I have to get a bunch o'work done today and so won't be blogging

However, since tonight is the Big Night for the Anointed One, I just can't resist putting up another one of those Totally-Invented-By-the-Right-Wing-Attack-Machine-No-Basis-in-Reality myths about Obama



Remember: There. Is. No. Messianic. Vibe. Put. Out. By. The. Obama. Camp!

And these words which MM commands you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Here are some other scriptures to meditate on:

“What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history...The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.” --Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.

“Biblical hope is similar. Like Obamian hope, it speaks to the matter of the future being pulled into the present in the Kingdom of God.” --Rev. Earlmont Williams, Jamaican Gleaner

“The Obama campaign uses a religious calling as its central rhetorical trope: ‘I’m asking you to believe,’ reads the banner across the top of barackobama.com. His appeal to voters is an archetype of religious conversion: instead of being asked for support, Americans are exhorted to “join the movement”. In Georgia, he directly equated his supporters with God’s people... --’We Are The Chosen Ones’: A new hymn to Obama Telegraph [UK]

“The book [Dreams From My Father] was a revelation.” [Emphasis added.] --Jann S. Wenner, Rolling Stone Official Endorsement.

“...Barack’s appeal is actually messianic, it’s something about his aura, his spirit, his soul, that exudes enlightenment in the making...he is one of those individuals who communicates God-like energy (metaphorically speaking), in whom you can ‘feel’ God...he’s a lot closer to a Jesus-type than the other candidates...” --Steve Davis, Charleston, SC

“He appeals to all that is innate and created in us in a longing for that ‘better country, that is a heavenly one‘ discussed in Hebrews 11‘’’Thus he offers a messianic hope with the full weight and force of the U.S. government to back him up...Heaven on earth is indeed appealing rather than having to wait.” --Peter Wierenga, World

PS. Tomorrow we are off to our Secret Island Redoubt for Labor Day, so I'll be back Tuesday.

The Speech Hillary Longed to Give

In which Lady Macbeth stars in another Shakespearean role.

St. Paul's Modern Virtues

In which we finish the discussion of St. Paul as a model for spiritual warfare.

Previous articles in the series are here, here, and here.

Sr. Helen Prejean, God's Gift to Capital Punishment Enthusiasts

The preliminary pretense of Abrahamic piety over, the Dem leadership could then return to their New Age devotions. Yesterday, they held some interfaith gathering in which Sr. Helen Prejean made clear that she utterly rejects what the rest of us call "orthodox Christian faith":

Following the hot topic of abortion, Sister Helen Prejean tackled another: calling for abolition of the death penalty to raucous applause at the DNC's interfaith gathering.

She received nothing but a stony silence, however, when she questioned the basis of the biblical crucifixion story as a "projection of our violent society."

"Is this a God?" Prejeans asked about the belief that God allowed his son, Jesus, to be sacrificed for the sins of humanity. "Or is this an ogre?"

This is what happens when you take a particular enthusiasm of yours (for instance, abolition of the death penalty) and expand and exalt it into constituting the Entire Faith. I call it Truth Cancer. Sr. Helen's opposition to the death penalty is, like many laudable aspects of the Christian faith such as say, predestination, free will, the divinity of Jesus, the sanctity of property, the love of the poor or any other Christian virtue, a fine aspect of the Faith, but a lousy substitute for the Faith. Expanding Predestinarianism into the Whole Faith got us Calvinism.
Expanding Free Will ino the Whole Faith got us Arminianism. Expanding the divinity of Jesus into the Whole Faith got us Oneness Pentacostalism. Expanding the sanctity of property into the Whole Faith got us rapacious 19th Century Laissez Faire Capitalism.Expanding the love of the poor into the Whole Faith got us Communism. And expanding opposition to the death penalty into the Whole Faith is now giving us the denial that "he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Not a lot of people are aware of it because this particular heresy is still relatively small, but Sr. Prejean is spouting a theological theory which flatly denies that Jesus' death was part of the divine will. How you square that with

Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; * when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand

... I do not know. The apostolic teaching is abundantly clear, so clear that only a highly trained theological professional could not see it:

this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Acts 2)

***

For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Romans 3:23-25)

etc.

Sr. Helen is delusional if she thinks her New Age gospel starring a God without wrath who brings men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross is going to persuade serious Christians to trust her when she talks about the death penalty. Which is too bad.

Technological Messianism

In which we explore the Eschatological Hope of the Geek.

A reader writes:

Please ask your readers to pray for Zachary, 10 years old, who was discovered to have a brain tumor. He was in surgery all day today to see what can be done: they found a 4 cm tumor at the base of his skull, blocking the drain that allows spinal fluid to move up and down the spinal column. He has a very large amount of spinal fluid backed up around his brain, but until he began to have the blindng spinal headache the other day there was no indication of anything amiss. His parents are Catherine and Tim; they also have a younger child, Olivia.

Lord, hear our prayer! Mother Mary, St. Luke and St. Peregine, pray for Zachary and his family!

LA Times Sews Hurried Fig Leaf on Pelosi

She's so inept that she embarrasses even her fellow pro-aborts who have to instruct her on how to lie more effectively.

Basic lie:

"All this conservative crosier waving is about a simple set of numbers."

No. All this is about the immemorial teaching of the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.

Secondary lie:

"Chaput's novel reductionism". No, Chaput is stating the teaching of the Church from Evangelium Vitae.

Bottom line: In order to maintain the abortion regime it is, as ever, necessary to lie.

The Next 40 Days for Life is Coming Up!

This list of locations for the 170+ cities across 45 states, two Canadian provinces, and 1 American territory participating in the fall 40 Days for Life campaign has just been posted online here.

The September 24th - November 2nd 40 Days for Life campaign will be the largest and longest coordinated pro-life mobilization IN HISTORY -- and you can help save many lives by getting involved today!

Here's what to do:

1.) Go to the list of 40 Days for Life locations:

2.) Using the map, or the list of locations, click on the site that is closest to where you live.

3.) You will be redirected to the web site for that local 40 Days for Life campaign.

4.) On that local web site, SIGN UP with your name and e-mail address to get involved and help save lives!

That's it!

You will then receive information on the plans for your nearby 40 Days for Life, and how you can help make an impact.

********* SPECIAL *FREE* BONUS FOR YOU! **********

Whether you've been active in a local 40 Days for Life before, or if this is the first time you've heard of this breakthrough initiative, we really want you to get involved in a nearby campaign!

And we decided to give you something REALLY special if you sign-up to participate in a local 40 Days for Life campaign today. :-)

I was recently asked to deliver a motivational introductory presentation about 40 Days for Life to a group of committed pro-life volunteers in Baltimore, Maryland.

The response was phenomenal, and you could almost feel the electricity in the room!

Fortunately, a video crew was on hand, and the entire presentation was caught on video.

The footage has been edited to include never- before-released photos from 40 Days for Life campaigns all across the country, and the entire 40-minute presentation is now available as a gift for you.

During this BRAND-NEW video, you will see:

* A compelling overview of 40 Days for Life

* Previously unseen pictures from the first-ever 40 Days for Life campaign back in 2004

* The stunning track record of life-saving accomplishments across America

* Inspirational stories of courageous local 40 Days for Life leaders

* Stirring photos of past 40 Days for Life campaigns from many cities, coast-to-coast

* The latest news about this fall's upcoming 40 Days for Life

* A rousing call to action

This is a powerful introduction to 40 Days for Life and I believe you will be inspired!

Just follow instructions 1 through 4 above, and you'll be sent a link by e-mail to immediately access this dynamic video -- at no charge.

Looking forward to GREAT things this fall!

Blessings,

David Bereit
National Campaign Director
40 Days for Life

P.S.- If you've already signed up with a local 40 Days for Life campaign before, go ahead and follow the steps above anyway so you can get instant access to your bonus video. You will not be added to the list a second time -- our system automatically screen to prevent duplicates:

P.P.S.- Some of the local web sites are still in the process of being set up, so if the site for your nearby campaign is not yet complete, go ahead and sign up with your name and e-mail address so you can get the latest updates:

**************************************************
IMPORTANT: Please FORWARD this e-mail to everyone you possibly can across North America!
**************************************************

Go forth, conquering and to conquer!

Here's a lovely conversion story about Joe Esterhaz, the guy that gave us such stuff as Basic Instinct and Showgirls

I think the guy is the real deal. He has exactly that rough-around-the-edges quality that so endears the Church to me. He's no saint, but he's on the way.

"The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost" - Luke 19:10.

It's all still true, you know.

Awright!

Baby vs. Kitten: The Attack Ads!

I can't decide who to loathe more! Multitudes! Multitudes in the valley of Decision!

Seems Like a Worthy Effort

CATHOLIC MEDIA HOUSE LAUNCH

A brand new website has been launched called Catholic Media House to assist bishops, pastors, priests, catechists, youth directors, and teachers/instructors by providing multimedia resources for the New Evangelization.

The different types of media offered for download are mini-movies, motion and still backgrounds, countdowns on various topics of all varieties and can be used in presentations "to re-evangelize the baptized, disciple and mobilize them for evangelization and to be a blessing".

Catholic Media House is also a great platform for producers of media to have their resources in a central visible and easily accessible location.

Catholic Media House can be found here.

MEDIA AND THE NEW EVANGELIZATION

During the 42nd World Communications Day, Pope Benedict XVI stated that, "The new media - telecommunications and Internet in particular - are changing the very face of communication; perhaps this is a valuable opportunity to reshape it!"

The previous Pope, John Paul II, first used the expression "the new evangelization" in a trip to Latin America in 1983. Ever since he had "unstintingly recalled the pressing need for a new evangelization" (Faith and Reason, n. 103). This urgency stems not only from the fact that entire nations still haven't received the Gospel, but also because "entire groups of the baptized have lost a living sense of the faith, or even no longer consider themselves members of the Church, and live a life far removed from Christ and His Gospel" (Mission of the Redeemer, n. 86).

Therefore, one thing "new" about this evangelization is that it's directed in large part towards "baptized non-believers." Men and women in large numbers are "culturally Christian," but haven't experienced a conversion of heart to Christ and His teachings. The call to interior conversion, in fact, was one of the main themes of Vatican II. As the Council understood well, this can only happen through an authentic, compelling, evangelical witness to salvation through Jesus Christ.

As John Paul II clarified in his Apostolic Letter At the Beginning of the New Millennium, the new evangelization isn't "a matter of inventing a ‘new program.' The program already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever" (n. 29). What's essential in order to bring the Gospel to the modern world is a proclamation that's "NEW IN ARDOR, METHODS, AND EXPRESSION" (March 9, 1983).

McCain Pulls Into Lead After Biden Pick

Moral: You might want to think about that whole "Abortion as Our Sole Core Value" thing. It's not a winning issue, so why build your entire strategy around the notion that, if all else fails, you have two pro-abort zealots on the ticket?

Also, having Pelosi catechize us all on how to spit in the faces of a huge voting bloc was probably unwise in retrospect. She even got the USCCB to creak into action, not to mention drawing direct fire from Chaput, Egan, and Wuerl. Slapping the face of a major world religion when all eyes are on your party appears, in retrospect, to have been a sub-optimal plan.

Not that the clueless Pelosi gets this. She fired back with some more ignorant proof-texting and tried to enlist Augustine on the side of Catholics for a Free Choice, thereby shoving aside Patty Murray for the coveted title of Dumbest Woman in the Legislative Branch.

All of this and so much more is contributing to (so far) an unprecedented *sink* in the polls for Dems during Convention Week, when the norm is for a bounce. We'll see how things go after the Son of God delivers his Sermon on the Rocky Mount tonight. But so far, these guys can't seem to find their groove.

Unfortunately, however, eliminating one of the candidates will only mean the other one wins.

Stop Seeing What you See! There is No Quasi-Religious Vibe Emanating from the Obama Camp. It's all a Right-Wing Lie! Stop Seeing What you See! There is No Quasi-Religious Vibe Emanating from the Obama Camp. It's all a Right-Wing Lie! Stop Seeing What you See! There is No Quasi-Religious Vibe Emanating from the Obama Camp. It's all a Right-Wing Lie! Stop Seeing What you See! There is No Quasi-Religious Vibe Emanating from the Obama Camp. It's all a Right-Wing Lie! Stop Seeing What you See! There is No Quasi-Religious Vibe Emanating from the Obama Camp. It's all a Right-Wing Lie! Stop Seeing What you See! There is No Quasi-Religious Vibe Emanating from the Obama Camp. It's all a Right-Wing Lie! Stop Seeing What you See! There is No Quasi-Religious Vibe Emanating from the Obama Camp. It's all a Right-Wing Lie! Stop Seeing What you See! There is No Quasi-Religious Vibe Emanating from the Obama Camp.

Henry Over at Vox Nova Offers This

Question To Ponder

Let’s say in 2012, however weird it might seem, and however unlikely it actually is, two presidential candidates come out on top and it has become clear one or the other of them will become the president. It is also clear that they are drawing relatively equal support, and the one who wins will depends upon who gets more of his supporters out to vote.

Candidate A is Muslim. He has made it clear that he will work for an ethical revolution in the United States by bringing to it Islamic law. He has said the first thing he will do, and work non-stop until he has accomplished this task, is to work to find a way to end abortion in the United States. It’s very clear he is very passionate on the subject, and his statements are more than empty rhetoric. He has a plan and has outline how he could accomplish the task, and it looks like it will work.

