Iraq

Some 44% of asylum seekers [from Iraq] in Syria are Christian, reported the United Nations' refugee agency, which has been registering refugees since 2003.

Will there be any Christians left in Iraq?

Coetus?

Read this on the blog Holy Smoke from Britain:

Meanwhile, here’s something that their Lordships don’t want you to know. The latest Newsletter of the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland carries an article by Mgr Gordon Read, a distinguished canon lawyer, which addresses the question of the new right of a “stable group” of Catholics to request a Latin Mass.

Here is Mgr Read’s interpretation, which flatly contradicts the nonsense being talked by English bishops who want to raise the bar for a “stable group” as high as possible in order to keep the number of traditional Masses as low as possible. Money quote, thanks to Fr Z:

"What is meant by ‘stable group’? the Latin reads ‘coetus fidelium traditioni liturgicae antecedenti adhaerentium continenter exsistit’. ‘Coetus’ means ‘group’ implying at least three people. The word order implies that ‘continenter’ qualifies ‘exsistit’ rather than ‘adhaerentium’. What does it mean? If the author had intended ‘stable’ in the canonical sense he would have used ‘stabilis’. The term does not, then, appear to mean a formal group with established membership. On the other hand it would go beyond the wording to require such a group to have existed continuously since 1970. What it specifies is an identifiable group with some kind of continuing existence, as distinct from a one-off request from an ad hoc group."

Would that these people worried this much about living the Gospel.

Doesn't make sense

The Latin Church seems determined to preserve mandatory clerical celibacy at all costs. If that's what they want to do then fine. I personally think it is a mistake, but I am not going to change Rome's mind. God knows that Bishops and Cardinals have been unable to do so. In the light of their intransigence on this issue, though, I have a huge problem with the exceptions being made. The "pastoral provision" that allows some married former ministers in other denominations (primarily Anglican and Lutheran) to be ordained as Catholic priests strikes me as a cruel joke. It is always claimed that this is a rare exception (although Rome is loath to publish any numbers). However, with the recent news that the Traditional Anglican Communion, numbering some 400,000 soul, has petitioned for union with Rome the trickle of married former Anglican/Episcopalian clergy being ordained as Catholic priests looks to soon become a flood. Either celibacy is a necessary constituent of the Latin Rite priesthood or it is not. Either it is binding on everyone or on no one. I don't think Rome should be able to have its cake and eat it too.

A good Blog

I came across another priest's blog which I find enjoyable. There are a few priests out there who aren't clamoring for the Latin Mass or worried about playing dress-up! Check out Msgr. James T. Gaston's blog On The Way To Church…. He writes from Lower Burrell, Pennsylvania. I think you will find much food for thought.

Insanity

"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," or so says a woman who aborted her child rather than "overburden" the earth. After talking about her abortion and sterilization she states the she and her husband "have a much nicer lifestyle as a result of not having children. We love walking and hiking, and we often go away for weekends. Every year, we also take a nice holiday - we've just come back from South Africa." I guess there is nothing selfish about that kind of attitude. And where did she meet the husband who shares her "unselfish" view of reproduction? At an animal rights demonstration, of course.

Read the entire depressing article from Britain's Daily Mail here.

Happy Shopping

With Thanksgiving out of the way the annual three-pronged orgy of materialism, commercialism, and consumerism has begun. Oh what I wouldn't give for the Christmases of yore when the trinity of faith, family, and friends was the focus of the holidays ... the days when we worshiped at the Temple of God and not the Temple of Mammon (read: the mall).

Happy Thanksgiving!

When we hear the story of the ten lepers who were cured with only one returning to give thanks we tend to assume that the other nine were merely ungrateful jerks. I'm not so sure of that. One line in this Gospel has always caught my attention and seems to hold the key to its interpretation. "And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice." Realizing he had been healed. Hmmmm. Perhaps it is just that the other nine were so caught up in their misery, so comfortable with the status quo, that they didn't even notice that the Lord had answered their prayer.

