CULTURE & POLITICS, ODDS & ENDS

O my goodness ! I really hope, this is just gossip (stupid gossip I think). Hopefully she will not dare to do such aimless things. Those cartoons caused enough damage already, what's her reason to add fuel on the fire ? That's plain madness to strike on that idea. Don't do it !!!!!

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Scritto da: benefan 26/02/2006 19.50

THE DAMAGE IS PROBABLY ALREADY DONE

Whether this story about Oriana is true or not, just the fact that the story is out there will be enough to cause angry Muslim reaction. Hopefully, Oriana has enough sense not to do something like this. If nothing else, let's hope that her lack of artistic talent will prevent her from trying. As if things weren't bad enough already....

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She probably knows that she can make a lot of money with the cartoons and her name.....
I don't think the lack of talent will stop her, there will be many good artists who can do the cartoon and she could give her signature.
But maybe it's just gossip!

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dsds.ch/dsds3/kandidaten/nevio/Nevio%20-%20Ich%20kenne%20ni...

As my various scattered posts today, 2/28, show - I have gleaned much today from my favorite blogsites. Please check out roamingroman.blogspot.com/
where Mary, the roaming Roman, posts the pictures she took on a recent trip to Ravenna in northeast Italy. It's a destination I recommend to all my friends who go to Italy because of the fantastic Byzantine mosaic artwork in its major churches and because that is where Dante Alighieri's tomb is. Mary's pictures provide a vivid idea of what I love about Ravenna. It's on the route of every train that passes that region so it is always very accessible.

Picking the Day Lent Begins

ROME, FEB. 28, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Q: What determines what day Lent begins? P.R., Fresno, California

A: The short answer to your question is that the beginning of Lent depends on the date of Easter.

Easter follows a lunar, rather than a solar, calendar and is celebrated on the Sunday that follows the first full moon after March 21, the vernal (spring) equinox. Therefore Easter cannot fall earlier than March 22 or later than April 25.

All the other movable celebrations in the Church calendar ultimately depend on the date of Easter.

Most of the Eastern Churches follow the same basic principles but often celebrate Easter on a date different from Catholics and other Western Christians because they continue to follow the calendar of Julius Caesar without the corrections incorporated by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.

Julius Caesar's calendar calculated the year as 365 days and 6 hours and thus was about 11 minutes and 9 seconds more than the sun's actual course. Although tiny, this excess puts the calendar off by a day, more or less, every 128 years. Thus, the Council of Nicaea already found it necessary to regress the date of the spring equinox to March 21 instead of the original date of March 25.

By the time of Pope Gregory XIII the difference had grown so much that the spring equinox occurred on March 11.

In 1581 with the bull "Inter Gravissimas" Pope Gregory promulgated a widespread reform which, among other things, re-established the spring equinox on March 21 by eliminating 10 days from October 1582. Coincidence would have it that St. Teresa of Avila died on that very night of Oct. 4-15.

The error of Julius Caesar's calendar was corrected by deciding that the turn of the century --always a leap year in the Julian calendar -- would be so only when the year could be divided by 400, that is 1600, 2000 2400 2800, etc., whereas there would be no leap year in the others.

Most Catholic countries, and even some Protestant ones, accepted the reform almost immediately. Some countries, such as England, held off accepting the papal reform until 1752 while Russia did not adopt it until after the Communist takeover in 1918.

The calculation is still not perfect as there is still a difference of 24 seconds between the legal and the solar calendar. However, 3,500 years will have to pass before another day is added.

Getting back to Lent. This season comprises 40 days before Easter without counting Sundays which, even though they are called "Sundays of Lent," are not days of penance. Church tradition has always excluded fasting and penance on a Sunday.

The tradition of a fast in preparation for Easter goes back to the late third century but it varied in duration. The tradition of a 40-day fast was established in Rome between 354 and 384, although it began after the first Sunday.

As this period was also deemed suitable for the final preparation of candidates for baptism, the baptismal scrutinies were incorporated with the rites of this season. Scrutinies are communal prayers celebrated around the elect to strengthen them to overcome the power of sin in their lives and to grow in virtue.

Later, at the start of the sixth century, the beginning of Lent was moved up to Ash Wednesday in order to guarantee 40 days of effective fasting.

Thank you for the interesting and informative posts, Teresa-Benedetta!

Thanks to Dreadnought at http://johnheard.blogspot.com/ -
I might never have come across this item. Did Spain's goverment do anything similar
before it went ahead with all its "liberalizing" legislation last year? And the French are
supposed to be "libertine! But will the commission's conclusions influence any
relevant legislation or proposed legislation in France? This story was published in
www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/feb/06021601.html on 2/16/06.
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French Government Report Says No to Homosexual “Marriage”
Decisive factor was concern for children:
"Two fathers, or two mothers –
biologically neither real nor plausible"

By John-Henry Westen

PARIS, February 16, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A government commission set up at the request of the President of the French National Assembly has concluded that homosexual ‘marriage’ and adoption by homosexual couples, and medically assisted procreation for homosexual couples should not be permitted by law. The decisive factor to the report's conclusions, after an investigation of more than a year, was the commission’s decision to act “to affirm and protect children’s rights and the primacy of those rights over adults’ aspirations.”