Candidate B is a Methodist. On most issues, he is very similar to Jimmy Carter. One of the things he wants to work on is the image of the United States, so that its allies will be proud to work with the United States once again. But he is also rather supportive of abortion rights, and Planned Parenthood is one of his greatest supporters.

Who would you vote for — and why?

This little thought problem seems to turn on the notion that it is an unresolvable puzzle for a Christian to vote for a Muslim under any circumstances. I'm not sure why somebody would think that. I think a Muslim President has about as much chance of single-handedly turning America into a giant sharia state as Dubya has of engineering massive forced conversions to some flavor of Texas Megachurch Evangelicalism. Ain't gonna happen.

So, imaginary religious terrors aside, I would vote for (mark this), the candidate who was going to work to overturn Roe--not "the Muslim candidate". Some might regard this as "imposing a particular religious view on America" (particularly those on the Left who routinely think that if you've seen one Abrahamic religion, you've seen 'em all). But, of course, this is rubbish for two reasons. First, if I wanted to impose religion on America, it would not be Islam. Two, getting *rid* of a law is not imposing anything. It is, if anything, unimposing something. Getting rid of Roe would send the matter back to the states. I can't see the Executive accomplishing much more than that.

Now Henry, for his purposes, may want to add more detail to his fantasy scenario, such as a declaration of martial law, the roundup and arrest of all abortionists, perhaps some sort of nightmarish "Handmaid's Tale" flourish in which all women are herded in burkas. I say "for his purposes" because I *suspect* the real agenda behind this whole question is to try to implicate conservative Christians as more or less willing to hand the US over to some form of Islamic theocracy if only abortion will be banished. This tried and true attempt to blur Focus on the Family types and Al-Quaeda into one monstrous hydra of religious fanaticism has been popular on the Left ever since 9/11 and will continue for the foreseeable future, I reckon.

The curious result, as far as Henry's scenario goes, is that it encourages us all to test our candidates for religion, to think of them as "the Muslim candidate" and "the Methodist candidate" and not as "the candidate most likely to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution". I prefer not.

Speaking of fantasy scenarios, Morning's Minion continues his valiant attempt to maintain that there *is* no Messianic hype emanating from the Obama camp and it's all an evil plot of McCain machine that anybody could possibly think otherwise.

Vox Nova: The Church You Can't See

This Absolutely Killed Me!

Subverting the Dominant Paradigm in Denver

Prolifers fight the good fight with the world's largest sign



It's really quite an impressive undertaking.

The Paladins of Free Speech in the DNC naturally demand this view be muzzled and the authorities are complying with spaniel-like obsequieousness to this perfectly harmless (except to certain rich people) use of the first amendment rights.

Jane Mayer Surveys the Damage Done by the Current War Criminal Regime

We're only beginning to assess the damage, in no small part because the war criminals are still running thing and have a strong and vested interested in keeping us from seeing the disastrous impact their torture policies wrought. However, it looks like the old truth spoken by Screwtap is coming true again:

All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. It is more certain; and it's better style. To get the man's soul and give him nothing in return—that is what really gladdens our Father's heart.

The lie at the heart of the torture regime created by the Bush Administration was this: we are doing the most efficient thing possible to get at the information necessary to save our lives. We are the heroic men Orwell praised for being willing to do the dark things necessary so that a free people can go on living in safety.

In reality, as this article shows, we are not freer, safer or better as a result. The torture regime has done *nothing* but harm, to us not least of all. Innocent people have been torture and men who were in all likelihood guilty and dangerous have been set free because of the way in which the Administration got the information. At the end of the day, the real purpose of torture was to indulge anger and pride. We were giving the SOBs what they deserved (even if the particular SOB we were torturing didn't happen to be guilty of anything and even if our indulgence of anger was profoundly counter-productive). We couldn't be wrong. We're us!

All the effort that so many Catholics here in St. Blogs have put into justifying our war crimes--all a waste. Even the good things hoped for, down the tubes. Like every promise the devil makes: he delivers the exact opposite of what he promised. He is a liar, after all.

But we never seem to learn. What suckers!

From the Land of Cardinal Mahony Comes This Little Tale

So D Mac makes the haj to the Taj Mahony, the Great Bunker of Worship constructed as a lasting monument to the Greatness of LA's current Servant of the Servants of God.



Passing under the portal reading "I am Roger! Bishop of Bishops! Look On My Works Ye Mighty, and Despair!" Mac eventually finds himself in the gift shop where... well, I'll let him tell the story:

My friend was looking for a rosary for his girlfriend, and the store worker started asking him about her favorite colors, what kind of clothes she wore, what sort of textures she liked, etc., in order to help him pick a rosary that best agreed with her fashion sense. So far, very Californian, but not a big problem. Kind of HGTV: Rosary Edition.

Then he asked what I did for a living and I told him that I teach architecture and theology, and he said with a casual smile: "oh, that's great, my partner would love that. He was a monk for 4 years." Again, this was California, and maybe even the cathedral shop has legal issues about who it can hire and who it can't. Then I started talking to my friend about one of the architects who was a finalist for the cathedral design a few years back, whose architectural philosophy is radically anti-Incarnational and anti-Catholic, and the salesman said "well, everyone is welcome in this cathedral." Being cheeky, I said "how about Satanists?" He responded: "Satanists aren't devil worshipers, you know. I know some Satanists and they aren't devil worshipers." So, following up, I said: "OK, then what about devil worshipers? Are they welcome here at the cathedral?" He replied: "Well, devil worshipers are actually Christians, because God made the devil." Another woman in line chimed in with a smile: "that's right, God made the devil." I decided it was best to leave at that point.

I wasn't there and can't be absolutely certain, but I'm guessing that the store clerk popped in a mental tape that heard "Wiccan" when Mac said "Satanist". I've heard the "Wiccans aren't devil worshippers" trope countless times from people who have learned to parrot that line. Which, of course, makes the mindlessness of the clerks reply all the funnier.

As to the "devil worshippers are actually Christian" thing: well, what can you say? This is active stupidity of an extremely high order. It shows, not so much an inability to think as a refusal, I reckon. Something dramatic has to happen in order to jar such willed stupidity to its senses. One of Mac's readers suggests perhaps the best approach:

I would have been tempted to say

"Well, I worship President George Bush. God made him, so does that make me a Christian, too?!"

I get the feeling you might have found a loophole in the "everyone is welcome in this cathedral" rule at that point.

The curious thing about the dictatorship of relativism is that it is, at once, pluralistic about many forms of evil and absolutely draconian about the tiny spectrum of wickedness it understands. So the evil of a being with powers that utterly dwarf us as humans is blithely overlooked, while the puny, temporary and comparatively small evils of a President Bush are expanded to the status of ultimate and unforgivable. Result: a minor President is transformed into the locus of evil in the universe while the locus of evil in the universe is treated to chuckle-headed glad-handing.

I'm not as ready as some folk seem to be to draw some grand lesson about the entire state of the LA Archdiocese from this one encounter (I draw that lesson from Mahony's words and actions themselves). But it is a particularly fitting tale for illustrating just how dreadfully bad a shepherd Mahony is. This is the apotheosis of the All Are Welcome mentality that views the Faith only as the Gathering of the Church of Aren't We Fabulous.

Nuns Know How to Have a Good Time

Also, the guy who sent me this has a beautiful collection of photos of angel statuary. The commentary is somewhat dubious. For instance, I am aware of no controversy about whether angels have free will (and would be at a loss to explain the fall of Satan witout it). But the pictures are lovely.

Something Else for the Nanny State Health Gestapo to Worry About

...and another reason to speak of the Catholic Church as a vast societal menace! So it's a twofer for the Left.

You Can Help Rosemary Radford Reuther Stay Gone

A worthy goal.

Speaking of Pelosi

A reader sends along this note to the LA Times:

Hey Mark Barabak,

Do you think you could get anyone in your news room to notice that the Speaker of the House of the US Congress was dressed down by an Archbishop of the host city of where her party's national convention is?

Oh, and the story revolves around abortion and her misrepresentation of the facts of her Catholic faith on national television.

Oh, and the speaker happens to be a resident of the state of California. You know, your state.

Did anyone there catch that?

Hey New Hounds- let's go here....

"No news here, just keep moving and besides how could it possibly serve the public interest to accurately report the Catholic teaching on abortion after the highest ranking democrat in the US House tells a national TV audience LIES about the Church's teaching - I mean no one is confused about any of that, right?"

LINK!
Posted 10 HOURS ago by the AP-10 hours ago, come on!

Thanks for the help,

No doubt the MSM will be covering the story in their impartial and unbiased way ASAP.

Canonist Ed Peters on Barring Joe Biden from Communion

I'd like to see it happen. Likewise, I agree (!) with Morning's Minion that Catholics who publically and obstinately defend the use of torture should be barred from communion too. A grave sin's a grave sin.

The tricky part about all this stuff seems to me to be in the details. What's "public", for example? For instance, I oppose barring people who have a secondary relationship to these question (namely, supporters of candidates who themselves oppose the Church). My reason is simple: one can support a pro-abort or pro-torture candidate for reasons having nothing to with their position on these grave sins. Indeed, a voter can support a candidate for all sorts of reason that lessen their culpability, such as "My Dad always voted Republican" or "I just think he has a nice face." Trying to micromanage that across millions of parishioners is simply not possible. Plus, of course, excommunication is to the body of Christ what amputation is to our body. Catholics who are *eager* to excommunicate people have, I submit, something wrong with them. We should approach it with dread, not zeal.

That said, I think somebody like Nancy Pelosi deserves whatever she gets (and I applaud Abp Chaput for his blunt words).

Offhand, (it's early), I can't think of sufficiently public figures who have defended torture who might deserve similar treatment. MM suggests Kathryn Jean Lopez at NRO for her repeated lickspittle excuses for torture and he may have a point. Do I think that the Ellen Goodmans and Maureen Dowds of the world should be sashaying up to the altar, filled with open and public contempt for the Church's teaching on abortion? No. But I'm also not sure how far the minister at the altar should be going to kick people out of the communion line. Pols who actually vote for and enact evil laws should, I think, be barred. But those who express their opinions about it? I dunno. That, again, seems to involve kicking an awful lot of people out of the Church--not to mention being utterly impossible. If I do make up my mind, it will be across the board--MoDo and Lopez should both go if anybody goes.

But I would like to see pols who have voted to enact laws contrary to the Church's teaching barred from the altar. It gives scandal that so many powerful people can flip off God. The task of the Church is not to defend the wealthy and haughty.

Reader Lori Pieper asks:

I haven’t done this before with any of my own blog posts, but I’d like to ask as many people as possible to link to this one. it’s something very close to my heart, since it involves Pope John Paul I and the research I’ve done on him over a number of years. Tuesday, August 26,is the 30th anniversary of his election. I’ve started the first in a series of posts in a sort of “expose” debunking the scandalous theories about his supposed murder or near suicide(!) by authors David Yallop and John Cornwell respectively. They are excerpts from a book on this pope that I have been working on for some time.

Since the books I mentioned are full of such lies, I want people to know the truth.

The permalink is here.

Please visit and check it out! I have written a lot more these past two months about John Paul I and will through the coming month or two.

Now you know!

So much of the work of the gospel consists of cleaning up the wreckage the world leaves behind as it honks and blats about freedom of conscience, our personal truth of the moment, etc blah blah

We supply the death, cold rejection and pain, God supplies the beauty, redemption, mercy, tenderness and hope.

A reader writes:

Could I ask you to post a prayer request for my father-in-law. He is a deacon in the Hartford CT diocese and a chaplain in the Connecticut State Prison system. He's been a wonderful father to my wife, a fine example to me, and everything a grandfather ought to be to my kids. Tomorrow he is having surgery to remove a cancerous mass from his kidneys. I would truly appreciate it if you could, in the vernacular, unleash the power of the blog and have people pray for this good and special man.

Lord, hear our prayer!

Geopolitical

Geniuses

Promise End to Evil--Again
Money grafs:

Scheunemann's resume as a War Party apparatchik is lengthy. He signed the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) letter to President Clinton urging war on Iraq, four years before 9-11. He signed the PNAC ultimatum to Bush, nine days after 9-11, threatening him with political reprisal if he did not go to war against Iraq. He was executive director of the "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq," a propaganda front for Ahmad Chalabi and his pack of liars who deceived us into war.

Now Scheunemann is the neocon agent in place in McCain's camp.

The neocons got their war with Iraq. They are pushing for war on Iran. And they are now baiting the Russian Bear.

Is this what McCain has on offer? Endless war?

Why would McCain seek foreign policy counsel from the same discredited crowd that has all but destroyed the presidency of George Bush?

and

Before we start down the road of isolating and encircling Russia with weak NATO allies, let us think through Gen. Petraeus' question in 2003 about Iraq, "Tell me, how does this thing end?"

But, then, these folks never seem to think anything through.

Consequences are for the Unrighteous to worry about.

One more reason not to vote for Dubya 2.0.

Obama Messiah Hype is Purely a Creation of the Right!



"This is the Church you can't see".

Nope. No secular messianic hype here.

Lydia McGrew Sums Up Why I Will not Be Backing McCain

Empty rhetoric ain't enough. Prolifers who piss away their commitment to human life while shilling for the GOP guy who makes empty promises he does not keep will wind up screwed.

Read her piece and think about it before backing this guy. He talks tough about human life issues, but when the pinch comes, he wusses out.

Vote for the Doomed Quixotic Third Party guy of your choice, but vote!

Rod Dreher Hates America!

He doesn't automatically shout Hail Victory everytime somebody proposes another war involving a country you never heard of till three weeks ago! He doesn't think We're All Georgians Now! He is skeptical of the Mission to End Evil Everywhere on Earth! He mildly suggests that America is not God's agent of the Worldwide People's Democratic Revolution!