To what blessings have we been blind? We constantly beseech the Lord's assistance; how often have our requests been granted without our recognizing the fact?

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Hinglish

Read the following in another International Herald Tribune article entitled 'The Queen's Hinglish' gains in India":

Paul Theroux was criticized by one reviewer last week for dwelling on what one of his American characters in his new work of fiction, "The Elephanta Suite," describes as India's "mummified" form of English - a language, the heroine reflects, where words like utterance, miscreant, thrice and jocundity remain in daily use.

Geez. I use three of those four words myself. I must be in the wrong country!

Stem Cells

This eve of Thanksgiving here in the US brings some great prolife news. Scientist at two different laboratories have succeeded in reprogramming human skin cells to mimic stem cells. This is a major breakthrough which promises to provide a plentiful and morally acceptable source of stem cells for research into and treatment of various diseases. Of course further study will be required, but this is most definitely a promising sign.

In addition to solving the moral dilemma involved in creating and destroying human embryos for the purpose of obtaining stem cells it has the added advantage of significantly reducing the threat of rejection as the new cells are genetically identical to the patients' cells. If it pans out it looks like a win-win situation for all involved. (I am counting on Mike to offer some expert commentary on this one!)

The International Herald Tribune ran an interesting article today about the political impact of this scientific breakthrough.

Bullies

As I reflected on my new best friend Ken's remarks yesterday I realized that the mindset of many of these extreme right-wing people is the same as that of the school-yard bully. They really believe that if they just abuse you enough you'll be reduced to tears, shut up, and go away. This tendency to bully, incidentally, isn't just characteristic of religious right-wingers , but of political ones as well. This fact seems to lead credence to the recent claim that such extreme conservatism is in fact a mental disorder. To be fair, I think that it was also claimed that extreme liberalism is likewise a mental aberration. It all seems to bear out the common sense realization that extremes of any kind lead to trouble. In medio stat virtus - Virtue stands in the middle.

Somebody likes me!

My newest best friend has warmed the cockles of my heart with his kind words!

Ken said...

Father Charles,

You are a Priest, however I don't believe your vow of obedience compels you to "express your obviously feminine feelings" to the entire world. Hmmmm. Wonder what exactly is so "obviously feminine." Perhaps my emphasis on Jesus' teachings on such "feminine" notions as love, justice, peace.

Your rants are an embarrassment. THANKS!

And your characterization of Father Trosch as a "loon" is simply unacceptable commentary - especially from a supposed brother Catholic Priest. David Trosch, by virtue of his bizarre and hate-filled ideas, has separated himself from the Catholic Church, thus he is not valid Catholic priest.

Do all of us a big favor, STOP the carnage. Your writings are nothing but mind numbing platitudes and the tree hugging, chairs in a circle, guitar strumming, I'm ok, you're ok mentality that is the reason thousands of Catholics are losing the faith and running for the door. Go read the Catholic Caveman; that will be sure to unnumb (is there such a word?) your mind!

A little less writing and a lot more praying young "Padre".

End of the World!

As the Church year winds down the readings at Mass focus on the end of the world. Yesterday's Gospel is a perfect illustration of that fact. As I proclaimed the Gospel for the third time yesterday I couldn't help but realize that all the things that Jesus said would take place to indicate that the "end was nigh" - wars and insurrections, powerful earthquakes, famines and plagues - have been happening more or less nonstop since the moment He spoke those words. Quite clearly proof that, as He Himself said elsewhere, we know not "the day nor the hour."

Yet an unhealthy obsession with predicting the end of the world has long been a powerful undercurrent in Christianity. Late twentieth and early twenty first century Americans seem particularly prone to a fascination with "the end." It is primarily the province of Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians, but I fear that more than a few Catholics have gotten swept up in the hysteria.

Just last week I came across a pertinent book entitled Have a Nice Doomsday. The description on the back cover definitely aroused my interest; I my have to go back to the bookstore and buy it.

