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| Radio New Jerusalem Journal Presents... The Reflections, Essays, and Opinions of Philip D. Ropp |
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Philip D. "Phil" Ropp is a lay Catholic convert of Mennonite extraction and Presbyterian religious heritage. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from Alma College in 1977, and has done post-graduate work in theology and history. In 1998, he began Radio New Jerusalem as a support ministry for Christian short wave radio. In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, Phil wrote a number of essays and opinion pieces and published them under the heading of "Troubled Times." From this beginning evolved Radio New Jerusalem Journal, an online magazine featuring links to current, topical Catholic writing and the essays, editorial commentary and opinions of Philip D. Ropp. |
| The Writings of Philip D. Ropp by Category: | |||||
| Reflections |
Biblical | Catholic | Features | 9/11/01 | Contact Phil |
| Reflections |
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| Journey to Jerusalem By Philip D. Ropp Today’s
Gospel marks the end
of the Galilean ministry of Jesus and the beginning of the fateful
journey to Jerusalem and the
cross. This Galilean ministry, as presented to us
in Luke, begins with Jesus accepting the baptism of John, and with it
the
proclamation that he is the Son of God.
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| He Must Increase
While I Must Decrease By Philip D. Ropp It would seem fitting at this, the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, to consider just who this enigmatic character clad in camel hair and feasting on locusts and honey really was. From today’s Gospel we know that he was the son of a priest named Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth. We know that they were righteous people, well on in years and childless. |
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| Who is This Who
Even Forgives Sins? By Philip D. Ropp We are
all familiar with the words of
Jesus in Luke 12:48: "To whom much has been given, much will be
expected." Today we learn that to whom much has been forgiven, much can
be expected. And the three examples that we are given who
exemplify
this truth are King David, Saint Paul, and Saint Mary Magdalene.
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| A Miraculous and
Glorious End to a Wondrous and Joyous Day By Philip D. Ropp To this day, the church collects its offerings in wicker baskets. This is a tradition that can be traced all the way back to the feeding of the 5000, as recounted in today's Gospel, wherein no less than twelve of these baskets were filled with the scraps that remained after all had eaten and were satisfied. It was a miraculous and glorious end to a wondrous and joyous day. |
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| The Rumors of God's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated By Philip D. Ropp Is
God Dead? When these words
appeared on the cover of Time
on
April 8, 1966, a religious storm was loosed upon the cultural landscape
of the United States that has yet to subside. Trivia buffs will recall
that clever bumper stickers on cars were originally popularized by one
that read "My God's Not Dead -- Sorry About Yours."
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| After the Order of
Melchizedek By Philip D. Ropp The
Gospel According to Saint John is not only
the deepest and most theologically profound of the four New Testament
accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, but also the most
misunderstood. While the three synoptic Gospels share much
material in common, and are often treated by scholars as if they
comprise three separate parts of the same whole, the Gospel of John
stands alone in its format, its concept, and its vision of who our
Savior is and how we are to relate to him.
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| Spider-Man 3: A Gospel Message for the World of More and Better Gadgets By Philip D. Ropp Perhaps
the most interesting thing about the Book
of Acts is the fact
that there is so little in our religious life that has actually changed
since the earliest days of the Church. When we look around us and
observe how truly different the physical and political world is today
compared to the world of the apostles, it is astounding to realize how
very much the same as us the people are that populate that world.
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At the prison, each of our worship groups has an assigned leader. This is the man that is chosen to be representative on the prison’s activities committee, the body that oversees religious worship, and he also serves as the lay leader for our prayer services. John is the man that serves in this capacity for the Level III security group, and Will serves in this role for the guys in Level IV. |
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By Philip D. Ropp
Every actor, from the days of the first flickering silent pictures to the cinematic extravaganzas exhibited today, has lamented that some hack editor has left his best work to rot on the cutting room floor. This creative difference of opinion between actor, director and editorial personnel has more than once resulted in the police restoring order at a Hollywood party at which an earnest conversation about artistic merit had become, shall we say, somewhat less professional. |
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| My Lord and My God! By Philip D. Ropp The
solemnity of Lent
has drawn to a close and now we find ourselves celebrating the joy of
the
Easter season. Today, this season
stretches out before us, as we await the celebration of the Lord’s
Ascension on
May 17 and the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost on May 27.
