Liverpool Jesuit's Gillibrand

Intersting English Jesuit history blog post.

On Sunday 2nd December we celebrate the 300th anniversay of the first Catholic priest taking up residence in Liverpool since the Reformation. On that date in 1707, Fr William Gillibrand SJ moved into a room above a grocery shop in John Street (now North John Street) in Liverpool city centre. He had regularly travelled from Crosby Hall to say Mass for the growing Catholic population. After the 10.15am Mass, Bishop Tom Williams will dedicate a newly carved shrine of Our Lady of the Quay (the dedication of the first Liverpool chapel) to commemorate the anniversary.

Check out Catholic Church Conservation's post on the subject (here)

Jesuit Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J. On The Latin Mass

In the nation’s capital, Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., welcomed Pope Benedict’s decision.

“The Pope’s action simultaneously affirms the Second Vatican Council’s teachings on the liturgy and seeks to return to active church life those drawn to the Mass as it was celebrated in Latin prior to 1970. These include older Catholics alienated from the Church since the Mass was changed and younger Catholics seeking worship that is evidently transcendent,” [The implication here is that it is easier to discern the transcendent in the older form than the newer.] he said in a prepared statement released July 7.

Prendergast noted that the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter has been offering Latin Masses in the archdiocese of Ottawa since 1994. The archbishop said he hoped that this papal initiative will be “welcomed widely, studied carefully and implemented correctly in the archdiocese and elsewhere.”

See Father Z' Post on the subject (here)

"The Jesuit Review" And The Dawn Of The Golden Age Of Evangelization

Hugh Hewitt? Evangelical? Talking about the Jesuits?

On the eve of the feast day of Ignatius Loyola, John Brown, S.J., launches The Jesuit Review, which features a 10 installment set of internet videos focusing on Jesuit/Ignatian spirituality, Jesuit history and contemporary Jesuits.

Brown is joining a list of extraordinary Christian commentators who grasp the incredible potential of the web to change how the Church communicates with the world. Evangelization has never had such opportunities open to it, and a series of extraordinarily talented theologians are demonstrating to the wider community of Christian scholars, teachers and pastors the vast potential of the web, among them Albert Mohler, Jr, Mark D. Roberts and John Mark Reynolds --Presbyterian, Baptist, and Orthodox respectively. There are of course many others, and folks like Joe Carter are showing laymen as well how to use the web to communicate their values and worldview. A new and younger group of Christian bloggers are also making their way into the virtual crossroads, among them Rhett Smith and Matt Anderson.

Read Hugh Hewitt's Blog Post (here)

America Magazine, On The Subject of Contraception

This is a quote right out of America Magazine, what year was it published?
1925, 1956, 1971 or 2005?

"So it is that notice is served upon America that the 'detestable thing' for which God slew Onan is to be worked for on political grounds. . . . The activity of these propagandists upon so-called scientific and humanitarian grounds seems loudly to call for a more active defense of civic integrity and personal purity against these Shavian-Wellsian-Sanger ian-Onanists who work to defile the temple of the Holy Ghost."

Find out (here)

Former Jesuit Malachi Martin Mentioned On Fox New's Discussion Of Catholic Exorcism

Fox's Hannity and Colmes interview Fr. Jonathon Morris and Fr.Edward Beck regarding Catholic Exorcism. Hannity refers to Malachi Martin in the 5 minnute discussion
To watch the video click (here)

St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus

Today in 1556, St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus died in Rome.

Jesuits In Bolivia, Evangelization Through Baroque Music

Watch a Polish Jesuit discover the Jesuit mission history in Bolivia through Baroque Music


Watch the video (here) then hit "Click to start RealPlayer"

Jesuits Ebrace Latin Mass In New Orleans

A LETTER FROM FR. HERMES FOR THE WEEK OF JULY 22, 2007

AMDG

Dear Parishioners and Friends,

Last week, it was reported widely in the press that the Pope “was bringing back the old Latin Mass.” These reports were misleading on two counts:

First, the current Mass (the one said everyday at Jesuit Church) is already a Mass of the Latin (or Roman) Rite. It may be said in Latin without special permission. After all, Latin is the language of the Roman Rite and Vatican II itself said, “The use of Latin is to preserved in the Latin rite.” When even small changes are made in the vernacular text of the Mass (for example, from “This is the Word of the Lord” to “The Word of the Lord”), these changes are based on the Latin text, which remains normative. When I say private Masses, for example, I almost always celebrate in Latin. At Jesuit High School, we had several Latin Masses in recent years (usually for Latin classes). St Patrick’s Church, in addition to celebrating the older form of the Mass, also celebrates the ordinary form in Latin. In other words, the Pope can’t “bring back” Latin because it never went anywhere. It remains and always has been the normative language of the Roman Rite.

Strictly speaking, it’s not even true that he brought back the “old Latin Mass.” As the Pope notes, it was never officially abolished after Vatican II, not even after the Missal of Paul VI was promulgated in 1970. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, certain groups in certain parts of the world were authorized to celebrate Mass according to the 1962 Missal. Pope John Paul II expanded that privilege in 1984 and further still in 1988. Now almost every diocese in the United States has at least one Catholic church or chapel that offers the “old Latin Mass.”

So what did the Pope do? In part, the following:

1) He established the old Missal, promulgated by Pius V and reissued in 1962 by John XXIII, as an “extraordinary form” of the Mass. The Missal of 1970, the fruit of the liturgical renewal of the 20th century, remains the “ordinary” form.

2) Every priest now has the right and privilege, when celebrating “Mass without the people,” of celebrating according to the older Missal without any special permission. Such Masses may be attended by the faithful who so desire. These can be celebrated on any day of the year except during the Sacred Triduum.

3) The Pope permits and encourages pastors to celebrate Mass according to the older Missal for “stable groups of the faithful who adhere to the earlier liturgical tradition.” These Masses can be celebrated on weekdays and once on a Sunday or feast day. Pastors also should grant requests from priests and groups of lay faithful for the older Mass for special celebrations, like weddings, funerals, pilgrimage Masses, etc.

Why has the Pope made the older form more accessible?

1) According to the Pope, a good number of people, long after Vatican II, remained strongly attached to the older usage of the Roman Rite, which had been familiar to them from childhood.

2) Other people became attached to the earlier form of the Missal after enduring years of liturgical abuses and false forms of creativity in the celebration of the new Missal. In short, interest in the older form of the Mass has grown as people have experienced a loss of the sacred in some celebrations of the new Missal.

3) The Pope seems to hope that the more frequent celebration of the older form will lead to a more reverent and faithful celebration of the “ordinary form.”

4) The Pope emphasizes that there is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. “In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church's faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.”

That last point is very compelling. The Mass as celebrated by St. Ignatius, St. Vincent de Paul, and St. Frances de Sales; the same Mass that nourished Therese of Lisieux and Maria Goretti; the Mass that attracted into the Church the likes of Clare Boothe Luce and Evelyn Waugh; that Mass cannot be “harmful” or simply all of a sudden enter into the realm of “the forbidden.”

The Pope’s wise and generous action helps restore liturgical balance and can assist the Church in preserving her ancient spiritual riches. To which I say, Deo gratias!

Fr. Richard C. Hermes, S.J.


Link
The Church of the Immaculate Conception, New Orleans (here)

Super Cool Jesuit Website: Companion of Jesus

The Companions of Jesus website/blog by Fr. John Brown, S.J. is absolutely amazing. Companions of Jesus is well designed and great graphics, but the content is incredible, a compendium of the best faithful Jesuit spiritual items out there. No Tielhard, No Merton (I know he is not a Jesuit), No De Mello, Just Ignatius, Francis, Al G., Claude La Colombiere and the rest of the boys.

The Ordination Of Avery Cardinal Dulles

Thank you Karen Hall of Some Have Hats for this gem. Actual newsreel footage of his ordination. After viewing the video you come to realize how important he is and has become. Also worth mentioning he was one of 36 Jesuit Priest ordained on that day. I think the province (US) with the highest ordinations this year was four.

Watch Avery Cardinal Dulles' ordination(here)

Jesuit Blogger, Fr. Rick Malloy, S.J. On Harry Potter

I have some questions?
Why would a Jesuit priest want to be published on the Huffington Post?
Why would a Jesuit priest waste his time writing an article about Harry Potter?
What pope has remarked negatively to Harry Potter?
Do you get my point?

Here is a piece on J.K. Rowling and her personal faith.

