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Monday, August 20, 2007
I'll be posting from time to time over at Intentional Disciples I have a new post up there now, FYI. From Colorado Springs: over and out! Labels: Doings on Other Blogs Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Popping in and out Edits are proceeding apace! I hope to get it all done before I go on Vacation. We'll be in loverly Colorado and will actually be going to Pikes Peak the place that inspired the composition of "America the Beautiful". Speaking of which, my series on Patriotism continues apace in the Register (there's one more next week). Oh! And speaking of Colorado, I hope I will see some of youse guys and gals at "An Evening With Mark Shea" -- Presented by the Catherine of Siena InstituteAnd if you come, stay over the next day because The Catherine of Siena Institute is sponsoring a day-long gathering on the subject of "Building Intentional Community" in Colorado Springs, CO on Friday, August 31 '07 (the day before Labor Day Weekend).Don't miss it if you can! Our fambly will be there, as well as the lovely and glamorous Sherry Weddell. A reg'lar blogospheric soiree, right there in the shadow of Pike's Peak. On that note, I depart again leaving you with these thoughts from Five Iron Frenzy: You Probably Shouldn't Move Here Well I heard that your state could be sinking, deep into the briny sea, and all of them earthquakes got you thinking, 'bout leaving Californee-ee. There's riots and there's floods and it's smoggy, toxic waste on yonder beach, and all of them Hippies down in SANTA CRUZ, are startin' to suck just like a leach. You're sick of sunshine and surfing, you've had all the tofu you can take, well look here times-a-wastin', you just move to the Centennial state! [Chorus:] Some people think our state is square, they're wrong just wait and see, I walk a mile high, Colorado's right for me. Well ridin' on a cow can make you tired, and it gets a little cold, "That's true!", but if y'all could use a little swayin', here's Val from the W's! Riding rodeos and square dancing, you farm like mad all day, you might think that I'm lying, shoot listen what my uncle's gotta say! "I'm an old smelly geezer, I don't know what rhymes with that, if you've got a boil you could pick it, get out of my yard and give me my chicken See you in September! Labels: Catholic Exchange Stuff, National Catholic Register Stuff, Siena Institute Thursday, August 09, 2007
The MSS for Book One of Behold Your Mother is Back from the Publisher for Me to Edit That means I will be gone for a while. Quite possibly a long while since I am going on vacation to Colorado on the 17th and returning September 1. If you don't hear from me till after Labor Day, it's not cuz I'm dead or hate you. It's that I'm busy working and playing. Ciao, dudes and dudettes! See you in September! Labels: PSA Science Slowly Builds up Its Picture of Just How Ignorant We Are of Human Origins The more we know, the less we know. Of course, the last people to get this bulletin will be those fundeamentalists, on both sides of the argument, who imagine that the sciences and revelations contradict. Labels: Darwin Mythos A reader writes: What would you say if someone asked you when did Jesus know He was God? Trust me, not everyone agrees on the answer, especially not Catholic priests. When we start talk about Jesus, I think it is very important at this time to immediately say God, like, Jesus, God, present in the Eucharist. I sure wish one priest would get up on the altar and say, Jesus, is God and Jesus knew He was God from the incarnation. There seem to be a number of issues rolled together here and I'm not altogether sure that's fair to your average priest. I'm fairly well-educated theologically and I can tell you that if someone asked me "when did Jesus know He was God" my answer would be "beats me." So I can well understand how you might get a variety of answers to that question. Jesus has, as you recall, a divine and human nature. We know from divine revelation that he *grew* in wisdom and stature. In short, he learned things like all humans do. In his deity, he is omniscient. In his humanity, he asks questions because he doesn't know things. He freely confesses "Of that day and that hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heave, nor the Son, but the Father only." So I don't know that it's a slam dunk to say Jesus knew he was God from the Incarnation. Now, I'm just giving you my completely uninformed gerblat of a response based on what happens to spring to mind at the moment. I'm willing to bet good money that somewhere in the Church's tradition this question has been given and exhaustive going-over by somebody and there may even be magisterial teaching on the question. If there is, then pay attention