It seems that Christopher Hitchens has decided to resurrect the old hate-mongering in anticipation of Pope Benedict's visit to the UK, namely that the Pope is guilty of crimes against humanity and should be arrested when he sets foot on British soil. Never mind the fact that nobody has been able to lay any blame on our current Pope for the abuse crisis, no matter how much they've tried (and how they have tried!). Never mind that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith only received jurisdiction over cases of child abuse by clergy in 2001, long after most of the cases were alleged to have occurred, and every indication is that Cardinal Ratzinger pursued justice for the victimized pretty quickly after being given the authority to do so. Never mind that Pope Benedict has, in his five years as Pope, shown himself to be committed to justice and has repeatedly made it easier for cases to be investigated and if necessary turned over to civil authorities. People like Hitchens don't really care about the victims, they only care about punishing the Pope for being conservative and brow-beating Catholics into bowing before their destructive brand of hedonistic narcissism. I will quote and respond to particularly egregious sections of the article below.

I came across the following passage from Cardinal John Henry Newman's classic statement of belief, his Apologia Pro Vita Sua:

The Catholic Church holds it better for the Sun and Moon to drop from Heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die from starvation in extremest agony … than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.

I doubt that Hitchens is operating under any misunderstanding, rather I think that he is intentionally mischaracterizing Newman's statement in an attempt at character assassination. Newman obviously wasn't saying that Catholics want people to starve and suffer, rather that we hold apostasy to be a horrible thing and do not desire it to happen to any person. We certainly don't enjoy the suffering of human beings, but so much more than that do we deplore the loss of souls to sin.

As we have recently been forcibly reminded, the Roman Catholic Church holds it better for the cries of raped and violated children to be ignored, and for the excuses and alibis of their rapists and torturers indulged, and for a host of dirty and wilful untruths to be manufactured wholesale, and for the funds raised ostensibly for the poor to be paid out in hush money and shameful bribery, rather than that one tiny indignity or inconvenience be visited on the robed majesty of a man-made church or any limit set to its self-proclaimed right to be judge in its own cause

We've recently been reminded, actually, that human beings are sinful and that applies as much to human beings in the Church as it does to those outside. Peter Tatchell, a leading opponent to the Pope's visit, has said in the past that nine year old children could consent to sex with adults. If a Catholic priest said that then Hitchens would put the blame for it directly on the Pope, and yet I hear nothing from him about his ally's reprehensible beliefs. Hitchens is also overlooking, of course, the many actions that have been taken by the Pope to safeguard children in the wake of the abuse scandal. Not only has the Pope raised the statue of limitations to 20 years, an action that Hitchens would hail if it had been undertaken by civil leaders, but he has also put together concrete rules governing the removal of accused priests and religious from their positions. When he was given responsibility for these cases as head of the CDF the Pope essentially had to create rules from scratch, and personally I think that he's done an admirable job of it.

I asked a simple question in print. Why was this not considered a matter for the police and the courts? Why were we asking the church to "put its own house in order," an expression that was the exact definition of the problem to begin with?

That's exactly what has been done. In fact, in many cases the accusations were brought before the civil authorities and they either declined to prosecute or else investigated and found no basis for an indictment. There was certainly a cover up in some dioceses, but the blame for a lack of prosecutions lies in the hands of civil government at least as much as in the Church's hands.

I followed this up with a telephone call to Geoffrey Robertson, a British barrister with a second-to-none record in international human rights cases.

Robertson is the moron who tried to stoke anti-Catholic hatred in England to gain support for his plan to put the Pope on trial at the Hague, solely to increase his own name recognition and make himself look good without any concern for those who actually suffered from the actions of clergy. I am not at all surprised that Hitchens would be allied with this guy, after all they're birds of a feather.

Consider: The now-resigned bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, stands revealed by his own eventual confession as being guilty of incest as well as rape...Very belatedly, a few months ago, the Belgian police finally rose from their notorious torpor and raided some ecclesiastical offices in search of evidence that was being concealed. Joseph Ratzinger, who had not thus far found a voice in which to mention the doings of his Belgian underlings, promptly emitted a squeal of protest—at the intervention of the law.

