Saturday, August 14, 2004

Music for The Passion of The Christ via Church of The Masses

"The album features newly recorded original songs sparked by the experience of seeing the film, andfeatures the diverse lineup which includes tracks by Steven Curtis Chapman,MercyMe, Third Day, Kirk Franklin featuring Yolanda Adams, Charlotte Church, former Creed singer Scott Stapp; Lauryn Hill; P.O.D.; Brad Paisley& Sara Evans; Third Day - MxPx featuring Mark Hoppus and others."

I had no idea Scott Stapp had left Creed -why is it that good bands always seem to break up? Anyway, the CD sounds good and you can hear Stapp's song from it on his website. The lyrics are especially interesting. Notice the attitudes of the artists that this movie has inspired are not of the anti-semitic type envisioned by the movie's ranting critics?

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

"A man who said the movie "The Passion of the Christ" prompted him to confess to strangling his girlfriend pleaded guilty Wednesday."

One arrogant and nasty blogger who has bashed the Passion movie and its "supporters" once posted about this man when he originally went to court and pleaded innocent. Since said blogger believes the movie is dangerous and will lead to violence, the idea that the movie had only positive effects blew his fragile mind. Therefore when the guy pleaded innocent in court the blogger implied that this meant the movie did not really affect this person, and the movie's supporters were all wet. Of course, pleading innocent is a standard defense move - if a defendant does not plead the judge will usually enter his plea as innocent. I wonder if this blogger will print this latest development. I doubt it. This blogger once posted a clergyman's criticism of the Passion movie months after it was written in which the clergyman predicted violence. I commented that posting this prediction months after the movie was out just made the prediction look more foolish. After all, there was no violence associated with The Passion of The Christ. This comment vanished from the site.

(I think the Catholic League should update their Body Count - it is now 6 months after the Passion and the body count is : 0)
Culture of What?

"In a particularly chilling revelation, Peterson told Frey he never wanted children of his own and planned to get a vasectomy, Frey said. "

IRS to scrutinize pay of charities' execs

"The U.S. Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday some 2,000 charities will be reviewed under a new IRS enforcement effort to see if they're overpaying their executives. "

I support any review of how charities operate but I don't understand exactly how the IRS can say a charity is overpaying their executives? How much is too much? I suspect this will lead to a media expose on the pay of charity execs and possibly even resignations. I recently happened to be checking out some things on Guidestar and was amazed at how much a leader of one Catholic organization made. Even though this leader does an excellent job, the salary may still raise eyebrows among even the group's most supportive supporters. I also fear such a high salary, even if justified, may leak out to the press and just plain look bad.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Fr. Groeschel on EWTN tommorrow

EWTN Global Catholic Network has announced that Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR, will be a special guest of Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ, host of EWTN Live, on his next program, airing Wednesday, August 11th. Father Groeschel will appear on the program via satellite from his residence in Larchmont, NY.

Monday, August 09, 2004

A New Era of Christian Persecution

If it were another group being slaughtered rather than Christians, then the media would be covering it extensively.

Archbishop serves up passionate defense of faith

This story, discovered via Seattle Catholic, is about Archbishop Dolan speaking at Theology on Tap in Milwaukee. He sounds like he is perfect for this type of event:

"I’m here (at the pub) all the time anyway … now I can write it off on my taxes"

And

"If our faith was in priests, we wouldn’t have survived Holy Thursday. Less than a couple hours after Jesus ordained the first priests, one of them sold him for 30 pieces of silver. One betrayed him three times. And eight ran off when he needed them most ... one of the first 12 stuck with him. That ain’t a good rate … less than 8 percent, less than two hours after the church began."

Our local version of this type of thing is Faith on Tap and it has been going well. Our next session is August 30th at 7 PM and is about everybody's favorite novel: "Decoding the DaVinci Code" with speaker Dr. Jane Gilroy. We also hope to have our Bishop Murphy speak this year. I think he will come across well just like Archbishop Dolan.