Brutally Honest

"I’m not afraid whatsoever"

I don't think we appreciate or understand enough the courage displayed by Ingrid Loyau-Kennet:

A mother of two who calmly confronted the Woolwich attackers on Wednesday has attributed her courage to her Catholic faith.

Ingrid Loyau-Kennet, a practising Catholic, told the Daily Telegraph: “I live my life as a Christian. I believe in thinking about others and loving thy neighbour. We all have a duty to look after each other. A whole group of people walking towards those guys would have found it easy to take those weapons out of their hands. But me, on my own, I couldn’t.”

Mrs Loyau-Kennet was travelling on the Number 53 bus through Woolwich in south east London on Wednesday afternoon when she saw a man lying in the road. She immediately got out to help him.

She said: “I took his arm to feel his pulse. There was blood on the pavement where he had been dragged and blood was pouring out of him. Suddenly this excited black man came up to me and said: ‘Get away from the body; don’t touch it.’ I looked up and I could see red hands, a bloodied revolver, bloodied meat cleaver and a butcher’s knife. OK, I thought, this is bad.”

After speaking to the first suspect, Mrs Loyau-Kennett asked the second suspect “if he wanted to sit down and give me what he had in his hands”.

Mrs Loyau-Kennet remained with the soldier, identified yesterday as Drummer Lee Rigby, despite an onlooker advising her to move away. She said: “I told her I wasn’t leaving; as long as I don’t see professionals here, I’m staying. He knows me; he knows I’m calm. I’m not afraid whatsoever. I’ll stay until something happens.”

The world needs more of this kind of courage, this kind of faith.

Hats off to her.

Afghanistan Comes To London

Guest post by tim, The Godless Heathen

Sultan Knish - 

After telling the story of Mohammed’s boast that he would make the mountain come to him, only to be forced to go to it, Francis Bacon observed, “If the mountains will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain.”

Americans, Englishmen, Frenchmen and countless others went to the Muslim world hoping to turn it into another Boston, another London and another Paris. Instead Boston, London and Paris are turning into another Kabul, another Islamabad and another Mogadishu. Mohammed has come to the mountain

Five years ago, the sight of Muslim terrorists beheading British soldiers was a horror that could happen in Afghanistan or Iraq. Now it has happened in broad daylight in the capital of the United Kingdom.

In a decade, 600,000 white Londoners have fled the city. Those are the sorts of numbers you would expect from the Syrian civil war. Their place has been taken by the million Muslims occupying the city.

Woolwich Common, adjacent to the area where the attack too place, is described as an “inner-city multicultural neighborhood” which is to say that it is more ethnically diverse than the London average; it has more violent crimes than average and is among the 5% of poorest neighborhoods. Only 58% of its population was born in England and a quarter of its residents immigrated in that same dreadful decade.

Multiculturalism has enriched the area with the Woolwich Manz, a Somali Muslim gang whose antics have led residents to fear walking the streets at night. The Royal Borough of Greenwich’s Social Inclusion and Justice Division informs us that there are thousands of Somalis in the borough, most of whom live in Woolwich Common and Woolwich Riverside.

Gang wars over the lucrative drug business have broken out between the Woolwich Manz and other African gangs. Already in 2007, the London Evening Standard said that area residents were describing the Woolwich Common Estate as a “war zone” with stabbings and shootings and a new generation of child soldiers being recruited into the war. It was a little piece of Somalia in the United Kingdom.

The two men who butchered a British soldier are believed to be Somalis. Last year it was reported that dozens of Muslims in the UK were being trained to fight for Al Qaeda in Somalia. There were concerns over what those men would do once they returned to the United Kingdom.

Al-Shabaab, the local Al Qaeda franchise, subsists on tens of thousands of pounds from the hundreds of thousands of Somali settlers living in the United Kingdom. In 2012, Al-Shabaab terrorists had threatened a terrorist attack against the UK, saying, “The nightmare that surreptitiously looms on British shores is bound to eclipse the horrors of 7/7 and 21/7 combined.”

That nightmare still looms. It is the nightmare of the savage wars of the Muslim world being exported to the United Kingdom.

Read the rest.

“He really was an example of all that’s right about a strong faith.”

I suspect this book would make an excellent Father's Day gift:

The risk-taking side of Adam that came across in his standing up to those taller boys also came out in other ways. Ever the daredevil, he would jump out of trees and do belly flops into shallow water. He generally escaped unscathed, until he took a risk with something he couldn’t control: crack cocaine.

Eric said, “Adam first started failing when he went off to college where he had no friends. All of his good buddies had gone somewhere else and he’d always been this team player. He was big on the football team, he had that community in his high school [in] Hot Springs, Arkansas. It was a little bit of his identity, his moral compass, if you will. When that was gone, that was when he started going down the wrong path.”

Adam got involved with a group of friends and a girl he was trying to impress. They encouraged him to use crack for the first time – and then, the drug owned him.

Eric explained, “Anyone who has any experience with family members that fought that addiction, they realize that drug changes a chemical balance in your brain so you will crave it for the rest of your life…Many never overcome it.”

Adam started stealing from his family in order to buy more drugs, including meth. The good kid from Hot Springs wound up a criminal with eleven felonies. He even stole a hand gun at one point.

His parents, Larry and Janice, who at first didn’t know about this side of Adam, were devastated when it came to light. They wanted to help, but had no choice other than to watch him hit rock bottom.

Though Janice had never gone to church and Larry hadn’t attended in 30 years, Adam’s troubles led them to join a local church and put Adam in God’s hands. Spiritual support from the pastor and prayer community helped the Browns take a “tough love” approach with their son: they had him arrested and he went to jail.

That’s when Adam’s life began its turnaround as well because he found God there and started reading the Bible.

Eric said, “When Adam was recovering [and back from rehab], he would go into church with his parents give his testimony to the congregation. He told these people who had all been praying for him that their prayers had been important, that he’d felt them, that he’d felt that sense of community. Because at the end of the day, you’re very alone in that situation…Knowing that people are rooting for you was so important.”

The person who was there for Adam the most, though, was his wife, Kelley. Adam’s parents called her “an angel” and his friends were astonished that she stuck by him through all his relapses into drug abuse.

Eric said, “She would go and find him in crack houses and bring him back, put him back on his feet, and say, ‘You are better than this.’ We’re talking years of putting up with this type of repeated behavior. She said she would pray to God, if she should stay with this guy or leave him, and she said she never felt in her heart that she should leave Adam. She knew that what was inside, his spirit, was something special. She was a humble warrior herself because she did stand by his side. She ultimately inspired him to try for the Navy. That would be his second chance at life, which was a miracle in and of itself, that he was even given the opportunity to join the Navy.”

...

Becoming a father to his children, Nathan and Savannah, was also one of the joys of Adam’s life. They gave him something special to live for, a responsibility greater than himself. He made sure to coach Little League and teach Sunday School whenever he was home from deployment.

Though Eric only came to know Adam through conversations with his family and friends, the author notes the Navy SEAL’s influence on his own life and relationship with his kids. Eric said, “I realized how important it is to give of yourself, and Adam reminded me of that. For the first time, I started to coach Little League. And I’ve been coaching it for a second season. I also hadn’t opened a Bible in 25 years, and I had my own reservations about religion. Adam helped remind me a about the power of faith and the good in religion, not just the negatives that some people associate with it. He really was an example of all that’s right about a strong faith.”

Read the whole thing and ask again, where do we get such men?

Do you think Drudge is having fun today?

I'm thinking so.

Would moderate Muslims please stand up... (UPDATED)

... and vehemently and unequivocally denounce this?

Two men with butcher knives hacked another to death Wednesday near a London military barracks and one then went on video to explain the crime -- shouting political statements, gesturing with bloodied hands and waving a meat cleaver. Soon after, arriving police shot and wounded the unidentified assailants and took them into custody.

The brutal daylight attack galvanized this city and raised fears that terrorism had returned to London.

Authorities did not identify the victim by name, but French President Francois Hollande referred to him as a "soldier" at a news conference in Paris with visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron. Cameron would not confirm that, but British media reported that the victim was wearing a shirt in support of troops and Britain's Ministry of Defense said it was investigating whether a U.K. soldier was involved.

Calling it "an appalling murder," Cameron said there were "strong indications" it was an act of terrorism, and two other officials said there were signs the attack was motivated by radical Islam.

The Cabinet's emergency committee was immediately convened and security was stepped up at army barracks across London. Cameron cut short his Paris trip to return to London and his office said he would chair another session Thursday.

I will update this post when I find some of those unequivocal and vehement denunciations.  If my readers find any, please leave them in the comments.

Carry on.

UPDATE: Via tnxplant in the comments, hopeful signs:

The Muslim community in Britain is responding early and loudly to condemn the attack.

