My first mentor in matters journalistic, Seattle's David Brewster, once said that journalism's claim to being a "profession" would remain an affectation until journalism became self-disciplining (like law and medicine), with the members of the guild taking real responsibility for policing themselves. Such professional responsibility means editors keeping editorials out of the news hole, and reporters telling the whole truth. That the misshapen stories cited here are hardly rarities suggests the unhappy probability that David Brewster, who was right thirty years ago, will remain right long into the future.

Which is bad news for American democracy.

"I am of the opinion, to be sure, that the old rite should be granted much more generously to all those who desire it," then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said. "It's impossible to see what could be dangerous or unacceptable about that."

“At one month the baby’s heartbeat can be heard.” “It’s absurd for any woman, no matter how independent she is, to defend abortion,” Tavares said. “We’re talking about another life,” she added.

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Catholicism does not teach “works righteousness.” It teaches faith in action as a manifestation of God’s grace in one’s life. That’s why Abraham’s faith results in righteousness only when he attempts to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God.

Then I read the Council of Trent, which some Protestant friends had suggested I do. What I found was shocking. I found a document that had been nearly universally misrepresented by many Protestants, including some friends.

I do not believe, however, that the misrepresentation is the result of purposeful deception. But rather, it is the result of reading Trent with Protestant assumptions and without a charitable disposition.

For example, Trent talks about the four causes of justification, which correspond somewhat to Aristotle’s four causes. None of these causes is the work of the individual Christian. For, according to Trent, God’s grace does all the work. However, Trent does condemn “faith alone,” but what it means is mere intellectual assent without allowing God’s grace to be manifested in one’s actions and communion with the Church. This is why Trent also condemns justification by works.

I am convinced that the typical “Council of Trent” rant found on anti-Catholic websites is the Protestant equivalent of the secular urban legend that everyone prior to Columbus believed in a flat earth.

Its censure in March of Father Jon Sobrino, a leading liberation theology proponent, prompted an appeal for a thorough overhaul of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the modern-day successor of the Inquisition.

“The structure of the CDF must be reformed,” said Peter Huenermann from Tuebingen, Germany.

“It still operates just like the censorship bureaus most European countries had until the end of the 19th century,” Huenermann, the appeal’s author and a retired theology professor from Tuebingen University, said.

He said the CDF should work like an academic review board, using modern methods such as peer review for publications to allow theologians to test out new ideas. He said he and some colleagues were considering drawing up a proposal for reforms.

“modern quality control” for Church theology.

In subsequent Digital Catholic articles I have indulged in the glory of reading numerous blogs and surfing through the near endless Catholic content on YouTube. In a perfect world each of us would schedule a sliver of time per day aimed at satisfying a positive spiritual need of learning something new about our faith. In reality though, we all know that a fine line can be crossed that sends us on a downward spiral. Tools that we once used to strengthen our faith can become a constant distraction standing between us and our families, employers and worst of all, God.(more)

This post will be home base for the YouTube Summer Project. As you find good, solid, orthodox, Catholic videos on YouTube or Google Videos, leave a comment providing the title of the video and a link to it. As new videos are provided, I will add them to the list. Before you submit your video, check the list and make sure it has not already been submitted.

As sovereign autocrat of this miserable blog and all its lands ( It doesn't have any, so forget that part. ) I have decided to found an Order of Chivalry. The Militant and Just Bloody Rotten Order of the Torch begins. What, you ask, is the purpose of the Order? Simple, really. We're going to declare war. On what? That disgusting relic of the fraudulant, defunct and stinking "spirit of Vatican II"....

....those friggin felt banners.