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Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Chancery Rats May Have Been Able to Pull this Kind of Garbage in the Past... ...but they had better figure out fast that it won't work anymore. What's most amazing to me is the level of insecurity such an act bespeaks. After all, it's not like the National Review Board has any power whatsoever. Yet bureaucrats who are *so* used to complete anonymity and the able to work without challenge that even this toothless board frightens them enough to pull a stunt like this. My takeaway from this is: make life *more* difficult for arrogant bureaucrats with nice disinfectant sunlight. Michigan Catholic Conference Rewarded for Prostituting Itself in Recent Puff Piece for St. Jennifer Granholm As a reward for their lickspittle devotion, St. Jennifer vows to spend her time in office helping to create hell on earth. She'll start with a veto of a partial birth abortion ban. Look for the Gaylord Catholic Weakly to write some more adoring crapola. Meanwhile, one of my readers get's cracking by writing the diocese with some blunt words for one of the many Bishop Quincy Wigglewattles out there: Bishop Carl F. Mengeling Long slow pressure. It took a generation to get here. Assume at least a generation to get out. "Let's face it, if you had a chance to make an easy $5 million just by helping some Nigerian banker transfer money to the states, wouldn't you take it?" said financial analyst Jeffrey Goldberg. "It's not like these opportunities just drop into your mailbox on a daily basis." People Who Won't Take Yes for an Answer If you are glutton for punishment, you can download this annoying PDF file and read Conspiracy-Minded Trads refusing to take Sr. Lucia's word for it that Russia was consecrated according to the wishes of Our Lady of Fatima. I *so* don't care about this stuff, but it's a huge deal for some folks who have Definite Theories About Things and who just can't seem to get it through their heads that Sr. Lucia really does say what she says. The perfect topic for tinfoil hat wearers. It reminds me greatly of exchanges like this relentless quest to avoid the obvious after the healing of the blind man, recorded in the gospel of John, chapter 9: The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar, said, “Is not this the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some said, “It is he”; others said, “No, but he is like him.” He said, “I am the man.” 10 They said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash’; so I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” There are two reasons people ask questions. The first is to find things out. The second is to keep from finding things out. What a weird coincidence Another priest busted for soliciting sex with minors turns out to be gay! What are the odds of that? Well, I guess life sometime just deals us these freaky thunderbolts out of a blue sky. What seminary did this priest go to and when? His portrayal is, shall we say, "Rose-y". Is he describing the situation as he knew in the 80s or more recently? From our "God is Not Mocked" Dept. I hope the guy is having an instructive and fruitful Purgatory. May he find the mercy he very badly needed. The First Rule for Catholic Democrats... ...sell your soul to Moloch. The devil took Clark, Kennedy, Granholm and Kucinich to a very high mountain, and showed them all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and he said to them, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then they said to him, “We'll do anything for power! Anything! You want dead babies? I'm cool with that! Just. Give. Me. Power!" Vultures Gather, Caw Inane Pontifications ... such as, "The big question on Catholics' minds is who's running the show." Ever hear of the Holy Spirit? This is what happens when you turn reporters loose who don't have a frickin' clue about the Faith and encourage them to confidently hold forth on it. They just make such screaming ignoramuses of themselves sometimes because they just cannot believe that Church is more than a particularly lucky political institution that somehow managed to make it to the 21st Century. Oh, and Richard McBrien, of course, gets to do his yip dog schtick. It's all so old. So utterly *old*. As Tim Drake is About to Demonsrate in an upcoming National Catholic Register piece... ...your noisemaking to chancery rats about antics like this really is noticed (and even lied about--a sign you make them very nervous). Long, sloooooow, steady pressure. Two steps forward, one step back. Keep up the pressure. These bureaucrats who promote and fly cover for this crap seem not to have had to endure much public scrutiny for a long time. Sr. Orbis Rotunda of the St. Bertha Adipose of Magnaburg Liturgical Dance Troupe Mourns the Loss of a Promising Potential Member Did you hear about