Faith Matters is a charity that supports entrepreneurs in the West Bank through micro and small business loans, as well as providing support to Palestinian women. Fiyaz Mughal, the director of Faith Matters, said:

This is the kind of butchery we saw in places like Iraq and it’s appalling it is happening here.

The vast majority of Muslims in Britain will be truly sickened. We have to come out and shout out against this type of violence. We have to say enough is enough.

We have to make clear the line between voicing dissent and extremist violence. Muslims have to hammer home that anyone advocating this kind of horrific extremism will be shunned.

The backbone of extremism has gone. What you have are cells of a few people reinforcing each other’s beliefs who are disillusioned, mentally vulnerable and often out of touch with their families.

The Muslim Council of Britain stated outright that the killers' use of "Islamic slogans" indicated they were motivated by their faith. It went on to say:

This is a truly barbaric act that has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly. Our thoughts are with the victim and his family.

We understand the victim is a serving member of the Armed Forces. Muslims have long served in this country's Armed Forces, proudly and with honour.

This attack on a member of the Armed Forces is dishonourable, and no cause justifies this murder.

Akbar Khan of the Building Bridges conflict resolution organization said:

We totally condemn the killing of an innocent person in Woolwich this afternoon.

And we also condemn all forms of extremism wherever they are.

The thoughts of the Muslim community are with the family of the man who lost his life, and we pray for him.

Mohammed Shafiq of the Ramadhan Foundation, which promotes moderate Islam and interfaith dialogue in the UK, said:

I wish to condemn the evil and barbaric crime carried out today in Woolwich.

Our immediate thoughts are with the family and friends of the victims. From whatever angle you see today's attack, it was at every level evil.

We must allow the police to gather all the facts before unnecessary speculation and wait for the facts before determining its impact on our country.

But what happens in the days to come, London and our nation will come together and will not be divided. The terrorists will never win and succeed in their evil plans.

But tonight we think of the family of that soldier killed.

More of this. Please.

Unmasking an idol, revealing The Truth

It’s coming up on 4 years ago that Elizabeth Scalia, aka The Anchoress, and I had an online spat of sorts. 

Without delving into the details of the quarrel (feel free to pursue them yourself at the link), suffice it to say that via the wonder that is hindsight I can now confidently state that particular squabble has proven to be the turning point, the proverbial fork in the road moment, of my trek back to Catholicism. 

Ms. Scalia was able to gently yet firmly set me straight on a wrongheaded, even ignorant, opinion I was using to justify an action.  Her correction masterfully, though not initially, made me turn inward, made me check my premises, made me stop and think about something I was holding on to with passionate yet foolhardy rigidity.  Though I’m sure she didn’t know it at the time, she was confronting me with something that stood between me and the truth.  In fact, again looking back, I can affirm that this something stood between me and The Truth. 

All of which brings us to Elizabeth’s new book Strange Gods, Unmasking the Idols of Every Day Life.  The book
arrived on my doorstep just a few days ago and I’ve been devouring it.  Unlike too many faith-focused books I’ve laid my hands on in the recent past -- books I lose interest in finishing because of syrupy platitudes or the highfalutin theological gobbledygook contained therein -- this book was a literal page turner, with one insight after another worthy of noting, worthy of sharing.

Take as an example, and trust me when I say the book is filled with these nuggets, something Elizabeth wrote in Chapter Eight, a chapter she titled The Super Idols:

We all do that from time to time; we get caught up in our cause, and we become careless with our words.  Sometimes that’s about busyness and distraction, and not idolatry.  But when we catch ourselves being thoughtless (or when someone points it out to us), we should consider the first commandment and ask ourselves if we have not elevated the object of our enthrallment to that position where it blocks God.

Those words take me back to that squabble back in August of ’09, the spat that began this piece, a time when I was not just stubbornly blocking a view of God I now cling to but a time when I was holding to a distorted view of Him l thought was not just reasonable but pure.  The God I knew then, the God I was in essence imposing upon others who had good reason to be offended by that imposition, was in fact a strange god.

Ms. Scalia gently unmasked that unknowing idol to me four years ago and that unmasking led to a series of decisions that brought me home to my Catholic roots. 

Pick up her book today and perhaps she’ll unmask an idol or two for you.  Who knows where that might take you? 

Meet Zach Sobiech... and be changed by that meeting

I didn't 'meet' him until early this morning when my sister-in-law made the introduction via Facebook.  I was mesmerized by what I hope you'll take the time to watch below... over 4 million others have done so:

As I watched the video, as I stopped numerous times to compose myself, as I marvelled at this young man's strength and the love he and his family shared, I couldn't help but wonder over and over again, what was the source of all this strength... and can my family and I also tap into it?

I believe firmly that I've found the answer:

For Laura Sobiech, the image of Mary is clear: standing silently, helplessly at the foot of the cross, watching her son die.

For Catholics, it's at the heart of understanding who Mary is and why she matters to our faith.

In Sobiech's case, it doesn't take much to conjure up the sight of the suffering mother of God. She just needs to sit at the foot of her son Zach's bed.

Zach is dying of a rare form of bone cancer called osteosarcoma. He is now in the final stages of the disease, at home in hospice care and taking only medications to help ease the pain and make him feel comfortable.

"Identifying with Mary's suffering has been huge," said Laura, of St. Michael in Stillwater. "To meditate from her point of view, watching her son suffer, has just really brought me peace and shown me how to do it. ... Mary was there for the whole thing, and there was nothing she could really do but be there."

Like Mary, Laura has resolved to be by her son's side for whatever time he has left. She is joined faithfully by her husband of 23 years, Rob. Together, both have shared the ups and downs, joys and deep sorrows of their son's battle with cancer, which began in the fall of 2009.

Zach, the third of the Sobiechs' four children, was out on a run trying to get in shape for the upcoming basketball season at Stillwater High School when he began experiencing pain in his hip. But when he sought treatment for what he thought was a hip flexor, Zach instead was told he had a tumor. 

Said Rob: "It was like someone punched you in the gut."

Not long after the diagnosis on Nov. 13, 2009, Laura got serious about a goal she had set several years earlier -- praying the rosary.

"When things started with Zach in 2009, it was pretty immediate that I needed that lifeline," Laura said. "That's when I decided that this was going to be part of my daily routine. So, I actually set up my work schedule to start later so that I could make sure I would get prayer in before I started my day."

Now Laura craves her daily time with the Blessed Mother as much as ever. Though a lifelong Catholic, only recently has she developed a devotion to Mary and the rosary.

"Any time we have a struggle in the family, I go right to the rosary because I know that's where we're going to get the grace -- or I'm going to get the grace -- to get through things," she said. "I just don't have to do it on my own. It's my safety net."

The safety net of faith is what has helped the whole family get through the dozen-plus surgeries, the 100-plus days in the hospital, and the grim reports from doctors. And, it has given them eyes to see Zach's illness as something more than just pure misery and heartbreak.

"We were given our situation as an opportunity," Rob said. "It's had purpose. It was part of God's plan. Now, every day I look at it, I'm going, 'I don't like it.' But, if you can understand that there's an eternal (component), then the whole suffering part makes a lot more sense."

We now know that this past Monday, Zach succumbed to the illness. His suffering ended, his family's entering a brand new phase but one that seemingly, they seem well equipped to deal with.

Might we all learn something from Zach's life and from the lives of those close to him and more importantly, from where they've drawn their strength.

Carry on.

Cut Off Catholicism

Fr. Longenecker continues his series on What's Killing American Catholicism:

It is cut off from the deep philosophical and theological roots of the historic faith. Here are some examples. The Catholic religion–like all ancient religions both pagan and Jewish–is ritualistic. It speaks in the language of liturgy, sign, symbol and sacred gesture. We only have to experience the typical AmChurch Mass to see that the Americans attending Mass don’t understand such things. The altar servers wear robes but they don’t know why. They serve the altar, but have not the slightest idea of the liturgical or symbolic significance of what they do. The chew gum and wear da-glo sneakers underneath their robes. The people sit in the pews in big auditoria dressed as if they are at the movies or a basketball game. The music is an entertainment based blend of honkey tonk, nightclub style and country Western. This is made worse by the fact that the vast majority of AmChurch Catholics don’t realize there is anything wrong. The like this form of worship, and they like it because they don’t understand ritual, sign, symbol and sacred gesture–even worse they don’t understand that they don’t understand.

The historic ritual of Catholic religion is rooted in an acceptance of the metaphysical. In other words, we believe that through the ritual we are making a transaction with the other world. The supernatural impinges on us at all times. We are at the threshold of heaven and on the doorstep of eternity. Most AmChurch Catholics don’t understand this. I am convinced that it is simply not a part of their world view. Why should it be? They have been educated in a culture and by a system that is essentially materialistic, utilitarian and secular. There is no sense of the immanent, no sense of the awesome presence in life. The Protestant founding fathers weeded out all that “nonsense” and the deists and materialists finished the job. Such poetic and otherworldly ideas are not even dismissed by the typical American. They are not even misunderstood. They simply do not exist in their vocabulary.

