secular Institute for the laity under religious vows

Then she must be a fellow parishioner at St. Pat's.
Tell her "hi" for me. (If she sees a bald guy pushing an elderly lady in wheelchair to the 11:30, that's me.)

These next two articles go together! This one is the Church's teaching and the next one is from the New York Time on Sperm Donation!

Vatican Gets Win in Failure of Referendum
Tuesday June 14, 2005 3:28am


ROME (AP) - Backed by Pope Benedict XVI, Roman Catholic Church forces have scored a solid victory as an Italian voter boycott doomed ballot initiatives to lift bans on egg-and-sperm donation, freezing of embryos and screening them for genetic defects and other widely used assisted fertility methods. The dismal showing for pro-referendum forces in the balloting Sunday and Monday left some worried that Italy's politically influential Catholic church might next crusade to ban divorce and abortion.

The 25.9 percent turnout fell far short of the required 50-percent-plus one figure necessary to make the balloting binding on Parliament.

Sponsors had taken aim at a 2004 law that is one of the strictest set of rules in Europe for artificial procreation.

Italians defied Vatican teaching in a 1974 referendum that upheld the legalization of divorce and again in 1981, in a vote that backed Italy's liberal abortion law.

Hoping to doom chances for a quorum, the Italian bishops conference had called for a voter boycott in the traditionally Roman Catholic country.

The German-born Benedict, who depicted the referendums as a threat to life and family, endorsed the bishops' efforts.

The Holy See's press office made no comment on the referendum failure.

But the Vatican's missionary news agency Fides said it was clear that "Catholics are united on fundamental values, starting from the supreme value of human life."

Daniele Capezzone, a leader of the Radical Party which battled to overturn the law, said he was worried that the church would set its sights on divorce and abortion.

Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Italian bishops conference leader who championed the boycott, denied that the church's next target was Italy's law which permits abortion on demand in the early months of pregnancy.

Ruini, who is Benedict's vicar for Rome, declined to describe the Catholic church as the winner in the referendum.

"What really won was the moral conscience of our people and the future of man himself," Ruini said in an interview on private Canale 5's news Monday evening.

Some in Premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservative coalition were quick to declare that the government had no intention of overhauling the abortion law, including Culture Minister Rocco Buttiglione, a former Christian Democrat who is close to the Vatican.

Gianluca Belli, a businessman who described himself as a practicing Catholic who thought his church wasn't "in tune with the times," said he voted yes in the referendum, which included a measure aiming to end the ban on scientific research on embryos.

Gianlorenzo Zamponi, a 64-year-old retiree, argued with his 26 year-old son, Gianluigi, about Catholic response as the two stopped for slices of pizza in central Rome Monday night.

"I believe as a Catholic it is my duty to follow what the church says," said the elder Zamponi, and so he said he didn't vote.

Zamponi the son, who voted yes, looked at his father and said: "I am God's son and maybe yours, but not Ratzinger's," Benedict, as former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, earned a reputation as a moral conservative.

A recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that nearly two-thirds of Italians think religious leaders should not try to influence government decisions.

Those who did vote were heavily in favor of scrapping the law's provisions.

In Italy, no more than three embryos can be created and all of them must be implanted at the same time. Until the law, many more embryos were created to improve chances some would successfully develop in the womb. Extra embryos were frozen to spare women heavy doses of hormones for future attempts at pregnancy.

The law also forbids the use of eggs or sperm from outside a heterosexual couple and pre-implantation screening of embryos for disease-causing genes.

Critics argue that affluent couples travel to countries with liberal fertility laws, while those who can't afford to struggle with the law's limits.

---

Associated Press reporter Vanessa Greco contributed to this report.



Written By FRANCES D'EMILIO

Are You My Sperm Donor? Few Clinics Will Say
Jim Wilson/The New York TimesA donor's eggs helped Stanley Hilton and Raquel Villalba conceive Lukas, Angelica and Carmen, back.

By AMY HARMON
Published: January 20, 2006
As soon as she gave birth to healthy triplets, Raquel Villalba knew she wanted them to meet the woman whose donated eggs had made it possible. The donor, Marilyn Drake, was just as eager to meet the babies.

Monica Almeida/The New York Times
Marilyn Drake says she feels like an aunt to Raquel Villalba's triplets, who came from her eggs.


Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Tim Gullicksen was a sperm donor in college and is trying to find some of his offspring.


Jodi Hilton for The New York Times
Rebecca Hamilton, 28, created a documentary about her search for her donor father.
But the fertility clinic did not think it was a good idea. Ms. Drake had grown "overly maternal," the counselor warned Ms. Villalba. Ms. Drake, in turn, was told that Ms. Villalba would blame her if anything went wrong with the triplets, so it was best to stay away.

Largely unregulated, fertility clinics have long operated under the assumption that preserving anonymity is best for all parties. But as the stigma of infertility fades, the secrecy of the process is coming under attack, both from parents like Ms. Villalba and from the growing number of adults who owe their lives to donors.

"I don't understand why these clinics are being so difficult," said Ms. Villalba, who finally prevailed on the clinic to let her contact Ms. Drake.

Critics say the industry's preference for anonymity allows it to escape accountability. How would anyone know if a sperm donor advertised as a Ph.D. who does not smoke is really a chain smoker with a high-school diploma, for instance? Or how many offspring a donor might have? With neither party in a position to verify the number, there may be little incentive for sperm banks to impose limits on their best sellers - whose offspring might number more than 100 - leaving children at risk of unwitting incest.

Many also complain that they are at the mercy of the fertility industry for important information - for instance, that a donor developed diabetes in later life - that might signal health risks. And some critics are pondering the larger question of whether anybody, having already decided that one's children will never know where they came from, has the right to bring them into the world. Many children born from donors are haunted by questions of identity, for which they blame companies that require anonymity as a condition of buying their sperm and eggs.

With ever more exotic reproductive technologies looming, like cloning and the engineering of traits like eye color and intelligence, some advocates for more regulation say there is a growing urgency to protect these children from what they call "genetic bewilderment." Guaranteeing children access to their genetic heritage, they say, could be the cornerstone of an industry ethics code.

"We need to get it right for donor conception," said Rebecca Hamilton, a law student at Harvard who created a documentary about searching for her donor father in New Zealand, "and use it as the basis for the million weird and wacky decisions coming our way."

The documentary helped rally support for a law there prohibiting anonymous donation. Several European countries have already begun to ban anonymous donation of genetic material. Britain, for instance, began requiring fertility clinics last April to register donor information, including names, in a database that offspring can view when they reach 18.

But those regulations have resulted in a steep decline in donors, which has made sperm banks and fertility clinics here more determined to oppose mandatory identity disclosure.

"If that was required, it would devastate the industry," said William W. Jaeger, vice president of the Fairfax Genetics & I.V.F. Institute in Virginia, one of the nation's largest fertility clinics, which routinely turns down offspring who ask if their donor might be open to contact. "The agreement we have is that the donor is forever anonymous."

Unlike adoption, which requires judicial action to create a relationship between the adoptive parent and child, parenthood via assisted reproductive technology is mediated entirely by the private agencies that supply the genetic material.

While the Food and Drug Administration requires donor agencies to screen for several communicable diseases, including H.I.V. and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, it has allowed the fertility industry to set its own rules regarding just about everything else. About 40,000 children are born each year through donor eggs and sperm, according to rough industry estimates.

Some fertility experts say they advocate anonymity to protect both donors and customers from being caught up in the murky issues of custody and liability. They point out that there is little established case law on the subject and that states interpret parental rights differently.

But critics say such policies are as much a shield for the booming fertility industry, which might suffer from high-profile legal battles or scandals like one case in the early 1990's when a fertility doctor in Virginia was found to have fathered as many as 75 children by inseminating patients with his own sperm.

Pressure from a growing customer base of lesbian couples and single women, who have to explain the absence of a father to their children, has led many sperm banks to begin charging more for sperm from donors who agree to be contacted by adult offspring.

