Sorry about the lack of posting the last two weeks (well, month really). Things have been rolling along and news is abundant in my own life. We'll get to those important details eventually. Until then, you've no doubt seen the new format of the site. I've been wanting to do this for some time and now it's finally here. Please be generous in your suggestions to improve. I hope to even begin my own podcast soon, so I'll keep you updated. For now, a daily almanac and monthly liturgical and practical Church notes will be enough. I will also be back to blogging!

On this Feast of the Visitation, during the Novena to the Holy Spirit, I invoke the intercession of Our Lady that Almighty God will accept these humble offerings and the Holy Spirit will lead them to bear fruit in the life of the Church.

This explains Pope Benedict's pontificate! His Wednesday catechesis was wonderful. You should definitely read the whole thing. He's beginning a series on each of the apostles. Today was Saint Peter and he said something that reveals how he sees his own role I think:

Peter wanted as Messiah a "divine man," who fulfilled people's expectations, imposing his force upon everyone: We also want the Lord to impose his force and transform the world immediately; yet Jesus presented himself as the "human God," who overturned the expectations of the multitude by following the path of humility and suffering. It is the great alternative, which we also must learn again: to favor our own expectations rejecting Jesus or to accept Jesus in the truth of his mission and lay aside all too human expectations.

Where is it that we don't teach kids that it's bad to cheat?

Since I've been teaching at school I've caught half a dozen kids cheating and I know of at least a half dozen more students who have admitted to me that they've cheated in other classes. I see three things at play here:

1. They don't realize how bad cheating is (they're thrilled when they don't get caught. I always remind them: if you don't get caught in this life, you surely will in the next).

2. The kids are extremely lazy.

3. The kids have such a poor self image that their excuse is that they're just stupid so they have to cheat. Who told them that?

It's a tough situation!

I think this makes a wonderful case. I plan to share it with the kids in fact. From the Opus Dei Prelature:

On Thursday the Italian press published interviews with Ron Howard, director of "The Da Vinci Code" film. In statements attributed to him, Howard said that "to deny the right to see the film is a fascist act," and also "to tell someone not to go see the film is an act of militancy and militancy generates hatred and violence." The Opus Dei is mentioned several times in these interviews. The phrases seem to refer to recent statements by Church authorities.

I would ask Ron Howard to keep calm and express himself with respect.

It is not wise to lose sight of the reality of the situation: This film is offensive to Christians. Howard represents the aggressor, and Catholics are victims of an offense. The one offended cannot have his last right taken away, which is to express his point of view. It is not the statements of ecclesiastics or the respectful request of Opus Dei -- to include a notice at the beginning of the film that it is a work of fiction -- which generates violence. It is rather the odious, false and unjust portrayals that fuel hatred.

In his statements, Howard also repeats that it is simply a film, an invented story, and that it must not be taken too seriously. But it is not possible to deny the importance of the movies and literature. Fiction influences our way of seeing the world, especially among young people. It is not right not to take it seriously. Artistic creativity certainly needs a climate of freedom, but freedom cannot be separated from responsibility.

Imagine a film that says that Sony was behind the attacks on the Twin Towers, which it promoted because it wanted to destabilize the United States. Or a novel that reveals that Sony paid the gunman who shot the Pope in St. Peter's Square in 1981, because it was opposed to the Holy Father's moral leadership. They are only invented stories. I imagine that Sony, a respectable and serious company, would not be happy to see itself portrayed in this way on the screens, and that it would not be satisfied with an answer such as "Don't worry, it's only fiction, it mustn't be taken too seriously, freedom of expression is sacred."

In any case, those who have taken part in the film's project have no reason to be concerned. Christians will not react with hatred and violence, but with respect and charity, without insults or threats. They can continue to calculate tranquilly the money they will make on the film, because the freedom of financial profit seems to be in fact the only sacred freedom, the only one exempt from all responsibility. They will probably make a lot of money, but they are paying a high price by deteriorating their prestige and reputation.

I hope the controversy of these months will not be sterile but serve to reflect on the relative character of financial profit when high values are involved; on the importance of fiction; on responsibility, which always supports and protects freedom.

