Jury selection under way in case against Green Bay’s Catholic diocese

Real Deals

Flip, shop and save on specials from your favorite retailers in Appleton, WI 54912

GET DEALS NOW

A crown for the Virgin Mary – Sarasota Herald

The walk ended at the Blessed Virgin Mary statue, where students put flowers at her feet.

As far back as anyone at the Port Charlotte school can remember, tradition has called for the second-graders to perform the ceremony each year in conjunction with their recent First Communion.

Following Alicia at the May 2 ceremony were her classmates, each carrying a different flower. All of the girls had a garland of flowers in their hair, and the boys wore boutonnieres on their shirts.

Bringing up the rear of the procession was Joaquin Monge, carrying a pillow holding the crown of flowers that Breanna Albertson would place on the head of the statue.

“I was so excited to be chosen, and happy,” Breanna said. “I just made my First Communion last week and today even makes me feel more happy inside.”

Second-grade teacher Cathy Cooms always leaves it up to a chance drawing to select the boy who will carry the crown and the girl who does the crowning.

There was a time when the children came dressed in their First Communion outfits, complete with the girls wearing their veils. This became harder to do when each of the local church parishes from which the children come held First Communion ceremonies later in the year.

“It just so happens this year that all the children have already made their First Communion, but in the past that was not always true,” Cross said. “So today was very special for the children. For the very first time as a class, they all went up to receive communion, then again as a class they performed the May Crowning ceremony.”

Since the start of the school year, Cooms has been preparing the second-graders for their First Communion. The focus in the past month has been on the May Crowning ceremony and why May is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“I think because we are the last ones to receive our First Communion is the reason we get to be the ones to do the May Crowning,” student Christian Kreegel said. “Today keeps the celebration going for us. Next week we will all come to school in our First Communion clothes for another special celebration. The month of May is dedicated to Mary because God chose Mary to be the mother of his only son, Jesus, who gave his life for us.”

CathBlog – How Catholic are we?

BY DRASKO DIZDAR

Fifty years ago, at the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church set itself a number of goals. Among those were opening up to the rest of the world and the unity of the church, indeed, of humankind. 

The Council insisted that, far from being exclusive and sectarian, the church is only truly catholic when it embraces the living and lively diversity of everything that is genuinely human. As the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church put it quite unambiguously: 

All are called to this catholic unity of the People of God…. And to it, in different ways, belong or are ordered: the Catholic faithful, others who believe in Christ, and finally all mankind, called by God’s grace to salvation (Lumen Gentium 13; emphasis added). 

According to the Catechism: “The word ‘catholic’ means ‘universal,’ in the sense of ‘according to the totality’ or ‘in keeping with the whole’” (§830). It comes from the Greek words kata (according to) and holos (whole). In other words, “catholic” means inclusive, holistic, open to everyone.

Let’s be clear about what “catholicity” does not mean then: it is not a fancy word for the religious beliefs and practices that make Roman Catholics different from everyone else (so-called “Catholic cultural identity”). On the contrary, “catholicity” denotes what unites rather than what divides; it speaks of communion rather than difference; of unity-in-diversity.

By calling itself “catholic” the church asserts that which unites and opens it up to all people, beyond all differences. Paradoxically this openness is the distinguishing and specific mark of its “identity” and the heart of its “culture”.

So, far from being a “tribal cipher” that merely marks the church off as yet another of the world’s religions, catholicity is a deeply mysterious and paradoxical process. It is a way of saying that we are discovering ourselves becoming something unique precisely because we find our differences transformed in a universal communion where everyone is welcome just as they are. 

We are “catholic”, then, to the extent that we are open. Open to what? Christ and the world. As the Catechism makes very clear, catholicity is first and foremost about Christ: “First, the Church is catholic because Christ is present in her. ‘Where there is Christ Jesus, there is the Catholic Church.’” (§831).

