Priests have become a top "export product" as Poland, where the Catholic Church retains a vibrant strength lost in the rest of Europe, helps fill the dwindling ranks of clergy in the West.

"The Church is universal, not just Polish," said Father Marek Lesniak at the Krakow seminary, whose alumni man parishes of this large archdiocese and also work in Austria, Britain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the United States as well as Russia, Ukraine, Democratic Republic of Congo and Brazil.

"We are not a seminary for missionaries, but if someone has a calling for the missions, he can go," said the deputy director of the 600-year-old seminary where the late Pope John Paul - an inspiration for many of the young students here - once studied.

"We Franciscans want to join in the rechristianisation of Europe," said Father Jan-Marie Szewek of Krakow's Franciscan province, which has missionaries in Germany, Austria, Italy and the United States.

With vocations to the priesthood rising here and falling elsewhere, foreign bishops now buttonhole their Polish counterparts at Vatican meetings or write directly to Polish seminaries to ask if they can provide some extra manpower.

"I was in Cologne at the World Youth Day last year and we got lots of requests from bishops there from Greece, the Netherlands, Germany and France," said Lesniak, who celebrates Mass at the seminary in his fluent English, German and Italian in order to teach students to pray in a foreign language.

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This week's Catholic Carnival is up at Alabama Improper.

(The Catholic Carnival, for those who are not familiar with it, is a collection of the best blog posts from Catholic-centric blogs.)

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Here is a letter we received after our interview with Dr. Nicolosi. Living the Universal Call to Holiness is fraught with some pretty difficult obstacles.

Jim,

I wanted to thank you for bringing in Dr. Nicolosi and delving into this topic. I'm a homosexual who for 15 years lived a gay lifestyle, is in a 10 year relationship (though working towards that being a chaste one) and who rejoined the Church about six months ago. I wholeheartedly agree when Dr. Nicolosi says the Church needs to do more in this area to educate (both themselves and the laity) and to work towards offering help to those in my situation.

When I returned to the Church, the reactions I received from my friends ranged from confusion (in the case of my heterosexual friends who felt that I was so "well adjusted") to outright amazement (from my homosexual friends. How dare I turn my back on "my people"). I knew full well the Church's teaching on the matter (though not the fullness of the teaching). To be honest that's about as far s most homosexuals are willing to go. They see condemnation and shut the door on the Church. As a result, most gay people I've known or met (there are rare exceptions) who was once Catholic has either a) Left the Church entirely or b) Fled to the Episcopal church.

Especially bothersome to me are those who flee to the Episcopal church. One moment they'll be discussing the beauty of that Sunday's liturgy and the next they'll be telling me about what gay events they're going to, what they were doing at the bar the night before, etc. They've found a place where scripture and tradition could be tossed out the door in the name of radical inclusiveness. And in that is absolutely freedom to live their life in the way to which they're most comfortable. I constantly hear the cry from my liberal heterosexual friends about how equal our relationships are and how we deserve marriage and how wonderful it is to see two men "marry."

What they don't see is the rotten underside to our sub-culture. The casual bar hookups (sometimes in the bar), the bathhouses, etc. The simple fact is most gay men don't want "marriage." We only want the illusion of it and the legal and social conveniences it brings. I could count on one hand with fingers to spare the number of purely monogamous relationships I've seen or heard of. By and large, every gay relationship succeeds on setting down ground rules (spoken or unspoken but understood) on who can fool around with whom and when. In the end, the lack of gender differentiation makes our relationships very different from those of heterosexuals.

It was observations and thoughts such as these that helped me to want to look deeper, to read what people were saying on the issue and to want to know the root cause of the nature of homosexuality. I've come to many of the same conclusions after reading that your speaker has in his more career working with homosexuals. The problem is that most of us don't care and those who do care don't understand or know where to turn. I've been blessed in that in my return to the Church I've come in contact with some incredibly compassionate friars and priests who told me the truth but also inspired hope in me. I've heard many horror stories from Catholics and ex-Catholics where the reverse was the case for them.

In the end I think, as your speaker said, that more needs to be done to educate and to teach ourselves as laity and religious to reach out and to offer hope. Not just to say that "you're confused" or "you can be straight" but to come to the understanding that we're broken inside and genuine healing can take place. In my case that process has just begun but I know that hope is present, God is merciful and all things are possible.

I apologize for the length of this email but you put forth a topic that hit close to home. Thank you again for your podcast and all the wonderful work you do.

Sincerely,

Gordon

Robert J. Smith, a Maryland transportation appointee who was fired June 15 for describing homosexuality as a "deviancy," is the victim of "heterophobia," according to a group that advocates for "ex-gays."

...

"We know we're in trouble when homosexual politicians advocate tolerance and inclusion for their own but cannot respect the views of heterosexuals," Griggs said. "Let's remember that heterosexuals, including ex-gays, are also worthy of respect."

