow it for groups."

It just hasn't been a priority at the Synond of Bishops on the Eucharist. And aptly so!

"It is not a priority for the synod, as no one has spoken about it," the cardinal concluded. "The problem we have discussed is that many people don't go to Mass, and those that come don't understand -- they go to Communion but not to confession, as if they were immaculate."

Source: ZENIT (10-13-05)

Hey, I like Wal-Mart, but...

Jib-Jab's latest is hysterical, as always. Have fun!

(Remember to click on "Big Box Mart")

Featuring 1000 faces of Jib-Jab fans!

USCCB 2002 Speaker in a Snit...tries to pull a "Priests' Forum" trick on O'Malley

This, uh, lady evidently spoke at the U.S. Bishop's Dallas Show in 2002, and is now in a snit. Her villain? Archbishop Sean Patrick O'Malley. Why? Well, let her tell us. (Thanks to Dom...I shamelessly reprint the whole letter here.)

Question: where do the USCCB get their speakers??? By the way, I wrote about the conference 'way back when here.

~~~~~~~~~

Dear Pastors of Boston,

Please read this letter to Bishop O’Malley. I hope you will reflect on it and decide to support Walter Cuenin and others like him. Look at how many of you there are. If you stood together for one another, no bishop could abrogate power the way O’Malley is doing in Boston.

Blessings on you,
Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea, Ph.D.

MARY GAIL FRAWLEY-O’DEA, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist & Psychoanalyst
Speaker, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Dallas 2002
Speaker, Annual Assembly, Conference of Major Superiors of Men, 2002
2617 Cadagon Court
Charlotte, NC 28270
(704) 814-6612
mgfod@aol.com

October 1, 2005

Dear Archbishop O’Malley:

It is the eve of Walter Cuenin’s reception and the march that will take place on his behalf.

I met you at the Annual Assembly of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men in Philadelphia in August 2002 where I spoke about the long-term consequences for victims of sexual abuse by priests. Interestingly that day, despite your acclaimed affinity for Franciscan garb, you were sporting clericals, complete with pectoral cross. Travel clothing perhaps.

In the three years since my speech to the bishops in Dallas and to the provincials in Philly, I have immersed myself in research and discourse about the multiple underpinnings of the Church’s sexual abuse scandal. My conclusions will be available in my forthcoming book, “Perversion of Power and Sexual Scandal in the Catholic Church.”

As the book title suggests, sir,—and as many others have opined - it has become clear that the responsibility for the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of minors, as well as the succeeding scandal, rests squarely with those least willing to shoulder it. To wit, the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, from the Seat of Peter to chanceries throughout the world, have labored long and hard to structure a Church dedicated too much - much too much - to the preservation of their own power. It is the power born of homosocial monarchy and it is frightening. As your recent actions make clear yet again, great woe befalls sexual abuse victims/survivors, laypersons, and especially priests who, in order to follow Gospel teachings, poke at the hierarchy’s assumed power and authority.

With great hope, the Archdiocese of Boston - my childhood Church home - welcomed you. While quickly settling the pending sexual abuse lawsuits - at what turns out to have been bargain basement per victim prices - you have brought enormous pain to this old and richly traditioned Christian community. You, sir, have evidenced yourself as a Pharisee cloaked and secreted in monk’s clothing. The Pharisees, you may recall, were primarily concerned with their authority and they twisted the greatness of the Torah to suit their own lusts for power. You too, sir, have embarked on a spree of serial spiritual soul murders, wiping from your path those men and women who, truly following the Nazarene, challenged their leaders’ twisting of the Gospel. Your misogynistic refusal to wash the feet of women insulted the dignity of we the children of Eve, Sophia, Mary, and the Magdalene. Your closing of vibrant parishes without consulting the People of God involved in them bears scant resemblance to the Galilean’s devotion to and inclusion of the masses. Most egregiously anti-Christ in nature, and glaringly reminiscent of the Pharisees, however, is your exiling of priestly “friends of God and prophets (Elizabeth Johnson, theologian at Fordham, “She Who Is and Truly Our Sister.")” Is there such a log in your eye that you truly do not apprehend the meaning of your rejection of the contemporary true and courageous “other Christs” who have lifted their voices to teach you - to help you refind your way? Do you not remember that Jesus, knowing that his disciples would disavow him at his most horrific hour, loved them still and returned to them, retaining them in ministry as beloved disciples?

In Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” we meet Smeagol/Gollum, once a sprightly creature engaged with life. Upon finding the ring of Sauron, however, his soul became twisted and his capacity to love and be loved was lost as he became more and more enthralled by the dark draw of the ring, with its seductive promise of great power. Once, I am sure, you and your episcopal colleagues were boys who played in the sun, loved, and were loved. Your “Smeagol” humanity still can be detected in ministerial efforts that are safe and unthreatening to your authority. When challenged by Gospel voices unadorned by papal or episcopal garb, however, you become “Gollums,” obsessed with the power dangled by red hats, croziers, pectoral crosses, and newly forged, golden versions of the ring.

Almost surely, if Jesus returned today to St. Peter’s Square (or Holy Cross Cathedral), he would do so as a tattooed, multiply pierced individual wearing jeans and an old camouflage jacket. He (or she) would dine with gays and lesbians, bless the children born in test tubes, and gather unto him the sea of sexual abuse victims. He would, as he did, spend his time lifting the marginalized and powerless of today’s world while taking down the arrogant who teach with forked tongues. He (or she) would remind the modern day Pharisees - you and too, too many of your episcopal brethren - that people are more important than rules or accoutrements of power. As before, almost surely, the Swiss Guards would call the Romans to remove the disruptive truth teller from the temple. Sound familiar?

Last week at Villanova, a woman took to the microphone and told Justin Cardinal Rigali that he is a phony. Harsh truths sometimes require harsh words. You, sir, in my opinion, also are a facade of the Christ follower.

May you receive greater mercy than you have shown to others during your assaultive march through the vineyards of Massachusetts.

Very truly yours,

Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea, Ph.D.