What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

I am contemplating the rapid expansion of big government while I drink tea… upon which I did not pay a tax.

The expansion of spending is so massive that it will probably be impossible walk back the systemic changes which will be the inevitable result (which may be the whole point). 

Then the new global religion of environmentalism will be fused into the mix: to save the economy we have to save the environment.

The religious/environmental dimension will bring on board the rest of the world’s economic leftists.

From LifeSite.  My emphases and comments:

Exclusive: President of US Bishops Conference: Notre Dame Obama Invite an "Extreme Embarassment"

By Kathleen Gilbert

NOTRE DAME, Indiana, March 31, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Speaking as the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, this weekend Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said that the University of Notre Dame’s decision to host and honor President Obama at their commencement ceremony this year was an "extreme embarrassment" to Catholics.  [But Eminenza! Eminenza! That’s not very nuanced!]

"Whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn’t understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation," George told the crowd at a conference Saturday on the Vatican document Dignitas Personae. The conference was hosted by the Chicago archdiocese’s Respect Life office and Office for Evangelization at the Marriott O’Hare hotel.

In a video obtained by LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) today, Cardinal George prefaced his remarks by noting that as USCCB president he does not have jurisdiction or authority over other bishops, but nonetheless has "some moral authority, without any kind of jurisdiction or any sort of real authority."

"As president of the U.S. bishops’ conference I have to precisely speak for the bishops and not in my own name, as I could as Archbishop of Chicago," he added.

George said he had spoken with the administrative committee of the bishops’ conference and corresponded with University president Fr. John Jenkins several times on the issue.

"That conversation will continue …. whether or not it will have some kind of consequence that will bring, I think, the University of Notre Dame to its [the USCCB’s] understanding of what it means to be Catholic," said the Cardinal.  "That is, when you’re Catholic, everything you do changes the life of everybody else who calls himself a personal Catholic – it’s a network of relationships.   [Exactly.  Which is why when pro-abortion Catholic politicians blow off the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of life and then go up to receive Holy Communion... everyone is hurt.]

"So quite apart from the president’s own positions, which are well known, the problem is in that you have a Catholic university – the flagship Catholic university – do something that brought extreme embarrassment to many, many people who are Catholic," said the cardinal.

"So whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn’t understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation, and didn’t anticipate the kind of uproar that would be consequent to the decision, at least not to the extent that it has happened," said George. [That is because the tide has turned.]

The Cardinal urged concerned Catholics "to do what you are supposed to be doing: to call, to email, to write letters, to express what’s in your heart about this: the embarrassment, the difficulties."  [Okay… I will.]

However, Cardinal George emphasized that the U.S. presidency "is an office that deserves some respect, no matter who is holding it," and said that Notre Dame would not disinvite the president, since "you just don’t do that (disinvite the president of the United States)." According to the cardinal requests to revoke the invitation would fall on deaf ears, but he also observed that there is legitimate potential to organize some form of protest at the ceremony. ["legitimate"]

"You have to sit back and get past the immediate moral outrage and say, ‘Now what’s the best thing to do in these circumstances?’" said the Cardinal.   [So long as the protests are not vulgar or violent.]

"I can assure you the bishops are doing that." [!]

Cardinal George is the ninth U.S. bishop to speak out against the scandal.

I am still waiting for my Bugatti Veyron from those award things.

But in the meantime, can I have one of these?

I’m just askin’

Behold the Chevy 789.

This car was built by N2A motors (No Two Alike). The company is planning a production run of about 100 vehicles.

It sits on a Corvette C6 chassis. The front is styled like a ‘57 Chevy, the side like a ‘58, rear like a ‘59 (a good year).

Cost is just $40,000 over cost of new Corvette C6.

I think I would much rather have this.

From Freedom’s Lighthouse, Laura Ingraham explains the situation about the Notre Dame invitation to the crew of Fox & Friends.

From a reader:

Please offer up a prayer for us in Fargo ND.  We are all doing our best to avoid a catastrophe from the flood hitting our city.  National Weather Service just revised crest predictions by another foot to 41 feet and a day later, Saturday.    We have never had it so high in recorded history, this includes the 97 flood which made national news…many are worried that it will be difficult for the earthen and sandbag dikes to hold very long at these levels.

I remember that ‘97 flood.  A parishioner who is a pilot took me up in a small plane and we flew over the whole area… water with roof tops sticking out as far as you could see.  Devastation.

