Digital Areopagus

SEAGOVILLE  --  A Dallas-area high school student says she's been forbidden from wearing her rosary to school because it's considered a gang symbol.

Now I've heard of gang members wearing different colors and different types of sports hats but never religious items.

"I went to school, walked through the metal detectors and they told me to take it off," said the teenager. "I asked them why and they said because it's gang-related."

If this is true it's very disturbing for someone to take a symbol of Our Lady and turn it into a symbol of crime.

The approved “Order for the Blessing on the Fifteenth Birthday,” the quinceañera ritual, will be published Sept. 19.

Communities can celebrate this bilingual ritual both within and outside of Mass. The Mexican-American Cultural Center in San Antonio developed the original text of the rite in 1999. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops acquired the rights to the text in 2007 and has collaborated with the Secretariat of Divine Worship in completing the final text.

Jesuit Father Allan Deck, executive director of the Secretariat of Cultural Diversity, said the quinceañera ritual will be one of “many resources Latinos can use to preserve both Catholic and cultural identity.”

The quinceañera ritual can help young Catholics “learn more about the importance of upholding one’s baptismal commitment in a spirit of thanksgiving,” said Msgr. Anthony Sherman, executive director of the USCCB Secretariat of Divine Worship, because the ritual allows baptismal godparents or other couples serving as sponsors the option of presenting religious articles.

USCCB Publishing

This is pretty interesting and maybe it'll be something that will help young people to grow and stay strong in their faith as they start to make their way into the more trying times of adolescence.

Please keep praying for those in Ike's path this is going to be a nasty one...

But every year for the past two decades, Mr. Wright has led a revival at the Elmwood United Presbyterian Church in New Jersey, and on Sunday he returned, this time with kind words for the man who called him “divisive and destructive.”

Preaching about God’s power to transform ordinary believers into extraordinary people, Mr. Wright cited the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, then talked about Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee for president.

“Twenty years ago,” he told the crowd at Elmwood’s branch here on Clinton Avenue, “a scrawny little kid, pointed nose, big-eared, mama from Kansas, daddy from Kenya — the Lord told him, an ordinary black boy, ‘You can be a state senator and you can bring folk to the bargaining table who not only do not talk to one another, these folk don’t like one another.’

“He did what the Lord said,” Mr. Wright continued, “an ordinary black boy like Mary was an ordinary little girl. Not only did he become a state senator, this black boy with an African daddy from Kenya and a white American mama from Kansas, he had the audacity to hope, so he ran for the United States Senate.
“And now,” Mr. Wright said, as cheers rang from the audience and the organist punctuated his words, “Oh, my God, and now — whoo!”

The Obama campaign declined to comment on the remarks, which were similar to ones Mr. Wright made last month at a church in Houston

Now you all will have to correct me if I'm wrong but I'd say Our Lady was anything but ordinary...

As was reported the USCCB released a statement yesterday about Sen. Biden's foot-in-mouth incident on "Meet the Press" this weekend. What has been more interesting is that the media has seemed to let this one pass it by.

Thomas over at American Papist who has been one of the main hubs of information about Pelosi and Biden-gate was the first to bring this to my attention. Outside the Catholic and religious blogs it doesn't seem that any mainstream press is going to touch this one. While the reactions to Sen. Biden's statement have been swift from some Bishops, it might be time to send our local Bishops an e-mail to see if they are going to chime in on this like they did with Nancy Pelosi.