Author Archives: Friar Musings

Unknown's avatar

About Friar Musings

Franciscan friar and Catholic priest at St. Francis of Assisi in Triangle, VA

The Catholic Vote – an episcopal voice

Posted on by
Reply

One of the “offices” (role, duty, responsibility) of a Catholic bishop is the teaching office.  The Bishop of St. Petersburg (FL), Most Reverend Robert Lynch – the first episcopal blogger as it happens – has well exercised that office on his blog.  I recommend it as a starting point on  one’s own reflection on the upcoming election.  You can find his blog “Promises, Promises” here.

“….what I have attempted to do above is to take the issues which the body of bishops in the United States have lifted up as constitutive for conscience formation today and apply them for myself. I only ask you to do the same in forming your conscience and decisions. I do not wish to tell you for whom to vote or how to vote, but rather, in an area of human reasoning and judgment, only explain how I see these issues when I consider how to cast my vote.”

Spending Money Can Buy You Happiness?

Posted on by
Reply

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “… forgive, and you will be forgiven; give”  And more…. This is our story as Christians…and it turns out it’s true.  We knew this, of course, but it is not the dominant story of our age. We are surrounded by an alternative story, the dominant story, that insists that the path to happiness comes from buying things, getting things, having things for ourselves.  Perhaps this video can shed a bit of nuance on the question:

Woe to us if we lose our way

Posted on by
1

One of the axioms of life in my family is that we are convinced our mother understood the deep and true nature of Thanksgiving turkey stuffing.  All other efforts to match my mother’s culinary masterpiece are vain attempts at best and heretically sacrilegious at worst. And it is not just questions about stuffing that vex us – think about the local, never-ending debates here in Tampa about what constitutes a Cuban sandwich – and that is before we even get to the question of which one is the best. We might be willing to compromise our positions on turkey stuffing and Cuban sandwiches – but what about religion? Religion and what constitutes right and true religion is as troubling a question – and that is before we consider what that religion demands of us. And woe to us if we lose our way on the question of Religion. Continue reading →

Cornbread Wars

Posted on by
Reply

In religious circles, there is always a lot of talk about orthodoxy and orthopraxis – believing rightly and doing in accordance with those beliefs. Some would say that is only the concerns of theologians and pastors, but this measure of the integrity of being concerns far more than the loft musings of the things of faith.  It pervades our life (thank you Melissa Banseiver for the story of “Cornbread Wars”)

Continue reading →

Jumping the Shark

Posted on by
Reply

Recently Gov. Ronmey pollster, Neil Newhouse, asserted that fact checking groups (FactCheck.org, the Washington Post “Fact Checker”, Tampa Bay Times “PoliticFact”, etc) have “jumped the shark.” The specific context was the Romney campaign’s advertisement  that the Obama Administration had gutted welfare reform. The various fact checker groups have basically rated this as “mostly false”, “four Pinocchios” or – so it seems to me – intentionally misleading. Gov. Romney has also been subjected to this kind of “spinning” when his remarks about “liking to fire people” were taken out of context.  Seems to be the state of political advertisement.

Have political fact checking groups “jumped the shark.”  As my friend Angie Holan (disclaimer: works for PolitiFact) says: cue the Jaws music.  These groups are invaluable to today’s landscape (or seascape?).

Here is the state of things: I mostly hold judgment on any political ad until it has been fact checked.  Seems to me political ads have jumped the shark