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Frassati Society Publicity

  /   Monday, August 30, 2004   /   Comments(0)

A priest e-mailed the Frassati Society a few days ago asking about the miracle that led to the beatification of Blessed Frassati. I pulled out my copy of this book, and there it was. To my surprize, I also found that the book has, in its listing of web sites, the URL of our group in Memphis. I never knew we were that visible. Now, maybe if more people in the Memphis area read the book, they would join us.

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Here Early

  /   Monday, August 30, 2004   /   Comments(0)

When I pre-ordered The Passion of the Christ on DVD from Ignatius Press, I wondered if I’d get it on time. Well, it came today even though it isn’t supposed to go on sale until tomorrow. I’m glad to see they shipped it for me to receive on time.

This evening, I did some shopping and couldn’t help but notice the advertisements for the movie on the window of the local Lifeway book store. Lifeway is a Southern Baptist bookstore. I wonder if they realize just how Catholic that movie is. Do they notice the place given to Mary? Did they notice St. John’s “Now I get it!” when he recalled the Last Supper during the crucifixion? My guess is that these scenes go right past them.

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Pray for the Repose of Their Souls

  /   Monday, August 30, 2004   /   Comments(0)

Please pray for the repose of the souls of three Ole Miss students who were killed in a fraternity house fire last week. For those who remain (now without a place to live on campus), there has been enormous generosity locally. Let us keep them in our prayers.

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Watch That Webcam

  /   Tuesday, August 24, 2004   /   Comments(0)

I guess we need to make sure we come dressed to our computer, thanks to this virus. It takes over your web cam, records you, and sends the recording back to the virus writer. I have to wonder, though, how that much data gets out without someone realizing something is wrong. Oh well, I don’t have a web cam.

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Come to Where the Air Is . . . Discounted

  /   Monday, August 23, 2004   /   Comments(0)

I’ve been wanting a picture of this for some time. Now I want to share it. Of all things to offer a discount on . .

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Religious Extremists

  /   Monday, August 23, 2004   /   Comments(0)

I have been reading Frank Sheed’s To Know Christ Jesus. Of all things to get my interest, I found the following concerning the Sabbath Rest:

There were extremists who would not allow bowels or bladders to violate the Sabbath rest.

Seriously, though, that entire chapter makes for some great reading about the Jewish view of God at the time of Christ. It seems as though there was much written about what God demands of us at the time, but there was little on who God is. One thing that was so revolutionary about Jesus Christ (besides the fact that he died for our sins) was that he revealed this. Indeed, though we still have Divine Law, the truth is no longer viewed merely as something, but as someone.

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As Though We Hadn’t Seen Enough

  /   Sunday, August 22, 2004   /   Comments(0)

I’ve been light on blog entries for a while. I’ve been quite preoccupied. My computer is now almost fully restored. I did some reading this weekend, and I almost wish I hadn’t. By now, you may have already read about the whole fiasco surrounding Deal Hudson. If not, I won’t post a link to that disgusting article in the National Catholic Distorer . . . I mean Reporter. It was far more graphic than it needed to be. If you want to read some takes on this, read Domenico Bettinelli’s posts here, here, and here. Jeff Miller writes here.

It’s hard for me to know what to think, and I doubt that I have all the facts. The NCR has no trouble defending the dissentors; it is well know that they wrote a defense of Archbishop Weakland. However, when someone like Deal Hudson is involved, look what happens. Given that this is an event, not known to be repeated, that happened over ten years ago, I have a hard time understanding how this is not detraction. What purpose could this possibly serve?

Here are my thoughts:

First, we as orthodox Catholics must be careful of two things. We can’t excuse or deny his sin because he is one of “our guys.” This is one of the things that we don’t tolerate from the dissentors. We can’t write this off as false accusation, as outrageous as the description of the conduct is. We also should not be unduly harsh in order to appease the media. We our here to serve Our Lord, not the newspapers, television shows, etc. Remember that we have only one side of the story. Even if we had both sides, the amount of alcohol reportedly consumed is likely to distort the telling of the facts.

