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!

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 Institute

Featuring a talk, Q & A, and reception/social hour afterwards. The presentation will begin at 7:00pm on Thursday, August 30 '07 in the parish hall downstairs at Holy Apostles Catholic Church (4925 Carefree Circle North Colo Spgs, CO 80917)

Topic: Care and Feeding of the Lay Catholic Apostle
Lay Catholics are called to do the vast majority of the work in the New Evangelization. This talk gives some tips, not only to lay people about the cultural and theological glitches that confront the lay apostle in Millennial America, but to clergy and pastoral leaders who are interested in helping to form their flocks into fellow workers in the Vineyard.

For more information, CONTACT: the Catherine of Siena Institute/Mike Dillon
at 719-219-0056, or e-mail, or visit the Institute website.

A free will offering will be taken to cover expenses.
Location: Holy Apostles Catholic Church
Event Dates: Thursday, August 30, 2007

And 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).

We will be spending the day (9 am - 4 pm) together at the beautiful Penrose House at the base of Cheyenne Mountain (lunch will be provided) and then end the day (starting at 6 pm) with an evening barbeque at a nearby mountain park.

To cover the cost of lunch and dinner and the other expenses of putting this on, we are asking for a donation of $40/per participant for the whole day. If you are interested, please call Mike Dillon in our office at (888) 878-6789 or e-mail him. You do need you to pre-register for this by August 1 '07 so we know how many to plan for. See you here!

Location: Catherine of Siena Institute
Event Dates: Friday, August 31, 2007

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!

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!

Homestarrunner has New Strangeness Up!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Emergent Church is going to have a lasting influence, whether they go the way of the Jesus People or the Oxford Movement. Keep your eyes open for them. Someone has to guide them.

And thanks for all the good work you are doing.

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.

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."

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."

Fr. Powell, OP writes:

I posted a piece on Pastoral Life Coordinators and the vocations "crisis".


Check it out and let me know how wrong I am...

You have your orders.

And finally, just because it's cool

Part of Future President Bloomberg's Plans for the Moral Reformation of Our Nation

Food for Thought



Warning: Slightly crass

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.

Congratulations to Reader Glenn Cooper!

He writes:

David Maximilian Cooper
Born: 06 August 2007, 3:46 AM Eastern Time
Weight: 6 lb 11 oz
Length: 19 1/2 inches

No indications of Down Syndrome, despite the 1:10 odds.

All praise and glory to God the Almighty!

Amen and amen!

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

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.

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
rompers announcing, "I'm too sexy for my diaper." At age four, it's The Bratz
Babyz, singing "You've gotta look hotter than hot! Show what you've got!" At six
it's a pouty, scantily dressed My Scene Bling Bling Barbie draped in diamonds.
By 12, it's Ludacris singing ( Ruff sex): "make it hurt in the garden." Fully
brainwashed by 13, lap dancer is by then considered a more desirable profession
than teacher, as one British survey of 1,000 teenage girls found to be the case
by a 7-1 ratio.

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.

With My Boyish Good Looks It's No Wonder My Wife Adores Me

The New Conservatism: Where Only One Thing Matters

I vote "c".

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.

Tolerance is Insufficient

You. Must. Approve. You. MUST. Believe. And. Profess. The. Glory. Of. Homosex.

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.

'Abortion, when it comes up I'm like, where's the remote? Morally, ethically, yes I'm a Catholic but politically it doesn't matter to me. I want to know about defence, roads and what to do in Iraq.'

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:

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
having no boundaries and no limits?I think it began on the 6th of August 1945 at
8:15 am when we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. ... Somehow or other, from that
day on in our American life, we say we want no limits and no boundaries.

Patriotism as a Sacramental

My latest for the National Catholic Register.

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.

Free Antibiotics

Gotta applaud that.

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.

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.

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.

Disputations on the Metameme to End All Metamemes

That's more linking than anybody should ever have to do.

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.

A reader writes:

I found H.P. Book 7 to be incredibly powerful, and I've spent the last week or so trying to discern exactly why. Then I read the following, in a review by Aaron MacLean in the Weekly Standard of a book on "Volition and Storytelling in Shakespeare's Major Plays":

[A] tension [is] present throughout the plays: That though our desires may not be met, we still possess the power to alter our attitude to our conditions, thus nobly holding on to one sort of will, in face of the failure to satisfy another. And when the dying Hamlet cries out to Horatio not to drink the poison, asking instead that he 'in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,/ To tell my story' and Horatio accepts, we encounter the essential literary act -- the act of storytelling -- which is William Shakespeare's legacy to us. A character's epiphany, his acceptance of his life, in the face of the great wordless mystery approaching him, and his achievement of a sort of transcendental peace, becomes our intellectual possession with a little bit of time left still to struggle." (Emphasis added.)

