David Ancell / Tuesday, February 18, 2003 / Comments(0)
Perhaps some of you have heard about the situation with Mercy High School in Detroit. Their fundraiser included lunch with Gov. Jennifer Granholm as an item. A problem arises in that Gov. Granholm is a pro-abort who claims to be Catholic. After complaints arose, Mercy dropped that item from the auction. Later, they changed their mind and brought it back.
So far, there has been no public statement from Cardinal Maida on the subject. Granted, he may be wanting to address it privately first. However, the time will soon arrive for him to speak up or risk serious scandal by his silence.
Brian Dickerson of the Detroit “Free” Press has spewed the old intolerance accusation. Articles can be read here and here on the HMS blog. I felt that his comments warranted a response, so here is what I wrote:
Mr. Dickerson,
I have read a couple of articles of yours in the Detroit Free Press from February 14 and 17, and I must take exception to those. In them, you state that Mercy High School taught “intolerance” when they decided not to have lunch with Gov. Jennifer Granholm as an item in their fundraiser. Unfortunately, they have since reinstated the lunch, but hopefully this will change soon.
It appears that no other organization is held to the same requirement of “tolerance” as is the Catholic Church. For example, the NAACP would not be considered bigoted if they refused to allow a Ku Klux Klan member to speak to them. Neither would the supporters of the Brady Law be expected to allow the NRA to come in and speak to them in the name of tolerance. Why is it then, that the Catholic Church should allow someone who opposes her most important moral teaching on the sanctity of life to have a lunch with some of their students?
Abortion is not a mere political issue. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has recently issued a statement explaining that Catholics involved in government may not support policies opposed to the sanctity of human life. Gov. Granholm refuses to live by this teaching while trying to pretend she is Catholic. This creates a most serious scandal which is best avoided.
Sincerely,
David Ancell
Quite honestly, I am tired of seeing Catholics accused of intolerance when a person whose only claim to being Catholic is the box he/she checks on a survey form is exposed for who he/she is.
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Tuesday, February 18, 2003 / Comments(0)
Bud MacFarlane gives us his guide to silent prayer on Catholicity.
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David Ancell / Tuesday, February 18, 2003 / Comments(0)
Until I entered the workforce, I didn’t think Dilbert was funny. I just didn’t get it. The strip for today sounds just like what I would expect to find in my workplace.
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David Ancell / Sunday, February 16, 2003 / Comments(0)
Kenneth Woodward writes this book review for the New York Times on religious sisters and what they have done in our country. While he has his own ideas as to what happened to cause us to have so few of them now, I could see a trend right in the writings.
The sisters of years past went where no one would go to help those who needed help. They wore their habits and shared their common life together. They established hospitals and schools. Their lives are lives of prayer and service.
Fast forward to our present day. Look at the orders who have survived. They have done so not by becoming political but by continuing the tradition. The Dominican order in Nashville has to build a new mother house because they are too big of an order now for their house. These women are still seen in their habits. They have a convent in the Memphis area where they live. They still spend their lives in service. I know one who is a school principal.
Perhaps one reason why fewer have responded to calls to priesthood and religious life is that the Church, perhaps even life itself, has become more politicized and more bureaucratic. People who just want to serve don’t want to do so as part of an institution for that very reason. I see this bureacratization in the field of health care in which I work with upcoming regulations (e.g. HIPPA) and insurance problems.
I know that I need to focus my life more on simple service. I want to do my job well. I want to participate in apostolates of the Church. Most of all, I want to spread the Catholic faith.
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David Ancell / Saturday, February 15, 2003 / Comments(0)
I found this blog while reading this post from Jeanetta. Jeanetta seems to make the point that it is even harder to remain Catholic at a Catholic university than at a liberal, secular one.
She has a fine point there. I’m just thinking of what would have happened to me if I had gone to a Catholic university with what I knew then about the faith. I doubt I would have physically left the Church, but I don’t know if there would be much authentic Catholicism left in me. Granted, I knew something was wrong with the way that the faith was being taught. However, I still would have likely bought into the false teaching that was presented. Who knows if I would have emerged from it still truly Catholic?
After all, people can naively go to a Catholic university expecting them to teach the faith. Many of these school use their “Catholic” identity to attract such people. They hear what their professors say and don’t necessarily know to dispute them. This is the problem with the poor catechesis we receive these days. A poorly catechized soul will believe this garbage.
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David Ancell / Saturday, February 15, 2003 / Comments(0)
After blogging last night, I do feel I need to clarify something. I don’t mean to say that I am advocating bringing all the laicized and married priests back into ministry. I was saying that it wasn’t something I’d oppose if the Church did it.
I don’t think that “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” type of reasoning is a sufficient reason not to let the men back into ministry. The reason not to should be based on sound theology and the discipline of the Church. I do know that even those who came from Lutheran and Episcopalian priesthood to the Catholic priesthood while married will tell you that married priesthood is a mistake.