Worship has become for most American Catholics therefore a mixture of civic duty, a way to inculcate good values into their children, a matter of family tradition which is presented in a way that is comfortable, easy going and entertaining. The idea that we are in touch with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the pillar of fire and the burning bush, the idea that we are on the threshold of a life changing mystical experience is utterly foreign to their imagination.

The desire for the mystical, however will not die, so instead of finding thismysterium tremendum et fascinans in the ritual, music, architecture and art of ordinary Catholic worship or in the religious traditions of contemplative prayer, monasticism and devotions the American Catholic is most likely to wander off into the misty mystical mess of New Age practices, Eastern religions or the occult.

It seems to me that this divorce from not only our ancient traditions, but our ancient way of viewing the world and our religion in America is not simply the result of the mis-application of the Second  Vatican Council or the ravages of modernism or the desire to make Catholic worship ‘relevant’. These are only part of the problem, and indeed are really only symptoms. The deeper malaise–and one which is most difficult to counter–is that the American founding philosophy is fundamentally opposed to Catholicism. America is individualistic, anti authoritarian, pragmatic, materialistic and aggressive. It has historically balanced this worldly view with a Protestant Christian ethos, but that is disintegrating because it also had woven into its genetic code a kind religious form of the American philosophy: a Christian form of individualism, anti authoritarianism, materialistic pragmatism with not a little bit of aggression.

What can be done?

Read the rest and find out.

Insightful stuff.

"You are not what gives you a boner"

Rather provocative title I know, but if it gets you to read in its entirety what Marc Barnes, aka BadCatholic, has to say about the news hitting the wires of a Catholic priest coming out as gay, then it's worth the heat I might get for the decision to use it.

After all, this blog isn't called Brutally Honest for nothing.

Here's but a piece of some of the most enlightening writing describing Catholic teaching on this issue I believe I've ever read:

Bravely facing the applause of a world in love with labels, and just in time for the release of a second edition of his new book “Hidden Voices, Reflections of a Gay, Catholic Priest,” Fr. Gary M. Meier came out today and declared himself openly gay to the notoriously unsympathetic Huffington Post.

Bless the man, may the Lord keep him, let His face shine upon him and give him His peace. He’ll be attacked by idiotic Catholics, whose quotes will undoubtedly be used in his up-and-coming “This Has Been Difficult” op-ed. But the sins of hatred will hardly puncture his popularity. I am attacking — with trident and with fire  – his philosophy and his easy critique of Church teaching that will win the blank-eyed nods of every other person who doesn’t give a damn about reading what the Church actually teaches.  He says:

…that’s precisely the message our Church is sharing. LGBT youth are hearing that they are disordered, diseased, defective, damaged goods, wrong when they should be right.

If they are being give this message, it is not by the Church. The message the Church has been consistently giving to LGBTQ youth is the same message she gives to heterosexual youth — you are not your genitals. Stop introducing yourself with your penises.

We take offense at the Church when she says that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,” (CCC 2357) but only because we put her words through the mind-numbing blender of reductionist thought which defines people as being their sexuality, as being heterosexual, being homosexual, being a lesbian, being pansexual, etc. The LGBTQ movement is so concerned with developing and refining their plethora of scientific labels by which to reduce human beings to a word describing their genital behavior that they — and the culture they own — have forgotten a very simple fact. You are not what gives you a boner.

It is by the urging of the Catholic Church that I refuse, reject, and trample on the label heterosexual. Why? Because I will not be defined as being attracted to women. My sexuality is personal, that is, it exists not as an abstract label generally unifying me with other people attracted to the opposite sex, but as an expression of my personal belonging to the bodily world, my personal integration of my soul and my body, which becomes “personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another” (CCC 2337), with a single, particular, personal, woman, not to a general sex.

But this is far too complex. We want a label to be subsumed into. And thus Meier, in claiming the label “gay,” says “I want the world to know the truth about who I am,” because personal identity has been wonderfully reduced, and we can say — without fear of contradiction — that who I am is gay, or who I am as straight.

This reduction is the primary reason Meier makes the tired, required leap from what the Church says — that homosexuality is disordered — to what he claims the Church says — “LGBT youth are hearing that they are disordered.”  Our culture defines individuals by their genital urges, and thus any rejection of a sexual behavior is immediately heard as a rejection of the individual. If who you are is a homosexual, then there is no distinction between being told “homosexuality is disordered” and “you are disordered.” While blurring this distinction and allowing ourselves to exist as walking erections certainly allows for easy, sure-fire, and oh-so-safe criticism of the Catholic Church, how small it renders the human person! What a piece of work becomes man, how lacking in depth, how easily negated, how boring and how bored!

You must read the whole thing.  Get over the giggles.  Get over the snickering.  Read the piece, the whole piece, then decide for yourself if you're learning something new about Catholicism.

Because if you already knew it, then you need to get about spreading the teaching.

And if you didn't, it's past time to get started.

It's about honesty, truth, integrity, freedom and in the end, the gospel.

It's not about boners.

Carry on.

Did Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori give the worst sermon ever?

The Underground Pewster is suggesting the answer is yes and I've got to wholeheartedly endorse that answer:

Now, that was not the part of her sermon that initially caught my attention, nor was that what led me to suggest that this might be her worst sermon ever. No, it was her interpretation of the story of Paul and the slave girl that left me shaking my head. You may recall the version that Luke gives us in Acts 16,

"Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” And this she did for many days.
But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour. But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities." Acts 16:16-19 (KJV)

I understand that there are different takes on this passage, and here is mine: Paul does let the possessed girl cry out her message for several days before he casts out the spirit. One might guess that this kind of hawker might draw in the crowds initially, but being praised by the demonically possessed seems counter-productive to Paul's ministry. Paul heals the girl, freeing her from possession, but in actual fact it is not Paul doing the healing, but Jesus Christ whom Paul rightly invokes. 

Our P.B. has a very different opinion, and after she worms the obligatory remarks about homosexuality into the Gospel, she... well, read it (emphasis added) for yourself...

"We live with the continuing tension between holier impulses that encourage us to see the image of God in all human beings and the reality that some of us choose not to see that glimpse of the divine, and instead use other people as means to an end.  We’re seeing something similar right now in the changing attitudes and laws about same-sex relationships, as many people come to recognize that different is not the same thing as wrong.  For many people, it can be difficult to see God at work in the world around us, particularly if God is doing something unexpected."
"There are some remarkable examples of that kind of blindness in the readings we heard this morning, and slavery is wrapped up in a lot of it.  Paul is annoyed at the slave girl who keeps pursuing him, telling the world that he and his companions are slaves of God.  She is quite right.  She’s telling the same truth Paul and others claim for themselves.  But Paul is annoyed, perhaps for being put in his place, and he responds by depriving her of her gift of spiritual awareness.  Paul can’t abide something he won’t see as beautiful or holy, so he tries to destroy it.  It gets him thrown in prison.  That’s pretty much where he’s put himself by his own refusal to recognize that she, too, shares in God’s nature, just as much as he does – maybe more so!    The amazing thing is that during that long night in jail he remembers that he might find God there – so he and his cellmates spend the night praying and singing hymns."
"An earthquake opens the doors and sets them free, and now Paul and his friends most definitely discern the presence of God.  The jailer doesn’t – he thinks his end is at hand.  This time, Paul remembers who he is and that all his neighbors are reflections of God, and he reaches out to his frightened captor.  This time Paul acts with compassion rather than annoyance, and as a result the company of Jesus’ friends expands to include a whole new household.  It makes me wonder what would have happened to that slave girl if Paul had seen the spirit of God in her."

"Paul is annoyed perhaps for being put in his place"!  I don't get it, but I can only assume this is a reflection of the modern attitude that Paul was an arrogant, self righteous, homophobic, hung up, misogynist who needs a little put-down from revisionist teachers and preachers so that today's congregations won't take Paul's letters too seriously.

Paul deprives the girl of her "gift of spiritual awareness"!Are you kidding me? The girl was possessed! (Remember this comes from the leader of a church that believes that homosexual marriages are a gift from God, so with that in mind, demonic possession as a gift from God makes perfect sense).

"Paul can’t abide something he won’t see as beautiful or holy, so he tries to destroy it." Oh, she must really dislike Paul, but the fact is that Paul sees demonic possession as something that is neither beautiful nor holy, whereas our Presiding Bishop sees it as a gift from God. Bad Paul: destroyer of God's gift. This too fits the revisionist picture of Paul as an intolerant man who is merely a reflection of a first century value system that we have mercifully outgrown.

