Cardinal Ambrozic 1930 - 2011

His Eminence Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic

It is Jesus to whom we look.
It is Jesus whom we imitate.
It is Jesus whom we follow.
It is Jesus who is with us
so we can be with him.

Yes, we can work with others.
Yes, we learn from others.
But in Jesus we find our ultimate
identity and purpose.

He is the Alpha and the Omega
for each one of us
and for every human being.

Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic

A Little Civility Please

Anyone who has spent time reading blogs has noticed a serious lack of civility in the comment section. Somehow anonymously typing at a keyboard allows people to say things that they would not dream of were they meeting face to face. Moreover, the lack of visual and audio cues present in normal conversations allows the reader to simply assume the worst. With the best of intentions things can go terribly wrong simply because we are not familiar with this new medium. With less than honorable intentions things can get really nasty. There are some blogs and comment boards I avoid because of the sheer number of trolls and hateful comments. I think we can be better than that.

At Witness we do not want to ever forget that there are real flesh and blood people behind these posts and comments.

The blog Te Deum laudamus is running a series of articles and discussions that will examine these issues more closely. An examination of conscience for online behavior is certainly welcome so I urge you to check out Catholics in the Combox.

John Allen at NCR on Evangelical Catholicism

Defining Evangelical Catholicism
“Evangelical Catholicism” is a term being used to capture the Catholic version of a 21st century politics of identity, reflecting the long-term historical transition in the West from Christianity as a culture-shaping majority to Christianity as a subculture, albeit a large and influential one. I define Evangelical Catholicism in terms of three pillars:

• A strong defense of traditional Catholic identity, meaning attachment to classic markers of Catholic thought (doctrinal orthodoxy) and Catholic practice (liturgical tradition, devotional life, and authority).
• Robust public proclamation of Catholic teaching, with the accent on Catholicism’s mission ad extra, transforming the culture in light of the Gospel, rather than ad intra, on internal church reform.
• Faith seen as a matter of personal choice rather than cultural inheritance, which among other things implies that in a highly secular culture, Catholic identity can never be taken for granted. It always has to be proven, defended, and made manifest.

I consciously use the term “Evangelical” to capture all this rather than “conservative,” even though I recognize that many people experience what I’ve just sketched as a conservative impulse. Fundamentally, however, it’s about something else: the hunger for identity in a fragmented world.
Read the article