August 2004 Archives

An organization has been started to inform the Catholic faithful and clergy about options for coping with celiac disease.

One of the more loathesome tendencies in American political life is the "gotcha" soundbite. The Democrats are jumping all over President Bush for supposedly saying "I don't think you can win" the war on terror. (See the transcript.)

The last time they reacted like this, it was when Bush said "We will double our Special Forces to conduct terrorist operations" in a major speech. Clearly, if you read the text and especially if you hear the interview, Bush was saying that we might not win the war on terror in four years, but he was interested in minimizing the conditions where terrorism can flourish.

I know, both sides play "gotcha." But it just turns people off of politics in general, and that's not good for anyone. Nobody seriously thinks that President Bush doesn't think we can win the war on terror -- he's said as much many times, but in his opinion, it will take many years. Nobody believes that he would send Special Forces troops on terror missions, either. It's insulting to our collective intelligence to play this kind of stupid game.

Oh, wait -- I'm sorry, my mistake: The guy who said we would conduct terrorist operations was Senator John F. Kerry in his own nomination speech.

The forces of diversity, tolerance, acceptance, peace, and love are on the prowl in Manhattan:

When marchers approached the Garden, a police detective was knocked off his scooter. He was then repeatedly kicked and punched in the head by at least one male demonstrator, the police said....

As delegate buses arrived at the Garden yesterday afternoon, protesters who had gathered for a demonstration screamed obscenities and gestured rudely at them. When the police spotted Pete Coors, a Republican candidate for Senate from Colorado, walking near the group, they swiftly steered him away....

Some delegates seemed perplexed, even hurt, not because they did not expect protesters to be here, but because they did not expect them to get personal. "They were using foul language, getting real ugly," said Kim Kirkwood, a delegate from Amarillo, Tex. Her husband, Jim, said he could not understand it. "I have friends who are Democrats in Texas, and we talk about things, agree to disagree."

The Left talks about respecting others' points of view just long enough to gain power, at which time they don their boots and stomp on the others' faces. When they get desperate after being out of power for years, they start screaming and attacking.

Does anyone else notice a (less violent) parallel between the secular Left and the Catholic Left? As their hold on seminaries, universities, chanceries, and other Catholic institutions wanes, they are getting ever more shrill and defensive. Here's a great example: look at the articles lamenting the orthodoxy of young priests. Even the New York Times has noticed that the typical ordinand these days ain't exactly Daniel Berrigan.

A small religious sect applauds the newest version of their imago dei, the idol at whose feet they worship. Some speculate that at the death of Stephanus Labores, the cult's founder, the sect's members may commit mass suicide.

Non-Catholic Elliot Bougis, a teacher over in Taiwan who's been standing in for Mark Shea at the CAEI blog, has announced that he's going to become either Catholic or Orthodox, with about a 90% probability for the Catholic option. It sounds like the decision has been under consideration for a long time, and it's happy news. Congratulations, Elliot.

I think Elliot knows his way around the Church already, but if there's anything we can do to help, do drop in!

The craftspersons who still make statues of saints for churches have discovered a remarkable way to keep overhead down. Iconoclasm. No, that was the heresy squashed centuries ago only to be given new life in the name of "progress" as part of post-Vatican II renovations. Some days I wish progress were declared heretical, though it's not as though the Holy Father would actually punish the heretical progressives. He would write an encyclical called "Rigiditatis Splendor" and leave it at that. But I digress!

Statuary and overhead. Think Barbie. Mattel keeps overhead down by just dressing up Barbie in various ways. Barbie has had exactly the same complex-inducing, disproportional body for how many decades? The thing is she has different clothes and accessories. One Barbie has that tool Ken with her, another has sold her soul to the music industry, still another homeschools and does a holy hour when the kids are napping. Homeschool Barbie. Really. She dresses very modestly and her kids do, too. But I digress again - the thing is Barbies just wear different clothes. It's genius.

Finally the statuary makers have caught on. There is a company out there just putting something different in the hands of each male saint. The statues look the same otherwise. Imagine Saint Andrew with a cross and St. Joseph with that thing he's always pictured with, but besides what they have in their hands they look the same.

We're sending the wrong message to our kids. They are going to grow up thinking they have to look exactly like the St. Andrew/St. Joseph clones in order to be saints. I'm afraid some might grow up to be like the angry lesbians who played with Barbie dolls when they were young and not angry lesbians. Perhaps I'm not making sense. Even so, when someone types in "angry lesbians" in google they are going to end up here. Welcome, seekers of angry lesbians. Let Jesus love you! Especially you, Margaret Cho!

But getting back to statues, let me leave you with a joke. Saint Joseph says to the Infant of Prague, "I don't care what your mother said, you're not leaving the house dressed like that!"

The communion song at St. Mary's took me back to college, and not in a good way. The song (not a "hymn," to be sure) was "We Are Called," one of the favorite campfire songs at our folk masses on campus.

Normally, since these songs can detract from basking in the presence of God, I steel myself to ignore them, but one lyric has stayed with me: "We are called to love tenderly."

Are we? I wondered. I've spent over three decades on earth and maybe I haven't loved tenderly enough. So I investigated the matter, and found that the phrase "love tenderly" is mostly found on Catholic Web sites, citing Micah 6:8 as the source text.

So the Bible tells us to love tenderly, eh. I immediately resolved to do so, and frequently. Yet I still had a nagging doubt. I went to the excellent (Protestant) English Bible Gateway to look at various translations of Micah 6:8, and after looking through most of them, I did not see "love tenderly."

I suspected that loving tenderly must be a Catholic thing -- you know, like translating Gabriel's words to Mary as "full of grace" instead of "most highly favored one." Yes, that must be it. I opened the New American Bible and found...

You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.

Hmm. That was pretty much how the Protestant translators rendered the verse, too. Could it be that David Haas messed around with the words? That instead of the imperative "love mercy" or "love goodness," depending on the Bible version, he changed it to the less direct "We are called to love tenderly"?

This is a small example of lex orandi, lex credendi, that how one prays determines how one believes. Haas took a strong, masculine passage from Micah about man's obligations to the God of Israel and made it into a wimpy suburban anthem to the God of Nice. Today there are Catholic organizations -- including at least one archdiocese -- that quote the lyrics of "We Are Called" as if they are the words of the Prophet Micah himself.

Plato regarded bad music as the biggest threat to an ideal society, because it appeals directly to the passions and can override the intellect. In contemporary American Catholicism, traditionalists often treat folk music as a symptom of many parishes' mediocre spiritual life. I wonder if it isn't a primary cause.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

A cleaner in the Tate Gallery threw out a bag of garbage because, after all, it was trash. But -- you know where this is going, right? -- it was part of a work of art.

Eventually the material was found, but it had to be replaced by the artist because -- if you can believe this -- it had been damaged.

Isn't there something wrong with that concept: the notion of garbage being "damaged"? I don't know if I can wrap my head around that. ("I'm sorry, sir, that garbage is not in good enough condition to throw out.")

Anyway, the wire-service folks should save this story for re-use, since it tends to happen in some modern art museum every couple of years, and the piece will be just as good next time. All they'll need to do is change the names.

A parish in suburban Weymouth is scheduled to close Sept. 1, but the parish council is suing Abp. O'Malley to fight the closing.

I hope nobody really expects this case to accomplish anything. The parish council may not even have standing to sue, since it is a purely advisory body. I doubt that it has the power to represent the parish in civil disputes. If my understanding is right, parishes are incorporated separately from the Archdiocese, but each one has a corporate board controlled by officials of the Archdiocese.

And even if the plaintiffs were to win, the Archdiocese would just go through the closure again, dotting the i's and crossing the t's according to whatever legal form is necessary.

Hey, Steve Schultz, did you get a chance to sign on?

(via CWN)

Fr. Sibley asks what happens to the "extra" embryos generated in IVF procedures.

Apparently some of them are going to the new Mengeles of our day.

