Behind closed doors today, Benedict XVI met the five bishops who have investigated the Legionaries of Christ. They presented the final report to the pope about the Apostolic Visitation of the Legionaries which began in July 2009 and ended last March 15. Watch this report from "Rome Reports."
Friday, April 30, 2010
Today on Kresta - April 30, 2010
Talking about the Things That Matter Most on April 30, 2010
4:00 – "If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die": How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor
It was this week in 1999 that violence once again flared in East Timor – the end result of which would be a vote for independence and an end to Indonesian occupation later that year. Historian Geoffrey Robinson is here to examine the tumultuous events surrounding East Timor's 1999 attempt to gain independence from Indonesia. With expertise and an insider's perspective - a principal researcher for Amnesty International in the 1990s, Robinson joined the UN mission overseeing East Timor's independence referendum – Geoffrey offers rare insight into the country's internal turmoil. Particularly riveting are Robinson's descriptions of the days preceding the historic vote to separate from Indonesia: "dressed in their Sunday best, some East Timorese left home in the middle of the night to reach the polling station by dawn." The importance of that vote, in which "98.6 percent of those who had registered cast ballots," is hard to overstate. Despite the overwhelming brutality of the story, and a bleak assessment of actions from the UN and international community, Robinson manages to cap his detailed report with a hopeful note.
4:30 – A Twisted Faith: A Minister's Obsession and the Murder That Destroyed a Church
On December 26, 1997, near the affluent community of Bainbridge Island off the coast of Seattle, a house went up in flames. In it was the shy, beloved minister’s wife Dawn Hacheney. When the fire was extinguished, investigators found only her charred remains. Her husband Nick was visibly devastated by the loss. What investigators failed to note, however, was that Dawn’s lungs didn’t contain smoke. Was she dead before the fire began? So begins this true crime story that’s unlike any other. It investigates Nick Hacheney, a philandering minister who had been carrying on with several women in the months before and just after his wife’s death. He would be convicted for the murder five years to the day after the crime. One of the foremost names in true crime, author Gregg Olsen joins us to tell this gripping and truly unforgettable story of a man whose charisma and desire rocked an entire community.
5:00 – Catholic Scripture Study
Catholic Scripture Study (CSS) is an international Bible Study Program ideal for any parish or group looking for an inspiring Bible study that is completely faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church. The study commentaries are written by leading Scripture scholars and authors, and each study contains references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, papal encyclicals, and writings of the early Church Fathers and the saints. Additional resources are available to study leaders and students on the CSS Program Website, including an Ask the Author forum, as well as maps, pictures, and articles. The full-length program includes lectures on DVD that accompany each week's lesson. The lectures are given by Catholic priests. Best of all, because the program and Study Leader Kit provides all the tools, one need not be an experienced catechist to implement and lead a CSS class. Any lay person can establish this truly life-changing program in their parish or community. Additionally, CSS Program is the only Scripture study program with a team of dedicated volunteer Regional Directors who provide support to each study leader throughout the program. Steve Ray is here to discuss our life in the Srciptures.
5:40 – Amish Grace
On Oct. 2, 2005, a gunman entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. In front of twenty-five horrified pupils, thirty-two-year-old Charles Roberts ordered the boys and the teacher to leave. After tying the legs of the ten remaining girls, Roberts opened fire on all of them, killing five and leaving the others critically wounded. He then shot himself as police stormed the building. His motivation? “I'm angry at God for taking my little daughter,” he told the children before the massacre. The blood was barely dry on the schoolhouse floor when Amish parents brought words of forgiveness to the family of the one who had slain their children. The outside world was incredulous that such forgiveness could be offered so quickly for such a heinous crime. We explore the many questions this story raises about the religious beliefs and habits that led the Amish to forgive so quickly. Donald Kraybill authored a book entitled Amish Grace which has now been made into a Lifetime movie. Actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley is our guest.
5:50 – Letters to God
Tyler Doherty is an extraordinary eight-year-old boy. Surrounded by a loving family and community, and armed with the courage of his faith, he faces his daily battle against cancer with bravery and grace. To Tyler, God is a friend, a teacher and the ultimate pen pal - Tyler's prayers take the form of letters, which he composes and mails on a daily basis. The letters find their way into the hands of Brady McDaniels, a beleaguered postman standing at a crossroads in his life. At first, he is confused and conflicted over what to do with the letters. Over time he begins to form a friendship with the Doherty family - getting to know not just Tyler but his tough, tender yet overwhelmed mom, stalwart grandmother and teen brother Ben - who are each trying to stand strong against the doubts that come with the chaotic turn their lives have taken. Moved by Tyler's courage, Brady realizes what he must do with the letters, a surprise decision that will transform his heart and uplift his newfound friends and community - in an exhilarating act of testament to the contagious effect of one boy's unwavering faith against the odds. We look at the film “Letters to God” with Producer / Director David Nixon.
4:00 – "If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die": How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor
It was this week in 1999 that violence once again flared in East Timor – the end result of which would be a vote for independence and an end to Indonesian occupation later that year. Historian Geoffrey Robinson is here to examine the tumultuous events surrounding East Timor's 1999 attempt to gain independence from Indonesia. With expertise and an insider's perspective - a principal researcher for Amnesty International in the 1990s, Robinson joined the UN mission overseeing East Timor's independence referendum – Geoffrey offers rare insight into the country's internal turmoil. Particularly riveting are Robinson's descriptions of the days preceding the historic vote to separate from Indonesia: "dressed in their Sunday best, some East Timorese left home in the middle of the night to reach the polling station by dawn." The importance of that vote, in which "98.6 percent of those who had registered cast ballots," is hard to overstate. Despite the overwhelming brutality of the story, and a bleak assessment of actions from the UN and international community, Robinson manages to cap his detailed report with a hopeful note.
4:30 – A Twisted Faith: A Minister's Obsession and the Murder That Destroyed a Church
On December 26, 1997, near the affluent community of Bainbridge Island off the coast of Seattle, a house went up in flames. In it was the shy, beloved minister’s wife Dawn Hacheney. When the fire was extinguished, investigators found only her charred remains. Her husband Nick was visibly devastated by the loss. What investigators failed to note, however, was that Dawn’s lungs didn’t contain smoke. Was she dead before the fire began? So begins this true crime story that’s unlike any other. It investigates Nick Hacheney, a philandering minister who had been carrying on with several women in the months before and just after his wife’s death. He would be convicted for the murder five years to the day after the crime. One of the foremost names in true crime, author Gregg Olsen joins us to tell this gripping and truly unforgettable story of a man whose charisma and desire rocked an entire community.
5:00 – Catholic Scripture Study
Catholic Scripture Study (CSS) is an international Bible Study Program ideal for any parish or group looking for an inspiring Bible study that is completely faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church. The study commentaries are written by leading Scripture scholars and authors, and each study contains references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, papal encyclicals, and writings of the early Church Fathers and the saints. Additional resources are available to study leaders and students on the CSS Program Website, including an Ask the Author forum, as well as maps, pictures, and articles. The full-length program includes lectures on DVD that accompany each week's lesson. The lectures are given by Catholic priests. Best of all, because the program and Study Leader Kit provides all the tools, one need not be an experienced catechist to implement and lead a CSS class. Any lay person can establish this truly life-changing program in their parish or community. Additionally, CSS Program is the only Scripture study program with a team of dedicated volunteer Regional Directors who provide support to each study leader throughout the program. Steve Ray is here to discuss our life in the Srciptures.
5:40 – Amish Grace
On Oct. 2, 2005, a gunman entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. In front of twenty-five horrified pupils, thirty-two-year-old Charles Roberts ordered the boys and the teacher to leave. After tying the legs of the ten remaining girls, Roberts opened fire on all of them, killing five and leaving the others critically wounded. He then shot himself as police stormed the building. His motivation? “I'm angry at God for taking my little daughter,” he told the children before the massacre. The blood was barely dry on the schoolhouse floor when Amish parents brought words of forgiveness to the family of the one who had slain their children. The outside world was incredulous that such forgiveness could be offered so quickly for such a heinous crime. We explore the many questions this story raises about the religious beliefs and habits that led the Amish to forgive so quickly. Donald Kraybill authored a book entitled Amish Grace which has now been made into a Lifetime movie. Actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley is our guest.
5:50 – Letters to God
Tyler Doherty is an extraordinary eight-year-old boy. Surrounded by a loving family and community, and armed with the courage of his faith, he faces his daily battle against cancer with bravery and grace. To Tyler, God is a friend, a teacher and the ultimate pen pal - Tyler's prayers take the form of letters, which he composes and mails on a daily basis. The letters find their way into the hands of Brady McDaniels, a beleaguered postman standing at a crossroads in his life. At first, he is confused and conflicted over what to do with the letters. Over time he begins to form a friendship with the Doherty family - getting to know not just Tyler but his tough, tender yet overwhelmed mom, stalwart grandmother and teen brother Ben - who are each trying to stand strong against the doubts that come with the chaotic turn their lives have taken. Moved by Tyler's courage, Brady realizes what he must do with the letters, a surprise decision that will transform his heart and uplift his newfound friends and community - in an exhilarating act of testament to the contagious effect of one boy's unwavering faith against the odds. We look at the film “Letters to God” with Producer / Director David Nixon.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Proposed Law in Mexico Would Send Doctors Who Don't Suggest Abortion to Jail
Doctors who fail to inform their pregnant patients that they have the legal right to have an abortion -- or who refuse to refer women to doctors who perform abortions -- could be thrown into the slammer for up to four years, if the dominant political party in Mexico City's legislature has its way.
Doctors who fail to inform their pregnant patients that they have the legal right to have an abortion -- or who refuse to refer women to doctors who perform abortions -- could be thrown into jail for up to four years, if the dominant political party in Mexico City's legislature has its way.
A bill has been co-introduced by the city's Health Committee chairwoman and a leading legislator that would mandate that all pregnant women in Mexico City be informed that they have the right to have an abortion in their first three months.
The bill, which is being debated in the legislature and is expected to pass, has the support of more than a dozen members of Mexico City’s ruling Democratic Revolution party -- the same party that passed the 2007 law that legalized abortion in Mexico’s capital city.
If passed into law, doctors who do not discuss abortion with their pregnant patients will be subject to penalties that include one to four years in prison, heavy fines and the loss of their medical licenses.
Legal analysts in Mexico say the bill is the pro-choice activists' latest weapon in Mexico's increasingly contentious war over abortion.
The legislator who introduced the bill, Beatriz Rojas, says the law is needed because “moral or religious concepts intend to influence the decision of the woman, misinforming her or deceiving her, regarding the decision to interrupt the pregnancy."
Conservative groups are predictably aghast.
“This is absurd and stupid,” said Patricia Lopez Mancera, director of the Center for Women’s Studies and Comprehensive Formation in Cancun. “They say doctors should tell the pregnant women about it and recommend abortion -- can you imagine?”
“This is from the Nazi feminists in Mexico who are looking for a culture of death.”
The initiative was introduced on April 22, the third anniversary of the legalization of abortion in Mexico City through the first three months of pregnancy.
John Ackerman, a legal analyst and professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the introduction of the bill shows how contentious the debate over abortion has become in the city in the three years since the law was passed. He said it also symbolizes an increasing cultural divide in Mexico, whose population was 88 percent Roman Catholic in 2000, according to census figures, but which historically has been more secular than the United States.
The country's religious right was prevented, both by public opinion and the law, from participating in politics prior to 2007 -- but that all changed when abortion was legalized, Ackerman said.
Following Mexico City's decision to legalize abortion, 17 of the country’s 32 states amended their constitutions to include a clause that protects human life from the moment of conception.
“Mexico City took these steps and there’s been a real strong backlash by the religious right in Mexico in a way we’ve never seen it before,” Ackerman said. “The culture wars have arrived in Mexico.”
He said he was not particularly surprised by the legislators' new initiative and took it as a demonstration of the intense nature of cultural and political dispute in Mexico City -- and as the pro-choice ruling party’s latest weapon in the war over abortion.
