Saturday, May 04, 2013

WHY OUR BISHOPS ARE SO INEFFECTUAL IN STOPPING SAME-SEX MARRIAGE


Rhode Island has legalized same-sex marriage and Archbishop of Providence has issued a letter:



The letter is an excellent example of why our bishops are so ineffectual in slowing the march to same-sex marriage. Here is a sample paragraph:

And because “same-sex marriages” are clearly contrary to God’s plan for the human family, and therefore objectively sinful, Catholics should examine their consciences very carefully before deciding whether or not to endorse same-sex relationships or attend same-sex ceremonies, realizing that to do so might harm their relationship with God and cause significant scandal to others.

After stating that ssm's are objectively sinful, he tells Catholics to consult their consciences and that supporting ssm's MIGHT (!!!) harm their relationship with God. Well then I guess it's 50/50.

Friday, May 03, 2013

THE JACOB ROHR BARN RAISING 1888



The 1888 Jacob Rohr barn raising was a major event for the Rohr family and more than 200 neighbors and friends. They assembled on the Ohio Route 241 site in Jackson Township where Shady Hollow Country Club is today. While the men worked on the structure, the women, according to the late Albert Hise, former Massillon Museum curator, provided 110 beef roasts, five hams, 100 loaves of bread, and 100 pies. 

Photographer Theodore C. Teeple, who operated The Trio Galleries in Massillon, Wooster, and Ashland, is believed to have photographed the event, creating an image that would be seen internationally eighty years later. He recorded the event on a glass plate negative measuring 8.5 by 6.5 inches. (It is possible that Massillon photographer Louis Volkmor, who did much of Teeple’s work outside Wooster, actually photographed the barn raising.) 

Glass plate negatives, sometimes called the wet plate negatives, were created by the collodion process. They were prevalent from 1851 until about 1900. It was the first widely employed photographic process using a negative image on a transparent photographic medium. The previously popular daguerreotype produced a one-of-a-kind positive image on metal that could not be replicated easily. Employing the collodion process, a photographer could create an unlimited number of prints, typically on 
albumen-coated paper, from each negative.

The barn raising plate was stored with many significant glass negatives in the Yost Building at 46 Erie Street South in downtown Massillon. In 1957, as the third floor of that building burned, firefighter Walt Shafrath recognized their historic value and rescued the plates that have become part of the Massillon Museum’s permanent collection. 

The photograph first appeared publicly in the 1968 American Heritage coffee table book, American Album, as a double-page spread. Seven years later the publisher used it in another large format volume, Hometown U.S.A. The Museum immediately received requests from around the world to reproduce the barn raising photograph. It has appeared in history, business, sociology, psychology, geography, and architecture texts. The national United Way organization printed the image on the cover of its 1981 annual report. When the Ohio Historical Society used it the same year on a fund-raising booklet, they provided the Museum with a copy negative, which eliminated most of the disfiguring blemishes and allowed the original glass plate to remain safely in storage. 

Murals of the photograph have hung in the headquarters of the U.S. Postal Service and in Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., as well as in a number of U.S. embassies. The American Film Institute used the image for a 1973 government-funded film, The Far West. President Reagan’s special task force on volunteerism used it—and asked the Museum to volunteer the print free of charge for their cause. America the Beautiful, a non-profit corporation assisting communities with environmental improvement, published a large Rediscover America poster featuring the barn raising. Reader’s Digest featured the photograph in their advertising campaign for a set of presentation pages to accompany the volunteerism commemorative postage stamp. 

One of the most innovative applications of the image was the brainchild of Sunkist Orange Growers, who used the scene as the pattern for their 1982 Rose Bowl Parade float. Men waved carpentry tools and a hat from the top beam while Miss Arizona and Miss California rode below. 

The Massillon Museum introduced the barn raising locally on the cover of its 1980 membership brochure. Whatever the use of the Rohr barn raising photograph, it always illustrates the spirit of sharing, helping, working together, or volunteering.

Thursday, May 02, 2013

UK Govt-Run Health System so Bad, Brits Want Assisted Suicide

UK Govt-Run Health System so Bad, Brits Want Assisted Suicide

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MICHELLE!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST HUMAN BEINGS WHO JUST HAPPENS TO BE OUR FIRST BORN DAUGHTER, MICHELLE!

IF PARENTING DOES THIS TO YOU THEN YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG


I know people might think this is funny, and I can excuse them for thinking so. But if this is what parenting does to you then you are doing it wrong, very wrong. 



One look at my wife, the mother of eleven children, will tell you that if you are anything like this cartoon, then you are doing it wrong, very wrong.

