"To be sure, many Catholics wholeheartedly embraced the change in tone and spirit in which the pope discussed difficult questions like abortion. Unfortunately, some deeply involved in the prolife movement have taken those remarks as a rebuke. That is an overreaction and misinterpretation of what the pope said. Obviously, Francis was objecting to the uncompromising and confrontational rhetoric of some Catholic activists. Why? Because that approach is simply not working. Worse, it is preventing the larger gospel message from being heard both within and beyond the Catholic community. With a third of all baptized Catholics abandoning the church, and those who remain increasingly divided on ecclesial, cultural, and political questions, the pope’s diagnosis is hard to refute. Is it not time, as Francis urged, to “find a new balance” in presenting the church’s teaching to an often doubting flock and a sometimes hostile secular world? “Otherwise,” the pope warns, “even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the gospel. The proposal of the gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.”
"Even more refreshing was the pope’s insistence that “thinking with the church” does not mean thinking only with the hierarchy. “The church [is]…the people of God, pastors and people together. The church is the totality of God’s people.” It has been a long time since that bit of orthodox wisdom has been heard from Rome..."
"Hours after the interview was released, the dissenting group Catholics United (see the August 2012 CWR article, “The Catholic Con Continues”) released a press statement penned by the CU communications director, Chris Pumpelly. The statement opens by claiming that “Francis articulates his vision of moving the priorities of the Catholic faith away from divisive social issues, like what he calls an 'obsession' with gay marriage, abortion and contraception, while refocusing on core Gospel teachings relating to poverty.” That statement is misleading at best, as “the priorities of the Catholic faith” have always been focused on proclaiming the gospel, even if many individual Catholics—laity, clergy, and religious alike—fail to do so. Pumpelly, like so many “progressives”, seeks to create a faulty “either/or” approach that seeks the silencing of those who uphold the clear and consistent teaching of the Church about sexuality, morality, and marriage.
"...Pope Francis has his own style, which reflects his unique personality and background, but it is also evident that he has the same central goal as his predecessors: to “proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching” (2 Tim 4:2)."
"The pope’s most controversial statements seem to arise from a single motive: He doesn’t like “right-wing” Catholics, and wants to make it clear to all the world that he’s not one of them...I have met this kind of smug zealot up here in the U.S...who joke about burning heretics or who condemn the American founding because so many Founders were Freemasons...Some right-wing Catholics embrace a hardline agenda because they feel weak and irrelevant, and prefer magnificent fantasies of wielding power over their neighbors to the slow grunt work of evangelizing.
"We are not living in fascist Argentina. The Culture of Death does not answer to men like General Galtieri, but to the likes of George Soros and Barack Obama. The bitterest traditionalists are not serving as tools of a grasping government which seeks to impose an anti-Christian ideology. Angry conservatives are not the cat’s paws of a potent political movement that seeks to marginalize the Church. The mass murder occurring throughout the West is not happening with the connivance of the Catholic right, but of the Catholic left, which pretends a moral equivalence between fundamental issues like abortion and prudential disputes over poverty programs and immigration totals, as a pretext for supporting candidates who oppose the natural law and the sanctity of life...Francis is clearly not their friend, either. That's going to become painfully apparent in the weeks and months ahead. Francis had this to say to La Repubblica as well: "It also happens to me that when I meet a clericalist, I suddenly become anti-clerical. Clericalism should not have anything to do with Christianity. St. Paul, who was the first to speak to the Gentiles, the pagans, to believers in other religions, was the first to teach us that."
"Holy Father: Absurd as some of us are, we on the Catholic right are not your enemy."
You Might Be In a Liberal Parish If…OR HOW ABOUT
...your family has to split up to find the tabernacle.
...the pastor wears an Izod shirt and introduces himself as "Steve."
...there's maraca's in the band.
...your pastor's last name starts with "Pf".
..."Steve" quotes Hans Kung in his sermon.Absolutely classic. But what's really the prevailing alternative? How do you know you're in a "faithful," modern-day, EWTN-oriented American neoconservative Catholic parish? You know, truly devoted to the pontiff, to insulate your immortal soul from all this now-disappearing dissent? Each point is a little more detailed, but here are a few clues to look for at your church.
...There's more Eucharistic ministers than parishioners receiving Communion.
