I thought Galileo's Most Severe Punishment Was House Imprisionment in a Palace; I was wrong

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Those secularists will never forget or forgive for the awful punishments given to Galileo for daring to state that the Earth moves around the sun.

SANTIAGO, Chile -- A judge in southern Chile has sentenced a Catholic priest to recite seven psalms daily during three months as punishment for illegal parking. Judge Manuel Perez said he issued the unusual sentence after the Rev. Jose Cornejo said he could not afford the $100 fine that would have been the regular sanction for illegal parking in the city of Puerto Montt.

"He will have to recite seven psalms," Judge Perez told the Santiago daily La Tercera.

"This is not a sentence that just occurred to me," he added. "I did it as a tribute to Galileo Galilei, one of the greatest scientists of all time, who received a similar sentence from the Catholic Church during three years for saying the Earth rotates around the sun."

The judge ordered a court official who lives near the priest to check daily that the sentence was being fulfilled. The priest said he had parked his car in front of a school where he works because he lacked the money to pay for public parking. The Inimitable Curt Jester


I just got a note that if I have a friend or relative park in the parking lot of my building, that person will be subject to a 280 simoleons towing fee. I wonder how many psalms that would be if I find myself a secularist in charge at Cedar Towing?

Seminarians, World-Wide

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There has been a great increase in seminarians since the low point of the mid 70s (after high school seminaries were virtually abolished). There does seem to be some recent leveling off, however.
Pray for more Seminarians and Priests.

The Congregation For the Clergy Has All Kinds of Bureaucratic Reports. Click on the Chart to make it bigger.

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Now, if you can't read French, that's not my problem!

But a rough translation tells me that North America and Europe are losing priests and Latin America, Asia and Africa have some to spare. I guess many of us have realized that with the numbers of visiting priests from those areas regularly increasing around here.

Biblia Clerus: Catholics Now Have an OnLine Bible Concordance Based in Rome

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The Vatican Congregation for the Clergy has unveiled a powerful new web site, linking Bible texts with commentary from the Church fathers, doctors of the Church, councils, catechisms, and other magisterial documents.

The Biblia Clerus site links each passage of the Bible-- Old and New Testaments-- with commentary taken from a rich variety of sources. In an introductory note Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, explains that the site provides "Sacred Scripture, its interpretation in light of Sacred Tradition and the teachings of the Magisterium, with appropriate theological commentary and exegesis."

The sources of the commentary-- many of them provided in full on the site-- include the works of the apostolic fathers, saints, Popes, and councils. The site also provides links to the Code of Canon Law (and the Code for the Eastern Church), and to the catechisms of the Council of Trent, St. Pius X, and the 1997 edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Although designed for priests, the Biblia Clerus site is available to the general public. The entire contents of the site can be downloaded. Catholic World News That's right, you can download all the databases to your own computer.

Search a Biblical text and its commentary
This allows you to locate specific references to Sacred Scripture made by Doctors of the Church and the Magisterium.

Download or update Biblia Clerus
This allows you to download the entire content of this site onto your computer, or upgrade from the CD version.

Canon Law and commentaries

This contains the current and earlier versions of both the Latin and Eastern Codes of Canon Law, in parallel and with their fonts.

Commentary on the Sunday liturgy
This allows you to cross-reference liturgical texts to homilies of the Church Fathers.

The texts of the Magisterium and commentaries
This contains the principal texts of the Magisterium of the Church, as well as commentaries by the Popes.

Clerus.org

This provides access to the electronic library of the Congregation for the Clergy, conferences, scholarly analysis, etc.

What's your excuse now for not knowing your Faith? You say you don't have a computer? I'd bet your local library has one, just waiting for you.

Winona Daily News: God be with you, Bishop Hoeppner

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In higher education circles they call it the brain drain — the phenomenon of the best and brightest leaving an area for greener pastures. And sometimes in places like Winona, that happens. Folks leave our area for bigger — and arguably — better things.

That may be the case with Bishop Michael Hoeppner, who was installed as the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Crookston last week.

Unlike the heart sorrow that goes along with losing a person to another region, Hoeppner’s exit from Winona — his home — wasn’t with pain, rather excitement and celebration. One of our own made good and has moved on to do holy work indeed. Hoeppner’s exit looks to be for the benefit of those in the upper northwest corner of Minnesota.

In an odd piece of trivial coincidence, Hoeppner isn’t the first Winona priest to head to Crookston. John Hubert Peschges served as bishop of Crookston from 1938 to 1944.

While it will indeed be hard for some Winonans to lose a native son, it’s also a special honor and wonderful calling when one of our own is chosen by the pope to lead a diocese. Hoeppner also served the Diocese of Winona with distinction, rising to the level of vicar general.

Archbishop Harry Flynn’s homily served as good advice — bishop is not only a title of honor but of service. We celebrate the notion that the kindness, charity and compassion that can be found in such abundance in Winona can hopefully be shared with the people of Crookston.

After all, one of Winona’s most alluring and amazing traditions is its philanthropy. It takes care of its own and then looks around to help others. Winona always finds a way to give a little more.

And that’s a powerful testament to the community and an even more important lesson to those of us who call this special place home. We hope Hoeppner, upon embarking on this new journey and calling, will take those things he knew so well here and nurture them within his own diocese.

We also hope that more than just the dazzle and show of the installation — necessary ritual and spectacle — Hoeppner can continue to nurture an ethic of charity and service.

We hope Hoeppner will encourage his flock to become ministers of justice, mercy, compassion and vessels of Christ’s love. Those truly are the pillars of the Catholic church and its most enduring legacy.

By Darrell Ehrlick, editor, on behalf of the Winona Daily News editorial board, which also includes publisher Rusty Cunningham and online editor Jerome Christenson.

"The Golden Compass" up against nobody, doesn't impress at Box Office

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From Hogwarts to Hoth, with oodles of clever literary references, The Golden Compass manages to evoke several popular movie franchises without establishing a theme of its own. Based on Philip Pullman's children's fantasy novels—roundly denounced as anti-religious by religious extremists—the star-studded adaptation starts off strong and trails off into the abyss. BoxOfficeMojo

"The Golden Compass," a costly fantasy starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, got off to a slow start at the North American box office and will likely fall short of opening-weekend expectations.

New Line Cinema's $180 million film sold an estimated $8.8 million worth of tickets during its first day in theaters on Friday, according to data issued on Saturday by tracking firm Box Office Mojo (www.boxofficemojo.com).

