Papist News

Here are some highlights from AP's recent interview with Archbishop Chaput - if you didn't have time to read his book before voting tomorrow, I highly recommend his thoughts. I also notes a couple favorite quotables from the interview.

"I am a Catholic and my constituency I have to be faithful to is God & his people." ~Archbishop Chaput

"We don't believe in a separation of faith and politics."

"Madison Catholic Bishops Blasts 2 Democratic Leaders"??

read:

blast (v): To unequivically and boldly teach the Catholic stance on abortion when two Catholic public officials openly and blatantly misrepresent doctrine.

Last night, Madison's Channel 3000 news featured an interview with Bishop Robert Morlino regarding his statements in last sunday's homily about Sen. Biden and Speaker of the House Pelosi (link above will take you to the video coverage). Hear his homily here. According to the archive log, the audio recording of Bsp. Morlino's homily has already been visited by over 6,000 people!!

As American Papist pointed out earlier this week, "American bishops ... are waging an offensive (as opposed to defensive) war on behalf of unborn children in this country." [source article here]
I am proud to be a member (and serving) in the diocese of Bsp. Morlino who has been at the front lines of this war his five years here in Madison! Let us all continue to storm heaven for him and all the Bishops who are so courageously leading the way for the faithful to engage against the culture of death!



40 Days for Life Kicks off this weekend!

One crucial way we can all engage in the battle is to participate in 40 Days for Life, a national prayer and outreach vigil that takes place from Sept. 24 - Nov. 2. Madison is among more than 170 cities in 45 states joining together for the largest and longest coordinated pro-life mobilization in history! You can join in the local efforts by checking out information from our local chapter and getting signed up to participate.

Empty & Beautiful Released!

Just received an email that Matt Maher's new cd, Empty & Beautiful is now available for purchase. Get a sneak peek at the songs and all of Matt's other albums at Spirit & Song

He'll be interviewed live tonight on EWTN's Life on the Rock at 8:00 pm if you care to catch it!

For those in Wisconsin who are fans, he will be at Queen of the Apostles Catholic Church in Pewaukee, WI on October 24! [This is a FREE concert! Check out the details here.]

Faithful Citizenship doesn't wait for a leap year

Every four years, Americans are given an opportunity to participate in a very important part of American government - the election of the U.S. President. But how many of us check out except for the rousing Media fest that pushes the election in our face for the year previous to the election date?
Every four years, the Catholic Bishops of the United States make an effort to remind us that as Catholics, we are responsible to be faithful citizens who are called to be active in the public square - not just once in a ballot every four years, but throughout our lives.

"...faithful citizenship, not faithful voting because our call to be involved in the public life of the community does not end on election day. The Church calls us to remain active as citizens in all seasons." -John Huebscher, WCC Executive Director

[Source: MCH]

But no informed, faithful action can take place without good education. . Check out these resources for educating yourself on faithful citizenship (the list took me about 5 minutes to compile; but the reading could take you well beyond the next election... and that's sort of the point):

• Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics, USCCB 1998

• Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life, Abp. Charles J. Chaput, Doubleday:2008 (current read - check it out!)

• Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility, USCCB 2007 (website contains lots of supplemental resources for applying/teaching)

• Various documents and articles online at Wisconsin Catholic Conference
  

• Nine-part series by WCC published in the Madison Catholic Herald beginning Sept. 11 (with a joint letter from the bishops of Wisconsin)

• Various letters to Catholics from Wisconsin bishops over the last several years

• A brief look at the seven principles of Catholic Social Teaching
  

• Catholic Social Teaching documents and other resources at OSJ St. Paul/Minneapolis

• American Papist - Because dialoguing with others and doing your research is a must to find good information, AP is a great place to start to read up on the latest news about faith and politics. While he doesn't have all the information, his excellent citations will have you clicking away in the web for hours (both to leading news sources and obscure blog rantings) - I suggest grabbing a cup of coffee first.

Cheers to you for making the decision to commit to educating yourself in order to be a faithful citizen - one commited to being involved and informed. May God bless all our efforts and make them fruitful; and further convict all of us to rise up to the challenge of being a modern, faithful American Catholic.

The Evil of Sex-Based Abortion and Why "Choice" Doesn't Solve Anything

From Population Research Institute (PRI): [via AP]

"In many Asian cultures, little girls are considered a burden rather than a blessing. This has led to all manner of atrocities like sex-selective abortion and even infanticide of infant girls in favor of boys. Steven W. Mosher talks about how this practice is coming to the United States, and how feminist groups are doing nothing about it. "

President of PRI, Steven W. Mosher discusses this horrible reality in the following video:

So what are feminists saying about the issue?
In this video from the NY Times, a scholar and a journalist discuss the effect on society of sex-based abortions. Keep in mind that Linda Hirshman (on the left) is a self-proclaimed radical feminist of the "condescending old-fashioned" kind. Michelle Goldberg is a journalist who has written in opposition of the religious right and is currently writing a book on the "global battle over women's rights."

Not sure what their conclusion is here except that Goldberg concludes, with her look at elete Indian women who are talked out of sex-selective abortions and subsequently give birth to girls, "turns our whole framework of choice on it's head."

We'll wait to see what Goldberg has to say in her new book, but the issue certainly does turn the framework of choice on its head as the genocide of abortion becomes a tool for selectively weeding out certain members of society. Of course, this is nothing new and is in fact one of the fundamental agendas of the earliest abortion advocates. The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a known eugenicist who specifically approved of abortion to target black americans as well as other individuals "unfit" to live.