the Nerd who went to Hell? He was cast into Outer Dorkness. Add your own joke below. I gotta go work now. A year from now, the Feds will cautiously acknowledge that this *might* have something to do with terrorism Doesn't *everybody* take a strenuous hike over boulders with camera equipment to go photograph nuke plants? My family does that every Sunday after church. Very Nice Encomium to Ronald Reagan by Andrew Sullivan I've always thought the chattering class buffoons who believed their own press clippings about how stupid Reagan was were simply revealing their own shallowness. I think the same thing of the ninnies who are too dumb to do anything but repeat the mantra that Bush is dumb. Gaylord Diocesan Paper Does Adoring Lickspittle Puff Piece on Pro-Abort Fanatic Gov. Granholm HMS blog is on the case and has the contact info for (politely!) registering your displeasure at this sort of "AmChurch-as-Democratic-Party-at-Prayer" bullshit. One thing I've never understood ...is the strange need, particularly among some Protestants but also among Rad Trads, to make sure that Catholics exclude as many people as possible from any knowledge whatsoever of the One True God. It's weird really. Paul could look at the Athenian worship of the "Unknown God" and acknowledge that they were on to *something*. He could write, "I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means!" Nostra Aetate can say of Muslims, "They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth". It can write of Jews, "Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures." And it can call non-Catholic Christians, "separated brethren." As a former non-Catholic Christian who has experience first hand the reality that God does not play "Simon Peter says" with grace but gives it to anybody who seeks it, I've never had a big problem with this aspect of the Church's teaching. The gospel reading this past Sunday was all about this: "He who is not against us is for us" says Jesus to the disciples who are so eager to say, "That guy over there working miracles in your name is not one of us." Jesus' answer is common sense itself: "If he's obeying me, he's obeying me. Stop treating my grace like a private club." And yet, now I'm confronted by the amazing spectacle of Protestants in my comments box who simultaneously demand that I regard as Beyond the Pale of contact with God certain people whom *they* deem to be Outside while they *also* demand that, as a Catholic, I regard their particular breach with the Church as perfectly fine. It is tempting, of course, to reply (as I did tongue in cheek down below) that I will not have communication with Vile Heretics who are fit only for everlasting damnation since they are not visible members of the One True Church and then turn on my heel and walk away shouting "Repent Heretic!" over my shoulder. I mean, talk about living in glass houses! But, for the irony-impaired, I won't do that here. I will simply note that saying "somebody who grasps part of the truth should be encouraged to grasp all of it" is generally a wiser course of action than saying "That guy over there grasps a different or smaller part of the truth than I do! Away with him!" A Good Man Needs our Prayers May God grant him the strength to carry the cross where He wills and, when his work is done, to enter the Joy forever and ever and ever, through Christ our Lord. Thanks, Papa. You're one in a million! Hoo boy! The Dems Have Picked Themselves a Winner This Time! I await his views on Superheros and Genetically-Engineered Dinosaurs. More People in Need of Insensitivity Training The ADL's predictably hysterical position is, as far as I can see, identical to that of ignorant censorious "offended" people who are too stupid to care what Huckleberry Finn actually says. It has the word "nigger" in it and so the whole book is rendered ritually unclean. California Stupid Party Acquires One Ring Party sources explain, "We're just keeping it safe. We're not going to do bad things with it like the Evil Party does. We're different." Monday, September 29, 2003
In Florida, If You Want to Kill People, It Should be Handled by Qualified Medical Professionals... The peculiar mark of our culture is that it cares more about aesthetics and tastefulness than it does about human life. The city fathers in Terri Schiavo's town have been remarkably slow to pass similar anti-euthanasia measures, merely because the aesthetics of killing her are more sterile and clinical--like a tasteful scene from a Kubrick film--and therefore it's Okay. Hey! Why Kill Only the Ill? Oh, but euthanasia will *never* lead to a debased society or anything. Nope. The West is simply superior to the Islamosphere. When *we* kill innocent people, it's not for some barbaric notion of honor, ginned up by furious passions and primitive religion. Nosirree, when we kill innocent people, we do it in