Can Just Anyone Claim to Be an Ethicist?

The NYTimes word-putter-together currently so described seems to be a sports and arts journalist?

In any case, he certainly seems a step-up from the last one whom I read with any frequency, who was a comic, or something of the sort, and fairly ignorant on most issues, and very inconsistent in the application of his "principles."

The column today addresses a subject that is kinda ironic for the Times to address, at least from the point of view of a Roman Catholic.

It deals with the credentials one needs for being a weather forecaster, (since there is little expectation that that anyone is usually, or even often correct, regardless of advanced degrees in meteorology, the question seems moot, but I digress.)

I don't recall who, but some blogger, in answer to the Times' insistence on humoring people who were not to proclaim themselves "Roman Catholic priests" despite the Roman Catholic Church's holding that these presbyteral wannabes were no such thing, wrote a very funny piece claiming his identity as a New York TImes journalist, despite the Times' refusal to pay him a salary, or give him a byline.

'Cause isn't that how it works?

And me?
I'm the Queen of Romania,.

 

Children of Men, anyone?

One knew just how prescient P.D.James was when every second person one encountered seemed to have a "teacup" animal, dressed, carried, and spoken to as if a child.

 

Zenit has a piece on the demographic cliff toward which we are hurtling. Hopefully Jonathon Last's new book will get people talking, and thinking.
And praying?

"A country without children is a nation without a future." According to a recent post on the Demography Matters blog, this was a comment by Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva, referring to his country’s low birth rate.

The post noted that the number of births in Portugal has been below the level needed to replace the current population since the early 80s. Moreover, the stagnating economy is leading younger Portuguese to emigrate in search of jobs, keeping the youth unemployment rate to only 38.3%, quite a bit better than the situation in neighboring Spain, at over 55%.
The economy is still shrinking, government and private sector debt is enormous, and, as the blog post commented, “So with less people working and paying into the welfare system, less GDP, and huge debts the numbers simply don’t add up.”
Portugal is by no means alone in struggling to cope with an aging population.
“Britain is ‘woefully under-prepared’ to cope with an expected explosion of older people and ministers need to respond by raising the retirement age and tackle the costs by reviewing pensioner benefits, a House of Lords inquiry concluded,” observed a March 14 article in Britain’s newspaper the Guardian.
It said that from 2010 to 2030 there is expected to be a 50% increase in people aged 65 and over and that Britain will need to make major changes in order to cope with this change.
The article stemmed from a report by a group of peers of the House of Lords. The “Select Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change - First Report Ready for Ageing?”
Living for longer is something to be celebrated, the report noted. This comes, however, with risks and costs and the fact that people can outlive their pensions and savings.
The report made a number of detailed proposals on how to deal with the growing number of elderly people and the economic pressures this will cause.
The problem is Europe-wide. On March 26 Eurostat, the statistical agency for the European Union, published demographic data for 2012. At the start of 2012 the number of persons aged 65 or over had grown to 18% of the total population, compared to 14% in 1992.

Another First for Francis?

I realize the election of the new Holy Father is very old news, but I've been occupied, so...

Is he not the first Pontiff to have been ordained in the Novus Ordo, the first to have never celebrated  what we now call the Extraordinary Form?

Or would his seminary training in Argentina have included the "old Mass"?

If only the Church had some sacred language that belonged equally to all of us...

If only...

This morning Mass was said by a very sick man.
I appreciate that so much.
Father had to drag himself out of his sick-bed because the arranged substitute was in even worse shape.

Father told us the Bishop would certainly send someone had he asked, but it is always someone from Honduras, or Kenya, or Haiti, or Sri Lanka, and then the parishioners, (who, it must be said, are generally elderly and don't hear very well under the best circumstances,) complain and complain and complain about the visiting priests' command of English.

If only Mother Church, in Her wisdom, had thought to designate some sacred language that belonged equally to all of us, that all priests could learn, something with open, easily pronounced vowels, few difficult consonant blends, and actually, when you get down to it, a fairly limited vocabulary...

If only....

Anachronism on "Mad Men"?

Did I hear wrong,  am I mistaken about the era in which the season permiere is taking place -- or did a Catholic charactger on Mad Man use "and also with you," as a snarky retort at least a couple years before that mistranslation became part of the Mass in English?

(Although good catch,Weiner, we really do do that... There was the same little thrill I got the first time I heard someon correct the pronunciation of my last name in a Cagney movie.)

Goodness Gracious...

... and me stuck, probably, with a Holy Thursday full of sacro-sacchro-pop background music.

Archbishop Wolfgang Haas will be the first Diocesan bishop since the 1969 reforms of the Catholic liturgy to celebrate the Chrism Mass with his clergy using the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. This will take place on Holy Thursday at 9 am in Vaduz Cathedral in the Archduchy of Liechtenstein).