Only when we are absolutely clear about the centrality and primacy of Christ as the embodiment and giver of catholicity, can we speak of its specifically human dimension and scope: “Secondly, the Church is catholic because she has been sent out by Christ on a mission to the whole of the human race” (§831).

Our catholicity is a mark of “identity” as communion, not tribe or institution. Catholicity is the means of our healing, our restoration to the integrity and wholeness for which we are created. In and through the church as “catholic communion” all humanity is called to participate in realising its likeness to the Triune God who is a “communion of love”.

Catholicity is the ecclesial way of speaking about God’s transforming humanity into the image and likeness of God as communion of love; an image and likeness we see absolutely realized in Christ, the One who is at once one-with-God and one-with-us, so uniting us with God. As Pope Benedict XVI puts it: 

The essence of original sin is the split into individuality, which knows only itself. The essence of redemption is the mending of the shattered image of God, the union of the human race through and in the One who stands for all and in whom, as Paul says (Gal 3:28), all are one: Jesus Christ… [T]o be a Christian means to be Catholic, means to be on one’s way to an all-encompassing unity. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, 49).

“Catholicity” is not a fancy word for Catholic tribalism, then, but a call “to an all-encompassing unity” that excludes no one since all are “children of God”, and equally so.

So, how catholic are we? The catholicity of our parishes, schools and other ecclesial communities has nothing to do with statues of Mary, pictures of the pope and “bums on seats”. It has everything to do with openness of mind, heart and embrace towards the world God loves and Christ renews by his life-giving Spirit.  

Show me how wholeheartedly you accept the “other” in the “Wholly Other” become “One-with-us”, and I’ll show you how catholic you are.

Dr Drasko Dizdar is a member of the Emmaus monastic community, and a theologian with the Tasmanian Catholic Education Office.

 

Disclaimer: CathBlog is an extension of CathNews story feedback. It is intended to promote discussion and debate among the subscribers to CathNews and the readers of the website. The opinions expressed in CathBlog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the members of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference or of Church Resources.

Cardinal Dolan urges graduates to reflect Christ’s self-giving love

COMMENCEMENT-CUA May-14-2012 (860 words) With photo. xxxn

Cardinal Dolan urges graduates to reflect Christ’s self-giving love

By Mark Zimmermann
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan praised the class of 2012 at The Catholic University of America, saying in his May 12 commencement address that the 1,500 students receiving degrees that day had all majored in “the Law of the Gift” — learning to pattern their lives after the self-giving love of Jesus.

Cardinal Dolan noted how Blessed John Paul II described the “Law of the Gift” this way: “For we are at our best, we are most fully alive and human, when we give away freely and sacrificially our very selves in love for another.”

The cardinal noted how Jesus spoke about the “Law of the Gift” when the Lord said, “Greater love than this no one has, than to give one’s life for one’s friends.”

New York’s archbishop, who also is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, encouraged the graduates to draw on their faith to help in the effort to stand up for religious freedom in the United States and to oppose efforts to redefine marriage.

“Religion, faith, the church promote a culture built on the ‘Law of the Gift,’” the cardinal said. “Thus, wise people from Alexis de Tocqueville to John Courtney Murray … have observed that an essential ingredient in American wisdom and the genius of the American republic is the freedom it allows for religion to flourish.”

He predicted that a challenge the class of 2012 “will inevitably face is the defense of religious freedom as part of both our American and creedal legacy.”

Cardinal Dolan has played a leading role in the U.S. bishops’ defense of religious freedom in the face of recent threats, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate that would force Catholic institutions including hospitals, universities and social service agencies to provide health insurance coverage to employees for procedures the Catholic Church opposes, including abortion-inducing drugs, artificial contraceptives and sterilizations.

Cardinal Dolan said the “Law of the Gift” also provides special insights into the Catholic Church’s teachings on marriage.

