Habemus Papam

For most people of my age or younger we have known no other Pope. And the Pope we knew was one of the few to be known as "the Great". The past two weeks have been simply amazing to witness in the Church. The sickness, the vigil, the death, and funeral of Pope John Paul the Great are a blur of incredible and beautiful images one after the other. For me, the election of Cardinal Ratzinger does not yet seem real - it is hard to digest. I was 8 when Pope John Paul II was elected. I know Cardinal Ratzinger as Ratzinger, not as Pope Benedict XVI, so this will take some getting used to. (I even have a beer stein with his picture on it)

I was just able to catch a few minutes of television this evening and saw Mark Shea and Kathy Shaidle on MSNBC. They were great - Kathy was asked about ordination of women and said she "wished those who discussed this would stop fighting the battles of the 70's and 80's and do what they always want the Church to do - move into the 21st Century!" . Just a few minutes ago I was able to watch the replay of the events on EWTN starting with the white smoke and now the first blessing of the new Pope. The drama was great. When Ratzinger's name was said, Fr. Neuhaus and Raymond Arroyo were obviously delighted -I heard Neuhaus exclaim "Oh my God" kind of in the background... and sounding like he broke up -he was not heard from for a few minutes. Two more images -

This is what I imagine some Catholics felt when seeing Ratzinger elected -

But as someone mentioned on another blog, it is not time to gloat, it is time to pray - for any Catholics dismayed at Pope Benedict's election, and for the Pope himself.

And -

Thanks to Christopher Blosser for all the work he has done over the past few years with The Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club. His intelligence, humor, and insight have introduced many of us Catholics to this great Churchman. His site is currently a living testimony to Yogi Berra's saying -"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded".

( I was just able to get on the site now after a few tries)

Guess which Catholic figure this is about:

"In 1993 he won the feature of the year award from the Black Journalist Association for a series he wrote and produced on Malcolm X"


4/18/05 -- The answer was given by John M in comments -

Raymond Arroyo!

The only place I found this was here. I tried to verify it but couldn't find any other mention of it. It was surprising to me because I didn't know he was a reporter before EWTN and I associate him with that network so much I find it hard to picture him doing general news. I was also surprised to see he was a graduate of NYU.

The Amityville Horror

There is a new movie out that will once again exploit this real life tragedy. The actual story of what happened when Ronald DeFeo murdered his entire family can be found at The Amityville Murders website, done by an author of a book about the Amityville thing. Since this is a Catholic blog I will point out the Catholic Church and The Hoax section. The priest involved in this story "dropped out of sight" according to my diocese in a 2002 letter to the author. That doesn't exactly fill me with confidence in the way the Diocese tracked priests in the 1970's and 1980's but there it is. One thing about this story - please don't come to Amityville to gawk at the house as people have done in the past. The house doesn't have those weird windows anymore, the address was changed, and no one has ever reported any weird things going on since the book and movie came out the first time. Amityville is a nice little town and doesn't need more traffic. Thanks.

Where's the Media Outrage?

"In the fourth sordid case involving city teachers this week, a Queens English instructor is under investigation for having sex with two female students, the Daily News has learned."


Throughout 2002 the papers splashed stories about priestly pedophilia on the front pages, relentlessly. This was not a bad thing and really helped to purge our Church. But why is there no equal sense of outrage at the teacher pedophilia scandal? Where are the calls for a national survey to investigate how many cases of teacher abuse has occured in schools from 1950-today?? I am seriously asking this question because I think if people were exposed to the same relentless media stories on teachers as they were on priests there would be a true purge of this problem.

I was watching Aaron Brown on CNN last night which was all about the conclave - I think Brown is smart and has done a decent job covering the Pope's sickness and death. One report showed a screenshot of The Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club and I was delighted to see this. Unfortunately the report was on the push for Cardinals to become Pope and people might have gotten the impression the Fan Club was a site pushing for this. Christopher Blosser has done a great job with this intelligent and humorous site and now has directed the press to the FAQ to help dispel this notion. Be sure to check out the Links Page though because it is top notch, not to mention the blog. It has been wonderful to hear the praises for the "Panzerkardinal" and his excellent homily in the media. The Fan Club has probably become more well known in the past week than it has been since it started in 2000. This is great, but if there is a run on Cardinal Ratzinger Beer Steins, don't bother trying to buy mine - no matter how high the price you will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I don't see it online but the headline of today's two Newsday reports from Rome was:

PAPAL CHOICE MAY TURN BACK THE CLOCK

This was over an article on how JPII centralized power in the Church and how the next Papacy will change this. Part of this is true - JPII's stature, intellect, and sheer force caused Rome to be more the focus of attention than it sometimes is meant to be. Of course since the Church was falling apart over the past 30 years a strong Papacy is just what we needed. The other "report" was about how Opus Dei may influence the election of the next Pope and how weird and secretive, rich and scary this group is. Of course mention is made of the use of mortification of the flesh. Sometimes I think Newsday should just change its name to the Anti-Papist Times.

