Tag: Religion

On hearing Sister Farley praised and Vatican blamed

The church should ignore Sr. Farley’s deviancy? 

The Vatican has condemned a leading American nun for writing a book in which she praises female masturbation and approves divorce and gay sex and marriage, warning that the book must not be used by catholic educators.

The Vatican’s criticism of Sister Margaret Farley, a professor emeritus of Christian ethics at Yale University, comes amid escalating tension with America’s nuns, after the Holy See accused them of preaching “radical feminist” ideas.

She won points for Christian charity, hers and her sisters in religion and now calls in her chits in pursuit of compliance/silence by the Vatican?  Is that how it works?

The head of the Jesuit order in East Africa explained to other theologians gathered here last week that a simple gesture had different meanings in different cultures.

In the U.S., said the Rev. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, a man beating his hand against his chest is a liturgical expression of penance. Back home, he said, the same gesture is an expression of defiance.

“Perhaps,” the Rev. William O’Neill said to his fellow theologians, “that’s exactly what we should be signifying.”

The audience, all members of the Catholic Theological Society of America, applauded O’Neill’s aside with appreciation.

One does wonder.

Sisters for Justice . . .

. . . in the matter of them vs. Vatican:

Alma, Mich., Jun 14, 2012 / 02:15 am (CNA).- Physicians who are also Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma are criticizing the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and its defenders for using an impoverished language of politics instead of the language of faith in the dialogue with the Catholic hierarchy.

There is no basis for authentic dialogue between these two languages. The language of faith is rooted in Jesus Christ, His life and His mission, as well as the magisterial teaching of the Church, said the physician-sisters statement, which was issued after a June 2 meeting on the contributions of religious women in the healing ministry of the Catholic Church.

The language of politics arises from the social marketplace, they said. The Sisters who use political language in their responses to the magisterial Church reflect the poverty of their education and formation in the faith.

Can they say that? What would Carol Marin say?

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Meanwhile, from a knowledgeable source regarding this group of Mercies:

The three founding mothers are incredible ladies. They “re-founded” the Sisters of Mercy going back to their foundress’ spirit. Most of them are professional women: doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists and they have been a great help to the Church, even if they are a small group.
The sort of thing that restores faith . . .

Luckless in New Mexico

You have this Christian quirk about gay marriage. Hey, you were practically born with it.You become a latter-day Bartleby the Scrivener(apologies to Herman Melville, wherever he is, and if there’s a heavenly niche for great writers, that’s probably his location).That is, you’d prefer not to be the photographer at a gay wedding.You do not intend to interfere with the gay ceremony.

You will not call out from the congregation your objection when the minister or judge asks, if he or she does, whether anyone has an objection to the procedure.

You will not (let’s say, anyhow) write a letter to your local editor or, God forbid, blog the matter.

You just, like Bartleby, prefer not, for your quirky Christian reasons, to be the photographer.

What’s more, you reside and work in New Mexico. 

Wherefore:

Buster, you are out of luck.

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You only want a buddy, not God?

Not for attribution

This guy, Larry D. Harwood, is so good here, it’s hard to pick one quote over another. Let this stand for the whole. He is an evangelical Protestant who taught philosophy at Franciscan-related Viterbo U., in LaCrosse, Wisconsin when he wrote this in 2002(and still does teach there). He is speaking of “praise worship” in Protestant churches, having noted that some Catholic parishes were trying to imitate it.

Man’s relation to God is a communion between persons — but unequal persons. In the worship form I am describing, however, worship is often so spongy, so egalitarian as to be rendered gaudy, and the worshipers are giddy and all too self-confident.

It’s just the opposite of Rudolph [sic] Otto’s description of man quivering in the presence of a tremendous God of mystery. In the form of praise worship, man too often quivers with delight and too seldom with fear.

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Italian conundrum: Catholic = fascist?

In Italy, says Nicholas Farrell, in Taki’s Magazine,

Catholics and fascists are both keen on intervention by totalitarian higher bodies such as the state in both life and work, and they are hostile to individual freedom and the free market.

And maybe not only there, if there. It goes with my tentative observations in the past about the church and political freedom — here, for instance:

I have in mind [when discussing “backward thinking”] the American church’s ambivalence toward governmental interference in people’s lives.

In 1919, for instance, Monsignor John A. Ryan issued the Bishops’ Program of Social Reconstruction, a virtual blueprint for the New Deal.

For 20 years [Ryan] reigned supreme as the bishops’ spokesman on social and political matters, even endorsing Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 for his second term. In the years since then, leading up to the bishops’ acquiescence in the passage of Obama care, official Catholic statements have consistently favored liberal positions in regard to governmental interference.

More recently, of course, they have objected to the HHS requirement that Catholic schools and hospitals offer birth control, but it took such an obvious interference in church activity to get them to do so.

The church has not been a champion of political freedom (I tentatively reiterate), being overly concerned about the mistakes and bad things people can commit and insufficiently confident or at least trustful when it comes to use by them of God-given (by whom else, pray tell?) free will, not to mention reliance on divine grace, mercy, and all that.

Is this where libertarianism meets Divine Providence? Just asking.

Irish come out fighting

Hopey changey not working out at Notre Dame.  Nothing says more about this most obvious overreaching by the boy president.

Give a look at some nuts and bolts of it, noting while you are at it, this pungency:

The [legal] background [of the HHS mandate] is farcical. It represents administrative law brought to us by Laurel and Hardy, or Professor Irwin Corey, or the dictator of that Central American country featured in Woody Allen’s Bananas.

There are 12 suits, of course, each identically worded.  Chicago is not suing, but from Illinois, Springfield and Joliet are suing.  Can you imagine Chicago getting really serious about fighting Obama and the Dimmycrats? 

Cardinal George and his archdiocese are

“ . . . obviously deeply concerned about preserving the Catholic identity of Catholic educational, health care and social service organizations,” George said in a statement. “The Archdiocese therefore entirely supports the actions of the Catholic dioceses and organizations that have brought suit against the Department of Health and Human Services for violating the heretofore constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom of Catholic institutions.”

Nicely, if professorially, said.  But not part of the suit?  Why not?

Two black parishes

Chi’s St. Philip Neri Parish 100 years and counting.  Jubilee Mass tomorrow, Sunday May 20, 10 a.m., Cardinal George presiding, 2132 E. 72nd St., (773) 363-1700 for more info.

Bob Keeley called about it.  He’s always calling about parishes and schools in Chi.  A holy bother, you might say.  He also put in a word for St. Elizabeth School on the black South Side, where money and supplies and building upkeep he says are in short supply.  Help, help.

Fr. Barron to Mundelein rectorship, who knew?

New head man at Mundelein Seminary, reported a week ago by the Daily Herald. Period. It’s no small deal. He has a unique presence and as they say in show biz, chops. Widely published, a television performer a la the great Fulton Sheen, though of considerably different style, a heavyweight theologian. (And brother of the Sun-Times executive editor, for what that’s worth.)

No small deal but overlooked by Trib and Sun-Times in a way that was unthinkable in the 70s, if not later. Where are you, Manya Brachear? No spot news in your quivering quiver?