Faith and Culture: JK Rowling on God & Magic: In Her Own Words
November 22, 2005
Original article (here)

In the hysteria about Harry Potter it might be good to know what JK Rowling has actually said herself!

I am Christian and this seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I said I thought there was no God. Every time I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said, 'yes,' because I do. But no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that and, I have to say that does suit me...If I talk too freely about that, I think the intelligent reader -- whether 10 or 60 -- will be able to guess what is coming in the books.

J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, to reporter Max Wyman, Vancouver Sun, October 23, 2001

"Every time I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said, 'yes,' because I do."

J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, to reporter Max Wyman, Vancouver Sun, October 23, 2001

"So I have never said these are books are for very young children."

J.K. Rowling, why she feels uneasy when parents tell her that their young child loves the books, Time, October 30, 2000

"I believe in God...Magic, no, I don't believe in that."

J.K. Rowling, who is a member of the Church of Scotland, on Hot Type with Evan Solomon, CBC Newsworld (Canada), July 13, 2000

"I truly am bemused that anyone who has read the books could think that I am a proponent of the occult in any serious way. I don't believe in witchcraft, in the sense that they're talking about, at all...I think it's a source of great fun, drama. Magic is going to be a theme of children's literature as long as the human race exists."

J.K. Rowling, about her bestselling Harry Potter books, to reporter Audrey Woods, AP, Edinburgh, July 6, 2000


Now here is Fr. Malloy's post on the Huffington Post.
Harry Potter: Good for Everyone (Even Christians)
Fr. Rick Malloy, S.J.
Posted July 19, 2007 | 03:00 PM (EST)
Original Huffington piece (here)
My comments in bold.

God, save us from stupid Christians(New evangalization technique, Grace through insult). Groups of "imagination challenged" believers have, over the years, decried the Harry Potter books as dangerous to believers. Too many people of faith (who I suspect have never read the books) libel J.K. Rowling's imagination as a work of the devil. Not true.


First, the Harry Potter books do not teach children to practice magic. In very British style, one is born magical. We muggles cannot be or become magical. Muggle kids reading the books can no more practice wizarding like Hermione, Ron and Harry, than I can cast a spell and apply for Prince William's job. The children at Hogwarts are able to practice magic. Children not born with magical abilities can't play Quidditch, just as I cannot divine next week's lottery numbers.

Second, Harry Potter's very existence is due to the self sacrificing love of his mother. Nancy Carpentier Brown in her article "Can Catholics Read Harry?" (Our Sunday Visitor, July 8, 2007) writes: "The deepest, most powerful expression of good in the Harry Potter books is the self-sacrificing love which Lily Potter, Harry's mother, showed in protecting her infant son from Voldemort, offering herself as a substitute for her only son's life, and ultimately giving up her life. Her loving sacrifice is a charm powerful enough to prevent Harry's death as an infant, and this love also saves him in his encounters with Voldemort in school." Brown goes on to point out that the children leave for Hogwarts wizarding school at King's Cross station intimating that the cross changes(Reaching)the direction of our lives. She goes into greater detail about these matters in her book The Mystery of Harry Potter: A Catholic Family Guide (2007). You can read Brown's article online at the Our Sunday Visitor website .

Actually, the Potter books are filled with very good moral prescriptions for children (and adults). The basic themes and story lines all teach that we must develop and hone our talents and abilities, and place them in the service of good rather than evil. Most importantly, for today's overly individualistic kids stuck in their own little iPod worlds, Harry has to reach out to others, form friendships, follow the advice of mentors, and generally grow as a person in relation with others in order to fulfill his role in the community (Community, interesty choice of words). And a great vocation that role is: confronting the power of evil by guarding the magical world from "the one who shall not be named," Voldemort, the wizard who has turned from the path of good and right, using his powers to spread evil.

The stories' basic plot lines are as old as humanity. Rowling's books tell the tales of a flawed and imperfect hero who is called upon to save us all from powers malevolent. Harry's adventures fill our imaginations and call us to struggle to be our better selves. Kids reading about Harry learn they must work hard to become the persons we need them to be, self-sacrificing persons, doing what needs to be done in order to make the world a place wherein all can grow happy and healthy and holy (Harry Potter is not about Holiness) and free. There is certainly a connection between today's young adults willingness to engage in significant service work and their having been raised in the glow of the Harry Potter stories.

J.K. Rowling's (rhymes with "bowling") books have sold some 325 million copies, and this Friday evening, parties at book stores across earth will be more magical than anything she ever dreamed up as a young mother on the dole in the U.K., as she began to pen the Potter books in a coffee shop. Even more unearthly was her decision to package the books as big 700-page reads. The publisher of The Lord of the Rings (The L.O.R to Harry Potter is an insult to the bible refrences to which the Christian themes of L.O.R. contain) insisted the books be put out as a trilogy, fearing no one would tackle a 1,000 page tome. Publishing seven fat books, rather than dozens of slimmer 100 -150 page "kids' books" means Rowling actually lost money (hard to believe when one notes she's now richer than the Queen of England!)(Now that real Christian charity!). Instead of seven $20 - $35 volumes, imagine being a parent and having to shell out $12.95, 25 or 30 times, for each successive Potter adventure.

The real magic, or miracle (notice choice of words), of Rowling's Harry and crew is that they actually got kids to read. The astonishing achievement is that Rowling persuaded people to read in a land where we watch TV on average four hours and thirty five minutes daily (accessed Sept 21, 2006). Morris Berman reports in his The Twilight of American Culture, "Roughly 60 percent of the adult population [of the USA] has never read a book of any kind, and only 6 percent reads as much as one book a year" (Berman, 2000, p. 36). According to Berman, 120 million Americans (of the 272 million in the USA circa the year 2000) are illiterate, or read no better than 5th grade level (Berman, 2000, p. 36). In 2004, a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) survey, "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America," reported that reading was down in all groups studied. The worst rate of decline - 28 percent - occurred in the youngest age groups. The head of the NEA, Dana Gioa, stated: "This report documents a national crisis. Reading develops a capacity for focused attention and imaginative growth that enriches both private and public life. The decline in reading among every segment of the adult population reflects a general collapse in advanced literacy. To lose this human capacity - and all the diverse benefits it fosters - impoverishes both cultural and civic life."

This is the cultural situation in which Rowling has gotten millions of kids to crack 700-plus (Figures don't lie and liars figure)

The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI on Harry Potter
Original article (here)

The Pope's comments were included in two letters to Gabriele Kuby, the German religious author, who had sent him a copy of her book, Harry Potter - gut oder böse? (Harry Potter: Good or Evil?)

In one response, dated March 2003, he wrote in German: "It is good that you enlighten us on the Harry Potter matter, for these are subtle seductions that are barely noticeable, and precisely because of that have a deep effect and corrupt the Christian faith in souls even before it could properly grow."

He also thanked the author for her "instructive" book, in which Frau Kuby says the hugely popular Potter novels risk corrupting young people, preventing them from developing a proper sense of good and evil. She argued this could harm a child's developing relationship with God.

Is Fr. Rick Malloy's post just a stab at the Holy Father?

Here are some excerpts from Fr. Casimir Puskorius, CMRI article entitled, Harry Potter is Dangerous for Both You and Your Children
3rd Sunday of Advent, December 16, 2001

Original article (here)

“The first book of the series, entitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, finds the orphan Harry Potter embarking into a new realm when he is taken to ’Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.’ At this occult school, Harry Potter learns how to obtain and use witchcraft equipment.”

This is not harmless white magic! We’re talking about something far more serious.

“Harry also learns a new vocabulary, including such words as Azkaban, Circe, Dracho, Erised, Hermes, Slytherin, all of which are names of real devils or demons. These are no characters of fiction.”

There simply is not a clear distinction between good and evil in the Harry Potter books, such as there is in the C. S. Lewis Narnia series. The following is taken from an interview with Michael O’Brien on this subject (as reported by ZENIT, Dec. 6, 2001):

I'll stick with Tolkien and Lewis, and skip Rowling.

Grace Through Turning Off The Lights?

This has got to be one of the stupidest statements I've read in awhile (ok, since the woman cardinal story yesterday). I can't even believe this story was even published as a serious Catholic news story, in the first place.

For another Jesuit school, Boston College, the impetus to reduce energy consumption and become a sustainable campus comes from its Catholic mission, said Jack Dunn, the director of public affairs at the college.

