A bloody mess in Dallas/Ft. Worth

Yesterday, the DMN ran this story.

Today Fr. Allan Hawkins drafts this for the parish:

From Fr Hawkins to the people of St Mary the Virgin

No doubt you will have seen the story which appeared today in the Dallas Morning News, and perhaps elsewhere in the media. I plan to speak about this hurtful and distressing matter at all three Masses next Sunday -- but, meanwhile, I would like you to have immediately the following brief outline of the facts.

I have known Fr Christopher Clay for almost ten years, having first met him through a mutual friend -- a priest now deceased -- several years before his ordination to the priesthood. Fr Clay was ordained for the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, of which diocese he remains a priest.

In May 2002 certain allegations were made concerning several priests, of whom Fr Clay was one, about an incident which was alleged to have taken place some four years earlier. Fr Clay strenuously denies all and any such allegations. The Diocese "removed Fr Clay from active ministry" while the matter was investigated. The outcome of this investigation was that no charges of any kind were brought against Fr Clay (though I understand that there are still ongoing processes with regard to the other priests concerned). Furthermore, according to a message dated June 28 to me from Rod Dreher (a journalist for the Dallas Morning News whom many of you will know as a worshiper in our Parish, who appears to have instigated the present interest in the matter) "the Pennsylvania State Police … has no record of an investigation into Father Clay". (It seems that Rod Dreher has had an ongoing journalistic interest in these events in Scranton, having written about them in February 2002 in the National Review Online.)

One might imagine that that would have been the end of the matter. And, indeed, so it appeared to have been. Bishop Timlin (the now-retired Bishop of Scranton) ended Fr Clay's "removal from active ministry" by appointing him parochial vicar at St Thomas More parish in Lake Ariel, PA - and I have Bishop Timlin's letter to this effect, dated February 4, 2003, before me as I write. This could not have happened if Fr Clay had been suspended or had had his faculties removed.

In the event, very soon after Fr Clay reported for his new assignment he became unwell, no doubt as a result of the stress of all these events; and he sought a leave of absence from the Diocese on health grounds. This was granted, and Fr Clay moved to his home town of Dallas; and I have a copy of the positive and supportive letter which Bishop Timlin sent to him, confirming these arrangements, dated March 10, 2003.

At about that time I personally contacted Bishop Timlin to make sure that there was no objection to my inviting Fr Clay to assist us at St Mary the Virgin. The Bishop assured me that this was entirely acceptable - and he expressed satisfaction that Fr Clay had supportive friends in the area. I also spoke with Fr Peter Stravinskas who was Fr Clay's superior at the Oratory in which Fr Clay lived at the time of the alleged incident; he gave no indication of any concern.

On April 22 of this year the new Bishop of Scranton, Bishop Joseph F. Martino, wrote to Fr Clay as a priest of his Diocese but now living in Dallas, to ask him his "intentions regarding your future ministry". Again, such an inquiry would be meaningless and absurd if Fr Clay was under suspension and without faculties as a priest.

In the light of all the above, it is difficult indeed to see what ends of truth, justice and charity have been served by today's Dallas Morning News and its journalists.

Please pray for Fr Christopher Clay at this time. He is a devout and fine priest. He is, and will continue to be, a close friend of mine and my family. He is, by adoption and grace, a member of our Parish community; and we will support him. And may Blessed Mary pray for her parish, and for the priests who are her sons.

Fr Allan

And Rod Dreher talks about it all here.

CAEI Reader Eric Johnson Immortalized in Day By Day Cartoon



Way to go, Eric!

Dawn Eden's Encounter with Evil

James Watson: Nobel Prize winner. Significant cultural and scientific influence. And profoundly evil man. God help him.

The Awesome Power of Mercy and Forgiveness

Hell is powerless against love like this.

I suspect I'm setting myself up for a lot of hurtful comments in the comments boxes

But I thought I'd blog this anyway, because the reader seems to me to be thoughtful and charitable and I actually agree with much of what he has to say about the snarkiness that has crept into my tone. I'm not happy about it and it has been the subject of thought and prayer at this end.

Time to break radio silence.

Let me qualify everything I've written below with three disclaimers:
1. These are general impressions. No hard facts. Feel free to disregard if that's problematic.
2. I am a sinner.
3. Principled people exist on almost every side of contentious issues. This isn't about whether you're right (more often than not, IMHO) or wrong on Iraq, W, Kerry, or whether Paul Allen looks better with or without a beard.

I'm an increasingly-irregular comment-boxer. I've been coming to your blog for awhile now; I was originally interested in your story of an evangelical that found his way to Rome... because I'm an evangelical who has managed to make it to London, and have a feeling that Rome is my final stop, if you follow my drift. Your blog was once a daily stop for me, particularly because of its emphasis on Catholic apologetics. I have made an ass of myself on your site on a regular basis, and one of its attractions was the fact that I could comment on something that I thought was reasonably clever in an evangelical kind of way only to have intelligent people start quoting obscure 12th century papal edicts (apparently from memory). The response wasn't already kind: I remember an honest and sincere question about Mariology that I put in a comment box that got me completely, thoroughly and ungraciously flamed (and made me wonder about the defensiveness of the flamers), but you were kind enough to acknowledge the sincerity and seriousness of my query. The erudition of the responses - and the often humorous graciousness of the host - kept me returning.

I've noticed a much, er, harder edge to your blog lately, though, both in your posts and in your comment boxes. The war in Iraq is partly to blame. You're baiting people, they're baiting you back (including, to my shame, me). Funny links to goofy stories seem to be included now only to relieve the tension. You put apologies in a post, and... you're flamed for it in the comment boxes. Politics now dominates - and the level of civility descends to new lows. Christian witness doesn't mean you don't take strong stands on contentious issues, but it's hard to hear Jesus say "come unto me and I'll give you rest" when everybody's busy debating which circle of hell John Kerry will reside in. Where once your blog seemed pre-occupied with doing the right thing, and encouraging others to do the right thing, now it seems like everybody's playing dodgeball with paintball guns. Gone is the easy sense of humor and sense that there were more important things happening in this and other worlds than what appeared in the headlines.

I once heard a preacher give a sermon in the middle of a busy city at lunch hour to some Christian businessmen, in which he claimed, to their shock and horror, that the most important thing occurring in the city at that moment was the gathering of those Christian businessmen to pray. That preacher took the long view; your blog used to do the same. That's what I miss.

Mark, you know nothing about me, and I know very little about you. I'm not trying to scold - you could teach me, Master Yoda, but most certainly not vice versa. I'm not a priest, and God knows (!) I'm a lousy Christian. Feel free to file this in the bursting-at-the-seams "sincere and earnest but naive and misguided former evangelical who won't mind his own business" section (we've all sat next to one on the plane or bus). But as someone who liked visiting your blog once, things seem to be different now, so I scan the links and move on, which is sad because as an apologist you're really kinda... good.

Feel free to ignore.

P.S. One of things that I love about Rome is the Pope. It's hard to describe the respect - affection?! - I have for him. My friends think I'm nuts (and on the road to heresy, of course), but "Crossing the Threshold of Hope" was the most Christian modern book I've ever read. I'd love to see some writing on his influence on those who chose to come to Rome. Another example of why I like him so much.

I dunno. I sometimes wonder very much whether I'm doing more harm than good with this blog. Anyhow, I appreciate the reader's critique. It's good to have honest and charitable folk who can speak the truth in love.

A reader responds...

to this blog entry and writes:

I am a Christian, attending a protestent church, but striving to grow in discipleship. Over the years, and with the help of your blog site and Touchstone, I've come to appreciate that many Roman Catholics love the Lord just as much, if not more, than I do; and often their arguments for a particular theological position are better than mine.

But I didn't find your arguments on this as thoughtful as usual. In practice, the difference between grace and works is absent, and we see the truth of reconciling the message of St. Paul with that of St. James. But the Lord looks on the heart and to our motivations. If we draw the distinction between grace and works in our hearts and minds, then we are less likely to give the glory to ourselves, even though the practical outcome may be the same as the one who draws no distinction.

I'm glad that you've grown in your appreciation of the gifts that God has given to the Church through its Catholic (and Orthodox, since you mention Touchstone) members and the richness of Catholic theology. It's lovely to see such appreciation grow among Protestants and I hope that similar appreciation for the gifts God has given to Protestants grows among Catholics.

Sorry my response was necessarily terse. I'm trying to get a lot done. I'm not sure what you mean when you say I did not distinguish between grace and works. Our works, like our very existence, are all fruits of grace. It is not sola gratia, but sola fide, that I regard as a sheer shibboleth without actual content. Our works, like our faith, are gifts of grace. Of course God therefore gets all the glory. But he also shares his glory with creatures. However, it is for him to do that, not for us to glorify ourselves.

The Al Gore Effect

Eric Johnson writes:

Since Iraq is a perennial topic on your blog, you might be interested in this, since many of the questions you raise are matters of facts, and those facts are all filtered through the news media. I wrote an article about Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the Washington Post's Baghdad bureau chief, who has been consistently reporting bad news out of Iraq. Thing is, he was reporting bad news even before the war was over, and I saw first-hand his complete mishandling of a story in the city where we Marines were.

http://www.commentarypage.com/johnson/johnson062904.php

Your friend Andrew Sullivan has already linked to it, as has Instapundit and a bunch of others. Keep up the good work. I visit a couple of times a day.

I agree that it pays to retain in mind at all times that what we "know" about things in which we do not have expertise is typically filtered to us through the hands of reporters who only kind of know what they are talking about.

I call this the "Al Gore Effect". I christened the term in 1992, when Clinton picked Gore as his running mate. Now, the fact was, I knew nothing whatever about Gore. Neither did anybody I worked with. But the Seattle Times came out with an editorial thatday saying, "Looks like Gore is a pretty good guy!" and by the end of the day people who knew *nothing* about Gore except what the editorial told them to think were all dutifully mouthing, "Looks like Gore is a pretty good guy."

It's the same sort of pseudo-knowledge as all those people who go around talking as though they are certain that they somewhere or other must have read the Origin of Species, or Veritatis Splendor, when they could not, in fact, quote five words from either. What they really know is what some authority in the media told them they should think about these documents.

When you rely too much on pseudo-knowledge, it can get you into real pickles (and we all rely on it to a degree). Just the other day, Fr. Rob was remarking on this spectacularly stupid piece of pseudo-knowledge-filled reportage on "Celibacy":

According to the film, over half a million priests and nuns have left the church since the early '60s, a loss known among Catholics as "the bleeding."

