New contender for bishop of the year award

Archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome E. Listecki recently used his pastoral authority to let folks know in a news release that the organization Young Catholics for Choice may be young and ok with abortion, but they sure aren't Catholic.

Full text of the bishop's statement (with my emphases and comments):

"It has come to my attention that an organization calling itself “Young Catholics for Choice” has recently entered into collaboration with Family Planning HealthServices of Wausau. Through media advertising, “Young Catholics for Choice” is attempting to convey the message that Catholics can disregard Church teaching regarding contraception, abortion and human sexuality in general and remain Catholics in good standing. [Should we file this under 'catechesis FAIL' or 'secular outlook WIN'?]
Nothing could be further from the truth. [Now that's a bishop who knows how to bish!] While people can call themselves whatever they want, it is my duty as a bishop to state clearly and unequivocally that by professing and disseminating views in grave contradiction to Catholic teaching, members of organizations like “Young Catholics for Choice” in fact disown their Catholic heritage, tragically distancing themselves from that communion with the Church to which they are called. We pray that they may reconcile their position which is contrary to the Catholic Faith they claim to profess." ["Nothing could be further from the truth," "grave contradiction" "disown their Catholic heritage" " tragically distancing themselves, " "contrary to the Catholic Faith" - no mincing words here!]

Bravo to Bishop Listecki! May these misguided people come to know the truth that sets them free.

On a somewhat related note, as much as these "Catholic" groups annoy me to no end, they do kind of point out that the Catholic Church is the Church. I mean, it would be so very easy for these "Catholics" to simply become Episcopalian and have all these beliefs affirmed. Heck, they'd even get some liturgy, and women's ordination.

But that's not enough for them. I think, deep down, buried under several layers of "what-do-a-bunch-of-old-men-in-Rome-know-about-life?" scorn, they know that the Catholic Church is what she claims to be. And that scares them into staying. They continue to dissent, continue to try to change her, but they know that they cannot leave Jesus's Church.

So while they've leaped off the back of the Barque of Peter, they've still got a rope tied to the ship. They think they're doing the Church a favor by trying to tug her towards "modernity."

However, hopefully sooner rather than later, they'll realize that, while that ship has its barnacles, it has weathered the Albigensians and the Arians, the Manicheans and the Modernists, the Nestorians, Napoleon and the Nazis, the profilgate popes and the Protestants.

"Young Catholics for Choice" won't be able to budge her. With the pope at the helm, the Church will sail on, with the between the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Eucharist as the guides, no matter what.

Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Last minute gift idea

Suitable for small children or that relative who thinks he's oh-so-punny.

From Allen's Brain.

Study uses African women like lab rats

The Catholic Church gets a bad rep for promoting that the ways to prevent the spread of AIDS in Africa are abstinence and marital fidelity.

Somehow, the the bad rep persists, even though Uganda has experienced "the greatest decline in HIV presence of any country in the world" by promoting abstinence and fidelity to one's spouse as the best way to prevent HIV transmission.

Yeah, no one ever said anti-Catholicism was logical.

But what's worse is that some scientists are willing to let women die of HIV or AIDS. From Diogenes:

most unfortunate

by Diogenes

Hey folks, do your acquaintances include any consequentialist Safe-Sin ethicians of the type who argue that the Church is proved wrong by AIDS infection rates in Africa? Well round them up to take a look at this BBC report on field-testing their moral theology:

A major trial of a vaginal microbicide has produced no evidence that its use reduces the risk of HIV infection in women.

The gel, PRO 2000, is intended for use before sexual intercourse to help reduce HIV infection.

It was tested in a trial involving 9,385 women in four African countries.

The risk of HIV infection was not significantly different among women supplied with the gel than in women given a placebo gel.

Got that? In order to gauge the effectiveness of the trial microbicide some of the "participants" were given a substance with no medicinal properties whatsover -- a placebo -- with the instruction to begin or resume sexual relations in a population with a notoriously high incidence of HIV infection.

To put it bluntly, the "lab rats" in this experiment were human beings with human hopes, loves, fears, responsibilities. Keep in mind that the participants necessarily had to be uninfected women at the outset of the trial. It is undeniable that the researchers wanted the women to be inseminated by men infected with a lethal disease agent. The trial would be pointless otherwise.

We are not told how the women in question were induced to comply (it is reported that they got "free condoms and access to counseling about safe sex"). It is all but certain that they were not truly brought to understand and accept 1) what a placebo actually is, 2) what each woman's chances of using an inert and useless substance were, 3) what the range of likelihood was for the trial medicine's being effective or ineffective. It is hard to imagine that 9,000 volunteers could have been assembled without some blurring of the truth.

Well, it turns out that the trial gel has no discernible effect in reducing the transmission of HIV. The reaction?

