NBC has apologized

From The Catholic League:

NBC APOLOGIZES FOR MSNBC’S HIT ON POPE

March 30, 2010

NBC apologized today for an article on MSNBC’s website entitled, “Pope Describes Touching Boys: I Went Too Far.” The article that readers accessed after clicking on it actually had nothing to do with the pope.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue accepted the apology today:

NBC says the attributed quote was erroneous and they have corrected the error. An apology was also extended. The apology is accepted. We hope that whoever was responsible for this outrageous post is questioned about it and that appropriate measures are taken. We look forward to hearing the outcome.

This doesn't mean the fight is over. Don't tolerate slander and calumny. When good people fight back, good things happen.

Hat tip: Fr. Z at WDTPRS

Mad as hell, and I just can't take it anymore.

Before I start, let me say this:
1. Abusing anyone, anytime, is ALWAYS wrong.
2. Priests abusing their power to abuse children is sickening. May God have mercy on their souls.
3. Bishops covering it up and simply moving abusive priests from assignment to assignment or just covering it up and not taking it a. to civil authorities or b. to a canon trial is horrifying. May God have mercy on them for betraying all of the faithful that way.
4. Laypeople who know about it and do nothing sicken me also.

Those who make false accusations and who spread gossip and otherwise smear another's good name has a lot of apologizing to do. And may God have mercy on them as well.

There has been a lot in the press this week trying to link Pope Benedict XVI to abuse cover-ups in Munich, Germany and in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The article in the New York Times is poorly researched and if I had tried to hand that in during my college journalism class, I would have gotten an F. The Times seems to have a real leftist agenda, which is why I cancelled my subscription two years ago. You can read good fisks of this story from people inside and outside the Church. Here are some links, but there are a lot more:

Andrew Brown, The London Daily Telegraph online
John Allen, The National Catholic Reporter
Sean Murphy, The Catholic Education Resource Center
Rev. Thomas Brundage, JCL, Canon judge in the Milwaukee case tells his side
George Weigel in First Things
Brendan O'Neill on why Atheists shouldn't join in on the Catholic Bashing
John Allen, again, in the New York Times
Father Raymond J. DeSousa, National Review Online

Today, MSNBC.com ran a headline that implied that Pope Benedict XVI molested children. Surely this was a mistake, but when you peruse the other headlines, well, it's not good for the Church. You can read more about it here at WDTPRS . I saw it first here at CMR.

I wrote an email to NBC News President Steve Capus:

Dear Mr. Capus,

I write to you to strongly object to MSNBC's characterization of Pope Benedict XVI in the headline which was up and running on msnbc.com this afternoon. It seems to me to be a horrible mistake, but taken together with the rest of the content on the page, there seems to be a real bias against the Catholic Church on your pages.

I would like to acknowledge the apology on your page for the misleading headline and I thank for that gesture, but given the fact that unknown thousands of people saw your headline and may never read the website's apology within the article, don't you think that a more prominent retraction and apology is due? Perhaps you might find a place for it on Brian Williams' broadcast tonight? Or maybe have Chris Matthews deliver an apology before he begins his program this evening?

Or, perhaps, you might direct some of the talented journalists you have on staff to fisk the New York Times article of last week. Many others, who seem to be unbiased toward or friendly to the Catholic Church, have taken it upon themselves to read the evidence the Times has presented on its website and found the claims in that article to be unsupported. The Judge in the canon case in Milwaukee has refuted much of what the Times has published. Has NBC sent anyone to talk to him?

I expect more of an organization like NBC News. And be assured that I will not watch MSNBC, NBC, its sister stations, or its web content (including Hulu) until a sufficiently prominent apology is issued and NBC takes it upon itself to try some real journalism as regards this story. Please also be assured that I will be writing next to your sponsors to tell them of my displeasure and to tell them that until your organization apologizes and begins to cover this story in a fair way I will not purchase their products. I will be posting this to my blog, to my Facebook account, and passing it on to my friends to encourage a boycott of your network and its sponsors until such a time that a satisfactory apology is made.

Sincerely Yours in Christ,

Amy Giglio

Linden, NJ

What you need to do is write to him, too. You need to write to their sponsors, and you need to get mad. Yes, when we are personally attacked, we are to turn the other cheek. But I do believe that as Catholics we are obliged to stand up for Holy Mother Church and for our Pope. How long are you going to tolerate being treated second-class, or having your faith mocked privately and in public? How long are you going to tolerate anti-Catholicism: the last acceptable prejudice in America?

