David Ancell / Tuesday, February 11, 2003 / Comments(0)
Whenever I read this kind of stuff, I have to wonder where our society is going. A federal appeals court has ruled that an inmate can be forced to take antipsychotics even if the result is that it makes him sane enough to execute. I’m just seeing this now “Oh, he’s insane, just give him medicine and then we can execute him.” Granted, it hasn’t been my experience that antipsychotics are that great, but the thought of this is bothersome.
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David Ancell / Monday, February 10, 2003 / Comments(0)
There are many things that I could title the group described here by Carl Olson who call themselves progressive Christians. This could just as well be “How to be Christian without believing a thing that Christ said.” I prefer the term pseudo-Christians. In truth, as stated on my comment on this post, these people have started their own religion.
Fortunately, as one associate pastor at my church has said, these people are dying out. The next generation will either be orthodox Christians or won’t even bother to go to church. Many of my generation at least understand the foolishness of pretending to be what you are not. Besides, they are essentially a religion of nothing in particular. As Dorothy Sayers once put it, it is practically impossible to arouse any sort of enthusiasm toward the worship of nothing in particular.
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David Ancell / Monday, February 10, 2003 / Comments(0)
This is in the latest news from Jeff Miller. The FCC is going to start requiring a license to pray. No wait, maybe not.
(Ok, I know it’s a joke, but in this day and age you never know. I wonder if things will jump off the pages of humor columns and into real life.)
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David Ancell / Monday, February 10, 2003 / Comments(0)
There is nothing like an article by the New York Times on Ave Maria University. It starts off nice. Then, you have the obligatory comment from Richard P. McBrien. He has the gall to tell us how a really good Catholic would spend his money and claims that “Tom Monaghan has the agenda of a right-wing Republican, and he happens to confuse that with the teachings of the Catholic Church.” Hmmmm . . . and McBrien doesn’t have a liberal agenda. Oh, by the way, maybe good Catholics should not spend money on any university, even Notre Dame.
The Monika Hellwig comment is especially interesting:
There has been concern among the colleges and their representatives, that they are so dismissive of the rest of us,” said Monika Hellwig, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.
Well, Hellwig is the one who wrote a catechetical book, published by none other than Paulist Press, that teaches a heretical teaching on the Eucharist. It says, in a nutshell, that we once thought that Jesus was saying the bread was his body, but now “scholars” (quotes are mine) realize that Jesus really meant the “breaking of bread” and the “sharing” to be his body. Gosh! After 2000 years of getting it wrong, I’m sure glad the scholars finally figured it out (sarcasm intended).
It is no wonder that Monaghan is dismissive of these other “Catholic” universities. While these universities are becoming more and more secularized, it is becoming very difficult for Catholics who wish to learn the actual Catholic faith. Frankly, I salute Monaghan for doing what he did, and I joined the foundation. Besides, I’m glad to have another solidly Catholic university in an area that isn’t way up north. I like the warmer weather down here.
The last unintended joke that I will cover can be found at the end of the first page of the article:
Highly regarded institutions like Georgetown, Notre Dame and Boston College balance their quest for first-rate scholarship from a diverse faculty and a diverse student body against their commitment to a strong religious identity. About a third of the students at Catholic colleges are not Catholics.
Ok, so first-rate scholarship and religious identity are competing interests, eh? Well, I know that a good Catholic education is at least possible at Notre Dame (as evidenced by a lady from my parish who has entered the Nashville Dominicans). I don’t know about the other two. I guess the “commitment to a strong religious identity” doesn’t necessarily mean a commitment to the Catholic faith. They just have to have some “religious identity.”
What we need is first-rate scholarship from a Catholic perspective. This can easily be accomplished. Many of the most brilliant minds in history were our saints. There is no reason why this can’t be the case today.
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David Ancell / Monday, February 10, 2003 / Comments(0)
I forgot to mention that Jeff Miller now carries the honor of having given me my 100th comment on the blog.
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David Ancell / Sunday, February 09, 2003 / Comments(0)
Jeff Miller is back with a new blog. Let’s be thankful that this didn’t take long. I was already missing his sense of humor. Just take a look at his comment on my Palm Pilot post, and you’ll see what I mean.
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David Ancell / Sunday, February 09, 2003 / Comments(0)
Once again, I recommend visiting Michael Roesch’s list of hymns. He appears to have changed it to “Good Hymns for Mass” and has added some suggestions to it. This only goes to show you that there are plenty of good hymns to choose from and liturgists have no excuse for using bad ones.
“Good Hymns for Mass” is a more appropriate title as there is a lot of good Catholic and Christian music (e.g. praise and worship genre, even a few OCP “songs”) that belongeth not at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
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David Ancell / Sunday, February 09, 2003 / Comments(0)
Please check out this piece on rote prayer that I wrote for Spiritual Pyromania.
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David Ancell / Sunday, February 09, 2003 / Comments(0)
For some reason, after seeing several others who had them, I finally decided to invest in this Palm Pilot. I’m not sure what all I will do with it, but I have a knack for putting any electronic gadget to good use. I just pray that I will use it for Christian service.
I guess my main thought is that I hate paper. I avoid using paper when I can. I can write all my stuff in here and not have to carry paper. Hey, this will work great!
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David Ancell / Saturday, February 08, 2003 / Comments(0)
This list is right on. I agree with everything on it, or I haven’t heard it. I will give him the benefit of the doubt on the ones I haven’t heard. If we could stick to these (well, let’s add “All the Earth Proclaim the Lord” and maybe a few others), then we would have a great, reverent Liturgy.
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