Mahony's openly 'gay' deacon designs new website for Archdiocese
Featuring a dramatically enhanced photo of Robert Graham's bronze "iron maiden" which hangs over the entrance of Mahony's cathedral, the Archdiocese's new website is a vast improvement over the one it replaces. Its designer is 'gay' activist, Eric Stoltz, who was ordained a permanent deacon by Cardinal Mahony in 2004.
One innovative feature on the new website is Liturgy in your own language. This link shows the wide array of languages in which Mass is celebrated in L.A. and where they can be found.
Among the more exotic languages mentioned are Garifuna, Tongan, Haitian, Aramaic, and, yes, African-American. Do they mean Ebonics?
Oddly enough, English Masses are not mentioned, but multitudes of Spanish Masses are.
Conspicuously not listed are the very few places where the Latin indult Masses are offered in the Archdiocese. This comes as no surprise since Cardinal Mahony has never been particularly solicitous of "those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition," in spite of the Holy See's admonition that there be a "wide and generous application of the directives" of Pope John Paul's motu propio, Ecclesia Dei.
I think that an excellent service provided at the new archdiocesan website is the "parish-finder," which allows you to type in a zip code and find the parishes nearest you. This will be particularly useful as more and more parishes are taken over by PLD's (Parish Life Directors). This way when you really need a priest rather than just a hug from Sister Susie, you'll know where to go.
A website designed by L.A.'s openly 'gay' deacon would not be complete without a Gay and Lesbian link. Here one finds support groups for "gays and lesbians" as well as for the parents of "gays and lesbians." In addition, at this link are listed those parishes which are considered "welcoming," that is, (although the term is not used) "gay friendly."
As at the old website, the "homosexual fish" pin is featured rather prominently along with the following explanation:
See in the fish pin a sign of recognition of our lesbian and gay sisters and brothers.I guess that means if your "gaydar" isn't working that well, the "gay fish" pin is evidently a good backup.
The "gay and lesbian" page states that it was the Cardinal himself who founded the Archdiocese's unique and groundbreaking "Ministry to Lesbian and Gay Catholics." It is curious, however, that not a word is said about Father Peter Liuzzi, O. Carm. He is the reportedly 'gay' priest who was the face of Mahony's "outreach" to homosexuals until the "ministry" folded in 2002 due ostensibly to budget cuts.
The new website includes a "photo album" page where you may not only view archived photos but even submit your own photos of events related to Catholic life in L.A.
How about sending an e-card to that special loved one or nemesis? The newly built website allows you to do just that and to accompany your greeting with images such as THIS ONE.
In appearance, if not in content, the all new L.A. archdiocesan website is a huge improvement over the old one which was, frankly, quite embarrassing (especially since L.A. is, like, the media capitol of the world!).
Before I do another thing, I am going to send an e-card with this HALLOWEEN THEME IMAGE to Deacon Stoltz to congratulate him on a job well done. You can do the same right HERE.
Visit the new and improved L.A. Archdiocesan website HERE.
posted by Quintero at 5:02 AM
36 Comments:
Rev. Mr. Stolz has a typo. The Cardinal could not have instituted the MLGC in 1968. Elsewhere it is listed as 1986. Notably, this is seven years after Courage began an authentically Catholic apostolate to homosexuals. And as "up-to-date" and "culturally diverse" as this new website claims to be, it seems Rev. Mr. Stolz is still unaware of this international apostolate. Curious.
No, not "curious," Clayton. The more accurate word is "queer."
Yes, I have used the term "sodomite" on previous posts. In this post, however, I am quoting the website which uses the word "gay," a term which never appears in the Church's magisterial documents.
It is, as you know, a politicized term that connotes "active homosexual."
It seems you can vote on the pictures. Don't like that picture of the litugical dancer? Vote it zero stars.
In the science of the Saints that is the path to perfection, the first rung of the ladder, so to speak, is a break with mortal sin.
Mortal sin kills the life of grace in a soul. A soul in the state of mortal sin can NOT preach the full Truth of Christ. So, for example, a member of the clergy engaging in a sexual lifestyle(outside of a married deacon)--be it hetero- or homo-is not in a state of grace but in a state of mortal sin. Truth cannot be expected to come from them. Perhaps a veneer or lip service but not the full truth.
