Wednesday, December 21, 2005

They just. don't. get it.

The new issue of Newsweek has the stars of the movie The Da Vinci Code (Tom Hanks plays the lead [thanks, Tom]) on its cover. In the cover story, writer Devin Gordon refers to the "inflammatory, if well-traveled, conspiracy theory" of the novel: "that Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a daughter, whose bloodline has survived into present-day Europe—and that the Catholic Church has been covering up the "truth" for 2,000 years."

What Mr. Gordon doesn't mention -- presumably because he doesn't know any better -- is that there is something a teeny bit more inflammatory about this fiction-posing-as-truth: that Jesus of Nazareth was not God.

No biggie, though.

Oh: please don't comment on how I'm being ridiculous because "it's just a novel". Brown believes the basic lines of the thesis, and his forward tries to pass the thesis off as true. And early on, he relentlessly asserted the factuality of his historical assertions (until experts and other informed commenters started demonstrating their utter falsity). Not only that, but plenty of people apparently think it really is true.

So: if that's your line, don't bother.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Iraq = Vietnam?

As I've said before, nope.

Read more here.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

SSA and the priesthood

Robert Gotcher has a very interesting post on the issue of same-sex attraction and the priesthood in light of the recent Vatican instruction on the issue.

I highly recommend you check it out.
Jesuit, not Catholic

From the Boston College student newspaper:
    The Issue: BC denies GLBT dance due to conflict with the church
    What we think: BC should follow Jesuit values, not Catholic doctrine
In the latter line, one finds a contradiction: there is no conflict between Jesuit values and Catholic doctrine. Period.

Monday, December 05, 2005

How 'bout that

Turns out that the day after Thanksgiving is not the biggest shopping day of the year.

Hm.

HT: Bill Cork.
"Without Roots"

In case you haven't heard, that's the title of a forthcoming book in english translation written by Pope Benedict. The subtitle indicates the nature of the work: "Europe, Relativism, Christianity, Islam". It's due out on February 1st.

See here for more.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

The German takes a Pole, the Pole takes a French, hi-ho the derry-o...

Earlier today I received an email from a fellow Romano, Fr. David Pignato of the Diocese of Fall River. Fr. Pignato and I had classes together at the Angelicum, and among our professors was a polish priest, Fr. Wojciech Giertych, OP.

Fr. Giertych is an outstanding moral theologian. He is especially liked by his students for his Fundamental Moral Theology course, which I (unfortunately) did not "have" to take because I had a similar course in my undergrad years at Steubenville. In my case (and Fr. David's as well), I had Fr. Giertych for a seminar on Veritatis Splendor.

In the last few years, Fr. Giertych's teaching load at the Angelicum was lightened as he took on greater administrative responsibilities for the Dominican order.

Today, his load got a whole lot lighter.

In his email, Fr. David informed some of his fellow Angelicum alumni that Fr. Giertych was appointed today as the Theologian of the Papal Household! Fr. Giertych succeeds Fr. Georges Cottier, another Dominican who held the office since 1989.

As tonight's Zenit story explains (it'll be up at the website tomorrow), the role of the Theologian of the Papal Household is to give the nihil obstat to all the texts written by those who collaborate with the pope in the preparation of addresses, messages, etc. The office was first held by St. Dominic in the 13th century, and ever since then has been held by a Dominican.

This is exciting news for anyone who knows Fr. Giertych; let's make sure that he's in our prayers as he undertakes this new position.

St. Dominic, pray for us!