David Ancell / Thursday, September 05, 2002 / Comments(0)
Our Sunday Visitor has had a recent article suggesting that an attack against Iraq would have moral problems with it. The HMS blog took it up. Here’s the Greg Popcak view vs. the Emily Stimpson view. Who wins? I don’t know.
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David Ancell / Wednesday, September 04, 2002 / Comments(0)
There are a few comments going around on other blogs about the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. Honestly, I don’t like it a bit. If I passed it on the highway, I would hardly be able to tell it’s a Catholic Church. The depiction of their conference center looks like an office park.
I feel fortunate to live in Memphis. Our Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception was renovated, and it is beautiful. In fact, it appears that almost every piece of artwork was preserved. The web site is found by clicking this link, but I had trouble finding a good picture of it.
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David Ancell / Tuesday, September 03, 2002 / Comments(0)
In the HMS blog, Gregory Popcak asked readers to pass this on. Apparently, there’s an interview with Phil Donahue in the September 2002 issue of Oprah magazine where Donahue talks about the time he filmed an abortion. Beware that there is a graphic and disturbing description at the bottom of the post. I am contemplating writing to both Donahue and Oprah about this. I would urge you to do the same. If you’re a subscriber to Oprah magazine (I am not, nor will I ever be.), I would also encourage you to write to the companies who advertise in that magazine.
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David Ancell / Monday, September 02, 2002 / Comments(0)
Did I mention that I enjoy reading Emily Stimpson’s blog? Many of her posts have been about issues dear to my heart, like this one on tabernacle placement.
Here’s my philosophy: If you have to have a sign to tell people where the tabernacle is or if one has to ask directions to find it, it’s in the wrong place (large cathedrals excepted). I only know of one church like this in the Memphis area, but there’s another one that has the tabernacle in the back corner of the church. Our cathedral has a separate Blessed Sacrament chapel, but you can see it from the pew.
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David Ancell / Monday, September 02, 2002 / Comments(0)
Truthfully, I watch very little television and very few movies. However, going to the Defending the Faith conference in Steubenville made it hard to resist purchasing Steve Ray’s video in his Footprints of God series entitled Mary, Mother of God. Steve Ray’s talk at the conference was outstanding, and so was this video. It has footage of the places where various biblical events occurred. In fact, there are churches built over most of them. In addition, he includes some nice apologetics to help you explain Marian dogmas to non-Catholics. I want to go out and buy the video on St. Peter.
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David Ancell / Monday, September 02, 2002 / Comments(0)
Finally, I made my first posting to the forum on the Catechism of the Catholic Church Internet Study Group. We’re discussing Scripture and Tradition. Some time in the future, I plan to write an article for my main site on why I don’t believe in Sola Scriptura. Here’s an excerpt from my post:
I am a convert who has been Catholic for 11 years. I had never belonged to any church before. Perhaps it was because of this that the idea that revelation does not come from Scripture alone was one of the easiest things for me to accept as a Catholic. The idea of there being a Tradition made perfect sense.
I knew well that the Bible did not drop from Heaven, nor was it written by Jesus himself. Further, many Christians lived and died before the Bible was even completely written, and more lived and died before it was compiled.
Either an outside authority (the Magisterium) affirms the inspiration of the Bible, or the Bible is the word of God because the Bible says it’s the Word of God. In the latter case, every book that says it’s the Word of God would then become the Word of God. It was the Church who declared which books went in the Bible. Even if a book in the Bible stated which books are inspired, how would you know that book is inspired?
Tradition and Scripture form the Deposit of Faith. I understand Tradition as that within which the Scripture must be understood (do correct me if I’m wrong). We have a body of teaching, and therefore we know that anyone whose interpretation of that Bible contradicts that teaching has an erroneous interpretation.
I have grown much in my understand of Scripture through reading, praying, thinking about the Scripture, and listening to some talks when available. God blessed me with a desire to read the Scriptures more often before I even started the RCIA process. All of the aforementioned must be done in light of the Tradition of the Church.
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David Ancell / Monday, September 02, 2002 / Comments(0)
I found this label on a loaf of IronKids brand bread:
Parents: The name “IronKids” is in reference only to a children’s fitness program and has no reference to either extra iron in this bread or to the bread resulting in superior strength or performance.
This reminds me of the sun shade designed for a car windshield that says “Remove from windshield before driving.” or the stroller that says on the label “Remove child from stroller before folding for storage.”
We get this stuff in the pharmacy world:
A guy who graduated a year ahead of me told me that they have a label on some head-lice shampoo (key word: shampoo) that says “For external use only.” Apparently, some parents were giving it to their kids orally.
When I was in my first semester of pharmacy school, a professor told us to always put “Unwrap and insert . . .” on the label of a suppository. Otherwise, we’d have a patient come back and say “That foil really hurts!!”
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David Ancell / Sunday, September 01, 2002 / Comments(0)
I finally got some links to other blogs posted on my template. I put the names of the people instead of the blog titles because I was afraid it would be too hard to read on my template. One of these days, I’ll make my own template.
Any suggestions of other blogs that I should link to? The ones I’ve picked are the ones I most often read.
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David Ancell / Sunday, September 01, 2002 / Comments(0)
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read stuff like yesterday’s New York Times article about September 11 lesson plans. Someone please explain the meaning of this one:
Among what Mr. Newberry called “100 gentle lessons” in the N.E.A. curriculum is one where middle school students make color wheels to relate color to how they feel.
Um . . . okay . . . so what color are you feeling today? If some teacher made me do this when I was in middle school, there would be smoke coming out of my nostrils. Then, I’d be dismissed as the school crank.
Here’s the response of Jerald Newberry, Director of the Health Information Network for the NEA, to critics of their suggestions:
The criticism to the lessons on tolerance, Mr. Newberry said, is thinly veiled bigotry. “If you boil down the concerns of the opposition, what I would call the far right, ultimately it boils down to is: `I am not comfortable with my child being in school with someone who’s different. I want to keep my child surrounded by people who are identical to me. The world is getting too diverse, and I’m scared.’ “
I must wonder if it ever occurred to the folks at the NEA that the problem with their lessons is that we don’t see the need to use this time to rehash every wrong done at the hands of an American. Our country is not perfect. However, regardless of the black marks on American history, what these guys did on September 11 was wrong. I agree that we shouldn’t tell our children that Islam is to blame, but we don’t need to hide the fact that the terrorists were Muslims. I wonder when the NEA will develop a lesson plan that says that we shouldn’t blame Catholicism for the sexual abuse of children by clergy. The principle is the same.
Really, I see a much broader problem involved. The NEA lesson plans are based on the principles of secularism and moral relativism in which tolerance is the only virtue and intolerance (i.e. declaring that some action is a sin) is the only sin. Therefore, considerations of good and evil were ruled about before September 11 ever happened. Along comes September 11, and a deed is done that can hardly be described as anything less than horrific evil. One would think that this would be enough to make someone believe that real evil exists, but for some this is not the case. In fact, they are attributing the terrorist act to the only evil they know . . . INTOLERANCE.
Sadly, secularists cannot see the whole picture. We as Catholics can. We know that evil is a reality. While we are horrified by September 11, we are not driven to despair. We have hope in a time that seems beyond hope. Our gracious and loving God will win in the end. The hope that we have enables us to see the day when we are united in Heaven, and none of this evil will ever happen again.
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David Ancell / Sunday, September 01, 2002 / Comments(0)
If you haven’t read this little classic on Catholic Exchange, you are missing out. It’s the best article I know that points out the absurdity of calling yourself Catholic and pro-“choice” at the same time.
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