Well, I'll be down in the Volcano Bunker for the rest of the day, stocking up on beans and bottled water in preparation for Nature's Fury

So that's it for today. But you can watch this nifty Volcanocam and bid us farewell as the titanic pyroclastic flow barrels toward our house like a freight train of death.

Farewell from the Pompeii of the Northwest!

Feddie very kindly links to various stuff on my blog...

and elsewhere (including Catholic Outreach's nifty little book The Five Issues that Matter Most) and sez: "You cannot be a Catholic and a proabort."

One of his readers takes umbrage at this, so Feddie asks me what I think.

I answer that it depends on what is meant. It's legitimate, in rough everyday discourse to say, as Teacher, "You cannot be a Catholic and a proabort". That is, you cannot be a Catholic who is not endangering his or her immortal soul if, with full freedom and understanding of your act, you deliberately choose to support something that is directly repugnant to the law of God (such as the killing of innocent human beings in abortion).

But is is much more dicey to say this as Judge. That is, as teacher, we are presuming that the person being addressed has a full knowledge of what the Church teaches and why. But as judge, we have to be reluctant to therefore conclude "Joe voted for Congresscritter X, who supports abortion, therefore Joe made a free and conscious decision to support abortion, thereby deliberately involving himself in grave sin and he is now both no longer Catholic and no longer has the hope of heaven." For all we know, Joe may be one of those people on Leno who doesn't know who the Vice President is, and who votes Democrat because his father did. He may, in his own mind, be all about supporting his buddies in the labor union and never give any thought to abortion. Meanwhile, Maria may vote for her Hispanic Congresscritter because he's Hispanic too and has promised to take care of his own. She might be an immigrant working two jobs who would never dream of having an abortion herself and who naively assumes that a Hispanic Catholic politician is "a good Catholic boy" and would never dream he's on NARAL's roll of heros. So there may be varying degrees of culpability for an objectively evil act.

I think a better formulation (for anybody who really knows and understands the Church's teaching) is "*I* cannot be a Catholic and a pro-abort." Unless we know the degree of knowledge and freedom of another person (which, in an election, we seldom do) we can't really say what's going on with other people most of the time. And, in any case, I'm wary of declaring other people "not a Catholic". In the case of somebody like Kerry, who knows perfectly well what the Church's teaching is and ignores it, I think it's wiser to call him a bad Catholic, which he most certainly is, than "not a Catholic". The way you leave the Catholic Church is by renouncing your faith. You don't get out simply by being a notorious sinner.

New Blog!

A Dandy Fisk of James Carroll's Complaints About those who Blaspheme John Kerry

...who is, by the way, toast.

Unleash the Power of the Blog!

A reader writes:

I just made a comment in your Terri Schiavo thread where I listed phone numbers to call in her ongoing defense by ordinary citizens. When I followed up with a call myself to the Dir. of Pub. Info for the Fla. supremes, they are now giving only an answering machine reply of "due to volume of calls" best way to comment is to e-mail or just leave message. I left a message anyway. But... when calling the Gov's office I was told that Gov. Bush is appealing the case to the Supreme Court. That's good. When I asked if they were receiving many calls, she said only 2 today so far!!

With the power of bloggers examining the Rathergate stuff and just today finding another flawed CBS report, can we, with your help again, unleash another "Power of the Blog" for Terri and get those calls going to Gov's office with accompanying horror reactions to Fla supremes. He needs our support for what he's still trying to do even during this trying time of emergencies in the state.

I must say that, despite my criticism of the Stupid Party for the tepidness about human life, Gov. Bush has really impressed me with his willingness to go the extra mile. I'd support him without hesitation if he ever makes a White House bid.

Note to the reader who sent this: Can you provide the number to call in the combox below?

A reader writes

I've attached some links to various articles that describe the increasingly desperate and tenuous situation in Iraq. It seems clear, at least to me, that things are going very, very poorly over there. If you have other information, I'd be willing to listen.

Take this from a Wall Street Journal writer who is in Baghdad: "Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come."

Later we read this: "I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?"

Right now, I think it goes without saying that Iraq is a total mess. The question is what to do. Let's stop arguing about whether this war was just or not. Regardless of the answer to that question--and I believe reasonable arguments can be made on both sides of the issue--we need to face reality. Iraq is as of right now an international disaster. Is it, however, and irretrievable, international disaster? Arguments about this being like Germany after World War II might have made some sense initially. But I would venture to guess that the chaos there never came close to matching that in post-war Iraq. We need to face up to that. Analogies to Germany are not apt. As one of you put it to me, they are an unapt for more than just that. Germany is a western, European country. Iraq, obviously is not. I am increasingly less sanguine about the possibilities of democracy in the Middle East.

Second, don't we need to face up to the fact that many in the current administration had an incredibly naive view of what would occur in Iraq and the potential for democracy in the Middle East. Have these folks owned up to that? Will they? Why hasn't the president sent some heads rolling? Has Iraq made you question some of your assumptions?

Third, pointing this out is not to hope for defeat. Nor is it to believe that defeat is inevitable. In fact, it is to look at reality and say, "How the hell do we deal with it?" It's to say, "Look we are in a serious mess. We need to figure out how to get out of the mess [not out of Iraq] because we have a responsibility to the world and to Iraqi people."

Fourth, let's grant that it is very, very easy for us to pontificate and play arm-chair general or arm chair Secretary of Defense or armchair president. I don't have a clue about military tactics. I do know what I read from people on the ground in Iraq. And it ain't a pretty picture.

Fifth, can anyone tell me why so many on the right seem blind to the burgeoning failure in front of our eyes. It is interesting to see so few mentions in the Weekly Standard of how piss-poor things are going. It is not that they've failed to be critical at times. It's just that it seems that they are impervious to reality (or perhaps it is politics--we are in the last weeks of an election).

What, ultimately, are we to make of Iraq? Has the President failed to lead well on the war? Or am I just getting sucked into the MSM (mainstream media) view of the war? I know wars are messy and you cannot plan for all eventualities but could this war have been planned much better?

And what does this mean for the election. I deeply love and respect President Bush. I find him a fundamentally decent man. I think he is the best and last hope (at least for a long time) in getting people on the Supreme Court who will bury Roe v. Wade. I think many of his domestic policy initiatives will help to give the poor opportunities and help to build an ownership society as many are calling it. I like the fact that he was not afraid in his acceptance speech to talk about getting eligible but uninsured children onto the health care rolls. I like the fact that he wants to find ways to target government intervention to help lift those with few opportunities up into the river of opportunities. I also like the fact that he sees us in a war against militant Islam (though he uses the imprecise term "war on terror".). I respect that he believes in taking that fight to the Islamic fascists instead of waiting for them to attack us and then responding. I also admire his
constancy and how though I might not agree with him he sticks to his guns.

But I also know he is not perfect. And his failings on Iraq really worry me.

Now I cannot see how Kerry is an alternative for so many reasons not least of which is Iraq. I am still trying to make out what Kerry believes exactly with regard to Iraq. And I really cannot believe that in a post-9/11 world, 9/10 Democrats are what we need. And of course for me abortion trumps it all. I cannot vote for a man who would use our money to fund the intentional destruction of innocent human life, reinstate the funding to international organizations that promote abortion, or who can recognize that human life begins at conception but thinks that nothing ought be done to protect the human persons who exist in the womb. I cannot support a man who thinks that being pro-choice means the federal subsidization of something we can all agree is a morally contentious issue and an act fraught with great complexity, as he might say, and controversy. I cannot support an admitted war criminal or someone who brags about being a war hero. I can vote for a pair of candidates who
lecture us about two-Americas and yet are incapable of seeing the irony that they have more money than you and I will likely earn in our whole lives.

I don't really know what to say. On the one hand, I think we owe it to the Iraqis to try and rebuild the country. On the other, I don't see any way for this to end well and I think the country will dissolve into civil war to the point that we will cut our losses and leave. I think the human tendency to return to the old will probably assert itself (particularly under democratic rule) and the nation will vote itself an Islamic tyranny of some sort or other. But what do I know? I'm still trying to get a sense of what's happening over there and trying to parse my way through the various agendas of the leftist press (NY Times) and the flag-waving press (FOX). Sorry, I'm not much help.

Justice Dept. Charges NY Times Reporter with Bringing Advocacy Journalism to a Whole New Level

This one will be extremely interesting to watch after Jayson Blair and Rathergate.

I *love* it when Lefties are losing. They're just so funny!

Political scholar, social analyst and moral theologian Cameron Diaz warns of legalized rape if Oprah viewers don't vote.

Heh Heh Heh

The Kerry campaign once again stumbles blindly into the Steubenville Zone and does what Lefties are practiced at--crushing free speech that tries to speak truth to power:

The day's most prickly moment surrounded one of this election year's hottest issues, and encapsulated the risky nature of an unscreened, unscripted town hall meeting. Franciscan University of Steubenville student Gabriel Hahn took his chance with the microphone to speak of the value of life, especially unborn life: "I'm asking you, Mr. Edwards--will you please stand up and fight for life? For everyone?" was all Gabriel got in before the microphone was yanked away from him. Senator Edwards said he respects Hahn for his view: "This is one of those issues on which good people have different views. And personally, I don't think it's the job of government to tell women what to do." Hahn was unmoved, "It's very kind of him to say he's respectful of my point of view, but I cannot respect the view of someone who would allow innocent children to be murdered."

I'm chatting with Scott tomorrow. I will pass on an "Attaboy" to Gabriel for his confrontation of the Talking Hairdo. He's his father's son.

Ellen Goodman Does her Bit to Ram Abortion Down the Throats of Catholic Hospitals and All Conscientious Objectors

Refusing to kill a baby is exactly the same as having a superstition about blood tranfusions. Religious types are such pre-modern primitives, doncha know.

Noah, Call your office

According to Nature (a real science journal, not some Scientific Creationism rag), we're all descended from one person in East Asia who lived roughly 1500 BC.

This raises more questions than it answers for me. I though Mitochondrial Eve lived 200,000 years ago in Africa. I thought Abraham, from whom the Jews are descended, lived 2000 BC. I thought Indians crossed the land bridge 10,000 years ago.

I don't get this at all. I hope Christians don't pounce on this article as "proof" of something.

Update: Well, it turns out that secular journalists pounced instead. Note the dogmatic and detailed headline: "We are all related to man who lived in Asia in 1,415BC". Yessirree, no "probably" or "evidence suggests" or "scientists theorize". Nope. This is a Scientific Fact.

Now when Bishop Ussher told us the creation of the world could be dated to October 23, 4004 BC at 9:00 in the morning, this was later derided as an example of the hubris of the human intellect brought low. But nobody derides this incredibly confident headline as hubris. Nope. We know for a fact that this theoretical man lived in 1415 BC. Not 1414 or 1416. 1415.

"Hypothesis… establishes itself by a cumulative process, or, to use proper language, if you make the same guess often enough it ceases to be a guess and becomes a Scientific Fact." - Mr. Enlightenment, in The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis

Somebody should write a book chronicling the theories which were presented as Scientific Fact in the press and how they remained Scientific Fact in the popular imagination long after they'd been abandoned by the scientific community.

Who knew there were so many Modern Major General parodies?

My readers send along the following pair, First Daniel Lanterman, on of my Protestant readers sends this:

Scene: a horde of heretics have descended on a cloud of converts, and are halted only by the approach of...well, you'll just have to imagine the musical background yourself.

Heretics:
For he is a Presbyterian!

Converts:
He is! Hurrah for the Presbyterian!

Presbyterian:
And it is, it is a glorious thing to be a Presbyterian!

Converts:
It is! Hurrah for the Presbyterian! Hurrah for the Presbyterian!

Presbyterian:
I am the very model of a modern Presbyterian,
I've information venerable, ancient, and sectarian,
I know that some have tried to make me turn Episcopalian,
But I find their theology is altogether alien...

I'm very well acquainted too with matters theological,
I even try to tease out passages deemed paradoxical,
I may not cross the Baptists on some matters theoretical,
But I need not share their fear of all substances intoxical!

Converts and Heretics:
But I need not share their fear of all substances intoxical,
But I need not share their fear of all substances intoxical,
But I need not share their fear of all substances intoxi-toxical!

Presbyterian:
I'm very good at mixing terms and angering the Lutherans,
I qualified for blacklisting by Methodistic Wesleyans,
In short, in matters venerable, ancient, and sectarian,
I am the very model of a modern Presbyterian!

Converts and Heretics:
In short, in matters venerable, ancient, and sectarian,
He is the very model of a modern Presbyterian!

Presbyterian:
I know our Bible history, King David and Jehoshaphat,
I recognize the difference between Sinai and Ararat,
I know the implications of a Samsonific donkey bat,
And like the judges know the tools to use if enemies are fat...

I can tell undoubted manuscripts from forgeries and heresies,
I know the Levite chorus from Davidic psalmic melodies,
And I can prove conclusively the Bible's more than fairy tales,
And quote the lines and sing the songs from every single Veggietales!

Converts and Heretics:
And quote the lines and sing the songs from every single Veggietales,
And quote the lines and sing the songs from every single Veggietales,
And quote the lines and sing the songs from every single Veggie-Veggietales!

Presbyterian:
Then I can clarify the politics of the Assyrians,
And understand the dreams of all the sleepless Babylonians,
In short, in matters venerable, ancient, and sectarian,
I am the very model of a modern Presbyterian!

Converts and Heretics:
In short, in matters venerable, ancient, and sectarian,
He is the very model of a modern Presbyterian!

Presbyterian:
In fact, when I know what is meant by "total" and "depravity",
When I have sworn off risking an Ecclesiastic vanity,
When I can treat Westminster West with due respect and gravity,
And when I know precisely how Arminians risk fantasy...

When I use the five points as less a tactic than a strategy,
When I can pour contempt on reconstructionist theonomy,
In short, when I've a smattering of scriptural reality,
You'll say a better Presbyterian has never lived so free!

Converts and Heretics:
You'll say a better Presbyterian has never lived so free,
You'll say a better Presbyterian has never lived so free,
You'll say a better Presbyterian has never lived so - lived so free!

