Because you never know who might show up.
My post a few down from here abour Ramesh clubbing Sullivan oer at The Corner drew a comment from... wait for it.... Ramesh himself.
I'm pretty sure he doesnt have me bookmarked or anything (he probably did a technorati search for posts on his excanges with Sully these past few days), but it's pretty cool nontheless, me thinks.
Today, the Supreme Court pulled it's head out from down under (if there's one thing W has delivered on, etc. etc.) and declared that pro-life activists are not akin to the mafia. Deo Gratias! Congratulations to Joe Schiedler, the Pro-Life Action network and all others who came out victorious today!
I'm receiving lots of google hits concerning a priest whose work I've mentioned on this blog who has recently been accused of sexual abuse. I have no info other than what can be read in newspapers. The abuse is alleged to have taken place a long time ago, and my bishop has removed the priest from ministry pending an investigation. My only comment is that regardless of the truth of the situation, we should pray for the accused as well as for the accuser.
With Lent quickly approaching, here are a couple of handy links from Zenit - my favorite source for ecclesial primary documents:
Like I said, a must-read.
...is watching Ramesh Ponnuru dismantle Andrew Sullivan over at The Corner. Case in point here, followed up here, with a grand finale here.
Buy please don't let the deserved personal disdain dripping from Ponnuru's prose divert your attention from the very important, very clear, very true points he makes about abortion.
Someday Sullivan will get wise to the fact that taking on Ponnuru damages his credibility every single time.
"Spectators were given red noses, no word on how many people actually put them on or whether Bode Miller needed one at all."
-Debbie Elliott of NPR's All Things Considered
Dallas Morning News columnist and National Review contributor Rod Dreher has a new book out: Crunchy Cons, with the rather informative if lengthy subtitle of "How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party)."
I plan to get my hands on this book as soon as I can, but in the meantime here are some handy related links:
Yes, the Pope did deiver an address in addition to announcing the creation of new cardinals.
He spoke of today's liturgical celebration: the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter. I'll have a translation later. UPDATE: Here it is.
This points to an interesting possibility - that Benedict will use the general audiences to catechize on the liturgy. The need for liturgical reform in line with Vatican II is very close to the Holy Father's heart, and he may use this particular weekly pulpit to take the "reform of the reform" directly to the faithful.
Pure speculation, grant you, but it's an exciting possibility.
At today's weekly general audience, the Holy Father announced that a consistory will take place on March 24 at which he will create 15 new cardinals.
The names are:
What strikes me most about this is the internationa flavor of the list, particularly the two Asian cardinals. Note also the elevation of Archbishop Dziwisz, who served as the longtime personal secretary of Pope Johm Paul II and who is now the late pope's successor in the see of Krakow. Poland is surely rejoicing today over the elevation of one of its hometown boys who made very, very good.
The last three names on the list are all over the age of 80 and thus unable to vote for a new pope in the event of a conclave. Pope Benedict has decided to maintain the limit of 120 cardinal-electors established by Pope Paul VI and ignored by JPII.
In addition to the consistory, the Pope also invited all of the cardinals of the world to the Vatican on March 23 for "a meeting of reflection and prayer." What an amazing event to think about! This year, the feast of the Annunciation on March 25 is going to have a very special additional grace attached to it.
I've had these links bookmarked for a while, but am trying to clean house, so here they are, posted with relaively little comment.
Cathy Seipp sort of bugs me (all pro-choice "conservatives" do, I guess), but she's pretty good at exposing journalistic lunacies. Read this and contemplate the fact that much of what is commonly called "news" is written by such narcissists.
But apparently his status as a press critic — Johnston has written for Columbia Journalism Review, and is a frequent crank on the Romenesko letters page — obligated him to weigh in. So he felt moved to lecture me via e-mail (subject line: "Gosh, Catherine"), press-critic-to-press-critic, that my scooping his paper by using an incident that had happened to me, in my own column, was "not honorable."
As a press critic myself, Johnston told me, I should have known this. Also, I'd better not tell anyone about his unsolicited opinion. That was a secret.
