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Commentary and links to news of the wonderful, weird, interesting and cutting edge through the lens of our Catholic faith. Updated daily by Our Sunday Visitor staff. Email us with question or comments or link suggestions: feedback@osv.com.
Saving “virtual” Catholics Yahoo News Catholic missionaries have always trekked to dangerous parts of the Earth to spread the word of God -- now they are being encouraged to go into the virtual realm of Second Life to save virtual souls. In an article in Rome-based Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, academic Antonio Spadaro urged fellow Catholics not to be scared of entering the virtual world which may be fertile ground for new converts wishing to better themselves.
They need help BBC Iraq's people were poor and lacked most of the normal signs of development, even before the fall of Saddam Hussein. A new report by the British relief agency Oxfam says that the continuing failure to provide even the most basic services to many Iraqis will not only cause continuing suffering, but "serve to further destabilize the country."
Deciphering Leonardo yet again MSNBC.com A new theory that Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” might hide within it a depiction of Christ blessing the bread and wine has triggered so much interest that websites connected to the picture have crashed. Slavisa Pesci, an information technologist and amateur scholar, says superimposing the “Last Supper” with its mirror-image throws up another picture containing a figure who looks like a Templar knight and another holding a small baby.
Let them go Breitbart.com Pope Benedict XVI called Sunday for the release of Korean hostages held in Afghanistan, saying their abduction represented "a grave violation of human dignity." The 23 Koreans were seized by Taliban militants on July 19. One was fatally shot by his captors. "I issue my appeal so that the perpetrators of such criminal acts desist from the evil they have carried out and give back their victims unharmed," the pope said, speaking from Castel Gandolfo, his summer retreat in the hills south of Rome.
American values, Muslim values Religion and Ethics Newsweekly There is new evidence this week of increasingly moderate attitudes in much of the Muslim world. There is still overwhelming disapproval of the United States, but at the same time there is more and more disapproval of Muslim violence and extremism.
Continue to pray for religious freedom in China Fox News Four priests from China's underground Catholic Church have been detained by police, a U.S.-based monitoring group said Sunday. Three priests were detained Tuesday in the northern region of Inner Mongolia after fleeing their hometown to avoid arrest for refusing to join the state-sanctioned Church, the Cardinal Kung Foundation announced. It said the fourth priest was detained in early July in the northern province of Hebei following a motorcycle accident. It gave no details of what charges the priests might face. China's Catholics are permitted to worship only in churches run by a government-monitored group with no ties to the Vatican. But millions who remain loyal to the pope worship in secret "house churches."
Courting pro-life Democrats Los Angeles Times (registration site) Sensing an opportunity to impress religious voters — and tip elections — Democrats in Congress and on the campaign trail have begun to adopt some of the language and policy goals of the antiabortion movement. The new approach embraces some measures long sought by pro-life activists. It's designed to appeal to the broad centrist bloc of voters who don't want to criminalize every abortion — yet are troubled by a culture that accepts 1.3 million abortion deaths a year.
Seeking sanctuary, again Time The New Sanctuary Movement, founded in May, has coordinated what it calls prophetic hospitality (there is no legal right to asylum in churches, but immigration authorities tend not to raid them) for eight undocumented immigrants in five cities. The movement draws from an actual grass-roots network but has also garnered support within bodies as big as the United Methodist Church. It is reminiscent of the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s, of which many Catholic parishes were a part, that aided refugees fleeing Central America. This time around, however, it seems to have more to do with the right-left political debate over immigration than protection from violence.
“I, too, lived through Vatican Council II” Chiesa.org The period following Vatican II reminds Pope Benedict XVI of the "total chaos" after the Council of Nicaea, the first in history. But from that stormy Council emerged the "Credo.” And today? The pontiff answered these and questions about evolution and how to pastorally respond to divorced and remarried Catholics when he met with Italian priests while on vacation earlier this week. The text of his conversation with these priests is offered here.