Rod Dreher Hates America! Let all Right-thinking Conservatives Hate and Denounce All Counter-Revolutionary Elements!

How to Approach the Church's Teaching on War All Wrong

There is a constant temptation among Catholics to conceive of Church teaching according to Minimum Daily Adult requirement thinking. It must sound as weird to the angels--like the bride who asks, at her marriage prep session, "How often do I have to kiss my husband"? But we do it all the time. The Catholic for a Free Choice type does it when she toils to figure out how to square abortion with Catholic teaching--as though the ideal is to find as many loopholes as possible that might make it possible to abort as many babies as possible.

And the Faithful Conservative Catholic tends to do it when it comes to war. So, for instance, we discover in my comboxes somebody making the astonishing assertion that pacifism is not consonant with Catholicism.

Sorry, but this astonishing assertion is just false. The Church does not function according to the notion "that which is not forbidden is compulsory." The fact that the majority of Catholics (including me) hold to some form of Just War teaching does not mean that the minority who embrace pacifism of "bad Catholics". On the contrary, it is notable that before it even begins the discussion of Just War doctrine, the Catechism prefaces the whole discussion with this:

2306 Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defense available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risks of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death.

Just war doctrine is, at its very best, a concession to human weakness and sin. It is not a Catholic ideal, but simply a prudent attempt to deal with the fact that we live in a fallen world. In other words, the purpose of Just War teaching is to restrain and make it as difficult as possible to go to war. It is not to provide us with some arbitrary rules which, if lawyered correctly, allow us to pull out the stops and start kicking ass with the enthusiastic support of the Blessed Trinity on our side and anybody who fails to thrill to creative destruction as a contemptible wimp. It is all too easy for us to forget that and to speak of war as a positive good and to condemn pacifists as enemies of that good. In fact, the tradition sees them as legitimate witnesses to the higher good while not condemning the advocate of a truly just war.

Of course, when the war is *not* just, either because of failure in ius ad bellum or ius in bello, things get rather more ticklish.

But either way, the notion that pacifism is "not consonant" with Catholic teaching is false. It is. So is Just War teaching. It is a mark of the pathology of our time that this is news to not a few Faithful Conservative Catholics, who can chuckle so easily at war crimes.

Where We Were Yesterday

You can see Rainier our our back window in the winter and any Seattleite who drives I-5 gauges the weather by whether or not the Mountain is out. But like New Yorkers who never visit the Statue of Liberty, we had not been to Rainier since 1985. So we took the boys there yesterday and clambered around on some of the trails and looked at the glorious glaciers and alpine meadows that were like something out of a storybook.

O Lord, how many are thy works! In wisdom thou hast made them all!

Splendid!

This Sounds Like a Job for Sandra Miesel!

New book purports to chronicle the career of the Secret Female Pope. You just know there's so much less there than meets the eye. But of course credulous journalistas will treat this with the same utter lack of skepticism that greeted the Da Vinci Code. No one is filled with more child-like faith in the impossible and absurd than a secular journalist confronted with the latest tale of a Romish conspiracy.

Sandra, where are you?

A dear friend writes:

Please pray for David Curp's brother, Jonathan. He has a 2 cm mass in the sinus cavity behind his left eye; it is pressing on his optic nerve, has eaten into the bone, and may be getting into his brain. He goes in for an emergency CT scan this evening, and sees an advanced ENT/surgeon on Monday. He'll be having surgery soon. Please pray for God's healing and peace for him and his family.

We've been praying all weekend. Please join us as you can. Dave and Sherry are dear dear friends. Lord, hear our prayer! Mother Mary and St. Luke, please intercede for Jonathan. Grant, Father, that he will suffer no permanent ill effect from either the tumor or the surgery. Grant skill to his doctors, healing to his body and peace to his soul and to all who love him through Christ our Lord. Amen!

A reader writes:

I'm searching for a title to give to unborn Jesus. I feel that developing a devotion to our Lord under such a title is important considering the times we live in. But, there must be a more majestic way to phrase it, something that calls the mind to pray, like Mary's title, Theotokos. Something in Greek or Latin would be preferable.

Right now, all I have is "Christ, the Divine Preortus." I'm not even sure my Latin's correct though.

Please, O diverse readers of Shea's blog, brainstorm more titles!

There's gotta be something better than "Divine Preortus"!

The Inimitable Tom Kreitzberg Presents the Latest Installment of Reeves and Booster

I figured I wasn't the only person to notice the uncanny resemblance



So much would be explained if we found out that McCain is a Cylon sleeper.

Indeed, it might explain much about recent political history:

Billy Carter Redivivus

Kmiec Continues Trying to Square the Circle

"I asked Kmiec, in light of Obama's commitment to taxpayer funding of abortion, if he would consider renouncing his endorsement if the senator didn't change his position. "I haven't seen the social science literature that you're obviously much more privy to and obviously sending me," he said. But assuming that public funding would significantly increase the abortion rate, Kmiec added, "I would be at a loss to say anything other than I can't support the senator at that point."

Dems Begin Their Gigantic Psycho-Drama

First task: convince Red State America that the Netroots who spend all their time spitting on the Judeo-Christian tradition can be held in check while the cameras are rolling and something vaguely like respect for the God of Abraham can be plausibly simulated for at least a few minutes.

So we get the stomach-churning spectacle of "prayer" right on the heels of Nancy Pelosi telling us we shall have no god before Roe and one of Obama's court prophets informing us that Jesus would have been cool with abortion.

Meanwhile, to absolutely no one's surprise, the most zealously infanticidal candidate the Dems have ever managed to scrape off the inside the tank and float to the surface chooses... a zealously infanticidal Catholic for his Veep. I think the one-two punch of Biden and Pelosi over the weekend is intended to shake the tree for all those ignorant Catholics who have received just enough catechesis to be able to parrot "My conscience trumps dusty old Church teaching". For the goal, after all, is to persuade a huge block of Catholics who know perfectly well that baby-killing is wrong to vote for an Administration that will place baby-killing right at the top of the agenda (since it constitutes the one, immovable core doctrine of the Democratic party for the past thirty years). It's a tough job, selling a lie that brazen, but part of the task of the convention is precisely to market that horse piss as fine wine to willing suckers.

For my money, the most entertaining aspect of the convention will be the spectacle of the Party Elders trying to herd all the cats. You gotcher floor fights. You gotcher embittered Clintonistas. You got Lady Macbeth and the Grand Narcissist plotting who-knows-what against the Son of God. You got various anarchists, Professionally Aggrieved Grievance Professionals, umpteen pressure groups in need of Insensitivity Training, a huge cadre of seasoned cynical pols and lawyers, post-Christian Puritans on a Mission of Better Living through Increased Busybodyness, New Agers invoking Gaia or Whoever Isn't the God of Abraham, and an assortment of other kooks. It's enough to make a chaos theoretician drool!

Meanwhile, for those of us who care about things like "intrinsic and grave evil", the simple message to the Dems remains:

It's

the

Baby-Killing,

Stupid!

Batman and Rush: Why McCain Will Win

The truth, alas, is that one of our major candidates is going to win. For months, I've pretty much assumed it will be Obama, given all the messianic hype vs all the Dole dullness and cranky "you kids get off me lawn" de-charisma of the other.

I no longer think this. The fact that a campaign as badly managed as the McCain campaign can *still* be neck and neck with Obama suggests to me there is a profound unease with Obama. I suspect no small part of it is precisely the messianic hype of the culties, but I think there may be other reasons too. Peg Noonan suggests some of them. But I think this Lord guy also has a pretty good sense of the American psyche. I don't think it's especially healthy that Americans have this self-perception, but I think he's probably right that an awful lot of us do.

I think Jesus should just cut to the chase and start appearing in Rorshach blots

Called and Gifted Gets Famous!

Sherry Weddell got profiled in this months Catholic Digest and is now wading through phone calls and email. If you you haven't yet check out the Called and Gifted program, you are missing a really wonderful encounter with the Church's teaching. Go and add to the Siena Institutes rapidlyg growing list of interest folk! You'll be glad you did!

Stayed up till 4 AM editing the final version of my Mary trilogy

Consequently, you won't be seeing much of me. On a happy note, I got it all done! Book 1 is at the typesetter and Book 2 is being copy edited. Book 3 now enters the production queue. We hope to roll them out by year's end!

Tired. Back Monday.

When you Embrace Delusion...

...then you have to invent other delusions to cover your first delusion. Case in point: the delusional claim that Obama's enthusiasm for infanticide can be squared with Catholic teaching. Once you've said something that barking mad and somebody tells you "That's barking mad", then you have to say other things like "It is a double standard to criticize people who are making bigger mistakes more than to criticize people who are making smaller mistakes" or, even sillier, accuse your critic of "blasphemy" for making fun of the messianic hype that suffuses the Obama campaign or, silliest of all, try to maintain that it's a "lie", "crap" or "an invention of the right" to say that the Obama campaign is, in fact, suffused with messianic hype.


Actually, my attention was first drawn to the phenomenon of the Obama cult's messianic hype over a year ago by that well-known right wing rag Slate. I thought it was funny, but didn’t especially keep up with this until the deluge of, well, *quotes* (you know, things Obama supporters and Obama have actually *said*, not stuff invented by McCain party ops) made my ears prick up and pay attention to this latest outburst of American secular messianism.

Deal with it, dudes. The quasi-religious hype Obama has freely chosen to associate himself with in order to gain political power is comedy gold. That the McCain campaign has (very belatedly) noticed it and creaked into action is only to be expected. When you posture as the Son of God by accepting His accolades from your drooling admirers, when your website portrays you in quasi-religious imagery, when you speak as though your political gains signal the Advent of the New Earth, expect people to laugh at you.

And expect MM and Henry to equate such laughter at a politician who is more than unusually full of himself with blasphemy of the Son of God.

It all reminds me of an anecdote from the Prophet Chesterton in The Everlasting Man:

One of my first journalistic adventures, or misadventures, concerned a comment on Grant Allen, who had written a book about the Evolution of the Idea of God. I happened to remark that it would be much more interesting if God wrote a book about the evolution of the idea of Grant Allen. And I remember that the editor objected to my remark on the ground that it was blasphemous; which naturally amused me not a little. For the joke of it was, of course, that it never occurred to him to notice the title of the book itself, which really was blasphemous; for it was, when translated into English, ‘I will show you how this nonsensical notion that there is God grew up among men.’ My remark was strictly pious and proper confessing the divine purpose even in its most seemingly dark or meaningless manifestations.

Clues for the clueless. Laughing at the messianic hype with which a pol chooses to surround himself and encourage among his culties, all for the sake of acquiring earthly power, is not laughing at the True Messiah. Indeed, laughing at such secular messianism is, I think, one of the duties of a free Christian man who honors the True Messiah. When you seriously and repeatedly conflate mockery of a particularly pretentious political campaign with mockery of God, it's a comment on you, not on the laughter.

Reader Sandra Czelusniak Was in Belfast Last Fall at the Same Time I was

What's more, she penned a portrait of that beautiful city for First Things that very much gibes with my own impressions.

We even know some of the same people! I had a long talk with the Queens University chaplain she quotes. Great guy!

Sadly, she missed my talk due to school, so we never met. But do read the piece if you are interested in how much Northern Ireland has changed since the end of the Troubles. It's one of the rare things for which I have to give Clinton real praise that he brokered that Peace. And it is one of the miracles of God's grace and the peculiarly Irish national character that Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness are now known as the Chuckle Brothers.

A reader writes:

There is a need for a book (a modern book) on the life and times of Lord Jesus. There is a book “The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah” by Alfred Edersheim, 1883. However, at amazon.com, the reviews are negative in that his scholarly style and phraseology make this a tough read. Such a book, in a modern context written by a Catholic author would be extremely important in facilitating Catholic understand of the Old and New Testaments at the change from the old to new Covenants. What were the actual Jewish (not Pharisaical) laws in place at the time? What laws were superimposed over these by the Pharisees that Jesus disputed? What was daily life like at different income strata in Jerusalem and surrounding towns? One could do a “Michenor” tour of the entire world (the Americas, Australia, Africa … what is known) before stepping into the middle east. What kind of dinner would Mary have prepared for Jesus and Joseph? What kind of clothes were worn (shoes, tunic, what special clothing for a Rabbi that Jesus might have worn – with a “fringe”?). This would all give a tremendous backdrop for a Catholic understanding of what forces impinged on activities in the New Testament, directly or indirectly.

I understand that what I suggest could (and should) be a sizeable undertaking, and may actually be covered in other books (e.g., Warren Carroll’s Christendom series, which I have on my shelf but have not read yet – so many books, so little time!). But a book focused on that narrow subject area, with a little of a good author’s imagination for other directions to go in, could be a bestseller – even to Non-Catholics.

Just an idea for you (or one you might like to pass along).

It would be an interesting book. However, I'm not the one to write it. It requires too much specialized knowledge of a kind they don't give to English majors. :)

Interesting Piece on the Latest Russian Autocrat

A reader writes:

Mark, I really think you should read this article from the New Republic - frantic about McCain's 30 years of clear support of the anti-abortion movement. I don't think he is as do nothing as you claim, and I would be interested in hearing you address the substance of this article on your blog.

