More Fool I

Alright, this is just absurd. On the one hand, the USCCB is attacking Obama for forcing them (the bishops) to pay for contraception. On the other hand, the USCCB is pushing forward the idea that taxpayers should pay to extend unemployment insurance (again).

And that's just the beginning of the rich irony.

You see, almost NONE of the parishes in the United States pay unemployment insurance. They get dispensed from the mandate to do so because they are religious organizations. So, if you are employed by a Catholic parish and you get laid off, so long, sucker.

You can't collect unemployment because your bishop hasn't paid into unemployment for you.
And, you'll be lucky to wring a month or two (8 weeks) of severance pay out of them, never mind 99 weeks. When the bishops started complaining about the HHS mandate, I thought they were, perhaps, finally waking up to economic and moral realities.

More fool I.

At the risk of being absolutely gauche, might I point out that if the bishops REALLY wanted unemployment benefits applied, they might try paying into the system themselves?

I mean, isn't it remarkable that a system they are recommending so strenuously to others is something they themselves deliberately refrain from participating in? It's almost as if they really don't care about social justice, isn't it? And if they did pay into the unemployment system themselves, and thereby paid for something which is most assuredly in line with Catholic teaching (preferential option for the poor, don'cha' know), then wouldn't it give them a lot more social capital (pardon the pun) on other issues... like.... oh, I don't know... can anyone think of an issue that's in the news in which the bishops might require some social capital? It might even involve paying for something that is NOT in line with Catholic teaching? Can anyone think of such an issue? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?

Better yet, how about the bishops stop volunteering other people's money and double down on being Catholic? That is, how about they use the coffers of the parishes and the dioceses to care for the poor? Again, it may be tactless to point this out, but that's what the Church did for over a thousand years before Bismarck created the welfare state, in what has turned out to be his successful effort to compete with the Catholic Church.

The Church used to boast of saintly bishops who gave up every vestige of personal wealth and offered all of the money to the poor as an example to others. When was the last time that happened?

I want to have rich, opulent churches to worship in - God is Beauty, after all.
But I kind of wonder about million-dollar mansions for the bishops.

There are roughly 300,000 individual Protestant congregations in the United States.
There are 195 Catholic dioceses and roughly 19000 parishes.
There were roughly 45,000,000 poor people in the United States in 2010.

If each Christian congregation adopted 140 people (at four people per family, that's roughly 35 families) and cared for just those 35 families, that would end poverty in America.

The Amish help each other.
The USCCB goes rent-seeking.
Any questions?


Update:
Oh, and for those who are wondering, Sister Keehan, the pro-ObamaCare head of the Catholic Health Association, makes  $962,467 a year.

Isn't it comforting to see that our Catholic religious follow the examples set by the bishops?


UPDATE:
Welcome Gloria TV readers!

Let Them Eat Carcinogens

Barack Obama has apparently opened a full scale war against the Catholic Church. He fomented quite a bit of division in May 2009 with the controversy over accepting Notre Dame's honorary law degree.
But, as anyone following the news knows by now, he has definitely upped the stakes.

Barack Obama now wants all women in the nation to receive contraception and abortion free of charge through their employee insurance. To that end, he is attempting to compel the Catholic Church and any organization that thinks like her to pay for these things.

I have no new thoughts on how heinous this is, but I will attempt to summarize some of the problems involved.

Ancient History
The Catholic Church has always been opposed to both contraception and abortion. Indeed, this is one of the teachings which differentiated the Church from the surrounding pagan culture. Even Reformation Christians agreed with the Catholic stance. Indeed, until 1930, it is impossible to find any Christian leader - Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant - who supported either contraception or abortion.

However, due to the rise of eugenics theory in the late 19th century, contraception and abortion was seen by secular authorities as a necessary tool in keeping the "unfit" from breeding. Between 1930 and 1960, most Christian churches eventually came to accept the use of contraception. The Catholic Church never did.

The Pill
The invention of the hormonal contraceptive was thought to be a ground-breaking technology that might allow a change in the teaching. However, in the closely-reasoned encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI demonstrated why hormonal contraceptives would do more harm than good. As even Business Insider today admits, the Pope was correct.

The four results Pope Paul VI prophesied have come to pass:

1. General lowering of moral standards
2. A rise in infidelity, and illegitimacy
3. The reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men. 
4. Government coercion in reproductive matters. 

Changing Definitions
Now, ever since the human egg was discovered in 1826, pregnancy has been defined as beginning at conception. However, with the advent of in vitro fertilization in 1978,that definition was no longer convenient. If conception happens in a Petri dish, in what sense is the woman pregnant?

So, many IVF and OB/GYN specialists (though not embryologists, interestingly enough) have been trying to change the definition of pregnancy to begin at "implantation." Unfortunately, at least six days generally passes between fertilization and implantation - by the time implantation occurs, a human embryo exists.

Every hormonal contraceptive acts in a number of ways. One way is to prevent ovulation. This doesn't always work. Another is to thin the lining of the uterus so that a developing embryo cannot implant.

Thus, when the hormonal contraceptive makes the lining of the uterus inhospitable to that human embryo, the embryo aborts, the woman miscarries. Like IUDs, hormonal contraceptives cause abortion.

Worse, the hormonal contraceptive has been judged a Class I Carcinogen by the World Health Organization.

Life Issues
The Catholic Church sees the immense loss of human life via contraception and abortion as a modern-day Holocaust. You can no more demand the Church pay for these death-dealing services than you can demand that Jews pay for the suite of services provided at Auschwitz. It is not just a matter of religious liberty, it's a matter of life and death. 

Catholics will not pay for a woman to be shot full of Class I carcinogens that will harm her and kill her child. Again, it's like compelling non-smokers to pay for their employee's cigarettes.

Just as bad, it treats correctly functioning human fertility as a disease. 

Obama's latest attempt to foist this off on the insurance company rather than directly onto the employer is wrong.

While reports indicate that Catholic institutions will not have to directly pay for this coverage, most Catholic institutions get their insurance through a Catholic insurance provider. If the "adjusted"  mandate were enforced, the Catholic insurance provider would still be just as thoroughly violated as the original Catholic employer.

Now, Catholic hospitals make up 25% of the hospitals in the nation and treat roughly one-sixth of the population. None of these hospitals will fully implement ObamaCare because many tenets of ObamaCare are antithetical to Catholic principles. 