Yes, we Catholics go around all the time maundering about "the bleeding". Why, Mark and I use the phrase in our blogs on almost a daily basis.

Where does this guy get this stuff?

Because of article and programs like this, a certain percentage of our neighbors now believe that they are a little bit more familiar with "inside Catholic jargon" and can converse knowingly about the Faith. Don't be surprised if, once this documentary airs, you hear non-Catholics toss around a phrase like "the bleeding" and speak as though it is common knowledge that all Catholics use this phrase in our secret conversations. It's absolutely hilarious, of course, to actual Catholics. But the real lesson is "What other hilarious things are asserted as "common knowledge" about communities of which we are not a part?" What do non-military types, non-Muslims, non-Jews, non-Americans, non-Europeans, non-blacks, non-you-name-its "know" of those and any other community you'd care to name simply through the mediation of reporters who kinda sorta know what they are talking about but often really have no clue. How much of our "knowledge" of the world is almost complete a product of the Al Gore Effect? If my experience of the media's reportage on Catholic theology (a subject I *do* know) is any indication, a *huge* amount of our knowledge is, in fact, pseudo-knowledge.

A reader writes

I went to my parish web site seeking some information and came across this excellent homily from May 30, 2004 (from a Mass other than the one we attended that week, apparently) by Fr. James Poumade, a very serious, erudite and orthodox priest at my parish-St. Mary's in Alexandria, VA. [All of our priests are good, if I may say.] He also explains Catholic Tradition, Morality and Canon Law in regard to politicians who aid and abet abortion. I see this is in line with a couple of posts you made this morning.

Gay Activists are Courageous, Valiant, Civic-Minded, and Have Such Charming Twinkles in Their Eyes

Has there every been any greater gift to the American body politic than the gay rights movement? I don't think so. Nor should you. Ever.

And if you do, you should have your right to say so revoked, by force, if necessary.

More clerical weirdness in Dallas

So this priest walks into a stand-up comedy club...

Actually, he's a deacon, but nobody starts a joke with, "So this deacon walks into a bar..."

And since Canadians are asking what I thought of the election...

I reply, "You just can't beat Kathy Shaidle for economy and compression in her analyses of Canadian politics." The lady cracks me up.

Kathy Shaidle Puts Out Another Subliminal Plea for a Green Card

My uncle was convinced till the day he died that American troops were poised on the 49th parallel, ready to swarm over the border and invade his country. Hated Americans (but loved my dad, of course).

Americans have been remarkably oblivious to the fact that Canadians loathe us for a very long time (I speak as somebody who is half-Canadian). It sort of reminds me of the strange relationship between Catholics and the Orthodox. We say, "Hey! Buddy! We're practically the same! Let's be pals!" and the response is frequently a distinct chill in the air and a muttered "Get away from me!" Americans (and Catholics) almost invariably come away surprised, hurt, and baffled by the encounter.

Hard to decide

Do I post this under "Reason to Homeschool #3948530498534343" or "If only women could be teachers! If only teachers could marry!"

Or maybe I'll just post it under "We have the bishops who reflect us" file.

Another Enemy of Free Speech Heard From

Rich Paules writes:

Hey Marky-poo,

Just so you know, I thought your Italy / anti-Muslim crack finally crossed a line. Please see the text of an email I've sent to Verizon. I also sent one to Paypal. Since I do business with both of them, I may have a bit of clout.

I find it disturbing that a hate-mongering website like Mark Shea's Blog, "Catholic and Loving It", is being promulgated with the help of Verizon. On the blog, Mark has, in the last two weeks, alternately taken shots at gays, protestants, muslims, jews, and pro-choice advocates, without provocation at times. Don't take my word for it, see for yourself at http://markshea.blogspot.com/. Mr. Shea apparently uses a verizon email address, so I'm assuming he's using Verison as his ISP. Although Mr. Shea's rantings are likely to be viewed as extremist, I'm concerned that you provide a vehicle for it.

Surely you have some scruples in terms of the types of people with which you'll do business. Perhaps I should reconsider the wisdom of continuing to do business with you.

Have a nice day!

Major Skepticism Alert

Sorry, but I think I'll save my money for the Brooklyn Bridge.

From our "Failure to Grasp the Concept" Dept.

Umbrage is being taken

at my complaint that the Forward is trying to tell bishops what they can and cannot teach their flock about abortion and who they can and cannot give communion to. The gist of the umbrage is, "It's a free country. Jews can speak their mind if they want about the Catholic communion/abortion controversy."

True enough. Saying, "We disagree with the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion" is fair game for anybody to say. They're wrong of course. But they can say it. It's a free country.

However, saying, "The threat by Catholic bishops to withhold communion from politicians who uphold abortion rights is an affront not just to democracy, but also to the best moral teachings of Catholicism." is a preposterous act of presumption whereby people who are not, in fact, members of the Catholic communion attempt to assert that they know better than the bishops what the teachings of that communion are and they have the right to tell that communion how to order its internal affairs.

It's as silly as if some stupid Catholic were to write an editorial declaring that he just doesn't see the point of circumcision and kosher laws and rabbis around the world should just knock off this silly and scandalous custom. Strictly speaking, he would have the right to say it, it being a free country and all. But it's still dumb for a Gentile to tell Jews how to order their internal affairs.

Now, I agree that a bishop cannot legitimately pass judgment on voters on which candidate they can vote for in a typical election and he cannot declare that "If you vote for Kerry, you are in mortal sin" since one cannot know the reasons for such a vote. I've said as much repeatedly regarding Bp. Sheridan's baffling actions in Colorado Springs. However, I think it is within a bishop's competence to say that a pol who deliberately and repeatedly flouts the Church's teaching in grave matters *can* be denied communion. Such an act, while it has political ramifications, is essentially an *ecclesial* act. The bishop cannot control how a pol acts on the Senate floor. But he can control whether he receives the Eucharist in Church when those actions repeatedly demonstrate grave contempt for the Church's teachings. As such, non-Catholics have no business telling the Church how to order its internal affairs, just as Catholics have no business telling the local synagogue that they don't like how they order their liturgy and who they allow to participate in it.

A request from a brave young Dominican

Fr. Steve Maekawa, OP, is serving in Afghanistan. He was our Newman Center guy at the University of Washington before he was called up. He writes:

I'm writing in regards to a conversation we had last winter about RCIA and books for people to read on the basics of the faith. I've been called up to serve in Afghanistan for the year and have been here for two months now. My job is to rotate through the many smaller bases and camps to provide Mass and the sacraments. I've run into several people who are interested in becoming Catholic. The only problem is there are no catechists at these camps. Many Catholics but none trained or who are teachers. The three people I have spoken with are young officers who are intellegent. they want "good" readings and web sites that they can peruse in their off hours. One is a Cal Berkeley graduate in rhetoric, one is a Seton Hall grad in finance, both of these men have looked at other Christian denominations but find the intellectual life of Catholicism appealing. The other soldier is married to a Catholic and has been attending church at home with his wife. He has been coming to services when they are offered.

I know that this is a big request. What internet resources are out there? any good books or programs that you would recommend?

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Remember: The Evil Party Candidate Has *Repeatedly* Voted to Make Sure this Barbarity is Preserved as a "Fundamental Human Right"

Cool Terra Grass Armchairs

I think they manufacture these in Lothlorien.

From our "Sin Makes You Stupid" File

I'm doing a study of Exodus right now and I can't help but notice the strange parallel between the stupid ways Pharaoh acts due to his sin-hardened heart and the stupid way in which the author of this book can look *right at* the problem, see clearly what it is--and then cling desperately to liberal ideology in the teeth of the obvious, which can only lead to the civilizational destruction he clearly outlines.

Usual Suspects Demand Same Old Stuff

The poor folks in Cincinnatti. As a word of encouragement: We went through all this stuff in th 80s here in Seattle. It does eventually die of boredom. Happier times are ahead.

The Counter-Attack on Abp. Burke Begins

Fr. Rob is on the case.

Cardinal Dulles on Communion and Pro-Abort Pol Controversy

1 Picture=1000 Words

Catholic Radio in Maryland Pecks throught Eggshell and Squints at the Daylight

A Snapshot from America's Chaotic Jurisprudential Relationship with the Almighty

Gay Activism: Continuing the Fight to Crush Incorrect Thoughts and Muzzle Free Speech!

The ACLU: Continuing to Fight for the Destruction of Society and the Endangerment of Children

Pope says "Sorry about Constantinople" again

Equality: It's Medicine, Not Food

My latest on Catholic Exchange.

Things that hit my hot buttons

The other day I found a link to a story on Carrie Tomko's blog, blogged it, and forgot to mention the blog I'd seen it on. Mea culpa.

Instead of assuming "Shea forgot to give credit", Carrie and readers instantly began speculating about which way I would lie in order to avoid giving the blogger credit. Would I lie by claiming that somebody had sent me the link (I do, in fact, get tons of links)? Or would I lie by claiming to have found the link elsewhere? Why they had it in their heads that I am too superior to read blogs when I write one and have a blogroll full of them, I don't know. But what irritated me--greatly--was the instant assumption that, of course, I am a liar and that, in forgetting to give credit I was, in fact, deliberately attempting to hide the fact that I saw the link on her blog.

That ticked me off. Few things torch my buttons faster than being called a liar and I responded by giving very nasty blog credit to Carrie. Since then, I have cooled down and decided that was wrong and a sinful act of retaliation instead of turning the other cheek. I have therefore altered the entry so that the snark factor is removed. My apologies to Carrie for the snipe. I would ask in turn that both she and her readers would not leap to call me a liar at the earliest opportunity.

The Forward Does its Bit...

...to prove Rabbi Lapin's contention that the real religion of a huge number of American Jews is liberalism (with, of course, the concomitant slavish worship of the sacrament of abortion).

What in hell does a Jewish magazine have any business doing telling bishops of the Catholic Church what they can and cannot teach about abortion to members of the Catholic communion?

Answer: nothing. But if Rabbi Lapin is right, then the Forward staff is simply practicing its real religion: secular liberalism.

Senor Cardgage Mortgage Can Give You a Free Canceltation

No probalo!

The cruel policy of enforced celibacy in a male-only public school teacher population continues to wreak havoc

Amazing

And the most amazing part is that I can almost bet money that some of my readers will enthusiastically side with the prosecutor.