It's Holy Week. Now is a good time to start.

Update: Thanks to Dr. Eric in the WDTPRS combox, here is a list of MSNBC advertisers:

LIST OF SPONSORS:
Toyota
Verizon
Nutrisystem
Avis
AIG Term Life
Coldwell Bankers
Venus Breeze
Geico
O’lay
Jimmy Dean Sausages
lawyers Weitz & Luxenburg, NY
Sudafed
Video Professor
Natural’s Cat Chow, Purina
Merneke Car Care Center
Am. Express
Travel Companion on CNN
Crystal Light
Infiniti Car
Vonage Phone
Dyson Vacuum
Eharmony
Cepacol
Hyundi Car
U.S. Buildings
Boeing
Progessive.Com
Direct TV
Colonial Penn Life Insurance
Indulg-a-Bath
Stop IRS Debt
HSBC Direct Financial Inst
U.S. Airforce
Aleve
Progresso Soup
Subaru
Spiriva
Cooking Lite
Steak-umns Burgers
Infiniti
Scalpcin
Mama Lucia Meat Balls
Sea Bond
Financial Freedom, reverse mortgage
eDiets Meal Delivery
Aqua Velvet
Citracal
Mr. Clean
Chemistry.com
Bayer Products
Old Mutual Investment
Rogaine
Verizon (Both)
Avis
Coldwell Bankers
Geico
Jimmy Dean Sausages
Sudafed
Natural’s Cat Chow, Purina
Am. Express
Crystal Light
Vontage Phon

7 quick takes Vol. 3

1. Is this all I have time for right now? These posts with 7 bulleted points? Yes. Apparently it is.

2. I now have sinus and cold madness that was exacerbated by the powerful spring cleaning I did last Sunday. It was powerful Spring cleaning in the sense that I don't think we had cleaned the boys' room since summer. Forget about dusting. Did I mention my horrible dust allergy and my asthma? And I didn't use a dust mask while cleaning? And how I must not be all that smart?

3. Is it wrong for me to want the heavens to open and start pouring rain so I don't have to take the Kindergarteners and 1st graders outside at lunchtime?

4. I've been working with a 10 year old who is being prepared to be received into the Church this Easter Vigil. I'm so blessed to get to work with these kids.

5. Confirmation Prep classes are done. I think they went well. After Easter, things start to gear up with Confirmation Masses and First Communion Masses. I'm just trying to get through May 2.

6. I'm hoping that using the gift certificate I got for a local Spa (massage and manicure Sunday!) will go a long way toward helping me get through the next month.

7. Got appointments for an eye exam for me and Primo tomorrow morning. We think he needs glasses and I could probably use a new prescription. I also want to start wearing contacts again. And did I mention that I think I need reading glasses? Dang, I'm 34! Too young for reading glasses!

More more quick takes, go visit Jen at Conversion Diary. Thanks for hosting us, Jen!

7 quick takes vol. 2

7 Quick takes

1. My phone wouldn't receive any text messages after Monday night. Turns out all of the text messages I had saved (like the thread with my husband from when he gave me the phone in November 2008) was taking up too much memory in my phone. Oh well. I guess you can't save it all.

2. Primo played in the PAL Basketball semi-final game tonight and he made his first basket shooting free throws. I am so proud.

3. Scott's been home the last two days, which has been great. It's so nice when we get to just hang out a little.

4. Fr. Mark Mossa came to visit us on Wed. and he talked to my 7th grade CCD class. It was great hanging out with him.

5. We moved Curly Sue into her own room tonight. She's very happy. Now I hope she stays in bed....

6. Applied for our passports on Thursday. They kept our birth certificates, which was a little disconcerting until the post office clerk told us they'd mail them back. Hope we don't need them between then and now...

7. Praying for my friend who went to the neurologist this week to see about headaches she's ben having. And also for my pregnant friend. Hang in there, girls!

What's YOUR kid doing at school?

Bub's filling out his 1-100 number chart like this:
...30, 31, xxxii, xxxiii, xxxiv, xxxv, xxxvi, 37, xxx8, xxx9, 40, ...

And writing the date like this: III/8/10

And doing addition like this: II + I = III

And asking his teacher: "When you said you told us that 50 times, were you speaking metaphorically?"

