Especially Funny if You Were Ever Evangelical



Hat tip: Mary's Aggies

Chaldean Bishop: US Out of Iraq

I suggest America open our door to all the Christian refugees.

I Wonder if Somebody at The Door Was Behind This Little Piece of Genius



Way funny--and even funnier if you were ever Evangelical.

This one is kinda funny, but not as good as the first one.

Cherries!

Peter (who just turned 12) comes in just now and asks if I want to come pick cherries off the tree in the back yard. For some crazy reason, I say no. (Some lunatic excuse like "work"). Then I regain my senses and say, "What am I doing? Picking cherries with my boys in the middle of a wild windy warm gray summer day or sitting at a computer--and I choose the computer?!" I rush outside and join the guys. I hold the ladder while they take turn climbing and picking the high branches and I work the low ones.

Have you ever noticed how beautiful a cherry is? The red is like no red on earth. Rich. Liquid. Dark, in the ripest ones, like the cape of great monarch. Our cherries are made of Washington rain, scientifically proven (by me, just now) to be sweeter than all other kinds of rain and Washington sunshine (scientifically shown to be better than all other kinds of sunshine). The tree did a wild dryad sort of dance around us as we picked. The boys exclaimed with excitement at each fresh jewel. Sean had the bright idea of adding raspberries to the mix from our little berry patch. When we were done, I put the ladder away and the guys rushed in the house to wash their trove and present it with a flourish to Mom. The whole thing took ten minutes and I came away richer than Bill Gates.

God is good.

Pope Benedict, A Former Hitler Youth, Cracks Down

Heh!

One good definition of sin...

...is "treating persons like things and things like persons". To act thus is to run the film of creation backwards, to wrench the universe hard astern. Examples of sins which treat persons like things include:

Pride (the essence of which is to thrust all other persons, including the Persons of the Blessed Trinity, back toward "thinghood," and into nothingness. "You? You're nothing! I am the Great Mark P. Shea!"

Lust (as C.S. Lewis observes, the lustful man on the prowl does not "want a woman". He wants an experience for which a woman happens to be the necessary apparatus--that is, a thing.)

Slavery (persons become property)

Murder (which radically reduces persons to things called corpses)

And so on.

Similarly, examples of sins which treat things like persons include.

Idolatry (treating things such as golden calves, stock certificates, our own brains, our own feelings, our sexuality, our money, our time, our comfort like the Blessed Persons of the Godhead)

Greed (exalting possessions above persons)

Gluttony (exalting pleasure above persons)

Avarice (exalting status and power above persons)

And so on.

Part of the reason I am so suspicious of the Creative Destruction theorists, the Grand Political Strategists and the secular messianic End to Evil visionaries is that they write things like:

Israel lost some of its precious capital of deterrence in the last war, but ultimately the real loser was a bankrupt Iran who lost far more materially than did a far wealthier Israel.

Daniel Larison points out the little blind spot that comes of this tendency to analyze things in terms of "people as means to ends".

[T]he “real loser” of the war in Lebanon last year was, um, Lebanon, which had its infrastructure severely damaged, 1,000 of its people killed, hundreds of thousands made into refugees and its political life thrown into ever greater convulsions.

Oh. Yeah. Them. The Lebanese. But they don't figure into the Grand Strategy of the Great Thinkers. They're just people who happened to be in the way of the Big Picture.

John Paul II says that human beings are the only thing in all of creation that were created for their own sake. They are not means to ends. To regard them that way--ever--is to sin.

That's a *really* tough thing to live. We all recognize it when it's done to us. We can see it when it's done to a loved one. We don't see it so well when it happens to an enemy. And we don't *want* to see it when we do it ourselves. I've treated people as mean more times than I can count. I've always had what I considered a good excuse. But that's all I've had. Which means I've sinned.

Prolifers We Can Do Without, Who Never Will be Missed

Journalist Forgets that the Purpose of TV News is to Sell Beer and Shampoo, Is Properly Humiliated by Corporate Drones Pretending to be Fellow Journalists

Iran Seems to Be Coming Apart at the Seams

Boy, I sure hope some big country ruled by brutal incurious incompetents who take their intellectual cues from prattle about "creative destruction" doesn't, like, attack them and unite the citizens behind their collapsing government. That would be as dumb as rushing off to war with no exit strategy, disbanding the army of the conquered nation and then leaving the place wide open for Al-Quaeda to come in and recruit the disbanded army. Nobody would be that dumb.

Next war, just say "Mission Accomplished" *before* the mission.

Two People Struggle Under the Dictatorship of Relativism Inaugurated By Luther

Are Mormons Christian? Once you jettison apostolic succession and "He who listens to you listens to me" it's "Mohler sez/Card sez".

The only thing more preposterous than the Mormon claim to even remotely resemble the Apostolic Faith is the preposterous sight of an Evangelical simultaneously trying to maintain the doctrine of private judgement *and* declare Mormonism non-Christian.

I discussed this once in a piece I wrote long ago for This Rock.

A Schiavoesque Story with a Happy Ending

St. Thomas on the theological challenge posed by airlines

Objection 3. It seems God does not exist. For God is supposed to be both omnipotent and all-good. Yet airlines exist. Therefore, God does not exist.

Reply to Objection 3. Airlines, despite their contempt for and shocking abuse of customers, do fulfill a place in the Providence of God, such as inspiring amazing and beautiful generosity, kindness, goodness and prayer in Mark Shea's readers, thereby giving rise to praise and gratitude in Mark Shea's heart for God's goodness to him and his family and sincere thankfulness to his readers.

The Lesson That Stories Like This Send...

is not, "Send more troops abroad to shore up misbegotten military adventures" but "Beef up the police at home."

The Astounding Thing is that Something Like This Ever Went to the Supreme Court

We live in the time of small laws.

Dan Maguire is Up to His Old Trick

The Court Prophet for Planned Parenthood writes the NY Times to explain why Giuliani would be a fine Catholic candidate for Prez.

40 Days for Life

Mary's Aggies says it's the most effective tool for ending abortion clinics they've seen. Sounds good to me!

Gay Brownshirts on the March

You. Must. Approve. Thoughtcrime will be punished!

Pixar Can Do No Wrong



Jeffrey Overstreet has he scoop on how great it is.

A Conservative Makes the Case for Impeaching Cheney

Sounds reasonable to me. I think he should be tried for war crimes too.

None of it will happen, of course. Which is a pity.

You're a better man than I am, Ross Douthat

I look at the sinister deeds of the Worst Vice President Ever and think, "Worst Vice President ever".

Ross looks at them and gives them about as charitable a reading as anybody can.

My basic problem is that, even granting every word Ross writes, I *still* think the evidence means he's the Worst Vice President Ever.

You may want to sit down for this...

It turns out Bob Sungenis can't get an imprimatur on his commentary on the Apocalypse.

No doubt this is due to Jewish influences at the highest levels of the Church.

Me: I'm happy that somebody somewhere in the bureaucracy appears to be paying some attention. How'd you like to be the guy in who has the imprimatur request for Galileo Was Wrong land on your desk?

Speaking of Dawn, her Thrill of the Chaste is being condemned by clergy

...Episcopal clergy, that is.

I feel another tasty post from the inimitable Chris Johnson in the wind. Speaking of which, his response to Tragically Hip Piskie Youth Outreach is huh-larious.

Gotta Love It!

Dale Ahlquist, Prez of the American Chesterton Society, gives Dawn Eden their prestigious "Outline of Sanity" Award. Couldn't happen to a nicer gal.

You're nobody in this town till you have two obsesso-stalker blogs

I have arrived!

Awkward Quotes about the Pope from Eastern Saints and Sages

I hope someday the eastern Churches drop some of their weird and strangely artificial hostility to the Catholic communion. I've seriously had Orthodox people chew me out for the sack of Constantinople in 1204. I was with an English friend when this happened. I reassured him that I was completely over my rage at him for the burning of the White House in the war of 1812. A historical memory is fine. But come on!

The Bishops Are Doing a Marriage Enrichment Ad Campaign

Despicable

A reader writes:

I haven't shared this with everybody yet - been kind of in denial - but not too long ago, I was told that my position was being eliminated, as of end of June (this was over the objections of my immediate supervisor and division head, but, nevertheless, at the recent recommendation of a consultant group.) In mid-July I would have been here 20 years.

So, after tomorrow, my email address will no longer exist. I've signed up for a personal e-mail address, and although it won't be the most reliable way to get a hold of me - we don't own a computer - I'll be making periodic stops at an employment placement center they've got me hooked up with here and probably occasional trips to the library as well, where I'll check on it. So, any prayers, good thoughts & wishes of wellness this way would be most welcome - hopefully things will work out soon.

This is just evil. 20 years of faithful service and a heave-ho because some bean counters said so.

You have my prayers that God will turn this betrayal of your years of faithful service into something even better, through our Lord Jesus.

Post-Christian Europe Stops Believing in God, Starts Believing in Anything

The tradition that gave us the university is superstitious rubbish. But witchcraft: now there's some good solid reliable spirituality.

Andrew Bacevich, as usual, Makes Sense

He makes the case for giving sanctuary to Iraqis. I think this is both reasonable and just.

Motu Proprio Mania Placeholder

For those excited about the motu proprio, here's the place where you can read, rejoice, enthuse, and react.

Me: I'm content. The Mass is the Mass and whatever the Church opts to do is ducky with me.

Get Ready for the Giant Moon Illusion!

Calling Real Scientists!

Is this a real breakthrough or just this year's cold fusion story?

Anyone? Bueller?

The Times Does Some Amateur Philosophizing

Turns out your brain has something to do with your mental processes, just like your dog's brain has something to do with his, therefore Descartes is wrong to posit a ghost in the machine and therefore (work with me here) there's no such thing as the soul and the Church is wrong.

The idea that human minds are the product of evolution is “unassailable fact,” the journal Nature said this month in an editorial on new findings on the physical basis of moral thought. A headline on the editorial drove the point home: “With all deference to the sensibilities of religious people, the idea that man was created in the image of God can surely be put aside.”

