Catholic Carnival # 88

There was a good mix of posts submitted for this week's Carnival. Lots to read on a variety of themes. Enjoy!

Stating that religion can survive without government, you can read the reasons why at Shining City Atop A Hill in this post called Why This Catholic is Against Prayer In School.

Scared that being spiritual meant saying goodbye to being herself, Christine Kane is relieved to find out that being spiritual means being herself, being real.

Don’t miss reading This Is How We Swim by Amanda at Imagine Bright Futures. In this post Amanda shares how we swim, pray and stay afloat; floating on the current of shared stories.

The Blog From The Core presents the third of nine lectures by Cardinal Newman in the summer of 1851. Introductory material is here: Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England

In her post - Feast Day of St. Benedict Miss Kelly does a little research on St. Benedict of Nursia (480-547), whose feast day was July 11th, and who is the namesake of our beloved Pope Benedict. She adds that St. Benedict started the system of monasteries, which famously preserved Western civilization during the early Middle Ages. The monasteries contributed a great deal to our modern world, including Gregorian chants, musical notation, schools, ales and liqueurs, and our notion of the value of manual labor.

Jay at Living Catholicism gives an overview in his post called Teaching Religion to Your Childrenof what has worked in teaching Catholicism to his children. He gives references the books that work for them.

At Deo Omnis Gloria is a post called Understanding The Priesthood which explains the priesthood using the Old and New Testament.

At Kicking Over My Traces you'll find a post called More on Christian Art which examines how the Pre-Raphelite Brotherhood returned Christian art to realism, producing stunning images.

The Anchoress writes beautifully about her experience of Adoration in a post called Adoration and the Mist, the Veil

AdoroTeDevote in her post The Bible Is Patriarchal and Oppressive To Women gives a summary of a talk she heard at a conference. In it she challenges the claims that the Bible and Christianity are oppressive to women...and asks how does scripture hold up to this attack?

Penitens over at A Penitent Blogger writes of the blunt suggestions from Isaiah for improving a life of prayer in a post called God Will Not Listen To You

Elena at My Domestic Church has a critique of Mr. Douglas Phillip's essay ":Why the Life of the Mother is Not a Valid Exception for Abortion - Vision Forum Ministries" in her post called Two Beating Hearts. While she agrees that Christians do need to stand strong without fear, she also believes that strength has to be include compassion, and the truth has to be said in love. She says that Mr. Phillips is a strong and passionate writer. If he could add some of the traditional Catholic elements such as these to his writing, she believes he will become an even more effect advocate for life.

In his post Exclusive Diversity Lee at View From The Choir examines how the word diversity has been transformed into a code word for acceptance of acts you might consider immoral whether you like it or not.

A reflection called God's Temple and Prophets on the Mass readings for Sunday 7/15, at HMS Blog focuses on the importance of our response to God’s messengers.