In Have a Nice Doomsday, Nicholas Guyatt searches for the truth behind a startling statistic: 50 million Americans have come to believe that the apocalypse will take place in their lifetime. They're convinced that, any day now, Jesus will snatch up his followers and spirit them to heaven. The rest of us will be left behind to endure massive earthquakes, devastating wars, and the terrifying rise of the Antichrist. But true believers aren't sitting around waiting for the Rapture. They're getting involved in debates over abortion, gay rights, and even foreign policy. Are they devout or deranged? Does their influence stretch beyond America's religious heartland—perhaps even to the White House?

Journeying from Texas megachurches to the southern California deserts—and stopping off for a chat with prophecy superstar Tim LaHaye—Guyatt looks for answers to some burning questions: When will Russia attack Israel and ignite the Tribulation? Does the president of Iran appear in Bible prophecy? And is the Antichrist a homosexual?

Bizarre, funny, and unsettling in equal measure, Have a Nice Doomsday uncovers the apocalyptic obsessions at the heart of the world's only superpower.

Today's Second Reading

We hear that some are conducting themselves among you in a disorderly way, by not keeping busy but minding the business of others.

St. Paul hit the nail on the head here. So many people waste their lives 'minding the business of others" rather than worrying about themselves. But the world has never been changed by people minding other peoples' business. Change only comes about when people are wiling to busy themselves with reforming their own lives. Today's scripture challenges us, as Christians, to work for the coming of the Kingdom by honesty looking at - and changing - our lives. The spectator sport of worrying about everyone else's life just won't do; we have to get down and dirty on the playing field of our own lives.

People are funny!

Fr. Charles Ledderer, The Dakotas, USA you are impersonating a Catholic priest. Your identity is fictitious. There are people on here that are believing you. I am asking you not to trick people anymore.

An obviously obsessive person with way too much time on their hands took the trouble to post the above as a comment on not one, not two, not three, but on each and every single one of my posts on this blog. People never cease to amaze (and amuse) me!

It strikes me as funny that some people are so hell-bent on discrediting me, as though I am dangerous. As I have already stated once before, I am simply blogging because I enjoy the opportunity it affords to express myself in writing. What people think is ultimately of no consequence to me. People are free to believe that I am who I claim to be - nothing more than a priest blogging pseudonymously - or they can believe that I am a filthy liar.

Perhaps someone with an overactive imagination can make me the center of some vast left-wing conspiracy to destabilize the Church. If someone does, I hope aliens figure in somehow. I know! I could be a nefarious extraterrestrial (really gross and icky and oozing green stuff when not in disguise) masquerading as a priest, who has been sent to ruin the Church by forming an alliance with the dark modernist forces of Vatican II Catholicism. Using my incredible alien intelligence and wit I would trick the masses into accepting blatant heresy by means of a seemingly innocent and inconsequential blog.

Now to decide who will play me in the film version ...

I do believe it IS a sick world

A commenter has raised some questions about the veracity of my posting A sick, sick world. I appreciate the vigilance shown by this reader, as I certainly do not want to pass on falsehoods as truth. (I likewise appreciate his kindness in assuming good faith on my part!) Having been thus apprised of possible problems with what I had reported I dug a little deeper and I found information from an ABC 20/20 program on the subject. The price list I printed from David Trosch's website might be questionable, but it seems that the whole trade in aborted body parts is not a lie.

Blind?

In an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times Jason Berry (author/co-author of several book on the clergy sex-abuse scandal) asks the pertinent question Is the Church Really This Blind? What has him so questioning is the election of Francis Cardinal George to the presidency of the United Sates Bishops' Conference. Evidence would suggest, Berry writes, that the Cardinal has apparently not learned his lesson from the scandal. His election calls into question whether the Bishops as a whole have learned anything.

Others have also raised the same question, among them IronKnee, a recent commenter on this blog.

