www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Father Taft in Phoenix, AZ

As part of it 2007-2008 Celebrity Speaker Series the Jesuit Alumni of Arizona has scheduled Robert Taft,SJ as its celebrity speaker on Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 4:00 PM.

Click below for more information and additional speakers:

Informational Flyer [brophybroncos.org]

Interesting use of Jungian typology in the title: "thinking and feeling Christians".

Hopefully it will be recorded and made available.

Darn, I'll miss Richard Rohr and that blasted, idiotic "cosmic egg" theory he's adopted.

I prefer mine poached, actually.

:-) GOrdo

I would hope that Fr. Robert Taft, S.J. is not aware of what he is walking into. Gov. Napolitano is one of those pro-abortion "Catholic" politicians. The only thing "Catholic" about the National Catholic Reporter is the name. It is a big time journal for those who dissent against the official teachings of the Church. Richard Rohr, from what I've read about him, is, to say the least, "new-agey" (see the post re: the "cosmic egg"). Roger Haight, S.J. has the distinction of being singled out by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (when it was headed by the present Pope)for writing a book which contained "grave doctrinal errors", including errors as to the Divinity of Christ. See the following link:
http://www.zenit.org/article-12191?l=english

Definitely not a group I'd care to break bread with.

Dn. Robert

Don't worry about Fr. Archimandrite Robert; he can take care
of himself. He is not only witty, he is one of the toughest-minded theologians around. Not one to abide fools gladly,either.


Edmac

Viva El Papa!
Stephanos I

This group that Fr. Taft is going to speak to is evidently noted for it's Heterodoxy. See the article below, which I copied and pasted from the 10/25/07 on-line edition of The Wanderer , a newspaper to which I have subsribed since 1983.