The Information Mission, as the commission was called, was to propose any change to the law and to administrative practices that were necessary to better protect the rights of the child and to reflect changes in the French family. The commission’s report, the Parliamentary Report on the Family and the Rights of Children, released January 27, 2006 did acknowledge that the French family has altered significantly, becoming “more diverse and less institutionalized”, but recommended nonetheless that in the best interests of children homosexual ‘marriage’ should remain prohibited.

The Information Mission made every effort to hear all views on the subject. It organized 14 round tables and heard 130 people from the diversity of French society. It travelled to Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada to assess the reforms that have been undertaken in other countries.

The report sets out 100 proposals that require amendments to existing statutory or regulatory provisions.

The Mission considered demands for marriage to be made available to same-sex couples, and was of the view that it “is not possible to think about marriage separately from filiation: the two questions are closely connected, in that marriage is organized around the child.” Said the report: “ Marriage is not merely the contractual recognition of the love between a couple; it is a framework that imposes rights and duties, and that is designed to provide for the care and harmonious development of the child. Foreign examples demonstrate this: countries that have made marriage available to same-sex couples have all, simultaneously or subsequently, authorized adoption by those couples and developed systems for assisted procreation or surrogate gestation, to enable those couples to have children.”

The report stated: “It would in fact be incoherent, if couples were regarded as equal, to remove the prohibition on marriage and preserve it for filiation.”

Summing up its decision process on the matter, the Information Mission says, “Making marriage available to same-sex couples therefore presupposes that they will also be given the right to adopt and receive medical assistance for procreation, and even the right to use surrogate mothers, because such couples are not fertile. The Mission is divided on this subject. It considered the consequences for the child’s development and the construction of his or her identity of creating a fictitious filiation by law – two fathers, or two mothers – which is biologically neither real nor plausible. Diametrically opposed representations were made by the people heard on this point, and they failed to persuade a majority of the Mission to support recognizing a right to a child or a right to marriage, for same-sex couples. A majority of the Mission does not wish to question the fundamental principles of the law of filiation, which are based on the tripartite unit of ‘a father, a mother, a child’, citing the principle of caution. For that reason, that majority also, logically, chose to deny access to marriage to same-sex couples.”

See the full French Parliamentary Report (in French):
www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/dossiers/mission_famill...

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/03/2006 13.27]

From www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=85415 -

Abortion and African-Americans
Interview With Alveda King, of Priests for Life

NEW YORK, MARCH 3, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb, in that the mother decides the little one's fate, says the director of African-American outreach for Priests for Life.

Alveda King, niece of slain civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., advocates righteous living as the only way to solve the problem of abortion.

ZENIT interviewed Alveda King about the effects of abortion particularly on the black population in the United States.

Q: Statistics seem to show that abortion is aimed at specific groups such as African-Americans, immigrants and the poor. How do you see the situation?
Abortion is a deadly genocide for all populations. Yet, evidence shows that groups such as Planned Parenthood have targeted African-American communities with a campaign to encourage young black parents to abort babies.

Q: What is the stance of groups such as Planned Parenthood toward minorities? Do these groups do anything besides providing abortion?
In the African-American communities, abortion is the primary agenda. They also offer birth control and some health services, but the emphasis is on abortion for black parents.

Q: There is a high abortion rate among African-Americans and it reflects a problem with unwed mothers that needs to be solved. Abortion seems to deal with the "symptom" of children as if this were the solution. What is the proper solution?
The proper solution is righteousness and holy living, including abstinence and marriage. This is the case for all people, regardless of nationality and socioeconomic status.

Q: How has abortion affected the African-American family in the United States since 1973, the year abortion was legalized across the board?
Of the estimated 45 million abortions performed in the U.S. since 1973, approximately 15 million are reported to have been in African-American families.

Q: You said recently, "How can the dream survive if we murder the children?" Could you elaborate?
In the ongoing travesty of the debate over whether abortion and infanticide should be condoned, a voice in the wilderness continues to cry out, "What about the children?"

We have been fueled by the fire of "women's rights" [for] so long that we have become deaf to the outcry of the real victims whose rights are being trampled upon: the babies and the mothers.

Of course a woman has a legal right to decide what to do with her own body. Yet, she also has a right to know the serious consequences and repercussions of making a decision to abort her child.

