Okay! That did it!

It's not just buttons - it's mugs and t-shirts and golf-shirts... Too much flair.
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Profiteering off the Pope.  Tasteless kitsch.  C'mon!
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Pray for the Pope and don't worry about gaining an indulgence for it either.
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(Go ahead - report me.)

Saturday

I'm at an intervention this morning.

Illumination

Art:  Pompey in the Temple of Jerusalem, by Jean Fouquet


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Interesting how the Holy of Holies resembles the Roman Catholic High Altar - suggesting a deeper understanding of a hermeneutic of continuity perhaps...
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Ad Orientem.
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"Naturally the altar and priest were separated from the faithful, who, as St. Athanasius (Quaest. ad Antioch., 37) and Clement of Alexandria (Stromata VII.7) inform us, were instructed by the Apostles to pray, according to the traditions of the Mosaic Law, facing the East." - New Advent

Pray for the Holy Father

Crises in the Church.
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"I hear the whisperings of many:  'Terror on every side!  Denounce! let us denounce him!'  All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine..." - Jeremiah 20:10 - First reading of today's Mass.
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"On the watch for any missteps of mine."  Media does it all of the time:  journalists, television news, radio talk show hosts, even bloggers.
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Today the meek and humble Vicar of Christ is hounded by his enemies as was his Master.
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Pray very much for The Holy Father.
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(Please note:  I changed my header so as to avoid even the slightest impression of disrespect or levity towards our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI during these dark days.)

Praying for the Holy Father.

I am offering every prayer and sacrifice, my every thought, my simplest works, united to the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for the intentions of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI.
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"Real quick like."

[That is what I loved about Napoleon (Dynamite) - he was so articulate. So anyway - just a few random thoughts here.]
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I'm in a much better mood now days - because I have chosen not to think.
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So I was going to varnish a piece I painted last year and noticed a terrible error - I will not tell you what it is - but I was embarrassed, humiliated, and I curled up in a ball on the floor like Basil Fawlty over the fact I had posted the image on my art blog.  I've since pulled myself together after I realized I can correct the mistake - oh, the magic of paint!  I'm just an amateur so who cares, right?
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Last night I was watching the news and I realized Michelle Bachman is sometimes treated unfairly in the press - but I still can't stand her or Sarah Palin.
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Next Wednesday is a sort of feast day for bloggers, "Spy Wednesday" - the annual feast for watchmen, informants, backstabbers, and the like.  Well, it's not so much a feast as a day of penance for us - we are little better than gossip mongers after all - even if it doesn't always show in our posts - we still find ways to twitter away and report on one another.
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One last thing - who started this Weakland as hero bit written about in the NYT today?  Who is the source? 
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"Ah!  I wouldn't be surprised if the old scoundrel (Weakland) did it himself, trying to get Ratzinger again I'd say, Fawlty."
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I believe the Major may have a point - or maybe not.
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"I know nothing... no thing!  I know n o th ing!"  (Manuel)
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Photo:  Basil Fawlty; "Don't mention the war!"

Just like toilet seats.

Facebook 'linked to rise in syphilis' - story here.
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(No wonder so many users have dementia.)

Solemnity

"Annunciation" - John Collier

Blog talk.

So anyway.
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I know.  I've been way too serious again - I should maybe write about homosexuals or something light like that.  Oh!  Oh!  I did come across something!  Something everyone always wanted ask but were afraid of the answer:  "Where did all the gay priests come from?"  Nope, it's not a joke - Archbishop Weakland answers the question in his memoirs...
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"When the great exodus came (priests leaving orders after the council) fewer priests with a homosexual orientation left the priesthood.  Thus the proportion of gays in the priesthood became larger than that found in the general male population, creating in some places signs of a visible gay culture." - Weakland, Pilgrim: chapter 14; page 339.
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That's what she said. 
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Oh, and no, he didn't mention the guys bishops put in charge of recruitment and discernment and seminary.
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Art:  Bosch - "St. Antony"

Listen to your bishops.

