Eternal Flame.. a physical one

An eternal flame in honour of John Paul II will be lit tomorrow at the Vatican grottos, in a ceremony to be led by the Vicar General of Vatican City, Archbishop Angelo Comastri, and attended by famous athletes.

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Catholic News Agency reports that the event will be attended by several athletes, including Olympic champion Manuela Di Centa, who will carry a lighted torch from the Monastery of St Vincent in Bassano Romano to the Vatican to light the flame.

Athletes will carry the torch throughout Italy on its way to the Monastery. The John Paul II International Foundation has organised the ceremony as one part of series of social and religious events.

USA needs to get real on Cuba

The National Council of Churches USA and Church World Service (the churches’ global development agency) have joined with other organizations to renew objections to new American government restrictions on travel to Cuba."

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The current US policy toward Cuba restricts religious freedom and is contrary to the principles upon which our nation was founded," said the Rev Brenda Girton-Mitchell, the NCC staff executive for justice and advocacy, during a news conference last week.

She continued: "We reiterate our call on the US government to respect religious freedom and restore the less restrictive travel licenses that we have had for decades."

The US Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, which recommended the travel restrictions that were adopted by President Bush in May of 2004, is expected to make new recommendations in the coming weeks when it issues its second report.

According to the Center for International Policy, the new recommendations will likely be as restrictive as the previous ones, which virtually eliminated academic exchanges between the United States and Cuba and severely limited travel by Cuban Americans. The limitations have been particularly felt by Cuban families with members in both countries."

Dramatically limiting exchange between the U.S. and Cuba is more than an annoyance, it is dangerously counterproductive," says Joy Olson of the Washington Office on Latin America.

In the past year, the State Department has adopted a policy to deny visas for religious travel to the United States by officials of the Cuban Council of Churches because it believes these officials are agents of the Cuban government. However, the State Department has not provided any evidence of this.

Martin Shupack, CWS Associate Director for Public Policy, said this amounts to the US government intruding in internal church affairs.

He added that in his experience "the Cuban Council of Churches is the authentic ecumenical expression of Christians in Cuba and to interfere with that religious expression is wrong."

The folks running the Cuba Policy in the U.S. must be leftovers from the J.
Edgar Hoover era.

The Philippines can do what the USA can not do

Upon a resolution authored by Councilor Jay Sangil, the City Council passed a move to urge parish priests of the Catholic Church to enjoin all parishes and churches to pray or play the "Angelus" over public address systems.

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Sangil said that the observance of the Angelus will help renew and strengthen the faith of the Catholics and help them as they go about their daily lives.

He said that the strength and unity of the Catholics in prayer may only be harnessed through the help of the Catholic Church priests, by sounding off their respective parishioners for the Angelus every afternoon.

"The renewal, restoration and strengthening of faith can come in the form of daily reminders to actually pray; and the recitation of the 'Angelus' could be an effective reminder for the faithful to pray at an appointed time," Sangil added.

Vice Mayor Ricardo Zalamea said that Sangil's proposal has been adopted into a resolution of the City Council and its appeal will soon be submitted to the concerned leaders of the Catholic Church in the city.

Can you imagine an American city government prompting our clergy to advise
their flocks to pray the Angelus? Only in the dear Philippines.

sentire cum ecclesia

Does Father Neuhaus ever not speak clearly and with cutting truth? As usual, thank God for him.

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"sentire cum ecclesia." It means to think with the Church, but also to feel with the Church. In short, to love the Church.

...we are loved by the Church, and most particularly by all the saints in the Church Triumphant. "Sentire cum ecclesia" means being concerned never to betray St. Paul, St. Irenaeus, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, St. Theresa and the faith for which they and innumerable others lived and died.

And, for all the inadequacies and sins of the Church and her leadership in our time, it means always doing one's best to support, and never to undermine, the effectiveness of her teaching ministry.

She is, after all, the bearer and embodiment of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is nothing less than the story of the world -- without which the world, and we with it, is lost.

