Pete Vere: February 2004 Archives

Probably the main topic of conversation at last weekend's meeting of the Alhambra's international board of directors was How do we sign up younger members and keep them active?

Of course, being by far the youngest member of our board, many of the other gold tassles turned to me for some possible answers. One of the things I proposed is that the Alhambra shift from a Catholic fraternal organization to a Catholic family organization. De facto, this is how many of our younger caravans (local branches) in terms of membership already operate, and this is how I intend to operate in Ottawa. Basically, these younger caravans keep the monthly meetings short, and invite wives and children to attend as well. All their activities involve the entire family, rather than just the boys. I myself keep pointing to Pope John Paul II's Familiaris Consortio and all that the Holy Father has done to promote the family apostolate. In fact, long before he ascended to the Throne of St. Peter, Fr. Wojtyla was leading a family kayak trip when he first received news that he was to be consecrated a bishop.

Anyway, there seems to be some interest in exploring this idea a little more, especially since our younger caravans in terms of leadership are already operating as de facto family organizations. Nevertheless, there continues to be much divergence of opinion among 1) our WWII era membership who want to keep this exclusively an old boyz club, 2) our boomer membership who see this primarily as an equality issue and want to see women become full members, but are wishy-washy when it comes to families, and 3) our gen-x membership who are basically pushing for full family membership. In case there is any doubt, I fall into the third category.

What I am interested in finding out, therefore, is whether you would be more likely to join and become active in a Catholic fraternal organization that operates as an all boys club, or whether you find a Catholic family organization that gets the entire family active within our Catholic apostolate more appealing? Please use either the comments box or private email to share your answer, and it would also be helpful if you shared your age and marital status. Thanks...

As some of you know, I will be in Brooklyn this weekend for a meeting of the Alhambra's international executive. Friday night is free, so a group of us from the apologetics and St. Blog community are hoping to get together. (We did something similar in Chicago a few weeks, and had a great time!)

Below is the hotel information where I will be staying. Right now, we're hoping to get together sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 pm. I should be around if you want to come earlier (either in my room, or wearing one of my conservative t-shirts in the hotel lobby or pub) but if you need to come later, please let me know in advance if possible -- either by email before Thursday, or by leaving a message for me at the hotel on Friday.

Look forward to seeing you all...

> Marriott Hotel at the Brooklyn Bridge
> 333 Adams St
> Brooklyn NY
> Hotel # (718)246-7000
> Toll Free (888) 436-3759

Like just about everyone else around St. Blog, I have had a wonderful time this past month fisking Tim from Catholics for Dean. Yet the campaign seems to have wisened him a little, so I wish to draw everyone's attention to a serious project he's undertaken. This is a heart-felt plea on behalf of pro-life Democrats to Democratic hopeful Dennis Kucinich, urging him to return to his pro-life convictions. Seriously Tim, my prayers are with you in this brave effort and pray other Casey Democrats will support you.

I was reading an interesting essay at Democrats for Life the other day, in which it is alleged that abortion is the one issue that continues to sap the Abortion Party of its electoral strength. Somewhere else, I read that almost half the Democrat grass-roots rejects their party's hardline pro-abortion stance. Which got me wondering...

Prior to the primaries, Dennis Kucinich was a reliable pro-life democrat. However, he crossed over to the dark side at the start of the primaries in order to give his campaign traction. At least, this is what was suppose to happen. Instead, he's consistently found himself in a tight race with Al Sharpton for last place.

Which makes me wonder, did the abortion issue kill Kucinich's campaign from the start? What traction would Kucinich have gained within the campaign among alienated pro-life Democrats had he stuck to his pro-life principles? He might not have been the eventual nominee, but would he have gained enough support to finally break the Abortion's Party culture-of-death plank?

I think he might have. Unfortunately, he didn't. Where he had a real opportunity to influence the party, he sold out instead. This is sad because pro-life Democrats consistently out-poll pro-life Republicans in elections. The results are even more devastating for the GOP where a pro-abortion Republican goes head-to-head with a pro-life Democrat.

Which brings me to another point: the only candidate for Casey Democrats in the upcoming general election is George Bush. Now is the time for pro-life Democrats (or their sympathizers like myself) to galvanize and send the party a message we will not vote for a candidate who supports the destruction of our children in the womb and of the traditional family. 2004 is gonna be one of the toughest campaigns in a long time, and a loss for the Democrats might finally awaken them to their bleak electoral prospects as long as they remain the Abortion Party.