The law “is most poetically exemplified in the lifelong, life-giving, faithful, intimate union of a man and woman in marriage, which then leads to the procreation of new life in babies, so that husband and wife, now father and mother, spend their lives sacrificially loving and giving to those children,” the cardinal said.

“That union — that sacred rhythm of man/woman/husband/wife/baby/mother/father — is so essential to the order of the common good that its very definition is ingrained into our interior dictionary, that its protection and flourishing is the aim of enlightened culture.”

The cardinal said the Catholic University graduates had first learned those lessons from “the most significant of all professors, your mom and dad,” at home, and he led the graduates in applauding their parents.

“The ‘Law of the Gift’ is part of the DNA of any Catholic school, this sterling one included,” he said.

“That we are at our best when we give ourselves away in love to another — the ‘Law of the Gift,’” Cardinal Dolan continued, “is, I’m afraid, ‘countercultural’ today, in an era that prefers getting to giving, and entitlement to responsibility; in a society that considers every drive, desire or urge as a right, and where convenience and privacy can trump even the right to life itself; and in a mindset where freedom is reduced to the liberty to do whatever we want, wherever we want, whenever, however, with whomever we want, rather than the duty to do what we ought. … Well, the ‘Law of the Gift’ can be as ignored as a yellow traffic light in New York City.”

New York’s cardinal also noted how Pope Benedict XVI has emphasized the importance of Catholic universities being faithful to their Catholic identity as they carry out the church’s mission in service to the Gospel. He noted that each classroom at The Catholic University of America features the most effective audiovisual aid of them all — the crucifix.

A big part of the joy at that morning’s graduation, the cardinal said, was rooted in gratitude of the university’s solidarity and communion with the church’s pastoral leadership, knowing “that this university is both Catholic and American, flowing from the most noble ideals of truth and respect for human dignity that are at the heart of our church and our country.”

Earlier, Cardinal Dolan received Catholic University’s President’s Medal, the school’s highest honor. Cardinal Dolan has a doctorate in American church history from Catholic University.

Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl, chancellor, offered the invocation at Catholic University’s 123rd annual commencement, asking God to bless the university’s work, and he prayed that at the university, the light of Catholic faith would continue to shine so that those seeking truth will come to know God, who is truth.

Addressing the graduates, John Garvey, president of Catholic University, noted that many commencement speakers encourage graduates “to follow your dreams and wear sunscreen.”

He urged them instead to draw upon the virtue of patience. “Patience is the disposition to await God’s grace. … Get up every morning with the disposition to await God’s grace,” he said.

- – -

Zimmermann is editor of the Catholic Standard in Washington.

END

---

Copyright (c) 2012 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250

Children mark their First Communion in festive finery

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The setting varies in Catholic churches large and small, contemporary or traditional, but the solemn springtime procession of little girls in white dresses and veils and boys in their Sunday best, hands prayerfully positioned as they make their First Communion, remains constant.

The special occasion played out May 6 at The Basilica of the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Charleston and St. Agnes Catholic Church in Kanawha City, as it did at other area churches.

Children, usually in second grade, receive the Eucharistic sacrament for the first time at First Communion, which is an important milestone in their spiritual journey. The children won’t fully grasp all the church’s concepts, but teachers and priests who prepare them strive to help them realize that they truly receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the form of the consecrated host (wafer) and wine.

“We emphasize that it’s not symbolism. They more easily understand when we talk about the power of Jesus to turn water into wine where you see the change. We believe that he can change bread and wine to the body and blood, even though you cannot see the change,” said Monsignor Edward Sadie, who presided over the First Communion Mass on May 6 at Sacred Heart. “We don’t see it, but we believe. It’s what we call faith.”

Fifty-nine years ago, a young Ann Weimer made her First Communion at Sacred Heart. As a pastoral assistant at the same church today, she prepares the children for First Communion.

