October 2006 Archives

My last post dealt with the Jesuit Georgetown University naming an endowed chair after a priest who has been a supporter of abortion. Mike left me a comment saying that I've been biased by anti-Drinan sources. I attempted to e-mail him on the address he left in the comment, but my e-mail was returned as undeliverable. Since I would like to be as accurate as possible, I'm reposting the e-mail here in hopes that Mike will see this and respond.

Hi Mike,
Can you refer me to some more materials from Fr. Drinan, SJ? From what I've been able to find, he seems a pretty clear supporter of abortion during both his political career and his time off of the Hill.

What I've found so far, from sources other than the Catholic News Agency, is that he supported President Clinton's veto of the partial-birth abortion ban and pushed for an allowance of abortions anytime the doctor feel that the mother was at-risk.

If I misrepresented The Honorable Father, I'd like to be the first to issue a correction or clarification or whatever would be warranted.

As I am aware, he ran for office despite the Black Pope's informing him that he could not and without the clear approval from the local bishop and while in office, he supported abortion, which unlike many actions, the Catholic Church has a firm and unchangeable opinion against. He did not seek re-election after a statement by Pope John Paul II that priests should not be elected officials.

Thank you for your comment and your assistance in finding more information about Fr. Drinan, SJ.

Take care,
Brandon Kraft

Jesuit university endows human rights chair in name of pro-abortion priest

I do not believe that every Catholic university needs to follow the Ave Maria approach (that is, removing anything opposed or not fully inline with Catholic thought from anywhere near campus), but there is a duty to a Catholic university to be Catholic. At least, they should not celebrate confirmed evils.

Georgetown University, in Washington DC, named a human rights chair after Fr. Robert F. Drinan, SJ. Fr. Drinan, who also served in Congress after his ordination to the priesthood, is a fierce supporter of abortion.

Abortion is the taking of an innocent human life for the advancement of another person. Georgetown names an endowed chair after a person, much less a priest, who is completely in favor of abortion in the field of human rights? Does that make sense to anyone?

I wouldn't be in favor of this still, but a chair of personal liberty or something to that effect would make more sense. Not only are they rejecting their Catholic basis, but are not following sound logic!

The bill authorizing the "celebrated" 700-mile fence along the 2,000-mile Mexico border has been signed into Federal law.

I'm glad that we feel a fence is a best way to take care of this problem and I'm glad that we feel like blocking 35% of the border is the right way to bulid a fence.

We have many problems in this country, but this isn't the largest problem. This is a complex problem requiring complex solutions. Buliding a huge fence is nothing but a public relations stunt.

We'll probably use "illegals" to build the fence.

Undocumented immigrants get a bad rap. Sure, perhaps they shouldn't be in "our" country, but if we think that they are the cause of all that is evil in this country or that building a fence will make America stronger, we have some more thinking to do.

A short while ago, I found this e-mail in my inbox:

From: Richard Ribb Mailed-By: lists.cc.utexas.edu
To: la-students-s1@lists.cc.utexas.edu
Date: Oct 3, 2006 2:29 PM
Subject: OFFICIAL: graduation information

Dear Liberal Arts Seniors:

Congratulations on approaching the completion of your coursework at
UT Austin. If you are planning to graduate this December, you must
apply to graduate by 5:00 p.m, October 25. In most cases, you may
apply online from the College of Liberal Arts Web site at

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/graduation/application1/.

Seniors who plan to graduate in May or August of 2007 must schedule
an official degree check with a Student Division advisor by October
24 or risk not graduating as expected. The Student Division advisors
confer with students in Gebauer 2.306. You may schedule an
appointment by calling 512-471-4271.

REGULAR SEMESTER-BY-SEMESTER MEETINGS WITH YOUR DEPARTMENTAL ACADEMIC
ADVISOR WILL FACILITATE SATISFACTORY PROGRESS TOWARD YOUR DEGREE, BUT
ARE NOT CONSIDERED OFFICIAL DEGREE CHECKS.

