Sean Hannity's Gospel

hli.org ^ | 03/09/07 | Rev. Thomas Euteneuer

[Caravaggio]

In the face of modern challenges to the Faith, Catholics who have a high profile in media, culture and government have a very grave responsibility to witness it correctly; otherwise, they will be held accountable in heaven for their anti-witness which affects the faith of millions.

For example, last Friday Sean Hannity took a few moments out of his afternoon radio show to make an apology. When I heard that the rather brash Hannity was actually going to apologize for something I was interested to find out what that would be. At first he sounded very sincere in saying we have to take responsibility for our mistakes. Fine so far. Then he went on to tell his hearers that he had taken two bites of a chicken sandwich that day because he had been traveling and literally forgot it was a Friday of Lent. He stopped eating it when he realized it was a Friday, but he used the opportunity on the show to make a fairly big deal about the "eat meat on Friday and you can go to hell" issue.

Well, even though he claims to be a "good Catholic," Hannity is hardly a credible commentator on Catholic matters. The chicken sandwich scandal was fairly trivial in the overall scheme of his show, but it said much more about the depth of his faith than anything else. I suspect that a great number of Catholics live their faith in the same way—rule-bound and juvenile—but we need something better from a public "Catholic" like Hannity. We need a vibrant witness of someone who knows and embraces his Faith as deeply as he articulates his political passions.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

Same thing on every thread dude. You're a busybody.

[Pyro7480]

Thank you, I take that as a compliment. ;-)

[ducdriver]

Catholics are required to abstain from eating meat on all Friday's [sic] throughout the year

Not exactly. Catholics are required to do some form of penance on Fridays. If one doesn't want to abstain from meat, then some other form or penance may be substituted. This has been popularly misconstrued or intentionally misunderstood by many to mean that penance on Friday is no longer required.

[Jaded]

Dreher? Do you have a link?

[Jaded]

Check your facts.

[Salvation]

                From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (click on the book for the link.)    

2399 The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).

 

2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil:

Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.

[Salvation]

**that teaching self-control was the answer. **

Here's what Sean and his wife should be doing:

New Study Shows Natural Family Planning Technique More “Effective” Than Contraception

Clerical Contraception (Important Read! By Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer)

 

(Fargo) Diocese set to require pre-marriage course in natural family planning

 

Making Babies: A Very Different Look at Natural Family Planning

 

Natural Family Planning Awareness Week, July 25, 2004

IS NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING A 'HERESY'? (Trads, please take note)

Thanks Doc: More (and Younger) Doctors Support Natural Family Planning

Couple say Natural Family Planning strengthens marriage

 

Reflections: Natural family planning vs sexism

 

British Medical Journal: Natural Family Planning= Effective Birth Control Supported by Catholic Chrch

 

Natural Family Planning

[garylmoore]

One thing you can count on with the Catholics, they write everything down. It's just a matter of knowing where to look.

If it's not in God's Word, I don't believe it, please give me Scripture.

[garylmoore]

On Ash Wednesday and all Fridays during Lent, Catholics are forbidden to eat meat

Is this backed up by Scripture?

[madprof98]

The Dreher column I was referring to appeared only in the print edition of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, but I think it was just a reprint of his Dallas Morning News column that appears here. Key lines:

We are losing the culture war. It can't be won by electing more Republicans; it can only be won by changing hearts.

[Maeve]

I just realized you are Sean Hannity.

[Maeve]

Also, he cowardly avoids rancorous apostates on the left because he is afraid of them.

Sorry to have to say this so bluntly, but you are know telling bald face lies. Telling lies to try to undermine and undercut Fr. Euteneuer is just low.

[Maeve]

Do you believe in the tooth fairy? apparently so

Now that is a juvenile Sean Hannity crack if ever I heard one...

[sobieski]

Mr. Hannity thinks he's bigger than the movement, and more important.

[siunevada]

If it's not in God's Word, I don't believe it, please give me Scripture.

Well, if by some strange circumstance you were to find yourself in a Catholic church anywhere in the world during Lent this would be in the first reading:

Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.
Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing, Offerings and libations for the LORD, your God.

But, of course what you object to is not the fasting itself, which the Master told his disciples to do. There are more than a few Bible only Christians that engage in fasting much more intensely than Catholics do. I'll guess that you object to the Church's authority to determine the details for her members. That's understandable but it is a different subject.

And then there is Sean "I forgot it was Friday" Hannity. Okay, Sean. If you really forgot then you know it's no big deal, hardly worth mentioning.

[Pinkbell]

Thank you for the NFP information. :)

[Bigg Red]

Short, pithy, and true!

**
Thank you.

[ducdriver]

Calumny is a mortal sin, generally.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03190c.htm)

Etymologically any form of ruse or fraud employed to deceive another, particularly in judicial proceedings. In its more commonly accepted signification it means the unjust damaging of the good name of another by imputing to him a crime or fault of which he is not guilty. The sin thus committed is in a general sense mortal, just as is detraction. It is hardly necessary, however, to observe that as in other breaches of the law the sin may be venial, either because of the trivial character of the subject-matter involved or because of insufficient deliberation in the making of the accusation. Objectively, a calumny is a mortal sin when it is calculated to do serious harm to the person so traduced. Just as in the instance of wrongful damage to person or estate, so the calumniator is bound to adequate reparation for the injury perpetrated by the blackening of another's good name. He is obliged (1) to retract his false statements, and that even though his own reputation may necessarily as a consequence suffer. (2) He must also make good whatever other losses have been sustained by the innocent party as a result of his libellous utterances, provided these same have been in some measure (in confuso) foreseen by him. In canon law the phrase juramentum calumniae is employed to indicate the oath taken by the parties to a litigation, by which they averred that the action was brought and the defence offered in good faith.

[Palladin]

Poynter Abuse Tracker Links: (Poynter only goes up to 2002)

http://www.poynterextra.org/extra/abusetracker/archive.htm

Rockville Centre Diocese ALONE--47 priests:

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/ny-rockvillecentre/accused_priests.htm

Extrapolate this by 175 American Dioceses. Not to mention the rest of the world.

Just GOOGLE Rod Dreher's articles on the scandal. Here's an excerpt:

The ongoing crisis began, as a public matter, in 1985, when a Louisiana priest named Gilbert Gauthe was convicted of molesting a number of boys in the Diocese of Lafayette. On the heels of the Gauthe conviction, the American bishops and heads of religious orders received a confidential report co-authored by the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer working in the Vatican embassy in Washington. The lengthy document warned the bishops that the Gauthe case was likely to be only one of many, and that if they didn't act swiftly and decisively to clean out their stables, the Church could lose an estimated $1 billion over the next ten years. It also cautioned that conventional methods for treating pederasty are not effective.

My comments: One BILLION dollars--and that's just in the United States.

Roman Cathoic Faithful is another organization which reports about the ONGOING SCANDAL:

http://www.rcf.org/


Current Cases:
http://www.snapnetwork.org/

I have more links if you want them. I studied this scandal for more than five years, and I stand by my facts.

[Palladin]

This case will be featured on Anderson Cooper's 360 tomorrow evening:

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/01_02/2006_02_08_McMenamin_ExPriest.htm

You may recognize one of the victims.