Labor Day Weekend!

Time to goof off a bit! Back Tuesdayish.

Don't Labor on Labor Day!

Bp. Finn continues his tradition of bleeding heart liberal...

restatement of obvious and clear Catholic teaching that does not appeal to neocons who wish the Church to address the only only social issue in the whole wide world--abortion--while keeping the Church's nose out of realpolitik ideas beloved by neocons.

Here he is, speaking critically of yet another move to build even more nukes capable of incinerating the world 101 times instead of merely 100 times:

Statement on the Groundbreaking of the Nuclear Weapons Plant

By Most Rev. Robert W. Finn

On September 8, 2010 ground will be broken to begin construction of a new facility for the production of non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons in South Kansas City. In the Catholic Church September 8th is the feast of the Birth of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The confluence of the groundbreaking with the feast of Mary’s nativity provides the opportunity to pause at the irony of the situation: Mary, mother of the Prince of Peace, and the construction of a facility whose main purpose is the construction of weapons for warfare.

The Catholic tradition has always affirmed the right of a state to defend itself from unjust aggression. Implicit in that right is the need to equip a trained military force. We do not deny this obligation and necessity on the part of any state.

However, the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction – which this nuclear plant proposes to construct – constitutes a grave moral danger. Nuclear weapons are by their very nature weapons of mass destruction: their force and impact cannot be contained, and their use affects combatants and non-combatants alike. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and humanity, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons – especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons – to use them” (CCC #2314; cf. also Gaudium et Spes #80). Since the use of such weapons is morally questionable, it follows that the production of such weapons is also morally questionable.

Others would argue that to possess such weapons would be a deterrent to other nations who also possess such weapons. The Church responds to such an objection: “The accumulation of arms strikes many as a paradoxically suitable way of deterring potential adversaries from war. They see it as the most effective means of ensuring peace among nations. This method of deterrence gives rise to strong moral reservations. The arms race does not ensure peace. Far from eliminating the causes of war, it risks aggravating them. Spending enormous sums to produce ever new types of weapons impedes efforts to aid needy populations; it thwarts the development of peoples. Over-armament multiplies reasons for conflict and increases the danger of escalation” (CCC #2325; cf. also Pope Paul VI Populorum Progressio #53).

We will continue to stress the Church’s constant call for disarmament: “The Church’s social teaching proposes the goal of ‘general, balanced, and controlled disarmament.’ The enormous increase in arms represents a grave threat to stability and peace. The principle of sufficiency, by virtue of which each state may possess only the means necessary for its legitimate defense, must be applied both by States that buy arms and by those that produce and furnish them. Any excessive stockpiling or indiscriminate trading in arms cannot be morally justified. Such phenomena must also be evaluated in light of international norms regarding the non-proliferation, production, trade and use of different types of arms. Arms can never be treated like other goods exchanged on international or domestic markets” (CSD #508; cf. also John Paul II Message to the United Nations 1985, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace paper “The International Arms Trade” 1994, John Paul II Address to the World of Work 1988).

We have an obligation to think responsibly concerning this nuclear weapons plant; to think beyond the local and examine the global dimensions of this project. “Arms of mass destruction – whether biological, chemical, or nuclear – represent a particularly serious threat. Those who possess them have an enormous responsibility before God and all of humanity. The principle of non-proliferation of nuclear arms, together with measures of nuclear disarmament and the prohibition of nuclear tests, are intimately interconnected objectives that must be met as soon as possible by means of effective controls at the international levels” (CSD #509, cf. also Gaudium et Spes #80; CCC #2314, John Paul II World Day of Peace #2 1986). Let us make a decision for all of humanity: that one day this facility may be transformed from a producer of weapons into a producer of goods that benefit all mankind. We look forward to the day when Isaiah the prophet declared, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.” (Isaiah 2: 4)

Really manly American Catholics who live in the real world should only say such things about Iran, never about our world-menacing arsenal. As we recently learned yet again from the Combox Commentariat of Dissent in St. Blogs who delivered good solid thrashing to that pansy peacenik Jimmy Akin, mass murder of civilians is great when we do it. In fact, it's so great, we need to be able to make sure it can erase all life on earth multiple times over. So what's the harm in another nuke weapons plant? Don't your care about the economy?