Lead researcher Dr Sheena McCormack, of the Medical Research Council, which part-funded the study, said: "This result is disheartening."

Bully for you, Doc. I trust the women in the study whose subsequent infection helped you draw your conclusion are equally stoic about the results. Let me go further: did you, Dr. McCormack, "field test" the gel with your own body in the same sub-Saharan circumstances? Did you ask your research colleagues or their wives and daughters to do so as well, for the sake of scientific progress? If, on the other hand, you were unwilling to put your own European middle class professional immune systems on the line, do you not feel a certain uneasiness at the "asymmetry of consequence" between your clinical discouragement and the discouragement of your, ahem, test population?

And yet people try to claim that the Catholic Church is anti-woman.

The world really has turned upside down.

May God have mercy on these scientists and shower His grace upon these poor women.

Heaven kisses Earth

Proof here.

Bishops say Equality Bill redefines who can be priest

I love the British sense of humor, especially some of the Monty Python skits and of course, Mr. Bean.

It's a pity this isn't a joke:

English, Welsh bishops say Equality Bill redefines who can be priest

By Simon Caldwell
Catholic News Service

LONDON (CNS) -- The Catholic bishops of England and Wales said they could be at risk of prosecution under a proposed law unless they accept women, sexually active gays and transsexuals as candidates to the priesthood.

They made their claims in a briefing for Catholic members of the House of Lords [some of who think the title 'lord' should be capitalized, apparently...], Britain's upper political chamber, ahead of a scheduled Dec. 15 debate on the Equality Bill, which aims to stamp out discrimination in the workplace [by discriminating against the Catholic faith].

The bishops said the bill defines priests as employees rather than officeholders. [Up next: prosecuting the Church for violating minimum wage laws, since priests probably are paid much less than minimum wage, considering how many hours they work.] Under the terms of the bill, the church would be immune from prosecution only if priests spend more than 51 percent of their time in worship or explaining doctrine.

According to the briefing, a copy of which was obtained by Catholic News Service Dec. 8, the government definition will, in effect, make it "unlawful to require a Catholic priest to be male, unmarried or not in a civil partnership, etc., since no priest would be able to demonstrate that their time was wholly or mainly spent either leading liturgy or promoting and explaining doctrine."

"The bill fails to reflect the time priests spend in pastoral work, private prayer and study, administration, building maintenance, etc.," the briefing said.

"This contentious definition was drafted without consultation and has been maintained by the government despite the concerns of the bishops' conference and representations made by most religious bodies in the U.K.," the briefing added. [So it's an "equality" bill in that, all things being equal, all religions are being discriminated against.]

The bishops asked Catholic lords to try to either strike out the contentious definition or widen it to protect priests and lay employees "whose credibility ... would be fatally compromised if their personal lives were openly at variance with the church's teaching."[Call me a conspiracy theorist, but isn't this what many people want? To destroy the credibility of the Church, so that it can be ignored as irrelevant? Yes, the priest abuse scandals have already done incalculable damage on that front. But to have the government openly working against the Church?]

In a Dec. 8 statement given to CNS, a government spokesman rejected the claims of the bishops, saying that an exemption "covers ministers of religion such as Catholic priests."

An amendment to the bill to protect the liberty of the churches was voted down in the House of Commons in November. [Why? Because this bill doesn't intend to protect churches.] The bill is likely to become law early next year.

Richard Kornicki, the bishops' parliamentary coordinator, told CNS in a Dec. 8 telephone interview that the bishops believe it is not possible to meet the criteria of the government definition of a priest. [Since when is government allowed to define who is a priest? Shouldn't they be looking at the Catholic Church's definition of who is a priest? But, alas, perhaps this is part of the Henry VIII legacy in England?]

According to legal advice received by the bishops, he said, this could lead to legal actions for sex discrimination if the church rejected women, married men, gays in civil partnerships or transsexuals who asked to join the priesthood.

"The government is saying that the church cannot maintain its own beliefs in respect of its own priests," he said. [Bingo. And that's frightening.]

Neil Addison, a Catholic lawyer who heads the Thomas More Legal Centre, which specializes in religious discrimination law, said that in the worst-case scenario the church could not only be sued but bishops could face imprisonment and unlimited fines and church assets could be sequestered. [As awful as this sounds, I wonder if such open and active legal persecution would help people recognize what's going on here. And I wonder how many bishops are fantastic speakers who could use some pithy British wit to denounce these actions while they head off to gaol.] He said the bill would have the effect of making it impossible for the bishops to discipline clergy who wanted to live "alternative lifestyles."

Earlier, the bishops said the bill could force Catholic schools and health care institutions to remove crucifixes from their walls in case they offend non-Christian employees. [If you're "offended" by Catholicism, why oh why would you want to work for the Catholic Church in its schools or hospitals?]

