Pope Benedict on Today’s Gospel

From Asia News Italy:

“The rich man,” the Pope said, “represents the unfair use of wealth for unbridled and selfish luxury by people who only think about their own satisfaction unconcerned by the beggar standing at their door. By contrast, the poor represents those only God takes care; unlike the rich man, the poor man has a name, Lazarus, short for Eleazar, ‘the one God has helped’.”

Benedict XVI quoted extensively from Populorum Progressio, Paul VI’s encyclical which looked forward to “building a human community where men can live truly human lives . . . where the needy Lazarus can sit down with the rich man at the same banquet table” (n. 47). That encyclical, the Pontiff said, points out that “many situations of misery come ‘from servitude to other men or to natural forces which they cannot yet control satisfactorily’ (ibid.).”

Quoting again from Pope Montini’s 40-year-old document, the Holy Father concluded his address by saying that the “hungry nations of the world cry out to the peoples blessed with abundance (n. 3).” With this mind, “no one can say they did not know what path to follow.”

Pope Benedict on the Angels

Brilliant! From Asia News Italy:

In his moving homily the pope recalled that in the early Church – and in Revelations – bishops are referred to as “angels”.  Just as angles, explained the pope, bishops must lead humanity to God; they must knock on the door to their hearts to announce Christ; they must heal the wounds of relations between man and woman and save them from sin with reconciliation and forgiveness.

Throughout his entire discourse the pontiff referred to this similitude, starting with the names of the three Archangels, which contains the suffix “El”, which in Hebrew is the name of God.  “God – said the pope – is written in their names, in their very nature…. they are His messengers.  They bring God to mankind, they reveal the heavens and thus, they reveal earth….. the Angels speak to man about what constitutes his true being, what is often is often covered or buried in his life.  They call man to himself, touching him on God’s behalf”.  And he added: “In this way even we humans must become angels for one another – angels who lead us from the wrong path and guide us once again towards God…..A bishop must be a man of prayer, who intercedes on behalf of mankind with God”.

Benedict XVI then went on to highlight the characteristics of the three Archangels of the feast (the only ones named in the Bible), illustrating other aspects of the Bishop’s role.

Michael (“Who is as God?”) “defends the cause of the one God against the dragon’s presumption, the “ancient serpent” as his called by John.  It is the serpent’s continuous attempts to make men believe that God must disappear, in order for making to obtain greatness; that God stands in the way of our freedom and so we must be rid of Him”.

In reality, explains the pontiff, “he who puts God aside, does not make mankind great, rather he denies mankind his dignity.  And thus, man becomes an unsuccessful product of evolution”.

This is why, adds the pope; “it is the Bishop’s duty, as a man of God, to make space in the world for God against those who would negate Him and in doing so defend the greatness of man”.  And again: “Faith in God defends man from all of his weaknesses and inadequacies: God’s radiance shines on every individual”.

 Gabriel (“Man of God”) is the archangel who announces the Good News to Mary.  He said the pope “is the messenger of the incarnation of God.  He knocks on Mary’s door …… repeatedly God knocks on the human heart ….. on the world’s door and on the door to the heart of every individual.  He knocks waiting to enter”. And turning to the candidates the pope added: “Dear friends, it is your duty to knock on the man’s hearts in Christ’s name. By entering in union with Christ, you will be able to take on Gabriel’s role: bringing Christ’s call to men”.

Raphael (“God heals”) is the archangel healer, protagonist of the Book of Tobias.  The pope recalls that Raphael heals the relationship between Tobias and Sarah, marked by the curse of death: “he heals the wounded union between man and woman. He heals their love.  He crushes the demons which tine and time again attempt to destroy their love.  He purifies the atmosphere between the two and gifts them the ability to welcome and accept one another always”. “In the New Testament – recalls the pontiff – the order of marriage, established in creation and threatened in a multifaceted way by sin, is healed by the fact that Christ gathers it into his redeeming love.   He makes marriage a sacrament: His love, which takes on the cross for us, is the saving strength, which in the midst of confusion, gifts us the ability to be reconciled, purifies the atmosphere and heals all wounds”.  The bishop (and indeed every priest) “is entrusted with the duty of guiding men towards the reconciling power of Christ’s love.  He must be the “healing angel” who helps them to anchor their love to the sacrament and live their love with renewed commitment drawn from the sacrament”.