Being nitpicky, but it struck me that if you look at the priestly vocations page, they have a picture of washing feet. However neither the hands holding the foot nor the hands holding the water are men's hands, hmmm... now what message could they possibly trying to send?!
What a lovely bunch of Archdiocesan events they have planned! A bountiful corncopia of dissent and librealism.
Check out the Women and the Word seminar where you can learn about women in holy literature including the Qur'an.
And you can attend a talk entitled "The American Empire and the War Against Evil". At the Pax Christi SoCal Annual Regional Assembly.
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The homo page is so politically correct I think I am going to gag. Someone who is in denial or simply uneducated as to what the Church teaches is going to fall for it hook, line and sinker. "Fish pin" my ***!
i didn't want to click on any of these links. too creepy. but were there any links to "courage"?
I recently created a Google Map Hack that shows a map of all the parishes in LA. The la-archdiocese.org webmaster liked it, but I guess they didn't incorporate anything like it into the new site.
Also, why is "Native" listed as one of the languages?
Last comment: the .la top-level domain was originally that of Laos, not Los Angeles. Like several other countries like Tuvalu and Tonga, Laos appears to have relinquished its top-level domain to a company that can make more money by reinventing the .la domain as the domain for Los Angeles. I think this trend is abusive of the original scheme and I would have thought that such a politically-correct organization would have thought so too.
Peter, please...pretty please...visit a Mass said in African American and record it. I have been unable to find the official African American missal and am just dying to know how they pull this off. I also wonder if they are celebrated by Fr. Amos and Deacon Andy.
Once again the liberals prove themselves not to be about love and respecting the dignity of others, but for making superficial gestures to compensate for their ingrained bigotry.
Just like in today's Gospel, I see from the comments posted here, indeed the entire blog,that phariseeism is alive and well.
Since the diocesan bishop is a vicar of Christ for his particular Church, and respect is required of the Christian faithful to be shown to him (see cc. 208-209)I would hope that those who have differences of opinion with their bishop express them in a Christian way, instead of in the arrogant way presented here.
anonymous,
It is interesting how the Gospel reaches people differently. As I read today's readings I couldn't help but to think of Cardinal Mahony and other prelates who have such long tassles and seem to say, "look at me; aren't I holy?", yet who operate with utter contempt for the things of God and of His Church.
Following the prescription of our Lord, we do what our leaders tell us to do, but we refuse to follow some of those leader's example. Yes, we complain - and in my case, perhaps a bit too often - but we do have the Church as our guide and according to canon law.
I would recommend that you not stop reading the code of canon law at sec. 209. The faithful have a right to genuine Catholic teaching and worship, which is denied in L.A. and many other diocese. The laity also have the right to voice their grievances (can 212-213 among others). Neverthless, your point about lacking charity is not lost. I know I am guilty of that offense at times.
The gay page never uses the words sin, conversion, disorder, or normalcy.
It assumes the most important problem with gays is that they are 'not accepted.'
That tells us a lot.
Does anyone else find these words by the Cardinal a little bit weird?
from the main page of the site "...the diminishing number of priestly and Religious vocations has brought with it a deeper realization that it is in the nature of the Church to be given diverse gifts, ministries and offices. All of the baptized have a share in a common mission to proclaim and to serve the coming Reign of God. Some are called to leadership in the Church."
What does he mean by the "coming Reign of God"?
And who are the "some" who are "called to leadership in the Church"?
Women, perhaps?
There is something wrong with this Cardinal. He is either ...
1. insane.
2. or just evil.
Pope Benedict should remove him immediately. He is a danger to souls.
mediarelations@la-archdiocese.org.
I'm afraid to ask, but can someone tell me what "MLGC" stands for over the ummm... rainbow catfish thingy?
Ministry to Gay and Lesbian Catholics.
New and improved eh? The website is down.
The new site is difficult to negotiate. It's cluttered, and some links overlap on the page and are not accessible as a result.
The Vocations site is very disappointing.
Here's an excerpt, about diocesan priests:
"He ministers by building community, by drawing people together, by challenging them to serve each other, and by urging them to address the social concerns of our times. The diocesan priest ministers by celebrating Eucharist, and by leading the community at prayer, especially in the sacramental moments of birth, reconciliation, marriage, sickness and death."
