Canterbury Tales has a list of the world’s largest Churches. The funny thing is that no megachurches are in the top 30.
Yesterday at Mass after my pastor gave a homily on the readings he then went on to read from parts of the Pope’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est and also preached on the subject. He mentioned the fact that a Pope’s first encyclical is often seen and used as a roadmap for a pontificate. Now I have heard this before and I think it is true as far as it goes, but these first encyclicals also go much further than this. Deus Caritas Est is not just a roadmap for Pope Benedict’s XVI’s pontificate, but it is in fact a roadmap for all of us. As St. Terese said "0 Jesus, my Love, my vocation, at last I have found it … my vocation is Love!" This encyclical is a call to remind us of the dual and synchronous vocation of love of God and neighbor for all of us.
Happy Catholic passed this meme onto me.
What five things would you ask Jesus should you get to Heaven?
OR
Who are the first five people you’d like to see in Heaven?
Well I will go with the questions.
- What did you write in the sand as they were about to stone the woman caught in adultery?
- Did the Molinists or the Thomists get predestination correct or are they both wrong?
- Why do pretty much all sweets have to be so high in calories? Or was this your way of saying "Eat your vegetables?"
- What is the full text of what you talked about on the road to Emmaus?
- Just how much time will I be spending in Purgatory for my blog?
I’ll inlict this on The Digital Hairshirt, The Lady in the Pew, and Minivan Mom.
I wonder if Haleigh Poutre could be held for comtempt of court for refusing to die?
[Via Southern Appeal]
Joseph Bottum reviews some Christmas movies for the First Things blog which includes this review.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966). The Dr. Seuss original, and a classic. The Whos down in Whoville throw a tantrum and toss out their rightful leaders by electing a small lizard (actually a red-spotted eastern newt) named the Grinch (voice by Boris Karloff). Not surprisingly, he tries to steal Christmas from all the poor Whos by shutting down the government in the middle of winter. But watch the heroine, Suzie Boo Hoo, who teaches him the essential rightness of socialist economics. A real tug at the heartstrings. Rating: NC-17 (violence, strong language, nudity.) Two Stars.
Ha! I wasn’t expecting a parody post from First Things.
Greg Krehbiel asks:
If the US Conference of Catholic bishops issued some sort of statement on homosexuality — I’m being intentionally vague on what the statement would be about — for example, let’s say you saw a report that said, “U.S. Bishops Issue Moral Guidance on Homosexuality” — what would you immediately think about the document? Would you think, “This may be helpful,” or would you think, “Oh brother, what kind of idiocy do we have to suffer through now”?
As with Greg I am in the cynical camp when it comes to USCCB documents. Though I think his question can be broadened to include all USCCB documents. They are usually the document form of porridge. You know there is something edible in there somewhere. Often the writings just don’t state Catholic teaching very well. Sure they normally can be read in a perfectly orthodox way, but sometimes you have to be very charitable in interpreting the wording. Of course many of the worst documents never got voted on by the full conference of Bishops, though some people will treat these documents as having more weight than de fidei teaching.
This is the nature of bureaucracies though. They are the opposite of parallel computing. In parallel computing you can connect a bunch of processors together to produce an output that is both faster and just as accurate as if only one processor was involved. With bureaucracies the opposite is true. The more people thrown in to the operation the slower and the less accurate the output. The exception are Church Councils since the Holy Spirit works to override parity errors and ensure the output is correct.
Der Tommissar has a very hypothetical suggestion for the patron saint of bloggers, that is if Pontius Pilate had converted and become a saint. Now I can imagine a modern day Pontius pontificating and saying in reply.
"What I have written, I have written and if you don’t like it get your own blog."
I’m still going with St. Jerome, but Pontius Pilate can be the patron for many blogs where sophistry is common. In fact Pilate would be great as the patron for the MSM. Question the authenticity of forged documents – well what is truth?
InsightScoop links to a video of Fr. Fessio and Fr. Martin on PBS’s News hour. As you would expect Fr. Fessio accurately talks both about the document and Church teaching and Fr. Martin (America Magazine) is less accurate.
What Fr. Martin said was that the document would force seminaries to drop people who are already there. So I guess he is saying that some seminaries knowingly have seminarians who have deep-rooted homosexual tendencies and/or support the homosexual culture since this is what the document actually bars. He also goes on about the good and celibate heterosexual vs. good and celibate "gay" priest comparison and that people are born that way. Fr. Martin then went on to say that the document explicitly related the need for the document to the sexual abuse crisis. Obviously there is a causal link to this document, but the document in no way explicitly or even implicitly make any correlation to the abuse scandal and does not even address the subject at all.
I am sure that there are many like me who were already tired of the reactions to this document way before it even came out. I really wished it hadn’t been published pretty much at the start of Advent, though I guess the typical reactions are pretty penitential. Though the distracters can at least be thankful that it wasn’t published on Feb 21 – The feast day of St. Peter Damian.
I really don’t like the terminology of "homosexual person" used by both this document and the Catechism. I think this wording plays into the whole homosexual orientation where their sexual attraction is almost put on the same level as their personhood. The Catechism does not talk about the adulterous, alcoholic, or the fornicating person. Personhood should not be equated with a fault and especially to a grave disorder. Terminology means something which is why it is problematic when Catholics throw around terms like sexual identity, gay, and orientation. Fr. Martin always used the word gay and talked about orientation, whereas Fr. Fessio used much better terminology.