Fixing what's broken


"Campus ministry is broken, Father Brian Barr says, and he’s determined to fix it. "

Run for your lives! The John Paul II priests are exhibiting signs of piety!!

Rally Supports 3 Fired Nuns

These 3 nuns did not have their contracts renewed because the Diocese is trying to inject the New Evangelization into the campus ministry. It is unfortunate that people do not understand the mess this diocese and the Church has been in for 30 years and what needs to be done to turn things around. I don't like the idea of anyone losing their job, but these 3 nuns will not be out on the street - one of the sisters belongs to the Dominicans of Amityville. They just put up their mansion in the Hamptons for sale at $25 million. As far as the sisters feeling unappreciated in the Church, I have a suggestion:

Check out these sisters!

And these sisters!

And these sisters!

And these sisters!

These sisters are very appreciated in the Church and their communities are growing. Perhaps the fired sisters should learn from this.

Good Priest - Bad Priest

Guide to Chinese Food at Angry Twins

Public Editor coming for Newsday

"Speaking at a meeting of the Long Island Association, Timothy P. Knight said it was critical for Newsday to create the position of ombudsman or reader's representative. "

"But sources said a leading candidate is editorial writer Bob Keeler, a veteran Newsday journalist who wrote a book about the paper's history. In 1996, he won the Pulitzer Prize for stories about a Catholic parish in Westbury."

Newsday is still suffering from the fallout from its massive circulation fraud. Having lost most of its longtime columnists and editor, the paper is still trying to repair the damage to its prestige. This paper, which has a monopoly on Long Island, has a pretty obvious liberal bias and an ombudsman would be a good move. More importantly for this blog's concerns, the paper is simply one of the most anti-Catholic in the nation. Hopefully an ombudsman would help remedy this. But if Keeler is chosen, then this will amount to placing a tissue on the top of a huge pile of horse manure. Keeler is a member of the paper's editorial board and a longtime employee. The ombudsman should be from the outside and neutral. As far as the anti-Catholicism of the paper, Keeler is a Voice of the Faithful-Call to Action-National Catholic Reporter type of Catholic so I doubt he would change anything.

The Rogito of Pope John Paul II placed in his coffin can be read at EWTN.

It begins: "In the light of Christ risen from the dead, on April 2 of the year of the Lord 2005, at 9:37 p.m., as Saturday was coming to an end, and we had already entered the day of the Lord, octave of Easter and Sunday of Divine Mercy, the beloved pastor of the Church, John Paul II, passed from this world to the Father. The whole Church, in prayer, accompanied him in his passing."

UPDATE: They had this on Cultural Catholic but took it down, so I linked to EWTN instead.

"The German-born cardinal choked with emotion. "Santo! Santo!" the crowd responded, waving banners reading "Santo Subito - Immediate Sainthood."

Did cigar-boy Bill Clinton really say this about the Pope?

"He's like all of us - he may have a mixed legacy"

If so, then mark your calendars because this may be the stupidest thing ever said by a human being.

John Paul the Great

"Italy appealed to pilgrims to stay away from central Rome on Wednesday, saying it was already saturated with millions of faithful desperate to see Pope John Paul's body ahead of Friday's funeral. "


This is beautiful to see. Now remind me again, who is this Hans Kung? Who is this Richard McBrien? Charles Curran?

John Paul the Great
I have heard people call him John Paul the Great for years now. This article discusses this title and notes correctly that it is not an official designation, but a popular one. I think it would be great for the next Pope, or some other official, to wait until World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne to ask the crowds of young people if they wish for John Paul II to be forever know as "The Great". Let the "official" decision be made by the people so close to this Pope.

This article focuses on reflections on the Pope from a few young religious from the Province of Meribah (Marianists) on Long Island. This community runs Chaminade and Kellenberg High Schools. Mentioned are Brothers Stephen Ries 20, Ryan Sheehan 27, and Daniel Griffin 20.

CNBC's money guy Laurence Kudlow has a blog and has a post on Pope John Paul II that is beautiful. In the post, Kudlow talks about his 1997 conversion to the Catholic Church - it is well worth a read.

POPE JOHN PAUL II 264th Pontiff - October 16, 1978 to April 2, 2005


Summary of his life can be found on Cultural Catholic.