to that and not to my ignorant ramblings. However, that said, my point is this: the failure of a priest to be a theological vending machine on every abstruse question of theology--and that at the drop of a hat--is not really an indication of something sinister. Nor is it quite fair to relate the sudden question "When did Jesus know he was God?" to either the preaching of the Real Presence or the general question "Is Jesus God?" and suggest that failure to have sudden universal competence in the first question means neglect or denial of the other two questions. I go to a Dominican parish with a very strong Eucharistic devotion and very clear preaching on the deity of Christ. Yet I have never heard a homily preached on the consciousness of Christ and the question of when he knew he was God. That's largely because the question just hasn't come up, not because there is denial of his deity or the Real Presence. If anybody does happen to know some theological resources for the question my reader asks, please feel free to mention them in the comboxes. I'm curious too. Labels: Mailbag Another reader writes: Would you be so kind as to ask readers for some help as I try to find Protestant comments (especially positive ones) about Pope Benedict's, "Jesus of Nazareth"? Blogs, news accounts, articles, whatever will do. Labels: Mailbag My Dear Friend Dave Curp is a History Prof at Ohio U. He writes: Greetings! I was wondering if I could make a bleg on your blog - I am looking for scholarly commentary on Casti Cannubi and eugenics and Google scholar has come up short. Anyway, if you could put out an APB to your readers I would appreciate it. I am reviewing a collection of essays "Blood and Homeland: Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe 1900-1940" and am interested to see what are some other takes on the issue of the Church and eugenics in the 30s.If anybody can help, please contact him at this email address. Labels: Mailbag Forget Harry! I'm glad somebody has *finally* tackled the shocking and insidious pagan influences at work on the Faith through the intrinsically corrupting medium of Football Labels: Humor A reader writes: Your post on the Emergent Church Movement has sparked a bit of conversation down in the Bayou State. I linked to it on my blog, offering some additional thoughts on why I think the Movement has some Catholic sensitivities. The blog Opinionated Catholic linked to me, offered some mild criticism (only slightly more critical of your post than I was), and I have come back to defend your generalizations. Anyway, I really appreciated your commentary and the motivational posters. Thanks for you kind and thoughtful words. I quite agree that the Emergent Church is going to have a lasting influence. The future, as ever, belongs to the young. And I also very much agree that the Emergent Church constitutes a real opportunity for the Catholic Church and for the prospects of some serious ecumenical progress. The good thing about the Emergent Church is that it is acutely sensitive to some of the unthinking bigotries and shibboleths of its Evangelical parents. So there is a really remarkable openness to Catholic thinking, piety and theology among many Emergents because it is "forbidden fruit". An older Evangelical regards a Rosary with discomfort and fear. An Emergent will often regard it as cool. The Catholic aesthetic often hits Evangelicals as "stiff" and "religious" while its own rather informal piety is seen as "having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ". But for Emergents, it is the Evangelical piety that is seen as formulaic, lifeless and "religious". Catholic piety and its aesthetic trappings can be perceived as "mystical", "ancient" and (for them a new word) "sacramental". It's the Gen X tendency to look over the heads of their parents to the glories of their grandparents--being played out in Evangelicalism. Not a few young Emergents are attracted to the Catholic Church because they want to be *rooted*. And the Church can offer that. They also seek (as the young are *made* by God to seek), heroism and martrydom. This is the great cry of the heart of youth: to die gloriously in some great cause. And so youth is always frustrated with it parents, who have often sacrifically died every day for years for the great cause of shielding their children from the horrors of a fallen world and raising their children to be fat, dumb and happy ingrates. My own Generation--Generation Narcissus--gave this reward in spades to our parents, lecturing them on our wonderfulness, on our discovery of conscience, on our nobility in discovering both sex and abortion, on our many many virtues and sensitive feelings and needs and wants all the rest. What did they know? They had just survived the Great Depression, fought off the