a cold, clinical, detached way for reasons of efficiency and actuarial tables. A little needle prick and you just fade out. That's progress, you see? Superior Western Culture... gotta export this to a world that needs the secular salvation only America can provide! I sometimes think that Radical Traditionalism.... ...can be defined as the hope that as few people as possible find everlasting life. The weird pretzel-like logic of this HMS blog reader, for instance, veers clean into Marcionism in the peculiar attempt to deny the rather obvious teaching of the Church (a teaching dating back to the New Testament in the case of Jews and to Gregory VII in the case of Muslims), that the three Great Monotheisms all worship the God of Abraham. St. John warns against those who "run ahead" of the Church, whether to open the door of universalism or to slam them shut in a fit of Calvinism. I can understand wanting to be cautious and not be mistaken for saying that "We worship the same God" means "All are saved." What I don't understand is the eagerness to deny the plain teaching of the Church that Muslims and Jews do, indeed, worship the same God. It's as though some people are afraid that this *might* mean some are saved and this must, at all costs, be prevented. There's a sort of chintziness of spirit at work there. A kind of *hope* that as many as possible be excluded. Very sad. Fr. Rob Johansen on Hell Of course, I shouldn't be blogging this since I was informed by my resident hysteric (now, sadly, banished to the Outer Darkness where their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched) that I believe in automatic heaven for everybody whether they repent or not. But since I myself can't recall ever having that opinion, I thought I'd go ahead and post this anyway. The Murderous Brittleness of Foaming Bronze Age Fanatic Religion Things you'll never read: Dear EWTN Moral Theology Expert: Much as idiots would like to insist it's not so, there are some real differences between Christianity and Islam. I discovered a quick way to be labeled a "Jew-hater", a total supporter of the EU, and somebody who agrees with Everything Every Cardinal in the Vatican Has Ever uttered politically Just remark that "celebrating" the death of Edward Said is ugly and un-Christian, and you can get these and many other remarkable opinions attributed to you by hysterics, as well as accusations about how you have cleverly and deviously failed to renounce your implied endorsement of all of Said's works and ways. In reality, I have nothing to say about him beyond my brief denunciation of the allegedly "Christian" Apostles of Hatred who go around "celebrating" the deaths of various people, because I've not read him and know very little about him. I remark on the ugliness of a "Christian" who "celebrates" his death because the teaching of my Faith is that we are to celebrate the death of no human being, not even our worst enemy for the simple reason that God does not (Ezekiel 18:32). However, as some abundantly demonstrate, the word of God is not nearly as important as politics. Their pathetic eagerness to *defend* the idea that a man's death should be "celebrated" is just pitiable. Their assumption that contempt for such "celebration" simply *has* to mean that I endorse Said's politics (about which I know very little) is, well, a rather unsurprising testimony to the fact that they assess the world according to the canons of conservative politics rather than according to the Revelation (just as others assess the world according to the canons of liberal politics rather than according to the Revelation.) I try, not always with success, to assess the world according to the Revelation, which tends to put me at odds with everybody, including myself, sooner or later. I find repugnant the school of thought that says, "Yeah, Jesus said 'Love your enemies'. But he didn't really mean Edward Said. It's okay to "celebrate" his death and, in fact, people who criticize such celebrations must be Jew-haters." I urge such people to consider it possible that I might find "celebrating" somebody's death repugnant, not because I'm a "Jew hater" but because I take seriously the Jewish prophet Ezekiel, who spoke by the Holy Spirit when he wrote, "I have no pleasure in the death of any one, says the Lord GOD". More proof that The Most Scandalous Command in the gospel is the command to forgive and love your enemy. Fasting or abstention from sex is a cakewalk compared to it. Rod Dreher writes: I just put a blog up on the DMN site bitching about NPR's reporting of the naming of the new cardinals, and praising John Allen for setting Bob Edwards straight this morning. Edwards, on Morning Edition, started his phone interview with JA by saying that John Paul is known to have spent his papacy appointing only fellow conservatives to the college of cardinals. Allen corrected