WSJ Points Out Problems in NYT's Reporting of Fr. Murphy and Cardinal Ratzinger

Laurie Goodman of the NYT either deliberately or through incompetence bungled her story about how Cardinal Ratzinger supposedly exonerated Fr. Murphy of Wisconsin while he stood before an ecclesiastical criminal tribunal for sexually abusing hundreds of children.

If she had so libeled anybody else, right now, she and the NYT would be getting sued for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.  Read the WSJ piece here.

Dear Young People II

Dear young people, do not be content with anything less than the highest ideals!  Do not let yourselves be dispirited by those who are disillusioned with life and have grown deaf to the deepest and most authentic desires of the heart.  The time has come to re-propose wholeheartedly to everyone this high standard of ordinary Christian living.  Refuse to sell your dreams cheaply.  Watch out for the dangerous ways that lead to passing joys and satisfaction.  Deepen your relationship with God through prayer.  Prayer spreads Divine energy.  It makes us live in a new way and gives rise to a revolutionary evangelical style.

An Interesting Marriage Proposal...

Msgr. Charlie Pope, of our own Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., has an interesting proposal concerning marriage.  No, he's not getting hitched - he's already happily married to Mother Church.  So what's his big idea?  It boils down to this: if the world is going to redefine marriage to suit the homosexualist agenda, then the Church should come up with a new name for what used to be called marriage.

Happily, he has an idea for a new term, or rather, an old term.  HOLY Matrimony.
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Click here to read the rest of his marriage proposal.

DC vs. the Church

The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., announced on Tuesday that it had to close its adoption program
within the District of Columbia.  The decision to do so was made as the only feasible alternative to compliance with an unjust law promulgated by the DC City Council several months back.  The law prohibits discrimination against "married" gay couples in numerous matters, including adoption.  The fact that so many people cannot see the difference between holy matrimony and homosexual unions shows the depravity into which our culture has descended.

The Church in DC has very manfully despised the opinion of the world on this matter, and very maternally cared more for the authentic welfare of her children than for the esteem of reprobates.

It's time to get praying, very, very hard.

An Interesting Article about Vampires and Moral Relativism

Defanged: about how a culture unable to say, "Evil," when it sees evil is a culture that cannot defend itself, from a blog I just encountered for the first time called Hey Miller.  The article basically argues that the media, what Peter Kreeft calls informal educators in his book How to Win the Culture Wars, have for some time been teaching us moral relativism.  In his blog, Miller shows how a number of very successful novels, plays, and movies have been conducting a sly campaign to teach us that right isn't right and that wrong isn't wrong.  They have been doing so by sleight of hand, substituting the psychological complexity of persons for the morality of their acts.

Thanks for the link, Eric.  (For those of you who have never read it, the Daily Eudemon is a genuinely intelligent blog with a variety of topics routinely covered.)

An Unlikely Alliance to Overthrow the West: More Signs of the Times

CNSNews.com has two pieces that struck me.

The first piece reports on comments made by Harry Knox, who serves on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. In the National Prayer Hour during which the accompanying video is recorded, Knox calls evil (in this case, the distribution of contraception) good, and good (Pope Benedict XVI) evil (for opposing the distribution of those sinful little population control devices) (Isaiah 5:20).  Notably, this event is the American Prayer Hour, not intended to call upon God Almight for his help with some issue or another, but to affirm on their own "inclusive values" and to call on Uganda to stop being mean by doing things like outlawing sodomy.  The Pope's reason - aside from the religious - for disapproving of the use of contraception to fight the spread of HIV is that is just doesn't work.  Even though Pope Benedict XVI has, on this issue, the backing of findings of

researchers at notoriously flim-flam, conservative institutions like Harvard, Knox reasserts his claim that the Pope and the Church are hurting poor people in the name of Jesus.  Knox, unlike the Church, cares very much for (heterosexual and juvenile) HIV patients in Africa and Asia.  He does all sorts of things to help them, like run orphanages for HIV-infected children, has cooperated with all sorts of federal programs to prevent the spread of AIDS at home and abroad, has been conducting vigorous propaganda campaigns in Africa against risky behavior, and provide about 25% of the world's AIDS patients with their primary care.

Oh, wait.  My mistake.  It's the Catholic Church that does those things for AIDS patients.

