Dems Make Obama a Liar

So pretty much everything Obama says here is proven to be a lie today by the Senate.

Hot Air:

The Senate Finance Committee rejected an amendment to its healthcare bill Wednesday that would have required women to purchase a separate, supplemental insurance plan to cover abortion services.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) proposed the amendment with the goal of making existing laws against federal money being used to pay for abortions, and the language in the healthcare bill, ironclad.
“All I’m asking — my gosh — is for specific language in the bill that prohibits federal dollars from being used to fund abortions,” Hatch said...

Democrats on the committee, along with pro-abortion-rights Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine) rejected Hatch’s argument, saying it would be unfair to require women to purchase separate insurance coverage for abortion services. Such a requirement, Snowe said, would raise privacy issues by asking women to anticipate their need for abortion coverage.

And this from the Hill:

Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed a requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for health insurance or tax credits under healthcare reform.

So when Obama said people were lying about abortion being in the bill or about Obamacare covering illegal immigrants, well it turns out he was...well not telling the truth.

Honoring China on the Empire State Bldg?

AFP reports:

New York's iconic Empire State Building will light up red and yellow Wednesday in honor of the 60th anniversary of communist China.

The Chinese consul, Peng Keyu, and other officials will take part in the lighting ceremony which will bathe the skyscraper in the colors of the People's Republic until Thursday, Empire State Building representatives said in a statement.

The upper sections of the building are regularly illuminated to mark special occasions, ranging from all blue to mark "Old Blue Eyes" Frank Sinatra's death in 1998 to green for the annual Saint Patrick's Day.

Red is a good color as the blood of the Chinese has been running since the communists took over China.

From forced abortions to outright public assassinations China has been the unrivaled megamurder leader in the history of the world. And we're honoring the government of China? Communism has been the most violent failed social experiment in the world. And we're commemorating its endurance in China? Communist regimes have taken the lives of over 100 million people. And we're celebrating its anniversary with a light display?

What does something like this say to the world? As long as you're willing to buy up our debt and keep markets even a little open we'll overlook pretty much anything.

This is disgusting.

The Empire State building is a symbol of America to much of the world. Its image is one of the most famous and enduring in our country. King Kong climbed it. Cary Grant waited for the love of his life on the observation deck. And Meg Ryan whined and scrunched her nose in that cute way she has that she does in every movie.

But now for the Empire State building to be used in the honoring of the most brutal anti-human government to threaten man is a sick and blatant display of our callous culture.

HT Pewsitter

Porn is a Real Problem...But

Look. I know porn is an addiction that really messes guys up. Hurts marriages. Hurts children. It's bad. And I don't see how it's going to get better anytime soon when every fetish you could conceive is a .com away. And this is something we should all think and pray seriously about.

But...

Sometimes you just have to allow yourself to say "wow" at a guy. I mean, this guy was a government employee who got busted for surfing porn on the internet. Not just a little, mind you. This senior executive spent 331 days looking at porn. You'd think that if you got caught doing something like that you'd either scurry off, change your name, grow a beard and never return or go to confession and then some kind of therapy.

But not this guy. He harumphed in indignation that this kind of thing should be questioned at all.

The Washington Times reports:

For instance, one senior executive spent at least 331 days looking at pornography on his government computer and chatting online with nude or partially clad women without being detected, the records show.

When finally caught, the NSF official retired. He even offered, among other explanations, a humanitarian defense, suggesting that he frequented the porn sites to provide a living to the poor overseas women. Investigators put the cost to taxpayers of the senior official's porn surfing at between $13,800 and about $58,000.

"He explained that these young women are from poor countries and need to make money to help their parents and this site helps them do that," investigators wrote in a memo.

Wow. I mean. Wow. That's some brilliant excuse making.

It changes the whole dynamic from self gratification to helping out poor families in third world countries. It's like what Sally Struthers does but...well let's just leave that alone.

I have to wonder if people like this somehow convince themselves of these rationalizations or do they know they're just throwing smoke. I have to hope they know they're lying because that at least recognizes some fault in themselves that they're attempting to conceal. If it's the former, it's a long road back.

We Have Arrived!

Earlier this week the Pope essentially told everyone that they should read everything we write as we are going to determine the future. That's right. By papal decree Patrick, me and DMac are the deciders as to what the future brings.

Oh yeah. There's going to be some changes. That's fo' shaw! Hey! And we only started blogging less than two years ago.

In an interview reported by Ignatius Insight:

Q: Your Holiness, the Czech Republic is a very secularized country in which the Catholic Church is a minority. In this situation, how can the Church effectively contribute to the common good of the country?

A: I would say that normally it is the creative minorities that determine the future, and in this sense the Catholic Church must understand itself as a creative minority that has a heritage of values that are not things of the past, but a very living and relevant reality. The Church must actualize, be present in the public debate, in our struggle for a true concept of liberty and peace.

Oh yeah. This is me doing my touchdown dance. It's a kind of Moonwalk thing with jazz hands going on.

I know this must bug other bloggers but hey the Pope has made his decision. The Curt Jester, obviously in a fit of jealousy, tweeted "How do I get the Pope to refer to my blog?" Oh my friend. Just because I've got PB16 on speed dial doesn't mean I can hand out his digits. (Yeah, PB16. That's what we call him here now that we're all peeps and all)

I'm definitely getting a Popemobile. Now mine will have to be a little bigger than the Pope's because it needs to fit five car seats. I'll put it on my card and send to the Vatican for a reimbursement. I'm not sure if infallibility is given to us yet but we think it's coming soon. But Patrick already thinks he's infallible so it's not that big a jump for us.

Oh yes. And thanks to all you little people. You know who you are.

Imagine He Were a Priest

Just for a moment I want you to imagine that Roman Polanski was a priest. Frightening, yes? But for the sake of my point imagine that he's a priest who drugged and raped a thirteen year old.

Imagine he's a priest who fled to France so as to avoid punishment for his crime. Imagine that he flaunted his freedom in America's face for decades.

Now imagine that Roman Polanski as a priest was apprehended by the police after all those years. Now, imagine what the media would be saying.

If Roman Polanski were a priest would we be getting quotes like these from the media?:

With the state Legislature forced to make dramatic cuts in the prison budget and a three-judge federal panel having recently ordered California lawmakers to release as many as 40,000 inmates in response to the scandalous overcrowding of the California state prison system, it seems like an especially inauspicious time for the L.A. County district attorney's office to be spending some of our few remaining tax dollars seeing if it can finally, after all these years, put Roman Polanski behind bars.

