Search or Browse Commentary
All Catholic commentary from November 2006
the ways of Wills
Joseph Sobran said of Garry Wills, "He has rarely written a bad sentence or a good book." The same goes for Wills's lengthy philippics in the NYRB. You bounce along cheerfully through the spunky prose and, at the end, what you've learned about the topic is principally that Garry Wills has strong...
the old schism trail
The NCR classifieds nearly always include a Vocations category. The callings to which these vocations correspond are, for the most part, callings to seedy apostate churchlets of the kind that comprise three archbishops, one priest, and the priest's elderly mum. The style of come-on is...
pharmaceutically dutifully yours
An article touting the benefits of a new oral contraceptive for men grudgingly admits there might be a catch to it: The common perception is that few women would actually believe a man who said he was on the Pill. Odd. Why should the lady, in the situation obviously envisaged, have reason...
he doesn't
It's official. We've been told that the Holy See did NOT give Father Raymond Gravel permission to run for the Canadian Federal Parliament. His diocesan ordinary has issued a statement to that effect (credit to LifeSite). The following is an unofficial translation: Clarification from the...
moral absolutes
Check out this ad from Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good: Some things ARE as simple as RIGHT and WRONGAbandoning the poor is WRONG45 million Americans without health insurance is WRONGTorture is WRONGGovernment corruption is WRONGWar without a plan for peace is WRONG Notice...
sinners in the hands of an angry god
For His Grace Roger Herft, the Anglican Archbishop of Perth, the unenlightened are all misogynists at bottom: "We are rightly horrified by the tone and language used by the sheik in his use of the phrase 'uncovered meat' to describe women who do not wear the 'hijab'," the archbishop said."In...
the voters-guide monopoly
Let's review: The US bishops' conference has compiled a voters guide that is simply punchless. Democrats and Republicans-- and for that matter, members of the Green, Rainbow, and Prohibition parties-- can all find therein some passages that will encourage them, and nothing that will dissuade...
New Vatican Exhibit Emphasizes “Peter Within”
If you can visit Rome during the next four months, you’re in for a treat: the Petrus Eni (Peter Within) exhibit in the Charlemagne Wing of St. Peter’s Square. This exhibit brings together some 100 masterpieces from the most famous museums in the world, along with artifacts and documents...
the look and feel of a Catholic politician
Peggy Noonan makes a strong case for the re-election of Pennsylvania's Senator Rick Santorum. In the process she relates that she was told Santorum, on the way to a campaign debate, led his family in a Rosary for his opponent, Bob Casey. As Noonan observes, the report sounded "too corny to be...
Happy 75th
Today is the 75th birthday of Cardinal Bernard Law, the archpriest of the basilica of St. Mary Major. Just in case he forgets, your Uncle Di hereby volunteers to help him draft his letter of resignation, as required by canon law. His has been an effective life of ministry, sadly impaired by......
fear and loathing at Lourdes
Today the French bishops opened a meeting at Lourdes, and in his capacity as president of the episcopal conference, Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard made the opening speech. In the course of his address, Cardinal Ricard used the word peur (fear) 11 times, and confiance (confidence, trust) 15 times....
my, how i've grown!
The Paulists' Busted Halo interviews Andrew Sullivan on his favorite subject: Andrew Sullivan. I was struck by this comment in editor Bill McGarvey's intro: "Where Sullivan differs most from his colleagues in our ever-expanding punditocracy is in his ability to openly doubt his own judgements and...
wellness education
Loyola University Chicago cautions its students against the perils of date-rape drugs like Rohypnol and GHB, and gives this useful tip to prospective party-goers: Consider using a coaster or test strip made to detect date rape drugs in drinks before you take a sip. An example is Drink Safe...
solidarity triumphant
Sister Madeline, O.S.B., raises awareness St. Scholastica Monastery -- Fort Smith, Arkansas EARTH DAY 2005This year sisters picked some animal which is known to be cruelly treated, wrote a dialog explaining the who, why, & how of said cruelty, and presented their...
bad church, good church
An interesting take by Chris Johnson on the role of the new Presiding Bishopess and the press: Why does the news media pay such an inordinate amount of attention to the Episcopal Church?Is it because of that influence that TEC, never all that big a church, was always said to have had over...
eyes forward
The winners of the Anticipated Indult Poetry Contest have been announced. Below is the entry the judges selected as second runner-up: To the Post-Conciliar Liturgists (with apologies to Richard Wilbur).Sleep silently, blind uncles, who when young Spat your mother's milk and lopped her...
faking it
The BBC reports that the very fashionable Ecclesiology from Below has caught on big-time in Japan. With a rise in the popularity of Christian-style weddings in Japan, some Westerners are finding they can make a lucrative living by acting as priests. But it does not please everyone,...
what makes you think i'm not priest material?