The second piece reports on a Dutch legislator being prosecuted for "discrimination and incitement to hatred" for claiming that the Koran has been linked to extremist violence.  I know what you're thinking: what an outlandish claim.  I know.  Aside from the backwardness of prohibiting free speech, the Dutch prosecutor doesn't seem to think that the actual truth of the statements made should be relevant to their prosecution.  The whole bit makes me think of the final book in C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, in which some treacherous Narnians sell their people out to a foreign, despotic people from southern deserts, in the hope of personal gain.  The Dutch legislator being prosecuted has asked to call for his defense Mohammed Bouyeri, a "Dutchman" of Moroccan extraction convicted of shooting and stabbing to death Theo Van Gogh for making a documentary that claimed unpleasant things about Islam.  Bouyeri stuck a note to van Gogh's chest using the knife with which he murdered the filmmaker.  In the note, he also threatened to murder Dutch legislator Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a nationalized Somali woman who uses her new Dutch nationality and legislative voice to campaign against the abuse of women in peaceful Islamic countries like Iran and her native Somalia.  Surprisingly, the Dutch prosecutor and judges in the case is nervous about calling Bouyeri to the stand.



I am concluding that the powers that be hate Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church, and the West they built up so much that any enemy of His will suffice as an ally.  It does not matter to them what lies they tell or whom they invite to come be their new caliph.  This whole democracy thing is passe, anyway, right?  Time to progress to something better.

Does This Bother You?

Some "civil rights" groups have decided that it is important to get out the vote, and by correlation, to make sure as many (minority) people as possible are counted in the upcoming 2010 census.  Below, see one poster developed with the intention of deployment in Hispanic Evangelical churches.  The poster below, of course, is the English text; the both the English and Spanish versions are available here.

This poster should strike sincere Christians as problematic for a few purposes.  I will list off a few:

1. The poster is itself fairly clearly blasphemous, using the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary for merely secular, political purposes... that is, in vain; this sin is very serious; the quotation of scripture (Mt 1:18, "This is how Jesus was born,") for such purposes strikes me as a violation of the Second Commandment in a similar vein;

2. The secular-minded groups are very cynically using the churches for their purposes;

3. The "Christian" churches accepting solicitations to display these posters will apparently not mind either the blasphemy or being used, perhaps because of complicity in the motivations of the secular-minded groups;

4. The posters and the groups behind them neglect to mention the cultural-political background of the events in the early life of the Holy Family, in which the Caesar's census was very clearly a bad thing - a tool of oppression;

5. It is arguably a violation of the legitimate separation of Church and State to employ churches in purely political work, although because the Census office is not actually involved with the poster, I am not sure that it is... this requires some mulling over.

USA Today has a reasonably balanced news story about the ad campaign.  To register your shock and outrage, you might go to the feedback page on CivilRights.org's website.  In my gut I feel there are more reasons to object strongly to this sacrilegious propaganda, but I cannot think further now, because I am still sputtering.  Thanks to Mr. Dave Tenney for pointing this out to me.

Why the Immaculate Conception?

What does this dogma mean? Why did Pope Pius IX bother to proclaim this small point, surely unimportant for our salvation, and that while Europe was reeling in the aftermath of continent-wide insurrections and revolts? Didn't he have more important things to do?

The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception firstly reminds us of the Virgin's sinlessness. In doing so, the dogma indicates our great worth - the heights of which we are capable, supplied with grace.

Secondly, the dogma implicitly reminds us of our own sinfulness. The fact of her sinlessness is noteworthy enough precisely because of our sinfulness. Far from being irrelevant to the times, the timing for the dogma's proclamation couldn't have been better. The revolutions that rocked Europe in 1848, and whose effects lingered in men's minds for decades, were predicated on Enlightenment ideas. One of those ideas was articulated by Rousseau, among others; namely, the people are born as tabulae rasae, as blank slates. Only corrupt institutions corrupt people, and by changing the institutions, we can change the fundamental character of the people in them, and thus of society as a whole. That was one of the Enlightenment's major conceits about the nature of man. One hundred and fifty years before the Enlightened West lost all faith in that proposition, Pius IX shouted - "No! There is ONE fresh start for humanity, one clean slate! Humanity is fallen, and we cannot trust ourselves apart from God!" Not many people listened, and for the following 150 years, Enlightened leaders have continued bumbling around like bulls in a china shop, smashing hundreds of millions of human lives in countless social engineering programs to show us how infinitely malleable man is, trying to remake the world in their own image.