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Today we have a conversation with Vince Michinock on the "Role of the Laity"

Since the Universal Call podcast is all about how to live the Universal Call to Holiness, we decided to interview a lay catholic of modest repute. While it has been very exciting and informative interviewing luminaries like Father Fessio and Scott Hahn, we wanted to interview a working stiff like the rest of us. How do you live the Call to Holiness when being a good Catholic is not part of your job description like it is for a parish priest, or a published theologian? Vince is very well educated in the faith and has a lot of insight for us. He lives in Orange County, California with his wife and 6 children.

• Matthew 5:33-37.
• What does the term "Lay" mean?
• Laity is specific call. It is nothing something less than being a Priest.
• We should be reading everything that comes out the Vatican.
• The role of laity has changed over time.
• The laity's main mission is to evangelize the world; the Priest's role is to run the Church.
• The lay have a broader opportunities (than clergy) to evangelize the world.
• Lay men and women have the same call, however, they may have different roles in Transforming the Temporal Order.
• Governing the Church is not part of the lay character.
• The wealth of knowledge regarding the laity from The Second Vatican Council.
• Lumen Gentium is one part of second Vatican council's documents that apply to the laity.
• The Priesthood of the Laity.
• How parents can live out the Domestic Church.
• The frequent reception of the Sacraments are critical to the proper fulfillment of our role as Laity.

Catholic counselors attend Billy Graham festival

The loud cheers and cries heard coming from Oriole Park at Camden Yards the weekend of July 7-9 were not directed toward at the Orioles. Instead they were shouts and songs unto the Lord.

The Metro Maryland Festival is an evangelical festival hosted by Billy and Franklin Graham in order to bring people back to the faith they lost or to find a new faith. The three-day, faith-filled extravaganza consisted of nightly messages from Franklin Graham, Christian rock and country artists and the highlight of the weekend, an address from 87-year-old Billy Graham.

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Father Erik Arnold, pastor of the Church of the Crucifixion, Glen Burnie, Md.,and archdiocesan liaison to the festival, and a group of trained counselors attended the festival in order to bring fallen away Catholics or those who aren’t attached to a church to experience the Catholic Church.

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A Catholic anti-abortion group, Catholic Answers, recently announced it will form a new organization, Catholic Answers Action, after a 2004 complaint filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claimed its Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics was a partisan intervention in that year's election. The new group is a social welfare organization exempt under 501(c)(4) of the tax code, and is not subject to the ban on partisan activity that applies to charities and religious organizations under section 501(c)(3). It intends to publish a similar 2006 version of its voter guide.

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Although he denied Catholic Answers had violated the ban on partisan activity, he said the group did not want to cope with the time and expense of further IRS complaints that the 2006 guide would likely generate. As a result, CAA was incorporated in January, with the same board of directors as Catholic Answers. However, Keating's letter notes the two groups have separate activities, funding, and accounting and publish separate e-newsletters. The two groups will share office space and staff.

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With muddled thinking like this, how is anybody supposed to be able to grow closer to God?

Why can’t I be a good Catholic and dissent? Apparently, being a dissenter and a good Catholic are mutually exclusive. Why can’t I be both? There is no “Thou shall not dissent� commandment. Yet today it appears that anyone who does not strictly follow or agree with the rules promulgated by Rome is considered to be a bad Catholic. And this to the point that Pope Benedict XVI is apparently saying good riddance—who needs them anyway—let them fall by the wayside: they are just weeds in the field.

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Here is some Catholic reading for anybody who is interested in this kind of stuff.

(And remmber, if you order from the Amazon search box on this page ,(here), Universal Call will recieve additional financial support.)

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A World War II Nazi ship has been donated to a Roman Catholic monastery by the Croatian government to be turned into a sailing church.

According to reports, the landing ship DTM-219 was used by Nazi Germany to transport tanks and infantry and was given to communist Yugoslavia after 1945 as part of war compensation.

The ship will be towed to the city of Sibenik in the central Adriatic from a Croatian navy port. It will then be adapted at a local shipyard.

The sailing church will be used by young people who can sail the Adriatic, pray and meditate as part of church-sponsored religious cruises.

Around 90 per cent of Croatia's 4.4 million people are Roman Catholics. The country gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and hopes to join the EU by the end of this decade.

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While visiting with a delegation of Iraqi Muslims in 1999, Pope John Paul II surprised his guests and the world when he reverently placed his lips on the Islamic holy book of the Quran. It was a gesture typical of the pope – demonstrative, dramatic and eminently photographable. It was also one of the most controversial gestures of his papacy. And it is a gesture few Vatican watchers think his successor is likely to repeat.