I can't help but think that if the Bishops truly wanted to make a statement that it is no longer "business as usual" they could have chosen a leader completely untainted by the scandal.

Fr. Francis Mary

The EWTN crowd is in an uproar over the the departure of Fr. Francis Mary Stone, host of the youth-oriented program Life on the Rock, whose has apparently fallen in love. Much figurative ink is being spilt in blogland over the situation, much of it (surprise, surprise!) condemnatory in nature. What really astounds me as I read over what people have written is the absolutely unrealistic and romanticized imagine many have of the priesthood. To a post and a long string of comments on the orthometer I added my own two cents. Here, I will simply share the second of those cents:

I mentioned in my previous comment that I found some of the other comments offensive. Perhaps I should explain. What I find offensive is lay persons spouting pious piffle about situations of which they know nothing. Many people who have commented have such a distorted image of the priesthood that it is laughable.

I am offended at the idea that if only the priest prayed he wouldn't leave, and the implication that those who leave obviously don't pray. Hogwash! I have personally know pious priests who made daily Holy Hours before the Blessed Sacrament and yet have left the priesthood.

I am offended at the suggestion that priests should basically lock themselves away and have no friends. Many will point to the "glory days" when the priest was on a pedestal and was more or less unapproachable by the hoi poloi. Older priests talk about what it was like when they were young priests in that clerical "boys club." It was cocktails every night in the rectory. A life of privilege. Driving the best cars. Some had their live-in "house-keepers" who cared for Father's everyneed. Not everywhere, of course. But it is a story heard often enough.

Now I will get to the crux of the problem. Not an inconsequential number of young men entering the seminary have not really been involved in relationships with the opposite sex. They might be socially awkward, lacking in self esteem, or merely "late-bloomers." I don't believe these things are the cause of their entrance into the seminary, but I believe it makes it easier for them to hear the "call." Others get distracted by their interest in the ladies; the Lord may be calling but they aren't prepared to hear Him. I think of all the young men whom I have personally heard say "I'd be a priest but ..."

And then these men get ordained and are thrown into a situation where they have to deal with women constantly. One person here wrote that she thought that Fr. Stone should have engaged a nun or laywoman to deal with the widow in question. She has no idea of the reality of the priesthood! MOST of the people we deal with are women! If a priest decided that, in order to preserve his vocation, he would have no interaction with women, he would be totally ineffective.

The reality is that women often "throw" themselves at priests. (A female college friend warned me before I entered seminary to be careful of the girls because "a woman's greatest desire is to steal a man away from God.") And these poor souls, with no experience with the opposite sex, suddenly find themselves as objects of intense interest. Many ignore the attention but others find it too much to resist. Some fall, pick themselves up, reconcile with God and continue as good priests. Some find the pleasures of the flesh too much to forsake and likewise the privileges of the collar and so live double lives. Others realize that they need the companionship of a wife and have the strength of character to leave the priesthood and start a new life.

The bottom line is that it is not as black and white as the naive laypersons who have spouted off here would like to believe. Rather than sitting in judgment of others I would like to see all the commentators here praying for Fr. Francis Mary and others who find themselves in such a difficult and painful situation.

A sick, sick world ...

Further perusal of David Trosch's website, while confirming that he is indeed a certified loon, did offer sobering food for thought. Actually sobering is far too mild a word; disgusting better fits the bill. No, not even that will do. The only word to describe the information he provided is evil - pure, unmitigated EVIL. So what deserves such strong language? The following list of prices for body parts of aborted babies does. I was physically ill when reading it. A powerful sign of just how sick our society has become. (I did some web research to ensure that this wasn't bogus.)

Opening Lines
A Division of Consultants & Diagnostic Pathology, Inc.

