Ubi Petrus

Tonight there will be a second listening session (the first I wrote about here) where the task force’s recommendation regarding the future plans for the three churches in our Deanery cluster will be presented and discussed. Pray for those on the task force, for those attending the meeting, and for those who cannot or do not attend and are affected. I can only hope this session contains more positive commentary and constructive criticism and less short-term and sometimes even scandalous commentary. I may just lose my temper if someone decides it’s an appropriate time to launch an ad hominem attack on the Bishop.

For all those that want to lay it at his feet, I ask you only these few questions. When is the last time you voluntarily fasted for a day as a sacrifice? When did you last spend an hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament praying for the vocations that may have helped avert this problem? How have you helped make your family the ecclesia domestica it is called to be? And when did you perform some sacrificial act in reparation for the sins of others as well as yourself? Be very, very careful what you lay at the feet of others, for you may unknowingly be laying it at your own feet.

Do you know what ‘hermeneutic‘ means? If you do, Fr. Martin Fox has a reflection on the two hermeneutics used to view and interpret Vatican II that will provide interesting reading and fodder for thought and possibly even debate. If you don’t, Fr. Fox provides an explanation of hermeneutics as a part of the post. He is, as usual, well-informed and well-centered, reserved yet unflinching in his analysis. No matter which hermeneutic you find yourself using, there is ample feed for your intellectual chewing here. Something to whet your appetite:

The problem is, there is but One Church; or, there is No Church. I mean that the Catholic Church–if she is who we profess her to be, must be essentially one, or it is none. Meaning however apparent and interesting the “discontinuities” in relation to the Council’s impact, the continuities are vastly more significant. And we risk a grave misunderstanding of the Church and of Christ’s promises to the Church, if we miss that.

Personally, one thing I find both refreshing and edifying is his reminder that liturgy affects theology, although he makes the point in less confrontational terms than that. It is a great consolation to me when I hear a priest understand and put in practice the ancient law of “lex orandi, lex credendi” (literally, “the law of prayer is the law of belief”).

Very often the only grounding contact people will have with their faith these days is at Church on Sunday. If that experience is wishy-washy, influenced by New Age spiritualities or devoid of color and beauty it can only have a deleterious effect on their beliefs. If, however, that experience is straight-forward, allowing the inherent beauty of God who is the source of all beauty to flower forth, and has as its guide posts the faith handed on from the Apostles it can provide a source of light and guidance to all who participate. The former points in many directions weakly; the latter points in one direction strongly. A person can only travel in one direction at a time – offering the former allows them selection of any number of paths, some of which can lead to perdition, while offering the latter lays before them the road that leads to God.

I just finished Mike Aquilina’s The Way of the Fathers – what better way to spend Father’s day than with the Fathers of the Church (and, of course, with the children who make you a Father). At times light and airy and yet delving into the deep and pensive this is a wonderful introduction to the lives and thoughts of the Fathers. The author did the best thing he could do in a book like this – he let the Fathers speak for themselves, and speak they do in this collection of one thousand sayings. At one point I turned to my wife and said, “you know, people just don’t write or talk like this any more.” For my money, so much the greater our loss.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough to you if you have any interest at all in patristics. Come to think of it, even if you don’t think you have any interest in patristics, pick it up anyway – I can almost guarantee you will when you’re done. I fully expect to come back to this book regularly as a resource both for research and enlightenment. A few random samples to whet your appetite, and if you’re like me, move your spirit:

33. I bore about a shattered and bleeding soul, weary of being borne by me, yet finding nowhere to rest. — St. Augustine

234. The angel could not touch the fire’s coal with his fingers, but just brought it close to Isaiah’s mouth. The angel did not hold it, and Isaiah did not consume it, but Our Lord has allowed us to do both. — St. Ephrem of Syria

569. It is not true humility if a man, perceiving that it is God’s will that he should rank above others, refuses to do so. — Pope St. Gregory the Great

897. Why are there so many snares? That we may not fly low, but seek the things that are above. — St. John Chrysostom

In the pool (as in billiards) community proper etiquette for congratulating an opponent for a particularly good shot is to tap the end of one’s cue on the ground – this naturally becomes “tap, tap, tap” in written form. My congratulations this time is pointed to Dr. Ed Peter’s post on the Peter Meade controversy in the Boston Archdiocese.

To summarize, if you don’t know, Peter Meade and his wife wrote an opinion piece in the Boston Herald claiming that, in essence, since the world didn’t end with the first homosexual “marriage” in Massachusetts that was a sign that God was okay with the idea and that “no harm has resulted from the marriage of same-sex couples”. LifeSite covers it here. As far as that goes, well, what else is new? Someone wrote a cockeyed opinion piece in a Boston newspaper, what’s the big deal? The big deal is that this Peter Meade also is co-chair of the Cardinal’s committee on parish closings and realignments. As bad as that is, let us also remember that this committee is in the cross-hairs of just about everyone in the Boston Archdiocese who has any bone to pick with the Church, so allowing someone who holds a what could be called heretical position on homosexual marriage to help run that committee is somewhat akin to suicide.