him, and said that while solid conservatives like George Pell got the nod, there were center-left archbishops who were also selected. Allen indicated by his comments that the next consistory is going to be a lot more diverse in terms of sensibilities and debate than many might think. Allen also shot down that usual cliche of American reporting on the Vatican: that X. was done because the Pope is frail. When Edwards suggested this consistory was called now because the Pope is ailing, Allen said the truth is rather more mundane. Rome likes to have 120 cardinals of voting age at all times, and the number has now slipped to 109. Besides, consistories are held every three years for the most part, and it's just about time for a new one. They're doing it a little bit early because all the world's cardinals are going to be in Rome for the pope's 25th anniversary in October, and Mother Teresa's beatification. So it made sense to do it now. Sounds like more graduates of the "Frail Pope Cracks Down on Bush's Lack of Gravitas" school of Mindless Cliche-Ridden Journalism. John Allen is a valuable natural resource. Many, many heaps and gobs of thankful gratitudinosity (and the surprise win of yesterday's Pledge Week Last Day Contest) Still no final count cuz I'm waiting for various checks to come in (don't forget to send 'em!), but the Pledge Drive has brought in at least 3100 badly needed dollars. To all who have contributed by either buying stuff or through donations and prayers (and these last are vital!) I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Now a bit of a surprise for you: two winners tied for the biggest gift donation yesterday: Katherine Coolidge and Jason Carter. So if y'all will kindly go here and peruse which book or tape you'd like and then (without ordering anything from the site) email me your snail mail address with your selection, I will see that it goes out post haste. Again, thanks to y'all! We shall use these badly needed funds in a wild and wasteful debauch of buying that fit our rapidly growing 6 year old, for the dentist, and for such luxuries as killing the carpenter ant infestation, and for paying off the tax guy. Remember that verse from the gospel yesterday about not losing your reward for a cup of cold water. That'd be you. Okay. No more money talk till the next Pledge Week in December (though, of course, I welcome free will offerings (via the convenient PayPal button on the left) and grubby capitalistic purchases of my books and tapes any time)! My heart bleeds for "disappointed" Australian dissenting Catholics Wait till they get a load of their long-awaited Vatican III and blow a gasket. John Pacheco (St. Blog's Wannabe Man in Canadian Politics) Gives His Version of the Debate (and requests your prayers for his campaign). New film out based on John I'm rather skeptical of these things as drama. The idea of simply treating the gospels like a movie script strikes me as tone deaf both to the sort of literature the gospels are and the sort of art cinema is. I never much cared for the "Jesus Movie" they did of Luke 20 years ago either. By the way, the article mentions the alleged "anti-semitism" of John (favorite evidence in favor of the case for the prosecution: John 8:44 "You are of your father the devil". For the real lowdown on what John is up to in this passage, here is an excerpt from the Catholic Scripture Study of the gospel of John I wrote with Scott Hahn last year: Baptism, Original Sin, and the Children of Abraham If you haven't checked out Catholic Scripture Study, a *free* downloadable Bible study offered by Catholic Exchange and written by Scott Hahn and I (among other folks), you should. Best Catholic Bible study available, in my not so humble opinion. Thinks Prolifers are Idiots but, like Arnold, He's an Entertainment Icon ....so, of course, the Stupid Party wants him. The one thing every prophetic voice needs to memorize Interesting piece on lonely conservative voices in the goose-step culture of academic leftism. What stands out is this passage: These dissenters lead interesting lives. But there's one circumstance that causes true anguish: when a bright conservative student comes to them and says he or she is thinking about pursuing an academic career in the humanities or social sciences. Everybody who wants to be a prophet needs to memorize this passage from Isaiah 6:8-13: And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” And he said, “Go, and say to this people: ‘Hear and hear, but do not understand; see and see, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without men, and the land is utterly desolate, and the Lord removes men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains standing when it is felled." The holy seed is its stump. Translation: the life of prophet is typically, in the world, one of failure. People won't listen. You won't