"Believing Christians should look upon themselves as such a creative minority and ... espouse once again the best of its heritage, thereby being at the service of humankind at large." --Joseph Ratzinger
O sacred and adorable Trinity, hear our prayers on behalf of our holy Father the Pope, our Bishops, our clergy, and for all that are in authority over us. Bless, we beseech Thee, during the coming year, the whole Catholic Church; convert heretics and unbelievers; soften the hearts of sinners so that they may return to Thy friendship; give prosperity to our country and peace among the nations of the world; pour down Thy blessings upon our friends, relatives, and acquaintances, and upon our enemies, if we have any; assist the poor and the sick; have pity on the souls of those whom this year has taken from us; and do Thou be merciful to those who during the coming year will be summoned before Thy judgment seat. May all our actions be preceded by Thy inspirations and carried on by Thy assistance, so that all our prayers and works, having been begun in Thee, may likewise be ended through Thee. Amen.
Two Maryland abortionists have reportedly been charged with murder by a grand jury in the case where a police search of the clinic revealed a house of horrors where authorities discovered a freezer full of dead babies, the victims of late term abortions.
This, of course, is reminiscent of the Gosnell clinic in Philadelphia where police found babies crammed in jars.
In this case, police reportedly discovered a freezer with 35 late term unborn babies inside, including one believed to have been aborted at 36 weeks.
It’s believed that authorities were first turned on to investigating the clinic when, after botching a late term abortion on a young woman, the doctors, Steven Brigham and Nicola Irene Riley, simply dumped the woman at a local emergency room and were uncooperative and uncommunicative with medical staff there.
Fifty years ago, there were real questions about whether a Catholic could win the presidency, anti-Catholic sentiment being as pervasive as it was. I think, more than anything else, the pro-life movement (lead my Catholics) has changed the landscape forever.
Politically, Catholics and evangelical Protestants are on the same page. We are home team, partners.
Check out this quote from Steve Deace, an influential Christian talk radio host in Iowa, in USA today.
“The only concern I’ve heard about Gingrich’s Catholicism is evangelicals hoping he’s had a sincere, redemptive moment. Back in the day, evangelicals were concerned Catholics would take orders from the pope. Now, given how many liberal Catholic politicians there are, evangelicals want a Catholic who actually does.”
Me too brother, me too. The question for evangelicals and Catholics alike is not "Is he Catholic?" The question is "Does he believe it?"
Well the title just says it all, don't it. We can't let your religious beliefs stand in the way of our monochromatic diversity, now can we?
A principal and his wife have been sacked from a college whose stated aim is to promote multiculturalism because they are white Christians, they claim.
Professor Malory Nye, 47, says he was dismissed from the Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education in Dundee, Scotland, because his race and religion were seen by his superiors as a threat to its core Muslim values.
He says the college’s claims to pursuing multicultural values were a charade and that he was dismissed so he could be replaced by aMuslim.
This is the story of a long lost ring. But the ring had a mind of its own. It wanted to be found. And eventually it was found. No, not that story, this one...
After 16 years, Lena and Ola Påhlsson, who reside near Mora, Dalarna, in central Sweden, had given up hope of ever finding Lena's lost wedding ring.
The ring, which Lena had designed herself, went missing after she had put it on the kitchen counter in midst of a holiday baking session back in 1995.
The couple engaged in a frantic search for the ring, even checked behind the appliances and beneath the floor boards when renovating the kitchen a few years later, but to no avail.
But as Lena was about to gather the last of the carrots from the family vegetable patch last October, she pulled out a carrot that had something attached to it.
As the carrot was so small, she was about to throw it away when she realized what it was that appeared to be “growing” around the finger-sized vegetable.
Roman Catholic bishops in Illinois have shuttered most of the Catholic Charities affiliates in the state rather than comply with a new requirement that says they must consider same-sex couples as potential foster-care and adoptive parents if they want to receive state money. The charities have served for more than 40 years as a major link in the state’s social service network for poor and neglected children.
The bishops have followed colleagues in Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts who had jettisoned their adoption services rather than comply with nondiscrimination laws.
The battle for religious freedom is the civil rights battle of the century.
Either way, though, let’s not forget the broader picture: The decision of the Illinois legislature to initiate the requirement in the first place — knowing it would hamstring Catholic Charities, which provides essential services — demonstrates an appalling willingness to allow an adult agenda — the mainstream acceptance of gay behavior — to supersede children’s interests. The spokesman for the state’s child welfare agency has said he thinks the child welfare system Catholic Charities helped to build is strong enough to withstand CC’s departure. But it’s hard to believe the shuttering of so many CC affiliates won’t make the burden of finding a home for children in need even greater.
Obama very popular among those who use religion as a punchline. But on the other hand, Rasmussen reports that people who take their faith seriously think Obama's a joke:
Opinions about President Obama are divided sharply along lines of faith and religious participation.
New Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveying of likely U.S. Voters shows that the president earns a job approval rating of 58% among those who rarely or never attend church or religious services. However, among those who attend services every week or nearly every week, just 38% offer their approval. Among those who attend more than one service a week, approval is even lower at 31%.
Anyone else noticing that Obama's been going to church lately? Ya' think maybe the two things are related?
We have been saying for weeks that this could happen. A late break by Santorum could erase the plausibility question make Rick the conservative alternative to Mitt. Byron York thinks that may be just what is happening.
There was one candidate that nearly all of them wanted to support, and that was Rick Santorum. But they had a problem with Santorum, too. That problem wasn't about knowledge, or experience, or personal history. No, the problem with Santorum was always electability. Many, many social conservatives said that they wanted to support Santorum but were troubled by his inability to rise about two or three percent support in the polls. If Santorum could just show that he could rise a bit higher, they said, then who knows how much support might come his way?
Now Santorum has done just that. A new CNN/Time poll has Santorum in third place in the Iowa race, with the support of 16 percent of those surveyed. That's up dramatically from the last CNN/Time poll, in early December, which showed Santorum in sixth place, with the support of five percent of respondents.
If Santorum's support really does stand at 16 percent -- and there are always questions about the accuracy of any one poll -- then there is a good chance Santorum will erase remaining doubts among Iowa social conservatives who are eager to support him but worried about electability. And if that happens, Santorum could rise quickly, taking support away from more problematic candidates. In the CNN/Time poll, Gingrich is at 14 percent, Perry 11 percent, and Bachmann nine percent. If those voters believe their own candidate is weakening and that Santorum is a viable alternative, they might well jump to Santorum. His current 16 percent support could increase considerably.