All politics works the same. You use the carrot and the stick. For people interested in the question of abortion, the politician from either camp appeals to both fear and hope. So every four years, the Dems issue alarums that if the GOP wins, a New Dark Ages will settle like a shroud over America as The Handmaid's Tale becomes the terrifying reality of the New Theocratic Regime. Works every time. The Blue Staters open their wallets and Roe is saved! It's the mirror image of the tactic the GOP uses: Vote for me or millions of babies will die!!!!!!! The main difference is that, if elected, the Dem candidate (especially this one) will do everything in his power to make sure the most babies possible are killed, up to and including infanticide. The GOP candidate has a different agenda (as nearly thirty years of empty promises makes clear): keep things pretty much at the status quo. After all, it's gotten them the prolife vote for 30 years. Why rock the boat by actually bringing doing more than a few cosmetic changes for the cameras? So just keep thing at our present sub-Carthaginian levels of respect for the unborn, point to your record of votes on largely cosmetic issues--and ponder whether you should have a Pro-Abort Veep if that will get you the votes you crave.

So yeah: TNR offers the standard lefty panic attack about McCain. It's their job. Gotta weild that stick of fear and herd the Blue Staters into the panic room. But I'm not particularly persuaded it says much about McCain's seriousness on the issue.

A reader sends along a prayer request...

For a man with not much money who is about to lose his living quarters and does not know where he will find new ones.

Father of the alien, orphan and widow, grant that your beloved find a place to live and a living wage (and the help of the Church till he does), through Christ our Lord.

Interesting Interview with Abp Chaput

A reader writes:

Your cyncicism towards the national GOP's pro-life record is not totally unjustified.

But remember that the Federal Gov isn't the only game in town. Great gains have been made in the States over the past 15 years in large part because of pro-life legislators who were Republicans.

Dr. Michael New of the Uni. of Alabama wrote in NR:

"In 1994, Republicans gained majority control of the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and both chambers of the state legislature in eleven additional states. Furthermore, the number of states where Republicans controlled both chambers of the state legislature increased from six in 1990 to eighteen in 2000. Since Republicans are generally more pro-life than their Democratic counterparts, these gains in the states made it easier for pro-lifers to enact protective legislation."

Please read his short articles on how these state laws have reduced the number of abortions and planted pro-life principles into the public discourse:

http:// article.nationalreview.co...DJhOGRlNTdhZGQ=

http:// article.nationalreview.co...TIyZDM4N2EwZWQ=

Without the GOP in power in those states, none of those laws would have passed. And let's face it, a party's success in the states has a lot to do with its performance on the national level.

I fear that your constant derisions of the Stupid Party are dispiriting to those who would otherwise join the political process.

If pro-lifers throw up their hands and go 'quixotic', who will keep the national GOP even nominally pro-life? And more importantly, who will do the actual yeoman's work of pro-life action in the States?

I don't think you are sinning by rejecting both parties, but I do think you are acting very imprudently.

My discussion of Party politics is largely focused on the Presidency. I don't reject both parties per se and will vote for anybody from either party who doesn't seem to me to be advocating some form of intrinsically grave evil, if the good things they will do will outweigh the stuff I disagree with. Unfortunately, that does not include either Presidential candidate this year. I have much more faith that local politics can, in fact, accomplish the changes you cite and I congratulate the GOP grass roots folk who have made it happen. However, I still think that, at the level of national leadership, the GOP largely regards such people as useful idiots. The very fact that McCain is even *considering* a pro-abort Veep tells you all you need to know about his "commitment". But then, does anybody really believe that a ruthless hard-boiled Inside the Beltway operator like Dick Cheney particularly cares about prolife matters either? The party elders live a million miles away from the concerns the animate your local prayer team outside a clinic. The attitude of guys like McCain and Cheney (and every GOP leader who has ever phoned it in on Roe v. Wade day is "I'll take your vote and a photo op every four years, but please don't stand so close to me."

That's preferable to the naked hostility, flung bags of dung and bizarre lawsuits clinic protestors and Human Life speakers can expect from the Planned Parenthood culties who throng the Democrat party, but to expect *gratitude* for such tepid sub-Carthaginian levels of respect for human life is a bit much. I care about the GOP leadership in just the same way they care about what matters to me. I have much more respect for the grass roots people, who just want to save innocent lives from being harmed. Not that all the grass roots people care about this, by the way. Some are just good Dittoheads who get their info from Limbaugh and Fox and cheer for our noble crusade against This Month's Hitler like dutiful party members. But a lot of people are the ones who make happen the stuff you describe. More power to 'em!

I think it would be cool to have an Amish vs. Muslim demographic smackdown

It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if the US was taken over by the Amish.

Nick Milne on the Hobbit film

Jeremy Lott: Abortions for Some, Small unjust wars for others

Jeremy sums up why I'm voting third party this year.

My Latest on Inside Catholic

In which we ponder the Grand Vatican Conspiracy to anticipate the Landing of Klaatu.

Heh!



More People Who Can Make it All the Easier for Obama to Win *and* Provide Wiggle Room for Supporting The Maverick--by Not Voting for Either of Them

It's a statistical analysis thing. You wouldn't understand.

My Latest on Catholic Exchange

In which we learn how extremely advanced the Chattering Classes in Seattle are and what primitive savages those Old Testament Jews were.

Some folks asked...

where the first two installments of my Register series on Spiritual Warfare are.

Here and here.

Reader Daniel Conway writes:

1) Please keep up the political discussions, it is important to keep the discussions going. Some bloggers have given up these discussions, or the opportunity to discuss (turning off comments, etc) and as such will not 'dirty their hands.' Sadly, these folks will be lauded as contemplative , serene, whatever, without the risk associated with taking on difficult topics. Or even giving up their own opinions.

2) Several of your commentators, notably below on the Moyers/Bacevich post really have difficulty with learning anything from the left at all. For them, diversity of views, learning from the enemy, etc, is like participating in a Black Mass. While one may disagree with individual ideas, the folks like Tony A, Todd of Catholic Sensibility, as well as other folks from the left side of the fence have participated in Catholic blogdoms' discussions over the years (which until recently were dominated by conservatives) and have shifted their perceptions of the right at the very minimum, as well as their articulated positions on various topics. It reminds me of Daniel Berrigan, SJ who once said he would never participate in the anti-abortion protests, and then became more actively involved in such protests after listening for a while.

3) Perhaps it is time to seriously discuss non-participation in the electoral system. In the world of non-violence and pacifism, which was well-articulated theologically for decades in the twentieth century by many, the Church took a very 'traditional stand' approach to understanding how this 'fits' in Catholicism at Vatican 2, and since in the Catechism. 'Siding with the powerless,' 'self-denial' as the corresponding foundational virtues of Catholicism fit within Catholic traditions and practices that respect fasting, and other forms of self-mortification. Could non-participation in the American federal electoral process 'fit' into this system of justification? Can one understand such non-participation as 'occasion of sin,' particularly with understandings of the desire of our politicians currently to pursue the acquisition of power over principle, etc? Or that one 'sides with the powerless' of the varied varieties, knowing of a federally-mandated and majority-supported right to abort, or the victims of the American capitalist empire, or victims of American wars, etc? And then, in a positive light, wouldn't this support a more universal understanding of who constitutes Children of God? Such discussion and promotion challenges the theological foundations of the 'uber-patriotism' (which should be challenged), much as the practice and support of non-violence and pacifism is an ongoing thorn in the side of those supporting any war as well as war in general.

Just some random thoughts.

Enjoy the end of your summer.

It's been a little weird conducting the blog this month because I'm not really tuned in, what with all the work. I sort of glance at a few posts, and there are certain commenters I always read, but I've missed a lot too. The funny thing about the Bacevich thread was that several readers seemed to me to be operating almost entirely on the basis of tribal affiliation rather than attending to a word he said. As one spectacularly strange post put it:

Sorry but putting the name Bill Moyers with any conservative is somehow impossible for if they were a conservative, they would not be interviewed and they would not be supporting Obama. At least with Hannity, there is a liberal on the show with him and liberal guests are interviewed. You will never see a conservative given an interview on Moyers.

Alrighty then! Bacevich, by definition, cannot be a member of the Oogabooga Conservative Tribe because he was seen talking to a prominent member of the Uggabugga Liberal Tribe. So we don't have to listen to anything he says! There! Argument refuted!

This notion that somebody can simply be ignored once you have them tagged with the right tribal affiliation, despite the bleedin' obvious fact that much of what he has to say would have, in the not very recent past, been hailed as common sense by conservatives ("live within your means, take responsibility, don't try to build an Empire") tells me, yet again, conservatism has morphed into a weird ideology that is only a couple of clicks away from much of the crazy ideologies of the Left.

Meanwhile, like Daniel, I miss hearing the voice of Old Catholic Left (the one that was faithful to magisterium and not simply a tool of politicians and corporate interests that fear and loathe the Church's pelvic teachings). Like the Old Right (the one that actually cares about human life, does not embrace consequentialism and has some modesty about Leviathan's power to bring about an End to Evil), I think the Old Catholic Left has some important things to say to us.

Oddly, I'm reminded of Chesterton's remark somewhere that "The real American is alright. It's the Ideal American that's all wrong." I say "oddly" because Daniel's note puts me in mind of this piece by the invaluable John Zmirak, who for all his paleoness seems to me to see eye to eye with much that Daniel cares about too. I'll take his vision of love of country over that of the Ideological Jingo any day.

There's a curious tectonic shift happening when an enthusiast for infanticide can be widely hailed as the Messiah, NRO can hail Trotsky as a hero and people who oppose torture and abortion are alike reviled as enemies of the American Way.

For myself, as I pick my way through the rubble of a decaying American cultural and political landscape, the only rule of thumb I have for making prudential judgments about who and what to listen to is this: ignore the entire attempt to Think By Tribal Affiliation. Instead, following Paul, I will "Test everything, hold fast to what is good." The wisest person may spout rank folly. The greatest fool may say something sound and true. The only thing I can do is test it by the canon of the faith and then do my best.

Ramesh Ponnuru Argues with Me about Chemical Castration

Ramesh is a good guy and I'm sorry I didn't catch this when he posted it (I've been slogging away on, let's see, two books, a pamphlet, plus editing my Mary trilogy--with more to come! So I've been missing a lot, especially withe bale of mail that followed the Angry Traditionalists piece for Inside Catholic.

Anyhow, some time ago, I wrote this:

Ramesh responds:

Humanae Vitae isn't on point, I think. That encyclical reaffirms the historic Christian teaching against contraception. It is worth keeping in mind that not all actions that have a contraceptive effect count as contraception as the term is used in the Church's teaching: the removal of a cancerous uterus, for example. The point of chemical castration, similarly, is not contraceptive. If chemical castration is wrong, it is for other reasons.

Moreover, I gather that "chemical castration" does not make it impossible to have sex or children. Nor does it somehow nullify offenders' ability to make free and reasoned choices. My understanding is that the chemical regime reduces the sex drive by affecting hormones. I think it is hard to regard that as a mutilation (which the Church condemns), especially when you consider that the sex drives in question are not healthy.

That's a reasonable argument. However, I think Ramesh misunderstands my appeal to Humanae Vitae. I'm not arguing that rapists are seeking the goods of union and fruitfulness and must not be impeded from doing so. Quite obviously, they are not. Rather, I'm arguing that castration, whether chemical or physical, is anti-natural and Humanae Vitae is founded on the premise that we are not free to thwart what God has designed our bodies to do. One can argue, of course, that our bodies are designed to be free but we put crooks in prison.

Yes, but we don't inject them with paralyzing chemicals or cut their legs off to keep them from walking around. In the same way, I think locking up rapists is just ducky. Castrating them, whether chemically or otherwise seems to me to cross the line.

For a fuller discussion of my take on the Church's teaching concerning technological interventions in human biology, go here. The piece is primarily about artificial contraception, but the principles which undergird the Church's thinking here also applie to the question of chemical castration as punishment, I think. Also, I mention it partly because I want to head off the usual remarks like "If you think we should never interfere in human biology, then why not throw away your aspirin and cancel your health insurance?"

Maureen Wittmann asks prayers for seven Franciscan University Students involved in a deadly car crash.

Lord, hear our prayer!

When People Ask Me, "Do you believe in organized religion?"

I answer, "No. I'm a Catholic."

In illustration of my point the Mighty Favog tells a tale of the latest brain fart from some well-meaning-but-what-were-they-thinking? Catholics out his way.

Does Jesus really need a Humvee?

The Nordic Giant Son writes:

I knew I was wise to avoid this movie.

"The legal definition of torture has been much aired in recent years, and I take *Mamma Mia! *to be a useful contribution to that debate." - Anthony Lane, in his review of *Mamma Mia! *for *The New Yorker.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Morning's Minion Endorses The Son of God for President

How he regards that as compatible with, you know, the full range of Catholic teaching, in the full recognition that the Son of God's solution to this baby's problem is to just close the refrigerator door on her, I will never understand.

Meanwhile, in one of the more entertaining juxtapositions of combox wars I've seen lately, people in my comboxes inform me that my refusal to vote for either major party candidate "makes it that much easier" for Obama to win, while Morning's Minion, in possibly the nuttiest and most projection-filled accusation I've read in quite some time responds to Zippy Catholic (who also refuses to vote for either candidate) with this:

LOL! That's rich coming from a person who claims he will not even conider supporting Obama or McCain on life grounds, and yet unleashes his rhetorical arsenal on the former in a vastly disproportionate manner. Some might argue you are providing sufficient wiggle room to support McCain, and yet don't have the courage to say so.

I don't care who you are, that's funny stuff!

Meanwhile, Tom Kreitzberg, being his usual sane self, points out the bleedin' obvious:
Voting for a candidate can cause the candidate to win the election. It cannot cause another candidate to win the election.