...The sign of peace last twenty minutes and includes bear hugs.
...The scariest four letter words to your parish council aren't H.E.L.L but EWTN.
...the DRE is a female Episcopalian priest.
It’s no wonder they’re excited about the jobs. Even though Massachusetts’ unemployment rate was at 6.6 percent in May, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Fall River’s unemployment rate that month was 12.5 percent, according to the Massachusetts Office of Labor and Workforce Development. The Fall River store is one of four Sam’s Clubs and Wal-Mart stores in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts in hiring mode. All together, the four stores are hiring for more than 450 jobs. Sam’s is owned and operated by Wal-Mart Stores Inc...Wal-Mart is hiring for 85 newly created jobs at each of its two relocated stores in Massachusetts, one in Fall River and the other in Swansea...
The Fall River Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart stores are bright spots on the employment landscape in what’s been a long, “tough time” for the city, said Jay Pateakos, vice president of business development for the Fall River Area Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
“We appreciate the kinds of jobs the big-box stores are bringing. People need to be employed,” said Pateakos, pointing to Fall River’s double-digit unemployment rate, traditionally one of the highest in the state, the decline of manufacturing and some of the city’s devastating job losses, such as Quaker Fabric...
Currently, Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart employ 11,000 people in Massachusetts and 2,400 in Rhode Island, said Scott.
The average wage is $13.86 an hour for regular full-time employees, with benefits, he added
Ms. Aubrey, 55, has been working for Walmart off and on for years. She earns $10.10 an hour and can barely afford her rent. “I am clearing less than $250 a week; I have been on food stamps since they cut my hours,” she complains. “They give you a measly 40 cent raise each year, then they increase health care costs or something else and take it all back.” According to Ms. Aubrey, only the department managers at her store are able to get full-time hours and “some of the old-time employees.”
She says, “The rest of us are part-timers. There’s a lot of single moms in my store and many of them, because of the part-time hours, get government assistance. There’s not only a lot of them on food stamps, there is a lot of them that qualify for Medicaid.”
Mark Krikorian and Stephen Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies recently said something that got me thinking about the curious phenomenon of the capitalist welfare state. They pointed out that although low-skilled immigrants receive a disproportionate amount of government benefits, the recipients are, for the most part, employed. In effect, employers are getting the taxpayer to subsidize wages: instead of Megalo-Mart paying workers enough to put a roof over their heads, it pays less and lets the public make up the difference. The company gets the labor and profit it wants while externalizing part of the cost of wages.
It seems that fewer and fewer people in general are getting married these days, and even fewer men seem interested. Men no longer see marriage as being as important as they did even 15 years ago. "According to Pew Research Center, the share of women ages eighteen to thirty-four that say having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in their lives rose nine percentage points since 1997--from 28 percent to 37%. For men, the opposite occurred. The share voicing this opinion dropped, from 35 percent to 29 percent." Why?
1. You'll lose respect. A couple of generations ago, a man wasn't considered fully adult until he was married with kids. But today, fathers are figures of fun more than figures of respect: The schlubby guy with the flowered diaper bag at the mall, or one of the endless array of buffoonish TV dads in sitcoms and commercials. In today's culture, father never knows best. It's no better in the news media. As communications professor James Macnamara reports, "by volume, 69 percent of mass media reporting and commentary on men was unfavorable, compared with just 12 percent favorable and 19 percent neutral or balanced."
2. You'll lose out on sex. Married men have more sex than single men, on average - but much less than men who are cohabiting with their partners outside of marriage, especially as time goes on. Research even suggests that married women are more likely to gain weight than women who are cohabiting without marriage. A Men's Health article mentioned one study that followed 2,737 people for six years and found that cohabiters said they were happier and more confident than married couples and singles.
3. You'll lose friends. "Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine." That's an old song, but it's true. When married, men's ties with friends from school and work tend to fade. Although both men and women lose friends after marriage, it tends to affect men's self-esteem more, perhaps because men tend to be less social in general. >
4. You'll lose space. We hear a lot about men retreating to their "man caves," but why do they retreat? Because they've lost the battle for the rest of the house. The Art of Manliness blog mourns "The Decline of Male Space," and notes that the development of suburban lifestyles, intended to bring the family together, resulted in the elimination of male spaces in the main part of the house, and the exile of men to attics, garages, basements - the least desirable part of the home. As a commenter to the post observes: "There was no sadder scene to a movie than in 'Juno' when married guy Jason Bateman realized that in his entire huge, house, he had only a large closet to keep all the stuff he loved in. That hit me like a punch in the face."