After Saturday and Sunday sales are factored in, the film will come in at No. 1 with about $28 million when the studios issue their weekend estimates on Sunday, said Paul Dergarabedian at Media By Numbers, another tracking firm.

New Line, a struggling Time Warner Inc unit hoping to launch another franchise along the lines of its blockbuster "Lord of the Rings" series, said last week it was hoping the film would open to between $30 million and $40 million.

"It's below expectations, but it's not an out-and-out debacle," said Dergarabedian.

Conspiring against the movie, he said, were such factors as a soft marketplace and unrealistic expectations for an epic fantasy filling the holiday void left by the "Narnia" and "Lord of the Rings" smashes.

A New Line executive did not return a call seeking comment.

Based on the first book in British author Philip Pullman's acclaimed children's series "His Dark Materials," writer/director Chris Weitz's film is set in an alternate world ruled by an oppressive religious authority. It features talking animals and a heroine played by youngster Dakota Blue Richards.

Even though the film downplays the religious aspect, it has been savaged by such groups as . . . the U.S. Conference of Bishops [HUH??? The USCCB reviewer gave it pretty much a 1.8 thumbs up accolade]. Opponents have cited Pullman's unflattering portrayal of the church and specifically the Catholic faith.

Critics were also generally negative on the film, according to the web site Rotten Tomatoes (www.rottentomatoes.com), which collates reviews. [...Snip]

If Archbishop Fulton Sheen Invented Television Evangelism 50 + years ago. . .

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. . .Why do so few U.S. Dioceses and Parishes take the next step? If it wasn't for EWTN, Catholicism would be almost extinct on television.

"Jesus told us to go forth and spread the word to the entire world," said the Rev. Randy Morrison of Speak the Word Church in Golden Valley. "I can't physically do that, but my TV signal can."

And it does. Morrison's sermons are beamed by satellite to every continent except Antarctica. But while his church has one of the most ambitious TV ministries in Minnesota, it is not unique. The days in which a handful of televangelists ruled the airwaves are gone as a growing number of churches here and across the nation take their messages to the masses via cable-access TV and Internet video. [....Snip] StarTribune

The Immaculate Conception Meme, suggested to me

I've got three hours and two minutes to post this and have it still qualify as an "Immaculate Conception Meme." Actually, it is down to two hours and 57 minutes now. Here goes!

Rules: Each tagged person must post 8 random facts or habits about themselves on their blog. At the end of the post, choose 8 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment telling them that they are tagged and to read your blog. Have fun!

1. A tiny bit of the guilt that I habitually carry around with me was removed when the Ironic Catholic recently discovered that some folks have found out who she really is. A year or so ago, I accidentally revealed her identity to a whole bunch of bloggers. What I discovered from that is that people don't read my emails very carefully since only one, trustworthy, person picked up on it and her secret had remained secure, til now. You see, I'm the only blogger who has met her. Boy is she tall! I still have a crick in my neck from looking up.

2. 30 Years ago I was a paid organizer on the election campaign of one of the most liberal and pro-choice politicians in the State of Minnesota for the U.S. Senate. And in the U.S. for that matter. We lost. I wouldn't be blogging in St. Blog's Parish if we had won, that's for sure. I still admire the man for his integrity. I thought I was pro-life then, but secretly. It was very uncomfortable for me hanging around with the Grand Dames of the Feminist Caucus for whom abortion was their sacrament.

3. I've been in the hospital three times with heart problems, starting in 1984. I finally seemed to have learned that it is important to take the pills as prescribed. No surgeries. A stent in 2004. Things are fine, more or less, since then. Now if I could only exercise more and eat less and get my weight down.

4. I've been doing my family history for a very long time and one of the things that bothers me most is that nobody but me seems to be REALLY interested other than in looking at a chart and asking "Which one is me?" Was this all a waste? I hope not. But who will take it on after I'm gone? I finally figured out a place to put it, for free [Rootsweb FreePages], so that even if it might be a couple of generations before some relative appreciates all my thousands of hours of work, all of it will be there for them. Barring a comet collision or the Second Coming.

5. I'm a closet charismatic, also. Tears!

6. For about ten months I have been volunteering at the local Veterans' Hospital as an EMHC a couple of days a week. This has been the singularly most rewarding thing that I have ever done in my life. It makes up for a lot of my wastrel history. Most of what I do is just check in with them, chat a bit, pray with some and give Holy Communion to those who request it. I never would have thought that I would have the interest or ability to do something like that. I thank Jesus for the Grace He gave me to allow me to do this. I've always thought that looking at wounds and scars, incisions, amputations, tracheotomies, etc. would be difficult. It's not. I'm looking at human beings.

What's most amazing to me is that of those who take Holy Communion, 40 years after Vatican Two, 95% or more take the Host on the tongue. And they know how to do it. I also occasionally serve Mass and do stints as lector. I find it mildly uncomfortable to be able to touch the sacred vessels (we could never do that when I was an altar boy) and more unworthy to personally touch Our Lord in the Host. But I understand that without me, it would not be possible to have many patients receive Communion regularly.

7. I started out this meme by using the word "guilt." I suspect that I am not that different from those of you who are reading this. Even though I've been to confession and know that I have received absolution, I still have twinges of guilt for some of the things that I did (or didn't do) during my lifetime. Some of them were in days before the onset of the "age of reason." So, last Spring, I made a General Confession. I spent a month or two preparing for it, writing down a list of all the things, some confessed, some forgotten to confess but forgiven anyway, some probably not sins, but still "shameful", etc., etc., etc. I'd put it down for a week, review it and make changes. Then do that again.

Then I called up the priest who I wanted have hear my General Confession and made an appointment. We just went into his office, sat down in chairs (it could be done in a confessional, but I needed to read my list) and I just went through the items on my list, one by one, for maybe an hour. Father occasionally asked clarification questions, but let me lead the way. At the end, after giving me absolution, he said that had not ever given a General Confession before but thought that I had done it well. Today, I've got guilt for things that I did or didn't do this morning. But all that guilt from years and years ago is gone. Try it, you'll love it.

8. One of the best things that is available in the Twin Cities is UHF Channel 19 where you can get 24 hours of EWTN for free if you are more or less in sight of the IDS Tower where they have their antenna. I used to volunteer there. You will need a "rabbit ear" antenna. But your "clicker" will allow you to turn off your cable and watch a UHF Channel. Only quite rarely, during weather "emergencies" [only the people selliing ads call them "emergencies", few actually are] do I watch network TV. Of course I don't watch that much EWTN, what with my wrists being permanently bonded to my computer keyboard as they are.

