Items of Interest, 13 April 2012

In Honor of Mr. Jefferson's 270th Birthday
History.org

Arizona Governor Vetoes Sheriffs First Bill

Putting Defense Back into US Defense Policy
In These Times / By Jeffrey A. Winters - Wealth Defense Industry: The Real Reason America's Oligarchs Can Squeeze the Rest of Us


Judge Napolitano On Whether Zimmerman Can Get A Fair Trial: Move Players To Part Of FL With Less ‘Saturation’

H.L Mencken & Jack London: How to Pitch Editors, Agents and Book Publishers

Economics and Sustainability:
Is it Too Late for Sustainable Development?
Dennis Meadows thinks so. Forty years after his book The Limits to Growth, he explains why
By Megan Gambino

The ‘war on suburbia’ is a hoax by Greg Hanscom

Relocalization:
Ownership Matters: Gar Alperovitz on Co-ops and Employee Ownership
Going Local in an Age of Globalization (EB)
Design for surviving Vesuvius – Atamai, a permaculture village


Peak Oil:
The New EIA Oil Supply Data Confirms Your Peak Oil Fears
ODAC Newsletter - Apr 13

Catholic:
That Strange Mass the Pope Doesn't Like
It is the Mass according to the rite of the Neocatechumenal Way. Benedict XVI has ordered the congregation for the doctrine of the faith to examine it thoroughly. Its condemnation appears to be sealed
Dominican Rite and the Institute of St. Philip Neri
Holy Thursday in the Ambrosian Rite, Sormano
Finding Christ on the Metro

Diet and Health:
The 7th MovNat Principle: Efficient
Ask The Low-Carb Experts (Episode 13): ‘Low-Carbing Women & Weight Lifting’ | Dr. Cassandra Forsythe (mp3)
Karen De Coster, Benefits of the Paleo-Primal Lifestyle and Great Health

Minimalist Shoes:
BeNat Shoes First Look

Music:
Angaleena Presley Talks Pistol Annies, Shares Songwriting Stories

Abigail Washburn: Building US-China relations ... by banjo


An Ancient Chinese Instrument Is Making a Comeback by Sheila Melvin

Misc:
Rare Bay Bridge lightning strike captured on camera

Marc Anthony interpuso la demanda de divorcio contra Jennifer Lopez

TV:
Premiering on Sunday: NYC22
'NYC 22': Leelee Sobieski Takes On Police Role In CBS Drama
She got married? Or child out of wedlock?
CBS Actress Leelee Sobieski Describes NYC 22 On WCCO Radio
Leelee Sobieski Convincing in CBS Drama NYC 22 - Hunger Games Adds Diversity to Wes Bentley Credits

Innovation in the name of plurality?

Rorate Caeli: Neocatechumenal Rite approved?
Let us call it the New Liturgical Way

"How can we prevent the work of the Holy Spirit?"

The traditionalists and conservatives got Summorum Pontificum and the Anglican Ordinariate, so why can't liturgies at the other "extreme" be sanctioned, so that all may be appeased? This goes beyond Pius V, who at least allowed for the maintenance of rites that had been in existence for over 2 centuries. Maybe a more firm critique of ecclesial movements has to be written, in order to rid ourselves of the dangerous notion that because the Holy Spirit is at work we must approve of all that results. After all, isn't it too early to judge the fruits of the movement? Increase in membership and "vocations" aren't sufficient in themselves. Remember the dangers of cults?

More Links of Interest

More stuff I missed while I was in Arizona...

Dear Friends . . . or Maybe Not! by Mary Vander Goot

America Loses Control by Patrick J. Buchanan

Paul Gottfried Discusses Paleolibertarianism with Richard Spencer - Ron Paul, Rothbard, and Race

Lee Cheek, W. H. Mallock Revisited
Daniel Larison, Scruton’s The Uses of Pessimism

Peter Hitchens, Welcome to 2042, the Year When Britain is No More Than a Memory and Small Expectations and Our Conversation Resumed

A Jeffersonian Kansas

A Catholic's Case for Ron Paul

Revenge of the Nerd By Daniel J. Flynn
It’s Ray Bradbury’s future—we’re just living in it.

