Parody

Before you can adopt one of the the seven habits, you’ll need to accomplish a "paradigm shift"–a change in perception and interpretation of magisterial fidelity. You need to move away from polyester pantsuits with sensible shoes and a heterodox faith. Stephen R. Convent walks you through how it is that it is obedience to Christ and his Church and not the latest in social engineering or the latest fad created by university professors that make a religious order highly effective. That it is not labyrinths but liturgy, prayer not progressive’s talking points, dying to Christ not dialogue the point of which is to evangelize the Church with the culture instead of the other way around. The 7 habits of Highly Effective Religious takes you through seven case studies of growing religious orders in this time when vocations are suppose to be in decline.

The authors contention is not that the habits in and of themselves that make a religious order grow and to become effective, but the denial of the mind set where progress means dropping anything traditional and embracing anything new. This growing trend of younger people embracing traditional orders and faithfulness to the magisterial have been labeled "young fogeys’ by Fr. Andrew Greeley, but the young fogeys are revitalizing religious orders where less faithful orders are more likely to attract flies than postulants. A effective religious order is not one that is measured by success as termed by the modern world but one that follows Mother Teresa’s "I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness"

Franciscan Friars of the Renewal a new order founded by Fr. Benedict Groeschel and seven other Capuchin friars started in 1987 has been growing by leaps and bounds. This order is dedicated first to the materially poor, but also to the spiritually poor through evangelization. Where social justice is fully embraced and lived out and is not truncated by ignoring abortion. The retro habits and monks with beards makes this one of the seven effective habits.

Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist On August 22nd, 1997 Feast of the Queenship of Mary, the first new candidates were received into the community. Currently the community has 40 young women in formation. These young women come from all over the United States. The postulants and novices study theology, philosophy, scripture, sacred music, Dominican spirituality, and Church history. Faithfulness to Church teaching and a cool habit makes them another one of the seven effective habits of highly effective religious orders.

The Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. This group is just one of the new foundations from Mother Angelica’s order which is busting at the seams.

Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles With a foundation of contemplative prayer fuel their dedication to healthcare and education. To view a group photo of this growing order would probably take an aerial shot to include them all.

The Sisters of Life is a contemplative/ active religious community of women founded in 1991 by John Cardinal O’Connor for the protection and enhancement of the sacredness of every human life. Currently occupying four convents and still growing.

Sister Servants of the Eternal Word are a new order that follows the Rule of St. Francis of Assisi with St. Dominic and St. Francis as their patrons. This order operates a retreat house that has not retreated from the Catholic faith.

Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia Congregation (also known as the Nashville Dominicans). This contemplative community does not have the progressive mission statement found for some Dominican orders but dedicates themselves to do such radical things such as "Love the Church and seek to serve her in fidelity" and "Foster a reverence for the priesthood and the Church’s Magisterium"

These seven case studies for "The 7 habits of Highly Effective Religious" are not an all inclusive list of faithful and growing orders but a cross-section of religious orders that are growing while some of their contemporaries haven’t seen a postulant since the seventies. While they have many different habits they are all grounded in faithfulness s to Christ and his Church.

The book also contains an appendix of the 7 habits of highly ineffective religious orders and what not to wear.

The Benedictine Sisters of Erie. These sisters specialize in heterodox creation-centered spirituality and whose charism is closely related to the Democratic Party. You might know there most famous member Sister Joan Chittister, OSB. It appears that there only consistent religious garb is gray hair and floppy name tags.

This appendix will be greatly useful for historians as these orders become historical footnotes.

So order the "The 7 habits of Highly Effective Religious" now and see where the Church is growing and slowing. If you ask these seven orders about a vocation problem they will tell you that sure there is a vocation problem. "We don’t have enough room for all these postulants!"

From the producers of the hit Trading Worship Spaces comes an all new ecclesial reality series Extreme Makeover: Church Edition. Put together a Church renovated sometime since or during the sixties, a deserving parish, and our team of experts. Our special team consists of Duncan G. Stroik and others of the new wave of classical architects, liturgical experts who actually follow Church documents, artisans in hand embroidered liturgical vestments, and Choir directors specializing in Gregorian chant.

