Fr. Z's Blog | Formerly entitled: "What Does The Prayer Really Say?" – Clear, straight commentary on Catholic issues, liturgy and life by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf o{]:¬)

When people say stupid things about the Church, can you respond? REVIEW: Michael Coren

Posted on 22 June 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This note from The Catholic League about the ignorant boor and failed-TV personality Keith Olbermann gives me a chance to talk about something else.

But first, the note from The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue:

OLBERMANN’S IGNORANCE IS APPALLING
On last night’s edition of “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” the host claimed that Galileo was punished by the Catholic Church for “his belief that the earth orbited the sun and not the other way around.” He also said that “the Church acknowledged errors had been committed in assessing Galileo’s scientific beliefs. They did that in 1992.”

Commenting on this is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:

It is not for nothing that Olbermann’s new show is drawing such phenomenal advertisers like “Furniture Fix” and “Gyro Ball.” Indeed, whenever a show has to rely on junk products for revenue (the sure give-away is when they advertise that the buyer gets “two for the price of one”), it’s an ominous sign. More than ominous is the intellectual acuity of Olbermann.

The fact is that the belief that the earth revolves around the sun was first broached by Copernicus, in 1543, and that was many moons before Galileo was even born. Copernicus not only did not get into trouble with the Catholic Church—he was a priest. Moreover, when Galileo first floated Copernicus’ idea, he was bestowed with medals and gifts by Pope Urban VIII. What got him censured was his arrogance: Galileo argued that his hypothesis was a scientific fact, something which even the scientific community of his day scoffed at. It is instructive that Father Roger Boscovich didn’t get into hot water with the Church at the time, and yet he also explored Copernican ideas.

It is false to say that in 1992 the Catholic Church acknowledged errors in dealing with Galileo. That happened in 1741 when Pope Benedict XIV granted an imprimatur to the first edition of the completed works of Galileo. What happened in 1992 was the release of a Pontifical Academy report on the controversy.

If Olbermann were simply wrong, that would be one thing. But it was his snide delivery that was really offensive. Glad we taped his new show—we knew it wouldn’t be long before he threw a low-blow at the Catholic Church.

Contact the executive producer, David Sarosi: countdown@current.com

Contact our director of communications about Donohue’s remarks:
Jeff Field
Phone: 212-371-3191
E-mail: cl@catholicleague.org

That said, I received a book a little while ago by Michael Coren called Why Catholics Are Right.

This book intends to provide the reader with answers and responses to some questions and controversies which we hear in the news and conversations. It is a work of “catechism” and apologetics. Catholics have to know the Faith and have to be able to explain the Faith. Catholics have to be able to respond to questions from others and even attacks from others. Some of those questions and attacks are really classsics, old chestnuts, saws, canards, clichés.

One of them, of course, concerns Galileo.

If you were in a conservation with someone challenging you about how backward the Church is about science, flinging Galileo in your face, what would you say? How would you explain Galileo?

Coren, a Canadian journalist, has provided a well-written, well-reasoned source for your preparation for these conversations… not to mention your own questions.

He doesn’t just talk about Galileo, of course, but that section is particularly useful. He actually explains – and this isn’t always done – that Galileo had the charm of a radial-arm saw, and therefore alienated all his patrons. But I digress.

Coren’s book a a good read for continuous reading. Alas, it suffers from a flaw: it doesn’t have an index. And the table of contents is too thin to provide a substitute. If you are looking, for example, for a response on contraception, you’ve got to page around.

Therefore, if you get it, from the first page use a pen. Write notes in the margins and make your own index in the back. That’s what I do with books that are supposed to be useful but suffer from this flaw (e.g., far too many books from Ignatius Press).

Posted in New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, REVIEWS, The Drill, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice, Throwing a Nutty | Tagged apologetics, Bill Donohue, Catholic League, Keith Olbermann, Michael Coren
32 Comments

Hats on to the Holy Father

Posted on 22 June 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A couple fun views of the Holy Father from today’s Wednesday Audience.

The first one calls for some caption.

This one speaks for itself.

Posted in Lighter fare | Tagged cappello romano, saturno
21 Comments

When gladiator “umps” made bad calls

Posted on 22 June 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This interesting article is in The Daily Mail. Very cool stuff about gladiators and tombstones.