It sounds as if the pastors of the area and their assistant bishops, the bishops and religious priests of the region should get out their Rituale Romanum and use the Benedictio contra inundationes aquarum.... NOW.

Benedictio contra inundationes aquarum	Blessing of a community against floods
Sacerdos indutus superpelliceo et stola, populo concomitante, portet ad rivum vel flumen benedicendum Reliquiam sanctae Crucis, ibique in quatuor partibus legat devote initia quatuor Evangeliorum, et post singular Evangelia subjungat sequentes Versiculos et Orationem:	The priest, vested in surplice and stole, accompanied by the people, carries the relic of the True Cross to the river or stream, and there devoutly reads at each of four different spots of the introductions to the four Gospels.  After each Gospel he adds the following verses and prayers:
V. Adjuva nos, Deus, salutaris noster. R. Et propter gloriam nominis tui libera nos. V. Salvos fac servos tuos. R. Deus meus, sperantes in te. V. Domine, non secundum peccata nostra facias nobis. R. Neque secondum iniquitates nostras retribuas nobis.	V. Stand by us, O God, our Helper. R. And for thy name’s sake deliver us. V. Preserve thy servants. R. Who trust in thee, my God. V. Deal not with us, Lord, according to our sins. R. And take not vengeance on us because of our misdeeds.
V. Mitte nobis, Domine, auxilium de sancto. R. Et de Sion tuére nos. V. Domine, exaudi orationem meam. R. Et clamor meus ad te veniat. V. Dominus vobiscum. R. Et cum spiritu tuo.	V. Send us help, O Lord, from thy holy place. R. And from Sion watch over us. V. O Lord, hear our prayer. R. And let my cry come unto thee. V. The Lord be with you. R. And with thy spirit.
Oremus. Deus, qui justificas impium, et non vis mortem peccatoris: majestatem tuam suppliciter deprecamur;  ut famulos tuos de tua misericordia confidentes, ab aquarum periculis, caelesti protegas benignus auxilio, et assidua protectione conserves: ut tibi jugiter famulentur, nullisque tentationibus a te separentur.  Per Christum Dominum nostrum.  R. Amen. Et benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris, et Filii + et Spiritus Sancti, descendat super has aquas, easque coerceat.  R. Amen.	Let us pray. O God, Who dealest justly with the wicked, and dost not will the death of sinners, humbly we entreat they Majesty!  Protect with heavenly aid thy trusting servants from perils of flood, and keep them constantly under thy heavenly protection.  May they at all times serve thee, and never through any temptation be separated from thee.  Through Christ our Lord.  R. Amen. And may the blessing of God almighty, Father, Son, + and Holy Spirit descend upon these waters, and keep them under control.  R. Amen.

From The Romanum Ritual: In Latin and English With Rubrics and Plainchant Notation. Translated and Edited With Introduction and Notes by Philip T. Weller.  Volume III: The Blessings.  Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1946, pp. 161-3.

 

From First Things.  Biretta tip to my friend Fr. GM    o{]:¬)

My emphases and comments.

Newman and Notre Dame

By Joseph Bottum
Tuesday, March 31, 2009, 12:10 PM

Fr. George Rutler’s 1995 book Crisis of Saints has just been republished, which is a good thing. Missing from the new edition, however, seems to be the chapter “Newman and Land O’Lakes,” [I have been mentioning the Land O’ Lakes Statement and its connection with Notre Dame.] about the condition of Catholic education. As we contemplate the self-satisfied responses of Notre Dame to the objections about its commencement speaker, perhaps this passage from the chapter deserves remembering:

As early as the Tamworth Reading Room letters, Newman was certain that even a classical education based on other than Christianity as its element and principle would degenerate into either “a mawkish, frivolous and fastidious sentimentalism” or “ a dry, unamiable longheadedness” or “an uppish, supercilious temper, much inclined to scepticism.” The Land O’Lakes “Statement on the Nature of the contemporary Catholic University” succumbed to all three, expressing itself incidentally in an English as bereft of the standards Newman enjoyed as it is of his logic. It already sounds dated as Newman’s “Idea” [...of the University"] cannot be, trapped in a 1960s time warp, the abject proof that thought must surrender to the slavery of contemporaneity [nice phrase] when it is not “formed” by the liberating disciplines of the arts.