The Thing that Used to be Global Warming...

...and then morphed into the much-harder to grip "climate change" is suffering from severe changes in the climate of public opinion. Happens when you get caught with your pants down.

Catholic in Alliance for the Common Good

...having fulfilled their purpose of getting suckers to believe that a vote for Obama was compatible with Catholic teaching, now fold up shop and disappear like the wholly owned subsidiary of George Soros they were.

Gotta love that long-term commitment to Catholic social teaching. They weren't just a front for the Obama campaign or anything.

Dawn Eden writes...

Please ask readers to pray for my friend Edmund Adamus, who is under fire for speaking the truth. See story here:

His original interview is here.

Father, hear our prayers and the prayers of St. Thomas More for your servant Edmund. Protect him and grace him to speak with your wisdom, power and love. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Mother Mary, pray for him!

The Riddle that is Me

Not for the first time, a reader writes in honest bafflement to say:

You confuse me. And that's the problem. Hi, Mark. I'm a cradle Catholic, and I read your excellent book about discovering Catholic Tradition in the late 90's. It's one of the things that led me to the University of Dallas for graduate school in Theology. So, thank you.

You’re welcome. Good to meet you.

Now, I read your blog from time to time. I admit I'm not an avid reader of it, and so I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that you criticize conservatives quite a bit more than liberals.

I criticize both.

If you are trying to steer people toward voting in more abortion and gay "marriage" cheerleaders, then I think you are doing a decent job of it. Is this your intention?

No. My intent is to persuade people to be Catholic first, party members second. I have never once suggested that abortion or gay “Marriage” should be supported.

Yes, I realize that Bush, Cheney, Gringrich, etc. have their flaws, but flawed as they are, they are a better choice in almost every situation each November.

I have abandoned the game of supporting candidates who advertise themselves as “30% less evil than the other leading brand.” I will not support candidates of any stripe who ask me to support intrinsic grave evil. Please don’t tell me that’s expecting perfection. It’s not. It’s a bare minimum request for least common denominator civic decency. I don’t ask perfection of either GOP or Dem. I simply ask that they stop telling me I have to support policies which Catholic moral teaching describes as “worthy of the fires of hell”. Both parties do this in various ways, therefore I will not support any candidate from either party that does. Conversely, if any candidate from either party tells me he will not be supporting grave and intrinsic evil, I will at least consider voting for him. So far, the pickings are slim.

If you'd like to boot the social liberals from power so that those of us who are pro-life and pro-marriage can make some headway, then I suggest a change in the tone of your rhetoric. I suggest that you criticize conservatives constructively rather than in a way that makes them seem like the scum of the earth.

I don’t think conservatives (real ones, I mean) are the scum of the earth. I don't think our Faith allows us to think of people that way, even really scummy people like child molestors, terrorist, and what not, much less mere fellow citizens of a different political persuasion. As to conservatives, I consider myself one. However, much thinking that calls itself conservative today is not about conserving anything. It is about sucking the economy dry on nation-building experiments, radical expansions of power for Caesar, salvation through leviathan by any means necessary and, last but not least, exploitation of sincere and well-meaning social conservatives via the continual false promise that, eventually, our "conservative" pols will do something about abortion. When serious effort is made to raise the US above sub-Carthaginian levels of respect for the unborn, I will take the GOP seriously. But in fact, the GOP leadership has no real interest in the problem and they never will until social conservative get off the reservation and make it clear we are serious. So, for now, I vote for third party candidates who do not ask me to support grave sin and pray for the day when mainstream conservatism actually stops spending money like drunken sailors, anointing Talk Show hosts who care nothing about gay “marriage” as their de facto leaders, and enthusiastically endorsing war crimes as the means of saving America. I expect this sort of relativistic nonsense from lefties who have no principles to betray. But for conservative to talk about faith and family while treating a dirtbag like Newt Gingrich as a serious leader? Not for me.

