Notes: Tuesday, April 18, 2017-Monday, April 23, 2018 (part 3 of 3)

8. In the evening of Saturday, February 17, 2018, The Governor of New South Wales "attended the performance of Trevor Ashley’s Mardi Gala, part of the Sydney Mardi Gras 40th Anniversary celebrations, at the Sydney Opera House."

The quotation in that headline comes from the "Vice Regal Program" notice "Saturday, 17 February 2018", downloaded from the official Governor of New South Wales website:

https://www.governor.nsw.gov.au/governor/vice-regal-program/saturday-17-february-2018/

Labels: G.L.B.T., N.S.W.

9. Federal Labor proposes to give taxpayer funding of "$1 million to Tasmania to build a Reproductive Health Hub" which "will provide surgical terminations as part of the public hospital system, and federal and state Labor will contribute to its ongoing costs under the usual Commonwealth-state arrangements." It would have complemented Tasmanian Labor's pre-State-election "commitment to make terminations available in Tasmania’s public hospitals."

The quotations in that headline come for the media release "LABOR WILL RESTORE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH SERVICES IN TASMANIA", dated Tuesday, February 20, 2018, issued jointly by The Hon. Bill Shorten M.P. (Leader of H.M.A. Opposition), The Hon. Tanya Plibersek M.P. (Deputy Leader of H.M.A. Opposition and shadow minister for education and training and for women), The Hon. Catherine King M.P. (shadow minister for health and Medicare), and Ms Rebecca White M.P. (Leader of H.M. Tasmanian Opposition and its shadow minister for health and wellbeing and for economic growth and regional development), downloaded from Ms King's website:

http://www.catherineking.com.au/2018/02/20/labor-will-restore-reproductive-health-services-in-tasmania/

See also the "TRANSCRIPT: DOORSTOP HOBART TUESDAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2018", featuring Ms Plibersek, Ms King, and Ms White, downloaded from Ms Plibersek's website:

http://www.tanyaplibersek.com/transcript_doorstop_hobart_tuesday_20_february_2018

Labels: abortion, A.L.

10. "just a century and a half ago, we had Papal States, and a much more politically-oriented Christianity in places. But we developed away from that, getting back to the roots of the faith, before Constantine, and embracing again Christ's words "My kingdom is not of this world.""

The longer quotation, including the shorter one, in that headline comes from the transcript of a speech given by His Grace The Most Rev. The Lord Archbishop of Erbil (a Chaldean archdiocese in Iraq) on February 15, 2018 at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, downloaded from that centre's website:

https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/events/the-future-of-christianity-and-pluralism-in-iraq

Or go straight hither:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/berkley-center/180215WardaFutureChristianityPluralismIraqSpeechTranscript.pdf

(That speech came to my attention via a Catholic News Service (C.N.S.) report printed in the Sydney Catholic Weekly and available behind a paywall at C.N.S.'s website under the headline "Chaldean archbishop: Time to be 'honest' in dialogue with Muslims", by Mark Pattison, dated February 16, 2018:

http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2018/chaldean-archbishop-time-to-be-honest-in-dialogue-with-muslims.cfm)

Labels: Church and State, Constantine the Great, secularism

11. "More than 600 people attended the [St. Patrick's Day 2018 ]Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral, celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Terry Brady." Its "congregation … were [sic ]treated to a celebration of Irish dancers and traditional hymns sung by the Sydney Irish Community Choir."

The quotations, excluding my ellipsis symbol (which merely replaces the mention of two high-profile members of that congregation) and bracketed interpolations, in that headline come from the report "A sea of green as Sydney celebrates St Patrick’s day", by Debbie Cramsie, on p. 15 in the "NEWS" pages of the Sydney Catholic Weekly, March 25, 2018, published by The Archdiocese of Sydney, Sydney. (Note that the words "celebrated", "celebration", and "Community" each spanned two lines in the printed article, and so contained the following dashes: "celebrat-ed"; "celebra-tion"; "Com-munity".)

