Redneck Reflections

The End is Near!

2012-01-28T15:58:00.000-05:00

I have enjoyed blogging, but to be honest, right now I am too baffled by current events, and the currents of events, to be able to say much that's very intelligent.

I have a couple of more posts in me, which will come up in the next week or so, then I'm letting this blog go dormant. After I get my head back together, I may start a new blog, but probably not on blogger.

But next few posts will be about my understanding of the state of the Church in America, and of the Republic. Since I'm pretty bitter about both, it will not be "with a whimper', but with a bang.

Pic Of Sleeping Sub Nets Student Suspension - Oklahoma City News Story - KOCO Oklahoma City

2012-01-27T19:56:00.000-05:00

Pic Of Sleeping Sub Nets Student Suspension - Oklahoma City News Story - KOCO Oklahoma City

Pandora Stations

2012-01-26T23:45:00.000-05:00

Wow, I just got to looking at my Pandora Radio Stations, and what a mix!

Here's the list:

Fotheringay, Pentangle, Fairport Convention, Mary Hopkin, Hawaii 5-O, Escala, The Shadows, Yes, Cadence Spalding, Dargaard, Qntal, Faun, Hagfard, The Beatles, Eluveitie, Miranda Sex Garden, Emilie Autumn, Thin Lizzy, Igor Stravinski, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Medieaeval Baebes, Bond, Palistrina, Garmarna, The Pretenders, Sixpence None the Richer, Siouxie and the Banshees, The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo, O Sanctissima, Enya, Spirit in the Sky, Loreena McKennitt. I Love the Night, Don't Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult, Sarah McLachlan, Jars of Clay, Clannad, All Around My Hat, Steeleye Span, Jethro Tull, Silly Wizard, and Delerium.

I usually listen on shuffle.

Please Vote in the Poll

2012-01-26T12:30:00.001-05:00

Dagger John

2012-01-26T12:27:00.000-05:00

John J. Hughes was the first Archbishop of New York. He wasn't a man to be trifled with, hence the nickname "Dagger John". When faced with the prospect of Nativist violence against his Cathedral, he called upon the faithful to surround it, with the intent to protect the Cathedral with force should the Nativists decide to try an burn it down--their original plan. They changed their minds when faced with the prospect of hundreds of Ctholics willing to fight them for their rights and dignity.

I wonder what his counsel would be today, in the face of the erosion of Religious Liberty by the Executive Branch of the Government. I would love to hear it.

I also wonder what would happen if the Archbishop of New York were to call upon the faithful to defend the Cathedral in the face of a mob bent upon direct action against the church today. I don't think it would go as well. Part of that is simple social demographics. The Catholic Church in new York is now much, much more diverse ethnically, economically and politically than it was in the 1840s. part of it is the disintegration of the Catholic Church as a community. In the 1800s we were riven by a great divide, a divide between German and Irish immigrants, held together by obedience to the Bishops and the Pope. Now we are riven by many more divides, between Hispanic (and within the Hispanic communities between different nations of origin), between Radical Traditionalists, between Modernizers, between Modernists, between Feminists and between Familialists. We are not very unified, despite our emphasis on Communio. I think what would happen is a bunch of middle aged Knight of Columbus would show up. and a few young men with them. Then there would be an attempt to to occupy the sanctuary by greying overweight lesbian nuns in the name of "peace and justice" crying out for women's ordination and counseling pacifism in the face of oppression. Outside there would be folks from groups like "Catholics United" screaming that it was high time, with some nuns carrying banners. The student body from Stuebenville would gather for prayers, while those student bodies of schools like Kingdom College would be there, some working with lawyers and others on the line. It would be a disorganized circus with no one acknowledging as single,central authority.

Face it--our Bishops can't get us all to stand up or kneel down at the same time. They can't even get us to recite the words of the liturgy correctly in a unified manner. It's a crying shame, and it's the end result of about 45 years of do-your-own-thing Catholicism.

We have somehow decided that the precious unity in the Body of Christ that we were supernaturally entered into at Baptism is not as important as our separate, special interests. We are not supposed to refer to ourselves as "Irish-Catholics", "Charismatic-Catholics", "Traditional-Catholics". We are supposed to refer to ourselves as Catholics. But due to the idea that tradition and obedience are divisive, and that we need to soft sell or omit those parts of the faith that are difficult, or might hurt someones feelings, we have dissolved our own unity. Even though Our Lord prayed that we might all be one, we have worked very hard to splinter ourselves into factions. What's worse, each faction (and here I leave out those who are schismatic or heretical) has sought to make their particular ideas, or even their Charisms, the norm for the Church Universal.

We have lost sight of one of the most beautiful things about Catholicism--that we are One Body in Christ, and each of us is a member of that Body. A toe is not a nose, yet a body has both. We were no longer to be content with ourselves as threads in a wondrous tapestry of great beauty, woven from our lives and concerns to ornament the Temple of the Lord. In deciding that Renewal was code for Reform, we all decided to reform the Church into what we wanted it to be, not what Christ founded it to be. Each faction tried very very hard to make itself the norm for everyone. I remember in the 70s when Charismatics worked very hard to dominate liturgical and prayer ministries in their parishes, and I remember people leaving those parishes and going to others. I remember 'social justice' people working very hard to take over Religious Education in their parishes, and people pulling their kids out. I remember how all of us sought to dominate the discourse in our communities, and to silence others. The result was a dumbing down, a bland porridge meant to be inoffensive to all of us. A castrated faith that satisfied none. Now our churches are empty, because we didn't want to exercise the unity that is our birth right through Baptism..

Divide and Conquer is one of the soundest strategic maxims ever. And now we are well divided poised to be defeated in detail. already swaths of us are in defeat, for all practical purposes. Many of us have bought off on the World, and in so doing have rejected the Gospel. Many of us are ready to go along with the directives of the State at the expense of basic morality, in the name of "justice" or "progress" or "diversity" or what have you.

Faced with the reality of a government that is trying to force us into material cooperation with evil (is there anything more emblematic of material than money?) by paying for sterilizations, abortions and contraception, we need more than anything to be unified in the face of this. Yet we are not. Faced with the Camel's Nose under the tent, already some factions are arguing that it's not a Camel's Nose, while other are arguing that the Camel is our friend. Some are even saying that the Camel will save us from the Bishops and the Pope.

Now is the time when we need to stick tight to our bishops, and it is a time for obedience. If your bishop isn't exactly orthodox, or a cooperator with the Statists who seek to dissolve our Religious Liberty in pursuit of their social and political agenda, do not rebel against him, rather write to him, a well researched letter, citing good sources to encourage him to unite against our emergent oppressor. The same with your pastor. And do not down shout or become filled with wrath, but rather try very hard to persuade. But above all, value Unity in the Mystical Body of Christ, and offer prayers and penance for this.

The predicament we find ourselves in is the direct fruit of our disunity and disobedience.

Tired of the Double Standard

2012-01-25T12:21:00.000-05:00

There is a double standard in the Church, and I'm tired of it.

We have a wonderfully rich liturgical tradition, a tradition that stretches back to the Apostles. Being Catholic we, more than any other group, have a diverse tradition liturgically as well. We have within the Church, the Roman Rite in both it's extraordinary and ordinary forms, we have the Hispano-Mozarabic Rite, the Abrosian, the Coptic, the Ge'ez, the Byzantine, the Ruthenian, the Anglican Use, the Bragan Rite, the Dominican Rite, the Carmelite Rite, the Maronite Rite, the Syriac Rite, the Malankarese, the Chaldean, the Syro-Malabarese, the Belarussian, Bulgarian, the Czech, the Krizevci, the Italo-Albanian, the Melkite, the Romanian, the Slovak, the Ukrainian. In all of these liturgical rites, only one disrespects itself to the point of liturgical abuses so egregious that one wonders if they are even in a Catholic Church--the Roman Rite.

I was very excited about the new translation of the Mass texts for the 3d edition of the Roman Missal. It wasn't just the theological richness of the prayers, it was the chance to initiate a reform of the Liturgy. I confess myself disappointed. Mostly about Music and Solemnity.

Frankly, I am appalled by some things. The Second Vatican Council affirmed the use of Latin as the language of the Church, and affirmed and directed that the people learn to make their responses in Latin. It also affirmed the pride of place of chant in the liturgy. The most basic of the liturgical books for the Mass, after the missal itself, is the Graduale Romanum. It has the proper texts with the proper tones for each Mass. There is an edition for the Ordinary Form. The key word here is "Proper"--the Chants at Mass are Scripture, or closely derived from Scripture. They work with the readings and the Calendar to increase the richness of the Liturgy, and to aid the faithful in participating in a meaningful, fruitful way. Not only that, but it has the Psalms attached to each of the proper antiphons--did you know that there were psalms, scripture, attached to them?
Even the names of certain part of the Mass have been translated to underscore things, to bring the Liturgy more in line with tradition, and the directives of Vatican II. For instance--there is no "opening hymn" the Missal calls for an Entrance Chant. The antiphon you find in your missalette is the peoples part of that. It is to be CHANTED when the priest and ministers enter the Sanctuary at the beginning of Mass.

Some people will complain that the Graduale is in Latin. But there is an apprved book, called the Graduale Simplex, which was designed to serve parishes, and there is a version called By Flowing Waters, in English.

So what did we get? Well, in my parish we got a musical setting for the Mass called "Mass of St. Francis in D". It sucks. It's more effeminate, feminizing camp fire girls folk tunes. This isn't exactly the choice of our music director either--it is a mandated setting from the Archdiocese. In spite of the documents concerning music from the Vatican, and the USCCB itself--of which the Archbishop is Vice President.

So here's the double standard--if the faithful complain, if we ask for traditional music and liturgy we are labeled divisive. It boggles my mind--how is adhering to tradition and following the directives of an Ecumenical Council divisive? How is striving to meet the goals for our worship that were set up by the Council Fathers, and constantly reiterated by the Popes divisive? I'm in an area with more fruit loop nuns and do-it-yourself friars than you can shake a stick at. I'm in an area where nuns "bless fields" wearing white coats to pretend to priestly authority, where priests run nature worship centers, where the CCHD gives money to pro-abortion 'women's advocacy groups"--that's damnably divisive. In fact the lack of liturgical standards are divisive.

Michael Voris has been asking where the men are, why there are so few men in the pews. Well, for one thing, when you edit all the hymns and psalms to appeal to feminists, you alienate men. It is a deliberate attempt to exclude us. We don't like, by and large, camp fire girls sing along songs, and when that's what we get, it slowly erodes our very ability to have full , active and meaningful participation. So maybe, just maybe, we could help fix this if we had REAL CATHOLIC MUSIC instead of semi-hippy 60s era college girl songs?

For that matter, what would be wrong with just going with the musical settings for the Mass found in the 3d Edition of the Roman Missal? Heck, we had to buy new Missals, so why Buy new music when it's already in there?

Not following the guidance and rules published by the Vatican, with the Authority of the Bishop of Rome separates us from the traditions of our own Rite, and our Faith. Yet when we complain, we are told we are being "divisive" and "opaque". Oh really? tht makes me feel divided from and marginalized by the people in the Church, who don't want to be part of the tradition and growth of two millennia, who would rather do something "new". They evidently haven't read St. Paul, or listened during the Mass to the Readings--because Paul told us not to chase after novelties More than that, they can't seem to get it through their heads that 40 years of camp fire music, pianos guitars and such have led to a huge drop in participation in the Mass--a figure that becomes more alarming when one see that the denominations that are growing are those that proclaim a traditional Gospel. It's not lost on me that denominations in the US who have embraced Modernity, Inclusion and a lax form are dying, but evangelical, fundamentalist and traditionalist Churches are full, and growing. It's lost on them that there are many Catholic who will drive for hours for a good liturgy, but who shudder at the thought of yet another Sunday ho-down at St Iwemus Catholyc Community. They havent even figured out that we don't sing their stupid, banal, saccharine and vapid songs because we will not!

The double standard that tells us that we are divisive when we want solemn, reverent Masses with Traditional (the capital T is not a typo) and transcendent music while conducting liturgical actions that are so divisive that people just give up and leave is what bothers me. It bothers me a lot. When people just quit coming, that is the ultimate in divisiveness.

Puff's Blog About Stuff: O Saint Anthony, Restorer of Lost Things

2012-01-24T19:56:00.000-05:00

Puff's Blog About Stuff: O Saint Anthony, Restorer of Lost Things

And the Latin Translation in the comments is wonderful!

I I had A Hammer...

2012-01-24T16:01:00.000-05:00

I'd hammer the sisters who have decided to take Catholic Healthcare West out of the Church. The new entity is called Dignity Healthcare. There are still Sisters on the Board.

Hmmm--they got slapped down for practicing immoral medicine, and a Sister got Excommunicated. So they have severed ties with the Catholic Church.

My take is excommunicate all the Sisters involved, for Schism, for they have just proved they are not interested in obeying Competent Church Authority.

Not to mention all the Hospitals they just stole from the Faithful who Paid for them.

OK--Too Weird!

2012-01-24T13:51:00.002-05:00

Just fiddling around, checking stuff on the Stats page, I saw that I got a referal from a site called cams.com. Curious, I ducked in.

It's a site specializing i girls doing dirty things n front of their web cams.

???????

We Are All Judas

2012-01-24T12:40:00.001-05:00

Beginning 1 Aug of this year, health plans, by Government order, will no longer charge co-payments on contraceptives; the average monthly co-pay for a diabetic on their life saving supplies and medications is $105. In 2013 Catholics will be required to finance contraception, sterilization and abortion through the insurance plans Catholic institutions purchase, in violation of existing legal conscience protections and precedent. We have enabled this, as Catholics.

We now have Bishops finally coming out and saying what they should have said, explicitly and without waffling, years ago--social justice issues do not trump murder. For far too long, we Catholics have voted, largely, for candidates and officials that tout 'justice', all the while facilitating the murder of children for the convenience of others. The Catholic vote has been instrumental in the installation of the current regime which hates human life.

We have sat in our pews, Sunday after Sunday, and said nothing, simply trying to live our faith, and in doing that we have failed.

Even now, there are bishops--like the bishop of Salt Lake City Utah--who have appointed pro abortion, 'social justice" people who are at best shills for the statist and progressive wing of the liberals to confuse the faithful about their duty and the definition of social justice. And people will support murder and evil because of it.

We cannot obtain justice for someone after they have been dismembered in their mothers womb. We cannot be just to minorities and immigrants when we allow them to be legally murdered before birth in such disproportionate numbers. Make no mistake, the scourge of abortion falls most heavily upon minorities, and is a sign that no matter what the White Liberal Middle Class Establishment says, it hates minorities, or it wouldn't facilitate the murder of their children.

As a long standing part of the Democratic Core for over a century, we Catholics are part of the problem. The Progressives swear at the "Blue Dog" democrats--well we Catholics need to swear at the"Blue Dog Catholics"--Catholics who will vote for anyone who labels themselves as a Democrat, no matter how much they oppose Church teachings, and work to cripple the Churches mission of witness in the Public Square. (And just for the record, I was raised up to be a pro-labor Democrat, from a staunchly Democratic family until well after I left the home and struck out on my own.)   We have allowed, as lay Catholics, groups like "Catholic for a Free Choice" (now calling itself "Catholics for Choice"), "Catholics for Obama" and others to speak out load in public, claiming to speak for us. We need to take a note from the old disputes in the Church, and BE the Church Militant--speak out courageously, loudly and incessantly for the truth, and live our vocation as laymen.

We are supposed to bring the truth, the Gospel, into the public sphere, where the Bishops, Priests and Deacons cannot. We are supposed to be on the front lines, defending the weakest, who are prey to the commercialized murder industry, supported by a government that seeks to silence us, and even to prevent us from living according to the dictates of our faith. And every time we sat silent in our pews, and let someone hijack our faith to promote a political philosophy that lead to murder, to fornication, to sodomy by distorting or omitting teachings of the Faith, we failed in our vocation. Until now, the Church is filled with the Smoke of Satan, the rot of systemic sin.

On the 19th of this month, His Holiness said to American Bishops making their Ad Limina visits that it "... is imperative that the entire Catholic Community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Churches moral witness presented by a radical secularism which find increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres."    Without repentance, without prayer, without fasting, this isn't going to happen, and the Church in America will be crippled from within, for it will not find the strength to oppose the tyranny of conscience the progressives are laying upon us. We are desecrated by an internal divide, which is based not in an interpretation of the Gospels, or a disagreement over Ecclesiology, but upon a rejection of the possibility of absolute truth, of Revelation, or the Singular Event in human history which was the incarnation. Quite simply, we have too many people who think the Gospel can be made and remade into whatever pleases their own fancy.

And those who want to make the Church into something that Christ didn't found are powerful. Powerful indeed. I mentioned earlier in this post Bishop John Charles Wester, of Salt Lake City Utah appointing a pro-abortion "spokesperson" to explain to Catholics how to vote. In an earlier post, entitled "More Fifth Column" I explained that, and gave his contact information so that the faithful could make known thier disappointment at her distortions of Catholic Social Teaching to promote the election of the very people who are infringing on our Freedom of Religion and promoting Death in our culture. (Scroll down to it if you're interested.) But there are more examples.

Here in Louisville, we have something called "The Passionist Earth and Spirit Center". It's located at 1924 Newburg Rd, Louisville Ky, 40205, and their phone number is 502.452.2749. Now the Passionists were founded as a congregation by St. Paul of the Cross, with two characteristics--contemplation and missionary work. They were founded to be a Congregation of preachers spreading the Gospel of Christ. Yet the mission statement of this place doesn't mention Christ, or the Gospel--it mentions "..transformative...Eco-spirituality", "....an awakening of union with the Divine presence which permeates all life...", "..eco-justice". They are not going to further what is distinctive and essential to Catholic Teaching and Spirituality. And this in in a Congregation of Pontifical Right. And they are not going to work against a progressive faction that hides it's obsession with death and murder under the rhetoric of "green" politics.

Xavier University in Cincinnati Ohio is supposedly a Catholic School run by the Jesuits--and on their home page--I looked--is nothing about it being Catholic,   Their "Campus Life" page doesn't mention Catholicism at all, or any religion. I looked. But most of all, after Kathleen Sebelius promulgated the regulations that mean that Catholic institutions must, by 2013, purchase insurance that pays for abortions, contraceptives and sterilizations, they nominated her for honors--in contravention of the Churches directives about honoring pro-abortion politicians, and politicians that work against the Church--in connection with the Gilligan Public Service Scholarship. The information on their web page has been scrubbed once it was published by faithful Catholics in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati who objected.

Catholic Healthcare West--you may remember that they were involved in quietly providing abortion services in 2010--has severed connections with the Church. They have changed their name to "Dignity Healthcare", because ripping children apart in their mothers belly is such an affirmation of human dignity. That's 40 hospitals suddenly not Catholic. Because of the actions of administrators, Catholics served by these hospitals in the expectations of Catholic ethical standards being adhered to, such as at a minimum the provision of nutrition and hydration for terminal patients, not euthanasia (which is more widespread than believed) and the provision of minimal care for children born moribund have no where to go. For generations, Catholics provided donations, patronage, prayers and support, and built these hospitals. Now they have been stolen by people who were supposedly Catholic. They weren't. No one who is Catholic can blythly separate themselves or their organization from the Church in the name of "expansion" or other goals. We have just been robbed by secularists masquerading as Catholics of forty hospitals. I don't know if "Sr". Margaret Mary McBride, who was one of the VPs of St. Joseph Hospital still works there. I wouldn't be surprised--she was obviously part of the problem.

Even portions of the Catholic Press are on board with this--the National Catholic Reporter has published an editorial saying that the fault lies in the bishops forcing the governments hand to do this, and that the governments reasoning is more in line with Catholic teaching on conscience than the Bishops themselves.

Every time we have set silently in our pew, or in our chair at Church functions, educational meetings and events and not called out such things, we have cooperated by omission. Every time we walk passed our parishes pamphlet rack and publication stand and seen publications which contradict or distort our Churches teaching, and not complained, we have cooperated by omission. Does your Parish sell the National Catholic Reporter? Complain to the pastor, in writing, with a copy to the Chancery, citing instances of this publication contradicting the Church. Send a copy to the Papal Nuncio, too. Does a speaker come to your parish and extol 'social justice" and the expense of Life? Stand up, in the event, and call them on the hierarchy of truth and the primacy of human life in social justice.   Stand up!

Stand up, or we will never be able to walk our faith in freedom in this country.

What Are We Gonna Do?

2012-01-23T14:50:00.000-05:00

OK, things have gone from bad to worse, and if you won't admit that, you're an idiot. Seriously. There is no more bandying words and looking for nuance--we are under attack, both in the halls of government and on the streets.

Did you notice all the news coverage so far today about the massive demonstration, with over 400K participants in DC? No? That's because we are being silenced. The profession of journalism has decided to sell itself like the the political whores they are and become the Ministry of Propaganda to the Democratic Party and it's Progressive Allies. Did you notice the news coverage of the "Occupy Movements" desecration of Churches in the US this weekend? No? Same reason.

How about Mainstream Media coverage of HHS regulations that require us to violate our conscience to pay for private products financing Abortion, Sterilization and Contraception, and how The Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate, the USCCB and evangelical Christians are denouncing it? Nope, not that either.

It's here. The loss of Religious Liberty that the Christians have been warning about since at least the 1990s is here. I should have listened to them then, and acted, but I didn't and now I'm watching it happen.

Here's the first thing--I have eaten one small meal to day. That's it for the day. I will not eat again today, except for six saltines tonight before I go to sleep. I shall recite a penitential psalm tonight, for my country. I shall do this until Saturday, keeping a canonical fast in reparation for our sins as a nation, and my sins as an individual. Then I shall go to confession.

NOW YOU GO AND DO THE SAME! WEREN'T YOU LISTENING SUNDAY? DIDN'T YOU PAY ATTENTION TO THE READINGS? THIS IS ONE OF THE WAYS CHRIST IS PRESENT AT THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS--WERE YOU IGNORING HIM? I WAS--I DIDN'T THINK UNTIL I READ THE NEWS TODAY. THE READING IN QUESTION IS JONAH 3;1-5,10, AND IT TELLS US WHAT TO DO. GO LOOK IT UP!

People, our salvation, our liberty and our families are at stake here. If you do nothing, you are part of the problem.

Put your name in the comm box if you will. if you won't, you are not helping, but hindering the well being of the Body of Christ, which is the Church.

Redneck Reflections: My Belated Roe v. Wade Blog Post.

2012-01-22T16:48:00.001-05:00

This is the best I've ever been able to write on this subject, so I am just going to repeat it.

Redneck Reflections: My Belated Roe v. Wade Blog Post.

KUDOS to CARDINAL MAHONY!!!!

2012-01-21T23:07:00.000-05:00

No, it's not a hallucination, I wrote that title and I mean it.

Cardinal Mahony spoke out on his blog yesterday concerning the contraceptive mandate. And he called it right.
He said it was "..probably the most expansive decision by the US Federal Government ever..". But he didn't stop there. He said:

This decision from the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] is from the highest level of the Federal Government, and I cannot imagine that this decision was released without the explicit knowledge and approval of president Barak Obama.

And I canot imagine a more direct frontal attack on freedom of conscience than this ruling today. This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic Community can muster.

That's pretty strong coming from the Cardinal Archbishop who wore the mantle of the leader of the Liberal faction in the Church, but it got stronger than that. Cardinal Mahony also said: For me there is no other fundamental issue as important as this one as we enter into the Presidential and Congressional Campaigns.

I have never been a fan of Cardinal Mahony, but I must give credit where it is due, and it is surely due here. More than that, Cardinal Mahony is a man that the more liberal and less prone to listen factions in the Church have looked to and held up. And he is speaking plainly and strongly. More than that, he has seen through the buffer of using cabinet secretaries to conceal presidential involvement in the current administrations war on the freedom of religion. Hopefully his writing will encourage other bishops who are prone to excuse certain policies because of their political inclinations to speak out.

And I have to say that on this issue, the USCCB is also taking a vocal and public stand--which seems under reported in the Mainstream Media.

The link to Cardinal Mahony's blog is www.cardinalmahonyblogsla.com

Or you can Google it--the links on this blog don't seem to be working well! Just Google Cardinal Mahony Blogs LA .

Feast of St. Agnes

2012-01-21T16:58:00.000-05:00

I know in the modern calender that today ranks as a Memorial, but in the colloquial English, the English I learned, Saint's days were refered to as feasts. I'm certain that if the translators of the New American Bible can translate "flee fornication" as "avoid immorality" I can use a little linguistic license as well. And really, the two are not unrelated.

St Agnes is one of the martyrs mention in the Roman Canon--Eucharistic Prayer I in the current Roman Missal. An attempt to burn her failed, so she was either stabbed in the throat or beheaded, accounts vary. The circumstances of her martyrdom are interesting. Agnes was a lovely young woman, by all repute, and it is reported that even the pagans were disturbed to see such a lovely woman killed. That is part of why she was martyred. Agnes was what today we would call a consecrated virgin. She had given her virginity to god, consecrated her body to The Lords service. She said that she would only ever take Christ as her spouse. The son of a Roman official, named Procop,, had the hots for her (not to put to fine a point on it) and determined to make her his wife. She rebuffed him repeatedly until he denounced her as a Christian. She went to her death to keep her vow, killed in an action motivated by hatred of the faith and it's moral strictures. She as around 13. I guess the account of St. Agnes would be incomplete without mentioning tht when the powerfully placed young man found she wouldn't marry him because she had taken Christ as her spouse, she was first imprisoned in a brothel--and miraculously managed to preserve her virginity through the Angelic protection.

