Two Ceremonies?

A reader writes:

A friend of mine is getting married and his fiance wants very much to have a protestant marriage ceremony (she herself is mildly protestant and her father is a minister in a protestant denomination). Can my friend and his fiance have a Catholic wedding ceremony IN ADDITION TO the protestant one?

No, canon law specifically prohibits this:

Canon 1127 §3.

It is forbidden to have another religious
celebration of the same marriage to give or renew matrimonial consent before or
after the canonical celebration according to the norm of §1 [i.e., the Catholic wedding]. Likewise, there is
not to be a religious celebration in which the Catholic who is assisting and a
non-Catholic minister together, using their own rites, ask for the consent of
the parties.

The parties therefore need to decide whether they want to have a Catholic wedding OR obtain a dispensation from form so that they can have a Protestant wedding. They can’t do both.

This is not to say that ministers from both religious communities can’t play a role in the wedding. If they have a Catholic wedding the then Protstant minister can be invited to participate and visa versa. The Norms for Ecumenism provide:

157. With the previous authorisation of the local Ordinary, and if invited to do so, a Catholic priest or deacon may attend or participate in some way in the celebration of mixed marriages, in situations where the dispensation from canonical form has been granted. In these cases, there may be only one ceremony in which the presiding person receives the marriage vows. At the invitation of this celebrant, the Catholic priest or deacon may offer other appropriate prayers, read from the Scriptures, give a brief exhortation and bless the couple.

158. Upon request of the couple, the local Ordinary may permit the Catholic priest to invite the minister of the party of the other Church or ecclesial Community to participate in the celebration of the marriage, to read from the Scriptures, give a brief exhortation and bless the couple.

Dressed To Kill

EXCERPTS:

An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building.

Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woolen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was building up as his clothes rubbed together.

When he walked into a building in the country town of Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria Thursday, the electrical charge ignited the carpet.

"It sounded almost like a firecracker," Clewer told Australian radio Friday.

"Within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt."

"We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited," Barton said.

"I’ve been firefighting for over 35 years and I’ve never come across anything like this," he said.

GET THE STORY.

Don’t Smile!

German authorities have decided to wipe the grins off the faces of passport applicants:

"Germans were ordered Thursday to stay serious when having their photographs taken for new passports, wiping away any grins, smirks or smiles so that biometric scanners can pick up their facial features.

"Interior Minister Otto Schily ordered passport authorities to only accept pictures taken from the front showing the ‘most neutral facial expression possible,’ starting Nov. 1.

"Facial recognition systems match key features on the holder’s face and work best when the face has a neutral expression with the mouth closed.

"’A broad smile, however nice it may be, is therefore unacceptable,’ the Interior Ministry said in a statement."

GET THE STORY.

English-speaking photographers have long ordered their subjects to say "Cheese!" before snapping the shot, presumably because saying that word widens the mouth and thus encourages a grin. I wonder what the command to German passport applicants now should be when having their mug shots taken.

This Illusion Is Not Here

And now . . . !

The AMAZING DISAPPEARING OPTICAL ILLUSION!

Keep your eyes fixed on the Plus Sign in the center of the illusion.

You will see a green dot that ISN’T THERE sweeping around the circle of pink dots.

Then you will see the pink dots that ARE THERE totally . . . DISAPPEAR!

Do it right and you can get them ALL to disappear!

GET STARTED STARING!

YEE-HAW!

NOTE FOR THE COLORBLIND: Your mileage may vary. Sorry. 🙁

The Embryonic Shoah

In the pro-life movement, we’ve heard the figures that some 45 million children have been murdered by abortion in the United States since Roe v. Wade was legalized in 1973. But what about children murdered by the various embryonic manipulation that has occurred since test-tube tinkering started in the late-1970s? (Trivia side note: Did you know that the first test-tube baby was born on the tenth anniversary of the promulgation of Humanae Vitae?  Humanae Vitae was released on July 25, 1968; the first test-tube child was born on July 25, 1978.)

A study by researchers at Yale University found that some 85 percent of cultured embryos do not survive to birth. In-vitro fertilization specialists recently boasted that over a million children have been born due to IVF technology. If both the Yale study and the IVF specialists figures are correct, this means that as many as 6.7 million children have been murdered through embryonic research:

"A new study has confirmed that beyond all the loss of life that happens when in vitro fertilization embryos are frozen for storage and unfrozen for use, there is massive loss of life even after embryos are transferred into their mother’s wombs.

"Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found that 85 percent of embryos transferred during IVF fail to live till birth.

"IVF specialists boasted last year that over a million children have been born due to IVF (see here: http://www.ivf.com/overview.html). However, with the results of the Yale study indicating that 85% of embryos transferred do not survive till birth, one can calculate that for a million children to have been born using IVF over 6.7 other children died in the process.

"Published in the August issue of Fertility and Sterility, the Yale study reviewed seven years of U.S. statistics from all the fertility clinics that report data on reproductive techniques. Director of the Yale Fertility Center, Pasquale Patrizio, M.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences led the project.