Obama Signs Legislation Killing Bill of Rights; Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Rachel Maddow Skewer Obama; Road to Tyranny; Complete List of Senatorial Cowards Backing the Bill

Decentralize Now

Peak Oil and Energy:
Peak Oil: The Implications for Planning Policy (review) by Rick Munroe

Michael Shedlock, Additional 2012 Predictions: Trade Wars, US Election, Precious Metals, Energy and Population: The Elephant in the Room; Peak Oil Implications on Population Growth; What Level of Human Population is Sustainable?

James Howard Kunstler, 2012 Forecast: Bang and Whimper

Counterpunch:
The Sunni-Shia Wars by PATRICK COCKBURN
Obama Seeks to Distance U.S. from Israeli Attack on Iran by GARETH PORTER
Ron Paul and the Killing Machine by MIKE WHITNEY
Arise, Students of California by RALPH NADER
12 Great Books by RALPH NADER

Feminism, MRA, and Marriage:
Fathers Matter
As Recession Drags on Young Women Too Picky for Jobs, Choose School
American Sex Roles Unnerving to Eastern European Women
Dealing With Her Time Release Brain Bombs
Captain and Bored Passenger
Elusive Wapiti, So Close, Yet So Far
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Hate Porn for Feminists
Finding Our Own Truth
Brainwashing Norway
Conservative Woman Misses Point

Diet and Health:
Introducing The Primal Blueprint, Updated and Expanded Paperback Edition
My Primal Transformation: Discovering the Art of Fit

Catholic:
The Name of Jesus Makes a Contemplative Man
The Holy Name of Jesus and the Holy Face

Rorate Caeli:
SSPX-Rome: Écône theology professor responds to Opus Dei vicar general
How the Neocatechumenal Way defended their liturgy in 2004
Reform of the Reform: is the Kiko Rite approval coming up?
Six years of Pontificate and the Sacred Liturgy: So this is it?
The crisis of the Church is a crisis of Bishops 3 - the Bishop of Antwerp on celibacy and the ordination of women

Dominican Rite:
On the Vesture of Deacon and Subdeacon in the Dominican Rite
Gospel Canticles in Dominican Chant

Anglican Ordinariate:
Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter
Thirty Seconds Out!

Jeffrey Tucker, Chant has a tradition
On that alto in the Shrine choir
Chant: The Master Path
“The rediscovery of Gregorian chant is a sine qua non condition to give back dignity to the liturgical music.”

Milestone in Decline in Latin
Cardinal Ranjith calls for return of Vetus Ordo

The Church Militant By Frank Borzellieri
PC is the Dogma
Catholic Layman Says: Despite The U.S. Bishops, Church Doctrine Is Not Pro-Immigration!

Catholic World Report's new editor introduces himself, and the new online CWR
The Catholic World Report Archives are Open

Requiem for the Third See of Christendom by Robert Spencer

Beijing's Bishop Declares Support for Communist Party

Items of Interest, 5 November 2011

Obama: Regrettable Attack on Pakistan Not Deliberate
Fast and Furious Lies
Patrick Buchanan, Did FDR Provoke Pearl Harbor?
Jerry Salyer, Immigration, Loyalty, and Economy
New Wendell Berry Book - The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry
Paul Gottfried, The GOP is Useless
Anthony DiMaggio, A Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street Alliance?

