oh yeah, I have a blog - pt. 1

1. Bishop Zubik (of Pittsburgh) responds to outrageous claims in the media:

As Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz recently noted, “Pope Benedict, both before he became pope and since, has done a great deal to confront the issue. He changed the policy that kept allegations of abuse within the authority of local bishops, and he acknowledged that the local option had encouraged shifting abusive priests from parish to parish, thereby hiding their sins from potential new victims. He also met with abuse victims and recognized their victimization.”

Pope Benedict XVI is not the cause of the tragedy of abuse and how it is handled in the church. He has been a critical part of the solution.

It might be too much to hope for that we have seen the last of the outrageous charges, the last of the unwarranted attacks on the Holy Father, the last of the slanderous generalizations about the priests of Pittsburgh past and present.

But I do hope there will be a little more care taken before we give credence to every charge, along with a little more responsible thinking before dragging through the mud the church that has done more to address this horrible tragedy than any other entity.

2. Mark Shea posts more on the issue.

3. Fr. Z on priests dressing as priests in public.

It is important for priests to [w]ear clerical clothing in most circumstances. The black suit or cassock isn’t just a uniform to put on in the course of "doing your job", much as a member of the military might do, or the burger flipper at McDonald’s, or the meter reader. Clerical clothing points to the ontological, sacramental character of the ordained, or those who aspire to be.

...

But it remains that in normal circumstances priests are obliged to wear clerical clothing, certainly in the fulfillment of their priestly duties as well as for everyday dress. The Roman collar is a witness to the man’s identity, whom he serves, and serves as a sign of contradiction in society. He can be identified and therefore approached as a priest by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. He reminds himself of who he is when he dons it.

4. Remember Into Great Silence? This looks like a similar film, but with Carmelite nuns.

5. Adam's Ale on the unique opportunities available when you live in a parish.

6. Mark Shea on Stephen Hawking's pronouncement of alien doom.

Stephen Hawking seems rather daft to me...

I'm beginning to wonder why, when he isn't talking about his extremely specialized field, people think he Knows Something.

In the past couple of years he has come out with two public pronouncements, both of which struck me as somewhere between utterly crazy or, like today, just... weird.

The one a couple of years ago was about our urgent need to colonize Mars because earth wouldn't last--a statement something like saying the population of Seattle needs to all move to Antarctica. It was just loopy. Now I'm all for exploring Mars. It would be cool. But the notion of setting up a functional and independent human civilizaation there is... well, nuts. It would be far easier to found New Seattle at the South Pole (you don't have to import your own atmosphere for one, and the temperatures and likelihood of agriculture are similar. Plus, you can airdrop supplies in hours instead of months.

Now, the guy is warning us away from trying to contact ET with the bizarre claim that it's "a little too risky". I can think of a lot of terms to describe SETI: "fruitless", "a waste of time", "faith-based initiative" and so forth. But "risky" is not the word I would choose. All SETI has done is make more acute Fermi's question: "Where is everybody?" I have lots of things to worry about. The War of the Worlds is not among them.

What cracks me up is that, had the Pope said what Hawking did, the media would be screaming about the Catholic War on Science or ridiculing Benedict as a medieval boob terrified that ET was going to dislodge us from our Most-Favored Species status in the eyes of the Almighty. But since it's Hawking saying these silly things, the press sits around and pulls its chin at the wisdom of this great Arch-Priest of Science.

7. Fr. Dwight Longenecker on "Ghosts, Demons and Deliverance."

8. Bishop Serratelli on "The Media and the Church." This is a must read.

There are more than 65 million Catholics in the United States. That is almost twenty times more than the number of Jews or Muslims in America. It also is four times more than the number of Southern Baptists. Worldwide, Catholics number more than 1.1 billion members. The Sunni Muslims come in next with about 100 million. Given the number of Catholics, we should not be surprised to find many more articles about Catholics. But always their failings? Always the same reports repeated again and again? Could this be a lack of honest journalism?

Journalism is a noble art. It requires the discipline of research to find out the facts and the power of judgment to evaluate them. Good journalism never distorts the facts either by false reporting or by failing to place statements in their proper context. Truthful journalism does not rely on scandalous and misleading headlines to gain readership.

The media need to hold sacred the trust that many people place in their words. Bias and prejudice never serve the common good. When the canons of reliable reporting and commentary are not respected in one area by the media, how can we be sure that they are respected elsewhere? We are left wondering with Pilate, “What is truth?”

9. My friend Ben on thanking those who work in the Church:

The Church is not a business...and while the servants here are not paid...they are both employed and deployed by the church to engage in God's mission in the world. And morale matters here just as much or more than the business world.

10. Some very friendly Christian rap. It's so cheesy, but still impressive.

11. Amazing: a Bible cross references visualization.