Category Archives: Reflecting on the news

No Mention-Pelosi

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Gateway Pundit calls it a rebuke , while Speaker Pelosi avoids the obvious in her release:

“It is with great joy that my husband, Paul, and I met with his Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI today,” Pelosi said in a statement released hours after the meeting. “In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the Church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel. I was proud to show his Holiness a photograph of my family’s papal visit in the 1950s, as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren.”

Victor L. Simpson,  AP writer, reports:

The Vatican’s attempts to keep the Pelosi visit low-profile displayed its obvious unease with the new U.S. administration. Benedict and Bush had found common ground in opposing abortion, an issue that drew them together despite their differences over the war in Iraq.

Wednesday’s meeting, in a small room off a Vatican auditorium after the pope’s weekly public audience, was closed to reporters and photographers.

The Vatican also said — contrary to its usual policy when the pope meets world leaders — that it was not issuing either a photo or video of the encounter, claiming the meeting was private.

The Anchoress writes:  Pope Punks Pelosi Pix

Date With Destiny

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It’s confirmed, Nancy Pelosi has her date.   According to the Vatican’s Press Office, Pope Benedict will be receiving U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in an audience at noon on Wednesday.

Though a self-described “ardent Catholic,” Speaker Pelosi is confused about what it means to be Catholic.

Hopefully many of you are praying for her.  Monumental efforts appreciated!

After her Meet the Press appearance the US Conference of Catholic Bishops responded via this statement issued by,  Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia and Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport:

In the course of a “Meet the Press” interview on abortion and other public issues on August 24, 2008, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi misrepresented the history and nature of the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church against abortion.

The Church has always taught that human life deserves respect from its very beginning and that procured abortion is a grave moral evil. In the Middle Ages, uninformed and inadequate theories about embryology led some theologians to speculate that specifically human life capable of receiving an immortal soul may not exist until a few weeks into pregnancy. While in canon law these theories led to a distinction in penalties between very early and later abortions, the Church’s moral teaching never justified or permitted abortion at any stage of development.

These mistaken biological theories became obsolete over 150 years ago when scientists discovered that a new human individual comes into being from the union of sperm and egg at fertilization. In keeping with this modern understanding, the Church has long taught that from the time of conception (fertilization), each member of the human species must be given the full respect due to a human person, beginning with respect for the fundamental right to life.

Old Bishop, New Priest

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WITH PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING TO

ALMIGHTY GOD

THE ARCHDIOCESE OF SANTA FE

ANNOUNCES

THE ORDINATION TO THE

SACRED PRIESTHOOD OF

JEFFREY N. STEENSON

THOUGH THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS AND THE INVOCATION OF THE

HOLY SPIRIT

BY HIS EXCELLENCY

MICHAEL J. SHEEHAN

ARCHBISHOP OF SANTA FE

SATURDAY,THE TWENTY-FIRST OF FEBRUARY,TWO THOUSAND AND NINE

AT  TEN-THIRTY O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING AT ST.THOMAS AQUINAS CATHOLIC CHURCH, RIO RANCHO, NM

Jeffrey M. Steenson will be new to the Roman Catholic priesthood, but not new to our Lord’s vineyard.  When ordained February 21, 2009 by Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of the Santa Fe Diocese of New Mexico, Steenson will continue a faith adventure that still astounds him.

It was much more than the divisions within the Anglican Church over issues such as the affirmation of the openly gay Gene Robinson as bishop, and the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as the first female presiding bishop, that coaxed the then Bishop Steenson onto a new path.  These issues were monumentally troubling to his church and he was himself,  “deeply troubled about where the Episcopal Church is heading.”  Bishop Schori had also blessed same-sex unions.  Though grave, still more important issues than these motivated his faith journey to the Roman Catholic Church.  No less than the Fathers of the Church held great sway in this matter of faith, conscience and desire.

