Wild Tangents
Marc talks about life in Nashville, life as a Catholic and life as a geek.

There a great new Catholic podcast out there on the apologetics front. It’s called “The Catholic Hack” and done by a guy by the name of Joe McClane. He apparently goes out to his van on his lunch break to record this every week. While he calls himself a “hack”, I find his podcast very enlightening. Joe also speaks with a passion that inspires. He uses Sacred Scripture and the catechism to nail his points home.

Click here to visit his site.

Below you an listen to a promo he’s done. I encourage anyone out there that doesn’t know much about Catholicism, or thinks they know plenty to have a listen.

Technorati Tags: catechism, Catholic, christian, podcast, web

 

 Catholic Hack Promo [1:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (268)

This past Monday, the folks at SQPN had their bard of directors meeting in Conyers, GA. Since they had some many of the podcasters in one place, they organized a meetup. It was setup for 5:30-7:30 at the Kaiteur Coffeehouse in Conyers. Being the fool I am, I drove the four hours down to Atlanta to attend. It tunred out not to be foolish at all. Everyone was very friendly and gracious I had taken the time to drive down.

Maria Johnson was kind enough to take some photos for me since i was having trouble with Suzette’s camera. Here they are:

This is me with Fr. Roderick, the founder of SQPN and a podcaster with many shows. He’s probably most known for first the Catholic Insider, then his Daily Breakfast. I never go a day with Fr. Roderick’s Daily Breakfast. I’m still confused though. Is he really Mormon?

This is me with Fr. Bill Kessler, who does the Technopriest podcast. It’s always interesting to hear his comments on life as an over-worked pastor who has a gadget obsession. I have to say though, the best part are the homilies. The man can write some awesome homilies.

Here I am with Greg and Jennifer Willits. They the Rosary Army podcast. Jennifer is also the host of That Catholic Show, which Greg produces.

If you haven’t seen That Catholic Show, click on the name and go check it out. Greg, Jennifer and everyone else involved do a wonderful job with it.

Since I’ve been in every picture, you already know me. You also just saw Greg in the last shot. But the guy in the middle is guy who forgot the microphones. He’s Mac Barron. He and his wife do the podcast Catholic in a Small Town. It’s one of the funniest podcasts I listen to. Mac and Katherine are a hoot to chat with and are just a funny in real life as they are on the podcast.

Not pictured….And I don’t know how we missed out on this….But I didn’t get a picture with Paul Camarata of the SaintCast. Paul does a great job of letting us know about the saints in way that’s easy to understand and inspiring, as the saints should be. He travels some too and will do “sound seeing tours” of sites such as churches where he goes.

I did get a couple of humorous pics on the trip too.

Here’s one of Fr. Roderick trying to tune in to the latest episode of “Lost”.

Here’s one I took at a rest stop on the way back. It just struck me as odd. I guess they must have had a lot of problems with dogs doing their business on the hydrant.

Anyway, I had a great time. If there was any way I could’ve gone without driving in Atlanta traffic, then it would’ve been perfect. I want to thank everyone at SQPN for being so friendly and gracious.

Technorati Tags: Catholic, christian, coffee, podcast, rosary, sqpn

First off, what does “Motu proprio” mean? Well, Wikipedia describes it pretty well.

A motu proprio is a papal rescript in which the clause motu proprio (Latin, “of his own motion”) is used, signifying that the provisions of the rescript were decided by the Pope personally and not by a cardinal or other advisors. It is normally in the form of a decree, resembling a papal brief except that it is not sealed and countersigned. The first motu proprio was issued by Pope Innocent VIII in 1484. It continues to be a common form of rescript, especially when establishing institutions, making minor changes to law or procedure and when granting favours to persons or institutions.

This one that Pope Benedict issued yesterday (7/7/7), is called “Summorum Ponificum“. Click on the the title for the full text. You can also click here for an explanatory letter from the Pope himself.

But does all this mean? I’ve seen an article that implied that Papa Ben was doing this just to upset so-called “liberals”, whatever a “Catholic liberal” is. I’m not so sure about that. Another headline I read said that he was “rolling back the clock”. I laughed. So what does it mean? Well, to be honest much smarter folks than me have already said a lot about it. I’ll just defer to these scholars.

• First off, Fr. Z of the blog and podcast “WHat Does The Prayer Really Say?” has some excellent commentary on the document itself.
• Fr. Z also has some commentary on comments made by Fr. Fredrico Lombardi, a papal spokesman which is a good read.
• Fr. Z (yes, I love the guy) also has some comments on Cardinal Ricard’s (who was responsible for communication with the group SSPX that has been at odds with the Vatican over the Latin Mass) reaction to the Motu proprio.
• Fr. Z (yes, him again) reacts to an AP article on the Motu proprio.
• Jimmy Akin (only one link???) has some comments on the document itself on his self titled blog.
• Jeff Miller on his blog The Curt Jester comments on the document. Expect some humor.
• Finally Fr. Martin Fox takes a little more guarded view.