Jesus Christ, too, is remaking humanity in his own image. The differences are immense. Most importantly, Jesus Christ never quenches a smoldering wick or crushes a bruised reed. He does not impose his plan upon humanity, but rather invites us to join in his work. There are no gulags or inner-city ghettos in Jesus' way of doing things.

Christianity's central message is something like, "Human beings are sacred creatures fallen into sin and in need of a savior. Jesus Christ is the savior of humanity. If we do what he says and unite ourselves to him, we will grow in joy here and now, and hereafter as well." The Immaculate Conception speaks to that first sentence: it reminds us that we are sinners and do not need a new system, but a savior; it tells us that we are not junk to be crunched in the social machine by the worldshapers, but jewels in God's crown, worth the labors of the Almighty (or so he seems to have thought) to save us - each individual precious and beloved.

Trying to Out the Church

You may be aware that the Church in Washington, D.C., has been at loggerheads with the City Government about whether it will continue to contract with the city for social services on the condition that it cease to "discriminate" against gay "marriages." You may have heard it as the Church trying to bully or blackmail the City Government by threatening to "stop serving the poor." That probably rings very hollow to you. Church has never stopped serving the poor, and she never will. The media, naturally, is all over the thing and supplying all the headlines and cursorily written stories it can to try to make the Church look bad.

Some people have been unhappy with this action or that of our Archbishop in the past, but anyone with eyes will see that he is clearly shepherding his flock strongly and well right now, against immense social pressure from a number of angles. God bless Archbishop Wuerl, and thank God for giving him to us at this hour! He has just recently served as a principal craftsman and signatory of the Manhattan Declaration in support of traditional marriage, the right to life, and the right to religious liberty. The statement, signed principally by 148 leaders of the Christian community in the US and Canada, and already by thousands more, basically says that we will not budge one inch on these issues, and will not be bullied or coerced.

But the enemies of life, of marriage, of Christianity are fighting back hard. A website (to which I will not provide a link because I do not want to encourage hits) has just been launched and is being publicized, inviting people to write in stories of homosexuality among the Catholic clergy of, or resident in, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. The site outrageously pretends to be an effort to help gay clergy to have a spiritual awakening through "new-found integrity." The site even contains a handy drop-down menu with a list of all the clergy to facilitate the process of blackmail and slander. Now who is blackmailing whom?

"Lastly, we encourage every Catholic priest to trust in God and in the power of the Christ to help you through this difficult, but important act of truth, faith and love.   It is not the intention of this site to complicate the lives of closeted gay priests, rather to help them make the difficult choice to stand up against the hateful and harmful new direction the Church hierarchy is taking the Holy Mother Church.


Disclaimer:  The goal of this site is not to force Catholic priests out of the closet against their will.  The goal of this campaign is to aggregate reports on every gay priest in the Archdiocese, so that we can work with them, one on one, helping them stand up to the the church hierarchy's stand on this important issue." - From the Blackmail Website

Yeah, right.

The measure is an attempt to coerce clergy into disobedience and apostasy, to sow dissension in the Church, to punish the Church for failing to bless sins of aberrant sexuality.  We need to show our support of our clergy.  Please, please, PLEASE take a minute to write a letter to your pastor or one of his associates, or to our Archbishop, and encourage them in this difficult challenge.  I also want to beg the rest of you to pray, pray, pray for God to act in this horrible situation to protect the Church. In addition to the Holy Mother of God, let's especially invoke St. Joseph and St. John Vianney, the great patrons of spiritual fathers and parish priests. We're all in this together now.

Please remember, "we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places," (Eph 6:12). No matter what dark powers threaten from their high places, Jesus Christ is LORD! In a timely reminder, today is the Solemn Feast of Christ the King.

To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King

Hint: click the song to hear it played and sing along.  I know, I'm wicked clever ;-)

 

The above is one of my favorite songs, and today is one of my favorite feasts.  We celebrate Christ in his Kingship on the last Sunday of the Church's liturgical year because on the last day of the world he will come in his glory to judge the "quick and the dead."  Two years ago I wrote a post on Christ the King and on Bl. Miguel Pro, martyr of the Mexican Revolution who died proclaiming that name.

We are living in darker and darker times, and great efforts are being made to muddy the waters, to keep things from being clear.  Sin abounds, and that makes it harder to see things clearly, harder to know what to do, harder to summon the courage to do it.

