extreme Catholic 

This is my son Joseph, just graduated from sixth grade at P.S. 11. He was one of six graduates selected to write and deliver a speech. His topic was "Friendship".

I've been letting him play more computer games as a reward. So that's meant less blogging.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:47 PM   Permalink  

I have seen a few Christians defending the Christian foundation of America, and on the other hand, Christians decrying the pagan influence evident in some of the country's symbols and its avoidance of the cross as a national symbol.

The above linked item is a self-described pagan explaining the case for its pagan foundation.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:37 PM   Permalink  

The above link is interesting for several reasons, but the one I like best is they attach some web pages to explain the difference between affect and effect

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:21 PM   Permalink  

I thought that anything I could add to the discussion would have already been repeated a million times elsewhere. It hasn't.

What pedophiles have learned from the Michael Jackson verdict is that by choosing a child whose parent already has had credibility problems, it is a setup for creating reasonable doubt if the case entirely based on the word of the accuser vs. the accused.

So it's not only a matter of grooming the victim, but choosing the parent of the victim to an eye how he or she will look on the witness stand.

Two more points: (1) Sneddon's case lacked physical evidence and one could have predicted that this would be necessary to obtain a conviction. (2) Going forward, any parent who allows their child to have any contact with Michael Jackson, based on what he admitted to on videotape, should themselves be locked up.

Update: Sean Hannity is saying what I just wrote.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:21 PM   Permalink  

The Blaine Amendment-type laws could have been repealed 60 or 70 years ago along with segregation laws, but that window of opportunity has closed.

Public education unions came to realize in the late 50's/early 60's when the it was a powerful weapon in preventing private and parochial school education from thriving and giving them monopoloy power. "Lemon v. Kurtzman", "Earley v. DiCenso", "Walz v. Tax Commission" were death sentences for Catholic primary and secondary education.

More background here at the Hoover Institution and the advocacy site for its repeal: BlaineAmendments.Org

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:35 AM   Permalink  

Sept. 11 widow Kathy Trant has turned her Long Island home into a $2 million showcase, traveled from the Vatican to Las Vegas, blown $500,000 on shoes, and bought breast jobs for pals and even strangers.

In the 3 1/2 years since her husband, Dan, died in the World Trade Center attacks, she has burned through nearly all the more than $5 million she received in compensation and donations. She says she treated the millions "like Monopoly money."

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:03 AM   Permalink  

Retirement plan for prostitutes : Sapa-DPA

Mexico City - In Mexico City's colonial downtown, women whose ages range from 60 to 85 offer sex in exchange for a few pesos or a bite to eat. They live on the street. Dusty sheets of cardboard are their beds.

Ostracised by society, rejected by their families and with no place to spend their final years, they are forced to continue to practise their profession.

But hope for a better life is beginning to crystallise. In the coming months, 60 of these elderly prostitutes will move into an 18th-century building donated by the local government and located in San Jacinto square in the heart of Mexico City.

The project to create a home for elderly prostitutes, to be named Xochiquetzal after the Aztec goddess of the earth and love, came into being thanks to Carmen Munoz, 45, a sex worker who sought backing from figures such as Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska and the leftist mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Two observations: These women regardless of their past should be given a life with dignity and not be reduced to poverty. As Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church commands us to love the poor:

2444 "The Church's love for the poor . . . is a part of her constant tradition." This love is inspired by the Gospel of the Beatitudes, of the poverty of Jesus, and of his concern for the poor. Love for the poor is even one of the motives for the duty of working so as to "be able to give to those in need." It extends not only to material poverty but also to the many forms of cultural and religious poverty.

You can see a bit of pagan revival here in the "goddess" as well. I'd have no problem with its name, Xochiquetzal, if the funds were donated by her worshippers, but it being donated by the government in the name of all the people of Mexico City.

Where's the Mexican equivalent of the ACLU to complain that pagan Aztec religion is being established here?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:11 PM   Permalink  

Hundreds of displaced worshippers intent on rebuilding their beloved Weymouth church yesterday packed a stifling school auditorium to celebrate Mass with Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley.

"It's a little early to forecast exactly what the plan will be, but we pray that everyone will work hard and use our best wisdom and come up with the best plan for the future of Sacred Heart Parish," O'Malley said in his homily.

Outside, a pair of wrecking cranes chomped away the last standing facade of Sacred Heart. Charred bricks tumbled out of their steel jaws like crumbs. The 134-year-old church burned Thursday night, throwing the future of the parish into uncertainty...

Weymouth Fire Chief Robert Leary said investigators have ruled out the boiler as the source of the fire, which ignited in the rear of the church in the basement. The cause remains under investigation

The burning of the Cathedral of St Raphael (Madison WI) was an act of arson.

Unless someone was careless with a flame or there was recent electrical rennovations, what could be the accidental cause? Empty 134-old churches do not spontaneously combust.

And if the fire was deliberately set, what was their motive?

Update: An old refrigerator used to store milk for coffee sparked a seven-alarm blaze that ravaged the 19th-century Sacred Heart Church last week in Weymouth, fire officials said yesterday. Boston Globe

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:55 PM   Permalink  

Only just over a quarter of Italian voters turned out to cast their ballots on the reform of one of Europe's most restrictive fertility treatment laws.

So the referendum will have no legal effect. Yet an overwhelming majority of 80-90% of those who did vote chose to answer "Yes" to a change in the law...

One woman told me she was incensed by a priest she heard preaching against the referendum at a relative's funeral.

"I wanted to walk out but didn't do so out of respect for my family," she said.

Priests continued to preach against the referendum on Sunday morning when polls had already opened, the referendum campaign had officially closed and political parties were banned from issuing any further referendum propaganda.

I think apathy won, and not the Church. Italy suffers from a population collapse. People receiving a pension exceed the number of active workers. This is not going to be sustainable. Italy is dying. All of Europe is dying. So it's a bit of irony that the Church achieves a triumph of sorts in blocking artificial fertility.

Italy as it is known now will become a "museum civilization" inhabited by people who are likely to do to ancient Roman era and Christian era monuments and buildings what the Taliban did to the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:11 PM   Permalink  

I just got too busy. I had the apologetics class that I co-teach on Wednesday, the debate I attended on Thursday, a religious conference I attended on Friday through Sunday and orientation for my son's summer camp on Monday. I'll fill in the details on these in a few more posts.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:08 PM   Permalink