Before he even entered the ministry, Jeff thought about entering the Roman Catholic Church.  One of his professors, a nun, did a very good job showing him that the early Church looked and was as it continues to be very Roman Catholic.  She also pointed out that she thought he might have a vocation to the priesthood but he was married and so that was then not to be.  Years passed, Jeff became an priest and then a bishop in the Anglican Church .

The Church Fathers still sounded Roman Catholic but life got very complicated.  It took the powerful personage of the inimitable Pope John Paul II to re-ignite his Catholic leanings.  He made a promise to himself that he would revisit his Catholic inclinations and act if that meant becoming a Roman Catholic.  Acting on the promise was tougher and so a bit late in being fulfilled.  He meant to act while JPII was still alive, and not doing so troubled him, but life as Rt. Rev Steenson of the Rio Grande Diocese of the Anglican Church made serious decisions too serious to rush.  Prayer, study, meetings and mentors,  more prayer and more study, soon demanded that conscience be honored.  The promise he made to himself ended with his resignation as bishop.  This was not without pain.  There were explanations to be given and loose ends, at all ends.  In his customary gentle manner,  Jeff reached out as best he could to make clear with persuasive reason and Patristic history the underpinnings of his choice.

Happily, eventually the sun did shine on the road ahead for Jeff and his wife, who shared these dilemmas and discoveries.  Soon came his entry into the Roman Catholic Church. and now, more promises to be made, the promises of the sacred priesthood.  Jeff goes forward carrying his faith-filled past in his heart, grateful for loved ones in his Anglican Church family and his beloved deep Anglican roots.   At this, a new beginning on a continuing faith journey, may God bless Jeffrey Steenson and his family.

I Want a Miracle!

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According to the Drudge Report and Rep. John Culberson of Texas, Speaker Nancy Pelosi may already be in Rome; on the supposed agenda, a meeting with His Holiness Benedict XVI.

Nancy strikes me as an upfront,in your face,no apologies-type gal.  I can see her kissing the papal ring while sporting a Pro-Choice tee? However, despite my knee jerk emotions, I'll be joining the Anchoress praying for Nancy's enlightenment. I can hang with hope, since I must, but I want a miracle!

A Little Guy Who Really Cares

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Just stepping up and doing the right thing.

Who Has Bewitched You?

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Early this morning,  I read these words in the Office of  Readings:

“But the time came when He who had set me apart before I was born and called me by His favor chose to reveal His Son to me, that I might spread among the Gentiles the good tidings concerning Him.”  Galatians 1:15-16

My thoughts flew to the issue of Life; God creating each one of us purposefully; knowing us as we are, with all our faults and failings and even our misguided “good” intentions.   Paul had just finished describing to the Galatians his background,  including what had been his well meaning ambitions previous to his conversion:

“You know that I went to extremes in persecuting the Church of God and tried to destroy it; I made progress in Jewish observance far beyond most of my contemporaries, in my excess of zeal to live out all the traditions of my ancestors.” Galatians 1:13-15

As I thought about this, it wasn’t much of a leap from there to recalling the arguments and dismissals of those in the pro-abortion camp,  declaring an unborn child as:  no child, no purpose, a blob of tissue, an inconvenience, a mistake (recall President Obama’s words), an economical burden (Nancy Pelosi’s words.)  In addressing the Galatians for their having strayed from the Truth,  Paul says, “O stupid Galatians!  Who has bewitched you?” Galations 3:1.  How much more can these words be spoken to our generation so steeped in secular relativism and materialism.

If God not only had Paul’s personhood in mind before he was conceived,  but also had a plan for Paul, which included His Church, and had a moment in Time set,  in which He would enable Paul to see clearly and become the man He called him to be, then how can we continue to throw away precious life as though God isn’t watching, isn’t caring, and isn’t remembering?  Is Paul’s term, “Stupid,” strong enough to characterize so many so zealous in their war against life in our  present culture of Death?