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US Council of Bishops owe US Roman Catholics an apology for their inactions and lack of leadership in the faith!

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Father Weslin and Pass the Salt MinistriesJack Ames, Fr. Paul Petko, Dr. Alan KeyesFr. Weslin Arrested
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Long-time Newark priest fights retirement from St. Lucy's Catholic Church

by Bob Braun/Star-Ledger Columnist

Monday April 20, 2009, 8:04 AM

St. Lucy's Roman Catholic Church, an enduring fortress of tradition in a changing Newark, will lose the priest who was its spiritual guide for a half-century. But Monsignor Joseph Granato won't go without a fight -- a fight his supporters say will both maintain that tradition and keep the cleric in the city.

Granato, with the parish since 1955, bowed to demands from the Newark Archdiocese -- first made five years ago -- that he step down from what had been the center of Italian-American heritage in the city's old First Ward.

Monsignor Joseph Granato, with St. Lucy's of Newark since 1955, will retire in June. Some parishioners fear the longtime monsignor's retirement would end the church's conservative practices.

 

"That battle is over," says Anthony Rosamilia of Parsippany, a church trustee. "He will retire. The only question now is what happens to him and to St. Lucy's."

Rosamilia says parishioners and other supporters feared Granato's retirement in June would end the conservative practices of St. Lucy's, whose priests still dispense Communion to devout kneeling at an altar railing, offer Latin masses, reserve seats for old families and encourage devotion to obscure, regionally known Italian saints whose statues fill the church -- among other traditions now rejected by most Catholic churches.

The pastor himself is under a gag order and cannot speak for himself, Rosamilia says. At 80, however, he is fit and willing to continue leading the parish.

"I can say nothing," is all he will say.

But parishioners themselves, led by Rosamilia and Michael Genevrino, the executive director of the state Italian-American Heritage Institute, began organizing a protest march from St. Lucy's to the archdiocese's home church, the Sacred Heart Cathedral-Basilica, blocks away. They also encouraged "friends of St. Lucy's" to inundate the archdiocese with calls and letters.

"St. Lucy's is erupting," Genevrino declared. "It's a culture war."

"Save Saint Lucy's" posters went up in stores on Bloomfield Avenue and other streets in what had been the Italian section of New Jersey's largest city.

Within days, Genevrino announced the archdiocese offered Granato assurances he could continue to live in the parish rectory -- the alternative was a home for retired priests -- and that his replacement would respect the church's traditions.

Archbishop John Myers called Granato, Genevrino says, and told him the church's traditions were "devotions he shared and would not want to see changed."

Jim Goodness, an archdiocese spokesman, confirmed Granato would stay as pastor emeritus. He said he was unaware of the contents of the call from the archbishop.

"I think too many people are jumping to conclusions about what might happen at St. Lucy's," said Goodness. "No one has been named to replace Monsignor Granato."

The archdiocese faces a problem by committing the next pastor in advance to maintaining all the church's traditions.

St. Lucy's was established in 1891 at the peak of Italian immigration to Newark. From 1910 to 1920, priests at St. Lucy's performed 10,694 baptisms and 1,495 marriages. Fifty years later, the numbers have shrunk to a fraction of those rites.

It became more of a museum to the city's Italian past and old traditions of worship than a true Italian-American parish -- the parish's community center contains a museum, headed by Genevrino, honoring the neighborhood that is no more.

Change is anathema to St. Lucy's Italian-American supporters, most of whose families moved from Newark long ago but return for weddings, baptisms and funerals.

"Not everyone embraces change," says Genevrino, who lives in Clark.

Many with roots in the neighborhood believe they were refugees displaced by urban renewal and other government projects that, beginning in the 1950s, destroyed their neighborhood -- Columbus Homes, a low-income project since razed; the Colonnades, once a luxury high-rise; Route 280 that sliced into the last viable section of the ward.

In an earlier interview, Granato insisted Newark's Italians were forced out of the city and did not flee the city because it became predominantly African-American -- although the church almost closed in the wake of the 1967 riots.

The priest kept in contact with the families whose children and grandchildren -- many successful professionals -- now live in suburbs throughout the state and country. They became a revenue source that kept the church alive and in sparkling condition. He also raised nearly $2 million to build an outdoor plaza and shrine to St. Gerard Maiella -- an Italian saint considered a patron to motherhood -- as well as nearby low-income housing.

"We stayed," Granato said in the earlier interview. "It's the deal we made with parishioners. We stay if they stay."

