June 2006 Archives

Last month, I blogged about the Second World Congress of Ecclesial Movements. The event culminated in a prayer vigil in St. Peter's Square with Pope Benedict. Here is the English translation of the Holy Father's homily at vespers, which is quite simply inspiring. A snip:

With last week's news of a new Secretary of State for the Vatican, you might be wondering, "Just what does the Vatican SoS do?"

If so, Zenit published a handy reference last week.

Austin Ruse tries to peer into the soul of my favorite Vatican reporter. A very interesting article. I pretty much agree with Ruse, but I hasten to add that I don't much care where Allen's sympathies lie because he performs a marvelous job as a reporter. He doesn't editorialize and he treats a subject with a precise fairness.

Still, Allen's prejudices can sometimes bubble to the surface, such as during his coverage of the release of Deus Caritas Est when he told NPR that the encyclical was Pope Benedict's version of "compassionate conservatism." Blech. Thanks for gettin' the message out, John. In that light, it is good to keep in mind that despite the great pains he goes to to present his stories fairly and accurately, he is a man with beliefs and a point of view, but nobody is immune from that charge.

Montana mom hunts down al-Qaeda on the Internet.

The proof:

1. Grilling your dessert.

2. Full-length songs from a new album from the Brand New Heavies - one of the greatest bands of all time. Though sadly the posted cuts aren't up to their early-90s standard. They sound kind of lazy and much more disco-y than jazzy, which used to be their main appeal.

"Vatican announces ceremony in step to raise Indiana nun to saint"

Now that's a mouthful.

So what really happened?

The Vatican announced a consistory (an allegedly consultorial, mostly-ceremonial gathering of Cardinals with the pope), where Benedict - who has already given the Church's acknowledgement of the authenticity of a miracle attributed to the intercession from heaven of Blessed Theodora Guerin - will likely approve a decree which will officially announce and set a date for her canonization.

Who is Mother Theodora Geurin?

Here's her biography from the webpage of the order in Indiana that she founded.

The Holy See has a new Secretary of State, in case you haven't heard. John Allen's Word from Rome column this week has a profile of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the new Secretary. An excerpt:

Seems like things will be getting interesting at State.

The UK Tablet has a story this week on a British parish's outreach to young female refugees.

Do go read the whole thing. It's a sad story, but it's also inspiring to see how much good work a single parish can do.

Agassi to Retire after U.S. Open

So long Andre!

Whoa, whoa, a 330 POUND TURTLE? What did I miss?

Ramesh Ponnuru was on Tom Ashbrook's On Point radio show last week discussing his book The Party of Death, a book which I will be checking out from the library as soon as I can. The host enlisted two guests to gang up on him and Ponnuru performed marvelously.

The audio link can be found here. It's instructive to hear Ashbrook harp on the book's title for the whole hour, and when Ponnuru calls him on it, the host (with no sense of his own irony) compares the title to an incitement to genocide.

Towards the end of the show, the complete unseriousness of his opponents is revealed. First, bio"ethicist" George Annas, when asked for a perspective from bioethics, proceeds to talk about Roe v. Wade and opinion polls. Then, Neera Tanden, former Hillary Clinton staffer, professes bewilderment that Ponnuru opposes abortion but doesn't want millions of women thrown in prison.

Regardless, Ramesh holds his ground well while fighting off the triple team.

National Review Online has a sad but important piece by Donna M. Hughes telling the story of two Russian women who were forced into prostitution in Germany, where the amount of professional prostitutes has doubled to accomodate World Cup demand. Prostitution is legal there, and many of the additional prostitutes are undoubtedly victims of human trafficking, mostly from eastern Europe.

Incidentally, here is a page on the website of the U.S. embassy to the Holy See that documents the joint US-Vatican efforts to combat human trafficking.

Last month, the Pontifical Academy for Life issued a document summarizing the proceedings of the international congress on "The Human Embryo in the Pre-Implantation Phase." For those of you interested on just what the Church teaches about the human embryo, personhood and implantation, the document can be found here, courtesy of Zenit. It is a brief, by no means comprehensive summary of the first stages of the embryo after fertilization and of the ethical consequences.

Yes, we're late, but Mama-Lu and I are just today watching March of the Penguins. We're about halfway through (currently breaking for bedtime) and I gotta say, it's meeting the hype. If you haven't yet seen it, GO GET IT and watch it.

My real purpose in this post, however, is to post a line from the film that I think might be the manliest line in movie history:

"Now, their bellies full, it is time to find a mate."

Spoken by Morgan Freeman.

Well, we're back from California.

I speculated on whether the retreat center would be still standing after my boys stormed it, and yes it is.

I however, am not.

It seems a bug of some sort swept through town, smiting both Matthew and me. He caught it Monday, puking all over himself after we went to the beach just north (I think) of San Pedro, and he's had diarrhea ever since.

Tuesday night, Jenny's aunt from Encino took us to Santa Monica and to a Mexican restaurant, Mariasol, that sits on a pier. They bill themselves as the closest to the sunset, which we could have seen if the waiter had remembered to put our order in and we hadn't waited a half hour or so for our appetizers alone. Anyway, after missing the sunset (it was a nice view anyway), we were driving home when my tummy start feeling funny. I asked Aunt Criss to pull over, and I got out, walked around, paid $2.50 for a Sprite and felt better. I got back in the car, Criss got back on the freeway, and about 20 minutes later, my tummy was back at it. As she was pulling off, I opened my mouth to ask her to pull over again, but what came out was not words, if you catch my drift. It was carnitas, shredded and half-digested. All over her car; all over me. Blaow.

