Manya Brachear -An Intellectual Bag of Hammers on Gay Marriage

Religion in Chicago Media - Bags of Hammers: Manya Brachear and Cathleen Falsani (emerita)

Supporters of gay marriage call the renewed effort to highlight natural law a clever but disingenuous appeal to the masses. Manya Brachear, The Seeker, of The Chicago Tribune

Let's see, you got invited for tea for an update on the man's cancer therapies and then you wait ten days and called your host a liar?

She's The Seeker!

Here's the deal, on December 10th Cardinal George invited members of the Chicago media over to his house for tea.  Illinois Reps. Greg Harris and Heather Steans are bursiting bowels, theirs and the usual Springfield chattel, old and new, to rush through the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act exactly one year after somehow living through the the Religious Freedom and Civil Union law, which was signed by Governor Pat Quinn, who will sign anything Personal Pac President and Illinois boss wrangler Terry Cosgrove tells him to sign. When Terry Cosgrove opens his yap, Planned Parenthood and Fred Eychaner's dollars pour out; when he clams up so do the dollars.

Among the doyennes and dowagers  of pop culture, religion, economics and of course politics, balancing tea-cups above their cankles, was Chicago's own Seeker, Manya Brachear, the religion/well-spiritualist one-time columnist and extant religion scribbler for The Trib, who somehow managed to convince Chicago that Cathleen Falsani, formerly of the Sun Times, was not just surfing in Nebraska. Yep, Manya Brachear is an intellect to cause hushed awe and reverence among the appliance at Sears Hardware.

Cardinal George explained to this congress of viragoes, yet again, that the Catholic Church and those who attend it maintain that the sacrament of marriage was instituted by Christ to give grace -Will and Grace not withstanding:

"Marriage comes to us from nature," Chicago's Cardinal Francis George said in a recent interview. "That's based on the complementarity of the two sexes in such a way that the love of a man and a woman joined in a marital union is open to life, and that's how families are created and society goes along. … It's not in our doctrine. It's not a matter of faith. It's a matter of reason and understanding the way nature operates."

So, for next twenty days,  The "now moved-on" Seeker , Terry Cosgrove/Fred Eychaner rolo-dex and caught up with the voices necessary present a slam-dunk Gay Marriage New Years buffet of outrage:

"On sexual ethics, nature is neutral," said Bernard Schlager, executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif. "We're moral beings. We may look to nature for some aspects of how we are in our lives, but we answer to a higher standard. Sexual behavior is an expression of human love."
According to the tradition of natural law, every human being must seek a fundamental "good" that corresponds to the natural order to flourish. Natural-law proponents say heterosexual intercourse between a married man and a woman serves two intertwined good purposes: to procreate and to express a deep, abiding love. . . . And . . .Other people of faith disagree. Last Sunday, more than 250 Illinois clergy members, mostly Protestant and Jewish, endorsed the gay marriage bill as "morally just to grant equal opportunities and responsibilities to loving, committed same-sex couples. . . .

Alice Hunt, president of Chicago Theological Seminary, said the natural-law argument seems like a "strategic move."
"They quickly saw biblical marriage wasn't going to work," she said. "It doesn't work for me because you're still depending on one person or some group of people's interpretation of natural law. When you look at the history of marriage, there are many ways marriage has taken shape over time."

• Nature is neutral?   Tell that, Bernie Schlager, to Old John Stuart Mill who noted that “It (Nature) impales men, breaks them as if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, burns them to death, crushes them with stones… starves them with hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations, and has hundreds of other hideous deaths in reserve…. All this Nature does with the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and of justice.” 
• Marriage has taken shape in many ways? Concubinage? polyandry?  polygamy? Good old beer-goggled fornication?

Ten days and that was all Manya could come up with.  Manya, Gay Marriage Illinois is a political power play controlled by our elected officials in Springfield, Santa leaves toys for kids, the Easter Bunny is always seen in the company of former Gov. Pat Quinn, the Red Sun of Krypton turns green on reaching the earth's atmosphere,Oliver Stone has a history show on cable and big old bag of hammers has nothing on you.

Cardinal George on Chicago's Slaughter-Streets

"Laws cannot create a peaceful person out of someone who has not experienced, especially in his or her family, the love that teaches internal discipline. Without peace of soul, there can be no real peace on the streets, in our homes or among nations." Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago 

What were you doing between 3 P.M. and 5 P.M. on Saturday December 8th, 2012?  I was sitting in visitors lounge of the Cardinal's residence thumbing through a book penned by His Eminence The Difference God Makes.  This is a theology text that happens to be reader friendly, as well as thoughtful.

I was waiting while Cardinal George counselled two high school students who have very tough circumstances confronting them beyond the rigors of sports, scholarship and just getting to and from school without taking a few bullets. His Eminence had a few hours*out of his schedule that includes meeting big shots (clerical and lay), sitting with media ambush-artists, articulating the Catholic position on abortion, marriage, euthanasia which always gets a hot-foot from secularists and movie stars, as well as very painful chemotherapy sessions.  The Cardinal called me to find out 'how are our guys doing?'  Not so hot.  

"Bring them up, Saturday at 3 P,M."  

The dude abides.

I have been to the Cardinal's residence on a few occasions - always as a chauffeur.  The Cardinal is always a warm and gracious gent, but he is not there to see me.  The Cardinal is ministering to young guys whom our secular lifestyles, celebrated in the TV series Shameless, or on the endless reality shows, has pounded them senseless with false expectations.  Evil matriculates  at home and takes graduate-studies in nihilism out on the streets.

Little boys are threatened to 'Man-up,G!'  And warned not to be 'Bitches.'  It's all good.

Up close, we know it ain't.  Kids can only take so much nonsense from their role models and not become monsters.

Cardinal George had two teenage victims in for a couple of cans of pop, cookies made by lovely Polish nuns, and a few hours of honest pouring out of the nonsense and some prayer.

