extreme Catholic 

 
Newsweek: The Man of Virtues Has a Vice Conservative activist Bill Bennett has wagered millions in Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos during the past decade

I have a connection to the older brother of William Bennett, Robert Bennett. Bob is a very powerful Washington attorney. He was the defense counsel of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North as well as Bill Clinton. He attended the same high school as me, Brooklyn Prep (he being class of 1957, I am class of 1971).

The family moved to Washington in the 50's. Bill attended Gonzaga there.

The story

The popular author, lecturer and Republican Party activist speaks out, often indignantly, about almost every moral issue except one—gambling. It’s not hard to see why. According to casino documents, Bennett is a “preferred customer” in at least four venues in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, betting millions of dollars over the last decade. His games of choice: video poker and slot machines, some at $500 a pull. With a revolving line of credit of at least $200,000 at each casino, Bennett, former drug czar and secretary of Education under Presidents Reagan and Bush, doesn’t have to bring money when he shows up at a casino.

Gambling is not sin itself, but an occaision of sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2413. "Games of chance (card games, etc.) or wagers are not in themselves contrary to justice. They become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others. The passion for GAMBLING risks becoming an enslavement. Unfair wagers and cheating at games constitute grave matter, unless the damage inflicted is so slight that the one who suffers it cannot reasonably consider it significant. "

I expect there to be many defenders of Bill: from liberatarians to sympathetic personal friends in the conservative movement, and people concerned with privacy and an intrusive media.

I expect there to be many people prepared to pile on -- the hypocrisy police, the immoral left delighted to have a target on the right wing, some more-conservative-than-thou-types who are going to use this to attack pro-gambling conservatives.

My take on this is Catholic as you might expect.

There really is a sin here

2477. "Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. He becomes guilty:

• of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor;
• of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another's faults and failings to persons who did not know them;[Cf. Sir 21:28 .]
• of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them. "

On one hand

I believe a good case can be made that there is detraction here. If the claim is true that he doesn't bet the milk money or neglect his family. Why do we need to know this?

There's something about me that if it became public information, I would be embarassed. I suspect we all have an event or a habit that we don't want disclosed.

On the other hand

William Bennett should realize that he ought to have no expectation of privacy being a public figure. It seems almost reckless to risk his reputation in this was.

For his own sake, I hope the he does not have an addiction, an uncontrollable attraction to gambling. I hate to think what sort of stresses on his family these unpredictable gains and losses of income will have.

I think the biggest blast will come from people who will ask why didn't he contribute to the Catholic Church or some charitable foundation rather than Trump, Harrah's, MGM Mirage, etc. The appeal is that we should not consider giving from our surplus but from the core of our earnings.

Luke 21:2-4 As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. "I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."

But I'm not the judge of how much Bill should contribute -- I'm only saying that he's opened himself up to criticism along these lines.

I don't think we've heard the end of the story yet, either.

Update: After researching some of the business issues facing casinos, it seems that (a) Casinos themselves should be troubled about this unauthorized disclosure of their data. (b) The gambling business depends on discretion and anonymity. This is especially so for celebrities, public figures. (c) If Bill Bennett gets tagged, who is going to be next?

Also, there might be a blackmail or extortion angle to this. Someone may have demanded money from Bennett to keep this quiet and he wouldn't play along. It's a possibility.

Of all the high-rollers why is William Bennett the one exposed? He didn't argue that gambling was wrong.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:25 PM   Permalink  

 
Editor's Note: I corrected the fixed width problem of the right column as well as the moving left margin. Let me know if there's anything else that can be improved format-wise.
posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:14 PM   Permalink  

 
[Norfolk Va.] Priest Who Pled Guilty to Lewd Behavior Reassigned by Diocese

• Police found Father Wayne Ball with another man in a car at Northside Park last December.
• He pleaded guilty in court to 'frequenting a bawdy place for lewdness'.
• Richmond Bishop Walter Sullivan sent him back to his parish.
• Many families at Holy Trinity lost confidence.
• Bishop Walter Sullivan is reluctantly going to reassign Fr. Ball to another parish: it's in everyone's best interest for Father Ball to leave [Holy Trinity].

WAVY10: A Real Video link -- 2 min 33 secs. -- awesome

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:31 PM   Permalink  

 
Newark Star-Ledger: Archbishop Myers critical of UCCB Direcotry of Youth and Child Protection

Newark Archbishop John J. Myers has delivered a stern rebuke to the woman charged by U.S. Catholic bishops to assess church reform in the wake of the priest sex-abuse scandal, saying her actions have perplexed a number of bishops.

