Politics: November 2004 Archives

[Here's the unedited version of my November Of Canons and Culture column for the Wanderer.]

For the first time since returning to Canada, I’m surrounded by young orthodox Catholics. Like the rest of the Canadian cottage industry, literally speaking, the Viamede Resort considers late autumn the off-season. The weather is beautiful and the cottage rentals are inexpensive. Thus about sixty of us have gathered outside of Peterborough to relax, pray, and network among ourselves.

John O’Brien, son of Catholic novelist Michael O’Brien, is the main organizer of this gathering. As principal of Wayside Academy, John is part of the growing private Catholic education movement in Canada. According to the school’s website, Wayside Academy “is dedicated to forming young Catholic students into the leaders of tomorrow, and teaches according to the ‘classical curriculum’ method, which stresses the grammar, logic, and rhetoric of each subject.”

While the school currently teaches students from grades one to ten, O’Brien plans on adding a junior high-school year in September of 2005 and a senior year in 2006. Readers concerned with the modern state of Catholic education may should stop by Wayside’s website and read John’s excellent reflection: Catholic Education: Principles of Recovery.

Fr. Scott McCaig from the Companions of the Cross is this year’s retreat master. His preaching on the Sacrament of Confession is legendary among Catholics and in Canada. He did not disappoint. Father spoke of personal prayer, Lectio Divina, and the need for regular confession within the context of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s spirituality. “To be effective in carrying out the Church’s apostolate,” Father states, “you must face your sins honestly in the confessional. God already knows your sins, but you must face them candidly and receive the grace of this sacrament, or both you and your apostolate will falter over time.” Sage advice from an experienced confessor.

John Pacheco and his family rented a nearby cottage. We have five girls between the two families, and other young couples brought the fruit of their marriage as well. So this is a wonderful opportunity for our wives to form lasting friendships as our children run along the beach and explore nature’s mysteries.

Earlier this evening, I enjoyed a glass of brandy with Luc Gagnon, no stranger to the Wanderer, and Jason Kenney. Jason is the thirty-five years old Member of Parliament from Calgary, Alberta. Since winning his first federal election over seven years’ ago, Jason has grown into the most reliable voice of social-conservatism in Canadian politics.

During the Clinton years, Jason became the subject of a strange Canadian sex scandal. The controversy began when the mainstream media reported Jason had previously sworn off pre-marital sex near the beginning of his political career . After his conversion to Catholicism, Jason would share that Pope John Paul II was his main inspiration to do so. Nevertheless, Canada’s mainstream media found Kenney’s revelation more upsetting than that of the former US president. Given the nation’s permissive approach to sex education, how had the public school system failed Canada’s youngest and most promising politicians? Yet Jason survived this episode with his morals intact. He is living proof one can aspire to a political career in Canada without forfeiting one’s moral virtue–a lesson our “Catholic” prime minister likely finds disconcerting.

For my own part, I enjoyed this opportunity to reconnect with fellow orthodox Catholics in Canada and share in what G.K. Chesterton once dubbed “the fellowship of the pint, the pipe and the cross.” After a hectic move during the summer followed by a punishing schedule this past fall, I needed to rekindle my prayer life. It had become rather dry as I increasingly found myself simply going through the motions. Like any good physician of the soul, Fr. McCaig drew upon Holy Scripture and the wisdom of the saints to heal me from this latest bout of spiritual malaise.

Additionally, O’Brien invited me to introduce my two new books to the Canadian audience gathered. These are: More Catholic Than the Pope: An Inside Look at Extreme Traditionalism, co-authored with Patrick Madrid, and Surprised by Canon Law: 150 Questions Laypeople Ask About Canon Law. I co-authored this last title with Michael Trueman who is also a lay canonist. Although the books have been available in the United States for over a month, they are just hitting Catholic bookstores in my native land.