The problem that the Church has with the civil investigation is in its methods, not its motives. In executing their warrant the police violated the crypts of two bishops, a horrid sacrilege without justification. The Church has no problem with civil authorities investigating accusations of abuse, so long as they don't intentionally insult our religion in the process. How would Muslims react if the Belgian police had desecrated a Koran in a search for evidence? How would Jews react if they had searched for evidence by tearing apart the ark that contains the Torah scrolls?

Robertson's brief begins with a meticulous summary of the systematic fashion in which child-rape was covered up by collusion between local Catholic authorities and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, an office that under the last pope was run by Ratzinger himself.

Funny, considering that the CDF did not gain jurisdiction over such cases until 2001 at around the same time that many of the cases came to light. During most of the time of cover-up, and in fact when the vast majority of cases were alleged to have been committed, the responsibility for investigating cases and bringing them to the attention of law enforcement fell on individual bishops rather than any central Church authority. That was the problem, and giving the power to the CDF and then-Cardinal Ratzinger was the solution.

The Catholic authorities have now rudely disinterred the bodies, finding nothing that had survived decay or could serve as a relic.

Hitchens seems crudely satisfied at this fact, as if it proves that Newman wasn't a saint. Of course, the Church does not teach that a saint's body must be incorruptible in order for that person to be a saint. Many saints have shown such incorruptibility, and it can be seen as a sign of sainthood, but it is not required.

The sun and moon don't need to fall and the species doesn't have to die in agony in order to expiate this sin—a little application of simple earthly justice is all that is required. Will it really continue to be withheld?

Hitchens hates the Catholic Church, and in spite of his protestations to the contrary his words and actions scream hatred for those who choose to believe in the Church. Since he can't brow-beat the Pope into renouncing the faith and dragging its followers down with him he'll try to destroy the Pope by putting him on trial for false accusations and making him rot in jail. May God bless the Pope in his journey to hostile lands, and if he must be martyred by Hitchens and his pagan friends may his martyrdom obtain blessings for the Church and conversion for the English people who so desperately need it.

Then he said, "A man had two sons, and the
younger son said to his father, 'Father,
give me the share of your estate that should
come to me.' So the father divided the
property between them. After a few days, the
younger son collected all his belongings and
set off to a distant country where he
squandered his inheritance on a life of
dissipation. When he had freely spent everything,
a severe famine struck that country, and he found
himself in dire need. So he hired himself out to
one of the local citizens who sent him to his
farm to tend the swine. And he longed to eat his
fill of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody
gave him any. Coming to his senses he thought,
'How many of my father's hired workers have more
than enough food to eat, but here am I, dying from
hunger. I shall get up and go to my father and I
shall say to him, "Father, I have sinned against
heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be
called your son; treat me as you would treat one of
your hired workers."' So he got up and went back to
his father. While he was still a long way off, his
father caught sight of him, and was filled with
compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and
kissed him. His son said to him, 'Father, I have
sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer
deserve to be called your son.' But his father
ordered his servants, 'Quickly bring the finest
robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and
sandals on his feet. Take the fattened calf and
slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to
life again; he was lost, and has been found.' Then
the celebration began.

Now the older son had been out in the field and, on
his way back, as he neared the house, he heard the
sound of music and dancing. He called one of the
servants and asked what this might mean. The servant
said to him, 'Your brother has returned and your
father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he
has him back safe and sound.' He became angry, and
when he refused to enter the house, his father came
out and pleaded with him. He said to his father in
reply, 'Look, all these years I served you and not
once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me
even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But
when your son returns who swallowed up your property
with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened
calf.' He said to him, 'My son, you are here with me
always; everything I have is yours. But now we must
celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead
and has come to life again; he was lost and has been
found.'" Luke 15: 11-32

