Showing posts with label France. Show all posts
Showing posts with label France. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Catholic News-Wednesday, July 25, 2007 A.D.
CVSTOS FIDEI MORNING EDITION
Former LA Priest Arrested - John Spano, LA Times
BODIES Exhibit Lack Of Dignity - California Catholic Daily
Asia's Christian Apostles - Suki Kim, Washington Post
Rethinking The Summer Of Love - C. Stillwell, SF Chronicle
Sharing Chores? - Wilfred McClay, First Things
'Mercy' Doctor Cleared - Associated Press
New Catholic Radio Goes Online - Catholic PRWire
Flight 93 Memorial Still Islamic - Judi McLeod, CFP
Pope's Book A French Best Seller - Zenit
Christian Filmmakers Gather In San Antonio - CNA
India: 30 Bags Found Stuffed w/Female Babies - W. Smith, 2S
Cardinal Mahony Should Resign - Jason Berry, Boston Globe
Last Three Catholic News Postings:
For July 23 click here.
For July 22 click here.
For July 21 click here.
(Hat Tips: Catholic Report, PewSitter, & Lucianne)
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Catholic News-Saturday, July 14, 2007 A.D.
CVSTOS FIDEI AFTERNOON EDITION
Bastille Day: Should French Catholics Celebrate? - PJP, RCP
Pope Benedict XVI States The Obvious - M. Coren, Toronto Sun
MSMs Moral Standards For Ads But Not Pgms - T. Graham, MRC
Germany: Dalai Lama More Popular Than Pope - DW
Abandonment Of Faith In Europe - A. Williams, Crisis
Abp Chaput Defends Right To Rebuke Politicians - P. Gray, CNS
What Atheists Can't Answer - M. Gerson, Washington Post
Brownback Seeks To Upend Indecency Ruling - J. Brown, ONN
I'm Not Offended - R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Baptist Press
Why It's Not Good To Cohabitate - P. Webb, ArchDen
...CF Blog Entry:
Pics from Cafe Catholica - Tito, Custos Fidei
Movie Review:
Into Great Silence (Die Große Stille)
by Tito, Custos Fidei.
This movie is still playing in Houston, click here for showtimes.
Shameless Blog Plug Of The Day:
What Does The Prayer Really Say
by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
Secular News Item Of The Day:
Muslim US Congressman States Bush Like Hitler
by Toby Harnden, London Telegraph
Last Three Catholic News Postings:
For July 13 click here.
For July 12 click here.
For July 11 click here.
(Hat Tips: National Catholic Register, LifeSite, Pewsitter, & RealClearPolitics)
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Catholic News-Sunday, May 13, 2007 A.D.
CVSTOS FIDEI AFTERNOON EDITION
Brazil Papal Visit: Day Five (5) - Thomas N. Peters, AmP
90th Anniversary of Fatima - Seminarian Matthew, ACL
Pelosi in Houston Church - Tito, Custos Fidei
Using Abortion to Target Disabled Kids - Laura Echevarria, LN
1000th Posting! - Tito, Custos Fidei
Family Day Engulfs Rome - Thomas N. Peters, AmP
Pilgrimage of Tradition in France - Shawn Tribe, NLM
Seminarians & Learning Latin - Fidelis Servus, RC Vocations
'Into Great Silence' STILL Playing in Houston - Tito, Custos Fidei
One Million Protest Islam in Turkey - staff, BBC News
CVSTOS FIDEI MORNING EDITION
Pope Stuns Pentacostals - AFP, Herald Sun
Rudy & the Right - staff, Wall Street Journal
Pope Warns Drug Traffickers - Tracy Wilkinson, LA Times
Socialistic Read of Jesus - Ken Shepherd, NewsBusters
Amnesty Int'l Promotes Death - Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com
What Vocation Crisis? - Fidelis Servus, Roman Catholic Vocations
GMA Show Worried of Papist Politics - Scott Whitlock, NewsBusters
CBS Chastises Stay-at-Home Mom's - Kristen Fyfe, NewsBusters
Crossing the Tiber? - Pat Dague, Transfigurations
'Reasons to Believe' Book Review - Jeff Miller, The Curt Jester
(Hat Tips: Catholic Report & The WebElf Report.)
Movie Review:
Into Great Silence (Die Groß Stille) - Tito, Custos Fidei.
Book Review:
Reasons to Believe by Scott Hahn - Jeff Miller, The Curt Jester.