Enough is enough Chicago Tribune (registration site) Pope Benedict XVI called Sunday for an end to all wars, describing them as "useless slaughters" that bring hell to Earth. Pope Benedict, speaking from the small mountain town where he has been vacationing, recalled that 90 years ago his predecessor Pope Benedict XV urged a similar end to the first World War, then ravaging this part of northern Italy. "While this inhuman conflict raged, the pope had the courage to affirm that it was a 'useless slaughter,'" he said. "These words -- 'useless slaughter' -- contained a fuller prophetic value that can be applied to so many other conflicts that have cut off countless human lives."
Wanted: Tridentine vestments Reuters The decree this month by Pope Benedict allowing wider use of the Tridentine Mass has spawned a veritable cottage industry in helping priests learn how to celebrate the centuries-old rite. A website, helpline, DVDs and a training course at Oxford are among resources springing up for priests who want to celebrate the old-style Mass but aren't sure which vestments to wear, or where to get them, when to genuflect, how deep to bow or how to clasp their hands in prayer.
Give till it feels good Christian Science Monitor For the past five years, Stephen Post has been funding research projects that test how altruism, compassion, and giving affect people's lives and well-being. As head of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, he has sponsored more than 50 studies by scientists from 54 major universities. In a wide range of disciplines from public health and human development to neuroscience, sociology and evolutionary biology, the studies have demonstrated that love and caring expressed in doing good for others lead people to have healthier, happier and even longer lives. "Giving is the most potent force on the planet ... and will protect you your whole life," says Post, a bioethicist who has taught in the medical school at Case Western for 19 years.
Cancer’s unexpected blessings Christianity Today White House Press Secretary Tony Snow discovered he had colon cancer in 2005. It's a disease he continues to fight today, with God at his side. Snow writes about how God offers the possibility of salvation and grace through suffering.
"We owe them the highest gratitude" New York Times (registration site) Fort Lewis in Washington announced a change in how it would honor its dead: instead of units holding services after each death, they would be held collectively once a month. Fort Lewis is one of the largest Army bases in the country and has made the decision because the death toll is rising and time for services is limited. The change has met with resistance from soldiers and families since, as the Church has long known, funeral services offer closure and healing as families mourn the passing of a loved one.
Were the patients vindicated? Times Picayune Closing one of the most sensational chapters in post-Katrina New Orleans, a grand jury refused to charge Dr. Anna Pou with murdering patients in the dark, fetid rooms of Memorial Medical Center in the nightmarish days after the hurricane struck on Aug. 29, 2005. This case raised many questions about euthanasia and the dignity of the patients in their last hours.
Turning backs on Medicaid patients Wall Street Journal Medicaid provides health-care coverage for millions of Americans -- but a growing number of doctors won't accept it. In a 2006 report from the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonprofit research group based in Washington, nearly half of all doctors polled said they had stopped accepting or limited the number of new Medicaid patients.That's because many Medicaid programs, straining under surging costs, are balancing their budgets by freezing or reducing payments to doctors. That in turn is driving many doctors, particularly specialists, out of the program
Is the silence a good thing? Chiesa.org Pope Benedict XVI’s letter to the Catholics of China was shown to the Beijing authorities 10 days before its publication, at the end of June. But “there have been no official reactions so far,” Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said on July 18. There was only a terse message from the Chinese foreign ministry a few hours after the publication of the letter. The reservation of the Chinese authorities is judged in the Vatican as “a positive reality.”
Go ahead and choose your religion ABC.net Egypt's official religious advisor has ruled that Muslims are free to change their faith as it is a matter between an individual and God, in a move which could have far-reaching implications for the country's Christians. "The essential question before us is can a person who is Muslim choose a religion other than Islam? The answer is yes, they can," Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa said in a posting on a Washington Post-Newsweek forum picked up by the Egyptian press. Gomaa warned however that if the conversions undermine the "foundations of society" then it must be dealt with by the judicial system, without elaborating. This could mean torture and even death.
God’s ambassadors The Economist Over the past century—despite the march of secularism—the Vatican's role in world affairs has expanded. The real explosion came under John Paul II. When he was elected in 1978, the Holy See had full ties with 85 countries. When he died, the figure was 174. It’s now 176. Some people question, however, whether or not the Vatican should have any diplomatic privileges at all.