I wonder if this can be accurate? Cannot read the link, of course, and have no idea about the reliabilty of the site cited.

So very me...

... yes, my world turned upside down, my life forever changed, IMPORTANT things going on in the world, and what do I break silence to say?

Jackass.
 (I'm not a very nice person, am I?)

The Bitter Pill, as the blood-crazed ferret calls, it is far worse trash than even his blog had given me to understand.
"Incredibly insensitive and inconsiderate, even - let me say it - arrogant; and also wide open to being very harmfully divisive."
Umm.... yeah. That covers it pretty nicely.

'Verbum' and 'ars' are interchangeable. Only in the two together does the entire meaning of the word 'logos' appear for medieval theologians. The 'Logos' is not simply a mathematical reasoning, the 'Logos' has a heart. The 'Logos' is also love. Truth is beautiful. Truth and beauty go together. Beauty is the seal of truth.”

I love this man so much - how I shall miss reading what the Holy Father has to say. Please, Lord, let him continue writing from his monastery!

(Because there's enough loss in my life....)

"This is Sister Monica Joan.... it is our privilege to care for her."

I am feeling over-privileged. Or -under?
But it is a terrible piece of good fortunate to be able to care for someone you love.
I sahn't be around for a while, may I ask anyone who reads this not to comment, but to say a prayer for someone called Rose.

Action Item #13

Who do you suppose voted "nay" on the pastoral letter to the faithful, encouraging the Faithful to avail themselves of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation, and reminded them that sometimes it is an obligation?

Baptized pagans?

According to George Weigel, led by Raymond Arroyo's "interview" questions, that is what all the putatively Christian who failed to vote for Romney are; they did not take a position "congruent" with the bisops' teachings, they "reject" what the bishops had to say, apparently.

 Baptized pagans.

To declare that that fifty percent of Catholics voted for Obama ipso facto support the president's position on ANY specific policy, whether mandated birth control coverage or progressive tax rates is of course absurd, and frankly, insulting.

If these people do not want to come off as GOP shills, they would do well to explain to someone like me what a committed Catholic, a Catholic who endorses everything taught by the Church, is to make of those wink-wink nudge-nudge ads with which we were inundated here in a bone fide "swing state," in the final weeks of the campaign, aw don't worry, Mitt ain't gonna actually DO anything about abortion, he's not some kinda EXTREMIST, followed by, I'm Mitt Romney and I approved this message.

Sins of the Fathers

For some reason, before beginning the meat of this post I feel full disclosure is required of me, to whit, that I am not capable of bearing a child. 
I mention this as, in the eyes of some polemicists, this may render me as ineligible to express an opinion on what is meretriciously labeled "reproductive rights" as any old white guy republican politician. 

I think that at least one loser in the recent elections was pilloried for calling out those who have latched on to the least defensible position in the abortion debate. Well, he doesn't seem to have "called anyone out," exactly, but simply to have given a sincere and badly-worded answer to a pundit's question, which answer was seen as an affront to said indefensible, but purportedly compassionate, position.

 I don't know much else about this would-be congressman, but my guess would be that I agree with him about virtually nothing else.
 But let's talk about the pro-life-unless-that-life-was-short-sighted-enough-to-have-been-the-result-of-rape-or-incest position.

Let us say that you are opposed to at least some abortions.

Why are you opposed to any abortion?

Is it not because you believe that abortion is the deliberate taking of innocent human life?

Or is it because you believe that pregnancy is the just punishment due a woman for engaging in illicit, or at least careless, sexual activity?

Surely the former, please say it is the former? (I'm not addressing you, Mr Aiken, you've made your reasoning abundantly, albeit mayhaps inadvertently, clear.)

If you believe an unborn child's right to life trumps the right of the woman or girl in whose womb he resides not to be burdened with him, IN MOST CIRCUMSTANCES - how are his rights somehow impinged on by, abrogated on account of, the evil and vile actions of the man who begat him? Is that child somehow less worthy of, less entitled to his already-begun life than, say, the one who is the product of a boozy but amicable one-night stand?

How can that be?

Are you perhaps less concerned with the child's right to life than with the mother's responsibility to lie in the bed she has made?

We must stop allowing the argument to be framed by the devil's useful idiots, must stop trying to answer the unanswerable "When did you stop beating you wife?" question that tripped up the Indiana candidate.

"Do you believe a victim of rape should be forced to bear a child? Really?"

No, no, NO!

Ask in retort, do you believe that a child who is a product of rape is an inferior being to, and less entitled to life than a child who is the product of love? Really?

Watched the USCCB Confab...

... a little prayer of thanks for Bishop Bruskewitz. Yeah, "challenging."

Are We Aware That Liturgy is the Salvation of the World?

