EWTN puts some real zingers in its "Almanac"

Every year on Holy Saturday, for example, the Almanac card reads “Today is Holy Saturday. There is to be no Mass until after Midnight tonight.” Then there’s an ad for “Live Easter Vigil Mass at 8PM from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception!”

Well, yesterday, Sept. 13, was the anniversary of the death of Fr. Gabriel Richard (1767-1832), who founded the University of Michigan and was a nonvoting delegate for Michigan Territory in the United States House from 1823-1825. According to EWTN, “he was the first and only Catholic priest to serve in the US Congress.”

I was laughing for an hour! Pull up an obscure historical priest no one’s heard of (though he did some cool stuff) just to slam the late, unlamented Robert Drinan!

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USCCB Hires another Pro-Abortionist

http://closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/2007/09/meet-new-usccb-domestic-policy-director.html

Imagine if

Imagine if, in the middle of World War II, the Nazis had announced, “We’re no longer going to shoot Jews, because that’s too gruesome. The gas chamber is much more humane, so there’s no reason to use guns.”

Imagine further, if the German bishops had said, “This is a positive step in the right direction.”

What would we be saying about those German bishops today?

Having her own high mass

First Sunday of the month is the “extra-ordinary” Tridentine Mass hosted by the Chrch of the Good Shepherd in Columbia, SC. This mass is said by visiting priests of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, who come over from St. Frances de Sales near Atlanta, GA.

Allie’s godfather and his wife drive in for the Mass every month, and she usually sits with them (divide and conquer, as I say). Mary stayed int he vestibule with the babies. I sat in church with Gianna, and Allie a few pews back.

It was a low Mass, so there were “regular” hymns but not the kind of fancy stuff associated with solemn high mass. For those who don’t know the traditional Latin Mass, there are portions of the Eucharistic prayer which the priest is supposed to whisper (one of the improvements of Vatican II, I’d say). Well, during those parts, at a solemn high mass, the choir sings some long piece. Until I attended a TLM, I never understood those long Baroque and classical Mass settings. Like when EWTN had the consecration of the Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament in Hanceille, they used the Mozart Coronation Mass, and an hour of the Mass was just the music.

Well, in the solemn high TLM, you don’t sing the “Sanctus” and then the priest goes on. The choir sings some long version of the “Sanctus,” and the priest goes on with the Eucharistic Prayer in silence. So the next thig you know, the PaterNoster is starting almost immediately after the “Sanctus.”

In tis case, however, there was no singing. Just everyone sitting in silence as the priest said the Eucharistic Prayer. Everyone, that is, except for one little girl.

I heard this voice behind me singing. I thought, The voice doesn’t *sound* like Allie, but. . .. “
I tried to deny it, but then I realized the little voice ws singing in Latin: “mater misericordiae, vita dulcedo et spes nostra!”

“The kid is singing in Latin!” I thought. “It *has* to be Allie,” I groand inwardly, and then I turned around.
Sure enough, it was her. Her godfather’s wife (what do you call that ? “step-gdmother”?) kind of shrugged and nudged her to be quiet.

After mass, I said, “I guess Allie decided to have her own High Mass!”

Getting the facts and clarifying things

A few weeks ago, I blogged rather extensively regarding an apparent rift between American Life League and the United states Conference of Catholic Bishops over the _Gonzalez v. Carhart_ decision, aka _Carhart II_. Now, there is a rift, certainly: ALL, along with other groups, says taht the decision is evil, and that no one should be praising it. USCCB, meanwhile, along with other organizations, says that the decision is a wonderful step in the right direction on an “incrementalist” strategy.

This particular dispute has led to several major rifts int he pro-life movement, such as National Right to Life Committee cutting off Colorado Right to Life.

So, where this came in to play for me was that an acquaintance of mine, , who works with South Carolina Citizens for Life, went to a pro-life conference hosted by the USCCB last month. She came back with this report about a session led by Michel Moses, USCCB’s chief legal counsel on pro-life issues, iscusing the _Carhart II_ decision. She said he took great efforts to explain why this was a good decision (any time a lawyer has to spend 3 hours explaining *why* something is”good,” it’s probably bad). She accused Judie Brown of “malicious attacks” and “scandal” by her efforts to get USCCB, NRLC, and others to change their minds about this court case.

In the context of her e-mail, I took thoes comments to be quotations of Mr. Moses, as did the leader of our parish pro-life group, who took this as a direct order of the USCCB not to associate with ALL.

So I spent some time grappling these issues. I blogged about various problems I have with both USCCB and NRLC, and various issues surrounding this. i don’t want to delete any of those posts, as they have serious reflections, and several of my positions still stand.

There has been no “ban” on ALL by the USCCB. The session *merely* dealt with the decision itself, and said nothing about ALL or its allied organizations at all.

In fact, someone who attended the conference told me that one of the sessions promoted one of ALL’s programs.
Anyway, showing how many of these firestorms apparently happen, I was bothered deeply by this report as I initially heard it. So made several discreet inquiries, asking ALL and some Catholic journalists if they knew about this and could corroborate the report. Instead, they passed my report among each other, and now it’s become rather a tempest in a teapot.