Saint Valentine's Day

The popular customs associated with Saint Valentine's Day undoubtedly had their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France during the Middle Ages, that on 14 February, i.e. half way through the second month of the year, the birds began to pair. Thus in Chaucer's Parliament of Foules we read:

For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.

For this reason the day was looked upon as specially consecrated to lovers and as a proper occasion for writing love letters and sending lovers' tokens. Both the French and English literatures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contain allusions to the practice.

Link (here) to the full article

Read about St. Valentine (here)

"Temple Police"

He said the diocese was challenged by the ageing of its priests, most of whom would be eligible for retirement by 2014, leaving only six priests out of the full complement of 40.

The 65-year-old said the investigation had been going for two years, but a decision had not yet been made.

"The ultimate outcome is I'd be sacked and have to stand down,"

he said.

"Or they would ask me to resign or operate in another diocese ... at this stage, I don't know."

Bishop Morris, who has held the Toowoomba post for 16 years, said the church couldn't stifle debate and that's what the letter was promoting. "I will continue to fight for what I believe is the truth," he said.

"And I will continue to fight to be able to ask questions."

Bishop Morris said there was a group of very conservative Catholics dubbed the "temple police" who traveled around parishes dobbing in priests who didn't toe the line. "There are plenty of temple police around at the moment," he said.

"They're not a large majority - they believe in their conservative views and if they don't agree with something, they'll write to Rome."

Link (here) to the full story

Rest In Peace: Monsignor Patrick J. Trainor

This holy man was my Pastor and I was his alter boy.

JMJ Joe

Monsignor Patrick J. Trainor
October 22, 1917 - February 07, 2009

TRAINOR, Monsignor Patrick, age 91, Pastor Emeritus of St. John Vianney Parish, St. Pete Beach, went home to the Lord Saturday, February 7, 2009, at his residence attended by those who loved and cared for him. Born in the Bronx, New York at an early age following his father's death, the family returned to Ireland. Monsignor Trainor was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of St. Augustine, June 18, 1944 at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Cavan Co., Ireland. He came to Florida in 1945 and served parishes in Jacksonville, Gainesville and Coral Gables, where he also taught school for five years, before his arrival December 1, 1953 at St. John Vianney Parish, St. Pete Beach, to serve as pastor. He held that office until his retirement in 1989. At the request of Bishop Joseph Hurley, Pope John XXIII granted his being named a Monsignor and in 1988 at the request of Bishop W. Thomas Larkin he was elevated to Monsignor Protonotary Apostolic (P.A.) by Pope John Paul II. Monsignor Trainor's love, support and enthusiasm for Catholic education is evidenced in the growth and excellence of St. John Vianney Catholic School and those elementary schools in Pinellas County he watched being built. He assisted Archbishop Hurley in building St. Petersburg Catholic High School in 1957, then known as Bishop Barry High School. In 1998 the Monsignor Patrick Trainor Media Center at St. Petersburg Catholic High School was dedicated to him for his commitment and many contributions. He loyally served the diocese in other positions: Chairman of the Board of Catholic Charities, Judge of the Tribunal, Consultor and Episcopal Vicar for Pinellas Deaneries. Surviving him are his sister, Sister Mary Winifrede Trainor, age 93, sister-in-law Mrs. Rita Trainor, his cousin, Monsignor Edward Mulligan and two nieces, Rosaland O'Brien and Nuala Diffley, 2 nephews, Edward and Kevin Trainor , 6 great nephews and 4 great nieces. The Reception of Monsignor Trainor's body and visitation will be Thursday, February 12, 2009 from 3:30PM to 7:15PM at St. John Vianney Catholic Church, 445 82nd Ave, St. Pete Beach with evening prayer service at 7:30PM. Funeral Mass will be Friday, February 13th at 11:00AM at the church. Interment to follow at Calvary Cemetery. In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be made to St. John Vianney Catholic School. Brett Funeral Home & Cremation Services. Link (here)

Rest In Peace: Piotr Stanczak, Polish Catholic Martyr Was Beheaded By Taliban

Pakistani Taliban Release Tape Of Murder Of Pole

Before he was killed, Stanczak was seen on the tape appealing to the Polish government not to send troops to Afghanistan. Pakistani Taliban militants released a video tape on Sunday of them beheading a Polish geologist whom they said killed him because Pakistan's government refused to release Taliban prisoners.

Watch beheading (here)

The Islamist militants said on Saturday they had executed the Polish engineer, Piotr Stanczak, who they kidnapped in September, because the government had refused to free 60 captured militants before Friday's deadline.

A tape was delivered to the office of a Reuters reporter in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan showing two masked men cutting off Stanczak's head.

Before he was killed, Stanczak was seen on the tape appealing to the Polish government not to send troops to Afghanistan.

He also urged Poland to severe ties with Pakistan, which he said had made no effort to secure his release, said a Reuters reporter who saw the tape.

Assaults on foreign aid workers, company employees and diplomats have increased in Pakistan over the past year, especially in areas near the border with Afghanistan, where government forces are battling the Taliban and al Qaeda.

A Taliban spokesman, identified only as Mohammed, said earlier the militants would only give up Stanczak's body if the government freed captured militants and stopped attacking them.

"We will not hand over the dead body if the government does not accept our demands," the Taliban spokesman said by telephone.