Here is a notable point.  In medieval times, the people did not defend their kings from barbarian hordes; rather, they lent their services to him so that he could defend them.  Jesus Christ does not need us to defend him or his honor.  His is not only our king, but our God; we need him to defend us.  Against all the pressures, deceptions, and coercion of sin in the world and in our hearts, let us have constant recourse to him, to our great and mighty King and to the heavenly host at his command.  By recourse to prayer and the sacraments, let us remain united in faith, hope, charity, and even in good cheer amidst suffering, which is surely one of the most powerful witnesses to those three great virtues.

More on the Manhattan Declaration

Click here to download the entire Manhattan Declaration.

The Manhattan Declaration on Religious Liberty

Today at noon at the National Press Club, a coalition of about 150 leaders of the Christian community in the United States have issued a statement called the Manhattan Declaration. In the statement, numerous Catholic and Orthodox bishops and seminary rectors, Evangelical and Protestant ministers, and other Christians involved in culture, politics, and public life have all vowed that they will not budge one inch on traditional morality pertaining to abortion and marriage; they have insisted upon the primacy of religious liberty in public life. The statement is truly inspiring.

The Manhattan Declaration can be found here, on the website First Things. Additionally, a website has been established called www.ManhattanDeclaration.org, with a place for visitors to sign onto the declaration alongside Archbishop Donald Wuerl, Chuck Colson, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Fr. Joseph D. Fessio, Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola, and a host of others. Unfortunately, right now the link is having trouble and redirects to Chuck Colson's website, which is still an interesting read.

What's monumental about this is the strength and courage of the statement and its ecumenical breadth.  It is a clarion call to the nation's Christians - 80% of America.  With 60% of Americans saying that religion is important in their lives, this statement should be something of a wakeup call against the militant atheism that, in the name of maintaining a secular government (and secular it should be), is attempting to secularize the entire nation, and to bully anyone who objects or refuses to play along.

Here are some more articles related to it: from the Catholic News Agency and another about the Declaration's special place in current DC local politics.

Especially as we approach the Solemnity of Christ the King, this weekend, it behooves us to remember that nothing Caesar or his cohort can say or do has any authority over us except inasmuch as it aligns with the Law of God.  No matter who is president, no matter what lobby gets whatever law passed, Jesus Christ is Lord!

Graham, Catania, and the Bit of Pork

The first readings each day for Mass for week come from the Books of Maccabees. Today's readings (2 Mc 6:18-31; Ps 3:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Lk 19:1-10) document the passion of Eleazar, an old and respected leader of Israel, a scribe. Judea had been under a Greek dynasty for a hundred and fifty or so years, since Alexander the Great conquered it, together with the rest of the Eastern world. For the most part, the Greeks had not been too demanding: pay your taxes and don't cause a fuss. But King Antiochus IV Epiphanes had a different agenda. Let's put it this way. Epiphanes means manifest in Greek, and what he meant by calling himself (that's right, he picked his own surname against common convention) was that he manifested God. Uh-huh.  No joke.  He commanded that his whole empire - roughly what we would now call Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and western Iran - should be hellenized, made Greek, made to follow Greek customs.  This measure would secure their obedience to him.  Now, since they were the bigshots in town, the Greeks were exactly the sort of people that most folks kinda tried to imitate anyway.  No problem.


Except for the Jews.

They had this thing, called the Torah (they still do) which means something like Law or Instruction.  Its purpose was both to govern the people and to teach them goodness, to teach them God's will, God's mind, God's heart.  Less than four hundred years earlier, they had been in bondage in Babylon for disregarding it.  By the time of Antiochus, about one hundred and sixty or seventy years before Christ, the Jews had pretty well learned the lesson: stick to God, and things will go OK; abandon His way at your own risk.  But Antiochus the self-styled "manifestation of God" was not one to brook dissension.  He became furious at Jewish dissent and eager sought out Jews who would help him 'enlighten' (yes, that's the term he would have used, or maybe 'get up with the times') their countrymen.  That's where today's reading picks up.

Eleazar, the man of God, is commanded to break the Law of God by eating pork. He refuses on the grounds that to do so is immoral.   His oppressors, agents of King Antiochus, have known him for years.  They've been friends.  They ask him privately to pretend to eat the pork so that he can save his life.  He refuses on the grounds that to do so would set a bad example for the youth.  The king's men become furious and force feed him.  He spits out the pork and insists:

Even if, for the time being, I avoid the punishment of men, I shall never, whether alive or dead, escape the hands of the Almighty. Therefore, by manfully giving up my life now, I will prove myself worthy of my old age, and I will leave to the young a noble example of how to die willingly and generously for the revered and holy laws, (2 Mc 6:26-28).