So pro-life democrats should send the party a message by either voting Republican or sitting this one out.

As a civil Libertarian, I find the following piece quite reassuring about what's going on in Guantamo Bay. While this young lad denies having been Taliban, and while he was initially angry at America for having captured him, he states he soon came appreciate how nicely the American soldiers were toward him.

Something hit me this morning as I got out of bed. Namely, when did the homosexual lobby successfully co-opt the word "gay"? The word use to mean "happy", which from many accounts I have read, the homosexual lifestyle is anything but.

That being said, every marriage should be gay. That is, every marriage should adhere to the pro-life principles that make for a happy marriage. Unfortunately, the homosexual lifestyle contradicts many of these principles.

For example, the foundation of a gay marriage lays in the complementarity between a man and a woman. So for a marriage to be truly happy, it must be heterosexual in nature. This in itself will not ensure happiness in marriage, but it is constituative of all happy marriages. So gay marriage is by its nature heterosexual.

So is gay sex. This sounds a little strange, but as we read in Familiaris Consortio, there are two functions of conjugal relations that cannot be separated from one another. The first is unitive, in which the spouses enjoy each other's natural complementarity. Which is why homosexual relations can never be gay -- it lacks the unitive function because it fundamentally lacks this complementarity.

The second function of conjugal relations is the procreative function. It is also lacking within homosexual relationships. Thus a homosexual marriage can never be gay since such a relationship is intrinsically sterile.

Kevin Miller blogs an excellent response to Bill Cork in the debate over pro-life and abortion, President Bush, and the current crop of nominies for the Abortion Party. This is not the first time Bill and Kevin have locked horns, as evidenced by this post a year ago on Just War theory.

Of course, I find myself agreeing with Prof. Miller in the current debate over whether or not abortion is a defining issue. As most of my regular readers know, I have the highest respect for Kevin Miller as a theologian. Nevertheless, I'm somewhat confused by how Bill appears to raise the issue of the Iraqi War in order to challenge Dubya's pro-life credentials. If we go back exactly one year, I recall that I strongly opposed the War in Iraq, but who was so favorable to the war that he was bandying about the word sedition to describe its opponents, because he intrinsically trusted the President and simply dismissed as ridiculous the arguments of the war's opponents to which he now appeals in the abortion debate?

Anyway, while Bill is a pretty good ecumenist (since that's his professional specialty within the theological sciences), I think I will stick to Kevin Miller when it comes to moral theology since that's Kevin specialty within the theological sciences. (Also, throughout the Church's history canonists and moral theologians have traditionally been allies). That being said, having consistently opposed the war, I still maintain abortion trumps this issue when it comes to the ballot box.

Since Republicans can vote in the VA primary, allow me to put in a plug for my favorite candidate!

Information on where we will be....

Just I reminder that Sonya, the girls and I will be in Chicago this weekend for a major Alhambra weekend, and there will be an informal reception Friday, February 6th to which all of my friends and readers in the Chicago are are invited.

Here is the corrected information for where we are all gathering. (Basically, the Chicago Alhambrans tend to be very laid back and informal when they organize these types of reception, so you can pretty much drop in at any time between 5pm and 1am and bring your spouse and children as well.) Anyway, we will be getting together at....

Marriott Courtyard
6 Trans Am Plaza Dr.
Oakbrook Terrace, IL

The informal reception will be held in meeting rooms A & B on the first floor, from 5pm to 1 am. The hotel phone number is (630) 691-1500.

If you think you might attend, and get the chance to do so between now and Friday, please call Mark or Ricky Montalbano at (708) 547-1010 or email Mark at mark@montalbanofurniture.com (Preferably by Wednesday, if possible, since this is when the order for food and refreshments go in...) If you are not sure, or don't get the chance to do so between now and then, you're still welcome to drop in on Friday.

Looks like we will have a nice turn-out from St. Blog's as well as Catholic Freepdom. Look forward to seeing everyone there!