The main problem in the Church today -- as it has been from the apostolic era and will be until our Lord's return in glory -- is a lack of faith.

Our sinful nature resists, does not dare to believe, the good news of our salvation now and forever. This has intellectual, spiritual, aesthetic, moral and whatever dimensions you want to name.

We have turned the high adventure of discipleship into something dreary, drab and predictable. This is nowhere so evident as in the long-standing intra-Church squabbles between left and right, liberals and traditionalists.

In "Catholic Matters" I refer to the "discontinuants" of both left and right -- those who speak of a pre-Vatican II Church and a post-Vatican II Church as though there were two churches. The alternative is to gratefully and loyally take our place in the glorious, and sometimes stumbling, march of the one Church through time to the end of time.

Wisconsin governor says no to his Bishop(s)

He will not "rethink". Well that explains it all then.

Gov. Jim Doyle broke with Wisconsin's two most prominent Catholic bishops on Wednesday, bluntly telling them he would not rethink his strong support of embryonic stem cell research.

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"While I appreciate your thoughts on this important issue, I also feel a responsibility to promote vital research which holds the potential to save countless lives and bring thousands of jobs to our state," Doyle, a Catholic, wrote in a letter to Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Madison Bishop Robert Morlino.

The Democratic governor wrote in response to the bishops' letter on Monday in which they criticized an executive order he signed last month setting aside $5 million to recruit companies doing stem cell research to Wisconsin.

The bishops called the potential to cure illness a "morally flawed justification" for destroying embryos but said they were more troubled that Doyle was also emphasizing the economic development aspects of the research.

"To justify such research on economic grounds takes the conversation in a disconcerting direction - a direction that further diminishes human embryos to mere commodities," the bishops wrote.

The governor responded that the research typically involves using embryos leftover at fertility clinics that would be discarded anyway.

"The ultimate question isn't whether embryos will be destroyed, but whether we should allow a few of those unused embryos to be utilized saving lives instead of discarding them," Doyle wrote. "I believe we should come down on the side of saving lives."

But Doyle has also backed a more controversial technique known as therapeutic cloning in which scientists artificially create embryos to extract their stem cells to study disease and cell growth.

He vetoed a bill approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature last year that would have made the technique a crime, saying it would have sent researchers fleeing for other states and squandered Wisconsin's chance to be a leader in the field.

Doyle is a disaster as a Catholic, but a good match to liberal Wisconsin.
Looks like he as made his choice, that even the Bishops can not alter. Hopefully
Doyle will be gone soon.

Tolerant Catholics can relax

I was unaware that a recent post about Hindus was causing them some
heartburn. Some comments were disappointed with my lack of charity, and advised
me to respect their religion.

Perhaps some people do not know that Hindus are fighting to stop
the long government effort to dismantle the caste system, which condems low
class families and future generations forever to be poor and outcast.

I wondered why the loud Hindu comments? Here's what's going on to make
them especially sensitive lately...

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Across India, thousands of junior doctors, interns and medical students have been on strike for weeks in many cities -- from Kolkata in the east to Ahmedabad in the west -- crippling state health services.

They have been protesting against a far-reaching government decision to more than double college quotas for lower castes including in medical, management and engineering colleges.

Despite the nationwide protests by upper-caste students and professionals, the government has refused to backdown with an eye on millions of lower-caste votes, and has even threatened to fire junior doctors if they continue their strike.

It's that the struggle for freedom from the caste system over there is
causing them to involve the Catholic Church and its charity toward the low caste
citizens in the fight for human economic and cultural freedom.

Lacking an understanding of world, they think the Pope is a gang leader
giving money to the poor people to de facto raise their status and allow them to
be normal vs. low class people. They see this as Catholics buying converts. Well
yes, the poor folks like to eat and learn, and understandably will leave what
was opressing them. But it is not buying anything, just charity.