Interestingly, Catholic organizations are unusual in not offering contraceptives in their health insurance plans, so this mandate is meant to strike directly at Catholics. Likewise, it is meant to humiliate them, since the zero co-pay is also unique among "medications" - no other medication is guaranteed a zero co-pay.


Catholic hospitals also provide more free health care to the poor than any other set of institutions in the nation. Obama's insistence on submitting to his commands or paying millions of dollars in fines is an excellent way to destroy Catholic health care and strip the poor of the last health care providers in their neighborhoods. 

Legal Issues

But even if the Catholic Church were gung-ho to provide give women these carcinogens, they couldn't.

It's against the law.

You see, as National Review points out, the Hyde Amendment - which Obama just re-authorized December 11 - says that government funds cannot be used to provide abortion.  So, the HHS requirement violates the very Hyde Amendment which Obama just authorized.

And even if it didn't violate the Hyde Amendment, we have to ask a Constitutional question. 

Where did Barack Hussein Obama get the power to mandate what products a private company will or will not offer?

Obama has unilaterally taken over banks and auto companies, he's unilaterally favored at least a dozen failed "green energy" companies, to the tune of billions, and now he seems intent on taking over the medical and insurance industries.

In the last century, only Mussolini has attempted so much. 

As Steve Chapman has pointed out:

...just because the government gives you money doesn't mean it can force you to give up a constitutional right. If it did, the government could forbid students getting Pell grants from criticizing the president. It could outlaw gun ownership by anyone working for a company that gets federal contracts...

 The government already spends tax revenue to provide contraceptives to Medicaid recipients -- and the Catholic Church does not ask for an exemption.

A more accurate analogy is how we treat religious pacifists in wartime. Defending the nation is important, but when we had a draft, Quakers and Mennonites were allowed to avoid military service as conscientious objectors. The rights of conscience prevailed. 

I suspect many people support the mandate because they strongly disagree with the Church's opposition to birth control -  or just despise the Church, period.  But the First Amendment isn't there just to protect beliefs and practices we all like. It's there to protect even things we hate 

There is nothing in Barack Obama's HHS mandate except a naked grab for extra-constitutional power and a naked attempt to destroy whatever may remain of the Catholic influence in this nation. If he succeeds, he will have unilaterally overturned the Bill of Rights. Think on that. 




Errata:
Doug Kmiec, Obama's own Catholic Ambassador to Malta, jumped out of Obama's ship.

The Orthodox bishops of the United States agree with the USCCB take on this.

Protestants and Jews have already declared their support for the USCCB against Barack.

Even Cardinal Mahoney and Father Jenkins, president of Notre Dame and the man responsible for Barack's ONLY honorary degree, agree with the USCCB that this HHS mandate is unconscionable:

“It would compel Notre Dame to either pay for contraception and sterilization in violation of the Church’s moral teaching, or to discontinue our employee and student health care plans in violation of the church’s social teaching,” Fr. John I. Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame said in a letter to HHS according to the Catholic News Agency.

Democrat Lawmaker agrees with the USCCB. 

Here's the USCCB's original response. Over 80% of US bishops have already spoken out publicly.

And the USCCB response to Obama's revision.

Sister Carol Keehan and Planned Parenthood support the revision.

Barack is interested in saving insurance companies' money.

Abortion, Childbirth and Safety

Pro-choicers waxed delirious over a recent study released by Obstetrics and Gynecology, and timed to interrupt the annual pro-life commemorations of America's child genocide.

The study reportedly found that abortion is safer than childbirth.

... between 1998 and 2005, one woman died during childbirth for every 11,000 or so babies born. That compared to one woman of every 167,000 who died from a legal abortion.

What very few noted was that the authors of the study itself explained why the numbers aren't what they seem:

In their report, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, Raymond and Grimes write that the findings aren't surprising given that women are pregnant for a lot longer when they decide to have a baby and so have more time to develop complications.

Precisely.

Comparing an abortion at 8 weeks (which is when over 90% of abortions occur) to a live birth at 36 weeks is comparing apples to oranges.

If we want an accurate comparison of risk, we must compare on a week-by-week basis.
That is, during any given week of pregnancy, is it safer to be pregnant, or is it safer to be pregnant and have an abortion?

The answer to that one is obvious.
Any unnecessary surgical procedure adds risk.
Surgical abortion cures no disease, it is biologically unnecessary.

Thus, any woman who undergoes an abortion during ANY week of pregnancy has actually INCREASED her risk of morbidity and mortality over what it would normally have been for that week of pregnancy.

Put simply, a pregnant woman at 8 weeks is safer during that week to simply live as she is then to have an abortion during that week.

In fact, the risks of abortion climb so rapidly that after week 12, it is actually safer for the woman to carry the full 36 weeks to term than it is for her to have an abortion at week 13 or later.

Furthermore, women who have abortions are at higher risk of a whole range of medical and emotional problems in the years following their abortions.

The only way to get the numbers that this study gets is to weight the abortion scale heavily with early abortions, and then compare that 8-week procedure rate to something which is entirely different - a 36-week long marathon.

It ain't science, but it is silly.

To Hell With Who?

Pittsburgh's bishop Zubek has famously declared that Barack Hussein Obama is telling Catholics "to hell with you!"

In possibly the only united political front the USCCB has presented on any subject in over forty years, America's episcopate has universally decided to fight Kathleen Sebelius' ruling that all Catholic organizations have to pay for employee's contraceptives in their insurance coverage.

There isn't a single dissenting voice.
It's remarkable.
It's almost like they were all ... Catholic bishops.

As Michael Voris points out, it is also kind of sad and pathetic, but that's not the point of this essay.





While Michael Voris is dead on accurate, he hasn't yet pointed out the logical conclusion.

The 2012 Elections
That's right, they're coming this year.
Who knew?

And what happens if, despite the fears of conservatives across the nation, Barack Hussein Obama is re-elected?

You see, the bishops have not publicly excommunicated a sitting politician since the civil rights movements of the 1960s. Since the media disliked discrimination, violence against blacks was judged a mortal sin, but since the media didn't dislike sexual misadventures, contracepting or killing children in the womb was just a social faux pas that could be overlooked in the pursuit of greater political harmony.

