We have had a visiting priest filling in for our pastor the last couple of Sundays I've been home to go to Mass here in Gig Harbor. Both Sunday's his homilies have been under four minutes. Now compared to the twenty to thirty minute homilies we usually get that is not much time. What's interesting is the quality of communication depends upon content and delivery more then then the volume of words used. There is nothing more boring then an…
Last Sunday at church we were subjected to a "sermon" by the Deacon about the sanctity of life which he claimed was not a political sermon. However restrained his message,it was for me another attack echoing the Catholic hierarchy which has kept up a steady attack against Mr. Obama in particular and the Democratic party in general primarily about abortion issues. The relationship between President Obama and the religious right and Catholic bishops started out badly and still is not good. When he was a candidate he was widely attacked by…
This morning I was reading the great apostle Paul's writings in Romans 13 where he says: "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments…are summed up in this one rule: love your neighbor as yourself. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." It occurred to me that even if you were not a believer or not a Christian the idea that a…
Father Richard P. McBrien is a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. He writes a weekly column and in the one I just read he discusses the history of the naming of bishops. He notes that throughout most of the history of the Catholic Church bishops were elected. They were elected from the local diocese clergy and voted on by both the clergy as well as the laity. The Pope had no direct role at all in this process during most…
Today is Good Friday when the Christian world remembers the death of Jesus. This Friday is part of Holy Week and the Paschal Triduum which precedes Easter Sunday. It also coincides with the Jewish observance of Passover. The title "good" possibly comes from the original "God's Friday" although exact reason for calling it "good" is unclear. For Christians it is a day to reflect on the meaning of the the death of Christ on the cross. On this day I…
It’s reported this week that Pope Benedict XVI, flying on the papal airplane to Africa, told reporters that condoms were not the answer to Africa’s problem of HIV. He claimed that the Church was "in the forefront" of the battle against AIDS and that the Vatican’s answer to this problem was "sexual abstinence. The Vatican hasn’t budged from its position that the use of condoms is immoral since the1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae. As recently as 2003 a Vatican document Values…
I suspect if I asked a hundred people of the present generation who Billy Sunday or Amiee Semple McPhereson were, few if any would know. Both were once as famous as Billy Graham. William Ashley "Billy" Sunday was born into poverty in 1862 and spent time in an orphanage until he could find odd jobs in small Iowa towns. He became a celebrity as a professional baseball player and was one of fastest and aggressive runners in stealing bases. In 1890, the…
I have just finished a book, The Duty of Delight – The diaries of Dorothy Day edited by Robert Ellsberg. Dorothy is my great inspiration in my spiritual growth. I've written about this amazing woman before. Ellsberg, who worked with Dorothy for many years says she attended daily Mass, which usually meant rising at dawn. She prayed the monastic hours from a breviary. She devoted time each day to meditating on scripture, saying the rosary. Dorothy in her diary says:…
I seem to be on some kind of rant about my Catholic Church, but the local diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Northwest Progress, has a two page spread this week about a former Lutheran pastor who is about to be ordained a Catholic priest. No, I’m not upset because the bishop plans to ordain a former Lutheran pastor. Nor am I disturbed because he is married. It is the fact that this married man is allowed to become a priest under…
The Catholic Church has a long tradition of supporting workers' right to organize. Popes have written about the rights of worker unions, bishops councils have proclaimed the fundamental right of workers to organize into unions and the Catholic church has consistently supported the right of workers to organize as a labor union. The Second Vatican Council expressed this right like this: "Among the basic rights of the human person is to be numbered the right of freely founding unions for…
