Just for the pleasure of it
Monday, June 30, 2008
Lefty Dirtbags Attack McCain's War Record
If Obama really wants to bring about the Age of Messiah in American politics, he could start separating the goats who indulge in this filth and sending them into the everlasting fires prepared for the devil and his angels. McCain's got plenty of substantive problems. Sliming him as a baby killer and a traitor is about as low as you can get.
If Obama really wants to bring about the Age of Messiah in American politics, he could start separating the goats who indulge in this filth and sending them into the everlasting fires prepared for the devil and his angels. McCain's got plenty of substantive problems. Sliming him as a baby killer and a traitor is about as low as you can get.
New Glasses!
So Saturday we go canoeing over on Lake Washington. When we returned to the dock, my wife, son and I learned an important lesson in the concept of "fulcrum" as Peter stepped out of the canoe suddenly and the whole thing suddenly upended and capsized. My glasses wound up at the bottom of the lake and I have an appointment for new ones this evening.
So Saturday we go canoeing over on Lake Washington. When we returned to the dock, my wife, son and I learned an important lesson in the concept of "fulcrum" as Peter stepped out of the canoe suddenly and the whole thing suddenly upended and capsized. My glasses wound up at the bottom of the lake and I have an appointment for new ones this evening.
Right now I have my old glasses, which make me look like a used car salesman who sells fully factory-equipped air conditioned air from our fully factory-equipped air conditioned factory. My daughter-in-law hates this photo, which I can empathize with cuz I hate it too.
The more I look at it, the more I think I could also be a regional manager for some sort of cubicle company that manufactures cardboard boxes or something. Makes me want to wander around with a coffee mug and say
Whaaaat's happ'nin', Peter?
The more I look at it, the more I think I could also be a regional manager for some sort of cubicle company that manufactures cardboard boxes or something. Makes me want to wander around with a coffee mug and say
Whaaaat's happ'nin', Peter?
Or I could get a perm and go for this look:
One thing I know for certain: chicks go for guys with nunchuck skills, bow-hunting skills, and computer hacking skills.
Vote for Pedro!
New Blogs!
"Catholic In Film School" and "Saint School".
Check thou them out. Catholic New Media is bustin' out all over!
"Catholic In Film School" and "Saint School".
Check thou them out. Catholic New Media is bustin' out all over!
Who Knew Pope Nicholas the Great was a Post-Vatican II Weenie?
A reader writes:
I wonder what Fr. Brian Harrison has to tell good Pope Nicholas.
A reader writes:
You've probably seen this, but I figured I should send it to you in case you hadn't.
It's from a series of responses written by Pope Nicholas I to the bishops of Bulgaria. The Bulgars were converting to Christianity and their king had just become Christian. The pope opposed the Bulgarian practice of extracting confessions by torture in criminal cases.If a thief or a robber is apprehended and denies that he is involved, you say that in your country the judge would beat his head with lashes and prick his sides with iron goads until he came up with the truth. *Neither divine nor human law allows this practice in any way,* since a confession should be spontaneous, not compelled, and should not be elicited with violence but rather proferred voluntarily. But if it just so happens that you find nothing at all which casts the crime upon the one who has suffered, aren't you ashamed and don't you recognize how impiously you judge? Likewise, if the accused man, after suffering, says that he committed what he did not commit because he is unable to bear such [torture], upon whom, I ask you, will the magnitude of so great an impiety fall if not upon the person who compelled this man to confess these things falsely? Indeed, the person who utters from his mouth what he does not hold in his heart is known not to confess but to speak.[cf. Mt. 12:34] Therefore leave such practices behind and heartily curse the things which you have hitherto done foolishly. Indeed, what fruit shall you have in those practices, of which you are now ashamed.
Nicholas I is actually one of the three popes to be called "the Great", yet I had not heard of him until very recently!
Here is the full text in English.
And here are the Latin excerpts that were considered important enough to be put in Denziger-Schonmetzer, including this passage on torture ("DS 648").
I wonder what Fr. Brian Harrison has to tell good Pope Nicholas.
Sts. Peregine and Jude, hear our prayer!
A reader writes:
Mother Mary, please pray for this mother through Christ our Lord! Amen!
A reader writes:
I have a co-worker who recently revealed to me that his wife has been diagnosed with cancer of the brain stem (it had spread from her cervix through her lymph nodes). She is currently in her final round of Chemo and radiation, but the cancer has been very resistant to the treatment.
If she doesn't respond in the next month or two, they will stop. At that point the prognosis would be extremely grim. She is only 31 and has three boys from about 4 to 12 years old. I don't believe she and her husband are believers, so there is an extra element of hopelessness here.
I've been praying and offering sacrifice for them regularly, but any additional prayers for this devastated family would be so appreciated.
Mother Mary, please pray for this mother through Christ our Lord! Amen!
Seattle: Where Babies are Pollution and Pigs are Out and Proud!
A reader writes:
Not on your life.
A reader writes:
Wondered if either of you saw this in a special supplement to the Sunday Times. See point #2.
By the way, as I was walking from the Westlake Center bus tunnel stop to my work this morning, I was appalled by the copious amounts of trash lining the streets. Looked like Sunday morning on Greek Row. I saw a city worker pushing a waste container and asked her about it. Last night was the Pride Parade. I told her it didn't look like they had much pride to spare. She flashed me a grim smile and looked away. Wonder if the local press will comment on it.
Not on your life.
Dave Ross' Dramatic Reading of Bill Gates' Impassioned Email
You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll kiss your OS goodbye!
You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll kiss your OS goodbye!
Shalom to Sam Miller!
He's a prominent Jewish businessman in Cleveland and he recognizes a good thing when he sees it. So he strongly defends the Catholic Church because she does all this good stuff that Torah commands and what kind of idiot wants to get in the way or that anyway?
L'chaim, Mr. Miller!
He's a prominent Jewish businessman in Cleveland and he recognizes a good thing when he sees it. So he strongly defends the Catholic Church because she does all this good stuff that Torah commands and what kind of idiot wants to get in the way or that anyway?
L'chaim, Mr. Miller!
A reader writes:
Father, hear our prayer through your Son Jesus Christ. Grant, by the prayers of Mother Mary and of St. Luke, that your daughter will be healed and that she can continue to be there for her family and they for her. Grant this through your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray!
My wife is going for a quadruple bypass in a couple of weeks. She is also a Type I diabetic with a kidney transplant.
While her surgeon was confident in April, she has been deteriorating, and I am worried: God can do all things, but everybody dies sometime, and sometimes He sends very great crosses as well. We are adoptive parents, so our children are younger than usual for our age and her health. They need a mom. All intercession will be appreciated.
Father, hear our prayer through your Son Jesus Christ. Grant, by the prayers of Mother Mary and of St. Luke, that your daughter will be healed and that she can continue to be there for her family and they for her. Grant this through your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray!
Doctor Grordbort's Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory
Note to my family: My 50th Birthday is August 5 (hint, hint)
This looks absolutely awesome!
For all my Venusian Big Game Hunting Needs!
Note to my family: My 50th Birthday is August 5 (hint, hint)
This looks absolutely awesome!
By jingo, by crikey, and by all that's good in this world, he's done it! Dr. Grordbort has released his directory of scientific splendor. A catalogue of wondrous contraptions and wave weapons of unprecedented power, this book makes available a myriad of destructive and beneficial devices to any intergalactic explorer: Rayguns, Metal Men, Ironclads, and Rocketships are all presented. Also included is a sequential pictographic essay (also known as a "comic") on the exploits of world-famous naturalist and adventurer Lord Cockswain. See him uncover the natural mysteries of Venus with several big guns!
For all my Venusian Big Game Hunting Needs!
A reader sends along a link to a Harry Potteresque Catholic novel
It's gotten Positive Catholic Reviews here and here.
And there's an interview with the author here.
The funny thing about book like this is that the people who hated and feared Harry Potter without reading him will very like hate and fear this book too. Why? Because it will appear to them as though the sinister hand of the occult is now touching and corrupting "good Catholic literature". Of course, conversely, many who like HP will object to the books as knock-offs. I have no objection to knockoffs per se. Virtually everything Shakespeare wrote was a knockoff of some story that had been told before. I may give these a look see.
It's gotten Positive Catholic Reviews here and here.
And there's an interview with the author here.
The funny thing about book like this is that the people who hated and feared Harry Potter without reading him will very like hate and fear this book too. Why? Because it will appear to them as though the sinister hand of the occult is now touching and corrupting "good Catholic literature". Of course, conversely, many who like HP will object to the books as knock-offs. I have no objection to knockoffs per se. Virtually everything Shakespeare wrote was a knockoff of some story that had been told before. I may give these a look see.
Interesting Review of Gut Check by Tarek Saab
A good book for the hard-charging 20-something in your life.
A good book for the hard-charging 20-something in your life.
Lefty and Righty Secular Messianism
Hard to believe it's been thirty years since America: The Light and the Glory was published. It came out just as conservative Evangelicals were feeling their oats and the theory that there was Something Divinely Special About America was gaining currency among Righty types.
The result of this thoroughly unbiblical notion has been, of course, tremendous confusion on the Right. Based on nothing whatsoever biblically, but drawing from deep American cultural roots, the notion of American as a Chosen Nation is something that brings out the best and the worst in us. It inspired us to do great and noble things and it fills us with incredibly obnoxious hubris. It also frequently hurls Evangelicals (the chief expositors of this crazy idea) into chaos because America acts, just as often as a whore of Babylon as she does the Virgin Daughter of Zion. And ultimately, our goals as a nation are not the same as those of Holy Mother Church, who is the only fitting recipient of all that prophetic witness in Scripture about a "chosen nation" etc. So Evangelicals are often at sixes and sevens about America, because she goes on stubborningly being a purely temporal creature concocted by Enlightenment minds and subject to the all the mutability this world has to offer. They keep hoping she'll fill the bill for the Church. But she's not the Church. She's a nation with the soul of a Church--and she's been exhaling that soul for some time now and breathing in lots of other spirits. She won't last forever.
That's not a reason not to fight for her. My mother won't last forever either, but that's scarcely a reason to give up on her. America is one of the greatest human inventions the world has ever seen. My sole point is: great as she is, she is only a human invention. All the normal apostolic warning apply about exalting human traditions to the level of the Tradition of God.
If you don't make that distinction between human and apostolic tradition, you wind up getting unjustly angry at America (or whatever other human thing you idolize) for being only human. That's the blunder of Lefties like Jeremiah Wright and others. Like those on the Right who accord American hyperdulia or latria, they wind up honoring merely human things more highly than they ought.
Touchstone sums it up well:
Hard to believe it's been thirty years since America: The Light and the Glory was published. It came out just as conservative Evangelicals were feeling their oats and the theory that there was Something Divinely Special About America was gaining currency among Righty types.
The result of this thoroughly unbiblical notion has been, of course, tremendous confusion on the Right. Based on nothing whatsoever biblically, but drawing from deep American cultural roots, the notion of American as a Chosen Nation is something that brings out the best and the worst in us. It inspired us to do great and noble things and it fills us with incredibly obnoxious hubris. It also frequently hurls Evangelicals (the chief expositors of this crazy idea) into chaos because America acts, just as often as a whore of Babylon as she does the Virgin Daughter of Zion. And ultimately, our goals as a nation are not the same as those of Holy Mother Church, who is the only fitting recipient of all that prophetic witness in Scripture about a "chosen nation" etc. So Evangelicals are often at sixes and sevens about America, because she goes on stubborningly being a purely temporal creature concocted by Enlightenment minds and subject to the all the mutability this world has to offer. They keep hoping she'll fill the bill for the Church. But she's not the Church. She's a nation with the soul of a Church--and she's been exhaling that soul for some time now and breathing in lots of other spirits. She won't last forever.
That's not a reason not to fight for her. My mother won't last forever either, but that's scarcely a reason to give up on her. America is one of the greatest human inventions the world has ever seen. My sole point is: great as she is, she is only a human invention. All the normal apostolic warning apply about exalting human traditions to the level of the Tradition of God.
If you don't make that distinction between human and apostolic tradition, you wind up getting unjustly angry at America (or whatever other human thing you idolize) for being only human. That's the blunder of Lefties like Jeremiah Wright and others. Like those on the Right who accord American hyperdulia or latria, they wind up honoring merely human things more highly than they ought.
Touchstone sums it up well:
There is a liberation theology of the Left, and there is also a liberation theology of the Right, and both are at heart mammon worship. The liberation theology of the Left often wants a Barrabas, to fight off the oppressors as though our ultimate problem were the reign of Rome and not the reign of death. The liberation theology of the Right wants a golden calf, to represent religion and to remind us of all the economic security we had in Egypt. Both want a Caesar or a Pharaoh, not a Messiah.
The Contrarians: True Patriots in an Age of Debased Realpolitik
A couple of worthy comments from their fine new blog:
Thanks for fighting the good fight.
By the way, courtesy of ZippyCatholic, below is a marvelous illustration of what the "tergiversation" means from John Yoo, the legal whore who wrote the memos basically giving the Administration carte blanche to do whatever they wanted to whoever they wanted. When last we heard from Mr. Yoo, he was offering these memorable thoughts on the limitless godlike powers of George W. Bush:
So as long as there's *good reason*, Yoo thinks crushing the testicles of a child *may* be okay. Don't want to rule out any options.
That is the creature you see here, doing his best to pretend to be a complete idiot in order to stall Congress' investigation of just how the Bush Administration managed to grant itself the power to commit war crimes:
Any patriot who really cares about this country should oppose these people. They are doing tremendous damage in the name of "Peace and safety".
A couple of worthy comments from their fine new blog:
Torture Nation?
Thats right. Because that's what we are.
At least according to a survey by WorldPublicOpinion.org which found that nearly half of all Americans support some form of torture (congratulations to us, thats higher than Egypt, China and the Palestinian freakin' Territories), with 13% percent saying that torture should be generally allowed.
***
Anyway, why am I stirring up a fuss? Aren't I a patriot?
My answer is that The Contrarians' Review wouldn't be starting this blog if it were not a patriotic publication. I am, we are, if I may speak for my fellows, patriots. I would go so far as to say we are the true patriots because we love our country too much to allow it to do grave evil without comment. We understand that what one loves he also desires to be virtuous. The jingoists, sadists and utilitarians who endorse the use of torture either hate this country enough to invite God's judgment upon it or are ignorant of the fact that there are greater goods than simple material benefits.
Thanks for fighting the good fight.
By the way, courtesy of ZippyCatholic, below is a marvelous illustration of what the "tergiversation" means from John Yoo, the legal whore who wrote the memos basically giving the Administration carte blanche to do whatever they wanted to whoever they wanted. When last we heard from Mr. Yoo, he was offering these memorable thoughts on the limitless godlike powers of George W. Bush:
Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty.
Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.
So as long as there's *good reason*, Yoo thinks crushing the testicles of a child *may* be okay. Don't want to rule out any options.
That is the creature you see here, doing his best to pretend to be a complete idiot in order to stall Congress' investigation of just how the Bush Administration managed to grant itself the power to commit war crimes:
Any patriot who really cares about this country should oppose these people. They are doing tremendous damage in the name of "Peace and safety".
The Logic of Truly Up-To-Date Peter Singeresque Darwinian is that This Person Should have Been Killed at Birth or Before
That's the simple fact of what our culture currently regards as "received wisdom". It is such wisdom that prompted our Lord to observe that the whole world lieth in the power of the Evil One.
It is perhaps the devil's greatest achievement that after a century of slaughter unprecedented in the history of the world, he now managed to persuade so many people that sin is an illusion, that he does not exist, and that we are getting better everyday. Something demonic is the only adequate explanation I can muster for the fact that a creature like Peter Singer holds the position he does at Princeton.
God have mercy on him.
On the other hand, Harriet McBryde Johnson lived and she has shown again that God's power is made manifest in our weakness. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness hath not overcome it.
That's the simple fact of what our culture currently regards as "received wisdom". It is such wisdom that prompted our Lord to observe that the whole world lieth in the power of the Evil One.
It is perhaps the devil's greatest achievement that after a century of slaughter unprecedented in the history of the world, he now managed to persuade so many people that sin is an illusion, that he does not exist, and that we are getting better everyday. Something demonic is the only adequate explanation I can muster for the fact that a creature like Peter Singer holds the position he does at Princeton.
God have mercy on him.
On the other hand, Harriet McBryde Johnson lived and she has shown again that God's power is made manifest in our weakness. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness hath not overcome it.
Cool New Stuff at Catholic Exchange!
Three Cheers to Mary Kochan for making it happen!
It's a "theological time bomb"!
That's what George Weigel, Pope John Paul's biographer called his teaching on the Theology of the Body.
And Catholic Exchange is lighting the fuse!
Catholic Exchange editors announce: the first-of-its-kind online assembly of the top writers on the Theology of the Body -- contributing to our new Theology of the Body channel.
Catholic Theologians have just begun to study and fully understand this rich body of work left for us by John Paul the Great, but it is already bearing fruit in thousands of lives touched by the Divine "One Flesh" vision for men and women. Here is the loving answer of the Church to a society that devalues the human person and tries to pit male and female against each other.
Leading us in this exploration are over a dozen writers and teachers who will be regularly contributing to this channel as well as talented and thoughtful guest columnists.
A list of these outstanding authors can be seen by putting your cursor over the "Columnists" link on the on the white navigation bar at the top of the TOB channel. Coordinating the contributors to this new channel is Steve Pokorny. Steve has an MA in Theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville, received training from Christopher West, and will be completing his studies at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family Studies in 2009.
Assisting him will be Kevin Whelan a business professional, who shares his personal reflection through the lens of a married man and demonstrates that the message of Theology of the Body is relevant to older men.
Columnist Fr. Thomas J. Loya will be known to many CE readers as a weekly host and guest on Relevant Radio. He offers a prospective of Theology of the Body from the rich tradition of Eastern Christianity. Another religious contributor is Sr. Mary Paul Friemel, OSF, who both teaches and studies theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. She brings a dynamic, young consecrated woman's view to the subject.
Monica Ashour and Annie Vining of the Theology of the Body Institute bring with them the experience of teaching this material to thousands of Catholics of all ages and walks of life. They join Dave Sloan, Christopher West, Dan Spadaro, and a number of other writers obeying the call of Pope John Paul to use the media to reach the world with the gospel of life.
Since this new channel will make Theology of the body accessible to all kinds of readers we have designed this channel to sort the articles according to various topics. Put your cursor on the "TOB for All" link on the white navigation bar at the top of the channel and a drop down menu reveals the rich selection of topics:
TOB for Consecrated Lives
TOB for Men
TOB for Spouses
TOB for Women
TOB for Young Adults
The NFP Way to Love
The Pornography Trap
We are lighting the fuse of this theological time bomb!