So, for the last fifty years, the bishops haven't yet declared a single politician excommunicate over issues of contraception or abortion. Indeed, as I document, they have gone out of their way to say they don't have the right to do such a thing. But it's not for want of candidates.

Since today is the kick-off for Catholic Schools Week across the nation, let us pause and meditate on the glory that is the Catholic school. Barack Hussein Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Senator Kerry, Mario Cuomo, the thankfully deceased Ted Kennedy, and countless other pro-contraceptive, pro-abortion politicians were all taught in Catholic schools. In his entire career, Barack has gotten only one honorary degree, and that one from Notre Dame. Huzzah for Catholic schools!

Because of Despite their sterling Catholic education, most of the members of that previous list are definitely candidates for eventual excommunication. By their actions, they have already objectively chosen hell.

The question is, given that he is clearly not going to change his policy, if Obama is re-elected will the bishops be compelled to eventually point out the possibility of excommunication to any of the Obama-bot CINO's in a more formal way?

In short, when do the bishops formally excommunicate these fine products of conception Catholic education, informing them that they are, objectively speaking, going to hell?

There is no telling, of course.
I will only note in passing that the winter has been unusually mild.

Copyright RIP

ZDNet has an interesting article on the problems with trying to preserve copyright provoked, no doubt, by the recent SOPA/PIPA controversy.

As an author and publisher, I have some small interest in the problem.
Unfortunately, I think we are coming to the end of the copyright age.

The world has seen three great revolutions in the dissemination of knowledge:
1) the transition from oral to written language
2) the transition from written language to the printing press
3) the transition from the printing press to the Internet

Each transition changed the way authorship was viewed.

Socrates and Plato were famously placed on either side of the oral-written transition. Socrates wrote nothing, everything he taught was orally transmitted. It fell to Plato to make use of the new writing technology to record Socrates' thoughts.  There was no such thing as copyright law.

Indeed, although the written word became a normal means of communication, copyright law did not naturally follow the development of writing. Literacy was self-controlling because it was a very expensive hobby in terms of training, material and technique. External controls were largely unnecessary.

As a result, most literate societies did not recognize copyright law or anything like it. Pretty much anyone who was literate could make copies of anything they could lay their hands on. When most literate people spent good portions of their time hand-copying works so as to make them available to other literate people, authorship was not highly prized and the concept of publishing was a non sequitor.

The Rise of the Author and His Copyright
It was only with the rapid dissemination of information and of literacy made possible by the printing press that ideas like authorship, publishing and copyright began to make a lot of sense. The printing press drove down the cost of literacy, placing it within reach of a much larger segment of the population.

The ability to rapidly spread printed works meant that literate people could actually take time to savor previously unknown  authors. That is, it was actually possible for a staggeringly large number of authors to make names for themselves by their writings alone. In fact, it wasn't until the 1650's that Athanasius Kircher, a priest renowned in his time for his learning, became the first man to be able to support himself through book sales alone.

Both kings and the Church recognized that the ability to print material contained within it the ability to rapidly spread treasonous or unorthodox ideas. Furthermore, since printers required presses, it was fairly easy to find and regulate the spread of ideas at the point of production - at the printer. Thus, both kings and the Church had good reason to implement printing and copyright laws.

The printing press was invented in 1453.

By 1500, Pope Alexander VI had issued his first bull against the unlicensed printing of books, and the Index of Forbidden Books followed by 1559. Most European countries had instituted some kind of copyright law about the same time that the Pope was issuing his bull. 

450 years later, the cost of printing and the dissemination of books had become so inexpensive, that the Church saw the handwriting on the wall. The Index was abolished June 14, 1966.

By 1966, the Church had realized there was no real way to control the production or the consumption of books. While the nihil obstat and imprimatur still remain as remnants of this attempt at content and production control, both are now pro forma exercises in marketing without any real expectations of doctrinal utility or applicability. The only reason a publisher seeks them today is to appeal to a certain niche market - they are now marketing tools.

The End of the Author and Copyright
It is interesting that the Index was abolished just thirty years before the next revolution in communications technology smashed the old printing model to smithereens. Today, the Internet makes the spread of ideas almost instantaneous. Whether for good or ill, however, there is no way to regulate the spread of ideas.

And when I say there is no way, I don't mean, "there is no good way."
I mean:    There. Is. No. Way.
It cannot be done.

If it is in electronic format, anyone can copy anything for any reason anywhere. Everyone with a PC, heck, everyone with a cell phone, can be a point of copy and redistribution. Today, cell phones can carry 32 GB  or more of memory - more than enough to hold several full-length movies. This capacity will only increase with time.

As a result, I strongly doubt that copyright law is very much longer for this world.

Laws against adultery and fornication fell when contraception made both so prevalent and so socially acceptable that it was no longer possible to maintain the facade that the laws served a purpose. If society embraces contraception, it cannot hold onto the idea that fornication or adultery should be outlawed.  Indeed, it cannot hold onto the idea that homosexuality, necrophilia, bestiality or pedophilia should be outlawed. The first has already been legalized, the rest soon will be.

Similarly, if society embraces the rapid spread of ideas which computers make possible, it will no longer be able to hold onto the idea of copyright.

Computer geeks like to say "information wants to be free."

They are correct. People want information more than they want food. The Internet is turning large swaths of information into a commodity like electricity or running water. The best anyone can hope for is to meter usage (thus, the fee to connect to the Internet). Beyond that, I can no more control how you choose to use information than I can control how you use the electricity or water that is piped into your home.

If I can figure out a way to take tap water or my electrical outlet and turn what pours from it into cash, you cannot stop me. The same will be true for the Internet and the information that pours in through that portal. Information used to be attached to personalities, but that connection will only become more tenuous with time.

If the 1960's gave birth to the Free Love generation, the 2010's will give birth to the Free Information generation.

Copyright was fun while we had it, but it's gone now.

Good-bye.

It's Starting

The Nuremberg Laws

---

The following month two measures were announced at the annual Party Rally in Nuremberg, becoming known as the Nuremberg Laws. Both measures were hastily improvised (there was even a shortage of drafting paper so that menu cards had to be used) and Jewish experts from the Ministry of the Interior were ordered to Nuremberg by plane.

The first law, The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, prohibited marriages and extra-marital intercourse between “Jews ” (the name was now officially used in place of “non-Aryans ”) and “Germans ” and also the employment of “German ” females under forty-five in Jewish households. The second law, The Reich Citizenship Law, stripped Jews of their German citizenship and introduced a new distinction between “Reich citizens ” and “nationals.”

