"Let me get through today, and I shall not fear tomorrow." - St. Philip Neri

The Roman Catholic Church was on the canvass in the late 16th Century, because the clergy had become secularist - priests, bishops, and even Popes more interested in promoting political action than in Doctrine.

Martin Luther threw the hay-maker when he challenged the Church theologically by nailing his 95 theses for debate on the Church door of Wittenberg.

All of the smart money was on the Protestant reforming factions and the Islamist threat posed by Suleiman the Magnificent.

The Catholic Church was not knocked out, but it did hear the ref doing the counting.

Before the ten count, it got off the canvass. The Church went back to its corner, swished some holy water around its choppers and spit the bad blood in the bucket - at the Council of Trent. The Church returned to its roots.

However, Catholics more so than the Red Hats seemed to make the practical difference - Ignatius Loyola - a Dog Faced Wounded Vet - formed the Jesuits and set about actually doing what the Apostles were told to do.

Another gent, Philip Neri worked up the lay people.

Neri was a rich kid from Florence. He decided to put business aside and work to help the Church and moved to Rome. For three years he toyed with idea of being a priest, but determined to work with lay people.

He amassed a group of like minded lay people and through conversations during the business day sought to live lives that would strengthen the Church. It worked. He developed a concept called the Oratory - a place where lay people could pray and discuss their Faith.

Philip Neri's Oratory became so popular that Neri's Confessor urged him to get himself ordained a priest - he did.

Neri used humor to poke fun at false assumptions doctrine and the practical life of most people.

There are Catholics out there concerned with the sad state of Church and continued lap-dogging of some in the clergy - like the President of that PR Driven School in Indiana, gutless 'catholic' politicians who go to Pancake breakfasts with the Knights of Columbus and then do the bidding of Planned Parenthood to kill more kids.

John Powers and Tom Roeser are two of the most public Philip Neri's in Chicago.

My neighborhood is packed with people who live the Gospel, while the chaps being paid to say Mass act like bitchy little girls.

There are priests like Father C. Frank Phillips,C.R. of St. John Cantius Parish at Chicago Ave. & Sangamon on the north side who have sparked devotion through the beauty, grace and dignity of the Traditional Latin Mass ( Novus Ordo & Tridentine) and he has helped attract more Americans to Holy Orders than any seminary. Go to St. John Cantius and witness a Church alive! Packed. Every Mass.

http://www.cantius.org/

The Catholic Church has been on canvass many times in history.

There always seems to be a Philip Neri to help the Church spit out its busted teeth and get back in the fight.


http://stbarbara.blogspot.com/

http://tomroeser.com/

Chicago Genius Tom Roeser Skewers and Broils Chicago Media Morons!

Thomas Roeser, Chicago's answer to 18th Century genius Dr. Samuel Johnson, skewers huge chunks of the meat heads who pass themselves off as journalists in Chicago.

Roeser, whose resume is longer than a Studs Terkle story, helps John Powers, local philanthropist and businessman, run Chicago's only balanced and authentic news and opinion organ Chicago Daily Observer.

It is so nicely balanced, that my south side musings appear along side those of Progressive genius, journalist, historian and political analyst Don Rose, who sent more brain cells down the drain of the gents at Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap than I'd ever hope to have.

Roeser deconstructs the Chicago Media icono-sphere with all of the glee of Smash McKenna ( Pipe Coverer Extraordinaire!) in doing similar justice to a bust-out who grabbed Nualla's tip money at Keegan's Pub - more gore than Titus Andronicus and much more hilarious!