Today's very long Gospel reading contains a very important message, and I hope that you all heard the long version so that you were exposed to this parable. One of the Devil's most favored tactics to separate us from the faith is to tell us that we are beyond hope, that we have sinned so much that God has given up on us and we are certainly damned. The idea, of course, is that a man without hope of salvation has no reason to behave like a man in search of salvation. This is, of course, a lie, and what we find in the parable of the Prodigal Son is a God who loves us and never stops seeking us out no matter what we do against Him. It doesn't matter how many sins we commit, how far we drive ourselves away from God and His Truth, because He will always be there waiting for us when we return. It is also good to look at the Second Reading from the First Letter of St. Paul to Timothy, where Paul gladly acknowledges his own sinfulness because he knows that God's mercy and love are most apparent when we come to him in our sin and ask for His forgiveness. We all sin and fall short of what we should be, but that is no reason for despair because God is Love and He will never abandon or disown us. We are His children in our sin, even in the moment of our commission of sin, and He is always waiting to rejoice when we come to our senses and seek Him out again. How blessed indeed are we to have this wonderful gift, to know that our God loves us so much that He will suffer infinite disrespect from us without ever rejecting us or turning His back on us.

So apparently Christopher Hitchens is at it again. I'm constantly surprised at how many publications seem to view this hack as a genuine thinker, having seen his hatred spilled on the pages both of the Washington Post Religion Section and also on Slate. It is on Slate that I found this particularly objectionable bit of atheist rambling. Not content to satisfy his superiority complex with internal derision of us foolish theists, apparently Hitchens feels that it is his duty to neuter those of us who dare to believe in what he doesn't. Never mind the fact that he is dead wrong, Hitchens feels he has the right to dictate to religious groups what of their doctrines can and cannot be carried forward into the future. Perhaps he can call it the "Bright" Man's Burden, his obligation as an intellectually advanced person to bring enlightenment to us pathetic throwbacks who haven't gotten it through out heads to abandon religion and embrace hedonistic naturalism. Personally I just call it hubris, and I pray to God that he gets over it before he goes to meet his maker. I'll bring attention to the more egregious statements that he makes below, along with my responses.

Take an example close at hand, the absurdly named Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...Thus, to the extent that we view latter-day saints as acceptable, and agree to overlook their other quaint and weird beliefs, it is to the extent that we have decidedly limited them in the free exercise of their religion.

It is true that the Mormons have had some strange beliefs in the past, beliefs that were framed as eternal dogma right up to the point where prophetic revelation exiled them to the dustbin of history. Still, the elimination of these objectionable doctrines had more to do with the internal decisions of the hierarchy than it did with any kind of governmental intervention. The US government may have made it clear that a continuation of polygamy would have doomed Utah's chances at statehood, but Utah could have carried on as an independent country if Mormons really wanted to keep things the way they were. In a like manner, they could have very easily maintained their beliefs against black people just as many small religious groups have to the current time and while it might have made them unpopular it probably wouldn't have lead to governmental intervention. Plenty of religions do things that are considered discriminatory against one group or another, the Catholic Church's exclusion of women from the priesthood being one example, and none of them have the police knocking on their door for it. Hitchens, who is British, may not fully understand what freedom of religion means, but it is solely limited to governmental action. Mormon beliefs about homosexuality may make them unpopular with the "No on 8" crowd, but that doesn't mean that their freedom of religion is being limited unless the government starts arresting them or otherwise impedes their free exercise. In other words, they limited themselves to be popular and weren't really forced to do so by the government or even by society.

One could cite some other examples, such as those Christian sects that disapprove of the practice of medicine. Their adult members are generally allowed to die while uttering religious incantations and waving away the physician, but, in many states, if they apply this faith to their children—a crucial element in the "free exercise" of religion—they can be taken straight to court. Not only that, they can find themselves subject to general disapproval and condemnation.

Hitchen's argument in this case conflates two very different things, the governmental prevention of faith-based violence against children and what he advocates as the societal neutering of faith in general. Later on in the article he brings up non-Christian examples, such as the disgusting practice of metzitzah b'peh in Orthodox Judaism and female circumcision in Islam, as examples of cases where religious exercise is limited. Of course, what he misses is that public safety has always been a limitation to most of the rights granted in the Constitution. Freedom of speech has always been thought to exclude "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater" or other such threats to safety, and all but the most rabid NRA supporters would agree that limits on gun possession in certain buildings and areas are perfectly reasonable. On the other hand, when public safety isn't affected the law is quite clear in granting religion a wide latitude. The government can stop a church from performing human sacrifice, but current interpretation doesn't even allow them to force religious groups to abide by zoning and historical preservation laws as recent cases in Pemberton, NJ and Washington, DC attest.