Labels: liturgical dance, N.O.M., Sydney

Reginaldvs Cantvar
St. George's Day, A.D. 2018

Notes: Wednesday, March 27-Tuesday, April 23, 2013 (part 1 of 2)

1. A couple of items regarding the religious duties of the State

1.1 Pius XI. on the religious duties of society, as society:

… For human society as such is bound to offer to God public and social worship. It is bound to acknowledge in Him its Supreme Lord and first beginning, and to strive toward Him as to its last end, to give Him thanks and offer Him propitiation. …
[Encyclical Letter Ad catholici sacerdotii, December 20, 1935, translation downloaded from the Vatican's website:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19351220_ad-catholici-sacerdotii_en.html
For an alternative translation, see Roy J. Deferrari's translation of Dz. 2274 on p. 608 of The Sources of Catholic Dogma, published by Loreto Publications, Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, U.S.A., 2007:
[society] is obliged in very fact to cherish religion publicly, to acknowledge God as the Supreme Lord and first beginning, to propose Him as its last end, to offer Him immortal thanks, and to offer him propitiation. …
The original Latin of Ad catholici sacerdotii is available in AAS 28 (1936), pp. 5-53 (the quotation in question is on p. 8, in the first paragraph of §I), and is also available in HTML format here.]

Labels: Confessional State, morality, natural law

1.2 St. Melito of Sardis (died c. A.D. 180), Bishop, Confessor, and Father of the Church, is the author of a "discourse recommending that Marcus Aurelius adopt Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire."

The quotation in that headline comes from the installment of the "SAINT FOR TODAY" column which (installment) was headlined "Canonised two years after dying" (the article profiled two saints; the headline refers to the first-profiled of them, namely St. Hugh of Grenoble), no byline, p. 48, the Sydney Catholic Weekly, March 31, 2013, Vol. 72, No. 4666 (presumably the volume and number are as I've given; the issue in question had neither printed on it, but the issue for the following Sunday (April 7, 2013) was Vol. 72, No. 4667), published by The Catholic Press Newspaper Company Pty. Ltd., available on-line but behind a paywall here:

http://catholicweekly.realviewtechnologies.com/?iid=75394&startpage=page0000048

The source for that profile was presumably this Catholic Online webpage. For other sources of information about St. Melito, see his profile in The Catholic Encyclopedia and the one in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

That quotation was especially interesting to me because I read at AQ a couple of years ago a post whose author mentioned that some early Christians—he might have referred to them as martyrs—wrote to the pre-Constantinian Roman Emperors in order to convert them and the Empire to Christianity. I wanted to ask that post's author for his source for what he wrote—not because I doubted it, but in order to learn more about it, and to defend it against those who would doubt it—but never got round to it. The Catholic Encyclopedia's article "Apologetics" says that

To vindicate the Christian cause against … attacks [from] paganism, many apologies were written. Some, notably the "Apology" of Justin Martyr (150), the "Plea for the Christians", by Athenagoras (177), and the "Apologetic" of Tertullian (197), were addressed to emperors for the express purpose of securing for the Christians immunity from persecution. …
[hyperlinks in the original,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01618a.htm]

and its article "Fathers of the Church" contains the following:

The [Greek ]apologists[ of the second century, after the Apostolic Fathers,] are most of them philosophic in their treatment of Christianity. Some of their works were presented to emperors in order to disarm persecutions. …
[hyperlinks in the original, my interpolations,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06001a.htm]

and goes on to mention St. Melito and other Fathers and their respective works.