Then too, what about the rights of each baby who is artificially breached before coming to term in his or her mother's womb, only to have her skull punctured, and feel -- yes, agonizingly feel -- the life run out of her before she takes her first breath of freedom.

What about of the rights of these women who have been called to pioneer the new frontiers of the new millennium only to have their lives snuffed out before the calendar even turns? What terribly mixed signals we are sending to our society today?

We allow and even encourage them to engage in promiscuous sex. Then when their sin conceives, we pretty much tell them, "Don't kill your babies, let our abortion facilities do it for you."

My grandfather, Dr. Martin Luther King Sr., once said, "No one is going to kill a child of mine." Tragically, two of his grandchildren had already been aborted, when he saved the life of his next great-grandson with this statement.

How can the "dream" survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate.

Q:What did you learn in your family about the dignity of human life?
My uncle, Dr. King, said, "The Negro cannot win if he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his family for personal comfort and safety." My parents raised me as a Christian, and I believe the Bible. My grandfather, Daddy King, was very firm about the life of the unborn, and rejected the idea of abortion.

From www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=85411 -

The Holy See Speaks on Behalf of Women
Says They Are Victims of Violence

NEW YORK, MARCH 3, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See has asked the international community to adopt laws defending women from sexual violence.

The petition was presented Thursday by Marilyn Ann Martone, in name of the Vatican Commission on the Status of Women, of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC).

The council is meeting to consider themes arising from the Fourth World Conference on Women, and from the 23rd special session of the General Assembly entitled "Women 2000: Gender equality, development and peace for the 21st century."

"The Holy See again condemns vigorously the sexual violence that frequently has women and girls for its object and encourages the passing of laws that will effectively defend them from such violence," said the representative of the Holy See.

"Nor can we fail, in the name of the respect due to the human person, to condemn the widespread culture which encourages the systematic exploitation of sexuality and corrupts even very young girls into letting their bodies be used for profit in a worldwide $3 billion industry," said Martone.

"Progress for women is progress for all," she said. "The World Summit rightly underlined the interdependence of development, peace and security and human rights."

Martone promoted microcredit projects directed toward women.

"This is a phenomenon which has had the support of local Catholic Churches for many years, through parallel schemes and informal small loans to poor people whose needs were not met by the financial institutions," she said.

"It is most encouraging to see poor women's patience, honesty and hard work rewarded in this way in many places, and it is to be encouraged by attention to the reform of structures that will in turn assist the spread and continued success of new initiatives in this field," she added.

The representative outlined some key areas that need to be addressed, in particular, she said, "it would be well therefore to reconsider policies directed at elderly women, who have oftentimes cared for others in their adulthood, and who in justice should receive proper support in their turn."

She said another area concerns migrant women: "It often happens that women migrants become the principal source of income for their family. The most common employment opportunities for women, other than domestic work, consist in helping the elderly, caring for the sick and working in the hotel sector."

"These, too, are areas where just treatment must be assured for migrant women out of respect for their femininity in recognition of their equal rights," she said.

"Trafficking in human beings," said Martone, "has a particularly negative impact on women."

"In some cases there are women and girls who are exploited almost like slaves in their work, and not infrequently in the sex industry," she said. "The culture which encourages the systematic exploitation of sexuality is as pervasive as it is unhealthy for society and must be addressed by more than fine words."

Another area of concern is the situation of the woman in "armed conflicts," where "women and girls are also victims of systematic rape for political purposes."

"Those who permit, encourage or command such acts merit just punishment along with the immediate perpetrators of such crimes, while the protection of women must be honored," she affirmed, referring to article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

"The women's movement has been described as 'the great process of women's liberation,'" she said.

Martone continued: "This journey has been a difficult and complicated one and, at times, not without its share of mistakes. But it has been substantially a positive one, even if it is still unfinished, as all people of good will strive to have women acknowledged, respected, and appreciated in their own special dignity."

Demographer sees conservatives on the rise

Mar. 06 (C-fam.org/CWNews.com) - "Conservatives will inherit the earth," according to the cover story of the current edition of Foreign Policy magazine, which argues that families that adhere to traditional morality are likely to make up a significant portion of future generations because they are producing more children.

In the "Return of Patriarchy," Phillip Longman argues that the "great difference in fertility rates between secular individualists and religious or cultural conservatives augurs a vast, demographically driven change in modern societies."

Looking at polling data from Europe, Longman, a senior fellow at the left-of-center New America Foundation, notes that "how many children different people have, and under what circumstances, correlates strongly with their beliefs on a wide range of political and cultural attitudes."

Those Europeans who "distrust the army," accept "soft drugs, homosexuality, and euthanasia," and "seldom, if ever, attend church… are far more likely to live alone, or in childless, cohabitating unions, than those" who hold opposite opinions.

Some may argue that the children of parents who believe in traditional morality can reject that morality just as the children of 1960s largely rejected the pervasive social norms of the day.

