Catholics – Googling God

Glenn Beck Thinks Jesus and John Paul II Hates Poor People

Since I’m on an alternative spring break…I’d like to take this moment to offer up a little “teaching moment” as we Campus Ministry types like to say.

Fox News’ Glenn Beck had this to say about social justice and the poor this week and for the record, Mr. Beck, you sir, are a complete moron.

On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that “social justice,” the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a “code word” for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice.

“I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”

Well, I have only three things to say to you Mr. Beck,

#1) I think this page got ripped out of your idiot version of the bible:

He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me,
naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’
Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?
When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?
When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’
And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

I guess that makes you a goat, Mr. Beck.

#2) Since John Paul II called for all Catholics to have a “Preferential Option for the Poor” and since he defeated communism, I guess we’re to believe that defeating the communists was just a lucky shot.

and lastly #3) I have been working with the young people serving the poor all week long and if you are so blind as to not get the fact that young people all over this often not-so great country of ours are seeing Jesus in the eyes of the poor than I think you’re either the meanest person that God could ever have created or you’re just trying to get a rise out of people who hold a high value to social justice and if the latter, than I congratulate you.

I’m off to clothe the naked and feed the poor now, if you don’t mind. Wanna join me?

Cardinal George: “is it Catholic?”

David Gibson muses at Politics Daily about the recent decision of USCCB head Cardinal George’s setting up of committees to determine if voices in education, media and lay groups represent Catholicism. In doing so he sets up the Bishops to be the arbiters of “all things Catholic.”

In my opinion, this is something that needs to be done because, simply put, any moron can have a blog (including this moron!) and that doesn’t make the moron a Catholic moron. Many people from different facets of the Catholic spectrum indeed attempt to speak with a Catholic voice but really fail miserably at representing themselves as legitimate voices. This includes not only those who would say that they support abortion rights for women but also those who would support, say capital punishment in clearly unjustifiable situations.

So why the sudden hankering from Cardinal George on the need for the watchdog group? David Gibson has some ideas:

Church officials said George’s decision to establish the certifying committees reflected his frustration with the many differing Catholic voices and organizations that sprouted up during last year’s presidential campaign and claimed to be representing Catholic positions, some of them in support of Barack Obama.

Many of the most prominent bishops were vocal opponents of Obama, who nonetheless won 53 percent of the key Catholic vote despite espousing pro-choice positions on abortion, which is the overriding issue for the bishops. And many of those outspoken bishops — perhaps still a minority of the entire hierarchy, but an influential one with close ties to Rome — were also incensed at the University of Notre Dame for inviting Obama to give its commencement address last May. The anger over that invitation, which was issued despite the opposition of the local bishop, John D’Arcy, and the rifts it exposed among the bishops and lay Catholics, still bother George, church officials said. Hence his effort to establish clear parameters on who speaks for the church and what it means to be Catholic.

But several bishops and church officials I spoke with doubted whether George’s desire to implement the certifying committees would gain any traction among the bishops. For one thing, beneath the surface of civility, the bishops are as divided on many of these issues as the rest of the American church.

In addition, George played it so close to the vest in setting up the committees — he launched the initiative over the summer — that up until the first day of these meetings many bishops didn’t know who was on the committees or how many there were. There are, it turns out, three such committees: on Catholic universities, Catholic media, and other Catholic organizations, reportedly those involved in lobbying.

I wonder if the question is really nt “Is this Catholic?” but rather “Is this Catholic ENOUGH?” and that will lead to all kinds of divisions that indeed, may need to be hashed out in some kind of forum.

Ordinarily I would agree with Gibson in that I would have doubts about how much traction this might have. But in a world where there are far too many sources, especially for unchurched seekers and the theologically uninformed, discerning truth from suggestion is indeed difficult. Is this site a Catholic one indeed is an interesting question worth looking at.

However, there’s a huge issue that goes far beyond the simplicity of legitimate Catholic source material. That issue is simply media literacy. After all, there are news programs on radio but then there are opinion programs. When I was in radio for years I noticed that there was almost no discernable difference between how listeners viewed journalistic types of programs with the more opinion based meanderings of a Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, John Stewart or Keith Olbermann. The same is true in catholic circles. There’s a huge difference between magazines like America or First Things, which serves to raise the level of debate and interesting conversation and catechetical resources that proclaim church teaching definitively. Those are resources that need some review as well. New Advent for example claims that the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia is the definitive source that all Catholics should use, and it’s the one most used by people online. Will the Bishops’ committee talk about those differences? Or will they simply focus on external debates in the blogosphere which they clearly have no chance of curtailing. The internet will continue to have opinion blogs with or without the blessing of the hierarchy and they will continue to entertain and inform.

But they don’t necessarily teach. That indeed may be where the Bishops might want to regain some control.

Well at least we know one thing: My book Googling God will make the cut. After all, Cardinal George is holding it here with me.

Your Communion Isn’t Good Enough

From Catholic News Agency

Lancashire, England, Jul 30, 2009 / 03:17 am (CNA).- An Anglican cathedral is trying to accommodate those of its faithful who do not accept female clergy by allowing parishioners to decide whether to accept communion bread blessed by its female canon or by a male priest. Blackburn Cathedral in Lancashire recently installed Rev. Sue Penfold as a residential canon. Cathedral canon Andrew Hindley explained the decision to This Is Lancashire, saying it was agreed by all the clergy that it was the best way to handle what they called a “mixed economy.”

The congregation can choose whether to receive communion bread blessed by Rev. Penfold or bread blessed by a male priest at the main cathedral service on Sundays at 10:30 a.m.

After reading this story I have a feeling that in the Catholic Church there is an equivalent snubbing going on. There are a good deal of people who won’t receive communion from a lay minister or a deacon and will go out of their way to receive communion from the priest.

Um, last time I checked we were all giving out Jesus.