In short, I care about being a Catholic a lot more than I care about party loyalty. The illusion that I’m somehow more in favor of the Left than I am of conservatives is due to the simple fact that there aren’t many lefties on my blog attempting to excuse their love of the sacrament of abortion (the only core value of the Left). But there are plenty of conservatives making excuses for ignoring Catholic teaching in the service of their ideology. I’m opposed to embryonic stem cell research, not only when Obama approves of it, but when McCain does too. I won’t be party to it by supporting either man in his quest to cannibalize babies.

Hope that clarifies my position.

Make the Hurting Stop

Well intentioned and dreadful. "Better than a bone"? "Leash of love"?

The whole thing manages to be both hilarious and creepy. I reckon God receives this sort of praise as he received the widow's mite. But for those of us on the sidelines who do not live in perfected Trinitarian love yet... whew!

Coming Soon to a Free Speech-Free Bubble Near You

Teh Binks suffers the slings and arrows of a Great Brownshirt North lack of a First Amendment. The Left longs for the day when free speech can be crushed here too. There's already a toehold with those anti-free speech bubbles around various Murder Inc sites. The trick now is to find some robed masters who can blow those bubbles up larger and make them proliferate around various Professionally Aggrieved Grievance Professionals.

When people start by saying "I used to be a devout Catholic"...

you can be sure that what is about to come out of their mouth next is a farrago of ignorant nonsense.

Not to disappoint, a reader writes:

I used to be a devout Catholic but abandoned the faith ten years ago. I have never lost my fascination for Christ and his hidden presence in the world. I would like your opinion as to why seemingly sincere Christians like Pope Benedict preach so weakly in this age when most people are ignorant of the fundamentals of the Christian faith and live lives radically opposed to the demands of that faith. Surely, the truths which Christians believe, such as the possibility of eternal damnation, require a strong preaching warning them of the greatest danger we can imagine as well as attracting them to the wonders of Christ?

Um, if you were really "devout" you would not have abandoned the faith. So don't kid me. As I noted here about the grossly overused word "devout":

It’s not a word so much used by Catholics as about them. Indeed, the paradox of the word is that those who use it to describe themselves are almost invariably either rotters, former Catholics or both. There’s something strange about a person who announces “I am devout!” just as there is something either creepy and laughable about a person who announces (in a serious, not flippant manner) “I am humble!” It’s like the Tibetan Buddhist in the Onion article shouting like Muhummad Ali, “I am the greatest monk of all time!” Really devout people are too busy living life to go around reminding everybody they are “devout”.

As to your main point, I have no idea what you mean. The Pope teaches constantly. And I'm willing to be money you have no idea what he says and have not read a word of what he's written. If you are asking why he has not preached a fundamentalist Protestant hellfire and damnation sermon, that's probably because he is not a fundamentalist Protestant. He has, however, taught brilliantly, beautifully and deeply on the Faith for decades in writings that are clear as a bell and easy to understand. If you are suggesting that, because the world is ignoring and spitting on the message, the message is therefore false, I suggest you reacquaint yourself with how the world received the Greatest Teacher who ever lived.

My suggestion: find out what Benedict is saying before denouncing his teaching as "weak". It is the gospel, plain and simple, and it retains the power to destroy strongholds.

Oh, and speaking of strong messages: repent and return to the Church Jesus Christ founded or you risk the everlasting fires of hell for your pride. Jesus said of the Eucharist "Do this in memory of me." How dare you disobey him and ignore his final command and greatest gift?

How's that? Strong enough? Or do you only want to kick other people's butts while congratulating yourself? There's a parable about that:

"Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18:10-14)

You want strong preaching? Be careful what you wish for! For the measure you use will be the measure you receive.