And when his gym teacher asked them to make letter shapes with their bodies, he made a GAMMA.

Oy...

Maybe instead of making him repeat Kindergarten we should have just put him in 3rd grade.

7 Quick takes

Technically it's Saturday, but I wanted to post something. My first 7 Quick Takes:

1. I should have been cleaning all day today, but for biological reasons I didn't get as far as I wanted to. Kind of bummed about it, but hey, what are you going to do?

2. This cleaning I am speaking of now consists of throwing the clutter into bags to put it into the basement to be dealt with at a later time. We're still under construction, so we don't really have places to put things now.

3. My dear Husband is nailing the last few rows of floorboards into our new floor in our dining room. We will just need to do finishing (molding, etc.), but we can at least move the dining room table out of the room that will belong to Curly Sue soon. We have got to get her into her own space. She's too old to be sharing a room with her brothers.

4. Tomorrow (Really, today) is the bridal shower for one of my cousins. Guess I had better buy a gift. Don't tell her I haven't done it yet. (Hi Jen! ;) )

5. Why I let us pick this weekend to throw a surprise party is beyond me. Construction, messy house, work. What is wrong with me?

6. We're going to Europe in July! This is the trip for Scott's work that got canceled last year. One week in the UK, and then we're going to take an extra week since we'll be there and who knows when we'll get to go back? Narrowed it down to either Spain or Italy. I'm leaning toward Italy. Advice?

7. The next few weeks are so busy for us. I can't wait till Easter gets here, then things slow down for a few weeks. Then if I can get through the weekend of May 1/2, I'll be OK.

You can read more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary. Good night!

coat rack sandy hook, nj
saturday march 6, 2010

the winter of our discontent

In February, the kids had the fever with temp spikes up to 104. The weekend of Jan. 31/ Feb. 1, Bubba came down with it on Friday and the fever finally broke on Monday after the sore throat started. He was back to school Wednesday. The following Friday, Primo got the same bug as Bub, with the same symptoms and for the same duration. That weekend also saw Curly Sue come down with a low-grade temp (about 100), but she was done with it in 24 hours. That was the weekend of snowmageddon, which never really happened here. The following weekend saw Curly Sue awake at 5:00 screaming in pain. Ear Infection. The following Friday saw Curly Sue with a fever hitting a high of 104 up and down for 4 days. She was finally clear to go to school by Thursday of that week (incidentally, another snowstorm which canceled school).

Just as I am thinking we're all in the clear, no more fevers, the stomach viruses have begun. Bub vomiting last Tuesday (one episode, better by 2:00). Curly Sue got it on Thursday (same everything). Primo had a little tummy trouble Saturday morning, but was fine. Played the best basketball game of his life that morning. Today, Curly Sue got it again. She's still asleep on the couch and I am going to get up now and wash some sheets. I am going to open the windows again today since it will be almost 60 here.

Is it spring yet?!

The long hello

See that guy over there on the left? We met almost 15 years ago, but he doesn't remember. There were probably 20 of us watching a movie in Smugs' room in April of 1994. Smugs introduced "Gigs" to everyone. I never met a guy with that kind of nickname before so it stuck. I said, "Hi, Gigs," when I passed him on campus the next day. I could tell by his face that he didn't remember me. I also heard his friend say, "Who was that," and Scott replied, "I don't know." I didn't say hi again. I figured he didn't remember me. And I didn't see him much after that since our paths rarely crossed.

I had been selected to be an RA (Resident Assistant) for the next year, my junior year. We did our spring team building day and in the summer, I went back to school early for training. Two days into training, there was Gigs. Two guys had resigned as being RAs over the summer and he was asked to replace one of them. He told everyone his name was Scott, so that's what we called him. Apparently, only guys on the baseball team called him Gigs. We finished our training and the freshmen arrived on campus. I was pretty busy since I was an RA in the freshman girls' dorm. Scott was assigned to an upperclassman dorm, so he was around, but kind of peripherally. The college always had an ice cream social for the freshmen during orientation and all of the RAs went. I talked to him a little as we were leaving the social with our friends. As we parted, I said goodbye and gave him a hug, as all recovering theatre people do. There were sparks in that hug, but Scott wasn't my type. He's about 5'7" and played baseball. I liked guys taller than 6' and who were actors or poets. I just went back to my room and did my work and kind of forgot about it.