FUNNY: SAY WHAT YOU WILL ABOUT THE SOUTH


RESPONSE TO: "CONFESSIONAL NOT A DRY CLEANER", SAYS POPE

"Confessional not a dry cleaner," says pope - National Catholic Register


The problem is not that we do not want to avail ourselves of this sacrament. The problem is that many priests are so out of practice from having not heard confessions for so many years - or were never properly trained that they simply do not understand the difference between hearing confession and counseling or spiritual direction.

For any priest who is reading this, may I humbly suggest that if you feel counseling is needed, to please invite the person - if he or she feels the need - to come and speak with you at another time, but otherwise stick to hearing the confession - unless of course the confessee prefers to talk....but even then, confession may not be the best time for that especially if others are waiting.

Also, may I request that you please do your best to respect the anonymity of the confessee if he or she has chosen to confess anonymously. Sometimes the questions are an infringement on the right to anonymity. I once had a priest who began asking me questions about the size of my family. I answered, and he said "ah-hah"...and then proceeded to take liberties to speak to me personally. I felt violated. I was behind the screen for a reason.

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN'S RIGHTS ACTIVISTS?



But what I want to know is where are all the women's rights activists when you need them? 

Collins' girl-friend was apparently lied to and used for eight years. No love for the girl in the story? The guy uses a girl for eight years, leads her on to think they will get married and have children, even gets engaged to her...and then dumps her. And he gets a call from the President congratulating him for his courage???? 

Really? If women rights groups don't come to the support of Carolyn Moos then they have fully discredited themselves. In the end it's all about liberalism not people.



THE NUMBER ONE REMEDY FOR REDUCING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

"...marry a decent man and stay married to him, because such married women are less likely than any other group of Americans to be victims of a felony."

- The Primitive Cruelty of Modern Love, Crisis Magazine




Wednesday, May 01, 2013

THE FIRST REAL (AND INESCAPABLE) TEST FOR POPE FRANCIS

Marini on Same-Sex Unions: Currying Favor with Pope Francis?

Before I comment, I want to share that in general my respect for individuals as persons and as friends is not influenced by how I feel about issues. As Chesterton said: "we are all in the same boat, and we are all seasick."

Agree with it or not, the Catholic Church simply teaches that the use of sex for anything other than its God-ordained purpose - to be placed at the service of life - is sinful. To what degree it is sinful depends on several factors. But in general homosexual acts are considered by the Catechism to be less sinful than contraceptive acts between married persons: calling homosexual acts only "disordered" and contraceptive acts "evil".

Thus the Church, and this particular Archbishop, can no more call for the legitimization of same-sex unions than it can for cohabitation between opposite sex couples. Neither fulfills the vision of Jesus when in Matthew he says "from the beginning it was not so", and recalls us to God's original order.

The Archbishop is taking liberties with the moral principle "the lesser of two evils" beyond what is intended, and beyond what can be considered moral reasoning. However, the fact that he does is nothing new. Every major heresy in the history of Christianity was started by a priest, bishop, or monk. Ultimately Rome spoke. Given this Pope's unpredictable style...we wait and see.

RESPONSE TO "COURAGEOUS PRIEST" POST "WHY AMERICAN CATHOLICS ARE NOT OKAY"

A response to WHY AMERICAN CATHOLICS ARE NOT OKAY.

I am not a fan of the website COURAGEOUS PRIEST. More often than not it posts shallow knee-jerk conservatism and mistakes it for orthodoxy. Here's my comment on the post below:

Really? Cultural Catholicism is the FIRST problem? What the author fails to note is that all those cultures had the same Mass and worshipped in one language. That is what tied them to the universal church and produced generations of fervent Catholics and overwhelming amounts of vocations. 

What happened is, we saw fit to inculturate the Mass itself. It was when we started having spanish masses, mexican masses, polish masses, youth masses, folk masses, organ masses, and whatever you want masses, that the masses began to depart from Catholicism. This isn't mere speculation. Graph it. Look at the when the mass exodus (pun intended) began. 

And what followed is total moral confusion, for as the liturgy goes, so goes the church. We now have a moral babylon, but it first followed the destruction of the Mass. Very sad. And very sad that we point fingers at everything else.




Monday, April 29, 2013

Regular citizens need access to counsel - Guam Pacific Daily News, April 29, 2013


Or it could have been titled: HOW BILL 54 DIED.

The Guam Pacific Daily News hosts a weekly Sunday Forum. This week's topic is related to Law Week. The issue is EQUALITY. I make a case for the necessity of equality of representation in holding accountable those who make the laws when they break the laws.

Lex rex or rex lex? The law is king or is the king the law? The American system of government is a yet young, still fragile, experiment in lex rex -- the success of which requires constant vigilance in a world which is ever slouching toward tyranny.

Read more at the Guam PDN here, or here
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