Real Catholic Blog

CatholicVote.org late last week announced that its long-awaited Web site overhaul is complete. But in addition, as part of its two-year anniversary celebration, it released its latest commercial, “The Dream 2010,” which we gladly share below. Catholic Vote reports that within 72 hours of its release it had 30,000 views. Let us know what you think of it.

Catholic Vote, recognized for its creative, well produced and thought-provoking ads, promises more of the same, especially as election time draws near, and Catholics are called to make informed decisions as to who should represent us in government. While this ad doesn’t strike me as up to the standards of its past work, that is a pretty high standard. I look forward to seeing its next releases.

CatholicVote.org celebrates its two-year anniversary with a new Web site and another glossy, attention-grabbing ad.

Here’s a report from the Vatican on Pope Benedict’s Angelus message on the Feast of the Assumption (Catholic Encylopedia). I like to tell people who doubt the Assumption something I heard during a homily a few years ago. It seems that Chamber of Commerce types, local governments and tourism boosters during the era of the Church’s early years (yes, they had them then, too) always were eager to proclaim sights related to saints in their cities and villages. This attracted pilgrims who spent money there. It was good for the local economy.

They would, at the slightest bit of evidence, or at the best guess of evidence (or legend), market sites related to significant figures of the Church: this saint ate here, this saint preached here, that saint died over there. So, there is ample reason to suspect that if the Blessed Mother was not assumed body and soul into Heaven, there would be some landmark, somewhere, marking the spot of her death or burial. There is none. Hmmm.

Also, it is important to know that, as Catholics, we believe Mary, in her complete human body, was assumed into Heaven, because as the Mother of Christ, just as she brought Him into the earthly world with a soul uncorrupted by original sin, so, too, her body left this world uncorrupted.

Pope Benedict XVI calls believers to entrust themselves to Mary, who “assumed into heaven, has not abandoned her mission of intercession and salvation.”

One of the things I have remarked to my own mother, father, and other Catholics, who are part of what I will refer to as the “Bill O’Reilly generation of Catholics,”  is how different my experiences were growing up Catholic as compared to theirs.

Growing up in Richmond, Virginia in the 1970’s, I had what I will call a somewhat  “watered down” Catholic experience as compared to the generation before – and well – frankly, it  has left me feeling somewhat “gypped…”  Let me explain.

This is certainly NOT a testament to the Catholic schools in Richmond, for which I am most thankful to have received an excellent education NOR is it some kind of condemnation of my own parents as good Catholic parents!   It is simply this:  having been born in 1969,  I was coming along after the moral and societal tsunami of the  1960’s.

What does that mean?  For me, after having read my own family history book, Bill O’Reilly’s book, and Tim Russert’s book – I became aware rather quickly of the fact that many of the really beautiful small things talked about by that generation of Catholics –  the really sacred little things were cast aside, or perhaps fell through the cracks as people were being told to “get with the times.”

What kinds of little things?    And who cares?  Well,  a lot of things, and frankly I care.  Because I think the “little things” were really reflections of the “big things” – the “BIG IDEAS” that made Catholics, Catholics.

For Instance – here’s something very small (BUT BIG) … my grandfather, Peter Belton, would write “JMJ” atop every piece of paper he touched before writing anything.    My dad remarked that EVERY piece of paper laying around the house growing up  – even down to a scrap paper torn out of a book with a phone number scribbled on it in my grandfather’s handwriting – would have JMJ above it!    Similarly, my dad said, that when he was going to Catholic school, the nuns and Benedictine monks would have them write “Ad maiorem dei gloriam” atop every school assignment they handed to them.   In other words, BEFORE YOU EVEN WRITE YOUR OWN NAME, you write “for the greater glory of God.”  So why is this small thing such a big deal?  Well, in a word, HUMILITY.

I think the subtext of such an exercise (writing JMJ or AMDG) BEFORE your own name – or before anything else —  is to admit, and to plainly glorify the fact that  THERE IS SOMETHING BIGGER THAN YOU.   This practice says by the user, “I am remembering that I am here for the blink of an eye, and that the Glory of God and Christ have been before me, and will come after me.   Whatever I am to write (either in this classroom), or as part of my busy day – I am pausing before I begin to honor God, to remind myself that HE IS BIGGER THAN I AM.”

This, to me, explains a lot about why the generation before me and their parents were so traditional and different from my generation and those coming after mine.   They had those devoted monks, nuns, and other mentors and parents who INGRAINED in them the importance of humility, using these very types of methods.    Through something as simple as the consistent practice of putting what is most important “AT THE TOP”  of your heart and your mind, at all times before beginning even the smallest task.

I was deeply moved by this sentiment, and have been so happy to have had the chance to compile and read stories of my family in this book my father and I completed.   It has enlightened me about so aspects of how the “faith of my fathers”  shaped their lives and made them who they were day to day.