Roman gladiator’s gravestone blames poor refereeing for losing a key battle (and his life)

Scientist finally decodes epitaph on tombstone

By Daily Mail Reporter

His tomb was unearthed about 100 years ago, but the meaning of the inscription on his gravestone has remained a mystery – until now.

Scientist Michael Carter, of Brock University in Canada, has studied hundreds of inscriptions on gladiator gravestones.

He has now decoded that of Diodorus and claims it is unique in that it actually tells the story of his death.

Written from the gladiator’s own perspective, it reads: ‘After breaking my opponent Demetrius, I did not kill him immediately. Fate and the cunning treachery of the summa rudis killed me.’

The ‘summa rudis’ refers to a veteran gladiator who would have refereed the fight during which Diodorus lost his life.

Therefore, when the slain warrior’s friends and family composed the inscription for his gravestone, they were clearly in no doubt as to where the blame lay.

The epitaph also includes an engraving that Dr Carter believes explains the circumstances leading up to his death.

Diodorus can be seen standing over his fallen opponent, called Demetrius, while holding two swords.

Dr Carter suggests this means Diodorus had managed to get hold of Demetrius’s sword while he was on the ground.

But the summa rudis ruled that Demetrius had fallen over by accident, meaning he would have been allowed to get up and resume fighting.

‘Demetrius signals surrender, but Diodorus doesn’t kill him,’ Dr Carter said. ‘He backs off expecting that he’s going to win the fight.

‘What the summa rudis has obviously done is stepped in, stopped the fight, allowed Demetrius to get back up again, take back his shield, take back his sword, and then resume the fight.’

It was then that the fatal blow was struck and Diodorus was killed, a turn of events that clearly appalled the gladiator’s loved ones.

The epitaph was donated to the Musée du Cinquanternaire in Brussels shortly before the First World War.

Dr Carter’s study is published in the Journal for Papyrology and Ancient Epigraphics.

Console yourself concerning your fallen comrades with some…

Posted in Just Too Cool | Tagged gladiators
11 Comments

The worldwide killing of girls.

Posted on 21 June 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

On the site of the WSJ there is a disturbing article about the destruction of girl children in favor of boys in some countries.

The War Against Girls
Since the late 1970s, 163 million female babies have been aborted by parents seeking sons

By JONATHAN V. LAST

Mara Hvistendahl is worried about girls. Not in any political, moral or cultural sense but as an existential matter. She is right to be. In China, India and numerous other countries (both developing and developed), there are many more men than women, the result of systematic campaigns against baby girls. In “Unnatural Selection,” Ms. Hvistendahl reports on this gender imbalance: what it is, how it came to be and what it means for the future.

In nature, 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. This ratio is biologically ironclad. Between 104 and 106 is the normal range, and that’s as far as the natural window goes. Any other number is the result of unnatural events.

Yet today in India there are 112 boys born for every 100 girls. In China, the number is 121—though plenty of Chinese towns are over the 150 mark. China’s and India’s populations are mammoth enough that their outlying sex ratios have skewed the global average to a biologically impossible 107. But the imbalance is not only in Asia. Azerbaijan stands at 115, Georgia at 118 and Armenia at 120.

What is causing the skewed ratio: abortion. If the male number in the sex ratio is above 106, it means that couples are having abortions when they find out the mother is carrying a girl. By Ms. Hvistendahl’s counting, there have been so many sex-selective abortions in the past three decades that 163 million girls, who by biological averages should have been born, are missing from the world. Moral horror aside, this is likely to be of very large consequence.

In the mid-1970s, amniocentesis, which reveals the sex of a baby in utero, became available in developing countries. Originally meant to test for fetal abnormalities, by the 1980s it was known as the “sex test” in India and other places where parents put a premium on sons. When amnio was replaced by the cheaper and less invasive ultrasound, it meant that most couples who wanted a baby boy could know ahead of time if they were going to have one and, if they were not, do something about it. “Better 500 rupees now than 5,000 later,” reads one ad put out by an Indian clinic, a reference to the price of a sex test versus the cost of a dowry.

But oddly enough, Ms. Hvistendahl notes, it is usually a country’s rich, not its poor, who lead the way in choosing against girls. “Sex selection typically starts with the urban, well-educated stratum of society,” she writes. “Elites are the first to gain access to a new technology, whether MRI scanners, smart phones—or ultrasound machines.” The behavior of elites then filters down until it becomes part of the broader culture. Even more unexpectedly, the decision to abort baby girls is usually made by women—either by the mother or, sometimes, the mother-in-law.

