StrongBad Battles the Rules of Shapeshifting

"There was a Christian commentator who said that Harry Potter had been the Christian church's biggest missed opportunity. And I thought, there's someone who actually has their eyes open." - J.K. Rowling

I don't know about "biggest" but it was certainly a huge demonstration of the Church's knack for never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity. I suppose, understandably from her "nearest-telephone-pole-is-biggest" perspective it could qualify as "biggest". At any rate, she's right: the reaction of so-called "faithful conservative Christians" was, very often, stunningly uncharitable, paranoid, and illiterate. No smallest part of the missed opportunity was the chance Catholics had to embrace Rowling and welcome her as a friend and ally. Instead, the idiots at Lifesite had to lie and tell Rowling that the Pope himself was her enemy and part of the braying horde of illiterates and numbskull witch hunters. A real shame.

The invaluable John Granger discusses it all here and here.

Atheism isn't a Rigorous Religion of Mind Control or Anything

Most unintentionally funny (and bitterly tragic moment):

"I like to think freely, but still I can really think freely whenever I want 'cause I think thinking freely is good," said eight-year-old Jane Kovak

This poor little girl regurgitating all this credal claptrap about "Free Thought" under the watchful eye of her hyper-controlling parents is the final irony of people like Dawkins and Harris accusing religous parents of "child abuse". It is stone blind to any conceivable difference between education and indoctrination. As far as these people are concerned, all education is indoctrination and the only thing that matters is that children be correctly indoctrinated according to their diagrams. The notion of education, of grown bird teaching young birds to fly, seems not to occur to these people.

There's something deeply inhuman--tone deaf to humanness--in stuff like this. I pray the poor girl is able to break free without too much bitterness toward her overbearing parents and find our Lord. When she does, she will discover real free thought.

Jesuits: Is There Anything They Can't Do?



"I was born and raised a Catholic...": Nature's way of warning you that whatever will be said next will be a raving farrago of nonsense.

My Catholic Relief Services Donations Will Now be Earmarked for Some Other Charity

Servants of Moloch Try to Justify Obama's Zeal for Sticking Scissors in a Baby's Brain

Just solidifies my resolve not to vote for him under any circumstances.

Chuck Colson tosses out some numbers about Muslim converts to Christianity

Color me skeptical without more information. For months, we've been hearing all about the imminent swamping of Christian by the Muslim hordes. Now, all of a sudden with the baptism of Allam, the conservative press is suddenly full of storied about the huge numbers of Muslim converts.

Smells fishy to me. The fishy smell gets stronger when I note that Colson (whom I respect enormously) is citing Joel Rosenberg and his book Epicenter: Why Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future as a source.

My encounter with Rosenberg is described in my piece "Thank God for the Magisterium":

Recently, Dr. James Dobson, a leading Evangelical and a usually-sensible man, hosted on his show one Joel Rosenberg, author of something called Epicenter: Why Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future. Rosenberg claims to know “what the Bible says” about what is happening in the Mideast and is not shy about making “predictions regarding the fate of the Middle East regarding issues such as Iran’s nuclear threats against Israel, the arms race and ultimately . . . Armageddon.” Here’s a snippet:

Dobson: Well Joel, let's explain to everybody how Ezekiel 38 turns out because Israel is about to be attacked and a huge number of troops from Russia and Iran are coming toward Israel to destroy it and what happens?

Rosenberg. Well, God is going to move. You won't find in the Scriptures that the United States is coming to rescue Israel or the European Union, but God says he is going to supernaturally intervene, we're talking about fire from heaven, a massive earthquake, diseases spreading through the enemy forces. It is going to be such a clear judgment against the enemies of Israel that Ezekiel 39 says that will take seven months to bury all the bodies of the slain enemies of Israel.

This sort of standard issue quack prophetic interpretation is endemic in Evangelicalism (and convenient to certain crazy militarist political agendas). But not one syllable of this junk is something that is part of the Catholic deposit of faith and the notion of anointing this guy Rosenberg as some sort of expert on Christianity in the Middle East is, I think, both dubious and dangerous. So I take his numbers game with a very large grain of salt. I'm far more inclined to trust Sherry on stuff like this.

Media Sets to Work Making Excuses for Preferred Form of Secular Messianic Political Gospel

Shorter New Yorker: Substituting some political agenda for the gospel is okay if its a lefty black Church doing it. After all, no intelligent sophisticated person believes that crap anyway. But it's useful for doing crowd control.

Muslims Outnumber Catholics: Much Heavy Breathing and Chinpulling

Meanwhile, Sherry Weddell, who's been following this stuff since forever, remarks on some of the more creative bits of urban legendry being embraced in the neoconosphere. She also notes that in some places in Asia, Christians are just about to outnumber Buddhists. Check out the whole blog. Lots of interesting stuff for people who are just coming to the conversation about the Christian mission to Islam (and other parts of the world).

Turn out the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah May Have Some Corroborating Evidence Outside Scripture

I'm rather skeptical of just how corroborating this is since the event appears to have happened long before when Abraham is thought to have lived, but there it is.

The odd thing, of course, is that our culture tends to not think of Scripture as "evidence" itself. There's no real good reason for that except anti-God prejudice. A lot of Scripture is, quite manifestly, a historical chronicle. Yet people always act astonished when some rock is overturned showing that Pontius Pilate actually existed and was indeed procurator of Judea. It's really quite marvelous how many modern folk believe that ancients were 2000 to 3000 years stupider than we are. It seems not to occur to moderns that when a biblical writer appeals to an enormously public event, he realizes just as you or I would that enormously public events can be verified--or not--pretty easily. I wrote about this once in a piece called "The Gospel According to Steve Martin".

In the same way, when an entire people preserves as part of its cultural memory a cataclysmic event, the smart money is on those who presume that something real lies behind that memory and not just a mere tale invented from whole cloth. The curious thing about our culture is that we whipsaw between dogmatically assuming stories like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are pure fantasy (Why? Because They Must Be!) or battening on some naturalistic explanation like the story I linked, coupled with moronic commentary (see the comments from readers) which somehow conclude that the evidence corroborating Genesis proves that the author of Genesis is a deluded moron. It seems not to occur to the sophisticate that the author of Genesis is looking at a real event and reading its "inscape": seeing the spiritual reality that informs what, in fact, happened to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Astonishing the faith that atheists and anti-Christian dogmatists have.

Dissenting Catholic Collects his 30 Pieces of Silver from the Biotech Industrial Complex

The usual "I was raised Catholic but I don't think it should stand in the way of fat profits" crap from another apostate Brit. The seven basic elements of Big Science are in major play here: time, space, matter, energy, power, prestige and profits. What's a little cannibalism compared to that?

Or, then again, perhaps the whole notion of "image" is a purely media-concocted construct and the Pope is just here to proclaim the gospel without much concern for his image.

Just a thought.

Can There Be Anything More Painful than a Tragically Hip Anglican?

I submit there cannot.

Virgins Subverting the Dominant Paradigm

No small part of the pleasure of being Catholic is that it is enjoyably countercultural without all the destructive baggage of being depraved.

Daniel Mitsui writes:

I recently finished a new webpage about the Biblia Pauperum and the Speculum Humanae Salvationis, two of the most important books of the late Middle Ages. These books are indispensable for interpreting the typological juxtapositions in late mediaeval art. The webpage includes a description of the books and their significance by my favorite art historian Emile Mâle, and all of the typological pages from a representative example of each book. My hope is that this webpage will be useful as a reference for both students of sacred art and its creators. These two books helped to maintain a theologically rich iconography through the intellectual poverty of the waning Middle Ages; perhaps they can instruct us in iconoclastic modernity as well. I put a fair amount of effort into this project; please take a look.

I have also added to my website excerpts from the writings of Theophilus the Priest and Denis of Fourna on sacred art, as well as the complete text of a 9th or 10th century Latin poem by Hucbald of St Amand written in praise of bald men; every word in the poem begins with the letter C.

These can all be found at here, along with hard-to-find writings by Emile Mâle, A.W.N. Pugin, and the complete text of an English translation of the third book of the Rationale Divinorum Officorum of Durandus of Mende, explaining the symbolism of the sacred vestments.

All of this is part of an ongoing effort to bring some of the magnificent symbolism of the Middle Ages back into the contemporary Catholic consciousness. My next webpages, currently in progress, will concern the liturgical poetry (hymns and sequences) of Adam of St. Victor.

Kind regards and Happy Easter!

Beautifully done work by Mr. Mitsui, as ever!

A reader writes:

I remember you announced a publisher had finally seen the light and bought your book - when can we expect it? I was just poking around on Amazon and nothing came up for it.

Behold Your Mother is being published by Catholic Answers as a trilogy. The first volume (Behold Your Mother: The Approach to Mary) should be out somewhere around Christmas with the other volumes follow sometime thereafter. I'm eager for this work to finally see daylight and will keep you posted when its debut is imminent. Thanks for your interest!

But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

A reader writes:

Regarding your post on the Dalai Lama visit to Seattle, as a Buddhist-turned-Catholic, I know a bit about this subject. Not only are Washington taxpayers funding a trip to see this religious figure, they are subsidizing and indirectly supporting practices that most Catholics would find gravely objectionable.

I would urge you to read through this expose called "The Shadow of the Dalai Lama" (table of contents here). It will take you at least a couple of hours to get through this, but I guarantee after you look at the TOC and find a topic that jumps out at you, you'll keep digging for more and you won't like what you find. Even though you might not agree with the conclusions of the authors in many cases, the information they present is well-documented and factual. You'll get enough information that you'll never look at the Dalai Lama the same way again.

Most people, including most Buddhists, really have no idea about the complexity behind the mystery religion of Tibetan Buddhism (more appropriately named *Vajrayana*). Once you and your readers dig into this subject, they'll be like most Buddhists who realize that the invoice due does not equal the bill of goods originally sold. After all, isn't it supposed to be about peace, non-violence, equality, meditation, inclusion, dissolution of the self-centered ego, the oneness/interconnectedness of everything in the universe? In many ways, it is ... but this exposes just how much more comes wrapped in that package.

You can put my knowledge of the Dalai Lama in a thimble, so I'll take your word for it as a former Buddhist that it's not wise to believe the hype (which I seldom do in any case).

Way Funny!

Go into the Weekend with the Refreshingly Non-Kool-Aid Drinking Scott Stantis







Oh, and don't forget to check out his strip, Prickly City

Multitudes! Multitudes in the Valley of Decision '08!

Sigh

So Amy Welborn writes a perfectly sensible post about the impoverished press narrative whenever the Pope is in their sights. Andrew Sullivan scans the light waves emanating from his monitor and links it. However, you get the sense that nothing actually moved any grey matter when he did so. He intones some "beyondist" rubbish ("It would be great to take it to the next elevel, which means re-opening and making more accessible the real debates about the Second Council, that are still unresolved")--and then *instantly* goes out to find somebody who will say the same old tired stuff about how Benedict is out of touch, inacessible, blah blah. Classic "Ratzinger the cold bureacrat" stuff and *exactly* what Amy is talking about when she complains of the imbecilic narrative of the press.

It's behavior like this on the part of liberal Catholic media types that reminds me of nothing so much as this:



Like the Bourbons, progressive dissenter media types remember everything and learn nothing.