After watching the Catholic faith die in Canada over the past three decades, this weekend left me optimistic. Other young Catholics are working to reclaim Catholic orthodoxy in Canada, and we are slowly networking and coming together for the greater glory of Christ and His Church. Please keep us in prayer.

Specter Wins Judiciary Panel Chairmanship - foxnews.com

I have occasionally expressed bewilderment at Maureen Dowd, who holds the Anna Quindlen Pseudo-Catholic Chair at New York Times University. Her columns are shoddily written, too-clever-by-four-fifths screeds; indeed, I once asked, "is Maureen Dowd the dumbest prominent columnist in America, or the most prominent dumb columnist in America?"

Honesty requires me, though, to point out when she says something that is truly clever, and spirited to boot. The New York Post's gossip column says:

SEN. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) laced into New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd yesterday on the "Imus in the Morning" radio show, saying, "The more Maureen Loud [sic] gets on 'Meet the Press' and writes those columns, the redder these states get. I mean, they don't want some highbrow hussy from New York City explaining to them that they're idiots and telling them that they're stupid." Miller also suggested "that red-headed woman at the New York Times" should not mock anyone's religion: "You can see horns just sprouting up through that Technicolor hair." Dowd responds: "I'm not a highbrow hussy from New York. I'm a highbrow hussy from Washington. Senator, pistols or swords?"

Madam, I salute your wit, if only this once.

On the Ignatius Press website.

He said the party is desperately in need of a compelling narrative to tell voters, rather than the "litany of issues" the party stands for now.
He said Mr. Bush and Republicans presented just such a story: "These guys had a narrative — we're going to protect you from the terrorists in Tikrit and from the homos in Hollywood. That's it," he said. "I think we could elect somebody from Beverly Hills if they had some compelling narrative to tell people about what the country is."

The democrats did have a narrative - Bush is an idiot and anyone who votes for him is a retard. Again, not compelling. I don't think the Democrats will ever be able to reconcile the rabid secularists with Christians. The "big tent" just isn't that big.

My friend Jonah Goldberg swats one out of the park today:

What Maher, Raines, and Smiley fail to grasp is that all morality is based upon transcendence — or it is merely based on utilitarianism of one kind or another, and therefore it is not morality so much as, at best, an enlightened expediency or will-to-power. It is no more rational to vote based on a desire to do "good" than it is to vote based on a desire to do God's will. Indeed, for millions of people this is a distinction without a difference — as it was for so many of the abolitionists progressives and civil-rights leaders today's liberals love to invoke but never actually learn about.

Love, in fact, is just as silly and superstitious a concept as God (and for those who believe God is Love, this too is a distinction without a difference). Chesterton's observation that the purely rational man will not marry is just as correct today, because science has done far more damage to the ideal of love than it has done to the notion of an awesome God beyond our ken. Genes, hormones, instincts, evolution: These are the cause for the effect of love in the purely rational man's textbook. But Maher would get few applause lines from his audience of sophisticated yokels if he mocked love as a silly superstition. This is, in part, because the crowd he plays to likes the idea of love while it dislikes the idea of God; and in part because these people feel love, so they think it exists. But such is the extent of their solipsism and narcissism that they not only reject the existence of God but go so far as to mock those who do not, simply because they don't feel Him themselves. And, alas, in elite America, feelings are the only recognized foundation of metaphysics.

Denis Boyles on NRO. Read this amazing intro:

In the middle of the thundering herd's race to blame the values issue for Kerry's defeat, Jeff Jacoby — the Boston Globe's tenuous link to reason — had some bad news for the idiots of the global village this week: "For four years, Americans watched and listened as President Bush was demonized with a savagery unprecedented in modern American politics....And then on Tuesday they turned out to vote and handed the haters a crushing repudiation."

Very cutting edge, Americans. We may be on to something again. In the '60s, it was free love. Nobody had to pay for it. Now it's free hate — and nobody's buying that, either. Virtually every major European newspaper is giving away lifetime supplies of toxic text and poisonous bile, all directed toward George W. Bush and the Americans hate-filled Brian Reade in the Mirror calls "the frightened and clueless...self-righteous, gun-totin', military lovin', sister marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport ownin' red-necks...who hijack the word patriot and liken compassion to child-molesting." Persuasive, no?

