Keep Your Ovaries Off Our Rosaries

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/05/30/vatican.women.priests/index.html
Ah, yes, once again the secular media is having a field day painting the Catholic Church as a misogynistic and patriarchal organization. I don't really know how to break this down into an argument the average American can understand. With the Feminist Revolution having firmly indoctrinated recent generations, it is hard to explain to people why telling a woman she and the rest of her gender are excluded from something isn't "mean".
From a Biblical perspective, it's pretty clear that women were never meant to be priests. When God dwelt with Moses, the Aaronic priesthood was all male despite Miriam's active role in Moses' life. Many Levitical laws were given in order to help the Israelites break from pagan influence and to sow the seeds for Christianity. It would have been an ideal time to establish women's role as spiritual leaders.
Jesus never called females as apostles, despite having Mary Magdalene and His mother around quite a bit. Surely there were women around who would have fit the bill if God had intended it to be so.
It is hard to make this argument with a celibate priesthood, because a woman called to celibacy would not be impeded by motherhood from serving full time as a priest. Therefore, you simply have to say that God intended for men to lead society and for women to follow that lead. That automatically attacks the pride response in people when you tell them some other person has authority over them (how many people embrace "celibate old men telling them what they can't do in the bedroom"?), but really shouldn't. Obviously if a man asks a woman to sleep with him, the woman has an obligation to refuse, which means that God expects her to engage her brain in learning His divine laws and to follow them in her life.
You can also support this statement biblically by demonstrating that Adam should have not followed Eve's lead in eating the apple, but because he shirked his decision-making duty, we all suffer the consequences to this day.
Instead of seeing male headship as a slap at women, it really ought to be seen from it's true perspective. Men tend to be lazy. Men would be more than willing to let women do everything in society, Church, anywhere and they would only lift a finger when it meant they would get food or sex. By making them responsible for women and children, God gave men a mission and a purpose, a reason to not be lazy, a punishment for failure. Women (usually) are not lazy in the second fiddle position. They clean, cook, budget, rear children, attend pta meetings and playgroups to improve things for their kids and a million other things that men would probably not do if left to their own devices. When you start letting women be priests, men start slacking and women end up running themselves ragged trying to do everything while men waste away in front of the tv or internet porn. Denying women the priesthood doesn't tear women down, it builds men up and, like it or not, women need men to be built up. Society functions best when both halves act responsibly. Look at how it breaks down when a man walks out on his wife and kids.
At any rate, one need look no further than to churches that do permit female clergy to see my point. Slowly but surely, the number of female clergy grows and the number of parishioners shrinks. So to recap: men need the priesthood because they're lazy, women need to quit butching their hair and worshipping trees, and we all could stand to be a bit more responsible in this world and a bit more humble and obedient to God.

Could You Please Be a Little More Pointless?

http://www.ucanews.com/html/ucan/f_dishpatch.asp?title=%20%20Theologians%20Ask%20Church%20To%20Shed%20All-Knowing%20Attitude&ucalang=English_../news_report/english/2008/05/w2/thu/IA04943Rg.txt
Reading through this article, one gets the feeling that the theologians and nuns making this proposition are unfamiliar with the definition of 'religion'. They seem to have it confused with "charitable organization". The primary purpose of religion is to connect people with God. The Catholic Church engages in charitable acts because #1. Jesus served us and asked us to serve others and, #2. we understand that it is hard to fathom God as a loving father when your temporal needs are not met. If your children are starving to death in your arms, God does not seem in your midst.
The problem with the Church shedding its "all-knowing" attitude is that if the Church isn't grounded in truth (all-knowing) then there's no point in following the Christian exhortation to love one another. There is no point in service.
These theologians promote relativism, whether they know it or not. We are all children of God, but just being nice to people isn't going to make the world a better place. We have to give other people a reason to NOT be selfish. Helping people understand their dignity in the Christian God and the lack of dignity in selfishness not only makes the world a better place, but also prepares them for the eternal afterlife. I don't presume to judge these theologians and nuns, but it doesn't seem like the wellbeing of the eternal souls of humanity is at the forefront of their argumentation. They seem to be seeking the path of least resistance in the current life.

Uh, Honduras . . . Shut Up.

http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58339
Ah, yet another non-American deciding what's best for US citizens. Firstly, the border wall in San Diego was very effective in reducing illegal immigration and their crime rate dropped 40%. Therefore his belief that a wall won't work needs to be supported by counter-evidence. Secondly, Cardinal Maradiaga ignores the fact that a nation has a duty to protect its citizens. When people come in illegally, we don't know if they're murderers, rapists, and drug dealers, or just average joses looking to make money to support their families. Mexico needs to respect our sovreignty and their citizens need to enter our country legally. Thirdly, he is ignorant of the fact that when a developed nation is inundated with a less developed populace, it tends to drag the standard of living in the developed nation down. Now i'm not saying our immigration laws are perfect or that only highly skilled geniuses should be allowed to come here, but there must be limits and regulations. And finally, why is no one chewing out the Mexican government for not fixing the corruption and increasing the standard of living for its own citizens? Doesn't the fact that so many people want to jump ship tell you that maybe Mexico ought to be getting the criticism instead of the US? I love Latinos and more orthodox Catholics in the US would certainly be a boon, but i want them to come legally and for the right reasons.
P.S. This has nothing to do with anything the Holy Father said while he was in the US. I love Benedict! If he says it needs to be a land of opportunity for all, fine! But he has also criticized the Mexican government and also didn't say anything about coming here illegally being okay. Just FYI.