A few thoughts on how liberal Catholics and their politicians could consider themselves pro-life while voting pro-choice...
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"At their fall 1989 meeting, the bishops of the United States passed a resolution condemning abortion," writes Archbishjop Weakland in his memoirs.  Remember Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 when abortion on demand became legal.  In 1981 Fr. Paul Marx, considered to be something of a fanatic by some bishops, began the pro-life movement..  Yet the bishops didn't get it together until 1989, despite the fact that the CDF issued a document On procured abortion in 1974.  Why was the resolution so long in coming?
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The Bernardin "seamless garment approach", Weakland, and the USCCB.
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The civil, kinder, gentler approach to the life issue became the official approach, thanks largely to Cardinal Bernardin and those in communion with him.  Cardinal Bernardin "had linked the questions of abortion and nuclear war. “ No other major institution presently holds these two positions in the way that Catholic bishops have joined them.” Bernardin stated at Fordham in 1983, speaking of the U.S. Bishop's pastoral, “The Challenge of Peace,” indicating he would use the letter “as a starting point for shaping a consistent ethic of life in our culture.”
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Well intentioned of course, yet abortion in effect became one of many peace and justice life issues, with the supposition not every Catholic can be working on every life issue at the same time.
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The Catholic moral tradition, he pointed out, “has something valuable to say in the face of the multiple threats to the sacredness of life today, and I am convinced that the church is in a position to make a significant defense of life in a comprehensive and consistent manner.”  
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“I am convinced,” he continued, “that the pro-life position of the church must be developed in terms of a comprehensive and consistent ethic of life.” As the new chairman of the bishops’ pro-life committee, he committed himself to “shaping a position of linkage among the life issues.”
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The cardinal posed two questions about these life issues: “In an age when we can do almost anything, how do we decide what we ought to do?” and “In a time when we can do anything technologically, how do we decide morally what we never should do?”
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“Those who defend the right to life of the weakest among us must be equally visible in support of the quality of life of the powerless among us: the old and the young, the hungry and the homeless, the undocumented immigrant and the unemployed worker.”
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On sensitive issues like abortion, the cardinal said, “we should maintain and clearly articulate our religious convictions, but also maintain our civil courtesy. We should be vigorous in stating a case and attentive in hearing another’s case; we should test everyone’s logic, but not question his or her motives.” - Richard P. McBrien, Cardinal Bernardin's seamless garment, NCR
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The Kennedy's had their Jesuit consultants (Rev. Robert Drinan, then dean of Boston College Law School; and three academic theologians, the Revs. Giles Milhaven, Richard McCormick, Charles Curran), the rest of the country had a few prominent bishops who viewed pro-life advocates as narrow minded, single issue fanatics and Christian fundamentalists.
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As Weakland wrote in his memoirs:
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I also tried to answer those in the pro-life movement who felt priests were not supportive of their groups and their aims, would not publicly associate with them in their cause, and did not preach often enough about the evils of abortion.  I pointed out some of the characteristics of their groups and their approaches about which priests felt uncomfortable - lack of compassion, narrowness of vision, ugly and demeaning rhetoric, questionable tactics, and lack of interest in other life issues..." - Weakland, Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church, Chapter 14, Managing Conflicting Models of Church, page 332
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In other words, pro-life advocates were more or less dismissed as radicals (and still are by politicians such as Pelosi and Biden).  Thank God today we have courageous bishops such as Archbishop Chaput who point out that, "Abortion is a foundational issue; it is not an issue like housing policy or the price of foreign oil. It always involves the intentional killing of an innocent life, and it is always, grievously wrong." - Archbishop Chaput  It is not just one of many life issues.
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What I'm trying to suggest here is that many liberal Catholics and their politicians may have been acting in relative good faith - they were just listening to their bishops after all... or following their example in rejecting Rome.

A telling comment...

Dr. Alice von Hildebrand, during an interview about 10 years ago was asked:
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"There are those critics of the ancient Latin Mass who point out that the crisis in the Church developed at a time when the Mass was offered throughout the world. Why should we then think its revival is intrinsic to the solution?"
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Her response:
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"The devil hates the ancient Mass. He hates it because it is the most perfect reformulation of all the teachings of the Church. It was my husband who gave me this insight about the Mass. The problem that ushered in the present crisis was not the traditional Mass. The problem was that priests who offered it had already lost the sense of the supernatural and the transcendent. They rushed through the prayers, they mumbled and didn’t enunciate them. That is a sign that they had brought to the Mass their growing secularism. The ancient Mass does not abide irreverence, and that was why so many priests were just as happy to see it go."
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Yes, the moral problem within the priesthood began before the Council, but unbridled chaos ensued when emphasis on the offering of sacrifice for sin was exchanged for the role of presiding at liturgical assemblies. - Sean - comment left on "The abuse crisis is just a small part of the Vatican II crisis." at Rorate Caeli
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Today my gut tells me everything is going to work out - "All will be well".  The scandals, the Pope's letter, even the role the Healthcare Bill passing in the U.S. played out - an act separating the sheep from the goats as it were, in the Catholic Church in North America - "All will be well."
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As expected, Fr. Z, Fr. Longenecker, and Fr. Blake have terrific commentaries on their blogs, analysing what is going down these days.  Click their names (hi-lighted here) and read what they are saying.
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Defending Roman Catholic Clergy