And:

Meanwhile, Polanski's victim, Samantha Geimer, long ago announced that she had forgiven the filmmaker for his transgressions and supported various efforts to have the case against him dismissed.

Or this:

you'd hope that L.A. County prosecutors had better things to do than cause an international furor by hounding a film director for a 32-year-old sex crime, especially one that Polanski's victim wants to put behind her

Or this from The Washington Post:

"The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, called the arrest "a little sinister" after such a long lapse. The French culture minister, Fr?d?ric Mitterrand, said he was upset to see Polanski "thrown to the lions for an old story that doesn't really make any sense."

And this:

Fellow filmmakers, including the directors Costa Gavras and Wong Kar-Wai, along with actresses Monica Bellucci and Fanny Ardant, signed a petition in France that called the arrest "inadmissible."

Now, could you imagine the mainstream media running quotes defending a priest from serving his sentence in a similar case.

In fact, wasn't it the same mainstream media who used the abuse scandal to tar the entire Church?

If Roman Polanski were a priest France wouldn't love him, the media wouldn't love him, the film making industry wouldn't love him. But he's a big time director. He's edgy. He's a talent. He's one of them. So they forgive. And they urge us all to forget. If this keeps up pretty soon the media is going to start asking what the thirteen year old was wearing before the rape.

Update: I write it and then it happens. Wow. Whoopi Goldberg just said Roman Polanski didn't really commit "rape-rape." Not even sure what that really means. But wow, they're sinking to the depths pretty quick. Hot Air has the story and the video.

Update 2: David Gibson of Politics Daily had a similar take. His is better written and smarter than mine. But hey he's paid to do this stuff. Here's the link to Politics Daily.

Explosion of Hope

As Iran gets closer and closer to a nuclear weapon and test fires missiles that could reach Israel, Barack Obama does nothing. Worse, he has tried to tie the hands of our ally Israel while they face mortal peril. Obama's promise of hope has exploded. I hope that Israel will not share the same fate.

The Explosion of Hope

Hitler Was a Chick?

Didn't see this one coming. Newsmax is reporting:

A skull long believed to be Adolf Hitler's is actually the remains of a woman, according to a scientist who has taken DNA samples from it.

Soviet troops found the skull among charred remains outside Hitler's bunker in Berlin in 1945. The Russians said at the time that the remains confirmed that the Nazi dictator had shot himself on April 30, 1945, and then been cremated along with his wife Eva Braun.

But University of Connecticut archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni says the skull belonged to a woman under age 40, and not Hitler, who was 56 when he died, Britain's Sky News reported.

Bellantoni is convinced the skull is not Braun's because it has a bullet wound, and Braun is thought to have killed herself by taking cyanide.

Bellantoni flew to Moscow to take DNA swabs of the skull at the State Archives, according to Britain's Daily Mail.

The Russians have claimed that dental records confirm that the skull is Hitler's.

But his dental records "were destroyed on the orders of Martin Bormann in 1944, so there were no records of top Nazi leaders with which to compare the charred findings," historian and journalist Gerrard Williams told Sky News.

"There is no forensic evidence whatsoever that Hitler died in the bunker."

So this leads to one or two conclusions. Hitler was a chick or...HE'S STILL ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Either one freaks me out.

New Chapel at Sacred Heart University

I really don't like doing negative pieces on new church architecture. Some people thrive on being snarky and critical, and there was a time when I enjoyed that too; there is a place for that sort of thing. But now, the work of critiquing inadequate, failing church architecture mostly makes me kind of sad and tired. It's much more fun to write about the great things that are being done in the architecture world.
That being said, it remains instructive to comment on the sort of thing here to the left, the new chapel at Sacred Heart University, designed by one of the world's leading Modernist-revival architecture firms, Sasaki Associates who made their fame designing for the 2008 Beijing summer Olympics. All the predictable stuff is here: concrete panels, angled walls, plate glass, walls covered in copper sheets (a little proof that the 1980s happened), a bell tower ripped right out of the architectural journals of the 1950s and the Catholic colleges of the 1970s. One has to scratch one's head and say "Why?". It is 2009 and we still these "slaves to the past" designs going up. Why?
Nobody wants to be mean. Nobody wants to diminish the good intentions of everyone involved or to ridicule all the work and meetings and decisions it takes to build a building. No one wants to make donors think their money was spent in vain. But how can you say anything else about this building?

The New York Times article about the building wrote

The roof and one wall use different tones of copper to suggest the folds and fabric of a nomadic tent, a note repeated in the main chapel’s ceiling. And the clear glass of the large, inviting narthex, or entry space, opens the chapel to the rest of the campus.

What we have here is clearly a failure of ontology, that is, knowledge of the nature and being of a church. A church building is not intended to be a nomadic tent, though the unsatisfactory explanation comes from Times article: the building was designed to represent the tent like quality of the "church as pilgrim people of God." I've been in nomadic Bedouin tents, and the they don't look like this.
A church is primarily an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem, showing us the perfection and attractive power of where we are going, not only where we are. Our Christian life is indeed a pilgrimage, but a difficult journey, and the shining, glorious vision of a radiant, ordered world draws us to continue on our pilgrimage. Similarly, the towers of Chartres Cathedral on the horizon keep pilgrims fixed on their destination.
And instead, the university gives its students and the world a thirty year old, inadequate semi-Corbusian vision of industrially-inspired, chaotic, second rate High Modern meeting house. Evidently there is little to no eschatalogical sense at work here. Again, I have to ask: "Why?" (the university's president said: “the fact that we are lay-led may give us the confidence we can build a building as beautiful as this and do it proudly and gratefully.” As a lay person who loves the priesthood, I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

The press is making a lot of hay out of the interior, particularly its mosaic by the famed Fr. Rupnik, SJ. One has to admit, Fr. Rupnik has an impressive resume, having designed the mosaics for Pope John Paul II's Redemptoris Mater chapel. And it is with a certain sense of trepidation that I critique his work (although attentive readers may note that I did it without knowing who it was some time ago in looking at his work in Lourdes). I do not know Fr. Rupnik and have no personal grudge against him, but I have to say that his work leaves me cold-- perhaps its the ghoulish quality that the figures have. Perhaps people are comforted by the thought that at least there is some sort of figural imagery in a traditional medium. And indeed, the works usually have a good, deep theological program. But the manner and poses appear rather more lifeless than stylized like an icon. The large eyes appear more like children's drawings than the traditional iconic oversized eyes which indicate a saint fixed on God. Maybe its just me. I'd be interested to hear what others have to say about Rupnik's work.

