The Solemnity of St.Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary!

Well, I don't know what you did today, but here's what we did.  We went on a Date, the Queen of the house and I.

First, today was a Solemnity.  That makes it equal to a Sunday, a great celebration and not so much a day of penance, even though it's lent.  I kept my lenten penance, but didn't worry to much beyond that.

The day was, a day, filled with the quotidian concerns of a middle aged man, an early retiree, and an indulgent grandpa.  but come evening, well, come evening the day went into high gear, and it was a wonderful day indeed.

The Queen of the house and i attended Solemn Vespers for the Solemnity at our parish.  Our parish is one of the principle blessings in my life, and I thank go for it.

The Liturgy of Hours was celebrated to a very high standard, with our AMAZING CHOIR!  The introit was sung in Latin, well chanted actually, in English: "The righteous man shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall grow up like the cedar of Lebanon: for his is planted in the house of the lord, in the courts of our God.  It is good to five praise to the lord: and to sing in honor of your name, O Most High.  Glory to the Father, and the Son, and to the Holy Spirit...."

The liturgy was sung by the Choir, the People and the Presider. The hymn was "look Down to Us Saint Joseph" to the tune 'Merle's tune'. 

The Psalmody was also sung,with the first Psalm being 15, with the choir serving as Cantor, and the Men and women alternating verses.  It was sung to Meinrad Tone V.  The alternation of Men's and Women's voices underscores, I think, the idea of the complementarity of of the sexes, and the role that complementarity plays in matrimony--a subtext of this Solemnity.  The second Psalm was Psalm 112 and again the men/women alternation was used, to Meinrad tone I  This was the manner used in the New Testament Canticle, taken from Revelations 15, 3-4, to Meinrad tone  IV.  All of this is straight out of the Liturgy of Hours. as was the reading.

The reading was Collossians 3:23-24.  This was followed by a very short homily, Delivered by one of our deacons, on work as part of creation, and how our work, at home and in the economic sphere builds, a bit at a time, the Kingdom of God.

This was followed by a Choral Meditation, consisting of Justus ut palma, by Palestrina, and a piece called "God be in My Head" by John Rutter, a translation of a medieval English devotional prayer for laymen.

The responsory was chanted, using the Cantor/Congregation method.

The Magnificat was chanted by all of us together, with a a Cantor leading the Antiphon.  We used a Gelineau Tone for this.  I have to say that even though the Meinrad Tones are closer to the Gregorian for English than the Gelineau Tones, I prefer the latter, are they are more accessible for congregational singing. 

Then we had the Litany of St. Joseph, lead by our pastor (who is the finest priest I have ever met!) in song.  We used the Manual of Prayers, Pontifical North American College, for that.  There was insence burning throughout the Litany in a stationary  censor for this.  (Father censed the altar and congregation after the Magnificat, IIRC.)

The intercessions followed, and the Lord's Prayer was chanted by the congregation, followed by the Closing Prayer from the liturgy of Hours and a (sung) Solemn Blessing.

But Wait! THERE'S MORE!

After Vespers, we went into the  Parish Hall, for the St.Josephs Dinner. This is an annual event at our Parish, where we have a wonderful Italian dinner, served to us by the Highs School Youth Group.  We had a lovely salad, and a choice of three main courses, or a sampler of all three.  (The chicken with Alfredo and the italian sausage with rigatoni and peppers were especially good!) and a choice of several desserts.  This was served to us at our tables--no "church supper line up" for the feast of Solemnity of St. Joseph!

What makes this really special was that it was served to us by the kids we see every Sunday.  I see them, and think "kids', but they were so professional and adult tonight that I was impressed by them.  Especially since they all worked together, and we are an ethnically diverse parish. (Historically German, with every European ethnicity, oddball converts [like me], Asian, African, Latin etc.) and they worked together an enjoyed it.

Our table was marked by hilarity and jokes, to the point our server broke into giggles and asked 'Whats the problem with this table any way?'.

I fell into conversation with a priest in attendance, about the loss to Christendom that is the death of the Coptic leader, Pope Shinouda III.  After we discussed it, I mentioned that perhaps four westerners part of his appeal was the very cool name  "Shenouda".  He got an grin and said some one should write a song " Budda Budda Bump Da Bump Da Bump Da MY SHENOUDA!"

Yes, as a matter of fact, wine was on the menu, and I have committed to making the wine for next years dinner.

It was a great date.  It was a great community experience.  And it was a wonderful chance to reflect on my own life.

The Queen of the House will no marry me, because I am unworthy of her.  We were married and I betrayed an hurt her deeply, an series of acts of which I am ashamed of in a way I can't even describe.  But she forgave me.  I pay rent to live here, and I have my rooms in a converted attic while hers are on the ground floor.  We limit ourselves to physical affection that would not embarrass you to find your teenager engaging in.  We seldom kiss, we demonstrate our affection through hugs, and back scratches, foot rubs and chaste caresses.  Straight up, I'm not a good enough man to do this, but it is easy with her, because of the esteem in which I hold her.  She has shown me how merciful God can be, and it is up to me to show her how valuable she is as one of Gods daughters.

I understand, in a very direct and personal way, St. Joseph being Chaste with Our Lady.  And i think that the healing we have had, in our family life, and for me personally, has been as a result, in large part, of his prayers as a real man, a practical man, who Knows what it is to love and desire to show love, in a way in accordance with the will of God.  I thank God for this chance to be with my family, to love my grandchildren, to experience, in a very pure and wonderful way, the love of a great woman.  I am un worth to have christ enter under my roof, yet he has done so, and given me a wonderful, inspiring role model, and a great advocate and intercessor, in St. Joseph.

Pray for me, that I don't blow it again.

Lies, Mindlessness and Mindless Lies

I have a friendship that has just ended.  It ended over political lies, when I realized the my old friend hated everything I hold dear, would lie to destroy it, and wanted to see my religion, my co-coreligionists and myself  silenced in the public forum.  I can't be friends with someone who actively works to do me such an ill--it would be like giving a coral snake a deep tongue kiss.

The item that got to me was published opinion that Republicans "want to keep women barefoot, pregnant and in abusive relationships".  This is, of course, manifestly untrue, and an attempt to use an untruth--a lie--to kindle hatred or fear in order to prevent a group that disagrees over matters of law and policy from conducting a rational discourse.

Disagreement over matters of law are inevitable.  If such disagreements did not exist, government would be unnecessary; we would simply do what we all agreed on and the question of erecting an authority structure would never arise.  This sort of consensus decision making, generally rooted in tradition, is how tribes have traditionally conducted their business.  But we are not a tribe, so we need a more formal, institutional form of government.  However, using panic, fear and hatred to provoke one side to silence another has no place in a representative republic, or in any form of democracy--it is the method of Fascism.

We have seen progressive elements do such things as disrupt the political rallies and appearances of Rick Santorum, we have seen them congregate outside of the homes of people they oppose, we have seen them do journalistic and cinematic hatchet jobs on people they fear, we have seen them do a lot of things that remind the historically literate of the Italian Fascists and the Nazi Sturmabteilung. These ham handed techniques are nothing compared to the culture of the lie and of mindlessness.

We Catholics bemoan the Culture of Death, but we overlook an important truth--the Culture of the Lie gave rise to the Culture of Death.  As late as 1941, the idea or government or institutional lies was so abhorrent that we actually didn't have anything like a real intelligence system.  We learned, and in the cold war we got very good at it.  Most of all, at telling lies to ourselves.  By the time of the Vietnam War lies had become so prevalent in Govermnent and Military circles that we destroyed the trust between the people and the Government.  President Eisenhower warned us about it, and about the alliance of government and industry, which at that time had not reached the proportions it has today.  The normalization of the lie lead to the legalization of Abortion--"Roe" of Roe v Wade admitted that she lied, in latter years.

So now, we cannot have a conversation about differences, because of the lies.  The current lie that women are once again 'fighting for their reproductive rights" when Catholics and others object to being forced to pay for sinful, evil things like abortificients, abortions, sterilizations.  No one is even trying to ban these things, or to restrict access to them. Instead, we are trying not to participate in an evil.  Yet the rhetoric is all about how we are trying to stop women from having access.  The truth is, by our not participating in them, no one is denied access to birth control.

Likewise, the assertion that if Obama isn't reelected racial prejudice will overtake the republic and minorities will suffer is a lie.  The idea that if Santorum is elected the Pope will have power over the US government is a lie.  This last one is particularly galling to be, because the same partisans screaming about this are now calling for UN intervention in Texas State Law.  There is no commitment to sovereignty, but only to managing to scare people into the net of a cause.