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| Untie Him and Let Him Go By Philip D. Ropp As our
Lenten journey begins to draw
to a close, we find ourselves in
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| Fatted Calves By Philip D. Ropp When I
was a boy entering into my early
teenage years, I attended Sunday School at Eastminster Presbyterian
Church. My teacher was a young man in
his mid 20’s named Gary Fetzner. Mary
knows Gary’s
younger brother John. He’s president of
our parish council at St. Mary’s. John’s
younger brother, Rex, is one of my best friends, and has been going all
the way
back to this time back in the mid 1960’s.
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| Burning Bush, Holy Name By Philip D. Ropp Moses
was merely minding his own business and that of his father-in-law,
Jethro. Tending sheep, leading the flock
across the
desert, he comes to Mount Horeb, the “mountain of God,”
which would later take on the name of the entire surrounding region:
Sinai. There was a bush and it was on
fire; and, though on fire, it was not consumed. As
if that was not strange enough, God spoke to Moses from
the midst of
the burning bush.
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| The Wandering Aramean By Philip D. Ropp Last
week, we celebrated Ash Wednesday and the beginning of our annual
Lenten
journey. It is a journey from the
wilderness of our fallen, sinful human nature to the light that beckons
to us
from the promised land that lies beyond the Cross. It is a
journey that brings us up and out of
the Egypt
of this broken promise land of man’s inhumanity to man, and leads us
onward
through the desert towards a land flowing with the milk and honey of
salvation.
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| The Source of Our Faith By Philip D. Ropp On
Wednesday, as the disciples of Jesus, we
begin our annual Lenten journey with him towards Jerusalem.
Already, the long shadow of the cross casts itself in our direction
from
the hill of Calvary. Already, the
distant horizon of Holy Week is in view, and we are beaconed to enter
the dusty
road with our fellow pilgrims and make our way once more towards the
source of
our faith.
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By Philip D. Ropp
In previous weeks, I have stood here and presented to you the reflections that I had prepared and given at the prison in St. Louis: The so-called “correctional facility” that so often seems to need more correcting than it gives. The reason for this “double dipping” from the pool of reflections is not so much that it allows me to get extra mileage out of the work that I do for them, but, more, that the words of inspiration that they need to hear seem to apply equally to you as well. |
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| A Still More Excellent Way By Philip D. Ropp
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has
sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the
blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable
to the Lord." These are the words that Jesus speaks just
prior to the beginning of today's scripture lesson. This is that
scripture passage which was, in that day, fulfilled in their hearing,
and is in this day, fulfilled in ours.
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| The
Beginning Of His Signs By Philip D. Ropp The
gospel according to St. John tracks the
journey of Jesus to his destiny at calvary through a series of seven
dramatic signs. Each of these signs is a miraculous deed that
serves to reveal the true nature and identity of Jesus in
a progressively more wondrous, profound and significant way. By
the time the last of these signs is reached, the astounding and deeply
moving resurrection of Lazarus from the dead, Jesus has transitioned
from the deliverer of the Jews, to messianic king of all Israel, to the
Christ -- the transcendent Son of God Incarnate and Savior of the human
race.
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| Next Year in Jerusalem By Philip D. Ropp L’shana
ha’ba-ah b’Yerushalayim. "Next year in
Jerusalem." This is a Passover prayer that has sustained
the Jewish people for two thousand years. In its historical context, it
hearkens back to the social and religious trauma experienced by the
Jews at the
destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70
AD. Dispersed throughout the world,
subjected to the harshest realities of political, social and religious
persecution, this simple phrase came to symbolize the hope, belief and
ultimate
trust in the deliverance and salvation of God.
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Our
Scripture
readings today are chosen for the purpose of
illustrating the inter-relationship between God, the law and
ourselves. We are all aware of the rules and regulations
by which our society and its institutions are governed. Our lives
and our relationships are in no small way defined and determined by the
rules that we are taught as
children and which follow us and become ever more complicated as we
progress to
and through adulthood. This is true not only of each of us as
individuals,
but of peoples and nations as well.
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| Biblical Essays and
Commentary |
|
Understanding the Parable of
Wheat and Weeds
By Philip D. Ropp The Gospel of Matthew is a
skillful literary construct that neatly
organizes the birth, life and passion of Jesus into a tightly crafted
account. Its decidedly Jewish perspective begins with a genealogy
that establishes the Davidic lineage of Jesus and which sets the tone
for Matthew’s contention that Jesus is the messiah and the fulfillment
of the scriptures. By the end, Jesus has exceeded even these
fantastic
expectations...