All who think the science reporter (and Nature) are missing some important steps and failing to show their work, raise your hands.

You'd think that sooner or later even Times science reporters would note that the founding text of the Christian faith say that "The Word became flesh" and that Christians therefore do not think we are forced into either/or choice when it comes to the relationship of spirit and matter.

H/T: Cartago Delenda Est

A comboxer writes:

I don't understand. Church teachings? Magesterium? How is it each US bishop chooses how to 'handle' unborn baby mass murder enablers' receiving, or not, Holy Communion?

I could vote for Rudy if he were nominated and running against any proposed Dem. candidate. N.B. I do not support his nomination. I do not vote in Rep. primaries, I'm Independent.

I am certain that Rudy being a fallen (serial adulterer, abortion 'advocate') Catholic is not reason to vote for any Dem opponent that will be agressively pro-abortion, etc.

His inane abortion position will be less evil than the Dem candidate.

The problem for socialist justice proponents will be whether class warfare/tax-the-rich-give-to-the-indolent/ban-13-executions-a-year/leave-Iraq-to-mass-murderers (Do you believe the bombings will end? I have a nice bridge to Brooklyn.) trumps 1.5 million unborn baby murders a year.

I imagine the back room bureaucrats at USCCB will sew sufficient doubt and confusion to ease the rationalization process.

As near as I can tell, when you hack away all the extra talk radio verbiage, this means, "I'll vote for Rudy, but if he's elected, I'll blame the bishops, not myself."

M'Kay.

Many of you may remember Holy Redeemer Parish in San Francisco

A few months ago, the pastor, Fr. Stephen Meriwether, was pretending to be contrite about his last subversion of the Church. Now he's baaaack!

Catholic Kooks Appear to be Behind Harry Hacking

It's hard to say. Ultra-Trad Kooks also tend to be Luddites and couldn't hack their way out of a paper bag. It might just be some hacker kook who is obsessed with a vaguely pseudo-catholic aesthetic, sort of the way Madonna likes crucifixes and Goths go for vaguely Catholic-looking tackle in their sartorial choices.

Anyway, I'm still looking forward to Deathly Hallows.

Murder Inc. is So Classy

Airline Hell

Must. Govern. Frustration.

So I call the American Airlines baggage claim guys on Tuesday, right after the damaged luggage arrives. They refer me to the Seattle baggage claim office. They can only authorize a $200 payment. Not enough. Then you need to file a report with customer relations, say they. Who do I call?

You can't call anybody. They only have a fax number.

Fine. I do an inventory of the damages and fax them. I include phone and email.

Tick tock. Nothing.

So I call the main baggage claim office yesterday evening. They give me some other number to call. I call that this AM and get a recording telling me I need to talk to my local baggage claim office here in Seattle. Been there, done that. I press a different option and get a real human. She tells me I have to talk to local baggage claim. I capitulate and call local baggage claim to tell them no one has deigned to acknowledge my existence since my fax. He tells me I have to wait until they contact me. He adds that he will send an email to Lisa Somebody (but, of course, does not give me her address since Customer Relations can't be sullied by actual relations with the customer).

So, my basic task is to be a good ward of the corporation, which has very important things to do and can't be bothered to talk to me. When they are good and ready, they will acknowledge my existence in some way. And if not, well, there's basically nobody anywhere I can speak to without being referred to somebody somewhere else. I will remember these elementary courtesies the next time I am choosing an airline. I'm pretty sure it won't be American. You should remember it too.

It's good to know these guys are guarding the True Faith

I feel safer.

The Darkest Suspicions of the CfF are confirmed

Join the Brotherhood of Different Helmets!

Speaking of Politicos who Deploy Piety in the Naked Pursuit of Political Gain, I Give you Rudy Giuliani

In a just world, he would be the Dennis Kucinich of the GOP. But in this world, he's a major contender.

By the way, don't forget that Catholics Against Rudy debuts July 4!

Jim Wallis want to help "neutralize" the abortion question and help his Political Masters attain power

That "we have no God but Caesar" attitude tells you all you need to know about why I hold Sojourners in contempt. There are Lefty Christians who are Lefty because they are Christian and can't stand the secular messianism of the End to Evil crowd. And then there are Wallis types, who are are just party shills whose lickspittle devotion to the Good of the Party trumps fundamental questions like "intrinsic moral evil".

My Latest on Catholic Exchange

Mary's Aggies Ask: What would you do if you were Pope?

Resign.

Someday, If There is any Justice, This Man Will be Honored as a Hero

By this generation.

And this man will face the consequences of his actions, repent his sins, and find the mercy of God.

The World of Good Keeps On Turning

A reader writes:

I find the fact that Pope Benedict has essentially reversed John Paul’s own changing of the method of electing a pope to be intriguing. I don’t question it nor think it was any sort of conspiracy, but it just makes me wonder how God’s providence may work. I mean maybe JPII wanted Cardinal Ratzinger to be elected pope or felt it was providential and the only way he thought it could happen would be a change in the election process which no longer required a broad consensus. Maybe John Paul thought Divine Providence needed a little practical help to accomplish what he thought was Divine Providence. Now that Ratzinger is pope the method goes back to what it was.

Given that Divine Providence covers All That Is, I naturally agree that JPII's and Ratzinger's changes to Vatican bureaucracy are covered by Divine Providence. I'm not especially confident you can say much beyond that except that JPII liked to do bureaucracy one way and Benedict likes to do it a different way. I suspect that Benedict is probably far better at making bureaucracy efficient than JPII was. John Paul was a man of awesome gifts, but an interest in bureaucracy was not among them.

I hope Benedict also restores the Devil's Advocate to the canonization process. My wishes and five bucks will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

The Wisdom of Uncle Screwtape

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

I wonder you should ask me whether it is essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question, at least for the present phase of the struggle, has been answered for us by the High Command. Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves. Of course this has not always been so. We are really faced with a cruel dilemma. When the humans disbelieve in our existence we lose all he pleasing results of direct terrorism and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and sceptics. At least, not yet. I have great hopes that we shall learn in due time how to emotionalise and mythologise their science to such an extent that what is, in effect, belief in us, (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to belief in the Enemy. The "Life Force", the worship of sex, and some aspects of Psychoanalysis, may here prove useful. If once we can produce our perfect work—the Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshipping, what he vaguely calls "Forces" while denying the existence of "spirits"—then the end of the war will be in sight. - Screwtape Letter VII

Some time back, I wrote:

The question I find myself asking, in light of biblical revelation, is this: which side of the conflict between the post-Christian West and the Foaming Bronze Age Fanatic Islamosphere is far more likely to give us "the lawless one ... the one doomed to perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god and object of worship, so as to seat himself in the temple of God, claiming that he is a god" (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). Say what you will about Islam, but I don't see it producing that figure in a million years, whereas the West is ripe to give birth to him right now.

That's not to say I *prefer* the Foaming Bronze Age Thugs to win. It's to say that, in my heart, I cannot believe that they will. I think Scripture is true and that the coming of Christ will take place in a world that is apostate and (mark this) seriously ready to deify man, not in a world that never heard the gospel and which regards the deification of man with horror. That description fits the decadent West a lot better than than the Islamic East, so I retain a confidence, if you can call it that, that the winners of this particular "civilizational struggle" will be the post-Christian West, whose cultural and technological masters are laboring even now to create fresh sins that cry out to heaven and terrors that will dwarf Islam's crimes as continue on our post-Christian path toward "the supreme religious deception ... of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh."

When that will come, we don't know. *That* it will come is guaranteed by the word of God. And for my money, it seems much more like to come from a Decadent West triumphant over Islam than from Radical Islam triumphant over the West.

Meanwhile, the counsel of the Church remains the same: trust in Christ and His Church, not in the fortunes of Radical Islam or the Decadent West. Because only Christ and his Church are eternal. Everything else is passing.

Articles like the MercatorNet piece tend to confirm this basic apprehension of a coming union between Materialists and Mystics that will not be pretty. I don't especially buy the notion that the Church of Global Warming will be the gathering point. But the whole tendency of our culture is toward some sort of replacement of Christianity with the worship of the creature. And pagan tendencies like that sooner or later tend to find expression in the worship of Man. And the worship of Man tends to find expression in the worship of one particular man. I think the West is giving every sign of tending this way. I have no prognostications about how long it will take or what it will look like. But its why I have a congenital hostility to secular messianism in all its forms.

Oh, and by the way, before anybody says it, please know that I base this on the teaching of the catechism (CCC 675) and not on some supposed holdover from my Evangelical past. As a matter of fact, I only acquired eschatological ideas from the Catholic communion because my old church had none at all. They totally rejected the idea of the antichrist and the Second Coming (the *true* Second Coming was at Pentecost, you see). In becoming Catholic, I assented for the first time to the notion that Jesus would come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and that antichrist would subject the Church to trial at the end of the age. I still find it (emotionally) difficult to accept this. But it does have an awful lot of explanatory power when I look at the big currents of history.

Eight Cheap Ways to Become Famous without Killing Anyone

Ed Peters: Your Guide through the Jungle of Marital Jurisprudence that is the American Ecclesiat

I'm sure glad Ed exists cuz I'd be hopeless at figuring stuff like that out.

Beautiful Piece by Pete Vere on the Chris Benoit Tragedy

The longer I'm Catholic, the more grateful I am for the mercy of God and for the ability to pray for the dead. May God have mercy on Chris Benoit and grant his family everlasting peace through Christ, who triumphs over sin and death.

Upper Canada Catholic is doing a survey to identify extraordinary confessors in dioceses across North America

My reply: Any of the priests at Blessed Sacrament in Seattle: particularly Fr. Bernhard Blankenhorn. Great confessors!

