Catholic Carnival XIX - The Field

A field can be a place for growing: both good things and bad. A field can be a place for celebrating: in good ways or bad ways. A field can also be a place for fighting: for good reasons or for bad reasons.

A field of produce, a field of celebration, a field of battle – that is this week’s Catholic Carnival.

In the days and weeks to come, may all of us strive together evermore for the Good.

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In "The Woman at the Well," The Paragraph Farmer gives "a meditation on life change as one proof of an encounter with Jesus, and a defense of the 'historicity' of the famous story."


In "Ways to keep what's happening to Terri Schiavo and her family from happening to you," From the Anchor Hold has "a practical discussion of advance directives, what they are and why they are so important to have."


The day before a decisive day in the Terri Schiavo case, there was a post titled "Tomorrow Terri Schiavo’s Murder Begins" on Deo Omnis Gloria consisting of "Reflections on Terri Schiavo’s murder and our society."


In "Seven Years Frozen; First Case Of Embryo Adoption," Santificarnos passes on reports "of a 41 year old Spaniard who became the first person in the world to allowed to adopt a 'cast off' embryo. She´s now three months pregnant. A Catholic priest in Italy is calling for Italian Catholics to follow suit."


In "here we go, again," martha, martha provides an "open (and on-going) discussion about what one wears to church... i am of the mindset that i have enough to worry about in my life, i need not concern myself with what others are sporting as fashion... and so it goes."


In "Zeitgeist surfing ," Northwestern Winds observes that "moderns (esp. radically left leaning ones) have a tendency to use one or more Christian virtues against the others. They play on the religious people having morals and seek to exploit our penchant for scrupulosity. It is hard to turn the tables on them because their own value system is more plastic and is in the end much about power. I'm not exempting the right here, but they have different issues."


In "NBC-show 'pushes envelope' by disrespecting Catholic faith," Philothea Rose at Home wants to get the word out "about this attack on the Catholic faith by a major TV show."


In "A Pair of Stinging Indictments," Crusader of Justice offers "some quick reflections on a pair of quotes in Peter Kreeft's How to Win the Culture War."



In "Theological Triage," Ales Rarus responds to statements made by the National Catholic Reporter "in response to the Vatican's censure of Fr. Roger Haight."


(Editorial note: Sometimes posts submitted to the Carnival express especially pointed criticisms of individuals and leaders in the Church - in different ways and from very different perspectives. While inclusion of a post in the Catholic Carnival does not necessarily imply endorsement of the post by the host or anyone else associated with the Catholic Carnival, I wonder if it would be worthwhile to establish certain guidelines to preserve an appropriate spirit for the Catholic Carnival. If you have any suggestions on the issue of establishing guidelines or boundaries for the Catholic Carnival [regarding hosts and contributors], please forward them to me or to Jay.)


In "The Next Just War Debate: the Bishops will Miss the Point," HerbEly.com says that "Military officers are attempting to apply the just war doctrine to changing conditions caused by terrorism (and that) the Catholic hierarchy should, but won't, be part of this discussion."


My own humble submission for this week's Carnival is "The Outsiders:" a reflection on universality and instrumentality, on grace and truth.


Our last stop on our way out of the field of this week's Catholic Carnival is "Thirsting for God's Love" from the HMS Blog in which Kevin reflects "on what the readings for the third Sunday of Lent suggest about our need to use our observance of Lent to develop the right kind of thirst."

Pax Domini nobiscum totum