In his General Audience of 22 September 1982, the Holy Father, in light of Ephesians 5, compared the relationship of Christ with His Church to the relationship, described by the Old Testament Prophets, of God with Israel. Whereas, in Isaiah, God is Israel's spouse as her Maker, in Ephesians, Christ is the Church's spouse as her Redeemer.
Relationship of Christ to the Church Connected With the Tradition of the Prophets
The general audience of 22 September took place in St Peter's Square in the presence of a large crowd, in spite of threatening weather. Pope John Paul delivered the following address.
1. The Letter to the Ephesians, by means of a comparison of the relation between Christ and the Church with the spousal relationship of husband and wife, refers to the tradition of the prophets of the Old Testament. To illustrate it we recall again the following passage of Isaiah:
"Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be put to shame; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name, and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; the God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love, I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer. For this is like the days of Noah to me: as I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you. For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you" (Is 54:4-10).
Back to the mystery hidden in God
2. The text of Isaiah in this case does not contain the reproaches made to Israel as an unfaithful spouse, which echo so strongly in the other texts, especially of Hosea and Ezekiel. Thanks to this, the essential content of the biblical analogy becomes more evident. The love of God-Yahweh for the chosen people-Israel is expressed as the love of the man-spouse for the woman chosen to be his wife by means of the marriage alliance. In this way Isaiah explains the events which make up the course of Israel's history, going back to the mystery hidden in the heart of God. In a certain sense, he leads us in the same direction in which, after many centuries, the author of the Letter to the Ephesians will lead us. Basing himself on the redemption already accomplished in Christ, he will reveal much more fully the depth of the mystery itself.
3. The text of the prophet has all the coloring of the tradition and the mentality of the people of the Old Testament. Speaking in the name of God and, as it were, with his words, the prophet addresses Israel as a husband would address the wife he chose. These words brim over with an authentic ardor of love. At the same time they place in relief the whole specific character both of the situation and of the outlook proper to that age. They underline that the choice on the part of the man takes away the woman's "dishonor." According to the opinion of society, this "dishonor" seems connected with the marriageable state, whether original (virginity), or secondary (widowhood), or finally that deriving from repudiation of a wife who is not loved (cf. Dt 24:1) or in the case of an unfaithful wife. However, the text quoted does not mention infidelity, but it indicates the motive of the "love of compassion."(1) Thereby it indicates not merely the social nature of marriage in the Old Testament, but also the very character of the gift, which is the love of God for the spouse-Israel: a gift which derives entirely from God's initiative. In other words, it indicates the dimension of grace, which from the beginning is contained in that love. This is perhaps the strongest declaration of love on God's part, linked with the solemn oath of faithfulness forever.
Creator and Lord
4. The analogy of the love which unites spouses is brought out strongly in this passage. Isaiah says: "...for your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name, and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; the God of the whole earth he is called" (Is 54:5). So then, in that text God himself, in all his majesty as Creator and Lord of creation, is explicitly called "spouse" of the chosen people. This spouse speaks of his great compassion, which will not depart from Israel-spouse, but will constitute a stable foundation of the alliance of peace with him. Thus the motif of spousal love and of marriage is linked with the motif of alliance. Besides, the Lord of hosts calls himself not only "Creator," but also "Redeemer." The text has a theological content of extraordinary richness.
Continuity of analogy
5. Comparing the text of Isaiah with the Letter to the Ephesians and noting the continuity regarding the analogy of spousal love and of marriage, we should point out at the same time a certain diversity of theological viewpoint. Already in the first chapter the author of the letter speaks of the mystery of love and of election, whereby "God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" embraces mankind in his Son, especially as a mystery "hidden in the mind of God." This is a mystery of eternal love, the mystery of election to holiness ("...to be holy and blameless before him"—Eph 1:4) and of adoption as sons in Christ ("He destined us to be his adopted sons through Jesus Christ"—Eph 1:5). In this context, the deduction of the analogy concerning marriage which we have found in Isaiah ("For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name"—Is 54:5), seems to be a foreshortened view constituting a part of the theological perspective. The first dimension of love and of election, as a mystery hidden for ages in God, is a paternal and not a "conjugal" dimension. According to the Letter to the Ephesians the first characteristic note of that mystery remains connected with the paternity of God, set out in relief especially by the prophets (cf. Hos 11:1-4; Is 63:8-9; 64:7; Mal 1:6).
Theological perspective
6. The analogy of spousal love and of marriage appears only when the Creator and the Holy One of Israel of the text of Isaiah is manifested as Redeemer. Isaiah says: "For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name, and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer" (Is 54:5). Already in this text it is possible, in a certain sense, to read the parallelism between the spouse and the Redeemer. Passing to the Letter to the Ephesians we should observe that this thought is fully developed there. The figure of the Redeemer(2) is already delineated in the first chapter as proper to him who is the first "beloved Son" of the Father (Eph 1:6), beloved from eternity, of him, in whom all of us have been loved by the Father "for ages." It is the Son of the same substance of the Father, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace" (Eph 1:7). The same Son, as Christ (or as the Messiah) "has loved the Church and has given himself up for her" (Eph 5:25).
This splendid formulation of the Letter to the Ephesians summarizes in itself and at the same time sets in relief the elements of the Canticle on the Servant of Yahweh and of the Canticle of Sion (cf. e.g., Is 42:1; 53:8-12; 54:8).
And thus the giving of himself up for the Church is equivalent to carrying out the work of redemption. In this way the "Creator Lord of hosts" of Isaiah becomes the "Holy One of Israel," of the new Israel, as Redeemer.
In the Letter to the Ephesians the theological perspective of the prophetic text is preserved and at the same time deepened and transformed. New revealed moments enter: the trinitarian, Christological(3) and finally the eschatological moment.
His salvific love
7. Thus St. Paul, writing the letter to the People of God of the new covenant and precisely to the church of Ephesus, will no longer repeat: "Your Maker is your husband." But he will show in what way the Redeemer, who is the firstborn Son and for ages "beloved of the Father," reveals contemporaneously his salvific love. This love consists in giving himself up for the Church, as spousal love whereby he espouses the Church and makes it his own Body. Thus the analogy of the prophetic texts of the Old Testament (in this case especially of Isaiah) remains preserved in the Letter to the Ephesians and at the same time obviously transformed. A mystery corresponds to the analogy, a mystery which is expressed and, in a certain sense, explained by means of it. In the text of Isaiah this mystery is scarcely outlined, "half-open" as it were; however, in the Letter to the Ephesians it is fully revealed (but of course without ceasing to be a mystery). In the Letter to the Ephesians both dimensions are explicitly clear: the eternal dimension of the mystery inasmuch as it is hidden in God ("the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ"), and the dimension of its historical fulfillment, according to its Christological and at the same ecclesiological dimension. The analogy of marriage referred especially to the second dimension. Also in the prophets (in Isaiah) the analogy of marriage referred directly to a historical dimension. It was linked with the history of the chosen people of the old covenant, with the history of Israel. On the other hand the Christological and the ecclesiological dimension was found only as an embryo in the Old Testament fulfillment of the mystery; it was only foretold.
Nonetheless it is clear that the text of Isaiah helps us to understand better the Letter to the Ephesians and the great analogy of the spousal love of Christ and the Church.
NOTES
1. In the Hebrew text we have the words hesed-rahamim, which appear together on more than one occasion.
2. Even though in the most ancient biblical books the word "redeemer" (Hebrew Go'el) signified the person bound by blood relationship to vindicate a relative who had been killed (cf. e.g., Nm 35:19), to help a relative who was unfortunate (e.g., Ru 4:6) and especially to ransom him from servitude (cf. e.g., Lv 25:48), with the passage of time this analogy was applied to Yahweh, "who redeemed Israel from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt" (Dt 7:8). Especially in Deutero-Isaiah the accent changes from the act of redemption to the person of the Redeemer, who personally saves Israel as though merely by his very presence, "not for price or reward" (Is 45:13).
Therefore the passage from the 'redeemer' of the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 54, to the Letter to the Ephesians, has the same motivation of the application, in the said letter, of the texts of the Canticle on the Servant of Yahweh (cf. Is 53:10-12; Eph 5:23, 25, 26).
3. In place of the relationship "God-Israel," Paul introduces the relationship "Christ-Church," by applying to Christ everything in the Old Testament that refers to Yahweh (Adonai-Kyrios). Christ is God, but Paul also applies to him everything that refers to the Servant of Yahweh in the four canticles (Is 42:49; 50; 52-53) interpreted in a Messianic sense in the intertestimentary period.
The motif of "head" and of "body" is not of biblical derivation, but is probably Hellenistic (Stoic?). In Ephesians this theme is utilized in the context of marriage (while in First Corinthians the theme of the "body" serves to demonstrate the order which reigns in society).
From the biblical point of view the introduction of this motif is an absolute novelty.
Friday, April 28, 2006
The Theology of the Body: 95. Relationship of Christ to the Church Connected With the Tradition of the Prophets
Wow.Talk about the proverbial kiss of death...
Michael Schiavo endorses candidate in governor race
Democrat has repeatedly stated opposition to U.S. House's involvement in case --Associated Press
From The Shoring Up Your Base Before The Next Election Department:
Spain's socialists urge rights for apes
Governing party seeks to prohibit 'enslaving' gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans --Independent Online, South Africa
Julia Thorne, Requiescat in pace.
The real wife of noted Catholic John Kerry has died. May God have mercy on her soul.
Boston Globe: Julia Thorne succumbed to cancer, according to daughter
Help! I'm being oppressed by evil school mascots! Update
NCAA declines 3 appeals on Indian mascots
Can't use imagery deemed 'hostile,' 'abusive' at championship events --Associated Press
Remember this one, kiddies? Funny how only huge and rich and powerful Florida State gets a pass, isn't it?
Hey, peasant! Tolerate THIS!!!
Golly. It must be nice having a government that protects your rights...
Lucky perverts.
WorldNetDaily: Virginia Christian investigated after refusing job on biblical grounds Businessman ordered to duplicate lesbian's videos
A government commission has ordered a man who runs a video duplicator business to do a job for a lesbian activist after he initially refused because, as a Christian, he did not want to help promote homosexuality.
According to a report by Concerned Women for America, Tim Bono of Bomo Film and Video in Arlington, Va., did not want to violate his biblical values by helping promote two pro-homosexual films lesbian activist Lillian Vincenz wanted duplicated.
Bono Film & Video informs potential customers that the firm does not duplicate material that it deems obscene, could embarrass employees, hurt the company's reputation or that runs counter to the company's Christian and ethical values, Bono told the Family Policy Network, which is working to organize a lawsuit against Arlington County.
The Arlington Human Rights Commission began an investigation into Bono's refusal to do the job and held a public hearing on March 9 to discuss the alleged discrimination. The panel then issued the order for Bono to acquiesce to the lesbian activist's request.
If Bono refuses to do the job, "after a reasonable amount of time, the commission can reassemble and discuss why the remedy was not done," Raul Torres, executive director of the panel, told CWA.
One option would be for the commission to ask the Arlington County Board of Commissioners to file a discrimination complaint in Arlington Circuit Court.
The human rights panel found that Bono did not review the content of the videos, entitled "Gay and Proud" and "Second Largest Minority," and in refusing to take Vincenz's business violated the county's ban on discrimination due to sexual orientation.
Bono's case is reminiscent of that of Scott Brockie, a Canadian Christian printer who was penalized $5,000 in 2001 for refusing to print letterhead for a homosexual advocacy group.
The Hot TV News Babes of WOOD-TV.
Jennifer Moss (ABOVE) and Ginger Zee (BELOW)
Moral Equivalence 101...
...or, the Israeli crackup continues apace.
From Israelinsider:
Perverting the Message of the Shoah
by Ze'ev Orenstein
Today the State of Israel commemorated Yom HaSho'ah - Holocaust Memorial Day.
One of slogans most frequently associated with the Shoah is Never Again.
Never Again... will the Jewish People place their fate (and faith) in the nations of the world.
Never Again... will the Jewish People question the importance of living as sovereign in their Homeland.
Never Again... will Jews sit passively while their brothers and sisters are being persecuted.
Never Again... will Jews believe that they can solve the "Jewish Question" through assimilation and fleeing from their Jewish Heritage and destiny.
Sadly, not all Jews have internalized these messages, as is clear from this ynet article on "pain as common denominator".
"Groups of Israeli students -- Jewish, Muslim and Christian -- visit Polish death camps as part of course on Holocaust, Nakba, and learning to understand each other's stories."
"Thirty students -- 15 Jewish and 15 Arab -- from the Yizrael Valley Academic College took part in the trip as part of the course "Holocaust and Existence: Humanistic and Multicultural views of the Holocaust." The course, like the trip itself, is unusual in its characteristics."
"During the first semester, students study the Holocaust, and after returning from the death camps they learn about the Nakba, which signifies for Israeli Arabs the destruction of Palestinian villages and the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 during Israel's war of independence...."
"The students tell that after the trip and the ties created among the group, their will for dialogue with the other side, to know the Palestinian perspective, and learn the other side's pain, was sharpened. "
Under the guise of promoting tolerance and co-existence, the memory of the Holocaust and the six million Jews who were slaughtered, along with the foundations of the Jewish State, are being destroyed.
Consider the following points:
* In this course, the Holocaust, where six million Jews were slaughtered, is compared with Nakba ("The Catastrophe"), a day of mourning for the Arabs of Israel over the supposed "expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948." (and on which today sits the Jewish State of Israel. According to the narrative of the Nakba, the Jewish People who settled the Land of Israel and helped to establish the Jewish State are akin to the Nazis, while the Arabs of Israel take on the role of the weak, oppressed and homeless Jews.
* The Arabs of Israel, in their commemoration of the Nakba on the anniversary of the day that the Jewish State of Israel was established, are in fact lamenting the very existence of the Jewish State of Israel.
I imagine that there are a number of key facts that are being left out of this course:
1st: The active involvement of the Arabs (in particular, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini) who worked together with Hitler to bring the destruction of the Holocaust to the Land of Israel.
2nd: The only reason that the Arabs of Israel have a Nakba to commemorate is because they (and 7 Arab countries) failed in their efforts to wipe the newly re-established Jewish State of Israel off the map by attacking the Jewish State the very moment it was established. Had the neighboring Arab countries not insisted upon the Arabs of Israel leaving their homes before the war in order to make the destruction of the Jewish State easier, they would not have become refugees. As such, the vast majority of Arab refugees only have their Arab brothers to blame.
3rd: Had the Arabs of Israel accepted the United Nations Partition Plan in 1947, they would have had a state of their own. Instead, as has been the case time and time again, the Arabs rejected the Partition Plan because it would have meant that they would have had to accede to the re-establishment a Jewish State in the Land of Israel -- something which to this day, they are not prepared to accept.
But, then again, why should we let facts, history and six million murdered Jews stand in the way of "peace"?
If the cold blooded murder of six million innocent people just like them a little more than sixty years ago fails to convince all the Jews in the world to arm themselves to the teeth and destroy anyone who even thinks of raising a hand against them, is it any wonder we have forgotten a mere three thousand?
I can't decide if it should be called stupidity, laziness, or cowardice.
One last thingee for the millions of Mexicans here ILLEGALLY.
Think of it this way, niños.
Why do you want to come here so badly that you brazenly break our laws? Because your homeland is a cesspool of corruption, poverty, ignorance, slavery, and the rule of men instead of the rule of law.
Why is Mexico this way? Because of you, the Mexican people. That's right, you did it and you continue to do it to yourselves every day. It is not the fault of the gringos, or the priests, or the landowners, or the politicians, or the money men, or anyone else but you. Grow up and take responsibility for your own lives, you dumbasses.
Why don't the Red, White, & True Blue folks want you illegal aliens here? Because we don't want you to screw up our country too. We have enough of our own homegrown fascist pinheads running around. Don't believe me? Just hold out your hands. They'll be the ones giving you the money they stole from me.
Wanna get your boycott on, you faithful Mexican Catholics?
Top Vatican official: "Boycott Da Vinci Code film"
Actually, that is not exactly how he said it and therefore there should not be any quotation marks in the Roto-Reuters headline above.
Ha! Look at me! I'm expecting accuracy and other journalistic standards from the antique media. Silly me.
The Vatican stepped up its offensive* against "The Da Vinci Code" on Friday when a top official close to Pope Benedict blasted the book as full of anti-Christian lies and urged Catholics to boycott the film.
The latest broadside* came from Archbishop Angelo Amato, the number two official in the Vatican doctrinal office which was headed by Pope Benedict until his election last year.
Amato, addressing a Catholic conference in Rome, called the book "stridently anti-Christian .. full of calumnies, offences and historical and theological errors regarding Jesus, the Gospels and the Church."
He added: "I hope that you all will boycott the film."
There is Archbishop Amato's quote. I guess they figure nobody really cares about defending The True Church. Silly Roto-Reuters.
The movie, which is being released by Sony Pictures division Columbia Pictures, stars Tom Hanks and premieres next month at the Cannes film festival in France. Sony Pictures is the media wing of Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp.
Amato said the book, written by Dan Brown, had been hugely successful around the world thanks in part to what he called "the extreme cultural poverty on the part of a good number of the Christian faithful."
The book has sold over 40 million copies.
The novel is an international murder mystery centered on attempts to uncover a secret about the life of Christ that a clandestine society has tried to protect for centuries.
The central tenet of the book is that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children.
