Per Christum

Even though this Canadian band is apparently pro-choice, I think the song (in French with English subtitles, posted below) is rather descriptive of many of the pitfalls of modern life.

Your great-great grandfather cleared the earth
Your great-grandfather laboured on the earth
Your grandfather turned a profit from the earth
Then your father sold the earth to become a bureaucrat

Now you, my little man, you don’t know what to do
In your little 3 room apartment -
too expensive and cold in the winter
You want something to call your own
And you dream at night of having your own little piece of earth.

Your great great grandmother, she had 14 kids
Your great grandmother had about as many
Then your grandmother had three, that was enough for her
Your mom didn’t want any, you were an accident

Now you, my little lady, change partners all the time
When you screw up you save yourself by aborting
But there are mornings you awake crying
When you dream in the night of a large table surrounded by little ones.

Your great great grandfather lived through incredible suffering
Your great grandfather collected used, dirty pennies
Then your grandfather became a millionaire
Your father inherited and put it into RRSPs

Now you, my little youth, owe your ass to the government
No way to get a loan from a financial institution
To alleviate your desire to hold up a bank
You read books about voluntary simplicity

Your great great grandparents knew how to celebrate
Your great grandparent dance the night away
Your grandparents lived through the Rock and Roll era
Your parents, it was discos, that’s where they met

Now you, my friend, what are you doing with your evening?
Turn off your TV, can’t stay locked inside
Happily, some things in life never change
Put on your best, we’re going out tonight dancing!

From the venerable blog 3d Blog from the Sun the following has been offered:

Imprimatur for New Media
Catholic New Media?

The also very worthy blog Musings of a Pertinacius Papist has reprinted with permission Tom Bethell’s well crafted article “The New Technology is for Amatures” which appeared originally in the New Oxford Review.

The questions asked in all of the above largely have to do with what the role of new media is for Catholics, and how this transition is taking place.

Of course this interests me. To turn an old joke “Once I couldn’t spell ‘blogger’, now I are one!”

I found myself transitioning to a preference for new media on the basis that there is a certain economy and “checks and balances” system to the blogosphere.

An oft repeated warning of the ability of “Joe Blogger” to disseminate knowingly or unknowingly information of questionable veracity or outright untruth seems to ring hollow when it is examined how things “really work”.

To be sure, there is nothing to present the self-styled Patriarch of Akron, Ohio from creating a blog that espouses flat-earth-geo-centrism. In fact that sort of thing is out there. In fact it is also the case that no one pays much attention to it and when it DOES pop up on the radar, it will also appear in the cross-hairs of about 1000 other bloggers who will not suffer the indignity of being lied to or deceived. Articles presented on Per Christum have been picked up and discussed elsewhere by those who agree and disagree. We have done the same.

I have also found that when I do read print media, I don’t like to be far from the web! Given the linear limitations of the print media versus the exponential possibilities of new media, if I want more info on a subject matter, I can click on a hyperlink and explore it, rather than counting on “getting all I need to know” based on the judgment of the author, the editor, and space limitations.

You also run into the issue of certain news considered “too niche market” to receive column inches.

For example, days ago a bishop and 3 dozen clergy originally from the Assyrian Church of the East - which has been out of communion with the Apostolic See for 16 centuries - have made their intention clear - they seek full communion with the Catholic Church and to be united to the Chaldean Catholic counterpart.

It has been through the blogosphere, including the bishop’s own webpage http://www.marbawai.com - that much of this has been disseminated. Much to my chagrin, when googling for official news outlets to find news about this matter, it is only on the second page of returned “hits” at google does a news story appear that does NOT come from www.marbawai.com - lo and behold, it is our entry Assyrians Elect To Enter Into Full Commnunion w/ Catholic Church.

The utter failure of the mainstream media to pick this story up within almost two weeks of the vote has left me utterly befuddled. That being said, I am proud that between Per Christum & Serge’s entries over at A Conservative Blog for Peace (A conservative blog for peace) have a good deal of info thanks to the comboxes and the research we have done and had done for us. (Interestingly, in the comboxes, many representatives of this movement themselves have shown up to make their case.)