And the lies are mindless, and their repetition is mindless.  A rhetorical exaggeration is anointed as the truth, and hatred expands, until there isn't a way out of this, and still be recognizable as a Representative Republic made up of a Federation of States.  We shall either experience revolution, civil war or descend onto a party dictatorship.

I have met progressives who are straight up that they would, if they could, silence me,block my access to internet publication, and force me to be reeducated.  That sort of honesty is refreshing, and even in a way respectable.  But the mindless repetition of lies is not, and that is what will destroy America.

A Trifle Depressing

It's a trifle depressing that on the side bar poll, no one sees themselves being freer in 2013, with the Government reigned in. But 18% see themselves as being even more hemmed in by regulations and extra-judicial penalties, 13% expect to be fighting in a civil war, 31% see themselves being enslaved to a system without morals, ethics, limits or faith, and 36% think they will be placed into interment camps for not knuckling under to the system.

That's a gloomy set of expectations, and illustrates how little faith we have in the future, the government, the courts, our politicians or the people.

But what can I say?  It' goes hand in hand with the reality of the lived lives of common people; after all, we had nine planets when we were kids, and home ownership was regarded as a path to prosperity in ones old age, not a ticket to bankruptcy after government policies first inflated then destroyed the worth of homes and real estate.

Under the Bus

That's where the Archdiocese of Washington DC threw Father Marcel Guarnizo.  And the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington DC, Donald Cardinal Wuerl sat back and watched his underlings do it.  So much for him being a Father to his priests--he was a bureaucrat to Fr. Guarnizo, and a moral coward to the rest of us.  Cardinals wear red to show their willingness to die for the faith, yet Cardinal Wuerl showed no willingness to even stand up for the protection of the Eucharist from a Sacrilegious reception, or the faithful from being led into Scandal by an openly perverted person who is a public apostate.  Forgive me, Cardinal Wuerl, if I think every time you put on the red you're lying to us, to the Holy Father, and to God.

Barbara Johnson has spent years as a "Gay Activist", and in newspaper interviews and other public outlets has said she is a Buddhist.  Just before the funeral Mass, she made a point of going into the sacristy, pointing out her lesbian sex partner to Father Guarnizo and informing him that they were living together in sin.  This can only be a set up, with Father Guarnizo having only two courses of action: ignore it, and commit a sacrilege, or enforce the Canons pertaining to open, notorious sin and refusing to administer Communion.  One was sure to get him in hot water with the public and the modernists who infest the Archdiocese, the other with God.  He chose to be faithful to God.  Either outcome would serve Johnson's purpose: either he would be in trouble, and a faithful pro-life, outspoken priest would be neutralized, or his relationship with God would be compromised.  It was a set up, pure and simple.Then she had the gall to write him a letter stating: "You brought your politics, not your God into that Church yesterday, and you will pay dearly on the day of judgment for judging me.  I will pray for your soul, but first I will do everything in my power to see that you are removed from parish life so that you will not be permitted to harm any more families".

It's a set up.  And it's a lie from jump street.  He didn't harm a family, Johnson did, by bringing her politics into the church, and tempting for force a priest to accept her predilection for perverted sex and confrontational politics.  She was not eligible to receive Holy communion, and Fr. Guarnizo acted from pastoral concern and prevented her from committing the sins of sacrilege and scandal by her example.  This is an example of the temporal dimension of the assault on the Church by Satan, manifested in the US by the "progressive" forces using the false banner of "tolerance" to force acceptance of Grave--Mortal--Sin on the Church.  It is simply a facet of the same forces trying to force us by subterfuge and coercion to pay for abortions, sterilizations and contraception.  In an ironic twist, these things make a "seamless garment", one that is enabled by Cardinal Bernardine's famous "seamless garment" teaching that so enabled liberal Catholics to justify their abandonment of the teachings about Life and Sexual Morality.

Within twenty-four hours, there was an apology delivered by the Archdiocese--they threw the Good Father under the bus.  Twenty-four hours was not enough time to even gather the facts, let alone consider them, especially the fact that Johnson flaunted an immoral relationship, and identifies as a Buddhist.  The Archdiocese was much more concerned not to have any sort of conflict with the Sodomites and Lesbians.  After all, they seem to think that avoiding conflict is the most important thing about Christianity these days.  Unfortunately, the Gospel doesn't see it that way:  "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword"  (Matt 10:34).  The more they try to avoid being in conflict with the world, the further they get from the Gospel, the Teachings of the Apostles, and from Christ himself.  Being afraid to speak the truth, or protect what is holy because one prefers to be thought to be "cool", accepted by the world is a trap.  "Whoever denies me before men, I will deny before my Father in Heaven" (Matt 10:33).  When a Monsignor, and his Cardinal Archbishop not only do not support a priest for doing the right thing, but punish him for it, they are on thin ice--especially considering Christs admonition "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15).  Objectively I cannot see how they are keeping the commandments of Christ, or the laws of the Church by doing this.  They have manifestly failed of mercy, in as much as they have failed in the Spiritual works of mercy to Admonish the Sinner (which is what denial of Holy communion is) and to Instruct the Ignorant, (which they failed to do when they apologized rather than explained why he did it.)

Like I mentioned above, the Archdiocese was ready to apologize for a priest doing the right thing within 24 hours, but it didn't end there.  Father Guarnizo has had his faculties revoked, and has been pulled from his parish assignment.  They are being careful not to say he has been suspended, because then he could appeal to the Vatican--where I'm sure he would win.  The Archdiocese has said that what he did was against policy--yet not even a national council of bishops can abrogate canon law, let alone some functionaries in an archdiocesan chancery.  Cardinal Wuerl, with his usual display of the worlds most supple spine, has stayed away from the fray, preserving his place in the great scheme of things by allowing his underlings, using authority he delegated to them, to railroad a priest who's faith has proven inconvenient.  The excuse--and I emphasize the word excuse, and will even go so far as to say pretext--for the revocation of Father Gurnizo's faculties is the idea that he had "intimidated" parish staff.  I believe that this is a fabricated charge, based most likely on him sticking to his guns, and the laws and rules of the church in the face of some modernist nonsense or other.

And right here, let me say this:  The Archdiocese of Washington DC, were Father Guarnizo not a faithful priest would be in a world of hurt.  Intimidation is a crime.  They have accused him, essentially of criminal behavior.  I, in his shoes, would already have filed a civil suit for this assassination of character, and for false accusations.  I would also, since it is in writing, demand they either retract or file a criminal complaint. This falls under the sin of Calumny.

And it is obvious to anyone not in denial, that this is yet another product of the modernist faction and the Lavender Mafia undermining the Church in America.  It is simply too convenient for these accusations to surface now.

Another aspect is this--Father is a priest of the Archdiocese of Moscow.  It would be good, I think, at this time for the Archbishop of Moscow to simply recall any and all priests of his, serving outside his diocese in the US, and telling the ordinaries that since he cannot rely on them to protect and support his priests, he will not let them be betrayed by other local Ordinaries.  I also think it would be best if the other Bishops with priests serving int he Archdiocese of Washington to do the same.  Fat Chance.

Father has spoken publicly about this.  there are some interesting things in his statement.  For instance, that after Johnson and her partner in perverted, immoral sex entered the sacristy to point out that they were having sex together, Johnson left before he could say anything to her, and her partner blocked the door and restricted his freedom of movement.  Were I him, I would file a charge of illegal confinement.  He also points out that the auxiliary bishop, Bishop Knestout,  made clear in their meeting that the revocation of his faculties was in fact related to the incident of withholding the Eucharist from a public, notorious sinner and apostate.  Knestout in public said otherwise.  I think Knestout is a liar.  More, the pastor of the Church Fr. Guarnizo was assigned to told the parishioners that the removal was not due to the events of the day in question but to events occurring afterwords.  Perhaps, but Knestout said that the complaints were from two conversations about the funeral in question (with the funeral director and another parish staffer), when he met with Father Guarnizo.  Someone is obviously lying here.

This whole event send a message to the priests of the Archdiocese of Washington, and those of other diocese working there:  don't defend the faith, especially not from Homosexuals who want to make problems.  Coming at a time when the Church's freedom is under attack, and attack that can have the result of driving us from the public square this is a grave disservice to all of the Faithful in the US.  It is in fact, actions like this, since 1968, that have given the Secular Fascists the courage, and possibly the leverage, to dictate to us what we *really* teach, and what our disciplines *really* are.  Once again, Satan's fifth column attacks us from within.