Beyond Iowa, Santorum has significant hurdles to getting the nomination. The biggest, and most reasonable, is the question "Can he beat Obama? He lost in Pennsylvania."
But first things first. He needs to surprise in Iowa and make himself the ABM candidate (Anybody But Mitt). If he does, the scrutiny and attacks will be white hot and vicious. How he weathers the barrage will say a lot about he will handle Obama.
Again, first things first.
Go Rick.
(BTW, if this really happens, it is the official position of CMR, that my endorsement of a few weeks ago is what turned the tide for Rick and I expect a position in the administration. I'm thinking HHS.)
Most of you folks who read CMR regularly know that Matthew and I are not into too much navel gazing. Unlike some other bloggers, we don't often mix it up with negative commenters or write long posts in response. Generally, for good or for bad, we like to let posts speak for themselves. Responding to negative comments can take on a life of its own and almost always results in a poorer and less interesting blog.
But...
This is one time I will make a small exception, not to argue, just to note.
I don't think that I can remember one single post that I have done these last years that has generated the amount of vile spittle-filled hate mail like my Register post of last week "The Death of Pretty."
Wow. Did you know that I am a misogynistic, hate-filled, sexist, patriarchal @#$%!?
To be sure, most of the comments I have received have been positive and I have received many positive emails as well. But I have also received dozens of absolutely off-the-wall emails telling me to do many unpleasant things to myself. Twice.
From the language contained therein it is safe to assume that most of these fall into the militant feminist category. Militant being the key word. Actually, they would make real military people blush with the language the use. Sheesh. They's madder than a one-legged woman at a sock hop. I wonder if they kiss their girlfriends with that mouth?
Anyway, apparently some of our cargo-pant and black eye-liner wearing friends think that men have absolutely no business commenting on women's appearance.
I wonder if that is because they...
On second thought, I will just leave that alone.
If you haven't already, check out the "Death of Pretty" and read some of the comments if you dare and tell me what you think. Don't say I didn't warn you.
In case you guys just landed on this planet and were unsure what to think of this thing you call the United Nations, I'm here to put some learnin' on you.
Ready?
The flag of the United Nations flew at half-mast Wednesday at the world's body headquarters in New York and its Geneva offices to mark the funeral for late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.
Yup. Mass killers who allowed his people to starve while he pursued nuclear weapons get the half mast treatment.
The non-governmental organization UN Watch said while protocol had to be followed, "the world body must not forget that its founding purpose is to defend basic human rights."
"Sadly, that message is at serious risk of being blurred today," UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said.
"Today should be a time for the UN to show solidarity with the victims -- the millions of North Koreans brutalized by Kim's merciless policies of starvation and oppression -- and not with the perpetrators."
That's all you need to know about the United Nations. They work to promulgate abortion and lower the flag for despots. "Nuff said.
A Christmas miracle? Rick Perry has seen the light?
Perry reportedly just announced that he's changed his mind and he's now against any exceptions for rape and incest when it comes to abortion. So he's pro-life all the way now. Full in. All the chips on the table.
I like Perry. I do. But this seems a little convenient for my taste. A presidential candidate announces that he's changing his view on one of the most fundamental issues in the world right before the Iowa primary. But hey, I'll take it. But there's a little bitty part of me that wonders in my little bitty brain about what he was thinking about before this. I mean, did he not really consider the rape and incest business before? I mean, they guy's been Governor for a while and he's been running for president for months.
But like I said I'll take it. Sometimes these things put in a different light can make all the difference. So I'll quiet the cynical part of my brain and just say hooray.
Hot Air reports that it was Mike Huckabee's film that convinced him to change his mind.
A dude went to buy Plan B for his lady friend and the pharmacist freaked out on him. You're thinking that it was a pro-life pharmacist, right?
Nope.
It's a pharmacist who seems to have bought completely into the "It's a woman's choice" thing. She refused to sell Plan B to a man.
That's what Isaac Kurtz set out to do, and so he went to the downtown CVS on Main Street and asked the pharmacist for a Plan B pill and a pregnancy test.
No way, the pharmacist said.
"She tells me she needs to speak with the woman," Kurtz says. "I'm taken aback by this and ask her what she needs to talk to her about, I bought them here before without issue. She then tells me she won't sell it to men."
Kurtz says the pharmacist told him that it was her "personal belief," and not CVS policy, that led to her refusal to sell the item to him.
We asked CVS about all this, and they said mistakes were made.
"We apologize for the isolated incident in our Houston pharmacy in which a male customer was unable to purchase this item," CVS spokesman Michael DeAngelis said. "We are following up the pharmacy staff to ensure that our policies are properly followed to prevent a recurrence of this incident."
But isn't this pharmacist's take on it, the appropriate one given all the feminist garbage we've all been fed? They tell us it's a woman's choice and that a man can have no say whatsoever on this issue. But alas, we're allowed to buy it? If men have no legal say to weigh in on whether an abortion occurs then why should we be allowed to buy Plan B?
Kudos to the pharmacist for highlighting the illogic of the pro-abortion position.
Everybody remembers the pro-life treachery in the House of Bart Stupak. Stupak sold babies and old people into government funded death with his last minute support of Obamacare. His name, like Benedict Arnold before him, quickly became synonymous with his dastardly deed. So reviled was he, that he announced his retirement soon after.
Well, Stupak's doppelganger in the Senate, the other no-good rotten dastard in the whole sordid affair Ben Nelson has announced that he will retire rather than face his very deserved electoral comeuppance.
Senator Ben Nelson is the same guy who swore up and down that he would stand firm against abortion funding in the healthcare bill only to suffer the world's most watched moral collapse (until Stupak's) when he received the infamous "Cornhusker Kickback."
Even people who supported the awful Obamacare bill saw this moral prostitution for what it was and... Continue Reading>>>>
Did you know that members of Congress are not allowed to use federal resources to send religious holiday greetings to their constituents? That's right. They can't say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hannakah" so Republican Rep. Scott Rigell decided to engage in a little disobedience by sending his constituents a holiday greetings video making fun of the fact that Hanukkah and Christmas had become offending terms, according to the Daily Caller.
The unexpected dangers of the Amazon Kindle. I almost crashed my car.
No, I wasn't reading and driving. Worse.
My eleven year old daughter got a kindle for Christmas and she could not have been more excited. She is an avid reader and had wanted one for a long time.
So after we opened presents, we registered her kindle and had to decide on her first book. I recommended Ann of Green Gables.
After Christmas Mass, we are all headed over to my Mom's house and she is reading in the back of the van.