Presbyterian:
For my catechismic knowledge, since I'm not a seminarian,
Hits up against the limits of my presupposed invariance,
But still, in matters venerable, ancient, and sectarian,
I am the very model of a modern Presbyterian!

Converts and Heretics:
In short, in matters venerable, ancient, and sectarian
He is the very model of a modern Presbyterian!

Then, the redoubtable Tom R adds:

I did this one a few years ago for a friend of a friend who tried to convert me to his own eclectic form of "Catholorthodoxy", constructed, so far as I could make it, by randomly alternating between RC and EO columns to select articles of doctrine. Some of these points are specific to the particular individual...

“We Are A Quite Pre-Modern Ecumenical Archpatriarch”
From “The Pirates of (First Rite) Penance”
(To the tune of “I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General” by Gilbert and Sullivan)

We are a quite pre-modern Ecumenical Archpatriarch
We’ve hosted many barbecues in leafy Sherwood Forest Park
To pair Our friends and rellies up – and save them from the Forces Dark
We are a quite pre-modern Ecumenical Archpatriarch
[REFRAIN: To pair His friends and rellies up – and save them from the Forces Dark
He is a quite pre-modern Ecumenical Archpatriarch]

Our Medical Degree helps all to see We were ordained to rule
As also does the fact that We were Dux of Brisbane’s finest school
Our excellent TE Score’s undiminished by the fact that We
Received it from a College that’s now fallen in apostasy
[REFRAIN: His excellent TE Score’s undiminished by the fact that he
Received it from a College that’s now fallen in apostasy]

Too busy saving young and old from doctors who would take their lives,
We delegate Our household tasks to some less senior of Our wives
Though sometimes We do tell them Our decisions unilateral
Much rather would We feast upon their deep-fried penguin-batter roll
[REFRAIN: Though sometimes He does tell them His decisions unilateral
Much rather would He feast upon their deep-fried penguin-batter roll]

We drag Our Brothers off to Mass – they sing the hymns robotically
But nonetheless – We’re certain they’ll absorb the Faith osmotically
For only Pope and Emperor keep us Islamic terror-free
Which helps Us prove that Jansenism’s just a Catholic heresy
[REFRAIN: For only Pope and Emperor keep us Islamic terror-free
Which helps Him prove that Jansenism’s just a Catholic heresy]

We preach the Christian Gospel to each isolated western town
That children are God’s blessing (but abstain, to keep their numbers down)
You must keep ten Commandments OVERALL, to earn your place in heaven;
So if you don’t like One and Two – make up with strictness on Eleven
[REFRAIN: You must keep ten Commandments OVERALL, to earn your place in heaven;
So if you don’t like One and Two – make up with strictness on Eleven]

We surf the Web – and into many Ultramontane sites We delve
(That’s why We let Our Daughters go unveiled – until the age of twelve)
We’ve found that Medjugorjë is no legend – unlike Noah’s Ark
We are a quite pre-modern Ecumenical Archpatriarch
[REFRAIN: He’s found that Medjugorjë is no legend – unlike Noah’s Ark
He is a quite pre-modern Ecumenical Archpatriarch]

From Calvin to Muhammad, We’re not slow to spot affinities
Among those who won’t bow to Our preferred quasi-divinities
You never know – your prayer could have been answered by a saint you missed
Much safer to invoke the lot than be a strict monotheist
[REFRAIN: You never know – your prayer could have been answered by a saint you missed
Much safer to invoke the lot than be a strict monotheist]

We flee the Sun’s harsh rays, since these are products of atomic fission
We built the Great Glass Temple – as commanded by the Angel’s vision
We’ll hear no harsh word said against the Shepherd of St Peter’s flocks
Unless it’s ancient grievances nursed by the Eastern Orthodox
[REFRAIN: He’ll hear no harsh word said against the Shepherd of St Peter’s flocks
Unless it’s ancient grievances nursed by the Eastern Orthodox]

Since God makes known Objective Truth to everyone who’s capable
(But not through words – they’re too unclear, unless they’re in a Papal Bull)
To save Our flock from error – We’ve chopped pages out of Acts and Mark
We are a quite pre-modern Ecumenical Archpatriarch
[REFRAIN: To save His flock from error, He’s chopped pages out of Acts and Mark
He is a quite pre-modern Ecumenical Archpatriarch]

It's scary how talented my readers are.

Jcecil writes, in part, about the papal knighthood flap:

[C]omparing Hunte to Bush is not accurate. Bush is not 100 percent consistent on the abortion issue, but he would limit the harm of legal abortion by confining already legal abortions to rape and incest. Hunte expanded abortion "rights" where they did not exist, and therefore was not limiting the harm.

The fact that Hunte was given the honor of papal knighthood - along with the fact that the Pope, himself, has given Communion to pro-choice European politicians - demonstrates that it is not the Vatican position that these guys should be sanctioned or denied Communion or excommunicated.

If Hunte expanded abortion rights, he did evil. And if he was given a knighthood in the full knowledge of that, then somebody at the Vatican did a bad thing too, IMO. But I think we both realize that the Stupid Party, while making noises for 25 years, has done very little to actually change anything. GOP president don't even like to show up at the Roe v. Wade Anniversary Marches and have always phoned it in. Some of this is due to Evil Party stonewalling of judicial nominees. But a great deal is due to the fact that the Stupid Party is not serious, and has a de facto willingness to support the abortion regime passively, while appearing not to in order to get the prolife vote. Catholics who care about life are forced to support it, basically because it's a choice between a party that doesn't much care and so will make a few token efforts and a party that is fanatically dedicated to the sacrament of abortion. Sometimes those are the choices life offers. And our refusal to simply shout "A pox on both your unclean houses" is called "constructive engagement."

Yet, curiously, many Christian Bush supporters (including some conservative Catholics) don't think of it as "making the best of a bad job and trying to give honor where honor is due". Instead, because Bush has made a few token efforts and speaks Christianese fluently, he frequently get treated like God's Anointed--even by some Catholics. For me, he's... better than Kerry. But that's not what I'd call a beatification.

As to your second point, I think you are stretching what could be a reasonable point (if you didn't stretch it). The knighthood has nothing to do with communion since the guy's an Anglican. It also has little to do with voting. I've never heard of Rome imposing "sanctions" on a politico (whatever that means). They've said that you can't vote for a politician if your reason for voting for him is to support something directly contrary to the law of God. In Hunte's case, there is still no evidence that the papal knighthood was bestowed with any knowledge of Hunte's support for abortion. For all we know, it was given to say "Thanks for the help rebuilding the orphanages after the hurricane."

So it still seems to me that folks are getting an awful lot of exercise leaping to conclusions, erecting double standards, and rushing into despair. They don't seem to be getting much exercise doing anything constructive.

I've said it before and I'll say it again

Someday the Church's teaching will be condemned for condemning what some of the Church's bishops are now (rightly) condemned for having permitted and covered up.

Dawn Eden find the amazing assertion from Planned Parenthood that those "who uniformly condemn, on so-called "moral" grounds, all adolescent sexual activity-and, indeed, any non-marital, non-procreative sexual activity at any age-have ceded the moral ground by denying the realities of adolescent development, basic human needs and behavior, and healthy sexual expression."

Dawn adds "Note the 'at any age.' In other words, kids should be allowed to have
sex--with kids, with adults."

Show me a culture that despises virginity and I'll show you a culture that despises children.

All my friends have forsaken me, and mine enemies have prevailed against me ; he whom I loved hath betrayed me : * Mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me in fury ; he breaketh me with breach upon breach : and in my thirst doth give me vinegar to drink. - Good Friday Antiphon

Terri Schiavo and her family share in the Passion of our Lord.

Strengthen them with your power and love, O Crucified Master. And have mercy on all those who have so grievously sinned against them and you, Lord Jesus, in your distressing disguise.

On this Feast of St. Jerome...

I offer Phyllis McGinley's tribute to the man who gives me greater hope of heaven than any other name in the roll. If *he* can make it, there's hope for me.

THE THUNDERER

God’s angry man, His crotchety scholar
Was Saint Jerome,
The great name-caller
Who cared not a dime
For the laws of Libel
And in his spare time
Translated the Bible.
Quick to disparage
All joys but learning
Jerome thought marriage
Better than burning;
But didn’t like woman’s
Painted cheeks;
Didn’t like Romans,
Didn’t like Greeks,
Hated Pagans
For their Pagan ways,
Yet doted on Cicero all of his days.
A born reformer, cross and gifted,
He scolded mankind
Sterner than Swift did;
Worked to save
The world from the heathen;
Fled to a cave
For peace to breathe in,
Promptly wherewith
For miles around
He filled the air with
Fury and sound.
In a mighty prose
For Almighty ends,
He thrust at his foes,
Quarreled with his friends,
And served his Master,
Though with complaint.
He wasn’t a plaster sort of a saint.
But he swelled men’s minds
With a Christian leaven.
It takes all kinds
to make a heaven.

Krenn Resigns

What was the holdup? There are three things I do not understand, four that are too wonderful for me: the way of a ship on the sea, the way of a bird in the air, the way of a snake on a rock, and the way of a curial bureaucrat through the channels of ecclesial bureacracy.

Anyway, that's done. Hopeful they can find a good replacement for this guy. His flock needs it.

First Agenda Item: Terri Schiavo

"I'd like to go over that 'Defender of the Alien, Orphan, and Widow' part of the Bible."

The Shrine of the Holy Whapping has just won my undying respect

For this:

I am the Very Model of a Modern Vicar-General

from the Penzance Codex of St. Gilbertus of Sullivan
translated by Matthew of the Holy Whapping and Lauren of Cnytr
(revised ed.)

I am the very model of a modern vicar-general,
I've information liturgical, ecclesial and clerical,
I quote the Popes of Latium and councils ecumenical,
From Chalcedon to Vatican, with subjects esoterical.

I'm very well aquainted too in matters sacramentical,
I know the sin occasions both the distant and proximical:
About the Nicene Credo, I'm teeming with a lot of views:

(Views...views...views...ahahaaa!)

With many complex facts about the substance Homoousios!

Chorus of Seminarians: With many complex facts about the substance Homoousios,
With many complex facts about the substance Homoousios,
With many complex facts about the substance Homoousi-ousios!

I've very good recessional, antiphonical canticles,
I know the secret names of all the Jesuit conventicles,
In short in matters liturgical, ecclesial and clerical,
I am the very model of a modern vicar-general!

Chorus of Seminarians: In short in matters liturgical, ecclesial and clerical
He is the very model of a modern vicar-general!

I know salvation history, King David's and the Sampson locks,
I answer hard sed contras, and own a pair of scarlet socks.
Respondeo dicendum every Vatican concilius,
All liturgics I can celebrate in Romanist basilicas.

I can tell undoubted Augustines from Bossuets and Zwinglians,
I know a Sarum Epiklesis and excommunicate the Arians,
Then I can hum the Sanctus if I've heard the mode ex nihilo,
And sing in tono recto Pax Domini cum spiritu tuo!

Chorus of Seminarians: And sing in tono recto Pax Domini cum spiritu tuo,
And sing in tono recto Pax Domini cum spiritu tuo,
And sing in tono recto Pax Domini cum spiritu tuo!

Then I can write encyclicals in a monastical scriptorium,
And pontificate the meaning of St. Paddy's grand loriculum,
In short in matters liturgical, ecclesial and clerical
I am the very model of a modern vicar-general!

Chorus of Seminarians: In short in matters liturgical, ecclesial and clerical,
He is the very model of a modern vicar-general!
In short in matters liturgical, ecclesial and clerical
He is the very model of a modern vicar-general!

Beat that, Popcak!

Bill Cork cracks me up

Just the other day, he's defending the notion that it's okay to dredge up a story of somebody's sins long after they have made reparation for them and display them for the delectation of people not affected by the sin. He boldly declares: "Instead of accusing journalists falsely for undermining the Sacrament of Reconciliation when they do their jobs, let's pray for the continued healing of the person who sinned, for their patient endurance of the consequences of their actions, and for ourselves, that their punishment serve as a warning to us."

So Secret Agent Man poses him a question in his combox:

Public shame isn't just directed towards embarrassing the sinner--it's a warning to others.

Perhaps, Bill, you might enlighten us on the application of this salutary principle to, say, the misfeasance of bishops. I'd be interested to hear your take on the Wanderer's treatment of episcopal defalcations. Is it on the same level, do you think, as the NCR's reporting on Deal Hudson?

and Bill, with a straight face, writes:

SAM, I do tend to think that the journalists at NCR (in distinction to the editorial staff) do a decent job of reporting (e.g., John Allen). The Wanderer, on the other hand, simply has an axe to grind and I do not see that its reporting is credible. I know of some egregious examples of imbalance and false reporting on their part that they never corrected. If a paper ever needed to read the Catechism about detraction ...

At this point, Dale Price remarks:

NCRep *doesn't* have an axe to grind? We aren't reading the same paper, evidently. The glee and detail with which Feuerherd presented the Hudson story says otherwise. Not to mention Tom Roberts' attempted justification for it. That, and it's pretty hard to imagine the Rep doing a breathless expose' on the two-faced career of Kerry adviser Robert Drinan, S.J.

and Secret Agent Man asks Bill:

The Wanderer, on the other hand, simply has an axe to grind and I do not see that its reporting is credible."

I agree with you and Dale -- NCR and TW are both grinding axes. But I take it from your answer that accurate public shaming of bishops is beneficial, inasmuch as it's a warning to sinners?

Bill's response to this?

The sound of crickets.

At least, till today, when Bill suddenly discovers that, while long atoned-for sins of Certain Sorts of People should be "part of the consequences of what he did, consequences that he'll never outrun", it is an altogether different matter when the press goes to work digging for dirt on an Archbishop. All of a sudden, it's not "journalists just doing their jobs" for Holy Purpose of letting a sinner's punishment serve as a warning to us. Nope, all of sudden it's what I was complaining about last week: detraction repackaged as news.

Now the funny thing is: I think what the Wanderer writer is doing is just as despicable as what the NCR people did. That is, I think detraction is detraction. Period.

Bill, in contrast, defends NCR's dumpster dive ("categorical difference") while raking the Wanderer over the coals. According to Bill, a reporter who publishes the repented and atoned-for sins of The Wrong Sort of Person is just doing his job, but a reporter who is searching around for information on sins which may never have been repented and atoned for is wicked if they do it to a cleric. And funniest of all, Bill anathematizes the double standards of his critics! Splendid! My eyes are wet with tears of laughter!

