Cardinal Timothy Dolan goes over “A few bloopers” in regards to how Catholics see the Holy Father and what the Pope can actually do.
Wow either spam is getting really content specific or I got a interesting email from the Library of Congress.
To Whom It May Concern:
The United States Library of Congress has selected your website for inclusion in the Library’s historic collection of Internet materials related to the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. We consider your website to be an important part of this collection and the historical record.
The Library of Congress preserves the Nation’s cultural artifacts and provides enduring access to them. The Library’s traditional functions, acquiring, cataloging, preserving and serving collection materials of historical importance to the Congress and the American people to foster education and scholarship, extend to digital materials, including websites.
The following URL has been selected:
www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester
…
Thank you.
Web Archiving Team
webcapture@loc.govhttp://www.loc.gov/webarchiving/
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C. 20540
Via Brandon Vogt:
Our world is swirling with new media. Facebook has over a billion users. Each minute YouTube adds 70 hours of video. And every day we send six billion text messages.For most Catholics this is both exciting and terrifying. We know this technology is powerful. And we know that we should be using it. But much of the Church is simply afraid to dive in. They’re wary of the dangers they don’t know where to start, and they don’t know how to move forward.That’s why Matt Warner, Josh Simmons, and I created the Digital Church Conference, a one-day guide to the digital continent. Through several talks, interactive demos, and panel discussions, we teach people everything they need to know, from perfecting their website, to building social networks, to evangelizing online.Our just-released video trailer will give you a little taste:Next week, we’re putting on our third Digital Church Conference, this time for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. But we’d love to take it to every diocese in the country, including your own. The Church badly needs help in this area of extraordinary potential.So can you please help spread the word? Pass the Digital Church Conference website onto your pastor, parish staff, diocese, communication director, or bishop. Share the video on Facebook, Twitter, or your blog. We’d also love to do a guest post or interview on your website. We’d be grateful for any help you can give.Website – DigitalChurchConference.comVideo Trailer – http://bvogt.us/WjV7BoThanks so much! Grace and peace!
The next Catholic archbishop of Portland comes with a Twitter account, a Facebook page and the relatively youthful perspective of a person born in 1960. At 52, the youngest prelate to be named an archbishop in the United States, the Most Rev. Alexander K. Sample says he’s ready for the challenge of an unchurched state.
At a press conference Tuesday, Sample, who has been bishop of Marquette, Mich., for seven years, said some people see Oregon as a tough place to be Catholic.“I see it as fertile ground to plant the seeds of a new evangelization,” he said. The facts that Catholics account for about 14 percent of Oregonians and that almost 24 percent of the state’s population don’t identify as members of a particular church don’t discourage him.
“I want to connect those who are longing in their hearts for spirituality with the one whom I believe is an answer to that longing, Jesus Christ.”
Sample also promised to speak out on moral issues addressed by Catholic Church teaching.
“I won’t look for reasons to grandstand,” he said, “but when something has to be said, I’ll say it.” (Source)
Growing up in Portland I would say he certainly has a challenge where even the churches can be unchurched. Although my experience with “progressive” Catholicism there jaundiced my view. Although Holy Rosary in Portland is quite an amazing parish.
My advice to the good bishop is to start watching episodes of Portlandia to prepare himself. I only say this half-jokingly.
Via Father Z
‘Sisters for Obama’ ( Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images / January 13, 2013 ) A pin with a nun on it is seen at the official Presidential Inaugural Committee’s gift shop in Washington, D.C.
Funny how they selected a young nun in a habit to represent “Sisters for Obama.” The majority of women religious who support President Obama wouldn’t be caught dead in a habit and skew towards a much older demographic. Maybe a more accurate depiction would have been confused with the “AARP for Obama” buttons.
Plus what is up with that Obama logo on the buttons? It looks like a sea of blood which of course would be highly appropriate.
A Connecticut priest was part of a cross-country drug ring that smuggled crystal meth from California into the well-heeled hamlets of Fairfield County, federal prosecutors said.
Monsignor Kevin Wallin, a former pastor of St. Augustine Parish in Bridgeport, sold meth to undercover narcs six times since September 2012, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.