Eleazar will not abandon God in order to please men, nor even to save his own life.  This attitude baffled the rulers of Eleazar's day, his "friends," and they flew into a rage and beat him to death at the age of ninety, entirely forgetting his service, their friendship, even his gray hairs.  They not only put him to death, but many others as well.  Why should he be so obstinate over such a small thing, a little piece of meat that everybody else is eating?

We must pray for our Church and its leaders.  The local church of Washington, D.C., right now needs the prayers of our brethren immensely.  Local officials in the city government have decided to get on the gay marriage bandwagon.  It is probably going to decide to attach to any funding or contracts it awards the stipulation that the recipient must not "discriminate" against gays, including failing to recognize their "marriages."  Those who do so will be ineligible to receive either assistance from, or contracts to work for, the city.

Catholic Charities of Washington, D.C., has long been the most effective provider of social services in the city, and the largest private one to boot.  It provides services to over 10% of the city's residents.  Many of those services are contracted to it by the City, a tacit recognition of the fact that the Church is able to do what the City cannot: mobilize volunteers and trained, certified workers to provide services efficiently and in a caring way for the city's neediest residents.

The problem is that the Church won't eat the pork.

Everyone else is doing it.  Nobody is making the Church change its teachings, after all.  It's free "to go right on hating gay people" (opines a local columnist).  It just has to pay spousal benefits to their sodomite cohabitants, that's all.  Oh, and, it goes without saying - not use those words, either.  Oh, and it can't refuse to help them adopt children, either.  If the Church won't acquiesce, then the City cuts it out of the help-the-poor loop.  Well, the Church will continue helping the poor, using as much of its own resources as it can, just as it always has.  The problem is that all those poor people that got helped by City money administered by the Church won't have anyone to serve them now.  Except maybe the City... which we know does splendidly with all the other services it provides: schools, roads, emergency rescue - all top notch in D.C., right?  Right.

Well, to keep the Church from bailing, the City and its propaganda wing, the Washington Post (it should be called the Washington Pravda), have decided to lampoon the Church and bash it as hard as it can.  In the Pravda, er, Post's online column's, Susan Jacoby has decided that the Church is "blackmailing" the poor, helpless government.  The goal is to pressure the Church into a compromise.  Headlines read such as, "Church threatens to cancel social services over gay marriage."  The truth is obfuscated: it is said that other dioceses have not stopped services in the face of similar legislation.  What is left unsaid is that the "similar legislation" in other states has included religious/conscience exemptions of the sort excluded by the DC City Council's bill.  Except in the case of Massachusetts, other states have allowed those with a doctrinal reason to continue operations.  In Massachusetts, the relevant dioceses have ceased the provide the relevant services, though almost everyone thought the church would open wide and eat the pork that Antiochus demanded to prove obedience.  The purpose here, as there, is to push the Church just a little bit further out of public life, to be able to say, "See how useless those hypocrites are!"  If you have any doubt about it, you have only to ask the leaders of these legislative movements.

The effort in DC is spearheaded by Jim Graham and David Catania.  Back in July 2000, the two openly gay members of the City Council were sponsoring a bill, without religious/conscience exemptions, that would have required all employers who provided health care to include coverage for contraception.  Graham commented, "My problem is surrendering decisions on public health to the church…I've spent years fighting church dogma."  That bill failed because the broader political climate prevented it from coming to fruition.  The climate has changed now, and the two seem to have the votes they need to continue their fight against "church dogma."

The complaint is sometimes made that our leaders in the Church are not strong enough, or outspoken enough.  They hobnob to easily with public sinners, it is said.  (Lol. I am glad they do not shun my company!)  But our leaders have a history of fighting as well - they will not be pushed or shoved.  When the Maryland legislature was poised to remove the legal protection for the confidentiality of the confessional back in 2003, (lovable, old) Theodore Cardinal McCarrick said, "If this bill were to pass, I shall instruct all priests in the Archdiocese of Washington who serve in Maryland to ignore it... On this issue, I will gladly plead civil disobedience and willingly -- if not gladly -- go to jail."  Archbishop Wuerl, now governing our archdiocese, has been as adamant.  The archdiocese will not put itself at the service of the City's welfare system if doing so is conditioned upon betraying its broader mission.  The Post has graciously given the Archbishop a chance to defend the diocese from its headlines in this op-ed piece, published today.  It is well worth a read.




