Spirit Wing Records announces two brand new projects, Catholic Music 2008 and Catholic Christmas!
CONNEAUT, OH - AUGUST 26, 2007 - On the heels of the overwhelming success of their Catholic Music 2007 project, Spirit Wing Records proudly announces the upcoming release of two new projects, Catholic Music 2008 and Catholic Christmas. Catholic music 2008 features 34 Catholic recording artists, giving music fans a rich sampling of the diverse styles in Catholic music today, from Opera to Rock and Roll. Catholic Christmas features 17 Catholic recording artists offering heartwarming music celebrating the birth of our Savior.
Catholic Music 2008 and Catholic Christmas, are expected to be released on October 1, 2007, however pre-sales have already begun on the Spirit Wing Records web site.
The creators of Catholic Music 2008 and Catholic Christmas, Gary Gersin of Cleveland, Ohio and Mike Beloud of Los Angeles, California hope to continue to bring awareness to the variety of Catholic music ministries that exist today.
Gersin, of 1360AM WWOW radio in Conneaut Ohio, said, “I am constantly trying to think of new ways to introduce people to all of this great music that exists within the Church today. Catholic Music 2007 was very well received, so we wanted to continue to use these projects to introduce people to Catholic music ministries they may have never heard of before. It’s all about sharing our Faith and serving God through His gift of music”
“Gary and I really took a leap of faith when we “volunteered” to spearhead the Catholic Music 2007 compilation project. We had no idea that the response was going to be so overwhelming; it has been a very fun and exciting ride to be able to share this wonderful music with people everywhere. It has also been an absolute joy to work with these artists, their hearts are really in the right place” said Beloud, member of the Catholic-rock group Rise. “I am very happy with the music featured on the Catholic Music 2008 and Catholic Christmas projects.”
“Praise” is first of the two CDs on the Catholic Music 2008 compilation, which features modern upbeat music, while Disc 2 “Worship” is more traditional/prayerful music. Catholic Christmas is a heartwarming and spirited Christmas compilation from 17 of today’s talented Catholic Artists.
The 34 artists featured on the Catholic Music 2008 CD project are: Nick Alexander, Angelina, Susan Bailey, Gerry Brown, Ceili Rain, Kitty Cleveland, Sean Clive, Critical Mass, Chris D’Alfonso, Dan Duet, Deacon Anthony Siino and Sherry Ottoson, Trish Foti Genco, Paul Harrigan, Gretchen Harris, Lorraine Hartsook, Father David Hemann Annie Karto, Last Day, Donna Lee, Mike Mangione, News at Eleven, Rise, Nancy Scimone, Servant Song, Simonetta , Margo B. Smith, Teresa Smith, Joel Stein, Ned Tonner, Amanda Vernon, David Vogel, Valerie Von Fange, Xaltar, and Celeste Zepponi.
The 17 artists featured on the Catholic Christmas project are Angelina, Renee Bondi, Kitty Cleveland, Sean Clive, Trish Foti Genco, Lynn Geyer, Gretchen Harris, Father David Hemann, The Interior Castle, Nancy Krebs, The Love Movement, Father Charles and Laurie Mangano, Remember Rome, Elizabeth Schmeidler, Chuck Stevens, Amanda Vernon, and Celeste Zepponi.
Copies of Catholic Music 2008 and Catholic Christmas can be pre-ordered by visiting the Spirit Wing Records website at www.spiritwingrecords.com.
For a limited time, all pre-orders will receive free shipping.
For more information, contact Mike Beloud at Mike@SpiritWingRecords.com or Gary Gersin at Gary@SpiritWingRecords.com.
Contact: Spirit Wing Recordshttp://www.SpiritWingRecords.com OH, USGary Gersin - Owner, 440 - 669-7081
Monday, August 27, 2007
St. Monica
St. Monica was married by arrangement to a pagan official in North Africa, who was much older than she, and although generous, was also violent tempered. His mother lived with them and was equally difficult, which proved a constant challenge to St. Monica. She had three children; Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetua. Through her patience and prayers, she was able to convert her husband and his mother to the Catholic faith in 370· He died a year later. Perpetua and Navigius entered the religious Life. St. Augustine was much more difficult, as she had to pray for him for 17 years, begging the prayers of priests who, for a while, tried to avoid her because of her persistence at this seemingly hopeless endeavor. One priest did console her by saying, "it is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish." This thought, coupled with a vision that she had received strengthened her. St. Augustine was baptized by St. Ambrose in 387. St. Monica died later that same year, on the way back to Africa from Rome in the Italian town of Ostia.