 “The book of Tobias – added the pope – speaks of the healing of blind eyes.  We all know that today we are threatened with blindness to God…… healing this blinded through the message of the faith and witness of love, is Raphael’s service which is entrusted each and every day to priests and in a particular way to bishops.  Thus we are spontaneously led to think of the sacrament of reconciliation and penitence, which in the deepest meaning of the word, is a haling sacrament.  The true wound of the soul, in fact is sin.  And only is a forgiveness in virtue of the power of God, in virtue of the power of Christ’s love exists, can we be healed, can we be redeemed”.

Catholic Church Vandalized in Texas

From the Courier-Gazette:

Vandals Wednesday or early Thursday defaced the west side of St. Michael’s The Archangel Church on Paula Road by painting offensive rhetoric and symbols on the Sanctuary doors, walls and church parking lot.

In black spray paint phrases such as “God touched me here” with a caricature pointing to its groin area and “666″ were painted on a 46-year-old guardian angel that adorns the entrance.

Other offensive speech is also visible from the street.

Some of the language is not publishable and the photos for this story may have been cropped to eliminate the offensive language.

A passerby saw the graffiti and contacted police to report the incident.

The Rev. Stephen Bierschenk, pastor of, St. Michael’s, said the phone rang early Thursday.

“I received a call about 6 a.m. (Thursday) morning from McKinney police because a citizen who drove by had notified them there was vandalism on the church,” Bierschenk said.

Bierschenk said nothing within the Sanctuary was damaged.

“It was only on the outside,” he said.

New Bishop for Crookston, MN

Monsignor Michael J. Hoeppner

Students Grow Sick at Mass: “Something was in the air”

St. Hugo’s in Michigan, from the Detroit Free Press:

Police and hazardous materials experts have finished sweeping St. Hugo of the Hills church and school in Bloomfield Hills and have ruled out carbon monoxide as a possible cause of the sickness that sent at least three students to the hospital Wednesday morning and forced the evacuation of both the church and the school.

Officials are still on the St. Hugo campus, conducting further tests of the air- conditioning and heating system in search of something that might explain why half a dozen children fell ill during mass Wednesday morning…

…During the serving of the Eucharist, some children around Kelly were whispering about someone fainting. Just before the final hymn, the seventh and eighth grade classes began to file quickly out of the church.

“We had to rush out of mass because someone said there was something in the air,” Kelly said later. “We were all scared and everything. It was raining hard.”

The students had just returned to their classrooms in the school building, which is near the church but not connected to it, when the fire alarm sounded. Many in the building thought it was a drill – until they got outside and saw police vehicles on the church lawn.

“This is why you pay Catholic tax dollars”

I have to admit ignorance on this, do Canadians pay religious tax dollars? This story is about an attempt to get the Catholic school board to ban a book that was approved for use in the district by the family life office (which I’m guessing didn’t carefully read the book it approved). From The National:

The Waterloo Catholic District School Board should stop using a resource book that students never see because it presents homosexuality as “morally neutral,” a group says.

Defend Traditional Marriage and Family objects to “Open Minds to Equality” because it could lead people “to reject scriptural teaching on homosexual acts,” group spokesman Jack Fonseca told the board’s family live advisory committee on Wednesday.

“They will have been led to reject Jesus,” Mr. Fonseca said.

The book is an optional resource teachers can use if, for example, they want to address objectionable things being said in class, said Catholic board spokesman John Shewchuk.

The book was approved by the family life committee several years ago and kids never see it, Mr. Shewchuk added.

But even the fact teachers can use it is dangerous, Mr. Fonseca said.

Many resources are secular and parents trust teachers to use them with discretion, committee chairwoman Cathy Sweeney said.

But committee member Joann Schmalz said Catholic parents want their kids to be taught Catholic teachings, such as that sex is for procreation.

