This week is Jesus Week at Penn, sponsored by the Christian group “Penn for Jesus”.
Earlier in the semester, the Penn Newman Center, the Catholic student center on campus which I am involved in, decided not to participate in Jesus Week this year because Penn for Jesus expressed interest in making the goal of the week evangelization on the Penn campus. Penn Newman, however, was uninterested in participating in evangelization. I am not exactly sure what the reason behind this was.
What are your thoughts concerning evangelization in the Catholic church? Should it be a focal point? Should it be discouraged?
The Vatican said today that Muslims are now more numerous than Catholics in a worldwide report compiled by Monsignor Vittorio Formenti. According to the report, Muslims comprise 19.2 percent of the world’s population and Catholics account for 17.4 percent.
“For the first time in history we are no longer at the top: the Muslims have overtaken us,” Formenti told Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano in an interview, saying the data referred to 2006.
He said that if all Christian groups were considered, including Orthodox churches, Anglicans and Protestants, then Christians made up 33 percent of the world’s population — or about 2 billion people.
The Vatican recently put the number of Catholics in the world at 1.13 billion people. It did not provide a figure for Muslims, generally estimated at around 1.3 billion.
Formenti said that while the number of Catholics as a proportion of the world’s population was fairly stable, the percentage of Muslims was growing because of higher birth rates.
He said the data on Muslim populations had been compiled by individual countries and then released by the United Nations, adding the Vatican could only vouch for its own statistics.
I think this news should serve as a wake up call to all Catholics, especially those in the United States, that the entire world really is one giant missionary zone. These numbers are not startling if you’ve read Mark Steyn’s “America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It,” but the high birthrates among nearly every Islamic nation versus the anemic birthrates at or below the replacement level of 2.1 per couple in the vast majority of Western nations is both a serious problem and a great opportunity for Catholics.
Our children and grandchildren, though, may grow up in a world dominated by Islam with both radical strains and more moderate strains. We have the opportunity to “make all things new again” in our lives spiritually and in our communities with our witness to Christ and the Good News of the Gospel. Only through a deeper relationship with God through the Mass, through prayer and through everyday witness to Him can we be effective advocates for the Gospel.
We are being called to a new kind of commitment toward Christ and His Eternal Word. Unless we make ourselves new again and make our communities and families more living examples of faith, it will be our grandchildren who face a world entirely unfriendly and unwelcoming to the life of Christ.
I hope everyone is basking in Christ’s glory during these days, and using that Easter hope to fuel their determination through these hectic last weeks of the semester. Thank God for the liturgical season.
While just surfing through ITunes (I was actually looking for some classical music with some xylophones because I’m a nerd) and I came across this new subheading under the ITunes store called ITunes U. It turns out, ITunes is now reaching out to colleges to put audio files of lectures and sometimes entire semester long classes on their site! Wow.
So, looking at the list of colleges, there is at least one Catholic college represented currently! AND it just so happens to be Villanova University (which is very close to most of the posters here at CC)!
I am currently downloading 19 tracks and probably 30 hours worth of lectures from their Augustinian Institute. FOR FREE! They also have a lecture series titled “United States, the World and You” which looks pretty interesting.
So what is to be said of this? How incredible? I fear, however, that I might be doing/promoting something illegal; it just feels wrong. I pay thousands of dollars to get this info at DeSales, so why is it free on ITunes? Well, I’m not really complaining.
Check it out! If you go to the ITunes homepage, just look in the left column to find ITunes U.
Have fun learning for free! Who’da thought???
Peace and God Bless,
Matt Kuhner
PS. But seriously, if I’m missing something please inform me! haha!
I found this information really interesting about Easter. It is adopted from the latest post to “Cor Ad Cor Loquitur,” the electronic newsletter for Catholic Campus Ministry at Bucknell University.
Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.
The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913.
Based on the above, Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22) but this is pretty rare. The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818.
Happy Easter, everyone! Okay, so maybe it’s not actually Easter Sunday any longer, but I just got back to my dorm here at Penn after what I would consider a real smorgasbord of Catholicism. Here’s a break-down of my Easter Triduum:
Thursday:
7:30 PM – Mass of the Lord’s Supper (St. Agatha-St. James, West Philadelphia)
9:00 PM – Cheesesteaks at Pat’s and Geno’s (South Philadelphia)
Friday:
4:00 PM – Viewing of “The Passion of the Christ” (Mayer Hall, Penn Campus)
6:00 PM – Meeting for peer advising for next year (Penn Campus)
7:30 PM – Tenebrae Service (St. Agatha-St. James, West Philadelphia)
2:00 AM – Highballs and apple caramel cake (Mayer Hall, Penn Campus)
Saturday:
9:00 AM – Practice test for MCAT (Mayer Hall, Penn Campus)
2:30 PM – Early Easter dinner with the Rakszawski side of the family (Chadds Ford, PA)
8:00 PM – Easter Vigil Mass (Nativity of Our Lord, Warminster, PA)
Sunday:
11:00 AM – Easter Mass (Nativity of Our Lord, Warminster, PA)
1:00 PM – Easter dinner with Gauder side of the family (Warminster, PA)
6:00 PM – Depart home for Penn
10:00 PM – Easter Mass (St. Agatha-St. James, West Philadelphia)
Okay, so you might be wondering why I went to so many masses. Well, I’m a trumpet player, and I really love Easter music. It’s been tough balancing school with religion this past week, as Eric documented in his last post on Lent. Attending so many masses could easily cause one to get caught up in the motions, but somehow I managed to draw something spiritually from each mass. I rediscovered my devotion to St. Gianna Beretta Molla, whom I’ve prayed to in the past during times of poor health, but this time it was to help me in my discernment of a career in medicine. St. Gianna was a physician herself, and I really heard God calling me to pray to her that she may help me in the months to come as I prepare to apply to medical school. Music has always been the greatest form of prayer in my life, and this Easter was no different. It is such a spiritual rush for me to play my trumpet and pour my heart into my music. I feel very satisfied with my spiritual development over the past three days, especially since going in to Holy Week I was having a difficult time focusing in on Christ and the true meaning of Easter.