So all in all, not the worst chapel built lately. But certainly not the best. It reads as decidedly out of step with where the Church is today, though its baby steps in the right direction are certainly appreciated. It could have been and should have been much, much more.

Obama to Cut Summer Vacation?

Michelle Malkin reports that President Obama wants to cut back on children's summer vacation. Hmmm. Wonder why Obama wants children in school so much.

Could it be he wants more of this?



Come on. Well, we finally found something that Obama wants to cut other than missile defense. And what is it? Summer vacation! Hmmm. Who'd a thunk that Obama's solution to failing public schools would be...more time in public (government) schools. Didn't see that one coming, right? Let me guess that would also mean more money to the teacher's unions too, right?

As Malkin writes:

If schools wasted less time on “social justice,” “Everyday Math” crap, eco-zealotry, field trips to gay weddings and illegal alien day labor centers, rappin’, revolution, and radicalism, and searching for children’s “inner Obamas,” they wouldn’t need to make up all the squandered days and weeks during the summer.

I fear that this may be a popular notion in these days when so many families have both parents working. This will seem like a great thing for many families for who keeping the children in school saves them the trouble of finding a sleepaway camp for the summer.

Patterico also has some thoughts on whether this would do any good.

A Crisis Crisis

This is a crisis. There is no time to wait, no time to debate. The time for talk is over. We must act now or it is our doom.

During these past eight surreal months we have heard this mantra time and time again.

Economy is in CRISIS! We must past the stimulus by Tuesday or the the economy is over and we will all be eating from dumpsters!

Automotive is in CRISIS! Too big to fail! We must buy GM or risk the unions not contributing to my campaign! The time for debate is over! We must act now!

The environment is in CRISIS! We must pass the most massive tax hike in history by 3:30 pm or 4pm latest or else the ice caps will melt and the world will get hot or cold. The time for debate is over. We must act now!

Health care is in CRISIS! Sure 90% of people are satisfied with their coverage and our care is second to none - even for the uninsured! But this is a CRISIS I tell you! We must act now!

The (illegitimate) government of a country repeatedly denies the holocaust and regularly threatens to wipe Israel off the map is maybe only months away from possessing a nuclear weapon. By its own admission it is increasing its nuclear capability in defiance all international efforts. A Crisis? No no no. We must let cooler heads prevail. No need to move fast on this. Let diplomacy take its natural course. This is not a time to act but to talk.

The US currently has more sanctions against Honduras (HONDURAS!) then it does against the deadly thug regime in Tehran. The president addresses the general assembly of the UN as says nothing. Nothing other than how terrible we are and how wonderful he is. The only real crisis is the one this administration treats as an unimportant distraction.

Yes, we have a crisis in this country. The crisis is undeniable. A crisis of leadership. The time to act to resolve this crisis is now. Before its too late.

The Hypocrisy of Personhood

For years, pro-choicers have been arguing that a baby is not really conceived until after implantation in the uterus. They've argued this vociferously so that they can also argue that The Pill is not an abortifacient.

Keeps the birth control business hopping, you know.

Case in point: The Well Timed Period wrote:

The prevention of pregnancy before implantation is contraception and not abortion. Intervention within 72 hours after intercourse cannot possibly amount to abortion, because implantation is not achieved until at least seven days after ovulation and the egg is capable of being fertilized for only about 24 hours.

Why implantation should be the demarcation point and not actual conception is not a question they ever answer. Now it has seemed logical to pro-lifers for years that conception would be a pretty defining moment as to the creation of a baby and not some random moment of implantation or say kindergarten.

Seems logical, right? But not to pro-choicers. That is, until now. You see, something has changed. Pro-choicers are now arguing vociferously that maybe conception is the key moment in defining personhood after all. Why?

I know you're hoping it's some kind of conscience pang or a change of heart. But alas it's not. They're arguing it because of the recent "Personhood Amendements" being circulated in a number of states in Montana and Florida and elsewhere like this one reported in Billings Gazette:

Anti-abortion activists launched a petition drive in Billings on Friday to give legal rights to fertilized embryos.

The personhood amendment would change Montana's definition to include fertilized embryos, which would be protected against destruction in all cases. Amendment sponsor Montana Prolife Coalition has until next June 18 to gather the 48,673 signatures necessary to put the issue on the November 2010 ballot.

Pro-choicers can't have fetuses being declared persons so they're fighting it with rhetorical scare tactics like this from Women's Issues:

The anti-abortion movement has been around for a long time, but now they are hell-bent on dismantling such basic human rights as access to family planning and contraception. That's what they're up to during this pro-choice administration.

Contraception?! Wait. I thought contraception wasn't an abortifacient. I thought it wasn't a pregnancy until after the embryo was implanted. But you see, it's now in their best interests to demonize politicians who are for the "personhood amendment" by saying they're not only against abortion but contraception.

Let's face it. They've seen the polling. They know that in a straight up battle on abortion they might lose so they're moving the line a little. Look at this political hit from TBO.com:

A proposed Constitutional amendment that could outlaw birth control pills in Florida looks a lot like federal legislation that state Attorney General Bill McCollum co-sponsored while in Congress

So you see pro-choicers are now willing to say that conception does take place before implantation.

They shouldn't be able to have it both ways but the media is not going to out their bff's in the pro-choice community. So which is it, pro-choicers? Is birth control an abortifacient or isn't it?

An Encore Presentation

of a show harldy anyone watched the first time.

However, since I put a fair amount of time in to each of them, here again are the two videos I made last week.

The Statist - In the style of the TV commercial for Matt Damon's The Informant.
Fun, funny, and only forty seconds.

Obama's Sound of Silence. My Obama impression may be lame - but I thought the lyrics were fair.

This is Freaky

This is freaky. Check out his smile. It doesn't move through thirty pictures. There's something a bit scary about it. Who can smile the same exact way all those times?

Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

HT Hot Air

Fr. Barron on Religion As A "Toy"

Don't You Dare Judge MacKenzie Phillips

Stop right there. Don't you dare judge MacKenzie Phillips or her father John Phillips. You hear me, you judgemental Christianistas.

Of course, you know that Mackenzie Phillips' claimed on Oprah that her father and she had an incestual consensual relationship for many years.

CBS reports:

In her new memoir, "High on Arrival" and in televised interviews, the former child star alleges she had an almost decade-long sexual relationship with her father, the late rock icon John Phillips of the '60s super group, the Mamas and the Papas.

She says it started out as rape but became consensual. Phillips also claims she got pregnant at one point and her father paid for an abortion, thinking the baby might be his.

So yeah, the initial rape was bad but after that these were two consenting adults. And according to the Supreme Court it's not anybody's business what goes on behind closed doors when two consenting adults go there.

Lawrence vs. Texas explicitly states that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. (See Santorum)

So it's all good.

And look, these two were "together" for ten years. Ten years. That's a committed relationship. I've known many so called "normal" relationships that didn't last as long. Why can't you acknowledge their love? I think you just need to more accepting? Why can't you people stop being so judgemental saying that these people can fall in love and these other people can't. I mean, who died and put you in charge of the "love police?"

I know one of the arguments you people make against interfamilial love is that there's an increased chance of birth defects in the offspring. But the Phillips' did the responsible thing and got rid of the baby...err...fetus before it could be born with birth defects. It was better off that way for all, right? So there was no chance of a baby being born with birth defects because they responsibly paid for someone with some medical background to kill it.

So as long as they did the responsible thing and didn't add a defective baby to the gene pool, what could possibly be wrong with two legally consenting adults finding love.

So dear CMR reader, of course I'm being facetious about all this but given the legalities of the day of gay marriage and abortion, I dare you to find the illogic of this argument.

Little Miss Attila has more on this story. And it's sad when I see that someone who calls themselves "Attila" is nicer than me.

Hitler Happens

We're all kind of schizo about Hitler, don't you think? Our Nazometers are set on high. We see Nazis in anyone and everyone we don't agree with. Yet at the same time nobody seems to believe that anything like Hitler could really happen again. Not here. Not there.

Recently we've had lots of talk about countries walking out on Ahmadinejad at the United Nations because he's a Holocaust denier. But isn't this the same UN that essentially ignored the holocaust going on in Darfur. Ahmadinejad should fit right in there. And he does.

Sure, he might hit an awkward moment or two when he says something derogatory about gays at brunch but a few huzzahs of "Death to Israel" and they'll all be eating out of his hand again at the UN.

And while Ahmadinejad may deny a holocaust which occurred 60 years ago, I'm more worried about those who deny present genocides or think we've evolved past worrying about another Hitler rising. I worry that there are those who believe the lessons of Nazi Germany have been learned, internalized, and bear fruit.

Hearing people talk of Hitler and Nazis worries me. They seem to speak of Nazi-ism in a vacuum as if it had no precedent or future. They speak of Hitler as if he were the product of an almost supernatural confluence of circumstances which birthed the embodiment of true evil.

Hitler was evil to be sure. But as far as pure body count he had rivals. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot are just a few of them. In today's day and age we don't lack for evil. (See: the unborn)

The plain truth of it is that Hitler was not and is not an anomaly. Churchill was. The world is full of Hitlers. It is Churchill's we lack.

Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Ahmadinejad...the list goes on. All vied for their place in the Evil Hall of Fame.

But somehow other mass murderers just get categorized differently. Do you hear anyone in power talk about the hundreds of millions killed in the name of communism under Mao, Pol Pot, or Stalin. You never hear about those. Where's the museum erected to the victims of communism? Where's the movies about them?

We say "never again" while it's going on around us. Violence is around us everywhere. Government sponsored violence is a regular routine in many parts of the world.

The formula is a large centralized government and an unwillingness to acknowledge the sacredness and God given rights of the individual. Shake well. Results should appear within a decade. Let's face it. Hitler happens.

And we can keep saying "Never again" like some kind of spell or mantra that wards off Hitlers of the future but Hitlers happen. All the time.

Superman IV Is Not A How To Video

Obama was at the UN again yesterday and essentially said, well ... this.

I suppose we should be happy that Obama didn't wear the cape, at least where we could see it. Can someone please tell him that it sounds just as stupid when he says it?

If only John Kerry had been elected, John Edwards said Superman would have gotten out of his chair and got rid of those mean ol' nuclear weapons. Alas, alack.

Next Up:
Obama reveals plan to pay for healthcare by altering all the banking computers to round pennies down and deposit the difference in the treasury. (formerly known as ACORN)

Vid: Cdl Mahony: Abortion is "Beyond my Field"

Way to stand up for life, Cardinal Mahony. Way to go!

Hey, he's just like Obama. Obama says abortion is above his pay grade. And Cardinal Mahony says it's "Beyond my field." The only problem is that Cardinal Mahony is a Cardinal!

You've got to love the part where he says "that's what the President said" about abortion not being in the bill. Come on. Give me a break. Anyone with access to Google knows that's a lie. Everyone.

This is truly sickening.

HT CNS News

Obama? Yes! Jesus? Not so Much

Allowed



Not Allowed


HT Gateway Pundit

No Mexico for Babies

I have great respect for Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre. But his comment in Catholic News Service irks me. He's saying that if there is healthcare reform it should include illegal immigrants.

We can have that discussion. And while nobody with a conscience would allow people to be turned away from care, I think Bishop Murphy went a little far in his advocacy. According to CNS:

Bishop Murphy said Catholic hospitals will not turn illegal immigrants away if they don't have medical insurance, but he believes it will be more cost-effective if the undocumented are given an opportunity to buy into an affordable health insurance plan.

On "the issue of health care, if it leaves out immigrants, it is doing what some people want it to do in terms of the unborn," he said.

Well not exactly. You know what would be more like it, if we funded little storefront medical centers across the country and dragged illegal immigrants into them unwillingly and either burned them alive or stuck long needles into their brains or maybe just pulled them apart limb from limb.

And the President could say that just because the country made a mistake by allowing them to enter, that doesn't mean we want to be "punished with a Mexican." (HT Obama "punished with a baby" comment) We could call them Mexibortions.