"She, too, shares in God’s nature, just as much as he does – maybe more so!"
Now this is going too far. Does God's nature include possession? 
  
"The amazing thing is that during that long night in jail he remembers that he might find God there – so he and his cellmates spend the night praying and singing hymns."
The amazing thing is that anyone with a bishop's miter on her head would spread the supposition that Paul had forgotten God in the first place.

There's much more and every jot and tittle confirms for me that my departure from the ECUSA was divinely ordered... and I can't help but wonder what it would take for the orthodox to leave if this ain't it.

Carry on.

Elderley Oklahoma tornado victim finds missing dog, live on camera

This is pretty special, coming our way via Josh Vorhees at Slate:

Let's hope there are more stories like this coming out of Moore, Okla., where people continue to pick through the rubble of their town for family, friends, and pets who managed to survive the massive tornado. In the video below you'll meet Barbara Garcia, an elderly woman who rode out the storm by taking refuge in the bathroom of her since-destroyed home. Things get good—and may just get a little dusty in your office—at about the 1:35-mark when she discovers her missing dog, shaken but seemingly largely uninjured, in the rubble.* "Well I got God to answer one prayer to let me be OK, but he answered both of them because this was my second prayer," Garcia says, partly to the camera and partly to herself.

Hope amongst the rubble.

May there be similar news for missing persons in the area.

Dear God, let it be so.

Helping those in need in Oklahoma

The tornado death count as of this morning is 51 and that includes at least two dozen children killed in an elementary school.  The count is sure to rise in the coming days.

As always, we wonder how to help.  

NBC News is listing organizations that are gearing up to do just that.  So are the folks at USA Today and CBS News.

Locally, Operation Blessing is getting involved:

A team is already on the ground in Texas helping victims of other tornadoes and they were working out of Oklahoma City.

Tuesday morning, Bill Horan, president of Va. Beach-based Operation Blessing, boarded a plane to join the team to do whatever is needed

"Operation Blessing is really good at managing volunteers," Horan said. "We can coordinate them and focus their unfocused energy."

If you want to help out, cash is the best donation you can make. Horan says they can easily use it wherever the need is greatest.

You can make a donation on the Operation Blessing Website and follow the team's progress on its Facebook page.

Catholic Charities in Oklahoma also has a site set up to take donations.

Lastly, we can pray for God's comfort and mercy and His healing presence for all impacted by the storm.

Carry on.

"Because, it reminds me of surfing with my Dad..."

If you've not heard about Ricochet the service dog, please watch the following and enlighten yourself but understand that it is guaranteed to move you.

I watched it for the first time this morning, just before heading to the office.  Thankfully the trip was long enough for me to regain my composure.

Watch it.

Pass it on.

It's an incredible story.

"Kermit Gosnell is not the exception in the abortion industry; he is the norm."

As the Kermit Gosnell case fades from the memory of those few media outlets that covered the story, now comes word of yet another late term abortionist who kills babies in and out of the womb:

A leading pro-life group has put together a web site to expose Douglas Karpen. Like Kermit Gosnell, this Texas-based abortion practitioner kills unborn children who are born alive in a gruesome abortion-infanticide process.

This week, LifeNews exposed Douglas Karpen — who, like the Philadelphia-based abortion practitioner, is also killing babies born alive after botched abortions. Unlike Gosnell, who killed babies by jamming medical scissors into their necks, at his Houston abortion clinic former employees of Karpen testify he goes one shocking step further, he kills the babies wit his bare hands by twisting their necks execution style.

A new video expose’ of Douglas Karpen has three former abortion clinic employees of abortion practitioner Douglas Karpen exposing horrific practices that took place at his abortion clinic.

Because the mainstream media has done little reporting on Karpen thus far, Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life has put together a new web site:www.TexasGosnell.com and is urging pro-life advocates to make the public aware of the evidence that he is killing babies born alive, and violating numerous other laws. He hopes they will contact state and local officials in Texas to ask for an investigation.

“The Harris County, Texas, District Attorney has already opened an investigation; we are sending out an action alert to the Attorney General to take swift and thorough action until this abortionist is stopped,” Pavone explained.

“As we have said, Kermit Gosnell is not the exception in the abortion industry; he is the norm. As we have seen countless cases in the past, we expect to see many more in the future. And each of them should prompt us all to action,” he added.

Pavone continued: “Priests for Life is working in partnership with Life Dynamics and Operation Rescue on highlighting the atrocities being committed in Karpen’s clinic and elsewhere. We have set up the web site TexasGosnell.com to provide vital information about the ongoing investigation and how people can support it.”

Majorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List is also calling for pro-life people to speak out about Karpen.

“Once again a “respected” abortionist has shown the true horror of abortion. Karpen has practiced in the Houston area for over 20 years, killing thousands of babies, and he will continue to perform these murders unless we stop him,” she said.

There's more at the link if you can stomach it... and elsewhere there are horrific pictures taken by the clinic workers referenced in the piece that show the heinous results of this doctor's actions.  It is pure evil.

How anyone can do this sort of thing and not be driven absolutely bat poop crazy by their conscience and the associated guilt that ought to ensue can only be explained by the perpetrator being completely and utterly soulless.  There is no other explanation.

Evil is real and can be found at abortion clinics around the globe.

What exactly are you and I willing to do about it?

Carry on.

"What I have found perhaps most beneficial about being Catholic..."

Nicole Demille, like me, finds much that she appreciates in Catholicism.  Here she expounds:

What I have found perhaps most beneficial about being Catholic, in a practical, real life way, is the daily self-examination.  I present this analogy: in my bathroom, I have an 8x magnifying mirror.  It's great for tweezing eyebrows, and great for keeping me humble.  Because I see my face for what it really is, aging, imperfect, temporary.  It doesn't make me beat my breast and want to go out and get Botox.  It actually makes me feel free.  It's just a face.  I'm not keeping it forever.  I won't need it where I hope to be going.  The daily examination of conscience works kind of the same way.  Don't just look at your behavior and your thought patterns in a fuzzy, faraway, or cursory way.  Look at your heart and your intentions, your words and your acts, in an 8x magnifying mirror.  Now you don't look so hot.  Now you get that Scripture was right.  No, not a good man, not even one.

But you don't have to turn away from the examination of conscience and go wear a hair shirt.  You can take a few steps that are more constructive.  Confess your sins and receive absolution.  Then go about the work of implementing a two-pronged plan.  Avoid the occasions of sin, and use your newly found humility ('cause if you do Confession right, you're going to come out humbled) to aid you in loving your neighbor.  That is, after you've identified correctly and Biblically just who your neighbor is.  

Is there anyone out there who is not my neighbor?  Anyone so repugnant and evil that he does NOT deserve my prayers? Anyone who is thinking and living so contrary to the Law of God that surely she is worthy of my scorn and hatred?  Anyone so stained by sin that Jesus would surely pat me on the back for spitting on this person, laughing at this person, refusing my heart's mercy to this person?  Is there anyone at all who is so damnable and laughable and horrible that this soul is beyond forgiveness and redemption?

No, not one.

Faith that does not challenge, that does not bring one out of his or her comfort zone... is it faith worth embracing?

I'd say no.

Carry on.

Giving new meaning to your golf game going to crap

Just saw this on ESPN and it cracked me up:

Graeme McDowell reached the semifinals of the World Match Play Championship after knocking out defending champion Nicolas Colsaerts, whose day include the bizarre moment of taking a penalty drop inside a restroom.

McDowell rallied from an early deficit to win 2 and 1 over his European Ryder Cup teammate on the oceanside Thracian Cliffs course and will next face Branden Grace of South Africa, who beat Chris Wood of England 2 and 1. The other semifinal will pit Thomas Aiken of South Africa against Thailand's Thongchai Jaidee.

Colsaerts had the most memorable moment of the day when his tee shot on the short par-4 10th hole flew into a hazard behind a public restroom in a brick building close to the green. Because of where the ball had crossed the hazard line, tournament officials ruled that the penalty drop must be made within the restroom itself, leading to a comical moment that had Colsaerts, his caddie and rules officials all laughing.

"I ain't hitting it out of the loo," Colsaerts joked.

He didn't have to. Since it was considered an immovable obstruction he was then given free relief to play from outside.

He ended up saving par and halving the hole.

"I'm sure now the whole episode at 10 is going to make all the TV news programs, Facebook and all the social media sites with the caption: 'Here's some Belgium guy playing golf in some toilet block in Bulgaria,' " Colsaerts joked. "It's the first time I've ever hit a ball into a toilet block, and you would have thought as a kid I would have been crazy enough to practice that shot. But I never did."

I play some crappy golf... but I can honestly say it's never been this crappy.

Carry on.