At the same time this was going on only a few blocks away, kids were just playin' on the Magnificent Mile-



Two teenage boys (both 15) were treated by a real man for a little over two hours.  They exited laughing with the most consequential man in the American Catholic Church and assurances to 'call when you need me.' We will. Followed by a very nice but no-kidding remonstrance directed at the chauffeur -" See to it."

I took the the guys out for chow in Old Town -the great rib joint Twin Anchors was packed and an hour and half wait would not stand - we hiked to grub at Marge's a few blocks north on Sedgewick.  They ate like they were going to the chair.

When the ribs and chicken were disappeared, I asked about the visit.

"Good,"

"Yeah, Cardinal George is a good guy."

"Like the way he prays."

" Yeah."

" We get dessert, too?"

Do try and eat, lads.

Society speaks of victims and their oppressors and settles the conflict through revenge. The church speaks of martyrs and their persecutors and settles the conflict through forgiveness. It is foolish to imagine that “justice” can be satisfied at the cost of love. It’s the difference between getting even and getting it right. Because of the incarnation of God’s eternal Word and his suffering and rising for our salvation, the gift of Christ’s peace is always available, but too often we fail to accept it. The violence done to Jesus himself is the source of the world’s peace, although it takes faith to recognize that truth. Francis Cardinal George - December 16, 2012

* e.g.

Cardinal George’s Schedule

1. Dec. 16: 2 p.m., Cardinal's Christmas Concert, Holy Family Church (Roosevelt Road)
2. Dec. 17: 1 p.m., Administrative Council Meeting, Quigley Center
3. Dec. 18: 5:30 p.m., Big Shoulders Fund Christmas Reception, Residence
4. Dec. 20: 6:30 p.m., The Illinois Club for Catholic Women Presentation Ball, Hilton Chicago
5. Dec. 23: 5 p.m., Simbang Gabi Mass, St. Peter's Church, Skokie
6. Dec. 24: Midnight Mass, Holy Name Cathedral
7. Dec. 28: 5:45 p.m., Vocation Evening, Residence
8. Dec. 30: Noon, 100th Anniversary Mass, St. Wenceslaus Parish

The Full Mundelein: Chicago's Cardinal George Teaches America History

Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago, is a great teacher, This week, His Eminence gives Americans the Full Mundelein. 

Pay attention.  Take notes.  Form Study Groups, if necessary.  There will be a Final on this Lesson.

The wrong side of history

 Cardinal George's Schedule

1. Nov. 1: 7:30 a.m., 54 Day Rosary Novena, Morning Air Program, Relevant Radio
2. Nov. 2: 10 a.m., Episcopal Council Meeting, Residence

Cardinal's Appointments

Cardinal George approved the following clergy appointment August 29:

Rector

Rev. Theodore Ploplis to rector of the National Shrine of St. Francis Xavier Cabrini effective Sept. 1, while retaining his duties as coordinator of spiritual services at St. Joseph Hospital.

Text of Cardinal Mundelein speech

October is the month of the Most Holy Rosary, a devotion associated in modern times with the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima in 1917, during the First World War. Mary asked for prayer and penance, which she always requests in these private revelations that echo the public revelation in the Gospel: “Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand.”

Mary at Fatima also entered into the history of the modern world when she told three unlettered peasant children that the Great War then being waged, President Wilson’s “war to end all wars,” would soon end, but that a greater menace to world peace would arise in Russia, whose errors would spread throughout the world and bring untold millions to violent death. In the end, however, Mary promised that her Immaculate Heart would triumph. This promise, too, echoes the Gospel itself: the risen Christ is victorious over sin and death.

Eternity enters into human history in often incomprehensible ways. God makes promises but gives no timelines. Visiting the shrine at Fatima, pilgrims enter a huge plaza, with the spot of the apparitions marked by a small chapel to one side, a large church at one end, an equally large adoration chapel at the other end, and a center for visitors and for the hearing of confessions. Just outside the main grounds, a section of the Berlin Wall has been re-built, a stark witness to what Mary had talked about almost a century ago. Communism in Russia and its satellite nations has collapsed, although many of its sinful effects are still with us.

Communism imposed a total way of life based upon the belief that God does not exist. Secularism is communism’s better-scrubbed bedfellow. A small irony of history cropped up at the United Nations a few weeks ago when Russia joined the majority of other nations to defeat the United States and the western European nations that wanted to declare that killing the unborn should be a universal human right. Who is on the wrong side of history now?

The present political campaign has brought to the surface of our public life the anti-religious sentiment, much of it explicitly anti-Catholic, that has been growing in this country for several decades. The secularizing of our culture is a much larger issue than political causes or the outcome of the current electoral campaign, important though that is.

Speaking a few years ago to a group of priests, entirely outside of the current political debate, I was trying to express in overly dramatic fashion what the complete secularization of our society could bring. I was responding to a question and I never wrote down what I said, but the words were captured on somebody’s smart phone and have now gone viral on Wikipedia and elsewhere in the electronic communications world. I am (correctly) quoted as saying that I expected to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. What is omitted from the reports is a final phrase I added about the bishop who follows a possibly martyred bishop: “His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.” What I said is not “prophetic” but a way to force people to think outside of the usual categories that limit and sometimes poison both private and public discourse.

An earlier Archbishop of Chicago once tried his hand at reading the signs of his times. On May 18, 1937, Cardinal Mundelein, in a conference to priests of the archdiocese, called the then-German chancellor “an Austrian paper-hanger, and a darn poor one at that, I am told.” Why did Cardinal Mundelein speak in a way that drew applause from the New York Times and local papers and brought the German government to complain bitterly to the Holy See? The government of Germany, declaring its ideology the wave of the future, had dissolved Catholic youth groups and tried to discredit the church’s work among young people through trials of monks, priests and religious sisters accused of immorality. Cardinal Mundelein spoke of how the public protests of the bishops had been silenced in the German media, leaving the church in Germany more “helpless” than it had ever been.

He then added: “There is no guarantee that the battle-front may not stretch some day into our own land. Hodie mihi cras tibi. (Today it’s me; tomorrow, you). If we show no interest in this matter now, if we shrug our shoulders and mutter … it is not our fight, if we don’t back up the Holy Father when we have a chance, well, when our turn comes, we too will be fighting alone.”