In his address to the group, Amato said Christians should be more willing "to reject lies and gratuitous defamation."
He said that if "such lies and errors had been directed at the Koran or the Holocaust they would have justly provoked a world uprising."
Bingo!
He added: "Instead, if they are directed against the Church and Christians, they remain unpunished."
Amato suggested that Catholics around the world should launch organized protests against the "The Da Vinci Code" film just as some had done in 1988 to protest against Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ."
LATEST BROADSIDE*
* (Just an aside, kiddies. I find the antique media's use of war-related words and phrases fascinating.)
Amato's broadside was just the latest blast against the book and the film.
Just before Easter, another Vatican official railed against it at an event attended by Pope Benedict, branding the book and its film version as just more examples of Jesus being sold out by a wave of what he called "pseudo-historic" art.
Catholic group Opus Dei has told Sony Pictures that putting a disclaimer on the movie stressing it is a work of fiction would be a welcome show of respect toward the Church.
In the novel and film, Opus Dei is characterized as the latest in a series of secretive groups that worked over the centuries to obscure truths about Jesus Christ.
Opus Dei is a controversial conservative Church group whose members are mostly non-clerics and are urged to seek holiness in their everyday professional jobs and lives. It has rejected criticisms that it is secretive and elitist.
Controversial? Only if you are in rebellion against God and His good order.
With the movie's opening less than a month away, Opus Dei and other Christian groups have been sponsoring Web sites and events telling people the novel should not be believed.
Dingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingding! It's time for a reality check, kiddies. Have you ever heard anyone demanding any work of fiction be believed as a true chronicle of history?
The book is a thriller in which the main characters must uncover clues they hope will lead them to an important religious relic. Their adversary is an Opus Dei member.
Once again, anti-Catholicism is the only acceptable prejudice in the good ol' US of A.
I don't know about you, but I'm starting my Christmas shopping Monday.
Say it ain't so, Salma! Say it ain't so!
It is sad but true: The prettiest ones are often the dumbest ones.
AFP: Latin Hollywood actors back immigrant boycott
Hollywood stars, including Edward James Olmos and Salma Hayek, have joined ranks with a boycott planned for May 1 to protest the proposed tightening of US immigration laws.
I'm no Vikings fan, but...
Pope Benedict XVI: Lack of Love Behind Failed Marriages
It really is this simple, kiddies.
Of course, if you do not know what Love is, it gets a whole lot more complicated.
From Breitbart.com (via Drudge):
Pope Benedict XVI said Friday that a lack of true love was behind an increase in failed marriages and a decrease in birth rates in much of the developed world.
Benedict told members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences that children nowadays also aren't as valued as they once were, in part because of the economic, social and cultural changes in the globalized world.
"Often, instead of feeling loved and cherished (children) appear to be merely tolerated," he said.
The pontiff said the increase in life expectancy and decline in birth rates were "linked to a disturbing deficit of faith, hope and indeed love."
"Perhaps the lack of such creative and forward-looking love is the reason why many couples today choose not to marry, why so many marriages fail and why birth rates have significantly diminished," he said.
Benedict was speaking to the academy's annual plenary session, the topic of which is "Vanishing Youth? Solidarity with children and young people in an age of turbulence."
The academy, a consultative body which produces research in the social sciences to help the Catholic Church establish policy, is headed by law professor Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard University.
Participating in the conference was Cherie Blair, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Vatican said she and Benedict met Friday, but gave no details.
Benedict has spoken out several times in favor of large families and called for legislation to help support families with children.
European Union statistics put the average number of children per woman at 1.5. But in some countries, including Catholic Italy and Spain, the average is down to about 1.3.
It Takes A Village To Staff A Gestapo Unit Update.
Wait'll she hits 'em with Shickelgruber.
Poll Shows Clinton's Approval Numbers Higher With Addition Of Rodham...
Hillary parties with Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch...
Did you ever notice how that whole Black Monolith thingee only works for the Democrasses...
...it could be a case of self-hatred. Black women would not be the first group to suffer from that...
Atlantic Journal-Constitution: Study: More black women doubt Rice's skill as leader
...or it could be a simple case of everybody's third favorite deadly sin, envy.
Hmmm...I don't remember Washington's other newspaper having a similar problem with Oliver Stone's "JFK".
Washington Post: Invented Details in 'United 93' Raise Real Questions
But the movie, which opens nationwide today, is a dramatic re-creation that includes scenes and images that go far beyond what is known about the attacks.
Those scenes raise questions: How far can a dramatic movie go in imposing its own reality before it distorts the public's understanding of the event? And with memories of 9/11 still vivid and raw, is it too soon for such films to be made?
The questions have special relevance as film producers prepare other 9/11-related projects. Oliver Stone, who portrayed the assassination of John F. Kennedy as the result of a conspiracy in "JFK," is the director of this summer's "World Trade Center." Sony Pictures, meanwhile, is developing the film "102 Minutes," based on the bestseller about the time span between the first tower's crash and its collapse. A TV miniseries based on the 9/11 Commission Report is also in the works.
And I'll bet you $20 they don't make a peep about Hollyweird's latest foray into anti-Catholic hate speech and its myriad historical fabrications.
Kiddies, YOU make the Law of Supply and Demand work.
Why don't we all stay home tomorrow, do yardwork in the morning, and watch the NFL Draft all afternoon?
Washington Times:'Best Cure for High Gas Prices is High Gas Prices'
Florida Eminent Domain Plan Could Be Largest
I warned you.
We didn't TAKE SOUTER'S HOUSE and now the thugs are bolder than ever.
From the Las Vegas Sun:
RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. - When Mayor Michael Brown envisions the future of this struggling city, he sees no poverty, no drug dealing, no prostitution - and none of the 1,700 buildings where many of his poorest constituents live and work.
These are merely the sunshine and gumdrops promises of the totalitarian. They ALWAYS turn into terror and death.
Up to 6,000 of Riviera Beach's 31,000 residents would be sent packing in the city's effort to revamp its marina district with condominiums, houses, shops, offices and yacht slips. To enraged owners of property slated for condemnation, Brown says the sacrifice is necessary for progress.
"(Italian philosopher Niccolo) Machiavelli said it best - the hardest thing to do is to sustain and change the order of things," Brown says. "I will use every ounce of energy I have to fight to make a better life for these people. There will be no more lower class.
"For all those who don't like it, tough."
And you thought fascists couldn't be elegant and articulate.
The project, potentially one of the country's largest eminent domain seizures, has placed Riviera Beach at the center of a nationwide battle over whether government should be allowed to seize property for private development.
"You can't just take away from people what they've worked so hard for," says Princess Wells, 54, whose home and salon are slated for removal under the $2.4 billion plan.
Actually, dear, they can.
Traditionally, governments have used eminent domain to build public facilities, but cities have increasingly used the power to make room for private development.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that such seizures are allowable if the construction raises the tax base and benefits the entire community. But it added a caveat: States can restrict the use of eminent domain. Legislators in Florida and elsewhere are scrambling to do so. Gov. Jeb Bush is likely to sign the measure if the Senate approves it.
"From the barbershops to the courthouse, all I've heard was, `Please don't let them take our property,'" Rep. Arthenia Joyner said after a recent 116-0 House vote on legislation that would severely limit the condemnations for any private use.
In February, South Dakota became the first state to enact a law that prohibits government from seizing personal property through eminent domain for private use. Indiana, Georgia and other states have enacted similar laws.
Dana Berliner, a lawyer for the nonprofit Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice, says Riviera Beach's plan is the largest current project of its kind in the country.
"This land is very valuable and the attitude is, `Why should we waste this prime real estate on low-income people?'" says Berliner, who represented Connecticut homeowners in the Supreme Court case. "It's a terrible thing."
Wells refuses to sell the single-story pink home her husband built 23 years ago. The couple raised four children there.
"When we built our house, we didn't have much money. We prayed a lot," Wells says. "We love our house. Why would I sell?"
Amen to that, Sister.
Developers who have offered some homeowners twice the market values have not approached her, leaving few options but to accept the city's offer of about 30 percent above appraisal, plus relocation assistance.
Here's the bottom line, kiddies. If someone doesn't want to sell their property, no one can be allowed to force them to do so.
The mayor says Riviera Beach is on the brink of bankruptcy and needs redevelopment if it is to thrive in wealthy Palm Beach County. Brown sees the project as a catalyst for opportunities - and millions in tax revenue - for the city, where a quarter of residents live in poverty.
Minus those pesky 6,000 subhumans, of course.
Viking Inlet Harbor Properties, a joint venture between Viking Yacht Co. and resort firm Portfolio Group, is developing the project. Viking CEO Robert Healy says it will bring in 1,500 higher paying jobs, up to 800 affordable homes and create a 400-student maritime vocational academy.
Floyd Johnson, director of Riviera Beach's Community Redevelopment Agency and the project's chief administrator, compares it to building the nation's interstate highways, which connected coasts and commerce but displaced thousands.
"A rising tide will hopefully raise all ships," Johnson says. "There are those who are reminiscent of the good old days here. The greater good extends beyond them."
You don't get to decide what the greater good is, Herr Bürgermeister. No one man does. That is supposed to be one of the things that separates us from the beasts.
He says any new state restrictions could slow the project but would not stop it, and adds that he expects the city will have to seize only about 30 properties.
Only thirty? Well, that makes a difference. Go ahead, you lamebrain. Go ahead and destroy the lives of thirty families. And trample the law under your jackboots...
Some residents, however, say it is only the threat of seizure that compelled them to sell.
"I'm outraged. This is so un-American. It's legalized stealing," says painter Martha Babson, 58, who sold her home in the project zone to a developer and is considering moving inland to find affordable housing.
"Unless the state changes the law, people of my echelon, the financially challenged, will always be the people who get moved. Is there ever an end?"
No madam, there will never be an end to the rapacious hunger for power.
The Illegal Alien Anthem
From Washington's other newspaper comes news that Mexican-Americans are screwing with the national anthem in an attempt to legitimize the millions of Mexican criminals who live among us illegally.
In the Spanish version, the translation of the first stanza is relatively faithful to the spirit of the original, though Kidron says the producers wanted to avoid references to bombs and rockets. Instead, there is "fierce combat." The translation of the more obscure second stanza is almost a rewrite, with phrases such as "we are equal, we are brothers."
An alternate version to be released next month includes a rap in English that never occurred to Francis Scott Key:
Let's not start a war
With all these hard workers
They can't help where they were born
"Nuestro Himno" is as fraught with controversial cultural messages as the psychedelic "Banner" Hendrix delivered at the height of the Vietnam War.
Pressed on what he was trying to say with his Woodstock performance in 1969, Hendrix replied (according to biographer Charles Cross), "We're all Americans. . . . It was like 'Go America!' . . . We play it the way the air is in America today."
Now the national anthem is being remade again according to the way the air is in America, and the people behind "Nuestro Himno" say the message once more is: We're all Americans. It will be the lead track on an album about the immigrant experience called "Somos Americanos," due for release May 16. One dollar from each sale will go to immigrant rights groups, including the National Capital Immigration Coalition, which organized the march on the Mall on April 10.
But critics including columnist Michelle Malkin, who coined "The Illegal Alien Anthem" nickname, say the rendition crosses a line that Hendrix never stepped over with his instrumental version. Transforming the musical idiom of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is one thing, argue the skeptics, but translating the words sends the opposite message: We are not Americans.
One measure of our decline is our inability to call people who violate our laws criminals. Think about that for a minute.
Talk about abuse...
Dating-Abuse Class Tells Kids to Rely on Peers, Not Parents
(CNSNews.com) - A curriculum dealing with dating abuse among teenagers was endorsed by two members of the U.S. Senate this week as a way to stop a "frightening and deadly cycle of children hurting children," but the leader of a pro-family group called the program "a waste of school time" because it teaches teens to seek help from peers before turning to their parents. Full Story
MTV Head Touts Network's Ability to 'Inspire' Youth
(CNSNews.com) - MTV has "empowered and educated" America's youth for the last 25 years, said Christina Norman, president of MTV networks, who told an audience at the National Press Club Thursday that her organization's role is to "inspire a generation." Full Story
I guess Congress can now resume using its constitutionally mandated investigative power...
Ha! I knew I couldn't type that with a straight face.
AP: Independent counsel era to come to end
The post-Watergate era of independent counsels, the investigators whose criminal probes affected the fortunes of Republican and Democratic administrations alike, is officially coming to a close.
A two-paragraph order signed by a federal appeals court clerk on March 31 marks the demise of the last of the court-appointed prosecutors.
Independent counsel David Barrett, who spent a decade and $20 million investigating former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, must complete his duties "on or before May 3," the order states.
Cisneros pleaded guilty in 1999 to a misdemeanor of lying to the
FBI about payments to a former mistress when he was answering questions following his nomination for the Cabinet-level post. But Barrett kept investigating, contending in a final report in January that the Justice Department and IRS blocked his efforts to probe possible Cisneros tax violations.
The duration of Barrett's probe is an illustration of why many in Congress grew disenchanted with a process designed to protect prosecutors from political interference in inquiries into high-level administration wrongdoing.
Independent Counsel Ken Starr's probe of the Monica Lewinsky scandal led to the impeachment of President Clinton by the Republican-controlled House. Starr and his successor were on the job for 6 1/2 years of Clinton's eight years in office.
Independent counsel Lawrence Walsh spent seven years investigating the
Iran-Contra scandal, which led to the indictment of former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, Lt. Col. Oliver North, former National Security Adviser John Poindexter and others in the administration of President Reagan.
The first President Bush, who probably would have had to testify at Weinberger's trial, pardoned him weeks before the case was to begin.
And in the Cisneros probe, Clinton pardoned his former housing secretary.
WTF???
Economy rebounds smartly in 1st quarter
Casting off an end-of-year lethargy, the U.S. economy bounded ahead in the opening quarter of this year at a 4.8 percent pace, the fastest growth rate in 2 1/2 years.
The latest report on the economy, released by the Commerce Department on Friday, showed that consumers, businesses and government all did their part in terms of robust spending and investment to spur a healthy pace of growth in the January-to-March quarter.
Why in the world is government spending included in GDP. Leviathan destroys ten times as much economic activity as it "creates".
The 4.8 percent increase in the gross domestic product marked a vast improvement from the feeble 1.7 percent annual rate registered in the final quarter of 2005, when fallout from the Gulf Coast hurricanes, including high energy prices, prompted people and companies to tighten their belts.
Saint of the Day and daily Mass readings.
Today is the Feast of St. Louis de Montfort, confessor, Marian devotee, founder of the Sisters of Divine Wisdom and the Missionaries of the Company of Mary. His True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin remains popular to this day. Pray for us, all you angels and saints.
Today's reading is Acts 5:34-42.
Today's Responsorial Psalm is Psalms 27:1, 4, 13-14.
Today's Gospel reading is John 6:1-15.
[Links to the readings will be from the NAB until I can find another chapter and verse searchable Douay-Rheims Bible on-line.]
Everyday links:
The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTN
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today
Just in case you are wondering what exactly Catholics believe, here is
The Apostles Creed
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.
Memorare
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.
St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.
Prayer to St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire
Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)
Prayer To Saint Michael The Archangel
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
Prayer to End Abortion
Lord God, I thank You today for the gift of my life, and for the lives of all my brothers and sisters. I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion, yet I rejoice that you have conquered death by the resurrection of Your Son. I am ready to do my part to end abortion. Today I commit myself never to be silent, never to be passive, and never to be forgetful of the unborn. I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement, and never stop defending life until all my brothers and sisters are protected and our nation once again becomes a nation with liberty and justice, not just for some, but for all. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Personally, I'm glad I don't know the difference.
Stockings, pantyhose, whatever...
That is not the point, Dearest.
Just in case you thought I was kidding earlier...
Childrens or girl's stylish solid color fishnet pantyhose. Colors shown are yellow and neon pink. Choose from our selection of 40 colors. Great for dancing school performances.
(Sorry, kiddies. Even Your Humble Servant has to eat humble pie once in a while.)
Here's a story from Japan that has almost everything: Boxing, baldness, a wig, controversy, a second chance, and heartache.
Bald boxer loses wig but battles back to win fight, hearts, even hair
Featherweight boxer Masayuki Koguchi found himself in a pretty hairy situation during his last fight as his opponent pummeled him so viciously, it knocked his wig off.
Koguchi gave his hairpiece a hurl, and the toupee-less terror found national fame when he followed the reverse path of Biblical hero Samson and came back to win an 8-round bout in a TKO against 31-year-old pugilist, Daichi Shibata.
But now, four months later and with a re-match set against Shibata following complaints that the hairpiece adversely affected the result, 28-year-old follicly challenged fighter Koguchi has experienced a miracle that will ensure he'll never have to go through the embarrassment of having his wig knocked off ever again, according to Shukan Gendai (5/6-13).
The miracle, the men's weekly notes, is that Koguchi's hair has started growing back.
Rather than actually benefiting from any act of God, the Wig Boxer, as Koguchi has become known throughout Japan, has since March been acting as a monitor for a product called Momani, a herbal based hair restoration treatment. A spokesman for the company elaborates.
"He's only been a monitor for just under a month so the results aren't immediately obvious, but if you check his scalp under a microscope, you'll find that his hair has already started growing back," the spokesman tells Shukan Gendai. "When we first looked at his scalp, we found that the production of hair on Koguchi's head was very weak. Now, he's got two or three hairs that have taken root and grown up thick and strong. If we wait another month, you'll probably be able to tell with your own eyes that his hair is growing back."