I think Rowling nailed this precisely in the final chapters. I hope you also found the book as satisfying as I did.

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."

For Fans of Irish Music: Tommy Makem, Rest in Peace

Amy Welborn Gets a Makeover

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.

Swingin' Rosaries

Cool name for a new blog.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

Sandra Miesel sends along this troubling story

She wonders what you make of it.

Clearly, Ron Paul is Insane. He Doesn't Regard Pearl Harbor as "Lucky"

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.

Mary's Aggies Needs Our Prayers

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.

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.

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.

But if the solution to the alleged problem of excessive feminization in the Church is to have men talk about their feelings, then the problem is worse than even Lee Podles says.

Personally, though, I don't think excessive feminization is a problem. I think it's a symptom. Men aren't staying home because church is girly; church is girly because men are staying home. And they're staying home, says I, not because they're manly, but because they're adolescent.

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.

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.

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.

With luck, or Divine intervention, I will be able to find Karen's password for posts when I return to Milwaukee next week.

Calling Hours are 5-8 PM Sunday, August 5, in Cuyahoga Falls, OH. Mass of Christian Burial is scheduled for 10 AM on Monday, August 6, 2007. Karen's expressed desire, at several different times, was to cause as little "trouble" as possible at her passing, whether in Milwaukee, Akron, or wherever, and so she will be interred in Akron.

Arrangements have been made to place her obituary in the Akron Beacon Journal and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. I hope to arrange a memorial Mass, or possibly a shorter Liturgy, when I return next mid-week. Details will follow.

Thanks for the information, Tom. May Christ Crucified strengthen you with his love and power in this moment of grief and sorrow.

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.

I've written a short memorial prayer that some RA memebers will praying as a novena in her memory:

Loving Savior, on the night before you suffered for our salvation you withdrew to pray to Your Father in solitude. In Your love for us You called Karen Marie to a life of quiet meditation and prayer in her own sufferings here in this world. As Your suffering brought salvation to the world, she used her suffering to glorify You for our sakes. We come to you knowing that as You opened your arms to embrace the cross, You have opened Your arms to welcome Karen Marie into Your kingdom where she no longer suffers but rejoices in your presence.

Mary, Mother of God, though Karen Marie was limited in physical mobility, she zealously called others to devotion to the Gospel through you. May we find joy in knowing that she now walks with you.

Almighty Father, may we follow Karen Marie's example and use our own difficulties and trials as opportunities for growing closer to You. This we ask in the name of Jesus Your Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Please feel free to pass it on.

David Perry
Webmaster,
St. Andrew's Orthodox Church
www.FirstCalled.org

More Recut Hilarity



It's amazing what one man and his editing software can achieve.

This is funny...



But this is waaaaaay funny:

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

In their immediate sense, the words "beloved disciple" refer to John, of course. But as we have already seen, John himself knew perfectly well they also refer to every "beloved disciple"—-to all the baptized, even to all who seek to do the will of God and follow what is right. Mary is their Mother and they are her children. That's why, in his Revelation, he speaks of "the rest of [the] offspring" of the Woman: that is, "those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus" (Revelation 12:17).

This necessarily involves Mary, not just with Catholics, nor even merely with other Christian traditions who gladly acknowledge her spiritual maternity. Rather, according to Scripture, Mary's spiritual maternity extends, whether we realize it or not and whether we like it not, to all the baptized and even far beyond. It's no more a matter of individual taste for a Christian to call Mary "Mother" than it is for him to call God "Father". It's revelation, a public revelation, and so we have only two choices: obey or disobey.

Happily, the Evangelical instinct is to obey revelation (once it's truly understood to be revelation). And that leads naturally to a question: obey how? What does it mean to call Mary "Mother"?

For Catholics, the answer is both simple and hard: obey the fullness of the gospel as it is revealed through the Church. Supremely this means living in complete fidelity to the Eucharist, which the Church calls the "source and summit of the Christian life." For Mary is Mother of the Eucharist, a fact flowing inevitably from her role as Theotokos and from the reality that the Eucharist is nothing other than her Son Jesus Christ Himself. As she once referred people to her Son at the Wedding Feast of Cana, so she now refers them to her Son in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, the Holy Eucharist: “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). Once Jesus turned water into wine. Now He turns bread and wine into His Body and Blood with the command to eat it in memory of Him. And Mary is still saying, "Do whatever he tells you.". She still calls us to the "source and summit of the Christian life", still gathers a people to praise His Name, still prays the family of God into being by the power of the Holy Spirit, still marshals the great host of God to defeat sin, death, and the devil by the power of her Son Who has already won the victory.

