Lights going out in E.U.?

  EU Commission Demands UK Abolish Religious Freedom Rights

  LONDON, November 24, 2009. In what may be the first test of the new legal situation created by the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, the European Commission has said that absolutely no exemptions can be allowed in anti-discrimination laws, even for religious conscience. In a letter to the British government, the EU has demanded that Britain abolish laws protecting religious freedom rights with regards to "sexual orientation".

More at lifesite news

Policy based evidence making

Could the phenomenon known as 'Policy based Evidence Making' be present in some scientific circles, as well as in some educational circles?

Thanks to Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP.
Hot Air
and  Fr. Finigan

Trying not to get fixated...

 
The Catholic Herald reports that Bishop Kieran Conry, in a pastoral letter read out to churches in his diocese, has said:

“It is all too easy to get caught up and even fixated with single issues, whether this is in religion or politics. So many people tend to focus on liturgy – even the language of the Mass – as if this somehow expresses the core of our beliefs.

“Others campaign on the moral issues of the day. Someone said recently that a person’s attitude to Humanae Vitae was a ‘litmus test’ of being a Catholic, whereas many might not know what Humanae Vitae is.

“These are all undoubtedly important issues, but they will never get anywhere near expressing our faith in its entirety, and we can ask if some of these questions are actually fundamental to faith at all.”

The full text of Bishop Conry's letter is here

'Resting' Catholics

'Resting' Catholics:   now that is a phrase I haven't heard before, though I have heard that actors who are not working, i.e. out of work, are sometimes euphemistically described as 'resting'.

Presumably, a 'resting' Catholic is one who temporarily, (or over a long time),is not practising his faith.

Bishop Conry has  reminded  Catholic mothers, of the need to pray for Catholics who have ceased to practice their faith. At the launch of the annual 'Come home for Christmas' campaign, Bishop Conry suggests that we might pray for the powerful  intercession of  St. Monica, the mother of St Augustine of Hippo.  St Monica's incessant prayers for her, then wayward, son, were heard and answered by God. He returned to the faith and spent the rest of his earthly life doing God's work, as a Bishop, in his prayer, and in his writings.

A phrase for which St. Augustine is well known, is found in Ch.1 of  his 'Confessions':

'.. because you have made us
and drawn us to yourself,
and our hearts are restless
until they rest in you.'

So, a 'resting' Catholic could also be................

USCCB in Conference

How fascinating it is, to sit here in the UK and watch the proceedings of the meeting of the US Catholic Conference of Bishops!
I wonder if televised meetings will ever catch on with our own UK bishops Conference...

The Wisdom of Pope Benedict

 Here's an interesting (though sad) story, from the New Oxford Review, of the descent of two Catholic nuns into the culture of death, via their espousal of  radical feminism and its insistence on 'Women's Experience' as a source for interpreting moral value.The former nuns even wrote a book about their experiences, titled:

'No Turning Back: Two Nuns Battle with the Vatican over Women's Right to Choose' (1990).

In 1985, the Ratzinger Report was published in which the Holy Father, then Cardinal Ratzinger, offered  perceptive insights into the problem of radical feminism.

Below are some quotations:

 

"The interchangeableness of the sexes, viewed as simple "roles" determined more by history than by nature, and the trivialization of male and female extend to the very idea of God and from there spread out to the whole religious reality.

            Christianity is not "our" work; it is a Revelation; it is a message that has been consigned to us, and we have no right to reconstruct it as we like or choose. Consequently, we are not authorized to change the Our Father into an Our Mother: the symbolism employed by Jesus is irreversible; it is based on the same Man-God relationship that he came to reveal to us. Even less is it permissible to replace Christ with another figure. But what radical feminism - at times even that which asserts that it is based on Christianity - is not prepared to accept as precisely this: the exemplary, universal, unchangeable relationship between Christ and the Father.

I am, in fact, convinced that what feminism promotes in its radical form is no longer the Christianity that we know; it is another religion. But I am also convinced (we are beginning to see the deep reasons of the biblical position) that the Catholic Church and the Eastern Churches will defend their faith and their concept of the priesthood, thereby defending in reality both men and women in their totality as well as in their irreversible differentiation into male and female, hence in their irreducibility to simple function or role.

            Besides what I shall never tire of repeating also applies here: for the Church the language of nature (in our case, two sexes complementary to each other yet quite distinct) is also the language of morality (man and women called to equally noble destinies, both eternal, but different). It is precisely in the name of nature - it is known that the Protestant tradition and, in its wake, that of the Enlightenment mistrust this concept - that the Church raises her voice against the temptation to project persons and their destiny according to mere human plans, to strip them of individuality and, in consequence, of dignity. To respect biology is to respect God himself, hence to safeguard his creatures.

            Feminine radicalism announces a liberation that is a salvation different from, if not opposed to, the Christian conception. The men and above all the women who are experiencing the fruits of this presumed post-Christian salvation must realistically ask themselves if this really signifies an increase of happiness, a greater balance, a vital synthesis, richer than the one discarded because it was deemed to be obsolete."

 From The Ratzinger Report, 1985 with thanks to Catholic insight

  

Prayer Request:

Please say a prayer for a friend who is thinking about becoming a Catholic. There are difficulties and hurdles in the way;  my friend will need every prayer, support and encouragement.