This is worth a read if you haven’t already happened upon it…

The news hit the fan last week that scientists figured out a way to “do” embryonic stem cell research without destroying embryos.

“They didn’t do anything like what the headlines are saying they did,” said Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, in an Aug. 24 interview with Catholic News Service. “All they showed was that you can kill an embryo at an earlier stage than they did before.”

So, there you go. They scientists removed one cell of an 8-celled embryo (aka microscopic baby) and used that single stem cell to generate more stem cells. Imagine if 1/8 of your body was cut off. Would you say “no harm done?”

The press ate it up – of course, because they are enamoured of the culture of death to the point of being ready to publish anything that makes it easier to swallow, regardless of accuracy or lack thereof. Read the whole story, and you’ll see that no one bothered with fact-checking this one.

Spent the weekend with family in Nashville, Tennessee. Two parishes are near their home (when I say near, I mean within a 20 minute drive.) Option 1 is St. Joseph, Option 2 is Our Lady of the Lake.

We were looking at Mass times and looked at the websites of each parish. The opening statement on each website tells you a lot about the parish.

OLOL’s website has this as the opening statement: My vision of a parish is one in which everyone is glad to belong, seeks to know others, reaches out to them and sees our communal worship as a necessary part of our lives. It is a community where no one is isolated or alientated; where all try to follow the example of Christ and accept His command: “Love others as I have loved you”.- Father William Bevington

St. Joseph’s website says: One Body. One Baptism. One Faith. These are the things which define the people of Saint Joseph Parish. Our large crucifix (27 feet) reminds us continually that we are to die to Jesus Christ. The large, opening shroud around it reminds us of the Resurrection and the joy that service to each other and the community brings to us.

Isn’t it interesting how these two statements are in such stark contrast to each other? OLOL’s sounds good, but it could be said of any organization where people hang out together. The attitude of the statement at St. Joseph’s is so much stronger about what defines us. Unless I am reading it wrong, the OLOL statement is more about what the church can do for “me” as opposed to St. Joseph’s is more about what “I” assent to as a member of the church. One speaks to the permanence of Holy Mother Church while the other speaks to the acceptance and belonging aspects (both of which are a part of the Church, but in their proper places.)

I have been to both parishes. It’s been a couple of years since I have been to OLOL. But, I observe that at OLOL, there is contemporary music by a choir that sites to the audience left side of the altar, up front for all to see. The architecture is Vosko-esque, thought I do not know that Vosko was the perpetrator of said architecture. There is no high altar, rather just a plain very nice hardwood wall with the shape of a cross subliminally visible in the gaps between the large wood sections. A “flying Jesus” hangs out over the altar. In other words, no crucifix. The tabernacle is hidden in a tiny chapel off to the side of one of the entrances. My wife and I found it the third time we were there, because we happened to notice the red candle. Eucharist “leftovers” are carted to the tabernacle after the Mass has ended. The whole place has that huge feel of a church almost “in the round” but not quite. No one sits directly behind the altar. The Stations of the Cross on the walls are the “new” sola-scriptura stations. That means Jesus only falls once, and Veronica doesn’t wipe Jesus’ face, and Christs’ body is not placed in Mary’s arms. Why a Catholic Church needs a sola scriptura set of stations I don’t know.

Contrast this with St. Joseph’s – I have never heard so much Latin in a Mass. The Kyrie, Gloria, the Angus Dei, and the Sanctus were were all in Latin. I would have appreciated a song sheet so I could follow along. The crucifix is 27 feet tall, and is arguably “too gory.” I like it. The traditional stations are where they belong. There’s a brand new amazing pipe organ in place, and it resides at the rear, where the choir loft is. The altar sets up a few steps from everything else. Statuary is ubiquitous by today’s standards. The tabernacle is front and center (behind the altar table, of course).

Now, I give you these descriptions simply to wonder aloud, is there any coincidence between any of the observations mentioned here?

Today I post from personal experience rather than my usual habit of linking to an interesting site or news story. I was at a parish away from home this morning, and a priest known in the Atlanta Archdiocese as being ultra-conservative was the celebrant. This morning’s Gospel reading was, of course, Christ’s Bread of Life Discourse from John 6.

For those outside the Catholic bubble, John 6 starts out with the feeding of the 5000 (men, not counting women and children) and then Christ moves into a discourse on how He is Himself the bread that came down from heaven, and how those who eat this bread will never be hungry again, but will have eternal life. He repeats Himself several times, on this point. In a future reading, we will read that “many departed from him” as a result of these statements – these were disturbing statements, and Christ didn’t “clarify,” and say, “you’re misunderstanding me, I mean that I am symbolic of bread that comes from heaven” or anything like that. A good Bible-believing protestant, one would think, would get that Jesus was being literal since He says this over and over without ever saying anything about something that is symbolic. But I digress.

