Woman attacks anti-Christian art display October 8, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, General Catholic, scandals, Society.comments closed
I must admit, this makes me smile on some level. A woman, a truck driver, went into an “art display” in, of all places, Loveland, CO, and destroyed some blasphemous art that showed, among other things, Jesus involved in a gay sex act. Oh, those very so BRAVE and CUTTING EDGE artists – there they go, blaspheming against those Christianists, who are so known for their violence and cruelty. It’s funny how these same very brave artists apparently find nothing “artistic” in Islam, because I’m sure they wouldn’t be AFRAID to attack Islam since muslims have a tendency to kill those who do.
I don’t exactly condone the actions of this woman, although, I think if Christians were to react in this manner more frequently such liberties being taken with our Faith by these so-called artists would probably cease. But this is part of the challenge of our Faith – we are called to be meek and to act with humility, because we all sin, we all fall very short. Even when we are extremely offended by those of little or no talent who must attract attention to themselves by being provocative, we are called to try to convert by our example, not by reacting violently. Although, in all honesty, I have to say, we can all reach a breaking point where we react as we should not, because of the offensiveness of it all.
The best part is that after she took a crowbar to the art, she calmly sat down and waited for the police to come. If you’re going to strike a blow in defense of the Faith, that’s probably about the best way to do it.
Churches having a hard time filling 40 Day for Life prayer vigil spots October 8, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, Dallas Diocese, North Deanery, scandals, Society.comments closed
I got sent an e-mail last night from the Dallas 40 Days for Life committee, informing me that many Catholic parishes are having a hard time filling their prayer vigil time slots outside Southwestern Women’s Abortuary at Royal and Greenville in Dallas. The way it is supposed to work is that each parish signs up for a day, a 24 hour period, and arranges to have people praying outside the mill for that entire 24 hour period. Mater Dei filled their slot, as did St. Mark Plano – they both had a constant presence outside the mill on their day. The e-mail I received indicated that other parishes/organizations aren’t able to fill the entire 24 hour period and so some times are at risk of going “uncovered.” St. Monica’s Dallas is splitting today (they even had the awesome Fr. Jason Cargo out there praying for an hour) with the Young Serrans of Dallas, but neither organization is covering the favorite 2 am till 7 am time slots. I know its hard to get people out at these odd hours and every single person that spends even a few minutes is incredibly valuable to the pro-life effort, but often times, in order to make up the difference, very dedicated pro-life people will go out and fill in these times, even if it means they go without sleep on many nights throughout the vigil and wind up having to spend numerous hours outside the mill to try to keep a presence. I know of some folks who have already had to do this quite a bit.
You can go to the 40 Days for Life webpage to see when your parish may have an upcoming period of prayer. If you belong to a parish with an upcoming timeslot, please consider trying to sign up to keep the prayer vigil going! I’ve been out 3 times, but that’s not much, I’m going to try to help out at some of these uncovered late evening slots. If you can’t make it out to the vigil, please pray for those who do that they will be safe and that more people will sign up! Thanks!
Funny October 8, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, silliness.comments closed
With deer season underway (for archery), I’m in the mood. This is probably a photoshop,but I liked it anyway:
Elk meat is awesome. If you’ve never had it, you really should sometime. It’s like really good, lean beef. As for the mountain lion? in the background, they do have those rarely in the Hill Country, one reason why I never go pose for my trophy without the rifle at hand. Although, really, where I hunt, its too developed for mountain lions to be even remotely likely. Although a small Mexican black bear did run through the property some time back.
h/t CMR
Another disastrous Catholic poll October 8, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in Dallas Diocese, foolishness, General Catholic, North Deanery, scandals, sickness, Society.comments closed
Coming on the heels of a religious knowledge survey (which, in fairness, was almost more of a general social studies knowledge survey, but I digress) that showed that Catholics are none too well formed in the Faith, comes a new poll showing that huge swaths of the Church reject the Magisterial dogma of the Faith. The results are depressing. Some of the high lowlights:
– Catholics are more likely than not to be statists, favoring an Uncle Sugar approach to government
– Catholics are slightly more pro-life than the average population. In detail, 26% of white Catholics will go out of their way to vote for a pro-abort candidate, while 38% of white Catholics will be less likely (but not necessarily unalterably opposed) to voting for such a candidate. Percentages for hispanic Catholics are 18% in favor of abortion and 26% opposed, with a large swath saying it comes down to the individual candidate (which means, if they like they may well vote for a pro-abort). This means, essentially, that only 1/3, or less, of Catholics are truly pro-life in every case. This is a travesty. This is one of the simplest, easiest to understand and practice Doctrines of the Faith. And yet, for a number of reasons, few Catholics observe it religiously. I’ve changed my thinking on capital punishment to conform more with what the Church proclaims (the Church is not always and everywhere opposed to it, but in general is opposed to it as a commonly used form of punishment). It is not that hard to do. And yet few Catholics can apparently be bothered to change their thinking on this issue.
– most distressingly, a huge majority of Catholics are either in favor of same sex civil unions (about 30%), or, worse, in favor of gay marriage outright (over 40%). Only 19% of white Catholics and 30% of hispanic Catholics are faithful to the Doctrine of the Faith, that homosexual acts are intrinsically evil and any union publically recognized as approving of those acts is unacceptable. The full court press of the gay activist lobby is working – 37% of Americans support same sex “marriage” today, as opposed to 26% in 2006 and essentially nil in 1990.
Once again, the question raises itself – how can this be? How can the Church be so seemingly powerless in the face of the dominant culture? Has it always been thus? Has the Church always only had a small percentage that really practices the Faith and tries very hard to apply it to their lives? Have so few conformed their thinking with the mind of the Church? Or do we live in a particularly bad time, where a lack of formation in parishes and bold proclamations of the Faith, not just generally but on specific issues, from our episcopal leadership seem so rare and so ineffectual?
There’s simply a huge number of self-proclaimed Catholics, who aren’t. We are told there are 65 million or so Catholics in the United States (the same number as there were in 1970, in spite of the overall US population increasing by about 50% since that time). In reality, there are more like 12-15 million practicing Catholics in this country who really try, at least on some level, to live the Faith. Perhaps you think I’m being unfair? Even the 12-15 million is probably a stretch. This, my friends, is the result of “pastoral” leadership, which is in reality neither.
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