Lott on Hahn

I also enjoyed Hahn's retort to the tired, "God did not exist, we would have had to invent him" canard. Hahn's reply: God does exist, so we invented atheism. Too true. Lewis remarked years ago on how silly it is to suppose that anybody would be pleased--and nothing but pleased--at the God Christianity reveals to us. The doctrine of God as Wish Fulfillment Fantasy is contradicted by universal experience. The reality is that the human person, apart from revelation, tends neither toward Christianity (which nobody could have invented) nor toward atheism. It tends toward a vague pagan pantheism, what an atheist acquaintance referred to as "religious methadone treatment" when it's in the context of a post-Christian culture. People want vague reassurances that Michael Landon likes them and that their life is not without meaning. They intuit that there is a spiritual realm. They have a grasp of the natural law. They experience longing for the transcendent. They experience the reality of holy fear from time to time. They recognize that both justice and grace happen. And from these elementary experiences of being human, they construct the baffling variety of philosophies and mysteries and assorted paganisms of the world. They do not construct the Christian faith, only things with a flashing and transitory glimpse of the Christian revelation.

Speaking of which, Ross Douthat has an absolutely magnificent review of God is Not Great too: a book deaf to the realities of actual lived religious experience and even to common sense.

Post-Christian Europe Labors to Destroy Itself

I become more and more convinced that as a culture exits the Christian Tradition it has only two choices: repentance or suicide. Europe seems to be giving us the paradigm for how this looks. Hopefully, it will serve as a warning to future Christian societies.

The curious thing about the mercy of God is that it always works in cooperation with our freedom. OT Israel was allowed to plumb the depths of apostasy, right down to the child sacrifices of Manasseh. They chose national suicide, captivity, and domination by foreign powers. But the startling thing is that after all this, they were still not abandoned. Messiah came.

Our hope as well is that Messiah will come. Our baptismal mission is, in part, that of a prophet. And the mission of a prophet is "give people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins". That was the mission of the most fire-breathing prophet of the Old Testament: to proclaim the forgiveness of sins.

The problem, of course, is that you must first bring people to the point where they acknowledge that we have sins to forgive. That's why prophets tend to get persecuted so often in the OT--and today.

Update: Apparently, the pastor is rather a kook. The sort that is an embarrassment to the prolife movement (in this case, a Holocaust downplayer with some sort of theory about the "modern Jew state" tunnelling under your house or something). I don't think the guy should go to jail and I've long thought the draconian laws against Holocaust denial will tend, in the end, to breed Holocaust denial. The notion of serving jail time because you think there were only 4 million Jews killed instead of six million killed is, to me, a very weird sacralization of statistics. How many were murdered in the collectivization of Soviet agriculture, the Cultural Revolution, or Stalinist Purges? Well, statistics vary. But nobody goes to jail for citing different figures. Only in the case of the Holocaust do we affix a legal penalty. That's just weird. Far better to let kooks be kooks than to make them martyrs.

But he's not looking like much of a poster boy for the prolife movement.

Argh!

Chimera Embryos Have Right to Life Say Bishops

This is a pretty typical sample of Catholic moral thought in the face of radical new technologies. The spirit characterizing the technologies themselves is "Hey! We've got funding! What could it hurt?" The spirit characterizing the thinking of the bishops is, "We don't know yet what we are doing, so rather than risk killing a person, let's assume it is one and treat it accordingly."

Not that the people who are doing this damnable research are hindered by such moral questions, of course. But I am comforted to know that *somebody* in the Catholic community is pondering the implications of this work.

A reader writes:

This article from the blog of the New Zealand Catholic newspaper might be of interest.

It's about the link between AIDS, Depo Provera injections and abortion in Africa. USAID are implicated. Quite topical I think with the House of Reps vote to fund overseas abortions and Bush's promise to veto that (God bless Bush!).

I don't know anything about this story, but I mention it in case others do. (And I agree, God bless Bush for standing in the way of the "Just Enough of Us, Way Too Much of You" types.

Scott Richert, the Editor of Chronicles, writes

This is a bit of an unusual prayer request for your blog, but Harold O.J. Brown, a leading Reformed theologian and our religion editor at Chronicles, is dying. (You can read more here).

If your readers would keep him in their prayers, we'd be grateful. Joe's book Heresies was very influential in my own religious journey, bringing me more firmly back into Catholicism.

Grant Harold, Father, the grace of a happy death and console his family by the power and love of your Holy Spirit. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen!

Wow! I'm flabbergasted!

So I ride off to do battle with American Airlines yesterday (still no reply from them). But while I'm off doing battle with them, one of you guys after another starts putting money in my tip jar! I can't tell you how grateful and moved I am that y'all would just spontaneously do that! God bless you! You guys are mensches and menschettes! We at Chez Shea deeply appreciate it!

God bless you through our Lord Jesus!

Airline Hell

So I go to OKC this past weekend on American Airlines. They lose my luggage and don't return it till this morning (lose it on the trip *to* OKC, I mean). Nothing for the book table but a few titles. I sign for the luggage just now, take it in and open it. The books inside are, many of them, soaking wet and torn to shreds.

I'm an unhappy customer. This is, literally, the only thing that stands between us and poverty and now about half of my stuff is ruined. I could survive the hit of not having the stuff to sell. But paying for all this stuff from the publisher and then not selling it, and then having it wantonly destroyed is a double, no, triple hit.

Prayers appreciated. I fully expect some song and dance about "not assuming responsibility" from the airline and me losing nundreds of $$$. Maybe I'm just a pessimist. I do know I'm depressed.

No more blogging today. I have to inventory the damages in the faint hope that American will compensate me for destroying my stuff. Then I have to get to work writing to meet the bills.

Oy!

Update: Thanks for your prayers. They really helped. Jan, the kidlets and I just said Morning Prayer and she and I both were able to put things in perspective, remember that God remains God and that, in the grand scheme of things, financial hiccups are pretty small. No word from the airline (you have to go through an elaborate fax kabuki in order to even apply for compensation), but I'm much more at peace and able to be charitable than I was, thanks to our Lord.

Prayers still appreciated, of course.

Ouch!

Admittedly, the source is pretty biased. But some of the quotes (notably Norman Podhoretz' crazy blather) are both creepy and delusional. Poor Buckley.

WWII and Vietnam: The Only Wars There Ever Were

A large portion of modern wars erupted because aggressive tyrannies believed that their democratic opponents were soft and weak. ~Joshua
Muravchik

Except for the Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Crimean War, the War of Secession, the Franco-Austrian War (1859) and the other Wars of Italian Unification, the War of the Triple Alliance (South America), Franco-Prussian War, the Russo-Turkish Wars, the War of the Pacific (South America), the Boer War, the Spanish-American War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Sino-Japanese Wars, the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, WWI, the Spanish Civil War, Suez, Vietnam, Panama, the Bosnian War, NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia, the First and Second Congo Wars and the invasion of Iraq, Muravchik’s generalisation holds up pretty well. - Daniel Larison

Ever since the Baby Boom, the American historical imagination has generally only been able to reach back to, well, about the beginning of the Baby Boom. When they were young the Boomers believed they'd invented history, as well as discovering sex and morality. Their parents were fools who knew nothing of great civilizational struggles. Eventually, Generation Narcissus developed enough of a brain to notice that their parents had, after all, weathered a Depression, fought off the two greatest tyrannies every conceived by the mind of fallen man, and basically made their youth the safe, coddled existence that had allowed them to believe themselves the center of all time, space, matter, energy and eternity. So they started making movies like Saving Private Ryan to atone for their utter selfishness and building WWII Memorials. So now the "Kevin Costner's Robin Hood"-suckled Boomer historical imagination, stretched to its limits, can recall two great civilizational struggles: Vietnam and WWII. And that is why a manifestly non-fascist movement like jihadism ("deadly", "radical", "theocratic": yes. "Fascist": no) is constantly viewed through one or the other of these lenses.

If the American historical imagination is that impoverished when it comes to war, imagine how difficult it is to get the chattering classes to exercise some historical imagination when it comes to religion. Again: think "Kevin Costner's Robin Hood". Suddenly the popularity of The Da Vinci Code is perfectly understandable.

Brrrrr....

Good News!

Carrie Tomko is not out of the woods, but there is definite progress on the cancer front, thanks be to God! Please continue praying!

Franky Schaeffer Tends to be Great or Terrible

When he's great he's terrific. Portofino (which I had the privilege of hearing him read once years ago) is an absolutely scream. There's definitely a "Daddy Dearest" edge to what he writes as he labors to exorcise his demons, but he sure can turn pain into comedy. Likewise, in the first essay here, he says everything I have tried and failed to say about the stupid charge that if you don't back the Administration then you must hate the troops. He articulates exactly the reverence I have for the people in our military, who are motivated, as a general rule, by an incredible degree of selflessness. It is just because I hold them in such high regard that I am so angered by a ruling class that has used its power to put them in danger both physically (by sending them into a dubious war) and spiritually (by laboring with might and main to make them tools of a new torture regime, courtesy of the newly created Cheney Branch of Government).

Schaeffer, on the other hand, tediously recapitulates the ugliest aspects of Orthodox triumphalism in his column on "fundamentalism". His absurd remarks about Benedict the Fundamentalist are more or less what I've come to expect from him everytime his opens his mouth about issues of Faith. The whole "Westerners are all simplistic authoritarian rationalists while we of the East are open to mystery and truly in touch with the Spirit" schtick gets pretty old. Especially when it is, as it so often is in Schaeffer's case, a pretty thin patina on some deep wells of rage at personal demons that have nothing to do with the Catholic faith at all.

Moral: Nobody's perfect. But do read his piece on the heroism of our troops. First rate.

I can't stop giggling



Rod suggests a caption contest on his blog. I particularly liked:

"Mark Shea will be appearing on an upcoming episode of 24?? As a Professional Government Torturer (TM)???!!!!

Speaking of acting gigs, Joey Odendahl, the writer/director of Manalive sez I'll be getting the script here pretty soon. Looking forward to it! We start shooting in October! I'm going to push to find a role for the prairie dog.

