CERC Weekly Update for February 18, 2010

CERC WEEKLY UPDATE - February 18, 2010
NEW RESOURCES EDITORIALS OF INTEREST EDUCATION MATTERS
Note from the Managing Editor:



"Take the Lenten Challenge" is posted on facebook with the following explanation:
Take the 2010 Lenten Challenge. It will change your life, your heart, and your faith. Commit to a weekly Holy Hour for Lent (February 17-April 4). This can be done anywhere in the country. Once you begin your 2010 Lenten Challenge, feel free to post about your experiences on The Daily Communicant's Wall. Let the Miracles Begin!
A great idea. May we all enter into the spirit of the season and may we all make a good Lent.


"Tim Keller Wants to Save Your Yuppie Soul".
That was the title of a New York Magazine feature late last year. The article sought to explain how Tim Keller, a 59-year-old, bald, Presbyterian minister, has been so remarkably successful in converting to Christianity a demographic that has been largely impervious to the orthodox Protestant message.
Yuppie Manhattanites—doctors, bankers, lawyers, artists, actors, and designers, most of them in their twenties or thirties—have been flocking to his Redeemer Presbyterian Church. In a city known as "liberal and edgy", and a "land of skeptics, critics, and cynics", Keller's church now counts 6,000 in its congregation with seed-churches now sprouting up in large cities around the world. Keller had become "the most successful Christian evangelist in the city," stated the article, "by recognizing that young professionals and artists are 'disproportionately influential' in creating the country's culture and that you have to meet this coveted demographic on its own terms".
When the Tim Keller phenomenon was first brought to my attention, I was skeptical. But there's quite abit more to him than the usual charismatic mega-church-meister. His appeal is intellectual and spiritual, not emotional or sentimental and he seems quite devoid of either charisma or showmanship.
A Newsweek profile several years ago described him as "a pastor for people who like their Christianity straight up."
Keller tackles the toughest questions about God, about Christ, and about Christianity that his bright, well-educated, American yuppie congregation or audience can throw at him. And from everything I've read, he also frequently finds himself in the position of defending the Catholic Church on the positions she takes, her right to take them, and against the bogus historical criticism she is so often subject to.
Keller's book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, reached number 7 on the New York Times best-seller list in 2008 and I consider it hands-down the best thing I've read at providing a powerful, reasoned response to the most frequently voiced "doubts" yuppie skeptics are likely to hold.
As Catholics we aren't going to agree with everything Tim Keller holds theologically, but I don't think you'll find anything in The Reason for God to disagree with and a great deal of useful and very stimulating thinking in it. The introduction to The Reason for God is our feature article this week. - J. Fraser Field










Quote of the Week:
"The great duty of the Gospel is love to God and man … this love is quenched and extinguished by self-indulgence, and cherished by self-denial." - John Henry Cardinal Newman

New Resources:

• Lent, a call to "turn our lives around" - Pope Benedict XVI - Ash Wednesday Homily
• Introduction - Timothy Keller - excerpt from The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
• Loving Lent - Jennifer Graham - Boston Globe
• Oprah and the Dominicans - Joan Frawley Desmond - The Catholic Thing
• Domestic Disturbances - Patrick Fagan - Touchstone
• Hold the fort on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' - Robert Reilley - Mercatornet
• "Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder" - Father George William Rutler - From the Pastor
• Equality: How So? - Matthew Hanley - The Catholic Thing
• Music and Morality - Roger Scruton - The American Spectator
• The perils of dishonest science - Margaret Somerville - Ottawa Citizen
Editorials of Interest:
• Time to commend Pope for response to abuse - David Quinn - Independent
• Catholic Church Works To Rebuild After Loss In Haiti - NPR
• Irish bishop: no resignations on agenda with pope - Guardian
• Lent - Father Robert Barron - YouTube
• Lectio for Lent - St. John's School of Theology
• Haiti calls on voodoo priests to help battered nation heal - Boston Globe
• Young and wasted - New Statesman
• Safe motherhood owes nothing to legal abortion - Family Edge
• Missionaries Go to Haiti, Followed by Scrutiny - New York Times
• Misdirecting charity by perpetuating the myth of widespread hunger in America - Augusta
• An Inconvenient Driveway - Breakpoint
• 2.1 Kids: A Stable Population - Overpopulation is a myth
• From the Rink to the Convent: How a Pro-Life Encounter Changed an Olympian's Life - LifeSiteNews
• Big Victories, Babies Saved as 40 Days for Life Kicks Off Campaign -LifeSiteNews
• Series from Vatican secret archives on Pius XII going digital - CNA
• Why Orwell Endures - New York Times
• Give up texting? - Telegraph
• Leap of faith - Yahoo! Sports
• New Episodes Of Scientists Behaving Badly - WSJ