Boston College saved more than a million dollars last year after it launched a campaign to reduce energy consumption. Managing Boston College's effect on the environment, Dunn said, is an effort students have joined.

"Students at Catholic colleges realize that they are being called upon to develop their God-given talents and use them in the service of others," he said in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service. "And one of the greatest challenges that we face in our future is protecting the earth."

Link
Original article (here)

“Why Not Dream That Sixty Illustrious Women Are Cardinals" Say's Jesuit Father Eberhard von Gemminger

I thought that reporters are supposed to report the news, not supposed to make news? Jesuit Father Eberhard von Gemminger is described as "aristocratic", why would he make such a absurd proclomation? Is this the lunatic fringes reaction to the motu's?

German Jesuit at Vatican Radio “dreams” of women cardinals

Rome, Jul 23, 2007 / 11:11 am (CNA).- In an interview with the Italian daily “ “Il Messaggero”, the director of the German language programming for Vatican Radio, Jesuit Father Eberhard von Gemminger, said he hopes future popes will be elected by a College of Cardinals in which “at least half” of the members are women.

“Why not dream that sixty illustrious women could elect the Pope? I would be happy to see sixty male and sixty female cardinals in the Sistine Chapel,” the German Jesuit said in reference to the total number of permitted cardinal-electors.

Father Von Gemminger said he thought it was “improbable that the Vatican would immediately open” the doors to women cardinals, but he added, “perhaps it will happen in ten years, since the change in mentality will come, even if slowly.”

The German Jesuit argued that throughout history it has not been necessary to be a priest in order to be named a cardinal. Therefore, “Why not think that in the future there will be women cardinals?” he asked.

In the past centuries, members of the laity were eligible to become cardinals but current Church law stipulates that cardinals must be priests or bishops.

Pope John Paul II named several priests to the College of Cardinals, including Dominican theologian Father Ives Congar, Jesuits Father Henri de Lubac and Father Avery Dulles, and Father Hans Urs Von Baltazar, all of whom were above the age of 80 and thus ineligible to vote.

The College of Cardinals is currently made up of 183 members, of which 105 are cardinal-electors.

Link
Original article (here)

Former Jesuit, Now Married To A Former Nun, She Is Now A Priest

As his Holiness Benedict XVI issued his latest motu's, the motu's have stired up the bug nests like a can of Raid. Check out this freaky bug!

Women Anointed Catholic Deacons, Priest in S.B.
Extraordinary Ordination
By Martha Sadler

Thursday, July 26, 2007

“Is the candidate worthy?” intoned Bishop Patricia Fresen ceremonially, as lifelong Catholic Juanita Cordero stood before her in a pure white gown, about to be ordained as a priest. The question was asked three times during the ordination ceremony on Sunday, July 22, as one female priest and two female deacons were invested with the power to perform sacraments — a function forbidden to women under canon law. They are part of a movement from within the Roman Catholic Church that has been ordaining female priests since 2002, though those involved say that the tradition of women priests and bishops dates as far back as Mary Magdalene, whom they consider an apostle of Jesus. The participants in this movement fervently hope to be embraced by the Vatican, as other splinter groups have been before them.

Sunday’s ordination, witnessed by more than 100 invited guests, took place at an interfaith center in Santa Barbara that reporters agreed not to name in exchange for an invitation to attend. (Reporters also agreed not to print the names or orders of the nuns in attendance.) The women ordained Sunday join 18 others in North America who belong to an international organization called Roman Catholic Women Priests, which counts among its number approximately 50 female priests and deacons worldwide, including a few whose identities remain undisclosed in an effort to protect their jobs within the church. Also secret are the identities of the male bishops who ordained Bishop Fresen. Film and documentary evidence of that ceremony is being kept by a notary public, not to be released until the deaths of the male bishops.

At least two additional Santa Barbara women are studying to be ordained, perhaps as early as next year. Besides their gender deviating from the Catholic priest norm, neither of the two deacons ordained Sunday — who are scheduled for re-ordination as priests on July 28 — is celibate. Norma Coon, of San Diego, has been married for 40 years. Toni Tortorilla, of Portland, lives with her lesbian partner. Cordero, a newly anointed priest who lives in San Luis Obispo, is a former nun who has been married for 30 years to a former Jesuit priest.

The ceremony, which took place on the feast day of Mary Magdalene, also differed from the standard Catholic ordination in the names the presiding clergy used for God, who is ordinarily referred to as “the Father.” The female priests instead referred to “Mother and Father” and to “God/de.” (The latter is pronounced like “God,” with the silent, extra letters hinting at a goddess that those in the ceremony declined to refer to explicitly.) Jesus Christ retained his masculine identity, however.

The reason that the women are determined to remain Roman Catholics, instead of forming their own church or joining another — such as the Episcopal Church, which ordains female clergy — is that they consider the Roman Catholic Church to be their family, albeit a dysfunctional one, and they have no intention of abandoning it. “It’s in my bones,” said Fresen. “It’s in my blood. There are a lot of things wrong within the church, but I love it, and the only way to change it is to stay.” They added that excommunication, contrary to popular belief, does not remove one from the church; it only means that one cannot receive the sacraments. “Nothing can put you out of the church once you have been baptized,” said Fresen. However, after the first seven women priests ordained on the Danube in 2002 were promptly excommunicated, none of the other ordained females has been excommunicated.

“The meaningfulness of the Catholic tradition to me is the long history of mysticism in the church,” said priest Victoria Rue, who also teaches theology and theater at San Jose State University. She finds particular inspiration in the women mystics of the Middle Ages. “Priesthood,” added Rue, “is about leadership within the community.” There are many types of ministries to which people are called, she said, concluding, “I feel called to the ministry of the liturgy,” which she described as communal worship.


Link
Original article (here)

Virtual Jesuit? Avatar? Animated Proxies? Second Life Priests?

Ok, lets bite. I am not that old, but I sure do fell old now. After reading this article.

Questions
Is not Fr. Thomas J. Reese, S.J. already an avatar?
Will Jesuit avatars wear a roman collar for "Pete's sake"?
Will their be a Latin Mass in the Second Life?
Can we not, "Get a life" in the real world?

Souls in the Second Life virtual Internet world may need saving too, an influential Jesuit magazine says.

An article set to appear in Civilta Cattolica's August 4-18 edition talks of the popular virtual reality site as a potential place to provide spiritual needs.

"Essentially, the digital world can also be considered a 'mission world'," the magazine said.

"If there are people who express themselves through Second Life metaphors, and some of them also express needs of a spiritual order, then maybe we should not ignore the possibility of responding to that demand."

Second Life allows players to create animated proxies -- called avatars -- that live in a 3-D virtual world.

The article asked whether "it is possible that the avatars also live with a form of collective prayer?"

"Naturally yes, and that is happening already," it says.

Link
Original article (here)

Wounded California Catholics Will Hear Clearifying Christian Truth From Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J.

California Catholics has been on their knees trying figuring out why their Church has been has had to pay out nearly 3/4 of a billion dollars to settle sexual misconduct lawsuits filed against our priests. The preeminent Jesuit preacher of our day Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J. will be speaking to members of a wounded Church at the Catholic Family Conference in the Anaheim Convention Center.



“What the Holy Father meant”
Jesuit scholar to speak in Anaheim on significance of recent pronouncements by the Holy Father

Published: July 25, 2007

WEST COVINA, Calif., July 24 /Christian Newswire/ -- On July 28, a personal friend of Pope Benedict XVI will publicly defend the Pope's recent controversial remarks in support of the traditional Mass in Latin and calling non-Catholic communities "defective" and not truly churches.

The friend, Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., wrote his dissertation under then-Cardinal Ratzinger at the University of Regensburg in 1975, and for decades was the exclusive publisher of his books in English. He will make his remarks at the annual Catholic Family Conference in Anaheim, California.

According to Terry Barber, president of the Catholic Resource Center and the sponsor of the conference, “Fr. Fessio will give us a clear, insight-filled explanation of what the Pope's historic Apostolic Letter authorizing wider use of the traditional Mass means for the Catholic faithful. He'll detail how it will affect them, their parishes, and the Catholic Church in the US."

"What's more," said Barber, "Fr. Fessio will reveal what the Holy Father meant when he said Protestant communities can't be called churches 'in the proper sense,' the Orthodox church was 'defective,' and the Roman Catholic Church was the 'one true Church of Christ.' He'll also reveal why the Pope said those things, why non-Catholics shouldn't take offense at them, and what they mean for interfaith relations."
Fr. Fessio will speak from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 28, at the Catholic Family Conference in the Anaheim Convention Center.

