Take Scripture on Holiday, Says Pope

I always do!

Pope Benedict XVI has advised holidaymakers to pack a copy of Sacred Scripture in an address to pilgrims at Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi said the Pope had made “brief but important [holiday] suggestions” to pilgrims over the past few weeks.

His suggestion to “include a copy of the Sacred Scriptures in our suitcase” follows on from his call last year for Catholics to become more familiar with the Bible.

Speaking to Vatican Television, Fr Lombardi said: “First of all, [the Pope] invited those of us who can, to use our vacation time in a way that helps renew our relationships with others and with God. Interrupting the hectic and frantic pace of daily life, we can take time to dedicate ourselves to others and to God.

“The Pope even suggested we include a copy of the Sacred Scriptures in our suitcase. He also invited us to contemplate the greatness, and admire the beauty, of creation around us, recognising in it the wonderful presence of the Creator…

Read on here.

Justice Before Forgiveness

Pretoria – Justice has to be done before forgiveness can be considered for the killer of a Catholic priest in Diepsloot, a missionary told the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Thursday.

Father Sean O’Leary said he was sure their congregation and God would eventually forgive self-confessed killer Nelson Kabelo Malope, 20, but the church wanted to see justice done first.

Malope told the court he murdered Father Louis Blondel, 70, in 2009 and robbed him and fellow priest Guido Bourgeois because he wanted money for drugs and alcohol.

He said he and a group of four friends had decided to rob Father Blondel because they had an order for a computer.

Malope, who comes from Groblersdal, had only been in Diepsloot for four days when he murdered the respected priest.

O’Leary said if the court was lenient in sentencing Malope, it would send out the message that it was okay to kill a priest because they were easy targets.

“You can’t go around in the street at 02:00 in the morning with a gun and shoot a priest. It’s not acceptable,” he said

“The church is looking for justice. Not revenge. Just justice.”…

Read on here.

Malope has been convicted and found guilty of the killing. The case is postponed to 05 September.

Catholic Bishops Urge House Against Steep Budget Cuts

In America.

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops are urging the GOP-led House to reject a cuts-only approach to the budget as Washington tries to avert an unprecedented government default on its multi-trillion-dollar debts.

“A just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons,” wrote Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., and Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, N.Y., in a Tuesday (July 26) letter to House members.

The bishops said balancing the budget “requires shared sacrifice by all,” and called for raising revenues, eliminating unneeded military and other spending, and addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs fairly.

Blaire heads the bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; Hubbard the Committee on International Justice and Peace.

The bishops’ call for balancing spending cuts with new revenues tends to echo the approach of President Obama and other Democrats.

That stance has been rejected by the House, including Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Budget Committee Chair Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., both of whom are Catholic.

In their two-page letter, the bishops also write that the bill being considered by the House requires “massive cuts” in international assistance to the poor that they find unacceptable.

The bishops say they recognize “the difficult challenges” of getting the nation’s financial house in order, but they echo the arguments of many other religious groups by declaring that the budget is a moral document.

“The needs of those who are hungry and homeless, without work or in poverty should come first,” the bishops said.

Matters financial are getting out of control in the US it would seem…

Reuters tries to make sense of the debt crisis with a snapshot of what is actually going on here.

Tomb of St Philip Discovered in Turkey

That’s the claim:

The tomb of St. Philip the Apostle, one of the original 12 disciples of Christianity’s central figure Jesus Christ, has been discovered during the ongoing excavations in Turkey’s south-western province of Denizli.

Italian professor Francesco D’Andria, the head of the excavation team at the Hierapolis ancient city in Denizli, told reporters on Tuesday that experts had reached the tomb of St. Philip whose name is mentioned in the Bible as one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus.

Professor D’Andria said archeologists had been working for years to find the tomb of the Biblical figure, and finally, they had managed to reach the monument while working on the ruins of a newly-unearthed church in Hierapolis.

D’Andria said the structure of the tomb and the writings on it proved that it belonged to St. Philip the Apostle, who is recognized as a martyr in the history of Christianity.

Describing the discovery as a major development both for archeology and the Christian world, D’Andria said the tomb, which had not been opened yet, was expected to become an important Christian pilgrimage destination.

Hierapolis, whose name means “sacred city”, is an ancient city located next to the renowned Pamukkale, white Travertine terraces, in Denizli province. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The city, famous for its historical hot springs used as a spa since the 2nd century, is a mixture of Pagan, Roman, Jewish and early Christian influences.

Ancient tradition associates Hierapolis with St. Philip the Apostle, who is believed to have died in the city around 80 AD. The follower, who is known as the apostle who preached in Greece, Syria, and Phrygia, is said to have been martyred in Hierapolis. The legend is that St. Philip was crucified upside-down or martyred by beheading.