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The authenticity of
Paul’s
letter to the church at Galatia is attested to by the typical Pauline
dichotomy that is the overriding characteristic of the text. From
a
technical standpoint, the letter poses more questions than it
answers.
There is a wide range of debate as to not only who but also where the
Galatians were, when the letter was written and where it
originated.
Thematically, the content is vintage Paul and is most often compared to
his letter to the Romans... |
| Trouble Not the Master: Reflections on the Resurrection of the Daughter of Jarius in the Gospel of Luke By Philip D. Ropp The seventh, eighth and ninth
chapters of Luke’s gospel mark the
transition of Jesus from an itinerant Galilean preacher, prophet and
worker of wonders into the “Christ of God,” destined for Jerusalem, the
cross, and, ultimately, the miracle of the empty tomb. To be
sure,
controversy had traveled with Jesus since the beginning of this
Galilean ministry, when he brought it down upon himself in no uncertain
terms at the synagogue in Nazareth...
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| The Mark of Cain By Philip D. Ropp One of the great
casualties inflicted upon modern man by the widespread acceptance of
the
scientific view of history has been the relegation of the Bible to the
intellectual scrap heap of myth and legend. There was a time,
and not that long ago, when all of western civilization understood the
world historically and socially within the context of a Biblically
based
reality. The story of how this came about is familiar enough...
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| Catholic
Issues and Opinions |
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| A New Assumption By Philip D. Ropp Note:
Father Paul J.
Rennick is Academic Vice President at Assumption University
in
Windsor, Ontario, Canada. At the time this letter was written,
Father
Rennick
was engaged in restructuring the Assumption University Saginaw Program,
which granted unaccredited master level degrees in Pastoral Ministry
and
Religious Education. I was enrolled as a student in this program in the
fall of 2005. My letter, the text of which follows below, was in
response to Father Rennick's
general letter of May 30, 2006, detailing the progress of this
restructuring for the student body of the Saginaw Program. The
issues addressed here should prove to be of interest to all Catholics,
and so are reporoduced here. Father Rennick has yet to
respond. The
Assumption University Saginaw Program is currently being phased out
within the Diocese of Saginaw. -- P.D.R.
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I find it curious "Easter Lore" sites five sources in its bibliography and all are works on "superstition." One would think that the obvious source that herein goes untapped would be the local Catholic priest or Protestant clergyman, most of whom have between three and seven years of higher education dealing with the development of Christianity and its various and sundry traditions and accouterments... |
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| Day of the Dove Revisited: Making Peace in the Catholic Church By Philip D. Ropp Conflict within the Catholic
Church is hardly a modern
phenomenon. From Paul withstanding Peter to his face to the current
negotiations that are taking place between the Vatican and the
followers of Marcel Lefebvre, the history of Catholicism is fraught
with
controversy and debate, contempt and rebellion, negotiation and
reconciliation...
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A
review of the 25th anniversary edition of Fr. Albert Nolan's much
heralded tome on liberation finds an outdated text with theological and
historical holes big enough to drive a Papal Instruction through.
Nolan's attempt at making Jesus relevant only serves to reveal his own
irrelevancy...
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"It seems that people don't need us. All we do seems useless." Pope Benedict XVI was speaking to140 priests, religious and deacons of the Diocese of Val d'Aosta at the church of Introd, near Les Combes, where the Holy Father was spending his summer vacation. He was referring to the so called "crisis of religious indifference" that, in one form or another, plagues Western society and manifests itself in the widespread desertion of mainstream Christianity -- both Catholic and Protestant... |
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As was to be expected, the white smoke above Saint Peter's Square had not dissipated before the controversy surrounding the election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI began. The first German pope since Hadrian VI reigned briefly from 1522 to 1523, the selection of the 78 year old Cardinal Ratzinger represents a "care taker" papacy in the best sense of the term... |
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For
the Sake of His Sorrowful Passion:
In Tribute to the Life and Times of Pope John Paul II By Philip D. Ropp Though a Protestant at the time, I remember taking more than a passing interest when Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II in October of 1978. I was fresh out of college with a degree in religion from a small, liberal Presbyterian school and fancied myself quite the scholar in those days. I had, in fact, been quite intrigued at the selection of Albino Cardinal Luciani as Pope John Paul I, and was quite as shocked as everyone else when his pontificate ended 33 days later with his death on September 29, 1978... |
| Features and Stories |
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By Philip D. Ropp
Those
of us born and raised in America during the Cold War years after World
War II were brought up in a secular society. We were taught a
worldview in which religion was an historical footnote. It was as
if
Communism,
by the very nature of its atheism, had removed God from politics in
much
the same way that the atheism of Darwin had served to remove God from
the
scientific debate...