Second, there is a difference between a repented past sin and a past or continuing sin that is either being denied, downplayed, or defended. Dr. Hudson has done something to make satisfaction. He lost his position at Fordham and paid a settlement to the victim and has faced his family. He is no longer in the type of position he was in. He isn’t defending his conduct, and we have no evidence that he has repeated the act. If he were still actively engaged in the sin, the NCR would have a point well made.

Third, the fact that this sin happened after his conversion is not necessarily of the consequence that some would have it. I say this as someone who has needed and still needs reconversion. I’m not trying to make light of this and say “Oh, we’re all sinners,” but even for a sin this serious, there is forgiveness. Satisfaction must be made. The sin must be stopped. As of this writing, we have no reason to believe that this hasn’t been done.

Fourth, I think it’s difficult to say how much a person should be held accountable for past sins. There are some things that are so serious that we can never put a person in a position to do them again. There should also be a limit to the number of second chances, purely for reasons of protection of people. In most cases, a person should have to demonstrate a serious desire and ability to change for an appropriate period of time. For example, a young man with a history of sexual sin should not be admitted directly into the seminary. However, some such men may be admitted after having been chaste for a period of time, depending on the situation. I wouldn’t advocate putting Dr. Hudson back as a professor, but letting him do what he is currently doing with Crisis shouldn’t be prevented by his past sin.

Fifth, we must all be careful not to commit sins of rash judgment, detraction, calumny, etc. ourselves. These are grave matter by nature. You know what that means.

Finally, we must pray for both Dr. Hudson and the young lady involved. This we must do regardless of their motives. God has not abandoned with one of them. Neither should we. Prayer must be our recourse anytime something like this happens.

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Another Reinstall

  /   Monday, August 16, 2004   /   Comments(0)

Now that I’ve reinstalled Windows XP, I get to reinstall it again. The hotfixes from Windows Update and some other software wouldn’t install. I think it was the firewall software I was using. So, I’m going to try something else. It’s not a useful firewall if it blocks access to Windows Update.

The worst of this is that, have a 40 GB hard drive and software to fill almost half of it, this takes forever to get done. I really need to get this installed and to install my PHP server again.

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System Restore

  /   Sunday, August 15, 2004   /   Comments(0)

Now that my car has been worked on, my computer has decided not to function properly. My Internet Information Service has quit working, probably due to the dudes who put the adware on my system. I couldn’t even get Windows to reinstall it, so I was only left with one choice. I erased everything on the laptop after backing up what was necessary. Then I reinstalled Windows XP Professional. I made sure that my firewall was reinstalled.

I hope it wasn’t a sin to do this on Sunday. I tried to leave parts of it unattended while I did other things. I knew that waiting until Monday would have been a disaster.

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The Dominicans Respond

  /   Saturday, August 14, 2004   /   Comments(0)

In our diocesean newspaper, we have received a response to the recent lawsuit filed that I blogged about here. No one is denying that the sexual abuse occurred. However, I can’t help but notice something.

The Commercial Appeal made it sound like they had moved the friar to another area to avoid prosecutiion. The order maintains that the priest was immediately removed from ministry and was later dispensed from his vows (which removed him from the order). This is a far cry from what the media reported happened. At this point, I believe the prior rather than the local paper and will continue to do so until I am presented with evidence that suggests I shouldn’t.

There still remain two unanswered questions:

1. Why was there no criminal prosecution? There may be a good answer to this. The friar was probably not a U.S. Citizen, and he was sent back to his home country.

2. The response from the prior mentions his being dispensed from his vows. Was he also laicized? They aren’t the same thing, and the topic was omitted from the prior’s response. This could be either an accidental omission or something that was assumed in the letter, but I think we need to establish that the man is not in any ministry.

We’ll see what unfolds

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