Maybe I wear my Eastern Christian bias on my sleeve butI have little faith or trust in most print media sources to get the matter right, anyway! 10 years ago, the respectable Catholic World Report in an article on Eastern Catholic churches mentioned “Spanish Eastern Catholics” apparently misunderstanding the Greek Catholics of “Galicia” to be from “Galiza” in Spain rather than the region “Галичина/Galicja” in central Europe divided between Ukraine and Poland. Would that it were the case Greek Catholics were from “Galiza” they would have avoided Soviet persecution, and have good flan recipes!

Understand those were the reliable, professional, well edited, fact checking print media types! But we don’t expect every print outlet to have experts from every field on the payroll and writing for them. On occasion, head correspondants of major media outlets even treat us to such fanciful and outlandish reports as the much bally-hooed (and very wrong) Churches back plan to unite under Pope.

Sometimes the “amatures” have to step up.

Blog on, Catholic bloggers!

H/T: Pictures, Pictures, Get Your Pictures

The following are public domain, and may be used freely to pepper up some blog posts, bulletins, or whichever.

Illustrations from St. Nicholas magazine (public domain)

More vintage children’s book illustrations.

Illustrations from old Bible story books, courtesy of La Vista Church of Christ.

Also in the public domain.
Old book covers.

Coloring pages of famous artists’ pictures, including Cezanne, Picasso, Monet and others.

Dear readers, should you have some additional links to rich public domain resources, please do share them in the combox. A Simple Sinner has been saving up and allocating resources and building credit to finance a multi-head embroidery machine. Honestly, some of these illustrations would scan well to make gorgeous vestments or details for vestments. Please share what resources you are aware of, one day they may adorn chasubles, if all goes well!

The relationship between the vocation of family life and the celibate vocations are well connected. Priests don’t just appear out of no where. They are, often, the sons of devout Catholic fathers.

In some circles, the sight of a pious young man who is single and church attending occasions considerable excitement: perhaps we have a future priest here!

But with American Catholic birthrates being exceedingly low in most sectors, and the need for greater rejuvenation and renewal in parochial family life still pressing, sometimes, that pious, young, single, church-going man actually needs to be introduced to a pious, young, single, church-going lady, to meet, marry, and make some Catholic bambinos, and make their spiritual journey together for life.

In a real way, the wrongly termed “vocations crisis” is well related to the wrongly termed “marriage crisis”. There is certainly correlation between healthy Catholic families and vocations. More failed marriages = fewer vocations.

For your consideration, dear readers, I give you: Marriage And Celibacy: Love’s Link: Interview With Author Father José Manglano. By Miriam Díez i Bosch.

MADRID, Spain, JAN. 14, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Father José Pedro Manglano says history has shown that when marriages are in crisis, the vocation to celibacy also has problems.

The priest speaks of the link between matrimony and celibacy in his new book, “El Amor y Otras Idioteces: Guía Práctica Para No Perder a Quien Tú Quieres” (Love and Other Foolishness: A Practical Guide to Avoid Losing Your Beloved).

In this interview with ZENIT, Father Manglano explains what true love is, and how it can become eternal.

Q: A priest speaking about “love and other foolishness” — this attracts attention …

Father Manglano: How funny that you start there! That’s what everyone asks me …

Q: But I insist, it isn’t common …

Father Manglano: Quite true. It’s obvious that it’s something that attracts attention. But, why is it the first question that comes to mind? Perhaps what is being asked could be rephrased: What can a celibate have to say about love? As if it is taken for granted that one who opts to be celibate makes himself a stranger to the question of love.

It seems to me that this seemingly unimportant fact points to a situation clearly spelled out in Benedict XVI’s “The Salt of the Earth”: History shows that in the eras in which marriages are in crisis, celibacy is as well.

Q: Why does a celibacy crisis come along with a marriage crisis?

Father Manglano: Celibacy and matrimony, just as the Church suggests, are the two sublime ways of attaining a life in love. There are other forms of loving lives, yes, but no other sublime forms.

Today we are experiencing a certain crisis in marriage, and we are living a certain crisis in the meaning of celibacy. It is not understood that the celibate could be a lover and can know about love. Nevertheless, his life is a loving exercise directed toward the man Christ, and to all men and women, near or far away.