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| Curfew of the Body, Soul and Mind: The Strange Story of Bill Cooper By Philip D. Ropp Christian short wave in the United
States has always marched to a different drummer, with a distinctive
flavor
and character not heard anywhere else. Uncensored, noncommercial, and
with
an identity shaped by it's own easy and open accessibility, the
American
interpretation of the medium became a forum that crossed racial,
ethnic,
denominational and political barriers to present the wide diversity of
thought and expression that is believing Christianity in this
country.
And, like Cajun cooking, it became a uniquely American medium,
unusually
spicy, and with some of its contents hard to swallow...
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| The Patriot Radio Revolution By Philip D. Ropp In the early days, Christian
short wave radio in America was a medium largely comprised of small,
independent
radio ministries. Broadcasters, viewing their role as a mission
to
those that were called of God to preach the gospel or provide
information
useful to Christians via radio, worked diligently to help worthwhile
programs
establish and improve themselves, oftentimes carrying large receivable
balances and offering free promotional spots until audience
support
could be established...
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| Response to the Events
of September 11, 2001 |
| The Last Crusade: Observations on a National Day of Prayer By Philip D. Ropp Today, a major portion of the
financial district of our greatest
city lies in ruin. As the nation struggles to come to grips with
what has happened, regional rivalries and political differences have
melted
into a sea of compassion, concern, and an outpouring of outright
affection
for our countrymen in New York and those that struggle so valiantly to
save the few survivors...
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| Sackcloth and Ashes By Philip D. Ropp Flags fly as hearts fill with
pride and men scramble, and so
America prepares to go to war with a nostalgic zeal for glories
past.
Entrepreneurs swing into the defense effort with T-shirts, key chains,
coffee mugs and any other item on which they can imprint a flag or
inscribe
a snappy patriotic slogan...
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As the skyline of New York City continues to smoke and the mood of the country continues to smolder, we find the churches of the land again jammed with souls on this first Sunday in the new America. Just last Sunday it was golf, football, beer and entertainment, but today America put on her Easter best and went to church for prayer and solace... |
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By now, all of America has seen
the file footage of public
enemy number one, Osama Bin Laden, crouching and firing a very
ominous
looking military assault rifle. It is just like the rifles that
Palestinians
and other militant Moslems have been seen firing in the air in
celebration
of the World Trade Center catastrophe. It is the rifle of choice
for virtually every nation and group that hates the United States of
America.
It is the AK-47, the general issue weapon for the Red Army, and it's
built
in Communist China...
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| Better that only a few
Catholics should be left, staunch and sincere in their religion, than
that they should, remaining many, desire as it were, to be in collusion
with the Church's enemies and in conformity with the foes of our faith.
---- St. Peter
Canisius
(1521-1597) |
| Featured Articles | |
| A Selection of Articles from Catholic Publications | |
| Reaping
the Whirlwind By Dr. Robert Moynihan Benedict's meaning in his
Regensburg speech has been misinterpreted by almost everyone -- by
those who condemn him, but also by his defenders...
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When
the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano: Catholic Culture in America By Joseph Bottum The swallows would swirl through
San Juan Capistrano, rising like a mist from the sea every March 19. Or
so the legend goes.
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| Islam’s
Unreasonable War Against Benedict XVI By Sandro Magister In Regensburg, the pope offered as
terrain for dialogue between
Christians and Muslims “acting according to reason.” But the Islamic
world has attacked him, distorting his thought, confirming by this that
the rejection of reason brings intolerance and violence along with it.
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Encyclical
Letter of Pope Leo XIII on Freemasonry By Pope Leo XIII For anyone who observes current
events, it is obvious that there is a concerted effort to destroy all
that is Christian (like legalizing same-sex marriages), and promote a
godless world government. This opposition to God's plan is as old as
the rebellion of Satan and the fallen angels...
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| Straws in the Wind:
The Unimportance of Evolution By G.K. Chesterton The Modern Mind is so called to
distinguish it from the Mind. This marked distinction and emphasis is
really unnecessary. There is little or nothing about what is commonly
called Modernism to cause the most careless student to confuse it for
the moment with mental activity, or the general use of the reason; it
is a curious, moody thing and perhaps its only redeeming element is
that, being founded on moods and emotions, it is full of surprises.
