HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Thanksgiving - It's Roots in Faith

Faith on Tap - "The Philosophy of J.R.R. Tolkien"

The speaker is Msgr. Charles Fink who serves as Spiritual Director at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception.


When: Mon., Nov. 30, 2009 (Mingling @ 7 PM, Talk @ 7:30 PM)

Where: Wantagh Inn, Upper Room, 3264 Wantagh Avenue, (Across from Wantagh RR Station)

Relic of St. Mary Magdalene venerated at seminary

From The Long Island Catholic

"Huntington — Hundreds of visitors flocked to Immaculate Conception Seminary here Nov. 12 and 13 to view a relic of Mary Magdalene, a saint who “walked with Jesus.” A major piece of the tibia (a leg bone) from remains believed to come from the saint dubbed the “apostle to the apostles” was made available for veneration for the first time in the U.S. Following mid-day Mass in the seminary chapel, Kevin Thompson, a third-year seminarian here, called the event “stunning.”


People love the whole 'hands on' experience of Catholicism - this event was supposed to be for one day only, but was extended to two days. When the heart of St. John Vianney came to Long Island thousands came and waited on line to venerate the relic - including yours truly. I like this part also:

"During the day, three sessions of catechesis were offered. Msgr. Richard Henning, professor of Sacred Scripture at the seminary, spoke on St. Mary Magdalene in the New Testament. (See related article). Msgr. Charles Fink, the seminary’s director of spiritual formation, spoke about veneration of relics in the Catholic tradition. (See story below.)Dominican Father Romaric Morin, one of several priests who accompanied the relic to the United States, spoke about the tradition of veneration of St. Mary Magdalene."

Jesus of Israel: Finding Christ in the Old Testament

An evening with Fr. Richard Veras


Communion and Liberation of Long Island in conjunction with Crossroads Cultural Center presents an evening with Fr. Richard Veras, author of “Jesus of Israel: Finding Christ in the Old Testament.”

The Shrine of Our Lady of the Island, Eastport, NY
7 PM on November 21st, 2009

There is no charge for this event. A free will donation is encouraged.

Telecare will cover the national bishops' meeting



"Uniondale — For the first time ever, Telecare will provide live television coverage of the U.S. bishops’ annual meeting in Baltimore next month to Catholics across the country.



“We will be carrying the meeting for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and providing live, gavel-to-gavel coverage,” said Telecare head Msgr. James Vlaun. Through satellite, Telecare will send live transmissions to members of the Catholic Television Network (CTN) and other Catholic and non-Catholic television systems.



Msgr. Robert Brennan, diocesan vicar general, and Sister of St. Joseph Mary Alice Piil, director of the diocesan Office of Faith Formation, will serve as commentators along with Msgr. Vlaun. Telecare will also take a dozen staff members for the meeting, scheduled for Nov. 16 to 19.



“This is a great honor for Telecare that the USCCB chose us,” Msgr. Vlaun said. In previous years, Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) has transmitted its coverage of the bishops’ meeting to other Catholic television systems that wished to carry the coverage."





This is very interesting for several reasons and I hope Telecare does a good job covering the meetings. Folks at Fr. Z's WDTPRS are already wondering about this development with some already seeing a conspiracy by the bishops against EWTN. There is some precedent to that - in Raymond Arroyo's excellent book, Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles, he traces the history of EWTN and its relation to the bishops which was downright hostile at times. Also, Arroyo has recently asked some questions that perhaps some bishops did not like. For example, questions regarding the bishops' Catholic Campaign for Human Development which funds groups that are in conflict with Catholic teaching. In my opinion EWTN has always strived to maintain fidelity to orthodox Catholic teachings, rather than fidelity to the bishops. This is important - the two do not always go together. The coverage will probably be simply 'just the facts' reporting with some background, which could be a good thing. But the honest questioning of things such as the CCHD and the faithful translations of the latin in the Mass are important and hopefully that will not get lost in the broadcast. Telecare might tend to be the Church equal of the NY Mets network (SNY) or the NY Yankees network (YES) - an in house network meant to function as part of the PR or communications department. This is fine, but more is needed in the Church. After all, the bishops have not always been honest, had the Church teachings in mind, or even been good Christians, so they need to be kept honest. The bishops can make the coverage of their meetings more to their liking, but they will not stop the honest questioning of their business activities in this day and age. And that is good. On the other hand the 'orthodox police' sometimes tend to go overboard, or to resemble the Republican Party at prayer to paraphrase a famous saying. Overall, I wish Telecare the best in covering the meetings, many more people will be watching the network so please make Long Island proud.