Our role models in the Church, it seems, will not eat the King Antiochus' pork.

Brethren in Free America, please pray for us here who are being put to the screws by Epiphanes.

What's Caesar Got Behind His Back?

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is hiding some data behind its back. Rather, it's hiding the data from the public. Our policymakers are given access to it, but we, the policymakers' bosses, are to be kept from seeing it.  It seems the CDC is recommending that the Federal government put the kabosh on abstinence-only sex education because their stats on its effectiveness are "inconsistent." 

Perhaps the results are inconsistent with their ideology.  The fact that "comprehensive risk reduction" approaches, ones that favor the use of prophylactic measures, show "limited direct evidence of effectiveness," doesn't seem to stop them from recommending those approaches.

It is telling that there will be no public scrutiny of the data until after public policy is set.  So much for transparency in government.

Our cultural powers are making ceaseless war upon the ways of life developed over eighteen or nineteen hundred years.  They feel Christianity responsible for the misery they experience in lives evacuated of meaning by the expulsion of God.  The economic powers that be are funding this war in order to enrich themselves.  Christians, it is our job, to show the beauty of the Christian way of living by our conduct of life.  While doing what we can to advance the Christian vision, we must brace ourselves for the likelihood that our triumph will not follow obvious victory, but apparent defeat.  Look to a crucifix for a role model.

Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom Speaks Out Against Secular Sterility

Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, must have caused a stir with his speech just a few days after taking his seat in the House of Lords of the UK last week.  He said that Europeans are too busy shopping to have children.  I wonder how that went over.  His speech also does a good job of pointing out succinctly why secularism and moral relativism can never win an argument about civilization or culture.

By the Mines of Moriah

We spent the day in Moriah, New York, nestled among the Adirondacks, east of the High Peaks region and near the southwestern shores of Lake Champlain.  The people there were extraordinarily friendly, and mostly seemed supportive of our candidate.  It is amazingly rural - a half hour from the nearest large road.  The people are proud of their cultural heritage here, and proud of America.  They feel that things aren't going so well, but do not believe that America is "broken."  They'd mostly like our leaders to leave things alone.

View Larger Map
The community was founded upon mining, but I do not know what they do now.  A lot of the people are from here, but like my own neck of the woods, the area has experienced some growth through the gradually immigration of folks from other parts of the country.

We ate a hearty Election Night Harvest Dinner in a Baptist church hall, at the invitation of the mayor and at the expense of a local well-wisher who calls himself Brett the Mountain Man.  It was a really nice evening and a nice way to finish a day of meeting local townsfolk and even more people come in from the countryside to vote in this local population center of four or five thousand people.  The mayor, who was probably five or ten years younger than my dad, and vigorous, sat next to a widower who was much older but only a bit quieter.  The widower told us how a ninety-four year old neighbor of his had had both of his legs amputated after a quadruple bypass surgery had wrecked his circulation.  "Shame and a waste," said the mayor.  "When my heart gets like that, I'd rather just say a quick rosary and then go to meet my Maker."  Why make such a big deal of trying to save an old man from living his last days?  Doctors may sometimes be more afraid of death than their patients.

We sat next to one woman who has lived her entire eighty four years here, and more than sixty of them with her husband, who died only last December 18.  I will try to remember this kind woman and her husband in my prayers that day this year.  She was visibly choked up a bit when we discussed him briefly, but she mostly expressed gratitude to God for His kindness in giving her "such a loving man for so many years."  The mayor and her elderly neighbor, the widower, listened sympathetically as she told us just a bit about him: "He never said an unkind word about anyone, never so long as I knew him, which was all my life."  She told us about a young priest that used to visit their family when she was caring for their child and babysitting her nieces and nephews.  Though her family is Methodist, she said that the priest was always very warm with them and told them he felt very welcome in their home.  "Well, he was," she said, "He was most welcome.  What a fine young man he was."  The widow, the widower, and the mayor were excited to see young people (us) caring so much about politics and about the state of the union that we would drive all the way up from Maryland.  We were encouraged by their hospitality and functioning, albeit small, community.