The Nuremberg Laws by their general nature formalized the unofficial and particular measures taken against Jews up to 1935. The Nazi leaders made a point of stressing the consistency of this legislation with the Party program which demanded that Jews should be deprived of their rights as citizens.

 * * * * * * * *  * * * * * * * *  * * * * * * * *  * * * * * * * *  * * * * * * * *

"Now, on the heels of the NDAA, a new bill is making its way through Congress: the Enemy Expatriation Act that would make the controversy about the NDAA null and void by simply stripping Americans of their American citizenship, should they be accused of associating with government-deemed terrorist organizations. "

Note: just "accused".
Not convicted.
Accused.

It doesn't take long to create a dictatorship.

Not long at all. 

But For the Grace of God

So, now that a most excellent time-line has been produced on the RCTV and Micheal Voris situation, the question naturally arises:

Is canon lawyer Ed Peters getting paid to lie
or
Is he doing it on his own time?

Of course, he insists that the opinions expressed on his blog are just his own personal opinions.

Uh-huh.

Look, as Ed knows, all employment in a diocese is at-will employment by the bishop (or archbishop, in this case). Bishop can fire, or cause to be fired, anyone he wants at any time. This is most especially true of the faculty at his own seminary. This is even more especially true of lay employees.

The whole point of having lay diocesan employees is to provide CYA for the ordained men. If anything bad happens in the parish or diocese, you fire the closest lay person and claim little to no knowledge of the requisite shenanigans. Failing that, you claim the lay employee acted without proper episcopal authority. Either way, if a lay person can take the fall, s/he does.

Like every lay employee, Ed knows how the game is played.
He loses his phoney-baloney job at Sacred Heart Seminary if he doesn't follow the archbishop's directives.
He is unlikely to get hired anywhere else if he has a reputation for not backing his own bishop's plays.

So, if the archbishop directs him to flay someone alive, Ed's personal opinion is suddenly and spontaneously likely to be very antagonistic towards the intended victim.

Now, any analysis of Ed's articles shows he's been actively trying to obfuscate the Voris/RCTV issue. Throughout the entire RCTV/Voris affair, he has worked hard to cover the bishop's... ahem... assets.
It's almost as if he had a hand in formulating the pronouncements, or was called in and given a heads-up that this was coming out, so he better have some good support for what the ordained men had decided to do.

After all, he spends his first whole post saying "this is a matter of canon law", an implicit appeal to his own authority as a canon lawyer. Appeals to authority, by the way, are the weakest of all logical arguments. That's the best he has to open with, which says something right there.

Even more informative is his "analysis" - he never bothers to define the most important phrase in the dispute "competent ecclesial authority."

Why not?

Well, Abraham Lincoln tells the story of the man who had a green stump in his field. It was too big to pull out, too wet to burn out and too blessed hard to split. So, he solved the problem by plowing around it and pretending it wasn't there.

Ed's in the same fix. If he defined "competent ecclesial authority", we would immediately realize that the Archbishop of Detroit, his employer, is not competent to strip RCTV of the word "Catholic".  Ed can hardly point that out on his blog - he would have to look for a new job if he did - so he plows around it and hopes no one notices.

He essentially does the same thing in his second post. Even as he spends a lot of time pretending to discuss "competent ecclesial authority", you will notice that at NO POINT does he mention the fact that his boss is pronouncing on a business entity which is not in AOD diocese.

The Archbishop of Detroit trying to strip RCTV of the word "Catholic" is similar to the Archbishop of Detroit trying to strip Notre Dame of the word "Catholic."

At NO POINT does Ed mention the fact that in both cases, the archbishop of South Bend might (rightly) take issue with the attempt.

But, if cakes are to be taken, I think his third post is probably the piece de resistance. Ed goes on this extended tirade about the Internet... as if it matters.  Ed might as well have created an extended soliliquy concerning the difficulty of controlling the flow of books into various bookstores around the diocese. It's about as pointless. He knows perfectly well that it is the location of the publisher that is at issue, not the method by which the content is distributed.

So why does an otherwise intelligent man do this?
Well, as Ed also knows, if you can't awe them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.

God bless the man's chutzpah, he actually sends people to look for a non-existent canon on Internet distribution in a wonderfully veiled attempt to appeal to his own authority, or better, that of his boss.
It's a marvelous case of misdirection, and my hat is off to him for thinking it up.

Actually, of course, the Internet doesn't present any more difficulties to canon law than book distribution does. The Church solved the question of producers versus distributors several hundred years ago. Canon law deals with who produces the material, and doesn't spend a lot of time with how it is distributed, if only because the Church recognizes that She has no stinkin' control over how it is distributed and never will.

This, of course, goes double for the Internet.

So, if I, while living in Dallas, wrote a completely heretical book called "Catholic Interpretations of Scripture", and had a publisher in Tuscaloosa publish it, and if the publisher's name was "Incredibly Orthodox Catholic Books", the bishop of Dallas would still have no right to attempt to strip the name "Catholic" from my publisher's business because the publisher is in Tuscaloosa, not Dallas.

Even if the book showed up in Dallas bookstores, and even if I live in Dallas diocese, it still gives the bishop of Dallas no authority over a business in Tuscaloosa. Bishop of Dallas may have an opinion, of course, and it's lovely if he does, but that and a dollar won't get him a cup of coffee at Starbucks, no matter how much his canon lawyers insist otherwise.

And, of course, NO ONE is saying that either Michael Voris or RCTV has taught anything heretical.
They apparently take issue with it because it is (a) true and (b) not nice.

Newsflash:
The Truth is not Nice.
The Truth will set you free.

Now, I'm sure Ed Peters is honest in the majority of his dealings, and many of them probably involve canon law. But in this particular case, he deliberately misrepresents the law in order to (a) make his bishop look good and (b) keep his job.

Either that, or he is a complete idiot.
And I'm far too charitable to think Ed Peters is at all stupid.

I actually feel sorry for the man - he's been dealt a completely rotten hand by his archbishop, and he has to publicly prostitute himself in order to keep his job and make his mortgage payments. All the other canon lawyers in the nation are looking at him, shaking their heads glumly and saying, "There but for the grace of God, go I." And the poor man KNOWS it.

