David Ancell / Monday, July 07, 2014 / Comments(0)
I have posted another Lunch Break episode.
One thing that I don’t hear much about is the obligation to rest on Sunday. Most serious Catholics know that we are bound under pain of mortal sin to attend Sunday Mass. However, the celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord goes beyond that. Sometimes we have no choice but to work, but we should do our best to keep the festive nature of the day and put aside any unnecessary business.
I’ve heard everything from “We don’t rest on Sundays anymore” to how we should go on welfare rather than take a job that requires us to work on Sunday. I’ve even heard someone say that they were told by someone that a nurse in the hospital shouldn’t work on Sunday because there are enough pagans to cover that day. None of this is correct. Hopefully, I can clarify some things about how we should observe the commandment to rest on Sunday.
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Tuesday, July 01, 2014 / Comments(0)
It’s all over the news now. It’s on the Internet, so it must be true. Pfizer, Wal-Mart, and Apple are raising religious objections to paying taxes (warning: link contains vitriol). GM now has religious objections to paying employees, so they are going to stop. Rite Aid has religious objections to laws requiring a prescription in order to dispense medication, so now everyone can go there and get the “good stuff” any time. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that Hobby Lobby can’t be forced to provide insurance coverage for abortifacients contraceptives, they can all get away with this stuff, right? If not, maybe they could at least become Jehovah’s Witnesses and stop covering blood transfusions or something like that.
That’s what you might be led to believe if you listen to all the nonsense that is out there in the media about this, including the dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg wrote that the ruling was of “startling breadth” and would allow corporations to opt out of almost any law to which they raised a religious objection. Well, now, according to her, corporations that don’t want to follow the law now need only make up a religion and decide that following the law will be against their beliefs. Surely they will get away with it even if there is zero evidence of any such beliefs (or any beliefs at all) predating this ruling.
Well, actually, the more “startling breadth” is really in Ginsburg’s dissent. Indeed, I’ve read similar stuff from some columnist who spouted out that he was “in favor of religious freedom” as long as they “obey the law.” If so, this logic could be applied against any challenge to any law based on religious freedom. They seem to forget that we have a Constitution that dictates that certain laws can’t be made in this country. This is the issue that was at stake. Does the Department of Health and Human Services have the right to issue this mandate? If a law can’t be challenged because it’s an unnecessary infringement on one’s Constitutional rights, then the Constitution isn’t worth squat. Further, if protecting a company’s rights has broad implications, then so does not doing so. Are we going to give the government the power to require companies to pay for cosmetic surgery, tanning sessions, or Botox to remove wrinkles?
A compelling interest must exist in order to limit religious Freedom, and it has to be done in the least restrictive manner necessary. Sadly, the issue of a compelling interest was basically sidestepped even in the majority ruling. You could find compelling reasons to require coverage of vaccinations, blood transfusions, and psychiatry, but contraception is not essential health care despite what the left wants it to be. It is a lifestyle choice. The “need” for it can be eliminated by simple self control.
It also defies logic to say that for-profit businesses do not have rights. Businesses in this country tend to be owned by human beings. If a business doesn’t exist to serve customers and make a living for its owners, all of whom happen to be people, then why does it exist? No business is an impersonal entity, even though some corporations may seem that way. Owners have rights, too.
Are we to say that, the moment you are out in society to make a living, you have to leave your very mission and purpose in life behind? Can someone not start a business to further his/her mission and make a living doing it? This would basically reduces one’s faith to a random, arbitrary thought or personality quirk that has no place in the “real” world. It would be fine to have those beliefs, as long as you don’t actually take them seriously when running a business. I’m always amazed at how people who accuse others of blindly following a religion will blindly assume that religious beliefs are all arbitrary and cannot be substantiated.
The way some of those protest signs read (eg “Keep my boss out of my bedroom.”), you’d be forgiven for thinking that his case was about whether your boss could search your house for condoms and packs of Ortho Tri-Cyclen. It isn’t. It’s about whether your boss can be forced to pay for your contraception (or at least the premiums to cover it). Your boss shouldn’t be able to control what you do outside of work that closely. However, not being required to pay for something does not give that person control over someone’s life. No one is trampling any rights here, as though there were a right to contraception. The mandate to cover contraception was going to do little more than ensure that only people without morals (or at least without any that they take seriously) can run a business. We have seen enough problems in our nation without barring people of real faith from leadership in the business world.
David Ancell / Tuesday, July 01, 2014 / Comments(0)
I have added another Lunch Break episode.
It’s pretty well-known that stealing is a sin, and most people know that taking a candy bar out of a grocery store or a DVD out of an electronics store is stealing. However, there are other forms of stealing that we might not think about. Also, did you know that a sin of stealing requires a duty of restitution in order to be forgiven? As one examination of conscience put it, every stolen penny must be paid back before we can enter Heaven.
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Monday, June 23, 2014 / Comments(0)
I’ve posted another Lunch Break edition of my podcast.
