Abbey-Roads2

I love a good mystery!

Now! Just for fun mind you - I’ll just mention the fact that someone said we should hear either Tuesday or Thursday of this week who the new Coadjutor will be. Last week I was sure it would be announced and used this picture and so on…so just for good luck I’m using it again.

I went with Bishop Aquila last week and I have not changed my mind, now Mitchell and Judith of Our Word have said they have heard from a reliable source that he indeed will be the man named. So maybe - just maybe kids - we will hear this week. Maybe tomorrow for the feast of St Anthony and the anniversary of the 2nd apparition at Fatima of Our Lady.

May God bless Archbishop Flynn and his successor. This entire matter is kind of fun though, isn’t it? And being a guy, I love being right. As my assistant at work said, “Why Terry, I’ve never known you to be wrong!” Walking away I heard her mutter, “Men always have to be right.”

I hope I am! I hope I am! I hope I am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Otherwise - Like Mitchell and Judith, I’m done with this story too!)

Pictured, Roman catacombs.

Here comes the persecution…maybe! So before the world is rid of evil, there has to be some real suffering, don’t you think? Fr. Altier often talked about a persecution coming. It could happen! The homosexual and liberal agenda is gaining steam - priests and religious and other Catholics could eventually be arrested and jailed for speaking out against immoral issues that secular law has legalized. Or maybe arrested for hate crimes if the right person reads the right blog…

Once again, from Catholic News Agency:

Same-sex marriage will impact religious liberty say experts

New York, Jun. 12, 2006 (CNA) - In a recent column, Newsweek religion editor, Peter Steinfels, discusses the opinion of several respected legal scholars, many of whom are proponents of same-sex “marriage”, that the legalization of same-sex “marriage” will have an inevitable impact on religious liberty.

Steinfels, the former editor of Commonweal, contributed a commentary in Saturday’s New York Times, titled “Beliefs; Advocates on both sides of the same-sex marriage issue see a potential clash with religious liberty.”In the article, Steinfels discusses comments made by several scholars during a conference last December, sponsored by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. One attendee of the conference, Marc D. Stern, who has handled religious freedom cases for the American Jewish Congress for many years, said that clashes with religious liberty would be “inevitable,” if same-sex “marriage” was legalized.

While Stern doesn’t believe clergy will be forced to perform marriages that are against the values of the faith group they represent, other programs or institutions-like schools, health care centers and social service agencies-that operate by religious standards will be impacted. Steinfels referred to the decision of Boston Catholic Charities to withdraw from providing adoption services because the state license required placing children with same-sex couples.

Stern was joined by several scholars on the subject, including Chai R. Feldblum, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and a proponent of same-sex marriage. Feldblum agreed with Stern that religious liberty will be challenged. However, Feldblum holds, the dignity and equality of gay people should almost always outweigh considerations of religious freedom.

Arguments from the conference were initially reported by Maggie Gallagher and published in The Weekly Standard. Steinfels says that in her report Gallagher observes that legal scholars opposed to same-sex marriage are more hopeful about overcoming the potential conflicts with religious liberty than those in favor of it.While University of Chicago Law School constitutional scholar, Cass Sunstein did not attend the conference, he called the conflicts Feldblum and Stern’s views point to “real and serious.” Sunstein told Steinfels that same-sex marriage does not raise new issues. Rather, it intensifies existing tensions “between antidiscrimination norms and deeply held religious convictions.” He also said the first great impact will be in the political realm.

Many morally contentious laws contain exemptions for religious bodies or even for the personal moral beliefs of some professionals. However, these exemptions are being challenged in the courts. [snip] from Catholic News

Pictured, the incorrupt body of Bl. John the XXIII

Shortly before he died, John Paul the Great stated that an event was coming that would rid the world of evil, at least that is how his statement resonates in my mind. However, here is the exact quote that I just happen to have in my Bible: “Satan, the original adversary, who accused our brothers in the heavenly court, has now been cast down from heaven and no longer has great power. He knows he has not much time left because history is about to see a radical turning point in freedom from evil and therefore he is reacting full of great fury.” (”for history is nearing the radical turning point of liberation from evil and he consequently reacts with ‘great wrath’”. - literal from Vatican archives.) -John Paul II, Allocution Wednesday General Audience, 1/12/05. This amazing statement is from the Fatima Pope, the “Pope of the third secret’. The great Pope who traversed the globe catechizing the masses, seeking to set straight the misinterpretations of Vatican II.

Are we now emerging from the desert we’ve wandered in for 40 years after Vatican II? Is the new springtime of the Church really dawning? Have all of the scandal and abuse fomenting lately been Satan striking out before his ultimate defeat? I read an article from Cardinal George regarding the 40 year anniversary of the close of Vatican II. Below is a snippet and if you find it of interest, go to the entire text at The Catholic New World, Newspaper of the Chicago Archdiocese.

>>The Second Vatican Council (1962-1966), 40 years after its conclusion, remains for many Catholics a source of both joy and tension. What was the Holy Spirit calling us to think and to do? For some, the Council itself was the work of the Spirit, but its implementation has been hijacked by left-wing or right-wing ideologues, depending upon one’s choice of enemies. For others, the Council itself was flawed because its documents are ambiguous or even inconsistent with apostolic tradition. The extremists in this line made tradition another word for museum and lose the sense of a living Body of Christ. Some even believe that Pope John XXIII and all his successors are anti-Popes and that the Church has been without a Bishop of Rome since the death of Pius XII in 1958.

A few months ago, the current Bishop of Rome and successor of St. Peter, Pope Benedict XVI, offered an interpretation of the Second Vatican Council that merits close attention. The Council was called in order to give genuinely new impetus to the Church’s mission in the world. In order to overcome within the Church anything that might impede or obscure the Church’s mission, the Council called for an updating or renewal in the Church’s life. “Aggiornamento,” which is Italian for updating, was not, however, intended to mean that the Church should simply accommodate herself to the world. Ecclesiastical renewal is not a form of self-secularization. Pope Benedict says of those who took this path: “They have underestimated the inner tensions as well as the contradictions of the modern epoch.”