Certainly with the best intentions, a prominent churchman, not unrepresentative of the Land O’ Lakes school of thought (Bishop James Malone), upset the economy of Newman’s intelligence of obedience when he said in a 1986 commencement address at Notre Dame: “Theology will also enrich the Church if it takes into account the teaching office of the bishops and the pope, not slavishly but with honorable fidelity.” Unlike Newman, he is not careful to define his terms, but he does imply that there are theologians who might enslave themselves to the Magisterium. [Ah yes… and you can hear the cheerful clink of ice in faculty dining room high-ball glasses as they exchange quips about the fundamentalists…]  A servile theologian would be a contradiction as Newman understands theological science. [Why? ... Because… ] The teaching office of the Church precludes unthinking obedience precisely by the fact that it teaches essentially as the seat of authority only because it is integrally the seat of wisdom. The commencement speaker made the same dialectical faux pas that led Berengar of Tours astray in his exaggerated rejection of scholastic priorities in the eleventh century. No one in the audience, not even all those new bachelors of arts, seemed to have detected this, not even after four years in a midwestern Catholic university. [...cough…] Perhaps the day was too sultry. Or perhaps the microphone had failed, or the distractions of so an exciting an occasion did not encourage serious allusions. Or perhaps, even in a Catholic university, they had not been told about Berengar of Tours. . . .  [Should that have been McBrien’s course… I wonder…  ]

Intellectualism so partisan may be the romance of the natural man and even the reverie of the pagan gentleman, but it is not the logic of the Catholic scholar. Liberal education untutored by ecclesial obedience has a tendency to turn into “pick and choose” intellectualism. Says Newman, “This Intellectualism first and chiefly comes into collision with precept, then with doctrine, then with the very principle of dogmatism;—a perception of the Beautiful becomes the substitute for faith . . . even within the pale of the Church, and with the most unqualified profession of her Creed, it acts, if left to itself, as an element of corruption and infidelity.” With grave prophecy, Newman warned that a university captive to such corruption would become a religion of its own, an institutional rival to the Church.

SPOT ON!

UPDATE The Full text of the letter.

CNS has a piece about the reaction of the Superior of the Holy Cross Fathers (who staff Notre Dame), to the controversy.

Head of Holy Cross order asks Obama to rethink position on abortion

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS)—The head of the Holy Cross religious order that founded the University of Notre Dame has written to U.S. President Barack Obama and asked him to rethink his positions on abortion and other life issues.

U.S. Father Hugh W. Cleary, Holy Cross superior general in Rome, said that when Obama receives an honorary degree from the Indiana university and delivers the commencement address in May, he should take to heart the objections of Catholics who have been scandalized by the invitation.

Father Cleary asked the president to use the occasion to "give your conscience a fresh opportunity to be formed anew in a holy awe and reverence before human life in every form at every stage—from conception to natural death."

The 13-page letter, dated March 22, was made available to Catholic News Service in Rome. Father Cleary also prepared an abridged version of the text as an "open letter" to the president, which was expected to be published on the Web site of America magazine.  [Right! Web 0.0 lives on!]

Father Cleary’s letter began by congratulating Obama on being awarded an honorary doctorate from Notre Dame, and said the university was honored to have him deliver the commencement address. 

The visit should be a "teachable moment" for all involved, Father Cleary said. [And this is the fundamental problem.  The invitation to "rethink" his positions doesn’t override the problems inherent in the original invitation.]

He asked the president to take advantage of the occasion to "rethink, through prayerful wrestling with your own conscience, your stated positions on the vital ‘life issues’ of our day, particularly in regard to abortion, embryonic forms of stem-cell research and your position on the Freedom of Choice Act."

Father Cleary repeatedly quoted Obama’s words at the National Prayer Breakfast in February: "There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being." Sadly, the priest said, legalized abortion implies that a person’s choice for personal freedom supersedes this obligation to protect and nurture human life.

"An ‘unwanted’ child comes in many forms: an untimely presence; a disabled or deformed creature; an embryo of the wrong sex; a child conceived out of wedlock; a child conceived through a hideous crime," he said.

Father Cleary said the United States has a history of defining the parameters of human life "when it suits our self-interest." One example was slavery, justified by denying that a black human being of African descent was fully human, he said.

Father Cleary noted that many U.S. Catholics today feel their beliefs are dismissed without the serious attention they deserve. Catholics recognize that they live in a pluralistic society, he said, but also believe they have something vital to say about life issues.