I think the conversation between Secret Agent Man and Bill will be hilarious--right up to the moment Bill suddenly explains "Shut up!" and bans Secret Agent Man for exposing the Chancery Officialdom biases of Ut Unum Sint. SAM's got his number.

Rome Calls for Resignation of Bishop of Fatima and Fatima Shrine Rector Guerra

The interesting thing will be to see if the Doomsayers somehow manage to take this Answer to Their Prayers and turn it into another reason to complain. I hope they don't, but experience suggests they will.

Why I have comment boxes and why I'm not ignoring you if I don't write you back

I got comboxes because I don't have time to answer the correpondence I have, much less deal with every remark every reader wants to make about what I've written or to argue with another reader.

So please don't feel bad if I don't reply the (very many) notes that are now flooding my email while the comboxes are down. I just don't have the time.

Pro-Life Democrat Identified

Environmentalist groups move to have such living fossils declared an endangered species but fear there may not be a large enough breeding population to ensure the survival of this rare and beautiful creature, now hounded to near extinction by corporate destruction of its environment.

More on the Papal Knighthood thingie

So now I'm told that whatshisface that got the papal knighthood is a heinous pro-abort because he once voted to allow abortion in cases of rape and incest. In other words, he'd be a garden variety Republican if he were an American. And *that* is why Combox Commandos are screaming for the Pope's blood and declaring the Church a lost cause? All while anointing George W. Bush--the guy who favors... abortion in cases of rape and incest and embryonic stem cell research to boot--God's Chosen President??



Weird. How come none of the people screaming about the papal knighthood scream when the Pope says something nice about about a garden variety Republican? Why no howls of protest when some Rape-and-Incest Republican gets some honor or other for defending human life?

Dan Darling Provides Perspective on Iraq

Cultural Catholicism

A reader writes from Rome:

I thought you might find this interesting. Yesterday, I went to Blockbuster (yes, they have them here) and bought "The Passion".

The girl at the counter gives me a book. It is the Guide to the Passion published by Ancora books. Inside, three articles about the movie (two pro, one con - one of the pros was Robert Royal's - the con was from America Magazine, the other pro was an Italian piece). It had a discussion of the Passion in the four Gospels, and the complete Gospel account from Mark. There was a biography and filmography of Mel Gibson, and another article about his freaky Catholicism. Finally, a discussion on anti-semitism, which consisted of the USCCB document and the Pope's prayer at the wailing wall.

Yep, everyone who buys the Passion in Italy gets a free Catholic book!

Gotta love it!

P.S. When the movie came out here (week of Easter) it had the full support of the Italian bishops, who put a lot of media resoures behind it. The show "In Sua Immagine", which is the Catholic show which appears every Saturday and Sunday on RAI 1 (the main television station) devoted a couple of episodes to it. They mostly skipped the "controversy" and kept to interviews with the actors, theologians, etc. The Italian Bishops definitely took advantage of the "evangelical moment". Italy was the top money-maker for it after the US.

P.P.S. Sadly, the German, French, and British bishops were even more weird about it than the Americans.

Mark Windsor replies

Thanks to everyone for the comments about the closing of Vociferous Yawpings. I'd like to point out that there is a certain "last straw" effect going on here. The Combox Commandos, their dedication to their chosen profession, and their zeal to spill cyber-ink all over the blogosphere, were indeed that final straw. There are a variety of other reasons spanning family, available time, professional obligations, desire to work more in my parish, time, non-professional obligations, and time, that all contributed a share in the decision. The bottom line is that blogging wasn't so much fun anymore, and a large amount of my own personal enjoyment of blogs and blogging was sucked out of the process by the combox troops.

As I'm sure Mr. Shea here would agree, doing it right is a heck of a lot more work than any of us ever expected when we created yon blog in the first place. Honest to God, I don't know how the likes of Glenn Reynolds, Scott Ott or Andrew Sullivan, or our own Mark Shea or Amy Welborn, can manage to keep up as well as they do. (Be careful folks, the lot of them may be only one harsh comment away from raving lunacy...Ott might actually have crossed that line.) The sheer volume of what they write and link to is stunning. The bottom line is this: whether you enjoy this blog or any other, you really ought to drop the blogger a note once in a while to express an teensy-weensy bit of gratitude for what I promise you is a great deal more work than you realize. A single kind e-mail will keep the average blogger going for quite some time. Trust me on this.

Some people have asked that Yawpings stay open as an archive. This will be done, primarily because of the political platform stuff, but I can't say for how long. It will henceforth live at RC's whim and pleasure.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled blogger.

More on the Faux Liberalism of ALA's Banned Books Week

Another reader sez:

I too think it is hogwash.

As I browsed their website I clicked on their Book Burning in the 21st Century section. The ALA lists the activity of several mostly Christian groups that have burned Harry Potter books, slashed homosexual books, and destroyed material that these groups did not like. Now this is a very idiotic way to deal with material with which one disagrees. However, I must point out one book burning event that the ALA failed to list; that is, the burning of Daniel Flynn's book "Cop Killer: How Mumia-Abu Jamal Conned Millions into Believing He was Framed" by radical leftists on the UC Berkeley campus.

The longer I watch the Left, the more convinced I am that it is profoundly hostile to freedom.

Outsourcing Torture

Frustrated by the complete lock which the Evil Party has on the Culture of Death vote, the Stupid Party has finally found a way it can appeal to that part of the electorate which wants to do the work of Satan.

A reader writes:

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has introduced a bill entitled the "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004," a/k/a HR 10.

Much of it does, indeed, implement the recommendations of the 9/11 commission.

However, it also does something that can only be described as moral evil: specifically, it seeks to enshrine a practice known to the CIA since the 1960s as "extraordinary rendition," which Representative Markey of Massachussetts has referred to as "outsourcing torture."

I would call your attention in particular to the language of sections 3032 and 3033, which I shall quote fairly liberally below. You can check this wording for yourself, here (search for HR 10).

Section 3032 makes it easier to deport a _suspected_ terrorist to a country that ordinarily uses torture, and places "the burden of proof ...on the applicant for withholding or deferral of removal under the Convention to establish by clear and convincing evidence that he or she would be tortured if removed to the proposed country of removal."

This section subverts our Constitutional and traditional obligation to assume innocence until guilt is proven, while placing the burden of proof upon someone who in all likelihood will not have the resources to do so.

Furthermore, subsection (b) of section 3032 states that "Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no court shall have jurisdiction to review the regulations adopted to implement this section, and nothing in this section shall be construed as providing any court jurisdiction to consider or review claims raised under the Convention or this section."

In other words, _no judicial remedy will be possible_ for such suspects.

Section 3033, while less heinous, is designed to make such deportations easier, expand the authority for doing so, and cloud the issues in a manner favorable to the Secretary of Homeland Security (to whom it transfers deportation authority, taking it from the Attorney-General).

Please go here and let your Representative know that, as a Christian and a patriot, you oppose the use of torture, and you oppose the passage of any bill with this wording.

All those discussions of torture on my blog, you see, were not just about some theory. Ideas have consequences. If the Right manages to push this through, they will have earned my contempt. I see no way a Catholic could possibly support such a heinous law.

Various thoughts on Haloscan from readers

"The problem began within seconds of me posting my first ever blog comment to any blog."

"I think the problem is not with your template, but with your haloscan account. My first guess is that your problem is your popularity. You probably have far more comments in haloscan than anyone else."

"Maybe the Haloscan failure is a sign. :) We might all be happier with a
little less spleen in our lives."

"I think it is time for you to move to Movable type."

"Good luck with getting the Haloscan thing fixed.

I would add that the news and your commentary on your blog are quite valuable
in themselves, and it may be that the blog will be less stressful and
time-consuming for you without the comments element. And I say this as one who has
been a commenter."

Actually, the comboxes save me time. People talk to each other instead funneling comments through my email box.

Various Muzzled Readers Respond to Bill Cork

One reader writes:

I take it that, for reasons I cannot fathom, Dr. Cork has no intention of acknowledging my letter in any way. Therefore, if you wish, you may blog my thoughts:

Dear Dr. Cork:

For various reasons, I am not at liberty to comment on the various blogs. However, I am a fan of yours especially. It's precisely for that reason that I'd like to express my concern about what you've been saying to and about Mr. Shea.

I honestly do not see how he's misrepresented your position; I truly think, rather, that you are misunderstanding his.

From what I can see after several careful readings of his article and posts and comments, he's affirming that sin has consequences that need to be borne. In particular, he seems to have approved of Fordham's firing of Deal Hudson, and, now, he seems to approve of the latter's departure from Crisis.

Mr. Shea's position seems, rather, to be that once a sin has been (apparently) repented and forgiven (i.e., through the Sacrament of Reconciliation) and due consequences (from the law, from one's employer, ...) have been borne, we ought not take it upon ourselves to impose further consequences in cases that aren't any of our business - as the Deal Hudson case seems not to have been NCR's business.

In that light, I think Mr. Shea's apparently genuine perplexity at your charges, and his statement that you are coming across as "heartless," are most understandable.

In brief, perhaps it would help clarify the matter if you could explain (1) whether NCR should have written its article - not whether Deal Hudson should have been prepared to accept that such an article might be written, but whether NCR should have written it - and (2) if so, how that view is to be interpreted in a way other than that in which Mr. Shea has (mis?)interpreted it, i.e., as the view that we should take it upon ourselves (heartlessly?) to impose consequences (when it is not our job to do so in a particular case) for repented/forgiven sins - not merely that Deal Hudson should have been prepared to accept such consequences should they arise.

Again, as a fan of your work and your blog, I ask you please to consider these questions, and (re)consider your words to and about Mr. Shea.

I do believe that he has done you a very serious injustice, and, like a commenter whom he deleted very quickly, I have in fact now lost virtually all of my respect for his judgment and integrity.

Meanwhile another reader writes:

I'm onto your tricks with Haloscan. Bill Cork got his knickers in a twist and banned you from his comments, so you've retaliated by incapacitating *all* comments. Sorta like the Chesterton story where Father Brown discovers that the general covered up the murder of his comrade by ordering a hopeles attack in which lots of the soldiers in his command were mowed down.

Seriously, though, I don't know who p**sed in Mr. Cork's cornflakes, but my own experience shows he's pretty quick to rule his commenters beyond the pale when they push back too vigorously against him. I got banned a couple of months ago when I tried to defend St. Pius X against the accusation of anti-semitism (arising out of his opposition to Zionism). He responded with snide comment that made no effort to address the merits of my argument, and when I tried to respond, I found that he had banned me, ensuring that his ad hominem remark would be the last word. I guess he thought my comment was the last straw, proving *I* was an anti-semite, and unworthy of being heard by decent people. His idea of tolerating diversity of opinions seems to be like that of elite universities, who think, for example, that criticism of affirmative action is racism and should be suppressed at all costs. I would have thought that we were all big boys in the blogosphere, not afraid to take hard blows as well as give them as long as we're all trying to pursue the truth. (See, e.g., your policy toward Joseph d'Hippolito.) In his case, I'd have been wrong.

And yet another beneficiary of the Spirit of Open Dialogue at Cork's blog writes:

Sorry to see the way Bill Cork is tarring and feathering you. I think you're absolutely right, and that he's an idiot. I'd weigh in in his comment boxes - except that, although when he first had them, he - despite previous disagreements between him and me - welcomed me into them, he then, just a week or two later I think, suddenly banned me because I'd mildly disagreed with something or another he'd said.

So I don't feel too terribly lonely.

A reader writes:

The last week of September is Banned Books Week.

The ALA's definition of "banned", however is not the same as that of your average English-speaking American. The ALA considers the book banned if it has been removed from any facility for any ideological reason. Hence _Harry Potter_ is banned because Mrs Thudpucker in Flyspeck Wyoming objected to it and got it pulled from the shelves of the local library.

This, in my opinion, is bushwah. I assert that no book is banned if it's not illegal to print it or posses it. For every book on their "banned" list, I could order up a dozen copies and freely read them on the steps of the police station.

Not only is this bushwah: it is pernicious bushwah. This affected outrage at this straw-man threat to liberty leads people to believe that they are living with a boot on their collective neck. And since most -- if not all -- of the banned books are children's books 'banned' at the behest of parents, the kids get the idea that parents are oppressive. So it comes to pass that the librarians -- the defenders of liberty who have so bravely pointed out this heinous outrage -- get to stock (or not stock) the shelves with whatever they please. If any parent objects, he's a jack-booted thug.

With very few exceptions, I don't want any organizations telling the libraries and bookstores what they must or must not stock. And that includes the librarians themselves.

A reader asks

The following quote appears in the New Yorker magazine profile of Teresa Heinz Kerry.

"In her early twenties, she ended an otherwise congenial romance when her suitor admitted that if he ever had to choose between saving her life and that of an unborn child he would, without hesitation, follow Church doctrine and let her die".

Could you comment on what "Church doctrine" actually is in this case?

Beats me. Must be another one of those dogmas promulgated by the Vatican 2 and Pope Pius XXIII.

When I was a kid and they told us about the American Revolution...

...I was taught that a good part of the reason we won was because the wily American farmers with muskets could just pop out of nowhere, harrass the English, and then melt back into the mist. The English "played by the rules". We didn't.

Now, it appears exactly the same tactics are being employed (only against civilians as well as military) in Iraq. So why am I to think that things are going well there? 2,300 hundred attacks in the last month?

Dan Darling, if you're out there, can you blog some perspective on this?

Austrian Emperor Karl I to be beatified

Lotsa yelling. Me: I don't know much about the guy. Nor, I'll wager, do many people outside Austria. I'll leave it to those guys to fight it out.

Where Does John Kerry Stand on Terri Schiavo?

I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that Kerry is not particularly interested in keeping the Little People alive when they are of no use. The Dem party's devotion to the Sacrament of Abortion is attached, by unbreakable cords, to the rest of the agenda of the Culture of Death.

