What is "Marriage"?

I don't think many dictionaries, even a few decades ago would have recognized definition 2.b.:

mar·riage [mar-ij] noun

1. a legally, religiously, or socially sanctioned union of persons who commit to one another, forming a familial and economic bond: Anthropologists say that some type of marriage has been found in every society, past and present.

2. a. the social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc.

b. a similar institution involving partners of the same gender, as in gay marriage; same-sex marriage

So is marriage open to redefinition, is it purely human construct?
If the sex of the participants can change with loosening of societal restrictions, and to prevent it is a violation of rights, of freedom, of our notions of fairness -- why not the number?

Why must marriage be two joined as one?

How dare we legislate against marriages of three or four persons?
Why can't I be married to Himself and to someone else? how about my brother? is there any logical reason the law should not allow me to marry him?

It could make child care easier.

Perhaps adoption agencies should be forced to place children with consortiums , (consortia?) of more than two people.

Your bridge group could adopt together. Heather Has Five Mommies.

Why not? is there a logical consistency to what is acceptable, legally, morally, socially, and what is not at this moment in history?

How to Have a Beautiful Sung Liturgy on a Catholic Campus? EASY-PEASY...

...LEMON-SQUEEZY!

All ya need besides the choir is:

a director knowledgeable about both the music of the Church and Her theology of sacred music; as well as a chaplaincy with a shared enthusiasm for the liturgy.

How many parishes are in want of those minimal requirements?
But seriously, folks... nice article by CMAA stalwart Dr Kurt Poterack.

I'm trying to not worry about the fact that they are thinking of instituting a "Children's Mass" at my parish, and that as a CCD (yes, they call it by that old school term,) volunteer who is known to have some small  knowledge of music I may be asked to help teach the young'ns the, uhm... liturgical  songs that have been selected as the core repertoire.

I'd bet every penny I own that this tops the list.
And Let There Be Cheese in Church is next.....

So, how to have a beautiful sung liturgy in a Catholic parish? we got an article on that?

The Disadvantage of being Dead, or What Happens to Children Who Are Not Aborted

This is a most worthwhile and valid thing to study, what happens to women who are denied abortions. But this finding from an earlier study, that,

the children born of unwanted pregnancies had significant disadvantages

is just too weasel-words to go unremarked upon. Significantly disadvantaged compared to whom? Dead babies? Lovingly adopted babies? Me, I think being dead is one of the greatest obstacles to a happy life...

Catholic Funeral Music

Amazing Grace
Were You There?
Something that went, "Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling"
How Great Thou Art

Oh well...

Jane Eyre?!?!???!??? I want to read this...

This.
I want to read “The Gospel of Womanhood according to Jane Eyre,” because... well, because Jane Eyre is "my book".
Everyone has one, right? The great work which everyone else kinda knows, but which really speaks to him and of him? Jane Eyre is mine. (Not that I even approach her moral strength...)

So, Miss Stimpfle, make this thesis available, please.

Publish, or put it on line.
"Faith and Reason Honors Program"?
What an attractive idea. Although I probably would have... misapplied myself? out of it.

Liturgical Thought In Passing

At the very time when I both have my choices of Sunday Mass drastically restricted, (a seasonal thang, doncha know...) and have a (rare) opportunity to check in on blogs of which I have been deprived of late, I  read about purported dissatisfaction with the Roman Missal in English right after having noted at mass, with some surprise, that the rhetorical style of the current translations actually force a better, (in my POV,) approach to proclamation on the part of the priests I hear Mass from most often.

There are interjections in the text, for instance, that while not strictly necessary for meaning, offer "breathers" in which the listener may contemplate the preceding phrase, or change up the speaker's rhythm in ways that highlight certain phrases.

Very nice....

Oh, and I also noticed, (just before Acension Thursday/Sunday,) that my parish uses a plastice tube with oil in it masquerading as a Paschal candle.

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 shan'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.