"We want to be taken seriously. We insist on taking ourselves seriously; [which will really begin with a true liturgical reform… but I digress…] that is why there has been so much protest and turmoil in regard to your presence at Notre Dame," he wrote.

He suggested that at his Notre Dame appearance Obama speak about how Catholics "can be taken seriously for our faith convictions without being dismissed offhandedly and shunned; it is too offensive to be ignored, it is unacceptable."

Father Clearly said in his letter that he had been deluged with angry e-mails regarding Notre Dame’s invitation to the president. He explained that he has no authority over the decision-making by the university, which is directed by a board of fellows and a board of trustees.  ["It’s not my fault!"]

Priests and brothers of the Holy Cross order continue to serve at the university, and the university’s president—at present, Father John I. Jenkins—is always a Holy Cross priest.  [Sooo… in solidarity, does the whole order share the blame?]

His Excellency Most Rev. John Nienstedt, Archbishop of St. Paul & Minneapolis, has issued a letter with comments about the invitation by the University of Notre Dame to Pres. Obama.

The following is the complete text of Archbishop Nienstedt’s letter to the President of Notre Dame, Fr. John Jenkins.

My emphases and comments:

March 26, 2009

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President, University of Notre Dame
400 Main Building
Notre Dame, IN 46556

Dear Father Jenkins:

I have just learned that you, as President of the University of Notre Dame, have invited President Barack Obama to be the graduation commencement speaker at the University’s exercises on May 17, 2009.  I was also informed that you will confer on the president an honorary doctor of laws degree, one of the highest honors bestowed by your institution.

I write to protest this egregious decision on your part.  President Obama has been a pro-abortion legislator.  He has indicated, especially since he took office, his deliberate disregard of the unborn by lifting the ban on embryonic stem cell research, by promoting the FOCA agenda and by his open support for gay rights throughout this country. [In this paragraph he stressed Pres. Obama’s pro-abortion position.]

It is a travesty that the University of Notre Dame, considered by many [!] to be a Catholic University, should give its public support to such an anti-Catholic politician.  [In this terse paragraph, he underscores that Pres. Obama is not just pro-abortion, he is anti-Catholic.]

I hope that you are able to reconsider this decision.  If not, please do not expect me to support your University in the future.  [!]

Sincerely yours,

The Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt
Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Two things impress me positively about this letter.

Very often when people proclaim their objections, their words ring like those of Captain Renault in Casablanca: they are empty.  "I’m shocked that you would invite Pres. Obama! Shocked!".   Big deal, right?

On the contrary, Archbishop Nienstedt says that he will do something if the decision isn’t reconsidered.  He will not give them any support. 

It is hard to say precisely what that future "support", or lack thereof, might involve, of course.  But when a Catholic university as well-known as Notre Dame wins the public scorn of an American Archbishop,... that can’t be good for the school.  Archbishops tend to talk to a lot of people, including well-healed alumi.  They wind up on committees of the bishops’ conference.  They are sometimes appointed as members of Vatican Congregations.  They have platforms.  They are asked for their opinions.

What really strikes me about Archbp. Nienstedt’s letter is that, as I mention, he describes Pres. Obama as being not just pro-abortion but also anti-Catholic.

CNS says Pope Benedict XVI has ordered an apostolic visitation of the Legion of Christ and its institutions, in the wake of disclosures of sexual impropriety by the late founder of the order, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado.

Details to come.

Patrick J. Buchanan on Townhall.com has some observations about Notre Dame and the invitation to Pres. Obama.

My emphases and comments.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
 Is Notre Dame Still Catholic?
by Patrick J. Buchanan

 By inviting Barack Obama to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree at Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins has polarized the Catholic community nationwide—and raised a question. What does it mean to be a Catholic university in post-Christian America?

Are there truths about faith and morality that are closed to debate at Notre Dame? Or is Notre Dame like London’s Hyde Park, where all ideas and all advocates get a hearing?  [Remember your history: Former president of ND, Fr. Hesburgh was a leader for the Land O’ Lakes Statement.]

To Catholics, abortion is the killing of an unborn child, a premeditated breach of God’s Commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill." The case is closed for all time. Any who participate in an abortion are excommunicated. Catholic politicians from Nancy Pelosi to Joe Biden who support a "woman’s right to choose" have been denounced from pulpits and denied Communion.

Obama, however, is the most pro-abortion president ever. On his third day in office, by executive order, he repealed the Bush prohibition against using tax dollars to fund agencies abroad that perform abortions.