Now feminists are upholding abortion rights and privileges on the basis of 'choice' while quietly having an issue with the fact that more girls are aborted than males. Radical feminists would have us believe that women will only have "free choice" and "equal rights" by subverting traditional roles. Upon several occasions, Linda Hirshman puts down educated women for accepting "lower roles" who choose to return home to care for their children:

Their decisions matter because their careers, if realized, would be influential. Their decisions are a mistake because they lead them to lesser lives, by most measures, and because these decisions hurt society. And their decision is not freely chosen, even if they “chose” it, as it is made in the context of an ideology that assigns childrearing and housekeeping to women, an ideology that, interviews reveal, they themselves accept.

["Is Your Husband A Worse Problem Than Larry Summers?", Linda Hirshman, InsideHigherEd]

For Hirshman, the total and unrestrained access to abortion is a necessity in order that she ("woman") can assert her independence of these traditional roles and redefine her gender. Tragically, both this attitude and that which legitimizes sex-selective abortions is undermining the personal dignity, freedom, and choice of women. Hirshman believes that women staying home/having children hurts society, where in reality home is a privileged place of influence where parents have the profound duty and responsibility to raise their children. For men and women, work and family should not be in opposition together, for the familiy is after all the "cell of society."

We should begin looking there, at the total breakdown of the dignity & value of human life at its core (in the womb, and in the family) in order to diagnose and correct the woes of society! Indeed, the evil of any abortion (but specifically sex-based) desecrates the dignity of the human person and radically encroaches upon the mission and duty of the human family to live in a communion of love [when parents usurp their God given gift of fertility, and they become the arbiters instead of the willing recipients of human life, making all decisions based off their own selfish criteria or those imposed by society.] Pope John Paul II addresses this and many other dangers to the human family in his 1981 Apostolic Exhortion, Familiaris Consortio.

While it must be recognized that women have the same right as men to perform various public functions, society must be structured in such a way that wives and mothers are not in practice compelled to work outside the home, and that their families can live and prosper in a dignified way even when they themselves devote their full time to their own family.

Furthermore, the mentality which honors women more for their work outside the home than for their work within the family must be overcome. This requires that men should truly esteem and love women with total respect for their personal dignity, and that society should create and develop conditions favoring work in the home.

...But clearly all of this does not mean for women a renunciation of their femininity or an imitation of the male role, but the fullness of true feminine humanity which should be expressed in their activity, whether in the family or outside of it, without disregarding the differences of customs and cultures in this sphere.

[Familiaris Consortio, 23]

Walking the Walk

I have to give a shout out to last week's Theology on Tap speaker, Ennie Hickman, for bringing it with the Word and his witness, and also his sweet gear. [a link to his talk posted here once it's up] What other youth minister is sponsored by a shoe company? The shoes - a way to walk-the-walk.

Since its beginning in 2006, TOMSshoes has given away 60,000 shoes to kids in Argentina and South Africa. Its founder Blake Mycoskie, (TOMS stands for Shoes for Tomorrow, not his name), has radically impacted the world with his crazy vision of giving a pair of shoes to children without!

The mission: One to One. For every pair of shoes someone buys, a pair is donated to a child.
Their goal: to give 200,000 pairs of shoes to children around the world in 2008!

The verdict: here is a company rocking popular culture and fashion! Ennie also says they are really comfortable and will probably never wear another pair. They are also a sweet tool of evangelization and outreach - those who wear the shoes are walking advertisements for effecting real change. People notice your cool shoes, and you can start up some amazing conversation - or just a simple one. Besides, for only $45 a pair, you can totally afford to participate!

Here's more about it:

Ryan and I have yet to place orders for our own, but I'm looking forward to it! They also carry some cute shoes for kids (yay!)

Fireproof

In the spirit of Humanae Vitae, I'd like to mention a christian film that I heard about today. Fireproof, opening September 26, is advertised as a movie about Christian marriage!

From 4marks.com:

... “Fireproof” is a Christian movie with a message: Never leave your partner behind. And, as you may be able to tell by the title, it is a clever theme that actually originates as the main character, Fire Chief Caleb Holt, played by Kirk Cameron, tells this to a new member of his crew. Caleb delivers this line with such conviction that it seems almost inconceivable that he misses how it is applicable to all things sacred, and extends beyond the relationships in the firehouse and subsequent burning buildings. He lives by one message at work but another at home. But it is this reality that makes us take note of “Fireproof” and maybe causes us to lower our head in reflection. We recognize that our messages may be loud and clear but our actions often leave much to be desired. And so we see Caleb’s commitment to the men on his crew but not to his wife. We witness a marriage that is caving in to Caleb’s addictions as his wife has been pushed beyond her breaking point. ..." [Author: Cheryl Dickow]

You can view the trailer here.

It is courageous and worthwhile that the producers and actors have chosen to stretch their movie making by also incorporating it into a wider ministry program. Fireproof is brought to the big picture by the movemaking ministry Sherwood Pictures in Albany, Georgia. I also hear that Maximus, a Catholic communications and marketing group, has teamed up with them to get the word out about this film.

Humane Vitae 40th Anniversary

Forty years ago today, Pope Paul VI promulgated the radical Catholic encyclical, Humanae Vitae. To see what is buzzing today, go visit my friend AP (who unlike me, promises to update):

AmericanPapist: Not Your Average Catholic!: Humanae Vitae 40th Anniversary Post

He cites a debate between Janet Smith and Charles Currin that pretty much sums up the two sides of the debate. I checked, and not attention was given in our local press today (not really expected of course). Despite that, Humanae Vitae represents the authentic, consistent teaching of the Catholic Church on procreation, contraception, and marriage.

And there are plenty of us who willingly and lovingly obey it's teachings!

Also run over to Jessica's blog to check out the latest from her caffeinated mind: http://nfpworks.wordpress.com