During the past week there has been much in the national and local news regarding the controversial selection of the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, to be a featured speaker at an awards ceremony at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute. Yesterday, the President of the University, John J. DeGioia, issued a public statement in response to the concerns, objections and even outrage that have been expressed.

The Archdiocese of Washington reserved public comment to permit Georgetown University and its sponsor, the Society of Jesus, the opportunity to address the controversy. While the explanation of how this unfortunate decision was made is appreciated, it does not address the real issue for concern – the selection of a featured speaker whose actions as a public official present the most direct challenge to religious liberty in recent history and the apparent lack of unity with and disregard for the bishops and so many others across the nation who are committed to the defense of freedom of religion.

Contrary to what is indicated in the Georgetown University President’s statement, the fundamental issue with the HHS mandate is not about contraception. As the United States Bishops have repeatedly pointed out, the issue is religious freedom. Secretary Sebelius’ mandate defines religious ministry so narrowly that our Catholic schools and universities, hospitals and social service ministries do not qualify as “religious enough” to be exempt. This redefinition of religion penalizes Catholic organizations because they welcome and serve all people regardless of their faith. Ironically, because of Georgetown’s commitment to open its doors to Catholic and non-Catholic students alike, the university fails to qualify as a religious institution under the HHS mandate.

Given the dramatic impact this mandate will have on Georgetown and all Catholic institutions, it is understandable that Catholics across the country would find shocking the choice of Secretary Sebelius, the architect of the mandate, to receive such special recognition at a Catholic university. It is also understandable that Catholics would view this as a challenge to the bishops.

It is especially distressing to think that the university’s Public Policy Institute would be unaware of this national debate since the mandate was published last August. Such a radical redefining of ministry should prompt Georgetown, as a Catholic and Jesuit university, to do more to challenge the mandate and speak up for freedom of religion.

This is the statement released by the Archdiocese of Washington’s “Office of Media and Public Relations”. This is the usual method the Archdiocese employs when commenting on matters embracing the political sphere. Though in this case I think it would be much more effective that Cardinal Wuerl had issued the statement himself. Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Wis. had spoken up about this. Though no doubt even a statement from him would fall on the purposely deaf ears of the administration of Georgetown University.

The selection of Secretary Sebelius was intended as an eye-poke to the U.S. Bishops and they knew the response it would engender. I just wish Cardinal Wuerl would take a rubber hammer to the President of Georgetown University.

(Via Cardinal Newman Society), (Statement)

Could the Ten Commandments be reduced to six, a federal judge asked Monday.

Would that neutralize the religious overtones of a commandments display that has the Giles County School Board in legal hot water?

That unorthodox suggestion was made by Judge Michael Urbanski during oral arguments over whether the display amounts to a governmental endorsement of religion, as alleged in a lawsuit filed by a student at Narrows High School.

After raising many pointed questions about whether the commandments pass legal muster, the judge referred the case to mediation – with a suggestion:

Remove the first four commandments, which are clearly religious in nature, and leave the remaining six, which make more secular commands, such as do not kill or steal.

Ever since the lawsuit was filed in September amid heated community reaction, school officials have said the display is not religious because it also includes historical documents such as the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.

“If indeed this issue is not about God, why wouldn’t it make sense for Giles County to say, ‘Let’s go back and just post the bottom six?’” Urbanski asked during a motions hearing in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.

“But if it’s really about God, then they wouldn’t be willing to do that.”

Reminds me of the joke in Mel Brooks’ “History of the World part 1″ where Moses comes down the mountain with three tablets and starts to announce the fifteen and then ten commandments as he drops one tablet.

Via The Deacon’s Bench

Though as the title suggest this is not just the telling of a tragedy, but the hope and faith she later found and how the lives of the saints have also helped her in healing.  She wisely I believe does not dwell in details of what happened to her but gives a biography of her life and how specifically as a convert to the Catholic Church she was more able to come to grips  with what happened and the effects on her life.

After her parents divorce when she was a child she lives in what she describes as a “sexually porous” atmosphere. She writes of this quite frankly, but also admits not all of the details of what she remembers line up with what her mother remembers.  But her recollections of her mother walking naked about the house with her boyfriend give some reference to the atmosphere she encountered along with the spiritual journey of her mother which had passed through the New Age movement at some points.

The help she sought in years of psychiatry also did not bring about the healing she required as her sexual aggressiveness was not seen as a problem, but as something positive.