Still, perhaps because assisted reproduction is viewed as a medical procedure for adults, critics say the children are often forgotten. Unlike adoptees, who have gained the right to their original birth certificates, some donor-conceived offspring still do not know how they came to be. One reason for the pressure on the industry now is that more parents are telling their children about the method of their conception.

"Fertility clinics present themselves as simply providing treatment for people who are infertile, and they make lots of money doing it," said Joan Hollinger, a leading scholar on adoption law at the University of California, Berkeley. "There isn't anyone at the table assigned to think about the needs of any resulting children."

When Eric Schwartzman and his wife were considering accepting donor sperm in 2001, no one suggested that their children might be interested in contacting the donor. Now, having listened to the yearning expressed by some donor-conceived offspring, they want their young son and daughter to have the option.

"At a minimum, they should be recording the live births and making it public," said Mr. Schwartzman, 41, a tax lawyer in Manhattan who has formed a committee to draft a model set of rules for sperm banks, which might include testing for common genetic diseases, keeping health records and providing more biographical information, rather than charging extra for pictures of a donor or a tape recording of his voice, as is now standard practice.

Critics of donor anonymity do not expect further regulation of the industry's policies any time soon, but they say they hope market pressure and public opinion will persuade the institutions to be more open.

Ellen Glazer, a social worker who arranges meetings between egg donors and recipients, says both parties often defer to the donor agencies for guidance. The meetings are often supervised by the agency.

"They'll say, 'This is great, let's go out to lunch' and then they'll look at me and say, 'Are we allowed?' Ms. Glazer said. "And I'll say, 'You two are engaging in some of the most intimate connection that two women have, why wouldn't you want to go out to lunch?' "

Ms. Villalba, who told her triplets from the beginning that she had needed a "helper" to have them, said she wanted them to be able ask Ms. Drake whatever questions might arise. Ms. Drake, who has two children of her own, says she feels like an aunt to the children.

The women said the clinic, the Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco, initially insisted that they correspond only through its counselors, who censored identifying information out of their letters. When the triplets, now 3, were infants, Ms. Villalba asked to be contacted when Ms. Drake came to donate again, only to find that she had returned to Southern California. Finally the clinic set up a phone counseling session with both of them and agreed to disclose Ms. Drake's address. A letter with pictures arrived a few days later.

The center did not return repeated calls asking for comment, but experts say many fertility centers follow similar guidelines, under the presumption that anonymity is the most compassionate approach for a couple already grappling with infertility.

"We want the recipient to feel she's getting genetic material from the donor with which she can make a baby that is very much hers," said Dr. Brian M. Berger, director of the donor egg program at Boston I.V.F. "If you then try to create a personal relationship between donor and recipient, it becomes more murky. The donor has an investment which we'd rather they didn't have."

Some fertility experts say there are more pragmatic reasons, too.

"Frankly I think it's just easier for the industry to do it anonymously," said Hilary Hanafin, a psychologist in Los Angeles who frequently consults with infertile couples. "If you're in total control of the information, it's more efficient and less work."

A few sperm donor offspring have circumvented the system, finding their biological fathers through ad-hoc Internet registries and long-shot DNA tests, using the shards of biographical information provided by the sperm banks or clinics. On e-mail lists like DonorMisconception and an international group called Tangled Web, they argue that an institutional change is required.

Even some donors who initially coveted anonymity have said they now feel the tug of genetic bonds. They, too, have begun to petition donor agencies to open their records.

"I have this overwhelming desire to meet my genetic offspring," said John Allison, 46, a software engineer in Tucson who donated sperm for easy money as a graduate student in the mid-1980's and never had children of his own. "We'd rent a boat, we'd go fishing. I'd answer anything they had to say."

Mr. Allison wrote to the sperm bank, Idant Laboratories in New York, several months ago expressing his willingness to meet, but he never received a reply.

Hi everyone:

I wanted to update you and tell you that Father Matthew, SSP, our superior will be coming into Boston to visit with the three of us Annunciationist for the weekend. He will be in the last weekend of the month, this month, We plan on going out to eat with him on Saturday night as we generally do. He loves his New England clam chowder before his meal. I do also! I like fish! We sit and talk for a long time. We meet with him individually and end the weekend with a mass with The Sister Disciples mass and breakfast in Boston Sunday morning and talk for a long breakfast some more. We do lots of talking! And we love it!

We always bring him out to eat at Legal Seafood, where they catch the fish the same day and you eat it that same day, so they say :wink: ~

Well I wanted to update you on the Annunciationist life! !

n

Tell me hope you are doing! I would love to hear about you! You are important to me you know!

n

The St. Louis Jesuits are back in the swing of things!

from Catholic news

St. Louis Jesuits liturgical music group back together after 21 years

OMAHA, Neb. (CNS) -- The St. Louis Jesuits, liturgical music icons from the 1970s, are back together and have released their first album in more than 20 years. "Morning Light" is the seventh recording for the St. Louis Jesuits -- Dan Schutte and Jesuit Fathers Bob Dufford, John Foley and Roc O'Connor -- who were known for such songs as "Blest Be the Lord," "Lift Up Your Hearts" and "Sing a New Song." In the mid 1980s, various assignments moved the men to different parts of the country, and Schutte left the Society of Jesus. These changes made it difficult to record music together, said Father O'Connor, a theology professor at Creighton University in Omaha and liturgist at St. John Parish on the Creighton campus. "It just seemed like it was a time for each of us to try something on our own," he said. Since that time, all four have released successful solo CDs. "It really was a wonderful experience and very nostalgic and heartwarming to record together again," Schutte said in a phone interview with The Catholic Voice, Omaha archdiocesan newspaper.

taken from
Catholic New Headlines

Hockey-playing Chicago bishop dubbed 'holy goalie'

CHICAGO (CN) -- The puns are obvious: "Who IS that masked man?" "'Stick' with me, kid." And, of course, "Hey, fella, you're on thin ice." But in this case, the "fella" would be Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki -- all dressed up in a Chicago Blackhawks uniform and ready to take to the ice at the United Center. Neither is it all for show. Bishop Paprocki, 53, has been involved with hockey for a long time -- as a fan and a player. He was profiled in the December issue of USA Hockey magazine, where he was pictured in his episcopal robes holding a hockey stick and helmet. The article's headline, appropriately enough, was "Holy Goalie." Bishop Paprocki has been playing hockey -- floor hockey -- since he was a boy, but it's only been in the past decade, he told the magazine, that he's taken to the ice. Now, twice a week he plays at McFetridge Ice Center stopping pucks in an over-30, no-check league.

from Catholicjokes.net

cute...enjoy!

n

The Bible By Kids

This comes from a Catholic elementary school. Kids were asked questions about the Old and New Testaments. They have not been retouched or corrected.

In the first book of the bible, Guinessis, God got tired of creating the world, so he took the Sabbath off.

Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. Noah's wife was called Joan of Ark. Noah built an ark, which the animals come on to in pears.

Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night.

The Jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble with the unsympathetic Genitals.

Samson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a Jezebel like Delilah.

Moses led the hebrews to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients.

The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten ammendments.

The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.

Moses died before he ever reached Canada. Then Joshua led the hebrews in the battle of Geritol.

The greatest miracle in the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him.

David was a hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. he fought with the Finklesteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times.

Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

When Mary heard that she was the mother of Jesus, she sang the Magna Carta.

When the three wise guys from the east side arrived, they found Jesus in the manager.

Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.

Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do one to others before they do one to you. He also explained, "a man doth not live by sweat alone."

It was a miracle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance.

The people who followed the lord were called the 12 decibels. The epistles were the wives of the apostles.

One of the oppossums was St. Matthew who was also a taximan.

St. Paul cavorted to Christianity. He preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage.

Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony.

taken from"The New Oxford Review"

HAVE IT THE WAY YOU LIKE IT
Our Church of Convenience

December 2005 By Paul A. Wagner

As a philosopher and ethicist, I have only once before written anything of direct interest to Christian thinking. Moreover, never once have I written anything Catholic in tone. I suppose I figured the Church could take care of herself over the past thirty years. But I've heard less and less theology and morality from the pulpits and more and more psychology and secular sociology.