“This is our faith. This is why you pay Catholic tax dollars,” she said.

Fr. Rutler tells Hitchens “a Catholic or a madman”

An exchange between Fr. George Rutler and Christopher Hitchens that took place back in May, (hat tip to the Curt Jester), during the question and answer session, first from Poe:

FATHER RUTLER: I have met saints. You cannot explain the existence of saints without God. I was nine years chaplain with Mother Teresa [inaudible]. You have called her a whore, a demagogue. She’s in heaven that you don’t believe in, but she’s praying for you. If you do not believe in heaven, that’s why you drink.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Excuse me?

FATHER RUTLER: That’s why you drink. God has offered us happiness, all of us. And you will either die a Catholic or a madman, and I’ll tell you the difference.

And secondly, I’m an officer with this club. And this conversation has been beneath the dignity of this club.

Hitchens take in Vanity Fair:

In a magnanimous mood, I say, Fair enough—let’s extend the event for a man of the cloth. This turns out to be Father George Rutler of the Church of Our Saviour, who announces that he’s on the committee of the club and will make sure that I am never invited there again. There’s some shock at this inhospitable attitude, but I think: Gosh. Holy Mother Church used to threaten people with eternal damnation. Now it’s exclusion from the Union League Club. What a comedown. In a brisk exchange near the elevator, the good father assures me that I shall die a Catholic. Why do people think this is such a good point?

The Pope: A City of Equality

From his weekly catechesis on St. John Chrysostom (Asia News Italy):

The Christian idea of the primacy of the person, which makes all men equal and which has as a direct consequence solidarity, as the foundation of the “city”, instead of the concept of the primacy of the “polis”, in which the individual is subordinate to society.  One of the fundaments of the Churches social doctrine was reaffirmed today by Benedict XVI, who retraced the thoughts of St John Chrysostom, theologian and “father of the Church”.

Last week the pope had already spoke of the first part of the life and works of the great thinker, who was bishop of Constantinople in the IV century; today before a crowd of 20 thousand in his general audience he dwelt on the years of the saint’s life when he was the leader of the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire when he was twice exiled.  His relics were transferred to Rome and now lie in the canonical chapel of St Peter’s, and in 2004, the pope reflected “a large part of them” were donated to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.

Retracing the works of St John Chrysostom, Benedict XVI underlined that his meditation of the works carried out by God in the six days of creation led him to affirm that Genesis shows us the beauty of creation reveals the face of God to us, there is the “transparency of God” and therefore “our wonder at the beauty of creation should lead us to give glory to the Creator”. A second step follows on from this in which it is highlighted that the Creator is also a “Tender Father”: “we are weak, in lifting our gaze our eyes are weak and so God becomes a tender Father and sends mankind the Word, the Sacred Scripture”.  The third step is that God not only transmits the Word, but “in the end He Himself comes down to us”, he becomes the Word Incarnate until death, he really does become “God with us”, our brother.  The fourth and last  step is that through which the “the vital and dynamic principal “, the Holy Spirit, God is within us, “he enters our very existence and transforms our hearts”.

In his works, the model of the early Church becomes a model for society, it is a “utopia of the ideal city, giving it a Christian face and soul”.   Chrysostom’s, “truly one of the great fathers of the Church”, affirms that it is not sufficient to give alms, or occasionally come to peoples aid, but that a new model is needed in which “the old idea of the Greek polis is substituted by a city inspired by Christian life.  His project corrects the traditional Greek vision of the city in which large swathes of the population are denied the rights of citizenship, while in the Christian cities the person is given primacy and as a result the city is built from the individual up, while in the polis the person was subordinate to the city”.  And when the bishop added “our city is another, our home is in the heavens”, he makes us all equal, brothers and sisters and obliges us to full solidarity towards humanity”.

Time Irresponsible for Running JPII Euthanasia Article

From Father Jonathan Morris:

Time Magazine has published a story that suggests John Paul II may have been euthanized by his doctors at his own request.