OK, you know who you are: Terry (I think Cathy has done this); Sue Vigilante (one of the funnier and more literate bloggers), SwissMiss, Veritatis Splendor (the "Roamin' Roman"), Father Andrerw Dickinson; Sanctus Belle; I'd love to have Vincenzo on here and I would be willing to post it if he doesn't want to reveal his identity; And dare I mention it? Father Z? I'll give it a try! The worst he can do is ignore me or embarrass me to tears or castigate me publicly in front of all the orthodox Catholics of the world or . . . It's for Our Lady, Father.

A History of Christmas Carols

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Oberndorf, Salzburg, Oesterreich (Austria)

The Silent Night Chapel

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From the hillsides of Bethlehem to the present

Maria von Trapp (whose life was immortalized in the Sound of Music) wrote, ''Singing at Christmas goes back to the early centuries of Christianity. It is the oldest of those innumerable folk customs still alive throughout the world during the Christmas season.''

How did Christmas carols become part of the holy day and holiday we know as Christmas? Was it the angels that first Christmas? Was it the Church establishing December 25 as the commemoration of Jesus Christ's birth?

We can go back to the first carolers -- the angels who sang to the shepherds on a hillside in Bethlehem. Their songs were not recorded. The oldest known carol, however, was written in the fourth century by St. Ambrose (''Veni Redemptor Gentium'' or ''Savior of the World Come'') around the time the Church made December 25 Christmas Day.

Father of the Christmas Carol

After that there is a silence for almost 1,000 years. There may have been carols, but not many have been preserved. The silence was broken by St. Francis of Assisi. Many call him the father of the Christmas carol. He wanted to find a way to make the Christmas story come alive for the common people, who could not read and had no access to the Bible or other books.

He decided in 1223 that he would build a life-size manger scene, complete with live animals such as ox, ass, and sheep. He would get various villagers to play the roles of the Holy Family and the shepherds and wise men. Then he would have people sing songs about Christmas -- so caroling was born.

''The First Nowell,'' first sung about 1500, is the oldest known carol in the English language still sung today. It did not appear in print until 1833 however. This song was claimed by both the French and the English. In France it was written as ''Noel.'' Researchers think that this song came from Cornwall in England, but no one knows for certain who wrote it.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Before the invention of the printing press, carols were a way to communicate the Christmas story and pass it from one generation to another. An example of this is a carol which dates back to those very early days.

''The Twelve Days of Christmas'' was written for English Catholics to illustrate the truths of their faith during a time of persecution.

• One partridge in a pear tree -- God's gift of love to mankind: the advent of Jesus and His death on the cross.
• Two turtle doves -- the Old and the New Testaments.
• Three French hens -- the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity, or the Holy Trinity.
• Four calling birds -- the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
• Five gold rings -- the first five books of the Old Testament telling the story of man's fall from grace.
• Six geese a laying -- the six days of creation.
• Seven swans a-swimming -- the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.
• Eight maids a-milking -- the eight Beatitudes.
• Nine ladies dancing -- the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit.
• Ten lords a-leaping -- the Ten Commandments.
• Eleven pipers piping -- the eleven faithful disciples.
• Twelve drummers drumming -- the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

Another early carol, which would have been long forgotten if it had not been for England's Queen Victoria, is ''O Tannenbaum.'' In 1846 she established the custom of the decorated Christmas tree. When the Germans contributed ''O Tannenbaum'' to our catalog of carols, it had one verse. Then, because of Queen Victoria's Christmas tree, two verses were added by German poet Ernst S. Anschutz.

The Huron Carol

Carols were first sung in America in 1645 at the Huron Mission (in the northern Great Lakes region). This was unusual because the Puritans, who dominated American shores at the time, had outlawed the celebration of Christmas -- associating it with paganism and drunken revelry. It wasn't until the middle of the 19th century that those ideas changed.

Up until that time carols were imported. The first American Christmas carol was ''The Huron Carol.'' The composer of that carol was John de Brébeuf, Jesuit missionary to the Huron Indians, martyred in 1649 by the Iroquois, and canonized a saint in 1930.

Twas in the moon of wintertime
When all the birds had fled,
That mighty Gitchi Manitou
Sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim,
And wond'ring hunters heard the hymn:
Jesus, your King is born,
Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.

Edmund Hamilton Sears was a descendent of the original Pilgrims, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, a clergyman of some renown. What Sears is most noted for is the writing of a poem in 1849. It was published in the Christian Register, and titled ''It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.'' It became the first American carol of international reputation.

The poem became internationally known when it was set to music. Several tunes were written for the hymn -- even one by Sir Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan). The one most often used was written in 1850 by Richard Storrs Willis, a Yale graduate, who had studied music with Felix Mendelssohn in Germany.

The Golden Age of Carols

The 19th century in America is known as ''the Golden Age of carols.'' Another song from that period was composed by Bostonian James S. Pierpont, but this one was not written for Christmas. It was written for Thanksgiving. The song was ''Jingle Bells'' and it was written in 1857 for Pierpont's father's Sunday school class.

Another East Coast man was Pittsburgh-born John Henry Hopkins, Jr., a classical scholar with a law degree, who had been ordained an Episcopal priest and was the editor of New York City's Church Journal. He had no children, but had a childlike love for Christmas.

In 1857 he was looking for a gift for his nieces and nephews. Not finding anything that pleased him, he decided that he would write the story of the wise men. Basing his tale on Matthew 2:11, he added to it what was known from stories and legends. When he had finished he had written the song, ''We Three Kings of Orient Are.'' The song was first published in 1863 and was an instant favorite, spreading from north to south through the Civil War army camps.

The tragic Civil War echoed the tragedy in the life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His first wife died just three years after their marriage. In 1843 Longfellow married Frances Appleton, and they had six children. In 1861, she was melting candle wax when some dropped on her dress and her dress caught fire. Longfellow tried to put it out and was badly burned. Fanny, as his wife was called, died. So Longfellow spent Christmas without his beloved.

In November 1862, his son, Lieutenant Charles Longfellow, was severely injured in the Mine Run Campaign at New Hope Church, Virginia, with a bullet lodged near his spine. It was uncertain for some time if he would live.