The 61-year-old former church leader and four others were indicted by a grand jury on six counts of possession with intent to distribute. (Via The Deacon’s Bench)
Not the direction I envisioned things in my Breaking Bad parody.
Award-winning Catholic journalist and author Tim Drake has been named Senior Editor and Director of News Operations for The Cardinal Newman Society, charged with the important task of informing Catholic families and clergy about news and trends in Catholic education. He will begin January 23.
“Catholic families have a right to authentic, faithful Catholic education, and for 20 years The Cardinal Newman Society has worked to give them the information they need,” said Cardinal Newman Society President Patrick J. Reilly. “I can’t think of a single person who is better qualified and prepared to improve and expand our operations than Tim Drake. We are thrilled to have him on our team.” (Source)
When he announced the other day he was leaving the National Catholic Register I was wondering where he was going. I think this is pretty good news and he certainly makes a great fit for them. Tim Drake was one of the early Catholic bloggers (CatholicPundit 2002) and I have admired his balanced work with the National Catholic Register and other media.
BEIJING — Chinese leaders issued an order last year quietly directing universities to root out foreigners suspected of plotting against the Communist Party by converting students to Christianity.
The 16-page notice — obtained this month by a U.S.-based Christian group — uses language from the cold war era to depict a conspiracy by “overseas hostile forces” to infiltrate Chinese campuses under the guise of academic exchanges while their real intent is to use religion in “westernizing and dividing China.”
The document suggests that despite small signs of religious tolerance in recent decades, China’s ruling officials retain strong suspicion of religion as a tool of the West and a threat to the party’s authoritarian rule. And with the country’s top leadership in transition and looking to consolidate power, Chinese religious leaders worry that the stance is unlikely to change in the near future. [source]
No surprise here and over the last year we have seen the same kind of attitude displayed with China and Vatican relations with China taking more control of even the patriotic churches to keep them firmly under government control.
So glad to be living in a country with religious freedom. Well at least more religious freedom than China — for now.
Today Leah Libresco was received into the Catholic Church and received baptism, confirmation, and holy communion. I am so happy for her.
Denver, Colo., Nov 3, 2012 / 12:02 pm (CNA).- A group of lay Catholics in Colorado is placing a full-page ad in the Sunday edition of the Denver Post to drive home the importance of religious freedom in the upcoming election.
“I think the folks who organized getting the ad together want to ensure everybody understands what’s at stake not only for the Church, but for the country, when religious liberty is compromised,” said J.D. Flynn, chancellor of the Denver archdiocese.
The full-page ad, which will run in the Sunday, Nov. 4 edition of The Denver Post, will feature the full text of the Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila’s Nov. 1 letter on religious freedom and the election.
Flynn said that purchasing the ad in the Sunday edition, which reaches 964,000 readers, “isn’t cheap,” but the fact that over 20 Denver-area Catholics committed to fund it shows that they “support the archbishop in his public ministry.”
“I just think it speaks to the quality and commitment of the lay people in the Archdiocese of Denver that they want to support the archbishop in this way,” he commented.
Flynn said he hopes this advertisement will highlight the importance of protecting religious liberty in the Nov. 6 presidential election.
“Our country is the product of religious liberty,” Flynn stated. “When we undermine that for something as short-sighted as free contraception, everybody is in serious trouble.
“I just hope people are hearing that.”
The idea for the advertisement was the result of a group of lay Catholics asking how they could support the archbishop in his efforts to uphold religious liberty.
“I think there are a lot of people who don’t appreciate the significance of the election for the Church’s activity in this country, and also the significance of this election for Catholics in this country,” Flynn said.
In his letter, Archbishop Aquila emphasized religious freedom as a foundational American value.
“Our founding fathers understood that without these freedoms, especially religious liberty, our democratic experiment would fail,” he wrote.
However, religious liberty faces “an unprecedented threat” from the Health and Human Services mandate, which “undermines the promise of the First Amendment,” Archbishop Aquila said.
The Obama administration’s contraception mandate requires employers to provide health insurance plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their beliefs.
It has drawn nearly 40 lawsuits by more than 110 plaintiffs since its announcement earlier this year.
“No one should ever be forced to choose between integrity and charity, or to violate their conscience in business,” the archbishop said.
[Source]