Michael Voris: Burying the Church 07-06
Published July 7, 2010 | 
When will leaders of the Church stop helping the Church’s enemies dig our grave?
This program is from RealCatholicTV.com
- Burying the Church 07-06
- Only Catholics in Heaven! 07-05
- Knowledge For Free! 07-02
- Chickens Roosting 07-01
- False Ecumenism 06-30
Clericalism
Published July 7, 2010 | Mark Ryland, July 7th, 2010, Catholic Exchange
A few years back, Russell Shaw wrote a terrific book called To Hunt, To Shoot, To Entertain: Clericalism and the Catholic Laity. It took its title from an amazing remark by a 19th-century English monsignor who loftily declared, “What is the province of the laity? To hunt, to shoot, to entertain. These matters they understand, but to meddle with ecclesiastical matters they have no right at all.”
John Henry Cardinal Newman disagreed, pointing out that during the Arian crisis, it was the laity who kept the Faith while the majority of bishops vacillated, caved to heresy, or were silent during the 60 years of the crisis. That doesn’t mean that the Church operates on the principle vox populi, vox Dei. But it does mean that clericalism ought to be avoided.
Clericalism is basically the bad idea that only the ordained and religious are fully Catholic and that laypeople are more or less second-class. With that idea comes a host of other bad ideas, such as “Father is always right,” “Never disagree if a bishop does it,” and “Don’t question anything a priest or bishop does.”
It’s this conception of the ordained office as a place of power that gave us the scandal of priestly abuse and episcopal cover-up of same. Priests like John Geoghan used their office to dominate and abuse kids. Bishops, many of them thorough-going clericalists as well, saw their office as a place of power and, when that power was threatened by the Heaven-heard cries of victims, attacked the victims and protected the power. And mysteriously, many parents, police, and prosecutors — laity all — let them because they somehow had become convinced that the mere fact of ordination trumped the natural law which says you should protect a child from a rapist and call the cops.
Americans are incorrigible about dividing everything up into “conservative” and “liberal” tribalisms. The standard media template of “Plucky Rebel Liberal Alliance v. Evil Conservative Hierarchical Empire” lends itself easily to such simplicities. Some would have us believe that “conservatives,” being “poor, uneducated and easily led,” are suckers for clericalism while “progressives” question authority and prize open discussion of the issues. And, admittedly, reputed conservatives, both lay and ordained, have done their part to sustain that template. One thinks, for instance, of the sensitive pastoral approach of the quite orthodox Archbishop Elden Curtiss to laypeople like Frank Ayers and Jeanne Bast, an 80-year-old mother of eleven and retired Catholic grade-school teacher from west Omaha, who wrote letters to the Omaha World-Herald regarding Curtiss’s decision to assign a priest who had viewed Internet child pornography to St. Gerald parish in Ralston, after publicly criticizing his decision to reassign a priest who had viewed Internet child pornography.
“You should be ashamed of yourself!” the archbishop wrote to Bast. Likewise, Ayers was informed by Curtiss that he was “a disgrace to the church.” For maximum humiliation, the letters were carbon copied to the writers’ pastors and both writers were commanded to say one “Hail Mary” prayer for him as penance. Unfortunately, for Archbishop Curtiss, he picked the moment when the priest abuse scandal was breaking all over the United States in the spring of 2002 to pursue this singularly ill-advised effort at shutting down perfectly legitimate lay input on the clergy’s catastrophic failure. When it comes to matters of the common good, lay people have more input to offer than pay, pray, and obey, and he ought really to have listened to these good people and not simply assumed that ordination conferred on him the right to tell people not to point out the bleedin’ obvious. Not surprisingly, such moments give many people the impression that “conservative company man” vs. “brave liberal reformer” explains everything.