“This law, it’s to try to break the back of the religiously inspired who’ve really become a national resistance,” he said. “This is a response to extremely aggressive moral religious politics that’s taken off since approval of this law and the way politicians and [the] religious right have tried to undermine the application of this law.”
But Mancera says the Mexico City initiative is only fueling the conservative charge against the abortion rights movement.
“All this is doing is giving us more strength,” she said. “We can’t believe this. They will be now putting doctors in prison for something that can go against their values and principles.
“They are seeing that finally the pro-family and pro-women society is really sticking up and they are reacting and somebody has to stop them and stop all this craziness.”
Ackerman said the proposed law indicates that some doctors in Mexico City are refusing to inform patients of their right to an abortion. And he said that while middle-class women who read the newspapers are aware that abortion is legal, poor women probably don't know.
“Doctors have to inform women of their possibility of aborting -- this means that there’s lots of doctors that are really trying to fool these women that this is not the case and they don’t have these rights,” he said.
“There’s a long tradition of rights existing in the Constitution but in practice it is often lacking in implementation. That is why these kinds of laws are important.”
Ackerman disputes that the bill's implications for doctors are severe, because the sentence calls for 1-to-4-years, and people convicted of crimes punishable by a short prison term don’t end up going to prison.
“It’s a little bit exaggerated to say they’ll send doctors to jail,” he said.
According to Steve Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute, there are 8.5 million residents in Mexico City proper -- the so-called Federal District -- including 2.24 million women of reproductive age.
Doctors who fail to inform their pregnant patients that they have the legal right to have an abortion -- or who refuse to refer women to doctors who perform abortions -- could be thrown into jail for up to four years, if the dominant political party in Mexico City's legislature has its way.A bill has been co-introduced by the city's Health Committee chairwoman and a leading legislator that would mandate that all pregnant women in Mexico City be informed that they have the right to have an abortion in their first three months.
The bill, which is being debated in the legislature and is expected to pass, has the support of more than a dozen members of Mexico City’s ruling Democratic Revolution party -- the same party that passed the 2007 law that legalized abortion in Mexico’s capital city.
If passed into law, doctors who do not discuss abortion with their pregnant patients will be subject to penalties that include one to four years in prison, heavy fines and the loss of their medical licenses.
Legal analysts in Mexico say the bill is the pro-choice activists' latest weapon in Mexico's increasingly contentious war over abortion.
The legislator who introduced the bill, Beatriz Rojas, says the law is needed because “moral or religious concepts intend to influence the decision of the woman, misinforming her or deceiving her, regarding the decision to interrupt the pregnancy."
Conservative groups are predictably aghast.
“This is absurd and stupid,” said Patricia Lopez Mancera, director of the Center for Women’s Studies and Comprehensive Formation in Cancun. “They say doctors should tell the pregnant women about it and recommend abortion -- can you imagine?”
“This is from the Nazi feminists in Mexico who are looking for a culture of death.”
The initiative was introduced on April 22, the third anniversary of the legalization of abortion in Mexico City through the first three months of pregnancy.
The country's religious right was prevented, both by public opinion and the law, from participating in politics prior to 2007 -- but that all changed when abortion was legalized, Ackerman said.
Following Mexico City's decision to legalize abortion, 17 of the country’s 32 states amended their constitutions to include a clause that protects human life from the moment of conception.
“Mexico City took these steps and there’s been a real strong backlash by the religious right in Mexico in a way we’ve never seen it before,” Ackerman said. “The culture wars have arrived in Mexico.”
He said he was not particularly surprised by the legislators' new initiative and took it as a demonstration of the intense nature of cultural and political dispute in Mexico City -- and as the pro-choice ruling party’s latest weapon in the war over abortion.
“This law, it’s to try to break the back of the religiously inspired who’ve really become a national resistance,” he said. “This is a response to extremely aggressive moral religious politics that’s taken off since approval of this law and the way politicians and [the] religious right have tried to undermine the application of this law.”
But Mancera says the Mexico City initiative is only fueling the conservative charge against the abortion rights movement.
“They are seeing that finally the pro-family and pro-women society is really sticking up and they are reacting and somebody has to stop them and stop all this craziness.”
Ackerman said the proposed law indicates that some doctors in Mexico City are refusing to inform patients of their right to an abortion. And he said that while middle-class women who read the newspapers are aware that abortion is legal, poor women probably don't know.
“Doctors have to inform women of their possibility of aborting -- this means that there’s lots of doctors that are really trying to fool these women that this is not the case and they don’t have these rights,” he said.
“There’s a long tradition of rights existing in the Constitution but in practice it is often lacking in implementation. That is why these kinds of laws are important.”
Ackerman disputes that the bill's implications for doctors are severe, because the sentence calls for 1-to-4-years, and people convicted of crimes punishable by a short prison term don’t end up going to prison.
“It’s a little bit exaggerated to say they’ll send doctors to jail,” he said.
According to Steve Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute, there are 8.5 million residents in Mexico City proper -- the so-called Federal District -- including 2.24 million women of reproductive age.
Today on Kresta - April 29, 2010
Talking about the "things that matter most" on April 29
Live from the national book launch of “Good Returns” by George Schwartz of the Ave Maria Catholic Values Funds
4:00 – Good Returns: Making Money by Morally Responsible Investing
Offering time-tested wisdom on the complexities of the investment process, George Schwartz is here to examine the difference between socially responsible investing and morally responsible investing—the latter of which screens companies according to a clear set of criteria: those who support or service the abortion industry, producers and distributors of pornography, and companies involved in embryonic stem cell research. Based on this set of guidelines, as well as the success of the Ave Maria Mutual fund, George demonstrates that high returns are achievable while investing in a morally responsible way. Also included is insightful commentary on the current political policies affecting the country’s financial state.
4:40 – Wall of Separation: The Phrase That Divided America
The Supreme Court has ruled that a cross can remain at a WWII Memorial in the Mojave Desert, a decision that comes on the heels of a federal court decision which struck down the National Day of Prayer as unconstitutional. Will we ever have clarity on the establishment clause? We talk with Brian Godawa, award-winning screenwriter of the documentary “Wall of Separation: The Phrase That Divided America.” The documentary takes a look at how our understanding of church and state relations has changed through history by means of Supreme Court decisions and cultural pressures. From Everson vs. Board of Education to the most recent decisions, this documentary raises questions: Should "original intent" guide modern interpretation? Should government be secular, or should religion have influence on the State? There are no easy answers to this ongoing debate that polarizes the nation.
5:00 – Kresta Comments - Censorship: Comedy Central, Islam, and the Tea Party Movement
5:20 – Morally Responsible Investing
As we broadcast live from the National Launch of George Schwartz’s book “Good Returns,” we talk with Thomas Monaghan. Tom had an important role in the founding of the Ave Maria Mutual Funds as a co-founder. We talk about screens and filters on investments, the “family of funds” and Tom’s main priority – Catholic Education.
5:40 – HBO’s “You Don’t Know Jack” (Kevorkian)
HBO has aired its film “You Don’t Know Jack,” of course, the story of the infamous Dr. Death, Jack Kevorkian, who gained notoriety in the late 80s and throughout the 90s for promoting and committing physician assisted suicide. Convicted of 2nd degree homicide in 1999, Kevorkian spent 8 years in prison. Widely assumed to be a positive portrayal of Kevorkian, one pro-life activist who helped to bring Kevorkian down, says “I don't think they glamorized him (Kevorkian). I think he came off as a pathetic little freak." We talk to Lynn Mills and Rita Marker from the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force.
Live from the national book launch of “Good Returns” by George Schwartz of the Ave Maria Catholic Values Funds
4:00 – Good Returns: Making Money by Morally Responsible Investing
Offering time-tested wisdom on the complexities of the investment process, George Schwartz is here to examine the difference between socially responsible investing and morally responsible investing—the latter of which screens companies according to a clear set of criteria: those who support or service the abortion industry, producers and distributors of pornography, and companies involved in embryonic stem cell research. Based on this set of guidelines, as well as the success of the Ave Maria Mutual fund, George demonstrates that high returns are achievable while investing in a morally responsible way. Also included is insightful commentary on the current political policies affecting the country’s financial state.
4:40 – Wall of Separation: The Phrase That Divided America
The Supreme Court has ruled that a cross can remain at a WWII Memorial in the Mojave Desert, a decision that comes on the heels of a federal court decision which struck down the National Day of Prayer as unconstitutional. Will we ever have clarity on the establishment clause? We talk with Brian Godawa, award-winning screenwriter of the documentary “Wall of Separation: The Phrase That Divided America.” The documentary takes a look at how our understanding of church and state relations has changed through history by means of Supreme Court decisions and cultural pressures. From Everson vs. Board of Education to the most recent decisions, this documentary raises questions: Should "original intent" guide modern interpretation? Should government be secular, or should religion have influence on the State? There are no easy answers to this ongoing debate that polarizes the nation.
5:00 – Kresta Comments - Censorship: Comedy Central, Islam, and the Tea Party Movement
5:20 – Morally Responsible Investing
As we broadcast live from the National Launch of George Schwartz’s book “Good Returns,” we talk with Thomas Monaghan. Tom had an important role in the founding of the Ave Maria Mutual Funds as a co-founder. We talk about screens and filters on investments, the “family of funds” and Tom’s main priority – Catholic Education.
5:40 – HBO’s “You Don’t Know Jack” (Kevorkian)
HBO has aired its film “You Don’t Know Jack,” of course, the story of the infamous Dr. Death, Jack Kevorkian, who gained notoriety in the late 80s and throughout the 90s for promoting and committing physician assisted suicide. Convicted of 2nd degree homicide in 1999, Kevorkian spent 8 years in prison. Widely assumed to be a positive portrayal of Kevorkian, one pro-life activist who helped to bring Kevorkian down, says “I don't think they glamorized him (Kevorkian). I think he came off as a pathetic little freak." We talk to Lynn Mills and Rita Marker from the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Weigel rips Hans Kung on Pope attack, waits for real response
Thanks to Catholic News Agency for this story.
George Weigel, who recently took the dissenting theologian Fr. Hans Kung to task for his attacks against Pope Benedict, said he would welcome a response from the priest “in which the issues were truly engaged.” But, the scholar qualified, “another Swiss volcanic eruption wouldn't serve much purpose.”
George Weigel, who recently took the dissenting theologian Fr. Hans Kung to task for his attacks against Pope Benedict, said he would welcome a response from the priest “in which the issues were truly engaged.” But, the scholar qualified, “another Swiss volcanic eruption wouldn't serve much purpose.”In an April 16 open letter to the Catholic bishops of the world, published in the Irish Times and other venues, Kung criticized Pope Benedict’s engagement of Protestants, Jews and Muslims; his support for Catholic teaching on birth control and condoms; and his approach to the Second Vatican Council.
Kung also commented specifically on the sexual abuse controversy, saying:
“There is no denying the fact that the worldwide system of covering up sexual crimes committed by clerics was engineered by the Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Ratzinger (1981-2005).”
George Weigel responded to this in an April 21 letter of his own, published on the website of the journal First Things.
When asked by CNA last Friday why he felt compelled to respond to Kung's letter, Weigel said that he was “struck by the extraordinary vitriol of the article and by its misstatements of fact, both of which required a response.” Weigel added that he would welcome a response from Kung “in which the issues were truly engaged,” but that “another Swiss volcanic eruption wouldn't serve much purpose.”
On April 21, he called Kung’s charge against Pope Benedict “a tissue of falsehoods.” The theologian’s comment, Weigel said, was “manifestly ignorant” of the fact that sexual abuse cases were not under then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s oversight until 2001.
This ignorance forfeits “any claim to be taken seriously on this, or indeed any other matter involving the Roman Curia and the central governance of the Catholic Church.”
Weigel noted his own criticisms of the mishandling of abuse cases by individual bishops and by Vatican authorities before then-Cardinal Ratzinger began to press for reforms.
Judging from this experience, Weigel said Kung’s description of Cardinal Ratzinger’s role was “ludicrous to anyone familiar with the relevant history.”
That description was also belied by “the experience of American bishops who consistently found Ratzinger thoughtful, helpful, deeply concerned about the corruption of the priesthood by a small minority of abusers, and distressed by the incompetence or malfeasance of bishops.”