Myers' remarks came in a letter declining an invitation to attend an upcoming meeting of a reform-minded group of Catholics, Voice of the Faithful. Kathleen McChesney, executive director of the Bishops' Office of Youth and Child Protection in Washington D.C., is scheduled to speak at the group's meeting May 13 in Little Falls.

McChesney, once the third-highest official at the FBI, was hired in November by a national panel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "I have met with Dr. Kathleen McChesney," Myers wrote to a member of Voice of the Faithful April 21. "I can only say that her decisions and the conduct of her office leave more than a few bishops for whom she technically works in a state of perplexity.

What I find perplexing is why if Archbishop Myers holds these views why would he make them known to the public through a letter to a member of the Voice of the Faithful.

From a person who should have mastered some self-control about "sharing feelings" and what to put in writing to whom, this seems terribly amateurish and awkward.

If Myers has a criticism of the conduct of Director McChesney, he should have communicated that to the UCCB or Bishop Gregory privately. What purpose is served by undermining the office and the charter McChesney has been given?

Question for Archbishop Myers -- Have you given all the information to the Bishops' Office of Youth and Child Protection that it has requested?

Blogger credit to Catholic World News, Fr. Wilson

USCCB: Tons of Links on the Clergy Sexual Abuse Scandal

Archbishop Myers Home Page

What Voice of the Faithful says about Archbishop Myers

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:24 PM   Permalink  

 

Zenit: Vatican told its Representatives Not to Offer Praise to Hitler

In a news article that cries out for the hand of an editor, we have documentary evidence that Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII were not Hitler's Pope[s]. In the draft of an address for year-end 1936, Archbishop Orsenigo described Hitler as "'Duce' [leader] of the German people." In the coded reply, which Cardinal Pacelli sent on behalf of the Pope, the nuncio was told to "eliminate the words 'Duce of the German people'" and to "delete" all the part that praises the Führer's activity. Again in 1936, Archbishop Orsenigo asked instructions from Rome regarding an invitation from Hitler to attend a Nazi Party meeting in Nuremberg, along with the entire diplomatic corps. The coded reply of the Vatican secretary of state was: "The Holy Father thinks it is preferable that your Excellency abstain, taking a few days' vacation." Dry stuff, but in the years to come more of the truth will come out. If you keep a file of bookmarks on Pope Pius XII, as I do, this is one to keep.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:16 PM   Permalink  

 
Armageddon Watch Dept.

Isaiah 66 (NAB)

22 As the new heavens and the new earth which I will make Shall endure before me, says the LORD, so shall your race and your name endure. 23 From one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, All mankind shall come to worship before me, says the LORD. 24 They shall go out and see the corpses of the men who rebelled against me; Their worm shall not die, nor their fire be extinguished; and they shall be abhorrent to all mankind.

If you found this part of the prophet's writing unclear, it no longer will be:

New York Post: Worms survived Columbia Crash

Hundreds of worms used in an experiment on the space shuttle Columbia have been found alive in the debris, NASA said yesterday. Known as C. elegans, the worms were recovered from a 9-pound locker in the mid-deck of the space shuttle found in Texas several weeks ago - but technicians didn't open their containers until this week.

The worms were part of an experiment testing a new synthetic nutrient solution. With a life cycle of between seven and 10 days, those recovered were four or five generations old.

I'd like to think I'm the first blogger to see the Isaiah connection. Some other blogs are making the appropriate Science-Fiction film and novel connections.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:52 AM   Permalink  

 
A word

The anonymous author of All But the Dissertation brings up the old canard -- 5 days and 5 hours after the terrorist attack in New York, Washington, and over Pennsylvania -- that in a answer to a stupid question from a reporter "Are you and the Attorney General planning to suspend the Bill of Rights?":

...We need to go back to work tomorrow and we will. But we need to be alert to the fact that these evil-doers still exist. We haven't seen this kind of barbarism in a long period of time. No one could have conceivably imagined suicide bombers burrowing into our society and then emerging all in the same day to fly their aircraft - fly U.S. aircraft into buildings full of innocent people - and show no remorse. This is a new kind of -- a new kind of evil. And we understand. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while. And the American people must be patient. I'm going to be patient.