In their petition, Hicks' lawyers said prosecutor David Fowler told jurors that the Ten Commandments make no provision for mental illness.

"Does it say, `Thou shalt not kill, and be held accountable only if you know what you're doing?' No, it doesn't say that," the lawyers quoted the prosecutor as saying.

Yes. The goal of Scripture is always to reduce mercy to the absolute bare minumum possible and to see as much death and condemnation meted out as we can possibly get away with. Salvation by law, death and condemnation: that's the true gospel!

In Asia, a trend toward destroying Catholic schools

Not a problem. They're just Catholics.

From our "Hitler Loved Animals" File

If that guy had *really* cared about Our Mother Gaia he would have rejoiced to be eaten. Life in prison is too good for him.

The UN May Act in Sudan Soon

We'll see.

A reader writes to say she was confronted by a Protestant critic

The critic wrote:

Here are some early church leaders backing the truth of saved by Grace, through faith ALONE!

• Clement of Rome: "We also, being called through God's will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves, neither through our own wisdom or understanding, or piety, or WORKS which we have done in holiness or heart, but through faith" (Epistle to Corinthians). • Ignatius: "His cross, and his death, and his resurrection, and the faith which is through him, are my unpolluted muniments; and in these, through your prayers, I am willing to be justified (Epistle to Philadelphians). Note: "muniments" are title deeds, documents giving evidence of legal ownership of something. • Polycarp: "I know that through grace you are saved, not of works, but by the will of God, through Jesus Christ (Epistle of Philippians). • Cyprian: "If Abraham believed in God and it was imputed to him for righteousness, then each one, who believes in God and lives by faith, is found to be a righteous person." • Basil: "This is the true and perfect glorying in God, when a man is not lifted up on account of his own righteousness, but has known himself to be wanting in true righteousness and to be justified by faith alone in Christ." • Ambrose: "Without the works of the law, to an ungodly man, that is to say, a Gentile, believing in Christ, his "faith is imputed for righteousness" as also it was to Abraham." • Origen: "Through faith, without the works of the law, the dying thief was justified, because...the Lord inquired not what he had previously wrought, nor yet waited for his performance of some work after he should have believe; but...he took him unto himself for a companion, justified through his confession alone." • Jerome: "When an ungodly man is converted, God justified him through faith alone, not on account of good works which he possessed not." • Chrysostom: "What then did God do? He made (says Paul) a righteous Person (Christ) to be a sinner, in order that he might make sinners righteous... it is the righteousness of God, when we are justified, not by works...but by grace, where all sin is made to vanish away." • Augustine: "Grace is give to you, not wages paid to you...it is called grace because it is given gratuitously. By no precedent merits did you buy what you have received. The sinner therefore received this grace first, that his sins should be forgiven him...good works follow after a justified person; they do not go before in order that he may be justified...good works, following after justification, show what a man has received."

Catholics have no objection to saying we are saved by grace. It's the first statement of Trent on Justification. However, nobody, Protestant or Catholic, really believes we are saved by faith alone. Oh sure, some Protestants will *say* they do, when they are arguing with Catholics. But when the argument is over, Protestants typically return to their own churches and start giving sermons which say things like "Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone" (which, being translated, means "Faith alone does not save you.")

The attempt to enlist the Fathers in some sort of anachronistic anti-Catholic polemic is a hoary--and perennially ineffective--one. It's often like applying some remark by Thomas Jefferson to cloning. And its typically blind to the reality of what that fathers actually believed. The Fathers who are quoted here all believed in the necessity of sacraments, for instance, and all preached, just like James and the Catholic Church, that faith without works is dead. This is all proof-texting that rips a few quotes bleeding from their context. The reality is that we are saved by God the Father, through Jesus the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit (cf. Ephesians 1:1-9) through sacraments received in faith (John 3; Romans 6) expressed by works of love (1 Cor 13), which bear fruit in a great capacity for the Spirit (Galatians 6:8). Get rid of any of that and you have less than either Scripture teaches or the Fathers believed.

Steve Greydanus *really* likes Spidey 2

I was gonna go see it anyway. But now I'm really looking forward to it. The first one was good too.

"With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war." - William F. Buckley

Obviously a doddering old man. Glad to see him hand the reins of true patriotic conservatism to people who haven't gone all wobbly. Shame to see him wimp out. Please exit, stage right, Mr. Buckley. You're embarrassing the Cause.

Turns Out "Hitler's Pope" Got Flak for Helping Too Many Jews

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. (Ephesians 2:13-16)

A great war crime of WWII healed by the power of the cross.

New Medical Technology Sucks

So hard to find a competent hunchback these days

So I'm thinkin', "Is the guy a Muslim?"

And if so, how much more vigilante iconoclasm does Europe have to look forward to?

The amazing capacity of humans to not think

A reader sends along a letter he read in one of the English papers, written in response to this story:

The pictures of babies 'walking in the womb' that I saw today are wonderful but make me wary about the use to which they will be put. If a 12-week foetus can 'walk' and yawn, does that imply it is fully human and that any abortion is wrong? If so - and I hasten to say I'm not in favour of abortion as a norm - then surely we need to look again at the issue of the rights of other primates?
"Chimps and gorillas can walk and yawn and even, as your story about bokito, the gorilla who escaped from Berlin Zoo (Metro, Thu) shows, use their intelligence to escape captivity.
"Had this been a human infant in a cage, there would have been
outcryabout the conditions under which he had been kept and the keepers prosecuted. When will we start to treat other primates with the same regard we reserve for our helpless young (whether infants or yet unborn) - who we deem worthy of better, not worse, treatment because they can't talk for themselves?"

The first danger noted is that this might discourage abortion. Then, after dismissing the importance of the children who should be ripped limb from limb, we are told that the real lesson is about gorillas.

When a society goes crazy killing innocents, it seems to be a psychological law that it will turn its attention with overwhelming sentimentality to some special pet concern like animals rights. Hitler, after all, loved his dog. That way, people can always say, "Me? A monster? But look how much I wuv little Poopsie-Woopsie!"

The Mighty Barrister Discusses the Influence of Satanism on Rock Music

People chuckle about this as one of those conservative Christian urban legends. And, to be sure, there's a lot of paranoid nonsense searching for tinfoil hat conspiracies about backward masking and other sci-fi drivel. This gives Satan rather more credit for subtlety than he deserves. The danger isn't what you'll hear when you play the song backwards. It's what you'll hear when you play the song. It turns out that if you marinate yourself in blasphemies of God and invocations of Satan and fill your heart, soul and mind with perverted Christian imagery, crappy poetry, and the celebration of evil, it will hurt you. God can, as the Mighty Barrister attests, still redeem. But the crap we soak our souls in leaves lasting scars and a lingering odor.

Tip for parents on how to educate your kids in the arts: whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phillippians 4:8)

Dan Darling writes:

Regarding the situation in Sudan with respect to Iraq, I thought that some of your readers might well want to be aware of the following every time they read about the wholesale slaughter of innocents there:

* While it is generally known that Sudan harbored bin Laden from December 1991- May 1996, what is not generally known is just how in bed with him the reigning Sudanese National Islamic Front (NIF) was and still is. As most of your readers know, my support for the war in Iraq was (and is) based on my own reasoned opinion that Iraq was in active collaboration with al-Qaeda and therefore falls well within the boundaries of Catholic teaching concerning Just War Doctrine. Indeed, I believe that the Vatican has even made comments to this effect, though they (as with the majority of Europeans) differ with me on belief in a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. However, I am quite prepared to argue that the same criteria more or less apply to Sudan with respect to NIF collaboration with al-Qaeda.

* Most standard press accounts will tell you that the Sudanese government ended its sponsorship for al-Qaeda in 1996 when bin Laden left the country. This, however, is untrue, and Sudan continued to maintain as many as 13 bonafide al-Qaeda training camps well into early 2001 when a power struggle erupted between military dictator Omar al-Bashir and NIF ideologue Hassan Turabi, the latter of whom has the dubious distinction having reintroduced slavery to Sudan. Bashir was the victor and viewed al-Qaeda as being more loyal to Turabi than to him, so he shut down their training camps and even shared some tidbits of intel with the US in the months following 9/11 in an effort to preserve his fiefdom. The camps were reopened, however, around September 2002 in return for a hefty bribe to the Sudanese leadership and an agreement to help them crush the southern Christian and animist as well as the western Darfur rebels. Hence the origin of these charming Arab death squads that the Sudanese refer to as "Janjaweed."

* Even while the camps were closed, however, Sudan continued to sponsor, arm, and fund a number of regional al-Qaeda affiliates including the Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), the Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), the Eritrean Islamic Jihad, and the Somali al-Ittihad al-Islamiyyah. All of these groups are co-signatories of bin Laden's declaration of war and that last one, incidentally, is the same group that killed 18 US servicemen in Somalia way back in 1993.

* Al-Qaeda is so merged with the Sudanese government that it even runs a number of official government agencies for the NIF including the Islamic Security Agency (secret police), the al-Amn al-Sawri (counter-intelligence), and the People's Defense Force (a paramilitary group along the lines of the SS). The first high-ranking al-Qaeda defector the US ever got ahold of back in 1994, Jamal al-Fadhl, was serving as the assistant director of the Revolutionary Security Service, the evolutionary predecessor of the Islamic Security Agency.

* The Sudanese military helped al-Qaeda to conduct (unsuccessful) chemical, biological, and radiological weapons experiments at the Hilat Koko military base with the help of government scientists.

* Al-Qaeda shipped $300,000,000 in gold from Afghanistan to Sudan in the wake of the US victory over the Taliban.

None of this is truly any great secret and most of it can be found in reading the court documents from the trial of the 1998 embassy bombers (so can the nucleus of US accusations of Iraqi collaboration with al-Qaeda, but that's a story for another day ...) or in a regular stream of news reports from the region for anybody who wants to do some serious research in this field. So the next time you or your readers here about these mass killings in Darfur or southern Sudan by the Janjaweed, do keep in mind that they do simply share the same sick mentality as the folks who destroyed the Twin Towers - in most cases they *are* the same people who destroyed the Twin Towers.

Helps to keep things in perspective, I think.

Ken Cole's Tornado Glory made me want to be a Storm Chaser

Ken graciously hosted me at OU a couple of month's ago. He's got his film "Tornado Glory" accepted into the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival, and it will be playing in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. It's also under review right now at the Toronto International Film Festival and might also be in next year's Seattle International Film Festival.