This month's Harvard Magazine stated, in an article about the stem cell controversy, that Boston IVF, a local fertility-procedures practice, had donated 344 frozen embryos abandoned by their parents to be used for research. The product of this effort was 17 new stem-cell lines.

344 victims, and only 17 of the experiments on them produced usable material for future research. And apparently this is considered to meet ethical standards!

Sal's post on Jews for Jesus reminded me that one of their members gave me a pamphlet today, and I want to send them a thank-you note. Although I'd rather they were Catholic, it's infinitely better to be baptized Protestant than not to be baptized at all, and I admire them canvassing for recruits in Lafayette Park, right across from the White House.

It also reminded me of the original Jews for Jesus:

I thought of this when I read Richard's link to the parody drug commercial: ever seen the ads for that birth control patch? They say it causes "blood clots, hemorrhaging, weight gain, stroke, etc." and they make no attempt to minimize it with a statement like "these effects were similar to other patients who received placebos," probably because nobody would want placebo birth control. ("I was in the placebo group? I'm not even married! I was just doing this for the two hundred bucks!")

Also, normal birth control pills contribute to osteoporosis and an increased risk of cancer. Ah, contraception: you gave us casual sex, rampant bastardy, and you strike at the very heart of marriage and family life. Is there anything you can't do?

Blessing for Beer from Shrine of the Holy Whapping. Mmmmm, beer...

Bill Cork has a link to a Washington Post article about how local radio stations are dropping the Evangelical group, Jesus for Jesus, ad.

The 60-second spot features two men debating whether Jesus is the Messiah and inviting listeners to "come, it's time to take a look, and think for yourself." They speak with "Yiddish accents" while klezmer music plays in the background, said Stephen Katz, Washington director of the San Francisco-based Jews for Jesus.

Joel Oxley, general manager of WGMS, dropped the commercial after a week, saying the station's "mission is not to offend." He added, "When people come to us, they want to be soothed and they want to hear the great classical music. It was not the case when they heard the advertising."

I heard this commercial on WGMS yesterday and thought it was funny. Then again, I'm not Jewish.

Not John Kerry. No. This has something to do with Catholicism. I went to a local parish yesterday for daily Mass and the Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist looked at me like I had nine heads when he saw that I was receiving our Lord on the tongue. I wasn't kneeling to receive or anything - I just didn't want to get Jesus on my unconsecrated hands. Is that too pious these days?

KERRY CHALLENGES BUSH TO WEEKLY DEBATES: In Anoka, MN, John Kerry challenged President Bush to weekly debates on the issues.

BUSH CAMP REAX: "There will be a time for debates after the convention, and during the next few weeks, John Kerry should take the time to finish the debates with himself. This election presents a clear choice to the American people between a President who is moving America forward and a Senator who has taken every side of almost every issue and has the most out of the mainstream record in the U.S. Senate," said BC'04 spokesman Steve Schmidt.

The is link to abcnews.com is from Drudge.

Gotta get me a prescription for some Proloxil!

Gosh, I haven't seen you since this morning when I looked at the news!

Democrats are urging Bush to denounce independent campaign ads against Kerry. The latest is Former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, who went to the President's Ranch in Crawford, Texas to deliver a letter. No one there would accept it. Max, you don't need to deliver the letter at all. Just get enough people involved with Kerry's campaign to scream like banshees about this and Bush will just see it on the news.

By the way, why is Bush denouncing all the activity of the 527's not good enough for the Kerry campaign? First, because they are a bunch of whining babies. Second, because they are a bunch of whining babies. And third, the 527's helping the Kerry campaign have spent more than 54 million big ones trashing Bush, while the swiftees have spent a paltry half a million. "Mother" Teresa Heniz-(Kerry) probably owns half a million in shoes.

The media has thousands of litters of kittens over one volunteer for the Bush campaign who has helped the Swiftees. What about all the connections Kerry people have with 527's like the perfidious ACT and the perfidious-er MoveOn.org?

Don't cry, Kerry staffers! Mommie will be along with your blankie, your martini, and your mutual fund statement any time now. Just know that it's your candidate who decided to run on his Vietnam record. Bush didn't make this an issue.

UPDATE: Letter to Kerry - "You can't have it both ways."

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t build your convention and much of your campaign around your service in Vietnam, and then try to say that only those veterans who agree with you have a right to speak up. There is no double standard for our right to free speech. We all earned it.

You said in 1992 “we do not need to divide America over who served and how.” Yet you and your surrogates continue to criticize President Bush for his service as a fighter pilot in the National Guard.

The Revealer's Jeff Sharlet complains that the WaPo put its Deal Hudson resignation story on page A-6 instead of some place more prominent:

Why is the resignation of the Bush's chief Catholic advisor -- a position of much greater power than the governorship of New Jersey -- getting so little attention?

Already, I find it hard to take that seriously. Mr. Sharlet thinks having a conference call once a week with an assistant of Karl Rove makes you more powerful than the governor of a state of 8.6 million people. I'll be nice and say "Bunk."

My parents need a new toaster. The toaster they own at present is, in a word, retarded. On the highest setting it barely warms the bread. On the lowest setting I imagine it would be safe to have in the tub with you. The thing has a switch for either toast or bagel which, like Janeane Garofalo participating in political discourse, does absolutely nothing.

I tell my parents they need a new toaster. This is the same thing I have saying at every visit the past two years. Like the issue of above-ground nuclear testing, they say it’s just not a priority for them now. But they have piles of money – why not drop a bit of cash on a new toaster? I think it’s because my dad just can’t go and buy something, he has a special routine for any purchase over ten dollars. Let’s apply his method to the toaster problem.

First, he forms a blue-ribbon commission to investigate the alleged retardedness of the toaster. It consists of dad, mom, and the next-door neighbors, one of whom has celiac disease. She eats only jam, no toast. While I have years of toast-eating experience, I cannot participate in this phase of the project because, thankfully, I am leaving tomorrow.

When the blue-ribbon commission confirms what I have been saying for years, namely, the toaster needs to be taken out back, shot, pounded with a hammer, ground to a fine powder, and mailed to DNC headquarters, it will be time for phase two.

Phase two consist of the feasibility study. Dad painstakingly measures the space available in their newly-remodeled, positively cavernous kitchen for the new toaster, and compares the numbers to the dimensions of all the toasters in the last three decades of the Consumer Reports Buyers Guide. The new kitchen, incidentally, is large enough that one could conduct above-ground nuclear testing by the dishwasher and not even see the explosion at the oven. He compares features among the models that meet the space requirements, even calling manufacturers to ask them, “Does switching to bagel actually do something or should I toast my bagel in a pan like the British do?”

Dad then goes to every Walmart and Target in the tri-state area looking for the right model. He finds Janeane Garofalo working as a greeter at a Walmart in Camden, makes a hand gesture in her direction that only an Italian would truly understand, and drives off. He finally decides to buy the toaster via the Walmart website, his very first online transaction. Before entering his credit card number he’s on the phone with Walmart’s online customer service for three hours asking if some hooligan is going to make off with his credit card and donate money to the Kerry campaign. He is assured that online transactions are safer than making toast.

He buys the toaster but in order to save money on shipping he has it carried by hobos hitching rides on trains across America. Given that very few hobos ride trains anymore, I expect he’ll have the toaster just in time for my visit at Christmas. He’ll spend seven weeks studying the users manual and repeatedly tell my mom, “We have to move the kitchen – if this thing is plugged in too close to the bathroom it might fall in the tub.” The tub they use is upstairs and in a different area code.

That’s how I expect the new toaster purchase to go, if they even get through phase one. I could have built a new toaster with things lying about the house in the time it’s taken me to type this. I’d better go and toast my bagel in a pan or with some nuclear weapons.

The Woodstock for religious orders was held in Fort Worth last weekend. Dom has his usual insightful insights which are linked above. I urge you to read his commentary on this story in the Dallas Morning News - "Among faithful, mum isn't the word."

The irony of the title is plain. Faithful who? The unfaithfully faithful? The religious who openly defy the bugaboo of modernity, the Vatican?

