If Cardinal O’Malley Founded a Church…

A story has it that when Napoleon Bonaparte was at the height of his glory, a courtier proposed that he founded a church. The Emperor of the French is said to have answered, with a lot of common sense: “After Jesus Christ, in order to found a Church you need to carry a cross and die crucified on it, otherwise no one will take you seriously.”

True or not, this anecdote came to mind when I read an interview by Sean Cardinal O'Malley on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on November 16. [1]

In one of his answers to interviewer Norah O'Donnell, he said that, were he to found a church, it would admit the ordination of women priests.

Leaving aside for now the Cardinal’s surprising statement, it is of interest to note how nicely the liberal media treat churchmen friendly to it while continuing to attack the Church’s traditional doctrine and especially Her morals, thus taking full advantage of everything that can destroy the Church’s image in public opinion.

Indeed, according to today's liberal standards the Archbishop of Boston could not have been introduced in a more prestigious way:

“[A] shy Franciscan friar,” “[s]oft-spoken and unassuming”, “dressed in the brown habit of his Capuchin Franciscan order and not in a Cardinal's red robes,” “more inclined to conversation than condemnation,” “open, non-judgmental, given to simple living,” “a modest man,” “reluctant to put himself forward,” “humble, a true Franciscan,” “would rather be addressed as ‘Cardinal Seán,’ than ‘your Eminence.’” “[He sold] the palatial archbishop's residence and the 28 sprawling acres it sat on,” and “moved into the modest cathedral rectory.”

After lavishing such praise on the Cardinal, the CBS reporter – an alumna of Georgetown University – showed she is far from being a traditional Catholic.

As far as she is concerned, the Church is an old institution that has to be remade:

“At the heart of Pope Francis' revolution in the Catholic Church,” she says, “is a shy Franciscan friar, the pope's closest American advisor, Cardinal Sean O'Malley.” He is the one that “help[s] Francis remake an ancient institution.”

In what sense does the Church need to be “remade?”

Among other things, along the egalitarian line of the Voice of the Faithful movement (which had its moment in the sun in Boston years ago), she is indignant at the Church’s refusal to ordain women priests.

Referring to women, she says, “they can't preach,” “[t]hey can't administer the sacraments.” “[S]ome women feel like they're second-class Catholics,” and asks, “does the exclusion of women seem at all immoral?”

Non-ordination of women is supposedly unjust because it is not egalitarian:

“The sense of equality,” she says, “the sense of sort of the fairness of it” should allow the ordination of women.

And she adds:

“You wouldn't exclude someone based on race. But yet you do exclude people based on gender.”

It was facing this feminist onslaught that the Cardinal joshingly spoke about founding a church which, unlike the one founded by Jesus Christ, would ordain women priests.

First he sought to defend Church tradition by explaining that “the priesthood reflects the incarnation of Christ, who in his humanity is a man.” But facing the insistence of his interviewer, he formulated this sentence which is causing much scandal:

“[I]f I were founding a church, you know, I'd love to have women priests. But Christ founded it and what he has given us is something different.”

Though uttered jokingly, his statement is being interpreted by the
media and by liberal Catholics in the sense that he personally disagrees with the way Our Lord instituted the priesthood in the Church.

Imprudence in this matter is to be lamented, above all when one bears in mind the infallible statements contained in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis of May 22, 1994:

“Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment
that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

“Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.”[2]

Norah O'Donnell believes the opposite as she comments on the words of the Archbishop of Boston:

“But God is not afraid of change, as Pope Francis has told his bishops. And Cardinal O'Malley is thrilled with his old friend,” she says.

Yet, despite the liberal media and complacent ecclesiastics, the Church cannot change Her doctrine or the way She was instituted by Her Founder, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

If Cardinal O’Malley Founded a Church…

Stop the Madness of Un-Thanksgiving

Written by John Horvat

As we gear up for the Thanksgiving holidays, many are preparing to engage in a strange new ritual that is crowding out the traditional turkey and pumpkin pie. The ritual, of course, is the extension of Black Friday shopping into Thanksgiving Day. It is a practice so shocking that we might as well create a new holiday—un-Thanksgiving—since nothing could be more contrary to the intention of the real holiday than its present evolution.

This year, media will again report on frenzied shoppers mobbing retail stores in search of super bargains. People will camp out in front of giant box stores for hours on end to get the jump on their fellow bargain hunters. Indeed, there is the extreme case of some fanatical California shoppers camping out at Best Buy a full twenty-two days ahead of the un-Thanksgiving stampede.

To read the whole story, click below.


Stop the madness of Un-Thanksgiving

Can Chimps Have Human Rights?

  Written by William Gossett

  The New York Court of Appeals recently reviewed a mind-boggling case: a petition for the status of “legal person” for a chimpanzee. Steven Wise, president of the Nonhuman Rights Project, is trying to gain human protections, including freedom from captivity, for a chimp named Tommy in upstate New York.

The animal rights activist bases his argument on the similarities between primates and humans. Wise states, “As a matter of both liberty and equality, Tommy should be seen as a person.” Steven Wise goes further by claiming his captivity is “a morally wrong thing to do.”

Last December, a judge from Montgomery County threw out Wise’s writ of habeas corpus for the 20-year-old chimp. In addition, three other cases filed for chimps in New York were discarded.

Showing sympathy, Justice Joseph Sise said Wise made a very strong argument, but could only agree insofar as habeas corpus applied to chimps. The judge added, “Good luck with your venture. As an animal lover, I appreciate your work.”

Unwilling to take no for an answer, Steven Wise took the case to the state Appellate Division on October 8.  
Why is Steven Wise pushing for human rights for an animal? He states himself: equality.

In ultimate analysis, cases like this join in a universal process, which has as a goal, the destruction of all inequality. After the distinctions between man and animals are gone, there will logically be a push for equality of man and nature. If nothing differentiates man from the rest of creation, what would stop him from declaring himself equal to God?

Can Chimps Have Human Rights?

Why Some Parents Homeschool - Video

Watch this video and see what some parents insist upon homeschooling!

Six Reasons Why Christian Civilization Always Favored Progress -

Written by John Horvat II

There is the common myth repeated over and over again that Christianity suppresses science and progress. One would think that those who call Christianity “anti-science” would at least use some kind of scientific method to prove their accusations. However, the proofs are sadly and incredibly lacking.

In contradiction to this myth, historians Stanley Jaki and A.C. Crombie affirm that “the rise of modern science, like that of political freedom and economic progress, has been coterminous with Christian-European thought, and for like causes.”

They claim that the biblical worldview contains all the essential elements for science and culture in general to flourish. Thus, at least six good reasons can be cited to support this claim:

1. Christians believed in a harmonious objective order intelligible to man which allowed for what Rodney Stark called “the triumph of reason.”

2. Christians believed in the biblical view that men’s role was to dominate nature and not be subject to it. This allowed them to search for ways to harness nature and make life easier.

3. There was a rejection of pantheistic magic that allowed the Faith to look for the reasons behind things.

4. The Catholic religion rejected the pagan idea of submission before the deities in nature that lived lives of vice and intrigue often at the expense of man’s progress.

5. The Church condemned superstition which hindered progress by adhering to irrational beliefs and practices.

6. Christians had a clear and rational understanding of reality which they developed into a philosophy that oriented their lives. This was opposed to the hazy, Gnostic understanding of reality that gave rise to fantasy and false mysticism that enslaved ancient and primitive peoples.

For these and other reasons, modern science only developed in Christian Europe and nowhere else. The groundwork was clearly laid.