One Lovely Way to Celebrate Easter Week is with the Poetry of Pavel Chichikov

John C. Wright on Materialist Bafflegab

Gee, this guy is fun! Can there be anybody more simultaneously hyper-rationalist and sentimental than an atheist materialist? Tremendous amounts of energy spent arguing for Nothing Buttery ("Man is nothing but a meat machine/highly sophisticated set of chemical processes/naked ape/what have you") followed by pure gushes of romantic sentimentality when you point out that the first thing that follows from this radical reductionism is the complete abandonment of human dignity. When the Christian points out that you don't argue with machines but merely reprogram or destroy them, the atheist materialist suddenly goes all emo on you and assures you that Christians possess "rights" because of Force of History or the Glory of Humanism or the Power of Greyskull or some other sentimental turnip ghost. It's really quite silly. If that bit of B movie sentiment is all that stands between a powerful man and whatever he wants then it's pretty hard to keep from laughing.

And, of course, as the history of atheist regimes shows, the romantic sentimentality lasts exactly as long as fog on a hot summer day once the needs of the regime conflict with the needs of the slightly more complex bacilli called human beings. How any atheist can still take seriously the notion that their philosophy guards human dignity is a mystery as inscrutable as the mystery of evil. In fact it is the mystery of evil.

Why Do I Love Rod Bennett?

Because in addition to being a fine Christian gentlement, a fun author of Four Witnesses one of the best books on the early Church I know, and a creative wunderkind, he finds great stuff like this:

Tron
by freres-hueon

Do check out his delightful blog!

Scientists figure out how to unlock the world's oldest recording of the human voice

It was made in 1860, some two decades before Edison's first recording.

How cool is that? Pretty dang!

Even more impressive, the long-dead French woman who made the recording now reaches out from the grave to try to destroy the career of BBC Newsreader, Charlotte Green.

Memo to Dreher

BE MORE FUNNY!

God Bless his holy servant Jacob DeShazer

One of the quiet lives of goodness who stay God's hand from judging Sodom. Lord alone knows how many people like him there are in the world. God grant us many more.

HuffPo Labors to Destroy Last Vestiges of Christian Conception of Marriage and Family

A culture which recognizes absolutely no basis for sexual restraint beyond mutual consent is a culture that ultimately can offer no reason at all not to approve any form of sexual coupling, tripling, etc that may occur to any number or combination of consenting persons. Ultimately, not just gender, but age and even species cannot matter and will be swept away as "irrational taboos". After that, it will just be a matter of time before materialist dogma eats away the idea that things like "choice" (a mere epiphenomenon of brain chemistry, after all) and "equality" are some sort of inviolable rock of adamant. Eventually, it will all be about power because when every pretension of "I ought" is seen through, what says "I want" will remain, for it never made any metaphysical claims. As Lewis points out in the Abolition of Man, man's conquest of nature turns out to be nature's conquest of man.

Of course, Lewis did not foresee that our culture of sterile narcissistic hedonism was in a losing competetion with a fertile Muslim culture that is only to happy to take the reins of what passes for civilization as the secular West continues its suicide.

This essay

...reminds me of Oscar Wilde's remark: "The Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone. For respectable people, the Anglican church will do."

Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved

Clayton Emmer on the most upsetting and comforting religion in the world.

Try as I Might I Just Can't Not See a Creator

Fans of the Darwin Mythos who insist that Natural Selection Eliminates the God Hypothesis always strike me the same as people who think the discovery of the chisel that made the Pieta eliminates the Michaelangelo Hypothesis. The sheer artistry, cleverness, beauty and whimsy at work here are so hard to avoid seeing that determined materialists have to force themselves like Francis Crick to recite a creed

"Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved."

...in order to keep You Know Who from entering their thoughts and fouling up their little system of order. Me: I've never understood the presumption that you have choose between creation and evolution. In a world governed by Providence, I don't see where the conflict is. But Fundamentalists, whether theistic or atheistic, love to pit their favorite bits of truth against one another and demand everybody choose only one.

The Ever-Busy Chris Blosser Starts a New Blog on Benedict in America

Here's a Chance to Bear a Serious Catholic Witness to the Chattering Classes

Ed Peters Proposes Excommunication for Euthanasia

Seems reasonable to me.

The Inimitable Fr. George Rutler is Always Worth a Listen

Gutsy Coptic Priest-Evangelist

Check him out here and here.

Thousands more like him, please!

Patrick Madrid and Fr. John Zuhlsdorf Are Leading a Pilgrimage to Rome!



Check thou it out!

A reader writes:

I am an educator in Washington state and a Catholic (as of July—yay!) and I find myself troubled about the "Seeds of Compassion" event coming to Seattle in April. I'm all in favor of compassion and I'm sure the Dalai Lama is a wonderful man with worthwhile things to say and deserving of respect, but what is troubling to me is that tax-payers' money will be used to send hundreds of Washington state students to this event. There are many speakers and workshops including "events that will provide the scientific basis for compassion, as determined by studies of how compassion improves academic performance and social skills…" and the gathering is portrayed in educational terms. However, the central focus and unifying element is a person—a religious person—the Dalai Lama. ("Anchored by the deep wisdom of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, this community-focused event will celebrate and explore the relationships, programs and tools that nurture and empower children, families and communities to be compassionate members of society.") It seems to be at the very least a blurring of the line that separates religious and secular. I find myself asking—how can the state pay for students to attend this event?

I've been wondering if others are as troubled about this as I am. My Google searches have turned up only overwhelmingly positive sentiments (including from our governor). I keep thinking of the story of the Emperor's new clothes and how everyone thought his garments were "splendid" until the little boy finally yelled the obvious, "But he has nothing on."

I have no burning interest in separating the spiritual and the secular and think the attempt to do so since the 1962 Supreme Court decision has been crazy and incredible beyond description. If it were up to me, I would permit any and all expressions of faith in the public schools and bring in adherents of those religions to teach on them. I don't think any religious tradition should be taught be an unbelieving technician (which is why I oppose "Bible as Lit" junk as the first introduction to Scripture). But I think the attempt to maintain a naked public square in the schools is utterly preposterous.

That said, I also think that if they are going to insist on this crazy policy, then there is no sense in making an exception for this program. Perhaps they are stuck on the problem of just what Buddhism *is*. Is it a "religion" (cursed word)? This is problematic since Buddhism doesn't necessarily involve the worship of gods. That's the problem with the word "religion". It's difficult to pin down what you mean by it. When does something stop being "religion" and start being "philosophy"? Does that matter for the establishment clause? Our jurisprudence is basically rooted in the presupposition of a Judeo-Christian tradition and is ill-suited to deal with many systems we loosely call "religion".

In addition, our chattering classes are dominated by the principle "If you've seen one Abrahamic religion, you've seen 'em all" which tends to play out in many cases as "Religion is dangerous. And by "religion" I mean Christianity." Eastern religions, by contrast, are cool and exotic and mysterious. Imagine, for instance, any program on, say, sexuality in the public schools that was billed as "Anchored by the deep wisdom of His Holiness Pope John Paul II". It would be slapped down faster than you could say ACLU. But here: nothing. It does make me suspect again that the explanation for this lies in more-than-human powers at work.

John C. Wright writes me and asks:

By the way, everyone I've told about my joining the Catholic Church evinced no surprise, nodded, and told me they saw it coming years ago.

Why is the celebrant the last to know?

You are the last to know because we are lousy at self-examination. That's one of the many reasons for the sacrament of confession. The notion that, in an isolation booth, we are much more likely to have a clear grasp of our own motivations, sins and ideas is one of the more preposterous fruits of our culture's rejecting the Church. In reality, of course, other people often see us *much* more clearly than we see ourselves. We often come to know ourselves reflected in the eyes of others. It's also a strong reason for the sacrament of marriage. John Paul tells us that marriage is for the healing, exaltation, and perfection of the spouses. One of the main ways it has healed me is that when I am tempted to loathe myself, I realize I would be loathing the man my wife loves. Conversely, when I am tempted to be puffed up, I can always turn to my wife and see her cocked eyebrow there to remind me that my feet stink.

Religious Ed Exploding in the UK

Starve children long enough and they get hungry.

Of course, Caesar being a jealous god, what student need is not going to determine what Caesar allows.

Technological Messianist Longs for Christ and Labors to Bring Anti-Christ

It's a common confusion in our sinful world. Everybody longs for Christ at some level. That's because it is impossible for human being not to will their own happiness and Christ is our happiness. You can't not desire your happiness, you can only believe the truth or lies about where it may be found. You can't choose not to desire happiness, you can only attempt to achieve that happiness by true or false means. The true way to happiness is Jesus Christ, who is the Way. The false means is any other scheme which promises us happiness--including claptrap about the coming Singularity via Technology. All such promises of secular messianic happiness are, in the end, the voice of antichrist and all who answer such calls are laboring in big ways or small to usher in his reign.

A reader writes:

Sorry about the vagueness, but I was just given a prayer request for a baby named Austin. He was born on St. Patrick's day. He was born with only half a heart. It has been touch and go, and at one point he stopped breathing. He is scheduled to have emergency surgery today, so any prayers will be appreciated. Thanks.

Lord God, hear our prayer for this child's complete healing through Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen!

Mother Mary, St. Patrick and St. Luke, please intercede for this baby, his family and their doctors, through our Lord Jesus Christ!

The more I read Stuff Like This...

...the more impatient I become with the word "religion" as though Buddhism, various Christian sects, Islam and Catholic faith are all interchangeable. Here's the reality: there is the Catholic faith, and there there are the millions of other religions, philosophies and political systems that are related to and opposed to it in varying ways and degrees--including our own political philosophies here in the US. The Real Story is the story of Christ and his kingdom, fully revealed in the Catholic faith. The story of Western secular democratic capitalism is a very minor sideshow in the grand scheme of things. At the end of the day, so will Islam be a sideshow. Our little systems of order are nice so far as they go, but we have been flattering ourselves since the Endarkenment that man is the measure of all things. Ain't so: Christ is the measure of all things and it is no small part of our folly that almost nobody in our civilization knows that anymore--including many Christians.

Britain Starting to Figure out that Supernature Abhors a Vacuum

The inexorable result of rejecting the gospel of freedom is slavery. That's not an optional result: it's as unavoidable as the law of gravity.

This is Where the Tradition Really Comes in Handy

As a general rule, when somebody boasts loudly and continually that they are more [compassionate/generous/contemplative/humble/what have you] that's a pretty good sign that they aren't.

Two Interesting Posts Over at Intentional Disciples

The indefatigable Sherry Weddell does the research on why Muslims become Christian:

1) The lifestyle of Christians. Former Muslims cited the love that Christians exhibited in their relationships with non-Christians and their treatment of women as equals.

2) The power of God in answered prayers and healing. Experiences of God's supernatural work—especially important to folk Muslims who have a characteristic concern for power and blessings—increased after their conversions, according to the survey. Often dreams about Jesus were reported.

3) Dissatisfaction with the type of Islam they had experienced. Many expressed dissatisfaction with the Qur'an, emphasizing God's punishment over his love. Others cited Islamic militancy and the failure of Islamic law to transform society.

4) The spiritual truth in the Bible. Muslims are generally taught that the Torah, Psalms, and the Gospels are from God, but that they became corrupted. These Christian converts said, however, that the truth of God found in Scripture became compelling for them and key to their understanding of God's character.

5) Biblical teachings about the love of God. In the Qur'an, God's love is conditional, but God's love for all people was especially eye-opening for Muslims. These converts were moved by the love expressed through the life and teachings of Jesus. The next step for many Muslims was to become part of a fellowship of loving Christians.