"Our modern culture has gone a long way towards severing any connection between the living and the dead"

On a government installation near my office sits a graveyard that dates back to the mid 1800s.  I play on a softball field adjacent to the cemetary and checked it out just last week before a game.  It's fenced off and so you can't walk amongst the headstones and grave markers but from the fence you can read a few of the inscriptions.  

On one of those markers, the names of 3 children are engraved, their ages listed as 1, 3 and 5 years old respectively, incompletely telling a tragic and heartbreaking story of young lives lost and the lives of those left behind to bury them.

This morning I came across this related piece by tiberjudy that reminded me of that pre-softball game visit to the old cemetary and the connections to the past we're missing out on today:

Back in the days when cemeteries were grand and beautiful, the living and the dead were much more connected than they are in our modern world. People were born at home and many babies died very young also at home. Families lived together with several generations under the same roof. If you were sick or injured you were treated at home where you’d either recover or die, surrounded by your family.  When you died, your body wasn’t whisked away to a funeral home. Your body was washed and dressed by family members and your wake and funeral was held, most likely, in the room where you died. Many families had burial plots on their own land. If not, the parish church always had a cemetery, usually adjacent to the church. You’d see it every time you went to Mass. You’d grow up helping to keep your family plot tended and you’d surely visit your family’s graves on birthdays and anniversaries. You knew where your kin were buried and they were still, in some ways, part of your family life. You visited them and took them flowers. As you helped pull the weeds from their graves you’d hear stories about the deceased person and these would keep their memory alive. Today’s sterile, drive-through “gardens” are rarely near the parish church. The staff there mow the grassy expanse so there’s no need for family upkeep. Without monuments or statues it’s often difficult to locate a loved one’s grave. Great for mowing but bad for encouraging family visits and reflection. Many modern cemeteries don’t allow flowers to be left on the gravesite. Dying in a sterile hospital and buried in an easy-mow plot, our dead are pretty removed from our daily lives.

Catholics believe in something called the “communion of saints.”  That means we believe that those who have died in God’s friendship are part of the same mystical Body of Christ as those of us alive on earth. If your church proclaims the Apostle’s Creed, then you believe this, too. Thus the faithful departed remain alive in Christ, just as we are. In short, we’re all in this together. Our modern culture has gone a long way towards severing any connection between the living and the dead. We hide the process of dying and we bury our dead in endless rows of unadorned identical plots. Gone are the beautiful statues of weeping angels or praying cherubs. There are no more poetic epitaphs remembering the life and loves of the deceased person. When was the last time you made a family visit to put flowers on your grandmother’s grave?  Do your children even know where your grandmother is buried?

Practically speaking, few families today could afford a lavish family tomb in one of the few grand old cemeteries that still survive. It’s even unusual to find a parish church that still has its own cemetery. And with families living all around the country, it’s hard to make frequent visits to family plots. But we can do a few things to recapture that sense of communion with our deceased family members. We can include them in our family prayers at mealtime and at bedtime. We can remember the anniversary of their death with a memorial Mass or donation to the parish in their name. We can share photographs and stories about them with our children and grandchildren. We could plant a special garden in their honor and include their favorite flowers or shrubs. The important thing is for us to teach our family that our faith in Christ makes us all members of His family and that dying doesn’t separate us from one another. Our faith connects us to one another through the love, mercy, and sacrifice of Jesus. Nothing, not even death, can separate us from His love.

          “Our dead are among the invisible, not among the absent.”
                                                     —Blessed Pope John XXIII

Beautiful piece.  And yet another reason I find my embrace of the Catholic Church so rewarding.

Tiberjudy by the way deserves to be a regular stop on your blogospheric rounds.

Times they are a changin'

Nearly two months ago, I wrote:

I'd like to change the banner on the blog.  It's served me well over the years but... I think... I need something different.

But I'm not sure at this point what to change it to.  I'd like to think I'm still a brutally honest guy though trust me when I tell you that can mean different things to different people.

My bottom line is that my focus has changed a bit in the last 2 1/2 years and those who've stuck around (not all have) can see that.  I still think that the pronouncement of faith, of religion, and particularly Catholicism can in this culture be seen to be a manifestation of brutal honesty.  I also am keenly aware that brutality can be counter-productive to themessage of the gospel.  

Here's where you come in.  Especially you regular readers.  

What can maintain the motif but also give us a new yet meaningful look?

Shortly after that post, I reached out to a friend I knew had some creative and artistic abilities.  I shared the post above with her, sent her some pictures and some of my thoughts at that point as to what I was looking for and off she went.

She ended up pretty much ditching what we initially talked about, saying she literally prayed over what she should come up with next and voila... the banner was it.

I'm loving it.  It speaks to me personally and dresses the place more than just a little bit.  I loved the old banner and appreciated it for many years (or I wouldn't have kept it for so long) but my focus has evolved and I think the banner now represents more of what I hope the focus is and ought to be.  

And by the way, she who created the banner has communicated that she's willing to help others out who are looking for her kind of talent.  Just contact me, either here in the comments or my email address and I'll pass along the interest.

Carry on.

Is modernity killing morality?

Father Robert Barron expounds on "why the Catholic Church speaking on morality is so often hard to hear, hard to take seriously."

Stay with it:

"The scandals and the negative media coverage actually increased my faith in the Church"

I remember sitting down for lunch one day a few years ago with a co-worker and the subject of Church came up.  At that time I was beginning to think about returning to my Catholic roots and I mentioned as much to my buddy across the table, someone who was devoutly Mormon though not particularly in your face about it.  

The subject of the sex abuse scandal came up and my friend, in essence, thought that because of it, the whole of the Church was corrupt and that I was a fool for considering returning and becoming part of that corruption.  

I had no real rejoinder other than to express my firm belief that though there were certainly corrupt members, that corruption could not logically in my mind be extended to the whole.  My friend was not having any of that however and stuck to his guns about it.  He did some time later suggest I check out the Mormon church and perhaps this was his motivation to stick it to Catholicism on that particular day.

Thankfully, dare I say providentially, I chose not to allow his attacks to influence my later decision to come home.  Of course, those attacks continue from a variety of quarters and I think it necessary and right to be able to defend against them.

Jennifer Fulwiler over at Strange Notions has necessarily and rightly done so:

When people hear that my husband and I began exploring Catholicism in 2005, one of the first questions they often ask is, “What about the sexual abuse scandals? Didn’t that scare you away from the Church?”

They’re usually surprised when I report that the answer is no; in fact, the scandals and the negative media coverage actually increased my faith in the Church. Here’s why:

Getting the Facts Straight

 
One of the first things I did was to look into the numbers behind the sexual abuse cases. Was I heading into an institution that was filled with sexual predators, as the media would have me believe? I was shocked to find that, by even the most anti-Catholic organizations’ estimates, only about 2 percent of Catholic priests had even been accused of sexual misconduct. And certainly the cover-ups by members of the hierarchy were deplorable, but my research led me to see that that was common in all organizations, not just the Church. To list just one of the many examples, in Washington there were 159 coaches accused of sexual misconduct with minors over a 10-year period. Ninety-eight of them continued to coach or teach. And how did the school hierarchies respond? To quote this article:

"When faced with complaints against coaches, school officials often failed to investigate them and sometimes ignored a law requiring them to report suspected abuse to police. Many times, they disregarded a state law requiring them to report misconduct to the state education office.
 
Even after getting caught, many men were allowed to continue coaching because school administrators promised to keep their disciplinary records secret if the coaches simply left. Some districts paid tens of thousands of dollars to get coaches to leave. Other districts hired coaches they knew had records of sexual misconduct."

In another example, Carol Shakeshaft and Audrey Cohan looked at 225 cases of abuse by educators in New York City. Shakeshaft reported:

"All of the accused admitted sexual abuse of a student, but none of the abusers was reported to the authorities, and only 1 percent lost their license to teach. Only 35 percent suffered negative consequences of any kind, and 39 percent chose to leave their school district, most with positive recommendations. Some were even given an early retirement package."

I could go on, but you get the idea. After investigating the issue, I found that, sadly, there is nothing different going on in the Catholic Church than in any organization where men are in contact with children, and that it’s an unfortunate fact of human nature—and not something unique within the Church—that people in hierarchy tend to look the other way when it comes to bad conduct by the people who report to them.

However, unlike the coaches or the school teachers, the Catholic clergy were supposed to be men of God. What are we supposed to make of it when even they commit atrocities like sexual abuse? Pondering that question was one of the key things that led me decide to become Catholic.

I trust you'll read the rest as she's got more and it's all educational, for those in the Church, for those wondering about her.

Check it out.

Carry on.

"On President Obama’s watch, the IRS was weaponized"

Matt Purple has a humdinger up over at The American Spectator:

When an American compound in Benghazi was attacked last year, the Obama administration targeted a filmmaker named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, accusing him of setting the Muslim world ablaze and then throwing him in prison. The government also pressured YouTube to remove his allegedly offensive video. After it became evident that Benghazi was a coordinated terrorist attack that had little to do with Nakoula, family members of those killed started asking for answers. Journalists reacted with a smattering of press coverage, followed by weary demands that we all move on.