The article is blatantly irresponsible, for the reasons I will explain below. But of even greater journalistic concern are the author’s false statements about what the Catholic Church teaches regarding end-of-life care.

It would be in the magazine’s best interest to issue a public retraction of its error.

Blatantly Irresponsible

With the provocative title “Was John Paul II Euthanized?” Time editors have lobbed suspicion into the public square about the late pontiff’s personal integrity.

We are made to wonder if John Paul II practiced what he preached. The world knew him as the great defender of the dignity of human life, from the moment of conception until natural death, but according to Time’s report, when the going got tough, John Paul II himself may have thrown in the towel. This would be a great story if it were true. The facts say it’s not.

Pastor Runs Off Film Crew After “Cheesus Crust” Incident

They were filming scenes of “Bachelor 2″ in his church (my guess is that there probably was a bit more imprudence in letting them use a church for a movie with that name), from the Boston Herald:

The cheesed-off pastor of St. Leonard’s Church in the North End threw the cast and crew of the Dane Cook-Kate Hudson flick out of his parish hall after the Hollywood bunch staged a raaather impudent pizza scene in a nearby eatery!

The Rev. Antonio Nardoianni gave the Tinseltown types an hour to clear off church property after he discovered that their set people had remade a local pizza place into a joint called “Cheesus Crust.”

“I heard about some Christian symbols being used in a very derogatory way and I protested,” the Rev. Nardoianni told the Track. “How ignorant can they be? Is this the only way they can make money?”

Kerry’s Catholic U. Talk Cancelled

Cites ”scheduling conflict”… 

From Lifesite:

LifeSiteNews.com reported last week that Catholic University of America’s (CUA) newspaper ‘The Tower’ had revealed that the College Democrats at CUA had received the necessary permission from the administration and subsequently invited pro-abortion Senator Kerry to lecture at the University.

In its current issue released just today, The Tower newspaper is now reporting that according to both the Senator’s congressional office and the College Democrats, “Sen. John Kerry will not speak at the University this semester due to scheduling conflicts[…]

Mark Arnone, president of the College Democrats at CUA, had initially been forbidden by officials at the University Center, Student Programs and Events (UCSPE) to invite the pro-abortion senator to lecture.  However, after appealing the decision with a six page explanation on the reasons why Kerry should be allowed, Arnone received permission from UCSPE director Bill Jonas.  

According to The Tower, Jonas stated that he had been trying to employ a “common sense approach” in his decision but acknowledged that “[s]ome people are going to see that John Kerry is speaking at Catholic University and be angry about it. We have to find a balance.”

Hilary Clinton and God

A new book looks at Hilary Clinton and her religious beliefs, from Warren Throckmorton:

- How Bill Clinton’s pro-life pastor in Arkansas helped him come to a pro-choice position on abortion, and how the abortion issue has haunted both of Clintons as pro-choice Christians, and caused a permanent separation between them and pro-life Christians. There is no issue closer to Mrs. Clinton’s heart than abortion rights—to which she holds a nearly religious devotion—so much so that it has become a kind of political theology to the senator, equipped with its own set of apologetics.

- On the abortion issue, Kengor has provided unprecedented information on Mrs. Clinton and the root causes of her position. Interviewed several times for this book is Mrs. Clinton’s close friend and one-time OB-GYN, William F. Harrison, the nationally known Fayetteville, Arkansas abortion doctor. Harrison was very candid, and provided telling insights into Hillary’s sudden deep devotion to the cause of abortion rights by the time of Roe v. Wade, a marked moment on her political-religious path from Park Ridge Methodist to the White House.

- How the First Lady did indeed participate in strange moments of imaginary conversation with a deceased Eleanor Roosevelt from the solarium atop the White House. The woman who arranged these sessions and became very close to Hillary—Jean Houston—compared Hillary to Joan of Arc. Houston was widely known for her work delving into altered consciousness, the spirit world, and psychic experiences, and who in the 1960s had reportedly conducted experiments with LSD. According to one source, Houston seemed to believe that the embattled First Lady was going through a kind of female crucifixion, and that she was arguably the most pivotal woman in all of human history.

