News

Not exactly a surprise that the Holy Father would tap a canon lawyer of Archbishop Burke’s quality as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura the highest judicial authority within the Church – not counting the Pope. He will of course be missed being a true shepherd we have come to know and love. Saint Louis Catholic has some good commentary on this and what he calls the upcoming “unrestrained glee of the so-called progressive crowd who will not be able to contain themselves.”

We will certainly miss how quickly Archbishop Burke responds to scandal as evidenced by a letter he wrote to some women “priests” who were advertising in the Catholic section of the newspaper’s worship section

Both of you know that this is the height of false advertising, the Archbishop writes. The work that you carry out is not part of the Roman Catholic Church. It is in direct and contumacious rebellion against Roman Catholic teaching and practice. You have been excommunicated and have shown yourselves contumacious. You have incurred, automatically, the censure of excommunication because you have broken communion with the Roman Catholic Church…. I instruct you to cease immediately any reference to your activities as Roman Catholic or as constituting a Roman Catholic parish.

One of my readers received this reply from the Archdiocese which is perfect.

Thank you for your message of concern to Archbishop John Niensedt. Since the Archbishop is in Rome this week receiving his pallium from the Holy Father, I took it upon myself to respond to your commentary/inquiry.

In accord with a previous instruction from the Archbishop, I have contacted the associate pastor of Saint Joan of Arc (the pastor is on a leave of absence following the death of his mother) and directed him to remove the objectionable information about GLBT topics and endorsements of adoption by same sex parents. He assured us this will be done. Last week, the Archdiocese directed me to tell this same priest to cancel an announced GLBT prayer service (which had been initiated not by the priest but by a parish staff member.) This also was done.

We apologize that you were scandalized by these violations of Church teaching but assure you that our Archbishop will not permit such infractions to be repeated or to continue.

God Bless,

Dennis B. McGrath
Director of Communications

The U.S. bishops adopted a statement on embryonic stem cell research this morning, the first time the conference has spoken specifically on the issue. It asserts that harvesting embryos for research amounts to “the deliberate killing of innocent human beings,” and is therefore “a gravely immoral act.”

The statement was prepared by the Committee on Pro-Life Activities, led by Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia. Because Rigali wasn’t in attendance, it was presented by Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas.

The bishops warn that embryonic stem cell research is potentially part of a slippery slope toward other dangerous outcomes, including:

• Human cloning
• Putting women’s health at risk in order to obtain eggs for the production of embryos
• Creating human/animal hybrids that blur the boundaries between species, once again in order to get egg cells

“Once we cross the fundamental moral line that prevents us from treating any fellow human being as a mere object of research, there is no stopping point,” the bishops say. “The only moral stance that affirms the human dignity of us all is to reject the first step down this path.”

The bishops add, however, that they are not opposed to scientific progress, endorsing research that relies upon adult tissues and umbilical cord blood.

What John Allen Jr. has said is not exactly right. The bishops did not make a slippery slope argument in their statement or that the three items he listed are only potential. The Bishops statement speaks specifically to the morality of ESCR and makes no statements on what ESCR will lead to except to mention animal/human hybrids.

Human cloning is not a potential part of ESCR it is an essential method to be able to create cells that the persons body won’t reject. Cloning would solve the tissue-match problem

Women’s health is not potentially at risk, it is already at risk everyday as they are encouraged to donate eggs for money or in the case of South Korea were pressured to do so. There was as story just this week of a 22-year old Stanford graduate who agreed to donated her eggs for a fee of $15,000 and ended up spending two months in a coma and is still fighting for her life. There are in fact worse cases where women have died, suffered sever effects, or lost their fertility. Egg donation is a risky procedure and required for the clone and kill technology for ESCR.

We do not need to make slippery slope arguments in regards to ESCR, the exploitation of human life where some persons must die for the sake of others.is already bad enough.

Canon Lawyer Peter Vere covers Fr. Alphonse de Valk, a Basilian priest and pro-life activist known throughout Canada for his orthodoxy who is currently being investigated by the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC).

