…just a bit o bloggage worth sharing

This blog from a Cleveland priest has a couple of interesting posts on the front page – one in which he discusses the Chrism Mass and mentions his frustration that a couple of Catholic schools have scheduled athletic events for Good Friday, but his gratitude that the diocese hasn’t lifted the fast and abstinence obligation for Good Friday – it had been requested (and this happens every year, somewhere) – because Friday is the Indians’ home opener.

He’s also got an interesting guest post from a priest friend of his in Rome, who was present for the Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s and offers a behind-the-scenes look:

Now comes the reason why I have such a good seat. It’s time to work to earn my place. During the creed, we are ushered back into the vestibule of the basilica where each priest is given a ciborium full of bread for the Eucharist. At the appropriate time, we are led out to the sanctuary and lined up behind the altar. For the entire Eucharistic prayer, I stand about 15 feet behind the Pope, seeing the same thing he sees. The piazza is filled with pilgrims from all over the world. He chooses the third Eucharistic prayer. At one point in that prayer, there is a line that says, “Father, hear the prayers of the family you have gathered here before you. In mercy and love, unite all of your children, wherever they may be.” I have read this myself a thousand times, but now, looking out at this massive international crowd with their palms swaying in the late morning sun, these words have never seemed more poignant to me.

Aimee Milburn is collecting conversion stories!

Fr. Darren Zehnle, who blogs here, writes in with a question:

One of my parishioners asked over the weekend about having a class to help parents with ways – and reasons – to talk about and encourage vocations to their children.  What ought we to include?  Has this already been done somewhere else?  Your thoughts and suggestions would be most welcome.  You can send them via http://dzehnle.blogspot.com.  Many thanks in advance!

Oh…and thanks, Carl. Carl Olson reads and dissects the Jane Kramer piece on Benedict in the current New Yorker so the rest of us don’t have to:

Far worse are paragraphs such as this one:

Ratzinger and Wojtyla shared this: an exceptionally narrow view of what constitutes a morally acceptable Christian life. That view is reflected in the daily decisions of bishops who in the past few years have denied the sacraments to pro-choice politicians (St. Louis); refused to allow Muslims to pray at a church that was once a mosque (Córdoba); and denied Catholic burial to an incurably ailing man who, after years of suffering on a respirator, asked to die (Rome). But the resemblance ends there. Ratzinger did not really think that theological dialogue with non-Christians was useful, or meaningful, or even possible. John Paul II did. His papacy, he said, was going to be a peace papacy—a papacy of bridges. Unlike Ratzinger, he was not much concerned about whether a Trinitarian faith with an anthropomorphic God was “comprehensible” to a Muslim whose God is never manifest. He would talk to anyone about God. In twenty-six years as Pope, he made a hundred and two trips abroad, many of them to Muslim countries, and it didn’t matter whether the understanding of God was the same from one airport to the next.

Strange how Kramer matter-of-factly describes, without editorializing, the outbreak of violence and insane rhetoric from sectors of the Islam world following the Regensburg lecture, but then informs readers that John Paul II and Benedict XVI shared "an exceptionally narrow view" of Christian morality, as evidenced by three anecdotes devoid of any factual context. The two Popes, of course, shared a perfectly Catholic view of morality—a topic that both wrote about at length. (Do you get the sense that Kramer has a problem with the Church’s teachings regarding sex, sex, and sex? Yep, exactly.)

Meanwhile, what of the bizarre assertion, "Ratzinger did not really think that theological dialogue with non-Christians was useful, or meaningful, or even possible"? Uh, if that’s the case, it’s difficult to understand why he wrote a theologically dense book, Many Religions, One Covenant: Israel, the Church, and the World (English, 1999) examining the relationship—both theological and historical—between Judaism and Christianity. Or why The New York Times, not known to be an arm of the Vatican, reported how pleased many Jewish leaders were with the election of Benedict XVI because, as Rabbi Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress, stated, "I believe that he is the man who created the theological underpinnings for the good relations between Catholics and Jews during the last papacy." Hello?