Punditry

Sometimes bad reporting on the Catholic Church is just plain funny for being so bad.

And nowhere is the full impact of the Knights of Columbus’ efforts felt than in the fight against awarding same-sex couples marriage rights.

In what turned out to be the largest total contribution from a single organization, $1.4 million of the Yes on 8 campaign’s coffers came from the tax-exempt Knights of Columbus, based in New Haven, Connecticut. The Catholic Church operates its legislative efforts through the little understood entity, of which nearly all Catholic bishops and priests are members.

Whaaat? “The Catholic Church operates its legislative efforts through the little understood entity”? I guess there is a red phone for the special line between the Pope and the Supreme Knight to discuss their strategies for legislative efforts.

Obscure Catholic group
On its Web site the group proclaims itself as “the strong right arm of the Catholic Church.”

To LGBT activist Jerry Sloan, the group is “an obscure and uniquely tax-exempt insurance company acting under the guise of a fraternal order.”

Rather, one IRS qualifier for the tax-exempt code states, “membership must be limited.” Like the priesthood, the Knights of Columbus membership is restricted to Catholic men. (Oh No! But rather ironic criticism from a male homosexual activist) Among those men are “almost every, if not all, bishops and most priests,” explained Korten.

I don’t know the percentage of Bishops/Priests are part of the KoC, but this sounds like hyperbole.

Diogenes responds to those defending the parish worker fired by Bishop Morlino. The parish worker whose thesis called for women priest.

1. Kolpack’s contention that she was not allowed to defend herself is refuted by her claim that Morlino was prepared to let her keep her job if she professed Catholic doctrine. That’s to say, if she was falsely accused of heterodoxy, she could have cleared things up to everybody’s satisfaction by a profession of faith.

2. Kolpack’s “accusers” are likely to be CCD students who came home from her classes with ideas distressing to their parents. Does she really think those eleven or twelve-year-olds should be brought in to confront her?

3. Morlino is obliquely criticized for using Kolpack’s Master’s thesis as a gauge of her convictions. But Kolpack denied the accusations of heterodoxy. Well, child-abusing priests characteristically deny the accusations of abuse. So should a bishop throw up his hands, call it a stalemate, and go home? No, he looks further for impartial testimony. In this case, Morlino was able to refer to an objective and undeniable record of Kolpack’s opinions: her own writing.

4. Morlino has a doctorate in moral theology from Rome’s Gregorian University. While he might well have asked Kolpack to recant her thesis, he would not have asked her to “denounce” it (which is subliterate) or to “refute” it (which is absurd).

5. Kolpack claims that a recantation would put at risk “her reputation as a scholar and academician.” What reputation? A Google search draws a total blank. The fact that she calls herself an academician rather than an academic (which is what she meant) proves that she is neither. There’s nothing wrong with that, but as a motive for her refusal to renounce heresy it’s far-fetched to the point of disingenuousness.

Tonight The Simpson’s had Lisa enter a convent to get Maggie back in a parody of the Da Vinci Code. The back history was St. Teresa of Avia on her deathbed talking about some gem that was to be found.

The Da Vinci Code has plenty to parody, though the Simpson episode didn’t really tap that rich vein. Instead a rather stupid plot was persued where her nuns went to the new world to seek a gem from a vision and then running into Masons also seeking it. Episode wasn’t really anti-Catholic – just stupid and I am not sure why they picked on St. Teresa of Avila. Bad enough that they couldn’t even get the color of the Carmelite habit, but history-wise they had her death a the time of the founding of the U.S. which didn’t happen to well over a hundred years later. Though then again it was just a Simpson episode.

The Anchoress posts at the First Things blog about Sr. Sandra M. Schneiders and what she had previously written in an email that got published in regards to the recently announced apostolic visitation of women’s communities in America.

I saw this yesterday at the National Catholic Reporter and Sr. Schneiders email quite irked me, though I figured it would be good not to post on it while “irked.”