We talk now as if it was ridiculous ever to suspect Roman Catholics of anything but the highest motives, yet by the time John F. Kennedy was breaking the unspoken taboo on the election of a Catholic as president, the Vatican had just begun to consider making public atonement for centuries of Jew-hatred and a more recent sympathy for fascism.

Always one to appeal to base emotion and hatred, Hitchens once again brings up the idea that the Church was a big fan of fascism. One must wonder what he thinks of Mit brennender Sorge and the other cases where Popes Pius XI and Pius XII spoke out against nationalism. I guess that he could be talking about Franco's Spain, which was supported by the Vatican, but I'm not sure what he expected when Franco's opposition was extremely anti-clerical and wanted nothing more than to burn the Pope at the stake. It would be akin to Hitchens allying himself with fundamentalist Christians who want to kill him for not believing in God. At any rate, the Church still has many views that Hitchens hates (like, for instance, being the Church in the first place), so I guess our socialization isn't quite finished.

t is generally agreed that the church's behavior and autonomy need to be modified to take account both of American law and American moral outrage.

I don't know if I'd call this "generally agreed." It is obvious that Church leaders can be held accountable for breaking civil laws, as the Church has admitted and is assisting in the cases of child sex abuse. Still, "moral outrage" is vague and could apply to anything from forcing the Church to turn over abusers all the way to compelling the Church to accept women priests and stop believing in the Real Presence. I doubt that most Americans support the latter, in fact I'd guess that it's only popular among cynical atheists like Mr. Hitchens.

The Church of Scientology, the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon, and the Ku Klux Klan are all faith-based organizations and are all entitled to the protections of the First Amendment. But they are also all subject to a complex of statutes governing tax-exemption, fraud, racism, and violence, to the point where "free exercise" in the third case has—by means of federal law enforcement and stern public disapproval—been reduced to a vestige of its former self.

First of all, the KKK isn't a religious organization. At best it's a fraternal order like the Freemasons or the Elks and is therefore protected under Freedom of Speech rather than of Religion. Still, it is not a limitation of free exercise to force people to abide by legitimate laws. Preventing violence isn't a violation of religious freedom any more than preventing speech that endangers public safety is a violation of free speech.

There's an excellent chance of a healthy pluralist outcome, but it's very unlikely that this can happen unless, as with their predecessors on these shores, Muslims are compelled to abandon certain presumptions that are exclusive to themselves. The taming and domestication of religion is one of the unceasing chores of civilization.

There is a huge difference between forcing religion to abide by laws on the one hand and on the other forcing religion to become assimilated to the moral sensitivities of the majority. The first is perfectly reasonable, the second is not. Hitchens seems to want both, but if the Catholic experience is a sign then the second part will never occur. Catholics have plenty of beliefs that are objectionable to the world, and yet we still believe them centuries after we came here. Hitchens wants to neuter religions by forcing them to get rid of things that are "exclusive to themselves," removing its potential by removing its distinctiveness. While this may have worked on mainstream Protestants, making it almost impossible to tell between a Lutheran and a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian and a Methodist, it will never work on the Catholic Church and certainly not on Islam. We are all different, and while he'd like to subjugate us to secular control he'll always be disappointed.

Last night I happened to catch a small portion of the Rachel Maddow Show. My brother was watching it on the television and I was listening to music on the computer, but in between songs I noticed that Maddow was talking to Gov. Rendell of Pennsylvania and since he's the governor of the state next to mine I decided to listen. What I heard was horrifying, and should be even more so to any orthodox Catholic who lives in that state. Maddow asked him about the "extremist" views of Tea Party candidates on abortion, expressing outrage that they would oppose abortion even in cases of rape, and Rendell stated that he has never met a single rational person who opposed abortion in these cases. I have to wonder whether he's ever met Cardinals Bevilacqua and Rigali, both archbishops of the largest city in his state and both steadfast opponents of abortion in cases of rape. Perhaps he's just saying that these two courageous champions of human dignity are irrational, I certainly wouldn't put it past him.