"Dad?"
"Yes, sweetie?"
"What does ejaculation mean?"
Screeching of tires and....
Well, not really. But I look over at my wife and she is staring at me wide-eyed.
Blink. Blink............Blink.
"It means an abrupt exclamation honey. An outburst."
"Oh, thanks Daddy."
See, if we just stuck with Latin, we wouldn't have these kinds of problems. Dead languages have their advantages.
Man, I hope she doesn't use her new vocabulary word in school.
I've been waiting and waiting for him and perhaps he has finally arrived. No, not Santa, Rick Santorum.
Normally I don't put too much stock in what Dick Morris has to say, but since he is saying what I want to hear, I have decided to believe him.
All along, the Tea Party voters have yet to unite behind a single candidate. They still aren’t united, but in Iowa, there is evidence that Rick Santorum may be surging ahead.
In the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) telephone poll of 23,000 supporters nationally, Newt led with 31% of the vote, followed by Bachmann at 28%, Romney at 20% and Santorum with a surprising 16%.
And then there is the Rasmussen poll. Look at Santorum's increase while the other candidates are steady or down.
Here are the stats from the past three Iowa Rasmussen Polls (Nov 15, Dec 13, and Dec 19)
RASMUSSEN POLLS IN IOWA
Nov 15
Dec 13
Dec 19
Romney
19
23
25
Paul
10
18
20
Gingrich
32
20
17
Santorum
5
6
10
Perry
6
10
10
Bachmann
6
9
6
Huntsman
2
5
4
There has always been a sort of mini-primary among the Tea Party followers among Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, Cain, and Santorum – the candidates they find acceptable. Gingrich’s and Bachmann’s drop, Cain’s withdrawal, and Perry’s stagnation all contrast sharply with Santorum’s surge.
So is this the moment that we all (by which I mean me) have been waiting for?
Santorum's biggest issue has been plausibility. If he can get into double digits in polls and surprise in Iowa with a solid ground game (which I hear he has) then this could go a long way toward plausibility. Then, then he might become THE conservative alternative to Mitt. And the bonus, he is an ACTUAL conservative.
A buddy of mine who fought over in Iraq tells me of visiting a Catholic Church there. He said you’d hardly notice the church but on Sundays a number of Catholics would bravely arrive at Mass, knowing that their mere attendance could be a death sentence.
It affected him greatly. It made him think how he took for granted the ease with which he could attend Mass back in America with his wife and children. And I’ll admit that just hearing him speak of it, affected me. Not many Sundays go by without me thinking of those brave Christians who proclaim their love of Jesus at the risk of their own lives.
I know that growing up I always heard or read of the martyrs being put to death for their faith and at the time I was just so stupidly thankful that the world had moved beyond lions eating Christians in togas. But, of course, as I grew up I realized that the world hadn’t moved beyond that. It just got better at it. More efficient. Instead of lions, it’s bombs. Jesus is still the most reviled figure in history. Two thousand years later, His followers are still put to death all around the world.
Yesterday’s news of a series of bombings that included one outside a Catholic Church following Christmas Mass that killed at least 35 people in Nigeria is a horrific reminder of that. It is a horror. My heart breaks for the families of the victims. I am horrified that the celebration of the birth of Christ still inspires violence just as it did in Herod all those years ago.
Peace on earth and good will to man. And all that. Oh...and Air Jordans. It's not Christmas without Air Jordans.
Dozens of police officers had to break up fights and restore order at a local mall while shoppers were waiting for an overnight sale of a popular basketball shoe.
The disturbance started inside Carolina Place Mall just after 5am. Witnesses said as mall officials opened the mall doors, crowds of people pushed their way in.
"They almost took the door off the hinges," one shopper who didn't want to be identified said, "there were women with babies in their hands and they on their backs."
After journeying for days to the North Pole to finally find evidence of Santa Claus, Fr. Steve Rossetti of Catholic University, realized his mistake...a little late.
I couldn't resist the joke but here's the truth. If you're not aware Fr. Steve Rossetti traveled to Antarctica with scientists to act as their chaplain. He's filing updates to CNN. They're quite beautifully written. Check it out here.
I hate to bring this up right before Christmas but...Europe is doomed.
A Sociology professor at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), Felice Dassetto has published a new book entitled "The Iris and the Crescent" and he's saying that Islam is well on it's way to becoming the most practiced religion in Europe, and will soon eclipse Christianity, according to the Examiner.com.
I'm just wondering - with Muslim's infamous tolerance for all things Christian and especially their love for the Pope, I'm wondering how the Vatican will fare in a Muslim dominated Europe.
As cited in YNetNews, the number of Muslims has tripled over the past 30 years, all the while, fully 1/3d of all European children will be born to Muslim families by 2025. Check out this top ten list of doom:
1. Islam is the most practiced religion in the United Kingdom. 2. In London, more Muslims attend mosques on Friday than do Christians churches on Sunday. 3. The Oude Kerk, the oldest church in the city of Amsterdam, where the Kings of Holland were crowned, is now a museum. 4. The only “church” in the largest Dutch city that is crowded is the church of Scientology, a six-story building in the thick of the city center. 5. Only 7% of Dutch Catholics now go to Sunday Mass and 16% of children are baptized. 6. In Austria, which was 90% Catholic in the 20th Century, Islam will be the majority religion among Austrians aged under 15 by 2050. 7. The French case also shows that the often exaggerated “Eurabia” threat is more a quality phenomenon of religious attendance than of demographic takeover. 8. In France, there are now more Islamic mosques being build - and more frequently so - than Catholic churches, and there are more practicing Muslims than practicing Catholics in the country. 9. Overall, the total number of mosques in France has already doubled to more than 2,000 in the last 10 years. 10. The best known French Islamic leader, Dalil Boubakeur, Rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, recently suggested that the total number of mosques should double yet again, to 4,000, to meet the growing demand.
I'm thinking the Swiss guard is going to have its hands full in the decades to come. Alls I'm sayin'.
The Arizona college student was in an accident in October and doctors had been itchin' to harvest his organ for a while. Finally, his parents agreed. Sam did not.
Hours before they were to harvest his organs Sam woke up.
Sam Schmid, an Arizona college student who was thought to be brain dead, recovered from injuries sustained in an automobile accident in October just hours before he was slated to be killed and his organs given to other patients.
If only he had the common decency to stay dead. Sheesh.
New York Times has a story about a guy who's putting up atheist stuff where a nativity used to be.
Guy seems like a real prize. But there's this part of the story that got me wondering.
