If You're Tired of Islamic Hypersensitivity..

. Raise your hand.



Our Pope manages to goad reactionaries with remarks buried within a reasoned discussion. Chances are, after picking up on a perceived slight against Islam, the rest of his discussion was completely incomprehensible to the 'Arab Street'. 'Tis a pity, because the foaming masses are going to prove old Manny Paleologus' argument.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached"

Where's me belayin' pin?

My pirate name is:

Iron James Roberts

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. Two things complete your pirate persona: style and swagger. Maybe a little too much swagger sometimes -- but who really cares? Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

h/t GOP Soccer mom

I'd also like to add, to the above description, "scourge of panty-waisted crypto-protestant theologians at catholic universities. Keel-haul the lot from the Barque of Peter. Arrrgh."

Of all ironies

Sunday's reading from the epistle of James:

"Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.
Did not God choose those who are poor in the world
to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom
that he promised to those who love him?"

And compare to a recent headline in Time Magazine:

Does God want you to be rich?

..For several decades, a philosophy has been percolating in the 10 million-strong Pentecostal wing of Christianity that seems to turn the Gospels' passage on its head. Certainly, it allows, Christians should keep one eye on heaven. But the new good news is that God doesn't want us to wait.

Known (or vilified) under a variety of names -- Word of Faith, Health and Wealth, Name It and Claim It, Prosperity Theology -- its emphasis is on God's promised generosity in this life. In a nutshell, it suggests that a God who loves you does not want you to be broke.

Its signature verse could be John 10:10: "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." In a Time poll, 17 percent of Christians surveyed said they considered themselves part of such a movement, while a full 61 percent believed that God wants people to be prosperous.

I have heard more than one person express the desire that God burden them with fantastic wealth, but I prefer the cross already laid out for me.

Where were you when..

The day had started early, and our arts show producer needed to pre-record an interview with the conductor of the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra, talking up the concert program for the coming weekend. Maestro Polochik was in Baltimore, so the interview was by phone from our studio. Both producer and conductor laughed and talked enthusiastically about the upcoming show. For that hour, we were in a bubble which reality, happening in the outer world, had not burst.

Interview complete, we left the production studio, and walked past the broadcast studio as headed back to our desks. A TV monitor caught my eye, and I stopped to watch. I saw one of the World Trade Center towers smoking, and someone next to me said that an airplane had flown into it. An Air Traffic Control screw-up, I thought to myself, here come the lawyers… the thought came to a screeching halt when the second plane hit the towers. My stomach dropped to the soles of my feet. There was a dawning horror that something terrible was happening that would reverberate for a long time to come. News of the Pentagon crash and Flight 93 trickled in, and it was the start of one of the longest days in recent memory.

I’m sure that most bystanders’ stories converge at this point, a blur of television and radio news, phone calls to family and loved ones on the East Coast, scattered and fervent prayers to a deity of personal affection.

Later, after a day at work of which little labor was done, I picked up my wife and infant son from our apartment, and drove them across town. We spoke, in numb shock, of what had happened, of what was known at the time. As we drove , we saw people in panicked lines at gas stations, as if the world were going to end without gasoline.

My wife had an appointment, and I was supposed to take our son and do some shopping while she was at her appointment. I dropped her off, and went to our parish church, which was the only place I could think to go on this day. The parking lot was empty, and so I loaded the baby in our sling, and went to try the door, hoping it was unlocked.

The door yielded without complaint, and I was welcomed by the cool darkness of the unlit church. I wound my way to the tabernacle, and the lit candle beside it, indicating that our Lord was present in the Eucharist within. And there, I gave Him my grief, my sorrow, prayers for those others who were grieving at the loss of a loved one, and prayers for those whose hatred made this disaster possible. The darkness and the silence were comforting: it was just me (with the baby) and God.

After a long while, I took the baby outside, and sat on a swing in a nearby playground. As we swayed together on the swing, I told my son about evil, and how I hoped that some had found faith in the face of this disaster, and my fears for those who would lose it as well.

It’s been a long five years in the interim. Have you found faith, or have you lost it?

