Time Screws Up Catholicism With “A Tale of Two Priests”

Having been involved as a Catholic blogger for half a year now, I have talked about Cardinal Sean O’Malley, his acceptance of the Kennedy funeral, and even echoed some Burkean views on pro-choice candidates and their receiving of the sacraments. However, this Time article for 11/16/09 has skewed the view of faithful Catholics, almost to the point where they sound like little Catholic right-wing extremists. Here are some examples of distortions if you want to view them:

First, Ms. Sullivan (the journalist who wrote this article) wrote that in September, Burke called O’Malley as being allied with “the father of lies” (i.e., Satan). This is barely true (go see insidecatholic.com for more info), unfortunately. And if he did call him the accomplice of Satan, although I do think that O’Malley has not done a great job with enforcing Canon law, I wouldn’t necessarily call him as some kind of Catholic anti-Christ (if that’s what it’s implying here). I don’t like him, and may he forgive me if I insulted him in any article whatsoever (please see my corrections page for more info). But saying that he is directly allied with Satan would be a wee bit overboard (or maybe more than a wee bit?) for a lot of us. In that case, I would not support Burke’s comment. But that is not the case and thus a distortion on Sullivan's part, if you go click at InsideCatholic (they have the actual quote there).

Sullivan also says that “Burke and others who believe a Catholic’s position on abortion trumps all other teachings have faced off against those who take a more holistic view of the faith.” Wait a second. So that means that faithful Catholics who don’t want the sacraments to be abused and taken by people who have mortal sin on their hands aren’t holistic? Does that mean that these Catholics are just following GOP politics and are acting like a bunch of right-wing crazies who don’t give to their communities (and I’m an Independent who is a Blue Dog at heart - a conservative liberal)?

Again, as I have said, it seems that the far-left liberal media (like the Washington Post and this Time article) think that we faithful Catholics don’t do charitable work to serve the poor who have no health-care or at least are just a bunch of hypocritical preachers (if you don’t believe me, look at Tom Toles’ Post cartoon). That’s a shame - ah, it just goes to show that they really don’t know us Catholics at all!

Another point: “In retrospect, it should have been obvious that the funeral plans for Kennedy would reignite a lingering dispute within the church.” Uh, duh - that’s what the Church calls “scandal”?! Oh, and by the way, this is was the main reason why “right-wing Catholics” lobbied Boston to refuse the Kennedys a Church funeral: they thought that it would go against Canon law - and I emphasize to their knowledge due to the fact that we didn't know about this article - and would cause scandal to the Church to do so (hey, having a General Intercession involving gay marriage during the Mass doesn’t cause scandal, no?).

But indeed, it says that some conservative Catholics thought that the position that pro-choice Catholics shouldn’t have funeral rites was not good, and it is true. Bishop Morlino of Wisconsin said that there needed to be mercy for the Kennedy family, and Princeton professor Robert George said, “That’s a very different, and obviously graver, claim than that with which I would have sympathy. I haven’t heard before any bishop say that pro-abortion politicians should not be given a Catholic funeral.” I repeat again, though, that this was mainly a canonical issue and not necessarily from a lack of mercy towards Kennedy – the question was: “Is it right to give a Catholic funeral for a pro-choice politician (and a likely mortal sinner) when Canon law could possibly bar that?”

I thought that it wasn’t right, and so did another famous Catholic (whom the Papist’s father, Dr. Ed Peters, supported the funeral decision but said that he was a "reasonable adversary"), but we did that out of theoretics because of the fact that Kennedy did not publicly express his repentance against the pro-choice/pro-gay position, which would obviously bring scandal (i.e. the scandal that would publicly say sin is good when it’s bad) to the event.

We didn’t necessarily hate Kennedy nor Cardinal O’Malley in the process of doing so. Of course, I know that other Catholics hate Kennedy and want him to go to Hell (I remember this vividly on Freerepublic.com), but not all of the critics were hateful - they were just trying to be faithful to the Magisterium and Canon law, unlike O’Malley’s argument that “zeal can lead people to issue harsh judgments and impute the worst motives to one another.”

Finally, speaking of distortions from Time magazine, not only does it distort the fact that a lot of faithful Catholics have mercy towards the Kennedys but still didn’t want the funeral due to the possibly canonical conflicts involved, it distorted the late Cardinal Bernardin’s “seamless garment of life” idea! Adding to its argument that us faithful Catholics are a bunch of right-wing extremists, it says that the “hierarchy has been divided before, most recently in the 1990s by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s argument that abortion is not the only issue in the ‘seamless garment of life’ that Catholics are called to promote.” (Can’t you just see the repeating overtone that pro-life Catholics are not “holistic”?)