"Security in our church has come to be identified with the controlling power of the clergy to the detriment of the people in the pews," said the Rev. Michael Crosby, a priest from Milwaukee. "We are perishing numerically because we have not been public enough in our protest of patriarchy."

The security Fr. Crosby mentions was of the false kind. Some Bishops thought they could sweep the problems of sexual abuse under the proverbial rug. We know what the result is. Fr. Crosby speaks, though, as one who would give more power to the laity. But power to do what? Elect a pastor? Force a priest out they don't like? There are many who like to make the Church into a democracy and they would make the immutable truths of faith and morals as flighty as the age.

Fr. Crosby’s subsequent statement about the cause of the lack of vocations is incorrect. He says they haven’t been public enough in their protest of the patriarchy. I say many orders are dying on the vine because they have rejected their patrimony, traditions, and the patriarchy of the Church. The orders that embrace them are flourishing, such as the Nashville Dominicans and the CFR’s. The Legionaries of Christ and Opus Dei are other examples of groups that are truly faithful to the Church and thriving. I was considering entering the Legionaries, actually, but my hair is parted on the wrong side and I’m no good at soccer. But never you mind that – what I’m saying is Fr. Crosby and his confreres don’t see the writing on the wall.

Take the traditional habit, for example. It’s a symbol, it’s not just a garment. A symbol always leads one to the substantial meaning it symbolizes. That’s why it’s called a symbol. Religious habits are made in the form of a cross. The religious who wears a habit is truly taking up the Cross, putting it on, making the Cross central to their interior and exterior life.

The Claretian martyrs of Barbastro would disagree with the “progressive” religious of today. The Spanish Marxists killed some fifty Claretian seminarians in 1936 because they were faithful Catholics in formation for the priesthood and because they wore the cassock. Their lives would be spared, they were told, if they took off the cassock. The Claretians, truly faithful to the substance behind the symbol, refused and went to their death.

Two excerpts from the Dvorak Stabat Mater concert I sang in a few weeks ago: first, the chorus alone on Tui nati vulnerati. Then tenor soloist Martin Kelly and the chorus on Fac me vere tecum flere.

Anti-Americanism has grown steadily since the end of the Cold War. A large part of this is resentment towards American economic success; some of it is resentment toward Hollywood's slime machine (no argument there).

An overlooked cause of anti-Americanism is our success in sports, particularly our surprisingly good showing in the 2002 Winter Games and our stellar medal count in this year's games. Remember a few years ago when the American team did really well in the World Cup? If we had won, we would have been hated with a furious passion by most countries when they realized that most Americans don't even care about soccer.

So to assuage this sentiment against our fine country, I suggest that instead of sending our athletic supermen to Beijing in 2008, we should send our Special Olympics team. Then the rest of the world can high-five each other when they beat the Americans. The Special Olympians will just be happy to compete. Everybody wins, and it advances the national interest. What do you guys think? Do we give them a chance?

I wrote something about this last Thursday, but the Prince of Darkness attacked my cable modem just as I submitted the post, and it was lost into the ether.

Continuing today's Latin theme (that's lingua Latina, not Enrique Iglesias), our parish had a majority-Latin Mass two Sundays ago. Father Poumade — parochial vicar, godfather to my younger son, and all-around sacerdotal superstar — was the celebrant. My wife was one of the four women making up the scola who sang most of the music, and they all sounded lovely.

I asked Father about the reaction from parishioners. "The response has been nothing but overwhelmingly positive so far," he said. "I received many compliments and not a single complaint after the Mass itself — except for those who complained that they wanted even more Latin and that we hadn't used enough of it.

"I was really surprised at the wide amount of enthusiasm — I expected some would be supportive, but [seeing] that there are so many people, both young and old, who are actually enthusiastic about it was a welcome surprise."

Someone asked me if I saw people walk out, and from my angle it was hard to tell, but I didn't see anyone leave. A large teenage girl standing behind me suddenly collapsed onto my back and then fell behind my pew, but I do not think it was a toxic reaction to the non-vernacular Eucharistic prayer. (She was fine by the end of Mass.)

Hopefully, St. Mary's will follow up with more Latin in the liturgy, because it does assist in giving a sacred atmosphere to the Mass. My older son Charlie described it as "holy language," which is a pretty good insight; I hope our fellow churchgoers share it.

Two articles from AP: Wheelock's Latin textbook gets an update, including a web site, audio clips, and racy poems.

John Kerry’s Two Vietnams - Mackubin Thomas Owens

As a correspondent pointed out to me in an e-mail, each episode of the HBO series Band of Brothers, begins with a voiceover in which the narrator says of the World War II soldiers portrayed in the program: "I was not a hero, but I was surrounded by heroes." In contrast, what John Kerry is saying in essence about his "band of brothers" is that "in Vietnam, I was a hero, but I was surrounded by war criminals."

A plastic surgeon who did reconstructive surgery on the King of Pop's nose actually said this, "I think Michael Jackson wants to change from a black man to a white woman."

Yeah, we've heard this before from stand-up comics, but from Jackson's own doctor?

Time for a trip to the ultimate religious-goods superstore, the Rome Depot!

Or for on-line convenience, there's avazon.com.

(via the Curt Jester, via me)

Link via Drudge.

Have a gander at this post by the Mighty Barrister.

I don't have a story of discrimination like RC's post below, but I did install Service Pack 2 for Windows XP yesterday. The install worked in the same way the Dallas Charter worked - it seems to be a solution to all the problems other than the most pressing ones. Here are a list of the ill-effects that's I've noticed already:

1. I have bed sores from waiting for it to download and install. I didn't consider using the time the to say, build a financial empire or construct a to-scale relief map of the United States.

2. SP2 installs another nanny-type program called "Security Center" that includes a firewall but also annoys with warnings about automatic updates and virus protection. Security Center sees Norton AV installed but says it can't tell if the software is working. I'm sure if MS start selling anti-virus software it would work just fine. IF you change the auto-update settings to simply notify you that new updates are available for download the visual changes from green to yellow and it says "C H E C K S E T T I N G S." I don't want to download something I don't know about, even if it comes from Our Dear Software Provider.

3. A "Windows Marketplace" icon appears in the links toolbar of IE. You click on it and surprise, surprise you're on Microsoft's website where you can buy, buy, and buy more stuff to improve your computing experience. Just keep buying, folks, it's what keeps the economy going.

Munch's Famous 'Scream' Stolen

A defense lab operated by MIT is getting into the news in a way it never wanted, with a religious-discrimination lawsuit.

A technician at Lincoln Labs claims that his bigoted co-workers harassed him for his Christian faith over a 15-year period, and that supervisors and union reps not only failed to take action, but participated in the mistreatment.

Y'know, if a company gets a reputation for condoning abusive employee behavior and anti-Christian discrimination, it will pay at least some price. Many religious believers who work in the high-tech sector (and there are many) can simply decide never to work there.

This lab, moreover, has a special need to be concerned with its reputation: it depends almost totally on the good will of Congress and the Air Force for its funding. I can imagine that some Congressmen would be outraged at a case of abuse that was ignored by management for fifteen years.

Plus a great pic of my wife!

This article was written about me for one of UMUC's online publications.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the SEC and Washington Post need to warn us about this:

Voice-Mail Stock Tips Are Phony

Still, it's in the family of obvious headlines:

"Christmas to Fall on December 25th This Year"
"Scientists Determine Cats Ignore Owners Until Hungry"
"Heinz Ketchup too Bourgeois for Theresa Heinz Kerry"

Some of the ladies in the parish had a little argument one day, because they couldn't agree about what was the color of the new minister's eyes. They asked one lady what she thought and she said: "I really don't know what color they are. When he prays, he closes his eyes, and when he preaches, he closes my eyes."

In this cynical age, some lies are unremarkable. Take, for instance, Iran's nuclear program, whose sole purpose is to create weapons of mass destruction.

They don't actually come out and say that. Tehran's Islamist regime continues the fiction that their nuclear program is for "peaceful purposes," so they can generate electricity. With a straight face, journalists repeat the claim at face value.