So it would appear that Muslim converts are remarkably like human beings.

By the way, there's an entertaining tract in the combox for this entry that goes a long way toward showing that Fundamentalist Christian anti-Catholics, Evangelical Atheists and Muslim "apologists" are brothers under the skin. It's amazing how much they sound like each other.

Also, Sherry informs us that on April 20 she will be part of a panel discussion on Catholic converts and she will be sharing a microphone with none other than Paul McCusker, the guy who created and wrote about 50 million episodes of Adventures in Odyssey, a fine family radio program that filled many happy hours with our children. Turns out McCusker has entered the Catholic Church!

Goody!

I'm going to Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA to speak on April 9. I'll be at Jepson's Wolff Auditorium at 7:00 PM. Topic: 101 Reasons Not to Be Catholic. Email for info.

But in addition to that, I'll be getting to visit Gonzaga's Rare Books and Special Collection (featuring the works of Gerard Manley Hopkins) the next morning.

After that, I will go to St. Thomas More parish in Spokane and speak April 10 at 7:00 PM on How I Got This Way: Confessions of Double-Jump Convert.

Fr. Bob Carr Sends Along this Link to a Nifty Catholic School Program called "Cristo Rey"

Meanwhile, Father Zakaria Botros, a Coptic priest, is saving the souls by the boatload, by challenging Muslim authorities on al-Hayat TV to defend their faith

...and Father Samaan Ibrahim has, by his efforts in Christ, transformed a dump into a vibrant Christian community.

Such men could use our prayers. We're saying the Mercy Novena right now. If you are too, you might add them to the list of those for whom you intercede.

Religion of Peace Protests Freedom

Perfectly predictable outcry from the brittle world of Islam.

A reader writes:

I'm writing to ask for prayers for my co-workers aunt:

On March 12th her husband passed away - he had been in failing health, so this was not entirely unexpected but still very emotional for their family. On Sunday, March 23rd she was "t-boned" by a red light runner, suffered serious internal injuries and lost an enormous amount of blood. She was placed in a drug induced coma through Tuesday morning (March 25th), had surgery early Tuesday afternoon and has since suffered a massive stroke. The Doctor's worst-case scenario is that she will be in a vegetative state. She's in her mid 50's.

I cannot speak to the faith of their family - my co-worker is very private about that - but I've let him know I'm keeping her/him/them in prayer, and he's grateful.

Putting it out there for you and your extraordinary readers.

God our Father, do not let this terrible suffering be the final word in this woman's life, nor in the life of her family. Grant the grace of Christ's resurrection power to touch this woman and her family and bring joy out of this share in Christ's cross. We ask this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. O Holy Mother of Sorrows, pray for this woman, her husband, and her family that they may obtain the mercy of Christ.

Doug Kmiec Offers Incomprehensible Obama Endorsement

Try as I might, I can't conceive how you get from "As a Catholic..." to endorsing a man who is eager to make it possible to stick as many scissors in as many baby's brains as possible. And since Obama has announced himself to be a Utopian Warrior like Bush, I really don't get what's the big deal about the guy--apart from the fact that he is the Son of the Living God and the embodiment of Wisdom, I mean.

Oh, Kmiec forearms himself against rational criticism by cherry-picking the most deranged emails from the bitter conservative wingnuts, interlacing them with the "Gosh! You are so brave and thoughtful!" emails and painting that as the only alternatives we have. It's a clever trick for simple-minded folk, but those of us who can think remain unpersuaded that this really establishes the case for Obama.

A dear friend writes:

I looked at your blog yesterday and realized "Hey, me too!"

I have not stopped crying since my confession. The grace of forgivness isn't the only gift given there. Contrition is a beautiful gift; that you are allowed to be sorry, that you are allowed to participate in that. Every day for over a week now, I go out to my car at lunch, I eat my lunch and pray and cry. God, I don't ever want to lose that.

Thank you. Thank you and Scott Hahn and Al Kresta and Fr. Riccardo and Peter Herbeck and Steve Ray and (oh, my!) Thomas Howard. Thanks to God for Deacon Dennis and Fr. Ed and Pete Mikelonis.

I wrote and asked if I could blog this cuz it was so lovely, and he wrote back:

Feel free to publish it, but I gotta tell you this:

I'm not Marian. I pray the rosary and I love the Hail Mary, but I don't have that personal, connection or devotion that some have. That's fine, I'm overwhelmed as it is.

Well, my first confession was coming and they tell us they don't (and we don't) need stories; just tell the sins. Now, I got a hell of a lot to confess, but I understand. So, I'm waiting for the Father to be available, and I'm praying. I'm not nervous, but I'm incredibly tense, and it occurs to me, "Why don't you ask Mary to pray for you." Mmmm-kay, 'Mediatrix of all Graces' and all, that makes sense. So I pray, "Mary, Mother of my God, help me to make a good confession.", and immediately as I start praying, in my mind's eye, she's there leaning over the back of the chair in front of me; she's got one hand on either of my shoulders and she's leaning in, like a mom telling her child something important, and she's praying for me. I can't hear what she's saying, but IT'S GONNA BE ALRIGHT because the Mother of my God is Praying for me and it's gonna be just fine!

I go in and make my confession. Very emotional, I'm not ashamed or embarassed, just gifted, GIFTED with an incredible sorrow. I get Fr. F, and you could do worse! He gives me a penance which is daily, and every minute of the day and is the beauty of God. I come out of confession and into the Sanctuary (Schmart Guy, that architect, eh?) and I sit back down. I am very calm and still.

It occurs to me, "as far as the East is, from the West," and I think/pray in conversation, "How far is that, God?" And I look up at the large crucifix over the tabernacle and think or hear, "It's the distance from 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani' to 'Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit.' It's about the distance between my hands, from my left hand to my right, on the cross. That's how far the east is from the west."

I was sitting in my car yesterday morning praying. Living that joyous sorrow I've been given. "I'm sorry for it, for the hatred and contempt, the cross, the whip, the nails..." And Jesus says to me with great joy, "I'm not! I'm not sorry at all! I did it for you; you're worth it. For I have made you so."

I do not look around, and the world is made new; the world is the same as it ever was. But I, am a new creation, and I look around with new eyes. This is what my God has given me, this is what His church has given me, this is what you have given me. Thank you.

One of the things I love best about Easter is hearing people's stories of their first encounters with the sacraments. I'm a huge fan of confession precisely because I have seen it strike chains off people time after time (myself the chief among sinners in need of it). It's also wonderful to me to watch people get to know the Blessed Mother and, like Gimli falling in love with Galadriel, see the beauty of her. A thousand welcomes, my friend!

Press Reports of Gorbachev's Conversion were Premature, According to This

God grant him the grace of faith in Christ.

Tales of the Unexplained

Looks like "mind" and "brain" are not coterminous.

Newsweek Drafts God's Obituary--Again

Some reporter at Newsweek champs at the bit for some discovery or other to disprove God. Even the atheist she interviews shows more restraint than she does and recognizes that you can't prove a negative. What she doesn't seem to get is that you can develop a self-contained all explaining Theory of Everything about the physical world and you still haven't touched the questions "Why is there something rather than nothing?", "Why doesn't contingent being collapse back into nothingness?" and "Why do thing do what they do and not do something else?" You can explain everything and still leave everything out.

As St. Thomas points out, there are only two reasonable objections to the existence of God. That's it. Just two. All the other objections are either elaborations of these two objections or they are rhetorical hand-waving (aka "crap").

Essentially, this reporter is placing her hopes in the second of Thomas' objections:

Objection 2: Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God's existence.

In short, everything works fine without God, so we have no need of that hypothesis.

Thomas replies:

Reply to Objection 2: Since nature works for a determinate end under the direction of a higher agent, whatever is done by nature must needs be traced back to God, as to its first cause. So also whatever is done voluntarily must also be traced back to some higher cause other than human reason or will, since these can change or fail; for all things that are changeable and capable of defect must be traced back to an immovable and self-necessary first principle, as was shown in the body of the Article.

It would be nice if reporter-cum-cosmologist/theologians would familiarize themselves with such things before they position themselves on the sidelines of the arena to report the imminent death of God at the hands of their latest hoped-for materialist champion.

John C. Wright Continues to Explore the Deep Truths of the Faith

Today he ponders the question "Is Science Fiction antithetical to religion?":

My answer, which you can click to the link to see, is that Science Fiction is the TOOL OF THE DEVIL! Harry Potter books, as we all know, have led to the overthrow of the American government. Reading C.S. Lewis has led to the usurpation of all sovereign powers by the U.N. under that charismatic leader we call THE BEAST, who was wounded, and yet came back to life on national television. Because of the popularity of J.R.R. Tolkien, there have been earthquakes in diverse places, and the sun has gone black, and a third of the stars have fallen.

He concludes:

There are absolute no religious themes or symbols in any science fiction story. Not one. But let us review a few other credoes before we close, shall we?

I believe in Michael Valentine Smith, the Man from Mars, and the Old Ones from whom he came. He was chased by the police, taught way cool psychic powers to Jill, was hounded by mobs, and was stoned to death. He shows up in heaven wearing a halo. I believe in cannibalism, and in sexual liberation, and that I am God!

I believe in Klaatu, the space man. He was hounded by the army, shot with bullets, and lay to rest in a jail cell. In the third reel he rose again from the dead, thanks to thank way cool gizmo run by Gort. I believe atomic weapons cannot be used against other planets. Klaatu Barada Nikto!

I believe in Spock. He sacrificed himself to save the Enterprise, placed his soul in Bones McCoy, and saved the ship. In the Third Movie he rose again from the dead, thanks to the Genesis Torpedo. I believe in the Prime Directive, the inter-fertility of all humanoid life, and in the Organian Peace Treaty. Idic!

I believe in Blackie DuQense. Even though he was disembodied as a Pure Intellectual, trapped in a Zone of Force, frozen in a time status, accelerated out of the galaxy at multiple times the speed of light, and rotated into the fourth dimension, he will return with the Capital D to rule the Earth, and fling all the navies of the world into the Great Salt Lake with tractor beams.

I believe in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She gave her life to save us all fighting an evil goddess. When the show switched to WB, Willow the Witch raised her from the dead. I believe in the singing episode, that Angel will get a soul, and in female empowerment.

I believe in Superman, strange visitor from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond mortal men. He died fighting Apocalypse. Funny, but Clark Kent has been missing since then. I wonder where he is? Supes shall return again from the dead in a funky blue costume.

I believe in Fu Manchu. He survived the explosion of his secret base hidden in a volcano, when the broadcast power mechanism overloaded. The world shall hear from him again.

Thats enough. You can fill in the rest yourselves. There are people who die and return in glory in science fiction and fantasy literature than there ever were in the Bible.

It is common longing on all human hearts, and so cannot be absent either from the greatest literature or the humblest. Life is everlasting, and Death is the last enemy. Those with hope know it to be true, and those without hope wish it were true.

This why "Christianity is warmed-over paganism" arguments have never impressed me. Merely noting that some pagan gods die and rise from the dead proves, well, nothing except that pagans were human and felt the longing for eternal life that haunts the human heart. Osiris and Baldur die in cloud cuckoo land we know not where or when. Jesus dies (and rises) during the administration of a Roman procurator as real as Michael Mukasey and the bones of those who witnessed this are still to be found under the altar at St. Peter's. Bones which bear the scratch marks of the nails which crucified him for his testimony to that fact.