While trying to make sense of what is going on.
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Bear with me these days as I try to make sense out of all that is going on in the Church, our country, and Europe.  I'm reading articles and blogs I normally do not patronize - I have to hear what other people are saying - especially people outside this little corner of the blogosphere.  I do not listen to talk radio, Limbaugh, Savage, Beck or anyone else.  In fact I suddenly realized why some blogs come off so caustic - they must listen to that type of stuff on the radio, which they in turn emulate on their blogs.  If that's what does it for them, fine - it's not my thing. 
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Anyway.  Sunday I commented on another blog that if I had become a priest, or had persevered in the monastery, of all the times I would have been tempted leave, now would be the worst - in fact I'm sure I would chuck the habit and just walk out the door.  The upside of such a discouraging reflection is that it forced me to consider the extraordinary ordeal faithful priests and religious must be experiencing in these days, as the Church and consecrated life is so vehemently attacked and ridiculed.  How many are tempted to give up or call it quits?  So I decided I need to pray for them more than ever - priests, religious, bishops, and the Pope.
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That said, I stumbled upon an excellent article by Elizabeth Lev at Politics Daily: In Defense of the Catholic Clergy (Or Do We Want Another Reign of Terror?)  Lev reaches back into history to the days of the French Revolution, a time somewhat analogous to our own when it comes to dredging the past for evidence of clerical immorality.
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A little bit of history repeating.
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After the National Assembly diminished the authority of Louis XVI in 1789, anti-monarchical literature dwindled, but fierce accusations against Catholic clergy for misdeeds past and present increased. Isolated cases of clerical immorality were magnified to make depravity appear endemic to the entire priesthood (ironically, in an age where sexual libertinism was running rampant). The French propagandists labored night and day, dredging the past for old scandals whether decades or even centuries distant.
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In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 1790, Edmund Burke, a Protestant, asked the French, "From the general style of late publications of all sorts, one would be led to believe that your clergy in France were a sort of monsters, a horrible composition of superstition, ignorance, sloth, fraud, avarice and tyranny. But is this true?" 
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What would Edmund Burke make of the headlines of the past few weeks, as stories of a clerical sex abuser in Germany a quarter century ago, made front page headlines and top TV stories in US news? What would he think of the insistent attempts to tie this sex abuser to the Roman pontiff himself through the most tenuous of links?
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In 1790, Burke answered his own question with these words: "It is not with much credulity I listen to any when they speak evil of those whom they are going to plunder. I rather suspect that vices are feigned or exaggerated when profit is looked for in their punishment." As he wrote these words, the French revolutionaries were readying for the mass confiscation of Church lands.
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As the present sales of church property to pay settlements swell the coffers of contingent-fee lawyers and real estate speculators, one has to credit Burke for a profound and historical sense of human nature.
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The salacious reporting on clerical sex abuse ( as if it were limited to only Roman Catholic clergy) has been given a prominence greater than the massacres of Christians happening right now in India and Iraq. Moreover, the term "clerical sex abuse" is often misleadingly equated with "pedophilia" to whip up even more public outrage. It doesn't take the political acumen of an Edmund Burke to wonder why the Catholic Church has been singled out for this treatment.
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While no one denies the wrongdoing and the harm caused by a small minority of priests, their misconduct has been used to undermine the reputations of the overwhelming majority of clergy who live holy quiet lives in their parishes, tending to their flocks. These good men have been smeared with the same poisonous ink. - Elizabeth Lev - Read the entire article.
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Makes sense to me.
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Art: Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne

Medjugorje fraud?

You decide.

Reader's comment...