Fr. Fessio is a leading figure in the Catholic Church in the US and serves as Theologian in Residence at the new Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida. He is also the founder and former president of Ignatius Press, a leading publisher of Catholic books, the St. Ignatius Institute of the University of San Francisco, and Campion College. He holds degrees from universities in America and Europe.

© California Catholic Daily 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Link
Original article (here)

Faithful Servant, Fr. Eugene J. Prior, SJ 1924-2007

Dear Members of the Loyola School Family,

Rev. Eugene J. Prior of the Society of Jesus died today, July 24, 2007, at the Jesuit Infirmary, Murray-Weigel Hall, New York, of cancer. He was 82.

Born on August 11th, 1924 in Manhattan and raised in the Wakefield section of the Bronx, Fr. Prior graduated from Fordham Prep and attended Fordham University before entering the New York Province of the Society of Jesus on February 1, 1943. He was ordained a priest on June 18th, 1955.

Fr. Prior first arrived at Loyola School as Mr. Prior, SJ, in 1949, when he served as a Jesuit scholastic, teaching and moderating the yearbook. After ordination, he taught for five years at Regis High School and returned in 1962 to Loyola, where he served continuously and extraordinarily until his death. He was Student Counselor and then the Assistant Headmaster for many years; for the last six years he has been Loyola’s Vice-President of Alumni Relations and External Affairs. He has also officiated at countless baptisms, weddings and funerals associated with members of the Loyola School community, which celebrated him in recent years on the occasions of his 60th anniversary of entering the Society of Jesus, his 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, and his 80th birthday, at which over 1,100 of his friends, current and former students, and their families celebrated a life of service. During Fr. Prior’s recent illness alumnus Ray Zrike ’68 said simply, “Fr. Prior is the heart and soul of Loyola.”

In Spring 2006, Fr. Prior was diagnosed with a recurrence of the cancer from which he suffered many years ago. He underwent surgery, and since then he has resided at the Jesuits’ infirmary, Murray-Weigel Hall, on the campus of Fordham University. More than one staff member from the infirmary observed that there was never a Jesuit who received more visitors at Murray-Weigel than Fr. Prior.

A wake for Fr. Prior will be held in the Loyola School gymnasium this Sunday, July 29th from 2:00 – 9:00pm and Monday, July 30th from 2:00 – 5:00pm. The funeral will be held on Monday, July 30th at St. Ignatius Loyola Church at 7:00pm with a reception in Wallace Hall to follow. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Fr. Prior Scholarship Fund. Please view the Fr. Prior slideshow that was shown at this year's Alumni Dinner.

On the table next to Fr. Prior’s bed in the infirmary, amidst the hundreds of get well cards and messages from around the world, was a copy of Loyola trustee and Jesuit Father Jim Martin’s recent book, My Life with the Saints, featuring short essays of such figures as Mary and Joseph, Joan of Arc and Bernadette of Lourdes, Francis of Assisi and Ignatius of Loyola, and Pope John XXIII and Dorothy Day—the communion of saints. Now Gene Prior is among them.

Eternal rest grant unto your faithful servant, Fr. Eugene J. Prior, SJ, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

God’s blessings,


Steve Katsouros, SJ
President
Loyola School

"That's, Amore! That's, Our Lady!" Fr. Antonio Barruffo, S.J.

Tradition steps out in boro's Little Italy
BY ETHAN ROUEN

Tuesday, July 24th 2007, 4:00 AM

If it's one thing that Italian Belmont has, it's tradition.

And Our Lady of Mount Carmel carried it on this month, spending a week celebrating the church's patron saint, complete with a parade of her statue through the streets.

It was the 101st year that Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel with an abundance of music, food and festivity.

The Little Italy of the Bronx hosted live bands playing oldies, jazz and local favorites. After working up an appetite dancing, those in attendance had a chance to munch on street festival food - sausage and peppers taste even better when you're eating them on Arthur Ave.

The money raised during the week went to fund arts and physical education programs at the church's pre-K through eighth grade school on Bathgate Ave.

The weeklong festivities also paid tribute to the immigrants who settled the area 100 years ago. Jesuit priest Antonio Barruffo delivered a novena in Italian in honor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

The celebration culminated with the parading of the statue of the Virgin Mary through the parish streets.

For three hours, members of the church marched through the neighborhood reciting the rosary. They were accompanied by a band playing religious and Italian music.

"We marched almost every street in the parish," said the Rev. John Ruvo, the church's pastor.

Raul Castro, "Was Sent To Jesuit School"

From Monsters and Critics.com
Americas News
PROFILE: Raul Castro, a revolutionary in his brother's shadow
By Emilio Rappold
Jul 24, 2007, 4:15 GMT

Rio de Janeiro/Havana - For nearly five decades, Raul Castro stood in the shadow of his big brother Fidel - physically, politically and charismatically.

However, on July 31, 2006 - due to surgery on his elder brother for intestinal bleeding - Raul temporarily assumed power over Cuba. The communist island has since largely held its course.

As the island's first vice president, Raul Castro, 76, had long been designated by Fidel and others as first in the line of succession for the Cuban leadership.

But even for Cuba experts, Raul was long an enigma, and there was little agreement on how he would operate as leader of the Caribbean island. Events over the past year, however, have again shown him following very much in his brother's footsteps.

For many Cubans in exile, Raul remains a puppet of the nearly 81- year-old Fidel. If there were any differences of opinion, they never saw the light of day in nearly five decades. Angry exiles in southern Florida, just 150 kilometres north of the island, believe Raul is even more of a Marxist and even more moody and harsh than Fidel.

Among other onlookers, however, Raul inspired hope. Brian Latell, a former US secret agent and expert on Cuba, published a book in late 2005 describing Raul as a pragmatist who, as a possible president, could open a dialogue with the United States and lead a bloodless change in Cuba.

Raul was, after all, the major force behind economic liberalization that began in 1994, which allowed farmers to sell their crops to the public and private citizens to open restaurants and bars. He was also, however, thought partly responsible for the changes being partially reversed a while later.

Most Cubans have been psychologically prepared for Fidel's death and an eventual transfer of power to Raul.

In 2001, after Fidel fainted at a public event, Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque announced to the public: 'Long live Raul, long live Fidel.' In Cuba, everyone knows: after Castro, comes Castro.

Raul is above all a very 'orderly, organized and approachable man,' Cuba's high ranking politician Jose Ramon Fernandez wrote. To the surprise of many, Fernandez added that the media-shy Raul was actually sensitive and funny.

Raul often disappears from the scene for months, and even in Fidel's absence has made few public appearances. When he does appear, he is dressed in an olive green uniform that befits the minister of defence and the country's top military leader.

Born on June 3, 1931, Raul fought side by side with his brother in the Cuban revolutionary struggle that began with a failed coup attempt in 1953, which was followed by jail and later amnesty.

Raul and Fidel fled together to Mexico, but came back to Cuba with 80 supporters on the yacht Granma in 1956, and led a guerrilla war that ended with leader Fulgencio Batista's flight from the country in 1959.

Like his brother, Raul was sent to (read this article it is great!)Jesuit school by his family, which had emigrated to Cuba from Spain. He joined the pro-Moscow Socialist People's Party (PSP) as a young man.

After the 1959 revolution, Raul led the harsh killings of Batista's supporters and orchestrated waves of political purges over the years. As one of the world's longest-serving defence ministers, Raul used Soviet support to build the Cuban military into one of the strongest in Latin America.

Raul led Cuban forces against US-backed exile forces in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of April 17, 1961. He also led the way in transforming the Cuban government into a Soviet-style communist regime, and is believed to have been responsible for arranging the deployment of Soviet long-range missiles in Cuba, which resulted in the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

Yet he is also widely cited for a comment that would seem to contradict his military background: 'Beans are more important than cannons.'


© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

© Copyright 2007 by monstersandcritics.com.
This notice cannot be removed without permission.

Archbishop Elden Curtiss of Omaha to cut ties with Creighton University’s Center for Marriage and Family

Archbishop’s Decision to Cut Ties with Creighton Center Welcomed
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Move Comes 9 Months After CNS Brought Concerns to the Attention of Archbishop Curtiss and the University

Last week’s decision by Archbishop Elden Curtiss of Omaha to cut ties with Creighton University’s Center for Marriage and Family has drawn national attention, nine months after the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) raised concerns about the Center director’s public dissent from Catholic teaching on chastity and marriage.