be vindicated till it's too late (usually well after your lifetime). The calling of a real prophet is generally only rewarded in heaven. This is not to equate political conservatism with the voice of God. Temporal and political prophets (like, say, Winston Churchill in the 30s) sometimes get to say, "See! Toldja so!" in their lifetimes (though at horrendous cost). But the prophets of God almost never (JPII was a rare exception with the fall of communism, though some of his prophetic statements with regard to the West go unheeded to this hour). A reader writes: I watched the first episode of "Joan of Arcadia" Friday night. With An unexpectedly tender bit of prose from the normally acidic Christopher Hitchens in memory of Edward Said. A marked contrast from some of the allegedly Christian Apostles of Hatred who lurk St. Blog's comments boxes and who "celebrate" Said's death. For all you poor saps in Cleveland... I recommend James Akin's handy little guide Mass Confusion: The Do's and Don'ts of Catholic Worship A useful book for anybody suffering under the regime of liturgists who think Jesus' command was "Peter, try experiments on my rats." Cleveland Diocese Institutes New "Rite of Confusion" The plan appears to be to ask people to do stuff if they feel like it and then sit back and laugh while Mr. Smith attempts to follow the new protocol while Mrs. Jones refuses to. This will create "unity" in some Pickwickian sense understood only by liturgists. It's already transform our parish from one in which everybody used to kneel after communion into one in which half the congregation stands until the communion rite is over and the other half kneels after the first communion hymn is over. Who are the clowns who come up with these brilliant ideas? And in the hands of Hillary, it will be put to even more ingenious uses... Dr. Frankenstein, call your office. Indulging One of the Most Primal Appetites of the Human Species I give you (courtesy of the indefatigable Fr. Bryce Sibley) this site, dedicated to making the biblical case for polygamy. (And don't forget to check out their extra-special "Christian Polygamy Fairy Tales" link. And, along with these offerings, I will now indulge an urge more primal than the sexual drive, more fundamental than the need for food: the urge to say, "I told you so!" Oh, that felt good! Hard Cases Make Bad Law or... "French Pro-Euthanasia Forces Score Big Propaganda Victory in Their Struggle to Complete What Hitler Began" Always a hopeful sign when examination of conscience gets serious consideration ...in the pages of the NY Times no less! Why Christ Commands Us to Forgive Because if you don't, you are in prison forever, eternally bound by the person who victimized you, longer after he's dead. Exhibit A: Those who can't let go even when their victimizer "escaped justice" by being stomped to death by a Nazi. Mitchell Garabedian, who represents many of Geoghan's alleged victims, called for the law to be changed. Exhibit B: Those who have let go and are finding peace: Ralph DelVecchio, 47, who settled the claim that Geoghan molested him when he was a child, said the vacated conviction means little to him. Tom Shales and Big Think Tom Shales suffers from one of the most ancient prejudices of the human race: the notion that God is primarily interested in Important People... "So let's get our bearings. We are living here on a planet in shambles, terrorists running murderously amok, the Mideast on the verge of exploding, humanity plagued by hateful prejudices that go back centuries, poverty and depravity rampant, and when God decides to intervene, it's to straighten out a few troubled folks in a small town and solve a murder case? It's just too ridiculous." Wait'll the guy hears that God became incarnate in some pokey little burg called "Nazareth" and, instead of busying himself in the intrigues of the Augustan court or brokering a peace treaty between Parthia and the Roman Empire, took a marked interest in the trivial lives of some Palestinian peasants whose names are, for the most part, lost to history. He had the completely anti-statistical notion that the one lost sheep was more important than the ninety-nine. "For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption; therefore, as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord.” - 1 Cor 1:26-31 The temptation to Big Think is always with us. Here's a piece I wrote on that temptation once. Iraq bishop says media distorts coverage to discredit US-led war One aspect of modernity that frustrates me greatly is that we are *totally* dependent on the press for our picture of everything that is going on in any field beyond our immediate experience. Whenever the press actually talks about something I know something about, they almost always get things wrong (usually in small ways but sometimes in big ones). Really, this takes me back to "Vatican crackdowns" and "plunging buses". Reporters have a job to do very quickly. So they tend to rely on getting a sort of template going and then feed data into the template. Things that don't fit the template tend not to be noticed. Thus, when "Veritatis Splendor" came out the thoughtful media analysis was the Usual Crap about sex, as though that was the subject of the encyclical. In the same way, coverage of the aftermath of the war has left me with the same sense that coverage of the ramp-up to the war did: that I'm stuck with trying to parse the situation in Iraq based on the testimony of people who know about as much about Iraq as they do about Veritatis Splendor. And I'm supposed to make an intelligent political decision based on this.... Argh. The New Season for the Seattle G.K. Chesterton Society is about to Debut Our first offering: Oct. 15, 7:30, Casey Commons, Seattle University. Todd Rendleman, Ph.D., Department of Communication, Seattle Pacific University. If you live in the area, come check out the Chesterton Society for one of the coolest lay Catholic apostolates devoted to cultivating the life of the mind. Saturday, September 27, 2003
Good Morning! It's Day 7 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Pledge Week It's the Sabbath. I'm resting. However, Scripture clearly says it's lawful to do good works on the Sabbath. Supporting yer emphatically lower middle class scribe as he tries to do his apostolic thang is a good work. So make this pledge week go out with a real bang! The person to donate the largest amount today--Day 7--will get a free signed copy of whichever one of my books you would like. Of course, you can still buy my books and tapes too. And if you'd rather not do the PayPal thang, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead. Grief So long Donald O'Connor. One of the most underrated performers in the history of the movies has died with the same class wit and charm that made him great: In a brief statement, the family said that among O'Connor's last words was the following quip: "I'd like to thank the Academy for my lifetime achievement award that I will eventually get." He was, by all accounts, a very decent and modest man, as well as, in my opinion, one of the greatest triple threats ever to grace the screen with brilliant dancing, great singing and comic chops that were without peer. Singin' in the Rain, the all-time greatest musical comedy ever made in the history of the entire universe, was as much his film as Gene Kelly's or Debbie Reynolds'. I shall miss him greatly. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Friday, September 26, 2003
Good Morning! It's Day 6 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Pledge Week We're in the Home Stretch of the Great Autumn Drive. You've done a phenomenal job so far and my dentist, exterminator, plumber, IRS collector, kids and mortgage really appreciate it--though not as much as I do. However, we have two more days to go and can use much more oomph as we approach the finish line! Please consider a gift to your humble scribe and click on the PayPal button to the left so that C&EI can stay on the air and six year old Sean get his broken tooth fixed. You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money (beyond this blog, I mean), you can buy my books and tapes. And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead. Today's your day. All this week, other people have been pitching in to help out. Now the little angel on your shoulder (you know the one that looks just like you with the little tinfoil halo?) is saying, "C'mon, do the right thing! You *love* this blog!" Remember, if you are interested in my books, don't buy them from Amazon cuz if you do, they get all the money and I get a piddly amount. Get them from me and I'll happily autograph them! Vote for McClintock! But he'll make the Stupid Party lose in California! [Evil grin]. Yep. Sure will! You see, the leadership of the Stupid Party has traditionally held prolife conservatives at arms distance, but still firmly by the family jewels, saying, "Hey! If you don't support us, the Evil Party will win. You wouldn't want that now, would you?" It's like a Mafia Protection Racket. Well, now the leading Stupid Party Candidate in California is indistinguishable from Hillary except for a couple of vague points vaguely suggesting some vague misgivings about Partial Birth Abortion. Whoopti-frickin-do. The Feds can give us a Partial Birth Abortion Ban. Who cares what the governor of California does. So basically there's no reason to vote for Arnold. I say, "Vote for McClintock, give the state to the Dems, and make it extremely clear to the Stupid Party that they can't treat their base like shit and expect to succeed." Exorcise the Spirit of Rockefeller! Vote for McClintock. Hand cynics running the Stupid Party a well-deserved defeat. A bit