I'm outta here till Monday

See you then!

Beans. Noses. You know the drill!

Heh!

Throw off the shackles of the Catholic Faith...

...and make yourself a prisoner of the fear of Intergalactic Alien Attack instead.

One of the things I notice is how often ex-Catholics leave the faith in search of the freedom to make themselves prisoners of very small ideas. Most of the modern talk of intellectual freedom, particularly when targeted against the Church, is empty cant. The reality is that most ex-Catholics are terrified of the intellectual freedom of the Faith and much prefer some small ideology, cramped superstition, or cozy little circle of slogans and simplicities that can be easily memorized and repeated.

Brought to you by Miller Brewing!

(Warning: Graphic and Not Safe for Work!)

Some people have the absurd notion that ardent capitalists care about "conservative values". Get real. They care about making a lot of money. And as Uncle Screwtape observed long ago, a man with a sexual obsession is a man with very little sales resistance. The notion that capitalism is somehow necessarily and inevitably a friend of Jesus Christ is one of the greatest American delusions of the past century. Capitalism is a human system which aims, like democracy, to restrain the effects of the Fall in the economic sphere. It works tolerably well, just so long as competition remains in stasis and one entity does not acquire a monopoly and destroy the competition. But it has no special interest in morals. If a capitalist entity can get away with making a large profit by the promotion of sin (as capitalist entities have done since forever), it will. And there is no limit on how much sin it will capitalize on except this: if the sin destroys the culture then the capitalist goes up in flames along with the rest of the general conflagration. When capitalism begins to behave in this way, it mutates from a beneficial organism in the body of humanity to a toxic bacteria that destroys its host. In the link above, we see mutated capitalism toiling to destroy the culture and bring on the conflagration for the sake of a buck.

Capitalism, like democracy, can only work as long as it exists in a (relatively) virtuous people. When we abandon God, even our virtues become vices. Seek first the earth and you lose, not just heaven, but earthly things as well.

More Reasons to Kill Your TV

I totally missed the CNN festival of Religious Maniacs and Moral Equivalence. I knew it would just kill brain cells. For those of you who made the mistake of watching it, here is some antidote.

Logic

Chimps have a genome extremely similar to the human genome...

ergo, chimps are persons, according to Euro-nuts.

Now, work with me here: an unborn baby has a genome that is *identical* to the human genome...

ergo....

A reader writes:

"Dems Can't Make Guarantee on Iraq Troops", but Ron Paul does.
Question is: would an anti-war dem consider supporting an anti-war Republican who is very pro-life?

I haven't read my tea leaves this morning. I suppose some anti-war Dems might go for him. But as I say, I haven't been following any of this very closely because it's just too early for me to care. This is going to be one of the strangest elections of my lifetime, because the party leadership in both parties is so weirdly disaligned with their base and with what has, for the past 30 years, been their alleged core principles. So who know what will happen. One thing I am morally certain of: Ron Paul will not be nominated. it will be, as ever, two extremely rich people eating corn dogs and trying to pretend they are Jus' Folks. It will be Hillary vs. some combination of Rudy McRomneyiani.

I am, however, pleased to see that Paul leads the pack in campaign contributions from soldiers. Periodically, when I bleat in protest about some fresh stupidity from the Administration, I get some reader asking me how The Troops would feel as I speak against the Supreme Maximum Leader who embodies the Will of the People and with whom all must agree or be declared an Enemy of the Troops. Personally, I don't know how several hundred thousand people feel. But I can get a sense of what a large number of them are thinking by stats like those campaign contributions.

You May Remember the Reformation

My latest on Inside Catholic.

By the way, praise be to God, I have been picked up as a regular columnist for Inside Catholic, so I'll be popping up there about once a week.

A reader writes:

My daughter told me a few weeks ago, according to her beliefs (she left the Catholic Church and now goes to Calvary Christian Church - very anti-Catholic), that all Jews had to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior or that there is no chance for their salvation.

I've always been under the impression that the Jews on judgment day will be judged first (with hope of salvation), then the rest of us. I didn't understand this to mean that they had to quit being Jews and become Christians.

Can you help me out here?

One of the curious paradoxes of non-denomism is that it simultaneously complains when the Church re-affirms that Unam Sanctam is indeed dogmatic teaching ("We declare, say, define and pronounce, that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff."), yet it is all too eager to declare, pronounce, and define everybody else into Hell if they don't "ask Jesus in their heart as their personal Lord and Savior" in a way recognizable to non-denoms.

The Church's teaching concerning salvatoin is much more nuanced and complex (as you'd expect). Here's my discussion of the "Who's in/Who's out" question that so often vexes the discussion of salvation.

Man in Black Hat Explains the Media

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country - if they could find the time - and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it , thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

12. The Oregonian is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something in which to wrap it.

And Catholic and Enjoying It is run by the guy who controls them all! That's why I have so much wealth and power.

I learned everything I know here.

Peg Noonan is Bang on

Urgent Prayer Request

A reader writes:

Her Dr. has discovered lumps in my wife's breasts and her uterus. Just the other day a different Dr did a biopsy on a weird growth she has on her leg.

Her name is Kathy. She is the love of my life. We are high-school sweethearts married over 33 years. Calling her "The Bride" has always amused her.

Done and done! May God grant her swift healing through Jesus Christ our Lord! St. Peregrine and St. Luke, pray for Kathy!

Your Twilight Zone Moment for Today

What interests me almost as much as the story itself is the variety of reactions to it. Some people are capable of coping with fact, no matter how odd. Others simply shout the thing down because their materialist ideology does not allow such things to occur. I think this merits putting the story into two categories.

By the way, Lucas could use our prayers.

What a Relief!

I am *so* glad Joni Mitchell has finally broken the terrible silence among our entertainment elite and penned a song that criticizes the Catholic Church.
“Shine on the Catholic Church/And the prisons that it owns”, she sings. Yes, all those prisons! Big huge Catholic prisons. We've got one in the basement of our parish!

Oh wait! That's the soup kitchen we've been running for Seattle's homeless for 30 years. Well, then there's that horrible dungeon downtown.... No, that's a hospital. How about the jails called Oxford and Cambridge? The prison of the confessional? No. I've found more freedom there than anybody can ever know.

Well, at any rate, I'm sure she knows what she's talking about. Because only an Incredibly Brave Artist would kicke and insult a bunch of people whose creed bids them turn the other cheek.

A Great Moment for the Rubber Hose Right

So I'm giving blood last night (they always want my blood cuz I'm O Pos, the semi-universal donor) and the tube is on. It's the Dem debate and Tim Russert is just telling Hillary that some guest on his show last year said that, in a ticking time bomb scenario, the President should authorize torture. Clinton gives a reasonable answer: namely that such questions are ridiculous hypotheticals and that we should not make torture a matter of policy. Her main support strut for the argument is not "You shall not do evil" but "It doesn't work". (This was a point reiterated by Biden, who also noted that a whole gaggle of five-star generals had pleaded with him to denounce torture since it was counter-productive and didn't work).

At any rate, after getting this reply from Hillary, Russert sprang the Gotcha: the guest who had recommended torture was William Jefferson Clinton.

Fast forward to this morning and Rush Limbaugh is having little orgasms of pleasure on the radio. At long last, he and Bill Clinton are on the same page! And what a fool that Hillary was! Why *everybody* agrees that torture is a necessary part of the "tools" Caesar needs to keep us safe! When will these liberals learn that "24" is our guide to Real War in the Real World. Even Bill Clinton understands this!

It's a beautiful moment when old enemies can reconcile around the joyous vision of a man struggling for breath after a near-drowning, or shivering in hypothermic torments as his naked body is against doused with freezing water in his freezing cell, or screaming as his arms are pulled from their sockets as he is strappadoed. Who cannot feel a catch in their throat as Rush Limbaugh embraces Bill Clinton as a font of moral guidance, for he was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found!

And yet, I must break the sad news that Clinton is not quite on the same page as the Rubber Hose Right when it comes to torture. Here's what he actually said to Russert:

Now, the thing that drives—that, that gives the president’s position a little edge is that every one of us can imagine the following scenario: We get lucky, we get the number three guy in al-Qaeda, and we know there’s a big bomb going off in America in three days and we know this guy knows where it is. Don’t we have the right and the responsibility to beat it out of him? But keep in mind, in 99 percent of the interrogations, you don’t know those things.

Now, it happens like even in the military regulations, in a case like that, they do have the power to use extreme force because there is an imminent threat to the United States, and then to live with the consequences. The president—they could set up a law where the president could make a finding or could guarantee a pardon or could guarantee the submission of that sort of thing ex post facto to the intelligence court, just like we do now with wire taps.

So I, I don’t think that hard case justifies the sweeping authority for waterboarding and all the other stuff that, that was sought in this legislation. And I think, you know, if that circumstance comes up—we all know what we’d do to keep our country from going through another 9/11 if we could. But to—but to claim in advance the right to do this whenever someone takes a notion to engage in conduct that plainly violates the Geneva Convention, that, I think, is a mistake.

Clinton, in short, is amoral enough to endorse torture in the incredibly unlikely, but enormously popular hypothetical of the TTB scenario. But he rejects the Bush policy, still fully operative in the CIA at this hour, of granting Caesar a blank check to torture and piss on the Geneva Conventions.

So basically, it appears that both he and Hillary are saying "hard cases make bad law". Both basically are saying that the endless trotting out of the Ticking Time Bomb is a scare tactic designed to stampede people into granting Caesar a power he ought never to have been given.

Why does our choice have to be between the Rubber Hose Party and the Sticking Scissors in Baby's Heads Party?

Sungenis' Defenders Demonstrate the Principle "With Friends Like This, Who Need Enemies?"

Jew-haters? Perish the thought!

Clintonian Sleaze Feeds Off Catholic Suffering

They never disappoint, do they?

Big Brother vs. Jihad

So far, we have largely been confronted with the alternatives of watery secularist ideology vs. inflamed monotheistic ideology.

But, as this story makes clear, there are other options such as Soviet-style secularism vs. jihad:

The U.S. military has introduced "religious enlightenment" and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday.

Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to "bend them back to our will" and are part of waging war in what he called "the battlefield of the mind." Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the "House of Wisdom."

Hey! I'm totally comfortable with handing over to the state the task of "detaining" 11 year olds on no definable charge, for as long as Caesar wants, "bending them to our will" and keeping them there indefinitely in something called a "House of Wisdom" until the military decides that their religious beliefs are up to snuff (as measured by some government psychologist). What could be creepy, Orwellian, sinister or Stalinist about that? Any Christian in this country would *gladly* submit to having their kids put in a re-education camp if the police thought their views seemed a bit out of sync with state guidelines. And what is the military for if not policing the thoughtcrime of religious people?

The Department of Pre-Crime assures us of Peace and Safety:

Stone said he wants to identify "irreconcilables" -- those detainees whose views cannot be moderated -- and "put them away" in permanent detention facilities. Psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and interrogators help distinguish the extremists from others, he said.

And we can, of course, always be sure that when Caesar declares you an "irreconcilable" he knows what he his talking about, because he says he does. Which saves a great deal of time and energy because you don't even have to have fired a shot when they lock you up and throw away the key. You can be as young as 11 and be "detained"--maybe forever--on the word of a psych evaluator and without all that costly fuss of a trial or even a hostile act. Better safe than sorry!

I miss wars when you killed your enemy. The attempt to turn war into a massive preemptive ThoughtCrime re-education camp is pernicious and dangerous.

New Blog!

A reader writes:

I started reading your blog about six months ago, and I've been very much enjoying it. Your take on things is frequently illuminating, thought-provoking, and humorous. From the comments, though, it appears that you are an anti-semitic, anti-Republican, anti-American, greedy, power-hungry, Latin-mass hating, ultra-liberal, stiflingly orthodox, terrorist-loving pawn of the left-wing media, the Zionist lobby, and liberal bishops. Be that as it may, your strangely contradictory viewpoints are refreshing. Just wanted to thank you for all the good work you're doing; I understand that being a Catholic writer is not exactly a lucrative career option.

On the contrary, as I learned yesterday from one of my readers, what I do here not only brings me limitless wealth, it also places the levers of power within my grasp. The trick, of course, is to maintain just the right balance of anti-semitism and unthinking Zionism, as well as the America-hating jingoism, lickspittle excuses for the Church as well as the subversive loathing of True Catholicism, timid cowardice and the blowhard arrogance. Also, if you can be a conservative shill and a gutless liberal, a flat-footed black-and-white Fundamentalist and a nuanced jesuitical sophist, an anti-Muslim bigot and a damp-handed lover of Islamists, it helps. And if you can simultaneously detest and abhor the Latin Mass while being a pre-Vatican II Catholic who believes all non-Catholics are going to hell, that's just icing on the cake! With a winning formula like that the world is your oyster!

Amateur Catholic Catechesis: Your Golden Door to Wealth, Power, Popularity and Fame!

My brush with fame

Here's Michelle, the daughter of my pal Mike, as the face of Quickbooks.

Another snapshot of the strange riptides on the Right

FATHER RUTLER: "I have met saints. You cannot explain the existence of saints without God. I was nine years chaplain with Mother Teresa [inaudible]. You have called her a whore, a demagogue. She’s in heaven that you don’t believe in, but she’s praying for you. If you do not believe in heaven, that’s why you drink."

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: "Excuse me?"

FATHER RUTLER: "That’s why you drink. God has offered us happiness, all of us. And you will either die a Catholic or a madman, and I’ll tell you the difference."

(...)

"At the end of the event as he staggered, sweating and red faced, out of the room, he [Hitchens] advanced on Father Rutler in a threatening and physical manner, screaming that this beloved pastor and brilliant scholar whom he had never met was 'a child molester and a lazy layabout who never did a day’s work in his life'. His behavior was so frightening that a bodyguard put himself between Hitchens and Father Rutler to protect him.

"Several of the event organizers then escorted Hitchens to the men’s room and when he emerged he continued his psychotic rant, repeating the same calumnious and baseless screed as before. It was then that Father Rutler, in the most charitable manner, told Hitchens [for the second time] that he will 'either die a madman or a Roman Catholic.' … 'Unless he faces his alcoholism soon, I am betting on the "madman" ending for him.'"

Fr. Rutler is one of my heroes. Unbeknownst to the maniacal-in-the-presence-of-religion Hitchens, he was one of the priests hearing confessions from the doomed firefighters on 9/11. His fellow priest Fr. Mychal Judge was killed that day, so close did they stand to the Towers in risk of their lives for the sake of those brave men. And he is a magnificent writer and speaker on the Faith, every inch Hitchens equal in terms of erudition and facility with a pen. And, as we see above, he is not afraid to speak truth to bullies.

Now here's the thing: Hitchens' boorish display was brought you us all courtesy of Front Page, a right wing rag that will basically publish anything by any thug, so long as that thug supports its wacked out End to Evil schemes for a happy secular messianic tomorrow, remade in the image and likeness of the American Dream. The publisher used to be a secular messianic Lefty, had a conversion, and is now a secular messianic Righty whose journal has spent many happy electrons bashing the Church when it is inconvenient to his Grand End to Evil plans.

And that's what makes all this interesting to me, because in the unedited version of this little fracas, you see Front Page's David Horowitz trying desperately to hold together his hoped-for alliance between Christ and Belial:

FATHER RUTLER: I have met saints. You cannot explain the existence of saints without God. I was nine years chaplain with Mother Teresa [inaudible]. You have called her a whore, a demagogue. She’s in heaven that you don’t believe in, but she’s praying for you. If you do not believe in heaven, that’s why you drink.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Excuse me?

FATHER RUTLER: That’s why you drink. God has offered us happiness, all of us. And you will either die a Catholic or a madman, and I’ll tell you the difference.

And secondly, I’m an officer with this club. And this conversation has been beneath the dignity of this club.

UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: No it hasn’t been.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, it is now.

DAVID HOROWITZ: Okay. I–

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: It is now.

FATHER RUTLER: And I’d just say that…

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Fine host you turned out to be.

FATHER RUTLER: …this club, we’ve had very open discussion. But we’ve never heard such vulgarity and bigotry.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Till now.

FATHER RUTLER: And I am, I don’t want to see this in this club again. And I think I represent the officers of this noble…

DAVID HOROWITZ: All right.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Your claim to know what a [saint] is or what heaven is is as absurd as your [inaudible] arrogance, your unkindness and your lack of hospitality.

DAVID HOROWITZ: See? Everybody –

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: You should be ashamed.

FATHER RUTLER: [inaudible]

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: And you are supposed to represent a church of charity and kindness?

DAVID HOROWITZ: I said this evening was going to be interesting and unpredictable.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS Especially [inaudible].

DAVID HOROWITZ: And anyway, thank you all for coming. And to all a good night.

A common trope among conservative Catholics (especially those who support the War In Iraq) is that Hitchens is "St. Paul Material" and that, if he converts, he would bbe a great witness for the Faith. Now, it is perfectly legitimate to *hope* that Hitchens is St. Paul material. But it is also important to recall that grace must perfect nature and that nature cannot save itself. If Hitchens will *not* be St. Paul he will indeed remain Hitchens and face precisely the doom Fr. Rutler describes. So looking to Hitchens as a source of moral wisdom is an extremely dubious undertaking. Like ancient pagan oracles he has flashes of insight. But it is vital to remember that, on the most important matter in the world (that would be God, not the war against Islamic Radicalism for any conservatives out there), Hitchens is not just wrong, he is insanely, blasphemously and even lyingly wrong. That is what radical sin does to you: it turns even you virtues into vice. Hitchens is famous for his moral courage in speaking truth to power. But in his blaspemous hatred of God, he takes that courage and uses it to lie about a good priest to his face. By all means, pray for his conversion. But don't be too premature in assuming it has happened, merely because you might find some of his political views convenient to your own.

Meanwhile, I wonder how much longer the club to which Fr. Rutler referred will have both him and Horowitz as members. I seriously doubt Fr. Rutler will let stand the principle "So long as he's a conservative ally, our speaker can be a blasphemous as he likes." Kudos to the good Father for having the moxie to stand up to this swill.

More on the Disorganized Religion called the Catholic Faith

A reader writes:

I'm writing to you briefly as I'd like to get the word out regarding my alma mater of this May, the Catholic University of America, and its recent blunder regarding John Kerry and his "invitation" to speak at our University.

I transferred to the Catholic University of America because of its Catholic identity -- unlike the University I attended previously, when they said they were a Catholic institution, they meant it and followed through with it. There are, of course, errors and blunders it makes, strictly because it is a large, old, and strangely bureaucratic body, much like many aging Jesuits today. (*cough*) For instance, the combination of the Theology Department, the Department of Religious Education, and the Department of Religious Studies (read: heathen religions) were all, puzzlingly, combined into one department, which sometimes means odd teacher choices for particular classes. However, the occasional oddball faculty member is often balanced out by teachers like Dr. John Grabowski , an excellent moral theologian who is scheduled to give a talk about the Catholic position on birth control this evening, or Fr. Mark Morozovitch -- a great liturgist; Fr. Kurt Pritzl, a Dominican at the House of Studies and excellent philosopher, etc.

I was recently employed by the university helping to organize a symposium (requested by the pope) on Natural Law , so I am becoming familiar with the University's quirks, the frustration of the entrenched "this is way we've always done it" people, and the "sign here, here AND here" sometimes required to get anything done or noticed.

The Kerry situation was a result of this bureaucracy: if you'll notice from the recent Lifesite article covering the situation, there was literally no uniformity. Some upstart kid in the College Democrats (obligatory, as we're located in Washington, DC) thought he'd try to be a hotshot and get a big, on-his-side and therefore controversial, speaker, knowing that the infamous "speaker policy" is something that's caused a lot of grief for students and faculty alike in the past, and has more or less held up well enough, despite being a bit battle-torn at this point.

Initially, Kid Democrat was refused. However, after writing a six-page paper about "Why John Kerry Should Come and Speak", he was approved by the University Center, Student Programs and Events. Problematic, but the UCSPE can, and probably would have been, overruled by the higher-ups.

The problem is, the higher-ups had nothing to overrule because Kerry was never formally invited.

The College Democrats had (rescindable) approval and were exploring the possibility, but our news paper, The Tower, reported factually that Kerry was coming to speak. [Note: The student body has always known that The Tower sucks, but in this case it has been the cause for misinformation about this issue nationwide.]

The Lifesite article shows how cranky the higher-ups (Nakas, Persico) were about the issue: it probably wouldn't have happened in the end. Meanwhile, USPCE defended itself saying that Kerry wasn't going to speak on issues offensive to the Catholic Church, and cited the USCCB policy.

(I personally think that the issue is less what he would speak about and more that we're giving money to someone with a 100% pro-abortion voting record, essentially supporting his cause.)

Because the communication was conducted with Kerry's office on an informal level (hence, it's falling-through in the end), I think CUA is defendable. The problem was essentially caused by bureaucracy (a lack of communication within the school) and also by poor reporting from The Tower when it stated that all was said and (formally) done on the issue.

Thanks for hearing me out and turning a merciful eye and ear to my alma mater, like Church itself a fallible institution made up of sinful human beings, but ultimately founded by (the vicar of) Christ.

I haven't followed this story at all, but thanks for detailing this comedy. :)

Our Ruling Class Makes the Sacrifices It Takes to Get More Power

When people ask if I believe in organized religion...

I always reply, "No. I'm a Catholic."

Case in point: The Vatican v. Some Zealous Priest Trafficking in JPII Relics.

What's notable about this is that this is exactly backward from the classic Orangeman view of the Church as a vast Moneymaking Scheme controlled from the Top Down. The reality is that the rush for relics is a grass roots phenomenon, which leaves the bureaucrats in the Vatican shaking their heads and issuing protests. It reminds me of what Chesterton wrote about other such enthusiams:

St. Thomas, like other monks, and especially other saints, lived a life of renunciation and austerity; his fasts, for instance, being in marked contrast to the luxury in which he might have lived if he chose. This element stands high in his religion, as a manner of asserting the will against the power of nature, of thanking the Redeemer by partially sharing his sufferings, of making a man ready for anything as a missionary or martyr, and similar ideals. These happen to be rare in the modern industrial society of the West, outside his communion; and it is therefore assumed that they are the whole meaning of that communion. Because it is uncommon for an alderman to fast for forty days, or a politician to take a Trappist vow of silence, or a man about town to live a life of strict celibacy, the average outsider is convinced, not only that Catholicism is nothing except asceticism, but that asceticism is nothing except pessimism. He is so obliging as to explain to Catholics why they hold this heroic virtue in respect; and is ever ready to point out that the philosophy behind it is an Oriental hatred of anything connected with Nature, and a purely Schopenhauerian disgust with the Will to Live. I read in a "high-class" review of Miss Rebecca West's book on St. Augustine, the astounding statement that the Catholic Church regards sex as having the nature of sin. How marriage can be a sacrament if sex is a sin, or why it is the Catholics who are in favour of birth and their foes who are in favour of birth-control, I will leave the critic to worry out for himself. My concern is not with that part of the argument; but with another.

The ordinary modern critic, seeing this ascetic ideal in an authoritative Church, and not seeing it in most other inhabitants of Brixton or Brighton, is apt to say, "This is the result of Authority; it would be better to have Religion without Authority." But in truth, a wider experience outside Brixton or Brighton would reveal the mistake. It is rare to find a fasting alderman or a Trappist politician, but it is still more rare to see nuns suspended in the air on hooks or spikes; it is unusual for a Catholic Evidence Guild orator in Hyde Park to begin his speech by gashing himself all over with knives; a stranger calling at an ordinary presbytery will seldom find the parish priest lying on the floor with a fire lighted on his chest and scorching him while he utters spiritual ejaculations. Yet all these things are done all over Asia, for instance, by voluntary enthusiasts acting solely on the great impulse of Religion; of Religion, in their case, not commonly imposed by any immediate Authority; and certainly not imposed by this particular Authority. In short, a real knowledge of mankind will tell anybody that Religion is a very terrible thing; that it is truly a raging fire, and that Authority is often quite as much needed to restrain it as to impose it.

A reader writes:

You'll notice that the author of this piece, who is apparently a neurologist, repeatedly says these revealing findings from brain scans of patients in persistent vegetative states does mean these patients have consciousness. The same goes with people who say we simply don't know if the life in the womb is a person.

The question that bugs me is since when does a genuinely civilized people err on the side of killing?

I think the problem arises from thinking mere technological sophistication is the same thing as being civilized.

Three

More

Reasons

to love Disputations.

Another reader sees right through me

At one time, I thought that you clearly understood the nuances between true, courageous Catholics standing up for the teachings of the Lord's Church, and those who put the ideologies of Patriotism, Zionism and Materialism above their own Faith. Now I know I was very wrong in that assessment.

Yes, I will definitely have to watch that whole "Republicans first, Catholic Faith Second" thing for which I am so well-known. My slavish devotion to the sinlessness of Israel and my unwavering support of the War and of George Bush will be my undoing.

From the boats they could be seen clinging like little swarms of bees to deck houses, winches and ventilators as the stern rose higher. - Walter Lord, A Night to Remember

Meanwhile, another survivor swims to rescue.

It was sad when the great ship went down.

A reader asks:

Could you ask your readers if they are familiar with any Catholic schools that are International Baccalaureate programs? If so, I would be interested in any one's take on IB schools.

Done!

Paleo-Future: Where the Future Isn't What it Used to Be

Somebody should do a book on the History of the Future. People have been making predictions about it forever. It would really be fun to see how the Assured Prophecies of Yesterday have panned out. Meanwhile, this site reminds me of Chesterton's preface to The Napoleon of Notting Hill:

THE human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, "Keep to-morrow dark," and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.

Ancients knew that the art of predicting the future consisted of seeing through a glass darkly. The approached the matter with humility and hedged the business round with lots of stories about cocksure fools who misunderstand the oracle ("If you go to war, a great kingdom will fall", says the prophet. And of course, the cocky king goes off to battle in the assurance of victory and his great kingdom is destroyed). The reminded men of their littleness in the face of the Power that is over our lives with Cheat the Oracle stories, in which our very attempts to thwart the plans of the gods make sure those plans are carried out. That's the meaning of the story of Oedipus, who is prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother and is sent away from his home to a distant land in order to prevent this. Of course, he grows up not knowing his parents, returns home, meets his father and gets into a fight with him, kills him, and then travels on till he meets a woman who was recently widowed...

By the way, for all those who have this notion that paganism is the happy, jolly thing and Old Testament Judaism is harsh and nasty and barbaric and involves the worship of a vindictive deity who love to curse, compare the Oedipus story with the Tale of Joseph in Genesis. Same "Cheat the Oracle" narrative, very different outcome. And, of course, the Paschal Mystery is the ultimate Cheat the Oracle story. Supremely, in the Resurrection, we hear "What you intended for evil, God intended for good." But in every case, we see the business of prophecy is hedged round with the ancient respect for the fact that we live in a mysterious world and we don't really see it all that clearly.

The 19th and 20th Century contribution to the art of prophecy is, as in so many other things, largely negative. Prophecy became scientized, with the hubris and arrogance that attended the loss of humility. Prophets no longer knew they saw in a glass darkly. Instead they were filled with Scientific Certitude. They knew where History was going and they knew that those who stood in the way of Progress were vermin fit only for extermination. They had a little system of order that explained Everything, so the Jews and the bourgeois and the anti-revolutionary elements, as well as the enemies of Glorious Free Enterprise would have to just get out of the way. Because it was a scientific fact that the Future belonged to them.

I think we are living in the period of reaction to that hubris. Extreme relativism is a reaction to Scientistic Hubris. The New Age worship of Everything is a reaction, not to Christianity, but to the attitude that says of creation "There it is, boys! Take as much as you want! She's yours to rape!" It is, I think, sacramentality without God. An instinct toward seeing creation as a holy thing and not a mere source of raw materials, but untethered from the knowledge that God is the creator and we are stewards. Like all human reactions, it is an overreaction. And so now we live in a time where there is uncertainty that there is any Plan at all, just as we live in a time when people are uncertain whether humans are higher than nature at all and some violently deny this.

And so it goes. Creation has been subjected to futility until the only really new thing that is ever going to happen finally happens and Christ returns. Till then, the world does not progress: it wobbles. Only the Church progresses, because only the Church is going somewhere.

Brian Saint-Paul Dodges a Bullet

Despair.com inspires so many people.

Airlines = Evil

There's only so much customer contempt people will take before there's a revolt. On a recent flight, they canceled minutes before boarding and the guy at the gate told me, in disgust, that the crew had just decided they didn't want to fly that day, so they declared a "mechanical problem" and left. They had some vendetta against the President of the company, so they just left us holding the bag. I don't know how many times I've heard airline hell stories. And, of course, I have my own to tell, courtesy of United and American.

On the bright side, Southwest has been good to me.

2007 Blogging Scholarship

The Daniel Kovach Scholarship Foundation has announced the submission
deadline for their annual $10,000 college Blogging Scholarship. Full
details and the nomination form are available here.

Application Deadline: October 6, 2007

Award Dates: November 9, 2007, at the Blog World and New Media Expo in Las Vegas

Requirements:

- Student blog must contain *unique* and *interesting* information (no spam bloggers)
- Student blogger must maintain their own individual blog or blog on a community blog
- Student blogger must currently attending full-time in post-secondary education in the United States
- Student blogger must maintain a 3.0 GPA
- Student blogger must be U.S. citizen or permanent resident

Any college student with a personal or professional blog is encouraged to apply. Student bloggers may also be nominated by friends or family.

Application entries will be accepted until Midnight, PST on Oct. 6th. Ten finalists will be chosen from the entries received, and public voting will begin at 9am EST on Oct. 8th to elect an exceptional student blogger for the $10,000 scholarship. The grand prizewinner will be announced at the Blog World and New Media Expo to be held November 8-9, 2007 in Las Vegas.

Site visitors, students, and other bloggers will be invited to vote for their favorite student blogs. The winning blog, as well as runners up, will be featured on the CollegeScholarships.org website.

Why a *blogging* scholarship? Students with the drive, devotion, and passion, to put their individual voice into a blog satisfy many of the mainstream scholarship criteria attached to other more traditional awards, including creativity and imagination, motivation and passion, and technical savvy. And many of them do it every day!

Exceptional bloggers are typically prolific, must be passionate about their subject matter, offer engaging and creative postings, and able to inspire and welcome commentary. The Blogging Scholarship aims to reward student blogs that stand out in design and usability, and clearly create a unique and individual "personality." Previous winners have blogged on politics, technology, and science and have proven their mettle with online communication and savvy. Winners are often experts in personal communication and expression—an increasingly rare commodity in contemporary business and society at large.

About CollegeScholarships.org: CollegeScholarships.org, founded in 1999, provides free access to indexes of scholarship and grant programs. Students may search hundreds of free college money programs based on degree level, student type, or field of interest. The site also offers a spam-free search engine that frees prospective students and their parents from the cumbersome profiles required by most scholarship search services. The website has grown over the last few years into a multi-layered tool that lists scholarship and grant sources from federal, state, and private sources, along with sections devoted to student loans and lenders. The Blogging Scholarship is just one of a handful of lucrative scholarships CollegeScholarships.org extends to its patron students.

For more information on the Blogging Scholarship offered by CollegeScholarships.org contact Daniel Kovach at (919) 630-4895.

Cowards Bully Church--Again

Four Minutes Ago

Hearings began as idividual Washington State pharmacists and pharmacy owners have sued Washington State to protect the right to follow their conscience.

Please pray for those pharmacy owners in their David v. Goliath battle against the Mandarins of One Choice.

Everyone's favorite Doctor of the Church and Catholic Advice Columnist, Bernard of Clairvaux, weighs in on another sticky question

Pavel Reads His Poetry

Check thou it out!

Blatchford or Chesterton: You Choose

My latest for Catholic Exchange.

Finally...

Many many thanks to all of you who helped us in this very difficult time. The tin cup rattle went very well thanks to you guys and was a great help to us at Chez Shea. We cannot thank you enough. Many blessings on you all through our Lord Jesus.

Looks like Gerry Matatics is back to being a flake

This guy has danced around sedevacantist flakery for years. At least he's finally decided to be a full-fledged Reactionary Dissenter and is no longer pretending he's a Catholic anymore. It was pretty murky for a long time. So that's progress, of a sort.

The Happy Day Appears to be Approaching...

...when Dubya and Hillary are basically on the same page while all the people who thought they belonged to two different parties are left blinking at each other in stupefaction as the party machinery and the media swing into action and begin to berate any critics as both unAmerican and the enemies of "choice". The riptides and cross currents of American politics are breathtaking sometimes. It will be an exquisitely just comeuppance for all the consequentialists on both sides of the aisle if Hillary is elected (as Bush seems to be telegraphing) and she winds up embracing Mr. Bush's War. All the whores on both sides of the aisle who have loathed one of them and praised the other (while making every excuse in the book for their prostitution of basic principles of natural law in the name of their respective ideologies) will get the last full measure of betrayal from each of them as they walk off, hand in hand, having given us a state fully committed to salvation through leviathan by any means necessary *and* to the sacrament of abortion. Hillary will be the perfect Bush legacy. A classic example of the system doing what we designed it to do, not what we want it to do.

A reader asks:

I'm a new Catholic and I have a question about Just War doctrine: what is the moral status of wartime killings committed in a non-Just War, even if they're not inhumane? For example, imagine the American bishops ruled the current Iraq War was unjust but Catholic soldiers fought, anyways. And let's assume that they didn't torture anyone or do anything else that is heinous, but they did kill enemy combatants. Would those killings be considered a mortal sin, just like murdering is normally? If this is completely crazy and off-base, please let me know. And if it IS totally crazy and off-base, please refrain from posting. I'm not looking to stir up trouble or broadcast my ignorance - I'm just curious.

Thank you very much! I love your blog, and it helped me come to Catholicism.

Thanks for your kind words!

Your question is an enormously thorny one and I'm not particularly qualified to answer it, since I have no particular competence in moral theology. Speaking strictly as a layman I note several things. First, it is always wrong to take innocent human life. It is also wrong to, for instance, wage an unjust war (i.e. one that is does not meet the general criteria given in CCC 2309-2314).

At the same time, the Church has never, to my knowledge, taken it upon itself to "rule" that a given conflict is just or unjust. That's a judgement call that we are expected to make. So the prospects of the bishops doing as you hypothesize is, basically, nil. But that does not mean all bets are off and anybody can do as they please. No council was convened to declare that the Nazi aggression failed to meet the criteria for an unjust war. That does not mean that the Church thought Hitler had a legitimate claim in the marketplace of ideas and that we needed to suspend judgment and not criticize the invasion of Poland. Pius' attitude toward the injustice of the Nazi aggression was clear. All this means is that the Church does not micromanage such matters and leaves it to us to use such reason as we can to settle the matter in our own mind and conscience and to persuade others as best we can.

As to the question of the sin of soldiers who participate in unjust wars, I think the best rule of thumb is Jesus' words to John: "What is that to thee? Follow thou me." There is a distinction between the grave matter of sin and our culpability for it. Objectively, what is a grave matter (say, shooting a Polish soldier in the prosecution of the unjust invasion of Poland) may, for the German private, carry no moral guilt at all because he was simply doing the best he knew in the defense of his country against what all his sources of information told him was an aggressor. I think it's wisest to let God sort most of that out.

Of course, "I was just following orders" will only get you so far, as the Germans discovered. The Commander of the Wehrmacht, Alfred Jodl, was rightly hanged at Nuremburg for overseeing the German War Machine on Hitler's orders. And lots of little Kommandants and Ubergruppenthis and Sturmbannthats were likewise hanged and jailed for "just following orders". But there comes a place where we recognize a) that its hard to know how personally responsible grunt troops are for figuring out vast geopolitical issues and b) that most wars are not fought by radical monsters, but by human beings who are acting in the heat of passion. Iraq War II seems to be pretty obviously in this category to me. A huge number of people still believe that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 (a false perception constantly encouraged by our mendacious Administration) and so many people still think the war in Iraq is "self defense". I would not be swift to accuse them of mortal sin.

I think, to get back to practical reality, that the best approach to the unjust war we are currently involved in is to keep pointing out the plain facts about how this war fails to measure up to ius ad bellum and ius in bello. It is not our task to weigh the souls of our neighbors. It is our task as Christians and as citizens to thank our troops for the enormous sacrifices they are making on our behalf and to insist that they and we deserve better than the bumbling, mendacious, and incompetent leadership they have gotten from this Administration.

PS. FWIW, Mary's Aggies put in some actual research whereas my remarks are strictly off-the-cuff. So you might check that out.

New StrongBad Email

And yes, there is a www.virtualpizz.biz site up!

In Essential Things Unity

My latest for the Register.

By the way, if you haven't done so lately...

Check out Tim Jones' Fine Art.

He's really good, and he's a Catholic small businessman as well as a craftsman. Do the Chestertonian thing and support his work!

A reader writes:

Everything you Thought you Knew is Wrong!

That marvelous refrain (in the subject heading) echoes throughout so much of modern "inquiry" that it has quickly become a trope. There's something slightly Emersonian about it, in a way; in one of his essays ("Circles;" it's occasionally quite good) he wrote that "in the thought of tomorrow there is a power to upheave all thy creed, all the creeds, all the literatures, of the nations, and marshal thee to a heaven which no epic dream has yet depicted." He states also, albeit a bit earlier on, that "every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series," and in combining the two ideals we may see some of the snap and sparkle that drives people to seek these "shocking revelations" rather than just let them happen. In seeking them, of course, it is obviously more often the case that we manufacture them instead. The reason that conspiracy theories are so tenaciously upheld is because they are not obvious in any way; that is, they have not been observed in the actual outlines of reality but rather imposed upon them, often brutally, and this is a far harder thing to repent of when confronted than simply being honestly wrong.

This sort of forcing of perception onto reality should scandalize a candid observer, but it simply doesn't anymore. We're used to it. It's a trope, as I said above. I think this change from a shocking thing to a standard inference has been facilitated, in part, by the trend towards deconstruction in literary theory and philosophy, but I'm not smart enough to follow this through adequately. The subversion of old viewpoints or the creation of new ones is at the heart of how a lot of tremendously clever but very foolish people are approaching history, literature, and religion, among other things. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this in itself, of course, and can often be profitable, so long as one really is looking for the truth and is prepared to stop mucking about when one finds it.

Still, it can be taken to extremes, as in the two cases linked here:

The first carries the sensational headlining question, "Was John Paul II Euthanized?" To ask it in such a setting is to imply an answer, obviously; it would be like the New York Times running "Did Bush Lie?" They're not actually asking the question.

The second is stranger still, though the article is somewhat less ready to agree with the claims of those it profiles.

Remembering your interest in the gnostic modern habit of "uncovering the REAL story," I thought these latest infamies would intrigue you.

Re: JPII. My impression was that he was conscious right up to the end and refused a tube. That's rather a different thing than being denied one. Very often, the dying simply lose all interest in food and drink. My wife's grandmother did this. She simply was not interested. At that point there is no moral obligation I am aware of to ram food and drink down their throat anyway. Euthanasia can credibly be asserted when a sick person is *denied* food and drink they desire--when they are, as the ugly phrase goes, "made to be dead". But it's rather a stretch to say a man was euthanized when he refused food and drink because his body was shutting down.

Fr. Jack Durkin is a great homilist

So great, I'm told, that he hold people's attention even when they are struggling with unruly kids in the pews.

I've never reader Greenwald before

Looks like a Lefty of some variety. But he does have Ledeen's number.

GG to ML

Mr. Ledeen - I'm writing a piece for Salon on your new book. I am curious about one issue in particular -- if, as you frequently say (including this morning), "Iran declared war on us in 1979 and has been waging it ever since," do you consider it to be an act of treason for those in the Reagan administration who helped facilitate the sale of highly sophisticated weapons to Iran during the 1980s, during the time when they were waging war against the U.S.?

Isn't it the ultimate act of treason to help a country at war with the U.S. obtain weapons? Any thoughts you have to be included in the article would be appreciated.

Glenn Greenwald

GG to ML

While I have you - one other question: yesterday, you indicated that Gen. Abizaid had "suppressed" evidence of Iranian acts of war inside Iraq. Do you have any ideas as to what motivated him to do so?

Glenn Greenwald

ML to GG (re: arming Iran)

As I wrote at the time, quoting Talleyrand, "it was worse than a crime, it was a blunder."

ML to GG (re: Abizaid)

it's all in the book, which i'm sure you are memorizing.

GG to ML

But was it treason to work to provide arms to a country at war with the U.S.?

ML to GG

listen, i've answered you twice. you've slandered me from pillar to post, please stop being rude.

GG to ML

It's true that you responded to my emails, but you didn't actually answer the question. I'll include the email exchange and let the reader decide if you did.

Glenn Greenwald

What has impressed me about Ledeen over the years is the sheer, deep-veined dishonesty of the man, coupled with, as Greenwald notes, the constant tendency to *suggest* the shady use of violence coupled with the chicken-shit refusal to come out and say what he's saying. He's masterful at what he does. But it still leaves a stench whenever I read him. Happily, the demagogic tendency of such men to arraign their critics as traitors and subversives was bound to come back and bite these guys on the ass and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Satanic Ecumenism on Parade!

Just so long as you are not Christian, you can be as tyrannical as you like. In fact, it makes you a dreamboat!

Proverbs 26:11 –”Like a dog that returns to its vomit Is a fool who repeats his folly.”

Some of you may remember a while back when, as he has done before, Robert Sungenis assured us of his intention to change and not go on bashing the Jews. Indeed, that promise is still up on his website. Since charity believeth all things, I hoped that he was finally starting to experience some metanoia on this and turn things around.

In fact, however, he has not. It turns out that he was under interdict from his bishop (good for him!) and was (I am guessing) probably compelled to take the anti-semitic garbage off his site or lose the right to use "Catholic" in the name of his organization. Sungenis complied--and promptly set about figuring out a way to avoid obeying.

Solution: change the name of his outfit to "Bellarmine Theological Forum" and begin quietly putting up more Jew-bashing kookery. (Somebody should alert the bishop to the fact that, though the name on the page has changed, the header and URL still have the word "Catholic" in them.)

Sungenis has immediately reembarked on Jew-bashing. First on deck: a thoroughly wrong-headed attempt to say that the Old Covenant has been revoked rather than transcended by the New. I don't know what part if "I do not come to abolish, but to fulfil" Sungenis doesn't get, but he seems set on making a spectacle of himself as he corrects the Catechism.

Next up: correcting Joseph Ratzinger. It turns out that when good Pope Benedict tells us that Jews are still Chosen, he suffers from a lack of guidance from Robert Sungenis, who helpfully explains that he doesn't mean what he obviously says. By the way, the "questioner" is Laurence Gonzaga, who works for Sungenis and who is obviously lobbing softballs to the Master so he can indulge his obsession with attacking Jews.

Then we come to the piece de resistance: Edgar. You can meet Edgar here, feeding Bob "questions" about Christians vs. , not Jews, but "Jews". Putting the word "Jew" in scare quotes is code. It means "I don't think Jews are Jews at all" and generally involves some racial crap about Khazars (who converted to Judaism way back when) as well as the basic notion that Jews are rejected and accursed by God.

Edgar shows up again with his hostility to Jews in full fettle here, again lobbing softballs to the Master.

It's not very hard to see where this is going, particularly given Bob's history of making promises and then taking it all back, declaring he was never wrong, and redoubling his perverse insistence on his own utter rectitude and the sudden and inexplicable perfidy of friends (whose sole crime has been to say, "Bob, you're wrong.")

So, in honor of Bob's latest betrayal of the Faith and rebellion against Holy Church, permit me to remind him of the shame he is bringing to the name of Christ:



And let me be the first to say, "Bob, shut up, repent in sackcloth and ashes, and be obedient to your bishop. Your eternal soul is on the line here."

America at its Very Best

I agree with President Bush. Giving Ahmadinejad a forum was a demonstration of the greatness of America. I love that he was allowed to speak--and that he was thereby given a chance to make a complete and utter fool of himself. I love that everybody else was allowed to speak too and not just the Great Leader. Being laughed at is the worst thing a tyrant can endure. I loved that this guy made a spectacle of himself. I love that other tyrants are cowering before the mighty power of the free New Yorker (note the last paragraph). I love the happy face crap from the Iranian Press and the fact that anybody with a computer can compare it with what really happened. What a great moment in the annals of free speech.

"If you want to show up a fool, rent him a hall." - Thomas Jefferson (IIRC)

This Morning's Andromeda Strain Moment

Hey! What could it hurt? Besides, we had funding!

Good Morning! It's Day 6 and 7 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Pledge Week

We're in the Home Stretch of the Great Autumn Drive. You've done a phenomenal job so far and my dentist, car repairman, dentist, freezer sales, kids, dentist, and wife really appreciate it--though not as much as I do. However, we have today to go and can use much more oomph as we approach the finish line!

Please consider a gift to your humble scribe and click on the PayPal button to the left so that CAEI can stay on the air. You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money (beyond this blog, I mean), you can buy my books and tapes. And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.

Today's your day. All this week, other people have been pitching in to help out. Now your little shoulder angel (seen here locked in combat with the Forces of Darkness):



is saying, "C'mon, do the right thing! You *love* this blog!"

And don't forget: I'm available to come speak to your parish or other Catholic gathering. Need a referral on whether hiring me is a good bet? Like I said Friday, ask Fr. Phil Bloom!

Fred Thompson: Ugly American

It takes a lot to alienate Mark Steyn from a conservative candidate, but Thompson and his fellow historically ignorant jingoes pulled it off. What a Perfect Storm of disasters the two parties are fielding.

A reader writes:

I'm sure others will make this point better than I can, but . . .

The fascination with Lincoln by some sectors of libertarians is due to the fact that he is constantly invoked by the globalist neocon types as someone to emulate. He is basically venerated. In fact, he is openly referred to as Father Abraham by some in the Claremont Institute's sway. They say things like GITMO - well Lincoln imprisoned people without trial (and even suspended habeus corpus). Free Press - well Lincoln shut down lots of northern newspapers who didn't like his war. Unwarranted destruction - Lincoln authorized Sherman's march and the burning of Atlanta. So it does pay to hold the neocon's feet to the fire a bit and point out that those things were wrong under Lincoln and if he authorized them, then perhaps he isn't the stunning saint that we were all taught he was in 4th grade.

BTW, I like the libertarianism as medicine metaphor. I am puzzled a bit by what the food is in the metaphor though - certainly not American Liberalism or Neoconized Conservatism. I would kind of assume you are talking about the Gospel (as our only food), but I'm not sure how that all ties out if Libertarianism is medicine in that context.

Fair enough on the Lincoln stuff. I tend to be hardline on fundamental natural law questions, not so much on merely prudential human questions of civil law. So I can see a case being made for shutting down newspapers in certain extreme situations because I am aware of no natural law demand that newspapers should always have a right to print. However, I think Sherman's actions were a violation of natural law since they targeted innocent civilians. However, that said, I think the neocon recourse to Lincoln the Model is rubbish since we are not fighting a civil war in which the very existence of the nation is in question. As our President has made clear, we are in a civilization crisis so grave that the only thing a true American can do is go shopping. It's therefore a tough sell to tell me that we must also think about repealing habeas corpus, the natural law, and the concept of rights derived from God rather than the state, just to make sure that nobody says a bad word about Fred Thompson.

Re: your other question, I regard all human political systems as, largely, medicine. At present, libertarianism is medicine for the overdose of hubris that the Salvation Through Leviathan by Any Means Necessary crowd have received from the power-drunk neocons. Like any medicine, you can take too much and it can have nasty side effects. Indeed, neocons were themselves once medicinal. Now they are addicts.

As to food, no Catholic need wonder about that: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me." Sin is what's wrong with the world. Government, politics, and the state are only necessary because of it. If men were virtuous, said Madison, we would have no need of government at all. And the cure for sin is Jesus Christ, fully present in the Catholic Church.

People will doubtless read that as a call for a theocratic state. That's because American discourse is poisoned, ignorant, and debased by politics. I don't believe in theocracy. Neither did St. Thomas. But I do think that our present attempt to have an ever more naked public square devoid of reference to the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ is doomed to failure and that a nation that is not for him is, as he himself points out, against him. Our current adventures in trying to Make the World Right By Force are simply one more manifestation of the failure of secularism, it seems to me.

At the risk of inspiring more idiots to shout "Treason", permit me to say:

"Way to go, Mr. Bush. Yet another bang up job from the Presidency that has done so much to wreck the US in the past six years." The man is anti-Midas. Everything he touches turns to lead. And now for a preview of what his Brain Trust thinks is the next Really Good Idea--a veritable cakewalk--go here.

If force fails, use more force! Hey! We have unlimited troops and they have limitless stamina! Bring it on! What could it hurt?

Surreal



As a writer I know once said:

This peculiar conviction that, “If you’ve seen one Abrahamic religion, you’ve seen ‘em all,” also apparently governs much of our policy in transportation safety. Alloyed with our peculiar fear and shame over the possibility of giving offense, it has yielded the wondrous policy of acting as though absolutely everybody is at equal risk of being a terrorist, just as, 20 years ago, grievance activists in the homosexual community persuaded everyone we were all at equal risk for AIDS.

This logic, however, turned out to be flawed since, in actual fact, the AIDS virus is not a mugger or serial killer, striking victims completely at random. Indeed, it turns out that AIDS follows perfectly predictable and knowable transmission vectors having to do with certain behaviors. If you are a human being who does not choose to swap bodily fluids indiscriminately, your chances of getting AIDS are essentially zero. If you do engage in that kind of behavior, you are at extremely high risk for AIDS.

In much the same way, it turns out that not everybody is at equal risk for being an Islamic terrorist. Studies are well on the way to showing a strong correlation between Muslim terrorists and a condition known as “being Muslim.” Though the data are still being analyzed, it’s probably not rash to say that every Islamic terrorist is a Muslim, though of course not all or even most Muslims are terrorists. But given that the Muslim community does seem to be the locus of the problem of Muslim terrorism, it would seem prudent for security officials to focus their efforts there and not spend a great deal of time scrutinizing nuns, six-year-old farm boys, and Lutheran Bridge Club members for their ties to al-Qaeda or similar Islamic organizations.

Naturally, this suggestion is met with sharp cries of pain from sensitive Muslims who protest the bitter injustice of seeing the Muslim community as the source of every act of Islamic terror in the world. Surely the Amish, Model Railroading, or Origami communities can share some of the blame for these monsters. Must the focus be entirely on the Muslim community, merely because 100 percent of all Muslim terrorists hail from it? If this is not a shattering tragedy of profiling, then what is?

H/T, Crunchy Cons.

The John Derbyshirefication of Conservative Religiosity Continues its Destructive Work

There is a certain sort of conservative that thinks well of religion because it is a useful sort of crowd control, but basically has no use for all that business about whether or not its true. It's old. It's venerable and the wisdom of our fathers comes down to us through it, but all that touchy feely stuff about faith and conversion of heart and love? That's for saps who buy that kind of thing. Real mean think its mostly rubbish and get on with the business of making money and defending the Homeland from the wogs.

I feel a certain affection for blunt men of practical sensibilities who can't be bothered with All that Crap. In many arenas of life, I think their cut-to-the-chase mentality serves them well, allowing them to wade through a media culture dominated by whiners and bed-wetters. But when it comes to the things of God, I believe these men are idolators, placing their own particular emotional makeup and its impatience with both the supernatural and with matters of the soul above the Revelation. Consequently (sin making you stupid and all) they wind up trying to maintain moral, financial, and social structures in tiptop functional prime while laboring to destroy the metaphysical foundation upon which all depends. Seek first the kingdom of earth and not only will you not get heaven, you won't even get earth.

The Basic Fissure Between Christian Zionists and Jewish Zionists is, of course...

Christ. They are allies, but they are also using each other to some degree. Christian Zionists regard the state of Israel as a sort of stepping stone in an End Times scenario. Jewish Zionists regard Christian Zionists as useful allies in protecting the State of Israel. When, as he occasionally does, Jesus Christ gets in the way of this little arrangement Christians Zionists tend to be surprised to discover that Jews still don't want to be proselytized.

I was not aware proselytizing was *illegal* in Israel. I thought the crushing of free speech was a Muslim thing in the Mideast. But since the state of Israel is immaculately conceived and preserved from all sin both original and actual, I'm sure there must be a good reason for this draconian-looking law.

"The contraceptive pill was the greatest gift ever invented for men, by men."

Show me a culture that despises virginity and I will show you a culture that despises children.

This is Funny to Seattleites

The Internet: Allowing Kooky People to Give Full Vent to Their Worst Tendencies

As is no secret, I think Libertarianism is generally a philosophy for people with no children. I think it's a good medicine, but not good food. The medicine that it is good for is on full display in this article: the increasingly fascist tendencies on display among what used to be called conservatives, but what has lately morphed into "Salvation Through Leviathan by Any Means Necessary" thinking such as this:

At that same debate, as was recently noted on the LewRockwell.com blog, there were loud murmurings from the audience of things like, "Did he (Ron Paul) really say that homosexuals had rights?!" It was just unbelievable to some of those Republican "values voters" that anyone would think that homosexuals should have the same constitutional rights as everyone else.

A former undergraduate student of mine, who is now a Ph.D. candidate at a prestigious east coast university, recently emailed me some responses he got when he ventured onto the "Fred Thompson Forum" online and wrote an article there arguing that Thompson is not really a "Ronald Reagan conservative," as some have been arguing, but just another neocon. (The pro-war Thompson has been pro-abortion, for example, and has refused to take a pledge not to raise taxes if elected president).

The responses to the article completely ignored the substance of the arguments that were made by my former student. Instead, the "Fredheads," as this group of Thompson supporters calls themselves, responded with statements like these: "[Student’s Name] = GITMO." "You are an international terrorist, hater of freedom and liberty." "Homeland Security should also be made aware of his plans to overthrow the United States government." "Your ass better be on a plan back to New Delhi . . . or you’ll be on a one way ticket to Gitmo." (The student is an American citizen who has an ethnic European surname and is not from India).

Sending critics of Republican politicians to "GITMO" seems to be a major theme of the "Fredheads." Browsing the web site, one finds additional comments such as these: "Fight Terrorism: Send Fred Thompson to the White House and Ron Paul to GITMO." "Keep the brilliant Bush legacy alive," and vote for Fred Thompson. "Anyone touting civil liberties all over the place simply doesn’t realize that it’s a new world after 9/11." This of course is a constant refrain of the talking heads on the Faux News Channel, Rush Limbaugh, and the rest of the neocon electronic megaphone network.

Then there is, "We can’t have civil liberties right now because we’re at war," and "Civil liberties are Government GRANTED rights. All your rights come from the state, thus, the state has a right to take them away." Hitler and Stalin could not have said it better.

"Liberty is the freedom to taser loudmouth traitors," said another Fredhead. Another theme of the Fredheads is that anyone who disagrees with "the brilliant Bush legacy" is a "traitor."

The article goes on from there to exhibit its own brand of kookiness, doing the usual Internet schtick of invoking Hitler and Stalin and so forth. Also, the curious libertarian obsession with re-fighting the Civil War is much in evidence.

Here's the thing: Lincoln is dead and the war is over. Time to move on. But here's the other thing: when we come to... now, when grown up voters are seriously *longing* to imprison people over such trivialities and perfectly decent citizens are being declared "traitors" by these brothers-under-the-skin to the monomaniacs who want to impose sharia and stamp out the threat of mild diversity of opinion. Particularly spectacular is the astounding "Americanism" which could say, with a straight face: "Civil liberties are Government GRANTED rights. All your rights come from the state, thus, the state has a right to take them away." Jefferson is now being clocked at 2000 RPM in his grave.

As I've said, I think a guy like Ron Paul has not a prayer of winning. I also think he's probably a bit of a kook. But I think he's a harmless kook. The really dangerous kooks are the nuts who, increasingly, seem to think that America's troubles are going to be solved by resort to force, secrecy, torture, imprisonment, muzzling of political differences, ever more war, and a vision of the citizen's relationship of the state that is remarkably like the Islamic vision of man's relationship to God. I'm no libertarian, but I do think that libertarianism has done yeoman service in highlighting this growing pathology among alleged "conservatives". The trick is knowing the distinction between disease, medicine, and food.

It is time again for the annual Margaret Sanger at the Ku Klux Klan Rally ART CONTEST!

The Hindu Caste System: Specially Designed by Hell

Millions of Untouchables in India are secretly Christian but cannot reveal it publicly for fear of losing what little social network they have in their desperate poverty.

Hmmm...

A reader writes:

This is not made-up....

I was just watching C-Span and heard Mike Huckabeee addressing the NRA. He was speaking about his love of duck hunting in Arkansas, etc.

He said because of his faith he was sure he was going to Heaven and he was sure there would be duck-hunting in Heaven.

This brings-up the classic Theological question...

When Ducks are killed in Heaven, where do they go?

Theologians have discussed this question for centuries. It's yet another of the thorny theological questions that the Church refuses to face--no doubt due to conspiracy. How can we trust the so-called "infallibility" of the Church when she can even answer a simple question like that? I discuss exactly this mysterious refusal of the Church to tackle the really vital day-to-day issues of spiritual discernment here.

The News: Sanitized for your Protection

A reader sent me a link last week in which she wrote:

Dad of Columbine victim wins fight to speak for the unborn, and against the culture of death that helped create Harris and Klebold.

What's funny is that the inscription he wrote for the Columbine Memorial is considered So Controversial. Its truth is as plain as the nose on your face.

If you click on the link you will notice that the story now has no reference at all to the inscription. There is, however, archeological evidence that it once did over on the sidebar.

Brought to you by the friendly people at the Colorado Ministry of Truth.

The Wedding Was Beautiful!

It's a very strange thing to marry off your firstborn, but also a wonderful thing. Luke is our Nordic Giant son. He towers over me and with his spiffy haircut, his dapper beard and his even more snazzy-looking suit, he has definite star quality, especially for Tasha, his Bride. She looked beautiful in her dress and was, as they say, glowing as she came up the aisle with her father and grandfather and, in a rich and ancient gesture, was received by Luke as they proceeded to the altar. The readings consisted of 1 Cor 13 and Jesus' conversation with the scribe about the Two Greatest Commandments: Solid core truth for a marriage founded on solid core faith in Jesus.

Fr. Bernhard's homily was not merely great: it was perfect. Keenly atuned to the truths of their lives and also full of rich truths from the Tradition translated into Seattle Secularese for the benefit of the families assembled--the majority of whom were neither Catholic nor particularly Christian (though some were believers). He talked about the Greek view of love as being somehow divine and the notion that love leaves an impression of the beloved on the soul. He said that this image in the soul seeks expression, which is why there are so many pictures of the Beloved in art and literature. He jokingly warned that part of the burden of love Tasha and Luke may bear is that she may wind up as an animated character someday and he may wind up (since one of her designated family titles is "Pie Queen") with his image impressed on a pie (or perhaps a pie impressed on his image). He spoke of the sacrament of marriage as a divine confirmation of the Greek intuition: that in marriage we mediate to our beloved something of the love of God and, as a couple, something of the love of the Trinity to the world.

Wonderful!

The exchange of vows was beautiful. Pure and simple and heartfelt. They both understood the seriousness of what they were doing: an act as brave as setting sail across the sea to a far country to found a new kingdom, for founding a new nation is what every groom and bride are doing. But they approach the thing with Christian joy and courage (and, sure, a little youthful naivete--what did you think God made naivete for?). Jan and I were so proud of them. I told Jan, as they approach the Mary Shrine to make their gesture of thanks to Our Lady, "I think this is what a success story looks like." They are starting out poor, as is the custom for young marrieds. But boy are they rich. They were surrounded by family and friends that love them both, they love each other and they are beloved in the Beloved. Now begins the Adventure!

Good Morning! It's Day 5 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Pledge Week

Has this blog been a source of good for you that you can't find anywhere else? Then please consider a gift to and click on the PayPal button to the left so that CAEI can stay on the air and our kids get fed, dentalficated, and so forth. You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money (something beyond this blog that you've come to love and depend on, I mean), you can buy my books and tapes. And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.

To all who have given and/or bought my wares: THANKS! From the bottom of my heart, THANKS! To those who have not yet contributed to the Pledge Drive: Don't think somebody else will do it. I promise, no more mention of money stuff for three months after we finish up on Monday. (We finish on Monday because I will be scarce this weekend as our oldest, Luke, gets married!)

And don't forget: I'm available to come speak to your parish or other Catholic gathering. Need a referral on whether hiring me is a good bet? Ask Fr. Phil Bloom!

Sandra Miesel asks:

Would any of your readers have opinions about St. Michael's parish in Cary NC?

Not a clue. Anyone?

What does this mean?

First SF writer John C. Wright turns up on my blog

Then SF writer Tim Powers turns up on Jimmy's blog

Then SF writer S.M. Stirling turns up on Dale Price's blog.

Now SF writer Michael Flynn turns up on the Curt Jester's blog.

Now it's a very important part of an SF writer's business to look at some contemporary trend and then extrapolate the results on into the remote future. I challenge these four fine writers to ponder the civilizational and even galactic implications and impact of the increasing legions of SF writers reading and commenting on Catholic blogs. Surely there's a story in that somewhere. Indeed, Dale Price has already directly impacted the writing of at least two SF novels. Surely this can only continue until Catholic bloggers have total theocratic control over the entire SF genre and crown Sandra Miesel as the Queen of the Galaxy.

I look forward to exercising my newfound clout!

The Invaluable Tom Kreitzberg....

summarizes points made by Sherry Weddell, Amy Welborn, and Terrence Berres on the wrong-headedness of chancery cubicle dwellers who seek first all these things (things currently buzzword-coded as "energized vibrancy") in the hope that the kingdom of heaven will be added as well. It turns out that Jesus has some pithy advice in this department: seek first the kingdom of God, not "energized vibrancy" and all your earthly needs for a healthy community will be added as well. Seek earthly things first and you won't even get those. Or if you do you will live to rue the day your wishes came true.

Hells bells, you could learn such stuff from *fairy tales* if you are too lazy to read the New Testament. Who hires these chancery people?

Anyway, Tom put things very nicely, as is his custom:

I've been using the term "nonisity" to mean "the state of being satisfied with nothing less, and nothing other, than God." (From St. Thomas's answer to Jesus' question of what he would like: "Non nisi te, nothing but You.")

I can't see anything wrong with extending the use of the term to include "the state of having nothing less, and nothing other, than God." And if we do that, then we can say that the Church, qua Church, has nonisity. In spades.

Which is to say two things:

1. All the Church has to offer is God.

It has other stuff, yes, but that other stuff and a cup of coffee will get you a cup of coffee. Has the Church given the world the hospital and the university and the Pieta? Sure, but if (per impossible) the Church disappeared tomorrow, there would still be hospitals and universities and (for a little while, at least) the Pieta.

2. The Church offers GOD!!!

How do you sweeten that deal? Why would you try to sweeten that deal?

Yep.

Once Again, the Stupid Party Shows that It is Putting It Dalliance with God and Family-First Conservatism Behind It

More and more, the Party is Becoming Solely about Money and Power.

I look forward to a time of happy concord between the Power Worshipers of the Left and Right, allied against the menace of "Christianists" who stand in the way of that perennial secular messianic dream as old as the Golden Calf.

Looks like I was wrong and unjust to Kathy Saile and the USCCB

A reader writes:

This note from the USCCB's press office may be of interest--it says that she explicitly condemned the Democratic Party's embrace of abortion when she spoke at the meeting. Here's the complete text of the press office's reply--it seems like a good answer to me:

"Thank you for expressing your concerns about reports that the Bishops' Conference allegedly hired a "pro-choice advocate" as the Director of Domestic Social Development. Please be assured that new Director, Kathy Saile, is a faithful Catholic who is pro-life and fully committed to the Catholic Church and its moral and social teaching, beginning with the right to life. These matters were fully explored and confirmed in the hiring process and in reference checks.
These charges apparently originated in blogs suggesting that Kathy Saile is pro-choice because she spoke at a dinner sponsored by a pro-choice womens'group. Here are some of the relevant facts:
-Kathy was asked by a friend to participate in an informal, small dinner discussion on faith and politics.
-The dinner was one several of dozen similar dinners that evening on a wide range of topics and less than ten people attended this particular dinner.
-Kathy used the occasion to make the case that the Democratic Party's embrace of abortion and its pro-choice litmus is wrong both morally and politically. She further insisted that many people who share progressive convictions are fully committed to the defense of unborn children. While these views were not warmly received by all the participants, most of the discussion focused on how her faith shapes Kathy's work for the poor and vulnerable.
-Far from endorsing the group's pro-choice agenda, Kathy challenged it and made the case that progressives can and should be pro-life and that the Democratic Party should welcome pro-life candidates and positions.
The new Director of Domestic Social Development is not an advocate of abortion, but rather used this particular occasion to make the pro-life case as part of a broader discussion. Please be assured that commitment to the Catholic Church and its teaching are a central consideration in recruiting, interviewing and selecting candidates for key USCCB positions. I hope these facts address your concerns and reassure you about the positions and actions of Kathy Saile and the USCCB. As time goes on Kathy will fully demonstrate she is a faithful and effective advocate of policies which protect the life and dignity of every person.
For your information, attached is a brief CNS article on Kathy Saile's appointment. The CNS article may be found here.

I will take down the blog entry complaining about her appointment. My apologies for going off half-cocked. I was wrong.

This...

reminds me of this.

There's something about despots and demagogues that makes liberal academics go sappy. I tend to think it's that, having lost faith in truth, liberal academics have battened on power as the summum bonum and so they tend to worship it and those who wield it--especially those who wield it brutally. It's kind of a Bellatrix LeStrange/Voldemort thing. She thinks he's just *dreamy*.

Kinky and creepy. It's a dynamic that you can trace back at least as far as the Enlightenment. And I suspect that somewhere deep in the DNA, the fundamental Christian rejection of Salvation Through Raw Power is part of the reason for the Left's hostility to "religion" when it means "Christianity" and its weird attraction to brutal Islamic thugs. Thugs of any kind have always had a strange attraction for the Hard Left. They have an attraction for the Hard Right too, but the Hard Right doesn't tend to produce faux intellectuals.

There are moments when the Old Testament Curses Really come into focus

All of a sudden all the stuff from the psalms about "may their names be blotted out" and "may they never be remembered any more, forever and ever" makes perfect sense. He wants to be famous, let him be denied publicity, even before the Throne of God. Let him be utterly forgotten.

As Christians, of course, we cannot give our voice to such cursing. But we can see through such Old Testament curses the staggering depravity that provokes them in the hearts of our Jewish ancestors and recognize that sometimes cold implacable hatred (of the sin, not the sinner) is the only decent response of a child of God. It was to save creatures like the man in that story that Jesus came. It was because we are a species that does *that* that Jesus had to die. As Pavel Chichikov is fond of saying, the crucifixion did not occur because we use the wrong fork at dinner. We are, all of us, just as despicable as that man, apart from the grace of God. That's why, more deeply than we are called to hate such sin, we are called to have mercy on and pray for the sinner. Because otherwise, we doom ourselves.

You know, I don't much care for Lady Macbeth

But just on principle, I would have cheered if she'd replied, "I don't know. How do you respond to the occasional rumor that you are a pedophile and a hack journalist? In fact, I heard people saying that about you just today. Why should I think they would make that up, hmmmmm?" If she had thrown a drink in the reporter's face and walked off I would have applauded as well.

I think I live in the wrong century.

Here's why Christopher Hitchens Gives People the Willies When He Start to Bang on About Religion

He sounds exactly like the demented ravings of the North Korean Government.

...and he expects us to believe that, if he had his way, religious people would not suffer exactly the fate that religious people do under the demented rule Kim Jong-Il.

Hey! When did a radically anti-God regime ever persecute, imprison, torture and kill millions of innocent people merely for the crime of believing in God? That's crazy talk!

Right, Chris.

I have scarcely followed the ongoing drama at Ave Maria

...largely because it's happening thousands of miles away from me, involving a bunch of people I don't know (with a couple of exception for folks who are sort of tangential to all the hubbub). Now and then, somebody I trust--like Professor Bainbridge--will send me something about it and I will say, "Yikes! This really stinks" but then other matters intervene and I forget about it again. It looks like a classic case of what happens when you let a self-made rich guy act the way self-made rich guys generally act in a field alien to his gifts. You discover that the qualities that made him self-made and rich are not the strengths which will help, but the weaknesses that will hinder, the success of the organization. Tom Monaghan seems like a guy built for success at becoming a pizza zillionaire. However, when it comes to founding a sort of quasi-religious community or an academy of higher learning, he seems to have radically wrong charisms for the job. And the very gifts that made him so good at pizza and business seem to set him up for catastrophe here.

When you find yourself operating on the principle of "If force fails, use more force" and discover you are kicking around perfectly honorable people with epithets like "academic terrorist" or leaving hard-working and honest subordinates with large families high and dry on the most dishonest and tendentious of charges because they are supposedly "disloyal", the wise thing is not to circle the wagons or boast of your victories. The wise thing is to put on sack cloth and ashes and seek reconciliation with God and neighbor. One gets the sense that the CEO and Dean at Ave Maria's Law School are in over their heads (I always have this image of Mel Gibson freaking out as Mr. Christian in The Bounty). But that too is nature's way of saying, "Time to rethink your life." The one thing that will not do is the course the leaders at Ave Maria appear bent on pursuing, which is saying that all these honest critics are just Bad People. Sorry, but I don't think anybody but the small group of folks in The Bunker believe that at this point. When you lose Ed Peters and Stephen Bainbridge, you've lost. As our Pentecostal friends say, Time to get right with God.

Reason to Homeschool #34985723492872429342827294853754983572354

Hey! Just so long as it's not something dangerous or inflammatory like a crucifix.

Dave Hartline is One Mighty Grateful Catholic

It's always lovely to see Catholics who remember that Eucharist means "thanksgiving".

Bavarians Keep Using Those Words "Conservative", "Christian" "Social" and "Union"

I don't think those words mean what they think they mean.

More social legislation only a highly educated and intelligent European could think was a good idea. Naturally, our chattering classes will be gabbling excitedly about it in a week.

Interesting Teapot Tempest Among Orthodox Jews in Israel

A very *very* old rabbi, before his death, allegedly wrote down the name of the Messiah and requested that the note be sealed till a year after his death. Turns out the name is "Yehoshua" or, as we would say, "Jesus". Much bustle ensues of the "Yes, it's his handwriting/No it isn't" variety. Beats me if it's legit, though one is awfully hard pressed to imagine a reason why anybody in his inner circle would fake something like this.

One often gets the sense that Jews who came of age before the Holocaust are particularly haunted by the figure of Jesus. Again and again, in the literature and art of the pre-war period you keep running into people like Chagall, Buber, Stern and even Einstein, as well as many others, who are fascinated with him. Some of them, like Stern and Edith Stein and Israel Zolli, actually make a profession of faith. This guy is a contemporary of all those guys and it would not surprise me in the slightest if, at the end of the day, he found himself falling in love with Jesus.

No small part of Hitler's crimes is how he destroyed a flowering of Jewish interest in Jesus. We are assured by revelation that, in the end, that flower will finally bloom. But it is one of the many tragedies of the 20th century that the Great Dragon should have made war so viciously on the Woman and her Children.

In stories like this, I feel again acutely the strange mystical bond we Catholics have with the Jewish people. Their very squabbles look so much like ours, and the underlying note of longing for Messiah, and of feeling awkwardly for him, is poignant. I do hope it's true that he wrote it. And I hope he has found peace in Messiah.

HT: Mary's Aggies

New Euphemisms for Old

A reader writes:

Interesting article trying to tackle the eugenics aspects of being pro-choice. Realizing that the old eugenics that St Margaret Sanger promoted hurt the abortion cause, author recommends keeping abortion rights separate from the "new eugenics" -- designing around cancer genes and so on -- even though that's probably a good thing. Old or new, too much baggage.

No mention whether aborting Downs babies is old or new eugenics. And don't call it pro-choice or pro-abortion: a much better name is "reproductive justice rights."

Eugenics was, itself, once a euphemism for "forcibly sterilizing and/or killing poor and racially inferior people and their children". It lost its gleaming scientific cachet somewhere around 1945 and Planned Parenthood had to change its slogan from (I kid you not) "Birth Control: To Create a Race of Thoroughbreds" to something more amenable to suburban sensibilities and consumer culture. Hence the new euphemism "Pro-choice" which, like all lies from Satan, was intended to achieve exactly the opposite effect it proclaimed. And so "pro-choice" has been the blunt instrument by which a generation of people with a profoundly fascistic ideology labored to both eliminate choice via the judicial usurpation of democratic processes, and to drain the word "choice" of all meaning by insisting that choice have no consequence or meaning.

Apparently Screwtape's Ministry of Propaganda is becoming edgy about the lack of traction the "pro-choice" is coming to have in our culture, so it's time for a new euphemism: "reproductive justice rights." Like "birth control"--which means "no birth and no control", "reproductive justice right" is another complete and calculated lie from the pit of hell since it means "no reproduction, no justice, and a completely imaginary right to kill the innocent". However, since calling it "Power for abusive men, riches for exploitive abortionists, a lifetime of pain for women and death for innocent children" hardly comes trippingly to the tongue, I suppose Planned Parenthood Hell's Servants have to do the best they can with what they have.

Lying is A-OK If It's Planned Parenthood Doing It

If you are already committed to the murder of the innocent, what's a few fibs on top of that? Especially when you're cause is so noble. We're talking about saving women's *lives* here. If we have to lie and kill to do that, it's all for the greater good. Same goes for torturing people to find out if they are guilty of something. If we have to fib a bit and call it "enhanced interrogation" or overlook a few dead bodies on ice or say "We do not torture" it's all for the greater good. The point is, when we do it, it's okay, because we are Good.

Good Morning! It's Day 4 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Pledge Week

Yesterday, you got to hear discussions of everything from soup to nuts. Today, you get to ponder the historicity of Ram and his monkey bridge, learn profound truth from Hoodwinked, meet Bl. Euthymia Uffing and watch Paul Thigpen go to Hell. And, of course, there's the convivial atmosphere of the comments boxes where you can promulgate your theories, fiddle while Rome burns, and (who knows?) find that tapioca vendor you've been looking for!

Wouldn't your eyes stream with tears if you lost that? Dry your eyes and click on the PayPal button to the left and help CAEI stay on the air and our dental bill get paid, our car get fixed, our freezer get replaced, me get the back surgery I suspect I'm going to need and our roof stay over our heads. You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money (something beyond this blog that you've come to love and depend on, I mean), you can buy my books and tapes (autographed even!). And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.

And don't forget: I'm available to come speak!

Speaking of B Movie Catechesis...



In the immortal words of the frog, "We don't arrest people for being creepy."

However, we do apparently arrest people for being narcissists, microphone hogs, and human toothaches--all of which Andrew Meyer manifestly is:



Clearly, the guy is a pain in the neck. Clearly, he's obnoxious. Clearly, he's out there on the fringe with all the Skull and Bones chatter. Clearly, he was enjoying the attention and engaging in classic political street theatre.

But just as clearly, the cops were way the hell out of line, particularly with the tasering when all four of them had him pinned and he was saying loud and clear that he would walk out on his own. By the end of the video, the crowd (which had cheered his removal) is shouting at the cops, and rightly so. It was a stupid, over-the-top thing to do. The charge of incitement to riot was just stupid icing on the stupid cake.

Of course, incidents like this never remain what they actually are: namely, grist for more nominations for Barney Fife Awards for cops who are feeling a bit too enamored with their own power and a bit too threatened by the antics of a jerk. In the age of YouTube, stuff like this goes out on the Web and everybody starts asking What It All Means. One person sees in it The End of America, all because of Bush. Others see in it some sinister conspiracy by Kerry to crush political dissent.

I see in it an obnoxious guy who provoked some cops and who got a bit more than he deserved, but who really shouldn't be *too* surprised at what happens when you provoke people. It happens in the rough and tumble world of political street theatre. If it had remained just that it would soon rightly be forgotten.

But with YouTube it doesn't get forgotten. Instead, idiots start trying to say that he's a hero, or worse, that the cops were heros. Nobody here is a hero, except the one girl who raises her voice to protest that the cops are out of line, while everybody sits mutely and our Valiant Senator from Massachusetts (did you know he fought in Vietnam) tries to wish it will all go away.

What ought not to happen, and which *does* disturb me is the eagerness with which the Rubber Hose Right goes from taking this stupid incident, extremely human, incident in which some harried cops with two left feet over-reacted and tries to turn it into a real political principle in which we are to *cheer* the excessive use of force for... what? Being a human toothache at a University gab fest with a politico? One senses the last vestiges of any connection with "conservativism" snapping like spider webs as alleged conservatives hail the day when Caesar can taser people just for hogging a mike or asking stupid questions. I thought the idea of limited government included the idea of *not* handing Caesar a taser at the slightest provocation and urging him to use it to smash the exercise of free speech. The cops I can forgive for getting carried away. It happens, especially when you are dealing with human toothaches. But the fact is, the guy committed no crime. If you tell me was "resisting arrest" I have to ask, "For what was he being arrested? Being a jerk?" If that is now a crime, than boy are a lot of people in jeopardy of the law. When the guy volunteered to leave, they should have let him. But the Barney Fife impulse had taken control of the situation at that point. I can excuse the blunder. What is inexcusable is the attempt by alleged conservative pundits to turn the blunder into a principle of governance.

America was, in a very careful and particular way, founded to give jerks the right to say idiotic things. I don't feel particularly threatened by the cops who, being human, lost their cool with a jerk. It happens. We move on. I do feel threatened when the general consensus of the allegedly conservative punditocracy and blogosphere says this was a good thing and they'd like to see more of it. Fits of passion tend to have fairly limited consequences in the grand scheme of things (though they can have horrific consequences at times, as a murder victim will tell you). But to coolly and calmly reflect on this incident and conclude that it would be a great thing if only the cops would crush and muzzle every obnoxious college kid, and use tasers to do it, simply because he's obnoxious...

That does worry me, much as the so-called conservative embrace of salvation by Leviathan through any means necessary worries me. I begin to wonder if anybody, from the free-speech crushing brownshirts of the Left to the "Critics of Bush Should be Tasered" Right is even interested in free speech or fundamental human dignity any more if it threatens their hobby horse.

A reader send along the following:

As near as I can figure, the Indians want to make the strait between them and Sri Lanka a little better for navigation. I did not know that it was so shallow. Fundie Hindus are protesting because their God, Ram, built a bridge there, with an army of monkeys. The Tamils, who are not Hindus, pointed out that Ram never went to engineering school. Hilarity ensued.

'Kay.

I vote Alberta, Australia, Brooklyn, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia

That way, we get the sane Canadians, plus kangaroos, the good parts of New York under direct US control, and we no longer have to worry about securing our borders. And, of course, everybody knows how the Saudis are our good friends, so what could be the down side with that?

Paul Thigpen Goes to Hell

But that's a *good* thing.

Reason to Homeschool #9348753435493875534987

Our elites continue to exhibit that specified malice toward the Judeo-Christian tradition that makes it so hard to credit them as something besides cowards. Apparently, they are aware of no mythical constitution "wall of separation" between mosque and state. Just Church and state. They will enjoy sharia.

Me: I wouldn't mind this is they did not have draconian crackdowns on Christmas carols, dreidels, menorahs and Easter bunnies. I'd just as soon the normal cultural expressions of a people were allowed in the public square. But if they are going to be draconian, at least let them be consistently draconian and not wet themselves in spasms of "sensitivity" to our bullying Friends of the Crescent.

Long overdue kudos to Jeff Miller, St. Blog's Own Curt Jester

for his exciting new job as a Newsweek reporter! It all puts me in mind of the following passage from Orthodoxy:

THOROUGHLY worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true. Once I remember walking with a prosperous publisher, who made a remark which I had often heard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet I had heard it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothing in it. The publisher said of somebody, “That man will get on; he believes in himself.” And I remember that as I lifted my head to listen, my eye caught an omnibus on which was written “Hanwell.” I said to him, “Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.” He said mildly that there were a good many men after all who believed in themselves and who were not in lunatic asylums. “Yes, there are,” I retorted, “and you of all men ought to know them. That drunken poet from whom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed in himself. That elderly minister with an epic from whom you were hiding in a back room, he believed in himself. If you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actors who can’t act believe in themselves; and debtors who won’t pay. It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes in himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one’s self is a hysterical and superstitious belief like believing in Joanna Southcote: the man who has it has ‘Hanwell’ written on his face as plain as it is written on that omnibus.”

If I click my heels together three times and clap hard enough, maybe I can be a priest or a Newsweek reporter too! All I have to do is believe in ME!

By the way, HT to Zippy, author of the laugh out loud funniest blog header of the week.

So my son opens his brother's new book of All the People Canonized by JPII

First entry this eyes fall upon: Blessed Euthymia Uffing.

Don't know anything about her, but I say she should be the patron saint of P.G. Wodehouse fans.

Good Morning! It's Day 3 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Pledge Week

Yesterday, you got to hear Stephen Colbert talk about Mother Teresa, meet Joseph of Cupertino, find out why evolutionary morality is dangerous rubbish, meet a Lutheran-cum-Catholic, deconstruct an attempt to root for Rudy by a Catholic pro-lifer, meet some gutsy pro-lifers in Maryland, talk about the Bible in public schools, help and RCIA guy, unleash the power of the blog, watch as the Church cleverly unloads Madonna on the Jews, and meet the Internet Monk. Today, who knows? I might find just about anything, or blather about anything else, as well as peruse other fun stuff that washed up in my mail box. And, of course, there's the convivial atmosphere of the comments boxes where you can argue about B movies, quibble over Harry Potter, compare notes on H.P. Lovecraft and (who knows?) meet the man or woman of your dreams!

I ask you: Where else can you get quite what you get here? So if you want more of it, click on the PayPal button to the left and help CAEI stay on the air and us to keep food on the table in our highly impecunious circumstances. You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money, you can buy my books and tapes (autographed even!). And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.

Oh, and if you are an editor dying to have me write a column for you or (better yet) to syndicate me: Take me: I'm yours. Dittos to people who want to hire me to speak.

The World of Good Keeps Turning

This

reminds me of this.

This is... odd.

I think I'll wait till the story is confirmed. It seems to me very significant if it's true. But is it? We'll see.

Arrr! The Day Be Here at Last!

Ye scurvy dogs! Here's rum in your eye, every man Jack of ye!

In this Corner, John Farrell!

In that Corner, Touchstone!

And in an odd corner way over there, Jay Richards and Guillermo Gonzalez (two leading ID guys) review John's book The Day Without Yesterday.

The Battle Continues!

Fr. Stan Fortuna Becomes a Rapper to Reach the Rappers

This is the sort of thing that sends a certain sort of Rad Trad straight up the wall. But then, if they had lived 2000 years ago, they would have been driven straight up the wall by Paul's hobnobbing with Gentiles and Jesus talking to Roman centurions. I'm all for reverence in the liturgy. But I'm also all for wild creativity in approaching the culture. Sometimes appeals for "dignity" are really just masks on the face of pride. I'm not much of a rap fan myself. But that is an aesthetic, not a theological, judgment. St. Philip Neri thought nothing of making a spectacle of himself if he thought it could win a soul or two. The guy shaved off half his beard once. I think he'd approve of what Fr. Stan does.

Here's an interview I taped on Monday with Fr. Bob Camuso

Just FYI.

I wonder how many people's last words were "Hey! Watch this!"

Happily, this guy didn't die.

In a time of War, Global Terrorism, and Reckless Government at Home...

One Man Stood Tall Against the Greatest Enemy Mankind Has Ever Faced.

Angels, Part 3

My latest on Catholic Exchange.

Disputations Describes Why Some Part of Me Retains a Certain Skepticism About the Physical Sciences as Guides to Ultimate Reality--or Even Proximate Reality

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Luddite. Modern civilization is one vast testimony to the utility and benefits of science, both theoretical and practical. It's just that, well, that's sort of the point. Like Marcus Aurelius, the sciences are great and good--and scientists know it. That's a heady draught for fallen man to drink and scientists are, at the end of the day, fallen.

I suppose the best way to put it is that I trust the scientific method to do its (limited) job. I don't trust the business of science. And science is, today, almost all business.

The Anglican Communion: Doing Whatever It Takes to Get Elton John Back to Church

This week's antic: Secret Gay Eucharists with the Abp. of Canterbury. No word yet on whether violators of the Seal of Secret Gay Communions are on Double Secret Probation.

Now Here's a Jolly Site!

The B Movie Catechism! In which we discover the rich panoply of moral and spiritual instruction to be found in less-than-classic cinema.

I agree with this thesis completely. Some of the most formative moments of my childhood came from watching great films as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. In particular, I remember a bit of conversation that immunized me at the age of seven from all postmodern deconstructionist BS about how things are only as we think them, etc. The Hero, after seeing The Monster, is naturally disbelieved by The Authorities. The Girl comes to him and tries to get him to see reason. He replied something to the effect of "If a piece of the sun broke off and flew into space and nobody saw it, it would still be!"

Admittedly, he could have chosen a more apt example than something that everybody in the solar system was likely to see, but I never forget that point: that things are what they are and our understanding or knowledge of them or opinion of them did not determine reality. That is a step toward intellectual maturity for which I shall always be grateful to Ray Harryhausen (who also taught me wonder with his 7th Voyage of Sinbad).

Chesterton had a huge respect for the penny dreadfuls, sort of the Victorian precursor of pulp fiction and comic books. He believed he learned a great deal of solid Christian teaching through them. I think many older B movies have something of the same rough Judeo-Christian morality sparking through their sometimes very demented brains. Do you have any B Movie moments that stick with you as formative?

Looks Like We May Have an Early Winner for This Year's Barney Fife Award for Exceptional Officiousness and Pettiness

Hail to the Orem Utah Police!

Good Morning! It's Day 2 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Support Week

This is the one week each quarter where I ask for some small remuneration for my efforts to provide you with the sort of Catholic content, newsiness, fun, and so forth that is this blog. I'll be honest. We (that is, the Sheas, nobody else is running this blog) are in narrow financial straits. For those who have joined the blog since last June, I am a writer (and sole breadwinner) trying to keep two small and growing boys and two huge and adolescent boys fed on a steady income of $500 a month (without dental insurance), plus what I can make from donations here and freelance work. My wife is the chief homeschooler and bottle washer of this here enterprise, as well as a human dynamo in a dozen other tasks. This month is particularly tight (and we live *very* frugally).

So, I'm here to say that I hope you'll agree the worker is worth his wages and I'm askin' ya, if everybody who has gotten something good from this blog will kick in some bucks on the PayPal button (I'm not shy, be as generous as you can) you'd be supporting what I think is an eminently worthy cause and saving our financial bacon as we struggle through another month. I've kept good on my word not to rattle the tin cup between quarterly fund drives and shall do so till next quarter. But this week I'm taking time to say, "If you like what you get here, then please be as generous as you can and help out with the care and feeding of a unique news, opinion, and informations source that you just can't find anyplace else."

Thanks!

Oh, and remember, you can buy my books and tapes, not to mention hiring me to come and speak to your parish or church conference or gathering. And if you'd don't trust PayPal (though they are extremely reliable), feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.

It Turns Out that Terrorists Are Jerks with Lousy People Skills

The Internet Monk has Questions

1) Do Roman Catholics consider Protestant ministers like myself valid ministers? More particularly, if a good friend becomes Roman Catholic, are they now confessionally required to believe that I was never called of God to be a minister?

a) Yes.
b) No.

Longer answer: since "minister" means "servant" I see no reason in the world not to think that a Christian of any stripe is called to be a minister. Nor am I aware of any confessional requirement for your friend to have to make a judgment call on your particular sense of vocation. For Catholics, all priests are ministers, but not all ministers are priests. Of course, if you are asking (which I doubt you are) whether Catholics think that you are the functional equivalent of a priest, the answer is no, but since I doubt that you are even making this claim, I see no problem in hailing you as a servant of God.

2) Why is so much of my dialog with Catholics frustrated with “cafeteria Catholicism?” Catholics will tell me that I must accept the church’s teaching on subject X, but if I point out that they also must accept the church’s teaching on subject Y, I often hear, “Don’t put words in my mouth. That’s not what I believe.” With all due respect, since when did the beliefs of an individual catholic matter? If a Protestant demonstrates that the church has infallibly taught Y, isn’t that the end of the discussion for the catholic?

This is a complex matter. Part of the problem is something I discuss here. The Catholic Faith is a big place and not everybody approaches it from the angle that you and I do: namely, adherence to a specific body of doctrine. The paradox is that the Church--while always aiming to bring people into full alignment with the teaching of Christ in the Magisterium--is Mother as well as Teacher. And as Mothers are wont to do, she is not eager to kick the kids out when they give her guff and say "You aren't the boss of me!" and do all that other adolescent stuff.

In addition, however, is the problem (often a difficult one) of parsing a) what the Church actually demands we believe and b) determining the culpability of those who reject the Church's clear teaching. As to the beliefs of individual Catholics, they matter enormously on a day to day basis. Remember John Paul II's counter-intuitive observation (at least from the perspective of those who think the Church is all about conformity: "Man and woman are the road the Church must walk."

3) What would be the church’s view on someone who is convinced the Catholic faith is true, but who is unable or chooses not to openly convert to Catholicism at this time? Is such a person committing a sin?

Probably, though much depends on the reason for not converting, doesn't it? Ultimately, such matters are for God and the person to judge, but the Church is bound to point out that Jesus warned those who put their hand to the plow and look back, as well as calling us to hate our own selves in the pursuit of discipleship. But, I repeat, it's not the Church's job to judge souls.

4) Exactly what is meant when a non-Catholic goes forward at communion to be blessed, but not partake? What if such a person- like myself- openly disagrees with some of the church’s teaching and is not seeking reception into the church?

What the Church means by blessing and what you mean by going forward to receive the blessing may be two different things. The Church's meaning is pretty obvious: God loves you. I can't say what your meaning might be. That, again, is something you need to ask God about, since he knows you better than you know yourself.

5) What is the church’s view of leadership and submission in marriage? Would the church teach that a wife should join the church over the objections of her Christian, but Protestant, spouse? If so, how does this fit into the church’s teaching on marriage?

I would talk to a priest about this one. This is sort of a classic subsidiarity situation where the Church has no one size fits all answer. Generally such pastoral intricacies are left for the local pastor/spiritual director to work through with the specific people in their specific concrete situation. The Church is basically on the side of freedom here and so is not going to counsel compulsion. A wise pastor, it seems to me, would work for harmony in the family. But at the same time, if the convert is adamant that she wishes to be Catholic, the Church is not going to turn her away since she's an adult and the disagreement is between her and her spouse and is not the priest's business.

Hope this helps.

Madonna Traded to Jews

So much for the "cunning businessman" stereotype.

The Abolition of Man Proceeds Apace

The all-corroding solvent of the Darwin Mythos does the snake-eating-its tail trick of trying to give a purely materialist account of "evolutionary morality", all while, of course, insisting on the Grand Metaphysical Ultimate that we "ought" to reverence purely materialist accounts of the universe and it would be wrong--morally wrong and evil--not to do so. Lewis had their number a half a century ago:

It works--or seems to work--like this. They say to themselves, "Ah, yes. Morality" -- or "bourgeois morality" or "conventional morality" or "traditional morality" or some such addition--"Morality is an illusion. But we have found out what modes of behaviour will in fact preserve the human race alive. That is the behavior we are pressing you to adopt. Pray don't mistake us for moralists. We are under an entirely new management" ... just as if this would help. It would help only if we grant, firstly, that life is better than death and, secondly, that we ought to care for the lives of our descendants as much as, or more than, for our own. And both these are moral judgments which have, like all others, been explained away by Naturalism. Of course, having been conditioned by Nature in a certain way, we do feel thus about life and about posterity. But the Naturalists have cured us of mistaking these feelings for insights into what we once called "real value." Now that I know that my impulse to serve posterity is just the same kind of thing as my fondness for cheese--now that its transcendental pretensions have been exposed for a sham--do you think I shall pay much attention to it? When it happens to be strong (and it has grown considerably weaker since you explained to me its real nature) I suppose I shall obey it. When it is weak, I shall put my money into cheese. There can be no reason for trying to whip up and encourage the one impulse rather than the other. Not now I now what they both are. The Naturalists must not destroy all my reverence for conscience on Monday and expect to find me still venerating it on Tuesday. - Miracles

New York Times Science writers are urged to drop everything and get a preview of the end of the disastrous course they are embarked upon by reading Lewis' invaluable book, The Abolition of Man. Here's what happens when you "see through" the "pretensions" of the transcendence of conscience and explain it all away as a mere epiphenomenon of nature: you will treat the demands of conscience as having just as much authority as any other purely natural phenomenon. If the appetites for food and sex can be curbed, shaped, controlled, subdued and silenced by technology, then why not the demands of conscience too, since they are mere secretions of the brain and have, on a materialist accounting, no more absolute authority over our lives than the secretions of our pancreas? Lewis again:

In the older systems both the kind of man the teachers wished to produce and their motives for producing him were prescribed by the Tao—a norm to which the teachers themselves were subject and from which they claimed no liberty to depart. They did not cut men to some pattern they had chosen. They handed on what they had received: they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity which over-arched him and them alike. It was but old birds teaching young birds to fly. This will be changed. Values are now mere natural phenomena. Judgements of value are to be produced in the pupil as part of the conditioning. Whatever Tao there is will be the product, not the motive, of education. The conditioners have been emancipated from all that. It is one more part of Nature which they have conquered. The ultimate springs of human action are no longer, for them, something given. They have surrendered—like electricity: it is the function of the Conditioners to control, not to obey them. They know how to produce conscience and decide what kind of conscience they will produce. They themselves are outside, above. For we are assuming the last stage of Man's struggle with Nature. The final victory has been won. Human nature has been conquered—and, of course, has conquered, in whatever sense those words may now bear.

The Conditioners, then, are to choose what kind of artificial Tao they will, for their own good reasons, produce in the Human race. They are the motivators, the creators of motives. But how are they going to be motivated themselves?

For a time, perhaps, by survivals, within their own minds, of the old `natural' Tao. Thus at first they may look upon themselves as servants and guardians of humanity and conceive that they have a `duty' to do it `good'. But it is only by confusion that they can remain in this state. They recognize the concept of duty as the result of certain processes which they can now control. Their victory has consisted precisely in emerging from the state in which they were acted upon by those processes to the state in which they use them as tools. One of the things they now have to decide is whether they will, or will not, so condition the rest of us that we can go on having the old idea of duty and the old reactions to it. How can duty help them to decide that? Duty itself is up for trial: it cannot also be the judge. And `good' fares no better. They know quite well how to produce a dozen different conceptions of good in us. The question is which, if any, they should produce. No conception of good can help them to decide. It is absurd to fix on one of the things they are comparing and make it the standard of comparison.

To some it will appear that I am inventing a factitious difficulty for my Conditioners. Other, more simple-minded, critics may ask, `Why should you suppose they will be such bad men?' But I am not supposing them to be bad men. They are, rather, not men (in the old sense) at all. They are, if you like, men who have sacrificed their own share in traditional humanity in order to devote themselves to the task of deciding what `Humanity' shall henceforth mean. `Good' and `bad', applied to them, are words without content: for it is from them that the content of these words is henceforward to be derived. Nor is their difficulty factitious, "We might suppose that it was possible to say `After all, most of us want more or less the same things—food and drink and sexual intercourse, amusement, art, science, and the longest possible life for individuals and for the species. Let them simply say, This is what we happen to like, and go on to condition men in the way most likely to produce it. Where's the trouble?' But this will not answer. In the first place, it is false that we all really like the same things. But even if we did, what motive is to impel the Conditioners to scorn delights and live laborious days in order that we, and posterity, may have what we like? Their duty? But that is only the Tao, which they may decide to impose on us, but which cannot be valid for them. If they accept it, then they are no longer the makers of conscience but still its subjects, and their final conquest over Nature has not really happened. The preservation of the species? But why should the species be preserved? One of the questions before them is whether this feeling for posterity (they know well how it is produced) shall be continued or not. However far they go back, or down, they can find no ground to stand on. Every motive they try to act on becomes at once petitio. It is not that they are bad men. They are not men at all. Stepping outside the Tao, they have stepped into the void. Nor are their subjects necessarily unhappy men. They are not men at all: they are artefacts. Man's final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man.

Yet the Conditioners will act. When I said just now that all motives fail them, I should have said all motives except one. All motives that claim any validity other than that of their felt emotional weight at a given moment have failed them. Everything except the sic volo, sic jubeo has been explained away. But what never claimed objectivity cannot be destroyed by subjectivism. The impulse to scratch when I itch or to pull to pieces when I am inquisitive is immune from the solvent which is fatal to my justice, or honour, or care for posterity. When all that says 'It is good' has been debunked, what says 'I want' remains. It cannot be exploded or `seen through' because it never had any pretentions. The Conditioners, therefore, must come to be motivated simply by their own pleasure. I am not here speaking of the corrupting influence of power nor expressing the fear that under it our Conditioners will degenerate. The very words corrupt and degenerate imply a doctrine of value and are therefore meaningless in this context. My point is that those who stand outside all judgements of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse.

We may legitimately hope that among the impulses which arise in minds thus emptied of all `rational' or `spiritual' motives, some will be benevolent. I am very doubtful myself whether the benevolent impulses, stripped of that preference and encouragement which the Tao teaches us to give them and left to their merely natural strength and frequency as psychological events, will have much influence. I am very doubtful whether history shows us one example of a man who, having stepped outside traditional morality and attained power, has used that power benevolently. I am inclined to think that the Conditioners will hate the conditioned. Though regarding as an illusion the artificial conscience which they produce in us their subjects, they will yet perceive that it creates in us an illusion of meaning for our lives which compares favourably with the futility of their own: and they will envy us as eunuchs envy men. But I do not insist on this, for it is a mere conjecture. What is not conjecture is that our hope even of a `conditioned' happiness rests on what is ordinarily called `chance'—the chance that benevolent impulses may on the whole predominate in our Conditioners. For without the judgement `Benevolence is good'—that is, without re-entering the Tao—they can have no ground for promoting or stabilizing these impulses rather than any others. By the logic of their position they must just take their impulses as they come, from chance. And Chance here means Nature. It is from heredity, digestion, the weather, and the association of ideas, that the motives of the Conditioners will spring. Their extreme rationalism, by `seeing through' all `rational' motives, leaves them creatures of wholly irrational behaviour. If you will not obey the Tao, or else commit suicide, obedience to impulse (and therefore, in the long run, to mere `nature') is the only course left open.

At the moment, then, of Man's victory over Nature, we find the whole human race subjected to some individual men, and those individuals subjected to that in themselves which is purely `natural'—to their irrational impulses. Nature, untrammelled by values, rules the Conditioners and, through them, all humanity. Man's conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature's conquest of Man. Every victory we seemed to win has led us, step by step, to this conclusion. All Nature's apparent reverses have been but tactical withdrawals. We thought we were beating her back when she was luring us on. What looked to us like hands held up in surrender was really the opening of arms to enfold us for ever. If the fully planned and conditioned world (with its Tao a mere product of the planning) comes into existence, Nature will be troubled no more by the restive species that rose in revolt against her so many millions of years ago, will be vexed no longer by its chatter of truth and mercy and beauty and happiness. Ferum victorem cepit: and if the eugenics are efficient enough there will be no second revolt, but all snug beneath the Conditioners, and the Conditioners beneath her, till the moon falls or the sun grows cold.

At present, the ninnies who write stuff like this NY Times review (and the book being reviewed) are exactly in the position Lewis describes at the beginning of this passage: naively supposing that the vague remnants of the Judeo-Christian morality they imbibed as children are self-perpetuating. They aren't. Follow this course of thinking and I guarantee you we will arrive at (for we are already well down the road toward) a technologically sophisticated barbarism that will be a nightmare.

A reader writes:

I have a bleg. I am co-director of our parish's RCIA program, and I have been charged with jazzing up the RCIA page of our web site. I am looking for exemplary parish sites which I can copy shameles -- er, derive inspiration from.

Anxiously awaiting "Behold Your Mother", I remain

Your loyal reader and most obedient servant, etc. etc.

If any of my readers can point this reader to web designs he can steal emulate, that would be great. :)

Atheists Say the Darnedest Things

Justin Trottier, who heads the atheist Centre for Inquiry at the University of Toronto, has few problems with world religions classes — he believes nothing turns people into atheists faster than a religion class – but is adamant that there be no theology.

One can offer only the faintest conjectures on what this guy means by "theology" and how he proposes to distinguish that from the study of religion. From the rest of the article, it appears that he is insisting on targeting the Catholic faith for special animus. That would make sense given that it is, you know, true and everything.

Articles like this only reinforce my belief that it is a well-meaning but deeply mistaken idea to teach the Bible in public schools. Some folk have the notion that some contact with the Bible is better than none. But this is fallacious reasoning. In the first place, the Bible was written to be received in the context of liturgy, not in the context of some deconstructionist boob bent on inoculating impressionable minds against ever listening to it at all. Not just the Bible, but *any* sacred text (and indeed any culturally significant text) should be received in the context of the community that produced it--that is, if you want to understand the text. Otherwise, your grasp of it will be inevitably warped. Secondly, who says public school is our one and only opportunity to encounter Scripture? If you want your kids to know the Bible, start a Bible study or take 'em to Church.

A reader writes:

You know how pro-abortion trolls always bring up that us pro-lifers are more concerned with the fetus than people who are actually born and we should put our money where our mouths are by adopting? Here are the stories of a couple of my pro-life booth workers:

One man and his wife adopted a child from an addict and her boyfriend who live in Boston several years ago. They recently became aware that the woman and man had produced another baby and the state of Massachusetts was insisting that the woman have an abortion or they would evict her from the half-way house she was living in. The couple immediately wanted to adopt the soon to be born full brother of their oldest child. The convinced the woman to skip her first appointment. The authorities told her to make the next one or she was out on the street. On the morning of the second appointment, they paid for her to go to a restaurant and eat, since she couldn't get an abortion unless she had an empty stomach. All this was to delay things so they could arrange to adopt the child. They then had a friend drive the woman from Boston to Florida, so she couldn't make the third appointment and deliver the child for adoption. The baby will be adopted next week.

Another volunteer found a woman huddling in the corner of one of the Catholic Churches down here in Southern Maryland. It was a Moslem woman from Indonesia who was being held by a prominent local family against her will to clean the house and watch the children of said family. The hosts had paid for her to come over and promptly took the lady's passport. Even though she was Moslem, she knew that if she went into a building with a steeple, someone would help her. My volunteer took the poor lady to various social service agencies only to be told over and over that she did not fall into any of the categories covered by the agencies. By now the prominent family had sworn out a warrant for the woman's arrest on the grounds that she escaped the house, leaving the couple's children alone for a few minutes before the host couple returned home from a night out. Now, dodging the Charles County Sheriff, she took the woman to DC to the Indonesian embassy who are now working to repatriate the woman back home.

Yet another volunteer has arrangements with local department stores to take their damaged baby products to Angel's Watch, a local shelter for at-risk women. She does this all on her own.

A couple of volunteers also volunteer at the local crisis pregnancy center working countless hours providing woman with reproductive health care (minus the abortions) and helping new mom's with free baby products, training and job opportunities.

Another volunteer works with her (Catholic) church to help people obtain affordable housing.

How beautiful are the feet of him who brings good news.

NY Times Begins the Process of Trying to Massage the Conscience of Prolifers to Accept Rudy

Ramesh Ponnuru says "Rubbish" to this attempt to get prolifers on board with a man who is essentially indistinguishable from Hillary in his commitment to killing kids, and who is one of the most ardent proponents of torture and other war crimes--all rolled up in a long and varied history of contempt for his Catholic faith! What a guy!

A reader writes:

First off, great piece in the FT blog. I appreciate when others articulate those issues that need articulating to appease those whom I would simply tell (uncharitably) to get a life. Someone's gotta do it when I simply roll my eyes. :)

Secondly, I appreciate your link to the Kimel-rec blog, and its talk and your talk re conversion (btw, we gotta start some sort of internet-fueled petition to get that guy on the blog-roll again). I converted myself from Lutheranism a couple of years ago.

Two thoughts there:

1) It had almost everything to do with philosophy and little to do with theology or liturgy, since the Lutheranism that I was associated with was very high church and quite immersed in a sacramental conception of reality (and I still have much love for them, not the least of which because the synod I belonged to has the finest hymnal in Christendom). I'm a graduate student in philosophy, and my own reading and research made me realize that Catholic metaphysics could answer certain otherwise (nomologically) dangling questions that I couldn't get answered adequately otherwise.

2) When I was Lutheran (and I considered myself Lutheran all the while), I certainly would have been a 'cafeteria-Lutheran' for a good stretch there re the sex and social issues that drive wedges twixt denominations and individuals (since the Lutheranism that I was associated with was and is quite 'conservative' on all of these issues). But when I converted, I figured that the only mature thing to do was to accept the Catholic position on these issues, so as to make my confirmation vow honest and honorable, and try my best, through prayer and study, to find out why they thought they way they did on certain key issues. The prayer and study has been fruitful. So while I am not a cafeteria-Catholic, and I'm pumped about The Faith in all of its gritty details, I guess I can understand cafeteria-Catholics, since I was in a similar state, mutatis mutandis. I can understand, furthermore, why some people might reject wholeheartedly certain Church teachings but proudly and with affection consider themselves culturally Catholic. The cultural impact of one's religious upbringing is extraordinarily self-shaping. While I'm Catholic now, I'm still culturally Lutheran through and through, if that makes any sense. In fact, I don't think I could ever really be culturally Catholic. Coming from Evangelicalism yourself, do you feel likewise? Or is this crazy talk?

Oh, and wondering: you ever get out to NYC to make talks and whatnot? Or is that just too far away from this mythical place called 'Seattle'?

Catholic culture rubs off on you (and I expect will do so with a bit more alacrity since you are already so close to it in many ways. But you are right that there is a sense in which converts will always speak Catholicese with an accent. You are also right about the impact culture has on our perception of the faith and about the way that shapes cradle vs. convert angles of approach. I wrote a bit about that here.

Finally, yes. I'm happy to come to NYC anytime somebody would like to have me out to speak! The closest I've ever been was a cab ride from JFK through Queens to Stamford. It was a thrill to see Shea Stadium (our ancestral breeding grounds) and the Men In Black Towers at the Fairgrounds, but I'd always be delighted to see more of your charming little town. :)

Catholic Colbert is happy to report that Stephen Colbert is again covering Catholic stuff

Happy Feast Day, Zippy!

There's a feast for everybody in the Catholic Church. (Zippy is, among other things, a pilot.)

Good Morning! It's Day 1 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Pledge Week

If you like what you read here, please help keep an emphatically lower middle class writer solvent so he can keep bringing you the weird combination of offbeat humor, theological ramblings, ecclesial and civil politics, and various cultural ephemera that you've come to realize you can't live without.

A word about life at Chez Shea. I am sole breadwinner while my wife is Chief Homeschooler, Matriarch and All Mother Being for our brood of four boys. Our eldest gets married this Saturday. Our next eldest is back from his Militia Immaculate Missionary Journey across the US and looking for work. Our youngest two are busy being boys with Scouting, camping, swimming, Bionicles, Transformers and a deep fear of Mushy Stuff in movies. I spend my time cranking out writing and speaking here and there to keep a roof over our heads and bread on the table. We live, as is the custom of people who do Catholic stuff, on a knife edge of looming poverty. At present, we are not so much keeping our noses above water as learning to breathe under it, which is my light-hearted way of saying we're praying hard for Providence because a) I have been diagnosed with diabetes, b) I have been experiencing numbness in my toes which I strongly suspect will require surgery which I have neither the time nor the money for, c) our old car is broken and we have no money to fix it (our "new" car is 13 years old; d) our lawnmower is broken and we can't fix that either; e) our freezer is broken and we can't replace that either; f) we have a dental debt like Mt. Rushmore and no dental insurance. We did replace our toaster, after some serious deliberation.

Bottom line: We could really use your help if you appreciate this blog and the work I do.

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Fr. Phil Bloom is offering the Tridentine Rite at his Parish in Seattle

Fr. Phil is one of the best priests on earth. Great guy.

As far as I can tell, this is not a parody

I would describe this as Weapons Grade Secular Messianism.

The Indomitable Maureen Wittmann is Now Editing the Catholic Exchange Homeschool Channel

Check thou it out.

A reader writes:

After two decades in the Anglican world, I'm seriously considering coming back to Rome, with my family, for whom it will be something of a shock. We're members of one of the Southern California parishes which bolted from ECUSA for the Anglican Church of Uganda a year or so ago, and it's an extremely warm, friendly, family-oriented parish. Our local RC parish, where I grew up and where I've been taking my Dad every other week for the last year, is the obvious place for us to go, but though I like the priest it's not a very warm or lively place.

The truth is more important than that, of course, and I'd rather be involved right near home than not. But if there's a great vibrant, orthodox parish not too far away we'd consider it. So that's the bleg--are there any such in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, in the general vicinity of North Glendale? If you'd inquire of your readers, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Mary's Aggies are Acquiring Relics of JPII

Not my thing. But if it's yours, they have the scoop.

A reader writes:

In an article about the GOP polls I found this....

Lisa Baudoin, 40, a student and homemaker in Sugarland, Texas, said she is a conservative and supporting Thompson because of his views on abortion and immigration. She said she does not like Giuliani's more moderate immigration stance or his three marriages, and doesn't like McCain's opposition to the U.S. torturing terrorism suspects.

"How are you going to get information? They don't play nice. Why do we have to if no one else is," she said.

There's clear unequivocal support for torture among the voters, although, based on this anecdotal evidence we can say how large this is. That means there will be Republicans seeking the pro-torture vote, just as Democrats sought the pro-choice vote.

In principle, I would agree with you that this is a GOP problem, although because I hold to a relatively unpopular view on how voters should vote, it's very possible that you would disagree with me as to why it's GOP problem. So, I point out this, what the voter wants, the voter gets. This is an American problem.

The elections will show, roughly, whether the majority of a minority of American (that is, voters) care more about abortion or torture as the sacred good they wish to preserve. I think you are right that majority of GOP types largely resonate with Ms. Baudoin. Three years of shouting into the wind on this matter has left me with few illusions about the willingness of even Faithful Conservative Catholics, who should know better, to prostitute their most basic principles if they think it will keep them safe. So I have no illusions about what Regular Americans will do. There's a reason Giuliani was cheered by the Foxoids and the response to the only two men in the GOP to protest this fundamental betrayal of American principles is to marginalize them.

Honest George's 2003 Iraqi Freedom Turns Out to be a Lemon

Pretty funny.

Converts: We are Everywhere!

Coming Soon to a Western Nation Near You

If I were the bishops, I would not submit a polite petition. I'd tell the state to go to hell. That's probably why God, in his wisdom, has not made me a bishop.