Education Matters:
• 'I think we are really bringing hope back to Catholic schools' - Boston Herald
• Is There a Catholic Education Crisis? - NCRegister
• Clear Creek Elevated to Status of Abbey - The Diocese of Tulsa
• Worshiping God for His Own Sake - homas Aquinas College Newsletter
• The dependency agenda - George Will - Washington Post
• Why Harvard student should study more religion - Newsweek
• Reinventing the whee! - Off the Record
• Anti-Christianity: A Textbook Case - American Spectator
• The NBA's Locker-Room Nerds - WSJ

NEW RESOURCES:

Lent, a call to "turn our lives around" - Pope Benedict XVI - Ash Wednesday Homily
"Repent and believe the Gospel" and "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."



Introduction - Timothy Keller - excerpt from The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
"Keller mines material from literary classics, philosophy, anthropology, and a multitude of other disciplines to make an intellectually compelling case for God." - Publisher's Weekly




Loving Lent - Jennifer Graham - Boston Globe
Catholic or not, a little deprivation goes a long way.




Oprah and the Dominicans - Joan Frawley Desmond - The Catholic Thing
Oprah Winfrey recently lined up a series on alternative communities and wanted Catholic nuns to be a part of the mix.




Domestic Disturbances - Patrick Fagan - Touchstone
The culture of the traditional family is now in intense competition with a very different culture. The defining difference between the two is the sexual ideal each embraces.




Hold the fort on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' - Robert Reilley - Mercatornet
Military readiness is not the objective of having openly gay soldiers in the US armed services.




"Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder"- Father George William Rutler - From the Pastor
St. Thomas Aquinas was, like all saints, practical about important things.



Equality: How So? - Matthew Hanley - The Catholic Thing
In the United Kingdom, a sweeping piece of proposed legislation known as the "Equality Bill" sought to install various homosexual "rights" and cast opposition to them as discrimination. Benedict XVI said it would have imposed "unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs."



Music and Morality - Roger Scruton - The American Spectator
"The ways of poetry and music are not changed anywhere without change in the most important laws of the city." So wrote Plato in the Republic (4.424c). Music, for Plato, was not a neutral amusement. It could express and encourage virtue—nobility, dignity, temperance, chastity. But it could also express and encourage vice—sensuality, belligerence, indiscipline.



The perils of dishonest science - Margaret Somerville - Ottawa Citizen
We all—physicians and patients—must face up to our unavoidable ignorance on medical issues, and still try to make wise decisions.



EDITORIALS OF INTEREST:0

Time to commend Pope for response to abuse - David Quinn - Independent
As Irish bishops head to Rome, the Holy Father's leadership has never been more obvious or needed.



Catholic Church Works To Rebuild After Loss In Haiti - NPR
Father Andrew Small and Orlando Archbishop Thomas Wenski discuss efforts to rebuild the Church in Haiti and how the Church's infrastructure helps the Haitian people.



Irish bishop: no resignations on agenda with pope - Guardian
Irish bishops one-by-one will give an accounting to Pope Benedict XVI of their views, actions or knowledge about decades of sexual abuse by clergy, a participant said Sunday, but resignations were not on the agenda for the Vatican's extraordinary summit over the scandal.



