News

Yeah really.

As many of you already know Fr. Richard John Neuhaus passed away this morning due to cancer. He was a man of considerable intelligence and the sort of dry wit that I enjoy and the master of the turn of phrase. His Public Square columns in First Things was always a joy to read both for his insights and his mastery of language.

I do find it interesting that it was Fr. George Rutler a former Anglican priest was the one to give last rites to Fr. Neuhaus who was a former Lutheran priest which invokes to me Fr. Neuhaus line about having many ironies in the fire.

John Allen Jr. has a good overview of Fr. Neuhaus’ life.

We can say thank you to Fr. Neuhaus’ life of service by praying for him.

In contrast to the teacher at a Catholic school, here is a Catholic teacher at a public school also suing.

ST. MARYS DEANERY — A fourth grade teacher from the Coldwater Exempted Village School District has filed a federal suit against two teachers’ unions over the fact that her compulsory union fees are used to promote abortion and homosexuality.

Kathy Hart, who is Catholic, has been a teacher in the Ohio public school system since August 1996. Hart sued the state’s largest teacher union for forcing her to pay compulsory union dues that are used to fund union activities that violate her religious faith.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys are providing Hart with free legal aid and filed the suit last month in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division.

The NEA had agreed to allow her dues to go to a charity they mutually agreed on but the Ohio Education Association (OEA) refused to do so.

Hart’s case follows a case involving another Ohio teacher who won a federal district court ruling saying that requiring her to pay dues to the National Education Association is a violation of her First Amendment Rights.

Carol Katter, who is also Catholic, sued to stop being forced to fund the organization because her money would be used to promote abortion. Katter, who is a mathematics and language arts instructor in the St. Mary’s district of Columbus, indicated she was told her dues could go to a charity but OEA officials eventually told her they couldn’t disseminate her dues elsewhere, because she couldn’t prove that her Catholic faith went against her membership in the union.

Quite the legal dodge since the Catholic faith has no problem with the idea of unions, just the cooperation with evil that the dues are going to. I guess Teacher’s unions supporting homosexual acts and abortion is there doing there part to reduce teacher/student ratios in the classroom.

In what is believed to be a first, a father and son, both former Anglican clergy, have been ordained as Catholic priests and are now working for the same archdiocese, Birmingham.

Father Dominic Cosslett, 36, and his father, Father Ron Cosslett, 70, were both ordained by Archbishop Vincent Nichols, pictured above by Peter Jennings. Nichols is the favourite to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor as Archbishop of Westminster when he steps down early next year and the latest ordination of Father Dominic on 20 December shows he is continuing in the tradition of true Catholicity to which the British church has so long been witness.

Father Dominic was formerly an Anglican priest at the Church of Christ the King at Lourdes in Coventry. His father, Father Ron Cosslett, aged 70, also a former Anglican priest, was ordained as a Catholic priest by Nichols 3 July 2005. He is now priest-in-charge harge at St Joseph’s, Darlaston in the West Midlands.

Father Dominic, who is not married, has from a young age felt called to a celibate lifestyle. “Although as an Anglican marriage was open to me the way I live my life is naturally a celibate one,” he told me yesterday. His mother converted five years ago at the same time as his father and his sister and their children followed them over about a year ago.

Father and son concelebrated, celebrating the eucharist at the older Father’s parish, for the first time at Christmas. [article]

The rest of the article has some nice quotes on the journey to Rome. I guess we have to thank Anglicanism for showing the silliness of the three branches theory, though it at least had some surface plausibility before. The new branches theory is that without the Pope as the Vicar of Christ and the magisterium you will keep branching off and branching off forever.

AUCKLAND – The short-lived Tui beer billboards about Christ and Christmas served a purpose, a Catholic Church spokeswoman said.

After protests, Dominion Breweries took down the billboards, which read “This Christmas let’s take a moment to remember Christ – Yeah Right”.

Catholic Communications national director Lyndsay Freer sees how offence could have been taken and said it is “probably not a bad thing” they were taken down. [article]

Remember to drink a brew from Dominion Breweries – Yeah Right.

…the newspaper of the Diocese of L.A. printing an article by an Episcopal priest who dissents from the Church’s teaching on homosexuality?

Having been away from my computer for the last day I have not yet written about the passing of Cardinal Avery Dulles since first learned about it yesterday. Here is a statement by Pope Benedict.

Having learned with sadness of the death of Cardinal Avery Dulles, I offer you my heartfelt condolences, which i ask you kindly to convey to his family, his confreres in the Society of Jesus and the academic community of Fordham university. I join you in commending the late Cardinal’s noble soul to god, the father of mercies, with immense gratitude for the deep learning, serene judgment and unfailing love of the lord and his church which marked his entire priestly ministry and his long years of teaching and theological research. At the same time I pray that his convincing personal testimony to the harmony of faith and reason will continue to bear fruit for the conversion of minds and hearts and the progress of the Gospel for many years to come. To all who mourn him in the hope of the resurrection i cordially impart my apostolic blessing as a pledge of consolation and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am far from any kind of expert on the late Cardinal’s writings. But I have followed him with interest over the years in regards to some articles he has written and his history of apologetics. Earlier this year I did read his book “Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith” which I found to be quite excellent as both a beginning and intermediate discussion of the Magisterium. Besides I loved it since I am a Magisterium fanboy (wonder if those two words have ever been put together?).

I certainly do intend to go through more of his books. I have joked enough about Jesuits, but this great man and theologian will be a Jesuit that will be sorely missed.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley on Cardinal Dulles’ passing.

Fr. Longenecker brings the tradition of the Boy Bishop at his Catholic school.

What could it hurt?

NEW CANEY, Texas, NOV. 20, 2008 (Zenit.org).- St. Thérèse wrote that she wanted to be a missionary on every continent simultaneously and reach the most remote islands — now her dream has extended to space flight.

The Carmelite community of New Caney, Texas, enjoys the friendship of Colonel Ron Garan, who was on the May 31-June 14 Discovery shuttle mission.

Before heading into space, Garan had called the women religious to request their prayer for the voyage, and he told them he could take some small item into space on behalf of the community.

The sisters reported that the words of St. Thérèse came to mind: “I have the vocation of an apostle. I would like to travel over the whole earth to preach your name and to plant your glorious cross on infidel soil. But oh, my beloved, one mission would not be enough for me, I would want to preach the Gospel on all five continents simultaneously and even to the most remote isles. I would be a missionary, not for a few years but from the beginning of creation until the consummation of the ages.”

The Carmelites gave the astronaut a relic of St. Thérèse for his flight.

Now, they report, she has traveled 5,735,643 miles around the earth for 14 days at 17,057 miles an hour. Meanwhile, the sisters commended the world to her intercession.

This is just so cool. The follower of the little way made herself so little that she met the weight allowance for an astronaut to bring along. Hat tip Father Stephanos, O.S.B.