We have previously reported how University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill has completely fouled up the school’s response to the antiSemitism on campus, costing the Ivy League university the good will of its many deep-pocket alumni donors.
Well, she may have just fired herself! From The Philadelphia Inquirer: Continue reading
I’m old enough to remember the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, a product of mostly leftist students on campus.
With the participation of thousands of students, the Free Speech Movement was the first mass act of civil disobedience on an American college campus in the 1960s. Students insisted that the university administration lift the ban of on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students’ right to free speech and academic freedom. The Free Speech Movement was influenced by the New Left, and was also related to the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement. To this day, the Movement’s legacy continues to shape American political dialogue both on college campuses and in broader society, influencing some political views and values of college students and the general public.
I’m not a leftist by any means, but I completely support the freedom of speech, and all of the rights enshrined in our great Constitution. Sadly, so many of today’s left do not support freedom of speech, at least not when they believe they have the power to restrain it.
Irish senator under fire for advocating bill to restrict free speech
One critic calls Ireland’s anti-hate law ‘draconian,’ adding it will have ‘severe implications’
By Brianna Herlihy, Fox News | First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2023 | 4:00 AM EST
A speech delivered in June by an Irish lawmaker who said the work of legislatures is about “restricting freedoms” in the name of the “common good” has gone viral, with criticism on both sides of the Atlantic.
Senator Pauline O’Reilly of the Green Party, in defense of Ireland’s proposed Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences Bill 2022, spoke at the Houses of the Oireachtas in June, saying, “We are restricting freedom, but we’re doing it for the common good.
Well, of course she’s a member of the Green Party, of the hard left.
“You will see throughout our constitution, yes, you have rights, but they are restricted for the common good. If your views on other people’s identities go to make their lives unsafe, insecure and cause them such deep discomfort that they cannot live in peace, then I believe that it is our job as legislators to restrict those freedoms for the common good.”
If a right is “restricted for the common good,” is it a right at all?
Senator O’Reilly’s speech is embedded below the fold, since videos take up a lot of bandwidth on the front page. Continue reading
We noted, just yesterday, that despite the noisy pro-Palestinian demonstrations on our college campuses and in large cities, only about 20% of Democrats support Hamas, and that, even surveying only those in the 18-to-24-year-old age bracket, Hamas enjoyed less support than Israel. The radicals are both the noisy and stupid ones.
As for colleges themselves? We have also noted how some deep-pockets donors are closing their checkbooks and job offers in the face of the anti-Semitism being displayed. Now, yet another college is losing a billionaire donor. From Forbes: Continue reading
We are being told by the people the credentialed media use as spokesthings, like Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the now-censured congresscritter from Detroit and a ‘Palestinian-American,’ if such an oxymoron can actually exist, that all the Palestinians want is their freedom. They don’t hate Israelis specifically, or Jews more generally, but just want their freedom. Mrs Tlaib even tried to claim that the mantra, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!” as not being anti-Israeli at all, but no one actually believed her.
However, there’s an obvious question: do the (purported) leaders of the pro-Palestinian movement in the West actually represent the crowds behind them. The tweet I retweeted from @StopAntisemitism is just one of hundreds they’ve posted, documenting people living in the United States and Canada showing us exactly who they are. The Stop Antisemitism site is doing great work in exposing and identifying those people, and letting their colleges or employers know just who they are, and many have found their way to the unemployment line. If you think that’s a bad thing, just imagine how employers would react if one of their employees was caught on video calling for the death of [insert virtually forbidden slang for Negroes here].
Of course, even those stupid enough perhaps to want to say that kind of thing about blacks are generally not stupid enough to say it on tape, which means that they are at least not as stupid as the anti-Semites! Continue reading
We have been told what a devout Catholic President Biden is, and how former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was a good, believing Catholic. President Trump, on the other hand, showed us how fake a Christian he is, because he almost never attended religious services. Clearly, for the left, being a faithful Christian of some denomination or other was a pretty good thing. Or at least it was until someone who is actually a Christian becomes Speaker of the House! Continue reading
Photo from St Paul’s Catholic Church website. Click to enlarge.
We noted, a year and a half ago, how President Biden and his leftist minions, proposed the creation of a Ministry of Truth ‘Disinformation Governance Board‘ within the Department of Fatherland Homeland Security, and had chosen Nina Jankowitz, who for months told us that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, to head it.
On April 25th, she told us how she feels about #FreedomOfSpeech:
I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities . . . which are already shouldering . . . disproportionate amounts of this abuse.
Then came Helen Ubiñas, who has a very visible platform as a regular columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, claiming that Freedom of Speech is dangerous and harmful to people like her: Continue reading
The Religion News Service noted that His Holiness the Pope is somewhat upset with the Catholic Church in the United States:
The new Americanism heresy
Once again, American bishops are at odds with the Vatican.
By Mark Silk | Wednesday, September 20, 2023
(RNS) — In a private meeting with fellow Jesuits in Lisbon, Portugal, last month, Pope Francis didn’t turn the other cheek in response to a question about hostility to his leadership on the part of many American Catholics, including some bishops.
“You have seen that in the United States the situation is not easy,” he said. “There is a very strong reactionary attitude. It is organized and shapes the way people belong, even emotionally.”
While some conservative Catholics professed to be dismayed by the pope’s remark, no one disputed that America is a hotbed of anti-Francis criticism. Or that American bishops are leading the charge.
Bishop Joseph Strickland, from his Twitter biography.
Because marriage was divinely instituted by God as between one man and one woman, there is simply no right given to humanity to depart from this foundational truth of marriage. I will reemphasize this point: marriage can only be between one man and one woman.