Let it catch fire in you, transform you and heal your relationships today!
P.S. An outstanding selection of articles is ready for your exploration on our new Theology of the Body channel -- with new content and features coming online or being filled in over the new few weeks:
Reader's comment blocks
Video and podcast
An improved CE forum
We rely on your donations to make it all possible. Please donate today and help us continue to grow!
Three Cheers to Mary Kochan for making it happen!
Sounds Irresistible!
Tripods Attack! By John McNichol
Sixteen-year-old Gilbert Chesterton is orphaned and friendless, stuck working a menial job in grimy turn-of-the-century London. Then one night strange lights fill the sky, and a hail of giant meteors crashes into a field outside the city. The next day Gilbert is amazed to find himself hired by a newspaper and rushed out to investigate the scene. Is it a harmless natural phenomenon, or the first wave of a Martian invasion?
Gilbert soon learns he's not the only one asking that question, and he's joined by three strangers with their own interest in the fantastic events:
Herb Wells, journalist for a rival paper. Affable, streetwise, and selfconfident, Herb's only too happy to teach young Gilbert the ways of the world. But when it comes to getting the story (and the fame) he warns it's every man for himself.
An enigmatic bearded man known only as the Doctor. He's suave, cultured, and friendly — maybe too friendly. And he knows things about the cosmic visitors. . .things no ordinary man should know. How much he's hiding is anybody's guess.
Father Brown, a short, mild, middle-aged priest with an extraordinary talent for solving mysteries. Gilbert doesn't know much about Christ or the Church, but Father Brown will teach him lessons of faith, love, and courage.
The companions fly frantically from danger to danger, battling street thugs from London's underworld and mechanical creatures from another world. As Gilbert is drawn deeper into the threat of the mysterious tripods, he unveils a sinister conspiracy that may hold the key not only to the fate of mankind, but to the accident that took his parents' life. And so with only his friends, his wits, and a tattered holy card to help him, Gilbert must race to save the world — all the while struggling to reconcile his troubling past with his budding faith in God.
The Tripods Attack! is the first volume of the Young Chesterton Chronicles, a delightfully inventive fiction series for teens to adults that re-imagines the famous Catholic author as a young man living in an alternative Edwardian age of steam-driven wonders.
Read an excerpt.
Tripods Attack! By John McNichol
Sixteen-year-old Gilbert Chesterton is orphaned and friendless, stuck working a menial job in grimy turn-of-the-century London. Then one night strange lights fill the sky, and a hail of giant meteors crashes into a field outside the city. The next day Gilbert is amazed to find himself hired by a newspaper and rushed out to investigate the scene. Is it a harmless natural phenomenon, or the first wave of a Martian invasion?
Gilbert soon learns he's not the only one asking that question, and he's joined by three strangers with their own interest in the fantastic events:
Herb Wells, journalist for a rival paper. Affable, streetwise, and selfconfident, Herb's only too happy to teach young Gilbert the ways of the world. But when it comes to getting the story (and the fame) he warns it's every man for himself.
An enigmatic bearded man known only as the Doctor. He's suave, cultured, and friendly — maybe too friendly. And he knows things about the cosmic visitors. . .things no ordinary man should know. How much he's hiding is anybody's guess.
Father Brown, a short, mild, middle-aged priest with an extraordinary talent for solving mysteries. Gilbert doesn't know much about Christ or the Church, but Father Brown will teach him lessons of faith, love, and courage.
The companions fly frantically from danger to danger, battling street thugs from London's underworld and mechanical creatures from another world. As Gilbert is drawn deeper into the threat of the mysterious tripods, he unveils a sinister conspiracy that may hold the key not only to the fate of mankind, but to the accident that took his parents' life. And so with only his friends, his wits, and a tattered holy card to help him, Gilbert must race to save the world — all the while struggling to reconcile his troubling past with his budding faith in God.
The Tripods Attack! is the first volume of the Young Chesterton Chronicles, a delightfully inventive fiction series for teens to adults that re-imagines the famous Catholic author as a young man living in an alternative Edwardian age of steam-driven wonders.
Read an excerpt.
Minimalism and Maximalism
The delightful Tim Jones writes:
Hmmm.... first time I've had my blog compared to a candy bar. Don't forget the rich, creamy pepperoni.
But I digress.
I agree with you that there remains the problem of prisoners who are dangers to other prisoners. And if we really lack the means to ensure that they cannot kill again, I think this is exactly the sort of thing the Church has in mind when it says that it is legitimate to execute such offenders.
That said, my point was not "Keep capital offenders alive, even when they constitute an ongoing mortal threat to the community." Rather, what I was objecting to is the tendency of many on the right to labor at minimize, ridicule, explain away, thwart, oppose, rationalize, ignore and otherwise dissent from Church teachings about capital punishment, just as those on the Left will do the same thing about teachings they dislike concerning say, contraception.
The basic problem seems to me to be a law-based approach to discipleship that asks not, "How do I follow the teaching of Holy Mother Church to the best of my ability?" but instead asks, "What's the absolute bare minimum I can get away with doing and still make the cut?"
So, for instance, last week, when I noted that zealots for the death penalty spend a great deal of time employing the same rhetorical strategies as Catholics for a Free Choice do, what was notable was the dog the *didn't* bark. The pro-death penalty folk spent all their time focused on the fact that abortion is intrinsically immoral and the death penalty is not, a fact I granted from the outset. The notion that lay at the back of their entire line of argument was this: You *have* listen to the Church on matters of intrinsic immorality (at least when it comes to abortion, though you can minimize, ridicule, explain away, thwart, oppose, rationalize, ignore and otherwise dissent from Church teachings about torture). But on matters of "prudential judgement" you can basically ignore the Church. The goal is to just barely make the cut, not to try your best to employ the Church's teaching to the maximum extent, to save the maximum number of people from the death penalty.
It's the drive to minimize vs. the drive to maximize that interests me regarding the DP. There has *always* been a spectrum of responses to the death penalty. Some zealots will appeal to the Old Testament, but even there, the death penalty was not always applied to those who deserved it. Jesus, likewise, spared people the death penalty (indeed, he spared us all the death penalty, since we are all guilty of his blood). And the Church throughout the ages has *never* insisted that every last person worthy of capital punishment receive it.
So when the Church in the modern era basically teaches, "Unless you absolutely have to, don't use the death penalty" she is presenting us with a call as disciples. Work to minimize the death penalty as much as possible. However, if we are thinking like lawyers instead of disciples, we can often go on trying to figure out how we can execute the most prisoners possible and still make the cut. It is that mindset I attack in my post last week. When the Church says "Minimize X" and we "No! I want to maximize X!" we are dissenting against the Church. It matters not one whit whether X is intrinsically immoral or not, because the question is not about our attitude to X, but about our attitude to Holy Mother Church.
The delightful Tim Jones writes:
I'm truly conflicted on the use of the death penalty, at least in modern Western societies. It would not break my heart to see it abolished, but on the other hand you have concerns like the ones I address in this brief post.
One of the arguments that moves me to think it may still be necessary at times is the fact that violent people continue to be violent in prison, and routinely maim and kill other inmates and prison personnel.
As always, I appreciate the consistently solid Catholicity that is the chewy center of the yummy chocolate bar that is your blog.
Hmmm.... first time I've had my blog compared to a candy bar. Don't forget the rich, creamy pepperoni.
But I digress.
I agree with you that there remains the problem of prisoners who are dangers to other prisoners. And if we really lack the means to ensure that they cannot kill again, I think this is exactly the sort of thing the Church has in mind when it says that it is legitimate to execute such offenders.
That said, my point was not "Keep capital offenders alive, even when they constitute an ongoing mortal threat to the community." Rather, what I was objecting to is the tendency of many on the right to labor at minimize, ridicule, explain away, thwart, oppose, rationalize, ignore and otherwise dissent from Church teachings about capital punishment, just as those on the Left will do the same thing about teachings they dislike concerning say, contraception.
The basic problem seems to me to be a law-based approach to discipleship that asks not, "How do I follow the teaching of Holy Mother Church to the best of my ability?" but instead asks, "What's the absolute bare minimum I can get away with doing and still make the cut?"
So, for instance, last week, when I noted that zealots for the death penalty spend a great deal of time employing the same rhetorical strategies as Catholics for a Free Choice do, what was notable was the dog the *didn't* bark. The pro-death penalty folk spent all their time focused on the fact that abortion is intrinsically immoral and the death penalty is not, a fact I granted from the outset. The notion that lay at the back of their entire line of argument was this: You *have* listen to the Church on matters of intrinsic immorality (at least when it comes to abortion, though you can minimize, ridicule, explain away, thwart, oppose, rationalize, ignore and otherwise dissent from Church teachings about torture). But on matters of "prudential judgement" you can basically ignore the Church. The goal is to just barely make the cut, not to try your best to employ the Church's teaching to the maximum extent, to save the maximum number of people from the death penalty.
It's the drive to minimize vs. the drive to maximize that interests me regarding the DP. There has *always* been a spectrum of responses to the death penalty. Some zealots will appeal to the Old Testament, but even there, the death penalty was not always applied to those who deserved it. Jesus, likewise, spared people the death penalty (indeed, he spared us all the death penalty, since we are all guilty of his blood). And the Church throughout the ages has *never* insisted that every last person worthy of capital punishment receive it.
So when the Church in the modern era basically teaches, "Unless you absolutely have to, don't use the death penalty" she is presenting us with a call as disciples. Work to minimize the death penalty as much as possible. However, if we are thinking like lawyers instead of disciples, we can often go on trying to figure out how we can execute the most prisoners possible and still make the cut. It is that mindset I attack in my post last week. When the Church says "Minimize X" and we "No! I want to maximize X!" we are dissenting against the Church. It matters not one whit whether X is intrinsically immoral or not, because the question is not about our attitude to X, but about our attitude to Holy Mother Church.
Friday, June 27, 2008
As you may have gathered...
I'm pretty busy today so blogging will be light. As a sop, here's what some of us writer types are reading this summer.
I'm pretty busy today so blogging will be light. As a sop, here's what some of us writer types are reading this summer.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
I haven't read Doonesbury in ages
But it would appear that Trudeau isn't quite ready fall down in worship and adoration of the Son of God.
But it would appear that Trudeau isn't quite ready fall down in worship and adoration of the Son of God.
Discovering His Lack of Infinitude
When President Bush's dear, dear Saudi friends gaze upon him with cold, reptilian eyes, listen to his pleas for lower oil prices, and then turn from this annoying interruption to their hookahs and continue the conversation about how much to gouge us, it appears that the man finally starts to realize that the resources of America are not infinite.
Just a few years ago, he was announcing his newfound messianic mission of slaying monsters the world over:
This discovery of the Penumbra that "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands" was unheard of by guys like John Quincy Adams, who famously said, "Wherever the standard of freedom or independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her (Americaís) heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to slay."
But Bush, with messianic enthusiasm not unlike a libery Supreme Court Justice, got it into his head that it was America's mission, not merely to cheer for freedom, but to make sure it happened "in all the world". The result has been that our perfectly just defensive war against the murderers of 9/11 morphed into our No End in Sight Adventure in Iraq, costing endless gobs of money, treasured blood, and guaranteeing that we will be there, sometimes fighting, sometimes simply manning an imperial outpost, for generations to come. The lies "There is no doubt that Saddam has WMDs", "We do not torture", "When they stand up, we'll stand down" have supported the whole project. And, of course, like all acts of evil, this unjust war has had some good end in mind (shifting and kaleidoscopic though it has been) "freedom", "democracy" etc.. But at the end of his Administration, Bush leaves behind a USA that is much weaker, with a military that is being asked to perform Herculean feats under increasing strain, while the man who murdered 3000 Americans is still on the loose (and, by March 13, 2002, regarded as unimportant by Bush), and our economy is still beholden to the country that *gave* us those 19 butchers of 9/11.
So in a moment that looks much like an act of senility for Bush "conservatism", the most saber-rattling secular messianic President in decades suddenly declares that North Korea is peachy. Why North Korea but not Iran or Cuba? Who knows? They are all equally untrustworthy. My guess is simply that Bush is recognizing that the Globocop budget won't support his dream of Infinitude, so he's crossing them off the Axis of Evil list first because a) they aren't near oil, b) they aren't near Israel and c) we don't have a long history of double dog swearing that we will never back down as we do with Cuba.
It's a total betrayal of everything else Bush has said, of course. If "the survival of liberty" really depends on ending tyranny in North Korea, then Bush's action deliberately jeopardizes the survival of liberty here. But in the topsy turvy world of postmodern conservatism, such betrayal of principle may well work out to be a good thing, since it is highly dubious that the existence of tyranny elsewhere in the world is quite the matter of life and death for the United States that Bush claimed as he was stirring enthusiasm for his war of choice. Mostly likely, it means "One less monster to slay." Such circumspection in the face of our finitude is good. Perhaps the man is learning some prudence at last.
When President Bush's dear, dear Saudi friends gaze upon him with cold, reptilian eyes, listen to his pleas for lower oil prices, and then turn from this annoying interruption to their hookahs and continue the conversation about how much to gouge us, it appears that the man finally starts to realize that the resources of America are not infinite.
Just a few years ago, he was announcing his newfound messianic mission of slaying monsters the world over:
The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.
This discovery of the Penumbra that "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands" was unheard of by guys like John Quincy Adams, who famously said, "Wherever the standard of freedom or independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her (Americaís) heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to slay."
But Bush, with messianic enthusiasm not unlike a libery Supreme Court Justice, got it into his head that it was America's mission, not merely to cheer for freedom, but to make sure it happened "in all the world". The result has been that our perfectly just defensive war against the murderers of 9/11 morphed into our No End in Sight Adventure in Iraq, costing endless gobs of money, treasured blood, and guaranteeing that we will be there, sometimes fighting, sometimes simply manning an imperial outpost, for generations to come. The lies "There is no doubt that Saddam has WMDs", "We do not torture", "When they stand up, we'll stand down" have supported the whole project. And, of course, like all acts of evil, this unjust war has had some good end in mind (shifting and kaleidoscopic though it has been) "freedom", "democracy" etc.. But at the end of his Administration, Bush leaves behind a USA that is much weaker, with a military that is being asked to perform Herculean feats under increasing strain, while the man who murdered 3000 Americans is still on the loose (and, by March 13, 2002, regarded as unimportant by Bush), and our economy is still beholden to the country that *gave* us those 19 butchers of 9/11.
So in a moment that looks much like an act of senility for Bush "conservatism", the most saber-rattling secular messianic President in decades suddenly declares that North Korea is peachy. Why North Korea but not Iran or Cuba? Who knows? They are all equally untrustworthy. My guess is simply that Bush is recognizing that the Globocop budget won't support his dream of Infinitude, so he's crossing them off the Axis of Evil list first because a) they aren't near oil, b) they aren't near Israel and c) we don't have a long history of double dog swearing that we will never back down as we do with Cuba.
It's a total betrayal of everything else Bush has said, of course. If "the survival of liberty" really depends on ending tyranny in North Korea, then Bush's action deliberately jeopardizes the survival of liberty here. But in the topsy turvy world of postmodern conservatism, such betrayal of principle may well work out to be a good thing, since it is highly dubious that the existence of tyranny elsewhere in the world is quite the matter of life and death for the United States that Bush claimed as he was stirring enthusiasm for his war of choice. Mostly likely, it means "One less monster to slay." Such circumspection in the face of our finitude is good. Perhaps the man is learning some prudence at last.
USCCB Offers More Teaching for self-described Faithful Conservative Catholics to Attempt to Subvert
Here's how:
Last night, Fr. Bernhard Blankenhorn gave a great talk on Consequentialism at the UW Newman Center. One of the remarks he made was that a pursuit of Catholic morality that is based on rules and duty rather than on a Christian conception of virtue inevitably leads to minimalist thinking (as in "What's the least I can get away with in obedience to God and still make the grade?"). This mode of thinking is fine legalism, but lousy Christianity. "ike the man who asks, "How often do I have to kiss my wife, and how close can I get to my secretary before its technically 'adultery'?" it betrays a heart that is uncomprehending of love, but acutely alive to self-interest.
A discussion of torture (or any other morally dubious cultural enthusiasm) which begins by seeking every conceivable way to define it out of existence or tiptoe as close as possible to it without getting caught is, likewise, corrupt from the start. We begin, as Catholics, by pursuing virtue (in this case, by asking "How can we treat prisoners humanely and still get the intel we need?", rather than by trying to figure out how minimally we can obey Catholic teaching and still get a passing grade.
Here's how:
The basic guidelines the Church proposes are pretty simple
1. Don't do evil that good may come of it.
2. Some things are intrinsically evil, meaning you *can't* do them under any circumstance.
3. Torture is one of these things.
4. If you are confused about what "torture" is, then bear in mind the Church's *other* command, which is that we must treat prisoners humanely, not merely "not torture them". Aim for that, and you won't accidently torture them.
5. Seek the intelligence you need while bearing in mind the above.
Some of the basic attempts to get around this elementary thought process are:
1. The Euphemism Gambit. The Torture Apologist has no better friend than the scare quote. Take any outrage against human dignity, stick it in scare quotes, and voila! You've suddenly announced that both the victim and the protestor against the outrage are faintly ridiculous bed-wetters we can all snicker at. So you write, for instance, "Some Defeatacrats who care more about terrorists than about the 3000 people we lost on 9/11 whine that waterboarding is "torture", but I think blah blah blah, etc." Also useful to the Euphemist is the Orwellian multi-syllabic word. Don't call it "strappado" or "the cold cell". That makes people think of the Spanish Inquisition or the terrifying basement of Stalin's Lubyanka. Call it "enhanced interrogation" (NOT "Verschärfte Vernehmung" even thought that means "enhanced interrogation"). That upbeat yet bland phrase makes people think "Our interrogation scientists in their clean white lab coats are making wonderful breakthroughs in the science of Keeping Us Safe!"
2. The "Appeal to the Extremely Hypothetical Extreme Situation" gambit (the Ticking Time Bomb, for instance).
3. The "Pretend It's Impossible to Ever Know What Torture Is" gambit. This is done by saying, "Oh. I oppose torture, but could you please define for me *precisely* what torture is in a way that can never ever ever create the slightest semantic confusion in a forum of 2000 internet readers who are bound and determined to look for loopholes? I promise I am totally sincere!" In short, you pretend to be baffled about how to define torture for ever, reject all attempted definitions, refuse to offer your own, and then shrug that, much as you'd like to obey the Church, there's simply no way to know what torture is, so it's best to just maintain the status quo (which just happens to be that the Bush Administration can order the torture of anybody it deems an illegal combatant).
