February 21st, 2008

CU Episode 69: Call No Web 2.0 Application Your Father.

This week: Father Jason Vidrine joins us to speak about the nonsense afoot at Facebook, who seems to be removing priestly titles from its sacerdotal users. Also, our picks of the week, a trip through the cu|metro, and some Christopher Walken inspired BackChat. Wow!

Fr. Chris | Posted in CU Podcast | 14 Comments »

  • Joe

    so is Facebook such a big deal. Best thing to do is not to use it.

  • Joe

    by the way — Fr. Roderick has been doing an explanation of the Ramadan and Lent issue on the Daily Breakfast.

  • Michael

    I just wanted to emphasize that protection of life in all its stages means a lot more then just abortion. I decided to mention this because many Catholics seem to forget this when they decide to vote. A person who supports capital punishment, euthanasia, an unjust war, or any means of attacking life is anti life. I also note that if a person supports something in the previous list and says that they are anti abortion there statement is suspect to me. I do this because it is not the love or reverence of the sanctity of life that is motivating the decision.

  • http://www.catholicunderground.com Father Chris

    Very Good point Michael! How often we forget how far the issue of “pro-life” extends!

    @Joe:

    well, as far as Facebook can be a useful tool in spreading the Gospel (especially among Catholics who might otherwise not be in the “tech-know”), it’s a praiseworthy thing to seek at least equal treatment in having venerated titles present on the names of her clergy, when members of the secular realm continue to enjoy their proper forms of address. It’s not a demand for recognition so much as it is a plea for respecting the Sacrament of Holy Orders — something that is often under attack in our world today.

  • Joe

    thanks for the response and I agree that Facebook ought to show respect for the person as well as the sacrament of Holy Orders. Question – to the moslum leaders have titles ? I dont use facebook, but it might prove to be interesting exercise in prejudice is a test was dome with an “imaginary” moslum cleric with their title ans see how they handle the site.

  • Mark Adams

    Michael,

    The simple fact of the matter is that the Catholic Church teaching does not equate abortion and capital punishment as you have. In the post below this one I provided a Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger quote from 2004. I will provide it again:

    “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”

    http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/04-07ratzingerommunion.htm

  • Mark Adams

    Michael,

    As for supporting an unjust war, it is, of course, wrong by definition to support anything unjust. But an unjust war is determined by the application of Catholic moral teaching to a particular set of circumstances. People of good faith may differ on that application. Therefore just because someone votes for a candidate that you believe to be supporting an unjust war, does not mean that that the voter is supporting a candidate that is objectively anti-life in the same way that a pro-choice candidate could be described as anti-life.

  • Michael

    Mark,

    Thank you for your comments. I am sorry if my comment made it seem that all the issues were of equal value. I definitely agree that abortion and euthanasia are particularly heinous offences. Reading your post helped me clear my head to better state what I was trying to say. The first is actions speak louder then words. Make sure that what a politician is saying coincides with they are doing. Second anti-abortion is not the same thing as pro-life. Pro-life covers more then just abortion.

  • http://www.deacontomonline.com Deacon Tom

    Hello FATHERs and MR. LeBlanc… Enjoyed this most recent show — with 1/3 of air time devoted to the Facebook purge of religious titles. As you most often refer to each other as ‘Father’ — so most all of us (excepting a few early 1980′s CC’s (as in confused Catholics in the post VII period or CINO’s [Catholic in Name Only] )… those who understand… and those who care…. and those who have maleable hearts will gladly call you FATHER…. as do I…. I’m a great fan of the late Catherine Doherty (of Madonna House) — and her love and respect for priests was so awesome…. even in case of flawed or weak priests…

    And- not to continue with much more on this subject — would you care dear FATHERS to discuss the bifurcated views of bishops and priests with regard to deacons… e.g. some bishops don’t have them in their diocese, some do…. some priests don’t want them…. some do… some deacons wear clerics… others better not… etc. etc. This would be a nice area to tidy up as you work on converting the Facebook Bifurcated Strategy Dept….

    Blessings. Peace. Thanks so much for your ministry in all areas.

    Deacon Tom

    ps:: I am certified as an ordained deacon in case you want to check….