Economics:
Steve Keen: How He Saw "It" Coming, and Others Did Not

Relocalization:
The Local Food Shift Meets Occupy Boulder by Michael Brownlee (EB)

Farming:Organic Can Feed the World

The primal/paleo diet frowns upon grains, but I am not at the point at which I would condemn the work of Wes Jackson. Wes Jackson: A Perennial Revolution in Agriculture

Water:
The Parching of the West

Peak Oil and Energy:
How Saudi oil could start World War III
Excerpt: Lethal Trajectories
A Reality Check on U.S. Oil Imports and the Shale Revolution for Mortimer Zuckerman

Diet and Health:
200 Health Holiday Gift Guide Paleo Edition
Bacon-Wrapped Sweet Potato Bites
A short bit on the Gokhale Method - Focus on Posture May Ease Nagging Injuries
New Balance Minimus Shoe Initial Review

Catholic:
O Felix Roma - Ambrosian, Gregorian and Norbertine Chant (Schola Sainte Cecile)



Identity Crisis for the Neo-Catechumenal Way

Education:
Timeo Danaos Et Dona Ferentes*: Why teaching the Classics is still relevant in today's world
Notes on Liberal Education and Eastern Christianity

Feminism:
It was him or me, says the first female soldier to kill in combat who shot Taliban SEVEN times

Daniel McInerny on David Mamet: The Film Director and The Noble Savage

AT NLM David Clayton has a post on some paintings by Kiko Arguello.



Icons
Some more icons?
Chapel icons depict mysteries of salvation history By Roxanne King

Some claim that he is orthodox, despite the group's liturgical practices, but is this the case?

Part of a comment by Matthew Alderman:

If a western painter is going to do something Byzantine an artist ought to look at 'our' own equivalent--Cimabue, the early Italians, etc., which are both iconic and liturgically western. (I'd also prefer they remembered Van Eyck and van der Weyden as well, of course.) The appeal of modern Byzantine iconography for many in the west is I think they assume it is 'primitive' and somehow 'better' or 'more authentic' than 'decadent' Renaissance or Medieval art. The reasoning behind this is a little insulting or patronizing to the Byzantines--Byzantine art, properly understood, is anything but crude and primitive and is the result of centuries of refinement; it has never been as static as people assume. Indeed, some of the earliest versions of it are rather more 'realistic' than its modern form. Let us appreciate Byzantine art for what it is, for the right reasons--and also not forget our own tradition, which has room for both Byzantine equivalents, and also our own more uniquely western productions.

Latin iconographers could return to the examples given by earlier Latin artists. But why can't there be some measure of enrichment from the East as well?

Archbishop Peter Takeo Okada of Tokyo on the Neocatechumenal Way in Japan

UCA News Heading the wrong Way for Japan
The country's Neo-Cats need some time for reflection that will pave the way for dialog
(via Catholic Church Conservation)

Rorate Caeli: It's wartime.
Archbishop of Tokyo: "It is necessary for the Way
to suspend its activities in Japan"

Rorate Caeli updates

Rorate Caeli: Japanese bishop maintains suspension of NCW activities in his diocese, Italian Catholic Intellectuals Beg Benedict XVI To “Flee the Spirit of Assisi”, Final chapter in Thiberville affair?

Sandro Magister on the latest with the Neocatechumenal Way

In Japan, Kiko's Way Doesn't Fly (via the Western Confucian)

He answers one of the questions I had concerning the vote -- the Japanese bishops were unanimous:

But there are also many bishops who have been annoyed by the Way, after seeing it at work in their territory. For example, the bishops of Japan.


On December 15, 2007, on the "ad limina" visit to the pope, their president at the time, Tokyo archbishop Peter Takeo Okada, told Benedict XVI that "the powerful sect-like activity of Way members is divisive and confrontational. It has caused sharp, painful division and strife within the Church."


The Japanese bishops were demanding the closure of the seminary that the Way had opened in 1990 in the diocese of Takamatsu. The Way put up resistance. In 2008, the bishops had to go to Rome twice to plead their case. Vatican secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone studied the question, and agreed with the bishops. Within the year, the seminarians and their rector would have to move to Rome.


But the members of the Way present in Japan did not accept the matter peacefully. The bishop of Takamatsu, Francis Osamu Mizobe, wrote them a letter complaining that they celebrated separate liturgies, and asking them to obey the dioceses instead of their leaders.


From Rome, the congregation for the evangelization of peoples sent to Japan an inspector favorable toward the Way, Javier Sotil Vaios Espiriceta. The inspection took place between March 20 and 25, 2009. But nothing came of it.