Dn. Robert


Napolitano At Jesuit Alumni Lunch . . .
Pro-Abort Stands, Diocese�s Opposition �Off The Table�
By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX � Arizona Gov. Ja�net Napolitano gave a playful lit�tle wave as she walked through the door to address a downtown lunch of a dissident Catholic group here. The radical feminist governor seemed pleased, pleasant, and at ease among the members of Jesuit Alumni in Arizona ( JAAZ), an as�sociation spark- plugged by Time
magazine�s long- ago Vatican II correspondent Robert Blair Kaiser, a local resident.
Was this the same Democratic governor known for a table�pounding temper, as even her ar�dent supporter The Arizona Re�public,
the state�s largest daily paper, has occasionally acknowl�edged? The woman who slammed the door so hard behind the president of Arizona State University that her security guards came running, thinking they heard a gun shot? Who, even during her honeymoon period as the new Arizona governor in 2003, was described by a GOP leader as pounding the table with both fists at a meeting?
Mention of such negative inci�dents seems lacking when nation�al media stories suggest that Na�politano deserves a top federal po�sition should a Democrat win the White House.
Also lacking is national public�ity for the fact she is not even al�lowed to receive a platform or hon�ors from the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, whose bishop, Thomas Olmsted, named her in his dioce�san newspaper column as a politi- cian who forces Catholics to vio�late their conscience.
People can behave differently in different surroundings. With JAAZ, a smiling Napolitano seemed to be feeling no stress. Napolitano has chosen to estrange herself from much, but she was at home in public this noontime. With JAAZ, her hard- line pro- abortion stand that has excluded her from participating at events with the di�ocese was off the table.
And the tables for this October 2 lunch at a Phoenix hotel were far fewer than JAAZ had hoped to fill. At 15 tables with 10 chairs each, there were some empty seats. Per�haps 130 people were here. JAAZ had hoped hundreds more would attend. When JAAZ brought Vati�can II consultant and theological dissenter Hans K�ng to Phoenix for a November 2005 speech, about 1,200 listeners filled a pub�lic high school auditorium.
It seemed not enough for Napol�itano to have vetoed virtually ev�ery pro- life bill that came before her at the capitol, not only on top�ics like informed consent and rights of conscience, but even al�leviation of pain to infants being aborted in advanced pregnancy and a prohibition of selling human ova for cloning. Now she had come to lunch with a group that wears as a badge of honor its op�position to what it condemns as � a virtual intellectual desert� here.
Former Vatican correspondent Kaiser repeatedly expresses his hope to create �a thinking Church� here instead. He told the gathering that � much to my delight,� Time in the 1960s had supported Vatican II
aggiornamento, the � updating� of the Church that Kaiser enthusias�tically covered while scorning tra�ditionalists.
While JAAZ may think it looks to the future, others may see an anchor still planted in the � 60s. Even though the governor was coming to dine, the middle- aged priest who stood to offer grace was clad in a sports shirt hanging out over khaki- colored pants. One could say the waiters dressed with more taste.
After Napolitano spoke then dashed off to her next event, an audience member mildly suggest�ed from the floor that JAAZ could show more love for Phoenix Bish�op Olmsted. Kaiser, on the speak�er�s stand, replied that this is a case of � unrequited love.�
� I�ve asked to see him four times but he doesn�t talk to me,� and also doesn�t speak to some of the priests in his own diocese, Kai�ser said.
�. . . I submit it�s not our job to support the diocese,� but to serve the people of Arizona, Kaiser said. � Many of us are not Catholics, so why should we be supporting the Diocese of Phoenix?�
This last remark acknowledged the elastic definition of JAAZ, a group whose size Kaiser strongly wants to expand. � We really need your help to get members,� he urged the audience. �� We�re all for promoting a thinking Church in Arizona.�
When asked by The Wanderer
for a reaction to Kaiser�s charge that Bishop Olmsted won�t speak to him, a spokesman for the Phoenix Diocese, Jim Dwyer, said Olm�sted was out of town, but that pri�vate conversations are not the sub�ject of a public forum. Dwyer add�ed that JAAZ isn�t part of the dio�cese and its choice of speakers is its own.
The fact Napolitano chose to make a public appearance before these dissidents drew reaction from a Catholic who was quoted at the Sonoran Alliance conservative web site, ticking off some of Napoli�tano�s negative record: ��I think it shows extraordinarily poor taste for Napolitano to accept this invitation given the disdain she has shown for principles Catholics hold dear.�
One can wonder why one child grows up to become a radical femi�nist who distances herself from or�dinary affections, and another child becomes a pro-lifer. It wouldn�t be too late for Napolitano to change her ways. But politics is her preoc�cupation now, not public repentance and reform.
The governor told the JAAZ gath�ering, �When I received the [lunch] invitation, I accepted with alacrity� because of her own Jesuit education at Santa Clara [Calif.] University.
The university�s web site these days bills the school as �The Jesuit University in Silicon Valley.�
The non- Catholic Napolitano, born in New York City and gradu�ated from an Albuquerque, N. M., high school, joked that she wanted to go to a college near a beach. � I received a wonderful education there [ at Santa Clara] in every re�spect,� she said. She noted there�s a negative connotation to the word � jesuiti�cal,� but didn�t pursue that thought.
Napolitano said social justice concerns are an important part of Je�suit education, stimulating thought on such questions as, �What do you do with the inequality of wealth around the world? What can you do with the inequality of education around the world?�
But the majority of her talk time was on immigration. She said noth�ing of her rupture with the diocese.
Since she became governor, �There�s been no more complicat�ed problem than immigration. . . . It�s very easy to say seal the border� and there�ll supposedly be no prob�lem, she said, adding that it�s also easy to say just have an open bor�der.
Far from having � redefined the debate over illegal immigration in her state,� as the October 15 News�week
incorrectly claims, Napoli�tano is trying to bob and weave her way toward some semblance of the middle ground and away from her pro- illegal position that even she apparently understands now to be damaging.
Having vetoed most bills against illegal immigration, Na�politano kept people guessing un�til the last minute this year, then signed a bill to impose sanctions against employers who knowing�ly hire illegals.
While some say, �Let�s be as pu�nitive as we can� to immigrants al�ready here, Napolitano told the JAAZ gathering, steering a way through this issue could challenge even the smartest Jesuit.
�By and large, these are people who are coming over to work be�cause they cannot make a living where they live,� she said of illegal border-crossers, but there is a �need to deal realistically with those who are here,� and they can�t just auto�matically become citizens.
�There�s some real anger on this issue,� the governor said she knows from the messages she receives. �Im�migration is not just a yes/no issue, either�.We are not going to solve this issue by building a wall.�
Answering a question from the floor, Napolitano said graphic anti�methamphetamine ads here are �dis�gusting. I hate them,� but they�re what�s needed to get the anti-drug message across.
She said there had been a similar situation when more- educational anti-tobacco ads didn�t achieve the same desired results with young people as graphic �smelly, puking� messages against tobacco did.
One might observe that graphic ads against abortion would have the same effect, but Napolitano won�t allow even clinical informed con�sent.
The Battle Against Clarence Thomas
After the lunch, an older diner remarked to another man, � In my mind, she�s the greatest reason to support Hillary� for president, ap�parently a reference to the expec�tation Napolitano would receive a national role in a Hillary Clinton administration.
One wonders if Napolitano in a federal post would show any more restraint than she did when she was sent from Phoenix as a young feminist attorney in 1991 to help Anita Hill in Washington, D. C., fighting to keep nominee Clar�ence Thomas off the U.S. Supreme Court.
Publicizing his recently re�leased book, My Grandfather�s Son, Thomas has said strong de�fenders of abortion smeared him with the stereotypical slur of an oversexed black man. Thomas said they feared that if he were on the High Court, he�d vote against abortion.
In a local article last year look�ing back at Napolitano�s ascent through the power structure here, the major role played by her men�tor, powerful liberal Phoenix attor�ney John Frank, was recalled.
In the admiring article in the major weekly alternative paper
Phoenix New Times, former U. S. Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D., Ariz.), was quoted that Frank made sure Napolitano got into the thick of the battle against Clarence Thomas. � For her benefit, for her exposure, John made sure that Ja�net was on the front line in that,� DeConcini was quoted.