News Flash: Not Having Sex May Prevent AIDS

http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58332
I don't think i've ever been so happy in my life. A research team from the Harvard School of Public Health has done a study that found that abstinence promotion has been effective in reducing the spread of HIV in African nations while condom promotion has done NOTHING! Ahahahahahahaha!
The study must be credible because i can't see any secular university promoting abstinence unless they simply had to look at their research results honestly. The Catholic Church in the US is too busy paying off sex abuse lawsuits to have any extra cash to bribe research institutes.
This may be repetitive, but as an average Catholic blogger I feel it my duty to repeat easily digestible arguments for average Catholics to easily regurgitate to their non-Catholic/bad Catholic family, friends and coworkers. The reason condom promotion fails is the psychological impact it has on a populace. When you tell people it's okay to live recklessly as long as they take precautions, it sends a mixed message. People will start living more recklessly, but may or may not take precautions. They know there is a "safe" way to do things, so it gives them a false sense of security whether they're using a condom or not. Then, of course, there is condom failure whether by manufacturer error or "pilot error", but i digress. Basically, many secular arguments, like condom promotion, sound very logical on paper, but the reason research will prove them wrong is because they fail to take into account the fact that we are human beings, not robots, and when society lowers the bar for personal accountability, we typically devolve.
You may want to save this link because i'm doubting this story will be readily available in mass media.

Critical Mass

On Youtube there is a video titled "Pissed Catholic Mother". In this video a kid told his mom he had become an atheist. She responded with much profanity and threatened the child by denying him Christmas gifts. She was incapapable of presenting a reasoned response to the arguments given by her son. She seemed like the type of mother who went to Church simply because that is what you are "supposed" to do. That is all well and good, but if you don't understand what the Church really teaches then you cannot keep your kids Catholic.
In the responses to this video, it was atheist after atheist congratulating the kid and showing their utter ignorance of the teachings of Christianity by condemning some ridiculous parody of what Christianity actually is. Furthermore, they condemn all Christians as being intolerant of atheists. I wonder if these people have ever studied what happens to Christians when a government is atheist. To me this represents a need to inundate the world as much as possible with the truths of Christ's Church if for no other reason than that we don't have to hear people embarrass themselves with their ignorance. You can find the video by going to http//:youtube.com and doing a search for the title mentioned above, but it is not for the person with sensitive ears. It is, however, a documented instance of the weakness of cultural Catholicism.

Victims of Their Own Success

It has been said before but bears repeating: the "liberal Catholic" movement is undoing itself. By denying the teaching authority of the Church, they give younger generations no reason to stay in her. Most millenials may agree with the liberal perspective on social issues like contraception, but if the Church is wrong about so much that's so important, why not sleep in on Sundays? I was pleased to see that the realization of this fact is starting to sink in, albeit too late, as is noted in this Time magazine article quotation from Fr. Tom Reese, former editor of America magazine.
"But the familiar progressives-versus-Vatican paradigm seems almost certain to be undone by a looming demographic tsunami. Almost everyone agrees that the "millennial generation," born in 1980 or later, while sharing liberal views on many issues, has no desire to mount the barricades. Notes Reese, "Younger Catholics don't argue with the bishops; they simply do what they want or shop for another church." And Hispanic Catholics, who may be the U.S. majority by 2020, don't see this as their battle. "I'm sure they�re happy that the celebration of the Eucharist is in the vernacular," says Tilley, "but they don't have significant issues connected to Vatican II."

All a faithful Catholic need do is take as active a role in your Church as possible, raise your kids in the fullness of Truth, and wait for them to take over. By the next generation, apathy will have set in and those with a desire to "change the Church!" will be retired.
On a final note, I am reminded of the teaching that good does not need evil to survive. Evil needs good to survive. Evil will eat everything good, and when that is all gone, it will turn in on itself and be destroyed. Good is self-sustaining. When a movement like liberalism within the Church enters the phase of self-destruction, it's not hard to recognize it's origin.

Mark My Words, You'll Rue Brittania

http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58181

I'm gravely disappointed in this story. I think Autumn is a fool for renouncing her Catholic faith, though i'm sure she fancies herself terribly romantic and devoted to her man. This seems like evidence that a smaller and purer Church would be preferrable. What good is it to have 1.1 billion Catholics in the world if the vast majority of them would apostasize for a Klondike bar? Or in this case, a one in a trillion shot at the British monarchy?