A reader writes

Well, Jeremy Lott may have misrepresented your thoughts on the Deal Hudson deal (since when are you a "traditionalist"? I wondered...) But he has some good thoughts on a self-rightous column from the Vancouver Sun about how much more enlightened Canadians are when it comes to faith and politics (and "science")

Jeremy's a good guy. We've met once (and he's promised me a drink next time he's in Seattle). His take on my defense of the meaning of "We believe in the forgiveness of sins" didn't bother me all that much cuz I knew how what I wrote was going to look to a lot of people, particularly when it accidently came out the day Hudson got the boot. It was an understandable misunderstanding. And I could have been clearer about what I meant when I said NCR's behavior was a "satanic violation of the sacrament of reconciliation.

Jeremy thought that was waaaaaay over the top. But I still don't, probably due to the fact that I don't think the word "satanic" should denote something spectacularly and cinematically evil like "Night on Bald Mountain". I think the satanic is primarily discerned in fairly quiet corners and small but deeply sinister turnings of the heart that are scarcely noticed. NCR gave no evidence that Hudson's sin was ongoing. They gave every evidence that they were just dredging up a man's repented sins for the sole purpose of destroying him. If that's not an evil repudiation of the entire meaning of the sacrament of confession and "We believe in the forgiveness of sins" I don't know what is. Jeremy described it as mere pettiness. I'd say it's as petty as if somebody hocked a loogey in the baptismal, or played tiddly winks with the Eucharist, or mixed motor oil in the chrism as a practical joke, or showed contempt for any other sacrament. All these acts are, from a certain perspective, "petty". They do not involve Crimes Against Humanity and you couldn't even get arrested for any of them. But they betoken something that I believe has very ominous implications. Hence my deployment of the word "satanic."

When Anti-Christ Comes, This is the Way in Which He Will Tag the Sheep for Later Slaughter

What? Are you expecting him to be Darth Vader with a big "I Am Evil" sign around his neck? He'll be Mr. Style and the stylish will pant with excitment just to be thought cool enough to be like him.

A reader writes

While I sympathize with Mark Windsor, I'd like to discourage other members of St. Blog's from likewise leaving the building. Instead, I'd like to point to Flannery O'Connor's sentiment about pushing back ashard as you're being pushed. If no one pushes back, we all fallover. While pushing back can be done outside the public square, private resistance cannot wholely take the place of public witness.

Without a balancing resistance, we get results such as the Los Angeles County supervisors voting to avoid a law suit from the ACLU by redesigning the county seal so it does NOT display a cross. There will be instead a local mission building with no Christian insignia. That is rewriting history, and cutting your anchor rope, and should be resisted. And there are so many more examples.

We must remember that the American Revolution was not the French Revolution, and that the slogan "Freedom of Religion" is not synonymous with "Freedom from Religion" but merely bars the federal government from establishing a state religion, like the Church of England. We are not required by our Constitution to leave our religion at home. Our religion and our citizenship are complimentary, and our citizenship becomes airy vaporings without an anchor for natural rights.

Examining the American arm of the Catholic Church apart from political questions, Flannery O'Connor may still be used as a guide to keep the ship righted and afloat between the Scylla of the rigidly conservative and the Charybdis of the squishy progressive. For example, her (O'Connor's) response to Mary McCarthy's characterization of the utility of the Eucharist as a nice symbol in her (McCarthy's) writing: If it's just a symbol, then to hell with it!

And, of course, there's always Chesterton, and Lewis, and Newman, and many more.

But many people will never know of any of these folks, if St. Blog's leaves the sanctuary empty and echoing only with the vituperation of the ComBox Commandos.

The English Translation of JPII's New Book is Out

HMS blog has the scoop.

Yesterday was the anniversary of his ordination as bishop (1958). So now you know.

The Five Issues that Matter Most: Catholics and the Upcoming Election

The Five Issues That Matter Most was written to help Catholics understand the five key questions facing our world at this watershed moment in history. Building on the excellent work of Catholic Answers' Voters Guide for Serious Catholics, Catholic Outreach has created this new 96-page booklet to address the issues in greater depth, employing the same easy-to-read Q&A format that was so widely embraced in our previous book, A Guide to the Passion: 100 Questions About The Passion of the Christ.

In related news, George Barna is reporting a "seismic Catholic shift to Bush".

Kerry's toast.

Frank Ponders Equality

I'm not so sure I agree with him about the list of things he says we have no choice over. People choose to be stupid everyday, for instance. And I remain unpersuaded that homosexuality is *always* something which involves no component of choice (the phrase "Gay until Graduation") belies this trope in some cases. But on the whole I would agree that there are vast tracts of our lives which are given, about which we have no choice, and which, to the empirical observer, seem to make dust and nonsense of the notion that we are all equal.

The real reason we believe in equality is not because it is empirically provable (quite the contrary) but because our culture still retain (for the time being) the mystical dogma, inherited from Christendom, that all are equal in the sight of God. When that dogma is rejected as mystical superstition along with all the other rejected dogmas, then we will make a full-throated return to "scientific racism", classification of people outside the womb as "less than fully human" and all the other sorts of evil which commitment to materialism breeds.

Here's a piece I wrote on this ages ago.

Against the Grain

In which I attempt to explain why Catholic teaching is so irritating.

Flummoxed by Haloscan

Everybody else's Haloscan works fine. Only mine doesn't. I've tried repeatedly to get it to work. I copied the code from the Haloscan site and deactivated the old code.

Nothing. Everytime I activate it, my site slows to a crawl and when it finally loads, the comments aren't there. I'd hoped that when the posts from two days ago were archived, it would fix itself. But no dice. I don't know what to do.

Then again, maybe folks would be happier without comments. I dunno.

Anyhow, I've done everything I know how. If some kindly soul can figure out what's wrong and lemme know, I will endeavor to fix it ASAP. Meanwhile, we're stuck with no comments.

Still fiddling with the Haloscan stuff

I still like you, it's the technology that hates you. If the blog suddenly loads slow, it will probably mean I failed to get Haloscan to cooperate. In which case I will deactivate it again and try tomorrow.

Technology: Not the Enemy, but certainly a sympathizer.

I've been saying this all along

There is no Magisterium in Islam. *And* it's a human invention. So the notion that Islam is *essentially* This or That is very problematic. Islam is indeed what its followers make it to be. There are few "pillars" that are non-negotiable. But the meaning of those pillars can vary widely. That is why it is as essential to change the hearts and minds in Islam and turn them toward more sane interpretations of their tradition as it is to destroy those who will not be turned. Islam has a billion adherents. It's not going away. So we'd better find some ways to help tame the tiger since the chances of killing it are low. Of course, conversion to the Faith is the best thing, but I live in the real world and also recognize that's not happening soon.

Guilty, guilty, guilty!

Some guy got a papal knighthood (whatever that is) and it turns out he's a pro-abort politician in whatever island it is he comes from. Did JPII know this when the knighthood was given? Who knows? But since a) the award was given and b) somebody is (very rightly) asking that it be rescinded, the Combox Star Chamber has already seen enough and passed judgment. The Pope knew everything and is guilty of hypocrisy. What a horrible Pope he is! Guilty, guilty, guilty.

Me: I think the first comment in the thread pretty much sums up where the question still stands. If the Pope knowingly bestowed this honor on the guy, I'm disappointed. But the automatic presumption, "Of course he knew" is... more or less the average treatment I've come to expect of him in the blogosphere.

Indeed, I discover some had already passed sentence, not only on the Holy Father, but also on all us Silent Co-Conspirators in the Blogosphere who had not only not immediately called for his head on the basis of a couple of newspaper clippings, but had not even heard of the clippings. Carrie, for instance, informs us (on Monday) she carefully combed St. Blog's for *two days* and concluded that she was witnessing "omerta", the sinister Mafia conspiracy of honor among thieves (and her Combox Star Chamber agrees on this too). It couldn't just be that it was the weekend and a lot of people have lives and were, say, camping with their kids and not obsessing over conspiracies on the Internet. No. The failure of St. Blog's to immediately catch this story and leap to the worst possible conclusion is just one more evidence of how hopeless it all is.

Sheesh!

Hell Outsourced

The dot.com crash hit everybody.

Lefties are so *fun* when they are losing

You probably thought the reason Bush is leading in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll is because more people said they preferred Bush to Kerry.

That's because you, my friend, are a stupid Red State minion who can't think and doesn't grasp the depths of the Conspiracy!

No, the *real* reason for these poll results is that Mr. Gallup is an Evangelical Christian.

MoveOn.org, you see, would not hesitate to manipulate the data to achieve desired results, so it stands to reason (at least to them) that everybody else would behave as they do. "To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted." - Titus 1:15

We Vote Pro-Life

Handy for checking up on the record of your Congresscritter and other governing class types.

Remember: Christianity Makes Human Beings into Sheep

...but Science, liberated from the shackles of obscurantist superstition, will set us free from such exploitation.

A happy confluence of correspondence

One reader asks:

Ok, why do so many Catholics believe that the following are the most important issues of our time?

1. Abortion
2. Euthanasia
3. Embryonic Stem Cell Research
4. Human Cloning
5. Homosexual "Marriage"

I hear a lot about the "degradation of family values," etc and it just doesn't make sense to me. Why is there no care about the Iraq War, which the Pope has spoke out against, why no mention of the degradation of family values when familes don't communicate or brush their elderly relative off without giving them the respect and care theyde serve, what about the environment (we're destroying God's creation here!)?

I just don't understand why so many Catholics are *so* focused on something the Bible speaks so little about when they're neglecting the things that the Bible talks about *all* the time, like charity and family.

... I just don't get it...

Thanks in advance for your time.

And Fr. Frank Pavone, in his most recent column, answers:

An honest look at what an abortion is, and at how many victims it claims, is enough to reveal that nothing outweighs its gravity among the many "life issues." Multiple Church documents have confirmed this insight, repeating over and over that the abortion tragedy demands urgent attention and priority.

While some have tried, shamelessly, to obscure and contradict this teaching, many are quite able to understand and accept it. Yet the truth is even deeper than the statement, "Being wrong on abortion outweighs being right on other issues."

The full truth is, if you are wrong on abortion, you can't be right on other issues.

To permit abortion, but then to cry out for the right to work, housing, education, health care, and so forth, is to say that these other rights belong to some people but not to all. They obviously do not belong to those who were snuffed out by abortion.

Therefore, these rights cannot be human rights, because you have already said that not all humans have a claim on them. This trivializes those other rights and puts them on an obscure and questionable foundation.

If you permit abortion, then, on what basis do you defend the other rights? Why do we care for the poor? Because they have a right to food, clothing, and shelter. But why do they have a right to those things? Because they have a right to live. Why are we concerned about unemployment? Because people have a right to make a living. Why do they have that right? Because they have a right to live. It all comes back to that foundational right. Abortion is not the only issue, but neither is the foundation of a house the only part of a house. Take it away, however, and see how well you can build the rest.

The reason that being wrong on abortion makes it impossible to be right on other issues is that the heart and soul of every "issue" is precisely the dignity of the human person, whose right to life is not under the dominion of any other person. A person's dignity comes from the fact that he or she is human, not that someone else decides to grant that right at some point in time. Any human right begins when human life begins; otherwise, it isn't a human right, but rather some kind of benefit bestowed for another reason.

Now if you can take the right to life away from some humans, as abortion does to the children in the womb, then obviously you can take away from those same humans all their other human rights, because none of those other rights made such a claim upon your respect that you had to let those people live to possess it.

This is why the Pope has said that when the right to life is not protected, cries for other human rights are "false and illusory." When one is wrong on abortion, one cannot be right on anything else.

Bottom line: the taking of innocent human life is a graver matter than the taking of gravely guilty human life. So the first four issues outweigh the death penalty (though I oppose the death penalty). Similarly, the deliberate taking of innocent human life is *always* gravely sinful. There is no conceivable justification for it. I, for one, have written plenty about the problems of squaring our policy in Iraq with the Church's just war teaching. But I also recognize the Catholics of good faith can disagree about what, in the end, comes down to a prudential judgment. There is *no* prudential judgment involved in the direct taking of innocent human life. It's evil. Period. And it kills 1.5 million people each year.

I'm not sure what is meant by the complaints about "degradation of family values". I think *anything* that harms the family is evil. Period. Gay marriage is not the only thing to harms the family. Rather, it's the final kick to the corpse of marriage that was killed by our embrace of insta no fault divorce and the Imperium of the Autonomous Self (courtesy of us heteros).

Finally, our care for creation is important, but creation, sacred as it is, is not *more* sacred than human beings. This now scandalous doctrine, which used to be a truism when people took seriously that we are made in the image and likeness of God, means that "the earth" is not more important than a single human life. That's not an excuse to rape the earth, of course. But it is a stern rebuke to the notion that "Nature" would be better off without the disease of homo sapiens that infests it.

Vociferous Yawpings has Left the Building

Another soul find the relentless negativity of the blogosphere no substitute for the Eucharist, good works, and love. Gives me pause.

James Carroll Hails John Kerry as his Ideal Catholic Man

which is pretty much all you need to know.

A reader writes:

I was struck by what Wilfred McClay wrote, "Anne Hull of the Washington Post wanted to find examples, she didn't need to go to Oklahoma. She could have gone to any public high school in her own city, and found many far more disturbing examples."

I have heard that some African-American communities are notoriously anti-gay, especially among the young men. Perhaps these young men see homosexuality on an assault on their own "manhood". I have absolutely no doubts that stories that would make what is happening in Oklahoma look quite mild exist within the confines of the Washington, D.C. public school districts. But then that may be seen as casting a hurtful light upon another glorified minority class.

Hard to say. I think it's Blue State prejudice at work to a certain extent, but I think you are right that the Left sometimes has to navigate the choppy waters of identity group politics and prioritize just who should get top Victim Billing. So if that can be avoided and the White Trash Hicks of the Red States[TM] fingered as the villains, all the better.

It reminds me of the hilarity of watching the Seattle press twist itself in PC knots when the Designated Victim Group known as "Native Americans" wanted to go out and harpoon the Designated Victim Species known as "whales". There was much kaffuffle for a few days, until it was agreed upon that "In all contests between the environment and human, humans are always the evil ones." Once the environment is out of the picture, and we're just back to "Native American vs. Euros" then it is safe to resume the assumption that Native Americans the heros and Euros the villains.