Shortly afterward, Scott and his colleagues up in Tucker Hall decided that they would throw a dance in the basement of the dorm. It used to be a seminary, so it was quite big. They called it Tucker Underground. And Scott was on duty that night. Oh, boy. What a terrible night he had! A lot of underage drinking and at one point, one of the Panamanian soccer players who lived there kicked a goal shot to the other end of the long hallway using a beer ball. He stopped down to the dance on rounds and I saw him and said hi and gave him a hug like I always do and there were the sparks again. A couple of us offered to go on rounds with him again so he wasn't alone. And we wound up hanging out for the rest of the time. I helped him and his fellow RAs clean up the mess. and then I stayed. The lounge where they had the dance was a 24 hour space, so we stayed there and watched TV and talked. All night.

I did try to kiss him at one point (forward much?) and you know what he said? He told me he didn't want to kiss me then. He said that he once kissed a girl the night that they met and that it didn't go anywhere right away and he didn't want that to happen with me. He wanted to give whatever we might have a chance before we kissed. I was shocked. No guy had ever said that to me before. I knew immediately that he was a good one, a guy I wanted to know better. So we stayed up until 7:00 in the morning just talking. He wasn't allowed to leave the building until then since he was on call. He drove me back to my building and he said he'd call me in the afternoon. The next night, we went out with his friends to play pool.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Of the 4 couples that we knew who got together at Tucker Underground, 2 of us are married. Scott and I were married 10 years ago on March 4. It's funny how 15 years can all at once feel like forever and yesterday.

So, Happy Anniversary, to my one, true love, to my college sweetheart, to the man whom God moved mountains to get into my life, to my Scotty. I love you.

trying

I am trying harder now to be more patient with my children. One way I'm trying to do this is to say a Hail Mary before I start screaming. It's a lot like counting to 10, but it takes a little longer and it's actual prayer (multitasking-yes!). I figure Mary was Jesus' mom, and while she and Jesus were sinless and probably didn't really drive each other crazy, she's probably witnessed some crazy in Nazareth. And in the roughly 2000 years since her Assumption, she's witnessed a lot of crazy--from the vantage point of heaven, of course. So, I'm asking her intercession while I try not to yell at my kids all day long.

Sometimes the prayer is audible, sometimes not, but the kids know what I'm doing and I wonder what they're thinking when they see me do this. I don't want them to associate the Hail Mary with me being fed up. They have asked me "what are you doing," as they watch me moving my lips, eyes raised to heaven. I tell them I'm asking Mary to pray for me.

This leads me to wonder of you know any moms who don't yell. I know one, but I guess I could be acquainted with more and just not know it. She's really sweet. I have seen her with her family and with other peoples' kids and I have never heard her even raise her voice above an "inside voice" tone. I don't know how she does it, especially since she has more than 10 kids of her own. Yes, you read that right. And I have never in 7 years of knowing her heard her raise her voice. There is an air about her. It's peace. She radiates peace.

I'm not sure what I radiate, but it's not peace. I think I radiate agitation. I radiate bad juju.

Actually, I do think I know how she does it. I'm pretty sure she prays more than me. She's definitely one of the holiest people I know. She seems to have put all of her life in the Lord's hands, and she is confident in His Providence.

This is my problem. I try to do too much. I pay good lip service to "Leaving it up to God," "His Will be done!" But I find myself trying to control things and then getting frustrated by the things I have no control over. Like the weather canceling or postponing events I've organized for Church. Dang, I can't make the blizzard either show up or avoid us. And I can't even rejoice in the time off.

Which brings me back to Mary. There she was, a 14 year old girl, and this angel shows up and tells her that God wants her to bear His Son. And after she gets over being confused ("How can this be? I don't know man."), she tells the angel, "I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word." And she probably never thought, "Boy, what's Joseph going to think? What are all the women in town going to think about me?" She probably just knew God would take care of it. She was that humble.

I read this today and it kind of jumped out at me. Maybe it will hit you, too:

We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body (2 Cor. 4:8-10).

Let it be done to me according to your word.

welcome

To anyone who might possibly have clicked over here from this post at CMR, a very warm welcome. I am not nearly as shrill as the Ash Wednesday post below and that email make me sound.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try and get some content up here. Right after I make dinner for my husband and kids.

Oh, and here is a link to an article about how what you do over the internet is never really private.

Especially if you email an Archbold.