two greatest totalitarian systems in history, and gone on to quietly provide a way for us to preen and shout "Never trust anyone over 30". Then, having shut them up, we proceeded to turn to our kids and tell them that the Great Days (aka, the 60s) were over. They will never attain to the greatness of Us, the Boomers. Oh sure, we screwed up their lives with soaring divorce rates and rampant Yuppyism, but they are "resilient". What matters is that we feel good about ourselves. For some reason, that Generation is now talking as though the Revolution failed and is looking further into the past to see if some important steps were missed somewhere. Emergents are, in part, an expression of that impulse. On the downside, Catholics must bear in mind that the Emergent Church is a Protestant phenomenon. As such, it often bears the marks of Protestant thinking and that can lead to trouble, because you can't build a life on mere protest. Saying "There's something wrong with Evangelicalism" is all well and good. Emergents often have a very acute sense of the weaknesses in Evangelicalism and can articulate those weaknesses very well. What they often lack is a clear idea of what to do about these weaknesses. Some weaknesses are best treated by amputation. But other weaknesses are best treated with medicine and therapy. A gangrenous limb needs to go. An injured one needs to be healed. Emergents are seeking to live out the gospel heroically and authentically, but zeal without knowledge is not enough. This is where the Church can supply critically needed wisdom. But if the project morphs from being about living the gospel to being about Rejecting the Old, it could well turn into mere postmodern deconstructionist rubbish. As a friend of mine once said, the day came where he realized he could be Protestant or Christian, but not both. My fear is that many Emergents are going to realize they face the same choice--and choose to be Protestant. If the do that, they will become potent enemies of the Faith. But if they choose to abandon the basic Protestant paradigm, I think many will make very powerful apostles for the Cattholic faith. So I take a very keen interest in the Emergent Church. Thanks again for writing. Labels: Doings on Other Blogs, Evangelical stuff An Experiment "Harry Potter and the Liturgical Dancers at the Hiroshima Memorial Mass" Discuss, class. I'm betting we can hit 500 comments. Update: Best. Comment. Ever. : "Liturgical dancing does not discriminate between innocents and those deserving of punishment. It is only permissible in self-defense against military combatants, or for the preservation of one's virginity." Labels: Humor Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Happy Feast of St. Dominic! Intentional Disciples is All Dominic All the Time today. Meanwhile, at my beloved Blessed Sacrament parish (your one stop shopping place for all Dominicana in Seattle) we are having our traditional parish whooptidoo for Father Dominic tonight at 7:00 PM, followed by:  In the words of Samuel Goldwyn, "Don't miss it if you can." Labels: PSA Fr. Powell, OP writes: I posted a piece on Pastoral Life Coordinators and the vocations "crisis". You have your orders. Labels: Doings on Other Blogs Pete Vere on Harry Potter This is a pretty good article which largely features People Who Get It. Of course, all such piece require The Opposing View so Michael O'Brien is wheeled out to say his usual spiel. O'Briend's problem is that, in addition to not grasping the now-obvious Christian subtext of Harry Potter, he doesn't even seem to grasp the implications of his own words: "Crucial to any understanding of the controversy is that symbols have power," Mr. O'Brien says. "They exercise a power over the subconscious largely, especially in the young reader whose consciousness and conscience is in a state of formation. If we destroy symbols, we destroy concepts. If we corrupt symbols, we corrupt concepts." Just so. A pagan worshipper of Minerva might have said exactly this as his shrine to Minerva was turned into the horrible desecration of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. A Druid might have said as much as holly and ivy were perverted from symbols of his religion into symbols of Christ and Mary. A Germanic pagan might have made just this complaint as the Eostre egg and the rabbit ceased to be symbols of sexual fertility and instead became Christian symbols of new life in Christ through the resurrection. A Norse pagan might have said as much of his religious imagery of elves and fairies when those terrible perverters of the Old Religions and upstarts the Brothers Grimm and JRR Tolkien Christianized such imagery and turned it to their own corrupt purposes. In short, O'Brien talks about Rowling's conversion of more of the devil's real estate into