Surrender Saves Lives

1780, West Point, New York:

General Benedict Arnold, commander of the fort at West Point, doesn't mince words. "People are dying out there, and we have a means to stop it, but for the Continental Congress' insistance on fighting the British" Arnold states. At a meeting of the Concerned Tories of New York gathering, General Arnold laid out his opposition to the continued resistance to the Crown, despite the huge toll it's taken in colonial lives." There are these grand notions of taxation, representation, and civil liberties, but to demand that colonists lay down their lives for these principles is outside their experience. Accepting British rule and tyranny is the lesser evil."

Arnold is currently on a speaking tour of the greater New York area with aide Major André, winding up in August.

In other, more modern news:

Bishop goes to bat for AIDS victims

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Bishop Kevin Dowling's toughest fight is agains HIV/AIDS, which infects more than 5 million people in his native South Africa

His most courageous battle is against the Vatican, which has denounced the use of condoms, saying they promote immorality and promiscuous behavior.

But they're also considered key to promoting safe sex, and in 1994 Dowling became the first African bishop to urge the Roman Catholic Church to consider lifting its ban.

'In certain moral issues the church closes off debate,' said the 62-year-old bishop. 'I don't believe that's healthy. Moral and ethical issues are not black and white.
...
For millions of sub-Saharan Africans, the whole concept of pre-marital abstinence and being faithful to one's mate, as prescribed by the church, is totally outside their real-life experience, Dowling said. Dowling compared the church's stance on condoms to the impossible rules Pharisees imposed on people during Christ's day.

'How do you protect life in a far from ideal situation?' he said. 'Why do we maintain this stance when the issue is that millions are dying? To be authentically pro-life, we can't focus entirely on issues like abortion.'

[ emphasis mine]

Continuing a tradition of traitors in New York.

So, the availability and advocacy of condoms is the answer for preventing STDs AND doesn't encourage an atmosphere of licentiousness? Well, then America should be disease free and very modest in it's respect for human sexuality. Oh, what's that you say? It isn't? Well, I guess that we should listen to the Magisterium instead of the horomonal urges, eh.

Crikey!

'Tis a sad shock to wake up this morning and read that "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin has died. For years, we've all sworn up and down that he'd get munched by a croc some day, probably right after saying "what a beauty!" But to have him killed by a stingray while filming was something we didn't see coming. Steve is survived by his more sensible wife Terri, and young children Bindi Sue and Robert.

Rwanda and Darfur

Once in a while, I come across something that, while I may want to write about it right away, I feel like I need to wait until the emotional turmoil dies down. I watched Hotel Rwanda this weekend. I couldn’t sleep later that night, and the pit in my stomach didn’t dissipate until well into the next day.

For those who haven’t seen it, Hotel Rwanda is a movie about the 100 day, Hutu-led genocide that claimed the lives of 500,000 to over 1,000,000 ethnic Tutsis and Moderate Hutus, in 1994.

First, the genocide underscores the belief that the United Nations is useless at preventing violence and protecting others from violence. Every decision is by committee, and thus any issue that arises must inspire widespread support to ever get acted on. Since none of the major players at the U.N. cared about African conflicts, the news of the Rwanda genocide was slow to permeate the consciousness of the delegates.

The U.N. had personnel there! Oh, but they weren’t allowed to intervene (the force was also small enough that intervention would have resulted in dead peacekeepers). Finally, Western governments responded, sending some troops, but it was only to rescue foreign nationals trapped in the country.

Something similar has been going on, for the last three years, in the Darfur region of the Sudan. Islamicist militias, with the tacit approval of the Sudanese government, is waging a campaign of murder, rape, and pillaging to drive non-muslim residents of Sudan into neighboring countries. The Sudanese government has obviously learned more from the Rwanda genocide than the U.N. has, including how to wage an internal war without foreign intervention. After three years, the U.N. has finally voted to gather some troops, and establish some peacekeeping operations in the region. Good luck with that, by the way.

It seems clear that anyone who’s depending on the U.N. for help is screwed. The Blue Helmets will show up in time to uncover the mass graves, tour the burned villages, and give candies to the children of all the rape victims. Is that the best we can do?