Peter Tatchell is a self-described "human-rights activist" and founder of the agit-prop outfit called OutRage. The "right" Tatchell is most concerned to exercise is one he finds slighted in the Holy See's Instruction concerning seminary admissions, issued last November. It's ironic, if not...
good shepherd
"Whoever dies in mortal sin," Pope Benedict said yesterday, "unrepentant and closed off from God's love by his prideful rejection, excludes himself from the kingdom of life." It's basic Catholic doctrine, of course, the kind of thing once taught in one's first catechism lessons. But it's a...
and I'm handsome, too
If I get a note from my shrink, explaining that I have the psychological outlook of a tall man, can I change my driver's license to show that I'm...
the oldest profession
Raymond Gravel started out as a gay hooker. He next became a Catholic priest -- if not in doctrine, at least in paycheck. Recently he announced his run for public office. There's scant evidence that Gravel's beliefs have changed since his leather-bar days, but he seems to be moving away from...
"just little old me ..."
The NCR [tip to Amy] has a lengthy article on the situation in the Spokane Diocese precipitated by clergy abuse. It focuses on one abuser in particular, Fr. Patrick O'Donnell, and on the role played by Spokane's current bishop, USCCB president William Skylstad. As often, the responsible...
The Lessons of the 2006 Elections
As discouraging as the outcome of yesterday’s elections is for pro-lifers, I believe the results are more positive than political pundits would have us believe. Whenever there is electoral discontent over the economy or (in this case) war, incumbents are typically swept from power. Yet the...
qui omnem sanctificationem compleret
Last weekend I heard the 4th Eucharistic Prayer for the first time in a while. It struck me forcefully that, read together with its preface, it's an almost unimprovably succinct narrative of Catholic faith. In fact, if a curious Buddhist or Moslem were to ask, "What do you Catholics believe...
too important to change
John McAdams brings to our attention a heart-warming election day story that will make you shake your heads in admiration of gay activists and their campaign for recognition as honorable fellow citizens. Wisconsin had a ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage by amending the state...
strut kick turn kick
Yes, yes, we're an Easter People: I see the candle. But I can't help thinking the Diocese of Sankt Poelten still needs some bolts tightened. photo: www.kreuz.net, via...
what Catholic vote?
With a palpable sense of satisfaction, the Catholic Alliance for the Common Good-- the folks who brought you the it's-OK-to-vote-for-Democrats voter guide-- note a big swing in the Catholic voter bloc. In 2004 the Democratic Party couldn't hold its traditional Catholic majority; this year, they...
take my boss ... please!
An editorial in this morning's L.A. Times pushes the limits of acceptable jocularity in censuring Cardinal Roger Mahony for his abuser records stonewall. The set-up is conventional dead-pan: The leader of any organization naturally feels a responsibility to protect it from humiliation and...
blessing the shark
Catholic Earthcare Australia is an ecological agency established by the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference. Its mission is to help promote understanding among people that creation is sacred and endangered, and must be protected and preserved for present and future generations yet...
family album
Great photos of Joseph Ratzinger here (click the right arrow to browse), accompanied by his brother's observations on his life. Thanks to CathCon for the...
post-christian
Holiday gift suggestion Today's question is: are the folks at the eco-sensitive Wild Wings Galleries deliberately transgressive, or are they just brainless? The answer is: Yes. If you care to give them a brief lesson in incarnational theology, I'm sure they'll find it...
piece by critical piece
Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba, Rembert Weakland's gift to Southeastern Wisconsin, is one of those persons who, in the words of T.B. Reed, "seldom open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." In his Herald of Hope columns, Sklba typically uses the plastic Playskool...
the liturgy Catholics want
Over on the very useful New Liturgical Movement blog, Jeffrey Tucker has a perceptive comment on the French poll that showed overwhelming support for a Latin Mass with Gregorian chant, but not nearly so much support for the Tridentine rite. At first that looks like a contradiction. But Tucker...
so divinely diverser than thou
Check out this website to watch a promotional ad produced by the United Church of Christ and black-flagged (so we're given to understand) by the networks. In the video we see the perfect caricature of a squeaky-clean, prosperous Anglo family -- right out of the 1950s Dick-&-Jane books --...