Sincerely,

Richard Flores
Associate Dean
College of Liberal Arts
www.utexas.edu/cola/

RF/rhr

From the e-mail, if you were planning on graduating in August 2007, what course of action should you take? I gathered that I should call and schedule a degree check.

After putting it off for about a week, I call today to schedule the degree check. The conversation went something like what follows:
Me: Hi, I'd like to schedule a degree check.
LA Employee: Sure, what semester do you graduate?
Me: August 2007
LA Employee: You don't need to schedule a check until May.
Me: The e-mail I received said otherwise.
LA Employee: The system probably expects you to graduate in May. That's why they sent you that e-mail. You can still schedule one if you like.
Me: No, I wouldn't want to unless I had to, but for your knowledge, the e-mail says "Seniors who plan to graduate in May or August of 2007 must schedule an official degree check with a Student Division advisor by October 24".
LA Employee: We might as well schedule one. What is your UTEID?

After that, she asked me if my major/minor was correct and I told her I wanted to declare a different minor. Since I need to redeclare online, she couldn't schedule me anyhow and I'd have to call back in a week.

I e-mailed the associate dean who sent out the original e-mail since I'm not going to schedule a degree check unless it is required. I can already see what is going to happen. They're going to be upset at the method I'm taking my Spanish courses. I'll say yes, so I'm applying for a degree modification. They'll grumble. Nothing exciting will happen.

That's my UT issue of the day.

I've posted pictures of the trip on my gallery page. I haven't had the chance to go through all of them, so once the captions ended, I just uploaded everything. The good, the bad and the ugly. So, please ignore the bad photographs. I'll go through when I have some spare time [insert laughter] and add captions and remove bad pictures.

I really like the Our Lady of Hope chapel. It is modern but still very well done.

I'm in flight again over the States as I travel back to Texas. This time, however, I'm in a MD-80 so there are a few more people on the plane. St. Paul's College, the seminary for the Paulist Fathers, is a beautiful place. First, it is located on 4th Street in Washington, DC, right next door to the offices of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and just a bit further away from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It is virtually surrounded by various houses of other orders and it almost like "Catholic Row", just off campus of Catholic University of America.

Since I'm in flight and I'm lacking the right cable, pictures will be uploaded later.

Inside the building, the chapel is a very simple space. It is configured in a choir setup (with the pews split in two sections facing each other across the main aisle) with an ambo near the entrance with the altar on the opposite end of the space. On the left side, there is a fixed organ and a piano complements the chapel on the right side. As you would expect with a chapel, we celebrated Mass and prayer sessions throughout the weekend. As I'll write more about later, Fr. Issac Hecker had two "mission crosses", which were crosses that Paulists kept and used as they preached missions across the country. One of his mission crosses is displayed outside of the chapel. Later, I discovered that the other cross is kept in the archives which are located in the space I'll discuss- the library.

The library was amazing. Formerly the chapel, the two-level library is adored with various stained class windows. In addition to a couple of "usual saints", there are also windows for Fr. Issac Hecker, the society's founder and another one for the Paulist Press (founded in 1868), among others. It would a nice area to study and if I had more time, I would be able to tell you more about the library, namely the book selection.

The common rooms were nice. The Paulist Fathers do not take vows of poverty, but instead seek to live a life of Gospel simplicitiy. In practice, this means they live comfortably without excess. Between the various common rooms I saw, they had nice TVs to watch movies or sporting events with the guys in the house, well-stocked fridges and plenty of little snacks. All in all, this provides a space for the priests, seminarians and novices to de-stress and build fraternity among the members.

I enjoyed the rooms at St. Paul's. Each person in the house has their own room with a wired Internet connection (wireless offered as well), a small closet, a small dresser, a desk, a bed with a bathroom and shower. I didn't look in the rooms of the men who are actually living at St. Paul's, so I'm sure it varies some. Personally, while I'm not obligated to Gospel simplicity, I should reduce some of the "stuff" I have and once I did that, the rooms would have everything I need.