Christmas Bells, Longfellow's Song of Peace

Longfellow couldn't help asking the question, ''Where is peace?'' He wrote a poem simply titled ''Christmas Bells'' to answer that question.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth,'' I said;
''For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!''

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
''God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!''

We don't understand that Longfellow's poem was written as a song of peace in a time of war. When the poem was set to music by John Baptiste Calkin, a composer from an accomplished family of English musicians, the title was changed to ''I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.'' Since that time the paragraphs describing the Civil War have been eliminated and much of Longfellow's original intent in the poem was lost.

The tragedy of the Civil War not only gave us ''I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day'' but other carols as well. Episcopal clergyman Phillips Brooks was so exhausted from ministering to a people ravaged by war, that his church gave him a sabbatical.

He made a trip to the Holy Land and returned with ''Palestine singing in my soul.'' He penned the words to ''O Little Town of Bethlehem.'' Louis Redner, his church's organist, wrote the music, and the song was sung by Sunday school children for the first time on Dec. 27, 1868.

Even as Americans penned carols out of their tragedies and war, others in the world were writing carols from places of peace. One of the most popular carols of all time was written in France in the 18th century. This carol's story starts in the 16th century with King Philip II of Spain. King Philip established a college at Douai in France.

Adeste Fidelis

Douai was a place of refuge for persecuted English Catholics. Early in the 1700s one of these English Catholics, John Francis Wade, moved there to teach music. Wade's hobby was to make calligraphic copies of ancient hymns. His beautiful manuscripts were carried all over Europe. Sometime in the 1740s, Wade wrote his own hymn in Latin called ''Adeste Fidelis.''

Because of his reputation as a calligrapher of the hymns of others, no one believed that he had written ''Adeste Fidelis'' himself. Over time, it was attributed to many different composers. In the 1780s it was brought to England and introduced at the Portuguese Embassy chapel and because of that was known as the Portuguese hymn.

In 1947, researchers discovered that Wade did indeed write the song -- words and music. ''Adeste Fidelis'' in its English translation (by F. Oakeley) is known as ''O Come All Ye Faithful.''

''O Come All Ye Faithful'' is not the only carol in that time period in England. Isaac Watts often complained to his father, a deacon in the Episcopal church, about the terrible music used. His father posed the question, ''If you don't like our music, why don't you write something better?'' And for over 200 Sundays, Isaac Watts did write something better. In all he would write over 600 hymns -- many based on the Psalms.

In 1719, he collected some of these hymns into a book called Psalms of David Imitated. One of these became popular as a Christmas carol, even though it contains no references to things we normally associate with the holy day. This song was ''Joy to the World.'' Its familiar music was not added until over 100 years later, by organist, Dr. Lowell Mason.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Another prolific hymn writer of over 6,000 hymns was Charles Wesley, who wrote a favorite Christmas carol, ''Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.''

''Hark'' was sung for over 120 years to different tunes before it was set to the music by Felix Mendelssohn that accompanies it today. This song, however, didn't start out with that title. Wesley called it ''Hark, How all the Welkin Rings.'' ''Welkin'' are places of heavenly abode, celestial spheres. George Whitfield, the famous preacher, changed its words to the ones we know today.

Some of our more popular Christ- mas songs came from the secular world. In 1940, for example, an Ameri- can composer was asked to write the score for a film which would star two famous American film stars. The last scene took place at Christmas, and he was asked to write a song for that scene. The song made its first appearance in December 1941 two weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The song he wrote was ''White Christmas.'' The director was unimpressed. But the singer, Bing Crosby, thought Irving Berlin had a winner in this one.

Holiday Inn was released in August 1942. The song became the Oscar winner for that year, but it was some time before it became the best-selling recording of all time. It became a hit because of its nostalgic quality -- nostalgic for a group of boys who were serving overseas. It became a song of peace in a time of war.

Another song written for a movie was ''Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas'' from Meet Me in St. Louis. Judy Garland sang the song, insuring its success.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Robert L. May was asked by the Montgomery Ward Company to write a story for Christmas. The story he wrote was ''Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.'' May's brother-in-law set the tale to music. Gene Autry was approached to record the song.

In his autobiography, Autry says that he didn't want to do it because there ''were already too many reindeer flying around.'' His wife loved the song and talked him into recording it. He sold two-and-one-half million records that year and by 1977 had sold ten million.

The carols that most often ring true go back to a stable and a baby born in a manger. They always speak of peace as this one does: On Christmas Eve in 1818, a priest at St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, Austria, sat at his desk in the rectory.

He was interrupted by a knock at the door. Some simple village folk had come to ask him if he would visit a new mother and her baby up in the hills. The priest was unhappy about being interrupted because he had a lot to do. But he put on his heavy coat and followed them.

Silent Night, Holy Night

He visited the newborn and his mother and was reminded of another Newborn and His mother. Words turned 'round and 'round in his mind, and by the time he had returned to his desk, a poem had formed in his head. Writing rapidly, Father Josef Mohr put his words to paper.

He gave them that night to his friend, the schoolmaster Franz Gruber. Gruber was the organist for their church, and the two were good friends. Gruber set the words to music, but since the organ was old and out of commission, he wrote it instead for two voices and a guitar. He would later tell Father Mohr, ''Your words seem to sing themselves.''

On Christmas Day 1818, the ''Song from Heaven'' (''Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht'') was sung for the first time. The parishioners weren't aware that they were present at an auspicious event -- any more than the innkeepers in Bethlehem were aware of who they were turning away. All they heard that day was the priest and the schoolmaster singing softly, to the accompaniment of an old guitar:

Silent Night, Holy Night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child,
Holy Infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Stille Nacht! Heil'ge Nacht!
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hoch heilige Paar.
Holder Knab' im lockigen Haar,
|: Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh! :|

From The Priest Magazine

Bored Romans?

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If you were in St Peter's Square and the Pope was known to be in the vicinity, where would you be looking? Maybe they are watching it on their IPods?

Archbishop Flynn Responds to Kersten Column in the Strib

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Katherine Kersten's column of Dec. 4 ("Battle for soul of St. Thomas takes a turn for the worse") was an inaccurate and slanted portrayal of the current and future Catholicity of the University of St. Thomas.

I simply wish to make two points about the statement she quoted as being from our "Archdiocesan spokesman":

First, the statement we e-mailed and faxed to her was headlined as being a "Statement of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis." It came from me, not from our "spokesman."