Now that everything is dying down, I thought I would blog a little wrap-up on the Katholics for Dean controversy. (BTW, here's the text of the flame war between Kathy Shaidle and Katholics for Dean) As I noted in the comments section of Against the Grain, I now seriously question whether Katholics for Dean is pro-life when it comes to abortion.

When I first visited their website, something troubled me, but I couldn't quite finger what beyond Dean being the most extreme pro-abort among the Abortion Party's presidential candidates. Upon further reflection, however, here's what IMMEDIATELY turned me off of the Katholics for Dean website. Admittedly, the first point is relatively minor when compared to the second.

First there is the smugness and arrogance, in my opinion, with which Tim approached Kathy Shaidle. I know Kathy from around St. Blog, through her writings and through private email correspondence. I don't know Tim from a hole in the ground, not even by reputation. Therefore, his coming to St. Blog and demanding to ball with us, according to his rules and not ours, over something most of us consider highly distasteful, just turned me off. St. Blog is a pretty open community, but since Tim is the one seeking to foster his strange ideas upon us, it is up to him to play by our rules and not us to play by his.

Yet this is only minor compared to the next point. The website only pays lipservice in my opinion to the pro-life movement, especially with regards to abortion. It was obvious to me from my first visit there that Tim expends the utmost effort trying to convert Catholics into Democrats, and very little (at least on the site) trying to convert Democrats into pro-lifers. While there is an admission that Dean is not pro-life, Tim simply rolls over and play dead in the name of tolerance and working together. He offers both excuses and apologies for Dean and the Abortion Party's extreme support of abortion but no calls to account. He attempts no correction of his comrades within the Abortion Party, and avoids any confrontation with the pro-abort Deaniacs on the site.

This is not good in my experience. Politicians who often start out pro-life, but who refuse to call their own party to account in public, usually end up selling out to the pro-aborts in order to move up the food chain. Dennis Kucinich is a good example. While he's a little loopy on a number of other issues, he did more or less have a consistent pro-life position up until he launched his presidential bid. Had he held to his previous pro-life position, he likely would have pulled in support from the Casey Democrats and a number of other pro-life Democrats who haven't yet crossed over to the GOP. But Denis sold out because he wanted more money to finance his campaign. One cannot serve both God and money, and Denis's previous pro-life constituency quickly abandonned him when they found out which one he served. (As an aside, it profits a man nothing to gain the whole world if he loses his own soul in the process -- but for two percent of the Abortion Party faithful? Why would he sell his soul for that?)

This is why, while I may not always agree with Democrats for Life or JCecil's blog, I'm willing to respectfully listen to them as they make their case for supporting the Abortion Party. Unlike Katholics for Dean, these latter websites firmly rebuke the DNC for positioning itself as the Abortion Party and they call the DNC to account. You don't see this with Katholics for Dean which, like the battered wife, tries to hide the problem until forced to admit it, then makes excuses for it rather that firmly stand against it.

Again, most of us at St. Blog parish were deeply involved with the Terri Schindler-Schiavo situation. Come the ballot box in November, we will remember President Bush's firm support for his brother in Florida as well as Gov. Dean's (although it is doubful he will be the Abortion Party's candidate) outrage against the intervention of the Florida Governor and Legislature. We will remember Terri in the ballot box. So Tim would be better off trying to convince the Democrat Party to become pro-life rather than try and convince orthodox Catholics to support the Abortion Party.

Although Dean's regime is now crumbling faster than a cookie in my toddler's hands, I had this real wierd dream last night. It was Autumn of 2002 and I was watching Fox News when President Howard Dean came on to address the nation concerning his administration's plans for Iraq. Here's what he said:

"While we haven't convinced Saddam and his sons to close their children prisons, give up their rape rooms and stop pushing Iraqi citizens through plastic shredders, if you had told us a year ago that Saddam would now be allowing weapons' inspectors back into Iraq, we would have given anything for this. So there remains a lot of work to be done. First we're gonna go to France, and then to London. AND ON TO MOSCOW and GERMANY and BEJING and NORTH KOREA and to SUDAN! AND ARGENTINA! AND PAKISTAN! AND NIGERIA! AND BELGIUM! AND AUSTRALIA! AND THEN ON TO GENEVA TO FORCE THROUGH A RESOLUTION AT THE UNITED NATIONS.... YEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

Geesh...and the Abortion Party thinks Dubya's a cowboy on foreign policy?