Pray for him and his boss.

UPDATE:


Ed has taken another shot at the jurisdiction question, but again drives wide of the mark. I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you. 


I'll ignore his repeated appeal to his own authority and cut straight to the meat.
Well, what passes for meat.
To be honest, I can't believe he even ran this one up the flagpole, but here it is:

"Is it seriously to be contended that a local Church has no authority over local Catholics writing, editing, producing, and promoting extensive media programming copiously labeled as “Catholic” this and “Catholic” that, if the registered owner of the enterprise happens, conveniently, not to be Catholic?"

Well, yeah, Ed, that happens all the time. For instance, let's say a Roman Catholic is hired to work for an Anglican organization that calls itself Catholic - Anglicans do that, you know. They call themselves Catholic.

Maybe we should whip them or something?
I don't know.
Ask your archbishop.
I'm sure he'll have an opinion.

Anyway, the local archbishop may have something to say to that local Roman Catholic, but he has NOTHING to say to the company he works for that calls itself Catholic. Archbishop can't very well tell the company to stop using the word "Catholic" as archbishop has no jurisdiction the Anglicans recognize, even if those Anglicans live in Detroit.

But it gets worse.

You see, the last I heard, it wasn't a sin for a Roman Catholic to work for an Anglican Catholic, so I can't imagine what archbishop would have to say to his Roman Catholic subject... Attaboy! perhaps?
A compliment on the tie he wore to work might be in order.
But, as long as he isn't writing heresy.... what would such an archbishop say to such a Catholic?
And why would an archbishop waste time on this problem when he's got so many pro-abort politicians and parish staff members he could be correcting?

Ed, I don't have to tell you that the Code says:

"Can. 216 Since they participate in the mission of the Church, all the Christian faithful have the right to promote or sustain apostolic action even by their own undertakings, according to their own state and condition. Nevertheless, no undertaking is to claim the name Catholic without the consent of competent ecclesiastical authority."

Michael Voris didn't undertake to start RCTV, so he hasn't violated the canon.
South Bend has no complaints about RCTV, so they have obeyed their bishop and they're fine, too.
Which means Voris isn't working for a company that is under any bishop's jurisdictional ban.

Now, AOD is publicly ticked off at Voris, but that seems to be AOD's problem.
Unless AOD wants to pretend that it has power in South Bend?

Yeah, good luck with that.
Let me know how that works out.

By the way, has anyone else noticed how careful Ed was to stipulate that Fr. Pavone's organization was not technically under the bishop of Amarillo's full jurisdiction, but he keeps insisting that RCTV (whose connection to AOD via Voris is a lot more tenuous than Pavone's) is nevertheless under his own bishop's jurisdiction? I just find that incredibly humorous.

Anyway, Ed is still sad, because Ed still contemplates a terrible prospect.
Terrible, I tell you.

"For that matter, what if Brammer were to transfer his interest in RCTV to a non-Catholic, or to a conglomerate, maybe one overseas, or if he or another utilize(d) any of a half dozen id-masking options common in cyberspace?"

Oh, HORRORS!!!
Like that couldn't have been done a decade ago, or three decades ago or 50 years ago or even a century ago (apart from the ID-masking, which is no different from setting up a shell company).

How is any one of these, or even all of them together, a new problem, Ed?
Is canon law so fragile that it NEVER faced such a set of circumstances before?
Changed ownership of a company is a new one to you, is it?
Never heard of a shell company (Hint: it doesn't involve eggs. Really.)?

I averred before that Ed Peters is not a stupid man.
He obviously holds a somewhat lower opinion of the rest of us.

I would suggest to Ed that he get out more, but given how well his defense of AOD is going and how high unemployment is under this regime, that wouldn't be a nice thing to wish on anyone.

So, continue to pray for him.
The poor man seems to be running out of straws.

Bishop Ochoa's Honesty

When Bishop Ochoa was named Bishop of Fresno on Dec 1, 2011, the clock started ticking.
He had 60 days to canonically take possession of his new see.

Can. 418 §1. Upon certain notice of transfer, a bishop must claim the diocese to which he has been transferred (ad quam) and take canonical possession of it within two months. On the day that he takes possession of the new diocese, however, the diocese from which he has been transferred (a qua) is vacant.

On January 11, 2012, Bishop Ochoa decided to use the few remaining days he has, and use the powers of the diocesan administrator (notice: he does not appear to have the powers of the Bishop of El Paso any longer), to lay a civil lawsuit against Father Michael Rodriguez for misappropriation of funds.

In point 6 of his lawsuit, Bishop Ochoa claims standing by claiming that he is the Bishop of El Paso.

Can. 418 §2. Upon certain notice of transfer until the canonical possession of the new diocese, a transferred bishop in the diocese from which he has been transferred:
1/ obtains the power of a diocesan administrator and is bound by the obligations of the same; all power of the vicar general and episcopal vicar ceases, without prejudice to ⇒ can. 409, §2;

In Father Michael Rodriguez' January 12, 2012 reply, Fr. Rodriguez states:

It is unfortunate that Bishop Armando Ochoa, Administrator of the Diocese of El Paso and no longer our bishop, (emphasis added) has decided to pursue legal action against me.

Now, since Bishop Ochoa has not yet formally taken possession of Fresno, the see of El Paso is not considered a vacant see. But, Father Rodriguez seems to have a point in saying that technically, Ochoa is no longer Bishop of El Paso.

And, if Father Rodriguez is correct, Bishop Ochoa may have mis-represented himself in a public lawsuit.

Worse, Ochoa may well lose standing as a claimant in the lawsuit within the next two weeks, since he will no longer be part of the diocese.

Once Ochoa has formally left, the only power in the diocese will be that of the diocesan administrator, as El Paso waits for a new bishop. What power does a diocesan administrator have?

Can. 428 §1. When a see is vacant, nothing is to be altered.
§2. Those who temporarily care for the governance of the diocese are forbidden to do anything which can be prejudicial in some way to the diocese or episcopal rights. They, and consequently all others, are specifically prohibited, whether personally or through another, from removing or destroying any documents of the diocesan curia or from changing anything in them.

Clearly, Ochoa wanted to pursue Father Rodriguez in the few days left to him. But is beginning a civil legal action prejudicial to the episcopal rights of the as-yet-unnamed incoming bishop? Does Ochoa have the canonical power to lay this lawsuit?