I am not inclined to get into too much of a panic about this investigation–which is what it is . . . I do not put any credence at all in the claim that this is friendly, transparent, aimed to be helpful, etc. It is a hostile move and the conclusions are already in. It is meant to be intimidating. But I think if we believe in what we are doing (and I definitely do) we just have to be peacefully about our business, which is announcing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, fostering the Reign of God in this world. We cannot, of course, keep them from investigating. But we can receive them, politely and kindly, for what they are, uninvited guests who should be received in the parlor, not given the run of the house. When people ask questions they shouldn’t ask, the questions should be answered accordingly.

So read what The Anchoress has to say on this first since she puts it quite well. But to give a taste:

Sister and her associates seem to have birthed a form of Religious Life that no longer receives “everyone as Christ” but parcels out the hospitality like upper-crust dames who will nod at the social climbers (and even condescend to having them to tea, if it will dispense with an obligation) but who will have the place fumigated once the undeserving have finally been shown the door. Sounds like she’ll count the teaspoons, too.

Can you hear the obedience and humility from the tone of this letter. If you can you have much better hearing than myself. I do wonder what are the questions they shouldn’t ask. My guess would be “Don’t ask us about faithfulness to the Magisterium.” Though I do have to remind myself not to think of these communities as whole blocks because there are faithful Catholics living in these communities where what has happened has been a major cross for them.

I remember when I first read the sisters piece I had quite a good laugh at the following.

I have come to the conclusion that Congregations like ours [the kind represented by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in this country] have, in fact, birthed a new form of Religious Life.

Yes a form of Religious Life that does not reproduce itself (thankfully). Progressives have sometimes been called mules because of the fact that there way of life is quite sterile and attracts so few vocations to their way of religious life. When religious life becomes just social work then why take vows? just become a social worker. Blessed Mother Teresa quite disliked when people thought of her work with the poor as just social work.

Well, that’s where I am on this. I refuse to go into a panic over it. There are better things to do. Always glad to hear from any of you on any of this.

What an attitude to take concerning an Apostolic Visitation. Guilty conscience? Surely they realize they have become hotbeds of dissent. If the Democratic Party has monastic life it would be identical to most of these communities. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say if the U.N. had monastic communities since their websites always have links to the U.N. and almost never to the Vatican and I am not just being snide here.

Jesus said “By their fruits you will know them.” Dissent and shrinking communities has been the fruit. They have been pavers of good intentions. That being said, we should pray for Mother Clare Millea, who is leading the visitation project and for the religious communities. I have to admit that when I first read of the apostolic visitation of women’s communities in America I was thinking “Smack down!”, which is not the right attitude for a follower of Christ. So I will go with “Thy will be done” in regards to the visitation instead.

Diogenes has some good questions in response to a Newsweek/Washington Post article by Aloysious Mowe, SJ calling the Church’s theology and discipline sexist and misogynist.

Here’s what I don’t understand. An agnostic or atheist or radical libertarian treats the Church’s claims with skepticism because he has declared himself immune from her authority. Fine. On its own terms that makes sense. But how can a Catholic — and still more a Catholic priest — make use of this skepticism? More to the point: having picked up the tool of skepticism to undercut doctrine A and doctrine B, how does he put it down again to accept as valid doctrines C through Z? If I claim the Church is wrong about, say, the sacrament of Orders — whereas the common opinion of my own social class in my own time has it right — how can I know the Church is a reliable teacher regarding those doctrines I cherish, such as the duty of charity, or the universal destination of goods, or the Resurrection? How can I know these doctrines won’t themselves be exposed as frauds twenty years from now? How can I acquit myself of that self-serving arbitariness I impute to the apostles and the Church fathers?

I have often wondered the same thing. They dig out the foundation of the Catholic faith and then want to stand on empty air proclaiming themselves Catholics. If the Church can get foundational things wrong then only a fool would follow her. The only reason to be Catholic is because it is true – that’s it. I just don’t understand what their ecclesiology can possibly mean other than just being a form of Catholic tribalism. If I believed what they believed of the Church I would denounce the Church as evil and would want no part of it. The Protestant so-called Reformers were at least honest in realizing their theology of the Church was quite at odds with the Church.

Mrs Blair also revealed that every time she did not use contraception, “I seemed to have a baby” in a discussion about the Church’s attitude to birth control and abortion.

She said: “How could I have done all the things I have done if I hadn’t used contraception?”