He especially criticized the Irish Times editors who subtitled Kung’s letter with the claim the Pope was “directly responsible for engineering the global cover-up of child rape perpetrated by priests, according to this open letter to all Catholic bishops.”
Weigel said this was a “grotesque falsification of the truth” and “shameful.”
He suggested that Kung owes Pope Benedict XVI a public apology for “a calumny that I pray was informed in part by ignorance (if culpable ignorance).”
“I assure you that I am committed to a thoroughgoing reform of the Roman Curia and the episcopate,” Weigel’s letter concluded. “But there is no path to true reform in the Church that does not run through the steep and narrow valley of the truth. The truth was butchered in your article in the Irish Times. And that means that you have set back the cause of reform.”
Fr. Hans Kung served as an expert at the Second Vatican Council with Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. He is now a well-known dissenter from Catholic teaching on many points and has been barred from teaching Catholic theology.
Today Warns About Ads Geared To Kids...Then Breaks for Ad Geared To Kids
NBC's Matt Lauer, on Wednesday's "Today"teases a segment about the evils of businesses advertising to kids, right before going to an actual ad geared to kids. This is classic. Watch and enjoy.
Today on Kresta - April 28, 2010
Talking about the "things that matter most" on April 28
4:00 – Kresta Comments
4:40 – Wall Street Reform and the Presidential Debt Commission
As Congress continues to battle over a Wall Street Reform bill, President Barack Obama has launched the Presidential Debt Commission. Yesterday, the President said that the commission will suggest ways to rein in soaring U.S. budget deficits and told them to consider every possible remedy to put the country on a path toward fiscal health. Obama said the 18-member bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, which held its first meeting, would be free to work without limitations. He declined to discuss what revenue increases or spending cuts the panel should consider. The U.S. deficit was $1.4 trillion in 2009, nearly 10 percent of the overall economy, and it could be higher this year. We talk with George Schwartz, author of Good Returns: Making Money by Morally Responsible Investing.
5:00 – Disney’s “Oceans”
Disneynature’s debut film, Earth, was a 90-minute sifting of “Planet Earth,” the BBC’s massive documentary miniseries about life on Earth. Fans of “Planet Earth” and its marine companion series “Blue Planet” might wonder whether Disneynature’s new film Oceans was likewise distilled from the latter series. It’s not. Wider in scope and subject matter, this new film is no less breathtakingly up-close and personal with its subjects. Nature docs thrive on firsts, and Oceans has some eye-poppers. Steven Greydanus has the review.
5:20 – High court rules cross doesn't violate separation of church and state
The Supreme Court narrowly ruled today that a white cross, erected as a war memorial and sitting on national parkland in the Mojave Desert, does not violate the constitutional separation of church and state. The 5-4 majority said Congress acted properly when it tried to transfer land around the Mojave Memorial Cross to veterans groups, an effort to eliminate any Establishment Clause violation. The land then would have been declared a national memorial. A federal appeals panel had previously blocked that land swap. Attorney Charles LiMandri is here to discuss this ruling.
5:40 – 50 Years After “The Pill”
An end to poverty. A cure for divorce. The elimination of unwed pregnancy. Fifty years ago next month, when the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would approve the oral contraceptive, these were the highest expectations for it. Janet Smith is here to look at the “Pill” – 50 years later. She says that the science is unequivocal. Fifty years after FDA approval, chemical contraception is bad for women, couples, society and the environment.
4:00 – Kresta Comments
4:40 – Wall Street Reform and the Presidential Debt Commission
As Congress continues to battle over a Wall Street Reform bill, President Barack Obama has launched the Presidential Debt Commission. Yesterday, the President said that the commission will suggest ways to rein in soaring U.S. budget deficits and told them to consider every possible remedy to put the country on a path toward fiscal health. Obama said the 18-member bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, which held its first meeting, would be free to work without limitations. He declined to discuss what revenue increases or spending cuts the panel should consider. The U.S. deficit was $1.4 trillion in 2009, nearly 10 percent of the overall economy, and it could be higher this year. We talk with George Schwartz, author of Good Returns: Making Money by Morally Responsible Investing.
5:00 – Disney’s “Oceans”
Disneynature’s debut film, Earth, was a 90-minute sifting of “Planet Earth,” the BBC’s massive documentary miniseries about life on Earth. Fans of “Planet Earth” and its marine companion series “Blue Planet” might wonder whether Disneynature’s new film Oceans was likewise distilled from the latter series. It’s not. Wider in scope and subject matter, this new film is no less breathtakingly up-close and personal with its subjects. Nature docs thrive on firsts, and Oceans has some eye-poppers. Steven Greydanus has the review.
5:20 – High court rules cross doesn't violate separation of church and state
The Supreme Court narrowly ruled today that a white cross, erected as a war memorial and sitting on national parkland in the Mojave Desert, does not violate the constitutional separation of church and state. The 5-4 majority said Congress acted properly when it tried to transfer land around the Mojave Memorial Cross to veterans groups, an effort to eliminate any Establishment Clause violation. The land then would have been declared a national memorial. A federal appeals panel had previously blocked that land swap. Attorney Charles LiMandri is here to discuss this ruling.
5:40 – 50 Years After “The Pill”
An end to poverty. A cure for divorce. The elimination of unwed pregnancy. Fifty years ago next month, when the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would approve the oral contraceptive, these were the highest expectations for it. Janet Smith is here to look at the “Pill” – 50 years later. She says that the science is unequivocal. Fifty years after FDA approval, chemical contraception is bad for women, couples, society and the environment.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Outrageous Statement of the Day
Back when Bush complained about the media, Keith Olbermann responded by reading a Edward R. Murrow quote that said "accusation depends on evidence and due process of law." But post-2008, I guess that went out the window. I'm still perplexed as to why Olberman does not allow any debate or dissent on his show. He only interviews lefty friends.Never a divergent point of view. At least Rachel Maddow will talk to people she disagrees with.
Today on Kresta - April 27, 2010
Talking about the "things that matter most" on April 27
4:00 – Divorced. Catholic. Now What?
Divorce is hard. And despite the Catholic Church's teaching against divorce, Catholics divorce at the same rate as the rest of society. Especially for Catholics, divorce is a complicated issue that is hard on spouses, children, family and friends – it affects us all. When a Roman Catholic experiences divorce, there is much confusion over just what the annulment process is and what it's significance is, as well as other issues that create uncertainty, such as being able to receive Communion, what the Catholic Church's views on dating are, and certainly the issue of remarriage. But most importantly, Catholic men and women struggle to find support and healing from divorce. Lisa Duffy has suffered through the pain of being a divorced Catholic and knew that after seven years intense struggle, spiritual growth, personal triumphs, and finally remarriage in the Church and the birth of three miracle children, her one desire was to help others who were suffering find hope and healing. She is the co-author of, Divorced. Catholic. Now What? Navigating Your Life After Divorce and joins us to discuss the opportunity for a tremendous healing experience, no matter how long it's been since a divorce and what the family and friends of a divorcee can do to aid the process.
5:00 – The Reformation Project
Reformation - The usual term for the religious movement which made its appearance in Western Europe in the sixteenth century, and which, while ostensibly aiming at an internal renewal of the Church, really led to a great revolt against it, and an abandonment of the principal Christian beliefs. Due to the great amount of ignorance and misconception about the Reformation, Fr. Mitch Pacwa has embarked on a 10-part video series entitled The Reformation Project. We take a look.
4:00 – Divorced. Catholic. Now What?
Divorce is hard. And despite the Catholic Church's teaching against divorce, Catholics divorce at the same rate as the rest of society. Especially for Catholics, divorce is a complicated issue that is hard on spouses, children, family and friends – it affects us all. When a Roman Catholic experiences divorce, there is much confusion over just what the annulment process is and what it's significance is, as well as other issues that create uncertainty, such as being able to receive Communion, what the Catholic Church's views on dating are, and certainly the issue of remarriage. But most importantly, Catholic men and women struggle to find support and healing from divorce. Lisa Duffy has suffered through the pain of being a divorced Catholic and knew that after seven years intense struggle, spiritual growth, personal triumphs, and finally remarriage in the Church and the birth of three miracle children, her one desire was to help others who were suffering find hope and healing. She is the co-author of, Divorced. Catholic. Now What? Navigating Your Life After Divorce and joins us to discuss the opportunity for a tremendous healing experience, no matter how long it's been since a divorce and what the family and friends of a divorcee can do to aid the process.
5:00 – The Reformation Project
Reformation - The usual term for the religious movement which made its appearance in Western Europe in the sixteenth century, and which, while ostensibly aiming at an internal renewal of the Church, really led to a great revolt against it, and an abandonment of the principal Christian beliefs. Due to the great amount of ignorance and misconception about the Reformation, Fr. Mitch Pacwa has embarked on a 10-part video series entitled The Reformation Project. We take a look.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Did you notice? Timothy McVeigh & Tea Partiers both begin with T?
All fallacious arguments are a form of intellectual transgression related to "Overgeneralization" or "The argument of the beard." You may be unfamiliar with the second of these which always tickles me.
It's power derives from the apparent impossibility of distinguishing at precisely what point an unkempt spread of hair on an adolescent's face becomes a beard. "How many hairs does it take to make a beard?" "Oh, you can't answer me then you don't know the difference between Mr. Clean and Allen Ginsburg."
Here's a taste: [Democrats are trying to shore up the President's popularity by dismissing or trashing his opposition.] "Hence, Bill Clinton energetically on the stump, summoning all his elder statesman’s dignity (please, no giggling) in the cause of comparing tea partiers to Timothy McVeigh. Oh, c’mon, they’ve got everything in common. They both want to reduce the size of government, the late Mr. McVeigh through the use of fertilizer bombs, the tea partiers through control of federal spending, but these are mere nuanced differences of means, not ends. Also, both “Tim” and “Tea” are three-letter words beginning with “T”: Picture him upon your knee, just Tea for Tim and Tim for Tea, you’re for him and he’s for thee, completely interchangeable. To lend the point more gravitas, President Clinton packed his reading glasses and affected his scholarly look, with the spectacles pushed down toward the end of his nose, as if he’s trying to determine whether that’s his 10 a.m. intern shuffling toward him across the broadloom or a rabid armadillo Al Gore brought along for the Earth Day photo op." Enjoy the full column here.
Propagandists of all sorts love using the argument from the beard. It assumes that people cannot perceive important distinctions or distinguish one thing from another. The politics of personal destruction rely heavily on these two intellectual acts of malice aforethough--- whether from left or right. Mark Steyn does a masterful and fun job at illustrating.
Here's a taste: [Democrats are trying to shore up the President's popularity by dismissing or trashing his opposition.] "Hence, Bill Clinton energetically on the stump, summoning all his elder statesman’s dignity (please, no giggling) in the cause of comparing tea partiers to Timothy McVeigh. Oh, c’mon, they’ve got everything in common. They both want to reduce the size of government, the late Mr. McVeigh through the use of fertilizer bombs, the tea partiers through control of federal spending, but these are mere nuanced differences of means, not ends. Also, both “Tim” and “Tea” are three-letter words beginning with “T”: Picture him upon your knee, just Tea for Tim and Tim for Tea, you’re for him and he’s for thee, completely interchangeable. To lend the point more gravitas, President Clinton packed his reading glasses and affected his scholarly look, with the spectacles pushed down toward the end of his nose, as if he’s trying to determine whether that’s his 10 a.m. intern shuffling toward him across the broadloom or a rabid armadillo Al Gore brought along for the Earth Day photo op." Enjoy the full column here. Friday, April 23, 2010
Outrageous Statement of the Day
Academy Award-winning Director James Cameron said that climate change is “as great as the threat” the United States faced in World War II. Enough said.
Today on Kresta - April 23, 2010
Talking about the "things that matter most" on Apr. 23
"Best of Kresta in the Afternoon" this week as Al and Nick participate in the Ave Maria Radio Membership Drive, necessary to keep programs like "Kresta in the Afternoon" on the air and distributed to over 150 stations across the country. If you can financially support the program, please go to http://www.avemariaradio.net/ and make your pledge!!!