This is not from The Onion, this is real:


Eliot Spitzer Speaks At Harvard Ethics Forum

"The man whose career ended in scandal was in town on Thursday talking about ethics. Former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, who was driven from office by a prostitution scandal, isn't talking about his ethical issues, rather ethics in government and business."

Anti-Catholic bigot Tony Alamo was sentenced to 175 years on sex charges.

"CNN) -- Evangelist Tony Alamo is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison after an Arkansas judge sentenced him to 175 years Friday on charges that included taking minors across state lines for sex, according to prosecutors.

A jury convicted Alamo in July on 10 federal counts covering offenses that spanned 11 years and dated back to 1994, according to documents from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas."

Three dioceses, three seminaries, one priesthood

Bishop Murphy's column in this week's Long Island Catholic discusses the possible merger of the 2 seminaries in our area: Immaculate Conception in Huntington and St. Joseph in Dunwoodie. He advises that the apostolic visitation of diocesan seminaries that occurred about 5 years ago (following the priest sex scandals) suggested that there were too many major seminaries. This is a function of the steep decline in vocations that occurred since the 1960's. Although people continue to deny reality, the Church in America was at its height up until the 1950's and it has been in decline in many ways since then. Seminaries back then were full and actually had to turn men away, while today the huge buildings are too big for the number of seminarians. Dioceses have to spend large amounts of money on maintaining buildings meant to house hundreds of men while only a fraction of that number reside in them. So it makes sense to try to figure out a more efficient way of doing things. Bishop Murphy makes clear in his article that merging the 2 seminaries is only one option out of many that are being considered. Bishop Murphy, Bishop DiMarzio of the Diocese of Brooklyn and Archbishop Timothy Dolan are working to try to figure out how to have the two major seminaries and the College Seminary in Douglaston collaborate in forming priests for the 3 dioceses. I hope that whatever is done, it will benefit seminarians and young men discerning a vocation. I think an actual merger of the 2 major seminaries could work well and help make better use of the vast facilities. The formation of deacons and lay people that is done at seminaries would also have to be considered.

Relic of St. Mary Magdalene

Relics of St. Mary Magdalene have been venerated in the Diocese of Frejus-Toulon, France since the second century. One of these relics, a piece of the tibia, can be venerated in the Main Chapel of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington. Members of the public are invited to participate in any or all of the above events in the Main Chapel of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception.

When: Thursday, November 12th from 9:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.

The schedule for the day is as follows:
9:00 a.m - 11:30 a.m. -Veneration
11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. - Mass
1:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. - Veneration
3:00 p.m. - Catechesis, Msgr. Richard Henning (Professor of Sacred Scripture, Seminary of the Immaculate Conception) - “St. Mary Magdalene in the New Testament”
5:00 p.m. - Catechesis, Msgr. Charles Fink (Director of Spiritual Formation, Seminary of the Immaculate Conception) - “Veneration of Relics in the Catholic Tradition”
7:30 p.m - Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Eucharistic Adoration
8:30 p.m. - Catechesis, Fr. Romeric, O.P. (Superior of the Dominican Fathers, Frejus-Toulon) - “The Tradition of Veneration of St. Mary Magdalene”
9:30 p.m. Night Prayer and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament

Where: Main Chapel of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception
440 West Neck Road
Huntington, New York 11743

Men In Black

The above picture shows most of the brothers and priests of the Marianist Province of Meribah, which is dedicated to Catholic education within the Diocese of Rockville Centre. They run Chaminade High School, Kellenberg High School, and St. Martin De Porres Marianist. The picture was lifted from their vocations blog, Into The Deep.

