+A.M.D.G.+
Priest invokes Mohammad — What’s next?!
25 February 2006 at 21.23A recent article from La Nazione alerts us to this latest liturgical abuse: “Priest invokes Mohammad; Vatican investigates.” Apparently, in the Madonna delle Tosse Catholic parish in Florence last week, a parish priest prayed the following in the closing prayer to the Mass:
“Lord, infuse in us the firmness of the Muslim believers in confessing our ideas before the world without caring about derision or of the disrespect of others. Teach us that the real war, as the Prophet said, is that which happens within ourselves, on the inside, without hate nor the shedding of blood.”
To add insult to injury, the prayer was also printed in the parish bulletin.
The Florentine faithful were — justifiably — “scandalizati” [scandalized], says La Nazione.
Whispers in the Loggia reports that this incident has been referred to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, an official of which has, on background, already called it “a very serious case” of liturgical abuse. The dicastery has opened a case.
Cartoons reveal the last permissible bias — Anti-Catholicism
18 February 2006 at 21.23The topic of the worldwide — and stateside — response toward the anti-Mohammadan political cartoons first printed in Danish newspapers also serves to demonstrate how unequal the response is towards Catholics:
Consider the following: When the Daily Illini, the student newspaper at the university of Illinois, republished these same cartoons that derided Muhammad, those responsible for doing so (the editor-in-chief and the opinions-page editor) were suspended from the university. Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights president Bill Donohue replied with a very astute, and tragic, observation:
Richard Herman, the chancellor of the University of Illinois, is critical of the decision to reprint the anti-Muhammad cartoons. He maintains that a discussion about the controversial Danish cartoons could have taken place without republishing them. Heâ??s right, but that is not the way the university treats anti-Catholic fare on campus.
In March 1997, the same Urbana-Champaign campus displayed drawings by Michele Blondel that showed red glass vaginas hanging inside European Roman Catholic cathedrals; two of them had red glass holy water cruets with crosses on them. I wrote a letter to the president registering my objections, and received a reply from the chancellor, Michael Aiken.
Aiken said he regretted that the art “disappointed” me (flat beers disappoint me, not lousy art). He instructed, “Most viewers find Blondelâ??s art to be quite subtle as it invites the viewer to contemplate and reflect on topics as diverse as the body, the church, and architectural and religious symbolism.” Stupid me — I thought it was Catholic-bashing porn. His closer was precious: “The University believes that true intellectual discourse extends not only to written communication but also to the visual.” Except when Muslims get angry.
So whatâ??s changed? Do Catholics have to call for beheadings to get respect? How else to explain the condescending response I got, and the sympathetic response afforded Muslims? Similarly, nobody was disciplined for offending Catholics, but two kids have been suspended for offending Muslims!
The Culture of Death is also alive-and-well in other media. Laodicea notes the following:
When Tony-winning author Terence McNally writes a Broadway play in which Jesus has gay sex with Judas, the New York Times and Co. rush to garland him with praise for how “brave” and “challenging” he is. The rule for ‘brave,’ ‘transgressive’ ‘artists’ is a simple one: If you’re going to be provocative, it’s best to do it with people who can’t be provoked.
Thus, NBC is celebrating Easter this year with a special edition of the gay sitcom Will & Grace, in which a Christian conservative cooking-show host, played by the popular singing slattern Britney Spears, offers seasonal recipes — “Cruci-fixin’s.”
On the other hand, the same network, in its coverage of the global riots over the Danish cartoons, has declined to show any of the offending artwork out of “respect” for the Muslim faith — [i.e.,] out of respect for their ability to locate the executive vice president’s home in the suburbs and firebomb his garage.
We, the Church Militant, must continue to fight this sacrilege and injustice against Catholicism.
Cartoons — and the Real World
18 February 2006 at 21.01And so the daily newscasts continue to show the pandemic of muslim protest and violence the world-over. The face of Muhammad gets printed in a political cartoon — and now, each day, another consulate burned, a priest murdered, numerous people dead.
Eventually, I’ll find enough time to properly vent my frustration over how “these people” are behaving — and more upsettingly, how the world allows them to behave.