Evil Defeated by Six Year Old

There are college-educated dunces who will tell you that "You Shall Not Kill" is a product of a particular cultural europhallocentric Power Narrative and that appeals to post-colonial feminist queer studies deconstructions of that narrative enable us to trangressively privilege daring Taliban readings of the global hegemony in such a way as to creatively interpret acts of so-called "bombing" and "terror" in light of new paradigms of critical visioning that challenge traditional frameworks of "good" and "evil".

Such people are fools.

That kid has more sense in his little toe than all such fools put together. Thanks be to God that there are such brave little kids in the world.

FlightGear is an open source, multi-platform flight simulator program

Wicked cool.

That Catholic Show is On the Air!

Sinead O'Connor Sounds Like She Might Well Be the Hymnist for the Emergent Church Movement

Full of deep and genuine spiritual longing, very confused.

This is really sinister

A reader writes:
I represent Pro Health Natural Fertility , a non-profit, grassroots initiative praying for and promoting pro-life, noncontraceptive OB/GYN practices.

We are initiating a new website, nomorecontraception.org. It will be a simple website of testimonies by women and men about the negative consequences of their articifical contraceptive use or elective sterility surgery. We'll have a few experts, too, but want to keep it simple! We hope to be up by the end of Sep, and in the meantime, gather testimonies.

Please post the following on your website/blog if possible. We would appreciate it.

Have you experienced the negative effects of artificial contraception and/or sterility surgery?

Do you want to help other women and men avoid similar pitfalls?

Send an anonymous personal story about your experiences to:

nomorecontraception@verizon.net

Your testimony will be posted at nomorecontraception.org, a website designed to share the experiences of women and men who were duped into thinking that artificial contraception and sterility surgery would erase their reproductive worries.

To protect your privacy, we will post your testimony to the website and immediately delete your email. If you prefer postal mail, the address is:

No More Contraception, 658 Kensington Avenue, Severna Park, MD 21146.

This is our generation's battle! Together, we can disentangle other souls from this self-destructive behavior.

God bless you, and thank you for your courage.

Now *that's* Creative Destruction I Can Go For

A reader sends along a note that says Voice of the Faithful is running at a deficit of about $100,000. To help them end their misery, he has taped their postage paid return address donation envelopes to a couple of very heavy bricks and is mailing them back to them on their dime.

Heh!

Bob Sungenis Spots a New Jewish Menace: Robin Williams

CAI has changed the headline and posted a (sort of) apology:

CAI apologizes for the original headline stating that Robin Williams is a "Jewish comedian." According to Williams, he is not Jewish, rather he is noted for speaking favorably about Judaism and grew up with Jews who referred to him as an "honorary Jew".

What they don't really quite get around to explaining is why they thought it was germane in the first place and why they think it important to qualify their apology by noting that Williams likes and is liked by Jews.

But they're not obsessed with Jews or anything...

A reader writes:

I appreciate your protest to keep Ron Paul in the Republican debates. He is keeping the Stupid Party honest on the war. If I can stomach going to the Registrar of Voters office to add an R after my name on the rolls, I will decide between Paul, Brownback, and Huckabee in the spring.

I was wondering how should somebody's lesser evil calculus measure Paul's stands on abortion, capital punishment, torture, and the war with his libertarianism on drugs and prostitution. When asked by Mary Ann Akers of the Washington Post, Paul gave the libertarian line:

"Well, I understand prostitution has been around for a few years. And they tried to legislate it out of existence and I don't think it's worked very well. I would essentially have no restrictions, certainly on the federal level. And marijuana - I think it's tragic what's happening today in the drug war. Since the early '70s we've spent maybe $200 to $300 billion on the drug war. That's not been any good. This whole effort on the drug war doesn't make any sense at all to me."

I am tempted to vote for Paul in spite of what I perceive as a serious problem. Can you offer either an apologetic or a correction?

And just in case you've missed the Fred Thompson pro-abortion paper trail.

Finally, are you familiar with the only candidate that goes to daily Mass, homeschools his children, volunteers with the Catholic Worker, protests in front of abortion clinics, and adheres to a consistent life ethic? "Average" Joe Schriner is a protest vote you could live with easily, presuming he shows up on the ballot in your state.

Re: Paul. I have neither correction nor apologetic to offer. He's a Libertarian Republican. Libertarians are famous for holding a philosophy that is perfect for people who don't really think in terms humanity lasting more than one generation. So it doesn't surprise me that he would privilege "Get government off our backs" thinking over common sense at some point. The notion that having laws against things is only valid if the things you outlaw can be completely eradicated is crazy talk. We've never succeeded in eradicating murder either. Does it therefore follow that "You shall not kill" is a gesture of futility? That said, I do not equate prostitution and pot. The latter should be legal, I think. The former, not. The War on Some Drugs is, I think, one of the more curious manifestations of cultural prejudice. Certainly some drugs are so destructive that we really should devote significant public resources to combatting them. But pot (which, I should emphasize, I loathe as much as tobacco) is just not one of them.

Prostitution, likewise, really does destroy lives and it is therefore a matter of the common good and a legitimate concern of the state.

As I say, I'm interested in Paul because he's said some honest things and he seems to me to keep the rest of the GOP field relatively honest. I don't think he has a prayer.

Re: Thompson. I haven't been following him. The election is over a year away. The current kabuki of feints and starts is a big yawn. If he's got a strong pro-life voting record, as I've heard people say. I'm not sure what the point of dumpster diving for long rejected positions is. Beyond that: yawn.

I'll keep Joe Schriner in mind. If the GOP does what I think it will do and forces upon us some "electable" Rockefeller clone, I may well throw away my protest vote on him as my Doomed Quixotic Candidate (assuming he's not advocating some sort of intolerable evil).

Pavel's Got a New Podcast up

From Russia Without Love

Russian Quentin Tarantino doesn't miss the Soviet Union. Wonder if he'll wind up eating a plutonium sandwich?

Not for the Faint of Heart

Trendy Eco-Feminist Goddess Crap in New Zealand

I have a number of Kiwi friends. I know this stuff is popular there as it is here in Seattle. However, I'd be curious to know how much of it you really see on a normal basis at a given parish. If Seattle is any gauge, not all that much (though any at all is bad enough).

That's what I'm talkin' about

A reader has the right spirit:
I enjoyed the article, entitled, Insensitivity Training: Facing the Crybaby Culture, that was forwarded to me by a friend. In that article, you admonish the reader to ".. find something useful to do with your time, such as learning to laugh, particularly at yourself. You'll be happier. So will the rest of us." In that spirit, I offer the following.

As a department head at the University of Texas at Austin, I was responsible for soliciting faculty suggestions each year for students who might qualify for a student award. Since the award was given in memory of a former disabled student, one of the stipulations was that candidates had to have a physical impairment. At a faculty meeting shortly after arriving in Austin, I asked for the names of handicapped students whose names we might submit. One of the faculty objected vigorously to my use of the term. While there were several things I WISH I had thought to say*, I did respond by saying "I can use the term any time I want; I am one." (I happen to be a right leg below-the-knee amputee).

As God would have it, the offending/offended faculty member ("o/ofm") and her husband were scheduled to visit us for dinner later that week. Also invited was another faculty member whose husband is legally blind. With malice aforethought, he and I conspired to use a little shock therapy on "o/ofm." "O/ofm" and her husband arrived first, and while still standing in the foyer of our home, the other couple arrived. I opened the door and said "Hey Blinky." He returned the greeting with "Hey, Gimpy" and "o/ofm" just about passed out.

I cannot emphasize enough how important humor is to the process of adjusting to a handicap. To those people who don't have a physical handicap, and don't THINK they have a mental handicap, I add my voice to yours:

- get a life

- grow up

- and learn to laugh

*One such response I failed to use was "If the term 'handicap' is a pejorative, try asking a golfer or a bowler about their disability and see the reaction you get."

Black is White! Freedom is Slavery! Compulsion is Choice!

MSM does its bit to stamp out conscience in uppity health care providers.

Anonymous Emailers With Vast Theories about History and Religion: Is There Anything They Don't Know?

Prepare to be Shocked

THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIANITY

We all know that they have been digging up bones of people who are in the hundreds of thousands of years old. The whole while, people are believing that Adam and Eve were the first two people. You can disprove this. If you count the lineage between Adam and Jesus and add the two thousand years from Jesus to present day, you will arrive at a bit more than 6000 years. This timeframe has been proven false by modern day science. Christianity is a lie. Why do so many people fall victim to it?
It looks like this:

Adam - 130 years, and then came...
Seth - 105 years, and then came...
Enos - 90 years, and then came...
Cainan - 70 years, and then came...
Mahalaleel - 65 years, and then came...
Jared - 162 years, and then came...
Enoch - 65 years, and then came...
Methuselah - 187 years, and then came...
Lamech - 182 years, and then came...
Noah - 500 years, and then came...
Shem - 100 years, and then came...
Arphaxad - 35 years, and then came...
Salah - 30 years, and then came...
Eber - 34 years, and then came...
Peleg - 30 years, and then came...
Reu - 32 years, and then came...
Serug - 30 years, and then came...
Nahor - 29 years, and then came...
Terah - 70 years, and then came...
Abraham - 100 years, and then came...
And so on and so forth...

The Bible says Humanity points back to 4004 B.C. I'm writing this in 2007 A.D. That's a total of 6011 years. Not withstanding that that the calendars have changed as well. Noah lived in a calendar system where each season was two years. The coming in of a season and the going out of a season. He was about 100 of our years old when he died. So it would actually be less than 6011 years. Some would say that it never says that Adam and Eve were the first two people. That the church is clearly mispreaching or misinterpreting. Let me show you though.

1Cr 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit.

Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

These are New Testament Scriptures that were written by people who were taught directly by Jesus himself. The first is agreed to be written by Ezra and the second is said to be written by Paul.

Now the question might be, "Why would someone who claimed to be god the son and appeared to be sinless put a message into the world that would go out and deceive all the people?"

Do you pay attention to christian prophecy today? The bible and the church claim that the Antichrist would claim to be god, appear to be sinless, and put a message into the world that the world would be taken by.