4. The "Pre-Vatican II Praxis Trumps Wussy Post-Vatican Teaching" ploy. This is accomplished by appealing to the practice of the medieval Church and then, by sleight of hand, imagining that praxis=definition of doctrine. The goal here is ultimately to deny that the Church's development of doctrine with respect to dignity of the human person really counts and that therefore torture is still okay. Something like this is also attempted by pro-choicers who love to appeal to St. Thomas and his notion of ensoulment at 40 days.
5. The "Human Rights are Only for *Legally Recognized* Human Beings" feint. This is a favorite for people who fancy themselves masters of international law. The argument is basically the same as Catholics for a Free Choice. Point to some loophole in human law and use it to trump the law of God. The Catholics for a Free Choice person says "I can't see where a fetus is a human being in the image and likeness of God in US law, so let's kill it!" The torture advocate says, "I can't see where an illegal combatant is a human being in the image and likeness of God in international *or* US law, so let's torture it!"
6. The "We Can Kill People in Wartime, So Why Can't We Torture Them Too?" maneuver. The key is to will yourself to be too stupid to recognize the difference between shooting somebody in combat and mowing helpless prisoners down with a machine gun. Once an enemy becomes a prisoner, you can't shoot him anymore because he possesses certain rights as a human being in the image of God. For the same reason, you can't torture him.
7. The "These Bastards Deserve Whatever They Get!" shout. While cathartic, what this line of emoting fails to attend to is that we have now departed the last shred of sanity in justifying torture and made clear that the purpose of torture is not "gathering intelligence" (it is notoriously bad for that) but working out our vengeance against and hatred of the enemy. That is one of the reasons the Church opposes it: it degrades us. The victim suffers the pains of this life, but we endanger our own souls with the everlasting pains of hell. In addition, it overlooks the fact that some of the people we have tortured did not, in fact, "deserve" it. 80% of the victims at Abu Ghraib had not been charged with anything. Maher Arar: perfectly innocent. Abdallah Higazy: innocent. Dilawar: innocent. So the result is very often that you lose your soul and get *nothing* in return. Or else you get bad intel like the "confessions" of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that sent us off on wild goose chases (confessions extracted after threatening to torture his *children*, by the way).
8. The "We've only tortured three people" rationalization. In addition to being a lie (we've tortured a lot more than three), it's also utterly bizarre for a Catholic to make this argument. If I were to murder your mother, I doubt you'd be consoled if I told you "Hey! I've only commited *one* murder." The point is not the number. The point is that one grave sin sends you to Hell. In addition, a secondary point (particularly as it touches on the public good) is that it establishes legal precedent for torturing as many people as Caesar pleases. If you declare Jane Roe's abortion legal, you declare everybody's abortion legal. The Executive now claims the right to declare anybody it likes an enemy combatant, detain them for as long as it likes, and torture them. It doesn't matter to me a bit that they've only exercised that newly minted right a few times. It matters enormously that they've claimed it and we've let them do it. Ave Bush Imperator!
9. Related to the ploy above is the "Hey! It's not like we're beheading people like *they* are" excuse. In the past, Catholic moral reasoning began with the teaching of Christ, not with "Be less cruel and evil than your enemy".
10. Also popular is the "So you're saying we should give the terrorists a kiss and a glass of warm milk and tuck them in at night!" This is a favorite straw man approach from people suffering from the bipolar notion that the only alternative to war crimes is delusional happy face pollyanna unreality. Such people forget that this is not the first war we've ever fought and that we do have a long experience of treating prisoners humanely without torturing them.
11. This amnesia also accounts for another favorite rhetorical trope: The "9/11 Changed Everything" cry of Generation Narcissus. Being a Generation that fancies itself the summit of all human history, it is a generation that tends to talk as Never Before Have We Faced Such Evil. Therefore, war crimes are okay because it not like we're fighting pantywaists like Nazis and Communists. We are the grand exception to the general rule against war crimes because our enemies are uniquely, extra-special super-duper evil. Ours is a high and lonely destiny, etc. blah blah.
12. The "Screw the Out-of-Touch Bishops Who Know Nothing of War as I, a Guy with a Laptop Computer, Do" technique. When you run out of options as far as trying to make the Church say what it so obviously does not say, there's always the option of just telling the Church to go to hell and screaming "We have no king but Caesar". Some Catholics prefer that direct route when it comes to justifying torture.
Last night, Fr. Bernhard Blankenhorn gave a great talk on Consequentialism at the UW Newman Center. One of the remarks he made was that a pursuit of Catholic morality that is based on rules and duty rather than on a Christian conception of virtue inevitably leads to minimalist thinking (as in "What's the least I can get away with in obedience to God and still make the grade?"). This mode of thinking is fine legalism, but lousy Christianity. "ike the man who asks, "How often do I have to kiss my wife, and how close can I get to my secretary before its technically 'adultery'?" it betrays a heart that is uncomprehending of love, but acutely alive to self-interest.
A discussion of torture (or any other morally dubious cultural enthusiasm) which begins by seeking every conceivable way to define it out of existence or tiptoe as close as possible to it without getting caught is, likewise, corrupt from the start. We begin, as Catholics, by pursuing virtue (in this case, by asking "How can we treat prisoners humanely and still get the intel we need?", rather than by trying to figure out how minimally we can obey Catholic teaching and still get a passing grade.
Lefties in Spain Go Ape
In another "What could it hurt" moment, the Spanish Left decides to confer human right on non-human creatures.
No word on when the congruent responsibilities will be expected of Bonzo and Co. However, we can assume that since rights are now a matter of sentiment and not of the nature of the human person, that they can just as easily be taken away from people as given to cute critters. When pigs have the same rights as men, it's just a matter of time before somebody finds it expedient to treat men like pigs.
In another "What could it hurt" moment, the Spanish Left decides to confer human right on non-human creatures.
No word on when the congruent responsibilities will be expected of Bonzo and Co. However, we can assume that since rights are now a matter of sentiment and not of the nature of the human person, that they can just as easily be taken away from people as given to cute critters. When pigs have the same rights as men, it's just a matter of time before somebody finds it expedient to treat men like pigs.
The South: It's not Like Here
A reader writes:
I suppose this is as good a time as any to congratulate any and all second amendment enthusiasts. I myself lack much passion about the matter. But as a general rule, I prefer that the Bill of Right remain intact.
So: cheers!
Update: Speaking of Southerners, Feddie pops a Papist champagne cork!
A reader writes:
And what other state senate voted for tax free holidays for the purchase of
guns?
Welcome to South Carolina!
I suppose this is as good a time as any to congratulate any and all second amendment enthusiasts. I myself lack much passion about the matter. But as a general rule, I prefer that the Bill of Right remain intact.
So: cheers!
Update: Speaking of Southerners, Feddie pops a Papist champagne cork!
Anglicanism Nearly Finished Destroying Itself
It seems geologic ages of time since Sayers, Williams and Lewis walked the earth.
And yet it's only been 50-60 years. Think about that when somebody says "What could happen in the space of a few years?" Stable societies can, under the right circumstances, collapse with incredible speed.
It seems geologic ages of time since Sayers, Williams and Lewis walked the earth.
And yet it's only been 50-60 years. Think about that when somebody says "What could happen in the space of a few years?" Stable societies can, under the right circumstances, collapse with incredible speed.
The Son of God Reaches Out to Prolifers
Dobson has said and done some screwy things. His prostitution for Bush No Matter What has not ennobled him. And his whack enthusiasm for mad Evangelical/Israeli eschatologies is nuts. But in a contest between him and the wild-eyed partisans of maximum baby-killing that constitute the Obama campaign and the Dem leadership, I'll take Dobson any day of the week.
Dobson stirred, and looked up. "What have you to say that you did not say at our last meeting?" he asked. "Or, perhaps, you have things to unsay?"
Obama paused. "Unsay?" he mused, as if puzzled. "Unsay? I endeavoured to advise you for your own good, but you scarcely listened. You are proud and do not love advice, having indeed a store of your own wisdom. But on that occasion you erred, I think, misconstruing my intentions wilfully. I fear that in my eagerness to persuade you, I lost patience. And indeed I regret it. For I bore you know ill-will; and even now I bear none, though you return to me in the company of the violent and the ignorant. How should I? Are we not both members of a high and ancient order, most excellent in Middle-earth? Our friendship would profit us both alike. Much we could still accomplish together, to heal the disorders of the world. Let us understand one another, and dismiss from thought these lesser folk! Let them wait on our decisions! For the common good I am willing to redress the past, and to receive you. Will you not consult with me? Will you not come up?
Dobson has said and done some screwy things. His prostitution for Bush No Matter What has not ennobled him. And his whack enthusiasm for mad Evangelical/Israeli eschatologies is nuts. But in a contest between him and the wild-eyed partisans of maximum baby-killing that constitute the Obama campaign and the Dem leadership, I'll take Dobson any day of the week.
Interesting discussion of Segregation, Zora Neale Hurston, and John Paul II
It's something I've not given much thought to. I'd be interested in hearing from my African-American readers. It seems to me that segregation is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, of course, freedom of movement, freedom to live where you please and go where you please is a basic aspect of a healthy society. So segregation was a grave evil.
On the other hand, the *use* a community makes of segregation--whether it be early Christians who were periodically black-balled by "normal" Romans, or Jews who developed a distinct culture in the ghettos of Europe, or Americans or Aussies who did the same when they were banished from England, or the black culture Hurston celebrated--has often been very beneficial to a people. I'd never really thought about that before.
That does not justify American policies of segregation. To propose a return to segregation on the grounds that it gave Black America a more coherent culture would be, I think, a textbook case of "Let us do evil that good may come of it." But I can see what Hurston is talking about and it is obvious to me that she is writing out of a fierce sort of local patriotism (which is, to my mind, the best sort of patriotism) for Black culture. I can't help thinking she and Chesterton would have got on famously and that everything she is saying is echoed in The Napoleon of Notting Hill.
Anyway, I'd be interested in comments.
It's something I've not given much thought to. I'd be interested in hearing from my African-American readers. It seems to me that segregation is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, of course, freedom of movement, freedom to live where you please and go where you please is a basic aspect of a healthy society. So segregation was a grave evil.
On the other hand, the *use* a community makes of segregation--whether it be early Christians who were periodically black-balled by "normal" Romans, or Jews who developed a distinct culture in the ghettos of Europe, or Americans or Aussies who did the same when they were banished from England, or the black culture Hurston celebrated--has often been very beneficial to a people. I'd never really thought about that before.
That does not justify American policies of segregation. To propose a return to segregation on the grounds that it gave Black America a more coherent culture would be, I think, a textbook case of "Let us do evil that good may come of it." But I can see what Hurston is talking about and it is obvious to me that she is writing out of a fierce sort of local patriotism (which is, to my mind, the best sort of patriotism) for Black culture. I can't help thinking she and Chesterton would have got on famously and that everything she is saying is echoed in The Napoleon of Notting Hill.
Anyway, I'd be interested in comments.
Pew: Only 60% of Catholics believe in a personal God
Another triumph for catechesis!
On a serious note: As Sherry points out, there are a lot of factors I'd like to see clarified. Who is "Catholic". What does "personal" mean to these people? (C.S. Lewis once had a long conversation with somebody who denied that God was "personal" only to slowly have it dawn on him that the guy meant "corporeal".) So I'd want a lot more detail before I set *too* much store by the poll. But I have to say there certainly is a lot more work to be done.
Another triumph for catechesis!
On a serious note: As Sherry points out, there are a lot of factors I'd like to see clarified. Who is "Catholic". What does "personal" mean to these people? (C.S. Lewis once had a long conversation with somebody who denied that God was "personal" only to slowly have it dawn on him that the guy meant "corporeal".) So I'd want a lot more detail before I set *too* much store by the poll. But I have to say there certainly is a lot more work to be done.
The other day, John Zmirak wrote:
Roughly speaking, the Left in this country is dedicated to the proposition that God must be stopped from interfering in the former while the Right is dedicated to the proposition that God must be stopped from interfering in the latter.
And while each side labors to do its bit in subverting the obvious teaching of the Church, the partisans of each side assured themselves and everybody else that they mean well, so that makes it alright.
We have a remarkably cartoonish notion of evil in our culture. As though those who do evil get up in the morning thinking, "How can I do Evil with a capital E today?" Almost nobody gets that evil is invariably the pursuit of a good end by disordered means and that, therefore, every evil doer in the world can say with some sort of plausibility (to himself if to nobody else) "I meant well".
Evil is always parasitic on good. Therefore, the person who aims to subvert the Church's teaching can always point to some good end as the excuse for doing so.
If you are inclined to commence the hair-splitting over abortion vs. capital punishment as intrinsically immoral (aka "Minimum Daily Adult Requirement Discipleship") I'm already fully aware of it. Yes, I get that the death penalty is not intrinsically immoral. That does not make it good. It does not make it ideal. And it does not alter the fact that Holy Church says:
The response of the disciple, as distinct from the loophole-seeker, is to desire to implement that in civil society. The principal difference between Jindal and Ted Kennedy is that he simply happens to want to subvert the Church's teaching on a matter of slightly less moral weight than abortion. But seek to subvert it he does.
Only Kennedy does not insult our intelligence by claiming to be a "faithful conservative Catholic".
For some 20 centuries, the greatest minds in the West meditated on Sacred Scripture, in the light of human reason, to form an elaborate and detailed tradition of moral reflection -- whose most important conclusions have been canonized by papal or conciliar declarations, some of them infallible. Which is, of course, kind of a drag.
The most annoying intrusions of divine authority into the conduct of our own affairs occur when the Church attempts to channel and elevate our most primal instincts, the things pertaining to our animal nature -- by which I mean principally having sex with people or killing them.
Roughly speaking, the Left in this country is dedicated to the proposition that God must be stopped from interfering in the former while the Right is dedicated to the proposition that God must be stopped from interfering in the latter.
And while each side labors to do its bit in subverting the obvious teaching of the Church, the partisans of each side assured themselves and everybody else that they mean well, so that makes it alright.
We have a remarkably cartoonish notion of evil in our culture. As though those who do evil get up in the morning thinking, "How can I do Evil with a capital E today?" Almost nobody gets that evil is invariably the pursuit of a good end by disordered means and that, therefore, every evil doer in the world can say with some sort of plausibility (to himself if to nobody else) "I meant well".
Evil is always parasitic on good. Therefore, the person who aims to subvert the Church's teaching can always point to some good end as the excuse for doing so.
If you are inclined to commence the hair-splitting over abortion vs. capital punishment as intrinsically immoral (aka "Minimum Daily Adult Requirement Discipleship") I'm already fully aware of it. Yes, I get that the death penalty is not intrinsically immoral. That does not make it good. It does not make it ideal. And it does not alter the fact that Holy Church says:
2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent."
The response of the disciple, as distinct from the loophole-seeker, is to desire to implement that in civil society. The principal difference between Jindal and Ted Kennedy is that he simply happens to want to subvert the Church's teaching on a matter of slightly less moral weight than abortion. But seek to subvert it he does.
Only Kennedy does not insult our intelligence by claiming to be a "faithful conservative Catholic".
Genuine Patriotism
God speed the day when the stain this Administration has put on our national honor is washed clean.
ENDORSE A DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES FOR A PRESIDENTIAL EXECUTIVE ORDER BANNING TORTURE
Dear NRCAT Supporters:
NRCAT, in alliance with Evangelicals for Human Rights and the Center for Victims of Torture, launched an effort today that calls upon the President to issue an executive order banning torture based on six core principles embodied in a Declaration of Principles . We are calling this effort the "Campaign to Ban Torture." Prominent faith leaders from Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh communities, as well top officials from every Administration since the 1970s, have joined together to endorse the Declaration of Principles. You can click here to view the list of endorsees.
The success of this effort depends upon thousands of people of faith and other opponents of torture joining together to endorse the Declaration of Principles. Your endorsement will help end U.S.-sponsored torture. We urge you to endorse the Declaration.
We also ask that you:
· Urge five friends to endorse;
· Urge members of your congregations to endorse;
· Urge the governing body of your congregation, the regional body of your denomination or faith group and your local interfaith or ecumenical body to endorse.
You can click here for resources and suggestions for enhancing this effort. You can also click here to read today's New York Times article about the Campaign.
With the combined efforts of people of faith and military and national security leaders, we hope to develop a national consensus that the President should issue an executive order banning torture.
Thank you for taking action to help end U.S.-sponsored torture.
Sincerely,
Linda Gustitus, President, NRCAT Board of Directors
Rev. Richard Killmer, Executive Director
God speed the day when the stain this Administration has put on our national honor is washed clean.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Darkened Intellect Serves the Fallen Will
In which we discuss the corrosive acid bath of a morality that insists "all you need is mutual consent".
In which we discuss the corrosive acid bath of a morality that insists "all you need is mutual consent".
Sad News
A reader writes:
May her soul and all the souls of the children Jesus loved so dwell in eternal light with Him. And may her family, through the cross of Christ, come to know the love of the Crucified One more deeply in this hour.
A reader writes:
Hello. I wanted to let you all know that Baby Cate has gone home to heaven and thank you for your prayers for her and her family. Please keep her family, especially her parents, in your prayers. They are people of great faith but still at a time like this I cannot imagine the loss they must feel.
The family is planning to post an update on their blog.
May her soul and all the souls of the children Jesus loved so dwell in eternal light with Him. And may her family, through the cross of Christ, come to know the love of the Crucified One more deeply in this hour.
A reader writes:
Lord, hear our prayer! Mother Mary and St. Luke, please pray for Anne and her family!
Would you and your readers be able to offer prayers for the recovery of my mother, Anne Walasek, who yesterday suffered a rapid and quite startling onset of Bell's Palsy? It's not the most threatening of ailments, and the prognosis is generally good, but it's certainly scary for her and highly uncomfortable besides.
Lord, hear our prayer! Mother Mary and St. Luke, please pray for Anne and her family!
McCain Not Zealous Pro-Abortion Fanatic like Obama. He Pretty Much Kind of Cares (If Life Issues Don't Get in the Way of Stuff that Really Matters to Him, like the War)!
What this means, in English, is that, for the moment, he favors the manufacture and murder of very small human beings, but is thinking that he might change his mind on that, or perhaps pursue other forms of ESCR in addition to the manufacture and murder of very young human beings, depending on how things go. And so you should vote for him because he's, well, better than nothing, I guess.