One of St. Agnes companions among that "Great Cloud of Witnesses" is St. Lucy. She too is mentioned in the Roman Canon. Lucy was another very pretty girl who was betrothed to a pagan groom, and refused, having taken Christ as her spouse and consecrated her virginity to the Lord. In order to derail the planned mariage, she distributed her dowry as alms to the poor. She too was martyred after being sent to a brothel. (I think this recurring theme was a form of slavery that various Roman officials inflicted upon pious Christian girls who strove to retain their virginity as consecrated to Christ--it's a recurring theme.) Her jailers were unable to transfer her there, and she told the official who sentenced her to such a life that it wouldn't matter, as any act performed on her there would be against her will, essentially being an act of theft against God. Licke St. Agnes, St. Lucy was stabbed in the throat, and like St. Agnes, she was about 13 years of age.

There is another Martyr, St. Charles Lwanga. Actually, this is a group of martyrs, for not only was St. Charles Lwanga canonized, so were his companions. Charles Lwanga was a convert to Christianity in Uganda in the 19th Century. The polity that he was in was called the Kingdom of Buganda under the rule King Mwanga. Wikipedia notes that Mwanga was killing Christians, including those at court, as part of his resistance to western influences and colonization. This account may be accurate, butit is certainly incomplete. For the dynamic of these martyrdoms was set into motion by a very simple thing, and a it's reminiscent of the Martyrdoms of St Agnes and St. Lucy. Mwanga like to rape adolescent boys, who were sent by his subjects to attend him. Charles Lwanga was a Catholic, and a Catechist who inherited the leadership of th eChristian Community a the Court of King Mwanga after the previous lay leader, Joseph Mkasa. Mkasa, was a Catolic, but was an official at court, who took King Mwanga to task for killing a Protestant missionary. The king was fed up with Mkasa's protection of youth from the raping lusts of the king, and this was the final straw,Mkasa was killed. But Charles Lwanga didn't bat an eye, he maintained the protection over the pages and attendants at court, and a frustrated King went on a killing spree, and killed the Christians at court. Had they stood silently by, and alowed the pederast to rape boys, they would have survived.

What these martyrs have in common is this--the victimization or attempted victimization of youth by those in secular authority. What we should ask their intercession for is this--our culture and society are becoming rapidly paganized, and the sexualization of youth is already occurring at high speed, and accelerating. The civil authorities are under the influence of those who would use our children. We have the NEA attempting to tech children starting in kindergarten a "sex education" curricula which flies in the face of morality, and we have GLSEN attempting to foist rules and policies that would attempt to erase gender as a meaningful concept, both of these in opposition to our Christian Faith. And they are trying very hard to use the coercive power of the state to do so. To protect our children and grandchildren we are going to have to face the fact that we will be facing the uthority of secular law arrayed against us. Already, we see a school district,which is part--although a low level part-- of the governmental machinery of our country, deciding to call opposition to Gay Adomption by students "bullying" and prohibiting speech to that effect. (Which seems to me to be bullying by the authorities against Christian students.) There are laws in some jurisdictions requiring even Church schools to implement this sort of indoctrination, and various agencies, under the guise of "protecting" young people encourage sexual activity through the distribution of condoms and other means. Planned Parenthood has been shown numerous times to cover up statutory rape in the name of "protecting girls". Even our 'Safe Schools Czar, Kevin Jennings wrote in his memoirs about facilitation the ongoing sexual abuse and exploitation of a teenage boy in the name of "protecting" his status as a gay. We have become as evil as Pagan Rome, or the Darkest episodes of Tribal Africa.

There once was a man named Alessandro Serenelli. He was doing hard time in prison for murder and assault. He had a vision of St. maria Goretti, who pressed into his hands lilies, which 'burned him like fire". Serenelli repented his sins, and whenhe finished his 30 year sentence, begged forgiveness of his victims family, and ended his days as a tertiary in a Capuchin monastery, doing menial tasks and penance. He was the man who killed St. Maria Goretti. She was another of those pretty young girls that evil seems drawn to. (If you doubt that, look around a public school, at pretty girls who have become hypersexualized, who are promiscuous, and realize most of them got that way through being introduced to sex at much too young an age, usually in circumstances that could be classed as abuse or rape.) He told her that she must do what ever he said, or he would kill her. Then he tried to have sex with her. She told him no, that it would be a mortal sin, and that if he forced her, he would go to hell. She resisted vigorously, and he killed her. It took her 20 hours to die, and part of that time included surgical work without anesthesia. She forgave Serenelli on her deathbed. St. Maria Goretti is accounted a saint and a martyr by the Church, and was canonized in 1947, 45 years after her death. Serenelli testified in prison that he did not complete his assault and she died a virgin. At twelve years old, she is one of the youngest Saints canonized by the Church. The true miracle, the one she worked that impresses me most, is the conversion of Alessandro Serenelli, and it proves something. it proves that our drive to sexualize youth and Children can be reversed, that the hearts and minds of people who think it best to allow and encourage sex to become the driving force in our society can be changed.

They will be changed though, only through the blood and prayers of martyrs, who will suffer imprisonment and death for the Truth of the Faith, that we are created in God's own image, and that gives us an intrinsic dignity that renders human sexuality sacred in a way that the most ecstatic rutting cannot capture or even reveal. We will need martyrs to purity in mold of St. Agnes, St. Lucy, St. Charles Lwanga, and St. Maria Goretti. What I fear is this--that many, or most , of us will not have that courage. And I know that there will those of us who will be given the choice of the white martyrdom of imprisonment or the shame of cooperation. Let's ask these martyrs to strengthen us now, so that we have the faith and spine to stand fast when our time comes.

The Spirit's Sword: Some Canadian Women Are Unhappy With The Way Brown Canadian Women Are Using Their Right to Choose.

2012-01-19T12:08:00.000-05:00

The Spirit's Sword: Some Canadian Women Are Unhappy With The Way Brown Canadian Women Are Using Their Right to Choose.

Heros and Villains: A Round Up

2012-01-19T12:00:00.000-05:00

VILLAIN: Rev Larry Snyder. The president of Catholic Charities USA, he said "I can think of no betterway to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy than by honoring individuals who keep his dream alive through their advocacy and service to the poor." That was when he presented an Award to Anthony Williams, former mayor of Washington DC. Williams service and advocacy included strenuous support of abortions in the Distric of Columbia, a practice that falls most heavily on the poor, and especially on African American women, who have an abortion rate approaching 50%. So to HOnor Dr. King, Snyder presented an award to a man who has facilitated the murder of thousands of African American children before they are born.

HERO: Andrew Buikema. Mr. Buikema is a teacher in Michigan, who is trying not to be in the union. specifically the Grant Education Association, and affiliate of the Michigan Education Association and the NEA. He says that the union has stymied attempts to cut costs, and actually cost teaching positions, to the detriment of Children. He also objects to the special levy of $10 per member to help re-elect president Obama. Mr Buikema has resigned form th unions, but still must pay $544.28 in "service fees not to be in the union. I guess the flip side of this is that the union is a villain, and extorting money from teachers by threatening their employ-ability.

VILLAIN: Timothy Geithner. The Secretary of the Treasury has begun shorting the Fedral pension funds, saying "I will be unable to invest fully" Geithner is using this as political leverage to get congress to raise the debt cap by over another trillion dollars, saying that he must use the funds to keep the Government uder the legal debt cap for operations. Geithner is essentially saying we should use our 'credit cards" to pay the mortgage. Instead of managing the Governments money, he is advocating going deeper in debt because we're already in debt.

HEROES: The New Muslin Suffragettes. This is a group of women in the UK who are rescuing women and girls from forced marriage, abuse, honor killings and repression. They are doing so with out much support from the Government, and none from the increasingly Sharia oriented UK Muslim community. They are doing so in the face of threats, including threats of amputation, murder by bomb, gang rape,and slit throats. These women have more balls than the entire UK law enforcement community combined.

VILLAIN: Todd Carlson. Carlson is the Superintendent of the Shawano School District has told students, the press and parents that opposition to Gay Adoption is bullying and will not be tolerated. He withdrew an essay by a student against Gay Adoption, saying it was a form of bullying and impermissible. After censoring a students speech, he went on to say that this isn't an issue of free speech. So, I guess, according to Carlson, that opposition to Gay adoption isn't speech it's bullying, and by extension, religious objections to the practice are also bullying, and Christians in the Shawano Wisconsin school district have not rights of free speech. Of course, this isn't bullying Christians at all, no, not at all.

HEROES: Catherine Anthony Adair, Jewels Green Laurel Guymer, Carol Everett and Others. These women are former Planned parenthood workers who are describing in public the "counseling" services and "options" presented in Planned Parenthood Clinics. They are also describing the training they received that didn't include anything on options other than abortion. They describe training that required then to steer questions away from fetal development, to describe only "the contents of the uterus" and pressure to sell abortions, often using the word sell, and their superiors and co-worker describing PP as an abortion business. Bit by bit the truth will out.

VILLAIN: Solomon A. Metzger. On 12 January, Metzger, a judge in New Jersey ruled that a Christian Facility must rent it's facilities to same sex couples to perform wedding ceremonies, or be found to discriminate against homosexuals. He said "...some intrusion into religious freedom to balance other important societal goals" must be allowed.

HERO: Ann Mesle. Ms. Mesle is a Circuit Court Judge in Jackson County Missouri. She has ordered SNAP to provide it's records to the defense attorney's of Michael Teirney, who is accused of molesting a 13 yer old by in the 1970s. The accusers attorney, Rebecca Randles, is suspected of supplying details of the case to SNAP in violation of a gag order concerning the case. No other judge has had the gumption to confront SNAP and to require it's adherence tot he same standards of transparency it calls for in others. And this is the first time SNAP has been been taken to task for publishing details of a case under a gag order, although it has done so in the past.

VILLAIN: Rick Perry. In South Carolina, Gov. Perry is emphasizing Rick Santorum's Catholic Faith, in a way that seems calculated to capitalize on the history of anti-catholic bigotry in that state. We've seen this before, in other political races. It's just another manifestation of the latent anti-catholic prejudice in America.
Shame on Gov. Perry. Mentioning an opponents religious affiliation, or lack thereof, should be a No No--we vote for candidates, not their Church.

We're Turning into a Bunch of Damned* Nazis!

2012-01-18T17:39:00.002-05:00

(*Damned, as in no having salvation, and being sent to Hell for our Sins! Not, I will point out, as an expletive.)

I have studied history for most of my life, with certain periods engaging my interest more than others. One of these period is the rise and activities of the Third Reich. How on earth, I wondered, could such an aberration, such an embodiment of evil ever get started? I still am not clear on that, in the mundane sense, but the movie The Night and the Fog proved to me beyond all doubt of the existence of objective evil, and the ways in which utilitarianism and expediency become vehicles for it.

"Life Unworthy of Life" was a phrase that came out of the German Medical establishment in the 20s, after studying American thinking on eugenics. Physicians became the most heavily represented profession on the Nazi Party, because of the scope it offered them for the implementation of such theories, and the expansion of practice to include the euthanasia of children with developmental disabilities. Mostly this was done through planned neglect. A modern equivalent is through withholding of care. We've all, well those of us who care, and who read the things that come to light via the Catholic 'net, are aware of children with poor prognosis, or with serious disability that are 'set aside' and die withi hours of birth--but in Nazi Germany, they did it to children who were much older than newborns, often because they were developmentally disabled.

You Know, Like they do in The Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. It's hit the MSM today, and there are explanations on the news items how the family just doesn't understand, etc.. But the bottom line is this: a physician told the mother of a three year old girl that her quality of life wouldn't be good enough to warrant a kidney transplant. The Mother pointed out that the family was going to provide the organ, that it wouldn't take one from the donors list away from another child. The doctor said, and I quote; "No, she is not eligible due to her quality of life. Because of her mental delays." When the parents argued, he went on to say that taking her anti rejection meds would be very important, and after the parents were gone, who would insure that? Bottom line, the doctor didn't think a retarded kid was worth saving.

This little girl is going to die of renal failure without a transplant. It's a horrible, agonizing death, marked by pain, vomiting, seizures, blindness--a death so bad that when it comes, the final coma is a blessing. I know--I've experienced renal failure, and it sucked.

The hospital is saying this that and the other thing, but the doctor said it was her "quality of life" and her "mental delays" that decided it. Retards ain't worth saving. Of course, since they have been able to detect Downs syndrome and other mental handicaps in utero, 90% of the kids conceived with these problems don't get born, because doctors counsel, indeed pressure, parents to abort. After all, they aren't really worthy of life, because some self appointed judge of what counts as quality of life has decided so.

In a related story, a Massachusetts appeals court just stuck down a court order by a lower court requiring a 32 year old woman who suffers from Schizophrenia to undergo an abortion and sterilization. The order appointed her parents--who don't want her to have a child--as her guardians so they could legally consent to the procedures. The Judge, Christina Harms of the Norfolk Probate and Family court ruled that if the woman was competent, she would want an abortion, that her opposition was due to her 'delusional beliefs"and said she 'should be coaxed, bribed or even enticed...bu ruse" until she was sedated for the abortion. BTW, expert testimony by psychiatrists said that she did not want and was competent not to want, and abortion. They were going to rely on good old fashioned legal coercion, and make this abortion happen.

One of the most shameful chapters in US history is the rise of Eugenics and mandatory sterilization for the mentally ill, the developmentally disabled and the "morally feeble minded". This ruling was simply a return to those days. Thank God that an appeals court overturned it, saying that "the personal decision whether to bear or beget a child is so fundamental that it must be extended to all persons...".

The Boston Herald observed, "Massachusetts historically lead the way in the movement to sterilize or incarcerate the mentally ill to prevent them from breeding--inadvertently inspiring Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's own eugenics agenda".

Somehow, with the professionalization of America, the professions have left behind the humanities infavor of sociology, and devalued human life to the extent that it is judged according to it's "quality", when the "quality" is some one in the professions subjective opinion of what matters.

Bunch of Damned Nazis.

Rambling Observations

2012-01-17T11:56:00.000-05:00

Cardinal George submitted his resignation, on his 75th birthday as is the standard practice. It will be a couple of years, most people think, before it is acted upon. But how much do you want to bet that as news gets around it will be spun that it's because of his outspoken opposition to having a Sodomitic/Transvestite Pride Parade that would coincide with Sunday services and provide the Sodomites the opportunity to engineer a confrontation with the faithful? Conversely, there will be Ultra-Cons who will view this as a result of his apology for the terms he used.?

Cardinal George used some string language, no doubt, and was highly criticized forsaying we didn't want to go back to the days of the KKK. Well, that's correct, we don't. The second and third incarnations of the Klan were profoundly Anti Catholic. In teaching history we emphasize the racism of the Klan, which is almost impossible to overstate, but we tend to be less forthcoming about it's religious bigotry, which was directed against Catholics and Jews with equal vitriol. And to be blatantly honest, organized Gay Activists are religious bigots.

We have seen this over the years, from the Lesbians who entered a Central American Cathedral and beat the faithful during Mass to more prosaic ventures. The "Rainbow Sash Movement" was all about entering Cathedrals wearing their rainbow sashes (which look suspiciously like a deacon's stole) and forcing their opinion that we should no longer believe sodomy to be a sin by occupying the forward pews and "shaming" the priests, deacons and extraordinary Eucharistic ministers to give them communion. We had the spectacle in 2010 of organized Sodomites planning to force their way into Mass and confront Cardinal George with the fact he will not say that unnatural sex and disordered attractions are OK--his objection was rooted in experience. The Human Rights Campaign, which is the largest of the GLBTQ activist organizations attempted to disrupt the Mass at a seminary by demanding Communion, and were outraged when Archbishop Nienstedt refused to give it to them. The message is clear, we, as Catholics, must change the moral content of our faith to match their ideas--they are trying to force us to change our beliefs to match their politics, and that is an attempt at religious repression, and religious bigotry in action.

In St Louis, a large group of Sodomites gathered before the historic Cathedral Basilica to jeer and cat call, to insult and attempt to intimidate the faithful into supporting their agenda. It didn't make much of a splash in the News. But can you imagine the outcry if a group of Caucasians gathered outside of a meting of the Urban League to do the same? A campaign of intimidation and ridicule is by it's very nature a manifestation of bigotry

Chesterton said sex would be the final heresy, and he's turning out to be right. And like any heresy, those who embrace it despise orthodoxy. This problem is widespread enough that Archbishop Nienstedt had to caution his clergy--actually flat tell them--not to embrace the political cause of sodomites in public, nor to voice any support for sodomitic unions . Many orthodox Catholics were pleased when he did this, and on a certain level so am I, but we shouldn't be, because an Archbishop shouldn't have to tell his priests not to support evil. But this sort of thing is widespread, and has even found it's way into the Scripture translation we use at Mass--the Epistle for last Sunday as proclaimed read "Avoid Immorality"--but in the original Greek and many other translations it reads "Flee Fornication". the Greek word, pornoia, cane also be read as describing any form of sexual license, deviance or activities that are immoral, to include sodomy. In English, it would most likely be best rendered by the phrase "flee sexual immorality". This is a clear Scriptural injunction, yet is downplayed by many, many priests, deacons and bishops.

This is turning into the biggest threat to Religious Freedom in our Nations history, to include it's colonial history. On the 13th of this month, a court ruled in New Jersey that a Christian Retreat House, affiliated with the United Methodist Church, had no right to refuse to rent it's facilities for Same Sex Unions. The Judge said that the Constitution "allows some intrusion into religious freedom to balance other important societal goals". Really, where does it say that? Can he quote to me where it says that? Or did he just attempt to make new law? And is gay marriage a societal goal for us? Does the majority of the electorate want it?

We Catholics, and to a certain extent, other Christian denominations are castigated for "child sex scandal", while at the same time we are castigated for not supporting groups which since 1972 have tried to get the laws on statutory rape changed to make sodomy between men and boys and women and girls legal, and viewed as normal and healthy. (And this ignores the statistics that between 1.5 an 3% of priests so actd, while the estimates for the population at large run between 10-20%--and mostly involves teens. I just don't understand this.) How long, I wonder, before it becomes the norm in schools that kids stroke one another's genitals? There is a program in Swtizerland that does just that.

How bad is this for us now? Well, the Twin Cities Daily Planet ran an article entitled "Conservative christian Parents Fight for Right to Discriminate Against LGBT Students at Anoka Hennipin". Inside the article it reveals that it wasn't just Christians, but Jews and Seculars as well, and the "discrimination" include demanding that students also be taught about the people who have left the Gay Life, and the VD rate among Gay men, and a desire to protect their children from the bullying that is on the rise against christian and other kids who think homosexuality is morally wrong or who find such practices abhorrent.

Chesterton had it so right--Sex is the Last Heresy, and I will say the deterioration of sexual morality is the end result of the cumulative effect of all heresies, capped by Modernism.

Personal

2012-01-17T10:26:00.000-05:00

"He's not a tame Lion", and he wants my beer budget.

Weirdest Seach Term of Late

2012-01-16T13:24:00.000-05:00

People find this place through some odd search terms, from time to time. The current weirdest is 'bondage&descipline (sic).

some how, I'd have thought perverts could spell better than that! I mean, the propaganda make them sound so enlightened and erudite & shit.

Redneck Reflections: An Example of Catholic rot in Louisville

2012-01-16T13:21:00.000-05:00

Redneck Reflections: An Example of Catholic rot in Louisville

Actually, It's worse than it looks here.

2012-01-16T13:14:00.000-05:00

Zenit has an article noticing that barely half of US Adults are married. In a very real way, it's less than that. If you think on it a bit, you realize that there are lots of people whose marriages aren't really marriages. People in "Open Marriages", people who do not plan on having children, ever. People who regard their marriage as a potentially impermanent arraignment. People who regard their marriage as a primarily economic arraignment.
People who feel that mariage hasn't got anything to do with two becoming one flesh, and a mirror of the relations ship of Christ to his Church. People who are too nuts, or too immature to actually make a valid vow. The list is endless.

That's why there are so many annulments granted in the US: because there are so many invalid mariages in the first place.

In Spain, 70% of people say they are Catholics, but only 13.6% of them say they practice the faith. It's not that different here. Think about it. Practicing the faith is more than showing up on Sunday to a Mass that's about as close to the ideal as I am to the presidency. When 98% of Catholics surveyed practice contraception, when over 60% of those surveyed approve of the legality of abortion, when a large proportion never go to confession, despite the Precepts of the Church, when 40%+ reject the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist...well, we don't have that many practicing Catholics either.

Mondays can be so sad.

More Fifth Column

2012-01-16T12:45:00.000-05:00

The Diocese of Salt Lake has appointed Jean Welch Hill as it's Director of Peace and Justice Commission, and tasked her with explaining how a Catholic should vote according to their faith. Unfortunately, Ms Hill was a politician before she was a diocesan apparatchik, and she ran for Utah Attorney General with the backing of Planned Parenthood! She opposes a ban on abortion and theprovision of "accurate" birth control education in the schools.

Her approach is to confuse the faithful by listing the Church's position on abortion along side it's positions on social justice issues, and telling people they have to choose which candidate meets the morality test best. This ignores the Hierarchy of Truth--which does not mean somethings are "more true" than others, but that some truths are more important to others. The quest for justice presumes that someone is alive to receive justice. Murder, legalized, institutionalized murder is a higher priority to be corrected than minimum wage laws for migrants. But this evil woman has conflated them as equally important.

Straight up--this is like saying that when faced with voting for Nazi's, the social programs of low and interest free loans for working families they sponsored is as important as the Concentration Camps. Actually, it may be worse, because those demonic state and race idolators killed eight million in the camps, and we've killen man, many more than that in clinics.

Yeah, there is a Satanic Fifth Column in Salt Lake, we can see it. You can also contact the local bishop there, and let him know that this is adiservice--and injustice --to all the faithful by writing to:

The Most Reverend John Charles Wester
Bishop of Salt lake City
27 C Street
Salt Lake City, Utah 84103

His e-mail is bishop.office@dioslc.org

His office phone is 801-328-8641 ex 304
You can call toll free from inside Utah at 1-888-414-8641 ex 304

BTW, I got all this off of the Diocesan website. Also, if you do call, point out that his spokesmonster is omitting the notion of the Hierarchy of Truth and the Moral Hierarchy to obscure Catholic teaching. A note to the Apostolic Nuncio wouldn't be amiss, either.

Poll

2012-01-15T18:41:00.001-05:00

Vote.

Today

2012-01-15T18:40:00.000-05:00

Mass this morning wasn't up to our Parish's usual standards. The choir ran over the celebrant twice, and there were some bobbles with the new translation. Father John looked bad today--he's closer to 90 than to 80, and today he looked physically weak, and for the first time since I've met him he didn't preach at mass (he's a member of a religious congregation of priests whose charism is preaching missions and retreats--he always preaches!). There was no liturgical abuse, just bobbles and fumbles. Fr. John is still a soldier of the Lord, seeking out opportunities to serve and and worship. i think he's a great man and a fantastic priest.

But this was a day to think about things. A tiny bite of bread, a tiny sip of wine--not enough to be breakfast for a runway model; yet such food! These tiny, almost token bits can nourish not just a body, but a soul, can in fact bring life, beyond even the death of the body for all eternity, beyond the grave, which no other food can do! His flesh is food indeed, and by it we are healed, brought to eternal life, sanctified and led--all from the tiniest morsels. I have never been able to fathom those who approach this mystery, literally the holiest thing on Earth, in a casual manner, as a part of a routine. We should approach this table in fear and trembling before our Judge, yet eagerly and with childlike trust in our savior. The Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Eucharist, the deepest mystery I shall ever see in this life, and the dividing line of true Christian Faith, and a social club that talks about Jesus. Benedicamus Domino!

Christianity is a Mystery Religion, in the Anthropological sense. It's also a mystery! Todays reading pointed that out. In Samuel we have the account of of Samuel's call. most of the time, when I hear this, I think of the famous "Here I am Lord". But today I fixated on another line--"At that time Samuel was not familiar with the Lord because the Lord had not revealed anything to him as yet". This points to something I have long pondered, have long marveled about. We cannot, in our sins receive the grace to hear the lord--we need grace to accept grace. Yet even some promiscuous drug addicted reprobate who was just waiting around to die could hear the voice of the Lord calling him to worship and to repent! (Yes, I'm talking about me.) How could a sinner like me get grace? Through the Merits of Jesus Christ, that's how, a gift given so i could accept a gift of the same, and be called by actual grace to recieve the Sanctifying Grace of the Blessed Sacrament. We cannot hear the voice of the Lord unless we are familiar with the Lord, and we cannot be familiar with the Lord until he reveals himself to us. That's the whole point of Epiphany and the Transfiguration--a self revelation so we can hear him. Things beyond reason, beyond analysis, but only reached through Love, the Agape of Christ which calls us and then teaches us how to love.

In 1 Corinthians we heard that "The body is not for immorality but for the Lord...". (This was one of today's bobbles at Mass, the Lector kept reading "immortality" for "immorality"--a bit funny, actually, considering the words of the Creed!) Then we heard that our bodes "...are members of Christ...But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one Spirit with him." If you've served mass, you've heard the quiet prayer that the riest or deacon says when he mixes the water with the wine--where he prays that we come come to share in the Dvinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our Humanity. Communion, when you think of those words, and what St. Paul wrote becomes even more profound. And so does our lords words that we are to be perfect, as our heavenly father is perfect. Bodily immorality looks to be more, in this light, than a simple sinful failing, but nearly an act of desecration. Mystery heaped upon mystery, in a normal, Ordinary Time Sunday!