“When our turn comes …” Was Cardinal Mundelein a prophet as well as an administrative genius? Hardly. At his death in 1939 he was well known as an American patriot and a friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but he also had a Catholic conviction that no nation state has been immaculately conceived. The unofficial anthem of secularism today is John Lennon’s “Imagine,” in which we are encouraged to imagine a world without religion. We don’t have to imagine such a world; the 20th century has given us horrific examples of such worlds.

Instead of a world living in peace because it is without religion, why not imagine a world without nation states? After all, there would be no American ambassador recently killed in Libya if there were no America and no Libya! There are, obviously, individuals and groups who still misuse religion as a reason for violent behavior, but modern nation states don’t need religion as an excuse for going to war. Every major war in the last 300 years has been fought by nation states, not by the church. In our own history, the re-conquest of the secessionist states in the Civil War was far bloodier than the re-conquest of the Holy Land by the now despised Crusaders. The state apparatus for investigating civilians now is far more extensive than anything dreamed up by the Spanish Inquisition, although both were created to serve the same purpose: to preserve a government’s public ideology and control of society, whether based on religion or on modern constitutional order.

Analogies can easily be multiplied, if one wants to push a thesis; but the point is that the greatest threat to world peace and international justice is the nation state gone bad, claiming an absolute power, deciding questions and making “laws” beyond its competence. Few there are, however, who would venture to ask if there might be a better way for humanity to organize itself for the sake of the common good. Few, that is, beyond a prophetic voice like that of Dorothy Day, speaking acerbically about “Holy Mother the State,” or the ecclesiastical voice that calls the world, from generation to generation, to live at peace in the kingdom of God.

God sustains the world, in good times and in bad. Catholics, along with many others, believe that only one person has overcome and rescued history: Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of the Virgin Mary, savior of the world and head of his body, the church. Those who gather at his cross and by his empty tomb, no matter their nationality, are on the right side of history. Those who lie about him and persecute or harass his followers in any age might imagine they are bringing something new to history, but they inevitably end up ringing the changes on the old human story of sin and oppression. There is nothing “progressive” about sin, even when it is promoted as “enlightened.”

The world divorced from the God who created and redeemed it inevitably comes to a bad end. It’s on the wrong side of the only history that finally matters. The Synod on the New Evangelization is taking place in Rome this month because entire societies, especially in the West, have placed themselves on the wrong side of history. This October, let’s pray the rosary so that the Holy Spirit will guide and strengthen the bishops and others at the synod as they deliberate about the challenges to preaching and living the Gospel at this moment in human history. (emphases my own)

Cardinal's Column Archive

Happy Anniversary to Francis Cardinal George, OMI on His 22 years as a Bishop!

You won' this item in any of the Chicago Newspapers - Sneedless to say.

The Men of Leo High School congratulate 'our guy' Francis Cardinal George on the anniversary of 22 years as a Roman Catholic bishop.

Yesterday, September 21, 2012 marked twenty-two years of episcopal service by Chicago's own Francis Cardinal George.  Born on April 7, 1930,  the future Archbishop of Chicago (May 7, 1997) and Leo Man ( May 11, 2012), is the son of Francis J. and Mary R. (nee McCarthy) George and a graduate of St. Paschal's Grammar School on Chicago's northwest side.

Cardinal George is a priest's priest - ordained in 1963.  Yesterday, on the anniversary of his consecration as Bishop of Yakima, WA, the Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate, who never allowed disease or disappointment to hold him back from serving Christ and His Church, Cardinal George counseled a high school freshman from Leo High School who was having a bit of difficulty.

We arrived at the Archbishops Residence, built in 1885 by Archbishop Patrick Feehan, who was instrumental  in the rebuilding of Chicago after the Great Fire.  Sister Theodosia greeted us and quietly informed me that the day was the Cardinal's twenty second anniversary as bishop.  He was seeing us. Well, not me; I 'm the driver.

Cardinal George welcomed the two of us as he emerged from a morning meeting with Jimmy Lago, Chancellor of the Archdiocese.

The young Leo Man and The Shepherd of 2.5 million Catholics in Cook and Lake Counties - roughly 1,500 square miles of Catholics went into conference.

I was not party to the conversation, but I heard gales of laughter sweep through the closed door and most it coming from the Cardinal's voice.

At one point, the phone in the hall rang.  Sister Theodosia, the residency wrangler and boss of the Episcopal home, knocked on the door, opened it gently and informed the Cardinal that there was a very important phone call.  I could see the two conversationalists one in a Roman collar and sweater and the other in a Leo Football jacket and heard the guy in the stiff collar say, " Thank you, Sister! I am in a very important meeting at the moment. Ask the gentleman to call back in another half hour."

It was a half hour and change.

The young man emerged from the long and uninterrupted conversation animated and assured that an understanding father has his back.

That is a priest.

Facta Non Verba, Jack.

See	Chicago
Appointed	April 7, 1997
Enthroned	May 7, 1997 (15 years, 137 days)
Predecessor	Joseph Bernardin
Other posts	Cardinal-Priest of S. Bartolomeo all’Isola
Orders
Ordination	December 21, 1963 by Raymond Peter Hillinger
Consecration	September 21, 1990 by Agostino Cacciavillan
Created Cardinal	February 21, 1998
Rank	Cardinal-Priest
Personal details
Birth name	Francis Eugene George
Born	January 16, 1937 (age 75) Chicago, Illinois, USA
Nationality	American
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Previous post	Bishop of Yakima (1990–1996) Archbishop of Portland(1996–1997)
Motto	Christo gloria in ecclesia
Coat of arms

Diocesan bishops

See: Diocesan bishop#Roman Catholic Church

1. William J. Quarter (1844–1848)
2. James Oliver Van de Velde, SJ (1848–1853)
3. Anthony O'Regan (1854–1858)
4. James Duggan (1859–1880)
5. Patrick Augustine Feehan (1880–1902)
6. James Edward Quigley (1903–1915)
7. George Mundelein (1915–1939)
8. Samuel Stritch (1939–1958)
9. Albert Gregory Meyer (1958–1965)
10. John Cody (1965–1982)
11. Joseph Bernardin (1982–1996)
12. Francis George, OMI (1997–present)

Leo High School - One of the "Unreal" Catholic Schools Reported by John Kass

Martez Hampton, a gentleman scholar-athlete of Leo High School's Junior Class has the answer - School Reform is Vouchers.


