Reader Mail
Putting Words in His Mouth
Obama’s PR crew, at it again. School monitor. Langworth strikes back. Plus more.
(Page 2 of 3)
Unless or until the results of that disastrous Council known as Vatican II are replaced with those enforced tenets and doctrines that made the Catholic Church…the Catholic Church… Father Jenkins and his colleagues will continue to insist that inviting pro-abortion officials or advocates is a proper and necessary function of his university, in the “Spirit of Vatican II,” whatever that is. This, despite his own knowledge that, in so doing, the invited guest’s beliefs radically contradict — Speaker Pelosi to the contrary — every core belief about the sanctity of life that the Catholic Church has held since nearly its inception. To Rev. Jenkins and his like-minded “progressive” colleagues, the Catholic Church began in 1965. To test that theory, the following may interest you:
In the week leading up to Easter, I queried a number of Novus
Ordo (post 1965) Catholic parishioners if they or their church
would hold a service for Tenebrae. All of the responses were the
same: What’s that? But one weekly parishioner went a step
further: not only did he not know what a “Tenebrae service” was,
but he doubted that his local parish priest did either.
— Vincent Chiarello
Reston, Virginia
REPUTATION IS EVERYTHING
Re: Frank Schell’s
Let’s Not Forget the Accountants:
Perhaps, as (if I understood him correctly) the Wall Street Journal’s Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. wrote, we ought to deregulate the accounting industry and do away with the FASB altogether.
If that were done the market would price a company’s stock commensurate with the reputation of it’s accounting firm. Accounting firms would then develop reputations in the same manner that law firms currently do.
Mr. Jenkins made that point in the wake of the collapse of one or
the other of the Enron or WorldCom house of cards. His point was
that accounting standards do not provide protection against fraud
or other monkey business. If, on the other hand, accounting
firms’ source of revenue was dependent upon the reputation of
their companies, various auditors’ seals of approval would mean
something and the market would price the company’s stock
accordingly.
— Richmond Trotter
IN A MOMENT’S TIME
Re: Reid Collins’s Columbine
Plus:
Research has determined that from the Moment of Commitment (the point when a student pulls their weapon) to the Moment of Completion (when the last round is fired) is only 5 seconds. If it is the intent of a school district to react to this violence, they will do so over the wounded and/or slain bodies of students, teachers and administrators.
Educational institutions clearly want safe and secure schools. Administrators are perennially queried by parents about the safety of their schools. The commonplace answers, intended to reassure anxious parents, focus on the school resource officers and emergency procedures. While useful, these less than adequate efforts do not begin to provide a definitive answer to preventing school violence, nor do they make a school safe and secure.
Traditionally school districts have relied upon the mental health community or local police to keep schools safe, yet one of the key shortcomings has been the lack of a system that involves teachers, administrators, parents and students in the identification and communication process. Recently, colleges, universities and community colleges are forming Behavioral Intervention Teams with representatives from all these constituencies. Higher Education has changed their safety/security policies, procedures, or surveillance systems, yet K-12 have yet to incorporate Behavioral Intervention Teams. K-12 schools continue spending excessive amounts of money to put in place many of the physical security options. Sadly, they are reactionary only and do little to prevent aggression because they are designed exclusively to react to existing conflict, threat and violence. These schools reflect a national blindspot, which prefers hardening targets through enhanced security versus preventing violence with efforts directed at aggressors. Security gets all the focus and money, but this only makes us feel safe, rather than to actually make us safer.
Some law enforcement agencies use profiling as a means to identify an aggressor. According to the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education’s report on Targeted Violence in Schools, there is a significant difference between “profiling” and identifying and measuring emerging aggression; “The use of profiles is not effective either for identifying students who may pose a risk for targeted violence at school or — once a student has been identified — for assessing the risk that a particular student may pose for school-based targeted violence.” It continues; “An inquiry should focus instead on a student’s behaviors and communications to determine if the student appears to be planning or preparing for an attack.” We can and must assess objective, culturally neutral, identifiable criteria of emerging aggression.
For a comprehensive look at the problem and its solution, go
here.
— John D. Byrnes
President, Center for Aggression Management
HIJACKED ARGUMENT
Re: Jeffrey Lord’s Three
Presidents and a Hijacking at Sea:
There is a slight ideological bias to the article and even more
in some of the letters. Remember the problems with the
Iran-Contra affair, which also involved hostages, though they
weren’t pirates in the seafaring sense? Also, Carter’s policy of
denying any concessions to the Iranian hotheads who took over the
US embassy ultimately worked, though it took longer than most
Americans had patience. Also, Reagan didn’t win the Cold War
alone. Every president going back to Truman supported the policy
of containment and kept a variety of pressures on the Soviet
Bloc.