Yeah, how could she have raised money for Planned Parenthood and all of her other efforts for the culture of death if she didn’t use contraception? We are not wonderfully made you know after all. God didn’t include a fertility off/off switch on our foreheads. Gee didn’t our creator know about careers? You can read all throughout scripture where people brag about careers and not their children. Raising up children for the Kingdom of Heaven just does not compare to a career. All of those executives when they get older lament that they did not spend more time at work instead of their family. Carl Olson has a nice quip to add

Indeed, how could she go about telling people what the Church must do to survive and grow if she hadn’t been busy ignoring the teachings of the same Church? Whatever the intentions, the logic is sterile, although apparently not purposely so.

Cherie Blair also managed to express some other silliness.

The Catholic Church is losing congregations by alienating women and failing to give them a public role, Cherie Blair said last night.

Church leaders must modernise the role of women in order to halt the decline in church attendance, she said. Mrs Blair, herself a Catholic, said: “One of the fundamental weaknesses of modern Christianity is its ambivalence to women, and particularly for Catholicism.

“Until the traditional churches fully resolve their relationship with the female half of the population, how can they expect Christianity to have a future in the modern world?

“Traditionally, it was women who passed religion on to their children and who kept the Church going through good times and bad, but when it comes to the public face of Christianity, women are virtually invisible.

You have to wonder if she has ever been to daily Mass or attended any groups meeting in a church where women are the large majority of people involved. There have been plenty of articles out there complaining about the lack of men being involved in a parish – but for Mrs. Blair facts don’t matter when it comes to feminist gripes. I guess Blessed Mother Teresa was not part of the “public face of Christianity” or the fact that Catholic churches are filled with the examples of great women saints. I guess she must of got tired of saying all those “Hail Joseph’s” – oh wait.

According to Cardinal Mahony

According to the calendar, Ash Wednesday occurs this week and we begin another Lent.

Except for this year.

Lent actually began in 2007 for many thousands of families all across the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and we have been in a long and protracted season of Lent ever since. In what sense? The annual Lenten season calls us to reflect more deeply into our lives with God, to re-order our personal priorities according to the Gospel, and to live out increased personal sacrifice in our daily living.

Now no doubt for many families the downturn of the economy has lead to sacrifice and part of the Cardinal Message is to take that suffering and to unite it with Christ. Bishop Fulton Sheen said “the biggest waste in the world is wasted suffering” and that is certainly true. Though if we are going to mark the start of Lent as when suffering began I say Lent for L.A. started in 1985 when he was appointed Cardinal. He had a birthday yesterday so for L.A. Lent will only be another 2 years. Now that is pretty snarky for Lent or for anytime of the year really, but considering the state of the seminary and the lack of authentic Catholic teaching in the diocese I think appropriate.

Vasectomy has always been an unpopular operation in the dacoit-infested Chambal district of Madhya Pradesh, but it enjoyed a brief surge in popularity last year.
More than 250 men put their private parts under the surgeon’s knife through 2008; this, in a place where the male sterilisation figure had never reached double figures in the past 20 years.

They had an incentive: the government, in the form of Shivpuri District Collector Manish Shrivastava, had promised them an arms licence each if they underwent the operation. They did so in family planning camps where forms for gun licences were made available.

The jokes almost write themselves. Funny that they would allow themselves to be disarmed for guns. That they are willing to shoot blanks. These men weren’t a cut above, in fact got cut below. Though there is a vas deferens between this plan and others.

Bhupendra, a Shivpuri resident and affected party, says, “I underwent vasectomy for the gun licence but the collector is reneging on his promise.” Lalit Gupta, another disgruntled sufferer, says, “I underwent the operation only for the gun licence. The announcement appears to have been a trick.” He wanted the licence because he often has to travel to dangerous places, he says.

Adding insult to injury. “I got a vasectomy and didn’t even get a lousy t-shirt.”

“Those who underwent the operation are mounting pressure on me for arms licences. What can I do? Ninety per cent of the people visiting the camps got operated for gun licences only,” says a Health department employee, requesting anonymity.

He says no one is ready to come to family planning camps any more. Moreover, “people are calling us cheats”, he says.