We start with Carol Marin the political columnist of the “Sun-Times.” She made her mark as a smooth TV anchor and feature reporter where her views were not readily known. Then came her rebellion at Channel 5 when management wanted to include Jerry Springer as a commentator. She left with a tsunami of favorable publicity but what wasn’t realized at the time was that her renegotiation was up for grabs and she might not have been retained anyway. But it worked. She has a smooth TV style--but as soon as she went over to the “Sun-Times” her mood 1960s Mother Superior attitude…literally…conveyed her true beliefs, that of a morally superior dilettante in politics who wants to enable true social justice on earth. Social justice means the welfare state…and which party better represents this goal than the Dems. All tied up in her sense of religious self-rectitude -which betrays, of course, a sense of vacuous non-theology.
Her first column was to celebrate that 14-carat phony with a self-embroidered history of radical activism from yesteryear, Studs Terkel, 96, a self-promoting agnostic windbag who named one of his kids after declared Communist stage actor and singer Paul Robson and , to hear Terkel tell it in his rasping voice which thrills his listeners since they fathom the real man of the street is talking… marched with the Wobblies, braved assaults from the club-wielding goons in the Armour strike, endured beatings with Walter Reuther in the Detroit sit-down strikes of the 1930, fought the white racists who opposed blacks swimming off a South Side pier in the 1920s, was black-listed because of his opposition to that hideous Joe McCarthy…all the stories inflating in coloration by the year-some invented out of whole cloth--while Ms. Marin beamed expressively and accepted his supposed man-in-the-street lingo as true genre.

As the late Steve Neal, no conservative, pointed out in a column Terkel never did anything of note for the “working class,” is in reality a b.s’ing blatherer of tales who would long since have been thrown out of a neighborhood bar for inculcating terminal boredom, since he has lived far longer than most and has license to exaggerate scandalously without fact-checking. Aside from a brief acting career on early TV, Terkel’s has done nothing noteworthy except to snap on a tape recorder and capture stories from first-hand participants for which, as a canny capitalist, he paid nothing but from which he made a fortune for himself-beginning with “Division Street America.” A self-proclaimed man of the people, he deliberately never learned to drive and rides a bus, taking care to sit by the window where he, festooned in his red-checked shirt, can be quickly glimpsed. I debated him once at Bughouse Square. A coward when confronted, this giant puff ball self-inflated turned into a clawless pussy cat. I actually went easy on him after he caved. It was the first time he was ever called on any of his stories because his recollections were at variance with history. Marin the dilettante swallows it all.
The late John McDermott a once squishy soft liberal but always a truly authenticist Catholic (who changed to a Reagan voter because of the pro-life issue,…and who was for years an office mate of mine)…once embarked on a self-designated campaign to encourage Marin, either a fallen away or fallen away wanna-be to re-embrace the faith. According to McDermott her conditions involved the whole swath of feminism: contraception, abortion rights, keep-your-hands-off-my-womb, women priests, women bishops, gay rights. Oh, said I, sarcastically, by all means let us immediately reformulate 2000 years of theology so Carol will go back to the church! He never gave up on her and remembered her in his prayers every day. I said: save your breath.
So Democratic party cross-eyed is she that when she interviewed Henry Hyde for her paper she had to put in the piece that she told him she came from a family where the women never voted Republican-as if anyone cares…but it was her way of squaring herself to write about him at all. Her way of getting an insight into how the presidential campaign is going is to sit down with David Axelrod whom (ith her little girl naivete) he thinks will give it to her straight. So cross-eyed is she that she actually believes this stuff.

Always a treat to see Tom tune-up the fatuous loudmouth Studs Terkle. Avail yourselves Citizens! Avail Yourselves!


Skewered and Grilled! Get some more with Tom Roeser!

Chicago Daily Observer - The Only Place for Balanced Opinion

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!


One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.


"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

Lewis Carroll - He was no Cathleen Falsani


Thirsty in a very dry land, parched readers looked to drink from the water of a clear pond of thought and opinion, but there was ne'er a drop to drink. Chicago was a journalism desert until August 8, 2007.

And Then!!!!!!!

A leading Chicago Philanthropist funded the operation of an Internet news source that offer a varied and balanced forum of opinion for Chicago and the Nation.

The Chicago Daily Observer was launched in late summer of 2007 and continues to provide the best source of opinion on politics, religion, social mores and topical events.

Operated by local genius Thomas Roeser and business innovator John Powers, Chicago Daily Observer manage and edit the vast array of offerings from every point of view and level of talent - from Don Rose and Dennis Byrne all the way down to Pat Hickey.