Yet news reports almost never explain that Iran has more oil and natural gas than it knows what to do with, and burning them is a lot easier, less expensive, and less complicated than building nuclear reactors. Omitting those facts amounts to perpetuating Iran's lies.

Within the next two years, "the world" will have to either accept Iran's new dominance over the Mideast, or find some way to neutralize its nuclear capabilities. I put "the world" in quotation marks, because really it will be the United States, Israel, Great Britain and its former colonies, and several of the less enervated European states. The effeminate Germans will not be with us, and neither will the French, who have been the allies of militant Muslims at least since the battle of Lepanto.

We may pray that something will avert this crisis without bloodshed; indeed, it is our duty to pray for that outcome. But in my opinion, there are four possible outcomes:

1. Israel or the United States carries out a massive surprise attack on suspected Iranian nuclear facilities before they are able to assemble a functioning bomb.

2. Iran announces that it has a functioning nuclear warhead. It test-fires a ballistic missile into the Arabian Gulf to demonstrate the delivery range. A coalition of states enacts sanctions and gives Tehran an ultimatim to disarm or face the consequences. The regime, incapable of giving up its mass-murder devices without suffering a mortal blow to its credibility, prefers to fight. The coalition invades, and after a few weeks and possibly hundreds of thousands of dead, prevails.

3. Students, intellectuals, and mid-level clerics carry out a semi-bloodless coup, staging massive demonstrations and daring the secret police and security forces to respond. After firing some perfunctory bursts of machine-gun fire into the crowds, the government agrees to hold elections and carry out liberalizing political reforms.

4. Iran announces that it has a functioning nuclear warhead. It test-fires a ballistic missile into the Arabian Gulf to demonstrate the delivery range. The United Nations passes a weak resolution, representing a compromise between a bitterly divided General Assembly and Security Council, enacting trade sanctions against Iran and any state that assists its nuclear program. Iran makes some conciliatory statements, but makes no move to disarm. Over the years, the sanctions are slowly ignored, and Iran consolidates its newfound position as regional superpower, gradually spreading its Islamist influence into neighboring states.

The first scenario won't happen even if President Bush is re-elected. Thanks to the hysterical Democratic opposition, political reality militates against a pre-emptive strike against Iran, no matter how much they threaten their neighbors. Scenario #2 is even more fanciful -- what country will voluntarily place its soldiers within range of a nuclear bomb? Scenario #3 is plausible, but the list of regimes that have voluntarily given up power without violence is short (including, ironically, the Shah in 1979).

As you might guess by the length, I'd bet on scenario #4. It plays off of human inertia, folly, and wishful thinking; it requires no real action on behalf of U.N. members; and it privileges the sovereignty of a dangerous nation-state over true peace. It has the added bonus of being anti-Semitic, as Iran's first announced target is Israel.

In a broader sense, I would love to see the Church's leadership take a strong stand against Iran's murderous ambitions, but I am not holding my breath. Even though nuclear-armed Islamic fundamentalists are a clear danger to millions of lives, the bishops will not speak out against them in any meaningful way. They do not wish to make things harder for Christians living in Muslim lands, who already live precarious existences. And they, as a group, have an ingrained predilection for dialogue rather than the use of force, which is an admirable and humane trait -- and a dangerous temptation.

For we live in an age when violent men with absolutist, non-rational ideas use Western ideas to further their own ends. Things like state sovereignty and nuclear technology are good in themselves, but they can be abused. Yet the central conceit of the United Nations is that all member states are pretty much like Belgium. (Modern liberal Belgium, not the Belgium of the 19th century that ran a quasi-genocidal slave colony in the Congo.) Everything can be decided diplomatically, just like members of a gentleman's club, as long as we all keep talking and respecting each other's borders.

The Church, more or less, plays along with this, out of the altruistic belief that an international system can restrain the worst impulses of man. But secular man's idolatrous belief in state sovereignty allows a Sudan to murder poor Christians and vulnerable black Muslims -- because although the whole world knows it, they cower at the thought of stopping these crimes that cry out for vengence, because to violate Sudan's borders would be an unseemly display of contempt for man-made lines on a map.

Borders have their uses, as do states, and I don't mean to diminish their importance. But surely borders and states are not absolute? If a state uses its status to develop weapons that have no conceivable defensive purpose, with the intent to eradicate another country, shouldn't they forfeit their rights as a state? Certainly they should not be allowed to commit genocide?

Questions like these must be confronted in the very near future. That's what frustrates me about the low level of our national debates. The Michael Moore Democrats want to convince you that if we can just dump Bushitler, all these problems will go away, because the rest of the world hates the president so much.

But no matter what happens in November, Iran will get nukes, al Qaeda will keep plotting the mass murder of innocents, Islamists will continue preaching their message of hatred and resentment. Europeans will continue their death-march toward demographic oblivion, thanks to their socialist regimes.

The Church hierarchy ought to speak out on these topics, not in a prescriptive way (that is not their competence), but in a way that illuminates these new threats in the light of the Gospel. What are the obligations of states toward the citizens of other states, particularly when they are in mortal danger from their own governments? Does a state have an obligation to remove weapons of mass destruction from a hostile state?

If an individual state does not have the right to interfere with genocide, or to deter international mass murder on an epic scale, what about states operating collectively? Is the United Nations the only conceivable entity that can decide such questions? Should the United Nations be reformed to better safeguard peace and justice in the world?

These are all things that we need to consider, as Christians and as Americans (yes, in that order). I know, it's more fun to think about Iraq and what Senator Kerry did a third of a century ago in southeast Asia. But these questions won't wait -- Iran will go nuclear in the blink of an eye, and Sudan is sponsoring genocide at this very moment. Immediate action is necessary, but we also need to think of a long-term way of ordering our world, since the Second Coming isn't upon us yet, at least as I write this.

US senator Kennedy complains of falling on anti-terror no-fly list

It wouldn't surprise me at all if a couple of watch-list people were just hanging around thinking, "You know what would be funny? If Ted Kennedy couldn't get on a plane because he was on the watch list. My dad always said he was a meanace to democracy...

What are typing over there? No way dude - we can't do this!

Ok... It's K-E-N-N-E-D-Y.

Dude. I hope you've got your resume on the street. We will go down for this. Laughing all the way of course..."

The Anti-Chomsky Reader edited by Peter Collier and David Horowitz.

Listen, I just wanted to tell you what we've been calling you for years. You're BLACK."

The hard-drinking bear, estimated to be about two years old, broke into campers' coolers and, using his claws and teeth to open the cans, swilled down the suds.

It turns out the bear was a bit of a beer sophisticate. He tried a mass-market Busch beer, but switched to Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck with it for his drinking binge.

Wildlife agents chased the bear away, but it returned the next day, said Broxson.

They set a trap using as bait some doughnuts, honey and two cans of Rainier Beer. It worked, and the bear was captured for relocation.

From "A Short Road to Perfection"

September 27, 1856

If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first-Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thought to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God's glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.

Fr. Paul Mankowski on CatholicCulture.org.

Here's a snippet:

The housewife who complained that Father skipped the Creed at mass and the housewife who complained that Father groped her son had remarkably similar experiences of:

• being made to feel that they themselves were somehow in the wrong;
  
• that they had impugned the honor of virtuous men;
  
• that their complaints were an unwelcome interruption of more important business; — that the true situation was fully known to the chancery and completely under control;
  
• that the wider and more complete knowledge of higher ecclesiastics justified their apparent inaction;
  
• that to criticize the curate was to criticize the pastor was to criticize the regional vicar was to criticize the bishop;
  
• that to publicize one's dissatisfaction was to give scandal and
  would positively harm discreet efforts at remedying the ills;
  
• that one's duty was to keep silence and trust that those officially charged with the pertinent responsibilities would execute them in their own time;
  
• that delayed correction of problems was sometimes necessary for the universal good of the Church.