The argument that Gov. Rendell offers contains a false dichotomy, and does so intentionally as a kind of trap to neutralize the pro-life movement. When he states that he knows and respects many "pro-life" people who support the rape exception what he is trying to do is weaken the resolve of his opposition in order to destroy it. There is no difference between a fetus conceived of love and one conceived of rape, and therefore we should not allow the destruction of the child conceived of rape any more than we should allow it for any other unborn child. If we compromise on one group of children and say that the circumstances of their conception invalidate their right to life then we should just give up and support abortion completely, and therein lies the outcome desired by Rendell and Maddow among many others. Extremist liberals like these two will be satisfied with nothing less than an unlimited right to abortion, at any point in pregnancy and with any conceivable justification or no justification at all, and therefore when they talk about the respect they have for "compromising" abortion opponents there is no reason to believe it. Just as liberals pretended to care about Rep. Stupak's opinion right up until the point that they destroyed his amendment and launched a campaign of vilification against him, should Rendell and company ever succeed in destroying opposition to abortion then the pragmatists among us will find their friendship to be non-existent. We have a choice between faithfulness to life or compromise against it, the ultimate reaction from the left being the same, and I know which one I'll choose.

Someone asked him, "Lord, will only
a few people be saved?" He answered them,
"Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to
enter but will not be strong enough. After
the master of the house has arisen and
locked the door, then will you stand
outside knocking and saying, 'Lord, open
the door for us.' He will say to you in
reply, 'I do not know where you are from.'
And you will say, 'We ate and drank in
your company and you taught in our streets.'
Then he will say to you, 'I do not know
where (you) are from. Depart from me, all
you evildoers!' And there will be wailing
and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the
kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out.
And people will come from the east and the
west and from the north and the south and
will recline at table in the kingdom of God.
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last."
Luke 13: 23-30

The last two verses here are ones that I think really speak to our situation as a nation and indeed as a culture in the "Western" world. It is a message that was unthinkable to the Jewish people of Jesus' time, just as it seems to be equally incomprehensible to our current age. God came down not only for the pious and the self-righteous, not only for the rich and the light-skinned, but indeed for the whole of the human race. God does not care if a person is a CEO or a fruit picker, a descendant of the Pilgrims or an illegal immigrant, a rich man or an unemployed single mother of multiple children on public assistance. What He cares about is located within the heart, and I think that many rich and supposedly pious people will be shocked on Judgment Day to find that their riches are inadequate to earn salvation. God will indeed gather together people from every nation and language, from every class and situation in life, and those who are considered last in our society will indeed be the first ones welcomed into Heaven.

In our society today there are many who would question the worthiness of the immigrant and the laborer to be counted among the righteous. Just today in his homily my pastor mentioned some grumblings that had been expressed to him about the creation of a Spanish Mass at our parish. Our parish has had non-English language masses for a long time, having been blessed with a large Portuguese and then Brazilian immigrant community since I was a child, but this would be the first time that the Spanish immigrant community has been welcomed in such a way there. Unfortunately, there are many among us who think that even the Portuguese-speaking Mass is a problem and that adding a Spanish Mass is a move in the wrong direction. To them I would say that God does not love us because we speak English or because our families have been here for some "respectable" period of time. He loves us because we are His children, and He loves the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking people here just as much as He loves us. God does not look at our "pedigree" as if we are pure-breed dogs, he does not care where we come from or how we got here. What is important to God is whether we are willing to serve Him and love our brothers and sisters, and from experience I can say that there are many among the immigrant communities who would put many of us "well-established" Americans to shame in those departments.

In my experiences of the marginalized and downtrodden I have always found that the poorest and most disregarded among us feel the closest to God and have the richest faith. I didn't grow up rich but compared to many even in our own country I was relatively well-off, so my experience of this phenomenon didn't begin until I was in college. For my first spring break of my time in college I decided to participate in an Alternative Spring Break service trip to Kingston, Jamaica, a trip that brought me face to face not only with crushing poverty but also the gaping divide between rich and poor that exists in many countries but is often not acknowledged by those who can choose to ignore it. In my time there I was blessed to meet a man whose condition would be considered a curse to most of us, and yet his outlook was one of intense faith and gratitude to God. This man had been stricken by leprosy back when that disease was less treatable, and by the time that he gained access to life-saving treatment he had lost his sight as well as all of his toes and fingers. The disease had scarred his body, and yet his spirit was unafflicted. To hear him sing praise to God in spite of his sufferings brought into perspective a truth that is not easy for those of us who are more affluent, that true faith comes not in thanking God for an easy life but in praising God through the hardships and trials. How many of us in our comfortable existence would choose to praise God instead of blaming Him for our pain and becoming bitter and angry? I think that many would choose the "curse God and die" response favored by Job's wife rather than keeping the faith as Job himself did. It is not for no reason that Jesus preached the difficulty of salvation for the rich, indeed great wealth fosters a mindset of self-reliance and even self-adoration that is antithetical to the teachings of Christ. The poor have nothing and therefore have no choice but to lean on God, their utter helplessness leads them to the true Rock in a way that is impossible for those who have learned to put their trust in self and in temporal riches.