Second, and more important, Kersten used only the first sentence of my statement in her column. The other two sentences were ignored. They read as follows: "The Saint Thomas board will always include bishops or priests. Any rumors or speculation about the 'de-Catholicization of the University of Saint Thomas are ill founded, inaccurate and ludicrous.'"

The editing of my statement leaves open to question her motivation in writing this one-sided and inaccurate column.

THE REV. HARRY J. FLYNN, ST. PAUL;
ARCHBISHOP OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF ST. PAUL AND MINNEAPOLIS
StarTribune

Duluth/Chisholm Native Appointed Bishop of Passaic, New Jersey

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Surprised? Me, too! I thought the capital of Ruthenia was Grand Fenwick. I apologize to all the Ruthenians out there. I don't think there are many left in Duluth. There might be some in Chisholm.


Benedict XVI appointed Bishop William Skurla of the Byzantine Eparchy of Van Nuys, California, to lead the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic.

Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States, announced Thursday that the Pope accepted the resignation of 80-year-old Bishop Andrew Pataki of Passaic for reasons of age. Father Gerald Dino, 67, of the Passaic Eparchy and pastor of St. George Parish, Linden, New Jersey, will succeed Bishop Skurla in Van Nuys.

Bishop Skurla, 51, will be installed Jan. 29 at the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel, in Passaic. Bishop-designate Dino will be ordained and installed March 27 at St. Helen Catholic Church in Phoenix.

The U.S. Eparchy of Passaic of the Ruthenians comprises Catholics of the Byzantine-Ruthenian rite in New Jersey, the District of Columbia and some 25 states, primarily on the East Coast and as far south as Florida.

William Skurla was born in Duluth, Minnesota, June 1, 1956 where he attended Catholic and public elementary schools. He graduated from Chisholm Junior-Senior High in 1974, and did Post-Graduate work in Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts, graduating in 1975.
He attended Columbia University in New York City, graduating with a concentration in Philosophy in 1981. He studied at Mary Immaculate Seminary in Northampton, Pennsylvania, receiving a Masters of Divinity in 1986 and a Masters of Theology in 1987.

He entered the Franciscan community in Sybertsville, Pennsylvania, was Solemnly Professed in 1985 and ordained to the priesthood in 1987. Following his ordination he served in many positions of responsibility, namely Vicar of Holy Dormitions Monastery in Sybertsville, Secretary of Custody, and Spiritual Assistant. Other responsibilities included his work in photography, computers and editing the community newsletter and the Eastern CatholicVocation Directory.

In 1996, having received and accepted his dispensation from solemn vows as a member of the order of Friars Minor, he was incardinated into the Eparchy of Van Nuys, where he had been serving for 3 years at St. Melany parish in Tucson.

He has continued in St. Melany Church until the present. He has served the Eparchy as the associate Editor of the Eparchial Newsletter, an Eparchial Consultor, member of the Deacon's Review Board, and the Metropolitan Youth Commission.

He has been active as the Secretary of the Arizona Eastern Clergy Association, and member of Jeus Caritas priest association, as well as many other inter-church activities in Tucson. Zenit and Van Nuys Eparchy

What did Archbishop Burke bring to St Louis Schools? Chapel Veils and Tonsures!

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Well, maybe not tonsures for the boys!

Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem

Messing with the Liturgy: The Problem of Narcissism in the Mass Today

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This article, published in the November 2007 issue of the Catholic Education Resource Center may be of interest. The full article may be found here.

It has been frequently noted that the mass since Vatican II has fallen victim to various kinds of irregularities.

This issue has been much discussed from various perspectives, but in this article we will examine a previously neglected aspect of the situation — namely, the psychological reasons why priests have introduced these changes. We will not deal with theological explanations for why the mass has been subject to liturgical experimentation, nor will we discuss liturgical rationales for such innovations. Instead, we will focus on the psychology of the priest and those assisting at the liturgy — that is, on the psychological motives as distinct from the theological and liturgical reasoning. We do not suggest that there are no theological and liturgical arguments made by the proponents of these deviations from liturgical norms, however, the scope of this article is restricted to their psychological underpinnings, particularly in the United States.

We propose that the primary motivation behind many of these changes stem from underlying narcissistic motives (that is, extreme self love) found in so many people in our contemporary culture. This is especially the case with the relatively small changes introduced in an idiosyncratic way into the mass. We first summarize and describe the nature of this narcissism, then apply it to the situation among priests. . . . [Snip]

Mandatory Reading: The Facts of Marriage

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Keeping Marriage Public

By Michael Fragoso, in First Things

Prof. Stephanie Coontz recently took to the pages of the New York Times to inform us that we do not need marriage as a legal institution. This is not the first time she has ridden rough-shod over marriage in the Times, and I doubt it will be the last. In this instance, Coontz is nothing short of dazzling in how adeptly she manages to misrepresent marriage and marriage law in Western history in order to bolster her destructive arguments.

In her description of premodern marriage law, she leaves a distinct impression that legal interference with marriage tended toward a restriction of individual liberty–preventing marriages when parents disapproved, preventing divorce, and so on. It’s a useful narrative for contemporary radicals who seek to undermine marriage. The trouble is that it has little relation to actual history. Here are some of her claims, and the facts against which they stand opposed.

Claim 1: “Why do people–gay or straight–need the state’s permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families.”

Fact: Since the dawn of Western civilization marriage has been a public institution. Plato, in his Crito, has the personified “Laws” of Athens ask Socrates, “Did we not first give you life? And was it not through us that your father took your mother in marriage, and sired you?”

Likewise in Roman law, there were varied and complex legal formulas and requirements for marriage. The right to Roman marriage was one enjoyed exclusively by citizens. (Non-citizens were governed by the ius gentium, or law of nations, which in effect made legally binding the local customs of marriage to which non-citizens were beholden.) Even the forms by which a marriage would be valid varied in Rome, the original form being the rather misogynistic manus marriage, which eventually gave way to the usus marriage by the height of the empire.

Jurists of the so-called Classical Period debated what constituted legally valid marriage. The answer was affectio maritalis–the affection that a husband and a wife have for each other. In the Roman case, Coontz isn’t entirely wrong in calling it a contract, insofar as marriage law would more often than not be adjudicated in the civil courts just like a contract law. Of course, this makes it a public union rather than a private one by necessity, since what good is a contract if it lacks the public force of law in its enforcement?

Claim 2: “The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.”