Stanley Kurtz is rock-solid on marriage. He had a good column a few weeks ago whose money quote is the subtitle: "If everything is marriage, then nothing is."
LANGUAGE EXAM
Let’s try a little test. Translate the following phrases into English:
1) Canada needs to move “beyond conjugality.”
2) Canada needs to “reconsider the continuing legal privileging of marriage and other conjugal relationships.”
3) Once gay marriage is legalized, Canada will be able to “consider whether the legal privileges and burdens now assigned to marriage and other conjugal relationships can be justified.”
4) Canada needs to question “whether conjugality is an appropriate marker for determining legal rights and obligations.”
[Answers: The English translation of #1,# 2, and #4 is: “Canada should abolish marriage.” The translation of #3 is: “Once we legalize gay marriage, we can move on to the task of abolishing marriage itself.”]
This argument was very publicly made to Canadians in 2001, when the Law Commission of Canada published its report, “Beyond Conjugality.” But nobody got it. Everyone noticed that a government commission had backed same-sex marriage. But few recognized, grasped, or could bring themselves to take seriously, the central thrust of Beyond Conjugality: that after the legalization of same-sex marriage, Canadian marriage itself ought to be abolished. (For more on this, see my article “Beyond Gay Marriage”)
"Was the two-man luge ever not considered gay?
Today is Charles Joseph's baptism. Won't you please say a prayer today for my son as he becomes God's adopted son and a member of Christ's Church?
Pitchers and catchers have reported to Mesa. Thanks be to Yahoo for pictures!
Pictures are below for those who wish to see, but first, I just have to tell you how awesome my wife is. As I was typing this post, I started singing the little song which is the title of this post. From dining room table, Mama-Lu asked, "Pitchers and Catchers?"
Reason number 35156168768514 that I married very, very well.
Behind again! Here are the last three Wednesday general audience addresses given by the Pope, including yesterday's:
February 1, on the first half of Psalm 144(145).
February 8, on the second half of Psalm 144(145).
Yesterday, February 15, on the Magnificat, Mary's song of praise found in the first chapter of Luke.
Yesterday's address is of special note, because it marks the last of the series of addresses that were prepared by the late Pope John Paul II.
John Paul was the first pope to use the Wednesday general audience to develop continuing themes from one week to the next. The first cycle was of course the "Theology of the Body" (actually, the TOTB consists of four cycles) which he developed over the first few years of his pontificate. The series ending today goes back to 2001 and have had as their focus the psalms and canticles prayed by the Church as part of Morning and Evening Prayer.
(For the curious, on March 28, 2001, JP2 explained his desire to dedicate his audeience addresses to the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours. It's a nice read.)
It will be interesting (and, for a Pope-geek like me, somewhat exciting) to see over the next few weeks whether Benedict decides to continue his predecessor's practice of developing theological or devotional themes and ideas over multiple addresses, and if so, what the content of those addresses would be.
America has produced a true to life hero in Turin. 26 year old speedskater Joey Cheek won the gold medal in the 500 meter competition.
In the Q&A following his performance, he used his 15 minutes of fame to call attention to the genocide taking place in Sudan and the plight of the refugees created by the situation.
Here is an excerpt:
So, as you know, there's been some media but not a ton, especially in the U.S., in the Darfur region of Sudan. There has been tens and tens of thousands of people killed. My government has labeled it a genocide, and so I will be donating money specifically to refugees in Chad where there are over 60,000 children who have been displaced from their homes. And hopefully, if the region ever gets stabilized, hopefully from pressure through the United Nations or from the U.S. government or from some other agency, then we can go into Sudan and start programs for refugees there.
For me, the Olympics have been the greatest blessing. If I retired yesterday I would have gotten everything in the world from speedskating and from competing in the Olympics. So for me to walk away today with a gold medal is amazing. And the best way to say thanks that I can think of is to help somebody else, so I'm going to be donating my money. I'm going to try and talk to the Olympic sponsors, and if there's anyone in particular in the U.S. or Europe who's going to be reading these articles, if you'd like, check out Right To Play. You can check out their web site, it's (http://www.righttoplay.com/)."