Now as a long time reader of her blog The Dawn Patrol I was already somewhat familiar with her conversion to Christ.  When I started to first read her blog she was a pro-life Protestant blogger and so I followed with interest her growing attraction with the Catholic Church and ultimately her coming into the Church. This does not mean that her entrance into the Church was the magic cure-all as she still ran into problems dealing with the result of her past.  What I thought made this book exceptionally good was her discoveries that helped bring about deeper healing and how it was the lives of some of the saints that especially helped her in this.  Some of the stories of the saints you might be acquainted with, but she also brought out stories of lesser known saints and how the relate to the topic of this book. Some of the stories are quite haunting such as the story of St. Josephine Bakhita.

While this book is on the topic of sexual abuse and its consequences, she purposely did not broaden it to include sexual abuse by priests since she is mostly telling her own story.  Though the book should also be helpful for those who suffered such abuse and such fundamental betrayal.  I would not limit the book to only those who have suffered sexual abuse.

While I have never suffered sexual abuse, I could identify with what she called a “sexually porous” atmosphere.  I was introduced to so-called dirty jokes at a young age from my father along with pornography in the house.  After my own parents divorce I was also introduced to frank discussions such as an embarrassing one night stand. That along with an uncle that sometime lived with us and his parade of girlfriends and wives. Thus I was quite sexually fixated as a young child along episodes in grade school  and beyond that were part of my first confession.  The culture would tell us that just being open about sexuality and being taught about it the younger the better would prevent problems.  My experience was otherwise and lead to many bad decisions that troubled even my then-atheist conscience.  What my choices might have been had I not been introduced to such an atmosphere I can’t say; as people have fallen into these same sins without such an atmosphere.  I can only say it was not helpful in the least, especially since I had no moral protection against it.  I only bring this up since this book brought back some of these memories and sins and I can also reflect on all the healing I have experience since I came into the Church. What she writes on this subject hopefully will start the process for healing in others who have actually been abused or those other victims of this culture that have also been affected.

Dawn Eden being interviewed on Fox News.

Brandon Vogt interview of Dawn Eden concerning this book.

This is the 17th volume of The Weekly Benedict ebook which is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc which I pull from Jimmy Akin’s The Weekly Benedict. This volume covers material released during the last week for 14 April – 10 May, 2012.

The ebook contains a table of contents and the material is arranged in sections such as Angelus, Speeches, etc in date order. The full index is listed on Jimmy’s site.

The Weekly Benedict – Volume 17 – ePub (supports most readers)

The Weekly Benedict – Volume 17 – Kindle

There is an archive for all of The Weekly Benedict eBook volumes.  This page is available via the header of this blog or from [here][weeklybenedict].

Jimmy Akin shows just how historically inaccurate this charge is and totally lacking in foundation. It also goes to show just how common it has become to reference any deep friendship of same-sex friends as being homosexual in nature, for example the baseless charges against Blessed John Henry Newman. The Catholic Church gets accused of obsessing about sex while secularists reduce many things to sexual attraction as motive.

Jimmy Akin has also put together a link list concerning articles on John Boswell who was a historian and homosexual activist who is perhaps best known for writing the book Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe.

I just have to love a Cardinal that does this.  Though I am sending my sidekick application in since surely a superhero can use a sidekick and one that provides comic relief.  Though considering Cardinal Dolan’s good humor and wit it would be pretty hard to provide any comic relief that he is not supplying himself.

Hat tip Whispers in the Loggia where you can download a much larger image along with the text of his Commencement Address at the Catholic University of America.

In other words when it comes to the President I don’t believe in “evolution.”

Also when it comes to the President’s policies I don’t believe in “intelligent design” either.

In fact when it comes to the economy he is also not a job “creationist.”

I can’t even describe his policies as “Punctuated equilibrium“, though perhaps the term “hopeful monster” fits better.

You can sign the petition here

Joe of the “Blind Faith and No Reason” blog posted:

I use to ask atheists how matter could come out of nothing bringing up “Ex nihilo”, out of nothing nothing comes. Unfortunately an atheist commenter asked me about my own belief in “Why do you believe your mythical being could exist then?” I was stunned by this question. Nobody in the 2,000 year history of the Church had never considered this objection. He then brought up other questions that also nobody in the 2,000 year philosophical history of the Church had ever considered. So glad my atheist commenter finally forced me to take the red pill and to wake up into reality.

I was saddened by this, but was shocked when the next blog I went to had this to say:

I thought my Catholic commenters and myself were making headway responding to an atheist commenter and then the commenter brought up the priestly abuse scandal. We were totally unprepared for this. How could the Church founded by Christ have sinners in it? I then realized my understanding of the magical sacraments was totally flawed. Surely if God existed once I became his fanboy he would rip out my free will allowing me only to do good. I totally see now that it is not the examples of the saints who lived the faith that I should be informed by but by the sinners who didn’t live the faith. Then he brought up other examples of past sins of the Church that must be totally true in every detail since he saw it on the History Channel.