We had the pleasure of John Kass in the house on the opening day of the CPS Strike.  John's visit was prompted by Karen Lewis' announcement of the strike of all CPS teachers with her statement "Real school will not be open (Monday)."

Leo High School is as real as it gets.  John Kass is a south side guy who knows a plateful full of BS is not a prime rib dinner.

Since real school wasn't open, I was compelled to visit an unreal school.A South Side school where 100 percent of the students graduate, and 100 percent are accepted to college. A Roman Catholic all-boys school that draws from poor and working-class neighborhoods, a school where there are no cops or metal detectors, no gang recruitment, no fear.
An unreal school that is mostly black, but with a smattering of whites and Latinos, and where every student who sees a stranger in the halls goes up to the newcomer, introduces himself, shakes his hand, looks him in the eye and calls him Mister.
Leo High School, at 79th and Sangamon, seemed pretty unreal to me, too.

The entire Leo High School Family, students, staff, parents and Alumni ( 1930 -Present) thank you John for you visit and your great appeal to reason on what constitutes Genuine School Reform.



http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0912-20120912,0,7520520,full.column

Catholic League Rahm - He Fumbles the Homeless; Picked Up, and Run to the Goal By Catholic Charities

"For half the cost, we can provide the same services in terms of transportation, and then plow that money back into better servicing, more beds and more wrap-around services, both for the kids and adults," Rahm Emanuel fobbing off responsibility for a Progressive Giveaway to the Catholic Church.

Yep, Mayor Coon eyes is quite the rascal.  Only a few weeks after telling Catholics that they don't have Chicago Values, in order to gin-up Gay Marriage Rainbow Warriors via Proco Joe Moreno's bonfire of vanity at Chick Fil A, he's dragging his once very WTTW program of caring, really, really caring for the homeless and placing responsibility in the shopping cart of Msgr. Mike Boland and Chicago Catholic Charities.

Government fumbles the ball and the Catholic Church runs it to opposite end of the field and touches the old pigskin down . . .again.          Just like the Prep Bowls.

When Rahm Emanuel, the regular guy from the mean streets and alleys . . .drive ways, rather . . . of Wilmette was sworn into office he immediately decided to tax the Catholic Church's schools, hospitals and social services for water.

Until this year churches didn't have to pay for water in Chicago. Under a new law pushed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, churches have to pay for water at a 60 percent discount. The discount drops to 20 percent in 2015.

"The city is in a financial crisis right now, and we aren't in a position to waive our fees," Ald. O'Connor said.

Read more: http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/19104176/2012/07/24/northside-catholic-church-stole-water-from-city#ixzz24ewVesXg


In Rahm world, quid pro quo means -what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine.

Not only does the feral gobshite in sharkskin suits impose a tax on Chicago's largest social justice infrastructure, but he fobs off responsibility for a Goo-goo policy program that was badly managed and merely government tinsel onto the Catholic Church.

One wonders why he did not reach out to the Gang-banger Pensioners of CeaseFire to identify homeless veterans of the GDs, VICE LORDS, LATIN KINGS and the venerable STONES.

A Pillar of Chicago Values, the Nation of Islam, might have led this faith-based initiative.

Nope.  The Catholic Church, Francis Cardinal George, Msgr. Mike Boland, Catholic Charities and Catholics like John Arvetis (Leo '69), who delivers food to the Catholic Charities pantry on 79th Street every day will do what government can't do -care.

What's next, Mayor Coon Eyes?  Catholic Rat-Catchers?

This would make sense - turn education over  to Sister Mary Paul McCaughey and Catholic Schools.  How about this Mayor?

"For half the cost, we can provide the same services in terms of education, and then plow that money back into better servicing, more beds and more wrap-around services, both for the kids and adults," . . .  and you can recycle the speech.




High Praise to Tribune reporter John Byrne for getting this news past the mopes of the editorial board.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-emanuel-turns-over-homeless-services-to-catholic-charities-20120823,0,4025022.story

100 Years of Chicago Catholic League and The Hound of Heaven

Yesterday, hundreds of people from around Chicago and as far away as Tennessee gathered at Holy Family Church on west Roosevelt Rd. to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Chicago Catholic League*.

The Chicago Catholic League is the oldest Catholic high school athletic association in America and the incubator of some of the best athletes in our country.  The Mass was con-Celebrated by priests who are school leaders ( St. Ignatius, Mt. Carmel, Gordon Tech, St. Rita, Loyola & etc.) and stepping in as chief-celebrant for Francis Cardinal George - Auxiliary Bishop Frank Kane.

Bishop Kane noted the unique history of the Catholic League and its roots in the 1896 Olympics founded on the ideals of a Dominican secondary school in Paris - Faster, Higher, Stronger. Earlier that afternoon, I thumbed through a rare volume of a poem by Francis Thompson (1859-1907).  The book had been part of Catholic and private school curriculum reading, before  biology-based Deweyism murdered the idea of education in America.


Through Bishop Kane's sermon, as is my rubbing necking wont, I swivel-necked  from both transcepts  with a stop at the apse and onto the vast nave making a sign of the cross with my noggin. To my left were the representative athletes who carried a banner from each school, at center was the altar and choir/orchestra on the right the Bishop and the concelebrant priests and deacons and in the thick nave Catholic League greats, parents, student athletes and my colleagues. Thompson's poem roared louder than the flights of F-18s from the Blue Angels entertaining Chicagoans on the lake front and looping lowly over Roosevelt Road and Holy Family Church.