But when we learned this week that the Department of Justice secretly collected two months of phone records from the Associated Press, suddenly bats flew out of hell, shrieking could be heard from distant castle towers, and Richard Nixon’s ghost was seen clanking about the White House. With one of their own under attack, the press, which was more than happy to ignore the parents of dead Navy SEALs, demanded that the Obama administration be held accountable.

“Journalism,” observed Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, “is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for f**koffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector.” I’ve always disagreed to an extent; there are plenty of decent members of my profession, even if they’re merely exceptions to Thompson’s rule. But this week the overweening narcissism of the Fourth Estate was on full display, hoisted from the flagpole and flapping in the wind.

The press is comparing the DOJ’s actions to Watergate. That’s all well and good, but why couldn’t any of them have sent a little affront in the direction of Nakoula, who now sits in a prison cell ostensibly for a parole violation, but eminently for making a video Muslims found offensive? And if collecting phone data is Nixonian, what about when the Obama administration chucked Delphi workers off their pensions because they weren’t unionized? Or tried to obfuscate its role in the Fast and Furious operation that left a Border Patrol agent and countless Mexicans dead? Or engaged in the unprecedented persecution of leakers for years before the AP scandal broke?

Those stories were either mostly ignored or snidely dismissed as fodder for right-wing witch hunts. Only when their fellow scribblers came under attack did journalists suddenly sit bolt upright in bed. “Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel,” is a timeworn Mark Twain quote, but apparently it’s also the only rule this administration was ever expected to follow.

The AP matter is bad, and made worse by Eric Holder’s apparent decision to recuse himself from the matter and go paperless on the same day. But the real scandals here are Benghazi and the IRS’s treatment of conservative nonprofits. The latter seems to sprout a new polyp every hour. We now know that the IRS not only targeted Tea Party charities, but also conservative, constitutional, Jewish, and pro-life groups. For more than two years, the agency refused to approve any Tea Party tax-exempt applications whatsoever. Certain applications were inappropriately leaked to the left-wing news outlet ProPublica. IRS employees even tried to blackmail one pro-life group into signing a pledge not to picket outside Planned Parenthood.

On President Obama’s watch, the IRS was weaponized and used to block the growth of conservative intellectual infrastructure. This wasn’t about a couple overcaffeinated agents in the IRS’s Cincinnati office trying to adapt to an onslaught of nonprofit applications. It was a blatant attempt to stymie the spread of ideas; a very potent and unique abuse of power.

Mr. Purple isn't quite done.  What he's written is damning in every sense of the word and should be read by you, by your friends, by your loved ones and by their friends and loved ones.

This isn't really about the right against the left.

It's about the right against the wrong.

True story

Would Mark Shea lie?

Hans Grapje was raised in a Catholic school in The Hague and, as a young man, aspired to become a priest, but was drafted into the Army during WWII and spent two years co-piloting B17s until his aircraft was shot down in 1943 and he lost his left arm.
Captain Grapje spent the rest of the war as a chaplain, giving spiritual aid to soldiers, both Allied and enemy.

After the war, he became a priest, serving as a missionary in Africa, piloting his own plane (in spite of his handicap) to villages across the continent.

In 1997, Father Grapje was serving in Zimbabwe when an explosion in a silver mine caused a cave-in. The now Archbishop Grapje went down into the mine to administer last rights to those too severely injured to move. Another shaft collapsed, and he was buried for three days, suffering multiple injuries, including the loss of his right eye. The high silver content in the mine's air gave him purpura, a life-long condition characterized by purplish skin blotches.

Although Cardinal Grapje devoted his life to the service of God as a scholar, mentor, and holy man, church leaders agree: he will never ascend to the Papacy. No one wants a One-Eyed, One-Armed, Flying Purple Papal Leader.

Mark's there all week.

Please tip your waiter.

And carry on.

Top Ten Catholic tenets

Great stuff coming our way from a blog I just added to the blogroll, Invisible Woman:

When I first began immersing myself in the study of Catholicism,  I read everything I could get my hands on.  I have already cited here on my blog The Catholic Truth Society, publishers to the Holy See, as a great resource.  My neighbor and friend Sandy was a great boon as well, with her casual dropping off of books and offers to answer questions.  But the Catechism was really the turning point.  Of course the Didache, the Church Fathers, EWTN, the many adherent and well-written blogs, and my RCIA education were keys to the door, but reading the Catechism was like finding a road map to my own mind and body, a treasure map that had been hidden underground for thirty nine years.  My most emotional moments, the ones where I had to put down the book and compose myself, came from reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Since then I have also read the Catechism of the Council of Trent and the Baltimore Catechism, but the definitive Catechism for The Church, the one that grew from these and addresses every modern issue we will confront in our day is the Complete Catechism bearing the signature of Blessed Pope John Paul II.  Herein I have compiled for you what for me are the ten most impactful passages from our Catechism. These tenets shape my thinking, my behavior toward others, my opinions on how to heal our broken and continually breaking world, my attitude toward my marriage, and how I approach my vocation as a mother. I hope they enlighten and educate you if it is your first time seeing them, or serve as a refresher if you have read them but let them get away from you. 

1.  66. No new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.   . . . yet it remains for Christian faith to gradually grasp its significance over the course of the centuries . . . Private revelations . . . have been recognized by the authority of The Church, but they do not belong to the Deposit of Faith. This was a huge relief for me.  As I explored the implications and manifestations of this , I found it to be true over and over again. Catholics were not adding anything to the Scripture and Tradition left by Christ; they were guarding it FROM additions.  That Deposit of Faith and what it precisely contains was a sacred pearl of great price.  The entire structure and personnel of The Church now struck me as a fort armed by soldiers, protecting The Truth from the many assailants from within and without who would seek to undermine, change, add to, subtract from, finesse away, politicize, and altogether pervert Her.  I soon learned about what Martin Luther *really* did and I was horrified.  As my research continued and I read from sources closer to the time of when Jesus and the earliest members of His Church walked, studied, worshipped, and preached, I was left without doubt that THIS was The Deposit of Faith He left, and that the guiding body, the Pope and the Magisterium, were divinely led by the Holy Spirit (God Himself) in order to answer modern questions that are not addressed specifically in Scripture or oral Tradition.

2. 133. The Church forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures.  'Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.'  Coming from Protestantism, where it was "me, Jesus, and my Bible," I did have a vestige of false belief that the Catholic Church was less "into" Scripture than were the Protestants.  Again, from hours of research into the history of the Church between the book of Acts and the time of the Reformation (a period which was previously left out of my religious education), I learned that the Catholic Church compiled and canonized Scripture, encouraged the reading of Scripture, and that the Catechism and every encyclical I read was filled with cross references and footnotes FROM Scripture.  The saints fed themselves on Scripture.  This passage from the Catechism uses very exact and purposeful language "forcefully exhorts" to communicate to Catholic Christians that we must immerse ourselves in Scripture.  I learned about Lectio Divina.  I watched as the Gospel was lifted and carried with reverence and singing at Mass.  And I saw how there were more books in the Bible than I had thought there were, not due to Catholics adding books, but to Protestants removing them! Mostly I learned that the Bible was one of the things that would bring me into the Church, because evidence of The Real Presence, Purgatory, and other doctrines, were found therein. 

3. 598. Since our sins made the Lord Christ suffer the torment of the cross, those who plunge themselves into disorders and crimes crucify the Son of God anew in their hearts (for He is in them) and hold Him up to contempt . . . when we deny Him by our deeds, we in some way seem to lay violent hands on Him.  As a Protestant, I heard too much back and forth about who crucified Christ.  Was it the Jews?  The Romans? Upon whom could we lay blame?  And could we, like Pilate, ever wash our hands of this act, so distant from us in history?  Converting slowly into the Church revealed to me that I joined in with those who tortured and killed Christ every time I sinned against Him.  And it seared on to my brain and heart the idea that I can never, ever, celebrate, condone, laugh at, view with pleasure, tinker with, dip my toe into, encourage and abet, throw parades for, or turn the other way from helping someone repent from the sins that my Jesus suffered whippings and humiliation for.  Never. 