Two by Yours Truly

What Easter Means to Me

and

God's Laughter

In which we learn a) that if Easter is a glorious myth capable of summoning the best in ourselves then it's worthless fraudulent crap and it would be better to sleep in on Sundays and b) Easter has the last laugh.

Scarce today

I will be over at Sacred Heart Radio today exercising my Dominican mendicant charism today alongside Jerry Usher as we promote the Spring Sharathon that is the only thing standing between Seattle and Spokane's only Catholic radio station and oblivion.

If you live within listening range of KBLE AM-1050 here in Seattle or KTTO AM-970 in Spokane, do give them a jingle at 1-800-949-1050 and drop a couple of dollars in the pot.

You can stream the broadcast from the link I provided above.

Oh, and as a bonus for giving $250 or more to Sacred Heart, I will happily come to your parish/conference/whatever to speak and waive my normal honorarium. All you have to cover is travel costs and food/lodging (assuming there are any of these).

More Big Truths for Little Kids

In which we continue catechizing kids with the basic happy truths of the Faith.

Two Important Feasts Today

First, of course, is the Feast of the Annunciation:



Second (and not unrelated in Tolkien's mind) is the Downfall of Barad-dur:



My soul magnifies the Lord, for He has cast down the mighty in their arrogance and lifted up the meek and the lowly.

You can read up on just how March 25 got to be the Feast of the Annunciation (and how Christmas got to be on December 25) here. Hint: it's got nothing to do with equinoxes and solstices.

"Before Benedict's election, I summarized his position as 'I have a mustard seed and I'm not afraid to use it.'"

Interesting piece by Spengler on the quiet challenge to Islam posed by Benedict's forthright proclamation of the gospel and call for dialogue.

I'm still not convinced that Islam's violence is so much a sign of strength as of extreme brittleness. The dragon may be furious because he knows his time is short.

Time will tell.

Chris Johnson has Way Too Much Fun!

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture writes:

We are writing to make certain that you and your congregation know about our newest effort to raise the visibility of a religious opposition to torture in communities all across the country.

NRCAT is making June 2008 the month for "Banners Across America"! We are asking congregations of all sizes, from every state and all faiths, to join in a public witness against torture by displaying a banner outside their place of worship during Torture Awareness Month (June).

Click here for complete information about the project and to place an order. You can choose from two sizes and two designs, as well as an option to customize your banner to include the name of your congregation. The cost ranges from $100 to $175, including shipping.

You can also purchase a banner from another source or use one you already have. Just tell John Humphries (see below) that your congregation will display a banner in June, so we know that your congregation and your state will be participating.

Your congregation's participation will help to raise the visibility of our national campaign in at least 3 ways:

* It will provide an opportunity for members of your congregation to talk together about the continuing shame of torture as government policy and about the role of religious people in speaking out on this moral issue.
* It will put your congregation on record as opposing torture, in a very public way, and can encourage other local congregations to join you in a collective witness in your community.
* It will help NRCAT document a nationwide religious resolve to end torture through a coordinated media effort to draw attention to specific communities with significant numbers of banners, as well as the breadth of participation across the entire country.

At the end of the project, we want to produce a poster with photos of banners hung on a variety of houses of worship. We would deliver a copy of the poster to every member of Congress and the President, and we will make it available for purchase.

You can help us achieve these ambitious goals by:

1. Visiting the Banners Across America webpage (accessible via one of the red boxes in the center of the NRCAT homepage) to get the complete information;
2. Encourage your congregation to purchase a banner and display it during June 2008;
3. Send us a digital photograph of the banner hanging outside your house of worship so we can post it on the website and possibly use it for a national poster.

If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact NRCAT's Director for Program Coordination, John Humphries, at 860-216-7972 or jhumphries@nrcat.org.

Sincerely,

Linda Gustitus, President, NRCAT
Richard Killmer, Executive Director, NRCAT

Torture is Bad When We Don't Do It

Very strange exchange here yesterday. Basically, after pointing out the gross hypocrisy of John Yoo (who seriously said that there was nothing to prevent the President from crushing the testicles of children if he deemed it necessary to our Glorious War on Terror) blathering on about the dangers of unchecked and unaccountable Dem superdelegates, a couple of my readers immediately jumped on this and called it "ad hominem fallacy". The complaint amazed me yesterday and it still does.

An ad hominem fallacy would be something like "Yoo, who is ugly and therefore wrong, opposes unaccountable superdelegate power".

The thing is, I don't have the slightest interest in what Yoo thinks about superdelegates. For all I know, his argument is sound. Similarly, if somebody in Rome had the brainwave of appointing Bernard Law as the spokesman for some "Bless and Protect our Children from Harm" program in American dioceses, for all I know Law might articulate a perfect recapitulation of the Church's teaching on blessing and protecting children.

Guess what? He would still be a grotesque messenger for that message. And if he appointed *himself* as the Messenger for that message it would constitute an act, not only of hypocrisy but of hubris so stench-filled that my gorge would rise at it.

Yoo, appointing himself the Messenger of Warning about the dangers of unchecked and unaccountable power is likewise an act of chutzpah. My point was not that I disagree with his argument (whatever it was). My point is that I have no interest in what a moral imbecile like him has to say, just as I am not interested in what Bernard Law has to say about the protection of children. Communication 101 says that the Messenger should not grotesquely clash with the message.

Yoo was the Administration's go-to guy when they wanted to construct their policies for the uncheck and unaccountable right of the Executive to inflict torture. He was ready, willing and able to tell them they could pretty much do anything, including crush the testicles of children if they wanted to. Instead of taking a clue from this sort of thing that all was not well, driving him out of their lives never to return and finding somebody with a modicum of moral sanity, the Administration and their lickspittle sycophant Alberto Gonzales lapped up this guy's legal wisdom. So it is grotesque, having swallowed this camel, for Yoo to now strain at the gnat of superdelegates and utter dark oracle of unchecked power. It is even more grotesque that, as is so common in my comboxes, somebody would labor for 20 posts to not see this simple point. I could not care less about Dem superdelegates. My interest is solely in the fact that when the Bushies sought unchecked Executive power, this was the sort of man they turned to in order to get it.

Rabbi Attacked by Youths with Absolutely Nothing in Common Chanting "Allahu Ackbar"

What could the rabbi have done to provoke this? Those poor kids with absolutely nothing in common! How sad for them! The lesson we all need to take away from this is that religion is dangerous. And by "religion" I mean, of course, Christians. No doubt this is caused by Easter.

Show Me a Culture that Despises Virginity and I'll Show You a Culture that Despises Childhood

Gene Robinson: Five Years of "It's All About MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"

Piskie Narcissist-in-Chief still talking about himself.

Catholics Come Home

A new apostolate devoted to calling Catholics back to the fold.

Unbelievers Dare to Question the Son of the Living God

Of course, applying to some people for an impartial view of anything to do with religious questions is a little like asking the lion to babysit the lamb. But in this case, I think the lion has a point, so long as you filter out the general irrational malignity toward anything resembling religious belief.

I don't think Obama's gonna ultimately be able to shake off Wright. Say what you will, but the conscious decision to make a kook like that your pastor says something about your judgment and people realize that.

Liberal Protestantism Performs the Miracle of Making the Gospel Unutterably Dull

Tedious blah from apostate platitude worshippers. If that's all they have to say, I'd just stay home with a good book.

A reader writes:

Happy Easter!! He is Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia. I am writing to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I have written or commented on your blog a couple of time on the war, (First I thought you were wrong, then I halfheartedly agreed with you.) and I wanted you to know that you have changed my mind, and, in my judgment, are saving souls. I know from your posts that you find the whole torture debate to be tiresome, aggravating and repetitive. However, you have saved me, at least, from a serious sin, and I thank you. Your clear, consistent, advocacy of Church Teaching has changed how I view the war, the administration and politics generally. While you may not be piling up treasure on Earth, please know that your advocacy for the dignity of every human being, is doing the Father's work,and I hope piling you up a rich store house in our true home. Happy Easter and May God Bless you and Yours.

Happy Easter to you too! I'm glad to hear it. The trick is to honor earthly authorities with the honor due earthly authorities. They are men, not gods. They have some competence and their office is due honor since it is instituted by God. But when they use their office to violate the law of God they must be opposed insofar as they break that law, but not insofar as the legitimacy of their office. It's steady work, finding that balance. :)

All the blessings of the Risen Lord, who rules far above all beyond any principality, power, throne or dominion on earth or in the heavenlies.

Glorious and Humbling Note from Reader Nick Milne

You may (it's possible, but unlikely--but possible! [but unlikely]) remember me as an infrequent contributor to your comboxes. I have long enjoyed your work, both online and off, having first discovered you, as it were, in an interview published in GILBERT magazine.

At any rate, I'm writing today for two reasons. First-- to say that, after a number of years of mulling it over and preaching the Church's excellence as a sort of sympathetic outsider, I was formally baptized and confirmed at the Easter Vigil on Saturday. It was a marvelous experience, and, truly, the beginning of the Real Life in the Lord that had previously only been like a far-off summer field to me.

Second, and pursuant to the first-- to thank you for the positive impact you and your work have had on my journey. You've been a source of great encouragement to me over the last few years, and I am truly grateful for it.

And, uh, that's it, really. Strive on, great sir.

I'm never more acutely aware that conversion is a work of the Holy Spirit than when I get notes like this. C.S. Lewis remarks to Sheldon Vanauken that the disparity between his actual efforts and the gigantic result of a changed human heart regenerated by the power of God was like the disparity between the tiny work of pulling a trigger and the gigantic blast of the shotgun. It's so obvious that the heavy lifting is being done by God that any claim by a human being to "converting" somebody else is patent nonsense. It's more like a little kid standing next to his Dad while he works on the car. Periodically Dad emerges from under the hood and says, "Hold this" or "Could you please go pump the gas pedal twice?" The child obeys and somehow it all works. But only divine charity could pretend that the child had anything to do with the work done.

To again quote Lewis, A Thousand Welcomes, Nick! May God bless you forever. Here begins the New Life.

Jeffrey Overstreet's Lovely Easter Post

I don't know what the Risen Life will be like. But I can't help thinking we come closer to it in those moments when we are most fully human and full of love.

John C. Wright Continues to Grow in His New Catholic Faith

I find the video he posted particularly winsome, because it gets me in touch with my Dominican roots. People have no idea the hellish forces that would be unleashed without these watchmen on the walls.

John's wife, sadly thinking only of herself and her needs and heedless of the Greater Good, objects to the standard Vatican program of liquidating all who knew of John's pre-Catholic life. She writes:

Sigh...these are the kind of things you wish your husband would have told you before he went and got the entire family liquid...huh? Who is that? Aarrrgggh!!!!

If you struggle, the mind wipe will just take longer. Relax and let it happen. You will wake up in a cinder block rambler in a midwestern state, believing you have been married for 20 years to an insurance agent named Joe. Think of it as the Martyr Protection Program. It's for the best considering the mission we have prepared for Justin. Any dependents would be sitting ducks for the Other Side.

WaPo Does a Nice Piece on Homeschooling

Little tiny Easter miracles are still gifts from God.

Speaking of which, another non-traditional student makes his mark on the world for good.

Fair Enough, StrongBad. I'd take the week off too if I could afford it!

From the Bush Cakewalk Dept.