The Hound of Heaven is 182 line fable as allegory - a hare (rabbit) flees its predator running faster, jumping higher and stronger as the poem develops.   The idea of the hare as quarry is common.  The idea of God as the Hound is unusual. The idea is that we ( me and you) run from God all of our lives and He -The Hound of Heaven pursues us to our last bolt-hole.

The language is wildly archaic ( e.g. Dravest: Thou dravest for You drove dead old white men and patriarchal hegemonists tend to do that) and obscure.   The sense is that we drive God from us and use all of our strength and skills and talents to do escape God.  God pursues us rabbits who dravest Him off - I know I run from God, given some elbow room, via health, security, comfort and self-satisfied ego.

We teach and encourage our young to run swift, vault high and increase in strength.  Ironically, those virtues seem to help us rabbits scurry from God.  We do not want to be Pharisees - religious show-offs; therefore we make light of the faith and pretend to skulk in the shadows like the Publican.

The poem ends with God ( The Hound of Heaven) nailing the rabbit ( us) and proclaiming-"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."
This morning I will collect my Canaryville Rabbit-Lions from 43rd Street and bring them to Leo High School, one of the old Chicago Catholic League schools.

I not only dravest God's love, but the bus five days a week.

Once I post this,  I'll drave.


http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30730/30730-h/30730-h.htm

http://www.chicagocatholicleague.com/Documents/NavLink/CCL_SCHOOL_FIGHT_SONGS_uid1202011909531.pdf













*

It all began on October 3, 1912 when representatives of eight parochial schools met in Chicago’s Great Northern Hotel (demolished in 1992) to found the Catholic League. Those charter members were Loyola academy, St. Cyril (Mt Carmel), DePaul Academy, St. Philip, St. Ignatius, De La Salle, Cathedral and St. Stanislaus. In that very first year of its existence the League sponsored only basketball and indoor baseball. Football competition was to follow in the 1913-14 school year, track in 1916-17 swimming, golf, and tennis in 1923-24, cross country in 1946-47, wrestling in 1964-65, water polo in 1965-66, soccer in 1967 and volleyball in 1993. Baseball was dropped after the 1930 season but was reinstated in the 1957-58 season.

For the first 71 years of its existence, the Chicago Catholic League operated independently of the Illinois high school association (IHSA). The League’s renown, especially in football and basketball, was recognized nationwide. But, during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, as the need developed for a wider base of competition especially in such sports as swimming, track, wrestling, golf, tennis and baseball, the principals of the League’s schools began to consider the possibility of joining the IHSA. After much discussion, many arguments over pros and cons, and several meetings with the IHSA staff, the Catholic League’s Principals voted 11-1 in favor of joining the State Association. Thought the momentous vote was taken on January 30, 1973, the actual entrance into the IHSA did not take place until June 10, 1974. The reason for the 18 month wait was to give the League a full year of athletic competition during which it could make the transition to those rules and practices of the IHSA which differed from those current at the time in the Catholic League. Though there was a multitude of objections from many in the Catholic League to the decision to join IHSA, the benefits that have accrued to the Catholic League schools and students since 1974 have far outweighed the original objections

Francis Cardinal George - One of Us! We are all Supplicant Lions!

Catholics are supplicants.  From the time we first learn to chatter, we are taught to ask for help, intercession, aid and comfort; we beseech.  We supplicate - ask humbly, earnestly and with faith.  Our prayers are chock-filled with verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns rooted in the Latin past participle -supplicatus/supplicare.

Catholics are required to go where help is most forthcoming, through intercessors.  We also pray in Adoration, Confession and Thanksgiving, but intercession and prayers of intercession are recognition of our helpnessess and subordination to others more capable giving aid -beyond our family, friends, co-workers and most certainly beyond Google, MSNBC,  our Advanced Degrees hanging on our walls and the guys at the local bar.

Catholicism runs counter to Thoreau, Emerson and Dewey.  Outcomes can not be determined by data. Nature can not be apprehended by legislation, policy, or desire for outcomes.

Catholics pray not to fix things, but to reconcile ourselves to God and Nature.  We fix things by paying for them whether they be hips, knees, gutters or unpaid parking tickets.  We can not lawyer up with God's Universe.  Catholics asks humbly and earnestly to keep faith. The absolute best prayer is the Memorare*

On the first day of classes at Leo High School, Thursday last, a giant child of a freshman and one of my morning transport lads, Daylon F. of Bronzeville was waiting for his schedule after being fitted for his uniform polo shirt.  Daylon is 6'3" in height and every bit of 300 lbs and change at 14 years old. Daylon got himself a XXXXX(5)L.

This Mannish Boy was staring at the wonderful life size crucifix with attached kneeler that dominates the wait area outside of my Development cubicle.  He asked me, " What's the INRI on the top of the cross mean?"

Daylon, like so many Leo Men, is non-Catholic.  More so , there are too many Catholic kids who do not learn that theological-historical tidbit in their eight years of Catholic grammar school anymore.

"INRI??? What's that?"

The Romans did not have the letter J and they used I instead.  Jesus was IESUS pronounced Yeah Sus, or something like that.

"What's INRI mean?"

That was the charge Jesus found guilty of violating by the Roman Court - Iēsus Nazarēnus, Rēx Iūdaeōrum Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

" Damn, that's a crime ?"

A capital crime to the Romans - no king BUT Caesar and the Caesar at that time was Tiberius and he was real piece of work.

"Why a crime."

The Romans wanted nothing but attention to government -everyone and everywhere and the Romans did everything according to law. There is no wiggle room. It says, on that plate in no uncertain terms that Jesus of Nazareth, IS King of the Jews and only Caesar can make a King - like Herod and his old man.  This execution settled it.

" But it didn't."

No it certainly did not.  Jesus rose from the dead and over turned the court's ruling.

Daylon gets it.  He said Jesus "prayed to His Father and Father rose Him from the Dead."

No one does it alone, pal.