The Wig Boxer himself acknowledges the effects of his follicle fixer.
"Well, I've only been using it for three weeks, this is my fourth week. But my blood circulation has improved and I can feel my hair has gotten better. It really feels like my hair is growing back," Koguchi tells Shukan Gendai.
Koguchi tells the men's weekly that he started going bald at 23, and began wearing a wig, even in the ring, because he felt his baldness made him less attractive among women. He's already got dreams about eventually being able to think about things like hairstyles.
"I want to keep on growing it," he says. "But, I am a boxer, so even when it grows back, I'll still cut it really short."
The Wig Boxer chose to wear a toupee because he thought the hirsute look would make him attractive to the opposite sex. Now that he's got some hair back, well, two or three hairs at least, has it changed the way women look at him?
"Nah. My hair hasn't grown back enough yet," the Wig Boxer tells Shukan Gendai. "Mind you, it's probably harder for me to get a girlfriend now that I'm famous than it has ever been before. Every woman who sees me now calls me 'The Wig Boxer,' whether they know me or not. Women basically regard me as being off the radar when it comes to love. It's tough."
For sale: Japanese castle, 15 years old, good as new
From the Mainichi Daily News:
For anybody who's ever believed that a home should be a castle, there's now a Japanese real estate agency that can literally make that dream come true, according to Cyzo (May).
On sale in a rustic little village in sleepy Toyama Prefecture on the Sea of Japan side of the country is a traditional-style Japanese castle.
At first glance, the castle sitting atop a hill in the village of Yatsuo is little different to those citadels that dotted the landscape during Japan's feudal era, while the interior also retains the flavor of times long past.
But the castle has all the mod-cons, which shouldn't really be surprising because it was only built a mere 15 years ago.
"The president of a construction company built it. He was apparently going to use it as a place where he could hold big parties," a real estate agent identified only as Iijima-san from Shimada Jutaku real estate agency tells Cyzo. "But the company's finances went awry and the president had to put the castle up for auction. Our company bought the property and decided to put it up for sale."
The castle is three-stories high. The president waited until changes in the Construction Standards Law changed in 1987 and permitted the erection of wooden buildings higher than three flights before he built it.
Surprisingly, the castle is comparatively cheap...at 41 million yen, it costs about the same as the average apartment in outer suburban Tokyo, but also comes with some 600 square meters of land and the 144 square meters of the interior is still more spacious than a typical home in the capital.
Inside the castle, it's like taking a trip back to Japan of yore.
"Every room is decked out in traditional Japanese style, with tatami mats," Iijima tells Cyzo. "Except for the smallest room in the house. The toilet is a (far more comfortable) Western-style job."
It's pretty rare to live in a castle. Shimada Jutaku put the fortress on the market in June last year and is still looking for a buyer. Whoever does pick it up will also earn the knowledge that they are one of the few individuals in Japan to own their own castle.
"There are a few cases where rich people living in the countryside have built their own castles, but I'd hardly say that this is a fashion," the editor of a trendy architectural magazine tells Cyzo. "Maybe we should do a big write-up on residential castles!"
For about 400 grand, you could do worse.
The Theology of the Body: 94. Moral Aspects of the Christian's Vocation
In his General Audience of 15 September 1982, the Holy Father continued his exposition of the fifth chapter of Ephesians, by showing how the mystery of God's love, hidden for ages, was revealed in Jesus Christ, with an emphasis on his spousal donation of Himself to the Church and His members' participation in the mystery.
Moral Aspects of the Christian's Vocation
The general audience of 15 September took place in St Peter's Square in the presence of a large crowd of people. Pope John Paul continued his discourse on the text of Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, and spoke as follows:
1. We have before us the text of the Letter to the Ephesians 5:21-33, which we have already been analyzing for some time because of its importance in regard to marriage and the sacrament. In its whole content, beginning from the first chapter, the letter treats above all of the mystery for ages hidden in God as a gift eternally destined for mankind. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved" (Eph 1:3-6).
2. Until now the letter speaks of the mystery hidden for ages in God (Eph 3:9). The subsequent phrases introduce the reader to the phase of fulfillment of this mystery in the history of man. The gift, destined for him for ages in Christ, becomes a real part of man in the same Christ: "...in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us. For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph 1:7-10).
3. And so the eternal mystery passed from the mystery of "being hidden in God" to the phase of revelation and actualization. Christ, in whom humanity was for ages chosen and blessed "with every spiritual blessing of the Father"—Christ, destined according to the eternal "plan" of God, so that in him, as in a head "all things might be united, things in heaven and things on earth" in the eschatological perspective—reveals the eternal mystery and accomplishes it among men. Therefore the author of the Letter to the Ephesians, in the remainder of the letter, exhorts those who have received this revelation, and those who have accepted it in faith, to model their lives in the spirit of the truth they have learned. To the same end, in a particular way he exhorts Christian couples, husbands and wives.
4. For the greater part of the context the letter becomes instruction or parenesis. The author seems to speak above all of the moral aspects of the vocation of Christians. However, he continually refers to the mystery which is already at work in them, by virtue of the redemption of Christ—and efficaciously works in them especially by virtue of Baptism. He writes: "In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit" (Eph 1:13). Thus the moral aspects of the Christian vocation remain linked not only with the revelation of the eternal divine mystery in Christ and with its acceptance through faith, but also with the sacramental order. Although it is not placed in the forefront in the whole letter, it seems to be present in a discreet manner. It could not be otherwise seeing that the Apostle is writing to Christians who, through Baptism, had become members of the ecclesial community. From this point of view, the passage of the Letter to the Ephesians, chapter 5:21-33, analyzed up to the present, seems to have a special importance. Indeed, it throws a special light on the essential relationship of the mystery with the sacrament and especially on the sacramentality of matrimony.
5. At the heart of the mystery, there is Christ. In him—precisely in him—humanity has been eternally blessed "with every spiritual blessing." In him, in Christ, humanity has been chosen "before the creation of the world," chosen in love and predestined to the adoption of sons. When later, in the fullness of time this eternal mystery is accomplished in time, this is brought about also in him and through him; in Christ and through Christ. The mystery of divine love is revealed through Christ. Through him and in him it is accomplished. In him, "We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses..." (Eph 1:7). In this manner men who through faith accept the gift offered to them in Christ, really become participants in the eternal mystery, even though it works in them under the veil of faith. According to the Letter to the Ephesians 5:21-33, this supernatural conferring of the fruits of redemption accomplished by Christ acquires the character of a spousal donation of Christ himself to the Church, similar to the spousal relationship between husband and wife. Therefore, not only the fruits of redemption are a gift, but above all, Christ himself is a gift. He gives himself to the Church as to his spouse.
6. We should ask whether in this matter such an analogy does not permit us to penetrate the essential content of the mystery more profoundly and with greater exactitude. We should ask ourselves this question with all the greater reason because this classic passage of the Letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33) does not appear in the abstract and isolated. But it constitutes a continuity. In a certain sense it is a continuation of the statements of the Old Testament, which presented the love of God-Yahweh for his chosen people Israel according to the same analogy. We are dealing in the first place with the texts of the prophets who, in their discourses, introduced the similarity of spousal love in order to characterize in a particular way the love which Yahweh has for Israel. On the part of the chosen people, this love was not understood and reciprocated. Rather it encountered infidelity and betrayal. That infidelity and betrayal was expressed especially in idolatry, a worship given to strange gods.
7. Truth to tell, in the greater part of the cases, the prophets were pointing out in a dramatic manner that very betrayal and infidelity which were called the "adultery" of Israel. However, the explicit conviction that the love of Yahweh for the chosen people can and should be compared to the love which unites husband and wife is at the basis of all these statements of the prophets. Here one could quote many passages from Isaiah, Hosea and Ezekiel. (Some of these were already quoted when we were analyzing the concept of adultery against the background of Christ's words in the Sermon on the Mount.) One cannot forget that to the patrimony of the Old Testament belongs also the Song of Solomon, in which the image of spousal love is traced—it is true—without the typical analogy of the prophetic texts, which presented in that love the image of the love of Yahweh for Israel, but also without that negative element which, in the other texts, constitutes the motive of "adultery" or infidelity. Thus then the analogy of the spouses, which enabled the author of the Letter to the Ephesians to define the relationship of Christ to the Church, possesses an abundant tradition in the books of the Old Testament. In analyzing this analogy in the classic text of the Letter to the Ephesians, we cannot but refer to that tradition.
8. To illustrate this tradition we will limit ourselves for the moment to citing a passage of Isaiah. The prophet says: "Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be put to shame; for you will forget the shame of your youth and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name, and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; the God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you...but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you" (Is 54:4-7,10).
During our next meeting we shall begin the analysis of the text cited from Isaiah.
God bless Kelly Jo and Dakoda Dowd.
This is not REPEAT NOT a golf story.
Kelly Jo Dowd didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so she did a little of both. With one swing of her 13-year-old daughter's driver, a mother's dream came true.
Dakoda Dowd opened play Thursday with a birdie in the LPGA Ginn Open, doing so while her terminally ill mother looked on, surrounded by friends and family. Wearing a pink shirt and black skirt, the teen teed off at 9:32 a.m., her first ball sailing down the left-center of the fairway.
Kelly Jo Dowd is fighting cancer for the second time in four years. She was given a clean bill of health after doctors believed she beat breast cancer, but she learned last year that she has terminal bone and liver cancer -- and, conceivably, only months to live.
"This is one of the best weeks of my life," Kelly Jo said Thursday before heading to the course. "It's such a warm feeling. It's almost like I'm walking and it's not really happening. I feel like a kid at Christmastime."
When Ginn officials learned Kelly Jo's wish was to see her daughter, who has won dozens of amateur tournaments, play against the LPGA's best, they made it possible with an exemption into the field.
Dakoda received a sponsor's exemption to play in the event near Orlando. Playing with pros Kate Golden and Tracy Hanson -- both at least 21 years older than the phenom -- she started on the 532-yard, par-5 10th hole. She arrived at the driving range 90 minutes earlier, clearly relaxed. After one wedge sailed long of her target, she playfully punched a cameraman standing nearby.
She chewed on her right thumbnail for a few minutes before teeing off, then hugged her mother and leaned her head back in relief that the wait was, at long last, over.
"I'm excited," Dakoda said after walking off the practice green and signing a few autographs before teeing off. "I feel like I'm going to Busch Gardens."
The Tampa amusement park is one of her favorite places. And she doesn't mind the spotlight, either.
"This has all been great," Dakoda said.
She finished her first nine holes at 1-over par, only a pair of three-putt bogeys blemishing her card. Dakoda hit her first eight greens, then chipped within 2 feet to save par on the 18th hole, her ninth of the round.
Through the attention generated here, the Dowd family hopes to raise cancer awareness and encourage women to be diligent in getting checked -- something Kelly Jo acknowledges that she did not do, instead waiting nearly a year before getting the breast lump that turned out to be cancerous examined by doctors.
Pleasepleasepleaseplease, ladies. If not for youselves, then for those who love you...
Fyodor's Headlinks.
News stories that have absolutely nothing in common...
Boston Globe:Dems, Environmentalists at Odds With Ted Kennedy on Wind Farm Project
Washington Post:More Bluster From Iran
Iranian Leader Warns US of Reprisal Ahead of UN Report
...or do they?
Don't vote against Mitt (?) Romney because he's a MORMON, do it because he's a MORON.
Commentary: Romney's Religious Test
(CNSNews.com) - Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, was in Washington Tuesday to address the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in an early stage of his 2008 presidential campaign. To a growing number of Republican activists, he looks like the party's best bet, says columnist Robert D. Novak. But some Evangelical Christians stumble over Romney's Mormon faith. Read the commentary
Rats! You can't even depend on Pat Buchanan to call for the execution of traitors.
On a more positive note, I suddenly find myself to the right of Brother Pat. I think this McCarthy cow should be hanged live on national television. If she is convicted, of course.
Mary McCarthy, special assistant to President Clinton and senior director of intelligence in his White House, has been fired by the CIA.
McCarthy allegedly told the Washington Post our NATO allies were secretly letting the CIA operate bases on their soil for the interrogation of terror suspects. Apparently, McCarthy failed several polygraph tests, after which she confessed.
If true, she was faithless to her oath, betrayed the trust of her country, damaged America's ties to foreign intelligence agencies and governments, and broke the law. The Justice Department is investigating whether McCarthy violated the Espionage Act.
Yet, while she may be headed for criminal prosecution and prison, the Post reporter to whom she leaked intelligence on the secret sites, Dana Priest, just won a Pulitzer Prize for revealing the existence of these sites.
Pat, you know Pulitzer Prizes are irrelevant.
Also copping Pulitzers were two reporters for the New York Times who revealed that, since 9-11, U.S. intelligence agencies have been intercepting calls and e-mails between terror suspects and U.S. citizens.
President Bush had implored the Times not to publish the story, lest exposure of the spying program alert al-Qaida to U.S. capabilities and operations.
For one year, the Times held the story – then, it went with it. While the delay has been criticized by some journalists, most applauded exposing the spying program and the U.S. secret bases, and the Pulitzers that went with their exposure.
On ABC's "This Week," Sen. John Kerry, (Who now, exactly? - F.G.) to whose campaign McCarthy made a $2,000 contribution, was his usual ambivalent self when asked whether he approved of what she had done:
Of course not. A CIA agent has the obligation to uphold the law, and clearly leaking is against the law, and nobody should leak. I don't like leaking. But if you're leaking to tell the truth, Americans are going to look at that, at least mitigate or think about what are the consequences that you ... put on that
person. Obviously they're not going to keep their job, but there are other larger issues here.
What "larger issues" there were, Kerry did not say.
The name still doesn't ring a bell, but ABC seems to think he's important.
Pressed by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Kerry blurted, "I'm glad she told the truth, but she's going to obviously – if she did it, if she did it – suffer the consequences of breaking the law."
Kerry was prepared for the question, so he has to be held to account. When he says, "I'm glad she told the truth," one has to ask: What is Kerry talking about?
To whom did McCarthy tell the truth? Apparently, to Dana Priest, in exposing the secret program. Is Kerry "glad" she did this? Is he glad she violated her oath and broke the law and exposed the program? To those to whom McCarthy owed loyalty, her superiors at the CIA, she apparently lied in her polygraph examinations, and only after being caught did she confess.
Where is the moral heroism in clandestinely violating one's oath, breaking the law, leaking secrets and lying about it? Is this the New Morality? What was the higher cause McCarthy was serving?
Ah, the rhetorical question. Pat knows all too well she serves the cause of rebellion.
Journalists are rising to her defense, describing McCarthy as a whistle-blower – i.e., someone who calls the government to account for wrongdoing. But there is no evidence President Bush or U.S. agencies were doing anything criminal by using secret sites provided by NATO allies to interrogate terror suspects plotting to murder Americans.
If U.S. officials are engaged in misconduct or atrocities at these bases – i.e., the torture of prisoners – no one has said so. Reportedly, an E.U. investigation of the U.S. secret sites in Europe turned up nothing.
What does it say about American journalism that it gives its most prestigious prizes to reporters who acquire and reveal illicitly leaked U.S. secrets, when the result is to damage the U.S. government in a time of war? Both the Times and Post got their Pulitzers for fencing secrets of the U.S. government, criminally leaked by disloyal public servants they continue to protect.
Query: If McCarthy deserves firing, disgrace and possibly prison for what she did, does the Post deserve congratulations for collaborating with and covering up her infidelity, deceit and possible criminality?
Are journalists above the law? Are they entitled to publish secrets, the leaking of which can put their sources in jail for imperiling the national security? What kind of business has journalism become in 2006?
They're not journalists and haven't been for generations. They are partisans.
Scooter Libby is to be tried for perjury for allegedly lying to a grand jury investigating whether he leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, in a White House campaign to discredit war critic Joe Wilson. Larry Franklin of the Pentagon got 12 years for leaking military secrets to the Israeli lobby.
McCarthy deserves the same treatment. She should be prosecuted and, if convicted, spend the next decade in prison. Whether this war was a mistake or not, no one has a right to sabotage the war effort.
Not even journalists.
Ha! That's just Philly being Philly.
From The Smoking Gun: Domino's delivery man transported pizza, corpses in same car
In what will surely repulse Pennsylvanians, a Domino's delivery man used a car to transport corpses to funeral parlors when he wasn't using the vehicle to bring pies and Cheesy Bread to pizza enthusiasts. Last Friday, a Lower Southampton Township Police Department officer pulled over a 1993 Buick after noticing the vehicle did not have an inspection sticker. Additionally, William Bethel, 24, was driving with a suspended license, so cops informed him that the vehicle was going to be impounded. According to a police report, a copy of which you'll find below, when officers began taking an inventory of the station wagon, they noticed a stretcher in the rear of the vehicle (along with rubbish and wet clothing) where "pizzas were sitting to be delivered." Asked about the items, Bethel explained that when he finished delivering Domino's pizzas, "he transports deceased bodies in the same vehicle for a funeral home." A police check with local health officials determined that the use of the car for stiffs and slices did not violate county ordinances. Bethel, who was not arrested, is facing $400 in fines for driving with a suspended license and operating a vehicle without an inspection certificate. The station wagon is registered to Carl Delia, owner of a so-called removal service that delivers dead bodies to Philadelphia-area funeral homes. (2 pages)
Here is a sentence certain to piss off oodles of people:
The Da Vinci Code is today's The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (If you think you know moonbats, try searching for the latter on the internet.)
