Eric Johnson – Page 73 – Catholic Light

NEW GROUP FORMING: “Pro-Life Catholics for Kerry”

I have decided to form a group devoted to the election of Senator John F. Kerry called “Pro-Life Catholics for Kerry.” I was thinking the other day: isn’t being “pro-life” more than fetuses? What about what happens after the little things are born?
Senator Kerry has consistently opposed the machinery of death that spews out of the Defense Department and its lackey contractors. That’s pro-life. He believes that human needs should take priority over killing in the Federal budget. That’s pro-life. He wants to make sure that those with different sexual orientations can have children using extra-natural means, and not be beaten up by right-wing religious thugs. That’s pro-life.
Sure, he isn’t “pro-life” by the standards of, say, the Pope. He is personally against abortion, though, and as far as we know, he has never encouraged any of his past girlfriends or heiress wives to have abortions. Like President Clinton, he wants to mitigate the conditions that drive women to get abortions. Isn’t that more important than making women feel bad about their choices?
I will be voting for John F. Kerry for President, and I encourage all pro-life Catholics to follow my example. I’ll post the link to Pro-Life Catholics for Kerry site when it becomes available.

Top 10 Ways You Can Tell You’re a Food Elitist

10. You panic when you think you’ve run out of shallots.
9. You know precisely how many days it’s been since you last sharpened your heavy European knives.
8. You refer to pre-ground black pepper as “grey dandruff.”
7. You call the “parmesan cheese” in the green can “white dandruff.”
6. You believe fresh garlic has sacramental qualities.
5. You can tell where an olive oil originated by tasting a single drop.
4. You have a quasi-erotic attachment to roasted pignoli.
3. You look down on people who don’t know that “pignoli” is Italian for “pine nuts.”
2. You think the first step for preparing “instant” mac-and-cheese is making a roux.
And the #1 way you can tell you’re a food elitist…
1. You would spend more on a truffle than a car payment.

The Loony Catholic’s Voter Guide

Maryknoll, back in the day, used to produce men like Father Vincent Capodanno, who was awarded the Medal of Honor when he dove into machine-gun fire to protect a wounded Marine. They sent missionaries to the furthest, most inhospitable places on Earth to bear witness to the Gospel. For administering corporal works of mercy, they were legendary.
Today, they are indistinguishable from any other left-wing organization, except they pretend to be motivated by Christian values. You won’t find any reference to abortion, or any other life issue, in their 2004 election guide. They favor
• Abolishing the “drug war”;
• Addressing the “root causes” of terrorism (how original!);
• Closing the “School of the Americas” (a boutique cause of the Left);
• Ending subsidies and tariffs that protect domestic industries at the expense of poorer nations. (Okay, I’m with them on that one.)
What any of this has to do with Jesus Christ, I’m not certain. Here’s a sure sign that their political commitments are more important than the poor: they’re against technology that will produce more food for hungry people.
Let them be as the fig tree in the Gospel.

More info about the Van Eyck Annunciation

Some more details about the
Annunciation painting posted last week, which was painted by Jan van Eyck
around 1434-36.


ECCE ANCILLA D[OMI]NI This is backwards and upside-down because Mary is speaking to God the Father (seen in the upper window)
	SCENES OF HEROISM The floor has illustrations of one man doing great things (in this case, Sampson destroying the enemies of God)
	COMPLEX COMPOSITION The composition uses two perspectives: the foreground objects have a vanishing point somewhere in Mary’s abdomen, thus focusing attention on where Jesus is conceived. The other lines have their vanishing point just past the righthand side of the painting.
		THE TRINITY God the Father appears in the stained-glass window at the top, God the Son is in Mary’s womb, and God the Holy Spirit is the dove descending on the golden sunbeams.
	INTRICATE DETAILS At left, see how the crystal of Gabriel’s scepter is translucent, allowing part of his hand and the pillar in the back to be visible. Also, note the light refracted through the circular glass in the topmost picture.
THE MOST ASTONISHING DETAIL The painting is only a little over a foot wide and slightly less than three feet tall. It was the left panel of a triptych, a three-part painting that usually had one central painting in the middle, with two painted panels on the sides that closed to conceal all of the paintings. Typically, a sacred triptych would have been closed except during Mass, at which time it would have been opened while the priest was at the altar. The congregation would have been too far away to see any fine details (though they would have been able to see that it was the Annunciation), and the priest would have been busy praying. This meticulous work — hours of sketching, layering expensive pigmented oil paints, getting the simulated lighting and skin tones just right — would have scarcely been seen by anyone except God Almighty. More information about the painting is at the National Gallery of Art.

A recommendation Mr. Gibson probably wasn’t seeking

Yassir Arafat gives the thumbs-up to “The Passion of the Christ.”