But we had the Gospel too! John the Baptist, in the account given by John the Beloved Disciple cried out "Behold the lamb of God", and don't we hear that at every Mass? Isn't it the very core of the Agnus Dei? And then the lamb of God tells them to "come and see". So they do, and Andrew gets his brother Simon to come too, and Jesus sees him and give him the name 'Cephas"---Peter: for Lord has seen us long before we see him. He has heard us, even when we didn't know we were crying out. He knows us from our mother's womb, and has been waiting for us to meet him, even though he has met us long before.

Mystery upon mystery. In even a poorly celebrated, disorganized or even abusive but valid Mass, there is more mystery and Grace than we can contemplate in a lifetime.

Abbey-Roads: The Michael Voris Affair

2012-01-14T16:37:00.000-05:00

Abbey-Roads: The Michael Voris Affair

Man Up! It's War!

2012-01-14T16:09:00.000-05:00

While we're all happy about the SCOTUS decision that put part of the Department of Justice in it's place vis a vis Religious Freedom, we shouldn't get cocky--we are still under attack, a severe attack that will grant no quarter. This is one battle, not the war. More than that, we can look at our history, our secular history, and realize that's it's entirely possible to win every battle, and loose the war.

Right up front, I want to say that I do not believe that the Church will every be destroyed--we have Our Lords promise of that. But that doesn't mean that the Church cannot be extirpated in a given region, the disappearance of the particular Churches of North Africa and parts of Asia Minor prove that. Don't believe me? Then ask yourself this: Auxiliary Bishops have "titular sees". This is because there can only be one Bishop in Charge of any given place, the Ordinary, and so an Auxiliary might be ordained for service in Indianapolis, but he cannot be "co-bishop" of Indianapolis, Furthermore, a Bishop must be ordained to a particular see. If you look at their titles, Auxiliary Bishops are ordained to sees that no longer exists, defunct and extinct particular Churches. If you think about that you realize that we can be destroyed in a particular locale. The Church will survive on Earth, but I'm not so sure about in the US.

SCOTUS, applying sound law and awareness of legal precedent and history (and perhaps under the influence of the Holy Spirit!) upheld an aspect of religious freedom, protecting the Church and every other ecclesiastical body in the US from one aspect of Government oppression. But the Administration isn't the source of the attack on the Church, it's an instrument of it. The source is Satan, and anyone who believes will acknowledge that. The Obama Administration isn't even the most dangerous set of opponents we face. The most dangerous of those who are working towards the destruction of the Church are those who are, in name at least, inside of it. These are Satan's Fifth Column, who are the ones who will weaken us so that like Madrid, we will fall.

Just a few things to show what I'm talking about:

The Scranton University was "asked" by the Bishop of Scranton, Joseph C. Bambera to rescind the invitation it issued to former Congresswoman Marjorie Margolies from addressing students, based on her activities which are counter to and inimical to Catholic teaching. The president of the University, the Rev. Kevin P. Quinn has refused to do so. Now, I put the word "asked" into quotations for a reason--when someone with the authority to make you do something asks, it's a polite for of order. The Jesuit run school refused an order from the Local Ordinary, who has canonical authority to do so, if they wish to retain their Catholic Identity. More than that, we have now nearly twenty years of instructions from the Vatican that make it quite clear that Catholic Schools exist to further Catholic teaching. Not only that, but speaking at a college or university is in itself an honor, and honoring a politician who supports abortion is specifically forbidden. Quinn know this. So what's up? It's simple, really. Quinn is a one of Satan's Fifth Columnists. How he became one of Satan's agents is obvious. He did so like this: the greatest commandment is that we shall Love the Lord our God with all our hearts, all are minds and all our strength. We cannot serve two masters. Quinn, and those like him have placed (since the Great lakes declaration of '67!) the respect and admiration of secular academia above their desire for single hearted service to the Lord. Their desire for Academic Reputation, both personal and for their institutions have lead them to become intellectually dishonest--posing as Catholics while opposing holistic Catholicism. They have become liars, and Satan is the Father of Lies, who has then moved them to deceive themselves, then their students, leading them into mortal sins, rejection of the faith and possibly perdition. The majority of Catholic Colleges and Universities in the US have failed to met all the requirements of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, and the majority of Bishops in the US have failed to correct them, or to remove their standing as Catholic institutions. Make no mistake, we, as a Church, are better off with six or a dozen faithful, small institutions than scores of faithless ones.

Then there is the whole apology thing--and I do not mean Apologetics, I mean apologies that we shouldn't make. This is a wedge in the Church, a wedge that, due in part to the treason and apostasy of Catholic schools is hurting us badly, and removing our ability to even speak clearly about pressing issues. Take Cardinal George of Chicago: He clearly opposed the new time of the ~~Gay~~ Sodomite and Transvestite Pride Parade, saying we don't want to return to the days of the KKK in America. He later went all contrite to apologize. This was a disservice to the Truth. To placate a bunch of perverts, and their misguided friends in the City of Chicago, he retracted. Unfortunately the change from the traditional time for the perverted sex spectacle was done simply to bring them past the Cathedral as services were changing over, to create a confrontation. An Anti-catholic confrontation. Cardinal George was right--this move was an exercise in organized Anticatholicism and a chance to provoke a "spontaneous' demonstration against us. His apology was an abrogation of a truth. I have to wonder though, when will he apologize to us Catholics for letting us down now, when we need fearless leaders who will speak out? Blessed Clemens Von Galen spoke out under threat of death, and Cardinal George retracted under threat of insult. We have a beautiful psalm that tells us to pray that we shall fear no evil--but I guess bad PR is different. But this apology thing is more widespread than that, and it's become insidious. In San Geronimo Valley, in California, the CYO rents a municipal gym for it's games. As is usual before a CYO game, there is prayer. And, as is usual in secular, evil and selfish California, there is an uproar. People are appalled that the Catholic Youth Organization would pray before a game. The Lagunitas School District "co-owns" the gym and one of it's trustees, Richard Sloan, said "I understand that if we want to rent to one religious group we have to rent to them all, but I still don't like it. I going to put up a sign in front of the gym: 'If you don't pray in my school I won't think in your church'" Horrible, really, if you look at it. The statement betrays several things. First, it shows that Sloan doesn't want to rent to CYO at all--notice that he says he has to rent to all religious groups, and he doesn't like renting to this one. Next, he gives something else away--he doesn't think Catholics think, that we are mindless, because he equates being in a Catholic Church with not thinking. Finally he shows something else too--the district co-owns the gym, it doesn't solely own the gym, yet he thinks that he can make a municipal gym a school by decree, and silence us in the public square. But the worst thing about this whole little exercise in secularist religious bigotry are the remarks by the pastor of St. Cecelia's Church, Rev Cyril O'Sullivan: "I'm told the prayer is not being pushed on any families, that people have a choice.But I don't like anything that causes division. Prayer, if it becomes divisive, would be a very poor form of prayer". Reading that, I have to ask myself if O'Sullivan listens to the readings he proclaims, that we are called to be a people apart, and a royal priesthood. We're not supposed to fit in. Even more I wonder if he's ever paid attention to the text where Our Lord tells us he did not come to bring peace, but a sword? Finally, he obviously has tuned out the Gospel passage about separating the sheep from the goats, possibly because, with an approach like that, he's a goat. He needs to issue another statement of conciliatory stuff, to the parents who put their kids into CYO for moral and religious guidance outside of Faith Formation Classes, and explain to them why he just confused all these Catholic Kids about how we are supposed to give public witness to the Lordship of Christ, and how he just made them vaguely ashamed of their faith, and afraid to be Catholics in the Public Sphere. ( And as an example of other effects of Satan's Fifth Column, I have to ask this: Did the parents who felt this was wrong not understand what the word "Catholic" in Catholic Youth Organization meant?)

Of course, in a war characterized by tactics such as a fifth column, having people in positions of authority on the side of the Fifth Column is very valuable. People like Auxiliary Bishop Gambino Zavala, who had a secret family. He fathered two kids, out of wedlock. Zavala has resigned as a bishop, but there are so many questions to be answered, that must be answered, if the devastation these Fifth Columnists is to be repaired, if the Faith is to be Defended. One is this, how did a man like Zavala, who publically supported gay 'rights' and other moral issues in opposition to the Church become and auxiliary bishop at the request of a Cardinal of the Church? (Mahony, of course!) And how was he able to conceal this from public view for so long? One thing that tells, to me at least, is that less than a year after Mahony departed and Archbishop Gomez replaced him, Zavala is out. it can't have been that deep a secret. It looks to me like Mahony covered for him, just as he covered for the Child Rapist Carl Stutphin. Mahony became a fifth columnist through his own ego, opposing Vatican guidelines and pronouncements on the Liturgy, fostering the teaching of moral errors, and presiding over not just the collapse of the Vocation environment in LA, but the erection of structures that were in their intent and execution anti-sacerdotal. (Come on! No cleric who puts his face on a jumbotron for his annual "religious education" meeting can be sound!)

We can also look at the Michael Voris affair and see clearly those who oppose Catholic Teaching and Morality at work in the Archdiocese of Detroit. What's interesting about this isn't that a bishop who has been repeatedly stung by accurate, orthodox criticism lashed out to silence a critic--that happens a lot, it seems, in history but that the canon law used to do so might not be what it seems. The AOD attacked Voris for using the word "Catholic" in real catholic TV--except for one thing--he didn't. He owns St. Michael Media. Real Catholic TV is run by another outfit, that contracts him to produce content. So he was penalized for something he has no control over, (well they are attempting to penalize him, much as they did Mother Angelica!). But, and here's what is interesting, Real Catholic TV, as an entity, is Headquartered in the Diocese of Ft. Wayne-South Bend and the Judicial Vicar of that diocese has spoken out in public, saying that they have been aware of REal Catholic TV for years, and have no problem whatsoever with it--and that there have been no complaints against them that hold water. What we see is Archbishop Vigneron being stung in his pride, and having people actually have the gall to cite the liturgical, moral and theological abuses and failing of his Archdiocese and demand their rights as Catholics to Catholic Worship and Teachings. So incensed was he at this that he tried to usurp the Canonical authority of another bishop to silence it. Fifth columns are always a form of espionage and saboteurs, and neither can function without secrecy, or at least silence. Another Fifth Columnist in a position of authority, using that authority to subvert someone who is teaching in accordance with the Magisterium.

In this vein, we have my final example for today, of Satan's Fifth Column in the Church. Bishop Ochoa of El Paso is suing a priest in civil court over "financial mismanagement". This is, well there is no other word for it, bull shit. It's an attempt at character assassination by Bishop Ochoa, who, BTW is leaving El Paso, having been named to the see of Fresno California, having been named to that see on 1 December 2011--and by canon law must be installed there with in 60 days of being named. He will not even be in the Diocese of El Paso when the suit comes to court. Of course, Ochoa hasn't been listening to the readings he proclaims either, for St. Paul says we are not to take each other before the civil courts when we disputes among ourselves. Ochoa has a colleague in this suit--Mons. Arturo Banuelas. What's up with this? Well Fr. Michael Rodriguez spoke out in public against Civil Unions and Gay Marriage, and the extension of tax payer funded benefits to "domestic partners--concubines and catamites if they receive compensation, like benefits that had been dropped in the face of taxpayer and public disapproval once before. Ochoa had been silent about these issues, while loudly calling for the indulgence of illegal immigrants (even though the Catechism is clear that immigrants must obey the laws and respect the culture and society of the place they have moved to). Rodriguez ran an advertisement, called "The Truth About Homosexuality" that was in strict accordance with Catholic teaching. Ochoa removed him from the Parish he was serving. According to the members of that parish, it is now dieing, with no ministry. It's worth noting here that the parish functions in the Extraordinary Form, was growing and has been described by those who went there as "busy" "vibrant" having "vitality" and most of all affecting the neighborhood in which it was located for the better. Ochoa killed it, rather than face the fact that Catholic Teaching is never popular, is never comfortable and is never easy. He has caught a lot of crap for this, and is outraged that Catholics paid for that four page ad, by donating directly to it, going around the modernist cabal that dominated El Paso. So not only was he distorting Catholic teaching on immigration, he was not teaching the whole of the faith, and got shown up by a young priest. He is no resorting to what I believe to be calumny to discredit him, as Ochoa is widely seen by faithful Catholics as discredited. Why do I say this is calumny? Because the bishop filed a civil suit--if he had good proof that Fr. Rodriguez had actually misused or diverted Chruch funds, he would have, under canon law, suspended him and under secular law had him charged with embezzelment. the Choice to file a civil suit mens that he didn't have evidence to meet the standards of proof in Canon or Criminal law, and hopes to use the wedge of gay rights and the current popularity of concubinage to win an unjust case against this man. It takes about five minutes in the book of Psalms to see what God thinks of unjust suits, but Ochoa isn't worried about tht, he'sworried about power and reputation--hall marks of Satan's Fifth Column in the Church.

We are in a war for our existence in the US, as an effective Church, as the Body of Christ in the US, that can fulfill the mission of the Church Militant. This is a spiritual war, in which the actions and machinations of the current, and probably subsequent, administration are but reflections of the true forces against us. The true danger, the only one that can lead to our destruction, is the Fifth Column among us. We should no more allow this than we would allow a cabal of thieves to have the keys to our homes. We Catholics need to man up, we need to remember that Charity is not tact, and that the word tact does not appear in it's definition, and if we hold Charity for our children, and our Brethren in Faith, we must speak out loudly, and together against these enemies who call themselves or friends and our pastors. We must man up, and accept the abuse and anger that will be directed against us, and do our best. David went out with a rock, and slew a giant. We have the internet, the Catechism and most of all the sacraments to sustain us, and instead of a rock, we should sling truth.

Bishops

2012-01-08T13:58:00.000-05:00

One of the neat things about being Catholic is the ad limina visits the bishops make with the Pope very five years, and now we are in the American bishops turn. I've always wished I could be a fly on the wall atsuch meetings, to hear what's actually said. There's a lot to be said, I think.

The American Episcopacy is at best a mixed lot, but things are undeniably improving. Well, they had to.

According to bishops who have already made their trip, some of the topics being brought up are the New Evangelization, religious freedom and the rights of the Church in the us. Also being mentioned are immigration, parish closings and the Liturgy, especially the new translation.

The Vatican, in these meetings seems to be concerned that religious rights are being interpreted, in the US as strictly individual, and the rights of organized churches to speak and act are under attack. That's pretty darned accurate. As always in our country, the cutting edge of this problem is sex. Take a look at the Church in Minneapolis.

Archbishop Niestedt has addressed his priests concerning the Catholic Churches opposition to gay marriage. In his address he specified that if a priest cannot or will not publicly support matrimony, he is supposed to remain silent on the issue. Leaving aside the issue of a bishop having to tell priests not to publicly contradict Church teachings--something we haven't really seen the specter of since the Protestant rebellion and schism--there remains the fact that someone in the Church leaked the text of this address to the heretical group "Progressive Catholic Voice", and now the Church is being painted as bigoted for supporting our own beliefs. This is an example of attempting to silence us Catholics as a unified body, to block our access to the public forum. The spokes people for this heretical group are appalled--appalled they say--that a bishop would instruct his priests not to oppose Catholic teaching.

These people are the ones most in need of the New Evangelization. We Catholics need our bishops to evangelize us, to teach us the faith, and to require our adherence to it if we are to retain our liberty as an organized Church.

The Gay issue is going to be a battle that we must fight, not only for the spiritual well being and salvation of Gays and Lesbians, but for our very freedom. And the fight must occur not just in the public sphere, but within the Church itself. Take the Courage outreach program. In the Archdiocese of Hartford, Archbishop Henry J. Mansell has implemented it through out the archdiocese, displacing both the"Dignity" program and the New Ways Ministries outreach. This is being billed as controversial. How strange is it, that a program that is in accordance with Catholic Moral Teaching is considered controversial when implemented by the Catholic Church? I suppose that it's to be expected, in today's political climate, that there would be disapproval from secular and non-cathoic quarters. What's dismaying is that there is resistance to this from those who are supposedly 'within" the Church, especially those who refer to themselves as 'Gay Catholics". Almost unmentioned is the controversy over Dignity and New Ways Ministries among Catholics with those who support the Churches teaching being scandalized that "ministries" of the Church are telling people that they should be accepting sodomy and same sex activity, and telling those so tempted that it's OK to indulge, if they really love someone. That controversy isn't reported by the Catholic Press, even.

I hope His Holiness is communicating to the Bishops the harm to the faithful, to the Mystical Body of Christ, that is done by such confusion, and perhaps, even mentioning the number of Catholics who have given up hope for the Church and gone to other Churches or Ecclesial Bodies. This rampant pursuit of disobedience and moral revisionism is one of the things needing corrected by a New Evangelism and catechesis of the Faithful. We, and the bishops, need to accept as well that the Church is shrinking in numbers, and that we are going to lose those who wish to conform to the secular world in any event. in the end it comes down to triage--we will not be able to evangelize those who wish to practice sexual immorality and require it's acceptance as a prerequisite of their remaining "Catholic", for in their beliefs and moral structures, they have left Catholicism behind long ago.

Then there remains the problem of Evangelizing the bishops themselves. We have some problem diocese, with problem bishops at their head. The first one that comes to mind is the Archdiocese of Detroit. First, you have the Michael Voris Matter. The Canon Law seems a bit complicated, and I do not understand the the issues of Canon Law here well enough to come down on one side or the other, although my sympathies lie with Mr. Voris. But the issue that demands to be raised is why a Bishop would tell a layman he cannot call himself Catholic in public, when this same bishop didn't make such a demand of the American Catholic Conference, which espoused Heresy, Schism, Immorality and Disobedience. Another issue would be such things as the most recent issue of Mosaic, the magazine put out for and by Sacred Heart Major Seminary. In it, they lovingly recounted a baptism of an infant performed in a hospital. Not because the infant was ill or in danger of death, but because a Deacon was dieing, and the child was his second grandchild. The child's grandmother said the formula of baptism while using the dieing deacons hand as a vessel to pour water upon it's head. This is appalling, not because the baptism was invalid--it is not, according to the sources I read on the matter--but because everyone involved placed family sentiment on a higher lane than the Sacrament itself, and in so doing deprived the child of a Church baptism, with the full ceremonial and blessing thereof. They interpret the Sacrament as a family event, not an entry into the Mystical Body of Christ, and a participating in the death and resurrection of the Lord. This is simple proof that the formation of the clergy and Faithful in the Archdiocese of Detroit is lacking, and the onus of this rests upon the Ordinary, Archbishop Allen Vigneron.

Finally, I wonder if His Holiness has mentioned to our bishops how, in the present anti-christian climate, they can raise awareness, and perhaps even support for, the plight of Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa and the middle east, with rampant, violent discrimination and an incipient genocide in Nigeria when the biased, anti-christian mainstream press in the us virtually ignore it. How odd its it, that the British press covers this issue in much more depth, with much more sympathy than the American, considering the fact that close to 60% of American identify in some way as Christians, and very few British do? Is this linked to the UK Bishops taking steps to strengthen and solidify Catholic Identity in the UK even as the Church of England dissolves through popular neglect and theological disintegration?

Today is the observance of the Epiphany in the US. I would recount the stirring Homily I heard today, except I never even figured out what it was about. It wasn't about the readings or the Liturgy of the day, which center around one thing--the Universal nature of Christs Kingship and Mission. Perhaps that's part of the problem, and our bishops need to reaffirm Christ as our King, priest and Redeemer, placing that at the forefront of their thought and ministry. If they do so, the New Evangelization will fall into place, the Liturgy will be reformed, the clerical morality crisis will be corrected, the rights and impact of immigration will be upheld, the faithful will be catechized and our rights and position in society will be protected. The Three Magi came from a distant land to do homage to a new Priest King for all the world, with gifts of healing (myrrh) worship (frankincense) and sovereignty (gold)--if the bishops focus on Christ, and the Mystical Body of Christ,instead of institutional and political issues, things will be better. I hope this is his Holiness' remarks to them.

Either Progressives are Cognitivly Impaired or Deranged.

2012-01-06T14:00:00.001-05:00

I put up a link on my Face book page to a story about a suburb of St. Louis, Parkway, strapping monitor on the wrists of children for them to wear 24-7. The monitors are intended to gather data on sleep, play, eating, physical activity levels, etc. I thought they were a blatant invasion of privacy, especially as parents weren't asked beforehand.

So a progressive comments all about how republicans are attacking the schools. No mention of privacy. More, he went on about how parents shouldn't be the ones in charge of their children's education, because they aren't qualified, etc. Then he goes on to say that teachers do not work for the parents--but for the children.

I thought teachers were public employees, and worked for taxpayers. Children don't pay taxes. The law says that parents are the ones with the primary responsibility to see to their children's education. So on or so forth.

I was especially appalled that when confronted with the undeniable statistic that home school kids excell public school kids in every measurable academic and social criteria, he said that was meaningless, because the studies weren't "controlled" for anything beyond homeschooling. Odd, that's what they were meant to check. He didn't like the statistic, so he tries to say it's invalid.

I'm tired of this kind of crap, and this is the kind of crap that's in charge of the nation--no wonder things are in marked decline.

New Poll

2012-01-05T09:51:00.001-05:00

New Poll, New Question, same old drill.

It's Kind of Lonely Here.

2012-01-05T09:37:00.000-05:00

Not here in the house, where I have my family, who are the best company a man could ask for, not to mention having a very pretty lady who gives me hugs and talks to me in the evenings. But outside the house it's kind of lonely.

I'm suffering from inculturation, I think. It seems that most all of the Catholic fraternal groups i can find are about having a more or less conventional good time, with a little apostolic work thrown in. I'm not knocking them,they're good groups, and the Knights of Columbus do good things for our parish, and the Church as a whole. They are the backbone of our parishes Social Life and Fellowship, providing the grunt work for our picnics and dinners, and working the pancake breakfast for fund raising for our various groups. But I would like to be able to fellowship with guys who are doing the same recreations I do, yet keep it Catholic in intent and execution.

I saw in Europe, in the 80s, Catholic and Christian outdoors clubs, Wanderverein and things like that. It would be nice to be able to have group camp outs with prayer and fellowship--but the opportunities seem few and far between. I love casual shooting at the range-nothing to competitive, no organized marksmanship competitions and such--I'd love to be able to do this with my co-coreligionists. Grilling out, fishing, things like that provide a wonderful opportunity to grow in faith, in the little day to day things and in what we do for fun. But the Church is withdrawing from rural areas, even though rural Catholicism has been the backbone of the Archdiocese of Louisville, and the most Catholic areas of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. The opportuinites for fellowship now revolve aroud urban recreations, dining out, trips on the river boats, trips even to the Horseshoe Casino.

I really don't like stuff like that--it's booring to me, and expensive, and well, I just don't fit there.

I have no idea how, in keeping with the rules and laws of the Church, to start a Catholic outdoors group for adults, that won't suddenly gravitate to the expensive and distant. I certainly don't have the personal charisma to get one together.

But I think we could use one!

Flat Out

2012-01-04T13:51:00.000-05:00

I've grown tired of BS.

Now is the time for plain speech, and angry plain speech. The thing that finally touched it off was, of course, events and news in the Church. The strw that broke the camels back was the Archdiocese of Detroit trying to make Real Catholic TV stop using the word "catholic" in it's title. I'm fed up. Canon law enshrines the right of Catholics to criticize abuse, heresy, corruption and general skulduggery among the bishops. But the Archdioces, and Archbishop Vigneron seem to believe that forthright speech, factual talking points and adherence to Magisterial teaching is some sort of threat.

This leaves aside the point that Michael Voris doesn't own Real Catholic TV, and the fact that RCTV isn't based in the Archdiocese of Detroit. Vigneron hasn't got the Canonical Authority to proclaim this. He's trying to silence criticism of his tenure. There's a lot to criticize--the Archdiocese is downsizing, loosing more than 20% of it's parishes. the elephant in the room is the fact that the reason there are so few Catholics left in Detroit isn't thelocal economy--as bad as it is--but the fact that Catholics in Detroit contracept at the same rate as seculars; they are not having more children, and those children are not effectively taught the faith. The bishops of Detroit have failed intwo of their three main jobs. They haven't taught or sanctified their people. And to forstal the inevitable criticism in the comm box that i don't know that--I do know that. Objectively, one cannot habitually practice a mortal sin, which the church clearly teaches to be objectively sinful, and receive Holy Communion, and be sanctified. Instead, one is defiled and corrupted. And surey data clearly indicate that Catholics in Detroit, like Catholics elsewhere in the US, contracept at rates equal to the population at large.

Archbishop Vigneron hasn't singled out Catholics for Choice, and told them to stop using the word Catholic.

Also, the Archdiocese of Detroit is saying that Mr. Voris hasn't communicated with them, yet he has documented repeated attempts my his company, St. Michael Media, to communicate with the Chancery, which have been rebuffed. Somebody is lying, and I don't think it's Mr. Voris.

But I'm getting used to being lied to by American Bishops. Take #299 from the GIRM--it is taken to mandate versus populam, but it doesn't. It says that it is desireable for oltars not to be attached to the wall. The english version doesn't match--it has additions--the normative, Latin version, and this mis-match was carried through into the new Translation. Anglophone Bishops wnat power to assert themselves, and hate being subject to the Church, That's my opinion.

We're being lied to by others in our church as well. Our "Catholic" colleges make a practice of lying all the damned time. The presidents of Fordham and Fairfield universities promised the bishops their "More than a Monolog" events wouldn't be venues to promote dissent. As it worked out, Magisterial Teaching on morality was excluded from these events--making them just another heretical, immoral gay monolog. In fact, 107 supposedly Catholic colleges and universities have official groups to support and promote homosexual activity. So much for Ex Corde Ecclessia. In fact, Theology is the reason for a Catholic college or University, but 42% of those in the US don't even have a theology department or a chair of theology. Of those that do, 36% of their presidents "don't know" if their theology faculty has the mandatum required by the constitution for Catholic education mentioned above.