Mt. Zion and the Universal Call to the Eucharist

But the call to the Eucharist—-to participation in the great eternal sacrifice of thanksgiving the Father calls forth from the Son and the Son makes to the Father-—is not simply a call for Catholics. It's for everybody because "everybody" is who the Son of Man died for.

The reference to the Eucharist as the "summit" of our worship is related to the image of Mt. Zion in Scripture. Hebrews spells this out for us when it describes the Eucharistic assembly this way:

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers entreat that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, "If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned." Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear." But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:18-24)

Nor did the author of Hebrews come up with this image on his own. He borrows it from Isaiah 2:2-5:

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD.

The point of Hebrews is that, with the founding of the Church by Jesus Christ, the "latter days" Isaiah prophesied are now here. The "highest of the mountains" is now Zion, not Sinai, for the Son of David (whose House was established on Zion) has now given the world His Body, the Temple of the Living God, in the form of the Church and all the nations of the earth are called to it. That Body is capable of supernatural unity as we ascend the mountain of the Lord only because of the Eucharist:

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:17)

Mary is our Sherpa guide up that Mountain whose peak is not reached till we arrive in the fullness of heavenly glory on the Last Day. Yet in the Eucharist, we receive a foretaste of Heaven in this life. For where Jesus is, there is Heaven also. And the Eucharist is Jesus. Therefore, as Scott Hahn rightly points out, "The Mass—and I mean every single Mass—is heaven on earth."

Called to Grow in Sonship—Wherever You Are

Mary's maternity makes her easy to please, but hard to satisfy—much like her Son. Like all good mothers, she loves her kids however she finds them. Scraped knees, blank ignorance, bloody noses, bad attitudes, even grave sins don't stop her from loving us. She has been perfected in love by the Spirit of her Son. Her love is the image of His: perfect, relentless, and willing to endure a pierced soul if only her children can find happiness in God. But that means that, like all good mothers, she doesn't intend to keep us children forever, or to merely affirm us in our okayness. Rather her life is aimed at helping us grow

until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love. (Ephesians 4:13-16)

Mary will meet anybody anywhere who seeks God the Father, no matter how far from Him they may be. She will even go to those who do not know or believe in Him at all. But she will not leave them there. She insists that, wherever she finds us, we take steps, however, feeble and faltering, toward (and eventually up) Mt. Zion. And she is not fussy about whether she gets any of the credit as she prays for us. The great thing, for her, is that we get there and climb till we reach the top.

Evangelicals as the Church of Mary

Mary's spiritual maternity flows inevitably from our baptism whether we are Protestant or Catholic. Therefore, the Catholic communion is compelled to see Mary as Mother of Christians, even Christians who would not dream of calling her "Mother" and who oftentimes do not believe in the Presence of her Son in the Eucharist. Indeed, the Church sees in devout Protestants an image of the Blessed Virgin herself that many Protestants do not themselves yet perceive. For example, many Evangelicals would be surprised to discover that Pope John Paul II regarded Evangelicalism as a profoundly Marian expression of Christianity. George Weigel elaborates:

The great Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar had suggested that four biblical images of the church, based on four great New Testament figures, shape and reshape the church in every age:

• The church of evangelization is formed in the image of Paul, apostle to the gentiles.

• The church of contemplative prayer is formed in the image of the apostle John, who rested his head on the Lord's breast at the Last Supper.

• The church of office and jurisdiction is formed in the image of Peter, to whom the Lord consigned the keys of the Kingdom.

• And then there is the church of discipleship, formed in the image of Mary, whose "be it done unto me according to your word" was, in a sense, the very beginning of Christian discipleship.

Speaking to representatives of the "Petrine Church," who not infrequently think themselves the center of the Catholic world, John Paul suggested that the "Marian profile" in the church is the most fundamental of Christian realities. Mary, the pope said, was the first disciple, whose "yes" made possible the incarnation of God's son.

The incarnation was "extended" in history through the church, which is the mystical body of Christ. Mary's bodily assumption into heaven prefigures the glorification of all those who will be saved. Thus, John Paul taught, Mary provides a "profile" of what the church is, of how the people of the church should live, and of what that redeemed people's destiny is.

The pope then gave the screw another gentle twist. The "Marian profile" in the church, the pope said, is even "more...fundamental" than the "Petrine profile." The two cannot be divided. But the church formed in the image of Mary—the church of disciples—preceded and made possible the church formed in the image of Peter—the church embodied by the distinguished churchmen present at the pope's address.