“We are grateful to Archbishop Curtiss for severing ties with the Center, and especially for making the action public and thereby warning good Catholics away from serious scandal,” said CNS President Patrick J. Reilly. “Hopefully Creighton University will take this opportunity to put the Center on the path to serious, faithful scholarship.”


Last week Archbishop Curtiss ended the Omaha Archdiocese’s longstanding relationship with the Creighton Center because director Michael Lawler, also Professor Emeritus of Catholic Theology at the Jesuit university, co-authored an article in the June issue of U.S. Catholic magazine endorsing premarital sex and cohabitation for couples who plan to marry.


But it was not the first time Lawler had been criticized as an advocate for Church recognition of divorce and premarital cohabitation. Lawler also opposed Catholic teaching in April 2006 when he and Todd Salzman, a Creighton theology professor, wrote in The Heythrop Journal that “homosexual couples can engage in sexual acts that are natural, reasonable and therefore moral.”


That article and complaints from CNS members prompted an October 2006 letter from CNS to Creighton President Rev. John Schlegel, S.J., with a copy sent to Archbishop Curtiss.


Creighton University cannot be “taken seriously as a university committed to its Catholic mission when it allows students to be led away from the faith by dissident theologians,” CNS complained. “Such outrageous activity is opposite to what a Catholic university should expect from genuine Catholic theologians, notwithstanding academic freedom. Lawler and Salzman are responsible for their actions, but Creighton is responsible for presenting them as genuine theologians.”


Last month CNS announced the hiring of celebrated author Dawn Eden to direct its Love and Responsibility Program, an effort to restore chastity as the cornerstone of campus life at Catholic colleges.

Original article (here)

Jesuit Roadshow, "Look At All The Poor People"

Buying direct can save money, but hearing confession can save souls. Described as a retreat, little about Jesuit Sacramental obligations in Nicaraguan fieldtrip.

University team ‘immersed’ in realities of Nicaraguan poverty

By Michael Vick
7/23/2007
Catholic San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (Catholic San Francisco) - When University of San Francisco graduates receive their diplomas next year, they might not realize the leather covers enclosing those hard-earned pieces of paper come from a struggling artisan in Nicaragua.

Members of the University of San Francisco’s leadership team, headed by USF president Jesuit Father Stephen Privett, journeyed in June to Nicaragua for an “immersion trip.” The goal: expose and educate participants about realities of poverty in the developing world to enhance classroom work and make concrete the university’s mission of providing a global perspective.

Tangible results of this trip included a probable link between USF and a Nicaraguan leather shop.

After a visit to a leather craftsman’s home and workshop outside the capital, Managua, Tracy Shroeder, USF’s vice president for information technology, suggested the university could link with the man to provide a service to students that would also help his small business. Recalling that the university orders around 3,000 leather diploma covers every year for graduation, Shroeder wondered if the Nicaraguan craftsman could fill such an order.

“If that worked at USF, other Jesuit institutions might jump into that as well,” said Shroeder. “Suddenly you see something that could fundamentally change his business - something that is a routine expenditure for the university but could help feed his children.”

Father Privett concurred. “Why not support an artisan co-op down in Nicaragua for whom 3,000 stable orders would make a huge difference?”

The Universidad Centroamericana, a fellow Jesuit institution in Managua, hosted the 12-member team during its stay.

Previous immersion retreat destinations have included El Salvador and Tijuana, and focused on country-specific problems - the Salvadoran civil war and the infamous murder of Jesuit priests and their housekeeper in 1989, and immigration and border issues in Mexico.

According to the United Nations, Nicaragua is the now the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, so the team focused on economic issues. They also placed particular emphasis on the hosting university, working with faculty and officials to see if new connections could be made to the advantage of both institutions.

“The overall hope is that these kinds of experiences raise the sensitivity and consciousness of the university’s leadership with regard to what the world looks like,” Father Privett told Catholic San Francisco.

It is important for university leaders to be exposed to the plight of the world’s poor, he said, because it helps them better educate students about global poverty unheard of in the West.

“We talk about educating from a global perspective,” Father Privett said. “Well, that’s really the global perspective. It’s not about business interests crossing borders. It’s about two-thirds of the world lacking adequate food, shelter, education and healthcare.”

The team included the president; the vice presidents for business and finance, for university life, for university advancement and for information technology services; the associate provost; the deans of the school of business and management, the school of nursing and the school of education; the dean of academic and enrollment service, and the rector of the Jesuit community.

The participants visited the Fe y Alegria school system in Managua. With around 1,200 students ranging from kindergarten to high school, the Jesuit-run curriculum also features a technical program for high school graduates, focused on auto mechanics and air conditioning maintenance. The technical school boasts a 100 percent hiring rate.

The USF group also visited an encampment of nearly 300 who live and work adjacent to Managua’s garbage dump. Inhabitants often find their food by sifting through the trash. The landfill also supports grazing cattle, whose contaminated milk is sold at market, team members were told.

USF’s contingent met with Eddy Perez of Dos Generaciones, a non-governmental organization that works with the children of the encampment to facilitate educational opportunities.

Dean of USF’s nursing school, Judith Karshmer said conflicting goals complicate the work of Perez and his group. “He said when they first went in to try to help the families that live in the dump, the first thing they tried to do was say, ‘These kids just need to go to school.’ But that was their strategy. It wasn’t the strategy of the people who lived there.”

Shroeder echoed Karshmer’s sentiments. “The roots of poverty there are so deep that you can’t just say, ‘Well, you should send your child to school, and the issues become clothing for school, books for school, and transportation to school,’” Shroeder said. “No, the issues are, ‘Well, if I send my child to school, I might not eat tonight because I need my child’s labor to help feed my family.’”

Karshmer hopes to share the immersion experience with colleagues and students. “If this were good for me, which it really was, then shouldn’t I try to do whatever it is I can to make it happen for faculty and staff in the school of nursing?”
“I’m going to try to work with some of my colleagues who are faculty in nursing who are Spanish speakers, and some students who are Spanish speakers,” she said, “and see if we can try a pilot immersion experience.”

Karshmer hopes all faculty, staff and students have the opportunity to participate in an immersion trip.

Shroeder also hopes to use her USF position to help groups she met in Nicaragua. “The organization that works with the craftspeople needs a couple of computers,” she noted, adding that her department has a program that donates used computers.

Schroeder kept a journal of her Nicaragua experiences. In it, she describes the great differences between technologies that universities in America take for granted and the equipment Central American institutions have.

“As much as we struggle to do all we do with the resources we have at USF, I have to say that these trips make me feel that we have an embarrassment of riches,” she wrote. “When the UCA IT leaders asked me to tell them about the cost of our new enterprise resource planning system, I gave them only the hardware and software numbers because the cost of the project is greater than the annual budget of their entire university.”

Anne-Marie Devine, USF’s assistant director of media relations, said that to her knowledge USF is the first and only university in the country to employ an immersion experience with an entire leadership team.

For Father Privett, having leadership colleagues on the trip is indispensable. “Leadership in the university is distributed, so it’s not enough for the president or the vice president to go and to have this kind of education,” he said. “I’m not the supreme leader of this university. It’s crucial that it is a shared experience, because leadership is a shared experience.”

“It’s sort of a grounding session for everyone on the leadership team,” Shroeder observed. “It’s an extraordinary opportunity that has really shaped this leadership team, and created a type of cohesion that wouldn’t have otherwise existed.”

Karshmer agrees. “It’s not about the hierarchy. It’s about the mission,” she said, adding that Father Privett has set the bar high for university leaders. “The gauntlet has been thrown. If you think it’s useful, then you better see how you’re going to help your own staff and faculty have the experience.”

Link
Original article (here)

St. Ignatius of Loyola, Died July 31, 1556

Today in History

By The Associated Press

Today is Tuesday, July 31, day 212 of 2007. There are 153 days left in the year.

On this date:

In 1556, St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus -- the Jesuit order of Catholic priests and brothers -- died in Rome.

Original Article (here)

Once A Jesuit, Always A Jesuit: Mario Friggieri

The Minister for Justice and Home Affairs presented the new Commissioner for Refugees, Mario Friggieri, to the press. But Tonio Borg didn’t let him speak. Instead, he spoke about him while the commissioner stood silent, like an overbearing father speaking over the head of his nine-year-old son. A photograph in one of the newspapers speaks volumes: the minister looming in the foreground, talking down to journalists with his hand raised, while the commissioner stands to the side in calm resignation, shoulders down, hands clasped and eyes fixed on the middle distance.