He supports partial-birth abortion, where a baby’s soft skull is sliced open with scissors in the birth canal and its brains sucked out to ease its passage, a procedure Sen. Pat Moynihan said "comes as close to infanticide as anything I have seen in our judiciary."

In the Illinois legislature, Obama helped block the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, a bill to save the lives of infant survivors of abortion. He voted to allow doctors and nurses to let these tiny babies die of neglect and be tossed out with the medical waste.

Barack is committed to signing the Freedom of Choice Act, which would repeal every federal and state restriction on abortion. He has smoothed the path for federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Notre Dame, a university that teaches that all innocent human life is sacred, will thus honor a leader determined to ensure that a woman’s right to destroy her unborn child in the womb remains unrestricted.

There is thus a direct clash between what Notre Dame professes to stand for and what Notre Dame is doing.

Says Ralph McInerny, a philosophy professor since 1955: "By inviting Barack Obama to be the 2009 commencement speaker, Notre Dame has forfeited its right to call itself a Catholic University. ... (T)his is a deliberate thumbing of the collective nose at the Roman Catholic Church to which Notre Dame purports to be faithful.

"Faithful? Tell it to Julian the Apostate."

McInerny calls Father Jenkins’ invitation to Obama worse than the "usual effort of the university to get into warm contact with the power figures of the day. It is an unequivocal abandonment of any pretense at being a Catholic university."

An honorary degree, writes Catholic author George Weigel, is a statement that here is a man we should admire and emulate. [This is a very important point.  Some people are waffling on this.  They are suggesting that a doctorate honoris causa doesn’t really honor them in the sense of.. well honoring them.  Or, on the other hand, they will say "he is being honored for X but not for Y".  Maybe that works for some public figures, but I don’t think it can in the case of President Obama, for the reasons Buchanan reminds us about above.  This is not simply a case of some university honoring "an American President".  This is a president with a difference at a school which identifies itself as Catholic.] But how can a Catholic university say that about a man who means to appoint Supreme Court justices who will keep constitutional and legal the systematic slaughter of the unborn that has taken 50 million lives in 35 years? 

Can Father Jenkins not see the contradiction here that renders Notre Dame a morally incoherent institution?

Diocesan Bishop John D’Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend has told Father Jenkins he will not be attending commencement because of Obama’s support of embryonic stem cell research.

Said the bishop, "While claiming to separate policies from science, (Obama) has in fact separated science from ethics and has brought the American government, for the first time in history, into supporting direct destruction of innocent human life."

Pope Benedict has yet to be heard from. But on his visit to the United States, he declared that any appeal to academic freedom "to justify positions that contradict the faith and teaching of the church would obstruct or even betray the university’s identity and mission."  [I don’t think ND is trying to justify a pro-abortion position in honoring Pres. Obama. I think the motivations is simpler.]

Does not honoring the most visible pro-abortion advocate in America "betray the identity and mission" of Notre Dame?

Father Jenkins says the invitation "should not be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues regarding the protection of human life."

But what Notre Dame is saying with this invitation is that Obama’s 100 percent support for policies and programs that bring death to more than a million unborn children every year is no disqualification [there it is] to being honored by a university dedicated to Our Lady who carried to term the Son of God.

Chris Carrington, a political science major, regards the opposition to Obama’s appearance as un-Catholic: "To not allow someone here because of their beliefs would seem a little hypocritical and contradictory to what the mission of the university and church should be."

The obtuse Carrington has stumbled on the relevant question: Is Notre Dame still a repository, teacher and exemplar of eternal truths about God and Man, right and wrong, whose mission is to convey and defend those truths in a hostile world?

Or has Notre Dame joined the secularists in their endless scavenger hunt to seek and find truth in the marketplace of ideas?

From Lifesite comes an interesting comment by Deal Hudson:

There are canonical issues here which a canonist might help us with: for example, if a congressman, senator, appointed official gets a home in Washington, DC and spends a lot of time there, say… over half the year numerically in days… does that person have domicile in that place?  Is that person the subject of the local bishop when he/she is there?

What we see is that a bishop in one place says he won’t take a position on Holy Communion for pro-abortion politicians who are from another place.

My emphases and comments.