Incense and organs seem to have faded away from churches, and in their place are guitars, drums, cymbals, trumpets, and even electric guitars. Seldom are people quiet during Mass. Chatter about dress, politics, or upcoming festivals and barbecues are common. And, when walking to and from Communion, I see people greet each other and chat about weekend festivities. Once, at a charismatic Catholic church I rarely attend, I watched as children ran up and down the aisles playing during Mass, one falling into a very large baptismal font. Fortunately, people were able to react quickly to this mishap since few were paying attention to the altar (more fashionably referred to as the "table").

Long ago, I taught Sunday school classes. Now I find from talking to many Sunday school teachers that they ignore the Catechism of the Catholic Church and teach almost exclusively about capital punishment, abortion, the environment, and sex education. Moreover, the content of the curriculum is indistinguishable from that of the public schools (except for abortion). So, what is the point of sending children to Sunday school?

Evidently, the only thing children, especially teens, get in Sunday school or its equivalent is the same as they get from television or the public school classroom -- save for the condemnation of abortion. Opposition to abortion is seemingly all that sets CCD instruction apart from the rest of "pop" society.

Church has become a place of convenience. Parishioners greet people at the beginning of Mass and again at the handshake of peace. Catholics have become very good at the fashionable "air kiss" and the robust handshake. Parishioners are often treated throughout Mass to warmed-over folk and pop music. Once during the collection of gifts at a Catholic church in Chicago, I watched as the celebrant and deacons sat on the side of the altar talking, smiling, and bobbing their heads to the beat of the music. On occasion I have found Catholic churches in both San Francisco and Houston that dismiss this "muzak" and boogie down to a heavy metal rock 'n' roll. The performers lap up the approval showered upon them, which sometimes comes in the form of spontaneous clapping from the congregation and sometimes in the form of accolades from the celebrant. In the midst of such jubilation, parishioners endure a brief politicized homily and then go home feeling -- feeling what?

When I ask parishioners what exactly it is they feel when going to Mass, the most frequent response I get is that they feel "positive." A few times I have been so indelicate as to ask what it means to feel "positive," and I am usually told things like, "I feel positive about me," or "I feel positive because I know that regardless of what I have done God still loves me." So there you have it. Catholicism has become a feel-good Church like so many other Christian-lite denominations.

It is true that Catholic doctrine makes clear that God forgives and loves us regardless of what we have done wrong -- provided we repent. Moreover, Catholic doctrine does not condone whatever wrongs one intends to do in the future. This seems to be a point glossed over in these days of perpetual comfort and convenience.

The clergy officiating at such celebrations (the Mass) justify the party atmosphere by reference to the Psalms, in particular to the Psalmist's reference at times to celebration with harp, timbrel, cymbal, and even dance (Pss. 81, 149, 150). If my memory serves me right, the Psalms were written before the time of Christ, before the Last Supper, before the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, and before the Crucifixion. In short, before there was ever reason for a solemn sacrifice of the Mass.

The Psalms are a type of prayer service. And they continue with Compline. Nevertheless, as beautiful and devotional as the Psalms are, they are not a substitute for sacramental devotion.

For example, one could argue that the Last Rites represent a cause for celebration. And why not? The dying are about to be blessed, their chance for eternal bliss enhanced. Even so, I haven't heard of any requests by the dying for some heavy metal accompaniment to the Sacrament or even a request for a bit of jazzy pop. Indeed, most regard this beautiful moment as much too solemn for an ostentatious demonstration of revelry.

Partying is fun. But when does partying become too much in the religious context? When does it promote negligence toward the Lord or, worse yet, disrespect?

Practitioners of Catholicism-lite don't fancy anything "negative." When their vocabularies were bigger they used to say they didn't like "fire and brimstone" homilies. Now they say they don't like guilt-trips. It's just better to be positive! Clergy now seem to agree.

In concert with this more "positive" approach to Church life, I have heard more than one priest explain in sympathy, "I can't imagine the Apostles were solemn men. They must have been wildly joyous because they knew the Lord!" I wonder, have these clerics ever read the New Testament? Where was the joy when the Apostles feared they were about to drown in turbulent seas? What do these clerics make of the scorn the Apostles at times shared with Christ? What do they make of the Apostles' mindset at the time of the Crucifixion?

These clerics of the "Church of Catholic Convenience" made their understanding of New Testament history patently clear on American television when, for example, following Pope John Paul II's approval of Mel Gibson's traditional Catholic movie The Passion of the Christ, they apologized for the Pope and condemned the movie. Many Catholic priests went on to speak against the movie from the pulpit, on television, and in written editorials. Evidently, these priests found the movie not joyful enough, as too much of a "bummer."

The followers of Catholicism-lite don't like anything that is in any way a downer. The idea of a Final Judgment is abhorrent to them. This dismissal of a final call to Judgment is surprising since the Bible contains numerous verses referring to a Day of Judgment by Christ Himself.

Catholicism-lite is deliberately kept free of anything uncomfortable. To remember Bible accounts of responsibility or judgment are felt to be -- well, depressing and anachronistic. There are other consequences to think about as well. If parishioners become gloomy on occasion when attending Mass, they may not come as often. That would mean their financial contributions would diminish. Fewer contributions would certainly be an inconvenience to the American Church now that there are so many lawsuits to pay.

Oddly enough, even with all the pandering to remove inconvenience from the Church, I still come across former Catholics who loathe the Church because they remember how she did once inconvenience them. Because of such admitted inconvenience they left the Church in search of a community that would welcome them for "being who they are." They want a religion that fills them with boundless self-affirmation.

An example here can be educative. I recently ran into a professional colleague who holds a Ph.D. and works for a large medical school. She is a former cradle Catholic who now loathes the Catholic Church. It is not clear why she feels this way, although she has been divorced twice. Even though she has never sought an annulment, it seems her dismissiveness of the Church runs deeper than her resentment of Church policies regarding marriage, divorce, Communion, and annulment. She claims to disavow not just Catholicism but all formal religions as well. She explains that she now belongs to a "spiritual group" that carries the incorporated name "You Deserve a Miracle!" She finds her participation in the group a very "positive" experience. So, alas, where church was once a place for her to come to grips with her relationship to God, the point now seems simply to find some positive experience of self.

Many clergy are sympathetic to this spin on positive thinking on the part of parishioners. As a result, religious ceremonies, including even the Mass itself, have been turned into a form of entertainment. The draw is no longer God, but is now "community" and "celebration." The prevailing theme is that Christians are gloriously happy people. God is no longer the God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

Practitioners of Catholicism-lite claim unrelenting joyousness as seemingly something of a duty. When questioned about their single-minded focus on celebration, many are quick to point to Jesus' participation in the marriage feast at Cana, the party for the prodigal son's return, and so on. God loves us and wants us to have fun. That, they explain, is the essence of spiritual enlightenment.

Unfortunately, in contrast to this unrelenting promotion of personal exuberance, the God of the Bible and of Catholic tradition has made it known that He is vulnerable to being rejected by humanity. And that is surely nothing to celebrate. Moreover, those who do reject Him run the risk of that rejection setting in permanently and separating them from Him forever. This is the spiritual reality the Bible describes. There are ups and there are downs. There is good and bad. There is reward and punishment. And lastly, there is consolation -- and for the eternally lost, despair.

The biblical God participates in humanity. But surely people can't expect God to be a participant in some of the wrongs in which they freely engage.

God made it clear that the people who reject Him and His ways are not with Him now and will not be with Him later. Is this a cause for celebration? Or for sacrifice and repentance?

Paul A. Wagner is Director of both the Institute for Logic and Cognitive Studies and the Project in Professional Ethics at the University of Houston -- Clear Lake.

Taken from
cruxnews.com

Kill 'Em!

January 2006

Apropos the previous New Oxford Note, it's time for one of those "smarty-pants" New Oxford Notes. The neoconservative National Catholic Register (Nov. 27-Dec. 3, 2005) has a kill-the-insurgents editorial disguised as the lead front-page news story.