As Lent winds down, I find myself wondering whether it happened at all or not. Lent is supposed to be a time in preparation for the holiest of Catholic holidays. The past couple of Lents, though, have been far less ‘holy’ or focused spiritually for me than I feel like they should be.
I wonder if this is part of adjusting to life as an adult Catholic. In high school (and even more so in grade school), I was in an environment that was, more or less, Catholic. In college, there is definitely a solid Catholic community, but it’s far less comprehensive than in the past.
As a result, I feel like I need to make more of an effort to really make Lent happen for me spiritually. There are no days off, fewer opportunities to relax and reflect, etc; but it is still Jesus’ death and resurrection that we are celebrating, and should therefore be as special.
When I transition into what is a more ‘adult’ life over the coming years, I’m hoping that I can improve the effort that I put into Lent. My surroundings aren’t likely to get any more Catholic, so it’s really going to be necessary for me to recognize the importance of Lent from Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday.
Does anybody else feel this way? How have your Lents been spiritually in college?
Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin reported yesterday in the wake of New York Governor Elliot Spitzer’s prostitution-ring scandal that Planned Parenthood was planning to meet with him yesterday morning on a new piece of legislation that would dramatically expand the abortion industry in that state.
The Reproductive Health & Privacy Protection Act, or RHAPP, is being pushed as a necessary step toward “codifying Roe v. Wade.” According to Malkin’s information, it would:
Allow non-doctors to perform abortions, including a dentist, a social worker, or a health care practitioner.
Let girls as young as 12 obtain abortions throughout all 9 months of pregnancy without ever having to tell their parents.
Force health practitioners or Catholic hospitals to lose their medical licenses if they don’t perform abortions since they would be denying women the “fundamental right” of an abortion.
Given that Planned Parenthood’s legal services have been somewhat curtailed under President Bush’s administration with the ban on partial birth abortion — which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — it’s not entirely surprising that Planned Parenthood would seek to expand their business operations into previously untapped markets. This is accomplished, of course, by manipulating or fighting to establish legal precedent.
What’s most astonishing to be about RHAPP is not even that it would allow non-doctors to perform abortions, but that it actively seeks to destroy the fiscal viability of religiously affiliated hospitals for opting to deny abortion requests. If RHAPP passes in New York, this key plank would certainly be overturned on judicial review, but that Planned Parenthood has included this attack on the free operation of hospitals in their agenda signals what is potentially a new phase in the “culture war.”
Pope John Paul the Great called Catholics to uphold and defend a “culture of life”. Meanwhile, despite falling abortion rates in recent years and legal restrictions like the ban on partial birth abortion, Planned Parenthood continues to advocate abortion-on-demand, throwing all reason caution to the wind on the fundamental question of whether life begins at conception or birth.
Why? Quite simply, business is good. Planned Parenthood brings in more than $1 billion every year, and that’s only if you account for their abortion arm and the government grants — taxpayer funding — that this non-profit receives.
RHAPP, through its intimidation tactics toward Catholic hospitals, makes clear that there is no room for reasonable disagreement on the abortion issue. If you’re not with them in providing abortions and providing their industry profit, then you’re against them and you’ll be stripped of your medical accreditation and denied the ability to practice medicine as a corporate entity.
What we’re seeing here is corporate warfare, initiated by Planned Parenthood with the goal in mind of silencing and shutting down not just critics of their business practices, but those who are ethically or morally at odds with the abortion. Coercion, intimidation and religious discrimination are not the values of the American people, and we pray to God that they do not become the law of the land for New Yorkers.
Planned Parenthood’s attempt to hoodwink the people of New York by advancing a bill that claims to protect “reproductive health” is dispiriting given that the people of New York have already spoken. According to a 2007 Gallup Poll of New Yorkers, 73 percent want greater restrictions on abortion, and have affirmed their belief that “late-term abortion” — the kind promoted in RHAPP, should be illegal.
Planned Parenthood stands opposed both to judicial precedent and public opinion on abortion in New York. In fair competition in the “marketplace of ideas” between pro-abortion and pro-life voices, Planned Parenthood lost the game. With RHAPP, they’re brazenly attempting to change the rules of the game.
Thankfully, advocacy groups have sprung up in a united effort to protect human life and defend New York hospitals from RHAPP. New Yorkers for Parental Rights is maintaining a fairly comprehensive alert system on RHAPP, while Kathleen Gallagher, Director of Pro-Life Activities for the New York State Catholic Conference, appears in a forceful video rebuttal of RHAPP and Planned Parenthood’s efforts to criminalize medical free choice in their state.
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