Each episode of Extreme Makeover: Church Edition is self-contained and features a race against the liturgical clock on a project that would normally take months or years to fully achieve. We work with the local ordinary to ensure the parish staff is pulled a way for a week for a retreat while we go to work to totally surprise them in time for the following Sunday’s Vigil Mass. Our team of experts and hundreds of artisans in just six days renovate a Church and its liturgy. From the Nave to the Sacristy we pore over every detail to bring back both beauty to the Church and transcendence to the liturgy.

The lives of the lucky parish are changed forever as they find that there is actually more to liturgical music than modern ditties such as "Here I am Lord" and other its all about me hymns. When they find that texts for parts of the liturgy are not some created off-the-cuff or improvised but are something that unites the whole Church in prayer. Parishioners accustomed to the modern iconoclasm and stripped Churches are shocked by how they respond to beauty and just how conductive it is to both praising and worshiping God in the Mass. Priests are surprised to find that transcendence trumps relevance in both attracting the faithful and helping people to pray.

Our experts can deal with any challenge including a parish prone to extemporaneous liturgies or even a deVosko-ization of a wreckovated parish. No challenge is too much for our experts and artisans to overcome!

The host of Extreme Makeover: Church Edition is Francis Cardinal Arinze. Yes straight to you from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments he’s the perfect prefect and host to introduce you each week to our latest Extreme Makeover and keep our team of experts on track and the liturgy divine! We would say he is the host with the most, but Jesus in the Eucharist fits that bill.

Episode Preview

To give you an example of a sample episode we will give you an actual example of what Extreme Makeover: Church Edition can do in just six days! First hundreds of building contractors and artisans in specialties such as stained glass work around the clock to transform your "worship space" into a place actually conductive to a new worship pace.

Before	After

For you skeptics out there yes this is an actual transformation and reverses the trend where the before picture looked better than the after picture. But we don’t stop there we also worked non-stop to retrain the choir.

Before	After

When the week is almost up and the parish staff returns they are in for a shock! We work with them to condition them to the new surrounding and the concept of beauty. Our crash course on the GIRM and liturgical documents transform their outlook. Some priests are less amendable and so we specially outfit their stoles with wires to shock them whenever they stray from the approved texts and attempt to leave the Sanctuary to shake hands with everybody within 500 feet. We also give them a crash course in homiletics by introducing them to both Patristics and a lifetime subscription to Homiletics and Pastoral Review.

Here is one of our most extreme makeovers!

Before	After

So if you think you have a deserving parish why not submit your parish for an Extreme Makeover since even the Pope is doing it. So enter now and you never know – your parish could be on Extreme Makeover: Church Edition.

Disclaimer: Not responsible for liturgists who go into a state of shock mumbling "Where’s my copy of Environment and Art in Catholic Worship" or people surprised to actually find the tabernacle in the center of the Church. Some people may need additional training who have had their tastes ruined by years of Marty Haugen and David Haas to accustom them to the fact that sacred music does not need to be sappy. Though we will provide them with a set of CD’s to help to gradually wean them off of standard OCP/GIA fare.

* If you are a member of Sacred Heart Catherdral in Rochester, New York we have already recieved thousands of requests. Extreme Makeover: Church Edition works fully with the local ordinary and will not procede without permission which is unlikely to occur in this case.

NEW YORK CITY (Roto Reuters) Due to a recent controversy with the New York Times ombudsman Barney Calame the executive editor and the publisher have decided on adding a new position. At the beginning of the year Bryon Calame wrote a column in the NYT on what he perceived as stonewalling.

"THE New York Times’s explanation of its decision to report, after what it said was a one-year delay, that the National Security Agency is eavesdropping domestically without court-approved warrants was woefully inadequate. And I have had unusual difficulty getting a better explanation for readers, despite the paper’s repeated pledges of greater transparency."

"For the first time since I became public editor, the executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my requests for information about news-related decision-making. My queries concerned the timing of the exclusive Dec. 16 article about President Bush’s secret decision in the months after 9/11 to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in the United States."

