Saturday, July 03, 2004

HAPPY JULY 4TH!!

I had hoped to get my Cardinal Ratzinger Beer Stein in time for the 4th, but it will probably arrive on Tuesday. Oh well, I am still looking forward to quaffing a few beers and putting some hot dogs and hamburgers on the bbq. The family will converge here from out of state which will be great.

Update: Got the Stein on 7/7/4 but have yet to break it in.

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Prayers answered


"Some of them had not been allowed to attend Mass in four years. On Sunday, Msgr. Thomas Molloy of St. Luke's parish in Brentwood presided over a religious service in Spanish for them in the hallway of a hotel in Suffolk County. As tears trickled down the faces of many of the immigrants lining the walls, they and immigration service agents, who are guarding them, were overcome with emotion.

"I never thought I would see an INS agent cry," Molloy said. "But they were, too."




Yes they came here illegally, and illegal immigration does cause problems in the US. But I hope the people of Long Island will open their hearts for these people and give them whatever they need. I am glad to see Catholic Charities helping these Catholics.
Teacher Accused of Sleeping With Student Not Anomaly


"Lafave is not alone, according to the study, "Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature June 2004," prepared for the U.S. Department of Education (search) by Charol Shakeshaft of Hofstra University and Interactive, Inc. Huntington, N.Y."

This Long Island professor was mentioned by the Catholic League in their special report on Sexual Abuse in Social Context: Catholic Clergy and Other Professionals. I especially like the quotes about her report from this World Net Daily article:

"She notes the recently released study by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops found 10,667 young people were sexually mistreated by priests from 1950 to 2002.

She compares that with her extrapolation from a national survey for the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation in 2000, which would indicate roughly 290,000 students experienced some sort of physical sexual abuse by a public school employee from 1991 to 2000."


"That is a single decade, she points out, compared to the approximately five decades covered by the Catholic report."

And here is the kicker:
"Initially, Shakeshaft understood the report was to lay the groundwork for a broad national study on sexual abuse in schools, but last May she was told to retool the report and officials say they have no more plans at the moment to study the issue."

A few things need to be said:

- the problems within the Catholic Church should have led to a real national push to end abuse of children, but some prejudice was involved that kept people from seeing how much wider a scandal child abuse really is in society.

- Priests are held to a higher standard, either because of prejudice or because people understand the nature of the priesthood. For Catholics, Priests should be held to the highest standard.

- I don't believe that the coverups, and shifting around of abusers was as great in schools as it was in the Church.

- I thought the national study going to 1950 in the Church was overkill but anything to clean out the rot is fine. The same should be done with the public school systems.

- The Church is better today because of the two year and ongoing "enema" so let the public school system, athletic organizations, military, and other groups experience some of this cleansing.



Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Tom Monaghan and Fr. Fessio do the right thing and scrap the plans for a Giant Greenhouse in Ave Maria, Florida. I was so disappointed to see such a dumb idea attached to what sounds like a wonderful, orthodox University, I just had to express my displeasure by sending them an email. Apparently I was not the only one. I am glad to see that Fr. Fessio and Mr. Monaghan woke up and realize this was not a great design for a Catholic Church. Ok, we have all seen much, much worse, but this was Ave Maria we are talking about.

Sunday, June 27, 2004

Cardinal Arinze strikes again!

I found this article from the Heart, Mind, and Strength blog. In the Jubilee Year I attended a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Arinze and was impressed by his humor and piety. Since then, I have been even more impressed by quotes I have seen in the papers. He always sounds intelligent, blunt, humorous, and orthodox. I wonder if the Ratzinger Fan Club will consider adding a mug with Arinze's mug on it. Or perhaps we will see the Cardinal Arinze Fan Club established! Better yet, maybe we should wait....

"Young women do not want to join a group of old women who seem to be confused [about their mission]. Young men do not want to join a diocese where the priests seem to be angry."

"He compared nuns who did not want to wear religious garb to a flight attendant for Alitalia who wanted to wear the uniform of American Airlines. "What do you think Alitalia is going to say? Let's dialogue?" he asked, to laughter from his audience."
Maine Catholic and Beyond

I just reluctantly removed this great blog from my blogroll. I like to keep the list down to a small number of blogs and use it to browse through St. Blog's. If I use Gerard's list I end up spending way too much time online. I kept this blog on the right for months even though it has not been updated since April 19th because the blog was great and Chris was my age and his interests were similiar to mine.. A couple of times his comments or posts caused me to rethink my sometimes harsh view of people in the Church. His last posts talk of serious difficulty and I hope and pray he is well. I will pray for him and ask that anyone reading this does the same.
Sisters of Life

I just saw the last few minutes of the Solemn Mass of Establishment for the Sisters of Life at St. Patrick's Cathedral. EWTN was replaying this but it took place on March 25th, 2004. This order of sisters was established by Cardinal John O'Connor in 1991 and are devoted to the protection of all human life.