Yesterday in my post asking you to “follow” Cardinal Dolan on Twitter (@CardinalDolan) another Cardinal’s Twitter account was mentioned: @CardinalNapier.
On Twitter Card. Napier reacted to Pres. Obama’s unnatural sex evolution:
Cardinal Napier (@CardinalNapier)
5/9/12 11:42 PM
Obama on same sex “marriage” begs question: Is next evolution to “earth is flat” or “sun revolves around the earth” or “sun rises in west”.
The cause for beatification of a Servant of God important for the north-central United States had a big step forward today.
I read in the Bolletino today that His Holiness of our Lord promulgated a decree from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints about the heroic virtues of
– Servant of God Frederic Irenej Baraga, Slovene American, first bishop of Marquette (1797-1868).
The cause was moved by the Diocese of Marquette under the auspices of His Excellency Most Reverend Alexander Sample.
In the cause of beatification for a person who was not martyred, it is necessary to demonstrate with moral certainty that that person died having persevered to death manifesting the Christian virtues in a heroic way. A case, much like a legal case, is built from documents and examination of writings and testimonies. It is demonstrated that the person now has popular reputation of holiness. Everything is submitted to the Congregation in Rome, which double checks everything and submits the case or cause to experts in history and theology and then the members of the Congregation. If they determine that the case was made that the person lived a life of heroic virtue, they issue a decree to that effect. The Holy Father can either choose to promulgate that decree or not or say or not say when it will be promulgated. That usually happens during a consistory.
Once the decree “super virtutibus” has been promulgated, the person is question is then referred to as “Venerable”. Thereafter, it is necessary to authenticate a miracle worked through the Venerable’s intercession to be able to move to the next stage, beatification. That is now where the cause of Ven. Frederic Baraga has arrived.
Congratulations to the people of Marquette (and Minnesota!) and WDTPRS kudos to Bp. Sample.
Also of great interest in today’s news:
Vatican City, 10 May 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father today received in audience Cardinal Angelo Amato S.D.B., prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. During the audience he extended the liturgical cult of St. Hildegard of Bingen (1089-1179) to the universal Church, inscribing her in the catalogue of saints.
Now it is necessary to read and study more about St. Hildegard, a truly fascinating woman and saint, so we can dispel the feminist twaddle with which her name and writings have been stained.
The extension of her cult – and when we say “cult” in a Catholic context like this, we mean the veneration saints are given, especially at the altar during liturgical worship of God – to the whole Church may puzzle some people. She was, after all, known as a “Saint” already. The cult of Blesseds is usually only local, unless by special permissions the cult of a Blessed is extended elsewhere. Saints are usually venerated liturgically by the whole Church. The cults of saints, their liturgical commemoration, come and go according to the times. There are many saints who are recalled when the Roman Martyrology is used as a liturgical book (for it is a liturgical book). Only a limited number of saints are placed on the Church’s universal calendar in such a way that we commemorate them during Holy Mass and in the Office. Hildegard’s cause goes back to the earliest times of a formal process for canonization. Her cause wasn’t ever formally completed. Nevertheless, down through the centuries she has been known as a saint, her writings and contributions have been esteemed, there is a popular cult around her person. Therefore, the Supreme Pontiff decided to end the ambiguity of her status and has caused her to “be inscribed in the album of the saints” as the phrase usually puts it. And he has also extended her liturgical cult to the whole Church.
I don’t know what the Orthodox think of Hildegard, but I believe Anglicans hold her in some esteem. It occurs to me that Pope Benedict’s move may have the additional motive of giving a fine gift to the former Anglicans who have entered the Church under Anglicanorum coetibus, bringing with them their traditionals and liturgical customs. Benedict XVI is, after all, the Pope of Christian Unity.
Timothy Card. Dolan, President of the USCCB on Pres. Obama’s endorsement of unnatural unions as if they were marriage.