Elsewhere McCain demonstrates his "Let's not get carried away and do something" GOP credentials with this inspirational quote:
In short, the Republican party revs up the old "Keep Prolifers on the Reservation" Machine again. But you are dreaming if you think they are serious. McCain doesn't *want* a justice who will overrule Roe. True, he's not a pro-abort fanatic like Obama and the rest of the Party of Moloch. But that's it. He doesn't care. He'll take your vote if you are dumb enough to think think that his vague prolife mouthings will buy it. But you will continue to get what you've gotten for 25 years: a legal system that operates at roughly Carthaginian levels of respect for life. That's better than what Obama intends. But it's still piss poor.
Me: I'm voting third party. I just have to figure out which doomed quixotic campaign to back.
Money quote: McCain holds to the same pro-embryonic stem cell research position as Barack Obama but, unlike his pro-abortion opponent, McCain is open-minded to funding promising alternatives instead.
What this means, in English, is that, for the moment, he favors the manufacture and murder of very small human beings, but is thinking that he might change his mind on that, or perhaps pursue other forms of ESCR in addition to the manufacture and murder of very young human beings, depending on how things go. And so you should vote for him because he's, well, better than nothing, I guess.
Elsewhere McCain demonstrates his "Let's not get carried away and do something" GOP credentials with this inspirational quote:
"I’d love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations."
In short, the Republican party revs up the old "Keep Prolifers on the Reservation" Machine again. But you are dreaming if you think they are serious. McCain doesn't *want* a justice who will overrule Roe. True, he's not a pro-abort fanatic like Obama and the rest of the Party of Moloch. But that's it. He doesn't care. He'll take your vote if you are dumb enough to think think that his vague prolife mouthings will buy it. But you will continue to get what you've gotten for 25 years: a legal system that operates at roughly Carthaginian levels of respect for life. That's better than what Obama intends. But it's still piss poor.
Me: I'm voting third party. I just have to figure out which doomed quixotic campaign to back.
A reader writes from Canada
And there was much rejoicing.
Very few people were aware that there was a boycott of Sirius Canada due to their decision to drop EWTN (a radio service provided free, at no expense to Sirius - hence no profit motive could have made them drop it).
Anyway, they restored it today.
And there was much rejoicing.
The Dem Convention is Going to Be Freakin' Hilarious
One joyous clash of PC orthodoxies! Happily, my friends who live in Denver are outside the blast radius when all these ideologies collide and implode like matter and anti-matter.
"We have a union cap or an organic cap," Mr. DeMasse says. "But we don't
have a union-organic offering."
One joyous clash of PC orthodoxies! Happily, my friends who live in Denver are outside the blast radius when all these ideologies collide and implode like matter and anti-matter.
James Fagan: Walking Lawyer Joke?
It could be he is a devil in human form and is warning of his future personal behavior. Or it could just be that he is pointing to the effect this law will have on unscrupulous defense counsel behavior toward child witnesses when it is passed. Dunno. Wasn't there and don't know the context of his words. But I would not instantly assume the "devil in human form" hypothesis.
After reading this, I'm leaning more toward the "Hey! This is what defense attorneys will do, given the constraints of the this law" interpretation. I think the guy is basically saying, in effect, "You're dreaming that your new system will do what you want it to do. I'm telling you your new system design will do what you design it to do."
It could be he is a devil in human form and is warning of his future personal behavior. Or it could just be that he is pointing to the effect this law will have on unscrupulous defense counsel behavior toward child witnesses when it is passed. Dunno. Wasn't there and don't know the context of his words. But I would not instantly assume the "devil in human form" hypothesis.
After reading this, I'm leaning more toward the "Hey! This is what defense attorneys will do, given the constraints of the this law" interpretation. I think the guy is basically saying, in effect, "You're dreaming that your new system will do what you want it to do. I'm telling you your new system design will do what you design it to do."
Whenever I contemplate the single most whacked out parish in the American Catholic Church...
...(that'd be St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis/St. Paul), I am always heartened by the remembrance that what is, for the American Catholic Church, an extreme aberration is, for Episcopalianism, middle of the road and even somewhat conservative. I am even more heartened by this fact, when I read that their bishop is now applying pressure to the boil in preparation to lancing it. The main goal, of course, is to do so without spreading the infectious pus by making heroes and martyrs of these narcissists.
...(that'd be St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis/St. Paul), I am always heartened by the remembrance that what is, for the American Catholic Church, an extreme aberration is, for Episcopalianism, middle of the road and even somewhat conservative. I am even more heartened by this fact, when I read that their bishop is now applying pressure to the boil in preparation to lancing it. The main goal, of course, is to do so without spreading the infectious pus by making heroes and martyrs of these narcissists.
Margaret Cabannis, Inside Catholic's Editorial WonderChick, writes:
Thought you and your readers might be interested in the InsideCatholic Book Circle we're running July 14-18. Amy Welborn, Matthew Lickona, Joseph O'Brien, and Bishop Daniel Flores of Detroit will be discussing Ron Hansen's latest novel, Exiles, and we're encouraging readers to grab a copy and join in. We hope it to be a continuation of our blog discussion from a couple of months ago on the state of contemporary Catholic fiction. Should be a great conversation.
You can find all the pertinent info here.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Reader Red Cardigan Displays Her Awesome Textual Analysis Skills
She writes with the absolute certainty that can only be the mark of a true German biblical scholar:
I am not worthy. This is scholarship of a very high order indeed. Only a fool would doubt it.
She writes with the absolute certainty that can only be the mark of a true German biblical scholar:
Mark Shea and the Infamous Guadalajara Cherry Jello Bus Ride--decoded!
Once again in the annals of Shea we have a story that involves his encounter with an unlikely-named woman. Unlike the story of Shea's encounter with "Dawn Eden" (which probably signified someone of great intellect and purity of mind), though, in *this* tale Shea goes to the woman, instead of the woman coming to Shea.
This woman-figure, this aptronymic "Amy Welborn" which literally means a friend of good birth (and the fact that so many of these females have symbolic rather than actual names probably relates back to the stifling patriarchal impulses of the Early Sheavians) meets Shea, and they allegedly converse on many subjects--but then the conversation becomes a dream or mystical experience, involving the same unlikely locus as the earlier tales, though this time with the sort of vague dreaminess you'd expect from either mysticism or beer.
In the dream, Shea begins by acting the role of both Virgil and Beatrice, guiding the friend of noble birth down to the depths, and then contemplating with her the heights to which the spirit (or machines) may rise. But the Amy-friend takes the upper hand, assuming the Beatrice role herself as she regales the Shea with a tale of journeying, hardship, and the blasphemous conduct of those who seek to bring Jello into the desert--for our journey into the desert will always melt into liquid our lesser characteristics, "consecrating" them by draining them of their weakness and unworthiness until only the purified substance remains.
That much is obvious--but a greater question remains. Is this an authentic Shea story, or a completely fictional grafting-on by later Sheavians pursuing their own agendas?
Against its authenticity stand three incontrovertible facts:
1. The Shea-journey is completely devoid of all normal features, such as lost or sodden luggage, missed connections, flight delays, overbooked hotels, and the like. Since the original Sheavist author nearly always included such details, this story is dubious.
2. The dream-conversation, instead, involves the journey-hardship narrative (for what could be a greater hardship than to travel by bus to Mexico in the company of a Jello-toting sacrilegious cleric?). The over-the-top symbolism of this incident (particularly the fact that the Jello in question would be red in color, with all the obvious symbolism that connotes) also makes the story seem doubtful.
3. This story, this dream-within-a-dream, takes place in the context of a trip/conference/gathering that Shea was supposedly involved in. While evidence of the involvement of the Shea in these types of events is undisputed, the sheer number of contemporary luminaries supposedly in attendance at this one event is suspicious enough--coupled with the dream narrative it shrieks of misinterpretation at best.
What is all too likely is that some unknown contemporary of the Shea composed a hymn or paean in the Shea's honor, including the fictional journey, the fictional gathering, and the hyper-fictional mystical dream experience. I believe some evidence for this piece exists, though, alas, only the cryptic line "Brave Sir Robert ran away," remains to hint at the genius of the composition.
I am not worthy. This is scholarship of a very high order indeed. Only a fool would doubt it.
What I Saw at the Catholic New Media Celebration
After a refreshingly dull flight (any flight I don't remember for the rest of my life is a good one) I got into Atlanta Saturday evening and shuttled over to the Marriot. I got in around 8:00, had dinner, and as I was moseying back from the restaurant, saw a largish clutch of folk standing around talking. One of them had an SQPN shirt on and he was bald, so I strode up, stuck out my hand and said, "Greg?"
"Nope. Dave."
Turned out to be Dave Sweeney, one of Greg Willits' confederates (in a good sense, even though this was Georgia). Greg wasn't there, man.
We visited a bit and he introduced me to various folk and to The Computer. This was a laptop that was running streaming video from the party to, well, whoever it was that was watching the SQPN and Rosary Army Night Before the Convention Party. There was also a chat room where the people watching the video could write things like "Hey Shea really *is* that fat" (Okay, people were nice and didn't say things like that) or "OMG! LOL! LSMFT AFAIK!" in mysterious tongues of men or angels.
Joe McClane was there and he wandered around interviewing various peeps for his podcast. We gabbed briefly about New Media and you can hear all the interviews (including the one with me) here. After that, I met (in no particular order) Lisa Hendey (who chaired the blogger's panel the next day and (mercifully) did chauffeur duty for a bunch of us) and Josh LeBlanc, techno-master who heroically saved Catholic Exchange's bacon and power behind the throne at the Catholic Underground. At one point Steve and Janet Ray showed up cuz they were in town to address the Eucharistic Convention, so we chewed the fat, fiendishly Not Talking about James White, just to make him crazier. Then, fellow Catholic Exchanger Mary Kochan and her husband turned up and we visited for a while too.
At length, about six years after we first got to know each other via cyberspace, Amy Welborn and Mike Dubruiel turned up with some kidlets in tow. Mike I met at Franciscan University a few years ago but Amy I'd never actually seen, despite countless email from concerned strangers who would ask "Where is Amy?" on her periodic hiatuses. So I could finally, for a few hours, be able to reassure readers who wondered where Amy was and that I was certain of her whereabouts, cause she was sitting on the barstool next to me nursing a beer and talking shop. Nice gal and essentially the same real deal as you see on the blog (which figures cuz her blog is the real deal too).
We gabbed with Lisa Hendey a bit about a writing project she's working on, then we chatted with Chris Cash of the Catholic Company (who, by the way, is running a First Communion Photo Contest and who has a Reviewer Program for bloggers and other Internet content providers. As you can see, the conference was all about, 'ow you say?, "networking". Lino Rulli was also there (and he later told me, to my surprise that Howard Stern and Stern's producer have both been very supportive of him and his show on the Sirius network.) Whaddaya know?
Amy and I gabbed about blogging, the war, the election, fambly stuff, church politics, Communion and Liberation and whatnot till about midnight or so (Mike had trundled the kidlets off to bed), then we both realized what time it was and that we'd be useless in the AM without sleep. I wandered off to my room, fell asleep and wound up continuing the conversation with Amy all night in a dream.
Somehow, she and her family had come out to visit my wife and I in Seattle. While Jan was gardening on a fine day just like today, Amy and I wound up exploring this vast subterranean complex of bunkers with ledges that opened on bottomless pits. There were young seminarians there on some sort of retreat and we just clambered around, periodically looking over ledges into inky blackness. Eventually we decided to go back up and see how Jan was doing. As we came up and walked round the corner to the house, we noticed the sky was full of aircraft flying at an enormous height, so we started speculating whether they were civilian or military. Jan joined in and we chatted a bit more.
Then, somehow, Amy started relating, in *arch* tones, the story of her long ago Bus Trip to Guadalajara. The way in which she told the story made it clear that this story was infamous, either as a piece of American Catholic history or of her personal history. The substance of it was that some genius priest on the trip had the brainwave of celebrating the Eucharist using cherry jello. Amy dilated on this story at some length as though Everybody with a Brain knew it, and I was sitting there feeling dumb because I'd never heard of the Infamous Guadalajara Cherry Jello Bus Ride.
Then I woke up. Combox analysis is welcome.
I wandered down, had breakfast and then popped over to the convention center. I set up the book table and then went in to hear the keynote from Fr. Leo Patalinghug of Grace Before Meals. The guy was hilarious! He also gave the strangest biblical illustration I've ever heard. He talked about going scuba diving after eating some meal that was not altogether fresh. He told his dive partner he was feeling queasy and the guy said "If you are nauseous underwater just go ahead and puke in the mask, the thing is designed to expel its contents into the water.
So sure enough, during the dive, he hurled and found himself surrounded by little bits of last night's lobster dinner, which promptly attracted little fish, who promptly attracted bigger fish, etc.
Now that a spectacular enough image, but then he managed (somehow) to link that story to Christ's command to Peter "Feed my sheep" and conclude with some exhortation like "This is what we should all be doing." I'm still not sure how he got there, but I guarantee you it's a talk I will never forget. And there are days when I feel like blogging is more or less the literary equivalent of puking in a rebreather, so I felt affirmed in my mission.
In the midst of all this, I also saw my friend Rod Bennett, who has written a lulu of a sci fi novel that must, if there is any justice in the universe, see print. He was there with his son Jack, a great kid. Greg and Jennifer Willits were, of course, there since they set the whole thing up as well as (I'm guessing) about 500 others. I missed some talks because I was the only person manning my table, but I did get to hear an interesting panel discussion with, among others, Lisa Wheeler of the Maximus Group. They also had the people there who produced the CatholicsComeHome video.
Out at the table, I shot the breeze with Rod Bennett and various passersby, including Clayton Emmer, Rachel Balducci of the inimitably-named Testosterhome blog (who, like us, has all boys), Chelsea Zimmerman, Mountain Butorac (is that an awesome name or what?), and Jeff Schwehm, president of the Fellowship of Catholic ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses. I will speak at their conference in early August.
We had a lovely Mass in a warm room at lunchtime, which spelled an hour long struggle against the ZZZZZZs for me. Thanks be to God for Catholic calisthenics or I would have nodded off completely. After Mass, I grabbed a little lunch and hung out at my table where I saw again, after several years, Dave Sloan and he told me all about his really beautiful idea for a ministry of Singles Serving Orphans. Check thou it out!
Oh and I also got to spend a good chunk of time chatting with Gashwin Gomes, who knows two friends of mine: Sherry Weddell and Alex Edezhath. Gashwin provide the (so far) only photographic evidence that all I tell you is true:
That me, Amy, Mike, Gashwin, Rachel, and Lisa.
Round about 2:00 Lisa came and got me and Amy (our tables were right next to each other so that concerned people could be comforted with the knowledge that I was, at least for that day, monitoring her movements). We went in the auditorium and met (tuh-duh!) Jeff Miller of the Curt Jester (who would, in my opinion, have the best moments of the panel discussion with his moving testimony to Christ in his own conversion from atheism, though Amy was her articulate self as usual while I was a babbling banana slug). I took a shine to Jeff right off the bat because it turns out he looks uncannily like a younger version of my friend Pavel Chichikov.
For me the highlight of the entire day was a little presentation on the question "What is Blogging?" that was done by Mac and Katherine Barron of Catholic in a Small Town. Mac and Katherine are, it turns out, converts. He dawdled with the Church for ages but did nothing. When he mentioned to Katherine that he was thinking (vaguely) about the Church, she (good Georgia Bible Belter) decided they couldn't see each other anymore. But being fair-minded, she thought she better take a look at the Church before breaking it off.
Result: she goes back to him and asks if he's encountered this info on the Church. He sez "Yes" and she says, "Well why aren't you a Catholic yet?!" So he finally gets off the dime, they get married and enter the Church. A match made in heaven.
They gave several little dialog/sketches, but the supreme moment for me was when Mac presented this Bergmanesque exploration of What Blogging Means:
It's as though he read my very soul!
I was, naturally, undone and had to suppress the giggles throughout the panel. However, I got dibs on it and so you are seeing the world premiere of this fine piece of seenaymah! Ponder it. Feel it. Weep for it. Be the film.
The conference finished up around 5:30 and we went back to the hotel to change into less respectable clothes like shorts n' stuff. Then it was off to Greg and Jennifer's home for more pizza than anybody could ever eat and a lot of beer. While there, we recorded promos for various podcasts (I took the liberty of recording one as Amy for Mac and Katherine's podcast since Amy and Co. had headed back to Birmingham by this time. I also did one for SQPN and Rosary Army's 2009 pledge drive as Phillip Seymour Hoffman as me. Toni Collette and Topher Grace might also have been there. You'll find out.
All told, the conference was a great success. If you were there and have your own cyber-perspective on this chance for Catholic to step out of the ether and get to meet each other, by all means drop a link in the combox below!
After a refreshingly dull flight (any flight I don't remember for the rest of my life is a good one) I got into Atlanta Saturday evening and shuttled over to the Marriot. I got in around 8:00, had dinner, and as I was moseying back from the restaurant, saw a largish clutch of folk standing around talking. One of them had an SQPN shirt on and he was bald, so I strode up, stuck out my hand and said, "Greg?"
"Nope. Dave."
Turned out to be Dave Sweeney, one of Greg Willits' confederates (in a good sense, even though this was Georgia). Greg wasn't there, man.
We visited a bit and he introduced me to various folk and to The Computer. This was a laptop that was running streaming video from the party to, well, whoever it was that was watching the SQPN and Rosary Army Night Before the Convention Party. There was also a chat room where the people watching the video could write things like "Hey Shea really *is* that fat" (Okay, people were nice and didn't say things like that) or "OMG! LOL! LSMFT AFAIK!" in mysterious tongues of men or angels.
Joe McClane was there and he wandered around interviewing various peeps for his podcast. We gabbed briefly about New Media and you can hear all the interviews (including the one with me) here. After that, I met (in no particular order) Lisa Hendey (who chaired the blogger's panel the next day and (mercifully) did chauffeur duty for a bunch of us) and Josh LeBlanc, techno-master who heroically saved Catholic Exchange's bacon and power behind the throne at the Catholic Underground. At one point Steve and Janet Ray showed up cuz they were in town to address the Eucharistic Convention, so we chewed the fat, fiendishly Not Talking about James White, just to make him crazier. Then, fellow Catholic Exchanger Mary Kochan and her husband turned up and we visited for a while too.