No, it's not. The party without a soul has some soul-searching to do.

In the previous post, I used the phrase "Loony Left," which I apply not to honest, intellectually serious people who hold liberal views, but to the people on the left who are truly unhinged.

If you want a working definition of the Loony Left, look at these pictures from an anti-Bush rally in Berkeley the day after the election. [WARNING: bad language on a few of the signs.]

My favorite is the "CAN WE SECEDE ALREADY?" sign. Yes! Yes, you can! Do you want just the Bay Area, or all of California?

The runner-up is "I'M ASHAMED TO BE AMERICAN." I've always thought it was easier to change yourself rather than change the world around you, so maybe that guy should emigrate. That way, he won't have to be ashamed, because he won't be an American. And we have one fewer nut-case on the streets. Everybody wins.

Many of you, like me, have been drowning in election-related news this week, but let's not lose sight of a remarkable fact: two powerful pro-abortion pseudo-Catholics went down to defeat, in large part because they were pro-abortion.

Senator Tom Daschle won his seat as a pro-lifer, but once his ambition seized him, he dumped that stand, going so far as to sign a fundraising letter for Planned Parenthood. South Dakota voters, among the most conservative and religious in the nation, dumped him for a staunchly pro-life candidate.

Senator John Kerry, who went around saying that he was an altar boy in his youth (just like Hitler!), was one of the most reliable pro-abortion votes in the Senate. You probably heard that he lost to that pro-life other guy, whatshisname.

In Daschle's case, his bishop explicitly and publicly singled him out for his crimes against human life &mdash and it worked. Despite winning numerous statewide offices over a quarter-century, and despite the clout he brought South Dakota by being the minority leader, voters turned him out.

Kerry's case is much less clearly linked to an episcopal rebuke. However, many bishops made it clear that Catholic politicians must not cooperate with evil by voting for laws that violate human life. In the crucial states that Kerry lost (Ohio and Florida in particular), that resonated.

Don't believe me? Consider this: John Kerry, only the third Catholic nominated for the presidency by a major party, received a minority of Catholic votes — fewer than Protestant Algore did in 2000.

I've never been more proud to be a Casey Democrat. Bush's narrow victory, Tom Daschle's defeat, and the overwhelming support for ballot measures defending the traditional definition of marriage send a clear message to the DNC elite. We will not be silenced when it comes to defending our moral values. Keep pushing abortion and homosexual "marriage" and you alienate a nice chunk of your traditional base. This will haunt you come election day.

Kerry could have won this election. In fact, Kerry would have won this election if wasn't such a pro-abort and pro-homosexual extremist. Republicans put together a nice coalition, but they simply did not have the numbers to re-elect Bush. Casey Democrats -- that is, pro-life Catholic Democrats -- are what put Bush over in both Florida and Ohio. And we will likely continue putting over pro-life Republicans so long as there are no pro-life Democrats for whom we can vote.

Is it me, or are the dems conspicuously absent from the morning news shows? FoxNews has had Frist, Giuliani, Chambliss, etc. all in the last 40 minutes. I know it's Fox, but this has got to mean something.

Great synopsis of when polls are closing and such.

I had planned to write a more general critique of John Kerry and his ideas, but it's been done to death, and I've written about all of it before. There's one more aspect I'd like to address, however.

I apologize that this post isn't more explicitly "Catholic," in that it's about Kerry's character, and my judgment is subjective. On issues that touch on matters of Catholic doctrine, I will simply say that Kerry is manifestly, enthusiastically for the wrong side. If you are Catholic and voting for Kerry, you are voting to perpetuate or create very real evils, which are not counterbalanced by any goods that outweigh them.