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Selling
Sinners on Salvation By Walter V. O'Farrell When I
was an altar boy in Boston during the
Korean War, our parish offered three weekday morning Masses -- 5:30,
6:15, and 7:00 -- and attendance was quite high. Many attendees were
praying for their sons at war, I'm sure. Perhaps half of these people,
on average, received the Eucharist. Presumably those who didn't had
either consumed food since midnight (the old Eucharistic fast) or were
not in the "state of grace."
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| How To
Talk To Democrats About Embryonic Stem Cell Research By Eric Pavlat The record shows that as the need
for medical experiments grew, many physicians and others treated
institutionalized infants, dying
patients, and mentally impaired individuals as not quite persons in the
moral sense. Moreover, indigent patients in hospitals were often
treated in a similar fashion...
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The War
Room: What We Have Learned About Confirming Good Judges By Joan Frawley Desmond Members of the “war room” had
gathered for their hectic daily routine
of legal analysis, damage control, and playing offense for Judge Samuel
A. Alito Jr., President Bush's Supreme Court nominee. In the middle of
the now-familiar hysteria of the nomination proceeding, one war-room
denizen received critical intelligence—Mrs. Alito had begun to cry and
had to leave the Senate chambers.
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| Does
It Pay to Work for the Church? By Robert J. McClory Since the beginning Christian
leaders have taken these words of Jesus
quite literally: “Rejoice and be glad for your reward will be great in
heaven” (Matt. 5:12). If you worked for the church, you were expected
to defray the greater part of your earnings indefinitely, cashing in,
so to speak, only after crossing through the pearly gates.
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Message
of His Holiness Benedict XVI for Lent 2006 By Pope Bendict XVI Lent is a privileged time of
interior pilgrimage towards Him Who is the fount of mercy. It is
a pilgrimage in which He Himself accompanies us through the desert of
our poverty, sustaining us on our way towards the intense joy of
Easter.
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Blessed
Are the Meek: The Life and Martyrdom of a Priest on Mission in Turkey By Sandro Magister He had knelt down to pray shortly
before celebrating the Mass in the
little Catholic Church of Trabzon, in the north of Turkey, on the Black
Sea, when a young man shot him in the back twice with a pistol, crying
out “Allah is great.”
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Abortion
Causes Mental Disorders: New Study May Require Doctors To Do Fewer Abortions By The Elliot Institute A study in New Zealand that
tracked approximately 500 women from birth
to 25 years of age has confirmed that young women who have abortions
subsequently experience elevated rates of suicidal behaviors,
depression, substance abuse, anxiety, and other mental problems.
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| 75th Anniversary of
Apparition Marks Explosion of Divine Mercy By Robert R. Allard Everywhere you turn, people are
talking about Divine Mercy!
Hurricanes, Floods, Tsunamis, Global Warming, and Fires. Hardly an
article can be written about any of these events without the thought of
the Second Coming of Jesus and Divine Chastisement...
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Encyclical
Letter "Deus Caritas Est" By Pope Bendict XVI 1. “God is love, and he who abides
in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). These words
from the
First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the
Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of
mankind and its destiny...
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| Holding
on Through the Generations By Michael Swan The men in the front room of the
Ukrainian Cultural Center of
Toronto hardly spoke, huddled over chess boards and card games on
sun-bleached Formica-topped tables.
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Keepers
of the Gate: He Who Controls the Media Controls the Masses By Manuel Valenzuela In this age of modernity and
technology, where
the television monitor has become the center of the average American
household...
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Midlife
Crisis: Vatican II turns 40 By Paul Boudreau With the reforms of the council
passing the four-decade mark, it’s a good time to take a look back at
some of the highlights.
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As I look at the Catholicism I grew up in, drifted from in my youth, returned to after a good pounding by the empty ecstacies of this world... |
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Confession:
A Shadow of Its Former Self By Renée M. LaReau When Bonnie Lavric was growing up
in a Philadelpheia suburb in the mid-1960S, her mother, father, and
four siblings dutifully piled into
their VW Beetle every Saturday for an afternoon drive.
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The
Lay Vocation and Voice of the Faithful By Thomas P. Rausch One unanticipated effect of the
sexual abuse scandal that has been
convulsing the Catholic Church in the United States is a growing
realization on the part of the laity of how little real say they have
in the government of their church.
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