The American Judiciary

Defending porn for childrenand the killing of innocent kids--as the Founders would have done.

People pushing porn at kids have a right to free speech, but not people defending human rights.

Pretty much gone on Tuesday

I'm buried in work! Glub!

Something to Make End-Times Enthusiasts Wet Themselves

One of the new Euro designs features a Woman Riding a Beast!



For some people, that's all it will take to start stocking up the bottled water and refried beans in the underground bunker.

Of course, on closer examination, it turns out the woman is Europa and the beast she's riding doesn't look like the one in Revelation but the one in Greek myth. But these are mere details.

Blog credit goes to Carrie Tomko for this one.

I get the sense that a need for conflict-driven news is what is driving this story

The headline makes it sound like the USCCB is looming over Burke with a mallet, threatening to pound him if he doesn't give Kerry communion, and he is defiantly holding his ground. But when I read the article I don't see the conflict. Burke's actual comments simply remark on the fact that it's up to each bishop, etc. I suspect the reporter, desperate for some sign of civil war in the episcopacy that would make great copy, is putting words in Burke's mouth. Surely, if Burke had given some defiant "Hier stehe Ich! Ich kannst nicht anders!" speech or press conference there would be a direct quote from him, telling the USCCB to stick it in their ear.

"By definition, market forces and social responsibility are incompatible"

On the whole, I agree with this piece (thesis: Kill your TV). But I'm skeptical about the dogmatic quote in my headline. Is a consumer economy frequently inimical to social responsibility? Yes. Is it "by definition" inimical? I don't see that.

Women of Grace

Interesting new apostolate for Catholic women.

Escapee has Authorities Stumped

Gone for the Rest of the Day

Kids. Beans. Noses.

You know the drill.

Puff piece on "Celibacy" propounds good solid lie by third sentence

Sorry, but that's not what happened in 1992. That's what the press said happened. The revisitation of the Galileo trial, like the recent revisitation of the Inquisitions, was a serious historical analysis of the circumstances surrounding the trial and condemnation, not the belated recognition by a bunch of doddering clerics that Copernicus (a Catholic priest) was right. How stupid does Slate think people are?

Well, that was a surprise!

Iraq handed back to the Iraqis early.

God help the good guys hold onto the country.

Intelligence Backs Claim Iraq tried to buy uranium in 2000

Technology Planned Parenthood Hates

An ignorant and scared mother is a profitable target.

About 20 motorists have died after losing control of their vehicles while trying to avoid the ghost cow

Teacher Who Faced Down Pro-Abort Threats and Screams Continues Conversation with Various Muddled People

Does a nice job of teaching rather than haranguing, unlike interlocutors.

Amy Welborn, Fr. Tom Doyle, Phil Lawler, Jason Berry, Bill Donohue, Donna Steichen, Richard Sipe and Kevin Miller -- All Appearing in the Sunday Edition of the Dallas Morning News

Moloch Party Eats it Young

A reader asks:

Can you please tell me how John 14:6 (Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.") fits into Catholic theology?

I'm not sure what you mean. It fits in much the way it does in Protestant theology. Jesus alone can save. Of course, Jesus uses various means to save now, just as he did when he was on earth. He could, for example, have healed the blind man without the use of water at the pool of Siloam. But he didn't. Why? Because the Word Made Flesh works through created things and not in a purely disembodied way. That's why he took on a physical body. So he works through sacraments too.

In John 3:1-7 Jesus describes our need to be "born again" - of the spirit. What is contained in the Catholic catechisms about this?

The quickest way to find that out is to go to the Catholic Catechism and read the section on baptism.

I appreciated reading "Is Sacramental Grace Magic" as it has helped to settle some concern as to "why" the Sacraments are celebrated. In some Christian churches, the Sacraments are considered man's idea of what needs to be added to the finished work of Christ on the cross.

They are a man's idea. In fact, they are the Son of Man's idea.

I have two concerns with this. Having grown up in an active Catholic family, I (like so many others within the Catholic community) somehow "missed the point" in my years of study. I did not understand that our faith is focused on Jesus Christ. I believe that I became desensitized by the continual adherence to the strict routine presented at every service. I mean no offense but I fear that this is all TOO common. I, later, experienced a situation which ultimately led me to repentance, to asking for forgiveness, and for acknowledging that I need Jesus as my Savior. By God's grace, I was forgiven. Then, finally, I understood the reverence in the ceremony of Sacraments. However, I still carry my fear that there are those who have still "not heard" the Gospel although they are physically present while it is being administered.

Your experience is very common. Only many Catholics are not able to recognize it as a call back to the sacraments and instead mistake it for a call to leave the Church. (For folk laboring under this misconception, I would recommend you get hold of a book by Jeff Cavins called My Life on the Rock. He had a profound experience of the grace of God when he was 18 and mistook it for being born again. It led him out of the Church, and then into various forms of Pentacostalism for 12 years till he returned to the Catholic Church.

The thing to be careful of is the notion of "salvation by intellect". Yes, a great many Catholic do not understand their faith. But it is dangerous to suppose that the sacramental grace of God cannot work in a person's life if they don't have a clear understanding of sacramental theology. We should always call ourselves and each other to use our brains as best we can, while simultaneously recognizing that the grace of God does not depend on or education.

The other concern is actually in favor of the Sacraments. The simplistic idea that "all" Catholics participate in the Sacraments as though they are "adding" something to what Jesus accomplished is not easily proven - in other words, only God knows a person's heart. Only He knows what motivates us to celebrate in a worship service. He is the Judge who knows whether any of us thinks that we can "earn" our way into Heaven (which would sadly make all of the talk of faith invalid). I find too many debates among all Christian churches over who is right, etc. We should live by faith, apart from works though have our works (our lives) be reflective of our faith (which comes first).

Is there a way to cut through the debates and still accomplish what Jesus told us which is that we all go out into the world and bring Him to others - for the conversion of saints?

No. Not really. The questions and confusion about the gospel are the norm. Our task is to try to help people find their way through the questions and confusions to the God who is the Truth.

Now that my eyes have been opened I am able to better understand the points I felt that I had missed years before. Do you agree that although Christians as a whole desire closeness with God and live by the hope of being in His presence in Heaven one day, that some things remain a mystery on purpose? I find that as I try to understand various Christian positions, much confusion arises. I only desire to please Him and follow His Word (which I appreciate, too, your reference to).

We should all praise God for His Word.

I'd appreciate your perspective and comments.

To be sure, the gospel is a mystery. Any God we could understand would not be God.

Texans Fail to Affirm Glories of Sexual Diversity

Polygamy is almost at bat.

New Jersey: Front Line on Caesar's War Against Catholic Conscience

When Ideology Takes Over

The 9/11 panel finds evidence of ties between Saddam and Al-Quaeda--but not with respect to 9/11.

Result: Headlines blare: "No Evidence of Ties Between Saddam and Al-Quaeda"

One does get the sense that news is being manufactured rather than reported.

Arinze's right, of course

Youth are drawn to heroism.

The idea of having children is now featured in the "Oddly Enough" section of Yahoo news

Sex for some other reason than my personal pleasure? Weird!

Love? How sentimental! Children? What a burden! Nope. Sex is about me and my needs.

Baby Boomer Ethos Uber Alles!

Nazi Medical Research: Now that we want to do what they did, isn't it time for a sensitive re-appraisal?

Perhaps we were too hasty in our judgments. What exactly *is* "innocent human life" anyway? And think of the money to be made good we can do!

Dawn Eden States the Bleedin' Obvious

The parade photos show millions of yahoos celebrating not love, but sex—and unnatural sex at that. In the middle of all the public nudity, surgically and hormonically altered bodies, and other grotesquerie are floats bearing "married" couples. One is left wondering, where does marriage fit into this at all?

And the amazing thing is that we have actually arrived at a point in history where the bleedin' obvious is dismissed as hate speech.

Rightist: That's not Torture, that Enhanced Interrogation!

Leftist: That's not murder of a defenseless patient, that's "hastening death".

Two Iraq-related prayer requests

1. Please remember my friend Dan O'Neill in your prayers. He is in Iraq for Mercy Corps (a very fine relief organization) and is supposed to fly out shortly before the turnover.

2. A reader writes:

I received this yesterday morning from my son serving in South Korea and headed to Iraq:

I've been training and getting briefed on our job over there for the last two weeks. From what I have learned urban warfare is the deadliest of them all. They told us that every day we leave our base camp to pack our things like we're never coming back. I've been praying a lot because I'm scared to death now. We know the date we are set to leave. I cannot let you all know though. Once I'm there I'll contact you and let you know I'm fine.

Mom....if for some reason I'm killed, I want to be buried near the spot that Steve wants to be buried. He's right. The spot is beautiful and it's my home. The military will let me be buried in a national cemetery. I don't want that though.

I hate to talk about it, but the colonel said a lot of us will not come home.

I LOVE YOU!
Ken

I was stupid enough to think things were on the upswing. Then I read an article this morning by Bill Steigerwald from JWR - Iraq: 'Mission impossible' ... 10 minutes with terror expert Yossef Bodansky and now I feel sick.

Please pray, not just for Ken, but for all our military - and their families.
Thank you.

A MESSAGE FROM THE MANAGEMENT:

The comment box below is for prayers and prayers only. The second letter, in particular, is from a mother scared for the safety of her son. If anybody tries to hijack the box to harangue the mother on her lack of patriotism, or to spin theories about how the letter is a fake (it's not), or to commit any of the other USENET level political acrimony while a fellow Christian's needs and fears are trampled, you shall be summarily banned. There are place where debate and argument are appropriate. This thread is not one of them.

A reader asks:

Is it really necessary for Bush to thank Islamic clerics for being faithful to Almighty God? Have they really been faithful to Almighty God? What makes Bush competent to judge this?

Sorry, but this is standard issue civil religion boilerplate rhetoric. When a civil leader says some religious type has been "faithful to Almighty God" he means "You've done your bit to keep the civil peace and not rock the boat for Caesar. Keep it up, boys!" Caesar always talks this way.

Catholics first US Church to Say Marriage Should be What it Always was

When you've had 2000 years of saying the same thing, I guess that does make you the first. Oddly, no headline says "Liberal mainlines first to gut marriage of its last vestiges of meaning".