After the apostle’s death, an octagonal tomb named “The Martryium” was erected for him where he is believed to have been martyred.

Fox also reports on the news here.

As does Hurriyet Daily:

… We are extremely happy and proud to have discovered the grave of a saint whose name appears in the bible – this surely is an important discovery for religious tourism, archaeology and Christendom,” the professor said.

John Stott Has Died

An evangelical of note,  John Sott, has died:

The Rev John Stott, who helped lead a resurgence of evangelicalism in Britain, has died at the age of 90.

US preacher Billy Graham paid tribute to him, saying the evangelical world had lost one of its greatest spokesmen.

Dr Stott’s wide-ranging influence came partly from more than 50 books which helped to explain complex theology in a way lay people could easily understand.

The BBC’s Robert Pigott said Dr Stott was good at simply expressing “the complexities of theology”.

Our religious affairs correspondent said: “Some regarded this key figure in a traditionalist branch of Protestantism, with its emphasis on winning souls for Christianity, as a kind of ‘Protestant pope’.”

Seen as a leading figure in promoting evangelical churches in the developing world, Dr Stott did not become as well known as some other leading evangelists.

He played a critical role as a Christian thinker, helping to revive evangelicalism in England after World War II at a time when this traditionalist Protestant branch of Christianity had lost almost all its influence and its followers were widely derided as uneducated.

Born to an agnostic father and a Lutheran mother, Dr Stott was ordained a minister in the Church of England.

He gained popularity as a preacher, stressing the need for social responsibility.

In 1974 Dr Stott was one of the principal authors of the Lausanne Covenant, which laid out the beliefs on which evangelicalism was built into a worldwide movement.

However, it was his success in decoding the complexities of theology for lay people for which he will be best remembered.

Billy Graham described Dr Stott as a “friend and advisor” and said he looked forward to meeting him in heaven.

Wikipedia has more on him here.

There is a memorial website here.

And the Archbishop of Canterbury remembers John Stott here.

RIP.

Allegations of Clerical Abuse Double in a Year

The Catholic Herald has the sad news:

The number of people in the Catholic Church accused of sexual or physical abuse has more than doubled between 2009 and 2010, according to the latest annual report by the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission (NCSC).

The Commission has attributed the rise to the papal visit, during which Pope Benedict met victims of abuse and professionals employed to safeguard the young and vulnerable within the Catholic Church.

The report, released today, said: “The NCSC is both challenged and heartened by the fact that last year and, in particular, following the Pope’s visit more people have felt confident enough to come forward to report incidents of abuse in the hope of finding some kind of reconciliation and closure.”…

The Commission, chaired by Baroness Patricia Scotland of Asthal, found that of the total allegations of abuse made last year, the majority were alleged to have taken place during the 1970s or earlier. Last year there were 83 allegations of abuse relating to 92 alleged abusers and 103 victims…

Rest here.

Ongoing Vandalism in Munich Church

The St.-Georgkirche in the North Munich neighborhood of Milbertshofen: Youth disturb evening Mass, ignite paper and throw it on the pews, they even urinated in the baptismal fonts.
Munich (kath.net) The ongoing vandalism in the church of St. George in the North Munich neighborhood of Milbertshofen is becoming more than a nuisance. Youth have disturbed the evening Mass, ignited paper and threw it on the pews, they even urinated in the baptismal fonts. The youth are known by name, according to the “Süddeutsche”. Pastor Olivier Ndjimbi-Tschiende has written a letter to local politicians in the area, receiving immediate support as well as the advice to turn to the police.

The Pastor of St. George, Olivier Njdimbi-Tshiende, had withdrawn an ad that described the church community as child friendly. Anton Peter of the church administration reported that the church community has tried to work with the families of youth, but these have shown “no interest”.

The above was reported on here.

Creepy and Disturbing: Anders Behring Breivik Read My Blog

Well not mine (that I know of) but Fr Dwight Longenecker’s:

I learned over the weekend that the Norwegian assassin/terrorist actually read my blog.

Here’s how it happened: On Saturday I noticed a surge in my hits. When I checked the referral I saw that they were coming from a Norwegian website that Anders Breivik had been contributing to, and that in November 2009 he linked to one of my posts.

The post was one of my usual rants about modernist Christianity, and when I later saw a translation of Breivik’s comments about my post it was nothing extreme or weird in itself.

Nevertheless, to think that my blog is out there as part of this new global publishing phenomenon and that anybody at all can read it is always amazing. To think that this madman read at least one post on my blog was disturbing at first. Naturally I wondered if I had written anything to prompt such hatred and violence.