The dining room is nice and open, giving itself to discussion. The adjancent reception room is where they have their weekly "community dinner"- a little nicer affair than a normal meal- appears about the same. I haven't really reflected why they have two seperate spaces except perhaps to make the weekly dinner a bit more special. If they had a large group, I did notice, the wall between the spaces can slide open making it one large space.

I didn't see the recreation space. They are currently renovating two wings to turn them into the Hecker Center for Mininstry (read: office space for non-Paulist Catholic organizations) and my assumption is that some of the rec space has been impacted by it. I saw an exercise bike in a storage hallway. Of course, let's not use this to assume the Paulists care not about the physical health of their members. From my experience, both Fr. Dave and Ed at the UCC have membership to UT Rec Sports.

For the moment, that is all I can think to write. Now, I'll move on to homework.

Just wanted to pass along to everyone in Texas that it is currently 51 degrees in Washington, DC and they're not expecting it to get over 58 degrees by the end of the day.

Stay tuned for an interesting event that took place in route to Washington, DC....

I'm currently 37,000 feet above the United States, just crossing the Sabine River out of Texas. This is my first flight aboard an EMB. This American Eagle-operated airplane was 13 rows with 3 seats in each row with no first class- for those who wouldn't like to fire up the calculator, that means 39 plus a crew of 3 or 4.

To pass the time, I'm doing a few different things. First, I'm doing homework. I've written most of a film review for my Studies of U.S. Poverty course and now I'm writing a blog entry. While the blog entry would usually be personal time for me, my Collaborate Technologies course asks a few blog entries from me. While doing all of this, I'm listening to old Busted Halo podcasts. Busted Halo is a young adult website produced by The Paulist Fathers.

I've somewhat read the print material on Busted Halo and to be honest, it has never jumped up to the top of my bookmark list (or now my del.cio.us links or a feed on Google Reader). Everything on there seems to be great; just never really called out to me. By virtue of working for the Paulists through the University Catholic Center, I've been able to meet a good number of people involved with Busted Halo and I've even been recruited to help with their Word on the Street segment (I still need to produce something! Fr. Dave Dywer, CSP (NYD, since he's the Fr. Dave in NYC) if you're reading, I haven't forgotten about it yet!). My boss, Fr. Dave Farnum, CSP (TXD as NYD has referred to him), recently traveled to a preaching conference and walked away after talking to NYD with the idea of podcasting some of the homilies from the University Catholic Center.

I figured, what the heck, if I'm going to start producing podcasts for Fr. Dave and the UCC, I should listen to some of the Busted Halo podcasts. I downloaded all 73 released episodes and I'm currently listening to the 4th episode- I'm impressed.

In terms of new media- Internet-accessed media, EWTN has been the big fish in the Catholic pond. EWTN is a fine network and produces quality Catholic content. The downside to EWTN's content is that there is a high assumption that you're already well-formed in the Church. A random member of the intended audience has probably been Catholic for sometime, attend Mass every Sunday if not more often, may have a decent understanding of Catholicism and Catholic tradition. If you're on the fringe of the Catholic Church or not even in the Church at all, there is a high barrier of entry presented by EWTN.

I've really enjoyed the Busted Halo podcasts so far as that barrier of entry is eliminated. The assumption made by NYD and Mike is that if you're listening, you're seeking to grow closer to God and are open to the Catholic tradition. Now, this is not to say that these podcasts contain only very superficial material. This was my fear and it was proven incorrect.

Some of the topics they have touched upon is the role of fundamentalism in today's political landscape in an interview with former President Jimmy Carter, explaining some of various saints and holy people (St. Nick, Dorothy Day and others) without shying away from some of the darker aspects of these individuals background, looking at parishes across the United States that have young-adult programming. NYD went into the need for confession, including why when a Catholic is under serious (mortal) sin he or she should abstain from Communion.

