Athanasius the Great, Doctor of the Church, Father of Orthodoxy, and Defender of the Faith

Today marks the feast day celebrating the life of Athanasius – Saint, Doctor of the Church, Father of Orthodoxy, Defender of the Faith and “Father of The Canon” – who is highly respected not only within the Catholic Church, but in all of Christendom not just because he defended orthodox Christianity (then in its infancy) against what is described as the greatest greatest crisis of faith ever to befall the Church, the Arian Heresy, but because in the process, he was also the first to effectively elucidate the nature of the Trinity. “Athanasius contra mundum” – Latin, meaning “Athanasius against the world” – was the hallmark phrase noting his dedication to Apostolic tradition during the First Council of Nicaea.

When I converted, I took two patrons: First, Saint Athanasius the Great, and Second, John Henry Newman (now Blessed John Henry Newman).

{NOTE: The tradition of taking a saint’s name in baptism began in Germany and France during the Middle Ages. The custom spread throughout the church, with the exception of Ireland until after the Norman invasion in 1066 (11th century), were at first, it was considered an irreverence. However, a baptismal saint becomes a special and personal patron, protecting the person who bears his or her name. It was expected that the baptized eventually learn the story of their patron saints, model themselves after them, and seek their intercession for guidance and protection. Taking a particular saint as a patron and model of one’s own personal faith might seem somewhat out of character for modern believers, because the saints lived in different times. However, their lives continue to testify that a a baptized person can walk with the mystery of God and thrive in faith. Their lives tell how the Good News of the Gospel can be lived in a practical way. This doesn’t mean that people of today should copy saints in some external way, but rather, that the saints’ lives can be a stimulus and source of inspiration toward one’s personal efforts to follow the way of Jesus in our own time, situations and culture.}

Simply put, Arianism taught that Jesus was created “a son of God” and therefore was not fully divine, but only partially. And as it seems today, increasingly, Arianism had become more a political ideology, rather than a religious movement. At the time, Theology was a topic which most deeply engaged men’s thoughts, and the Arian controversy interested all classes of people. Indeed, the heretical propositions of Arianism made rapid inroads into popular thinking because they were publicized in the form of songs set to popular tunes, were chanted in forums, and carried by sailors from port to port.

Complicating matters was that simultaneously

Alabama is USA’s 2d most religious state

Alabama also ranks up there in poverty, divorce, sexually transmitted diseases, lack of a high school education, spousal abuse, and…

Thank God for Mississippi, eh?

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Gallup: Alabama 2nd most religious state in America

By George Talbot | gtalbot@al.com
on February 17, 2013 at 10:51 AM, updated February 17, 2013 at 12:31 PM

Alabama ranked as the nation’s second most religious state in 2012, behind Mississippi and tied with Utah, according to a new survey by Gallup.

The Washington, D.C.-based polling firm found that 56 percent of Alabama residents identified themselves as “very religious” – based on saying religion is an important part of their daily life and that they attend religious services every week or almost every week.

Alabama trailed only Mississippi, its Deep South neighbor, where

Pope Benedict XVI shocks Catholic faithful, announces resignation

Peace be with you, Papa, and bless your for your honesty by acknowledging that “…both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”

May your successor be more than four times as strong as you, ten times as wise, a hundredfold more personable than John Paul II.

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Pope Benedict XVI left a meeting at the Vatican on Monday, February 11, 2013, when he announced he would resign. -
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Pope Benedict XVI announced he will resign at end of month:

“I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.”

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Pope Benedict XVI on Monday said he plans on resigning the papal office on February 28th. Below please find his announcement.
Full text of Pope’s declaration

Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that

The Birmingham News knew of plot to assassinate Fred Shuttlesworth

The things we continue to learn about the explicit wickedness and evil of that era continues to plague the South, and the nation at large… particularly those who pander to it in the Republican party. And GOP party officials wonder why they continue to lose elections. Perhaps they should get a clue.

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Good and Evil in Birmingham

January 20, 2013

By DIANE McWHORTER

FIFTY years ago, Birmingham, Ala., provided the enduring iconography of the civil rights era, testing the mettle of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so dramatically that he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.

During his protest there in May 1963, the biblical spectacle of black children facing down Public Safety Commissioner Eugene (Bull) Connor’s fire hoses and police dogs set the stage for King’s Sermon on the Mount some four months later at the Lincoln Memorial. And the civil rights movement’s “Year of Birmingham” passed into history as an epic narrative of good versus evil.

Our understanding of the “good” has expanded beyond the lone-dreamer theory to embrace other activists, like King’s partner in Birmingham, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. Yet the evil segregationist archetype is fixed in the popular mind as the villainous housewife of “The Help” or the cretinous mob of “Django Unchained” — nobody we’d ever know, or certainly ever be.

But the disquieting reality is that the conflict was between not good and evil, but good and normal. The brute racism that today seems like mass social insanity was a “way of life” practiced by ordinary “good” people.

According to the Southern community’s consensus of “normal,” those fighting for rights now considered mainstream were “extremists,” and public servants could rationalize plans to murder men like Shuttlesworth, confident that they were on the right side of history.

Consider new evidence about a plan by Connor to have Shuttlesworth assassinated. Under Connor’s orders, Detective Tom Cook

For just one moment… forget about what Jesus would do.

Today was a good day at work.

I cried.

The last time I recollect crying at work was at least 6 or more years ago when a patient of mine – a young black male, who was his mother’s only son – had been murdered, and as I looked into her bloodshot, tired, hollow, intently peering and watery eyes, volumes were communicated though we neither said a word.