Nothing about the priest offering the Holy Sacrifice, or preaching, or administering the sacraments, or anything traditionally associated with the priesthood.
Just the same old insipid nonsense.
Anon 3:16 p.m. -
Yup, that's typical Mahony-speak.
He is the vocations killer, par excellence.
An important point is being missed. This is probably the best designed Catholic site on the internet (despite the overlapping content in Safari.)
Faithful Catholics can claim to be rich in content but when it comes to using the internet as an effective evangelization tool, they are enormously ineffective. To the modern mind, we faithful Catholics must look especially stupid on the internet. Kudos to Eric in providing an excellent example for other Catholic web designers to follow.
As a fellow Catholic internet professional, I deeply respect his skills in the areas of graphic design, interaction design, information architecture, web standards (XHTML, CSS) and web accessibility. Eric clearly knows his stuff.
The Church of St. Agnes web site is being redesigned in a similar fashion (but with, um, different content): www.stagnes.net
Dear "church online",
I'm getting overlapping and inaccessible links on three different browsers,
Safari, Firefox, and IE for Macintosh. Not to mention text partially hidden behind images.
He needs to clean up a few layout bugs.
And even if the design is good, the content, by and large, is atrocious.
Dear "Anonymous,"
Fortunately for the Rev. Mr. Stoltz, CSS bugs are easier to solve than structural markup bugs. I'm a bit suprised the site has them - they could have been caught prior to launch. Despite this imperfection, it's still the best designed Catholic site in the world and the best site he's ever designed (judging from his portfolio.)
What's your point about the content? Isn't that what everyone else is saying? Relax for just a minute, look past the atrocious content, and realize that faithful Catholics (especially) need to be doing what he's doing.
Dear Church Online - is this the St.Agnes Parish that the highly esteemed and orthodox Fr.Z belongs to?!
Linda, yes, Fr. Z graces us with his presence from time to time, as he did this weekend for Monsignor Schuler's 60th anniversary of ordination to the holy priesthood, but he is in Rome most of the time. You may know him for his Latin translation skills but you should hear him pray in Latin. His pronounciation is perfect - you can tell he speaks it every day - and it sounds so mellifluous. I wish he were in St. Paul more often.
You know, I only see minor placement issues with the content in the right column (cf.: Pastoral Councils.) Where are the serious issues? I don't see them. FYI, these appear in Safari (2.0.2) and I just upgraded OS X this evening to 10.4.3.
As I have said, this web design is a major improvement over the previous Archdiocesan website. Major. But I wouldn't say it is the best out there by any means. What I've noticed about Stoltz's designs is that they're all pretty much the same. He may incorporate some attractive graphics here and there, but the design approach, at least to me, gets tired fast.
My personal preference is for the graphic design to have less visual emphasis or impact than the content or functionality on a web site. Yes, Eric's designs tend to compete with the content. In my mind, a saving grace or mitigating factor is that he really knows how to blend traditional aesthetics with a modern look and feel (I'm talking in general, across the breadth of his design work.) If he were to tone down the graphic design, I think the result would be more effective.
My approach to design is a little different from Eric's. In part, this is due to the fact I started my design career with the web, which is more utilitarian and task-oriented than traditional forms of information design. Not only did I start with the web, but I also do a lot of heavy transactional design. So your point, Quintero, is well taken.
The new archdiocese web site not perfect by any means but I really haven't seen better examples out there in the Catholic world - his stuff is pretty high on the curve. Seldom do I find Catholic sites that don't get tripped up in the medium in one fashion or another (usually they lack in every regard,) let alone use the latest (superior) implementation techniques.
The Novus Ordo Church is so apostate it is hopeless to try and reform it. Gag me.
Dear Church Online, I had the great privilege to hear Fr. Z sing the Exsultet this past Easter. I thought I had heard an angel sing.
Anon JOE is back.The Archdiosese is still in it's queer deplorable shape.So what if the new queer produced website is better than the old one. It still has the some content problem: queer orintation. get rid of the archbishop and all of his sodomite buddies if you want a holy church in L.A. GOD HELP US!!!!
I think all homosexuals and sodomists will go to hell, including F. Liuzzi and deacon Stolz
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