Vatican City, Feb 18, 2009 / 10:18 am (CNA).- House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s photo-op with Pope Benedict XVI turned sour when the Pontiff used the 15-minute meeting to reaffirm the teachings of the Catholic Church on the right to life and the duty to protect the unborn.

No photo of Nancy Pelosi and the Pope will be forthcoming, since the meeting was closed to reporters and photographers. The two met in a small room in the Vatican just after the Pope’s weekly public audience.

Immediately after the meeting, the Holy See’s press office released a statement saying, “following the general audience the Holy Father briefly greeted Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, together with her entourage.”

“His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in co-operation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.”

A significant number of Catholic and pro-life organizations expressed concern over how Pelosi would use the meeting with Pope Benedict to further her position that it is possible to be Catholic and pro-abortion.

Last August, Pelosi was rebuked by several U.S. bishops for attempting to theologically justify her position during an interview with “Meet the Press.”

On Tuesday, Jon O’Brien, president of “Catholics for Choice,” a small, well-funded organization that provides theological arguments to pro-abortion Catholic politicians, told The Hill that today’s visit between the Speaker and Pope Benedict would be an opportunity to highlight that one can be pro-choice and Catholic, and that there are much bigger issues out there to discuss, such as the fate of the poor in the global economic downturn.

“That would be a real conversation about choice, instead of this micro-obsession with abortion,” O’Brien said.

Nevertheless, according to the Holy See’s statement, the Pope spent the whole 15 minute conversation talking with Pelosi about the right to life and the need to defend the unborn.

A spokesman for Pelosi, who is now headed to Southern Italy as part of her Italian tour, said she would issue a statement later in the day regarding her meeting with the Pope.

I already love Pope Benedict XVI, but this makes me add a double scoop of loving on top. I best Nancy Pelosi felt just as comfortable as the Clintons did at the prayer breakfast with Blessed Mother Teresa when she firmly reminded them about life.

In related news it turns out that Nancy Pelosi finally met with her archbishop on the 8th of Feb. It would give me great joy if she does turn towards protecting life – though I am not holding my breath in the main time.

The meeting with the Pope was closed to reporters. But inside sources tell me that the Speaker of the House’s expression was much like this.

Via Catholic Minority Report

With one statement a Catholic priest has tarnished both the Catholic Church and the United Nations. Pretty amazing, huh?

Fr. Miguel D’Escoto, a Catholic priest who was born in America but later joined the communist Sandanistas in Niceragua, is now the current president of the UN General Assembly. Yesterday, D’Escoto called Fidel Castro “the closest thing we have to a saint.”
In case you might think I’m taking this out of context, here’s what he said yesterday at the UN, according to The Real Cuba: “I’m still in debt – and I think all of humanity is – with Fidel Castro, who has dedicated all his life to support and promote solidarity with all the oppressed people of the world. More than a hero, Fidel is the closest thing that we have to a saint in this troubled world.”

Now, according to “The Black Book of Communism,” Castro is responsible for the firing squad murder of at least 14,000 people, tyrannical oppression, and torture.

D’Escoto, whose senior advisers are Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, has not been excoriated publicly for these comments at all as far as I can see.

I can’t help but compare the dramatic reactions our cultural elite have had to Bishop Williamson’s outrageous denying of the Holocaust to their non-reaction to a priest who is head of the U.N. General Assembly who is not only ignoring the actions of a murderous regime but in fact praising the leader of that regime. And not only is he calling Castro ‘a swell guy’ like every celebrity who goes over there but D’Escoto is calling him a saint that we are indebted to.

Will there be calls for him to step down from the U.N., be excommunicated from the Church, travel to Cuba on a listening tour? Well, let’s just say I haven’t heard anything yet.

Well maybe within U.N. General Assembly UN General Assembly, Fidel Castro is “the closest thing we have to a saint.” Seriously though, or as seriously I can take such a profoundly stupid statement, it is amazing how many murderous dictators and their murderous assistants get praised by those on the left. I guess maybe it is just me, but I doubt the Diocese of Havana will be petitioning the Vatican five years after Castro death for sainthood. Though maybe they will declare the first miracle of converting his murderous henchmen Che to a darling of the left with his iconic presence. Che has become Veronica’s veil for the left.