Update: Morning's Minion complains:

Interesting, Mark. That you disagree with me is not an issue, not a problem. And yet-- do you write posts entitled: "To the suprise of absolutely no one, Feddie/ Francis Beckwith/ any number of "Catholic" bloggers endorses the [insert insulting name for McCain] for president".

This is my problem with people like you and Zippy. I can respect your decision to abstain, rather than supporting either of these highly imperfect candidates. And yet, like the Irish government during WWII, your neutrality is decidedly lopsided, hypocritical even. Zippy even shares a blog with an avowed McCain partisan-- is that cooperation with evil?

And by the way, if there is a dramatic incease in the incidence of abortion over the next four years, I will repent my decision. I'm still waiting for the Bush voters of 2000 and 2004 to do the same.

I think I've made pretty clear that I'm not voting for The Maverick. I think Feddie's made pretty clear that he is.

You, on the other hand, have tried to pretend that you were a Beyondist when it was obvious to anybody reading you that you were plumping for Obama and bending over backwards to square his enthusiasm for infanticide with the circle of Catholic teaching. So I make fun of The Big Announcement because it's not news to anybody.

I freely acknowledge that I think McCain the lesser of two evils. So, I'll wager, do Zippy and Feddie. Zippy's and my main difference with other conservatives like Feddie is that we won't vote for the lesser of two evils, whereas guys like Feddie thinks it would be prudent to do so. So, yeah, my criticism is lopsided. I think Feddie's making a mistake voting for the lesser of two evils. I think you are making a far bigger mistake foolishly endorsing the greater of two evils.

As to Zippy somehow becoming ritually impure by sharing a group blog with somebody you disagree with: give thou me a break. Zippy not exactly shy about what he thinks. Since when did it become my job to police Zippy's private associations?

Sorry, dude. You've made a dumb and, I think, completely indefensible endorsement of the Son of God. You've made even dumber tu quoque excuses for it. Live with it.

Spiritual Warfare, Part 3

In which we look at how the apostle to the Gentiles forgave and fought.

Silly but Cool Ad

More Traditionalists Like Steve Skojec Please

Steve writes a moving piece on the sufferings Traditionalists have endured. He's been a real mensch in trying to navigate the choppy waters between Traditionalists who feel neglected and abused and sympathetic outsiders like me and this lady, who don't get it when Traditionalists diss us as second class Catholics or fantasize that we are part of some Vast Conspiracy. If the Trad community can find more voices like Steve's and find a way to mollify or marginalize the loud and bitter crazies, then I have real hope that the beauties Steve rightly wants to see restored to the Church will find a home in lots of Catholic hearts. Right now, it seems to me the only thing that really stand in the way of Trads getting their hearts' desires are Trads. I pray that the better angels of their natures will triumph here, by the grace of God. Steve's a hopeful harbinger of that.

Nice job, Steve!

I've Always Thought There Was Something Repellent and Evil about "Body Worlds" Exhibits

Now I know why.

Dreher and Douthat on the Decay of the Right

Somewhere back in the past, WFB quoted somebody who said that if a man commits murder, it could very well lead on to theft, breaking and entering, cheating at cards and even fibbing.

Similarly, a political movement that has corrupted its soul by going to bat for torture and war crimes for six years may very well be tempted to use slime rather than honest political rhetoric in order to win.

If I Don't Vote for McCain Millions of Babies Will Die!!!!!!

I'm not voting for either major candidate. My reason for not voting for Obama are obvious. What amazes me though, is the notion that if McCain wins we will somehow see much difference on the prolife front. The Big Hope, of course, is the the complexion of the Court will change and Roe will be revisited.

Here's our Heroic Maverick:

"But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations." ...

Translation: he won't do squat. And if you are still not clear, O prolifer, that your function is to vote for him and then shut up:

He added that while he ultimately favors repeal of Roe, "we all know, and it's obvious, that if we repeal Roe v. Wade tomorrow, thousands of young American women would be performing illegal and dangerous operations."

Millions of babies will be killed whichever of these guys is elected. One will zealously try to make sure the maximum number die in sacrifice to the Culture of Adult Desire. The other (an active participant in the Culture of Adult Desire in his own way) basically is interested in appearing pro-life, but has absolutely no intention of overturning Roe. He wants the status quo, as virtually all GOP pols do, because it's useful for playing prolifers for suckers.

So: since I am faced with *two* candidates who want the current regime to continue, I choose not to vote for either.

Pete Vere writes from Deep Inside the Maple Archipelago:

This past Saturday (August 16) I was a guest on Joe Banister's call-in show to discuss the book Kathy Shaidle and I are co-authoring, the Tyranny of Nice. Joe has now archived the show here.

The exchange I found the most amusing was with the caller who objected to Joe denouncing the complainant in the Kindos case as a pot head.

He meant to say Po Thead.

Professor Bainbridge on Why Obamacons of the Kmiec Variety are Looking so Silly

Douthat sums it up nicely:

Warren, to his credit, didn’t pose a metaphysical question, or a biological one. He asked a legal question: “At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?” Obama tried to dodge by saying that from a “theological perspective” or a “scientific perspective” the issue is “above his pay grade.” But Warren asked a more narrow question, and one that any politician who votes on abortion laws should be able to answer. And of course, as a supporter of Roe and Casey, Obama does have an answer: He thinks that a baby acquires rights when it’s born - well, perhaps depending on how and why it happens to be born - and lacks them at every juncture before birth. He just didn’t want to come out and say it.

Exactly so. Which is why Obama will never get my vote.

Oddly, some readers are telling it's not enough for me not to vote for Obama. I *must* vote for McCain or I'm still really voting for Obama. And if I do that, I'm committing a sin. So it's *sinful* for me to not vote for McCain. Even though, as my readers also say, he's the lesser of two evils, what with his stem cell wishy-washiness and his promise of being Bush III in so many ways. I've been trying to figure out where Catholic moral teaching compels me to vote for evil, but so far I haven't found anything. So I think I'll just stick with my doomed quixotic vote.

A reader writes:

I just read your article on InsideCatholic.com about overzealous "traditionalists," and I must thank you effusively.

In the interest of full disclosure, my Catholic dispositions would probably earn me the label of "traditionalist"--I sing in a Gregorian chant schola, I cringe every time I see modernist church architecture a la the Los Angeles Cathedral, and would wake up to see all of the aging-hippie folk groups miraculously dissolved overnight. I'm even planning my wedding next year in the Extraordinary Form, and both my fiance and I receive formation from the Opus Dei prelature. And of course, being from the Rochester, NY area has given me a bit of a Torquemada complex, at least in the context of venting my frustrations with like-minded friends.

But I cannot, cannot endorse the way some so-called "traditionalists" viciously attack those who are not 100% aligned with them. They include people who (shudder) attend the Paul VI Mass, read *First Things*, or dare to hold a good opinion about Pope John Paul II! And I can vouch for this because I know several people who fall into that camp.

A few months ago, I was in a facebook.com discussion group (don't know exactly how I ended up on this list), and someone sent in an article about SSPX priests evangelizing Protestants in Germany. I replied that it is generally not a good idea to hold up schismatics as paragons of faithful Catholicism, unaware of the torrent of abuse that would come my way from so-called "friends." Of course, I was immediately pigeonholed as one of those poor benighted "Novus Ordo Catholics" with an insufficiently high level of admiration for Marcel LeFebvre et al. And they had the nerve to say that I was "bitter," "uncharitable," and "emotional" for criticizing fringe groups...although if they really wanted bitterness, they could always read some of Bishop Williamson's newsletters. Thankfully, an Oxford oratory priest who was also on that discussion list privately messaged me to tell me that I was the "voice of sanity"; otherwise, I would have become even more angry and upset.

Sorry for rambling. But quite a few self-identified traditionalists (and I refuse to use that label for myself--I'm only "traditional" in the sense that all Catholics are supposed to be "traditional") should read what you have written, because they truly do Tradition a very poor service when they talk and act the way they do.

You're welcome. As I say, the strangest and saddest part of this whole business is the absolute genius so many Trads have for driving away people who are basically sympathetic to them.

Obama Enthusiast Makes Jesus Into the Image and Likeness of the Son of God

Turns out Jesus would be just fine with abortion. We know this because Obama is enthusiastic about making sure as many babies as possible are sacrificed to the Culture of Adult Desire and Jesus would never disagree with the Lightworker.

If you ever need insight into the inmost Mind of God, just talk to a Dem shill: they always know what he's really thinking.

Blasphemy!

John Zmirak Speaks the Truth

From "Blood in August: On Avoiding World War III"

I hope that Americans making policy in the face of a Russian state dominating its neighbors will remember that other August, so many years and millions of lives ago. When we're urged to indignation by one-sided news reports, when a nation most of us have never heard of is magically transformed into a "vital security interest," when a politician whose closest aide has worked as a flak for that country calls on us to intervene on its behalf, and his opponent competes to prove he's every bit as "tough," even though he's a Democrat, I hope . . . that we're a little skeptical.

As we would be in other circumstances where life and death were at stake -- say, if a doctor told us that a pregnancy was ectopic and needed to be removed to save the mother's life. Even if it proved necessary to commit an act that indirectly ended an innocent life, which was justified by the principle of double effect, we would undertake it with grim reluctance, perhaps with tears. Starting a war deserves the same grave consideration. It is nothing to cheer about.

I hope that we will exercise the prudent, solemn judgment demanded of us as Christians when we nudge up to the brink of that horrible abyss we call modern war -- in which whole cities can be obliterated in minutes, in which we are told no one is innocent and every target is a legitimate military objective, in which the whole of morality is tossed over the side in the first few hours of conflict. I hope we're a little smarter than those crowds that thronged the streets in London, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin and St. Petersburg on those hot summer days in 1914. That we sift the words of our own rulers, and resist the temptation to paint the leaders of rival nations as rising Hitlers, and raise the assertion of our power to the status of a principle. That for every time we read something on Fox News or in The Weekly Standard banging the drums for war, we would fact-check it at Antiwar.com, a first-rate resource run by Old Right, small-government activists who constantly cite Catholic just war teaching.

I hoped for the same things in November 2002, and paid no price for being contrary. Of course, the warmongers paid no price for being dead wrong: They still dominate leading wings of both political parties. Apart from the enormous Iraq-shaped hole in our country's budget, most of us have paid rather lightly for our callous willingness to "trust the president -- he's pro-life!"

Except, of course, for those veterans at Walter Reed being fitted for artificial limbs, those children who'll grow up fatherless or motherless, those bodies decaying in neat little rows at Arlington. They trusted their government, they signed up to fight for their country. They believed that its civilian leaders would only send them on missions vital to its survival, that we would ask of them the ultimate sacrifice only in the last emergency. That is what Christ demands of us. If we wage war recklessly, we are no better than the pagans. We're worse, since we should have known better.

And on the Day of Judgment, those men we sent to kill and die in the worst circumstances imaginable -- to end their lives not in quiet contemplation of the Cross but in a frenzy of bullets and screams and burning flesh -- will rise, restored to wholeness, bright with glory. They will gather beside the "awesome judgment seat of Christ." And they will accuse us.

We've started a Mercy Novena for peace here at Chez Shea. Seems like about the best thing we can do with all the saber-rattling happening.

Recently, there's been an attempt to buff up C.S. Lewis and make him a good Lefty

Certainly there are aspects of the Inklings which, today, would earn the knee jerk derision of Limbaugh or Hannity. Their love of nature would be smeared as tree hugging. Their sacramental approach to creation would be derided as New Age, etc. Lewis' abhorrence of vivisection would be sneered at as animal rights lunacy by the mandarins of Right Thinking on FOX or talk radio. So it's understandable that some Lefties want to buff off some of the more uncomfortable edges to the Inkling's thinking and claim them as their own, especially since so many Righties who are gung-ho for war love to groove to their appreciation of martial virtues and their defense of, well, you know, God and stuff.

But Lewis and Co. also don't really fit into the Grand End to Evil dreams of Empire and Eternal Revolution that fill the fevered brains of our great Wise Men at PNAC and AEI.

It basically turns out that Lewis was not somebody terribly amenable to the ideologies of the early 21st century. He wasn't even amenable to the ideologies of his time. That's part of his greatness.

The Dharma Initiative Wants You!

Take the Uber-Creepy Personality Test and become a volunteer!

Bill Moyers Interviews One of the Last Sane Conservatives: Andrew Bacevich

Here and here.

Rod Dreher posted some of the transcript of this at his blog. In response, one of the dying breed of Grand End to Evil types wrote:

Bacevich is utterly, horribly WRONG.

America's exceptionalism does not die, it goes dormant only to rise from the ashes even better than before. Further, America is not an empire. Worst of all Bacevich completely misses the reality that American values in the world are an existential threat to ISLAM -- thus ISLAM IS AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO AMERICA, as new radicals and militants shall continue to spawn from the Ummah so long as Islam remains a power in the world.

Militant Islam is the greatest existential threat America has ever seen, and the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan are necessities. One can reasonably argue that Iraqi democracy will not last long, but the fact remains that America created FREEDOM in Iraq where there was none before; if a so-called "conservative" cannot recognize that -- then he's a poor conservative at best.

Using the U.S. military to create freedom in the world is a valuable endeavor, and complements Constitutional values that still animate America today.

Bacevich should be seen for the amateur, unconvincing America-hater he is. What do you expect out of Academia? His anti-American ideas are just par for the collegiate course.

