03.29.09

Conscience and culture

Posted in Culture, Ideology, Labor, Religion & Spirituality, Spiritual implications of our life choices at 1:58 pm by Administrator

Acton Institute president Rev. Robert Sirico’s letter to Notre Dame president Rev. John Jenkins

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16 Comments »

  1. MR. Dings said,

    March 29, 2009 at 4:45 pm

    Oh boy, this priest is in fear for the ND President’s (a priest as well) own soul. Just protest, wear some kind of arm band, cause trouble outside the stadium under the watchful gaze of touchdown Jesus and of course the cameras and let’s see how this all helps the Pro-Life cause. If it works, well, we’ll be able to make room in our jails for all the new lawbreakers again, if we have room for them. If a priest ever denies me communion, my first impulse would be to grab it out of his hands. Not very Christian, but not his call either. I would likely just not return.

    http://www.parade.com/news/2009/03/why-we-must-fix-our-prisons.html

  2. MR. Dings said,

    March 29, 2009 at 4:47 pm

    Judge not, lest ye be judged. Written 6/30/07:

    I had an experience recently, on Father’s Day. I was late for my weekly Buddhist dharma in beautiful downtown Greenwood, Indiana, so, although my son who lives near the yoga center where it takes place had called me to come over to ride bikes, I decided to check out St. Joseph Catholic Chapel nearby since I had seen it several times but never had been there. It is in an old Protestant church but the cornerstone read 1977, much younger than the church. I noticed on the door it said Traditional Latin Mass, Visitors Welcome, Proper Attire Required. While I was not wearing a coat and tie, I was business casual with sandals due to the 90 plus degree heat–nothing Jesus or Francis would not wear and nothing not worn by the Franciscans there in Tampa and elsewhere all the time, even when they say Mass in their robes. That wasn’t the problem, though. I was arriving about 7 minutes late, nor was that the problem, but, just as I got inside the door, a man about my age in a business suit accosted me and immediately asked if I had been there before? I said no. He said, well, we say the traditional Latin Mass here, and I nodded in understanding, stating that I had grown up with it. He had too, he said. He then said, well, that I was welcome to visit, but father asks that I not receive the sacraments. Immediately I bristled and began shaking my head (you will understand that the Eucharist is primary to the Mass), and said, “that is wrong, I am a practicing cradle Catholic, going to Mass (nearly) every Sunday (not that it was any of his business anyhow, never before have I been asked anything or screened before entering). I repeated, that is wrong, wrong, wrong, and he is looking me straight in the eye, and says “well, I agree, but Father says, and you know how the modern church is….). I left, in some discomfit, knowing he was talking about the renegade Archbishop Lafebvre in France, now dead, who was excommunicated in the 70s, for failure to go along with Vatican II. Benedict is now trying to restore him to favor, though which is fine with me and in keeping with one holy catholic and apostolic church. Sheesh! I know some Latin and knew some more at one time, taking 16 hours of it in college even for my BA, so, I know the translation of the original Nicene Creed and it was written and approved long long before any schisms in the original Christian church. Apparently there will continue to be schisms, and we are moving more and more to the heart, where Christ must indeed lie as we have previously discussed, or in any gathering where two are more are gathered in his name, not in theology, or in ritual, or in bricks and mortar, or in dogma. We all pray essentially the same one. Of course, we will have misunderstandings and disagreement. Some hot humans, we be, as we be. We can never become one holy catholic and apostolic church again if we cannot agree on even the truth of the translations. Which we cannot, of course, but the only way we are one holy and apostolic church is the way it must be understood by the Father–Jesus Christ is in our hearts and we are filled with His Holy Spirit, regardless of affilliation.

  3. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    March 29, 2009 at 6:15 pm

    But there’s no schism quite as glaring as the one between the pro-lifers and the pro-deathers.

  4. MR. Dings said,

    March 29, 2009 at 10:09 pm

    And so onepro-life priest writes another pro-life priest telling him his immortal soul is endangered just because he is president of a major university and has invited a newly installed president to speak as has been the custom in the past. Since when did this 40 plus year old issue become so pressing? Not even a priest knows about the destiny of another’s immortal soul, unless the bloggie can demonstrate otherwise. This is bordering on hysteria. It appears that the bloggie will grab onto anything to discredit the freely elected sitting Chief Executive of this land, testing him every bit as much as any gloating mullah or other such evil in the world and that he’s certain God has not equipped this one nation under Him to handle it all under his watch. Perhaps the one priest will deny the other the Eucharist.

  5. MR. Dings said,

    March 29, 2009 at 10:36 pm

    And what is the Spirit but conscience, the conscience, Spirit, everybody’s wrong here if nobody’s right. The man is just trying to host a recently installed US President for a commencement speech. If I were our enemy, I would sense a serious weakness here. Pray for sinners. Judge who they are, if you dare.

  6. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    March 30, 2009 at 2:33 am

    This “freely elected” meme is getting old. Have you been pleased with every freely elected president?
    Hitler was freely elected Chancellor of Germany.

  7. Mr. Dings said,

    March 30, 2009 at 11:03 am

    Bloggie’s being testy again, be nice. Puhlease, purty purty puhlease? Work diligently to save Father John’s (Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C) soul today! He was appointed, I would imagine. Anointed once as well.

  8. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    March 30, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    Ah, that makes clear your stand on why TCM deserves a pass for being “freely elected.”