"Where are the French? We'd love to watch them surrender."

On the Deutero-Canonical Scriptures:

Crossed the Tiber has a great article on the deutero-canonical scriptures, known (or unknown as the case is) to protestants everywhere as the Apocrypha:

Despite the fact that these books were part of the original canon up until the Reformation, they have in the past 600 years acquired a mysterious and questionable status in non-Catholic circles. I was recently asked why Catholics added 7 books to the Bible. The underlying assumption from the inquirer is that we "added" these books to justify our "unscriptural" doctrines and beliefs. My gentle response was to go back and look at the first Bible ever printed 70 years before the reformation, and before the Council of Trent. You will find the Gutenberg Bible contained all the books that Catholics supposedly added after the reformation to combat the reformation doctrines. Therefore, these books were always part of the original canon of Scripture from the fourth century when the Scriptures were first compiled, and it was the first reformer, Dr. Luther, who removed the books.

Read the rest there. As always, the faith and fervor of converts to the Church continually amazes me.

of Mice and Martyrs

By now, many have chewed over the gunpoint conversion to Islam, made by hostages in Gaza. It's hard to really criticize apostasy under duress unless you've been there, and like many sage commenters out there, I'll just pray that when the time comes, I'll have the courage to proclaim Jesus as Christ and Lord. As for the timid believers out there, Peter had denied Christ three times from the same fear, and Jesus forgave him. Good luck y'all.

The Maoist Chinese gov't has released a catholic bishop they've had in prison for a decade. Now some may say" Well, Jimbob, now that the Maoists have released a bishop, are you going to continue your trade embargo with China?" Well, I'm not one to fall for feints and other gestures, as the Maoists have exhibited an insincere and contradictory policy of public releases and secret arrests and re-arrests. Where are these guys?:


Bishop Su Zhimin of the Baoding diocese, where Bishop An served, was arrested in 1997 and his current condition and location are unknown.

Bishop Han Dingsiang of Yong Nian, also in the Hebei province, was arrested in 1999 and his current condition and location are unknown.

Bshop Jian Zhiguo of Zhengding, Hebei, was arrested in June of this year; he has been arrested 9 other times in the past three years. His current status is unknown.

Bishop Shi Enxiang of Yixian, Hebei, was arrested in 2001; his current condition and location are unknown.

Bishop Yao Liang, an auxiliary of the Xiwanzi diocese in Hebei, was arrested in July of this year, and is being held in Zhangjiakou.

Bishop Zhao Zhendong of Xuanhua as arrested in December 2004; his current condition and location are unknown.

And these are just the bishops! Where are all the priests that the Chinese gov't has sent for "re-education"/ coerced apostasy? The courage of Chinese Catholics must be great, and they truly love our Lord despite the cost. Maybe the recently released Fox News crew may do well to study these Chinese Martyrs as an example.

And lastly, the courage of Lina Joy, a christian convert in Malaysia, a Muslim country. The qualities of the Religion of Peace really shines through in situations like this:

But she is now in hiding after death threats from Islamic extremists, who accuse her of being an apostate.

Now, to be fair, those were just the extremist adherants of the Religion of Peace. How about the more moderate:

In rulings in her case, civil courts said Malays could not renounce Islam because the Constitution defined Malays to be Muslims.

They also ruled that a request to change her identity card from Muslim to Christian had to be decided by the Shariah courts. There she would be considered an apostate, and if she did not repent she surely would be sentenced to several years in an Islamic center for rehabilitation.

I imagine that the muslim concept of rehabilitation is very different than what christians would come up with. Long story short, another prisoner for Christ. Pray for her, and others like her throughout the world, and pray for the strength to be as courageous when the time comes for us.

Plank: Crime and Punishment

Criminal offenders are citizens, and human beings with inherent dignity, regardless of their poor choices and pernicious habits. The corrections system should be corrective, to educate the offender on socially expected behaviors, and mitigate factors that contribute to the inclination to offend. Yes, it's more expensive than throwing them in a prison for a few years, as the current corrections environment is not conducive to reformation. A concerted effort to implement restorative justice should be made.