First, secular culture decided that religion should stay inside the church, and that people shouldn't let their faith affect their day-to-day lives. Now we have the government trying to tell the bishops how to deal with intrachurch matters. How about that for a slippery slope?

What is particularly disturbing about this is that the U.S. is probably next; President Obama has nominated Chai Feldblum commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Feldblum has argued that "sexual liberty" should trump religious liberty, and that the First Amendment should no longer apply to religious liberty.

From her paper, Moral Conflicts and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion:

“...I want to suggest that the best framework for dealing with this conflict is to analyze religious people’s claims as belief liberty interests under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, rather than as free exercise claims under the First Amendment.” (p. 3)

From "Banned in Boston," in the Weekly Standard (5/15/2006)

“I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win."

“Sexual liberty should win in most cases. There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that’s the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner.”

I hope and pray that the Brits wake up and stop their government from discriminating against people of faith.

And that Americans take note and prepare for our own upcoming battles.

Patron Saint of the Day: St. Thomas More

St. Thomas More, Martyr (Patron of Lawyers) St. Thomas More was born at London in 1478...In 1534, with his close friend, St. John Fisher, he refused to render allegiance to the King as the Head of the Church of England and was confined to the Tower. Fifteen months later, and nine days after St. John Fisher's execution, he was tried and convicted of treason. He told the court that he could not go against his conscience and wished his judges that "we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together to everlasting salvation."

Fr. Barron: "I want Catholicism to be disturbing, unnerving..."

Another gem from Fr. Robert Barron, discussing his book, "The Strangest Way":

How not to report about the Pope

From the AP, as published in the New York Times:

Pope Keeps Spanish Steps Tradition in Rome

ROME (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday lamented what he described as a steady diet of news about evil in the world, saying it hardens hearts, as he prayed at the Spanish Steps in a Christmas season tradition. [Ok, so one would expect, from the headline and this lead, that we're going to learn about what this tradition means.]

Shoppers who jammed the narrow streets, including Via Condotti with its posh shops, paused from buying Christmas gifts to catch a glimpse of Benedict as he was driven in a glass-sided popemobile to the square below the Spanish Steps. [What are the Spanish Steps and why are they a Christmas season tradition?]

''Every day, through the newspapers, television, radio, evil is reported, repeated, amplified, making us used to horrible things, making us become insensitive, and, in some way, poisoning us,'' the pope said after kneeling in prayer before a statue of the Virgin Mary to mark the Dec. 8 Catholic feast day in her honor. [Which is...? Surely what feast day is pertinent information.]

''Hearts harden and thoughts darken,'' Benedict said.

He also complained that the mass media ''tend to make us feel like spectators, as if evil regards only others and certain things could never happen to us.''

Instead, Benedict said, ''we are all actors, and for better or worse, our behavior has an influence on others.''

An aide held a white umbrella over the 82-year-old pontiff in a drizzle at dusk. Benedict wore an ermine-trimmed, crimson cape to guard against the chill. [Ok, so let me get the straight: what the Pope wore is more of a story than what he was doing and why?]

Benedict's next major public holiday appointment is Christmas Eve Mass, which he will celebrate at 10 p.m. instead of the traditional starting hour of midnight in St. Peter's Basilica.

The announcement by the Vatican that the pope had agreed with his aides to move up the appointment by two hours raised some concern about the pontiff's health.

But Vatican officials have insisted his health is fine, and that Benedict had agreed with aides to have more time to rest before a noon appearance to crowds in St. Peter's Square on Christmas Day.

Although Benedict at the start of his papacy ventured that he would travel far less than his globe-trotting predecessor, John Paul II, did in his 26-year-long pontificate, the German-born theologian has been making several international and domestic trips each year.

On Tuesday, church officials announced that Benedict would make several Italian pilgrimages in 2010, including a visit in October to Sicily, where the local church has been speaking out against organized crime. Other trips include a visit in May to Turin to see the famed Shroud and a journey in July to the central town of Sulmona, the spiritual home of the 13th-century hermit pope, Celestine V, the only pontiff to have resigned. [I wonder how many journalists hope Pope Benedict also resigns. ;-) ]

At least two foreign trips have been announced for next year: separate pilgrimages to the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Cyprus. Britain and Fatima, Portugal, are possibilities for other trips.

So, the reporter failed to include:

1. What the Spanish Steps are
2. Why the Spanish Steps are a Christmas tradition and
3. What feast day is December 8th (the Immaculate Conception, just FYI, AP).

But he/she did remember to include a description of the pope's hat. Gee, thanks.

Either the writer is a frustrated fashionista, stuck reporting real news when he/she would rather be covering the catwalk or some editor seriously forgot everything she learned in journalism school when she approved this for publication.

Regardless, this is a case of serious religion reporter FAIL.