Posted 10:36 PM by John Mallon | link

WorldNetDaily: Student's aid pulled due to theology major
College junior sues to challenge law against 'religious education'

Posted 4:59 PM by John Mallon | link

John's Vagina Monologue

I think vaginas are wonderful. For most of us they are our portal into this world. God made them and they are great. I am a Catholic single guy so I don't have one of my own to reverence, love and cherish as part of a loving wife, but that doesn't diminish my admiration. Hope springs eternal.

I have not seen or read the play "The Vagina Monologues" now playing on Catholic campuses, (see below) although I think I read snatches of it once in a bookstore. But it doesn't take much imagination to suspect that it is another typical "woman's studies" exercise of "breaking free of the repression that kept women out of touch with their bodies" and therefore their freedom.

Frankly it doesn't really phase me at all, in this day and age, that grown women want to get up on a stage and talk about their vaginas. But it seems kind of childish. The notion of promoting the play at Catholic colleges is another childish exercise which they would have us believe is "brave." It's really kind of silly. What's brave about promoting something so politically correct where radicals and feminists make up a huge number of faculty and staff, and where, for example, Jesuit administrators have never met a feminist they didn't cower before?

These people will freely choose to go to a Catholic campus, claim to be oppressed by the Church and march around, stomp their feet and yell, in support of abortion and homosexuality, and feel like underdogs while they almost rule the campus culture. Catholics better not dare "impose" their morality in the secular culture but the campus radical sees it as her duty to impose her tales of self-touch on the Catholic campus.

There seems to be an expectation that Catholics are going to run screaming for cover at the presence of the scatological scams, as though we don't also live in this climax-driven culture that thinks a little she-bop is a high and noble act. We really aren't shocked girls, bored by this pelvic-pushing obsession is more like it.

So what are we to make of these clitoral colloquies? These vulva volumes? This labia liberation? All they are going to encounter from the campus administration is testicular timorousness mumbling about free speech where none is being violated. Good taste and manners recognizes that this sort of thing is most welcome off-Broadway or in local cabarets, but some tall-standing testosterone is well within its rights to invite these t-talking ladies to take their vaginas elsewhere.

For most of us, these anatomical annals are not a revolutionary discovery.

Posted 4:57 PM by John Mallon | link

Catholic College Presidents: A Bunch of Pussies

From Boston:

******************ALERT & ACTION NEEDED********************

Despite large protests from many groups last year, Holy Cross College will
again produce the Vagina Monologues NEXT WEEK on Tuesday and Wednesday,
February 11 and 12, 2003.

Unlike 80% of the Catholic Colleges who said NO, Holy Cross has decided to
go ahead on the production this year. This is despite the fact that it
portrays the homosexual exploitation of an adolescent as a "salvation" for
the victim!!! Think of this in relation to the present Church Scandal! And
read from the Home Page of our website - www.hccns.org
the following dynamite letter from Charlie Rice to
the Holy Cross Magazine.

Vagina Monologues & The Church Sex Abuse Scandal, A Letter to Holy Cross by
Charles E. Rice, Holy Cross '53, Professor Emeritus, Notre Dame Law School -
8/29/02


Also, see the letters and articles in the Vagina Monologues Section of our
website Documents Section. We have just added one that you don't want to
show to minors! Click the following:

WARNING - NOT FOR MINORS. SOME ACTUAL PORNOGRAPHIC TEXT OF VAGINA
MONOLOGUES. Condoning masturbation, fornication, homosexual/lesbian
seduction of an adolescent and prostitution! Being produced at "Catholic"
Holy Cross February 11 & 12 2003
>

You can also visit the home page of the national Cardinal Newman Society
for their story on this, a list of
colleges showing the play, a sample letter to write, etc.

Though we are all for making people more aware of the terrible violence
against women, we don't believe this is the way!!!

If you agreee, please read at least the above 2 letters and contact those in
authority with your comments right away!!! Make your thoughts known! Please
write Fr. Michael McFarland, Pres., Pat McCarthy, Director of Alumni
Relations, Kathy McNammarra, Director of Public Relations, Board of
Trustees, etc. And be sure to copy the the Worcester Telegram & Gazette,
Catholic Free Press, The Boston Pilot, The Sunday Visitor, The National
Catholic Register, Worcester Diocese, etc. See our website under Holy
Cross/Contacts and Links/Contacts for these and others' contact information.


For any locals, who wish to join a demonstration, please email me.

Thanks & God Bless You!