But I can assure the American people I am determined, I'm not going to be distracted, I will keep my focus to make sure that not only are these brought to justice, but anybody who's been associated will be brought to justice. Those who harbor terrorists will be brought to justice. It is time for us to win the first war of the 21st century decisively, so that our children and our grandchildren can live peacefully into the 21st century.

White House Transcript for the above text

And then the press continued to throw this word crusade around as if President Bush had declared a Christian jihad -- this was snickered as a gotcha for Ari Fleischer. This is inside the beltway game of repeating gaffs as many times as you can.

Q A question about the responsible cooperator program, that the administration announced yesterday. One of the main Arab-American organizations in the country says that the word "cooperator" has a very negative connotation in the Arabic language, that it suggests something more akin to collaborator, someone who sells out, in fact, and that this is likely to inhibit cooperation among Arab Americans in the program. Is there any thought being given to reconsider the name of this program?

MR. FLEISCHER: This program was named by the Department of Justice. The President is very pleased with the announcement. The President thinks that will be constructive and useful in preventing future acts of terrorism. And the President, obviously you saw him, he was there with the Attorney General yesterday. So if you have any questions about the nomenclature, I'd refer you to Justice.

Q Well, but this has happened twice before -- the use of the word "crusade," which created some ripples in the Arabic world, and also "Infinite Justice." There have been two gaffs of this kind. This appears to be the third one. Is there any concern about this?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, again, I would refer you to Justice, to see if it fits that category.

White House Transcript for the above

Now with the perspective of some passage of time and events (like two successful wars and the capture of over 2000 Al Queda terrorists and fighters) doesn't this show more about how superficial the liberal media can be, nipping at the heels of a government that's trying to defend America and fight terrorism?

Thomas Madden in National Review (11/2001) on how clueless people are who believe that Bush meant crusade as a holy war by Christians against Muslims to impose Christianity by the sword in Asia and Africa -- rather than a political movement motivated by morality. If the now-presumed-dead Mullah Omar thought otherwise, so what? It's time to move on.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:46 PM   Permalink  

 
A constructive role for the Vatican to play

The Vatican should urge that the international debt burden of Iraq be forgiven.

At the top of the list of creditors to Iraq are France, Germany, and Russia, by the way.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:15 AM   Permalink  

 
Washington Post: Vatican Backs Halt To Md. Prayer Meetings (4/26)

The Vatican has confirmed a decision by Baltimore Cardinal William H. Keeler to stop prayer services that drew hundreds to worship with a woman who said she was receiving messages from the Virgin Mary.

Keeler appointed three priests to investigate the claims of Gianna Talone-Sullivan, known as "Our Lady of Emmitsburg," who held prayer meetings weekly at St. Joseph Church in Emmitsburg before the archdiocese banned them in 2000.

The visions were not supernatural or miraculous and contained "negative" elements of apocalyptic prophecies, Keeler's panel found.

This doesn't require much comment from me. If the people associated with the apparition are going to remain in the Church they will obey. Some links that I found:

• Our Lady of Emmitsburg site -- it fades out in 2000.
• a rather spooky image of Our Blessed Mother
• A defense they gave after the suppression declared by Cardinal Keeler this one is worth a quick read.
• 9/13/200 Cardinal Keeler's Press Release on the matter is pretty much what you'd expect it to be.

It seems strange that in many places in their web site, they claim to submit to the will of the Church -- but they have left a lot of stuff lying around to read. They might be parsing Cardinal Keelers's decree as only forbidding the addition of new "material" and they can keep propagating what they have up to 9/2000.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:41 AM   Permalink  

 
Sean Hannity's K-12 experience

I got hold of a copy of Let Freedom Ring and looked at page 49: Sean (who was born in 1961) attended Sacred Heart (K-8) and St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary (9-12) (this school closed in June 1979) -- I assume he attended from 1974 thru 1978. Now it is a priests residence

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:16 PM   Permalink  

 
A Sad list New York State List of Defunct Institutions -- so many of them were Catholic.

UPDATE St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary which opened with great fanfare in 1962 -- ceased as a college and continued on as a high school until 6/1979 when it closed.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 5:10 PM   Permalink  

 
Search Terms that Brought People to ExtremeCatholic

• Pastor David Moore Sex Scandal
• Extreme Incest
• Token Sucking
• Natalie Maines Topless

Are we having fun yet?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:42 PM   Permalink  

 
Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger: Court to decide if man's fixation on teen made him a criminal

Tuesday, April 29, 2003 BY ROBERT SCHWANEBERG

Thirty-four-year-old Manuel Perez never did get a date with the 13-year-old girl he noticed in his neighborhood. But he admitted to police he "obsessed" about her, and he twice approached her in his car, once offering her a ride during a rainstorm.