In Weimer’s class, the girls wore white dresses of their own — or more likely their mothers’ — choice and identical veils. The boys wore white suits. Monsignor Sadie said the attire was the same at his own First Communion in 1938.

The girls still wear white and the boys usually wear dress pants and nice shirts, jacket optional. No tennis shoes. “We tell the little girls that they do not have to wear white. White is not required, but for the past 15 years that I’ve worked with them, 100 percent of them have worn white,” Weimer said.

It isn’t about the dress.

“Remember, this is not the prom. It’s about the sacrament they’re receiving. That should be the focus of the day,” Weimer said.

“It’s been my mission to meet with parents and remind them of the significance of the Eucharist. It’s the center of Catholic faith,” Weimer said.

After a year’s instruction, the children attend a daylong workshop and make a confession in preparation. Before the big day, they’ll make the sign of the cross, know the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be prayers. They’ll know the Mass is divided into two parts and be able to name the seven sacraments.

That’s a lot to learn, but they have a year to do it.

But the dress is special

Internet shopping blew open the all-white First Communion dress selection, but some families rely on old fashioned options and browse the racks of white dresses in stores together. They might wear an older sister’s or older relative’s dress. This year, Hailey Deslich, a second-grader at Holtz Elementary School, made her First Communion at Sacred Heart in a dress her grandmother Sheila Deslich sewed for her.

“Mom had made her baptismal gown. We wanted to go ahead and carry that tradition on for First Communion,” said Hailey’s mother, Stacie Deslich.

Hailey’s grandmother presented her with the choice of three dress patterns. “Of course she chose the most elaborate,” Stacie said. Sheila indulged her granddaughter’s love of sparkles and glitter with a discrete bit of glitter around the neckline.

Stacie teaches Hailey’s religious education class, so her daughter is well educated about the significance of her first-time reception of communion. A special dress commemorates the occasion.

“The dress will be a keepsake. If Hailey has a daughter someday, she can wear it,” Stacie said.

Several years ago, Sacred Heart parishioner Eldena Kincaid suggested her granddaughter Sydni, now 15, wear for First Communion the wedding dress she wore in 1972. Sydni liked the simple white dress of dotted Swiss that her grandmother kept in a cedar chest.

“We cut it shorter and tucked in the waist,” Eldena said. “She liked the idea. It’s something we could share.”

The following year, Sydni’s younger sister Amber wore her mother’s First Communion dress. Both girls wore their mother’s veil.

Appearance and reality

However angelic they appear for the big moment, the children behave like, well, children, before and after. They squirm and wiggle as they receive final instructions and line up. The boys at Sacred Heart folded their name cards into airplanes to sail across the parish hall.

Immediately after Mass at St. Agnes in Kanawha City, Nicholas Ihnat shed his blazer, pulled out his shirttails and climbed a tree in the church courtyard. Julia Preservati hiked up her fancy skirt and followed, until her mother called her down.

They’d each listened attentively as the Rev. Chris Turner took a light approach in his message to them during Mass. He asked them complicated theological questions that stumped most adults in the congregation as well as the children, who were glad they weren’t taking a test.

“The point is that you can’t know everything about the church. The real test is living and loving each other as Christ taught us,” he told them.

Dr. Carol Frail prepared the St. Agnes children for First Communion. She hopes the children grasp who Jesus was and the sacrifice he made for them.

“Today is important because it’s pretty much the first time God enters into your body,” said 8-year-old Julia Preservati.

Monsignor Sadie told the children that First Communion is so important, they will likely remember the day for the rest of their lives. He vividly recalled his own First Communion in 1938 at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Parkersburg.

“I had a dark suit and a tie. I remember they assembled us in the little yard next to the church and we filed into church. The nuns lined us up. They had prepared us,” he said. As to the day’s theological importance, “I knew it was something special and that it wasn’t ordinary bread and wine.

“Not much has really changed,” he said.

Reach Julie Robinson at jul…@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1230.