The Diocese was subjected to an ‘Apostolic Visitation’ ordered by Rome to check on what? We were never told, and now there have been leaked reports from the Vatican that the Pope will request the Bishop’s resignation. Bishop Strickland stated directly that he has received no communication from the Vatican along such lines.
But then there’s this, from the Jesuit’s America magazine: Continue reading
There are several Protestant churches which advertised themselves as King James Only, arguing that “the KJV needs no further improvements because it is the greatest English translation of the Bible which was ever published, and they also believe that all other English translations of the Bible which were published after the KJV was published are corrupt.” They have their reasons, which I will not argue here, and which you can read if you follow the link.
But, regardless of their arguments, one thing is certain: the Elizabethan English used in the King James Version is lofty in a way that modern English simply is not, and I have to wonder: does the grandeur of the language itself inspire some English-speaking people?
I will admit it: I didn’t expect to find a story like this in the Miami Herald, a McClatchy newspaper. 1,038 words, on the Tridentine, or Traditional Latin Mass?
Latin Mass not just for older Catholics — what’s driving Miami’s newer, younger members?
By Lauren Costantino[1]This report was created with philanthropic support from Christian, Muslim and Jewish funders in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of all work. | Monday, August 28, 2023 | 5:00 AM EDT
It’s the kind of Catholic Mass your grandparents might remember: The liturgy is spoken in Latin, the choir sings Gregorian chants and women wear chapel veils, or “mantillas.” But, this Traditional Latin Mass isn’t full of elderly parishioners.
At Our Lady of Belen Chapel in West Miami, roughly 350 people — young and old — show up weekly for services, an old-style Catholic Mass that had been celebrated for centuries before the Second Vatican Council reformed the Catholic Church in the 1960s. One look around the picturesque Belen chapel and it’s clear that this Mass, though grounded in tradition and conducted mostly in Latin, is not just for older Catholics. Amid the sacred chanting and echoing organs, babies fuss and parents distract their toddlers with toys and coloring books.
There is no designated childcare room, but parents of crying babies are never shamed, said Eleonora Cacchione, a mother of four and Latin Mass regular. Cacchione is a lifelong Catholic, but says she did not fully understand what was happening during Mass until she started attending Traditional Latin Mass.
Attendance at Mass has fallen since the panicdemic — and yes, I spelled it that way deliberately, because that’s how I see the reaction to it — and has not returned to pre-COVID-19 levels. People who were used to getting out of bed on Sunday mornings found that sleeping in isn’t all that bad. Attending Mass is a habit, just as sleeping in can be a habit, and we have lost parishioners due to the forcible closing of churches.
“People wearing their Sunday best, seeing the priest facing the altar rather than the congregation, the solemnity and reverence of the liturgy — including the way people receive Jesus in the Eucharist — reminds one that something special, something supernatural and beyond human explanation is taking place,” Cacchione said in a text message.
Traditional Latin Mass, also called the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, or the Tridentine Mass, has been celebrated in the Archdiocese of Miami for the past 40 years, beginning under former Archbishop Edward McCarthy. In recent years, Miami’s community has steadily grown, relocating to five different chapels in the past 10 years to accommodate the growth.
This is the most powerful paragraph of all: a secular newspaper, reporting what some of us already knew, that the Tridentine Mass is attracting more and more people to attend Mass. And really, isn’t that something that any Catholic, lay or priest, bishop or pope, should want, more Catholics in the pews?
But, the most recent move to the Belen chapel — which is aligned with the Jesuits, and not an Archdiocese of Miami church — was made after Pope Francis restricted where groups can celebrate Latin Mass. He also required priests who wanted to celebrate the Mass to get permission from their bishops, and for bishops to get approval from the Vatican. The pope was concerned the Church was going backward, rather than looking forward.
Or, perhaps, His Holiness the Pope was concerned that too many people were taking seriously what Jesus said, in Matthew 5:17-20, as he has been allowing what would previously have been seen as prohibited.
Miami’s Latin Mass community has more than doubled in the past five years — up from an average of 112 congregants in 2017 to 320 in 2023 — according to records taken by Frank Andollo, who’s been going to the services for 10 years. People drive from as far north as Palm Beach County and as far south as the Florida Keys to make it to Latin Mass at Belen on Sundays.
Why the growth?
“It’s bound to attract people because I believe they are attracted to authenticity,” said Jose Ballon, the choir director. “They don’t want something watered down or compromised.”
Ballon, 28, was referring to the traditions that are honored during Latin Mass, compared to the new order of Mass, or Novus ordo, the the religious service most Catholics are familiar with today.
As our regular readers know — both of them! — I am significantly hearing impaired. A Tridentine Mass, with the priest ad orientem, with his back to the people, would be extremely difficult for me. My pew is in the front row, directly in front of the ambo, and I can still miss things. I can just imagine the difficulties I would have with the priest having his back to me.
There’s a lot more at the original, and it’s not controversial at all. Lauren Costantino, the author, is basically describing the feelings of the worshipers she interviewed, and almost everything is positive.
The Tridentine Mass does not take away from the Novus ordo; Catholics who have both available to them — for me, the closest one is in Georgetown, about 70 miles away — will choose to go to one or the other, or, sadly, choose neither at all, and sleep in on a Sunday morning.
And that last is a huge problem: too many Catholics, following the ‘break’ for the panicdemic, have chosen to just stay in bed. If a more available Tridentine Mass was to bring some of them back, how would that be anything but a good thing?
My parish is an old parish; while there are a couple of families with kids, most of us are around retirement age, and eventually we will be going to our eternal rewards. If the Tridentine Mass is bringing in new Catholics, new parishioners, younger parishioners, that is something we should be touting, honoring, and celebrating.
References
| ↑1 | This report was created with philanthropic support from Christian, Muslim and Jewish funders in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of all work. |
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