5. You could lose your kids, and your money. And they may not even be your kids. Lots of men I spoke with were keenly aware of the dangers of divorce, and worried that if they were married and it went sour, the woman might take everything, including the kids. Other men were concerned that they might wind up paying child support for kids who aren't even theirs - a very real possibility in many states. On my blog, I polled over 3200 men to ask how they would react to finding out that a child wasn't theirs after all. 32 percent said they would feel "anger and fury at the mother," 6 percent said they would feel "depression," 18 percent said "anger and depression," 2 percent said "none of the above," 32 percent said "angry at the system that forced them to pay," and only 2 percent "didn't care." One man commented that his ex-wife had taunted him with the knowledge that his 11-year old son wasn't actually his: "I was angry at the mother...I severed all ties to the boy. Some may see this as a failing. I see it as self-preservation, and to those that ask the question of whether or not the courts will make a non-biological parent pay child support, pay attention: YES THEY WILL! They see you as nothing more than a source of cash for the child. It seems that a person in these situations should be able to sue the real father for child support."
6. You'll lose in court. Men often complain that the family court legal system is stacked against them, and in fact it seems to be. Women gain custody and child support the majority of the time, as pointed out in this ABC News article: "Despite the increases in men seeking and receiving alimony, advocates warn against linking the trend to equality in the courtroom. Family court judges still tend to favor women, said Ned Holstein, the founder of Fathers & Families, a group advocating family court reform. "'Family court still gives custody overwhelmingly to mothers, child support overwhelmingly to mothers, and courts still give almony overwhelmingly to mothers and women,' he said. 'The family courts came into existence years ago in order to give things to mothers that mothers needed," he said. 'The times have changed and the courts have not.'"
7. You'll lose your freedom. At least, if you're charged with child support that you can't pay, you can be put in jail - and if you can't afford a lawyer, you don't have the right to have one appointed because, according to the Supreme Court, it's technically a civil matter, never mind the jail time. Fathers and Families found that it's the men who are jailed rather than women: "A new report concludes that between 95% and 98.5% of all incarcerations in Massachusetts sentenced from the Massachusetts Probate and Family Courts from 2001 through 2011 have been men. Moreover, this percentage may be increasing, with an average of 94.5% from 2001 to 2008, and 96.2% from 2009 through 2011. It is likely that most of these incarcerations are for incomplete payment of child support. Further analysis suggests that women who fail to pay all of their child support are incarcerated only one-eighth as often as men with similar violations."
8. Single life is better than ever. While the value of marriage to men has declined, the quality of single life has improved. Single men were once looked on with suspicion, passed over for promotion for important jobs, which usually valued "stable family men," and often subjected to social opprobrium. It was hard to have a love life that wasn't aimed at marriage, and premarital sex was risky and frowned upon. Now, no one looks askance at the single lifestyle, dating is easy, and employers probably prefer employees with no conflicting family responsibilities. Plus, video games, cable TV, and the Internet provide entertainment that didn't used to be available. Is this good for society? Probably not, as falling birth rates and increasing single-motherhood demonstrate. But people respond to incentives. If you want more men to marry, it needs to be a more attractive proposition.
Observers have noted, for example, that Pope Francis, the first pontiff from the Americas, still wears the cross he wore as archbishop of Buenos Aires, rather than the golden one customary for popes, and that he has declined to wear the papal red shoes and other fancy vestments favored by past pontiffs.
Earlier this week, the pope indicated he wouldn't move into the pontiff's gilded official quarters in the Apostolic Palace any time soon, instead planning to stay at a modest Vatican guesthouse....
In his first general audience Wednesday, Francis said that Catholics needed to "be the first to move towards our brothers and sisters, especially those who are most distant, those who are forgotten, those who are most in need of understanding, consolation and help"...That contrasted with his predecessor, who viewed the church's relationship with the secular world as largely adversarial, and responded by defending the church's fundamental beliefs and rituals.