Canon law, and Vatican directives say that politicians who suport abortion or other manifest evils are not to be admitted to communion. Do you se that happening here? Nancy Pelosi hasn't been told no. Kathleen Sebelius hasn't been told no. Chris Gregoire has said she's going to sing por gay and pro abortion law--and she won't be told no communion either. In fact, the only action I am aware of on this matter was a bishop told his priest that if they didn't give communion to Sebelious he wouldn't interfere. He wouldn't interfere with what he's supposed to be doing? What cowardly crap.

In fact, so weak and cowardly are our bishops that they appointed Mary Memcarini Campbell as head of Catholic Home Missions and collection for the USCCB. Campbell has contributed hundreds of dollars to organizations affiliated with the pro abortion Emily's List. Way to go, cowardly and evil men, way to go.

So let's get this straight--Michael Voris speaks, in his capacity as a layman, in strict accordance with the Magisterial Teachings of the church, and is told not to call himself Catholic--while the bishops support someone who financially supports mass murder of innocent children. The magazine National Catholic Reporter names a disgraced theologian as it's person of the year, while decrying liturgical reform, and promoting dissent and immorality at every turn, and no Bishop says boo at it.

Bishop Paul Etienne has said that secularism is the Grizzly Bear of our day, it's destructive effects can be devastating. Well, Our Bishops, for the most part, are either conformed to the secular world, especially politically, or are too timid to speak out against those who pose as Catholics but are actually seculars subverting the faith. The Grizzly Bear in the Catholic room, as I see it, is the fact that speaking out publically, and with conviction, IAW the actuall teachings of our faith, will get you in trouble with the bishops sooner than promoting abortion and contraception while having gay sex in a public park. They say that the penalties there are automatic, and say no more--but they single out by name those who believe and speak in public.

With Chrysostom, I fear most of our bishops are going to burn in hell. It's time for a reform of the renewal, and since the Bishops won't, we should--starting with our ability, under canon law, to write to the Apostolic Nuncio and name priests we think should be bishops, and to communicate the weakness of sitting bishops, and priests who might be considered for the post. We owe this sort of involvement with our Church to our kids and grand kids--unless we want yet another generation to be subjected in religion class, as I was, to the need to accept gays and vote for the democratic party, and how abortion can be a good.

KNIGHT: Voter ID terrifies Democrats - Washington Times

2012-01-04T11:11:00.000-05:00

KNIGHT: Voter ID terrifies Democrats - Washington Times

That Poll and a Manifesto

2012-01-03T17:18:00.000-05:00

I put up a poll concerning the desirability of a manifesto from Faithful Catholics in the U.S., calling for a reform of the Church, in counterpoint to the dissident manifestos being published n various places.

92% of the people who responded said, yes, we need one.

I'm more than willing to put up such a thing on this blog, and even to send it to various publications with my name on it, as a letter to the editor. I will even write the Apostolic Nuncio, and the president and vice president of the USCCB. But I am not willing to be the only person who has input in it. I have an agenda, but it is my own; it mght not be shared by others in whole or in part.

So now I'm soliciting comments from each person, who is a Catholic and accepts the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as the Creed as a normative statement, what they would most like to see reformed.

I think that the Reform of the Renewal starts with the Reform of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Missal--Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi: The Law of Prayer, is the Law of Belief, is the Law of Lifestyle--and other reforms will extend from that. But there are other views, just a valid, and just as orthodox, and I want to hear them.

Finally, I will say this as well--if you are a dissenter, and suggest married Roman Rite priests (which, by the way, I have no problem with!), women priests, acceptance of homosexual activity, etc, I will not delete your comment--I will simply ignore it, just as I try to ignore you. I would also request, seriously, that people link to this post, so that i get as much feed back as possible. if I end up with two comments and a deleted, I won't exert myself further.

So please, make suggestions, and indicate if you might be willing to append your name to the resulting document (after you have read it!) for publication on this Blog,and in letters to publications and the aforementioned officials.

Thanks, and please, for the love of God (literally) speak up in the comm box.

New Years Angst

2012-01-02T13:22:00.000-05:00

Well it's the new year, and here's some things to worry about.

We have a Cheif Executive, a President, who as an adjunct professor of Law--the highest responsibility he held before becoming and elected official--wrote that we have to get passed constitutional limits on government power. That in is itself is frightening, considering that two things all governments have in common is the drive to accumulate more power and preserving themselves, (In a republic with a party system, they try to preserve the power of the ruling party.) but looking on what has transpired in the last three years it becomes depressing in it's fearfulness.

Where does one start? I'll start rather arbitrarily with a campaign promise--a promise to improve transparency and put our governments actions in the light of day. That has proven to be the emptiest promise Obama made to us. Yet under Obama, the Department of Justice proposed changing it's regulations concerning the Freedom of Information Act--an act designed and passed in the wake of the skulduggery of the Nixon Administration to help put a stop to Presidential and Cabinet level abuse of power--making it possible for them to withhold even more types of information, and for the first time to lie about whether such information even exists. They got caught and the regs were kiboshed before they went into effect, but the persons responsible for them are still in position, still with the mind set that what the people know about the doings of their own law enforcement agencies should be controlled by these same agencies, and that we should be lied to when it is convenient for these agencies. Currently, the FBI acknowledges that it has information on the "Carrier IQ Program" which is embedded inmost cell phones, smart phones etc. The information includes "manuals, documents" and "Written guidance on when and how to access" the information. This program records and send everything from your batter life, to the text of text messages, to what apps you down load and use. We have no idea what they are doing, or how they are using information that most of us would consider private.

At the same time, for the last ten years, our police have been becoming militarized to an alarming degree. In many locations, mine included they now send swat tams to serve selected search warrants. One of the local criterion for this practice is what the front door is made of on the house being served. If you have installed a security door, any warrant will be served by a fully armed, militarized swat team--and this goes wrong. Gust Google the number of unarmed or legally armed persons killed by swat teams in the last two years. it's sobering. Or look at the Atlanta (IRC) police responding to preventative policing of the Occupy movement with a 577 Command Post Carrier. It's alarming to anyone who is familiar with the debates among the founding Fathers concerning a standing army--militarized law enforcement is the death of traditional American Liberty. Well, we have constitutional protections against the military being used as a law enforcement arm, which have been subverted by militarizing the police.

Law enforcement in many ways is out of control under this Administration, yet in many other ways it is stymied, crippled by this Administration. Local and State agencies are finding themselves more and more bound by the sill of Federal enforcement and administration. We see things like local and state agencies being sued by the Department of Justice to stop them from enforcing immigration laws, or being sued by DOJ on trumped up charges of racial bias when they do, and threatened with prison time, on the other hand, when they refuse to enforce FDA regulations concerning milk, by adhering to constitutional limits on the power of search and seizure.

Speaking of trying to keep local and state agencies from enforcing immigration laws, or passing immigration laws under the Tenth Amendment, we now live in a nation whose Department of Justice says that we don't control our southern border. An assessment published by the DOJs National Drug Intelligence Center says that Mexican Drug Cartels do. Of course, what isn't mentioned in this assessment, being concerned with the drug traffic is the overlap in human trafficking and human smuggling by coyotes across the border with drug smuggling--it's a tangled web of overlapping and interdependent criminality. All we get from the Administration is words--no real action. [This is, in my opinion, simply because illegal immigrants are supporters of the Democratic Party, and in fact voted in large numbers in the 2008 election. (Anyone besides me remember the finding that about 10,000 illegals voted in Colorado--a state that elected a Democratic governor by a margin of 500- votes?) We have the spectacle of a mayor asking his governor--Democrat John DeStafano of New Haven Connecticut has asked Democrat Daniel P. Malloy, Governor of Connecticut-- to initiate legislative proceedings that would allow illegal immigrants to vote in city elections; a way, I think, of bolstering Democratic Party chances in a time when many are disenchanted with them. By the way, every effort to oppose voter ID laws and other measures to prevent illegal immigrants from engaging in unlawful voting, and to strengthen protections against election fraud, have been led by Democrats.] We have received words and window dressing, while our Federal Government under Obama is actively promoting illegal immigration--with hot lines for illegals facing deportation for criminality and similar programs. In fact, when Arizona wanted to use National Guard troops to help close it's border to the south, the Administration interfered. Now under the law the Governor of Arizona has the authority to deploy his or her National Guard to do so--all governors do-- what he or she hasn't got is the money to pay for it. There is however, provision in Federal Law to do this. At first, Obama refused, and when that became politically untenable, her relented, but he did so by placing so many restrictions on the funds, that the National Guard could not make any real impact on the border. To prevent effective control on the border, he spent Federal funds in a way calculated to be ineffective in order to give an appearance of doing something. I find this to be the opposite of transparent, I find it to be actively misleading--a lie we pay for with our taxes.

The Administration, with absolutely no intentions of transparency have made the border worse, in an attempt to abridge even further our 2d Amendment rights. [Speaking of these rights, Obama said, as a candidate, that Americans had the right to keep arms (he didn't mention bearing them) and that he wasn't going to pursue more gun control legislation or regulations. Instead, he had Secretary of State Clinton negotiate the US signing a UN treaty on small arms that would subvert our ownlaws concerning them. It took a majority of Senator writing a letter to both him and Sec. Clinton saying they would vote against ratification to put a stop to this attempt to "get beyond the constitutional limits on power".] Among many, many memos to surface in the investigation of the 'Fast and Furious" gun running scandal were those outlining plans to use the outcry over escalated gun violence on the border to push through more regulations and laws limiting gun rights--even though for the first time since the assassination of Bobby Kennedy most Americans feel that we need NOT to pass more gun laws--again real transparent. But there is more. E-mails and memos within DOJ indicate that the president was in on the planning of the "Gun Walker" operation as early as March 24 2009. When the official story was that he was not aware of it. The DOJ sent a misleading and false letter to congress. Records indicate that Gary Grindler, Deputy Attorney General was fully briefed in on the operation, to include the mane of the 'straw purchaser' used and the number and types of firearms purchased, and he met with Obama four times before the scandal broke, in 2010--Obama was insisting he knew nothing in March of 2011! It's also not lost on me that that the "Occupy Wall Street Movement" sprang into being at the same time Congressional Subpoenas were being served on Administration officials concerning this scandal, and that Obama's main political adviser is Patrick Gaspard is a member of the Working Family Party, which organized and financed the movement. Gaspard holds the same position that Rove did under Bush. The Obama administration, in abid to get support for laws the people don't want, armed the Drug Cartels who have practical control of our southern border. So very, very honest and transparent. Oh--one more thing--the Whistle Blowers on this fiasco, six months later, are dealing with adverse career consequences. That's called retaliation, and is illegal, to keep governmental misdeed from being covered up. So much for transparency.

Not only has Obama let an already porous border get worse, and even armed the very criminals who exercise practical control of it, he is still meeting with the leaders of ACORN--well the former leader of ACORN--who morphed themselves into other groups after declaring bankruptcy in the wake of their exposure for voter fraud. And not only is he still meeting with them, his DOJ is refusing--actively refusing--to enforce Section 8 of the National Voting Rights Act, which requires states to remove felons, dead people and non-residents from the rolls, leaving open a door for voter fraud.

Finally we have the National Defense Authorization Act, whoch contains provision for indefinite military detention for US Citizens on US soil, with out probable cause or Habeus Corpus. This despite clear constitutional prohibitions against such acts. Under the Constitution, suspension of Habeus Corpus can only occur in time of war--and there hasn't been a declared war since 1945--or in areas declared to be in a state of insurrection. Obama says he has "serious reservations" about this law yet he signed it. Supposedly the law has been "cleaned up" with language inserted that makes it functional only on Executive Order, taking the power out of the hands of the military. Of course, the president is the Commander in Chief of the Military, so the power still resides there. It is now the law of the land that the President can, on his own hook, order the round up of American Citizens. This has been done in the name of Counter Terrorism, but that gives me no comfort. After all, this is the Administration that circulated guidance saying the real terrorist threats in this country were returning Veterans, Pro-life Activists, Tax protestors, 2d Amendment Rights activists, People who go to gun shows, Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians, etc. What's really frightening about this law is that, right after Congress passed it, before the President signed it, FEMA issue a notice to bid on pre-planned camps. ( If you didn't already know this, FEMA is now part of homeland Security.) Now the idea of having preplanned camps for refugees from disaster and emergencies isn't scary, it's prudent, but the notice for bids were fairly detailed, saying that a camp should hold 301 (?) people within 24 hours and a thousand within 72 of activation of the contract, and long with such services as sanitation and laundry the request for bid specifies security fencing gates and other features we have never put on refugee camps, not even in such high crime disaster sights as Haiti. Couple this with the "coincidental" fact that in the last two years FEMA has sponsored disaster drill with various National Guard units that include "defending the camps" from mobs that wish to tear down the fences, one has to wonder. A refugee camp would me logically moved away from the disaster site, and would want people to come in. The people in the area outside the disaster would have no reason to want to tear down the fences, unless it was to let their friends and families out.

So put this all together, and you get a picture of a beleaguered regime, allowing elements from outside the nation that might support it in, while facilitating voter fraud, and planning fenced and guarded camps it has just enabled under a suspect law, after naming several groups who are likely to oppose it in the next election as possible terrorists. If one were in the trends and intentions section of an intelligence agency, one would conclude that the next election might not be what the people expect, and that these things added up to either a capability, or a plan, that was disturbing.

Welcome to the Fall of Our once Great Republic.

Becket!

2011-12-29T20:55:00.000-05:00

In the four days following Christmas, we celebrate three martyrs, and the Apostle who gave us the Book of the Apocalypse of St. John, (as well as the words apocalyptic, post-apocalypse, etc.) This has always interested me, and underscores part of Fathers homily on Christmas, that the Cross in implicit in the Creche.

Today we celebrate the life and death of St. Thomas Becket, martyr. Back in the 12th century, a King who felt the Church was his to parcel out, to tax and to dispose of cried "Who will rid me of this truculent cleric" and four royal knights took the hint and killed the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago should be asking this great martyr for his intercession. Because now it will not be the cry of a frustrated monarch that dispatches knights, rather, it will be the umbrage of bigoted deviants deprived of their chance at a drunken revel involving verbal harassment of Catholic families dispatching lawyers. Unless some unstable person attacks the good Cardinal, as has happened to His Holiness. In the past it was Royal Perogative that unleashed zealous men-at-arms upon prelates who stood up for the Church, this time it will lawyers sent by those who claim tolerance as their banner, to silence our Pastors. And attempt to silence them they will.

It won't just be deviants--of all stripes--moving on the bishops, it will murderers. The legalized child murder industry and it's oh-so-righteous cheerleaders are already managing to atack some of the bishops outreach, and they will go for the man as well.

And, just as in Becket's day there were kings men in the Church, there are the servants of murder and deviancy in the church. How else to explain the appointment of a donor to pro-abortion groups being appointed to responsible and high position in the USCCB lay professional clique? How else to explain the money the CCHD gives to group allied with pro abortion and pro gay activities? How else to explain things like Holy Redeemer Parish in San Francisco, or even the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville being listed as Gay Friendly by New Ways Ministry?

We need to ask St. Thomas Becket's intercession, for if our Bishops escape Red Martyrdom at the hands of the depraved, they shall surely experience some form of White Martyrdom at the hands of Lawyers. Unless there is a lot of prayer and penance for the preservation of the Church in these times of Apostasy and Growing Oppression.

Feast of the Holy Innocents

2011-12-28T12:52:00.000-05:00

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. It's a day when really, we should be asking for their intercession as they are Martyrs in heaven. This feast recounts the massacre of boys by Herod, and Joseph being warned of Herod's murderous intention in a dream, telling him to take Mary and Jesus and flee. It brings us once again against the uniqueness of the person of Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, incarnate, and it foreshadows the hostility that the religion of Jesus would always provoke from earthly powers that would brook no rivals.

In the centuries after, the death toll was stated in the thousands, and the hundreds of thousands, and there is debate about the historicity of the event. Interestingly, some historians have said that the dismissal of the event is less a matter of competent history, than opinion and anti religious bias. I think that it's important to remember that the 1910 edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia lists the death toll as falling within a range of six to two dozen, based on the population of Bethlehem and environs at the time. Considering the various murders and crimes of Herod the Great, this could easily have passed unnoticed given the times and the obscurity of the location and the victims.

In the last few decades in the U.S., this feast has become politicized, linked to the murder of the unborn by the abortion industry being legalized. I haven't got a problem with this, and my mnd has usually taken this tack when i think about this feast. But this year my thinking on the Feast of the Holy Innocents has gone elsewhere.

The Church is the Body of Christ, with Jesus Christ Himself it's head. When we are Baptized we become part of the Body of Christ, a manifestation of, and the presence of, Christ in the World. It is for this reason that when incense is used in the Mass, the people are incensed as well as the Gospel, the Gifts, the Ministers and the Altar. The incense, as well as symbolizing our prayers ascending to heaven and giving glory to God also marks or points out the ways in which Christ is present in the Liturgy of the Mass. This fact is key to what I've been thinking this year. For Herod was not trying to stamp out a religious sect by ordering the massacre of the Holy Innocents--he was trying to kill Jesus, to kill Christ.

And this happens still, in fact is accelerating. Christians are targeted for death in an attempt to destroy the Church, which is the Body of Christ. Trying to destroy the Church is in a very real way trying to destroy Christ.

Right now the Bombing of the Church of St. Theresa in Nigeria is an example. The death toll for this attack keeps rising, I've seen reports with the current toll as high as 100. The bombing was meant to kill Catholic Christians, to intimidate them into acquiescing to the imposition of Muslim rule in Nigeria--a nation that is roughly half Christian, half Muslim with a few animists still around. Despite what Muslims often say to Christians, they really don't like the person of Jesus Christ, postulating instead "Issa" a prophet who was in no way the son of God--finding the very concept to be "blasphemous". But less well knownis the extent of Muslim attacks on Christians in Nigeria. There was not one church bombed this Christmas, but three. They used Christmas bombings last year as well, and have sponsored attacks on Christians in the hinterlands too.

In Nigeria's Delta State, Nuns going to provide charity and spiritual support in a deprived village were raped at gun point Christmas eve, and robbed of the items meant for Charity. The delta has been something of a stronghold for Boko Haram, as the local jihadist/sharia group is known. (The name Boko Haram means "Western Education is Sacrilege" ) Interestingly enough, though Boko Haram obviously--even their name proclaims it--wishes to destroy the Church--the main provider of western education--it didn't get much help from Al-queda or other Islamic organizations until Nigeria became an important and growing source of oil--something that the Middle Eastern Islamics need to keep within their grasp, for it's the basis not only of their economy but their political power. So here we have another Massacre of Innocents, an attack on the Body of Christ, by worldly powers who will have no rival--not even the Son of God.

In Gaza, under both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, Christian Arabs are suffering horrible persecution, including intimidation, beatings, kidnapping, forced marriage, rape, extortion, human trafficking and employment discrimination, because they do not fit the narrative of Muslims deprived of their birthright by Jews. This is troubling because there are actually more Christian Arabs in the world than Jews--and they are disappearing from their homelands, which are also the homelands, the cradle lands, of Christianity. In Iraq, Midnight Masses nationwide were cancelled this Christmas, because the country which President Obama declared 'stable and self reliant" is too prone to killing it's Christians for it to be safe. Both the Chaldean (Catholic) Christians and the Assyrian (Orthodox) Christians are targeted. Their Patriarchs feel that it is only a matter of time before there are no Christians left in Iraq--they will have fled, converted for safety's sake or been killed. Globally, nine out of every ten people facing religious persecution are Christian. The UK Government is finally taking notice of this fact--oddly. I say oddly because government regulations have penalized people for wearing a cross at work, or having a bible at their desk--not just people in government jobs, but nurses and accountants.

In the United States, the Chairman of the U.S. Religious Freedom Commission has said that Christianity may be eradicated from Iraq and Afghanistan. The President has responded to this by eliminating the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom. It's not just Islamics who are wishing to destroy the Body of Christ on earth, but secularists desire this as well, or at least its' castration. The Church--using the word in it's broadest possible sense to include all those Baptized into the Body of Christ--can articulate moral realities that oppose the unbridled power of the state, and the relativism and amoral pragmatism of government. It's currently the fashion of our selfstyled "intellectual elite" to poo-poo the idea that Christianity is under attack by the courts, various government agencies and the secular media, but the sheer number of actions against religious practices that occur outside of Churches, specifically or culturally Christian symbols and Christian schools and institutions gives this the lie.

So on this Feast of the Holy Innocents, perhaps it's prudent to ask their intercession for our protection fro persecution world wide, and for a divine intervention to change hearts among those who hate us, so they will extend to us the same tolerance they so vocally call for for non-christian groups and beliefs. Who knows, with divine protection,perhaps we can even vote an end to abortion, since over 60% of Americans disapprove of abortion on demand. perhaps that's one of the things the Seculars are afraid of.

Weird Search Terms

2011-12-28T11:16:00.000-05:00

Well, I stood away from blogging for a while, so today I looked at how people had been finding this blog. The two weirdest search terms to bring people here were "Bondage and Discipline" and "ignorant redneck christians" (sic). I hope the person looking for ignorant redneck Christians was gratified to be here.

Just a Quick Note on Liturgy

2011-12-27T14:23:00.000-05:00

So complaints are starting to come in about priests returning to the practice of ad libbing parts of the Mass, or simply using the old translation when they don't like the new one.

The usual advice is to write the priest a letter, and send a copy to the Diocesan Chancery, and the Apostolic Nuncio. I am here going to offer different advice. After Mass--directly after, when Fr. Flannelboy is shaking hands with everyone, go up to him, (if you have a couple of like minded friends, have them with you, in the back ground to make sounds of agreement) and ask him:

Father, if we can't trust you to read words out of a book, (or vest properly if he isn't vested properly) how can we trust you to pass on the faith we have received from the Apostles, or manage the money we work so hard to give to the Church properly, or even be around our kids without corrupting them?

Then quote Matt 25:20-22 at him. Do it in front of others, publicly. Some will say this is divisive. That's not true, what is divisive is the Liturgical Abuse. Some will say that you shouldn't do this in public. That's not true either--he did it in public, it's not a secret that he did it. Calling him on it in public might just shame him into doing the right thing next time.

Don't facilitate the Clericalism of liturgical abuse by silence.

Just out of curiosity...

2011-12-27T09:39:00.000-05:00

..does anyone think Nancy "The Theologian" Pelosi's quiet and unheralded trip to Hawaii is just a coincidence? Or are people thinking what I'm thinking--it's a secretive chance to plot strategy with the Obama outside the eyes of the public, press and their own party?

Well, I'm back from my Bloging Break

2011-12-27T09:31:00.000-05:00

I didn't blog very much during Advent, because I wanted to keep my energies on the season. I hope your Advent was filled with blessings and you Christmas Holiday a joyful one.

I wanted to take a break from being so involved in thinking about and being engaged with current events. It's a shame, but sometimes I get too involved in these things to keep my mind on my main task, which is to get to Heaven. This has been escalating this last year, and I have to be honest about it.

I have never had less trust in, or hope for, our Republic than I do now. I believe tht our enumerated rights will evaporate in the next two to three years, and I think this will happen no matter who is elected president, or what party controls congress. We Americans have lost the ideal of a republican form of government, in which the government is a public affair with everyone having input, and degenerated into a bitter factionalism that makes such a form of government nearly impossible. I am afraid we will see the rise of a party dictatorship that subordinates the good of the Republic as a whole to the interests of one constituency. And, I fear that whichever party achieves that, Christians in general, and Catholics in particular will feel the lash. Honestly, I see the Republican Party as being as likely to do this as the Democrats--they make lots of the right mouth noises, but their actions don't bear them out.

Right now I have 64 bookmarks of news stories that show the decline in religious and civil liberties and defections from the practice of the faith--and I have not been marking many of the ones I read and find. I think that between now and Lent, I'll be writing a lot about these things and what is occurring in America that makes me afraid for children and grandchildren.

Just a hint--there is a sheriff in Indiana who takes exception for the FDAs operations against Amish farmers, and has said that he will not cooperate, and that if federal agents show up at an Amish farm without a search warrant he will arrest them for trespass. He has been threatened with three years imprisonment. At the same time, law enforcement agencies trying to enforce federal laws concerning illegal immigration are being sued by the Federal Government. We have reached a point where we are under rule by decree--much as the Wiemar Republic reached that point two chancellors ahead of that Guy who when we name him we lose the argument.

Our rights are dead--it only remains for the people in charge to decide they can rub our nose in it.

A Lovely Mass

2011-12-18T12:22:00.001-05:00

For the fourth Sunday of Advent we had a lovely Mass. The Introit was from the Liber Usualis, followed by the Hymn "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus", most of the Liturgy was sung, as father learns the new chants fro the Propers and Ordinary, we're moving towards a sung Liturgy. The Responsorial Psalm was was in Meinrad Tones, with the Response using Noelchabanel B, advent 04. Lovely, and singable by the congregation. We had a sung Gospel Acclamation--Mass for St.Francis in D--which I am not really afan of, but there are worse, I would prefer plainchant for the Alleluia. At the preparation of the Altar and Offertory we had a motet--"Alma Redemtoris Mater" in a setting by Palestrina. For the Communion we had "Ye who clam the Faith of Jesus" and then the Magnificat. That was particularly lovely, because it was sung by the choir, with the men and women alternating voices, and the choir and people together singing the Antiphon "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord". The translation used for the text was very good, and compatable with the Liturgy. It was set up in two line stanzas, and sung using the Gelineau Tones, so it was chant, not metrical.

