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In order to raise enough money to continue with CERC, my advisors have told me I need to reach out to the Catholic community and explain exactly who we are, what we do, and why CERC matters. We are, therefore, right now involved in designing a brochure and putting together a powerpoint show for presentations on CERC to be given around the United States and Canada. I'm asking particularly business leaders and other professionals, to consider sponsoring a presentation in their board room or living room. I promise to make it interesting and meaningful — and yes, I have a pretty good sense of humour. The object is to convince good Catholics to help us continue our efforts by becoming Associate Donors to CERC, which means committing themselves to contributing $1000 or $2000 a year for three years to cover our operating expenses. We need to find 30 people willing to commit $2000 U.S. a year or else 60 people at $1000 a year. You should know, that as more people sign on, the yearly commitment will go down, we won't just find other ways of spending your money. I need your help with this — and of course your prayers. If you think you might be able to set up a meeting, or if you know someone who might be interested in finding out more about doing this, please send an email to J. Fraser Field or call me at 604-485-0561. Please also send along your stories and endorsements. I need a fresh batch for the brochure. Has CERC been helpful in your formation as a Christian, in your understanding of the big issues confronting us as a culture, in your family life, or in your efforts as a Catholic evangelist? Send your comments and stories to CERC. We are still fine-tuning the content of the brochure — and of course the layout hasn't been done yet — but the general idea can be found at: The Catholic Educator's Resource Center. I need your support. - J. Fraser Field (View
our last issue of the CERC
Bi-Weekly Update ) | ||||||
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| NEW RESOURCES ADDED TO THE SITE THIS WEEK: |
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| 01 I am now going to tell you about the shortest, simplest, and most powerful prayer in the world. This is not one of the many "methods", because it bypasses methods and cuts right to the heart of practicing God's presence, which is the essence of prayer. |
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| 02 Sometimes we see the Church in less than holy conditions. We see ourselves, we see other people, we see priests and sometimes we see bishops whose lifestyles are not up to the Gospel standard. Yet as Chesterton said, "The Catholic faith even when watered down can still boil the world to rags." The Catholic Church is strong with divine power. This is manifest in so many ways; you can see the splendor of the Church. Let me just take you through a few of the steps that I took in discovering the splendor of the Catholic Church. |
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| 03 We Were Soldiers goes much farther than Braveheart in telling the story of a man of faith who lived a martyr's life in the name of duty and honor. In terms of cultural impact, this character is very cool, very smart, with integrity to burn, and very Catholic. We haven't seen the best we can be like this up on the screen since A Man for All Seasons. |
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| 04 On Turning Around - James V. Schall - Homiletic and Pastoral Review There is an expression of Platonic origin called "turning around," or sometimes, "conversion." It seems pertinent here in a more Christian context. In Plato, the phrase does not just mean a sudden reaction to something out of the ordinary. More profoundly, it refers to a reorienting of one's very soul on the basis of the new evidence or truth that is presented from outside our closed inner world. It means that at any point in our lives, we can "turn around," if we will. |
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| 05 Celibacy - Raymond Arroyo - National Review When he met with the U.S. cardinals to formulate some response to the sexual scandals besieging the Church, the Pope took the issue of clerical celibacy off the table. Against the strident voices of dissenters, disaffected clergy, and at least one American cardinal, His Holiness suggested that celibacy was part of the solution, not the problem. And the facts seem to bear him out. |
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| 06 How Ending the Abortion Nightmare Could Make Bush the Next Lincoln - Fred Martinez - NewsMax.com Bush can go down in history as another Lincoln. (Lincoln was considered dumber by the media of his day than our present media consider President Bush.) All that Bush has to do is not attempt to abolish abortion, but rather limit its spread by protecting women's health and human rights as well as letting women in abortion trauma know that he and others are there offering help to free them from their nightmare of abortion. |
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| 07 What is Science and How Open are Scientists to New Ideas? - Robin Bernhoft, M.D. - From "Is Evolution Fit to Survive?" We scientists are human beings, with the same foibles and temptations as anyone else. Old careers are destroyed by new theories. Prestige, position, power are all at stake every time there is a scientific revolution. When Lister described antiseptic surgery, his career was almost destroyed by the British medical establishment. The idea threatened too many people in positions of power. |
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| 08 Nicolas Copernicus: Founder of Modern Astronomy - Rev. Martin S. Brennan - From ""What Catholics have done for Science" Although Copernicus loved his favorite science with the ardor of a devotee, nevertheless he did not neglect the duties of his sacred office. It is said that he divided his day into three parts, devoting one to the calls of his ministry, another to the gratuitous medical care of the poor, and the third to scientific study. In the history of science there is no more beautiful character than Nicolas Copernicus. |