Oh, well. Dan Brown's what we get for letting the government "educate" our kids.
Would you like to find out what happens when ignorant fools take a romance novel for chicks as actual history (and gospel)? Check out this beat down of Citizen Brown's anti-intellectual and anti-Catholic pretentions in Crisis Magazine from September 1, 2003:
Dismantling The Da Vinci Code
By Sandra Miesel
“The Grail,” Langdon said, “is symbolic of the lost goddess. When Christianity came along, the old pagan religions did not die easily. Legends of chivalric quests for the Holy Grail were in fact stories of forbidden quests to find the lost sacred feminine. Knights who claimed to be “searching for the chalice” were speaking in code as a way to protect themselves from a Church that had subjugated women, banished the Goddess, burned non-believers, and forbidden the pagan reverence for the sacred feminine.” (The Da Vinci Code, pages 238-239)
The Holy Grail is a favorite metaphor for a desirable but difficult-to-attain goal, from the map of the human genome to Lord Stanley’s Cup. While the original Grail—the cup Jesus allegedly used at the Last Supper—normally inhabits the pages of Arthurian romance, Dan Brown’s recent mega–best-seller, The Da Vinci Code, rips it away to the realm of esoteric history.
But his book is more than just the story of a quest for the Grail—he wholly reinterprets the Grail legend. In doing so, Brown inverts the insight that a woman’s body is symbolically a container and makes a container symbolically a woman’s body. And that container has a name every Christian will recognize, for Brown claims that the Holy Grail was actually Mary Magdalene. She was the vessel that held the blood of Jesus Christ in her womb while bearing his children.
Over the centuries, the Grail-keepers have been guarding the true (and continuing) bloodline of Christ and the relics of the Magdalen, not a material vessel. Therefore Brown claims that “the quest for the Holy Grail is the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene,” a conclusion that would surely have surprised Sir Galahad and the other Grail knights who thought they were searching for the Chalice of the Last Supper.
The Da Vinci Code opens with the grisly murder of the Louvre’s curator inside the museum. The crime enmeshes hero Robert Langdon, a tweedy professor of symbolism from Harvard, and the victim’s granddaughter, burgundy-haired cryptologist Sophie Nevue. Together with crippled millionaire historian Leigh Teabing, they flee Paris for London one step ahead of the police and a mad albino Opus Dei “monk” named Silas who will stop at nothing to prevent them from finding the “Grail.”
But despite the frenetic pacing, at no point is action allowed to interfere with a good lecture. Before the story comes full circle back to the Louvre, readers face a barrage of codes, puzzles, mysteries, and conspiracies.
With his twice-stated principle, “Everybody loves a conspiracy,” Brown is reminiscent of the famous author who crafted her product by studying the features of ten earlier best-sellers. It would be too easy to criticize him for characters thin as plastic wrap, undistinguished prose, and improbable action. But Brown isn’t so much writing badly as writing in a particular way best calculated to attract a female audience. (Women, after all, buy most of the nation’s books.) He has married a thriller plot to a romance-novel technique. Notice how each character is an extreme type…effortlessly brilliant, smarmy, sinister, or psychotic as needed, moving against luxurious but curiously flat backdrops. Avoiding gore and bedroom gymnastics, he shows only one brief kiss and a sexual ritual performed by a married couple. The risqué allusions are fleeting although the text lingers over some bloody Opus Dei mortifications. In short, Brown has fabricated a novel perfect for a ladies’ book club.
Brown’s lack of seriousness shows in the games he plays with his character names—Robert Langdon, “bright fame long don” (distinguished and virile); Sophie Nevue, “wisdom New Eve”; the irascible taurine detective Bezu Fache, “zebu anger.” The servant who leads the police to them is Legaludec, “legal duce.” The murdered curator takes his surname, Saunière, from a real Catholic priest whose occult antics sparked interest in the Grail secret. As an inside joke, Brown even writes in his real-life editor (Faukman is Kaufman).
While his extensive use of fictional formulas may be the secret to Brown’s stardom, his anti-Christian message can’t have hurt him in publishing circles: The Da Vinci Code debuted atop the New York Times best-seller list. By manipulating his audience through the conventions of romance-writing, Brown invites readers to identify with his smart, glamorous characters who’ve seen through the impostures of the clerics who hide the “truth” about Jesus and his wife. Blasphemy is delivered in a soft voice with a knowing chuckle: “[E]very faith in the world is based on fabrication.”
But even Brown has his limits. To dodge charges of outright bigotry, he includes a climactic twist in the story that absolves the Church of assassination. And although he presents Christianity as a false root and branch, he’s willing to tolerate it for its charitable works.
(Of course, Catholic Christianity will become even more tolerable once the new liberal pope elected in Brown’s previous Langdon novel, Angels & Demons, abandons outmoded teachings. “Third-century laws cannot be applied to the modern followers of Christ,” says one of the book’s progressive cardinals.)
Where Is He Getting All of This?
Brown actually cites his principal sources within the text of his novel. One is a specimen of academic feminist scholarship: The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels. The others are popular esoteric histories: The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince; Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln; The Goddess in the Gospels: Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine and The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail, both by Margaret Starbird. (Starbird, a self-identified Catholic, has her books published by Matthew Fox’s outfit, Bear & Co.) Another influence, at least at second remove, is The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker.
The use of such unreliable sources belies Brown’s pretensions to intellectuality. But the act has apparently fooled at least some of his readers—the New York Daily News book reviewer trumpeted, “His research is impeccable.”
But despite Brown’s scholarly airs, a writer who thinks the Merovingians founded Paris and forgets that the popes once lived in Avignon is hardly a model researcher. And for him to state that the Church burned five million women as witches shows a willful—and malicious—ignorance of the historical record. The latest figures for deaths during the European witch craze are between 30,000 to 50,000 victims. Not all were executed by the Church, not all were women, and not all were burned. Brown’s claim that educated women, priestesses, and midwives were singled out by witch-hunters is not only false, it betrays his goddess-friendly sources.
A Multitude of Errors
So error-laden is The Da Vinci Code that the educated reader actually applauds those rare occasions where Brown stumbles (despite himself) into the truth. A few examples of his “impeccable” research: He claims that the motions of the planet Venus trace a pentacle (the so-called Ishtar pentagram) symbolizing the goddess. But it isn’t a perfect figure and has nothing to do with the length of the Olympiad. The ancient Olympic games were celebrated in honor of Zeus Olympias, not Aphrodite, and occurred every four years.
Brown’s contention that the five linked rings of the modern Olympic Games are a secret tribute to the goddess is also wrong—each set of games was supposed to add a ring to the design but the organizers stopped at five. And his efforts to read goddess propaganda into art, literature, and even Disney cartoons are simply ridiculous.
No datum is too dubious for inclusion, and reality falls quickly by the wayside. For instance, the Opus Dei bishop encourages his albino assassin by telling him that Noah was also an albino (a notion drawn from the non-canonical 1 Enoch 106:2). Yet albinism somehow fails to interfere with the man’s eyesight as it physiologically would.
But a far more important example is Brown’s treatment of Gothic architecture as a style full of goddess-worshipping symbols and coded messages to confound the uninitiated. Building on Barbara Walker’s claim that “like a pagan temple, the Gothic cathedral represented the body of the Goddess,” The Templar Revelation asserts: “Sexual symbolism is found in the great Gothic cathedrals which were masterminded by the Knights Templar...both of which represent intimate female anatomy: the arch, which draws the worshipper into the body of Mother Church, evokes the vulva.” In The Da Vinci Code, these sentiments are transformed into a character’s description of “a cathedral’s long hollow nave as a secret tribute to a woman’s womb...complete with receding labial ridges and a nice little cinquefoil clitoris above the doorway.”
These remarks cannot be brushed aside as opinions of the villain; Langdon, the book’s hero, refers to his own lectures about goddess-symbolism at Chartres.
These bizarre interpretations betray no acquaintance with the actual development or construction of Gothic architecture, and correcting the countless errors becomes a tiresome exercise: The Templars had nothing to do with the cathedrals of their time, which were commissioned by bishops and their canons throughout Europe. They were unlettered men with no arcane knowledge of “sacred geometry” passed down from the pyramid builders. They did not wield tools themselves on their own projects, nor did they found masons’ guilds to build for others. Not all their churches were round, nor was roundness a defiant insult to the Church. Rather than being a tribute to the divine feminine, their round churches honored the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Actually looking at Gothic churches and their predecessors deflates the idea of female symbolism. Large medieval churches typically had three front doors on the west plus triple entrances to their transepts on the north and south. (What part of a woman’s anatomy does a transept represent? Or the kink in Chartres’s main aisle?) Romanesque churches—including ones that predate the founding of the Templars—have similar bands of decoration arching over their entrances. Both Gothic and Romanesque churches have the long, rectangular nave inherited from Late Antique basilicas, ultimately derived from Roman public buildings. Neither Brown nor his sources consider what symbolism medieval churchmen such as Suger of St.-Denis or William Durandus read in church design. It certainly wasn’t goddess-worship.
False Claims
If the above seems like a pile driver applied to a gnat, the blows are necessary to demonstrate the utter falseness of Brown’s material. His willful distortions of documented history are more than matched by his outlandish claims about controversial subjects. But to a postmodernist, one construct of reality is as good as any other.
Brown’s approach seems to consist of grabbing large chunks of his stated sources and tossing them together in a salad of a story. From Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Brown lifts the concept of the Grail as a metaphor for a sacred lineage by arbitrarily breaking a medieval French term, Sangraal (Holy Grail), into sang (blood) and raal (royal). This holy blood, according to Brown, descended from Jesus and his wife, Mary Magdalene, to the Merovingian dynasty in Dark Ages France, surviving its fall to persist in several modern French families, including that of Pierre Plantard, a leader of the mysterious Priory of Sion. The Priory—an actual organization officially registered with the French government in 1956—makes extraordinary claims of antiquity as the “real” power behind the Knights Templar. It most likely originated after World War II and was first brought to public notice in 1962. With the exception of filmmaker Jean Cocteau, its illustrious list of Grand Masters—which include Leonardo da Vinci, Issac Newton, and Victor Hugo—is not credible, although it’s presented as true by Brown.
Brown doesn’t accept a political motivation for the Priory’s activities. Instead he picks up The Templar Revelation’s view of the organization as a cult of secret goddess-worshippers who have preserved ancient Gnostic wisdom and records of Christ’s true mission, which would completely overturn Christianity if released. Significantly, Brown omits the rest of the book’s thesis that makes Christ and Mary Magdalene unmarried sex partners performing the erotic mysteries of Isis. Perhaps even a gullible mass-market audience has its limits.
From both Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation, Brown takes a negative view of the Bible and a grossly distorted image of Jesus. He’s neither the Messiah nor a humble carpenter but a wealthy, trained religious teacher bent on regaining the throne of David. His credentials are amplified by his relationship with the rich Magdalen who carries the royal blood of Benjamin: “Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false,” laments one of Brown’s characters.
Yet it’s Brown’s Christology that’s false—and blindingly so. He requires the present New Testament to be a post-Constantinian fabrication that displaced true accounts now represented only by surviving Gnostic texts. He claims that Christ wasn’t considered divine until the Council of Nicea voted him so in 325 at the behest of the emperor. Then Constantine—a lifelong sun worshipper—ordered all older scriptural texts destroyed, which is why no complete set of Gospels predates the fourth century. Christians somehow failed to notice the sudden and drastic change in their doctrine.
But by Brown’s specious reasoning, the Old Testament can’t be authentic either because complete Hebrew Scriptures are no more than a thousand years old. And yet the texts were transmitted so accurately that they do match well with the Dead Sea Scrolls from a thousand years earlier. Analysis of textual families, comparison with fragments and quotations, plus historical correlations securely date the orthodox Gospels to the first century and indicate that they’re earlier than the Gnostic forgeries. (The Epistles of St. Paul are, of course, even earlier than the Gospels.)
Primitive Church documents and the testimony of the ante-Nicean Fathers confirm that Christians have always believed Jesus to be Lord, God, and Savior—even when that faith meant death. The earliest partial canon of Scripture dates from the late second century and already rejected Gnostic writings. For Brown, it isn’t enough to credit Constantine with the divinization of Jesus. The emperor’s old adherence to the cult of the Invincible Sun also meant repackaging sun worship as the new faith. Brown drags out old (and long-discredited) charges by virulent anti-Catholics like Alexander Hislop who accused the Church of perpetuating Babylonian mysteries, as well as 19th-century rationalists who regarded Christ as just another dying savior-god.
Unsurprisingly, Brown misses no opportunity to criticize Christianity and its pitiable adherents. (The church in question is always the Catholic Church, though his villain does sneer once at Anglicans—for their grimness, of all things.) He routinely and anachronistically refers to the Church as “the Vatican,” even when popes weren’t in residence there. He systematically portrays it throughout history as deceitful, power-crazed, crafty, and murderous: “The Church may no longer employ crusades to slaughter, but their influence is no less persuasive. No less insidious.”
Goddess Worship and the Magdalen
Worst of all, in Brown’s eyes, is the fact that the pleasure-hating, sex-hating, woman-hating Church suppressed goddess worship and eliminated the divine feminine. He claims that goddess worship universally dominated pre-Christian paganism with the hieros gamos (sacred marriage) as its central rite. His enthusiasm for fertility rites is enthusiasm for sexuality, not procreation. What else would one expect of a Cathar sympathizer?
Astonishingly, Brown claims that Jews in Solomon’s Temple adored Yahweh and his feminine counterpart, the Shekinah, via the services of sacred prostitutes—possibly a twisted version of the Temple’s corruption after Solomon (1 Kings 14:24 and 2 Kings 23:4-15). Moreover, he says that the tetragrammaton YHWH derives from “Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah.”
But as any first-year Scripture student could tell you, Jehovah is actually a 16th-century rendering of Yahweh using the vowels of Adonai (“Lord”). In fact, goddesses did not dominate the pre-Christian world—not in the religions of Rome, her barbarian subjects, Egypt, or even Semitic lands where the hieros gamos was an ancient practice. Nor did the Hellenized cult of Isis appear to have included sex in its secret rites.
Contrary to yet another of Brown’s claims, Tarot cards do not teach goddess doctrine. They were invented for innocent gaming purposes in the 15th century and didn’t acquire occult associations until the late 18th. Playing-card suites carry no Grail symbolism. The notion of diamonds symbolizing pentacles is a deliberate misrepresentation by British occultist A. E. Waite. And the number five—so crucial to Brown’s puzzles—has some connections with the protective goddess but myriad others besides, including human life, the five senses, and the Five Wounds of Christ.
Brown’s treatment of Mary Magdalene is sheer delusion. In The Da Vinci Code, she’s no penitent whore but Christ’s royal consort and the intended head of His Church, supplanted by Peter and defamed by churchmen. She fled west with her offspring to Provence, where medieval Cathars would keep the original teachings of Jesus alive. The Priory of Sion still guards her relics and records, excavated by the Templars from the subterranean Holy of Holies. It also protects her descendants—including Brown’s heroine.
Although many people still picture the Magdalen as a sinful woman who anointed Jesus and equate her with Mary of Bethany, that conflation is actually the later work of Pope St. Gregory the Great. The East has always kept them separate and said that the Magdalen, “apostle to the apostles,” died in Ephesus. The legend of her voyage to Provence is no earlier than the ninth century, and her relics weren’t reported there until the 13th. Catholic critics, including the Bollandists, have been debunking the legend and distinguishing the three ladies since the 17th century.
Brown uses two Gnostic documents, the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary, to prove that the Magdalen was Christ’s “companion,” meaning sexual partner. The apostles were jealous that Jesus used to “kiss her on the mouth” and favored her over them. He cites exactly the same passages quoted in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation and even picks up the latter’s reference to The Last Temptation of Christ. What these books neglect to mention is the infamous final verse of the Gospel of Thomas. When Peter sneers that “women are not worthy of Life,” Jesus responds, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male.... For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
That’s certainly an odd way to “honor” one’s spouse or exalt the status of women.
The Knights Templar
Brown likewise misrepresents the history of the Knights Templar. The oldest of the military-religious orders, the Knights were founded in 1118 to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. Their rule, attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, was approved in 1128 and generous donors granted them numerous properties in Europe for support. Rendered redundant after the last Crusader stronghold fell in 1291, the Templars’ pride and wealth—they were also bankers—earned them keen hostility.
Brown maliciously ascribes the suppression of the Templars to “Machiavellian” Pope Clement V, whom they were blackmailing with the Grail secret. His “ingeniously planned sting operation” had his soldiers suddenly arrest all Templars. Charged with Satanism, sodomy, and blasphemy, they were tortured into confessing and burned as heretics, their ashes “tossed unceremoniously into the Tiber.”
But in reality, the initiative for crushing the Templars came from King Philip the Fair of France, whose royal officials did the arresting in 1307. About 120 Templars were burned by local Inquisitorial courts in France for not confessing or retracting a confession, as happened with Grand Master Jacques de Molay. Few Templars suffered death elsewhere although their order was abolished in 1312. Clement, a weak, sickly Frenchman manipulated by his king, burned no one in Rome inasmuch as he was the first pope to reign from Avignon (so much for the ashes in the Tiber).