"I e-mailed a list of 28 questions to Bill Keller, the executive editor, on Dec. 19, three days after the article appeared. He promptly declined to respond to them. I then sent the same questions to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, who also declined to respond. They held out no hope for a fuller explanation in the future."

"Despite this stonewalling, my objectives today are to assess the flawed handling of the original explanation of the article’s path into print, and to offer a few thoughts on some factors that could have affected the timing of the article. My intention is to do so with special care, because my 40-plus years of newspapering leave me keenly aware that some of the toughest calls an editor can face are involved here – those related to intelligence gathering, election-time investigative articles and protection of sources. On these matters, reasonable disagreements can abound inside the newsroom."

Due to the communication problems between the executive editor and the publisher and their ombudsman they have decided on creating a new position of a ombudsman’s ombudsman. The ombudsman’s ombudsman will investigate complains and mediate a fair settlement between the ombudsman and editors and publishers when difficulties arise. The position of ombudsman’s ombudsman has not currently been staffed, but will be staffed in the near future to alleviate perceived communication problems.

Tim Harrison at myCatholic.com sent me a parody suggestion that I hope I was able to do justice to. So without further adieu: WikiCatechism.

Update: Link fixed – was going to a blank page. The parody also now works in both Firefox and IE. It is rather strange to have to worry about cross-browser support for a parody.

Here is my annual post to dishonor Planned Parenthood and and their Choice on Earth Holiday Card. This is one instance where I am glad they didn’t use the word Christmas.

See the Spero News story on their card.

Update: For those who asked about last years card:

Have you ever wanted to be the life of the party? Did you ever want to attack your boss and at the same time receive a reward for doing so? Did you ever think there would be a product to facilitate all of this? We know it sounds implausible but we guarantee you will get results.

Our product the DanielTech Holographic Writing Projector is based on historical research and the writings of the Prophet Daniel. King Belshazzar of Babylon throwing a party sees a disembodied fingers of a human hand appear and write on the wall of the royal palace and promises to reward the person who can interpret it. Daniel steps ups and tells the king that he has been found wanting and that his kingdom would be given to the Medes and Persians. So after insulting the king he gets dressed in purple, given a gold chain and named a third ruler of the kingdom.

Our DanielTech Holographic Writing Projector allows you to do the same. Simply placed the projector in a hidden location in the room and use the supplied remote control to project the holographic image of a disembodied hand writing words on the wall. Choose from popular options like displaying unintelligible words like MENE, MENE, TEKEL, and PARSIN or Zoso from Led Zeppelin’s fourth album. Or even more confusing phrases such as your company’s mission or vision statement.

After displaying the message watch the CEO promise to increase the companies share in the persons 401K plan (promising being clothed in purple has fallen on hard times) who interprets the writing — simply step up and give your interpretation. You can then say our your CEO or CFO has been found wanting by the shareholders and that the company will be acquired by the competitors in a hostile takeover just as Daniel did.

If you receive any treasure we recommend that you cash them out immediately just in case your CEO doesn’t die the same night the way that King Belshazzar did. We have a feeling the king might have had second thoughts the next day for not only promoting Daniel but giving him gold after the hangover wore off and he realized he had been severely dissed.

So order our product now just in time for your companies Christmas party or other event.

* cross-posted at Spero News.

Now if there truly was a product like this or an organization giving this sort of information to teens you would think there would be an outcry. Unfortunately this is not the case. Dawn Eden sent me this link to an article on Planned Parenthood’s TeenWire on "safer sex." Instead we have an organization heavily funded by taxpayer dollars giving extremely immoral advice to teenagers. There was an outcry because Joe Camel was too cartoon like and must have been aimed at kids. Yet Planned Parenthood can cater to kids to ensure both current and present business. Get them sexually active early and there will be more of a chance that they will want an abortion. They recently got a sweet deal on Plan B by the drug manufacture to ensure that there profits will be maximized.

