RealCatholicTV presents Theo-Psychology

Theology and psychology go hand-in-hand.  Psychology, rightly understood, does not conflict with the Catholic Faith. 

Catholic Culture Snippets - St. Peter's Tomb, An Act of Sacrificial Love & "The Way"

Ever want to visit the St. Peter's Tomb beneath St. Peter's Basilica but just can't seem to find the time or the money to do so?  Now, there is a way to visit St. Peter's Tomb without ever leaving your home.  Here is a site where you are able to take a most fascinating virtual tour of St. Peter's Tomb.

Somehow in September I missed the news of this act of selfless sacrificial love and bravery which Brian Wood from Vancouver displayed by sacrificing his own life so that his wife and unborn child may live. From CNA, here is a description of Erin's husband's final act: "unable to avoid the errant SUV, Brian Wood slammed the brakes and swerved his side of the car toward the oncoming vehicle, ensuring his certain death but protecting his wife, pregnant with their first child."


“I think it's pretty obvious … that if it would have been a head-on crash, we both would have been killed instantly, along with our baby,” Erin Wood told NBC's Today Show on September 13. “He definitely saved us. He made that choice, and I'm thankful for that.”

Erin Wood told the Today Show that the final sacrifice made by her husband of five years was in keeping with the way he had lived, “It's not a surprise at all. He was very excited for this baby, and always … incredibly loving towards me, and putting me first.”


His final act of love, she said “breaks my heart, and it also fills me with gratefulness.” Ms. Wood received only a black eye and a relatively minor blow to her head. The unborn child, a boy, was not harmed."

Actors Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez star in the film "The Way".  This looks like it could be good.

Christ The King

A week late... Due to craziness such as a health issue with my eye and my traveling during the Thanksgiving holiday & weekend afterward.  While in high school I had the chance to go on a two week long visit to Wales via a student exchange program through my highschool.  It was great fun!  I loved traveling across England & Wales visiting the various castles and churches.  I stayed in a small town called Builth Wells in Wales which had a pretty small Catholic Church called Christ the King Church.  I can remember attending mass in this quaint church on Christ the King Sunday about 16 years ago. I recently searched the internet for a picture of Christ the King Church and finally found it. Here it is:

Here is a prayer I found on CatholicTradition.org honoring Christ the King:

O CHRIST, JESUS, I acknowledge Thee as Universal King.

For Thee all creatures have been made. Do Thou exercise

over me all the rights that Thou hast.

Renew my Baptismal Vows, I renounce Satan,

with all his works and pomps, and I promise to live as a

good Catholic: Especially, do I pledge myself, by all

the means in my power, to bring about the triumph of the

rights of God and of Thy Church.

Divine Heart of Jesus, I offer Thee all my poor actions to obtain

that all hearts may recognize Thy Sacred Royalty, and that thus the

reign of Thy Peace may be established throughout the entire world.

Amen.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Holes in the Condom Debate: What the Pope Really Said

When The L’Osservatore Romano breached an embargo yesterday and decided to go full steam ahead with the release of some partial excerpts of Pope Benedict’s new book, Light of the World: The Pope, The Church and The Signs Of The Times, the media went all a frenzy over comments the Pope made pertaining to the use of condoms.


Needless to say, before his new book has even hit the shelves it has stirred much controversy all across the media. Did the media get “it” right this time? Is this a BIG DEAL or much ado about nothing? Is this Pope Benedict’s personal opinion? If it is his personal opinion, does it depart from Church Teaching? I have read articles from various media sources across the internet including that of both Jimmy Akin and Dr. Janet Smith. Both Akin and Smith have posted very well written articles on the matter and both clarify the pontiffs statements. The media has twisted the Pope’s words (which isn’t that surprising) to fit their own cause of remaking a long held principle of the catholic Church, claiming that the Pope said that the use condoms can be justified in some cases. That is not what he said.

First, I would like to point out that this is an interview book and this is not a Church encyclical or anything of the sort. Second, the Pope can have private opinions which may be wrong, and he even points this out in his book. Jimmy Akin emphasizes that The L’Osservatore Romano did a major disservice to all the public, Catholic or not, by releasing excerpts which fail to show the entire context of Pope Benedict’s statements.

Here is text from the Pope’s book:

Seewald: . . . In Africa you stated that the Church’s traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church’s own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.

Benedict: . . . In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. [EMPHASIS ADDED] Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease. As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.

Jimmy Akin points out that the Pope’s overall argument is that condoms will not solve the problem of AIDS. Akin reiterates this:

1) People can already get condoms, yet it clearly hasn’t solved the problem.

2) The secular realm has proposed the ABC program, where a condom is used only if the first two, truly effective procedures (abstinence and fidelity) have been rejected. Thus even the secular ABC proposal recognizes that condoms are not the unique solution. They don’t work as well as abstinence and fidelity. The first two are better.