We got home to the convent at 10 PM and of course it was all locked up, mercifully, Sr. Mary Louise had left us a note saying we could page her and she would let us in, which we did. And then I crawled into bed and woke up feeling 100% better.

Well, no, actually I went in, collapsed on the bathroom floor, and spent the next 6 hours being "prolificly ill," to euphemize the situation.

Wednesday morning, Jenny got on the phone to try to postpone our flights to give me some recovery time, and we found out that it would cost us over $1,000 to get on the same flights the next day. So at 10 AM, we loaded up the Carmelite's van and Jenny's sister drove us to the airport. Our flights went fairly well, but except for some apple slices in the morning I didn't eat a thing the whole day for fear of puking in my seat. Mama-Lu was a saint and a soldier, doing most of the heavy lifting so I could get by with just pushing the stroller around the airports.

So here I am, still sick, home an extra day from work. (I'm still trying to justify in my head how sitting at a computer blogging is different from sitting at a computer approving purchase orders and doing portfolio reviews.)

Up to the moment when I got violently and debilitatingly ill, the trip had gone marvelously wonderfully. The St. Joseph's Retreat Center is absolutely beautiful.

Another stale nugget from my inbox, as reported by LifeSiteNews.com on April 18:

Please note that the complant came from university professors. Freedom of expression, tolerance, diversity, etc.

Also please note that I'm not vouching for the actual content of any of the listed books.

While glancing at some old Zenit daily dispatch emails stored up in my inbox, I came across this interview with a Legion of Christ priest who has a book out about marriage. I really liked this quote:

We're outta here!

The entire Lu-clan is going on a 5 day jaunt to sunny California (because you know, June is when you want to be heading south) to visit my sister-in-law, whom I've only met once.

"Why only once?" you ask. Because she is a Carmelite Sister of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles! We're going to Alhambra for a visit and will be staying with the Carmelites.

This is my first trip west of the Grand Canyon, so I'n pretty psyched for it, and word on the street is the Carmelites can't wait to meet my two boys. Here's hoping the place is still standing next week!

We're leaving first thing Saturday A.M. and will be gone until Thursday. Alert the media and hold all my calls.

And a special thanks goes out to Lisa (who is sitting in my living room talking to Mama-Lu right now) for making the tickets happen!

Zenit has a two-part interview (1, 2) with Michael Waldstein, who is editing a forthcoming new translation of Pope John Paul the Great's Theology of the Body.

There are two very interesting revelations in the first interview. First, Waldstein claims that the existing English version of TOB is somewhat deficient because of translation inconsistencies. As most reading this will know, the Theology of the Body consists of sequences of addresses that John Paul gave at his weekly Wednesday general audiences over the first several years of his pontificate. The English translation we have now was compiled from the translations published by L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper. As Waldstein tells it, from week to week as the adresses were delivered:

The second revelation is Waldstein's discovery that the Theology of the Body was originally written in Polish before John Paul even became pope. Waldstein describes coming across the original edition in the John Paul II Archives:

Maybe it's the pope-geek in me, but I find that fascinating.

The second interview is more meaty and worth a look as well. I love the story about John of the Cross having the monks at his deathbed read the Song of Songs.

As noted in the FAQ section of the World Meeting of Families post below, the Holy Father will be coming to Spain for the event.

Zenit has a rundown of what the Holy Father will be doing in Spain. Apart from the standard ecclesial and secular protocol, here's the WMF portion of the pope's agenda:

The UK Tablet takes a grim look at the AIDS situation in Africa.

Last night two of my great loves converged in my sleep.

The opening hymn for the Cubs game was one of my own creation - a hymn sung to the tune of "The Church's One Foundation" that was a call for various Protestant sects to return to the one true faith.

Hmm, come to think of it, that sounds pretty nerdy...

Next month, Valencia, Spain will host the Fifth World Meeting of Families (WMF), sponsored by the Archdiocese of Valencia and the Pontifical Council for the Family.

Here is the English Website for the event.

Note that while the English homepage does not seem to be fully translated, the other links are. For those with less time or patience, here are some direct links of interest:

• Catechesis - Featuring an address the Holy Father gave last June to a Rome Diocesan meeting on the family as well links to the outlines of the various catechetical talks that will be given at the WMF next month.

• Congress - The meeting will feature an International Theological Pastoral Congress from July 4-7. There will actually be three Congresses, as a Children's Congress and a Parents' Conference will take place simultaneously.

• Documents - Here are some documents on marriage and the family as well as some general intercessions that can be used at Mass.

• Program - Though currently blank, I'm guessing there will eventually be a list of events at the WMF.

The FAQ page is unformatted and hard to read so for your benefit and my own, here are the highlights, a little more nicely presented:

The Vatican Website has posted all of the English translations of the texts of the addresses Benedict XVI gave in Poland at the end of May.

Here they are.

The following Wednesday, the Pope used his general audience address to reflect on the trip. The Zenit English translation of those remarks is here.

Today is a high feast day for my family. It is the name day of our firstborn, Matthew Boniface as well as a kind of foundational feast day for the Lu-Clan.

Who is St. Boniface?
Here's his Catholic Encyclopedia entry.

Here's a 17th century biography.

Here are the letters of St. Boniface.

Here are the Holy Father's prayer intentions or June:

General Prayer Intention: That Christian families may lovingly welcome every child who comes into existence and surround the sick and the aged, who need care and assistance, with affection.

Mission intention: "That pastors and the Christian faithful may consider inter-religious dialogue and the work of acculturation of the Gospel as a daily service to promote the cause of the evangelization of peoples.