The scions of the old families also represent political and financial power within the archdiocese -- and could account for why it has failed in the past to persuade the monsignor to leave. It is almost unheard of for priests -- normally rotated regularly throughout the diocese every few years -- to remain as long as Granato stayed at St. Lucy's.

Genevrino insists the protest has only been "postponed," not canceled.

"We will be vigilant," he says.

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Georgetown University to Honor Pro-Abortion Vice President Joe Biden With Award


by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 21
, 2009

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Georgetown University could find itself as the latest Catholic college to upset pro-life Catholics as it plans to present a legal award to pro-abortion Vice President Joe Biden. It could join the University of Notre Dame, which has invited President Barack Obama to give commencement, in the doghouse.

Tomorrow, Georgetown University Law Center will host an event honoring Biden with the “Legal Momentum Hero Award."

One pro-life group that monitors Catholic educational institutions says the award would be presented in direct violation of the U.S. bishops’ 2004 policy against such honors to pro-abortion politicians.

“Even as Notre Dame publicly snubs the Catholic bishops, Georgetown appears to be saying, ‘Me, too!,’” Cardinal Newman Society president Patrick Reilly told LifeNews.com.

Reilly doesn't appear to be surprised by the news, given other scandals that have occurred at the Catholic college.

“Just last week, Georgetown covered the name of Jesus Christ at the request of the White House," he told LifeNews.com. "Scandal after scandal at Georgetown, including the stunning 2007 law school policy that offers paid internships for students to work at organizations that advocate for abortion rights, has severely compromised its integrity as a Catholic institution.”

Vice President Joseph Biden, who calls himself a Catholic, is a fierce abortion proponent and someone who has made a reputation out of badgering Supreme Court nominees about abortion during confirmation hearings.

In fact, before he dropped out of the Democratic primary race Obama eventually won, Biden confirmed he would have a pro-abortion litmus test for his own possible judicial picks.

"I would not appoint anyone who did not understand that Section 5 of the 14th Amendment and the Liberty Clause of the 14th Amendment provided a right to privacy ... which means they would support Roe v. Wade," he said in a November debate.

Biden's pro-abortion track record in the Senate mirrors Obama's.

He received a pro-life voting record of 0 percent from the National Right to Life Committee for 2007-2008.

Before that, Biden compiled records of 0 percent, 16 percent, 0 percent, and 22 percent with the pro-life group in previous Congressional sessions. His support for a ban on partial-birth abortions represented one of the only times he voted with the pro-life side -- with Biden voting repeatedly to force taxpayers to fund abortions at home and abroad.

The Georgetown symposium is sponsored by the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law and Legal Momentum, a group that sharply conflicts with the Catholic Church by promoting “reproductive rights,” a euphemism for abortion.

The group also opposes abstinence-only education programs and pro-life crisis pregnancy centers.

ACTION: Express your disappointment about Georgetown University honoring Biden by contacting Georgetown University Law Center, 600 New Jersey Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, (p) 202-662-9031. You can also use the contact form at http://www.law.georgetown.edu/forms/form.cfm?FormID=17

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What the Georgetown and Notre Dame controversies reveal.

 
 
By Rev. Robert A. Sirico

I

n his speech this week at Georgetown University, President Obama made an interesting comment about economics. "We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand," he said. "We must build our house upon a rock."

I doubt that anyone would accuse him of plagiarism, but what he was quoting came from Jesus’s parable. The man who built his house on sand paid a price when the winds took it down, while the man who built his house on stone saw it withstand the storm.

It is quite appropriate that a parable was quoted at a Catholic university founded by Jesuits. The entire campus is filled with religious symbolism. Crucifixes, statues of Mary, and other religious items are everywhere, revealing the rich tradition here.

Oddly, however, although the president didn’t mind quoting Jesus without credit, his advance team insisted that all religious symbols be covered in the place in which he was speaking. Incredibly, Georgetown officials complied. At the request of the White House, officials at the university placed cover over the letters IHS — the Greek abbreviation for the name of Jesus.

This incident followed the uproar over Obama’s planned speech at Notre Dame, at which he will be given an honorary doctorate. The Notre Dame development department reports widespread anger at the decision to invite him.

Now, if I were a conspiratorial sort of thinker, which I am not, I might suspect that Obama is deliberately trying to divide Catholics. But this is not a conspiracy. Obama is merely capitalizing on a cultural shift that has been in process for a long time. Over the last half century or so, Catholics have undergone a kind of psychological development, moving from the embattled and impoverished immigrant class, unsure of their own status in a hostile culture, to founding their own institutions, serving their country, and becoming as successful as any WASP capitalist in getting their share of the American Dream.