This always angered Damon Vix, who worked off and on in Santa Monica and considers himself a devout atheist, so to speak. How could it be, he asked himself each year, that the city could condone such an overtly religious message?
Can you be a devout atheist? What does that entail? Devoutness to what?
I know that God knows all but there's also free will and we can thwart God's will. That's what sin is, isn't it?
But I was just thinking today about the moment after the archangel Gabriel said, "Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end."
Think of the moment after Mary asked how this could be. That moment where the fate of the world hung in the balance -waiting for her response. I can't help but think how much rested on that moment. All of God's plan rested on this one young woman making the right decision. I wonder what Gabriel knew. Was he too given the information from God that she would say yes. Or did he stand before her waiting, trembling, unsure if God's plan for the salvation of the world would be rejected?
Now, theologically it is clear that Jesus didn't need laser beams to create the shroud, but the fact that he did shows just how cool He is. Cause being God, he knew how cool lasers would be.
The exact origins of the Turin Shroud remain a great mystery, but scientists are now disputing the long-held belief that the religious artifact is a medieval forgery.
Italian researchers at the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development say they believe the image was created by an ultraviolet “flash of light.” However, if that theory is true, it remains a mystery as to exactly how that technology could have been implemented at the time of the Shroud’s creation. While the technology is readily available in present day, it was far beyond the means of anyone around pre-20th Century.
The Turin Shroud is said to be the burial cloth of Jesus, but has long been believed to be a fake, created during medieval times. It is currently kept in a climate-controlled case in Turin cathedral. Scientists at the Italian agency have reportedly spent years attempting to recreate the Shroud’s imagery. ‘The results show a short and intense burst of UV directional radiation can colour a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin,’ the scientists said.
“When one talks about a flash of light being able to color a piece of linen in the same way as the shroud, discussion inevitably touches on things such as miracles,” said Professor Paolo Di Lazzaro, who led the study. “But as scientists, we were concerned only with verifiable scientific processes. We hope our results can open up a philosophical and theological debate.”
No word on whether sharks played a role in its creation, but I suspect science will one day verify this as well.
Friends, Catholics, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury our Catholic presidential hopefuls, not praise them.
That is, not literally bury them, but submit an argument that those who are Catholic in faith only and not action are not fit to lead America.
I am speaking, of course, specifically about former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Senator Rick Santorum. Both respectable men, decent men even, but not presidential material. True, they’re more Catholic than the late President Kennedy, this country’s first Catholic president, but that gives them few points in my book.
The big sticking point for many conservatives is their pro-life stance. Another is their support of marriage between a man and a woman. This is something I strongly support as well, but the way both men wish to go about it is wrong, and why I cannot endorse either for the presidency.
Thomas Peters wrote in the Washington Post,
On the question of the definition of marriage, Gingrich has distinguished himself in having zero patience for activist judges who attempt to redefine marriage unilaterally. He supports a federal marriage amendment and the Defense of Marriage Act.
Santorum also supports federal mandates for marriage, and said during the October 18th Republican debate that "the 10thamendment [is] running amok":
In his December “money bomb” letter, he wrote:
The day we stop fighting for the unborn child, or fighting to protect the sanctity of marriage, expel God from the public square, or decide we will no longer enforce the laws of our land, is the day we surrender all our founding fathers created.
Hm, really?
James Madison wrote Federalist 46 (“The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared”) that the “federal and State governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers, and designed for different purposes.”
Furthermore:
The adversaries of the Constitution seem to have lost sight of the people altogether in their reasonings on this subject; and to have viewed these different establishments, not only as mutual rivals and enemies, but as uncontrolled by any common superior in their efforts to usurp the authorities of each other. These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error. They must be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone, and that it will not depend merely on the comparative ambition or address of the different governments, whether either, or which of them, will be able to enlarge its sphere of jurisdiction at the expense of the other. Truth, no less than decency, requires that the event in every case should be supposed to depend on the sentiments and sanction of their common constituents.
It is tempting, I think, to vote for someone who shares your faith. It’s those kinds of associations which give comfort to people, lets them think that politician is different, that politician can be trusted.
Nonetheless, the job of the president is to uphold the Constitution of the United States. On Inauguration Day, the President-Elect vows to protect and defend the Constitution. The whole Constitution: not the bits he likes, or can use to his greatest advantage. All of it. This includes the 10th amendment.
At a practical, grammarian level: the 10th amendment itself cannot run amok. The people who invoke it, however, can. The people who misinterpret it can. The people who use it can. From this perspective, it is Catholics who should respect, protect and defend the 10th amendment the most.
The 10th amendment says that any powers not delegated by the US Constitution can be handled at the state level. It is also parallel to the Church’s teachings on free will and reason. The Church, through the hierarchy, does not dictate every action we do; it gives us God’s laws and teachings, which we must follow to the best of our ability and with God’s grace. We have priests to help guide us at the individual level, while still being able to participate in the Church at large.
I mean, free will is scary. God lets us do WHATEVER WE WANT. There will be consequences, of course, but that’s why he also gives us our human reason, so we can figure out and decide the right and just path. Santorum says he supports the 10th amendment, but not if it’s not going his way, he would force compliance, if given the chance. Gingrich supports federal laws that go his way. That is very un-Catholic, and that type of forced compliance can very easily manipulated and abused. Catholic civil liberties should be a very real concern for all of us.
Healthcare professionals, Catholic charities, teachers, and government officials, for example, are all put into precarious situations with the current political environment. We do, after all, have that conscience thing. Madison went on to say:
Were it admitted, however, that the Federal government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments. …But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole.
If Catholic politicians wish to make federal laws outside the realm of the Constitution’s designated powers for the various branches of government, then they have more in common with Progressives than they are wiling to admit. Can we say, Hellooo health care bill-mandate-to-be-enforced-in-2014? Interstate commerce clause, what? Oh, well, in their defense: the Constitution is hard to understand because it is over 100 years old. I suppose I’m not overly surprised at Gingrich’s stance, but Santorum disappoints me and thus loses my support. Our nation was not founded by Catholics; only one, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signed the Declaration. This nation has a very anti-Catholic history, in fact; but we are blessed. We are blessed by our religious liberties and our civil liberties. We may worship as we choose. We may still speak out and defend ourselves against injustices. The Church has yet to be outlawed, and contrary to popular culture, the young Catholics of my generation are getting stronger in their faith and evangelization. Peters also wrote of Gingrich, “He is good at articulating why our laws should reflect our marriage tradition.”