Obama Saves Us!

Turns out the war in Iraq is over! All of our combat troops are gone from Iraq, sez the Prez. All that remains behind is a mere 50,000 troops who are getting shot at and blown up at this hour. But that's not combat because the Son of Man, by the power of his Omnipotent Word, says it is not.

Funniest reaction to this:

What President Obama called the end of the combat mission in Iraq is a meaningless milestone, constructed almost entirely out of thin air, and his second Oval Office speech marks a rare moment of dishonesty and disingenuousness on the part of a politician who usually resorts to rare candor at important moments.

Translation: But, but... we trusted you! And now you are lying like any average politician? If I was a lesser man, I would almost have to believe that I was a sucker. But since that can't be--because only conservatives are stoopid--there must be some other explanation.

I wonder how long the Left will continue in this abusive relationship.

Prolifers for Maximum Death

There's been a protracted discussion going on over at my Register blog about the Death penalty, sparked by Bp. Finn's letter on same. As I predicted, any mention of actual Church teaching about the DP (Summary: It's not morally equivalent to abortion. The State retains the right to inflict it under certain circumstances. Those circumstances are vanishingly rare in the modern world. It is legitimate, if you like, to oppose the death penalty entirely.) drew the Usual Fire from the Usual Suspects. One guy is quite open in claiming Evangelium Vitae is in error and says this teaching should be excised from the Catechism. Another lady defends him and declares anybody who repeats the clear teaching of the Catechism to be a "liberal". The usual fun and games.

What interests me is twofold. First, the lady manages to assert that there is some sort of contradiction between opposing the death penalty completely and opposing abortion. I deal with that here. Short answer: Opposition to the DP and abortion not the same because abortion and the death penalty aren't morally equivalent. But the fact remains that "don't execute" is the Church's default position and so it's not particularly hard to believe (as the Catechism authors clearly do) that there is no real reason to inflict it these days. It's not "extreme" to oppose the death penalty as a matter of practical implementation. It's basically what the Church does. Don't believe me?:

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.”

What also interests me is the strange zeal some readers retain for resisting this call for minimization of the death penalty with bellicose demands for maximizing it instead. Their zeal is for finding as many excuses as possible to kill, rather than agreeing with the obvious teaching of the Church that the burden of justification is on the one demanding death. One reader in particular writes this amazing theological rationale/rant against the Church's teaching:

Don’t any of you self-righteous death penalty opponents ever read the Bible? As he was hanging on the cross Jesus promised Paradise to the felon who confessed the justice of the death penalty (cf. Luke 23: 39-43)

Um, no. Jesus promises paradise to the one who placed his faith in Him. However, it is interesting to know that my reader thinks crucifixion is a just form of capital punishment and that he thinks believing this is grounds for salvation. The mystery is why he is keeping this insight in a combox and not informing the bishops and the Pope that we need to get back to crucifying criminals as a legitimate form of Justice *and* that confessing this theory of criminal justice, not faith in Jesus Christ, is the key to redemption and salvation. If he does ever bestir himself to instruct the bishops and the Holy Father on this startling new theory, I hope he get back to me on how that goes.

Mary Kochan...

...on Rescuing the Miners.

It is notable that the miners are remaining quite cheerful through this ordeal, not by reciting long passage from The God Delusion, but by doing normal human things like building shrines to Our Lady and singing songs of praise to God. The atheist contribution to such situations--"Where is the god of 'love' now? Your meaningless Khrister existence is all coming to a pointless conclusion now, isn't it, you losers!"--is but one of the many reasons that atheism doesn't tend to catch on among normal people. Only a small percentage of the population can bear Napoleon Dynamite with a mean streak for long. And then only when life is pleasant enough that they can afford to spend the emotional capital to bear with jerks.

God bless and help those guys in the mine through our Lord Jesus Christ. Mother Mary, pray for them!

453 Followers! Again!

In celebration of the capture and return of #453 to the Village, I give you:



Breaches of ettiquette are unseemly. Welcome back, #453.