When a journalist asked Mr Friggieri whether he agrees with the government’s policy of detention, he had time only to smile before the minister butted in with: “It is not within the commissioner’s remit to answer a question like that. Detention is not a policy; it’s the law.” The trouble with some lawyers, including those in government, is that they continually behave as though they are in a courtroom (“You don’t have to answer that”; “Objection!”). It’s one of the main reasons for all the legalistic quibbling about whether Jesmond Mugliett did or didn’t do the wrong thing. The point appears to escape them that what he did was not against the law, but it was highly unethical, and so unacceptable to the more sophisticated electorate of today. The trouble with some lawyers, and politician-lawyers are not exempt, is that they can think only in terms of “against the law/not against the law” and “against the rules/not against the rules”. Well, let me draw a simple analogy. Adultery is no longer against the law (it once was), but this does not mean that it is right, in that grey area called “not wrong”, or even acceptable. There is a general consensus, except among the practitioners of so-called open marriages – and even then you will usually find one partner, generally the wife, who is uncomfortable with it – that it is morally wrong. Even those who betray their spouses sexually are aware of the wrongness of it, and so seek reasons for justification. The point is that not everything that is morally wrong is against the law, but that does not make it acceptable.

So Mr Friggieri was paraded at his first press conference like a sort of silent parrot on Long John Silver Borg’s shoulder, and prevented from speaking in case he was naughty and said bad things. Apart from the sheer bad manners of Dr Borg’s gesture (never butt in when somebody else has been asked a question and is about to try to answer it), it spoke volumes about his personal attitudes. Father knows best. Don’t speak even when you are spoken to. I am the boss. How dare a journalist presume to ask that question, and how dare you try to answer it? Dr Borg was like a parent not allowing his child to speak when asked a question by another grown-up, so that the other grown-up must insist, “Please, let him speak for himself.”

Mr Friggieri is a former Jesuit who worked hard at setting up the open centre at Hal Far. As a one-time priest, he knows a thing or two about the practice of humility, obedience and biting his tongue. He is most unlikely to let rip and tell the minister where to stuff his spectacles. As somebody who has worked for years with refugees and illegal immigrants, he knows exactly what he is up against. He appears to be the right choice for the post, and I can only wish him well. What a pity that he was not allowed to meet the press on his own, instead of in the role of bridesmaid to Tonio Borg. And what a pity that none of the journalists pricked the minister’s bombastic balloon by asking: “And does Mr Friggieri have a tongue?” Ministers never seem to pick the kind of people who will stand up to them and challenge their behaviour. What a short-sighted view that is, because the end result is what we are seeing now: people who believe that they definitely know best, and who disbelieve the evidence of what is staring up at them from the newspapers every day, and whispered behind them in the streets.



Link
Original Article (here)

Fr Oskar Wermter, S.J. Zimbabwe Jesuit

Mugabe Has Excommunicated Himself, Says Jesuit Priest

Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
NEWS
18 July 2007
Posted to the web 18 July 2007
Harare

By ridiculing the church and insulting its bishops, Zimbabwe's Catholic president, Robert Mugabe, blamed for the country's political and economic turmoil, has cut himself off from the Church.

That is the view of Fr Oskar Wermter, a Jesuit priest in Zimbabwe since 1966 and now based in St Peter's Mbare, a socially depressed area in Harare where government demolitions in 2005 destroyed livelihoods and left many people hopeless.

"In a very real way," President Mugabe has "effectively excommunicated himself, that is to say put himself outside the community of the church, by resisting the word of the church and attacking the bishops in a most offensive, vulgar form," says Fr Wermter.

His comments are published in the current issue of the Jesuit electronic newsletter, In Touch with Church and Faith:

"People once more demand that Mugabe be excommunicated. This is old hat. It was mooted years ago. It was said then that this was no longer done today. At any rate, excommunication in a strict legal (canonical) sense is a measure applied only in certain circumstances defined by church law.

"While in the past excommunication was used against heads of governments and leaders of nations, kings and emperors, this is extremely rare today. We no longer live in the Middle Ages. The local bishops do not even have that power. It would have to come from the Pope himself.

"However, in a very real way, though not technically as defined by church law, Mugabe has effectively excommunicated himself, that is to say put himself outside the community of the Church, by resisting the word of the church and attacking the Bishops in a most offensive, vulgar form. At least the constant propaganda line that he is a "practising devout Catholic" is now shown to be false.

If he had a genuine disagreement with the Bishops why did he not invite them to meet him and discuss the issues raised by the pastoral letter "God Hears the Cry of the Oppressed"?

"Instead of calling for Mugabe's excommunication maybe people should do something more positive and express their support for the pastoral letter to the bishops and discuss the letter and what action it implies on the part of ordinary members of the church."


Links
Original article (here)

Jesuit Website Findinggod.org Gets Reviewed

Why does findinggod.org get a negative review from CatholicCulture.com.

FindingGod
» Visit this site http://www.findinggod.org/.

DESCRIPTION
This website is Loyola Press’s venue for their catechetical series, “Finding God: Our Response to God’s Gifts.” The program is described as “a new parish and school faith formation program for children in grades 1-8 and the significant adults in their lives” They further state, ” We are committed to service by publishing resources that support children's faith formation, language arts education, whole community catechesis, and the ongoing spiritual growth of adults through books and resources on a wide variety of topics including prayer, Catholic life, history, and Ignatian spirituality.”
This glitzy website does have some worthwhile resources, but you have to know your faith to take advantage of them because much of what is here is tainted. For example, in the DRE section, you will find things like Monica Hellwig’s interpretation of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s spirituality. This certainly should lead you to seriously question how good the catechetical series could possibly be.
Learn more about what catechesis should be from Catholics United for the Faith:
We Have But One Teacher, Jesus Christ - Catechesis In Our Time
Where Do We Go Wrong? Top Ten Errors in Catechesis.
Learn more about Whole Community Catechesis.

STRENGTHS

Section for DRE's which includes some Liturgical Year activities, traditional Catholic prayers, information on the Sacraments and Liturgy (Resources)

A good section on the Saints taken from Saints and Feast Days: A Resource and Activity Book (Resources)

WEAKNESSES

Example(s)
Questionable links (Fidelity)

Example(s)
Articles that are deficient in presenting the truth of the Real Presence (Fidelity)

Example(s)
Podcast by Jim Martin, S.J. (Fidelity)

Example(s)
Recommends catechists "Find out where you can go to experience Taizé prayer in order to revive the spirit and calm the mind." (Fidelity)•
Recommends Echoes of Faith published by RCL as a resource (Fidelity)

Example(s)
Questionable writers part of the authorship team (Fidelity)

Example(s)
Deformation of Ignatian Spirituality (Fidelity)

MORE INFORMATION
Loyola Press
3441 North Ashland Avenue
Chicago, IL 60657
USA
800-621-1008
773-281-0555 (fax)
fgeditorial@loyolapress.com

NB: All reviews are current as of the Evaluation or Update Date cited above. If you notice that a review contains information that is no longer accurate, please contact us and we will be happy to amend our review.

Link
Original Link (here)

The Mass of All Time Will Outlive The Sixties Revolutionaries

You are about to get one awesome history lesson in this posting. Gerald Warner lets it ripe in one of the most thought provoking articles I have read in a long time. Please hit the links and enjoy! Fifth Monarchist Men? I had no idea?

The Mass of All Time will outlive the Sixties revolutionaries

Sun 15 Jul 2007
GERALD WARNER
'AND then how shall I lie through centuries,/And hear the blessed mutter of the Mass," exulted Browning's bishop ordering his tomb at Saint Praxed's church, in the well-known poem. His repose would have come to a raucous end in 1969, when the New Mass was imposed on the Catholic faithful ; but he might have relapsed into contentment from next September 14, when the motu proprio of Benedict XVI restoring the Latin 'Tridentine' Mass comes into effect.

Not since 1850, when Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman hurled his pastoral letter 'From Out the Flaminian Gate' like a grenade into the heart of the British establishment, proclaiming the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales, has a Roman document provoked such consternation among the ungodly.

It is important, however, to keep this development in perspective. Benedict XVI is not the awaited Pope of Tradition who will fully restore the Church; but he is a holy man of deeply orthodox convictions who is paving the way. On the other hand, the motu proprio may be a modest step, but it has significance far beyond its actual contents - beyond even the Catholic Church. For the first time in living memory, a major institution is reforming itself by turning back to earlier precepts: David Cameron might profitably take note.