Christendom as though it were a *bad* thing. It's a classic fundamentalist mistake which assumes that imagery borrowed from paganism must corrupt the Faith rather than assuming that the Holy Spirit has the power to sanctify the image. It's like those Chick tracts that say "Egyptians used sun disks in their art, so Catholic art with haloes is a pagan snare to the soul!" As I say, I think the devil must be fit to be tied at Rowling's jiu jitsu: taking the image of the mage and "perverting" it to the service of the gospel. I wish O'Brien would drop this silly vendetta. Labels: Harry Potter Congratulations to Reader Glenn Cooper! He writes: David Maximilian Cooper Amen and amen! Labels: Praise report Stay Classy, Jerusalem Post Here's how the death of Cardinal Lustiger was cover by the London Times: "Cardinal Lustiger in his own words". Here's how the Jerusalem Post covered it: Apostate French cardinal dies at 80 Labels: The Last Acceptable Prejudice Marvelous Snapshot of a Scientist Twisting and Squirming to Be Accepted by the Chattering Classes Read this and tell me this is about the cool dispassionate pursuit of truth and not about fitting in at the next wine and cheese soiree. Especially fetching is this classic bit: If we didn’t already have a name for the object of Einstein’s “cosmic religion,” we would have to invent one. It’s just too bad that the name has been tainted and trivialized by association with the image of a white-bearded Caucasian-looking creature who sits in the clouds attended by harp-strumming angels. Because, you know, that's what people who believe in God (as distinct from "God") believe. Please, I assure you! I am a *scientist*. I'm one of you! When *I* speak of a mysterious power behind the universe that ordered it to be just so in marvelously fine-tuned complexity and detail that can only evoke awe and wonder, I don't mean, you know, *God*. I'm not one of *those* people. I'm one of, you know, *our* sort. Remember the Seven Basic Elements of Modern Science: Time, Space, Matter, Energy, Power, Prestige, and Funding. Labels: Seven Basic Elements Women are Starting to Figure Out that Turning Yourself into an Object is Not the Quick Road to Fulfillment as a Human Being Wendy Shalit naturally receives brickbats from Coalition of the Exploitive. For both Playboy and Radical Feminism need women to be something other than fully human persons in order to fulfill their raison d'etre. Meanwhile, Shalit does the Lord's work freeing young girls from this kind of cultural imprisonment overseen by the powers and princpalities: Today, the sexualization of girls begins in infancy with 12-month sized Shalit has hit on the essential connection: a culture that despises virginity despises children. She is battering at the gate of a mighty fortress that is more than mere capitalist exploitation. It is one of the redoubts of Hell. She can use our prayers because there are more than human powers at work in that struggle. One of the marks of Hell at work is mortal enemies like Pilate and Herod, Herodians and Pharisees, Hitler and Stalin, NOW and Playboy, dropping their quarrels to destroy somebody who is do no harm. Labels: SMACTDVAISYACTDC The New Conservatism: Where Only One Thing Matters I vote "c". Labels: Salvation Through Leviathan By Any Means Necessary Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Oligarch Criticized for Offering Insufficiently Convincing Imitation of Regular People Oh my stars and garters! This sort of criticism will probably narrow the field of oligarchs we have to choose from. Labels: Evil Party, Politics Tolerance is Insufficient You. Must. Approve. You. MUST. Believe. And. Profess. The. Glory. Of. Homosex. Labels: Gay Blackshorts on the March Barna's right. Catholics have successfully melded with Mainstream America! Her husband Roger, 45, said Mr Giuliani was right that social issues were not paramount. Earth, Si! The Faith, eh. A reading from the letter of Paul to the Colossians: If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.I sometimes wonder how many of us Catholics receive the readings on Sunday like this:  Labels: Culture of Death Watch Scientists on Alpha Centauri Prime Detect Huge Eruption of Gas on Third Planet of Nearest Stellar Neighbor There are some propositions that are just self-evident to me. I don't have ready to hand a bunch of carefully detailed arguments that geocentrism is false, that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, that George Washington existed, that JFK is not being kept alive in Area 51, that Lizard People are not controlling the Trilateral Commission, and that the Beatles were not satanic emissaries from another dimension. Out there on the web, I'm sure I can find people ready and willing to marshal massively verbose arguments in favor of all these