That is all!

Why I Find the Facile Twaddle...

...about how "health care is not a right" to be a particularly barbarous manifestation of libertarianism run amok is illustrated by this brave, desperate, heartbreaking letter from a poor Catholic woman of my acquaintance:

I have been having symptoms for quite a while but they seem to be escalating. I finally, after much angst, saw the doctor yesterday. Actually I had to in order to get my thyroid prescriptions refilled, but anyway, the dr. said that all my problems are cardio related and I need a full cardio work-up as well as a referral to a cardiologist. My son supports me - paid almost 1,000 on medical for me in the past two months. He's tapped out and I have no health insurance. The Navy will cover me if I'm admitted to the ER of the Naval Hospital and that's it. My dr. knows my financial situation and told me that I need to keep my cell phone wih me at all times and if certain symptoms combine, I'm to call 911 immediately - another medical service that is pretty expensive. So, the long and short of it is I'm pretty much a walking time bomb. I can't afford to pursue the heart stuff; my regular GP said that once you get into cardio, it could run into the thousands.

My question for you is the debate on ordinary and extraordinary means in preserving life. If you read Fr. Hardon, he says that what might be considered ordinary means in one culture could be extraordinary in another. Well now, don't you think that could apply across the financial strata as well? In other words, if I don't do anything else and die, have I committed a mortal sin? The money is not there so what is expected of me from the church? And would that be the same expectations of Christ?

I have five kids - all over 21 now, but all just starting to set out on their own paths in life. I feel panicky about leaving them. All the what ifs, did I do enough for them; have I said everything I can say to them; will it be enough to bring them into the light of Christ, or sustain them through the rest of their lives? Have I let them down as a mother or as a role model?

It is barbarous to live under a system where a woman is driven to ask questions like these. It is the organizers and profiteers of such a barbarous system, if anyone, who should be lying awake at night fearing for their immortal souls, not some poor desperate woman who is guilty of nothing but being too poor to be this sick.

We're gonna try to put her in touch with whatever resources there are for her here in the local area. If some of you (especially some of you with medical savvy) know some way to get her help that won't destroy her financially, please feel free to contact me and I will put you in touch with her.

Prayer Request

A reader writes:

If you can, could you put in a prayer request for all the unemployed that they have gainful employment sooner than later?

Many friends of mine, including myself, need all the prayers we can get.

If you do make this request, make sure to mention "everyone" needing employment (I don't want to be singled out).

Father, hear our pray for work for all those who need a job! We ask this through Jesus your Son, our Lord. Mother Mary and Father Joseph the Worker, pray for us and especially for the generous-hearted reader.

This goes out to Tasha, the Beloved English Nazi

Because the Church Hates Women...

...the Pope spoke of St Hildegard of Bingen's "exemplary ministry of authority."

Transgressive Art

...for the Jolly Lifestyle. Temperanormative viewers who feel "grossed out" need to learn to deal with their obesophobia by means of rigorous state-enforced education that teaches them to suppress their sense of revulsion and instead applaud, embrace, and consume. Your "natural" sense of being repelled by this art is just a sign of how backward you are.

Bet you didn't know...

St. Thomas had the education of a modern 7 year old cuz the Church kept everybody stoopid.

Evangelical Atheists: Napoleon Dynamite with a mean streak.

Two by Yours Truly

Who Art in Heaven: In which we continue our look at the Our Father.

Then and Now: In which the Prophet Chesterton comments on our Robed Masters and the Ninth Circuit gives us another reason to homeschool.

German Jollies...

show us what it means to affirm that consent is the sole criterion of the Good. You people need to get over your bourgeois and conventional notions of middle class American dining and realize that there is a whole Rainbow of Immensity that needs to be explored and affirmed without question by you and your children. We must create a world in which we can all fork what we want with whoever we want anytime we want. Anything else is oppression and hatred of the Jolly lifestyle.