Life dynamics ran a sting operation on numerous PP clinics where the caller posed as a 13 year old and found that hat 91% of these businesses don’t comply with child abuse reporting laws

Girl: "It’s just we don’t want a whole lot of people to know about us. Would he have to sign anything?"
Planned Parenthood: "yeah, but I just…don’t, don’t talk about his age."

Planned Parenthood: "When you go to Norwich, you’re going to want to give them a call. Don’t tell them that information."
Girl: "then it will be okay?"
Planned Parenthood: "If you do not say the age of your partner."
Girl: "okay."
Planned Parenthood: "Okay, otherwise there’s going to be a lot of stuff going on that you’re probably not going to want to have happen."

Girl: "They won’t ask anything about him?"
Planned Parenthood: "I’m not going to…I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, okay?"
Girl: "okay."
Planned Parenthood: "don’t even bring that up, okay."
Girl: "even if he’s taking me there?"
Planned Parenthood: "no, no, don’t even go there, don’t even bring it up."

Why in the world is the government still supporting Planned Parenthood with tax payer funded child abuse?

I rarely go to the mall since the stores there are almost always the type that bore me. Endless rows of store after stores selling mainly nothing but clothes and shoes is purgatory to me. There is even a mall in my town that doesn’t even have bookstore within it – oh the horror! Though now it seems that just walking around is a near occasion of sin. The displays in clothing stores have moved into rated R and above territory. There have been reports of the infamous lingerie store that even placed some mannequin in basically sexual positions. Complaints to the store about this not being appropriate are meet with reply letters that basically said we are sorry for offending you but too bad. Why so people support these stores considering that it is risque business?

Of course the choice of clothes that people wear while walking around the mall is not that much more modest. Even worse are the clothes some choose to go to Mass with. I constantly amazes me how either someone can wear the most revealing clothes to Mass or to wear something that would not be out of place just lounging around recreationally. It seems every Sunday is casual Sunday or dress down Sunday. Judging by the clothes available at the mall maybe it is just the lack of appropriate selection. Instead of just ranting I have come across a business idea that I am hoping to take nationwide to help address this need.

Yes Victorian Secrets! Where parts of your body are actually secret.

It is appropriate though to bring up one of the Old Oligarch’s posts on modesty.

Surely some indoctrinated woman will parrot the feminist come-back to my position: "What’s next? The burqa?" But the real perspective is this: The burqa and the bikini are polar extremes of the same fundamental error. Both styles of clothing deny the human dignity of the wearer. Virtue is a mean between the extremes. The modest woman, the woman with self-respect, wears neither the ostentatious bikini nor the humiliating burqa. Both the bikini and the burqa deny our Christian belief in the equal spiritual dignity of man and woman. Both manners of dress encourage onlookers to view the woman as subordinate to men in one way or another.

The burqa denies the Christian belief in the equal spiritual dignity of a woman because it obscures her face, which is the gateway to the heart and to the mind. A woman in a burqa is not permitted to publicly manifest the visible features most proper to her nature as a rational and emotive being — features which are the most proper to her as a human being. (Aristotle, for example, says that no animal has a prosopon, lit., a countenance, but only a man or a woman.)

The bikini likewise denies her equal spiritual dignity because it places primary emphasis on her body, and in such a way that it encourages others to objectify her body as a sexual plaything, not as a temple of Holy Spirit or as a magnificent creature of goodly design. Yes, I really mean a plaything. How so? Everyone who wants to, gets to enjoy it, regardless of their number, often in public, with no more personal involvement than the private satisfaction of one’s own frivolous desire. That’s a plaything. Indeed, some playthings are more jealously guarded.

Now that Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination it is certainly time to pray for President Bush as he selects the next nomination. This has been unfortunately a sad chapter both for Harriet Miers and the Republican base. As Verity at Southern Appeal said:

I am happy, in fact joyful, that Miers withdrew, but not because "we won," or "forced Bush’s hand," but because she was not a proven originalist and I feared her on the court. [Source]

The upside though is that I can go back to thoroughly enjoying listening to Hugh Hewitt again without having to hear the Miers apologia. In one way Hugh was right. He said that Harriet Miers was loyal and would never have accepted the nomination if she thought that her opinions would hurt Bush’s legacy. She obviously saw that her nomination was hurting both the party and the President and withdrew.