Smashing Pumpkins working on new album.
The soap opera continues.
Ah, yes. It's about time. After all, it's so rare to find a rapper with a brash attitude. Normally they're shy, retiring types overflowing with modesty and humility. I was particularly enamored with the "aw, shucks" Andy Griffith personalities of Ni**az Wit Attitude and the late Tupac Shakur.
We're supposed to believe that West has been persecuted for his anti-Bush tirades and his determination to keep it real. But his biggest complaint is that people criticize him for being arrogant. "You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great?" he asks.
Of course, the editors also hoped to stir up some controversy, maybe even incite some religious conservatives to play to type, by exploiting the imagery of Jesus's suffering. I never went to Sunday school, but I don't recall that Jesus was crucified for being smug....
Obviously, none of this is unique to rap or "black" music (quotation marks necessary because white suburban kids are the biggest market for the stuff). Big corporations have been marketing "rebellion" since the 1950s. And the kids fall for it every time. In 1968, Columbia Records promised in an ad that "the man can't bust our music!" Madonna made her career glamorizing slattern chic and attacking bourgeois morality. Now she peddles children's books.
Bravo! RTWT, as the kids say.
is American automakers filling their pants:
Toyota rolls out hybrid Camry, will lauch promotion with Super Bowl commercial.
The Winter 2006 City Journal is out, and it includes a depressing look by Steven Malanga at the use of eminent domain in California. Local legislators are running wild, collaborating with developers and using eminent domain to take away Private property from private use. malanga cites the particularly egregious example of a Costco that sits on land taken from a Church in Cypress, CA. Also mentioned is an attempt "to grab 188 homes in the thriving City Heights neighborhood... to build 509 town houses, condos, and apartments on the land."
Fortunately, Republican State Senator Tom McClintock (the best governor California never had) is leading a petition drive to put a constitutional amendment on the state's November ballot to put limits on the use of eminent domain. The amendment contains limits simlar to those scuttled by state politicos last summer.
Much is at stake. A successful ballot initiative in the nation’s largest state, where use and abuse of eminent domain for economic development have become so widespread, could jump-start similar legislation around the country.
NPR's Andrea Seabrook:
"Congressional staffers are so young... America is run by 24-26 year-olds."
It's one of those things you don't like to think about, but....
The first is an insightful quote from the Most Reverend André Vingt-Trois (is "23" a common French last name?) that accurately portrays on of the main sources of tension and dysfunction in the education of our children:
“We need to reconcile the trust young people place on their families with the trust they learn to place on those who are in charge of leading them during their school years”. “Unfortunately this unity is weaker and weaker because a boy learns one thing at school and the opposite at home”.
“This is why parents must be involved in the daily life of the school. It is a prerequisite for the success of the educational work”.
Another way to solve the problem of disunity is to refuse to contract the child's education out to those who will not respect the values of the family.
Second, Bermudez reports that the Pope's Holy Thursday letter to priests will include some of his ideas for liturgical reform:
Talk of the Nation hosted a discussion yesterday on the problem of healthcare workers refusing to provide procedures or drugs that violate on moral grounds.
The good guy in the debate, Dr. David Stevens, generally holds his position well against a double-team opposition. His arguments are worth listening to.
One point on which I disagree with him, however, is that I think hospitals and pharmacies have the right to hire people who will carry out the full range of services they wish to provide, just like a Catholic hospital has the right to hire only those who would follow Catholic moral guidelines in delivering health care. When this question came up, he got defensive and took and tried to make it an issue of "choice." Aside from that point, he did a fine job.
CNA reports that Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore has hinted that Pope Benedict XVI may be visiting America in 2007.
Here are the Holy Father's prayer intentions for the month of February:
General Intention:
That the international community be ever more aware of the urgent duty to put an end to the traffic of human beings.
Missionary Intention:
That lay Catholics in mission lands may serve their country with ever greater commitment in every field, including politics and social assistance.