early, but still majorly cool What's most impressive is that they kept the meaning, meter and the rhyme: Rudolphus, naso rubro, naso nitidissimo, si umquam eum spectes, dicas eum fulgere. Reliqui tum renones deridebant ludentes, semper vetabant eum apud ludos ludere. Deinde ante natalem Santa venit, et "Tu, Rudolphe nitide, traham meam duc nocte." Dein, ut renones amant, exclamantes hilare: "Rudolphe, naso rubro, in annalibus eris!" Mark Adams writes with a favor to ask youse guys: I just learned that I will be traveling on press junket to Jordan sponsored by the Catholic Near East Welfare Association. This... reminds me of my favorite apocryphal nun story about the sign on the convent grounds that read: "Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law" and was undersigned, "The Sisters of Mercy". Check out the Capuchin Franciscans! They've got a nifty new permalink icon rightcheer on my blog over on the left rail. They're the Province to which Archbishop Sean O'Malley belongs. The surest sign the Dems really believe their own propaganda about Bush "He's a brainless sock puppet for powerful interests who only knows what to say because his handlers feed him his lines!" That's the Dem drill on Bush. The trouble with the Dems is that they really believe this and, because Bush has been quite popular for a disturbing amount of time, they draw only one conclusion: "We need a brainless sock puppet for powerful interests who only knows what to say because his handlers feed him his lines!" And that, children, is how Wesley Clark was magically anointed the "front runner" even though he has no idea what positions he holds on a host of major issues. Steve Greydanus on Luther Steve's more charitable than I am. The film appears to be a very well-made tissue of lies, hagiography, demonization, and half-truths. Not surprising, but still disappointing. Because the film now appears guaranteed to make its (few) viewers stupider about what Catholics believe than they were before they saw it, I offer as a small corrective a couple of articles on what the Church actually teaches about Purgatory and Indulgences. Infantilized Minority Brownshirts on the March More people in need of Insensitivity Training and bent on crushing any speech that makes them feel uncomfortable. Feminist Brownshirts on the March! How long till Women's Ordination is mandated as a Basic Civil Right and Wrong Thinking is punished accordingly by Caesar? The California Stupid Party Gets in Touch with its Inner Rockefeller Who cares if his positions are indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton's? He can *win*! Michelle at And Then? argues with my blog about Edgardo Mortara Fair enough. I think her criticisms are just. Everything that's wrong with the phony sacrament of confession that is secularized psychology Emily Peterson of After abortion writes Yesterday's edition of the Dr. Phil show (television) showed a couple They also need to confess their sin to God, repent, and receive forgiveness and the grace to have a new life. "Moving on" without any of that is like wrapping a dirty rag around a shotgun wound to the gut and calling it good. The problem these people are facing is guilt. for. SIN. There is still only one remedy for sin: the blood of Christ. Don't get me wrong. I think psychology and psychiatry have some invaluable tools and insights to offer. But like all other human arts and science, they cannot take the place of the Revelation and when they try to they reveal themselves as gimcrack dimestore idols. This "move on" crap is a lie and disservice to these suffering people who need real peace, not bromides about "owning your decision" and "moving on". Censorship and Death Just two of the services provided by the tender pastoral ministrations of the Dioceses of Rockville Center and Brooklyn. The New York City Educational System: Keeping your kids illiterate to protect them from being exposed to the Bible As I feared... Someday, somebody will make a film that really does justice to the enormously complex and fascinating figure of Martin Luther. But not today. I figured this would be a hack job when I saw the dewy Joseph Fiennes was cast as Luther and not somebody like a young Ernest Borgnine. This is cartoon history for the "Titanic" set. This will stun you, I know, but... The creator of the St. Sebastian's Angel's website for gay priests has stepped down from his ministry while being investigated for swimming nude with young male campers in the 1980's. I know, I know. There's no connection whatever between immersion in gay culture and the abuse of boys, boys, boys, boys and boys. Still I thought people would be interested in this odd one-of-a-kind news story. Roman Catholic Faithful , which persisted in trying to expose this nest of vipers to the light until it succeeded, continues to rack up points for prophetic heroism. |