An Equal-Opportunity Problem
Real life is nonetheless more complex than simple conservative-vs.-liberal cartoons. Clericalism cuts across such neat categories ruthlessly. Yes, it was a “conservative” cardinal who rightly resigned in Boston. But it was a “liberal” bishop in Phoenix who—two weeks after cutting a deal with the prosecution to avoid indictment on obstruction charges for protecting child-molesting priests—killed a man with his car and somehow got the impression that his first duty was to hide the evidence from the cops who were looking for him. Continue reading
LifeNews.com Headlines July 7, 2010
Published July 7, 2010 | JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY WON’T RETIRE UNTIL BARACK OBAMA NO LONGER PRESIDENT
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – Justice Anthony Kennedy apparently has told close friends he will not retire from the Supreme Court until pro-abortion Barack Obama is no longer president. Although Kennedy is not supportive of overturning Roe v. Wade, pro-life advocates hope to replace him with a justice who will reverse it.
POLLSTER: 10-13 SENATE RACES WILL DECIDE CONTROL OF SENATE AFTER 2010 ELECTIONS
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – A prominent pollster has released his analysis of the 2010 election landscape as far as the U.S. Senate is concerned and he says 10-13 races will decide whether Democrats or Republicans have control over the chamber. Scott Rasmussen says GOP candidates need almost a full sweep to have control.
PRO-LIFE WOMEN’S GROUP SBA LIST MAKES MORE 2010 ELECTION ENDORSEMENTS
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – The Susan B. Anthony List has released another round of endorsements of candidates in 2010 primary and general elections. The national pro-life political action committee says the women are adding to what is becoming the “year of the pro-life women” adding to primary election victories in other states.
SAVING ALEX: MAINSTREAM MEDIA IGNORES SUCCESS OF ADULT STEM CELL TREATMENTS
by Marie Vitale
Unfortunately, the mainstream media largely ignore the phenomenal successes of adult stem cell research, focusing instead on the literal dead-end represented by embryonic stem cell research. As the Coalition states, ”If the goal is to put patients, not patents, first, and provide near term benefits but at lesser long term profits, then adult stem cells are, from a therapeutic perspective, clearly preferable.”
NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER MISLEADS READERS ON EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH
by Jack Smith
Bill Tammeus has written a column over at NCR titled “It’s easy to be misled on stem cell research,” and he proves the point pretty well himself. It’s hard to tell though whether he’s misled or intending to mislead. At any rate, certainly his editors know he’s factually incorrect. Tammeus is a Presbyterian who is concerned that the Catholic church has an imprecise understanding of Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) or cloning as it is known throughout the entire world except for the Greater Kansas City media market.
KENYA DOCTORS, ATTORNEYS WORK TO STOP PRO-ABORTION PROVISIONS IN CONSTITUTION
Nairobi, Kenya (LifeNews.com) – A group of doctors and attorneys in Kenya have filed suit in court to get the provisions in the draft Constitution that promote abortion removed. Kenyans head to the polls next month to vote on the constitution and pro-life and church groups are forced to oppose it because it would allow unlimited abortions.
SPAIN PRO-LIFE ADVOCATES UPSET NEW ABORTION LAW GOING INTO EFFECT NOW
Madrid, Spain (LifeNews.com) – Spanish pro-life advocates are upset that a new law went into effect Monday that expands abortions and provides no parental consent for teenagers wanting abortions. Under the law, abortions are allowed for any reason to 14 weeks, and up to 22 weeks if an abortion practitioner certifies a serious threat to the health of the mother, or says the unborn child is disabled.
PRO-LIFE FREEDOM RIDES FEATURING, BLACK, CATHOLIC LEADERS JUST WEEKS AWAY
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – Organizers of the Pro-Life Freedom Rides are weeks away from what they hope will be an event that can draw African-Americans into the pro-life movement and shift the culture towards life. Drawing on the freedom rides of the civil rights era, the new rides focus on legal protection for unborn children.
Founder’s Quote Daily
Published July 7, 2010 | 
“And as to the Cares, they are chiefly what attend the bringing up of Children; and I would ask any Man who has experienced it, if they are not the most delightful Cares in the World; and if from that Particular alone, he does not find the Bliss of a double State much greater, instead of being less than he expected.”
