She stated that the best way to prevent abortion was to reduce unwanted pregnancies, which is best done through contraception according to her.

When reminded that her church, the Catholic Church, is against contraception, she openly admitted she knows and that it doesn’t matter. She also openly admitted that sometimes abortion is necessary and she doesn’t always agree with her Church or political party.

I leave it to canonists, and I am sure they will weigh in, but it seems like this is a public profession of such that could trigger a Canon 915 related denial of communion. Presuming that her Bishop has, or will, counsel the Senator and she refuses to publicly recant her pro-abortion positions, it would seem that would constitute obstinately manifesting in grave sin given her position as a member of the United States Senate.

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So do we have any Catholic people out there who still allows themselves to be swayed any by this particular event? Perhaps there or other old wives tales that may still come forth from time to time. Chime in and give us your take on where these quaint folklore situations fall into your lives. Tell us totally fiction or some fact depending on the custom?

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It’s a story about a company that takes unconsecrated communion hosts and sells them as SNACK FOOD. They are marketed as hosts/communion wafers and referred to as such in the accompanying article.

The telling quote is this though…

Sold as a distinctly profane snack.

Oy…

OK. The snacks are not the Body of Christ. I get that. But as a commenter on Jimmy’s site said, “Would you sell wine as Jesus Juice?” I get that it is flour and water. But all this does is help confuse people who are unsure of their beleive in the Real Presence. Few enough beleive as it is. This is a sure path to the erosion of faith in the Eucharist for those (who are weak in their faith or have doubts) that come into regular contact with it, much less eat it.

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I was pretty excited to see the Blessed Mother get mentioned. After all, CT is not a Catholic site. It’s run by Protestants. Though it is an excellent resource for a lot of things.

I agree that there are Mary Moments that God calls us to do things. But I think they happen way more than the writer realizes. Mary Moments to me are more embodied by the Miracle at Cana. The Blessed Mother’s last recorded words in the Gospels are “Do whatever HE tells you.”

That is the Mary Moment that we are all called to live. Each and every day. 24/7/365 with no exceptions. Mary Moments are not just for the big things God calls us to do. Mary Moments are all about our daily struggle to follow Christ and to do His will. That’s what the Blessed Mother always does. She shows us the way to her Son and Lord.

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Which if you think about it is probably one of the reasons those precious gifts from God can be so darn annoying at this time of year. Who want to go around with worm/cricket breath or be around that?

To quote Peter David: But I Digress…

What used to be such a time of joy for me has really become a trial in recent years. I have come to dread and despise the “Holiday Season” in the US. While the secularists and multi-culturalists are busy taking God and especially Christ out of the public life, they are at the same time trying to substitute something else. Outside the holidays it is generally an earth worship thing it seems, while during the holidays, it becomes the god of consumerism.

It’s this last one that I hate the most. It makes the time of year we should be reflecting on the coming Holy Day into nothing more than an orgasmic expression of what’s in it for me? Sure we go out and buy LOTS of gifts for others, but now we also have the new thing of buying something special for ourselves for some people. We try to out do last year’s gifts. We try to be a better giver than last year. We try to overcompensate for the puny gift we gave Aunt Marge with something bigger.

The giving just isn’t about charity anymore. Faith, Hope and Love (or charity if you please) are the three great theological virtues. Of these St. Paul tells us that Love (charity) is the greatest and that the other two without it are nothing. We are nothing.

Mrs. Fric and I have resolved to make Christmas different from now on. We aren’t sure how we are going to do it or how to transition the children on it, but I do not want to spend another year feeling guilty about participating in the consumerism run amok. We want our family to experience a true Advent season and a true Christmas season. While I believe that Easter is the most important Holy Day, Christmas is right up there. We need to be grateful and remember how awesome it is that God Himself would humble… Nay… Humiliate Himself to become one of US. Only His Divine Love for us is cause for it. We certainly aren’t worthy of it. Yet He did it anyway.

Let’s all try to remember this every day, but especially this time of year.

The post Merry Christmas Everyone appeared first on CatholicManiacs.

Found one of those online quizzes that asks questions and pigeon-holes you about over at Envoy Encore. This one tells you what kind of faith tradition your views fit best. Here’s mine:

You scored as Roman Catholic. You are Roman Catholic. Church tradition and ecclesial authority are hugely important, and the most important part of worship for you is mass. As the Mother of God, Mary is important in your theology, and as the communion of saints includes the living and the dead, you can also ask the saints to intercede for you.

No really big surprise at the top. A bit surprised that the Evangelical thing came in ahead of neo-orthodox. Especially surprised about the 36% post modern. I suspect that was due to my disagreeing with the world being created in a literal 6 days and probably a couple of other things.

Obviously, there’s no point, except to have fun.

The post What is Your Faith Tradition? appeared first on CatholicManiacs.

And on and on it seems.

So many good things to blog about and so little time.

Topics like:

• The NY Press newspaper that ran a cover and article about the 52 funniest things about the upcoming death of the Pope.
• The new weekly catechetical talks I am going to start arranging at my parish.
• The health and suffering of the Holy Father.
• The constant back and forth between Catholics who are social and economic conservatives vs. Catholics who are social and economic liberals, all claiming orthodoxy for themselves and hypocrisy or heterodoxy for the the others. See a blogpost over at Open Book by Amy Wellborn for some good examples here. These are just the latest I have seen. Lots of other examples.
• Lent and its meaning and what I am encountering this year.
• Recent Yahoo group “discussions” with someone claiming to be a cradle Catholic and still a Catholic, yet using every fundamentalist/anti-Catholic tactic in the book to disprove the primacy of Peter, his residency in Rome and a host of other topics.
• Recent theological discussions at work that have been truly fascinating with a co-worker that is Baptist with a lapsed Catholic wife (now Baptist) and Catholic in-laws.

Better get back to work…

The post You know… This Blog Thing Was a Lot Easier When… appeared first on CatholicManiacs.

No meat on Friday.

What to give up?

What counts as meat?

I hate fish.

What exactly does fasting and abstinence mean anyway?

Jimmy Akin did a great blog entry on the basics over at his site.

Personally I am mixed about it this year. I really want to use the time for some serious spiritual introspection and examination. I’d like to do some serious denial by giving up something difficult, but can’t decide what. Probably going to do something food related. Something like sweets and snacks. Need to get the weight back down anyway. Still, it doesn’t shout back at me, “Do this!”

Ah well. Offer it up.

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There’s STUFF and bits and wrapping paper!

Though we didn’t go too overboard this year, it was still too much I think. As a kid I used to so look forward to Christmas. Not long ago I dreaded it. I couldn’t stand the commercialization and emphasis on STUFF. I can handle it a bit better now, but I think that is largely because of my conversion. I find being Catholic has given me a better grounding in preparing for Christmas than I used to have.

There’s more emphasis on the Reason for the Season as they say. And of course my girls are pretty good at giving out little reminders sometime.

Emma has started another blog by the way…

CatholicManiacs for Kids.

Her idea too. Check out the two posts she wrote so far. I am SOOOOOOOO proud of her.

Samantha made a special request to pray the Rosary last night with their new Rosary CD because it’s Jesus’ birthday.

These are the things that makes it all a joy amidst the secular bastardization of our Lord’s birth.

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