So does this mean I can marry William?

from The Anchoress

She’s a bit late to the game, but Queen Elizabeth II wants to “celebrate diversity” and will apparently make a public statement to the effect that “that people should see each other as being individuals who are special.”

“Special” is the most overused, meaningless word currently in use in the English language. “Amazing” is coming a close second.

If the Queen starts talking about how “special” we all are, and how “amazing” everyone looks, the takeover of mediocrity - in language, social discourse, historical reference, etc - will be complete.

Now…Your Maj - I can call you “Maj,” right, since I’m special…how about the Catholics? Are they special yet? Can William marry one and keep his throne? Are we celebrating that much diversity, yet?

ME: When I was little my mom used to mention on and off that I was older than Prince William by a few months. This greatly excited me, being weaned on the Disney Princesses as I was, so I would always say, "so I could marry him!" Then Mom would inform me that I couldn't because I was Catholic. This was highly distressing because I wanted to marry a prince. As I got older and read more about the 'reasoning' behind this rule, I began to think that perhaps the royal life wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

But seriously, isn't this a little ridiculous? I know that one of the monarch's titles is "Defender of the Faith" or something like that (Churcha nd State, anyone? Oh wait...the Church was created by the state. A ha!). But this is kind of old. If William fell in love with a Catholic he should be allowed to marry a Catholic. Sheesh. Fortunately that didn't happen. (Well, fortunately for them)

Sign of the Cross

Do Protestants make it?

I was reading over at Open Book an article about this and I realized I had never noticed if my Protestant friends do or not. The only time I've been in a church with them for a service was when they went with me to Mass, and even then I didn't notice.

Anyone know?

Mary and the Evangelicals

Great pots over at First Things on Evangelicals and the "Mary issue." Well worth reading. Here's a bit:

So why should evangelicals participate in and celebrate the Marian moment that seems to be upon us? The answer is: Precisely because they are evangelicals, that is, gospel people and Bible people. Mary has a pivotal and irreducible place in the Bible, and evangelicals must reclaim this aspect of biblical teaching if we are to be faithful to the whole counsel of God. When it comes to the gospel, Mary cannot be shunted aside or relegated to the affectionate obscurity of the annual Christmas pageant. In the New Testament, she is not only the mother of the redeemer but also the first one to whom the gospel was proclaimed and, in turn, the first one to proclaim it to others. Mary is named a “herald” of God’s good news. We cannot ignore the messenger, because the message she tells is about the salvation of the world.

Evangelical retrieval of a proper biblical theology of Mary will give attention to five explicit aspects of her calling and ministry: Mary as the daughter of Israel, as the virgin mother of Jesus, as Theotokos, as the ?handmaiden of the Word, and as the mother of the Church. Consider Mary’s first title, Daughter of Israel. Mary stands, along with John the Baptist, at a unique point of intersection in the biblical narrative between the Old and the New Covenants. When Mary cradles the baby Jesus in the Temple in the presence of Anna and Simeon, we see brought together the advent of the Lord’s messiah, and the long-promised and long-prepared-for “consolation of Israel.” The holy family is portrayed as part of a wider community, namely “all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).

And the hits just keep on coming...

Memo to Bishop Schori: Open mouth, insert foot :)

From the Get Religion blog:

Presiding bishop wronged by shallow newspaper
Posted by tmatt

Thanks to the energy of GetReligion reader Greg Popcak, we now know that the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church does not share my enthusiasm for the contents of that strange little New York Times Magazine mini-interview with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

According to a letter from Robert B. Goodfellow, the new presiding bishop’s media aide, the brilliant primate, scientist and airplane pilot was quoted out of context by reporter Deborah Solomon and, if the remarks were read in context, all of those Roman Catholic and Mormon breeders out there in the blogosphere would not be as upset as they are at the moment (click here for background and URLs).

Here is the key part of that letter:

I am writing to thank you very much for the candid expression of your concern regarding the Presiding Bishop’s recent interview published in this past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.

The reality is that media interviews do not always convey the whole nature of a conversation had between interviewee and interviewer. A few paragraphs of text cannot distill with complete accuracy a lengthy conversation.

I can also assure you that the Presiding Bishop does not think other Christians uneducated, ignorant, illiterate, or somehow or otherwise not smart simply because they are not Episcopalian.

Note the presence of the words “simply because” in that latter statement. Classic!

Now, I have — back in the days before I was a columnist — been involved in a few of these exchanges with the media aides of brilliant, nuanced, complicated mainline Protestant intellectuals.

Note that Goodfellow does not claim Jefferts Schori was misquoted. The controversial quote stands. In other words, the new leader of the Episcopal Church did, while discussing membership losses in her church, truly say:

Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children. . . . We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.

Jefferts Schori’s office simply wants the world to know that she said many other things and that, as a reporter, Solomon did a poor job of selecting material from the longer interview when she was assembling this edgy little Q&A. I am told by people who spend more time than I do in The New York Times Magazine that this interview with the archbishop is a perfect example of Solomon’s style, which strives to humanize public figures by asking questions that are more personal and casual.

But here is my final observation. Many elite thinkers on the theological left have learned how to surround their beliefs in a kind of nuanced theological fog that serves as a protective barrier. Insiders know what the symbolic word clusters mean, but this strategy prevents many people in the pews — the kind of ordinary people who write checks — from understanding what is going on. There are exceptions, of course, such as the retired Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong of Newark, who never used a fly swatter when a baseball bat would do.

The problem for reporters is that when you select one crisp quote out of the fog this allows the offended intellectual to say, in effect, that the reporter simply wasn’t smart enough to understand the rich tapestry of the total interview and, thus, misquoted the speaker, even though the quote was accurate. It’s a sad thing, don’t you see, when leaders have to communicate high thoughts through such a low medium — like The New York Times.