Labels: Confessional State, Roman Empire, St. Melito of Sardis

2. "Around a quarter of all Australian children aged up to 12 years were now in child care, a record amount, the report[, namely, Child Care Update, June quarter 2012] found."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "A quarter of all Australian children under 12 are using childcare services, the latest Child Care Update report says", no byline (A.A.P. is credited as the source), dated March 31, 2013, downloaded from The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/a-quarter-of-all-australian-children-under-12-are-using-childcare-services-the-latest-child-care-update-report-says/story-e6frg6nf-1226609852452

Child Care Update, June quarter 2012, ISBN: 978-0-642-78735-4, © Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, produced by the Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations (D.E.E.W.R.) on behalf of the Australian Government, and published by the D.E.E.W.R., is available online here:

http://mychild.gov.au/pages/ResourcesReports.aspx

Labels: childcare, families, social trends

3. "ACON was founded by the gay community for the gay community in response to the HIV epidemic"; ACON's "very essence is as a gay organisation"

The quotations in that headline were attributed to Mr. Nicolas Parkhill, "the chief executive of ACON, a community-based gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender health organisation", in the article "Gay slurs take AIDS fighter by surprise", by Heath Aston, dated April 2, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/gay-slurs-take-aids-fighter-by-surprise-20130401-2h33h.html?skin=text-only

Labels: ACON, G.L.B.T.

4. That Atheist straw man again: "Who needs proof when you have belief?"

The quotation in that headline comes from a letter by one David Farrell published under the sub-heading "Pastafarians join Bert's teapot in atheism debate" on the letters webpage of April 4, 2013, headlined "Shortsighted superannuation plan is also extremely naive", at The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/shortsighted-superannuation-plan-is-also-extremely-naive-20130403-2h795.html?skin=text-only

Labels: atheism

5. Dr. Wetherell on priesthood in anthropology and in theology

See the article "Women priests and bishops: Anglicanism's crisis of identity", by Dr. David Wetherell, pp. 10, 11, and 18, AD 2000, March 2013, Vol. 26, No. 2, published by Mr. Peter Westmore for the Thomas More Centre of Balwyn, Victoria, Australia, available under the same headline and with the same byline and date at AD 2000's website:

http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2013/mar2013p10_3973.html

Labels: Priesthood

6. "thanks to collaboration by Google, a project has been launched to make all the issues[ of La Civiltà Cattolica] published from 1850 to 2008 accessible on the web. In fact, Google had digitalized the volumes for their Google Books project, through agreements with several libraries in Europe and the United States. The issues still protected by copyright law will now be made available by our authorization."

The quotation in that headline was attributed to The Rev. Fr. Antonio Spadaro S.J., director of La Civiltà Cattolica, in the Vatican Information Service daily e-mail bulletin item "CIVILTA CATTOLICA: NEW FORMAT, NEW SECTIONS, AND OPENNESS TO INTERNET AND SOCIAL NETWORKING", dated April 5, 2013:

http://www.news.va/en/news/civilta-cattolica-new-format-new-sections-and-open

Labels: Civilta Cattolica

7. Mr. Andrades on some gatherings in Rome in late October 2012 in connection with the seventeenth centenary of the conversion of Constantine the Great

See Mr. Lionel Andrades' blog posts "1700 th ANNIVERSARY FOR THE APPARITION TO KING CONSTANTINE AND HIS VISTORY AT THE MILVIAN BRIDGE CELEBRATED IN ROME" and "It was Christ himself who told Constantine the Great to fight in his name. God is not indifferent but active in our history- Roberto de Mattei", dated respectively Sunday, October 28, 2012 and Tuesday, October 30, 2012, downloaded from his "eucharistandmission" blog. (The gatherings in question are not to be confused with the congress of mid-April 2012 about which I blogged in item 2 of this Notes post.)

(Those blog posts came to my attention via this True Catholic post.)