Full Text of Kiwi Cardinal's Moxieful Remarks

It is always good to support those who speak out for what is right. If you would like to send a message to Cardinal Thomas Williams, his address is :-

l.mcarthur@wn.catholic.org.nz

or

The Catholic Centre
PO Box 1937
Wellington 6015
New Zealand

Lord knows, he'll be getting enough hate mail from the Compassion Gestapo.

More of the

Usual

Suspects

Try to Square the Kerry Abortion/Communion Circle in their various ways.

Califano Pens Stirring Defense of a Dedicated Servant of Moloch

Thesis: Just because somebody defiantly acts to oppose the Church in matters of grave sin doesn't mean the Church doesn't owe them communion. It's a civil right. And this is America. And besides, who really believes in that stuff anymore?

I know a guy who is a molecular biologist

He once went to an AIDS conference with a bunch of epidemiologist and one of them, in a panel discussion, asked for a show of hands: "How many of you would have sex with your partner, using a condom, if you knew for certain your partner had AIDS.

Not one person raised their hands.

When the Church says the same thing, it's accused of bigotry by demagogues.

Fave hearts and flowers quote:

Mr Nielsen, EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, said: "This is where bigotry gets into the big discussion."

He condemned the Vatican's "lack of love for human beings" and "unwillingness to take their situation seriously".

Mr Nielsen said it forced people into "a terrible choice of abstinence or lose the blessing of the Church".

As near as I can tell "bigotry" was chosen purely for acoustic value.

A chance for Canucks to do something about pretend gay marriage

Sign the petition.

A reader writes:

Please consider our dilemma with what many consider to be an extremely imprudent assignment of a wayward priest.

A brief account written by friends:

Bishop Bernard Harrington of Winona, Minnesota is unchanged by the recent sex scandal in the Catholic Church. He has recently assigned Father Edward Francis McGrath as Administrator for St. Joseph Parish in Owatonna, Minnesota. Fr. McGrath was arrested in May 2003 in a St. Paul, Minnesota park for criminal sexual conduct. Although he was acquitted due to the issue of consent on the part of the undercover police officer, he does not deny his involvement and admits to a long history of sexual failings. Bishop Harrington sent him for six months of treatment to the infamous St. Luke's Institute in Silver Springs, Maryland. Now the bishop thinks that Fr. McGrath should return to parish ministry. The choice of St. Joseph parish in Owatonna is particularly poor since it is closer to the St. Paul park than it is to the seat of Bishop Harrington. Parishioners from both Owatonna Catholic parishes are deeply divided by this assignment. Many are planning to leave for other parishes and dioceses. The bishop has turned a deaf ear to their repeated pleas to him to reverse this decision. Recently confirmed teenagers who spoke to him about this with tears in their eyes failed to soften his heart.

Our bishop is stonewalling our effort to preserve some of the remaining dignity of the priesthood. Any suggestions on how we might shed a little light on the situation? Does this seem like a story of some national interest, especially in that it is contemporaneous with the recent failed effort to appoint a priest in the Indianapolis archdiocese under similar circumstances?

As I recall, the Indianapolis parish just made a big noise in the papers an on the media and the bishop eventually backed down. If you think this guy constitutes a danger to your family, then light is probably the best disinfectant. The only other option I can see is to vote with your feet and find another parish.

CIA Suspends "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Feigned drowning and withholding pain meds for injuries aren't torture. They're "enhanced interrogation techniques".

Meanwhile, hopelessly unrealistic doddering old man who doesn't realize there's a war on calls for worldwide ban on enhanced interrogation techniques.

The Extremely Worthwhile to Read Elliot Bougis on Sex and Related Matters

This guy is one sharp cookie.

Interesting discussion of Fantasy literature

Abp. Burke Speaks Truth to Power

Article notes bleedin' obvious

Valedictorian Gives Reasons 999283472398423799 to 9991293847239428347223 for homeschooling and has free speech crushed by state as a result.

Meanwhile, Methodists Settle on Gays as Source and Summit of Human Perfection and Amend Worship of God to include ritual of Celebration of Homosexuality

Presbyterians Trying to Decide Whether Active Gays are Merely Exquisitely Wonderful or Utterly Perfect in Every way

Dishonesty In the Gay Community? Unthinkable!

I'm not hearing the "We Must Go To War ASAP to Rescue Helpless People" Rhetoric from Near as Many People in This Case

Article Like This Make Me Wonder How Orthodoxy Will Weather the Collision with Modernity

Another reader unhappy with NOR's bomb-throwing

That said, I am told by a number of readers that the most recent piece on Hahn was not like their previous moronic hit piece. Since I've not read it for several years, I'm willing to believe I was too hard on them. However, I would also add that I'd take them more seriously if they could muster the integrity to say that their first piece was an idiotic trashing of a good man's name. I will retract my rant of last week till I read the most recent piece.

Lowry is more consistent than many who have argued for the Iraq War

So I give him that.

Religious Persecution Rife in India

Fortunately, it's just Christians who are victims, so it doesn't matter. And besides, most of them are Catholics, so they were probably asking for it.

Kiwi Cardinal Showing Remarkable Moxie

David - 1, Goliath - 0

I bet this has some heads being scratched at the Pentagon.

Africa: It's not like here

An Inspiring Priest Story (for a change)

Send us a million more like him, please, Heavenly Father. And thanks for calling him.

A reader writes:

First, thank you for maintaining an excellent blog. I think it’s important to keep the Catholic perspective in any of our political discourse (where it’s so often lacking), and as such, I wanted to pose this difficulty that I’m having with being Catholic and wanting to participate in the political discussions of our world. Before I get into it, some background – I definitely lean toward the right in political discussions, and if the election were held tomorrow, I would likely vote for Bush…and in no circumstances can I see myself casting a vote for Kerry.

While it may be obvious and cliché to point this out, I absolutely hate the fact that almost every political discussion that takes place in our country revolves around the idea of “the lesser of two evils.” I personally have much difficulty with the fact that, no matter what I choose from a political standpoint, in some measure, I’m supporting evil. In comments in a recent post, you made the comment that “there are other intrinsic evils that have to be weighed…” Can you provide any insight on how to best weigh those evils? I keep getting stuck on the fact that evil is evil, and sin is a sin. I’ve always been taught that any support of evil over good is a sin. I think the first notion we need to dispense with is the idea that there is a “scale of evil.” Evil is evil, no matter what appearance it takes. If sin is simply turning away from God’s will (and for the sake of this discussion, I’ll keep in the realm of mortal sin because I think it is more applicable), it doesn’t matter if one has sex outside of marriage, or is responsible for the death of 6 million people. In both cases, one has removed himself from God, and one needs to repent to seek out God’s forgiveness. If it’s a mortal sin, then one is already spiritually dead…how does one get spiritually “deader” than someone else? Our human instincts immediately recoil from that idea, immediately thinking that one is obviously “worse” that the other. But is that God’s standard? To me, saying something is “more evil” means that it would take “more forgiveness” or “more to forgive.” But we know that isn’t the spiritual standard – God’s forgiveness is constant. As such, nothing is “more” or “less” evil – evil is evil is evil. Any other view of it is simply a different form of moral relativism.

From there, it strikes me as being a logical conclusion that we are sinning and turning from God’s will any time with vocally support (or even say vote for) 99.9% of all politicians and policies in this country. A vote for Bush is a vote against abortion…but it’s also a vote for war (potentially a bad example because Kerry would be doing the same thing, but I think it makes my point). And all just war discussions aside, war is still an intrinsically evil thing. Now, for the record, I supported going into Iraq and taking out Saddam. It’s easy to look at Saddam and say “Hey! He’s evil!” and want to do something about it. So yeah…go in and kick his rear. But is that a Catholic response? Clearly the Pope and others didn’t think so…and of course, the “just war” discussions could go on forever. So let’s turn the to torture thing. We look at al- Qaeda and say “They’re evil! They must be stopped!” OK, stopped how? There’s a part of me that says they need to be hunted down to the ends of the earth, lined up in a line, and shot. Not only that, but in order to find them, we have to get the information to stop them however we can. If it takes a few knocked heads, then so be it. But we’ve seen the fallacy of that idea, haven’t we? Yes, it’s important to stop al-Qaeda, but what do we become if we resort to their level? But if we don’t resort to that level, how many people of our country are we jeopardizing? It’s a well worn thread in fiction of “using evil to fight evil,” but in the real world, that just doesn’t work. Our actions will be known by their fruits, right? So what are the fruits of our actions in the political discourse?

That supporting some form of evil seems inevitable in civic participation, what does someone that tries to be a faithful Catholic do? The alternative would be to completely abstain from political participation. That completely grates against my idea of civic duty. How does one try and stop injustice if one doesn’t participate in the process? Or perhaps a better question – what form should our attempts to stop injustice take? We already know what the final score here is – God 1, Satan 0. Evil has already been defeated. So does it really matter who the next president, who the next Supreme Court justices are, or who the next terrorist leader really is? God has already won…so what battle are we fighting? The first time I’ve heard this one argument recently, it really scared me. Does fighting the political battle to stop abortion mean we have to accept losing the political battle to, say, end the death penalty? Does fighting the political battle to stop terrorism mean we have to accept losing the political battle for humane treatment of God’s children? Or do we as Catholics need to pretend to be outside the world, and accept the idea that whatever the world does is irrelevant? Is it our task to fight these political battles, or remove ourselves from them and let the world do its thing and worry about winning souls over rather than laws? Or does that come far to close to the “personally opposed but…” argument that many (like Kerry) make? As you can probably tell from this ramble, I find this to be a spiritual conundrum that I’m not sure how to solve.

I heard Bill O’Reilly make some sort of the following comment of the upcoming election: “The decision is easy. You figure out who the terrorists want to be president…and then you vote for the other guy.” Sometimes I wonder if our standard should be “You figure out who Satan wants to be president…and then vote for the other guy.” Unfortunately, I fear that, on that standard, no “other guy” exists.

I’d welcome any insight you could provide on this topic.

I don't know how much use I'm going to be here, but here goes. As I've said many times, the center of Catholic social teaching is the family. Whatever benefits the family is good. Whatever harms the family is bad. That's where I come from in evaluating political candidates. Clearly, of course, Bronze Age Fanatics who want to kill as many innocent Americans as possible is one threat to the family. And I have no problem at all with hunting them down and killing them. I don't think that descending to their level. I think that's legitimate self-defense. My objections to the Iraq War have always been just war objection and have always been confined to that war, not to the war against al-Quaeda or the Afghanistan campaign. I believe the war against Radical Islam is a war we *must* win. However, I have been concerned because war has a coarsening effect on a culture and we humans tend to do "whatever it takes" in order to win. So far, we've been in a position to do soul-searching over things like Abu Ghraib (which speaks very highly of us). One doesn't get the sense that al-Quaeda does a lot of soul-searching about anything.