Lent - Father Robert Barron - YouTube
Another part of a video series from Wordonfire.org. Father Barron will be commenting on subjects from modern day culture.



Lectio for Lent - St. John's School of Theology
From the PrayTell blog, a link to Abbot John Klassen's talk on Lectio Divina.



Haiti calls on voodoo priests to help battered nation heal - Boston Globe
"Haiti calls on voodoo priests to help battered nation heal."



Young and wasted - New Statesman
The baby boomers had everything – free education, free health care and remarkable personal liberties – but they squandered it all. Now their children are paying for it.



Safe motherhood owes nothing to legal abortion - Family Edge
"Safe abortion" has always been a deceitful term, since it is lethal for the unborn child. But in addition, a report from the World Economic Forum in December which that countries with restrictive abortion laws are often the leaders in reducing maternal mortality.



Missionaries Go to Haiti, Followed by Scrutiny - New York Times
Their holy books vary widely and so does their disaster apparel.



Misdirecting charity by perpetuating the myth of widespread hunger in America - Augusta
Macy's lately has taken to displaying in many of its stores a poster claiming that the number of Americans at risk of hunger is one in eight.



An Inconvenient Driveway - Breakpoint
Only thing warming is the debate.



2.1 Kids: A Stable Population - Overpopulation is a myth
What does it take to replace ourselves? Are we doing it?



From the Rink to the Convent: How a Pro-Life Encounter Changed an Olympian's Life - LifeSiteNews
As America's team of Olympic women speed skaters compete in the Vancouver Winter Olympics this month, one prodigy once expected to shoot to stardom in the sport won't even be watching the broadcast.



Big Victories, Babies Saved as 40 Days for Life Kicks Off Campaign - LifeSiteNews
Would you believe that 40 Days for Life is just starting, and we're already hearing about big victories in the days leading up to the campaign?



Series from Vatican secret archives on Pius XII going digital - CNA
In cooperation with the Vatican, the Pave the Way Foundation will soon publish online twelve volumes of World War II documents from the Holy See during the time of Pope Pius XII.



Why Orwell Endures - New York Times
In Sutton Courtenay churchyard about 10 miles south of Oxford, near the imposing tomb of H. H. Asquith, the prime minister 100 years ago, a much simpler gravestone reads "Eric Arthur Blair."



Give up texting? - Telegraph
In Italy, the Church has suggested that people give up texting for Lent.



Leap of faith - Yahoo! Sports
Kristin Holum, an Olympic speed skater from the U.S., found a bump on the smooth surface of her life: a call to the Franciscan sisterhood.



New Episodes Of Scientists Behaving Badly - WSJ
Scandals just keep pouring from the laboratories.



EDUCATION MATTERS:

'I think we are really bringing hope back to Catholic schools' - Boston Herald
A blend of old and new reinvigorates some Catholic schools in Massachusetts.



Is There a Catholic Education Crisis? - NCRegister
A new study on higher education concludes that there is no "secularizing trend among Catholic students attending Catholic colleges."



Clear Creek Elevated to Status of Abbey - The Diocese of Tulsa
The 33 monks of Clear Creek Monastery near Hulbert received the happy news that their priory has been elevated to the status of a self-governing Abbey.



Worshiping God for His Own Sake - Thomas Aquinas College Newsletter
Thomas Aquinas College alumni fuel a "Vocations Boom" at Clear Creek Monastery.



The dependency agenda - George Will - Washington Post
Only two things are infinite—the expanding universe and Democrats' hostility to the District of Columbia's school choice program.



Why Harvard student should study more religion - Newsweek
Can a secular university embrace religion without sacrificing its soul?



Reinventing the whee! - Off the Record
Among the grants awarded by the US government to stimulate the, um, economy, intrepid researchers have found this line item.



Anti-Christianity: A Textbook Case - American Spectator
We Texans are a mess, you bet. First, we send you George W. Bush, then we try to write the textbooks for all you non-God-fearing rabble.