At length, about six years after we first got to know each other via cyberspace, Amy Welborn and Mike Dubruiel turned up with some kidlets in tow. Mike I met at Franciscan University a few years ago but Amy I'd never actually seen, despite countless email from concerned strangers who would ask "Where is Amy?" on her periodic hiatuses. So I could finally, for a few hours, be able to reassure readers who wondered where Amy was and that I was certain of her whereabouts, cause she was sitting on the barstool next to me nursing a beer and talking shop. Nice gal and essentially the same real deal as you see on the blog (which figures cuz her blog is the real deal too).
We gabbed with Lisa Hendey a bit about a writing project she's working on, then we chatted with Chris Cash of the Catholic Company (who, by the way, is running a First Communion Photo Contest and who has a Reviewer Program for bloggers and other Internet content providers. As you can see, the conference was all about, 'ow you say?, "networking". Lino Rulli was also there (and he later told me, to my surprise that Howard Stern and Stern's producer have both been very supportive of him and his show on the Sirius network.) Whaddaya know?
Amy and I gabbed about blogging, the war, the election, fambly stuff, church politics, Communion and Liberation and whatnot till about midnight or so (Mike had trundled the kidlets off to bed), then we both realized what time it was and that we'd be useless in the AM without sleep. I wandered off to my room, fell asleep and wound up continuing the conversation with Amy all night in a dream.
Somehow, she and her family had come out to visit my wife and I in Seattle. While Jan was gardening on a fine day just like today, Amy and I wound up exploring this vast subterranean complex of bunkers with ledges that opened on bottomless pits. There were young seminarians there on some sort of retreat and we just clambered around, periodically looking over ledges into inky blackness. Eventually we decided to go back up and see how Jan was doing. As we came up and walked round the corner to the house, we noticed the sky was full of aircraft flying at an enormous height, so we started speculating whether they were civilian or military. Jan joined in and we chatted a bit more.
Then, somehow, Amy started relating, in *arch* tones, the story of her long ago Bus Trip to Guadalajara. The way in which she told the story made it clear that this story was infamous, either as a piece of American Catholic history or of her personal history. The substance of it was that some genius priest on the trip had the brainwave of celebrating the Eucharist using cherry jello. Amy dilated on this story at some length as though Everybody with a Brain knew it, and I was sitting there feeling dumb because I'd never heard of the Infamous Guadalajara Cherry Jello Bus Ride.
Then I woke up. Combox analysis is welcome.
I wandered down, had breakfast and then popped over to the convention center. I set up the book table and then went in to hear the keynote from Fr. Leo Patalinghug of Grace Before Meals. The guy was hilarious! He also gave the strangest biblical illustration I've ever heard. He talked about going scuba diving after eating some meal that was not altogether fresh. He told his dive partner he was feeling queasy and the guy said "If you are nauseous underwater just go ahead and puke in the mask, the thing is designed to expel its contents into the water.
So sure enough, during the dive, he hurled and found himself surrounded by little bits of last night's lobster dinner, which promptly attracted little fish, who promptly attracted bigger fish, etc.
Now that a spectacular enough image, but then he managed (somehow) to link that story to Christ's command to Peter "Feed my sheep" and conclude with some exhortation like "This is what we should all be doing." I'm still not sure how he got there, but I guarantee you it's a talk I will never forget. And there are days when I feel like blogging is more or less the literary equivalent of puking in a rebreather, so I felt affirmed in my mission.
In the midst of all this, I also saw my friend Rod Bennett, who has written a lulu of a sci fi novel that must, if there is any justice in the universe, see print. He was there with his son Jack, a great kid. Greg and Jennifer Willits were, of course, there since they set the whole thing up as well as (I'm guessing) about 500 others. I missed some talks because I was the only person manning my table, but I did get to hear an interesting panel discussion with, among others, Lisa Wheeler of the Maximus Group. They also had the people there who produced the CatholicsComeHome video.
Out at the table, I shot the breeze with Rod Bennett and various passersby, including Clayton Emmer, Rachel Balducci of the inimitably-named Testosterhome blog (who, like us, has all boys), Chelsea Zimmerman, Mountain Butorac (is that an awesome name or what?), and Jeff Schwehm, president of the Fellowship of Catholic ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses. I will speak at their conference in early August.
We had a lovely Mass in a warm room at lunchtime, which spelled an hour long struggle against the ZZZZZZs for me. Thanks be to God for Catholic calisthenics or I would have nodded off completely. After Mass, I grabbed a little lunch and hung out at my table where I saw again, after several years, Dave Sloan and he told me all about his really beautiful idea for a ministry of Singles Serving Orphans. Check thou it out!
Oh and I also got to spend a good chunk of time chatting with Gashwin Gomes, who knows two friends of mine: Sherry Weddell and Alex Edezhath. Gashwin provide the (so far) only photographic evidence that all I tell you is true:
That me, Amy, Mike, Gashwin, Rachel, and Lisa.
Round about 2:00 Lisa came and got me and Amy (our tables were right next to each other so that concerned people could be comforted with the knowledge that I was, at least for that day, monitoring her movements). We went in the auditorium and met (tuh-duh!) Jeff Miller of the Curt Jester (who would, in my opinion, have the best moments of the panel discussion with his moving testimony to Christ in his own conversion from atheism, though Amy was her articulate self as usual while I was a babbling banana slug). I took a shine to Jeff right off the bat because it turns out he looks uncannily like a younger version of my friend Pavel Chichikov.
For me the highlight of the entire day was a little presentation on the question "What is Blogging?" that was done by Mac and Katherine Barron of Catholic in a Small Town. Mac and Katherine are, it turns out, converts. He dawdled with the Church for ages but did nothing. When he mentioned to Katherine that he was thinking (vaguely) about the Church, she (good Georgia Bible Belter) decided they couldn't see each other anymore. But being fair-minded, she thought she better take a look at the Church before breaking it off.
Result: she goes back to him and asks if he's encountered this info on the Church. He sez "Yes" and she says, "Well why aren't you a Catholic yet?!" So he finally gets off the dime, they get married and enter the Church. A match made in heaven.
They gave several little dialog/sketches, but the supreme moment for me was when Mac presented this Bergmanesque exploration of What Blogging Means:
It's as though he read my very soul!
I was, naturally, undone and had to suppress the giggles throughout the panel. However, I got dibs on it and so you are seeing the world premiere of this fine piece of seenaymah! Ponder it. Feel it. Weep for it. Be the film.
The conference finished up around 5:30 and we went back to the hotel to change into less respectable clothes like shorts n' stuff. Then it was off to Greg and Jennifer's home for more pizza than anybody could ever eat and a lot of beer. While there, we recorded promos for various podcasts (I took the liberty of recording one as Amy for Mac and Katherine's podcast since Amy and Co. had headed back to Birmingham by this time. I also did one for SQPN and Rosary Army's 2009 pledge drive as Phillip Seymour Hoffman as me. Toni Collette and Topher Grace might also have been there. You'll find out.
All told, the conference was a great success. If you were there and have your own cyber-perspective on this chance for Catholic to step out of the ether and get to meet each other, by all means drop a link in the combox below!
The Invaluable John Zmirak on Just War Doctrine
Oh. So. True.
These criteria take all the fun out of war -- banning naked land-grabs, empire building, torture, mass-rape, fire-bombing cities, and the use of America's 10,000 or so nukes for pretty much anything at all. Since the Just War tradition is such a buzz-kill, Christians of a certain kind often argue it away as cleverly as a canon lawyer wangling an annulment for a Kennedy.
Oh. So. True.
Victor Lams, St. Blog's Resident Deranged Genius, Has Been Busy
Together with his five year old boy, he has created a hero who sums up the longing of a generation: Super Toilet!
You can check out one of his adventures here and you can savor the greatness of his theme song here.
Together with his five year old boy, he has created a hero who sums up the longing of a generation: Super Toilet!
You can check out one of his adventures here and you can savor the greatness of his theme song here.
Meanwhile, in Canada, the Soft Tyrants Continue the Campaign to Smother Free Speech Under Layer Upon Layer of Warm Velvety Care Bear Pillows
...and most Canadians do nothing.
Coming soon to a fat, dumb, and happy democracy near you.
...and most Canadians do nothing.
Coming soon to a fat, dumb, and happy democracy near you.
Jail Those Who Question Man-Made Global Warming!
Way to promote rational persuasive conversation with the confused and skeptical, dude.
Way to promote rational persuasive conversation with the confused and skeptical, dude.
The Prophet Chesterton Once Remarked...
I am reminded of this passage as I read John Zmirak's intelligent review of (indeed, almost a conversation with) Patrick Buchanan's new book about WWII, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World.
WWII currently occupies a peculiar place in the American imagination as a sort of sacred paradigm of war. As more time passes, the more hagiography encrusts those who fought it and the harder and harder it becomes to think about it in any way but one. Those who do think about it in other ways than the Standard Paradigm risk being shouted down as heretics--except in a world of Catholic intellectual discourse, where you can really walk round a topic and, so long as you don't reject the teaching of the Church on faith and morals, feel as free as you like to ask whether Churchill was all the great a guy, whether British policy which punished Catholic Austria even more than it punished pagan militarist Prussia was a great idea (a point Chesterton made in his End of the Armistice) and any number of other questions.
I've not read Buchanan's book (and my schedule is shaping up, this summer, to be pretty cramped in the reading department. But I am, once again, refreshed by the Catholic intellectual tradition which allows people to agree about a few cosmic truths revealed in Christ, if only so they can argue about everything else. I much prefer it to ideology, which tells us we can have only one view of World War II or the Gulf War and, in exchange, be allowed to be as blasphemous as we like about Jesus if we tow that ideological line. I suspect, like Zmirak, I will have some real disagreements with the book. But I think it worthwhile to have the conversation Zmirak is having.
It is strictly true to say that the average reader of the DAILY MAIL and the "Outline of History" is inhibited from these intellectual acts. It is true to say that he CANNOT think that Abraham Lincoln was a failure. It is true to say that he CANNOT think that a Republic should have refused to expand as it has expanded. He cannot move his mind to such a position, even experimentally; it means moving it out of too deep a rut, worn too smooth by the swift traffic of modern talk and journalism, all perpetually moving one way.
These modern people mean by mental activity simply an express train going faster and faster along the same rails to the same station; or having more and more railway carriages hooked on to it to be taken to the same place. The one notion that has vanished from their minds is the notion of voluntary movement even to the same end. They have fixed not only the ends, but the means. They have imposed not only the doctrines, but the words. They are bound not merely in religion, which is avowedly binding, but in everything else as well. There are formal praises of free thought; but even the praises are in a fixed form. Thousands who have never learned to think at all are urged to think whatever may take their fancy about Jesus Christ. But they are, in fact, forbidden to think in any way but one about Abraham Lincoln. That is why it is worth remarking that it is a Catholic who has thought for himself.
I am reminded of this passage as I read John Zmirak's intelligent review of (indeed, almost a conversation with) Patrick Buchanan's new book about WWII, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World.
WWII currently occupies a peculiar place in the American imagination as a sort of sacred paradigm of war. As more time passes, the more hagiography encrusts those who fought it and the harder and harder it becomes to think about it in any way but one. Those who do think about it in other ways than the Standard Paradigm risk being shouted down as heretics--except in a world of Catholic intellectual discourse, where you can really walk round a topic and, so long as you don't reject the teaching of the Church on faith and morals, feel as free as you like to ask whether Churchill was all the great a guy, whether British policy which punished Catholic Austria even more than it punished pagan militarist Prussia was a great idea (a point Chesterton made in his End of the Armistice) and any number of other questions.
I've not read Buchanan's book (and my schedule is shaping up, this summer, to be pretty cramped in the reading department. But I am, once again, refreshed by the Catholic intellectual tradition which allows people to agree about a few cosmic truths revealed in Christ, if only so they can argue about everything else. I much prefer it to ideology, which tells us we can have only one view of World War II or the Gulf War and, in exchange, be allowed to be as blasphemous as we like about Jesus if we tow that ideological line. I suspect, like Zmirak, I will have some real disagreements with the book. But I think it worthwhile to have the conversation Zmirak is having.
Memo to All Proselytizers Bent on Rescuing Catholics from the Great Whore
Really. Think before you write.
Last week, over at Inside Catholic, somebody wrote in (after the de rigeur announcement that "I was raised Catholics, and I can tell you..."--which is nature's way of warning you that what comes next is an ignorant farrago of nonsense) to announce that the Catholic Church believed Jesus only died for original sin. When this was definitively shown to be rubbish and she was invited to do the decent thing and admit she had borne false witness against the Church, she replied with stunning irrelevance:
Once again, I find myself thinking, "This is not evangelization. This is self-medication." Happily, I had to go to Atlanta and leave off this fruitful conversation.
Really. Think before you write.
Last week, over at Inside Catholic, somebody wrote in (after the de rigeur announcement that "I was raised Catholics, and I can tell you..."--which is nature's way of warning you that what comes next is an ignorant farrago of nonsense) to announce that the Catholic Church believed Jesus only died for original sin. When this was definitively shown to be rubbish and she was invited to do the decent thing and admit she had borne false witness against the Church, she replied with stunning irrelevance:
If picking apart my words is going to help you prove me wrong, then go ahead. But you still don't know Jesus personally do you?
When you pray there is no answer directly is there? Been disciplined by God lately? I bet you've never experienced that either.
Once again, I find myself thinking, "This is not evangelization. This is self-medication." Happily, I had to go to Atlanta and leave off this fruitful conversation.
It turns out procuring abortions is not part of Catholic Charities' mission
I'm happy to see the workers who did this outrage have been fired. Now I'd like to know if their superiors were involved or if this was just some independent revolt.
I'm happy to see the workers who did this outrage have been fired. Now I'd like to know if their superiors were involved or if this was just some independent revolt.
I had a friend who could never decide if cats were a super-intelligent race sent here from another planet to observe our world...
...or if they were just dumb.
I sometimes have an analogous sense with some atheists. Talking to some strikes me like talking to nearly perfect Turing Machine. Human conversation and interaction is simulated to such a nearly perfect degree that you'd swear you were talking to a very intelligent person with all their faculties in full working order.
And then, perhaps due to some coding error, they will suddenly and inexplicably say something so unfathomably dense that you get a sort of vertigo and wonder if they are capable of moral reasoning or elementary thought at all. It's as though, for a moment, they really achieve the status of being the meat machines they aspire to be--and the machine conks.
F'rinstance.
I can see this question being posed in the mid 18th Century, before all the
experiments in atheist states and their 100% records of mass slaughter had been tried. But continuing to ask it now betrays a breathtaking stupidity. And these guys self-identify as "Brights" and can never stop talking about how dumb believers are?
No. Not all atheists are this thick and certainly there are dense believers. But it takes a special kind of stupid to look back on the atheist regimes of the past century, bat your big blue eyes, and say, "What's the problem?"
...or if they were just dumb.
I sometimes have an analogous sense with some atheists. Talking to some strikes me like talking to nearly perfect Turing Machine. Human conversation and interaction is simulated to such a nearly perfect degree that you'd swear you were talking to a very intelligent person with all their faculties in full working order.
And then, perhaps due to some coding error, they will suddenly and inexplicably say something so unfathomably dense that you get a sort of vertigo and wonder if they are capable of moral reasoning or elementary thought at all. It's as though, for a moment, they really achieve the status of being the meat machines they aspire to be--and the machine conks.
F'rinstance.
What makes you say a society where everyone was atheist would be awful to live in, Randy? What do you imagine being so awful about it?
I can see this question being posed in the mid 18th Century, before all the
experiments in atheist states and their 100% records of mass slaughter had been tried. But continuing to ask it now betrays a breathtaking stupidity. And these guys self-identify as "Brights" and can never stop talking about how dumb believers are?
No. Not all atheists are this thick and certainly there are dense believers. But it takes a special kind of stupid to look back on the atheist regimes of the past century, bat your big blue eyes, and say, "What's the problem?"
Peg Noonan has a nice piece on Tim Russert
Not being plugged into the TV grade means not experiencing Russert's death as a death in the family here at Chez Shea. But it's obvious that he impacted a huge number of people favorably and that his faith was an obvious part of his life. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace through Christ our Lord.
Not being plugged into the TV grade means not experiencing Russert's death as a death in the family here at Chez Shea. But it's obvious that he impacted a huge number of people favorably and that his faith was an obvious part of his life. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace through Christ our Lord.
A reader writes:
I highly doubt I'm going to be much help here, in no small part because your conversation is really taking place at two levels. The first is the abstract and intellectual level, in which virtually everything your friend is saying is ex post facto rubbish whose entire function is to defend choices made on other grounds. I don't mean "the choice to be same sex attracted" since I'm highly skeptical that this involves "choice" in any that makes sense. But there is a choice involved in acting on the orientation, just as there are choiced involved in acting on any other disordered appetite. How to respond to those disordered appetitites is, I reckon, best modeled for us by those who have done it. And I am no model there because I have never wrestled with homosexual desires. Far better, in such a case, to talk with somebody like Eve Tushnet or David Morrison, who have lived out the gospel counsels joyfully and authentically.
At the intellectual level, you can, I think, make a number of statement which, while obviously true, will probably do very little to change your friend's mind, because the rhetoric is designed not as a sound argument, but as a fig leaf for the choice. As long as what he says provides a certain sort of psychological justification myth, that will be enough to satisfy him, even if it doesn't persuade anybody with unclouded intellectual faculties. In short, so long as sin darkens the intellect, he won't be terribly interested in examining the fairly obvious flaws in his argument.
The first obvious flaw in the "homosexuality is a happy product of evolution" argument is that evolution is all about (and only about) selecting for traits that make it likely for the species to survive. It's fairly obvious to unclouded faculties that homosexuals are acing themselves out in the Darwinian struggle for survival since they are not terribly likely to breed. That doesn't mean that homosexual orientation might not have "natural" causes just as other disorders do. But the notion that these are a Darwinian advantage is pretty hard to see.
The second obvious flaw in the argument is "Prove it." The reality is, we don't know what the hell causes homosexual orientation. There are lots of guesses and few hard facts. Your friend has adopted an atheistic worldview, which leans him toward purely material explanations. But, of course, if we are all into baseless assertions as he is, we can just as easily baselessly assert that the cause of the atheistic worldview is that he is avoiding God and the rather obvious problems the gospel raises for those who wish to indulge their homosexual urges. It accounts for the few facts at least as easily as his own baseless assertion, and it doesn't have the gross disadvantage of being counter-Darwinian.
Third, it is again rubbish to say that "all human couples benefit society through their fidelity". This, again, is belied, not just by immemorial social "taboos" (oh that useful word for destroying sexual common sense) again gay marriage, but by similar taboos (which would also have to be swept away) against Appalachian trailer park unions between father and daughter, brother and sister, and various North American Man Boy Love Association couplings. Every one of these unions (and other couplings not name here) can be and have been marked by "fidelity". The union of teacher Mary Kay LeTourneau and her sixth grade paramour was marked by fidelity. But it is barking mad (or will be till that "taboo" is swept away along with all the others in the insane rush to justify all sexual coupling whatsoever) to call that relationship "healthy" or "good for society".