Awesome! This is what we need: words, words, words, and then actions to back them up. It will be our witness which will touch people. The love we Christians show to each other, and the stability of our marriages and families when they are centered on Christ.
If Catholics are serious about protecting the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family, it must start by protecting it within one’s own community first, then one’s state. Just look at the stir California’s Proposition 8 caused when the people in one state took a stand!
To paraphrase St. Francis: sanctify one’s self so that one may sanctify society.
Leading by example is most desirable, as is actually following the wise laws left to us by the Founding Fathers. Leave brute force to the unpersuasive fools.
Oh the horror! A fat old guy with a long white beard had been dressing up as Santa while delivering mail. Kind of an eccentric individual, I'm sure. But isn't that the kind of thing that makes the world go round?
But someone complained and now he can't play Santa anymore.
What is wrong with this country?
I found the story on Weasel Zippers interesting because of the assumption at the heart of it. It's not even contested.
Bob McLean has been dressing up as Santa for the past decade, donning a red suit to deliver the mail along his route in Bellevue, WA. He even has a snow white beard – that’s real.
“The government is shutting me down because it’s a non-postal regulation uniform, McLean told the Bellevue Reporter. “This was the first time; I don’t know what happened. I don’t step on anyone’s toes. Being Santa isn’t religious to me; it’s secular. It’s about giving.” [...]
Isn't that interesting how everyone just assumes now that you can't express any religion in public anymore, especially if you're a government employee.
But that means as the government grows it increasingly crowds out religion. According to the Wall Street Journal, "today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government."
Between the federal, state and local government millions of people are employed and can't show their religion in public. And does anyone think the government's going to get smaller any time soon? Yeah, me neither.
And the federal leviathan erases religious expression and individualism in general. In short, it's a killjoy. And look, I understand if you're the manager at the Post Office and you know that if you let this one guy dress as Santa you can't come down on other guys for uniform infractions so you just have to force everyone to be the same. Otherwise HR will come down on you and I'm sure there's a hundred layers of bureaucrats who have nothing to do but critique your management style above you.
But you know what happens in this kind of Big Government lawyers rule the world thinking. We end up with something like this:
Government kills all individual expression, especially religious expression. But all kinds of expression too. That's one really good reason to cut back government. In America we shouldn't be afraid of individuals. If a guy wants to dress up as Santa, let 'em.
In short, Big Government is boring. Individuality is at least interesting.
Every Christmas my kids come charging down the stairs after I give them the all clear. Before they start ripping wrapping paper my wife and I delight in having the kids stand in front of the manger and sing Happy Birthday to baby Jesus in the nativity scene.
This is delightful because it makes them remember at least for a little moment why this day is important. Secondly, it's just funny watching five kids absolutely jonesing for their gifts five feet away while they sing.
But something tells me that if we had one of these nativities, the good would be taken out of it a bit. These are some of the worst nativities...evah.
You can check out more of the world's worst nativities here.
This post is intended as a lament of sorts, a lament for something in the culture that is dying and may never been seen again.
Pretty, pretty is dying.
People will define pretty differently. For the purposes of this piece, I define pretty as a mutually enriching balanced combination of beauty and projected innocence.
Once upon a time, women wanted to project an innocence. I am not idealizing another age and I have no illusions about the virtues of our grandparents, concupiscence being what it is. But some things were different in the back then. First and foremost, many beautiful women, whatever the state of their souls, still wished to project a public innocence and virtue. And that combination of beauty and innocence is what I define as pretty.
By nature, generally when men see this combination in women it brings out their better qualities, their best in fact. That special combination of beauty and innocence, the pretty inspires men to protect and defend it.
Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different. When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a certain way and consequently men view them differently as well.
This is a great joke I received from Guy McClung. You've probably seen it. I always seem to be the last to get these things but it's funny and Christmasy so here goes:
The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a Nativity Scene in the United States Capital this Christmas season.
This isn't for any religious reason. They simply have not been able to find Three Wise Men in the Nation's Capitol.
A search for a Virgin continues.
There was no problem, however, finding enough asses to fill the stable.
We saw yesterday how the Capitol Hill Christmas tree didn't mention Jesus but it surely prominently placed some love for Obama right at eye level on the tree. Along with that is the constant representation of Obama with a halo. So CMR thought it would be wise to detail some ways where Obama and Jesus differ.
10) At least we know where Jesus was born. What?!
9) Jesus was God but some thought he was just a man so they killed Him. Obama was a man who some think is God so they adore him.
8) Jesus loosed us from strict dietary laws. Obama and his wife want to make new ones.
7) Jesus came so that we could live life more abundantly. Obama wants to take from those who live abundantly.
6) Jesus celebrated the Last Supper. Because of Obama, millions don't know if any meal is their last.
5) Jesus didn't need a teleprompter.
4) Jesus was persecuted. Obama just thinks he is.
3) They both give the Jews in Jerusalem a lot of headaches. But for very different reasons.
2) One is the way, the light, and the truth. One thinks he is the way and the light, that's the truth.
1) Jesus said, "And he that shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me." Obama says that's above his pay grade.
Join in if you'd like and list some differences in the combox.
He is the only guy left who can make a run at this. No candidate is perfect, but Santorum is the best of the bunch by a long shot this time around. Every other candidate has had their turn in the spotlight, all but one. But maybe that can still change.
Maggie Gallagher at NRO reports
Rick Santorum has snagged two big “gets” in the Iowa caucuses, the endorsements of Bob Vander Plaats and Focus on the Family state policy council head Chuck Hurley.
Hurley appears to be asking Perry and Bachmann to step down to unite behind Santorum. Chutzpah?
and Lowry adds
Santorum has had a major chicken-and-egg problem. I get the impression social conservatives in Iowa have been leery of supporting him because he’s been so low in the polls, meaning he stays low in the polls. He’s always needed something to give him an initial boost of plausibility. Maybe this is it, but who knows? I tend to believe one of the three, Perry, Bachmann, or Santorum, is going to get a big boost at the end. Here, by the way, is Walter Shapiro on why Santorum is more impressive on the stump than Perry.
It is true that plausibility is a key concern, but if Santorum can surprise in Iowa and one of the other more conservative also-rans calls it quits, Santorum could still make a run at this as the alternative.
Santorum is smart, experienced, and as solidly pro-life as you are likely to find. He is a good and decent man and he is qualified. Now more than ever, conservatives need to get behind Rick Santorum, before its too late.
414(e) of the IRS Code. Sounds like yawn-inducing accounting talk, right? But The Cardinal Newman Society’s going to be talking a lot about it, because the future of religious liberty in this country may depend on knowing what it does.