Father's Homily was excellent too. One can get a lot from today's reading--the Fulfillment of the David Kingship in the person of Jesus, Mary's Fiat and Mary as the new Eve, the Incarnation (which comes more readily to mind now that we pray "incarnate of the Virgin Mary...") but father preached on none of these. Instead, he took his starting point in Nathan's message from God to David: "Who are you to build a house for me?" We do not really have things to give to God. Rather, all our acts of Charity, Sacrifice and Virtue are prospered by God--the one who ordered the Universe doesn't need us, we need him, and all we accomplish is actually accomplished by God. Something I needed to hear.

All in all a lovely mass.

Great Marian Feasts!

2011-12-12T13:04:00.002-05:00

So, on the 8th we had the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Holy Day of Obligation in the US, as she is our National Patroness. Today, we have the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which oddly enough gets rather more attention these days than the Immaculate conception.

The disparity of attention between these two stems, I think, from several sources. The first is that the Immaculate conception is a rather intellectual Feast, grounded in some difficult theology, without an emotional hook. The second is that Our Lady of Guadalupe has a wonderful back story, a Marian Apparition, the incredible Icon which She herself has given us, and it's key role in converting the Indians of Mexico and Meso-America. The third is rooted, in my mind, in the politics of the 1960s. There was a real push on, which we still experience today, to erase the idea of American Exceptionalism, and to denigrate and downplay American Patriotism. Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Patroness of the Americas--north and south--and I have had people tell me that we should move to repress the Feast of the Immaculate Conception because Guadalupe is for everyone. Politics so often seems to intrude into our devotional life, that I have come to despise such utterances. But that's my response, I will not say that in this matter I am correct, I will only say that Patriotism is a virtue and a duty, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

That being said, these two Feasts are important to me. One of the books that I read when I was finding my way into Catholicism for the first time was The Song of Bernadette. I was very affected by the healings at Lourdes, being at the time quite sickly. I was also quite affected by the phrase "I am the Immaculate Conception". It has stayed with me. When I was a catechumen, I was exposed to the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It affected me as well. The out of season roses, and the Icon Our Lady furnished us was amazing. (I have always found the multiple media used in this icon, and their essential incompatibility, to be so convincing! Not to mention the way in which this Icon violated the conventions of Western Iconography, yet spoke profoundly to the Nahuatl mind.)

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe also helped me in my return to the Church. Her standing on the moon was clear and personal message, I felt, showing the essential deception of the "Triple Goddess" of Wicca, and the foolishness of worshiping a creature, or creation, rather than the Creator.

These two Feasts mean a lot to me. With the Immaculate Conception, my understanding of it anyway, I am drawn into the realms of Christian Anthropology and Ontology. It goes back to the very basic lessons of old school catechesis. Why were we created? To be happy. Of what does our happiness consist? It consists of knowing God, Loving God and Serving God in this world and the next. God created us out of his ineffable goodness and love, and gave us the gifts of Grace, Great Knowledge, Control of Our Passions by Reason, and Freedom from Sickness and Death. Satan, through the temptation of Eve, brought into the world, against the plan of God, Original Sin, Ignorance, Inclination to Sin, and Suffering and Death. This was possible because God gave us Free Will. But in the Immaculate Conception, God preserved Mary from Original Sin, through the anticipated merits of Jesus Christ, so she had these original gifts, and at the Annunciation, she had the opportunity to declare her own non serviam. She didn't--of her own free will she declared "Let it be done to my according to thy word". In the beginning of my learning the Faith, I was taught that this preservation from Original Sin was so that Mary could be a "House of Gold", a fitting Tabernacle for Our Lord. With time and reflection, I see it as even more. Mary, through her preservation from Original Sin, was enabled to be something else as well: She was enabled to become the embodiment of the Promises of Christ. Her Immaculate Conception is implicit in her Assumption--She was assumed bodily into Heaven. In the East this is called the Dormition--a great sleep overcame her when her time here was finished, and she was assumed bodily into heaven. She did not undergo death and decay.

Just as Mary and the Church are mystically identified, so too are Mary and the individual linked. Just as Christ was her child, we have been given to her as her Children, and she to us as Our Mother. Mother Church, Mother Mary. Her example of how to be a Christian, and her embodiment of the ideal and reality of being filled with grace and obedient to the Lord are dependent on the merits of Christ, which are the same merits that free us from sin and lead us to everlasting life.

Mary's motherhood is so explicit in the Image of Guadalupe! She is depicted pregnant. There is no mistaking the Motherhood she offers to exercise for us, as commissioned by her Son. More than her being pregnant, she wears both the iconographic insignia of motherhood in the Nahuatl culture, but the royal insignia as well. In this image, created as all good iconographic images to teach those who cannot read or write, or who have trouble understanding concepts that are alien, she shows forth her motherly care for all of God's children. This at a time when the ethnocentrism of missionaries was an obstacle to evangelization of native peoples almost as profound as their ruthless exploitation by the secular powers, anxious for wealth and power. Yet she also wore the symbols of royalty. She was revealed at once to Juan Diego as Mother and Queen, and her Queenship is dependent upon her Motherhood--as with the Queens of Ancient Israel, her Queenship is dependent not on who she married, but on whom she gave birth to. Her image preached, more effectively than the words of missionaries, the Kingship of Her Divine Son. More than that, it showed to a simple peasant that he too, was an inheritor of the Royal priesthood in which all Christians share. Our Lady of Guadalupe showed forth to a conquered and oppressed people that they too held the essential dignity of humankind--made in the image and likeness of God, with an immortal soul, despite how the conquerors treated them.

In many ways, Our lady of Guadalupe reiterates the Promises embodied by the Immaculate Conception, and stretches them beyond the limits of ethnicity and culture rooted in the Roman Empire, showing them forth to the whole world, and to all Peoples.

Laudate Dominum!

Odd Search Terms

2011-12-12T11:39:00.000-05:00

The two oddest search terms that lead people to this blog for the last week ar "Redneck Pope" and "Nubiles". I kind of hope who ever got here on the search term "nubiles" was looking for dirty pictures, and got a sharp smack to the reality zone.

DON'T FORGET!!!!!

2011-12-09T17:35:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is National Taze a Dipstick Day--do your part!

"Happy Holidays" My !

2011-12-07T12:24:00.000-05:00

This post is occasioned by three remonstrations against "Merry Christmas" by progressive tools in the last 36 hours--one of them from someone who brags on their membership in a Christian Denomination, yet will not stand for the uniqueness of Christianity--and being told that saying "Merry Christmas" is racist against Islam. Stuff That!

I hadn't been very interested in the "Happy Holidays" vs "Merry Christmas" thing until this week. Now I'm interested, entirely because of the actions and rudeness of progressives. Entirely because of their rudeness.

Look, I don't really care if you, personally, celebrate Christmas or not--it's not any of my business. But I'll tell everybody straight up--I celebrate Christmas! It's a significant Solemnity for me--the third highest liturgical Feast in the Church. It's where we celebrate, and confront on an intellectual and emotional level, the unique event where the Second person of the Trinity was born, in human flesh, taking our nature to his. It's the celebration of an act of love so profound that it doesn't lend itself to intellectual understanding. That God would take on human nature, to reconcile all things to himself. That God would enter into our lives as one of us, to show us how to live, and to redeem us from the effects of our own choices.

I don't give a pickled rat about Saturnalia--it's an excuse for debauchery, drunkenness and license. I wouldn't trade you a bucket of luke warm slime for Winter Solstice--it's an exercise in idolatry, worship creation rather than the creator. I think celebrating Kwanza, an invented holiday whose supposedly African origin is fraudulent, perpetrated by a convicted felon and conman who was too racist to celebrate a holiday with white people is stupid. In fact, the only other Holiday at this time of year I have any respect or sympathy for is Hanukkah, which celebrates events recounted in Scripture (the books of the Maccabees) tht highlight the special relationship between Israel and the Lord. (And to all my Jewish friends, a Happy and Joyous Hanukkah!)

Trying to get us all to say "happy holidays" is simply away to try and edit Christianity and Judaism out of the mainstream. The wearisome tendency to list historical data as a way to discredit our Religious Festival is pathetic--every culture has historical antecedents, and areas of synthesis. Trying to use this fact to dissolve part of our culture constitutes bigotry and violence. We are told to wish everybody a happy holiday--sorry, no can do. I don't wish anyone an unhappy day, ever, but this is a way to make me give at least a verbal blessing to Holidays that are inimical to our salvation, and that are inimical to our Culture.

Here's the Deal progressive minions--I don't give a rat's ass about whether you have happy holidays. I wish you a very Merry Christmas, and if you are Jewish a heartfelt Happy Hanukkah. Otherwise, turn aside from your idolatry and debauchery. You don't "write" our culture--we live it! If you don't like it, move somewhere else. Your push for "inclusivity" always has this effect: the marginalization of Christians--which most of us are, at least nominally--and Jews, who are the well spring of salvation, containing the Root of Jesse. This is simply Orwellian newspeak--an attempt to interfere with our beliefs by controlling our language, and an attempt to silence us in the public forum. It's an attempt by you--a minority of people, who have the arrogance to think the rest of us are superstitious bigots, and that you are the only one intelligent and just enough to have a say in our culture. (This of course, doesn't address the "useful idiots" who haven't' thought, but just do what they believe is the trending thing.) You don't want to say "Merry Christmas"? Then don't. But don't tell meI shouldn't, you crypto-fascist religious bigots, I'll exercise free speech and freedom of religion, thank you very much.

What the heck is wrong with progressives?

2011-12-06T15:30:00.000-05:00

The US ambassador to Belgium blames Israel for anti-antisemitism. Librals will decry anything that makes it look like there are enemies of the West. They will support any nonsense inthe name of inclusion--except including conservative speech. Anything they can't argue against makes them cry racism, sexism or homophobia.

I am almost out of patience, and am wondering if my policy of not ending friendships over politics is even viable, seeing as how so many of my progressive "friends " now treat me with contempt, or call any source I may cite "biased", "false", "propaganda" or "lies".

Crap, what a world, where people you have know for years--decades--will attack you because you have a different political take.

No More John Ringo!

2011-12-06T11:00:00.001-05:00

Novels by John Ringo have been one of my Guilty Pleasures. Ringo was an NCO in the 82d, and his humor cracks me up--I get all the in jokes and situational humor. But now he is permanently off my reading list.

I was reading his novel Ghost, (Baen Books, 3d printing 2009, New York) and was disgusted. About half way through it turned into porn. Bondage and Discipline porn. This wasn't a case of a scene that got out of hand, it was a case of lovingly detailed descriptions of incidents that had nothing to contribute to the plot or the development f the character. It was explicit beyond any need, to include where the KY went and the bodily fluids. I was not pleased.

Teens read science fiction and fantasy, and they read John Ringo--and there was nothing---nothing--to warn the potential reader, or their parents or guardians, about the explicit sexual content. Nor was their any warning of it's perverse nature. And it was perverse, to include characters considering kinky sex scenes with each others parents, and their own. Sick.

There are people who are going to say it's just a story--but these same people do not like certain novels because of their political viewpoint. They will also try to say that this is a reflection of the reality of modern life and mores--it's not, it's a novel that is essentially alternate reality and fantasy, set in a time like our own; it's about as realistic as Saturday Cartoons. The people who defend this will be defending it because they like perverted porn, and hope that youth will read it, so their will be nubiles available for kinky sex. That's all.

Not only am I done with John Ringo, I may well have to reconsider purchasing anything from Baen Books--this isn't something we should let pass as just another form of entertainment that has become sexualized. This is porn getting into the hands of youth that advocates perverted sex between teens and elders, with hints of incest. This is wrong.

POLLING NOW!!

2011-12-05T20:05:00.001-05:00

Vote in the Poll--it's real this time.

The Tyranny of the Consensus Narrative.

2011-12-05T20:01:00.002-05:00

I remember English classes, and Sociology classes, in fact lots and lots of classes where we were told all about "the narrative"--a cultural or social consensus that gave meaning to things. Back in the day, we were told to challenge 'the narrative" as a tool that allowed for partial truth or an interpretation that was advantageous to power.

At the time, I thought it was a load of codswallop. Now I see it isn't, because I can see what the consensus narrative is doing to America. Not necessarily the consensus of our culture, but the consensus of our communications elite. The Elite of the media tell us what's happening, except they do not tell us anything approaching the whole truth, and at times they are omitting the truth all together.

We saw hours of coverage of the Occupy movement, to include the "iconic" footage of students being pepper sprayed. But we didn't see the crime, squalor, drug use, rape and maltreatment of the homeless that went with it. We saw the pepper spray, but they didn't show us the event's before hand, the repeated attempts to get the protestors to obey the law without recourse to force, the explanation that they were engaged in criminal trespass, and their refusal to comply with the lawful directions of a police officer. We were told they were sprayed fro protesting, the reality is they were sprayed for criminal trespass and the blatant refusal to obey the lawful instructions of the police.

That's one item. I could fill pages and pages with this stuff.

But the tyranny of the consensus is crumbling under the weight of one thing--the Internet. The internet allows anyone to post, to express and to expose. That's why the Media Elites disparage it. and that's why governments fear it. Our Government fears it. That's why there have been, since the 2008 election, around a half dozen attempts to regulate or censor it, to compel certain kinds of speech and what have you.

Remember the outrage when the Chinese Government censored the various search engines? Well, why are we giving the Government a pass on that? Are we really buying the narrative that it's to ensure "fair access"?

Most of what we see on the evening news is partial, or fabricated. It's picked and twisted to fit a predetermined political narrative--one that is hostile to most of the things readers of this blog hold true--and to exclude or discredit any others.

Beware the narrative!

Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not | Truthout

2011-12-04T19:07:00.000-05:00

Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not | Truthout

READ THIS--THIS IS WHAT FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE LOOK LIKE TODAY!

Boy Assault Is a Crime, Not a Sexual Debut

2011-11-28T13:27:00.001-05:00

Boy Assault Is a Crime, Not a Sexual Debut

Ugly Facts, Ugly Statistics, Ugly Reality. All of which must be confronted.

Tales From the Redneck Resistance.

2011-11-28T11:30:00.003-05:00

And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Never the less, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Luke, 18:7-8, RSV 2d Catholic Ed.--emphasis mine).

Well, will He? Seriously, I look at our society, and western culture and shudder. I especially look at it's hostility to religion and shudder. It's easy for us Catholics and other Christians to yelp and whine about a hostile political climate, but we're not really alone. The Secularization of the State has no room for competition from religion. The seeming preference for "minority religions" is a false perception. Even among devotees of various oriental sects,and those who push to tolerate and understand Islam, there is little real devotion, but an indifferentism born of a philosophical rejection of the idea of absolute truth, or absolute knowledge. The apostasy of the West did not begin with a rejection of God--it began with a rejection of the ability of Man to know and discern truth. I remember Philosophy class, and the gist of it being, aside from the survey of the various branches of philosophy, being that we actually couldn't know anything. (It was interesting to shell out big bucks for a class, taught by a specialist, that went to great lengths to teach us that--according to his specialty-- we couldn't know anything. And this in a titular Christian school.) Once one rejects the idea that there is truth, then one is left with the position that one makes ones' own way and finds ones' own version of "truth", that only applies to an individual and that can change according to need, circumstance or whim. Intellectually, at this point faith ceases to be an act of will--the decision that something is true and the decision to act on that truth in all aspects of life-and at best a comforting delusion, at worst it is perceived as a delusion or something to be used as a political tool.

One of the great things about us rednecks is this: Even when we obtain an education, we look with a jaundiced eye upon those who merely bandy words to make truth seem to be whatever they want at the time, instead of using them to describe the world as it is. This is called "Common Sense". It is common sense that forms the heart of our ability to resist the godless (quite literally) trends of our society, should we choose to do so. I will go out on a limb here and say that most of the people who read this will not consider themselves to be rednecks, but that they do embrace faith, and with our entry into faith at baptism comes the gifts of the holy spirit, one of which is Wisdom. Wisdom and Common Sense are not the same, but as a practical matter, there seems to be considerable overlap! And common sense and wisdom are the spine of our resistance.

Resistance has no purpose if there isn't a defined end point. For Christians, history is linear. It has a defined start--creation--and a defined end point--the events described in the Apocalypse of St. John. It is of this end point that Our Lord was speaking when he wondered if He would find faith on earth at his return. Futile resistance if of no use. The story of Chief Joseph my bring tears to the eyes of hard men who love liberty, and tales of the Forest Brethren may kindle the hearts of the romantically inclined, but in the end both were exercises in futility. But our resistance is not futile--we have Our Lords promise of this. He will return and his return will be fearsome. ...when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the glory of his might...(2 Thessalonians, 1:7-9, RSV 2d Catholic ed.) Our resistance is more in line with the resistance movements of WWII--preserving what we can, preventing what we can, until we are liberated by triumphant armies of the Lord, Dominus Deus Saboath! The Lord, mighty in Battle. So then, we resist with an eye towards vindication, even in the midst of suffering and oppression, by the Lord God of Hosts.

So, are we to take up the sword? Certainly not a sword of steel, or any earthly weapon. Such a resistance would be doomed to fail. Rather, we should resist with the Sword of the Spirit, with the two edged sword that is the Word of God. And with this two edged sword, we shall cut ourselves, for without pain, there is no training. There is no training without standards as well, and we have standards, given to us by Our Lord. The first standard is this: If you love me, you will keep my commandments (John 14:15, RSV 2d Catholic Ed). The second standard is found in Matt 5:48 You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (RSV 2d Catholic Ed). The training method is also outlined. it's given in detail as well, but the outline is clearly the place to start: And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself". (Matt 22: 37-39).

It is upon these that we shall cut ourselves as we fumble with our two edged sword. It is upon these that we shall fail to meet the standard. No soldier, whether Regular, Guerrilla or resistance fighter trains himself. Who is to be our trainer? Who will teach us to fight, For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness... (Eph 6:12, RSV 2d Catholic Ed.)? We have a trainer: Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle. Ps 144:1 RSV 2d Catholic Ed)

Our resistance is a spiritual battle, that will occur first and always within ourselves, as we contest with the zeitgeist, with worldliness, with our own sins and sinful nature. Earthly weapons will not help us, so we must put down the cobble stones of confrontation, the guns, the bombs and the bayonets of rhetoric, and pick up the shield of faith,..the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph 6:16-17). Remembering always that In the beginning was the Word, and Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made. In him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines forth in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. (Jn 1: 1-5, RSV 2d Catholic Ed).

As we begin this Advent season, looking and longing for the Second coming of the Lord, we must look around us and resist the present darkness, so that indeed, the Son of Man shall find faith at his coming. I have cut myself to ribbons on scripture writing this, I have so far to go! But even as I long for the Return of Christ, I shudder at being one of those who do not obey the gospel--I have yet to allow the lord to train my hands! But I shall not change my beliefs to accommodate my weakness, not shall I give up, for I know that the Day is coming, even if I do not know the day or the hour, and I would rather stand as a failure, having tried, than stand as one who never tried. Blessed be the Name of the Lord. Maranatha!

Search Word of the Week

2011-11-28T09:14:00.001-05:00

I wasn't able to get this up in a timely manner last Saturday, but the weirdest search term that brough anyone here in the last week has been "pacifist like guns". I think it's weird because never have I stood up as a pacifist--in fact, I'm rather anti-pacifism. I've also never thought of this as a gun blog.

Maybe Google knows my blog better than me.

Also, in the last week I have had more readers from Russia than Canada. Maybe I should buy a Canadian Gun?

Unimportant

2011-11-27T23:12:00.000-05:00

I am unimportant, and irrelevant in the big scheme of things. Sometimes this bothers me. To the extent it bothers me, I am unchristian.

I have a long way to go.

Unspeakable

2011-11-27T23:10:00.002-05:00

*sigh*....If only coaches could marry...

New Poll

2011-11-25T21:52:00.001-05:00

You know the drill.

THANKSGIVING DAY!

2011-11-24T11:35:00.001-05:00

Well, the poll for who intended to attend Thanksgiving Day Services--Mass or other services, or other denominations, presumably--give a 60-40 split, with 60% intending to go to Church and 40% not intending to do so. That's not too bad, really, since Thanksgiving Day isn't a Holy Day of Obligation, and in many parishes--to include mine, far less than 60% of the people will attend Mass on Thanksgiving Day.

The majority of us will be having Thanksgiving Dinner with family and friends. Some of us, the poorest, will be having Thanksgiving Dinner in soup kitchens and shelters, it is my earnest hope that these services have been able to get a good Feast together for these people--they deserve it, and even if it's just a token, at least they will know that somebody cares enough to feed them on this Holiday. The rest of us will be surrounded by family and friends, and with any luck and grace at all enmity and friction will kept at a minimum in the interest of a common meal which by its' nature and title will lead to a little reflection on what we have received in the last year, and a sense of our blessings, even in a year of hardship and uncertainty. Our family has its' share of drama, difficulty and uncertainty this year, yet we are showered with blessings.

I personally have much to be grateful for this year, so many Blessings that I doubt I can count them all. I am first and foremost grateful for--always--the Mercy of God that allows me to have the love and company of my family, and the ineffable privilege of attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and receiving My Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. This year I have been graced and blessed with a Grandson, Aaron Able Isaiah Ransdell. My Oldest Granddaughter is doing quite well in school, and is a lovely and loving child. My four year old granddaughters are my playmates and delight--who wear me out with play. The queen of the house graces me with her love and loveliness of person and form, and my daughters likewise, so I am surrounded with the love of women, in a way of which I can be proud, and not cringe before St. Peter at the pearly gates when my time comes.

Materially, I have been fed all year, and my health is actually very good. Middle age has it way with us, and I am fortunate that the minor failings of time are easily treated, with meds for my arthritis working fairly well, and the Thyroid pills working like a charm--I feel very, very good. Even the visual disturbance I experienced this year has been traced to a variety of migraine that is easily treated with OTC meds. On an even more material level, this yer I have coat that is useful over a wide variety of conditions, wind and waterproof and warm. I have the blessing of toys even, having been able to obtain man toys that are suitable to my age and activities.

God has been very, very generous to me this year, and I have so much to be thankful for. I hope to thank him not only today, but everyday, and to thank him in the coming year in the way he likes best--by keeping his commandments and helping others less fortunate than myself in his name and out of love of him and charity towards all.

Compare

2011-11-24T11:04:00.000-05:00

Prayer over the Gifts, First Sunday in Advent, Old Translation:

Father,
From all you give us
we present this bread and wine.
As we serve you now,
accept our ofering
and sustain us with your promise of eternal life.

Prayer over the Gifts, First Sunday in Advent, New Translation:

Accept, we pray, O Lord
these offerings we make
gathered from among your gifts to us,
and may what you grant us to celebrate devoutly here below
gain for us the prize of eternal redemption.

Liturgy and Language

2011-11-21T10:52:00.000-05:00

After this post, I'll probably shut up about it.

This is the last week in Ordinary Time (an unfortunate designation,which is widely misunderstood and which is usually unexplained--it's not ordinary in the sense of banal, but in the sense of following an order, progression or procession of days.) The Collect for this week's daily masses reads:

Lord,
Increase our eagerness to do your will
and help us to know the saving power of your love.

OK, we've heard that, and I'll wager most of us didn't think about it, we just listened to the prayer and accepted that was what the Church was praying. But get a gander at the new, more accurate translation of the collect:

Stir up the will of your faithful, we pray, O Lord,
that striving more eagerly
to bring your divine work to fruitful completion
they may receive in greater measure
the healing remedies your kindness bestows.

The Latin text reads:

Excita, quasumus, Domine
tuorum fidelium voluntates,
ut divini operis, fructum propensius,exsequentes;
pietatis tuae remedia maiora percipiant.

Now my Latin isn't up to a translation--but I can see the difference in the text of the Missae Typica and the old ICEL translation. I'm not sure that "excita" means stir, but it has been for centuries termed that in the English speaking world in the context of this prayer. But that's not the big thing I see here. What I see is something else entirely.

There was a trend among "traddy" Catholics to be vocal about dissatisfaction with the Liturgies we were forced to participate in. Many felt that they were so poorly celebrated, and so irreverent that they amounted to being denied the chance for actual participation in the Mystery of the Holy* Sacrifice of the Mass. People felt they were starving, in a spiritual sense because of this. You could even buy a T-shirt that read "I'm not being fed!" to wear in protest. But this sort of Liturgical neglect is deeper than ignoring the rubrics, or even using every possible out and dodge to break up the flow of the Mass with "music ministers" announcing to the congregation things they already know--it's embedded in the language of the old ICEL translation. Look at the Collect.

The old ICEL text is entirely passive. There is no room in it for "full conscious and active--or actual" participation in the mystery of salvation. It renders the faithful entirely passive, in as much as the will of the faithful is entirely disregarded. This isn't just an issue of linguistics, but of theology. Faith is an act of will. Faith is the assent of the will to truth--one becomes faithful when one decides that the Gospel in it's broadest sense is true. One will not reach this point without grace, but one must respond to grace with an act of will.

Knowing the saving power of the Lord's love can be very passive, in which one accepts that God loves us, but does not respond--the type of thinking that is enabled by the approach of Sola Fide, which isn't in scripture. Paul, after all, says that we are to work out our salvation in fear and trembling, and in another place points out that he completes what is lacking in Christs work in his own body. What is lacking is the response on the part of the individual believer. Christ bridges the gulf between God and Man, he enables the salvation of the Soul--but the believer must respond to grace, with works, or he is turning his back on Grace.