From the site of the USCCB with my emphases:
Cardinal Dolan: President Obama’s Remarks On Marriage ‘Deeply Saddening’
May 9, 2012
WASHINGTON—Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), issued the following statement:President Obama’s comments today in support of the redefinition of marriage are deeply saddening. As I stated in my public letter to the President on September 20, 2011, the Catholic Bishops stand ready to affirm every positive measure taken by the President and the Administration to strengthen marriage and the family. However, we cannot be silent in the face of words or actions that would undermine the institution of marriage, the very cornerstone of our society. The people of this country, especially our children, deserve better. Unfortunately, President Obama’s words today are not surprising since they follow upon various actions already taken by his Administration that erode or ignore the unique meaning of marriage. I pray for the President every day, and will continue to pray that he and his Administration act justly to uphold and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman. May we all work to promote and protect marriage and by so doing serve the true good of all persons.
What Pres. Obama did today, under the false guise of being “Christian” to people of the same sex who want to “marry” each other, as if that relationship could ever be like a true marriage, is tear at the very bonds of society.
The USCCB was correct to make a statement.
Remember to follow Card. Dolan on Twitter. Read THIS, immediately after following ME on Twitter!
BTW… I picked up the link to Card. Dolan’s statement from his Twitter feed. FWIW.
I was pretty irritated today by Pres. Obama’s cynical political statement, which undermines the bonds of society. Even though he stated – once upon a time – that in his presidency there wouldn’t be a “red” America or “blue” America, Pres. Obama fuels division upon division upon division.
Furthermore, since he stated that he wouldn’t “evolve” into an open promoter of unnatural unions as “marriage” before the Democratic Convention, Pres. Obama has shown himself to be a chicken in the face of pressure from advocates of homosexuality.
In honor of his craven political cynicism, I decided to make Coq au vin, which turns out rather purple (both red and blue at the same time) when made with red wine.
I started my process at about 5 pm, by prepping some salt pork. This, by the way, is a modification of Julia’s recipe. Cut the pork into small pieces and simmer in water for a while. Then brown them in butter with a bit of olive oil to create the fat mixture in which you brown the chicken.
Once they are browned, extract them with a slotted spoon and side them aside. DRY off your pieces of chicken (they brown better when dry) and brown them in the fat. I used drumsticks and thighs which I got on a super sale.
Once browned, season with salt and pepper, and gently cook, covered, for 10 minutes. Turn the pieces, and cook for another 10.
Rejoin the pork with the chicken.
Add about a 1/4 cup of brandy or cognac, let it warm for a moment, and light it on fire!
I assure you, there are blue and yellow flames as the alcohol is consumed. You can see a hint of them in the bottom left.
Pour in your red wine. I suggest something along the lines of a Merlot, nothing fancy. But remember that if you use bad wine, your food won’t taste good.
Consult the book briefly just to get the timing.
Okay… about 20 minutes to simmer.
In the meantime, I have been braising little bitty onions and mushrooms. I made a bouquet garnis, and braised them in butter and chicken broth.
When the chicken is done, remove to a different container.
Do not overcook the chicken, which is easy to do.
Turn the heat up under the cooking liquid while skimming fat off the top. Reduce for a while.
In the meantime, start making a roux, which will be a thickener of the gravy.
When the liquid is reduced, blend together with your wire whisk some of the cooking liquid with the roux and then rejoin the thick mixture with the rest of the liquid.
Serve your non-partisan purple chicken with the braised onions and mushrooms, with some of the great sauce.
I started at 5 pm and, after eating, cleaning up, storing the left-overs, and posting this, it is 7:30.
Zing!
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With the endorsement of the amendment for the State Constitution of North Carolina, I thought that the true “ground zero” for the same-sex debate would now be Minnesota. It will also now be every ballot in every state in November.
From FNC:
President Obama on Wednesday endorsed same-sex marriages, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to take that position following days of speculation about his “evolving” stance on the issue.