OK? It's not lack of respect for the Hindus and their slowly opening eyes.
This is hard for them personally and culturally. It hurts. God bless them.

And God bless the lower classes that are being fed and educated by efforts of
Christians. Good job.

No God? Then no babies

Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday that low birth rates in Canada are the result of the "pervasive effects of secularism" and asked the country's bishops to counter the trend by preaching the truth of Christ.

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"Like many countries ... Canada is today suffering from the pervasive effects of secularism," Benedict told visiting bishops from Canada. "One of the more dramatic symptoms of this mentality, clearly evident in your own region, is the plummeting birth rate."

Canada's birth rate in 2005 was 10.5 births for every 1,000 people, according to Statistics Canada.

"Canadians look to you to be men of hope, preaching and teaching with passion the splendor of the truth of Christ who dispels the darkness and illuminates the way to renew ecclesiastical and civic

India says "not me"!

I should remind everyone that hindus have monkey gods, elephant gods, and cow
gods. Do these folks really think people will convert back to something like
that? It is pre-historic, and mainly isolated rural folks.

Pope Benedict XVI's remarks on 'disturbing signs of religious intolerance in India' have put Christians here on the defensive but opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called them 'highly objectionable'.

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'There are disturbing signs of religious intolerance which have troubled some regions of India, including the reprehensible attempt to legislate clearly discriminatory restrictions on the fundamental right of religious freedom,' the pope was quoted as saying.

BJP-ruled Rajasthan has recently passed legislation banning religious conversions, but it has been awaiting President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's assent.

Party leaders are angry over the pope's remarks.

'If conversion is a right, re-conversion is also is a right. Will he agree to it?' asked Malhotra.

'States like Orissa and Madhya Pradesh made a law to ban conversion during first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's period. The state governments found that Christian missionaries were crossing the limit.

'I think even Christian doctrines say conversion by force or allurement is wrong. How can we accept it then?' he asked.

Dilip Singh Judev, an MP who has been involved in the re-conversion drive in north Indian states, said the pope's reaction had come 'out of desperation'.'They are not able to convert Hindus any longer. He is worried now,' Judev told IANS.

Sure Mr. Judev, the Pope is desperate... only for the well being of his
people.

Nukeman from Iranistan to write letter to Pope

Breaking all taboos in Iranistan, the supreme leader will take quill to paper
and ink another letter to be delivered across borders to the Pope.

No one knows what the letter may contain. Speculation among anonymous sources
speculate that it will contain things that could not be contained in a phone call
or a face-to-face meeting.

It will be delivered in a lead shielded box with a "timer" attached to record
the time spent in transit. Also it will contain a cell phone with external
antenna "trigger" model speculated to assist the Pope should he wish to respond
by phone.

The Pope will be addressed by the typical formal Iranistan title "Supreme
Infidel".

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is writing a letter to Pope Benedict, following an unprecedented letter to US President George W Bush earlier this month, a newspaper said on Thursday. “President Ahmadinjad’s second letter is for Pope Benedict and will be sent in the next days,” Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper, which is close to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, quoted unnamed sources as saying. Iranian officials were not available to comment.

Catholic Fun

No one who has ever been to a "World Youth Day" celebration can doubt we know
how to have good clean fun!

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After the Mass a celebration in honor of John Paul II will be held in St. Peter's Square, concluding with a firework display.

Tomorrow, May 13, 89th anniversary of the first appearance of Our Lady of Fatima, and 25th anniversary of the attack against John Paul II in St. Peter's Square, a copy of the statue of the Virgin from that famous Portuguese shrine will return to the Vatican.

For the occasion, more than 20,000 pilgrims will gather in Rome in order to participate in the 2nd World Day of Pilgrims, being promoted by the "Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi."

The statue of the Virgin will arrive by helicopter at Castel Sant'Angelo on Saturday afternoon whence the pilgrims, led by Cardinal Ivan Dias, archbishop of Bombay, India, will accompany it in procession along Via della Conciliazione and into St. Peter's Basilica. In crossing St. Peter's Square, the procession will halt for a moment at the point in which John Paul II was shot.