Monday March 30, 2009

Commentary: Closing Ranks on Canon 915: Bishops Confirm that Sebelius Should Not Receive Communion

Commentary by Deal W. Hudson

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius received some good news last week when abortionist Dr. George Tiller was found not guilty of breaking state laws regulating late-term abortion. The relationship between Tiller and Sebelius would surely have played a role in her upcoming confirmation hearings had he been found guilty.
 
But Governor Sebelius got some bad news as well—something not noticed much in Catholic media or the secular press. The bishops of Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia, confirmed publicly they would uphold the declaration of her ordinary, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, stating that Governor Sebelius should not present herself for communion.
 
A spokeswoman for the Washington Archdiocese, Susan Gibbs, said Archbishop Donald Wuerl would expect Sebelius to follow Bishop Naumann’s request while in Washington. Joelle Santolla, spokeswoman for the Arlington Diocese, announced that Bishop Paul Loverde would expect the same while she was in Northern Virginia.

[So…. they don’t think that the pols living in their dioceses are their subjects, that they don’t have an authority in their regard.  I don’t quite understand that.]
 
That Archbishop Wuerl and Bishop Loverde would back up Bishop Naumann in regard to the future Secretary of Health and Human Services is a significant development in the effort of some bishops to enforce Canon 915: "Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion."
 
This will send the message to other bishops that if they choose to pronounce members of Congress from their dioceses unfit for communion, their authority will be respected in D.C. and across the Potomac in Virginia. The ramifications are enormous: For example, if Sean Cardinal O’Malley of Boston stated publicly that Sen. John Kerry was in violation of Canon 915, he would not have been able to receive communion at Pope Benedict XVI’s Mass in Washington, D.C., a year ago. Rep. Nancy Pelosi would not have been able to celebrate her elevation to speaker of the House with a special Mass at Trinity College, if Archbishop Neiderhauer had found her wanting according to the standard of Canon 915.
 
Some will argue that neither Archbishop Wuerl nor Bishop Loverde will attempt, through their priests, to deny Governor Sebelius communion. But this misses the point, and the significance, of how the combined statements of Bishops Naumann, Wuerl, and Loverde have created a new and more vulnerable situation for the pro-abortion Catholic members of Congress. As Archbishop Raymond Burke has explained, Bishop Naumann did not impose a "sanction" on Governor Sebelius; Bishop Naumann asked Sebelius, not the clergy, to apply Canon 915 to herself.
 
But if Sebelius were to receive communion in D.C. or Northern Virginia, it would likely generate a news story that would mushroom quickly, involving the priest who administered communion and his bishop. This is not news coverage that Sebelius, or the Obama administration, would want to deal with.  [Would they care?]
 
No doubt there are priests in both dioceses who would have little compunction about giving communion to pro-abortion Catholic politicians, but whether they want to get into a media-generated spat with their bishop over a high-profile politician is another matter.  [Is that realistic?]
 
A final point: Archbishop Wuerl and Bishop Loverde’s collegial response to Bishop Naumann destabilizes the relationship between pro-abortion Catholic politicians and their bishops back home. The question will arise as to why Governor Sebelius should be the only politician in Washington who has been called to account under Canon 915. What about the dozens of others in Congress who have a 100 percent pro-abortion voting record? What about Vice-President Joe Biden himself?  [Good question.]
 
Will other bishops seize this opportunity to apply Canon 915 to politicians in their dioceses, knowing that Archbishop Wuerl and Bishop Loverde will back them up? Given the determination of the Obama administration and the Congress to roll back all restrictions on abortion, I wouldn’t be surprised.  [Really?]

From a reader:

I need some help.  For years I remember my parish using a beautiful Crucifix for Veneration on Good Friday (nearly 6 ft. tall and everything).  I am now Liturgist there, working alongside a … pastor who insists on using a plain Cross since the title is "Veneration of the Cross" and not of the "Crucifix."  He cites the Latin as being "Lignum Crucis" which is of course correct, but it makes no sense to me to use a bare cross on Good Friday.

No, it makes no sense to use a bare Cross on Good Friday.

The Latin in the 2002MR does use Crux throughout.

Crux here means "crucifix", not just bare "cross".

Traditionally in the Roman Rite a Crucifix is used.

When the rubrics refer to a Cross, Crux, on or near the altar, which is what this is, a Crucifix is meant.  We gain clarity from GIRM 308 which says (my emphases):

308. Item super altare vel prope ipsum crux, cvm effigie Christi crucifixi, habeatur, quae a populo congregato bene conspiciatur. ...  Likewise, on the altar or near it there is to be a Cross with the likeness of Christ crucified, which is easily seen by the congregation. ...