However, when you think about it carefully, it is true that abortion is not the only issue in the seamless garment. Really, everyone knows this: you need to support the pro-life movement, yet you can’t just abandon the poor for the unborn. You have to help both (and it is possible . . . think about Catholic Charities and all of their pro-life adoptions with their work to the homeless). But the opposition to abortion and “euthanasia” is the thread that binds the cloth together. Indeed, no sane, orthodox Catholic should turn Bernardin’s idea with a blind eye - if I remember correctly, Priests for Life agrees with me on their website.

Nevertheless, it is not wise to discount abortion and euthanasia using Bernardin’s theory as an excuse for supporting a pro-choice politician and/or position. You see, these issues are graver than helping the poor, who are still going to be alive and available, because it is dealing with an intrinsic issue (the God-given right to life, which is being unfairly extinguished by abortionists) rather than an extrinsic issue (giving charity to the poor, which is good but people can still have their essential right-to-life in poverty). And these are things that a lot of faithful Catholics believe, who support Bernardin without a doubt, but know that abortion is the main issue to conside: they don’t want to wear the “seamless garment” until they have every part - poverty, education, economy - sewed in together by the main pro-life positions (or else, they’ll end up like naked hypocrites wearing tattered clothes).

So, in conclusion, we can say that Time screwed up horribly with Sullivan’s article. It may be factual to a point, but it has distorted the views of faithful Catholics on the Kennedy funeral, stating that true, faithful Catholics are like the “crazy Burkes” of the universe with their off-color comments and their “un-holistic” views of the Faith.

And not only that, it even promotes this “holistic” view of Faith by advocating the usage of Bernardin’s orthodox “seamless garment” approach as a cover which can be used to conceal pro-choice, heterodox Catholic liberalism (which liberals have done time and time again). Thus, it may make for good reading on what’s happening in general with the Catholic Church, but the specifics and the hidden agenda inside makes it clearly not the best read if you want the straight facts. That is, Time just doesn’t get religion - nor Catholicism.

The Good News and Bad News on Obamacare

Yesterday, Americans had both good news and bad news. The good news is that the Stupak anti-abortion amendment passed. The bad news is that the healthcare bill that came along with it passed. Let me explain.

First, the good news. Stupak, a faithful Catholic Democrat (and whom I personally admire as a fellow Independent/Blue-Dog-Dem-wannabe), had his anti-abortion amendment passed. Basically, after arm-twisting Pelosi with the help of our Bishops, he helped pass something that allows federal funds to be out of the abortionists' hands (at least if the person is on the public option or some other insurance in the "exchange").

That would also mean that us social conservatives wouldn't have to get our consciences dirty and make us consider about not paying our taxes. This was done with the help of the Republicans and at least 40 brave Dems who tried to do the right thing by supporting real reform (at least in the womb). So, Deo gratias for that!

Now, the bad news. The whole 2,000 page bill passed without a hitch. Yikes! As an Independent, I am in favor of a moderately big government (i.e. "not too little" but "not too much" regulation), but this is just out of the ball park here. Plus, I don't want to be paying at least a trillion dollars for this bill, no matter what! If that happens, I'd be up to my eyeballs in government debt -- indeed, where's the fiscal responsibility here?

I can only hope that some Baucus-inspired bill in the Senate will actually do a better job to keep costs down and save ourselves from too much government than this monster from the House.
But unfortunately, I have two predictions:

1. With Reid (D-NV) allowing the public option to still be in the bill, he will make the Democratic Senators to follow his lead into what will be a spending nightmare (unless some brave Blue Dog tries to stop him), and
2. I hear from sources at the American Spectator blog (at the comments section) that they're going to kick the pro-life language out of this Senate bill and maybe even the merged bill (I pray not!). That won't be a good thing if that happens, but let's see.

Anyway, that's all for today. God bless you through Mary and St. Jean Vianney, and let's hope that this Healthcare Monster becomes smaller, more manageable, and actually better for the people of America.

Thank God That We Have A Constitution . . .

First off, let's pray for the guys at Ft. Hood, and may they be brought to peace of mind once Maj. Hasan wakes up from his coma, if it is possible. Indeed, somebody has to pay the price for doing this grievous tragedy.

Now, you know what makes me thank the Lord that we have a Constitution that is the supreme law above even the President and Congress? It's what happened today at the EU -- the dreaded Lisbon Treaty. According to Catholicculture.org, it has unified the EU member-states into one whole government (nation, maybe?) instead of the blob of countries that we once knew and loved: France, Ireland, Czech Republic . . . all subject to the Big Brother of the EU. And you know why that worries me?

