Paul Luvera Journal

OK,  I'm  willing to take the heat and anger over the title to this post because I'm frustrated having just returned from our local Sunday parish service. So here goes. Sunday worship for Catholics consists of a liturgy service consisting of prayer, bible readings, a homily and the Eucharistic service which is the primary focus of the entire service. Catholics regard the service as a repeating of the last supper in which Christ directed his apostle to "do this in…

Read More Read More

The February 4th issue of the National Catholic Reporter http://ncronline.org/ reveals that in a recently released correspondence, sent in 1984, the Vatican told the then Bishop of Tucson, Arizona that "under no conditions" are the personnel files of a priest accused of misconduct to be turned over to civil attorneys. The missive from the Vatican is being cited as further evidence of a Vatican policy against cooperation with police or prosecutors. This is in addition to the disclosure of a…

Read More Read More

Last Sunday the reading at church was from Matthew 22:23-33 where the Sadducees presented Jesus with the argument of no resurrection through a story of seven brothers, who in turn, all married a dead brother's widow and Jesus's response to them. I was disappointed the priest failed to give any real explaination of the background and importance of this passage in his homily. There is so much meaning behind this passage. Here's my understanding of the background and key point of this passage. At this time in Jewish history there were four…

Read More Read More

William Barclay was a Biblical scholar and professor in Scotland who published extensively. One of his books is Day by Day published in 2003 by Hendrickson’s Publishers. One of his short articles deals with the idea of authority. He asks "Where, for the Christian does authority lie?" He examines the question of whether it lies in the church and notes that given the human conduct of the Christian church over history it is unlikely to be there. He notes that…

Read More Read More

Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted excommunicated a nun who served on a hospital commission that voted to allow an abortion for a woman who would not survive if she delivered and a fetus with little or no chance of survival.  We have seen during recent political campaigns and in other settings, that many bishops seem to relish the power they claim to possess to excommunicate or deny communion to those they have decided are immoral. As one letter writer to a Catholic…

Read More Read More

Anyone reading this blog could conclude that I have a chip on my shoulder about my Catholic Church. They would be entirely right when we are talking about Vatican politics and the politics of Church authorities. What brings me to write a second posting involving the Church is an opinion piece in the Sunday New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof "A church Mary can love." I laughed at his opening paragraph dealing with the joke about the pious Catholic who…

Read More Read More

I’ve expressed my opposition to the Vatican's position on birth control before – one example: (https://paulluverajournalonline.com/weblog/2009/03/pope-benedict-condoms-and-hivaids.html) What brings it up again is the fact that when I was at Mass this morning at the Gig Harbor St Nicholas Catholic church a young mother gave a talk before it started. She spoke in favor of "natural" rhythm birth control and insisted other means such as condoms was "a serious sin." She said it was a serious sin because the Church said so…

Read More Read More

In an excellent article in The Jury Expert http://www.astcweb.org/public/publication/article.cfm/1/22/2/The-Rules-Do-Not-Apply-to-Me Elizabeth Foley, a partner in Zagnoli, McEvoy, Foley, a jury consulting firm, has written an article entitled "The Rules Don’t Apply to me." Ms Foley lists seven things that are necessary for a full and complete apology. She says leaving out any of one of these steps means the apology is not effective. Here are the steps: Acknowledge what you did wrong Take responsibility for your actions Acknowledge the impact your actions…

Read More Read More

There has been a flood of international allegations of priest sexual abuse in the news. Allegations of clergy sexual abuse began making the news in 1985 and since then the allegations have waxed and waned until the latest European complaints have surfaced. What makes the German allegations significant is the role played by the present pope, Benedict. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and in his previous position as an archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1981, Benedict played a central role…

Read More Read More

 What follows are some rambling thoughts that originate from scripture and religion. They aren’t profound, but since this is my blog I’m going to share them anyway. The first deals with the familiar saying "practice what you preach." It’s very good advice and a modern expression of this is "if you are going talk the talk, you have to walk the walk." This has been expressed as "walk it like you talk it" or the traditional "actions speak louder then words." I was…

Read More Read More