Another reason I'm very distrustful...

...about the aroma of nativism that suffuses the dishonest coverage of the GZM by organs like FoxNews is articles like this:

“An Unprofitable Mosque: Muslim Troubles in New Haven.” The mosque on one of New Haven’s finest residential streets had been dedicated five years earlier, but only after a struggle in which the imam was pressured to accept an alternate site.

As article put it, “When the residents of this aristocratic avenue discovered that they were in danger of seeing a mosque spring up among them, with all that the establishment of such a structure implied, they bestirred themselves to oppose the project. The wisest of the Muslims here did not favor it, and the mosque was induced to exchange the lot for a good one in some other locality.” But that site was also deemed “too good” for Muslims, so a lesser lot was found. The imam refused this, according to article, and built the mosque as originally planned on wealthy Hillhouse Avenue.

According to the article, the mosque fell into debt (its members being mainly “unskilled laborers”). “The result shows how foolish were those who persisted in building the mosque on the spot where it stands,” The article concluded. “How much spite had to do with it cannot now be ascertained, but the complete history of the negotiations would be very interesting. The edifice invaded the most exclusive homes of wealth and culture. It is an eye-sore on the avenue, a source of annoyance and injury to neighboring residents, and a complete failure as a business enterprise.”

Oh wait! Did I say mosque? This article was actually about St. Mary's Catholic Church and was written in 1879. As a member of an immigrant Church which is only here on the sufferance of a population that is finding it harder and harder to contain its contempt for my faith, I am reluctant, for prudential reasons, to urge that post-Christian population to be too swift to treat immigrant religions like excluded outsiders.

Not that this changes my equally practical opinion that the imam needs to face reality about the hostility his mosque has engendered. But, with respect to Team Catholic's approach to the problem, I'm not so hot on Keep All Them Murdering Muslims Out of the Neighborhood rhetoric because it provides an excellent prologue to Keep All Them Child Abusing Pervert Catholics Out of the Neighborhood rhetoric. Anybody who thinks that can't happen is innocent of the tactics that totalitarian states used against the Church throughout the 20th Century. And, as one of the most Tired Democracies on the planet, we are well on the way to the embrace of some form of totalitarianism. My big fear is not guys in caves. My big fear is of what Lincoln articulated 150 years ago:

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Apropos my discussion yesterday about Rauf...

...thinking in terms of "Muslim Inside Baseball" and not really taking into account the world Outside the Bubble, I give you John Allen's discussion of the astonishing game of "Catholic Inside Baseball" the Ents at the Vatican were engaged in during the Williamson flap last year:

Now for one of those revelations from the book -- a nugget which captures the Vatican's PR tone-deafness so perfectly that it just takes your breath away.

It concerns the affair of Bishop Richard Williamson, one of four traditionalist prelates whose excommunications were lifted by Pope Benedict XVI in January 2009. Williamson infamously gave an interview to Swedish television in November 2008, repeating statements he had made two decades earlier in Canada, to the effect that Nazis did not use gas chambers and that only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews had died in Nazi camps during the Second World War. The interview was not broadcast in Sweden until Jan. 21, 2009, but its contents were anticipated in a piece in the German weekly Der Spiegel the day before, on Jan. 20.

By that stage, Benedict XVI had already decided (sometime in late 2008) to lift the excommunications of the four bishops -- seeing it, he would later insist, as the beginning of a process of reconciliation, not the end. A formal decree was presented to Bishop Bernard Fellay, leader of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, on Jan. 17, 2009, and it took effect on Jan. 21. The decree was not made public by the Vatican, however, until noon Rome time on Jan. 24, when it was published in that day's news bulletin.

Once that happened, headlines about the pope "rehabilitating a Holocaust denier" became the shot heard round the world. After weeks of controversy, Benedict XVI would eventually issue an agonizing letter to the world's bishops apologizing for the hurt caused by the affair.