Anglican / Episcopal Situation

Last night I attended the talk entitled "Anglicans Looking To Rome: 1570 - Present" at Nassau Community College's Center for Catholic Studies. The speaker, Msgr. Daniel S. Hamilton, works as the editor of The Link, the newsletter of the "Pastoral Provision-USA". Now retired, Msgr. Hamilton was pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Lindenhurst, former editor of The Long Island Catholic (and Q & A columnist) and was also chairman of the Rockville Centre Diocesan Ecumenical Commission. While serving as editor of The Long Island Catholic, Msgr. resided at St. William the Abbott Church in Seaford, where he sometimes 'volunteered' me to serve his quick private Mass before dashing off to work. We altar boys called him "Superman" because he had jet black hair that was slicked back, wore black glasses, was editor of a newspaper and bore a striking resemblance to Clark Kent. Check out his article from America Magazine from 1993 Knocking on the Papal Door, in which he called for a "special geographical prelature" for Anglicans although it will probably "draw sharp criticism from those Catholics who want their own church to take the same doctrinal position that official Anglicanism has already taken or is now taking".

Msgr. Hamilton's talk was a scholarly summary of the history of Anglicans looking to Rome starting with 1570 when Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V, although there was not much said about the period from 1570 to the Oxford Movement of the 1800's. A question and answer session followed the talk, which proved very interesting.

Related story:

Children's author G P Taylor to leave 'sinking ship' Church of England and become Catholic


"The Rev Taylor, whose children's book Shadowmancer became an international best-seller, said he was turning instead to the Roman Catholic church, which he believes is less afraid to stand up for important moral issues. "

Taylor is a former Anglican priest who says some pretty harsh things about the Church of England in the linked article. Anglicans entering the Catholic Church is a hot topic since Pope Benedict issued the Apostolic Constitution allowing for corporate reception of Anglicans, something we have had since 1980 in the US under the "Pastoral Provision".

Reminder for this Friday night:

Anglicans Looking to Rome: 1570 - Present

Lecture by Msgr. Daniel S. Hamilton

Friday, November 6th, 2009 @ 7:30 PM

College Center Building, Rooms 252-253
Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY

Free admission, registration required

Coffee and cake will be served

For the person who ended up on my blog searching for "Is Scott Hahn sedevacantist", the answer is no.

St. Ladislaus Church

I finally was able to get to the traditional latin Mass (the extraordinary form) for the first time since it moved to St. Ladislaus Church in Hempstead. This is a beautiful Church with some nice paintings on the walls and ceilings. It is a heavily Polish parish so there was an icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa and a plaque on the outside of the Church featuring Pope John Paul II. Here is a picture of the JPII plaque, which dates from the Jubilee Year and commemorates 2,000 years of Christianity. It pictures JPII holding his staff outward in blessing the crowd, as he did in Poland. (click to enlarge)

Archbishop Timothy Dolan of NY has a blog and recently posted on Anti-Catholicism. He gives several good examples of bias in the New York Times including this one:

"On October 14, in the pages of the New York Times, reporter Paul Vitello exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community. According to the article, there were forty cases of such abuse in this tiny community last year alone. Yet the Times did not demand what it has called for incessantly when addressing the same kind of abuse by a tiny minority of priests: release of names of abusers, rollback of statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records, and total transparency. Instead, an attorney is quoted urging law enforcement officials to recognize “religious sensitivities,” and no criticism was offered of the DA’s office for allowing Orthodox rabbis to settle these cases “internally.” Given the Catholic Church’s own recent horrible experience, I am hardly in any position to criticize our Orthodox Jewish neighbors, and have no wish to do so . . . but I can criticize this kind of “selective outrage."