This analysis from "How Stuff Works" on The DaVinci Code is interesting. It talks more about the science and the Louvre than it does about the theology (though it does have a small section on that too). A welcome change from the usual theological debates.

Lots of work on the websites this weekend.

At the parish:
Saint Anne Shrine Restoration Fund (no doubt more will be added here in the coming weeks)

At the Vocations site:
Billy's Acolyte
Summer Assignments
Home Page (cleaned up)

Next week on the vocations site, I'll be working on a story about the national ordination class and I'll hopefully be adding a story on last Sunday's holy hour at the Cathedral.

From today's Daily Gospel, a reflection by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux:

I must warn each of you about his vine: for who has never cut back everything that is superfluous in himself to the point of thinking that there is nothing more to cut? Believe me, what has been cut, grows back; the vices that have been chased away return, and we see tendencies that had gone to sleep waking up again. It is therefore not enough to cut one’s vine once; rather, we have to do it again and often, and if possible, even without ceasing. For if you are sincere, you ceaselessly find in yourself something to cut… Virtue cannot grow among the vices; for virtue to develop, we must prevent the vices from increasing. So suppress what is superfluous; then the necessary will be able to spring up.

For us, Brothers, it is always the time for cutting; it is always necessary. For I am sure that we have already left winter behind us, we have left behind the fear without love, which introduces us all to wisdom, but which doesn’t let anyone grow in perfection. When love comes, it chases away that fear just as the summer chases away the winter… So may the winter rains stop, that is say, the tears of anguish that arise because of the memory of your sins and the fear of judgment… If “the winter is over” and “the rain has topped” (Song 2:11)…, the sweetness of the spring of spiritual grace shows us that the time has come to cut our vine. What else is there for us to do other than to become entirely committed to this work?

Wonderful idea as this year's Novena to the Holy Spirit:

Cardinal Sean O'Malley plans to make a pilgrimage of "repentance and hope" to nine parishes where there has been an especially painful history of sexual abuse of children by priests.

In a letter sent this week to victims of clergy sexual abuse, O'Malley said he plans to begin a Novena to the Holy Spirit later this month, visiting nine churches across the five regions of the Boston archdiocese to offer special prayers for victims and to apologize for the priests and church officials who hurt children.

In Roman Catholicism, a novena is a nine-day prayer.

"The Novena services will acknowledge in a particular way the sins of clergy sexual abuse that violated the innocence of children and are an offense against God," O'Malley said in his letter.

Good reaction:

David Carney, who said he was molested by a priest in the early 1980s at age 14, praised O'Malley for offering the special prayer services and for "trying to fix things that he didn't break."

O'Malley was named to lead the archdiocese in July 2003, seven months after Cardinal Bernard Law resigned amid widespread criticism of his handling of the clergy sex abuse crisis. The archdiocese spent $85 million that year to settle claims from more than 550 people who were sexually abused by priests.

"Did he have to do this? Absolutely not, but he singled out a group of people that were harmed by the Catholic Church, and he is trying to help," said Carney, now 40.

Of course, we can't please everybody:

Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented more than 200 victims of clergy abuse, said he has received mixed reactions from his clients on O'Malley's plans for the prayer services.

"They are a step in the right direction for many victims but unfortunately for many victims, it's too little, too late," Garabedian said.

Zenit has an article tonight regarding the recognitio granted by the Holy See to the USCCB's revised sex abuse norms. It also advertises a side-by-side comparison of the 2002 and the 2006 norms available here. I haven't checked it out yet, but will probably do so at some point.

The recognitio is granted for an indefinite period, not like the original which was a three-year test run.

If you're at all interested in the complexities of the Code (which I'll admit, I can indulge in from time to time), check out this critique by Dr. Peters of an article on Bishop Daily's refusal a couple years ago to permit Catholic funeral rites to John Gotti. This apparently poor article that he critiques denounces Bishop Daily's decision and Peters attacks the quality of the article while commenting on the differences between canon law and common law (a system of legislative supremacy versus a system of judicial supremacy). Very interesting indeed.

