More nonsense from The Tablet....

An author in The Tablet, Linda Woodhead, asks for a syncretic religion, instead of the one, true, holy and apostolic Church. She examines the abandoning of what she calls "traditions" for what she describes as "real religion" and what I would describe as new age hodge-podge.

A few quotations from her article shows us a person who believes in some sort of religious faith, but not The Faith. "everyday, lived religion--is thriving and evolving, whilst hierarchical, dogmatic forms of religion are marginalized." Tell this to the millions of Muslim converts and Evangelical converts in the world, who prize doctrinal statements and laws, as well as some types of hierarchical structure.

Woodhead states as well, that the new Catholics who loved the visit of the Pope in England do not follow the teachings of the Church. Ummm, how does she know?

Here is her lame excuse to this syncretic happy, Utopian view--"So why continue to insist on clear-cut categories? It is because it suits us: it suits those still running the major world religions; it suits those who fear fundamentalism and love to create monsters so that they can fear them; and it is because the media love a sharp,simple profile."

Thanks to the Hermeneutic of Continuity

Where does The Tablet find these people? Obviously, she is a relativist with regard to religion and does not believe in the Revelation of Christ regarding the institution of His Church on earth. She also does not believe in absolute Truth, Who is a Person, called Christ.

Not another whine in The Tablet?

In the April 28th issue of The Tablet, which should not be sold in any Catholic parish, but is, as I have just discovered today, Phyllis Zagano writes on the disciplining of the LCWR, which has been in the news and on the blog, among many others. She writes, that "The general public--Catholic and non-Catholic alike--will view this latest foray as an attempt by a hierarchy whose influence is waning to silence women and to bar them from the halls of power more permanently. That the halls of power have moved from social media seems both the cause and the promise of the Vatican's actions. Overall, popular opinion clearly favours the women Religious whose ministry is better known and more widely accepted than the pronouncements of a hierarchy apparently blind to the moral shortcomings of too many of its own." Ummm, public opinion probably does not care a hoot about this issue, no offense.

This woman has just accused the hierarchy of both vanishing and not being in a moral position to correct anti-life, pro-abortion,pro-homosexual women who have scandalized the Church for too long in America and other nations. She also claims that the tension between the Vatican and the LCWR, which of course, has to do with obedience to the teachings of Christ and the Catholic Church, (get this),  "reflects the the distinctions between the ways in which men and women perform ministries in the Catholic Church" This is crazy gender-related pseudo-theology. In addition, Zagano states that  "The women are chided in the document as too devoted to social service and not devoted to matters of interest to the CDF--specifically questions regarding women priest, homosexuality and abortion."

Well, being that the CDF is concerned about defending the Faith and the LCWR is concerned with immoral activities and blatant disobedience to the sisters and nuns own vows, I would assume there is a clash of interests. So the liberal disagreement between pastoral theology and doctrinal theology rears its ugly head. The divisions in the Church are there and persons like Zagano do not help the situation.

On May Baskets and Iowa

When I was a child growing up in Iowa, it was the custom to make May baskets and place them on people's porches in the neighborhood. My mother helped us create these baskets and we ran around in the heat of the Midwest and put these treasures on the neighbors we knew and with whose children we played.

I was never quite sure as to the religious or secular history of this custom. By the time I was in high school in the late sixties, the custom had passed, although we as a family would bring baskets to the two grandmothers. The nuns at school told us as children this all was in honor of Our Lady.

These baskets were not elaborate, and usually the flowers were picked in the fields and parks in the neighborhood-violets, daisies, daffodils, even dandelions.

If anyone else grew up with this custom, please let me know on this blog.

Canterbury in Bloom on May Day

Thanks Wiki

I am visiting the beautiful city of Canterbury today, and prayed at the spot where St. Thomas Becket was murdered. I am reminded that the time is coming upon us again, when bishops and archbishops may have to take severe and holy stands against the government encroachment of Church rights. There are many, many people who not only do not want the Church to have rights, but
do not believe that the institution created by Christ on earth for our salvation legitimately has rights, both separate and intertwined with the State. I also visited the Anglican parish church of St. Dunstan, where part of the pieces, the relics of St. Thomas More are located under the Church. Twenty some years ago, I actually saw those relics, when the place was open, and put my hands on the grating in front the the holy remains. One cannot do that now, and I was fortunate to have been there on the day when this could happen.

That these two saints died for the jurisdiction of the Church over certain matters of morality and order, make us ponder our own positions today, especially on this May 1st, when "occupier" threaten the age-old systems of order in Europe and America.

In addition, the American window, dedicated to those who fought in World War II is as beautiful as ever. I prayed for my dad, a veteran. At both places, I prayed for seminarians and those who are about to go into the seminary, especially. I also prayed for those who have yet to discern their vocation in life either priestly or lay. SS. Thomas Becket and Thomas More, pray for us.

Propaganda Check

Marxist language lookout. Watch the media today, as the occupy movements spread class hatred and Marxist jargon across the world. These anarchists say they are against greed as they break into downtown jewelers and steal .

On finding a good spiritual director...

I could write a book on trying to find a good spiritual director. I have had good ones and excellent ones. But, in England there is a twofold problem. The first is that priests are surprised when one asked them to consider this. They are not in the same frame of mind as many American priests who have been trained in various types of spirituality and know that there are people in the parish who want direction. In Great Britain and Ireland, this apparently does not happen. Parishioners I have discussed this problem with have not even heard of a lay person having a spiritual director. In my mind, if a Catholic layperson is in any type of ministry, such as being an RCIA director, or a teaching of religion, that person must have a director, or, at least, a regular confessor.

Secondly,  the older priests, who should be excellent in spiritual direction tend to be the more liberal generation, some of which do not have a clue about the spiritual life of perfection. Some of the older priest deny venial sins,  which is a detriment to following the life of perfection. Without a sense of sin, the life of virtue and the stages of the mystical life.  The younger priests, fifty and under, are much better, have better training in these things...To be continue...