And not only that: The celibate Christian has an experience of God who is Love, and from him, he receives wisdom. If that doesn’t seem true, ask St. John of the Cross, whose canticle is a paradigm of any loving relationship.

Q: But your book speaks of the love between boy/girlfriend and spouses.(Read All)

People familiar with Ruth “Too-Dangerously-Incompetent-For-My-Job” Gledhill’s reporting in the London Times as the all-too-incompetent & ill informed Religion correspondent will get it. Those who are unfamiliar should be grateful to have never lost brain cells waisting their time.

It made me laugh.

PARAGUAY: Help train 72 priests of tomorrow

The diocese of Ciudad del Este, near Paraguay’s borders with Argentina and Brazil, has a flourishing Faith community, but a glaring shortage of priests to serve the 800,000 souls who live there. Of the 76 priests serving this massive flock, just 16 are diocesan priests. But Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano has now opened a diocesan seminary, temporarily housed in a retreat centre. Some 72 students have undergone a rigorous, year-long selection process and are now being trained under the watchful eye of the dedicated and highly experienced academic staff. But, with almost half the population living below the poverty line, the diocese is reliant on outside help to subsidise what local funding it can get. Aid to the Church in Need has promised the bishop $30,800 ($405.27 per seminarian!) to train these young priests of tomorrow. Now we are turning to you, our generous benefactors. Please quote the reference “233-02-70″

Donations could be made to
Aid to the Church in Need (US OFFICE)
RE: Code: 135-01-11
725 Leonard Street
PO Box 220384
Brooklyn, NY 11222

800-628-6333
info@acnusa.org

Prayers accepted via all the usual routes. Ss. Roch Gonzalez, Aiphonsus Rodriguez, and Juan de Castilo, the Martyrs of Paraguay, may be especially interested.

Assyrians elect to enter into full commnunion w/ Catholic Church

On Thursday; January 17, 2008, the “Day of Thanksgiving” of the Rogation of the Ninevites, for which day the Gospel says, “On that day you will not question me about anything. Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you” (John 16:23), the Clergy Conference of the Assyrian Catholic Apostolic Diocese (ACAD) met in Dublin, California, to discuss the current situation and consider future plans for reestablishing communion with other Christians, in order to end their ecclesial isolation.

After praying to the Father and reflecting on the Scriptures and Tradition, the attendees unanimously adopted a “Declaration of Intention” in which they state their resolution “to enter full communion with the Catholic Church” and “to resume church unity with the Chaldean Catholic Church.” As a result, they foresee that this declaration will initiate a process of negotiation with respective Church authorities to define a concrete model of this union, in which the particularity of our apostolic tradition is preserved.

Present at this Clergy Conference were H.G. Bishop Mar Bawai Soro, four priests and sixteen deacons. Two more priests and fourteen other deacons of ACAD have also sent in advance their signed proxies in support of this Declaration. The gathered members ask all their brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for this noble intention so that each and every effort will contribute to the glory of God and the fulfillment of Christ’s prayer for His Holy Church “That they all may be one”. (John 17:21)
Read All

Also worth taking a look at, http://www.marbawai.com/, the blogspot of His Grace Mar Bawai Soro where the press release and some of his writings can be found.

Additionally, Zenit reports have offered some small amount of news on Roman efforts to regularize and make canonical the situation of a group of Traditionalist Catholics who have sought to repair their fractured with the Holy See. No details have been released.

Plans to further work with Traditional Anglican Communion, it has also been whispered are in fact proceeding in Rome as well. No details have been released.

Please pray for all those listed above and for all the folks who are working to promote Catholic unity.

A gem found in the com box over at TitusOneNine in an article about the conversion of Bishop John Lispscomb, formerly of TEC.
Levi Silliman Ives (1797-1867), Bishop of North Carolina 1831-1852, resigned in 1852 to become a Catholic; he was subsequently Prof. of Homiletics at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York City. (His wife, a daughter of the famous PECUSA Bishop of New York, John Henry Hobart [d. 1830] converted with him.)

Frederick Joseph Kinsman (1866-1944), Bishop of Delaware 1908-1919, resigned in 1919 to become a Catholic; he was subsequently Professor of Church History at The Catholic University of America.