In other words, I think anyone could listen to these podcasts and be able to follow what is going on without a problem. At the same time as an amateur Church expert, I enjoy listening myself and have found these podcasts useful and interesting.

We shut off our AC.

Okay, not completely, but we've knocked it up to 85 degrees. Our City of Austin bill, which includes water, sewer, waste removal and electricity, was much higher than we expected. As this is the financially most difficult time of year, an unexpected high bill hurts.

Ever since then, however, I just haven't been able to get anything done. While I've lived in Texas my entire life, I think I got the blood of my father's family. I'd much prefer to be cold than hot and my mental ability, I think, are connected to this. I haven't slept well; I lose focus quickly. Is this all due to the heat?

If you'd like to help....

Update: I'm referring to my home; not the UCC. The UCC's electric bill is incredibly high, but we expect it. That being said, if you could help keep the bill down some by not using lights if you don't need it, etc.

The Catholic News Agency is reporting that the man who hijacked a plane over Italy did not do so in protest to the Holy Father's visit to Turkey, but instead, he sought help as he did not want to fight in the Turkish Army.

The man, who would probably fit in well with the folks over at the Catholic Peace Fellowship, was about to be deported back to Turkey and arrested upon arrival for deserting his unit. As a Christian who did not want to fight in the Turkish Army, he had written a letter to Pope Benedict XVI and now wanted to try to reach him in person.

He has indiciated to the Italian police that he is seeking asylum.

While I don't agree with his methods, I still feel for the fellow.

CNN reports that 4% of the United States' yield of hops burned in a fire. Hops, for those who aren't aware, are used to flavor beer and ale.

::silence::

Only about 25% of the world's crop is produced in the US, so only 1% of the world's crop was lost in the fire. Nevertheless, flags are at half-staff at breweries across the country.

I'm not one to say anything against those who were sexually abused by priests; however, Former Rep. Mark Foley is now (literally as I type) announcing that he was abused as a teenage by a clergyman.

After a quick bit of research, he is Catholic so I assume he is referring to a priest.

Maybe he was, but are you kidding me? That doesn't justify anything. He's a self-confessed drunk who gets excited by talking dirty to underaged boys. He's trying to save face and transfer blame to someone else. Maybe he is just taking a cue from the Amish shooter who said he molested girls twenty years ago (when he was 10 or 11 years old).

The timing of all of this just brings too many questions into the picture. As someone who worked so hard for the sexual protection of youth, perhaps mentioning this would have been great then. He could have been a poster child for someone who was abused but didn't let it get the best of him and now he's doing good trying to make the world better. We'll ignore that he was talking dirty to these kids while he was "fighting" for them.

He's just as bad as the priests who did abuse youngsters.

He is a sad, sick man who is now lashing out because he can't handle the stress that has rained down upon him after his actions have become public.

The Swiss Guards, the police force that provide for the security of the Vatican and the Pope, have a very informative website.

The Swiss Guard, inside Church circles at least, are most famous for the protection of Pope Clement VII on May 6, 1527. Of the 189 Swiss Guards, only 42 survived that day. The Spanish troops stormed Rome and the Swiss Guards protected the Pope, allowing him to escape via secret passage to Castel Sant’Angelo, which is now most known to be the Pope's summer residence.

The website has some issues and some pages do not load correctly, but it is very interesting nevertheless.

I'm not a huge Mac fan. I can handle my own on the system and used it as my primary education system when I was earning my multimedia (graphics design, desktop publishing, web design, etc) major while in high school. I remember the Macintosh operating system before it was known as "Mac OS", at least before version 7, as I remember upgrading to 7. The transition to Mac OS 8 was dandy as well. In short, I'm not a huge Mac fan, but I'm not anti-Apple.