A view from St. Peter’s Vatican City Seven weeks after Pope Benedict XVI praised Vatican civil servants for their work in "our little state, from the most visible to the most hidden," the state unveiled its own website. The site -- www.vaticanstate.va -- is linked to and works closely with the Vatican's main website, www.vatican.va, but provides more information about the offices that help run the state, as opposed to the Church. Officially launched July 19 in Italian, English, French, German and Spanish, the site includes live pictures from five webcams.
Why we are attracted to gossip MSNBC.com Gossip. It’s as compelling as a car wreck, irresistible as a whispered conversation at a nearby table. You indulge and then feel ashamed, like a dieter after dessert, says a new study. Experts seem to suggest that gossip might be good, but the Catholic understanding says differently. Our Sunday Visitor published a story in our June 2 issue about the ramifications of gossip on our fellow brothers and sisters and our souls.
Catholics hanging in there MSNBC.com The sexual abuse scandal in the U.S. Catholic Church that rocked Boston six years ago and rippled across the country before the latest aftershock in Los Angeles does not appear to have markedly thinned the Church’s ranks or the money it takes in. According to figures put together in 2006 by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, a Catholic university in Washington, there was a slight dip in Mass attendance after the Boston scandals broke. But it said an analysis of surveys and polls since shows little evidence Catholics have left the Church in significant numbers or cut back what they toss in the collection baskets.
We can compromise Haaretz.com Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the most senior official in the Vatican after the pope suggested yesterday that a highly controversial prayer for the conversion of the Jews could be dropped from the re-introduced Latin-language rite.
If you’re happy and you know it... The Economist Sociologists agree that the practice of a faith and broad happiness with life do seem to be related, though nobody has much idea why. “We don't know whether people go to church because they are happy, or whether they are happy because they go to church,” says Andrew Clark, an economist who helped conduct a survey of 30,000 Europeans in 21 countries.
How much is your pain worth? Los Angeles Times (registration site) It's not something many survivors of priest sexual abuse talk about, even with each other. But behind the record $660-million settlement announced this week lurks an uncomfortable reality: Some people's pain is worth more than others'.
Killing abstinence programs New York Times (registration site) Abstinence education programs are fighting serious threats to their future. Eleven state health departments rejected abstinence education this year, while legislatures in Colorado, Iowa and Washington passed laws that could kill, or at least wound, its presence in public schools. Opponents received high-caliber ammunition this spring when the most comprehensive study of abstinence education found no sign that it delayed a teenager’s sexual debut. And, after enjoying a fivefold increase in their main federal appropriations, the abstinence programs in June received their first cut in financing from the Senate appropriations committee since 2001.
More Christian wizards in the wings Washington Post (registration site) As the days tick down until Saturday, when a breathless world learns the fate of the teenage wizard, a new breed of fantasy fiction, with Potter-style stories, is emerging. But, unlike the Potter books, this genre has overt Christian tones: messiah-like kings who return from the dead, fallen satanic characters and young heroes who undergo profound conversions. What you won't generally find: humans waving wands and performing spells.
It’s your turn Reuters Sexual abuse of children is not just a Catholic Church problem and other institutions should take steps to acknowledge and deal with such "wickedness" within their own ranks, the Vatican said yesterday.
Buttoning up fashion Newsweek More girls and women are looking for “modest” fashions from stores. But is the new modesty truly a revolution, or is it merely an inevitable reaction to a culture of increased female sexual empowerment, similar to the backlash against flappers in the 1920s and second-wave feminists in the 1970s? OSV explored the issue in depth in our May 20 edition.
Drawing in people with the cross Jerusalem Post The world's largest cross will be built in the Israeli Arab town of Nazareth in an attempt to draw millions of Christian tourists to the boyhood town of Jesus, according to an initial private building plan under consideration. The massive cross, dubbed "The Nazareth Cross," would tower 60 meters high, and would be decorated by some 7.2 million brilliant mosaic tiles made of Nazareth stone, according to project adviser Ibrahim Boulous.