Moreover, the mysterious stone idol that the Templars were accused of worshiping is associated with fertility in only one of more than a hundred confessions. Sodomy was the scandalous—and possibly true—charge against the order, not ritual fornication. The Templars have been darlings of occultism since their myth as masters of secret wisdom and fabulous treasure began to coalesce in the late 18th century. Freemasons and even Nazis have hailed them as brothers. Now it’s the turn of neo-Gnostics.
Twisting da Vinci
Brown’s revisionist interpretations of da Vinci are as distorted as the rest of his information. He claims to have first run across these views “while I was studying art history in Seville,” but they correspond point for point to material in The Templar Revelation. A writer who sees a pointed finger as a throat-cutting gesture, who says the Madonna of the Rocks was painted for nuns instead of a lay confraternity of men, who claims that da Vinci received “hundreds of lucrative Vatican commissions” (actually, it was just one…and it was never executed) is simply unreliable.
Brown’s analysis of da Vinci’s work is just as ridiculous. He presents the Mona Lisa as an androgynous self-portrait when it’s widely known to portray a real woman, Madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. The name is certainly not—as Brown claims—a mocking anagram of two Egyptian fertility deities Amon and L’Isa (Italian for Isis). How did he miss the theory, propounded by the authors of The Templar Revelation, that the Shroud of Turin is a photographed self-portrait of da Vinci?
Much of Brown’s argument centers around da Vinci’s Last Supper, a painting the author considers a coded message that reveals the truth about Jesus and the Grail. Brown points to the lack of a central chalice on the table as proof that the Grail isn’t a material vessel. But da Vinci’s painting specifically dramatizes the moment when Jesus warns, “One of you will betray me” (John 13:21). There is no Institution Narrative in St. John’s Gospel. The Eucharist is not shown there. And the person sitting next to Jesus is not Mary Magdalene (as Brown claims) but St. John, portrayed as the usual effeminate da Vinci youth, comparable to his St. John the Baptist. Jesus is in the exact center of the painting, with two pyramidal groups of three apostles on each side. Although da Vinci was a spiritually troubled homosexual, Brown’s contention that he coded his paintings with anti-Christian messages simply can’t be sustained.
Brown’s Mess
In the end, Dan Brown has penned a poorly written, atrociously researched mess. So, why bother with such a close reading of a worthless novel? The answer is simple: The Da Vinci Code takes esoterica mainstream. It may well do for Gnosticism what The Mists of Avalon did for paganism—gain it popular acceptance. After all, how many lay readers will see the blazing inaccuracies put forward as buried truths?
What’s more, in making phony claims of scholarship, Brown’s book infects readers with a virulent hostility toward Catholicism. Dozens of occult history books, conveniently cross-linked by Amazon.com, are following in its wake. And booksellers’ shelves now bulge with falsehoods few would be buying without The Da Vinci Code connection. While Brown’s assault on the Catholic Church may be a backhanded compliment, it’s one we would have happily done without.
It is laughable, but funny dumbass stuff can still do a lot of damage. (Carlos Mencia, call your office.)
Staring down BIG BABYKILLING's money men is a job for a heroic priest.
Speaking of millions of innocent people being murdered...
Christian News Wire: Pro-Life Priest Demands 'Johnson & Johnson' Stop Funding Planned Parenthood Federation of America
The Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, President of Human Life International, addressed Johnson and Johnson’s board of Directors, Executive Management and Shareholders today at their meeting in New Brunswick, NJ.
“As a stockholder in Johnson and Johnson, Human Life International is particularly distressed that any amount of funding should be given to a so-called 'charitable' organization that undermines the very consumer base of Johnson and Johnson.
"Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) accounted for more than 255,000 surgical abortions last year, and since 1970, when they started doing abortions, Planned Parenthood has caused the deaths of more than 3.8 million American babies. (Planned Parenthood’s own statistics.)
“It is antithetical to your best corporate interests to be donating 'charitable funding' to an organization that eliminates babies and hurts mothers.“To avoid further boycotts by other conscientious organizations and individuals, Johnson and Johnson should completely disavow any association with Planned Parenthood and any other group that profits from such drastic human rights violations…” concluded the Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer.
Founded in 1981, Human Life International is the world’s largest pro-life, pro-family organization that is dedicated to defending life, faith and the family, with branches and affiliates around the world.
If you're going to visit the US Holocaust (Shoah) Memorial Museum...
...try to avoid going when the place is full with thousands of school students.
Am I asking too much of our lovely adolescent American girls by thinking they should refrain from wearing fluorescent orange fishnet stockings to such a place?
King Goober II's Legacy Update: Ring around the Peyronie's.*
Kiddies, there are rings and then there are rings...
I'm afraid you must ask your mom and your new "uncle" for further details.
The Detroit News:Portrait captures Bill but where's his ring?
Does Bill Clinton's new portrait have the ring of truth?
The picture, depicting the 42nd president with left hand jauntily perched on hip, faithfully renders Clinton's enigmatic half-smile along with details of the Oval Office. But where's the man's wedding ring?
In the portrait, unveiled this week, Clinton's right hand clutches a newspaper. His left ring finger is bent back and fuzzy, but seems bare as a bachelor's.
That prompted a reporter to ask Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., about it.
"I don't know," she said. "You'll have to ask my husband."
Rats! This could have also been an It Takes A Village To Staff A Gestapo Unit Update!
Artist Nelson Shanks, adding to the mystery, said the ring simply isn't visible -- although there appears to be a pink patch on the ring finger.
"I have never seen the president not wearing his wedding ring," said Shanks, speaking from his Philadelphia studio.
"That finger was not showing, it was folded over." A slightly exasperated Shanks added, "His back isn't showing either."
Neither is his hideously deformed primary sexual organ*, but by all accounts it is still there. None dare to ask Senator Hitlerly Shickelgruber (N-NY) to comment on that.
A spokesman for the former president blamed "artistic license" for the ring to-do.
Nope. Artistic license is when Jackson Pollock spews paint from every orifice he owns onto canvas and people pay lots of money for it.
Oops. My bad. That's license to steal.
It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp by Ann Coulter
From Human Events Online:
I would be more interested in what the Democrats had to say about high gas prices if these were not the same people who refused to let us drill for oil in Alaska, imposed massive restrictions on building new refineries, and who shut down the development of nuclear power in this country decades ago.
Yep.
But it's too much having to watch Democrats wail about the awful calamity to poor working families of having to pay high gas prices.
Imposing punitive taxation on gasoline to force people to ride bicycles has been one of the left's main policy goals for years.
For decades Democrats have been trying to raise the price of gasoline so that the working class will stop their infernal car-driving and start riding on buses where they belong, while liberals ride in Gulfstream jets.
The last time the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the presidency was in 1993. Immediately after trying to put gays in the military and socialize all health care, Clinton's next order of business was to propose an energy tax on all fuels, including a 26-cent tax on gas. I think the bill was called "putting people first in line at the bus station." This is the Democratic Party. That's their program.
Al Gore defended the gas tax, vowing that it was "absolutely not coming out" of the energy bill regardless of "how much trouble it causes the entire package."
And mind you, this was before we knew Gore was clinically insane. Back then we thought he was just a double-talking stuffed shirt who seemed kind of gay. The important thing was to force Americans to stop their infernal car-driving, no matter how much it cost.
Heehee! Remember Al's beard? Whatever happened to that Al Gore?
Democrats in Congress promptly introduced an "energy bill" that would put an additional 25-cent-a-gallon tax on gasoline to stop "global warming," an atmospheric phenomenon supposedly aggravated by frivolous human activities such as commerce, travel and food production.
Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley endorsed the proposal on "Charlie Rose," saying: "I'd have a five-cent increase every year for five years. ... But that's not going to happen ... because we've got people who fret and worry that one- or two-tenths of a cent of a gasoline tax is going to cause some revolution at home." So in Tom Foley's universe, two-tenths of a cent is the same as a quarter -- another testimonial to the American public educational system.
Heehee! Ann is too cool.
The Democrats' proposed gas tax did cause a revolution at home, and consequently the Democrats were able to sneak through only an additional 4.3-cent federal tax on gasoline. After tut-tutting the idea that voters would object if the Democrats attempted a huge gas tax increase, Speaker Tom Foley soon became former speaker, and indeed former Congressman Tom Foley.
Gary Hart, (Who? - F.G.) another whimsical demonstration of what Democrats think a president should be like, said at the time, "I certainly favor consumption taxes, particularly on energy." Then there's John Kerry, who favored a 50-cent increase in the gas tax in 1994. If he were a rap artist, Kerry's stage name would be "Fifty Cent a Gallon."
Heehee!
Last year, a couple of green "climatologists" at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were back at it in the journal Science, wheeling out their proposal for a 25-cent-a-gallon tax on gasoline as an "insurance policy" against global warming.
Can't you just smell the brainpower, kiddies?
Just two months ago, we were being confidently told -- on the basis of a New York Times/CBS News poll, so it must be true -- that "Americans might OK a gasoline tax hike if it reduced global warming or lessened U.S. dependence on foreign oil." (This poll was wedged in among the 29 polls claiming Americans think we're losing the war in Iraq.) Other results from the Times' "meaningless polls" section: Americans might "OK" a Dennis Kucinich presidency if it meant free ice cream every Tuesday.
Sadly, Kucinich can't spell "ice cream".
How many times do Democrats have to tell us they want to raise the price of gas for the average American before the average American believes them? Is it more or less than the number of times Democrats tell us they want to surrender in the war on terrorism?
Exactly.
It's as if a switch goes off in people's brains telling them: The Democrats can't be saying they want to destroy the lives of people who drive cars because my father was a Democrat, and the Democrats can't be this stupid!
The Democrats' only objection to current gas prices is that the federal government's cut is a mere 18.4 cents a gallon. States like New York get another 44 cents per gallon in taxes. The Democratic brain processes the fact that "big oil companies" get nearly 9 cents a gallon and thinks: WE SHOULD HAVE ALL THAT MONEY!
Read that paragraph again, kiddies. 9 cents profit per gallon. That's being "raped" by the evil stockholder-owned oil giants. The 18.4 cent per gallon federal take (on top of your state's consumer abuse number) is justice at the hands of your moral and intellectual superiors.
When the free market does the exact thing liberals have been itching to do through taxation, they pretend to be appalled by high gas prices, hoping the public will forget that high gas prices are part of their agenda.
The Michael and Cathryn Borden Memorial Book of the Day.*
The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life by Ramesh Ponnuru
They celebrate abortion on demand as a fundamental human right. They advocate euthanasia, and work energetically for embryo-killing research. They explicitly deny that all human beings are equal in having a right to life, and unblushingly propose the creation of a category of "human non-persons" who can be treated as expendable. In line with that, some of them have already begun calling for the killing of sick infants -- for their own good, of course. They are the party of death, and they are becoming increasingly powerful in America today, as well as in the world at large. Now, in The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life, National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru provides an unflinching exposé of their past successes, present activities, and future plans, showing why their principles are so harmful - and how they can be defeated before they destroy our society altogether.
Members of the party of death, Ponnuru notes here, are everywhere. They have taken over the Democratic party lock, stock, and barrel -- although they can be found in both parties. He details how the pernicious influence of this dedicated band has permeated every aspect of our culture, corrupting law, politics, and even the teaching of history. Legal abortion, Ponnuru reveals, has unlocked the floodgates for numerous issues that have advanced the death culture, leading directly to the current national debates on euthanasia and embryo-killing for research purposes.
All this has happened, Ponnuru explains, with active help from the media establishment: with collusion from leading media figures, leading Democrats such as Hillary and Bill Clinton, Barbara Boxer, and Mario Cuomo have cannily camouflaged the party of death's extreme and outlandish views. But they haven't yet won a total victory. Ponnuru argues that the same process by which the party of death has made such deep inroads into American society can now be used in reverse: pro-lifers must strive harder than ever to restrict abortion and ultimately to end it altogether, for the more we reject abortion, the more we may come to reject other choices for death, too.
In an America that is turning away from abortion on demand, the Democrats may prove to be the last victims of the party of death. In The Party of Death, Ramesh Ponnuru provides a solid and encouraging program to relegate this poisonous party to the dustbin of history.
Among Ponnuru's startling revelations and piercing insights:
Why everything you think you know about Roe v. Wade is a lie
The speech about Roe v. Wade that Hillary Clinton will never deliver -- but if she did, she would be elected President of the United States
How the United States is alone among developed nations in offering no legal protection whatsoever to the unborn at any stage of development
Proven false: the widespread notion that American states were moving toward liberal abortion laws and that Roe merely codified this trend
How even scholars who support legal abortion have admitted that Justice Harry Blackmun's work on Roe v. Wade was shoddy
How the search for a genuine constitutional basis for the Roe v. Wade decision has become something of a cottage industry within the legal academy
Why so many people wrongly believe that Roe v. Wade is more limited than it actually is -- and that overturning it would criminalize all abortionsThe battle over partial-birth abortion: how it severely weakened the party of death
Overturning Roe v. Wade: why this would not lead to an increase in the number of women dying from unsafe, "back alley" abortions
The Terri Schiavo case: how the Democrats decided to become the party of euthanasia as well as the party of abortion -- but found themselves trapped in a position rejected by most Americans
Why it is so difficult to come up with a coherent explanation of why infanticide should be impermissible if abortion is permissible
How nineteenth-century feminists opposed abortion -- and the lengths to which abortion supporters today will go to cover up that fact
How legalizing voluntary euthanasia leads inevitably to the widespread practice of involuntary euthanasia
Solid evidence that support for abortion is steadily declining even among the young women who are supposed to "benefit" from it most
How the party of death has tried to hoodwink conservatives into supporting embryo-destructive research
Jesse Jackson, Dennis Kucinich, and other former prolife Democrats who flipflopped on this issue to gain political advantage within their party
How hardcore pro-abortion advocates like Barbara Boxer have begun to backtrack from their more extreme statements -- and even the organization once known as the National Abortion Rights Action League has begun to shift its focus away from abortion
How pro-choicers are now doing something they had never expected to do: playing defense -- and even Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean have adjusted to the fact that prolife sentiment is growing among Americans today* Who? Look here.
Imagine how hot all those Chinese chicks would be if their commie slavemasters were hanging from their friendly neighboorhood lampposts...
UPI: Bosomy Chinese create big bra boom
A recent report about bigger-breasted Chinese women wasn't news to bra makers in China -- most of whom started making larger-sized bras last year.
Hong Kong-based Embry Group began reacting to the trend last year by halting production of small-sized bras.
"We don't produce A cups for some bras with larger chest circumference now, as demand is low," said Li Na, an official with Embry, which has counters in most Shanghai department stores, Shanghai Daily reported Monday.
"At the same time, we increased production of C-, D- and E-cup products and found sales booming," she said.
Zhang Jing, a Triumph saleswoman at a major Hong Kong shopping mall, said she's surprised to find many women under the age of 20 need bras with C, D or even E cups.
While there are no figures to prove breasts are larger in major cities than in underdeveloped areas, many salespeople say they have noticed the trend.
The Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology released a report last week saying Chinese women's average chest circumference has hit 83.53 centimeters -- more than 32.88 inches -- up nearly 1 centimeter from the early 1990s. The growth is credited to women eating more nutritiously and doing more sports.
30 Years Ago Tuesday Update.
Tuesday was the anniversary of the Cubs' Rick Monday stopping a couple of fatheads from torching an American flag in the outfield at Wrigley.
AP and ESPN.com: Monday saved the flag 30 years ago
Rick Monday never tires of answering questions about that memorable day 30 years ago, when he performed his own Patriot Act and unwittingly became an icon to millions of American war heroes and their loved ones.
Monday was playing center field for the Chicago Cubs on April 25, 1976, at Dodger Stadium when he noticed two protesters kneeling on the grass in left-center, intending to burn the American flag. He immediately bolted toward them and snatched it away.
"I was angry when I saw them start to do something to the flag, and I'm glad that I happened to be geographically close enough to do something about it," said Monday, now in his 13th season as a Dodgers broadcaster.
"What those people were doing, and their concept of what they were trying to do was wrong. That feeling was very strongly reinforced by six years in the United States Marine Corps Reserves. I still think it's wrong to do that."
The Dodgers will acknowledge the event before the finale of a nine-game homestand on Sunday, two days before the actual anniversary of it. A video tribute will be shown before the game and Monday will throw out a ceremonial first pitch. On Tuesday, the Houston Astros will honor him as well when the Dodgers play the middle game of a three-game series.
Back in '76, Monday was presented with the flag in a ceremony at Wrigley Field by Dodgers executive Al Campanis. It hung in his home in Vero Beach, Fla., until a couple of years ago, when the house sustained severe damage from a hurricane. Now it's in a safety deposit box.
Monday wouldn't say how much the flag is insured for, but "you'd have to add a lot of zeros. People have offered an outrageous amount of money for it -- not that it's for sale."
The Baseball Hall of Fame recently named Monday's quick-thinking act as one of the 100 Classic Moments in the history of the game.
Amen to that.
"Whatever their protest was about, what they were attempting to do to the flag -- which represents a lot of rights and freedoms that we all have -- was wrong for a lot of reasons," Monday said. "Not only does it desecrate the flag, but it also desecrates the effort and the lives that have been laid down to protect those rights and freedoms for all of us."
In Peter Golenbock's 1996 book, "Wrigleyville: A Magical History Tour of the Chicago Cubs," former Cubs reliever Darold Knowles recalled what happened in the aftermath of Monday's flag-saving effort.