I continue to think that Bush is a basically decent man who is trying to do the best he can according to his lights. I think there is a long tendency in American history to see our mission as a duty to make everywhere America and that our optimism often exceeds reality. So, for instance, I am highly skeptical that the new states planted in Afghanistan or Iraq will last. But I think it is quintessentially American to attempt such an export.

As to domestic stuff, abortion remains, for me, a trump issue. Each month, more children are killed than were killed in all of the Vietnam War. Any candidate who wants to make sure that that continues, preferably with federal funding, is a candidate I can't vote for. The Stupid Party hasn't done much, but the Evil Party worships and celebrates the sacrament of abortion. So I have support Bush. Are there other issues? Certainly potentially. If, for instance, some Grand End to Evil Project Type were elected who really had drunk the Koolaid about the necessity of establishing American Hegemony By Any Means Necessary, I can conceive of abandoning both parties with a protest vote. I believe there are few dangers more potent than a faith in politics to achieve transcendent goals. Politics that attempt this virtually always seem to end in mass murder.

But we are still far from that, I think. At least, till we are threatened in a really major way. Then, it could well be katy-bar-the-door, given that immense power and fallen humans are a volatile mixture, when combined with profound fear, great pain, and deep rage.

Busy for the rest of the day

While I'm out contemplate the question: "If God is omnipotent, can he make a rock so big that he can't lift it?"

Taxachusetts Stupid Party Former Gov is Proud and Happy About Gay Marriage

The Drive for the Separation of Church and Life Continues

A little poem by Hilaire Belloc (which I would like to dedicate to the "Destroy Scott Hahn" Hit Squad at NOR)

More Rumblings about a Possible Draft

Don't know what to make of this.

The Evil Party: Friend of Terrorist Cheerleaders

And people still take Dems seriously.

As is typical, the press gets things completely backward

The group which actually seeks to promote fidelity to the Church's teachings is described as a sinister "church within a church". The group that doesn't know what the hell it believes but is eager to see that as many people as possible believe it is given the glowing buildup. Much head-scratching about why a bishop would be more interested in the former but not the latter.

Why is it so hard to find a moderately theologically literate reporter?

Worthy Is the Lamb: The Biblical Story of the Mass

A nifty new book by my friend Thomas Nash. Check it out! The longer I am Catholic, the more I realize that to fail to see the Mass at the core of biblical revelation is, in very large part, to fail to see biblical revelation.

"The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

Notre Dame gives the bishops the middle finger salute.

Just the other day, the press was casting this report as a Vatican puff piece on the Inquisition designed to exonerate the Church:

"In 1559, on express desire of Paul IV, in a systematic and detailed way, all Christians who went to confess their sins were first interrogated about their criminal offences, or their knowledge of crimes of heresy or reading of prohibited books; and if something emerged, they were sent to the tribunal of the inquisition to make a formal denouncement ... if the violence of torture and the gallows broke the body, the moral violence exercised by the subordination of confession to the inquisition broke consciences ... the profound effects of this choice still need to be evaluated in full" (p. 761).

"The largest spurt in executions by the Roman Inquisition occurred shortly after the Council of Trent, during the pontificate of an ex-Inquisitor General. Because of the Roman Inquisition, Pius V has more legal murders staining his record than any other 16th century pope, including Paul IV and Sixtus V. Nevertheless, he has become the only one of this group to be canonized, while the other two remain bywords for bigoted ferocity" (p. 545).

"That the wisest and saintliest among the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, through their personal authority, gave credence to this 'communal doctrine' [of torture and death] to the point of seeming to imbue it with a quasi-Magisterial authority, necessitates that the authentic Magisterium of the Church make honorable amends" (p. 767).

If that's a puff piece, I'd hate to see what stern criticism is.

Prayer Campaign for Iraq in Britain

Kiwis are Going for Gay Marriage too

Ongoing suicide of the West continues.

More Positive Reviews for John Granger

Looking For God in Harry Potter is a fun read. Check it out.

Yes, that is curious, isn't it?

More learning opportunities

It turns out bullies in power set the tone which the underlings imitate.

Monogamy is racist!

You learn something every day!

HBO beats dumb Celibacy Drum

Yeah. Celibacy. *That's* why priests raped boys, boys, boys, boys, boys, and boys. It must be celibacy because homosexuality is the jewel-like source and summit of all that best, bravest, purest, most sensitive, loving, bold, witty, and brilliant.

I love stories like this

Some survey goes out and confirms the bleedin' obvious ("People who hold and live by traditional views of marriage and take their faith seriously tend to live happier lives, have happier children, and generally not be as screwed up as those who don't") and they will *always* find some academic to say: "There's this endless stream of correlations that seem designed to convince people, 'By golly, we'd all do better if everybody got married and stayed married,"' she said. "That's unrealistic in the modern world."

Look, just because there is an endless stream of correlations between people getting punched in the nose and people reporting that there noses are hurting and broken does *not* mean that punching people in the nose is a bad thing or that we'd all do better if people did not go around punching each other in the nose. Why, just look at the calendar! It's Friday the 25th!

Handy tip for all readers cowed by appeals to modernity. Whenever anybody appeals to the calendar as an argument ("That's unrealistic in the modern world/21st Century/this day and age") simply realize that they are making the same argument as a man who says, "Shattering the family may have been a bad thing at noon, but now it's nearly half past one!"

Deal Hudson writes:

I apologize that I haven't written to you in two weeks, but I've been doing a lot of traveling. Unfortunately, when I'm on the road, I don't always get an opportunity to write.

But I do have some time right now, and there are two things I need to bring to your attention...

First, the biannual meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Colorado came and went last week. Of course, you'd never know it from the minimal coverage. This is a shame, since the bishops released a very important statement that the mainstream media appear to have missed.

It can be found in "Catholics in Political Life," a preview to the full report that the bishops will be releasing later this year (but not until the election has already come and gone, unfortunately). The statement answers a lot of questions that have been floating around lately about the duties of Catholic politicians and our duties as Catholic voters -- especially when our political and religious priorities are crossed.

The bishops touched on the hot topic of denying pro-abortion Catholic politicians Communion, but they ended up just punting it back to the individual bishops. So each bishop will have to decide how to proceed in his own diocese.

It certainly would have been nice to have something a little more concrete here. But at least the statement doesn't play down the danger pro-abortion Catholic politicians put themselves in: "To make [abortion] legal is itself wrong. ...The legal system as such can be said to cooperate in evil when it fails to protect the lives of those who have no protection except the law. ...Those who formulate law therefore have an obligation in conscience to work toward correcting morally defective laws, lest they be guilty of cooperating in evil and in sinning against the common good."

But the most encouraging -- and concrete -- part comes later in the document. Regarding the public platforms that are sometimes given pro-abortion Catholic politicians, the bishops clearly state: "The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

This is important. As noted in an article in the June issue of CRISIS ("The Enemy Inside The Gates," by Patrick J. Reilly), numerous Catholic schools and institutions have invited pro-abortion Catholics to speak or be honored. Not only does this undermine the Church's position on important moral issues, but it also comes dangerously close to sanctioning the anti-Catholic activities of these individuals.

Now that the bishops have stated unequivocally that these politicians should never be given ANY kind of award, honor, or platform, we can start looking to Catholic institutions to fall in line. While I won't hold my breath on the colleges, I'm certainly happy to see the bishops taking a strong step in the right direction.

But that wasn't the only thing I wanted to tell you about in this
letter...

There's a battle brewing right now in the Senate, and it could have a huge impact on all of us. I'm referring, of course, to the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) -- which is a Constitutional amendment that says marriage is restricted to a man and a woman.

As you may already know, the FMA will finally be put to a vote in the Senate on July 15th. That means there's little less than a month to rally the troops on this important issue in order to get the required 67 votes needed for passage.

Enter the lobbyists... those individuals who try to shape public policy to reflect the positions of their particular interest group. The Catholic Church in America has its own lobbying arm -- the Office of Government Liaison (OGL), directed by Frank Monahan. Headquartered at the USCCB, the Office represents the bishops' (and, in turn, Catholics') concerns before congress.

You probably remember that a few weeks ago, Monsignor William Fay, the conference's general secretary, wrote us to insist that the bishops were fully behind the FMA and were doing everything they could to urge congressmen to support it.

Well, it's now time for the USCCB to step up to the plate and deliver on their promise. Currently, the FMA only has about 30 senators behind it, with another 23 senators undecided. As I mentioned, the bill needs 67 votes to pass, so it's still far from a sure thing. The next four weeks will be crucial in determining the ultimate success or failure of the bill, and that's where Frank Monahan and his staff come in.

While the OGL should be petitioning all senators for their support of the FMA, it's especially vital to focus on the 24 Catholic senators. Shockingly, 15 of those 24 senators are currently OPPOSED to the bill, and four more are undecided. (I'll tell you who in a moment.)

Think about that: Only 1 in 5 senators who claim to be Catholic actually support a bill that would enshrine marriage as the union of one man and one woman. That's truly devastating.

And that's why it's crucial that the USCCB does its very best in the next few weeks to lobby these senators -- to remind them of the Church's clear teaching on marriage and their duty as senators in light of that teaching (especially on the heels of the bishops' statement from their Colorado meeting). For the record, those senators currently opposed to the bill are:

Joseph Biden (D-DE)
John Breaux (D-LA)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Susan Collins (R-ME)
Tom Daschle (D-SD)
Christopher Dodd (D-CT)
Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Tom Harkin (D-IA)
Ted Kennedy (D-MA)
John Kerry (D-MA)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
John Reed (D-RI)

Four senators are still, astonishingly enough, undecided. They are:

Mike DeWine (R-OH)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
John Sununu (R-NH)
George Voinovich (R-OH)

It's also important for us to recognize and appreciate those Catholic senators who have already taken a stand in support of the FMA. They are:

Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Pete Domenici (R-NM)
Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL)
Sam Brownback (R-KS)
Rick Santorum (R-PA)

Monsignor Fay, Frank Monahan, and the rest of the folks at the USCCB certainly have their work cut out for them. But we're fully behind their efforts to persuade these senators to act in line with their self-professed faith.