For now, suffice it to contrast their behavior with a similar example. No doubt, you can recall many — no, innumerable — occasions when anti-Catholic cartoons have been printed. Below is but one example of an ant-Catholic cartoon, printed when American Bishops in 2004 refused Communion to ‘Catholic’ (in name only) politicians/public figures who were known to be in a state of sin and who did not receive absolution:
This cartoon depicts a bishop (labeled ‘Vatican’) holding the Eucharist over a Catholic politician while telling him to “roll over” like a trained dog.
When myriad Catholics found this cartoon offensive, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights took the case to write letters of protest. They received a short, but acceptable, public apology.
You see? No marches in the street…. No burning of flags…. No vandalization…. No burnings or bombings of buildings…. No murders….
Even the present-day Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem — extant since the first Crusade — carries on its sacred duty to protect the Christian places in the Holy Land from destruction and defamation via political, economic and legislative (not to mention legal) means. Among other things, they have protected the Church of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem (which houses the Tomb of Christ); as well as the Church of the Nativity, in Bethlehem, which was going to be buldozed by Muslims to build a parking lot for a neighboring mosque, were it not for the efforts of these knights and ladies.
Just two cases in point to demonstrate how the Church Militant has evolved from warfare and bloodshed to arbitration in the political arena. And two cases in point to show, by contradistinction, how the Muslims who are rioting still belong to an era of animalistic barbarism, irrationalism, intolerance and incivility.
Time for them to stop harping about cartoons — and to start living in the Real World.
BXVI’s message for Lent 2006: Poverty, politics & the gaze of Christ
17 February 2006 at 22.12Earlier this month, our Holy Father, pope Benedict XVI, issued the following message regarding this year’s Lent, which will begin with Ash Wednesday, March 1, 2006.
Dear Brothers and Sisters!
Lent is a privileged time of interior pilgrimage towards Him Who is the fount of mercy. It is a pilgrimage in which He Himself accompanies us through the desert of our poverty, sustaining us on our way towards the intense joy of Easter. Even in the “valley of darkness” of which the Psalmist speaks (Psalm 23:4), while the tempter prompts us to despair or to place a vain hope in the work of our own hands, God is there to guard us and sustain us. Yes, even today the Lord hears the cry of the multitudes longing for joy, peace, and love. As in every age, they feel abandoned. Yet, even in the desolation of misery, loneliness, violence and hunger that indiscriminately afflict children, adults, and the elderly, God does not allow darkness to prevail. In fact, in the words of my beloved Predecessor, Pope John Paul II, there is a “divine limit imposed upon evil,” namely, mercy (”Memory and Identity,” pp. 19ff.). It is with these thoughts in mind that I have chosen as my theme for this Message the Gospel text: “Jesus, at the sight of the crowds, was moved with pity” (Matthew 9:36).
Blogging: A blight or boon to marriage
15 February 2006 at 22.51National Public Radio (NPR) aired this amusing segment 
about the changes in a husband and wife’s relationship once each started his own blog.
Blogging is an interesting phenomenon. Looking at the so-called ‘blogosphere,’ you definitely see that a blog can take several forms: There is the informative newspaper-style blog; there is the blog counterpart to the newspaper’s op-ed page; there is the a-day-in-my-life, Dear-Diary type of blog; there is the blog devoted to specific subject matter; there is the blog that serves as the discussion vehicle that accompanies another site…. One could go on and on.
Catholic blogs are no different. There are myriad Catholic blogs being published every day — some informative, some opinion, some casual chit-chat. How does one sort through them all?
Ignatius Insight published an interesting series, beginning with, “Invasion of the Catholic Bloggers,” in which the author discusses the explosion in the Catholic blogging scene. Her follow-up piece, “What do Catholic Bloggers Read?,” asks some of the more well known bloggers to list which blogs they enjoy reading. Miserere.org’s blog isn’t counted among them, but that’s okay. It might not be as informative as Whispers in the Loggia; nor as erudite and entertaining as Andrew Cusack’s blog. But at least it’s not inane chatter ;-)
Below is the series of articles at Ignatius Insight:
- Invasion of the Catholic bloggers
- What do Catholic bloggers read?
