Gay couple design their baby

I found this here.
At the heart of all religions is the movement from self to other, it is the basis of the "Great Commandment", it is what Jesus is about. It is also what marriage is about, it is at the heart of what the Church is saying when it teaches about marriage being open to the "gift" of children.
Here a child is seen as an accessory, a commodity, an object fufilling the desires of this couple. What will happen when the child no longer fits in with his parents desires?

Church Open

Good news according to the Health and Safety Executive the church is safe and can be open for Sunday Mass!
Just for my own peace of mind it will be closed when cleaning work in the crypt resumes on Monday.

Pope: Europe wouldn't be Europe without marriage

The Pope received the Hungarian ambassador during the week, he had some very important things to say on marriage.

"Marriage and the family constitute the decisive foundation for a healthy development of the civil society of countries and peoples," the Pontiff affirmed.
He noted that "marriage as a basic form of ordering the relationship between man and woman and, at the same time, as basic cell of the state community, has also been molded by biblical faith."

"Thus marriage has given Europe its particular aspect and its humanism, also and precisely because it has had to learn to acquire continually the characteristic of fidelity and of renunciation traced by it," the Holy Father said.

On the other hand, the Pope added, it is "because of the different types of union which have no foundation in the history of the culture and of law in Europe."
"The Church cannot approve legislative initiatives that imply a valuation of alternative models of the life of the couple and the family," he stated.

"These contribute to the weakening of the principles of the natural law and, hence, to the relativization of the whole of legislation, in addition to the awareness of values in society," the Pontiff said.

Thus he affirmed that "the Holy See notes with interest of the efforts of the political authorities to elaborate a change in the constitution," which would "make reference in the preamble to the legacy of Christianity."

The Holy Father added, "Also desirable is that the new constitution be inspired by Christian values, particularly in what concerns the position of marriage and the family in society and the protection of life."

He asserted, "Europe will no longer be Europe if this basic cell of the social construction disappears or is substantially transformed."

"We all know how much risk marriage and the family run today," Benedict XVI acknowledged.
He explained that on one hand, these are at risk "because of the erosion of its most profound values of stability and indissolubility, because of a growing liberalization of the right of divorce and of the custom, increasingly widespread, of man and woman living together without the juridical form and protection of marriage."

John Smeaton contrasts his words with the EngCath presentation:

•Archbishop Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, who said on BBC TV that he did not know "whether the Catholic church should one day accept the reality of gay partnerships"


•Archbishop Nichols who said on BBC TV, the day after Pope Benedict left Britain for Rome, that the Catholic Bishops of Conference of England and Wales "did NOT oppose gay civil partnerships, we recognised that in English law there might be a case for those. We persistently said that these are not the same as marriage"

•Bishop McMahon, the bishop of Nottingham, who is open to headteachers of Catholic schools being in same sex unions and who says the Church is not opposed to civil partnerships (Bishop McMahon is chairman of the Catholic Education Service of England and Wales)

•Archbishop Nichols who, questioned about his support for the provision of Masses for homosexuals who openly dissent from Catholic teaching, told those who oppose what's going on to "hold their tongue".

Ummm....

When News Isn't News

Diogenes brought a little smile to my face with this: I suspect he had the New York Times in mind but it could apply to the Times, Guardian, Independant or the BBC.

Act I, Scene I: The newsroom of a major metropolitan daily

Reporter: Hey, boss! We’ve got a story here. Says the Pope might have allowed a priest who was accused of abuse to work in a parish while he was Archbishop of Munich. What should we do with it?

Editor: Did the Pope personally assign the priest to parish work?

Reporter: No; his vicar general did.

Editor: Did the Pope know about it?

Reporter: No evidence of that.

Editor: Did the Pope know this priest at all?

Reporter: No evidence.

Editor: Did this priest abuse other kids while the Pope was there?

Reporter: No evidence of that either.

Editor: What the heck. So we don't have all the details. Still, if the Pope was soft on abuse, that's news. Let’s splash it across the front page anyway.

Act I, Scene II: The same newsroom

Reporter: Hey, boss! Another story about the Pope. Seems that he didn’t laicize a priest from Milwaukee who was accused of abuse.

Editor: Was the Pope responsible for laicizing this priest?

Reporter: No; the local archbishop had the authority to do it.

Editor: Did the Pope stall the disciplinary process?

Reporter: No; the local archdiocese waited 40 years to do anything about it.

Editor: Did this priest abuse other kids after the Pope decided against laicization?

Reporter: No, he was old and sick by then. He died a few months later.

Editor: What the heck. So we don't have all the details. Still, if the Pope was soft on abuse, that's news. Let’s splash it across the front page anyway.

Act I, Scene III: The same newsroom

Reporter: Hey, boss! Here’s a different story on the Pope. Says that he was pushing for tougher disciplinary action against abusive priests.