Dr. Peters summarizes the situation perfectly:

By their own words, the Meades have proclaimed themselves unfit to hold a position of influence in any particular Church, let alone one as prominent as Boston. If he won’t resign, Peter Meade should be removed from the cardinal’s advisory commission.

This is quite nearly the last thing the Archdiocese of Boston, and the New England region in general, need right now. How long will it be before Rhode Island and Maine cave in to the homosexual lobby? A doubling and redoubling of our prayers is needed.

Or a tissue, or something. Deacon Greg Kandra, he of Couric and Co. fame but also the illustrious GregK on the CatholicPages forums, has created a blog and he’s jumped in with both feet. Very rarely do you get to see simple purity change a person right in front of you, as you do with this YouTube he posted about here. Like I said, get a hanky or a tissue, because if you don’t need it, well, you’re worse than Simon Cowell. And do go check out the rest of his blog, it’ll be more than worth your time.

Seems Dom has been able to locate some full-time employment. Not just any job, mind you, but working for the Archdiocese of Boston. Lucky guy, him. Let’s all keep him, and his new task, in our prayers.

From CWN:

Boston, Jun. 13, 2007 (CWNews.com) – The Catholic bishops of Massachusetts have called upon members of the state legislature to vote in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage, thus allowing the state’s citizens to decide the issue.

The Massachusetts legislature is scheduled to meet on June 14 in a constitutional convention, to take up a proposed amendment that narrowly survived a key vote at a similar session in the last legislature. If it wins the support of 50 lawmakers, the proposed amendment would be put on the statewide ballot for ratification by the voters.

In their June 12 statement, the bishops of Massachusetts asked legislators to allow that statewide vote. “True fairness,” the bishops said, “involves letting the people vote on the marriage amendment to define exactly what constitutes marriage.”

The people of Massachusetts have not yet had an opportunity to voice their opinion on the court decision that allowed same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. In light of the issue’s importance, the bishops urge legislators to give voters that opportunity. Their June 12 message encourages the lawmakers to act without further delay, to ensure that the proposed amendment comes up for a vote.

Both supporters and opponents of the marriage amendment anticipate a closely contested vote at the June 14 constitutional convention. Gay-rights activists have urged legislative leaders to kill the measure by a procedural vote rather than allow the proposed amendment to be placed on the ballot.

The Massachusetts constitution requires legislators to take a vote on a proposed amendment that, like this one, has been endorsed by the signatures of over 100,000 voters. However, legislative leaders can postpone that vote until later in the session.

It does seem interesting that those most interested in “freedom” and “fairness” are only interested in it when it pertains to them or those with whom they agree. “Freedom for me, but not for thee” seems to be their rule. Sadly as well, we’re not likely done with these types of problems until judges are shown that juridicial legislation is against the will and intent of the constitutions, both federal and state – the long tail of Roe v. Wade casts a terrible shadow.

What. The. Heck. Were. They. Thinking?!?! Oh, that’s right, Planned Parenthood is a counseling service. Yeah, that’s it. So let’s take a group of at-risk kids and send them on a “field trip” to Planned Parenthood. Because, you know, they’ll get good unbiased information there. Like how to lie on a form so they don’t have to report statutory rape.

You know your city and state has gone to the dogs of Moloch when the local YMCA (yeah, that C – yeah, it’s supposed to stand for Christian, doncha know?) thinks of sending kids to a Planned Parenthood as a field trip. How about while they’re at it, sending them to a local landfill and having them look for the body parts of aborted babies? Ah, that might be stressful, never mind. Because, you know, I’m sure the folks at Planned Parenthood just showed them how to put a condom on a banana.

One can tell a great deal more about a community, nee a civilization, by the things it doesn’t believe even warrant concern than by those it vigorously debates. Someone, somewhere thought this was a perfectly fine idea no one but those troglodyte theocon far-right-wingers would even worry about, but they’re moonbatty anyway so they can be ignored. It is indeed a sign that we have not done our job when people don’t even think something might be questionable. It is time to redouble, and redouble again, our efforts.

Lest we forget:

From CWN:

Sydney, Jun. 12, 2007 (CWNews.com) – Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia, has repeated his insistence that Catholic politicians who support embryonic stem-cell research should “think twice before next receiving Communion.”

Cardinal Pell has been severely criticized by some Australian politicians and editorial writers for saying that Catholics should not support a bill that would allow for “therapeutic cloning.” Archbishop Barry Hickey of Perth has found himself the focus of a government investigation for making similar comments, which one lawmaker saw as threatening.

In his Sunday Telegraph newspaper column, Cardinal Pell made it clear that he will not back down from the dispute. He wrote: “All Catholics who continue to reject important Catholic teachings, even in areas such as sexuality, family, marriage, abortion, euthanasia, cloning where ‘liberals’ claim the primacy of conscience rules, should expect to be confronted, gently and consistently, rather than comforted and encouraged in their wrongdoing.”

The world needs more men like Cardinal Pell – strong in their position, true to the magisterium. And able to work an issue without battering people with sticks until it’s truly necessary.