News

This year we have three – count em- three Catholic awards going on at the same time.

The Catholic Blog Awards this year is now the Catholic New Media Awards and compasses Blogs, Podcasts, and Catholic web sites. Nomination will be taken during the month of May. The categories have been streamlined. The addition of podcasts to the awards this year brings the awards up a notch. Some Catholic podcasts have done quite well and even won in the secular podcast awards. I listen to plenty of Catholic podcasts and there is a lot of talent out there.

One of the problems with blog awards in general is that pretty much the sites with the heaviest traffic are the same one that are going to win their category. The more readers you have of course make it more likely that will win. The problem is that the same people pretty much dominate the same categories year after year. Though the fact that all the nominees are listed also gives attention to plenty of other fine blogs that people might not be aware of. The purpose of the various awards is not to stroke egos, but to bring to attention Catholic media and hopefully introduce people to much of the fine work being done in new media.

That being said the 2nd year of the Cannonball Awards is now in the voting phase. This award pokes a bit of fun at the main Catholic awards, but also introduces people to blogs they might not be familiar with to a higher extent. Great categories and great blogs. Vote (and view nominations) by clicking on the categories in the sidebar.

Another set of awards also in its 2nd year is the Eastern Christian New Media Awards. Too often the Eastern rites of the Church are forgotten. They are currently taking nominations and voting will start in June.

We do get so much bad news out of Notre Dame, especially out of the administration. It is a good reminder to remember that all is not lost at Notre Dame in any way despite Fr. Jenkins. Here is a wonderful photo essay of the 5th year of the Eucharistic Procession at Notre Dame.

“Cardinal Paul Newman” … “pre-empted many of the modernising reforms of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s.”

FAIL

One of the photos shows Karol Wojtyla, then the archbishop of Krakow, wearing a T-shirt, shorts and a red bandana scarf. An enormous fish is lying at his feet. Another photo depicts Wojtyla having a meal in front of his tent.

The photos were taken during a summer trip that the future pope took with his friends from the university. They slept in tents, went kayaking, fishing, contemplated nature and discussed such issues as love, responsibility and morality.

Andrea Tornielli, an expert on Vatican told Il Giornale that till now the existence of the photos was kept secret and they have never been publicly displayed till now. Soon the unknown photos of John Paul II will be published in a book on marriied life written by Wojtyla in 1968. [reference]

Make you nominations for the 2009 Cannonball Awards. This is the 2nd year of the Crescat awards and as always we get hilarious awards sections and an effort to honor the lesser known bloggers such as the category “BEST BLOG BY A RELIGIOUS WHOSE NOT FR.Z”

Thomas at American Papist was exactly right yesterday when he said that Bishop Carlson would be announced today as the new Archbishop of St. Louis.

St. Louis Catholic has some details on the Bishop and will be doing more analysis later.

American Papist has a couple of posts on the subject and no doubt will be providing more coverage especially with the press conference occurring latter on this morning.

The nicely revamped Archdiocese of Saint Louis website also has good information and you can follow the Archdiocese on Twitter.

Like Archbishop Burke who he succeeds he is also a canon lawyer and not a Bishop afraid to speak out about pro-abortion Catholic politicians. All evidence points to the fact that the people of St. Louis have got themselves another solid bishop.

In most news reports, Mother Teresa seemed like such a nice, quiet holy woman.
But as any reporter who actually interviewed her quickly learned, Calcutta’s “saint of the gutters” could be remarkably blunt. She once noted — in a half-serious jest — that she would rather bathe a leper than meet the press.

“Mother was not known for the ambiguity of her feelings,” noted Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver at a recent gathering of journalists at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. “A lot of people in the church, especially those who practice their faith in an active and regular manner, would agree with what she meant — because they feel the same way.”

The archbishop stressed that he does not feel that way, especially when working with journalists who have acquired the knowledge and skills needed to do accurate, critical coverage of religion. However, he is convinced that many religious believers simply do not appreciate the vital role that journalists are supposed to play in public life.

Though the religion beat journalist who match that criteria are few are fare between. Though Terry Mattingly who did this column is one of the bright examples for how it should be done.

“Journalism is a vocation, not a job,” said Chaput. “Pursued properly, journalism should enjoy the same dignity as the law or medicine because the service that journalists perform is equally important to a healthy society. I really believe that. You form people. You form the way they think and the way they live their lives. So journalists have a duty to serve the truth and the common good.”

When it comes to journalism, Chaput knows the good news and the bad news.

The bad news, he said, is that far too many journalists who cover religion events have no idea what they are doing. They may be talented and intelligent, but when it comes to religion they just don’t get it.