It is a shame that so many among the Catholic faithful have embraced the millennial rhetoric of those like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, rhetoric that poisons them against their neighbors and makes them see enemies and rivals where they should see brothers and sisters in Christ. You can see this in the objections that some have leveled against the Park51 project, objections that seem to imply that all Muslims are terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. Imam Rauf was previously such a non-controversial figure that he was sent on bridge-building missions to the Middle East by President Bush after 9/11, but now that the right wants to start a fight they're condemning him for insufficiently condeming the actions of other Muslims. They chastise him for making (in my opinion accurate) statements about US policy contributing to the popularity of groups like Al Qaeda, and they attack him for not being penitent enough for the attacks on our country by supposed followers of Islam. I have to wonder what these conservatives would say about Christian sins against human dignity, such as the treatment of Native Americans not to mention the current atmosphere of xenophobia that prevails among many so-called followers of Christ. I'd also wonder whether they think that Americans should express penitence for the terrorist actions of our government in places like Dresden, Nagasaki, My Lai, and Baghdad (anyone remember "shock and awe"?), but then I think that I already know the answer. The great irony is that people like Beck and Palin hold up our nation as the chosen land of God Almighty a land of justice and peace obedient to the teachings of Jesus Christ, and yet in their actions and their disdain for the poor man and the foreigner they betray themselves as descendants of the Pharisees and bring down upon themselves the condemnation chosen for that group by Jesus himself. May God have mercy on them, and on us all.

Et factum est ut audivit salutationem Mariae
Elisabeth exultavit infans in utero eius et repleta
est Spiritu Sancto, Elisabeth et exclamavit voce
magna, et dixit: Benedicta tu inter mulieres, et
benedictus fructus ventris tui. Et unde hoc mihi ut
veniat mater Domini mei ad me? Ecce enim ut facta
est vox salutationis tuae in auribus meis, exultavit
in gaudio infans in utero meo. Et beata quae credidit,
quoniam perficientur ea, quae dicta sunt ei a Domino.
Et ait Maria: Magnificat anima mea Dominum: et
exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo; quia
respexit humilitatem ancillae suae, ecce enim ex hoc
beatam me dicent omnes generationes. Quia fecit mihi
magna qui potens est, et sanctum nomen eius, et
misericordia eius in progenies et progenies timentibus
eum.

And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth heard the
salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb.
And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And
she cried out with a loud voice, and said: Blessed
art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy
womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my
Lord should come to me? For behold as soon as the voice
of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my
womb leaped for joy. And blessed art thou that hast
believed, because those things shall be accomplished
that were spoken to thee by the Lord. And Mary said:
My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath
rejoiced in God my Saviour. Because he hath regarded
the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth
all generations shall call me blessed. Because he that
is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is
his name. And his mercy is from generation unto
generations, to them that fear him.
Luke 1:41-50

I can't believe that I didn't mention this here before, but tomorrow I'll be attending a Solemn High Mass being sponsored by Mater Ecclesiae Catholic Church at St. Peter Church in Merchantville, NJ. The Mass will be in the Extraordinary Form, and it will be my first experience of Mass in that Form. I honestly have no idea what to expect, my only knowledge of this Mass is theoretical and it seems so different from the Ordinary Form as to make comparisons to that Form impossible. At any rate, tomorrow I should have a much better idea of what I'm talking about when I discuss the differences between the two Forms.

If anybody else here is interested in coming and is in the area, the Mass is at 1pm at St. Peter Church and the directions can be found here. The flyer can be found (in PDF form) here.