From where else but San Francisco:

The hospital was pleased with their participation in the worldwide celebration of the planet.  “We asked all the patients and their families if they were all right with us cutting the power.  To a person, they all said as stewards of this planet it was their duty to observe Earth Hour.  They knew the risks and were willing to take it,” said hospital administrator Lawrence Cho.

Cho said that it was a net gain for planet Earth, despite the deaths. “The dead patients will no longer use any energy, and actually will be turned into energy in our patient incinerator,” said hospital administrator Lawrence Cho.

As power was cut in the critical care ward some patients screamed in pain, others died calmly in their sleep. Cho said that most of the medical equipment has battery-powered back up systems, but those were disabled, because hospital officials felt that violated the spirit of Earth Hour.

You can read the full article here.  Please note that BBSpot.com is a well known satire website.  The mark of great satire is when there’s a level of plausibility to it.  The question – how far are we from this being reality as earth-worship continues to grow?

This is disturbing. Many of you heard about the 9-year-old Brazilian girl who was impregnated by a relative and was carrying twins.  Upon learning of the situation, the local priest made every effort to communicate to the family that the Church would provide care for the children (all 3 of them,) and tried to talk the parents out of an abortion.  The parents went through with procuring an abortion, and the Bishop followed suit by declaring that the parents and doctors involved had excommunicated themselves by their actions.

As we’d hear from American Papist, this is a good case of bishop backbone.  But wait.  This headline from the AP (and swallow before you read so you don’t foul up your monitor):

“Vatican prelate defends abortion for 9-year-old.”

Apparently a letter from a Vatican official criticizes the excommunication.  The point worth making, of course, is that these folks excommunicated themselves, and the Bishop cannot get around that.  Fr. Euteneuer from Human Life International’s article:

The incident in question involves – unbelievably – the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, who issued a statement on March 15th criticizing a bishop in Brazil for properly declaring to be excommunicated the doctors…

The great irony in all this is that while we get little or no support from Church officials to correct bishops who are negligent in their duty to guard the faith and the flock, in this case, the local bishop did exactly the right thing in issuing this excommunication edict and he was slapped down by a Vatican official!

The appearance of a Vatican compromise on this issue comes at the worst possible time in the cultural and political situation of Latin America. This Catholic continent is especially the target of attack by the aggressive forces of the culture of death, so the last thing we need is for the Church to look weak or divided about our teachings or our resolve to fight the purveyors of death to our brothers and sisters there.

A couple of Protestant folks I know who have long-term connections to missions work in Brazil have explained that syncretism is alive and well there – mixing and matching different aspects of different faiths.  So although they are predominantly Catholic, it seems more a cultural Catholicism than an actual faith / belief system.  Here the Church could assert herself as a moral authority…but if a Vatican prelate is waffling on an issue that is a clear as can be, then what good can come from it?

Full article

Have you read the transcript of his interview?  We need more bishops with such a clear understanding of Canon 915.

The Canon is completely clear, it is not subject in my judgment to any other interpretations. When someone is publicly and obstinately in grave sin we may not administer Holy Communion to the person. And that, basically, for two reasons: number one, to prevent the person himself or herself from committing a sacrilege, and secondly, to protect the sanctity of the Holy Eucharist.

In fact, the Canon puts the burden upon the minister of Holy Communion whether it’s the ordinary minister which would be a bishop, a priest, a deacon—or an extraordinary minister—it doesn’t make any difference. It says they’re not to be admitted to receive Holy Communion.

Predictably, the crew that says “we don’t want to alienate anyone” is out in force on this…simple fact of course is that Burke’s really just trying to do his pastoral duty of preventing someone from jeopardizing their soul.

More…

Are you familiar with the early Christian ska band Sonseed?  Perhaps you are.  For a couple of years, they’ve been a viral success on YouTube for their song “Jesus is my Friend,” recorded on a TV show called The First Estate back in the early 80’s.  It’s annoyingly catchy and will get stuck in your head.  Check out the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-NOZU2iPA8

So it’s cheesy, features a couple of good lines like “he touched me deep inside,” good for some laughs at the expense of Christians.  But, at a blog that has sort of championed the viral cause of this video, I read an interview with the lead singer Sal Polichetti.  In it, explained that most of the band members got together as the result of needing to prepare music for a special Mass in the late 70’s at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in New York City.

Now if you take a look at the music they produced, and try to imagine it fitting any sort of Mass…well, it makes a chill go down your spine.  Interestingly, one of the band members, at the time, was a monk (CSC) at the time.  Their marketing guy is now a Catholic priest.

So, it seems that perhaps Sonseed grew out of the Spirit of Vatican II (not saying I hate their music, just that if they formed for the express purpose of playing music at Mass, something’s wrong.)

Here’s Sal’s interview.

This is an interesting topic that melds faithful Catholic with uber-geek.  ICANN, the international regulatory agency that handles the registration and governance of internet domain names is considering creating religious-based top-level domains. Top-level domains (TLDs) are that last part of any domain name – .com, .net, .org, and so on.  So, the religious TLDs would be things like .catholic, .anglican, .muslim, etc.  The Holy Father himself weighed in on the issue:

could find itself having to decide who gets to represent an entire religion on the internet, His Holiness pointed out, in a letter from Monsignor Carlo Maria Polvani.

Religion-themed domains could provoke “bitter disputes” that would force ICANN into “recognizing to a particular group or to a specific organization the legitimacy to represent a given religious tradition,” Polvani told outgoing ICANN chief Paul Twomey.

Fortunately, ICANN has tabled it for at least several months…but The Curt Jester has his own thoughts on the matter:

The National Catholic Reporter could go from natcath.com to natcath.heretic – now that would be a good TLD. Or how about nyt.bias? Though if there was a .catholic TLD the only way I would like to see it is if the Vatican had control of it. It would be way cool as a kind of web site imprimatur.

Dreaming, I would like to see the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith be the body to review requests for a .Catholic TLD. Even better I would love to be the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Website Inquisition. Whenever I go to a new Catholic site I already check it for obedience and orthodoxy. I could call article writers/bloggers to Rome to have them explain to me how their post was in conformity to Catholic truth. Though I guess I would need a pretty big team for such a task and I would surely nominate Dale Price, Thomas Peters, and the Archbold brothers at Catholic Minority Report along with others. I would also need a good team of theologians. I can usually tell when something is hinky, I would just need major help on explaining why it is hinky.

I wouldn’t mind helping out with that endeavor!

From the  Curt Jester today, Cherie Blair, wife of erstwhile British PM Tony Blair, ran off at the mouth about the important of contraception:

Mrs Blair also revealed that every time she did not use contraception, “I seemed to have a baby” in a discussion about the Church’s attitude to birth control and abortion.

She said: “How could I have done all the things I have done if I hadn’t used contraception?”

The Jester says it all: everyone who’s ever been all excited about doing things has come back at the end and wished they’d spent more time with their families.

Read his full commentary here.  He’s on fire today.