Popular PD writer Bill McClellan offered a column this morning titled As election day nears, church and politics get a little testy.

Seems one Hugh McVey got up in church — in the middle of a sermon — and challenged the St. Louis priest, Fr. Noah Waldman. Details in the McClellan link above.

McClellan described Fr. Waldman this way:

He is 39 years old. He graduated from Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in May. He is a protege of Archbishop Raymond Burke whom he knew in Wisconsin.

Actually, there is more to Fr. Waldman than this. He was a deacon at St. Clement of Rome, our parish, before his ordination this past spring.

He has been a guest in our home.

He has an article on church architecture in the September issue of Adoremus: Beauty as Expanded Reason: The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton. He received his Master’s in Architecture from Notre Dame.

He is an…

In comments published over the weekend in a daily Catholic newspaper sponsored by the Italian bishops’ conference, former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke said the Democratic Party “risks transforming itself definitively into a ‘party of death.’”

According to a Catholic New Service story, Burke - now the head of the Vatican’s version of the supreme court - was told that musician Sheryl Crow played at the Democratic National Convention last month.

“That does not surprise me much,” the archbishop said. “At this point the Democratic Party risks transforming itself definitely into a ‘party of death’ because of its choices on bioethical questions as Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in his book, ‘The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts and the Disregard for Human Life.’”

Archbishop Burke said the Democratic Party once was “the party that helped our immigrant parents and grandparents better integrate and prosper in American society. But it is not the same anymore.”

Pro-life Democrats are…

Nancy Pelosi has gotten into hot water for misrepresenting Catholic Church teaching against abortion. Appearing on Meet the Press last Sunday, she said:

“I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time,” she said.

“And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition.

And Senator - St. Augustine said at three months. We don’t know,” she said…..

In a release issued Monday night, Washington, D.C.,  Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl said Pelosi’s comments on “Meet the Press” on Sunday “were incorrect.”

“We respect the right of elected officials such as Speaker Pelosi to address matters of public policy that are before them, but the interpretation of Catholic faith has rightfully been entrusted to the Catholic bishops. Given this responsibility to teach, it is important to make this correction for the record.”

He cited…

Archbishop Raymond Burke dedicated the pilgrimage site - the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe - he founded in his home diocese of La Crosse, Wis. yesterday.

Joe Orso, religion reporter and columnist at our Lee Enterprises sister paper, the La Crosse Tribune, wrote a great story about yesterday’s dedication. And the paper has a terrific, interactive multimedia page for anyone who wants to take a closer look at the shrine.

The shrine’s own website has some interesting features, including a schedule of events that Burke took part in during this dedication week. And a Catholic New Agency story has a good description of some of the shrine’s features.

And Duncan Stroik, one of the shrine’s architects, describes the shrine on his website.

The St. Louis Archdiocese is in a brawl with a national Catholic newspaper.

Earlier this week, the National Catholic Reporter posted an article on its website written by its executive editor, Tom Fox. The story cited anonymous sources who said an affidavit in the archdiocese’s file for Sr. Louise Lears suggested the archdiocese had sanctioned a secret video taping of a women’s ordination ceremony last fall.

NCR said the affidavit gave “permission to an individual to attend the ceremony in order to record it.” According to the story:

The archdiocese authorized someone to record the rite and then used the recording, along with photographs apparently taken from the video, as evidence to punish a Catholic nun who attended the liturgy, according to several people familiar with the case.

The paper subsequently updated its story with quotes from Rabbi Susan Talve, whose Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis was the site of the ordinations, and who told the paper…

If you are running short on patience with what you see as various jackanapes who publicly criticize Archbishop Burke on his style rather than on his message — which is what really ticks them — you might be interested in veteran Vatican watcher John Allen’s recent column.

Allen writes:

“Since news of St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke’s appointment as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura was announced June 27, I’ve received numerous telephone calls and e-mails, from both sides of the Atlantic, posing some version of the following question: Was this a case of what the Italians call promuovere per rimuovere … promoting someone in order to get rid of him?

“…..The following … is not based on any insider insight. Nonetheless, my hunch is that this is not a case of promuovere per rimuovere, but what one might call “promotion for multiple motives.” In no particular order, I suspect that at least the following…

(1) Happy Birthday, Archbishop Burke. Ad Multos Annos!

(2) A local nun looks back on imprisonment in a WWII camp:

“On Chinese New Year the sisters’ hearts skipped a beat when they were told they had been summoned to the office of the camp’s commander.

“We were told to come to the Japanese headquarters and we wondered what in the world was going to happen,” Sister Mathews said. “So we marched, I think it was a mile and a half. We had a soldier behind each one of us and two soldiers at the tail end (of the group). We wondered what in the world would happen when we got there…..”

(3) The Pope does not wear Prada.

(4) Bad tenured teachers are hard to fire:

MIDDLE ISLAND, N.Y. (AP) — Few people know better than school superintendent Allan Gerstenlauer that disciplining a tenured teacher can be a long and expensive process.

An English teacher in his…

Over the weekend, I have been reflecting on the news of Archbishop Burke’s transfer to Rome. As an active participant in interfaith activities in St. Louis, I have encountered Archbishop Burke in a number of community settings. The first time was at a small dinner of welcome arranged by the Jewish Federation of St. Louis and the Jewish Community Relations Council. He carried himself as a warm and somewhat shy person, but comfortable in the midst of the Jewish community. He reflected on his interactions with the Jewish community of La Cross, Wisconsin his former diocese, and looked forward to working with the St. Louis Jewish community on matters of mutual concern.

For the media in St. Louis, Archbishop Burke was a blessing. His denial of communion to supporters of “choice” in the national debate on abortion, made the national news. It was an election year. As a rabbi, I was…

Speaking from Rome last week, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke put the kibosh on rumors that he was meeting with Pope Benedict XVI to receive a new appointment to become archbishop of New York.

“I can assure you that’s not the case,” he told the Post-Dispatch, laughing. “This trip has been planned for months.”

Burke said he was in Rome to take part in the second International Congress-Pilgrimage for consecrated virgins.

Rumors about whom will succeed Cardinal Edward Egan as the archbishop of New York have swirled since Egan reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 last year. In April the cardinal turned 76 and it’s believed Benedict will name his replacement in the coming months.

Burke has been the archbishop of St. Louis for nearly 4.5 years, and will turn 60 in June. He’s been involved with the consecrated virgin movement since before being installed in St. Louis, serving as the group’s official liason with…