[…]

Read the rest there.

Brrrrrr.

It strikes me that throughout history, when there are a lot of disaffected and unemployed young men, terrible things take place which reestablishes the balance.

Posted in Emanations from Penumbras, Global Killer Asteroid Questions, New Evangelization, One Man & One Woman, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged abortion, amniocentesis, ultrasound
35 Comments

Planned Parenthood must close some shops. Griping ensues.

Posted on 21 June 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Let there be sung Te Deum and Non Nobis… wellllll…. Partly Nobis.

This is from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. My emphases and comments.

Budget cuts close 6 Planned Parenthood clinics in Minnesota

Article by: JEREMY OLSON

Planned Parenthood cites drop in Title X funding, a target of abortion foes in Congress.

Planned Parenthood is closing six clinics in outstate Minnesota on Aug. 1 because of federal budget cuts made this spring in a highly politicized abortion battle.

The state’s largest provider of family planning and abortions [Notice how the writer slips in that “family planning” bit first? As if PP’s bread and butter wasn’t really abortion.] announced the closures Monday, citing an 11 percent reduction in its budget because of cuts to the federal Title X program.

Closing are clinics in Thief River Falls, Brainerd, Red Wing, Owatonna, Albert Lea and Fairmont. They did not perform abortions, but provided services ranging from contraception to cervical cancer screenings to testing for sexually-transmitted diseases. Clients will be encouraged to use any of the 18 remaining Planned Parenthood facilities in the state and the organization’s website. [There it is again. PP makes its money from abortions.]

The clinics being closed are among the smallest and are relatively close to clinics in larger cities such as Rochester and Mankato. Unaffected is Planned Parenthood’s clinic in St. Paul, which performed nearly one-third of the 12,388 abortions in Minnesota in 2009. [PP will do anything to protect that big business. Thus, they close the smaller places.]

[Watch this!] The loss of family planning services for women in the affected communities could drive up state health care costs — and the number of abortions, said Sarah Stoesz, executive director of Planned Parenthood’s chapter for Minnesota and the Dakotas. [Cut off funding to big business abortion and you will cause more abortions. Right? Obvious! Right?]

“Those who attack family planning programs under the guise of being opposed to abortion are creating the exact opposite effect and driving abortion rates up,” she said. [It’s obvious! Right?]

The Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group based in New York, estimated this spring that without any Title X funding for low-income women and families, Minnesota would see a 17 percent increase in unintended pregnancies, a 24 percent increase in abortions and a 33 percent increase in teen births. Those figures were based on the complete elimination of Title X, as some Republican lawmakers had proposed, and not the last-minute cuts negotiated in April to avoid a federal shutdown.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is among the lawmakers who called for de-funding Title X. While the program cannot fund abortions, lawmakers still opposed the secondary financial support it offered to organizations that provide them. [Because its fungible. Fund one part, and you fund the whole thing.] “Taxpayer funds should not be directed to this heinous organization, [Do I hear an “Amen!”?] especially at a time when our nation’s debt exceeds $14 trillion,” Bachmann’s press secretary, Becky Rogness, said Monday.

Minnesota has received roughly $3.5 million per year in Title X funds, with $3 million going to Planned Parenthood and the rest going to a Ramsey County family planning program. [Remember…. it’s all just family planning.] The state has an estimated 250,000 women in need of subsidized reproductive health care. One-fifth get services at Planned Parenthood. [Let us not forget that PP was intended by its foundress to kill off black people.]

Until now, Planned Parenthood has grown in Minnesota, with the addition of three suburban retail storefronts and a new central facility in St. Paul’s University Avenue corridor that is halfway complete. Stoesz said the popular storefronts are covering their costs and that the new headquarters was funded by donors, not public money.

She said Planned Parenthood might lose other income from the 20 to 25 percent of clients at the six clinics who pay for services out of pocket or with private insurance.

Delenda est.

Posted in Biased Media Coverage, Emanations from Penumbras, The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged abortion, family planning, Minnesota, Planned Parenthood, Title X
20 Comments

A bishop writes about the role of deacons

Posted on 21 June 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

His Excellency Most. Rev. Alex Sample, Bishop of Marquette – a fine man and priest I have known for many years – issued a letter about deacons.

