Recent news highlights...
* Reports indicate that more than 600,000 people have already made reservations to see the Shroud of Turin which will be displayed at the Cathedral of Turin this year from April 10 - May 23. Pope Benedict is scheduled to view the Shroud on May 2.
* According to new study by a sociology professor at Texas Tech University, persons who have multiple tattoos or body piercings were significantly more likely to "use illegal drugs, get arrested on criminal charges, fornicate with multiple partners, or cheat at college". The study's author notes that "escalating levels of body art acquisition and social deviance seem to be concurrent phenomena."
* A documentary film is being made about Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the traditionalist bishop who ran afoul of Church authorities by consecrating four bishops without an apostolic mandate
* Under-population crisis: According to a report from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, elderly people worldwide will outnumber children in 2045, significantly impacting taxes, healthcare, and the labor pool
* Reports indicate that there has been a "mass exodus" of liberal Catholics in Austria. A dissenting group claims the departures began when the Pope lifted the excommunication of a controversial member of the SSPX. A diocesan spokesman, however, attributes the departures to "church tax" that is collected in that nation.
* A Jewish rabbi has suggested that since Pope Pius XII did not lay down his life, he is not a saint. He said, that "Jews perceive as insensitive the idea that anyone who did not put their life on the line at that time can be considered saintly or as warranting a move in that direction." They apparently are not swayed even by the mounting "piles of evidence" showing that that Pope Pius XII's efforts were instrumental in saving many thousands of Jews - not to mention that his efforts of behalf of Jews did put his life at risk.
* In a recent interview, the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship has stressed the liturgy as the center of the life of the faithful which has "first priority", saying that all else comes after. He says that the "great contribution" of Pope Benedict is his "leading us to the truth of the liturgy" and that it is an "urgent duty" to correct liturgical abuse. He also reminds that without tradition, the Church would be "converted into a changing human institution"
* A Georgetown University professor who is a consultant to Pope Benedict XVI's Council for the Laity has written an article blasting Obama's controversial, homosexual activist, "Safe Schools Czar". The article states that "The appointment of a 'czar' like Kevin Jennings is one way in which President Obama can ensure the influence of homosexual-rights-activists in important places – like our nation’s public schools – without the president’s having to pass a law, or even hold a Congressional hearing, both of which might generate public attention and opposition."
* Archbishop Niederauer of San Francisco has attempted to set the record straight regarding pro-abort 'Catholic' Pelosi's comments regarding "free-will" and abortion. He reminds that "the exercise of freedom does not imply a right to say or do everything" and that "it is entirely incompatible with Catholic teaching to conclude that our freedom of will justifies choices that are radically contrary to the Gospel - racism, infidelity, abortion, theft. Freedom of will is the capacity to act with moral responsibility; it is not the ability to determine arbitrarily what constitutes moral right." He reminds that "free will cannot be cited as justification for society to allow moral choices that strike at the most fundamental rights of others. Such a choice is abortion, which constitutes the taking of innocent human life, and cannot be justified by any Catholic notion of freedom."
* Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani spoke on the "grave responsibility" that parents have to raise their children in the faith. He reminds that "Raising them in the truth is to know that sin is the true enemy. From a young age we must make them see what sin is, how it is manifested, why it is sin, and of what it consists. And at the same time, we must teach them that Jesus has come with his life to reveal to us the kindness of his love, his forgiveness and his help. They should learn to forgive and to ask for forgiveness"
* A liberal Jesuit magazine has published a piece defending the proposed new translation of the Roman Missal (Novus Ordo) in response to a priest who argued against it. The article defending the new translation discusses the matter from the writer's vantage point as a former participant in the ICEL translation effort (where, he says, "Ideology, it seemed, had taken precedence over accuracy"). He writes that "So much of what I have witnessed or had described to me by eyewitnesses has been nothing shy of a betrayal of the council’s great vision and, in my judgment, largely responsible for the rapid emptying of the pews." He also reveals that he assembled a team to replace the prevailing translation ("a paraphrase instead of a translation") with a new translation, which he says was received with "hostility" by the bishops' committee, but enjoyed "guarded interest" from Rome. Using the example that "If a man is told by his physician that he must lose 50 pounds or face serious problems, he must 'turn back the clock' to the time when he was lighter in order to save his life", he says "that is what the church at the highest levels is calling us to do." He even speaks of "very positive reactions" to the new translations over the past year which he says are "a vast improvement over the uninspiring, banal and all-too-often theologically problematic texts we have been using for nearly 40 years."
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