Thoughts While Shaving: Catholic Tea Party’ers Should Kill that Goofy Vatican Newspaper, Too!...More.

  Feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Antioch.*

        

                                   L’Osservatore What?   

             Last week we talked about a Catholic Tea Party to abolish the useless USCCB (U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops)   The USCCB’s not a canonical thing but a kind of  liberal bogus UN General Assembly …ego for bishops who gather in a marble palace in Washington…dinged up the late Bernardin to water down doctrine and lobby Rome to pick accommodationist prelates. 

            Dumping the USCCB’s one major objective—but…    

            At the same time, let’s consider cutting off  the source of funding the stupid so-called Vatican newspaper… as soon as we can determine how to sever the exact tendril connected to the root nourishing the fungi that supports   L’Osservatore Romano.  

           The uninitiated…and many of the initiated…have been led to believe it is the Pope’s official house organ.   Hell, no…but has been informally regarded as such since 1861 when it was set up to editorially defend the papal states. I realize that time means nothing to the 2000-year Church—but a news flash: The papal states were dissolved after they lost the battle of Castelfidardo on September 8,1860.  

             Ever since then, people have been wondering if what L’Osservatore writes, in all cases, represents papal thinking or not.  On one hand, it seems to: It has first dibs on  publishing full texts of Vatican documents so it has a distinct source somewhere. But on the other, it definitely free lances with editorial liberalism.  It takes editorial stands such as praising Obama, weeping over the death of Michael Jackson—and it spins Op Eds, some of which are as goofy as the New Age tracts available in Unitarian conclaves.  

           As is, L’Osservatore is so confusing it is antithetical…at least to the Church in the United States…which is waging an eloquent campaign pleading for Catholics to come home. Par for the course, no amount of complaining to Rome  about this rogue paper has effected any change.  That’s because the letters, emails and protests  go to a dead letter office run by faceless monsignori bureaucrats.  That’s the way it has always been with the Vatican since at least Constantine, nurtured by the Italianate easy-come-easy-go mantra. What to do? 

            My suggestion involves sending a message to Rome.   It reads: no serious dough until the Vatican gets rid of that lousy New Age rag…either that or fires the arrogant Twit who edits it who is evidently impervious to change.  Either IT goes…HE goes…or NO DOUGH for Peter’s Pence. You’d think Benedict XVI, a German and John Paul II, a Pole, would have cleaned out the flakes.  But no.  

            As John XXIII said when asked how many people work at the Vatican: 

         “About half.” He could have added that another third free-lance for their own goofy ideas. 

        When L’Osservatore began in 1860 it sold on the street for five baiocchi. Now it’s worth less than ZERO baiocchi. Thus when any serious official or unofficial Vatican paper should be promulgating the essential truths of the Church, what we get is the report that the Vatican’s Top 10 albums are…  

                The Beatles’ Revolver; Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon;  Oasis’ What’s the Story, Morning Glory; Michael Jackson’s Thriller; U2’s Achtung, Baby; Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours; Carlos Santana’s Supernatural; Donald Fagan’s The Nightly; Paul Simon’s Graceland; and David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name. 

              What’s that last one: If I Could Only Remember My Name?  Remember this one: Professor Giovanni Maria Vian.  He’s the editor: not a priest, not a theologian—termed “a professor or patristic philology”—which means a grammarian…more likely somebody’s brother-in-law on a fat sinecure. Remember, all politics started with the Italianates of Rome in the Church.  

           This is the non-comprehending guy…Professor  Vian …who writes that Barack Obama isn’t a pro-abort at all.  In fact, far from it he tells us.  Of course he’s blissfully ignorant about Obama’s voting record and his pronouncements but is entranced by the secular Messiah’s personal style. Further, Professor Vian has said… 

            …the issue of brain death should be reopened because new scientific evidence has arisen. By which he indicates that harvesting the organs of a seemingly brain dead, purportedly  vegetative patient might be okay.

          

              Ignored by this Twit is that The New England Journal of Medicine has found that key experts in the medical field have considered the 1968 concoction of “brain death and the later invention of “cardiac death” as insupportable criteria for true death.”  

        What irritates me as one guy in the back pew…but one who has a working knowledge of theology thanks to Ernie…  is that while the declamations coming from Benedict XVI are impeccable…this jerk Giovanni Maria Vian  somehow has sanction from On High to run spec stories that can confuse the hell out of ordinary Catholics…stories with  all the   thumb-sucking depth exhibited in the old  Sun-Times columns Cathleen Falsani. The story that wept over the late Michael Jackson was particularly embarrassing for a supposed Vatican paper (evidently M.J.’s crotch  fondling  had a fan in Dr. Giovanni) as well as the literary spirituality of Harry Potter. 

           Lest you are scandalized by anything that smacks of criticism of the Vatican…understand there’s an canonical anomaly here.  We Catholics believe there is only one Church established by Chris…that which constitutes the one true Church—its “Church-ness” in other words—exists and subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him.  But this uniqueness does not guarantee it runs like a fine Swiss watch. Not surprising since the nature of this Church that Christ founded is managed by (as Paul has said in Corinthians) “earthen vessels.” Earthen vessels means the very human beings who run things. Try to complain to the chancery here about some goofball’s free-lancing liturgy with clowns and hoops  at Mass and you either won’t hear back. .  Unfortunately it is that way also in Rome.  

           There is evidently something in the Roman water that causes delays and no responses to serious liturgical and orthodox complaints about Church management.  Most return flavored with the vague word domaini”—tomorrow.

            When you press harder and write yet another letter or email the answer comes back even more relaxed: “ “a-domani!” Meaning see-ya! 

        Well I’d like to respond a little more sharply using the same Roman word“A-DOANI!”  See ya.  