So much so that in 2010, the Japanese bishops came to a unanimous decision to end it. At the beginning of Advent, they made public their decision to suspend the presence of the Way in the whole country for five years.

Some believe that the Neocatechumenal Way is being protected because it is perceived to be an orthodox movement. How many members of the Neocatechumenal Way are there in Japan? How many converts has it made? I don't know with certainty what the spiritual health of the Japanese Church is like, but I have the impression that the percentage of Catholics relative to the the total population in Japan has stayed the same or decreased, and they are located primarily in the areas that were first evangelized many centuries ago. So is the Neocatechumenal Way making new converts, or is it just gaining members among those who are already Catholic? And if that is the case, what is it about the Neocatechumenal Way that is so attractive? (Perhaps that need is something the Japanese bishops should address, instead of relying upon contemporary Jesuits for pastoral theology.)

From a comment at Rorate Caeli:

The eminent Italian scholar, Father Enrico Zoffoli - a Passionist - studied the NCW
extensively and wrote about his findings. His conclusion was: the basis of the Neocatechumenate is heretical. He called the NCW 'A Fearful Danger to the Faith'.


One of his most important works on the subject is 'Eresie del movimento neocatecumenale', quinta edizione migliorata e arricchita di nuove sconcertanti testimonianze, ed. Segno, Udine, 1992 (Heresies of the Neocatechumenals).
A later work was 'Verità sul Cammino Neocatecumenale'. Testimonianze e documenti, ed. Segno, Udine, 1996


Fr. Zoffoli taught at the Lateran University and was a member of the Pontifical Academy of St Thomas. He was the author of numerous works of theology, philosophy and lives of the saints. His masterly 1400 page exposition of Catholic theology 'Christianesimo: Corso di Teologia Catholica' was published in 1994 to wide critical acclaim.


To examine Fr. Zoffoli's abundant credentials go to


http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Zoffoli

Rorate Caeli: Benedict XVI: Neocatechumenal Way is "a particular gift aroused by the Holy Spirit"

Mr. Palad writes, "By the way, I don't think any bishop will dare ban the NCW from his diocese after this speech. CAP."

Benedict XVI's Address to Neocatechumenal Way

Whispers in the Loggia: Kikopalooza: For the Neocats, a Papal Party (via Rorate Caeli)

Are there any bishops who are afraid to take action against a group because they fear offending the Holy Spirit? But if someone in authority truly believes that his action is just, after doing a sufficient investigation and has prayed for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, should he not take action, confident that he has done his duty and that no one, not even a bishop, can frustrate the Holy Spirit? I wonder what the vote in Japan's bishops conference was regarding the Neocatechumenal Way. Did the Pope annul their decision because there were nay votes? If the vote had been unanimous, would the Pope have overriden their vote?

Patrick Madrid: The National Catholic Register's “About Us” section is about to change

Something from Life after RC not on the Legionaries, but the Neo Catechumenal Way in Japan: (See the UCA News article.)

So much for collegiality?

Zenit: Neocatechumenal Way Will Not Be Suspended in Japan
Secretariat of State Sends Letter to Movement

MADRID, Spain, JAN. 7, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The Neocatechumenal Way will not be suspended in Japan for five years, as was previously announced by the country's episcopal conference, reports the lay movement.

According to a spokesman of movement, Alvaro de Juana, this decision was communicated recently in writing by the Vatican Secretariat of State to the Neocatechumenal Way founders: Kiko Arguello, Carmen Hernandez and Mario Pezzi.

De Juana informed ZENIT that the letter came after Benedict XVI presided at a Dec. 13 meeting with a representation of several Japanese bishops, among them the president of the episcopal conference, Archbishop Leo Ikenaga of Osaka, to address some aspects of the Neocatechumenal Way in Japan.

The justification for the Holy See changing the minds of the Japanese episcopal conference: Protecting the "rights" of lay Catholics? Defending the perceived "orthodoxy" of the Neocatechumenal Way?