Tuesday, July 30

Pope canonizes Brother Pedro

Scads of photos of the Mass here including this one of the Holy Father under a huge painting of Brother Pedro and this long shot of the Mass, which was held at a racetrack.

I particularly liked this detail noted in the article:

As the pope officially pronounced Pedro de San Jose Betancur a saint, a young man rang a bell Betancur once used to collect for the poor.

A very interesting column by Marvin Olasky on school choice in Canada

Let me emphasize this: Canadian school choice has helped all students, and particularly the poor. The correlation between socioeconomic status and school achievement has dropped in provinces that fund independent schools. This result suggests that school choice contributes to the pursuit of educational equity rather than takes away from it. Educational choice has gone the furthest here in the province of Alberta, which instituted it in the 1960s. Independent schools now receive per-student about 60 percent of what public schools spend; special needs students receive 100 percent of what the government would spend on a similar child in a public school. Home-schooling families receive about one-sixth of the public school costs. Fears that government would dictate to Christian schools have diminished over the years.

It was Uganda, not Nigeria. For more links to the country's approach to fighting AIDS, see the comments on the post below, as well as Fool's Folly
Excellent piece from NRO about the recent AIDS conference and the establishment's willful blindness to the reality. Reality being the failure of the safe-sex mantra. Also:

Perhaps the most telling evidence of this cultural and sexual agenda is the fact that the Catholic Church, which has official status at the United Nations, was not invited to attend the conference. The Church was barred from the event even though the U.N. acknowledges that it cares for over one-quarter of all the world's AIDS patients. Conference organizers decided to ignore the knowledge garnered through these treatment programs, however, because they knew that the Vatican would mention other things as well. "We do not understand why the Vatican was not invited," said Archbishop Javier Lozano Barragán. He added that U.N. officials "have been saying the same thing [about condoms] constantly for the past dozen years," despite the fact that the safe-sex message has led to "no visible results." In fact, "the number of AIDS victims is rising." Perhaps it was for fear of heresies like these that Barragán was not invited.

By the way, some of you might remember that a couple of months ago, I blogged about a New Republic piece on the anti-AIDS effort in one African country - I think it was Nigeria, but I'm not sure, so don't quote me - which focused on abstinence and monogamy. It's working. No one talks about it. Are condom manufacturers in charge of the world or something? Does anyone know?

The bishop's board meets today. This article from the Post outlines the various objections to the membership - except those offered by critics of the pro-abortion figures on the board. Figures.
The Holy Father is in Guatemala today, canonizing Brother Pedro de San Jose Becantur. Here's some information on Brother Pedro
Tim Drake has some WYD observations up.
Diocese of Springfield, Mass defends its continuing financial support of an abusing priest, saying canon law won't let them do anything else.
From Canada's National Post: a story on the shape of Catholic Church buildings after Vatican II.
Jonathon Last on the upcoming, eagerly awating Godless March on Washington

Hopping around their web world, one quickly gets the impression that there are two basic types of atheist. The first is the sincere, scholarly atheist, the type who walked away from the Unitarians when they got too evangelical. The Maine Atheists Union typifies this bunch. They want to "think freely" and "live free," and one of their main precepts reads: "Nobody has all of the answers and nobody ever will. Take the time to get as close as possible to the truth." The other group is like Orwell's embittered specimen from "Down and Out in Paris and London," "the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him." These shrill types can be found in places like MSN's God is a Lie! chat community and, of all places, high school.