All that, of course, is a matter of record. What Tornielli and Rodari add is that on Jan. 22, 2009 -- two days after Der Spiegel broke the story of Williams' interview, and two days before the Vatican formally announced the lifting of the excommunications -- a high-level meeting took place in the Vatican to discuss the presentation of the pope's decree. The meeting was convened by Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state. Also present were:

•Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, then president of the Ecclesia Dei Commission for relations with the traditionalists;
•Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith;
•Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, then prefect of the Congregation for Bishops;
•Cardinal Claudio Hummes, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy;
•Archbishop Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts;
•Archbishop Fernando Filoni, substitute in the Secretariat of State.
The gathering, in other words, brought together the Vatican's most senior brain trust. Tornielli and Rodario reconstruct the meeting on the basis of a previously unpublished set of confidential Vatican minutes.

Here's the mind-blowing point: During the meeting, there was no mention whatsoever of Williamson's explosive comments on the Holocaust, despite the fact that they had been in circulation for two full days. The minutes reflect a detailed discussion about whether, and how, the lifting of the excommunications applied to other clergy of the Society of St. Pius X, but there was apparently no consideration of how this move might go down in the broader court of public opinion.

Two key figures were not on the guest list for the Jan. 22 meeting: Lombardi, who had to explain the decision to the world's media, and Cardinal Walter Kasper, who had to explain it to the Jews. Instead, Filoni led a brief discussion about a proposed statement to the press, and the minutes reflect general agreement not to grant any media interviews. Coccopalmerio was commissioned to publish an article in L'Osservatore Romano explaining the decree, but only "after a few days."

The lack of any sense of urgency, or alarm, about public reaction is astonishing. The impression one gets is that the Vatican's best and brightest were acutely sensitive to the kinds of questions canon lawyers might ask, but either unaware of -- or, even more troubling, indifferent to -- how the decree might strike the rest of the world.

The rest is history. After being whipped around by a global tsunami for 10 full days, the Vatican's Secretariat of State finally released a statement on Feb. 4, calling Williamson's statements on the Holocaust "unacceptable." It clarified that by lifting the excommunications, Benedict XVI only opened a door to dialogue, and it's now up to the traditionalists to prove their "adherence to the doctrine and discipline of the church." The four prelates still have no authority to act as Catholic bishops, and their movement is still not recognized. If they want to be fully reintegrated into the church, they will have to accept the teaching of the Second Vatican Council.

Looking back, here's the thing.

Even if Williamson had never given his interview to Swedish TV, anyone looking at the situation from a PR point of view should have anticipated that once the Vatican announced these four bishops were no longer excommunicated, reporters would look into their backgrounds. Had anyone in the Vatican spent even five minutes on Google searching under the name "Richard Williamson," his troubling history on the Holocaust would have leapt off the screen, which was a matter of public record long before he spoke to the Swedes. (Indeed, all the Swedish journalist did was ask Williamson to repeat stuff he had already said.)

Armed with that information, the Vatican could have issued its detailed Feb. 4 statement along with the decree itself, to explain from the outset that these guys have not been "rehabilitated," but rather given an opportunity to clean up their act. They could also have organized a press conference, so there would be TV sound bites assuring the world that this decision in no way signified a rollback on Catholic/Jewish relations or anything else.

Under any set of circumstances, failure to take such common sense steps is hard to explain.

Yet Williamson did give that interview to Swedish TV, and in that light, the revelation that the pope's top aides assembled two days after it went public and still seemed oblivious to the train wreck hurtling towards them -- well, you'll never need additional proof that the Vatican has a PR problem.

Now, as a general rule, I *like* that Rome doesn't think in terms of PR. One of the more loathsome aspects of Mahony's tenure was the fact that his first response to the sexual abuse that he utterly mishandled was not to deal with the problem but to hire a PR firm. I like that the Vatican is staffed by Ents who are way out of touch with the modern world because, unlike Stanford Nutting, I think there are plenty of things--like the Tradition--that are way more important than the ephemera of the Modern World.