- How Mrs. Clinton is a strong advocate of prayer in public schools. Quoting her husband, she notes that “nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones, or requires all religious expression to be left behind at the schoolhouse door…. [R]eligion is too important in our history and our heritage for us to keep it out of our schools.”

- How Hillary, a self-described “old-fashioned Methodist,” endorses John Wesley’s credo that “the world is my parish.” Hillary cites Jesus Christ as the chief motivation in her government-based healthcare ministry to children. “We know so well what Jesus said to his disciples, holding a small child in his arms, that whoever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me, but the one who sends me,” says Hillary. “Take the image we have of Jesus—of Jesus as the Shepherd. Taking that face and transposing it onto the face of every child we see, then we would ask ourselves, ‘Would I turn that child away from the health care that child needs?’”

- How Senator Clinton’s faith is responsible for her position that marriage should be restricted to a man and a woman.

Pope John Paul II Relic Holy Card

The Rome Archdiocese is promoting the cause of Pope John Paul II. Among other things you do at this site is to request a “relic” holy card by email. You can also submit prayer requests. You can also  subscribe to the magazine Totus Tuus that details the cause, (somehow I did this early on and continue to receive it).

 A number of stories on this today out there, among them this one from The Independent:

As the beatification of Pope John Paul II grows closer, fragments of the white cassocks he wore when alive are being offered as relics over the internet.

On the Diocese of Rome website dedicated to the campaign to canonise the late pope, the diocese offers santini, a prayer card with a photograph of John Paul and a window containing a tiny fragment of his clothing. On the back is a prayer “imploring grace by the intercession of God’s servant John Paul II.” The prayer is available in many different languages. Stefano Chiodo, who runs the site, said “thousands and thousands” of the relics have already been dispatched.

The site stresses that the cards are completely free – though a contribution is solicited (the amount is not specified) from “whoever can afford it” to cover the cost of postage and packing. In the past, the sale of relics was a common and efficient way for popes to raise funds, but today it is frowned on.

“Relics (of any sort) may absolutely be neither sold nor purchased,” declares Monsignor Marco Frisinia, in charge of the Liturginal Office of the Vicariate of Rome, “because, being a sacred object, it is beyond price. The problem of the sale of relics over the internet is very common, and allow me to say that it is a sacrilege.”

The website also says the relic can only be used “in a private manner, in the silence of our hearts, until the day the Church declares him a saint”.

Pope Gives Shoes to Minneapolis Charity

Not his shoes, but from an Italian shoemaker who gave them to the pope to be given to the poor. From WKBT:

Some homeless Minneapolis residents are walking in the Pope’s shoes.

That’s after two big boxes from Rome arrived at Sharing and Caring Hands, a homeless mission in downtown Minneapolis. Recently, the rector of the Cathedral of St. Paul gave some friends from the Vatican a tour of the facility while they were visiting the Twin Cities.

Sharing and Caring Hands has an on-site shoe room, but director Mary Jo Copeland didn’t know what was in the big boxes when they arrived. She opened them to find several dozen pairs of handmade Italian shoes to give to the poor.

Johnson told Copeland the shoes were from Pope Benedict himself. He got them from an Italian shoemaker who asked that they be distributed to the poor.

Copeland says it’s given her strength to know the Pope is praying for her.

In the “Is she still alive?” Department

There are a lot of folks out there, born in the last 30 years, who I am sure don’t even know who she is, but  Joni Mitchell Attacks Catholic Church:

 Joni Mitchell is back after nine years, and she’s on the attack. In the title track to her new album, “Shine,” Mitchell takes a nice swipe at the Catholic Church by name.

“Shine on the Catholic Church/And the prisons that it owns,” she sings. “Shine on all the Churches/that love less and less.”

Mitchell was never one to mince words, but in her triumphant return on Starbucks’ Hear Records, she doesn’t give an inch. In “Shine,” she continues: “Shine on lousy leadership/Licensed to kill/Shine on dying soldiers/In patriotic pain/Shine on mass destruction/In some God’s name!”