Shameless Blog Plug of the Day:
Musings of a Pertinacious Papist.
Secular News Item of the Day:
4 Myths About America-Bashing in Europe - William Drozdiak, WaPo.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Bayeux Tapestry
One of the coolest little video's I've seen in a long time, do yourself a favor and watch it!
Monday, May 7, 2007
La Victoire est en nous!-France slightly slows its slide into moral oblivion
While it's not on the level of, say, Sam Brownback getting elected President of the USA, in the wake of tragic election results in Mexico and Portugal for Catholics, well, I'll take some international electoral wins where I can get them.
In this case, as I predicted about three years ago on my old blog, Nicholas Sarkozy has been elected the president of France. From a Catholic perspective, he is basically a Rudy Giuliani type. Still, for France, that is pretty darn good and there are some positives here. All-in-all though, this election is no major victory in the "Culture Wars," as we know them here in America. At least however, Mr. Sarkozy, will slow/stop the slide into moral oblivion in France. Sure a speed-bump is no bastion, but it's better than nothing, and who knows what good may come of it? Anyway, the good news...
1-Sarkozy is pro-American. This is very refreshing to see. With a strong man in power, France could be a valuable ally in the war on terror.
2-He stands for law and order. Since 1789, it seems, rioting is the preferred option in France, whether one is pushing for a Jihad or just a 30 hour work week. At least we can be confident that for the next few years, France will be led by man who won't let France turn into "Eurabia."
3-He opposes bringing Turkey in the EU.
4-He is not openly hostile to religion. Sarkozy In the he has even criticized France's draconian 1905 secularization laws, a real untouchable sacred cow in France, but one that needs to be delt with. Such hard-core secularism in France is actually creating major problems since rather than become part of society, France's Muslims feel pushed into a corner and fight back. Sarkozy took their side in a conflict over the right to wear their headscarves, this was a good move on his part. As the Pope says...
"...we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology."
5-Sarkozy a Cafeteria Catholic himself, at least shows some respect for Catholics...
-"In a country where politicians rarely mention faith, Sarkozy openly professes admiration for the late Pope John Paul, says he prefers lively African Sunday mass to French priests' boring sermons and name-drops about his talks with French cardinals...
-"The message Nicolas Sarkozy has been sending to Catholics, throughout the campaign but especially in recent days, seems to have been well received," the Catholic daily La Croix wrote...
-"Sarkozy said he would help Catholic schools overcome state limits and get more teachers. He also opposed gay marriage and said the state should not subsidize mosques, as Muslims want."
Sure he is just throwing us a bone, so to speak, but it's better than the open hostility from the socialist camp.
5- Things could have been a lot worse had Ségolène Royal, who is living in sin, refusing to marry the father of her four children, rose to power. Consider her tendency to attack the Pope almost every chance she gets...
"Royal broaches themes that are anathema to the Vatican...Royal saves her full broadside against Pope Benedict for a question about his remarks on Islam at the University of Regensburg in Germany last September...(She writes) 'Later, the Inquisition and the bonfires on which thousands of women accused of sorcery were burned did not testify especially well to the harmonious marriage between Christianism and Reason. The same goes for the Wars of Religion that bloodied Europe.'"
Mr. Sarkozy may be far from the model of a practicing Catholic, but at least he ACKNOWLEDGES the existence and importance of Europe's Christian history, he doesn't deny it or attack it.
6-Unlike his opponent in the Socialist Party, Sarkozy will not legalize gay marriage, though with the civil unions and such in France, it is pretty much defacto legal already, at least the word marriage is preserved and the door is open to its sanctity someday being restored someday.
7-Sarkozy is not French. Well OK, he is French, but he is of Hungarian decent. France is always at its most powerful when NOT led by Frenchman, remember Joan of Arc (French-Woman), Napoleon (Corsican).
8-I cannot emphasize this enough, IT COULD HAVE BEEN A LOT WORSE!
Please say a prayer for President Sarkozy, for I think, deep down, he is a good man who understands history, and the difference between good and evil. If he makes a conversion of heart on some issues he could even become an orthodox Catholic. He is in a position in which with a little faith and courage, he can do great things for France, Europe, and the world.
For a Catholic counterpoint to all this, keep your eye on this blog, I have a feeling some pro-Socialist commentary is on the way.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Colbert to French Socialists, "Ils ne passeront pas!"- Colbert to Huckabee "maybe..."- Colbert to Gospel of Judas "Heresy!"