Comparative Tolerance 101-- for beginners
The distinguished British philosopher Elton John thinks that religion-- all religion-- should be outlawed. Why? Because religion is intolerant. Intolerant, that is, of people like himself. Try to imagine-- this won't be easy-- that some prominent prelate of the Church of England said that...
and the caring professions advance
The Guardian (UK) reports on a worrisome submission made by a committee of the C of E regarding the cessation of treatment for disabled neonates. The story should be handled somewhat tentatively, since it's unclear what precisely was recommended. It sure reads like another step down the...
deranged
Evelyn Waugh once complained that his generation, in its youth, was fed an illusory image of romantic love by the fashionable novelists of the time. Themselves homosexual (Waugh was thinking of Ronald Firbank, E.M. Forster, Marcel Proust, among others) they used heterosexual couples to portray...
ah, now we understand
Some prelates from Africa, Asia and Latin America have said they cannot treat Jefferts Schori as their equal. Hard news. In the mainstream media...
a fleeting obsession
Overwrought yet again because of the manifold evil done by the Catholic Church, the Boston Globe's James Carroll wrote in a column published on Monday: When public crises are defined by an immoral American war, universal cuts in social services, violence among young people, resurgent nuclear...
thanks for the memories
You must understand, good people, that progress takes many forms. An artist has been given a grant to put on an exhibition consisting of nothing but an empty gallery. Simon Pope, aged 40, said the aim was to encourage people to walk around the empty rooms and discuss memories of other...
third and seventeen, from his own twenty
Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins, C.S.C., who blew the V Monologues call last year to the dismay of Catholics, is cautiously distancing himself from a new dramatic venture in the same genre. "Loyal Daughters," a student-written theatrical performance dealing with issues of sexuality and...
bishops "reach out" to homosexuals
Congratulations on your expression of concern, milords. Now who's going to clean the...
ever to excel
Boston College's student newspaper asked students, faculty, and administrators what they understood by the phrase "Jesuit ideals." The twenty-eight published responses show that the meaning is not univocal. Here's what the Director of Undergratuate Admissions had to say: The earliest Jesuits...
nothing more to say
With the abortifacient "emergency contraceptive" pill now available over-the-counter, the Boston Herald finds local Planned Parenthood officials chalking up another political victory. But not everyone is pleased: Edward F. Saunders Jr., executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic...
The Bible in a More Just Language
A new translation of Sacred Scripture has just been released, entitled The Bible in a More Just Language. Described as an effort to do justice “to women, Jews and those who are disregarded,” including homosexuals, the new text renders the Lord’s Prayer as “our Mother and Father who are in...
through gritted teeth
Having ribbed Boston College for its Barney the Dinosaur approach to Jesuit Values, it's only fair to point out that the university's home-page currently includes the following item in the "BC in the News" sidebar: BC Observer selected as 'best paper': A consortium of 100 conservative and...
Shaw on the Conference
Russell Shaw gives a useful sketch of the U.S. bishops' conference through its successive re-engineerings in the November issue of Crisis. The piece is helpful for understanding the issues behind the down-sizing currently underway. Shaw, moreover, has a deft touch in dealing with the Church's...
to be continued
In a message to the priests of his Milwaukee archdiocese, Archbishop Timothy Dolan reports from the USCCB meeting in Baltimore, and asks them not to pay attention to less sympathetic observers: I would ask you not to listen to reports about our sessions that come from two camps... Those...
at the cost of immediate clarity
In terms of a shamelessly gratuitous waste of jet fuel, few events can rank with next week's visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to speak with the Pope. The sole positive outcome will be the entertainment value provided by the exquisitely atrocious gifts primates manage to exchange on such...
heresy!
The opening lines of an article about the bishops' pastoral statement, from the Richmond Times-Dispatch: The Catholic Church isn't asking homosexuals to do anything that isn't also required of unmarried heterosexuals, say several Richmond-area Catholics."I'm a widower, and I don't have sex,"...
