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While here at Priestly Pugilist we have had the privilege of giving an extra voice to certain bishops who—uncharacteristically—do the right thing, the simple fact is that, as a group, they still form a collective mess. Case in point, this disturbing report from Politco: The Roman Catholic bishops signaled Thursday that if agreement is reached with House leaders on anti-abortion language, the church would work to get the votes needed to protect the provisions in the Senate—and thereby advance the shared goal with Democrats of health care reform. “We would strongly urge everyone, Democratic and Republican, to vote to waive...

It’s been a number of years now since Pope John Paul II issued his important clarification regarding the so-called Persistent Vegetative State, to wit, that food and water are always to be cosidered Ordinary Means regardless of how they are administered, and may not be withheld from any patient, even if requested by the family or indicated in a “living will.” His statement, which was issued, in his words, “with the full weight of my authority” (the "full weight" of the Pope's authority being infallibility), didn’t make much news at the time, since the Terri Schiavo case had already passed...

In my homilies to you over the years, I’ve often spoke of our Catholic Faith, and sometimes of our Byzantine Tradition; but I have rarely spoken of the particular Church to which we belong, and of it’s history in Eastern Europe. Our Metropolitan Church is located entirely in the United States; and, the further you travel outside of Pennsylvania, the less you see of any ethnic identity among the members of our parishes; but, as you know, the ancestors of our Church’s original members came from an Orthodox Church which came into union with Rome in 1646 at the Union...

The evil Vatican II; what is one to do? Every morning I walk into church—two days a week it's every evening—to prepare for the Divine Liturgy, I thank my lucky stars I'm in an Eastern Church; for Vatican II told us to return to our traditions. Apparently it told the Latins to turn away from them; and they've been trying to pick up the pieces ever since. Here at Priestly Pugilist, we've chronicled some of the more noteworthy attempts, primarily because, while Vatican II was clear about the equality of the Churches, practically speaking that message has fallen on deaf...

2:32 PM 9/8/2009 — It’s been a week since the Dead Kennedy Show aired on TV; and, since Father Venditti has already dealt with the canonical and spiritual aspects of the whole thing, your PP would like to reflect a little on what it might mean in the whole spectrum of the development of Catholicism in the United States. As distastefull and scandalous as we all know the Dead Kennedy Show was, it has, inadvertently, betrayed some rather encouraging signs. As little as thirty years ago, the outrage that exploded among ordinary Catholics in the wake of the Show would...

8:30 AM 8/30/2009 — Every once in a while something happens in current events that requires a conscientious priest to deviate from the Gospel lesson of the day; although it may be Divine Providence that the event I need to address with you relates very well not only to today’s Gospel lesson, but also the feast we just celebrated. I am speaking, of course, of the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and his very public funeral which was viewed by millions on television. The question you should have asked when you saw it was, “Should Ted Kennedy have been...

Sam Miller is a prominent Cleavland businessman. He is also Jewish. His essay was sent to me by a friend who didn't give any information about where he found it. —————————————————————————————— Why would newspapers carry on a vendetta on one of the most important institutions that we have today in the United States, namely the Catholic Church? Do you know—the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at the cost to your Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other hand to the American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars. Your graduates go on to graduate studies at...

"EverybodyÂ’s watching whatÂ’s going on in Beijing right now with the Olympics. Think about the amount of money that China has spent on infrastructure. Their ports, their train systems, their airports are vastly the superior to us now...." (Barak Obama). "Society in every state is a blessing; but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities are heightened by reflecting that we furnish the...

The following story is by Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times. Be advised that your PP never provides a link to the Times, Nor does he expend any effort to conform to the original source's rules for reproduction of material where the Times is concerned, since they don't deserve that kind of consideration. Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland, the former head of the Milwaukee Archdiocese who has stirred up new controversy with his soon-to-be-released memoir about his decades in church leadership, his homosexual orientation and the scandal that forced his retirement, said on Tuesday that he had decided not to...

Your PP didn't weigh in on the Obama/Notre Dame issue for two reasons: (1) I like to wait until everyone else is finished shooting from the hip, and (2) because the whole thing made me so mad that I couldn't organize my thoughts into any coherent form. Bishops have been bending over backward to denounce the President being invited and receiving an honorary degree; but if you're expecting your PP to praise them for it, think again. Let's take the local bishop, Bishop D’Arcy, as an example. He's been very outspoken in his opposition to Obama speaking at Notre Dame;...