A fascinating problem in El Paso, no question of it. 

Disrespect

Now, I'm not a fan of desecrating corpses.

But consider two cases:

1) US Troops urinate on the bodies of their enemies.

Once.

2) The Department of Defense dumps the cremated bodies of our soldiers in a landfill.

For ten years.


Question
Guess which one "top US officials moved swiftly" to correct?



Update:

This is Allen West's take:

“I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

“All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

“The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

“As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”

This is also why I like Allen West.

Are YOU a Real Catholic?

Three cases:


1) About a decade ago, Bishop Bruskewitz excommunicated a whole bunch of people. Specifically he legislated that anyone who was a member of: Call to Action, Planned Parenthood, Catholics for Free Choice, Hemlock Society, the SSPX and the Freemasons was subject to automatic excommunication.

His decision was appealed to Rome and upheld (and this despite the fact that Rome has repeatedly held members of the SSPX as NOT being excommunicate).

Despite this confirmation of his authority, no other bishop has followed his lead, nor has any other American bishop publicly withheld the Eucharist from members of these groups.

Indeed, although Bruskewitz has publicly said he would refuse the Eucharist to pro-abortion politicians, other bishops have publicly disputed the wisdom of taking such a course of action.



2) The Bishop of Amarillo has asked his brother bishops not to provide any support for Fr. Frank Pavone's ministry.

Again, other bishops in the US have not only not supported Amarillo, they have actively come out and supported Pavone, despite the fact that the Bishop of Amarillo would appear to have pretty clear authority over Pavone (his very own diocesan priest) and Pavone's ministry, at least to the extent that Pavone is head of the organization and subject to episcopal authority.


3) Recently, the Archbishop of Detroit publicly states that he doesn't think Michael Voris' RealCatholicTV should be using the word "Catholic" in it's title.

Yet again, no other bishop has followed the good Archbishop's lead.

There may be a reason for this.

As the Archdiocese of Detroit (AOD) itself admits, it doesn't really have jurisdiction.

In 2006, Voris petitioned for diocesan approval of his media and his own non-profit organization (St. Michael's Media).

Apparently, AOD dillied, dallied, ooohhhed and ahhhhed so long that Voris got tired of it. By 2008, Voris had started working for a different organization (RealCatholicTV).

Now, St. Michael's Media provided RCTV with content and with Voris - but that's all it provided.  RCTV is NOT the same as St. Michael's Media. In fact, RCTV isn't even domiciled in the same state, much less the same diocese. RCTV is a DBA for Greenstar Enterprises, a for-profit corporation headed by Marc Brammer who lives in South Bend, Indiana.

So, to sum up the business side:
St. Michael's Media is non-profit and based in Ferndale, Michigan.
Greenstar Enterprises, DBA RCTV, is for-profit and based in South Bend, Indiana.

These are two entirely different business entities,
in two entirely different dioceses
in two entirely different states.

And, as AOD admits, RCTV never attempted to get anything from AOD.
Which makes sense, since RCTV has NO relationship to St. Michael's Media and is not under AOD's jurisdiction to begin with.

In short, RCTV is really none of AOD's business.

So, to sum up the archbishop's case:
AOD ruled on a five-year old request initiated by a completely different business. The archbishop attempted to apply his rule to a business which has zero ties to AOD, which had never petitioned AOD for anything, and was never under AOD's jurisdiction.


Conclusion
What are good Catholics to make of this?

Well, I'm sure canon lawyers can blather on about what should or shouldn't happen, but the facts are these:

• The Church has made no clear ruling on how to handle the Internet and it's work,
• The Internet issue actually has little to nothing to do with RCTV and Voris in this instance,
• The opinion of one Archbishop is interesting but irrelevant, 
• Because the Archbishop is apparently running his mouth about a business entity which is not under his jurisdiction.

Canon lawyers can write lots and lots of blog posts discussing the niceties of what the Church might eventually rule or even what they think the Church should eventually rule, but that and a dollar still won't get you coffee at Starbucks.

Now, if I were being cynical, given the facts on the ground, I would say Sacred Heart Seminary - which is, by purest coincidence, domiciled in AOD - and AOD's employee, canon lawyer Peters, seem to be very interested in brown-nosing AOD's archbishop by snarking about all kinds of nonsense which makes zero actual sense. Especially since Peters may well have contributed to AOD's weird decree.

But since I'm not that cynical, I would clearly never say such a thing.

Keep dancing, Ed.
I'm sure we're all entertained.

UPDATE:
You know, it occurs to me that there was a similar dust-up in South Bend a couple of years ago, involving the priestly president of Notre Dame and the gift of an honorary law degree to some baby-killing yokel or other. Seems to me a lot of bishops (that is, more than the one Archbishop we have here) also pronounced, without invitation, their public disgust about the situation in South Bend. And, as I recall, there were ZERO repercussions for ND's good Father Jenkins in that scenario.

Now, why would that be?

Well, because the bishop of South Bend chose not to impose any penalty on Father Jenkins.
No other bishop imposed any penalty because... wait for it... they had no jurisdiction to do so.
And, if I recall correctly, Rome said exactly nothing about any of it.

With RCTV, we have an organization which not only hasn't killed a baby, it hasn't even advocated the death of anyone's baby. RCTV hasn't disobeyed their own bishop. Instead, someone else's bishop is upset with them.

For people who blather about how you are supposed to obey your own bishop, RCTV has obeyed theirs, so what's your beef, exactly?

Having Sex With Dogs In Heaven

"Is there sexual intercourse in Heaven? ... Intercourse on earth is a shadow or symbol of intercourse in Heaven. Could we speculate about what that could be? It could certainly be spiritual intercourse ... this spiritual intercourse would mean something more specific than universal charity. It would be special communion with the sexually complementary; something a man can have only with a woman and a woman only with a man ... The relationship may not extend to all persons of the opposite sex, at least not in the same way or degree. ... I think there must be some special "kindred souls" in Heaven that we are designed to feel a special sexual love for. ... But would it ever take the form of physical sexual intercourse? Since there are bodies in Heaven, able to eat and be touched, like Christ's resurrection body, there is the possibility of physical intercourse"  

This is Peter Kreeft's opinion, and now that he has given up Catholicism in favor of Westianism, we should pay attention to what Kreeft has to say. This is the wave of the future, after all. 

