extreme Catholic 

 

TV Heads Up Dept.: The Myth of Hitler's Pope on Book TV The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis by David Dalin Rabbi David Dalin writes that Pope Pius XII was not complicit with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, as some historians contend. In his new book, "The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis," Rabbi Dalin examines the actions of Pope Pius XII and also traces the actions of the Catholic Church during the late 1930s and through World War II. The author writes that Pope Pius XII was not an anti-Semite and that the Catholic Church did more than any other religion to save the lives of European Jews during the Holocaust. (Check the Book TV web site for repeats.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 7:13 PM   Permalink  

 
August 1998

With the current discussion of the failure of the military, CIA, and FBI to exchange information in 2000 and 2001 to prevent the 9/11 attack, 1998 becomes relevant.

This is the forgotten 7th anniversary of coordinated terrorist bombings United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya which killed 224 people and injured over 4,500. This brought worldwide attention to Osama bin Laden who took full credit for the attack.

The analysis of how this could have happened brought to the page of the New York Times claims agencies were not communicating with each other because of historical turf guarding. The ambassador had warned the State Department of the building's vulnerability to any street-level blast and nothing was done because it was not in that year's budget.

Elsewhere, the Taliban were closing in on Kabul, and the United Nations was shocked (again) that Iraq was no longer cooperating with its inspectors.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 3:52 PM   Permalink  

 
Polish priest in anti-Semitic outburst : World Jewish Congress

A Polish priest has criticized laws allegedly imposed on his country by "Jewish bankers" and others. Henryk Jankowski, who had been banned from preaching for a year some years ago because of earlier anti-Semitic remarks, made the comments in Gdansk during anniversary celebrations of the anti-Communist workers strikes in 1980 which were a precursor to the fall of the Iron Curtain. "We are filled with horror when laws are imposed upon us that are thought up by anti-Catholic Masons, Jewish bankers and hell-born atheistic Socialists," Jankowski said.

The hell-born were not available for comment.

Seriously, I thought his most recent suspension was in 2004 and still in effect.

I expect this might be used by the MSM to serve as a distraction from the good coverage at WYD.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:40 PM   Permalink  

 
Go, Roberts, Go

The left is going nuts because it seems that Roberts really is in his heart and soul, as evidenced by his time in the Reagan White House, one of us.

Here's some wailing and gnashing of teeth:

Victory Through Intimidation : People For the American Way

The day before he spoke at "Justice Sunday II," the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue openly admitted that he hopes to intimidate the Senate Judiciary Committee into confirming John Roberts to a seat on the Supreme Court.

Poor choice of words, Bill. Don't give the enemy ammo like this.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:21 PM   Permalink  

 
Families Of 9/11 Victims File Lawsuit Seeking Dignified Burials : NY1

World Trade Center family members who lost loved ones in the 9/11 terror attacks have filed a federal lawsuit seeking the "dignified burial" of ashen remains and body fragments bulldozed into Staten Island's Fresh Kills landfill.

The group "WTC Families for Proper Burial" said Wednesday it wants the ashen remains and body fragments still in the now-closed landfill to be buried in a cemetery.

I may have breathed into my body the dust that once was the human beings incinerated in the World Trade Center. Anything that could have been identified as being human remains was long ago separated from the landfill. What is in the landfill is only the dust and tiniest of fragments of once was living human beings — as one of the plantiffs said "microscopic".

As the mayor already declared, it would take hundreds of millions to remove the landfill and return it to the World Trade Center site.

I don't think the remains have been treated with disrespect. Here's the real problem: while there's massive rebuilding around the WTC site, the WTC site is locked into disputes over who's in charge and what's going to be built there.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:26 PM   Permalink  

 
Conservative Compassion

Edmund Morris, the biographer of Ronald Reagan, has an excellent op-ed in the New York Times on the matter of the current president meeting political protester, Cindy Sheehan.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:23 PM   Permalink  

 
CBS 2 Exclusive: The Monsignor's Side Of The Story

CBS 2 has learned exclusive details of what may have happened between a high-profile monsignor and his secretary at a Long Island motel.

Monsignor Eugene Clark has kept a low profile since the scandal broke last week, but now says nothing improper happened in that hotel room.

You'll recall that Clark, the former rector at St. Patrick's Cathedral, is accused of having a long-running affair with his secretary, Laura DiFilippo.

In July, the two of them spent five hours together at the White Sands Motel in Amagansett, caught on video by a private eye hired by Laura's husband. But a source tells CBS 2's Tony Aiello that Clark insists nothing improper went on, saying they merely stopped to rest after a long lunch before the drive back to Manhattan.

The source says they wanted to catch some rays at the motel's private beach, but were told they had to register to use it, so they did just that.

Clark disputes a report he registered using a phony name.

He says DeFilippo worked on her tan and napped outside, while he worked on some papers. Clark claims he spent only a few minutes inside the room with his secretary.

He also denies press reports that he took DeFilippo to the West Indies resort island of St. Barts. Clark says he vacations there every year, but never went there with DeFilippo. He says she went there on her own, after hearing him rave about it.

Our source also tells Aiello that Clark is bothered by questions in the press about his million-dollar home in Amagansett. He says the home has been in his family for many years, and he shares it with other members of the family.