Each of us brings his or her own experience to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This is part of the human condition. The phrase "...saving power of your love...", while innocuous in itself is amorphous, and doesn't address our condition. We are all the Walking Wounded, scarred with defects and injuries, each of us infected with spiritual malaise of various sorts and degrees. We need medicine--remedies for our various injuries. The new translation, by being truer to the Latin of the Missae Typica, points out that we are indeed able to avail ourselves of remedies from the Divine Physician, yet points out that we must strive for spiritual health. Just as a person with a serious injury will not make a full recovery if they do not apply themselves to their physical therapy, we will not recover our spiritual health if we do not strive to fulfill Jesus' injunction to be holy, as our Father in heaven is holy. (I'm not going to go into what it means to be holy, but if you went to Mass Sunday, the Gospel, Mt 25: 31-46 should give you some idea, as well as scare the crap out of you!)

The old translation inhibits, in many ways the full active conscious and actual work of the liturgy, making it much less likely that we will, through the Sanctifying Grace of Holy communion and the participation in the Word--both a formally proclaimed and alluded to in word, imagery and exegesis by the liturgy--undergo our own transformation into the Saints we are all called to be. A phrase like "...saving power of your love..." lends itself to thinking , "Well, yeah, actually I worship my TV and my Favorite team, and fashion, and I don't pay any mind to all those homeless crazy people shivering in doorways, and I'm committing adultery with wombats, not to mention exploiting my employees or helping my boss to do so, but God's saving love will make all that OK." Instead of thinking, "With God's grace, I can strive to fix these things, and even the obscure drives, desires and wounds that trend toward empowering my own spiritual and social dysfunction." It turns us, all too often, into spiritual Couch potatoes.

*I just gotta mention the word "holy". In the old ICEL translation, where ever they could manage it and not get caught they simply omitted the word "sanctus", we will be hearing the word "Holy" much more now. I think that makes some people uncomfortable, because if there are things that are held up to us as holy, and we are called to holiness, then we just can't declare "I'm Holy", we have to change.

I need to acknowledge Fr. John Zuhlsdorf and his excellent blog "What Does The Prayer Really Say" for juxtaposing these versions of the Collect--neither my hand missal nor the missalettes in church have the collects for weekdays, and neither has both translations together for anything. Thanks Father. BTW--his blog is listed on the sidebar.

Search Terms of the Week

2011-11-19T22:12:00.000-05:00

Well, this week it's "Bad Catholic Unapologetic" and "site:risingtaste.com".

The second kinda confuses me--what exactly is it supposed to mean,anyway?

VOTE IN THE NEW POLL!

2011-11-19T12:28:00.000-05:00

Please, do vote! It will make me feel relevant and included into the ever changing community and pluriform expression of cultural identity that is the Blogosphere, thereby empowering my attempt to navigate the human pilgrimage with integrity, honesty and solidarity!

Well, OK, that was so much BS--but I am curious.

More Gushing About the New Translation!!!!!

2011-11-19T12:20:00.002-05:00

I am getting really excited about this, and I know that some of the folks who read my stuff are wondering why exactly, I am so happy about it.

Well, here's a quick look: I'll compare the old translation with the new. Look at the "Opening Prayer"--once again given it's proper name of The Collect in the new translation, as the "Sacramentary" has once again been termed The Roman Missal--for the First Sunday of Advent.

Old Translation:

All-powerful God,
increase our strength of will for doing good
that Christ may find an eager welcome at his coming
and call us to his side in the kingdom of heaven,
where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

New Translation:

Grant your faithful, we pray, Almighty God,
the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ
with righteous deeds at his coming,
so that gathered at his right hand
they may be worthy to posses the heavenly kingdom.
Through Our lord Jesus Christ, your son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit
one God for ever and ever.

As i have compared the texts of the various propers to the old, I find much more meat to them! The imagery is richer by far. Other people, brighter than me, have pointed out that the Roman liturgy is rich in scriptural allusions, and that these are much clearer in the new translation, so I'm not going into that. But I can't help but notice that the more exact rendering requires a more full and actual listening on the part of the congregation.

It's been objected that the new translation is somewhat awkward. Certainly it doesn't scan nearly as well when you read it silently. But try this, read it once through silently, then read it a second time out loud. The second reading will work quite well! The cadence could be better, but it is actually rather reminiscent of the Older versions of the Book of Common Prayer, which were quite exact translations of the Latin prayers of the Gregorian Liturgy.

I think that this will be well received, except among those who don't want the Catholic Religion to be a religion so much as a socio-political identity.

Poll Results:

2011-11-19T11:58:00.000-05:00

Well, the poll is closed and 52% of respondents think i should ask for ammo, while 28% think I should ask for teeth. 12% think I should ask for a puppy, and 8% are in favor of me requesting long johns.

Nobody thought I should ask for socks, music DVDs or tools.

What's for Dinner, Grandpa?

2011-11-19T11:55:00.000-05:00

One Pot! An Angus chuck roast as the base. I stacked wedged potatoes around the sides of my crock pot, lightly salted and peppered the roast and put it in the middle, with two strips of bacon crossed on it. Then I filled the space with sliced carrots, celery and red bell pepper, seasoned it with thyme, rosemary, basil and garlic salt, and topped the whole thing with packaged vegetable broth (boiling), and set it aside to slow cook until dinner.

Pretty easy, and it already smells good!!!!

The New Translation!

2011-11-17T10:31:00.002-05:00

Sunday, the Solemnity of Christ the King, is the last time we will here the current Translation of the Mass. This is the only translation of the mass I have ever heard. I remember the first time I went to Mass, and it bowled me over. I was coming from a tradition of old school Protestantism. The Church we attended was an independent Church, with it's roots in Methodism, Calvinism and "The Fundamentals". (I know that that seem nearly contradictory, but such theological mish-mash groups exist in American protestantism.) From apace with a liturgy that consisted of an outline, and extemporaneous prayers and often practices it seemed so majestic, reverent and mystical that I was thrown for a loop.

So the 1970 Translation of the Pauline Missal showed me that there were better, more traditional and more beautiful ways to worship. Of course, Catholics at that time were still quiet in Church before Mass, still knelt to receive Holy Communion and were still singing hymns that were about God, not ourselves and our politics and gender issues. I started reading and ended up Catholic. The old translation helped to lead me to the Church.

It's the only one I've ever known. And I am delighted that it's going the way of the buggy whip. I can hardly wait until it's gone!

You see, I didn't stop reading after I was received into the Church. And I noticed that it was very bland, compared to the old translations of the Mass in the 1962 hand missals. And my Latin, though not very good at all, let me see that the translation didn't match very well. Not only that, but I had the spectacle of the erosion of Liturgy that occurred almost daily before the eyes of the faithful.

Having read the new translation, having though about it beyond the changes to the peoples responses I am very grateful that the Holy Spirit has stirred up the Hierarchy to cause this, and that we will have language that is more suited to adult worship, that seeks to reclaim the sense that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a participation in the Heavenly Liturgy, is a sacrifice, is in fact a miracle that is accessible to us whenever we wish to seek it out. This new translation is a good starting place for the Reform of the Renewal in the Anglosphere. I can hardly wait for the First Sunday of Advent.

I but I will be sure to thank Our Lord for the old translation as well. As flawed as it was, it showed me that God didn't leave us hanging with a difficult book and no real way to contact him, with only the subjective and uncertain criteria of inner experience to let us know he is with us, loves us cares for us and want's us to go to heaven.

Puff's Blog About Stuff: HELL EXPLAINED BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT

2011-11-17T10:15:00.000-05:00

Puff's Blog About Stuff: HELL EXPLAINED BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT

Here's a Good Question

2011-11-16T21:26:00.000-05:00

I am a High School Graduate. I dropped out of College.

So why is it that I have a bigger vocabulary than the Blogger Spell Checker? I have to open another window so I can find out if words in says are misspelled are or are not.

Strange.

Grumble, Grumble, Grumble GRIPE--Folk Music

2011-11-16T21:23:00.000-05:00

FOLK MUSIC: Ok, I actually like some kinds of folk music, especially Romanian singing, English, Irish and Scots folk, the songs of Sub-Saharan Africa. But that's not what I'm talking bout. I'm talking about modern American Folk Music. Since the thirties at least, with Woodie Guthrie and his lefty propaganda songs, "Modern American Folk" seems very detached from the folk they're singing about.

I guess the place to start is with the Folklorists perennial question: first, one has to decide if there is a "folk" behind the item to be considered. Of Course, a professional Folklorist always answers "yes" to this question because, after all, if she answers no she can't study the item, and so gets no grant money. Since the professionals would say that there is a "folk" behind the "folk music" then the next question is, why do we not have an ethnography of them, at the very least?

I am not a trained ethnographer, but that's not a problem. The first ethnographers weren't either. So let me give a thumb nail description of the "folk" behind modern folk music. We will call them "Folkies" in order to have a name for this newly described "tribe".

First, Folkies are divided into moieties. On moiety is composed overwhelmingly of white people who reside in the upper 40% economic bracket, and who identify with an idealized and romanticized impoverished, melancholy and oppressed image of either an urban lumpen proletariat or an idealized impoverished, melancholy and oppressed rural agrarian or extraction industry laboring class, both of which occasionally seek solace in excess drink or forbidden love. They immerse themselves in what they imagine the aspirations and grievances of these two fictional fantasy/ahistorical constructs as a way of dealing with their inability to understand their own dissatisfaction with a life of privilege unknown to the vast majority of the human species. The other moiety is composed overwhelmngly of white people who reside int he upper 40% economic bracket who compose, perform (often very badly) songs in which they expound upon what they imagine the grievances and aspirations of an idealized and romanticized impoverished, melancholy and oppressed rural laboring class or urban lumpen proletariat should be, if only these two classes would recognize their own self interest and accept the leadership of the upper 40% bracket white people with liberal arts or law degrees who don't know how to do anything.

Both moieties point to their own modest economic circumstance ans a credential, while omitting the fact that they're broke because they got a liberal arts or law degree in an economy that has a glut of them, or flunked out of college because of smoking too much dope and spending too much time trying to emulate Saul Alinski. Nor will they admit that they are performing a form of niche music whose only real niche is among underachieving scions of upper middle and upper class families who raise children poorly, and is commercially nonviable.

Musicologists can examine the actual form and content of the music produced by these moieties of the Folkies, simply by going to the nearest "Occupy" camp and listening to the pathetic attempts of these two alienated groups--which often seem to suffer from Extended Adolescence Syndrome and Oppositional Defiant Disorder--to sing the heart and soul of the American Working Class, which by and large despises them.

Mean while, American Working Class concerns and aspirations are daily sung by Country and Western performers, and some Rock/Pop performers. (Rap expounds upon the aspirations and concerns of the urban criminal class, and the wanna be white suburban kids who wish they were urban criminals, so they would no why they are so dissatisfied with their lives.) Folkies will never admit to this.

Puff's Blog About Stuff: The Fourteen Holy Helpers

2011-11-13T22:02:00.000-05:00

Puff's Blog About Stuff: The Fourteen Holy Helpers

RANT!!! WARNING! THIS IS A RANT!!!!

2011-11-13T20:43:00.002-05:00

I just saw an add for the nightly news, with the reporter chick just exuding crises, telling us to tune in to find out what a "local animal rescue group is facing if they don't find $10,000 by Tuesday."

Let me emphatically clear: I don't give a rat's ass what they are facing, and they shouldn't get the $10,000 dollars!

Was that clear enough? No? Let me repeat it. I don't give a rat's ass about animal rescue. Round them up, and put them to sleep. End of story. Especially in the Louisville Metro.

The hypocritical liberals in this town have fought every single thing for Human Rescue that has been proposed, They have written the zoning ordinances so that it's actually illegal to open a homeless shelter here. I cannot walk downtown, which I do three times a week, without encountering not one, not two, but dozens of homeless people. Homeless. People. People with no where to go, little to eat, no place that's safe. And most of them are mentally ill. Yet the news people, who seldom reports on them, is all worried about animals!

I got news for you clownish cartoons of journalists--a rat is not a pig, a pig is not a dog, and a dog is not a boy. Until there is enough mercy in this town to recognize the unique worth of human beings, and do something for the large number of mentally ill who are homeless and on our streets, I don't give a rat's ass about animals. I can't--they were not made in the image and likeness of God, and although we shouldn't be cruel to them, we have a mandate from Our Lord to feed, clothe, give drink to and treat the least among us like they were Christ. He said whatsoever we do to the least of our brothers, we do also to him. And around here we give more and care more about dogs than we do about people.

We are an evil, hateful and perverse race, that cares more for stray cats than for sick, mentally ill, addicted and impoverished people. If you give money to an animal shelter, and there are homeless hungry people in your area, you just stole food, shelter clothing and aid from Jesus.

If you don't like this plain speech, if you think I'm harsh, if it makes you feel bad, then look in the eyes of the next derelict you see, and tell him it's more important to care for a dog, than him. Because that's the choice you've made. Live with it, but don't tell me I'm being harsh, or insensitive, or that they're there through their own choices--just admit that you'd rather care for a dog, than a human. That animals are a better use of your "charity" than the person you try so hard to ignore.

30,000

2011-11-13T09:55:00.000-05:00

Sometime between last night and this morning I went over 30,000 hits.

Search Terms of the Week

2011-11-12T12:47:00.002-05:00

Well, the two interesting Search Terms this week are "ugly modern catholic churches" and "Dallas people are ignorant rednecks". Odd, what i find has led people to find this obscure and inconsequential collection of rambling thoughts!

St. Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr

2011-11-12T12:42:00.000-05:00

This is Feast that makes me sad. Perhaps my Theology is in error, but I cannot see how this is not an occasion for sadness and perhaps reflection on the violence we have done to the Church Christ founded. St. Josaphat was born in 1580, and was martyred in 1623. He was Martyred by other Christians.

I feel keenly the separation of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. His Holiness, Benedict XVI has said that the Orthodox are in fact, true Churches, descended from the Apostles and holding the Deposit of the Faith. The Great Schism between us was occasioned, I believe, by the egotism, chauvinism and narrow cultural outlooks of two prelates--the Pope and the Patriarch of Byzantium. Looking at the history of the thing, and not considering the theology of it (and the theology of it was worked out after the fact by both sides to justify the schism) it seems clear. Those who were sent from Rome to negotiate didn't even speak Greek, and there was no one at the court in Byzantium who spoke Latin. Neither side would acknowledge the rights of the other, neither side respected the liturgical traditions of the other.

We--both the Orthodox and the Catholics--broke God's Church, we split it in two, while the core of both our theologies is compatible, and our two theological traditions illuminate the other. I have learned so much from Orthodox Mystagogy, about the Sacraments and Grace. I'm sure that for some Orthodox the same is true in reverse. This is the greatest guilt on both our houses--that even though Our Lord prayed that all might be one--we willingly and not without malice split the Body of Christ.

Josaphat was born in the Ukraine--his family was Orthodox--and "converted" to Catholicism, eventually becoming the Slavonic Rite Archbishop of Polock. He worked hard for Church unity, and reunification. I don't know much about his methodology, but the orthodox called him "the thief of souls". He was Martyred by other Christians, who prayed in the same language as he, using the same liturgies as he. I have no doubt that he was a genuine martyr, who died for the faith and for his fidelity. But I'm sure that were the roles reversed, and he had "converted" to Orthodoxy, he would still be a martyr! So perhaps my Theology is flawed or in error, but that's what I think.

St. Josaphat was a martyr for Christian Unity, a unity we should all crave and pray for. We are moving into the end times, and persecution is growing everywhere Christians--especially Catholic and Orthodox Christians--are found. We are targeted by the forces and servants of the Antichrist, and our divisions serve only to weaken us, and make the individual believer easier prey for evil, whether physical evil through brutality or moral evil through a loss of faith in the face of persecution and disunity that prevents Christian compassion and aid from flowing from one part of the Church to another. And everywhere a Christian dies, is martyred because of such blockage, we have in a real way another martyr of unity, and another victim of our own sins of disunity. It's sad.

I hope who ever reads this will take a moment to say a prayer for the Reunification of Christ's Church, so that together our common witness can convert our Protestant brethren and return them to the Sacraments and full organic unity so that they may have the Sanctifying Grace of the Sacraments in the face of the ever growing tide of secularity and indifferentism that threatens them as well.

Left-footer: An LOD Inspector Calls - and is Made Mincemeat Of

2011-11-12T12:09:00.000-05:00

Left-footer: An LOD Inspector Calls - and is Made Mincemeat Of

Voting is Important

2011-11-11T10:43:00.001-05:00

So vote in the poll!

Knuckledraggin my life away: The party's over, asshole

2011-11-11T09:47:00.000-05:00

Knuckledraggin my life away: The party's over, asshole

To read all my thought on the OWS movement...

2011-11-10T20:08:00.001-05:00

Scroll down to the list called "Labels"--click on Occupy. They will appear in reverse order from how they were published.

Or, just click on the occupy label at the bottom of this post. That would be even easier.

Armistice Day, Veteran's Day, Martinmas and Olde Skoole Thinking!

2011-11-10T16:52:00.002-05:00

HANG ON! IT'S ONE HELLUVA MASHUP!

Tomorrow, the 11th of November, marks the Armistice that brought the fighting in the Great War to a close. 11 AM, on the 11th Day, of the 11th Month. that date and time in fact is so important, to so many, that it now marks the beginning of Fasching in Germany. We have seen so much horror in the 20th Century that we might lose sight of how horrible The Great War--know more commonly known as World War I--was. In it's own way, it was more horrifying than World War Two, even though the latter was more destructive and killed more people. The Great war held all the components of the Second World War, except the terminal use of atomic weapons. Aircraft, Air Raids, Submarines, Massed Artillery, Tanks, Huge Armies, Global Conflict, Chemical Warfare, Flame Throwers--all these things were present for the very first time. The shock was immense, and unheard of. No one was ready for this first fully modern war, the the extent that no one had a clue how to fight it, until 1918, when the Germans worked out new tactics, and the American used them against them with better integration of armor and air forces. We still are haunted by it, even in our language. The phrase "in the trenches" was born there. The German Empire was broken, The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, the Ottoman Empire Collapsed, the seeds of the dissolution of the British Empire are traced to the Great War, the beginnings of the dissolution of the French Colonial Empire as well. The last traces of the Holy Roman Empire, in the ethno-linguistic identity of various regions were erased. Actually, most of the problems in the Mid-east, through to the Iraq-Iran border have their roots in the settlement of the Great War. And world War Two was a direct result of it, in Europe, and a consequence of the political settlement in the Far East.

Well that was a lot of Wars ago, and now in the US we call it Veterans Day. In Canada they call it Remembrance Day. And on this day we remember the fallen of our nation in it's many, many wars, from the beginning to now. And we use it to honor out surviving veterans.

I am a "Surviving Veteran" and this year, I'm gong to talk a little about Veteran's Day.

I have always used this day to be proud of the my Grandfather's generation, that fought in the Great War, and my Father's generation that fought in World War Two and the Korean War, and the Elder members of my own Generation that fought in Vietnam. Now I'm a middle aged guy, and when my Sons-in Law come up to me on Veteran's Day and thank me for my service, I am embarrassed. Compared to my elders--and perhaps my betters--I did very little, and compared to the young guys who've been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the same holds true. I extend my respect and gratitude to each and every one of them. And my awe, that they can come back from that, buckle down and help to build a stronger, better, smarter America. perhaps for that last, most of all. These Men and Women are the achievers, the doers that embody the best of our American Tradition. May God Bless Each and Every One of Them.

As for myself, well, I regard my own service as something to give thanks for! I wish to thank Our Great Republic for the privilege of serving such a Country, for the privilege of being a part of something so exceptional as The American Experiment, the dream of liberty for all. I am grateful to everyone who reads this for the privilege of serving, and of knowing that in some small way, I helped keep my family, my friends, my countrymen safe and free. It's one of the three greatest privileges of my life: The first being the privilege of being baptized into the Body of Christ and receiving the Holy Eucharist, the Second being the Love of the Mother of my Children and my Children, the third being the privilege of serving my country. I did not deserve such a great privilege, but it was extended to me all the same. So thank you, for the opportunity to serve.

I spent part of my time in the service in the 2d ACR--the famed and historic 2d US Cavalry, which brings me to St. Martin of Tours, and his Feast Day on the 11th of November--because he is the Patron Saint of Cavalry. (I bet you were wondering how I was going to manage that transition, huh?) He is also the Patron Saint of my Parish--St. Martin of Tours in Louisville. But wait! It gets better--one of my old Army buddies is visiting me on the 11th--we served together, in the Cavalry! So hey, what a day!

The Feast of St. Martin was of greater importance in the Middle Ages an Renaissance than now. It was in fact, a major feast day. And it had significance for the Liturgical Year. Back then, (and until the 1970s!) Advent was a purely penitential season, liturgically, and was much longer--It started on Martinmas. Old sources refer to it as "that other lent, occurring before Christmas". St. Francis of Assisi referred to it so, in the Memoriale Propositi, the root document that became the original basis for the Third Order Rules of the Franciscans, the Dominicans and the Carmelites--the basis, in fact, for Third Orders. Advent, as a penitential season used to be longer than the four weeks now. It still is in the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches. (In fact that's one of the things that make Orthodox Christian look at us funny--why did we change this to make it less of a significant marker for our Liturgical life, and in the US I think they might be fueled by the influx of ex-Catholics who went Orthodox in response to the Modernist assault on Catholicism! I know they have respect for the Gregorian Liturgy, but look at the Pauline Liturgy as something of an abomination.) So the 11th of November marked the start of a great fast. Which brings me to my final point.

I am not doing well with following the will of the Lord, and part of it is my involvement, emotionally and intellectually with current politics and disputes within the Church. I need to fast, as it were. I'm not planning on a diet of bread and water, or taking up the discipline and the cilice. Instead, I will simply fast from blogging and following current events. I may write here, from time to time, but only on topics concerning the readings of this season, and Advent, or items that are cause for rejoicing, and the the small wonders of being a member of a family. I will not comment on current events, church policies of Liturgical practices, and instead devote that energy to repentance and trying to cultivate a couple of virtue which--actually it's all of them--I am deficient in. My hope of heaven is much more important to me than my politics an preferences.

So get ready, this blog is gonna go all Jesus Freak until the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

Tired of Politics? Let's Talk Rape and Murder!

2011-11-10T15:59:00.001-05:00

There are signs that the pro-life movement is making some headway, from state level laws and constitutional amendments to changing attitudes expressed in polls. But making headway at this point is much like finally getting a grip on the rope that might pull you out of the well. It's progress, critical progress, but not much progress.

One of the things that I notice about the murder of children before they draw a breath--when people are being pushed, and those who want to keep murdering kids in clinics are on the spot, they trot out "instances of rape or incest". This is one of the things that they say that makes me angriest. Let me put this into a perspective--I have a family member who has a felony conviction, but they didn't put his daughter in jail! Murdering a child because it's father was a rapist or a sexual abuser of his own kin is punishing it for the crimes of it's parent. Hideous, just hideous that that could be construed as justice.

What makes this even worse, is how this plays out on the street. Abortion, the legal murder of children for the convenience of others, most often facilitates and conceals the crimes of rape and incest! There is almost always a current horror story about this. Right now, the biggie is from Quebec. There, a couple began having sex in front of their daughter. that progressed to having sex with their daughter, as a couple. As time moved on, it ended up with the daughter sleeping with the father in his bed, while the mother slept else where. This continued until the child told a teacher about it at the age of 13. The legal investigation turned up that the mother now perceived the child as a sexual rival, and "allowed" the abuse to continue as punishment (that's about the weirdest thing I've heard this year) and that the child became pregnant at the age of twelve. Mom took her over to the local abortuary and had the baby killed, and her daughter placed on birth control. The clinic didn't bat an eye. And they didn't report the fact that someone, somewhere got a 12 year old girl pregnant, which even in Quebec counts as statutory rape. By not reporting this, they facilitated this young girl being returned to an environment where she was raped by her father as a matter of day to day life. One Quebecois said that the general population of Quebec would have supported the abortion to prevent the child from giving birth to her brother, but even they were appalled that sexuality had become such a banal thing to the region that nobody stopped to wonder who had raped a child.

Well that's Quebec, but it's no better her in the US. Take a look at the Late George Tiller. His practice in Kansas performed 166 abortions on girls under 15 in 2002 and 2003. He reported one--one!--instance of underage sexual abuse in this time, and that one was already under investigation. His clinic was covering up for rape and incest as a matter of course. Operation Rescue has documented this same pattern all over the nation. Abortion is the best cover for rapists and incest pervs, ever. In Tiller's case, he specialized in late term abortions, which had to have another doctor sing off that they were necessary. He used Dr. Ann Kristen Neuhaus, who, at $300 a pop signed off on identical, pre-printed forms which all contained the same diagnosis with out examining the patients. This include 11 girls under the age of 18, ranging down to 10 years of age. She never reported a single case to law enforcement or child protective services.