The story begins with a softball question. A Catholic soldier in Iraq killed an insurgent, and he asks, "Will I burn in hell?" He thinks it's a violation of the Fifth Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill."

Of course, every Catholic should know that the Commandment does not forbid "killing"; it forbids murder. If the Catholic soldier really thought it outlawed "killing," why was he serving in Iraq and why did he join the military in the first place?

The story includes an interview with pro-war Judy McCloskey from an online support group for Catholics fighting in Iraq. She complains, according to the story, that "some Catholic ethicists have confused the issue." Well, yes, Catholic ethicists such as Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), but they have hardly "confused" the issue, in fact they have clarified it, for both of them pronounced the war on Iraq to be unjust.

Rhetorical Witchcraft

January 2006By Dale Vree


The Cube and the Cathedral. By George Weigel. Basic. 202 pages. $23.00.



The New Oxford Review asked the publisher of this book for a review copy on May 20, 2005, so we could review it in our pages. Strangely, the book never came. So the NOR wrote again on July 13. Again, strangely, the book didn't come. We can only assume the author instructed the publisher not to send the book to the NOR. Why? No doubt because of our New Oxford Note "George 'Humpty Dumpty' Weigel" (Sept. 2004), to which Weigel took strong objection. His objections were registered in the letters section of the NOR (Dec. 2004), to which the Editor replied. It seems obvious that Weigel didn't want the NOR to review his book. And that made us even more curious about the book. So we decided to buy it.

The book is basically an attack on Europe, disguised as a friendly dialogue. You see, Weigel -- a neoconservative Catholic -- is an ardent supporter of the war on Iraq, even though Pope John Paul II and his men condemned the war before it was even started. Most Europeans opposed the war too. Weigel refers to "the harsh words between Europeans and Americans over Iraq," saying that "it struck me that the rift between the United States and Europe on, say, the best means to disarm the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq touched only the surface of things." Disarm Saddam? He had no weapons of mass destruction.

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus notes in First Things (Aug./Sept. 2005) that The Cube and the Cathedral "is a greatly expanded version of Weigel's essay 'Europe's Problem -- and Ours' [First Things, Feb. 2004]." In that essay, Weigel makes explicit his animus against Europe: "Most Europeans...have a thoroughly distorted view of...American actions in Iraq...."

In the book, Weigel accuses Europe of "committing demographic suicide." But so is America, if you leave out the immigrants. Weigel does like one part of Europe, the Slavic part. He extols "the Slavic view of history" because the Slavs know that "the deepest currents of history are spiritual and cultural, rather than political and economic." But Weigel doesn't tell us that the lowest birthrate in Europe is the Czech Republic at 1.1. He doesn't tell us that Poland and the Slovak Republic have a birthrate of 1.3 (the fourth and fifth lowest in Europe). So why is Weigel so hot for the Slavic part? We'd guess because certain of those countries sent troops to Iraq.

He praises Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) as a key figure in the Slavic view of history, but he doesn't tell us that John Paul opposed the war on Iraq (Weigel mentions his "opposition to war and abortion" but without telling which war).

Of freedom, Weigel says: "Freedom is the capacity to choose wisely and act well as a matter of habit -- or, to use an old-fashioned term, as a matter of virtue." Sorry, but freedom is not another name for virtue. No dictionary defines freedom as virtue.

Politically correct liberals redefine and euphemize words to suit their purposes: Homosexuals are "gay," pornography is "adult entertainment," abortion is "choice" or "reproductive rights," etc. This is rhetorical witchcraft. And now we're supposed to believe that freedom is "virtue"? This is just more rhetorical witchcraft.

Look, freedom is the exercise of free will, of choice, of doing what's right or what's wrong. That's what the dictionary says. Dick Cheney is right about freedom. At the October 5, 2004, Vice Presidential debate, when the question came up about Cheney's lesbian daughter and same-sex "marriage," he said: "Freedom does mean freedom for everybody. People ought to be free to choose any arrangement they want. It's really no one else's business." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is also right about freedom: "Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."

(Yes, the Church will say that virtue is "authentic" or "true" freedom, and it is. But that's our special Catholic vocabulary. In the political realm, there is separation of Church and State in the U.S. and Europe, and the Church has essentially renounced the Confessional State, so the Church has no intention of forcing people to accept her ideas of "authentic" freedom.)

Europe is decadent, as is America. They are free societies where, as Rumsfeld says, people "commit crimes" (which is what Vatican II called abortion) and "do bad things" (we would include homosexual acts, premarital sex, extramarital sex, pornography, euthanasia, contraception, etc.). Weigel, however, is worried about the Muslims flocking into Europe. But observant Muslims are opposed to abortion, homosexual acts, premarital sex, extramarital sex, pornography, euthanasia, and they have large families. That's why Muslim countries have been the greatest allies of the Holy See at the UN. If Weigel is so interested in virtue, why does he want war against observant Muslims?

Weigel quotes John Paul's signature phrase, "Do not be afraid." But Weigel is very afraid of Muslims. Have Catholics ever thought of evangelizing the Muslims coming into Europe? Or have Catholics given up on evangelization since Vatican II? Could be. But it shouldn't be, for then Weigel and those who think like him wouldn't be afraid. John Paul believed in evangelization and he was not afraid.

Weigel also says freedom is "freedom for [moral] excellence." Ah, but who defines moral excellence? The Church? If so, it's a theocratic society, not a free society. Weigel believes in separation of Church and State, so it cannot be the Church. So who defines excellence? In a free, democratic, pluralistic society, no one has a monopoly on defining moral excellence; it's up to the individual.

Weigel also says that freedom is a means to "human happiness," but in a free society, individuals decide what makes them happy, and they will decide that in various and opposite ways.

Weigel says that the term "freedom for excellence" comes from Aquinas. However, Aquinas preferred monarchy over democracy, which makes hash of Weigel's claim that democracy is "freedom for excellence," for Aquinas regarded monarchy as the most excellent form of government.

Weigel contrasts "freedom for excellence" with freedom of indifference, of self-assertion, of power. For Weigel, freedom of indifference leads to "Nietzsche's will to power." Of course it never occurs to Weigel that the U.S. now has a Nietzschean, an imperial will to power. Weigel cites French political theorist Alain Finkielkraut on the antipathy Europeans feel toward the U.S. and Israel: "thou shalt not pray to the discredited gods of nationalism...." Weigel, a zealous nationalist, completely misses the point.

Weigel claims: "Absent a secure and publicly assertive moral culture, the machines of democracy and a free economy cannot run well over the long haul...." Weigel has no way of knowing that. Western Europe has for a long time been an immoral culture, and democracy and a free economy are certainly not in peril.

What's wrong with Europe? Weigel points to the Italian Catholic philosopher and politician Rocco Buttiglione (Weigel doesn't mention that Buttiglione is a pal of Weigel's and other U.S. neocons). Buttiglione was nominated to be Commissioner of Justice for the 25-member European Commission. As Weigel tells it: "His convictions about the morality of homosexual acts and the nature of marriage were deemed by Euro-parliamentarians to disqualify him from holding high office on the European Commission -- despite Buttiglione's clear distinction, in his testimony, between what he, a committed and intellectually sophisticated Catholic, regards as immoral behavior and what the law regards as criminal behavior, and despite his sworn commitment...to uphold and defend the legitimate civil rights of all." In other words, Buttiglione took a "personally opposed" position regarding homosexual acts and "marriage," but would not "impose" his views (just like John Kerry on abortion). Who needs this? Buttiglione is no better than Kerry.

Weigel says: "Which culture [secular culture or Catholic culture] is more likely to protect human rights, promote the common good, defend legitimate pluralism, and give an account of the moral commitments that make democracy possible...[and who can] build free and democratic societies characterized by tolerance, civility, and respect for others...?" This begs the questions whether we should "tolerate" the intolerable, whether we should "respect" others who commit abortion, homosexual acts, adultery, etc. Weigel's big argument for Catholicism is that it is the correct means to the end of freedom and democracy. Sorry, but the Church is not a means to any political concept; the Church is the correct means to salvation.