By the way, she is the patroness of: abuse victims; alcoholics; alcoholism; difficult marriages; disappointing children; homemakers; housewives; Mabini, Bohol, Philippines; married women; mothers; victims of adultery; victims of unfaithfulness; victims of verbal abuse; widows; wives
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary!!!
Follow the link for a great article on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02006b.htm
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Interesting Article from Detroit Free Press
(Thanks Raquel for the Link!)
Act of defiance to Nazis still reverberates today
Austrian a hero to antiwar movement
August 8, 2007
BY DAVID CRUMM
FREE PRESS RELIGION WRITER
The name of an obscure Austrian peasant, whose friends warned him that he was throwing his life away in 1943 in a worthless effort to defy the Nazis, will echo in the streets of Detroit on Thursday as a patron saint of the contemporary antiwar movement.
Franz Jägerstätter isn't officially recognized as a saint by the Vatican yet, though he is scheduled for beatification by Pope Benedict XVI in October. That is one step away from canonization.
AdvertisementThousands of peace activists around the world aren't waiting on the pope. They already regard him as a saint for his heroic refusal to fight in the German army during World War II, a decision that led to his beheading by the Nazis in Berlin.
"Thursday is the day of his martyrdom on Aug. 9, 1943, so we're holding this prayer service in his memory in the street outside the Archdiocese of Detroit chancery building," said the Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann, a Detroit United Methodist pastor and author who is nationally known as a peace activist.
"He pointed out to all of us what the gospel really says about our moral responsibility in the face of war, and we're remembering him because we're trying to encourage people to resist the current war," Wylie-Kellermann said.
Michael Hovey, now an archdiocesan spokesman on Catholic social teaching, worked for many years with sociologist Gordon Zahn, the scholar who launched an effort in 1964 to pull Jägerstätter's story from the shadows of World War II history.
Born in 1907 in the tiny Austrian village of St. Radegund, Jägerstätter lived the typical life of a farmer, but his Catholic faith led him to refuse induction to the German army. Despite pleas from friends and neighbors to reconsider his defiance, he calmly refused to budge. He was imprisoned, tried in Berlin and beheaded.
"Gordon's biography of him, 'In Solitary Witness,' influenced a lot of people after the book came out in 1964," Hovey said. "It's true that this was one of the books Daniel Ellsberg was reading that influenced him to release the Pentagon Papers in 1971."
Wylie-Kellermann said he thinks that's the most powerful part of the story: This link between a seemingly insignificant act of defiance by a peasant and Ellsberg's fateful decision to expose U.S. Defense Department documents about American failures in Vietnam.
"It's a great lesson: an Austrian peasant dies in complete obscurity -- a story that literally should have been a dead end in history -- but his story is retold and winds up helping to end the war in Vietnam," Wylie-Kellermann said. "Zahn's book tells the story so well, because he was able to interview directly many of the people who knew Jägerstätter."
In the 1980s, Hovey worked with Zahn on global peace and disarmament campaigns. He accompanied Zahn on trips back to St. Radegund to meet with Jägerstätter's widow, Franziska, and raise awareness of the story.
In October, Hovey will travel back to Austria and participate in the beatification ceremony. He hopes to visit Franziska Jägerstätter, who still lives in the village near Salzburg.
The campaign to promote Jägerstätter's story included an hour-long documentary about his life on Austrian television in the late 1980s that was followed by 500 local discussion groups held across the country.
"After all these years of work to bring his story to more people, when we heard in June that the Vatican would beatify him, I just felt numb," Hovey said. "I was so glad to hear it. He's the kind of example we need today of a good Catholic who was courageous enough to say no to war."
Contact DAVID CRUMM at 313-223-4526 or crumm@freepress.com.
Act of defiance to Nazis still reverberates today
Austrian a hero to antiwar movement
August 8, 2007
BY DAVID CRUMM
FREE PRESS RELIGION WRITER
The name of an obscure Austrian peasant, whose friends warned him that he was throwing his life away in 1943 in a worthless effort to defy the Nazis, will echo in the streets of Detroit on Thursday as a patron saint of the contemporary antiwar movement.