Over the next four weeks, we'll be reporting on the conference's progress in lobbying these senators. With God's grace, they will meet with much success.

I'll write to you again in a couple days.

Attn Michiganders

Michigan residents who want to protect marriage are circulating a petition to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. If we get 400,000 signatures by July 4, the issue will appear on the Nov. ballot for voters to decide. We need more signatures! Please see http://www.protectmarriageyes.org/ Phone: Marlene Elwell: (248)477-1043

Olson and Miesel Give us the Definitive Da Vinci Debunking

Intellectual combat with an unarmed opponent is always fun to watch.

By the way, Carl Olson and Sandra are going to be interviewed about THE DA VINCI HOAX on the Jerry Ussher radio segment of CATHOLIC ANSWERS LIVE today at 3 pm PDT.

Not a problem. They're just Christians.

Build an idiot-proof system of communication

...and they'll build a better idiot.

Why it's important to step outside the hothouse of comments boxes.

Back in the 80s, when I worked at the University of Washington, one woman I worked with expressed her astonishment that Reagan was elected by a landslide in '84 when "nobody I work with would vote for him." Yes, well, that certainly was a comment--on the special environment that was the mid-1980's UW.

Now, a reader writes in the comments on the latest torture thread (NB: "him" refers to me):

Just let him have the last say. Give him that and he'll stop. He *needs* to feel that he has *won.* Give it to him. Until then, he'll continue to find the one nutjob and post his comments on the blog, as if he destroyed the logical arguments of the rest of us.

Like I said before, the VAST majority of "undecideds" who have read the threads on these memos, know who has the better argument and know who is mischaracterizing the other side. So don't sweat it.

I'm reminded of my friend's remarks about the vast majority of people who were going to vote for Mondale when I read this. Because minutes after it was posted I got this email from a lurker containing a quote from a NY Times article followed by my reader's commentary:

I found this passage most thought-provoking:

Although the White House this week repudiated a Justice Department opinion that torture might be legally defensible, Pentagon general counsel William J. Haynes II in 2003 forced the Pentagon working group to use it as its legal guidepost. He did so over objections from the top lawyers of every military service, who found the legal judgments to be extreme and wrong-headed, according to several military lawyers and memos outlining the debate that were summarized for The Washington Post.

You know, the irony is that witnessing the incredible responses on your blog to the torture issue is actually propelling me to consider Kerry as an candidate - something I have never done before. (I voted for Bush in 2000). I've come to the sickening realization that many "conservative Catholics" who assert that abortion is the only issue to consider when trying to determine who to vote for (and therefore, Bush the only acceptable candidate), don't actually care at all about large portions of the Church's full "pro-life" teaching.

In fact, they are in conscious or unconscious dissent regarding large portions of Catholic social teaching - anything that questions their conservative/libertarian assumptions about the war on terrorism or economic policies (which are life issues), the environment, etc. They are every bit as much ideologically driven dissenters regarding Church teaching as the most pro-abort Democrat. Which means that I must, in conscience, regard their accepted wisdom about Bush being the only acceptable candidate with the gravest reservations and start looking again at both candidates from scratch and really seek to discern in light of the fullness of the Church's teaching on the life and dignity of human beings.

It's called "unintentional effects", guys - and I doubt very much if I'm the only lurker so affected. There's nothing like seeing "conservative Catholicism" manifested in its ideological purity to make one think that a Catholic who really wants to think with the Church should avoid it as far as humanly possible. (I'm sure that the same could be said of ideologically driven "liberal" Catholicism as well but I don't hang out there).

Note well: it has not been what *I've* written that has filled this conservative Catholic with queasiness. It's been what my commenters have written--the ones who are certain they are winning hearts and minds with these peculiar attempts to square the circle and shout down "liars". Good job, guys.

By the way, for my part, I'm still voting for Bush--no thanks to the "Ideology First" attempts to defend him.

What is it with some Conservative Christians?

The first impulse seems so often to be to bayonet their own.

This month, in a world riven by war, while the Church is bowed under the weight of scandal involving gross sin against the most innocent in our culture, even as a Catholic candidate for President pledges fealty to Moloch, the bomb-throwers at New Oxford Review survey the world with gimlet eye and find the one target that *really* needs to have a fifteen page work of character assassination done:

Scott Hahn.

Yes. Great idea. Do everything you can to destroy a faithful Catholic who has done more good for the American Church than practically any other layman in the past 10 years. Excellent idea. Remember, of course, the prayer of the Church: "Look not on our faith, but remember every nitnoid theological disagreement and sharpen it into a weapon with which to stab a brother in Christ." And this is already a follow up to their stupid claim that Scott, in mentioning the biblical and patristic tradition of picturing the Holy Spirit as feminine, was somehow asserting the virtues of lesbianism (since, y'know, Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit). (I kid you not.)

There's a reason I no longer read NOR. Who needs this kind of destructive bomb-throwing shit?

Speaking of which: here's another example of idiotic bayonet-wielding conservative Christianity: It turns out John Granger, author of The Hidden Key to Harry Potter, is not really a Christian, according to ignorant bigot Ted Baehr. Why? Because he doesn't hate Harry Potter! Case closed. Come to Jesus, John.

Meanwhile, for those who actually like to think about literature instead of Pavlovianly react, may I strongly recommend and endorse Granger's latest book Looking for God in Harry Potter? In it, he argues in a fun and frequently persuasive way that Rowling is, in fact, attempting to create a rather subversive Christian fiction much in the tradition of Lewis and Tolkien. I found much of the argument extremely sound (and even the admittedly quite speculative portion to be enjoyable). One thing you will be hard pressed to do after reading it is to see the books as, in any way, sinister. I highly recommend it.

The Singhsons Rule

My burning question is: who runs the Quickie-Mart now?

A happy confluence of comments

One commenter, upset about my attempts to say "torture is bad" complains:

This, from Mr. Exaggerated Headline himself? This blog has officially jumped the shark.

Zippy is right. This weblog author is lying.

What I am allegedly lying about? It's not clear. Apparently I'm lying about Bush and claiming that he wants to torture people (even though I've said no such thing).

Anyway, as person after person has said, "Nobody is advocating torture".
Except, of course, for the fact, that some of my readers are advocating torture. Indeed, the writer above is serendipitously followed--immediately--by a correspondent who writes:

Torture _ought_ to be considered as a possible option. Among other things, it is memos like these that ought to sort out immoral sorts of torture from acceptable ones.

Correspondent Zippy, who has so definitively shown what a liar I am, mops some perspiration and attempts to ameliorate the above remarks (since, as we know "nobody is advocating torture") and writes:

Of course, part of the reason that Mark and his reader have lost all reason on this issue is because commenters say things like this. Perhaps this particular commenter really meant "strong interrogation OK, torture not OK, lets sort the whole thing out to make sure we aren't even considering torturing". That would be reasonable. But it isn't clear.

Some people obviously really do consider torture a serious option. Some people no doubt consider cannibalistic baby sacrifice to Satan a serious option too. There is no evidence whatsoever that the chief executive considers or ever considered torture a serious option.

But the second commenter will have nothing of it:

No, I mean torture, that is, the intentional infliction of pain and humiliation upon people in custody by people under the political control of the United States. That is probably the ad hoc definition of torture most people here are using. And the reason that it cannot be simply proscribed is that it includes too many things, some of which the United States can and ought to be doing doing.

In particular, Abu Ghraib is torture, but torture does not necessarily mean Abu Ghraib. Those who have not gotten this far, and I fear such number may include several people here, perhaps even our beloved host, really have no business commenting about torture.

I'm not quite sure how to decode that second paragraph, but the first one is about as clear as clear can be. There are readers of this blog who, in the very teeth of Catholic teaching, advocate torture. That's "TORTURE", spelled T-O-R-T-U-R-E.

I do not now, nor have I ever, claimed that Bush ordered torture. What his administration *has* done is explore the possibility of torture. And, more to the point, (since I have no readers who are members of the Bush Administration), a number of my readers (who frequently regard themselves as Catholics faithful the teaching of the Church) have, in various ways, attempted to minimize, justify, soft-pedal and downplay this or, worse still, openly advocate torture as sometimes being OK since it's us who are doing it.

I don't for the life of me see what, in any of that, makes me out as a liar. My point has been a relatively simple one all along: cafeteria Catholicism is as bad when rightwing ideologues do it as when lefties do it. Abortion and torture are both intrinsically evil and excuses or "dissent" in both areas are things which I think Catholics should reject. And that includes attempts to parse "acceptable" forms of abortion and torture from "unacceptable" ones.

Bush is not a Catholic, so I don't hold him to those standards (and, in any case, he has made it clear he will not allow torture). But, as the Administration has argued, there is room in American constitutional law to ignore Geneva (including, among other things, the prohibitions of torture, should the executive deem it fitting to do so). My point is that, as Catholics, we should be looking for ways to prevent that from happening, not looking for ways to say "It's okay if we do it."

I can't think why there could be a backlash brewing against the Loopy Left in Canada

This sounds interesting

Horror is actually a deeply Christian genre of literature many times. Stephen King has said that he sees himself as an heir to puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards. And William Peter Blatty very consciously wrote The Exorcist as an act of Catholic evangelization.

In an age which finds it difficult to believe in God, it sometimes is helpful to have a very clear picture of what rejection of God results in. It's definitely the low road, but it's still a starting point for some folks.

Hubbard Cleared in Albany

Evil Party Struggles to Become Stupid Party

Gay Brownshirts on the March!

Schizophrenics for Bush and Kerry!

This cracked me up

A reader sends along something he wrote:

CATHOLIC AND BAALISTS TOGETHER: WALKING TOGETHER IN A MULTI-CULTURAL STREAM, SEARCHING FOR THE OCEAN OF JUSTICE.

Par. 1) Given the wounds of history, Catholics and Baal-worshipers have often misunderstood one another, leading to arguments, bad feelings, ritualistic cannabilism, and emotional trauma. It is hoped by taking this first step of mutual recognition of hurt, these two peoples of faith can journey upon the path to peace.

Par. 2) For their part, the Catholic Church agrees that due to the cultural mores of his time, Elijah caused much pain and distress to the priests of Baal on Mt. Carmel. Elijah ingnored their historical claim to the site, interrupted their own religious rituals, engaged in a outdated triumphalistic apologetic, and even resorted to violence. For this we apologize.