James Maynard [lawyer for Perez] argued the appeals court decision should be upheld because "the jury went one step beyond a logical conclusion." He argued that in offering a ride to a schoolgirl who was "getting soaked," Perez was being "a good Samaritan."

This was discussed on talk radio this morning. New Jersey has made it a crime to " to attempt to lure a child into a motor vehicle for the purpose of committing a crime" and the other charge was "attempted child endangerment".

After reading the story, I don't have an opinion either way. I think that there are other facts that would be necessary for a judge or jury to evaluate that are not in the news story.

The interesting spin on the story is that Perez is being prosecuted for what he thought and not what he did.

I don't think that's quite true, because he did (as a total stranger) offer a ride to the girl -- which is, to anyone living today in New Jersey would no is irresponsible.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:33 PM   Permalink  

 
Thank you readers and linkers

Some time ago I passed 10,000 visitors which is a good milestone for a blog. Looking back I think I have been able to do what I set to do in December last year: present my events-driven commentary on the big news stories and point out smaller, curious, obscure stories on the fringe of the Catholic faith and culture.

I'm not Drudge, NRO Corner, Limbaugh, Catholic World News, or Mark Shea -- but maybe there's something they missed -- you might just find it here.

But does it meet the standard by which all human activity is measured? Does it bring greater glory to God? I pray that it does: writing a blog turns you from being a spectator into a participant in these spiritual works of mercy: to counsel the doubtful, to instruct the ignorant. Now, I can be doubtful and ignorant myself, so I do this only with the grace of God. Enough now with the navel-gazing, back to work.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:09 AM   Permalink  

 

So, is the pope ailing or smiling in this recent French News Agency photo?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:44 AM   Permalink  

 
Berkshire Eagle: Divine Mercy Shrine on Divine Mercy Sunday

[The] Marians requested that a scheduled 11 buses of visitors from [Toronto], as well as from the province of Ontario, stay home this year. According to Director of Communications Kathleen Ervin, that request was honored, though several carloads of Canadians did attend the celebration.

Blogger Credit: Catholic World News

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:55 PM   Permalink  

 
New York State Lottery: Pastor is the winner of the $1,000 a week for life

Luck Had Nothing To Do With It Says Prosperous Pastor

Schenectady – New York Lottery Director Margaret R. DeFrancisco today announced Father Francis Coryer, the pastor at the Church of the Assumption in rural Redford, NY, became the 100th player to win the $1,000 a week for life top prize from the Lottery’s popular Win for Life Instant game.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:47 PM   Permalink  

 
News 12 New Jersey: Infant found in Passaic trash can

An infant wrapped in two plastic garbage bags was left in the bottom of a trash can in the City of Passaic. The seven-pound, six-ounce baby girl, who's umbilical cord was still attached, was discovered early Sunday morning by someone who just happened to hear her muffled cries.

Such stories are so routine that they don't make the New York papers even if it is only 12 miles away. So please pray for this girl and her mother.

a video link to this story.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:44 PM   Permalink  

 

Will cassock-wearing Neo bring back this clerical garment back to today's fashion for priests?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:37 PM   Permalink  

 

Is Tareq Aziz -- an Adolf Eichmann? Knight Ridder: Suspect [Farouk Hijazi] in '93 Bush death plot held Some called for Aziz to be charged as a war criminal, saying they associated him with Saddam's atrocities, which included gassing ethnic Kurds, torturing ordinary citizens and killing citizens suspected of disloyalty. "I think he should be executed. He was doing everything Saddam had been telling him, and he was following orders, that's why," said Haider Mohammed, 35. Tariq/Tarek Aziz ("Glorious Past") is a Chaldean Catholic born Michael Yuhanna. Chicago Sun-Times: U.S. troops surrounded Aziz's darkened hideout "He had to do what he was told, or Saddam would execute him,'' said Bishop Emmanuel Delly, Baghdad leader of the Chaldean Catholic faith, to which Aziz belongs. Are we supposed to show more compassion to Aziz because he visited the Pope and went to Assisi? I think he knew the end was coming and was trying to enhance his public image in the international press. What a clever man! On the other hand, there's a rumor that he was a mole for the Americans and is going into a deluxe witness protection program. I think the judgment as to whether to hold a war crimes trial for him rests with the Iraqi people. The defense that "I was only following orders" was rejected by the military judges of Nuremberg. It should be so in the case of Aziz, if proven in court.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:00 PM   Permalink  