In making his argument, Weigel believes Catholicism, not secularity, is the best way to guarantee freedom and democracy. But Weigel implicitly realizes the shakiness of his hypothesis. Weigel admits that the Glorious Revolution in England of 1688 and the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789 were "crucial turning points" for "democratic political institutions." Among other things, the Glorious Revolution banned Catholics from the throne, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man was directed against the Catholic clergy. Weigel also admits that the Catholic Church was "resistant to the democratic project in the late-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe." Only after World War II did Catholicism come to accept freedom and democracy (and it's possible that Catholicism could turn her back on them once again, given all the moral decadence that ensues).

During World War II, the Church tended to favor Mussolini, Franco, and other fascist dictators. It's even been said that Pope Pius XII was "Hitler's Pope." He wasn't, but there was a certain ambiguity. If Germany and the Axis Powers had won, the papacy would have had to deal with those nations. Hence the ambiguity. Had Germany won, there would never have been a turn toward liberal democracy by the Church. And the Europeans know this.

The cry of the French Revolution was liberté, égalité, fraternité. Weigel is reduced to saying that "Catholic faith can nurture a free society (liberté), human dignity (equalité [sic]), and human solidarity (fraternité)." This is just me-too-ism, and quite late in the day.

Weigel says that "one senses in many European cultural and political leaders an instinctive recoil from, even horror at, the idea that freedom is a gift from God that must be actively defended -- as George W. Bush frequently dared to put it...." That God wants people to be free is our civil religion, our national mythology. Nowhere in the Bible will you find that God wants political freedom, democracy, or capitalism. The traditional position of the Church has been indifference to forms of government, so long as the common good is protected and the Church is not under the thumb of the State -- and it's not hard to see where that came from.

Weigel's book was written before President George W. Bush's Second Inaugural Address, but there's no doubt Weigel would approve of it. Bush said that God is "The Author of Liberty" and that "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." Bush said that freedom is "a fire in the minds of men," and "this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world." The "fire in the minds of men" line was cribbed from Dostoyevsky's The Possessed and refers to the burning of a village by radical anarchists. Patrick Buchanan commented in The Wanderer (Feb. 3, 2005): "The president is here asserting a unilateral American right to interfere in the internal affairs of every nation on earth, without regard to whether these nations have threatened us or attacked us. Their domestic politics are now our concern, because if they are not democratic, we are not secure. Let it be said: This is a formula for...endless wars."

America is once again a "redeemer Nation." As Bush said on the first anniversary of 9/11: "The ideal of America is the hope of all mankind. That hope still lights the way, and the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness shall not overcome it." This is clearly an allusion to John 1:4-5: "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Bush's remark is very close to blasphemy, for America is not Jesus Christ. The hope of mankind is Jesus Christ, not America. Moreover, the Church has condemned this political messianism: "The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the Kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the 'intrinsically perverse' political form of a secular messianism" (Catechism, #676).

Weigel says, "We are made for excellence." Physician, heal thyself! This is a third-rate book permeated with the odor of witchcraft.

Dale Vree is Editor of the NOR.

George and Massachusetts people:

RED BONES in Davis Square is also a great restaurant and it is on the red line and people can get to it. It is right outside Davis Square Station and it is fun to go to...loud and crazy! Lots of Fun! I was there once!

n

Ministry story:

from the "National Catholic Reporter"

Issue Date: January 20, 2006

From artists to activists: The many paths of service
A vocation of service can take many forms, and in this special section on Ministries, reporter Patricia Fening Gayes profiles five people who minister through the visual arts. With paintings, sculpture, photography, silhouettes and stained glass, they see sacred art as a way of healing the world and bringing God's love to the viewer.

"God draws us to himself through beauty," says Franciscan Br. Robert Lentz, known for his contemporary icons. Lentz, like others featured in the article, found resistance to the idea that art could be a ministry, but he says, "The church has always used beauty in her effort to present the divine mysteries. There must, then, be room for artists in the church and in our religious orders." ( See story)

Paige Byrne Shortal makes the case for another form of self-expression as a ministry. ( See story) Pastoral writing on catechesis and dialogue on Catholic issues can be a substantive contribution to the parish bulletin, she says, but no matter what the outlet, it can offer a chance for writer and reader to grow together in holiness. Meanwhile Benedictine Sr. Theresa Torres reviews a guide for pastors of Hispanic congregations, calling on them to address critical issues for that community in their homilies. ( See story)

Finally, two articles look at people whose lives of service have taken them far from the comforts of home. Reporter Tom Carney profiles the Rev. Bob Cook, a Presbyterian minister from Iowa who is now working as an official "lay Catholic missioner" at a Salvadoran parish that partners with faith communities in Des Moines for development projects. ( See story) And Patrick O'Neill writes about Elizabeth McAlister's 40 years on the forefront of the peace movement, a life of civil resistance that has included about four years behind bars.

from "zenit.com"

Date: 2006-01-20

Benedict XVI Describes the Priest the Church Needs

Receives Members of Rome's Seminary in Audience

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 20, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Love of truth, a desire to proclaim Christ, and dedication to the suffering are some of the key features the Church needs in its priests, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope made that assessment today at an audience with priests, deacons and seminarians of various countries studying at the Capranica College, the seminary of the Diocese of Rome.

Among the students of the seminary, founded in 1547, were the future Popes Benedict XV and Pius XII.

"To respond to the expectations of modern society, to cooperate in the great evangelizing action which involves all Christians, prepared and courageous priests are needed who, without ambitions and fears, but convinced of the Gospel truth, are concerned above all with proclaiming Christ," said Benedict XVI.

And, "in his name," they must be "willing to bow before human sufferings, making everyone, especially the poor and those going though difficulties, feel the consolation of the love of God and the warmth of the ecclesial family," the Holy Father said.

Nourish communion

This implies -- "together with human maturity and diligent adherence to revealed truth, which the magisterium of the Church proposes faithfully -- a serious commitment to personal sanctification and the exercise of virtues, especially humility and charity," the Pope added.

It is also "necessary to nourish communion with the different components of the People of God so that awareness will grow in each one of being part of the one Body of Christ, members of one another," he continued.

For all this to be realized, the Pontiff urged priests and seminarians "to keep their gaze fixed on Christ."

He added: "The more you are in communion with him, the more you will be able to follow faithfully in his footsteps, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so that your love for the Lord matures."

taken from "the Holy See Press Office"

Catholic Television: Much Initiative, Few Resources
VATICAN CITY, JAN 20, 2006 (VIS)


Archbishop John P. Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, today participated in the second meeting of the organizational committee for the World Congress on Catholic Television. The committee meeting was held in the Vatican's Palazzo San Carlo.


In his speech to the committee the archbishop recalled that, although there are many "Catholic television initiatives, there are often insufficient resources in programming, finance or trained personnel to keep them all in operation. One of the factors that seem to be missing is coordination and, indeed, cooperation."


The archbishop went on: "Because of the nature of our universal responsibility as the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, we thought it might be a good idea to respond to requests from around the world to be a forum for planning and, indeed, helping to implement such coordination and cooperation. ... In no field more than broadcasting and telecasting is there more need for networking: networking so that common programming can be offered throughout the world, networking so that training facilities can be offered on an international basis, networking so that ideas and programs can be shared."