4:00 – Abe Lincoln: The Father of Big Government?
There is a persistent rumor in the ether of talking heads that runs something like this: If we want to know who the “father” of big government in the United States is, point the finger at . . . Abraham Lincoln. Of course, it has been a long time since Abraham Lincoln was headline news, and most Americans will meet this with little more than a shrug of the shoulders. But there is a certain strain of conservative thinking today that gets its jollies from wailing that big government has been a slow-growing cancer in American life, so slow in fact that its origins need to be traced back to the 16th president. Whatever the motivation, they’ve got the wrong man in Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln scholar Alan Guelzo is here to make his case.
4:20 – Medjugorje: Why did the Vatican take the unprecedented step of creating a commission to study the alleged apparitions?
The Vatican commission studying the alleged Marian apparitions at Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina held its first meeting in late March. While the Vatican press office provided no details about the meeting, it published the names of the commission members this week. The Vatican had announced March 17 that at the request of the bishops of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had established an international commission to investigate the claims of six young people who said Mary appeared to them daily beginning in 1981. Although the apparitions apparently are continuing and thousands of people travel to the small town each month to meet the alleged seers and to pray, the Catholic Church has never made a formal declaration about the authenticity of the apparitions. The doctrinal congregation appointed retired Cardinal Camillo Ruini, former papal vicar of Rome, to head the commission. We look at why the Vatican took the unprecedented step of creating a commission to study the alleged apparitions?
5:00 – Healing Marriages of Control and Trust Issues
More marriages and families these days are affected by control and trust issues, says Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, but through the sacraments and practice of virtue these problems can be overcome. This was the theme of a recent webinar in a series sponsored by the Institute for Marital Healing, which offers resources for couples, counselors and clergy on the topics of parenting, manhood, family life and marriage. Fitzgibbons, the director of the institute, has worked with thousands of couples and has spoken and written extensively on these topics. In 2008, he was also appointed as a consultant for the Holy See's Congregation for Clergy. Fitzgibbons is here to look at modern causes of trust issues, the distinction between being strong and being controlling, and particular virtues that provide an antidote to these problems.
5:40 – 7 Deadly Sins / 7 Lively Virtues
As we enter the season of Lent last week, we hear an engaging presentation concerning the Seven Deadly Sins, those great spiritual blocks that inhibit our flourishing in relationship with God and one another. Based on Dante’s writings, the seven deadly sins correspond to the seven stories of Dante’s Mt. Purgatory. Pride, envy, anger, sloth, gluttony, avarice and lust are all presented as patterns of dysfunction within us that lead to unhappiness. But that’s not all! Father Robert Barron tells us how to counteract these seven sinful patterns through a conscious process of opposition, which are the Seven Lively Virtues. The Seven Lively Virtues offer antidotes to each sin and help set us on the right path to healing and happiness.
"Best of Kresta in the Afternoon" this week as Al and Nick participate in the Ave Maria Radio Membership Drive, necessary to keep programs like "Kresta in the Afternoon" on the air and distributed to over 150 stations across the country. If you can financially support the program, please go to http://www.avemariaradio.net/ and make your pledge!!!
4:00 – Abe Lincoln: The Father of Big Government?
There is a persistent rumor in the ether of talking heads that runs something like this: If we want to know who the “father” of big government in the United States is, point the finger at . . . Abraham Lincoln. Of course, it has been a long time since Abraham Lincoln was headline news, and most Americans will meet this with little more than a shrug of the shoulders. But there is a certain strain of conservative thinking today that gets its jollies from wailing that big government has been a slow-growing cancer in American life, so slow in fact that its origins need to be traced back to the 16th president. Whatever the motivation, they’ve got the wrong man in Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln scholar Alan Guelzo is here to make his case.
4:20 – Medjugorje: Why did the Vatican take the unprecedented step of creating a commission to study the alleged apparitions?
The Vatican commission studying the alleged Marian apparitions at Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina held its first meeting in late March. While the Vatican press office provided no details about the meeting, it published the names of the commission members this week. The Vatican had announced March 17 that at the request of the bishops of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had established an international commission to investigate the claims of six young people who said Mary appeared to them daily beginning in 1981. Although the apparitions apparently are continuing and thousands of people travel to the small town each month to meet the alleged seers and to pray, the Catholic Church has never made a formal declaration about the authenticity of the apparitions. The doctrinal congregation appointed retired Cardinal Camillo Ruini, former papal vicar of Rome, to head the commission. We look at why the Vatican took the unprecedented step of creating a commission to study the alleged apparitions?
5:00 – Healing Marriages of Control and Trust Issues
More marriages and families these days are affected by control and trust issues, says Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, but through the sacraments and practice of virtue these problems can be overcome. This was the theme of a recent webinar in a series sponsored by the Institute for Marital Healing, which offers resources for couples, counselors and clergy on the topics of parenting, manhood, family life and marriage. Fitzgibbons, the director of the institute, has worked with thousands of couples and has spoken and written extensively on these topics. In 2008, he was also appointed as a consultant for the Holy See's Congregation for Clergy. Fitzgibbons is here to look at modern causes of trust issues, the distinction between being strong and being controlling, and particular virtues that provide an antidote to these problems.
5:40 – 7 Deadly Sins / 7 Lively Virtues
As we enter the season of Lent last week, we hear an engaging presentation concerning the Seven Deadly Sins, those great spiritual blocks that inhibit our flourishing in relationship with God and one another. Based on Dante’s writings, the seven deadly sins correspond to the seven stories of Dante’s Mt. Purgatory. Pride, envy, anger, sloth, gluttony, avarice and lust are all presented as patterns of dysfunction within us that lead to unhappiness. But that’s not all! Father Robert Barron tells us how to counteract these seven sinful patterns through a conscious process of opposition, which are the Seven Lively Virtues. The Seven Lively Virtues offer antidotes to each sin and help set us on the right path to healing and happiness.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Crude words from a Cardinal and a Senator
"A proposed immigration bill in Arizona has escalated a war of words between a Senator and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony. The cardinal attacked the bill on his Internet blog, likening the bill to 'German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques' that compelled people to turn each other in. Senator Russell Pearce, the author of the bill declared on a radio talk show that Mahony was a 'guy who's been protecting child molesters and predators all of his life.'" See article here.
Extremist language from either side will not solve America's immigration problem. But that's not my reason for posting this. I'm more interested in the latent anti-Catholicism among certain types of "faith, family and freedom" conservatives. While Pearce is a Mormon, not an evangelical Christian, politically conservative Mormons, have long identified with politically conservative Protestants. Mormonism teaches that there was a great apostasy in the post-apostolic Church. In 1820, Joseph Smith had his first vision and this is counted as the beginning of the restoration of the true church, gospel and priesthood. It's a position hard to reconcile with a Catholic understanding of the Faith.
Catholic and non-Catholic Christians have worked together on various cultural issues for a generation. With some types of Protestants this has been a real fraternal alliance. With others, not much more than co-belligerance. Evangelical Protestants are themselves aware of this. There exists a tension between the triumphalist "Christian America" movement represented by popular speakers like David Barton and the more cautious, self-critical evangelical activism of Chuck Colson. That tension has its roots in attitudes toward the Catholic Church and whether America is at heart a "Protestant" country.
Opposition to abortion will keep these factions working together with Catholics. Catholics with a sense of history are themselves wary of what they see as a movement that lionizes "Protestant" America. Generally conservative pro-life Catholics who like to think of themselves as defenders of faith, family and freedom have no interest in a return to the nativist evangelical Protestantism that dominated America in the first half of the 19th century. This was the type of Protestantism that supported public schools because they would Americanize all those Catholic immigrants and crusaded against "rum, Romanism, and rebellion." This anti-Catholic slur spoken by a leading Protestant supporter of James Blaine (R) cost him the 1884 presidential election against Grover Cleveland.
Cultural Protestantism of this sort carried considerable cultural clout into the beginning of the 20th century. The Scopes "monkey" trial of 1925 and the shaming of William Jennings Bryan as well as the later repeal of prohibition are often the cultural markers used to represent the final cultural defeat of this type of Protestantism.
There are some serious historical tensions that the "new right" of the 1970s never resolved. Cardinal Mahony's quick accusation of racist xenophobia brought out the crude anti-Catholicism resting under Pearce's "faith, family, freedom" public face.
Extremist language from either side will not solve America's immigration problem. But that's not my reason for posting this. I'm more interested in the latent anti-Catholicism among certain types of "faith, family and freedom" conservatives. While Pearce is a Mormon, not an evangelical Christian, politically conservative Mormons, have long identified with politically conservative Protestants. Mormonism teaches that there was a great apostasy in the post-apostolic Church. In 1820, Joseph Smith had his first vision and this is counted as the beginning of the restoration of the true church, gospel and priesthood. It's a position hard to reconcile with a Catholic understanding of the Faith.
Catholic and non-Catholic Christians have worked together on various cultural issues for a generation. With some types of Protestants this has been a real fraternal alliance. With others, not much more than co-belligerance. Evangelical Protestants are themselves aware of this. There exists a tension between the triumphalist "Christian America" movement represented by popular speakers like David Barton and the more cautious, self-critical evangelical activism of Chuck Colson. That tension has its roots in attitudes toward the Catholic Church and whether America is at heart a "Protestant" country.
Opposition to abortion will keep these factions working together with Catholics. Catholics with a sense of history are themselves wary of what they see as a movement that lionizes "Protestant" America. Generally conservative pro-life Catholics who like to think of themselves as defenders of faith, family and freedom have no interest in a return to the nativist evangelical Protestantism that dominated America in the first half of the 19th century. This was the type of Protestantism that supported public schools because they would Americanize all those Catholic immigrants and crusaded against "rum, Romanism, and rebellion." This anti-Catholic slur spoken by a leading Protestant supporter of James Blaine (R) cost him the 1884 presidential election against Grover Cleveland.
Cultural Protestantism of this sort carried considerable cultural clout into the beginning of the 20th century. The Scopes "monkey" trial of 1925 and the shaming of William Jennings Bryan as well as the later repeal of prohibition are often the cultural markers used to represent the final cultural defeat of this type of Protestantism.
There are some serious historical tensions that the "new right" of the 1970s never resolved. Cardinal Mahony's quick accusation of racist xenophobia brought out the crude anti-Catholicism resting under Pearce's "faith, family, freedom" public face.
Outrageous (Action) of the Day
MSNBC on Wednesday suspended host Donny Deutsch in the wake of a segment on Tuesday about what role television anchors and commentators play in making this country "America the angry." The problem? He didn't defend Keith Olbermann when he and Ed Schultz (MSNBC hosts) were mentioned as often being "angry". Apparently MSNBC only sees FOX and conservative radio hosts as angry, and if their minions fail to even defend a fellow host - they get suspended.
Today on Kresta - April 22, 2010
Talking about the "things that matter most" on Apr. 22
"Best of Kresta in the Afternoon" this week as Al and Nick participate in the Ave Maria Radio Membership Drive, necessary to keep programs like "Kresta in the Afternoon" on the air and distributed to over 150 stations across the country. If you can financially support the program, please go to http://www.avemariaradio.net/ and make your pledge!!!
4:00 – Pope Benedict XVI: 5 Years Later
Last week was Pope Benedict’s birthday as less as the 5 year anniversary of his election to the Papacy. We have assembled a roundtable of guests to discuss the first 5 years of the reign of Benedict XVI. We look at his travels, his encyclicals, his reforms, the sex abuse scandal, and much much more. Our guests will be Kishore Jayabalan, Matthew Bunson, and Fr. Robert Sirico.
5:00 – No Turning Back: A Witness to Mercy
Many who know of Fr. Donald Calloway know him because of his conversion story. He has spoken of it at conferences, on television, radio, online, and wherever he can spread the message. His new book finally captures in print how Divine Mercy, through the intercession of the Blessed Mother, touched his life. In his own words, No Turning Back recounts Fr. Donald's personal story of conversion after reading a book about Our Lady. Though today he is a devout Catholic Marian priest, Fr. Donald's early years were no indication of what was to come. Before his conversion to Catholicism, he was a high school dropout who had been kicked out of a foreign country, institutionalized twice and thrown in jail multiple times. We look at how Our Lady led to his conversion and ardent love of Mary and the Church.