Unbelievably when I next clicked on the “Scriptural Catholic” blog I found this post by Duey Rheims:

As a lay scriptural scholar I thought I knew scripture and my faith rather well. Having read scripture daily for many years, read commentaries, heard the word proclaimed at Mass I thought I had a good understanding. Then an atheist commenter started leaving objections and questions on my comment boxes. I am prepared for most objections, but was not prepared for his asking about “talking snakes and a man living three days inside of a fish”. Wow I had never considered that there were such odd things in the Bible and I must have insulated myself from reality by ignoring this. I use have a fairly nuanced view of scripture knowing that scripture is not like modern history and that there were various literary genres used to impart truth. For example when the Prophet Nathan told King David the story of the Ewe Lamb that was taken by the rich man even though the rich man had plenty of his own, Samuel was telling a story that imparted the truth of what King David was doing by taking Bathsheba in adultery. Then I remembered Balaam’s talking Donkey and now know that the only way to approach scripture is to be a fundamentalist in regard to scriptural interpretation. No nuance or study is required, just read it and what you think it means at first blush or through your own interpretive lens is the right one. All those scholars throughout the ages just totally missed was is obvious to the combo box atheist. He then told me God hated shellfish and I knew my faith was crushed.

OK, this was getting serious. Still I was not prepared for what I found at the “Midwife of Science” blog:

I use to write on the stillbirth of science in every civilization and culture and how the Christian philosophical atmosphere prepared for the growth of science. The late priest and physicist Stanley Jaki wrote extensively about this in his books on science history. “Once more the Christian belief in the Creator allowed a break-through in thinking about nature. Only a truly transcendental Creator could be thought of as being powerful enough to create a nature with autonomous laws without his power over nature being thereby diminished. Once the basic among those laws were formulated science could develop on its own terms.” I use to point out to atheist these facts and the thousands of Catholic scientists throughout the ages. There are of course famous examples such as the Friar Gregor Johann Mendel and Deacon (possibly priest) Nicolaus Copernicus. Or the priest/astronomer/physicist Georges Lemaître who came up with what came to be called the Big Bang Theory. I knew of this and countless examples from my own research and the Catholic Laboratory Podcast. This morning after my usual routine I checked my email and found a comment from an atheist “What about the Galileo affair?” Wow, how did I miss that and its significance? Obviously this one example where Galileo was prosecuted for breaking his word and teaching as fact something not proved with empirical evidence almost two centuries after his death. So what if Galileo was totally wrong for using as proof the tides? So what if he was treated even worse by the scientists of the time and he had rather an abrasive personality. Surely this one example which could have been handled better is proof that the Church hates science and just wish it could go away so we could go back to some dark dank ages kicking it up like the Amish. The fact that the Church had setup Cathedrals as solar observatories and that she still maintains astronomical observatories is just cover for her hatred of empirical science.

As the day progresses I see more an more of the devastation of the Catholic blogosphere as Catholic blogs go dark. Now as for myself you don’t have to worry. Like any solid Catholic I am totally immune to reasonable arguments by atheists. The Pope told me atheists are mistaken so I just depend on the argument by authority without messing my mind up with want pesky reason. If God wanted me to mess around with reason he wouldn’t have given me faith.

After all the blowup over the invitation of the virulently pro-abortion author of the right-destroying HHS mandate Kathleen Sebelius, the only defense the formerly Catholic and’ presently Jesuit Georgetown could muster is that the event that Sebelius will be speaking at is not a “commencement.”

Georgetown has even gone back and edited their original announcement in which they called it a commencement ceremony. Crisis over. Nothing to see here.

“Secretary Sebelius is not speaking at Georgetown’s commencement. She is speaking at Georgetown Public Policy Institute’s annual student and faculty awards event,” Georgetown spokesman Rachel Pugh said in an email to The Cardinal Newman Society.

They must think we are as stupid as they clearly are.

So, she is not speaking at a commencement. What is she speaking at?

As CNS reports, she is speaking at an event during commencement weekend in which graduates of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute will have their names called, they will walk across a stage, and receive their diplomas. She is speaking at the event in which all these things happen, but don’t call it a commencement.

What is it with these people that that they think that changing a word and denying the obvious changes the real nature of things. Kinda like calling a creature with 46 chromosomes, a heart, a brain, fingers and toes a fetus instead of a person magically makes all the horribleness go away.

What is wrong with these people?

Via Creative Minority Report