Monday, May 31, 2010

InsideCatholic.com - Five Myths About the Rapture

From Carl E Olson writing at Inside Catholic.

About ten years ago, I mentioned to a Catholic friend that I was starting to work on a book critiquing the Left Behind novels. I explained that it would thoroughly examine premillennial dispensationalism, the unique apocalyptic belief system presented, in fictional format, within those books. Premillennial dispensationalism teaches that the "Rapture" and the Second Coming are two events separated by a time of tribulation and that there will be a future millennial reign of Christ on earth. "Why?" she asked, obviously bewildered. "No one really takes that stuff seriously."
That revealing remark merely reinforced my desire to write Will Catholics Be "Left Behind"? (Ignatius, 2003). Other conversations brought home the same point. Far too many people -- including a significant number of Catholics -- don’t recognize the attraction and power of this Fundamentalist phenomenon. Nor do they appear to appreciate how much curiosity exists about the "end times," the book of Revelation, and the "pretribulation Rapture" -- the belief that Christians will be taken up from earth prior to a time of tribulation and the Second Coming.
In the course of writing articles, giving talks, and writing the book, I’ve encountered a number of questions and comments -- almost all from Catholics -- that indicate how much confusion exists about matters of eschatology (theology of the end times), not to mention ecclesiology, historical theology, and the interpretation of Scripture. The five myths I present here summarize many of those questions.
Continue reading "Five Myths About the Rapture" at InsideCatholic.com

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Our Lady Help of Christians - Just because I like it.



















I don’t know who produced this image.

Empire State Building Honours a Mass Murderer but Stiffs Mother Teresa.


Last year the Empire State Building shone in red and yellow lights to honor the 60th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Revolution. Yet under its founder, Mao Zedong, the Communists killed 77 million people. In other words, the greatest mass murderer in history merited the same tribute being denied to Mother Teresa.

Friday, May 28, 2010

'Renew wounded Church' say pope - News in English - ANSA.it

(ANSA) - Vatican City, May 27 - Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday made his most explicit plea yet for the Catholic Church to heal the wounds caused by child sex abuse scandals.
A "humble and painful admission" of "the wounds caused by the weakness and sins of some of the Church's members" must lead to "interior renewal", Benedict told Italian bishops.
"What is cause for scandal must translate itself for us into the urge to re-learn penance, accept purification, learn forgiveness on the one hand and on the other the need for justice," the pope told the 61st annual assembly of the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI).
Continue reading at  News in English - ANSA.it

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

American lawsuit against Vatican misconstrues nature of the Church, canonists say :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

CNA STAFF, May 27, 2010 / 12:40 am (CNA).- Two canon lawyers have weighed in on an attempt to sue the Vatican for sexual abuse by a priest, saying it misconstrues the nature of the Catholic Church and the relationship between the Pope and other Catholic bishops. It is based on the misperception of the Church as a “monolithic” structure, one said

Continue reading at Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Thursday, May 27, 2010

The Righteous Gentile – Pope Pius XII

Thanks to Gerard Charles Wilson.

Is the Black Legend at last dissolving?

Many Catholics, clerical and lay, have worked tirelessly for years to defeat the Black Legend. The Black Legend is the story that Pope Pius XII, regarded as a living saint in the 1950s, did little or nothing to save the Jews from Nazi murder. The legend grew from The Deputy a play by a German author in 1963 and thereafter propagated enthusiastically through the decades in all manner of books, newspaper and magazine articles and television programs. One of the most reprehensible books that developed the Pius XII anti-Semite and Nazi complicity theme was Hitler's Pope, by a self-proclaimed Catholic, John Cornwell.

Despite the work done to clear Pius XII's name, it seemed to many of us that little headway was being made to defeat what we knew to be the greatest calumny of the twentieth century. We knew that not only was Pius XII innocent of the charges, but that he was the very opposite both in deed and belief. Anti-Semitism and Nazism were abhorrent to him, and he did all that was in his power to save as many Jews from Hitler's extermination plans as he could.

But there has been a change, a change so great that it now looks like the Black Legend is dissolving. If it is, it is happening in no small part due to the efforts of an American Jew, Gary Krupp, of the Path the Way Foundation (http://www.ptwf.org/index.htm).

In a number of interviews and written pieces, Gary Krupp says that he 'grew up hating Pius XII, believing him to be an anti-Semite and a Nazi collaborator.' Through a 'providential' set of circumstances, related in an article in Galus Australis (Jewish Knight defends Pope XII), he became exposed to documents and oral histories that told a very different story. He said, 'my eyes were opened to a reality that was literally shocking. My emotions went from shock to anger. We discovered that we have been deceived by those whom we trusted for historical accuracy – that is, the scholars and historians.'