As I mentioned above, Father Guarnizo isn't a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington.  That makes me like the way he closed his statement:  "I remain my Bishops', my Church's and  above all Christ Jesus' obedient servant."  Note;  "my Bishop's"..he didn't say crap about Wuerl or Knestout.

Why I Don't Trust Priests and Bishops: Rant.

I do not trust priests and bishops.  That's a really uncomfortable place to be, if you are Catholic, but it's where I am at.

There was a time, when I was younger, when I did.  I felt that the ontological change wrought in them upon reception of Holy Orders must surely include some faculty or character that would render them worthy of trust.  It was reenforced by the fact that the first priests I met were in fact trust worthy men, men I could respect.  That lasted essentially from the time I entered the Church until about the time I graduated High School, at which point I no longer trusted them.

To be frank, if a layman conducted himself like a large segment of the priesthood, with as little attention to their actually duties, and the requirements of character, they would not only be fired, they would become unemployable. 

The Presbytery, and the Episcopate covered for each other in the matter of sexual misconduct.  They covered for each other in matters of heterodox ans heretical teaching.  They cover for each other in lifestyle matters.  They cover for each other when they are gay. 

When criticized they attempt to use their education and verbal skills to turn criticism back on their critics. The have no respect for laity who are not affluent, assuming ignorance.  They will cite "charity" to entertain any special interest group that is inimical to the faith, yet will in a heart beat turn on traditional or orthodox laity.  They will cater to anything except devotion.  Between Indianapolis and Louisville there is one parish I know of where Eucharistic Devotion isn't considered some sort of sop or remnant of "the bad old days", but liturgical abuse is sacrosanct, and many many priests cover for both egregious and minor instances.

Among bishops we find much more words and much les action than is called for, and we see things like disingenuous defenses of activities financed by the church that promote sodomy, birth control, lesbianism, and collectivism, and accusations of "mean spirited" or "reactionary" thinking when the faithful complain.  No I don't trust priests of bishops.

Look at what was done to Father Altier, Father Rodriguez, Father Marcel--then look at Bourgoise.  Yeah, they cover for each other for anything except Courageous Catholicism.  Chrysostom had it right.

Class War--A Rant

I lost my cool yesterday when I observed that by and large the church has abandoned inner city ministry and rural ministry, and moved it's parishes and infrastructure to the 'burbs, a more affluent region.  I got told I might as well be Obama and support a class war.  I'm still more than a little steamed. 

First, just a little bit of thinking.  Saying that the inner city has few Catholics, or that the rural areas have few Catholics isn't a valid reason to abandon these areas--it's the result of being abandoned.  It's hard to maintain your faith, or to proselytize if there are no churches there to serve the need.  Second, the reality of the situation is this--there is more money in the 'burbs.  We followed the money, and despite our faith saying there must be a preferential option for the poor, I don't see us doing very much to evangelize them.   Provide social services, yeah, we do that.  Save their souls, not so much.  Sorry, that's the reality on the ground I've seen in every diocese I have lived in in the US. 

I am tired of the assumption that being a Liturgical conservative, a Moral conservative and a Theological Conservative means that I just buy off on the goals and ideology of the GOP--I don't.  At all.  I simply consider the Republican Party to be, at this moment, to be the lessor of two evils.  It's still evil.  It hasn't done me any good personally since 1988.  It hasn't done much for the Republic either.  I can't reconcile the Republican actions with the Catechism, Scripture or the things that proceed from these two sources logically.  I am not a Republican.

But as to the GOP and conservatives waving the banner and crying out against "Class War", they need to shut the hell up:  We are in a class war, one that has been raging since I was a kid, and one that is being waged against the working class.  Don't believe me?  Look at congress, please.  How many plumbers to you see sitting in the hallowed halls?  How many nurses?  Any cooks?

 We haven't had a president with out a University degree wince Harry Truman--and the biggest predictor of who will earn a Bachelors Degree isn't academic talent, it's not intelligence and it's not incredible drive, it's whether or not your parents are in the top 50% income bracket.  You can go look that up.  The dynamic isn't just the cost of school, it's the social aspect.  I have watched poor kids in college, and watched them be shunted off to the side and marginalized by the culture of the University.  When the food courts are dominated by National Brand fast foods, and the other offerings on campus are designed to appeal to the top 50%ers, Working class kids can find themselves unable to participate in many social activities and programs.  Add in to that the disdain that they are held in by their fellow students, and they leave.  Not to mention the fact that many of them are more realistic about the nuts and bolts of life, and have doubts about trying to get an entry level job burdened with five and six figure debts for an education that often only get's them a cubicle job that pays the same as a labor job, (without the debt added) and they don't see the point.  They are frozen out.

But there's more to this.  With most members of Congress being wealthy--it's really a millionaires club--they cannot be expected to have the welfare of the working class at heart.  The programs implemented seem so often to hurt us.  We suffer from real wage contraction, when one allows for inflation, we've lost a large portion of our manufacturing jobs--yeah--the County Seat of the county I come from is a rust belt town now.

Then we are divided by policies.  The labor movement is part of the problem.  A big part of the problem.  Have you seen pickets at construction sites, because the contractor hasn't got a contract with the union?  It's an attempt at intimidation.  It's designed to interfere with people having jobs, because the union wants the power over labor--not because these jobs are unsafe, or exploitative.  And the unions have outlived their usefulness.  They are now fund raisers for the Democratic Party, a party which is killing jobs, or blocking their creation.  They are hurting the workers, whom they say they champion.  I see these pickets in front of businesses that used non-union contractors to set up there premises--an attempt to make these businesses fail, to destroy the jobs that exist inside of them.  At the same time, workers are bombarded by Republicans with various distortions of the facts, and scare tactics designed to get them to support a party that has more to do with the Propertied Class than with caring about workers, or how they live.  Xenophobia is invoked to set us against other workers, who come from somewhere else. 

Our President has received more than 42 million dollars from Wall Street firms for his last campaign.  More than any president in history.  And he gave them billions in our money to bail them out of a hole of their own making.  He gave millions in "stimulus funds" to  so called green companies that are failing, and which coincidentally either gave large sums to his campaign, or who have principle owners who gave large sums.  His administration has attempted to block corporations from opening new facilities where it makes the most sense to do so, to keep the expansion under the thumb of the unions--which give his party millions and millions of dollars.  This would inhibit the economic improvement, because it would mean a less profitable enterprise,  and loss of business due to higher prices.  It hurts workers who would work at the new plant, and the loss of wages from that inhibit every other class of worker and service provider in the region.  The Democrats don't care about us in the bottom 50%.

But they want our votes, so they concentrate on the very lowest, and give them all sorts of things.  Things that do not help in the long term, but lead to dependence and a guaranteed base, because they have become addicted to hand outs and ineffectual band-aid solutions to systemic problems.

The Republicans have managed, several times, with their Democratic partners in the looting of the American Worker to pass laws that have nearly destroyed the family farm, led to less diversity in cultivars, Genetically Modified Foods whose long term effect are unknown, or just becoming known, the rise of "factory farming" the prevalence of 'soil mining" in large scale agribusiness and even an attempt to outlaw saving your own garden seed, or giving produce from your garden to a neighbor.

When I was a kid, a man could get a job, support his family, be able to get a decent vehicle, while allowing his wife to stay home and be a wife and mother, if she choose.  Now it's virtually impossible, and we have to send kids to daycare--which is proven to have deleterious effects, increasing the likely hood of  behavioral problems in early adolescence.  We were a nation where people aspired to be, and became homeowners.  We had the expectation that we had a good shot at being at least as affluent as our parents were.   Most of that is gone. 

We vote, and all we get a choice for is who is going to loot us for taxes to distribute to their favorite base members.  Our unions no longer really serve us, but instead become an extra-governmental tax apparatus for the Democratic Party.  We work more for less.  We have less.  Our families are becoming destabilized by economic and social forces instigated by our government.  Mr. Hayak had it right--we are on the road to serfdom, while the upper classes, spouting all sorts of things, grows ever more powerful, ever more rich and ever more contemptuous of us. 

The next person who tells me I am spouting class war is going to get a copy of De Tocqueville.  I'll highlight the section where in the 1840s America, nobody minded if you got rich, but no one let the rich dominate their society.  (That my friends, came about after the Administration of Andy Jackson, and the beginning of industrialization by steam in the US.  It was abetted by the US government through grants to the "rail barons" and preferential treatment for Industrialists and Marketers...and had a lot to do with the Civil War.)