Indeed, the "Marian Church" made sense out of the "Petrine Church," for, as the pope insisted, office and jurisdiction in the church exist only "to form the church in line with the ideal of sanctity already programmed and prefigured in Mary." The church formed in Peter's image and the church formed in Mary's image complement each other. But, the pope insisted, "the Marian profile is...pre-eminent," and is certainly richer in meaning for every Christian's vocation.

The message was unmistakable. Authority in the church serves discipleship. The power of the keys serves sanctity. Here was a richly textured theology of Mary chipping away at some old-fashioned assumptions about the centrality of the church-as-institution—and at the very epicenter of institutional Catholicism.

The pope concluded by quoting Hans Urs von Balthasar approvingly: "A contemporary theologian has well commented: 'Mary is "Queen of the Apostles" without any pretensions to apostolic power; she has other and greater powers'."

The surprising yet perfectly logical implication of this is that the only point of the "Church of Peter"—that is, the Church of Office—is to equip and strengthen the "Church of Mary"—that is, the Church of Discipleship. Likewise, the only reason the Church of Peter exists at all is because the Church of Mary precedes it and makes it possible. This doesn't mean John Paul thinks the early Church consisted of Evangelicals and then morphed into the Catholic Church. Rather, it means that the Church of Discipleship existed in the person of Mary the Disciple before the Church of Office was entrusted to Peter by Christ (Matthew 16:18). Therefore, Christians—whether Protestant or Catholic—who want to become better disciples are "Marian" Christians in the sense John Paul means it.

It's my hope in our Lord that, sooner or later, that connection will be made between the theology of John Paul II and the lived experience of Evangelicals and we will see wonderful things as a result. As Weigel concludes:

John Paul's Mariology—his theology of Mary—is a theological explosive with a long fuse. When it detonates in the church at some point in the next few decades, the results will be, quite possibly, revolutionary.

Mary, Mother of the Unborn

A foretaste of Mary's peculiar revolutionary powers—-"other and greater powers" than those we are used to thinking of—-may be seen in the way she has brought, not just Catholics and Evangelicals, but people from many walks of life, together in the struggle to defend the unborn.

That she is very close to the heart of the pro-life movement is, I think, something easily obvious from Revelation. She, along with her children, is locked in struggle with "that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan" (Revelation 12:9). Of the Woman Eve, the earliest prophecy in Scripture (Genesis 3:15) declares:

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel."

And around the birth of the New Eve's divine Son, Satanic forces were marshaled as the Great Red Dragon, working through the might of Herod "stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth" (Revelation 12:4). In the dawn of the Church, as at the dawn of the world, hatred of God and hatred of children and innocence go hand in hand.

This hatred of the innocent, of children, of Mary and of Christ is a mystery, but a familiar one. Satan's hatred of the human race has always focused on the innocent. In the faces of the most innocent, the most guilty always see a reflection of their own evil and they will do anything to avoid facing that ugly truth. So they try to either corrupt (as in the Garden of Eden) or, failing that, to destroy the innocent. We see that plan of murderous hatred unfolding when Satan first tempts, then plots to destroy, Jesus.

Jesus knew what was happening. This is how He describes the world's irrational and insane loathing of Him and His followers:

If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. It is to fulfil the word that is written in their law, 'They hated me without a cause.' (John 15:19-25)

This irrational hatred of the Gospel has always manifested itself in the willingness to kill children, both natural and supernatural. Satan's hunger for the blood of children is seen in everything from the murder of the Hebrew children (Exodus 1) to the slaughter of the Holy Innocents (Matthew 2:16-18) to the latest victims murdered by the millions in the world’s “reproductive clinics.” But in addition to this are the children of God: mostly obviously the saints who have been martyred for Christ and who conquered the Accuser of the Brethren "by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death" (Revelation 12:11). Against all such, the devil sets his will with implacable fury and the 20th Century bears eloquent witness to the toll in blood he has been willing to exact.

But in the last half of that century, something remarkable occurred. The Woman clothed with the Sun, the Blessed Virgin who was assumed into Heaven took a prominent place in the thought of the man who did more than any other to defend human life and reunite the scattered flock of Jesus Christ: Pope John Paul II. And, through his life and work, Mary has acquired among Christians and even non-Christians a new stature as Mother of the Unborn. That's why it's no longer even remarkable to see a group of Catholics, Evangelicals and non-Christians standing shoulder-to-shoulder in defense of the unborn, bearing as their common standard the image of the pregnant Virgin of Guadalupe, reminding the culture of death that these little ones are her children too. Such a thing would have been almost unthinkable even thirty years ago. Now it's commonplace.

This curiously militant aspect of Mary's involvement with the pro-life movement sometimes surprises people who tend to think only in terms of popular Marian art, much as The Passion of the Christ surprised many who tended to focus on the sweet tenderness of Jesus. But in the few words of Mary we find recorded in the New Testament, we find a definite martial note of spiritual warfare:

He has shown strength with his arm,
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, he has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent empty away. (Luke 1:51-53)

Mary is not just a tender and merciful Mother. She is also a formidable tigress—-as one would expect from the Queen Mother of King Messiah. She is not to be trifled with, particularly when it comes to protecting her babies from the forces of Hell, whether Moloch or Planned Parenthood.

And so, we find that she who was assumed into Heaven as a rebuke to the powers of Hell is also at the center of the Church's fight for the dignity and destiny of the human person. It was no accident the Catholic Church was the first Christian body to recognize and fight the menace of abortion, building the basic pro-life structures (which were complemented—starting in the late 1970s—by an influx of Evangelicals as well as other Christians and even non-Christians). For Mary who is both Immaculate and Assumed into Heaven is, by her nature, a Joan of Arc sounding the charge against a satanic attack to which we on earth would only slowly awaken.

Mary, Mother of the Spiritually Unborn

But Mary's role as Mother of the unborn doesn't stop there. Her role as mother of "those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus" is foreshadowed in Jesus' Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. For that parable is about the judgment awaiting, not devout, informed Christians, but "the nations," those who did not have a clue they were obeying or disobeying Christ when they followed the dictates of conscience and hallowed (or blasphemed) such Light as they had received. In that parable, both the goats and the sheep, the damned and the saved, have no idea that it's Christ to Whom they are ultimately responding. That is why both groups exclaim in amazement, "Lord, when did we see you hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, etc?" (Matthew 25:31-46). As St. Paul puts it:

When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:14-16)

Many a future pilgrim up Mount Zion is still gestating in the mysterious womb of Mary, practicing obedience to hidden promptings of the Holy Spirit known only to them, seeking the Light of Christ and slowly growing toward that day when they will be born again in the sacrament of Baptism. One of our tasks as disciples is making sure these “spiritually unborn” come to birth and that, once born, they know both their Father and their Mother, as Jesus willed. And that, I think, is becoming more likely as Catholics and Protestants recognize their common faith in Christ and come to understand each other better.

Cracks Appear in the Freedom of Choice Totalitarian Regime as Pharmacists are Granted Freedom of Choice

The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage. - Mark Russell

What is the deal with Ave Maria Law School?

First there was their bizarre treatment of Fr. Fessio. Now this. The person who sent the link tells me it's

signed by the tenured professors, but it does represent the views of a majority of faculty. I have seen the "charges" against Professor Safranek. He's not in favor of making them public yet for his own reasons, but I can say that I don't believe they would support the suspension of a high school student, much less the salary of tenured professor during the termination procedure that the Dean instituted in July. Steve Safranek is the father of 7 children, and a founder of our law school. Indeed, he wrote the proposal upon which the school was founded. Please help us to spread the word about this injustice. It diminishes the very idea of tenure and academic freedom for this to stand. The fact that they would do this in the midst of an ABA investigation into violations of ABA standards (which investigation has lasted for over a year and which included a 2-day fact-finder visiting our school in March) is unbelievably contemptuous of the legal academy in general. It is even more contemptuous of the Catholic community it had in the past pledged to serve.

Everytime I turn around the leadership at the place seem to be engaged in yet another weird draconian injustice.

This stuff tends to reinforce my congenital Chestertonian distrust of rich men.

One Reason We in the West Deserve to Win the Civilizational Struggle with Bronze Age Barbarians is Because our Barbarism is So Much More Technologically Sophisticated and Neat

Bronze Age Barbarians treat the human person with brutal contempt in such tired old conventional ways like public beheadings and stonings. We, on the other hand, treat the human person with brutal contempt in brand new ways that no one has ever conceived of before, such as the creation of Manimals. Our contempt for the human person has aesthetic finesse! It is privatized and efficient! It allows us to kill *millions* silently and cleanly and without all that tacky ululating and screaming. As a wise man has said,

A century of unprecedented slaughter and war, 40 million "legally" murdered infants with thousands more killed every day, and forced hedonistic sexual indoctrination of children may be "evil" and all; but hey, it is our kind of evil. It is the diet coke of evil. Their evil is the realtruebad kind. Ours is the okaybestwestern kind.

"There is only one real sadness: NOT TO BE SAINTS."

I agree completely

The Catholic Church badly needs Catholic men to be men.

It turns out that Americans like Telling the State to Leave Them Alone

This is news?

Of course, Americans also like telling the state to Go Do Something About Those People Over There. We also like telling the state to Keep Us Safe and Well Fed.

The State's job is do all that without inconveniencing Me in any way whatever, cuz that would be tyranny.

Yay! LarkNews is up!

This month's headlines:

Virtual Pastors please picky church-goers

Church tolerates man's home-grown worship songs

'Marathon Mime' retires after record run

Reader Christine's Aunt has Stage Four Cancer

Prayers appreciated.

Transhumanism: Eschatology for Atheists

Because men and women are made for God, they go on attempting to fill the hole if they decide to get rid of Him. Atheists will often spout BS about being content with this life and not wanting eternal life. But the reality is we are *made* radically discontent with this life. We are born seekers. We have an insatiable appetite for life. So when we reject the source of life, we seek life elsewhere. It is the doom of the pagan to make a fool of himself in the vain quest for a noble thing, just as it is the doom of the Christian to embrace being called a fool in the fruitful quest of the Real Thing.

One form modern pagan folly takes is Transhumanism: a sort of Star Trek Eschatology for Geeks in which the glorious resurrection of the Body is reject and a dorky exoskeleton of gadgetry is held up as a way to conquer (or at least stave off) the weakness of the flesh. It's pathetic and funny and sad--like all paganism. And it reminds us that we are orphans craving life--part of our tragic dignity as children of Adam.

Hostages Being Murdered by Taliban in Afghanistan

Fortunately, they're just Christians so it's okay. No doubt they had it coming. Many of you may remember Afghanistan and the Taliban. These were the people who were behind the September 11 attacks. We initially went to war to destroy them and take out Osama bin Laden. However, that just war got put on the back burner so that we could pursue some other grand End to Evil strategy that had basically nothing to do with September 11 and our inital causus belli. The Taliban is therefore still around, as is Osama bin Laden, who is, we are assured, no longer relevant.

A reader writes:

I was going through some old email files and realized I forgot to let you
know that a number of months ago Williams hired a solid Catholic priest, Fr.
Gary Caster from the Diocese of Peoria, IL, to serve as Catholic chaplain.
Thanks again for spreading the word about the opening at William last year
on your blog.

Glad to hear it!

Karen Marie Knapp: Rest in Peace

Many at St. Blog's are familiar with the work of Karen Marie Knapp, who ran the Anchor Hold blog. Her brother Tom called me a few minutes ago from Ohio to say that she had died in her sleep last night.

I've known Karen through the web for several years. Her self-description is the best one. She was living "simply, singly and submittedly, interceding for the City and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, in a little place near Father Groppi's Bridge." Her background was in theology. She worked for twenty years as a library clerk, and retired with a disability some time back. Here writing was always characterized by charity (a quality I envy due to my weakness in that department) and she was unflagging in her willingness to extend it to others. When her old bishop retired under a cloud of scandal, she spoke kindly of him. When her new bishop arrived, she received him with joy. Her blog was a bright spot on the web. She will be missed by the folks who loved her.

Tom says the funeral will be in Milwaukee (they are in Akron at present). The double sadness of it is that they were in Akron for the funeral of an aunt when Karen Marie unexpectedly died.

Please pray for the repose of her soul. I'm off to Mass to do that and will be back later.

"Everything of which Scientology is accused is an exaggerated form of what more 'normal' religions do."

Similarly, setting a man on fire is just an exaggerated form of building him a fire to warm up. Drowning a man is just an exaggerated form of giving him something to drink. Jailing a man is just an exaggerated form of giving him shelter. Putting him in a straitjacket is just an exaggerated form of clothing the naked.

Ross Douthat gives his usual sensible take on this particular bit of Media Wisdom.

From the PETA Family Film Registry

To His Credit, Sungenis Meets With His Bishop and Obeys Him

A good first step. I hope more follow.

While Christians Waste Time in Paranoia about the Beautiful Christian Work of J.K. Rowling...

...they turn a blind eye to this guy and his nakedly-hostile-to-the-Faith work.

There seems to be an ungovernable impulse in some people to "read between the lines" before reading the lines. I have seen so many dumb analyses of Harry Potter which purport to see the sinister hidden meaning while giving me no confidence at all that the author can read a grocery list, much less a work of fiction. So, for instance, when Harry runs across the magical "Mirror of Erised" (in which you see what you most want), there are exegetes who purport to tell us that this is proof Rowling is invoking Eris, the goddess of discord. The Hidden Pagan Agenda is Revealed! It never seems to occur to these experts in literature to do what a ten year old does when confronted with mysterious gibberish in a story: spell it backward and see what happens. Spell "Erised" backward and you get "desire". Duh.

Similarly, what mystifies me is how much power people seem to give the devil and how little they credit God (whose job description does include "Almighty"). We are forever being warned that the books "might" lead some hypothetical dunce to pursue the occult. We have alleged "experts in the occult" warning that merely saying the Latin doggerel "spells" in the book could open your soul to malign forces from Hell, or lead the unwary to start poring over "spellbooks". But it does not occur to these experts to recognize that the two most important lines in the last book might just as easily lead the reader to explore Matthew 5-7 or 1 Corinthians 15.

And all the while people are chasing these turnip ghosts and maligning a good woman's name, real enemies of Christ are making clear and unequivocal appeals to our kids via books (and soon, movies) that are genuinely hostile to the Faith. We Christians seem to have a genius for majoring in minors.

Raymond De Souza Has a New Series Coming Out on EWTN

Scientists Screw Around with Life

Hey! They've got funding! Besides: what could it hurt?

You know, on the one hand, we're told about the Fragile Web of Interconnectedness. On the other, we have squads of scientists screwing around with the DNA of all sorts of differnt critters. Has anybody given any thought to what happens when this DNA goes out into the general population of critters and starts reacting with all the interconnectedness?

The Hilarious Dale Price on the Biblical Improvers of the OCP and the Pronoun Formerly Known as "He"

The lengths some cubicled bureaucrats will go to in order to avoid calling God "Father" are amazing.

Perhaps they are trying to keep up with the latest theological developments.

Evangelical Attempts Anti-Catholic Whisper Campaign Against Brownback

With friends like this, Huckabee doesn't need enemies.

1) The appropriately named Pastor Rude sends Know Nothing email out to fellow Evangelicals warning of Brownback's Romish sympathies:

Huckabee is an evangelical. He (Brownback) has not learned how to speak to evangelicals; i.e. Bush 41 & 43. He is one of us. I know Senator Brownback converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002. Frankly, as a recovering Catholic myself, that is all I need to know about his discernment when compared to the Governor’s. I don’t if this fact is widely known among evangelicals who are supporting Brownback.

2) Two weeks go by without him, after a night's sleep, saying "What was I thinking? That's bigoted crazy talk! Never mind!"

3) Finally, the email gets noticed and the guy is confronted. His Act of Contrition:

All I was trying to say is that Protestants should vote for Protestants.

4) Huckabee, mortified to have this yahoo "helping" him, issues an apology for the yahoo's actions (which I have no doubt were unilateral and not Huckabee's idea).
5) Yahoo finally gets around to offering something like a real apology. I say "something like" in that he drops his defenses, but comes off sounding pretty much like "I'm sorry I got caught" and "by the way, I still think Catholicism is a disease". But it "isn't the case at all" that his remarks were anti-Catholic.:

Dear Friends,

Several days ago I wrote an e-mail that contained a reference to Senator Brownback that has offended our Catholic brothers and sisters and maybe yourselves as well. I cited that Senator Brownback had converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002, and frankly that was all I needed to know, as a recovering Catholic, about his discernment. I also stated this fact perhaps wasn't widely known amongst evangelicals who are supporting the Senator.

I was careless in the first place with my words. And obviously, if I knew this private e-mail would somehow not remain private, I would have taken great care not to convey anything that would be offensive to anyone.

As you know, I support Governor Huckabee first and Senator Brownback as a close second. I have a number of friends working for the Senator and he would make an outstanding president. The reason I wrote this, in the first place, is that this was a major factor in choosing Governor Huckabee over Senator Brownback. I frankly agree theologically more with a Southern Baptist. Perhaps, Mormons are rallying around Mit Romney and Catholics around Senator Brownback. I don't know.

In no way do I think a Catholic would not make a great president, in fact, if Governor Huckabee drops out of the race I will support Senator Brownback. But I do apologize for my statements because it could be taken as anti-Catholic which isn't the case at all.

Again, please accept my apology and I ask for your forgiveness.

Uh huh.

Yes. Well, charity believeth all things so I'll accept the apology, such as it is. I've a feeling the Huckabee campaign is about as eager to hug you to its breast as to hug the Tar Baby.

6) Meanwhile, questions continue from Catholics who are just curious about some of the odder turns of phrase in your Most Certainly Not Anti-Catholic Remarks.

This could be an entertaining little sideshow.

Amy Welborn: Dead Again?

Every time Amy goes off on some adventure for a few days, I begin to get nervous emails from people wondering if she's alright and what might have happened to her. One of the stranger effects of cyberspace is that it creates the odd sense of physical proximity if people are often associated for some reason. The results of this can sometimes be silly, such as when people get the notion that, for example, Jimmy Akin and I are drinking buddies who are constantly scheming to create an "Apologetics Oligarchy" instead of what we are: guys who occassionally correspond about this and that and ocassionally talk on the phone about the other.

Similarly, Amy's a well-known Catholic blogger. Me too. So for some reason I ought to know something of Amy's movements, apparently.

FWIW, I know absolutely nothing about Amy's movements. I generally suggest checking out her husband, Mike Dubruiel's, site. If he's not posting either, chances are the fambly is off on a lark somewhere. But beyond that, I have no more idea than you do what Amy is up to. It being summer, I figure they are probably being sensible and having fun. It's what I'd do if I weren't chained here, trying to keep body and soul together. However, since they are in Indiana and I'm in Seattle I don't know. They *might* be the victims of a tornado or a mass murder, but I tend to suppose more mundane explanations for her periodic radio silence.

Anyhow, I'm confident we'll be hearing from Amy soon. She's too valuable to lose!

Girls! What Do They Know?

She's just jealous because she can't do the Vulcan salute.

Fr. Bernhard Blankenhorn is Such a Great Priest

In addition to tonight's presentation of Abortion and Natural Law, there's also this sort of thing:



and all this.

I got a chance to go over the notes on his abortion talk and be the Typical Seattle Pro-Choice Devil's Advocate in the margins. It'll be a great talk.

Gosh, we're blessed! Thank you, Lord!

If only Baptist Ministers Could Marry...

On the other hand, cyberspace can be awfully cool sometimes

The other day I linked a piece about Jesuit missionaries to Second Life, a virtual community I had, until I read the article, never heard of.

Yesterday, I get this email:

I'm one of the employees at Linden Lab, the company that makes Second Life. I'm also a candidate in the Byzantine rite of the Catholic Church. And while I know that Second Life has it's criticisms (many well deserved) I think that the underlying technology behind it is actually quite intriguing. :D

One nice thing about the San Francisco office headquarters that I loved was the fact it is about 5 blocks or so from the Shrine to St. Francis of Assisi. In fact, when I first got the call to be interviewed, I asked St. Francis to pray for me and promised to go to a noon mass at his shrine within the first week of starting there if he helped me get the job. Well, I got the job. :)

There's a lot of well... despicable things going on in Second Life. Just as there's a lot of despicable things in the internet as a whole, but please, don't judge us by the actions of these.... creeps. I've seen some pretty cool things in Second Life that really show off the wonders of this technology. I've toured a virtual monastery in Second Life, watched the construction of a virtual Russian Orthodox cathedral, and attended a virtual Protestant bible study there. I've met several priests, a few sisters, and some deacons there.

I honestly believe that there's great potential there in Second Life, and that's why I work there. It's not just virtual Babylon, it's got the potential to be much more. Indeed, I've heard rumours of someone planning to make a virtual replica of the Hagia Sophia to scale in Second Life.

In short, please, pray for us. Pray that the Jesuits will make a positive addition to Second Life, and pray for me as well. Pray that I will continue to work hard, and to help encourage our company to seek out positive ways to expand. And also, pray that I will help make a good impression to my coworkers, many of whom need to know the love that is found in Jesus.

This phenomenon is entirely new to me. I think it's cool that my reader sees his work as an apostolate. As I said, there is nothing human cannot be made an offering to Christ, so I think it is wonderful that he sees his work in that way. And I think it is fascinating that so many people involved in this strange new form of community. I want to hasten to emphasize that I'm not trying to blame Second Life for creating a virtual Babylon. I know nothing of (but can easily imagine) how their technologies have been perverted to evil ends by fallen minds. But that is what fallen man does with all his tools, so why not this one too?

My concern is more subtle (and perhaps overblown). I'm all for human beings exercising their imaginations and creating "secondary worlds". Technology is now allowing us to do this in new ways beyond the writing of fiction and drama. And the potential for real creativity that technologies like Second Life afford is something that can and should be explored. I don't mean to discourage that. My concern, though, is that cyberspace tends, for some, to become not a secondary world, but a sort of substitute primary world. That's unhealthy. The purpose of the secondary world is always, ultimately, to help us live in the primary world, which is the world God made. One can, of course, create whole realms in fiction down to elaborate detail and that's all legitimate. But some people actually attempt to make cyberspace a replacement for the incarnate life of the Church. That's when I get worried, because I have never seen that lead to something healthy. That's all I'm getting at.

Keep up your fascinating work! You are on the cutting edge of a whole new way of creating secondary worlds. A marvelous expression of human creativity in the image of the Creator!

Not only a Congresscritter who is doing something right, but he's even *my* Congresscritter

Lightning does strike now and then. Best of luck to him in getting rid of this lying, corrupt sycophant.