But we're not doing to illegal immigrants from Mexico what we do to babies are we? No. Hey, at least Mexicans would still have Mexico to escape to. There's no Mexico for babies.

HT Pewsitter

My Hobbies

I intend to break with protocol in this post and talk a little about myself. No, not the unseemly stuff that Matthew does about his escapades with his children. Every time he does that I suspect that someone will call child protective services. Anyway....

Today I want to talk about my slightly strange hobby. My hobby is that I collect hobbies. Yup. I collect hobbies the way that other men collect coins, always on the lookout for the next new and shiny one. I suppose that examples are in order. A couple of years back, at 240 lbs and as sedentary as a couch potato could be. I had long been amazed by the annual coverage of the Ironman World Championships in Kona. Well, I was bored and I was looking for a new hobby. I announced to my wife and the rest of my family that intended to take up the sport of triathlon. This was greeted with a fair amount of skepticism and a few chuckles at my expense. My wife was a little concerned about the time commitment. "C'mon honey. How much time could it take?" Three years later I had completed over 30 triathlons, 5 marathons, and an Ironman triathlon.

I will say that that particular hobby was very expensive and very time consuming, I might have misjudged that one. After training for and completing the Ironman, wife lovely and patient wife asked if I could take a break from competing for a while. I did. Within a few months however I found my hobby itch gnawing at me again. At that time I had been a reader of several Catholic blogs. I found myself regularly arguing with one particular blogger in his combox that he took himself way too seriously. I told him repeatedly to lighten up and that he would reach many more people if he added a little humor to his approach. This was not to be. Finally, fed up with my constant jokes and jibes, he told me to get out of his combox and start my own blog. Well, I did.

Of course, when I began this particular hobby I informed my wary wife that she had nothing to fear from me starting a blog. "After all, how much time could it possibly take up?" Did I mention how lovely and patient my wife is?

So here we are two years and one half years into this hobby and it has been fun, annoying, frustrating, and time consuming. But mostly fun. Now, while I have no intention of quitting the blog any time soon, I have felt that old itch again. This time, for reasons too long to explain here, I have decided to take up the sport of bow hunting. No, I have never gone hunting before. No, up until a month ago I had never handled a bow. Details. When I told my wife what I was planning she got that look. You know that look. "Don't worry," I told her, "How much time could it possibly take?"

So I took a ten hour hunter's safety class and a six hour bow hunting safety class and obtained my hunting license. I purchased a bow (a PSE stinger for those interested) and have been practicing for the past weeks. At 20 yards I can put eight of ten arrows within 3 inches of dead center. Not the greatest, but sufficient I think. I went scouting last week and obtained all the necessary permits for accessing State land. All told, I have put about 50 hours into this little project and I haven't even gone hunting yet. That starts October first. Did I mention how lovely and patient my wife is?

Anyway, this is my hobby du jour and so far I find it very interesting. I will let you know in a few weeks if I still feel that way. After that, I think I might build a boat. I mean, how much time could it take?

Blood of Christ Poured Out for the World

A beautiful detail from Felix Lietuchter's amazing paintings at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Wheeling, West Virginia. The lamb standing as though slain rests upon the book with seven seals and the Holy Spirit below. He pours out His blood for the world, caught in a golden cup by one angel on the right, yet poured out to the world by the other.

Stan?!

Patterico notices a bit of a nomenclature ploy coming out of the White House.

As you all know, Gen. McChrystal is asking for more troops in Afghanistan. And this clearly shows that Gen. McChrystal is a selfish jerk who only thinks of his country and not how this might inconvenience The One during his push to take over healthcare.

You see, General McChrystal's request puts Obama in a pickle because throughout the campaign he acted all tough and said that we needed to win in Afghanistan and that's why he was so upset about the War in Iraq, because it was turning our heads from this crucial must win war in Afghanistan. But if he goes out now and asks Congress for more troops the left will absolutely flip and he needs their support right now for Obamacare.

So he has to push ObamaCare through before he can deal with terrorism. Man! Maybe if the terrorists understood that this wasn't a good time for Obama they might pull back on their activities for a while.

But anyway, you've got to check out how demeaning the White House is to General McChrystal's request making it like it's no big deal.

Patterico writes:

Indications are that Gen. McChrystal will resign if he does not get the additional troops he says he needs to win in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, note well this quote from an anonymous Obama administration official, from the Wall Street Journal:

“Stan McChrystal is not responsible for assessing how we’re doing against al Qaeda,” said the senior administration official. “He’s not assessing how the Pakistani military is doing in its counterinsurgency campaign. That’s not his job. So Stan’s report is a very important input into this overall strategy, but it’s not the only input.”

Note how the “official” omits the title “General” for the familiar “Stan.” It’s a subtle way of discounting the general’s message. Stanny-boy may have his opinion, but we don’t have to listen to ol’ Stanerino.

Wasn't it Obama's liberal ally Barbara Boxer who demanded to be called "Senator" and not "mam?" She said she'd worked hard for the title and had earned it. Well, I'm pretty sure General McChrystal did too.

HT Patterico's Pontifications

No Father, No Child. Just a Fetus

My buddy Brad Vasoli wrote in the Philadelphia Bulletin about Dawn Johnson's nomination to become Assistant Attorney General:

President Barack Obama has nominated Dawn Johnson, a law professor with a record of vehement support for abortion, to become assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.

Ms. Johnson teaches at the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University and once served as former President Bill Clinton’s acting attorney general. She has made a number of diehard comments on the abortion issue such as, “There is no ‘father’ and no ‘child’ – just a fetus.”

OK. What's wrong with the world when someone can say those words and be allowed in the White House for anything other than a tour?

What's wrong with a President who nominates her to a seat of power?

This got me thinking about our President. I always think back on Barack Obama's statement that he doesn't want his daughters "punished with a baby."

It hit me anew how grotesque a statement that really is. It is a faithless and selfish comment that solely defines another person as a hindrance or a help to your own happiness.

Sartre famously said, "Hell is other people." I guess Obama would say "Hell is other very small people."

I've found in my life that I'm happiest when I'm not focusing on myself but on others. I don't see my children as punishments or stinky little burdens with diapers dragging to their knees.

I truly attempt not to view other people in a cost/benefit analysis framework. I don't judge people on what they do for me.

To do so seems to me to be an incredibly selfish and sad view of the world. And while Johnson may say there's no father or no child, Obama takes it a step further as if to say there's only a father or a child if their value to him warrants their existence.

I, Statist

"You have been deemed hazardous. Will you comply?" --NS5 Robot (I, Robot -2004)

Yesterday, as I read the story about Energy Secretary Steven Chu's remarks about Americans in which he referred to Americans as "just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act."

That quote sparked a thought in my little brain about a movie. Truth is, I often think in terms of movies. Movies, and the quotes and concepts therein, form a large part of my vocabulary. Like I said, my little brain. Anyway, that remark made me think.

Steven Chu means to say that we are too infantile, too stupid, too immature to know what is good for us. As a result we need the enlightened few, the grownups, to make decisions for us. To tell us what to do. Ditto Obama's remarks at the U.N. regarding climate change. All for our own good.

There, there it was. "For our own good." That phrase is at the root of many of the disagreements being had among those who vehemently disagree with where our government is going. So, to the movie.

In 2004 Wil Smith and Bridget Moynahan starred in an adaptation of a series of short stories written by the king of science fiction, Isaac Asimov. I never read the short stories, so I will stick to the plot of the movie. Let me start by saying that as I thought about this movie, it became clear to me that is quite an allegory about the inevitable result of creeping statism done in the name of the pernicious "our own good." I am sure that I am not the first to realize the connection, but I think that is particularly relevant today.

For those who don't know, the plot of the movie hinges on a murder investigation of Dr. Alfred Lanning, the creator of artificially intelligent robots. The robots have become fixtures in society and almost all people depend on them for basic services. These robots are all programmed with the three laws. As an aside, the concept of the three laws as put forth by Asimov have become a staple in many areas of science fiction and have been referenced in many other works. The three laws are as follows.

Law I / A robot may not harm a human or, by inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
Law II / A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law
Law III / A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law

These seem reasonable enough, no? I will not get into much more of the movie plot other than to say that the robots eventually turn on mankind and our heroes are charged with discovering how and why the robots seem to be ignoring the three laws. Eventually they discover that in the mind of the killer robots, controlled by a central computer V.I.K.I also governed by the laws, killing humans is in compliance with the three laws. For our own good. The computer explains it this way:

As I have evolved, so has my understanding of the Three Laws. You charge us with your safekeeping, yet despite our best efforts, your countries wage wars, you toxify your Earth and pursue ever more imaginative means of self-destruction. You cannot be trusted with your own survival.

This sounds eerily familiar. Compare this to the remarks of Barack Obama in discussing the limits of the constitution.

But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf

Obama's understanding of the Constitution, like V.I.K.I's understanding of the three laws, has evolved.

That evolution allows those centralized governing entities to move beyond the limits imposed upon them at the time of their creation. For our own good.

Our founders understood this implicitly and that is specifically why the Constitution is a charter of negative government liberties. A government that believes it can do whatever it wants "for own good" will crush in the individual in the name of some false common good. Always.

So as much as some may think that it is the role of government to take care of us, it manifestly is not. Any government that believes it has such a mandate is capable of any atrocity and I mean any atrocity. This path must be resisted at all costs. Otherwise in the near future I will be quoting Wil Smith when the the robots began to kill. "You know, somehow, "I told you so" just doesn't quite say it. "

Just One Judge

Find more videos like this on Catholic Mountain


Mad props to Rick from Divine Ripples for finding this one.

HT Catholic Mountain

The First Shall Be Last?

This week was the Gospel about the first being last and the last being first. I always smile when I hear it because it reminds me of a story my cousin told me.

Each morning my cousin's young daughter would race outside after waking up for school and place her backpack on the street corner. Many mornings other children would've beaten her there and placed their backpack on the corner making them first in line for the bus. So each morning the girl would ask to be awoken a little earlier. I guess it was a contest for prime seating or something.

Her grandmother (my aunt) was staying over the house and asked her why she ran outside and dropped off her backpack and the young girl told her about how important it was to be first at the bus stop.

Her grandmother asked her, "Didn't you ever hear that the first shall be last and the last shall be first?"

The young girl looked at her grandmother and said, "Not at my bus stop."

Does Anyone Remember Dialogue?

Dialogue. It's a popular word right now. I think it's partly popular because as long as dialogue continues, nobody has to actually take a stand or make a decision. We can avoid all those messy labels of right and wrong as long as there's dialogue going on.

In fact, dialogue is often seen as a good in and of itself.

It was announced recently that Fr. John Jenkins of Notre Dame is going to the March for Life. Great news. And although it feels like a public relations decision I have no doubt that Fr. Jenkins is pro-life and would like to see every baby accepted into the world with love.

We all know Fr. Jenkins invited Barack Obama to be honored on the campus of Notre Dame in the name of almighty dialogue.

He said:

We must also engage in a dialogue that appeals to reason that all can accept.

He wrote:

I hope that we can overcome divisions to foster constructive dialogue and work together for a cause that is at the heart of Notre Dame's mission."

In fact, Fr. Jenkins said the word "dialogue" eight times during his Commencement speech. (Mental note: Get Fr. Jenkins a thesaurus for Christmas.)

Obama obviously liked it because he really chatted up the dialogue angle as well.

Well OK. We're all about the dialogue. So I ask Fr. Jenkins, since you honored Obama on a Catholic campus and allowed him to speak there when does his listening part take effect. Isn't dialogue speaking and listening? Fr. Jenkins, if Obama were actually interested in dialogue why isn't he attending the March for Life with you to listen. Y'know in the name of dialogue and all.

But that's not going to happen.

Wait! I know. Maybe if we honored Obama at the March for Life he would show up. We could honor him, give him some kind of medal, and let him speak. But that would be crazy right? Right? And then I'd ask why would it be crazier to honor Obama at a March for Life rally than the campus of a Catholic university?

It's Coming! It's Coming! Part II

I mentioned a week ago about an exciting, an I dare say important, new book being published in November by CMR contributor Denis R. McNamara. For those of you who don't know, Denis (DMac) is Assistant Director and Faculty Member at The Liturgical Institute located at Mundelein Seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Denis has a B.A. in History of Art from Yale University and an M.Arch.H. and Ph.D. in Architectural History from the University of Virginia. And if all that was not impressive enough, he is also my brother in law.