Look at a lot of the places we live.  Especially those of us who are rural.  Where's the county dump at your place?  It's not anywhere near an upscale subdivision.  Wheres the sewerage treatment plant?  It's not near that really estate, is it.  Where are the mines?  Oh look--the holiday retreats for the upscale are not being impacted.  Too bad about the sulfur contamination in your surface and ground water though.   But hey--if you complain, that's class war.  In town?  Gee, look how well paved the streets are in the upscale areas, then go over to the neighborhood you avoid--see all those potholes?  Oh look at the houses--kinda dilapidated, aren't they?  Why don't these people keep their homes up?  Because they don't own them, and the land lord doesn't want to spent the money on repairs.  Been there, done that, got the city involved, ended up in court--I won.  Then I couldn't get a lease approved by the land lords and rental companies in town.  I ended up renting from a woman who lived seventy miles away, and didn't know I had stood up and said "I see daylight through my wall!". 

We Americans are a notoriously cantankerous and hot blooded people--and sooner or later the class war will emerge from back room deals, obfuscating rhetoric, and confusing, corruptly written laws and into the streets.  It will be ugly, because the exploited working class, tired of shouldering the costs and impact of programs that do not help us, but hurt us, will also be engaging in strife against elements with in it that think the Government has the right of it, because their special interest will be catered to.  But to those who persist in thinking that there is no class war, and that the Democrats are trying to start one are wrong.  It's been going on most of my life, and we're losing.

Why I didn't post yesterday or today.

Tornadoes.

From Borden IN, through Marysville and Henryville, and on into Clark country there is a path of devastation.  That's here.  Yesterday, on the way home from my volunteer gig, I was serenaded by tornado sirens, from crossing the Ohio River, through Jeffersonville, and Clarksville until I hit the Floyd county line.  When I got home, they went off again.  It was bad, and I won't bore you with a recap.  Last night we went up to Henryville to get some food and coffee and things to the responders, it was dark, and things were still pretty disorganized.

Today we gathered up  non-refrigerator food and, and friends chipped up cash, so we bought blankets, baby formula, diapers, wipes, paper plates, cups , plastic flat wear, etc. and went up again.  The relief supplies coming up from the south were being gathered in St. Francis Xavier Church, (which has been damaged), from the north they were going onto a Christian retreat center which is also set up as a shelter.  As we came from the south we hit St Francis, off loaded and them the Queen of the House had us stay and help sort for a while.  It looks much worse in daylight than it did at night, and worse in real life than in video or photographs.

It's really bad--as bad as the '73 outbreak.  And the destruction looks like a couple of brigades of artillery just pent a day or two randomly destroying these towns--but it happened in minutes. 

Now I'm tired, I think I'll drink a scotch, and go to bed.  So no thoughtful, incisive criticism today (SNARK! We all know I rant.  I LIKE ranting!).  Say some prayer for all those, through out the Midwest and South, who have been hit by these storms.

A stange in seach words!

Someone found this blog using the search term "lubrication theory".  I have no idea what that even is.

John Paul II and Einstein

I have a flip page calendar on my desk that is good forever.  It just has the day of the month, and a quote from John Paul II on each page.  Today's quote has stuck with me all morning:

Christianity is not an opinion, nor does it consist of empty words.  Christianity is a person, a living person!  To  meet Jesus, to love him and make him loved: This is the Christian vocation.  --Message for the 18th World Youth Day, March 8, 2003.

It's staggering in it's implications.

If you don't believe me, think about Albert Einstein, and his famous thought experiment that led to the theory of relativity.  That experiment was important, not only for the theory, but for it's validation of though experiments as a starting point for understanding.  So let's do a thought experiment of our own.

Imagine that you are married, and speaking to an acquaintance.  You say to your acquaintance "I love my spouse, but I loath my spouses body!  I want nothing to do with it, I don't even like to be around it.  It's disgusting and  old fashioned and filled with imperfections!"  Now imagine you spouse overheard you.

Well, that wouldn't go over well.

The thing is, the Church is the Body of Christ.  When someone says they love Jesus, but hate the Church, they are in the position of the speaker in our imaginary experiment.  You cannot hate the Church and Love Christ.  That's like saying you have no use for your spouses body.  Seriously.  The deep intimacy that occurs between a married couple is rooted in their bodies as well as their emotions.  And the Church is also the Bride of Christ, to claim to be a Christian and yet to hate the Church is like claiming to married, yet refusing the bodily aspects of marriage.

To profess a love of Christ, yet to harbor hatred or contempt for the Church is to deceptive.  You lie to the world, to God, and possibly to your self.  To be obstreperous, to instigate against love for the Church in others is to fail in your Christian vocation.  

Get Real, or Get Out.

I'm sick of some of the stuff I see going on around me.  Sick and angry, and ready to get in peoples faces.  Really ready to get in their faces.  It's time for truth, even if it's a hostile truth. I would have more respect for the President and his minions if they would  straight up say what they intend, rather than bandy words and seek to convince us they respect those of us with faith, ethics and a belief that rule of law applies to the government as much as to the people.

Like that's going to happen.

Stephen Cote' is co-author of a study that surprised him.  He is a psychologist at the University of Toronto, who has conducted a series of experiments.  What surprised him was that across the series of seven different experiments  it was found that Highly educated, successful people are much more likely to lie and cheat than the rest of us.  That explains a lot.  For one thing, it explains how Obama and Ilk have been so successful in convincing people that they, a coterie of rich academics and policy wonks, have the well being of the masses at heart, even while wrecking the economy and doing almost nothing for the majority.  They lie.  And they are practiced liars.  (For instance, the sudden drop in unemployment figures, created by redefining unemployment, not "creating or saving" jobs.)  There is another unpleasant fact of sociological research to consider as well--that the biggest current factor affecting whether or not someone will complete a college education is how much money they come from.  If your family is in the top 50%, you will most likely finish.  If not, you most likely will not.  Since a university education opens doors to influence, power and government jobs, we are staffing our government with the people most likely to lie and cheat.  Not only that, they are woefully ignorant.  it turns out that 7000 seniors tested on American Civics--history, political Thought, Foreign policy and history, and economics, the average score was 54.2%--an "F".  So we have ignorant liars, formulating policy, which they then manage to foist off on the two least competent demographics to understand such policy--ignorant university educated liars and welfare recipients, who have very low academic achievement. The Ignoretti deceiving the ignorant.

This is why we have such spectacles as women attending Georgetown University complaining that they spend three grand a year on contraceptives, and so are entitled to the University insurance program to pay for them. Being ignorant of basic economics they fail to realize that the cost will simply be added to the premiums they pay for student insurance.  Being liars they insist that they are spending thousands of dollars per year in contraceptive costs.  With forty percent claiming that the cost of contraception is a struggle, and with a months worth of birth control pills averaging $9 at target, one begins to suspect they are lying,hoping to get something for nothing.  And, by the way, these are students at the Law School--a traditional entry way into government service.  But it breaks down further, in an interesting way.  Not only do these women want you and I to chop up $1000 a year to pay for their fornication, Craig Bannister, writing for CNS news figured something out--the push on college campuses is for students to use condoms to prevent STDs.  Well, he found that  CVS pharmacies will sell, on their web site, name brand condoms at a buck a pop.  That means that if they are following recommendations, they are having sex 2.74 times a day. Here's where to get real:  Ladies, close your damned legs, or go to a secular school where the insurance will pay for your pills.  or maybe, just go to any one of the innumerable sources fro free condoms that already exist around any college or university.  I lived for 15 years in a university town, and condoms were so heavily distributed that they littered the sidewalks at times.  So--Stop lying, stop sleeping around, pay for your own vice, or get the hell out of Catholic School.  Nobody makes you attend there in the first place.

This same thing is seen among faculty member of universities, and the progressive factions.  I will never forget a college educated woman trying to escalate a situation to get a working class rival expelled from a group by upping the rhetorical ante by calling a rhythm stick and "assault weapon".  Like wise, the faculty of John Carrol University, well 25% of them, are insisting that the university accept the "compromise plan" and urging the bishops to "avoid rhetoric" about this issue.  They cite Non-Catholic groups acceptance of contraceptive and abortive practices, groups such as the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the Institute of Medicine.  Being largely from the Arts and humanities faculties, with a healthy admixture of those involved in "Population and Public Health", etc.  they seem oblivious that the member of the groups they cited turn a profit from contraceptives, sterilization, abotificients and abortions.  Being liars, they include members of the "Theology" faculty.  here's where to get real:  you work for a Catholic University, if you don't like that, and don't like the fact that your benefits don't include ways to violate the fifth commandment, get the hell out.  You are lying by your very presence, especially those in the Theology department.  You are supposed, by implicit actions, to support the goals of Catholic education.  If you don't. please stop taking Catholic cash that supports your middle class, comfortable existence.  It's that simple, we are tired of paying our enemies to stab us in the back, and we don't need you.

