extreme Catholic

"The Holy Father died this evening at 9:37 p.m. in his private apartment."

When I got the news I was doing Catholic evangelization in Grand Central Terminal with the Catholic Evidence Guild

I spent last night and early this morning scanning and printing pictures of the life of the Pope so that people would walk over and share their thoughts on the Holy Father.

I also prepared two tracts, one on euthanasia and another on the care of the disabled. using the Catechism and the addresses of the Pope on these subjects.

Today was unusual in that many non-Catholics and non-Christians stopped by to say they admired the Pope. One person discussed his role in support of the Polish revolution as if it were a secret he would share with me.

One picture that I didn't show on the posters came up in a discussion of the improvement in Catholic-Jewish relations that Pope John Paul II initiated. So I pulled from my folder this picture of the Pope visiting Auschwitz.

Many people shared their memories of the Pope in Yankee Stadium, Central Park, and Aqueduct Race Track where he celebrated Masses.

The most frequently asked question: "Do you know if the Pope has died?" and the second most frequently asked question: "How do I get to St Patrick's Cathedral".

There were no "why do Catholics worship Mary" questions for a change.

How fitting it was that the Pope who described and promoted the new evangelization died while we were bringing the good news to people on the way from the street or Metro North Railroad to the subways.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:37 PM Permalink

Made the 10 O'Clock News on RNN (as New York/New Jersey cable news channel)

In the interview they cut it all down to 10 seconds. This was a man-on-the-street interview, not as a guest in the studio. This is what they chose to run with:

The Pope has left a great legacy but it's not the end -- the Church will continue until Christ returns.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:06 PM Permalink

Research on the Papal Elections

On the election of the Roman Pontiff : Pope Paul VI October 1, 1975 [Apostolic Exhortation]

Universi Dominici Gregis (On the Vacancy of the Apostolic See and the Election of the Roman Pontiff) February 22, 1996 [Apostolic Constitution]

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 3:39 PM Permalink

A single topic blog

The Pope Blog

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:52 PM Permalink

Just on the wires. The Pope has died.

Update: Some retractions now of the story that Pope has died.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:36 PM Permalink

12 Noon Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral

A big turnout. Many more tourists attending Mass today than is usual.

Upon leaving the Cathedral I was interviewed by a television reporter from RNN.

I praised the Pope and said that we are praying for whatever God wants, either to restore him to health, or bring him to glory.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:02 PM Permalink

More Reading: Irish Elk - Mark Sullivan

Has a good post on the dynamics of the lawyers and court process in the Schiavo case.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:46 AM Permalink

Overheard in the office

People think that the suffering of the Pope just started.

They also assume the since the Catholic position was to let Terri live, the Pope will want all extrarodinary means brought to bear to kill himself alive.

That I can understand. It is ignorance. The Pope has been suffering greatly since his assassination attempt, his broken hip, and his Parkinson's disease. In reality, his suffering is nearly over. The Pope is not going to seek extraordinary means to prolong his life if he is truly dying.

What saddens me though is that my co-workers see no value in suffering. If they believe in God, they believe that God plays games with us. It's the text of the Book of Job coming to life in New York in 2005.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:17 AM Permalink

Neither Shalt Thou Kill Thy Spouse : (or crimen explained)

A Canonical Aspect of the Terri Schiavo Case By Edward Peters : Catholic Answers

For those readers who may have been quarantined from the American media for the last several months, a brief explanation may be in order. Terri Schiavo is a brain-damaged Catholic woman in Florida. Her husband, Michael, through the instrumentality of the courts and with the widespread support of the mainstream media, wants to eliminate her. The fight to save her life has been taken up by her parents, Florida governor Jeb Bush (a Catholic), the majority of the Florida legislature, and thousands of right-to-lifers around the world.
Despite this array of defenders of his wife, Michael Schiavo continues to probe a sympathetic court system looking for a "legal" way to starve her to death. Actually, Michael wants his wife’s food and water cut off and, given the body’s more urgent need for hydration, Terri might be parched to death before she starves.

Time to read this again for the first or second time.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:45 AM Permalink

Why I care

The alarms raised by the pro-life side of the culture war are not the boy crying wolf. For once the comparisions to the Nazis are not a mere rhetorical ploy. They started out by killing the disabled, and you know where it went from there.