Thomas F. Roeser is an 18th Century man of letters and parts gracing an age marked by convenient convictions and Wal-Mart world views. Tom Roeser, a life long Catholic and corporate leader,with a discerning eye that scans the offerings from the written word, drinks deeply from the best in thought and shares the best of what he has consumed in voice that levels the conversation with democratic largess.

Here is a posting of Tom's August 8th launch of Cdobs - Chicago Daily Observer. What Tom initiated with John Powers runs sprints in the lanes of opinion every morning.

Not long ago after I spent most of my blog (www.tomroeser.com) complaining about the abysmal quality of our local daily newspapers, a reader known as Lovie’s Leather wrote to say “why don’t you either shut up or start a newspaper of your own?” I don’t know what happened to Lovie’s Leather but he gave me an idea. I visited with a number of people and after a year we have funds were collected to start this five-day-a-week Chicago Daily Observer… which will be a for-profit Internet publication—free to you but paid by ads and other income-producing devices that will allow it to stand tall in the free market.

We have opened our doors to capture a “center-right’ treatment of the news…some breaking news, some commentary—but all, we hope, in the spirit of Chicago’s great newspaper tradition. We’ll have some well-known names in this issue and the succeeding ones…including Dennis Byrne , Russ Stewart, Jeff Berkowitz, Ben Joravsky, talk radio commentators you are familiar with—Deborah Rowe, Teri O’Brien, hopefully Eileen Byrne (who just got married)...as well as the inimitable Frank Penn, decorated veteran of Vietnam and a former Chicago police officer, Charlie Johnston, probably one of the finest grassroots practitioners in Illinois, Terry Sullivan who helps run an educational enrichment center in the inner city—Midtown, Nicholas Hahn III, the bright young just-turned-20 kid who in his efforts to conservatize DePaul and make it once again the Catholic university it somewhat dishonestly proclaims itself to be, has been named one of the five leading conservative young leaders in the U.S. by the Young America’s Foundation.

Others will include Peter Fitzgerald, Chris Dudley, Ben Joravsky (who will supplement his Reader duties to write in his interesting way on TIFs and other things), Joe Morris and Kathy Posner to name a few. Democrats won’t be ignored with contributions upcoming by people like Jack Franks, the bright young state representative and committee chairman from McHenry and Tom Dart, the young, vigorous sheriff of Cook county. More will be added by the day, Frank Avila, Frank Coconate—many others…

The idea got started with a lunch I had with Ron Gidwitz, entrepreneur and civic leader, whose innovative run for governor of Illinois impressed me. Not enough to support him at the time but as I got to know him, I was highly stirred by his encyclopedic understanding of government in the city and state, bracing ideas with a free-market twist and his courage in articulating them. Ron and all of us agree that the role of government must be subordinated to the free market. After that, I “drafted” John Powers, the young co-founder of Pay-Pal who has become our president. He is one of the brightest young men in Illinois. John is responsible for a lot of snazzy devices in our product—maps that pinpoint where in the Chicago area events are happening that interest us. In the future, for example, if you want to find a good charter school you just need to hit a button and they’re there…or a neighborhood with less crime than yours…hit the button and you’ll see them all. John is responsible for all those wonderful innovations.

Ron, John and I have a lot of fun putting this project together and we intend to see it grow and become a true alternative to the liberal promulgating four major daily newspapers in this market. In a sense, we hope to be something like a local version of www.realclearpolitics.com by giving you a taste of different views
that…for some reason (I wonder why?)...have been omitted from our newspapers.

Here in the Chicago area have two city newspapers. One is the Democratic party’s newspaper of record and frenetic Barack Obama cheering section. The other is all too often (although getting better) a paper torn between its liberal reporting staff and its editorial board. We have two regional dailies…but guess what? All follow the same generally liberal line. For this huge metropolitan area that is so diverse, they supply precious little diversity. By merely existing, we supply diversity. I hope you stick with us. I hope that today’s will be the worst edition we put out—since by doing we all get better. Welcome aboard!

Thomas F. Roeser
Chairman,
Editorial Board

Give my post title click for the best and most varied in Chicago thought