“Are there animals in Heaven? The simplest answer is: Why not? How irrational is the prejudice that would allow plants (green fields and flowers), but not animals into Heaven.” Regarding pets, he writes: “Would the same animals be in Heaven as on earth? ‘Is my dead cat in Heaven?’ Again, why not? God can raise up the very grass; why not cats? Though the blessed have better things to do than play with pets, the better does not exclude the lesser.”

So, the obvious question arises. Do we have sex with dogs in heaven?

"Wait!" I hear you cry, "That's disgusting!"

Oh, you unenlightened non-Westians who haven't entered the higher knowledge are all alike, aren't you? Always ready to condemn things you don't understand!

Don't mock the good Dr. Kreeft.

He recognizes there is no marriage and no procreation in heaven.

He simply argues that physical intercourse is a possibility.

Not a big stretch, right?

Obviously, physical intercourse with other "kindred souls" (plural) can only be possible in heaven, if there is no such thing as illicit sex in heaven. And there can be no illicit act in heaven, because everything in heaven is lawful.

Sex with one woman not your wife is not fornication, because there is no marriage in heaven. 

Sex with multiple women isn't polygamy.

This is all holy, according to Kreeft, so this kind of polyamory is fine, perfectly licit, nothing wrong with it.

Now, part of Kreeft's argument rests on the obvious fact that we retain our bodies and therefore our genitalia. Obviously heavenly dogs would likewise retain their genitalia. 

Another part of his argument is that sexual union is just a full participation in universal charity. You can't argue against charitable sex, right? 

Of course, if sex is merely one great way to express universal charity, and if everything in heaven participates in the universal charity of God, then dogs would certainly participate in universal charity, right?

So, to paraphrase Dr. Peter Kreeft, "How irrational is the prejudice that would allow me to have sex with other men, women and children but not to have sex with dogs, cats and sheep?" 

Simple. 

Logical.

Inarguable.

Islam Rising

Is it just me, or, does Kreeft's heaven begin to approach the Muslim view of heaven?

Specifically, isn't it interesting how male Westians endorse boinking lots of heavenly women or engaging in some kind of group sex thing?

I mean, ladies, do you find it enticing to think that you can have sex with dozens, hundreds or thousands of men, women, dogs and cats in heaven?

Perhaps I'm prejudiced from excessive study of Islam and rejection of Westianism, but this is a pretty male version of heaven. I'm not sure women would really be "up" for it, if you get my drift.

Is their precedent for Kreeft's unique vision?

Well, yes, there is.

Back in the 8th and 9th century, Muslim armies were constantly besieging Christian Constantinople. 

Now, it should be noted that Muslims hate iconography, the depiction of people in artwork. They see it as an offense against God.

So, it was no coincidence that during this very period, the Christian rulers of Constantinople fell into the heresy of iconoclasm. During this heresy, Byzantine Christians destroyed thousands of icons and statues of saints, the Blessed Virgin Mary and even a legendary statue of Jesus himself. 

Monks, nuns and other religious who opposed this attack on sacred images were cruelly oppressed and tortured. Their tongues were torn out, their eyes were pierced or torn from their sockets. The iconoclasts beheaded - notice the beheading - the Patriarch himself for daring to oppose this wanton destruction. 

"The iconoclast movement never spread to largely illiterate Western Europe; its madness consumed only the segment of Christendom that boasted the highest literacy rate. Artists fled for their lives from Byzantium, heading for the western court of Charlemagne whose largely illiterate courtiers welcomed them with open arms." 

It is worthwhile to note that nearly all the heretics of Christianity were learned men. Martin Luther, who also adopted many of the Muslim views expressed by the Islamic armies besieging Europe, was not only an ordained Augustinian priest, he had a Ph.D. in theology. Luther was not unique in this - most heretics were priests or bishops. 

Likewise, it is worthwhile to remember that the Christian faithful of Ephesus were the heroes of that Council. It was their prayers, their parades, their constant invocation of Mary, Mother of God that helped the bishops of that Council recognize that Archbishop Nestorius, the Archbishop of Constantinople, was a heretic for denying Mary's true maternity of God. For the whole of his life, even after being exiled to a monastery like Maciel, Archbishop Nestorius insisted that he was orthodox.

Dr. Peter Kreeft's teaching is not found in the writings of the Fathers or Doctors of the Church.

His is a teaching of Islam, not of Christianity.

Kreeft, of course, is now a valued instructor at the Theology of the Body Institute, along with Dr. Janet Smith and the notorious Chris West, all vigorously sponsored by Matt Pinto's Ascension Press.

This is where Westianism leads you.

Do you really want to go there?

UPDATE:
I had a further thought about this.


If we are supposed to have sex with everyone in heaven, will women, especially nuns, have to stay in Purgatory until they accept the idea?


Is morality on earth different than morality in heaven?


And what of the 144,000 virgins who sing the song to the Lamb in Revelations 14:1-4? 
Is that verse just wrong, or are they singing because they are finally going to get laid?


"Krazy as a Kreeft" may become a watchword among Catholics.
Now I'm going to have to pull his endorsement of my TOB book, or write a disclaimer pointing out that he endorsed it before he went publicly insane. 
This is depressing. 

That's It For 2012

Well, now that the 2012 Presidential election is over, we can look back with longing on what might have been.

Of course, no one wanted Obama.
Mitt Romney was just Barack in white face.
And Rick Santorum sold out a pro-life Republican (Toomey) to Arlen Specter, the pro-death convert to the Democrats, one of the slimiest pieces of trash in Congress. To add insult to injury, not only couldn't we trust Santorum to stand by his pro-life values when the going got rough, he also turned out to be the biggest idiot on the Republican stage when it comes to economic policy. With Ron Paul in the race, that said something.


Obama, Romney or Santorum.

Larry, Moe or Curly.

Was there any reason to vote in 2012?

Even now, years later, as we languish under Obama's iron fist, I'm still hard pressed to think of one.

It's just as well that we don't have to worry our pretty little heads about voting any more.

The choices had become a farce anyway.

The Betting Window Is Open

Just three months after Bishop Ochoa, formerly of El Paso, publicly rebuked one of his own priests for daring to promulgate the Church's teaching on homosexuality, he finds himself moved to Fresno.

What a coincidence!