Fact: Again, starting with Roman law, “parents” (as Coontz so politically correctly calls them) had little to do with effecting actual validity, although fathers had a necessary role to play in approving the union, and, in the case of manus marriage, the ceremony itself. Following the early Middle Ages, the relevant laws of marriage–both sacred and secular–tended to minimize the role of parental approval as it related to the legal validity of marriage. Canon law, starting with Gratian in 1140, insisted that the consent of the parties is what made a valid marriage and that it must be free consent. Even law systems that granted great deference to parental input–such as the Siete Partidas by King Alfonso X of Castile–penalized husbands who contracted marriage without parental approval while still respecting the validity of the illegal union. Individual men and women effected valid marriage, and that was respected and enforced by both the Church and the state.

Claim 3: “For 16 centuries, Christianity also defined the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couple’s wishes.”

Fact: As we have just seen, yes, Christianity did insist that marriage is effected by the consent of the parties involved. But, again, the first clear and extant legal documentation we have of this comes from Pope Urban II in the 1090s. The principle of free consent certainly had strong currency in the Catholic Church, going back to St. Paul (who in 1 Corinthians says that a widow may marry whosoever she wishes). The specifics of the sacramentality of marriage, however, was a developing doctrine until the eleventh century, and as such there was little legal or theological consensus as to what exactly made marriage valid. All this makes Coontz’s math rather fuzzy. (Also note how Claim 3 flatly contradicts Claim 2.)

Claim 4: “If two people claimed they had exchanged marital vows–even out alone by the haystack–the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married.”

Fact: This is technically correct, albeit only half the story: The marriage was accepted as valid but considered sinfully contracted, necessitating penance.

Claim 5: “In 1215, the Church decreed that a ‘licit’ marriage must take place in church.”

Fact: Tertullian, Emperor Basil, Pope Nicholas, and many others had all said so centuries before the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). The “lawyer pope” Alexander III (1151-1184) proscribed clandestine marriage while maintaining its validity. All that occurred under Innocent III in 1215 was the proclamation of the formal marriage banns, thus solidifying in ecclesiastical law the long-developing sacramental understanding of marriage.

Claim 6: “But people who married illicitly had the same rights and obligations as a couple married in church: their children were legitimate; the wife had the same inheritance rights; the couple was subject to the same prohibitions against.”

Fact: Much of this is technically correct for certain places and times. Its flaw is in its generality and its confusion of interwoven legal structures. For example: The marriage would be valid in canon law if clandestine; thus the canon-law prohibition against divorce would take hold. Inheritance rights, on the other hand, were a question for secular civil law, which typically minimized the inheritance rights of women by the High Middle Ages in favor of primogeniture doctrine. The clandestinely married did have the same civil-law rights as the licitly married–whatever that happened to entail in a given legal regime–but that was because the state recognized the capacity of the Church to arbitrate questions of contracting marriage. The rights and obligations–sacred and secular–followed from the authority of canon law.

Claim 7: “Not until the 16th century did European states begin to require that marriages be performed under legal auspices.”

Fact: Again, Coontz confuses sacred and secular law. She clearly is referring to the Council of Trent, which denied the validity of clandestine marriage. This affected marriage in Catholic countries, where canon law still governed the institution. I can’t speak to Protestant Europe with authority, but I would presume that the state did take a greater interest in the regulation of marriage as Coontz claims, but for reasons involving the departure of the Catholic Church and its laws and courts. In order to maintain the common good, the Protestant states needed a new authority to regulate marriage–as the Church had before–and so the state took over. It’s the same car with a new driver.

Claim 8: “In part, this was an attempt to prevent unions between young adults whose parents opposed their match.”

Fact: In the Catholic world, it was an attempt to prevent polygamy. Men would go around saying “I take you as wife” to different paramours in different towns and before long had a number of wives on their hands. (This was a popular trope in late medieval/early-modern prose literature.) Since there were never witnesses, it could lead to chaos and was particularly unfair to women who would suddenly realize that their husbands were bigamists.

Coontz misstates the historical record to give the impression that marriage has typically not been a province of law and only became such in an effort to preserve the narrow interests of certain powerful sects of society: wealthy parents in requiring parental consent, Catholic authoritarians in proscribing divorce, and Southern racists in preventing miscegenation. This could not be further from the truth. As a rule, the more marriage was enshrined in law, the more freedom under the law was given to men and women who sought marriage. This was often the case in the ancient world, and emphatically the case in the medieval world.

Coontz takes complex legal and theological doctrines such as consent and twists them into a vision of sexual anarchy on one hand–with men and women marrying willy nilly at their loins’ urging, like characters in a raunchy Catalonian romance–or brutally subjugated to the dynastic interests of their families, as in so many hagiographies of old.

Against these cultural tendencies Western society erected laws on marriage. Not only do these laws ensure the continuation of society through the rearing of subsequent generations; they also aimed to protect the rights of men and women. For example, laws in favor of free consent as well as those proscribing consanguinity and affinity protect individuals from being forced into marriage for the sake of dynastic concerns. Likewise, public marriage banns protect women from being two-timed by bigamist rakes. It’s too bad all this is lost to Coontz as she furthers her tiresome agenda.

Michael Fragoso is a policy analyst at the Family Research Council who studied classics and medieval studies at Princeton University.

How Catholic-Bashing Became Respectable

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It is worth asking in passing whether Jews could now be depicted with the same idiom as is now being deployed against Catholics

It's not that often a train of thought unites Nicole Kidman and Peter Viereck, the American maverick conservative. But I had been to a screening of The Golden Compass, the film that Kidman effortlessly illumines, and I was thinking about the villain of the piece, which wasn't anyone at all so much as an institution called the Magisterium. In the Philip Pullman novel on which the film is based, the other word for the Magisterium is the Church. Or, as the author explains, "Ever since Pope John Calvin had moved the seat of the papacy to Geneva and set up the Consistorial Court of Discipline, the Church's power over every aspect of life had been absolute. The papacy itself had been abolished after Calvin's death, and a tangle of courts, colleges and councils, collectively known as the Magisterium, had grown up in its place."

The clerics of the Magisterium are characteri sed by authoritarianism, hatred of sexuality, a penchant for heresy-hunting and black vestments, and an animus towards intellectual inquiry. Or as Eva Green, in the role of the witch Serafina Pekkala, hisses, they're out to get "Free Will".

This is, in other words, the pocket image of the Catholic Church carried by many British liberals - except that, for Rome, read Geneva. Which brings us to Peter Viereck and his remark that "anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual". Every group needs its bogeymen to reinforce a collective identity and, for British liberalism, that function is usefully fulfilled by the Church.