There weren't many young people here, in this place without few jobs, and none for folks with degrees - except for perhaps the mayor and a nurse or teacher.  Some young men drove by in pickups and waved, giving us thumbs up.  The ones who drove by in inexpensive sports cars were less visibly supportive.  I wonder if there is a correlation.  Young women mostly drove by packed in small American or Japanese imports like Kias and Hyondais.  They mostly waved or didn't seem to notice us.  The shopkeepers were immensely friendly in Moriah, where we got early morning coffee, and in Port Henry, where we got our brunch and late lunch.  Like the waiters and shopkeepers I encountered in Germany, they did not overdo it, nor did they seem interested only in making a sale.  They lacked either the sicky-sweet attentiveness or the condescending, distracted rudeness that alternatively characterize the staff at accommodations in the DC area.  Like the staff in mountainous Bavaria, these mountain folk were genuinely friendly and interested in their customers, but no more so than they would be with a stranger or loose acquaintance on the street.  The ones we met on the street though, were eager to exchange phone numbers or email addresses.  That made me think faintly of Mexico on my earlier visits, when the internet was still new there.  Brett the Mountain Man joked about his internet connection being delivered by pack mule.

I'll miss it. But maybe I'll return. I've no doubt I'd be made to feel welcome.

News from New York

I am up in New York state, here:

Plattsburgh is a nice town. It is the only town in this neck of the woods, for a long ways, in any way. Burlington, Vermont is actually fairly close - but it is across Lake Champlain, the crossing of which requires considerable time waiting for a ferry or to go around the lank, or by the bridge near the Canadian border.  It's not as cold as you'd think, and it's not as "liberal" (what a lie, in its modern usage, that word is!) as the rest of New York is (thought to be, at least).  This congressional district is the largest in the country, geographically speaking, and one of the most sparsely populated.  It is the size of Connecticut, and most of its towns' populations are counted in the hundreds and scores, not in the thousands or tens of thousands.  People here are not rich.  They do not frequent health clubs or expensive universities.  If they want a helping hand, they want it from their neighbor, or from their family or pastor, or maaaaaybe from their mayor - but NOT from their Uncle Sam.  They fear that Uncle Sam would rather be a Big Brother.  I fear with them, and in many things think like those with whom we have spoken.

I am here doing something I have never done before.  I am working in a political campaign.  The GOP apparatchiks decided to put a candidate on the ballot, and God alone knows why, that has nothing to do with the GOP - Dede Scozzafava.  She is pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, and pro-public option.  More mystifying, she has nothing to do with the views of Republicans in the area, evinced by the fact that they are defecting in massive numbers to support a local party's candidate, Doug Hoffman of the Conservative Party.  She trailed increasingly in the poles behind not only the Democratic candidate, but also behind Hoffman. Since bowing out of the election race, she has endorsed the Democratic candidate!

I came up hear to post signs and hand out leaflets for three reasons, even though politics isn't normally my thing:

1. If our democracy is to be healed, we need more political parties, ones that stand for things - anything at all, almost - rather than merely seek power;
2. Big party bosses are entirely out of touch with their constituents in an increasingly obvious and ridiculous way - see above;
3. Our President and his administration and the congress need to be reminded that they were elected as moderates and that their political careers are mortal.

Coincidentally, after the poorly supported Republican candidate's abandonment of the race, most of her supporters seem to be joining up with the Conservative candidate whom the Republican leadership would not nominate.  This additional support is giving him a clear lead in a state where only a plurality of votes is necessary to gain office.  Tomorrow we will stand in the rain and give out leaflets at the polls all day, before driving home.

If you think that this neck of the woods is insignificant, think again.  It was in upstate New York that both the American abolitionist movement and the women suffragist movement were born.  This region might very well the broadcasting hub of all that is good about America, a sort of antithesis to New York City or to Hollywood.

Interesting side note: The people in this region are easily the most intelligent in the country.  They have a thing called Steward's.  Steward's is an coffee and sub shop rolled together with a gas station and a - get this - ice cream shop.  I don't mean that Steward's sells ice cream sandwiches or nutty buddies.  I mean, twenty, thirty flavors that you can mix and match, and a double scoop of their own flavors (which include black raspberry, Fourth of July, and Irish Cream, inter al.) costs a mere $2.50.  When you stop for a fill-up, you can stop for a fill-up!  It's BRILLIANT.  Between the scenery, the nice folks, and the Steward's ice cream, this place is like a piece of heaven.