Whether you like him or not, practicing Catholic/comedian Stephen Colbert, is one of the best friends Catholics have in the mainstream media. From his April 23 show...-Colbert warns that lesbianism will lead to a demographic disaster for sea-turtles.
-Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee asks Colbert to consider being his running-mate.
-Colbert weighs in on the French election (which I wrote about here and will be blogging about in greater depth in the near future), endorsing right-wing candidate Nicholas Sarkozy. Colbert voiced concern that physical attractiveness may propel the Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal to victory. To help viewers overcome this, he took Royal's face and supplanted it with Karl Marx's. Colbert warns views that, "that ain't Santa Clause."
I by no means intend to make blogging on The Colbert Report a daily occurrence, other than when his episodes take a very overtly Catholic turn (which has happened on several occasions). Due, however, to this tie to the French election, which I will be blogging on more soon, I figured this to be the perfect time to mention that, I will, on occasion be posting about Colbert.
For some more Catholic stuff, see Colbert tearing the "Gospel of Judas" to shreds a few days ago (metaphorically speaking), attributing the slew of non-canonical Gospels to a "cottage industry."
For some brief commentary on this video check out this post on "Way of the Fathers," blog.
For some good Colbert commentary by Tito check out this post.
For more Catholic-Colbert info check out this post on the now-defunct College Catholic blog.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Pray for The Eldest Daughter
France, she is the “Eldest Daughter,” of the Church, and has been since 498 A.D. when King Clovis was baptized, and in essence, the barbarian tribes that conquered Rome were “conquered” by He who promises a burden that is easy and a yoke that is light. France is a land of great saints, listing names such as King Louis, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Lisieux, and Bernadette of Lourdes, only scratches the surface.
Closer to home, it was intrepid French Jesuits, who brought Christ into the deepest wilderness of North America. The river we know as the Mississippi was known to them as “The River of the Immaculate Conception,” (anyone know how to say that in French?)
Also one must not forget France’s great contributions to the world. France was America’s first ally, and aided us courageously in tossing the yoke of the British Empire. Likewise, the contributions of the French to art and literature are awe inspiring.
All that said, something is rotten in the state of France, and has been, for a very, very long time. Sure all nations have their ups and downs, but few have been as tragic or historically significant as those of France. The French sold out Europe and chose peace and trade with the militant Ottoman Empire and refused to answer the Pope’s call to save Christendom on several occasions. As G.K. Chesterton observed in his poem Lepanto, “The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass.” Likewise, the French refused to save the city of Vienna from the Turks a century later, thank God that in both cases, other champions of Christendom emerged to pick up the slack. It should also be noted that in the Thirty-Years War, France made war on the other Catholic powers, stabbing them in the back, "It profits a man nothing to lose his soul for the whole world"... but to check Hapsburg power in Spain and Austria?
Also, it is hard to ignore the fact that while some kings of France were great and virtuous men, plenty of them lived lives which were essentially defined by the seven deadly sins in terms of decadence; the mistresses, the ceaseless unjust wars for power, the subterfuge, and the opulence even in times of famine and suffering for the common people, was all shameful.
Hardly a word needs to be said on the 1789 Revolution and the bloodshed and evil that came in its wake, not only to France, but to the world, and unto our time. Its ideologies of man attaining a worldly utopia by doing away with faith, truth, and morality, and the idea of human rights not as something “inalienable” and endowed by the Creator as the American Revolution declared (and to which the authors of the Magna Carta would have surely agreed) but rather, granted at the whim of those in power; the state. These ideas have reverberated through all the destructive political movements in subsequent decades. One simple example, it is hard to imagine the Russian Revolution without the French Revolution.
The Revolution, which for a time turned the great Cathedral of Notre Dame into the “Temple of Reason,” however, could never kill faith, no tyrant or revolution has ever been able to do that, and none ever will. Yet, in many ways, the French Revolution was as close to the triumph of complete secularism as we have ever seen, outside of North Korea, and certainly in the "Christian world (with the USSR running a close second) and while it did not destroy the faith, it seems to have severely handicapped it there.