The president used a hastily called TV interview to make his position clear.
“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama told ABC News.[…]
BUT WAIT… THERE’s MORE.
In endorsing unnatural sex, Obama invoked Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross.
“This is something that, you know, [Michelle and I have] talked about over the years and she, you know, she feels the same way, she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, you know, I, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated…”
Christ’s Sacrifice? The “Golden Rule”?
Christians understand that both are reflections of sacrificial love, charity, the former the ultimate example of the God man, the later human and earthly which echoes the former (cf. Luke 10:25-28).
Obama instrumentalized the Lord’s Sacrifice, the ultimate act of the love which is charity, to promote unnatural sex and the overturning of one of our most important societal bonds.
We, according to charity, must act for the true good of the other. It is not for the true good of another person to help them to sin or to undermine Christian morals. But that is exactly what Obama is doing. This is an astounding example of both scandal and blasphemy. It is beyond absurd to to invoke the Lord’s Sacrifice in an attempt to violate our human nature and God’s laws.
Obama invoked the Sacrifice of the Cross for the sake of justifying the destruction of the definition of “marriage”, as if that is “good” for people. It is NOT for the good of anyone, because it promotes and condones a sin that cries to heaven.
We cannot wish that people sin.
We cannot help them sin.
We cannot tell them that sin is good.
We cannot give them the means to sin so that they will sin.
We cannot defend the sins of others.
In charity, we must treat people with the affliction of sex-sex attraction according to their God-given dignity. In charity, we can NEVER condone their sinful acts.
It is the sin that we repudiate, not the people.
It can NEVER… NEVER be an act of Christian charity to call evil acts good, or to condone them, or to say that they are acceptable, or publicly to undermine morals that stem from our human nature. It can NEVER… NEVER… be a matter of “Golden Rule”, which is rooted in the true sacrificial love which is charity, to promote a change in the definition of marriage so that “same-sex marriage” can be marriage’s equivalent in any way.
What the President did was vile. Even though everyone knew that was his position, how vile to hear it framed in that way, publicly given voice.
He is an embarrassment to the United States. He is actively tearing at one of society’s most important social bonds. What he did is harmful to our country and to every citizen of every age, even those of same-sex attractions. It was NOT a reflection of either charity or the Golden Rule in any Christian sense. The Golden Rule does NOT mean “you do what you want and I’ll do what I want”.
Pres. Obama MUST be voted out of office.
St. Augustine teaches about charity, about real love, in his commentaries on the First Letter of John. Augustine describes three kinds of love. He explains that the greatest way of earthly love is enemy love, true charity for those who wish you ill and harm you.
I pray that I will be able to come to this sort of charity, in which I – may God have mercy on me and give me grace- fail so very often.
UPDATE:
In other new, Life News reports that a horrible case of church vandalism in Portland was claimed by a group called “Angry Queers”.
Our friends at Rorate, always on top of these things, has this:
Bp. Arrieta Ochoa, of “Legislative Texts”:
“No doctrinal problems with SSPX; we were able to clarify them”
The Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa, was in Louvain-la-Neuve (Wallonia, Belgium) this past Monday, and spoke to Belgian daily La Libre, mostly about the abuse scandal. He also had the following to say on former Anglicans and on relations with the Society of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX):
“In the first case, it is above all a question of confirmation of the faith and, from there, of catechesis. Regarding the problem of the reintegration of the Lefebvrists, I think we were able to clarify the doctrinal problems, even if it is not easy to put all that onto paper. The true problem, the only one for me, is the separation, the human distance dating from 1988.”
Benedict XVI is the Pope of Christian Unity.
Indeed, my fear is that some of them have been in a stance of defiance for so long, they no longer know how to submit. Furthermore, some of them have never known unity.