My friend has asked me to do a reading at his (Protestant) wedding service, and I get to pick the reading. The other reader is Jewish and probably will pick something from the Old Testament, so I'd like to select something from the New. Anyone got a suggestion? Not the one from Ephesians. (You know the one.)

The "Today" show, my morning infotainment program, reported on the "controversy" about the dancers who appear during breaks at the Olympic women's beach volleyball competitions. The spectators seem to like them — the dancers wear bikinis, which don't conceal either their flesh or their abject lack of dancing skills — but some female athletes are miffed. According to Reuters,

Australian player Nicole Sanderson was not impressed. "It's disrespectful to have other girls in bikinis out there dancing," she said while her partner, Sydney gold medallist Natalie Cook, said that if there were men out on the court dancing it could equal things out.

Strictly for informational purposes, I searched Yahoo News for pictures of Sanderson's athletic attire. Sure enough, like the rest of the women, her bikini bottom has about the same amount of fabric as a small eye patch. (No, I will not link to the photos.)

"But it's beach volleyball!" you exclaim. "They're dressed for the beach!" That might make sense, but the male volleyball players wear tank tops and normal-looking shorts. Why do the women have to dress like they're competing in a Daytona Beach best-buns competition?

You know the answer to that one. So these women play a sport where sex appeal is the primary draw, then they complain when the organizers of their events bring in dancers to keep the audience's appetites whetted. Ladies, show up with your entire backside covered, and then we'll listen to you complain.

I have a student who will be homeschooled this year. I am very interested in having her continue with her musical studies and she has been an asset to our program here. Her parents reside in and pay taxes to Fairfax County.

I've been reminded of some things, and learned some new ones:

My brother Steve, who as you know is in the seminary for this Diocese, was quoted in the Diocesan newspaper in an article about the Diocesan Choir:

"It is important that in the liturgy, we give God the most beautiful things we can," Schultz said. "Music is part of the celebration, and it is an offering."

Right on, Steve!

Please pray for him and all seminarians! He requested specifically that since he is doing the Spiritual Year Program at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, that we pray that he grows interiorly and shrinks exteriorly.

Boston's Channel 7 estimated that VOTF's protest Mass on Sunday attracted about 1,000 people. Their spokesman claimed it was more. Either way, there's no doubting what the photo tells: it's an old crowd.

The organization's mentality couldn't be better displayed than in two lines from the article. First:

The two-hour, Voice of the Faithful-organized Mass, which was neither authorized nor condemned by archdiocesan officials, was meant, organizers said, to offer a show of strength by parishioners at some of the 82 parishes slated for closure this year by Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley.

That is, they used the Sacrifice of Calvary as a means to an end -- and a political end at that.

And a dissenting priest-celebrant treated the virtues of obedience, generosity, and devotion as sins to be repented:

the Rev. Stephen S. Josoma of St. Susanna in Dedham ... asked forgiveness "for the times we have paid, prayed, and obeyed."

The TV coverage showed a row of signs planted along a walkway, each bearing the name of a parish to be closed. One was my parish in Boston: "Holy Trinity, South End". They've got some flaming nerve using the name of the Tridentine Mass parish to promote their organization at a Mass with dissenting priests and "dancers". But if they'll use our Lord Jesus Himself as a means to an end, they'll certainly do the same with the rest of us.

For those of you first timers to CL or frequent visitors with short-term memory problems, my parish did a big ol' survey on our music program. I'll put up more complete results, but here's some nuggets for you.

We got 114 surveys back over two weeks. Our church building fits around 800 total. The good news is the average score for whether singing is latin "helps me pray" got a 3.5 out of a possible five. The distribution of answers is pretty telling: lots of 5's, lots of 1's. Still - 3.5 out of 5 is pretty significant.

We did have a section for narrative comments. Some are helpful, some are the rantings of people with... how do I put this diplomatically... significant psychological issues bordering on paranoia.

One gentlement said the music at our Mass was dreary, not good for his small children and why don't the choirs get switched around since there are so many children at our Mass. I guess hymns and chants are not suitable for a "family" liturgy - give them to the old geezers who are up for the early Mass or maybe for the midday hangover Mass. But right in the mid-morning: that's primetime for Barney, Haugen, Veggie Tales, Priestly puppet shows and kazoos. Ok, I was exaggerating about the puppet shows.

In any case, and this almost made me hurl, his last line included the words: "... and you should make these changes for the children."

Which reminds me of this post.

The respondent included his name and phone number. I will refrain from posting it here since our site is visited by the Society for the Harassment of People Who Think They Should Do It "For The Children."

Archaeologists: John the Baptist Cave Found

New graphics, new layout - it's different than it was before.

…where he is promptly pulled over by the authorities.

“Do you know why I pulled you over, Father?”

“It must be the biretta…” the priest grumbles.

“I didn’t notice the biretta until I saw you driving backwards with your right turn signal on!” The office exclaims. “Please step out of the car.”

The priest complies.

“What do we have here? A cassock, a sash, and – good gravy - a maniple! Do you think this is 1962? The maniple has been suppressed, Father, don’t you know that?”

“My handkerchiefs are all in the laundry!”

“Likely story, padre! I have half a mind to cite you for attempting to turn back the clock and confusing the people of God! I’ll let you off with a warning if you put on this golf shirt and sing ‘On Eagle’s Wings’ in the orans position!”

“Never!”

Just then a bright light appears - the “HOT” light from Krispy Kreme across the street. While the cop is distracted, our priest gets back in his car and drives away.

The end.

Discussing Marian devotion with a convert of his time, Newman wrote,

"to my feelings nothing is more delightful than the contemplation of the Mysteries of the Incarnation, under the invocation, so to call it, of her whowas the human instrument of it-so that she who ministered to the Gracious Dispention itself, should minister also to our adoring thought of it."

So true! And this is the answer to those ninnies who say you shouldn't pray the rosary during Eucharistic Adoration.

No doubt you the news that came out of New Jersey last week. [Came out - I love that!] Governor James McGreevey announced his resignation and shockingly revealed that he… is… a…

[pause here while parents cover the ears of their small children and other grip the seat of the pew in fear of what is coming]

...RELATIVIST! A relativist! A flagrant relativist! In his speech he admitted no less when he said, "One has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world." McGreevey would have us believe we make up truth as we go along, that each of us is the author of our own individual truth. This is contrary to what we as Catholics profess regarding faith and morals, namely that truth is objective, it is a universal standard that applies to all, not a subjective whim. Christ says in the Gospel, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” There is only one way, one truth, and one life. It is Christ and no other.

Sadly, McGreevey’s is an ever-increasing lot. Yes, relativists are in our schools, our places of business, our government, and even our Church. It pains me to tell you that there are even priests and Bishops who are relativists. [Some women begin to pinch their babies to make them howl.] We don’t each have our own truths of morals and faith, only the one truth that is preserved and taught by the Catholic Church. “Sing a new church into being,” the new age hymn goes. There is no new church worth following, only the Church that was born of the side of Christ as He hung on the Cross.

Don’t be a relativist – you’ll go to Hell.

Please stand for the Creed.

NEW YORK — Nearly 140 years after the Civil War, another group of Americans wants to secede from the union.

Christian Exodus, a California-based group, wants God to be its commander in chief. Decrying what it perceives as the unjust secularization of the United States, it wants a sovereign state of its own.

But rather than eye the Golden State — a "lost cause," says the group's founder — it'll settle for South Carolina.

'Suffering' pope at Lourdes shrine - cnn

In a welcoming speech, Chirac called the pope "a universal pastor and a man of peace" and said "France and the Holy See are joined in the fight for a world which places Man at the centre of every enterprise."

Not the ultimate dignity of man, mind you, which would be a step in the right direction. He's talking about plain old Man, master of his destiny, his own lord and savior. master of all he surveys. Didn't Galileo prove the heavens revolve around each individual person? No, I think that was Kant.

I'm sure someone is going to take exception to me throwing around Kant's name like that. I'm speaking proverbially.

Nobles and knaves

Knave: N.J. Gov. James McGreevey, for heralding his gayness to hide his crookedness.