There is some CNA coverage:

Marquette, Mich., Jun 21, 2011 / 05:54 am (CNA).- Permanent deacons should not preach at Mass often. Rather, they should preach at other services and serve the Church in the course of their daily witness to Christ, Bishop Alexander Sample of Marquette, Mich. has said in a new pastoral letter on the deacon’s role in the Catholic Church.

Bishop Sample’s 19-page letter, titled “The Deacon: Icon of Jesus Christ the Servant,” cited the principle that the one who presides at a liturgical service or who is the principal celebrant at Mass should also give the homily.

“This should be the ordinary practice,” he said. [There, of course, could be good reasons for occasional exceptions.]

Deacons should preach the homily at Mass “for some identifiable advantage for the faithful in the congregation, but not on a regular basis,” the bishop wrote.

He said deacons have the opportunity to preach in other contexts, such as at wake services, funeral and wedding liturgies outside of Mass, baptisms, liturgies of the Word, during the Liturgy of the Hours and during Sunday celebrations in the absence of a priest.

Bishop Sample noted that a deacon also “preaches” through “the witness of his life, especially in his marriage and family life,” as well as in his secular work and his role as a teacher.

The deacon’s ministry in the liturgy is not the “heart” of his service. Rather, he is called especially to serve the bishop by caring for the many works of charity “especially suited” to him, most often under the direction of his local pastor. [This is an interesting point. If I am not mistaken, there is a stream of thought about deacons that their primary service is liturgical. Did we not have a discussion about that on this blog once upon a time? Readers may remember.]

Although the deacon is ordained to teach and preach the Word of God, “the most effective preaching he does is through the witness of his life in loving service to the most needy among us,” Bishop Sample wrote in a column summarizing the pastoral letter.

The Bishop of Marquette had stopped accepting new deacon candidates until a study of their role had been completed. [That makes a lot of sense to me, actually. It is good to know why we want permanent deacons before they are ordained. Such a review makes sense, since in the grand arc of the Church’s history this is a ministry that was revived.]

In his letter, he announced that a man will not be ordained simply to “be the deacon” at a particular parish or mission. Instead, there must be “a specifically identified need in the community” recognized by the bishop in consultation with the local pastor. This follows the scriptural example of the early Church, where the Apostles chose deacons to minister to the needs of widows so that the Apostles would be free to pray and preach the Word of God. [In the ancient Church there were many different “orders” in which people were enrolled and sometimes, in the case of deacons, ordained. For example, there was an order of consecrated virgins. There was an order of grave diggers. There was an order of widows. They would even have their own places in church. Some thought has been given to reviving the order of widows in the same way that consecrated virginity has been revived. People in these consecrated roles were especially engaged in corporal works of mercy.]

In the Diocese of Marquette the prospective deacon will now need to have “a particular service ministry” for which he will be ordained, such as service as a catechist or in care for the poor, the sick, the elderly or the imprisoned.

This change will reflect the fact that a deacon’s primary ministry is “not in the sanctuary but in the service of charity.”

“I express my deep gratitude to my deacon brothers for their selfless service to God’s people in the image of Christ the Servant,” Bishop Sample said. “Let us pray for them and support them as they care for the special children of God among us.”

Posted in Our Catholic Identity, The Drill | Tagged Bp. Sample, deacons, diaconate, ermanent deacons, Marquette, preaching
54 Comments

When, despite all your best efforts, things go very wrong!

Posted on 20 June 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Do you feel like this once in a while?

Talk about getting more than you bargained for!

[wp_youtube]PhCGxp_ag2E[/wp_youtube]

Posted in Just Too Cool | Tagged tarpon
18 Comments

Cutting edge retro.

Posted on 20 June 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This is rather cool. I saw this on Engadget.

If you’re like us, you’ve probably been holding your breath in anticipation since Commodore USA announced its replica of the famous C64. It promised a keyboard PC that duplicated the original’s retro-beige finish, with an Atom CPU and an NVIDIA Ion graphics card under the hood. But despite numerous announcements, and even after a cross-promotion with Tron: Legacy, they’ve yet to ship any products. The latest word from the company has pre-orders shipping next week, in five different varieties, from a barebones chassis and card reader to the C64x Ultimate – an $895 machine that includes 1TB hard drive and a Blu-ray player. If you haven’t been teased enough over the past year of delays, hit the video after the break for more preview images.