"Said Patrizio, ‘Something in nature has decided that these implanted embryos are not viable.’"

GET THE STORY.

Six million children and counting means that the embryonic manipulation of modern science has placed the death toll in the abortion holocaust at over fifty million. God, have pity on us.

Speaking At A Protestant Chapel

A reader writes:

I am a fauclty member at a private college associated with a Protestant church.  I’m a convert to the Catholic Church.

There is a chapel service two days a week here and the opportunity has come up for me to speak at this service.  Am I allowed to speak at a service like this? 

Yes. Canon law does not prevent you from speaking if you are invited to do so.

If so is what are my obligations with regard to what I reveal to the assembled people?

You must not say anything contrary to the Catholic faith. Within that constraint, you should seek to deliver the kind of talk that your hosts expect. (E.g., if you are asked to speak on a particular topic or Scripture passage, you should do so.)

In addition, to the extent you can (without endangering your ability to make a living, for example) you should seek to introduce them to aspects of the truth (the Catholic faith) that they may not have considered. This may involve revealing the fact that you are a Catholic or it may not.

If you perceive that the topic you are asked to speak on could draw you into areas that would be problematic (e.g., if you couldn’t talk about the topic without getting into a subject that would cause you to lose your job) then you could ask for a different topic, a different day (i.e., one with a different planned topic), or simply decline the invitation to speak.

That’s about the best I can do with the limited information at hand (I don’t know, for example, whether people at the college would freak out upon learning that you are Catholic and demand your resignation or firing; that’s been known to happen at some Protestant schools, even when the administration is initially supportive of Catholic faculty members). The bottom line is: Do what good you can and be prudent as you do so.

Or as Our Lord put it: "Be wise as serpents and  innocent as doves" (Matt. 10:16).

Holy Envy?

CbangelMy wife has always been drawn to a particular genre of non-fiction in which people struggle against great difficulties, especially physical or mental disabilities. She has read dozens of books in which the main character wrestles with something like autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, blindness or some other malady (though disasters, abuse and hard pioneer life count also).

I have read a number of the books she has around the house and have learned to really appreciate several, not just as interesting stories, but as good, well-written books.

One such book that I can recommend is called "Karen". It is the story of Karen Killilea, who was born with cerebral palsy. It was written by her mother, Marie Killlilea, in 1952. In the book we see how Karen fights both her physical disability and the sometimes callous response of the society around her. There is a bonus, in that the Killileas are a warmly devout Catholic family and the book touches on very relevent themes, such as the intrinsic value of all human life. The book is available at Amazon.com, and you can find more information about the Killileas HERE.

Lately I have wondered what it is about such stories that is so compelling. Everyone has enough trouble of their own, why read about people who have it so much worse than we do?

One good reason to is that these stories throw into sharp relief the virtues that we need to overcome the hard things in our own life. Our admiration for Anne Sullivan’s tenacity in teaching Helen Keller helps us to be a little more tenacious in pursuit of some worthy goal, etc…

Another reason is that we are often tempted to view our own lives as dull and prosaic. Our own struggles don’t seem quite as dramatic as those of people whom we perceive to be "in the trenches", and who struggle under great burdens. It is part of what G.K. Chesterton called the desire for "an active and imaginative life, picturesque and full of a poetical curiosity". In a sense, we envy these people, we covet their stark, tremendous struggles because we are tired of our own small and tepid ones. We don’t often see ourselves as heroes.

But not everyone might agree. It occurred to me that, in our daily battle against the World, the Flesh and the Devil, the angels may view us in a way that is similar to the way we see the heroes in these books; these people who contend with crushing misfortune, or constant deprivation. The fallen world we live in puts us "in the trenches" in a way that makes even our mundane troubles more vital and heroic.

The idea that our lives are dull and meaningless is a lie from the pits of hell. The truth is, every decision we make is of eternal importance.

Not that the angels would envy our place in the battle. If I understand my Bible, they are certainly in the thick of it themselves, and have no lack of excitement. But, if there could be such a thing as holy envy, the angels might envy our role as overcomers. Even in heaven, a scar may be a badge of honor.

An angel might say to me one day, "Tell us again how the grace of God helped you to overcome your sloth, thoughtlessness and all-around deficient faith!".

And I’ll tell them.

Bloogling

Google, the omnipresent search engine that allows a surfer to navigate the Internet, has announced that it has added a new function that will enable users to search web logs:

"Google Inc. has added to its menu of search alternatives the option to search through the ever-popular online journals called web logs, or blogs.

"The new search service, which went live on Wednesday, is in test, or beta, form, and can be accessed through a variety of Web addresses, including http://www.google.com/blogsearch and http://search.blogger.com/.

"’Google is a strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves,’ a frequently-asked-questions (FAQ) page on the new service reads.

"The new service doesn’t limit its searches to Google’s own Blogger service, and the index is continually updated and includes blogs written in English and other languages, including French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese, according to the FAQ."

GET THE STORY.

Dibs on the credit for describing searching web logs through Google as "bloogling."