"That put Rick on the map," said Knowles, a teammate of Monday's for two seasons in Chicago and one in Oakland. "Rick got more recognition out of the flag incident than he got as a player. He was getting letters from all over the country, all the time -- from VFWs (Veterans of Foreign Wars) and American Legions organizations. Every place we'd go, somebody would honor him with a plaque. He let us read some of the letters (from) people thanking him."
Along with the flag, Monday has a copy of the 16-mm footage taken by a fan who was at the game, as well as Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully's play-by-play of the incident. Also among his souvenirs is a copy of the now-famous photo by James Roarke of Monday just as he grabbed the flag.
Monday hit a career-high 32 home runs that season before the Dodgers acquired him from the Cubs with reliever Mike Garman, in exchange for outfielder Bill Buckner and backup shortstop Ivan DeJesus. Monday spent the final eight seasons of his career with Los Angeles, helping the Dodgers win three pennants in a five-year span.
He was the first player chosen in the very first draft back in 1965 after leading Arizona State to a College World Series title. The two-time All-Star put up some impressive numbers during his 19 major league seasons. His ninth-inning home run in the fifth and deciding game of the 1981 NL Championship Series at Montreal catapulted the Dodgers into the World Series, where they beat the Yankees in six games.
But all of that pales in comparison to Monday's most famous achievement in a baseball uniform.
"I know the people were very pleased to see Monday take the flag away from those guys," recalled Manny Mota, Monday's teammate that season and now a Dodgers coach. "I know Rick has done a lot of good things as a player and as a person. But what he did for his country, he will be remembered for the rest of his life as an American hero."
Amen to that, Brother.
Would you like to be American heros just like Rick Monday, kiddies? All you have to do is contact your friendly neighborhood Congressthing and Senatrix and demand they vote for an anti-flag burning amendment.
Saint of the Day and daily Mass readings.
Today is the Feast of St. Winewald, English abbot. Pray for us, all you angels and saints.
Today's reading is Acts 5:27-33.
Today's Responsorial Psalm is Psalms 34:2, 9, 17-18, 19-20.
Today's Gospel reading is John 3:31-36.
[Links to the readings will be from the NAB until I can find another chapter and verse searchable Douay-Rheims Bible on-line.]
Everyday links:
The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTN
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today
Just in case you are wondering what exactly Catholics believe, here is
The Apostles Creed
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.
Memorare
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.
St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.
Prayer to St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire
Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)
Prayer To Saint Michael The Archangel
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
Prayer to End Abortion
Lord God, I thank You today for the gift of my life, and for the lives of all my brothers and sisters. I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion, yet I rejoice that you have conquered death by the resurrection of Your Son. I am ready to do my part to end abortion. Today I commit myself never to be silent, never to be passive, and never to be forgetful of the unborn. I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement, and never stop defending life until all my brothers and sisters are protected and our nation once again becomes a nation with liberty and justice, not just for some, but for all. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
The Legend that is Howie Spleen.
The Evans-Novak Political Report (Sign up here to get your own FREE subscription.) provides an update on the Repansycan's man inside the Democrass Party.
State of the Parties:
The Washington Post recently ran a piece highlighting the fact that the Democrats' Congressional Committee is at parity with the Republicans in cash on hand and that their Senatorial Committee has doubled up the NRSC in cash on hand (although the two have raised about the same amount).
This is all true, and it is not good for Republicans. However, there has been some exaggeration as to just how bad it is.
The committees' success is partly, but not entirely, the result of Democratic fundraising prowess. It has just as much to do with the fact that the Democratic National Committee under Howard Dean is becoming an institution with which many Democratic donors will not entrust their cash.
Whereas Republican committees are actually competing with the high-dollar RNC (which raises more than half of all GOP committee cash), the Democrats have no such competition from Dean (whose committee has raised less than 40 percent of the Democrats' committee cash). The DNC in March (see chart) raised less than either of the two other committees -- itself an historical oddity.
That is not to say that this is a bad thing for Democrats. Indeed, the DNC has been notoriously ineffective in the last three election cycles, essentially the plaything of whoever has headed it, without a clear aim toward helping the party win elections. This hasn't all been Dean's fault -- recall the millions Terry McAuliffe spent trying to topple Gov. Jeb Bush (R) in Florida in 2002 and on other futile races.
The DCCC and DSCC, headed by members of the House and Senate, appear more motivated to improve the party's situation in those bodies. They are also safe places for Democratic supporters of Israel, wary of Howard Dean, to send their money.
The Theology of the Body: 93. Christ's Redemptive Love Has Spousal Nature
In his General Audience of 8 September 1982, the Holy Father continued his exposition of the fifth chapter of Ephesians, focusing on the meaning of the word "mystery," as it applies to God's plan, its revelation in Christ, Christ's relationship to the Church, and the sacraments of the Church.
Christ's Redemptive Love Has Spousal Nature
During the general audience of 8 September, the Holy Father continued his exposition of the fifth chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians.
1. The author of the Letter to the Ephesians writes: "No man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his body" (Eph 5:29-30). After this verse the author deems it opportune to cite what can be considered the fundamental text on marriage in the entire Bible, the text contained in Genesis 2:24: "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" (cf. Eph 5:31). It is possible to deduce from the immediate context of the Letter to the Ephesians that the citation from Genesis (2:24) is necessary here not so much to recall the unity of the spouses, determined from the beginning in the work of creation. But it is necessary to present the mystery of Christ with the Church from which the author deduces the truth about the unity of the spouses. This is the most important point of the whole text, in a certain sense, the keystone. The author of the Letter to the Ephesians sums up in these words all that he had said previously, tracing the analogy and presenting the similarity between the unity of the spouses and the unity of Christ with the Church. Citing the words of Genesis 2:24, the author points out where the bases of this analogy are to be sought. They are to be sought in the line which, in God's salvific plan, unites marriage, as the most ancient revelation (manifestation) of the plan in the created world, with the definitive revelation and manifestation, the revelation that "Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her" (Eph 5:25), conferring on his redemptive love a spousal character and meaning.
Mystery of Christ and the Church
2. So then this analogy which permeates the text of the Letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33) has its ultimate basis in God's salvific plan. This will become still more clear and evident when we place the passage of this text analyzed by us in the overall context of the Letter to the Ephesians. Then one will more easily understand why the author, after citing the words of Genesis 2:24, writes: "This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church" (Eph 5:32).
In the overall context of the Letter to the Ephesians and likewise in the wider context of the words of the Sacred Scriptures, which reveal God's salvific plan "from the beginning," one must admit that here the term mystérion signifies the mystery, first of all hidden in God's mind, and later revealed in the history of man. Indeed, it is a question of a "great" mystery, given its importance. That mystery, as God's salvific plan in regard to humanity, is in a certain sense the central theme of all revelation, its central reality. God, as Creator and Father, wishes above all to transmit this to mankind in his Word.
Work of salvation
3. It is a question not only of transmitting the Good News of salvation, but of initiating at the same time the work of salvation, as a fruit of grace which sanctifies man for eternal life in union with God. Precisely along the line of this revelation and accomplishment, St. Paul sets in relief the continuity between the most ancient covenant which God established by constituting marriage in the work of creation, and the definitive covenant. After having loved the Church and given himself up for her, in that covenant Christ is united to her in a spousal way, corresponding to the image of spouses. This continuity of God's salvific initiative constitutes the essential basis of the great analogy contained in the Letter to the Ephesians. The continuity of God's salvific initiative signifies the continuity and even the identity of the mystery, of the great mystery in the different phases of its revelation—therefore, in a certain sense, of its manifestation—and at the same time of its accomplishment: in its "most ancient" phase from the point of view of the history of man and salvation, and in the phase "of the fullness of time" (Gal 4:4).
Understanding "great mystery"
4. Is it possible to understand that great mystery as a sacrament? In the text quoted by us, is the author of the Letter to the Ephesians speaking perchance of the sacrament of marriage? If he is not speaking of it directly, in the strict sense—here one must agree with the sufficiently widespread opinion of Biblical scholars and theologians—however it seems that in this text he is speaking of the bases of the sacramentality of the whole of Christian life and in particular of the bases of the sacramentality of marriage. He speaks then of the sacramentality of the whole of Christian existence in the Church and in particular of marriage in an indirect way, but in the most fundamental way possible.
Sacrament and mystery
5. Is not "sacrament" synonymous with "mystery"(1) The mystery indeed remains "occult"—hidden in God himself—in such wise that even after its proclamation (or its revelation) it does not cease to be called "mystery," and it is also preached as a mystery. The sacrament presupposes the revelation of the mystery and presupposes also its acceptance by means of faith on the part of man. However, at the same time, it is something more than the proclamation of the mystery and its acceptance by faith. The sacrament consists in the "manifesting" of that mystery in a sign which serves not only to proclaim the mystery, but also to accomplish it in man. The sacrament is a visible and efficacious sign of grace. Through it, that mystery hidden from eternity in God is accomplished in man, that mystery which the Letter to the Ephesians speaks of at the very beginning (cf. Eph 1:9)—the mystery of God's call of man in Christ to holiness, and the mystery of his predestination to become his adopted son. This becomes a reality in a mysterious way, under the veil of a sign. Nonetheless that sign is always a "making visible" of the supernatural mystery which it works in man under its veil.
Mystery hidden in God
6. Taking into consideration the passage of the Letter to the Ephesians analyzed here, especially the words: "This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church," one must note the following. The author of the letter writes not only of the great mystery hidden in God, but also—and above all—of the mystery which is accomplished by Christ. With an act of redemptive love, Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her. By the same act he is united with the Church in a spousal manner, as the husband and wife are reciprocally united in marriage instituted by the Creator. It seems that the words of the Letter to the Ephesians provide sufficient motivation for what is stated at the very beginning of Lumen Gentium: "The Church is in Christ in the nature of a sacrament—a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men" (Lumen Gentium n.1). This text of Vatican II does not say: "The Church is a sacrament," but "It is in the nature of a sacrament." Thereby it indicates that one must speak of the sacramentality of the Church in a manner which is analogical and not identical in regard to what we mean when we speak of the seven sacraments administered by the Church by Christ's institution. If there are bases for speaking of the Church as in the nature of a sacrament, such bases for the greater part have been indicated precisely in the Letter to the Ephesians.
Mission to sanctify
7. It may be said that this sacramentality of the Church is constituted by all the sacraments by means of which she carries out her mission of sanctification. It can also be said that the sacramentality of the Church is the source of the sacraments and in particular of Baptism and the Eucharist. This can be seen from the passage of the Letter to the Ephesians which we have already analyzed (cf. Eph 5:25-30). Finally it must be said that the sacramentality of the Church remains in a particular relationship with marriage, the most ancient sacrament.
FOOTNOTE
1. "Sacrament," a central concept for our reflections, has traveled a long way in the course of the centuries. The semantic history of the term "sacrament" must begin with the Greek term mystérion which, truth to tell, in the Book of Judith still means the king's military plans ("secret plan," cf. Jdt 2:2). But already in the Book of Wisdom (2:22) and in the prophecy of Daniel (2:27), the term signifies the creative plans of God and the purpose which he assigns to the world, and which are revealed only to faithful confessors.
In this sense mystérion appears only once in the Gospels: "To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God" (Mk 4:11 and par.). In the great letters of St. Paul, this term is found seven times, reaching its climax in the Letter to the Romans: "...according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages, but is now disclosed..." (Rom 16:25-26).
In the later letters we find the identification of mystérion with the Gospel (cf. Eph 6:19) and even with Jesus Christ himself (cf. Col 2:2; 4:3; Eph 3:4), which marks a turning point in the meaning of the term: mystérion is no longer merely God's eternal plan, but the accomplishment on earth of that plan revealed in Jesus Christ.
Therefore, in the Patristic period, the term mystérion begins to be applied also to the historical events by which the divine will to save man was manifested. Already in the second century in the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Sts. Justin and Meliton, the mysteries of the life of Jesus, the prophecies and the symbolic figures of the Old Testament are defined with the term mystérion.
In the third century the most ancient Latin versions of Sacred Scripture begin to appear, in which the Greek term is translated both by mysterium and by sacramentum (e.g., Wis 2:22; Eph 5:32). Perhaps this was to distance themselves explicitly from the pagan mystery rites and from the Neo-Platonic gnostic mystagogy.
However, sacramentum originally meant the military oath taken by the Roman legionaries. The aspects of "initiation to a new form of life," "commitment without reserve," "faithful service even at the risk of death" can be distinguished in it. Given this, Tertullian pointed out these dimensions in the Christian sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist. In the third century, therefore, the term sacramentum was applied both to the mystery of God's salvific plan in Christ (cf., e.g., Eph 5:32), and to its concrete accomplishment by means of the seven sources of grace which are today called "sacraments of the Church."
St. Augustine, making use of various meanings of the term "sacrament," applied it to religious rites both of the old and the new covenant, to biblical symbols and figures as well as to the revealed Christian religion. All these "sacraments," according to St. Augustine, pertain to the great sacrament: the mystery of Christ and the Church. St. Augustine influenced the further clarification of the term "sacrament," emphasizing that the sacraments are sacred signs, that they contain in themselves a resemblance to what they signify and that they confer what they signify. By his analyses, he therefore contributed to the elaboration of the concise scholastic definition of sacrament: signum efficax gratiae.
St. Isidore of Seville (7th century) later stressed another aspect: the mysterious nature of the sacrament which, under the veils of material species, conceals the action of the Holy Spirit in the human soul.
The theological Summae of the 12th and 13th centuries already formulate the systematic definitions of the sacraments, but a special signification belongs to the definition of St. Thomas: "Non omne signum rei sacrae est sacramentum.... sed solum ea quae significant perfectionem sanctitatis humanae." "Not every sign of a sacred thing is a sacrament.... Only those are called sacraments which signify the perfection of holiness in man" (St. Thomas, Summa Theol., III, q. 60, a. 2, ad 1, 3 [ New York: Benziger, 1947]).
From then on, "sacrament" was understood exclusively as one of the seven sources of grace. Theological studies were directed to a deeper understanding of the essence and of the action of the seven sacraments, by elaborating in a systematic way the principal lines contained in the scholastic tradition.
Only in the last century was attention paid to the aspects of the sacrament which had been neglected in the course of the centuries, for example, to the ecclesial dimension and to the personal encounter with Christ, which have found expression in the Constitution on the Liturgy (no. 59). However, the Second Vatican council returns above all the original significance of "sacramentum-mysterium," calling the Church "the universal sacrament of salvation" (Lumen Gentium 48), sacrament, or "sign and instrument of communion with God and of unity among all men" (Lumen Gentium 1).
Here sacrament is understood—in conformity with its original meaning—as the accomplishment of God's eternal plan in regard to the salvation of mankind.
The Theology of the Body: 92. Sacredness of the Human Body and Marriage
In his General Audience of 1 September 1982, the Holy Father infers the sacredness of the human body from the analogy of love in Ephesians 5, between Christ for His Church and a husband for his wife.
Sacredness of the Human Body and Marriage
The general audience of 1 September was held as usual in St Peter's Square despite the inclement weather. The following is the text of the Holy Father's address.
1. The author of the Letter to the Ephesians, proclaiming the analogy between the spousal bond which unites Christ and the Church, and that which unites the husband and wife in marriage, writes as follows: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Eph 5:25-27).
2. It is significant that the image of the Church in splendor is presented in the text quoted as a bride all beautiful in her body. Certainly this is a metaphor. But it is very eloquent, and it shows how deeply important the body is in the analogy of spousal love. The Church in splendor is "without spot or wrinkle." "Spot" can be understood as a sign of ugliness, and "wrinkle" as a sign of old age or senility. In the metaphorical sense, both terms indicate moral defects, sin. It may be added that in St. Paul the "old man" signifies sinful man (cf. Rom 6:6). Therefore Christ with his redemptive and spousal love ensures that the Church not only becomes sinless, but remains "eternally young."
3. The scope of the metaphor is, as may be seen, quite vast. The expressions which refer directly and immediately to the human body, characterizing it in the reciprocal relationships between husband and wife, indicate at the same time attributes and qualities of the moral, spiritual and supernatural order. This is essential for such an analogy. Therefore the author of the letter can define the state of the Church in splendor in relation to the state of the body of the bride, free from signs of ugliness or old age ("or any such thing"), simply as holiness and absence of sin. Such is the Church "holy and without blemish." It is obvious then what kind of beauty of the bride is in question, in what sense the Church is the Body of Christ, and in what sense that Body-Bride welcomes the gift of the Bridegroom who "has loved the Church and has given himself for her." Nevertheless it is significant that St. Paul explains all this reality, which is essentially spiritual and supernatural, by means of the resemblance of the body and of the love whereby husband and wife become "one flesh."
4. In the entire passage of the text cited, the principle of bi-subjectivity is clearly preserved: Christ-Church, Bridegroom-Bride (husband-wife). The author presents the love of Christ for the Church—that love which makes the Church the Body of Christ of which he is the head—as the model of the love of the spouses and as the model of the marriage of the bridegroom and the bride. Love obliges the bridegroom-husband to be solicitous for the welfare of the bride-wife. It commits him to desire her beauty and at the same time to appreciate this beauty and to care for it. Here it is a case of visible beauty, of physical beauty. The bridegroom examines his bride with attention as though in a creative, loving anxiety to find everything that is good and beautiful in her and which he desires for her. That good which he who loves creates, through his love, in the one that is loved, is like a test of that same love and its measure. Giving himself in the most disinterested way, he who loves does so only within the limits of this measure and of this control.