I don’t think I have. Still, I was creeped out by it. Breivik is clearly both mad and bad, and I guess all we can do in the face of such horror is be silent and pray.

Well Fr Longenecker, we can’t help who reads what we write and why (or what they will do with that information for that matter). I read your blog regularly (and it is happily even a part of my blogroll) because I am edified through what you write. The sad thing here is that Breivik clearly was not. And that is not your fault.

But I suppose this all just goes to show how important it is to watch what we say (and write) in life.

Googling for Madness

Anders Behring Breivik absorbed all of his murderous ideology from the internet.

It wasn’t Christian fanaticism or right-wing fanaticism or even anti-Muslim fanaticism that drove Anders Behring Breivik, the man who slaughtered about 90 people in Norway on last Friday, into madness. It was Google.

Hungry for explanations why the 32-year-old detonated a fertilizer bomb that left eight dead in the heart of Olso and then shot dead about 70 more at a youth camp run by the Norwegian Labour Party on a nearby island, the media have been trawling through a 1500-page document that Breivik posted to his Facebook friends before his killing spree. He titled it “2083 – A European Declaration of Independence”.

It was a clever publicity stunt. Now his bizarre theories about the dominance of cultural Marxism, the failure of multiculturalism and the invasion of Islam are flying around the internet. He even created an FAQ about his personal life and program, including questions about his favourite beer, films and eau de cologne…

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. This calamity has been used to vindicate condemnations of right-wing politicians, opposition to Muslim migration and Christianity. But triumphantly plucking damning quotes from his 1500-page rubbish heap proves nothing.

Breivik was utterly inconsistent. He describes himself as a Christian, a Freemason and an Odinist (a revival of Scandinavian paganism). The two figures he most admires are Vladimir Putin and Benedict XVI. He budgets for an orgy with prostitutes to be arranged “just before or after I attend my final martyrs’ mass in Frogner Church.”

He speaks with the gravitas of both a theologian and a new atheist: “As for the Church and science, it is essential that science takes an undisputed precedence over biblical teachings. Europe has always been the cradle of science and it must always continue to be that way.” He rails against the destruction of family values and wants to implement a one-child policy in the developing world to save the environment.

The document has a hyperlinked table of contents with chapter headings and footnotes – all the paraphernalia of a scholarly article. But most of the material appears to have been copied and pasted from blogs and websites…

It has all been compiled with Wikipedia’s air of no-nonsense academic detachment, from its analysis of Muslim demography to description of how to purchase weapons for a mass murder.

In short, it is a 778,257-word demonstration that Google not only capable of  making us stupid, as Nicholas Carr argued in a famous article in Atlantic three years ago, but violent and full of hate…

Read the whole thing here. And from the conclusion:

… Surfing the internet gives you facts, not values to live by. You can only learn morality and self-knowledge through commitment and engagement with other people, not by googling. At a time when families are falling apart and many children are growing up without engagement with their parents, how many more Breiviks are out there?

Michael Voris Shunned by World Youth Day 2011 Organizers

CNA: Catechesis not approved.

Madrid, Spain – World Youth Day organizers said July 25 that the independent catechesis sessions offered by U.S.-based media producer Michael Voris during World Youth Day 2011 are not approved by the event. Voris responded with puzzlement that the announcement was made, stating that his organization has never represented itself as linked to the event.

“Participants in the World Youth Day 2011 Cultural Program must be recognized and endorsed by the bishops and episcopal conferences of their respective countries,” read a July 25 statement from the event’s organizers.

There had been “some confusion” about Voris’ affiliation with World Youth Day, organizers said, further noting that “Real Catholic TV” and Michael Voris’ catechetical session “No Bull in Madrid” have not received endorsements from the group’s local bishop—Archbishop Allen Vigneron of Detroit—or  the U.S. bishops’ conference.

They are “not in any way recognized or approved” by the official event. The Pontifical Council for the Laity selects and invites only bishops from around the world to conduct catechesis sessions at World Youth Day, the statement explained.

Participating organizations in the World Youth Day 2011 Cultural Festival are selected because they “promote the authentic teaching and unity” of the Catholic Church and have received the required endorsements.

Voris questioned why the announcement about his event had been made.

“We never said we were part of the official World Youth Day. I guess I’m puzzled as to why the announcement was issued,” he said in a July 25 interview with CNA.

He described himself as “a Catholic in good standing” with a theology degree from the Angelicum in Rome.

“Nothing that we have ever said has been challenged with regard to Church teaching,” he said.

Voris’ videos are often strident in tone, criticizing leading political, cultural and Church figures…

More here.