Everybody agreed that it was nobody's fault. - Evelyn Waugh

New Catholic John C. Wright Start to Ask the Hard Questions

First question: Where does my new name go? I am John Justin-Martyr Charles Wright? Or does it go after my middle name: John Charles Justin-Martyr Wright? Do I use the whole saint's name (Justin Martyr) or only his Christian name (Justin)?

Someone call the Pope and ask him.

Next question: suppose I want to be an albino assassin flagellant from Opus Dei, sent by the magisterium to separate (or "incise") the familiar spirit of science fiction author Phillip Pullman from his daemon, effectively robbing him of his humanity, before turning him over to the secular arm, but an opportunity arises to dirk to death the girl-messiah known as Aenea from the planet Endymion, marked for death by the Cyberpapacy. How do I reconcile this with the Christian injunction to turn the other cheek, and the benediction that blesses the peacemakers?

I have heard my whole life how corrupt and superstitious the Catholic Church is, so, now that I am in, where do I sign up? I'd like to start with Simony. Can I buy Church offices wholesale, and then sell them through retail outlets? What are the tax implications?

Third question: why are my favorite authors, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Gene Wolfe, Mike Flynn, G.K. Chesterton, all members of this monstrous Syriac cult known as Christianity? I do like my freethinker authors just fine, but Bob Heinlein, Ayn Rand, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke seem to have trouble with realism in characterization, both with their invented people, and with their invented societies.

Don't get me wrong, I love their books, love and reread them many times, but the people who don't believe in souls don't seem to be able to portray their characters three-dimensionally and solidly, that is, as if their characters had souls.

These kinds of How-do-I-become-a-successful-Opus-Dei-assassin questions are what mystagogia is for.

In answer to your questions: Your birth name has been erased from all records, both written and electronic. You are now always and only Justin Martyr to us, the perfect Philospher Spy. You will do as we bid, go where we command and think only what we allow. Your identity has been erased and all who knew of your existence have been liquidated. You report directly to the Vatican. Your password is "Lancer".

Next: The command to turn the other cheek is, of course, a Jesuitical interpolation designed to keep your victim's blood from spurting in your eyes as you carry out the great work of purifying the world of the wicked who stand in the way of Total Vatican Power. As you can see from the headlines, progress toward that goal is proceeding unhindered the Catholic Church continues its unchecked march to power and prestige in all the wealthiest countries of the world. The iron grip of DerPanzerPope in Europe is almost total now and the tentacles of our conspiracies now enmesh most of the branches of government. From the imminent repeal of abortion law to the unquestioning obedience paid by our civil authorities to Catholic teaching to the slavish and puritanical fealty paid to the Magisterium by Hollywood, the music industry, and other manufacturers of culture, our total conquest of the West is nearly achieved! Soon victory will be ours!

By the way, since the IRS is actually run by the Many-Tentacled Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Special Ops Unit, you don't have to worry about tax codes. Just place your earnings in a pentagram drawn in the dust on your floor, drip a little of your own blood over it and recite a brief spell in Latin and you'll be fine. Standard Catholic practice.

Last question: Your favorite authors were people living under the regime of false consciousness who would not abandon the notions that tedious, flawed, filthy human beings were more important than precious, clean, clear, tidy diagrams. A lot of them even smoked, which tells you all you need to know about them.

Religion Poisons Everything for Peace-Loving Chinese Commies

Rude Buddhist monks and nuns get in the way of innocent Chinese troops' rifle practice and stop bullets with their heads and chests. Typical religionists blind to the practical realities of modern warfare. No wonder Christopher Hitchens gets so angry at religion and longs for the establishment of a peaceful atheistic regime.

That didn't take long

A day after he was received into the Catholic Church by Pope Benedict XVI during the Easter vigil, Magdi Allam, a widely known Italian Muslim, wrote a letter to his own paper on Easter Sunday in which he issued a twofold call: first to he encouraged other Muslims who have converted to Catholicism to come out publicly and secondly he called on the Church to be “less prudent” about converting Muslims.

God protect him and all fellow Muslim converts from the Religion of Peace.

The Beeb Can't Restrain its Reflexive Anti-Christian Impulses for a Minute

So Muammar Al-Gaddafi makes a perfectly moronic comment, suggesting the Bible was forged because it didn't mention Mohammed. In the first world, it would be laughable and forgettable. But in a world teeming with Bronze Age Fanatics who believe such idiocy, it constitutes both an insult and a veiled threat. Ugandas Christians very properly forgave both the insult and the threat.

Beeb headline: "Ugandans 'forgive' Gaddafi remark". Note the scare quotes. As though there was either nothing to forgive or the forgiveness was insincere.

Narcissists for Peace Blaspheme the Mass While Gazing Lovingly in the Mirror

Way to go, guys. Nothing advanced the work of the Prince of Peace like a big dump of self-regarding street theater during the highest and holiest work we humans can do.

This has been the basic problem with so much of the anti-war movement since the start. It's not really in the service of God or man. For an awful lot of these guys, it's all in the service of the theatrical narcissism of the protestors. An awful lot of these people are overgrown kids *playing* at opposition to the war because they want to feel like brave Davids against Goliath.

I'd love to see Dorothy Day take these clowns down several pegs. She would have died before pulling a stupid stunt like this.

Good Editorial on the Hope of Easter--In a Secular Canuckistan Paper!

God help, guard and guide this poor poor child of such screwed parents

Hey Kiwis! Don't miss the upcoming Eucharistic Convention in New Zealand!

I've spoken at it twice and had a wonderful time in your glorious country both times! Alas, I won't be there this time. But if you are there in beautiful Kiwiland, don't miss it!

The Main Problem with Turning Methodological Atheism into an All-Explaining Theory of Everything...

is that it doesn't explain everything. Miracles stubbornly go on happening and the supernatural keeps occurring...



despite the messy way in which this interferes with the theories of rationalists. Of course, the rationalist can, like the Egyptian magicians limp along with more an more implausible attempt to make reality fit the dogmatic atheist materialism. But the time comes, if you are really serious about pursuing truth over dogma, when the lame materialist dogma collapses in the face of reality and you start to realize that the supernatural is real and the dawning and dreadful possibility of the a Real God (and, by the way, a real devil) breaks upon you. It's a salutary surrender, just so long as it doesn't stop there and proceeds on to the fullness of revelation in Christ Jesus.

Read this

before you read this.

That's will save you from popping a few brain cells needlessly.

Flatlanders Attempt to Explain Away the Cube

Some atheist materialist zealots think they can explain all religion scientifically.

There's something strangely inhuman about people who subscribe to the ideology that Science is the All-Explaining Theory of Everything. Extremists for this notion seem to me to come near to excommunicating themselves from humanity, talking about human beings as though they were something other than men and women themselves. It's an astonishing pretense that often seems to me to harden from a pretense into a lie.

The basic problem with a "scientific" attempt to understand religious belief is that science is necessarily governed by methodological atheism. It's a perfectly legitimate approach when you are trying to understand the natural world, but it's utterly wrong-headed when approaching matters of the supernatural. Essentially, it's a mania born of pride.

Science is, if you will, a sort of game not terribly different than detective fiction. You have a mystery you are trying to solve about why this or that happens and you naturally set yourself certain rules just as a detective writer does. In fact, the Detection Club (of which Agatha Christie, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers and many other worthies were members), created rules (drafted by Fr. Ronald Knox) which are very like the methodological atheism of the scientific game:

I. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow;
II. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course;
III. No more than one secret room or passage is allowable. I would add that a secret passage should not be brought in at all unless the action takes place in the kind of house where such devices might be expected;
IV. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end;
V. No Chinaman must figure into the story*;
VI. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right;
VII. The detective must not, himself, commit the crime;
VIII. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader;
IX. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but only very slightly, below that of the average reader;
X. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.
*In Msgr. Knox's time, one of the most overused plot mechanisms was the introduction of "a Chinaman" or other foreign, exotic or otherwise unusual character from "another land" as the malefactor. This comment was not intended as a "racist" one, but as a reaction to this plotting mechanism.

Note the Second Commandment. That's perfectly legit and necessary. It keep fudging like this from happening:



A person can live a long and fruitful life investigating the natural world (or writing detective novels) on this basis and commit no sins against God or his own intellect.

The only problem comes in when you forget that this methodological atheism is just the rules of a game and allow it to transmogrify (usually under the influence of Pride) into an All Explaining Theory of Everything and a Philosophy of Life. Then you start behaving like a fool and declaring that not just human beings but God himself is bound to fit into the narrow confines of the rules of your game. You become like the legal expert who declares that there can never be a revolution since the Constitution doesn't mention it, or the illiterate who declares with total assurance that "Hamlet" is nothing but black marks on white paper or the tone deaf trousered ape who calls the music of Mozart "air pressure variations". A paradigm shift that normal people make is somehow denied the materialist because in his obsession with fidelity to methodological atheism he wills himself to forget that God is bigger than his little system of order. And so he winds up applying his little system of order (which properly excludes God and the miraculous from the study of nature) to the study of God himself and winds up blinding himself at the outset to the very thing he proposes to study. It is a textbook demonstration of the psalmist's point: The fool has said in his heart, there is no God."

The WaPo Casts a Wary Eye Over the Powderkeg of Easter Celebrations and Issues a an Urgent Call for Tolerance and Understanding

Because, you know, Christians celebrating Easter are so likely to go out and fire rifles in the air or go searching for some unbeliever to beat up. Almost alone among the seething horde of angry intolerant Christians who swept out of the Church yesterday bent on rape and pillage, my family gathered to eat the Easter eggs we colored and celebrate a feast with friends full of wine and laughter. Most of our fellow parishioners, whipped into a frenzy of bloodlust for the One True Faith by our Dominican homilist (theme: "Let Everyone Who Can Wield a Club Slay the Godless Infidel!"), went in search of Buddhist temples, synagogues, mosques and institutions of higher learning to destroy, thereby to cleanse our land.

Seriously: "tolerance and understanding"? That's the best the our chattering classes can do on Easter, the Feast of the Conquest of Death? What an unbelievably timid lot these people are. God help a people whose highest conceivable virtues are "tolerance and understanding"! How about love? Or joy?

The whole editorial seems to me to perform the common act of confusion of our irreligous chattering classes.

Step 1: Take it as axiomatic that religious people are ticking time bombs.
Step 2: Cite some vague reference to religious violence.
Step 3: Call for calmness and tolerance even though the only person in the room who is talking about religious violence is the guy writing the article.
Step 4: Studiously avoid noticing that Radical Islam is the elephant in the living room here and pretend that Christians are the main thing we should be fearing.

Resurrection

It ain't the same as "going to heaven", being "raised spiritually", being a ghost or being resuscitated like Lazarus. It's a whole 'nother thang entirely. There's nothing like it in any other religious tradition and the Easter stories are utterly unique. Resurrection is what makes Christianity Christianity. The apostle themselves are nearly at as loss to talk about it and can only mention a few curious details that utterly contradict not only what we expect, but what they themselves expected. Ghosts they buy. But Jesus was no ghost. Resuscitation they could buy, but the Risen Christ was no mortal like Lazarus. Extremely mysterious.

Madgi Cristiano Allam Recounts his Conversion to Jesus Christ and his Holy Church

Lots of reactions to this story around the web. Personally, I think it's great. Sherry Weddell is worried about repercussions for other Muslim Background Believers (MBBs), which seems to me to be a legitimate concern.