—Benjamin Franklin, Reply to a Piece of Advice
GOSPEL & MEDITATION: Choosing an Apostle
Published July 7, 2010 | July 7, 2010
Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Father Jeffrey Bowker, LC
Matthew 10:1-7
Jesus summoned his 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the Twelve Apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”
Introductory Prayer: Lord, I bring myself into your presence knowing the zeal of your heart for souls. The glory of your heavenly Father can shape my own heart. I am confident that, just as the Twelve lit the flame of their love for their mission from the furnace of your divine love, I can ignite all that is lukewarm and tepid in my own soul today. I desire to fulfill more perfectly the mission you have given me.
Petition: Lord, grant me the grace to be generous and trustful concerning your plan for me.
1. Jesus Needs Apostles A condition for the Kingdom to grow is that it have protagonists. Christ refuses to be a one-man show. We honor and bow before the divine choice expressed in Christ’s desire to let his victory be realized through others, beginning with the Twelve. In the Twelve we find the model of every call of Christ to build his Kingdom, to spread the faith by word and deed. If there is no response to his call, there is no Kingdom. Have I meditated on my call often? Do I see it linked to my family and to my workplace? Have I responded to it?
2. The Calling Many were on the mountain that day. Many were drawn to him and longed to be close to him, but only 12 received the explicit call to be Apostles. The sense of predilection is in every vocation and every mission from God. What we are chosen for in life, no one else can fulfill it. We are called by name, meaning that Christ knows us well when he calls, including all our defects and weaknesses. He did not ask the Twelve for their preferences, look at their SAT scores, or scrutinize their résumés. The choice of God, revealed in prayer, is sovereign and omnipotent in action. The Twelve cannot think there has been some mistake or some miscalculation. The voice of God, who neither deceives nor can be deceived, is speaking.
3. A Free Response Christ called freely, and in freedom the Twelve responded. He did not bring down angels from heaven to overwhelm them to cooperate, he merely prayed to the Father. As Lord of the harvest, he has called each one of us. Our vocation as an apostle, is not a question of our wanting to be one. It is not a question of our talents or compelling feelings for this or that, but of our faith-driven awareness of God asking and our responding. Why are we where we are now in our vocation in life? In our particular marriage? In a particular lay movement? We can never know fully, for only God knows the depths of his own wisdom. This is the first mystery of the Kingdom that touches each one of us personally: God called, he willed it, and we said “yes.” This is the only answer an apostle must seek. Anything else slows down the mission and interrupts the dialogue of love and service to the mission.
Conversation with Christ: Lord, I want to affirm that all my work today is going to be my response to your call to be your disciple and a light to others in this world. I resolve never to doubt the special and perfect nature of your plan for me. May my heart always be confident and generous in responding to your voice.
Resolution: I will take the hardest part of my day and embrace it with greater joy out of love for the one who has called me.
http://www.regnumchristi.org/english/articulos/articulo.phtml?se=363&ca=975&te=735&id=20302
TODAY’S SAINT: BLESSED MARIA ROMERO MENESES
Published July 7, 2010 | CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY, JULY 07, 2010
Blessed Maria Romero Meneses is a saint of the new millennium. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2002.
She was born in Granada, Nicaragua, in 1902 to a wealthy family; her father was a government minister. At the age of 12, she was extremely sick and paralyzed for six months with rheumatic fever. She was cured by the intercession and apparition of Our Lady Help of Christians, during which she understood her vocation to be a Salesian sister.
She entered the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (Salesian Sisters) and made her final profession in 1929. Two years later, she was transferred to San Jose, Costa Rica. She taught music, drawing and typing to rich girls. She also trained catechists and trades to the poor. She inspired many of her students to join her in her work with the poor and was known for helping people come to know God in a personal way.
More and more, her ministry became focused on social development, helping the rich to see how they could help the poor. She set up recreational centers in 1945, food distribution centers in1953, a school for poor girls in 1961, and a clinic in 1966. In 1973, she organized the construction of seven homes, which became the foundation of the village Centro San Jose, a community where poor families could have decent homes.