"Best of Kresta in the Afternoon" this week as Al and Nick participate in the Ave Maria Radio Membership Drive, necessary to keep programs like "Kresta in the Afternoon" on the air and distributed to over 150 stations across the country. If you can financially support the program, please go to http://www.avemariaradio.net/ and make your pledge!!!
4:00 – Pope Benedict XVI: 5 Years Later
Last week was Pope Benedict’s birthday as less as the 5 year anniversary of his election to the Papacy. We have assembled a roundtable of guests to discuss the first 5 years of the reign of Benedict XVI. We look at his travels, his encyclicals, his reforms, the sex abuse scandal, and much much more. Our guests will be Kishore Jayabalan, Matthew Bunson, and Fr. Robert Sirico.
5:00 – No Turning Back: A Witness to Mercy
Many who know of Fr. Donald Calloway know him because of his conversion story. He has spoken of it at conferences, on television, radio, online, and wherever he can spread the message. His new book finally captures in print how Divine Mercy, through the intercession of the Blessed Mother, touched his life. In his own words, No Turning Back recounts Fr. Donald's personal story of conversion after reading a book about Our Lady. Though today he is a devout Catholic Marian priest, Fr. Donald's early years were no indication of what was to come. Before his conversion to Catholicism, he was a high school dropout who had been kicked out of a foreign country, institutionalized twice and thrown in jail multiple times. We look at how Our Lady led to his conversion and ardent love of Mary and the Church.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Failure to Report Sexual Abuse - Again, and Again, and Again
This undercover footage was taken by Live Action President Lila Rose and Live Action Actor Jackie Stollar who both posed undercover as minors with Rose telling the staff that she was 14-years-old and impregnated by her 31-year-old "boyfriend".
In the video, the EMW counselor named "Wendy" determines that Rose is “14 to 15-weeks pregnant” and Rose expresses that she wants to keep the situation secret from her parents. Despite not giving any indication that Rose will face abusive parents, the clinic guides Rose to call Louisville attorney Mickey Adams so that Adams can help Rose obtain a judicial bypass around Kentucky's parental consent law and avoid parental knowledge of the abortion or sexually abusive relationship.
In the state of Kentucky, sex between a 14-year-old and a 31-year-old is rape in the third degree and would reasonably be considered sexual abuse of a child which must be reported to law enforcement immediately. The clinic failed to ask the questions necessary to file a child sexual abuse report and did not communicate to Rose about the illegal or dangerous nature of her sexual relationship.
In the video, the EMW counselor named "Wendy" determines that Rose is “14 to 15-weeks pregnant” and Rose expresses that she wants to keep the situation secret from her parents. Despite not giving any indication that Rose will face abusive parents, the clinic guides Rose to call Louisville attorney Mickey Adams so that Adams can help Rose obtain a judicial bypass around Kentucky's parental consent law and avoid parental knowledge of the abortion or sexually abusive relationship.
In the state of Kentucky, sex between a 14-year-old and a 31-year-old is rape in the third degree and would reasonably be considered sexual abuse of a child which must be reported to law enforcement immediately. The clinic failed to ask the questions necessary to file a child sexual abuse report and did not communicate to Rose about the illegal or dangerous nature of her sexual relationship.
Today on Kresta - April 21, 2010
Talking about the Things That Matter Most on April 21
"Best of Kresta in the Afternoon" this week as Al and Nick participate in the Ave Maria Radio Membership Drive, necessary to keep programs like "Kresta in the Afternoon" on the air and distributed to over 150 stations across the country. If you can financially support the program, please go to http://www.avemariaradio.net/ and make your pledge!!!
4:00 – Unbound: A Practical Guide to Deliverance
Many Christians find themselves struggling with a particular sin or dysfunction. They seek counseling, practice confession, and pursue God-centered lives, yet still these genuine believers feel hopeless in finding freedom. Could they be under the influence of evil spirits? Yes, says author Neal Lozano. He reveals Satan's strategies and the sneaky "entrance points" Satan finds to get a toehold in a Christian's life. He helps us acknowledge the doors they may have opened to evil influence, and shows them how to close those doors and walk in God's freedom and abundance. Lozano's focus on God and his work in the believer's life, not on intimidating aspects of evil spirits, gives this book a balanced and hopeful tone. Because deliverance is part of the ongoing, glorious work of the Holy Spirit, he outlines a plan for tapping into the potent power of the gospel. Neal joins us.
4:30 – The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity
How does Jesus fulfill over three hundred Old Testament Prophecies? Is Catholicism inherently Anti-Semitic? Do the Hebrew Scriptures accurately predict Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah? How does Jewish thinking presuppose devotion to Mary? Is the Catholic Church a fulfillment of historic Israel? How do Jewish water rituals relate to Catholic baptism? Is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass a Passover meal? Should the Catholic priesthood conform to the priesthood established by Moses? How has the Jewish Temple influenced traditional Christian architecture? Does the Pope wear a yarmulke? We answer these questions and more with Taylor Marshall, author of The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity.
5:00 – A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement
Over the past thirty years, as Wesley J. Smith details in his latest book, the concept of animal rights has been seeping into the very bone marrow of Western culture. One reason for this development is that the term “animal rights” is so often used very loosely, to mean simply being nicer to animals. But although animal rights groups do sometimes focus their activism on promoting animal welfare, the larger movement they represent is actually advancing a radical belief system. For some activists, the animal rights ideology amounts to a quasi religion, one whose central doctrine declares a moral equivalency between the value of animal lives and the value of human lives. Some believe their cause to be so righteous that it entitles them to cross the line from legitimate advocacy to vandalism and harassment, or even terrorism against medical researchers, the fur and food industries, and others they accuse of abusing animals. All people who love animals and recognize their intrinsic worth can agree that human beings owe animals respect, kindness, and humane care. But Smith argues eloquently that our obligation to humanity matters more, and that granting “rights” to animals would inevitably diminish human dignity. We discuss it.
"Best of Kresta in the Afternoon" this week as Al and Nick participate in the Ave Maria Radio Membership Drive, necessary to keep programs like "Kresta in the Afternoon" on the air and distributed to over 150 stations across the country. If you can financially support the program, please go to http://www.avemariaradio.net/ and make your pledge!!!
4:00 – Unbound: A Practical Guide to Deliverance
Many Christians find themselves struggling with a particular sin or dysfunction. They seek counseling, practice confession, and pursue God-centered lives, yet still these genuine believers feel hopeless in finding freedom. Could they be under the influence of evil spirits? Yes, says author Neal Lozano. He reveals Satan's strategies and the sneaky "entrance points" Satan finds to get a toehold in a Christian's life. He helps us acknowledge the doors they may have opened to evil influence, and shows them how to close those doors and walk in God's freedom and abundance. Lozano's focus on God and his work in the believer's life, not on intimidating aspects of evil spirits, gives this book a balanced and hopeful tone. Because deliverance is part of the ongoing, glorious work of the Holy Spirit, he outlines a plan for tapping into the potent power of the gospel. Neal joins us.
4:30 – The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity
How does Jesus fulfill over three hundred Old Testament Prophecies? Is Catholicism inherently Anti-Semitic? Do the Hebrew Scriptures accurately predict Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah? How does Jewish thinking presuppose devotion to Mary? Is the Catholic Church a fulfillment of historic Israel? How do Jewish water rituals relate to Catholic baptism? Is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass a Passover meal? Should the Catholic priesthood conform to the priesthood established by Moses? How has the Jewish Temple influenced traditional Christian architecture? Does the Pope wear a yarmulke? We answer these questions and more with Taylor Marshall, author of The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity.
5:00 – A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement
Over the past thirty years, as Wesley J. Smith details in his latest book, the concept of animal rights has been seeping into the very bone marrow of Western culture. One reason for this development is that the term “animal rights” is so often used very loosely, to mean simply being nicer to animals. But although animal rights groups do sometimes focus their activism on promoting animal welfare, the larger movement they represent is actually advancing a radical belief system. For some activists, the animal rights ideology amounts to a quasi religion, one whose central doctrine declares a moral equivalency between the value of animal lives and the value of human lives. Some believe their cause to be so righteous that it entitles them to cross the line from legitimate advocacy to vandalism and harassment, or even terrorism against medical researchers, the fur and food industries, and others they accuse of abusing animals. All people who love animals and recognize their intrinsic worth can agree that human beings owe animals respect, kindness, and humane care. But Smith argues eloquently that our obligation to humanity matters more, and that granting “rights” to animals would inevitably diminish human dignity. We discuss it.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Kresta Commentary: Why 64% of Americans Believe Catholic Priests are Perverts
The Catholic Church and Sexual Abuse: Part One: Why 64% of Americans Believe Catholic Priests are Perverts.
April 20, 2010
Al Kresta
A new round of reporting on Catholic clergy sexual abuse in Europe has generated a new climate of revulsion toward the Catholic Church. In spite of, I suppose some would say, because of, all the media attention, however, the public has a grossly distorted picture of clergy sexual misconduct. No one denies that great evil has been done by the likes of John Geoghan, Paul Shanley, John Birmingham, and Marciel Maciel Dellgado and a thousand others. Not to mention the shocking neglect of authorities like now Bishop John B. McCormack and Cardinal Law.
The Dallas Morning News claimed that two thirds of sitting U.S. bishops were alleged in 2002 to have kept accused priests in ministry or moved accused priests to new assignments. [The article is presently under critical review by bishopsaccountability.org.] However, of the 109 bishops identified in the Dallas Morning News survey, only 39 are still managing the same diocese. Of the others, eleven have retired or resigned. That means nearly two-thirds have been moved. Seven U.S. dioceses have declared bankruptcy and others are in financial crisis. Nevertheless, the evil is not as widespread, as current, or as threatening as imagined in a 2002 Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll which found that 64 percent of those queried thought Catholic priests "frequently'' abused children.
First of all, hardly anyone seems to have noticed that clerical sexual abuse is not growing in the Catholic Church. The sheer volume of press reports mislead us into thinking that the scandal is widening while the reality is that it has been shrinking for a quarter of a century.
I just went to my homepage. There I read a headline: "Catholic priest arrested in molestation case". I'm ready to run to the parish, protect my child, and reduce the bodily integrity of the perpetrator. But I'd win no thanks for vigilante justice because I'm thirty years too late. Yes, the crime and the headline are all too terrible and typical. Here's the lead: "A retired Roman Catholic priest has been charged with first-degree sex offense and crime against nature after allegations were made that he sexually assaulted a boy from his Kingsport parish more than 30 years ago."
Old cases still make sensational headlines. E.g., "Norway's Catholic Church Reveals New Abuse Cases" But Norway doesn't have new cases. The church disclosed 4 old cases that had previously been overlooked. Two from the 1950s; one from the 1980s and another which remains based on rumors. What was new was that the press finally learned of these cases at all.
Delayed reporting by the victims has compounded this lag time between the criminal acts and the public awareness. Indeed, some bishops ignored accusations and failed to report them in a timely manner, no doubt fearing lawsuits and scandal. They neglected the pastoral care of victims and the public's right to know the danger represented by certain priests.
But delayed media reporting wasn't generally due to episcopal foot-dragging. The victims, themselves, postponed reporting their abuse! Less than thirteen percent of victims abused between 1960 and 1980, for example, lodged a complaint in the same year as the assault. Two thirds filed their complaints after 1992, and half of those were made between 2002 and 2003 alone! This means that the media has been covering old news and, understandably but unfortunately, creating a climate of suspicion years after the abuse had been perpetrated. Thanks to reforms instituted by the USCCB, the Catholic Church in America today is the safest private or public institution for children.
This is beyond dispute. The John Jay College of Criminal Justice has shown repeatedly that the vast majority of the abuse cases took place from the mid-60s to the mid-80s. And the reports over the last five years show a rapid decline. The latest report, covering 2008-2009, shows exactly six credible allegations.
