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1:53 PM 5/25/2010 — There will come a day when the mad people will look at the normal people and say, "Look at these mad people because they are not like us" (St. Anthony the Great). We (I mean, me) regret to announce that the Priestly Pugilist© has been closed. There is no cabalistic reason for the site's termination at this time; and any you may come up with on your own will be the products of your own paranoia. Suffice it to say, the reasons are personal, which means they're none of your business. For the benefit of some...

The Saturday afternoon post in my rectory usually remains unopened until Tuesday morning;—there's certainly nothing I'm going to do with it on a Saturday or Sunday, and I'm off on Monday—but, for some reason I came in from Saturday evening Vespers and decided to open it today anyway. Among the bills was one of the strangest advertisements I've ever received. It's from the Trappist Monks at New Melleray Abbey in Peosta, Indiana. After a brief instruction on how the Rule of St. Benedict requires the monks to earn a living by the work of their hands, comes the deadpan pitch:...

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...

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;...

[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...

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...

A Catholic woman from Portsmouth who is pregnant with a rare form of Siamese twins has spoke of her desire to see them born. Lisa Chamberlain, 25, had a scan last week which showed her embryo had two heads and one body - making them dicephalus twins. The staunch Catholic said doctors advised her to undergo an abortion, but this was ruled out after talking over the matter with husband Mike. Mrs Chamberlain said: "To me, my twins are a gift from God and we're determined to give them a chance of life." The twins were diagnosed after the former...

There's a very interesting story over at the Cybercast News Service, if you can stomach it. (CNSNews.com) - Science must ultimately destroy organized religion, according to some of the leading atheist writers and intellectuals who spoke at a recent atheist conference in Northern Virginia. God is a myth, and children must not be schooled in any faith, they said, at the "Crystal Clear Atheism" event, sponsored by the Atheist Alliance International. I'm not going to rehash the article for you -- you can click on the link and read it for your self. It's pretty alarming when you actually read...

Here's the USCCB banner that solves the sex abuse crisis, right off the front page of their wonderous web site. Order one for your church today! Don't know about you, but I feel a lot safer just looking at it. The colors are so pretty! It takes a bishop to recognize that the line between evangelization and marketing is very fine ... as fine as the Rio Grande, and just as straight (pun intended). Let's all repeat it again just to say we did: "What the Church needs is holiness, not management." A priest friend of mine has pointed out...