Continue reading Commodore USA begins shipping replica C64s next week, fulfilling your beige breadbox dreams (video)

Posted in Just Too Cool | Tagged Commodore
12 Comments

Make popcorn, then read! Ed Peter’s eviscerates Maureen Dowd.

Posted on 19 June 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Canonical Defender, Prof. Ed Peters, has drawn the ire of the Id of the Washington Beltway, the atrabillious Maureen Dowd.

My emphases and comments:

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Oh no! Maureen Dowd doesn’t seem to like me!

America’s 43rd most influential liberal doesn’t seem to like me, and that’s a scary thought. Not.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times is well-known for her acerbic (sometimes snide) writing style, [That’s a nice way to put it.] and for her frequent substitution of ad hominem attacks for sustained and reasonable argument. Such writing appeals, I guess, to those taxed by thinking but amused by rudeness, but beyond seeing her popularity as yet another example of De gustibus, I don’t get it. [I’m glad Prof. Peter’s is on our side!]

In any case, Dowd’s June 18 NYT column ridiculing New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan for his stand against New York’s endorsement of “gay marriage” is nothing if not vintage Dowd. She scarcely engages Dolan’s reasoning, but disses Dolan as “the Starchbishop” (real grown-up writing, that) and attacks his Church as being “a haven for gay priests” that essentially ignores “the right of a child not to be molested by the parish priest”.*

With a predictability that borders on banality, Dowd thrice-in-one-column hurls the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the face of Catholics like Dolan who dare to take a stand on issues of morality contrary to the “spirit of the times” just as, in my recent Catholic World Report essay on the Cuomo-Communion controversy, I predicted would happen for the rest of our lives.

Dowd didn’t invent this style of attack, but she employs it with an excess that should embarrass even those who otherwise like her sassy shtick. Dowd does not blush from piggy-backing her “gay marriage” agenda onto the suffering of clergy abuse victims, like some politico attaching a dubious rider to a sure-to-pass bill in Congress, hoping to short-circuit a debate on the merits of the matter. Or maybe Dowd’s frequent reuse of such tactics is what happens when, as Belinda Luscombe opined in her Time report exploring whether Dowd had committed plagiarism, Dowd “plum runs out of inspiration on any given topic and falls back on less-than-original notions”. Either way, I say, let’s stick to the topic, and the topic, per Dowd, is the legalization of “gay marriage”, not clergy sexual abuse.

Fine, you ask, what does any of this have to do with me? I might have thought, nothing, except that Dowd decided to link my recent criticisms of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s reception of Communion at a Mass celebrated by Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard (despite Cuomo’s open cohabitation with a woman not his wife), with Abp. Dolan’s criticism of efforts in the New York legislature to legalize “gay marriage”, the ‘link’ being that Cuomo is a strong proponent of “gay marriage” and would sign such a bill if it reaches his desk.

Okay, yes, I think that Cuomo’s signature on such a bill would add to his Communion-eligibility problems under Canon 915, but Abp. Dolan is not making that argument: he is arguing natural law on marriage and common sense, not sacramental discipline. (I know, I know, one would have to have read and understood Dolan’s arguments to see that point, but even if Dowd didn’t or doesn’t, some of her readers would have and do). So why does Dowd not discuss Dolan’s arguments on marriage in her article about Dolan on marriage, and later, if she wishes, tackle my arguments on holy Communion in an article about me and holy Communion (assuming I was worth her time in the first place)? Why smush these two strains together?

Because Dowd apparently thinks she has discovered some “ah-ha” contradiction in the Church’s logic. She writes:“Therein lies the casuistry. On one hand, as Peters told The Times about Cuomo and Lee, ‘men and women are not supposed to live together without benefit of matrimony.’ But then the church denies the benefit of marriage to same-sex couples living together.” [CRICKETS CHIRPING]

What?

That’s not right. That doesn’t even rise to level of being wrong. Instead, that’s what comes from someone who is not even pretending to be interested in what the other side actually holds.

* Memo to MD: You might want to temper your insinuations that “gay priests” are linked to clergy child abuse, or, as you state later in your column, that it is “absurd” to deny a link between homosexuality and sexual misconduct. Considerable effort has gone into denying any connection between homosexuality and/or the gay life style with sexual exploitation of youth, and your comments in this article undermine those efforts.