Get Ready for the Next "Lost" Apostle

This Fall Wiley will release a book entitled The Lost Apostle: Searching for the truth about Junia based on a canonical text (not apochryphal), Romans 16:7. Now if you look up the passage and you are using any Bible other than the NSRV you are likely to ask "What's the big deal?", well here is a Newsweek piece to give you what the purported big deal is:

What started out as scholarship with an openly feminist political agenda
has evolved into serious and respected inquiry. To understand this change,
consider what has happened to the field during the career of Bernadette Brooten.
As a graduate theology student at Harvard in the late 1970s, Brooten was told
that scholars already knew everything there was to know about women in the
Bible. Yet Brooten, now a professor of Christian studies at Brandeis University,
made the remarkable discovery by reading older versions of the Bible that
Junius, one of the many Christian “Apostles” mentioned by Saint Paul, was in
fact a woman, Junia, whose name was masculinized over the centuries by
translators with their own agenda. Brooten’s discovery became “official” when
Junia’s real name was incorporated into the New Standard Revised Version of the
Bible, which came out in 1989.

Now let me be the first to point out even if the "feminist" discovery is real, it really isn't that big of a deal, since Mary Magdalene has been called Apostle to the Apostles meaning that she was "sent" (the meaning of the word apostle) to those who were also commissioned to be sent. But of course as I'm sure we'll here this relative of St. Paul was something more...

Kneeling Controversy Continues in Diocese of Orange

Great coverage at The Cafeteria is Closed who posts letters written by the pastor who seems a little confused (read the letter he wrote to the 74 year old woman he kicked of the parish council for kneeling).

You can "not believe" what the Church teaches and be welcomed (think John Kerry) in the Church, but God forbid if you don't give in to the demands of the liturgical police (who play fast and loose with Vatican directives interpreting them as they like).

Is it a Sin to Kneel in Church?

Of course not, and I might add if the priest were praying at Mass he wouldn't even notice what his parishioners are doing...

From the LA Times:

It's AD 2006, and the peasants are much brighter than they used to be. So this question nags at me: Is it really in keeping with the worshipful spirit in an enlightened age that a priest would chastise some in the flock — grown men and women — for kneeling in church during a point in the Mass?

I mean, if you can't kneel in church….

The word "chastise" is too tame; the priest at St. Mary's by the Sea says it's a mortal sin and has invited 55 offending members to leave the church.

They have declined, although I can't imagine why.

As reported in Sunday's paper by The Times' David Haldane, the to-kneel-or-not-to-kneel issue involves a particular moment in the Mass after the priest holds up the chalice and consecrated bread and invokes Christ. For centuries, Roman Catholics knelt after that part of the liturgy. In recent years, however, the Vatican allowed local dioceses to eschew kneeling, and the Orange County diocese has backed the no-kneeling rule during that part of the Mass. Parishioners still kneel during other parts of the service.

Deadly Attack on CBS News Crew in Iraq

Cameraman and producer killed, Kimberly Dozier in Critical Condition

Da Vinci Bore

Perhaps the "word of mouth" effect of a bad movie, but I'm sure they are still laughing all the way to the bank... Movie drops by 56% this weekend, but continues to do big in Europe.

Genocide, Never Again

"Son of Germany"--the Pope visits concentration camps in Auschwitz and Birkenau. Rain and dark clouds part as he prays over the monument markers of those who were killed there to give way to the sun and a magnificent rainbow while Psalm 22 was being chanted, very moving.

Pope's opening remarks:

To speak in this place of horror, in this place where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man, is almost impossible - and it is particularly difficult and troubling for a Christian, for a Pope from Germany. In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence - a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? In silence, then, we bow our heads before the endless line of those who suffered and were put to death here; yet our silence becomes in turn a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again.

Massive Crowd Attend Papal Mass in Rain

From the Pope's Homily:

How can we not thank God today for all that was accomplished in your native land and in the whole world during the Pontificate of John Paul II? Before our eyes, changes occurred in entire political, economic and social systems. People in various countries regained their freedom and their sense of dignity. “Let us not forget the great works of God” (cf. Ps 78:7). I thank you too for your presence and for your prayer.

And:

As in past centuries, so also today there are people or groups who obscure this centuries-old Tradition, seeking to falsify the Word of Christ and to remove from the Gospel those truths which in their view are too uncomfortable for modern man. They try to give the impression that everything is relative: even the truths of faith would depend on the historical situation and on human evaluation. Yet the Church cannot silence the Spirit of Truth. The successors of the Apostles, together with the Pope, are responsible for the truth of the Gospel, and all Christians are called to share in this responsibility, accepting its authoritative indications. Every Christian is bound to confront his own convictions continually with the teachings of the Gospel and of the Church’s Tradition in the effort to remain faithful to the word of Christ, even when it is demanding and, humanly speaking, hard to understand. We must not yield to the temptation of relativism or of a subjectivist and selective interpretation of Sacred Scripture. Only the whole truth can open us to adherence to Christ, dead and risen for our salvation.

And a powerful statement:

Christ says: “If you love me ... ” Faith does not just mean accepting a certain number of abstract truths about the mysteries of God, of man, of life and death, of future realities. Faith consists in an intimate relationship with Christ, a relationship based on love of him who loved us first (cf. 1 Jn 4:11), even to the total offering of himself. “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). What other response can we give to a love so great, if not that of a heart that is open and ready to love? But what does it mean to love Christ? It means trusting him even in times of trial, following him faithfully even on the Via Crucis, in the hope that soon the morning of the Resurrection will come. Entrusting ourselves to Christ, we lose nothing, we gain everything. In his hands our life acquires its true meaning. Love for Christ expresses itself in the will to harmonize our own life with the thoughts and sentiments of his Heart. This is achieved through interior union based on the grace of the Sacraments, strengthened by continuous prayer, praise, thanksgiving and penance.