Hint: Notre Dame and the Catholic Health Association like 414(e), and sources indicate that the Obama administration may like it too. Which spells big trouble.
Look. If Professor Boing-Boing manages to win the Iowa caucuses it proves only this. Caucuses are stupid. But didn't we already know that?
Conservatives and Republican elites in the state are divided over who to support for the GOP nomination, but they almost uniformly express concern over the prospect that Ron Paul and his army of activist supporters may capture the state’s 2012 nominating contest — an outcome many fear would do irreparable harm to the future role of the first-in-the-nation caucuses. …
Paul poses an existential threat to the state’s cherished kick-off status, say these Republicans, because he has little chance to win the GOP nomination and would offer the best evidence yet that the caucuses reward candidates who are unrepresentative of the broader party.
“It would make the caucuses mostly irrelevant if not entirely irrelevant,” said Becky Beach,
No doubt about it. Professor Boing-Boing has loyal followers and they are organized, which in a caucus is a good thing. But the caucus process is no way to choose anything. Although they look like they might be fun if you and the boys got loaded at the local roadhouse before hand.
The fact that caucuses serve to give candidates like Pat Robertson and Professor Boing-Boing their moment in the sun only proves the point. I like caucuses less than Israel should like Prof. B-B, if that were possible.
Michael O'Leary, CEO of airline RyanAir apoke at a conference held by the EU on "innovation."
Wow.
O'Leary went completely Galt on them. If I were Dagney Taggart, I would so marry him. (Via American Spectator)
This is the first time I think that I or RyanAir have ever been invited to a conference by the European Union. Because as most of you know, the European Union spends most of its time suing me, torturing me, criticizing me or condeming me for lowering the cost of air travel all over Europe and making life so really difficult for their favorite airlines, which as we all know like high-fare airlines, like Air France, British Airlines, and Lufthansa who must be protected at all costs because they're the future of Europe -- the future of europe lies in people being forced to pay 800 euros for one-hour flights across the continent; the future of Europe lies in people being forced to pay fuel surcharges for the right to travel on Europe's best airlines run by the Germans, the French, and the British.
Well, sorry we like to disagree... which is why a conference on innovation is so important.
The 63-foot Sierra White Fir lighted at the U.S. Capitol Grounds on Dec. 6 as the official 2011 Capitol Christmas Tree includes a prominently displayed ornament paying homage to President Barack Obama, but includes no ornament readily visible to a person standing near the tree's base that uses the word “Christmas,” or includes an image of the Nativity, or bears the name or image of Jesus Christ.
On the north side of the tree--at a height of about 4 feet and easily visible to people standing near it---there is an ornament that says: “I ♥ President Obama.”
When asked whether the tree included any ornaments that mention or depict Christmas or the birth of Jesus, the office of the Architect of the Capitol, which is responsible for the tree, told CNSNews.com that it “does not have a policy nor any restrictions concerning the themes for the ornaments” that go on the tree. The office could not say, however, whether or not this year’s Christmas tree does in fact include even a single ornament that directly references or depicts Christmas or Christ.
Wow. Should we even be surprised at this anymore.
Hey, when half the photographers in the media are printing photos of the President with a halo around his head and that loser from Newsweek comparing Obama to God.
The theme, according to the Capitol Christmas Tree website, for this year’s ornaments was “California Shines.”
They recommend ornaments designed to show the rich cultural and ecological diversity of California. Wait. So is it a Christmas tree or an environmentalist shrub? That would be a bit ironic. I mean, hey let's cut down this tree and make it a celebration of our environmentalism. Does that work?
The thing is that these people will say or do anything -they'll celebrate idiotic stuff like the "rich cultural and ecological diversity" on Christmas to get around admitting what Christmas is all about.
Christianity goes global as world's largest religion
By Richard Allen Greene, CNN
(CNN) - Christians are by far the largest religious group on the planet, and the religion has gone truly global over the past century, according to a new report out Monday, which finds some of the world's biggest Christian communities in surprising places.
Europe was the clear center of world Christianity one hundred years ago, but today the Americas are home to more than a third of all Christians. In fact, the United States has the world's largest Christian population, of more than 247 million, followed by Brazil and Mexico.
And who are the big kahunas among Christians? You got it baby.
The report calculates that half the world's Christians are Catholic, 37% are Protestants, and 12% are Orthodox. The remaining 1 percent belong to other traditions such as Mormonism.
Even among the number one religion, we're number one. Why doesn't it feel that way?
My four year old watched this commercial and pointed to it and said, "Dad! That's inappropriate. Kids shouldn't put that on their Christmas list...but can I?"
What is wrong with the world that this could possibly be selling?
If you buy this for your kid, consider yourself banned from this blog. We have no investigative capability here at CMR anymore because of the bad economy so we can't check up on you guys like we did in the 90's but we trust that if you buy this toy you will ban yourself. And you should probably hide away from polite society.
Things were a little weird when Governor Pat Quinn, a Catholic, decided to present a pro-choice award for a pro-abortion rights PAC.
The bishops responded strongly by saying, “This approach is irreconcilable with any honest profession of the Catholic faith. While we deeply regret and oppose his actions, we continue to pray for his conversion and the protection of unborn human life.”
Things got a little stranger when the bishops publicly balked and arranged a meeting with the Governor to discuss Quinn’s “personal approval of laws permitting the killing of unborn children.”
The fact that the GOP nomination process has come down to Newt and Mitt is hard enough to take. But this is all I can takes and I can't takes no more. Especially not this...
America’s first black female secretary of state is quietly positioning herself to be the top choice of the eventual Republican presidential nominee, ready to deliver bona fide foreign-policy credentials lacking among the candidates. The 56-year-old has recently raised her profile, releasing her memoir in November and embarking on a monthlong book tour.
After 2 1/2 years as a professor at Stanford, Miss Rice is reportedly getting “antsy” to get back into the political game. “She’s ready to go,” said one top source.
The pro-life credentials of Mitt (who says he has changed) and Newt (equivocates on ESCR) are already suspect. Condi's opinion is not. She is pro-choice.
Asked, “Are you pro-life? Are you pro-choice? What is your thought on abortion?”, Rice responded: “I believe if you go back to 2000, when I helped the president in the campaign, I said that I was, in effect, kind of Libertarian on this issue, and meaning by that that I have been concerned about a government role in this issue. I’m a strong proponent of parental choice, of parental notification. I’m a strong proponent of a ban on late-term abortion. These are all things that I think unite people and I think that that’s where we should be. I’ve called myself at times mildly pro-choice.