All attempts to account for the human person on a purely materialist basis are, in the end, inadequate--for those who are not operating out of a clouded intellect bent entirely on justifying whatever their chosen sin might happen to be. At the same time, merely intellectual arguments against whatever self-justifying rubbish is being spouted will almost never dispel the false argument in the mind of the person making it. Because the problem lies ultimately, not in the intellect, but in the will. For that, Scripture recommends prayer and fasting.
I've been carrying a dialogue with an old high school friend who is gay. I began my position explaining fundamental tenets of the Theology of the Body, which proved moot after he revealed he does not believe in God. He believes humans are strictly animals, without souls, whose only distinguishing feature is our advanced intellect and ability to reason abstractly.
Furthermore, he believes love developed as a social survival mechanism, born of some instictive drive to perpetuate the species. While you would think this would render homosexuality obsolete, he defended all forms of "love," saying all human couples benefit society through their fidelity. For him, "love" is just a vague social manifestation that benefits the human animal, whether on an individual or public scale. He sees nothing spiritual or supernatural in its nature.
How can I counter this argument? Every valid insight I raise is countered with "that's just the way we evolved." He admits there is something unique about human reason, but simply attributes this to the highly complex and advanced nature of our evolutionary development. Is there any concept that can hold up against this blanket response?
I hope it's not too much trouble to respond, and I look forward to hearing from you.
I highly doubt I'm going to be much help here, in no small part because your conversation is really taking place at two levels. The first is the abstract and intellectual level, in which virtually everything your friend is saying is ex post facto rubbish whose entire function is to defend choices made on other grounds. I don't mean "the choice to be same sex attracted" since I'm highly skeptical that this involves "choice" in any that makes sense. But there is a choice involved in acting on the orientation, just as there are choiced involved in acting on any other disordered appetite. How to respond to those disordered appetitites is, I reckon, best modeled for us by those who have done it. And I am no model there because I have never wrestled with homosexual desires. Far better, in such a case, to talk with somebody like Eve Tushnet or David Morrison, who have lived out the gospel counsels joyfully and authentically.
At the intellectual level, you can, I think, make a number of statement which, while obviously true, will probably do very little to change your friend's mind, because the rhetoric is designed not as a sound argument, but as a fig leaf for the choice. As long as what he says provides a certain sort of psychological justification myth, that will be enough to satisfy him, even if it doesn't persuade anybody with unclouded intellectual faculties. In short, so long as sin darkens the intellect, he won't be terribly interested in examining the fairly obvious flaws in his argument.
The first obvious flaw in the "homosexuality is a happy product of evolution" argument is that evolution is all about (and only about) selecting for traits that make it likely for the species to survive. It's fairly obvious to unclouded faculties that homosexuals are acing themselves out in the Darwinian struggle for survival since they are not terribly likely to breed. That doesn't mean that homosexual orientation might not have "natural" causes just as other disorders do. But the notion that these are a Darwinian advantage is pretty hard to see.
The second obvious flaw in the argument is "Prove it." The reality is, we don't know what the hell causes homosexual orientation. There are lots of guesses and few hard facts. Your friend has adopted an atheistic worldview, which leans him toward purely material explanations. But, of course, if we are all into baseless assertions as he is, we can just as easily baselessly assert that the cause of the atheistic worldview is that he is avoiding God and the rather obvious problems the gospel raises for those who wish to indulge their homosexual urges. It accounts for the few facts at least as easily as his own baseless assertion, and it doesn't have the gross disadvantage of being counter-Darwinian.
Third, it is again rubbish to say that "all human couples benefit society through their fidelity". This, again, is belied, not just by immemorial social "taboos" (oh that useful word for destroying sexual common sense) again gay marriage, but by similar taboos (which would also have to be swept away) against Appalachian trailer park unions between father and daughter, brother and sister, and various North American Man Boy Love Association couplings. Every one of these unions (and other couplings not name here) can be and have been marked by "fidelity". The union of teacher Mary Kay LeTourneau and her sixth grade paramour was marked by fidelity. But it is barking mad (or will be till that "taboo" is swept away along with all the others in the insane rush to justify all sexual coupling whatsoever) to call that relationship "healthy" or "good for society".
All attempts to account for the human person on a purely materialist basis are, in the end, inadequate--for those who are not operating out of a clouded intellect bent entirely on justifying whatever their chosen sin might happen to be. At the same time, merely intellectual arguments against whatever self-justifying rubbish is being spouted will almost never dispel the false argument in the mind of the person making it. Because the problem lies ultimately, not in the intellect, but in the will. For that, Scripture recommends prayer and fasting.
I'm Baaaaack!
More on the Catholic New Media Celebration in a bit. First, I want to post some other stuff and leave that for the end. Meanwhile, if you want to hear a bit more, check out Gashwin Gomes account. He was sitting right next to me for part of the day, so (for that period at least) what he saw was what I saw. The photo at least will prove that Amy Welborn and I are not the same person--a conspiracy theory which... well, not even Art Bell would credit, but which is still good to scotch in the egg, just in case.
More on the Catholic New Media Celebration in a bit. First, I want to post some other stuff and leave that for the end. Meanwhile, if you want to hear a bit more, check out Gashwin Gomes account. He was sitting right next to me for part of the day, so (for that period at least) what he saw was what I saw. The photo at least will prove that Amy Welborn and I are not the same person--a conspiracy theory which... well, not even Art Bell would credit, but which is still good to scotch in the egg, just in case.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Till Monday, You'll Know Where to Find Me
I'll be hanging with Amy Welborn, Jeff Miller, Lino Rulli, Greg and Jennifer Willetts and lots of various other peeps to (maybe) have a panel discussion about readers who put beans up their noses while I'm gone.*
By the way, one fun side benefit of being in Atlanta is that I get to re-connect with my pal Rod Bennett (who keeps putting up and taking down his fine blog) as well as meet Bill Mallonnee of the Vigilantes of Love.
Best part: I *think* I won't even need to wear a tie for this one. No noose is good noose!
*Panel discussion topic subject to change.
I'll be hanging with Amy Welborn, Jeff Miller, Lino Rulli, Greg and Jennifer Willetts and lots of various other peeps to (maybe) have a panel discussion about readers who put beans up their noses while I'm gone.*
By the way, one fun side benefit of being in Atlanta is that I get to re-connect with my pal Rod Bennett (who keeps putting up and taking down his fine blog) as well as meet Bill Mallonnee of the Vigilantes of Love.
Best part: I *think* I won't even need to wear a tie for this one. No noose is good noose!
*Panel discussion topic subject to change.
A reader writes:
Hmmm. This question lies somewhere between "Why is there air?" and "What's the official magisterial teaching on how to eat a Reese's?"
The most basic theological answer to this and all questions about natural phenomena is "Because God willed it to be so." However, that's not very useful.
God made men hairy and beardly (for the most part). (He also gave them nipples, which is rather mysterious).
Why? The most obvious and humble answer is "Beats me." That's because he doesn't tell us. So we are left with "What have beards tended to signify in human culture?" And the answer to that, as a general rule, is "masculinity". That would seem to be a tautology, since only men can have beards (apart from the ocassional circus sideshow). But I'm not sure it is. Beards come and go in fashion. Jews say beards as a sacred obligation, apparently because Canaanites saw beardlessness as a sacred obligation. That appears to be the origin of the command not to trim the corners of the beard. Such ceremonial regulations passed with the coming of the New Covenant, so that, as far as I know, nobody has ever commented on beards as a matter of doctrine (though, if I am not mistaken, priests in some eastern Churches are *required* to have a beard as a matter of discipline).
I suspect that somebody somewhere has commented on beards in connection with a "theology of glory". We don't tend, these days, to think in terms of glory as a theological category. That's because we are ruthlessly economic. Our questions tend to drive for the bottom line, to ask "What's the least I can get away with and still make the grade?" Paul has in mind the notion of glory when he speaks of the custom of women's long hair in his own day and remarks that the "glory" of a woman is her long hair. I shouldn't be surprised if some commenter somewhere made the same sort of observation about beards for men. The idea has nothing to do with salvation per se. Rather, it's a sort of theo-aesthetic remark about what is most "fitting". The notion of "fittingness" is on the minds of pre-modern thinkers a lot. That's why Duns Scotus holds that Mary was Immaculately Conceived, not because it was necessary, but because it was fitting. That's why, today, we celebrate Mass with vessels of precious metals and not styrofoam cups. The Mass would be just as valid with styrofoam, but the vessels would not be fitting.
The point is that the ancient mind *gets* the notion of glory, of the gratuitous, of the extra touch that is not there out of grim economic necessity but simply because it's glorious. This points to something at the heart of all creation ultimately, since at the end of the day all of creation is absolutely radically and completely unnecessary. Yes, it has its own interior economies once it is created. But God need not have created at all. None of this need have been. It exists because gratuitiously hold it in being. If he wanted to get rid of it he wouldn't have to *do* anything. He would have to *stop* doing something.
So to the question: "Why does God give men beards?" the question is, quite properly, "Why does God give men being at all?" And the answer to both is, "Because it was his good and gracious pleasure! Enjoy it!"
I'd love to know if you have any thoughts on beards, theologically speaking. I'm half-serious; I got to thinking about the theology of the body and the Catholic insistence on taking our physicality seriously, as well as attitudes by the early Church towards beards, and just started wondering: why, theologically, do men have beards?
Hmmm. This question lies somewhere between "Why is there air?" and "What's the official magisterial teaching on how to eat a Reese's?"
The most basic theological answer to this and all questions about natural phenomena is "Because God willed it to be so." However, that's not very useful.
God made men hairy and beardly (for the most part). (He also gave them nipples, which is rather mysterious).
Why? The most obvious and humble answer is "Beats me." That's because he doesn't tell us. So we are left with "What have beards tended to signify in human culture?" And the answer to that, as a general rule, is "masculinity". That would seem to be a tautology, since only men can have beards (apart from the ocassional circus sideshow). But I'm not sure it is. Beards come and go in fashion. Jews say beards as a sacred obligation, apparently because Canaanites saw beardlessness as a sacred obligation. That appears to be the origin of the command not to trim the corners of the beard. Such ceremonial regulations passed with the coming of the New Covenant, so that, as far as I know, nobody has ever commented on beards as a matter of doctrine (though, if I am not mistaken, priests in some eastern Churches are *required* to have a beard as a matter of discipline).
I suspect that somebody somewhere has commented on beards in connection with a "theology of glory". We don't tend, these days, to think in terms of glory as a theological category. That's because we are ruthlessly economic. Our questions tend to drive for the bottom line, to ask "What's the least I can get away with and still make the grade?" Paul has in mind the notion of glory when he speaks of the custom of women's long hair in his own day and remarks that the "glory" of a woman is her long hair. I shouldn't be surprised if some commenter somewhere made the same sort of observation about beards for men. The idea has nothing to do with salvation per se. Rather, it's a sort of theo-aesthetic remark about what is most "fitting". The notion of "fittingness" is on the minds of pre-modern thinkers a lot. That's why Duns Scotus holds that Mary was Immaculately Conceived, not because it was necessary, but because it was fitting. That's why, today, we celebrate Mass with vessels of precious metals and not styrofoam cups. The Mass would be just as valid with styrofoam, but the vessels would not be fitting.
The point is that the ancient mind *gets* the notion of glory, of the gratuitous, of the extra touch that is not there out of grim economic necessity but simply because it's glorious. This points to something at the heart of all creation ultimately, since at the end of the day all of creation is absolutely radically and completely unnecessary. Yes, it has its own interior economies once it is created. But God need not have created at all. None of this need have been. It exists because gratuitiously hold it in being. If he wanted to get rid of it he wouldn't have to *do* anything. He would have to *stop* doing something.
So to the question: "Why does God give men beards?" the question is, quite properly, "Why does God give men being at all?" And the answer to both is, "Because it was his good and gracious pleasure! Enjoy it!"
Interesting Look at Some of the Riptide Pulling on Western Muslims
What I find interesting, as a Catholic, is how universities are bending over backward to accomodate Islam in ways which, extended to a Christian, would call down the wrath of the ACLU.
What I find interesting, as a Catholic, is how universities are bending over backward to accomodate Islam in ways which, extended to a Christian, would call down the wrath of the ACLU.
A reader writes:
Lord, hear out prayer! Mother Mary and St. Luke, please pray for Cate and her family! Sacred Heart of Jesus, hear our prayer!
There is a family dealing with something that I find heartbreaking, and the life and death of their baby girl hangs in the balance.
Charlie Cantrell and I went to Franciscan University together. I didn't know him well, but he was always a good guy with a great sense of humor. I haven't heard his name in years, but I got an e-mail last night from a mutual friend:I wanted to ask for your prayers. Charlie Cantrell (which some of you know from Steubenville) has a very sick little girl who just had a major operation on her heart. You can read all of the info about it here. The baby's name is Cate and their family would really appreciate any prayers and sacrifices.
This little girl sounds like she's been through far more than any 7 month old should. She's had surgery on her heart, she's on numerous medications, and they've got her on a machine to keep her alive. The problem is that the maintenance they are using to keep her going has the potential to do more damage than good if it has to be sustained. She could suffer problems with other organs, including her brain, if she isn't able to fight this without all the artificial help. And if things don't improve fast, she's going to need a heart transplant.
Please, if you could ask your readers for their prayers, I'm sure it would be of great benefit.
Lord, hear out prayer! Mother Mary and St. Luke, please pray for Cate and her family! Sacred Heart of Jesus, hear our prayer!
RU-486 Kills Another Victim
(besides the thousands of babies it's killed).
Only in a culture of death do we keep legal drugs that have repeatedly killed people who use them according to the prescription. No sacrifice is too great when the mission is to murder children.
(besides the thousands of babies it's killed).
Only in a culture of death do we keep legal drugs that have repeatedly killed people who use them according to the prescription. No sacrifice is too great when the mission is to murder children.
I only allow myself to be stampeded into one huge geopolitical panic a decade
Bush used up my allotment for this decade with his Nuke Panic talk that got us into his misbegotten and unnecessary war of choice.
So I'm all out of panic juice for Global Warming, especially when I read stuff like this:
I'm a layman. I don't know from nuthin' about atmospheric science. Neither do most people. So we are in the position of people who must rely on a priestly class of scientists to augur the entrails and tell us what they mean. Urging me to "wake up" is all well and good. But "wake up" to what? Mostly what is meant is "Listen to my priests and their reading of the signs." The trouble is, I can't tell if your priests or those 31,000 priests are quacks. Indeed, perhaps they are all quacks. Beyond that, all I've got to go on is the consensus of manipulative pols like Gore and Know Nothing Actors who manage to be almost 100% wrong about everything else they take for granted as Zeitgeist-Established Fact. And layered over it all is the curious religious vibe which speaks less and less of Global Warming (or "Climate Change") as a matter of science and more and more treats it as a matter of orthodox faith vs. heresy.
All this arouses my skepticism and provokes in me a strong urge to not join the crowd, running in circles, screaming and shouting.
My practical actions as a result of this skepticism are not "Burn as much stuff as possible" (gas prices do a nice job of keeping fuel consumption down). Rather, it is simply to add Climate Change to my "Be Not Afraid" list. Because, at the end of the day, Global Warming, like World Peace, is one of those things I can do almost nothing about, one way or the other, except, well, live a prudent Christian life--which I'm already trying to do. Being very, very afraid is precisely what Jesus counsels against, while Global Warming enthusiasts in the media seem to me to be all about saying, "Be very worried about tomorrow. Insufficient for the day is the evil thereof. You must pile on top of that your terrors for all the rest of history." That, more than anything, is why I smell a rat here. Paralyzing fear and despair is not from God.
Bush used up my allotment for this decade with his Nuke Panic talk that got us into his misbegotten and unnecessary war of choice.
So I'm all out of panic juice for Global Warming, especially when I read stuff like this:
On May 20th, a list of the names of over thirty-one thousand scientists who refute global warming was released. Thirty-one thousand of which 9,000 are Ph.D's. Think about that. Thirty-one thousand. That dwarfs the supposed 2,500 scientists on the UN panel. In the past year, five hundred scientists have issued public statements challenging global warming. A few more join the chorus every week. There are about 100 defectors from the UN IPCC. There was an International Conference of Climate Change Skeptics in New York in March of this year. One hundred of us gave presentations. Attendance was limited to six hundred people. Every seat was taken. There are a half dozen excellent internet sites that debunk global warming.
I'm a layman. I don't know from nuthin' about atmospheric science. Neither do most people. So we are in the position of people who must rely on a priestly class of scientists to augur the entrails and tell us what they mean. Urging me to "wake up" is all well and good. But "wake up" to what? Mostly what is meant is "Listen to my priests and their reading of the signs." The trouble is, I can't tell if your priests or those 31,000 priests are quacks. Indeed, perhaps they are all quacks. Beyond that, all I've got to go on is the consensus of manipulative pols like Gore and Know Nothing Actors who manage to be almost 100% wrong about everything else they take for granted as Zeitgeist-Established Fact. And layered over it all is the curious religious vibe which speaks less and less of Global Warming (or "Climate Change") as a matter of science and more and more treats it as a matter of orthodox faith vs. heresy.
All this arouses my skepticism and provokes in me a strong urge to not join the crowd, running in circles, screaming and shouting.
My practical actions as a result of this skepticism are not "Burn as much stuff as possible" (gas prices do a nice job of keeping fuel consumption down). Rather, it is simply to add Climate Change to my "Be Not Afraid" list. Because, at the end of the day, Global Warming, like World Peace, is one of those things I can do almost nothing about, one way or the other, except, well, live a prudent Christian life--which I'm already trying to do. Being very, very afraid is precisely what Jesus counsels against, while Global Warming enthusiasts in the media seem to me to be all about saying, "Be very worried about tomorrow. Insufficient for the day is the evil thereof. You must pile on top of that your terrors for all the rest of history." That, more than anything, is why I smell a rat here. Paralyzing fear and despair is not from God.
The inimitable Chris Johnson writes of this gooey devotional to Eugene V. Robinson in GQ:
I only made it two paragraphs in before I had to hurl.
It was for puff pieces like this that the word "oleaginous" was coined. I've read less reverent hagiography in medieval devotional literature. Hell, dude! At least we RCs wait till our saints are dead before we encrust them in plaster. :) Next to Obama, the Vickster is the holiest object presented to Leftist senses.