- The Death Penalty should be a punishment of absolute last resort, not a violent reaction to a violent offense. Efforts to rehabilitate a violent offender should be proportional to the crime itself.

- Many, if not most, offenders will need treatment for mental illness, as well as substance abuse, and will aid in their rehabilitation.

- Offenders at all levels should be rehabilitated to the point where they are an asset to the community versus an ongoing liability.

anyone else want to chine in?

Plank: Poverty

While we treasure our freedom to succeed, we must not allow those that fail to live lives in the margins, devoid of hope.

- The homeless are fellow citizens, and should be treated as treasured members of our communities. Mental health treatment should be available to those who need it, as well as substance abuse treatment, and continuing education in job and life skills.

- The poor and chronically unemployed should receive similar treatment, before a crisis pushes them into homelessness.

- The working poor should not destined to stay that way. Continuing education should be made available to enhance marketable skills, leading to better incomes and standards of living.

Preventative and proactive handling of poverty, and the usually attendant substance abuse, will impact crime.

Plank: Pro-Life Issues

From conception to natural death, the rights of all citizens of our nation should be vouchsafed by the government. Those whom cannot speak for themselves should have an advocate until such a time as they can speak for themselves.

- Abortion should be outlawed in all circumstances (save for a couple DIRE need cases?)
- Our elders are NOT a burden to society, and should be encouraged to continue living, regardless of their condition.
- Human life is not a disposable commodity, and so ethical considerations are to be the highest standards in medical research AND medical practice. (let's not be so quick to destroy embryos, and let's not approve drugs with grievous side effects in the fine print)

Anything else?

New Political Party

This post is a collecting point for Ideas for a new political party, one which will promote governance in accord with catholic principles. The first thing I'd like to throw out is a suggestion for a name: The Steward Party. In absence of the King, the steward is to care for the keep and all its members. A good slogan would be "Yes, I am my brother's keeper". Let the kvetching begin..

This discussion was started over at The Cafeteria is Closed.

The core issues as gravitating towards Pro-Life and Social Justice, which would involve many on both the Left and the Right in the political spectrum.

Hope for the Worst

h/t Sparki, fellow Lincolnite.

A story of a priest and Timothy McVeigh's redemption:

"When I first came in (to see him) I thought 'God is the owner of my life,' and I went to him and he threw his feces on me and called me all types of names and said, 'You can't be a priest because I've never seen a you-know-what as a priest,'" Father Smith said Aug. 5. "The devil was messin' with me."
...

But Father Smith persevered in his ministry to McVeigh and the convicted murderer, who was a baptized Catholic, began to repent. "He did a lot of things, but in the end we had confession, reconciliation. In the end he asked me a question a lot of people ask me. He asked, 'Father Charles, can I still get to heaven?'"

Wow, I hadn't heard the end of that story. Maybe there's hope for murderers, with time and patient ministry of the Gospel. It maybe a good enough reason for the period of time between conviction and execution, time for the hardened to seek God and His mercy. Though an evil of claimed necessity, the death penalty may be a mercy in itself, if one has been reconciled with God before death, slain by the State in a state of Grace.

I certainly hope that Timothy's repentance was genuine, and that he's washed his robe in the Blood of the Lamb.

Loose lips?

Headline: Report: X-ray machines don't detect explosives in shoes

Oh ok, so we'll just let every Abdul, Osama, and Mohammed know that, so they can plot their next move. Real good. One wonders who the threat to security is some times.

The government's new order that all airline passengers put their shoes through X-ray machines won't help screeners find a liquid or gel that can be used as a bomb.

The machines are unable to detect explosives, according to a Homeland Security report on aviation screening recently obtained by The Associated Press.

Right, and so the AP thinks, "oh great, this will sell newspapers!" Yes, it will, to every radical bomb maker on the planet. Playing poker with the AP must be an easy and rewarding game.