From the Laudator comes this insight into the matter of translation:
Guy Davenport (1927-2005), “Another Odyssey,” in The Geography of the Imagination (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1981), pp. 29-44 (at 34):
Translation involves two languages; the translator is in constant danger of inventing a third that lies between, a treacherous nonexistent language suggested by the original and not recognized by the language into which the original is being transposed.
From The Catholic League:
BISHOPS ACCUSED OF “THOUGHT CONTROL”
May 9, 2012
The following comment against the Vatican and the bishops, made in response to concerns over the Leadership Conference of Women Religious [LCWR, a subsidiary of the Magisterium of Nuns], is taken from a May 8 editorial in the National Catholic Reporter:
“This is the latest episode of episcopal flailing about in a search for enemies anywhere and everywhere to explain how so much has escaped their control. This isn’t about authentic teaching and orthodoxy. This is about thought control and censorship.”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:
It is important for the bishops to know that the National Catholic Reporter, [aka Fishwrap] which is adored by the Catholic Press Association, regards them to be no better than the totalitarian monsters who have ruled in communist and fascist nations. Hitler, Stalin and Mao perfected thought control, and that is what the bishops are now accused of promoting. Even for the Reporter, this assault represents a new low. [Don’t worry… they’ll soon limbo-writhe beneath an even lower bar.]
I will make sure that every bishop in the U.S. gets this news release. [I’ll help!]
Contact Tom Fox: tfox@ncronline.org
Contact our director of communications about Donohue’s remarks:
Jeff Field
Phone: 212-371-3191
E-mail: cl@catholicleague.org
Far and wide in the USA we hear about dioceses that are – allegedly – “forced” to close parishes.
Perhaps another approach to those moribund parishes could be tried before closing them.
Here is an interesting “brick by brick” story from Ottawa.
With Latin mass, a parish secures its future by drawing from the past
By Kelly Egan, The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — Ste-Anne’s in Lowertown was built in 1873, in the classic form: stone walls, stained glass, a central spire, beautiful lines — what a kid would draw with a crayon if you said, “Hey kid, draw a church.” [Isn’t the case that these are the sort of churches that get closed? They are in older areas of cities or were built by loving immigrants in the countryside.]
Much happened in the next 135 or so years. But nothing like the events of April 2, 2009, when a wall very nearly fell in.
Only an hour before the church was to be occupied, a portion of the upper west wall collapsed, sending a beam hurtling onto the church floor, crashing through eight rows of pews. On the way, an antique chandelier, later replaced for $50,000 in insurance funds, was destroyed.
Repairs would take months, cost close to $1 million; the congregation would have to vacate, eventually disperse.
Could anything save Ste-Anne’s, the francophone parish on Old St. Patrick Street that had always lived in the shadow of nearby Notre-Dame Basilica?
Well, two years later, we have the answer. Latin. Yes, Latin. Carpe diem.
Early in June, the parish of St. Clement’s, on nearby Mann Avenue in Sandy Hill, will move in.
It is the only church of its kind in the archdiocese: masses are still said in traditional Latin, with the priest facing the front of the church, back to the worshippers, [sigh… we just can’t shake that error, that cliché…] the so-called “Extraordinary Form” of the Catholic rite that was largely abandoned in 1965. To make it even more distinct, homilies are done in English and in French; one after the other, possibly Ottawa’s only trilingual mass.
[…]
In the short term, the parish needs to deal with how to make Ste-Anne’s “old again”, in the sense of restoring the sanctuary to something approximating its original look. Two smaller side altars will also be brought from St. Clement’s.
Perhaps the most remarkable part of the whole story is that a church, in a real sense going back in time to use a so-called dead language has managed to draw 400 on a typical Sunday, grow its congregation, attract three priests and young families and put its future on stable footing.
“It’s not unusual to have people drive two hours to come to our mass,” says Barry McMahon, 63, a parishioner for about 14 years.
[…]
Read the rest there.
BTW… the priest there is Fr. Philip Creurer, FSSP. Yes, Fraternity of St. Peter.
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