Those outside the Church and/or those not familiar with Church politics might say this move is a reward to Ochoa for his years of service. After all, Bishop Ochoa has old ties to California, having been consecrated by Cardinal Mahoney and serving as one of his auxiliaries for nearly a decade prior to his elevation to El Paso. Fresno is also a larger diocese than El Paso, so an argument can be made that Bishop Ochoa is finally being allowed to return to where his heart lies.

But is that really what is going on?

A bishop is generally moved to a new diocese because he is seen as having a set of skills which match the difficulties of the diocese to which he is being moved. That is, a bishop is generally placed in a diocese in such a way that he can make a difference.

Now, making a difference takes time. Bishop Ochoa, for instance, is replacing a man who reigned as Fresno's bishop for over twenty years. Ochoa himself reigned in El Paso from June 1996 to Dec 1, 2011,  a period of over 15 years.

But Bishop Ochoa is now 68 years old, just a few months shy of his 69th birthday (April 3, 1943). If a bishop doesn't make any changes in his first year in a new diocese (and most don't), that leaves Ochoa with roughly five years to work before he has to hand in his resignation. That's not a lot of time to accomplish anything.

And it's not like he accomplished that much in El Paso:

During the eleven year span between 1999 and 2009, there were only two ordinations to the priesthood for the Diocese of El Paso.

A bishop whose lived example and teaching is such that he manages to lead only two men to the priesthood in a decade isn't typically rewarded with a larger see. So, why would Rome move what would appear to be a barely competent bishop to a see like Fresno?

There's a question, eh?

Typically, an incompetent bishop is allowed to quietly die in his own diocese so that, at least, he doesn't harm anyone else. Bishop Ochoa was not granted that grace.


And the good Bishop himself seems rather deeply ticked off about the move. After all, when was the last time you heard a departing bishop speak dismissively of the diocese he himself has headed for the last decade? Yet that's exactly what Bishop Ochoa did on his way out of El Paso:

Bishop Ochoa likes to snow ski, and cycle. On his days off he'll ride 40 miles a week. In addition, he's happy to leave some of the west Texas ways behind. 

Bishop Ochoa: "After fifteen years, with all do (sic) respect, even though I have my Tony Lama boots and my Stetson hat, I'm never getting into country western or whatever they call it."

Hmmm... That's a little peevish from someone who is getting his heart's desire, isn't it?
Again we ask, is this a reward or a punishment and public disgrace?

Before you answer, notice how the chips fell - for there has been at least some (self-inflicted) collateral damage among other American bishops.

Fr. Michael Rodriguez, a diocesan priest of El Paso, had long fought against El Paso's City Council's attempt to impose homosexual "marriage" on the city against the express will of the voters. It is to be noted that many members of the City Council, including the mayor, claim to be "Catholic." An example of Father Michael's work can be seen here:


Of course, orthodox teaching could not be allowed to interfere with the City Council's work.
By August 2011, Bishop Ochoa publicly repudiated Magisterial Church teaching as a peculiar personal opinion of an outcast priest:

“I would like to state that previous columns claiming to speak for Catholic Doctrine were the personal opinions of individuals and do not necessarily express the belief of the Catholic Church,” 

Worse (at least from Bishop Ochoa's point of view), the Magisterium was not in conformance with the bishop's expert interpretation of IRS regulations (while the bishop has no formal training in the tax code, he is a very quick study).

2011's summer discussion of homosexual marriage in El Paso became nationally known. As Catholic blogs quickly lined up to opine on the situation, RealCatholicTV stepped in to produce not one, but two videos highlighting the wonders of Catholic teaching under Bishop Ochoa's reign in El Paso.






Now, those two videos came out in late October.

Which was just in time for another amazing coincidence.

Just over a month after Voris' twin videos highlighted the barely credible competence of Bishop Ochoa in regards not just to Fr. Michael Rodriguez but also in regards to the gross heresy permitted at the Tepeyac Institute of El Paso, RealCatholicTV got its reward.

On December 23, 2011 the Archdiocese of Detroit decided to give a special Christmas present to RealCatholicTV - Archbishop Vigneron decreed that Voris' organization be stripped of the word "Catholic" for having failed to teach in a way Vigneron considered to be in conformance with Catholic Faith.

The problem, of course, is that RealCatholicTV is not Voris' organization. Although Voris lives in Detroit, the organization is actually based in South Bend diocese. Which means Archbishop Vigneron is not competent to make such a decree. And Bishop Kevin Rhoades, who is competent to make such a decree, has remained conspicuously silent.

So, it looks for all the world as if Bishop Ochoa were being moved out of El Paso for lack of competency in general and for failing to take a stand against homosexual marriage in particular. He would appear to be the laughingstock of the American episcopacy.

Archbishop Vigneron then attempted to punish some of the people responsible for highlighting Ochoa's incompetence, but instead apparently made himself look even more foolish than Ochoa, which at this point, took some real work.

In the combat between the bishops and the Holy Spirit, we make the score God 2, Bishops 0.

Hello America's bishops!
Would anyone else like to take sides on this one?
The betting window is open...

Postscript
Now, as a final aside, what lesson can the lay faithful take away from this?
The lesson, ladies and gentlemen, is this.
Keep your smart phones at hand.
Record homilies, liturgies, teachings - visual or just audio, whatever suits you.
Record everything.
Make copies of the good and of the bad and send those copies, with appropriate remarks, up the chain of command.

First, send a copy to the priest, thanking him for good teaching, asking him to explain less than good teaching.
If the teaching is good, copy the bishop - he should know who his good men are.

But if the teaching is confusing, and the priest does not respond appropriately within an appropriate time frame (say a month or so), then take copies of his (non) response and send both the original communications and the priest's response to the bishop, asking for the bishop to explain the confusing teaching.

If the bishop doesn't respond within a couple of months, or responds inappropriately, take it to the papal nuncio.
After that, take it to the appropriate congregation in Rome.

Record everything.
Did I mention you should record everything?
We want good priests, good teaching and good liturgy highlighted and properly rewarded.
We want confusing priests, teaching and liturgy highlighted and properly rewarded.
Record everything.
Hold fast to those recordings.

And pray for El Paso's new bishop, that he may have 
the steely spine of the Spirit, 
the loving heart of Christ, and 
the mind of God the Father.

Obama's Obituary

A thought from Vaclav Havel:

The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.