5. When the author of the Letter to the Ephesians—in the succeeding verses of the text (5:28-29)—turns his mind exclusively to the spouses themselves, the analogy of the relationship of Christ to the Church is still more profound and impels him to express himself thus: "Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies" (Eph 5:28). Here the motive of "one flesh" returns again. In the above-mentioned phrase and in the subsequent phrases it is not only taken up again, but also clarified. If husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, this means that uni-subjectivity is based on bi-subjectivity and does not have a real character but only an intentional one. The wife's body is not the husband's own body, but it must be loved like his own body. It is therefore a question of unity, not in the ontological sense, but in the moral sense: unity through love.
6. "He who loves his wife loves himself" (Eph 5:28). This phrase confirms that character of unity still more. In a certain sense, love makes the "I" of the other person his own "I": the "I" of the wife, I would say, becomes through love the "I" of the husband. The body is the expression of that "I" and the foundation of its identity. The union of husband and wife in love is expressed also by means of the body.
It is expressed in the reciprocal relationship, even though the author of the letter indicates it especially from the part of the husband. This results from the structure of the total image. The spouses should be "subject to one another out of reverence for Christ" (this was already made evident in the first verses of the text quoted: Eph 5:21-23). However, later on, the husband is above all, he who loves and the wife, on the other hand, is she who is loved. One could even hazard the idea that the wife's submission to her husband, understood in the context of the entire passage of the Letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33), signifies above all the "experiencing of love." This is all the more so since this submission is related to the image of the submission of the Church to Christ, which certainly consists in experiencing his love. The Church, as bride, being the object of the redemptive love of Christ-Bridegroom, becomes his Body. Being the object of the spousal love of the husband, the wife becomes "one flesh" with him, in a certain sense, his own flesh. The author will repeat this idea once again in the last phrase of the passage analyzed here: "However, let each one of you love his wife as himself" (Eph 5:33).
7. This is a moral unity, conditioned and constituted by love. Love not only unites the two subjects, but allows them to be mutually interpenetrated, spiritually belonging to one another to such a degree that the author of the letter can affirm: "He who loves his wife loves himself" (Eph 5:28). The "I" becomes in a certain sense the "you" and the "you" the "I" (in a moral sense, that is). Therefore the continuation of the text analyzed by us reads as follows: "For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his body" (Eph 5:29-30). The phrase, which initially still referred to the relationships of the married couple, returns successively in an explicit manner to the relationship Christ-Church. So, in the light of that relationship, it leads us to define the sense of the entire phrase. After explaining the character of the relationship of the husband to his own wife by forming "one flesh," the author wishes to reinforce still more his previous statement ("He who loves his wife loves himself"). In a certain sense, he wishes to maintain it by the negation and exclusion of the opposite possibility ("No man ever hates his own flesh"—Eph 5:29). In the union through love the body of the other becomes one's own in the sense that one cares for the welfare of the other's body as he does for his own. It may be said that the above-mentioned words, characterizing the "carnal" love which should unite the spouses, express the most general and at the same time, the most essential content. They seem to speak of this love above all in the language of agape.
8. The expression according to which man "nourishes and cherishes his own flesh"—that is, that the husband "nourishes and cherishes" the flesh of his wife as his own—seems rather to indicate the solicitude of the parents, the protective relationship, instead of the conjugal tenderness. The motivation of this character should be sought in the fact that the author here passes distinctly from the relationship which unites the spouses to the relationship between Christ and the Church. The expressions which refer to the care of the body, and in the first place to its nourishment, to its sustenance, suggest to many Scripture scholars a reference to the Eucharist with which Christ in his spousal love nourishes the Church. These expressions, even though in a minor key, indicate the specific character of conjugal love, especially of that love whereby the spouses become "one flesh." At the same time they help us to understand, at least in a general way, the dignity of the body and the moral imperative to care for its good, for that good which corresponds to its dignity. The comparison with the Church as the Body of Christ, the Body of his redemptive and at the same time spousal love, should leave in the minds of those to whom the Letter to the Ephesians was destined a profound sense of the "sacredness" of the human body in general, and especially in marriage, as the "situation" in which this sense of the sacred determines in an especially profound way, the reciprocal relationships of the persons and, above all, those of the man with the woman, inasmuch as she is wife and mother of their children.
Harry R."Sam" Wade, Requiescat in pace.
We have lost another hero.
Being a member of Red Rose Veterans Honor Guard, Harry R. "Sam" Wade sometimes served at two or three veterans' funerals in a day.
One year, he volunteered at more than 130 funerals for the honor guard, which, among other duties, performs "Taps" and presents the U.S. flag to the next of kin. If requested, it also watches over veterans' caskets during viewings.
Thursday afternoon, the honor guard honored Wade -- its oldest member at age 87 -- at his funeral in Mountville. He died April 15 after a brief illness.
Wade, an Army sergeant who served as a surgical technician in Europe during World War II, joined the honor guard Nov. 21, 2001.
In a 2003 interview with the Intelligencer Journal, he said, "I enjoy (the honor guard), if there's any such thing as enjoying a funeral."
The husband of Marian Glick Wade, with whom he celebrated his 64th wedding anniversary April 4, said veterans deserve recognition and respect at their funerals.
The Rev. Roger O. Colvin, chaplain of the honor guard and officiant at Wade's funeral, said Wade was "always first on the site. I tried to beat him out a couple times, but I didn't."
U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. William Brandt, chairman of the honor guard, said Wade was "so dedicated to serving his fellow military people. It didn't matter, whether it was freezing cold, raining or in the summer heat. If Sam was available, he was there."
To serve him is a great honor. Some (of the 38 honor guard members in attendance) took off work to be here because of Sam. We will miss him dearly. He was dearly, dearly loved."
The Red Rose Veterans Honor Guard was formed in 1998 after U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Joe Lainhoff of Lancaster tried in vain to arrange a military service for the funeral of his father, Army Technician 5th Grade Thomas W. Lainhoff.
The older Lainhoff, one of the first Lancaster men to enlist in the U.S. armed forces after Pearl Harbor, had requested in his will that he have an honor guard at his funeral.
Determined to meet that wish, his family stepped up and the next year began Red Rose Veterans Honor Guard, which provides the military funerals free of charge.
The honor guard now has 65 members from all branches of the military except the Coast Guard. It served at more than 300 funeral services organized by 25 to 30 Lancaster County funeral homes last year.
The guard is always looking for more members, particularly those who can serve as buglers, Brandt said. Age is not a concern.
Thursday, Penn Manor High School student Liz Hoffman and Ephrata Senior High School student Ryan Cochran played "Taps" on their bugles during Wade's funeral.
Osama bin Social Moderate Update.
If only it were true...
Australian Broadcasting Corp.: Osama Bin Laden proclaims West at war with Islam
It's yet to be authenticated, but a tape, purporting to be from Osama Bin Laden, says the reluctance of Western nations to deal with the new Hamas-led Palestinian Government is proof that the West is at war with Islam.
Speaking of a Pennsylvania pol too stupid to know economics from his fat tokhes...
...here's Senator Brain Damage pretending ExxonMobil isn't owned by pension funds representing millions of retirees and orphans.
WLBZ: Specter: Government Should Consider Windfall Tax For Oil companies
Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter tells C-N-N he believes too many companies have been allowed to get together and reduce competition. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Specter held a hearing last month examining the growing consolidation of the oil industry.
Slow Eddie Rendell: Jackass and hypocrite.
Gov. Ed Rendell today called on federal policy-makers to enact a windfall profit tax on gasoline to curb what he called "profiteering" by the major oil companies.
Here's the jackass part:
"These profits are ungodly. (What Would Moses Do? eh, Eddie? - F. G.) There is no excuse for this, absolutely no excuse. It is embarrassing," Rendell said.
At an outdoor news conference at a Harrisburg gas station, Rendell said oil company profits have soared 23 cents a gallon in 1999 to 99 cents a gallon last year.
At the pumps, he said, the retail price has doubled in just three years to around $3 for a gallon of regular gas.
Rendell said the price increases are hurting Pennsylvania families and the state's economy.
The average gas price in Pennsylvania now stands at $2.94. The national average is $2.90.
Some argue that lowering the state's 30-cent-a-gallon tax on gasoline would help alleviate the price at the pump, but Rendell said that would take about $300 million away from the state's transportation needs.
And that there is the hypocritical part. Oh, no! We dare not take away 300 million units of Slow Eddie's power, he's still gotta win reelection!
Owners No More: County May Call People 'Pet Guardians'
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Owning pets could become a thing of the past in Silicon Valley.
No, cats and dogs aren't being banished from the California high-tech haven. But Santa Clara County, Calif., officials are considering an upgrade in the status of pet owners.
The animal lovers would be pet guardians, not merely owners. The county Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on the issue Tuesday.
Officials saying being called a pet guardian should get people to be more responsible with their furry friends. The measure would change all references in county legal documents, but would not change any of the owners' responsibilities.
24's Body Count Update.
From Right Wing Nuthouse:
BODY COUNT
3 more of Henderson’s men bite the dust. Jack was shut out. Is Heller really dead? We’ll give it a week.
JACK: 30
SHOW: 184
The Conspiracy is obviously much bigger and much more sinister than President Hilter. The Men Who Have Phones In Their Ears are not a very scary bunch, (I figure Jack could get them all to wet themselves with only a medium intensity glower.) so I am hoping those British and French flags on the limos mean the EU is plotting to weaken the US.
Today is Yom Hashoah.
Yom Hashoah was created to remind us of the systematic murder of at least 6 million Jews by the Germans in the late, unlamented twentieth century. Let us hope and pray nothing like this ever happens again.
(Thanks to Shamash.org for the photos. Visit them to see more of man's inhumanity.)
The curse of "Playmakers"* continues to haunt the NFL.
From Deadspin: Ricky Manning Jr. Will Bludgeon You, You Freaking Nerd
Over the weekend, soon-to-be Chicago Bears cornerback Ricky Manning Jr. — the Bears signed him just last week to an offer sheet the Panthers aren’t likely to match — was arrested shortly after 3 a.m. Sunday in Los Angeles and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
What happened, exactly? According to police reports … well, we’ll just say we’re glad we went to bed early Saturday night.
According to [LAPD officers], Manning was in a group that attacked a man in a Denny’s restaurant after teasing him for working on a laptop computer.
“The group began by making comments that the victim looked like a geek or a nerd,” Lewis said.
The victim asked the group to stop and then complained to a Denny’s manager before someone in the group punched him in the face. He then was punched and kicked by multiple attackers until losing consciousness, Lewis said.
Frankly, we’re as surprised as you that it wasn’t us involved in the incident, though, to be fair, we wouldn’t have complained to a manager; we would have just packed up the laptop and sprinted out the door. (Weeping, probably.) But in case any of you ever wondered what football players think of every single one of you … this should sum it up.
Manning Jr. Charged With Assault In L.A. [Chicago Sun-Times]
* WTF??? Look here.
Those folks on the Gulf Coast are our neighbors. You know what to do.
First, last, and always, PRAY. Pray for the survivors. Pray for the repose of the souls of those who were killed. Pray for the families and friends. Pray for the relief workers, the cops, the firemen, the troops, and the technicians. Pray for the volunteers.
It is time to step up once again, kiddies. "Do unto others", "I was naked and you clothed me", et cetera.
As time passes, the memory of these disasters will fade for those of us fortunate enough to live outside the devastated areas, but recovery and restoration will take years.
Please, whatever you do, don't become a cynic. (I know, I know. But I just play one on the computer.) Of course there will be more horror stories like the abuse of the debit cards and that $250-odd billion federal package will produce insane amounts of corruption, but our fellow Americans will be suffering from Katrina for a long time.
True charity, (News Flash! Taxes ARE NOT charity.) like the money you donate to Catholic Charities will help the truly needy and will not foster dependency.
Catholic Charities USA is collecting financial donations to Catholic Charities agencies’ emergency and long-term recovery efforts in the wake of both Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. Catholic Charities USA is consistently ranked among the highest and most efficient organizations across the country. Approximately 96 percent of contributions made to the 2005 Hurricane Relief Fund will be used for emergency response and recovery efforts.
Mail Checks To:
Catholic Charities USA
2005 Hurricane Relief Fund
PO Box 25168
Alexandria, VA 22313-9788
Call:(800) 919-9338
Contribute Now Online
News
4/12/2006 — Catholic Charities Gives Congress Recommendations on Helping Gulf Coast Rebuild from 2005 Hurricanes
4/10/2006 — As Domestic Violence Rises in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina, Catholic Charities Provides a Refuge for Abused Women
2/28/2006 — Catholic Charities Network Helps 300,000 Victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
More news...
A Nationwide Response:
The Catholic Charities Network Jumps into Disaster Relief (Read this story)
Hard Hit by Katrina, Catholic Charities of New Orleans Never Lost Sight of its Mission (Read this story)
More stories...
FAQs
FAQ - Donations
FAQ - Hurricane Relief
Agencies Impacted:
Catholic Charities of Miami
Catholic Charities of New Orleans
Catholic Community Services of Baton Rouge
Catholic Social Services of Houma-Thibodaux
Catholic Social and Community Services of Biloxi, MS
Catholic Charities of Jackson, MS
Catholic Social Services of Mobile, AL
How you can help:
Unfortunately, Catholic Charities USA is unable to accept contributions of food, clothing, blankets and other relief supplies. Monetary donations will be used to provide for the emergency relief and long-term recovery of Katrina's and Rita's victims. Catholic Charities USA is consistently ranked among the highest and most efficient organizations across the country. Approximately 96 percent of contributions made to the 2005 Hurricane Relief Fund will be used for emergency response and recovery efforts.
About the Disaster Response Office
Catholic Charities USA, which has been commissioned by the U.S. Catholic Bishops to represent the Catholic community in times of domestic disaster, responds with emergency and long-term assistance as needed. Its Disaster Response Office connects the Church's social service agencies and disaster planning offices across the nation.
And, as always, give generously to the special collections for hurricance disaster relief in your local parish.
Saint of the Day and daily Mass readings.
Today is the Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist, author of the second Gospel and patron of notaries. Pray for us, all you angels and saints.
Today's reading for the Feast of St. Mark is 1 Peter 5:5-14.
Today's Responsorial Psalm is Psalms 89:2-3, 6-7, 16-17.
Today's Gospel reading is Mark 16:15-20.
[Links to the readings will be from the NAB until I can find another chapter and verse searchable Douay-Rheims Bible on-line.]
Everyday links:
The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTN
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today
Just in case you are wondering what exactly Catholics believe, here is
The Apostles Creed
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.
Memorare
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.
St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.
Prayer to St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire
Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)
Prayer To Saint Michael The Archangel
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
Prayer to End Abortion
Lord God, I thank You today for the gift of my life, and for the lives of all my brothers and sisters. I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion, yet I rejoice that you have conquered death by the resurrection of Your Son. I am ready to do my part to end abortion. Today I commit myself never to be silent, never to be passive, and never to be forgetful of the unborn. I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement, and never stop defending life until all my brothers and sisters are protected and our nation once again becomes a nation with liberty and justice, not just for some, but for all. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Monday, April 24, 2006
@#!&*$#@!!! BLOGGER!
The magic gnomes who bring my typing to you seem to be in a bad mood today and I no longer wish to fight them. I'll see you tomorrow, kiddies.
Non-Italians Trying to Keep Up and Keep It Up (sorry) for 5 Minutes Update...
...or, Why aren't women suspicious of sexual "innovations" for them created by men?
Let's see...First we divorced sexual intercourse from reproduction and convinced women it liberated them, placing them on an equal sexual footing with us. (Courtesy of Big Contraception.)
Next, we created chemical libidio switches for ourselves, (Thanks, Big Pharma.) necessited by the almost complete destruction of our natural libidos. (Courtesy of Big Masturbation and Used Wives, Inc. - formerly Big Divorce.)
Now we have a new and improved chemical libidio switch that acts just as well on the distaff side of the ledger. Oh, joy! If your friendly neighborhood female has five minutes for copulation, all she has to do is whip out the ol' puffer and whamo!, she acts like you're Fabio with Bill Gates' checking account!
Ah, but if the switch can be turned on, kiddies, doesn't it stand to reason it can also be turned off?
Next up? Big Sodomy and Little Anglo-Saxons Ltd. will create an artficial womb (or maybe home cloning kits) where we can grow boys. And only boys.
No icky girls will be needed.
For anything.
Ever again.
Then the huMAN race won't have to worry about those pesky relationships with the Other. And females won't be, period.
Of course, my ancestors were Italian, so all these pills and sprays are just hooey to me.
Personally, I like girls, and I'd hate to see them go the way of the dodo. But the sissified and the sodomized don't agree and they're in charge. You see, kiddies, they are part of the Forces of Progress. And progress is a good thing, no matter how many it kills.
Heck, enough of my proudly reactionary (and even more proudly heterosexual) babblings! Let's move on to the feel good story of the day.
Drudge: SEX IN A SPRAY...