How many Catholic clergy serve in the United States? Forty thousand priests, twenty one thousand permanent deacons and religious brothers and tens of thousands of other Catholic Church workers. Amidst all these eighty or ninety thousand American clergy and lay workers only six credible allegations were lodged in 2008-2009. Once again, note the historical flow. The known number of cases increased in the 1960s, peaked in the 1970s, declined in the 1980s and by the 1990s had returned to the levels of the 1950s. One case of abuse is one too many and worth a millstone or worse but it is time to say that the American clerical sex abuse crisis is over.
So why don't people know this? Last month the USCCB posted the new figures on its website but the press had caught the scent of sin and crime in Europe. Old wounds got re-opened and, it is a general rule of journalism that bad news always displaces good news. Further, how many people bother to plod through the tedium of a sociologist's analysis?
By the way, how many priests have engaged in sexual misconduct with minors? The John Jay College of Criminal Justice estimated that about 4% of priests were involved-- about the same as in other institutions although no other institution has been so rigorously studied or has such kept such thorough records over generations. An article in the Journal of Pastoral Psychology by Thomas Plante and Courtney Daniels doesn't see any greater problem among Catholic clergy. Newsweek quotes Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: "We don't see the Catholic Church as a hotbed of this or a place that has a bigger problem than anyone else," Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi in September 2009 stated on behalf of the Holy See: "We know now that in the last 50 years somewhere between 1.5% and 5% of the Catholic clergy has been involved in sexual abuse cases." There are other surveys and studies with similar conclusions: See here and here.
According to a recent Newsweek article, "Since the mid-1980s, insurance companies have offered sexual misconduct coverage as a rider on liability insurance, and their own studies indicate that Catholic churches are not higher risk than other congregations."
Catholic activist scholar Leon Podles, author of Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church places the figure at 7-10% on the grounds that most abuse goes unreported and thus many priest-perpetrators go undiscovered. Perhaps, but this reporting flaw would apply to all institutions. Abuse would be under-reported everywhere. We also know that some priests were more profligate than others.. Overall, the John Jay study found that 149 priests were responsible for more than 2,900 cases of abuse over the 52-year period studied. Roughly, three percent of the accused were responsible for about 36% of the accusations.
Another misconception: Strictly speaking there are almost no pedophile priests. Only 1% of the cases involve pre-pubescent children. The majority of cases involve adults engaging in criminal sexual contact with adolescent boys. This is more accurately described as either hebephilia (younger adolescents) or ephebophilia (older adolescents). Criminal and immoral behavior yes but pederasty doesn't carry quite the disgust associated with pedophilia.
Second, priest sex abuse is treated not as an individual but as an institutional problem. For instance, CBS News.com reported: "The FBI says it expects to arrest at least fifty more people by week's end as it busts up an Internet child-pornography ring that allegedly included two Catholic priests, six other members of the clergy, a school bus driver, and at least one police officer." I am not interested in bringing discredit on Presbyterians or Baptists or Lutherans but why among the eight clergy only Catholic priests are identified by their ecclesiastical affiliation?
The same day that the Associated Press reported that the archbishop of Santiago, Chile had launched an investigation of a few cases of priestly sexual abuse, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights tipped the AP off about other cases of sexual abuse. For instance,
• A Milford, Connecticut teacher's aide pleaded no contest to sexually assaulting a high school student
• A Brookville High School teacher in Pennsylvania was charged with aggravated indecent assault, indecent exposure, corruption of minor, possession of obscene material, sexual abuse of children, and unlawful conduct with minors.
• A middle school gym teacher in Athens , New Your was arrested on charges of sex abuse and forcible touching
• A Morrisville-Easton Central School District teacher outside Utica, New York Was arrested for forcibly touching a girl over a three year period, beginning at the age of 11, and for endangering her welfare.....
• A former Teacher of the Year in Bullitt County, Kentucky was indicted by a grand jury on sexual abuse charges.
• A teacher at Olin High School in Iowa was charged with sexually exploiting a freshman. This same teacher faced similar charges two years ago when he taught in another school, and was simply moved from one school district to another.
The AP choose only to cover the archdiocese of Santiago because it fit the hot storyline of a corrupt institution getting its comeuppance while all the teacher examples are simply individual teachers bound together by their jobs and perversions but not embedded in a large, universal, mysterious institution that by refusing to ordain women, relax celibacy and applaud homosexuality defies the flow of modern life. The Catholic church is "other" to most Americans; public school teachers, on the other hand, are familiar and friendly to all of us.
Still, we can't take much pride that the church's personnel appear no worse than boy scout leaders or public school teachers. Shouldn't we expect more? Shouldn't the Catholic Church be held to a higher standard? Yes, certainly, by the faithful who believe but not by the press which doesn't. I don't expect the New York Times and the Associated Press to do apologetics for the Catholic Church. I do expect them to compare institutions and to evenhandedly handle the data. A reporter may not like the Church's teaching on artificial contraception but that doesn't give him a license to spawn misconceptions and distort the truth. Heaping inaccuracy upon the flames of moral indignation only sears the conscience of all involved.
Coming Later This Week
The Catholic Church and Sex Abuse: Part II - The Vatican, Public Relations, and Sheer Incompetence
April 20, 2010
Al Kresta
A new round of reporting on Catholic clergy sexual abuse in Europe has generated a new climate of revulsion toward the Catholic Church. In spite of, I suppose some would say, because of, all the media attention, however, the public has a grossly distorted picture of clergy sexual misconduct. No one denies that great evil has been done by the likes of John Geoghan, Paul Shanley, John Birmingham, and Marciel Maciel Dellgado and a thousand others. Not to mention the shocking neglect of authorities like now Bishop John B. McCormack and Cardinal Law. First of all, hardly anyone seems to have noticed that clerical sexual abuse is not growing in the Catholic Church. The sheer volume of press reports mislead us into thinking that the scandal is widening while the reality is that it has been shrinking for a quarter of a century.
I just went to my homepage. There I read a headline: "Catholic priest arrested in molestation case". I'm ready to run to the parish, protect my child, and reduce the bodily integrity of the perpetrator. But I'd win no thanks for vigilante justice because I'm thirty years too late. Yes, the crime and the headline are all too terrible and typical. Here's the lead: "A retired Roman Catholic priest has been charged with first-degree sex offense and crime against nature after allegations were made that he sexually assaulted a boy from his Kingsport parish more than 30 years ago."
Old cases still make sensational headlines. E.g., "Norway's Catholic Church Reveals New Abuse Cases" But Norway doesn't have new cases. The church disclosed 4 old cases that had previously been overlooked. Two from the 1950s; one from the 1980s and another which remains based on rumors. What was new was that the press finally learned of these cases at all.
But delayed media reporting wasn't generally due to episcopal foot-dragging. The victims, themselves, postponed reporting their abuse! Less than thirteen percent of victims abused between 1960 and 1980, for example, lodged a complaint in the same year as the assault. Two thirds filed their complaints after 1992, and half of those were made between 2002 and 2003 alone! This means that the media has been covering old news and, understandably but unfortunately, creating a climate of suspicion years after the abuse had been perpetrated. Thanks to reforms instituted by the USCCB, the Catholic Church in America today is the safest private or public institution for children.
This is beyond dispute. The John Jay College of Criminal Justice has shown repeatedly that the vast majority of the abuse cases took place from the mid-60s to the mid-80s. And the reports over the last five years show a rapid decline. The latest report, covering 2008-2009, shows exactly six credible allegations.
How many Catholic clergy serve in the United States? Forty thousand priests, twenty one thousand permanent deacons and religious brothers and tens of thousands of other Catholic Church workers. Amidst all these eighty or ninety thousand American clergy and lay workers only six credible allegations were lodged in 2008-2009. Once again, note the historical flow. The known number of cases increased in the 1960s, peaked in the 1970s, declined in the 1980s and by the 1990s had returned to the levels of the 1950s. One case of abuse is one too many and worth a millstone or worse but it is time to say that the American clerical sex abuse crisis is over.
So why don't people know this? Last month the USCCB posted the new figures on its website but the press had caught the scent of sin and crime in Europe. Old wounds got re-opened and, it is a general rule of journalism that bad news always displaces good news. Further, how many people bother to plod through the tedium of a sociologist's analysis?
By the way, how many priests have engaged in sexual misconduct with minors? The John Jay College of Criminal Justice estimated that about 4% of priests were involved-- about the same as in other institutions although no other institution has been so rigorously studied or has such kept such thorough records over generations. An article in the Journal of Pastoral Psychology by Thomas Plante and Courtney Daniels doesn't see any greater problem among Catholic clergy. Newsweek quotes Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: "We don't see the Catholic Church as a hotbed of this or a place that has a bigger problem than anyone else," Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi in September 2009 stated on behalf of the Holy See: "We know now that in the last 50 years somewhere between 1.5% and 5% of the Catholic clergy has been involved in sexual abuse cases." There are other surveys and studies with similar conclusions: See here and here.
According to a recent Newsweek article, "Since the mid-1980s, insurance companies have offered sexual misconduct coverage as a rider on liability insurance, and their own studies indicate that Catholic churches are not higher risk than other congregations."
Another misconception: Strictly speaking there are almost no pedophile priests. Only 1% of the cases involve pre-pubescent children. The majority of cases involve adults engaging in criminal sexual contact with adolescent boys. This is more accurately described as either hebephilia (younger adolescents) or ephebophilia (older adolescents). Criminal and immoral behavior yes but pederasty doesn't carry quite the disgust associated with pedophilia.
Second, priest sex abuse is treated not as an individual but as an institutional problem. For instance, CBS News.com reported: "The FBI says it expects to arrest at least fifty more people by week's end as it busts up an Internet child-pornography ring that allegedly included two Catholic priests, six other members of the clergy, a school bus driver, and at least one police officer." I am not interested in bringing discredit on Presbyterians or Baptists or Lutherans but why among the eight clergy only Catholic priests are identified by their ecclesiastical affiliation?
• A Milford, Connecticut teacher's aide pleaded no contest to sexually assaulting a high school student
• A Brookville High School teacher in Pennsylvania was charged with aggravated indecent assault, indecent exposure, corruption of minor, possession of obscene material, sexual abuse of children, and unlawful conduct with minors.
• A middle school gym teacher in Athens , New Your was arrested on charges of sex abuse and forcible touching
• A Morrisville-Easton Central School District teacher outside Utica, New York Was arrested for forcibly touching a girl over a three year period, beginning at the age of 11, and for endangering her welfare.....
• A former Teacher of the Year in Bullitt County, Kentucky was indicted by a grand jury on sexual abuse charges.
• A teacher at Olin High School in Iowa was charged with sexually exploiting a freshman. This same teacher faced similar charges two years ago when he taught in another school, and was simply moved from one school district to another.
The AP choose only to cover the archdiocese of Santiago because it fit the hot storyline of a corrupt institution getting its comeuppance while all the teacher examples are simply individual teachers bound together by their jobs and perversions but not embedded in a large, universal, mysterious institution that by refusing to ordain women, relax celibacy and applaud homosexuality defies the flow of modern life. The Catholic church is "other" to most Americans; public school teachers, on the other hand, are familiar and friendly to all of us.
Still, we can't take much pride that the church's personnel appear no worse than boy scout leaders or public school teachers. Shouldn't we expect more? Shouldn't the Catholic Church be held to a higher standard? Yes, certainly, by the faithful who believe but not by the press which doesn't. I don't expect the New York Times and the Associated Press to do apologetics for the Catholic Church. I do expect them to compare institutions and to evenhandedly handle the data. A reporter may not like the Church's teaching on artificial contraception but that doesn't give him a license to spawn misconceptions and distort the truth. Heaping inaccuracy upon the flames of moral indignation only sears the conscience of all involved.
Coming Later This Week
The Catholic Church and Sex Abuse: Part II - The Vatican, Public Relations, and Sheer Incompetence
Today on Kresta - April 20, 2010
Talking about the "things that matter most" on Apr. 20
"Best of Kresta in the Afternoon" this week as Al and Nick participate in the Ave Maria Radio Membership Drive, necessary to keep programs like "Kresta in the Afternoon" on the air and distributed to over 150 stations across the country. If you can financially support the program, please go to http://www.avemariaradio.net/ and make your pledge!!!