So complete has been this assimilation that on almost any matter of public-policy or lifestyle choices, Catholics are indistinguishable from other Americans. Until, that is, one looks at those who regularly practice their faith as compared with those who have a nominal commitment that amounts to showing up to say hello or goodbye at baptisms and funerals, as Jacqueline Kennedy once put it.

If this thesis is correct, then it is not far-fetched to assert that nominal Catholics are in the midst of an identity crisis. They are embarrassed by the distinctiveness of their more faithful brethren who observe fast days, don’t approve of abortion, think marriage is what their grandparents thought it was, and hold conservative views on the other hot-button issues that Catholics in public life frequently get asked about by reporters.

Of course, nominal Catholics would deny such an identity crisis. We simply believe in a pluralistic and tolerant society, they would insist. But if the Georgetown episode doesn’t reflect an identity crisis — the religious family that was once the Church’s leading defender blots out their name (Jesuit) and their historic inspiration (Jesus) — then what does?

Think of it: A Catholic university was willing to cover up the name of Jesus, hide it from the cameras, because the president of the United States was coming and asked them to do so. The fact alone gives me chills.

At the root of tolerance is the notion that one is permissive, not about one’s own beliefs, but about the beliefs of those with whom one disagrees. If you do not know who you are and what you hold to be true, you cannot be tolerant.

We have come to the point that the most significant contribution Georgetown or Notre Dame could make to society’s diversity would be to become, once again, Catholic — and not be embarrassed about it. The Church in general and the Jesuits in particular have in their own history heroic examples of martyrs refusing to submit to secular authority and dying for the faith (such as Edmund Campion, S.J., at the hands of Elizabeth I). The least these campus authorities can do is not take active measures to undermine their own identity.

— Father Robert A. Sirico is president and co-founder of the Acton Institute.

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He is risen, hallelujah, hallelujah.

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Pope warns of 'a desert of godlessness' in Good Friday address

 By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:13 AM on 11th April 2009

Good Friday address: Pope Benedict will warn that religious sentiments are increasingly being held up to ridicule in the West

Good Friday address: Pope Benedict warned that religious sentiments are increasingly being held up to ridicule in the West

Pope Benedict XVI last night attacked the rise of aggressive secularism in Western societies, warning them that they risked drifting into a 'desert of godlessness'.

He used his Good Friday meditations to compare deliberate attempts to remove religion from public life to the mockery of Jesus Christ by the mob as he was led out to be crucified.

'Religious sentiments' were increasingly ranked among the 'unwelcome leftovers of antiquity' and 'held up to scorn and ridicule', he added.

'We are shocked to see to what levels of brutality human beings can sink,' said the Pope at an evening ceremony at the Coliseum in Rome.

'Jesus is humiliated in new ways even today when things that are most holy and profound in the faith are being trivialised, the sense of the sacred is allowed to erode.

'Values and norms that held societies together and drew people to higher ideals are laughed at and thrown overboard. Jesus continues to be ridiculed.'

The German-born Pope, who turns 82 later this month, prayed Christians would respond by growing in faith. 

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10 Holy Cross priests object to Obama invitation

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Ten priests from the order that founded the University of Notre Dame say the school risks its "true soul" and could distance itself from the Roman Catholic Church by inviting President Barack Obama to campus next month.

The members of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, which helps run the university, asked the Rev. John Jenkins, the Holy Cross priest who is Notre Dame's president, and the university's board of fellows to reconsider the invitation to Obama because he supports abortion rights.

"Failure to do so will damage the integrity of the institution," said the letter published Wednesday in Notre Dame Observer.

Notre Dame announced last month that Obama would deliver the university's May 17 commencement address and receive an honorary degree. The decision by the nation's best-known Catholic university sparked widespread anger among many Catholics who said Notre Dame should not honor someone whose policies on abortion and embryonic stem-cell research clash with core church teachings on human life.

Hundreds of abortion opponents protested on campus Sunday, and the priests said the invitation has opened a "fissure" between Notre Dame and many bishops. More than a dozen bishops have denounced Obama's appearance, including Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Jenkins has said the university does not condone all of Obama's policies, and spokesman Dennis Brown has said Notre Dame does not plan to rescind the invitation.

"We respect the opinions of members of the Holy Cross community and others," Brown said.