  9. MR. Dings said,

    March 30, 2009 at 10:01 pm

    He certainly deserves to speak at the Notre Dame commencement. But you are being typically neo-con, if we’re not with you, we’re against you. Where were the protesters outside American Archdiocesan offices when the child sex scandals that were scandalously covered-up for half a century broke?

    And this ain’t old news, nor is it over yet:

    http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/jesuits-oregon-province-files-bankruptcy

    “…there were at most 29 priests serving at any one time in the diocese. During those years, he said, at least 20 Jesuits were credibly accused, and there were times, he said, when as many as eight of the accused were serving simultaneously, mostly doing parish work in small, remote Eskimo villages strung out over the vast territory of the diocese. The abuse occurred in the villages and at two residential schools run by the Jesuits.”

    I suppose you will now think you are clear on my stand with the Pope deserving a pass since he was sort-of freely elected to, as is the custom.

  10. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    March 30, 2009 at 10:42 pm

    He does? You’ve yet to make that clear.
    Notre Dame, even if its current student body behaves with the secular obliviousness of Berkeley, is a Catholic institution. It asserts by virtue of that fact that God the Father creates a human soul when a sperm and egg come together.
    TCM asserts no such thing. What he’s about is that individual human souls exist – by happenstance, I would imagine, under his Stalinist worldview – in order to fulfill their part in his grand vision of a purely material utopia of which he and The Party are the vanguard.

  11. MR. Dings said,

    March 30, 2009 at 11:06 pm

    Well, first of all, they asked him, as they have asked many newly inaugurated presidents throughout the years. Then there is the matter of the US Supreme Court’s establishing what constitutes human life over 40 years ago, which does not make it Obama’s law or any president’s law. Thirdly, he is our freely elected (there I go again) chief executive, and, as Father John, the ND prexie says, has a lot to recommend him (though I am certain you will disagree) for his record on social justice and race relations (if that term is still viable).

    http://www.archindy.org/Criterion/national/03-24-notredame.html

    Father Jenkins (ND President) pointed out that U.S. presidents from both parties have come to Notre Dame for decades to speak to its graduates about a wide range of pressing issues — from foreign policy to poverty, from societal transformation to social service.

    “We will honor Mr. Obama as an inspiring leader who faces many challenges — the economy, two wars, and health care, immigration and education reform — and is addressing them with intelligence, courage and honesty,” he said.

    “It is of special significance that we will hear from our first African-American president, a person who has spoken eloquently and movingly about race in this nation. Racial prejudice has been a deep wound in America, and Mr. Obama has been a healer,” he said.

    Jesuit Father Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Jesuit-run Georgetown University in Washington, said he found it curious that Notre Dame would receive so much flak about its choice of commencement speaker, given that no such outrage occurred when the archbishop of New York invited Obama to speak at the 2008 Al Smith dinner.

    The annual see-and-be-seen political roast is named for the famed 1920s Catholic New York governor.

    “This is absurd,” Father Reese said in a statement. “If Cardinal Edward Egan of New York can invite Obama to speak at the Al Smith dinner in October of 2008 when he was only a presidential candidate, then there is certainly nothing wrong with Notre Dame having the president speak at a commencement.

    “Other pro-choice speakers at Al Smith dinners included Al Gore and Tony Blair, a Catholic,” he continued. “What is OK for a cardinal archbishop is certainly OK for a university.”

  12. MR. Dings said,

    April 1, 2009 at 2:08 pm

    http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/northeast/view/2009_03_31_Catholic_bishops_warned_in__50s_on_abusive_priests/srvc=home&position=recent

    Catholic bishops warned in ’50s on abusive priests

  13. MR. Dings said,

    April 1, 2009 at 2:14 pm

    This is a great opportunity for moves like this one, methinks; hope he has time to pray.

    http://www.indystar.com/article/20090401/NEWS/904010388

    SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The head of the religious order that founded the University of Notre Dame has asked President Barack Obama to reconsider his stance on abortion and stem cell research in the wake of his being invited to give the school’s commencement speech in May.

    The Rev. Hugh W. Cleary, the superior general of the Congregation of the Holy Cross in Rome, wrote a letter to Obama on March 22 asking him to rethink through prayerful wrestling with his conscience his stated positions on the vital life issues of our day.

    Cleary said in his 13-page letter to Obama that he has been deluged with angry e-mails regarding Notre Dame’s decision to invite the president to campus.

  14. MR. Dings said,

    April 1, 2009 at 6:10 pm

    Where’s da 13 pages?
    http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11558

    Letter to President Obama
    From the Superior General of the Congregation of Holy Cross
    Hugh Cleary | MARCH 30, 2009
    the cover of America, the Catholic magazine

    Dear Mr. President….

  15. MR. Dings said,

    April 3, 2009 at 9:17 am

    Just like the American cardinals deserve “some respect.”

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-cardinal-notre-dameapr03,0,5403041.story

    …George says the South Bend, Ind., school shouldn’t rescind Obama’s May 17 invitation. He says the office of the president deserves “some respect.”

  16. MR. Dings said,

    April 9, 2009 at 9:09 pm

    Addendum to my post of 3/29/08. It’s we who exclude the Lefebvrites. Take your communion and…..

    http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1890351,00.html

    The man tapped by Pope Benedict XVI to lead Vatican negotiations with the Lefebrvite movement said the controversial group remains in schism with the Catholic Church, and only their acceptance of the Second Vatican Council and obedience to the Pope can bring them fully back into the fold.

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