Daylon is at Leo because of Mike Holmes, Mark Lee,  Dan McGrath, Rich Furlong, Jim Furlong, Jim Arvetis, Andy McKenna, Frank Considine, John Gardner, Bill Koloseike, Bob Sheehy, Jackie Schaller, Bernie Pepping, Jim Corbett, and seven thousand other Leo Alumni who give money all year.  Even guys who might not have enough money to give volunteer, come to games and most of all pray for Daylon, whom they have yet to meet.  Daylon has Francis Cardinal George backing his play; Cardinal George is a Leo Alumnus.  He is one of us.

We take care of each other.  This summer, one of us, a classmate of Daylon was murdered -

Chicago police said Antonio Davis, 14, was shot and killed Friday night near 69th and Union around 8:40 p.m.A day later, a 13-year-old boy was shot and killed in the 6200-block of South Rhodes. Neighbors said there was a large party at the home where the boy was shot that spilled into the street.Also, a 14-year-old and 15-year-old are recovering from being shot while playing basketball near their home Saturday night. It happened around 8:43pm in the 2400-block of East 74th Street. The two victims were playing when a gunman approached on foot and opened fire, striking the two.Davis' family said he was an A and B student at Leo High School and had dreams of becoming a basketball player."I just know that he was walking to the store to get my niece's baby water and a car pulled up and jumped out at him and shot him" said Davis' aunt, Latrice Strong

Dan McGrath called the Leo community.  Leo paid for the gravesite and the repast held at the school.  Mr. Leak of the Funeral home handled the funeral, Dwayne Wade's mother preached the funeral - Dwayne Wade was coached and mentored by Leo Man Jack Fitzgerald. Antonio Davis attended one week of summer school - he was a Leo Man.  Cardinal George is a Leo Man, Daylon is a Leo Man and we are all supplicants.

Cardinal George has cancer. He is one of us.  We are all supplicants. There are seven thousand and change Leo Men saying the Memorare - a prayer of intercession and supplication,  Help and provide, Mary Mother of God, one of our own - old school and new school versions.

MEMORARE, O piissima Virgo Maria,
non esse auditum a saeculo, quemquam ad tua currentem praesidia,
tua implorantem auxilia, tua petentem suffragia,
esse derelictum.
Ego tali animatus confidentia,
ad te, Virgo Virginum, Mater, curro,
ad te venio, coram te gemens peccator assisto.
Noli, Mater Verbi,
verba mea despicere;
sed audi propitia et exaudi.
Amen.

Remember, O Most Gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known that anyone who fled to Thy protection,
implored Thy help or sought Thine intercession,
was left unaided.
Inspired by this confidence,
I fly unto Thee, O Virgin of Virgins, my Mother;
to Thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
despise not my petitions,
but in Thy mercy, hear and answer me.
Amen.

*A prayer beginning, "Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary." Of unknown authorship, it has been attributed to St. Augustine, to St. John Chrysostom, and with more reason to St. Bernard or to Claude Bernard, "poor priest" of Paris. Passages in sermons of St. Bernard echo the theme (PL 183:428), but none comes close to the actual wording of the Memorare. The manuscript tradition can be traced only to the 15th century. It appears as a section of a longer prayer in the Antidotarius animae of Nicolas Salicetus (1489). J. Wellinger included it, possibly as a separate invocation, in his Hortulus animae (1503). Claude Bernard (1588–1641) …

The Media Never Even Got Close to The Pitch -Cardinal George Smokes It Past Them

Francis Cardinal George has more hop on the ball than Jake Peavy, at least these last few hours anyway. Kansas City went over the Sox 5-2 and Peavy took the loss hard.

Cardinal George fanned every "news" outlet in Chicago, again.   Louis Farrakhan gets more favorable treatment and coverage from our Chicago Values Media than Cardinal George.  Is the Medill Empire basically anti-Semitic ?

Hey, I heard from a guy very close to Senate Leader Harry Reid that Chicago Tribune Editor Bruce Dold has been given to wearing bow ties, lately . . . just sayin'!

Cardinal George, the Archbishop of the Chicago, a Catholic guy, wrote a wonderfully articulate reposte to Mayor Chicago Values over his remarks concerning Chick fil A River North and elsewhere.  Every paper ignored the Cardinal's teaching document.

When Chicagoans noticed the Cardinal's words without any help from Manya Brachear ( Trib), or Carol Marin (Cosmic Local), the  Fruit of Islam Chicago Tribune Editorial Board Minister Brutha Dold offered up a Chicken . . . Chick fil A . . .acknowledgment.  Nothing Dold-idian Less than  " Cardinal enters Chick-fil-A fray!" The Media went all Chick fil A on Bruce Dold's say - Google it your own bad self! Every news out outlet went all chicken . . . .

http://www.archchicago.org/blog/comments.aspx?postID=276

Here is a link above to the Cardinal's original response to our public yahoos in office - no chick, chicken, egg, poultry, feathers  . . .& etc.

I don't believe I recall seeing the words Chick, Fil, A, or Chicken anywhere in Cardinal George's response to Ald. Proco-Joe Moreno and Mayor Coon Eyes Emanuel Mussolini Improve.  It take a DOLD to build this village of the blind.  The Chicago Tribune has had its bat on its shoulder since Dave Axelrod pow-wowed about a Barack Obama White House.

Cardinal George is no Louis Farrakhan afterall.

Here is Cardinal George's fireball follow-up!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Chicago Values, Revisited: it’s not about chicken!

Responses to my reflections last week on “Chicago values” fell into two camps. There were almost universal plaudits for recognizing that the government should be concerned about actions and not about thoughts and values. The media, of course, are in this camp, because they are concerned about the free speech that is at the heart of their profession.