To which Chris replies:
I *think* we may have solved the problem of who should be Obama's running mate. Since the Dems are all about transforming the office of the Presidency into a sort of New Age Shamanist God King, then who better for Veep than the High Priest of a Cult of Self-Worship to lead the faithful in their self-affirmation liturgies?
Chris: I get full credit for this awesome new development of TEC doctrine! Put my name in the history books right now!
I only made it two paragraphs in before I had to hurl.
It was for puff pieces like this that the word "oleaginous" was coined. I've read less reverent hagiography in medieval devotional literature. Hell, dude! At least we RCs wait till our saints are dead before we encrust them in plaster. :) Next to Obama, the Vickster is the holiest object presented to Leftist senses.
To which Chris replies:
It would not at all surprise me if TEC added The Saint Who Walks Among Us to its Lesser Feasts and Fasts(basically their list of "saints") before TSWWAU dies.
I *think* we may have solved the problem of who should be Obama's running mate. Since the Dems are all about transforming the office of the Presidency into a sort of New Age Shamanist God King, then who better for Veep than the High Priest of a Cult of Self-Worship to lead the faithful in their self-affirmation liturgies?
Chris: I get full credit for this awesome new development of TEC doctrine! Put my name in the history books right now!
An atheist defends religion
Defences like this always make me think of Uncle Screwtape:
Don't get me wrong. On the hierarchy of goods, I much prefer atheists who are willing to help Christians to atheists who treat us with benign neglect. And I much prefer benign neglect types to atheists who want to murder us and deprive us of our children in mass quantities, as instititutionalized atheism has shown itself to do 100% OF THE TIME.
But in the long run, the atheist who values "religion" (whatever the hell that is) solely as a form of social control inspires in me precisely the same reaction as notion of the the Eucharist as a mere symbol inspired on Flannery O'Connor: If it's just a form of social control, then the hell with it.
Defences like this always make me think of Uncle Screwtape:
About the general connection between Christianity and politics, our position is more delicate. Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster. On the other hand we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything—even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist's shop. Fortunately it is quite easy to coax humans round this little corner. Only today I have found a passage in a Christian writer where he recommends his own version of Christianity on the ground that "only such a faith can outlast the death of old cultures and the birth of new civilisations". You see the little rift? "Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason." That's the game,
Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE
Don't get me wrong. On the hierarchy of goods, I much prefer atheists who are willing to help Christians to atheists who treat us with benign neglect. And I much prefer benign neglect types to atheists who want to murder us and deprive us of our children in mass quantities, as instititutionalized atheism has shown itself to do 100% OF THE TIME.
But in the long run, the atheist who values "religion" (whatever the hell that is) solely as a form of social control inspires in me precisely the same reaction as notion of the the Eucharist as a mere symbol inspired on Flannery O'Connor: If it's just a form of social control, then the hell with it.
A reader writes:
I've always thought the Fairness Doctrine was stupid. Government-regulated speech is the antithesis of the first amendment. Let people say what they want without bureaucrats tinkering.
Liberals are pushing for the revival of the "Fairness Doctrine" because it would restore a virtual monopoly of secular liberal broadcasting. The American Center for Law and Justice is a largely Evangelical Protestant (I think) legal group that promotes and defends constitutional rights for believers. On its web site there is information on the Broadcasters Freedom Act which is now in the House of Representatives. If passed, it would block the return of the "Fairness Doctrine". The liberal leadership is blocking consideration and the ACLJ is promoting a discharge petition. If enough Congressmen sign it the bill will go to the floor for a vote. Currently 23 more signatures are needed. On the web site you can sign a petition to the members of the House to sign it. I happened to hear a part of the ACLJ radio program Wednesday, which is how I know about this. The host, Jay Sekulow, said that the petition can be more useful than letters (although individual letters are still good) because congressional staffers who open the mail can downplay the numbers but when the ACLJ presents lists of names sorted by congressional district, it gets attention. On the ACLJ home page the information is at the top of the right hand column under aclj SPOTLIGHT.
I've always thought the Fairness Doctrine was stupid. Government-regulated speech is the antithesis of the first amendment. Let people say what they want without bureaucrats tinkering.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Invaluable Dale Price on Doug Kmiec's Spaniel-Like Fawning Over Obama
What is it with Catholics who so easily sell their souls for the sake of a little earthly power? Whether its the groveling excuses for Bush's war crimes or the groveling excuses for Obama's fanatical abortion zeal, far too many Catholics are astonishingly ready to bend over for it while telling themselves--in their supreme moment of unrealism--that they are being "realistic".
Weird.
What is it with Catholics who so easily sell their souls for the sake of a little earthly power? Whether its the groveling excuses for Bush's war crimes or the groveling excuses for Obama's fanatical abortion zeal, far too many Catholics are astonishingly ready to bend over for it while telling themselves--in their supreme moment of unrealism--that they are being "realistic".
Weird.
Hard to argue with this, actually
A reader writes:
Obviously, there is a hierarchy of goods involved here (and a correspondingly hellish hierarchy of evils. The Catholic conception of marriage is the true one, because it is revealed by Christ, who knows what is best for the human person. However, if you cannot have Christian marriage, some sort of marriage is better than an atomized society of imperial autonomous selves. Hell knows this, which is why it much prefers the dissolution of the family and a culture dedicated to the exploitation of women than one in which inconveniently stubborn family units get in the way of the all-dissolving power of the dictatorship of relativism and hedonism. The FLDS kids were easy pickings. But the goal is the destruction of all families since family ties are so troublesome for Planners, Salesmen, and Government Controllers.
As ever, the ultimate goal of Hell is not the destruction of Mormonism but of the Catholic Church. Ephesians 6:12 and all that.
A reader writes:
Splashing on the Drudge Report is a report that Gloucester teens __intentionally__, with foresight and all that, wanted to get pregnant.
It was a bit of a controversy before the young teens spilled the beans. The teen birth rate for the town sky rocketed, and a two people associated with the school's clinic resigned because they couldn't distribute condoms without the parent's permission.
Here's the money quote:"Gloucester's elected school committee plans to vote later this summer on whether to provide contraceptives. But that won't do much to solve the issue of teens wanting to get pregnant."
I saw this first at What's Wrong with the World, Thomas Fleming points out that the Texas polygamy sect incident wasn't about child abuse, but rather a broad side against marriage.Here is what the real issue is. State governments routinely promote teenage promiscuous sex in the sex education programs in government schools and in government-funded counseling centers. In many states, condoms are routinely provided to children on the pretext of preventing the spread of STD's, when everyone knows or ought to know that the purpose, as much as the result, is to encourage teenage sex. And yet, here we have a state agency seizing a large group of children on the grounds that teenage girls are having sex with a man they regard as their husband and to whom they have promised fidelity.
If you want to talk about weird, what is weirder than the counselors, child-savers, and feminist prosecutors who want to rescue young women from polygamy only to turn them into unpaid strumpets. Today's Chicago Tribune features an article titled "To many girls, sex with adults just part of life," in which Mary Schmich interviews many young Chicago girls who openly talk about their sexual relations with older men. The young women she interviewed were mostly from the lower strata of society, but our entire culture, from top to bottom, is saturated with images of sexuality and promiscuity. From a little girl's first Barby to the social pressure to engage in sex games in Middle School to TV shows, like Desperate Housewives, designed to justify and promote adultery, American women are given a consistent message: Do it!
Let us cut the hypocrisy. America, as a society, is dedicated to the sexual exploitation of women. The only "crime " committed by the Fundamentalist Mormons is their commitment to marriage.
"America, as a society, is dedicated to the sexual exploitation of women."
Humanae Vitae, 17"It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion."
That's what it's all about.
Obviously, there is a hierarchy of goods involved here (and a correspondingly hellish hierarchy of evils. The Catholic conception of marriage is the true one, because it is revealed by Christ, who knows what is best for the human person. However, if you cannot have Christian marriage, some sort of marriage is better than an atomized society of imperial autonomous selves. Hell knows this, which is why it much prefers the dissolution of the family and a culture dedicated to the exploitation of women than one in which inconveniently stubborn family units get in the way of the all-dissolving power of the dictatorship of relativism and hedonism. The FLDS kids were easy pickings. But the goal is the destruction of all families since family ties are so troublesome for Planners, Salesmen, and Government Controllers.
As ever, the ultimate goal of Hell is not the destruction of Mormonism but of the Catholic Church. Ephesians 6:12 and all that.
The Prophet Chesterton speaks! Wisdom! Pay attention!
"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God."
Atheist fads are, I repeat, the pause between when a culture breathes out the Holy Spirit and breathes in Something Else. Caesar worship appears to be a prime candidate in Canada.
And make no mistake, Gretta Vosper is an atheist, whatever sort of Stuart Smalley crap she may spout. She has given her flock a house swept clean and empty of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It will soon be full of other spirits. Whether she will like it when it is, is another story.
"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God."
Atheist fads are, I repeat, the pause between when a culture breathes out the Holy Spirit and breathes in Something Else. Caesar worship appears to be a prime candidate in Canada.
And make no mistake, Gretta Vosper is an atheist, whatever sort of Stuart Smalley crap she may spout. She has given her flock a house swept clean and empty of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It will soon be full of other spirits. Whether she will like it when it is, is another story.
Fr. Frank Jindra writes:
Lord, hear our prayer!
Please pray for my Dad. Friday, 20 June 2008, he is having surgery to try to correct some damage he incurred as a fireman. He has related to me that a number of times he was blown down flights of stairs, and fallen through floors they could not tell were burned away.
Firemen risk their lives for others and fulfill in a unique way the call of Jesus to sacrifice for others. Well, "the heat is off" now that my Dad has retired, but he is still carrying the cross of a fireman into the suffering he is enduring now in his final years. Please continue to pray that this surgery will alleviate some of that suffering.
Fr. Frank E. Jindra
Pastor
St. Lawrence Church, Silver Creek, NE
Ss. Peter & Paul (Krakow) Church, Genoa, NE
St. Rose of Lima Church, Genoa, NE
Lord, hear our prayer!
A whimsical reader writes:
Alas! My secret Dominican oath forbids me to tell you on pain of death and thumbscrews.
Really enjoyed your insidecatholic article. Here's my testimony:
I became Catholic when I learned of the Church's secret plan to take over the world in the name of a new-Age, sycretistic paganism which would, ultimately, pave the way for the last Pope who will be the Antichrist. It was like walking into a Star Wars movie, except I got to wear all that cool Sith gear. I also found out that I could steal $100.00 or less from street people and not commit a sin. Now that's really cool, too.
The only problem is that I can't find anyone who will administer the secret Jesuit Oath binding me to overthrow the United States government. All the Jesuits I ask roll their eyes and say, "Oh, that went out with Vatican II." I don't understand why our new-age syncretism means that we have to abandon all our Traditions (which is like the game of "telephone" but I don't have time to go into that).
Does anyone know of a good, solid parish that still administers the Jesuit Oath?
Alas! My secret Dominican oath forbids me to tell you on pain of death and thumbscrews.
Good stuff!
Consider it spread!
My name is Gabriel Iocco and I work for John Paul the Great Catholic University in San Diego. I'm writing today to tell you about some of the exciting things that we are doing here as we believe you may be interested in them.
We are a relatively new, highly orthodox Catholic university with a unique program. We focus our program on new media, which is how to create content and business that utilize things like Facebook.com, Youtube.com, Blogs, Video games, etc. Our goal is to produce new media leaders that create content that is aligned with the principles of the Catholic Church.
I'm writing today because right now our students are doing some very exciting things that we feel many people would be interested in. This fall in California, there will be a vote on a proposal called Sarah's Law, which is a law that would require parental notification for abortions by minors. What our students are doing is taking the fight for passing this bill to the web 2.0 world. They are developing strategies to redesign the website to make it more interactive and collaborative and are developing viral videos for youtube and other sites that will help pass this bill.
What we are trying to do is show the world how using new technology can help advance the faith. Too many people shun new technology thinking it is a determinate to society. We want to show the world that new technology and Catholicism can go hand in hand and we are hoping that you can help us spread that word.
Consider it spread!
Maggie Gallagher Takes a Look at Some of the "How Were We Supposed to Know?" Surprises Coming Down the Road
The main result (and, in the plan of Hell, the principal goal) of the legitimation of gay marriage is to have a new weapon with which to attack the Church.
All the benefits of marriage are there for gays already. What is not there is the forced confession that gay "marriage" is actually marriage. And that galls the gay movement. Tolerance is not enough. You MUST approve. And so gay "marriage" is instituted in order to make it possible to punish those who will go on saying clearly that it is a sham and not a marriage. It adds no real good. It simply makes possible the legal persecution of those who take Christian teaching concerning the nature of marriage seriously.
The main result (and, in the plan of Hell, the principal goal) of the legitimation of gay marriage is to have a new weapon with which to attack the Church.
All the benefits of marriage are there for gays already. What is not there is the forced confession that gay "marriage" is actually marriage. And that galls the gay movement. Tolerance is not enough. You MUST approve. And so gay "marriage" is instituted in order to make it possible to punish those who will go on saying clearly that it is a sham and not a marriage. It adds no real good. It simply makes possible the legal persecution of those who take Christian teaching concerning the nature of marriage seriously.
A reader writes:
In the midst of a discussion on how to avoid ableist language, I ran across this comment:
Reading that thread reminds me that the wonderful thing about extreme-PC "thought" is that it ultimately renders itsself unable to communicate at all. Sin is always self-sterilizing.
In the midst of a discussion on how to avoid ableist language, I ran across this comment:
No matter how convinced I am of the non-existence of any deities or other supernatural beings, or how aware I am that to exclaim "jesus!" in a moment of shock or surprise derives its power solely from, and feeds back into, the largely unchallenged assumption that (heteronormative, patriarchal) Christian values are a fundamental element of the society I'm a part of, and no matter how much I'd rather not contribute to that, I'm still very likely to do it, out of habit and out of a lack of other forms of expression.
Reading that thread reminds me that the wonderful thing about extreme-PC "thought" is that it ultimately renders itsself unable to communicate at all. Sin is always self-sterilizing.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Behold the Spam of God!
In which the exceedingly witty readers of CAEI get the credit they deserve for some of the funniest things ever written about anti-Catholic rhetoric as it is pumped out by the barrelful every day on the Internet.
In which the exceedingly witty readers of CAEI get the credit they deserve for some of the funniest things ever written about anti-Catholic rhetoric as it is pumped out by the barrelful every day on the Internet.
How War Crimes Policymakers Cover Their Tracks
Punishment is for little people who carry out the things their bosses pressure them to do. These men shall, like Richard Rich, die in their beds.
Punishment is for little people who carry out the things their bosses pressure them to do. These men shall, like Richard Rich, die in their beds.
Guess Which Nation Hides its Abused Detainees from the Red Cross?
Perhaps the Bush Administration should consider opening a detainee camp called Theresienstadt?
Perhaps the Bush Administration should consider opening a detainee camp called Theresienstadt?
Not Just Evil
Torture is also deeply stupid.
Uncle Screwtape spells it out for the last defenders of the Bush policies of prisoner abuse and torture:
"To get the man's soul and give him nothing in return—that is what really gladdens our Father's heart."
Torture is also deeply stupid.
Uncle Screwtape spells it out for the last defenders of the Bush policies of prisoner abuse and torture:
"To get the man's soul and give him nothing in return—that is what really gladdens our Father's heart."
Machines Don't Do What You Want Them to Do
They do what you design them to do.
This is true for political machines too. We *want* our political machine to elect competent statesmen. We *design* our political machine to elect eye candy who care about stupid crap like lapel pins, women who wear hijabs, and dolts who repeat empty cant like "Hope and change" or "When they stand up, we'll stand down".
Exhibit A:
A political machine which trains allegedly responsible citizens to focus on this stupid crap is a political machine which pretty much guarantees that citizens will elect leaders who care about stupid crap more than they care about prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
They do what you design them to do.
This is true for political machines too. We *want* our political machine to elect competent statesmen. We *design* our political machine to elect eye candy who care about stupid crap like lapel pins, women who wear hijabs, and dolts who repeat empty cant like "Hope and change" or "When they stand up, we'll stand down".
Exhibit A:
A political machine which trains allegedly responsible citizens to focus on this stupid crap is a political machine which pretty much guarantees that citizens will elect leaders who care about stupid crap more than they care about prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
Canada: Proof that Maple Syrup Clogs the Brain
I'm awaiting the day that the Human Rights Commissions start turning to these psychics to determine which bloggers are guilty of "hate thoughts". That way they'll be able to criminalize them no matter what they do or say. The Canadian Department of Pre-Crime says "Better safe than sorry!"
Speaking of which, if you haven't thrown some money into Kathy Shaidle tip jar to help her deal with the barbaric lack of a first amendment in Canadian law, you should. These HRC tyrants have their sights set on shutting down anybody who disagrees with them and don't imagine for a moment that they do not have friends and allies who would love to gut the first amendment. "First, they came for the Canadian bloggers, and I said nothing because I was not a Canadian blogger...."
I'm awaiting the day that the Human Rights Commissions start turning to these psychics to determine which bloggers are guilty of "hate thoughts". That way they'll be able to criminalize them no matter what they do or say. The Canadian Department of Pre-Crime says "Better safe than sorry!"
Speaking of which, if you haven't thrown some money into Kathy Shaidle tip jar to help her deal with the barbaric lack of a first amendment in Canadian law, you should. These HRC tyrants have their sights set on shutting down anybody who disagrees with them and don't imagine for a moment that they do not have friends and allies who would love to gut the first amendment. "First, they came for the Canadian bloggers, and I said nothing because I was not a Canadian blogger...."
Nurse Bandits!
I dunno why, but this story cracks me up. Why nurse costumes? Maybe the idea is that if you see a gang of nurses bearing down on you, you will feel all warm and trusting. Me: I think "One of them will try to give me a shot."
I dunno why, but this story cracks me up. Why nurse costumes? Maybe the idea is that if you see a gang of nurses bearing down on you, you will feel all warm and trusting. Me: I think "One of them will try to give me a shot."
One of the Curious Marks of Postmodernity...
...is tendency of people to accept Leviathan's Imposition of "freedom" (meaning a culture of trivial hedonism devoid of responsibility to God and therefore with fraying social ties among individuals and families) by main force. From the Bush Experiment in Gun Barrel Democracy Worship among the tribal peoples of the Mideast (for whom "democracy" means "return to sharia as fast as possible") to the Eurocratic push to force through the Lisbon Treaty despite its failure to succeed according to the rules it set for itself, the goal appears to be the same: replace Liberty (in which local peoples actually do determine their own destinies, for good or ill) with Leviathan-managed consumerism and hedonism.
