David Ancell's Virtual Home

Oh, and do please let me clarify my last post. I don’t just want to be an attack dog. I want to support all that is good and holy as well. If all I do is complain, I will be one bitter man when I grow old (which will be a long time from now-I’m only 27).

If you’ve been following other Catholic blogs, you’ve probably noticed a lot of strong statements. My own blogs may be regarded as some as such. I’ve sought some advice as well as e-mailed a couple of other bloggers whom I like to read. We all seem to have, to some degree, a struggle. How do we make strong statements when needed and still be charitable?

Like many Catholics, I have my share of frustration regarding what’s going on in the Church. I love the Church and her teachings. However, even before I was baptized in 1991, I had some sense that the Church’s teachings weren’t really being taught. People in the Church didn’t seem to know or understand them. If anyone spoke in the Church against her teachings, little was done about it. It was like the NAACP invited a Ku Klux Klan member to speak and then didn’t try to refute what he said. Now, this has culminated in this sexual abuse scandal that we see all over the news. Then, when the time comes to address it, the symptom (the sexual abuse) is treated (in the wrong way, in my opinion), but the disease (lack of proclamation of authentic Catholic teaching) and its cause go unaddressed. I cannot explain the grief in my soul.

My flesh wants to lash out and say uncharitable things, often in the name of making my blog entertaining. However, I really want to be an authentic, charitable Christian man. I don’t want to be an obstacle to someone’s acceptance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his Church. At the same time, I don’t think that all strong statements are uncharitable. Sometimes, the truth needs to be strongly proclaimed. I’ve heard people say that Jesus wouldn’t make strong statements, but Jesus forcefully drove the money changers out of the temple. If you look at an excellent book by David Mills, The Seeker’s Guide to Knowing the Real Jesus, you’ll see that the early Christians had some colorful words for the heretics.

So what’s my point . . . . I, like some others I have talked to, am struggling to discern how God wants me to use this blog. I try to attack bad ideas, not people. I do not want to commit a sin of rash judgement by judging someone’s intent without objective evidence of it. I really don’t want to be involved in detraction or calumny. Bishop-bashing is something I want to avoid like the plague. At the same time, I want to preach against the evil of our day, whether going on in the Church or elsewhere, but I have to be careful to do this without forgetting the evil in my own life for which I need repentance.

Any ideas? Comments? Please feel free to write.

Here’s a blog from Gregory Popcak on pre-nuptial agreements. I had some strange wondering as to whether such an agreement could make for an invalid marriage. It appears that it would.

One should always be very suspicious of “Catholic” groups that are endorsed by the media. Here’s a report on Catholic Exchange about Voice of the Faithful. I’ve looked at their website, and they go out of their way to look like a cordial group trying to help the Church. However, I’m naturally suspicious of these groups, and reports that I’ve seen show my suspicion to be well founded.

With the above being said, there is great temptation to forget that God does love these people. We must pray for their conversion.

If you aren’t a subscriber to the Words of Encouragement by Mark Shea and Jeff Cavins, I would encourage you to do so.

Take a look at today’s entry. You can easily go to any secular bookstore and buy books on the “new and improved Jesus” by these “scholars” who have the “historical Jesus” figured out. The aforementioned Word of Encouragement gives the perfect illustration of just how absurd their whole premise is. Did it ever occur to these guys that the people who lived at the time of Jesus probably knew more about what he said and did than they with their Ph.D. earned over 1900 years later?

While you’re at it, you might as well pick up a copy of Mark Shea’s book By What Authority (scroll down the page to find it, but do check out his other stuff, too). It gives an awesome overview of the real grounds for believing in the inspiration of Scripture.

I always thought that comic books were supposed to be fun reading for kids, but forget about putting this anywhere near any children I may have. It’s too bad . . . Green Lantern was one of my favorite superheroes as a kid. Why do we need a homosexual “coming out of the closet” story in a comic book?

Even if homosexuality were not an objectively disordered state, this obsessive drive to get the word out is, to say the least, really, really, annoying. The manner in which these people try to prove that they are normal invariably demonstrates the opposite. While it is true that there are people with homosexual tendencies striving to live a chaste life, even this isn’t acceptable subject matter for a comic book.