Polluted Water, Polluted Culture (reprint)

Read this very excellent article.  It ties together environmental degradation, moral collapse, and the tyranny of relativism.  We Christians have to start getting serious about finding ways to resist in our own lives this creeping destruction, ways to create safe spaces in our culture, ways to fertilize the gospel with our lives so that it can grow in this increasingly barren soil we call the West.

Click to see full-size graphic from the Denver Post.

More on the Concert

The concert was great.  Here are some random, unorganized recollections and reflections.

U2 did a good mix of old and new.  That is very much their style: classic because unchanging on some substratum, but yet always keeping up with the times, and never mindlessly following them.

I would have liked to hear "Angel of Harlem" but am happy to exchange that experience for what I did get: Bono sang a medley in honor of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a hero of mine, that started off with the first verse of "Amazing Grace," sang reverently and beautifully.  The whole audience joined in.  So much for America not being a Christian nation.  The medley transitioned into "Beautiful Day," causing the audience to explode and join in.  He sang other songs in tribute to the following people, perhaps among others I missed, and in no particular order:

• Bishop Desmond Tutu;
• President George W. Bush (no joke - in gratitude for Pres. Bush's previously unsung but heroic efforts against malaria in Africa - people were stunned into silence by this tribute, but they loved the song, so it was OK); and
• Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma.

Bono was not explicit with his own Christian faith, not in the sense of preaching at the audience - it wasn't a revival and faith witness - but he was really unabashed about it his Christian beliefs and spiritual anchoring.  That was cool.  Cardinal McCarrick was in attendance and got one of the first shout-outs.  Rumor has it that Bono and the Cardinal are fans of each other and have met on a number of occasions.  The late Holy Father John Paul II also had such a relationship, more visible, with the Rock Star.  That relationship went so far as to include gift exchanging, as if Bono were a head of state.

Last night at the concert, when Bono introduced the band, he gave each of the band members titles: Secretary of Defense, etc., making Larry Mullens, Jr. into the leader of the opposition party, for example, and announcing himself as majority leader of the Nation-State of U2.  He ended his introductions by speaking a bit about how much he likes Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, having visited the region a number of times aside from his concert tours.  Naturally, the crowds enjoyed these compliments.  He also praised America, and thanks Americans for "the idea of America."  That's very Chestertonian of him.  G. K. Chesterton wrote in What I Saw in America something to the extent that "whereas other countries are bloodlines, America is an idea," the idea of democracy and plurality in harmony - what Holy Father Benedict has called America's healthy secular ideal - in opposition to the atheistic secularism in Europe, and gaining ground even here under the cover of the older kind of civic life that called itself secular once.

They sang all the staples in their canon, some that you might not expect, like "Vertigo", some of the stuff from All That You Can't Leave Behind ("Beautiful Day" was for Eunice; thinking of her makes me choke up sometimes; God rest her well), and a couple songs from their new album.  I especially enjoyed hearing "Moment of Surrender" played.

The graphic and special effects were out of this world.  Just amazing.

The Modern World

e.e. cummings is an amazingly sharp critic. A weird grammarian that makes Emily Dickinson look normal, and himself no saint, still he has a depth of perception that is badly needed in the Postmodern World in which we live. Following one publisher, I have coded a bad word as Greek characters. If you can't make it out, don't worry about it. If you can, don't be offended. Enjoy.

Jehovah buried, Satan dead,
do fearers worship Much and Quick;
badness not being felt as bad,
itself thinks goodness what is meek;
obey says toc,submit says tic,
Eternity's a Five Year Plan:
if Joy with Pain shall hang in hock
who dares to call himself a man?

go dreamless knaves on shadows fed,
your Harry's Tom,your Tom is Dick;
while gadgets murder squawk and add,
the cult of Same is all the chic,
by instruments,both span and spic,
are justly measured Spic and Span:
to kiss the mike if Jew turn kike
who dares to call himself a man?

loudly for Truth have liars pled,
their heels for Freedom slaves will click;
where Boobs are holy,poets mad,
illustrious punks of Progress shriek;
when Souls are outlawed,Hearts are sick,
Hearts being sick,Minds nothing can:
if Hate's a game and Love's a
who dares to call himself a man?

King Christ,this world is all aleak;
and lifepreservers there are none:
and waves which only He may walk
Who dares to call himself a man.