Peters' Article

Caught this announcement on the USCCB website. The next bishops' meeting will be held June 15-17 in Catholic Hooverville, oops, I mean Los Angeles. Here's what's on the agenda:

The agenda will include discussion and vote on: extending the annual appeal for the Retirement Fund for Religious beyond 2007, adaptations of the Order of Mass, liturgical translations by the International Committee on English in the Liturgy, and a request by the Stewardship Committee to begin drafting a document entitled Stewardship and Teenagers. The bishops will hear reports on the work of Priorities and Plans, on Catholic Relief Services, on their Hurricane Task Force, on a new DVD by the Committee on Vocations, “Fishers of Men,” and a report by the Task Force on Catholic Bishops and Politicians.

The bishops will spend a half day on study and reflection on the theme of the New Evangelization.

It is possible that all public business will be completed on Thursday.

The stewardship document sounds interesting, but that will be dwarfed in St. Blog's and in the media by the battle over the new Mass translations (which I have some rather strong opinions about and will probably share at some point). I can't imagine two-thirds of them agreeing on the translations anyway. We should have a pool about what Bruskewitz will do if he doesn't like it and it passes!

I finished Peggy Noonan's book, John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father, a couple weeks ago but forgot (or got too busy) to post on it. I will post a nice excerpt or two at some point on her actual thoughts and impressions of John Paul. For today, however, I must let you see a small little section on Cardinal Law. Again, this book about is about Mrs. Noonan's journey and not about Law so don't think I'm trying to say that. I just thought this page was interesting.

There were other moments for me, other memories that were not so spiritual and not so happy. I saw more cardinals and bish­ops of the American church than I ever had, and from talking to them, I felt that they still did not understand the impact on the laity and on the reputation of the church and its American lead­ers that the sex abuse scandals had had. I was taken aback to see what a great figure of respect in the Vatican Cardinal Law still is. He was up front at the pope's anniversary Mass and the pope's audience, and he dominated animated clusters in the American ambassador's house. At one point I was sitting with Cardinal Baum, at a table with Sister Mary Rose of Covenant House and various bishops. Cardinal Law joined us, and talked about his re­cent trip to the Holy Land. As he spoke, I felt I saw his suffering. He was so eager to assert his importance, to tell of his experi­ences. The respect he desires he has earned: He has done much good work for the church. But he also took part in the darkest scandal in American church history.

I approached him as he was leaving. I told him I had been tough on him in the pages of the Wall Street Journal but that I could see he was a man of depth and talent, and I hoped to speak to him more. His eyes were cold, the kind of cold all writers know when they meet up with someone they've criticized in print. And I had said John Paul should take the cardinal's hat right off his head and find a new cardinal for Boston.

He asked me if it was true that I had said the cardinals of the church should give up their mansions. Yes, I said, I wrote that in the Journal.

"Well, we don't need friends of the church turning on the church at such a difficult time," he said. "We need loyalty when the church is going through a tough time, and I don't live in a mansion; you've probably never seen it."

"Yes, I have," I said. "I was in the cardinal's mansion when Car­dinal Medeiros was there." I had interviewed Law's predecessor.

Cardinal Law then changed tack. "Well, the cardinal only lives in a modest room, and there have to be conference rooms, and how would it look if I'd refused to live there, what would it say about my predecessor, how would it look?"

How would it look? It would look good. But more to the point, they should not be worrying about how things look; they should be worrying about how things are.

I told him that whatever the church did, it was likely to lose the cardinals' residences to trial lawyers, so why not sell them now and put the money in the schools? That caught his atten­tion. I added I would like to talk to him longer some day, have a longer conversation than possible at the moment. He left, angry I think.

He was defensive. They are all defensive, the American cardi­nals. They do not want criticism from their foes and they do not want it from their friends, and they move against those who crit­icize. And they are like this because they do not understand.

They do not understand what a mother and father go through when their son is sexually violated, how it scars the child, steals his soul, breaks his heart. They try to understand, but they fail. They don't even seem to understand how the scan­dals happened in the first place. When the first priest violated the first child and no one threw him out, that's how it started.

I loved the book, by the way. In many ways I would put her in the same category as Mary Ann Glendon, a strong Catholic laywoman who is high profile in our country and obviously loves God and the Church. An inspiration to us all really.