Posted on 05/26/2003 8:48:19 PM PDT by Salvation
YPSILANTI, Mich. - In a former elementary school gym, framed by green-tiled walls lined with pictures of the saints and the Passion of Christ, Nicole Myshak begins the Angelus, an ancient prayer better known to her grandmother's generation.
"The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary," the 24-year-old intones.
"And she conceived of the Holy Spirit," respond classmates and teachers who fill the college chapel. The prayer is followed by a solemn Mass, a daily high point at Ave Maria College, one of a small but growing number of liberal arts colleges that promote traditional Roman Catholicism.
Myshak and her classmates see themselves as a vanguard that will renew a church they see drifting from eternal truth.
"We're apostles of the new generation," she says.
The confident Catholicism of Ave Maria and other traditionalist schools is emerging as mainstream Catholic colleges are struggling with religious identity.
(Excerpt) Read more at sunspot.net ...
This is a very good sign ... we may yet see the tide turn in our lifetime.
The trade deficit is a phenomenon of prosperity. There is always a trade deficit in good times. And even now we experience good times compared to Europe which is most of the rest of the world economy. There is really no such thing as a deficit when one considers the total flow of money because every dollar that goes from America must return to America. Our imports are paid for by imports of capital insomuch as those imports exceed our imports of goods.
As a net importer of capital our economy is becoming relatively more efficient and is able to expand at the expense of the countries that buy more of our goods than they sell to us.
The trade deficit is but the other side of the capital flow deficit experienced by our trading partners.
The "trade deficit" serves as a fine political bogeyman because obviously we are buying all this stuff and horrors! how are we going to pay for it all? Actually it is paid for with the production of the returned capital. It pays for itself.Devaluation is, again, just our government stealing money from its creditors and chasing out foreign capital. It is NOT just an adjustment of trade rates because those rates are only altered by increasing or decreasing the amount of money -dollars here- in the economy.
Sure its a chuckle that we are swindling those bad old Frenchmen and Englishmen and Germans and everybody else whose economies are not tied to the dollar, but it will come bck to bite us as the inflow of capital decreases and cuts into Uncle's revenue because businesses are not being created or expanded as they would have been and as our prices rise.
Despite these conflicts, officials insist that mainstream Catholic higher education remains vigorous and faithful. Where Catholic piety on campus was once measured by attendance at Mass, they say, today it is counted by how many students participate in service programs and advocate social justice. Many Catholic universities coordinate service projects, and at some schools up to 75 percent of the students participate. While mainstream Catholic colleges debate their religious mission, there is no such angst at colleges such as Ave Maria, which proudly proclaim their orthodoxy."These things are cropping up all over the place," said Tom McFadden, a spokesman at Christendom College in Front Royal, Va., where the entire faculty recites an oath of fidelity to the pope. "There must be some demand for it."
Good news, cpforlife. We need more schools like these ones.
To paraphrase Bluto from Animal House, "nothings' relegated to the thrash heap until we say it is." My family and I have been saying this prayer at dinner time throughout May in honor of Mary. This is a great prayer for young kids who may find a full Rosary daunting. Highly recommend it.
Well, we would. But as you yourself urged in another post, we want to keep the liberals out. -)
Last summer, while leading our Confirmation class to Toronto to see the Holy Father, we overnighted at Ave's campus in Ypsilanti. My sixteen year old son -at the risk of sounding immodest a straight-A student- was so impressed with the people he met that the school is now at the top of his list. Earlier in the day, we had toured Notre Dame. While he was impressed with the Basillica, the football stadium, the history of the place; he still says he would rather go to Ave.
A father sees these things, and knows God has blessed him.
I love ya, Steve, but I'm a bit confused...
A week or so ago ~~ (when our mutual friend GWB kept me up entirely too late, egging me on for my thoughts on the HomoRomans [this is a word I only just now invented, naturally] latest ecclesial atrocities against the traditions of the Bishopric of Rome) ~~ you offered me the position of "Minister of Diplomacy" in the Patriarchate of Pope Piel I.
I thought it was a bad idea at the time, although I didn't say so. Aside from those relatively rare Papists like "Polycarp" who have learned to tolerate and engage my love-hate, passive-aggressive relationship with Rome (which is probably appropriate ~~ as between the Inquisition of Trent and the "Separated Brethren" of Vatican II, Roman Catholicism has a pretty passive-aggressive relationship with Protestants), asking me to be "Minister of Diplomacy" seems like a recipe for re-starting the French Wars of Religion.
OP as "Minister of Diplomacy" to the Roman Catholics?? It's sorta like making Attila the Hun your secretary of Health and Human Services. I'm not certain you'd acheive the intended results.
But if I'm supposed to be the "academic chair" of Pope Piel's "Papal School of Reformed Theology", that sounds like a suitably innocuous hobbit-hole which could engage my intellectual passion without re-starting the Thirty Years War.
Admittedly, I'm not really sure that I'm theologically qualified for the Post. I know Augustinianism and Molinism like the back of my hand, of course, and I have more than a passing acquantance with Thomism... but even so, I haven't yet fulfilled the diaconal requirements of theological education for Orthodox Presbytery, let alone the presbyteric requirements. (IOW, I am hardly the creme-de-la-creme of Orthodox Presbytery -- I'm more like the dregs-de-la-creme ~~ heh, heh. I'm just the guy who has enough free time for FreeRepublic... some times).
But I'm never one to turn down a free ego-padding. If I am to be the "academic chair" of Pope Piel's "Papal School of Reformed Theology", what exactly are my duties?
I can't promise much... but then again, neither can the current American Church (Roman or Protestant). I take refuge in my mediocrity. (grin)
Best, OP
As "Minister of Diplomacy" you were selected because of your "love-hate, passive-aggressive relationship with Rome (which is probably appropriate ~~ as between the Inquisition of Trent and the "Separated Brethren" of Vatican II)" style. Atilla the Hun is sometimes worth resurrecting, although I liken you to Rumsfeld more than Atilla. Humor can be blunt and disarm at the same time -- as you and Rummy demonstrate.
As to your qualification to fill the academic chair of the "Papal School of Reformed Theology" you have demonstrated your proficiency repeatedly. One piece of papal advice when exercising these duties in instructing Cardinals, "Shoot low, they're riding ponies!"
-Pax & Hugs
Pope Piel I
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