I think the WORST lie of the 60’s (which prevails today politically in my opinion), is this overriding message of:  “this is not my father’s oldsmobile.” The message that basically ANYTHING OLD;  traditional religion, social issues, history, and traditional personal conduct is “so very yesterday.”   This generation of liberals has successfully passed off the idea that –  “if it’s old – it’s outdated – ‘throw it out’ –  it’s NO LONGER OF USE.”   But what if much of what is OLD is Truth?  What if much of what is OLD contains WISDOM?   “ ‘CHANGE’ is not always just intrinsically good.  Is it?”

This example of the old practice of writing JMJ or AMDG symbolically illustrates a worldview, a  mindset, a practice and devotion, that keeps SELF in check.   It is a symbolic recognition that,  WISDOM has come before me.  I am standing on the shoulders of something bigger than myself.   I honor and recognize that.

In my opinion, the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater.   If these sweet and simple, “old fashioned” methods and practices of remembering those truths have been poo-pooed as outdated and discarded, might we be surprised to find that sometimes the truths that came along with those practices have gotten stripped from their rightful place as well?    FROM THE TOP?

Erin Belton Lilly is a parishioner at St. Bede’s Catholic Church in Williamsburg, Virginia where she resides with her husband, Michael, and two children, Jordan and Jacob.   She attended St. Bridget’s school and parish growing up in Richmond, and was married in downtown historic St. Peter’s Church.  Her father, grandfather and uncles attended Benedictine High School, and her grandmother, mother, and aunts attended St. Gertrude’s High School.  Erin was married by Father Adrian Harmening, who evidently also quite regularly disciplined her mischievious father and uncles at Benedictine High School many years earlier.

Sorry for the inactivity — first a cold, now a horrible back pain. But I’m not suffering compared to the country now, nor what the unborn are going through, nor the Church for that matter. Sorry for the brevity, but as I recover — and for the time being — I give it to our favorite straight shooter, Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com.

The fact is, according to Voris and many others, tax-payer funded abortion is now a reality and the policy of the United States government. But is the real sin that Catholics were instrumental in bringing this about? This episode of The Vortex spells it out.

Taxpayer funded abortion is now a fact after the health care takeover by the Congress and President Obama. But what role did Catholics, unfortunately and sadly, play in this abomination?

I hate to beat a dead horse. No one likes to hammer at fellow Christians, much less Catholics. But Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV is one who is not afraid to promulgate the truth, and that’s something we need a lot more of these days, especially as so many Catholics are willing to sell out themselves, their faith and their Church for the holy grail of a mythical and unsustainable “social justice” through government running as much of our lives as possible. It is a sell out not only for its false promises, but for the actual harm it causes in the advancement of the culture of death.

Michael Voris explains how we’ve gotten to the precipice of socializing our health care system and creating an abortion-on-demand society.

Not exactly, but he does encourage Catholics to use the Internet, responsibly, to spread the Gospel. We’re during our part. Join in our discussion: While the Vatican and many dioceses have sophisticated media operations, as do independent Catholic organizations (think EWTN, Catholic Online) and some orders, what do you think Catholics groups and layity can do better to spread the Truth via new media and technology?

Pope Benedict: Catholics, get online and spread the Truth!

Every Sunday at Mass, whether we realize it or not, we pray for the unity of the Church. It’s something we should all keep in mind to do on our own. That, for example, there is a split between the Vatican and the Eastern Orthodox surely brings sadness to the Holy Trinity.

Today, however, brings great news! Although it won’t happen before Christmas, and maybe not for a long time still, a potential breakthrough was made in reunification efforts between Catholics and Orthodox.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I said the presence of a Vatican delegation in Istanbul, “confirms the desire to eliminate the impediments accumulated in the course of a millennium to attain the fullness of communion.” (ZENIT via Catholic Online.)

Along with Pope Benedict’s recent overture to traditional Episcopal and Anglican churches and dioceses, there is hope that people of great faith, who perhaps because of human failings throughout the ages, manipulated by the circumstances of their day, were split apart, now have re-unification in one Holy Catholic Church within sight.

Just as Angels greeted the shepherds with news of great joy on the day of our Saviour’s birth, we have our own great news in our day. What a perfect and appropriate season to hear it.

Who here is afraid to breach the taboo of talking politics and religion, especially to strangers? Most people won’t, of course, because it’s deemed impolite. However, John Paul The Great had another view, which is why he was the greatest man of the 20th century, in my view.

We are all called, as Catholics, to bring the Lord to all. It is not a calling the Lord limits to priests, bishops and religious; being Catholic is more than attending Church and, literally preaching to the choir. Nothing so important should be restricted by an arbitrary social norm, probably constructed by secularists anyway. Of course, we must be mindful of how we approach people and the particular situations in which we find ourselves. But if volunteers can go door to door for any number of secularcauses (many worthwhile), why don’t Catholics go door to door, or speak up more often publicly, about the Faith?

It is not enough to call, to summon, and to wait for people to come. … You must be a Church which seeks people out, which invites them not only through  the general appeal of the media, but also by personal invitation, from house to house, from street to street, in an unflagging effort, respectful but present in all place and social environments.

- John Paul II, from his Address to the Bishops Conference of Brazil, Ad limina visit, September 5, 1995

John Paul II: He was Great and loved for a reason.