Sort of like the Church's Hierarchy of Truth, you see.

Banished!

Bill Cork, in the spirit of open dialogue, declares I am "personally attacking" him and "misrepresenting" his position. Then he bans me from his comment boxes so I can't respond. Bill is still welcome in my comment boxes, should they ever recover from their coma.

I can't for the life of me see how I'm "personally attacking" him. I didn't say that he wrote what he wrote out of some prejudice in favor of his "chancery buddies" as he repeatedly accused me of writing to defend my "conservative buddies". I attacked, not him, but his ideas, most especially his peculiar attempt to argue that 1) the reality of temporal punishment somehow means it's okay for a Catholic to appoint himself Arbiter of Temporal Punishment and 2) solidarity means that it's okay to expose and/or hammer away at the long-atoned-for sins of somebody which do not concern us. Read it yourself. How am I misreading or misrepresenting his argument? I'm genuinely puzzled.

Cheat Commandos!

The latest oddity from Homestarrunner.

The Curt Jester is some kind of quirky genius

A reader writes:

I am not sure this would be a good topic for blogging but I thought I'd throw it out there. I was talking to a colleague today with whom I am friendly. I think he must be an evangelical of some sort. He's a political conservative. We were talking about the upcoming election and he said that he could never vote for a Democrat but also said, "Isn't Kerry a Catholic?" I said yes. He said, "Well, I could never vote for a Catholic (expect perhaps Pat Buchanan (this guy is a real right-winger I guess)) because Catholics swear allegiance to the head of a foreign government and are under the direct jurisdiction of the Pope." I didn't really know how to respond, in part, because I was a bit dumbfounded that people still think like this. What's the best way to come back on that? Can a faithful Catholic who is attempting to live the teachings of the Church be president? And I wonder if he simply misunderstands what Catholics do and believe about the teaching office of the Church. If I were to run for president (when hell freezes over), could I be both a faithful Catholic and a good president? Would not a faithful Catholic make the best president? Any thoughts or blogging would be appreciated.

Re: "What's the best way to come back on that?" Answer: "Documentation please?"

As to "Would not a faithful Catholic make the best president?" that depends entirely on his or her gifts. I'm a faithful Catholic (I hope) and I would be a catastrophe as President. Luther was right to say he'd rather be ruled by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian. On the other hand, a faithful Catholic who is actually competent would be nice. But mere fidelity to the Church does not mean you have been graced with the charism of administration.

The Seattle Chesterton Society is about to fire up the engines again!

Schedule for the 2004-2005 Academic Year

The G. K. Chesterton Society will now meet at the campus of Seattle
Pacific University , south of the Lake Washington
Ship Canal and about one mile west of the Fremont Bridge. Click here for directions and here for a campus map. Parking at SPU is free during Chesterton meetings. The Falcon Lounge, our usual meeting place, is located in Brougham Pavilion on the northeast corner of campus (#22 on the map). Use the southwest entrance and take the stairs (or elevator) to the top. Falcon Lounge is accessible to wheelchairs.

Tuesday, October 12 at 7:30 PM, Falcon Lounge, Seattle Pacific University

Dale Ahlquist, President of the American Chesterton Society
"I Vote for Chesterton"

What would G. K. Chesterton think of American politics today? A Chestertonian perspective on the upcoming U.S. elections. [CAEI NOTE: I tingle with anticipation. Dale is a hoot!]

Wednesday, November 17 at 7:30 PM, Falcon Lounge, Seattle Pacific University

Father Robert Spitzer, S.J., President of Gonzaga University.
"Why I am a Priest, Why I am Pro-Life: Father Robert Spitzer Tells His Story"

The President of Gonzaga University will discuss two of the crucial
aspects of his life and career-his vocation as a Roman Catholic priest,
and his commitment to the pro-life cause.

Thursday, January 20 at 7:30 PM, Seattle Pacific University, Room Location TBA

Kirk Kanzelberger, Fordham University .
"Building a Christian World View: What Thomas Aquinas Has to Teach Us"

An introduction to the key ideas of the great medieval theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas, whose ways of understanding the relationship between faith and reason, God and the world, and morality and human nature remain an extremely helpful guide in our thinking about faith, science, and morality.

Thursday, February 17 at 7:30 PM, Falcon Lounge, Seattle Pacific University


Camile Di Blasi, President and CEO, Healing the Culture.
"Religion vs. Spirituality: An Unnecessary Battle of the Sexes"

A look at the sharp distinction often made between the "masculine" concept of religion and "feminine" concept of spirituality, and how neglecting the one at the expense of the other harms both the individual and the Church.

Thursday, April 15 at 7:30 PM, Falcon Lounge, Seattle Pacific University

Dr. George Nash, historian, author. "Books and the Founding Fathers"

What did the Founding Fathers read? A distinguished expert in
intellectual history speaks about the literary and intellectual
influences on the founders of the United States of America.

Thursday, May 5 at 7:30 PM, Falcon Lounge, Seattle Pacific University

Dr. Brad Birzer, Professor of History, Hillsdale College

"The Bitter Harvest of Modern Ideologies: A Christian Humanist Perspective on Marxism, Nazism, and Fascism"

Relying on the work of such diverse figures as Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, G. K. Chesterton, and T. S. Eliot, Birzer's talk will focus on the devastation caused by 20th-century ideologies in their attempt to re-define the human person. Birzer will attempt to show that the only way to stop the ideologies was and is through heroic sacrifice.

Reason to Homeschool #93498723423398274

Mercy means "Making Sure a Sinner Never Outruns His Past"

At least, according to the exceedingly odd logic of Bill Cork.

As those who follow this blog know, I wrote a piece complaining about NCR's dredge of Deal Hudson's past for old scandals. As I have made abundantly clear, I thought (and think) that it is our duty to leave repented sin in the past, once reparation has been made. Judging from the NCR piece, that had happened in Hudson's case, so I thought it was despicable to dredge Hudson's sin up yet again to destroy him.

The piece was written about a month ago and was supposed to run a week earlier than it did. But by dumb luck, it got bumped to the day that Hudson got the boot from the helm of Crisis amid rumors that "this isn't about something that happened ten years ago". So naturally, I got a bunch of mail telling me that I was wrong to criticize the press for exposing yet another sexual abuser in the Church.

Bill Cork takes this view as well and (till he finally edited his comments) kept repeating the false trope that I was defending my "conservative buddy" (because, you know, I am *so* on board with Hudson's brand of "Spirit of Democratic Capitalism=the Holy Spirit" flavor of Catholicism) and engaging in a "double standard" in my criticism of bishops and clerics while letting my ideological soulmate Hudson off the hook.

Of course, elsewhere in cyber-space, I discover that I'm not hard enough on priests and clerics, but that's another story. Let's stick with the "double standard" question for a moment.

Compare, say, my view of Hudson with my view of Bp. Dupre (who, I am now told, will not be prosecuted for child rape, though he was indicted? What's up with that anyway?).

As I've already said, when the NCR piece came out, there was no assertion in the piece that Hudson's sins were ongoing. The piece said he sinned--and lost his job as well as paying damages to the victim. In contrast, Dupre (and numerous other clerical abusers) have sinned (assuming the charges are true) and did not lose his job or suffer any other consequence.

I have this odd notion that once you've made reparation, the sin should go in the past. Bill seems to have this notion that a person should go on paying and paying and paying forever or something. Indeed, in an extremely bizarre post, Cork actually argues that, because there is the reality of temporal punishment for forgiven sin (i.e., just because you are forgiven for breaking the window, doesn't mean you don't have to pay for the window), it therefore follows that we may take it upon ourselves to inflict those temporal punishments--and go on and on and on inflicting them--on people who have made reparations for their sins.

I challenged this interesting new theory of temporal punishment by saying, "Temporal consequences are real. Appointing ourselves as the agents assigned by God to deal out those consequences is begging for judgment" and added "My point is not that no sin mentioned in confession can ever be spoken of. It is that deliberately dredging up somebody's sins (about which nobody needed to know but the parties involved) is called "detraction" and it doesn't stop being detraction by being re-labeled "news".

And Bill amazed me even further by offering this startling insight: "Again, a Protestant, individualistic perspective. Sin affects the body; that's clear in this case. That's why it lost him his job, which is a public act."

To which the natural question is this: "Are you really suggesting that solidarity means that we have the right to expose somebody's long atoned for sins when they don't concern us, Bill? Which of your old sins "affect the body" and need to be publicized?"

At this point, of course, those who have followed the news will interject that (assuming the hints dropped in the Washington Times are true, which I tend to think is so) that Hudson's sins do indeed affect the Body, the safety of others, and the witness of the Church. All granted. But remember: I was referring in my article to the NCR report of a month ago, which made no claim at all that the sins were ongoing and offered no evidence of anything beyond a sin for which somebody had made reparation. So Bill's argument effectively boils down to these amazing words: "This is part of the consequences of what he did, consequences that he'll never outrun."

Yep. That's mercy all right. Making sure that the sinner *never* outruns the consequences of his sin. Making sure that, till the last day of his life, he is endlessly harried by his sin. Making sure that no reparation is ever enough, no act of contrition is ever accepted, nothing is ever put in the past. Making sure that the sinner has his nose rubbed in his sin forever. That's our mission as Christians in the world!

Bill's beef, when all's said and done, is this: "Under the standard you have set if someone does a profile of Weakland ten years from now and mentions why he was forced from office, it will be a sin against the Sacrament of Reconciliation."

The only problem with this analysis is: it's not true. The circumstances of Weakland's resignation are public knowledge. I *would* be critical if, ten years from now, a Weakland who has committed no further sins were hounded from some productive work he was doing by self-appointed Inquisitors who decided, in your words, that "This is part of the consequences of what he did, consequences that he'll never outrun". I was unaware that the Holy Spirit was a harpy. But I would not be bothered if the fact of his past were discussed publicly since everybody already knows it. However, if it was discussed with the express intention of making him pay all over again for what he's already paid, then I'd be ticked.

As I say, the crucial question--which NCR did not address--is "Are the sins ongoing?" Bill is still effectively advocating that our task as Christians is to continue to inflict temporal punishment on sinners who have repented and made reparation. I think this is heartless, whether the sinner is Weakland or Hudson.

And I think SAM asks a salient question which Cork dodges with amazing chutzpah.

Bottom line: I hold the same philosophy for clerical sinners as for Hudson. If you repent and make appropriate reparation, I don't think you should be hounded for your sin forever. If you don't, I think you should be made to feel the consequences of your sin. If Hudson is up to old tricks, I think he should be made to feel the consequences by the appropriate channels (and apparently has). But I think it's an extremely dangerous game for us to anoint ourselves Agents of Temporal Punishment for Forgiven Sin.

The problem seems to be Haloscan

When I disable the Haloscan javascript, CAEI loads just fine. I don't know why Haloscan is suddenly causing my site to hang though. As a techno-idiot, the nearest guess I can come up with is that it's confused about how to match up the right comment box with the right blog entry. But I don't know why. I didn't do anything to the Haloscan code. I've tried republishing. I even tried deleting and republishing entries back to when the problems started yesterday. Nothing.

So I've disabled Haloscan for now, till some technoidal person can tell me what else might help. Hopefully, we'll have the comboxes back soon.

Rom Com Zom: The Newest Film Genre

CAEI! Soon to be loading in under ten years!

Still struggling to figure out what's wrong. Sorry for the inconvenience (if anybody's trying to read this).

Relient K Explains Postmodern Deconstruction of Language

Click on "commercials".

Another 9/10 Liberal in a 9/11 World

Fr. McBrien has trouble distinguishing Jerry Falwell from mass murdering Foaming Bronze Age Fanatics.

It takes years of training to make yourself that stupid.

A reader writes:

My son is going to Philadelphia Biblical University and they are teaching that the following items do not meet "orthiodoxy" of Christianity:

1. 2 Macc 12:45-46 - Teaches prayer for the dead
2. Tobit 12: - teaches salvation by works and righteousness
3. Judith 9- 10,13 - teaches God aids people in falsehood
4. Ecclasticus 3: - teaches almsgiving attones for sin
5. 2Kings 22:8 and on - is an example against oral tradition, since the "fathers" were not following the law.
6. Jesus and the Apostles never refer to the deuterocanon as scripture.

Mark, what would be a Catholic response be to this? Looks like you could add a few Myths to your list. I enjoy your work. Number 3 and 5 is troubling to me. The others seem to have references in the NT, but any feedback is appreciated. You usually have a logical approach and this may be helpful to my Son the Math Nerd.

Thanks for your time in advance, I hope you can help me. By the By, do you know anyone who is interested in mentoring a floundering Apostolate? I am north of Phila. I do not think distance is an issue at this point. I have lots of ideas and concepts. Let me know.

Well, this Catholic's response is my book, By What Authority? and my piece "Five Myths about Seven Books" for starters.

Beyond that, a couple of notes:

1. Christianity, like Judaism, does pray for the dead and has done so since before the time of Christ. The fact that a small sect within recent Christianity is uncomfortable about that is no argument against the canonicity of Maccabees.
2. James 2:24.
3. Odd. The words of Exodus in describing the Hebrew midwives who lies to save babies also appear to confer the same aid from God. But, of course, that's in the part of the Bible that is not under attack, so it's glossed over.
4. I wonder what the critics would make words of Jesus to Zacchaeus if they weren't in the New Testament.
5. Not all unwritten Tradition is "oral tradition". Not all unwritten tradition is human tradition. That's where my book comes in handy.
6. See chapter 4 of By What Authority?.

Finally, re: your apostolate. If anybody out there knows somebody who can respond to my reader's request, you'll be doing a good thing. Thanks!