And one from Thomas Sowell:

Pitting power vs. knowledge

What is liberalism all about? Regardless of whether the particular issue is race, agriculture, housing or a thousand other things, liberalism is about the government telling people what to do in their lives and work.
Most liberals who are for ordering other people around know as little as Teresa Heinz Kerry. But they don't have to know.
It has been said knowledge is power but, politically, power trumps knowledge.

I promise you won't regret clicking on this link.

Thank God it's Friday! That way John won't order this 6 pound cheeseburger if he goes out tonight.

But if it were, say, Tuesday, the conversation might go like this:

"Either that's the biggest cheeseburger I've ever seen, or I'm shrinking precipitously!" John exclaims.
"You're not shrinking precipitously," replies John's wife.
"I guess that's the biggest cheeseburger I've ever seen!" John says, now salivating precipitously.

The components of John's disjunctive proposition - biggest cheeseburger he's ever seen or he's shrinking precipitously - are called disjuncts. So long as we eliminate all the disjuncts but one, that one must be true - assuming, of course, that the disjunctive premise is true to begin with.

Here it is in standard form:

Either that's the biggest cheeseburger John's ever seen, or he's shrinking precipitously!
He's not shrinking precipitously.
That's the biggest cheeseburger John's ever seen.

Here's another example.

Either John Kerry was in Cambodia on Christmas in 1968 or he's a big liar and shouldn't be elected President.
John Kerry was not in Cambodia on Christmas in 1968.
He's a big liar and shouldn't be elected President.

In a new book "by Mary", the renowned spiritual leader throws away all that stuff about warnings of trouble and instead takes on the hot-button issues of the day: I am asking you to revise the way you see me. I am not an historical virgin. I am a contemporary leader. I am always contemporary because I live in the Now moment. Oh, man, is there anything more passé than that? Anyway, the folks who produced this book are evidently promoting it through Google ads that show up on perfectly orthodox Catholic sites. When you see one, click on it and make a little money for the good guys.

"I ever possess, and take with me everywhere, the God of my heart and the Heart of my God."

In case you missed my scoop last week on the painting of the ex-priest in the apse of his last Catholic parish in Washington, DC. That's right, I drove over to St. Teresa of Avila in Anacostia to get the photos. Just for all of you, our faithful readers.

The Sainted Antipope - Fr. Jim Tucker @ Dappled Things

Perhaps Gaea is punishing the US for not siging on to the Kyoto treaty. We don't have it bad here in Northern Virginia like the eight-hundred thousand or so who were told to evacuate their homes in Tampa. The Old Oligarch and his wife, Zorak, were victim of Mother Nature's wrath - their car was crushed by an angry Ent yesterday. I thought the Ents were on our side. Old Oligarch has got photos of the carnage.

And don't miss the subsequent post in reply to some inane criticism of his posts on modest dress. I'm glad we here at CL are on his good side!

He's suspected of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from area churches.

The people of God can be very forgiving, but not when it comes to money. I'm sure someone is looking for a millstone of sufficient size to tied around the man's neck.

A stunning admission by Gov. James E. McGreevey (D-New Jersey) today. "I am a gay American," he said at a press conference announcing his resignation, which is effective Nov. 15. Why not resign now? Because if he resigns within sixty days of a general election, he replacement would be elected this November, not next. With NJ in play in the Presidential election, the state's democrats don't want to get more voters to the polls who might vote Republican.

I'm hearing on the radio the man McGreevey had an affair with he promoted to head the homeland security department of New Jersey, a man with not only had zero law enforcement experience, but who also was denied a security clearance. Is it possible McGreevey was being blackmailed? The word is his lover is filing a sexual harassment lawsuit. What a scandal!

I, for one, am shocked.

Procrastinating monkeys were turned into workaholics using a gene treatment to block a key brain compound, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

United States Marines are on the verge of exterminating the lawless thugs of Muqtada "Mookie" al Sadr today in Najaf. This is an advance for peace: there is nothing Arabs hate more than a loser, and once we demonstrate that Iranian-backed Islamists are losers, any support they enjoy will melt away.

To my brother Marines: I pray that God might give you safety and success. May your bullets strike home, and may the enemy lay down their arms, or else their lives. Let the name "Marine" continue to strike fear in the hearts of evil men.

UPDATE: This quotation is priceless. I wish I were in Najaf.

"We've pretty much just been patrolling and flying helicopters all over the place, and when we see something bad, we blow it up," said [Major] Holahan, executive officer of the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines Regiment.

(full article)

I was parked in the People's Republic of Maryland yesterday for a three-hour meeting and came out to find my Bush/Cheney car magnet gone. I'll have about three meetings a week at that location until the end of October, so here's my options:

1) Replace it and watch it disappear
2) Replace it with something that will annoy the thief more like "Kerry is a War Criminal" or "I'm Chasing Edwards, He's Chasing an Ambulance" or "Theresa Heinz Kerry for Queen" or "Let Them Eat Ketchup!"
3) Just do without a car magnet

Anyone have any other ideas?

As we recall the example of Saint Clare, let us pray for the the Poor Clares at the Monastery of Mary, Mother of the Church, in Alexandria, Virginia. You know they are praying for all of us!

"If I am elected in November, no inner-city child will have to live in an America where George Bush is president," Kerry said, addressing a packed Maize High School auditorium. "No senior citizen will lie awake at night, worrying about whether George Bush is still the chief executive of this country. And no American—regardless of gender, regardless of class, regardless of race—will be represented by George Bush in the world community."

Schools in Maine have spent $15 million (with $22 million to go) on a contract to put laptops into the, well, laps of middle-schoolers. After two years of the program, the students with computers performed about the same as the students without them.

One school board member tells what her son learned in the process:

... David, 14, who will be in ninth grade this year, said his classmates found ways to play games on their laptops without their teachers noticing. Also, he said students spent a lot of time downloading and pasting photographs and sound effects to create movies.

''You don't have to do as much work as writing a report,'' he said. ''It's more about getting pictures and putting in sound effects than learning about the topic.''

Education Commissioner Sue Gendron said teachers over the past two years were just learning how to integrate laptops into the curriculum, and that it is unfair to judge the program after only two years.

When asked when the test scores should improve, she declined to give a timetable, saying laptops are worth the investment even if they don't boost test scores.

''I believe that the jobs of the future will be based on technology, and part of Maine's goal is to have the best-educated citizens and to ensure that they are skilled to work in a creative economy,'' she said.

It's sad to think that educationists are falling for the attraction of shiny objects. They're spending money and time on machines -- admittedly cute, handy machines -- that don't make much measurable difference to learning, while local governments are forced to cut teachers' jobs.

"Preach the Gospel always, if necessary use words."
- St. Francis of Assisi

We’re all familiar with this quote. Why do faithful Catholics involved in charitable work sometimes use this quote to justify not using words? As John said in his excellent post on the distinction between charity and social work, Christian charity is rooted in eternity. St. Francis means that our faith should inform all we say and do. He exhorts his brothers to truly live the Gospel so they would be, in their time, the light of the world. Not only to be the light of the world, but also to bring the light of Christ to the world. Again, to paraphrase John, no secular or governmental relief organization can truly do that. In fact, to depend on a relief or social services from a non-Catholic entity is to invite in some cases an immoral solution. Counseling or providing contraception is but one example.

Today St. Francis’ words are construed to imply that giving of one’s material wealth is enough. It’s a start to be sure, but incomplete. We have a responsibility not only to share our blessings with those less fortunate that us, but also to share our most valuable possession: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is clear that the Gospel, and only the Gospel, is the antidote to the immoral solutions available from social services outside the Church.

I’ve heard the same people misquote the Beatitudes saying, “Blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry” to imply the poor and the homeless already have their reward in heaven. They think we have no need to evangelize the people who come to a Catholic soup kitchen or thrift store. While the poor may be closer to heaven than all of us, there is no way to heaven but through Jesus Christ and the grace we obtain through His Church.