I just got a letter from Catholic Answers about World Youth Day. Apparently, there was concern that “Catholics” for a Free Choice was going to come and distribute tons of condoms. Well, according to this letter, they never showed. In fact, the letter goes on to state that only one group actually showed up to distribute condoms, and they had to go to other venues (e.g. shopping malls, theaters) to distribute them because the World Youth Day participants wouldn’t take them. Thanks be to God!

Today’s New York Times headlines digest featured this article claiming that lay people in the Catholic Church are frustrated by “aloofness” of the hierarchy. My reading of the article can be summed up as follows:

Cardinal Law didn’t want to accept money from the “moderate” Voice of the Faithful; therefore, the Cardinal must not care about lay people.

Indeed further in the article, one can find that Voice of the Faithful is pressing “for the laity to have a greater say in church policies” (supposedly without “alienating the Church hierarchy”). This all looks to me like a power struggle. Jesus said that a leader must serve others. If leaving the hierarchy as the governors of the church causes the Church to be governed by corrupt bishops, then having a lay-governed Church will cause the Church to be governed by corrupt lay people.

True, the article does mention that not everyone is unhappy, but it is still largely one-sided in that it doesn’t consider another very important point of view:

Check out the June 14, 2002 blog from Pete Vere and the blog by Mark Shea. I am in complete agreement with the aforementioned men about the abuse scandal. The sexual abuse is a horrible sin, but it is but one symptom of the larger problem of a lack of authentic faith. This problem is not just a problem of our Bishops. We also have a responsibility to learn the faith and proclaim it, but it’s very hard to do without the opportunity to gain an authentic formation. To gain authentic formation, we need a bishop who will work tirelessly to safeguard the teaching of the faith. We need the assurance that every program that is under the auspices of a parish or a diocese is 100% orthodox. We also have the duty to support our bishops when they work to give us that assurance.

There is hope. Yes, lay people will be a part of the reform of the Church. As I have said earlier, since we are just as much the Church as the hierarchy, we need to reform just as much as they do. We must resolve to live holy lives. We must learn our faith, love our faith, live our faith, and proclaim our faith wherever we are.

Here I am with another random rant . . . .

Sometimes I think that the very people who are trying to detract from the Church are actually saying exactly what we want them to say about the Church. They mean their comments as an argument against us, but really, they’ve told us that we are accomplishing our mission.

Back when Evangelium Vitae was written, I remember one detractor saying something to the effect of “The Pope is out of step with the modern world.” Think about this for a moment, and you might realize that this is really a compliment. I don’t know about you, but I sincerely hope that the Holy Father is way out of step with the Culture of Death that is rampant in the “modern world.” To be in step with this “modern world” is to march to the beat of Satan’s drum straight down the Road to Hell.

Another great line is that the teaching of the Magisterium is “far from the way people really live.” Did it ever occur to the authors of such statements that the teaching may be correct and “the way people really live” be wrong? If I am committing serious sin, then I would hope that the preaching of all of the ordained would be totally opposed to the way that I’m living. Given the fact that serious sins such as fornication and contraception have widespread acceptance in society, I hope that the teaching of the Magisterium is a long way from how people live.

With that being said, please pray for the souls of the people who write these things. I don’t remember who they are, but God does.

As much trouble as I often have doing this, I believe we should presume good will in people until demonstrated otherwise. I know I want the same treatment. Read the excellent book from Fr. Lawrence Lovasik, The Hidden Power of Kindness.

With that being said, it would be foolhardy to presume good will with people like NARAL, NOW, and Planned Parenthood. When “pro-choice” groups oppose every measure to help make the choice a free, informed choice, it’s a bit hard to believe that they are pro-any choice but abortion. This is why I use the term “pro-abortion.”

NARAL has even gone on record opposing the newly signed Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. This is scary, to say the least. The last thing we need in our society is to relegate personhood only to those who are “wanted.” After all, who is it who’ll get to decide who is truly “wanted.”

As a pro-life Catholic, I oppose abortion for any reason. It is morally indefensible. Here’s a thought for you . . . . if a baby is born prematurely the child will be given needed medical care to attempt to save him/her. However, a child of the same gestational age can be killed inside the womb by partial-birth abortion. What occurs upon exiting the womb that makes the child a person if he/she wasn’t before?

Here’s another thought . . . . I saw something in a book that said that a mother calls an unborn child a “baby” if she wants a child, and a “fetus” if she doesn’t. Well, how true this is, despite the fact that “fetus” is Latin for “unborn child”!! How many expectant mothers will say to you “My fetus is kicking.”?