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The week before last, I visited Luke, a friend from my reserve unit, who was at Bethesda Naval Hospital. I went with my "war buddy" Camilo, with whom I spent many long, dusty hours in the back of a humvee.

Camilo and I had been targeted by mortars, cannons, machine guns, and sniper fire, but we escaped without a scratch. Luke wasn't so lucky. When the unit deployed last summer (minus Camilo and me), he was only there for a few days before he saw trouble. His humvee's gunner, positioned on top of the vehicle, saw a man who was loitering around their convoy start to run away at breakneck speed. The gunner, knowing the guy was up to no good, swung around to engage him.

The man detonated a homemade mine, the force of which exploded into the engine compartment and rushed into the driver's position, where Luke was. A bunch of insurgents started popping off rounds at the convoy, and the Marines started firing everything they had in their direction.

Meanwhile, Luke was trying to get his bloody body out of the vehicle. Kevin, another member of my original civil affairs team, ran to help him. He applied first aid to his mangled legs. Eventually, the insurgents ran off -- knowing from experience that a real battle with Marines would ensure their deaths -- and the convoy rushed back to the base.

Luke was stabilized and evacuated, and made it back to the States within a few days. The doctors did their best, but had to amputate the bottom part of one leg below the knee. On his other foot, he lost two or three toes (I can't remember how many). Also, he had lost most of his hearing in his right ear from the explosion, but because the doctors were focused on saving his limb, they hadn't had time to treat his ear properly.

Yet when Camilo and I visited Luke, he wasn't negative at all. He was looking forward to moving to a rehabilitation facility, where he could more easily see his wife and sons. The next week, he would be fitted for a prosthetic foot, and eventually he would walk again.

Luke talked about his future: he had been a cop, and thought he might stay in law enforcement in some way. He had a contact at the FBI, who was eager to interview him. He said that he could probably stay in the reserves, because all he needed to do is pass the physical fitness test, but because of the career change and his family, he thought he might get out.

"I mean, I'm pretty sure nobody would blame me for leaving," he said. "I kinda feel like I've done my part, you know?" I looked at him to make sure he was serious. He was.

The three of us chatted for a little while longer, and then Camilo had to get back to work (I was between jobs that week). We shook hands, wished him well, and left the room. I looked at the doors as we went down the hallway, and noticed that most of them had Purple Hearts taped underneath the patients' names.

Camilo and I ate a late lunch, talking about many things, including, of course, the vagaries of fate. He and I had wives and kids, just like Luke; why him, and not us?

I drove Camilo back to his office. On the way to my house, I started to replay Luke's words, but kept coming back to what he said about leaving the Marines. My mind started thinking the same thing, over and over —

He had almost half his leg blown off and lost half his hearing, yet he was only "pretty sure" he had done his part.

Since I was driving, I had to keep wiping tears out of my eyes so I could see. I didn't pity Luke, and even if I did, he wouldn't have wanted it. He was quite happy to be alive. In my swirl of emotions, the overriding one was anger toward the war's opponents.

Well, that's not exactly true. For the few opponents who have stayed calm and rational, and laid out their reasons for objecting to the war, I hold nothing against them. This group of people does, after all, include the Holy Father, and although I disagree with them, I respect their opinions.

Most public opponents are, however, providing moral support to the kinds of thugs and murderers who blow up good men (and women, and children). They probably, somewhere in the back of their minds, know that the rest of the world is watching and listening, but they don't care. To them, the war is wrong, and George Bush is evil. To stop both the war and the president, any verbal attack is justified, even if their words are broadcast to the lairs of our enemies, encouraging them to think that if they can just behead a few more innocent contractors, and blow up a few more humvees, they can drive the Great Satan back to his shores.

That vicious, petty men like Michael Moore are not silenced by the Left is sure proof of my point. Not every liberal hates America, but if you hate America, you have a ready-made home on the Left. And these days, no left-winger will tell you to shut up for making a mockery of their ideology, much less ask you to be more responsible when voicing objections, lest the enemy be encouraged.