It was the beginning of a tenacious and feverish search for supporting evidence and documentation. In the four years since, he has uncovered literally thousands of documents demonstrating the calumny of the Black Legend, for which there is increasing evidence that the Soviet KGB was its originator.

I want to sincerely thank and pay tribute to Gary Krupp and the Pave the Way Foundation for the work they have done and are doing in undoing a terrible injustice. Immediately below are links to an interview with Gary Krupp and an eye-opening power point display which I strongly urge the reader to follow.

Gary Krupp interview on EWTN on the research of Pope Pius XII

Is Pope Pius XII a Righteous Gentile or Hitler's Pope? Watch this 56 minute narrated Power Point then you decide

More at GerardCharlesWilson.com

Pius XII image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Catholic League: Media ignore New York Times hit on Archbishop Dolan

From the Catholic League: For Religious and Civil Rights


New York Times HQ
May 18, 2010
Catholic League president Bill Donohue released the following comment today:
The front-page article in yesterday's New York Times on New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan was summarily ignored by the mainstream media. As I said yesterday in my release on the story, "No other newspaper in the nation would post a front-page story on a religious leader that led to nowhere, save for the Times." Evidently, the media agreed. And to think that the Times spent a year looking for dirt, and all they got was dust.
We searched for news stories, and for television transcripts, accessing Google, Bing, Lexis-Nexis and Critical Mention, and found that aside from a few blogs, the media ignored the story. Even though the evening broadcast news uses the New York Times as a feeder, neither CBS, NBC or ABC picked up the Dolan story. Neither did the cable giants: the Fox News Network, CNN and MSNBC failed to report on it. That's because they know a non-story when they see it.
There were two exceptions: KMOX radio in St. Louis, Archbishop Dolan's home town, did an interview on the story, and so did Steve Malzberg on WOR in New York City. You can guess what was said—about Dolan and the Times—since I did them both.
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Maybe there is a growing realisation of the New York Times' anti-Catholic bigotry.
Image of New York Times Tower courtesy of Wikipedia Media.

"Heretical" Copernicus Reburied as a Hero - CBS News - (WTF)

Yes the Main Stream Media Gets it Wrong Again (sort of).
Phil Lawler at Catholic Culture disentangles the deceit.
The truth about Copernicus can be found, even in the AP story, by those readers who persist beyond the first few sentences. After the unusual ceremony honoring the great astronomer, an honor guard took the coffin and "lowered it back into the same spot where part of his skull and other bones were found in 2005." The mortal remains of Nicolaus Copernicus now lie exactly where they had lain for most of the past 500 years: in a place of honor, in a Catholic cathedral.
More on Copernicus at Wikipedia

He's at the Cutting Edge of Broadcasting...

Sex Abuse and the Failure of Secular Governments and Society.

From Andrew Bolt’s Blog
What a disgraceful failure of Brumby Government - but what troubling evidence of the social decay that has so overwhelmed it:
VICTORIA’S most vulnerable children are being physically and sexually abused, raped by other children and sexually exploited by carers while in the state child protection system.
A damning Ombudsman’s report has uncovered a number of instances where children in foster care, residential homes and the care of relatives have had their limbs broken, seen their guardians selling drugs to other children and been kept with families despite evidence of abuse.
In what the opposition has described as a “sickening” report, Ombudsman George Brouwer has identified a number of failures by the Department of Human Services, including not screening carers properly, especially when the person is an extended relative of the child, failing to adhere to procedures and not taking appropriate action against carers after cases of abuse…
Mr Brouwer drew on statistics from the Child Safety Commissioner, who found 593 children were subject to alleged physical or sexual abuse while in care from 2008 to 2009. There were also 73 incidents of prostitution involving 21 children.

Galus Australis » Jewish Knight Defends Pius XII

There are perhaps three million Jews who are alive today because of Pius XII's secret but direct intervention, writes Gary Krupp, a Jewish Papal Knight.
Continue reading at Galus Australis

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The National Catholic Bioethics Center - Imposing our Beliefs on Others

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D
Recently I was asked to speak in Virginia at legislative hearings about embryonic stem cell research. After I gave my testimony, one of the senators asked a pointed question. "Father Tad, by arguing against embryonic stem cell research, don't you see how you are trying to impose your beliefs on others, and shouldn't we as elected lawmakers avoid imposing a narrow religious view on the rest of society?" The senator's question was an example of the fuzzy thinking that has become commonplace in recent years within many state legislatures and among many lawmakers.
Continue reading at the National Catholic Bioethics Center (USA)

Catholic Church announces adult stem cell venture with Neostem :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

New York City, N.Y., May 25, 2010 / 10:49 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican issued a communique on Tuesday announcing a joint initiative with an international bio-pharmaceutical company to raise awareness and expand research of adult stem cell therapy.