Aw, c'mon Jeremy

Don't paint my complaints as "Neocon Defender of Hudson Now Backtracks"

As I made very clear on my blog again and again, I a) don't know Hudson beyond a single phone call and hold no particular brief for him and b) was writing to defend "We believe in the forgiveness of sins" not "I believe in the sinlessness of Deal Hudson". What angered (and still angers) me about the NCR piece was that, by their own accounting, they were exposing a sin which had, from the evidence they themselves presented, been repented, confessed, and atoned for ten years ago. If they had other facts that needed to be brought forward to make the case "And he's still doing it" they should have done so. But instead, they wrote an article which exposed the sins of a (from all I could tell from the piece) a penitent sinner. Had the Wanderer done the same thing to some ideological opponent (say, the publisher of NCR) I would be *just* as outraged, not because Fox or Hudson are some ideological soulmate (they're not), but because I deeply believe that there is no point of the Creed that is more reviled by both Left and Right than the clause "We believe in the forgiveness of sins." It was not the *seal* of the confessional I was speaking of when I spoke of the "satanic violation of the sacrament of reconciliation". It was the spirit of the confessional I was referring to. To dredge up a man's past sins, give evidence that he has tried to repent and make reparation for them, give *no* evidence that those sins are ongoing, and then say, "Hey! Lookee here! We got us a sinner!" is utterly foreign to what the sacrament of reconciliation is all about and is an act of contempt for our profession as Catholics to believe in the forgiveness of sins. It's contemptuous no matter who does it.

Sigh. Readers who want to argue about whether Jeremy has my number or not can chew the fat about it over at Get Religion, where he's blogging this week.

Since this is has come up twice now, both in private correspondence and in Blogdom, lemme clarify...

...when I said that NCR's exposure of Deal Hudson's (from all the evidence they gave at the time) repented and atoned for sin was a satanic violation of the sacrament of confession, I did not mean they were violating the seal of the confessional. I meant they were violating the spirit of the sacrament and spitting on "We believe in the forgiveness of sins" by dredging up the sins of a penitent which had, by their own accounting, been repented and atoned for a decade earlier through acts of reparation. I did not mean they were somehow privvy to the contents of a confession which they then published.

A reader asks:

I wanted to ask you for your input on something. My friend introduced an
argument for sola scriptura stating that the reason for such was because of
the nature of authority in the apostles. he mentioned that unless something
is either orally or textually confirmed and validated by an apostle, himself
or directly, then it should not be regarded as a matter of faith, etc.
Hence, he disregards oral tradition as it would have ceased with the
apostles.

Why does a Catholic accept as authoritative the Traditions and Doctrines of
Bishops and such who succeed the Apostles? They are not apostles' themselve.
Is it because there is some kind of inherent authority between them- the
successors?

The best answer I can give you is found in my book By What Authority? I really recommend you read that since it deals with this and many other similar questions.

You can get it here.

As to the notion that "unless something is either orally or textually confirmed and validated by an apostle, himself or directly, then it should not be regarded as a matter of faith" the most obvious point is that this excludes all four gospels, since we only know they are of apostolic origin due to the fact that the Tradition of the Church says they are.

But, of course, no Christian, Protestant or Catholic *really* believes what your friend says. Not even your friend does, since he accepts the Tradition of the Church about which books are "textually confirmed and validated by an apostle". For other aspects of Tradition your friend very likely believes (and certainly a typical Evangelical believes), go here.

Our Old Pal Elliot

blogs a bit about the silliness of Reformed patristics.

here

and here.

Earth to Space: Nyah, Nyah! Missed Me!

By the way, I'm reading a fun contrarian science book right now called "The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery". It's another contribution to the Intelligent Design argument that cribs a good deal from Rare Earth (not an ID book but also extremely interesting).

Basically, the point of the book is twofold:

First, its easy to believe intelligent life is common throughout the universe--just so long as you don't know anything about the spectacular number of variables that must line up to get you life at all, much less complex, intelligent, and technological life. As soon as you do, you start thinking things like "This sure looks designed."

Second, the book argues that, oddly enough, the circumstances which make for the occurrence of intelligent technological life just also happen to be ideal circumstances for that intelligent technological life to be able to look around at the universe and invent the sciences.

The authors are smart enough not to claim that we are looking at "proofs" of anything here. They merely keep pointing out the spectacular number of marvelously fortuitous coincidences and noting that if creation is the product of intelligent design then it would stand to reason that our own tendency to be curious about everything is no accident and that our being created in an environment that makes it possible to investigate the world is also no accident.

A very fun book. The sort of thing I find profoundly inspiring.

The Great Enema Continues

Bp. Dupre indicted on child molestation charges. If he's guilty, they should throw the book at him. A bishop is not above the law.

Oh, and by pure coincidence, the victims were all male. Doubtless, this is because priests are celibate and women can't be ordained. What other contributing factors could there be since the gay subculture among the clergy can't possibly foster a mafioso code of mutual secrecy, cover-up, protection and mutual back scratching for habitual abusers?

I love it when people protest this comparison

I mean, what could the reduction of human beings to mere objects and the murder of millions of innocent human beings *possibly* have to do with slavery or the Holocaust?

An Appeal to the Holy Father on Behalf of Terri Schiavo

It's well meant, but I doubt there's much he can do. Her fate is in the hands of murderous judges who have not tended to care much about the laws of God and man. Why should they listen to JPII? Still, the prayer of the righteous man availeth much. So, here's hoping.

Michael Davies dies

May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.

It's an interesting question: Will secularism denature religion or will religion (and particularly the Catholic faith) leaven secularism?

It's a testimony to the lack of faith among many RadTrad types that they are so confident secularism will win (and indeed has won) the struggle. I'm not at all convinced of that and suspect we are only in the opening moments of a long struggle in which secularism will quickly drop out of the picture. The real battle of our time will between the Catholic faith, anything-but-Judeo-Christianity paganism (increasingly represented by the West) and Islam. What frightens Christian people, of course, is that the faith wins through the cross. We'd much rather win through Power.

Cry me a river...

I could not care less that Dutch Muslims feel insulted because somebody told the truth about the backwardness and brutality of Islam. Note that they are insulted by a film that tells the truth, not by the fact that this film is gaining wide popularity in the Foaming Bronze Age Fanatic set.

The Cost of the War for the Wounded

Therese: The Movie

Steve Greydanus gives it limited modified thumbs up.

Barb Nicolosi uses it as an object lesson in how not to make and market a film.

Barb, by the way, also offers conclusive proof that she was never a ten year old boy.

Where else but from the WebElves Could You Learn that This Adorns the ECUSA National Cathedral



For all your rakish and fun Plucky Rebel Alliance needs in the Culture Wars, check out their website!

Speaking of which...

There is a persistent tendency, among some of my gay readers, to characterize my criticisms of gay culture and my habit of pointing out the pathologies there as "gay bashing". The article below is a fairly typical example of why I highlight these stories. It's not to say "That's all there is to homosexuals" but rather to say "There are real and disturbing pathologies at work in the gay subculture which neither gay activists nor the mainstream media like to point out." One of my honest gay readers says it better than I can:

The issue that a lot of people, myself included, have with the media's portrayal of gays and lesbians is that all of the complexes that are so disproportionately common among gays (sexual compulsion, addiction, partner abuse) are just glossed over or swept under the rug.

The reason for this is that being gay is so POLITICIZED, by gay activists but also by straight people who want to show off their enlightened credentials. I'm gay and I can say that being gay today is like being stuck in some stereotypically dysfunctional 50's family, where the mother is a drunk and the father tortures the family dog every night in front of the children but, hey, every Sunday we all put on a big smile and parade off to Church and tell people how great things are because GOD FORBID someone should see our bad side.

Instead, we get Will and Grace: homosexuality as good fashion sense and witty one-liners. Well, there's more to being gay than that. And the media does no one any favors by ignoring it.

I very much like the analogy of the Happy 50's family. I don't have the will power to overlook the obvious when somebody tells me a story like this has nothing whatever to do with the culture of licentiousness, perversity, narcissism, gratification of the senses, corruption of the young and contempt for the normal that so characterizes so much that pours out of the gay subculture. Instead, like an ordinary person, I find myself thinking "Gee it sure looks like homosexuality and trouble go together an awful lot" followed by "It sure looks like every time a story like this breaks, there's an insta-response from the gay lobby declaring that this has nothing to do with homosexuality." Then, we get another hagiographical piece like the WaPo series. After a while, you just start to roll your eyes.

WaPo Chronicles of the Noble Struggle to Raise Consciousness about the Glory and Splendor of Homosexuality in the Intellectually Darkened Heartland

Meanwhile, the blogosphere in this post-Memogate world offers some interesting questions about the veracity of this transparent piece gay hagiography:

As a consequence, it will be much harder for organs like the Washington Post to get away with the publication of silly, surreal, tendentious, and unconvincing "human interest" stories like the series they began this morning, on the tribulations of gay youth in Oklahoma. The article is an utter clinker, full of moldy journalistic cliches about Oklahoma, glaring factual inaccuracies, and literally incredible scenes, which belie the reporter's claim to have spent "hundreds of hours" taking in this exotic milieu. (A few examples. Her description of "the wind knifing down the plains" might work for someone whose knowledge of Oklahoma was restricted to The Grapes of Wrath. But Tulsa is known locally as "Green Country," and has a gently rolling landscape, as befits a city that grazes up against the foothills of the Ozarks. And, as anyone who had actually been there would know, Sand Springs has for at least two decades been an increasingly upscale Tulsa suburb, not a rural town.)

The two most striking defects of the article are, I submit, features that the Rathergate episode will have made much more salient to many more Americans. First, the very idea that this reporter traipsed around, following this family through various tribulations, conflicts, intimate conversations, and the like, and through it all was as unnoticed as a fly on the wall, is simply not credible. Even a relatively unsophisticated reader will understand that this reporter is conflating a few (very few) things she actually observed with things she was told, or heard about, or perhaps read about in the collected works of H. L. Mencken, and pawning off the whole concoction as "reporting."

Second, the genuine human interest of the story cannot conceal the fact that, at the heart of this tragic situation is a divorce, and an absent father who (in the name of libertarian indifference) does not really give a damn what becomes of his confused teenage son. That is the single most important analytical fact here, and it is mentioned only in passing. Interesting that the liberal mind, always attuned to "root causes," is so uninterested in them in this case. One feels some initial sympathy for the pathetic mother, who seems to be trying her best to make the situation right. But readers who are becoming increasingly wise to the sausage-making techniques of feature-page journalism will, thanks to Rathergate, be more likely to ask themselves: "What kind of mother lets a Washington Post reporter invade her troubled family's life, and use it as grist for the journalistic mill? How much shame does she really feel about her son's condition, if she is willing to allow others to exploit it? What is really going on here?" And dozens of other like questions.

None of which is to say that there is no story here. But do we really need a multi-part series in a major national daily to know that high-school kids are mean, and pick on one another? And as for the anti-gay dimension of it, if Anne Hull of the Washington Post wanted to find examples, she didn't need to go to Oklahoma. She could have gone to any public high school in her own city, and found many far more disturbing examples. The difference, of course, is that the District of Columbia (unlike the state of Oklahoma) is not passing statutes opposing same-sex marriage. Which tells you all you need to know about the motives behind this series.

There goes that darn Leftist Pope again...

...The man actually takes the gospel reading seriously and suggests that the present world situation might have some resemblance to the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. Unbelievable. I mean, he even praises efforts to feed the poor, which automatically makes him ridiculous, of course.

The NY Times Bravely Stands for the Right of Immensely Powerful and Wealthy Corporations to Reduce Human Beings to Artifacts

Discovers hitherto unheard-of "right to clone" in the First Amendment.

Apostate liberalism: inventing new sins that cry out to heaven for judgment while U wait.

Reason #909380945734987234230987245 to Homeschool

From our "9/10 Liberals in a 9/11 World" File

Jim Wallis wrings his hands about the legions of murderous Christians who boiled out of movie theatres looking for Jews to lynch after seeing The Passion of the Christ. The massive death rate from that cultural earthquake has reached a staggering "Zero" and is doubling every day. Meanwhile Wallis, like all the other ideology-blinded hand-wringers who called the film anti-semitic, remains strangely silent about the subtle whiffs of ever-so-slight animosity to Jews which sometimes seem to characterize another important world religion.

A reader asks:

Assuming this is true, aren't we in violation of the jus in bello proportionality criterion of Just War: That we must avoid disproportionate collateral damage to civilian life and property? Furthermore, isn't this evidence that the decision to go to war to begin with was objectively imprudent under the jus ad bello proportionality criterion: That it must have been judged that the overall destruction from the use of force would be outweighed by the good to be achieved, because a nation cannot go to war without weighing the effect of its action on others and on the international community?

Discuss, class.

Interesting piece on the clash between sports and religious observance

I lack the gene for interest in sports. But I can appreciate that for many people this is a matter of passionate interest and so I found the article interesting.

Pope Continues to Completely Defy Easy Categorization...

...while supplying more ammo to ideological critics.

Vatican Seeks to Introduce New Principle to U.N. Charter

“Humanitarian Intervention” Would Protect Unarmed Civilians

The great thing about this latest move is that people who are determined to call him a Kneejerk Pacifist can keep doing so (despite the fact that he clearly articulates the legitimacy of Just War) because he makes this proposal to the UN, rendering him ritually impure and guilty of consorting with tax collectors and sinners.

Meanwhile, those on the Left can lash him as a conservative lackey in the pocket of "globalists" who is shilling for international corporations to launch wars under the guise of humanitarianism so that outfits like Halliburton can line their pockets.

What a rewarding job it must be to be Pope.

Citizens United Resisting Euthanasia Continues the Good Fight for Terri Schiavo and all those threatened by the Culture of Death

It's About Abortion, Stupid

The Democrats are likely to lose the Catholic vote in November—and John Kerry could well lose the election as a result. It’s about abortion, stupid. And “choice,” make no mistake, is killing the Democratic Party.

A refreshing and rare dose of common sense from the Mainstream Media.

The Materialist Secular West Cannot Remain Spiritually Neutral

Supernature abhors a vacuum. When you banish God, you don't simply embrace neutrality. You simply make room for the demonic. And one of the surest signs of the presence of the demonic in a culture is an insane desire to harm innocent children.

Given that our own secular, enlightened culture slays its children to the tune of 1.5 million a year, that should give us pause about the need to evangelize and reclaim our own culture. There is no neutral middle ground between Christ and Belial.

Old Oligarch notice the same distraction tactic at work in the pages of America...

...and provides an enjoyable rebuttal of their latest bit of agitprop for the Democratic party's fanatical support for the Sacrament of Abortion.