propositions. My failure to engage these fascinating arguments does not mean that they are proven true. It merely means that some people have set themselves the task of defending crazy ideas and I opt not to waste my time trying to stop them. I'm one of those simple souls who gapes and grins and submits to the Received Wisdom which says things like "the earth rotates and is not 10,000 years old" and "George Washington was real" and "JFK is dead" and "there are no Lizard people" and "the Beatles were four musicians from England" and "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation." It seems to me obvious that Hiroshima and Nagasaki quite obviously fill the bill here. It also seems to me that the judgement of a couple of Popes, while not dogmatically binding, is sound. In this, I join my puny opinion with guys like Fulton Sheen who protested that satanic parody of the Tranfiguration and it blasphemous inauguration at "Trinity": When, I wonder, did we in America ever get into this idea that freedom means Labels: Consequentialism on Parade, Doings on Other Blogs Patriotism as a Sacramental My latest for the National Catholic Register. Labels: National Catholic Register Stuff The Quest for Unbiased News...  ...is like the quest for the Fountain of Youth or the Grail. You will never attain it. I think instead of the mythical claim of "we're unbiased" by the various Manufacturers of Culture and Political Opinion both Left and Right, they should just all frankly admit that they have ideological agendas, spell out what those agendas are, and be done with it. I'd respect them all a lot more if they didn't all perpetually lie to me and try to sell me that they were unbiased. Labels: Chattering Class Follies All future incarnations of living Buddhas related to Tibetan Buddhism "must get government approval," the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the State Administration for Religious Affairs. Someday, when we are all safely in Heaven, we will look back on the great Communist regimes and just laugh our heads off at the wonder anybody ever took this stuff seriously. Labels: Commies Bloomberg For President! If elected he will create a vast army of Grannies to fan out across the nation to give us milk and cookies, tuck us in at night, read us a story, and report on our activities to the Ministry of Hygenic Citizenship and Goodthink. Labels: Politics Oligarchs on the Left Jockey for Power! Yikes! One Oligarch has lots more money and is therefore winning! That could mean we will be ruled by a power-hungry oligarch! Meanwhile, another oligarch frets because he is failing to sufficiently persuade ordinary people that he is not an oligarch but a Regular Person - Diversity Upgrade 2.0. The Leading Oligarch on the Left has sufficient funds to persuade more and more people that she has adequate Regular Person - Diversity Upgrade 2.0 credentials because she is in full possession of a uterus. Elsewhere in the Left, another Oligarch struggles with the perpetual problem of trying to persuade voters he is just a Regular Person while, of course, not having to face the consequences actually acting like a Regular Person. For Regular People do not have wives with access to the means to be drop dead gorgeous 24/7. That's why there are no headlines announcing that my wife did not put on makeup this morning. However, when an Oligarch's wife attempts to go without makeup, it becomes an Issue worth a headline. That's because, though we voters may appreciate plain speech, we do not in our heart of hearts appreciate plain women on the arms of our Oligarch. Man of the People, heck yes! But couldn't his wife give us some eye candy? We're not sure if he's really Leadership Material. The way to patch that up? Do a puff piece on how she is Just a Regular Person, of course! And on the Right, a leading oligarch predicts that the two leading oligarchs on the Left will combine their Regular Person - Diversity Upgrade 2.0 credentials to create a formidable illusion of Regularness which will persuade a large number of voters to choose those oligarchs instead of an oligarch like himself. The American political system: Doing What We Designed It to Do, Not What We Want It to Do. Labels: Politics Disputations on the Metameme to End All Metamemes That's more linking than anybody should ever have to do. Labels: Doings on Other Blogs You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its savor... Periodically throughout history, the Church has dissolved into the surrounding culture to such a degree that it becomes rather difficult to tell the difference between the Church and the world. If Barna is right, we are living in such a time now. Happily, we do not run the Church. The Holy Spirit does. Those who do not think it a fine thing that the Church is just fine with the Culture of Death therefore have their orders: Pray that the Lord of the Harvest send out workers into the field. For the harvest is plenty but the workers are few. I think we are already seeing signs of good things to come and that the rising generation of Catholics is not at all going to sit back and acquiesce to Barna's findings. One very good sign of this is the site I link: Mary's Aggies. There are plenty more where that came from. Labels: Culture of Death Watch, Culture of Life, Doings on Other Blogs A reader writes:
I did. I finished it last night and am still digesting it. Heartbreaking, and yet so life-affirming. A wonderful piece of work. I don't want to talk about it too much till, say, September so as to avoid spoiling the work for my readers who may not have had a chance to finish it yet. I will say I got enough important predictions right to be pleased that I was right about this being a Christian work, and that I got enough predictions wrong to be pleased with the twists in the plot that Rowling concocted. She's given the world a great gift and my appreciation for what she's done has only grown over time. I honestly don't see how somebody mildly familiar with Christian teaching could fail to miss the Christian subtext. "The last enemy to be destroyed is death." Labels: Harry Potter Monday, August 06, 2007
The madness of tomorrow is not in Moscow, but much more in Manhattan. - G.K. Chesterton Capitalism, unfettered by Christian morality, is just another way for fallen man to destroy himself and others on the way to an imaginary earthly utopia. Labels: Brave New World For those interested in G.K. Chesterton, our Lady, home brewing, inns, Distributism, good literature, the lost art of Catholic drinking, and other crucial elements of Catholic culture, there is now a blog for all your interests. Labels: Doings on Other Blogs That Catholic Show #7 Greg and Jennifer Willits continue to put out some great little catechetical videos. I get to meet them too when I go to Atlanta in October! Labels: Cool Stuff If you homeschool your kids you will never have to battle your way through the courts for the crime of saying the Name of Jesus Labels: Reasons to Homeschool I'll be seeing James and Ella in November when we go to England to shoot Manalive By the way, you'll really want to see it when it's done. Have I mentioned I'll be playing Innocent Smith? (This is called "creating buzz"). You're supposed to get excited and feel a general sense of tingling excitement in the air, prompting you to say to nobody in particular "I sure can't wait for that new movie "Manalive" to come out!" At which point, the person next to you says, "How's that?" and you eagerly reply "'Manalive'! It's the wonderful new film by acclaimed indie filmmaker Joey Odendahl that will be starring Mark Shea as Innocent Smith! You know: the story by G.K. Chesterton about the rollicking childlike giant who turns a house full of dull sad people upside down and teaches them the True Meaning of Life?" At which point, your neighbor says, "Ah yes! Chesterton's classic tale of comedy, mystery, wonder, romance and joy! And I hear Shea is quite a dab hand at acting! Oh my stars an garters! I can't wait!" Of course you can't! Nor I! I'm already working on my English accent. Labels: Doings on Other Blogs, PSA No Sex No Problems My kids had a rather happy adolescence by hanging around with teens with happy lives whose entire sense of self worth did not revolve around the problem of (for guys) sexual conquest or (for gals) finding fulfillment via convincing yourself that the guy who is using you as his sex toy Really Cares. I hope the Soviet of Washington continues supporting this sensible campaign though I suspect it's just a matter of time before Murder Inc brings suit for failure to conform to the Sexualize Children ASAP Regime. Labels: Good News Build Your Own Death Ray! This could come in really handy, especially if, as leading authorities agree, the Roman Catholic Church is destroyed tomorrow. In a post-apocalyptic world, home-built death rays are one of the Ten Essentials for survival. Readers are invited to suggest the other Nine Essentials. Labels: Cool Stuff, News of the Weird Friday, August 03, 2007