Horn of rhinoceros. Penis of tiger. Root of sea holly. Husk of the emerald-green blister beetle known as the Spanish fly. So colourful and exotic is the list of substances that have been claimed to heighten sexual appetite that it is hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment on first beholding the latest entry - a small, white plastic nasal inhaler containing an odourless, colourless synthetic chemical called PT-141. Plain as it is, however, there is one thing that distinguishes PT-141 from the 4,000 years' worth of recorded medicinal aphrodisiacs that precede it: this one actually works.
And it could reach the market in as little as three years. The full range of possible risks and side effects has yet to be determined, but already this much is known: a dose of PT-141 results, in most cases, in a stirring in the loins in as little as 15 minutes. Women, according to one set of results, feel 'genital warmth, tingling and throbbing', not to mention 'a strong desire to have sex'.
Among men who have been tested with the drug more extensively, the data set is richer: 'With PT-141, you feel good,' reported anonymous patient 007: 'not only sexually aroused, you feel younger and more energetic.' According to another patient, 'It helped the libido. So you have the urge and the desire...' Tales of pharmaceutically induced sexual prowess among 58-year-olds are common enough in the age of the Little Blue Pill, but they don't typically involve quite so urgent a repertoire. Or, as patient 128 put it: 'My wife knows. She can tell the difference between Viagra and PT-141.'
The precise mechanisms by which PT-141 does its job remain unclear, but the rough idea is this: where Viagra acts on the circulatory system, helping blood flow into the penis, PT-141 goes to the brain itself. 'It's not merely allowing a sexual response to take place more easily,' explains Michael A Perelman, co-director of the Human Sexuality Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital and a sexual-medicine adviser on the PT-141 trials. 'It may be having an effect, literally, on how we think and feel.'
Palatin Technologies, the New Jersey-based maker of PT-141, has hopes of its own. Once the company gets Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the drug, Palatin plans to market it to the same people targeted by Viagra: male erectile-dysfunction patients. Approval as a treatment for female sexual dysfunction may follow. In the wake of Pfizer's failed attempts to prove Viagra works for women and amid growing recognition that it also doesn't work for large numbers of men, these two markets alone could make PT-141 a pharmaceutical blockbuster.
But let's face facts: a drug that makes you not only able but eager and willing isn't going to remain the exclusive property of the severely impaired. As with Viagra, there will be extensive off-label use of PT-141. Fast-acting and long-lasting, packaged in an easily concealed, single-use nasal inhaler, unaffected by food or alcohol consumption, PT-141 seems bound to take its place alongside cocaine, poppers and alcohol in the pantheon of club drugs.
But the potential market for PT-141 is all of us. Consider the precedent: a little more than four decades ago, it was another drug's arrival in the marketplace that triggered the sexual revolution. Before the advent of the birth-control pill, sex and procreation had been eternally, inseparably linked. After it, the link was pretty much optional. Momentous things ensued: chiefly women's liberation and the abortion controversy, all of them arguably the pill's indirect consequences, all of them reverberating to this day. And if all that can follow from a drug which simply made pregnancy less a matter of fate than of choice, what then to expect from a drug that does the same thing to passion itself?
Only when and if PT-141 reaches the market will we be in a position to even start answering that question. But, for now, there probably isn't a better way to hone the question than to turn to the rats of the Palatin Technologies research labs...
Due to time constraints, we now move to further action...(Sorry to those of you fascinated by the sex lives of rats.)
It was in pursuit of this market that Shadiack approached Concordia University behavioural-neurobiology researcher Jim Pfaus, whose work with sexual response in female rats had caught her attention. Where the bulk of research into female-rat sexual behaviour has focused on lordosis - that reflexive arching of the lower back that signifies the female is ready - Pfaus has taken what might be called a more feminist approach. Instead of lordosis's almost climactic spasm, Pfaus prefers to look at foreplay: the wiggling of ears, kicking of faces, and other acts of solicitation with which female rats reveal their desire to the partner of their choice. Pfaus discovered that PT-141 significantly increases the incidence of these behaviours. He even detected an increase in the rarer phenomenon in which a female rat will throw coyness to the winds and, in a performance worthy of Kim Cattrall, mount the chosen male herself.
And thus the case was made. Pfaus's results were powerful evidence not only of PT-141's potential as a treatment for women but of its ability to do more than just move blood around. A male rat's erection on its own doesn't say much about the rat's state of mind. A female rat's coquetry, on the other hand, says all we need to know about her intentions and desires. Rats aren't people, to be sure, and as test subjects they suffer from a frustrating inability to tell us, in words, how they experience what they're subjected to. But that has an upside, too, explains Pfaus. 'The bad thing about animals is they don't talk. The good thing is they don't lie.'
So the testimony of rats - notwithstanding that of the 900 articulate, full-grown human subjects who have since reported enhanced arousal and desire from taking PT-141 - remains the most objective evaluation the drug has yet received, or ever will.
'I see a lot of couples in my practice who don't know how to relax,' says Leonore Tiefer, a professor of psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine. 'That's fine - it's a big asset to them in their corporate lifestyle, where they can work 80 hours a week. They're trained to multi-task. Well, it doesn't seem that that is really doable when it comes to sex. And they're angry about that: they need it to be doable because they only have their five minutes.'
The five-minute meaningful sexual encounter: if ever there was a holy grail for the age of the tight-wired global economy - with its time-strapped labour force and its glut of bright, shiny distractions - that is it. And if ever there was a reason to be wary of the pharmaceutical industry's designs on the market for sexual healing, say critics such as Tiefer, it's the attractiveness of that simple-minded ideal.
Tiefer is one of the leading figures in a movement of academic researchers, sex therapists and women's-health activists contesting the increasing medicalisation of women's sexual problems, and when Procter & Gamble sought FDA approval in December 2004 for its 'female sexual-desire disorder' treatment - a testosterone patch called Intrinsa - her testimony helped sway the agency to deny the request. Unlike the counting of erections, assessing subjective phenomena such as desire and satisfaction is, she testified, 'subtle, complex - and arbitrary'. P&G's findings were thus too inconclusive to hold their own against the established risks of long-term testosterone use. 'Intrinsa is not a glass of chardonnay,' Tiefer remarked, 'and yet we have already seen that it may well be promoted with a giggle and a wink as "the female Viagra".'
Tiefer is just as dubious about PT-141, which, as she sees it, is merely the latest expression of a 'big wish' that 'we could just bypass everything we want to bypass' on our way to sexual happiness, skipping the complicated, often lifelong work of sorting out all the emotional, physical and autobiographical triggers that turn us off and on. Her prognosis for the discovery of a drug that will render that work unnecessary? 'Sorry, it's never going to happen.'
Even assuming that PT-141 ultimately performs as well in broad use as it has in trials, even granting that it can improve sex lives as effectively as a lifetime of erotic exploration, the deeper challenge posed by the prospect of a sexual techno-fix remains: is this really the kind of fix we want? To have desire available at any time, from the nozzle of an inhaler?
Uh oh...
There should not be anything to worry about here. I expect nothing but orthodoxy.
My guess is the leftist press is wishing and hoping and planting seeds of schism.
Vatican preparing statement on condoms and AIDS
The Vatican will soon publish a statement on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, an issue highlighted by a call from a leading cardinal to ease its ban on them, a Catholic Church official said.
Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, the head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, declined to reveal the contents of the document in an interview published in Sunday's la Repubblica newspaper, but said Pope Benedict had asked his department to study the issue.
The former archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who was standard bearer for a moderate minority in the conclave that elected the Pope last year, called for a reform in an interview published in Italy on Friday.
The Vatican opposes condoms as a form of contraception, but several cardinals have said in recent years that using them is a lesser evil if the alternative is infection with AIDS.
"This is a very difficult and delicate subject that requires prudence," said Mexican-born Barragan.
"My department is studying this closely with scientists and theologians expressly assigned to draft a document that will be issued soon," he said.
The Catholic Church, which runs many hospitals and institutions to help AIDS victims, opposes the use of condoms and teaches that fidelity within heterosexual marriage, chastity and abstinence are the best way to stop the spread of AIDS.
It says promoting condoms to fight the spread of AIDS fosters immoral and hedonistic lifestyles and behavior that will only contribute to its spread.
In his interview with the weekly L'Espresso, Martini backed up his call for a change in condom policy by referring to cases where one partner in a marriage is infected with AIDS.
"This person has an obligation to protect the other partner and the other partner also has to protect themselves," he said. The Church disapproves of sexual intercourse outside marriage.
Barragan commented favorably on Martini's suggestion that the Church allow women who cannot get pregnant to use surplus frozen embryos from fertility clinics that usually dispose of them after a couple has undergone fertility treatment.
Super Bowl XL Champion Steelers Draft Preview:
From Pittsburgh's other newspaper:
Need a safety to replace Chris Hope? A running back to groom for the next Bus? An outside linebacker to maintain that Blitzburgh attitude? Step right up, because this is the draft to do it.
On the other hand, next weekend's draft may not have the kind of receiver to immediately plug in as the next Antwaan Randle El, especially for a team picking last in the first round.
The Steelers have built up a hope chest of 10 choices for the NFL draft, although they might use one or two of those in a draft-day trade to move higher in one of the first three rounds. They did that in 2003 when they jumped from No. 27 in the first round by sending Kansas City their picks in the first and third rounds for the Chiefs' 16th pick in the first round.
That choice turned into All-Pro safety Troy Polamalu.
Kevin Colbert believes in making such moves and did so several times since he became the team's director of football operations in 2000. In '04 he traded his fourth-round choice to move higher in the second round to snap up cornerback Ricardo Colclough.
Moving up is a good idea according to Gil Brandt. He helped build the Dallas Cowboys into America's Team as vice president of player personnel from 1960-89. He's now a senior analyst for NFL.com and has studied the past decade of NFL drafts.
"The Steelers have done a very good job of drafting. They started 16 draft choices and one free agent in the Super Bowl last year. When you do that, you've done very, very well."
-- Gil Brandt
Brandt's son, Hunter, studied the drafts the past four decades and discovered that since 1967, 47 percent of the Pro Football Hall of Famers were drafted in the top 10 and all but nine of 51 inductees were taken in the top 50 picks. Only three of those were selected at No. 125 or later -- Ken Houston at 214 in 1967, Mike Webster at 125 in '74 and Rayfield Wright at 182 in '67.
"When you say 47 percent out of the first 10 picks made the Hall of Fame, that's a high percentage," Brandt said.
The Steelers, though, have had good success through the years selecting below the top 10 and might have had the best success of all, factoring players they drafted who started for them with the success they've had on the field.
For example, Brandt notes that 1,280 players were selected in the past five drafts and of those, 302 have been regular starters, or 23.6 percent.
"The Steelers, over that same period, have 28 percent starters," Brandt said. "So they're one of the top teams as far as taking players and doing a good job."
Atlanta leads the group with 33 percent but the Falcons have not had the kind of on-field success as the Steelers during that time.
"The Steelers have done a very good job of drafting," Brandt said. "They started 16 draft choices and one free agent in the Super Bowl last year. When you do that, you've done very, very well."
In the past three weeks, the Steelers have interviewed as many as 30 prospects at their facility. Many of them were safeties, running backs and wide receivers. That does not necessarily tip off what the Steelers will do because many were players they did not interview previously or players from whom they wanted more information.
For example, Southern California running back LenDale White has a hamstring injury. When he visited them Tuesday, he agreed to let their doctors give him an MRI, which confirmed a slight tear.
Still, the Steelers have drafted many players who visited them before the draft, including their past two first-round picks, Heath Miller and Ben Roethlisberger, as well as Colclough.
Among those who visited them this spring are running backs White, Laurence Maroney, Joseph Addai, Maurice Drew and Leon Washington; safeties Darnell Bing, Donte Whitner and Daniel Bullocks; receivers Demetrius Williams, Chad Jackson, Willie Reid, Jeff Webb, Akron's Domenik Hixon (a converted safety and good returner) and Ethan Kilmer, also a special teams ace at Penn State.
Also visiting Steelers' headquarters were a few outside linebackers such as Jon Alston of Stanford and John Busing of Miami (Ohio), and offensive tackles Daryn Colledge of Boise State and Willie Colon of Hofstra, none a top prospect.
The Steelers will draft a safety and a wide receiver to help replace the losses of free safety Chris Hope and slot receiver Antwaan Randle El. It's more likely they would take a receiver in the second round than the first. Because of their 3-4 defense, they're always searching for linebackers, and, while there are some good ones in this draft, they're mostly on the outside, not inside.
"There's some offensive linemen to be had," said Ron Hill, who has been the player personnel man for Denver, Jacksonville and Atlanta.
"Linebacker is a pretty strong position. It looks like you can get some defensive linemen, but not a lot of them. Teams are going to different fronts and doing different things, so it creates more room for a different style of lineman. You'll take a different guy for a 3-4 team than you would a 4-3 team, so that creates a different look and view there. There are more of those 3-4 guys than there are 4-3 guys at end."
The tight ends are an extremely strong group, but the Steelers drafted Heath Miller in the first round last season, and he developed quickly into a strength on offense. So, they won't be looking for a tight end, at least not on the first day of the draft when the first three of seven rounds take place.
"Everybody has an opinion that it's either a good draft or a bad draft," Brandt said. "A lot of personnel guys always consider it not to be a good draft. That way if they make a bad choice, they can blame it on the quality in the draft.
"Here's how I see this draft:
"Right at the top of the draft, there's seven really good players; all of them could be Pro Bowl players and so forth. Then you come down to 8 to about 21 or 22, where there's a lot of good players; they'll be starters and play well.
"Then I think the next group is 22 to 42. The guy you pick 42 very easily could be 23. There's not much difference among those guys at all."
And remember one more thing, Brandt noted, as did Chuck Noll a long time ago when he said the draft is not a science:
"Last year, they said it was not a very good draft, and we had 785 game-starts by rookies. That's the most since I've been tracking it, about 10 years. It was a pretty good draft."
PITTSBURGH STEELERS
Primary Need: Cornerback. The Steelers had a tough time in coverage even before safety Chris Hope bolted. Pittsburgh doesn't focus much on stopping the pass because they blitz so much and because Troy Polamalu is ever-present, but they can be had on the deep ball.
Secondary Need: Power back. Bill Cowher teams depend on running the ball more than most NFL squads and the need for a new power back now that Jerome Bettis is gone is a pressing requirement. Willie Parker is still around for the speed game and the team has re-upped with the underrated Verron Haynes, so they should be okay.
The Buzz: Even after their Super Bowl win the Steelers remain a small-market team, so it's more likely they'll try to improve via the draft than with big free agent signings. The loss of Antwaan Randle-El hurts a little, it will be hard to replace Bettis, and the DE Kimo Van Oelhoffen won't be easy to replace. Still, the recent successes in drafting Ben Roethlisberger and Heath Miller suggest the reigning champs from Steeltown should be just fine, thank-you very much.
MOCK DRAFT, PHASE III
Bush, Ferguson and Leinart as one, two, three...
WITH THE MUCH-ANTICIPATED DRAFT JUST AROUND the corner, here's a third installment of our mock draft, freshness dated April 15th. While the No. 1 pick hasn't changed since our first and second versions, it won't take long for you to find some new faces in new places... MOCK DRAFT, PHASE III >>>
DRAFT DISH
FIRST-ROUND DRAFT ORDER: Texans hold 1st pick... for now
MOCK DRAFTS: Phase I Phase II Phase III
DRAFT-DAY NEEDS: A team-by-team shopping list
BEST PROSPECTS BY POSITION: 120 Hopefuls Analyzed
PROSPECT PROFILES: The Top 50 51 to 100
PRE-DRAFT TRADES: Analysis: Culpepper, Abraham...
COMBINE REVIEW: Winners and losers...
HISTORY
FIGURES & NUMBERS: 20 facts about modern era drafts...
QB BUSTS: The '90s: A decade of wasted QB selections...
MEN OF STEAL! The all-time Top 20 late-round steals...
ALL-TIME FIRST-ROUND PICKS: 1,104 players...
SINCE 1936: Highlights & lowlights of 70 years of history...
Saint of the Day and daily Mass readings.
Today is the Feast of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Franciscan Capuchin and martyr. Pray for us, all you angels and saints.
Today's reading for the Feast of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen is Colossians 1:24-29.
Today's Responsorial Psalm is Psalms 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9.
Today's Gospel reading is John 17:20-26.
[Links to the readings will be from the NAB until I can find another chapter and verse searchable Douay-Rheims Bible on-line.]
Everyday links:
The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTN
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today
Just in case you are wondering what exactly Catholics believe, here is
The Apostles Creed
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.
Memorare
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.
St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.
Prayer to St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire
Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)
Prayer To Saint Michael The Archangel
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
Prayer to End Abortion
Lord God, I thank You today for the gift of my life, and for the lives of all my brothers and sisters. I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion, yet I rejoice that you have conquered death by the resurrection of Your Son. I am ready to do my part to end abortion. Today I commit myself never to be silent, never to be passive, and never to be forgetful of the unborn. I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement, and never stop defending life until all my brothers and sisters are protected and our nation once again becomes a nation with liberty and justice, not just for some, but for all. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
About Me
- Fyodor Garibaldi
- First of all, the word is SEX, not GENDER. If you are ever tempted to use the word GENDER, don't. The word is SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX! For example: "My sex is male." is correct. "My gender is male." means nothing. Look it up. What kind of sick neo-Puritan nonsense is this? Idiot left-fascists, get your blood-soaked paws off the English language. Hence I am choosing "male" under protest.
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FYODOR"S LINKS
- Major K. - He's home now, but his blog from Iraq remains.
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