My opinion is the opposite of Dolan's: Given the Catholic Church's own recent horrible experience I believe we Catholics are in a good position to criticize our Orthodox Jewish neighbors. There is a large problem of child abuse within orthodox Jewish communities and something needs to be done about it. No one recognized any religious sensitivities regarding the Church's handling of cases internally and rightfully so. The steps people took and wanted the state to take regarding the Church, such as rollbacks of statute of limitations is wrong, but if it is going to be done it should apply to everyone, including public school systems.

The other examples of bias are good ones, but I am not sure the issue of NY State not reimbursing Catholic schools as they do public schools for the special payroll tax should have been included. I don't think that is bias, or anti-Catholic, even if it is unfair.

When muslims attack......

Abu Sayyaf blamed for blast in Roman Catholic Church in S Philippines

Man bites teacher for shaking daughter's hand

Pressure on Catholic family to rob them of house and property

Christian in Somalia Who Refused to Wear Veil is Killed


All of these typical headline stories are via TheReligionofPeace.com

G. Patrick Ziemann dies at 68; embattled former Roman Catholic bishop of Santa Rosa diocese

"G. Patrick Ziemann, the former Roman Catholic bishop of Santa Rosa who resigned in 1999 amid sexual and financial scandals, has died. He was 68.

Ziemann died Thursday of pancreatic cancer at a monastery in Arizona, said his brother, Joe.

The bishop gave up his post at the Diocese of Santa Rosa after a priest filed a lawsuit alleging that Ziemann had coerced him into a two-year sexual relationship in exchange for keeping silent about the priest's admitted theft of money from a Ukiah parish.

Ziemann publicly acknowledged his affair with Father Jorge Hume Salas after the lawsuit was filed but said the relationship was consensual."


Related story that I don't think I reported on:

Former LI priest accused of molesting boys dies

"A former Roman Catholic priest who was one of the most notorious figures in the Diocese of Rockville Centre's child sex abuse scandal has died in Florida, authorities said.

Brian McKeon, 58, was found dead in his home in Port Richey, Fla., on Monday about 11:30 a.m., the Pasco County Sheriff's Office said. He had become sick at about 3 a.m., coughing up blood and suffering a seizure, a roommate told authorities.

McKeon refused medical care and became unresponsive after another seizure and vomiting more blood. The sheriff's report said McKeon, an unemployed nurse, suffered health problems, "most of which were believed to have been caused by Brian's chronic alcoholism."


It will still take decades to clean up the mess left behind by corrupt, disgusting men like McKeon and Ziemann.

The Vatican’s Invitation to Anglicans

The above link is to the letters section of The NY Times regarding the new setup for Anglicans wishing to swim the Tiber. The letters start off with one from our own Msgr. Daniel S. Hamilton, and then proceed downhill fast. The only letters that are not garbage are the first and last, everything in between is the usual silliness. The reading is most entertaining, although there is a serious side: The complaints are from liberals who do not like the idea of people converting to Catholicism. Liberal Catholics, in particular, see this as a repudiation of the past 40 years of ecumenism. Of course, this is only partially true: ecumenism has done great things in improving relations between Catholics and other Christians, but Christians are actually further apart in many ways than they were in the past. Ecumenism must never preclude actual conversion and the Church must be very open to accepting brothers and sisters on their own terms, as long as it is within traditional Christian orthodoxy.

Related story which is a must read: For an Episcopal Parish, a Path to Catholicism

"ROSEMONT, Pa. — When the Vatican announced last week that it would welcome groups of traditionalist Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church, leaders of one Episcopal parish celebrated as if a ship had arrived to rescue them from a drifting ice floe. "

"“We’d been praying for this daily for two years,” said Bishop David L. Moyer, who leads the Church of the Good Shepherd, a parish in the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia that is battling to keep its historic property. “When I heard the news I was speechless, then the joy came and the tears.”