With little prompting Rice continued, “Yeah, mildly pro-choice. That’s what that means. I think that there are a lot of things that we can unite around, and that’s where I would tend to be. I’m very comfortable with the president’s view that we have to respect and need to have a culture that respects life. This should be an issue pretty infrequently because we ought to have a culture that says that, ‘Who wants to have an abortion? Who wants to see a daughter or a friend or, you know, a sibling go through something like that?’ And so I believe the president has been in exactly the right place about this, which is, we have to respect the culture of life and we have to try and bring people to have respect for it and make this as rare a circumstance as possible.”
Babies don't get mildly dead. They get all the way dead. Whoever the GOP nominee is, they better pick somebody to the right of the Pope on life issues. If they pick Condi, they can count me out. I will be nobody's pawn.
Under the HHS rule requiring all insurers to cover birth control including abortifacients, any religious exemption that does eventually get included (if any) will almost certainly not allow crisis pregnancy centers to claim that exemption.
So think about this - crisis pregnancy centers will be forced to cover abortifacients.
So the same government that forces crisis pregnancy centers to prominently post signs saying they don't provide abortions will force CPC's to cover abortifacients. So maybe the CPC's should put up signs saying, "The government makes us tell you we don't provide abortions. The government also makes us provide for them."
In China there's the state approved Church and the underground Church. We look at that with our Western eyes and we wonder how such a thing could be.
But here in America, it seems to me we've just got our own twist on things. We don't have a state approved Church but we sure do have state approved morality.
Over the last few years we've seen regulations from the state forcing pharmacists to disepense emergency contraceptives, we've seen directives from the Department of Health and Human Services forcing health insurance plans to cover surgical sterilization, birth control, and prescriptions that induce early-term abortions. We've had laws forcing pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to advertize what they don't provide in abortions. (As if the only "choice" was abortion.) We've had Catholic agencies forced out child welfare services. We've had funds removed from Catholic organizations helping victims of the sex trade.
We've seen cases in Europe where parents were disallowed from caring for children because they believed in traditional marriage.
Religion is seen by this administration and many utopian minded secularists as something that happens in a church or synagogue. But outside of those walls only state approved morality matters. While many Christians in China have to hide going to Church on Sunday, we'll soon be forced to hide every other day of the week.
Increasingly the freedom of religion is being narrowed into a "freedom to worship" that allows for no public actions outside the state approved morality. In some ways, this state approved morality is more dangerous than state approved morality.
Let's face it, when we start getting our morality dictated to us by Washington D.C., nothing good follows. If we're not careful, we'll start thinking about our political leaders as religious leaders.
Christopher Hitchens the smart, acerbic, funny, mean, insightful, and thick commenter on all things has passed away at the age of 62.
Hitchens may have been most famous for his outspoken atheism. A year and a half ago when Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, I wrote that even if he thought it was stupid, I was praying for him. I still am.
I have no reason to think that Hitchens had a sudden religious awakening at the end, but I can hope. I can hope that at the end there was a small crack in the veneer large enough to let in the light. But I can never know, not in this life.
A GOP supporter of traditional marriage has been refused by a Minnesota college from teaching a college course by those same academics who are always screaming about tolerance and dialogue.
It's called a blacklist. Tom Emmer ran for Governor of Minnesota last year. He came very close to winning. So he accepted a job to teach an undergraduate business law course at a local university called Hamline University. And all seemed well...until the email went out to professors about a traditional marriage supporter joining the teaching staff. And then things went not so well.
It turns out that Emmer, because of his stance on marriage was blacklisted.
Emmer said the university decided to hire him as an adjunct faculty member in October, but the next month, opposition to his hiring surfaced after a meeting with other faculty members. By the next week, officials told Emmer, who is known for his stance opposing gay marriage, that he would not be teaching at Hamline.
In a letter to Linda N. Hanson, Hamline’s president, Emmer said: “Apparently, because of the very vocal few, the University was not going to honor our agreement.… [I]ncredibly, because of my conservative political views I will not be allowed to teach business law to Hamline students.”
The school is trying to say that he wasn't actually ever officially officially hired. A Hamline spokeswoman, said they were just "in discussions."
While that may or may not be technically true, Emmer's got an email from October in which a school administrator introduces Emmer to some other faculty members and says that he is going to be teaching the Business Law course. It reads, "“This is Tom’s first time teaching the course. I have given him a copy of your syllabus but am hoping you would be able to let him know exactly what text you are using and anything else that might be helpful for him."
That seems pretty far along "in discussions" doesn't it?
Hamline's student newspaper quoted David A. Schultz, an adjunct professor at Hamline's law school, saying that some faculty members had complained to administrators about Emmer's possible hiring, citing two issues: his stance on same-sex marriage and the fact that he was being hired without a hiring committee or faculty review, according to Inside Higher Ed.
So let's get this straight -the two reasons the academics rejected him were that Emmer supported traditional marriage and that the faculty wasn't given the chance to block him because he supported traditional marriage.
So they blocked him because they hadn't been allowed to block him...because of his stance on marriage. Got it?
Emmer said: “I think universities should be places of tolerance where, hopefully, different perspectives are welcome.... Talk of bigotry, this is not racial but this is political bigotry and it is of the worst kind.”
College and universities have tolerance for the OWS crowd but none for anyone who believes marriage is between a man and a woman. No. More evidence that when academics speak of tolerance it just means they want to get their way and anyone who stands in their way will be shunned from society.
Senator John McCain absolutely lights up President Obama. I mean, he lights him up. McCain, referring to Obama's withdrawal of troops in Iraq: “History Will Judge His Leadership With The Scorn And Disdain It Deserves”…
Where was this John McCain when he ran for President?
“All I will say is that, for three years, the president has been harvesting the successes of the very strategy that he consistently dismissed as a failure,” McCain said referring to the surge which then senator Obama opposed in 2007. “I imagine this irony was not lost on a few of our troops at Fort Bragg today, most of whom deployed and fought as part of the surge.”
“Over 4,000 brave young Americans gave their lives in this conflict. I pray that their sacrifice is not in vain. I hope that their families will not mourn the day that their sons and daughters went out to fight for freedom for the Iraqi people. Unfortunately, it is clear that this decision of a complete pullout of United States troops from Iraq was dictated by politics, and not our national security interests. I believe that history will judge this president’s leadership with the scorn and disdain it deserves.”
Look, media bias stories are boring. We all know they have an agenda already. But every once in a while it is so obvious it is laughable.