"Anyone who knows Rome will tell you that today a more hawkish position is in ascendancy," said John Allen, Vatican correspondent and author of The Rise of Benedict XVI (Doubleday, $19.95). "Not that Pope Benedict doesn't want good relations with Muslims or that he wants to launch some kind of cultural crusade. Quite the contrary. He wants dialogue, but dialogue that has the self-confidence to be honest," Allen told Our Sunday Visitor.

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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH’S social teaching is summarized in the book, “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church� which was requested for by Pope John Paul II. It was released for by Cardinal Martino’s council in October 2004 after six years of preparation.

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The compendium was produced to serve as “an instrument for the moral and pastoral discernment of the complex events that mark our time� and be “a guide to inspire attitudes and choices that will permit all people to look to the future with greater trust and hope.�

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The cardinal advised his listeners that “social doctrine is not mere theoretical knowledge, but is meant to be put into action.� Recalling Pope Benedict’s encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est�, he noted that the pope declares that the church’s task lies in building a social order to reawake spiritual and moral forces – “As citizens of the state, they (the laity) are called to take part in public life in a personal capacity.�

“This kind of spirituality builds up the world according to the Spirit of Jesus: It makes us capable of observing history without distancing ourselves from it; of nurturing a passionate love of God without looking away from our brothers and sisters, whom we are able to see instead as the Lord sees them and to love as he loves them.

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PARIS -- Al Fath Mosque is in a scruffy immigrant neighborhood not far from the neon-lit kitsch of the Pigalle district. On Friday afternoons, the mosque is jammed, and the overflow of worshippers spills into the streets.

Tourists who stumble on the scene reflexively reach for their cameras, struck by this unusual public manifestation of religiosity in a country where Christian belief has become passé.

In France and in almost every other European country, Christianity appears to be in a free fall. Although up to 88% of the French identify themselves as Catholic, only about 5% go to church on most Sundays; 60% say they "never" or "practically never" go.

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Some interesting statistics on people's belief in the historical accuracy of the Da Vinci Code:

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ANKARA, Turkey — A man stabbed a Roman Catholic priest Sunday in the Black Sea port of Samsun, a church official said, in the third attack against a Catholic cleric in Turkey in recent months.

The French priest, Pierre Brunissen, 74, was injured in the hip and leg and rushed to a hospital, Monsignor Luigi Padovese, the apostolic vicar for Anatolia, told The Associated Press by telephone from his church in Iskenderun, southern Turkey.

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Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kingston Rev Lawrence Burke has called on Christians to make a concerted effort to take steps to halt the rapid erosion of core family values.

According to Archbishop Burke, it was critical that families adopt the mode of going on retreats to strategise and refocus in much the same way businesses retreat to plan for the success of their enterprise. "We need to strengthen our family, we must consciously take time out to determine what we are going to do to strengthen our family."

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Today we have a conversation with Dr. Joseph Nicolosi on Homosexuality and the Church.

He holds a Ph.D. From the California School of Professional Psychology and, as a clinical psychologist, is the founder and director of the Thomas Aquinas Clinic, in Encino, California, and the President of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). For the last 15 years, his professional focus has been reparative therapy, a controversial therapy that considers homosexuality a disorder that can be cured. He has written 3 books: Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality : A New Clinical Approach; Healing Homosexuality: Case Stories of Reparative Therapy and most recently, A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, co-written with his wife Linda Ames Nicolosi. He and his wife have two sons.

• John 16:5-11
• The Church's position on homosexuality.
• Homosexual desires, however disordered, are not a sin. (Acting on them is.)
• The Catholic Church falls short on ministering to Homosexuals; evangelical churches are far ahead of the Catholics.
• The Catholic ministries of "Courage and Encourage".
• The unique needs that the homosexual condition require a specific ministry.
• In 1973, the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association voted to delete homosexuality as a mental disorder.
• Can homosexuality be "Cured"?
• The causes of homosexuality.
• Psychologists who work with homosexuality generally agree on its causes.
• Our Acceptance of Homosexuality as "normal or natural" is a problem in terms of redefining human sexuality, relationships, gender, etc... and eventually deconstructing Christian anthropology.
• Gender Identity Disorder.
• The theory that "Everybody knows people are just born that way" is not true.
• The classic triadic relationship that encourages homosexuality.
• Dr. Nicolosi has never met a homosexual who had a loving relationship with their father.
• How addictions (alcoholism, gambling, etc..) differ from homosexual lifestyle.
• Homosexuality is not a lifestyle choice - people discover same-sex attraction in their youth.
• In spite of the insightful and compassionate doctrinal postion, The Catholic Church is "Failing Miserably" in the practical ways of addressing the issue.
• We should try to enourage our priests learn more about the right way to minister to homosexuals.
• The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is a great resource for people who want to learn more about this. Also Exodus International.
• EWTN also has done a good job responding to this.