         A-domani when the plate passes for Peter’s Pence.  Even Peter had to be reminded once to get some guts (which on correction he demonstrated in  great style). It’s time to tell Rome to either fire the honorable Professor Giovanni Maria Vian a-domani…or-- 

        See ya, pal: Meaning no spare change for Peter until Peter puts change in effect…in other words Vian is outta there and/or a real paper—reflecting the true views of the Vatican-- is launched.  

                Last Week’s Pro-Dem Columns for the Kept Press.  

           Liberal Eric Zorn, in The Trib  tells us that the reason ObamaCare has bombed is that we ignorant mortals don’t understand what’s in it—implying that once we do, as he assures he does, objections as to the tremendous cost and conversion of 1/6^th of the U. S. economy may dissolve.

          …Radical feminist Carol Marin, the near 60 russet haired political oligarch commanding a newspaper column and two TV stations for her lefty views says in The Sun-Times (aka The Democratic Digest)  that 27-year-old Jason Plummer the GOP lieutenant governor candidate equals the Dems’ Scott Lee Cohen, prostitute consorter, pawnbroker, wife-abuser, child support deadbeat—and that the parties are responsible for these candidacies happening not the media which failed to report them… 

             …In-educable radical Neil Steinberg in The Sun-Times (aka The Democratic Digest) says that people are stupid to imagine that snowfall throughout the world nullifies global warming—but doesn’t mention the emails or scientists who have resigned and apologized…Esther Cepeda in The Sun-Times (Dem Digest) blames Sarah Palin for zeroing in on the word “retard” to “divide the country”…not mentioning the cartoon series South Park which shows a befuddled baby saying her grandmother ran for vice president…
 

             …Jesse Jackson’s shamelessly ghost-written boilerplate column in The Sun-Times (The Democratic Digest) warns that Big Business grocery products producers will fight Michelle Obama’s campaign to fight child obesity because there’s money to be made in selling sugared products that make kids fat—and it’s business’ fault (but the companies were good enough to yield to his threats of “boycotts” and fork over extortionate dough for his…ahem…”non-profits”… 

            …Rich Miller in The Sun-Times (The Democratic Digest) has a good idea for what is evidently his chosen party, the Dems: Don’t fill the lieutenant governor slot which will allow them to focus on the Republicans’ Jason Plummer…which also (without his mentioning it) grease the path for liberal favorite Lisa Madigan to succeed to governor if something would happen to  an elected Pat Quinn…. Mary Mitchell in The Sun-Times (The Democratic Digest) deeply resents the people who financed a billboard citing the holocaust abortion makes of black babies because they make black women feel bad… 

             …Steve Chapman, the faux “libertarian” in The Tribune (aka The Democratic Digest Lite) assuages liberal readers that Obama’s low standings by remembering them how low Reagan’s were early in his first term…Likewise Garrison Keillor in The Tribune (the Democratic Digest Lite) consoles liberals that these early days of disappointment about Obama are akin to going to the Bahamas and enduring rain (huh?)…Clarence Page in The Tribune (the Democratic Digest Lite) lip-synchs the Obama administration by writing helpfully that military tribunals are overrated…followed up by pointing a finger at the whack-job who drove his plane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas and braying ominously that this is what happens when people start criticizing Big Government.   

       Tribune’s Far Better than The Sun-Times (The Democratic Digest).  

            While both papers stress liberal and anti-Republican views, there is no doubt that looking at both for the past week, one paper at least presents partially the other side…and that’s The Tribune which is why I call it  The Democratic Digest Lite. But apart from the usually left-slanted commentary, the Trib’s editorials are basically fair…as distinct from The Sun-Times (The Democratic Digest) editorials which are on the same slant as The Daily Kos.     

             Moreover, espite the obvious liberal Democratic drift in commentary, the paper includes pieces from full-timer John Kass (the best columnist by far in either paper), Op Ed writer Dennis Byrne, nationally syndicated Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg and George Will…with Kathleen Parker being the semi-mush the liberals love because, with a reputation for “moderation” she abandons it happily  to go after social conservatives.  Liberals and hot-fuming Democrats at the Sun-Times (The Democratic Digest)overwhelm conservative, even moderate, thought 10 to 2…the one columnist being Steve Huntley who while conservative in economics and national defense is pro-choice on social issues—and one other…no columnist but even better.  Who?    

            The cartoonist Jack Higgins.    Wonders never cease: By far the best editorial cartoonist in the nation, Higgins appears exclusively in that paper. How he survives in that liberal-Left morass I don’t know but I’m sure glad he does.        

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  *: Feast of St. Peter’s Chair at Antioch [circa AD 36]. Why, for goodness sakes, a feast honoring an object? Because from antiquity a chair or throne …i.e. cathedra,represented the seat occupied by a teacher who spoke with authority, the word “cathedra” surviving to this day representing a pronouncement whereby the Pope speaks infallibly as teacher of the Universal Church.  Essentially, there have been two chairs of Peter marked by feasts—the wooden chair at Rome where Bishop Peter sat as he baptized, now enshrined by Bernini (1697) in the apse of St. Peter’s great basilica…and Peter’s chair at Antioch from which he…earlier than Rome… presided as first bishop..  That he went to Antioch near the present city of Antakieh in Turkey (population: now28,000; then 100,000), then the capital of the East,  is recorded by many saints; it was in that town that the name “Christian” was born.  

       St. Chrysostom, the “golden tongued,” says Peter was in Antioch for a long period, within three years after Christ’s Ascension—in the second year of Claudius.  Peter had left Jerusalem after St. Stephen’s martyrdom and remained in Antioch and became the first Bishop of Antioch, until he escaped miraculously from prison and Herod Agrippa. Later, knowing he was in danger at Antioch, Peter went to Rome becoming the first Bishop of Rome, where he remained for 25 years.