He's got a million-dollar home in the neighborhood, what does he need a motel for? What kind of lunch makes you want to take a five hour break afterwards?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:05 PM   Permalink  

 
Karol, un uomo diventato Papa (A Man Who Became Pope)

Great movie. I taped it. I agree the pacing was slow at parts. In a regular movie there's a little suspense regarding the outcome but here, certainly all the viewers know that the Nazis get kicked out in '45 and the Reds get kicked out in '90. I think the movie could have been helped with a voiceover narration to help bridge the gaps and move the story along faster.

Others have complained that the accents reminded people of Colonel Klink in Hogan's Heroes. That's quite harsh but also a little true.

The actor who plays the Communist villain (Julian Kordek) is Hristo Shopov. He portrayed Pilate in The Passion on the Christ

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:26 PM   Permalink  

 
Wiccan Seeks $65,000 in Public Prayer Case: Fox News

A small South Carolina town is facing a hefty legal bill after losing a battle over whether it should stop using Jesus Christ's name in prayers before council meetings.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused in June to hear the town's appeal of a lower court ruling over the prayers.

Now Darla Wynne wants Great Falls to pay her more than $65,000 to cover legal bills. A judge is expected to rule on the matter within the next two months.

Wynne, who describes herself as a Wiccan priestess, sued Great Falls in 2001, saying the town violated the separation between church and state by using the name Jesus Christ in prayers because it promoted one religion over the other.

The money is not covered by insurance, and it is unclear where the town about 2,200 residents would get the cash. The amount is about 7 percent its annual budget.

They might want to contact the Archdiocese of Portland for help with this.

At only $29.50 per resident, it looks cheap compared to the burden on Catholics in the settlement of sexual abuse cases.

If this is ultimately sucessful, expect nuisance lawsuits to erupt all over the country by wiccans, atheists, etc.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:07 AM   Permalink  

 
I thought it had been demolished already... Brigid's stay extended again : The Villager

A temporary restraining order against demolition of the St. Brigid's [Catholic] Church building has been extended to Aug. 30 [2005], when State Supreme Court Justice Barbara R. Kapnick will hear argument in the suit to preserve the building by the Committee to Save St. Brigid's against the Catholic Archdiocese of New York. At left, inside St. Brigid's, statues have been taken down and some wrapped in plastic.

The Church is not a landmark but historically significant as the first church build by the newly arrived Irish in 1848 after the famine and the first great wave of Irish immigration.

If you are in New York City, the exterior of the church can be seen at 119 Avenue B (between East Seventh and Eighth Streets). The protest web site is Anti-Abomination

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 5:19 PM   Permalink  

 
Hallmark Channel is presenting a biography of Pope John Paul II tonight (sorry about the late notice)

The producers web site is Faith Streams

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 5:10 PM   Permalink  

 
Everything you want to know about Cindy Sheehan

is over at Newbusters

She is Catholic, not that there's anything wrong with that.

More documentation of how the MSM (i.e. the AP) is distorting her story over at Lone Star News

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 5:00 PM   Permalink  

 
No news on Clark-DeFillipo, but

I know that I'm getting hits for covering this as a Catholic story and media watching story:

The New York Daily News has some photographs that are worth a look if you want to see a wedding photo and some happy days from the past.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:53 PM   Permalink  

 
Another case where the New Media does what Old Media refuses to do

Sen. Dick Durbin and old media closed ranks around the question of whether Durbin had asked Supreme Court nominee John Roberts "what he would do if the law required a ruling that his church considers immoral". Washington Times quoting LA Times

Durbin denied it. His spokesman denied it. The trouble is they were George Washington Univesity Law Professor Jonathan Turley's sources and there's email and phone calls to back Turley up.

Roberts answer to recuse himself was wrong. As Turley argues, religious belief should not disqualify a judge. The original Turley op-ed doesn't appear to be online. Turley wrote:

It was also the wrong answer. In taking office, a justice takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States. A judge's personal religious views should have no role in the interpretation of the laws.

How could Durbin and his staff be so stupid as to deny conversations with a law professor on the record?

I didn't discuss this in the blog, but there's a discussion in Amy Welborn's blog of the Roberts statement from July 25.

Power Line and the other ConBlogs are discussing the Durbin-as-liar aspect of the story now.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:49 AM   Permalink  

 
Cindy Sheehan

She has the moral authority of any mother who has lost a son in war, the sympathy of the President and a grateful nation.

On everything else, she's another lying political hack. She's using the media. The media is using her. Everyone on talk radio is using her grief as a shield for all sorts of nonsense from the paranoids: the Downing Street memo, Haliburton, where are weapons of mass destruction, etc. which we have been hearing since 2002.

No one in MSM would cover this if she supported the President's Iraq strategy.

Doesn't she remind you of Lori Berenson, the 22 year old woman who joined terrorists in Peru, or Rachel Corrie, 23, killed by a bulldozer which she believed would be able to stop before it crushed her?

Her 15 minutes of fame is ending soon.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:38 AM   Permalink  

 
Detraction:

the sin of making the faults of another known without sufficient reason.

Husband's No Saint Either: New York Post

The man [Philip DeFilippo] accusing his wife [Laura] of having a torrid affair with St. Patrick's Cathedral rector Eugene Clark has fibbed about his work history, quit a job as a cop after three days, sued NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, and gotten hauled into court on charges he swiped a toaster.

So, I guess it's ok to destroy his marriage.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 5:42 PM   Permalink