Ives explained and justified his conversion in his *The Trials of a Mind in its Progress to the Catholic Faith* (1853), Kinsman in his Salve Mater (Longmans, Green & Co., 1920).

Godfrey Goodman (1583-1656), Bishop of Gloucester in the Church of England from 1626, became a Catholic shortly before his death. Graham Leonard, Bishop of London from 1981 to 1991, became a Catholic in 1994, after his retirement. Richard Rutt, bishop of Leicester from 1979 to 1991, became a Catholic in 1995. Two English Anglican suffragan bishops, John Klyberg of Fulham and Conrad Meyer of Dorchester, both became Catholics in that year as well, and I think that they both resigned to do so.

I published this article in 1998:

http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=12-05-046-b

on these and related matters,

POSTSCRIPT:

No bishop of the Anglican Communion has ever become Orthodox, I think (although Bishop Rutt of Leicester’s becoming a Catholic rather than an Orthodox in 1995 was a surprise to many, as he had previously been Patron of the very Orthodoxophile “Anglo-Orthodox Society”), but one Continuing Anglican bishop has: Robert Waggener, a bishop of the Anglican Province of Christ the King and later of the Diocese of the Holy Cross, became Orthodox about a year ago and is currently pastor of a Western-Rite Antiochian Orthodox parish in Alabama.

I always enjoy Dr. Tighe’s comments, wherever I may find them.

It seems that the Episcopal Church has released a “stations of the MDGs.” For the uninitiated, the MDG’s are the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations. And yes, the “stations” part is modeled after the traditional Stations of the Cross. Normally, something like the “stations of the MDG’s” would simply be an exercise in bad liturgy and hokey social justice activities, except the Episcopalians promoting them specifically want them used in place of the Stations of the Cross.

I want to approach this issue fairly and recognize that there are many Episcopalians who are tying to remain faithful to Scripture and tradition. But, when I hear about actions like this, it just makes me wonder what is left of the Christian identity of the Episcopal Church. Sure, the MDG’s, as long as they are not implemented in a liberal fashion, are perfectly acceptable and even beneficial. And, doing the Stations of the Cross during Lent and Holy Week is not a dogmatic command, but still. “Stations of the MDG’s” during Holy Week in place of the Stations of the Cross just seems trivial and tacky and demonstrates how some in the Episcopal Church (and admittedly elsewhere including our own Church) have little use for Jesus Christ.

For a copy of the service, go here (warning .doc file)

PC readers may recall a previous post about Father Nicholas Schofield over at Roman Miscellany and his adventures in the Gulf. See here.

Father is going back to the Gulf for ten days to help the Apostolic Vicariate of Arabia with their annual ‘Christian Formation Conference.’ A lot of people don’t know about how needed this work is. In fact the Catholic population on the Arabian Peninsula is growing… More on that here:

Please keep Father’s safe passage and missionary success in your prayers. And keep your eye on his blog for some great photos and stories. He has posted the following previously, I hope he shares more!

Well not the PC bloggers, though I am sure we would all have use for it…

Catholics in Malawi need it. The text below is from the website of Aid to the Church in Need. They need 1,022.20 to put a roof on that church. When I was in better financial shape, I sometimes made that much in a week serving high-priced steak and wine as a waiter at a white table cloth restaurant.

It is so very little when divided between 10 people. 1,022.20 / 10 people / 10 paychecks is $10.23 per pay period.

Could the readers and fellow bloggers here at PC come up with that for these people in Malawi - a country that is very poor, where the GDP per capita is US$ 940?

This is so very little for these people to have a Church. Less than $3.45 a day for one single contributor. I wish I still had that kinda money to just write the check.

MALAWI
A roof for the church of St Patrick

St. Patrick’s Church lies in one of the outstations of the parish of St Michael, in the diocese of Mzuzu in northern Malawi. The parish itself was established in 1949 by the White Fathers. It is situated around 220 miles (346 km) north of the diocesan centre in Mzuzu. Since 2001, for the first time, it has been in the care of a diocesan priest, Father John Benjamin Moyo. With around 16,300 Catholics this is one of the largest parishes in the diocese. And one of the largest outstations in this parish is Chisenga, which is where St Patrick’s church is situated. It has some 1,260 Catholic faithful and is growing rapidly. As a result the people have begun work on a comparatively large church and have already reached the stage where it needs a roof. They have building materials on site, but they now need professional help in order to be able to complete the church. And so Father Moyo has turned to ACN, with the support of Bishop J. M. Zuza of Mzuzu. We have promised him a subsidy of €700.