NCR Waves its Hands Furiously and Shouts "Look! Halley's Comet!"

...at Catholics who are repelled by the record of a man who has a 100% record of voting to support the slaughter of 40 million innocent children.

Such people are "partisan" doncha know.

A reader asks:

As a Catholic parent of inquisitive 5- and 6-year-olds and regular reader of your blog, I'm wondering whether you might be able to recommend good age-appropriate books on the lives of the saints.

Also curious what saints you might put at the top of the list for educated Christians to be at least vaguely familiar with. Am guessing that such a list would include the four evangelists together with Peter, Paul, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Joan of Arc, Thomas More, and others whose names escape me at the moment.

Ignatius has a nice series of lives of the saints for kidlets for older kids. I know there's stuff for little bitty kids, but I don't know the publisher. Anybody?

Patrick O'Hannigan writes on bloggishness...

...and becomes the only known columnist to examine the little-known connection between Dan Rather and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, while twisting the lyrics of several Watergate-era songs.

The musical comedy potential of Rathergate is, as yet, a vast untapped natural resource.

Squeezing the Last Drops Out of Summer and Breathing Deep the Autumn

God has made us for delight. One of the signs of this is summer. Another is children. Still another is fall. My wife and I are taking our children off on a long-planned and promised Scout campout this weekend. We'll be over on the Olympic peninsula and the weather is supposed to be beautiful: a crisp cool Indian summer tinged with Autumn just as as ripening apples burn from green to red.

Upshot #1: Give thanks to the Lord for he is good!

Upshot #2: I'm outta here.

Meantime, in honor of God's creation of Autumn:

God made sun and moon to distinguish the season, and day and night,
and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons;
but God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies;
in paradise the fruits were ripe the first minute,
and in heaven it is always autumn.

God's mercies are ever at their maturity.
God never says, you should have come yesterday;
he never says, you must come again tomorrow.
But today, if you will hear God's voice,
today, God will hear you.

God brought light out of darkness, not out of lesser light;
He can bring thy summer out of winter, though thou have no spring.
All occasions invite God's mercies, and all times are God's seasons. - John Donne

Let Terayza Be Terayza!

Loud, firm, and wrong! Her prediction of Osama's capture is political suicide. Even *if* the Bushies had the guy on ice and were going to spring him as an October Surprise, do you think they'd do it now?

But, of course, the Bushies don't have him. Why? He's dead and he's been that way since December 2001. We will never find Osama because there's nothing left to find. It is beyond crazy that the Kerry campaign would let itself get hitched to such a dicey prophecy. I'm becoming convinced that the guy simply can't imagine a country larger and more diverse the Massachusetts. He seems to think that he will win because he is owed it, so why bother running serious campaign?

Hey Ramesh Ponnuru and/or Kathryn Lopez!

If you are out there and reading this, could you tell your email technoid guy that for some reason my emails to youse guys are bouncing.

I hope it's a glitch. Of course, it may be my breath...

I suspect it's not just your addresses. I bet it would bounce if I emailed anybody at "@nationalreview.com".

Any help would be appreciated.

Apologies to the rest of youse guys for this. I can't get a message to them any other way.

From our "9/10 Liberals in a 9/11 World" Dept.

Pointy Headed Experts in Tweed Detect Dangerous Christian Anti-Semitism in The Passion of the Christ

No word yet on when they will detect dangerous Islamic anti-semitism in the PLO, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, etc. etc. etc.

Fr. Rob Johansen has the latest news from the Schindlers on their struggle to save their daughter Terri's life

The beheadings are horrible, but what worries me most is the DVD sales.

Ceili Rain (fronted by my friend Bob Halligan, Jr.) gets a nice write up in Billboard

Billboard Picks - Album Picks

September 25, 2004,
Change in Your Pocket

Ceili Rain creates music that is thought-provoking and smile-inducing.
The talented sextet has built a rabid following by touring the world, from
Rome to Syracuse, N.Y. This is one of those rare albums that captures the
vibrant showmanship that makes the band's concerts so potent. Tracks like
the driving opener "Like a Train" and fan favorite "Stomp" demonstrate its
engaging personality. Ceili's Celtic- flavored pop/rock is propelled by the
songwriting and vocal chops of frontman Bob Halligan Jr. His voice is warm,
supple and brimming with raw emotion. Among the highlights on this
collection are "You Just So Never Know," "I'll Stick With My Own" and "Dead
Presidents on Parade." Ceili Rain continually delivers smart, inventive,
non-preachy music that uplifts the human spirit. -by Deborah Evans Price

Ceili Rain is terrific. If you like Celtic rock and roll, this is your band. Joyous, life-affirming, and unashamedly Catholic.

Al-Reutera: As a matter of fact, we are cowards and we do skew our reportage to appease Foaming Bronze Age Fanatics

Old Media continues to feel the impact of New Media's Power of the Fisk.

The Martyrdom of Andrew Greeley

I'd take him more seriously if he had the courage to challenge his friends as well as his enemies. A Chicago Yellow Dog Democrat courageously tells his Yellow Dog Democrat friends he opposes the war. Quelle courage!

Let's see a serious column telling the Dems to break their slavish devotion to the sacrament of abortion, Padre. Otherwise, you're just a poseur.

Greg Popcak is Asking Youse Guys for a Favor

I need to ask you a favor, and I hope you don't mind. I am developing a psychometric survey to assess Catholic Lived Religion. Essentially, "Lived Religion" is defined in the psychology of religion literature as the "daily life and spirituality of religious people." In particular, I am interested in the question, "What distinguishes the daily life and spirituality of serious Catholics from the daily life and spirituality of serious Protestants and other serious religious/spiritual people?"

There are many surveys examining the similarities between committed people of faith, but there are no surveys which examine the unique dimension of Catholic lived religion. It is my hope to help fill that gap in the psychology of religion.

Here is what I need from you if you are willing. As a first step, I need to develop a list of 80-100 items from which a panel of expert judges will rate the items they view as being most relevant to the construct of "Catholic Lived Religion" as defined above.

I am asking if you would be willing--on your own or with the help of your readers--to suggest as many items as you would like that would represent what you think of as CATHOLIC "lived religion."

Remember, the question is, "How does the daily life and spirituality of serious CATHOLICS differ from the daily life and spirituality of Protestants and other religious/spiritual people?"

I think it would be an interesting discussion for you and it would be a huge help to me. I really want to develop a survey that reflects as much of the breadth of the faith as possible. Would you be willing to help me?

Thank you so much for considering my request.

Discuss, class.

You learn the most interesting things when a Kerry Supporter expounds on Catholic teaching

Feddie wonders if the Church actually teaches that "Anyone who makes fun of someone with a Purple Heart is committing a mortal sin."

Feddie, I checked on this. This dogma of the Faith was solemnly defined in the encyclical Ullfay of Aloneybay by His Holiness Pope Pius XXIII. It is 100% papal bull. Pius XXIII teaches that the veneration owed John Kerry by the Little People is "semi-hyperdulia", just below that owed the Blessed Virgin Mary, but greater than every other creature. Any mockery, political satire, political cartoon, fun, or even light-hearted criticism of John Kerry is therefore blasphemous and mortal sin.

Note: this only applies to John Kerry since all other Purple Heart winners are, according to Kerry, "war criminals".

Speaking of which...

A reader writes:

Catholics in the Public Square needs donations ASAP. They are trying to get the Catholic Answers Voter's Guide out in the swing-state of Michigan. This election is crucial. We need all faithful Catholics to vote and support groups that stand for truth. Please make a donation today to Catholics in the Public Square.

Some of my readers may remember Ono Ekeh

Still shilling for the Evil Party and shouting "Look! It's Halley's Comet!" when the Party's devotion to the Sacrament of Abortion comes up.

Clues to the clueless: To say, "You cannot support abortion" is not to say "You must vote for Bush."

Heh Heh Heh

Nice interview with my pal Jimmy Akin re: Frances Quisling's attempt to muzzle Catholic Answers with legal brownshirt tactics. I just love it when the good guys have it their way while evil people stamp their tiny feet in impotent frustration.

To follow this seminal moment in American Catholic political history, follow Jimmy's blog and the Catholic Answers site.

Indeed, follow Jimmy's blog in any case, since his interests are broad and fascinating. There's a lot more than Catholic apologetics happening there. The guy's a Renaissance Man.

I'm pleasantly surprised by this

Gibson seems not to be a pariah in Tinseltown after all.

A reader writes:

I was hoping you might be willing to help get the word out on a project that a priest friend and I are working on related to the Year of the Eucharist declared by JPII, which starts in October. The basic jist of what we have been putting together is a weekly bulletin we will be putting out which centers on providing writings of the Church, the saints and scripture, all centered on the Eucharist. Our hope is only to provide a tool for deepening Eucharistic devotion. We have already begun posting the bulletins on a website which is a local Pittsburgh, PA chapter of Opus Dei (see the upper right hand box/section). Our introduction letter there describes our effort in part in this way....

As a further help we have planned to provide a weekly bulletin (8 1/2 x 11 two sided) during this year that will offer readings from various Church sources. Each issue will contain a continuous reading of Ecclesia de Eucharistia and a selection of other quotations from the Holy Father, other Popes and Councils and the Catechism. There will be a section devoted to thoughts from the saints, and popular prayers, poems and hymns. Suggestions will be offered for developing a deeper Eucharistic piety.

All this can be used for spiritual reading, for reflection and personal prayer. The bulletin will be available each week at warwickhouse.org. It can be forwarded by email or reproduced as a handout and widely distributed. The printouts could be collected in a binder for handy use and reference.

In following these bulletins over the course of this year one will have had the chance to read slowly the entire encyclical (Ecclesia De Eucharistia) and pertinent sections of the Catechism, and to follow the saints in their devotion to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Each week there will be some words from St. Josemaria, a man who centered every day on the Mass and was an ardent lover of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. John Paul II has said: "May the example and teaching of St. Josemaria be a stimulus to us."

...The site also offers a subscription service (free of course), by which one can sign up to be notified by email when a new bulletin is posted. We also have some suggestions posted for individual and parish level action ideas for the Year of the Eucharist.

As for the bulletins, the first one is already available at the site above. I have also attached it to this email so you could get a flavor of what we are doing.

I think we have something really worthwhile here to share with people. If you like what you see and also feel it's something of value, would you mind spreading the word on you blog? Thanks for your consideration in this matter.

A faithful blog reader,

P.S. We also have a 'non Opus Dei' version of this which our diocesan secretariat of Education is going to 1) post on the diocese (Pittsburgh) education website, and 2) Send each week to the diocese catechetical leaders for source material. The 'non Opus Dei' means that we have simply produced a version without the weekly writings of St. Josemaria. Still lots of excellent material even without that.

Microsoft Forger

For all your document-faking needs. From the prodigious wit of the Curt Jester. I hope to be him when I grow up.

Pontificator's First Law

When Orthodoxy and Catholicism agree on something over against Protestantism, Protestantism loses.

Pontificator is perfectly right, of course. One of the strangest spectacles in the world is the periodic tortured attempt by anti-Catholic Protestant pseudo-scholars to turn the patristic Church into a gathering of Reformed Baptists. Talk about failing the laugh test!

Finally, a prayer request for my mother-in-law, Pat Humiston

It looks like she is in the very end stages of her long struggle with Alzheimer's. It's been a sore trial for Neal, her husband, and for my good, noble, loving, steadfast, compassionate and wise Janet, as well as for all her siblings. The docs say it will probably be very soon. If you could please pray for Pat and for all of us who love her, I would appreciate it very much.

Also, bear with the blog if it suddenly falls silent. It will probably mean we've been called to her side or to her funeral.

May God grant Pat Humiston the grace of a happy death and of everlasting peace and ecstasy in the presence of the Father through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Thanks, Mom. You were magnificent.

Impossible

A) Homosexuality is the source and summit of all that is best and brightest in our culture. My TV told me so and it would never lie.

B) Gay couples are, in every respect, far more well-adjusted than their hypocritical straight suburban counterparts who all live lives of quiet desperation covering the unraveling facade of their smug conservative existence. Gay couples are all cultivated, well-adjusted people in polo shirts who play tennis, own slender cats, make compassionate and tender listening companions and donate generously to animal shelters and NPR.

C) This is even truer of lesbian couples, who are in touch with the rhythms of EarthSpirit and whose grasp of WomynWisdom sets them on a higher plane from the testosterone-driven world of violent and evil heterosexual men and their struggles to overcome insecurity about their potency by inflicting brute force on the innocent.

D) So remember: listen to your TV. Your TV will instruct you. The TV is Mother. The TV is Father. Trust your TV. The incident reported in the link could never have taken place. Children are resilient. The demands of gay people must *always* come first.

Update: As is common, my gay readers are, of course, arguing that child abuse is not caused by lesbianism. And if that were what I was saying, that point would matter. However, I never said the lesbian woman in the linked article killed her little child because she was a lesbian.

I'm saying that the media will make sure we don't hear much about this crime--because she is a lesbian.

It's the same reason we never heard of Jesse Dirkhising or Mary Stachowicz as victims of violent intolerant homosexuals, but we were inundated with hagiography for Mathew Shephard and Brandon Teena as victims of violent intolerant heterosexuals. The deaths of Shephard and Teena were Useful to the Cause. The deaths of Dirkhising and Stachowicz--which really were directly related to the question of homosexuality--were Inconvenient to the Cause. So is this baby. So down the memory hole the child will go along with them. The Mainstream Media knows what we need to think.

New Blog!

I think this is called "over-analysis"

Some guy rides an analogy so hard I'm was afraid it would fall down dead. I prefer to go on thinking of bloggers as a bunch of people in pajamas. If there's one thing you *can't* press very far, it's the asserting that the blogosphere is a a vast shared consciousness in which we are all submerged in monolithic unity.

I'm afraid about all the analogy really has going for it is that "blog" and "borg" have an acoustic affinity.

More Calls for Action in the Sudan

I miss stuff. I'm sure various folk in Rome have remarked on this situation. Anybody know what they said?

Why I Think Bush's Rhetoric about "Victory" and "Freedom" in Iraq Somewhat Less Than Churchillian

Look, I recognize that there is a place for rhetoric aimed at inspiring the troops. But I also recognize that the first casualty of war is the truth.

