Wednesday, August 28

Looking ahead, Pete Vere sez he'll soon be blogging on the Alberta priest who refused the PP employee marriage.
Karen Marie Knapp is in Milwaukeee, telling us all about Archbishop Dolan.

Here's a brief AP article on the installation.

Okay, you all can lay off Dreher...

And start directing your arrows at Ralph McInerny


Is it fair of conservative critics to lay such scandals at the feet of John Paul II? The fact is that he has dealt no more harshly with theological dissenters than Paul VI. Some of the bishops he named, even some of the cardinals he created, are, if only covertly, on the side of the dissenters. It is clear that John Paul II does not micro-manage the Catholic Church and that his macro-management is faulty. The indictment of him by liberals and representatives of the “false spirit of Vatican II” is amplified by the secular media and many once great Catholic publications. This has led to the founding of new journals and magazines and publishing houses whose role in strengthening the faith of ordinary Catholics cannot be underestimated. But Catholics who enthusiastically support and defend the Pope often get the cold shoulder from bishops appointed by him. To say that John Paul II has often been let down by bishops may be true, but that is not much of a defense when it is realized that it was he put these bishops in place. So it is that, on left and right alike, John Paul II’s governance of the Church comes under severe and justified criticism. So wherein does his greatness lie?

There's an answer, of course, and it's similar to much of what's been said on the blogs:

It is here, I suspect, in his laying the ground work for the Third Millennium, that John Paul II’s greatness lies. He declined to enter into an overt civil war with dissenters. He knew the Church would survive them. Despite the terrible depredations of doctrinal confusion, there is only so much discipline can do. Neither faith nor orthodoxy can be forced on anyone, not even theologians. John Paul II has apparently chosen to wait them out, to look to the future, and to provide sound doctrine for the renewal that he and Vatican II foresaw.

From an editorial in Catholic Dossier

Many thanks to reader David for pointing us to this article, which perhaps will broaden the discussion a bit.

Here's information on the protests going on at Catholic pro-abortion Michigan candidate Jennifer Granholm's parish.

Here is more specific information about a prayer/protest that will be taking place at the Cathedral in Detroit this Sunday.

Thanks to Tim Drake for pointing us to the National Catholic Register editorial responding, without naming him, to Dreher's WSJ piece.

One question of usage: (from NCReg, not Drake)

He has written a beautiful and thorough magisterium, he has encouraged the apostolic movements, he created the World Youth Day gatherings with their many fruits.

Can that possibly be a correct use of the word "magisterium?"

Want to support a good priest? Or read about a good priest?

Then go to Thank You, Father , a website described in this CNS story.

Fr. Rob Johansen has asked our views on the practice of congregations being asked to "turn to your neighbor and introduce yourself" before Mass.

You can critique this practice from many perspectives, but the most important one is theological. Such a practice is usually instituted with the hopes that it will help "form community." The expression of this hope reveals a profound and rather frightening ignorance of what Mass is all about.

Mass is, indeed, all about community, but it's not community that's humanly created or scripted or manipulated. It's about the real community that comes into existence and is nourished by - Communion. Get it?

Whether we know it or not, whether we feel it or not, it's there. In the mystery of the Eucharist, in the act of sharing in that mystery, we are joined in the profound community called the Body of Christ.

The call of the liturgical presider and planner is not to "create" community - it is to deepen people's understanding and consciousness of the community that already exists in the Body of Christ, and what that means.

To be fixated on "creating community" through imposing new rituals upon the liturgy is to send the message that the Eucharist is nothing; but our handshakes are everything.

Victor Lams has the text of Papa Doc's clarification and another bulletin note on the same issue by another priest with a distinctly different view than our Padre in Plymouth.
Alberta priest refuses to marry Planned Parenthood employee

A southern Alberta Catholic pastor has told a Planned Parenthood employee that she cannot be married in the Catholic church because she refuses to renounce her pro-abortion beliefs and employment. Celina Ling, who was supposed to marry fiance Robert Symmonds at St. Patrick's Church on Sept. 21, was told by Fr. John Maes that she could not be wed in the church due to her pro-abortion stand.

Today is the feast of St. Augustine.

Here's a link to a piece I wrote on Augustine a few years ago.

Here's a link to a page of St. Augustine links.

And here's a very, very interesting site, well worth your time, of an account of a trip to a conference on "Augustine in Algeria" compiled by a former University of Pennsylvania Classics prof who's now Provost of Georgetown.

God has no need of your money, but the poor have. You give it to the poor, and God receives it. (St. Augustine)

Go check out the picture that Lucianne has on her site today.

Don't you feel safer now?