I'm unconvinced that this strange combination of libertinism and nanny statism will fly. We'll see.
...is tendency of people to accept Leviathan's Imposition of "freedom" (meaning a culture of trivial hedonism devoid of responsibility to God and therefore with fraying social ties among individuals and families) by main force. From the Bush Experiment in Gun Barrel Democracy Worship among the tribal peoples of the Mideast (for whom "democracy" means "return to sharia as fast as possible") to the Eurocratic push to force through the Lisbon Treaty despite its failure to succeed according to the rules it set for itself, the goal appears to be the same: replace Liberty (in which local peoples actually do determine their own destinies, for good or ill) with Leviathan-managed consumerism and hedonism.
I'm unconvinced that this strange combination of libertinism and nanny statism will fly. We'll see.
Yetis! With Vague Evidence!
I'm still inclined to think there is something to the whole Yeti/Bigfoot thing.
I'm still inclined to think there is something to the whole Yeti/Bigfoot thing.
Intellectual Fisticuffs: Some Thoughts on the Apologetics Subculture
In which I try to lay out my views on some of the dangers that can go with the good work of defending the Faith.
In which I try to lay out my views on some of the dangers that can go with the good work of defending the Faith.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Things I Don't Get
Suppose I walked over to your house, opened the door, walked in, and proceeded to deliver myself of a discourse in this vein: "You putrid scum! I loathe you and your vile ideas!".
Probably you would steer me toward the door and, if I resisted, push me out. If I kept trying to shove my way back in, spewing insults and profanity and shouting that I have a right to be heard, you'd call the cops. If I kept it up day after day, you'd get a restraining order to keep me off your property. I'd be recognized as a buffoon and a barbarian by any civilized person.
But people do this every day in my comboxes and actually have the utter lack of self-awareness to whine that I am "censoring" them when I boot them for being boors and buffoons. They seem not to grasp the simple words "Get your own damn blog."
Note to boors and buffoons: I owe you no forum. If you are such a loser that nobody reads your blog, that's not my problem. I have zero responsibility to give you a place to insult me or those I care about. Please clip and save this news flash.
Suppose I walked over to your house, opened the door, walked in, and proceeded to deliver myself of a discourse in this vein: "You putrid scum! I loathe you and your vile ideas!".
Probably you would steer me toward the door and, if I resisted, push me out. If I kept trying to shove my way back in, spewing insults and profanity and shouting that I have a right to be heard, you'd call the cops. If I kept it up day after day, you'd get a restraining order to keep me off your property. I'd be recognized as a buffoon and a barbarian by any civilized person.
But people do this every day in my comboxes and actually have the utter lack of self-awareness to whine that I am "censoring" them when I boot them for being boors and buffoons. They seem not to grasp the simple words "Get your own damn blog."
Note to boors and buffoons: I owe you no forum. If you are such a loser that nobody reads your blog, that's not my problem. I have zero responsibility to give you a place to insult me or those I care about. Please clip and save this news flash.
On the other hand, the Promise of Mercy Extends to All
I treat such stories with a grain of salt, but I also live in hope.
I treat such stories with a grain of salt, but I also live in hope.
I remember the day this happened
It was a tiny footnote sort of item on the evening news. I remember somebody (my brother?) remarking that some heads would roll over it. But he was thinking in terms of minor functionaries, not Nixon himself.
I wonder if Bush and Cheney will ever be arraigned for their far more serious abuses of Executive power?
I doubt it.
It was a tiny footnote sort of item on the evening news. I remember somebody (my brother?) remarking that some heads would roll over it. But he was thinking in terms of minor functionaries, not Nixon himself.
I wonder if Bush and Cheney will ever be arraigned for their far more serious abuses of Executive power?
I doubt it.
Before Generation Narcissus Machiavellians Turned the Greatest Generation into Fig Leaves for "Conservative" Consequentialism...
Prehistoric conservatism said things like this:
I did not know that either.
Prehistoric conservatism said things like this:
"...[two days after the bombing of Hiroshima] former Republican President Herbert Hoover wrote to a friend that "[t]he use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul."
"Days later...the conservative owner and editor of U.S. News...argued that Japan's surrender had been inevitable without the atomic bomb. He added that justifications of 'military necessity' will 'never erase from our minds the simple truth that we, of all civilized nations...did not hesitate to employ the most destructive weapon of all times indiscriminately against men, women and children.'
"Just weeks after Japan's surrender, an article published in the conservative magazine Human Events contended that America's atomic destruction of Hiroshima might be morally 'more shameful' and 'more degrading' than Japan's 'indefensible and infamous act of aggression' at Pearl Harbor.
"...A 1947 editorial in the Chicago Tribune, at the time a leading conservative voice, claimed that President Truman and his advisers were guilty of 'crimes against humanity' for 'the utterly unnecessary killing of uncounted Japanese...'
"A steady drumbeat of conservative criticism continued throughout the 1950's. A 1958 editorial in William F. Buckley, Jr.'s National Review took former President Truman to task for his then-current explanation of why he had decided to drop an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima...
"...a 1959 National Review article matter-of-factly stated: 'The indefensibility of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima is becoming a part of the national conservative creed.'"
I did not know that either.
The New Hurley Liturgical Reforms
Old: Peace be with you.
New: Dude.
-----------
Old: The Body of Christ!
New: Dude, JC.
Old: Amen!
New: Duuuuuuuuuuuude.
-----------
Old: Thanks be to God.
New: Dude!
-----------
Old: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
New: Duuude!
-----------
Old: The Lord be with you.
New: Dude.
Old: And also with you.
New: Dude.
Old: Lift up your hearts.
New: Dude!
Old: We lift them up to the Lord.
New: Dude!
Old: Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God.
New: Duuude.
Old: It is right to give him thanks and praise.
New: Duuude.
Upcoming Stuff
First, I'm honored to have been asked to take part in this two-part series for Blessed Sacrament parish:
I'm also amazed to discover that at least one crazy pro-consequentialism guy wrote me to say that he had considered complaining to the Feds to try to revoke Blessed Sacrament's tax exempt status because Fr. Bernhard had dared to say, in a homily, that torture is wrong even when we do it.
So lovely to see that Hannitized Catholics have so completely absorbed the ethics and tactics of flesh-eating proaborts and gay brownshirts. Shutting down free speech in the name of the Goddess of Postmodern "Freedom" is par for the course for such people. I just love that Hannitized Catholic wring their hands about "Liberal Fascism". It makes the hypocrisy even more chemically pure and heady.
Second, I will be in Atlanta this Sunday (along with Amy, the Curt Jester, Greg and Jennifer Willits and various others for the Catholic New Media Celebration). Hope to see you there!
PS. Before the knee starts to jerk about the hood on the Crucified One, please do stop. If you are about to start twitchily typing things like "Jesus was innocent! The bastards we are "torturing" are murderers!! How dare you!!!!!" (Carefully remembering to put "torture" in scare quotes distance yourself from the fact that what we do is torture) please do note that it is a matter of documented fact that some of the people we have tortured--to death even--were guilty of nothing.
That's the thing about torture. In the real world, you do it to find out if the person you are torturing needs to be tortured. By the time you find out you are wrong, you are already on your way to hell. And, if the parable of the sheep and the goats means anything at all, you find out when you get to the gate of hell that the man you tortured was Jesus Christ, present in the "least of these."
That's the main consequence of torture and all other intrinsically immoral acts: they send you to the everlasting fires of hell, the outer darkness, eternal separation from God, where their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched, gehenna, perdition, to be endlessly tortured with the pain of loss and (after the Resurrection) the sufferings of the damned forever and ever and ever.
That's a poor tradeoff for the vague hope that you might save your skin. It's why I'm adamant about such matters whether we are talking about abortion for liberals (that is, abortion) or abortion for conservatives (that is, torture).
First, I'm honored to have been asked to take part in this two-part series for Blessed Sacrament parish:
I'm also amazed to discover that at least one crazy pro-consequentialism guy wrote me to say that he had considered complaining to the Feds to try to revoke Blessed Sacrament's tax exempt status because Fr. Bernhard had dared to say, in a homily, that torture is wrong even when we do it.
So lovely to see that Hannitized Catholics have so completely absorbed the ethics and tactics of flesh-eating proaborts and gay brownshirts. Shutting down free speech in the name of the Goddess of Postmodern "Freedom" is par for the course for such people. I just love that Hannitized Catholic wring their hands about "Liberal Fascism". It makes the hypocrisy even more chemically pure and heady.
Second, I will be in Atlanta this Sunday (along with Amy, the Curt Jester, Greg and Jennifer Willits and various others for the Catholic New Media Celebration). Hope to see you there!
PS. Before the knee starts to jerk about the hood on the Crucified One, please do stop. If you are about to start twitchily typing things like "Jesus was innocent! The bastards we are "torturing" are murderers!! How dare you!!!!!" (Carefully remembering to put "torture" in scare quotes distance yourself from the fact that what we do is torture) please do note that it is a matter of documented fact that some of the people we have tortured--to death even--were guilty of nothing.
That's the thing about torture. In the real world, you do it to find out if the person you are torturing needs to be tortured. By the time you find out you are wrong, you are already on your way to hell. And, if the parable of the sheep and the goats means anything at all, you find out when you get to the gate of hell that the man you tortured was Jesus Christ, present in the "least of these."
That's the main consequence of torture and all other intrinsically immoral acts: they send you to the everlasting fires of hell, the outer darkness, eternal separation from God, where their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched, gehenna, perdition, to be endlessly tortured with the pain of loss and (after the Resurrection) the sufferings of the damned forever and ever and ever.
That's a poor tradeoff for the vague hope that you might save your skin. It's why I'm adamant about such matters whether we are talking about abortion for liberals (that is, abortion) or abortion for conservatives (that is, torture).
The Next Time Somebody Gives You the Current Cartoon History of the West...
You know, the one in which triumphal Scientism marches ever forward, rolling back religion and its taboos to bring the light of Truth and Goodness into the world?
Do remind them of little episodes like this, won't you?
By the way, if you want to read something both funny and enlightening scroll down through the comments on this and this thread and watch my pal David engaged in a battle of wits with unarmed opponents whose prose style and substance consist entirely of undocumented sneers. The problem with so many Scientistic Triumphalists is that they only read newspapers and themselves and mistake it for being educated.
Favorite moment, when Dilan whipsaws from "Anybody who knows HISTORY blahblahblah" rhetoric to "I'm not interested in history blahblahblah".
What strikes me about the conversation is how insular the anti-Christians are. They have a narrative that says "All early Christians were biblical fundamentalist literalists till Science showed that snakes don't really talk and Jesus can't have a sword come out of his mouth." When you point out that allegorical methods of interpretation are of extreme antiquity (our oldest Christian exegeses of OT texts (AKA "the New Testament") are allegorical) the critic simply announces that Christians saw the poverty of their stupid fundamentalist literalism sooner than a lot of people think.
Sin makes you stupid.
You know, the one in which triumphal Scientism marches ever forward, rolling back religion and its taboos to bring the light of Truth and Goodness into the world?
Do remind them of little episodes like this, won't you?
By the way, if you want to read something both funny and enlightening scroll down through the comments on this and this thread and watch my pal David engaged in a battle of wits with unarmed opponents whose prose style and substance consist entirely of undocumented sneers. The problem with so many Scientistic Triumphalists is that they only read newspapers and themselves and mistake it for being educated.
Favorite moment, when Dilan whipsaws from "Anybody who knows HISTORY blahblahblah" rhetoric to "I'm not interested in history blahblahblah".
What strikes me about the conversation is how insular the anti-Christians are. They have a narrative that says "All early Christians were biblical fundamentalist literalists till Science showed that snakes don't really talk and Jesus can't have a sword come out of his mouth." When you point out that allegorical methods of interpretation are of extreme antiquity (our oldest Christian exegeses of OT texts (AKA "the New Testament") are allegorical) the critic simply announces that Christians saw the poverty of their stupid fundamentalist literalism sooner than a lot of people think.
Sin makes you stupid.
All They Needed to Know was that Dan Brown's Name was On it
It's all anybody needs to know, actually.
It's all anybody needs to know, actually.
ta·boo /təˈbu, tæ-/ [tuh-boo, ta-] adjective, noun, plural -boos, verb, -booed, -boo·ing
Definition: The next outrage one of our Chattering Classes wishes to legitimize. In this case, a return to racist population planning on the lines of "Just enough of me, way too much of you" Malthusianism.
The Great and Powerful Oz who demands the Sacrifice? Global Warming, natch. Hey! The ends justify the means, dude! We learned that from Planned Parenthood and the Bush/Cheney legitimation of torture.
Basic message: "Humans... are.. a disease, Mr. Anderson. And we... are the... cure."
Reader Kathie Lundquist's bleat of protest to the paper read thusly:
Or as the Ghost of Christmas Present put it:
Professional population handwringers have been eager to kill and contracept for at least two hundred years now. Meanwhile, as prophecy after prophecy of imminent doom has been made into a lie by people who actually tried to feed, clothe, and house people instead of simply resort to the expedient of banning them from existence, slaying them in the womb, or coming up with crap "science" to justify murdering them as racial inferiors, the population has grown and the blessing of human beings--the only creatures who exist for their own sake according to the Church--has continued.
Thanks be to God.
Definition: The next outrage one of our Chattering Classes wishes to legitimize. In this case, a return to racist population planning on the lines of "Just enough of me, way too much of you" Malthusianism.
The Great and Powerful Oz who demands the Sacrifice? Global Warming, natch. Hey! The ends justify the means, dude! We learned that from Planned Parenthood and the Bush/Cheney legitimation of torture.
Basic message: "Humans... are.. a disease, Mr. Anderson. And we... are the... cure."
Reader Kathie Lundquist's bleat of protest to the paper read thusly:
To the Editor:
It seems trendy to refer to certain cultural mores and traditions as ³taboos² - just before sniffing at them in contempt and proposing some completely wrongheaded substitute.
Jack Hart protests that his proposal of population control to combat global warming isn¹t ³racist², ³sexist², or ³biased against the Third World², but in practice, such an idea cannot be anything but fascist. Thank goodness he remains fairly vague as to who exactly (which races, which sexes, which economic classes) should be eliminated from the planet; otherwise, he would simply be proposing a new and improved rationale for selective extermination of his fellow human beings. Much of the current blather over population control from environmentalists boils down to this: Just enough of us white people. Way too many of you brown people.
The problem with resource overconsumption is not an excess (who defines the maximum number?) of people on Earth. Rather, it is our greed and unwillingness to share our goods with others - our reluctance to enter voluntarily into an equitable redistribution of wealth in order to support the people suffering in the midst of those ³failed states².
Hart gravely underestimates human creativity, ingenuity, and adaptability regarding solutions to the global warming/pollution problem. Rather than considering a worldwide game of ³Lifeboat², we ought rather to be focusing on developing new energy solutions, reinforcing conservation habits, and funding cross-cultural initiatives to communicate to everyone the needs and methods of being good caretakers of our shared planet. The answers for our technology-based consumer culture might even be found in the Third World among those who live Oclose to the land¹ and have done so for centuries.
I¹d also like Hart to answer this question: If it¹s wrong to have children, who exactly are we saving the planet for?
Or as the Ghost of Christmas Present put it:
"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die. It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!
Professional population handwringers have been eager to kill and contracept for at least two hundred years now. Meanwhile, as prophecy after prophecy of imminent doom has been made into a lie by people who actually tried to feed, clothe, and house people instead of simply resort to the expedient of banning them from existence, slaying them in the womb, or coming up with crap "science" to justify murdering them as racial inferiors, the population has grown and the blessing of human beings--the only creatures who exist for their own sake according to the Church--has continued.
Thanks be to God.
Some Lovely Work by a Reader who is a Painter
Fred writes:
This is not my bailiwick as I am barely competent with stick figures. Perhaps my readers know of something.
Fred writes:
I want to develop a visual arts program in a truly Catholic College for young artists who want to make art for the Glory of God.
Any takers that you may suggest?
Colleges I have contacted do not have any desire to develop visual arts programs so the students go to either secular schools or lukewarm Catholic schools and lose their faith.
Pray for God's will in this endeavor.
This is not my bailiwick as I am barely competent with stick figures. Perhaps my readers know of something.
When You Have Finished Your Morning Panic about Global Warming...
...you can commence your afternoon panic about waning sunspot activity and the imminence of global cooling.
I notice more and more the language in the media is shifting to handwaving about "climate change". Since that's all climate ever does, ever has done, and ever will do, it will be interesting to see how long panic about it can be maintained before that thought dawns on people and they start asking "compared to what?"
...you can commence your afternoon panic about waning sunspot activity and the imminence of global cooling.
I notice more and more the language in the media is shifting to handwaving about "climate change". Since that's all climate ever does, ever has done, and ever will do, it will be interesting to see how long panic about it can be maintained before that thought dawns on people and they start asking "compared to what?"
Monday, June 16, 2008
40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae Conference on Aug 8-9 in Berkeley area
A reader writes:
A reader writes:
Friday evening will feature a talk by Ralph McInerny - a great chance to hear a wonderful Catholic speaker who, not to put too fine a point on it, may not be giving too many more lectures on the West Coast (he's taught at Notre Dame since 1955!).
Saturday is the conference:
Archbishop Raymond Burke,
Ralph McInerny
Janet Smith
Fr. Brian Mullady and others.
Loads of info here.
What is the Religious Climate in Your Country?
Jen is conducting an informal survey to get the lay of the land in other countries.
Jen is conducting an informal survey to get the lay of the land in other countries.
Christianity Begins with the Ruthless Murder of its Founder and the Complete Triumph of His Enemies
Only a God who has lost that badly can know what he's talking about when he says despair is a sin and a cosmic blunder. It's because he knows what *real* defeat is that he can slap wimps on the side of the head and tell them to man up when they start whining about the loss of some presidential office for a few years.
When you have a Lord who has fought and beaten death, you forfeit the right to cling to despair.
Only a God who has lost that badly can know what he's talking about when he says despair is a sin and a cosmic blunder. It's because he knows what *real* defeat is that he can slap wimps on the side of the head and tell them to man up when they start whining about the loss of some presidential office for a few years.
When you have a Lord who has fought and beaten death, you forfeit the right to cling to despair.
Just one More Reason to Love Thomists
They are so cool and collected when they fillet the stupid jabberings of Know Nothing Academics.
They are so cool and collected when they fillet the stupid jabberings of Know Nothing Academics.