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| 09 Submission to the Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse - USCCB - Germain Grisez Dr. Grisez's submission to the bishops' conference addresses how "sexual abuse" should be understood; the evils involved in and consequent upon clerical sexual offenses; preventing clerical sexual offenses; dealing with future clerical sexual offenses; dealing with factors conducive to clerical sexual offenses; some seminary admission and formation issues; dealing again with earlier clerical sexual offenses; a moral-theological explanation of some bishops' mishandling of cases; and how the bishops as a body need to address this issue. |
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| 10 Mulling over Nothing - Thomas S. Hibbs - The Wilberforce Forum Professor of philosophy, Thomas Hibbs brings his expertise in Medieval thought and contemporary ethics to bear on questions about popular culture. |
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| 11 The Power of Perseverance - Ray Guarendi - Kidbrat.com Dear Dr. Ray: I have two children as different as night and day. My son is so easy-going that sometimes he almost seems to be raising himself. My daughter has to do everything her way. Discipline just bounces off her. - Half-defeated |
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| 12 Christians in Hollywood - It's Not About the Shows - Stan Williams Christians continue to make headway as cultural influencers in Hollywood and consequently the world. That's true because more Hollywood executives are recognizing that morally true and uplifting television shows and motion pictures consistently rise to the top of the revenue pile. |
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| 13 Media Coverage of the Catholic Church: Executive Summary - Center for Media and Public Affairs The public image of social groups and the institutions depends heavily on their portrayal in the news media. Given the long history of anti-Catholic prejudice in American society, it is especially important that the media present a fair and balanced portrayal of the Catholic Church. To provide an independent assessment of the media's performance, a scientific study of news coverage was conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. Here is a summary of their findings. |
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| 14 Population Control - The Kenyan Perspective - Dr. Stephen K. Karanja - PRI I am a practicing gynecologist in Kenya and I would like to share with you facts about some of the patients I see daily: A mother brings a child to me with pneumonia, but I had not penicillin to give the child. What I have in the stores are cases of contraceptives. Malaria is epidemic in Kenya. Mothers die from this disease every day because there is no chloroquine, when instead we have huge stockpiles of contraceptives. These mothers come to me and I am helpless. |
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| 15 Proper Etiquette - Fr. William Saunders - Arlington Catholic Herald What is the proper etiquette for addressing Church leaders? |
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| EDITORIALS OF INTEREST: |
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| 25 That Others May Live: The Honor and the Duty - James Robbins (National Review) So the tales are told; and we are left with a debt. Not just to preserve the memories of the honored dead, but to live fully the lives they have made possible. |
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| 25 Movies Offer Nothing More, And Often Less - Joseph Epstein - Washington Post Why do the two words, Movies and Truth, like magnets of opposite poles, seem to repel each other? What can movies have to do with truth? Why would anyone go to movies expecting to find, of all things, the (capital T) Truth? One might as well go to Aristotle for slapstick, or to Hitler for easy-to-prepare kosher recipes. |
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| 26 White House Scores Pro-Life Win at U.N - National Catholic Register Family activists cheered as the United States delegation won major pro-life and pro-family victories at the May 8-10 U.N. Special Session for Children. |
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| 27 What is JPII thinking? - Mark Shea's Blog Spoke this weekend with a wonderful priest friend, the soul of common sense and probably the closest I will ever get to meeting St. Thomas Aquinas about the current crisis in the Church. His reflections on why JPII is leaving the present crop of bishops in their jobs makes perfectly good sense. |
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| 28 Restoring the Church - Alan Keyes - Worldnetdaily.com Saying they are sorry — as Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney did recently — is simply not enough. They need to do visible and open penance for the moral harm that has been done, for the scandal that has been given not in the secular media, but to the faithful. Apologies and penances are not the same, and the Christian tradition has a decided and wise preference for the latter in cases of serious sin. |
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| 29 Weakland's Exit - Rod Dreher - National Review Today, Milwaukee Catholics are without an archbishop. Many orthodox Catholics have wondered for weeks why the sex-abuse scandal has hit America's more conservative bishops — Law of Boston and Egan of New York — hardest. Not any longer. |
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| 30 Communion denied to gay activists - Canberra Times Controversial Catholic Archbishop George Pell refused communion to gay parishioners yesterday, saying "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." |
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| 32 Feminism Hijacked - George F. Will - Washington Post In the days of pre-modern medicine, the adage was: Whatever else hospitals do, they should not spread disease. In these days of postmodern higher education, the adage is: Whatever else schools do, they should not subtract from understanding. Which brings us to the subject of "women's studies." |
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| 33 Worked Till They Drop - Washington Post There are few protections for China's new laborers. |
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| 25 "Pierced Girls Are Bad Girls: Study" - National Post Body piercing might not be a benign adolescent fashion expression. A new study found girls (boys, too, but to a lesser extent) who have parts other than ears pierced are more likely to engage in "high-risk behavior." |