In the basilica, after praying the rosary, the pilgrims will participate in a Eucharistic celebration presided by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Pope's vicar general for the diocese of Rome and president of "Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi."

Healing with courage and time

Like many Roman Catholic clergy in China, Bishop Li Jingfeng has experienced his share of hardship.

Communist cadres threw him in prison for 15 years, then kept him toiling in a coal mine for seven more. Once he was free, they routinely detained him and harried his followers.

All along, they badgered him to join the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the schismatic state-run group that controls the Chinese church and shuns the Vatican.

But Li never crumpled. And now he's emerged from what's known as the underground Catholic Church to minister in the open, with the officially atheist state begrudgingly acknowledging his religious status. His situation underscores the progress in the careful minuet between the Vatican and China as they inch toward a rapprochement after 55 years of rupture.

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"A great deal of reconciliation has occurred," said Jean-Paul Wiest, a Beijing-based writer on topics related to the Roman Catholic Church. "The so-called difference between the state-sanctioned church and the underground church is less and less meaningful."

The Vatican now recognizes some 90 percent of China's bishops, Wiest said, including many who are associated with the state-sanctioned church.

Li holds no apparent bitterness over his mistreatment or jailing. He said he meets with township, county and provincial officials as often as they want.

"We have known each other for dozens of years. Every year there are dozens of opportunities to debate," Li said. "We have many friends among the officials. They are all atheists. But they have trust in me. They say, `This man is very honest.'"

With a knowing glimmer in his eye, Li said some fellow clergy members co-opted into leadership positions in the Patriotic Association quietly "act against it. They don't accept its control."

But publicly, to avoid punishment from the Chinese government, they're sometimes they're forced to go against Rome, he said.

"Satanism is a philosophy which holds individualism as one of its main values,"

According to a Web site (www.churchofsatan.com), the Church of Satan was founded in 1966 by Anton Szandor LaVey in the United States. "Satanism is a philosophy which holds individualism as one of its main values," the site says. Its news update section has no mention of Indonesia or a world congress.

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A rumored upcoming world congress of the "Church of Satan" in the Indonesian Christian stronghold of North Sulawesi has drawn condemnation and scorn from Catholic and Protestant Church leaders.

Church of Satan members reportedly received information about the event from text messages sent to their mobile phones.

The existence of the Church of Satan in Manado was first publicized in 1999 by Manado Post in an investigative report about the cult's alleged rites at luxury homes and a local hotel.

Ronald Dondokambey, a youth who said he once joined a Church of Satan ritual in Manado, told UCA News that during the satanic rite he was asked to drink blood. "I unknowingly joined the rite. I just followed my friend. I did not know why, but I found myself among them. It seems that I had been hypnotized to follow whatever they ordered me to do," he recounted.

Father Paulus Salabia, parish priest of St. John the Evangelizer Church in Laikit, just east of Manado, told UCA News May 3 that he believes Catholics would not be influenced by the Church of Satan. "On the contrary, it will encourage their faith," he said.

Moreover, he said "Catholics every day visit each other's home to pray the rosary during May." He dismissed the reported plan for a Church of Satan world congress as just media sensationalism.

"It is good to see the faces of our youth so bright,"

Catholics in Nepal have welcomed the Nepalese king's restoration of parliament and an elected government following weeks of pro-democracy protests.

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"This is an opportune time for peacemakers to be active," Jesuit Father Augustine Peedikamala, principal of St. Xavier's College, the only Catholic-run college in Nepal, told UCA News.

"It is good to see the faces of our youth so bright," Jesuit Father Arul Anandam told UCA News, as some of his students from the college introduced him to popular local singer-celebrities who came for the event.

The place was also teeming with uniform-clad students from various Catholic schools in Kathmandu, nuns in habits and parishioners from Assumption Church burning candles, releasing balloons and holding banners that read "peace."