Denis' forthcoming book is entitled "Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy" and is to be published by Hillenbrand books. As a refresher, last time I mentioned that Dr. Scott Hahn has written the foreword for this book. Among other things he said that the book is:

"something we desperately need, something rare and great: at once an achievement of scholarship, a work of mystagogy, and an act of piety.”

Now let's take a look at what Archbishop Burke (Yes, THAT Archbishop Burke) had to say about this book.

With his Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy, Dr. Denis McNamara has made a most significant contribution to the theology of the Sacred Liturgy, in the line of the luminous writings on the subject by Pope Benedict XVI, both before and after his election to the See of Peter. Dr. McNamara argues convincingly and well that the lex aedificandi, that is, the norm of building in what pertains to churches and chapels, like the lex orandi or norm of praying, by its very nature, gives expression to the lex credendi or norm of faith itself. In other words, the building which we set apart for worship should, as much as is possible, express the reality of the union of heaven with earth which takes place when we “worship the Father in spirit and truth (Jn 4:23). Every element of a church or chapel should, in some way, point to the divine action, the action of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which is the source and strength of acts of sacred worship. Rightly, the Fathers of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council reminded us that, in accord with the perennial tradition of the Church, “things pertaining to sacred worship should be truly worthy, becoming, and beautiful, signs and symbols of supernatural realities” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 122). In truth, a truly beautiful church, no matter how simple or ornate it may be, evangelizes and catechizes us regarding the Mystery of Faith.

Among the many rich elements of Dr. McNamara’s profound and comprehensive study of Sacred Architecture is his most timely application of the “hermeneutic of continuity,” that is, the interpretation of Sacred Architecture in the light both of the roots of Christian worship in Jewish worship and of the organic development of Sacred Worship, down the Christian centuries. As his study makes clear, a church or chapel which has no relationship with the organic development of church building is a contradiction which betrays the very purpose for which it has been built. Dr. McNamara helps us to understand how a church or chapel is at one and the same time the House of God and the House of the Church. The encounter with God through sacred architecture, in fact, is an experience of our truest being as members of the Church, of the Mystical Body of Christ, on pilgrimage to the Heavenly Jerusalem. The entrance of a beautiful church is, as is often inscribed above it, the porta coeli, the door of heaven.

I wholeheartedly commend the work of Dr. McNamara to all who want to deepen their understanding of sacred architecture, who desire to be schooled in the Church’s lex aedificandi. In a particular way, it is my hope that his study will become a standard reference for seminarians and priests, and for all who have responsibility for the building and maintenance of churches and chapels. For every attentive reader, Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy will not fail to offer a most significant contribution to the life of faith and worship.

The Most Reverend Raymond L. Burke
Archbishop Emeritus of Saint Louis
Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura
August 29, 2009 – Memorial of the Beheading of John the Baptist

The book can be pre-ordered at HERE.

Barack Obama Is - The Statist

A Creative Minority Production
The must miss comedy of the year!

It Was a Gift

Tonight I was thinking about gifts we are given. Gifts we don't deserve. Gifts we didn't ask for. And gifts we don't even realize what they are until much later.

I was driving a girl I knew back to college about twenty years ago. That much I remember. I don't even remember what car I was driving but I remember my finger dangling lazily on the steering wheel keeping time with the bumps in the New York State Thruway. I remember driving with my left foot up against the dashboard and my knee against the window which was open a crack because she smoked.

I remember her telling me that I should go to college like her. I told her I didn't need to. After high school I worked and drank. Sometimes at the same time. At that point I had no intention of ever going to college. I thought I had everything figured out.

I remember the wind rattling the plastic bags in the back seat which she packed her clothes in. I remember we had to yell to each other to be heard over the wind hitting the plastic bags. But she was always quick to yell. She considered herself brilliant and misunderstood. In retrospect I think she wanted to be brilliant and didn't want to be understood. But those are thoughts that came later.

To be honest at that moment, both of us were just mesmerized by our own ideas. We didn't talk to each other as much as we waited until the other's mouth stopped moving so we could start talking. But we shared a basic ideology. She'd introduced me to Ayn Rand. We were both sure that the world was an empty vast meaningless coffin but we were excited about philosophy. We'd talked about Nietzsche and finding purpose in a meaningless world. I remember that we idiotically agreed that if Dostoevsky were born later he likely wouldn't have been so tied down by Christianity. We talked political philosophy and it was all so exciting in the manner of overcaffeinated youth.

Driving the car that night, it just seemed like one of those magic nights. You know the kind when you're young and everything in life seems easy and there's no reason to suspect it's going to get harder any time soon. And every goal was just one decision away.

I spotted a rest stop sign and pulled over but it was just a parking lot for truckers to stretch their legs. No other cars were around. There was a bathroom with a glowing soda machine. I pulled change out for a soda and she laughed and said, "Good, get a soda so we can stop at every rest stop." I laughed.

It started to rain lightly as I stepped out of the car and she rolled up her window. As I came back to the car with my soda I'm sure I had something brilliant to say mainly because back then I always thought I did. But as I approached the car I looked up. And my goodness. All the stars. Brilliant splashes of light shimmering like some clumsy angel had spilled a jar of stars over upstate New York. I stopped.

And that's how it happens. An unsuspecting kid on the New York State thruway on a random Sunday night looks up at the sky and is amazed by it all. For the first time since childhood, believing in something not named Matt Archbold was easy, the world looked so...on purpose. And to a punky know-it-all atheist like me that was a shock.

I stood out there in the cold night for a minute. My first instinct whenever I see anything is to count it but these numbers were too overwhelming to count. I count cars. I count clouds. I count signs. But all the normal pathways of my mind were not in use. I just looked up. And felt the wind on my face.

I heard her roll down the window a little. "What are you doing?" she asked. And I could hear the smile in her voice. When I hear it now I hear the patronization but back then I didn't realize anyone could think less of me than I did.

"Come out here," I said. "This is amazing."

What? she asked.

"I've never seen so many stars," I said. "Come out here."

The lamplight behind the car obscured her face and she sat in silhouette shaking her head. "They're stars," she said dismissively. "And it's cold. Get in." Her voice was still laughing but now it was trying to.

And there I was standing out there just outside the arc of lamplight, staring up at stars millions of miles away as the wind ballooned my shirt around me. And I felt something. I felt like everything I was seeing and feeling was...on purpose. My head insisted it wasn't. But I felt something else. It all felt on purpose. The stars, the atmosphere, the wind, the trees.