"...outside the camp, bearing the insult he bore..." - Hebrews 13: 13


I received a very good comment from a priest on my post discussing the Irish scandal and the Holy Father's letter.  Father's comment helps put in perspective the problem as it affects the majority of faithful priests and religious.
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Fr Ronan Kilgannon said...
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We are rightly devastated because the crime has occurred, been dealt with poorly, and so is widely publicised. While not in any way excuse this crime among Catholic clergy and religious, it is important to balance the very one-sided reporting of it in the media.
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Those who have committed this crime are a small percentage of all those who have committed their lives to God and His church in the ministry and consecrated life. The per capita percentage is about the same by ministers in all Christian denominations and the various world religions. It is just that it is not publicised. For example, freedom of information reveals that more money has been paid out by insurance companies to victims of abuse in Protestant denominations in the USA than the Catholic Church. But by far, the highest percentage of this crime, horrific to state it, occurs in families.
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Recent statistics from Ireland suggest one in five girls and one in twelve boys suffer some form of sexual abuse at home. If there is an omission in the Pope's letter it is that it never raises this matter.
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The truth is that by far, the highest percentage of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church occurs in Catholic homes not in presbyteries. If we are rightly horrified by this crime we should be demanding of our governments Royal Commission investigations into it so that it will be address not just in the Church but also in society where by far the majority of cases of abuse occur.
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I in no way mean this to excuse what has happened among clergy and religious, it is just that imbalanced reporting and a cover up of the crime in families gives the impression that this is a crime committed exclusively by Catholic priests and religious. This is grossly unfair, and makes life for the great majority of us difficult if not intolerable.
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We need to pray very much for the priests and religious who, though innocent, bear the insults and shame.
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Art: Ecce Homo, Gregorio Fernandez, The Sacred Made Real exhibit, National Gallery, Washington, DC

what is Fatima.mpg

The message of Fatima is very relevant today... look around you.

Finding Fatima trailer

How providential. I just received this in my mail box - it looks good.

Did St. Joseph grant Mrs. Pelosi's prayer and not the others?

The Healthcare Bill passed. 
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It'll be interesting to catch up on the scathing rhetoric many Catholic bloggers will no doubt be hurling at this unfortunate woman throughout the day today.

Fr. Paul Marx

Fr. Paul Marx, the priest hailed as the apostle of the pro-life movement and founder of Human Life International died March 20 at 89 years old.  I'm surprised that most of the bloggers  I read on a regular basis haven't taken note - I'm sure memorials will follow once the work-week gets going.  Fr. Marx began making a name for himself in 1981, at the time I barely gave a second thought to the abortion issue, therefore my first impression of him back then was that he was sort of a traditionalist fanatic.  As it turns out, he was indeed an apostle, as well as a prophet.  May he rest in peace.
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Links:
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Fr. Paul Marx, Founder of Human Life International, Passes Away
HLI's Fr. Thomas Euteneuer: "Because of Fr. Paul Marx, the world has a pro-life movement"

Pondering the Holy Father's letter.

The invisible stigmata.
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One very poignant paragraph of the letter stands out for me.
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"At the same time, I ask you not to lose hope. It is in the communion of the Church that we encounter the person of Jesus Christ, who was himself a victim of injustice and sin. Like you, he still bears the wounds of his own unjust suffering." - Letter
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I have written and painted about this many times, referring to it as the invisible stigmata, which the violence of sexual abuse imprints upon its victims.  No matter how old one gets, how healed one may be, the wounds remain.  The Holy Father recognizes that - he understands that - he 'gets it'.  It can be a very consoling paragraph in his Pastoral Letter - once one is able to come to terms with it...
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Benedict XVI doesn't say, "Get over it, move on."  Not at all.  He recognizes, acknowledges, he actually sees as it were, the stigmata:
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"Like you, he (Christ) still bears the wounds of his own unjust suffering. He understands the depths of your pain and its enduring effect upon your lives and your relationships, including your relationship with the Church." - Letter
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Maybe Catholics shouldn't cover their statues this Passiontide - especially images of the scourged, crowned with thorns Jesus.  Perhaps we will thereby more easily comprehend the machinations of denial and cover-up and the harm it perpetuates.  Maybe it will help us understand that not everyone is immediately consoled simply by an apology. 
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I think the Pope gets that one too.
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Art:  Ecce Homo, Gregorio Fernandez, The Sacred Made Real exhibit, National Gallery, Washington, DC

Fr. Zuhlsdorf in NYC

"I just want you to know no matter what you do, you're gonna die, just like everybody else." - Rose Castorini
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What the hell happened to this guy, huh? So he's in NYC and starts going all Rose Castorini on us. I write this same stuff all of the time, but now suddenly Fr. Z starts...
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"You are all going to die.
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I am going to die. You are going to die.
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There is no way around it.
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When we die, and we will, we will be judged.
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Heaven and Hell are the only alternatives.
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Both of them are never going to end.
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Heaven or Hell are not like going on a really good or really bad cruise.
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So, get ready.
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You could die before you click away from this page.
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Or it could be in a few more years.
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But it is going to happen.
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You might have some warning and lead time.
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You might not.
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One day that funeral procession that blocks traffic and keeps you sitting an waiting at the light is going to be about you.
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Get ready.
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You will have to account for what you have done with your life." - WDTPRS
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"You have such a head for knowing!" - Mona, "Moonstruck"
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Oh wait, maybe that's his 8 minute homily? ;)