 

Crime and Punishment: Iraq and Sudan Sudan under Islamic Law Wall Street Journal: Human Wrongs (subscription reqd.) More than a quarter of the commission's resolutions condemning a state's human rights violations passed over the last 30 years have been directed at Israel. There has never been a single resolution on China, Syria or Saudi Arabia. The current session ended by defeating a resolution to criticize anything about the situation in Zimbabwe, and by eliminating the 10-year-old position of rapporteur on human rights in Sudan. This was despite a report of the U.N. rapporteur on torture informing commission members of the Sudanese practice of "cross-amputation" -- amputation of right hand and left foot for armed robbery, and various cases of women being stoned to death for alleged adultery. Iraq under temporary United States authority New York Post: Army Needs Naked Truth The U.S. Central Command said yesterday it was looking into reports that American soldiers in Baghdad had stripped four suspected Iraqi thieves, burned their clothes and forced them to walk along the streets naked. Journalists for the Norwegian daily Dagbladet said they had photographed a group of young Iraqi captives being led along Baghdad streets at gunpoint on Thursday. They said one of the Iraqis had the words "Ali Baba Thief" scrawled with marker on his chest. I've been looking for confirmation of this story and haven't found it yet.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 7:50 PM   Permalink  

 
Second Sunday of Easter or Divine Mercy Sunday

As you know even though the Sunday is now called Divine Mercy Sunday, this theme is not yet reflected in the scripture readings of the Mass. While my fellow Catholic bloogers focus on the Gospel, I'm going to turn to the First Reading -- which typically is from the Old Testament but is today from the New.

Acts 4: 32 - 35

Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet; and distribution was made to each as any had need.

This is a message Dorothy Day or Vladimir Lenin would love. I imagine it is disturbing to the ears of Ebenezer Scrooge or Montgomery Burns.

Chesterton in the Distributist makes a 20th century attempt to describe this in practice.

JustPeace has an introduction to the topic.

Related to this topic are the "Living Wage", the welfare state, and the obligation of a Catholic to give alms -- the voluntary gift of goods and services to the poor.

To a Catholic, almsgiving or sharing with the poor, represents both an obligation and a voluntary act.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 3:49 PM   Permalink  

 
Rod Dreher is "back in the saddle again"

Dallas News: No more living in a bull's-eye

Take it from this ex-New Yorker: Dallas is a very Sept. 10 kind of place, and hallelujah for that.

Remember that week in February, when the entire country was on high terrorist alert, and the government stationed Patriot missile batteries around the Washington Monument? New York City had heavily armed National Guardsmen and special police anti-terror troopers standing on the streets, watching and waiting. This is what wartime looks like for your fellow Americans on the home-front frontlines.

Dallas Morning News: Exactly who's the bigot here?

The Left has an ugly habit of trying to shut down debate by imputing bigotry to its opponents. Don't like what someone has to say critical of affirmative action? Call them racist. It's a great rhetorical move, because if you can get people to believe it, you've discredited your opponent – because nobody has to take the views of a racist seriously – without ever having engaged his argument.

This is the Rod Dreher bookmark

You still have a big fan back in New York.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:23 PM   Permalink  

 
AP: Catholic Reservist refused Anthrax Vaccination

FORT DRUM, N.Y. (AP) A 26-year-old Army reservist at Fort Drum faces a court-martial for her refusal to receive an anthrax vaccine.

[Pvt. Kamila] Iwanowska said she considers the shot medically dangerous to children she might have in the future, saying the long-term effects of the anthrax vaccine are unknown. She also said she could not take the vaccine because of the Roman Catholic religion she practices and the respect it accords unborn infants.

I think refusing to take the vaccine might be argued on pragmatic grounds (in which case she should seek to be discharged from the Army) but not on religious grounds -- I believe you can't make the case (CCC 2211, 2417) that Catholic teaching advises against this vaccine or even a right for her to refuse for conscience reasons under military authority. Her citing religious grounds I think is going to be confusing. Was she planning on becoming pregnant during her deployment?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:07 AM   Permalink  

 
Wall Street Journal: Human Wrongs The U.N. can't define terrorism, let alone confront it

The U.N.'s Iraq fiasco demands an answer to the unambiguous question of how U.N. bodies have performed against those fixed and indispensable principles. Is it still true that Americans can anticipate a common core agenda? With the conclusion last week of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights annual session, the record speaks for itself.