St. Thomas More please intercede for us.

There has been much talk lately on how to foster vocations to both the priestly and religious life. It is no secret that in the last forty years that the numbers of religious and priests have diminished (at least in Western cultures) and many suggestions have been made to remedy this situation. No this post won’t be another one on married clergy as a answer, especially with the Synod and the Pope again dismissing this, but something much more disturbing. Some of the images in this post make shock you. I also guarantee that not one of them has been manipulated through any image processing such as Photoshop and that every picture used are ones that I have uncovered in recent months.

A group of otherwise orthodox Catholics have resorted to a very unorthodox solution. Documents I have uncovered seem to point to the following scriptural passage as being the impetus for some very unethical scientific research. "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." These scientists working in the basement of a monastery have been working with human-plant hybrids using DNA and angiosperms seeds (flowering plants) to create POD (Plant Overly Devotional) humans to supply literally a new breed of candidates to the religious life. They have taken the harvest metaphor too literally and thus have created a forbidden fruit. These POD people are plucked full grown and ready to take vows. Now this report might sound over-the-top and in this case seeing is believing.

Yes this is an actual picture of a Dominican nun growing outside in plain view. Notice her affinity for her sister plant as she holds hands-leafs with one of her genetic siblings. Now you might have thought that perhaps it was Franciscans who were behind this inspired by The Canticle of Brother Son "Thou be praised, my Lord, for our sister, mother earth,
who sustains us and governs, and produces various fruits with colored flowers and green plants." But no unfortunately in this case it is the usually clear thinking Dominicans who brought us the superb scientist the St. Albert the Great

Here is another example of their genetic hi jinks as you see a nun fruit or Nuntarines is almost ready for harvesting as it hangs from the Nuntree. Again they have misinterpreted the scriptural passage "every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

Not all of their attempts have been totally successful. Some earlier tries resulted in abnormal side effects such as enlarged pink hands. These early plant-human hybrids are not normally seen except for at events like World Youth Day where their defect can more easily blend in.

This early attempt at growing a priest ran into problems when a fully grown spine did not develop. Now if we had a shortage of Bishops they might have gone ahead with this genetic line.

Most oft the POD people after being created in the laboratory are raised in tub of special fertilizer which turns out to be Father Dom’s Duck Doo. Yes this is a real fertilizer where all profits are used for charity and unfortunately in this case is used for this unethical research.

Here is another attempt where alternate rows of shrubs and nuns are gown.

Now some might think that it is about time that science answers the call of the vocation problem. But I must remind you that the POD humans are intrinsically evil since the unitive and procreative significance of the marital act is separated and the child is not the fruit of the sexual union but rather of a technological process. The child has a right to be the fruit of the marital act of the love between his parents and not the fruit of a tree or a bush. The Catechism says.

2376 Techniques that entail the dissociaation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization infringe the child’s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses’ right to become a father and a mother only through each other.

And I bet this includes creating plant-human hybrids. Though we must not unfairly disparage those POD people who through no fault of their own were brought into the world unethically. We must stop this outrageous practice now and pray to one of the patron saints of gardeners like St. Rose of Lima (not beans) to intercede for us. There are also the deep theological questions of whether they have human or plant souls and whether they require salvation or pruning. The important question though is how many of these POD people have been created and how can we identify them. Do they cross themselves as they pass a salad bar? Have more heterodox scientists created their own versions based on the genetic code from Tares. After all we have many that spread seeds of dissent and whose fruit is less than wholesome. Is this something that is just happening at a few convents and monasteries or is it more widespread? I’ll stop this speculation and will leave you with possibly the most shocking photo.

Is the Pope holding something for aspersion or has he had an outbreak of foliage. I report you decide.

Which reminds me why is hyssop instead of the more fitting asparagus used for aspersion? After all we don’t want anybody accidentally throwing a hyssop fit.