P.O. Box 508, West Frankfort, IL 62896
Phone: 800-490-9980 Fax: 618-937-1525

Unprocessed Specimen (> 8 weeks) $ 70
Unprocessed Specimen (< 8 weeks) $ 50
Livers (< 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $150
Livers (> 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $125
Spleens (< 8 weeks) $ 75
Spleens (> 8 weeks) $ 50
Pancreas (< 8 weeks) $100
Pancreas (> 8 weeks) $ 75
Thymus (< 8 weeks) $100
Thymus (> 8 weeks) $ 75
Intestines & Mesentery $ 50
Mesentery (< 8 weeks) $125
Mesentery (> 8 weeks) $100
Kidney-with/without adrenal (< 8 weeks) $125
Kidney-with/without adrenal (> 8 weeks) $100
Limbs (at least 2) $150
Brain (< 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $999
Brain (> 8 weeks) 30% discount if significantly fragmented $150
Pituitary Gland (> 8 weeks) $300
Bone Marrow (< 8 weeks) $350
Bone Marrow (> 8 weeks) $250
Ears (< 8 weeks) $ 75
Ears (> 8 weeks) $ 50
Eyes (< 8 weeks) 40% discount for single eye $ 75
Eyes (> 8 weeks) 40% discount for single eye $ 50
Skin (> 12 weeks) $100
Lungs & Heart Block $150
Intact Embryonic Cadaver (< 8 weeks) $400
Intact Embryonic Cadaver (> 8 weeks) $600
Intact Calvarium $125
Intact Trunk (with/without limbs) $500
Gonads $550
Cord Blood (Snap Frozen LN2) $125
Spinal Column $150
Spinal Cord $325

The Nut of the Day

The more one looks around on the internet the more one discovers that there are an awful lot of nuts out there. Sadly, more than a few of these nuts fuel their insanity with religion. Today, from a certain Fr. David Trosch, I learned that Michelangelo basically perverted all the papacies of the past four centuries by his "homosexual" paintings in the Sistine Chapel. That would include Pius V, Pius IX, and Pius X, great heroes of the Catholic right. Truly one of the nuttiest ideas I have yet encountered.

From the early 16th century to the present day no pope should be found to be worthy of being proclaimed a saint or considered for the titles of venerable or blessed.

During this span of time it is possible that some of these popes may have led lives that could eventually bring them into eternal life. Since all popes from 1504 A.D. to the present have fostered the homosexual life - even if unintentional due to oversights of their predecessors - through the art renderings of homosexual Michelangelo.

How should a pope be classified if he allows public pictorial nudity (largely homosexual in nature) to be present in the Sistine Chapel where popes are elected? Such paintings are pleasing to homosexuals in nature and are present in the service of Satan. Highly organized satanism includes the broad range of immoral heterosexual, homosexual, pedophilic, and bestial activity. What also does this reveal about the cardinals who elect popes?

While ignorance, licentiousness, partial blindness, or cowardice as such would not affect a popes moral holding of office (only heresy and other offenses calling for automatic excommunication would do so), legitimately such condition should have precluded them from being named to a position of revered honor in the Church. What can be said regarding the legitimacy of a pope who has elevated a former pope, from the fifteenth century onward, to the status of venerable, blessed, or saint?

Want to know more about this fascinating hypothesis? Go here NOW!

Sadduccees

The Sadducees who came up to Jesus in today's Gospel remind me of the political candidates who try to make their opponents look bad by asking idiotic questions. They thought that their whole scenario of the woman who married seven brothers in succession would reveal the foolishness of belief in the resurrection of the dead. Rather than being nonplussed by their "brilliant" argument Jesus wastes no time in showing that they just don't get it. They can't break free from their worldly way of thinking. The resurrection can't be understood merely by analogy with what we know in this world; the life to come is so much greater than anything we can conceive. And to try to deny the reality of the resurrection based on some contrived marriage example is what is truly foolishness.

Jesus' comeback is what is truly brilliant in the whole story: But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord 'the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive."

In the seminary we had a corny way of remembering the position of the Sadduccees: The Sadduccees were sad you see because they didn't believe in the resurrection. True theologians we were!