“I don’t expect journalists who track the church to agree with everything she teaches. But I do think reporters should have a working knowledge of her traditions and teachings,” he said. “I do think editors should have the basic Catholic vocabulary needed to grasp what we’re talking about and why we’re talking about it.”

Consider, for example, the media storms surrounding discussions of Holy Communion and the sacramental status of Catholic politicians who disagree with church doctrines on abortion, marriage and other issues. In his book “Render Unto Caesar,” Chaput argued that it’s the “political duty” of Catholics to “know their faith and to think and act like faithful Catholics all the time” — even those who work inside the Washington Beltway.

Alas, the journalists think they are writing about the rights of politicians, while some Catholic bishops want to discuss the salvation and, yes, damnation of souls. If journalists insist on describing this conflict in strictly political terms, he said, there is no way the public will ever understand what is happening.

“No one ever has a right to the Eucharist, and the vanity or hurt feelings of an individual Catholic governor or senator or even vice president does not take priority over the faith of the believing community,” said Chaput.

Thus, while journalists are under “no obligation to believe what the church teaches … they certainly do have the obligation to understand, respect and accurately recount how she understands herself, and especially how she teaches and why she teaches” these doctrines.

Too often, said the archbishop, inaccurate news reports about this controversy have left the impression that “access to Holy Communion … is like having bar privileges at the Elks Club.”[reference]

Members of the Teresian Carmelites monastery were having difficulties supporting themselves financially and the Diocese of Worchester withdrew support saying they were too small to sustain themselves and to grow.

That’s when one of what Brother Dennis Wyrzykowski calls “God-incidences” connected them with a medical school professor, whose work included patented research into a compound in the human heart that has been found to also fight wrinkles.

With the professor’s blessing, the religious community recently started selling a high-end skin cream online based on the compound.

Its three consecrated members and approximately 30 lay members hope it’s the answer to their prayers, not just to keep the community afloat financially, but to prove its viability to the diocese and fund programs for homeless and disadvantaged people throughout the region.

“My first thought was, ‘What are people going to think about nuns and monks making cream for your face?’ ‘ Sister Nancy Connors said. “But it’s a good product, I use it every day and I believe it will help people.”

The $65-per-tube face cream, called Easeamine, is a far cry from the more traditional offerings that some monasteries sell, such as homemade jam and cheeses. After the Carmelites pay off their launch costs, the profits will be used for grants to Worcester-area agencies serving poor and homeless people, and to support the tiny religious community which has existed on donations since it was founded in 1971.

“I did worry initially about offering a so-called beauty product, but monks and nuns have always had a long tradition of making health care products and food products,” said Brother Solomon Balban, one of two consecrated monks in the independent religious community who live at the monastery in the Worcester suburb of Millbury in central Massachusetts. [reference]

Well St. Teresa of Avila was suppose to have said “From silly devotions and from sour-faced saints, good Lord, deliver us.” So maybe less wrinkled-faced saints could be included – though I doubt Blessed Mother Teresa would agree.

On another level though there is something just plain wrong about Carmelites selling high-end anti-wrinkle cream. Though I can imagine an appropriate motto for Easeamine “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

But then again St. Paul did write in Ephesian in regards to husbands taking care of their wives ” that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Their is a link on their web site to buy the cream from Carmel Laboratories, LLC. So those that want the cream can also say that they are helping the poor by doing so! Plus at $65 a tube it is less than many on the market.

I once wrote a parody post about a moisturizer for spiritual dryness.

Not sure what to make of this. Holy Spirits wine which includes Our Lady of Mt. Carmel’s Riesling Wine, St. Nick’s Merlot Wine, and St. Rocco’s Cabernet Sauvignon. Well at least they don’t have a Matt Talbot wine.

Quite a while back I did a story about Fr. Domenic J. Roscioli and his selling of fertilizer to raise money for charity and a product with the actual name of “Father Dom’s Duck Doo Compost. The products now come under the name “Father Dom’s Doo Good”

The fertilizer I can understand, just really don’t like the name Holy Spirits for the wine even as much as I love puns. It was Fr. Dom who emailed me about this in the first place.

Via Mark Shea, English writer, biographer, and novels novelist A. N. Wilson tells his story of loss of faith, skepticism, and return to belief.

Like most educated people in Britain and Northern Europe (I was born in 1950), I have grown up in a culture that is overwhelmingly secular and anti-religious. The universities, broadcasters and media generally are not merely non-religious, they are positively anti.

To my shame, I believe it was this that made me lose faith and heart in my youth. It felt so uncool to be religious. With the mentality of a child in the playground, I felt at some visceral level that being religious was unsexy, like having spots or wearing specs.