Tag: featured

The 3%

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DrunkI once read a quotation about statistics which said that “a politician uses statistics in the same way a drunk uses a street lamp, for support rather than for illumination”… I thought that this was an appropriate quotation to begin the subject of today’s post. You see, it’s quite impossible to speak out against Planned Parenthood for long before hearing the following response:

“But abortion is only 3% of what Planned Parenthood does!”

This objection has been raised by many of my friends and you hear this statistic rattled off by politicians and Planned Parenthood advocates. 3% seems so small and insignificant! The argument is that if you defund Planned Parenthood then women would lose access to all the other services they provide as well. This assumes that abortion and healthcare can only come together as a package, treating pregnancy as though it’s just another disease.

How is it that Planned Parenthood is known for being the nation’s premiere abortion provider if it’s only 3% of what it does? Isn’t that incredible?! In fact, if it’s such a small percentage of their work, you can’t help but wonder why Planned Parenthood doesn’t just get out of the abortion industry altogether and save themselves the constant annoyance of having all those pesky pro-lifers outside of their clinics all the time!

There is a problem with the 3% statistic. While there is a certain veracity to the statistic, it’s incredibly misleading, so much so as to be positively meaningless!

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Was Irenaeus wrong?

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A while ago, I had a chap called Roscoe commenting on my blog, denying the Catholic claims concerning St. Peter and the See of Rome. In response, I quoted St. Irenaeus, one of the most important witnesses concerning the Church at Rome:

“…that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; …which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority…

…The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate [of Rome]. Of this Linus…Anacletus…Clement…[and] Eleutherius does now…hold the inheritance of the episcopate.

“In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth 

– Against Heresies III.3.3 (c. AD 180)

Irenæus_af_Lyon copy

Not founded by Peter and Paul

In reply to my quotation of Irenaeus, Roscoe wrote the following:

There are no historical facts to support the idea that Peter and Paul founded the church at Rome. Rome was over 1000 miles away from where they were. We can see what Peter was doing in Acts and he was not in Rome at this time. Most likely the faith was brought there by pilgrims who were converted in the early chapters of Acts.

Roscoe’s main argument seems to be:

1. Irenaeus says Peter and Paul “founded” the church at Rome.

2. Jews from Rome were present at Pentecost and converted to Christianity. It would have most likely been these Christians who would have brought the faith to Rome.

3. Irenaeus is proven demonstrably wrong and therefore his testimony concerning Rome should be regarded as extremely dubious.

I’ve heard this kind of argument a few times in the comment section of other blogs, so today I’d like to respond to it…

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Prophecy of Gentile Priests?!

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This post isn’t going to be a thoroughly formed article, but I need to get over my writer’s block and get into the habit of writing again…

Priest

I didn’t go to Divine Liturgy this week and instead went to a Roman Mass. During the Readings, something jumped out at me. The passage in question was the First Reading from Isaiah:

Thus says the LORD:
I know their works and their thoughts,
and I come to gather nations of every language;
they shall come and see my glory.
I will set a sign among them;
from them I will send fugitives to the nations…
that have never heard of my fame, or seen my glory;
and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations.
They shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all the nations
as an offering to the LORD…
to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the LORD,
just as the Israelites bring their offering
to the house of the LORD in clean vessels.
Some of these I will take as priests and Levites, says the LORD.
– Isaiah 66:18-21

It does sound like the Prophet Isaiah is foretelling a situation whereby the Children of Israel will go out to the nations to proclaim the Lord’s glory and, as a result, bring these Gentiles into relationship with the God of Abraham. Christians obviously find a fulfillment of this in the mission of the Church.

I haven’t done much research on it, but the bit which peaked my interest was the final sentence. The language is a little ambiguous but Isaiah appears to say that, of those Gentiles who believe, the Lord will choose a subset to be “priests and levites”, Gentile priests! This fits very well with the Coptic, Catholic and Orthodox Church’s understanding that, although like Israel we have a priesthood of all believers (Exodus 19:6), some members of that people are set aside for ministerial priesthood…

Sunday Lectionary: Extraordinary Grace

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As I said, I’ll still be producing these Lectionary Notes from time to time, as and when we have new people leading the JP2 Group’s Bible Study. This week Rob will be leading for the first time, so here are some notes…

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time: September 30th, 2012

Our Readings this week concern God’s gratuitous gift of His Spirit.

In the First Reading, even though Eldad and Medad were not at the Tent of Meeting, God’s Spirit falls upon them. In the Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples not to hinder the work done in His name by others simply because they didn’t belong to their group. Jesus then gives them some warnings, exhorting them to cast off anything which hinders their entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. St. James in our Second Reading is handing out warnings too, especially to the rich.

The Sacraments are the “ordinary” means of God’s grace (although far from “ordinary”!), but God’s grace is not simply restricted to the Sacraments. So, as you go about this week, be on the lookout for God’s “extra-ordinary” grace at work…

grace

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Parish Websites

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rantOkay, small rant alert…

Bad parish websites. They have to stop. Seriously.

I never fail to be amazed at how little time, attention and money is devoted to the websites of some Catholic parishes. It’s 2013 people! Bad parish websites are now simply unacceptable.

If you arrived at a parish for Mass for the first time and you walked through the front door and are greeted by 70’s decor, peeling paint and a sparsely populated notice board containing only out-of-date notices, what conclusions would you reach about that parish? Well, having no website or an extremely poorly produced or out-of-date website is the digital equivalent of that today. A parish’s website, or lack thereof, is the first impression most people will have of that parish.

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World Youth Day

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Most of my American friends have now returned from World Youth Day, so I thought I would write a quick entry welcoming them back! Hi guys… 🙂

It’s entirely possible that some people reading this blog have never heard of World Youth Day. Well, it was started back in 1985 by Pope John Paul II and, every two or three years, is marked by a week-long international event. It is for this reason that last week the Pope and 1.5 million Catholics gathered together in Madrid:

If you’d like to read a personal account of the week by an English pilgrim, I’d invite you to check our Hannah’s write-up over at Transformed In Christ.

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PWJ: S3E7 – TWHF (Pt 1, CH 8-9) – "Up the Mountain"

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After a couple of weeks off, we return to Glome and Till We Have Faces. Orual ascends the mountain to bury what remains of Psyche, and she is met with quite a surprise…

S3E7: “Up to the Mountain” (Download)

If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunes, Google Play, Podbean, Stitcher, TuneIn and Overcast), as well as on YouTube.

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