Par. 3) The Catholic Church also acknowledges that it has been insensitive in its objections to the Baal practice of child sacrifice. Given the Jewish Law at the time, disobedient children could be liable to death, and since all teenagers are disobedient, the Baal practice could be considered pre-emptive zeal for the law. This issue will be explored during the Interfaith theological commission to be arranged at a later date.

Par. 4) The Catholic Church agrees that the dispersion of the Baal-worshipping people was a crime against humanity, and apologizes. Restoration of the Baal-worshippers to their historical land should be a goal of the international community, and monetary damages should be paid for emotional and physical stress suffered.

Par. 5) On their part, the Baal-worshippers understand that an effort is being made by the Catholic Church to make up for its crimes of the past, and the Baal-worshippers agree that grovelling is the proper course of action for the Catholic Church. It considers its first efforts of grovelling to be a good first start, but only a start. Full grovelling should be accomplished immediately. If full grovelling is accomplished, the Baal-worshippers promise to consider holding a meeting to discuss the possibility at some much later date of forgiving the Catholic Church.

Par. 6) The Baal-worshippers also realize that it is not the fault of the Catholic Church if Catholic parents continue to complain about their children being sacrificed by the priests of Baal, since officials of the Catholic Church have encouraged the parents to think of the importance of Interfaith dialogue first. Yet the Baal-worshippers believe Church officials could be more proactive in the procurement of children for the fires.

Par. 7) The priests of Baal acknowledge they are not obliged to stop trying to stamp out the Christian heresy, and accept the Catholic Church's promises that such an attitude in no way hinders the progress of Interfaith dialogue.

Par. 8) Hopefully, this first statement, which required both sides to examine themselves, will lead to even greater Interfaith encounters in the future.

Bishops, Academics, Politics, Communion, and Abortion

An exciting blend of cowardice, occasional courage, fear, opportunism, cynicism, and virtue, blended in the most confusing way possible.

And, in other loopy Left news...

Get Stoned and Chant Mindless Slogans for College Credit!

Another argument for the separation of school and state. It must be such a comfort to know your taxes support this, Missouri.

Nice to see there are still two-fisted priests out there

I think Fr. Sibley would like this guy.

Simply beyond parody

The Anglicans are developing a talent for becoming caricatures beyond anything Kevin Smith could concoct. Here's the latest: a new McBible Translation.

Mark 1:4

Authorized version: "John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins."

New: "John, nicknamed 'The Dipper,' was 'The Voice.' He was in the desert, inviting people to be dipped, to show they were determined to change their ways and wanted to be forgiven."

Mark 1:10-11

Authorized version: "And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him. And there came a voice from the heaven saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

New: "As he was climbing up the bank again, the sun shone through a gap in the clouds. At the same time a pigeon flew down and perched on him. Jesus took this as a sign that God's spirit was with him. A voice from overhead was heard saying, 'That's my boy! You're doing fine!'"

Matthew 23:25

Authorized version: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!"

New version: "Take a running jump, Holy Joes, humbugs!"

Matthew 26:69-70

Authorized version: "Now Peter sat without in the palace: and a damsel came unto him, saying, 'Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee.' But he denied before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest."

New: "Meanwhile Rocky was still sitting in the courtyard. A woman came up to him and said: 'Haven't I seen you with Jesus, the hero from Galilee?" Rocky shook his head and said: 'I don't know what the hell you're talking about!'"


1 Corinthians 7:1-2

KJV: "Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: [It is] good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, [to avoid] fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband."

New: "Some of you think the best way to cope with sex is for men and women to keep right away from each other. That is more likely to lead to sexual offences. My advice is for everyone to have a regular partner."

1 Corinthians 7:8-7

KJV: "I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn."

New: "If you know you have strong needs, get yourself a partner. Better than being frustrated."

Better than all that, though, is the translation of "Son of Man". Now it's... (sorry, I'm having trouble typing through the uncontrollable giggles)... "the Complete Person".

Ah me. It doesn't get any funnier than that.

I'm also waiting for the moment in Luke where Rocky says to Josh, the Palestinian Tolerance Mascot, "Yo! I just wanna go the distance" and Josh replies, "If you believe in yourself, you can do anything."

I'm sure the parish had it coming

They're just Christians. And besides, they're Palestinians. So it's okay.

Margaret Sanger: Hitler in Drag

Planned Parenthood carries on her proud legacy of killing "human weeds".

Where on earth did gay priests get the idea that sexualizing children was A-OK?

When priests sexualize children, it's some sort of disgusting Euro-Vatican perversion that we wholesome Americans will expel from the bloodstream of the Yankee body politic.

When the PTA does it, it's enlightened education theory that only a neanderthal could oppose.

I suspect this really means "US Chastity Crusade Gets Cool Response from Media People Who Are Telling You About It"

I wonder what the ordinary people who responded think of it.

A reader writes:

Something that's been bugging me lately:

Based on what I've seen of the debate regarding life extension medicine, there seems to be a growing number of people who are coming to feel that physical immortality is achievable and death will soon no longer be an issue. While that is certainly highly debatable (escaping death *forever* is impossible, regardless of technological advances) this belief is indeed starting to influence people's view of life, and I expect it to become more widespread as this field continues to advance.

My question: What effect is this likely to have on people's openness to the Christian message? If people assume that they will live forever in this world, does the gospel lose its power?

Sure--if people ever really become so foolish as to think they can live forever. Actually, though, that problem has always been with us. There is a whole class of human beings--known as "teenagers"--who have a congenital difficulty believing they are mortal. The interesting thing is, they can produce not only great sinners but also great saints. That's because of the *kind* of life the gospel offers. Teenagers aren't much worried about dying. But they are deeply passionate about living a heroic meaningful life. The thought of mere endless life is not an attraction if you think "And I will spend it doing repo work for Rent-A-Center". What makes the gospel attractive to people who don't really envision their own death is the way it fills life with meaning and joy. Indeed, take away meaning and teenagers who think they are doomed to eternal life without it will frequently commit suicide.

Get Religion Ponders the Non-Big Bang of the DMN series

I don't have a lot to add to the comments. As ever, I think Tom of Disputations has pretty well sized things up. Basically, there's not a lot to add to what's already been said about the Situation. I'm not persuaded that calling it "global" does justice, since that carries with it the connotation that The Bishops of the Whole World are complicit in a vast web of intrigue when that doesn't look to be the case.

Anyhow, I don't have big insightful things to say that are new.

The Anglican Communion: Laboring to Make the World Safe for Incest

Not that there's anything wrong with that. As we all know, Levitical prohibitions against incest are *exactly* the same as prohibitions against shellfish or boiling a kid in its mothers milk.

One gets it, one doesn't

One reader gets it:

"The point here is that that the evidence indicates torture was seriously considered as a possible option.

The immorality of this activity stems not from whether the acts committed or recommended or justified were officially approved, but that they were considered at length in the first place by persons in high government office.

As Pat Buchanan (certainly no liberal apologist) has pointed out time and time again, you can search the annals of all the Administrations since the end of WWII and you will not find any documents on the possible use of torture. Not because those people were ignorant about what torture was, but because even consideration of such actions was beyond the pale.

It is not true, as some have suggested, that the Government randomly generates documents for purposes of 'information'. This is a blatent attempt to minimize these particular documents on use of torture as a weapon in the war on terrorism. It implies that they merely "explored the legal landscape" or were merely informative for "decision-making".

What nonsense! If that were the case, we would also expect to find documents exploring the use of rape as a weapon in the war on terroism, documents exploring the killing of non-combatants as a weapon, and documents considering other equally abhorrent procedures. All simply to be used as fodder for "decision making". The fact that we don't find such documents puts the lie to such glib and fatuous justifications for immorality.

As to Bush's nonsensical statement that the torturers in Iraq "... do not represent what Americans think". That's obviously not the case. At least some Americans (those in the Adminstration who wrote the memos, and probably the ones that passed them up the chain) evidently do think this way. "

Another sez:

It must be one of the frustrations of living in the Sheaocracy that lawyers make rhetorical points and that truth (or the definition of "torture") is determined in our legal system by two or more zealous advocates making such rhetorical points (and by looking at the context and background of the written LAW) before a panel of judges. If you want to rely on the legal system to protect you from Janet Reno, then you need to accept those memos/arguments in the context in which they are made. If you want to take them out of context to prove how fallible is our legal system compared to the Sheaocracy, then acknowledge that is a similarly cheap rhetorical point as well. The alternative to our legal system is some type of Shearia or papal mullah or dictatorship of the proletariat.

The partisan context of this debate revolves around "what is torture". Clearly, there have been no allegations that the US engaged in Saddam-like torture. The question is what falls within the LEGAL definitions of "torture". Not: "is torture bad." The anti-bushies want to read the term broadly, the Bushies want to read it narrowly. And the sophomores wander into the debate and decide based on their level of ickiness or decide that one term fits all under the law of God.

It debases the language to equate Saddam's torture with actions, even the worst, alleged against the US. Particularly where the main concern is an alleged thought crime by the President.

This would certainly be a crushing rejoinder if I had anywhere equated our crimes at Abu Ghraib with "Saddam-like torture" or even claimed that Bush authorized torture. As it is, though, I didn't. However, knee jerk conservatism seems to feel compelled to set up and knock down that straw man in order to avoid the point I *have* been making. It is not, "I'm smarter than everybody. I should run things." Neither is it, "I don't like legal reasoning. It's too complicated. Let me just talk about my feelings." Nor, oddly, is it that one term fits all under the law of God.

Rather it is that "you can search the annals of all the Administrations since the end of WWII and you will not find any documents on the possible use of torture." It is that, "It is not true, as some have suggested, that the Government randomly generates documents for purposes of 'information'". Which is why we do not have "documents exploring the use of rape as a weapon in the war on terrorism, documents exploring the killing of non-combatants as a weapon, and documents considering other equally abhorrent procedures."

What bothers me on *this* blog is the eager willingness of Faithful Orthodox Catholics[TM] to justify and defend this and to caricature and ridicule those who find this a troubling step.

Fr. Klep is being kicked out of Samoa. The Rest of the Salesians May Get Kicked Out Too

"Deportation" is the Samoan term for "Great Enema".

The Pope and the Harlem Globetrotters



JPII: Providing humorless bitter people opportunities to get irrationally angry for over 25 years.

Cosmopolitan, Pacifist, Pantywaist, Euroweenie, Anti-American Bishops Arrested by Chinese Commies

Tyrant-loving Vatican protests, but who cares? They're just bishops and they probably were asking for it.