It's time we get in peoples faces, it's time we speak our minds, clearly, without worrying about tact, or being insensitive.  Our culture is dominated by opportunists, liars, cheats and ignoramuses.  We will not be free, we will not be comfortable, we will not prosper until we eliminate lying, cheating, corruption and faithlessness that masquerades as reason.  Especially troubling to is the way that ignorance begets arrogance, which gives rise to lies to force the ways of an elite upon us all.  These things are part of the cause of our current difficulties, and part of the punishment these difficulties are.

We fought a revolution about things like this, and it might take another one to correct it, if we do not unify the decent, working people, and oppose the elite which seeks to take the place of the British nobility and Crown we ran out of here over 200 years ago.

Don't Forget!

To vote in the poll!

Why Yes, the Government is Out To Get the Church.

Today has been set aside by our parish as a day of special prayer and fasting for the recension of the HHS mandate that makes us pay for contraceptives (against our religion to pay for), sterilizations (against our religion to pay for) and abortificients (against our religion to pay for).   Fasting and praying for this is also fasting and praying for our religious liberties, as this is the most egregious attack on the liberty of Catholics by the Federal Government, ever.  It is the most serious attack on our rights since the first quarter of the twentieth century, when the Klan was rampant, and Oregon passed a law making Catholic schools illegal and implementing a curriculum that was Anti-Catholic in intent, outline and detail.  The Federal courts ruled Oregon's law unconstitutional, and thus extended protection to the all parents' right to educate their children, and the Klan was broken by the FBI and other law enforcement.  I have no hope for such support this time around.

That this is an attack on the Catholic Church specifically is easily demonstrated by fact.  The first item to be considered is Obama's favorite "Catholic" group--"Catholics United".  This group is not a Catholic organization.  In fact, is is so not a Catholic organization that the USCCB flatly stated that it was a Non-Catholic group in 2008.  But by having this group as a front and a rubber stamp Obama and his minions can point to it and say they have the support of Catholics.  This constitutes the President, and his godless, modernist minions trying to say who is, and who is not, Catholic.  That is a blatant intrusion of the Executive ranch of the Government into our internal affairs, and a step--a big step--towards a strategy of divide and conquer.  Likewise citing such groups as "Catholics for Choice", NCAN and other groups that claim to be Catholic but that are actually heretical and schismatic. 

Another thing to be considered is the 'compromise" that was put forth.  The original HHS edict--and it is an edict--said that Churches per se, and grandfathered plans would be exempt.  The "compromise" said that insurance companies wouldn't charge premiums for contraception, sterilization or abortaficients.  That was piece of slight of hand so bizarre as to impress Dr. Goebbels with the size of the "Big Lie".  The insurance companies won't itemize the cost of these things in the premiums, they will simply increase the premiums across the board to cover the expense.  And under this, even insurance for those within Church and Rectory walls will be charged.  This alleged "compromise" expands the intrusion further than the original edict, and ensures that we will be forced, if we comply, to pay for the immoral and murderous predilections of our Satanicly inspired regime amoral technocratic bureaucracy at every turn.

The Fascist Gauleiter Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius,  has said  that they will be announcing a finalized version of the Edict shortly.  This is another example of the attack upon the Catholic Church, when one considers the details.  Yesterday she told reporters that "We intend to propose a rule in the near future that I think do exactly what the president (sic) says--which is make sure women have preventative health services... ." She went on to say that they intend to respect religious freedom.  Uh-Huh.  I flat do not believe her, for is demonstrably a liar, having lied in the past.  It's telling that she lists the groups they have consulted with to formulate the new rule:  "I have talked to Catholic health leaders. I'm reaching out to priests [Who, if you are familiar with the Faith, you will immediately recognize as having no magesterial authority.]  We're also talking to union leaders, we're talking to our partners at labor who run the self insured plans to figure out a strategy."  You will notice, glaringly conspicuous by it's absence, any  mention of the Catholic Bishops who actually hold the authority in this mater, and the authority over any Catholic activity.  "Where the Bishop is, there is the Church" is a saying that dates far back in our history, to The Fathers of the Church, specifically John Chrysostom.  They have not consulted with the Church at all, merely with those they think can give the impression that they have.  Likewise they have not spoken with the Missouri Synod Lutherans, the Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America, with the Evangelicals, or with the Catholic and other Christian Schools that have registered their opposition on religious grounds.  In fact, they have ignored their existence.  Were I a member of one of these ecclesial bodies, I'd be angry at that alone.  As to speaking with the unions, how on earth can they claim that unions have any sort of authority or credibility to decide what is or is not against anyone's religion?  And for one branch of the government, especially a regime that is hostile to religious freedom ( do not forget Obama's famous quote about us clinging bitterly to guns and religion!) and that constantly seeks to redefine it as "freedom of worship" to consult with the Department of labor to decide what protects our religious liberties is at best obfuscation, and more likely conspiracy to violate the Constitutional limits of Federal power.  Least you take umbrage at that statement, I suggest you remember Obama writing that progress in the US depends on "getting past constitutional limits on government power".

My final facts in support of my thesis that this is an attack aimed at fragmenting and silencing the Catholic Church are these:  There have already been exemptions granted for religious reasons, the Amish, the Mennonites, the Muslims, the Seventh Day Adventists, all are exempted.  But we Catholic are told to get over our conscience and pay for violations of the Fifth Commandment.  What's even stranger is the fact that Thirty-six union funds have been exempted, along with Twenty-five major businesses.  The union and business exemptions leave over one million workers with out this coverage, which is deemed so important that our Constitutional right to Freedom of Religion must be trampled. 

Gestapo Chief and Fascist Enforcer Attorney General Eric Holder has held forth that the new edicts that force us to abjure our religion or face ruinous fines is constitutional. ( I said ruinous fines, as in computed to be just under 650K.  Per Parish. With the parish school a separate entity. Per soup kitchen.  Per university facility with it's own separate identity.  Per homeless shelter.  Per convent that has a hired handyman. We Catholics have seen this before, in the Recusant Fines levied against us by the British Crown.)  Oddly enough, the Attorney General doesn't get to make theses decisions--the supreme court does, and somehow he has decided that he does, just as he decided not to enforce Federal Laws, such as the DOMA act.  Do we trust him?  Can we?  Since he's neck deep in the gun running scandal, and is actively trying not to answer questions from congress, I think we can safely assume he is one of the Satanic Operatives  Fascist Minions  Administration Lackeys Cabinet Level Officials trying to establish precedents to subvert the constitution, and render the Church ineffective and marginalized in American life.

I will close with a length quote from Father Robert Baron, which comes from a column he wrote for the February 8 edition of  National Review Online.

The secularist State wants Catholicism off the public stage and regulated to a private realm where it cannot interfere with secularism totalitarian agenda.  I realize that in using that particular term, I'm dropping a rhetorical bomb, but I am not doing so casually.  A more tolerant liberalism allows, not only for freedom of worship, but also for real freedom of religion which is to say; the expression of religious values in the public square and the free play of religious ideas in the public conversation.  Most of our founding fathers advocated just this type of liberalism. But there is another modality of secularism--sadly on display in the current administration--that is actively aggressive toward religion, precisely because it sees religion as its primary rival in the public arena.

TV and Me

I don't watch a lot of TV.  Right now I watch Grimm and Alcatraz.  I find myself watching Once u\Upon a Time, because the Queen of the House and my Daughter (the guest blogger this week) watch it.  I seldom sit through an entire episode.  But these are not the shows I want to talk about.

I want to talk about Two Broke Girls, because it's Lent.

I find the show to be very funny.  Not with gut-busting laughter humor, but with a sort of ongoing wry view of the world that slides through the entire program without the huge outbursts of hilarity.  I find it to be funnier than The Big Bang Theory, or any of the other sit-coms.  I avoid watching it.

I avoid watching it because it's a near occasion of sin for me, sometimes a flat occasion of sin.  Not because the humor is "off color".  I don't have a problem with off color humor.  Virtually everything about us humans  is fair game for humor, because we are, by and large, a laughable species.  Certainly our sexual peccadilloes, especially in an era when sexuality is unbridled by morality or taste, are ripe for parody and ridicule.  The occasion and near occasion of sin can be pinned down in two words:  Kat Dennings.