I don't know the circumstances behind why such a public ado was made. I suspect, from what I've read about the guy, he was all in favor of being as public as possible about it since he has not been shy about criticizing Islam in the past. Of course, that doesn't answer the question of why Benedict chose to do it, but I can only presume that the Holy Father decided that it's better to be frank about religious liberty than to tiptoe around thin-skinned Bronze Age thugs whose brittle religion can't cope with human freedom. On the whole, I think I'm on the Holy Father's side here and pray God will protect both him and Allam from the reprisals that not a few in the Religion of Peace would love to inflict on them for this act of conscience. St. Michael, protect them!

One of the paradoxical proofs of the existence of Satan is that, after a century soaked in an ocean of blood, so few people believe in him or in sin

The attitude of the post-modern mind to evil is summed up in Evelyn Waugh's immortal words, "Everybody agreed that it was nobody's fault."

Here in America, with our unique among First World nation's religious culture, we retain a sense of sin, sort of. Check out what Americans regard as "sin". There's a willingness to grasp the nettle here, to a degree. But there's also a sad unfamiliarity with classical Christian teaching which, unchecked, will lead to transmutation of the gold of Christian teaching on sin into the lead of mere PC fads and dogmas with no root in anything beyond herd-think. Most of all, loss of Christian teaching leaves you with no recourse to the *forgiveness* of sin, which is after all what the gospel is all about.

PC carefully and lovingly preserves the old Calvinist sense of guilt about total depravity but robs you of any hope of mercy whatsoever.

More Latest Real Jesuses: Just in Time for Easter

The whole "Paul really invented Christianity" thing is basically refuted by the fact that Paul himself is constantly pointing out that a) he is "handing on what he recieved" (which is rabbinic jargon for "I'm passing on the tradition I was taught") and by his frequent reminders to his flocks that he's basically saying what all the other apostles are saying. The problem with the "Paul invented Christianity" thing is that congregations all over the ancient world that never got a visit from Paul are busy celebrating Eucharistic liturgies which presuppose the death and resurrection of Christ just like Pauline communities do. A Matthean community in Palestine that is supposedly under the sway of some Jacobean tradition is just as focused on the Resurrection of Jesus as the Church in Corinth. Indeed, when Paul writes to the Romans has hasn't even *been* there yet but he commends them for holding fast to the gospel with its Risen Jesus. How did they learn that if he was the guy going around screwing up the original preaching of the apostles that was just the usual blah about Jesus the Radical Rabbi and his doctrine of Niceness is Nice?

The Clintons: Honest as the Day is Long (in the Arctic Circle in December)



Hillary!: Because America needs a President with a rich, self-aggrandizing fantasy life!

Champions of Faith - The Bases of Faith comes out on DVD April 1!

You can keep track of the latest doings of the C.S. Lewis Society of California Here

Cool gadgetry



...though it does look disturbingly like a huge wingless fly.

Britain Entering New "What Could It Hurt?" Phase

I'm sure glad Muslims aren't proposing to create human/animal chimeras. If they did it, it would be evil and a brand new sin that cries out to heaven for judgment more loudly than the sin of Sodom. Happily, we in the West are just and wise and so it's okay. God would never judge our civilization. We've definitively proven that is both unconstitutional and scientifically impossible, as well as unaffirming of our intrinsic okayness.

My friend Stratford Caldecott runs a lovely journal called "Second Spring" which publishes in England...

...and now in America!

Check thou it out!

It turns out that the way of virtue and the Church's tradition leads to life, whereas the way of let-them-have-all-the-sex-partners-with-rubbers-that-they-want leads to death

And just when that whole "Pope kills millions" agitprop was really getting some traction.

Thanks be to God! John C. Wright enters into full communion with Holy Church!

As is his custom, he wittily embraces everybody he can in the love of Christ while speaking with the common sense and courtly mystical sense that often characterizes his thinking. My favorite moment? This marvelous exchange where one of his readers writes:

This is kinda off topic, but I have a question for you that I have been asking myself since we talked on the phone the other day. I mean no offense by this question and I am honestly interested in your opinion since I generally find your reasoning compelling. What do you think are the different motivations for prayer? And why do you pray?

For instance, here are some of the general motivations for prayer (from wikipedia):

The belief that the finite can actually communicate with the infinite;
The belief that the infinite is interested in communicating with the finite;
The belief that prayer is intended to inculcate certain attitudes in the one who prays, rather than to influence the recipient;
The belief that prayer is intended to train a person to focus on the recipient through philosophy and intellectual contemplation;
The belief that prayer is intended to enable a person to gain a direct experience of the recipient;
The belief that prayer is intended to affect the very fabric of reality as we perceive it;
The belief that prayer is a catalyst for change in one's self and/or one's circumstances, or likewise those of third party beneficiaries.
The belief that the recipient desires and appreciates prayer

and John replies:

Bill, you know I love ya like a brother ( a crazy ninja brother ) but I don't understand the question. All those motivations are present to some degree, but they all sound slightly "off."

It is like asking why you talk to your wife. If you sat down and wrote a list of answers, the answers would sound slightly off. "The belief that the wife will reward the seducer with sexual favors, if asked" "The belief that the wife will make me a sandwich." "The belief that woman have more words than men, and you just have to listen to them talk and talk." "The belief that the wife knows where your checkbook is, even though it is in your pocket." "The belief that a loving relationship needs communication." "The belief that she just found you with the parlor maid in your lap, and is about to shoot you with a speargun, drag your body to the lake, and make it look like a fishing accident." Well, shucks, all these reasons are good reasons for talking to your wife, but this list is not the real reason why you talk to your wife. You talk to your wife because she is your wife. You pray to God because He is God.

When I am in a court of law, and I move for a jury trial, this is called a "prayer for a jury trial." The word prayer just means to ask.

When I need money here on earth, or some other earthly thing, I ask my earthly father for money. (Have not done that for year, thank goodness, but there was a time, back when I was a bankrupt lawyer, I was doing that all the time).

When I need spiritual support, help, a miracle, a change in the weather, or a mountain to jump into the sea, or my soul to be saved, I ask my father in heaven.

My main purpose in prayer is to conform my will to the will of my Father in Heaven, because I assume He already knows of what I will ask, and that He has already provided what I truly need: but my asking may be part of the process by which this pre-established fact come into view.

God is love. I am not loving. I pray to conform to that standard, which is something I cannot do by an act of willpower alone.

I pray when I want something from Him, or when I am alone, or when I need advice and instructions or orders, or when I want to praise Him and give thanks, or to glorify him.

Prayers are thanksgiving are the most natural and easiest to explain. Have you ever read a good book and wanted to thank the author? Have you have seen a pretty baby, and wanted to tell the mom her baby is pretty? Well, it is the same motive. When you see a beautiful sunset or a luminous eveningstar, you want to thank the author of the sunset or the father of the star.

If you've not read John C. Wright, do check out his work!

Oh! And John's wife offers a charming little account of the Vigil Mass where he was received.

A thousand welcomes, my friend!

PS: Reading through the comments on John blog, I discover that one of his Livejournal pals is none other that Michael J. Flynn, author of the magnificent and justly award-winning Eifelheim. I figured he was Catholic (since his work exhibits such an extraordinary familiarity with Catholic thought) but I was never sure till now.

I love to see the ranks of Catholic SF/Fantasy authors growing. Speaking of which, I'm on a Tim Powers jag right now.

And of course, there is St. Blog's own Sandra Miesel, Empress of Science Fiction/Fantasy:



Don't mess with her unless you want to get a Deplorable Word right in the kisser!

Christ is Risen!



Easter and the Liberty of the Icon

My offering to the Lord on this Feast of His Glorious Resurrection.

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

Ecce Homo

In this story of Good Friday it is the best things in the world that are at their worst. That is what really shows us the world at its worst. It was, for instance, the priests of a true monotheism and the soldiers of an international civilization. Rome, the legend, founded upon fallen Troy and triumphant over fallen Carthage, had stood for a heroism which was the nearest that any pagan ever came to chivalry. Rome had defended the household gods and the human decencies against the ogres of Africa and the hermaphrodite monstrosities of Greece. But in the lightning flash of this incident, we see great Rome, the imperial republic, going downward under her Lucretian doom. Scepticism has eaten away even the confident sanity of the conquerors of the world. He who is enthroned to say what is justice can only ask, 'What is truth?' So in that drama which decided the whole fate of antiquity, one of the central figures is fixed in what seems the reverse of his true role. Rome was almost another name for responsibility . Yet he stands forever as a sort of rocking statue of the irresponsible. Man could do no more. Even the practical had become the impracticable. Standing between the pillars of his own judgment-seat, a Roman had washed his hands of the world. There too were the priests of that pure and original truth that was behind all the mythologies like the sky behind the clouds. It was the most important truth in the world; and even that could not save the world. Perhaps there is something overpowering in pure personal theism; like seeing the sun and moon and sky come together to form one staring face. Perhaps the truth is too tremendous when not broken by some intermediaries divine or human; perhaps it is merely too pure and far away.

Anyhow it could not save the world; it could not even convert the world. There were philosophers who held it in its highest and noblest form; but they not only could not convert the world, but they never tried. You could no more fight the jungle of popular mythology with a private opinion than you could clear away a forest with a pocket-knife. The Jewish priests had guarded it jealously in the good and the bad sense. They had kept it as a gigantic secret. As savage heroes might have kept the sun in a box, they kept the Everlasting in the tabernacle. They were proud that they alone could look upon the blinding sun of a single deity; and they did not know that they had themselves gone blind. Since that day their representatives have been like blind men in broad daylight, striking to right and left with their staffs, and cursing the darkness. But there has been that in their monumental monotheism that it has at least remained like a monument, the last thing of its kind, and in a sense motionless in the more restless world which it cannot satisfy. For it is certain that for some reason it cannot satisfy.

Since that day it has never been quite enough to say that God is in his heaven and all is right with the world; since the rumor that God had left his heavens to set it right.

And as it was with these powers that were good, or at least had once been good, so it was with the element which was perhaps the best, or which Christ himself seems certainly to have felt as the best. The poor to whom he preached the good news, the common people who heard him gladly, the populace that had made so many popular heroes and demigods in the old pagan world showed also the weaknesses that were dissolving the world. They suffered the evils often seen in the mob of the city, and especially the mob of the capital, during the decline of a society. The same thing that makes the rural population live on tradition makes the urban population live on rumor. just as its myths at the best had been irrational, so its likes and dislikes are easily changed by baseless assertion that is arbitrary without being authoritative. Some brigand or other was artificially turned into a picturesque and popular figure and run as a kind of candidate against Christ. In all this we recognize the urban population that we know, with its newspaper scares and scoops. But there was present in this ancient population an evil more peculiar to the ancient world. We have noted it already as the neglect of the individual, even of the individual voting the condemnation and still more of the individual condemned. It was the soul of the hive; a heathen thing. The cry of this spirit also was heard in that hour, 'It is well that one man die for the people! Yet this spirit in antiquity of devotion to the city and to the state had so been in itself and in its time a noble spirit. It had its poets and its martyrs; men still to be honored forever. It was failing through its weakness in not seeing the separate soul of a man, the shrine of all mysticism; but it was only failing as everything else was failing. The mob went along with the Sadducees and the Pharisees, the philosophers and the moralists. It went along with the imperial magistrates and the sacred priests, the scribes and the soldiers, that the one universal human spirit might suffer a universal condemnation; that there might be one deep, unanimous chorus of approval and harmony when Man was rejected of men.