Longman says there is a key difference. "… during the post-World War II era, nearly all segments of modern societies married and had children… disparity in family size between the religious and the secular was not so large, and childlessness was rare. Today, by contrast, childlessness is common, and even couples who have children typically have just one. Tomorrow's children, therefore, unlike members of the postwar baby boom generation, will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society."

Longman's article is particularly concerned with explaining why patriarchal families have historically been necessary for the survival of society. "No advanced civilization has yet learned how to endure without it," Longman writes.

What marks patriarchal societies, according to Longman, are "customs and attitudes that collectively serve to maximize fertility and parental investment in the next generation. Of these, among the most important is the stigmatization of 'illegitimate' children. One measure of the degree to which patriarchy has diminished in advanced societies is the growing acceptance of out-of-wedlock births, which have now become the norm in Scandinavian countries, for example."

But Longman takes pains to make it clear that patriarchy does not mean misogyny nor should it be associated with "Taliban rebels or Muslim fanatics in Nigeria stoning an adulteress" which he describes as "examples of insecure societies that have degenerated into male tyrannies" that do not "represent the form of patriarchy that has achieved evolutionary advantage in human history."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/03/2006 9.44]

Not wishing to panic......we have the frogs again!
It seems to be only Image Shack which has these glitches. Some of our members are still able to post photos and still have their signature photos intact.
So, can anyone suggest another image hosting site which we could use instead of Image Shack, as it seems to have this recurring problem?
Love from a still sane [just!] Mary x

[Modificato da maryjos 09/03/2006 20.52]

[IMG]http://[/IMG]
This should be my current signature strip.

This is ImagePros.us and it seems to work! Right on!

[Modificato da maryjos 09/03/2006 21.07]

The following news item from the Spanish service of ZENIT makes me very sad for Spain - and sick about the relentless assault on traditional institutions that the Zapatero government has been wreaking! Here is a translation -
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Substituting "Progenitors A and B" for
the terms "mother" and "father" is ridiculous!

VALENCIA, 8 March 2006 (ZENIT.org-Veritas).- The Archbishop of Valencia, Mons. Agustín García-Gasco, wrote in his weekly letter that the substitution in the civil register of the terms "mother" and "father" with "progenitor A" and "progenitor B" was "ridiculous."

According To the press office of the archdiocese, Garcia-Gasco warned that "those who dedicate themselves to annul the familial identity, those who are causing the juridical and social meaning of 'being a father' and 'being a mother' to disappear, are imposing their ideological catchwords to destroy the family, and with it, society itself."

As a consequence of the recent Spanish law that allows same-sex marriage, as well as adoption of children by same-sex couples, the Official State Bulletin has published an order from the Ministry of Justice creating a new form for the family registry, in which the terms "Progenitor A" and "Progenitor B" are used instead of "mother" and "father."

According to Mons. gArcia-Gasca, "Spanish legislation on marriage and the family is daily becoming more deceitful, sectarian and radical," and worse, "belies the truth about the human being and human nature."

In his pastoral letter, the Archbishop invites families to "break their silence" (about these matters) because "simply to complain or laugh about all the anti-family nonsense by the politicians is not enough".

He said these developments should inspire families in Spain to cosnider the forthcoming fifth World Encounter of Families to be held in Valencia this July as a privileged occasion to show solidarity and initiatives" in defense of the traditional family.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/03/2006 4.38]

Here and There : The media challenge to the Catholic Church

First posted 05:32am (Mla time) Mar 11, 2006
By Fr. Roy Cimagala
INQ7.net

IN A pontifical university in Rome, a new course is offered to help the Catholic Church to tackle more effectively the many challenges of our days and thus to flow meaningfully with the times.

It’s a course on communication, aimed at training both priests and laypeople, especially those working in church communication offices, to engage the world of the media in the pursuit of church objectives.

The late Pope John Paul II has described the media as the new Areopagus, referring to the Greek market place of ideas of olden times where men freely discussed issues and argued their points among themselves.

As such, the media cannot and should not be ignored. In fact, they have to be dealt with seriously, knowing their nature and their ways, and entering into a healthy relationship for the mutual benefit of both church and the media.

We all know that the media figure prominently in informing people and in clarifying issues and problems as they arise. The media, in fact, are now an indispensable tool in the formation and nourishment of a people’s culture.

That’s why the Catholic Church cannot be left in the sidelines as important world developments are also at least being reflected in the media. It has to give its due contribution, a very crucial one at that, since it works on the ethos of the people.

The church is often described as the soul of the world, and its work may be compared to that of a leaven. It is supposed to be the salt and light of the world. And it cannot do these roles from time to time only, but always and in all situations.

The church’s contribution is always significant and relevant. Rich in history, including its dark episodes, and in doctrine and culture, and pulsating in its daily life of liturgy, spirituality and pastoral work, the church always has something to say to the media.