I'm way behind in the iPod game. I don't own one, or any other mobile digital music device, but I've never been huge on always having music with me. I didn't know what podcasting was for quite some time since the name doesn't tell you anything, unless you're familar with the iPod and made the connection.

However, with discovering podcasts, the iPod is now very tempting. I have a whole set of NPR podcasts setup in iTunes as well as a few other favorites, including Paulist Father Dave Dwyer's Busted Halo. This is great! I can hear the story of the day on NPR with news and commentary whether or not I'm able to catch the live broadcast.

The only thing that could make it better is if I could take it with me in a form a bit easier than my full laptop.

I digress. I've been using iTunes to some degree since v. 6, so I'm new to the ballgame. I had previously used MusicMatch before college and mostly Windows Media Player over the past few years. iTunes was a bit of a jump as much of my ripped music was in WMA format and iTunes has to convert those files to mp3 or AAC to be useful.

Nevertheless, I jumped over to the iTunes game and recently upgraded to 7.0 and the shortly-released-thereafter 7.0.1.

I can't stand it now. It is slow and brings my laptop to a near halt. Sure, I could use more RAM but I figured 1 GB would be enough. Song playback is full of pops and crackles. When attempting to watch a downloaded TV episode on my roommate's computer, we were unable to get through five minutes of it without it becoming jerky and unwatchable.

Did they put too much into iTunes without ensuring everything can play together? How did some things, like sound playback, get worse?

I expect a basic level of quality for software and iTunes 7 fall short.

Lastly, why can't they put the iTunes store online as web-accessible? I'm online at a computer lab on campus, but would like to purchase a song to be downloaded when I get home. Shouldn't I be able to login, purchase a song using my iTunes account and be able to download it when I open iTunes at home?

The late Pope John Paul II's personal secretary for over 40 years, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, now a Polish Archbishop, is preparing to release a book next year detailing his life next to one of the most impactful people of the 20th century.

The book, to be released next year in Italian, includes a chapter on "Those Two Bullets" referring to the attempt on the Pontiff's life in 1981.

From the Washington Post's article:

In a chapter called "Those Two Bullets," Dziwisz recalls his feelings when Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca shot the Pope while his open jeep was being driven through St Peter's Square on May 13, 1981 at the start of his weekly general audience.

"I tried to hold him up (after he was hit by the second bullet) but it was as if he was letting himself go sweetly," writes Dziwisz, who served Karol Wojtyla for nearly four decades from the time the future pontiff was a bishop in Poland.

"He had a grimace of pain but at the same time he was serene. I asked him 'where?' and he said: "In the stomach."

Dziwisz, who wrote the book together with Italian author Gianfranco Svidercoschi, said the jeep rushed the Pope inside the Vatican walls to its clinic, where he was laid "on the floor" of the building's atrium.

"It was only then that we realized the large amount of blood that was pouring out of the wound caused by the bullet that had pierced him," he writes.

The Pope was taken to a part of the Vatican where aides believed there was an ambulance, but it was in another section of the small city-state and they had to wait for it to arrive.

He was then rushed to the Gemelli hospital several kilometers north of the Vatican but new glitches arose.

BROKEN SIREN, FADING POPE

"The siren did not work well and there was a lot of traffic. The driver was honking his horn non-stop. The Pope was losing his strength but he was still conscious."

"He was murmuring 'Why did they do it?' He uttered words of forgiveness for whoever shot him. I heard him pray, invoking 'Jesus, Mary my mother'."

The Pope lost consciousness when the ambulance reached the Gemelli. In the confusion and shock, he was taken by mistake first to the 10th floor and then to the operating theater on the ninth floor. Workers forced open two doors to get there quicker.

"The doctors who carried out the surgery told me later that while they were operating they were convinced that the patient would not survive," Dziwisz writes.

The book should bring new light to the thoughts of Pope John Paul II from someone, who of all people, would know the best. I hope there is an English translation released soon.