So basically this does loosen the use of the older Latin Mass. I am concerned as is Fr. Fox about the possible resource strain this could cause for individual parishes. But the Holy Father was smart enough to give us some lead time. This document doesn’t take effect until September 14.

All in all I am excited though. I used to go to the Latin Mass back in Memphis, when Fr. Mike was still at Blessed Sacrament. It was awesome! I hope to be able to go somewhere here in Nashville really soon.

Technorati Tags: Catholic, christian, Latin, pope, Mass

Well, sit back and watch the latest episode of “That Catholic Show”! This is what our use of statues and icons is all about. The folks at SQPN have really put it in simple terms, so give it a chance.

Be sure to watch all the way to the end. There are some great out takes.

Technorati Tags: Catholic, web, youtube

Braves cap tip to The Curt Jester for posting about “Catholic Tube“. He says:

They have categorized it into several channels such as apologetics, EWTN, The Catholic Show / Rosary Army Channel, etc. Also the home page has a video of the day.

He also mentions they have an RSS feed. How cool is that?

Technorati Tags: Catholic, youtube, videos, web

Please see the update below

Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Carl Anderson talks in this article from CNA about the need for not only Knights, but all Catholics to welcome and accept our Hispanic bothers and sisters into our communities.

“Hispanics in the Church are not an abstraction, they are our fellow parishioners,” he said “Our Lady of Guadalupe points us to her son, but she also points us to unity in her son and for Catholics this unity must transcend borders.”

The sad part here is that I’ve heard stories. They may just be stories, I don’t know. But they stories say that in the countries south of the US, the Knight of Columbus is a “rich boys club”. Now that goes completely contrary to the founding vision of Servant of God Michael J McGivney who founded the Knights of Columbus. His inspiration was looking out at the poor widows and orphans of coal miners. He wanted to start something that would help protect these poor people. I would ask that all Knights everywhere keep this in mind and be accepting all fellow Catholic into our ranks.

Catholics throughout the Americas must embrace each other as their brothers and sisters in faith regardless of their ethnic background, the leader of the Knights of Columbus told tens of the thousands of people on May 19.

…or social class.

Update:I’m not sure what happened here, but it looks like only about half of what I wrote got posted. I did not intended to end it like that. It looks like the rest of the post is lost to the interwebs, but rest assured the post ended on a much more positive note when it was complete. What I was trying to say with this post was nothing more than an echo of what our Supreme Knight said. It’s that we have to embrace our Catholic brothers and welcome them into the Knights no matter who they are. We have to remember the Knights was founded for, to provide a means of support for families when the primary bread winner is lost. I love the Knights and wouldn’t change anything about my time in the organization.

Technorati Tags: Catholic, kofc

Monday is Memorial Day here in the US. It is a day where we honor the service men and women who died in military service.

On Monday, I’ll be traveling to Pittsburgh. I have a request for this day. Either in the comments here of on my contact page, let me know the names anyone you know who has made the ultimate sacrifice for this great country. On Friday, I plan to go before the Blessed Sacrament at the Pittsburgh Oratory and pray for these brave souls. I would be happy to include anyone by name, so just let me know.

Oh…And everyone have a wonderful holiday weekend!

This morning Greg Willits put out the call on Twitter to get together on Ustream and pray a rosary. It was really enjoyable to get online and pray with others all around the world. People would post their intentions in the chat window and Greg would announce them. I hope we’ll be doing this more often. Maybe the torch could pass around for the leader of the prayer. I would be happy to lead an online rosary some time. I’m sure there are other out there that would too. What say you? Anyone else want to continue what Greg has started?

Technorati Tags: Catholic, rosary, web

I just saw this at TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog). I’m not really sure I like the idea. It seems to me that whoever thunk it up was just trying to get a quick payday from the current fad of wearing rosaries. It’s not really a real rosary anyway…I mean c’mon…..One bead?

Technorati Tags: catholic, iPod, gadgets, rosary, tech

The folks at SQPN have released a another excellent episode of That Catholic Show titled “Candles and Light”.

The second episode of the brand new video podcast from Rosary Army and SQPN! What is it with Catholics and Candles? Check out That Catholic Show for the answer!

If you like it, subscribe to the feed or in iTunes.

Be sure to also check all the cool podcasts at SQPN.

Technorati Tags: Catholic, christian, light, candles