The point of Good Friday is not merely to venerate the Holy Cross of our salvation.  There is a feast for that… on 14 September.  The point of Good Friday is to venerate Christ crucified: Christus Crucifixus.

In the Ecce lignum Crucis sung three times, the priest sings "in quo salus mundi pependit.. on which the salvation of the world did hang". 

The "salvation" hanging there is the Body of the Lord on the Cross, the one who is Crucifixus.

We venerate the Crucifix.

Historically the adoration of the Cross developed from veneration of a relic of the true Cross in those places where one was kept, especially Jerusalem.  This spread to Rome.  The veneration of Good Friday is in the Gelasian Sacramentary.   Where a relic of the Cross was not available, a Crucifix was used.  On Good Friday the veneration given to the True Cross is given to the Crucifix.  Thus the threefold genuflection on Good Friday.

If there is no relic of the True Cross available for veneration, then the Crucifix should be used.. not a bare Cross.

In your kindness please pray for Bishop Fred Cambell of Columbus, OH, who is having amputation surgery today.  

Bishop Campbell will have his left leg amputated below the knee today, Monday, because of skin cancer, according to a letter released by the Catholic Diocese yesterday.

Doctors have diagnosed squamous cell carcinoma in Campbell, 65. He also has osteomyelitis, an infection, in multiple bones in his foot, and an open wound that will not heal.

In charity, pray for him.

Effective leaders always distribute those important "attaboys"!



Remember, everyone… hell is forever. 

There is nothing positive.

There is no reprieve.
 

In these pages the "blog feed" might mean something … else.

Here is a Nuthatch, impatiently waiting for me to leave the proximity of the feeder.

In fact, impatience and irritation was the theme of this shoot.



The Chickadees are pretty nearly fearless.   They are nesting right now and therefore eat more than I thought possible.   There are great quantities of Chickadees this year.



There is a great deal of singing going on, especially from the nearby pine tree.



They drain the thistle socks with celerity.



You can see how their beaks are specialized for extracting small seeds from little crevasses of thistles and other plants.



Here is a good view of the arrangement of this Chickadees wing feathers.

There is an article/interview in the Boston Globe with Denver’s Archbishop, Most. Rev. Charles Chaput.  This is not quite prompt, since it refers to 17 March, but it was on the Globe’s site on the 29th.  From the blog of Michael Paulson on the Boston Globe.

This could be a practicum for developing and tone and attitude in responding to questions.

His observations on the e-mail he gets are valuable.

My emphases and comments.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver spent St. Patrick’s Day lunch fielding questions from a group of journalists in Washington; I posted his opening remarks a few days back, in which he explained his position that politicians who support abortion rights should not present themselves for Communion, but also said that he does not deny Communion to those who seek it. Now the full transcript of the Q&A is available thanks to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which hosted the lunch.

There are multiple interesting exchanges.

Sally Quinn, of On Faith, had a lengthy discussion with Chaput about her decision, as a non-Catholic, to take Communion at the Catholic funeral for Tim Russert. Quinn offered several different explanations for her action, saying at one point, "I wanted to do it because I wanted to see what it felt like, since I’m now – as you say, reporters should know about religion. I want to experience a lot of different religions,’’ and saying at another point, "I felt very much like I wanted to do this for Tim. He was a very close friend of mine and it was a very emotional time." And then, she said:

"It seems to me, listening to you and trying to understand who is really acceptable, it would seem that nobody should be able to take communion, given your guidelines, because everyone is a sinner. Everyone has scandal in their background; everyone has done something wrong. When I look at the people in a Catholic church, when I see them getting up and they are friends of mine – even at Tim Russert’s funeral – whose consciences I know are not clear, I think why are those people allowed to take communion? I think about the Catholic priests who abused young children who still take communion. I think of those who knew about it and stayed silent and are still taking communion. How do you resolve those issues?"

Here is a portion of Chaput’s response:

"The teaching of our church about Holy Communion isn’t that you have to be perfect or that you even have to be good. It’s that you have to be sorry for your sins and you have to believe what the church believes – not just about the Eucharist, whether it’s the body and blood of Christ, but about what we believe as Catholics…

What I think the basic problem is most of the time, Sally, is that people think that they can make up their own meaning for the Eucharist – for me it means that I admire Catholics, and for me it means that I like Tim Russert. But that’s not what the church means, and that’s why we don’t invite people to communion who don’t share our faith. Catholics who don’t believe what the Catholic Church believes shouldn’t receive."