The good priest’s homily was a very strong statement about the Eucharist. Father knows that there are survey results indicating that about half of Catholics don’t believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. They believe that it’s symbolic. As Father pointed out through this and other Scriptures, Catholics have closed communion because it’s something different to us…yet surprisingly few of us know that it’s something different! He went on to state the conditions under which someone should receive the Body and Blood – one must not have mortal sin, one must assent to all Church teaching 100%, one must recognize the Eucharist for what it is, and so on.

What strikes me here is that it’s really kind of sad that we are at a point where for so many years the catechesis has been so week that a priest must do a 20 minute homily during Mass, which we’re supposed to be at every week, which is the unifying practice of the entire worldwide faith, about what the Eucharist is, when it’s something we’re supposed to be intimately familiar with.

I was with my wife, who agreed that the homily was indeed powerful and it was good to hear “straight talk” from a priest, but also feared that Father came on so strong as to perhaps be alienating and/or condescending. I noted comments from people who grew up in the Church in the 70’s, and they were really turned off by the homily, saying it came off “holier-than-thou” and the idea was the no one is holy enough or worthy enough to receive communion ever.

I think it’s possible that for so many years Church teaching was watered down with homilies about unity, grace, love, ecumenism, etc., that when someone steps up and gives more of a “straight-talk” homily, one that’s dead-on, perhaps it is offensive to those who have received the happy-touchy-feely catechesis. That said, I think straight-talk is necessary…the only gripe I have with it was the statement that in order to receive Communion one must agree and accept 100% the teachings of the Church. I was taught when I joined the Church that we should pray that we would be allowed to understand and helped to agree with all the teachings of the Church, and but that we must accept them in order to receive Communion (while working on developing our own agreement with them.)

Yes, I proudly ripped off the title of this post from the reading material I am pointing you toward. I am linking to two installments of Apologetics for the Masses, a newsletter produced by John Martignoni of the Bible Christian Society (a Catholic Apologetics organization.) You can catch John Mondays at 3 PM ET on EWTN radio’s Open Line prorgam, via a local affiliate, or shortwave, or the internet audio stream at EWTN’s Website.
The show re-airs at 10 PM ET on Mondays, which means if you’re reading this within the next 20 minutes you can listen. The audio archives are also there and you can listen to each show from the entire past month.

In the articles linked below, John masterfully argues that without God, there is no objective Truth, only subjective opinion. Further, he shows how if there is no objective Truth, then human beings have no intrinsic value. And, if human beings have no intrinsic value, then there’s no good reason for not killing them off at will. He hyperbolically suggests that therefore all atheists should be killed since they have no way to argue that they have intrinsic value. Of course, this would leave the Christians being the ones doing the killing…and Christians believe humans have intrinsic value…so that probably wouldn’t work. Read these two articles carefully..enjoy.

Installment 1
Installment 2

This may seem like old news (from back around Easter, specifically) but apparently there’s a relatively new development.

Of the four men featured this spring on A&E’s reality show “God or the Girl,” three of them decided against entering the seminary to pursue a priestly vocation.

The fourth, Steve Horvath of Virginia, who has been on a student missionary assignment in Lincoln, Neb., said he would apply to a seminary. Then he got stuck on the application.

“The last parts that I ended up not completing were … ‘What do you think a Catholic priest should be’ and ‘What is calling me to the Catholic priesthood?’” Horvath told Catholic News Service in a July 27 telephone interview from Fairfax, Va.. “I needed some more subjective and personal reasons (than what he had been writing). In taking that to prayer, I really didn’t feel that calling.”

So apparently the one guy who didn’t back out ended up backing out after the series was over. I don’t say backing out in a detrimental way…if he didn’t feel the calling, he didn’t need to be there. Interesting that the show didn’t capture that though.

Of course, it may be that there’s no need to worry about a vocational crisis. After all, according to the Bishop of LA:

What some refer to as a “vocations crisis” is, rather, one of the many fruits of the Second Vatican Council, a sign of God’s deep love for the Church, and an invitation to a more creative and effective ordering of gifts and energy in the Body of Christ. This is a time of great challenge and opportunity in the Church, not least of all because the gifts of the lay faithful have been flourishing in unprecedented numbers and in unforeseen ways.

Thanks to the Curt Jester for blogging this last month.