Yes, there is a need for discretion and prudence, but there is also a need for the church to talk always. We just have to learn how to combine both needs properly. That’s precisely why there is need for some professional training in this regard.

The church, more than anybody else, has greater reason to have access if not to actively participate in the media world. The media cannot be left only to things ephemeral and mundane. They need the contribution of the church.

This course on church communication will certainly improve the church’s participation in the media from being a mere provider of press releases, making announcements about church events, to being an active agent of public opinion.

It hopefully will make Catholic Church communicators to be pro-active rather than passive, defensive and laid-back. It will help them to go beyond the amateur level, always expecting privileges and other special treatment, and to work in a very professional way, quite aware of the complexities of the job.

Fact is we are now living in a pluralistic and complex world. The church cannot afford to just dish out simplistic press releases. Antiquated formulas also have to be revised and updated if not rejected to give way to more appropriate modern ones.

It has to learn to give prompt commentaries to events and issues properly, that is, with prudence and correctness. Thus its personnel should attain a certain level of competence, always underpinned by an indispensable spirituality.

Their training should include not only the knowledge of techniques but also a good grounding in church doctrine and a keen sense of timing. They should be clear in the distinction between doctrine and opinion, between what is the church’s and what is simply theirs.

I think this is a prudent and necessary development. What do other members think about this?

Oh this is a great development which is very much needed in this world. Thanks for posting the article Benefan.

For those of you who, like me, are rooting for Dan Brown to get his come-uppance, Carl Olson, co-author of the successful "Da Vinci Hoax" published in 2004, summarizes the most obvious instances of plagiarism - besides the whole story line, hook and sinker, that is - in the "Da Vinci Code" from a book called "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" published in 1983. Two of the books' 3 authors have charged Dan Brown with breach of the copyright law in an ongoing civil trial in London. Olson's article, dated 2/26/06, also gives us the status of that case.
Read all about it on -
ignatiusinsight.com/features2006/colson_dvchbhg_feb06.asp
which will link you up to other articles and sites debunking Dan Brown's purloined notions and plot lines.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/03/2006 17.24]

[Okay, I realize this is a long story and kind of odd for our forum (therefore, it is in the Odds and Ends thread); however, it could be another angle to consider in our continuing quest to see Papa. Notice the age that most of these nuns joined their order--50s and 60s. What if we started a lay order for, shall we say, "mature" women and requested an audience with Papa to get his papal seal of approval for our order? We could actually create a semi-serious rule. If that didn't work, we might as well join the group of sisters in this article. They sound like a fun group and many of them came from Germany. I wonder if any of them met Papa--maybe the 92-year-old nun who refers to him as her "buddy". Hmm, another Benaddict?]


Answering the call

By Robin Acton
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, March 12, 2006

Sister M. Petra Littlejohn turned to face the altar and raised her hands high above her head as she began to sing the Latin verses she'd practiced for months before this day.

Aloud in her own words and on paper in her own handwriting, the 61-year-old divorced grandmother makes her solemn profession, a promise of love, obedience and chastity until death. Before a hundred friends and the family she has left behind -- a daughter, son-in-law and two small grandsons -- she vows to live a monastic life of humility and service.

Radiant in a new veil and a gold ring, she marks the end of a long journey, a search for place and peace that led her from her home in North Carolina to a sun-filled chapel at St. Emma Monastery in Greensburg.

On this, her wedding day, she is betrothed to God.

"I've always tried to do what is right," she says. "Now, it's time to live what's right. ... It's been 18 years since I received my first calling and I've tried a lot of places that were all right for a period of time. Finally, in 1997, an internal voice said, 'I have prepared a place for you. Come.'"

Benedictine nuns have taken various paths to find their place at St. Emma's since Mother Leonarda Fritz and 10 sisters from the St. Walburga Abbey in Germany came to Latrobe on Feb. 25, 1931, to cook for students, seminarians and Benedictine monks at St. Vincent Archabbey and College.

Some entered the order as teenagers fresh from the homes of their parents, while others have married, borne children and known the heartache of being widowed. A few have gone through the turmoil of divorce, which requires an annulment by the church. They've gone to college, traveled around the world and held jobs as clerks or teachers or factory workers. Many grew up Catholic; some converted from other faiths.

But all have been drawn here by a calling so strong that it sends them to their knees in prayer six times a day and leads them to give up everything they know and love and own.

"A sister said once, 'To give up your house, that's nothing. What's difficult is to give up yourself.' And it is," says Sister Maria Glaubitz, 67, a teacher who has spent 41 years in the religious life and came from Germany about six years ago to train novices.