I have already written about why I basically agree with the Pope and Ratzinger and most of the rest of the bishops of the world that the Iraq War did not meet just war criteria. The final criteria of Just War are

- there must be serious prospects of success;

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.

It is curious, to say the least, that Conservative Catholics (many of whom are ready, at the drop of a hat, to declare the Pope "pollyanna" because of his stand for peace), are willing to justify *weekly* equivalents of 9/11 as breaking eggs to make omelettes and to offer extensive apologies for Bush's sunny picture of life in Iraq.

It is not treasonous or traitorous to ask "Are things really going well in Iraq?" It is prudent and an attempt to understand what is actually going on. I don't claim to know for sure (see my piece on the Al Gore Effect). But I do know that when the President tells me that victory and freedom are bustin out all over in Iraq while the fighting and beheadings are continuing to escalate, it seems to me that it's not the Holy Father who's being pollyanna here.

Good Stuff You Can Help With

Phi Kappa Theta at Georgia Tech is raising money for Children's Miracle Network
Hospitals through a video gaming marathon. Check it out!

I think I enjoyed footnote "g" the best

From our "Millionaires and Large Corporations are All Conservatives, Of Course" File

This was "teen night,'' and it was part carnival, part "Hooters'' and part educational. The message: Sex is fun, bodies are beautiful, just be careful.

In the lobby, set up with food and game booths, the kids dirty danced at DJ Magic Matt's station, wolfed down the food and took part in the educational games about AIDS and HIV -- Passport is one of the nation's oldest AIDS fund- raisers.

The "Pop the Condom'' booth in the lobby had them lined up three deep. The object? Be the first to successfully roll a condom onto a cucumber -- blindfolded. The prize was five coupons, good for token gifts, like a pair of flip-flops or a tank top, at the front desk. At the "STD Awareness'' booth, kids were asked to "Guess the STD.'' Question: "A chancre (a big, open sore), forms in the first stages of ...'' Answer: syphilis.

Sponsored by Macy's, who would just like to remind you that a person with an obsession is a person with very little sales resistance.

He's Gotta Follow his Conscience, Doncha Know

A priest from here in the Soviet of Seattle writes:

One of my parishioners sent me this about her son's school. I asked her if I could send it on to you. Perhaps some of your readers have had similar experiences and suggestions how she might deal with this kind of thing.

Father,

We got a notice from my son's school the other day about the HIV/AIDS curriculum. Did you know that in 1988 the State Legislature mandated that a program of prevention education be presented to students yearly beginning in the fifth grade? Also, the state law says that a parent or guardian MUST attend a meeting to preview the curriculum before they can have their child excused from participation. Can you believe the unmitigated gaul of the state. Talk about usurping parental rights. Instead of the state protecting our God-given rights, they say we have none, except the one's they choose to give us, or jump through their hoops to get! Do the private schools have to do this too?

Anyway, I've been perusing the materials a bit over the internet. Of course, we're going to have our kids opt-out, but I wonder what my responsibilities are for the other children regarding this. I really don't want to get into any battles over this. I feel like in a way it doesn't meet the prerequisites for a just war - there's no hope of success.

Thought you'd like to hear their new definition of monogamy:

"It is safest to practice monogamy with an uninfected partner. Monogamy is when two people have sex only with each other. (Gee, I was under the impression that marriage had something to do with it. You might ask yourself, here, what they suggest when that "monogamous" relationship breaks-up. Well, read on)

Before beginning a new monogamous relationship, if either person has taken risks in the past, they should get tested to be sure they are not already infected."

Well, there you have it. Enter into the Brave New World.

M.

My own (entirely random) responses to this sort of "Your child belongs to the State" crap from the public schools is a) "Come out from them and be separate" and b) "Tell them to shove it up so far that it can't be seen with a telescope." The State is *waaaaaaay* the hell out of line telling parents that they must jump through state hoops before they can opt their kids out. The child is the primary responsibility of the parent, not the State. So I would fight this and tell the school district to go to hell.

But then, I homeschool, so I already have. Other input from readers would be appreciated since I'm not in her boat.

FlA Courts Quell Unseemly Exercise of Prolife Democracy

Strike law intended to defend innocent woman from being offed by her scum husband and creepy evil lawyer.

May God defend her and may her blood be the seed of a renewed Church.

Well, at least it's not Jesuits this time

Adopt an Iraqi Chaldean Priest

I would argue that Catholics who have been supporters of the War in Iraq ought particularly to think about this since one of the side effects of the war has been (as was predicted) an unleashing of Muslim anti-Christian persecution. If the Real Story of history is the progress of the kingdom of God incarnate in the Eucharistic community that is the body of Christ (and not the triumph of the American way) then the real story of our time will be decided, not by whether Bush is re-elected, but by whether or not we contribute to the building up, or the annihilation of the Church in Iraq.

Canonist Ed Peters on Annullments

More problems with...

...the Al Gore Effect in trying to discern what's happening in Iraq.

Bottom line: we're dependent on the media and the media are not reliable. The bright side: more people are finally facing that.

Now if we could just get Ezekiel to penetrate the skull of the West too

We have our own ways of making the innocent children pay for the sins of the parents. But fortunately God is on our side and will certainly never allow barbarians to harm us for our sins that cry out to heaven.

Feminism in the Land of the Foaming Bronze Age Fanatics

An uppity Iranian woman only want to be beaten once a week.

Meanwhile, NOW focuses its attention on the things that really matter: abortion for teens and middle class women who want to keep their figure.

Boy, Frances Kissling Pick the Wrong Guy to Try to Intimidate

Karl Keating's a lawyer and quite unflappable about this sort of legal brownshirt attempt to muzzle free speech. He's gonna hand CFFC their butts on a platter.

Go Karl!

Like a maniac who shoots deadly firebrands and arrows, so is one who deceives a neighbor and says, "I am only joking!" Proverbs 26:18-19

But They Did Harrass that Menacing Little Korean Nun in Full Habit at O'Hare

... so I feel safer.

One of the happy things about human beings...

is that they can also screw up the devil's agendas by their chaotic emotional conflicts, appetites, and even attacks of conscience.

In this promising interview, one of the people charged with bringing Pullman's "His Dark Materials" novels to the screen gives strong indications that they are strongly tempted to water down Pullman's furious and stupid blasphemies, lest the agitprop for atheism infringe too heavily on the bottom line.

Not every human instinct for compromise is a danger to the gospel.

Speaking of which...

A reader writes:

I'm the "Joel" whom you quoted yesterday in a new posting about Deal Hudson's situation ("Be careful who you defend . . ."). I logged off at about 4PM yesterday and didn't come back until this morning: at this point the new thread has 36 comments and counting. Permit me to comment to you directly.

I'm concerned that you interpret forgiveness to mean more than it really should mean. If we forgive someone we must let go of anger or blame for whatever they have done, stop holding it against them, act with love towards them from now on. It does NOT mean that we trust them unconditionally. Human nature is what it is, and forgiveness does not change the fact that people who commit a particular sin are likely to repeat that sin in the future, to a greater degree. I said a month ago that it is extremely unlikely that Hudson's sexual escapade 10 years ago was the only sexual sin in his closet. I'm still saying that now. The details of the one escapade that we know about reveal a degree of licentiousness that would be exceptional if it were done by a good man in an ordinary moment of weakness. It is far more likely that this was a pattern of behavior in a man who had compromised himself many times before.

This is why I was skeptical about his claim to have come clean, and why I will not be surprised if the new allegations about him prove to be well-founded. The likelihood is, he never really confessed, and never really repented. Are we still required to forgive him? I believe we are, but I also believe it would be bone-headed to trust him again, or to regard him as a godly man. He isn't. For our own good, as well as his, we should pray that this new moment of truth leads him to a deeper level of brokenness before God, and a more authentic repentance.

This also applies to the hierarchy of the Church. Remembering that something like half of US bishops have been implicated in abetting child abuse to one degree or another, and that none of them confessed their sin before being outed by others, it becomes nauseating - literally, physically, nauseating - to see these men present themselves as our godly leaders and shepherds, and to hear certain catholic bloggers (ahem) tell us that we need to forgive, accept, and trust these men as they continue to lead us today. I will try to forgive, in spite of the lack of evidence of real repentance, as opposed to PR damage control. But trust? Not gonna happen. They have abused their flock before, and will certainly do so again if they can get away with it. I want detectives and prosecutors watching over their shoulders.

What about the NCR? The political motive behind their story is evident. But I am going to point out that, whatever their motivation, they have provided us a real service here, much like the Boston Globe. We would do better to deal honestly with what they have shown us than to criticize them for speaking the truth without love.

Contrasted with the note below, this demonstrates a little of what I'm trying to say. Down below, the suspicion from an offended conservative is that I'm gunning for conservatives. Here, the notion is that my conservative ideology is blinding me to the failings of conservatives.

Some days its just not worth chewing through the leather straps.

To clarify, this highlights one of the ironies of my alleged "defenses of Hudson". What little I know of the guy tells me that a) I seriously doubt I would like him as a person, b) I seriously doubt I agree with him philosophically in many ways, and c) I have little doubt that your assessment of the data concerning his behavior patterns is probably correct, especially given the fact of the stories I've heard and the behavior of the mucky mucks at Crisis in forcing him out. From my (very passing and imperfect) knowledge of him, he strikes me as as a GOP Operator who happens to be Catholic much more than as a Catholic who happens to be a GOP Operator.

I have an instinctive distrust of extremely powerful men who are used to being extremely powerful. That is why I never said and do not believe that "Forgiveness means pretending that a man you have little reason to trust must be trusted come hell or high water." I never said that Hudson should be trusted. I never said "It all happened ten years ago and will never happen again." I've never, for that matter, said, "Trust all bishops unconditionally." I've merely said, "Don't distrust them all unconditionally either" which appears to be the attitude of folks like Diogenes.

For me, my outrage at NCR was never about preserving the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Deal Hudson and his preservation from all sin original and actual. It's about whether we take seriously the sacrament of reconciliation and "I believe in the forgiveness of sins." If NCR had actually documented what the Times is suggesting (yet still not documenting) is the case--that Hudson's sins have continued and pose a grave danger to the integrity of Crisis' witness--then I would have said, "He needs to go." They didn't. They documented a (from all appearances) confessed and atoned for sin. They told us, "Hudson sinned, then made reparation to his victim and his family and gave up his job." So why did *I* need to know about his sin? I didn't. It was an act of political destruction in direct contempt of the sacrament of Reconciliation and the faith of the Church that "We believe in the forgiveness of sins." NCR did not have the guts to add "And he's still doing it." It's that clause that would have changed everything, if they could have done the homework and backed it up.

The issue for me was not and never has been "protect a conservative's reputation" or "Demand unquestioning trust of people with ideological similarities". It was and always has been "Do we take seriously the forgiveness of sins or not?"

Forgiving somebody does not mean putting your brain in park about behavior patterns. Like you, I will not be stunned if the as yet unsubstantiated rumors are substantiated. But "to forgive" means (at the very least) to extend charity, to assume innocence till guilt is proven, to put a man's confessed and repented sins in the past, not dredge them up as weapons in a partisan political struggle.

There are not many people I regard as "godly". Probably that's because I have a high definition of that term. Most of us are failures operating on our millionth second chance. So I have an allergic reaction to statements like "The likelihood is, he never really confessed, and never really repented." How in hell would we know? The fact that he has relapsed into sin today means nothing about the sincerity of his repentance yesterday. Ask anybody who is fighting an addiction. How many of *us* have brought the same damn thing to confession again and again?

That's why I almost never (and perhaps this is a failing of mine at times) extend unlimited trust to somebody. But I also don't tend to say "Down deep, the *truth* is that he is a sinner." I don't extend unlimited trust to any but a very small circle of people because people are frail sinners. But I also don't define people by their sin because the Faith forbids it. Sin, as I have said in the past, does not name us. Only Christ names us.

So, to repeat: I was not writing in defense of Hudson so much as in defense of "We believe in the forgiveness of sins." I've never advocated unconditional trust of anybody on this blog. There are people I unconditionally trust, but you don't know them and, in any case, why should you unconditionally trust me? :)

What I mean by "Faithful Conservative Catholic[TM]"

One of my readers (who, I suspect, speaks for a number of my readers) complains:

I don't think these "stink bombs" that Mark regularly throws out to smoke out "Radtrad" and "Conservative" catholics are directed at me, but I seem to respond anyway. Maybe they are. Maybe it's not just directed at people who despair because of what many of our priest, bishops, and ccd teachers do on a regular basis. Maybe it's to get anyone to respond negatively. I have a bad habit of reacting to the baits even though I'm not a Radtrad and I'm only conservative but not angry all the time. Actually I am just a sometimes confused catholic in formation.

It's funny, I don't see nearly as many of these "offensive" people as I used to in the comment boxes. Maybe they have just left and moved on. Maybe that is why it is no longer "RadTrads" but "Fatithful Convervative Catholics TM" that are the targets of these posts. Whatever the case may be it must be a simple issue of numbers. Shrinking pool of offendees, cast a wider net to bring angry reactions. Now its all 80 million American Catholics.

When I use the term "Faithful Conservative Catholic[TM]" I am, of course, being ironic. My point is not that faithful conservative Catholics are, all of them, hypocrites (I consider myself one). Rather, I have in mind those Catholics who compare themselves favorably to those awful Liberal Dissenters, right up until the Church says something that threatens a cherished political ideology or other agenda item--at which point they engage in rhetoric that is remarkably similar to the rhetoric of Liberal Dissenters. They offer, not merely respectful disagreement on prudential matters, but contemptuous dismissals of the teaching office of the Church and of its teachers as (variously) "fools" "out of touch" "old men" "Euroweenies" "idiots" "pacifists", etc. The contempt is so thick you can cut it with a knife and it extends, not merely to the very real sins committed by bishops and clergy, but to *everything* said by *any* cleric on *any* topic that appears to have the savor of something inimical to Conservatism. So, for instance, a cardinal urges that care be taken to feed the hungry (cf. Matthew 25). But (gasp!) he says this to representatives of the UN. The Faithful Conservative Catholics[TM] at Of