Christ is not speaking of material poverty and hunger when He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” and “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” He is speaking of the virtues of humility and diligence.

Just after the Beatitudes are preached Christ urges us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

“We don’t want to force our faith on them,” I’ve heard an employee of Catholic Charities say. The implication is that there are only two options: say nothing about Jesus, or require someone be baptized before you give them a can of pork and beans. This is, of course, false. It’s a cop-out and it’s dangerous.

The literal case in point is Catholic Charities of Sacramento, Inc. v. Superior Court. The State of California seeks to require Catholic Charities of Sacramento to provide health insurance for their employees that include contraceptives. Catholic Charities of Sacramento filed suit against the State of California claiming a violation of the free exercise of religion and establishment clauses of both the California and United States' constitutions. The California Supreme Court ruled against Catholic Charities and the Catholic Charities has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. All this could have been avoided if Catholic Charities of Sacramento had acted like a Catholic charity.

Can we meet the demands of social justice without considering those of Divine Justice? It’s clear that the answer is no. Christ commands us to preach the Gospel with words: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20) Divine Justice is only served by obeying Divine Will. By all means we must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, but to the degree that we are able we must preach the Gospel. The corporal works of mercy must be accomplished while the work of Divine Mercy is proclaimed.

I cannot offer this criticism without some meager suggestions on how we can meet the requirements of social justice and Divine Justice:

Make Catholic literature available for those who make use of Catholic social services. Place “Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth” in the bag of clothes someone has purchased from the Catholic thrift store and a rack of pamphlets in plain sight in our soup kitchens and shelters.

Invite those who have come for a meal to pray the Rosary if they wish. After a meal extend the invitation. Those who wish to stay will stay, those who do not will go. Use short meditations on the Mysteries so that they have some meaning to those who are praying them. The Rosary is truly the simplest form of Bible study and the

Make our parishes more inviting to the less fortunate. This is a challenge, especially here in Northern Virginia where some of the wealthiest parishes are just blocks away from low-income housing. Many of us have, unfortunately, a “not in my back yard” attitude to those in need. In church this becomes a “not in my pew” indignation, and again, Divine Justice is ill served by this lack of charity.

These are some humble recommendations that we may employ to evangelize as we engage in works of mercy.

I welcome any other suggestions or criticism on this post by our readers.

"Our virtues are often vices disguised."

That's from the fortune cookie that came with my lunch today. It's true -- think about it.

Does this seem like a good way to sell a dating service? True.com thinks so. These ads caught my eye, since they run on my work's Web site, and their radio ads are running in the D.C. area. They make dating seem pretty grim, as if the first thing you need to consider is whether the person is an axe-murderer.

Somebody decided a few months ago that 2004 would be the Year of the Internet Dating Service, because they're everywhere now, including sites like National Review Online. At least True.com isn't as misleading as the other dating services advertised on the Web, who take a stock photo of a pretty model and slap a lame slogan under it, hoping that people will sign up. This is pretty dishonest: young, attractive women don't generally have a problem getting dates, do they?

I guess it's a testimony to the anomie of modern life that we have so many technologies to connect ourselves to each other, yet apparently lots of people can't find a suitable mate without resorting to a computerized bureaucracy. I don't blame them, really -- maybe I'd use a dating service if I were single -- but it's a small indication of how the tendency toward idolizing personal freedom, so common in America, does not produce happier people.

But look out for that 300-foot high wave that will hit the Eastern seaboard of the US and Canada. Oh, only if Bush gets relected - the volcano slippage is his fault. Kerry's hair will save the day!

I saw a special on this on the Discovery Channel a while back. It looks pretty scary. Maybe get some Legos there quickly and put a wall around the island.

A snippet:

If you wanted to pick a candidate on the wrong side of every major defense and foreign policy question of the last two decades, you would be hard put to find anyone with judgment as comprehensively poor as Mr. Kerry: total up his votes and statements on everything from Grenada to the Gulf war, Saddam to the Sandinistas, the Cold War to missile defense to every major weapons system of the 1980s and '90s. He called them all wrong.

Read the whole thing!

Link via Brit Hume's Grapevine on foxnews.com

Family Circle magazine says there's -- "no reason" to halt this year's recipe contest between the presidential candidates' wives -- even though Teresa Heinz Kerry now says her pumpkin spice cookies taste -- "nasty." In fact, Heinz Kerry has said the recipe isn't even hers, insisting somebody at the Kerry campaign gave that recipe out and -- "somebody [did] it on purpose to give a nasty recipe."

I thought she would have blamed it on a vast, right-wing conspiracy, not someone in her husband's campaign.

Laura Bush , meanwhile, is standing by her oatmeal chocolate chunk recipe. Since Family Circle had its first so-called bake-off in 1992, the winning recipe has always corresponded with who ends up living in the White House.

"I am resigning my position as the director of religious outreach because it is no longer possible for me to do my job effectively," Rev. [Brenda Bartella] Peterson said, as reported by Talon News. The Washington Post added Thursday that her decision was made "after the New York-based Catholic League issued three blistering news releases attacking her positions."

Blistering and but appropriate! If the democrats want to be taken seriously by people of faith they should hire a liason who at least believes in God.

"Why are Kerry and the DNC imploding on religion? Because too many of the elites running the show are devout secularists who put a premium on freedom from religion," [William] Donohue maintains. "Their idea of religious liberty is banning nativity scenes on public property. Their idea of diversity is censoring 'under God' from the Pledge. Their idea of tolerance is forbidding a moment of silence in the schools. Their idea of a good Catholic is Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice. Their idea of compassion is hiking taxes. Their idea of helping the poor is giving them directions to a soup kitchen. And their idea of choice is abortion, not school vouchers," he said.

Link via Bill Cork

A Gloucestershire vicar is to launch a nude calendar in his church after a group of 13 women posed naked to raise money for rape victims in Rwanda.

..."A lot of thought has gone into this and it is about empowering Rwandan women who have been so debased. It is about reasserting women's essential female selves," he said.

Or "chi", "prana", or whatever. People claiming to live without eating as "breatharians" are planning to get together on Tuesday. Not too many of the interested people actually claim to be doing it, or not doing it, so to speak.

Before I get to the main subject, I wanted to call out the biased and silly lead in this article:

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush on Friday defended the decision to issue terrorism warnings and tighten security in New York and Washington, saying "the threats we're dealing with are real" even though some of the intelligence on which the government acted was as much as four years old.

Is intelligence like milk? Does it come with an expiration date? Sure, updates are essential, but the terror warning was also based on much more recent information. If you're looking to establish that someone is a potential threat, or you want to know if someone is plotting a terror attack, you have to look at his actions over a long period of time, right? I've noticed that the author, Terence Hunt, likes to insert editorial comments into his copy. I usually expect better out of AP.

Here's the real subject of my comment, this paragraph near the bottom of the article:

[Bush said] he would consider supporting a constitutional amendment guaranteeing every American the right to vote in federal elections. "I can understand why African Americans in particular are worried about being able to vote since the vote had been denied for so long in the South in particular." He said Congress had approved $3 billion for states and local governments to make sure the voting process is fair.

This is astonishing. Forty years ago, Congress passed a major civil rights act to guarantee that, among other things, blacks could vote on an equal footing with whites. There are offices and departments honeycombing the Federal bureaucracy, all of them concerned with voting-rights compliance. High-priced lawyers and prosecutors are scanning the land, looking for these rights to be violated. Blacks can now vote without any legal impediments. Yet now we need a constitutional amendment to guarantee these things?

Up until about 10 minutes ago, I didn't even know this was an issue. I am assuming that the same people, like Senators Feinstein and McCain, who opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment, will rush to oppose this proposal. Why? Because of the reasons they gave for opposing FMA, specifically:

1. Gay marriage is already prohibited at the federal level by the Defense of Marriage Act;

2. The Constitution is a sacred document and we shouldn't tamper with it for political purposes (what could be more political than proposing an amendment to solve a non-existent problem, the likely result of which would be to stir up racial mistrust and energize black voters?); and

3. It tramples states' rights, because states are the entities that authorize marriages (just as states are the entities that determine who is and is not an eligible voter.)