As it happens, I rather enjoyed the rollicking pace and the scary bearfights of The Golden Compass, and I devoured the books. But the mental furniture that occupies the novels and the film - the creepy cleric who doesn't baulk at poison, the glowering institution that opposes free intellectual inquiry (and, oddly, is situated in the Royal Naval College) - why, it comes from a familiar part of the English nursery, the bogey of anti-popery.

Actually, to get some idea of the suppositions on which this kind of anti-Catholicism is based you need only return to the cinema to see Elizabeth. That, too, is redeemed by a luminous actress, Cate Blanchett, but it is a remarkable summary of the old Protestant clichés about Catholicism as the other, the enemy.

The Catholics in it are physically deformed, shrouded in darkness and forever doing funny things with dripping vats of blood-red dye, and Philip of Spain goes around clutching not one rosary but several (how many does a man need?). Elizabeth, by contrast, is bathed in light just to illustrate that she embodies a kind of proto-Enlightenment - she kicks off by declaring that she will judge her subjects by their actions, not beliefs - and she rounds off her exhortation to the troops at Tilbury by declaring that the Spanish ships carry "the Inquisition in their bowels". And, sure enough, when the ships go down, rosaries and a cross go floating to the bottom.

Of course, there are elements of truth in all this - that's the thing about clichés - yet it's also a travesty of history. Elizabeth's way of dealing with her Catholic problem resulted in the torture and deaths of some 200 Catholics - indeed, two conspirators are tortured in the film. But the moral of both films is simple: that the Catholic Church is the enemy of freedom and reason.

Of course, there is infinite scope in film, as in ordinary secular polemic, for a frank examination of the relationship between the Church and freedom of intellectual inquiry. It would be nice, incidentally, if that debate could be rather better informed. It was ironic to find Eva Green hissing that the Magisterium is out to get Free Will, given that the Catholic Church was once the great defender of that doctrine.

But to get back to Viereck's dictum, it is worth asking in passing whether Jews could now be depicted with the same idiom as is now being deployed against Catholics. You don't have to think particularly hard to conjure up the Semitic equivalent of the crazed popish assassin, the Jesuit plotter, the Vatican conspiracy against the nation state, do you? But while the stereotype of the Jew is dead, that of the Catholic Church as a force for evil has been given a new, and rather disagreeable, lease on life. Melanie McDonough, The New Statesman

Tip O' the Hat to "The Deacon's Bench"

What's unusual about this Advent Wreath?

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Pope’s Adventskranz has four RED candles

Thursday I [not moi] walked past the Vatican Christmas tree on my way up to Pope Benedict’s private library to serve as the pool reporter for the pope’s meeting with Albanian President Bamir Topi.

Despite all the hustle and bustle going on in the square to prepare for Christmas, inside the papal palace all is still calm. In fact, the only seasonal touch in evidence was a small Advent wreath or Adventskranz on a side table in the papal library. One candle was lit, signifying the first week of Advent.

But I was surprised to note that all four candles on the kranz were red! Red? What happened to tradition … and in the papal palace of all places?

As it turns out, the Germans, who gave us Advent wreaths in the first place, generally use four red candles. The practice of using three purple and one pink candle was an adaptation made to reflect the colors of the liturgical vestments used on the four Sundays preceding Christmas.

But, searching for “Adventskranz” on http://www.google.de/ revealed a variety of practices, so I turned to the Rome correspondents of the popular German tabloid, Bild, for some clarification. Andreas Englisch simply said, “I think they are always red.” And then he passed the phone to his colleague and wife, Kirsten, who knows a thing or two about decorating for the holidays in an exuberant German manner.

She said, “Using four red candles is the most traditional way. But, really, it is like decorating a tree, you can do what you want. But green and red are the Christmas colors and 80 percent of Germans would have an Adventskranz with four red candles in their house.” The practice in churches is more varied, she said. Catholic parishes would have either four red candles or three purple and a pink candle, while Lutheran parishes — with more austere buildings in Germany — would tend toward four white candles.

A quick search of the blogosphere demonstrates that even on Advent-wreath candle colors there has been a bit of controversy. Catholic News Service

Kersten: Battle for the Soul of Thomas University

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A decade ago, Prof. Frank Mach of the University of St. Thomas made a startling prediction in a paper he wrote for a conference on the institution's Roman Catholic identity. He suggested the university was on course to largely sever its ties with the church.

By the time St. Thomas' bicentennial rolls around in 2085, Mach wrote, any remaining link between St. Thomas and its Catholic roots "is likely to be vague and mostly symbolic."

In fact, events seem ahead of schedule.

Since St. Thomas' founding in 1885, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has held the position of chairman of its board of trustees. But Mach noted that "a vote of the trustees and a subsequent stroke of the pen," could make such connections with the church "vestiges of the past."

On Oct. 25, 2007, the vote that Mach foresaw took place.

St. Thomas' trustees voted to eliminate the archbishop's automatic position on the board. As a result, come next spring, for the first time since Archbishop John Ireland founded the institution, a sitting archbishop will not chair the St. Thomas board.

Moreover, he may not even have a seat on it.

In future years, the trustees can elect as chair whomever they wish: a layperson, technically even a Buddhist.

The vote severing this legal link with the archdiocese is the latest development in a long-running struggle for St. Thomas' soul.

Some of the institution's strongest programs, such as the Catholic Studies department and the law school, still maintain a strong Catholic identity. But external pressures and internal inclinations to secularize abound.

Some speculate that Archbishop Harry Flynn's upcoming retirement was a major factor in the board's vote. During Flynn's 12 years as chair, little has been done to resist the slide to secularization. He will be succeeded in 2008 by Coadjutor Archbishop John Nienstedt, who has a reputation for orthodoxy.

Keeping up appearances

In an apparent attempt to preserve the appearance of a relationship with the archdiocese, the board reelected the retiring Flynn -- as an individual -- to a five-year term as chairman. But when his tenure as archbishop expires next spring, nothing in the university's bylaws will require that the leader of the Catholic church in this region have any official role at the university.

"I found this action very, very disturbing -- it was clearly directed at Archbishop Nienstedt," said Tom Mooney of St. Paul, a St. Thomas alumnus and donor. Many St. Thomas alums are concerned about the "erosion" of the institution's Catholic identity, he said.