"This parish could be one of the first in the United States to convert en masse after the Vatican completes plans for a new structure to allow Anglicans to become Catholic while retaining many of their spiritual traditions, like the Book of Common Prayer and married priests."

Film Festival Honors JP2

"A new film about Fatima, a history-spanning documentary featuring George Weigel and Robert George, and a film on the life of a woman close to Pope John Paul II are among the films selected for the inaugural John Paul II International Film Festival in Miami, running Oct. 29 - Nov. 7.

Organized by three Florida Catholics, the John Paul II International Film Festival “John Paul II International Film Festival.,” is intended to highlight less-noticed films that celebrate themes of human dignity, forgiveness and hope.

Rafael Anrrich, a social worker, and Laura Alvarado and Frank William Brennan cite the teaching and spirit of Pope John Paul II as their inspiration, but have solicited film submissions from both Catholics and non-Catholics, and hope to draw audiences from all backgrounds. "

Via The National Catholic Register

Priest found slain in N.J. church rectory

10/24 - it was the parish janitor.

Credit Unions

I received the newsletter today from Oceanside Christopher, my credit union and this quote was included on the front page:

"If love is wise, it can find ways of working in accordance with provident and just expediency, as is illustrated in a significant way by much of the experience of credit unions."

The quote is from "Caritas in Veritate", Pope Benedict's most recent encyclical. I am happy with Oceanside Christopher and would recommend it for Catholics here on Long Island. Right now there are only 2 locations: Oceanside and Seaford, with the Seaford location moving shortly to a beautiful, bigger building that used to house a bank. However, members can also use other credit unions to access their accounts. With all of the problems in banking recently, the idea of credit unions is looking better and better. It did not help when the government bailouts simply made the biggest banks even bigger. This is one area of economics where 'distributism' can really be done. It is truly unique to be able to do banking in a place with a crucifix right on the wall to your side and truly nice people behind the counter.

Center for Catholic Studies thrives at NCC

"Since it started in 2000, the center has hosted nationally known Catholic figures, including Cardinal Avery Dulles, George Weigel, and Michael Novak, as well as such notable local figures as Bishop William Murphy and former Nassau District Attorney Denis Dillon."

This is truly a great thing to have here on Long Island. It is sad there are not more of these type of centers at colleges and universities.

Pope approves document on Anglicans joining church

"The Vatican said on Tuesday that the document, known as an "apostolic constitution," would provide a structure for Anglicans who want to join Catholicism, either individually or in groups, while maintaining some of their own traditions.
The move was announced at simultaneous news conferences in Rome and London."

Via The Deacon's Bench

Although this is good news, it is decades late. Anglicans were asking for this type of thing decades ago but were put off by the Vatican who didn't like the idea of 'conservatives' coming into the Church. I think Msgr. Hamilton's lecture couldn't be more timely, in fact, I bet he will have to add to his presentation now.

UPDATE: New Liturgical Movement has the full text of the Vatican statement with all the details. It sounds like this is just a world wide expansion of the situation some Anglicans in the USA have had since 1982. Like I said, this is decades late.

SSPX Talks Scheduled

"The first meeting of talks between the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei and the Society of St. Pius X will take place in the morning of Monday 26th October, the Vatican announced today.

The talks are taking place to consider the doctrinal issues that separate the traditionalist society from full unity with the Church. "

I don't hold out much hope for these talks but hopefully it will bear fruit. The people in the SSPX are for the most part more committed to the Gospel than many Catholics.

Albania to India: Give us back Mother Teresa

"(CNN) -- "By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world."

"That's how Mother Teresa chose to describe herself in life. In death, however, her words will probably do little to settle a diplomatic squabble over her remains.
The Albanian government wants her back, before her 100th birthday next year."