"Our demands are the same: the release of our 60 men and an end to military operations."

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Saturday said his government had received unofficial confirmation the 42-year-old hostage was dead.

Stanczak was kidnapped on Sept. 28 while visiting one of his company's sites near Attock city, about 65 km (40 miles) west of the capital, Islamabad.

Gunmen shot dead his Pakistani driver, bodyguard and translator before abducting him.

An American heading the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in southwestern province of Baluchistan, was taken last week and his driver was shot dead.

Two Chinese telecommunication engineers, two Afghan diplomats and an Iranian diplomat were kidnapped in northwest Pakistan, though one of the Chinese later escaped.

A militants on the tape released on Sunday said other foreign hostages including the Chinese engineer would also be killed if the government did not meet Taliban demands.

Link (here)

It would be a good time to pray for the Legionaires of Christ and members of Regnum Christi

The 99 For The One

"If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost."
Matthew Chapter 18:12-14

With the Parable of the Lost Sheep in mind.


Attacks on Pope Benedict XVI's decision to lift the excommunication of a Holocaust denier escalated Monday, with one theologian calling on him to step down as the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Criticism following the pope's January 24 announcement has been particularly cutting in Germany, where denying the Holocaust is a crime punishable with a jail sentence.

"If the pope wants to do some good for the Church, he should leave his job," eminent liberal Catholic theologian Hermann Haering told the German daily (Pope Benedict's photo has been altered by Photoshop in an unfavorable manner) Tageszeitung.

"That would not be a scandal, a bishop has to relinquish his position at 75 years, a cardinal loses his rights at 80 years," he said. Pope Benedict is 81.

Meanwhile, a senior Vatican official acknowledged the Vatican administration may have made "management errors" with the decision to lift excommunication against four bishops, including Richard Williamson, whose comments sparked the controversy.

"I observe the debate with great concern. There were misunderstandings and management errors in the Curia," said Cardinal Walter Kasper, who is in charge of the Vatican department that deals with Jewish relations.

"The Pope wanted to open the debate because he wanted unity inside and outside,"

the German cardinal told Vatican Radio.

He also noted that "these bishops are still suspended."

An international uproar followed the decision to rehabilitate Williamson, an English bishop who has dismissed as "lies" historical evidence that six million Jews were gassed by the Nazis during World War II. Jews and Catholics alike have produced widespread criticism.

"A pardon that tastes of poison," wrote Franco Garelli, an expert in religious history, in Italy's daily La Stampa Monday.

"The trouble caused by this complicated affair is evident not only outside the Church but within it," wrote the academic, who spoke of the "profound discomfort stirred up by the lifting of the excommunication in numerous Catholic circles."

Back in Germany, high-ranking Catholic officials said the pope risked losing vital support.

"There is obviously a loss of confidence" in the pope and "rehabilitating a denier is always a bad idea," the bishop of Hamburg, Werner Thissen, told the daily Hamburger Abendblatt on Monday.

The bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Gebhard Furst, meanwhile spoke of his "uncertainty, incomprehension and deception" in the national Bild.

In France, home to Europe's largest Jewish population, chief rabbi Gilles Bernheim denounced Williamson's remarks as "despicable" in an interview with Le Monde.

Williamson claimed that only between 200,000 and 300,000 Jews died before and during World War II, and none in the gas chambers.

French government spokesman Luc Chatel called Williamson's remarks "unacceptable, abject and intolerable."

Vienna's cardinal and archbishop, Christoph Schoenborn, on Sunday lashed out at the decision to bring Williamson back into the fold, saying that "he who denies the Holocaust cannot be rehabilitated within the Church."

Belgian daily La Libre Belgique slammed the Vatican's "blindness" and "deafness," drawing links between Williamson and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"Apparently no one can make the Iranian president and his henchman see reason" when they deny the "truth" of the Holocaust, and it is the same with the "bishop recently anointed by the highest authority of the Catholic Church," it said.

For the pope, the "blunder is extraordinary, especially given that his willingness for a dialogue with Judaism is indisputable," said French daily Liberation.

Link (here)

A New Bishop And Hurricane Katrina

Cleric whose Katrina comment caused stir promoted

VATICAN CITY (AP) — An Austrian pastor who has been quoted as calling Hurricane Katrina God's punishment for sin in New Orleans is being promoted to the rank if bishop.

The Vatican announced Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI has tapped the Rev. Gerhard Wagner, 54, to be auxiliary bishop in Linz, Austria. It made no mention of the reported remarks about Hurricane Katrina.

Wagner has served since 1988 as pastor of a church in the Austrian town of Windischgarsten and received a doctorate in theology from the prestigious Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome, the Vatican said.

In 2005, Wagner was quoted in a parish newsletter as saying that he was convinced that the death and destruction of Hurricane Katrina earlier that year was "divine retribution" for New Orleans' tolerance of homosexuals and laid-back sexual attitudes.

Kath.Net, a Catholic news agency in Austria, released in 2005 excerpts of what it said were comments Wagner made in a parish newsletter in Linz about Katrina.

It said the newsletter quoted Wagner as saying that Katrina destroyed not only nightclubs and brothels in New Orleans, but also abortion clinics.

"The conditions of immorality in this city are indescribable," Wagner was quoted as saying.

Link (here)