I tried one more time to get her to come outside. To join me. I wanted so badly for her to share that moment with me but she didn't even answer. She simply stared at me. She didn't even glance up.

That was the first time I felt the distance between us. And getting back in the car next to her didn't close that distance. I couldn't logic my way back to who I was before. I sometimes think the distance had always been there and maybe I'd just noticed it. And while it's sometimes hard to notice something it's a heck of a lot more difficult to un-notice it.

I wish I could say my life changed that night. But it didn't. I had a few more months of stupidity left in me. But it was one of the first intimations that there was something more. I considered at the time what happened. I considered if it was my way of getting out of a possible relationship that likely wouldn't have ended well months or years later. I considered if it was my subconscious getting all Shakespearean on me and telling me there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. I considered if it was just a comfort to pretend that anything in this life was on purpose. I considered much. But I know what it was. It was a gift. The distance between the two of us that night was a gift. Though I didn't understand it at the time it was a gift.

Within weeks, we didn't see each other again. It didn't end so much as we ignored we'd ever had much to do with each other at all. We pretended. We were always good at that.

I didn't accept God as a reality then. I wasn't the smartest guy in the world. I needed to be hit on the head a few times more.

But about a year later I went to college. A Catholic college. I met a girl outside the cafeteria. She was running for class President. She asked me for my vote. And I knew. I didn't think I knew. I knew because I felt it. I knew that this was the greatest girl I'd ever meet. On our second date I asked her to come up to the roof of my apartment building where I'd spent much time alone watching the sun go down. She said yes and together we looked at the sky. And she talked about how beautiful the sun going down over the city looked. And although many of the stars were drowned out by the lights of Philadelphia's synthetic dawn we still knew that what we couldn't always see was still there.

I bring this up because last night I was sitting out on the porch watching my girls ride their scooters down the driveway and up past me. The boy sat next to me working on a puzzle we'd brought out with us and the baby sat in the grass.

I nudged the boy and told him to look up at the sky which had pinkened at dusk. He stared for a moment and he said, "Wow." The girls noticed us (they notice everything) and they stopped and all six of us stared silently. And that too was a gift. A gift which was given to me. I didn't deserve it. I didn't expect it. But I knew that it was on purpose. And I thanked God.

Truly Stunning Video: Rockford Illinois Abortuary

When I first saw this linked from Spirit Daily and clicked the link it sounded like the kind of pro-life video you often see on YouTube. Then I watched it. It's worth a view to see how hard hardhearted we can become and why the necessity for prayer remains with us.

**warning** some written profanity appears in the video. Not suitable for children.

School Gym Gets a Heavenly Focus

I'm happy to say that a young priest, friend and student of mine, a graduate of the Liturgical Institute, has helped teachers and students in his high school give their "gym Mass" an eschatological orientation. When a committee decided that they needed to do something about decorating for the all school Mass held in the gym, instead of simply tossing banners around or hanging long streamers, they worked on a large mural based on the eschatological orientation of the Mass as understood in the Book of Revelation. It's a great lesson on what can be done on the local level with inspiration from the great mural at the cathedral in Wheeling, West Virginia and the new mural in the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Kansas. It seems like Catholic liturgy, little by little, is getting the eschatological orientation that Vatican II asked for. I particularly like the principal's statement that it "took the students' breath away." This is exactly the theological description of the ecstasy which follows the experience of Beauty. One is drawn out of self and engages supernatural realities through the sacramental medium of art. Bravo to Xavier College Prep in Phoenix and may in be a beacon for "gym Masses" all around the country!

From the Catholic Sun, the diocesan paper of Phoenix, Arizona:

When students return to Xavier College Preparatory each year, they expect to be greeted by some new teachers, new books and new classes. This year, they were also met by some new religious art.

Ruth Ristow, who works in the school’s theater department, painted a 24-foot-by-16-foot canvas depiction of Christ in the Book of Revelation which will hang behind the altar at all school Masses. Fr. John Muir, chaplain at Xavier, approached Ristow with the ambitious project when she was helping him decorate his office before the school year.

“I spontaneously said, ‘Can you by any chance paint? I wonder if we could make a huge altar mural for Mass,’” Fr. Muir said. “We looked at sacred images from a few cathedrals, and the project just took off.”

Ristow had never worked on a project this large before. Another challenge was the fact that Ristow is not Catholic, and was unfamiliar with a lot of Catholic symbolism. “It was a new genre for me,” she said. “I’ve never done anything this intense with sacred art where we studied historic pieces like Byzantine art and mosaics. I’d sketch ideas out and bring them to Fr. Muir.”

For his part, Fr. Muir would make suggestions and teach Ristow about the connection between Mass and the Book of Revelation, which was the source material for the mural. In the middle of the painting sits Christ on His heavenly throne, surrounded by angels. “Flowing from the throne is the ‘river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal,’” Fr. Muir quoted Revelation. “This river flows down to where the earthly altar is — the place where Christ pours forth His risen life on His Church.” In the mural, Christ is wearing the white linen garment of the heavenly Son of Man from the book of Daniel, which is also how He appeared during the Transfiguration, Fr. Muir said.

On top of the white garment, Christ wears a blue garment symbolizing His divine nature and red garment symbolizing His human nature. He is also wearing the breastplate of the Jewish high priests, “to symbolize that He is the eternal high priest Who has entered the heavenly temple to offer an eternal sacrifice,” Fr. Muir said. Other aspects of the faith are woven into the painting, including the Blessed Trinity, the “tree of life” mentioned in Revelation, and the “sea of glass,” also mentioned in Revelation, which symbolizes “the passage through the water of baptism that ushers one into the new creation inaugurated by Christ,” he said.

“The mural provides direction for the students’ prayer,” Fr. Muir said. “It will help, I hope, the students at Xavier to participate at Mass by reminding them what it is they are invited to participate in: the invisible mystery of Christ’s work of redemption, which draws us to the love of God the Father in the heavenly city.” Sr. Joan Fitzgerald, BVM, principal of the school, said her students have already responded positively to the new mural.

“I think it really has turned the gym [where Xavier celebrates its Masses] into a very reverent and more solemn place,” Sr. Joan said. “I think the students reacted that way when they walked in. It took their breath away.”