Sister Miriam Walters, 59, of Meadville, is an energetic, converted Methodist who joined the order three years ago. She wanted to become a nun as a young girl, but her parents refused, so she married and had a daughter. Although her marriage broke up after 15 years, she had a house and a job and a full life that eventually included three grandchildren.

"All of a sudden, I was drawn back to it. I said, 'You're asking a lot of me, God,' but as it turned out, it worked out for the best," she says.

She says her daughter was upset at first, fearing they wouldn't be able to see each other.

"But they can visit me anytime, and I can go home once a year."

Sister Veronica Chverchko, 30, one of 13 children, says her mother writes to her every week from their home in Loretto, Cambria County, but she answers only about once in two months. She misses her family, particularly her "total opposite" twin sister, a massage therapist who also works for a firm that makes baking pans.

"But we're not supposed to have so much contact. We're supposed to leave our old life behind. It's not like we forget about them; we're praying for our families all the time," she explains.

Prayer -- six times daily according to the Liturgy of the Hours -- sets the rhythm of life in the busy community led by its first American-born prioress, Mother Mary Anne Noll, 61, who left her parents' home in Loretto and joined the order as a teenager in 1963.

Bells break the predawn quiet at 4:55 a.m., waking the sisters for vigils that begin at 5:30, followed by lauds at 6:30 and the Eucharist at 7, all sung in simplified, melodic Gregorian chant in the chapel that smells of new wood and old Bibles.

Afterward, they file in silent procession into the adjacent atrium, where they wait on straight-backed pews to hear their daily assignments. Some consult appointment books and scribble notes on pads kept in cloth pouches under black scapulars, the pinafores worn over their habits.

The community operates as a family, with chores to do, doctor appointments to keep, cars that break down and bills to pay. Tasks are divided among the sisters.

"This is not an escape from life," says Mother Mary Anne. "You're facing life."

For the first 30 years, there was no space in the order for new novices, she says, so there is a big age gap among the sisters, who range in age from 30 to 92.

In the years since the order first purchased the 10-acre Robertshaw estate in 1943 as a summer retreat and retirement home, there has been room for expansion with additional acquisitions and construction of a three-story retreat center, chapel and guest house. In 1961, the community opened its doors to novices, and by its peak in 1963, it was home to 47 women.

Time and again, though, death has robbed them, filling the nearby hillside with tombstones until only 13 sisters remain.

Single women -- ideally between 18 and 40, but older in rare exceptions -- start their relationship with the community on short visits, with some eventually staying for a three-month live-in experience. If both the community and an individual find that God may be calling her to serve, she starts a one-year period as a postulate and begins studies on the Rule of St. Benedict and the ways of monastic life.

Sheri Fremming, 51, a petite, strawberry-blonde Texan, is six months into her postulancy. She's hopeful that she'll continue, even though she misses things like movies and surfing the Internet for news and weather.

"If all goes well, in six months I will become a novice and get a white veil," she says.

A novice wears the black habit and white veil for two years during an intense period of study and prayer. After that, she may be admitted to temporary profession and given a religious name and a black veil, but it takes another three years to make solemn profession and receive the gold ring and a black veil lined in white.

Mother Mary Anne says novices' property and assets are managed by an appointed administrator and protected should they choose not to remain in the order. They must give up their money and possessions before making final profession, but it is ultimately their decision alone as to whether their assets go to family, a charity or the church.

Although the community's numbers are dwindling, the prioress believes the sisters will be able to carry out their mission of hospitality and run the 54-room retreat and conference center, guest house and book store that provide them with income.

"It's really hectic, though. There's always something going on," says Mother Mary Anne, whose cell phone strapped to a belt at her waist rings incessantly throughout any given day.

In the days leading to Sister Petra's profession, the prioress sends the sisters and a group of volunteers running with jobs to do: mop the dining hall, clean guest rooms, set tables for 110 people, load boxes of food into walk-in refrigerators, arrange flowers, count and fold starched white napkins.

A perfectionist who guides the community with a firm demeanor pleasantly tempered by kindness, love and humor, she works alongside the sisters tirelessly, racing around in black rubber-soled shoes until the veil that covers her white pleated coif flaps in the breeze behind her.

She wants things done right -- the first time - but insists it's for a higher purpose and according to St. Benedict's rule, which sanctifies work.

"Every thing we do, every tool that is used in the monastery is for God. We are welcoming guests as Christ and we take great care because we are doing it out of love for God and respect for one another," she says.

Volunteer Bob Dietrich, of Greensburg, who spends several days a week at the monastery painting and doing odd jobs, has nicknamed her "Mother of Perpetual Motion."

"She never stops," he says.

The prioress says she values the many volunteers who keep things operating smoothly without paid help.

"My favorite color is free. My favorite flavor is free. Once we get hold of you, we don't let you go," she says, hugging a volunteer who has come to sew torn habits and collars.