Vic Melfa, Crusader Class of 1957
Holy Cross Cardinal Newman Society
www.HolyCrossCardinalNewmanSociety.org


Vic@TheTrainingAssociates.com ,

Chief Executive Officer
THE TRAINING ASSOCIATES
World Class IT Trainer Staffing & Consulting
508-890-8500, 800-241-8868 - Generally available 10 to 7PM
Personal Fax: 718-535-5417
334 Boston Turnpike, Shrewsbury, MA 01545
www.thetrainingassociates.com

Home: 508-870-2925
19 Deerfield Way, Westboro, MA 01581
***************************************************

Posted 12:49 AM by John Mallon | link

Long Overdue

Jesus Christ The Bearer Of The Water Of Life - A Christian reflection on the New Age

PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR CULTURE
PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

JESUS CHRIST
THE BEARER OF THE WATER OF LIFE

A Christian reflection
on the "New Age"

Posted 12:42 AM by John Mallon | link

Discernment: What a Concept:

Inside the Vatican News February 3 2003

"The God of California"

By Inside the Vatican staff

The Vatican publishes a perplexing new document on "New Age"

VATICAN CITY, February 3, 2003 - French Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Vatican's Council for Culture, told "Inside The Vatican" today that the Catholic Church is battling the "god of California."

Speaking to ITV's Delia Gallagher, herself from California, after a press conference which presented a new 100-page Vatican study of the "New Age" phenomenon, the ardinal lamented that he had not been able to talk during the press conference about the "god of California."

The term, he said, is taken from a book by Italian intellectual Claudio Siniscalchi on the cinema, presented in 1998 by the Council for Culture.

"The god of California, easily accessible and seemingly harmless, is a hidden temptation, and many Christians do not see it," the cardinal said at that time. "The god of California," the cardinal told ITV today, "is another name for New Age."

Strikingly, though concerned about many aspects of the New Age movement, the Vatican's document -- which address Feng Shui, Yoga, the Age of Aquarius, the Enneagram and nudist camps in Big Sur, California -- does not explicitly condemn any particular practice.

"There is no condemnation here," said Archbishop Michael L. Fitzgerald, President of the Council for Inter-religious Dialogue. "This is a study and we hope to have some feedback. This is not definitive document."

Rather than condemn, the Vatican today seems focused on understanding, in part because it feels those who seek out New Age faiths have been let down by the Church.

"The success of New Age offers the Church a challenge. People feel the Christian religion no longer offers them -- or perhaps never gave them -- something they really need," the document said.

New Age includes spiritual elements of various religions. It includes a loose mix of cosmic religiosity, rituals, beliefs, therapies and practices, some pre-dating Christianity.

Many adherents believe that dawn of the astrological age of Aquarius early in the current millennium will mark the phasing out of Christianity.

Given this context, it was striking that the document was written in a language and style reminiscent of... New Age.

The Reuters correspondent present at the presentation called the text "a magical mystery tour of New Age and the movement's history and practices. In fact, sections trying to explain what New Age is and its perceived dangers had headings such as 'Wholeness: Magical Mystery Tour' -- a play on The Beatles song -- and 'Harmony and Understanding: Good Vibrations', a play on the Beach Boys song."

SELF-CRITICISM

Echoing this atttitude, Cardinal Poupard, head of the Holy See's culture department that produced the document, told journalists that the New Age movement of spirituality should be seen as an "alarm bell" for the Church.

"People who adhere to New Age have authentic spiritual thirst and the Church should ask itself why are they looking elsewhere," he told the news conference while presenting the document.

So the document recognized some positive elements in New Age thinking. "It is good and positive to have love and respect for nature and the, environment," said Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, head of the Vatican's department for inter-religious dialogue.

But the document also offered a point-by-point rebuttal of New Age beliefs for confused believers.

"You cannot make a divinity of the earth," Fitzgerald said."That is wrong."
"Is God a being with whom we have a relationship or something to be used or a force to be harnessed?" the document asks.

In New Age belief, God is "an impersonal energy" and a "component of the cosmos" but Christians had to remember that God is "the maker of heaven and earth and the source of all personal life," the document says.

It said that in New Age literature Jesus Christ was often presented as "one among many wise men, initiates or avatars" but that Christians believe that he is "the only Son of God, true man and true God."

So can one be a good Catholic and practice yoga? Read horoscopes? Listen to New age music?

As long as these practices are therapeutic and not theological, then yes, the document seems to be saying. But not if they lead one to abandon Christian beliefs.