More complicated, on the other hand, was the reaction to the “value” that was the case in point: same-sex “marriage.” Some who are comfortably in the first camp deserted the field of argument on gay marriage. An argument is always made in a context that determines what can be considered sensible, and it seems to me that some of us are arguing out of different contexts.
There are three contexts for discussing “gay marriage”: 1) the arena of individual rights and their protection in civil law, 2) the field of activities defined by nature and its laws, and 3) the realm of faith as a response to God’s self-revelation in history. Unfortunately, when the only permissible context for discussing public values is that of individual rights protected by civil law, then it is the government alone that determines how it is acceptable to act. Every public actor (including faith communities) then becomes the government’s agent. This is a formula for tyranny.
We can see how appeals to pluralism and toleration gradually become tyrannical in the development of how we are now expected to regard the killing of unborn children. When the individual civil right to abort a living child was discovered in the Constitution, its justification began as a “necessary evil” for the sake of a woman’s health; it was then applauded in nobler terms as a positive symbol of a woman’s freedom; it is now part of the value system of our society and everyone must be involved in paying for it, either through taxes or insurance. It is mainstream medicine and settled social policy. Its opponents are relegated to a quirky fringe, outside of the American consensus not only on what it is legal to do but also on what it is good to support. When the government, the media and the entertainment industries agree to agree on how to use words and shape the argument, society itself is deliberately transformed in ways that bring academics, judges, legislators, lawyers, law enforcement officers, newspaper editors, actors, psychiatrists, doctors and every other public professional into public agreement, all portraying themselves as original thinkers. Anyone opposed to the new consensus, no matter the reason, is dismissed as a throwback to an earlier age, to be tolerated, perhaps, but removed from public life and, eventually, punished. It’s a very old story.

Getting people to think outside the context of “civil rights” is difficult. It’s as if Americans were forbidden to think beyond politics. What is singularly peculiar about the “gay marriage” argument is the way its proponents dismiss the field of nature itself as in any way normative for human actions. We would think it odd if the government, in order to please those who desire to fly without an airplane, were to repeal the law of gravity. If nature gets in the way of a new civil right to “gay marriage,” however, that’s too bad for nature. This strikes me as bizarre.
Entering into the context of faith, the believer looks to how God has intervened in history through the calling of the Jewish people to a particular vocation, through inspiring the Hebrew prophets, by the incarnation of the eternal Son of God in Jesus of Nazareth, and the founding of the Church that speaks in Jesus’ name until he returns in glory. The God who created order in nature also reveals his plan for us in history; and the religious teaching on the nature of marriage is eminently clear. Those who dismiss any religiously based argument as simply private and therefore not publicly normative are at least consistent with the secularism that makes protection of individual “civil rights” entirely determinative of public life.
What is puzzling is the case of those who, while claiming to be believers, ignore the history of salvation and reduce God to a cosmic wimp who smiles and blesses whatever comes down the track, as if God were without intelligence or the ability to discern right from wrong. Jesus is certainly “inclusive” as the savior of the whole world who invites all to follow him. But Jesus calls us to convert to his ways, which are not ours. Among the sayings of Jesus, there are about as many that start “Woe to you…” as there are those that begin “Blessed are they…” A Jesus reduced to our wishful thinking is useless.
What remains a Gospel imperative, of course, is a respectful and loving concern for those who identify themselves as gay or lesbian, including them in the community of faith and accompanying them in their quest for holiness of life. The Archdiocese attempts this response, in part, through AGLO and Courage groups.
Thanks to all who responded to last week’s blog; apologies to anyone who feels unfairly judged. I’ve tried to keep it at the level of ideas and social trends that seem to me to be dangerous to us all, Chicagoans or others.
Francis Cardinal George, OMI (emphases my own)

 You broke the clock gun there, Cardinal! They never even heard it coming, let alone saw it whiz by, Your Eminence!


https://www.google.com/search?q=google+search&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGIH_enUS268#q=Cardinal+George+and+Chick+Fil+A&hl=en&tbo=1&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7GGIH_enUS268&output=search&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:w&sa=X&psj=1&ei=RGUiUKDTDsnxygGY3YAo&ved=0CAYQpwUoAw&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=416d567912eb08ea&biw=1007&bih=613
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-02/news/ct-met-cardinal-george-chick-fill-a-0802-20120802_1_gay-marriage-chicago-values-chicago-cardinal-francis-george

Catholic Bishops Conference Pastoral Nails Assault on American Religious Liberty

 Francis Cardinal George Our Great Shepherd -with Leo Board Member Tamara Holder and the Leo Guys -Bobby Sheehy, Bill Hessian

I remain a Roman Catholic in America for the exact same reasons that I wake up at 3 A.M. and look in on my kids even though two are adults and the youngest seventeen, pray the Memorare and the Novena of the Little Flower on my knees an hour and a half later, read as much as I can, write about what I have read or thought about, try to do a few laps on the Rosary looking for all the world to be playing Master's Level pocket pool while waiting at Dunkin Donuts for Miss Lou, Kim and her daughter Kameron.  Lou takes Kameron to Day Care for Kim while Kim works at U of I Med Center in the cafeteria. I take Kim to the terminal at 79th & Western, as it is on my way to Leo High School.

Kim is a single mom with two daughters. The elder girl is nineteen and ebony goddess Kameron is eight years old with designs on capturing America's heart on the Disney Channel.  I was easy.  Kim works a brutal day preparing salads for the Medical staff at U of I ChicagoMed Center.  Last year, I began driving Kim and spending real quality time with these three African American women, along with the cops, firemen, skilled tradesmen, City of Chicago white collar folks, nurses and cousins at Kareem's Dunkin Donuts.

These tasks, like my prayer ritual, are part of me.  I was taught to pray and then forgot how, until times of trouble or when I had managed to piss off every carbon foot-print within my five mile radius.  Prayer is not only a public ritual, but should be a reflexive action that underlies our waking hours and balms our sleep.

Being Irish, I am embarrassed to make a public display of prayer - that kiss of Peace at Mass ( 'Peace Be with You!' - Uh-huh, thanks. Back at you.) really tossed Irish Americans into a spiral. Some of the more pious took to it like duck's to Cheetos and evolved into the folks who extend arms with palms up like ad hoc Melchizedeks  I belong to a subsection of Irish Catholic America that winces when publicly hugged, touched, or complimented. I like traditional prayers and go absolutely Bat Guano when Catholic educators begin every Goddam meeting with the distribution of xeroxed copies of personal prayers to be read out loud.  We got plenty good prayers, but we insist on being the center of the show with a presentation of badly formed words and phrases - "Dear God, the sexually ambiguous Trinity, bless our actions this day as we bring about an end to universal poverty, racism, torture with this day's breaking into groups for discussion and sharing and all kinds of passive aggressive gamesmanship . . .!"