Sister Mary Edwina, superior of the Companions of Jesus in the capital, told UCA News their group of seven nuns had an additional reason to be lighting candles for peace. The St. Mary's school for girls that her congregation runs in Gorkha, 135 kilometers (about 85 miles) west of Kathmandu, reopened this week, after being closed due to direct and indirect threats by Maoist rebels demanding an end to private education. The school suffered two arson attacks.

Long Fast

A devout Christian has died while undertaking a religious fast during which she only drank water.

Rosaline Gilbert, 34, died 23 days into the 40-day fast.

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Her sister said: "She was very religious and she used to say she was a child of God. She was not any particular Christian denomination but was strong in her beliefs."

Asker Jeukendrup, a nutritionist at the University of Birmingham, said it was unlikely that 23 days of starvation would kill a healthy and average-weight person. But the longer the body went without food the more vulnerable it became to illness.

Good news for the little ones

A May 4 Harris poll -- which misleadingly asked about support for Roe v. Wade as if that decision made abortion legal during only the first three months of pregnancy -- found that support has dropped below 50% for the first time in 30 years, the bishops' Web site reported.

It also showed that 44% of Americans said they would support a law in their own state such as South Dakota's, banning all abortions except to save the mother's life.

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Polls show that support for a key court decision that allowed abortion in the United States is waning, says an agency of the U.S. bishops' conference.

"This is a real sign of hope for both women and their unborn children," stated Deirdre McQuade, spokeswoman at the bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, in a Web posting Friday.

A major barometer for sure :)

Pell on Islam; response?.. Pell is "ill-informed"

Cardinal George Pell, the archbishop of Sydney, told an audience of Catholic business leaders in Florida he believed it was vital to read the Koran, "because the challenge of Islam will be with us for the remainder of our lives."

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"In my own reading of the Koran, I began to note down invocations to violence," he said. "There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages."

"Considered strictly on its own terms, Islam is not a tolerant religion, and its capacity for far-reaching renovation is severely limited," Pell said. He added, however, that the human factor could also play a mitigating or exacerbating role, and he compared the situations in Indonesia and Pakistan.

Muslims believe Allah revealed the Koran directly to Mohammed through the angel Gabriel (Jibril) over a 23-year period and that as such it is sacrosanct.

Pell pointed out that death threats and violence are frequently directed against Islamic scholars who question the Koran's divine origin, with hard-line leaders rejecting any call for critical consideration of the text.

"The predominant grammatical form in which jihad is used in the Koran carries the sense of fighting or waging war," Pell said.

It was legitimate to ask "our Islamic partners in dialogue" for their views on these matters."Do they believe that the peaceful suras of the Koran are abrogated by the verses of the sword?" he asked."

Is the program of [Islamic] military expansion ... to be resumed when possible?"

"Do they believe that democratic majorities of Muslims in Europe would impose shari'a law? Can we discuss Islamic history and even the hermeneutical problems around the origins of the Koran without threats of violence?"

Islamic representatives called the remarks disappointing and negative, warning they would merely reinforce differences among communities in Australia.

Keysar Trad of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia said the comments were "ill-informed," and called the speech "an off-the-cuff dismissal of the teachings of one of the world's great religions."

Pell responded to the criticism with a brief statement, saying suggestions that he was misinformed on Islam were "smokescreens to distract, to divert attention rather than address basic issues which need to be discussed."

"Islamic terrorists are not a figment of anyone's imagination and the history of relations with Islam is full of conflict."

"teachings of one of the world's great religions"? Great in the sense of
"great numbers" perhaps. Otherwise I still question who the heck that angel was
that whispered all these secret things to Mohatmet. A spirit I would not care to
be whispered to by.

Irak Stinks

A British military helicopter crashed in Basra on Saturday, and Iraqis hurled stones at British troops and set fire to three armored vehicles that rushed to the scene. Clashes broke out between British troops and Shiite militias, police and witnesses said.