She is one of the two main characters in the show, and it's humiliating to admit I find her more than attractive.  This isn't due to her figure (although she is amply provided for) it's a combination of her movement style, humor and timing and especially her eyes and face. 

For someone who's supposed to be a good Catholic, who practices Chastity, I'm not very chaste, or this actress would not have quite such an effect.  I guess in a way it's good, because it points out to me a place that needs work.  But it's still and embarrassing admission.

Random Note.

I kinda enjoy seeing what search terms brought someone here.  Although, it does open me to the temptation to write a completely off the wall post, with a bizarre title and all sorts of obscure or offensive references, just to see what that does to my search word.

Vote on the New Poll....

...it makes me feel important.

Poll Results

Well 93% of respondents want to attend liturgies with Latin, chant, and reverence, that emphasize the saving power of God and repentance.

3% just want to sleep in.

3% want a mass where they an oogle the altar girls and the communion ministers.

Well, I think the 97% should all stand up, down shout the 6%, and tell their pastors that either mass gets reverent, beautiful and relevant to salvation or they will withhold the donations.

The Situation is This:

"When tolerance becomes a one way street it leads to cultural suicide"--Rep. Alan West. 

We need to engage in conversation about this idea, especially as it pertains to the Catholic Church, but not neglecting other Christian bodies as well.  To be blunt, we live in the most intolerant times I have experienced in my life.  There are those who will immediately scream about the Civil Rights Movement and how horrible we were, and use that to expostulate that we are more tolerant now than then.  I will say to that:  Balderdash!  The civil rights movement succeeded precisely because we were more willing to be tolerant then than now.  Has the American polity been unwilling, in it's majority, to practice racial tolerance, the Civil Rights movement would not have succeeded.  In fact, some of the violent expressions of that movement would have resulted in violent repression of it.  Instead, after waking up the majority of Americans to to injustice among us, we worked to correct that injustice, with both white and black Americans doing the work.  But now, instead of a government that was willing to at least look at the problem, we suffer under a government that is fomenting the problem, playing to the growing Anti-Catholic and Anti-Christian prejudice among the intelligentsia.

It must be said that there is visceral prejudice against Catholicism that cuts across both class and educational lines, but I must also say that I have encountered much, much more Anti-Catholicism from upper middle class people, and those with college educations than I have among the working class.  In the matter of Anti-Christian prejudice in general, that I have found only among the college educated.  I have met many working class people who do not embrace Christianity, but these people haven't really expressed outright hostility to it.  What I see is a rise of a class division, in which the upper middle classes are hostile to Christianity, or support a kind of Christianity which is based in relativism and an embrace of the current trends or fashionable causes.  Oddly enough, the Denominations which are facilitating this seem oblivious to their own demise, the rapid hemorrhage of adherents and the loss of their youth.  I read an interesting statistic a couple of years back that only about 2% of young people who were raised in the Episcopal Church identified as Episcopal or Christian.  The idea of relativism and  embracing secular causes and measures had destroyed their faith, and their very willingness to believe.  The Episcopal Church has the highest per capita income of any denomination, and the highest per capita educational attainment of any denomination.

A university education seems to not only be the portal to economic achievement, with university graduates earning much more than non university graduates, but the entry to a form of tolerance that tolerates everything except traditional morality and Christianity, with Catholicism being singled out for especial contempt.

I think that this particular observation has special significance for Catholics, because we are the second most affluent Christian Group in the US, and the second best educated.  The contempt in which the church is held in Academia has entered into our own body, like an infection that resists antibiotics.  One sees this almost daily.  The most famous example would be Nancy Pelosi, and her tendency to pontificate against the Faith, while maintaining her pose--and it is nothing more than a pose--as a 'devout" Catholic.  A rich, educated person, infected in University with feminism, and the false tolerance which supports everything except traditional morality is waging a campaign against the Church, especially against the bishops, by obfuscation, and conflating sociology with theology, to the detriment of the latter and the glorification of the former.

This tendency has permeated the Church, especially in it's outreaches that are of necessity administered and dominated by university trained professionals.  Health care is an example.  This area is one of the biggest battle grounds we are engaged upon, and it's one of our weakest spots.  WE have the example of Carol Keehan essentially abandoning the Church-- and Christ--to endorse a relativistic concept of what is right, while feeding the cause of those who will tolerate anything but Catholic Liberties.  We also have the example of Catholic healthcare West who severed ties with the church so they could engage in the relatively high profit practices of abortion, sterilization and contraception.  There are lower profile issues as well.  The Baylor University study that found that half of "Catholic" hospitals are performing elective sterilization procedures comes to mind.  Hospitals are disputing this, attacking the methodology of the study and it's conclusions.  One of the strangest refutations I have heard is that the study relied on the diagnostic and procedural codes used in hospital records keeping, and that these codes might be entered by mistake.  I find it hard to believe that 50% of Catholic hospitals are that sloppy in their records keeping.  Clearly someone is lying here, or at least misrepresenting the facts, and my money is on the hospitals.  Our Bishops, Priests and Laity have refused to enforce, teach or follow the Churches teaching on this subject for 44 years, and these are the fruits. 

We tolerated deviance from the Faith among those charged with it's preservation and transmission.  G.K. Chesterton said "Where orthodoxy is optional, it becomes forbidden", and that has been the trend.  When was the last time you heard a priest preach about contraception?  When, for that matter, was the last time you heard a priest preach about Chastity?  We have in the name of  "tolerance"  or "harmony" ceased to teach these things, and now among a great many Catholics they are ridiculed.  And the lack of adherence to our own Faith has become ammunition for those who would silence us, and declare us marginal.  To the point that the "progressive' regime that is dominating our republic seeks to evict us from the public square, to banish us to a Ghetto of Faith, that is only as free as what ever is kept in the four walls of the Church building itself.  Cardinal George has noted that under the current regulations, there will be no Catholic Hospitals in the US in two years.  We have already been driven out of the adoption services in many states, and our schools are being pressured to teach secular morality, under the guise of tolerance.  All fueled by the heretics and apostates who haven't the honesty to leave the Church.

There are however, two statistics that we can keep in mind.  The Church of Sweden, a Lutheran body, claims 70% of Swedes as members.  About 2% of  their members go to Church on Sunday, and most are atheists, who consider the Church a cultural institution, where one goes to get married and to get buried.  The famous Scandinavian tolerance has rendered the Church there irrelevant and impotent in cultural discourse.  Yet in Russia, where the Church had seen nothing but persecution and oppression between 1917 and 1991, 71% of Russians attend services on Sunday.  Unlike Scandinavian Christians, American Christians are trying to resist, to fight back, and the ideologues in Government will push harder. They will use kangaroo courts and biased trials against our bishops--as in Philadelphia--and misrepresentations and lies against the faithful, as on TV now to oppress us.  I believe that this oppression while being a Chastisement from God for our lukewarm faith and practice, will in the end give the Church in the US strength and vitality so at the end of it, we will emerge with great vigor, and become once again the salt of the Earth.

GUEST BLOGGER: local womens business awards

          This is not what you think it is.

    One of our local news stations had a piece on women having their own awards ceremony for women in business.  I had this thought when I heard it.


      Why do they have to have their own ceremony? Is it because they can't compete with men in business?

   Personally, I think it is. I am a woman. I  know I can't compete with men in business. I can be very decisive when i'm out shopping,but in a business I know I just can't do it the same way a man can. Men are more objective and practical than women. Our hormones come into our thinking too much and our emotions rule a great deal of our life and the way we think and process information.
   I truly think women need to take off the wants, put their skirts back on and get back in the home where they belong. Then the men could get back to work and the families wouldn't fall apart so much.
  Sure the girls should go to college, a job, maybe even work after they get married. But once they start having kids they should stay home and care for them and clean house and cook meals for the family. Weekends you can still do fun stuff.Not all of it has to be with the kids.
    But men need to be let back into the workplace and women need to get back in the home where they belong. Sure it'll bee hard at times. That will make the easy times that much sweeter.
    So I say all women should sign on for what I call "neo-feminism" (really it's just original feminism, not that crap from the 60's). Take back the home girls and put your men to work!

This was written by my daughter, who has her own blog, "Happy Domestic".  I didn't write it.  

Aktion T-4

Aktion T-4 as a program to murder the mentally ill, the developmentally disabled and the crippled in Nazi Germany.  It was accounted a crime against humanity, and there were prosecutions over it in the post war era.  Blessed Clemens Von Galen came to prominence by his outspoken opposition to it, which created enough of a problem that the program was suspended for a over year. 