Vocations in the Philippines

I read this interesting note on the vocation situation in the Philippines on ZENIT today. A reminder that the vocations crises is not limited to the Western Church.

Far from being the oasis of vocations that some Westerners assume the Philippines to be, it actually has one of the worst priest shortages (calculated on a priest-to-people ratio) in the whole world, even worse than that of any Western European country, including the Netherlands. The seminaries in my country are full, but we ordain only half as many priests as the United States does every year because the great majority of Philippine seminarians drop out.

According to the catholic-hierarchy.org website, the Philippines, the third largest Catholic country in the whole world, has only 7,335 priests to serve 69,630,000 Filipino Catholics. That boils down to one priest per 9,000+ people. Even when it comes to the College of Cardinals, we are the most under-represented in it among the world's ten largest Catholic nations.

Social Justice

Why is it that conservative Catholics recoil in horror at the words "Social Justice?" Do they believe in an unjust God? Do they think that Jesus was kidding when he talked about our duty to the poor? Are the Old Testament prophets and their constant call to work for a just society to be utterly and totally ignored? I, for one, am at a loss to understand this hostility. And make no mistake - there is real hostility. I have been shocked at how readily and bitterly some Catholics condemn any talk of Social Justice. With their rolled eyes, disgusted tones, and exasperated expressions they imply that such talk has no place in authentic Catholicism. For many on the right the mere mention of Social Justice is enough to send them into orbit.

I just don't get it. I honestly don't.

The Evangelical Crackup

A kind reader of this blog sent me a wonderful article from the New York Times Magazine on the political "crackup" of the Evangelical Christian voting bloc. It seems that more and more of them are realizing that Christianity and the Republican Party are not synonymous. There is hope for the future!

After the 2004 election, evangelical Christians looked like one of the most powerful and cohesive voting blocs in America. Three years later their leadership is split along generational and theological lines. How did it all come apart? The article is quite long, but well worth it. Read the whole thing here.

St. Cyril the Lutheran?

I was really struck by this line in the second reading of the Office of Readings (from A Catechetical Instruction by Saint Cyril of Jerusalem) this morning:
For if you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved and taken up to paradise by him, just as he brought the thief there.
I wonder how the über-Catholics who disparage the 1999 Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration on Justification feel about St. Cyril saying that? We may have to dig him up and burn him at the stake for heresy!

Hypocrite!

The big news today is that Pat Robertson has endorsed Rudy Giuliani for President. (Well, I guess technically for the GOP nomination, but is there really any difference? I mean Hell would have to freeze over - to a depth of several kilometers - before Robertson would ever endorse a Democrat.) Now this is the thrice-married, twice-divorced, estranged-from-his-children, abortion-"rights"-defending, embryonic-stem-cell-research-supporting Rudy Giuliani. Hardly a model of upright Christian living and believing. Once again the Religious Right reveals what truly matters to them - Republicans running the nation. If the moral issues were really paramount Pat could have thrown his support to a Republican hopeful who shared the same convictions. But one of those candidates wouldn't stand a chance against the Democratic nominee.

I am beginning to think that the 700 Club types would support Beelzebub if he ran as a Republican. Clearly a Democrat is more to be feared than the Prince of darkness himself!

Anti-Catholic

Several days ago I quoted from a Southern Poverty Law Center report exposing the SSPX as a virulent antisemitic hate group. A very balanced site, it not only exposes (supposedly) Catholic hate mongers but anti-Catholic hate groups as well. Today I read there an interesting article that begins thusly:

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Clad in matching T-shirts with bejeweled cross logos, members of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries are once again saving souls on Hollywood Boulevard. Since the late 1960s, followers of notorious cult leader Tony Alamo have recruited and distributed literature on this star-studded sidewalk.