Prayers get answered in God's own manner and with his own brand of theological larceny - "Hickey, the door to back . . .right is open and you already signed in . . .pull a Murphy . . .let Dan know . . . there, see behind the faculty from St. Benedict's?  Yes, the doors with exit sign . . . Really, how do you get a fork to your mouth without mutilating yourself?  Now, you guys go . . .clear the exit to parking lot . . .wait for the signal  . . .  the command for heads to drop in Humble supplication . . .Go!"

I am proud on my Church and more than proud to find a pew in the back and off to side at Mass on Sunday and a few days of the week.  For the last twenty or thirty years, Catholics have been goaded into becoming Unitarians - Let's call Blessed Virgin Mary Hospital - All Faiths Health Services!  No, let's not.  Most of the kids at Leo High School are non-Catholic, but they all take Catholic instruction and attend Catholic Mass.  Leo High School prays every day, because it is Catholic.

The American Catholic Church in America and every other faith is under attack.  The new Pastoral by the American Catholic Bishops clearly road-map the paths to the situation and identify assaults. In subsection of this pastoral the government handcuffs on religious liberty are here -

Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: 

A Statement on Religious Liberty

pdf version

to order copies

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty

Religious Liberty Under Attack—Concrete Examples

Is our most cherished freedom truly under threat? Sadly, it is. This is not a theological or legal dispute without real world consequences. Consider the following:

• HHS mandate for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs.The mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services has received wide attention and has been met with our vigorous and united opposition. In an unprecedented way, the federal government will both force religious institutions to facilitate and fund a product contrary to their own moral teaching and purport to define which religious institutions are "religious enough" to merit protection of their religious liberty. These features of the "preventive services" mandate amount to an unjust law. As Archbishop-designate William Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, testified to Congress: "This is not a matter of whether contraception may beprohibited by the government. This is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government. Instead, it is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization, even if that violates their religious beliefs."3
• State immigration laws. Several states have recently passed laws that forbid what the government deems "harboring" of undocumented immigrants—and what the Church deems Christian charity and pastoral care to those immigrants. Perhaps the most egregious of these is in Alabama, where the Catholic bishops, in cooperation with the Episcopal and Methodist bishops of Alabama, filed suit against the law:
  

   It is with sadness that we brought this legal action but with a deep sense that we, as people of faith, have no choice but to defend the right to the free exercise of religion granted to us as citizens of Alabama. . . . The law makes illegal the exercise of our Christian religion which we, as citizens of Alabama, have a right to follow. The law prohibits almost everything which would assist an undocumented immigrant or encourage an undocumented immigrant to live in Alabama. This new Alabama law makes it illegal for a Catholic priest to baptize, hear the confession of, celebrate the anointing of the sick with, or preach the word of God to, an undocumented immigrant. Nor can we encourage them to attend Mass or give them a ride to Mass. It is illegal to allow them to attend adult scripture study groups, or attend CCD or Sunday school classes. It is illegal for the clergy to counsel them in times of difficulty or in preparation for marriage. It is illegal for them to come to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings or other recovery groups at our churches.4

• Altering Church structure and governance. In 2009, the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut Legislature proposed a bill that would have forced Catholic parishes to be restructured according to a congregational model, recalling the trusteeism controversy of the early nineteenth century, and prefiguring the federal government's attempts to redefine for the Church "religious minister" and "religious employer" in the years since.
• Christian students on campus.In its over-100-year history, the University of California Hastings College of Law has denied student organization status to only one group, the Christian Legal Society, because it required its leaders to be Christian and to abstain from sexual activity outside of marriage.
• Catholic foster care and adoption services. Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and the state of Illinois have driven local Catholic Charities out of the business of providing adoption or foster care services—by revoking their licenses, by ending their government contracts, or both—because those Charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried opposite-sex couples who cohabit.
• Discrimination against small church congregations. New York City enacted a rule that barred the Bronx Household of Faith and sixty other churches from renting public schools on weekends for worship services even though non-religious groups could rent the same schools for scores of other uses. While this would not frequently affect Catholic parishes, which generally own their own buildings, it would be devastating to many smaller congregations. It is a simple case of discrimination against religious believers.
• Discrimination against Catholic humanitarian services. Notwithstanding years of excellent performance by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services in administering contract services for victims of human trafficking, the federal government changed its contract specifications to require us to provide or refer for contraceptive and abortion services in violation of Catholic teaching. Religious institutions should not be disqualified from a government contract based on religious belief, and they do not somehow lose their religious identity or liberty upon entering such contracts. And yet a federal court in Massachusetts, turning religious liberty on its head, has since declared that such a disqualification is required by the First Amendment—that the government somehow violates religious liberty by allowing Catholic organizations to participate in contracts in a manner consistent with their beliefs on contraception and abortion.

Here in Chicago, the two daily newspapers fully ignored Francis Cardinal George's statement on Rahm's Chicago Values.  It is not about the chicken sandwiches at all.  The media wants the Catholic Church in Chicago to obey the meme text maxim -STFU -What about the pedophile scandal?  What about it?  What has not been said, or done about it?    The media washed the homosexuality of the scandal right out of the issue and turned its guns on administration.  The pedophile priests weren't looking for Bachelor and the Bobby-Sox-er dates. It was and remains overwhelmingly Man on Boy predation.

 Our politicians have all been bought by Planned Parenthood and "baptized Catholic altar boys" like Alderman Proco Joe Moreno do its bidding.  Gay Marriage is an adjunct of the abortion industry. The media, never friends of Catholics, cares more about an interview with Governor Pat Quinn than with the leader of one of the largest Catholic populations in America. Chicago's President announced no compromise on contraception and abortion mandates - how about that Pat Quinn, Dick Durbin and the balance of the Illinois Personal PAC elected serfs?

I am a Catholic and I pray everyday -thoughts, words and, I hope, deeds.