But I'm also aware that when you live in the Bubble of Inside Baseball, you do put yourself at risk for these sort of communication disasters. And I suspect very much that something similar obtains with Rauf--and that unlike the Vatican, he is not learning from his blunder but digging in and, as Steve Greydanus put it, burning rather than building any bridge he once may have hoped for. This seems about the most charitable way of reading the data that I can see.

Brian Visaggio asks...

Can a government legislate objective morality?

Answer: Yes. Indeed all legitimate law is nothing but legislated morality.

Of course, that doesn't mean that a government *necessarily* must legislate all morality. It is immoral for Catholics to skip Mass on Sunday. I don't want a civil law against it though. Similarly, the fact that states *can* legislate morality doesn't mean they always do. Often states legislate grave evil by the exercise of raw power. When they do, Augustine is perfectly right to say that an unjust law is no law at all. We are, in fact, morally bound to resist laws contrary to the law of God.

Knowing which laws those are, and what the law of God is in a particular situation, is the tricky part.

Fr. Rutler on ICEL and the Liturgy

Fr. Rutler, with his customary aplomb and grace, discusses the liturgy in a way which makes a dolt like me able to empathize with his concerns. More like him please.

Weird Al is a freakin' genius

An entire song made of palindromes, clearly stolen from Dawn Eden and Bob Dylan:

Good Job, Torture Defenders!

Legacy of Torture

The "enhanced interrogation techniques" used on terror suspects were immoral, did huge damage to the country's global standing and produced little important intelligence. And now they are making it much harder to try and convict accused terrorists.

Boy! Who could possibly have foreseen *that* as they labored to defend the use of torture for years and years in comboxes all over St. Blog's. What a wholly unforeseen consequence of an immoral, stupid, unproductive and short-sighted policy!

Anti-Jerk Petition

Sundry jerks are desecrating the Eucharist on Youtube. Unleash the power of the blog and ask Youtube to stop the jerks. Stuff gets pulled from Youtube all the time. You can help see to it that this stuff of jerkishness is among the stuff that disappears.

News Sure to Be Suppressed by our Temperanormative Media

Study finds chocolate milk works well after exercising

Got milk? Got … chocolate milk? A new study suggests that drinking a glass of chocolate milk after strenuous exercise may do as much as an expensive sports drink to help your body get back to its former levels, and is greatly superior to a carbohydrate-only drink.

William Lunn, a newly hired assistant professor of exercise science at Southern Connecticut State University, wrote his doctoral dissertation at the University of Connecticut on the effects of chocolate milk during recovery from endurance exercise, such as running.

I can feel the Jolly Pride swelling, swelling within me.

Jeffrey Mark Ostrowski writes...

Here is a brand new video (4 of 5):

Taken from this.

Video is produced by Corpus Christi Watershed.

Video shot & edited by Danny Mendez.

Feel free to promote this video in any way you like.

There is a young girl who sings VERY WELL in this video.

Anything you can do to let people know about this project helps us very much.

THANKS!!!!

Check thou it out!

The Thing that Used to be Conservatism...

used to believe in, rather than talk about, limited government. Today, however, outfits like the Heritage Foundation choose, as a VP, the most ardent advocate and defender of radical expansions in the power of the federal government, including torture and warrantless spying on American citizens that the Bush Administration produced.

Sincerity. If you can fake that, you've got it made inside the Beltway.

Praise report

A reader writes from the Great White North:

Last year at this time, I wrote to ask for prayers for my sister-in-law, Joanne, who had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She underwent surgery and chemotherapy over the fall and winter. Last month I saw her for the first time since her illness, and you would never even know she had been ill. The doctor said that if she has four more years of clean checkups, she will be considered cancer-free. Please thank all your readers who added their prayers to ours, and invite them to join us now in thanksgiving and in prayer for Joanne’s continuing good health!

Thanks be to God our Father through our Lord Jesus Christ! Mother Mary, St. Luke and St. Peregrine, thanks for your prayers!