I remember a time when flocks of these Hannity-wannabes darkened the skies (and intellects) of the nation with their screams of "traitor" every time some sane person suggested that our military was not infinite, that our job is not to fix the world and that the spread of pornocracy is not what the Founders had in mind in establishing the American experiment. I even remember a time when morons with laptops could smear a good man and a veteran who sacrificed his son to this misbegotten war and get away with it because they were "patriots", doncha know. But the tide seems to finally be turning, thank God. May God give us more Andrew Bacevich's and continue to cull the herds of the Hannitys.

New blog!

Check thou out the Northern Agrarian. The world needs more Small is Beautiful People.

Baby vs. Kitten

Huh-larious!

Why I Love Steve Ray

The guy is just a total character. Wonderful!

GOP Presidential Nominee Revealed to be GOP Presidential Nominee!

It turns out McCain kinda cares about abortion--sort of... if it's not too much trouble and if it doesn't get in the way of the stuff he really cares about.

McCain: Abortion-rights vice president possible

Best quote of the whole article:

"I think it's a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice," McCain said. He called the gap between the two sides a disagreement - "albeit strong."

The GOP: You pretend we'll do something about abortion and we'll pretend to care every four years!

However, mention Georgia and our sudden and urgent need to go to war against the Latest Hitler and you get some real energy going in the McCain Camp.

More reasons to vote for some doomed quixotic candidate.

It turns out doing anti-natural things to your body has unnatural consequences.

Who could possibly have foreseen that?

A reader writes:

Some of what you have written recently is similar to very similar to Thomas Merton. You and he share what is the only acceptable Catholic position on torture. He was writing in the context of the Vietnam war and the nuclear arms race. Here's a couple of excerpts from Merton's essay on Auschwitz:

Those who tortured escapees or resistors (and resistance could be expressed even by an expressionless face) praised the "Boger swing" as their most effective language machine. The victim was hung from a horizontal pole, upside-down, by wrists and ankles. He was whipped so vigorously that he often spun clean around on the pole... "My talking machine will make you talk", said Boger, who was proud of his invention. In fact, he has earned himself a place in history on account of it. Not an enviable place...

[I]n the end, his defense was content to ask for leniency rather than life imprisonment, on the grounds that Boger had merely done his duty as a good policeman.

This seems to sum up Boger's rather aggrieved view of his own case. Boger defended his "swing" to the very end. How could one refuse a conscientous police official the right to use "rigorous methods of interrogation"? Boger bluntly addressed the court on the virtues and necessities of these methods. They were highly practical. His defense lawyer expostulated with the Jury: "The swing was not intended as torture: it was the only effective means of physical suasion"...

Quotation is from the essay, "Auschwitz: A Family Camp" - written circa 1967 and published a few times in various places. My edition is in The Non-Violent Alternative (Thomas Merton on Peace). NY: Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1971.

It's worth a read if you can get hold of it. Merton is a very good writer but seems to have passed into some degree of obscurity lately. You'll see it's not about Godwin's Law but the opposite: that the corruption of language and the dynamics of Nazi Germany can crop up anywhere given the right conditions. Fits in with what you said about the "antichrist" a couple of days ago.

Professor Bainbridge on Kmiec's Sellout for Obama

Perhaps he can be made Attorney General for Wales.

The Bleedin' Obvious About Obama



Blackadder posts this over at Vox Nova. Much tergiversation in the comboxes from Obamaphiles who can no more bring themselves to acknowledge the bleedin' obvious about Obama than the Coalition for Fog can say, "Yes, the Bush Administration has committed war crimes."

Commander Craig writes:

I'm having Jeff Tucker and Todd Flowerday back on "Catholic Radio 2.0!", streaming live on September 13 at 11 AM ET, with a downloadable podcast of the show available later in the day. They were on this past April, and they set a standard for intelligent, charitable debate on the liturgy. I expect this will continue on September 13. You can listen live or download later .

Fifty Billion Responses to "Those Angry Traditionalists"

For those with the stomach for it, you can read the article, plus the 289 (as of this posting) responses here, (comments are sure to climb past 300 before the morning is over).

I'm really amazed that the piece has generated so much comment and controversy. I suspect part of it is the title (which I had nothing to do with). I can't tell you how many people have written... well, let me give you a typical exchange:

I have recently read your article on how traditional Catholics are fussbudget angry liturgy freaks.

Um, no. My article was on how not all and not most, but still many are embittered and angry, which is an obvious fact.

Here's what I actually wrote:

Such treatment of brother and sister Catholics is, well, evil and will serve to ensure that Traditionalism (or, at any rate, this kind of Traditionalism) dies out in a generation or so.

and

But that is often the impression I have gotten from many (though certainly not all) Traditionalists. Like it or not, discourse among a great many Traditionalists is filled with anger and contempt for Catholics who do not share their burning interest in traditional forms of piety.

I have no idea why you make a broad generalization like this, and I also do not know why you do not recognize the great and holy beauty in the Gregorian Rite of Holy Mass.

I did not make a broad generalization. I stated a fact about a significant minority whose bitterness and factionalism tends to poison the perception of Traditionalism for many outsiders to the subculture. I said not one word about the TLM. Indeed, as I have repeatedly said, I'm quite happy about the TLM, as I am about any Mass the Church offers.

I assist at the Gregorian or Traditional Latin Mass almost every Sunday and occasionally the Pauline Mass on weekdays.

I have never been happier in my life and more aware of the awesome sacrificial nature of Holy Mass, since my wife and family and I first started assisting at the TLM about three years ago.

That's great!

99% of the traditional Catholics that we have met are some of the happiest and most generous human beings that I have ever met in my 41 years of life.

I have been to the TLM in about 20 different churches in 10 different states and I find this to be the case across the board.

I know many fine folk in the TLM too. My point is this: I only got to know them because I took a second look after encountering quite a large number of bitter crazies. Most people will *not* take a second look if the bitter crazies are their first experience.

I was born a Catholic in 1966 and was an altar boy in my home parish from 1972 until 1980 and never experienced the same joy during that time in my parish in the 1970's.

So I remain confused as to why you have seen so much evil and darkness in your life amongst traditional Catholics.

I thought I explained it pretty clearly. "New Mass=Abortion" is not the attitude that is likely to win hearts and minds. And as you scroll down the comments on Inside Catholic, ask yourself "Do I really want some of these guys representing what I love?"

I for one am eternally grateful for having my childhood faith brought back to me in the Gregorian Rite, and with the grace of Almighty God may we soon see a new springtime in the Church with the complete return of the Traditional Latin Mass.

It has given me my heritage back,

And I was born in 1966.

I'm delighted to hear that God is blessing you through the TLM. It's a beautiful rite and I'm nothing but happy that the Pope has encouraged its wider availability.

I pray for you always and God bless you

In Christo et Maria

That letter stands for a lot of letters. Three major misperceptions appear to be endemic in so much of the response to the article.

The first is that I'm attacking all Traditionalists. This meme turns up a lot. However, it's just not true. I'm saying that a significant minority display the traits of anger, bitterness and factionalism. And it's a simple fact that they do. The very comments that follow the article demonstrate this. Calling the piece an attack on a straw man won't do when there are so very *many* straw men ready to bear me out at the drop of a hat.

Second, quite a number of readers somehow managed to take the piece as a slam at the TLM itself. In fact, of course, I said not one word against the Tridentine rite. It is no small part of the problem that so many who claim to speak for Traditionalism conflate criticism of their nasty behavior with criticism of the Mass. One fine fellow is even busy combing my site for dirt on me, but is too humor-impaired to recognize a tongue in cheek comment when he sees it. So: to reiterate, I'm quite happy with the Tridentine rite. I'm glad the Pope issued the motu proprio. I think it's all good that the Tridentine rite is being made more widely available.

Even more shocking to my reputation as a Documented Trad Hater is the fact that I have so many Traditionalists friends and acquaintance. That explains the mystery of why I've advertised the TLM when Fr. Bloom does it here in Seattle and am happy to plug it in other parts of the country too. Delusional notes to the contrary notwithstanding, my alleged "fear" that the Tridentine rite will supplant the "trash" of a Paul VI rite is non-existent and therefore does not fuel any participation in some Grand Conspiracy to, 'ow you say, "ideologically sodomize" Trads as one commenter colorfully put it. As I've said repeatedly, I. Don't. Care. what Mass is given me by Holy Church. Tridentine's fine. So is Paul VI (reverently celebrated, natch).

What I care about is, well, this sort of thing:

Yes Mark, the new Mass can be celebrated “reverently”. But that is not the issue. Lambs and chickens can be sacrificed “reverently” by pagans. Ingredients can be added to the cauldron “reverently” by Wiccans. The issue is not reverence, but sacred mystery – which the TLM invokes – vs. affirmation of our “status” as the “People of God” – which the Novus Ordo evokes. To put it in simpler terms, the real issue is - Catholic vs. Protestant.

And there's plenty more where that came from.

Finally, there's the curious notion that I wrote the article because I am filled with anger at Trads. "Tu quoque" replies are always satisfying, especially when you are whipsawing between denying the anger entirely and shouting you have every right to be angry (with the de rigeur references to Jesus and the Moneychangers as your biblical license to ill). But the fact is: I'm no more angry at Traditionalists than I am at Hottentots. I don't hang out in Traditionalist circles. The Traditionalists I do know tend to range from Very Nice Folk to Downright Saintly, which does not inspire anger in me. I have, however, had to do the work of penetrating the crust of the Bitter Crazies in order to meet these folk. (For instance, one lovely family of our acquaintance actually received death threats from the local SSPX chapel when they started going to our parish. One of the most beautiful families I've ever known.)

Anyhow, to sum up here's what I wrote (to somebody over at IC who asked me to clarify yet again that I was not speaking of all Traditionalists when I said I was not speaking of all Traditionalists:

As to your point about making clear that it's *this* kind of Traditionalism I mean, I happily concur. Indeed, I've said repeatedly in this thread and elsewhere that it is only this that I am attacking. As I have also made clear repeatedly, my son and numerous friends often attend the local Tridentine rite. Lovely folk all of them. Indeed, one of my favorite priests here in Seattle is Fr. Phil Bloom, who offers the EF. We've had lunch many times. Great man!

Bottom line: It's time to drop the anger and start celebrating that we live in the time of Benedict XVI. The motu proprio is here. The TLM is becoming more widely available. Take yes for an answer and stop clinging to rage. You're getting what you've longed for. If you take this opportunity, not to receive the gift with joy, but to say, in the inimitable words of Ken: "We don't need to relate to you -- our counterrevolution to your defense of modernism is winning" then Trads will blow their chance to consolidate their gains, which would be a real shame. If they speak of people who basically empathize with what they want with the sort of presumptuous contempt so many of them exhibited on this thread, they will alienate allies out of a refusal to give up their rage.

And all the appeals to Jesus' cleansing of the Temple will not excuse that selfishness choice to indulge anger at the cost of bearing witness, not only to the beauty of the Tridentine rite, but to its sanctifying power.

So take the risk: be glad and rejoice! The Tridentine rite is back! Show the rest of us why that's a good thing by making it the home of saints, not a haven for a nucleus of embittered malcontents. I know it can be done because I've met a great many parishioners of the TLM and they are splendid saints. But I've also met a lot of Kens, Marys, and Franks. I met the saints because I took the time to look past the bitter crazies. Most Catholics will not take that second look. That, and nothing else, is my entire point.

A reader writes:
Awhile ago you posted a notice on your website about the conference "Humanae Vitae - Cornerstone of the Culture of Life" - a conference, in the Bay Area, celebrating the 40th anniversary (who isn't, these days?) of Humanae Vitae.

I wanted to thank you for helping advertise it (one or two people actually came because you posted it on your blog), and to update you, now that the conference is over. Of course, this email is a bit of shameless promotion, since I'm a member of the St. Anthony of Padua Institute that co-presented this conference. But, more than promoting an Institute, I want to let people know of the good happening here.

The conference was...a smashing success!

The day began with Mass said by the Most Reverend Bishop Vigneron (and His
Excellency also stayed for the conference). The chapel, in which Mass was
said, seated 400 people. But many more came and sat along the sides of the
Church, where chairs were set up for overflow, and stood at the back.

The Mass itself was beautiful. The choir chanted the Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei - and the memorial acclamation - in Latin. And the congregation chanted along. The choir also sang traditional hymns from Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Tallis, and Victoria's superb Ave Maria. Priests and deacons distributed Communion, and extreme reverence was observed throughout. Many people noted, afterwards, that the Mass was one of the things they enjoyed most about the conference.

But on to the conference itself -

A number of plenary sessions on topics ranging from the "Connection between contraception and abortion" to the "Primacy of Conscience" were given, throughout the day, by Janet Smith, Chris Kaczor, and Joel Barstad. The hall that the talks were given in seated 370 people - and, again, it was standing-room only. People (including me) were sitting in the aisles because there weren't enough seats. Later, the group split up into three breakout-sessions that were given by Mary Davenport, Brian Mullady OP, and Ray Dennehy. Those breakout sessions were also packed.

Everyone that I talked to said that it was a beautiful conference (then again, I was one of the volunteers, so they probably wouldn't tell me otherwise), a sign of hope, a help in clarifying the Church's teachings on contraception or human sexuality, and a comfort since it encouraged people to know that they were not isolated in their holding fast to the Church's teachings. A few of the attendees remarked that there was such a large number of young people there: young mothers and fathers, seminarians, college students, and young adults - the people who are the future of the Church!

It was a really remarkable day.

Thanks again, for helping us get the word out about the conference!