This doesn't mean that there is no life after death. There still were reportedly supernatural occurrences throughout history. Just because you know that Christianity is a lie doesn't mean that people don't live after they die. It has been proven that certain predictions were made in the Bible, Qur'an, and other religious books that are startlingly accurate. This only means that religions were somehow designed to deceive and that supernatural events are being used to lure people into them.

This can be proven by Psalm 22:16,18 written 1000 before christ. Something supernatural happened. Still there are lies.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other Names And Faces Of The Antichrist

Ba Neb Tetet - Ancient Egyptian God that Claimed that he was a Scapegoat that would one day Sacrifice himself to stop the GODS (plural) from waring. Here he taught that there was more than one god. He did so in a time where conversion was about to occur. Just before monotheism in Egypt. The word Ba in the Egyptian language means, "Spirit", or "Soul". It would enter peoples bodies and look like it was casting out demons that would hold a persons body in one position for sometimes even years. This would look to the people around the victim as though they were healed from a disability.

Shiva - Hindu representation of Ba or The Holy Ghost. Is one of five other deities that make up the Smartism belief. Hypothetically could be one of the five alphas. There is a symbol that the Pentecostal religion keeps sacred called the pentagram. When turned upside down represents the falling of the five alphas. In the Christian religion the Five Alphas are The Father, The Son, The Spirit, Jehovah (Yahovah), and YHWY(Yahvey). In the Hindu Smartism beliefs there are five main alpha like deities. These are Shiva, Vishnu, Devi, Ganesha, and Surya.

The Mahdi - An Islamic or Muslim clone of the works and life of Jesus that is said by the Christian point of view to be the Antichrist or of Satan. The two religions were pitted against each other by design. Jesus is a prophet in the Islamic holy book the Qu'ran. Yet in the Christian holy book the Bible he is the creator of the universe or God. This set the two religions against each other as they call each other blasphemers. The Islamic claim that the Christians are blaspheming by deifying one of their prophets, Jesus. The Christians are saying that the Islamic are intent to prove that Jesus wasn't God and therefore the lie being blasphemy against the Christian God. This peaks at a moment of time where The Mahdi shows up and claims that he created the Universe. Confirming to Christians that Islam is an evil religion that is designed to replace their God. What people won't know is that The Mahdi and Jesus are the same intervention. They are both the Antichrist.

Christ - A Christian Deity that claims that he Created the Universe and a Host of other worlds. Also known as Jesus, Esus, The Holy Spirit, and The Father. This was the Antichrists fulfilling of the prophecy of Ba Neb Tetet. Christ was slain on a cross, called himself a Scapegoat, and promised to bring peace to the world. The christian prophecy says that the one who would be the Antichrist will claim to be sinless, claim to be god, and put a written message into the world that would deceive all the inhabitants of the earth. The message of deception has been found and we now know what it is.

THATS RIGHT, JESUS HIMSELF WAS A FACE OF THE ANTICHRIST!!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All the religions of monotheistic type were perpetrated by the same intervention. There is much evidence to support this claim. They all have an unforgivable sin. they all have a law structure that determines that people are to be put to death for petty crimes. The monotheistic holy books all have a claim of an adam and eve type creation or beginning. Look into the various religions and you will see that the same intervention is behind them all. It is clear that THIS IS AN ATTACK AGAINST HUMANITY. Furthermore the various religions are at war with each other. This was done by design.

Duly noted.

Goodbye Portugal

Another putatively Catholic country becomes merely European.

A reader writes:

The Coalition for Life, a non-profit pro-life organization based in Bryan, TX, has an exciting program that was produced by an Emmy-award winning director and will air on EWTN this evening, June 25. The show, "beingHUMAN: 40 Days for Life", is a powerful 30 minute program that explores pro-life activism on the grassroots level. It gives witness to everyday people and priests who are working to give a voice to the unborn. It will educate, inspire, and mobilize Catholics throughout the nation to stand up for the unborn this fall in a national pro-life effort!

The program is going to air on EWTN on Monday, June 25 at 6:30 PM Eastern (3:30 Pacific). You can watch previews here.

Check thou it out!

Interesting Insight into the Working of Bush's Mind

Reader Zippy once described his encounter with Bush as some meeting with a bunch of business leaders. I forget the exact words he used, but basically he described him as sincere, well-meaning and about as deep as a puddle. Something of that comes out in this piece too. On the one hand you have a sort of Whitmanesque faith in Political Freedom as the summum bonum and a classic American secular messianic vision of our national mission to bring that to the world.

"Freedom is the design of our Maker, and the longing of every soul."

I think he is absolutely sincerely about this. On the other, you have the leader of the Free World asking the bishop of Hong Kong if he is "bishop of all China."

This curious combination of starry idealism and deep unfamiliarity with the elementary facts of the people he proposes to liberate is romantic, quixotic, and, I think, deeply dangerous. Especially when they don't know what they are doing. Bush's idealism propels him toward this grand rhetoric of Freedom Everywhere Now but his incompetence propels him to be guided by creatures like Dick Cheney (currently founding the Cheney Branch of Government and monitoring Ungoodthink Elements within the Executive branch to keep upsetting ideas away from Presidential ears. And the curious combination of idealistic certitude with realpolitik brutality tends to result in huge promises, big blunders and hopes betrayed for a great many people. I want to wave my hands and warn the Chinese to go on hoping, but don't place your hopes in this Administration. They've managed to disappoint, not to say betray, a lot of people who hoped in them.

Here's another nifty site for Expecting Parents

I'm outta here till Monday

Tomorrow I'll be in transit so that Saturday I can be here:

June 23 Oklahoma City Family Conference. Topics: 101 Reasons Not To Be Catholic, Making Senses Out Of Scripture, and This Is My Body. Contact: Jeff Finnell. Phone: 205-255-4343

I shall also be visiting with the inimitable Catholic Ragemonkey, Fr. Shane Tharp.

Till then, you kids don't put no beans up your noses.

Gay Brownshirts on the March

More Standard Issue Lavender Fist Stuff in Soviet Canuckistan. Message received: You cannot rest till the Church has been smashed with the power of the state. Tolerance is intolerable. We. Must. Approve!

Hmmmm... on Second Thought

I didn't read this carefully enough. I took it for a call to return to historical teaching on sexuality. After a more cautious read, it appears to be a highly Anglican way of saying, "You are beaten. Now smile and submit to the New Regime or you shall be denounced as an unmagnanimous legalist."

Catholidoxies Struggles with the Idea of Mortal Sin

I was going to say, "FWIW, here's my take." But then he concludes by realizing his real difficulty is with what Lewis calls the Intolerable Doctrine: Hell.

I think it's only normal to find it intolerable. There's something very creepy about people who, for want of a better term, enjoy the idea of hell. I've gotten letters from people who *relish* the hope that I will go to hell. I fear for such people because they seem to me to be paradoxically fulfilling Jesus' terrifying warning in Matthew 5:22.

But our emotional responses are neither here nor there. The question is: does Christianity teach the possibility of Hell and the awful fact is, it does. It makes no de fide judgments on who, if anybody, has gone there. But it warns that anybody can. More specifically, it warns that you and I can. And, though intolerable, I see nothing that makes that warning contrary to either reason or revelation. So as much as my gut revolts at it, I think the sane thing is to trust the Church on this and, most important, obey Jesus so as to avoid this dreadful pass and help as many others avoid it as I can.

Interesting Discussion of Libertarian vs. Traditionalist Conservatism

This more or less corresponds to what I have roughly called Mammon First vs. God First Conservatism. Conservatives tend to be suspicious of too much power concentrated in the hands of the state. Liberals tends to be suspicious of too much power concentrated in the hands of the corporation. Much politics comes from people who try to use their favorite form of concentrated power to defeat their feared form of concentrated power.

With the advent of the Bush Administration and triumph of conservatism after Clinton, conservatives seem to have proved their own doctrines in a paradoxical way. Once they had all the power, they began to abuse it, just as they said they would. Somehow they morphed from critics of Big Government to drunken sailors spending wildly to support nation-building wars while laboring to grant the executive branch freedom from all that check and balance stuff as they suspend habeus corpus and torture people. A fine illustration of exactly what conservatism always said would happen when you give fallen man too much power.

And that, by the way, is the key here: the fall. The founders, even the deists, retained enough of their Christian heritage to know that the notion of the "perfectibility of man" was rubbish. They designed a state built on the knowledge that since man is fallen, he will always tend to do evil if you give him too much power. So they set the branches of goverment at cross purposes.

The libertarian tends to remember that government is a menace due to the fall. He does not tend to remember that he is a menace due to the fall. He wants freedom from government so that he can do whatever the hell he wants. And frequently, he wants hell. The Traditionalist (and by this, I have in view the Christian tradition since it is, like, the basis of Western civilization) wants freedom in order to attempt, with God's help, virtue.

The fact that this is regarded as "theocratic Christianist fascism" by libertarian cons like Sullivan tells you pretty much all you need to know about the ultimately compatibility of these two visions of conservatism. How it will all play out in the long run I don't know. At present, the Morphed Conservatives are running the show. And their spectacular failures mean that the will soon *not* be running the show as our emotionally incontinent culture throws the rascals out and votes in an even more catastrophic liberal regime that will promptly build on the disastrous legacy of Leviathan the Bush administration has done so much to build. Sin makes you stupid and our increasing post-Christian culture appears to be ready to explore new regions of folly.

The GOP, in its Majestic Big Tent Equality, Has Room for Both Torture *and* Abortion Supporters, For Adulterers and Six Time Planned Parenthood Donors *and* Transparent Flip-Floppers on Abortion, for Zealous Iraq War Supporters *and* Zealous Supporters of the Iraq War

...but it has no room for Ron Paul.

The debate sponsors are, of course, free to invite whoever they want. It's their debate and it's a free country.

However, we are also free to sign an online petition politely asking that they not muzzle somebody who is a legitimate (albeit--get real--doomed quixotic) candidate. The function of people like Ron Paul is not to win elections, but to keep other candidates as (relatively honest, for a politician) as they can be.