Felos has an achievement -- the withdrawal of food and water was until now a bright line distinction. It is no more. He's provided a huge push for this nation push down the slippery slope to euthanasia to kill people who are not dying.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:29 AM Permalink

Peta Protest : AP

Artist Benjamin Schmidt wears a pig mask as he is crucified by a member of the international animal rights organisation PETA in front of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Memorial cathedral in Berlin on Thursday, March 24, 2005. PETA wants to inform with this action that more than 600 million animals are killed for food in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. (AP Photo/Fritz Reiss)

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:01 AM Permalink

Checks and balances failed

All over the blogosphere, culture of life bloggers are being hammered by the claims that legally every "i" was dotted and every "t" crossed.

Some questions now come forward:

How did one single state circuit court judge acquire an apparently unreviewable power of life and death over an innocent human being?
Why do so many Americans believe that the judicial branch has the last word on the meaning of the Constitution?
Why the obsession with the process that allowed Terri to be killed. Don't we care that this same process will be used again to kill the disabled?
Why all the bias towards the admitted adulterous husband and no mercy for her family?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:24 PM Permalink

Daniel Pipes has a Casablanca connection in his criticism of Islamic schools

What Are Islamic Schools Teaching?

So long as Muslim leaders simply declare themselves, in the spirit of Capt. Renault in the movie Casablanca "shocked, shocked" whenever news of Islamist supremacism leaks out, this cancer will continue unabated. The Islamic schools, the mosques, and other Muslim organizations like CAIR and CIC will continue their cat-and-mouse game so long as it works.
It won't work only when outside pressure is brought to bear on them by politicians, journalists, researchers, moderate Muslims, and others. They must state clearly and frequently the unacceptability of Islamist venom. Only then will today's fraudulent "shocked" reaction finally become sincere.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:18 PM Permalink

Meta-discussions on Terri Schiavo

A lot of the online discussions miss the point. Terri is dead. She was an innocent human being starved and dehydrated to death by govenment warrant.

The court found...

So what? Courts have been wrong before and will continue to be wrong. A lot of the legal process was just cut and pasted from some earlier document. There was surprisingly litte investigating actually done. We know now it was a legal farce and a mockery of due process. Unfortunately, the judicial branch closed ranks and chose to ignore incovenient facts.

Terri wished...

I don't believe it. There's just a string of improbabilities which for me does not add up to "clear and convincing" evidence. Michael only revealed "Terri's wishes" after he had obtained a malpractice settlement. There was no coorboration from anyone other that people related to Michael.

The Terri Rule...

Any decision that Greer had discretion over that would move the case towards killing Terri in terms of witnesses, material evidence, and procedure, went in Michael's favor and never in the Schindler's favor.

A Private Matter...

Missing the point on the precedent this sets for thousands of disabled but not dying people.

Is this just one family's tragedy. Certainly not. This is the point driven home:

Demonstrating in her wheelchair with a "Feed Terri " sign in Florida this week, Eleanor Smith -- a self-described lesbian, liberal and agnostic -- told Reuters: "At this point I would rather have a right-wing Christian decide my fate than an ACLU member."

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:06 PM Permalink

Jane Fonda confronts her past : AP

Jane Fonda says her 1972 visit to a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun site, an incident that brought her the nickname "Hanoi Jane," was a "betrayal" of American forces and of the "country that gave me privilege."
"The image of Jane Fonda, `Barbarella,' Henry Fonda's daughter ... sitting on an enemy aircraft gun was a betrayal ... the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine," Fonda told Leslie Stahl in a "60 Minutes" interview that will air Sunday night.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:50 PM Permalink

Autopsy Can Shed Light on Questions About Terri Schiavo : AP

The lawyer for Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael, has said the chief medical examiner for Pinellas County, Fla., where she died has agreed to perform an autopsy. That could shed light on two questions that have been publicly raised:
-Was Terri Schiavo's diagnosis of "persistent vegetative state" correct? Her husband hopes it will offer definitive proof of that diagnosis.
-Was she physically abused, as her family suggested and her husband has repeatedly denied?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:47 PM Permalink

The dumbest thing that Jonah has ever written : NRO

WELL... [Jonah Goldberg]

Someone's going to have to post something after that news. So: now that she has passed let us hope and pray that Michael Schiavo was right and her parents were wrong, even if we don't believe that to be the case. Rest in peace.
Posted at 10:16 AM

R.I.P. [K. J. Lopez]

Terri Schiavo has died. Posted at 09:55 AM

Let me give you the analogies:

Now that the six million Jews have died, let us hope and pray that Hitler was right and the world was wrong, even if we don't believe that to be the case.