Let's watch the latter-day George Wallaces, the born-again Federalists who opposed the FMA if they are confronted with a voting-rights amendment. I'm betting they won't sound like Justice Scalia again.

When I meet a man who obviously spends way too much time making his hair look pretty, I instinctively mistrust him. I'm not saying I'm a hair expert -- I don't even own a comb -- but it does say something about a man when he feels the need to apply several unguents to his head every day.

I associate this with falsehood because in my professional life, the people who pay excessive attention to their appearance are the same people who think looking good is equivalent to being good (or doing good). They would prefer to do something flashy or impressive, rather than quiet and intelligent, just because it might raise their status within the organization.

Hair gel might not cause venality or superficiality, but it does seem to be a sure indicator of those qualities. Has anyone else noticed this? Were there any saints with great hair?

The legacy of George Stallings is evident at his last parish, St. Teresa of Avila in Anacostia. Above the "high" marble altar (I don't know what else to call the pre-Vatican II altar) is the painting shown in the conniption-inducing photos below. It bears a resemblance to the former priest, now "Unificationist" follower of Reverend Moon. Stallings, founder of the African American Catholic Congregation, married a Japanese woman in 2001 less than half his age, no doubt in the interest of unification.

I agree the match isn't spot-on, but given the age difference between the photos and when the painting was probably done (he left the Church in 1989) it's plausible. Is that a wound on the right arm or is it a visage of Christ at all?

Click below to see the photos. I didn't wish to post them on the main page here because it would use a ton of bandwidth.

“If we really understood the priest on earth, we would die not of fright but of love. . . . The Priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus." – St. Jean Vianney, the Curé of Ars

Catechism of the Catholic Church #1589

Father Tucker of Dappled Things links to a post by an Orthodox blogger on the role of the Queen Mother of ancient Israel. Scott Hahn writes of this in his book Hail, Holy Queen. From the blog "St. Stephen's Musings." linked above:

There is an Aramaic word, "Gebirah", which means "Queen Mother". The Gebirah was an official position, one with which everyone (Jesus and His disciples included) was entirely familiar. Her role was as an advocate of the people. Anyone who had a petition or sought an audience with the King did so through her.

St. Louis de Montfort's way of Total Consecration follows in this tradition. You can follow the schedule for prepation online via the preceding link. It contains all the prayers and meditations required for the 33 day preparation for Total Consecration. If you start August 6, your consecration day will be September 8, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Parents in Pennsylvania sue to overturn a law they consider an undue burden on home education.

"It really comes down to who owns the child," said Newborn, whose 17-year-old son just completed his freshman year at St. Vincent's College in Latrobe. "The parents are the stewards over the child, not the state."

Georgia Man's Pants Explode

Remember a few months ago I mentioned my parish was going to conduct a survey about the music program? Well, it's happened. I haven't tallied the scores for our morning Mass yet, but the comments are telling.

Some folks are complimentary and appreciate what we do. Some folks just circled the numbers and dropped it in the basket.

Some folks decided it was time to express their frustrations with life via our music survey.

If that sounds harsh, try this:

"The music at this Mass is very dreary. It should be happier like the music at the later Mass."

"Dreary" is not a word I would use to classify any of our repertiore.
"Dreary" is a highly subjective term.
It was also raining that day.

Those things aside, what is "dreary" music? Is chant dreary? Anything in a minor key that doesn't end on a Picardy third? Anything that doesn't have sharps in the key?

Most of the music we do clearly isn't thrilling. It's not going to get your heart racing, make you want to eat red meat or invade a communist country.

But don't mistake prayerful for dreay. Chant is prayerful, not dreary. Some of the motets we do aren't exciting or moving. What they are is devoid of most emotional expression we associated with our 21st century lives. It lacks all the emotional baggage of our pop music. So for some, dreary is down-right delightful.

More on the survey as I have time...

Sorry I haven't posted much. Been judging lots of annulments as well as finishing up the edits on two books coming out next month. Anyway, the Interim, which is Canada's national pro-life newspaper, just posted my editorial from the June edition. It describes some of my experiences as a Canadian with the pro-life movement in America. Here's a sample:

I still recall when Sonya and I brought Jasmine home from the maternity ward. Governor Casey greeted us on the street, congratulated us on becoming new parents and asked to hold Jasmine for a few moments. Although I don't usually trust politicians with babies, how could one refuse this old warhorse of the right-to-life movement? His eyes marvelled with the mystery of human life.

"I don't want to accept George Bush as the legitimately-elected President of the United Stated, therefore he is not the legitimately-elected President of the United States."

The fallacy of subjectivism is commited when one uses their belief or desire of a thing as evidence of its proof. There is an implicit premise here. It is much more than the one who says this is more supreme than the Justices on the Supreme Court. He implies that he is the Supreme Being.

All things I want to be true are true.
I want the statement "Bush is not the legitimately-elected President of the United States" to be true.
Therefore, the statement "Bush is not the legitimately-elected President of the United States" is true.

Who can say, "All things I want to be true are true"? That's only true for God. We mere creatures have no such power. Talk about "playing God!" That's subjectivism. Of course, what is subjective for God is objective for Creation.

So, I say to the "Re-defeat Bush" crowd, just because you want something to be true doesn't make it true. And I also say to them, "Go play in traffic!"

In a comment on a previous post, I opined that Catholic bishops have been talking about homosexual marriage recently because homosexuals brought it up in the first place. Blaming them for taking an interest in the subject is sort of like blaming Poland for starting World War II.

I wanted to expand on my point that "militant homosexuals [are] trying to destroy marriage." On the surface, that would appear to be hyperbole -- they are merely trying to expand the definition of marriage, much as the definition of "citizen" has expanded to embrace blacks. It does not diminish American citizenship to let blacks have their full compliment of civil rights, goes the argument, so why is marriage injured by homosexual civil marriages?

Up until the campaign for gay marriage moved into its active phase in the 1990s, the homosexual movement agreed with the feminists: marriage is an essentially patriarchical, oppressive institution that codified the dominant heterosexual, masculine paridigm of American society. (Sorry for the jargon -- I'm trying to use the same terms they used when I was in college in the '90s.)

Now, however, the campaign for gay marriage has shifted its position, saying that homosexuals will be "civilized" (their word, not mine) by it, and therefore society will benefit because the instability of homosexual relationships will be greatly mitigated.

But you cannot radically redefine a concept without changing its essence. If marriage consists of one man and one woman, to change that formula is to make it something different. Even if you make the change for a greater good -- reducing the astonishing promiscuity of gay men, for example -- you will have mutated marriage into something else. Call it what you will, an agreement or a contract or even "marriage," but it will have ceased to be itself.

Supernaturally, marriage helps us because spouses assist each other in their journey toward heaven. Also, the relationship between husband and wife is a model of Christ and his bride, the Church. On the natural level, marriage is for begetting and rearing good children and thus the perpetuation of a good society.

The further we drift away from those fundamental ideas, the more the Church will insist upon the proper understanding of marriage. It's not rude of the bishops to indicate that homosexuals are trying to further degrade marriage in the popular mind, as well as civil law. It's their job, and may they do it well.

I have nothing but sympathy for those who have a homosexual orientation through no fault of their own. As a fellow sinner who lives with the residual yet powerful effects of original sin, I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to go through life with that burden, especially for people attempting to live a Christian life. Indeed, I am awed by their courage.

I hope that society can find some way to accomodate homosexuals without veering off to the extremes of violent rejection of their existence, or unqualified acceptance of homosexual conduct. However, defining marriage out of existence will not solve that problem.

This headline from CNN:
"Poll: No 'bounce' for Kerry so far"

"So Far" being the operative word. As though the convention bounce is going to happen in mid-August.

CNN new mission statement:
CNN is among the world's leaders in wishful thinking. Our reporters work 24/7 to bring you our latest hopes and dreams disguised as news.