Archbishop Dolan on Anti-Catholicism

Of course, the New York Times declined to publish his letter. Anyone surprised?

It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime. Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” while John Higham described it as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” “The anti-semitism of the left,” is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins sub-titles his book on the topic “the last acceptable prejudice.”

He then goes on to point out several examples from recent Times editions where the anti-Catholic bias was on full display.

Via Fr. Z

“The Pope of Christian Unity” has a nice sound to it

From Father Z:

I want to invite all you readers into a project.

My idea is that we should start to refer to Pope Benedict XVI as …

… the Pope of Christian Unity.

An excellent idea.

A wonderful pastoral letter

From His Excellency Bishop Nickless of the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa.

Ecclesia Semper Reformanda

Lastly, the Holy Father, going into greater detail later in the address, explains that the “spirit of Vatican II” must be found only in the letter of the documents themselves. The so-called “spirit” of the Council has no authoritative interpretation. It is a ghost or demon that must be exorcised if we are to proceed with the Lord’s work.

…

My brothers and sisters, let me say this clearly: The “hermeneutic of discontinuity” is a false interpretation and implementation of the Council and the Catholic Faith. It emphasizes the “engagement with the world” to the exclusion of the deposit of faith. This has wreaked havoc on the Church, systematically dismantling the Catholic Faith to please the world, watering down what is distinctively Catholic, and ironically becoming completely irrelevant and impotent for the mission of the Church in the world. The Church that seeks simply what works or is “useful” in the end becomes useless.

Our urgent need at this time is to reclaim and strengthen our understanding of the deposit of faith. We must have a distinctive identity and culture as Catholics, if we would effectively communicate the Gospel to the people of this day and Diocese. This is our mission. Notice that this mission is two-fold, like the Second Vatican Council’s purpose. It is toward ourselves within the Church (ad intra), and it is to the world (ad extra). The first is primary and necessary for the second; the second flows from the first. This is why we have not been as successful as we should be in bringing the world to Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ to the world. We cannot give what we do not have; we cannot fulfill our mission to evangelize, if we ourselves are not evangelized.

…

We must renew our reverence, love, adoration and devotion to the Most Blessed Sacrament, within and outside of Mass. A renewal of Eucharistic Spirituality necessarily entails an ongoing implementation of the Second Vatican Council’s reform of the liturgy as authoritatively taught by the Church’s Magisterium, the promotion of Eucharistic Adoration outside of Mass, regular reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of the Eucharist and our Mother.

…

Too often, the purposes of our participation in the liturgy, worship and sanctification, are passed over in a misplaced attempt to “create community,” rather than to receive it as a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s activity within us.

…

We must give concrete help against the corrosive effects of pre-marital promiscuity, cohabitation, contraception and abortion, pornography industry, easily executed divorce, and infidelity. But we must also guard against and equip families to resist the breakdown of the family that sometimes happens through over activity, the domination of communication technologies and novelties, and the cult of fun and entertainment, to name just a few dangers.

Well, this certainly doesn’t instill confidence, does it?

I am about as against a public option for health care as can be. The only thing worse would be a full-blown single-payer system like they have in Canada, England, and elsewhere.

A friend of mine, who has a relative living in England, says the NHS is wonderful and works great. Yeah. Then I come across this:

3,000 NHS staff get private care

The National Health Service has spent £1.5m paying for hundreds of its staff to have private health treatment so they can leapfrog their own waiting lists.

The service is so bad that the people who provide it aren’t willing to use it. Wonderful.

Via Booker Rising

An interesting point

and one that seems eminently reasonable

Hayek’s basic critique of the idea of social justice is not based on a moral argument — it is based on the limits of human knowledge. Human beings simply do not possess the kinds of information necessary to allow for a just and equitable distribution of resources necessary to ensure social and economic equality. This lack of information — which translates into a lack of ability to coordinate and allocate resources tout court makes the quest for social justice a quixotic endeavor.

From Mark in Spokane

Now I have another book to add to my list of things to read.

This is one of the most insane things I’ve seen in awhile

A six-year old has been disciplined and suspended from school because he took his Cub Scout fork/knife/spoon utensil to school to use at lunch.

It’s a Fork, It’s a Spoon, It’s a … Weapon?