She died of a heart attack in 1977 in Nicaragua.
Kagan’s Comedy Is News?
By L. Brent Bozell, Catholic Exchange, July 7, 2010
The shallow and promotional TV coverage of Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings illustrated once again how the shamelessly ABC, CBS, and NBC shape the political Play-Doh they offer to the American people as “news.”
First, there was the amount of coverage.Let’s put it this way: “coverage” is the wrong word. Entire days of hearings, filled with tough exchanges with Republicans on issues like the military, “gay marriage,” and abortion were swept under the rug. Instead, the one talking point every viewer was supposed to remember was this: Kagan is funny! She is really, really funny!
At one point in the hearings, they discussed the Obama administration’s very unfunny failure to stop the Christmas Day bomber from almost blowing up a plane as it landed in Detroit. That somehow turned into a joke about Kagan’s Jewishness. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has seemed desperate to ingratiate himself with Obama’s nominees, set Kagan up to joke that she probably spent Christmas at a Chinese restaurant.
If Kagan were trying out for the TV show “Last Comic Standing,” that would seem like a very stale old joke. But the networks were looking for anything in these hearings that (a) wouldn’t bore their dumbest viewer and (b) made Kagan look good. So The Joke was the top story.
The fawning was out of control.The networks audaciously boasted that Kagan was so funny that “Saturday Night Live” could not do her justice. On ABC’s “Good Morning America” on June 30, news anchor Juju Chang hailed Kagan’s “lively sense of humor” and then asked co-hosts George Stephanopoulos and Elizabeth Vargas “Who is going to play her in the SNL skit?” Vargas replied: “I don’t think they could be as funny as Elena Kagan was!”
On July 2, CBS’s “The Early Show” was still touting the comedy gold. Co-host Harry Smith noted “She was downright funny.” Ana Marie Cox, a former Air America radio host and writer for GQ magazine, called it “a Saturday Night Live skit made live,” whatever that means. She thought it was made more perfect that former SNL writer and Sen. Al Franken is on the Judiciary Committee. Liberal radio host Jane Pratt completed the support circle: “Her joke was good, the Chinese food joke was good.”
But, they had no interest in substance that might underline just how radical Kagan’s positions might be. The networks almost completely ignored Kagan’s key role in the Clinton White House efforts to promote the monstrous act of partial-birth abortion. CNSNews.com reported that in 1996, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) sent the Clinton White House a proposed draft statement on partial-birth abortion that declared a panel they convened “could identify no circumstances” under which this skull-puncturing and skull-vacuuming procedure would be “the only option” to save a woman’s life or preserve her health.”
On December 13, 1996, Kagan wrote this language would be a “disaster” if released publicly, since it clearly contradicted what President Clinton had claimed. Kagan wrote to ACOG’s associate director of government relations with suggested prose the medical group could use. Partial-birth abortion, she claimed “may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman.” Weeks later, ACOG’s public statement carried those exact words from the White House.
Three years later, Justice Stephen Breyer repeated those same words in declaring Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion ban unconstitutional.
Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee said that armed with these documents, “it appears that Kagan was perhaps the key strategist in blocking enactment of the partial-birth abortion ban act.” He believes that Kagan had “her hands on this from the beginning to the end.”A scandal? A controversy? A story?Only CBS legal reporter Jan Crawford came anywhere close on the “CBS Evening News.” She played a snippet of Sen. Orrin Hatch pressing Kagan to admit the notes to ACOG were in her handwriting, but the CBS viewer saw just seconds of this exchange with zero context what these two people were discussing — other than the generic topic of abortion. The grisly specifics were omitted.
This example only underlines how anyone who wants to follow weighty issues of public policy, including Supreme Court jurisprudence, should never rely on network television. These networks gave much more time and loving care to England’s Prince Harry falling off a horse on a visit to New York. That is the intellectual depth the public should expect from the airheaded TV “news” elite — at least when Democrats are the ones changing the Supreme Court for the next two or three decades.