Oh, and look what happened today -- did you hear that an Euro court decided in favor of an Italian who thought that crucifixes should be removed from school property? I mean, of course "religious neutrality should be observed in the course of public education", but does that mean we have the right to all of a sudden just blast crucifixes out of a room?

I would know from personal experience: I drew a crucifix to decorate my poem about God (and this was in a public school in America in 7th grade). Then the teacher came up to me to say that I shouldn't draw the or make any religious poems ever again (for this was to be displayed for Back-to-School Night) because it would "offend" people. I was then defended by a Protestant classmate of mine who said that I was offered the right to do so via the 1st Amendment, and he became in trouble with the teacher (but that's another story for later).

You see, the Council of Europe's Court has taken this out of context for public schools . . . per the 1st Amendment under the US Constitution, it should be allowable to display crucifixes, but only in the case where it can be objectively sure that it is not imposing religion on the people. Displaying a crucifix does not necessarily imply this in a public school as much as somebody displayed a "Star of David" or a "Crescent & Star" symbol, as long as it did not come with the implication that the religion must be followed by praying to it, etc.

This is the same thing with political symbols. One can display the symbols of different parties (elephant and donkey), as long as there is no implication of forcing people to become a Democrat, Republican, Green Party, or whatever it may be. This too is protected under the 1st Amendment. Unfortunately, the Council of Europe doesn't really enforce its equivalent -- I remember that it does have some similar guarantee in its charter somewhere, if I am correct.

Therefore, I think it lies on the side of the Italian who filed this suit. For now that he has won the case, the Italian government is offended of having to follow-up by removing it! "Italy’s Minister of Agriculture, Luca Zaia, also deplored the ruling and said, 'The Court has decided that crucifixes offend the sensibilities of non-Christians. It’s the Court that is offending the sentiments of the European peoples who have their origin in Christianity. What an embarrassment!' (CNA)"

So, what does this have to do with the Lisbon Treaty? It's going to give the world more foolish suits like this that won't do anything except resemble some kind of ban on religious "anything" (even clothing and jewelry!) like in France's public schools, although it would be more widespread than ever before! Would anyone like to live under a government that is basically just shoving secularism down the throats of those who disagree? So much for "fair secularism"!

Thank God for the Constitution -- the Founding Fathers were wise to delinate our freedoms with the Bill of Rights so none of this nonsense would happen! And if you're a devout European, remember that you're always welcome in America if you want to flee the foolish and ungodly rules of the EU!

Please pray for the conversion of Europe . . . they're going to need it. And may God protect all the other countries of the world from having the same experience as Europe, especially the US!

Catholic Notes of Note

Usually, I would do a rather significant and insightful article on Catholic issues. But today, I'm just going to do a list of what happened yesterday in the world of SAAC.

Here's a few of them:

• First, just a simple apology to my readers. I was sick from complications with allergies yesterday, so I wasn't able to blog much (hey, at least it wasn't the swine flu!). But I'll try to actually write something more insighful during the weekend, if that helps anyone.


• Second, thank God that His law won out yesterday! Now that the pro-life candidates have sweeped Virginia (go McDonnell, Bolling, and Cuccinelli!) and New Jersey (go Christie!), I feel that at least these states will have good consciences leading them to protect the unborn and enforce tougher laws on those who make this dastardly service available. May God bless them and help them to protect all of us in the Commonwealth and New Jersey.
  
  Oh, and please give my condolences to the third-party candidate Doug Hoffman (C-NY) in New York's 23 Congressional District. Indeed, what I heard was that if Dede's name wasn't on the ballot, he would've won, which would have been the perfect day for all of us Republicans and social conservatives. But obviously, that isn't so. I just hope that he runs again in the regular election next year . . . or at least give impetus to the Republicans to choose somebody who actually represents their values.


• Also, same-sex marriage failed to pass in Maine not only due to Catholics for the Common Good, but other Godly people who saw the light and realized that same-sex marriage isn't really marriage at all. Here is thus another case where open sinfulness is not going to pass with the people of the Maine -- or with the other people in the United States.
  
  (P.S. I want to give a shoutout to all who were praying for the rejection of that law yesterday -- and any saints who were involved in the intercession process. You guys have helped out so much. Thank you, and Deo gratias!)

So, there are your Catholic Notes of Note for this week. (Hey, I might actually be able to do a series on this; why not?) Anyway, I hope you have a nice day, and may God bless you and the world through Mary and St. Jean Vianney (as always).