Professor Benedict lectures the professors

Copyright ©2010. The Associated Press. Produced by NewsOK.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

BY TERRY MATTINGLY
|

Published: May 14, 2012


Oklahoman

  
Leave a comment

In his latest address to American bishops visiting Rome, Pope Benedict XVI stressed that Catholic educators should remain true to the faith — a reminder issued just in time for another tense season of commencement addresses.

No, the pope did not mention Georgetown University by name when discussing the Catholic campus culture wars.

Yes, he did mention the law requiring professors who teach Catholic theology to obtain a Canon 812 “mandatum” (mandate) document from their bishops to certify that they are truly Catholic theologians.

Many American bishops have cited a “growing recognition on the part of Catholic colleges and universities of the need to reaffirm their distinctive identity in fidelity to their founding ideals and the Church’s mission. …

Much remains to be done, especially in such basic areas as compliance with the mandate laid down in Canon 812 for those who teach theological disciplines,” said Benedict, who taught theology at the university level in Germany.

“The importance of this canonical norm as a tangible expression of ecclesial communion and solidarity in the Church’s educational apostolate becomes all the more evident when we consider the confusion created by instances of apparent dissidence between some representatives of Catholic institutions and the Church’s pastoral leadership: such discord harms the Church’s witness and, as experience has shown, can easily be exploited to compromise her authority and her freedom.”

Benedict’s remarks to the bishops of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming came during the fourth of five Vatican visits by Americans reporting on life in their dioceses.

His January address, to the bishops of Washington, D.C., Baltimore and the U.S. Armed Services, made news with its focus on threats to religious liberty.

12Next

---

<!– –>
<!– –>

News Photo Galleriesview all

Governor’s health walk

View photos of the event.

15 photos

Twin car bombs in Syrian capital kill dozens

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Twin suicide car bombs exploded outside a…

21 photos

George Lindsey, known as TV’s Goober Pyle, dies…

George Lindsey, who portrayed Goober Pyle on television shows, died…

7 photos

Kentucky Derby

See derby day photos from Louisville, Ky. on Saturday, May 5, 2012.

99 photos

Prev

1

2

3

4

5
Next

Let’s Get To Know Mitt Romney

From The Daily.com:

(On) a cold December Sunday in the 1980s Romney got a phone call from a Mormon bishop in Utah who said the adult daughter of one of his members — a single mother who did not belong to the church — needed help. The woman’s heating oil had been turned off in the dead of winter.

Enlisting his young sons to help, Romney loaded up his Gran Torino with firewood and drove the car from the family’s generous house in the leafy Boston suburb of Belmont to the woman’s home in the hardscrabble Dorchester neighborhood downtown..
……………………………..

Years after a business partner died unexpectedly, Romney helped the man’s surviving daughter go to medical school with loans for tuition — loans he forgave when she graduated.
……………………………….

Stories like these are legion. Romney gathering neighbors in a quick effort to clear out a burning house until firefighters arrived on the scene. Showing up unsolicited to clear a hornet’s nest near an injured church member’s house. Organizing a New York City search for a business partner’s missing daughter.

The sad part of the story in the Daily.com is that these good works may be being avoided because they are related to Mitt’s Mormon faith. It’s disappointing that just because one may disagree with Mormonism, his campaign feels they can’t paint the full picture of who Mitt Romney really is. Sure, he is a very successful businessman, but he also clearly cared about those around him. The Christian faith (and yes, Mormonism IS Christian) demands that we care for the poor. Not the government. Us. We are called, as individuals, to care for the poor.

Have we agreed as a society to implement programs that can be distributed through the government to help the poor? Yes. And almost all of us agree with helping those who cannot take care of themselves through the government. It is the false narrative of the left that pretends that conservatives want to do away with programs for the poor. We do not. But somewhere along the way these programs became bloated, wasteful, and full of fraud, wasting our money and NOT helping the poor, but creating subculture in our society that is now trapped in generational poverty and dependence on the government. All entitlement programs need to be reevaluated, scaled down, stripped of fraud and waste, and made to work for all those who are truly needy. This is the desire of conservatives, not getting rid of these programs.