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British forces backed by armored vehicles rushed to the area but were met by a hail of stones from the crowd of at least 250 people, who jumped for joy and raised their fists as a plume of thick smoke rose into the air from the crash site.

The crowd set three British armored vehicles on fire, apparently with gasoline bombs and a rocket-propelled grenade, but the soldiers inside escaped unhurt, witnesses said.

If we work together, we will find out we like each other

Pope Benedict XVI expressed hope that a landmark meeting between Catholic and Russian Orthodox representatives would result in the two churches working together to re-evangelize Europe.

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The May 3-5 meeting in Vienna, Austria, was titled, "Give a Soul to Europe: The Mission and Responsibility of the Churches."

In his remarks to participants May 3, Cardinal Poupard said that during his close collaboration with Patriarch Alexy over the years he discovered that the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches share very similar ideas concerning the root causes of the religious and moral crises that Europe faces.

While the two churches wish to "become aware of our legitimate differences in approach" and prospects for working together to evangelize Europe, he said in his text there was no doubt that the gospel was the solution in bringing about "a true humanism" in Europe.

To effectively infuse European politics, scientific and economic advancements with Christian values and ethics, the two churches must work together, "each one according to our grace" and the richness of each one's ancient traditions, he said.

Catholic Condoms.. nicely said

As a betting man, I still say the exception for "married with AIDS" will and can
never happen.

The “saving the Africans” argument can be swiftly dispensed with. Simply put, if people only ever had unprotected sex within marriage, there would be very little HIV anywhere. Indeed, Africa would be better off if there were more Catholics there: South Africa has only 6 per cent Catholics, with a 22 per cent infection rate; Uganda is 43 per cent Catholic, with an infection rate of 4 per cent.


The other, more insidious argument is that condoms are justifiable on grounds of self-defence. As Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragàn put it: “If an infected husband wants to have sex with his wife who isn’t infected, she must defend herself by any means necessary.”

You get to wonder whom these red hats have been listening to. Andrea Dworkin? After all, if condoms can be justified thus, then what is so special about HIV that doesn’t apply to chlamydia and syphilis? Aren’t non-marrieds allowed to defend themselves too? By playing the self-defence gambit, the Church will have lost its strongest card — that sex is something a couple do together — and sold out to the mad feminists and Barbara Cartland conservatives, who believe that sex is something ghastly that men do to women.

For most godless, bourgeois types throughout the Western world, the Catholic Church’s unique selling point is being anti-contraception. Without this, it will become just another collection of weirdos like the C of E. Is that what liberals want?

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Tradition.. nicely said

"The Tradition is ... the history of the Spirit, working in the life of the Church through the apostles and their successors, in faithful continuity with the original experience".

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Capital Punishment.. just one more

Spokeswoman Andrea Dean said the execution was delayed about 90 minutes because technicians had trouble initially finding a site in Clark's arm for the intravenous line carrying the chemicals.

Then shortly after the poisons were supposed to have been pumping into his body, she said, he sat up saying, "It's not working. It's not working."

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Officials determined that a vein had collapsed. Curtains were closed to block witnesses' view until technicians found a vein in his other arm. They were then parted to reveal him dying, witnesses said.

Capital Punishment.. he's happy now

Large crowds gathered at a Koranic school in Somalia's capital to watch 16-year-old Mohamed Moallim, stab Omar Hussein in the head and throat.

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Hussein was tied to a stake and had his head covered by a bag ahead of his execution.

He shouted "There is no God but Allah" as Mohamed Moallim stepped up to take his revenge.

"I am happy now because I killed the man who killed my father," he told the Reuters news agency.

The execution marked the first time the local court in the Bermuda district of Mogadishu had handed down a death penalty, local media reported.

Residents in the nearby area have reported a drop in robberies, murder and general lawlessness since the court began its work, Radio HornAfrik said.