Too bad the Nazi's seem to have won the war, after all.

The rise of 'assisted suicide" and euthanasia in Europe is a tragic example of the core beliefs of Nazism surviving and flourishing in Europe.  The idea that there is "life unworthy of life" seems to be at the heart of this evil political philosophy and seems to have been internalized by the medical profession in Europe.  it's worth remembering that  2/3 of the physicians in the Third Reich were members of the Nazi party--the most thoroughly nazified profession in the country.

Holland leads the pack in this drive towards murder, and somehow I do not find it surprising.  Of all the occupied territories, the Dutch Government and police were the most cooperative in rounding up Jews for the camps, and Holland provided the personnel to raise and maintain a division of the Waffen SS.  Holland has been at the forefront of the Euthanasia movement in Europe, the first to decriminalize, then regulate and legalize the practice, which now murders children with such treatable conditions as cleft palate and club foot.  And tellingly,  the mentally ill, to include the depressed.

But we in the US haven't anything to be proud of.  We have legalized the murder of unborn children in our own nation who for whatever reason are unwanted by their mothers--as they are judged to be too much trouble to allow to live--life unworthy of life.  This is made much more explicit when one considers the statistic than just over nine out of ten children diagnosed with Down's Syndrome or other forms of trisomy are murdered in utero, as having no chance at any sort of  "quality of life".  It's an American Aktion T-4 program, done for profit on the part of amoral physicians who are actually serial killers.

The word "progressive" gets thrown around a lot.  Consider that Holland is considered a progressive nations, with a tolerant government.  Consider too, that many Germans considered the Nazi party to be progressive.  We have elected a government that is backed by self proclaimed "progressives" here.  And as in Holland, and the Third Reich, and the Soviet Union or virtually anywhere else "progress" has been extolled as an end in itself, the culture of murder has gained massive amounts of power.  If you doubt that, look at the recent debacle of Komen for the Cure, where they quit funding Planned Parenthood, were castigated, and backtracked.  What didn't get as much coverage, was the resignation of Komen's CEO because of it.  She quit because the idea was to use those funds for effective early detection of breast cancer--not annual exams by palpitation, but mammograms.  The Party of Death shot that down.

Where ever a regime or movement that describes itself as progressive, or claims to be giving power to the people two things fall by the wayside.  These being the Christian Faith and the value of human life.  One needs only to look at the body count of Marxist regimes, the Fascist regimes or the French Revolution to see it. 

And here in the US, we have plenty of self described "progressives".

Wednesday my Parish, St. Martin of Tours in Louisville KY is having a day of prayer and fasting for the repeal of the HHS mandate.  By logical extension, it is easy to consider this a day pf prayer and fasting for the restoration of religious liberty in our country as well.  I would very much like to see people from other places, parishes and traditions join us in this.

Because one in four American children are murdered by physicians before they ever draw breath.  And our government supports that, and is waging a campaign against the Church because we oppose this murderous rampage of selfishness and greed conducted in the name of "progress" in women's rights.

Comfy?

"The Ways of the Lord are not meant for comfort."--Pope Benedict XVI

"I come not to bring peace, but a sword."--Jesus of Nazareth

Comfy?  You're doing it wrong.

Dig In!!!!

Lent is perhaps the single most dangerous time, spiritually, to be a Christian.

The enemy hates to see us pray, he hates to see us fast and he will do anything to keep us from repenting.  Anything.  Since the Season of Lent is devoted to unabashed penance, to self denial and prayer it infuriates him.  We can expect--we should expect--to be attacked as individuals in our prayer life, our liturgical life, our mode of repentance, and our efforts at reform.  Perversely--because Satan perverts and inverts everything good--we can expect our efforts to wrestle with the Seven Deadly Sins to be confusing:  if we work on Lust, Pride will rise up, and if we work on Pride, Avarice will raise it's head, so on and so forth.  Wrath will dog our steps, we will become discouraged as we look at some of the things our Shepherds do and wonder why we're trying, we will fall into Acedia and lose the will to fight.  These things are Satan's Counter Offensive, and he will deliver it with violence, craft and, most insidiously, relentless infiltration.

Dig in!  prepare your positions for the counter offensive.  Stake out your territory, what you think you should most work on, and do your work, but post Pickets and Sentries, for there will be attempts to flank you, to slip quietly through your weak points and attack you from the rear, to destroy the resources you depend on in this season of spiritual strife.

We need to give mind to something else as well--Lent is a time for collective repentance as well.  Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. (Is 58:1) This is written in the plural, it's not addressed to a specific sinner, but to the People of God as a whole.  We repent--which means not just bemoan and express sorrow for  but to turn away from--our sins as God's people, the new Israel.  This is where we will collectively fall on our fundaments.

No one can look at the state of the Church right now and emerge all happy and pleased.  We are still reaping the results of the Abuse Scandal, a scandal that was essentially intended to be a truncheon in the hands of Satan, fomented by Satan through the agency of those who willingly cooperated with him in sin, and who were deceived by him in policy.  We are under attack by the coercive power of the State, using our very unfaithfulness against us to justify their intrusion into our spiritual and religious life.  Our response to this is just coalescing, yet already factions are emerging, and we are not going to weather this well without the intervention of God.  We have those who will actively campaign for the State, but they are no matter--they are nothing more than the Old Testament Wives of kings who pressed for the erection of altars on the high places, and worship of foreign gods.  With their disciplining, or expulsion, this can be solved.  And the stake are growing large enough that this shall occur.

Bu to those of us who consider themselves traditional, conservative Catholics, there is a danger presented that is as grave as that of the Harlotry of  Secular Relativism. 

We are prone to discount the Social Justice aspects of our faith, to take root in a political conservatism that disregards our duty to those who need our help.  Just as Liberal Catholics will see paying taxes as Social Justice and Charitable outreach err, we tend to err by looking down on, and being contemptuous of the poor and oppressed.  Here I must say that I do not believe that taxes can ever be a Charitable Outreach--we do not give them to the poor, but to the government, and they are not applied in the Love that is Charity--the disinterested desire for the greatest good of another--but in a program, that sees not individuals, but "units".  At the same time, relief given through private means that is given with contempt, with condescension, isn't Charity either--it's given not for the Greatest Good of an individual, without reference to what one can get from it (that's called disinterested Love) but almost as a bribe, a way to "buy off the Lord".  It is in the end as false as saying that we voted for and established poor laws, so we've done our duty and established justice. Both are failures, both are unacceptable to the Lord.

These two views, for want of better words the Liberal and the Conservative, are no longer in tension in the Church, they are in conflict, outright opposition.  And the Lord mentions this, as well:  "Why do we fast and you not see it?  Afflict ourselves and you take not note of it?"...Lo on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits...Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice heard on high. (Is 58: 3,4)   The division between the progressive, "Social Gospel & Liberation theology" people, and the traditional "prayer, penance and reformation" people  will be the weak part that Satan used to attack the whole Church this Lent.  And it's up to faithful Catholics to reinforce this weak point with prayer, fasting and almsgiving!

Is this not the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?  Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you and the glory of the Lord shall be our rear guard.  Then you shall call and the lord will answer, you shall cry and he will say, Here I Am. (Is 58:6-9)

The NAB translation of this text, used in the Liturgy of Hours says, "...not turning your back on your own"  where the Translation I favor (RSV)  says "...Not to hide yourself from your own flesh".

Here's where we are weak:  The progressive elements within the Church are wed to the Democratic party, and will resign charity to political activism--they may well work for justice, but not Christian justice, and not as witness but as part of a political machine, an act more or less devoid of charity and grounded in politics.  Justice without Charity--again the disinterested desire of the Greatest  Good for another--isn't justice, it is merely law.  The traditional elements within the Church will labor mightily for our religious liberty, but will quite likely buy off on the Republican party as the proper avenue to this end.  But that too, will not be justice, for we will have to ally ourselves to other portions of the Republican agenda that are not grounded in Charity, or even liberty, but the desire for a particular economic situation.  We may think that by so doing we are establishing an environment where economic opportunity can flourish, and so be doing our duty to the poor and oppressed, but this too will be devoid of true Charity.

Rather we should realize that every pizza we skip this Lent, every movie ticket we don't buy, every chocolate we eschew is not only an act of self denial, but an opportunity for love--and the money for that should hit the poor box of your Church.  If your church hasn't got a poor box, you have just found a task from God--agitate for one.  And when you put the money in, even as your stomach growls, you should be as happy as you would be to present your little brother with a candy bar, or your mother a bouquet of flowers, because we are all children of God, and the poor, the oppressed--even the dirty objectionable and weird-- deserve our help and respect.  And if we do not ground our actions concerning the economy, the political climate, services and  outreach in Charity, in Love, then all our fasting is worthless, unseen by the Lord.