4:00 – Dialogue of Love: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic Ecumenist
The Dialogue of Love is written from the perspective of an evangelical Catholic Ecumenist. Raised Catholic, but having responded to the Gospel at L'Abri Fellowship in 1970, Eduardo J. Echeverria's journey took the paths of Reformed and then Anglo-Catholic Christianity on his way back to full communion with the Catholic Church in 1992. Engaging in ecumenical conversation as a committed Roman Catholic whose views have been shaped by, among others, Romano Guardini, John Paul II, and Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), the author discusses in an articulate, bracing, and constructive manner, the positions of representative thinkers in the Dutch neo-Calvinist tradition of Reformed Christianity: Herman Bavinck, G. C. Berkouwer, and Herman Dooyeweerd. Fundamental issues of ecclesiology, meaning and truth, sacramental theology, the relation between the Church and the world, nature and grace, and issues on the relation of faith and reason are examined with the aim of achieving clarification and understanding. Readers will experience ecumenical "Dialogue . . . not simply [as] an exchange of ideas," but also as "an 'exchange of gifts'," indeed, "a dialogue of love" (John Paul II).
5:00 – Tiger Woods and Plato
The Tiger Woods scandal recently returned to the news when Tiger played the Masters Golf Tournament. While many may have welcomed this sordid story’s earlier disappearance, it in fact deserves serious consideration because of what it says about our culture and, in fact, about our very humanity. So far, commentary on possible deeper meanings of the Woods scandal has focused on matters such as our preoccupation with celebrity and the possibility, in a modern media age, of crafting a public personality wholly at odds with one’s real character. As a student and teacher of political philosophy, however, Woods’s sad fall from respectability reminds Carson Holloway of Plato’s account of the human soul. What we have learned about Tiger Woods, combined with what we already knew about him, may not confirm the truth of Plato’s psychology, but it at least confirms its relevance to the human situation even today. Paradoxically, from this most contemporary downfall we learn that our civilization’s most ancient wisdom is still worthy of our careful consideration. Carson joins us.
5:20 – Post-abortive Testimony
Michelle Yax is the Director of Mother and Unborn Baby Care in Southfield, MI and is, herself, a post-abortive woman. The shock, fear and shame of her first pregnancy drove her to her abortion, Yax says. Until the day of abortion, she had only thought about herself. But when she climbed upon the operating table, she changed. Everything inside me was screaming, “This is wrong. This is so wrong,’” Yax says. Michelle is with us to share her story.
"Best of Kresta in the Afternoon" this week as Al and Nick participate in the Ave Maria Radio Membership Drive, necessary to keep programs like "Kresta in the Afternoon" on the air and distributed to over 150 stations across the country. If you can financially support the program, please go to http://www.avemariaradio.net/ and make your pledge!!!
4:00 – Dialogue of Love: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic Ecumenist
The Dialogue of Love is written from the perspective of an evangelical Catholic Ecumenist. Raised Catholic, but having responded to the Gospel at L'Abri Fellowship in 1970, Eduardo J. Echeverria's journey took the paths of Reformed and then Anglo-Catholic Christianity on his way back to full communion with the Catholic Church in 1992. Engaging in ecumenical conversation as a committed Roman Catholic whose views have been shaped by, among others, Romano Guardini, John Paul II, and Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), the author discusses in an articulate, bracing, and constructive manner, the positions of representative thinkers in the Dutch neo-Calvinist tradition of Reformed Christianity: Herman Bavinck, G. C. Berkouwer, and Herman Dooyeweerd. Fundamental issues of ecclesiology, meaning and truth, sacramental theology, the relation between the Church and the world, nature and grace, and issues on the relation of faith and reason are examined with the aim of achieving clarification and understanding. Readers will experience ecumenical "Dialogue . . . not simply [as] an exchange of ideas," but also as "an 'exchange of gifts'," indeed, "a dialogue of love" (John Paul II).
5:00 – Tiger Woods and Plato
The Tiger Woods scandal recently returned to the news when Tiger played the Masters Golf Tournament. While many may have welcomed this sordid story’s earlier disappearance, it in fact deserves serious consideration because of what it says about our culture and, in fact, about our very humanity. So far, commentary on possible deeper meanings of the Woods scandal has focused on matters such as our preoccupation with celebrity and the possibility, in a modern media age, of crafting a public personality wholly at odds with one’s real character. As a student and teacher of political philosophy, however, Woods’s sad fall from respectability reminds Carson Holloway of Plato’s account of the human soul. What we have learned about Tiger Woods, combined with what we already knew about him, may not confirm the truth of Plato’s psychology, but it at least confirms its relevance to the human situation even today. Paradoxically, from this most contemporary downfall we learn that our civilization’s most ancient wisdom is still worthy of our careful consideration. Carson joins us.
5:20 – Post-abortive Testimony
Michelle Yax is the Director of Mother and Unborn Baby Care in Southfield, MI and is, herself, a post-abortive woman. The shock, fear and shame of her first pregnancy drove her to her abortion, Yax says. Until the day of abortion, she had only thought about herself. But when she climbed upon the operating table, she changed. Everything inside me was screaming, “This is wrong. This is so wrong,’” Yax says. Michelle is with us to share her story.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Words from Fr. Riccardo
Fr. John Riccardo brings us some bold words about Truth and the Ave Maria Radio membership drive.
Click here if you don't see the video.
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If you would like to contribute to the Ave Maria Radio spring membership drive just go to
AvemariaRadio.net
or click the "Pledge drive" link on the left side of the blog to make a pledge today. You can also help us by spreading this video around to your family and friends. Link it on facebook or post it to your blog.
We thank you for your effort and your prayers. God Bless you!
Click here if you don't see the video.
--------
If you would like to contribute to the Ave Maria Radio spring membership drive just go to
AvemariaRadio.net
or click the "Pledge drive" link on the left side of the blog to make a pledge today. You can also help us by spreading this video around to your family and friends. Link it on facebook or post it to your blog.
We thank you for your effort and your prayers. God Bless you!
Today on Kresta - April 19, 2010
Talking about the "things that matter most" on April 19
"Best of Kresta in the Afternoon" this week as Al and Nick participate in the Ave Maria Radio Membership Drive, necessary to keep programs like "Kresta in the Afternoon" on the air and distributed to over 150 stations across the country. If you can financially support the program, please go to www.avemariaradio.net and make your pledge!!!
4:00 – Sin: A History
What is sin? Is it simply wrongdoing? Why do its effects linger over time? In this sensitive, imaginative, and original work, Gary Anderson shows how changing conceptions of sin and forgiveness lay at the very heart of the biblical tradition. Spanning nearly two thousand years, he brilliantly demonstrates how sin, once conceived of as a physical burden, becomes, over time, eclipsed by economic metaphors. Transformed from a weight that an individual carried, sin becomes a debt that must be repaid in order to be redeemed in God’s eyes. We look at Sin: A History.
4:40 – Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World
Chris Lowney is here to discuss a unique guide for leaders of all kinds, drawn from the experiences of one of the world’s most successful organizations. Chris offers leadership lessons from the Jesuits, the renowned religious order whose originality and expertise have stirred admiration for nearly five centuries.
5:00 – The Virtues: Practical Application to Everyday Life
A virtue approach to life is centered on Christ. Life in Christ is, in fact, the life of the theological and cardinal virtues. Therefore, what we are seeking is a share in Christ's virtues. It is not about promoting autonomous personal achievements of character, but life in Christ and love for Christ. This approach draws on a very rich tradition already present in the Church about the virtues – in scripture and in writings of the Fathers, Saints, Popes, philosophers and theologians. We are not perfect in our ability to understand and impart all that the Church knows about the virtues, but we have the good fortune of being able to continually return to its expertise in order to learn more. We talk to Gerry Rauch of Sacred Heart Major Seminary about a “virtue approach” to life.
"Best of Kresta in the Afternoon" this week as Al and Nick participate in the Ave Maria Radio Membership Drive, necessary to keep programs like "Kresta in the Afternoon" on the air and distributed to over 150 stations across the country. If you can financially support the program, please go to www.avemariaradio.net and make your pledge!!!
4:00 – Sin: A History
What is sin? Is it simply wrongdoing? Why do its effects linger over time? In this sensitive, imaginative, and original work, Gary Anderson shows how changing conceptions of sin and forgiveness lay at the very heart of the biblical tradition. Spanning nearly two thousand years, he brilliantly demonstrates how sin, once conceived of as a physical burden, becomes, over time, eclipsed by economic metaphors. Transformed from a weight that an individual carried, sin becomes a debt that must be repaid in order to be redeemed in God’s eyes. We look at Sin: A History.
4:40 – Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World
Chris Lowney is here to discuss a unique guide for leaders of all kinds, drawn from the experiences of one of the world’s most successful organizations. Chris offers leadership lessons from the Jesuits, the renowned religious order whose originality and expertise have stirred admiration for nearly five centuries.
5:00 – The Virtues: Practical Application to Everyday Life
A virtue approach to life is centered on Christ. Life in Christ is, in fact, the life of the theological and cardinal virtues. Therefore, what we are seeking is a share in Christ's virtues. It is not about promoting autonomous personal achievements of character, but life in Christ and love for Christ. This approach draws on a very rich tradition already present in the Church about the virtues – in scripture and in writings of the Fathers, Saints, Popes, philosophers and theologians. We are not perfect in our ability to understand and impart all that the Church knows about the virtues, but we have the good fortune of being able to continually return to its expertise in order to learn more. We talk to Gerry Rauch of Sacred Heart Major Seminary about a “virtue approach” to life.
Ave Maria Radio Spring Membership Drive!!!
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This week is the annual Ave Maria Radio Spring Membership Drive to raise the funds necessary to keep programs like "Kresta in the Afternoon" on the air and distributed to over 150 stations across the country. Therefore, Al and Nick will not be as active on the blog this week and the show will be "best of" for all of our affiliates. If you can financially support the program, please go to http://www.avemariaradio.net/ and make your pledge!!! We will be updating the blog every day with the "best of" program schedules and pertinent news. And of course the cartoon and outrageous statement of the day.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Christopher West Taking a Sabbatical
The sabbatical from teaching and travel was for “personal and professional renewal,” a press release from the Institute says.
“Christopher is taking this leave to attend to family needs, and to reflect more deeply on fraternal and spiritual guidance he has received in order to continue developing his methodology and praxis as it relates to the promulgation of the Theology of the Body,” the statement continues.
The Theology of the Body Institute said it regrets the interruption to upcoming 2010 events but reported that it will continue its education and outreach programs and offer other faculty members and instructors during West’s sabbatical.
After a controversial ABC interview last year, West became a center of criticism for his interpretation and presentation of Pope John Paul II’s teachings on sexuality, popularly known as the Theology of the Body.
His defenders see him as a speaker capable of reaching today’s youth with Church teaching.
His critics have voiced concern about his discretion in speaking about sensitive topics in ways that might arouse unwholesome curiosity. They said his emphasis on purity of intention in human love risks ignoring the dangers of man's tendency towards sin
Outrageous Statement of the Day
Reporting on a tea party rally, NBC News reporter Kelly O'Donnell, a white woman, told Darryl Postell, a black man attending the rally, “There aren't a lot of African-American men at these events.” Pressing him, in an exchange she chose to include in her NBC Nightly News story, to address her prejudiced assumptions: “Have you ever felt uncomfortable?” Watch the video below
Today on Kresta - April 16, 2010
Talking about the "things that matter most" on Apr. 16
4:00 – April 17, 1790 – Benjamin Franklin Dies: The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers
With the anniversary of the death of Benjamin Franking tomorrow, we take a compelling and intimate look at the founders—George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison—and the women who played essential roles in their lives. Tom Fleming examines the women who were at the center of the lives of the founding fathers and nimbly takes us through a great deal of early American history, as his founding fathers strove to reconcile the private and public, often beset by a media every bit as gossip seeking and inflammatory as ours today.