Required reading for people who still cling to the idea that the U.N. can be regarded with any moral authority.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:04 AM   Permalink  

 
Ann Coulter (4/23/03, not a permalink) on the double standard of liberal media towards Islam and Christianity:

Liberals learned to live with Iraqi citizens being fed into plastic shredders, summary executions, maimings and unanesthetized ear-loppings. Only now have they found something truly fiendish going on in Iraq: Christian missionaries are proselytizing! On the basis of the raw terror on display at the New York Times, I gather the operating theory is that Iraqis who withstood Saddam Hussein's sadistic tyranny for 30 years will be unable to withstand a Christian missionary.

Elsewhere she points out the hypocrisy of CNN knowing the truth of the death and torture in Iraq, and suppressing that knowledge -- while at the same time arguing the President Bush did not have a good reason to invade Iraq.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:46 AM   Permalink  

 
Another connection between the Christendom's victory Islam (17th C.) over and Baghdad (21st C.)

Catholic World News: the Pope beatified Father Marco d'Aviano (1631-1699), a Capuchin preacher who is a key historical figure in the liberation of Vienna from the Ottomans in 1683

This is the d'Aviano for whom Aviano Air Base is named. Headquarters United States 16th Air Force.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:37 AM   Permalink  

 
What Traditional Catholics Will Be Wearing this Spring

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:50 PM   Permalink  

 
AP: Cockfight in the Bronx. 70 Arrested

NEW YORK (AP) -- Authorities raided a cockfight in New York City and arrested more than 70 people on animal fighting and other charges, prosecutors said.

Nineteen roosters and more than $17,000 were seized in the Saturday night raid on a Bronx building equipped with steel doors, security guards and lookouts with radios, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said Sunday.

Just a few miles from where I live. There's some discussion that these arrests show on the part of the political establishment an intolerance of cultures which enjoy this form of entertainment.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:35 PM   Permalink  

 
The Papal Signature

The Pope signs the encyclicals with his Latin Name "Joannes Paulus PP. II" -- the PP. stands for pastor pastorum or pastor of pastors.

This factoid from The Pope Encyclopedia by Matthew Bunson.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:00 PM   Permalink  

 
How the blog creates a chain of ideas

My wife mentioned that one parish was hit with two priests who had affairs with parishioners. Since there wasn't a crime involved, the cases were not publicized, but of course it's a scandal.

I remarked that I would think that with the shortage of priests that they would be very busy given the needs of the parishioners have not diminished as the number of priests have. One priest who I knew rather well involved in the scandal, was aloof, unfriendly, and presented to everyone apparently, a terrible personality. He was a priest that made everyone ask "Why is he a priest?"

I think he wound up with a great deal of time on his hands as people avoided contact with him. The Devil will find work for idle hands.

So I read a blog -- in this case ibidiem by Jesus Gil who links to this article: aftenposten (Norway) Clergyman says boredom led him to child porn and my opinion is supported.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:58 PM   Permalink  

 
Statistics for the priests (and deacons) of my Diocese (Brooklyn-Queens, New York)

My great accounting professor told us to ignore the numbers and look at the footnotes. This advice applies to this page of statistics:

[i] Released from Diocesan Assignment (RFDA); For the purpose of this statistical report this category includes those who have been released to take an assignment in another diocese or institution; those who have taken a leave due to illness; those who have taken a leave from active ministry for personal reasons. Most of those who are not expected to return to the Diocese for active ministry are those who are too sick to minister or those who have left active ministry for personal reasons. They are included in this report for the sake of consistency as canonically they still belong to the Diocese of Brooklyn.

[ii] Number of Priests RFDA likely to Return 37. Number of Priests RFDA likely not to Return 63.

We have 379 priests working in parishes as of 10/2002.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:40 PM   Permalink  

 
Talk Radio Notes:

It makes no difference if we find WMD's, because the fact is that Saddam didn't threaten the United States with them.

It makes a lot of difference if we don't find WMD's, because it discredits President Bush's justification for starting the war.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:53 AM   Permalink