And then, another exchange between the two:

QUINN: Did you believe that the pope made a mistake by giving communion when he was here to Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry and those other Catholics?

CHAPUT: I’ve given communion to people who come up who aren’t Catholics. We kind of joke that every time there’s a funeral, you have a lot of first communions because you don’t embarrass people when they come to communion and chase them away because that’s a terrible pastoral decision. But to tell them beforehand that it’s not appropriate unless you’re a Catholic is appropriate.

So there are all kinds of different issues going on in your question. I don’t think that my guidelines are mine; I don’t think they’re harsh. I think they’re just what the church has always understood. Now people don’t have to agree with us. If I don’t agree, let’s say, with an Evangelical church, I’ll still respect what they ask of me when I’m there. And I think that those of you who aren’t Catholics or who are non-believing Catholics or whatever, if you come to a Catholic church, it wouldn’t be appropriate for you to receive communion out of respect for what the church believes. So this isn’t about me being better than you or you being better than me; it’s simply what our church believes and practices.

[I am impressed with the simplicity and directness of Archbp. Chaput’s answers.]

Another exchange that caught my attention came between Chaput and Patricia Zapor, of Catholic News Service, who asked the archbishop about the vitriolic nature of so much e-mail about Catholic issues—something I experience in the comments on this blog.  [No kidding!]

This is what Chaput said:

"I used to get some hate mail before I was online, but not nearly as much as I did afterwards. I think the way that we have immediate access, which means we immediately speak out of our emotions rather than write a letter, send it the next day, you might change your mind. Instead you write it and you push the button to “show them,” you know, that kind of thing. [Yes… surely that is part of it.  This is what I mean when I talk about "self-editing" and in the anti-spam words "think before posting".]

So I think our immediate ability to communicate has led to a coarsening discourse for one thing. I gave a talk recently – I think it may have been when I was in Toronto, where I said that the Lord reminds us that we are sheep among wolves, but it’s important for us not to become wolves ourselves because of our experience, and I think that often happens.

Some of the worst emails I get are from Catholic conservatives [As I have said frequently on this blog, there are those on the trad side of things who can be pretty nasty.  Whenever I write that, trads jump in and say "But Father! But Father! We are the ones who endure the nastiness!  Those liberals are nastier than we are!"  Fine.  But reread Archbp. Chaput’s impressions. ] who think I should excommunicate and refuse communion to Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado and to former-Sen. [and now Secretary of the Interior] Ken Salazar of Colorado, and why aren’t you doing this? I mean, just awful kind of stuff that they write. Sometimes, I must admit, that when I write back, I’m not as friendly as I should be. But I try not to be mean."

And then, reflecting on the difference between e-mail from liberals and conservatives, he said:

"The left mail I get will use terrible words but be less vitriolic. They use the F-word and things like that, call me names like that. But the right is meaner, but they’re not as foul."

This is in about Archbishop Dolan’s reaction to the coming appearance of Pres. Obama at the Univ. of Notre Dame. 

From Milwaukee’s TMJ4.

Archbishop Dolan: Notre Dame Made a "Big Mistake"
By Tim Lethlean

Archbishop Timothy Dolan appeared on Today’s TMJ4’s "Sunday Insight" with Charlie Sykes, and was asked if the University of Notre Dame made a mistake by inviting President Barack Obama to speak at the school’s graduation ceremony.

Dolan didn’t hesistate a bit, responding "They did, and I say that as one who loves and respects Notre Dame.  They made a big mistake."

Click Here to watch Archbishop Dolan on Sunday Insight With Charlie Sykes.

"There’s a lot of things that President Obama does that we can find ourselves allied with and working with him on, and we have profound respect for him and pray with him and for him," Dolan said. "But in an issue that is very close to the heart of Catholic world view, namely, the protection of innocent life in the womb, he has unfortunately taken a position very much at odds with the Church."

Dolan believes honoring and giving Obama a platform to speak at a premier Catholic University like Notre Dame sends a mixed message about the Church’s teachings.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan will leave his post as Archbishop of Milwaukee and take over the reigns of the Archdiocese of New York April 15th.

I noticed this on Rinascimento Sacro.   The great Msgr. Bux has given a conference on the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council.

You can read it in Italian.