Another volunteer, Betty Cheeks, of Baltimore, hitches a ride with her priest and visits the monastery several times a year for several weeks. Cheeks, who speaks in a hoarse whisper from throat cancer, says the sisters remind her of the nuns who gave her the nickname "Sunshine" during her childhood in an orphanage seven decades ago.

"I love them. I'm so contented here," she says, mopping and rinsing a long hallway in the retreat center until the floor glistens.

Midway through morning tasks, bells call the sisters to chapel for the 11:45 a.m. prayer, which is followed by lunch and an hour's rest before they go back to work until 5 p.m. vespers and supper.

Meals are eaten in silence in their dimly-lit private refectory, away from volunteers and guests, interrupted only by prayers and the voice of one sister who reads aloud from scriptures and selected books.

Hearty and plentiful food -- thick soups, melt-in-your-mouth beef, warm bread, sweet puddings -- is set up on a buffet table and spooned onto plates according to rank with the prioress leading the way.

Absent from the dining room these days is the frail Sister Gaudentia Kaemmerle, 92, who is nestled on flannel sheets in a hospital bed in her small bedroom, or "cell." Her walls are decorated with pictures of the man she calls "my buddy," Pope Benedict.

The younger sisters revere the diminutive nun, a spirited only child who left her family in Germany at the age of 20 in 1934, never to see her mother alive again. Between stops from a visiting nurse, they fluff her pillows and spoon-feed her applesauce and warm oatmeal laced with one of several medications her doctor permits them to crush.

The sisters watch her closely because she sometimes "cheeks" pills that should be swallowed whole. She sends them into fits of giggles when she smiles and sticks out her tongue to show a pill hidden in her mouth through spoon after spoon of chicken noodle soup.

"You may have this," she says, her voice laced in a thick German accent.

After the supper dishes are cleared, there's some time for recreation -- usually an hour or so -- when the sisters can talk and share stories. They watch television only on rare occasions, for events like the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the election of the pope or coverage of disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

Until 1987 when they left St. Vincent, the sisters cooked meals for the Pittsburgh Steelers during summer training camps in Latrobe. In February, they stayed up long past their bedtime to watch their team win the Super Bowl as Sister Veronica, waving a Terrible Towel, explained plays.

On a recent stressful day, two sisters were hurt in a wreck that demolished their car and sent one to the hospital with several broken bones that required surgery. Later, a burning cake in a convection oven set off fire alarms, filled their private quarters with smoke and sent them running from the chapel during prayers. That evening, Mother Mary Anne decides that a treat at recreation might elevate their mood.

It does.

Munching potato chips and candy, they begin to relax. Soon, they're laughing about the ruined cake and counting their blessings aloud that the injured sisters were not killed.

"Just another quiet day at the monastery," jokes Sister Renata Augustine, 39, a jovial convert who grew up as a fourth-generation Jehovah's Witness.

Growing serious, she talks about the hardships in her life. She was 14 when she lost her father to congestive heart failure; five years later, her vehicle was hit by a drunken driver. Although she was paralyzed for two years, she recuperated fully and came to the monastery nine years ago.

"The last thing I remember about the accident was saying, 'Let me live, I want to serve you,'" she says.

Recreation is over by 7:30, the time for compline, or evening prayers. Just as they started it, the sisters end the day in the chapel, huddled together in candlelight before they retreat silently in the dark to their private cells.

This is their time alone to read or pray or drift off to sleep in stillness broken only by ticking clocks and the hissing sounds from radiators along walls next to their twin-sized beds.

If there is peace at the monastery, it is hard to find the day before what Mother Mary Anne calls a celebration of so many "special occasions." In addition to Sister Petra's solemn profession, Feb. 25 marks both the order's 75th anniversary in America and the Feast of St. Walburga, who died on Feb. 25, 779.

All day, sisters attend to last-minute details, launching an attack on their tasks with the precision of a combat operation. They work with volunteers in the retreat center's sleek commercial kitchen, where they cut fruit and divide it into crystal bowls, brown chicken breasts on a sizzling griddle and stack salad bowls and plates for buffet tables.

Always mindful of saving money, they mix some "resurrection flowers" -- their term for flowers taken from donated funeral arrangements and given a new purpose -- with fresh mini-carnations, candles and organza ribbons to make centerpieces for the wedding banquet tables.

"We want everything to be just right for her," says Sister Renata, who is in charge of dining room hospitality. "I remember how beautiful it was for my profession and I want it to be just as special."

Sister Franziska Mintus, 77, a thin, tall woman who spent 30 years making semiconductors for Westinghouse before joining the order 10 years ago, supervises the kitchen and cooks for retreats. She rattles off the menu chosen by Sister Petra: Caesar salad, chicken, mashed potatoes and canned -- not fresh or frozen -- green beans.

And despite the earlier oven fiasco, there will be cake.