Who knows? Even political operatives may actually pay attention to fundamental principles of fair play now and then. Worth a shot anyway.

So Tragic

St. Blog's Steve Skojec has had his worst fears confirmed: apparently his mother-in-law has been the victim of foul play. Please pray for the repose of her soul, for justice for her murderer(s) and for peace and healing for her family and friends.

Father of Light, grant that Mamie comes to dwell forever in your peace and that, in this bitter time, your children know the consolation of Christ crucified and risen in triumph over death forever. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

I don't think I quite buy this

A reader is arguing in one of the comboxes that even if a 9/11 were to happen every year, it would still result in far fewer casualities than the carnage on our highways. So we should exaggerate the danger of terrorism. Now I agree that there is a real danger to exaggerating terrorism and to letting fear drive us here and there. (Note the punning reference to highways, which I just mentioned in the previous sentence. That's real literary skill, that is!). I think it plain that the reason we were so easily stampeded into this misbegotten war in Iraq is precisely because we just wanted to punch somebody and we were happy to buy whatever the Administration was pushing about supposed "connections" between Saddam and 9/11 and the Administration was happy to oblige us by constantly connecting the two rhetorically. I think, in a culture as emotionally incontinent and TV-driven as our, future 9/11 (or say, multiple mall bombings, or some other acts of terror) will likewise stampede us in all sorts of unpredictable directions. A mass media culture is not a culture that appreciates the deliberative process much. So calls to do something beside shut our eyes and lunge somewhere in anger or terror are always needed.

But at the same time, the notion that "so long as it doesn't equal the carnage on the highways, the threat is probably exaggerated" is still problematic. The mere fact that a threat isn't likely to destroy as many people's live as something familiar or common doesn't mean it can't constitute a major civilizational disrupter. The Influenza Epidemic killed far more people than World War I. Does it follow that the impact of World War I was exaggerated? The assassinations of the '60s only killed three people. Their effect on the American psyche reverberates to this day. It is true that we ultimately have to resolve to live life on the basis of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of Fear. But we also have to be wise as serpents.

If You Are Going to Live in a State Predicated Increasingly on Salvation from Fear Through Leviathan, You May as Well Have Fun Doing it

This guy has the right attitude as he gaily pokes fun at Big Brother. Me: I'd find his method of mockery and protest far too exhausting.

Some Anti-Eli Whitney has just thrown a whole new wrench into the Illegal Immigrant situation

Every technological development makes things simpler and much more complicated.

A reader writes:

It turns out that cathedrals in the Middle Ages were meant to be painted, not just to be grey stone - here is a picture of one where the paint was kept up.

This website is fascinating in general for the art it digs up, even for a philistine like me.

That's Daniel Mitsui's blog. Daniel Mitsui is a very fine artist, by the by. Proof:

The Apostolic Anchoress Scoops the Vatican!

Yes! More Theology Ditties!

I am the Very Model of a Modern Unitarian
by Christopher Gist Raible
Sung to " I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" from " Pirates of Penzance".

I am the very model of a modern Unitarian,
Far broader than a Catholic, Hindu, Jew or Presbyterian.
I know the world's religions and can trace their roots historical
From Moses up to Channing, all in order categorical.
I'm very well acquainted, too, with theories theological,
On existential questions I am always wholly logical,
About most any problem I am teeming with a lot of views,
I'm full of fine ideas that should fill our church's empty pews.

(Chorus members:
We're full of fine ideas that should fill our church's empty pews.
We're full of fine ideas that should fill our church's empty pews.
We're full of fine ideas that should fill our church's empty empty pews.)

I quote from Freud and Jung and all the experts psychological.
I'm anti nuke, I don't pollute I'm chastely ecological.
In short, in matters spiritual, ethical, material,
I am the very model of a modern Unitarian.

(Chorus members:
In short, in matters spiritual, ethical, material,
We are the very model of a modern Unitarian.)

I use the latest language; God is never Father or the Lord,
But Ground of Being, Source of Life or almost any other word.
I never pray, I meditate, I'm leary about worshipping.
I serve on 10 committees none of which accomplish anything.
I give to worthy causes and I drive a gas conserving car,
I have good UU principles (although I'm not sure what they are).
I'm open to opinions of profound or broad variety,
Unless they're too conservative or smack of righteous piety.

(Chorus members:
Unless they're too conservative or smack of righteous piety.
Unless they're too conservative or smack of righteous piety.
Unless they're too conservative or smack of righteous pie-piety.)

I formulate agendas and discuss them with the best of 'em,
But don't ask me to implement, we leave that to the rest of 'em.
In short in matters spiritual, ethical, material,
I am the very model of today's religious liberal.

(Chorus members:
In short, in matters spiritual, ethical, material,
We are the very model of today's religious liberal.)

More Philosophical Ditties! Keep 'Em Comin'!

The following is to the tune of Waltzing Matilda.

Once a jolly friar got himself an argument
And couldn't get it out of his mind.
He thought that he could prove the existence of the Deity
Because of the way that the words are defined.

CHORUS

Thus spake St. Anselm, thus spake St. Anselm,
Thus spake St. Anselm, who now is long dead,
And we're awed as we read his proof so ontological;
Who can deny a word that he said?

If that than which nothing greater can be conceived
Can be conceived not to exist,
Then 'tis not that than which nothing greater can be conceived:
This is unquestionable, I insist.

For in that case a being greater can be conceived,
Whose major traits we can easily list:
Namely, that than which nothing greater can be conceived
And which cannot be conceived not to exist.

For if that than which nothing greater can be conceived
Has no existence outside of man's mind,
Then 'tis not that than which nothing greater can be conceived,
Due to the way that the words are defined.

For in that case a greater can be conceived
(This is of course analytically true);
Namely, that than which nothing greater can be conceived
And which exists in reality too!

CHORUS

Thus spake St. Anselm, thus spake St. Anselm,
Thus spake St. Anselm with weighty intent,
And we're awed as we read his proof so ontological
Would that we could understand what it meant.

Bishop Trautman Appears to Getting His Info on Catholic IQs from Kate Schori

Both Amy Welborn and George Weigel have way too much fun at his expense. But then, he does beg for it with his desperate attempts to shield the flock from being treated like grownups with brains.

As this concerns laypeople, the input of laypeople on this point is rather important for Bp. Trautman to pay attention to. I don't know who John and Mary are, but the bishop needs to bear in mind that laity are adults who are capable of functioning competently in, like, all other area of life. Why, I bet we could even learn what an unfamiliar word means in the unlikely event that the liturgy should present us with one.

Reader Christine Meyer has moved her blog

Just so you know.

Pygmy Giant Panda?

Did they go up the down stair case while eating jumbo shrimp? Is this a colossally insignificant find?

The Raves are Starting to Come in for Nancy Brown's book on Harry Potter

Nancy's a menschette.

Sherry Weddell Wreaks her Vengeance on Seattle for Being More Wonderful than Colorado

She will be up here, slumming, around the end of the month. We will have her to dinner and try, yet again, to deprogram her. Hope springs eternal.

Turns out Serious Religious Belief is Good for Marriage

Check out the other fun stuff on Mary's Aggies!

A Little Marriage Justice for A Wife Who Got Shafted

Meanwhile, Bai Macfarlane, another wife who got royally shafted writes:

Abandoned Wives Challenge US Catholic Church Tribunals' Failure to Uphold Marriage

Time magazine, announced yesterday that Sheila Rauch Kennedy was able to successfully defend her marriage with the intervention of the Roman Rota, against the Boston Archdiocese Catholic Tribunal. The Boston Tribunal had mistakenly decided that her marriage was invalid making her husband free to remarry. Sheila stated, "The [annulment] process was dishonest, and it was important to stand up and say that." Another wife, Bai Macfarlane of Cleveland, Ohio, also has a case pending at the Roman Rota in which she is seeking the intervention of the Vatican and challenging a US Catholic Tribunal's failure to uphold marriage, but Mrs. Macfarlane is asking the Church to uphold it's own canon law regarding separation and divorce, not remarriage and annulment.

In May of 2004, Mrs. Macfarlane had asked the Cleveland Tribunal for an investigation of her marriage praying that the Church would advise her husband that he never had a licit reason to abandon her to seek a civil no-fault divorce. According to the Catholic code of canon law, there are limited reasons to separate from one's spouse (can 1151-1155). Those who agree to marry following canon law can never seek a civil separation or divorce unless it is foreseen that the civil judgments would not be contrary to divine law (canon 1692).

Before every Catholic exchange of vows, both parents promise to raise children according to the law of Christ and his Church (Rite of Marriage sec. 59). Mrs. Macfarlane is defending her children against her husband's requested no-fault divorce, in which children are forcibly separated from the dedicated spouse much, or most of the time; children and the dedicated spouse are financially devastated because they lose the benefit of two parents working together to maintain one household for life; and the dedicated spouse who loses the children is typically forced to pay for the upbringing of his own children with whom he is not even allowed to live. Macfarlane states, "Anyone with a heart, would recognize that this routine is contrary to divine law."

When Mrs. Macfarlane asked for the Tribunal's intervention in May of 2004, the Cleveland diocese would not even accept her petition, and she, like Sheila Rauch Kennedy appealed to Rome for help. In January of 2005 the Roman Rota accepted her case, and on May 9th, 2007 her advocated submitted a written argument on her behalf.

After her husband had abandoned her, with the Mary's Advocates project, Mrs. Macfarlane has connected with others throughout the country who are working to protect traditional marriage from the no-fault divorce, family separation routine, which is contrary to the promises both spouses made before marriage in any Christian tradition.

Time Magazine

Mary's Advocates

Ed Peters weighs in from a canon law perspective.

