A Catholic Actor Who Won't Compromise on Sex Scenes

“[He] is a marvelous actor who elevates every role he plays, whether it’s in Band of Brothers or Desperate Housewives.

“So when he was suddenly replaced with David James Elliott 3 days into the filming on ABC’s new series Scoundrels earlier this week, there had to be a story behind the story. The move was officially explained as a casting change. But, in fact, McDonough was sacked because of his refusal to do some heated love scenes with babelicious star (and Botox pitchwoman) Virginia Madsen.

The reason?

He’s a family man and a Catholic, and he’s always made it clear that he won’t do sex scenes. And ABC knew that. Because he also didn’t get into action with Nicolette Sheridan on the network’sDesperate Housewives when he played her psycho husband during Season 5. And he also didn’t do love scenes with his on-air girlfriend in his previous series, NBC’s Boomtown, or that network’s Medical Investigation.

“‘It has cost him jobs, but the man is sticking to his principles,’ a source explained to me. You can’t help but admire McDonough for sticking to his beliefs, even if he’s poised to lose as much as $1 million in paydays…” (continue reading)

Five for Ten

The Updated Version of Aesop's "The Ant and the Grasshopper"

THE ANT & THE GRASSHOPPER (TRADITIONAL VERSION)

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

The End.

[MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself.]

* * * * *

THE ANT & THE GRASSHOPPER (MODERN VERSION)

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

When winter comes, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shiv
ering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green . . .”

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Then the Rev. Al Sharpton has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.

Dear Leader condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper’s plight.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to mak
e him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses, dragging the rest of the free world with it.

The End.

< span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">[MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010 and 2012.]

Author unknown.

De Profundis

Hillary Clinton attacks Canadian PM Harper for not promoting abortion

That shrew.

A look at the unprecedented Medjugorje commission

I was one of several American Catholics interviewed recently for this Our Sunday Visitor newspaper article on the vexing subject of the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje.

Those who’ve read my previous comments about that on this blog or who have heard me discuss it on my radio show already know where I’m coming from. I consider myself an open-minded skeptic who is not only willing to be wrong about Medjugorje (though I don’t think I am), but I sincerely do hope I am wrong and that it is an authentic Marian apparition. Good golly, do I ever hope I’m wrong about this.

Here’s the article by Emily Stimpson:

Vatican panel to weigh authenticity of alleged Marian apparitions
in Bosnia-Herzegovina

For many, it was an announcement that seemed long overdue.

On March 17, the Vatican announced the formation of a commission to investigate the authenticity of the Marian apparitions centered in Medjugorje. The commission, requested by the bishops of Bosnia-Herzegovina, will take place under the auspices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and will begin work almost immediately. Its findings will be subject to the final authority of the CDF.

The announcement was, in many ways, unprecedented.

Franciscan University of Steubenville theology professor and mariologist Deacon Mark Miravalle noted it’s typically the local bishop or ecclesial conference that establishes these types of investigatory commissions.

It is possible for that call to come from the Vatican “if it’s not pleased with what takes place at the local level” or, if the Vatican “thinks things have not gone ideally, for the CDF to step in and take a more active role.”

But, Miravalle continued, it’s usually the local bishop who has the final say on the commission’s findings, not the CDF.

Fruits of visions

The announcement is unprecedented, but, in many ways, so is what’s taking place at Medjugorje.

It all began in 1981, when six Croatian teenagers, who lived in the small village in Bosnia-Herzegovina, reported that the Virgin Mary had appeared and given them a message to share with others. Nearly 30 years on, some of the visionaries still claim to see the Blessed Mother daily. The rest say she now appears to them only yearly.

For those inclined to accept the apparitions as true, the number of years Mary has appeared to the visionaries — 29 — as well as the number of messages received — upward of 30,000 — are signs that God is at work in Medjugorje.

“In 30 years you have no notable contradictions between the seers, and no observation — to my knowledge — that any of the messages are in any way off the beaten track in terms of faith and morals,” said Father Johann Roten, director of the University of Dayton’s Marian Library — International Marian Research Institute.

Father Roten pointed out that scientifically and medically the apparitions are among the most studied in Church history.

In addition to the messages themselves — which consist primarily of calls for repentance, conversion and peace — proponents also point to the tremendous fruits that the messages have born in the Church.

To date, more than 30 million men and women have visited Medjugorje, with countless conversions and vocations to the priesthood and religious life resulting from those visits.

“There seems to be an undeniable explosion of supernatural graces in Medjugorje,” Miravalle said.

‘Not good’ fruits

But there also seems to be an undeniable storm of contro-versy surrounding Medjugorje.

“The good fruits of Medjugorje are undeniable,” said Patrick Madrid, director of the Envoy Institute of Belmont Abbey College. “But we can’t disregard the fruits that aren’t good.”

Madrid, who calls himself “a skeptic, not a critic,” of Medjugorje, points to accounts of scandal surrounding several key figures as an example of those “not good” fruits.

He likewise finds fault in the very thing that so many proponents find good: the messages.

“From very early on, you see an incitement to disobedience in the messages,” Madrid said. “If this really is the Mother of God urging disobedience to the bishops, that seems at odds with her messages to people like St. Faustina, where she urged obedience even in the wake of disbelief and disapproval.”

Both proponents and skeptics have ample evidence to which they can point and ample arguments with which to respond to those who disagree with them. At this point, it can feel difficult, if not impossible, for faithful Catholics in the middle to know who’s right.

Up until now, however, the Church hierarchy has been almost as divided on the question as Catholics themselves. Both of Medjugorje’s local bishops took firm positions against the apparitions, while other bishops, such as Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph
Schönborn, have caused a stir by making pilgrimages to the apparition site. . . . (continue reading)

What religion is this?

I don’t recognize it.

No Wonder They're Skeered of the Easter Bunny

You know and I know and you know I know that you know I know that you are skeered of these “Easter Bunnies.” You know it. And I know it.

"This is a dark hour in the history of our republic"

Father Jay Scott Newman explains why the recent passage of the health-care bill was a great defeat for those who defend unborn life against “the murderous abomination” of abortion. Listen to this courageous priest’s eloquent, powerful sermon and share it far and wide. In it, he names and denounces the “grave injustice” which has been enshrined in law and the “false Catholicisms which are helping to destroy our nation by building lies into laws.”

"Doing a Stupak" (A new phrase has been coined)

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