Magnificat really is a nifty little publication.
It proved NOT such a great gift for Mom, as its editors seem to generally try for a little variety and on weekdays in Ordinary Time, usually go for the readings, or at least Propers of optional memorials, and our weekday parish avoids such things, trouble with bookmarks, you know; so really not much help for those who, already struggling with hearing, are saddled with mumbling, ill-prepared readers.

But I, on the other hand, am really enjoying it, particularly the devotional readings from holy men and women of whom, oft as not, I have not heard.

Madeleine Delbrel, (+1964,) a French mystic, may well have been, judging from her date of death, immersed in the Liturgical Movement, and, again judging from the date of he death, surely had no reason yet to doubt the efficacy of the ongoing Vatican Council.

"Are we aware that liturgy is the salvation of the world? [emphasis added] If... it is once again necessary [to adapt the liturgy, it is not] a question of making the liturgy more human. It already is human, and tragically so; it is the Passion of the Son of God made man, made continually present among us."

Other Catholics with a grudge against Traddies, if not against Tradition itself, like to mock the phrase I coined, "Save the liturgy, save the world," as if it expressed some sort of simplistic belief that a return to the old forms is either necessary, or worse, sufficient for the salvation of mankind.

But the fact is, it had nothing to do with the Extraordinary Form, it is nothing more, nor less, than an expression of certainty of the utter importance of the Eucharistic Liturgy and its proper execution, an expression of a belief in the Eucharistic Liturgy's primacy in the economy of salvation, an expression of solidarity with the Vatican II dictum that the Eucharistic Liturgy is the very Source and absolute Summit of our Christian life.

Or Perhaps His Excellency is Planning to Whap the Confirmandi...

One of my CCD students is curious to know if we will be learning more about "Confrontation", the sacrament, one supposes, when the Holy Spirit comes down and smacks some sense into ya...

Cantorae S. Augustine, and the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed

I was fortunate enough to attend an evening of music of "Rest and Repose," presented by Cantorae S. Augustine last week. Quite lovely. I think I enjoyed the shape note music as much or more than anything because it was unexpected and unfamiliar. Mary Jane Ballou should be very proud indeed. I don't suppose I could drive 8 hours round trip and ask to sing with her? No, didn't think so....
Then, embarrassment of riches, SUNG Vespers. My mom, for whom All Souls is very special, was very pleased. Its evenings like that that keep me from tearing my hair out and screaming.

(In other news, in another diocese, at Mass on All Saints, Just a Song at 
Twilight struck someone as appropriate, and so was recited, for our edification 
and sanctification. So you see, it was a piece of great good luck that the PTB 
had decided to omit the Gloria and Credo leaving us plenty o'time for JaSaT.) 

Oh, after Vespers I complimented the altar servers. It was refreshing to see child servers who sang and spoke when they ought.

What does it say about a parish and its liturgical life when its expenditures for music for Mass are lumped in with Bingo expenses on the annual financial report? (Candles and altar flowers rate their own line.)

I Apologize to Florida...

... for ever having complained about the lack of change-of-season.

This has been a gorgeous week, and going to early morning Mass, has been such a grace and such a joy, (not to mention the fact that "early morning" means 9:00 am -- does it get any better than this?)

I am going to try to stop whining about things, I really am. I am so blessed.

Anglican Nuns and the Little Flower?

Can someone explain to me why there seems to be a statue of Therese of Lisieux in the convent of the St Raymond Nonnatus of Call the Midwife?
 

(So far, the most "pro-life" television series I can imagine. Please, PLEASE don't  change...)

Yeah, as a matter of fact it MAY be intended to emphasise the sacrificial aspect of the Mass

The only-to-be-expected whinging from one of the US Catholic columnists about the fact that, no, you can't sing, "Basket of Goodies, you take away the sins of the world..." in place of the Agnus Dei, nets an excellent, concise retort from Alan Hommerding, (emphasis added):

Though we are discussing an important ritual nexus, I think that it's also important to recall we're discussing less than 90 seconds of the total liturgy. There are still plenty of other places/opportunities to incorporate a rich diversity of images for Christ and the Eucharist. To me, it seems like an internal cohesiveness or logic in the rite is the goal of this directive; we offer a litany to the Lamb, we are invited to behold the Lamb, we are reminded of our joy in being called to the supper of the Lamb. Some have also criticized the bishops for spending their time and energy in addressing this when there are so many other important items on the agenda. This, I think, relegates the liturgy to a status of non-importance - certainly not a Vatican II view of the liturgy! And, speaking again for myself, before I expend my time and energy being critical of the bishops for their priorities, it's good for me to check first to make sure that my own priorities and spiritual household are in order.

I met Mr Hommerding at a seminar at Mundelien once, and he is a lovely gentleman. The columnist lauds Hommerding for his "generous and charitable reading" of what he seems to think is the American Bishops' decision.
I laud him for his "generous and charitable" rebuke to the sillysentiments expressed in the column.