The bishops of England and Wales tried furiously to prevent the liberalisation of access to the Traditional Mass, lobbying the Vatican against it, although they had recently approved the regular celebration of a Mass for homosexuals. On the eve of the publication of the Papal document, Bishop Kieran Conry, of Arundel and Brighton, said: "Any liberalisation of the use of the rite may prove seriously divisive. It could encourage those who want to turn the clock back throughout the Church." So, a liberal opposes liberalisation - why are we not surprised?

As for turning the clock back throughout the Church, it is the only possible remedy for the crisis that has afflicted it since the Second Vatican Catastrophe. The Novus Ordo (New Order of Mass) was invented by Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, assisted by six Protestant pastors, after the Vatican Council. When this appalling confection was presented to the 1967 Synod of Bishops it was indignantly rejected. Yet two years later it was universally imposed. Bugnini described it in 1974 as "a major conquest of the Catholic Church".

Strange language from a Catholic bishop; but there were stranger things to come. In July, 1975 Bugnini was abruptly sacked after Pope Paul VI was shown evidence he was a Freemason. Bugnini denied the fact, but when the register of Italian Freemasonry came to light in 1976, it recorded Bugnini as having been initiated on April 23, 1963, with the esoteric code name 'Buan'. So, even during the Vatican Council, Bugnini was already under automatic excommunication for Masonic membership. What possessed Paul VI to sack the author of the New Mass, but retain his liturgy for universal use? At least this episode throws light on the handshake at the 'kiss of peace' in the new rite.

For decades now, the assorted Lollards, Shakers and Fifth Monarchy Men who have capered in Catholic sanctuaries have used the Bugnini Mass as their plaything. It is at its bleakest when, on high days and holidays, it attempts to mimic past solemnities, the concelebrants in minimalist vestments fronted by a communion table rather than an altar - three dentists behind an ironing-board. It is the New Mass that is now on the danger list. The Vatican talks about "reform of the reform"; but the "reform" is beyond reformation.

For 40 years frenzied efforts have been made to stamp out the Traditional Mass and yet it has flourished. It is now past the point where there is the remotest prospect of extinguishing it. As Pope Benedict said in his explanatory letter accompanying the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum ("Of Supreme Pontiffs"), one of his reasons for freeing the Old Mass was the number of young people now flocking to it.

That is what the faded 1960s trendies who are now bishops and seminary rectors fear: the impossibility of maintaining a revolution that has burned itself out. The Second Vatican Council means as little to today's youth as the Council of Chalcedon. Its elderly adherents are like dads dancing at the school disco. Many young people are seeking the mystical and the numinous. The Mass of All Time answers that need.

Within the past month the Vatican has issued two other documents: one restoring the requirement for a two-thirds majority at Papal conclaves, which rules out the future election of an extreme radical; and a reassertion of the doctrine that the Protestant sects cannot be recognised as 'churches'. It will not damage ecumenism, because that died long ago. Its premise was that Rome must endlessly divest, while Canterbury ordained priestesses and moved ever further from Catholicism. When you see a Church of Scotland congregation praying the rosary you may believe ecumenism is a two-way process.

The task facing traditionalists is to claw back, inch by inch, everything that was lost in the 1960s, until the Church is restored to its full integrity. It will mean trench warfare for decades, probably generations; but, for the first time, the heretics are on the defensive and they will be defeated.

There is a revived spirit infusing the Church, a spirit once defined by GK Chesterton: "I am very proud of my religion; I am especially proud of those parts of it that are most commonly called superstition. I am proud of being fettered by antiquated dogmas and enslaved by dead creeds (as my journalistic friends repeat with so much pertinacity)... I am very proud of being orthodox about the mysteries of the Trinity or the Mass; I am proud of believing in the Confessional; I am proud of believing in the Papacy."
Triumphalism, so monotonously condemned by the Catholic agnostics, is the only logical response to the glory of the Resurrection. Tremble, all Modernists and you who presumptuously claim We Are Church - the spirit of Trent is abroad once more. Welcome to the Counter-Reformation.

Links
Original article (here)

Codex Vaticanus at St. Louis University

Vatican microfilm resides in St. Louis

Published: Saturday, July 14, 2007 7:44 AM CDT
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ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The Vatican library in Rome closes Saturday for three years of renovation, a move that’s expected to bring scholars interested in the collections to, of all places, St. Louis.

Thanks to a project that began in the 1950s, Saint Louis University, a Jesuit school, has microfilm copies of nearly half of the Vatican library's medieval and Renaissance manuscripts.

Saint Louis University is preparing to welcome more out-of-town scholars than usual in the upcoming weeks and years. Many academics were caught off guard by word earlier this year that structural weaknesses in the 16th-century Vatican library will force the building to close for repair and improvements.

“From what I’m hearing, the Vatican reading room is inundated these days,” said Gregory Pass, head of the Vatican Film Library in St. Louis.

Scholars who haven’t been able to squeak into the Vatican library before it closes are looking into Saint Louis University’s microfilm collection as an alternative.

A Stanford University professor, Paula Findlen, said she was doing research at the Vatican library two weeks ago in Rome “and lamenting its closure, along with everyone else.”

She is encouraging her dissertation students who need to see the Vatican collection to visit St. Louis instead, and also recommending the film library to colleagues in other countries who may not be aware of it.

She said by e-mail that reading manuscripts on microfilm is “never as good as seeing the originals but far better than not seeing them at all!”

The microfilm from the Vatican came to St. Louis after a Jesuit priest here, the Rev. Lowrie Daly, received approval from Pope Pius XII to place many of the Vatican's rare manuscripts on microfilm. The Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library opened in 1953 at Saint Louis University.

“Certainly, the Vatican was very concerned about the safety of its collections during the Second World War,” Pass said. Valuable manuscripts were even hidden in caves or underground vaults in Europe to protect them during the war, he said.

The collection in St. Louis allowed for microfilm copies to be kept of rare manuscripts, and made it easier for scholars in the Western Hemisphere to access the materials.

The Vatican Film Library in St. Louis may look frozen in time to an outside observer. It has several large microfilm readers from decades ago that don't make copies and even a retro-looking wall clock.


Links
Original article (here)
Codex Vaticanus (here)

Chris Canlas, S.J. Jesuit Scholastic

He gave up six-figure income to follow a richer calling
Friday, July 13, 2007
Last updated 12:29 a.m. PT

By CHRISTINE FREY
P-I REPORTER

Just a few years out of college, Chris Canlas was helping run a Seattle investment firm that managed $100 million in assets.

He had a car, house and six-figure salary.

Life was good. He was happy. But not complete.

Canlas quit his job, sold or gave away virtually all his possessions and moved to Portland last fall to study to become a priest. The 28-year-old leaves for a seminary later this year, and he plans to return in four years to become a priest with the Archdiocese of Seattle.

"I always knew I had a call to priesthood," he said. "I just didn't know how to answer it."

The Roman Catholic Church had seen a decline in the past few decades in the number of men entering the priesthood. But in recent years, more have sought out the ministry, church officials said.

Like Canlas, they're often older and better educated than their predecessors, said Greg Magnoni, spokesman for the archdiocese. And some have work experience.

Raised a Catholic in Idaho, Canlas moved to Washington a decade ago to attend Seattle University. There he studied economics and contemplated the draw he felt toward religious life, meeting with a campus priest monthly to discuss his life.

After graduation in 2001, he became a partner in Owen Canlas Investment Group with Piper Jaffray. He helped people plan for their future -- saving money for their children's college education or retirement. But he still thought about entering the priesthood, sometimes daily.

"There was this pull to do something else," he said.

When he told his business partner, Kurt Owen, that he would be leaving the business, Owen thought he was joking. Owen tried to talk him out of it, but in the end, he knew it was fitting for Canlas, whom Owen described as having more integrity than anyone else he knew.

"I was shocked. You just don't see something like that coming. But then when he said it, it made tons of sense," Owen said. "He's the kind of guy that should be a priest."

Canlas spent several months at a Jesuit novitiate in Portland and returned to Seattle in June, deciding that he wanted to be a parish priest instead of entering the Jesuit order, which is known for running schools and universities. He will move to Chicago this fall to study theology at the Mundelein Seminary.