Editor: Was this recently?

Reporter: No; way back in 1988.

Editor: You mean back when all the other bishops were hiding these abusers, he was trying to get rid of them?

Reporter: That’s what the documents say.

Editor: So he was really leading the charge against abuse all along?

Reporter: Looks that way.

Editor: OK. No big deal. So the Pope wasn't soft on abuse? Who ever said he was? Put it on page 17.

Our Lady for Sale

Gorringes one of the local auction houses has this rather splendid statue of Our Lady of Lourdes for sale, at over 6ft it is a bit too big for our Church, but maybe some parish priest somewhere...

I hate seeing "holy things" up for sale, there are a few other ecclesiastical bits and bobs in the following lots, I rather fancy those candelabra, lot 52 and 53, they would look splendid between the big six, apart from them being too expensive we have enough candlesticks, really. It is such an eclectic mix, it looks as if they came from a Anglican clergyman's chapel. There is nice painted altar.
In the paintings section there are a few icons, over estimated, I suspect, and some certainly misnamed.

Torn between Peter and the Local Bishop

I was a bit afraid of putting up a link to an article by Dominic Scarborough who I like a great deal and for whom I have a great deal of respect for him, it deals with tensions between the Bishop's Conference and Rome.
This is how Fr Tim summarises it:

Dominic Scarborough has written an article for Catholic World Report Outside the Magic Circle which is subtitled "Tension builds between the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales and orthodox Catholics." He looks at the way in which the BCEW presents a common front on every issue, the ostracism of Bishop O'donoghue, the Soho Masses, the designation of "Taliban Catholics", and the response to Summorum Pontificum. It is an interesting article in that we all know this stuff but having it set out clearly in Catholic World Report is a step forward

For my part, because their works and actions are so secret I never know quite what the Bishops as a Conference are saying and doing, and what Ecclesdon Square and the CES are doing and saying in their name.

Una Voce have published, or maybe it has been leaked, their report on Summorum Pontificum which was prepared for the Pope and presented to Cardinal Canizares an abridged version of its special report sent by its presidency to the Holy Father on the third anniversary of Summorum Pontificum. The section dealing with British Hierarchies makes interesting reading, there is praise but on the whole it is pretty sad. It speaks of priests being intimidated, the desires of the laity being ignored and the wishes of the Pontiff being frustrated.
Again there seems to be quite a gulf between the Bishops and Rome, and consequently priests and laity who support their own reading of what Rome is saying feel a distance from their own diocesan bishop or local episcopal conference.

The bishops are not the Pope's altar boys, it is not their role simply to slavishly implement every directive that comes from the Holy See. The Pope is the servant not the master of the Church. Since the Apostle Paul's rebuking Peter to his face there is a necessary tension within the Church.

However, Paul always seeks communion with Peter. The problem for many traditionally minded Catholics is that there is a sense in which they are torn between loyalty to Peter and their local bishop. The post VII debate about the standing of the local Church and the universal Church characterised by the very public conversation between Kaspar and Ratzinger was more or less settled by the 2005 conclave in which the Cardinals elected the latter to the throne of Peter.

The problem today is that we hear Peter more clearly than the local bishop. We know what the Pope teaches and we trust his authority often much more than we know what our own local bishops teach and so often it is too easy to dismiss local bishops teaching as "merely personal opinion", often because it is merely that, rather than being deeply rooted in the Catholic faith.

The exraordinary thing about the Catholic Church is that what holds us in communion with it is nothing more than Love, ultimately, here is the Mystery of the Church, an affection between individuals. It is a familial realationship symbolised by the bishops ring is bridegroom to his Church and Father to his clergy and people. If a bishop lacks the personal qualities of affection and concern for his priests and people, communion with him suffers, similarly if he appears to lack affection for those things his people hold dear, like God or the deposit of Faith, for example.

It is certainly difficult for people to have affection for an anonymous committee such as an episcopal conference; it is perhaps easier today to love the Pope and to be in communion with him because, through the media, we know him. The old scholastic adage, "one cannot love what one does not know" is as true of bishops as it is of God or one's spouse.

Bad News: Church Closed!

We are going to have to closed the church for the next few days by order of the Health and Safety Executive whilst we get rid of the asbestos the accursed workmen disturbed in the crypt.

I can understand why some priests turn to drink or worst! It times like this one when feels particularly alone.

We are going to have to have to have Mass in our Parish Centre over the weekend, how we do it I don't know, it is going to be quarts into pint pots.

During the week there will only be Mass at 10am in the Parish Centre, there will be no Friday evening Mass and to be on the safe side the Missa Solemnis on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is cancelled.
If you come here on Sundays try and go elsewhere.
Say a prayer God will speed the work.