One of the brighter comments by a school official:

“There is no parent who wants to get a phone call where they hear that their child no longer has two good seeing eyes because there was a scuffle and someone pulled out a knife,” said George Evans, the president of the Christina district’s school board.

When I was in Junior High, some of the more, um, intelligent folks used to sharpen good old fashioned pencils and then jab them into people’s legs while walking down the hallway. I’ll be waiting for the school to ban pencils next.

Of course, you can also put an eye out with your finger. Better get a bunch of mittens for the kids, too.

More wisdom from Dr. Wilson

In his latest Chronicles essay: Nostalgia – Things I Miss:

News reporters who could tell fact from opinion and were suspicious of ALL politicians.

Mr. de Prada makes a good point

Juan Manuel de Prada is a Spanish writer who converted to the Catholic faith around 2005. From the introduction of his book, de Prada describes his conversion to the “ancient liberty” of the Catholic faith:

The progressive Matrix has thus become a sort of Messianic faith; it has instituted a new order, it has imposed unassailable cultural principles, it has established a new anthropology that, while promising ultimate liberation to man, holds nothing for him but future suicide. And standing against this new order is only the religious order, which restores to man his true nature and offers him a correct view of the world that undermines the foundations of the trompe-l’oeil on which the new tyranny is based, dispelling its falsehoods. A vision that power makes a great effort in combating, since the religious order is the only bulwark to be destroyed before its triumph is complete.

…

The curious reader will note that these “battle dispatches” combine diatribe and introspection, invective and elegy, reflection of a political nature and artistic digression; he will even find a selection of observations made during a spring in Rome that changed the direction of my life, because it was then – in the days following the death of John Paul II – that I definitively adhered to the “ancient liberty,” the antidote to all the tyrannies of the world. In an age of uncertainty that leaves man adrift in a sea of troubles, Rome stood before me, suddenly, like a rock of salvation: I am not referring to religious salvation alone, but also cultural, because I consider the faith of Rome a bulwark that clarifies the terms of our spiritual genealogy and shelters us from the squalls into which the new tyranny would like to toss us. Rejecting this boundless possession means signing an act of social death; claiming it as one’s own does not constitute an act of submission, but of proud and joyful freedom.

As Chesterton once wrote in his essay “Why I Am a Catholic“:

“It is the only thing that frees a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age. “

Via Sandro Magister

But how can he be right?

Al Gore says he’s wrong, and Al Gore has a Nobel prize:

Carbon Dioxide Doesn’t Cause Global Warming:

Much of the global warming debate has focused on reducing CO2 emissions because it is thought that the greenhouse gas produced mostly from fossil fuels is warming the planet. But Steward, who once believed CO2 caused global warming, is trying to fight that with a mountain of studies and scientific evidence that suggest CO2 is not the cause for warming. What’s more, he says CO2 levels are so low that more, not less, is needed to sustain and expand plant growth.

Trying to debunk theories that higher CO2 levels cause warming, he cites studies that show CO2 levels following temperature spikes, prompting him to back other scientists who say that global warming is caused by solar activity.

The problem is, there is the truth, and then there is what is politically correct. He’s got the first, but he’s fighting against the second.

Archbishop Chaput on Obama and Notre Dame

His Excellency responds to an earlier article by Cardinal Georges Cottier. The English title of the article is “Politics, morality and a president: an american view“:

First, resistance to President Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame had nothing to do with whether he is a good or bad man. He is obviously a gifted man. He has many good moral and political instincts, and an admirable devotion to his family. These things matter. But unfortunately, so does this: The President’s views on vital bioethical issues, including but not limited to abortion, differ sharply from Catholic teaching. This is why he has enjoyed the strong support of major “abortion rights” groups for many years. Much is made, in some religious circles, of the President’s sympathy for Catholic social teaching. But defense of the unborn child is a demand of social justice. There is no “social justice” if the youngest and weakest among us can be legally killed. Good programs for the poor are vital, but they can never excuse this fundamental violation of human rights.

An excellent article.

BTW, the title of the article in Italian is apparently more interesting: “L’ascia del vescovo pellerossa – Charles j. Chaput contro Notre Dame e l’illustre cardinale sedotto dall’abortista Obama” which apparently translates as “The ax of the Red Skin Bishop – Charles J. Chaput against Notre Dame and the illustrious cardinal seduced by the pro abortion Obama”

I think seduced is a good word for it.

Via Fr. Z