On this sunny summer afternoon, they're handing out heavily footnoted, paranoid screeds proclaiming the end of the world is nigh and branding the U.S. government an enemy agent of the "satanic" Catholic Church. Followers of Alamo (pronounced "ah-LAH-moe") tuck these same tracts — which Alamo claims have a circulation higher than "USA Today, The New York Times, L.A. Times and many other national publications combined" — under windshield wipers in parking lots around the country. Claiming "homosexuality is caused by demon possession" and "the Vatican, the one-world government and church are spiritually powered by that old serpent called the Devil," this white-hot propaganda comes straight from the mouth of a self-fashioned prophet and convicted tax cheat. Since his release from prison in 1998, Alamo has secluded himself within a guarded compound in a small town near Texarkana, Ark., as opposition from residents and ex-followers mounts.

Read the rest here.

BRRRRR!

Woke up this morning to COLD! Bone-chilling, single-digit COLD! Let's just say it wasn't a pleasant walk over to the church for Mass this morning. At least the sun is shining! I guess it is time to get ready for another winter. Tempus fugit. (Way too fast for me!)

Evil Cardinal!

The evil Cardinal Martino continues to enrage right-wingers with nonsense like this:

Christians are called to defend human rights, and particularly work for the abolition of the death penalty, says the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Cardinal Renato Martino affirmed this during a Friday meeting with the president of the International Federation of Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture, Sylvie Bukhari-de Pontual, a communiqué from the Vatican dicastery reported.

The cardinal said: "Christians are called to cooperate for the defense of human rights and for the abolition of the death penalty, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment against the human person in time of peace and in case of war."

"These practices are grave crimes against the human person, created in the image of God, and a scandal for the human family in the 21st century."

Zacchaeus

Zacchaeus climbed up the sycamore tree merely to see Jesus and watch as He passed by. But the Lord wasn't content to simply let him watch. Instead he called Zacchaeus down and engaged him. Because he heeded the Lord's call his life was forever changed. We too are called like Zacchaeus to let the Lord engage us and to "receive Him with joy." It may be tempting to just watch from a distance as the Lord pases by. To do no more than that, however, is to fail to truly live as a Christian. Faith consists not in watching the Lord walk by, through, and ultimately out of our lives, but instead requires that we be actively engaged with Him who calls down from our perch.

God concurs!

I am choosing to take two "coincidences" at Mass this morning as Divine approbation of yesterday's post.

First, the reading from Paul's Letter to the Romans contained wonderful affirmation of the irrevocable status of the Jews:

Brothers and sisters:
I ask, then, has God rejected his people?
Of course not!
For I too am a child of Israel, a descendant of Abraham,
of the tribe of Benjamin.
God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
Do you not know what the Scripture says about Elijah,
how he pleads with God against Israel? ...
In respect to the Gospel, they are enemies on your account;
but in respect to election,
they are beloved because of the patriarch.
For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.

Second, I had commissioned two extraordinary ministers to take communion to the sick. The instruction to the ministers ended with the following words: As Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion be, therefore, especially observant of the Lord’s command to love your neighbor. For when he said to them: “This is my commandment, that you should love one another as I have loved you.” Mere coincidence that I used that very command of Jesus to end yesterday's post? I think not!

SSPX

I must admit that, apart form their love of the Tridentine Mass, I really don't know much about the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). Some time ago I encountered a person who got mixed up with the SSPX. I was shocked by the anti-semitic and racial filth he spouted, but I didn't know that, when it comes to this most prominent of Traditionalist groups, such hatred is par for the course.

Several days ago, on the website for the Southern Poverty Law Center I read an expose of the SSPX, that included the following delightful piece of information:

Also in 1989, one of Lefebvre's "bishops," Englishman Richard Williamson, gave a speech to a Canadian church in which he decried the alleged persecution of Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel by the Canadian government. Williams, then rector of SSPX's main North American seminary in Winona, Minn., told his audience: "There was not one Jew killed in the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies." [Emphasis mine.] The Canadian government reacted by banning all SSPX publications.

Surely just what our Lord had in mind when he told us to "love one another as I have loved you!"