4. 1395.  The Eucharist is properly the sacrament of those who are in full communion with the Church. I took pride as a Lutheran in our open rail communion.  How snobby those Catholics were, not letting anyone and everyone partake in their symbolic bread and wine. If Communion were just a symbol, then why not have an open rail?  If it demanded nothing, no adherence or loyalty, no vow, no fasting, no state of grace, then why not let anyone walk in and eat?  Understanding full communion, finally believing in the Real Presence, was like a punch in my gut.  I had distributed communion to my fellow Lutheran parishioners.  I had laughed at my friends' jokes about getting drunk on the leftover wine we had to finish.  Obviously my view of the Eucharist has changed completely, perhaps more than anything else about my theological perspective and spiritual life.  I could never leave the Eucharist.  I could never walk away from the Real Presence now, and I do not know how anyone does.  I am also acutely aware that the Eucharist must be withheld from people for the protection of their own souls, so that they do not receive it lightly or in a state of grave sin.  And since Scripture backs this up, it was not a hurdle at all to my conversion. 

She's got six more and I recommend you read them, if only to better understand what Catholics ought to be believing.

Do it.

Thanks to Mr. Shea for the find.

"An element of madness" that is "healthy" and "spiritual"

Pope Francis is suggesting that I might just be blessing the Lord:

The Pope told Christians it is better to be “annoying” and “a nuisance” than lukewarm in proclaiming Jesus Christ.

“If we annoy people, blessed be the Lord,” said Pope Francis during his morning Mass at the Vatican on May 16.

“We can ask the Holy Spirit to give us all this apostolic fervor and to give us the grace to be annoying when things are too quiet in the Church,” he said at the chapel of the Saint Martha residence, where he lives.

...

The Pope preached on today’s first reading from Acts 22 and contrasted “backseat Christians” with those who have apostolic zeal.

“There are those who are well mannered, who do everything well, but are unable to bring people to the Church through proclamation and apostolic zeal,” he stated.

The pontiff said apostolic zeal “implies an element of madness,” which he labeled as “healthy” and “spiritual.”

He added that it “can only be understood in an atmosphere of love” and that it is not an “enthusiasm for power and possession.”

Pope Francis also dwelt on St. Paul’s actions in the reading from Acts.

“Paul, in preaching of the Lord, was a nuisance, but he had deep within him that most Christian of attitudes, apostolic zeal,” he stated.

“He was not a man of compromise, no!” he exclaimed. “The truth, forward! The proclamation of Jesus Christ, forward!”

The Pope noted that St. Paul’s fate was one “with many crosses, but he keeps going, he looks to the Lord and keeps going.”

“He is a man who, with his preaching, his work, his attitude irritates others, because testifying to Jesus Christ and the proclamation of Jesus Christ makes us uncomfortable.

“It threatens our comfort zones, even Christian comfort zones, right?” he asked the congregation. “It irritates us.”

Pope Francis underscored that the Lord “always wants us to move forward, forward, forward, not to take refuge in a quiet life or in cozy structures.”

Saint Paul’s apostolic zeal, he observed, comes from knowing Jesus Christ.

Paul did not find and encounter Jesus Christ with an intellectual or scientific knowledge, but with “that first knowledge of the heart and of a personal encounter.”

According to the Pope, St. Paul was a “fiery” individual who was always in trouble, “not in trouble for troubles’ sake, but for Jesus” because “proclaiming Jesus is the consequence.”

“The Church has so much need of this, not only in distant lands, in the young churches, among people who do not know Jesus Christ, but here in the cities, in our cities, they need this proclamation of Jesus Christ,” Pope Francis stressed.

“So let us ask the Holy Spirit for this grace of apostolic zeal, let’s be Christians with apostolic zeal, onwards, as the Lord says to Paul, take courage!” he exclaimed.

Blessed be the annoyers, for they will bless God!

What is Truth?

Fr. Powell is bemoaning the disappearance of truth: 

If Truth were a commodity—like cotton or oil—its stock value would be very low these days. With the exception of the Church, no one seems to care much about what's true or false, what's fact and fiction. We are far more likely to hear that truth is a tool in the oppressor's arsenal; or that truth is a traditional fiction dreamed up by neurotics; or that truth, at best, depends on one's perspective. You have your truth. I have my truth. Who's to say what's true or false? It just depends. Rather than ask if a bit of information is true or false, we're told to ask, “Who does this information benefit? Who does it harm?” Rather than seek the truth, we are urged to “create a narrative,” or “construct a perception.” When did this sort of deception creep into our world? Sometime right after God told Adam and Eve to avoid eating the fruit of one particular tree, the world's first salesman convinced them that God was lying to them. Several centuries later, that salesman's political partner asks Jesus, “What is Truth?” And then washes his hands of Jesus' death. But before he is arrested and executed, Jesus prays to the Father, “Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.” Assuming the Father answered this prayer by fulfilling Jesus' petition, what changed? How are we different? 

Read the rest and embrace some bonafide truth.

Someone needs to... it might as well be you...

And me.

"Idolatry has played a big part in bringing us to this place"

Things seem to be spiralling out of control.  Societal decay, corruption, coarseness, immorality in general seems to be on the rise while integrity, character, virtue and the like seem to be on the decline.

Why?

The Anchoress is positing a theory:

Idols demand worshipers comfortable with illusions, and around them questions become dangerous things. Idols are formed by an idea people take into their heads and then polish with soft cloths and protect from hard questions until it reflects what they really want to see shining back at them — which is themselves. A majority of us gave the government its entry into over-reach, and then a majority of us willfully bought into an inane, idol-affirming sentiment (“we are the ones we’ve been waiting for!”) mouthed by a man who admitted that he was a “blank screen” upon which people projected their best ideas about themselves.

Idolatry has played a big part in bringing us to this place. The adoring press; the fawning parents and teachers; the fainting crowds offering adulation. Whatever Barack Obama’s natural propensities, it may well have helped him believe he is entitled to do anything he wants, and we ought thank him for it.

But idolatry could not have moved so powerfully within us, had are society not already lost its bearings about God. Ed Driscoll discusses exactly this with the great Mary Eberstadt:

MR. DRISCOLL: Mary, over the last few years, there have been several books exploring the demographic decline that the west is undergoing, including those from authors such as Mark Steyn, Charles Murray, Jonathan Last and others. What role does the decline in religion or how our religious beliefs have changed in the last century, play in this demographic decline?

MS. EBERSTADT: Great question. Well, let’s look at the big picture, for starters, of what’s been going on. We know that over the past several decades, there’s been a decline of religious belief and church attendance across the western world, most markedly in Western Europe, but also in the United States.

And up until now, there’s been one prevailing explanation for this. And the explanation comes down from the Enlightenment, and you heard it from the new atheists most recently. The idea is that religion is a superstitious thing that will eventually die out as people become sufficiently educated and rational and enlightened. And this is what a lot of sophisticated people believe, obviously.

The purpose of my book is first of all, to hold that explanation up to the light and to ask whether it’s true. And I argue that it’s not true and it’s not true for several reasons, any one of which would deep six the prevailing explanation. But just to focus on one. That explanation would suggest that religion is a function of the lower classes, that belief in God is something that poor people do. Or if you remember that famous quote from the Washington Post, it was just about ten years ago, that a reporter wrote that the followers of evangelicals were, let’s see, uneducated and easy to command. Do you remember that?

MR. DRISCOLL: Yes, easy to command, easily led, yeah.

MS. EBERSTADT: Easily led. Yeah. That beautifully summarizes the stereotype of religious believers as being people who just haven’t gotten the word yet, you know, just haven’t gotten sophisticated enough to get rid of God.

Eberstadt, of course, goes on to explain how the stereotype is untrue. Easily led? Hello, MSM; hello secularists.

You’ll want to read the whole interview. I’m already trying to get my hands on Eberstadt’s new book, How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization.

Because it’s all of-a-piece. Once the secular dominated the sacred it was only a matter of time where the void left by ousting God would be filled by idols. As Chesterton said, “Once abolish the God and the government becomes the god.”

There's much more at the link.  And oh by the way, The Anchoress expounds on this notion of idolatry in her new book, one I received yesterday and am devouring.  It's good people, very good, and it speaks to what ails us in a profound way.

What ails us today isn't going to be easily solved by a change in political leadership.

What ails us today is, put as simply as possible, sin.

And there's only one solution to sin.

The Church points the way toward that solution.  Yes, the Church.

We need to embrace her.  We need to go all in.

All of us.  You too.  Hell, you especially.

Right behind me.

“I haven’t written for them since the audit, because I was so scared”

A Catholic finds the courage to speak of her experience with the IRS in the wake of the news now being revealed as to the IRS' intimidation of those publicizing their opposition to Obama:

On Wednesday, Dr. Anne Hendershott, a devout Catholic and a noted sociologist, professor and author, exclusively told TheBlaze that she believes she may have been one of the IRS’s targets.

According to Hendershott, the IRS audited her in 2010 and demanded to know who was paying her and “what their politics were.”

...

Hendershott noted it was particularly surprising that she, alone, was audited. Her husband, who brings in the vast majority of the family’s income, was not included in the IRS’s inquiry — even though the Hendershotts always files jointly.