"I hate to cook," she says, winking. "But you learn to do what you're asked to do for God and obedience."

She says she started as a volunteer and soon found she was spending 90 percent of her time at the monastery.

"I went everywhere I wanted to go. I've traveled and I've seen everything I wanted to see. The only thing I wanted to do that I didn't get to do was ride a hot air balloon, and I guess I can live without it."

During these preparations, Sister Petra spends her time on a week-long silent retreat, alone in her thoughts and prayers, exempt from work and recreation.

"She's a late vocation, but I think she's a very good vocation," says Sister Maria, explaining that the ceremony of solemn profession is a happy occasion. "This is a celebration in which you give yourself over to God."

And on her wedding day, the petite Sister Petra's eyes shine and she smiles broadly as she walks from the chapel in a procession led by Archabbot Douglas Nowicki of St. Vincent Archabbey.

"This is the fulfillment of all of God's promises," she says.

"This is where I belong."

What a beautiful story, Benefan! The idea for a lay order isn't bad at all! Food for thought, seriously. (I was reading earlier today about a lay apostolate of the Holy Spirit.) Because joining the monastery at this point is not going to be practical nor feasible for any of us, I think! But it is nice to know there is such a monastery for older women - it may come in useful for one of us sooner than we think.

will always hold a fascination for me....but I can't see myself without the Internet link to more knowledge and to THIS FORUM!!! great article Benefan! Thanks!

[Trying to keep the cafeteria open or why can't the Catholic Church let everybody do what they want?]


Catholics face moral dilemma over gay adoption
By Jason Szep
Mon Mar 13

BOSTON (Reuters) - U.S. Catholics, already divided over the Vatican's ban on homosexuals in seminaries, could soon face another polarizing question: should Catholic charities stand together against gay adoption?

The Boston Archdiocese's Catholic Charities' decision on Friday to end its century-old adoption service rather than comply with state law allowing gays to adopt children is fueling debate in Massachusetts, a state that is both a bastion of Catholicism and a trailblazer in gay rights.

San Francisco's Catholic Archdiocese said on Monday it was also reviewing its practice of allowing gay adoption through its social service agency after receiving an e-mail opposing it from a former archbishop, who is now a top Vatican official.

A tough stand on gay adoption, while sure to rally traditionalists for upholding Vatican teachings, could alienate liberal Catholics and further choke funding at a time when many U.S. dioceses are under financial stress from declining attendance and multimillion-dollar lawsuits in sex-abuse scandals, religious scholars say.

It adds to the list of sensitive issues -- from abortion to stem-cell research and emergency contraception -- separating reformers and conservatives among America's 65 million Catholics.

"For some Catholics, this position on gay adoption will be disconcerting. But for those seeking a more conservative path, it will be a good thing," said Chester Gillis, chair of the theology department at Georgetown University.

"For those who take their cues from American society, American laws and so forth, they will be uncomfortable with this. They will be forced in some way to choose between their church and their country or their state."

STRUGGLE FOR MORAL AUTHORITY

It is unclear whether other Catholic charities will follow the lead of the Boston Archdiocese's social services arm, which handles 31 percent of adoptions in the state.

California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and the District of Columbia allow same-sex couples to jointly petition to adopt children, along with Massachusetts, whose lawmakers have been at odds with Catholic leaders since it legalized gay marriage in 2004.

In Boston, the announcement was seen by some as a sign of renewal in Boston's Archdiocese, which has struggled to regain moral authority after a pedophile priest scandal in 2002 forced the nation's fourth-largest diocese to shut more than 60 churches to raise money.

"It's a sign of the strength of the archdiocese and its remarkable strength in spite of the fact that it has gone through two major crises -- one over clerical sexual abuse and the second over the closing of the parishes in Boston," said Stephen Pope, a theology professor at Boston College.

In December, Catholic Charities' 42-member board voted unanimously in support of same-sex adoptions. The about-face came after eight board members abruptly resigned following efforts by the state's four bishops to ban Catholic social service agencies from conducting adoptions by gay couples.

"Does this reflect the Catholic Church's ability to impose itself on all its constituent parts, well to a certain extent yes, given the board's position," said Nancy Ammerman, professor of sociology and religion at Boston University.

The end of Boston's 103-year-old Catholic Charities' founding mission of finding homes for troubled children comes amid a Vatican campaign against homosexuality, including a ban imposed in November on most gays from entering seminaries.

In 2003, Pope Benedict, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, issued a stern document that said allowing children to be adopted by same-sex couples "would actually mean doing violence to these children" and was "gravely immoral."

Catholic scholars said a question for Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley, who was recently elevated to cardinal, is whether the appeal to conservative Catholics will jeopardize millions of dollars in donations at a time when the Boston Archdiocese faces a $93 million bill to settle sex-abuse cases.

"They may lose some private funding," said Pope.