P.S. You can sometimes tell which groups are good by who hates them - here are some people who hate us (Yep! That last link is PZ Myers) for the fact that nurses were able to get Continuing Education credits for attending the conference, through the sponsorship of the Catholic Women's Forum:

Glub!

I'm surfacing for a bit to post a few things, then returning to Deep Submersion in Work. Hope all y'all are having a fine summer! We went to the Vancouver Aquarium in the Magical Far Off Land of Canada this past Saturday. Big fun! The guys had never seen dolphins before (and I didn't realize how high they can jump!)

A Grand Day Out!

Fly the Evil Skies with American Airlines

My personal icon of EvilCorp.

Bwahahaha!

Reader Tom Cuddihy writes:

I have had many disagreements over the past couple of years with your stance on the GWOT and the administration's management of it,and particularly the vituperation with which you make your views on the administration known, but there a certain things I'm sure we can agree on.

What is apparently going on in Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia, and what it about to go on in the Persian Gulf in blockading Iran could indeed lead to a World War One, or more accurately WW-III type conflagration. Although I don't see any evidence of the conspiracy theory "neocon manipulation" leading to the current situation, it is clear that events are unfolding that may be frighteningly irreversible. Call it Lucifer's due diligence.

I am active duty US military, currently on a cushy shore duty assignment hunting drug smugglers, and value the time I have right now with my family and comfortable life that we all lead in these United States.

Is there any way you could call on your blog readers to set aside Friday, the feast of the assumption, as a day of fasting and prayer to the Virgin Mary on the feast of her assumption for intercession in the matter of world peace, and particularly in the matters of peace in the Caucases and the Middle East?

Sounds like a worthy cause to me. I think I will start a Mercy Novena for peace on the Assumption.

Fellow blogger Lals writes:

I have a prayer request and request for action that I was hoping you'd post on your blog. I've already posted it on my blog but you just have so many more readers than I do. The prayers are for 3 yr-old Liam McNassar (the son of friends of mine from undergrad). He has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and is in dire need of a bone marrow transplant. No one in his family is a match nor is anyone from the 11 million people on the donor list. So, his family is appealing for other people to join the donor list, too. The details, links, etc are on this blog entry that I recently wrote.

If you can help, either with prayer or bone marrow, please do. Lord, hear our prayer!

Boo Yah! The Winners of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest are in!

Personal fave:

Winner: Children's Literature
Joanne watched her fellow passengers - a wizened man reading about alchemy; an oversized bearded man-child; a haunted, bespectacled young man with a scar; and a gaggle of private school children who chatted ceaselessly about Latin and flying around the hockey pitch and the two-faced teacher who they thought was a witch - there was a story here, she decided.
Tim Ellis
Haslemere, U.K

.
Though the Grand Prize Winner is pretty delectably awful, I must say.

Anglican Diocese of Fort Worth to Pope?

Chris Johnson will be your go to guy for the news on this. I have no idea how this dance is done. Of course, neither, I suspect, do the dancers.

Buchanan Points Out the Bleedin' Obvious about Obama

Meanwhile, Bush, McCain and Obama Labor to Re-Create the Triple Entente so we can all get sucked into hostilities with nuclear Russia over a country that has basically nothing to do with our interests.

Surely, the proof that we don't actually live in a democracy is that we keep finding ourselves with Presidential nominees nobody seems to want. We simply prefer them to the other nominee we want even less.

A reader writes:

I have a request. I have had trouble finding anything on-line about St. Peter's tomb under the Vatican. Could you ask your blog readers if they know how to refute articles like this or, at least, where to start looking?

Beats me. This is a matter for archeologists.

Clayton Meditates on Veritatis Splendor

He doesn't even try to edit out the bits about abortion, torture and nuclear annihilation of civilians that don't fit the American Way.

The Future Isn't What It Used to Be

In which we look at the human impulse to prophesy.

My Latest on Inside Catholic

In which numerous angry Trad commenters unwittingly assist me in making my point.

Heh

From the First Things blog:

From the Westminster Shorter Catechism:
Q. 14. What is sin? A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.

From the Baltimore Catechism:
Q. 278. What is actual sin? A. Actual sin is any willful thought, word, deed, or omission contrary to the law of God.

From Senator Obama:
Q. Do you believe in sin?
OBAMA: Yes.
Q. What is sin?
OBAMA: Being out of alignment with my values.

Not that there is anything to the chatter about Senator Obama’s “Messiah complex,” mind you.

Our daughter-in-law Tasha writes:

Please pray for our friend Jenni, who has been doing evangelical work in the Republic of Georgia for a year or so now - sounds like things are getting pretty scary there, and we want her to be safe! Please say a prayer for her safety and the safety of her fellows there now, as well as for peace among nations.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jenni Cook
Date: Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 9:30 AM
Subject: Update on Jenni & conflict in Georgia!
To:


*Hello everyone,*

My name is Lauren Rimkus and I am a friend of Jenni's. She wrote and asked me to share how she is doing in Georgia because her access to the Internet is difficult right now. Jenni wanted you to know she is okay, but to keep the entire situation in prayer. Below are her words:

*So far I haven't been really affected by what's happening, you know we're on this Summer Missions School, so we're like away from Tbilisi and away from most news. But actually, we're only like 20 miles away from Osseti, which is where the problem is. But we're ok! My friend Maia's village was bombed, some of her friends were killed, her grandpa was injured. And also a town very close to my friend Diana's house was bombed. So of course I'm incredibly stressed out, but I'm trying to be ok. Some people are leaving to go to Armenia, but I'm not going to go, it's really not in my plans.

But please pray for us, and for Georgia, and for Russia.

It's sort of hard to communicate and it will be hard until I return to Tbilisi on the 14th, because I only have email on my phone since we're out of town, and the phone lines have been really unpredictable (sometimes working, sometimes not), but try not to worry too much...just really pray (and thank you that you have been already).*


I hope this note brought you some peace to hear from Jenni. Please do keep her, the YWAM team, Georgia and Russia in your prayers... & never cease praying over such conflict.

Thank you!

*Emmanuel,*
Lauren

Lord, hear our prayer for Jenni's safety and for peace in Georgia and throughout the world through Christ our Lord! Amen!

New StrongBad Email!

Eucharistic Desecration Many Conservative Catholics Enthusiastically Endorse and Defend

On August 9, 1945, at 11:02 AM, two-thirds of Japan's Catholics were slaughtered indiscriminately as Japan's historic center of Catholicism — The Holy City of Nagasaki was destroyed by our second atomic bomb. In that second, we succeeded in martyring more Japanese Christians than the Japanese had murdered in four centuries.

Notably, we chose Urakami Cathedral, the largest Christian church in Asia, as the siting target. In other words, we opted to focus a nuclear bomb at the Blessed Sacrament, as well as at thousands of innocent civilians.

It wasn't the first time we'd done it.

Less than two years earlier, in a perhaps less dramatic but equally sinister bombing, Major Ellis B. Scripture, navigator with the American 95 Bomber Squadron, was "informed that our objective was the entrance to Münster cathedral" — A bishop under the moral bombs. The targeted cathedral was the seat of the cleric hailed by The New York Times in 1942 as "the most relentless opponent of Nazism," who publicly called Der Fürher an "immoral bastard," His Eminence Cardinal Clemens August von Galen, Bishop of Münster (1933-1946), known as the "Lion of Münster."

My congenital allergy to conspiracy theorizing doesn't buy the notion of a Masonic conspiracy behind this stuff. However, my conviction that not a few alleged Faithful Conservative Catholics put the expediencies of Caesar ahead of the commands of Christ leaves me, alas, no longer surprised to see rubbish put forward by Catholics in defense of an act of Eucharist desecration that dwarfs anything to enter the tiny mind of P.Z. Myers. Basic outline: be properly outraged when a washed-up associate prof desecrates the Eucharist by throwing it in the trash. But call a brother Catholic "seditious" and a member of "al-Sheada" if he suggests that his Beloved Caesar, by incinerating the Blessed Sacrament and thousands of civilians is, 'ow you say, committing "a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation".

I thought I'd seen the Obama Sign of the Circle before!



Meanwhile, the Curt Jester begins to mine this quasi-liturgical gesture for it's rich veins of pomposity:



However, since it is so very important to the humor-impaired that equal time be given, I will reprint one of my favorite gag photos:

Science, In Bid to Atone for Failing to Provide Us All with Rocket Packs, Promises Invisibility Cloaks

Mr. President, we cannot allow a Cool Tech Gap!

A reader writes:

I have a prayer request. On Thursday, an old friend of mine's father was electrocuted and killed. He was working on the wiring so that his son could host a get together for us. This event was to happen Saturday, but it is understandingly canceled. The family is not religious, however, I know that prayer will help. So I ask that your readers will pray for them and for me so that I may be able to show them the compassion and love of Christ.

God our Father, have mercy on this man and his family and grant him eternal rest through Christ our Lord! Mother Mary and father Joseph please pray for all involved in this tragedy! Amen!

Vox Nova Goes All Church Lady on Us

My favorite part of the combox thread spawn by this delightful piece of hyperventilation is Policratus' splendidly pedantic quadratic equation which definitively proves that it’s fine that Obama and Co. exploit Christian imagery constantly for political gain, but blasphemous (!) when somebody points that out and laughs at it.

On the bright side, when they aren't posting utterly in-the-tank-for-Obama hyperventilations, they do good work, such as here and here.

By the way, for more humorless Puritanism that scolds those who dare to blaspheme the Son of God, go here, here, and here.

What cracks me up most about the TIME piece is the sheer gulf between the people who are theorizing that the McCain ad seriously seeks to portray Obama as The Antichrist and the people they purport to be experts on. Sometimes a Moses clip is just a Moses clip dudes. It's there because it's funny, not because there is some secret Daniel Code that reveals to the initiate that Obama is The Antichrist.

Do some Fundies think he's the Antichrist? Of course. At any given moment, a certain tiny percentage of Fundies have a theory that any given public figure is The Antichrist. But as Ross Douthat points out, there are even more fringe Lefties who think Bush is Hitler. Moral: don't judge political movements by the people out at the end of the bell curve. Also, growing a sense of humor will help you cope with life in countless ways.

By the way, a word about antichrist. One of the curious notions people have is that one can be antichristian without being antichrist. So you will hear people says stupid crap like "Oh sure, Richard Dawkins is an atheist and belligerant against Christians, but it's not like he's the Antichrist." What they mean, of course, is that not every critic of Christianity is the Embodiment of Evil, which is perfectly true. But it is equally true that every opponent of Christ and Holy Church is an antichrist, if not The Antichrist. All "antichrist" means is "against Christ" and the world is full of such people, says St. John. Sometimes they are the people we see in the mirror. When the Church speaks of "The Antichrist" all she means is that someday, men like Dawkins and Hitchens will get their wish and a figure will arise who sums up and enacts their hopes for a world in which Christ and his disciples are really and finally extirpated. Whether they will like such a world will be another matter. But certainly, I would suggest that people who labor to ensure the death of children are, insofar as they do this, batting for Antichrist's team. So, for that matter, are people who labor to legitimate nuclear war or the use of torture.

Golly! What an utterly unexpected turn of events!

Rowan Williams discovers that "gay sexual relationships can 'reflect the love of God' in a way that is comparable to marriage". Gee, and I was so totally expecting him to exhibit the raw courage to stand up to the Cult of Adult Desire that now utterly dominates the Piskie communion. Who could have possibly foreseen this?

Reader Tim Shipe writes:

I was watching an old CSI Las Vegas episode- actually my wife called me in - since I pretty much hate those shows- there was some parts dealing with abortion for some reason- one of the lead female CSI characters was putting it to some poor female pro-lifer- she said that in the 16th century the pope declared that life began at quickening or some such thing- I had heard the St.Thomas Aquinas had speculated such but I hadn't heard that a pope had "declared" that life began at that point of quickening before- anything to this?

The second bit was a reference to Leviticus something about flesh becomes life when there is blood, so that life wouldn't begin until there is blood so it would not be until 18 days after conception that blood comes into a fetus. The lead CSI dude- my wife describes him as a cradle, fall-away Catholic- said to the pro-choice CSI female lead that she should've mentioned this quote to the pro-lifer to challenge her theology- (since she wasn't up for a fight using modern science).

Do either of you have any clue what these characters are talking about? It seemed like a couple real cheap shots with dubious history and theology thrown in.

The Leviticus thing is rubbish (though I have heard some sophists attempt to claim that according to Genesis 2, you only become a living soul when you take your first breath. (Yet another reason friends don't let friends do amateur biblical theology without the guidance of the Church.) St. Thomas speculated that ensoulment took place around 40 days after conception, but what is not mentioned is that, like any Catholic who takes the Church's teaching seriously, he still completely opposed both abortion and contraception. I've never heard of this "16th Century Pope" they speak of. To any person who takes this agitprop seriously, I would put the question, "Documentation please?"

I would further ask, "Can you point me to any Pope, regardless of his theories about when ensoulment occurs, who ever approved of abortion at any stage?"

I can't tell you how utterly cool this is!

Reader Alan Capasso writes:

This past July I took our Youth Group to the Franciscan University at Steubenville youth conference and our group's theme this year (inspired by you) is "Sin makes you stupid".

I would like to send you one of our T-shirts. Where should I mail it?

I'm sending him my address and I can hardly wait for the shirt! If I can get a picture, I'll post it!

Next year, see if you can fit "Show me a culture that despises virginity and I'll show you a culture that despises children" on a T-Shirt! :)

Seriously, I'm truly honored! Thanks!