What was Father de Valk’s alleged ‘hate act’?

Father defended the Church’s teaching on marriage during Canada’s same-sex ‘marriage’ debate, quoting extensively from the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Pope John Paul II’s encyclicals. Each of these documents contains official Catholic teaching. And like millions of other people throughout the world and the ages – many of who are non-Catholics and non-Christians — Father believes that marriage is an exclusive union between a man and a woman.

The response from Mark van Dusen, a media consultant and spokesperson for CHRC, shocked me. I have interviewed van Dusen in the past and he has always struck me as an honest person willing to field tough questions on behalf of the commission. If he feels an accusation against the commission is hogwash, he states so plainly. If he feels the CHRC and its personnel are being unfairly tainted, he states so boldly.

Yet van Dusen did not dismiss the question out-of-hand as I thought he would. “We investigate complaints, Mr. Vere,” he said, “we don’t set public policy or moral standards. We investigate complaints based on the circumstances and the details outlined in the complaint. And …if…upon investigation, deem that there is sufficient evidence, then we may forward the complaint to the tribunal, but the hate is defined in the Human Rights Act under section 13-1.”

In other words, individual Jews, Muslims, Catholics and other Christians who, for reasons of conscience, hold to their faith’s traditional teaching concerning marriage, could very well be guilty of promoting hate in Canada. The same is true of any faith community in Canada that does not embrace this modern redefinition of one of the world’s oldest institutions — a redefinition that even the highly-secularist France rejects.

He also goes on to mention an interesting tidbit in the Mark Steyn trial this week.

Additionally, a message posted to a popular Catholic internet forum has reportedly made its way before the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. The alleged poster, who is an American writing from America, was commenting on an article written by Mark Steyn – a Canadian author who now lives in New Hampshire. The tribunal accepted this posting as evidence that Steyn promoted “hatred”. While the website is never mentioned by name in news reports – referred to only as “a Catholic website” — a source at the tribunal told me, off-the-record, that the website was Catholic Answers.

While the claim is unconfirmed as of this writing, the controversial Mark Steyn article, over which the British Columbia hearing is being held, was posted to the Catholic Answers message forum. Moreoever, popular Jewish-Canadian blogger Ezra Levant, who is blogging live from the hearing, and who is the subject of his own human rights commission complaint, published a description of the unnamed Catholic forum. Several details match, including the screen names of two participants to the Catholic Answers forum discussion of Steyn’s article.

Imagine that! Canada’s human rights tribunals are now attempting to prosecute a case against an American resident, based upon what an American citizen allegedly posted to a mainstream American Catholic website. What passes for mainstream Catholic discussion in America is now the basis for a hate complaint in Canada.

I see this headline “Cardinal Mahony bars Australian bishop with doctrinal …” only to find that the Catholic News Agency site is down.

This obviously refers to Bishop Geoffrey Robinson who was an auxiliary bishop of the Sydney for twenty years. The Australian Catholic Bishop’s conference recently issued a public warning about the doctrinal difficulties in his book. I only hope that this is a trend for Cardinal Mahony to ban dissident speakers. The Cardinal wrote after the Pope’s visit.

I return to Los Angeles a different disciple of Jesus than when I left a week ago. Thank you, Lord, for sending us not only the Vicar of Christ and the Successor of Peter, but also a brother and friend who knows Jesus personally and gave us six extraordinary days of grace and hope!

May my pessimism be drowned in Christian charity.

Update: Unfortunately Bishop Robinson did speak in Washington D.C. last night to Voice of the the “Faithful” an event advertised in a parish bulletin. It would be nice to have a statement by Archbishop Wuerl about this.

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumanntakes the time to respond to the majority of the questions asked of him via the media and other in response to his previous column on Governor Sebelius and asking her not to receive Communion.

Pretty much all of the standard arguments are answered and the Archbishop answers them in a concise way. I love how he has engaged the media. We often hear the term teaching moments and it is nice that one was actually taken advantage of.