Until Pope Francis, no pontiff had ever washed the feet of a woman or a Muslim on Holy Thursday, which marks two of the most important institutions in Roman Catholicism, the Eucharist and the priesthood...For Pope Francis, in a Holy Thursday Mass, to clean the feet of two women, including a Muslim from Serbia, left some speechless...
One of the most-read traditionalist blogs, "Rorate Caeli," reacted to the foot-washing ceremony by declaring the death of Benedict's eight-year project to correct what he considered the botched interpretations of the Second Vatican Council's modernizing reforms.
"The official end of the reform of the reform — by example," ''Rorate Caeli" lamented in its report on Francis' Holy Thursday ritual.
A like-minded commentator in Francis' native Argentina, Marcelo Gonzalez at International Catholic Panorama, reacted to Francis' election with this phrase: "The Horror." Gonzalez's beef? While serving as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio's efforts to revive the old Latin Mass so dear to Benedict and traditionalists were "non-existent."
Virtually everything he has done since being elected pope, every gesture, every decision, has rankled traditionalists in one way or another.
Clericalism, however, is...a caricature. It fosters an ecclesiastical caste system in which clerics comprise the dominant elite, with lay people serving as a passive, inert mass of spear-carriers tasked with receiving clerical tutelage and doing what they're told. This upstairs-downstairs way of understanding relationships and roles in the Church extends even to the spiritual life: priests are called to be saints, lay people are called to satisfy the legalistic minimum of Christian life and scrape by into purgatory...
One of the most urgent reforms facing him is the restoration of the moral credibility of the hierarchy, and especially of the priesthood. The scandals of clerical sex abuse and tales of Vatican corruption have not only severely undermined the Church’s moral authority, but given the impression that living by the Church’s teachings forms freaks and moral monsters rather than saints.
In his first couple of weeks as Pope, as well as his 14 years in Buenos Aires, Francis has been charting out the trajectory of priestly reshaping...Diocesan priests do not take a vow of poverty, but commit themselves to a simple lifestyle. In many places, this principle is given lip service, as members of the clergy drive fancy cars, frequent the finest restaurants and live in exquisite digs...Second, throughout his time as archbishop, the future Pope spoke out forcefully against priests’ living a “double-life.” When he was asked in a 2010 book-length interview, El Jesuita, about the common saying in Argentina, “I believe in God, but I don’t believe in priests,” he replied, “Many of us priests do not deserve to have them believe in us.”
In Buenos Aires, if the priests found themselves in difficult circumstances, he would help them address their situation, even if it meant their deciding to leave the priesthood. What he absolutely wouldn’t tolerate, however, was priests’ living incoherent lives, because he knew how much that harms and scandalizes God’s people (blogger's note: JPII put a moratorium on men leaving the priesthood, or being laicized, expecting them to work out their double lives).
...Like the Good Shepherd, the priest must seek to be the servant, not the lord, of the rest. This is the exact opposite of the haughty clericalism that in many places has hurt many and wounded the Church.This is very profound, coming from Father Landry, a noted grad of North American College in Rome. I guess he knows a few of his classmates well when he writes "haughty clericalism." He certainly isn't talking of the Spencer Tracy-era priests he never encountered. Believe me. For the younger ordinands who view themselves as only about sharing in divinity, as entitled to deference and comfort, this will be a shock. It WILL drive a good many of them out of the priesthood. Good riddance.
We’ve all heard this phrase before; it remains common even in our modern society. When someone says that a man should be a good provider, what they invariably mean is that he should have a good job that earns a steady income, one which enables him to provide food, shelter, and the nice things in life to his family.
This definition of being a provider is well-ingrained in our society and in the male psyche. In fact, when men lose a job, and thus their identity as a provider, they tend to get very anxious and depressed...Last time, we mentioned the fact that in very primitive societies, men and women provided about equal resources to their tribes; women gathered nuts and seeds, and men hunted big game. In fact, for much of human history, men and women contributed fairly equally to the family economy. The idea of the stay-at-home wife who lounged around the house while her husband toiled all day outside the home is a relatively modern conception of family life. It wasn’t until the 19th century that we saw this idea take hold in the West and even then, the working husband and stay-at-home wife dynamic was typically only available to the wealthy and middle-class. In most families, both men and women had to work in some capacity in order to keep the family afloat financially.