"May our planning and our eventual congress help Catholic television to be a type of nervous system for the Church," the president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications concluded, "a system which helps to inform, to energize ... the Church to an ever more perfect unity and to the continuing work of evangelization."

from catholic press reviews:

Memoirs of a Geisha
Beautifully filmed and finely acted adaptation of Arthur Golden's best-seller about a girl (Ziyi Zhang) sold by her family into being a geisha in pre-World War II Japan, and her over-the-years love for a businessman (Ken Watanabe) who bought her ice cream as a child. Director Rob Marshall has crafted what is basically an unrequited romance of the kind Hollywood.

from
catholic-christian movie review:

Brokeback Mountain



Over-the-years love story between two emotionally fragile cowboys (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) who begin an intimate relationship during a solitary sheepherding assignment. Though shortly after, they try to go their separate ways, with one marrying his fiancee (Michelle Williams) and the other a former rodeo queen (Anne Hathaway), they continue to be drawn to each other. Director Ang Lee's well-crafted film, which is superbly acted, was adapted from a New Yorker short story by Pulitzer Prize-winner Annie Proulx. It treats the subject matter -- which a Catholic audience will find contrary to its moral principles -- with discretion. tacit approval of same-sex relationships, adultery, two short male sex scenes without nudity, two brief heterosexual encounters with upper female nudity, shadowy rear nudity, other implied sexual situations, profanity, rough and crude expressions, irreligious remarks, alcohol and brief drug use, fleeting violent images, a gruesome description of a murder, some fisticuffs, brief domestic violence. O -- morally offensive. (R) 2005


"Brokeback Mountain" (Focus), the much publicized "gay cowboy love story" adapted from a New Yorker magazine piece by Pulitzer Prize-winner Annie Proulx, turns out to be a serious contemplation on loneliness and connection.
The protagonists are ranch hands, both of whom are quick to reject the idea that they are homosexual after their first encounter. And the audience may well wonder why these two initiate a relationship in the first place, especially as it is so contrary to what they themselves must consider acceptable. The film, if never quite giving an outright answer, explores the complexity of an alliance marked as much by the pain, as well as the emotional support, they give each other.

The story revolves around two scarred souls: Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) who share a sheepherding assignment on a mountain in Signal, Wyo., in 1963. Ennis is a man of few words; Jack is more open and inviting.

Their friendship manages to grow despite Ennis' taciturn manner. At first, it's only Jack who, against legal employment rules, has to spend the night up the mountain near the sheep (with Ennis down in the camp), but they come to realize it is more practical to keep watch in tandem.

Ennis resolutely insists he'll sleep outdoors, but the cold drives him into Jack's tent, where the latter precipitates a sexual act. In the morning, both are too embarrassed to talk about the incident. "You know, I ain't queer," asserts Ennis. "Me neither," agrees Jack.

But some kind of bond has formed. The following night, a short scene in the tent seems to confirm their attraction to one another, physically as well as emotionally.

Later, some outdoor wrestling is observed by their boss, the unsympathetic rancher Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid), who watches them with a knowing eye, as he will let Jack know later in the film.

At the end of the season, they come down from the mountain, and dismissing what transpired as a "one-shot deal," go their separate ways. Ennis is engaged to Alma (Michelle Williams, Ledger's real-life girlfriend), and they soon wed.

Jack, for his part, makes a tentative stab at the rodeo circuit and is shown talking up a cowboy in a bar, but eventually he meets former rodeo queen Lureen (Anne Hathaway) and they marry. Both men have children. One of Ennis's daughters (Kate Mara) will play a significant role at important junctures in his life.

Time goes by, and Jack sends a postcard to Ennis informing him he's coming to town, and suggesting they meet. When Jack finally drives up, the normally inexpressive Ennis rushes out to meet him. They embrace passionately, not knowing that Alma is sadly viewing them from behind the screen door. She says nothing, but understands all.

The men bolt, with Ennis telling Alma it will be a late night. The next day, Ennis announces that he and Jack are going fishing, and Alma is left behind in sorrow and confusion.

On the trip, Jack proposes that they chuck their families and buy a ranch, but for Ennis -- who as a child was made by his father to witness the aftermath of a hate-crime murder of two rancher neighbors who had lived together -- this is unthinkable.

Thereafter, Ennis and Jack meet several times a year for these "fishing" trips. (No explicit sexual activity is shown from this point on.) Lureen, like Alma, subconsciously senses the significance of these excursions, but retreats into her own business affairs.

Throughout, it is implied, when Ennis's responsibilities keep him from seeing Jack, the latter searches for satisfaction elsewhere, adding an element of differentiation between the two men.

The Catholic Church's teaching on homosexuality is unambiguous. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered" and the inclination itself is "objectively disordered." At the same time, homosexually inclined persons "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity" (#2357 and #2358).

As a result, Ennis and Jack's physical relationship cannot be condoned. Of course, just as offensive from a Catholic perspective is the adulterous nature of their affair. And, in this regard, the film doesn't whitewash the pain Jack and Ennis cause their families, showing how selfish their trysts are, particularly when a befuddled Alma is left alone with the children. Both women are played with tremendous sympathy, but especially Alma.

What gives the film its power is the vividness with which it tells the story of an unresolved (albeit objectively immoral) relationship, which has a crushing impact on the two men and on all who are involved with them and which, it should be noted, ends in tragedy.

Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana's screenplay uses virtually every scrap of information in Proulx's (very short) short story, which won a National Magazine Award. They've expanded it while remaining true to the source.

Ang Lee directs with a sure sense of time and place and he doesn't dwell on the carnal interaction between the two men. Except for the initial scene in the tent and brief sexual encounters between the men and their (fleetingly bare-breasted) wives, there's no sexually related nudity at all. Some outdoor shots of the men washing and skinny-dipping are side-view, long-shot or out-of-focus images.

The performances are superb. Australian Ledger may be the one to beat at Oscar time, and his Western accent sounds wonderfully authentic. Gyllenhaal is no less accomplished as the seemingly less nuanced Jack, while Williams and Hathaway (the latter, a far cry from "The Princess Diaries," giving her most mature work to date) are very fine.

Use of the film as an advocacy vehicle to promote a morally objectionable message that homosexuality is equivalent to and as acceptable as heterosexuality does a disservice to its genuine complexity. While the actions taken by Ennis and Jack cannot be endorsed, the universal themes of love and loss ring true. The film creates characters of flesh and blood - not just the protagonists, but the wives, girlfriends, parents, and children -- who give the film its artful substance.

However, the physicality of the men's relationship and the film's inherent sanctioning of their affair necessitate an O rating.

The film contains tacit approval of same-sex relationships, adultery, two short male sex scenes without nudity, two brief heterosexual encounters with upper female nudity, shadowy rear nudity, other implied sexual situations, profanity, rough and crude expressions, irreligious remarks, alcohol and brief drug use, fleeting violent images, a gruesome description of a murder, some fisticuffs and brief domestic violence. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted.





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The following movies have been evaluated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting according to artistic merit and moral suitability. The reviews include the USCCB rating, the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief synopsis of the movie.

The reviews can be heard by calling 1-800-311-4CCC. The movie review line is updated each Friday and includes information about six theater releases and a Family Video of the Week. For a full review of recent films, check your local Catholic diocesan newspaper.

The classifications are as follows:


A-I -- general patronage;
A-II -- adults and adolescents;
A-III -- adults;
L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
O -- morally offensive.

USCCB: US Conference of Catholic Bishops

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Captivating live-action fantasy adventure based on C.S. Lewis' beloved children's classic set in World War II-era England about four siblings (Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley and Anna Popplewell), who, having been evacuated from London to the home of an eccentric professor (Jim Broadbent), stumble through a magical wardrobe into the enchanted realm of Narnia, where they help the wise and noble lion Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) defeat the evil White Witch (Tilda Swinton), who holds the land under an icy spell of eternal winter. Seeded with Christian symbolism and subtext, director Andrew Adamson's faithful adaptation balances spectacle with storytelling while exploring themes of good and evil to capture the childlike wonder that underscores Lewis' tale. Some battlefield violence, intense scenes of child peril and menace, and several frightening sequences. A-II -- adults and adolescents. (PG) 2005
Full Review

It's taken more than 50 years for a live-action version of Christian author C.S. Lewis' beloved children's fantasy, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," to finally make it to the big screen. And after viewing Disney's captivating $150 million adaptation, it's safe to say it was well worth the wait.

First published in 1950, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" -- the first in a seven-volume series known as "The Chronicles of Narnia" -- has had several previous renderings, including a stage production, two British television series and an Emmy Award-winning animated feature that aired on American TV in 1979.