There were solitudes beyond where none shall follow. There were secrets in the inmost and invisible part of that drama that have no symbol in speech; orin any severance of a man from men. Nor is it easy for any words less stark and single-minded than those of the naked narrative even to hint at the horror of exaltation that lifted itself above the hill. Endless expositions have not come to the end of it, or even to the beginning. And if there be any sound that can produce a silence, we may surely be silent about the end and the extremity; when a cry was driven out of that darkness in words dreadfully distinct and dreadfully unintelligible, which man shall never understand in all the eternity they have purchased for him; and for one annihilating instant an abyss that is not for our thoughts had opened even in the unity of the absolute; and God had been forsaken of God. - G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

I owe my reader Jasper an apology

I lost my temper with him in a way that was totally uncalled for last evening. It was wrong of me and I wish I had not done it. I'm sorry. I hope he will forgive me. We are all strangers on the Internet and we give in far too often too making judgements about others when we only see slivers of who they are and often know nothing of the burden of pain they carry with them. I am the chief of sinners in that respect. I managed to add to Jasper's pain yesterday and I am ashamed for doing so. Mea culpa.

Jasper, I have removed my offending comment (and the various remarks that followed it since they make no sense without my original remarks). I'm sorry. And God bless your brother's (and your family's) sacrifice. FWIW, both my brothers were in Vietnam too.

Let us pray for each other. God knows this world needs it.

While I'm at it, I should also note that I took down a rather flippant post about the passing of Arthur C. Clarke. We are all facing the grave sooner or later and this week of all weeks I could practice a little more love and a little less jokiness when a man goes into that night without, so far as I know, the consolations of the Faith. God rest his soul and grant him mercy beyond all his hopes through Christ our Lord. Amen.

I think I'm going to take a break from blogging for the Triduum. Something tells me there are other things I should be focusing on.

Back Monday.

Saved by Christ, Not By Rules

In which we discuss the legalistic lens by which the MSM perpetually attempts to evaluate the Catholic Faith.

Many thanks!

To all youse guys who responded to the Tin Cup Rattle. We Sheas deeply appreciate it! God bless my readers for their kindness and generosity through our Lord Jesus.

A Rather Counter-Intuitive Piece by Andrew Bacevich on the Conservative Case for Obama

Bacevich, recall, has paid in the blood of his son for the Grand End to Evil plans of the War Party, so the cheap rhetoric from plump laptop bombardiers about some alleged "America-hatred" or Bush Derangement won't fly here in the attempt to shout him down. He takes apart the immense destruction this Administration has done to anything calling itself "conservatism" and pauses to note (rightly) that the GOP doesn't give a shit about prolife issues or the concerns of God First conservatives except insofar as it happens to convenience them in election years. He also nicely summarizes the shrillness of the neocon project as its ideas pass the sell-by date:

As an episode in modern military history, Iraq qualifies at best as a very small war. Yet the ripples from this small war will extend far into the future, with remembrance of the event likely to have greater significance than the event itself. How Americans choose to incorporate Iraq into the nation’s historical narrative will either affirm our post-Cold War trajectory toward empire or create opportunities to set a saner course.

The neoconservatives understand this. If history renders a negative verdict on Iraq, that judgment will discredit the doctrine of preventive war. The “freedom agenda” will command as much authority as the domino theory. Advocates of “World War IV” will be treated with the derision they deserve. The claim that open-ended “global war” offers the proper antidote to Islamic radicalism will become subject to long overdue reconsideration.

Give the neocons this much: they appreciate the stakes. This explains the intensity with which they proclaim that, even with the fighting in Iraq entering its sixth year, we are now “winning”—as if war were an athletic contest in which nothing matters except the final score. The neoconservatives brazenly ignore or minimize all that we have flung away in lives, dollars, political influence, moral standing, and lost opportunities. They have to: once acknowledged, those costs make the folly of the entire neoconservative project apparent. All those confident manifestos calling for the United States to liberate the world’s oppressed, exercise benign global hegemony, and extend forever the “unipolar moment” end up getting filed under dumb ideas.

So he concludes:

Electing John McCain guarantees the perpetuation of war. The nation’s heedless march toward empire will continue. So, too, inevitably, will its embrace of Leviathan. Whether snoozing in front of their TVs or cheering on the troops, the American people will remain oblivious to the fate that awaits them.

For conservatives, Obama represents a sliver of hope. McCain represents none at all. The choice turns out to be an easy one.

Maybe for him. Not for me. I won't vote for Obama because, unlike the GOP, he does give a shit about abortion: he wants to do everything possible to expand and export the license up to and including legalizing infanticide. I'll take GOP neglect over that sort of religious zeal any day. However, that doesn't mean I can vote for McCain, who seems to me to be quite aptly described by Bacevich as dedicated to the perpetuation of war and the growth of Leviathan.

The more I think about it, the more I think I may just write in "None of the Above" or Ron Paul or my pastor or somebody.

A Marvelous Easter Present

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Communist leader of the Soviet Union, has acknowledged his Christian faith for the first time, paying a surprise visit to pray at the tomb of St Francis of Assisi.

I hope to God the post-Christian West doesn't have to go through the wringer Russians did before it figures out what Gorbachev figured out.

Thanks be to God for his marvelous works.

My latest stuff

Easter Answers

In which we talk about Big Truths for Little Kids.

Human Beings are Not for Using

In which we discuss the fact that human beings are the only things God has created for the own sake. They are not means to some greater end.

An Administration of War Criminals

The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was de facto United States policy. The authorization of torture and the decriminalization of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of captives in wartime have been among the defining legacies of the current Administration; and the rules of interrogation that produced the abuses documented on the M.I. block in the fall of 2003 were the direct expression of the hostility toward international law and military doctrine that was found in the White House, the Vice-President’s office, and at the highest levels of the Justice and Defense Departments.

And not just Abu Ghraib. Camp Cropper, Bagram, Gitmo and many other informal detention centers, and authorized and overseen by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who hae order and approved the torture of a lot more than three people. For instance, this guy was murdered by the CIA using techniques Our Leader just valiantly fought to keep as the policy of These United States:



His name was Manadel al-Jamadi and he was murdered during interrogation by the CIA. Happily, the Administration has made extremely certain that the CIA guy who committed this murder goes unpunished, because when you are engaged in bringing freedom to oppressed people you can't let things like the occassional torture and murder slow you down.

Of course, as ever, when things do come to light (as at Abu Ghraib) the stooges and flunkies at the bottom of the food chain get the blamed as "bad apples". We are so eager to believe the Screwtapian lies Lewis described so perfectly: "The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of evil that Dickens loved to paint ... but is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices."

The biggest mistake of my adult life was trusting these men. And now Cheney is pounding the war drums again.

Sherry Weddell Digests the Pew Survey and Gives Her Always-Insightful Thoughts

Tom Keeps Using that Word

I don't think that word means what he thinks it means.

Well, when you put it like that how could I not give you a plug?

Dear Mr. Shea:

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The Mighty Favog on his Racist Roots

A really good post from somebody who grew up in the segregated South.

It's got me thinking. I was raised in Washington state. There were one black kid in my elementary school. When Martin Luther King died, I remember asking my mom who he was. Race riots were things that happened on the news, somewhere else far away. None of it was real to me and I never thought much about it out here in the land of Olsens and Andersons.

I remember being shocked when a number of kids in my fourth grade class cheered at the news of King's assassination. I didn't know anything about him but I knew you weren't supposed to cheer for somebody being murdered in cold blood.

I'm struck by how vicious some of the Win At All Costs Righty types are being this morning with the "He Threw his Grandma Under the Bus" crap they are trying to make stick on Obama. In his speech yesterday, he said of his pastor:

As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Sorry, but I don't see that as "throwing grandma under the bus". I see it as pretty much resonating with my own experience of living in community with people who have real faults and sins on their heads. There are members of my family who were quite as unabashed in their racism as Obama's pastor or grandmother. There are people I love and care deeply about who hold opinions I find repellent or kooky. Hell, in my parish there are people with views on everything from Jews to 9/11 conspiracy theories I think are nutty. I've never believed people are binary. I think it's quite possible for the most saintly person to have some thoroughly disgusting streak of wickedness.

I also think that there is a curious phenomenon in our culture of Approved and Unapproved Sins. Approved sins are what our culture calls "irrational taboos". They are the good sins such as blasphemy ("hilarious irreverence"), sexual license ("freedom"), avarice ("the work ethic") and so forth. Unapproved sins include things like racism, antisemitism, intolerance (of approved sins), and so forth.

For Approved Sins, there is enthusiastic approval masquerading as tolerance and, when the ocassion calls for it, "forgiveness". For Unapproved Sins there is, in our culture, swift, merciless and eternal condemnation with no chance whatever of forgiveness or redemption. Indeed, any attempt to extend forgiveness to a racist or an antisemite is simply to be labeled a sharer in their sin. Any attempt to see any redeeming features in somebody who commits unapproved sins is automatically labeled an attempt to justify what they do. Because, as I have repeatedly pointed out, the most scandalous teaching in the entire Christian tradition has nothing to do with pelvic issues. It's the command to be merciful and forgive.

Obama seems to me to grok this if his speech is any indication. Of course, everything has to be filtered through the fact that he is basically a job applicant who is trying to say, "You should still hire me even though I have a long association with this pastor who says nutty stuff" (something I will not be doing on entirely other grounds). But in his comments on race he seems to me to strike the right notes. We all have people in our lives who say and believe despicable and kooky stuff--and we go on loving them and appreciating them for all sorts of other reasons. It's rather like Shem and Japheth walking in backwards to cover the nakedness of their drunken father Noah. It's what you do with people you love and to whom you owe a debt of gratitude.

"I mean no disrespect..."

If you are going to insult my God as he hangs upon the cross, at least don't insult my intelligence.

Happy Easter to you too. May God forgive and bless your tiny heart.

It's Easter, So the Beeb is Naturally Asking "What does the Bible actually say about being gay?"

The article is the usual blah guaranteed to kill brain cells. Nobody discusses the fact that "gay" is a modern linguistic construct. Nobody distinguishes between the act of homosex (which alone is sinful) and the temptation or orientation (which is not sinful).

All the usual Bible verses get trotted out with all the usual stupid stuff being said:

"I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; dear and delightful you were to me; your love for me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women."

Ah! We know what *that* means (wink wink). Because, you know, two men cannot be intensely close friends without a sexual component to the relationship (an assumption that only demonstrates the extreme impoverishment of our culture in my book, since I have have had deep friendships with men which were entirely rooted in phileo and had none of the subtext of eros our hypersexualized culture injects into all relationships.)

Likewise, all that unpleasantness at Sodom gets the Standard Treatment:

Of course the men's behaviour was wicked, but it was wicked because it's a tale of sexual assault and rape. When Jesus mentions Sodom, hundreds of years later, it appears to be in a context of a discussion of hospitality, rather than one of sexual morality.

The threat at Sodom is this: "They called to Lot and asked him where the men were who had entered his house that night. 'Bring them out,' they shouted, 'so that we might have intercourse with them.'"

As Scott Hahn once remarked to me on the bafflegab about the sin of Sodom as inhospitality: "Homosexual rape is a particularly acute form of inhospitality."