The people who need and want priests are suffering because of the lack of ordained men, Canlas said. When Canlas' grandfather died on the East Coast, the local priest told Canlas' family that he wouldn't be able to perform the funeral for another week because he had so many other demands from his parish.

The sex abuse scandal has "scarred the face of priesthood," Canlas said, and he hopes to show that there are good men in the church.

"Most of us are good men who just want to help others," he said.

There were 454 priestly ordinations nationwide in 2005, down from around 994 in 1965, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. The number of graduate-level seminarians has also fallen significantly, from 8,325 to 3,308, over the past four decades.

Meanwhile, the number of Catholics in the United States has grown by nearly 20 million in that time.

There are 119 priests in the Seattle Archdiocese, which covers all of Western Washington. Last year, it ordained seven priests -- the archdiocese's largest class in three decades, Magnoni said. There are about 30 men in training to become priests.

Some young men today are seeking a deeper connection to religion, said the Rev. Patrick Howell, vice president for mission and ministry at Seattle University, where 21 Jesuits work.

"What I find with some of these younger students, though, it's their parents who have left the church, and this is a generation that's looking for something that gives mooring to the spirituality and their values," he said.

Canlas intends to study church law in school. After becoming a priest, he also hopes to work as a lawyer for the church someday.

He admits missing aspects of his previous life, dinners at nice Seattle restaurants, for instance. Instead of living in his own home, he's crashing with a friend and working in a coffeehouse for the summer.

He is quick to point out, though, that his way of serving is not better than anyone else's. It's just different.

"Everyone has their own way to serve."


Links
Original article (here)
Mundelein Seminary (here)

Jesuit Fruit, St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi

Pope's Letter on Florentine Saint
7/13/2007 - 5:55 AM PST

"A Symbolic Figure of a Living Love"

VATICAN CITY, JULY 13, 2007 (Zenit) - Here is the letter Benedict XVI sent in to Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, archbishop of Florence, on the fourth centenary of the death of St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi.

LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF FLORENCE
ON THE OCCASION OF THE FOURTH CENTENARY OF THE DEATH
OF ST. MARY MAGDALENE DE' PAZZI

To His Eminence
Cardinal Ennio Antonelli
Archbishop of Florence

On the occasion of the Fourth Centenary of the death of St Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, I am pleased to unite myself to the beloved Florentine Church who wishes to remember her illustrious daughter, particularly dear as a symbolic figure of a living love that recalls the essential mystical dimension of every Christian life.

While with affection I greet you, Your Eminence, and the entire diocesan community, I give thanks to God for the gift of this Saint, which every generation rediscovers as uniquely close by knowing how to communicate an ardent love for Christ and the Church.

Born in Florence on 2 April 1566 and baptized at the "beautiful St John" font with the name Caterina, St Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi showed a particular sensitivity to the supernatural from childhood and was attracted by intimate colloquy with God.

As was the custom for children of noble families, her education was entrusted to the Dames of Malta, in whose monastery she received her First Holy Communion on 25 March 1576, and just some days later she consigned herself to the Lord for ever with a promise of virginity.

Returning to her family, she deepened her prayer life with the help of the Jesuit Fathers, who used to come to the palace. She cleverly did not allow herself to be conditioned by the worldly demands of an environment that, although Christian, was not sufficient to satisfy her desire to become more similar to her crucified Spouse.

In this context she reached the decision to leave the world and enter the Carmel of St Mary of the Angels at Borgo San Frediano, where on 30 January 1583 she received the Carmelite habit and the name of Sr Mary Magdalene.

In March of 1584, she fell gravely ill and asked to be able to make her profession prior to the time, and on 27 May, Feast of the Trinity, she was carried into the choir on her pallet, where she pronounced before the Lord her vows of chastity, poverty and obedience for ever.

From this moment an intense mystical season began which was also the source of the Saint's great ecstatic fame. The Carmelites of St Mary of the Angels have five manuscripts in which are recorded the extraordinary experiences of their young Sister.

"The Forty Days" of the summer of 1584 are followed by "The Colloquies" of the first half of the following year. The apex of the mystical knowledge that God granted of himself to Sr Mary Magdalene is found in "Revelations and Intelligences", eight days of splendid ecstacies from the vigil of Pentecost to the Feastday of the Trinity in 1585. This was an intense experience that made her able at only 19 years of age to span the whole mystery of salvation, from the Incarnation of the Word in the womb of Mary to the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

Five long years of interior purification followed - Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi speaks of it in the book of "The Probation" - in which her Spouse, the Word, takes away the sentiment of grace and leaves her like Daniel in the lions' den, amid many trials and great temptations.

This is the context in which her ardent commitment to renew the Church takes place, after which, in the summer of 1586, splendours of light from on high came to show her the true state of the post-Tridentine era.

Like Catherine of Siena, she felt "forced" to write some letters of entreaty to the Pope, Curial Cardinals, her Archbishop and other ecclesial personages, for a decisive commitment to "The Renovation of the Church", as the title of the manuscript that contains them says. It consists of 12 letters dictated in ecstasy, perhaps never sent, but which remain as a testimony of her passion for the Sponsa Verbi.

With Pentecost of 1590 her difficult trial ended. She promised to dedicate herself with all her energy to the service of the community and in particular to the formation of novices. Sr Mary Magdalene had the gift to live communion with God in an ever more interior form, so as to become a reference point for the whole community who still today continue to consider her "mother".

The purified love that pulsated in her heart opened her to desire full conformity with Christ, her Spouse, even to sharing with him the "naked suffering" of the Cross. Her last three years of life were a true Calvary of suffering for her. Consumption began to clearly manifest itself: Sr Mary Magdalene was obliged to withdraw little by little from community life to immerse herself ever more in "naked suffering for love of God".

She was oppressed by atrocious physical and spiritual pain which lasted until her death on Friday, 25 May 1607. She passed away at 3 p.m., while an unusual joy pervaded the entire monastery.

Within 20 years of her death the Florentine Pontiff Urban VIII had already proclaimed her Blessed. Pope Clement IX inscribed her in the Roll of Saints on 28 April 1669.

Her body has remained incorrupt and is the destination of constant pilgrimages. The monastery where the Saint lived is today the seat of the Archiepiscopal Seminary of Florence, which venerates her as their Patron, and the cell where she died has become a chapel in whose silence one can still feel her presence.

St Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi continues to be an inspiring spiritual figure for the Carmelites Nuns of the Ancient Observance. They see in her the "Sister" who has travelled the entire way of transforming union with God and who finds in Mary the "star" of the way to perfection.

This great Saint has for everyone the gift of being a spiritual teacher, particularly for priests, to whom she always nourished a true passion.

I truly hope that the present jubilee celebrations commemorating her death will contribute to making this luminous figure ever better known, who manifests to all the dignity and beauty of the Christian vocation. As, while she was alive, grasping the bells she urged her Sisters with the cry: "Come and love Love!", may the great Mystic, from Florence, from her Seminary, from the Carmelite monasteries that draw their inspiration from her, still make her voice heard in all the Church, spreading to every human creature the proclamation to love God.

With this wish, I entrust you, Venerable Brother, and the Florentine Church to the heavenly protection of St Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi and heartily impart to all a special Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican, 29 April 2007
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana


Links
Original Article (here)
St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi (here)

Brother Francis Waddelove SJ, Harare Jesuit

HARARE - 13 July 2007 - 188 words

Zimbabwe: Brother Francis Waddelove SJ has died

Brother Francis Waddelove SJ died in Zimbabwe last Sunday, after suffering a fall in which he his broke his leg. He was not strong enough for an operation. At 92, he was the oldest Jesuit in Zimbabwe and the last of the pre-World War II generation.

Born in 1915 in England, Francis Waddelove joined the Society of Jesus in 1935 and came out to this country in 1937. He took much trouble to learn and speak Shona well.

Brother Frances worked at Driefontein, Monte Cassino, St Michael's Mhondoro, Chishawasha (twice) and other rural missions. He was a farmer, but also built many churches. He set up savings clubs for the rural people to make them self-reliant while residing at Campion House, next to the Cathedral in Harare. He spent his last year at Richartz House, Mt Pleasant, the home for senior Jesuits.

Father Provincial Fidelis Mukonori SJ, celebrated the Requiem Mass on Wednesday, 11 July, in the Cathedral, with Bishop Dieter B Scholz SJ of Chinhoyi and many Jesuits concelebrating. He was laid to rest on Chishawasha Cemetery.

Source: Jesuit Communications


Link
Original article (here)