4:20 – The Trinity: Exploring the Great Christian Mystery
The mystery of the Trinity is the central Christian belief. The subject of intense theological debates, wars, and great works of art, belief in the Trinity is as vital to our faith today as ever before. Fr. John Farrelly helps us sort through our most important questions about the Trinity. We will see the Trinity in scripture, both through the Old and New Testaments. We will follow the extraordinary development of Trinitarian doctrine. And we will see how the Trinity remains relevant in the modern world. Understand Trinitarian spirituality. The Trinity is a mystery, indeed the central Christian mystery. Not simply an intellectual mystery, it is a mystery of our salvation.
4:45 – “The Perfect Game”
Living amidst the gritty poverty of 1957 Monterrey, Mexico, a rag–tag group of boys from the wrong side of the tracks discovers the joy of sandlot baseball under the guidance of Cesar, an aspiring Major League Coach thwarted by discrimination. Armed with the dream of playing a real Little League game, the young players defy a total lack of resources, disapproving parents, and widespread prejudice to score their first Little League victory and find themselves at the beginning of a once-in-a-lifetime journey. Relying on their faith, a warm-hearted priest and their love of the game, the nine players and their coach embark on an incredible, record-breaking winning streak that leads them across the border to America, and all the way to the 1957 Little League World Series where a miracle will cement their place in history and change their lives forever. It’s the story of the film “The Perfect Game,” released nationwide today. We talk to director William Dear.
5:00 – Pope Benedict XVI: 5 Years Later
Today is Pope Benedict XVI’s 83rd birthday and Monday will mark the 5 year anniversary of his election to the Papacy. We have assembled a roundtable of guests to discuss the first 5 years of the reign of Benedict XVI. We look at his travels, his encyclicals, his reforms, the sex abuse scandal, and much much more. Our guests will be Kishore Jayabalan, Matthew Bunson, and others.
4:00 – April 17, 1790 – Benjamin Franklin Dies: The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers
With the anniversary of the death of Benjamin Franking tomorrow, we take a compelling and intimate look at the founders—George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison—and the women who played essential roles in their lives. Tom Fleming examines the women who were at the center of the lives of the founding fathers and nimbly takes us through a great deal of early American history, as his founding fathers strove to reconcile the private and public, often beset by a media every bit as gossip seeking and inflammatory as ours today.
4:20 – The Trinity: Exploring the Great Christian Mystery
The mystery of the Trinity is the central Christian belief. The subject of intense theological debates, wars, and great works of art, belief in the Trinity is as vital to our faith today as ever before. Fr. John Farrelly helps us sort through our most important questions about the Trinity. We will see the Trinity in scripture, both through the Old and New Testaments. We will follow the extraordinary development of Trinitarian doctrine. And we will see how the Trinity remains relevant in the modern world. Understand Trinitarian spirituality. The Trinity is a mystery, indeed the central Christian mystery. Not simply an intellectual mystery, it is a mystery of our salvation.
4:45 – “The Perfect Game”
Living amidst the gritty poverty of 1957 Monterrey, Mexico, a rag–tag group of boys from the wrong side of the tracks discovers the joy of sandlot baseball under the guidance of Cesar, an aspiring Major League Coach thwarted by discrimination. Armed with the dream of playing a real Little League game, the young players defy a total lack of resources, disapproving parents, and widespread prejudice to score their first Little League victory and find themselves at the beginning of a once-in-a-lifetime journey. Relying on their faith, a warm-hearted priest and their love of the game, the nine players and their coach embark on an incredible, record-breaking winning streak that leads them across the border to America, and all the way to the 1957 Little League World Series where a miracle will cement their place in history and change their lives forever. It’s the story of the film “The Perfect Game,” released nationwide today. We talk to director William Dear.
5:00 – Pope Benedict XVI: 5 Years Later
Today is Pope Benedict XVI’s 83rd birthday and Monday will mark the 5 year anniversary of his election to the Papacy. We have assembled a roundtable of guests to discuss the first 5 years of the reign of Benedict XVI. We look at his travels, his encyclicals, his reforms, the sex abuse scandal, and much much more. Our guests will be Kishore Jayabalan, Matthew Bunson, and others.
Dawkins Downfall ("Arrest The Pope" Edition)
This video was sent to us this morning and is hilarious. The producers have disallowed embedding, so when you hit play on this video it will take to you youtube to play it, but it's well worth your 3 minutes. Enjoy!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Vatican's Medjugorje commission meets
While the Vatican press office provided no details about the meeting, it published the names of the commission members April 13.
The Vatican had announced March 17 that at the request of the bishops of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had established an international commission to investigate the claims of six young people who said Mary appeared to them daily beginning in 1981.
Although the apparitions apparently are continuing and thousands of people travel to the small town each month to meet the alleged seers and to pray, the Catholic Church has never made a formal declaration about the authenticity of the apparitions.
The doctrinal congregation appointed retired Cardinal Camillo Ruini, former papal vicar of Rome, to head the commission.
The Vatican said the commission members include: Slovakian Cardinal Jozef Tomko, retired prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples; Cardinal Vinko Puljic of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina; Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, retired president of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts; and Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes and former secretary of the doctrinal congregation.
The other commission members are: French Msgr. Tony Anatrella, a psychoanalyst; Msgr. Pierangelo Sequeri, a theology professor in Milan, Italy; Franciscan Father David Jaeger, a canon lawyer; Conventual Franciscan Father Zdzislaw Jozef Kijas, an official at the Congregation for Saints' Causes; Marianist Father Salvatore M. Perrella, a professor of Mariology in Rome; and Father Achim Schutz, a professor of theological anthropology in Rome.
Polish Msgr. Krzysztof Nykiel, an official at the doctrinal congregation, was named secretary of the commission.
The four consultants assisting the commission are: Father Franjo Topic, a professor of theology in Sarajevo; Jesuit Father Mijo Nikic, professor of psychology at the Jesuit university in Zagreb, Croatia; Jesuit Father Mihaly Szentmartoni, a professor of spirituality in Rome; and Sister Veronika Nela Gaspar, a professor of theology in Rijeka, Croatia, and a member of the Daughters of Divine Charity.
Today on Kresta - April 15, 2010
Talking about the "things that matter most" on Apr. 15
4:00 – What the New Nuke Treaty Really Means
Laying out a nuclear weapons strategy for the decade ahead, President Obama this week struck bold notes on rhetoric and promises in the Nuclear Posture Review report issued Tuesday. The document is filled with laudable goals that mark a change from the past and may help advance his dream of a world without nukes. But flying at high altitude also has certain advantages; you can avoid the rough terrain below. And down on the ground, the president stopped short of changing the status quo on critical issues that have lingered since the Cold War, such as tactical nuclear weapons and keeping missiles on alert. All in all, says David Hoffman, the words of Obama's nuclear strategy bore the marks of his avowed goal to reduce the nuclear danger, but he eschewed taking more dramatic steps away from the legacy of the Cold War arms race. He is here to make his case.
4:20 – Young Souls: The Religious and Spiritual Lives Youth and Emerging Adults
How important is religion for young people in America today? What are the major influences on their developing spiritual lives? How do their religious beliefs and practices change as young people enter into adulthood? Christian Smith's research explores these questions and many others as it tells the definitive story of the religious and spiritual lives of youth and emerging adults, up to age 24, in the U.S. today. Some of Smith's findings are surprising. Parents turn out to be the single most important influence on the religious outcomes in the lives of young adults. On the other hand, teenage participation in evangelization missions and youth groups does not predict a high level of religiosity just a few years later. Moreover, the common wisdom that religiosity declines sharply during the young adult years is shown to be greatly exaggerated. Painstakingly researched and filled with remarkable findings, Dr. Smith’s work is essential reading for youth ministers, pastors, parents, teachers and students at church-related schools, and anyone who wishes to know how religious practice is affected by the transition into adulthood in America today.
5:00 – Abe Lincoln: The Father of Big Government?
There is a persistent rumor in the ether of talking heads that runs something like this: If we want to know who the “father” of big government in the United States is, point the finger at . . . Abraham Lincoln. Of course, it has been a long time since Abraham Lincoln was headline news, and most Americans will meet this with little more than a shrug of the shoulders. But there is a certain strain of conservative thinking today that gets its jollies from wailing that big government has been a slow-growing cancer in American life, so slow in fact that its origins need to be traced back to the 16th president. Whatever the motivation, they’ve got the wrong man in Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln scholar Alan Guelzo is here to make his case.
5:20 – Medjugorje: Why did the Vatican take the unprecedented step of creating a commission to study the alleged apparitions?
The Vatican commission studying the alleged Marian apparitions at Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina held its first meeting in late March. While the Vatican press office provided no details about the meeting, it published the names of the commission members this week. The Vatican had announced March 17 that at the request of the bishops of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had established an international commission to investigate the claims of six young people who said Mary appeared to them daily beginning in 1981. Although the apparitions apparently are continuing and thousands of people travel to the small town each month to meet the alleged seers and to pray, the Catholic Church has never made a formal declaration about the authenticity of the apparitions. The doctrinal congregation appointed retired Cardinal Camillo Ruini, former papal vicar of Rome, to head the commission. We look at why the Vatican took the unprecedented step of creating a commission to study the alleged apparitions?
4:00 – What the New Nuke Treaty Really Means
Laying out a nuclear weapons strategy for the decade ahead, President Obama this week struck bold notes on rhetoric and promises in the Nuclear Posture Review report issued Tuesday. The document is filled with laudable goals that mark a change from the past and may help advance his dream of a world without nukes. But flying at high altitude also has certain advantages; you can avoid the rough terrain below. And down on the ground, the president stopped short of changing the status quo on critical issues that have lingered since the Cold War, such as tactical nuclear weapons and keeping missiles on alert. All in all, says David Hoffman, the words of Obama's nuclear strategy bore the marks of his avowed goal to reduce the nuclear danger, but he eschewed taking more dramatic steps away from the legacy of the Cold War arms race. He is here to make his case.
4:20 – Young Souls: The Religious and Spiritual Lives Youth and Emerging Adults
How important is religion for young people in America today? What are the major influences on their developing spiritual lives? How do their religious beliefs and practices change as young people enter into adulthood? Christian Smith's research explores these questions and many others as it tells the definitive story of the religious and spiritual lives of youth and emerging adults, up to age 24, in the U.S. today. Some of Smith's findings are surprising. Parents turn out to be the single most important influence on the religious outcomes in the lives of young adults. On the other hand, teenage participation in evangelization missions and youth groups does not predict a high level of religiosity just a few years later. Moreover, the common wisdom that religiosity declines sharply during the young adult years is shown to be greatly exaggerated. Painstakingly researched and filled with remarkable findings, Dr. Smith’s work is essential reading for youth ministers, pastors, parents, teachers and students at church-related schools, and anyone who wishes to know how religious practice is affected by the transition into adulthood in America today.
5:00 – Abe Lincoln: The Father of Big Government?
There is a persistent rumor in the ether of talking heads that runs something like this: If we want to know who the “father” of big government in the United States is, point the finger at . . . Abraham Lincoln. Of course, it has been a long time since Abraham Lincoln was headline news, and most Americans will meet this with little more than a shrug of the shoulders. But there is a certain strain of conservative thinking today that gets its jollies from wailing that big government has been a slow-growing cancer in American life, so slow in fact that its origins need to be traced back to the 16th president. Whatever the motivation, they’ve got the wrong man in Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln scholar Alan Guelzo is here to make his case.
5:20 – Medjugorje: Why did the Vatican take the unprecedented step of creating a commission to study the alleged apparitions?
The Vatican commission studying the alleged Marian apparitions at Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina held its first meeting in late March. While the Vatican press office provided no details about the meeting, it published the names of the commission members this week. The Vatican had announced March 17 that at the request of the bishops of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had established an international commission to investigate the claims of six young people who said Mary appeared to them daily beginning in 1981. Although the apparitions apparently are continuing and thousands of people travel to the small town each month to meet the alleged seers and to pray, the Catholic Church has never made a formal declaration about the authenticity of the apparitions. The doctrinal congregation appointed retired Cardinal Camillo Ruini, former papal vicar of Rome, to head the commission. We look at why the Vatican took the unprecedented step of creating a commission to study the alleged apparitions?
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
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