Code of Catholic Modesty - No Slacks!

It's hard to imagine just exactly how this bibliosite was used before it became a bibliosite:

Was this a notice that the usher would slip into your hand during the offertory?  Did this arrive in your mailbox after Sunday?  Would it turn up in your sock drawer?

And just who did the noticing in the first place?  Where can one find the "Code of Catholic Modesty or Improper Dress"?

"And you're ugly" - was this written as an extra barb or in retaliation towards the person who originally gave notice.  We may never know.

One thing I do appreciate about this card is that it clearly lays out measurable modesty standards.  Everybody knows that it is important to be modest, but I rarely if ever hear of clearly modest standards.  This card has them (guess I better button up my shirt in church now!).

Please feel free to print out copies of this card for use as you see fit.  Just how would YOU use such cards?

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Heresy Watch: The Holy Use of Money by Haughey, S.J.

From time to time we offer for sale heretical books, sometimes knowingly (one must read Kung to critique Kung) and sometimes unknowingly.  The present title under discussion is a book that we had for sale in our Marriage and Family Life section.  One of my co-workers happened to be reading on the job one day and spotted the heresy in the Introduction of the book.  This was a heretical book that we were unknowingly offering for sale.

The book is The Holy Use of Money, Personal Finance in Light of Christian Faith by John C. Haughey, S.J.  The book was published by Doubleday in 1986.  Please see if you can spot the heresy:

"Transubstantiation is a metaphor.  In the case of the Eucharist, the bread and wine do not physically become Christ.  They remain bread and wine while they mediate the real presence of Christ to us.  He really becomes food and drink for us but we don't drink and eat the Son of God.  What we drink and eat mediates him to us.  The marvel in this is not the change that comes over the bread and wine but the change that comes over a people God chooses to be his own when they choose to exercise the faith with which God has embued them.  The Eucharist cannot be explained except that the believers believe bread and wine into being what Christ wills it to be for them.  He wills it to be him for them.  But he's not confined only to this mode of being present to them.  More than bread and wine should mediate him to us.  Money can and should, which is one reason for [this book]" pages vii-viii.

Did you spot it?

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The Father of the Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan

When I first started working at Loome Theological Booksellers there were two books Henry Stachyra gave me to read in order to become as Loomish as possible.  One was Pieper's Liesure the basis of Culture and the other was Fr. John Hardon's Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan.  I thought I was a well read person before I started working at the bookstore.  After leafing through the Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan and seeing page after page of authors I had never even heard of, let alone read, I found out I was woefully under-read, at least in the intellectual tradition that mattered at Loome Theological Booksellers.

Happily I later found that Fr. Hardon was a rather holy and intellectual priest leaving behind many good books. I have particularly benefited from his Modern Catholic Dictionary actually.  I recently met the postulator for his cause for sainthood, Fr. Robert McDermott (see him below).

Fr. McDermott visited the bookstore recently and he was after Fr. Hardon's books.  Happily we were able to show him a rare Hardon book on confession.  Fr. McDermott's visit prompted me to reflect once again on the worth of a good book and in particular, the many good books of Fr. Hardon.

Please learn more about Fr. Hardon and his cause for sainthood here.

What books of Fr. Hardon have you benefited from?

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