Rape is a crime of power and dominance, it is often used to underscore or establish power over another. Pimps use it so, so do prison gangs, insurgents, Islamist Supremacists and it features hugely in ethnic conflict, from the Balkans, through Africa to the Middle East and Central Asia, and among the drug cartels of Latin America. Well, there is a link between coercion and abortion as well, with the majority of women reporting being coerced or pressured into having abortions. There are numerous cases of forced abortions of minors, girlfriends etc, to include one celebrated case of a parents kidnapping a daughter who had reached the age of majority and attempting to force her to undergo abortion. None of these are the sort of thing you could call "Isolated Events". In Ontario--I tell you, no disrespect for my Canadian friends meant--I am so glad I do not live in Canada, between the various government agencies, like human rightstribunals, etc and the attitudes of much of their law enforcement and legal system, I'd be in jail!--a prisoner who is pregnant is telling a story that makes me sick. It's corroborated by fellow inmates. She was sentenced to 8 months in jail. She's pregnant so she was transferred to the Vanier Center for Women--a women's prison--to accommodate her pregnancy. There a doctor tried to convince her to undergo an induced labor, which would in all probability result in the death of her child. She refused. She was placed in "segregation"--more or less solitary--on a restricted diet for her refusal. Another doctor saw her, and ordered her removed from segregation. The original doctor returned, and had her placed back into segregation for her "safety". In segregation she is fed a restricted--punitive-diet, which endangers her child. She is no longer receiving the diet that the law prescribes fro pregnant inmates. This endangers her child. This is coercion to have her pregnancy terminated. There's even another dimension, that figures into the abortion story in North America--Racism. The prisoner is from Kenya, and the doctor that has ordered her into segregation, twice, is a white European. A white doctor is trying to kill a child of color, for no reason other than she thinks that's the best thing. The doctor told the prisoner that it would make the rest of her stay in prison "easier"--a bad reason to kill anyone--but hasn't said the same thing to the other pregnant inmates. Racism, Coercion, Ethnic Conflict, all part and parcel of the Abortion tale, which are components held in common with rape. In a very, very odd twist, whoch explains why some pro-abortion people are complaining that pro lifers are stealing the word "choice", a young woman in Syracuse New York was denied access to a pregnancy test by the local Planned Parenthood affiliate unless she was planning to abort. Abortion is a major source of cash flow for Planned Parenthood.

The physicians who perform abortions are quite simply serial killers, who do it not from obscure inner drives but for money--they are the hit men of legend, with the perfect legal cover; it is no longer a crime to murder a child. They are also among the most dishonest and incompetent of physicians. Take Ann Kristen Neuhaus as an example. Aside from not reporting child rape, she has some other interesting items on her C. V. . By 2002 her practice consisted of laser hair removal and signing Tillers paperwork. In '99 her ability to write prescriptions was limited by the DEA. She was also required to under go random drug testing, and to take remedial classes in medicine. She was twice labeled by the state of Kansas as a "danger to the public". In Texas, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast has just retired. Suddenly.His retirement coincides with a state and federal investigation of PPGC for fraud under the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act and the Federal False Claims act. An Employee of PPGC blew the whistle. PPGC, of course, tried to block the discovery phase by citing "patient confidentiality"--the same dodge they use to hide their cover ups of rape, incest, human traffciing (yeah, they've been implicated in that too. [Their excuse is that it's the only way tohey can provide for the safety and welfare of the victims--when recuing them would do that better]). Dr. Walter T. Bowers, a Hoosier is currently under investigation because he has falsified documents concerning his eligibility to practice in Ohio--to include lying about his practice in Indiana. He has been disciplined In Kentucky and banned from practicing obstetrics for five years. Christ Hospital in Cincinnati has revoked his "in-house staff physician" privileges, and decided that he is no longer credentialed to do obstetrics. His job in Ohio was based upon the fact that none of the medical staff at a late term abortion facility had in house privileges as required by law. Now he hasn't got them either, and they are still practicing.

All of this is furthered by the culture of cover up that pervades abortion practices nationwide. It's apogee is of course in Kansas, where the 2003 investigation of George Tillers lucrative murder business was blocked by Governor Kathleen Sebelius, to the extent that it has now been dropped, because her administration systematically shredded all the paper work and files that were evidence in the case. She now, of course, is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the most pro-abortion cabinet level official in American history, going so far as to try to re-write laws to keep her little murder and rape fetish going.

My Last Ever "Occupy" Post.

2011-11-10T13:42:00.002-05:00

This is it for blogging about the occupy movement. My opinions are formed, and well known to anybody who knows me, reads my blog or looks at my Face Book page. I pretty sure that your opinions are also formed.

One thing that I want to say right up front is this--the "occupiers" are protesting real injustice in our political-economic system. In fact, our system is at variance with the Teachings of our Church. Corporations have in fact become a form of collectivization, in which personal, private ownership is perverted. The change in the distribution of wealth is also indicative of structural inequities. The working class is in fact being squeezed in to penury. The problem with the "occupiers" is that they are ignorant (I had to choose between the words "ignorant" and "naive") of the actual political situation and structure, and of basic economics. They are protesting in favor of the policies and system that have rendered the majority of us worse off than we were forty years ago.

Another aspect of the "Occupy Movement" is free speech. Free speech doesn't just apply to those I agree with, or even to those I find pleasant to listen too. It applies to those who are in opposition to my opinions, or the policies and opinions, even the consensus of, the government in power. It applies to those who I find objectionable, unpleasant and even dangerous. The problem with the "Occupy Movement" is that it points up the very real trend for free speech to be a dead letter in the US.   It's interesting to compare the TEA Party protests to the Occupiers (I'm tired of typing quotation marks) .   In many cities and some states the powers that be used every tool at their disposal to keep the TEA Party movement from speaking out. In Richmond VA, Winston-Salem NC, and Nashville TN, local bureaucrats tired very hard to block TEA Party protests, using every regulation and power they had to do so. But these same jurisdictions gave a free pass to the Occupy Movement. In Nashville once it became public knowledge how different the requirements were for these two exercises in free speech were, the local authorities backtracked, and required the occupiers to get a permit to camp on a venue that the TEA Party had been threatened with arrest for requesting the use of. In Louisville KY, the occupiers had to pay $25 for a permit to camp until December 31st in a park that the TEA Partiers had to pay $75 for a one day use permit, plus purchase an insurance policy, a requirement that the Occupiers didn't have to fulfill.   This is very important to note--not just the bias of Democratic Party affiliated public officials, but for a subtext: If you are "courageously opposing the status quo and speaking truth to power" and those who have imposed the status quo and actually hold the power are facilitating and cooperating with your action, the odds are excellent you are not a revolutionary, a protestor against the machine, but a dupe, a tool of the regime and an easily manipulated "useful idiot" (to use Lenin's term).

There's something else that I want to mention about these Occupiers--their lawlessness. Like attempting to provoke confrontations in New York City--where they swore to resist the police if they went through with a plan to remove them from the private property they are occupying, and when that failed to occur throwing bottles and objects at the police to attempt to provoke a response they could bill as a "police riot". Then there are the rapes. In Baltimore one woman who was raped was given no assistance during or after the rape by the occupiers--after all, that might make them look bad, if the acknowledged a rape.   We are all aware of the Occupiers bringing work to a stand still at the port, but how many of us have realized that by blocking a major port that they were endangering the employment of people who have jobs--and who really want to keep them--across the nation,and in fact into Europe (it's often cheaper to ship things from Asia to the US, put them on trains to the East Coast and then send them by ship to Europe) by blocking what they need to do their jobs, from part to raw materials? That seems like an attempt by one faction (and the occupiers are full of factions) to create more unemployed to bolster their ranks. (Don't laugh, it;'s been done before, study the various 'resistance" and "independence" movements of the 20th century.) And how many of us noticed that the MSM--which is about as unbiased as the Republican National Committee--didn't mention the window breaking, graffiti spraying and other acts of vandalism on the way to the harbor until the blogger pointed it out and they had to? Or the fact that a driver involved in an accident with two marchers--who were marching without a permit, in an in controlled traffic pattern--had to be rescued by police as his car was surrounded by a mob who were screaming and threatening violence? Mob action seems to be attractive to these people.
In Seattle, the president of Chase-Manhatten was addressing a gathering of financiers in a hotel, when the occupiers--again without permits or control for any kind of safety--marched on the venue and tried their damnedest to disrupt the proceedings. They have marched on peoples homes! If the spectacle of a mob marching on someones home doesn't scare you, you are a dangerous and evil person.   Some of their antics and vandalism are so puerile as to be laughable, except for their responses when challenged. Lots of us have seen the photo of the OWS person in NYC who has defecating on a police car. But in Eureka, CA, they crapped on a bank, as well as using it for a urinal. When a reporter attempted to find out who did it, by the simple expedient asking the Occupiers, she was met with a stonewall, where people just told her that "the banks poop on us, so why shouldn't we poop on them". When she persisted, they grabbed her camera, and threatened to assault her, claiming that she was practicing "bunk journalism" and "harassment". They drove her and her cameraman off of public property. This sort of thing isn't an isolated event--they are occurring everywhere there is a presence from the Occupy movement.

In Dallas, a homeless family that was staying in the occupation camp had their child seized by the Child Protective services because of the unsanitary conditions and poor standards of living. They could have their child back, they were told, as soon as they found a place indoors. They didn't have to find an apartment, they could use a homeless shelter. The complaints came from people in the camp. In Occupy Atlanta, the Occupiers vowed to return to a public park they had been occupying. They were expelled from the park because it closes at 11 PM every night, and they were staying overnight. They had been occupying the 4th floor of a homeless shelter. About 100 of them. I wonder where the homeless went. This is something else--the occupiers, while complaining of poverty, have been making it rough on the homeless, either co-opting the places they have found for themselves, or crowding them out of their venues, or complaining about them eating the food and using supplies that were meant for the protestors. They say they want justice, but really,really don't like the poorest of the poor. In Sacramento, the Occupiers have crowded the homeless out of Cesar Chavez Park. The homeless have even started a petition to get rid of them, saying that although the occupiers can go more or less anywhere to have their little 60s style protest, they have nowhere else to go. In Manhatten, it's interesting that these people, who are calling for a re-distribution of wealth, were stunned and appalled to find out that the homeless and hardcore poor were doing just that--by stealing their high value items--$5k computers, expensive sound systems, kindles, etc! Somehow, it's not redistribution of wealth when someone steals from them! A certain sign of the essential ignorance and hypocrisy of the people involved in the Occupy Movement.

Rudy Guiliani has said that Obama owns OWS--and it's true. I've pointed out in other posts that the original movement was coordinated and funded by the Working Family Party, and that Patrick Gaspard, Obama's answer to Carl Rove, is actually a member of the WFP, and not a Democrat. But look at ACORN--specifically, at a group called New York Communities for Change. This group is staffed and led by former ACORNers, and was founded with money from ACORN just before it declared bankruptcy. It was tied to the OWS movement--the first thing it did was to circle the wagons, when the word got out, begin to shred documents--when an organization starts shredding documents, you know that they are hiding something--dismiss staff they thought might talk, grumble about "disgruntled" ex-staffers and pass out papers with photos of the journalists investigating this to all it's staff with instructing to avoid them. They are hiding their involvement, just as the White House now plays down it's ties to ACORN.

Yeah, the occupiers belong to the Regime--they have all the marks. Trying to control the press and access to information, lawlessness, sneakiness and a severe disconnect with reality. I feel kind of sorry for them, but not sorry enough to lift a finger were they, say, to find themselves in the path of a heard of rampaging buffalo, or even hungry when the gourmet meals they are supplied with run out. You know, Vladimir Jaffe had some things to say about this. He fled the Soviet Union, to avoid religious persecution as a Jew (think of all the recurrences of anti-Semitic screeds from OWS! They sound like Mel Gibson, with out the excuse of mental illness), and is appalled at their ignorance of what a socialist system is like to live under. They should listen to him, but hey down shouted him. Well, I don't know what to do about them, but then, there's always hypothermia.

One last thing--the camping gear. I love to camp. I have camping gear. I cannot afford the kinds of gear they have, I keep seeing top-line stuff, Columbia and similar brands. And the electronics. And the drugs--yeah, the MSM isn't showing the drugs, but independents, "people in pajamas" have filmed the drugs, and the drug deals--If these clods are so oppressed and poor, where did they get the cash for the excellent castramentage and the dope? Hmmmm---with that kind of equipment, I guess hypothermia is off the list. We can always hope for high winds and pissed off hard hats.

I love This Time of Year

2011-11-09T16:46:00.000-05:00

It's been beautiful the last week and a half. It's been frustrating, because I've wanted to be in the woods so bad...if not hunting or fishing, at least camping and being outside day and night!

The Gingko tree across the street is so glorious and golden yellow! The Dogwood in the front yard yesterday was covered in beautiful red leaves, and today is nearly bare. The huge old Oak Tree in the back yard has dropped it's leaves as well, so it's time to rake, and to prune back the roses and mulch them. The Fig tree I planted this spring had all it's leaves two days ago, and is bare today. It will need mulched for winter too.

Today has alternated between rain, sunny and bright, and gray with wind--so lovely it can break your heart with the flirtation of bright sun and the cold shoulder of November. This part of the world gets 60% of it's rain between late November and early May, and we will see sunshine only rarely. So when the sun shines in November it's like the last smiles before a breakup. More precious, somehow, because of the circumstance.

Perhaps I can camp this weekend, and just listen to the wind in the rapidly shedding trees, and notice how most of the birds have suddenly gone. I can sit by the fire, listening to the hunters guns, judging from the report what they are hunting for. Spam and beans, with twist bread would go so well in that.

I have no idea how I ended up in a major metropolitan area, but somehow, it's not a good fit. But even in town, this is the best time of the year.

Poll Results: I'm a Trifle Surprised.

2011-11-07T16:59:00.000-05:00

Well, the latest poll is in, and here's the breakdown:

Fully 50% or rspondents believe that Dyspepsia will play a role in the end of civilization. This makes me think that in an attempt to preserve our Way of Life we should stress Home Ec classes in school.

38% think Zombies will be involved--presumably having died of indigestion. Perhaps we need to rethink our embalming practices.

30% are concerned that it will be the Yellowstone Super Volcano. It's hard to argue with this, because of the the geophysical data that indicated it's getting a bit "pressurized". I suggest moving from the region and building houses with strong, fireproof roofs.

23% think we're going to have problems with either Asteroids or Aliens. I suggest taking up Amateur Astronomy, so one can plan ahead.

23% also think that I'm deranged for even asking these questions. Ostrich syndrome. obviously.

19% also think that it will be monsters. They might be right.

But 34% think it will be for "other" reasons. I think they're right.

As for all this adding up to exactly 100%--well, too bad, it;s not that easy to face then end of civilization!

Knuckledraggin my life away: Modesto ain't New York, motherfucker. We don't go for that shit around here.

2011-11-07T16:14:00.002-05:00

This has lot's of harsh--even bad--language, but it's important, and shows a perspective the press doesn't.This also gets a big H/T to Subvet, over at blowing san--he's on the side bar, check him out.

Knuckledraggin my life away: Modesto ain't New York, motherfucker. We don't go for that shit around here.

Dinner Tonight

2011-11-05T19:51:00.002-04:00

I made dinner. I don't know what it is, exactly, but it tastes good and they're eating it.

Well, Crap, What Can I Say?

2011-11-03T15:02:00.003-04:00

I have given it a lot of thought, especially since last Sunday and listening to the First Reading, from the book of Malachi. We're in for a rough time of it as Catholics in America. Perhaps not as rough as some other nations, but we're definitely going to return to the bad old days of the Know Nothing Party and the Nativists. Partly because Anticatholicism is one of the default settings for a large segment of the population, partly because the current regime and many entrenched interests among the apparatchiks of our huge, expanding and repressive Government bureaucracy., but mostly because we deserve it!

Part of me wonders how and when we should--I should--resist. But a bigger part of me remembers something my Dad taught me: Don't run away from a spanking. WE as a Church have failed to keep faith with the covenant God made with us, and with each other. We are divided internally on issues of life, social justice--especially a holistic understanding of social justice--prayer and morality. We no longer provide a clear, unmistakable witness to the Gospel and the Lordship of Christ. We are now being punished, and it will get worse. I hope that our Heavenly Father grants me the grace to bear the things that are happening, and will happen, as a penance for my failings in this matter.

The current regime and it's allies among the activist Left do not like us, and especially do not like us having a voice in the public square. This has manifested in various ways, from covering Christian Symbols when using Christian Venues to re-writing regulations to contravene laws providing for the respect of conscience and morality. And that's the easy part.

Obama appointed Dalia Mogahed to be one of his advisers on his little "faith based" committee. Ms Mogahed is a Sharia advocate, and has intellectual links and communicates with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt--the oldest Islamic Terrorist group, predating the end of the Second World War. She has used her position to block American influence, or even concern, over the ongoing persecution of Orthodox and Catholic Christians in the Middle East, succeeding even in preventing the Maronite Patriarch from meeting the President to give him the truth about this continuing persecution that extends to rape, murder, slavery, kidnapping, forced marriage, vandalism, arson and expropriation of property. This wasn't a super human effort on her part, because the Regime has all but ignored this issue since it came to power in January of 2009. Obama does not care about the civil and human rights of Christians in general, and Catholic Christian in the us in particular. That's why he pushed to keep language protecting the conscience rights of Catholics out of legislation on concerning his health care plan, and regulations concerning a wide variety of other things.

Right now, nurses at The University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey, an even dozen of them--are suing because they have been told, bluntly, that if they do not participate in abortions they will be fired. This violates State and Federal Statutes protecting health care workers from being forced to commit murder. But this isn't going to be an in-and-out case, where the University backs down, because the judiciary and the various agencies have been politicized into becoming arms for the usurpation of legislation by regulations aimed at silencing Catholics, and driving them out of certain professions, especially healthcare, allied fields and education.

The Department of Health and Human Services director has said her department is "at war" with those who do not actively support abortion, contraception and sterilization--in Kathleen Sebelious' mind, anything less than whole hearted support and participation is opposition, so that means actively supporting or feeling the wrath of her Department. To this end, she has promulgated new regulations that so restrict the protection to religious organizations that they are being forced to choose between their core religious values and providing services. She did this with essentially one sentence--a line in her new regulations that says a religious activity must serve primarily member of it's own religion to qualify for a religious exemption. That means things like hospitals, soup kitchens, schools and clothing drives are no longer considered religious activities, and must purchase insurance that pays for abortions, contraceptives and sterilization--paying for them, even if the employees don't use them, constitutes in the minds of many Catholics obtaining them, a mortal sin. More than that, the additional expense of paying for this sort of insurance coverage can push charitable outreaches over the edge financially--anyone who has been involved in these activities knows how close to the bone they play it, the resulting low wages offered and how easy it is to shut such a thing down. The result is a lowering of the visibility of Catholic charitable outreaches, an thus the visibility of Catholic witness. More than that, it makes it possible for the opponents of the Gospel to point to the Church and say "Yeah, you're saying that, but what are doing to help?" knowing that much of the help and services have been rendered impossible by the state.

If you have paid any attention, you will see that career officers--professional civil servants as opposed to political appointees--are the one who have controlled and decided where the Department of Health and Human Services dispenses it's cash. For years, these civil servants have concentrated with the Catholic Church for services to and rescue of victims of human trafficking. Until this month, when Ms. Sebelius intervened in the process to freeze the Catholic Church out. She overrode the advice of her own professional staff, who favored the Church, not because of sectarian considerations, but because the Church had the best record of service to these victims, as well as the lowest percentage of funds spent on administrative overhead, salaries, and such like. But Ms Sebelius had just declared that her department was "at war" with opponents of abortion, sterilization and contraception--which in practical terms means the Catholic Church--and her decision was described by the career civil servants as the "ABC Rule"; anybody but Catholics. Ms Sebelius is supposedly Catholic herself, and we should pray that our Heavenly Father give her grace to return to the complete practice of the faith she espouses. ( As a humorous observation--the spell checker alerts on her name and gives as alternatives "rebellious" and "libelous".)

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is in on the act as well, singling out Catholic Schools at first, then branching into those of other denominations that support traditional morality, and have a case pending that they wish to bring before the Supreme court in order to gt the Court to define who is a minister, ovr the definitions of the various religious groups in this country. This is an unprecedented intrusion of the Federal Government into religious affairs, brought to us by people who are constantly touting their philosophy of "separation of church and state".

Speaking or Religious Exemptions, it seems that the FCC--who have been trying since 2009 to regulate speech on the internet despite repeated court rulings that they do not have that authority--are now "cracking down" on religious broadcasters, by eliminating their exemption to requirements for close captioning. Oh, they can still get them, but he application process has been made more difficult, and each outlet must apply for each exemption (and program, in some cases). The result is of course, to make it very expensive and difficult to continue. There are those who will point to "rich televangelists" and say they can afford it. They already have it. Who will be affected will be small local outlets, mostly...wait for it..Catholics, who are just getting into the game on the local level, and are underfunded. Notably, the ones with the least funding, and the least hope of help from the hierarchy, are those that are most pro-life and most orthodox. Another voice inhibited, or stifled by the decree of an unelected and largely uncountable bureaucracy, under the Obama regime. This comes at the same time as DHS--the Department of Homeland Security--has announced that it is stepping up surveillance of the internet--things like twitter and face book, and blogs--for signs of social unrest. Seeing as they have been trying since January of 2009 to point at pro lifers, religious conservatives, gun owners, verterans and white Americans as the potential threats to security, I'm pretty sure that someone will point out, perhaps on Obama's snitch page, that I've written this. Oh well, the reeducation camps will be something new, anyway.

Their idea of this principle is that the Churches should be subordinate to the state, their aim is to create a situation in which all religious denominations are Erastian, bolstering the goals of a given regime.

Normally we Americans would turn to the courts, especially the Federal Courts, for protection, but the regime's Department of Justice is less than reliable--having just promulgated internal regulations that render the provisions of statute law--the Freedom of Information Act--almost impossible to enforce, and for the first time authorizing the various agencies of the US Government to lie to the people, the press and possibly to Congress in writing. More than that, the Judiciary is compromised by some of Obama''s appointments, including at least one Federal Judge who is allowing a defeated congressman to sue opponents for "loss of livelihood". (This has never even been seriously considered before, and service in Congress hasn't been legally considered "livelihood" before. It opens the door for legal action against faith based groups, or free associations of people who share religious values but are not faith based to expensive, potentially bankrupting litigation--a very effective way to chill or even silence dissent.) It is also distrubing tht DOJ lawyers are assisting the EEOC in its' attempt to use the courts to establish that the Federal Government gets to say what and who is or is not ministry or a minister.

Even the Occupy Movement is involved in this matter. I have noted that the "Occupy Movement" is the child of, and financed originally by, the Working Family Party, and that president Obama's political adviser (his Carl Rove) is Patrick Gaspard, a member of the WFP. Well, the Occupiers have managed to shut down St. Paul's Cathedral, in their British incarnation, and Occupy Vancouver held a debate about occupying the Cathedral in Vancouver--which was not given consensus by the protestors, but was attempted by a faction anyway, unsuccessful. For a group that is supposedly concerned about corruption in financial market and excess profits, they suddenly decided that sexual abuse of minors was a very important thing. I simply will observe that when the Catholic Church was providing the last organized resistance to the Third Reich, this same issue was brought to the fore and shouted from the rooftops. Not only can this happen here, it's almost a certainty to. For the truth is unbearable to those who reject the possibility of fixed truth.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, this is the opening of a Chastisement in this country, and around the world. We are being Chastised for our failure to keep faith with God and one another, and it's a chastisement we deserve. Our task now is not heroic resistance, but Christian resistance, sticking to our principles even when they result social, legal, financial debility, patiently bearing wrongs and witnessing our faith, which teaches us that even if we are attacked in our personal bodies, we are beyond harm from the evils which are loosed upon us, in eternity with Christ. I wash raised a Redneck, and a Redneck I remain, but I need to put away the cantankerous and confrontational aspects of my our cultural heritage, and accept what's coming in imitation of Christ, who accepted even a criminals death in obedience to the will of His Father. This is perhaps, the greatest penance a man like me can have--to suffer wrongs and injustice and not to fight back with any other means that prayer, fasting, sacrifice and the Sacraments.

My Christmass Wish List

2011-11-03T10:32:00.001-04:00

Well, here's what I want for Christmass (two esses--I'm trying to get the Mass back in Christmass!)

Ammunition in .22LR, .22WRM, 9MM Luger, 20 ga #4, 12ga #00-#2-#7 and Deer Slug, 7.2x54R, polypro long johns and socks. (I'm good on .380ACP).

I would also like to have my whole family at Mass on Christmass Eve, and some nice coffee for Christmass Breakkie.

Why Ammo? Well, it's nothing for me to go to the range and fire off 2-300 .22s, or a 100 or so .22WRM, Shotgun shells are always in order, the shot sizes for hunting are the ones I've listed (#7 is for birds, #4 for squirrels, #2 for rabbits and similar sized edibles--a little big, but I hate finding bits of shot in my dinner, and #2 uses less shot, and it's easier to find without biting into it--deer slugs are for , well, deer and #00 isn't for hunting.) The 7.62X54R is just fun to shoot, but without a real world use--in the affordable types. I can buy a box of hunting loads in it, and be able to hunt anything in N. America, but it's expensive to practice with--so the cheap stuff for target practice. The 9MM Luger is for my carbine, just to shoot for fun. Cheap FMJ works best for that.

Oh yeah--those cool zombie targets just to look odd at the range. And a new box of tennis balls.

Check Out the Pic!

2011-11-02T13:50:00.000-04:00

On the right--that's my new toy, a Mosin-Nagant rifle, a classic of late 19th century Franco-Russian small arms design, and still perfectly functional today. They were used through WWII, and still crop up in out of the way places today as a primary arm of militias, insurgents and other people of irascible bent.

I named him "Vassily Fritz Slayer", after Vassily Saitsev, one of the most successful snipers in history, who used this type of rifle with a scope from Stalingrad to Berlin.

To bad I can't see as well as him, so I'm good out to about 200 meters. The sights got to 2000.

Left-footer: A Bedtime Story - Not for Those of a Nervous Disposition

2011-11-01T22:35:00.000-04:00

Left-footer: A Bedtime Story - Not for Those of a Nervous Disposition

Decisions, Decisions....