Catholic Environmentalism
Care of the environment is an important consideration for all of the world’s inhabitants, but where does it rank in our consideration of moral obligations? What role does it play in our moral consciousness? A small percentage of Catholics rate conservationism and environmentalism very high...
the latest tradition
Jeffrey Tucker apparently caught it first, and posted it on the New Liturgical Movement blog. It's a priceless quote from a student newspaper-- at a Catholic school: The Gregorian Schola, which sings the music for the Gregorian chant Mass in the Jesuit House Chapel, provides a refreshing break...
let's pretend
You'll soon get used to her looks, said he, And a very nice girl you'll find her: She may very well pass for forty-three In the dusk, with the light behind her! -- Gilbert & Sullivan, Trail by Jury, (1875). The current Tablet has an article by R. William Franklin on the Archbishop of...
The Letter: good news pro multis
[To their Eminences / Excellencies, Presidents of the National Episcopal Conferences] Congregatio de Cultu Divino et Disciplina SacramentorumProt. N. 467/05/LRome, 17 October 2006Your Eminence / Your Excellency,In July 2005 this Congregation for the Divine Worship and the Discipline of the...
vine & branches
In his book of memoirs titled Milestones, Pope Benedict tells of his having received, in his childhood years, a series of Latin-German missals called the Schott Messbuch, which were annotated with progressively detailed "age-appropriate" explanations of the Mass. The following passage gives...
readers vs breeders
The NYT's Deborah Solomon has already attracted our attention as the Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright of hardball professional journalists. Yesterday she trained her thousand candlepower cerebrum on the Most Rev'd Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, MDiv, PhD, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. And...
The Nativity Story
Here's a movie that I just found out about — but of course, everybody finds out about new movies before me, so you may already be aware of it. The Nativity Story By New Line Cinema — US Release December,...
the euphemist will see you now
To carry out on a man an operation that he wouldn't otherwise consent to, you have to put him under anaesthetic first. When the operation in question is a change in morality, the anaesthetic is administered verbally. This from Oregon: Compassion & Choices, an advocacy group that works with...
no orange jumpsuit yet
Yet another American bishop has avoided jail time in connection with the sex-abuse scandal. Sonoma County (California) DA Stephan Passalacqua has announced that Bishop Daniel Walsh of Santa Rosa will not face formal charges if he enters a state counseling program. The bishop-- who faced a...
the bishops and their opponents
Kudos to Amy Welborn for her dead-center analysis of reactions to the US bishops' document on pastoral care for homosexuals. The National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries, she observes, "gives no credence at all to any aspect of traditional Church teaching on this...
the multicultural approach
Civil laws based on Judeo-Christian notions of marriage and personhood are a means of reinforcing systemic oppression,...
USCCB Issues Outstanding Statement on Ministry to Homosexuals
At its Fall meeting in Baltimore on November 14th, the USCCB approved a statement on ministry to homosexuals. The purpose of the statement is to “offer guidance in the face of pervasive confusion” to “assist bishops in evaluating existing or proposed programs and ministerial efforts”. The...
the church intransigent
"Well, his baptism didn't un-Jew him," snickers one Aryan girl to her friend. This Nazi cartoon from the 1930s is primarily anti-Catholic in thrust, taking for granted the viewer's anti-Semitism. The wholesome maidens watch as the convert Jew and his convert wife exit the patently Catholic...
cat got your tongue?
The egregious Raymond Gravel is still in the running for the Canadian Parliament. His ordinary, Bishop Gilles Lussier, is playing possum. A controversial priest running for the Bloc Quebecois in a byelection says he will abstain from voting in the Commons on social issues that clash with Roman...
mayday mayday
Flipping through Alitalia's in-flight magazine some time ago I was amused to come across a Flight Attendant Employment Preliminary Application form. In among the usual questions (name, date of birth, education, etc.), this one caught my eye: "Sa nuotare (do you know how to swim)?" I thought it a...
transubstantiation
James Taranto takes a look at the Daily Mail's photos of Other Mammals in the womb and makes the following apposite remark: The unborn elephant, shown at the...
breakthrough!