Now that 46 million abortions have occurred in the United States, let us hope and pray that pro-aborts were right and the pro-lifers were wrong, even if we don't believe that to be the case.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:03 PM Permalink

Who killed Terri?

I am not letting the courts, Greer, Whittemore, and the whole judicial system off the hook. In a case where the family has a dispute over the long-term care for an non-terminal disabled person, the decision is to care for them.

It was an extraordinary intervention on the part of the court to allow Michael to starve Terri.

Michael and George Felos by themselves could not have legally killed Terri. They had willing accomplices.

One thing I am not buying is that incompetence of the part of the US Senate, House, the President, or the Governor was responsible. Everyone is second-guessing their moves and saying if they only did something else, Terri would have been saved.

The only misstep that I saw was the press conference where Governor Bush said he had the statutory authority to take custody of Terri. I think the Governor should have used that statutory authority and not merely asserted it. Judge Greer issued a a possibly unconstitutional ruling denying Bush's authority to take custody of Terri.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:30 PM Permalink

Farewell to Terri : Maggie Gallagher

It's not dying, or even being killed, that scares me. It's the willingness to kill. Even more, it's the way we are transforming killing into an act of compassion, a new human right.
I know what human beings are capable of. And I don't mean just other human beings; I mean myself, too. What scares me most about Terri Schiavo is how easy it is to lose the horror at killing.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:34 AM Permalink

Words from Fr. Pavone

This is not only a death but a killing.
We all need to pray for our country that this atrocity never happens again.

Amen.

He also confirmed that he refused to allow her family in the room at the moment of her death. As she died, she was surrounded by police who were there to prevent her from being held by her mother and father.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:32 AM Permalink

Terri Schiavo has died

Terri Schiavo Dies After Battle By Parents to Keep Her Alive

Associated Press March 31, 2005 10:01 a.m.

Michael Shiavo's attorney says Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose parents fought a long court battle against her husband to keep her alive, has died.

The feeding tube that has been keeping Ms. Schiavo alive at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., was removed March 18. Doctors at the time said that unless it is reinserted she likely would die within two weeks.

The news comes after the Supreme Court on Wednesday once again refused to order Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted, the latest in a series of setbacks to her parents' attempts to keep their severely brain-damaged daughter alive.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:05 AM Permalink

Wow. Check out this GIRM-based liturgical earthquake

From ther Diocese of Charlotte

1. It is the right of all of Christ’s faithful that the Liturgy, and in particular the celebration of Holy Mass, should truly be as the Church wishes, according to the stipulations as prescribed in the liturgical books and in the other laws and norms.1 The norms set forth here, therefore, are presented to insure the prayerful and worthy celebration of the Sacred Mysteries within the Diocese of Charlotte so that all of God’s faithful might celebrate with one heart and one voice.
2. Any construction or significant alteration of a sanctuary requires the approval of the bishop.
3. The preference is that the tabernacle should be located in the sanctuary, apart from the altar of sacrifice in an appropriate place, not excluding an older altar no longer used for celebration. The tabernacle is to be immovable and non-transparent and locked in such a way that the danger of profanation is prevented to the greatest extent possible.2 The sanctuary as defined by the General Instruction is the place where the altar stands, where the word of God is proclaimed, and where the priest, the deacon, and the other ministers exercise their offices.

And it just gets better.

Blogger Credit: Catholic World News

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:52 AM Permalink

Terri Schiavo: Judicial Murder : Nat Hentoff

For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history.
She is not brain-dead or comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not in a persistent vegetative state, according to an increasing number of radiologists and neurologists.
Among many other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed by the primary judge in her case—Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him—to have her own lawyer represent her.

A well-written summary from one America's strongest non-religious pro-life advocates.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:16 AM Permalink

Someone ought to tell Sean Hannity

Since he went on the air he's been talking about another appeal.

The only appeal that was made was to the 11^th circuit which was denied. There will be no re-vote in the Florida State Senate on the bill to require living wills to be written.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 5:14 PM Permalink

Nothing happens

I expected that there would be some news on Terri's case. There isn't any.

Jesse Jackson was unable to get any state senators to make a motion to re-vote.

