The Arrow's Path

According to the list on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, there are currently 15 Eastern Rite Eparchies (dioceses) and 2 Arch-eparchies (archdiocese) in the USA. I was surprised there were this many, as I was familiar with only a few of them by name. I have endeavored to add links to the official websites of all such eparchies as I could find. There were a few that appeared to have no office website, as far as I (or more precisely Google) could find. Each of them has some interesting information to peruse. It is worth it just to go and look at the various ecclesiastical vestments of the various bishops. They know snappy vestments in the East. They are as follows: Eastern Rite Eparchies 1. St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Diocese of Chicago (Illinois) 2. Eparchy of St. George in Canton for the Romanians (Ohio) 3. Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Stamford (Connecticut) 4. Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic (New Jersey) 5. Holy Protection of Mary Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Phoe...

I queried a Byzantine Catholic friend of mine in an effort to learn more about the Eastern Catholic churches, of which I admit I know very little. I asked him an interesting question, which was basically, "What do Eastern Catholics prefer to be called?" This is his very interesting answer: "There is apparently some confusion as to the phrase "Roman Catholic." In Church documents, you will not find the phrase "Roman Catholic" used to describe the universal Church. Instead, the only phrase used to describe it is simply "the Catholic Church."  For instance, the recent Vatican document Dominus Iesus says the following in paragraph no. 16: "This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in [subsistit in] the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him."  Nowhere does this document refer to the universal Church as the Roman Catholic Church. Likewis...

I have been asked to do a bit of history and compare/contrast on the differences between Eastern Orthodoxy and the "Eastern Catholic Churches," which have periodically been referred to as Eastern Rite Catholics or Uniate churches (more on those terms later). This request interests me, but I have to admit that I actually do not know a whole lot about the Eastern Catholic Churches in full Communion with Rome. I have attended a Byzantine Catholic service once, but that is about the extent of my knowledge. I actually know a great deal more about Eastern Orthodoxy, as I thought very hard about converting to Orthodoxy after it became clear that God was leading me away from the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. I studied Orthodoxy in some great detail, having befriended a Ukrainian Orthodox priest and deacon when I was living in Lincoln. My wife and I went to Vespers at that little church on Wednesdays quite often the first year we were married. Long story short, I never could r...

The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular utopia here on earth. Of course if some people – the Jews, the landowners, the unfit, or the handicapped – have to be eliminated in order to achieve this utopia, this is a price the atheist tyrants and their apologists have shown themselves quite willing to pay. Thus they confirm the truth of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's dictum, "If God is not, everything is permitted." ~ Dinesh D'Souza

I always have great respect for those who can be charitable in the face of idiots and crazy people.

I felt guilty eating a Cadbury Easter egg yesterday, but then I remembered it is not even Lent yet.

There was an interesting article in the Omaha World Herald this morning (or the Weird Herald for local Omahans) about the move for businesses to get away from cubicles . The tone of the article was how it was all trendy in a feng shui kind of way. I actually found it hilarious because it is basically embracing old fashioned-ism. I mean, I did a quick Google search and found this picture of the old Houston Post copy room: Is that not basically the same thing, minus the computers? I guess they finally clued into Dilbert:

Any requests on a series of blog posts? I need some ideas.

“All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

So, I was getting out of my delivery truck yesterday and thought I felt something rip. I did not hear anything, but something definitely ripped on a piece of metal off the truck. My pants felt alright, so I got a few boxes out of the back of the truck and was making my way across the parking lot. I reached into my coat pocket to get my receipt book and pulled out a hand full of feathers. "Good lord, there's a dead bird in my pocket!" As I am trying to frantically pull out whatever remains may be in my pocket, feathers keep coming out by the handful. As I dance around, feathers flying everywhere like a snow storm, the parking lot bystanders must have thought I was doing a VooDoo dance. I finally figured out what had ripped: the back side of my down filled jacket. What a mess...but at least it was not a dead bird.

Youtube is amazing. I mean, seriously...its Billie Holiday, Lester Young, and Miles Davis.

I will be honest. I really hate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This is no doubt heresy to secular liberals, but I do. Now, before you shout me down, let me be clear: I do not hate Martin Luther King, Jr. in fact, in some ways I quite admire the man. I have no problem with having a day that celebrates his legacy. What I despise is how we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy on that day. I find the secular holiday that supposedly honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to to trite and superficial, to the point of being demeaning of his legacy. Why do I say this? The fact is that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.was a Christian. Not only was he a Christian, he was a Baptist minister. He had a sincere belief and relationship with Christ. Under-girding all of his political philosophy and theories of equality was the very basic premise: Mankind must look to God because humans are sinful. Take, for example, this sermon he preached in 1954. I quote directly: "The trouble isn’t so much ...

This week is supposedly the week of Christian unity. Anything the World Council of Churches has its fingers in makes me immediately skeptical, but the Vatican also has a Pontifical Council that is involved. Catholics call it the Octave of Christian Unity , which is really more a call for prayer for Christian Unity. I am more inclined to something like that. I always pray that the Church would be One, which is very much what Christ taught over and over. The image of the Church as the Bride of Christ is used over and over again in the New Testament. Christ does not have many brides. Given my own personal circumstances, the question of the Church being One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic is really what began to completely unravel my understanding of the Church and ultimately signaled the end of my career as clergy in a Protestant denomination (more on that in a moment.) When I say I had a crisis of faith, I suppose that is not completely correct. I did not have a crisis of faith in G...

When you go all "equal protection" for gay 'marriage,' this will inevitably be the logical result .

As an amateur World War I historian, I am pleased at the amount of historical data and writing about the Great War that has been coming out for the 100 year anniversary. I find this refreshing because research on the first World War has been hard to come by. You can find all sorts of stuff on World War II in both nonfiction and fiction, but if you local library has even two books on the subject of the first war, you are ahead of the curve.

"Christian values in Europe remain, of course, in the life of people. I have experience of contacting West Europeans who keep all this in their hearts. But the general political tendency, the general direction of elites is undoubtedly anti-Christian and anti-religious". "We [in Russia] have gone through an era of atheism and we want to shout for the whole world to hear: "People, stop, we know what kind of life it is". ~ Patriarch Kirill I

Congrats to Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux on their election into the Baseball Hall of Fame . They were a sight to behold when they were together with the Braves in the 1990s. They were both incredibly intelligent pitchers. I actually remember Maddux as much for his fielding ability. He was like a shortstop with some of his acrobatic catches. I got to watch both of them pitch live at Braves games more than once. Chicago White Sox first baseball Frank Thomas also got elected. Growing up in National League country, I seldom got to watch Thomas play that much, though I did get to see him in a game in Chicago the last year he was with the White Sox. By that point he was playing injured and a shadow of his former self, but people still cheered when he came to the plate. He loved the South Side, and they loved him. Congrats all...

Fr.. Herbel writes an interesting little reflection on why some Orthodox churches have Christmas on January 7th and not December 25th.