The following is an article that was e-mailed to me by the alumni office of St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland, Ohio. I think it shows a positive view of what students are doing during Holy Week to remember the dead and serve Christ in all they do.

As we celebrate holy week in preparation of Jesus' death and resurrection at Easter, the Saint Ignatius community will gather together with the pallbearers of the St. Joseph of Arimathea Society the morning of Holy Thursday at Potter's Field to pray for the souls of the indigent, alone, and unwanted who are buried in unmarked graves.

Keith Mokris '04, a Jesuit volunteer at Saint Ignatius, took the photographs below at a recent funeral where student pallbearers laid to rest a woman who was the last living member of her family. They prayed over her and took her to her final resting place.



Six members of the St. Joseph of Arimathea Pallbearer

Ministry attended the funeral Mass of Helen, who died

at the age of 88. She had outlived her family and friends.

Fifteen people attended one organ player and one friend,

two funeral directors, four nuns and six pallbearers from Saint Ignatius

Helen's funeral, including the priest,





The funeral procession included the hearse, a single car and a Saint Ignatius school van. Helen's casket was simple with no flowers to honor her.
At the time of her burial, ten gathered to pray, including the six student pallbearers.

God and Politics

Question #51

"Why does the Church always disagree with politics?"
The Church doesn't "always disagree with politics," although its teachings contradict some people's political ideas or positions. To understand what this means, we should be clear about what politics is. Politics is the art of governing a society. People sometimes disagree about the best way to govern society. When they do, their disagreements are political.

For the most part, the Magisterium (the teaching office of the Church) doesn't address political issues. Sometimes, however, a moral issue will have political implications. Then the Church does talk about politics, but only because it is obliged to talk about morality.

Consider, for example, the issue of abortion. Because pre-born children are human beings, they have a right to life. Because government is obliged to protect and promote human rights, it is obliged to protect and promote the pre-born child's right to life. When government passes laws or makes legal rulings that deny such a basic human right, it is the duty of the Church to speak out. Not because the Church is concerned with the details of politics or favors one political party or another -- it doesn't -- but because human rights are at stake.

There is a sense, however, in which "the Church" ought to be fully involved with politics: when we mean by "the Church" not merely the Magesterium, but the individual members, especially the laity. Lay men and women are especially called to serve Christ in the world. This means they should apply their Christian moral values to examining and assessing the laws and practices of society. They should try their best to foster laws that uphold God's moral law and do away with those that contradict it. They do this by voting, running for office, communicating with elected officials, peacefully protesting and other means. If elected, they would have an obligation to oppose or inhibit, to the limits of their power, any governmental policy or action in violation of the moral or natural law.

Doing these things will not always be popular, but then again Jesus said his followers wouldn't be popular with the world (Matt. 10:22, Luke 21:17).

--Matthew Pinto, Did Adam and Eve have Belly Buttons?

Artemide Zatti

Government and faith based charities

This is a section from an article written by Lisa Miller from Newsweek.

"Council members were able to agree that the constitutional separation of church and state is foundational and that recipients of government money be more clearly informed about what that means in terms of their activities—at the federal and at the local level. Most interesting, the task force asked the president to revise language that bars religious groups receiving federal aid from "inherently religious activities, such as worship, religious instruction and proselytizing" saying the word "inherently" allowed too much room for misunderstanding. "Explicitly," they said, would be a better word choice.

The task force was also able to agree that protecting the religious identities of religious institutions is crucial. They disagreed over things like whether a religious organization receiving government aid could perform social services in a room containing religious symbols, and whether churches receiving government money should be required to set up a separate corporation for those funds. In a political environment of gridlock and frustration, the clarity of these agreements—and even of the disagreements—is welcome."

Another iPhone commercial

Here's another iPhone parody commercial. enjoy.

Catholic iPod/iPhone Comerical

Now this is so cool!!! I would love to get an iPod for this, and whomever made this applications, THANK YOU!!!!!

This is a great way to show how we can integrate our faith with technology. Maybe this information age isn't as bad as it seems, so long as we don't forget about Christ.

These days can be hard for us Catholics. So many different views and ideas are out there, and many of them clash (or maybe crash is a better word -- like car crash) directly with the Catholic faith. We need something to help us find out what we believe, and how to line it up with what others believe and come out with the truth.

I was given this book for confirmation. It is all apologetics: the art of defending ones faith and providing reasons for it. I thought it would be helpful, plus the name of the book is tremendous: Did Adam and Eve have Belly Buttons? It consists of 2oo questions (yes, the title is one of the questions) which the author, Matthew Pinto, has been asked over his years as an apologist. I will post a few of these questions over the coming weeks. I'll bounce around the book, which covers a wide variety of topics.

Question #1

"Is there really a God?"

A. Yes. God is the ultimate reality. He is actually holding all things in existence. If God stopped doing so, we would cease to exist but He would continue to exist.

We know God exists through revelation (Scripture and Sacred Tradition) and our intellects (reflecting on the world God made). In the Bible, God reveals: "I Am, Who Am" (Ex. 3:14) and "I am the Alpha and Omega," (Rev. 1:8) which means He is the beginning and the end of all things. Lastly, God has some harsh words for those who deny He exists: "The fool says in his heart that there is no God" (Psalm 14:1).