Our sympathies go out to the poor reporter, who will surely learn from her error.

Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if Jefferts Schori continues — Spong style — to fire away as freely in interviews with news organizations that she trusts.

Wow! Nice to know you, too!

From Rod:
Lovely, kind words from Bishop Schori of ECUSA, re: CAtholics and kids.

Comprehensive -- that's today's euphemism for "as eager as possible to drive this sucker off the cliff with the windows down and horn blaring." Here is is used by Presiding Bishop Kathleen Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal Church, in an Q&A interview with the NYT Magazine:

Your critics see you as an unrepentant liberal who supports the ordination of gay bishops. Are you trying to bolster the religious left?

No. We’re not about being either left or right. We’re about being comprehensive.


Woo! Madame is even more enjoyable here:

How many members of the Episcopal Church are there in this country?L

About 2.2 million. It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children.

Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?

No. It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.


Translation: We Episcopalians are too smart and care too much about the planet to have all those kids, unlike those troglodytic Catholics and Mormons.

They may be dying on the vine, but at least they'll go out thinking well of themselves. Since there's apparently no hope of stopping the ongoing suicide of the Episcopal Church, I think I'll probably have to stop worrying about it on behalf of the good and long-suffering Episcopalian friends I have, and learn to enjoy this kind of thing. You really can't make comic characters like Bishop Schori up.

Gee, how's aobut "well, we don't have a comprehensive doctrine, we really don't beleive what the Bible teaches, and we've long since given up on having any actual positions on anything...that's why there's only 2.2 million of us left."

Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians and homosexuals...

a Change in doctrine? Read the WaPo story below...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/14/AR2006111401337.html

ME: one note... here's one choice bit from the article:

The decisions are part of a mounting backlash in many U.S. denominations against church groups whose stated goal is not only to welcome but also to "affirm" gay congregants. For many religious groups, the biblical injunction to hate the sin but love the sinner is no longer sufficient, because many believers do not view homosexuality as a sin.

Um, homosexual acts are condemned throughout the Bible. It's pretty clear how the Bible feels on this. So how can these denominations, who claim to be "Bible based", or follow Sola Scriptura claim that the Bible is wrong? Or at least that it's not "current"? That's essentially what they're doing with these rulings. How confused must their adherents be? "Well, only part of what's in the Bible is true...the rest we can 'interpret.'"

Reason 5,670,025 why I'm glad I'm Catholic.

Catholics and Evangelicals, unite!

Good news on the ecumencial/social issues front:

Catholic and Evangelical leaders who have issued a joint statement declaring that care for the vulnerable in society is an essential requirement of authentic Christianity which must reject any deliberate taking of innocent human life as murder.

“The direct and intentional taking of innocent human life in abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and embryonic research is rightly understood as murder,” the document That They May Have Life declares, from Evangelicals and Catholics Together.

Published in the October issue of the Catholic magazine First Things, the statement identifies the biblical foundations of the call to protect and care for the unborn, ill and dying in the Divine command to “love your neighbor.”

“The love for the neighbor begins…with respect for the neighbor’s right to be, by honoring the gift of God that is the neighbor’s life. Thus the most basic commandment of neighbor-love is ‘You shall not kill’ …rightly understood as ‘You shall not murder,’” the statement declares.

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief of First Things and a participant in drafting the document, said there was “intense” debate over the use of the term “murder,” in reference to abortion, in an interview with the Ledger.

“But we tried to be very precise, namely that any direct and deliberate taking of innocent human life is in ordinary language — and certainly in the language of the Western moral tradition — properly called murder,” he said.

The purpose of the statement is to “explain to our communities why we believe that support for a culture of life is an integral part of Christian faith and therefore a morally unavoidable imperative of Christian discipleship,” the authors write. “We believe it is of utmost importance that everyone involved in the public discussion of these questions understand the unbreakable connection between a Christian worldview and the defense of human life.”

“It is not the case that we wish to 'impose' our moral convictions on our fellow-citizens or, as some recklessly charge, to establish a 'theocracy.' Our intention is not to impose but to propose, educate and persuade in the hope that, through free deliberation and decision, our society will be turned toward a more consistent respect for the inestimable gift that is human life.”

The statement refutes the argument of compassion frequently used by those who promote abortion and euthanasia, saying:



“While we can sympathize with those who view their own life or the life of another as a burden and not a gift…there can by no moral justification for murder.

“We are determined to employ every legal means available to protect, in law and in life, the innocent and vulnerable members of the human community.”
The statement’s authors plead with the Christian community to recognize the central place of respect for human life within the beliefs of the Church, and call for a “reasonable deliberation” with those who disagree, in an attempt to move beyond “culture wars.”

“Our churches do not simply support the pro-life movement as a social cause. Because the gospel of life is integral to God’s loving purpose for his creation, the Church of Jesus Christ, comprehensively understood, is a pro-life movement continuing God’s mission until the end of time.

“We cannot and would not impose this vision of a culture of life upon others. We do propose to our fellow Christians and to all Americans that they join with us in a process of deliberation and decision that holds the promise of a more just and humane society.”

Catholic leaders who endorsed the statement include Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Fordham University, Fr. Francis Martin, a foremost Catholic theologian and member of Mother of God Community, and Mr. George Weigel, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Evangelical leaders included Mr. Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship, pastors Bill Hybels and Rick Warren, with the Willow Creek Community Church and Saddleback Church, respectively, and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

Read the full statement from Evangelicals and Catholics Together in First Things magazine.


(This article courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)