We often hear people talk about gossip, but actually, you won’t find the word in the Cathechism of the Catholic Church. What you will find are calumny, detraction, and rash judgment. There may be other circumstances in which talking about other people is sinful, but we’ve definitely crossed the line when we are attacking the character of another without justifying cause. I talk about those thing in this podcast. Here’s one take-home point: just because something is true doesn’t mean we automatically have the right to tell everyone we know.
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Thursday, June 19, 2014 / Comments(0)
A couple of weeks ago, my family and I were on vacation visiting family. As we always like to do when we visit this city, we took a walk through the attractive/upscale shopping and dining area. It’s just a beautiful place to take a walk. This time, I noticed something I didn’t remember seeing before.
Down one street I found the Seventh Church of Christ, Scientist. Across the street from there was a Unity Temple. The Christian Scientists were a sect founded by a woman named Mary Baker Eddy based on some supposed insight on healing. They are the ones who don’t believe in the use of medicine. The Unity Temple is some kind of church that seeks a “unity” and “peace and harmony” that doesn’t appear to be based on anything but just letting people believe whatever they believe. Their web site, which I won’t link to here, has as a principle that we create our life experience through our own thoughts.
From that location, I decided to search for the nearest Catholic Church. This would be a place that could really use a place to encounter our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. To my dismay, I found that the nearest Catholic Church was the Cathedral four miles away. It’s not too far, but it’s not too close either. So, I had to ask, where are we?
Why aren’t we there? It just reminded me more that we need to be where the people are, trying in whatever way we can to bring people to an encounter with Our Lord. If someone doesn’t help feed the hungry, they will seek whatever food they can find. Sadly, that food will never satisfy like the fullness of truth. Just imagine if there were a church or chapel there where people could stop and pray in the presence of the Eucharist. Maybe they could go to Confession and be reconciled with God. We could even leave some materials where interested people could discover the Catholic faith.
One place where evangelization is badly needed is simply among where ordinary activity of people takes place. We should be there, not to try to shove something down their throats, but to engage them, inform them, and ultimately challenge them to explore the truth. If other groups are there, why aren’t we?
David Ancell / Wednesday, June 18, 2014 / Comments(0)
I’ve posted another Lunch Break edition of my podcast.
In this podcast, I decided to go back to a more serious note and talk about lesser known sins. There are sins that I don’t hear a lot of people talk about or seem to know about, and I want to talk about them here. In this episode, I’m talking about sins of thought and how they are committed, as well as how a bad thought might not be a sin if consent of the will is not given.
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Tuesday, June 10, 2014 / Comments(0)
I’ve posted another Lunch Break edition of the podcast.
I’m not an expert on teaching children by any means. Most catechesis I’ve done is with adults. However, I’ve learned a thing or two having a toddler, and it’s actually fascinating and fun. Here is how we’ve begun immersing the toddler in the faith. We want him to know that this isn’t just something we do on the side, but it’s the center of our lives.
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Tuesday, June 03, 2014 / Comments(0)
I have posted another Lunch Break episode.
This is the last part of the miniseries, if you call it that, that I did on how God can be known. I’ve heard people talk about the problem of evil or corruption in the Church as an obstacle to belief in God. However, this really can be an argument for, rather than against, Christianity. We are saved by the Cross of Christ. Evil is the result of our rebellion against God. The Scriptures are full of examples of rebellion even among God’s chosen people and sometimes their leaders. However, in the end, God wins. To look only at the evil and corruption is to take a cynical, one-sided view. Look at the saints and what they did with the help of God’s grace!
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Saturday, May 31, 2014 / Comments(0)
I’ve just posted a new podcast episode.
I must admit that this one is much later than I planned it. I wanted to have something posted on the Blessed Virgin Mary in May, which is the month in which we especially honor her. However, here I am at 11:20 PM CDT on May 31st putting this up.
Just for fun, in the first segment, I decided to introduce Benedict, my second son, to the podcast listeners. He actually stayed with me for the second segment as my co-host. I did this with Simon when he was first born, so now that I’m back to podcasting, it’s Benedict’s turn. Then, in the second segment, I did a quick overview of the Church’s teaching on the Blessed Virgin Mary. If you want something more extensive on the subject, I did do an RCIA teaching that you can get here.
I’ve been doing some tweaks to try to improve the sound quality of my podcasts, and I think this is the best audio quality I’ve been able to achieve to date. If you’ve been listening to other shows, you may wish to turn your volume down before listening to this one because it actually has a higher volume level. Enjoy!
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Monday, May 26, 2014 / Comments(0)
I have posted another Lunch Break edition of my podcast.
This is the second part of my short talks on how God can be known. We cannot scientifically prove the things of God, but neither can we scientifically prove that all knowledge can be proven by science. We can know who God is through revelation and history. The third and final talk in this series will be posted hopefully next week.
Category: Uncategorized