Franz Jägerstätter isn't officially recognized as a saint by the Vatican yet, though he is scheduled for beatification by Pope Benedict XVI in October. That is one step away from canonization.
AdvertisementThousands of peace activists around the world aren't waiting on the pope. They already regard him as a saint for his heroic refusal to fight in the German army during World War II, a decision that led to his beheading by the Nazis in Berlin.
"Thursday is the day of his martyrdom on Aug. 9, 1943, so we're holding this prayer service in his memory in the street outside the Archdiocese of Detroit chancery building," said the Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann, a Detroit United Methodist pastor and author who is nationally known as a peace activist.
"He pointed out to all of us what the gospel really says about our moral responsibility in the face of war, and we're remembering him because we're trying to encourage people to resist the current war," Wylie-Kellermann said.
Michael Hovey, now an archdiocesan spokesman on Catholic social teaching, worked for many years with sociologist Gordon Zahn, the scholar who launched an effort in 1964 to pull Jägerstätter's story from the shadows of World War II history.
Born in 1907 in the tiny Austrian village of St. Radegund, Jägerstätter lived the typical life of a farmer, but his Catholic faith led him to refuse induction to the German army. Despite pleas from friends and neighbors to reconsider his defiance, he calmly refused to budge. He was imprisoned, tried in Berlin and beheaded.
"Gordon's biography of him, 'In Solitary Witness,' influenced a lot of people after the book came out in 1964," Hovey said. "It's true that this was one of the books Daniel Ellsberg was reading that influenced him to release the Pentagon Papers in 1971."
Wylie-Kellermann said he thinks that's the most powerful part of the story: This link between a seemingly insignificant act of defiance by a peasant and Ellsberg's fateful decision to expose U.S. Defense Department documents about American failures in Vietnam.
"It's a great lesson: an Austrian peasant dies in complete obscurity -- a story that literally should have been a dead end in history -- but his story is retold and winds up helping to end the war in Vietnam," Wylie-Kellermann said. "Zahn's book tells the story so well, because he was able to interview directly many of the people who knew Jägerstätter."
In the 1980s, Hovey worked with Zahn on global peace and disarmament campaigns. He accompanied Zahn on trips back to St. Radegund to meet with Jägerstätter's widow, Franziska, and raise awareness of the story.
In October, Hovey will travel back to Austria and participate in the beatification ceremony. He hopes to visit Franziska Jägerstätter, who still lives in the village near Salzburg.
The campaign to promote Jägerstätter's story included an hour-long documentary about his life on Austrian television in the late 1980s that was followed by 500 local discussion groups held across the country.
"After all these years of work to bring his story to more people, when we heard in June that the Vatican would beatify him, I just felt numb," Hovey said. "I was so glad to hear it. He's the kind of example we need today of a good Catholic who was courageous enough to say no to war."
Contact DAVID CRUMM at 313-223-4526 or crumm@freepress.com.
Monday, August 06, 2007
August 6, 1945
I found this brief article by Catholic Answers president Karl Keating about the use of nuclear weapons by the USA at the end of World War II. He wrote this article a few years back, but I think his points are spot on. I think it is worth a look.
Karl Keating on Nagasaki and Hiroshima
"[C]annot be squared with Catholic moral principles:"
Many justify the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima by saying the abrupt end to the war saved as many as a million American lives that would have been lost had Japan been invaded. I don't know where the figure of one million came from. My understanding is that the War Department estimated a maximum of 46,000 casualties in an invasion. That was a worst-case scenario, meaning the likely number of casualties would have been far lower.
Some commentators have argued that no invasion was needed at all, since Japan no longer had an air force or navy and had no domestic source of oil for its industries. A blockade would have resulted in the Japanese war machine and economy grinding to a halt. The war thus could have ended without an invasion, though the end probably would have come long after the summer of 1945.
Be that as it may, what concerns me is the attitude, so prevalent among political conservatives (most of whom are religious conservatives), that there are no limits in defensive warfare: If the other guys started the fight, they deserve whatever they get. In a defensive war it is not a matter of "My country right or wrong" but of "My country can do no wrong," which is an odd thing coming from conservatives who, on domestic matters, can be highly critical of their government's moral failings (as regards abortion or homosexuality, say).