Produced in partnership with faith-friendly Walden Media, the movie not only stays reverently true to the story and spiritual subtext of Lewis' imaginative tale, but is a cinematic work of extraordinary beauty that, much like the title's enchanted armoire, transports viewers to a wondrous world of adventure, heroism and religious symbolism.

It also proves what Lewis believed about literature -- that anything worth reading when you are 5 is worth reading when you are 50 -- is equally valid for film, though Lewis himself had strong reservations about translating his Narnia books into live-action movies.

Set in World War II-era England, the story centers on four young siblings: Peter (William Moseley), the eldest of the Pevensie brood; sensible sister Susan (Anna Popplewell); duplicitous Edmund (Skandar Keynes); and plucky little Lucy (apple-cheeked newcomer Georgie Henley). Evacuated from blitzkrieg-bombarded London, the children are left in the safekeeping of an elderly and eccentric professor (Jim Broadbent) who lives in a large house in the country.

While playing hide and seek, Lucy happens upon an old wardrobe through which she stumbles magically into Narnia -- a fairy-tale realm populated by talking animals and mythical creatures -- and she later returns along with her brothers and sister.

Their appearance foretold by an ancient Narnian prophecy, the children set out to rescue an imprisoned faun (James McAvoy) arrested for fraternizing with Lucy.

Their quest eventually leads them to fight alongside Narnia's regal lion king, Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson), against the evil White Witch, Jadis (Tilda Swinton), who holds the land under an icy spell of eternal deep freeze ("always winter, never Christmas").

From the moment Lucy first sets eyes on the snow-blanketed Narnian glade -- with its iconic, out-of-place lamppost -- fans of the book will know that they are in sure hands with director Andrew Adamson, who never allows spectacle to overshadow the story's emotional core.

He also captures both the childlike wonder and indefinable, melancholic nostalgia for a world beyond our own that underscores all seven books.

Comparisons will inevitably be made to Peter Jackson's superior "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Both productions involved added pressure of a fan base rabidly protective of the source material. Both films also use fairy-tale and mythic motifs to explore larger themes of good and evil, sin and redemption, and death and resurrection, far more overt here.

This is best illustrated by the clearly allegorical Christ-figure of Aslan, "a willing victim ... killed in a traitor's stead" only to come back to life in glorified form. (Though gentle at times, Aslan is not "tame," but a wild and dangerous lion of Judah.)

Told with symbolic strokes, the deeply poignant sequence - - a Narnian Via Dolorosa - -unmistakably traces Christ's passion from Gethsemane to his dying on Calvary, here a stone table upon which Aslan is ritualistically slain. (Adults may even feel their tear ducts swelling.) Those first to witness the "resurrected" Aslan are women, and afterward Aslan "breathes" a new spirit of life into those Narnians turned to stone by the White Witch's magic, echoing both Pentecost and the harrowing of hell.

While "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" lacks the character development and narrative depth, as well as the grander scale, of "Rings" (written by Lewis' close friend, J.R.R. Tolkien), its simple, self-contained story works to its advantage as a film.

Though a few of the processed shots are obvious, overall the special effects are impressive, including a majestic -- and amazingly realistic -- computer-rendered Aslan.

The climactic battle may be too intense for young children, as may be scenes involving a pack of vicious wolves serving as Jadis' henchmen. Hardest of all to watch is Aslan's atoning sacrifice, surrounded by hellish legions seemingly conjured from a Hieronymus Bosch painting. His apparent "defeat" is trumpeted by Jadis' victory cry, "So much for love." Some parents may feel it inappropriately upsetting for a "family film," but Lewis himself argued that it was proper not to shield children from knowledge that they are "born into a world of death, violence, wounds, adventure, heroism and cowardice, good and evil."

The performances are all superb, especially those of the adorable Georgie Henley and Swinton, who brings an understated iciness to her role, which she plays as a cross between Hans Christian Andersen's Snow Queen and Xena, warrior princess.

Unlike Lucy at the end, moviegoers won't be left wondering if they'll ever find passage back into Narnia; with six more movies planned, the door is, thankfully, left ajar!

The film contains some battlefield violence, intense scenes of child peril and menace, and several frightening sequences. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-II -- adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG -- parental guidance suggested.

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Underworld


Action-thriller about star-crossed lovers, one a vampire, one a mortal (Kate Beckinsale and Scott Speedman) caught in an ancient blood feud between warring clans of vampires and werewolves. Despite a visually stylish, neo-gothic moodiness, the film, directed by Len Wiseman, unravels into a bloodbath of glamorized carnage, undermining its cleverly disguised allusions to racial and class tensions. Excessive violence, fleeting shadowy rear nudity, as well as sporadic rough language and an instance of profanity. O -- morally offensive. (R) 2003
Full Review
Vampires and werewolves clash by moonlight in "Underworld" (Screen Gems), a stylish, romantic (yes, you read that correctly) action-thriller directed by Len Wiseman.
Though initially intriguing, the film's clever Transylvanian take on the Romeo and Juliet story -- suffused with a neo-gothic moodiness and head-banging metal soundtrack -- plummets into a gratuitous bloodbath of glamorized "Matrix"-styled violence that would leave the Capulets and Montagues shaking their heads in disgust.

Caught in the blood feud are star-crossed lovers Selene (Kate Beckinsale), a vampire "death-dealer," and Michael (Scott Speedman), a mortal physician whose veins hold the key to peace between Selene's race and their sworn ancient enemies, the werewolf Lycans. The trouble starts when the alluring assassin rescues Michael from being abducted by the Lycans, who need his blood to cross-breed the species and gain an upper hand in the conflict.

Michael's tender cryptside manner wins over Selene's icy heart. But things get hairy -- literally -- when, during one of the many scuffles, Michael is bitten by Lucian (Michael Sheen), the alpha wolf of the Lycan pack -- a cruel twist that makes him about as welcome as a coffin with a sunroof in the eyes of Selene's bloodsucking brood. The forbidden romance is further complicated by Selene's attempt to blow the lid off a treasonous plot by one of her kinsman, Kraven (Shane Brolly), to form an alliance with the Lycans in order to stage a coup d'etat and usurp the vampiric throne.

However, the story loses its bite midway through, unraveling into a tedious series of graphically violent clashes leading to the film's mind-numbing climactic mother-of-all rumbles; think Democrats and Republicans with fangs.

Unfortunately, the decadent chiaroscuro production design is wasted on what amounts to little more than a B-movie "West Side Gory." While most male viewers would gladly bare their neck for the latex-clad Beckinsale, she comes across as stiff as a corpse -- though, technically, she is one -- recoiling from the slightest trace of humor as if it were a crucifix. Unlike his undead paramour, Speedman is dead, period -- at least as far as anyone can tell from his acting -- brooding through the film with all the elan of a patient desperately in need of a blood transfusion.

The film cleverly takes what is essentially a polemic on race and class relations and dresses it up as an Anne Rice novel. The immortal vampires are portrayed as aristocrats, sophisticated and refined. Conversely, the hairy Hell's Angels-like Lycans are feral brutes, who originally served as slaves under the oppressive heel of vampiric overlords. It easy to see the film as a metaphor for just about any ethnic or ideological conflict, whether it is Palestinians and Israelis or Irish Protestants and Catholics abroad or prejudice in our own backyard.

Regrettably, the film's underlying theme of tolerance is lost in the hail of bullets, as characters fueled by hatred savagely parcel out death and destruction with video-game glee. From the outset, the film packages violence as hip, glamorizing it with slow-motion effects and cool weapons, like the ammo-clips of glowing, irradiated bullets (.45 caliber sunshine) used by the Lycan gang-bangers to mow down their vampire prey.

Sadly, "Underworld" is nothing to howl about.