Fair Enough

Reader Seamus takes me to task for linking Ledeen's "Creative Destruction" claptrap with the story of the Iraqi orphanage. I had written, "Do you think the chaos this story reflects has nothing to do with the war into which we have plunged the country?" Seamus replies:

I don't think this story reflects chaos at all. Chaos would be a situation where there was no food or clothing for the children, not one where there were "kitchen shelves packed with food and in the stockroom, rows of brand-new clothing still in their plastic wrapping," but where the staff was selling it to local markets rather than using it for its intended purpose. This is just run-of-the-mill Third World corruption, and there's nothing in this article to indicate that this isn't the way the orphanage has been run for 50 years, through Hashemite, Kassemite, and Ba'athist regimes.

You can't just point to something bad in Iraq, note that it's occurring after March 19, 2003, and conclude that causation by the American intervention has been proved.

Okay. I'll buy that. Mea culpa.

The Curt Jester Cracks Me Up

Bp. Seratelli's Moxieful Reply to the "Speak Only When We Permit It" Members of the Abortion Party

Why should the Church not have a right to voice her teaching on this important issue in the public square? She must speak and speak often. Abortion may be for some just a political issue. But, for the innocent child, it is a matter of life or death.

Ultimately, the statement of the 18 politicians who publicly blasted the Holy Father is simply a refusal to allow the Pope freedom of speech and the Church freedom of religion. Now how American is that?

Spot on! Way to go, Bish!

Dale Price Speaks Common Sense About the Catholic Theological Society of America

St. Blog's Member Steve Skojec Really Needs Your Prayers

His mother-in-law has been missing since the beginning of June.

Holy Guardian Angels, protect Mamie and bring her safely home to her family. Mother Mary, please pray for her. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Um, Justice Scalia? "24" is a TeeVee Show

Am I the only one who thinks this looks like pretty loopy stuff from the good justice?

Charity hopes all things, and one can only hope that Scalia was saying all this with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Still, it's pretty creepy to hear from a Supreme Court Justice.

By the way, Giuliani's Mysterious Image as Somebody Who Particularly Knows or Cares about National Security is (Finally) Starting to Give Way to Reality

Nutshell: "Faced with a choice between working with the Iraq Study Group or bringing in a lot of cash through speeches, he chose the latter."

Now he's lamely claiming he didn't want to taint the proceedings with his political ambitions, but since he accepted a place on the Group after he'd already announced his run this doesn't pass the Laugh Test.

If you are a fan of Fr. Bryce Sibley

...of the late, lamented Saintly Salmagundi blog, you can get recordings of him and and other great speakers at a recent Men's Conference by going here.

Great priest. In seminary, he would hold "Peace and Justice" film nights that consisted of Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson movies. How can you not love a guy like that?

Fred Thompson Says Usual Stuff, Larison Replies

Admittedly, even some in America think that the threat is overblown, and that if we had not gone into Iraq, we’d have no terrorism problem.

Actually, regarding this latter point, no one here says any such thing. War opponents almost to a man say that we already had a terrorism problem and that this problem had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. Opponents of the war said crazy things like, “Maybe the war in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda and the Taliban should be our top priority, instead of invading a country essentially entirely unrelated to anti-American terrorism.” Had we not gone into Iraq, our “terrorism problem” would probably be less severe than it is now, as we would not have given jihadi terrorists a huge propaganda coup and a major conflict for them to use as a rallying point for their cause, but unlike war supporters we do not inextricably link the “terrorism problem” with the war in Iraq because they are actually not very closely related at all. Unlike those who warn against terrorists “following us home” if we leave Iraq, opponents of the war assume that anti-American terrorists are perfectly capable of targeting American interests whether or not we are in Iraq. Our presence in Iraq does not deter terrorism, it probably encourages it and it wastes our resources on an unrelated fight. That is what critics and opponents of the war say.

That's about right.

Fun Discussion of Sir John Tavener and the Relationship between Art and Faith

Tavener's a Greek Orthodox composer who's written a piece called The Beautiful Names (taken from the Quran) after some encounter with some Apache guy. This is the sort of thing that gives many Christians the willies.

Also, there are some hilarious side jaunts into suburban notions of "native spirituality".

I pretty much agree the Young Fogey. The man's an artist. What artists do is put things together in new and creative ways. There's nothing wrong, in principle, with the notion of The Beautiful Names. As far as I can tell, they are names for God with which any Christian could agree. The problem tends to be, not with the names Islam admits, but with the names Islam denies to God: particularly "Father" "Jesus Christ" and "Holy Spirit".

By the way, the next time makes the preposterous claim that Christianity is All About Certitude and Certitude kills, think of people like John Tavener, Meister Eckert and that whole "Cloud of Unknowing", mystery, through a glass darkly thing that Christians are always talking about. Of course, you will then be told that Christians are fools because they don't even understand the God they worship, but eventually it may occur to some people to wonder what this Faith is that people are so eager to contradict that they do not mind contradicting themselves.

Dawkins Continues to Not Get It

There are two ways of looking at the New Atheists' relentless moralizing. You can call them hypocrites or you can say that they happily retain some vestiges of the humanity their inhuman philosophy seeks to extirpate. On the whole, I prefer the New Atheists (who are really Old Atheists of the Enlightenment) to the *really* new Atheism of the nihlistic deconstructionist sort that really does look into the abyss and smile. The Hitchens and Dawkins types prefer to rage at injustice than to practice cool liberal irony and bloodlessly announce that "Why not be cruel?" is a meaningless and unanswerable question in a void of endless relativism. Jesus prefers his enemies hot or cold. There's more raw material to work with. I prefer the New Atheists to the bloodless academics who present 10,000 words of closely reasoned prose arguing that language has no meaning and then break for a lunch where they haggle with the waitress about the extremely clear meaning of the bill.

Fr. Zuhlsdorf Sounds Like a Genuinely Classy Guy

He offers the following for Motu Proprio enthusiasts:

Fr. Z’s 5 Rules of Engagement for When and If the Motu Proprio Comes:

1) Rejoice because our liturgical life has been enriched, not because "we win". Everyone wins when the Church’s life is enriched. This is not a "zero sum game".

2) Do not strut. Let us be gracious to those who have in the past not been gracious in regard to our "legitimate aspirations".

3) Show genuine Christian joy. If you want to attract people to what gives you so much consolation and happiness, be inviting and be joyful. Avoid the sourness some of the more traditional stamp have sadly worn for so long.

4) Be engaged in the whole life of your parishes, especially in works of mercy organized by the same. If you want the whole Church to benefit from the use of the older liturgy, then you who are shaped by the older form of Mass should be of benefit to the whole Church in concrete terms.

5) If the document doesn’t say everything we might hope for, don’t bitch about it like a whiner. Speak less of our rights and what we deserve, or what it ought to have been, as if we were our own little popes, and more about our gratitude, gratitude, gratitude for what God gives us.

Pitch perfect.

Life in Sherry Weddell's Colorado Paradise

Meanwhile, here in Washington the weather is pleasant and beautiful and...what's the word I'm looking for?.... ah! superior. In every way, really. Still we do like to visit Colorado now and then and nod affirmingly while Sherry soliloquizes about the Raptures of the Rockies. I'm a supporter of local patriotisms--even for places that aren't Western Washington.

Sir Salman Rushdie

I'm likin' the sound of that. And I'm likin' Good Queen Bess for having the moxie to do it. My Canadian half stirs and wishes to say that, while I am not your Majesty's loyal subject, I do think you are the bee's knees for this quiet little thumb in the eye of the yahoos and bullies of the Islamosphere. God save the Queen!

"Therapeutic Cloning" is, you will recall, the term of art, used to describe "manufacturing embryos for cannibalization so that Generation Narcissus can cling to their Moloch-given right to look and feel like Dorian Gray for a few more years--and make some corporations very rich as they spend their aborted grandchildren's inheritance doing it"

Bush, meanwhile, does the right thing here. Bravo!

Homer Simpson: He was a zombie Republican?

Bloomberg gets while the gettin's good. Nothing much noticeable about him changes.

May Their Souls and All the Souls of the Faithful Departed, through the Mercy of God Rest in Peace

These men have laid down their lives in Christlike sacrifice. Father, grant peace and consolation to them and to their families and loved ones as well. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

My Latest on Catholic Exchange

...and, my latest Register piece.

Just Awesome

Found at Singing in the Reign:

To the tune of "Supercalafragalisticexpialadocius"

...Um diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle um diddle ay

Superchristological and Homoousiosis
Even though the sound of them is something quite atrocious
You can always count on them to anathemize your Gnosis
Superchristological and Homoousiosis

Um diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle um diddle ay

Now Origen and Arius were quite a clever pair.
Immutable divinity make Logos out of air.
But then one day Saint Nicholas gave Arius a slap--
and told them if they can't recant, they ought to shut their trap!

[chorus] Oh, Superchristological and Homoousiosis...

One Prosopon, two Ousia are in one Hypostasis.
At Chalcedon this formula gave our faith its basis.
You can argue that you don't know what this means,
But don't you go and try to say there's a "Physis" in between!

[chorus] Oh, Superchristological and Homoousiosis...

Um diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle um diddle ay

Now freedom and autonomy are something to be praised,
But when it comes to human sin, these words must be rephrased,
For Pelagius was too confident that we could work it out--
And Augustine said *massa damnata* is what it's all about.

[chorus] Oh, Superchristological and Homoousiosis...

Heresies are arguments that you might find attractive,
But just remember in this case the Church is quite reactive.
So play it safe and memorize these words we sing together,
'Cause in the end you'll find, my friend, that we may live forever.

[chorus] Oh, Superchristological and Homoousiosis
Even though the sound of them is something quite atrocious
You can always count on them to anathematize your Gnosis
Superchristological and Homoousiosis

-Lyrics by Dan Idzikowski

UK to Bronze Age Thugs: We Hate Life, Live Only for Pleasure, Have No Future and Want to Die. Please Finish us Off

That is, after all, the message that is sent, whether the post-Christian West likes it or not.

Reason to Homeschool #934857349583793845734534987535

Your kid will not be taught Eastern religion under the rubric of Mindful Awareness while having their crucifix banned as if she were being taught by vampires.

Wrenching and Beautiful Piece by Frederica Mathewes-Green on the Wounded Torturer

There is no sin God cannot forgive except the refusal of his forgiveness.