Clearly, Ron Paul is Insane. He Doesn't Regard Pearl Harbor as "Lucky" Labels: Salvation Through Leviathan By Any Means Necessary Heh! For those not up on the latest trends in Evangelical culture, the "Emergent Church" phenomenon is an attempt by the rising generation to reformat the gospel for, well, the Rising Generation. As is common with some attempts, the reformatters know what is wrong much better than they know what is right. Consequently, they land some really good punches on the tendency of Evangelicals to identify the Kingdom of God with the Republican party platform, the American Way, and Good Housekeeping but they sort of start to disintegrate when the discussion turns to things like truth claims, theology, and all that Eurocentric white male stuff that used to be known as the Great Tradition and, before that, as the "Catholic tradition". Here is a counter-volley from a serious Protestant who thinks the kidz could probably stand to stop with the Disaffected Counter-Culture Act and learn something. It is way funny. Labels: Evangelical stuff, Humor Larison on Obama's "Democrats Can Tough Too, You Know!" Foot Stomp If Bush’s "humble" foreign policy yielded Iraq, just imagine the nightmare that might come from a candidacy founded on audacity! Bring on the Doomed Quixotic Party! The two "real" parties are dominated by knaves and clowns. Labels: Evil Party More Fooferah at Ave Maria School of Law Charles Rice gives his take. If I were a parent with a kid looking at a Catholic legal education, I wouldn't touch that place with a barge pole. It appears to be the plaything of one rich man. Labels: Doings on Other Blogs Why You Should all Be Reading Disputations Because the author, Tom Kreitzberg, effortlessly makes sensible observations like this one from my comboxes everyday: I am all for Catholic men's organizations. I belong to one, and hope to start another one in my parish some day. Labels: Doings on Other Blogs Our Ruling Class Continues to Impress! I have minimal expectations for government competence. The notion that the people who brought you the post office and the $700 toilet seat will run a sleek efficient End to Evil Nation-Building Experiment is way beyond fantasy. But the notion that the state will build and maintain things like a highway is, for a change, what government is actually supposed to be about. So when bridges fall into the Mississippi and the 70,000 others are found to be past their prime in dangerous ways I think it is perfectly legitimate to call the rascals to account. The fact that the bridge that fell has been known to be a looming menace since 1990 tells me that something is radically wrong with the state and has been for a very long time. Unlike so much of what it's involved in, roads are actually something it's supposed to be taking care of. Instead, we're blowing a trillion bucks on a Grand End to Evil strategy. Labels: Evil Party, Sin Makes You Stupid, Stupid Party Oligarchs Quarrel Over $$$ in Effort to Position Themselves as Being Reg'lar Folk This strange kabuki of zillionaires trying to pass themselves off as Ordinary People gets more and more incestuous and ridiculous. Labels: Politics Karen Marie's Brother, Tom, writes: Thank you for spreading the word about Karen's death. It is apparently the only web release, since Blogger seems to be blocking my brother's IP address from posting comments on Karen's site. Several bloggers who I have seen in her comments before have posted condolences. Thanks for the information, Tom. May Christ Crucified strengthen you with his love and power in this moment of grief and sorrow. Labels: Mailbag A Last Request I live alone. I have no kin less than a full day's drive away. I'm chronically ill with a disease that is incurable and fatal. Though I am doing all the things I need to do to collect on the "15 to 20 years of medically manageable symptoms", such as taking all my medicines, doing my physical therapy, using my oxygen, and so on, the fact is that I could easily be Called at any time. And the first notice of my passing, when my body finally stops working entirely, is very likely to be a blaring loudspeaker just like the one in the cafeteria this noontime, at some hospital or skilled nursing facility. I hope that when my time comes, and the loudspeakers start hollering about my room, that there is someone who takes pity on me and prays for me. It's on that list of the Things Catholics Do, the Works of Mercy: Pray for both the living and the dead. - Karen Marie Knapp May her soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Father, receive into eternal light our sister Karen Marie and grant that she may she in the resurrection of the just in Christ Jesus on That Day. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen. On a related note, I received this: Karen Marie was frequent poster over on Rosary Army forum. As an Orthodox Christian I was always impressed by her knowledge of the Eastern Rite's liturgy and practices. Labels: Prayer Requests Mary, Mother of the Unborn Here's a nifty article by my pal Mary Kochan on a lovely piece of iconography. Speaking of which, it's time for another little taste of my forthcoming Mary trilogy, Behold Your Mother (due out from Catholic Answers next spring). This is excerpted from the last chapter of book three, The Mystery of Mary: Mary's Spiritual Maternity: It's Not Just For Catholics Anymore |