"I think there's a problem, and a lot of priests do," said the Rev. Paul LaFontaine of St. Charles Borromeo parish in St. Anthony. "The archbishop is the chief teacher of the faith in the diocese. He ought to be part of the academic community, and respected and regarded as such."

St. Thomas "always has been and always will be a Catholic university," said archdiocesan spokesman Dennis McGrath in a statement.

St. Thomas spokesman Doug Hennes said that a secular organization that reviews governing boards recommended the by-laws change in 2002. He added that the trustees were concerned that the new archbishop would be too busy to perform the chairman's role.

Did trustees ask Nienstedt if he would be too busy? Hennes referred the question to the archdiocese, and McGrath said he didn't know.

St. Thomas may now be poised to continue quickly down the path to secularization that other once-Christian institutions of higher education blazed years ago.

Who remembers that Macalester and Carleton colleges were founded, respectively, by the Presbyterian and Congregational churches? Harvard, Yale and the University of Chicago were also originally church-affiliated institutions. But academics often view religious affiliation as incompatible with elite university status, and believe that it interferes with their "academic freedom."

Rapid escalation

The pace of secularization at St. Thomas could escalate rapidly if two archdiocesan seminaries affiliated with the university -- St. Paul Seminary and St. John Vianney College Seminary -- move to cut ties. Both are independent archdiocesan corporations. St. Paul Seminary was once a separate organization and could possibly be again.

Why should St. Thomas' fate interest anyone who isn't Catholic? Because the widespread secularization of religiously affiliated colleges destroys true diversity in education. There are plenty of schools where students can learn professional skills and how to look out for Number One (and planet Earth).

We need a few places where they can be called to pursue something higher: a transcendent vision of faith and morality. StarTribune

Bishop Samuel Aquila: If we do not warn our people that choosing 'intrinsic evils' will have an impact on their salvation, I believe we are failing.

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One year before next November's national elections, U.S. Catholic bishops overwhelmingly approved new moral guidelines for Catholic voters that prioritize ending abortion and warn that political choices could affect a person's salvation.

The guidelines were approved November 14 in Baltimore by a vote of 221-4 during the semiannual assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The bishops have issued the election-year guidelines every four years since 1976, and with candidates from both parties currently making "faith outreach'' to voters a top priority, the bishops took pains to stake out their own role.

"This document is a summary of Catholic teaching; it is not a voter guide,'' said Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of the Brooklyn Diocese. "It calls us as bishops to help form consciences for political life, not tell people how to vote or whom to vote for or against. It offers a basic moral framework on what it means to be a Catholic and an American, a believer and a voter in this coming election year.''

For the first time, the document was approved by a full session of the bishops, rather than an administrative committee within the USCCB. The lack of debate, however, suggests that many differences among the bishops were hammered out behind closed doors. For instance, the bishops declined to address the issue of denying communion to politicians who support abortion rights—a practice that a handful of bishops have advocated during recent elections.

The new guidelines were aimed at Catholic voters, not politicians. The guidelines originally said that voters' choices could affect their "spiritual well-being.'' The bishops toughened that to say such choices "may affect the individual's salvation.''

Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo, North Dakota, pushed for the change. "As bishops we know that we are truly called to warn our people. If we do not warn our people that choosing 'intrinsic evils' will have an impact on their salvation, I believe we are failing.''

Other bishops, however, said the guidelines were made "to form consciences, not judge them.'' "We can't judge with a document the state of someone's soul,'' said DiMarzio. "To give the impression that one vote could endanger a person's salvation—I don't think we're ready to do that.''

The bishops highlight a range of issues—such as war, economic justice and immigration—in the 40-page document called "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.'' But they make it clear that abortion, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research should top the list.

Both front-runners in the 2008 presidential race—Democratic senator Hillary Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani—support abortion rights.

Will rank-and-file Catholics read and follow the bishops' ethical prescriptions? Polls demonstrate that a majority of Catholics differ with their bishops on issues such as abortion and vote for politicians who support abortion rights.

In other business, the bishops elected Cardinal Francis George of Chicago as their next president on November 13, choosing a Vatican veteran to lead the bishops conference through deep cuts in staff and mission. As president of the bishops conference for the next three years, George, 70, will be the American church's chief spokesperson and its primary channel to Rome.

Somewhat surprisingly, the bishops chose Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Chicago over Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis to head their committee on canonical affairs and church governance. Burke has been one of the church's most vocal proponents of using canon law to deny communion to politicians who favor abortion rights.

George's election comes as the conference's influence and reach are waning, observers say. Deep cuts in budget and staff, partly as a result of a sex abuse scandal that has cost the American church about $2 billion since 1950, may reduce its role in public life.

Moreover, the bishops have less appetite for sweeping statements on issues such as economic justice compared with the heyday of the conference in the 1970s and 1980s, said Jesuit priest Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Washington's Woodstock Theological Center. "This is a time when the bishops want to do less and spend less money," said Reese. -Christian Century

There is Still Hope For the Church in England

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The Bishop of Lancaster, Patrick O’Donoghue – known almost universally as “Pod” – has just issued a brave and radical set of instructions to Catholic schools in his diocese, telling them that they must be more Catholic.

From now on, says the bishop, all primary and secondary schools must base RE lessons on the Catechism; schools that do not have a chapel should build one; there must be a crucifix in every classroom – and the Church’s teaching on sex outside marriage and abortion must be upheld.

In the past I’ve slagged off the bishop something rotten for his ill-conceived plan to close churches and naïve Left-wing political pronouncements. But when it comes to the defence of the faith, “Pod” is fearless – unlike dreary Catholic educationalists who want to water it down lest it offend the Guardian.

Bishop O’Donoghue’s 60-page instruction to his diocesan schools, entitled “Fit for Mission?”, tells them that they must abandon an attitude that “limits our children’s faith to what they or their teachers personally consider ‘relevant’ ”.

He writes: “The tragic consequence of selection based on ‘relevance’ is that great truths are ignored or treated superficially, such as the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, the incarnation of the Son of God, the virginal conception of Mary, Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist.”

Prayer in schools is sometimes hollow and superficial, he says – so he wants to reintroduce adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and the rosary.

Bishop O’Donoghue has had a difficult time in Lancaster, which famously lost millions of pounds after overspending on bureaucracy. As I say, I’ve been very harsh on him in the past. But I’m beginning to understand why one of London’s best-known parish priests told me the other day: “Whatever mistakes he has made, Pod is in a class of his own when it comes to upholding the faith.” "Holy Smoke", Telegraph