Faith Summer Session

If I were back in the UK, I would have been attending the annual Faith Summer Session at Woldingham School in Surrey. You'll find full news and great photos at Fr Tim Finigan's blog:

Gearing up for the Papal Visit
James MacMillan at Faith
Group photos from the Faith Summer Session
For the folks at home

See also Mulier fortis.

Since coming to know Faith some 16 or 17 years ago I have found it a great inspiration in presenting a coherent synthesis of faith and reason for the modern scientific world, particularly in its vision of the Incarnation.

Its attractiveness to young people and the fruit it has borne in vocations to the priesthood, religious life and holy matrimony is a great blessing for Britain.

Canon Law Conference at La Crosse, Wisconsin more

Here are a few pics from the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe at La Crosse, Wisonsin.

At the entrance to the shrine, this bronze of St Juan Diego with the miraculous image on his tilma.

Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Chapel of Our Lady of Good Counsel, a chapel for lighting votive candles. The stained glass windows represent apparitions of Our Lady around the world: Lourdes, Fatima, Knock...

Exterior of the Church which was consecrated two years ago on 31st July 2008.

And the beautiful interior.

If you don't like altar rails, look away now...

Remember, this Church is only two years old. Very modern! Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Burke this morning. Holy Communion was given at the rails. All those able to - pretty well everyone I think - knelt to receive Our Blessed Lord. This is truly uptodate liturgy.

Archbishop Burke gives his lecture on the Administration of the Temporal Goods of the Church.

Father John Zuhlsdorf celebrates Mass (extraordinary form).

Will hopefully get to post some things about the content.

Canon Law Conference at La Crosse, Wisconsin

This afternoon I drove about 380 miles from Marquette to La Crosse in the State of Wisconsin to attend a Canon Law Conference which takes place at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe tomorrow and Wednesday.

Among the speakers is Archbishop Raymond Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura and former Bishop of La Crosse. Archbishop Burke was then and is now a stout defender of the dignity of human life and won my admiration particularly when he issued a notification that any politician who voted for or publicly supported legislation permitting abortion should be denied Holy Communion in accordance with Canon 915. He particularly had in mind Senator John Kerry, a Catholic Democratic Presidential Candidate, who - notwithstading the fact that he is Catholic - was in favour of abortion legislation and was in Bishop Burke's diocese.

Archbishop Burke is scheduled to give two lectures entitled 'Current Questions Regarding the Administration of Temporal Goods of the Church' and 'Ongoing Challenges in the Administration of Justice.' He is also to preside at the Masses on both days.

Archbishop Burke founded the shrine and I am told it is very impressive. I shall see it for the first time tomorrow and will hopefully post some photos.

I am also looking forward to the opening lecture by Father James Conn SJ on 'Current Questions Regarding the Teaching Office of the Church.

Full details about the conference can be found here.

Larger Family Life

A blog by a mother from Kent, UK, who is expecting her ninth child. Check out Living Life the Larger Family Way.

Protect The Pope Dot Com

Found this in my spam folder but it seems a thoroughly good blog logging anti- and pro-Papal visit news reports.

Deacon Nick Donnelly, a permanent deacon of the Diocese of Lancaster, has, through his own initiative, launched a website called, Protect the Pope.com to counter the attacks on Pope Benedict’s reputation and integrity from groups such as Protest the Pope.

His website aims to inform Catholics on the law regarding hate crimes and provide them with the means of easily reporting incitement to religious hatred or acts of religious hatred to the police during the Holy Father’s visit.

Protect the Pope.com also seeks to record incidents of anti-Catholicism in the media and internet as a way of raising awareness among Catholics and the wider community of this prejudice.

Deacon Nick Donnelly said at the launch of Protect the Pope.com :

‘Its been said that anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice, and in a way we Catholics have colluded in this by ignoring it, hoping it will go away. But the personal attacks on Pope Benedict in the run up to the Papal visit show us its not going away.

Since 2006 we’ve had the legal right to protect ourselves from religious hatred. Of course people in this country have freedom of expression, but this does not mean they have the right to create a climate of hostility and fear. It’s a question of protecting our human rights to freedom of belief and freedom of worship.’

Annual Blueberry Festival in Marquette

Threat to human life as great as ever under new British Government

Nothing has changed in the political rhetoric on human life. Here's what the Department for International Development recently put out as amongst its goals for the third world:

• Scaling-up access to family planning - Every year there are 75 million unintended pregnancies. A third of all maternal deaths could be avoided if women had access to family planning. Scaling up the provision of contraception in developing countries could help meet the unmet need and reduce the number of deaths. This includes ensuring that women can access modern methods of family planning such as implants, injectables and IUDs.
• Addressing unsafe abortion: Every year unsafe abortion results in up to 70,000 maternal deaths in developing countries. A further 8 million women and girls need medical treatment. Only 5 million receive it. Ensuring abortion services are safe, and that post abortion care is provided, saves lives. And increasing access to family planning will avert many thousands of unintended pregnancies and abortions every year.
• Making birth safe - The minutes and hours around childbirth is the time when the risk of death is greatest for mothers and their babies: a total of over 2 million birth-related deaths occur globally each year. For mothers who die around the time of birth, it is rare for their baby to survive. To address this, women need to be able to access skilled and motivated health workers in the right place at the right time, who have the drugs, equipment and infrastructure for a safe delivery.

The old, old, arguments: more 'family planning', more 'safe abortion' (whatever that is - not safe for the baby), and then, contradictorally: the quest to make birth safe - very laudable. Why don't 'uplanned' pregnancies be treated in this manner to avoid abortion?

British Prime Minister David Cameron is pro-abortion. As John Smeaton quotes from a letter from the Prime Minister's office to SPUC:

David is aware of the comments made by the Shadow Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley MP, in the House on the 12 May. Andrew was advocating that early, medical abortions are preferable to late, surgical ones. Therefore, Andrew was in favour of amending the requirement for two doctors to consent to an abortion [i.e. only one doctor can give the consent creating a fast-track process for getting an abortion] being performed and for reviewing the restrictions on nurses providing medical abortions [just pop into the practice nurse and she/he can do it as routinely as taking a blood sample]. As David is in favour of allowing women to have abortions, but supports a reduction to the abortion limit [don't people who advocate campaigns for reductions in time limits see that this always results in legislation that actually makes abortion easier?], he thinks that this is a practical and sensible proposal [oh how terribly British - such a sensible way of disposing of human life on an industrial scale; I think the Nazis also sought practical ways of killing millions of the death camps]. However, it must be emphasized that this is currently a free vote issue.

The new President of the Pontifical Academy for Life Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco speaks clearly against this philosophy which fails to recognise the rights of the unborn child and attacks the further promotion of killing by Governments around the world. In an interview with Zenit he says:

I don't know when we will arrive at the right to steal but behind these laws what exists is a relativistic logic.

More from John Smeaton here, here, here.