Atheism is the Pet Rock of the Chattering Class Intellect, the Hula Hoop of the Intelligentsia

It's trendy right now, primarily because the Bronze Age Thugs afford atheists a little window for saying, "If you've seen one Abrahamic religion, you've seen them all."

But shouting "There is no God and besides he's evil" over and over again has a limited appeal except for a small knot of the sort of people who endlessly whistle the same phrase of music from Mega Man video soundtracks and find it emotionally fulfilling. Normal people do not actually sit around reading slim stylish volumes with page after page of reminders that God does not exist, nope, he's still not there, nope, not on this page either, nosiree, there's no God and besides God is not there. That'ssssss.... not.... normal.

So the Chattering Classes will soon tire of the atheism boomlet, I reckon. It will, of course, be a useful resource to draw on whenever theism threatens to endanger whatever Generation Narcissus wants to do with its wallet or groin. But the rest of the time, the Very Serious Atheists will mostly take the place of the Mad Uncle in the closet while some sort of marshmallowy Cult of Oprah Spirituality will continue to be the dominant outlook of our Chattering Classes.

The Good Scientist with Kooky Theological Opinions Has a Long Pedigree

The Prophet Chesterton on Zero Tolerance Insanity

When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.

My point--Machiavelli's point, actually--is that real decisions in real life are almost never easy, and those called upon to make those tough decisions have to be willing to "enter into evil." Sometimes by doing that--as briefly as possible, he implores us--means doing things we know to be morally wrong.... [A]s every grownup thoughtful person knows, that it is also possible to do the morally right thing, and by so doing, we unleash great evil. Life is tough. And the abstract moralists are not a very good guide for leaders, at least not all the time. - Michael Ledeen

May God grant eternal rest to the 100 million victims of those who were not afraid to ignore the abstract moralists, be "grown up thoughtful persons", enter into evil and do things they knew to be morally wrong.

San Francisco: Where Dogs are More Popular Than Children

It is unjust to want to kick the poor pampered little beasts for the grotesque moral displacement of their Generation Narcissus owners.

Son of Bride of Return of the Conquest of the Escape from Beneath the Valley of the Planet of the Battle for the Soul of Anglicanism: The Sequel Continues, Part III

Liberal Theologian Branches Out from Saying Rubbish About the Gospel

...to saying rubbish about the collapse of the Twin Towers:

Thus far the best that is offered is that the planes weakened the twin towers and then they collapsed because of fire. However, the buildings were constructed to withstand airplane crashes and the fires were far too small to have caused the collapse. Indeed, no buildings of this type have ever collapsed from fires before, even though many such fires have lasted much longer. Indeed, it is not possible for even the hottest fires to produce the molten steel that was seen for days in the rubble. Only explosives can account for that

I didn't realize a degree in liberal theology included a course in munitions and demolition. I also didn't realize that steel girders could support thousands of tons of concrete right up to the moment they become "molten". In my slavish brainwashed trust of all things the Bush Administration says, I had this notion that steel becomes weak long before it becoms molten. And I also had this simple-minded notion that that explosives don't burn at high temperatures for days and days but that thousands of pounds of jet fuel, combined with all the combustible materials in an office building, can do this. However, I don't have a degree in liberal theology with a munitions minor, so I could be wrong. It's what comes of looking at all that doctored live footage of WTC support girders glowing hot enough for the glow to be visible in broad daylight.

May His Soul and All the Souls of the Faithful Departed, Through the Mercy of God, Rest in Peace

Dave Hartline is One Happy Upbeat Catholic

Turns out that, according to some ancient and recently translated documents, Catholics used to believe that Hope is actually a theological virtue and not a sign of contemptible liberal modernist kumbaya Happy Face emptyheadedness! Who knew?

John Pacheco Continues to Soldier On in Anti-Catholic Canuckistan

A salute to our valiant Northern Ally in the culture of life!

More Creative Destruction! Faster Please!

It's worked so well so far! Why change such a winning strategery?

A Homeschooler Could Really Use your Nuclear Fusion Knowledge

...if you happen to have any.

Because Charity Believeth All Things...

...one can, with effort, put a charitable construction on an ad from Beliefnet which declares:

Here are nine prominent American Muslims giving definitive statements, once and for all, about why Islam has nothing to do with terrorism and violence.

You can insert various unspoken qualifiers into that like "True" Islam or take "has" to "wishes to have".

But the vast majority of people are not going to do that sort of charitable heavy lifting when this extremely common image greeting their eyes:



Caption: Thin-Skinned Islamic Thugs Foam and Rant Because a Man Who Criticized Their Religion Gets the Honor He Deserved for Courageously Defying Their Death Threats

So here's the deal: As a Catholic, it would (rightly) not pass the Laugh Test if I were to declare that the Catholicism has *nothing* to do with violence, or anti-semitism, or [insert sin here]. To be sure, there is a distinction between the eschatological vision of the spotless Bride of Christ and her extremely spotty members. There is a sense in which the Church remains "holy" even when all her members are not. But you'd have to be freakin' nuts to demand that everybody just accept that Catholics have "nothing to do" with sins which everybody knows Catholics have committed.

My suggestion to Muslims is that they stop using language that not only does not pass the Laugh Test, but that leaves the reader with the strong suggestion that if you laugh, it is because you are a bigot, and not because Islam has *plenty* to do with violence and terrorism. Here, as in so many other places, Islam--being as it is an extremely simplified version of Judaism and Christianity that seeks to bring the revelation back to the simplicity of the Bronze Age--oversimplifies. You can make a distinction between "true" Islam and "corrupt" Islam if you like. But you cannot reasonable ask the non-Muslim world to choose between you and their own two eyes. It is far, far better to acknowledge that these thugs are Muslim than to demand that everybody else pretend they are... what? Zoroastrian? Sun worshippers?

The Catholic motto is, "You can pick your friends, but you are stuck with your family." Muslims are stuck with their family too. The sooner they address themselves to the fact that these Bronze Age Thugs *are* Muslim, the better. That doesn't mean they have to be content with that. By all means, be a voice for change within the Umma. But don't demand of us outsiders that we cease and desist seeing what we see: thousands and thousands and thousands of Muslims behaving like thugs and bullies and doing it all on the basis that this is the most Islamic thing in the world.

Catholics have a huge advantage over Islam (and over most other religions in the world) in that we have such a thing as the Magisterium, which really does say "This is Catholic, that is not." Significantly, as we approach the Third Millennium, the Pope took a clear look at the sins of Catholics over the past millennium and did *not* say, "The Crusades had nothing to do with Catholicism. The persecution of Jews had nothing to do with Catholicism. The oppression of women did not involve Catholics. Catholicism has never had anything to do with racism." Instead, he took a clear-eyed look at the sins of the Church's members (including those members called "popes and bishops") and said "Mea Culpa".

The reality is this: with no Magisterium "Islam" is whatever the loudest voices in the Umma say it is. At present, a great many loud voices say it is a juggernaut of violence and terrorism. Don't give me this song and dance that they have nothing to do with Islam. It's as persuasive as the song and dance that Chrysostom's diatribes against the Jews or the murder of Rhenish Jews by Crusaders have nothing to do with Catholics. Instead, face the fact that these people are *your* people and the first order of business is not "Tell outsiders to stop seeing what they see" but "Tell insiders that we have to find some way of dealing with the violence in our Tradition or it will destroy us."

How, or even if, Islam can do that is the great question of our time. But that is the first step for any Muslim that *really* wants to deal with Islamic violence and terrorism.

Nice idea!

A reader writes:

Here's terrific site called BeNotAfraid.net, aimed at young about-to-be-parents who have been given the news of a possibly difficult childbirth. The site is rich and deep – hope you will take a look and then give them an on-air boost!

Done!

Klassic Kommie!

Forget all that pristine unspoiled wilderness garbage: Pave Mt. Everest!

Ah me, I'd forgotten how fantastically brutal and stupid the Vanguard of the Future could be. And the wonderful thing is: no matter how many times the Commie dream... well "fails" is such weak word--betrays, murders, crucifies, slaughters, these begin to approach the idea--the dream of a secular utopia, there will always be fools on the Left who say "They meant well." Secular messianists have an unflappable faith that, so long as your goal is a noble one, all the ruthless soul-strangling means in the world are merely "mistakes" and not sins that damn you to hell.

Administration Deploys Mahony Strategy

When you are floundering in a disaster of your own creation, hire a PR guy.

Maybe they could start by interviewing Gen. Taguba.

Don't Stand so, Don't Stand So, Don't Stand So Close to Me

GOP field labors to get as far from Dubya as possible.

Meanwhile, Dems strain to prove their bona fides to ravening hordes of oppressed rich kids, guys in clown make-up, bony young men in severe glasses who adore French cinema, people who live in trees called Luna, vengeful peaceniks who can't wait for the Revolution, Stalinist academics who resent the fact that their stupid students are still allowed to think for themselves when the stakes are so high, devotees of the sacrament of abortion, Gaia worshippers, women who feel themselves about to vomit at the thought that somebody somewhere thinks a statistic might show women to be different than men in the hard sciences, thin-lipped icy zealots whose sole dream is to strangle the last Evangelical with the guts of the last priest and prose stylists who think a constant stream of profanity = "keepin' it real".

Once both fields of candidates have established their credentials with their "base", they will then turn to the rest of us and say, "Me? Agree with them? Nah! I mean, they're okay people and all. But I'm not that extreme. Don't pay too much attention to them. They're a bit too intense, aren't they? So anyway, here's why *you* should vote for me: because I take the best ideas from this crazed mob of political junkies and filter them through my own, much more moderate, personality using Important Hair and a well-modulated voice."

Thin-Skinned Bronze Age Fanatics Can't Cope with Free Speech

We're all Monarchists Now.

Teen Girl Squad!

Perhaps the most surreal cartoon on the web.

"Our born-again Christian president -- I wonder if any of this ever troubles his sleep."

"Change--above all violent change--is the essence of human history." - Michael Ledeen