And so on. The attempt to square the circle of making homosex compatible with the Judeo-Christian teaching is fruitless and therefore it never ends. It's one of the many reasons I find the fascination with Obama so mysterious. Anybody who can discern a justification for gay "marriage" in the Sermon on the Mount doesn't know how to read. Love and respect for the homosexual person? Absolutely! He is a human being in the image and likeness of God for whom Christ died. But same-sex marriage or enthusiastic approval of homosex? It ain't there in Scripture. It just ain't.

Canadian Catholics Ask Bishops to Retract Winnipeg Statement - Recommit to Humanae Vitae

Bishops of Canuckistan: There go your people! You should get in front of them since you are their leaders. Papal teaching + Sensus Fidelium = WAKE UP!

I was gratified by this:

In 1990 the Philippine Bishops issued an apology to the nation's Catholics for having failed to encourage their flock to adhere to Humanae Vitae. They wrote: "Afflicted with doubts about alternatives to contraceptive technology, we abandoned you to your confused and lonely consciences with a lame excuse: 'follow what your conscience tells you.' How little we realized that it was our consciences that needed to be formed first."

If you want to sign the petition to the bishops the People's Republic of Maplegrad, go here.

Progressive Dissent and Reactionary Dissent: The Schism of Love and Truth

Flannery O'Connor famously remarked, "When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced-labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chambers." That seems to me to be the epitaph on the entire project of Progressive Dissent in the Catholic Church with its obsessive focus on Anything for the Pleasure of My Pelvis. The logic has led inexorably from saying no to conception to saying no to birth to saying no to live babies to saying no to the weak and sick and old--all in the name of tenderness, kindness and tolerance. We have, with the enthusiastic support of the Progressive Dissenting Catholic, long ago left Hitler in the dust in terms of body counts.

Meanwhile, the Rad Trad dissenter continues wielding his little trident as well, treating all emissaries and servants of love as contemptible in his obsessive and heretical focus on Truth.

Love without truth and truth without love: both of them are heretical and deadly.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love. - Ephesians 4:15-16

Given the constraints of the media format and the generally stupid phrasing of the questions, I think the Jesuit did pretty good



I've done a fair number of interviews with media types. Until you've been thrust into the weird place of being on air live and having the interviewer put some ignorant dumb question to you with the demand to encapsulate a nuanced response and keep it to 10 seconds, you can't really know how hard it is to do it. Evangelical theology has the great advantage of being simplistic, so it's more amenable to soundbites and snappy comebacks. Catholic theology has to deal, not only with reality (such as the salvation of the invincibly ignorant which Rev. Mohler's theology doesn't bother with) but also with trying to figure out how to explain to an ignorant journalist that there *is* nobody who has ever lived a life where he did nothing but good--except for Jesus and our Lady, and they were not atheists.

Of course, the guy who posted it on YouTube thinks this all translates to "Catholics do not believe in being saved". Sigh.

Obama Miracle Toast! Now Available on eBay!



Now do you Believe?

The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism Does its Healing and Redeeming Work in Chile

A portrait of one of the little glitches that happens when you mistake such spirits for the Holy Spirit, which is a common blunder among supporters of this Administration.

Commie Butchers Do What Atheistic Regimes Do Best

Solution: Prove Jesus doesn't exist!

Good Day! It's Day 7 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Tin Cup Rattle

You rose bright and early this morning, looking forward to another day of life and the chance to do good works! Excellent! Supporting yer emphatically lower middle class scribe as he tries to do his apostolic thang is a good work. So make this Tin Cup Rattle go out with a real bang! The person to donate the largest amount today--Day 7--will get a free signed copy of whichever one of my books you would like.

Of course, you can still buy my books and tapes too. And if you'd rather not do the PayPal thang, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.

Have I mentioned I also speak about the faith? It's true! You should have me come do it for your parish at your next conference, faith formation seminar, or retreat, as dozens of other parishes and organizations done! You'll have a great time and you'll learn a bunch of stuff too! Don't take my word for it. I got references and everything!

Interesting Site Devoted to One of My Favorite Private Hobbies: KillJoy Sci-Fi

Basically, it's the response of the engineer types to the Romantic Gee Whiz types, reminding them that faster-than-light and time travel are impossible and aliens don't want our water.

Sin Makes You Stupid

One of the constant boasts of the atheist is that he maintains a clear-eyed focus on Real Life while the theist (and especially those odious Christians) spend all their time trying to please an imaginary sky god.

And yet here are their priorities: "The Jesus Project may be the single most important commitment that the Center for Inquiry and its affiliated organizations—among them the Council for Secular Humanism, publisher of FREE INQUIRY—will ever make."

Jesus, the imaginary sky god is the Most Important Thing in the World for them. Far more important the doing one damn thing about the oppression, exploitation, corruption and murder happening right under their noses at the hands of their Chinese hosts.

Let's for the sake of argument, grant that Jesus doesn't exist. Duly noted. So why are you spending all your time fighting with somebody who doesn't exist and spending none of your time actually, like, dealing with real oppression at the hands of.... ohhhhhh!!!!!... at the hands of your fellow atheists! Ah! Got it!

Proceed. Beat that sky god! Get him boys! He's the real problem!

Very Good!

The Natural Family Planning Blog Meets the Evil Crazies of the "Child Free" Cult of Narcissism

Living demonstrations that evil is self-sterilizing. And nasty, nasty folk.

The remarkable thing about conversations like this is how one-sided they are. The person who hardly needs to apologize at all bends over backward to do so. The jerks who have plenty to apologize for never think to do so. Just a little taste of the sufferings of Christ.

Out of the mouths of Babes and Sucklings, Thou Hast Perfected Praise

A reader writes:

I thought you would be interested in what happened on the way home from church on Sunday. All of a sudden our three year old started singing, "Barack Obama in the highest" and kept singing it repeatedly. We are by no means fans of his, so we don't know what provoked our son to give him so much praise. The irony of it being Palm Sunday was not lost on us.

Clearly this is the Wisdom of the Children. Truly this man is the Son of God. Do not listen to people who say things like this:



This is not about picking somebody for an enormously powerful secular job. This is about anointing a man who is nothing less than "our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings . . . He's our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence." Placing anythiing less than transcendent faith in him as your personal President and savior is just a betrayal.

Believe!

Council for Secular Humanism Seeks Help in Creating Latest Real Jesus

It's all gonna be legit and on the level, doncha know. They're carrying on the grand work of the Jesus Seminar. They want only carefully chosen people who will not, of course, be biased in any way.

And just yesterday, Deepak Chopra was unveiling *his* Latest Real Jesus.

A reader writes:

I have a question about what is appropriate to do at Holy Thursday Mass. When everyone gets up and washes each other's feet, with an invitation to every single parishioner to have their feet washed as well as do the washing for others, what should our family do? Do we participate at all? Do we leave it up to each of our personal consciences as to whether or not to participate? Do we sit out, thereby being the only family to do so?

I have not participated at all since moving here (this will be our fifth Easter here), but I'm wondering if I'm being purposefully obstinate about it, or if I should sit it out. And what about my girls, who want to participate?

I am at a loss as to what to do here, and I'm certain that sitting out as a family and refusing to participate has been the wrong thing to do.

So, have at it in the comboxes. Do we go with the flow? "When in Rome" and all that? What should we do?

I have a dim memory somewhere that the foot-washing is supposed to be done by the priest and only to men (presumably since a) they represent the apostles and Christ and b) somebody might be scandalized by a priest playing with some woman's toes or something--though that's guesswork on my part, so take it with a grain of salt. And it may be one of those bits in the rubrics that are at the discretion of the pastor. But that's about all I recall and I could be way wrong. If anybody else knows anything--knows, I mean and can cite documentation, not "has an opinion"--feel free to help this reader.

They wanted to wash my feet once at Holy Thursday. No freakin' way. Not because of some noble or ignoble sentiment on my part, mind you. It was pure practicality. My feet are so ticklish you can tickle them by mail. Wash my feet and I'll writhe in laughter kick the priest in the face accidently. I'd have made a terrible apostle.

Religion is Poisons Everything! It's the source of all the hate, fear, rage, terror, anger, bitterness, torment and intolerance in the whole wide world! Everything touched by its malignant fingers is ruined as it shatters lives! The day is coming when the suffering masses will dance on its grave and shout "Free at Last! Free at Last! Curse God Almighty I'm free at last!"

Oh. And a belief in God could lead to a more contented life, research suggests.

It's little disconnects like this that the Evangelical Atheists really need to explain rather than just shout down.

One of the Nice Things About Only Bothering with Politics as Peripheral Issue

...is that I don't have to track the minute-by-minute fortunes of creatures like Hillary Clinton and I don't have to watch the painful spinning of Obama fanboys like Andrew Sullivan as he minimized, explained away, justified and overlooked the rampant nuttiness of Obama's (happily former) pastor. Admittedly, it's huh-larious to watch Sullivan (whose favorite term of opprobrium is "Christianist") try to do the "Hey! It's not what it looks like! Let me provide some context!" bit with rhetoric like this (from Jeremiah Wright's Big Hero James Cone):

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

I'm old enough to remember when it was vitally important to know just how the religious views of people like McCain and Romney (or digging back into ancient history, Clarence Thomas and every conservative Supreme Court nominee) would affect their conduct of their office. And indeed, I agree that one of the stupidest myths of our secular culture is the notion that a person's deepest beliefs will not impinge on the way they handle the deepest moral, political, social and cultural issues of the day. So I think it is entirely appropriate to ask why in blazes Obama looked to guys like Wright as spiritual mentors.

I missed Obama's "Don't Stand So Close to Me" speech, which by various accounts appears to have hit the right notes (there's a quick summary at Rod's blog). And I'm happy Obama has gotten away from the guy. I'm also struck by this remark:

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

Limbaugh used to note the same thing when he pointed out that "Farrakhan minus the hate" was basically espousing good old-fashioned "Don't expect somebody else to help you make it. Do it yourself!" American conservative individualism. That's not the same thing as "Christianity" (and indeed can become quite toxically opposed to Christianity under the wrong circumstances as conservatives tend to forget). But it was an interesting point.

No doubt everybody running against Obama, especially Hillary, will want to continue to remind us that Obama considers all this stuff part of his spiritual patrimony. And that does pretty much go with the "this is my spiritual family" thing. The question is whether you can really press all that far the insistence that the views of Obama's crazy pastor are Obama's views. I suspect that won't fly. But then I've been wrong before. And never underestimate the depths to which Lady Macbeth will sink in her lust for power.

Refreshing to See

Only a few people ever stood up to the steamroller, Eliot L. Spitzer, before he was disrobed in a swanky hotel here as Client Number 9.

One of them is Catholic Archbishop Henry J. Mansell of Hartford, Conn. At a Mass in a basement event room here in 2002, Mansell, then bishop of Buffalo, called out Spitzer for abuse of power.

Remember: when atheism takes power it will be completely benign. Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens assure us of this.

A Kind Word of Appreciation for Irish Christianity from Chuck Colson

I can't help but get the sense that that guy wants to be Catholic. He gives off all the vibes of the Evangelical Catholic wannabe. I hope he makes the leap one of these days.

Hot Cross Buns: The History (and a Where to Get Them If you Live Across the Pond)

Several years ago, the Newman Center made some Hot Cross Buns for sale on the University of Washington campus. The Compassion Gestapo from the Administration ordered them to scrape off the crosses lest is offend somebody in need of Insensitivity Training or constitute an establishment of religion. Seattle: what a town!