— David C. Nice
GETTIN’ TO CHURCH
Re: Mark Tooley’s
The Last Methodist President:
Sheryl| 4.16.09 @ 10:41AM
Mr. Chiarello,
You were surprised that virtually no "Catholics" knew what a Tenebrae service was? Try your experiment with virtually any element of what was once the Catholic Church. Some sample questions: Do you pray the Angelus? How about the Regina Coeli? What is the Magisterium of the Church, and why should you care? What is Septuagesima? Passion Sunday? I think you get the point. What many many Novus Ordo Catholics know or understand about the Chruch they allege to belong to could fit on the head of a pin. To many people, the teachings of the Church are that everybody should be nice to each other, and maybe you should schelepp yourself to church once in a while if you feel like it.
The ignorance of post Vatican II "Catholics" is sadly on display everywhere these days, nowhere more pathetically than in the last presidential election, or the choice of commencement speaker at the once Catholic Notre Dame.
Our Lady weeps for her children.
Appleby| 4.16.09 @ 11:18AM
My Methodist mother knows what Tennebrae is; we attended it annually in the Methodist church when I was growing up.
In 1992 I went to music camp to sing the Haydn [i]Harmoniemesse[/i] and almost everyone under 40 who was there had never sung a Latin Mass and therefore missed the entire point of the [i] Harmoniemesse[/i] which is scandalously funny to those who have. Since the session was so popular that attendees were chosen by lottery, I can't imagine how ignorant the masses were that were NOT chosen.
David Govett | 4.16.09 @ 1:54PM
** Seal of Disapproval **
Four pirates threaten on the sea.
A Seal's bullet; now there are three.
Three pirates yet; a motley crew.
Hot lead leaves Seal; now there are two.
Perhaps the end is evident.
Pirates to hell will be Seal-sent.
Rocco| 4.16.09 @ 6:14PM
I echo Mr. Chiarello's and Sheryl's sentiments. Sad indeed. But, it appears that the church of Vatican II is dying a long, slow death.
Signor Chiarello, given your location, you must attend Mass at St. Athanasius. A wonderful little parish. I have attended there off and on over the past 12 years, whenever duty brought me back to the DC area. Fr. Ringrose is a no-nonsense priest of the old school.
Pax vobiscum!
Alan Brooks| 4.16.09 @ 10:09PM
the plummeting isn't the Church's fault, the flaw lies with a society that does what it wants on Saturday night, then goes to Church on Sunday. Not all churchgoers have been and are like that but many are and it has dissolved not only the piousness of the Church but also the society the Church floats precariously on.
Have you gone out of your offices recently to look at 'society'?
Alan Brooks| 4.16.09 @ 10:14PM
and BTW, don't blame just homosexual pedophiles in the Church but also the hetero-philes as well.
More than one heterosexual child molester exists in the Church to this day. The laws of statistics make such a certainty.
John| 4.16.09 @ 10:21PM
The teachers, Priests, Bishops, Archbishops, and Cardinals were exactly the same five minutes before Vatican II and five minutes after the event.
The Laity was the SAME... from that one Sunday where the priest mumbled into the alter, in a foreign dead language that he spoke poorly if at all, with his back turned to a disinterested, indifferent but brow beaten congregation... morphed into a Prayer led by a Priest, engaged in his congregation in a language that they could understand, identify with, and participate in.
Hum... radical yes, but negatively transformative... not hardly. Vatican II was the revelation and life's work of John XXIII. His desire was to bring the beauty of the Mass to the people and bring them into the celebration.
Gee I remember when the Priest was actually called the Celebrant.
I was born into a Latin Church. It was stilted impersonal, disconnected, and the people in the pews focused on the Rosary, the occassional time to genuflect, make a hand motion... beat their breasts... make the sign of the cross... whatever... it was an OBLIGATION.
You went, whether or not you wanted to, whether or not you had your heart in it. You went because it was expected. However in our desire to find blame, we forget that many middle aged men who didn't attend Mass. I remember a childhood in Masses attended by old people, and mothers with children.
Vatican II didn't bring this. Look at what has the Anglican/Episcopal Church, the Methodists... the Lutherans... you name it. The drop off in attendence had and has nothing to do with the Mass in English with God at the center of the celebration, instead of in some artifically determined direction.
We lose ourselves in minutae. We get deflected by symptoms that we mistake for causes. Vatican II constituted critical liturgical reform.
It is we, as a society, who have left the pews. We have abandoned religious worship, belief, and foundations, and Vatican II is not responsible for that.
My surmise is that without Vatican II the church would have lost more people. As it is, Vatican II defines the Roman Catholic Church. If you don't believe that... then congratulations, you are a Protestant.
Blessings to those who keep the faith, despite the challenges. Peace.
John
Joe Murray | 4.17.09 @ 8:39AM
The fact of the matter is that the Office of Tenebrae was abandoned in 1977. But the special rubrics of Tenebrae that once accompanied the celebration of Matins and Lauds, including the ceremony of extinguishing the candles, are now sometimes applied to other celebrations, even if these do not consist of a nine-psalm Matins and a five-psalm Lauds.
This may one reason Vincent Chiarello survey of Catholic individuals were unaware of what he was speaking of. The Church in this case has moved on.
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