Neostem Inc. and the Pontifical Council for Culture will combine the efforts of their respective foundations, the Stem for Life Foundation and STOQ (Science Theology and the Ontological Quest) Foundation, to advance research and explore the use of adult stem cells in regenerative medicine.

Fr. Tomasz Trafny from the Council for Culture remarked in a May 19 press release, "Considering the potential implication of scientific investigation, medical applicability and the cultural impact of research on adult stem cells, we view the collaboration with NeoStem as a critical effort."

"Through educational initiatives with NeoStem and sponsorship of scientific research programs involving cutting edge adult stem cell science which does not hurt human life, we come one step closer to a breakthrough that can relieve needless human suffering,” he said.
Continue reading at the Catholic News Agency (CNA).

Catholic League: Obama Team Backs Vatican Immunity.

The Obama administration has sided with the Vatican in holding that the Ninth Circuit Court erred when it ruled that an exception could be made to the federal law that grants immunity to other nations seeking immunity from lawsuits arising from cases of abuse in the U.S.
A man who alleges he was sexually abused in the 1960s by a priest in Oregon brought suit maintaining that the Vatican should be held responsible because there were accusations made against the priest before he was transferred to the western state. The Vatican has long argued that the Holy See is not responsible for the behavior of priests in the various dioceses throughout the world.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue was happy with the decision:
By the most elementary standards of justice, this was the right ruling. First, the idea that anyone should be permitted to sue, independent of the nature of the offense, for an incident that allegedly took place a half century ago, is patently outrageous. Second, the idea that Catholic priests line up single file, taking their cues from the Vatican, and that the Holy See could possibly be held accountable for the actions of priests all over the globe, is positively ludicrous.
The Catholic League commends the Obama administration, and especially Supreme Court nominee Eleanor Kagan, the Solicitor General involved in this suit. Justice was served.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Dawkins preaches to the deluded against the divine.

LIKE revivalists from an alternative universe, 2500 hardcore believers in the absence of religion packed into the Global Atheists Convention in Melbourne last weekend to give a hero's welcome to the high priest of belief in unbelief, Richard Dawkins.

The bestselling author of The God Delusion was similarly fawned over by the Australian media, which uncritically lapped up everything he said.
This was even after (or perhaps because) he referred to the Pope as a Nazi, which managed to combine defamation of the pontiff with implicit Holocaust denial.
By comparison, Family First senator Steve Fielding may feel he got off lightly when Dawkins described him merely as more stupid than an earthworm.

Continue Reading at the Australian March 16th ...

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Neo-Pagans Are Giving Ancient Paganism a Bad Name



A Christian who has not at some time felt a sharp twinge of annoyance at the antics of that disparate group of humbugs who can be loosely described as “neo-pagans” can only be a Christian of the most privileged isolation or of the most phlegmatic disposition. As “Goddess” spirituality finds a secure home in religious studies departments and chain bookstores, as the “solstice” nudges Christmas out of Episcopalian cathedrals, Celtic music festivals, and PBS children’s programming, and as C.E. replaces A.D. in academic books, a Christian cannot help but suspect that there are a great number of people with a great deal of influence in public life who would like to see the name of Christ removed from any position of eminence and submerged in a sea of other names.
Continue Reading at the New Oxford Review

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Parody - Dawkins discovers he can't arrest the Pope.



These parodies are funny even though they've been around for a while now. But of course Dawkins is not really like Hitler. I might see the original movie one day.

For full screen view click the right side edge of the control bar (the icon is only half showing).

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Sex Abuse Issue Again

From Joseph Bottum, editor of First Things:
Insofar as anyone comes out well from all this [the sex abuse crisis], it is Pope Benedict. However much the narrative demands that he be pulled in, nothing yet published has held up to serious scrutiny. Which ought not, really, to be a surprise. This man was the one who actually saw there was a problem—the one who, in 2005, openly denounced the “filth in the Church and in the priesthood.”
Bottum also writes a good summary of the recent media hysteria over the Catholic Church's now past sex abuse problem and the effect this media attention it is having on the average Catholic. It seems committed Catholics are still committed.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/anti-catholicism-again