Catholic and Anglican agree: agreement would be agreeable. The conclusion of the "Common Declaration of Pope Benedict XVI and the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams": Mindful of our forty years of dialogue, and of the witness of the holy men and women common to our traditions,...
bridge building
At high-level meetings of key leaders that take place under intense media scrutiny, the heads of the respective bodies often conduct a decorous and largely anodyne discussion in full view of the public, while the actual deals are cut in a back room, out of the glare of the news cams, between...
eminent domain
The home-page of America Magazine ("essential reading for thinking Catholics") has this notice up: Note from Webmaster: Someone is using our domain name, americamagazine.org, as the return address for spam advertising HoodiaLife, a diet pill. This is NOT being sent by us. This deception is...
refashioned
Dress Up Against AIDSCondom Couture by Adriana BertiniDecember 1, 2006 to March 11, 2007Dress Up Against AIDS features fourteen magnificent garments designed and produced by Brazilian artist Adriana Bertini, made entirely of men's and women's condoms rejected by industry quality tests. By...
mommy, how are anaphoras englished?
Now you can confidently answer your seven-year-old's most embarrassing questions. An alert reader brings to our attention a very informative bio from The Pastoral Church at the Dawn of the New Christian Era. Jack Shea's your man: Ordained a Roman Catholic priest in May, 1960. After teaching...
vanishing act
Palestinian suicide bomber and grandma Fatma An-Najar shattered her self-composure last week in northern Gaza. Mark Steyn is there to pick up the pieces: An-Najar gave birth to her first child at the age of 12. She had eight others. She had 41 grandchildren. Keep that family tree in mind. By...
rigidity revisited
"A Tumultuous World Tests a Rigid Pope" reads a Wall Street Journal headline. Well, we've got prelates a-plenty who bend. A little rigidity won't come amiss, especially where the truth is at stake. The article ends on an encouraging note: Last month several dozen top Catholic...
unaccounted for
Today, we talk imprecisely about the "right" to many things -- the right to be happy, the right to be stress-free, the right to have our views respected. But this promiscuous use of the term degrades the concept of a "right." Almost sounds like a natural law-based complaint about the...
as the trip begins
From the Enchiridion of Indulgences, Grant #25: A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, in a spirit of filial devotion, devoutly recite any duly approved prayer for the Supreme Pontiff (e.g., the Oremus pro Pontifice):V. Let us pray for our Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI. R....
ecumenism & counterfeit compassion
I was especially edified last week to read that the Church of England and the Catholic Church had agreed to stand together against the negative effects of materialism and in favor of care for the environment. Prior to the meetings that forged the new consensus, the C of E had been in favor of the...
[shhhhh!]
Each year the Christmas holiday season brings in a fresh new crop of legal cases, in which government officials forbid the display of religious symbols, performance of religious hymns, and so forth. Each year these test cases are a bit more ridiculous, and 2006 promises another bumper crop on...
thanks, your excellencies
Yep, hustler-turned-priest Raymond Gravel won a seat in the Canadian federal parliament in yesterday's by-election. His bishop, Gilles Lussier, acceded to his candidacy, ostensibly (we have only Gravel's word for it) having been promised that Gravel would pass on the hot-button issues -- as if...
vuoi applicarti una borsa di ghiaccio
Or, as they say in the viral epidemiology business: "Better put some ice on...
twelve months on
Well folks, it's a year today that the Doomsday Doc was officially released, instructing seminaries that candidates with deeply-rooted homosexual tendencies are unsuitable for admission to Holy Orders. In the months prior to the issuance of the document, Off The Record was not optimistic about...
contrary-to-fact conditions
Joe Sobran gets it in one: Liberals may not believe in God, but they make it clear that if they did, he would be a much nicer sort of Deity than the one the believers believe in. In fact, he would be more comfortable with the people who don't believe in him than with the ones who worship him....
incredulities old & new
Our Lord never spoke hyperbolically, although, indeed, that is the supposition on which many unconsciously interpret his words, in order to be able to persuade themselves that they believe them. That's the Scottish author George MacDonald, writing in 1867. By way of hammering a stake in the...
"that leaves us very concerned ..."
700 pages of records pertaining to clerical sexual abuse in the Diocese of Forth Worth have been unsealed this week, giving us yet another look into the bait bucket of ecclesiastical malfeasance. Most of the docs concern molester Fr. Philip Magaldi and his bishop, Joseph Delaney, who died last...
Want more commentary? Visit the Archives.