  • http://www.cybercatholics.com Josh

    Deacon Tom,

    Aah, yes. As Fr. Chris will tell you all of the points you mention are sticking points with me. I believe the Permanent Diaconate is one of the vocations that gets most neglected in the United States. There are various universal norms which bishops ocassionally disregard and so you have different standards for deacons in every diocese you go to in the United States. One of my favorite articles on the subject is titled “The Dress and Address of Deacons” by Duance L.C.M. Galles, a Canon Lawyer. It appeared in Homiletic and Pastora review a few years back but if you do a google seach you can find it, if not I have a copy I could get to you. I don’t know if we’ll discuss this on the show or not but definitely watch for a cu|sixty on the subject (yes we still do those occassionally)

    Josh

  • Lindsay Pace

    I happen to catch Fr.Chris call Joshua “Yoshua’ . I would imagine that this is a reference to Hebrews 4:8. It’s funny that in the KJV they use the word Jesus instead of Joshua. This causes quite a strom in the KJV only camp. By the way I just built a pc with 2 320gb WD HD and could never figure the whole RAID thing out. I am using the second HD to put movies on. Any suggeestion on the best freeware to use to put movies that I have purchased (hard copy from a B&M store) on my hard drive?

  • http://fatherryan.tumblr.com Fr. Ryan

    Hey there Lindsay, I’ll have to defer to Joshua on this one – PCs are no longer my bag (, baby).

  • Michael

    RAID is complicated only because it is a very broad title. RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. This means that anyway you can use software or hardware to have your operating system see multiple drives as a single drive it is a raid.

    The first type is type 0 called striped the benefit of this configuration is that theoretically the write and read speed would be double for two disks and triple for 3 etc. and you would still have the full amount of storage between the drives. the down side is that since your computer sees all these drives as a single hard one a failure on any will be seen as the computer as a total failure.

    The second type is 1 mirrored this is basically uses the two drives and has them be exactly copies of each other. The main benefit is that if there is a disk failure there is a complete running backup. There is no increase in speed and the amount of storage is equal to only one drive.

    The third popular type is type 5 which is a combination of both. this requires at least 3 disks. That will continue to work as long as there is a failure only on one drive. The loss of storage capacity is equal to the number of drives minus 1 times there storage size. this means if you had 3 100 gig drives in a raid 5 you would have a capacity of 200 gigs. There is also an increase in performance as well but not as much as raid 1 the way this is accomplished is by putting a checksum bit on one drive for each bit written on the others. the way it works is that if a 0 is stored on the first one and a 1 is stored on the second the the checksum will be 1 if 0,0=0 if 0,1=1 if 1,0=1 if 1,1=0 and therefore with simple algebra the disk that has a failure can be replaced and recreated.

    Now the question is weather RAID is the right solution for your problem. If you just need a place to store your movies I would probably suggest a external hard drive or a Network attached storage device. If you have an older computer with the capability to hold lots of hard drives you can use freenas this though is more difficult. If you have multiple places you want to view your dvds would suggest creating myth back-end media server.

    What I think would serve your needs the best though is Drobo. It has a very simple setup. It can have mixed size drives. It backs everything up in case of drive failure. It can be expanded with larger drives in the future. I would say It would probably be your best bet.

  • frjimt

    I listen to your podcasts while travelling btw. several different churches on a weekend to assist because of the shortage and illnesses of priests (please pray for priests, we have a good number of younger men who are ill!)….
    here in Penna.

    Anyway, I want to throw my ‘coin into the fountain’ about facebook…..
    we now have Catholictube.com and several other specifically Catholic categories…….
    why not start your own Catholic facebook website?

    i’d try it, but it would have to be done by linotype press (the old method of printing that my grandmother, a catholic woman in the 1930′s who began her own printing company after the bank refused to give her a loan, but that my pastor, who lent her $500 to begin……..he was great for saying: she repaid the Lord 500 times over…….)………dropping that one onto the lap of the feminists always causes severe heartburn!

    and with regard the title “Father”……….i’m 25 yrs. a priest and am humbled when i hear people use that to acknowledge the Christ in the priesthood!

    fr jim