(Just in case anyone is wondering where I got this, an dhow i picked the scriptures I cited, this is the Scriptural reading from the Liturgy of the Hours for Ash Wednesday, The Office of Readings.  This is from the Liturgy of the Roman Rite, and we can't blow it off just because it doesn't sit with our opposition to the "Peace and Justice and Social Liberalism" wing of the church!)

Since It's Monday, This Might Be a Rant

Well, you've been warned, so if it does you have no one to blame but society.

I did my Morning News Scan Today, and it was pretty phreakin' awful.   Awful enough that it made me mad...again.

The problem with that is I actually wish i was a good and holy Catholic, yet I am a member of a cultural sub-group--rednecks--that are pretty much not good at being Holy Catholics.  This leads to cognitive dissonance.   Actually, this dichotomy of identity is becoming difficult enough that cognitive dissonance isn't so much a temporary affliction, or momentary  state of mental paralysis for me as it is a lifestyle.  I'm usually caught between two imperatives, and one of them is the right one, while the other went out of fashion not long after the Maccabees!  I was raised to fight back when someone offers you insult, or threatens your way of life.  My Father taught that there are times when it's not only appropriate but the only ethical thing to do, under certain provocations,   to bust somebody in the nose, just prior to a good sharp jab to the solar plexus and a knee to the face.  (Yeah, I spent more than my fair share of time in the school office... .)

But the King left me a written order: "But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil.  But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other as also."( Matt. 5:39)  So much for my cultural values.  (Has anyone else reflected that the first century apparently produced a bunch of mean a$$ed southpaws?   Either that our they struck from behind a lot.)  My desire to engage, in the combative sense of the word is, after thinking about it, generally sinful, yet I haven't got a pacifist bone in my body. 

Maureen Dowd (my least favorite intelligent, attractive redhead of an appropriate age) wrote a nice article about Mother Delores Hart entitled "Where the Boys Aren't" for the New York Times SundayReview  opinion pages.  I have nothing against the article.  But when I read the comments I was appalled at the sheer volume and vitriol of Anti-Catholic sentiment in particular, and Anti-Christian  sentiment in general.  I'm not talking about disagreement here, I'm talking about hate speech.  Comments like "Sounds like someone was a coward--easier to hid in the Church than explore the wonders of her creator (sic)".  Or perhaps "The Church is the perpetrator of the longest running, most successful con operation and assorted passel of crimes against humanity ever achieved".  How about "'Nuns are a dying breed' you say; meaning meaning the nuns are going to the big sleep and not being replaced.  That is good news".  Or "...fear of her sexuality drove her decision.".   They weren't all bad, my favorite comment reads "Maybe it's as simple as this...print or say anything about the Catholic Church and people who love to hate feel the need to "shout out". , from a Non-Catholic.

But by and large, expose my Scots-Irish, Redneck, Self to enough of this stuff, and I'm ready to fight.

There was another article in the Times about a priest with working class roots and a Harvard education, who is preaching against Birth Control.  The article did take note that after people heard the preaching, the rate of contraception among parishioners dropped,  Couples with grown children bemoaned their own use of contraceptives, a rise in effective evangelization, etc.  But they looked for people who disagreed.  Tellingly, the ones who did were all of a certain age--that is to say, gray headed.  But they looked for the dissenters, and treated them as an authentic Catholic voice, when they are not.

It seems today that I"m picking on the  New York Times, but really it's just an accident that it worked out that way.  These pieces interested me on my search of the news aggregators (is that even spelled right?) and
so here we are.  But the Times published an article on the 14th of this month, "Obama Shift on Contraception Splits Critics" that bothers me as well, mostly on a factual basis.  One, what shift?  The Regime rearranged words to continue, in fact to expand, it's design of making the Church participate in grave, objective sin.  Not only that, but we have things like the phrase "The near unified front led by the nation's Roman Catholic Bishops to oppose a mandate for employers to cover Birth control has now crumbled amid the compromise plan that the Obama administration offered last week to accommodate religious institutions."  Really?  "near unified?  100% of the US Catholic Bishops have spoken against this--that's unified.  moreover, far from crumbling, the front has expanded, and includes a unanimous vote by the Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America, Protestant groups, Jewish groups and others.  Not only that, but the Times said that the Catholic Health Association endorsed the "compromise".  It didn't.  In fact, it denounced it.  Carol Keehan endorsed it, and then the board of the CHA issued it's statement rejecting it.  Likewise with the assertion that Catholic Charities USA endorsed it.  And so forth.  The Times also cites the leadership Council of Woman Religious, The Sisters of Mercy, and the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, none of whom are authorized to speak for the Catholic Church.  Not only that, I have been unable to find any retraction or correction for the inaccuracies presented.  And, of course, there are the comments:  "Catholics (sic) talk about their religious liberty being threatened makes me ill." "We are angry Mary, that they groomed us when we were very young with their beautiful rituals then subjugated us with their horrible edicts.  Not unlike pedophilia, come to think of it.".  So on and so forth.  mare hate speech, more inaccuracy, more Anti-catholic Bigotry.

This stuff goes back a long way in American History, it dates to before there was a United States.  But it's picking up.  I have the memory of going to a Pagan Gathering in 91, in which across the Haw river in North Carolina, on private land, a group of Christians had gathered and were singing "praise music".  One of the enlightened, tolerant young pagan women expressed to general approval the idea "We should just be able to get a machine gun and shoot those Christians for singing like that, it shouldn't be allowed".

People hate us.

In Canada, in the Province of Quebec, the law has changed on religious education in the schools to present a 'balanced' mix of every religion.  Parents are unhappy.  Of course government is the only enterprise in which those who pay for it (otherwise known as clients or customers) get it the way the provider wants, not the way they want.  What happens in Canada is important to us, because the Fascist Faction progressive elements in the US look toward Canada for inspiration and models of how to do things.  I won't comment on the law in Canada, because, well, I'm American and they are a sovereign nation.  I will mention the commentary on the news stories I read.  Actually, on one comment.  "Forcing your faith onto your child is interfering with their freedom of religion".  That's the most dangerous comment I've read so far in 2012. How long before some Fascist Church Hater  progressive child advocate uses this as the pretext for a law suit, probably a class action suit, against churches to put a stop to Sunday School?  Hmmm?

Well, all this put together gets my back up.  Severely.  And it makes me ready for a good old fashioned Sockdologer.  Unfortunately I have this "whole conscience thing", that makes me think about the Kings Orders, like But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven;  for he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.  For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?  Do not even tax collectors do the same?  And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others?  Do not even the gentiles do the same?  You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.  (Matt 5:43-47)  This shouldn't get my back up, because we were warned, and we should be expecting this. After all, The King told us Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.  (Matt 5: 11,12)  Besides, in a real way, this is a measure of our success.  If we were completely ineffective, no one would give a rats butt about us!  Not only that, but this is going to be a cleansing process for us.  After all, things are going to get hard for the Church in the US now, harder than they have been for a century, maybe ever.  We need to hold to what the King said, and remember that when it gets hard,  he told us what not to do; As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hers the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but enures for a while and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.  Harder for most Americans than financial or legal disability is ridicule and hostility, not being cool.  This is going to send a lot of people on the path of apostasy, not because of intellectual considerations, but because they are uncomfortable not being part of the in crowd.  But for people like me, the danger will not be conforming to the dominant paradigm, but becoming wrathful and hostile in our opposition., a temptation that will set us into opposition to the Kings explicit orders on how to react to persecution.

My upbringing urges me to direct action, after a point.  I was taught that it can be immoral, cowardly, to let rules and regulations stand in the way of sticking up for yourself.   My blood and my culture tell me the time approaches to hoist the black flag and fix bayonets, as my ancestors did a The Cowpens, at Culloden, at Bannockburn, at Sterling castle and back even to the days of Buodicca.  But my Lord and My God tell me otherwise, in fact he tells me Blessed re those who persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.   (Matt 5: 10).  I need to remember that, and to remember that no matter how put upon, Guy Fawkes isn't a saint, and he wasn't a martyr.  He was a criminal.

My prayer is that I shall have more of St. Stephen in me, and less of Guy Fawkes.

New poll

Vote.  Or Not.  But when America wakes up, and does everything according to my polls, you'll regret it if you didn't vote.  Consider it practice for November.