So when the agent explained that she would need to come alone and in person to discuss her “business” activity in July of 2010, the professor was perplexed.

“[The IRS agent] didn’t even let me decide when it would be good for me … He didn’t want my husband to come,” she said of the meeting, which was held at an IRS office in New Haven, Connecticut.

The process was a grueling one, including many questions that Hendershott felt were political in nature. Numerous records were requested before the in-person meeting, as well as during and after.

“Every question had to do with bank deposits we made. Every single question,” she said. “What is this money? And I didn’t know a lot of it. We had to go to our bank and get deposits back. We had to get records showing where the money came from.”

While asking about the deposits, the agent wanted to know if the monies came from groups and, if so, what the organizations’ politics were.

The mention of groups, Hendershott notes, is particularly interesting, as she had been writing for numerous Catholic outlets and organizations at the time. In addition to Catholic World Report and the Catholic Advocate, she also penned op-eds for the Wall Street Journal. Many of these writings were critical of President Barack Obama and his policies.

And the plot thickens. Among the organizations she targeted in her writings were progressive groups highly supportive of Democratic causes, including: Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Catholics United, and Catholic Democrats.

...

Her writings for the Catholic Advocate soon ceased because, Hendershott admits, the IRS audit silenced her. If her suspicions are true, this may have been its chilling intention.

“I haven’t written for them since the audit, because I was so scared,” she said (records show her last article for the organization was on July 10, 2010 — the same month the IRS audit unfolded).

So far, she has only shared her story with friends and those close to her, but in light of the recent IRS scandal, she has decided to speak out.

“It was clear they didn’t like me criticizing the people who helped pass Obamacare,” she said of the audit,” later adding, ”The IRS is very frightening.”

In addition to creating stress and fear, Hendershott said that the experience came at a great emotional and financial expense for the family, noting that even after the audit the government sought more information from her.

“It was like they just couldn’t find what they wanted because they wanted more and more and more,” she said.

Read the whole thing.  It's chilling.

And again I remind readers of Obama's most recent statements about tyranny:

Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted.

Those that rule us today are radical ideologues and we should not in any way entrust them with governance.  Obama is but a symptom.

Hopefully more and more Americans are becoming aware of what is now known to be fact.

Barack Hussein Obama promised to fundamentally transform this country.  We are just now beginning to see the lengths to which he'll go and has gone to keep that promise.

Carry on.

"Are we saying repentance is about our timing?"

A former Director of a Planned Parenthood clinic weighs in the Kermit Gosnell story with Godly wisdom:

I am vehemently against the death penalty. Now stay with me…this is not a post about my opinion regarding that. You can disagree or agree with me on that some other time. I did want to share a little bit about why I take the words of prolifers so seriously. I have heard so much vitriol spewed from the mouths of “Christian prolifers” since the Gosnell trial has concluded. I feel like I must address it.

When I was confirmed as a Catholic, I chose Mary Magdalene as my confirmation saint. I felt an immediate connection to her. She had sinned so much…and was forgiven in even greater amounts. She knew she didn’t deserve forgiveness…but she received it anyway. And because of this, she clung to Christ. She knew she was nothing without Him.

I have also done my fair share of sinning. And I have also been forgiven much more than I deserve. I abused and betrayed women in the worst possible way. I convinced them to kill their children. Did I slit the necks of children after they were born? No. But, I was an accomplice to murder. Thousands of times…women I knew, women I didn’t, my friends, even my family. I lied to people. I lied to women when they came to me for accurate information. I was among the worst sinners…those that help to take and destroy life. I am no better than Kermit Gosnell.

I took my own children’s lives…twice. Not because I was coerced. Not because I didn’t know better. But because I thought children would be an inconvenience to my lifestyle. I am responsible for their deaths…no one else.

So when someone talks about Gosnell and says things like, “murderers and people like him don’t deserve to breathe the same air as I do,” or “I hope he burns in hell,” it hurts a little. Because that was me. But I am still here…breathing that same air…and trying to spend my life righting my wrongs. And it’s not just me. I know they hurt others like me, as well. People who have left the abortion industry and will work every day to recover from their sins. People who are still in the industry and think they will be shunned by the pro-life movement…maybe they would reach out to us if they knew we would accept them. I am always terrified that clinic workers will see some of the words from prolifers. I have been told by several former workers that they will NEVER come forward with their stories because they are so scared of how they will be treated by us…by US…the supposed “Christian” movement. Their fears are real AND legitimate.

Please read the rest and ponder what she's saying, particularly if you're someone vehemently opposed to abortion.

Just do it.

Krauthammer to Republicans on Benghazi: "Stop calling it a huge scandal. Stop saying it's a Watergate. Stop saying it's Iran Contra. Let the facts speak for themselves."

Very. Sound. Advice.

Via RCP:

Why were the requests for security denied including the desperate ones of the Ambassador who ultimately was killed? Second, what happened on the night [of the attack]? How could America at least made an attempt of rescue? And the response by Democrats, 'Well, it wouldn't have arrived in time.' How in the hell do you know in advance that it's not going to arrive in time? How do you know it would be 7 and a half hours and not 17 and a half hours? That is is not a response. 

And where was the president that night? We've all seen the videos and pictures in The Situation Room of Obama on the night of the Osama raid. Everybody looks at that, he was really involved in that. Show me a picture of where he was on the night of the attack in Libya. Give me a time line. Who did he talk to and what did he do? 

Lastly, the talking points, which are a fiction. And compounded by the fact that the president now say, 'I said it was a terror attack on the day after.' That is not true. Even The Washington Post has said today, it was absolutely a falsehood. It's a falsehood on top of falsehood. But the one advice I give to Republicans is stop calling it a huge scandal. Stop saying it's a Watergate. Stop saying it's Iran Contra. Let the facts speak for themselves. Have a special committee, a select committee. The facts will speak for themselves. Pile them on but don't exaggerate, don't run ads about Hillary. It feed the narrative for the other side that it's only a political event. It's not. Just be quiet and present the facts.

Video at the link.

"It is among the most gruesome and horrifying actions perpetrated on innocent persons"

It... is abortion and the Kermit Gosnell trial and his subsequent conviction has opened the door to some much needed conversations:

I recently read with great interest a fascinating story by the Associated Press. The life of a young girl, Lake Annabelle Hall, was saved following surgery to remove a cyst on her left lung. Had it not been discovered it would have killed her. She received such tremendous care that four teams comprised of 43 doctors and nurses tended to her and her mother. If it had been otherwise, her doctor noted, “She wouldn’t make it out of the delivery room.”

Delivery room? Did I neglect to mention that this surgery was done before Lake Annabelle was born?

The cyst was discovered during a routine 20-week OB/GYN visit. Ten weeks later, Lake Annabelle was partially delivered and medical staff performed the life-saving procedure. Fox News reports that “Doctors pulled her halfway out of her mother’s womb, leaving her connected to her umbilical cord and placenta, which served as life support for her,” and then they cut into her little body so that they might save her life. Lake Annabelle is now 6 months old, a marvelous example of the life-saving prospects of modern medical technology.

What a stark contrast between this life-affirming story and the horrors we’ve heard in recent weeks concerning Kermit Gosnell’s murder trial. Gosnell faced numerous charges including first degree murder, third degree murder, and infanticide and he was found guilty of three first degree murder charges and numerous others including the involuntary manslaughter of patient Karnamaya Mongar. His “Women’s Medical Center” in Philadelphia has been accurately described as a “house of horrors.” The techniques employed by Gosnell to take the life of both unborn and born are too gruesome to describe here.

Usually over the top in it’s coverage of anything concerning blood, death, and mayhem, the mainstream media has virtually ignored the story, only reporting on it after being called out for failure to do so. Archbishop Chaput has noted that “the failure—the allergic disinterest—of some of our most important national media … really doesn’t surprise. It’s part of the fabric of a culture that simply will not see what it doesn’t want to see about the realities of abortion.”

The reality of abortion is that it is among the most gruesome and horrifying actions perpetrated on innocent persons. Yet abortion, and to a lesser extent, infanticide have become accepted by the so called cultural elite. In Evangelium vitae Blessed John Paul lamented that “[c]hoices once unanimously considered criminal and rejected by the common moral sense are gradually becoming socially acceptable… In this way the very nature of the medical profession is distorted and contradicted. (4) The routine infanticide done in the “Women’s Medical Center” has horrified many including the jury who rightly determined that Gosnell was guilty of murdering infants. It cannot be forgotten, however, that the primary difference between infanticide and abortion is the location of the child being killed.

Arland K. Nichols, the author of that Crisis Magazine piece, goes on to challenge every Catholic, dare I say every moral person, to no longer remain silent.  Silence is evil.  Period.

Read the rest.

Accept the challenge.

Doing nothing is in actuality doing something... on the side of embracing death, embracing wickedness.

Carry on.