You'd think that the Democrats' nomination of a decorated war veteran would make them reign in their worst tendencies, but it hasn't. As the race has tightened, Senator Kerry has reached the point where his rejection of the Iraq War — and by implication, any military action except to hunt down bin Laden and bin Laden alone — is identical to the Loony Left's.

Kerry didn't invent the scurrilous tactics of the Left, but he was under no obligation to ape them. He did that of his own accord. He's smart enough to know that the whole "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" stuff has to warm the hearts of America's enemies. (Those would be the same people who are bombing and shooting Americans, and beheading civilians.) He just doesn't seem to care.

I call that a betrayal. Kerry also came home and called his fellow veterans war criminals in front of a national audience, though he has never documented one single war crime he ever witnessed himself. I'd call that a betrayal, too. In fact, I'd say that he betrayed his men when he made sure he got three Purple Hearts and a ticket home from Vietnam. What kind of commander leaves his own men exposed to danger, while he goes to a cushy desk job in the U.S.?

Yet even if Kerry loses, something like fifty million people will vote for him. They don't care that he's adopted the substance and rhetoric of the clown-turd Moore. (Who, incidently, is ecstatic that Osama is plagiarizing him, too.)

It's fair to say that if Kerry wins today, it's a rejection of the Iraq War. Then Luke's sacrifices, as well as my tiny sacrifices, will be cast aside as trash. That's why I take this so personally, and am incapable of being objective. To the marrow of my bones, I do not think that John Forbes Kerry has the moral qualifications to command Luke or the thousands of honorable men like him.

I don't want to hear anything about "supporting the troops" if you believe any of that left-wing crap about blood-for-oil or Halliburton. If you want to support the troops, demand victory. Our cause is just, and the outcome, if followed to its conclusion, will be a more just world. Not a perfect one, but a marked improvement.

If you oppose the war — any war — you have a duty to do it in such a way that it doesn't make the situation worse. Can we all agree on that? You also have a duty to police your side of the fence, and make sure that people who share your opinions aren't rooting for the other side, or recklessly giving hope to evil men. If you don't do that, you sin against justice, along with the rest of that shameful rabble.

John Mallon just pointed out to me that Inside the Vatican magazine, in its October issue, has a valuable pre-election dossier of columns and interviews.

If you haven't had a chance to get the positions of Archbishops Raymond Burke (St. Louis), Charles Chaput (Denver), and John Myers (Newark) in their own words, it's a good opportunity. There are also contributions from laymen such as Catholic Worker supporters Mark and Louise Zwick, pro-life activists Judie Brown, Austin Ruse, and Steven Mosher, journalist Farley Clinton, and Ambassador Ray Flynn.

St. Blog's own Rev. Stephen Hamilton, STL contributes a pastoral letter, and Thomas Szyszkiewicz adds a helpful timeline and summary of the 'Communion controversy'.

Thanks, John.

In case anyone is facing a choice of two equally pro-abortion politicians, allow me to recommend my policy: punish the pro-abortion incumbent.

I'll be following that rule regardless of party affiliation on Tuesday. Not that it'll help much: the incumbent State Senator here has the NARAL endorsement and the challenger has NOW's. Still, if the incumbent loses, the Mass GOP will have one less moral imbecile thinking he can advance his career over the dead bodies of the unborn.

I spent part of this past weekend with about fifty-five other Canadians, a half-dozen Americans and a Frenchman. We are all hoping that President Bush wins on Tuesday. (I felt sorry for our friend from France who was besieged by "Kerry for President of France" t-shirts. "We have enough problems!" he replied.)

Anyway, this may seem hopelessly optimistic on my part, but I think the print media is wrong. We'll know by Wednesday morning, but I'm predicting Bush wins with a 10-12 point spread in the popular vote.

Additionally, we enjoyed some hilarious on-line computer animation from jib-jab, including It's Good to be in D.C. and This Land. (Warning, some of the political humor in these animations is a little coarse.)