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| 25 20th Century Say 65% of Christian Martyrs - ZENIT In two millennia of Christian history, about 70 million faithful have given their lives for the faith, and of these, 45.5 million — fully 65% — were in the last century, according to "The New Persecuted" ("I Nuovi Perseguitati"). |
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| 26 'Humble Sinner' Bush Testifies to Power of Faith - Yahoo.com Declaring "I am just a humble sinner," President Bush on Monday drew on his personal experience with alcohol abuse to illustrate how faith can help turn lives around. |
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| 27 Hope from History - National Catholic Register Harry Crocker is author of the recent book Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, A 2,000-Year History. He is an editor at Regnery Publishing by day, and he is a convert to the faith. Register correspondent Kathryn Jean Lopez talked to Crocker about his new book, his faith and much more. |
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| 28 Pope: 'No Place' for Priests Who Abuse Minors - Raymond De Sousa - National Catholic Register The message being delivered from Rome: Dissent, and the failure to screen out homosexual candidates for the priesthood, are at the root of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. |
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| 29 The New (York Times) Catholic Church - Michael Novak - National Review Before they sign off entirely from things Catholic, those Americans who reject the Roman Catholic Church ought to give a chance to the New (York Times) Catholic Church. That Church is something else! |
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| 30 New Film Puts Best Spin on U.S.A. - Michael Medved - Jewish World Review After Sept. 11, Americans listened to millions of angry people around the Islamic world expressing their resentment toward this country as a bastion of arrogance and privilege. Spider-Man, on the other hand, speaks to our eternal identification with underdogs. |
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| 31 Why does the abortion debate terrify the BBC? - The Telegraph (U.K.) From euthanasia to cloning, from eugenics to abortion, public disquiet is so great that the pro-life case cannot be ignored. The BBC may be the mightiest organisation in this country, but it cannot suppress the truth about the culture of death. |
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| 32 The Bible and the stripper - Author The worst part about the story of the Sacramento stripper mom whose daughter was expelled from a Christian school is the utter predictability of the media treatment and public reaction. |
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| EDUCATION MATTERS: |
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| 34 MacArthur: Duty, honor, country - Washington Times No human being could fail to be deeply moved by such a tribute as this, coming from a profession I have served so long and a people I have loved so well. It fills me with an emotion I cannot express. But this award is not intended primarily for a personality, but to symbolize a great moral code — the code of conduct and chivalry of those who guard this beloved land of culture and ancient descent. |
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| 35 To a teacher who said that in the wake of Sept. 11, her students wanted to know more about their nation's past, a panelist responded: "We need to de-exceptionalize the United States. We're just another country and another group of people." Truly, as Yogi Berra would say, only in America. Only here do our elites cringe at the thought of teaching students that there's something special and unique about their homeland. They are traitors of the heart — John Walker Lindhs of the spirit. |
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| 36 The Achilles' heel of education - Washington Times "Our ability to defend — intelligently and thoughtfully — what we as a nation hold dear depends on our knowledge and understanding of what we hold dear." We can't take that for granted, can we? |
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| 37 Teen debaters take on tough city issues - Christian Science Monitor "This is a chance for students to learn the power and persuasion of debate versus cynicism or protest," said Gail Nayowith, executive director of the Citizens' Committee for Children, a nonprofit group in New York that for four years has organized the Great Kids Budget Debate. "To watch them makes you feel optimistic about the future." |
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| 38 Two views of school, from both sides of the teacher's desk - Christian Science Monitor Regard for teaching is often considered a lost tradition in the United States. But two new books aim to cast a spotlight on the impact teachers can make. |
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| 39 No Lie: Science Fair Winner Is Not Typical or a Nerd - Washington Post When 16-year-old Scott Newman told his girlfriend that he was going away for a week to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, she thought he had morphed into a nerd. His Yorktown High School lacrosse coach in Arlington couldn't believe it, either. |
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| 40 Woman gets college degree -- 70 years after her first class - CNN.com Anne Martindell's quest for a diploma took several detours since the day in 1932 when she arrived for her freshman year at Smith College in a chauffeur-driven car with her trunks packed by a French maid. |
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| 40 States mull mandatory moment of silence - CNN.com Although the U.S. Supreme Court has outlawed mandatory school prayer, at least a dozen states this year have considered whether their public schools should offer students a moment of silence each day. |
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| 40 House Committee Upholds Abstinence - Family Research Council A House committee voted Wednesday to continue funding for abstinence education. The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 35-17 to maintain the $50 million abstinence program, which was launched in 1996 as a part of the welfare reform act. |
| St.
Justin Martyr, pray for us |