Is Rush Limbaugh a happy man? To some, the question may seem ridiculous, particularly to Rush; after all, this is the man who has everything. But to those of us who represent what can now only be referred to as the “old fashioned conservatives”—often misrepresented as “social conservatives” or “the religious right”—it is an obvious question; since it’s the person who has everything whom we instinctively recognize as having the most potential to be miserable. Who are we? We are the ones who have been married only once, and who had no sex before our wedding nights. We are the...

[Some time ago, your PP promised to weigh in on the flap regarding the Pope's comments on condoms which have been widely condemned as backward and stupid by just about everyone in every country. Instead, I'm going to let someone much more personally involved to do so. But before reading, consider the plight of the Holy Father. His job is to eludidate the teaching of Christ and his Church. It is not in his job description to acomodate the teaching of Christ to the sensibilities of the modern world. At some point, those of us who are Christians have...

[Your PP includes this item not only because it's "stand-alone" probative value, but also because it's so clear an illustration of the disease that infects us as a Church. I won't rehash the events of the situation concerned here, since Father Euteneurer does an excellent job of that himself; but compare this with the situation your PP commented on in the article I wrote below: "We have been placed on the Index of Forbidden Blogs." Neither Archbishop Wuerl nor Archbishop Fisichella believe abortion is justified—or are even "soft" on the issue; it's simply that they have the disease: when...

02:03 PM 3/5/2009 — True of false? Artificial birth control is a mortal sin; and, if you are using any form of it, you may not receive Holy Communion. Most American Catholics—indeed, most Catholics throughout the world—would probably swear on a stack of New American Bibles that it's false. They're wrong, of course. The statement is totally true. They think it's false because they mistakenly believe that Vatican II introduced us to a previously unappreciated facet of the Holy Spirit which makes each one of us infallible in moral matters, called the "conscience." The misunderstanding is rampant even among conservatives....

I have been informed by a reliable source that access to Priestly Pugilist has been specifically blocked on the computers of a facility of a major Metropolitan Archdiocese of the Latin Church. I couldn't be more proud! The fact that the Archbishop of this particular place has been a favorite PP target by worrying more about his "rep" in the editorial pages of liberal newspapers than about whether the souls entrusted to his care know and live the Catholic Faith may have something to do with it. In all fairness, though, we have to recognize that, to bishops of this...

Last year, in a post entitled, "Reform: can you deal with it?", your PP spoke about an imaginary priest, formed after Vatican II, whose entire belief system is based on the common misinterpretations of the Council, and what would happen to him should the Latin Church actually engage in a real reform of the Liturgy. I summarized his new Post-Vatican II faith as follows: And he is the priest referred to above: the one who, if faced with a general and comprehensive reform of the Western Liturgy—to use Cardinal Ratzinger's words—"standing wholly in the legacy of the traditional Rite," would...

Die-hard PP fans—all six of you—know exactly what your PP thinks of Catholic polititians who feel they can separate their faith from their public responsibilities. Entries from previous years (they're available at the bottom of the page) are filled with many posts on this subject. I was on the verge of actually getting tired of the topic until this glittering jewel of colosal ignorance came along. As you've probably heard from other sources, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict, lifted the excommunications which were automatically imposed on four renegade bishops consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Because Eastern Catholics don't...

Goodness! We haven't even buried Msgr. Bill Smith yet, and the politicos are making contraception an issue again after all these years. Remember how, during the previous administration, liberals were popping veins because America was "out of step" with the rest of the world? Remember how Mr. Obama was going to talk to everyone who didn't like us, magically making them all like us again because he talked to them? Well, there could be no clearer illustration of America being out of touch with the rest of the world than a comparison of the following two stories. The first is...

Heaven is getting crowded these days! When Father Venditti redesigned Priestly Pugilist for the new year, he created a new color entry for obituaries; but I had no idea I'd be using it so often right off the bat. First it was Father Neuhaus, then Patricarch Stephanos; now, Monsignor William B. Smith, STD, professor of moral theology at St. Joseph's Seminary (Dunwoodie), Yonkers, New York. If you're not up on your theological journals, you probably wouldn't recognize his name—unless you caught him on the Charlie Rose show or the odd episode of "Good Morning America"—; but, for those involved in...