God Helps Families of Hero to Endure Their Loss

Meanwhile, Grand End to Evil Planners gin up more wars to send other people's kids to. Currently, this Prophet Who Has Never Been Wrong



is shouting "Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!" and urging us to involve ourselves in yet *another* war. What could it hurt?

Meanwhile, ya gotcher choice of the Son of God's confidence that Putin will melt before his charisma or McCain's crazy saber-rattling in due deference to the End to Evil guys.

Meanwhile, sane people here and here suggest to Americans that it might be a good thing to know something of the history of the conflict before instantly assuming we were ordained by God to fix it. Also, we might consider the whole "plank in our own eye" thing.

Is there any problem the End to Evil Planners do not think can be fixed with more war?

Tom Craughwell of Antique Holy Cards writes:

It’s August! Which means I’m starting production of a new line of Christmas cards. To make room for the new inventory, I’m happy to offer you and your readers a special 2-for 1 offer.

Buy any package of cards (6 pack or 12 pack) and get another package FREE!

This offer is available until August 25. Here’s the link to the website.

And in other news—while on pilgrimage to Lourdes this May, my sister Kathy visited an antique shop where she found lovely century-old holy cards of Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Joan of Arc. We’ll be reproducing these cards, too, so keep an eye on our website.

As always, thank you. And have a Blessed Feast of the Assumption.

Reader Kevin Birnbaum writes:

I thought you might want to share an article I wrote for the current edition of The Catholic Northwest Progress about an amazing man named John Peyton, who is paralyzed and dying of Lou Gehrig's disease and is spending his final months on earth speaking out against Washington state's physician-assisted suicide ballot measure, Initiative 1000, the so-called "Death with Dignity Act."

Well done! Every Catholic reading this in Washington should set their face against this latest assault from the culture of death. NO to I-1000!

Seems Like a Worthy Effort

OptINnow.org is the newest movement in the fight to end global poverty. The interactive website invites users to empower poor people in the developing world to work their way out of poverty simply by providing a small loan - as little as $25 - to help them start a business, feed their family and send their children to school. We are currently working in Kenya, Philippines and Mexico.

Atheists Brainwash Their Kids for the Summer

Yeah. Like a twelve year old really talks this way:

"It seems kind of like an accident almost, like the Big Bang that created the universe was an accident," Morgan says. "It was a beautiful mistake or something."

Nothing pre-programmed about that. Nosirree!

Are they trying to create little atheists?

"Absolutely not!" McQuaig says. "We want to create little thinkers. Little thinkers that explore their own capacity and the external world, with all of the tools of science and humanity. That's why we're here."

Uh huh.

The camp described in the article absolutely reeks of education-as-conditioning. Right thinking will be rewarded. Wrong thinking will be punished. The kids regurgitate the usual "all religion is fundamentalism" twaddle:

"People are like, 'Oh, fossils are planted and they aren't really real," she says, laughing. "Well, if the whole theory of evolution is just like a ruse or a prank, we've done a really good job. We're really good at pranking people."

But what about faith, one counselor asks? Shouldn't you take some arguments about God on faith?

"As soon as someone mentions faith in an argument, the argument is over," says 15-year-old Ryan Lee, who skipped high school and is entering his junior year of college in Arizona. "Faith and the scientific method can't be combined in the same argument."

Except for faith in the three pound piece of meat behind your eyes, kid. And your unquestioning faith in your counselors at Camp Conditioning.

A reader writes:

Happy Birthday -- (the subject line said "Bleated" before I fixed it; I guess that's better than "Bloated"...)

I wanted to say a special thanks for pieces like your recent "Napoleon of Queen Anne Hill." I'm living in Florida, but I was born in Seattle on the same day the Space Needle and the World's Fair opened. I grew up in West Seattle, got my BA in Eburg,... total homegirl.

But here I am in Florida, where I have a great job, and my joints hurt less, but.... it's not home. And so essays like "Emperor" and podcasts like the one you broadcast around last Thanksgiving make me cry. And somehow, they ease the homesick ache they cause. It's a lovely thing.

You're good with apologetics, thoughtful on the issues. But it's the glimpse of the mountains through the fog you bring that gets me right in the heart, every time.

Actually, after the party we had yesterday, "bloated" works fine!

Seriously, I'm grateful you wrote. I'm glad those pieces touched your heart. I love this place. It isn't just in my heart, it's in my bones. I'll be a Washingtonian till the day I die, wherever God sends me. Nothing makes my heart sing when I return from a journey like seeing the cloud clear (once we get below them) and the beautiful islands of the Sound glittering out the airplane window.

By the way, I was in Ellensburg just this past week! Hot, brown and dry. Very Eastern Washington! Coming down out of Snoqualmie Pass back into the West was like entering Middle Earth!

Thanks for writing! If you ever get back here, look us up!

Chestertoons!

Very cool!

Scratch an Atheist, Find a Fundamentalist

Jack Chick wannabe theorizes on What Rome Is Up To when a couple of Catholic sources remark that the discovery of life on other planets poses no particular threat to the Catholic faith.

It's a classic example of sin making you stupid. He knows ahead of time that Catholics are censorious idiots. So it only stands to reason that Rome fears the discovery of life on other worlds because the first Vulcan we meet will conclusively prove that advanced civilizations have outgrown the god myth and Arthur C. Clarke's _Childhood's End_ is the only truly prophetic book ever written. Therefore, it can only be that "Rome" is preparing a last-ditch spin defense for That Day: the Great Eschatological Event when the Hope of Atheists is fulfilled, we make First Contact with ET and the Millenium Dawns on a New World where our Elder Intergalactic Brothers Who Have Outgrown God Reassure Atheists They Were Right All Along.

It really is remarkable how much atheists have in common with Fundies. The real Parousia is going to be quite a jolt for both camps.

In fact, of course, as I wrote sometime ago, this is not a new thing for the Faith:

The best short essays I've seen on this question are from C.S. Lewis. One is called "Religion and Rocketry" and the other is "Will we Lose God in Outer Space". If memory serves, Lewis points out several basic criteria that have to be met before life on other worlds would pose a theological problem to Christianity.

First, it has to exist, which we don't know.

Second, it has to be sentient. Alien oysters cannot sin any more than ours do.

Third, it has to have fallen. An unfallen race is not in need of redemption.

Fourth, we have to know that, being fallen, it has been denied the chance of redemption by God. How on earth we'd ever figure that out beats me.

Fifth, we have to know that the redemption will be *forever* denied this hypothetically existent, hypothetically fallen race. After all, if you'd visited earth 10,000 years ago you would not have seen to many obvious clue that redemption was in the works for us.

Sixth, we have to know that redemption via an incarnation, death and resurrection is the *only* way in which God redeems fallen creatures and that such a redemption will never be granted such creatures.

As Lewis says, if our faith never encounters a bigger challenge than this, we are sitting pretty.

As to the existence of non-human intelligences in the universe, the Faith answers this with a definite affirmative: they are called "angels". The existence of *organic* creatures with intelligence is therefore not an insuperable obstacle. God can do as he likes.

That said, there *are* certain facets of the Tradition that present problems for the traditional sci fi scenario. One of them is St. Thomas' teaching that "Man is the form of a rational animal." In other words, if you want to see an intelligent critter made of matter, we're it. That's deeply offensive to us because we think it is arrogant to say that we are alone. However, I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be the case. As Rare Earth has done a fine job of demonstrating, the Copernican Principle (i.e., the notion that planets like ours are dime a dozen in the Great Grand Scheme of things) is waaaaaaay over-rated. I wouldn't be at all surprised if our planet is one of the few in the galaxy to have complex life and the only one with intelligent life. If the universe is crowded with alien civilizations, then, as Enrico Fermi asked 50 years ago and projects like SETI are making more acutely felt with each day, where is everybody?

Finally, re: preaching the gospel to aliens. Until Lewis' questions are answered I doubt there would be much point. Indeed, as Lewis Space Trilogy suggests (almost alone in the canons of science fiction that I know of), the reality may well be that an unfallen race would be way ahead of us in their knowledge of Maleldil, just as the angels are. That only stands to reason since the universal God who reveals himself *to us* in Christ Jesus would be present to the souls of unfallen creatures without the hampering effects of original sin. Missionaries to an unfallen planet might find themselves embarrassed by the knowledge of their students, who would all speak "with authority, not like the scribes and Pharisees."

I tend to side with Lewis in his speculation that, if there *are* any intelligent critters out there the vast distances of space are designed to be a quarantine. If we ever made contact with a technologically inferior race, we would murder and enslave them as we have murdered and enslaved weaker members of our own race. If they were technologically superior, they would very properly annihilate us in self-defense.

But, as I never tire of saying, that won't happen, because we are never getting off the earth and we will never contact any aliens.

Blogger and Seminarian Gashwin Gomes Came Out to Seattle to Visit Me and...

blogger Alex Vitus. Happily, he and Alex only share English as a common tongue, so they could gossip about me in some sub-continental dialect. Of course, my grasp of English is shaky and they did seem to glance at me and laugh a lot. Maybe I'm paranoid.

Anyway, along the way he had various adventures, including seeing Pike Place Market, coming with us to Tangletown Brewery in Wallingford, walking around Green Lake and becoming an initiate in the Brotherhood of Greenlake Power Walkers and therefore an honorary Washingtonian, feeling the warm enveloping care of the Soviet of Washington, experiencing chemically pure Seattle oddness, and getting to hear the Tudor choir practice for (and perform at) the glorious Dominican Rite Mass we celebrated at Blessed Sacrament on Friday, August 8 for the Feast of St. Dominic (There are Youtube videos of the practice and the Mass at Gashwin's blog, so check thou them out).

We had a grand time and it was great to spend a good long time with Gashwin, who will make a great priest!

It's Funny because it's True

Various Lukishnesses

Luke, the Nordic Giant, writes from his Polar Redoubt:

The entire text of *English as She is Spoke* is available online, for free!!

If that preposterously convoluted-looking link doesn't work, just google title. It's the first thing to come up.

Anyway, it's FANTASTIC!! The common phrases (p. 17) and the proverbs and idioms (p. 58) are particularly grand, but there is joy to be found throughout. There's a section listing some basic vocabulary, organized by sphere of usefulness. My favorites are

FOR THE TABLE.

Some knives
Some groceries
Some crumb.

and

EATINGS.

Some Black Pudding
Some sugar-plum
Some wigs
A chitterling sausages.
A dainty-dishes
A Mutton Shoulder (3)
A little mine
Hog fat
Some Marchpanes
An amelet
A slice, steak [pap
Vegetables boiled to a

and

FISHES AND SHELL-FISHES.

Calamary
Dorado
A sorte of fish
Hedge hog
Large lobster
Snail
Wolf
Torpedo
Sea-calf

I am laughing to tears right now. Wolf. Torpedo. Hedge hog?? B'WAHAHAHA!!!!

Anyway, enjoy, good fellows.

An of the he sincerities,

Luke with she has laugh

P.S.

MUSIC'S INSTRUMENTS.

A flagelet
A dreum
A hurdy-gurdy.

He also adds:

Another bit from *English as She is Spoke, *dudes. The last few lines in this section read like some sort of found poem:

Till hither.
I have put my stockings outward.
I have croped the candle.
I have a mind to vomit.
I will not to sleep on street.

B'WAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Oh man, I cannot thank you enough for telling me about this, Dad. Hee heee
heeee!

In return, I must say that nothing I can ever do, no matter how vengeful and cruel, will ever be able to repay my debt to him for sending me this:



However, he does atone, sort of, by finding out that Steve Martin can dance:

One Nation, Under Obama



In other news,


Obama Believers Continue to Absorb New Converts

Are you Of the Body? It's Paradise! Paradise!

Surrogate Motherhood Enters the "How Were We Supposed to Know?" Phase of History

Soul Food Cinema Translates L'Osservatore Romano on Harry Potter

Brian Visaggio Continues to Impress Me

The more I look at Generation Narcissus, the more I can understand why our children and grandchildren look right over our heads and listen to JPII and Benedict.

The Invaluable Sherry Weddell Find Two Great Stories

A very moving one about rescued hostage and Columbian Presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, and the spiritual drama behind her harrowing experience and the second one about the incredible life of the locally trained athlete who will lead the American team in the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics tomorrow night.

Everyone should hear these stories.

Dick Cheney: Vice President of Salvation Through Leviathan by Any Means Necessary

Sully: In answer to your question: yes. They will get away with it--in this life. Alas.

The longer I live, the more I agree with the profound insight of Benedict XVI:

In the modern era, the idea of the Last Judgement has faded into the background: Christian faith has been individualized and primarily oriented towards the salvation of the believer's own soul, while reflection on world history is largely dominated by the idea of progress. The fundamental content of awaiting a final Judgement, however, has not disappeared: it has simply taken on a totally different form. The atheism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is—in its origins and aims—a type of moralism: a protest against the injustices of the world and of world history. A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God. A God with responsibility for such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God. It is for the sake of morality that this God has to be contested. Since there is no God to create justice, it seems man himself is now called to establish justice. If in the face of this world's suffering, protest against God is understandable, the claim that humanity can and must do what no God actually does or is able to do is both presumptuous and intrinsically false. It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice; rather, it is grounded in the intrinsic falsity of the claim. A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope. No one and nothing can answer for centuries of suffering. No one and nothing can guarantee that the cynicism of power—whatever beguiling ideological mask it adopts—will cease to dominate the world. This is why the great thinkers of the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, were equally critical of atheism and theism. Horkheimer radically excluded the possibility of ever finding a this-worldly substitute for God, while