To quote Michael Lacey, over at http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2003-08-28/news/grooms-on-the-cupcake/ , (and he's pro-gay marriage just in case anyone thinks I'm being uncharitable): "If Governor Janet Napolitano isn't a lesbian, I'll eat your hat. She is a walking, one-woman LPGA tour all by herself."

Eh, made me smile, anyway.

I would not consider the Wanderer an unbiased source similarly with the National Catholic Reporter- they are mirror extremes.

While not best Catholic paper in my opinion, they are loyal to the Pope. That makes them totally different than the Reporter. If they are biased it is in favor of the Bishop of Rome.

they certainly reflect an extreme version of Catholicism which I'm afraid the Pope himself would not be comfortable with.

I think neither NCR nor The Wanderer are nearly as bad as people are making them out to be.

Brian, what specifically bothers you about The Wanderer?

Alexis

Fr. Z has been writing for the Wanderer for years and that speaks for it self, I read it when I can and it beats the tar out of The Tidings...L.A.'s very progressive Archdiocese paper

james

Yeah, and Fr. Z worked closely with Msgr. Schuster at St. Agnes in St. Paul, MN and Pope Benedict sent personal condolences, I believe, to the parish on the recent death of Msgr. Schuler...OK, so none of that matters much, but Pope Benedict's views, I think it's safe to say, are much closer aligned with The Wanderer than papers like The Tablet, etc.

Alexis

FWIW, I haven't even seen a copy of The Wanderer in years.

One thing that really turned me off to it, however, was when one of their regular columnists was discussing "some of the newer hymns" and was particularly negative towards a hymn called "They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love." His contention was that it was a non sequitur, that love wasn't all that essential to our Christian identity. Now, I wouldn't necessarily expect the columnist to know the exact reference--John 13:35--but not even to recognize that a given text is taken from a well-known scripture in a case like this is inexcusable.

My two cents.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

I talked to the people running the talk. They expect to record the event. I should get an email after with that info.