Catholic moral principles are easy to apply to other people, difficult to apply to ourselves. This is as true in public life as in private life. During World War II our enemies did atrocious things on the battlefield, to conquered nations, and even to their own people. Many of these evils we knew about during the war; others came to light only after the cessation of hostilities.
Even those evils we knew about during the war were so prevalent and so gross that, to many, it seemed permissible, for the duration, to lay aside a principle that we insisted be followed by our enemies: The end does not justify the means.
Rephrase that in Catholic terms: To achieve a good, you may not perform a sin. To provide your family financial security, you may not rob a bank. To protect your wife's health, you may not abort the child she is carrying. And to defeat an enemy in war, you may not violate just war principles. But we did--and more than once, sad to say.
The atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, like the fire bombings of Dresden and other German cities, cannot be squared with Catholic moral principles because the bombings deliberately targeted non-combatants. The evil done by our enemies did not exonerate us from the moral law. Their evils did not provide us justification for evils of our own. Being a Christian in peacetime is difficult; it is more difficult, but even more necessary, in wartime.
Fat Man exploded directly above the Catholic cathedral in Nagasaki. The city was the historical center of Catholicism in Japan and contained about a tenth of the entire Catholic population. The cathedral was filled with worshipers who had gathered to pray for a speedy and just end to the war. It is said their prayers included a petition to offer themselves, if God so willed it, in reparation for the evils perpetrated by their country.
[from Catholic Answers: Karl's E-Letter of August 3, 2004]
Karl Keating on Nagasaki and Hiroshima
"[C]annot be squared with Catholic moral principles:"
Many justify the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima by saying the abrupt end to the war saved as many as a million American lives that would have been lost had Japan been invaded. I don't know where the figure of one million came from. My understanding is that the War Department estimated a maximum of 46,000 casualties in an invasion. That was a worst-case scenario, meaning the likely number of casualties would have been far lower.
Some commentators have argued that no invasion was needed at all, since Japan no longer had an air force or navy and had no domestic source of oil for its industries. A blockade would have resulted in the Japanese war machine and economy grinding to a halt. The war thus could have ended without an invasion, though the end probably would have come long after the summer of 1945.
Be that as it may, what concerns me is the attitude, so prevalent among political conservatives (most of whom are religious conservatives), that there are no limits in defensive warfare: If the other guys started the fight, they deserve whatever they get. In a defensive war it is not a matter of "My country right or wrong" but of "My country can do no wrong," which is an odd thing coming from conservatives who, on domestic matters, can be highly critical of their government's moral failings (as regards abortion or homosexuality, say).
Catholic moral principles are easy to apply to other people, difficult to apply to ourselves. This is as true in public life as in private life. During World War II our enemies did atrocious things on the battlefield, to conquered nations, and even to their own people. Many of these evils we knew about during the war; others came to light only after the cessation of hostilities.
Even those evils we knew about during the war were so prevalent and so gross that, to many, it seemed permissible, for the duration, to lay aside a principle that we insisted be followed by our enemies: The end does not justify the means.
Rephrase that in Catholic terms: To achieve a good, you may not perform a sin. To provide your family financial security, you may not rob a bank. To protect your wife's health, you may not abort the child she is carrying. And to defeat an enemy in war, you may not violate just war principles. But we did--and more than once, sad to say.
The atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, like the fire bombings of Dresden and other German cities, cannot be squared with Catholic moral principles because the bombings deliberately targeted non-combatants. The evil done by our enemies did not exonerate us from the moral law. Their evils did not provide us justification for evils of our own. Being a Christian in peacetime is difficult; it is more difficult, but even more necessary, in wartime.
Fat Man exploded directly above the Catholic cathedral in Nagasaki. The city was the historical center of Catholicism in Japan and contained about a tenth of the entire Catholic population. The cathedral was filled with worshipers who had gathered to pray for a speedy and just end to the war. It is said their prayers included a petition to offer themselves, if God so willed it, in reparation for the evils perpetrated by their country.
[from Catholic Answers: Karl's E-Letter of August 3, 2004]
Saturday, August 04, 2007
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