Even in 1957, the Church in France was wounded and in major crisis. In an article entitled, Rebellious Eldest Daughter, TIME magazine (make note of a treatment of religion which is far more fair and unbiased than one would see today) chronicled several sad events (emphasis added)…
“St. Louis IX of France (1215-70) would have been saddened by the three grim problems before the French hierarchy : 1) the growing shortage of priests, 2) the defiance of the Worker Priests, 3) the crisis of religious education…
France today has only 56,700 priests v. 71,300 in 1901, when separation of church and state became law. This deficit is especially serious in the parishes; more and more young priests are entering orders rather than the secular priesthood, and there were 16,000 priestless parishes in 1950 v. 4,772 in 1903. One reason is the appalling poverty of the average country cure. Dependent upon handouts for food and fuel, he often spends the winters in near-starvation, and it is becoming increasingly common for parish priests to solicit odd jobs in the neighborhood—house-painting, plastering, milking or shoe-repairing—to supplement the meager dole of the church. U.S. Catholic parishes are accustomed to supporting their priests, but the French, whose government paid the priesthood until 1905, have been conditioned to thinking of this as the responsibility of the state and keeping their hands in their pockets…
The body of French Catholicism is feverish with a Red virus. Open resistance to the authority of Rome is preached in the vociferous and well-financed left-wing Catholic press. This movement joins Gallicanism, the traditional independent and anti-Rome feelings of French Catholics, to more recent charges that the church is allied with "the rich." and in its anti-Communist zeal has abandoned the working class. Most middle-road French churchmen are ill equipped to fight back in this propaganda battle, partly because France's old-fashioned system of seminary education provides no training in political and economic questions…
State-supported schools have traditionally provided a "chaplain professor" to train children in the catechism, but this practice is being discontinued in the new schools on the grounds of economy. Thus an increasingly large proportion of French youth is growing up without the dimmest inkling of the Christian faith…”
If these problems were rampant in the 1950’s it makes one cringe to imagine what they are now. Also any of the above remind you of the Church in some parts of the US?
Still, walking around France today, the footprint of the old Catholic culture (which still survives in some locals) is deep, little shrines and great Gothic churches are as much a part of the landscape as the rivers and hills. France is now in the midst of a presidential election. The voting goes in two rounds, in the first round the voters select the top two candidates, those two then go head to head in an early May election. The candidates are all disappointing, even compared to the sort of candidates we are used to in America. Yet, the differences between the top two candiates are stark, and the effects of this election truly will impact the future of France well beyond our lifetimes, in short, this election is crucial. I will blog on it in a less historical and retrospective post soon, till then, pray that the Holy Spirit guards and guides the Church’s eldest daughter in this time of great change, and that she may, some how, some day, set an example that will inspire us all and make Our Lady smile.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
New French Anti-Tank Weapon
Friday, December 22, 2006
French Jokes for Friday
It's Friday, Christmas is almost here and I'm in a merry ole mood. So for your reading pleasure more jokes about our French cousins, those cheese-eating surrender monkeys:
"France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. France has usually been governed by prostitutes."
--Mark Twain
"I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me."
--General George S. Patton
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion."
--General Norman Schwartzkopf
"We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it."
--Marge Simpson
"As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." --Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." --Rush Limbaugh"The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee." --Regis Philbin
"The last time the French asked for 'more proof' it came marching into Paris under a German flag."
--David Letterman
"Only thing worse than a Frenchman is a Frenchman who lives in Canada ."
--Ted Nugent
"War without France would be like .. World War II."
--Unknown
"What do you expect from a culture and a nation that exerted more of its national will fighting against Disney World and Big Macs than the Nazis?"
--Dennis Miller
"It is important to remember that the French have always been there when they needed us."
--Alan Kent
"They've taken their own precautions against al-Qa'ida. To prepare for an attack, each Frenchman is urged to keep duct tape, a white flag, and a three-day supply of mistresses in the house."
--Argus Hamilton
"Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day --the description was, 'Never shot. Dropped once.'"
--Rep. Roy Blunt, MO
"Do you know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris ? It's not known, it's never been tried."
--Rep. R. Blount, MO
"Do you know it only took Germany three days to conquer France in WWII? And that's because it was raining."
--John Xereas, Manager, DC Improv
...and one more joke just to leave you on your merry way...
"Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican national holiday celebrating an important military victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla. Yet one more reason for Americans to adopt and celebrate this great Mexican holiday. Because if the French would have won, we'd have Frenchman jumping, running, and swimming across the border into the United States instead of Mexicans."
--Tito, CVSTOS FIDEI blogger
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