2011-11-01T22:32:00.000-04:00

Should it be an Ishapore Enfield in 7.62 NATO, a Kar 98, or perhaps a Mosin? such decisions are difficult, and one must choose wisely.

After, when the Molemen strike, I'll need a dependable and classic means to defend my castle, such as it is. Not to mention the Werewolf possibility or even--and I shudder to think of it--and invasion paper targets!

New Poll

2011-10-31T16:42:00.001-04:00

Yeah, a new poll.

Yesterday's News: Contempt--It's All Us

2011-10-31T15:38:00.000-04:00

We seem to wonder exactly why the push for total secularity is on, and why we as a Church are so disrespected, and why there is so much pressure exerted by government and media to exclude us from the public discourse, and even from the corporal works of mercy. We think to ourselves that we're the largest Denomination in America, and the Largest on Earth, why isn't our collective voice being respected? I wondered about this myself, until yesterday. Yesterday, I went to Mass and listened to the readings.

The First Reading was from the book of Malachi, and I'll quot it in full here, just as we heard it in the US:

A great King am I, says the LORD of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations. Ans now, O priests; this commandment is for you: If you do not listen, if you do not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name, says the LORD of hosts, i will send a curse upon you and your blessing I will make a curse. You have turned aside from the way, and have caused many to falter by your instruction; you have made void the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts. I therefore have made you contemptible and base before all people, since you do not keep my ways, but show partiality in your decisions? Why then do we break faith with one another, violating the covenant of our fathers?

And there it is, plain as day. It would be easy for me, or a guy like me, who is angry and distrustful towards the presbyterate and the hierarchy launch immediately into a denunciation of the actions of many of our priests and bishops. But that would ignore a couple of things that, while uncomfortable, are necessary. One, is the traditional way of reading the Scriptures, which holds that they contain types that are important for salvation, and that they hold messages beyond the immediate situation described. Another is the fact that the Levitical priesthood ended, as a practical matter, with the person of Christ becoming our high priest, and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. It also ignores the Priesthood of all Believers.

This last is very important, for although the Priesthood of all Believers doesn't extent to allowing us to grant absolution, confect the Blessed Sacrament, confer the Holy Spirit by the imposition of hands, solemnize matrimony, anoint the sick or ordain others, it is what allows us to make offerings of our suffering, hardship and sacrifices to God our Father in reparation of sins and for special intentions. Most of all, it's what allows us participate in a full, actual and conscious way in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And that's why this passage applies to each of us--in all of it's terrible implications.

The Church isn't just His Holiness, and it's not just the Bishops. It's His Holiness, the Bishops, the Priests and Deacons and each of us, all together, along with the suffering souls in Purgatory and the Triumphant in Heaven. Those of us here, on the Earth, are in a special way, the hands and feet of Christ, who is our head, and when we do not keep our covenant, become unruly limbs, like the arm of Dr. Strangelove.

We traddies and neo-traddies can point at Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, for her heretical book, and her assertion that the Bishops won't talk to her in the face of their repeated invitations to talk and say "Look, she's not keeping faith, she's the problem". We can. But what about our own attitude towards one another? Are we keeping faith? Or are we becoming a person who sows division and anger? I've had to think about that a lot the last twenty-four hours. The conclusion is i need some more repentance. That's why I've decided not name the "Gutless, Spineless No-Ball Bishop of the Month" in this blog.

There's more though. Look at the last survey to come out, about a week or two ago, about how few of us Catholics actualy seem to understand or keep the whole of the faith. What are we teaching others, especially our kids? We "... have caused many to falter..." by what we teach by word and deed.

Yes, the Church is coming into hard times in the Industrialized world. Yes, our Bishops and Priests don't seem to have up to the task. But worse than that, WE haven't been up to the task. I need to practice a little meekness (I'm bad at meek) and forbearance, and look at me, when things go bad in the Church. After all, I can do something about me. And maybe, just maybe, that will do something about other things.

Domestic Exchange

2011-10-31T09:44:00.001-04:00

I want a cup of coffee, but the coffee maker is still running. I looked over at four-year-old #1 and asked her to tell the coffee maker to hurry up.

She turned around, looked at the coffee maker and YELLED: "Coffee Pot! Hurry up! Poppo wants Coffee!" .
The she looked at it for a few seconds, looked at me and said "It's not listening.".

Our Family is Strange, But I Love It!

2011-10-30T21:13:00.000-04:00

1--Daughter #2 brought home a pumpkin that I was supposed to carve into a puking pumpkin. The Queen of the House disapproved. (She also isn't too keen on distributing candy for Haloween.) She confiscated the pumpkin--it's the puking part she didn't like--and instead carved it herself into a St. Therese, surrounded by roses. She is pleased enough with the result that we are indeed gong to be distributing candy--for All Saints Day!

2--At Mass this morning, one of the four year olds was about to act up.But before I could intervene, the seven year old had taken charge, calmed her down and was ensuring that she made her responses to the Liturgy correctly.

Our Family Rocks!

Thinking About Africa

2011-10-29T13:58:00.000-04:00

I think about Africa. Actually, for a white dude living in the Ohio Valley with no personal stake in the place, I think about Africa a lot. There is an opinion, expressed in various quarters, that Africa is a "write off", that the continent is insalvable. I'm not prepared to write of an entire continent and it's peoples, and I'm not the only one. But helping the peoples of Africa requires some serious rethinking, and that rethinking requires the participation of African thinkers. The thing is, we need to exclude African thinkers with ties to African Governments, NGOs and the UN. Since 1950, these groups have not solved a damned thing in Africa.

And we need to be very wary of European "experts" on the the problems of Africa.   We Catholics have hear so much about the failed attempts to reduce AIDS, and the European powers interference in successful efforts in order to impose the "solutions" that Europeans thought up that we're sick of it. Recall the remarks of the president of Uganda, when the EU began to press them to abandon the ABC approach to prevention, which stressed first abstinence outside of marriage, then faithfulness inside of marriage, then the use of condoms. This approach worked, and was virtually the only program in Africa to reduce the number of new infections. yet Uganda was pressured, especially by Belgium, to reduce emphasis on abstinence and monogamy, "This is an African Problem, and we need an African Solution, not a European one." The Belgians, and the EU tied other forms of aid to the compliance of Uganda to their idea of an effective program, despite the fact that Uganda had the only effective program in Africa. The end result, increasing rates of infection.

As for trusting the leaders of governments and factions in Africa, well, the unfortunate fact is this: corruption is the way things are done, and the average African wouldn't notice any change if aid was reduced, for the simple fact that of the aid given 60% ends up in foreign bank accounts, under the names of the leaders.

As for NGOs, well, one lady, who was made an M.B.E. for her efforts, said that it was hard to get funding for long term efforts, so keep things in crisis, because crisis funding was readily available. Put this together with the rate of aid being diverted, and you see why there is constantly crisis in Africa.

I had the privilege of meeting with a Methodist Bishop from Africa. Aside from a wonderfully mellifluous accent, and a sly sense of humor, the meeting was instructive. Two of the biggest problems in his diocese were hunger--poor nutrition as apposed to starvation--and malaria. This man had a very simple solution that over a period of five to seven years would go a long way towards alleviating the problem. Corrugated metal roofing. These two problems were exacerbated by the fact that the villages in his area moved every five to seven years, because ants ate the wooden and fiber houses the people lived in, and they had to relocate because the are become infested with the hungry insects, so they could not repair the houses fast enough. The idea was that they could build houses of bricks--bricks which they could make--and the ants wouldn't be able to eat their houses. Metal roofing also wouldn't get eaten, which was what happened to wooden and thatch roofs. This meant that the agricultural practices, which were almost on the level of slash and burn, could be stabilized. This meant that they could practice crop rotation, preserving soil fertility and avoiding the erosion of abandoned fields. The brick houses were also easier to keep mosquitoes out of, which reduced the malaria rate.   He had a very hard time getting money for roofing--not sexy enough, although it would present a long term solution. That's why he was talking to churches outside of the Methodist charity system. this would also have created employment opportunities--making bricks, etc, that were lacking in his area.

Speaking of Malaria--one of the most effective agents Africa has in this fight is DDT. DDT is persistent, and yes, in the industrial world it caused problems. It caused problems because we sprayed it all over everything. The Africans spray it on interior walls of houses, and on bed nets. Because it's persistent, the disease vectors that land on it die, before they can pass on the disease, or breed. Yet despite the great concern over Malaria, and billions spent on "finding a solution" African nations are under great pressure to discontinue the use of DDT. This points out something else: although nothing else works as well, and DDT can be, and is, made in Africa, and part of their attempts to create viable economies there, they can't buy it from the Europeans or America. Instead of an economical, local solution, the industrialized world wishes to keep them on a profitable string, imposing solutions from elsewhere. Here we se something remarkable; The convergence of special interests that would at first seem divergent. On the one hand, you have the industrial interests of chemical companies and agribusiness who seek markets for their products (the root and basis of colonialism) and of environmental activists and conservationists, who seek to tell other peoples how to conduct their affairs and lives (the root and basis of cultural imperialism).

The activities of environmentalists and conservationists has also been deleterious. In their home countries they lobby to block funding for infrastructure, dams for hydroelectricity and drinking water, roads and rail roads for transportation, etc. And in Africa they lobby for the establishment of game preserves and parks--often through the use of bribery. One African, interviewed for a magazine put it vividly:    'Whites do not understand. In Africa, the animals eat our crops, destroy or farms and homes and kill people. Africa is not the white mans zoo." This too is a form of imperialism and colonialism. We--the industrialized word--have no right to Africa. Yet many of us have declared that Africa's animals and land is something that must be preserved "for all of mankind". We have decided that resources, land, animals, that do not belong to us should be managed for us by unwilling peoples, who often are done injury--injury that leads to social disruption, hunger and death--so we can look at pictures of wild animals.

Disruption, hunger and death. That's a part of life in Africa. Africa is a land of famine. And most of the famine is caused by violence and disruption. Violence fueled mountains of weapons, fueled by mountains of arms, almost all of European origin. (American arms, thank God, are rare in Africa!) these disorders are also abetted, all to often, by former colonial powers and other European states (Russia is European!) jockeying for advantage to gain more of Africa's rich natural resources--resources which they do not own, but covet, and wish to take from African peoples through shady deals with corrupt regimes. The famines win Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, were all created by conflict. The Industrial nations response was to send food, food which made the problem worse. In some cases, the factions engaging in the conflict either stole the food to feed their fighters, or to resell at higher prices to finance their fights. In others, the food distribution system caused peoples to gather into camps and centers where they became targets. The efforts made things worse. When the Industrial nations sent troops there, to restore order, they did not good. We were all about it, until we realized that it would require a bit of fighting for justice, a bit of sacrifice. It was fine to look noble, but to be noble, to bleed for the oppressed and tormented, well, that was too much to ask. (Far, far better to wage war against nations that hadn't done a thing to us, to steal their oil, than to man up and fight for right over evil. Welcome to Iraq, America.)

Other famines in Africa also elicited unhelpful responses. In Niger, the famine struck the northern portion of the country so severely that in large areas, 90% of the children under twelve died. there were entire villages and districts devoid of young children. At the same time time, southern Niger had food--a glut of food. The response was to bring in food from outside the nation, to feed the starving. However, there was problem--there was no road from the south to the north, so the food was flown into the north. There are limits to how much can be flown in to anywhere--so the nutritional level was till low, low enough that the deaths from malnutrition slowed, but did not stop. More than that, in the manner of corrupt states everywhere, a significant portion of the relief food was diverted in southern Niger, and food prices already low, were depressed, leading farmer to be unable to sell their produce and the loss of farms. That meant a decrease in the food supply over all. Yet, for the amount of money spent, it would have been very possible to build a road to the north, with subsidiary roads, purchase food in the south, and take it north--preserving the agricultural infrastructure, the price system and feeding the people with a more balanced diet than the porridge made for famine victims. But no one did this, even though it was suggested by Africans, and Europeans and Americans, who were familiar with the situation. And children died in droves.

Then there is the economies of the African nations. Do you remember the kerfuffle a few years ago about the boxes set up on street corners soliciting used clothing for Africa? People were donating, thinking it was for a charity, only to find out they were giving their clothes to a corporation that was then selling them in the Africa, to end up in clothing Markets? There was an African who said to a couple of years ago, that if we really wanted to help the African economies, we would stop sending them our old clothes. Textiles were the basis of the industrial revolution, and the basis of international trade before it. Africa is quite capable of producing it's own textiles, except it cannot compete with our cast off clothing. By acting from altruistic motives, and sending our old clothes off to Africa, we are preventing them from developing the first stage of a viable industrial base. We do this to a continent that is plagued by unemployment at a rte that would result in instant and bloody revolution in the Industrialized world. We respond, out of the best of motives sometimes, to problems in Africa as described by either white people from Europe and America, or despots who hope to loot the aid we send, or get rich from the bribes that are part and parcel of doing business in Africa. In so doing, we are hurting, in the long and short term, the vary people we seek to help. We shouldn't be giving them things they could make for themselves, if they didn't have to compete against our misplaced charity, and we shouldn't be building the industrial facilities we want them to have. Rather, we should allow them to build the facilities they need, for in the long term that will allow them to build the ones we wish for, and engage them in the world markets as players, not peons.

I am not prepared to write of the continent of Africa, but I have written off our thinking and policies concerning it.

This Doesn't Fix the Problem--It Points Up the Problem

2011-10-29T11:26:00.001-04:00

The "Catholic" Campaign for Human Development has suspended funding to the NYC AIDS Housing Network. The Agency, which had been approved for a grant from the CCHD, distributes condoms, which has little to do with housing in the first place, and violates Catholic morality in the second. This is not a success story!

For several years, there has been a movement, inspired by the disgust of the faithful, and led by the laity, to reform CCHD. The national organization has said it fixed the problem, and the various diocesan branches has said that they have fixed the problem. They haven't. This group was approved for grants, and was removed only after, once again, the laity had to point out, publicly, that the Catholic Church was funding activity that directly violates Catholic morality and teaching. This wasn't the result of hard searching by hard core investigators, it was simply found by a web search. So much for the vetting process.

We need to remember the Chicago branch (Anybody ever notice how much utter crap comes out of Chicago? We should deed it over to some nation in exchange for 3 acres of wilderness somewhere!) where a strong effort at reform, in accordance with the teachings of the Church was derailed by bureaucratic infighting to get more money for left wing and gay political groups. This whole campaign needs to be shut down, and the requirements for long term improvement in the situation for the poor and disadvantaged rethought. In fact, considering that at this point, the "poor and disadvantaged" now have more political clout than the employed and productive, we need to rethink the necessity and wisdom of such a program in the first place.

In any event, it's clear that the last priority of the functionaries who administer the CCHD is Catholicism, and the first is furthering progressive politics.

Rod Dreher and Bishop Finn

2011-10-29T11:00:00.000-04:00

If you don't like thie post, please put your reasons in the comm box, and try to avoid profanity and ad hominem
attacks. I said try, because i know that this is an emotional issue.

First, Mr. Dreher has come out in favor of the indictment against Bishop Finn. I"m not sure that Mr. Dreher has any business commenting on the actions of a Catholic Bishop, simply because he has entered into formal schism, leaving the Church. He had his reasons--primarily the Gay Ephebephilia Scandal and the horrible way the bishops handled it. But his position is in itself the commentary. He can no lnger see the Catholic Church as a valid body.

However, Mr. Dreher has ignored certain pertinent facts. The biggest being that the indictment is less an expression of justice than an anti-catholic act of opportunism. Review the facts--Bishop Finn, when he first learned of the matter in December actually did notify Law Enforcement. The photographs on th lap top in question were shown to them, and they, the local prosecutor, and other decided that they were creepy as hell, but did not meet the legal standards for Child pornography. Bishops Finn removed the priest in question from work that would give him access to Children, and sent him to an isolated house, where he could be monitored. Even though there was nothing that could legally be prosecuted at the time.

In May, the priest was charged, because in spite of the precautions taken by the Diocese, he managed to attempt the molestation of a 12 year old girl, and take more photos of kids--this time that did meet the legal standards for prosecution. Bishop Finn, in fact, did more than the Prosecutors office or law enforcement.

This is a cautionary tale, especially for us who harbor injury from, or anger against, the Church and the individual Bishops for things they have done or left undone. One, we need to stay in the Church,otherwise our voices lose the credibility of a member of the Church. Two, we need to remember that gathering facts is more important than listening to opinions, even our own. Three, the sins of the Church are in many ways the result of the cumulative sins of the Faithful, and we ourselves need to be converted to solve the problems in the Church. Being converted does not include running away.

CARDINALS!!!!!

2011-10-28T23:36:00.002-04:00

11th World Championship. 'Nuff Said.

Worth a read..

2011-10-27T18:16:00.000-04:00

Bishop Chris Coyne has a post up, on Monday 24 Oct, at his blog Let us Walk Together: thoughts of a Catholic Bishop. Straight up, Bishop Coyne isn't my favorite Catholic prelate, but he makes some great and interesting observations about Celibacy and our society. He's over on the blog roll to the right, so check it out.

Wow! Gun Prices Have Gone UP!!!

2011-10-27T13:03:00.000-04:00

Seriously! I'm in the market right now for a new carbine or rifle, and it's stunning! Some of the guns I"m interested in have doubled in price since 2008, and where they were readily available, now you have to look hard to find them. Some of them cost about $250 in '08 and now go for $350-400, others were about $300 and are now $500-600! When some of the guns I'm interested in hit the shop, they're gone, right then. For some, there's even a waiting list for special orders.

And ammo is way up too, and not as readily available. I used to be able to get surplus 7.62X 39 in bulk, for cheap, but that's a thing of the past now. It's not even available, it all seem to have been purchased. The same is true for various types of .223, .308 etc. It's just gone. Buying bulk packs is the cheapest way to shoot, but they are not around either--they get bought right up.

I can't imagine why this frenzy of buying up semi automatic rifles and carbines, with detachable box magazines. Unless it's related to things like the fact that we can no longer trust our Government. I don't mean to trust them to do what's sensible, or to keep our interests at heart--I cannot remember in my lifetime that being the case. But now, we can't even trust them to obey the law.

Take the gun running scandal. I know that 'sting" operations are common and a necessary part of police work, but this on is a bit different. For instance, tax payer's paid for guns, that were then sold to the Sinaloa Drug Cartel. not in a "buy-bust" scenario--agents were ordered not only to allow the guns to go to a stash house, but to discontinue the surveillance, and allow the guns to be lost to government tracking. They also The government also used letters to gun dealers and FFL holders to get them to make shady sells that they otherwise would not have. But that's not the really scarey thing about this.

What's really scarey is DOJ under Eric Holder, who put the kibosh on cases of voter fraud and intimidation that had already resulted in convictions, by refusing to contest appeals, has started to implement internal regulations that permit the Government to violate the Freedom of Information Act. Oddly enough, the DOJ, itself is one of the government agencies that have been lying the most--Eric Holder was caught lying to members of Congress. Now his department is trying to promulgate a regulation that changes the FOIA, in such a way that would contradict the Statute creating it, and this regulation would have the force of law. A Satrap of Obama's regime would be making a new low, in effect, that contradicts one passed by congress. The new regulation would make it much easier for functionaries, in a nameless faceless bureaucracy to decide that information was too sensitive to release. More than that, it would end the practice of saying that a record exists, but that it's privileged for security reasons, or of saying that the Government cannot confirm or deny the existence of such a record--Government agencies can now simply say that such a record does not exist. This is rolling back accountability to the Era of the Cold War, and beyond. It is an authorization for Government agencies to flat out lie when asked for records of Governmental wrong doing.

Lying and Cover Up are part of the Regime. The Governor of Kansas, blocked prosecution of a criminal case brought against Planned Parenthood, then lied about why. Now it turns out that the Governor's administration had the evidence shredded. That Governor was Kathleen Sebelius, now Secretary of Health and Human Services. A cabinet level official had evidence of felonious wrong doing, over a score of counts, to protect her agenda. These liars and criminals--and tampering with evidence is a criminal offense--are running our nation. Even the Census Bureau has had to admit that it "artificially inflated" it's statistics, overstating the number of Same-Sex-Couples by 40% in the 2010 Census.

This means that it will be much harder to catch things like the corruption endemic in the Regime's stimulus package, where Obama supporters received billions in grants and government loans for their corporations, cashed in, then watched as many of these corporations tanked. Corporations like First Solar and Solyndra, or even Fisker, the Finnish car maker. You have heard of the Loan they received, but you might not know that it has ties to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a major capital firm that has given millions to the Democratic party, and has Al Gore as a senior partner. (Perhaps now is time to remember that Obama received a record breaking amount of foreign cash in his fund raising efforts for the 2008 election!) These things are pertinent, they should be important campaign issues. But if information can be controlled, then they won't ever get the chance to be put before the electorate.

Corruption and Shady Deals abound, perhaps the legacy of Obama's start in public office through the Chicago Machine. For instance, in a time when jobs are a critical issue Harry Reid said, in October, that "private sector jobs were doing just fine" and that the jobs bill needed to concentrate on public sector jobs. Aside from the ignorance of economics this implies, it also sheds light on something--public sector jobs are the most heavily unionized jobs in the country, and the unions give lots and lots and lots of money to the Dems. By creating public sector jobs, the Dems are able to take money from the workers for their own use in running for office--in effect it becomes a tax on the workers through their union dues that benefits one political party. Reid said "..it's the public sector where we've lost huge numbers, and that's what this legislation is all about..." . Actually, the bulk of the productive sector of American Society--the 53% who are paying for everything--don't want to pay for more public employees, especially as so many of them do not provide real services, but interfere in the lives of the electorate. What Reid really wants are the contributions from union dues.

Not that this regime gives a rat's ass about the electorate. The people have spoken, in the 2010 election, and rejected much of the regime's actions. The response has been interesting, twice Obama has said he will proceed with his agenda, even though the peoples representatives have refused to fund him, saying he will find other ways to fund his programs. The Constitution gives control of the purse to to Congress--not the President, that's one of the most important and effective checks on Presidential power. Of course, this is the president who has said in writing that we need to get past constitutional limits on government power, which in his mind means presidential power. Since he cannot get Congress to pass the laws and measures he wants, he has pledged to use more executive orders--rule by Presidential decree.

This contempt for the electorate extends throughout the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Take the EPA's new rules on coal--setting aside the fact that it will inhibit power generation, and virtually stop to any research into cleaner safer coal technologies--the EPA is going to implement them on November 16, when public hearings and comment on the effect these will have on the reliability of the power grid (when we already have brown outs in some regions!) are not to be held by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission until November 29. So much for worrying about how their agenda will affect your life. (Here, I have to say something--we NEED more regulation on the mercury emissions from coal plants. In my home state ground water has seven times the maximum permissible levels of mercury, and it's source is the mercury vapor emissions from Coal Burning Plants in the upper Midwest. I'm not complaining about the regulations as regulations, but a bout a process that doesn't include the whole picture of our well being, and excludes as far as possible dissenting comment or data that contradicts the assumptions of the political appointees!)

The effect of the Regime on the judiciary has been negative as well. In Ohio, Steve Driehaus was defeated in his bid for re-election after one term. Now he's suing the Susan B. Anthony list. his grounds, as he stated them are "Loss of Livelihood". The Susan B. Anthony list is a political organization that is pro-life. Based on his voting record, they expressed the opinion that Mr.Driehaus lied when he said he was pro-life (It's a pro-life district) and he blames them for the loss. Suing a political group for loss of livelihood because you lost an election is ridiculous. But the Judge in the case, US District Court Judge Timothy Black is allowing the case to go forward. Black is...wait for it...and Obama apointee. If Driehaus wins, even if the verdict is overturned, this will have a horrible, inhibiting effect of freedom of speech, especially political speech. This case isn't about Driehaus losing his job, it's about trying to shut people up. Even if the verdict is in favor of the Susan B. Anthony list, the cost of defending themselves in court will be high, and the specter of such actions will inhibit speech. ( I believe, and I have to say this is opinion and not fact, that Driehaus was put up to this by the Progressive wing that has seized control of the Democratic party in order to inhibit organized opposition to them.) In other venues courts are hearing cases brought by the Government that would have never hit the courts three years ago. The supreme court is being asked by the EEOC to determine what constitutes a minister of religion. Never before in our nation's history has the Federal Government used the courts to say who is and who is not a minister, that has always been left to the churches, using churches in the broadest possible sense. This is happening on the State level as well, with a Florida Second District Court of Appeals ruling that a judge can decide what the proper Islamic teaching is on the governance of a mosque. never have the courts ventured so far into the realm of religion.

Don't think that we're under the radar, either. Illuminating Concepts, a lighting company, received government funds for new streetlight designs, that include motion sensors, video surveillance cameras and "speakers'--remember that if it can be a speaker, it can be used with no physical modification as a microphone, especially using digital technologies. The street lights were touted as having "homeland security applications", until people began to notice, then references to these applications and feature began to be removed from the internet.

So yeah, rifles and carbines are getting expensive, especially semi-auto's with detachable box magazines. Ammo is scarce in bulk pack as well. it's terrible, here I am, just an innocent target shooter, who loves to poke holes in paper targets and to shoot tennis balls to prep for hunting, and I'm having a heck of a time finding a suitable gun. Heck, I wouldn't even be looking if my old gun hadn't had design based failure that makes me question it's reliability and safety. Oddly enough, this gun was designed around the 90s era "assault weapons ban", just so people could still have a semi-auto shoulder fired gun with a detachable box magazine. You remember the ban perhaps--it's the one Obama has said he wants to reinstate.

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