The 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals said it would consider having a hearing without stating when it would decide, or what prevents them from an immediate hearing.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:10 PM Permalink

Madonna and husband dress as nun and Pope for Purim party Pope Dope : New York Post

Catholic-turned-Kabbalah-kook Madonna has a bad habit of displaying poor taste, and now her boy-toy director hubby has stirred up more controversy - by dressing as the pope while John Paul II is seriously ailing.
The bizarre pair donned what critics blasted as outrageously offensive costumes for a fete celebrating the Jewish holiday of Purim at the Kabbalah Center in London.
The gap-toothed, 46-year-old mom of two went as a nun, while her wide-eyed, 36-year-old husband, Guy Ritchie, strutted through the doors as the pope.
Both of them were dripping in crucifixes on Holy Thursday, just three days before Christianity's most sacred holiday, Easter.
But it was Ritchie's gold-trimmed white garb and matching skullcap that drew the most ire of Catholic leaders, who were incensed over his timing, considering that Pope John Paul II's worldwide flock is in grief over his poor health.
"Her husband suggests that he's just as depraved as his wife," said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League.

This appeared for an hour or two as a Drudge headline and I picked it up on Saturday. I'd like to think that the Catholic League picked it up from my blog.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:06 AM Permalink

This is Blogger's last chance

I had a lot to post and the time to do it last night, but Blogger was down.

It's been this way for weeks. Sometimes I'm too patient.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:33 AM Permalink

He's feeling betrayed by school ax : Dennis Hamill : NY Daily News

"Then one of the 12, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests and said unto them, 'What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you?' And they covenanted with him for 30 pieces of silver." Matthew 26:14-15.
And so the high priests of Brooklyn and Queens waited until the Wednesday before Holy Thursday, the same day Judas struck his treacherous bargain to betray Jesus, to announce that St. Thomas Aquinas Elementary School was getting the kiss of death.
A guilt-ridden Judas hung himself.
The Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens should at least hang its head in lasting shame.
This all started on Feb. 8 when Msgr. Michael Hardiman, the vicar of education for the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens, first listed St. Thomas Aquinas, on Fourth Ave. and Eighth St. in Park Slope, as one of the 26 schools to be shuttered in June.
A changing demographic and the grotesque priest sexual-abuse scandals had helped crumble the once-rock-solid Catholic school system. It certainly didn't help that the former bishop, Thomas Daily, who came from Boston, was so busy covering his dirty tracks in the pedophile coverups up there that he let the Brooklyn and Queens parochial school system go into decline.

It's not at all clear what happened on Wednesday of Holy Week, as Hamill mentions the plan to close schools was announced in February.

The problem is not money but enrollment. These schools planned to be closed were told what the minimum enrollments were and for whatever reason failed to meet them as other schools were able to meet the minimum.

I don't know the details that some schools were shown favoritism, but I don't think that makes a compelling case for St Thomas Aquinas. I think it's unfair that Hamill didn't get any comment from Msgr Hardiman or St Finbar's which is slammed in this column.

(full disclosure: Msgr. Hardiman is my pastor.)

The Daily News is in the midst of its own scandal and boycott. They started a circulation game with some scratch-off numbers. The DL Blair Company that prints up the materials for these sorts of contest got the winning number wrong (at least from the News' point of view) and generated about $50 million in winning numbers. The News according to the fine print is not obligated to pay, but it was a huge blunder.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:45 PM Permalink

Religion on TV News: Secular Orthodoxy Still Reigns : Media Research Center

After all the dramatic events of last year’s religion news, from the installation of an openly gay bishop and the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s historic pontificate to Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ, religion coverage on the broadcast TV networks could be expected to decline.

Most of the reporting comes from this secular and hostile to religious faith point of view.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:23 PM Permalink

The Jack Ruby Connection

As Jack Ruby watched the preparations for the funeral of the assassinated President John Kennedy in November 1963, he became convinced that he was chosen by destiny to kill his assassin Lew Harvey Oswald and bring about swift justice and spare Jackie Kennedy, his widow, the stress of a trial.

He did so on Sunday morning as Oswald was being transferred.

Hundreds of millions around the world later saw that murder on television including seven-year-old me.