- Why blog? Catholic bloggers post their reasons
- The problem with blogs
You may also reference Miserere.org’s list of recommended blogs.
On a related note: If you’re tired of reading blogs, how about listening to them? Check out the Miserere.org guide to podcasts and this comprehensive guide to Catholic podcasts.
Benedict XVI defends marriage
7 February 2006 at 00.16As I, along with several relatives, am approaching marriage this summer, this article from the CWNews caught my eye:
Vatican City, January 30 — Pope Benedict XVI underlined the indissolubility of marriage, and rued the fact that “this truth is so often forgotten,” as he spoke on January 28 to officials of the Roman Rota.
The Holy Father said that couples seeking annulments of their marriages have a right to a reasonable fast response from Church tribunals. However, he stressed that annulments should be granted only when the evidence indicates that a true marriage never took place. The Pope strongly denied that a “pastoral” approach could overlook the requirements of the Church’s legal process.
Traductore traditore: Blowing the whistle on love
5 February 2006 at 23.25
A Latin aphorism, traductore traditore, means that a translator can be a traitor to the real meanng of the text.
For instance, I can translate “the flesh is weak” to mean “the meat has gone bad,” but the literalism ruins the real meaning. “I am blue” can literally mean that lack of oxygen has turned me a blue color [cyanotic < Gr. kyanos ‘blue color’], but it probably means I am feeling glum [or gloomy, or melancholic < Gr. melan ‘black’ + chole ‘bile’]. Recourse to computers for translation can come up with some expressions that are not sinister but only amusing. When the Holy Father in a formal statement regretted the deaths of some Cardinals during the past year, a translation into English had the Pope saying that these Princes of the Church “had kicked the bucket.”
The mint text of a papal encyclical is in Latin. The English translation of the third section of Pope Benedict’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, says that the Church has “blown the whistle” on attempts to separate irreconcilably the earthly (eros) and spiritual (agape) forms of love. But in a sense, the lively vernacularism does convey Catholicism’s bold challenge to the pseudo-spirituality of Calvinists and Gnostics who denigrate the dignity of the flesh in the economy of salvation.
Pope Benedict XVI explained why he chose “love” as a theme for the encyclical:
“Today the word ‘love’ is so tarnished, so spoiled and so abused, that one is almost afraid to pronounce it with one’s lips. And yet it is a primordial word, expression of the primordial reality; we cannot simply abandon it, we must take it up again, purify it and give back to it its original splendor so that it might illuminate our life and lead it on the right path. This awareness led me to choose love as the theme of my first encyclical.
“I wished to express to our time and to our existence somethin of what Dante audaciously recapitulated in his vision. He speaks of his ’sight’ that ‘was enriched’ when looking at it, changing him interiorly. [The textual quotation in English is, “But through the sight, that fortified itself in me by looking, one appearance only to me was ever changing as I changed” (cf. Paradiso XXXIII v112-114).] It is precisely this: that faith might become a vision-comprehension that transforms us.
“I wished to underline the centrality of faith in God, in that God who has assumed a human face and a human heart. Faith is not a theory that one can take up or lay aside. It is something very concrete: It is the criterion that decides our lifestyle. In an age in which hostility and greed have become superpowers, an age in which we witness the abuse of religion to the point of culminating in hatred, neutral rationality on its own is unable to protect us. We are in need of the living God who has loved us unto death.”
See also:
- The Pope’s own Latinist, Cardinal Foster, recounts the process of translating Deus Caritas Est from its first Italian rendering (of the original German text) into Latin [RAM file, requires RealPlayer to play]. Fr. Foster is convinced that ignorance of the Latin language inherited by three quarters of the world is as tragic as deafness in a concert hall — and he’s making sure our listeners are familiar with its sound.
from its first Italian rendering (of the original German text) into Latin [RAM file, requires RealPlayer to play]. Fr. Foster is convinced that ignorance of the Latin language inherited by three quarters of the world is as tragic as deafness in a concert hall — and he’s making sure our listeners are familiar with its sound.
The Compleat Gentleman
Transformation in Christ