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Pride & Prejudice
A new version of Jane Austen's evergreen classic concerning the five unmarried Bennet girls whose mother (Brenda Blethyn) is strenuously determined to marry them off in 18th-century England, and the crossed-signals romance between Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) and the wealthy Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen) whose apparent dislike for each other -- because of his arrogance and her judgmental attitude -- masks a profound attraction. Director Joe Wright makes the settings more realistically rough-hewn than usual, but even so the film is visually stunning and its top-flight supporting players - Donald Sutherland, Judi Dench, Penelope Wilton and Tom Hollander among them -- make this highly recommendable for all ages. A-I -- general patronage. (PG) 2005
Not counting various television versions such as the memorable 1995 BBC Colin Firth-Jennifer Ehle miniseries (shown stateside on A&E), and some big-screen adaptations that took considerable license -- such as last year's Indian-flavored update, "Bride & Prejudice" -- Jane Austen's most famous work was, incredibly, filmed only once before: MGM's 1940 classic with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier.

The MGM and BBC renderings were fine indeed, but the latest "Pride & Prejudice" (Focus) is yet another splendid dramatization.

As everyone knows, the story concerns the five unmarried Bennet girls and the strenuous efforts of their mother, Mrs. Bennet, perennially unkempt and frazzled as played by the wonderful Brenda Blethyn, to marry them off in 18th-century England.

Things are looking promising for eldest daughter Jane (Rosamund Pike), in love with the upper-crust Bingley (Simon Woods) who has come to town with his wealthy friend, Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), in tow.

Darcy encounters second-eldest daughter Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) at a ball, and the first meeting has Darcy disdainfully refusing to dance with Lizzie, as she's called.

Thereafter, it's crossed signals all the way between Lizzie and Darcy, whose dislike for each other -- because of his arrogance and her judgmental attitude -- masks a growing and profound attraction.

Her bad opinion of him is reinforced when she learns he had a hand in derailing Bingley's courtship of Jane, and his apparently cruel treatment of the soldier Wickham (Rupert Friend), once Darcy's childhood friend, but who now claims Darcy did him ill.

Knightley could not be more different from her recent turn as actor Laurence Harvey's punkish, heavily mascaraed, bounty-hunting daughter in "Domino." Here, she's the picture of a fresh-faced Regency-era young lady, deftly capturing Lizzie's spiritedness and charm.

Macfadyen is appropriately aloof and sullen, and is immensely sympathetic when he first expresses his love for Lizzie -- and, like Darcy, grows more appealing as the story progresses.

Director Joe Wright uses settings more realistically rough-hewn than usual; the Bennet household, for example, is a lived-in mess, and there are several shots of livestock that give you a visceral sense of the environment, but the film is nonetheless visually stunning.

Roman Osin's camera is always on the move, sometimes distractingly so, but is unafraid to linger on the beautiful vistas of the English countryside.

The supporting players are all top-flight: Donald Sutherland as the long-suffering father who quietly supports Lizzie, Judi Dench as the unpleasantly imperious Lady Catherine de Bourg, Penelope Wilton as the Bennets' kind aunt, and the diminutive Tom Hollander offering a gem of a comic characterization as Mr. Collins, a dull and fawning clergyman who, briefly, sets his sights on Lizzie.

Apart from a subplot involving a rakish character who elopes with one of the daughters with dishonorable intent, there is nothing to preclude recommendation for all ages. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-I -- general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG -- parental guidance suggested.





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The following movies have been evaluated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting according to artistic merit and moral suitability. The reviews include the USCCB rating, the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief synopsis of the movie.

from "San Bernadino County Newspaper"
Priest found guilty of heresy
INLAND DIOCESE: The verdict comes after what may have been the first trial of its kind in the U.S.



09:59 AM PST on Friday, January 20, 2006

By DAVID OLSON / The Press-Enterprise

The Diocese of San Bernardino has declared an Inland priest guilty of heresy, after what experts say may have been one of the first trials of its kind in U.S. history.

As a result, the Rev. Ned Reidy is formally excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.

Reidy said the verdict means little to him, because the religious denomination he joined in 2000 after resigning from his Roman Catholic order does not recognize the Vatican's authority.

"I have no thoughts on it because I'm so far beyond this," said Reidy, co-pastor of Pathfinder Community of the Risen Christ in Bermuda Dunes, which is near his old Roman Catholic parish in Palm Desert. "I'm now involved in the life of the people here. I've gotten on with my life."

The Rev. Howard Lincoln, spokesman for the diocese, also declined to discuss the verdict.

"The letter received by Rev. Reidy clearly stated the findings of the tribunal, and we do not feel it is appropriate to comment further on this matter," Lincoln said.

The Roman Catholic Church defines heresy as the denial of a fundamental truth. A tribunal of three diocesan priests also found Reidy guilty of schism, for leaving the Roman Catholic Church to join another religion and refusing to submit to the authority of the pope.

Reidy has the right to appeal the diocese's verdict to the Vatican, but he said he would not do so, because that would give it legitimacy. He called the decision "30 pages of gobbledygook." Reidy refused to attend the Dec. 13 trial.

Monsignor Thomas Green, a professor of canon law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., said the verdict could help pave the way for heresy trials in other dioceses across the country.

"They might think, 'If they did it and were able to carry it off, it's not insuperable,' " Green said.

Green and other leading Roman Catholic scholars said they were unaware of any other heresy trials in the United States.

Reidy left Christ of the Desert Roman Catholic Church in Palm Desert in 1999 after serving 19 years as its pastor.

He was automatically excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church when he became a priest with the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, based in Orange.

But the diocesan judges wrote in the verdict that it is necessary "for the good of the faithful" to formally excommunicate him and revoke his priestly functions.

The rituals and liturgy of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion are so similar to those of the Roman Catholic Church that it may lead some Roman Catholics astray, the judges said.

In addition, the judges wrote, Ecumenical Catholic churches "target" Roman Catholics who feel disillusioned with and excluded from the Roman church, making it different from other non-Roman-Catholic denominations.

In a June document delineating the accusations against Reidy, Stephen Osborn, the diocese's promoter of justice, argued that Reidy's affiliation with a denomination that ordains women and blesses same-sex unions was heresy.

But in declaring Reidy guilty of heresy, the judges singled out Reidy's refusal to accept the infallibility and leadership of the pope, beliefs that they said belong "to the first level of truths" in the church.

Bishop Peter Hickman, leader of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, called the judges' letter "vindictive."

"There are all these quotes from canon law that are cold and harsh, but there are no quotes from the Gospel of Jesus," said Hickman, who lives in Lake Elsinore. "Are we not to be followers of Jesus? Is this the way Jesus would have behaved? There is no evidence he ever behaved that way. His response was always a loving response. This is not a loving document."

The trial and verdict may reflect personal anger that San Bernardino diocesan Bishop Gerald R. Barnes has toward Reidy for leaving the church, Hickman said.

Lincoln declined to respond to Hickman's comments.

Marc Balestrieri, a canon lawyer and president of De Fide, a Santa Monica-based group that advocates filing heresy denunciations against those who violate fundamental church teachings, praised the verdict.

"The gravity of the errors which he is professing, coupled with the group's targeting of Roman Catholic faithful in the bishop's diocese, all pose a real danger of inducing the flock under his care into grave sin," Balestrieri said. "Let us not forget, we're dealing here with the risk of eternal damnation."

Balestrieri drew national attention in 2004 for filing a heresy denunciation against former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts because of Kerry's support of abortion rights.

Kerry has not been tried nor have four other pro-abortion-rights Roman Catholic politicians against whom Balestrieri filed denunciations.

Hickman released the verdict Thursday, a day after the diocese announced it would not publicly reveal it.

Leading Roman Catholic scholars said they were perplexed by the diocese's decision to keep the verdict secret, especially because diocesan officials said last month that they were holding the trial to warn the faithful that Reidy is no longer a practicing Roman Catholic priest.

"If in fact they wanted to establish that he is not a Roman Catholic priest, but they're now not publicizing that -- that strikes me as odd," said Lawrence Cunningham, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and an expert in church history.

Reidy initially planned to return the envelope containing the verdict without opening it. He said he changed his mind because "if I don't open it up, they can say what they want about this."

He criticized the diocese for contacting him only in writing, rather than verbally.

Lincoln said written communication is part of the formal canon-law process, and "there's a greater clarity when it is in writing."

Reach David Olson at 760-837-4411 or [email protected]