3) The fixation on condom use represents a banalization (trivialization) of sexuality that turns the act from being one of love to one of selfishness. For sex to have the positive role it is meant to play, this trivialization of sex—and thus the fixation on condoms—needs to be resisted.

Here is the statement which the media devoured and seized upon:

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality. (EMPHASIS ADDED)

Jimmy Akin points out that Pope Benedict says “may” and not “is”. Then, Pope Benedict goes on to reiterate that “it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.”

Janet Smith has posted excerpts from the Pope’s book. I am posting a couple of those excerpts below.

 The Pope stands by his “controversial” remarks that he previously stated on the use of condoms to prevent AIDS: “that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.”

Pope Benedict stated: “I had the chance to visit one of these wards and to speak with the patients. That was the real answer: The Church does more than anyone else, because she does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering. In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.”

Pope Benedict is correct in stating that condoms will not solve the problem of AIDS. Condoms lessen, but do not eliminate, the risk of transmitting HIV, thus they do not make sex truly safe. 
I encourage you to take a look over at The American Catholic where lively chatter has been going on covering the latest controversy.


An interview with the Pope does not change the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding condoms or otherwise.

Cross-Posted at Teresamerica

Catholic Culture Clash 11-20-10

It's been a long while since I've posted a Catholic Culture Clash post so don't be surprised if I do multiple posts over the next couple of days in order to catchup on the news in our culture.

In Cardinal George's final address, he defends the bishops opposition health reform bill because of abortion being in the law:   

"Our voice was that of the bishops of our country for the past hundred years: in a good society, everyone should be cared for, especially the poor. The goal of basic health care for all continues to be a moral imperative, not yet completely achieved, but it is not now and has not been up to the bishops to decide the means to realize that goal. We have only very cautiously entered into details of public policy, for this is more properly the work of lay people, as it has been in the health care debate. Universal health care can be delivered using many means: everything publicly funded, everything privately funded or a mixture of the two. Any of these solutions could be moral, and it is up to lay people to decide which are the best means to see to it that everyone is cared for.


But once political leaders and health care experts decided to use government subsidized insurance as the vehicle, the means, for providing more universal health care, it was our moral obligation as teachers of the faith to judge whether the means pass moral muster, whether or not the proposed legislation uses public funds to kill those living in their mother’s womb. Consistently, and ever more insistently since the sin and crime of abortion was legalized in the United States, our voice has been that of the bishops of the Catholic Church ever since the first Christians condemned the abortion practices of the ancient Romans. The act is immoral; and the laws that have permitted now fifty million children of our country to be killed in their mother’s womb are also immoral and unjust; the laws are destroying our society."

“We should not fear political isolation; the Church has often been isolated in politics and in diplomacy,” he continued. In a likely reference to the Catholic Health Association and other Catholic supporters of the measure, he added, “We need to be deeply concerned, however, about the wound to the Church’s unity that has been inflicted in this debate and I hope, trusting in the good will of all concerned, that means can be found to restore the seamless garment of ecclesial communion.”

While I fully support Cardinal George and the other bishops reasoning for opposing the health care law I would still be opposing it even if it banned abortion funding because socialism fails, government-run health care fails, and this whole law (minus a few items like banning the ability for insurance companies to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions) is a debacle.  Congress used lies, distortions, and bribes to pass this nightmare of a law.  Plus, our representatives (who really didn't represent the will of the American people) only passed this law so that they can have more power and control over our lives, thereby limiting our freedom and liberties.


From MinistryValues.com: Stephen Ryan has a message for Bishop Robinson who wrote an article on the Huffington Post called  "How Religion is Killing Our Most Vulnerable Youths"  and writes that "An increasingly popular bumper sticker reads, "Guns Don't Kill People -- RELIGION Kills People!" In light of recent events I would add religion kills young people: gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people."

This is such nonsense!!  RELIGION DOES NOT KILL PEOPLE!!!  It would be really good if the liberal media stopped distorting the truth about religion.  The liberal media has made it known that they hate traditional Christianity.  Is the liberal media the ones who actually have blood on their hands?

There are promises of pushback from pro-life groups over a late-term abortion practitioner LeRoy Carhart who is hoping to expand his abortion business to Iowa and Maryland.  We must stop this state sponsored infanticide!!  God Bless the pro-life groups efforts to stop the murders of innocents.

While speaking on economic growth in the Philippines, former President Bill Clinton made a most remarkable statement: "You have a huge population, which is a positive..."  This is pleasntly suprising.  CatholicCulture goes onto to talk on the subject of planned pregnancies, unintended consequences, and Uncle Sam's bad image.  Population control is the problem.  In all probability the United States would not be experiencing such a dramatic shortfall in our deficit, debt, and in our funding of social security if we had had another population increase, like occurred during the baby boomer era.   Procreation is one solution which will help fix the problems in the U.S. as well as in third world countries.  

The Story of Jonah as Told by the CUTEST Little Girl

She is so adorable!!!  Amazing!!



H/T GodTube