"New age music, for example, can be relaxing, and therefore good," said Archbishop Fitzgerald. "It seems that, for the most part, people are attracted to particular therapies or practices, without going into their background, and others are simply occasional consumers of products which are labelled 'New Age'," the document states. "People who use aromatherapy or listen to 'New Age' music, for example, are usually interested in the effect they have on their health or well-being..."

The "god of California" exercises his powers primarily through the cinema, according to Poupard. So what of the much-loved but also much-condemned Harry Potter? He's okay, Vatican officials said.

"I know JK Rowling [the author of the Harry Potter series]," said Msgr. Peter Fleetwood, a member of the Council for Culture and one of the authors of the New Age study. "She is a Christian and tries to incorporate Christian values into her work."

"All of us as children had imaginations full of fairies and angels," continued Fleetwood. "And witches," added Bishop Fitzgerald.

"An American bishop went to see Harry Potter with his neighbor's children," said Msgr. Fleetwood, "and when I asked him if he liked it he told me, 'I fell in love.'"

So why this document?

"This is a document which will assist people in discernment," said Fitzgerald. "It is addressed to pastors, spiritual directors, lay people... Christians fascinated by ideas that risk pulling them away from their faith and evangelical spirituality."

The document: "Jesus Christ The Bearer of the Water of Life; A Christian Reflection on the 'New Age'" can be found at the Vatican website here; Jesus Christ The Bearer Of The Water Of Life - A Christian reflection on the New Age


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Posted 3:43 PM by John Mallon | link

Kreeft coming to OKC:

Peter Kreeft is a dear friend whom I consider my mentor and teacher in writing about the faith. To hear him speak is pure joy. —JM


FRIENDS -- An upcoming event in which I am playing a supporting role. I
encourage you to consider attending. -- Pat McGuigan


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Father Patrick Bright, rector, All Souls' Episcopal Church,
405-842-1461

DOGMA BEATS KARMA? ACCLAIMED CHRISTIAN WRITER VISITS CITY

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A contemporary defense of Christian traditions will be on
tap when acclaimed author Peter Kreeft, author of 40 books and hundreds of
articles, visits Oklahoma City Feb. 22-23 for lectures and homilies at a
local church.

Dr. Kreeft will speak at All Souls' Episcopal Church. At 3 p.m. on Saturday,
Feb. 22 he will consider "The Eternal Jesus for Modern Pagans," concluding at
about 4:30. He will return for a 7:30 p.m. speech on "Divine Truth: Our
Heart's Deepest Longing." He will also deliver the homilies at the church's
Sunday morning liturgies. The Saturday lectures are open to the public and
free of charge.

Dr. Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College. A regular
contributor to several Christian publications, he is in wide demand as a
speaker at conferences, and is the author of over 40 books including "Back to
Virtue," "C.S. Lewis for the Third Millennium," and "Handbook of Christian
Apologetics." The praise afforded his scholarly works is mirrored in the
popular appeal of his writings. He engages topics as varied as "Is There Sex
in Heaven?" and "'The Lord of the Rings' as a Defense of Western
Civilization."

Kreeft is known for the provocative and illuminating ways in which he poses
questions and tackles moral problems. In "Back to Virtue," for example, he
wrote: "We have reduced all virtues to one: being nice. And, we measure Jesus
by our standard instead of measuring our standard by Him."

Father Bright said many in the community already eagerly anticipate the
visit: "Dr. Kreeft will articulate how our culture has come to a place where
so many don't believe in an objective truth, how some in the Church and in
society -- especially in higher education -- want to soften or change truths
given and revealed by God in Christ Jesus. In fact, many who proclaim
themselves Christian nonetheless challenge the very nature of truth."

Kreeft's visit is "a wonderful gift" to Oklahomans willing to examine core
beliefs in light of contemporary circumstances, Rev. Bright said. "Dr.
Kreeft's writings speak to all Christians who uphold the four great doctrines
of the faith -- the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection and the
Blessed Trinity. His witness will delight many and challenge others. This is
a unique opportunity to consider what we are given in our Lord Jesus, and
speak to the reality and implications of fundamental Biblical truths."

Patrick B. McGuigan, capital editor for Tulsa Today and former editorial
editor at The Oklahoman, will introduce Kreeft at the Saturday sessions, and
moderate questions and answers.

All Souls' Episcopal Church is at 6400 N. Pennsylvania (63rd and Penn) in
north Oklahoma City. For more information, contact Father Bright or visit the
church's website: www.allsoulsokc.com

-- 30 --

Posted 2:30 PM by John Mallon | link

Peggy Noonan: 'The Days of Miracle and Wonder'
The Columbia's loss is a searing reminder of American heroism.