But you have to watch where you wear it...

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An interesting article

on the internal politics of the American Catholic Bishops during a specific period of the last century.

The End of the Bernardin Era

"The rise, dominance, and decline of a culturally accommodating Catholicism"

A couple of caveats: Note that the tone of the article may well be coloured by the leanings of the author; note, too, that I offer the article as is - I am in no way an expert on the internal politics of the American Catholic Bishops so I can't confirm the veracity of any of it. I neither know of them, nor care to get myself mired down in internal Church political debate. Anyone who cares for the state of their soul might want to stay away from it...

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Of America

and Marxist economics...


On Your Marx: Neoliberalism on the rocks

"It would add a nice dialectical twist to the future history of our period if it could be said that, around the time the post-Maoist Chinese took up shopping, the post-bubble Americans turned to studying Marx."

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I keep waiting

to hear the voices of the Muslims, liberals and conservatives in our countries loudly screaming about the bigotry, prejudice and hypocrisy of these actions by Muslims and Islamists...

Shari’a court consents to destruction of churches in northern Nigeria

I wait in vain. But when someone wants to outlaw full face coverings in the interest of public safety in our own countries, both liberals and conservatives have loud and vigorous opinions. As does the Muslim community...

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Who'da thunk it?

The Media And Obama Handle Christianity Poorly – According To One Atheist

"The latest book from a conservative pundit takes aim at the media and praises Christianity…but with a twist. It’s written by an atheist."

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Redefining language...

...in politics and religion, plus making connections that don't exist.

Mathematics

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Critiquing the left...

In Dubious Battle

What do we actually do to oppose the forces of tyranny and repression in the world?

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By George,

he may very well have it!

Cardinal's book faults liberal, conservative Catholics

(Pun intended...)

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It's politics as usual...


Controversy over fiery remarks fells Obama adviser

Politics has become so disgusting. It's not about governing a country, it's about doing everything you can to stop whatever the person/party in power is doing, no matter how good it is for the country. All that matters is ideology. One of the things he's being criticized for is derogatory remarks about the Republicans. Do the Republicans consider the attack ads they did about Obama and other Democrats as compliments? I'm off to Bedlam...

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The Author,

who will criticise everything that isn't a U.S. Catholic NeoConservative reading of this encyclical, writes to tell us all to watch for the dangers of those darn 'progressives'...

Three Misreadings of Caritas in Veritate

As usual, the beauty is in the comments:

"The Pope isn't simply articulating the usual list of proscriptions against the "bad guys" that American Catholics(sic) neocons hate. His vision transcends that."

The implication then is that he is partly doing that? Hmmm...

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A lame attempt

to paint 'liberal' as an epithet worthy of those who are 'un-American'...

Cicero, Catiline, and the American Left

The author overlooks some of the Roman governments that may not be so laudable, and ignores the ulterior motives of the American 'patriots' who had their hands in companies that made fortunes off of the war and who started the war on a paper-thin premise which was later shown to be a lie. To say now that these same people are "good men" and "patriots", worried only about the country, is both disingenuous and dishonest...

A Democrat as U.S. President

means that the word 'liberal' isn't used as an epithet quite as loudly now, though...


Only Words: Liberalism, Past and Future

"...liberals do seem peculiarly given to anxious self-examination and self-justification."

Isn't that the truth.

I think we'd have to know

exactly what they mean when they talk about the Sunday 9 a.m. 'prayer service'...


The push for conformity shoves away parishioners

If they were messing with the rubrics of the Mass, I can understand what's happening in light of the new conservative swing the the Church under the current Pope. If it's an actual prayer service, what was so wrong? When he say's 'service' does he mean Mass?

It's true

Without picking sides in the traditional-modernist, conservative-liberal fight in the Catholic Church, there was certainly a lot of bad theology and behaviours arising out of the freedoms granted after Vatican II. I can remember quite a bit of it...

How I Wrecked Two Parish Ministries

I admire (and envy - I know, one of my many sinful failings) this person's ability to remember things from so long ago with such clarity. Very often I can't remember disputes regarding my faith and practice of my religion (and other important things) from just last week...

I'm not an American

but the same thing exists here in Canada. People of the Right don't think a person can be liberal or left of center and be pro-life at the same time, while people of the very left have trouble seeing the same thing. Fortunately, most of our Left acknowledges the existence of pro-life fellow travelers and seems more tolerant. Our left has a history of social democracy that the U.S. Democrats are missing...


Make Room for Pro-Life Democrats

"Democrats think all pro-life voters are conservative. But there are millions of votes at stake in this liberal miscalculation."

It's worth it to them not to forget that...

The Revealer replies...

Waiting for Lefty

A glimmer of... light? Hope? The future?

They're all loonies...

TIME defends altered Iwo Jima photo

It's likely that no one was outraged until this conservative group (who doesn't believe that there's any such thing as global warming - we just haven't raped and pillaged the earth enough yet, that'll fix any small problems) actually approached them to stir them up...

That darn word again

Leftist mayhem at Chicago's cathedral

"Part of i (sic) was Rachel Corrie, the American who didn't survive an encounter with a bulldozer."

What a callous way to say something, particularly at Easter. It seems that he disagrees with her politics so he phrases his comment in a way that suggests humour, stupidity on her part, or any number of other things, simply because the word 'liberal' is a curse word for him and because Ms. Corrie had the courage to stand up for her convictions and not sit behind a keyboard making snarky comments about people the way we do.

I guess to some people, if you don't take the position "patriotism (meaning the government position) über alles", you're not really an American. (Though some of us, the good Lord be praised, can never claim that classification.)

Again, the 'extraordinary form'...

A Young Father Meets the Old Mass

"I may not be able to see or hear as much of the sacred mystery as I could when attending a novus ordo, but I take consolation in knowing that the priest is fulfilling his role on my behalf, as God intended him to do."

In other words, no Papal ruling regarding the Sacred Liturgy since Pope John XXIII has been valid (and even some of his, I suppose). And he's content to watch the little old ladies pray their rosaries.

"As my cousin, a priest, once told me: "It's a mystery -- if you know everything that's going on, something is wrong.""

Ummm, boy, someone has a skewed idea of the Novus Ordo. Just because you can hear the words of consecration and understand the words themselves because they're in the vernacular doesn't mean that any of the mystery is gone. Well, it doesn't mean that to anyone but traditionalists. I would have hoped that the seminary would have prepared this fellow's cousin a little better.

(And no, today isn't pick on Traditionalists day. These stories just showed up and I'm not feeling well, and...)

The traditionalists want to rout the 'liberals' in music, too

A return to chant

"The liturgy is not ours," he said.
"It belongs to Christ."
"We participate in it, we don't create it."

Yes, but Jesus didn't sing in Gregorian Chant any more than he spoke in King James English.

" Jeffrey Tucker, managing editor of Sacred Music magazine, said, "There is a growing realization that the Mass is a liturgical package that includes music embedded as part of its structure, and that that music is Gregorian chant.""

So some would say.

""Composers have been without a rudder, borrowing music from the secular world, frequently making the melody primary, instead of the words of Scripture," he said."

This I can agree with...

The problem with most of the people who want to move back to a more traditional Mass is that they seem to want to throw out everything that has come about since Vatican II. They want to do the same thing to the changes that occurred that they accuse the people who have worked for change of doing to everything more traditional. I can hardly wait to go back to seeing the little old ladies mumbling their rosaries to themselves throughout Mass and straining to hear even a word of the Latin that the priest is praying to himself facing away from the congregation. That's the kind of worship that God must want, I guess...