Labels: Constantine the Great

Reginaldvs Cantvar
St. George's Day, A.D. 2013

Notes: Wednesday, April 11-Tuesday, April 24, 2012

1. "the texts of the Second Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church are essential tools which serve as an authentic guide to what the Church believes on the basis of God’s word"

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20120405_messa-crismale_en.html

Labels: Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, C.E.C., Vatican II

2. "CONSTANTINE THE GREAT: RELIGION AND THE STATE AT THE DAWN OF EUROPE"

That is the title of this Vatican Information Service report; here is an excerpt from that report:

Vatican City, 17 April 2012 (VIS) - "Constantine the Great. The Roots of Europe" is the title of an international academic congress to be held in the Vatican from 18 to 21 April. The event has been organised by the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences to mark the 1700th anniversary of the battle of the Milvian Bridge and the conversion of the Emperor Constantine.
[… ]This congress is the first of two, the second of which will be held in Milan in 2013 for the 1700th anniversary of the promulgation of the Edict of Milan, which established freedom of religion in the Roman empire and put an end to the persecution of certain religious groups, particularly Christians. While the 2013 congress will concern itself with what is known as the "Constantinian revolution", tomorrow's event will focus on the environment in which Constantine lived and on relations between Christians and the Roman empire prior to the year 313. …

To me, the second congress sounds like the more interesting of the two.

At the (Italian-language) website of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences' website, some more information on the first congress is available; some papers, presumably presented at the congress, are available in Italian here, and a one-page English-language flyer (?) is available here.

Labels: Church and State, Confessional State, Constantine the Great, history, religious liberty, Roman Empire

3. That Atheist straw man again:

… a debate between a believer for whom evidence is superfluous and a scientist who insists upon it would always provide an impossible conversation, and it was not a pleasant lift in which to be trapped. …
[my emphasis,
I transcribed that from "From fight and flights to sinking feeling"/"THE WEEK", by Matt Buchanan, on page three of the "News Review" supplement in the April 14-15, 2012 edition of The Sydney Morning Herald, available on-line here.]

Labels: atheism

4. "Researchers originally attributed the cohabitation effect [whereby "[c]ouples who cohabit before marriage (and especially before an engagement or an otherwise clear commitment) tend to be less satisfied with their marriages — and more likely to divorce — than couples who do not" ]to selection, or the idea that cohabitors were less conventional about marriage and thus more open to divorce. As cohabitation has become a norm, however, studies have shown that the effect is not entirely explained by individual characteristics like religion, education or politics. Research suggests that at least some of the risks may lie in cohabitation itself."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/sunday/the-downside-of-cohabiting-before-marriage.html

(That came to my attention via the posting of this LifeSiteNews.com article in this AQ thread.

Labels: divorce, marriage, vice

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Martyr, A.D. 2012

Notes: Saturday-Monday, December 11-13, 2010

1. "Israeli rabbis back ban on renting property to Arabs"

http://www.smh.com.au/world/israeli-rabbis-back-ban-on-renting-property-to-arabs-20101208-18pwx.html?skin=text-only

See also this AQ thread:
http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35074

2. Mr. Muehlenberg on how legalisation of so-called gay marriage affects (adversely) people other than the gay 'husbands' and their respective 'wives'

http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/12/10/same-sex-marriage-who-says-nothing-will-change/

3. A few interesting books reviewed/mentioned over the weekend

3.1 "In Your Face: The New Science of Human Attraction
"By David Perrett Palgrave
"Macmillan, 305pp, $42"
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/for-the-footy-fans/story-e6frg8nf-1225966843570

3.2 "Peter Leithart, Defending Constantine. IVP, 2010"
http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/12/12/recommended-reading-for-the-christmas-break/

3.3 "Edward Feser, Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide (Oneway Publications, 2009)"
http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/12/13/historical-theology-a-bibliographic-essay/
(also metioned in comments at the web-page linked in 3.2)

4. "AUSTRALIA'S culture of long work hours is putting at risk children's early learning opportunities"

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/long-work-hours-leave-little-time-for-childs-play-20101210-18swv.html?skin=text-only

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Lucy, Virgin, Martyr, A.D. 2010