I couldn’t bear her gaze, and after what seemed ages, I averted my eyes, and departed behind a nearby curtain in the Trauma ICU to cry. There, my tears flowed like twin rivers, swollen by a storm, albeit an emotional one, which was joined by the two smaller tributaries of my nostrils. Gazing over the city from atop the 11th story of the teaching hospital through tear-drenched eyes, I wondered… was this what dear Mother Mary felt like when she gazed upon her only son as he hung from that cross?

Today, I wept for

Paul Ryan’s Catholic Problem

A very succinct OpEd.

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By Daniel C. Maguire, Professor of Moral Theological Ethics, Marquette University

Posted: 08/21/2012 12:08 pm

Sound the alarm! There has been a Catholic coup d’etat in the United States of America! Six members of the Supreme Court are Catholics (just imagine the furore if six were Muslims or Jews!). Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell are Catholics. And now, rising to top of this surging Catholic dynasty is the alleged Wunderkind of Republican economics, perky Paul Ryan.

Ryan wears his strange version of Catholicism with a jaunty sophomoric pride. “Catholic social doctrine is indispensable for officeholders.” If only Paul Ryan knew what “Catholic social doctrine” is he would take flight from it just as fast as he is scrambling from the Ayn Rand breasts that, as he has proclaimed, suckled him and inspired all his political and economic views. Catholics who know the difference between Jesus Christ and Ayn Rand skewered perky Paul. They know that Jesus’ mission, unlike Ayn Rand’s, was “good news for the poor” (Luke 4:18). They embarrassed the righteous Ryan when he spoke at the Jesuit Georgetown University carrying a sprawling sign that asked: “Where were you, Paul Ryan, when they crucified the poor?”

Of course they know where he was. He was driving the nails into everything that helps the poor — and remember most of “the poor” are children. Budgets are intensely moral documents. They show where the heart is. To budget-makers we can say: show me the losers and the winners and I will tel you what you are. The Ryan budget plan, embraced by Mitt Romney as “marvelous,” puts greed over need. Among its losers:

Pussy Riot: Now that Putin’s in charge again, the gulags aren’t all that bad!

People everywhere cry for freedom.

Oppression of political speech?

Or something else?

Putin asked the courts to go easy on them.

And yet, cries of ‘six more years’ was not heard after the verdict was rendered.

Either way, Putin‘s gotta’ go.

Reckon Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is turning over in his grave?

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Russia: Pussy Riot and the investor

August 17, 2012 5:28 pm by Stefan Wagstyl

Members of the all-girl punk rock band Pussy Riot have been recently convicted in Russian court of “hooliganism,” for performing an impromptu song in a Russian Orthodox Church which was critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On the face of it, there would appear to be little reason why foreign investors should worry much about Russia’s Pussy Riot court case.

So what if three young female punks have been jailed for two years, as they were on Friday, for hooliganism after a noisy performance in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral? After all, there are many western countries where such a provocative public display would also result in prosecution.

But that is to misunderstand Russia. In fact, the case should give even the most hard-headed international business people pause for thought.

First,  it’s a reminder – not that we need one – of the heavy-handed arbitrariness of the Russian courts. The three women could have been

“Gone With the Wind” heir leaves estate & 50% trademark share to Church

Apropos for the item is another famously Southern line by the Allman Brothers Band:
“You can’t take it with you, everybody knows. You can’t take it with you when you go.”

Can’t Take It With You
BMI work #177287
By Richard Forrest “Dicky” Betts- BMI – 56772062
Don Johnson – NA – 0
EMI BLACKWOOD MUSIC INC – BMI – 223437493
PANGOLA PUBLISHING

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Mitchell Heir Leaves Estate To Archdiocese

GRETCHEN KEISER, Staff Writer

Published: August 16, 2012

ATLANTA—The Archdiocese of Atlanta has received a substantial gift from the estate of Margaret Mitchell’s nephew, Joseph, including a 50 percent share of the trademark and literary rights to “Gone With the Wind.”

The estate of Joseph Mitchell included a multi-million dollar bequest to the archdiocese and the donation of his home on Habersham Road in Atlanta.

One of two sons of Margaret Mitchell’s brother, Stephens, Joseph Mitchell died in October 2011. He was a member of the Cathedral of Christ the King and asked that, if possible,

People can never predict when hard times might come.

Death Comes to All

1This, too, I carefully explored: Even though the actions of godly and wise people are in God’s hands, no one knows whether God will show them favor. 2The same destiny ultimately awaits everyone, whether righteous or wicked, good or bad,^a ceremonially clean or unclean, religious or irreligious. Good people receive the same treatment as sinners, and people who make promises to God are treated like people who don’t.

3It seems so tragic that

Is is true that “economics is a faith-based pursuit forever in search of a new deity”?

Do not put your faith in the false deities of economists

June 18, 2012 8:14 pm

By Philip Stephens

Economics is a faith-based pursuit forever in search of a new deity. Those who believe in a compassionate God struggle to explain how such a being can allow such terrible misery to be inflicted on life’s innocents. Belief in the canons of economics demands a comparable leap of imagination.

When I first started writing about the subject for the FT during the early 1980s, Margaret Thatcher worshipped at the altar of something called “monetary base.” The government, this creed promised, had only to regulate the quantity of notes and coins circulating in the economy and just about everything else would fall into perfect place.

Soon enough, monetarist fundamentalism proved a false prophet. The experience led to the annunciation of the heretical Goodhart’s Law. Bearing the name of one of the trade’s distinguished free thinkers, this says that as soon as