Will you help?

Donations could be made to
Aid to the Church in Need (US OFFICE)
RE: Code: 135-01-11
725 Leonard Street
PO Box 220384
Brooklyn, NY 11222

800-628-6333
info@acnusa.org

Can you do that for Him?

From Zenit, Catholic Schools Key in the Midst of Educational Crisis:

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 21, 2008 (Zenit.org).- In the midst of what Benedict XVI calls an “educational crisis,” it is important for Catholic schools to maintain their identity.

The Pope affirmed this today when he received in audience participants in the plenary assembly of the Congregation for Catholic Education.

The ecclesiastical disciplines,” the Holy Father said, “especially theology, are today subjected to new interrogations in a world tempted, on the one hand, by a rationalism which follows a false idea of freedom unfettered by any religious references and, on the other, by various forms of fundamentalism which, with their incitement to violence and fanaticism, falsify the true essence of religion.”

Faced with the educational crisis, Benedict XVI continued, “schools must ask themselves about the mission they are called to undertake in the modern social environment.”

Catholic schools, he said, “though open to everyone and respecting the identity of each, cannot but present their own educational, human and Christian perspective….

[Regarding seminaries,] the Pope concluded by highlighting the need for “adequate formation in the spiritual life so as to make Christian communities, particularly in parishes, ever more aware of their vocation, and capable of providing adequate responses to questions of spirituality, especially as posed by the young. For this to happen, the Church must not lack qualified and responsible apostles and evangelizers.” More

I think the pope is right on. Catholic schools, from parochial schools all the way up to graduate schools and seminaries, must focus on Catholic identity. What is the purpose behind Catholic schools? What is our mission? If a Catholic high school is no more Catholic than the public high school down the road, then what is the point of its existence?

As many of you know, I teach at a Catholic high school, and therefore do not feel that Catholic schools are beyond hope of redemption (as some on the conservative corners of the Catholic blogosphere seem to believe). While I recognize that Catholic schools have been hit hard by recent educational and theological fads in the “spirit of Vatican II,” I do not believe the solution is simply abandoning Catholic schools. I do believe that as we get knee-deep in the postmodern era, Catholic schools, like Catholic parishes and families, must “step it up” quite a bit in order to rise to the challenges in our midst, like relativism, the breakdown of the family, etc. I believe that Pope Benedict is specifically calling Catholic schools at all levels to “step it up,” and I am willing to heed his call.

The late Pope John Paul II tackled higher education significantly in Ex Corde Ecclesiae. He , like the current pope, reminds us that Catholic education must lead people to something deeper than science and technology, which while good, cannot provide ultimate meaning:

In the world today, characterized by such rapid developments in science and technology, the tasks of a Catholic University assume an ever greater importance and urgency. Scientific and technological discoveries create an enormous economic and industrial growth, but they also inescapably require the correspondingly necessary search for meaning in order to guarantee that the new discoveries be used for the authentic good of individuals and of human society as a whole. If it is the responsibility of every University to search for such meaning, a Catholic University is called in a particular way to respond to this need: its Christian inspiration enables it to include the moral, spiritual and religious dimension in its research, and to evaluate the attainments of science and technology in the perspective of the totality of the human person.

This is not to say Catholics are to fear science and technology, or any learning for that matter (as some Christians seem to), but we must remember to keep these in their proper perspectives.

As Catholic educators (whether at home, in classrooms, or even in blogosphere), we must never forget that amidst all the education, all the wealth, all the best-selling self-help books on bookshelves, postmodern people are desperately looking for some deeper meaning amidst the relativity, busyness, and general distance of postmodern society. Our faith provides an answer to this hunger for meaning, and we cannot lose this message, and must not let our message and identity be drowned out by a mechanistic rationalism, academic trendiness, or even fundamentalism. Or, to put it more simply, Catholic schools at all levels should be Catholic (gasp!).