I guess you could say that I have a question as to whether or not it is preferable to allow laicized men to, for example, say Mass for people who have no other priest or to deprive such people of the Sacraments. Please don’t tell me something to the effect of “Well, it’s our own fault because (we didn’t encourage our sons to be priests) (we contracepted ourselves out of existence).” The fact is that without the grace of the Sacraments the shortage is going to get worse. The Church is always medicinal rather than punitive in her thinking.
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David Ancell / Friday, February 14, 2003 / Comments(0)
By now, you have probably all already read this article by Amy Welborn. In it, she begins be describing her marriage; she has been in a previous marriage that was declared invalid, and he is a laicized priest. They are both in their forties and raising a 19-month old. Might I add that I admire them for their openess to life.
Later commentary written by Ms. Welborn suggests that her main message in the article was to show the support of the bishops towards the child abusers compared to those priests who were laicized. Many abusers receive good support from their bishops while laicized priests don’t even get to keep their earned pension. The laicized priest also has hardly any means to make a living unless they have another degree.
Many have responded by mentioning that the laicized priests chose to leave. They do have their point; backing out on the promises made at ordination is very serious. However, it just isn’t as simple as these people think. While the abusers may not have chosen to leave the priesthood, they did choose to commit heinous sin. Rather that getting a dispensation for their vows, they broke them and still intended to call themselves priests. The only difference is that many of them were not laicized.
Regarding her other points, I do believe that the discipline of celibacy is there for good reason. The celibate state, in so much as it is a giving up of a good for something greater, is a higher state of life (hence the term “reduction,” used when a priest is laicized). It requires the grace of God to maintain. I see the point in saying that celibacy is a heavenly state in that we will all be celibate in Heaven.
However, some times I can’t help but think that the arguments for celibacy seem a little contrived. It’s like they decided on the discipline and then came up with the reasons for it. If one agrees with all the Church teaches but does not agree with the discipline of celibacy, I don’t consider the person to be a dissident. I would even go so far as to say that it may be a worthwhile idea to consider using laicized priests who are still faithful to the Church to say Mass when there are no celibate priests around in an area. Ensuring access to the Sacraments ought to be a high priority for the Church. However, I will leave such judgements in the hands of Almighty God and the men he appointed to make them.
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David Ancell / Wednesday, February 12, 2003 / Comments(0)
I read Jeanetta’s post on the reckovation of the Sacred Heart Cathedral with interest. I’m amazed at how a diocese that claims a financial crisis always manages to find enough money to trash the cathedral. Another prime example is Los Angeles. They are shutting down offices left and right due to lack of funds, but somehow they managed to build their big orange bunker.
Hmmm . . . maybe lack of funds drives a diocese to trash the cathedral. Memphis is in great financial shape, and we completed an 18-month restoration of our Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in December of 2001. The restoration was just that, a restoration. The artwork was all preserved, and cleaned. The floor that creaked was replaced with a wood floor. The ceiling tiles that sometimes fell out were removed and replaced with a beautiful painted ceiling. The only thing I don’t like are the altar and ambo. They look a little cheap to me.
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David Ancell / Wednesday, February 12, 2003 / Comments(0)
I received an e-mail from David Reuter this morning wanting to know if I would spread the word about his counseling service. Indeed, I will. After all, he quotes actual papal documents throughout his blog. Here are the links:
Center for Peace in the Family
I added this to my links page on my main home page.
Become What You Are
This will be added to my links column soon.
If you are in need of his services, he sounds like an orthodox Catholic who will help you and even give your faith a boost.
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Tuesday, February 11, 2003 / Comments(0)
Some of you may remember my previous rant on so-called “Praise and Worship” services. I wondered aloud if they were really just a means for Catholics to have a Protestant worship service. I wondered what the point was.
Well, since I’ve been working a different schedule this week, I decided to drop in on the praise and worship at a local church. I was, for the most part, pleasantly surprised. It took place in the context of Eucharistic exposition. Part of the Rosary was said. There were readings and a homily. At the end, some of the singing for the Benediction was in Latin. I think that a lot of this has to do with the highly orthodox priest who was involved. Is this the same experience that others have had with praise and worship?
The only things I saw that I really didn’t like were the hand gestures made to the songs. I’m a big believer that everything in worship should have an objective meaning, and I couldn’t for life of me figure a meaning into those gestures. The songs were great right until the end when they sang “Holy God We Praise Thy Name.” Unfortunately, afterwards they sang that “Dana” song “We Are One Body” that, as far as I can tell, has no real music to it whatsoever.
However, I enjoyed it a lot. The funny part is that I thought that I would slip in unnoticed, but my 14-year-old cousin was there. Needless to say, he noticed me.
Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized