Outta Town Veeeeeery Early Tomorrow, Tons to Do Today: Soooooooo.....

Observe the Bean to Nose Protocols and I'll see you Monday!

Here's What the Invaluable Fr. Phil Bloom put in his Parish Bulletin This Week:

In the past few weeks we saw a hideous assault on our Catholic faith. Perhaps you read that at a state-sponsored university, a biology professor carried out a public desecration of the Eucharist – and bragged about it by posting pictures on the Internet. Catholics (and other sensible citizens) protested to the University officials. Amazingly, they said the act of theft and destruction was part of the university’s “academic freedom.” It is hard to think of a comparison, but suppose a professor painted a swastika on a synagogue or burned a cross in a black neighborhood, would the university shrug it off as “academic freedom”? I don’t think so. They would correctly judge that he is incapable of treating Jewish or black students fairly. A professor who publicly desecrates the Eucharist is clearly incapable of fairness toward Catholic students. For us as Catholics the Eucharist is our most precious possession – worth more than all our buildings or bank accounts.

Although the university is not in Washington State, still it receives federal funds so it is our right (and duty) to protest this violation. I encourage you to write a courteous letter to President Robert Bruininks, University of Minnesota,/ /600 East 4th Street, Morris, Minnesota 56267. I have written him a letter, which I have posted on the bulletin board.

Besides exercising our rights as citizens, we should see this heinous act as a wake-up call. As Catholics we have lost reverence for the Eucharist. We need to examine our own behavior when we are in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and when we come forward for Communion. Acts of reverence such as genuflection and bowing of the head express an interior devotion. Spending time in the Adoration Chapel deepens one’s faith and love for Jesus. Also this month I would ask you to join me offering a Mass of Reparation. A Mass of Reparation is a powerful way of counteracting disrespect and sacrilege against the Eucharist. When you think about it, it is amazing that Jesus – through whom all things were created – comes to us in such a humble form. The fact that he makes himself so defenseless imposes on us the duty to do all we can to defend the Eucharist from sacrilege. As a reminder of this sacred duty, we will have several Masses of Reparation during this month of August. You will notice the times in the Mass Intentions section of the bulletin.

Fr. Phil is pastor of Holy Family in West Seattle. Do check out his parish if you happen to be in Seattle. Great priest and great man.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker Interviews Anne Rice!

Pretty cool. His ever-interesting blog is here. The interview is on the First Things site.

Oregon to Aging Boomers: The Bean Counters Don't Feel Like Covering Your Cancer Treatment, But We Will Happily Murder You on the Cheap

A cloud no bigger than a man's hand presaging the coming quiet slaughter of the Boomers as they get too expensive. A not-surprising denouement to the culture of Killing the Inconvenient Generation Narcissus has done so much to create.

Speaking of Southern Appeal...

The indomitable Feddie finds this gem from Stephen Colbert:



Worst. President. Ever.

The Sacrament of Abortion Contingent in the Dem Party Seems to be Indulging the Urge to Purge

They're feeling their oats as Obama's star ascends, so they clamp down even harder on the ideologically impure do awful things like deliver babies for free instead of abort them, or betray tastes out of sync with blue state metrosexual propriety.

Of course, as Larison points out, the Right has been no stranger to similar Robespierre-like tendencies during the reign of the End to Evil crowd.

I'm on Teresa Tomeo's Show This Morning

I'll be on around 9:15 EDT. You can stream it on your computer if you click on the link above. We're talking about this conference I will be speaking at this weekend:

CATHOLICS LEARN HOW TO ANSWER THE KNOCK AT THE DOOR FROM JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES

Fellowship of Catholic Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses Host First-Ever Conference

Weirton, West Virginia, July 15, 2008 – It’s a well-known scenario: there is a knock at the front door; a member of a Catholic family answers the door only to be kindly confronted by a member of the Jehovah’s Witness ‘religion’. More often than not, many Catholics are uncertain how to respond to the claims made by the Jehovah’s Witness wanting to share their understanding of their faith. Help for Catholics is on the way!

For the first time every, popular Catholic Exchange writers and editors, Mark Shea and Mary Kochan, are speaking at the Welcome Home! Catholic Conference from August 1 through August 3 in Weirton, West Virginia. The conference is sponsored by the Fellowship of Catholic Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses.

According to their official web site, Jehovah’s Witnesses proclaim that God’s name is Jehovah and that Christ is God’s Son, but that is inferior to God – that there is no Trinity. The group also believes that the human soul ceases to exits at death – no everlasting life, and that only 144,000 believers will go to heaven. These beliefs are contrary to the Catholic Church.

Mary Kochan – who was raised a third-generation Jehovah’s Witness – will be speaking about cults on Friday evening, August 1st. She will discuss topics such as who gets into cults; what happens to people while they are in a cult; and how to get out of a cult.

Mark Shea, a convert to the Catholic Church and senior editor of Catholic Exchange, will speak August 2 on how the Catholic Church interprets Sacred Scripture.

Rev. Nicholas Gregoris will answer the questions “Were the Early Church Fathers Catholic?” and Mr. John Davis, a former Jehovah’s Witness elder will give a talk entitled “Defending the Divinity of Christ”. Other speakers include converts who once worked at the world headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses – one of the three largest anti-Trinitarian sects in the world and one of the most virulently anti-Catholic groups.

Hear amazing stories of conversion and meet people who have sacrificed family relationships because they left the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Learn how to help family members or friends who are Jehovah’s Witnesses; find out how to assist former members of cult groups who are coming into the Catholic Church; inoculate your own family members against recruitment into a cult; and learn how to deal with the mission field that knocks on your door.

Click here for the complete agenda and for registration information: http://www.catholicxjw.com/whconference.html. For more information about the Welcome Home! Catholic Conference, please contact Mary Kochan at mkochan@CatholicExchange.com.

To schedule an interview with Mark Shea or Mary Kochan, please contact Christine Schicker of The Maximus Group at 404-610-8871.

O Rapture! O Joy!

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is Available Again!



A bit crude in spots but way fun in that Joss Whedony way.

Favorite line: It's not enough to bash in heads/you've got. to. bash. in. miiiiiiinds!

Washington: The Only State in the Union Where This Could Possibly Happen

We are a people who compensate for our contempt for the Big Laws of God with an extreme reverence for the small laws of men.

I So Miss the Kennedy-Nixon Debates

And Lincoln-Douglas is right out. Today, Presidential candidates need to call in airstrikes from Britney Spears/Paris Hilton and Ludacris in order to appeal to a constituency of plump, TV-educated aging teenagers.

I tremble for our country.

Christian Witness in the Aftermath of Hate

Just a reminder: Some folks are setting aside August as a month of prayer both for reparation for such sins as Myers' act of desecration and for the soul of Myers and Co.

Maureen Wittman writes:

I thought as a writer and a Catholic homeschool dad would enjoy these short YouTube videos from Kaleb Nation . Check out the ones on what he would do if he becomes a really famous writer, what you find in a writer's bag, and the one on signing his book contract. Pretty good and definitely bloggable.

Pretty cool kid. Catholic homeschooled and filled with talent. He does web design (including my website), hosts a syndicated radio show (Top 5) and has a 7-book contract.

He was in an online writing club I used to host for homeschooled kids and now here he is on his way to Jo Rowling status. Well, maybe not JK status exactly, but a 7-book deal for his fantasy series at 19 is way too cool.

Hey, have you checked out Unity of Truth lately? Speaking of YouTube videos, there's some cool science videos there you may like.

Very cool stuff! Thanks!

Ted Stevens Indicted; Bushies Jigger the Books to Hide the $789 BILLION Budget Deficit and Hand on a $9.49 TRILLION National Debt

The Worst President Ever works in bipartisan harmony with the Worst Congress Ever to give us--what we chose.

Democracy: A system for giving people the government they are willing to settle for.

I honestly never believed I'd see a worse President than Clinton. I owe the man an apology. As egregious as he was, he never got away with what these people have.

Good News!

A reader writes

Thank you for the prayers and fasting offered. It was the Lord's perfect and holy will she survive the surgery. She is in great pain and will be for several days, she is projected to be hospitalized for about 10 days of the recovery. The medical goal now is that fluid from her brain will stay where it is designed to be and not enter her spinal chord... so please continue to pray for this intention - if it be the will of The Perfect One.

Thanks be to God for he gracious love!

Post-Christian Culture Feels Its Way Back to Sanity

Pathetic victims of Generation Narcissus' scorched earth approach to sexual wisdom are now feeling their way back to ideas like "commitment". The story I link above announces that the way many youth are announcing "I love you and want to make it permanent" is, not with an engagement ring, but by taking off the condom.

Scripture describes Jesus as having pity on his flock because they were like sheep without a shepherd. I think the response of Jesus to a story like this is pity. In their own sad way, the youth in this story are facing reality far more clearly than their idiot parents who labored to reduce sex to a plumbing problem. Marriage is indeed the sacrament of sex and the sexual act is indeed the body's declaration of lifelong fidelity. Contraception is the crossed fingers behind the back, the way of saying "Well, not really" while the lips say "I love you and give myself completely to you and our family."

So the poor pitiable kids whose highest expression of love is to take off a condom is rather like the widow who offered two copper coins. It's all he has and the Lord can work with that. Far more pitiable are the dolts who handed him that contraceptive culture in the first place and sold him the whole bill of good about the Imperial Autonomous Self. My generation has so much to answer for.

Conspiracy Theory

In which we discuss the only conspiracy theory I take seriously.

Stealing from Supernaturalism

In which we talk about the New Atheist habit of shoplifting from God.

Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and his anointed.

Sorry I'm late by the by...

I had the exhilarating new experience of hosting rather than guesting on a radio show today. Dr. Tom Curran's Sound Insight runs every weekday on KBLE 1050 AM here in Seattle and on 970 AM KTTO in Spokane. I've guested on it several times and Tom asked me if I could helm the show today and again in the middle of August, so I thought I'd give it a try.

In the words of Barbie, radio is hard (at least if you are the host). Or at any rate, harder than you'd think even when you've guested a lot. That's because you have to be aware of stuff like "no dead air" and making sure that you time your breaks in the conversation to breaks in the programming schedule. We did pretty good today, but I'm still aware of some flubs (probably more aware than the audience was).

On the whole though, it was big fun and gave me some experience so I will know what I'm doing better next time.

A reader drops $20 in the tip jar and writes:

I'm bored, please post something to your blog :)

Done!

(Boy, this blogging thing is easy!)

When I Grow Up, I Hope to Be Able to Write Like John Zmirak

So as soon as I heard about Catholic dating sites, I signed up for several of them. I wrote up a long and learned-sounding profile, posted pics I hoped were appealing, and began to send off notes to a wide array of bright-seeming, good-looking girls. I tramped off to Boston, Washington, Virginia, North Carolina, even Iowa. I learned (after more years than I’d like to admit) that phone conversations don’t always predict how two people will get along in person, and that photos can sometimes be… flattering. There are few things worse than having arranged to spend the better part of a weekend with someone six states from home… and realizing within 8 seconds or so that you want to go back to the airport. It’s worse, of course, when you’re the one still dazzled by surface attraction, and she’s staring at you like the burrito in which she found a human finger.

The whole thing is a delight. Tolle, lege.

By the way, at least one of Zmirak's commenters responds to this lovely story with:

What in the world does this journal entry have to do with paleoconservatism or anything remotely relevant to political discourse? I read through this entire thread with the expectation that you would somehow connect this personal story with something of at least minor political significance. Needless to say, this expectation was not met. Must I remind you that this a website for true political debate rather than a platform for you to share mundane information about your personal life? What makes you think anyone wants to read such dribble? Mr. Zmirak, to be blunt, you’re just not that important.

...which just goes to show that Brights don't have a lock on the whole Napoleon Dynamite with a Mean Streak thing. They're just better at it than most.

The Head of the Church of V. Gene Robinson Adores His God in the Mirror

Me. Me! ME!

Cuz If There's One Thing the GOP Knows, It's Sound Fiscal Policy

Idiot Babbles

“I guess it’s freedom of speech. I’m sure people got pissed off, but I don’t think it was offensive. I don’t really think that Jesus sucks.”

His original plan was to fly a banner reading "Heil Hitler." But he settled on something more tasteful.

Two things impress me about this story. The first is the sheer mindless cowardice of the guy. He can't admit, "Yeah. I'm a dick. I did it to offend." He has to try to pretend that the people he kicks in the teeth--for the sheer adolescent pleasure of bullying somebody who won't retaliate--are the real bad guys because they are humorless.

The other thing that strikes me is how different a culture Christianity creates. A majority-Christian culture is one which takes for granted that the Big Dog should expect to be made fun of just because he's the Big Dog and that Christianity is somehow fair game simply because it is the majority religion (at least, allegedly). Try that theory with Islam in Saudi Arabia or with communism in Soviet Russia.

Don't forget the gravity plating and inertial dampers or you're bug splat

All you need is more energy than the human race has expended in its entire history!

Have I mentioned lately that we're never going to colonize the stars?

Ever.

John C. Wright's Shriek of Anguish Pierces the Heavens

John also patiently deconstructs the various atheists attempt to derive Ought from their universe of Is.

Bottom line: If you are an atheist, you have to smuggle in a supernatural worldview to maintain whatever fragments of Ought you want to maintain. Fools like Hitchens think they have gotten around this by saying that it was not news to the recipients of the Ten Commandments that murder was wrong. But this only shows that Hitchens has not really thought about the implications of the Church's teaching on natural law, which freely grants that *of course* people with no exposure to revelation know certain aspects of the natural law. That's because they are human and humans are in the image and likeness of God. So people recognize something sacred there from the get go. All revelation does is clarify those basic, and fundamentally supernatural, moral intuitions. Atheism is an acid that inevitably corrodes the natural apprehension of the human person as a supernatural being. Really truly atheist philosophers like Richard Rorty have the number of the New Atheists and their moral posturing. He writes that there is no universally valid answer to moral questions such as, “Why not be cruel?”

Anybody who thinks that there are well-grounded theoretical answers to this sort of question . . . is still, in his heart, a theologian or a metaphysician. He believes in an order beyond time and change which both determines the point of human existence and establishes a hierarchy of responsibilities.

The New Atheists like Myers and Hitchens loudly declare Nothing is Sacred and then just as loudly declare that reason, intellectual liberty, science, their loved ones, human dignity (for humans they happen to like) and many other things are sacred and inviolable. That passionate love of the sacred is what fills their rhetoric with such fire.

Rorty's point is that it's all a theft from a covert belief in something that transcends the mere realm of Is. Some Ought binds time, space, matter, and energy whirling through their paces when these phenomena happen to take the shape of a human being. That's why Myers tried to provide a fig leaf for his desecration by citing the mistreatment of Jews in the 13th Century: they *ought* not be mistreated. Rorty's point is that, however you slice it, this is rubbish. If you are going to have a world of Is alone, then deal with it and stop trying to have the benefits of a Judeo-Christian world of a Transcendent Ought with none of the obligations. If you are going to say Nothing is Sacred then say it and don't take it back by sentimentalizing about the piece of matter who happens to be your child or a persecuted Jew or whatever it is you are trying to privilege. Appeals to evolutionary programming "making" you care about your child are all well and good, but why should I care if your pet object of sanctity is in the way of sufficiently big plans for my personal gain and I can get away with it?

The New Atheists have given astonishingly little thought to any of this. They simply go on braying, "Oh, that will never happen!" when you point out that a universe where Nothing is Sacred is a universe ripe for mass murder, particularly when not a few voices in our culture are saying things like "We must save the Planet!" and "Fewer People, Less Pollution!" After all, when has an atheist regime ever slaughtered people in the name of Hygiene?

The Prophet Chesterton explains that the intellectual blindness afflicting the New Evangelical Atheist is, in fact, a defective form of faith:

[L]ooking back on older religious crises, I seem to see a certain coincidence, or rather, a set of things too coincident to be called a coincidence After all, when I come to think of it, all the other revolts against the Church, before the Revolution and especially since the Reformation, had told the same strange story. Every great heretic had always exhibit three remarkable characteristics in combination. First, he picked out some mystical idea from the Church's bundle or balance of mystical ideas. Second, he used that one mystical idea against all the other mystical ideas. Third (and most singular), he seems generally to have had no notion that his own favourite mystical idea was a mystical idea, at least in the sense of a mysterious or dubious or dogmatic idea. With a queer uncanny innocence, he seems always to have taken this one thing for granted. He assumed it to be unassailable, even when he was using it to assail all sorts of similar things. The most popular and obvious example is the Bible. To an impartial pagan or sceptical observer, it must always seem the strangest story in the world; that men rushing in to wreck a temple, overturning the altar and driving out the priest, found there certain sacred volumes inscribed "Psalms" or "Gospels"; and (instead of throwing them on the fire with the rest) began to use them as infallible oracles rebuking all the other arrangements. If the sacred high altar was all wrong, why were the secondary sacred documents necessarily all right? If the priest had faked his Sacraments, why could he not have faked his Scriptures? Yet it was long before it even occurred to those who brandished this one piece of Church furniture to break up all the other Church furniture that anybody could be so profane as to examine this one fragment of furniture itself. People were quite surprised, and in some parts of the world are still surprised, that anybody should dare to do so.

Again, the Calvinists took the Catholic idea of the absolute knowledge and power of God; and treated it as a rocky irreducible truism so solid that anything could be built on it, however crushing or cruel. They were so confident in their logic, and its one first principle of predestination, that they tortured the intellect and imagination with dreadful deductions about God, that seemed to turn Him into a demon. But it never seems to have struck them that somebody might suddenly say that he did not believe in the demon. They were quite surprised when people called "infidels" here and there began to say it. They had assumed the Divine foreknowledge as so fixed, that it must, if necessary, fulfil itself by destroying the Divine mercy. They never thought anybody would deny the knowledge exactly as they denied the mercy. Then came Wesley and the reaction against Calvinism; and Evangelicals seized on the very Catholic idea that mankind has a sense of sin; and they wandered about offering everybody release from his mysterious burden of sin. It is a proverb, and almost a joke, that they address a stranger in the street and offer to relax his secret agony of sin. But it seldom seemed to strike them, until much later, that the man in the street might possibly answer that he did not want to be saved from sin, any more than from spotted fever or St. Vitus's Dance; because these things were not in fact causing him any suffering at all. They, in their turn, were quite surprised when the result of Rousseau and the revolutionary optimism began to express itself in men claiming a purely human happiness and dignity; a contentment with the comradeship of their kind; ending with the happy yawp of Whitman that he would not "lie awake and weep for his sins."

Now the plain truth is that Shelley and Whitman and the revolutionary optimists were themselves doing exactly the same thing all over again. They also, though less consciously because of the chaos of their times, had really taken out of the old Catholic tradition one particular transcendental idea; the idea that there is a spiritual dignity in man as man, and a universal duty to love men as men. And they acted in exactly the same extraordinary fashion as their prototypes, the Wesleyans and the Calvinists. They took it for granted that this spiritual idea was absolutely self-evident like the sun and moon; that nobody could ever destroy that, though in the name of it they destroyed everything else. They perpetually hammered away at their human divinity and human dignity, and inevitable love for all human beings; as if these things were naked natural facts. And now they are quite surprised when new and restless realists suddenly explode, and begin to say that a pork-butcher with red whiskers and a wart on his nose does not strike them as particularly divine or dignified, that they are not conscious of the smallest sincere impulse to love him, that they could not love him if they tried, or that they do not recognize any particular obligation to try.

It might appear that the process has come to an end, and that there is nothing more for the naked realist to shed. But it is not so; and the process can still go on. There are still traditional charities to which men cling. There are still traditional charities for them to fling away when they find they are only traditional. Everybody must have noticed in the most modern writers the survival of a rather painful sort of pity. They no longer honour all men, like St. Paul and the other mystical democrats. It would hardly be too much to say that they despise all men; often (to do them justice) including themselves. But they do in a manner pity all men, and particularly those that are pitiable; by this time they extend the feeling almost disproportionately to the other animals. This compassion for men is also tainted with its historical connection with Christian charity; and even in the case of animals, with the example of many Christian saints. There is nothing to show that a new revulsion from such sentimental religions will not free men even from the obligation of pitying the pain of the world. Not only Nietzsche, but many Neo-Pagans working on his lines, have suggested such hardness as a higher intellectual purity. And having read many modern poems about the Man of the Future, made of steel and illumined with nothing warmer than green fire, I have no difficulty in imagining a literature that should pride itself on a merciless and metallic detachment. Then, perhaps, it might be faintly conjectured that the last of the Christian virtues had died. But so long as they lived they were Christian.

Interesting piece on, of all things, Brideshead Revisited and the X Files

Reading it, I'm once again reminded of the delightful quip, "I'm religious, but not spiritual".

I think it would be an interesting exercise to try to get a "spiritual" person to make clear what he or she means when they say that.

The Chinese Have Their Paris Hiltons too

"I don't see why people are so negative. The games are about friendship," Zhang was quoted as saying in the current issue of Vogue. "I'm Chinese and I'm proud of my country."

Of course, her family may have machine guns at their heads. Paris Hilton is what she is of her own free will.

Buchanan on Baby Boomer 2.0 and his Plans for an Excellent Adventure

Can we just write Generation Narcissus off as a total loss and start over? Obama soooo doesn't know what he's doing and so many people have put such absurd hope in this guy.

Time Publishes Definitive Obama Puff Piece

Oniony goodness.

Something Nancy Pelosi and I agree on!

From a puff piece:

Most recently she has turned to Pope Benedict XVI’s “Jesus of Nazareth.”

“It’s like reading, but it’s also almost a meditation,” she says.

It turns out liking a Latin American novelist and reading Benedict constitutes a "penchant for the mystical". You learn something every day!

Murder Inc.: Class with a Capital K

Dawn Eden has the scoop.

I like the concept, but I'm still leaning toward Holy Roman Emperor Marcus Sheavius I

Seriously, as we move further and further into the post-Constitutional Presidency and the machinery of government demonstrates more and more that the actual Constitution is, in the words of Barbossa, "more of a guideline", we voters have very few ways to register protest. One of them is certainly to just not vote or (in my case) to vote for some doomed quixotic candidate who actually thinks the Constitution is still the law and the natural law is still binding even on us.

By the way, I think Farah is *way* full of hype: "There's never been a book like 'None of the Above' in modern American political history!!!!!!"

MmmmHm.

What You Will Never Ever Ever Ever Hear

"Why wasn't the money spent on this given to the poor instead?"

A reader writes:

Comment re: PZ Myers - Rod Dreher - James Davison Hunter - "seize power" moments.

This reminds me of something Peter Kreeft pointed out some time ago: Mussolini's definition of fascism as essentially relativistic, or as applied relativism.

Why? Because, if there is no Truth over and above your point of view and mine -- that is, if your point of view and mine are not actually views *of* anything
over and above our subjectivities - why then there is no reason not to impose your own point of view (and/or that of your gang) with all the energy of which you are capable.

Just so. Fascism is applied relativism. Like all the devils promises, it delivers exactly the opposite of what is promised. Relativism promises freedom and intellectual liberty. It delivers bondage and groupthink. Reading Myers and his culties is like plugging into a Hive Mind.

More Weirdness from the Bottlers of Homestarrunner.com

Prayful Preparation for the Election

Seamus Speaks Real Slow So Even Emotional Defectives and Socially Inept Dorks Can Understand

One of PZ Myers' fellow emotional and social defectives wrote in to say:

I see little line-crossing by Myers. He is not Catholic and has no obligation to treat supposedly magical crackers as anything but crackers.

Reader Seamus replied:

No, but I presume that even by his own, atheistic lights he has an obligation not to be a dick, and it is clear that, even by the standards of an ordinary atheist, he was being a dick.

I mean, for example, that a reasonable, decent atheist might believe that there is nothing sacred about a human corpse (and certainly no reason to need to treat it respectfully because it would eventually be reunited with the soul that used to animate it), yet think it sick and disgusting (dickish, if you will), to deliberately mutilate a corpse for the express purpose of pissing off people.

Yep. Normal people with normal emotional and social affective skills understand this without it having to be explained. Even if you believe the dearly departed is a piece of cooling meat, you don't enter the funeral home under false pretenses and then photograph yourself driving a nail through his forehead, just to show people that "nothing is sacred" and the corpse is just a piece of meat. To somebody, that corpse is sacred.

Brights tend, by an abnormally large statistical bulge, to not even see the problem. And when you explain it to them, they act like the sort of person who doesn't understand what was factually incorrect when they said, "Gee, for a fat lady, you sure don't sweat much" to the visiting neighbor. They argue like high school sophomores about fine points and technicalities. They simply don't get how ordinary people act in adult society.

And they consider themselves qualified to run the world.

By the way, folks who happened to be here over the weekend saw multiple attempts by one such socially inept member of the Bright ubermenschen to hog the comboxes with lots of attempts to explain to us members of the lower orders why we were so silly. Posts which begin discussion of eucharistic desecration with sneers about how stupid its victims are or with elaborate explanation of how good and innocent the desecrator is get immediately deleted. Posts which demand an explanation for the deletion and explain that I am "terrified" of the emotional defective I deleted get banned. And posts by emotional defectives who subvert the ban get banned without reading.

One (1) nonbeliever has been able to carry on a civil conversation about this act of desecration in my comboxes, demonstrating basic social skills and emotional/relational abilities that did not immediately get him canned. All the rest have displayed, to varying degrees, the kind of relational abilities exhibited here:



Steve Sailer once said that George Bush was Chauncey Gardner with a mean streak. PZ Myers and his cult are Napoleon Dynamite with a mean streak.

Update: As if ordained by God to demonstrate everything I'm saying, Kaltrosomos stoops down to speak to the lower orders and offer insights like:

"If you want people to respect your beliefs, you should have beliefs that are easier to respect in the first place."

and

"Catholics say they celebrate the torture of a jewish man from 2000 years ago "

and

"So why insinuate that he is a corpse by your choice of analogy? "

and

"Comparing a piece of bread to a corpse is a bad analogy."

He's gone now. You will be too if you offer similar insights to the lower orders, declare people like Kaltro to be Free Speech Martyrs, or demonstrate by other such alloys of theological ignorance, emotional defectiveness, vaulting arrogance, and high school dork cleverness that you are a Bright. When Kaltrosomos grow some social skills in addition to bowhunting, nunchuk and computer hacking skills, he's welcome back.

What Happens When an Entertainment Consumer Culture Goes to War

Basically, in your fear, you tell yourself stories and then believe the stories and act accordingly:

The most influential legal thinker in the development of modern American interrogation policy is not a behavioral psychologist, international lawyer or counterinsurgency expert. Reading both Jane Mayer's stunning "The Dark Side," and Philippe Sands's "Torture Team," it quickly becomes plain that the prime mover of American interrogation doctrine is none other than the star of Fox television's "24," Jack Bauer.

This fictional counterterrorism agent—a man never at a loss for something to do with an electrode—has his fingerprints all over U.S. interrogation policy. As Sands and Mayer tell it, the lawyers designing interrogation techniques cited Bauer more frequently than the Constitution.

According to British lawyer and writer Sands, Jack Bauer—played by Kiefer Sutherland—was an inspiration at early "brainstorming meetings" of military officials at Guantánamo in September 2002. Diane Beaver, the staff judge advocate general who gave legal approval to 18 controversial interrogation techniques including waterboarding, sexual humiliation and terrorizing prisoners with dogs, told Sands that Bauer "gave people lots of ideas." Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security chief, gushed in a panel discussion on "24" organized by the Heritage Foundation that the show"reflects real life."

No. It does not reflect real life. That is a lie. But when you allow sin to darken the intellect and make you stupid, that's what you do: lie, believe the lie, and then act on the lie.

For my take on this sort of insanity, go here and here.

God grant that this deplorable spasm of national cowardice end soon.

The Next Step in Myeresque Atheist Evolution After Desecration of the Eucharist

Karen Massey, who lived two houses from Adkisson's home, told the Knoxville News Sentinel of a lengthy conversation she had with Adkisson a couple years ago after she told him her daughter had just graduated from Johnson Bible College. She said she ended up having to explain to him that she was a Christian.

"He almost turned angry," she told the newspaper. "He seemed to get angry at that. He said that everything in the Bible contradicts itself if you read it."

Massey said Adkisson talked frequently about his parents, who "made him go to church all his life. ... He acted like he was forced to do that."

The great thing about stories like this is that, whatever happens, it's the fault of Christianity. The guy did it cuz his parent made him go to Church. See how destructive religion is?

Myers' concluded his desecration with the credal formula: "Nothing is sacred."

Of course, Myers being both deeply ignorant and dishonest, he managed to simultaneously lie to his disciples and himself. Myers hold any number of thing sacred, as he should. He holds the three pound piece of meat behind his eyes sacred. He holds those he loves sacred. He even hold certain symbols sacred, such as that complex symbol system known as Science.

But, as is the case with destructive revolutionaries, he cannot believe that things he takes for granted will one day be subjected to the same corrosive bath of skepticism that he reserves for the objects of his hatred. It's one of the strange metaphysical blind spots of current materialist atheists. It never occurs to such people that somebody will take the dogma "Nothing is sacred" and apply it to something they take for granted as sacrosanct, such as reason, or life, or the things they love. Catholics who respond to profanation of the sacred with threats of violence are rank traitors to Christ and all that is holy. Atheists who respond to profanation of the sacred by profaning everything (including human life) are simply being philosophically consistent. That is but one of the reasons Paul tells Christians to "See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ" (Colossians 2:8). Nobody is more imprisoned in tiny cell of a single idea than the fool who says there is nothing sacred.

Interesting Idea

My difficulty with so much news that comes out of the Middle East is that it's filtered by news agencies with various agendas. You can never get *entirely* away from that since individuals have agendas too. But the general rule of thumb with subsidiarity is that the people closer to the problem probably have a better handle on what's going on.

So an Israeli relief organization gave out 100 video cameras to Palestinians and basically said, "Show us what life is like for you."

Seems reasonable to me. Here's why:



Palestinians (including Christians) have been putting up with this sort of stuff forever. Here's another little taste: a bound man get shot with rubber bullets (photographed by some teenage girl out her window):



The second incident is under investigation by the Israelis. Of course, there are also reports that Palestinians who film this stuff are getting targeted. And then you have to wonder if those reports are true. And there's the Palestinians who have blown up Israelis and their evil poisoning of their kids minds.

A friend of mine long ago remarked, "What if there aren't any good guys here?" I think that's pretty close to it. But I am proud of the Israeli relief guys for trying to help those innocent Palestinians who get beaten up show all the stuff that FOXnews doesn't show. This is not a one-sided conflict and it's really past time we stopped pretending it was.

A reader writes:

My sister Julie will have surgery to remove a Chiari malformation from her head (a serious condition that could cause sudden death with as little as a sneeze).

Surgery is set for Monday at 8am central time.

May God allow her to conitinue to raise her 3 young kids with her husband.

May the Lord's perfect and holy will be done.

God is outside time, so retroactive prayers are perfectly welcome.

Lord, hear our prayer. Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Luke, please intercede for Julie and her doctors that the surgery will go well and she will be restored to health through Christ our Lord. Amen!

Free Purity Videos for Catholic Youths

Minimum Daily Adult Requirement Christianity: Working Hard to Avoid the Obvious

"Like Limbo, Torture Death Penalty Clemency Birth Control Teachings Are NOT Infallible Ex Cathedra"

Someone should write an all-purpose article that adherents of different political ideologies can just cut-and-paste whenever they need to minimize or explain away with the ol' "You didn't say 'Simon Peter' says!" excuse for ignoring the obvious teaching of the Church. After all, as we all know, if the Church doesn't dogmatically define it and absolutely compel you to do it, then you can pretty much blow it off. That's called "prudential judgment" and "listening to your conscience". And if anybody suggests that you are bound to follow the normal teaching of the Church unless you have desperately good reason not to, that's because they are fundamentalist rigorists.

Hey California! A reader sends this along
> I am working with a family from San Ysidro. There is a 14
> yr old girl that is pregnant due in early November. She
> was still getting encouragement from family to have an
> abortion and the birthfather (who is 20 years older than
> she ) suggested she just leave the baby in the trash. I am
> speaking with her older sister who is advocating for
> adoption….i’m going to meet with them tomorrow morning.
> The sister is hoping I can find a “host home” for the
> 14 yr old so she’s away from bad influences. Her mother
> suggested giving the baby to the brother but the sis told
> me he used crystal meth….. Sooooooooooooooooo……..
> if you know of anyone who might have a spare room and a
> heart for this young girl….would you forward this email?
>
>
> Thank you and God’s blessing on you….Sarah
>
> Sarah Jensen Elhoff Director
> Adoption Center of San Diego
> 6046 Cornerstone Ct. W #135
> San Diego, CA 92121
> 858 535 3033
> www.adoption-center.org

The American Society for Velociraptor Attack Prevention

I'm glad to see somebody's finally tackling this problem.

A reader writes:

Can you read over this article and give me a 'thumbs mostly up, down or sideways'?

Nonoverlapping Magisteria (NOMA) by Stephan Jay Gould.

I can recognize several eye-rolling moments in the reading, but on the whole, seems pretty cool to me. The author seems to be trying his honest best.

Anyways, I was hoping to hand this article to a New Atheist-type friend as a starting point to actually being able to speak the same "language"! hehe. I think he would understand this sort of idea. Should I roll with it?

Any notes or clarifications I can/should pass along?

Oh yeah,

Made me think of this beautiful little speech in Chesterton's 'The Ball and The Cross" in which Mr. Evan Maclan (our Catholic hero) says to Mr. James Turnbull (our honourable atheist):

I was born and bred and taught in a complete universe. The supernatural was not natural, but it was perfectly reasonable. Nay, the supernatural to me is more reasonable than the natural; for the supernatural is a direct message from God, who is reason. I was taught that some things are natural and some things divine. I mean that some things are mechanical and some things divine.

Love that bit about a "complete universe."

Indeed, Catholics don't lose anything scientific by being Catholic; atheists, on the other hand, lose out on a lot. You have to purposefully ignore an entire part of life - it must be exhausting! No wonder they're so dysfunctional and angry.

Anyhoo, any pointers would be much appreciated!

Gould was, I think, one of the good guys. He was an atheist who had not made atheism his raison d'etre, and so could speak to people with whom he disagreed with respect. Not driven to prove that Religion Poisons Everything he could recognize the bleedin' obvious fact that religion (and in the West that means the fusion of Greco-Roman pagan culture and Jewish culture in the forge of the Christian revelation) was the foundation of practically everything worthwhile in the world, including the sciences. So he could write generous articles in praise of Bishop Ussher's attempt to work with the data he had to calculate the date of Creation, instead of simply churning out The Usual Screed about how stupid faithheads are for believing all that rot.

The primary difficulty I have with Gould is that his "No Overlapping Magisteria" notion is an attempt to reconcile faith and science in way that just doesn't work, because (not surprisingly) he doesn't understand the Magisterium. He wants' to say "Scientists are the authorities in all matters concerning time, space, matter and energy and religous people are the authorities in matters of faith, doctrine, morals, etc." He's an atheist who does not suffer from the emotional defectiveness of a Myersite or Dawkins or some of the other social inepts who so often combine a sort of rationalist materialism with an extreme inability to process elementary emotional and social cues. Consequently, he gets it that just because you can't quantify something that doesn't make it unreal.

What he doesn't get is that there is a further distinction between unquantifiable things like love, respect, compassion, goodness, etc. and matters of faith in, for instance, real spiritual beings like angels or a Triune God. So he winds up talking about matters of faith as though they are purely subjective (read: "imaginary"). And that means NOMA basically says "Scientists are in charge of reality. Religious people handle the fantasy and all the stuff that irrational people busy themselves with." That means, in practice, that anytime somebody who fancies himself a scientist feels like it, he can intrude on matters of faith (to, say, desecrate the Eucharist) and declare that he is doing it in the name of Science. But if people of faith point out that God, under carefully controlled laboratory conditions, does whatever he wants and will occasionally jigger with time, space, matter and energy to, say, cause a Host to bleed, or make the sun dance at Fatima, or miraculously heal Peter Smith's destroyed eyes (a friend of mine once had lunch with him), or multiply loaves and fishes, or raise Jesus Christ from the dead, that is treated as an intrusion on science. And nowhere is this more the case than in the question of human origins, about which we still know virtually nothing. All the most important matters of the human person--his heart, spirit, will and soul--are things about which we can glean virtually nothing from fossil remains. What we do know is that as soon as man is recognizably human (indeed, even slightly before if we count homo neanderthalensis and his funerals) he is acting like a creature aware of the supernatural in a way that absolutely nothing else on this planet ever did.

So, though I appreciate Gould's attempts to be generous and find them vastly wiser than the low-rent antics of Dawkins and Myers, I think he's making a mistake. If God is God at all, he is God of all that is, including all the stuff the sciences study. Sometimes he rudely does things that Science can't predict or account for--like rise from the dead or answer prayers in a particularly miraculous way. Usually, he works through the normal course of nature. It is great for science to predict what nature will normally do. It is most unwise for science to attempt to tell God what he is not allowed to do or what he must always do. Similarly, it is very unwise to conflate the Faith with the subjective or imaginary. The faith has a habit of busting out of those sort of hasty, shallow graves.

A reader writes:

A Catholic blog, "St. Peter Canisius Apostolate" (/) has proposed a great idea. Let's make August 2008 the "Pray for PZ Myers" month.

Works for me.

Speaking of which, Rod Dreher has an insightful post up about the line crossed. I think Myers should (but won't) be fired for what he's done. My concern in this matter has been the breakdown in societal protections for Catholics and other people of faith. Attacks on the Eucharist are attacks on the soul of the Church. When a culture's immune systems break down to the point where such things are winked at, it will not be long before attacks on the body follow. That's why I've urged that when attackers move from verbal attacks to theft and vandalism of the Eucharist, there be civil penalties. However, if our culture is now so sick that it will no longer protect Catholics from such things, then Catholics had better buckle up and get ready to face persecution like saints. Myers act was a "seize power" moment. There will be more such moments. Catholics must not reply by attempting to seize the One Ring for themselves. An appeal to the civil authority to preserve the common good was and is appropriate when thugs like Myers trespass on the common good. But if the civil authority (in this case the Administration or state) refuse to respond due to cowardice, prejudice or corruption, it is the place of Catholics, at any rate, to suffer the wrong, not take retaliation into their own hands. Certainly we can work through legitimate channels to change the civil authority through the exercise of voting and free speech, etc. But we should be very cautious about getting involved in a power struggle because those very quickly stop being about God and start being about Me. And the last thing anybody needs is more Mes out there fighting to be top dog.

Cloverfield: Facebook Generation Gets Eaten by Monsters

Watched the DVD last night. It was pretty fun, in a sort of postmodern disjointed way. It has that JJ Abrams touch of never quite allowing you to know everything thats going in on, so that there's always a bit more mystery right off the edge of the screen. What's the monster? Why is it there? The mind that made the film is quite plainly the mind behind Lost. The main interest was seeing what choices people make when they go from being New York twentysomethings hooking up to 9/11 levels of stress. Cinematically, it was a technical tour de force because they have to make the destruction of NYC by monster all look like it was shot on some home video. Very impressive. Not for the sort of person who doesn't like any gore.

A good buck rental.

Pretty busy today so I'll see you Monday

Noses. Beans. Observe the Protocols.

Unbeliever Blasphemes the Lightworker

If you are sort of sick person who finds this funny, then you might enjoy this too.

Jimmy Akin Sez: P.Z. Myers Must Be Fired

I agree. The man was free to say whatever demented stuff he liked on his blog. Solicitation for readers to steal and desecrate the Eucharist has crossed the line.

Jimmy writes:

Although he carried out his action. in his words, to support the idea that "Nothing must be held sacred" (also trashing a few pages of The God Delusion, a book with which he is in sympathy), he did not merely tell people that nothing must be held sacred. Nor did he argue for it. Claiming that nothing must be held sacred or proposing arguments for this proposition are a subject that can be discussed in a civil, respectful manner.

Instead, P. Z. Myers surreptitiously obtained and then desecrated something that is held most sacred by numerous individuals. He went out of his way to offend, to provoke the most deeply held sentiments of others, and he did so in full knowledge of what he was doing, as witnessed by the fact that he complains repeatedly on his blog about all of the outraged complaints he has been receiving from Catholics via e-mail.

In desecrating what Catholics hold most sacred--and what Muslims hold sacred as well--P. Z. Myers has fundamentally compromised himself as an educator.

He has made himself unsuitable for employment as an educator.

In particular, he has made himself unsuitable for employment as an educator at a state-run school, such as the University of Minnesota Morris.

It would be one thing if an employee of a private school--say, Bob Jones University--had desecrated the Eucharist. But state schools have a special responsibility to the citizens of the state to employ educators who will be respectful in their conduct towards the students, parents, alumni, and citizens of the state--including the Catholic and Muslim ones.

P. Z. Myers has demonstrated that he will go out of his way to offend the sensibilities of anybody who holds anything sacred, to treat whatever they hold sacred with public contempt. The problem thus is not limited to Catholics and Muslims. Since, in Myers own words, "Nothing must be held sacred," and since he is willing to desecrate anything that others do hold sacred, the university must conclude that Myers is willing not only to outrage Catholic and Muslim students, parents, alumni, and citizens but members of any other group as well.

Myers is thus incapable of effectively carrying out his mission as an educator and his position must be terminated.

He also is in violation of the University of Minnesota Code of Conduct, which holds that faculty members "must be committed to the highest ethical standards of conduct" (II:2) and that "Ethical conduct is a fundamental expectation for every community member. In practicing and modeling ethical conduct, community members are expected to: act according to the highest ethical and professional standards of conduct [and] be personally accountable for individual actions" (III:1).

It also stresses that faculty members must "Be Fair and Respectful to Others. The University is committed to tolerance, diversity, and respect for differences. When dealing with others, community members are expected to: be respectful, fair, and civil . . . avoid all forms of harassment . . . [and] threats . . . [and] promote conflict resolution."

P. Z. Myers has done none of these things. He is in fundamental breach of the University of Minnesota's Code of Conduct and must be discharged.

To voice your opinion on this subject, contact the offices of the president and the chancellor:

President Robert H. Bruininks
202 Morrill Hall
100 Church Street S.E.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Via phone: 612-626-1616
Via fax: 612-625-3875
Via e-mail: upres@umn.edu

Chancellor Jacqueline Johnson
309 Behmler Hall
600 East 4th Street
Morris, MN 56267

320-589-6020
E-mail: grussing@morris.umn.edu

This will undoubtedly be portrayed as a free speech matter. That's a lie. Myers has been speaking blasphemously about the Eucharist forever and if he'd kept his views verbal all he'd get back is an argument. When he starts sending minion to invade our sanctuaries and stealing the Holy Eucharist, he crosses the line.

I have no idea if the UMM will respond. But Catholics have free speech rights too and we have every right to demand action. Write *respectfully* and ask that the University no longer provide sanction and sanctuary for this man.

On Pearls and Swine

Various folk from Pharygula have been making their way here to display the fact that not a few atheists suffer from some sort of personality disorder that bars them from the normal intuitive empathy that ordinary human beings have. They protest that they want to have a serious conversation, and then immediately proceed to try to justify Myers' attack on all we hold most sacred. That is the behavior of an emotional defective.

A *normal* person would, in a serious conversation, begin by saying something like, "I'd sincerely like to distance myself from the appallingly crude and stupid behavior of PZ Myers. I can see that what he has done was deeply hurtful to Catholics and, though I don't share your faith, there are some things I'd like to try to understand." This is called "elementary courtesy". The Pharyngulans have, as is customary for that crowd, shown none, so it is manifest that they are insincere.

Therefore, since they have no real interest in a conversation or in finding something out, but merely in playing games of the "Ah Ha! So you'd save a human being from a burning building before the Eucharist!" variety, I shall not bother with them and readers should be forewarned that their posts will vanish. When they demonstrate some elementary common courtesy, their questions will be treated with some respect.

To my normal readers: The basic attempt at obfuscation being made is simple.

1. Let the few idiots who responded to Myers with threats stand for all Christians everywhere.

2. Posit an either/or false dilemma like "So you are saying the Eucharist is more important than Myer's life?"

3. Ignore the fact that both Catholic teaching and everybody on this blog condemns the threats made against Myers' person.

4. Waste everybody's time with dumb attempts to justify the theft and vandalism of the Host as a free speech issue and not as theft, vandalism and incitement.

Our Lord was quite plain with such wilful refusal to acknowledge the obvious: do not give what is holy to dogs. These people haven't the slightest interest in treating either Christ or you with respect. They have lost the good of the intellect. Jesus' counsel is to not waste time with people who have rendered themselve incapable of a discussion in good faith.

Things you Don't Expect

...such as Bianca Jagger demanding wide access to the Latin Mass.

Also, it's nice to see that her love of older forms of piety has whetted, rather than dampened, her love for the Church's teaching concerning life issues, including the death penalty.

"In Germany, I think, in general people are waiting for the political redeemer."

Gosh. What could possibly be creepy about Germans falling in love with a Political Redeemer? Especially one who vows to "remake the world"?

Sometimes, I feel like I'm Peter Lorre trying to warn Cary Grant:



The Big Dope!

Evil Man Proclaims Himself a Victim

PZ Myers is busy painting himself as a victim for desecrating the Eucharist. He's driving a bunch of traffic to my site so that his goons can stop by to gibber. Some might wonder why I won't return the favor. It's easy: He's got nothing but a demented rant and a picture of a desecrated Host to offer. Who needs that?

Myers imagines he's proven something by doing this. As though Catholics imagine the Host will bleed if you cut it or reveal human cell structure if you put it under a microscope. Such primitivism is difficult to speak to. All he's really done, of course, is show that a Host is, to all appearances, bread--which is not a news flash.

The only real revelation here is that Myers is crazy and evil. And for that, the only possible remedy is prayer and forgiveness. Lord, do not hold this sin against him.

Fine Essay on Humanae Vitae from Mary Eberstadt

If ever a document was shown right by the obvious testimony of human experience, that one is. The amazing thing is, people only become more hostile to it, the more impartial research piles up to show it is right. Sexual derangement is a religion for which millions are prepared to kill and die.

Mary's Aggies comments too.

Prayers for a Dying Man

O Lord, hear our prayer!

Just a Humble Public Servant

As the Great Man triumphantly tours Europe...



I'm reminded to lookin in on the Obamamessiah blog. They have been doing yeoman work compiling all the deranged messianic tributes to this god for the godless. I continue to be astonished at the towering humility of the Lightworker and his disciples.

Here's just some of the press the Son of the Living God is getting (and is in no hurry to discourage):

Barack Obama isn't really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway.

No, it's not merely his youthful vigor, or handsomeness, or even inspiring rhetoric. It is not fresh ideas or cool charisma or the fact that a black president will be historic and revolutionary in about a thousand different ways. It is something more. Even Bill Clinton, with all his effortless, winking charm, didn't have what Obama has, which is a sort of powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity.

Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve.

Here's another choice one:

"Also, we just like to say his name. We are considering taking it as a mantra"

They serenaded the Hyde Park Democrat with chants of "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!" Obama drew such a passionate outpouring from the crowd that even he and his aides were overwhelmed. "At one point, I thought Barack was going to rise up over the people and start saying, 'My children, my children, I have come to free you,' joked his driver and bodyguard, Mike Signator. "It was just incredible."

At least he was joking.

The loopiness and hubris continues:

He's a Christian, but that doesn't mean he can't seek the blessing of pagan gods. The whole first commandment thing is so passe. This Son of God offers the Rainbow of Affirmation to all the gods of the nations. Cuz, you know, that's what being President is all about.

Speaking of the nations, some see in him, not only the Messiah, but the Mahatma and the President of All the World:

... followers willing to wait for hours on end to hear him speak have been crowding out huge concert halls and sports arenas to get a glimpse of their new progressive avatar and drive long distances to obtain the Obama darshan or to simply be in his presence. One can just imagine what the peace and flower-power concerts in the 60's might have been like. Many even see in Obama a messiah-like figure, a great soul, and some affectionately call him Mahatma Obama. Clearly, people are hungry for a change and want an inspirational leader who can serve up some hearty 'chicken soup for the soul'. ...

Like the Mahatma [Gandhi], Obama is becoming a global symbol of the 'hopes and dreams' of millions around the world. Those who look up to the American ideals, consume American media, and dream American dreams are tuned into this historic election. While Gandhi marked the end of the colonial era, Obama with his multicultural background and upbringing represents the age of globalization. Obama is in an unprecedented historical position to not only be the first African American president, but the first 'global president' of America. Obama's images on T-shirts, magazine covers, and TV screens around the world may be a harbinger of the next American century, if the American people are willing and able to lead it.

Makes sense, since he combines in his person, not simply the Messiah of Jerusalem, but the Human Wisdom of Athens:

Barack Obama is the Platonic philosopher king we’ve been looking for for the past 2,400 years.*

*Caution: there is some reason to suspect Tillman is a mocking unbeliever. If so, his kind will be cast into outer darkness, where their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched.
Film director Spike Lee, on the other hand, truly believes:

Lee predicted Obama would be elected in November.

"When that happens, it will change everything. ... You'll have to measure time
by `Before Obama' and `After Obama,'" Lee said during the panel. "It's an
exciting time to be alive now." ...

"Everything's going to be affected by this seismic change in the universe," he
said.

And it came to pass that Elle Associate Editor Samantha Fennell had a Life-Changing Encounter with the Son of God. He said, "Come, follow me" and she left everything and became his disciple.

And don't forget the images:


The Lord God is a Sun and a Shield



This is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.



O Sacred Head



The Transfiguration



Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess.

Help! My Eyes are Rolling So Hard I Can See my Pituitary Gland

Rabbi Unveils a Secret of God

The tradition-bound Western image of a he-man, masculine God may already be thousands of years out of date, says a Westchester rabbi who believes he has unlocked the secret to God's name and androgynous nature.

Rabbi Mark Sameth contends in a soon-to-be-published article that the four-letter Hebrew name for God - held by Jewish tradition to be unpronounceable since the year 70 - should actually be read in reverse. When the four letters are flipped, he says, the new name makes the sounds of the Hebrew words for "he" and "she."

Wow! And in English, "God" spelled backward is "Dog", which proves... something.

The good rabbi is one more proof that, in the words of Rabbi Daniel Lapin, liberalism is a religion. The curious thing about Rabbi Sameth's exegesis is that it demonstrates how liberals of both the Jewish and Christian traditions are making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between them, because they are laboring to create something that is neither Jewish nor Christian. The guy sounds like a loopy Episcopalian, a loopy Catholic, or a loopy Lutheran. First, posit a strawman (the He Man Male God) and then announce that the sole alternative is Androgyny.

It is not news to either Christians or Jews that God is not a man. Orthodox Judaism is so strong on this point that it, you know, rejects the Incarnation.

Christianity agrees that God in his deity is not a creature with sex organs. It also agrees with the rabbi that, in his deity, the Godhead is better understood as encompassing both male and female than as having none of the traits of either. After all, the image of God is male and female together, according to Genesis. But we also have to bear in mind God as he relates to us and both Jewish and Christian tradition overwhelmingly attest that the imagery God chooses portray him as masculine *in relation to us*. He is Lord, Master, Father and Husband both to Israel and the Church. Rabbi Sameth's attempt to simply eradicate that in favor or PC trendiness is false, not just to Christians, but to his fellow Jews.

It's also kinda dorky, what with the whole "if you read it backwards, just *look*!" thing. But credulous reporters will believe almost anything except ordinary biblical teaching. No doubt he will find an eager hearing with the Matthew Fox/John Shelby Spong/Dan Brown crowd. I'd be interested in hearing an Orthodox Jew's take on his stuff.

Victor Lams writes:

I was listening to this story, rolling my eyes when suddenly the interview started to turn interesting and I started thinking "Hmm... lyrics with themes of redemption, original sin.... guy must be Catholic" and of course he is. It definitely doesn't go as deep as I would have liked of course, but it marks probably the first time I've heard anyone in the mass media refer to themselves as "more religious than spiritual". It's short and worth a listen.

"More religious than spiritual"! That's great!

WYD: "It was beautiful!"

You hear that a lot from normal people, including non-Catholics and non-believers.

From Highly Advanced evangelical atheists you hear, "Hmf! Nobody believes this stuff anymore--except for million and millions of people. Oh, and I'm not obsessed or anything. Also, I'm not attacking you, you moron."

On the whole, I'll take normal people over Highly Advanced ones.

A reader writes:

I am a practising Catholic and at work I hear agnostics laugh at people who believe in God and miracles. I defend God's existence against there so called big bang evoltion theory without a creator pretty good but when they talk about Mary's virginity and miracles what would be a strong arguement to help defend this issue?Any help would be appreciated.

Two points:

First, be careful not to fall into Fundamentalism. As Catholics, we have no particular quarrel with either the Big Bang or evolutionary theory. Catholic understanding of creation has room for both of these. It is only when somebody attempt to make either of these a proof that God does not exist that we should balk (since neither bit of science does any such thing). Science can only measure time, space, matter and energy. It has nothing to say about whether a God who transcends all these things exists.

As to the question of Miracles, the best book I know on the subject is Miracles: A Preliminary Study by C.S. Lewis. The problem of miracles is twofold--philosophical and evidential. If somebody has a philosophical doctrine that forbids belief in a miracle no matter how much obvious evidence for it there is, then the solution is not to pile up more evidence (because the determined fool can always figure out some way to avoid facing the bleedin' obvious). Rather, it is to call the philosophy into question. That's what Miracles is about: it asks whether is really any grounds for our culture's a priori rejection of the miraculous. Short answer: there isn't.

It then looks at the major miracle of the New Testament--the Incarnation--and argues that it covers what we know of the data better than any other explanation.

For what it's worth, my own take on the curiously reflexive hostility to the possibility of miracles on the part of some allegedly "open-minded" secularists is here. Their remarkable reluctance to just go and see is discussed (along with other things) here. People who reject the miraculous a priori are the furthest thing in the world from "open to evidence". They are rigid doctrinaires whose minds are made up and who do not wish to be confused by facts.

Humanae Vitae: Proof that the Prophetic Charism Remains with the Church

Paul VI saw it all before it happened. Simply paying attention to the Church and not dismissing it out of hand as ridiculous gives ordinary people a vast advantage over those who listen to "common knowledge".

Emails that cry out "Don't bother reading any further"

"Your account was frauded !"

Nation of Islam Paranoids and Others in the Black Community Love Fantasizing about CIA Plots to Sell Heroin or Jewish Schemes to Infect the Black Community With AIDS

...while overlooking the obvious and ongoing massacre of African-Americans that is carried out by Planned Parenthood with the enthusiastic cooperation of the Feds and their own community leaders such as The Revrund Jesse and, it should be noted, Barack Obama, the Son of the Living God.

"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Margaret Sanger's December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255 Adams Street, Milton, Massachusetts. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon's Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976.

Brazilian Anencephalic Baby Shatters Pro-Abortion Myths

After a year and a half of life, smiles, cries when mother is away, responds to sounds.

Though he would still be the object of God's love if he couldn't do even that.

I like Dino Rossi and will likely vote for him

...but he does also typify the GOP's "Exploit and Avoid" Policy toward prolifers.

As Gov, I expect he will do the Absolute Bare Minimum he can about any life issues that come his way. Which is better than his opponent. This is better than fanatical devotion to the sacrament of abortion. And since he has no power to embroil us in disastrous wars or piss away 9 trillion dollars, I'll probably give him the benefit of the doubt. Particularly since he won in 2004 but the Dem machine insisted on recounts till they got the results they were looking for.

Bottom line: he looks somewhat less crappy than Gregoire and he doesn't seem to involve me in voting for anything intrinsically immoral, so I'll go with him.

Codex Sinaiticus images to be put on line

I love the Internet!

Atheists: Way Smarter and Better Than the Common Herd

New Brideshead is Soooooo Gonna Suck

One act of desecration a week is enough for me.

Red Meat for the Paranoid

Mitchell walked on the moon, ergo this story has to be true.

It's not a really sound chain of logic, but it will do for a great many people.

More on the Relationship Between Judaism and Christianity

There have been some interesting responses to my post on Judaism and Christianity.

One person asked: "When you were considering your reply to Brian, did you think aboutPope Benedict's discussion in Jesus of Nazareth of Rabbi Jacob Neusner'sbook A Rabbi Talks with Jesus? It may not have been directly on point,but I thought it was a really profound discussion."

I did indeed think of that discussion, however since it wasn't quite on point and I was already yammering on too much, I decided to skip mention of it. However, I quite agree that the discussion between them is profound and a marvelous illustration of how a fruitful conversation with our elder brothers can be had.

Which reminds me: another reader writes: "I've studied Scripture under Evangelical, academic Catholic, and Orthodox Jewish auspices. I don't disagree with you, but let me just say ... I've gained more insight into the NEW Testament from studying Torah with rabbis than from the other two approaches."

There's a ton to be learned, as St. Jerome understood and as Pope Benedict shows in his conversation with Rabbi Neusner. In my criticism of the Jewish roots movement and similar artificial attempts to reinvent the "New Testament Church" I have no intention of suggesting that Jews have nothing to teach Christians. On the contrary, the conversation between our two traditions has, particularly in the past 50 years, been enormously enriching for Catholics.

The most interesting comments have come from a reader who writes under the handle "The Wandering Jew".

There's an old Jewish saying that Christianity stole our watch and has spent the last 2000 years telling us what time it is, and I'm really feelin' that right now.

The roots of modern Rabbinic Judaism pre-date Christianity, and Judaism is no more a reaction to it than Orthodox Christianity is to Arianism.Of course Judaism has developed over time, but it's not like Jesus dictated the catechism in it's modern form to the apostles, now is it?

By the way, lest this be taken for a typical drive-by flaming, I've actually been lurking around this blog for quite some time. But "those who claim to be Jews and are not"? Them's fightin' words.

A Wandering Jew 07.23.08 - 12:32 am #

To this I replied last evening:
Hi Wandering Jew:

It's quite true that rabbinic Judaism roots predate Christianity. My point is: so do Christianity's roots. That's why the apostles (all Jews) are constantly quoting the Tanakh: they insist (following Christ himself) that everything that was written in Moses and the Prophets was actually about Christ. In short, they claim that they are carrying on the Tradition that began with Moses.

I empathize with your reaction to the "fightin' words". They are a quotation of the (typically polemical) language of the persecuted first century Church found in Revelation 3:

"And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: 'The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens. 8 "'I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut; I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 9* Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie--behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and learn that I have loved you. 10 Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial which is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell upon the earth. 11 I am coming soon; hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown."

Such polemics are, as you know, not strictly of Christian provenance. Ancient Semitic language tends to get this way when the author is engaged passionately and feeling wronged. It is worth paying attention to the context here. This is not the voice of the triumphant Church of the High Middle Ages, stomping on Jews in the ghetto. This is the voice of a Church of mixed ethnicity (Jew and Gentile) that is small and on the ropes and getting it in the neck from both pagans and fellow Jews (Revelation also has lots of nasty things to say about unbelieving Gentiles).

It's also not The Final Word about Jews in the New Testament (Paul, for instance, has extraordinarily exalted things to say about the revelation vouchsafed to Israel, as does Jesus). It is, rather, the voice of one side in a bitter family quarrel during a moment of extreme duress.

That's why I said a comment like this has to be nuanced by reference to the rest of the Tradition. The best place to go for that is to Nostra Aetate and to the Catechism. I don't have the references at my fingertips, but I could find them.

WJ wrote back:

Thanks all for your replies. It seems to me the key issue is whether the Church is teaching that Jews, by not accepting the fullness of revelation, have simply failed to gain something or have actually lost something they once had, i.e. aren't really Jews anymore.

Having looked at Nostra Aetate, it seems rather noncommittal on this point. It says the gifts of God are "sine paenitentia" which says more about God's attitude than the current state of His gifts.

Many Christians seem to believe that "Israel" is a kind of spiritual title belonging to whomever possesses God's revelation rather than a living, breathing ethnos established by a divine covenant that was self-sufficient and independent of subsequent events.

Indeed, Nostra Aetate says the Church is the "novus populus Dei", so by its reckoning where does that leave us? Is there a new people in addition to the old one or are we no longer the People of God?
A Wandering Jew | | 07.23.08 - 11:50 am | #

For what it's worth, you have bumped into a question on which the Church has basically never come to any clear conclusion, so far as I know. There are a range of opinions in Catholic teaching on just what the status of the people of Israel is in relation to the "New Israel", with a few tips from the Magisterium on "how far is too far" in making any assessments. So, for instance, the Church insists (following the apostles) that there is salvation in no other Name than Jesus. That means that the Church is bound to hold that all who are saved (including Jews) will be saved through Christ. But this does *not* mean that only those who know who Jesus is and profess him as savior can be saved. So on the one hand, it goes too far for a Catholic to presume to know the fate of Jews, but it also goes too far to say that Jews can be saved apart from Jesus.

Similarly, the Church specifically condemns the notion that Jews are "accursed" for the death of Christ, but it also cautions against attempts to paint Jesus dying for the sins of everybody except Jews. In other words, the basic teaching of the Church is that Jews bear no more--nor less--blame for the crucifixion than the rest of us homo sapiens. I discuss this at some length here.

This balancing act on the part of the Magisterium takes place because the New Testament data about the Church's relationship to Israel is very rich and complex. One thread of it I have pointed out: the conception of the Church as the "Israel of God" in Paul's language: the notion that the main trunk of the revelation is Christ because he is the Shoot of Jesse, the tree grew from the lopped down Tree of David.

However, though some Catholic take this as license for a "theology of replacement" in which earthly Israel is simply disenfranchised, there is certainly no necessity to this view for Catholics. Paul, for instance, says of Israel:

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews are entrusted with the oracles of God. (Romans 3:1-2)

Note the present tense. Jews *are* (not "were") entrusted with the oracles of God. Likewise, Paul will later write:

They are Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; 5 to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever." (Romans 9:4-5)

Note again the present tense. All that was vouchsafed to Israel has not, judging by Paul's language, been taken from her. As Paul puts it "For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (Romans 11:29).

So it is equally plausible for a Catholic to say that the covenants with Abraham and Moses stand, though they are not salvific.

That is my own view, detailed here, here, here and here.

What I write is not dogmatic teaching, but simply an acceptable Catholic opinion that is, I think, well attested by the Tradition and the sources of revelation. I hope it's useful in grappling with how the Church ponders such matters.

New Blog!

Check thou it out!

A Truly Beautiful Combox Thread is Starting to Bust Out Here

Feel free to join in!

The Anchoress is Getting It

[I]t just struck me that these past few years have felt like the playing out of rather sick sort of soap opera/psychodrama, where all the players - from Bush, to Clinton, to McCain to Obama, to Huffington to Limbaugh, to Cronkite and Couric to Nancy Pelosi - are super-wealthy and privileged breathers of the rarefied air; they’re all spinning in their little orbits plotting revenge, positioning for power, trying to trip each other up and serving themselves before they even think of serving us.

Sometimes I wonder…how can they possibly know what’s “good” for us? They’ve never had the muffler fall out of their car while driving with two little kids squabbling in the back seat. They haven’t planted their own gardens with a little one “helping” and then weeded it, and watered it and shared the harvest with neighbors. Have any of them ever rolled coin to get a haircut? Do any of them know the price of a gallon of milk? How can they possibly relate to those of us who are dreading winter because the heating oil prices will be through the roof?

The rest of us sit around watching them, reacting to them, allowing them to hold sway over our lives and our imaginations…electing them and re-electing them, so they never go away. We give them too much. Of everything. The return is unequal and unsatisfying.

We are largely ruled by a few rich people whose lives are increasingly remote from ours. More and more, choosing between candidates is like asking whether George Steinbrenner or Ted Turner "care" about us more. It's an absurd question. If our rulers and manufacturers of culture could figure out a way to profit from us without ever having to pay attention to us again, they'd do it in heartbeat.

People ask why I do not trust our ruling classes.

The Prophet Chesterton speaks:

Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. For the whole modern world is absolutely based on the assumption, not that the rich are necessary (which is tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy, which (for a Christian) is not tenable. You will hear everlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man. The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt. There is one thing that Christ and all the Christian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony. They have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to kill the rich as violators of definable justice. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to crown the rich as convenient rulers of society. It is not certainly un-Christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the rich. But it is quite certainly un-Christian to trust the rich, to regard the rich as more morally safe than the poor. A Christian may consistently say, "I respect that man's rank, although he takes bribes." But a Christian cannot say, as all modern men are saying at lunch and breakfast, "a man of that rank would not take bribes." For it is a part of Christian dogma that any man in any rank may take bribes.

That's why.

The Napoleon of Queen Anne Hill

In which we dilate on local patriotism.

The Risk of Love

In which we discuss the danger of giving your heart to anything that does not last forever--which includes every human being you will ever love.

Heidi Saxton writes in response to it:

I just wanted you to know that I linked to your piece over at the "Extraordinary Moms Network." I recently started this network for adoptive/foster moms and mothers with special needs children. In time the site will become an e-zine with a weekly podcast and online chats ... but for now, it's a "superblog"! Please stop by to check it out.

Mail I Need Like a Hole in the Head

Hi,

I really like your website !

It truly confirms for me (and thousands of Bible believing, born again Christians) that the Marian dogmas truly are ANTI-CHRIST.

You see 1 & 2 John tells us how to recognize an anti-christ.

And the immaculate conception proves that the Marian dogmas of the anti-christ catholic "religion" are anti-christ.

If Mary was herself "immaculately conceived" then she did not pass on to Christ the true "seed of Abraham", neither could He have been (Rom 8:3) created in the "likeness of sinful flesh".

This so called "immaculate conception" , created by the un-regenerated so called "church fathers", is proof that the roman catholic "religioin" denys that Jesus Christ "is come in the flesh".

Of course, the other 3 dogmas are just as rediculous and full of blashpemy.

But then, the false god, the "queen of heaven" (Jer 7:18 & 44:17) was worshipped by Israel back in Old Test. times, so why would it not continue, since it is a lust of the flesh to (Rom 1:25) "worship and serve the creature more than the Creator who is blessed for ever. Amen" ?

The roman catholic "relgion" is the whore that drank the blood of the true, bible believing saints, and is dressed in (scarlet) red and purple, and sits upon the 7 hills of rome.

"come out of her my people" says the Lord in His Word !

In Christ Jesus (no necromancy),

jay

Thanks for your input. I've never thought about any of that before. Nor has any Catholic who ever lived. You are the very first person to ever notice these Bible verses and you are so much smarter than everyone else to have done so. You must be very proud of that.

Where do you find the brilliance and self-confidence to know for certain that so many people are not just wrong, but damned? What's your secret? Can I too be somebody who is able to know the inmost thoughts of total strangers and judge them? You even know with perfect certainty that Church Fathers who went to their deaths proclaiming Christ were unregenerate while you are a holy saint there at your computer keyboard. I want that kind of holy certitude too! You know, the sort that says "I thank you, O God, that I am not like other men, or even like that unregenerate Church Father!" That's biblical faith that Jesus himself talked about and you've got it. What's your secret? How can I know Jesus Christ with such certainty that I can look down on everybody else as you do?

I'm still struggling with my pagan Catholic ways though. Can you help me? You say that other Marian dogmas are "rediculous and full of blashpemy". One dogma is that Mary is "Mother of God". My unregenerate mind has always had trouble here. To me, the following logic makes sense:

1. Is Jesus God? (Yes.)
2. Is Mary his Mother (Yes.)
3. Then Mary is Mother of God.

In my pagan whore of Babylon folly, I've never seen a way around that. Stoop down from your position as a True Christian and help me to understand the blasphemy of this. To me, it looks a lot like the Church is saying that God has come in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. Since John's definition of antichrist is "the one who denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh" I don't see what the trouble is.

Awaiting enlightenment from you, the very first person to ever notice these Bible verses in the history of the world.

If you don't celebrate Morgentaler the Abortionist, You're an Anti-Semite

Oh, and the Catholic Church (pictured here)



is "one of the richest institutions in the world" and goes around reducing women to penury while raping kids, so Catholics can't say anything and should just shut up.

Reasoned discourse from Deepest Soviet Canuckistan.

I've never quite gotten the whole "The Catholic Church is rolling in dough" thing. Where exactly? Every parish I know is always scrambling to pay the light bill. From all I can tell, the Church operates on a shoestring.

Dorothy Day, not exactly a friend of the GOP fatcat type thought one of the dumbest things her fellow lefties wanted to do was demand that the Church "sell off her treasures" because churches were one of the only places that the poor could experience beauty. All that plan would result in would be a modest boost in revenue that would almost instantly evaporate (what with the Church being the largest charitable institution on the face of the earth) and the world greatest art would hencefort and forever be the inaccessible property of a few rich people. The whole "Why were these things not sold?" deal is the wisdom of Judas Iscariot. It's most often heard in the countries, like the US and Canada, that have vast sums of wealth dwarfing the rest of the world. It's the complaint of greedy people.

Tim Jones is My Kind of Swine

And I mean that in the nicest way possible. Here he is, dilating on the pleasures of Harry Potter and the fact that people are bigger on the inside than on the outside.

One of the functions of fantasy is to present to our eyes things we can only grasp with the spirit in this world.

"In our world too, a Stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world." - Lucy Pevensie

A reader writes:

I found your blog and I thought that you might be interested in the musical act called The Priests. What separates this classical trio from others is that they really are catholic priests, who have recently signed a recording contract with Sony BMG. They are currently recording an album of classic hymns from the Latin Mass but you can find them on their website and even on Youtube.

Now you know!

Concerning Eucharistic Desecration

In which I offer my expanded thoughts on PZ Myers and his culties.

In response, a reader writes:

Here's a prayer that I have heard originated at Fatima, for making reparations to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Maybe some of your readers would offer this prayer or others like it this week, especially with today supposedly being the day PZ Myers will commit his public sacrilege.

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly! I offer Thee the most Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the Tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifference by which He is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.

Why Everybody Hates Congress

A reader writes:

I attach a link to a very URGENT video for you to watch regarding a bailout bill that will be passed either tomorrow or the next day by Congress. It also includes an invitation to a protest scheduled for 31 July where you can tell Congress that you don't support this bailout.

You can read about the details of the bill here:

Unless you act by calling your Representative, Senators and the White House tomorrow, this bill will become law of the land and will hand unelected officials the ability to write checks to the tune of 800 billion dollars that will come out of your pocket.

Even though earlier reports stated that the bailout would only cost 25 billion, if anything at all, the debt ceiling is being raised by 800 billion. Why is that?

Some will tell you that this will rescue home prices from falling further, but it will not. By increasing government debt by such a large amount the cost of funding that debt will cause interest rates to rise by a huge amount. It will cost exponentially more for someone to buy a house thus driving the price down.

In addition the cost of this passed on to consumers via taxes will amplify that problem as well.

A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking real money. - Everett Dirksen

Coming Soon to a State Near You

If you can help, please do so whether you are a Washingtonian or not, because tomorrow it will be your state:

Dear Friends:

I’m writing to you today because I am working on the campaign against Initiative 1000, a measure which will legalize physician-assisted suicide in Washington state. If passed, the victory will be used by the pro-euthanasia special interests as the lever to bring about the next step down the path to a culture of death.

We know this because the supporters of the measure have labeled the campaign “Oregon Plus One.” Despite losing in 25 other states (including here in Washington in 1991), the proponents believe that if only one state besides Oregon would legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS), the rest of the states will fall like dominoes.

Washington is a very liberal state. It is the only state in the union to have legalized abortion by a vote of the people prior to Roe v Wade. And the same arguments are being used to support I-1000. They claim that it is a matter of “choice”. And for the predominantly wealthy white men who advocate this, it may well be.

Yet there is word from Oregon that some of those who asked for the lethal dose of pills were being manipulated by adult children wanting their inheritance sooner. Not one of those requesting PAS was evaluated for depression in the latest 2007 statistics. And as to the rest, who knows--the Oregon law does not allow investigation of assisted suicide cases and requires the destruction of all records within a year, so it is nearly impossible to track who is requesting PAS and how people actually died.

I-1000 goes even farther. It actually re-writes the definition of suicide. It will require physicians to lie about the cause of death--they must ascribe it to the terminal illness that the patients did not have the chance to die from. Tracking use of PAS will be impossible. Neither will surviving families be able to sue unscrupulous doctors for malpractice;

I-1000 gives doctors prescribing PAS immunity from law suit. How is this good for consumers?

Even worse, families will not be notified if a loved one requests PAS. And as in Oregon, those who suffer from depression may not be evaluated first and treated. Anyone over 18 who is diagnosed as being 6 months from dying can request this--no questions asked.

Nor are there any safeguards to protect the poor from exploitation by heartless insurers. In Oregon, coverage of end of life treatment has been slashed while lethal prescriptions are covered as “pain management.”

What happens in places which have legalized PAS? Recently the London Telegraph reported on new legislation introduced in Belgium where PAS was legalized several years ago. The proposed legislation would allow teenagers to request PAS for themselves and for parents of handicapped children to ask for PAS for their minor dependents.

In Holland, which is the pioneer of the pro-euthanasia movement, doctors euthanize patients without permission. One physician told how he had killed an elderly nun because he knew that her religious scruples would never have allowed her to request this herself--so he did it for her.

In Oregon, people who voted for PAS are now getting nervous, contacting the pro-life physicians group to find out if their doctor is one of those who prescribes death pills. Pro-life doctors now hang signs in their waiting rooms which are meant to reassure patients that they will only pursue life-affirming therapies.

Is this the culture we want? The doctor-patient relationship has always been a sacred trust where we know that the physician is the patient’s advocate and tireless defender against premature death. But in Holland, people now carry cards in their wallets asking not to be euthanized in the case of illness or accident.

Can you help us? Pro-lifers in Washington state have managed to raise approximately $100,000 from residents while the proponents of PAS have raised over $1.2 million, the majority from out of state. The people in the pro-euthanasia movement believe the election in Washington is crucial to their plans for the rest of the country.

This is a David vs. Goliath battle. We need prayers and we need funds.

Our research has shown that if even a little information is given about the realities of PAS, voters change their minds. We have to get the message out to voters that the so-called “Death with Dignity” initiative, as the proponents have called it, has little to do with dignity and everything to do with death.

We hope to buy time in various media markets to inform voters about how dangerous this initiative actually is. I am writing to as many of my friends as I can asking that they donate just a little, perhaps $25, to the No Assisted Suicide campaign. If you follow this link to www.noassistedsuicide.com, you can donate securely.

Please consider helping us especially by praying for our efforts to protect the vulnerable among us who may be easy prey for unscrupulous relatives or suffering from undiagnosed depression. They need us to speak out for them.

As one of our speakers said, “If you see someone on a ledge, you don’t yell ‘jump!’ and you certainly don’t push.” Our goal is to return to the attitude that every part of life is worth living, that where there is life, there is hope.

With all of the advances in pain control therapies, there is little excuse for surrendering to despair. Note that the American Medical Association and Washington Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and the Washington State Hospital Association all officially oppose physician-assisted suicide. Join us in promoting a culture of life and fighting the suffocating despair of the pro-euthanasia movement.

You can find more information about our campaign for life and how to donate at www.noassistedsuicide.com.

Yours in life!

Suzanne Harmon

PS Please forward this to anyone you think might be supportive, and remember that even if you cannot donate, your prayers are just as important a contribution!

St. Richard Dawkins is Just Dreamy!

Cringeworthy hagiography from fawning journobabe.

I'm reminded of something reader MZ Forrest remarked elsewhere: "I have yet to understand the necessity of teaching evolution…"

Me too. To be sure, I have no particular problem with teaching it (just so long as it's being taught and not some dimestore philosophy of atheism pretending to be science). But I don't see why failure to have a firm grasp of evolution is--as it so clearly is--a mark of drastic moral turpitude or an especial mark of disastrous society-threatening ignorance.

Nobody talks this way about the multitudes of people who don't know how cars operate, nor grasp algebra, nor understand how a microchip functions, nor all the other little subsets of science. Somehow or other, though, evolution is treated as a holy thing and ignorance or disinterest in same as a form of blasphemy. Weird.

Chris Johnson Bait

Anglican bishop wants to solve doctrinal disputes by playing cricket.

What it says.

Nice to See!

VICTORY FOR GINA ... AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT
Gina had perfect grades - until she took a stand for her faith, in opposition to her professor. Her Intro to Philosophy college professor not only docked her grades, but also repeatedly derided Gina for her faith. Once notified, the ACLJ got directly involved. We sent a legal memorandum demanding that the school end its discriminating actions against Gina and uphold her First Amendment rights or face a federal lawsuit. Gina's rights were upheld ... an outcome we're certain would not have occurred if the ACLJ did not get involved. We especially thank the thousands of you who stood with us on behalf of Gina by signing our National Petition of Protest and sending a powerful message to the community college.

I wonder how many students of a bigot like PZ Myers have equally just cause to protest his bigotry? Might be interesting to go over his records (they are, presumably open to the public) and see if the guy has done this to his kids.

When Idiots Make Films

Brideshead Revisited: "Adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's classic novel, focusing on the doomed love affair between Charles and Julia Flyte and how Catholicism destroys their relationship and their families."

I look forward to future adaptations:

Huckleberry Finn: Adaptation of Mark Twain's classic novel, focusing on the celebration of gay love between Huck and African-American Jim and how Catholicism destroys the American South before the Civil War.

Father Brown: Adaptation of G.K. Chesterton's classic short stories, focusing on the dissident priest who stumbles on a murderous Vatican plot to cover up the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalen.

In this House of Brede: Adaptation of Rumer Godden's classic novel, focusing on the cruelty and perversion endured by nuns who are ultimately driven to exposes the horrors of the convent system to a crusading reporter.

Kristin Lavransdatter: Adaptation of Sigurd Undset's classic novel, focusing on a brave Norwegian woman who tries to restore Norwegian folk religion through healing herbs and prayer to the god of her ancestors, but is viciously persecuted by an imperialistic Catholic Church.

The possibilities are endless.

Another Christian Atheist Heard From

There are several curious things here. Besides the de rigeur protestations that "I don't give a stuff what people believe in" sandwiched between thick slices of obsessing over what people believe in, there is also curious documentary evidence that Cult of Atheism is already developing its own liturgical language. This is pretty funny for self-described Free Thinkers. Instead of coming up with original ideas, the cult member is doing what all religious believers do: reciting credal formulae:

Telling me I'm going to hell won't bother me because I have the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorn and Bertrand Russell's Teapot in my heart. Google them if you are in the market for some red hot enlightenment.

This particular cult member doesn't even seem to realize that she is, in fact, reciting a credal formula and recommending potential converts likewise go to the Masters who have catechized her.

Another curious point: the whole "We just believe in one less god than you do" meme. It's catchy, but not really very persuasive. Christians, in fact, believe that reality is more like a skyscraper than a two storey building. Paul "disbelieves" in other gods in the sense that he does not give any spiritual entity latria or worship except for the Triune God. He does however, "believe" in the gods of the pagan in the sense that he thinks there is something there:

What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. (1 Corinthian 10:19-20)

Once again, it is purely illusory to imagine that such a view of the universe is "unscientific" or "medieval". Indeed, the hilarious part about atheistic materialism is that, the moment it finishes laughing the notion of a multi-story creation to scorn when it comes to belief in superhuman created intelligences we call "angels and devils" it turns around and invokes the theory of the multiverse in order to avoid the rather obvious implication that You Know Who is behind a universe whose odds of existing are 10¹³⁷ to 1.

So the atheist is, once again, led by her own ignorance to argue ignorantly. The reality is not that Christians do not credit the existence of created supernatural beings whom the pagans sometimes worship as gods. Rather the reality is that we do not worship creatures, but the One Creator.

But then, the author of the piece I linked feels that in her bones already. That is why she is working so very hard to not look like an angry obsessive.

Dear Abby

I am very tolerant and open-minded. What is the most vindictive way I can punish those in my family who are guilty of thought crime?

James Preece, My English Patron and Guardian, blogs on World Youth Day

You gotta love a guy who says, "My idea of a fun day out is to take my wife to Whitby Abbey and read out loud from Bede's Ecclesiastical History." Even better is that he married a woman who can appreciate that--and shoot an English longbow.

Brian Visaggio writes:

I wrote down on Saint Superman a bit back an article about my own confusing relationship with Judaism. I know you've written critically in the past about the "Jewish roots movement," and so I would certainly appreciate a link and response from you.

My main criticism of the Jewish roots movement is that it's artificial. The genesis of it is American Evangelicals who felt in their bones their lack of rootedness in history. But instead of actually studying history, they have instead a) read their Bibles with a sola scriptura Protestant imagination and b) combined that with whatever it is they see contemporary Judaism doing. From this, they have concocted the vision of the "authentic New Testament church" that is sort of a mixture of contemporary Evangelicalism with a great deal of Jewish jargon and praxis thrown in.

The irony, of course, is that nothing like the Jewish roots movement has ever existed in the history of the Church, which is a bad way of being historical. It's well-intentioned (as such things always are) but wrong-headed because it makes the cardinal mistake of overlooking the elephant in the living room: the Catholic Church and the fact that we have, in that, the New Testament Church as it now looks after 2000 years of development and growth.

Another thing to consider: The common notion is that Judaism and Christianity are related as trunk and branch. That's not really true. To be sure, *Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians are related as branch and trunk (Romans 9). But that's because Paul regards the Church as simply the legitimate continuation of the revelation which begins with Abraham. Unbelieving Israel is seen by the New Testament authors, not as the trunk, but as "those who claim to be Jews and are not". That's harsh language and needs to be nuanced by the rest of the tradition, of course, but it communicates a reality that is mostly overlooked today. Namely, that there was not, even in the time of Christ, such a thing as Judaism, just as there is not today a thing called Protestantism. There are Protestantisms, almost as many as there are Protestants. Likewise, in Christ's time there were Judaisms--lots of them. Essenes, Therapeutae, Sadducee, Herodians, Pharisees, followers of this and that rabbi, zealot, or prophet. Judaism is today likewise fractious. Twas ever thus. When Christ appeared, it was not a case of Jews on the one hand and Christians on the other. It was a contention that the main trunk of the revelation given to Israel was to be found in the Christian revelation. Jews, for various reasons (because of their various factional allegiances) rejected that. But they were not a monolith as a result. Indeed, Paul made use of the factionalism during his trial before the Sanhedrin, pitting Sadducee against Pharisee.

In a certain sense then, a Catholic can look at Jewish rejection of the Christian revelation as, if you will, the first Protestant revolt. Revelation occurred, doctrine developed, and a certain percentage of the community said, "No" (as has happened after almost every major doctrinal development in the Church). On the other hand, it now appears that it was a minority of the total Jewish community who rejected the Christian revelation. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus notes:

Scholars generally agree that in the first century there were approximately six million Jews in the Roman Empire (for some reason, Klinghoffer says five million). That was about one tenth of the entire population. About one million were in Palestine, including today’s State of Israel, while those in the diaspora were very much part of the establishment in cities such as Alexandria and Constantinople. At one point Klinghoffer acknowledges that, during the life of Jesus, only a minuscule minority of Jews either accepted or rejected Jesus, for the simple reason that most Jews had not heard of him. Some scholars have noted that, by the fourth or fifth century, there were only a few hundred thousand, at most a million, people who identified themselves as Jews. What happened to the millions of others? The most likely answer, it is suggested, is that they became Christians.

What all this means is that we can't meet ancient Jews today. That seems like a no-brainer, but I think a great many Christians labor under the notion that in encountering contemporary Judaism, they are encountering "what Jews believed before Christianity". They aren't. They are encountering "How non-Christian Jews adapted their tradition, in huge measure in response to the claims (and hostility) of Christians". Of course, in addition to the surrounding pressure of the Christian community, Judaism also experienced its own discoveries and developments (including various attempts to understand Jesus which have varying levels of success and plausibility). But the reality is that Judaism, while having a great deal to say to us in understanding Jesus, is not magisterial and holds no more promise of a Latest Real Jesus than any other tradition outside the Church. In the end, Jesus was right when he told the apostles and their successors "he who listens to you listens to me." Indeed, Jesus seems to have had just this paradigm shift in mind when he renamed Simon "Kefa". For the name not only means "Rock" but can be read as a punning riff on "Caiaphas", signifying the transfer of authority in interpreting the Revelation. Certainly, the early Church seems to have instantly and conclusively made that break. There is no record whatever of the Church referring its deliberations to the Sanhedrin or the rabbis. The apostles and presbyters were the interpreters of Christ *and* Moses for the early Church, which was overwhelmingly Jewish.

Finally, as to anti-Christian apologetics from some Jews: I'm not super-familiar with them, mostly because a) I don't spend a lot of time arguing about the faith with Jews, b) what I have seen appears to be geared toward Evangelical and Fundamentalist readings of Scripture which I, at any rate, don't buy any more than Jews do. I know a few Jewish converts (some of them readers) and I know one convert (Roy Schoeman) who is actually from a staunch Orthodox Jewish background.

Dunno if that helps....

Different Priorities

Americans, in their love of the lurid and cinematic, will be spending a lot of time fretting about GOP Veep hopeful Bobby Jindal's belief in the demonic and his past participation in stuff like exorcism. Of course, people whose minds are entirely formed by TV and the New York Times will laugh at such "medieval superstition" and regard it as one more proof that conservative Christians are nuts. For a supernaturalist like me, I have no particular problem with the concept of the demonic, nor with St. Paul's insistence that we are indeed engaged in a cosmic war with devils. And happily, such films as The Dark Knight are reminding us again that Deep Evil exists. St. Paul simply reminds us that the deepest evils are not human, but proceed from angelic beings who have abused their free will, a reality of which science by its nature has not one thing to say, but which human experience confirms countless times. So I've always rather appreciated Chesterton's bluntness on the matter of devils in his introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox:

Third, I have not thought it necessary to notice those critics who, from time to time, desperately play to the gallery by reprinting paragraphs of medieval demonology in the hope of horrifying the modern public merely by an unfamiliar language. I have taken it for granted that educated men know that Aquinas and all his contemporaries, and all his opponents for centuries after, did believe in demons, and similar facts,

The demonic is a fact. The paradox of sin making you stupid is that the more infested with the demonic a culture becomes, the more it laughs at the demonic as superstition. Only the 20th Century could master the trick of murdering far more people than all previous centuries combined--and then producing gurus who assure us we are all evolving toward bliss and perfection.

Orthodox Christians, in contrast, take the devil for a fact, and even a sort of humdrum fact. He's not what Christianity is about particularly, but he's a fact to be reckoned with by those who actually want to face reality in its fullness.

Now: whether Jindal was prudent to be involved in the quasi-exorcism activities is a separate matter. I don't mean prudent politically. I mean prudent spiritually. Clearly it is politically imprudent to talk much about demons for the reasons chronicled by the link above. Exorcisms both creep people out and make them snort in that defensive sort of derision that people snort when they aren't altogether sure of what they are dealing with. That's a bad formula for vote-getting (though in a state like Louisiana, where creepy encounters with the occult seem to happen with alarming frequency, it doesn't surprise me that he seems to do okay). But my main concern is simply that exorcisms are not, in the tradition, a matter for amateurs and the self-appointed. However, Jindal appears to have been young when the matter in question occurred and God takes care of the impetuous fool who has a heart to serve him. I, at any rate, mostly gather that Jindal appears to have a heart for God which is heedless of his own safety--an admirable quality.

That said, what bothers me far more than the exorcism business is this:

And there’s no doubt that Jindal is a staunch religious conservative. He has not been shy about letting his religion guide his policies: He has signed into law a chemical-castration bill for sex offenders....

Um, excuse me, but since when did "staunch" Catholics who purport to uphold Humanae Vitae favor castration? Now this will be a vote-getter with the Rubber Hose Right, no doubt about it. But so far as I can see this position has nothing to with being a religious conservative--or at least not a conservative Catholic. It may well play with Fundamentalists, who often worship American more than Christ. But I can't for the life of me see how castration comports with Catholic teaching.

I eagerly await the finely parsed exegeses in my comboxes explaining, not only that castration is acceptable for rapists, but that hand amputations are suitable for thieves, tongue branding or removal is justice for slanderers, and foot removal is the due penalty for prison escapees.

So, Mr. President, about that whole "We're Doing This for the Sake of Democracy" Thing....
Larison notes:

Contrary to the concerns of my colleague John Schwenkler, this sort of anecdotal reporting does not reflect the overwhelming majority view in Iraq. The January 2006 World Public Opinion survey of Iraqi opinion cited here is now over two years old, which is worth noting since almost three out of four Iraqis supported a timetable for withdrawal of no more than two years then. Even with the intervening nightmarish violence of 2006, it is hard to imagine that public opinion has shifted so much that most Iraqis now want us to stay when two years ago 70% of them wanted us to be gone by now. What is more, 87% supported the Iraqi government endorsing a timeline for withdrawal, and large majorities expected that security would improve in the wake of a withdrawal. Indeed, as the September 2006 survey showed, despite the horrors of the summer of that year (or perhaps because of them), support for withdrawal remained basically unchanged. Someone might object that this is old information, so what do newer surveys show?

One March 2008 survey shows that U.S. forces have the confidence of just 20% of Iraqis, while 72% oppose the presence of U.S. and Coalition forces in
Iraq. Opposition to the U.S. presence is higher than it was in 2005, but lower than it was last year, but even in 2005 opposition was at 51%. With respect to the “surge,” 53% of Iraqis still said as of March that the “surge” had made things worse in the areas where the “surge” took place and only 36% believed that it made things better. As a political matter, it seems significant that a majority of Iraqis deemed the new tactical plan a failure despite the moderate improvements that it has actually achieved. 43% said that the “surge” made the conditions for political dialogue worse. That’s a significant change from the 70% who said that the summer before, but most of those who no longer thought the “surge” had made conditions worse simply said that it had no effect. Of course, these figures point to the fundamental, extremely strong opposition to the U.S. presence of about 40% of the population and to the 38% who want U.S. forces to leave now. Just 29% of Iraqis think that a departure of U.S. forces would worsen the security situation. So, yes, you can find Iraqis who will take that view, but they are not representative of most of their countrymen.

Here at home, as a late June CNN survey found, 64% of Americans want the next President to remove most U.S. troops from Iraq “within a few months of taking office.” Obviously, no major candidate is proposing a withdrawal that is this rapid, so what is remarkable is how much support this receives.

Somebody want to tell me that just because Maliki is articulate the obvious will of the majority of Iraqis we still don't have to leave? Be sure to square that with "It's their country, not ours."

Maliki Hearts Obama

The following is a direct translation from the Arabic of Mr. Maliki’s comments by The Times:

Obama’s remarks that — if he takes office — in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq.”

He continued: “Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq.”

Those of us who remember "When they stand up, we'll stand down" and other Administration rhetoric will pay attention to this. It means the Iraqis themselves want us out, so we should get out.

If McCain is serious about Iraqi self-governance, I see no real option here but for him to basically agree with Obama on getting out sooner rather than later.

So far, the McCain response to the Iraqi government has been remarkably Bush-like:

"His domestic politics require him to be for us getting out," said a senior McCain campaign official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "The military says 'conditions based' and Maliki said 'conditions based' yesterday in the joint statement with Bush. Regardless, voters care about [the] military, not about Iraqi leaders."

When you unravel this, it means, in English

Iraq belongs to us, not to the Iraqi people. Maliki says all that junk about wanting us to leave because of "domestic politics" (aka, what the majority of Iraqis want) but we don't have to listen to that as long as we can convince a majority of American voters that we need to stay there no matter what the Iraqis want--because it's our country, not theirs.

McCain will lose all credibility with me if he sticks to that line of BS. He should bail on it today.

By the way, those "domestic politics" in Iraq that McCain obliquely alludes to are spelled out here. Once again, the Administration comes out looking like a pack of liars and now even the pretense that this is about Freedom and Liberty is badly imperilled:

"When those negotiations [on the terms of a continuing US presence in Iraq] began, the U.S. reportedly presented the Iraqis with terms so breathtaking that they'd embarrass Lord Curzon. Bush wanted unilateral control of Iraqi airspace; legal immunity for all U.S. troops and contractors; the unilateral right to arrest and detain any Iraqis his commanders desired, and for unspecified periods; and several military bases. When Maliki indicated discomfort over acting like Gaius Baltar on Occupied New Caprica, Bush gave another indication of his "friendship and cooperation" -- blackmail.

All this came in a political context that Bush was either unattentive to or dismissive of. Despite spotty media coverage in the U.S., the deal prompted a massive backlash in Iraq, where basically every organized political force not part of Maliki's government rejected it. Maliki's allies were likely to lose the looming provincial elections already; now he had given them the albatross of clear collaborationism. And something similar was at work in the U.S.: the candidate with a clear and consistent history of opposition to the Iraq war won the Democratic primary, while the Republican candidate backed an endless occupation that he said might last a hundred or even a thousand years.

Maliki has read the tea leaves and evidently realized what the rest of us considered obvious: that the only one demanding that he turn Iraq to permanent foreign domination is a president thoroughly discredited in his own country who'll be out of office in a few months. That president's replacement might very well decide on a unilateral withdrawal from Iraq, abrogating any deal Maliki was strongarmed into signing, at which point the U.S. would essentially be cutting Maliki off. Oh motherf*cking sh!t, Maliki surely thought, if I sign this deal, my people will run my body through the streets and hoist me from a f*cking lamppost. Not that the electricity works, but still."

Those of my readers who believe that facts are rendered ritually impure when stated by unclean sources can fill my comboxes with complaints about Ackerman all they like. The fact remains: Maliki asked for a timeline and we blew him off--like it was our country and not his. Now he has made clear that he wants us out sooner rather than later--like the majority of his countrymen. If we are anything beside liars, we will honor that. If the Bush Administration were not liars, they would have honored it already instead of trying to muscle Maliki into playing Gaius Baltar.

Bush has used "when they stand up, we'll stand down" as a trope for years. My reply is now: Fish or cut bait, Mr. President. And if McCain does not absorb this elementary lesson in the consequences of dishonesty from the failed Bush Administration, he will deserve to lose.

She Graduated Magna Cum Laude from Insensitivity Training

She's All That when it comes to dealing with racist jerks (some crude language):



More like her please.

Nick Milne Really Likes The Dark Knight. I mean Really.

Oh. And Dumb Catholics Seem to be on the Verge of Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

He writes:

1. My substantial review of *The Dark Knight*. Short version: it rocks every sock in the drawer. Heck, it's rocking socks that have yet to be produced, and is as such running a sock-rocking deficit. We're relying on the Chinese to step up production to meet the quota, but for the time being we'll just have to accept it and endure as best we can.

2. Webster Cook's charges against CCM and the girl who "assaulted" him have been dismissed. On the other hand (and for no reason that I can fathom), CCM is apparently insisting that Cook is lying about being Catholic and that he went to mass that day to accuse Catholics of "worshipping the devil." This comes as news to a correspondent of mine who was at the mass in question, and it seems pretty outlandish besides. In any event, Cook is also facing an ethics hearing for his conduct in this matter, and I'll pass along the results of that as soon as I get 'em.

Considering Where He's Come From, This is Actually a Huge Step Forward

John H. Armstrong wants to talk about merit and indulgences. He's wrong about the Church's teaching here, of course. But note the general tone of openness and generosity to the Catholic faith that characterizes his blog. The fact that he wants to talk rather than simply fulminate is a big step forward and Catholics should be glad of it.

My own take on matters like merit, indulgences and the like, and purgatory are at the links provided.

World Youth Day was a Rousing Success

Wish I could have gone. What a beautiful city Sydney is!

Mercatornet provides some local coverage.

Dude! Let's go down to the cemetery and do some ancient rites and stuff!

"Word! I got the sword!"

"And I've got the Jack Daniels!"

Ancient mystic wisdom at its finest.

John C. Wright (Whose Blog You Really Should be Reading) writes of the Perfectly Content Atheist:

Theism seems to weigh heavily on the atheist mind: they bring it up even when it is not the topic of discussion.

For example, see here: This is a discussion of the most controversial books in science fiction. Four of the six answers felt the need to put the conversation on hold, make a wisecrack about the Bible, and then return to the point. (My comment to that effect, which I meant to be measured and just, but which I am sure came across as irate, is in the comments box below the article).

The atheists just won't stop talking about God. Even if every religious man was wiped out tomorrow (or raptured away, as some of our Protestant brethren would have it) the atheists would keep a copy of the Bible around in order to have something to argue against.

They are Christian atheists after all, not atheist atheists. Our God is the one they don't believe in. They don't get all worked up about Thor.

Wright is, I should note, a former atheist.

How Newspapers Take Sides

If I were to contact the Seattle Times and announce that my coronation as Holy Roman Emperor was set for this Saturday at Noon, I doubt the headline would read "Area Man to be Crowned Holy Roman Emperor".

But when three women announce they will be ordained as Catholic priests, despite the fact that the Church herself says this is impossible, the Globe still runs a headline reading "3 women to be ordained Catholic priests in Boston".

I think I may contact their business section and tell them I have just assumed ownership of the Globe. Just because the Globe corporate heirarchy denies this doesn't mean that it's untrue. After all, I feel in my heart that I do!

John Grangerm the Hogwarts Professor, sends along the following letter from a 15 year old reader of Harry Potter:

Mr. Granger,

I am a teenage christian who LOVES Harry Potter! I completely understand the christian values in the books and grow in my faith because of it. I have read your book "Looking for God in Harry Potter" and agreed with you throughout the whole thing. I do have one problem though, my parents who are also christians are convinced that the books are evil and horrible and will refuse to be told otherwise. I don't know how to start a conversation with them explaining how Harry Potter benifits my walk with God because I know that no matter what I say they won't listen. Please tell me how I can get my parents to have an open mind so I can convince them Harry Potter is not evil indeed the oposite of evil!

He then asks, "How would you have answered?"

My reply: "Talk is useless! You must ritually sacrifice your parents, pouring their blood out on the earth to atone for their guilt."

A Prayer for Dead Whales
A reader writes:

Interesting story about using this whale carcass for scientific study -- worth the monetary cost and hassle? -- but the final sentence jumped out at me. Yet another comment on your thesis about our long exhale of Christianity.

Not necessarily. St. Francis would probably approve. People have offered prayers for animals since forever (pet goldfish, cats and dogs would be canonized saints based on sheer frequency of prayer for them alone if they were ontologically capable of sanctity).

The danger lies not in prayer for critters, but in worship of them. Grief over the death of an innocent is not a sinister thing. Only using that grief to downplay the significance of the human person is.

Peter Singer Scores Another Victory Against Humanity

Heh

Medication Mixup Kills Baby Instead of Fetus

...because in today's Orwellian world, a baby is whatever we say it is. If you want the child it's "your baby". If you want to kill it, it's a fetus or a tissue mass.

"By the Babe Unborn"
by G.K. Chesterton

If trees were tall and grasses short,
As in some crazy tale,
If here and there a sea were blue
Beyond the breaking pale,

If a fixed fire hung in the air
To warm me one day through,
If deep green hair grew on great hills,
I know what I should do.

In dark I lie; dreaming that there
Are great eyes cold or kind,
And twisted streets and silent doors,
And living men behind.

Let storm clouds come: better an hour,
And leave to weep and fight,
Than all the ages I have ruled
The empires of the night.

I think that if they gave me leave
Within the world to stand,
I would be good through all the day
I spent in fairyland.

They should not hear a word from me
Of selfishness or scorn,
If only I could find the door,
If only I were born.

Hey Western Washington!

HISTORIC BLESSED SACRAMENT CATHOLIC CHURCH TO CELEBRATE CENTENNIAL WITH 800 YEAR-OLD RITE

Acclaimed Tudor Choir to Perform Celebration’s Polyphonic Music

SEATTLE – Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, a national historic landmark and beautiful neo-gothic structure, and the Catholic Newman Center at the University of Washington, will mark their centennial anniversary by celebrating the 800 year-old Dominican Rite Solemn High Mass on August 8, 2008 at 7PM at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. This beautiful and ancient ceremony of the Catholic Church’s Dominican Order is celebrated rarely and is only done with permission of the Provincial of the Western Dominican Province, headquartered in Oakland. It’s an exciting chance for the Catholic community in Washington to travel back in time.

“Celebrating 100 years is not only a milestone for a building but for a community of people as well,” said Fr. Daniel Syverstad, OP, Pastor of Blessed Sacrament Parish. “Celebrating something as special and unique as the Dominican Rite is a rare opportunity to pay homage to not only our own local history, but to the rich history of the Dominican Order and entire Catholic Church.”

The Dominican Rite Mass is an ancient liturgy that dates back to the 13th century. The Mass, to be celebrated on the feast of St. Dominic, will be said entirely in Latin, with proper Dominican Latin chants and music. Fr. Daniel Syverstad, OP will preside over the Solemn High Mass assisted by Fr. Anthony Patalano, OP, and Fr. Augustine Thompson, OP. With ornate altar instruments, beautiful vestments, intricate movements, and complex prayers, planning for the Dominican Rite is a monumental challenge.

“We’ve spent months preparing the priests, concelebrants, and acolytes by practicing everything from the proper choreography to the Latin language. No detail is too small as every element of the celebration has profound meaning for the Church,” said Jesson Mata, Director of Liturgy and Music for Blessed Sacrament. “It’s going to be quite extraordinary to witness.”

Further enhancing the beauty of the Rite will be the addition of the Seattle-based Tudor Choir, under the direction of Doug Fullington. The choir will sing the beautiful Mass setting “Gloriose confessor Domini” by 16th century Spanish composer Juan Esquivel and motets by his contemporary, Francisco Guerrero.

“When we learned they were willing to help us with this celebration, we were overjoyed,” said Mata. “The Tudor Choir is an accomplished ensemble that specializes in Renaissance polyphony – a perfect partner in this celebration.”

Preceding the landmark celebration will be an educational lecture on the living tradition of Dominican chant and the spirituality of sacred music by Perry Lorenzo, Education Director for the Seattle Opera. This lecture will also take place at Blessed Sacrament Church and will be on August 6, 2008, at 7:30PM.

Founded in 1908, Blessed Sacrament Parish – comprised of the Catholic Newman Center at the UW, Blessed Sacrament Church, and Blessed Sacrament Priory – is served by Dominican priests. Blessed Sacrament Church is a registered national historic landmark and the Newman Center, located across the street from the University of Washington’s Seattle campus, is a beautifully designed chapel by famous architect, Tom Kundig. Together they serve the students, faculty, staff, and community of the University of Washington area.

The Dominican Order was founded in 1216 by St. Dominic de Guzman and is a religious order of the Catholic Church. Known as the “Order of Preachers,” Dominicans today preach and teach throughout the world.

Members of the press are welcome to attend the ceremony. Filming and photography of the ceremony are permitted. For logistical considerations, consultation with Jesson Mata (206-919-2637) is requested.

For more information on the Dominican Centennial in Seattle and other events, please go here. Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church Physical Address: 5041 9th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105

Catholic New Media is Bustin' Out All over

Jack Smith writes:

The Catholic Key newspaper has started a blog for the Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph. We're kicking it off with coverage from our pilgrims at World Youth Day in Sydney. It will continue thereafter with news and commentary by, about or relevant to Catholics in western Missouri.

Check it out. Bloggers among you will immediately see the site's inadequacies (perhaps all of you will), but we will continually try to improve and I'll continually figure out how to use blogger.

Check thou it out!

For Some People, Atheistic Rationalism Basically Means "Don't Put Unquestioning Faith in Jesus. Put Unquestioning Faith in Me."

A point demonstrated pretty clearly in an exchange on this thread:

There is a fundamental disconnect, as long as you can write things like:"Agnosticism I get. I can even get the sad atheist or the struggling soul who wishes there were a God but honestly can't buy it for whatever reason. What seems to me to come very close to what Paul means by the "mystery of evil" is the anti-theist who literally hates God and who spits out his last bit of spite at him in gibbering insanity like Myers.

"You missed a category. The one who doesn't believe in God and doesn't wish he did, being perfectly content the way he is.

Until you can imagine it from our perspective, that life is still good and full without any supernatural creator, there will always be a fundamental disconnect.

Instead of always analyzing things through the lens of your faith, why not try genuinely looking at the world as we do, and seeing what we see? And at least trying to understand how and why we can live our lives without anything supernatural?

Is it really impossible for you to imagine a good life and world without God?
Kaltrosomos Email 07.19.08 - 2:36 pm #
------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are content, kaltro, why is it so important to you that I abandon my relationship with God? That's what "genuinely looking at the world as we do, and seeing what we see" means.

You forget I'm a convert. I've been there. I know it's crap to say you are content. Even believers are not content. Nobody in this life is fully content. Our hearts are restless till we rest in God--and that won't happen till Heaven.

So, in answer to your question: Yes. It's really impossible for me to imagine a good life and world without God. Every experience of happiness I have ever known in this life has always pointed back to him. Every attempt by people like you to truncate that happiness by rooting it solely in accidental physical phenomena is manifestly an attempt to have your cake and eat it. Star Trek has been pretty tinny and unconvincing for a very long time.
Mark P. Shea Email 07.19.08 - 3:11 pm #
------------------------------------------------------------------
"The one who doesn't believe in God and doesn't wish he did, being perfectly content the way he is. "

Would everybody you encounter agree that you deserve perfect contentment?

What a saint!

"Instead of always analyzing things through the lens of your faith, why not try genuinely looking at the world as we do, and seeing what we see?"

This is straight out of Screwtape's playbook. "Annihilation isn't so bad. I've learned to live with it."
Pavel Chichikov 07.19.08 - 3:59 pm #
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Comfortably numb" is how St. Roger Waters describes it.

Anybody who describes post-Christian Western civilization as "content" is an imbecile.
Mark P. Shea Email 07.19.08 - 4:55 pm #
------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark,

"Nobody in this life is fully content. Our hearts are restless till we rest in God--and that won't happen till Heaven."

well, you can speak for yourself, but how do you know the mental state of everyone else?

"Every experience of happiness I have ever known in this life has always pointed back to him."

Just because that's how you found happiness, it doesn't mean it's the only way.

"You forget I'm a convert. I've been there. I know it's crap to say you are content."

Your church has nothing to offer me which I cannot find, in a better quality, outside of it.

"Anybody who describes post-Christian Western civilization as "content" is an imbecile."

I'm not describing 'western civilization', i'm describing myself and a few others I know.
Kaltrosomos Email 07.19.08 - 5:19 pm #
------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaltro:

Oddly, you ask me to make an act of faith in you that you will not allow me to make in people whom I trust vastly more than you. Moreover, you ask me to believe something about you and a few others you know, based solely on your word, that directly contradicts everything I know from experience about every other person I have ever met without any exception whatsoever. And then you stand there and tell me it's absurd to trust the apostles. This is but one of the many reasons I find atheists incredible.

Your church has nothing to offer me which I cannot find, in a better quality, outside of it.

So you say. And yet you cannot rest without trying to find a way to defeat her. If you are so content outside her, why do you keep coming back here to try to win some sort of approval or argue her down? Looks like a troubled spirit from where I sit.

So, no: I don't believe you. I think you are plenty discontent--like the human race. And I think you are in major denial about it.
Mark P. Shea Email 07.19.08 - 6:43 pm #
------------------------------------------------------------------
"And then you stand there and tell me it's absurd to trust the apostles."

When did I say that?

"So you say. And yet you cannot rest without trying to find a way to defeat her."

Because she cannot rest without trying to convert the whole world. That's the biblical calling, isn't it? She is a menace, the thought police. She would police not just my life and actions but even my thoughts, and she would have me believe such policing is beneficial. If she will not rest from trying to convert the world and me with it, I will not stop trying to fight her.
Kaltrosomos Email 07.19.08 - 7:30 pm #
------------------------------------------------------------------
When did I say that?

Because she cannot rest without trying to convert the whole world. That's the biblical calling, isn't it? She is a menace, the thought police.

You don't seem to know what you are talking about when you juxtapose those two statements, kaltro.

As to the notion that the Church is the thought police, that is simply milk out the nose funny.

Very brave of you, Kaltro. And over on John Wright's blog, you are defending communism. "True" communism, of course, not the murderous monstrosity that has everywhere called itself communism without Kaltro there to guide it.

Sin does indeed make you stupid.
Mark P. Shea Email 07.19.08 - 9:39 pm #
------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark, you're crazy. I have nothing more to say to you.
Kaltrosomos Email 07.19.08 - 10:36 pm #
------------------------------------------------------------------
It's crazy to point out that you demand unquestioning faith? Or that the apostles are more trustworthy than you? Or that your "true communism has never been tried" schtick is ridiculous? Or that your posing bravely against the thought police church is utterly hilarious?You make no sense.
Mark P. Shea Email 07.19.08 - 10:54 pm #
------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark, you're crazy because you worship a cracker. You also believe a lot of crazy things. That's what's crazy about you.
Kaltrosomos Email 07.20.08 - 9:05 pm #

Don't trust the apostles who gave up their lives for the Risen Christ. Trust "myself and a few others I know". We live lives of perfect contentment without God, which is why I'm constantly here. obsessively trying to argue the Church away, because I'm perfectly content you know and you have to stop living by blind faith in Jesus and start living by blind faith in me and whatever I tell you to believe. And stop policing my thoughts--by long distance...with your Vatican thought police satellites! And if you disagree with me, you're CRAZY! I'm really brave to say that and I'm running away and never coming back, except to call you a cracker worshipper. So there!

Very persuasive and rational.

Chris Johnson Reports on the Ongoing Episcopalian Effort to Get Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch and Moscow to Make their Proper Act of Submission to Ypsilanti

Ypsilanti locuta est. Causa finita est.

Post Soviet Lesson for a Post American Century

Another good thing to do is what John the Baptist suggested: "Repent! And flee the coming wrath!" I think we are headed for some hard times entirely of our own making, but there is still abundant mercy.

Steven Den Beste on the Curious Dynamics of Blogging

I can attest that something like that does seem to happen sometimes. People read blogs for complex reasons and sometimes they enter into contracts with you that you never get to see, much less sign. I've always been a Catholic who sees (or tries to see) politics and culture through the lens of the Faith, not vice versa. My failure to be a good American conservative first and a Catholic second has pissed off a certain number of readers, who first tried to keep me on the reservation and then denounced me for "losing my way" (read: remaining what I've always been when it became clear the Bush Administration and their enablers were committing and excusing war crimes).

After crowding my comboxes with tedious tergiversation, agitprop and (eventually) lies, a few of them actually tried to mount little "let's you and him fight" campaigns against me, variously trying to get some sort of imbroglio started between me and Jimmy Akin (and being all kinds of furious when we wouldn't bite), or pressure Catholic Answers into kicking me off their speaker's bureau (not too successful when you are also trying to sell Karl Keating on the greatness and glory of the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) or demanding Fr. Neuhaus take his foreword out of my Mary book. Some fervently wanted some kind "boycott" (though what in blazes that would consist of is a complete mystery to me). A couple even contacted my priest and tried get him to tell me what a menace I am to the Republic and what a disgrace I am to the Church. (When this little campaign failed and my priest rather pointedly gave a couple homilies pointing out the obvious fact that torture is wrong even when we do it, one of these guys (who went to my parish but was too frightened to actually come to my house or speak with me) darkly threatened in an email that he had considered contacting the government and trying to get my parishes tax exempt status revoked, a demented move worthy of Planned Parenthood's more draconian attempts to smash free speech.)

It was really quite weird--a strange little neocon kabuki of excommunication attempts in imitation of their hero that basically died of ennui when the overwhelming majority of my readers failed to buy their attempts to sell torture as Catholic or skepticism about the war as hatred of America. So they all packed up and went off to bitch about me on their own blogs and comboxes because they could not control me. My blog was supposed to be *theirs* and I had let them down. Vengeance was exacted, such as it was. Meanwhile, history is not being kind to their attempts to square the circle.

Thing is: I never signed that contract. The mission statement remains what it is: So that no thought of mine, no matter how stupid, will ever go unpublished again!

Sorry to disappoint. The blogosphere, however, is free for you to start your own blog if you disapprove.

Feel the Excitement!

McCainia Continues to Build!!!!

Fr. Rob Does liturgy Stuff So I Don't Have to

The Conspiracy Deepens

NASA launches multmillion dollar deep space probe to fake image of rotating Earth and discredit Robert Sungenis.

Will the enemies of the Truth stop at nothing to blind men's minds to the fact of a stationary earth?

Krauthammer on the Titanic Self-Regard of the Son of God and His Disciples

Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.

This is why the whole "He's just too darn wonderful to laugh at" dilemma among our Manufacturers of Culture is so transparently a commentary on them, and not on the lack of material Obama provides. Yeah, it's partly about terror of being called racist for daring to laugh at a black guy. But mostly it's because of fear of being kicked out of the cult by other True Believers.

For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?

We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more. As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall -- I'm no expert on this -- Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama operates on a larger canvas.

Catholics United Does a Little Whoring for Obama

The Sacrament of Reconciliation forgives all sins, but some sins are more forgiven than others. A cardinal belief of cafeteria Catholics.

John C. Wright Thinks the Stalin-Loving Whiners of the American Left Who Posture About Their Courage Were a Contemptible Lot

Me too. I've never seen much difference between them and Hitler sympathizers except that their guy never lost a war. I'm not a big fan of McCarthy, whom I regard as a seedy pol who happened to catch a good wave of justifiable fear. But that doesn't mean Commies weren't despicable butchers and a menace to the world who murdered a lot more people than Hitler.

Hey! Sacred Music Lovers!

Check thou this and this out!

As I suspected...

Obama's faith-based initiative would mean that every federal dollar would in effect be a secularizing dollar, a dollar than encouraged conformity to a public bureaucratic template.

Caesar is getting increasingly aggressive at trying to muscle the Church into total conformity to the world. "Faith-based" initiatives which respect the basic convictions of a faith community can be a useful form of subsidiarity that let mediating institutions do what they do. Faith-based initiatives which demand a religious tradition subordinate their deepest beliefs to the Hive Mind are just power grabs. What this will result in will be suits which will punish the Church for "sex discrimination" because she will not ordain women, or "hate crimes" because she opposes homosex or any number of other deaths by a thousand cuts by a legion of Lilliputian human toothaches like Webster Cook, who is, at this hour

still pursuing his “case” against Catholic Campus Ministries, and the means he is employing to do so are troubling. Cook has taken the unusual and (in my opinion) deplorably stupid position that the CCM has violated a rule put in place to prevent certain fraternity hazing rituals, alleging that their insistence that he either consume the host or return it violates rules against forced feeding.

It gets worse:

Cook also filed charges accusing the Catholic club of violating the school’s underage alcohol policy by serving communal wine to underage students.

Don't believe such idiocy can happen? One word: Canada.

Don't believe it can happen here? Behold a cloud the size of a man's hand.

Basic rule of thumb for Catholic social teaching: There's nothing wrong with the state helping to support the common good. That's the state's job.

The way the state is *supposed* to serve the common good is by respecting subsidiarity and religious liberty. Subsidiarity means "The people closest to the problem are usually the ones to fix it. It's only when you can't fix it locally that you go up the chain of command. So, for instance, schools are best run by the people in the community, not be a Central Planning Committee 2000 miles away."

A Faith based initiative that is instead about eradicating subsidiarity and religious liberty and trying to conform all religious traditions to a template of political correctness that has no grasp of

- Why Jews at the Beth Shalom Daycare would not want to include bacon on the menu even though Daycare Billy's mom insists it's his favorite food and he is being discriminated against

- Why Catholics are not guilty of "forced feeding" or "serving alcohol to minors" when they celebrate communion

- Why Catholics don't ordain women, celebrate homosex, etc.

will inevitably become a tool of state persecution trying to fix all that "discrimination" and "hate speech". Canada is currently experiencing this new form of soft tyranny. I'd be bloody cautious about it here too. This is a trojan horse.

An Announcement from Dappled Things

It is a pleasure to inform you that SS. Peter and Paul 2008 edition of Dappled Things has just been published online. Herewith a sampling of the excellent pieces that you will find in the new edition:

Our feature for this issue is Dappled Things President Bernardo Aparicio García's "A Man of Culture: Reflections on the Papal Visit", a eloquent and timely reflection on Pope Benedict XVI's April visit to the United States. What did the Pope actually say? What did his visit mean for American Catholics? What did his visit mean for the world today? Finally, there is this burning question: did Benedict XVI really endorse Dappled Things? Here's a taste of Mr. Aparicio's analysis of the media response to the visit:

How is it, they wonder, that this strict disciplinarian—this former Panzerkardinal—now seems more interested in talking about love and hope—as he has at length in his two first encyclicals—than in hunting down heretics, sinners, and unbelievers? Has he gone soft? Is it a public relations move? So far the media refuse to imagine that the caricature of the pope they themselves created upon his election may have been mistaken in the first place.

The final installment of Eleanor Donlon's "Magdalen Montague" is here at last! In Part V: The Triumph of Magdalen Montague, you will read the conclusion of this complex story of redemption, spanning forty years of correspondence. Learn the fates of the loquacious letter-writer "J", his virulently anti-religious recipient "R", the silently holy Domokos Juhász, and the long-absent Magdalen. As fitting a collection of letters, a belated Prologue and corresponding Epilogue now appear—but only the former can be found online. Fear not! Instructions for obtaining a copy of the printed issue are included below.

The exquisite workmanship and extraordinary imagination of author Grace Andreacchi are resoundingly showcased in "Lawrence: A Mystery Play". Ms. Andreacchi unites the traditions of the Medieval mystery play, the beautiful form and style of classical drama (particularly in her use of the chorus), and the story of this beloved saint. Listen to this chilling exchange:

EMPEROR
And is this Jesus not a dead Jew?

LAWRENCE
He is the living Christ
The living Bread come down from heaven,
And whoever eats of this Bread
shall live forever.

EMPEROR
Will you live forever, young Lawrence?
I think you may die tonight.

Other important features include a chilling monologue and poignant expression of human suffering, a vivid and unflinching poetic exploration of modern dreams of progress, the adventures of a half-pint cowboy hero, a thought-provoking essay on love, sex, and our "second selves", two meditations upon the Providential benevolence and beauty of the sacrament of marriage, and a striking array of black and white photography, principal amongst them Patrick Anderson's image of the concrete Angel, terrible in its beauty (now gracing the cover of the print issue), as well as many, many more excellent fiction pieces, essa