Obama would be the ninth U.S. president to receive an honorary degree from Notre Dame and sixth sitting president to address graduates. Other commencement speakers have included Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

Cecilia Prinster, president of the Notre Dame Alumni Association, noted in a column also published in the campus newspaper that Obama's policies in areas such as health care reform, economic security and environmental stewardship are in line with Catholic social teaching.

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Is Obama Worth a Mass?

By Ralph McInerny   
 
Now that the abortion president will be honored and feted and listened to at Notre Dame’s commencement, the question becomes, who will say the commencement Mass?
The University of Notre Dame has officially and with much self-satisfaction invited President Barack Obama to address its 2009 graduates and to receive an honorary law degree. Not to put too fine a point on it, this is a deliberate thumbing of the collective nose at the Roman Catholic Church to which Notre Dame purports to be faithful. Faithful? Tell it to Julian the Apostate.
That someone who procures or advocates abortion thereby excludes himself from communion with the Church has been clear doctrine all along, and increasingly bishops have found the courage to tell those Catholic politicians who are the great enablers of abortion legislation that they cannot receive Holy Communion. Is it any worse to celebrate such a politician as Barack Obama? So where does that put ND President Father Jenkins? He can hardly say Mass without receiving the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, so doubtless he will recuse himself and have someone else say the Mass. But to whom will he go? All his cohorts must come under the same cloud as he. Perhaps the pastor of the president’s erstwhile church in Chicago will be invited to harangue the assembled graduates and parents and faculty – those who can bring themselves to attend commencement this year. Why not?
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Help the Church...

The Pope's worst enemies are Catholics

Posted By: Damian Thompson at Mar 20, 2009 at 15:11:43 [General]

It's payback time for Pope Benedict XVI's most dedicated enemies, who are not militant secularists, hate-crazed Muslims, diehard Protestants or the liberal media. The people who most dislike the Pope are Catholics, or people who have the nerve to describe themselves as such.

The Pope needs to be protected from Catholics

We learned this morning that "Vatican insiders" consider Benedict XVI "a disaster". It's true. They do think that. He's a disaster for them, and their determination to turn the Catholic Church into a touchy-feely forum in which uncomfortable teachings and traditions are "modernised" to impress non-Catholics. Until the Williamson affair, the media weren't sufficiently interested in attacking Benedict XVI to be useful. But now, after that own goal... YES!!!

Take the furore over condoms. I don't think the Pope should have strayed into the topic of condoms and Aids, but what he said didn't represent a hardening of the Church's line on this subject. Post-Williamson, however, the liberal media have slipped back into anti-papal default mode, which suits certain "Catholics" just fine. Consider this piece by a creep called Robert S McElvaine, Professor of Arts & Letters at Millsaps College. "Impeach the Pope," he screeched in the Washington Post Online.

The Church's opposition to birth control is largely an outgrowth of its all-male composition and those males' attempts to degrade women's physical powers by asserting that women and the intercourse into which they supposedly tempt men are necessary evils ("It is well for a man not to touch a woman," Paul instructed the Christians of Corinth), the only purpose of which is procreation ... Let's start a movement within the Catholic Church to impeach Pope Benedict XVI and remove him from office. While we're at it, let's replace him with a woman.

more...

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Univ. of Notre Dame.....NOT CATHOLIC!

The Destruction of Notre Dame

On Friday, March 20, it was announced that President Obama had accepted an invitation by the president of the University of Notre Dame, Father John Jenkins, to give the commencement address on May 19 and receive an honorary degree. What fire could not do, Father Jenkins and his Academic Council may succeed in doing -- destroying a major Catholic institution.

In April 1879, the Main Building of the University was destroyed by fire. It was "the Main Building" because it housed classrooms, student sleeping quarters, kitchen, library, offices. The man who had left France and founded Notre Dame 37 years earlier, in 1842, Father Edward Sorin, was 65 and saw his life's work destroyed. Nonetheless, with fiery determination, he exclaimed: "If it were all gone, I should not give up. Tomorrow, we will build again, and build it bigger." That summer, with help from Chicagoans who had suffered their own fire eight years before, 300 laborers, using mud from the campus lake, made bricks and rebuilt it. It was sufficiently complete for the return of students in September. It is this building that TV viewers see during Notre Dame home football games.

How did Father Jenkins calculate the benefits and the burdens of Notre Dame giving Obama a platform on campus at commencement?     more...

Sign the petition to Fr. Jenkins