There has been no effective central government in Somalia for 15 years, leaving warlords to fight for control of local areas.

Hey, if it works in Somalia, it works in the good ol USA.

Skip Mcdonalds, Skip Baby

Another triumph for "women's heath".

A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland said: “The very serious danger with this method is that so little time goes into thinking through the consequences. "

The more streamlined the process becomes, the higher the risk that the woman will not fully consider her options. This will make abortion more convenient and make it less likely the woman will be able to pause for thought."

Margaret Cuthill, national co-ordinator of British Victims of Abortion, said: "This is minimising abortion to the point where it is like a trip to the dentist or the supermarket. "

Many of the women who come for post-abortion counselling with our organisation say they felt like they had been put on a conveyer belt and this new procedure will add to that."

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The Catholic Church in Scotland has expressed alarm over plans by the Scottish NHS to introduce controversial “lunchtime” abortions, a move which has left critics angry that NHS managers have reduced the procedure to something as trivial as a trip to the dentist.

Dr Anna Glasier, the clinical director for sexual health at NHS Lothian confirmed that women will be able to undergo terminations fully conscious in outpatient rooms when a pilot scheme is launched in 2007.

The procedure, which takes just a few hours, was first introduced in England in an abortion clinic which said the shorter termination “could be quite easily completed during a working woman’s lunchtime”.

"They are also up and about very quickly. The other advantage is that there is a certain stigma with abortion and women can leave the clinic without someone having to take them home. They can also take less time off work."

the concept of preemptive war does not appear in the catechism

“I think we all agree that a war in Iran would be a horrible thing,” Rooney said in an exclusive April 13 interview with National Catholic Reporter. Bush administration officials have described reports of planned strikes in Iran as “wild speculation.”

Most analysts believe that if the United States were to show serious signs of impending military action, the Vatican would urge restraint, as it did in the buildup to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Though Pope Benedict XVI has not commented on the subject, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in September 2002 that “the concept of preemptive war does not appear in the catechism.”

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Rooney said, however, that the Vatican backs diplomatic efforts, saying it has been “clearly supportive of all the nations working to avoid a nuclear-armed Iran.”
During past disputes over Iran’s nuclear program, Pope John Paul II and senior Vatican officials repeatedly urged Iranian officials to back down.
In February 2004, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican’s foreign minister, warned Iranian diplomats that “arming oneself at all costs multiplies the causes of conflicts, and increases the risks of their spreading.”

“I think they’ve hardened up,” he said. “I think they’ve gotten clearer. They’re focusing on this reciprocity doctrine,” he said, referring to Vatican insistence that since Muslim minorities in Europe reap the benefits of religious freedom, Christian minorities in majority Muslim states should receive the same treatment.

“I think the evolving consensus that the church needs to be clear and strong, that religious freedom is a two-way street, is unimpeachable,” Rooney said. “When you apply that principle, for example, for Saudi Arabia to say, ‘There can’t be any churches,’ is an issue.… You can’t have it two ways.”

On other matters, Rooney said he believes Pope Benedict XVI has a “keen understanding” and fondness for the United States, including “our faith, our church attendance and our tradition of religious freedom.”

Funny 'Liturgical Anonymous'

Introducing Liturgical Anonymous (LA) an international, spiritually oriented community of liturgical abusers who meet in local groups to help each other end this destructive addiction to changing the liturgy as one wants. Liturgical Anonymous follows a 12 step program and not one of the steps are a dance step.

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Here is an example of some of the steps in the process:

1. 
   Admit that we have no right to change the liturgy of the Church.
2. 
   Come to believe that there are liturgical documents greater than "Environment and Art in Catholic Worship."
3. 
   Make a decision to follow the rubrics in the GIRM.
4. 
   Make an examination of conscience and determine where you have deviated from liturgical norms.
5. 
   Actually read the documents regulating the liturgy.

Here are just some of the testimonial of successful members of Liturgical Anonymous:

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(Found on The Curt Jester)