Choices

h/t Jimmy Akin


Why vote for the Democratic Party, when you can find a candidate who will really make the federal government a truly omnipotent and omnipresent entity. Why Vote for the Grand Old Party, when you can elect the Great Old Party that is Cthulu! Why settle for the minor evils of either party, when you can get the greatest evils, and all in one package?

Of Kids and Volume Control

Ahhh, small children, they say the sweetest things, right? I was at a Target store, yesterday, with my three year-old girls and six year-old boy, and we were shopping for some necessities. I had bought the kids a lemonade to share (and keep them quiet, so thought I), and Peeper piped up with her appreciation. "I love you, daddy" she crowed, after a long sip of the lemonade. As we reached the end of the aisle we were in, I saw a woman with her infant at the end to the aisle, examining diapers. She looked at me, and said "How cute" and nodding her head at Peeper.

In another part of the store, we were approaching the toilet paper, and I was telling the kids how we needed to get some. Peeper, sensing an opportunity to make her great intellect known, shouts "so I can wipe my bum!" Of course there are about a dozen people around us, who all look in our direction, and laughingly shake their heads. At one smirking couple, I say, "Hey, if you can't say it loudly, it's not worth saying, right?" Right?

Book meme

Got tagged by da Digital Hairshirt, so here's my predilections in bindery:

1. One book that changed your life: Ironically, as Digi also picked, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I read it in 10th grade, as a young republican, and it was like throwing napalm on a fire. Of course, I ended up a white supremacist as well, go figure. It colored my thinking for a decade before I snapped out of it. Looking back on it, it's so much an outgrowth of the 'Will to Power' philosophy, and definitely not something to be enbraced by a brother of Christ. Though, I still think of socialists as slimy deviants.

2. One book that you have read more than once: I like reruns, but I like to read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, once a year, around the holidays.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: Like most anyone else, I'd want a Bible, preferrably the RSV, with laminated pages (for preservation, the elements can really eat guilded leaf pages).

4. One book that made you laugh: An Idiot for All Seasons, by David Feherty. Golf commentator extrordinaire, Feherty is just too dang funny.

5. One book that made you cry: Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, a compilation of Bl. Teresa of Calcutta's remarks on various topics. That woman's words should be a scourge to the conscience of Western Christianity.

6. One book you wish would have been written: "Really, I mean it." by Yeshua Ben Elohim

7. One book you wish had never been written: The Q'uran, enough said, lest the book's adherants find me and kill me.

8. One book you are currently reading: The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers, a compilation of shorter writings about the desert fathers .

9. One book you have been meaning to read: Summa Theologica, by St. Thomas Aquinas. Like I'll EVER have time to do that..

10. Tag some others: DAD29, Name Hidden, unless you've already done it.

Marxist love

And They'll know we are marxists by our love, by our love
Yes, They'll know we are marxists by our love.
-Parody of 'One in the Spirit', P. Shotles 1966

From CWNews

Authorities in China's Hebei province have arrested more than 90 members of the "underground" Catholic Church, including Bishop Yao Liang, the Cardinal Kung Foundation reports.

Bishop Yao, the head of the Xiwanzi diocese, who had previously been taken into custody last March, was arrested on July 30. A priest of the same diocese, Father Li Huisheng, was arrested on August 1.

When some Catholic faithful protested the arrests, and asked for information about the whereabouts of the jailed clerics, policy mobilized a force of 500 to jail 90 members of the underground Church on August 2. The arrests followed a previous crackdown by Protestant "house churches" in the area, in which thousands of military police participated on July 29.

Those of you who've been reading my blog a while know my sympathies for the chinese faithful, oppressed by both the government and the manufacturing companies that make this oppression possible. My boycott of chinese-made goods just doesn't seem enough, and there are few who are willing to make the same sacrifices. Maybe it's time to start going for the companies that manufacture goods over there, and persuade them that while China may be cheapest, they're materially assisting the Maoist government in persecuting their people. If enough large companies start pulling out, or threatening to, the government may stop this kind of oppression. Any other suggestions?
Past posts:
Render unto Mao
Can we buy their freedom?

Out of Curiousity

Hezbollah was using ALL of these apartments and homes to launch rockets from?

Forgive me if I seem a bit skeptical.