I can't help but thinking that there's a Jack Ruby out there now gathering information on George Felos and Michael Schiavo and intending to murder one or both of them.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:50 AM Permalink

The 'No good deed goes unpunished' Watch

L.I. MOM SLANDERS GOOD SAMARITAN IN KIDNAP 'LIE': COPS : New York Post

Police yesterday dismissed a Long Island mother's chilling claims that a stranger lured her developmentally disabled 8-year-old daughter into his van in a failed kidnap attempt.
The stranger turned out to be a good Samaritan, police said.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:13 PM Permalink

Holy-Smoke Heroes : New York Post

An off-duty firefighter saved Easter for parishioners at a Queens church yesterday, hurdling over pews to help put out a blaze that sent hundreds fleeing.
What began as a joyous celebration at St. Teresa's Church on 50th Avenue in Sunnyside quickly became a chaotic scene when thick black plumes of smoke began billowing out of the sacristy behind the altar as the priest was giving his homily.
Off-duty firefighter Kenny O'Connor immediately leaped over rows of pews and charged into the back room armed with only a fire extinguisher, while the nearly 500 parishioners rushed for the doors.
"I went into the room, and the smoke was from the ceiling to three feet off the floor," said O'Connor, 35, of Engine Co. 43 in The Bronx.

Neighboring parish.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:13 PM Permalink

Government Intervention in a Private Family Matter

Laura Ingraham and others are making a point that this was a family dispute where Michael Schiavo went to the government to have his wishes enforced with the authority of the government.

Once the government was involved, the standards of fairness, truthfulness, respect for Terri's right to light, etc. were engaged. There's no washing of our hands once the government was involved.

The typical family civil case doesn't end with a death warrant.

All the actions of the past few weeks were to stop the clock and examine a lot of conflicting evidence and testimony.

She referenced this New York Times chronology.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:54 PM Permalink

Brain Whitman on Terri Schiavo

He says that last Sunday he advocated the reinsertion of her feeding tube because it was the moral thing to do.

This Sunday, it is no longer the moral thing to do. He doesn't define his own morality, he lets the judicial system do it for him. So the starvation of Terri, for Brian Whitman is now a moral act.

He's also making a big deal of the politically-motivated reporting of the end of the life of Tom Delay's father.

Republican DeLay helped pull plug on his father, L.A. Times reports : Globe and Mail

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who has helped lead a congressional effort to keep Terri Schiavo alive, joined members of his own family nearly 17 years ago in allowing doctors not to take extraordinary measures to extend his father's life, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Mr. DeLay had just been re-elected to his third term in Congress in 1988 when his father, Charles DeLay, was severely injured in an accident. As the elder Mr. DeLay's vital organs began failing, the family chose not to connect him to a dialysis machine or take other measures to prolong his life, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday, citing court documents, medical records and interviews with family members.
“There was no point to even really talking about it,” Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old mother, told the Times. “Tom knew, we all knew, his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way.”

Some differences that demogogues dismiss: Charles DeLay was at the end of his natural life, dialysis is substantially different from food and water, the family was not divided in their decision-making, how much longer he would live even if given dialysis was limited.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 7:32 PM Permalink

Madonna and Guy Ritchie at a Purim party : News of the World

She may be devoted to the mystical Jewish faith Kabbalah, but Madonna just can't shake the, er, habit of dressing as a nun.
The singer shocked the pop world in 1989 when she donned a wimple and crucifix for her controversial Like A Prayer video.
On Thursday she was back in her nun outfit again for a fancy dress party in London to celebrate the Jewish Purim festival.

via Drudge Report

I think Madonna's record of blasphemy kept by the Catholic League is in no danger of being surpassed.

She's 46 and looks 56. Her popularity peaked in 1992 with the "Blonde Ambition" tour. Like Elizabeth Taylor, she's coasting on celebrity obtained over a decade ago.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 6:12 PM Permalink

Celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord, the Resurrection of the Faithfully Departed, and Our Anticpated Resurrection

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:26 PM Permalink

A Reading from the Gospel and from the popular culture

Simon Peter asked him, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus replied, "Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later."

John 13:36

Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you. Rick: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now... Here's looking at you kid.

Casablanca

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:09 PM Permalink

Better for you than one man should die instead of the people (John 11:50)

Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.
If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.
And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all,
Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.
And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;
And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.
Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death. (KJV)

Better that Terri should die and we beat our chests and proclaim that we are a nation of laws -- one nation under God -- indivisible with liberty and justice of all.

There will be an accounting for this before God as judge.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:52 PM Permalink