But as Christians, our faith asks us to use our resources, personally, to help the poor. And we do. Protestant and Catholic faiths give billions to help the poor around the world. In my faith, Catholic Relief Services helped more than 100 million poor and vulnerable people in nearly 100 countries around the world in just 2010 alone. CRS doesn’t waste it’s money on bureaucracy, fraud, and waste either. It is one of the most efficient organizations in the world. In fiscal year 2010, 95 percent of the money CRS spent went directly to programs that benefit the poor. Catholic Charities provides help from food to basic needs, disaster relief, prenatal services, food pantries and soup kitchens; job training; family counseling; emergency financial assistance for heat, electricity and other needs; shelters for the homeless and battered women; and advocacy for the poor in legislatures and in government agencies.

Mormonism follows the same view. The quote on their humanitarian Aid page says, We are “to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to provide for the widow, to dry up the tear of the orphan, to comfort the afflicted, whether in this church, or in any other, or in no church at all…”-Joseph Smith, “Times and Seasons,” March 15, 1842

In the same way the Catholic faith helps the poor around the world, so does Mormonism: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has donated more than $1 billion in cash and material assistance to 167 different countries in need of humanitarian aid since it started keeping track in 1985.”

So, let’s ignore the left’s false narrative of Mitt Romney being some greedy guy who doesn’t care about the poor. Clearly he does. He gave more than $7 million to charity in 2010 and 2011. He donated 16 percent to charity from 2010 to 2011. Knowing and stating that the government could do a much better job than it does taking care of the poor, is just stating the truth. The left will always whine about any cuts because it helps them politically. But we have to face the truth of our spending. We have to be grownups and stand firm against waste and fraud. It does no good for the truly needy when our taxpayer money is being thrown down the hole of greed and fraud.

Here is a great review of Mitt Romney’s entitlement reform plan. Here is Mitt’s speech.

Here are some highlights from that speech:

It took 43 presidents over 200 years to accumulate $6.3 trillion of national debt. President Obama is on track to borrow and spend nearly that much in just one term.

His fundamental error is that he believes government creates jobs and opportunity. He’s wrong. He puts his faith in government. I put my faith in people.

That is why I will make government simpler, smaller, and smarter.

This is not only good for the economy, it is a moral imperative. We cannot with moral conscience borrow trillions of dollars that can only be repaid by our children. We cannot so weaken our economic foundation that we jeopardize our ability to preserve freedom.
………………..

I learned how to balance budgets in business. In the private sector, you have no choice—you either balance your budget or you go broke. And you spend every dollar like it’s your own, because it is.

Someone should have told that to Solyndra. The federal government gave them a $535 million loan guarantee to build a factory in Fremont, California. The footprint covered 5 football fields. They had robots that whistled Disney songs. I am not kidding. They had “spa-like showers with liquid-crystal displays of the water temperature.” The company headquarters was called the “Taj Mahal” of office buildings. That’s how government starts a company.

Let me compare Solyndra with Staples, a company I helped get started. Our headquarters was located in the back of an empty food warehouse. We got some used office furniture – old Naugahyde chairs. You had to be an athlete to get out of them. Every penny we had went into selling the product and attracting new customers.

That’s a difference between the private sector and government–fiscal responsibility.
…………………..

Today, nine federal agencies run 47 different federal worker retraining programs at a cost of $18 billion a year. Just imagine how much is spent on overhead. I will send those workforce training dollars back to the states, empowering them to retrain workers in ways that fit the needs of their respective economies. In the process, we can save billions of dollars.

Finally, in addition to cutting programs and returning programs to states, there is a third approach to reining-in federal spending. It is to impose far greater productivity and efficiency on government itself, just like is regularly done in every successful business in the country.
……………………….

There are still other ways to make the federal government work more efficiently and effectively. We will attack the rampant fraud that exists in numerous government programs by enacting far stiffer penalties for those who steal from taxpayers. Cutting improper payments in half can save more than $60 billion a year. And we can save nearly $11 billion a year by repealing a political giveaway that protects unions from competition and drives up the cost of government contracts: it’s time to repeal Davis Bacon.
…………………….

In sum, I will make the federal government simpler, smaller, and smarter by eliminating programs, by sending programs back to the states, and by making government more productive. I will provide for the national defense, enforce our laws, preserve our safety net, and honor all our promises to our elderly. This is the right course for a moral nation.

Read the whole thing. It is excellent. We are finally getting to know Mitt Romney. He has a vision for this country to lead us back to prosperity. That is good for all Americans. Don’t let the false narrative of the left and the media fool you. Romney is a good man, family oriented, generous, caring, and he has a plan to get America back on it’s feet. Let’s not let the media distract us with issues that don’t matter, and stories that aren’t true. Let’s get to know the real Mitt Romney.

Minnesota Twins – PlayerWatch

Reuters

9:26 p.m. CDT, May 12, 2012

War on the Catholic Church

We know contraception’s cheap and plentiful availability makes President Obama’s HHS policy a falsely premised desperate political attempt to upset women and gain voters.  This strategy hopes to create disunity in the Catholic faith community.

The sowing of such discord is a manipulative, inappropriate and awful use of the office of the President of the United States.  It is uncharitable to all Catholics because we believe that the Church is the body of Christ.  No one of any political leaning should try to tear away pieces of Christ’s body for political gain.

The symbolism of the president’s implicit attack has not been lost on those who hate Christianity and God. In a chilling move, the Freedom from Religion Foundation has placed an ad in the Washington Post that encourages Catholics to leave the Church.  It includes the following:

It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church.

You’re better than your church, so why stay?  Why put up with an institution that discriminates against half of humanity?  Why send your children to parochial schools to be indoctrinated into the next generation of obedient donors and voters?  Can’t you see how misplaced your loyalty is after two decades of sex scandals involving preying priests, church complicity, collusion and coverup going all the way to the top?  Apparently, you’re like the battered woman who, after being beaten down every Sunday, feels she has no place else to go.

         Please Exit en Mass.

Kulturkampf (2012) has arrived and Kristallnacht is not far behind.  With the President unwaveringly committed to his abortion/contraception agenda and now having dropped all pretense of being a friend to traditional marriage, no civility need be accorded Catholics.  Expect more attacks by the administration and its proxies, attacks that would have been unheard of in the America we knew only a short time ago.

Admittedly, the Freedom from Religion Foundation ad has all the heft of a grammar school playground taunt, but this is just the beginning, and as Pope Pius XI said, “Let us thank God that he makes us live among the present problems.  It is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre.” 

Catholics, and for that matter Christians of all denominations, now is the time.  Channel your favorite saint, or Bonhoeffer, and confess your faith visibly in the face of mounting oppression.  Jump in the fast lane to the city of God and choose the Kingdom that lasts. 

Tucson Then & Now: First Communion is still a special event, if less lacy

Back on May 12, 1990, Arizona Daily Star photojournalist David Sanders captured the moment as 11-year-old Linda Madril and two other girls waited to enter St. Augustine Cathedral for their First Holy Communion.

Last week, Sanders returned to the downtown parish to see how this Catholic rite of passage has changed. The answer: Tradition lives on.

In the current photo, taken on May 5, Isabelle Hodgers, 8, left; Annaveve Santa Cruz, 7; and Malia Sims, 8, wait for church to begin.

Today’s gowns and veils are as fancy as those of yesteryear, but the layers of lace that seemed a mainstay of First Communion dresses have given way to simpler, sleeker frocks.