We know they are biased, but do they have to be so unoriginal?
Last month, Conan O'Brien married a gay couple on his show. This fits in with the liberal/gay agenda so it got lots o'coverage. But it got lost o' the same coverage. The exact same. Word for friggin' word. Check it out.
National Review Online has a fair, balanced, and reasonable editorial on our looming primary decision.
While giving credit to Newt's positive characteristics, it has come to the same conclusion that I have. Not Newt.
I, like many other conservatives, have spent months searching for the anybody but Romney candidate. Newt's comeback in the polls after a disastrous and what I thought fatal start is as startling as its effect on me. I am now searching for the anybody but Newt candidate.
Look, Newt is a smart fella and I can even relegate the marital peccadilloes to the past, but Newt is still Newt.
Romney will disappoint me, I know that. But Newt can/will destroy us (conservatives). Newt will blow up, either as a candidate or as a President and he will take the entire conservative movement with him. His hubris and his flightiness will end up alienating just about everyone. You know how I know this? Because that is what Newt always does.
While he had successes as Speaker, he ended up the most unpopular figure in the country, both left and right. As a pundit, he has done the same thing. And as a candidate, the same thing. Newt blows up. That is what Newt does.
Romney will disappoint me, I know that. He says many of the right things now, but his record is the stuff of schizoid legend. But even if Romney only believes half of what he now claims to believe and the rest is pandering, I might take that. At least the pandering recognizes there is a base he must satisfy. Newt doesn't care because he knows he is smarter than me and you. It is we who must change our opinion before Newt changes his.
Romney is no conservative, I know that. But I think that I prefer the guy who at least pretends to be.
I am still a supporter of Santorum. Notwithstanding a dramatic showing in Iowa, I must accept that 4% is 4% and I might not have that choice. But if I had to choose between Newt and Mitt, I think I choose Mitt. Call it risk mitigation.
A church in New Zealand has put up a billboard showing the Virgin Mary looking worriedly at a pregnancy test.
This is brought to you by the same jerks that brought you this billboard last year.
This church has fallen into the same trap that so many fall into. There's no point to these billboards other than "look at me!" This isn't theology. It's not even evangelizing. It's advertising. It's we're the funny hep church. We're cool. They're just moron publicity seekers.
After and incredible amount of nagging, I finally convinced (cajoled) my wife Terri into writing her first guest post for CMR. I am really proud of her!
I Bake Because I Love -- Terri Archbold
Similar to the sentiment of my husband and brother-in-law’s motto “We Laugh Because We Believe,” I bake because I love. I can’t count the number of nights I’ve stayed up long into the night because I was creating something sweet in our kitchen. I do it because I love to, but more so because it makes others happy. I love to think of the look of excitement on the faces of my children and their classmates when they see homemade cookies in the shape of football helmets, hearts, or Christmas trees. I will go to great lengths to make up platters of chocolate-drizzled treats for my family and friends. When our new neighbors moved in, my greatest pleasure was to welcome them with a tin of cookies or brownies. What a great way to say welcome to our neighborhood!
Around St. Patrick’s Day, I usually end up making about 2 dozen Irish soda breads just because everyone loves my Aunt Lilly’s recipe. I don’t mind being thought of as a crazy mom for staying up until 5:00 a.m. making a Buzz Lightyear cake for my son’s 5th birthday. That cake made him so happy, and I think it was something he’ll remember for a long time. So will I (for many reasons).
Although I’m not yet the “Cake Boss,” I’ve attempted some more complicated occasion cakes, including my nephew’s christening cake. It was truly a labor of love, as it took me all night to do. If I was getting paid by the hour, I wouldn’t make very much!
Baking is one of my creative outlets, and yes, I love to indulge on my decadent goodies—but not as much as I enjoy sharing them. What a wonderful gift it is when you love what you do and it brings people joy. Granted it may not compare to the impact of an author’s or a painter’s work on their audiences, but in my little world, I can make a small difference to those around me. It can create a bit of magic around a celebration. It can make the ordinary into something special.
God has truly blessed Patrick and I with our five children, and especially through them, He has given me an avenue to serve Him by giving a little bit of myself to the people around me every day in a simple, yet very sweet way. I bake because I love. And they thought it was just about cookies!
The room in the back of the clinic was quiet but Catherine’s mind was screaming. There was a baby in a jar. Arms. Leg. Fingers! There was a baby in a jar! She knew she had to get out of there. Fast. She couldn’t look at it one moment longer.
It?
Catherine Adair had spent the previous year working at Planned Parenthood convincing women that despite what they thought, that wasn’t a baby growing in their womb. It was a…an…it. And it required a “procedure” as she called it back then.
Nothing, and I mean nothing celebrates the birth of the baby Jesus like a song about a dog and a German killing machine flying airplanes. I get weepy just thinking about it.
Julie Robison is a great young blogger and she'll be guest blogging here once a week over the next month. She blogs at Corner with a View so please check her out.
Here's Julie:
In this season of Advent, I’d like to propose a new song to add to the usual Christmas carol repertoire: Rhianna’s latest single, “We Found Love.”
The song is catchy, but to warn the studio audience: the music video is not for PG-rated and is an excellent example of everything Christians profess love not to be. Nonetheless, it is the refrain which caught my attention: “We found love in a hopeless place” is repeated over and over again.
When I first heard the song, I immediately thought of 1 Timothy 1:1, where Paul greets Timothy “by [the] command of God our savior and of Christ Jesus our hope."
This world can seem like a hopeless place. Catholic persecution is becoming more apparent at home and abroad, the economy is hurting families, infanticide is seen as a choice and not a crime, and the majority of politicians offering themselves to potentially lead our country are a joke.
It is no coincidence that the first week of Advent is hope. It’s more than a campaign slogan: hope is a theological virtue. St. Thomas, in the Summa Theologica, wrote “the object of hope is a future good which is difficult to obtain, yet possible.” This is precisely why we Christians have a whole season devoted to awaiting Christ, whose Incarnation brings joy to the world, peace to all people, and, most importantly, hope.
Carl Olson at Insight Ignatius writes on “The Joyful, Particular Scandal of Advent.” He says:
There is something offensive to many people about Advent and Christmas. It is what Apostle Paul described as a “stumbling block” to Jews and Gentiles alike (1 Cor. 1:18-25). Eastern Orthodox philosopher Richard Swinburne calls it “the scandal of particularity.” It is the belief that God became man at a particular time and in a particular place, and that the God-man, Jesus Christ, is the unique Savior of mankind.
“Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God,” the Catechism states, “is the distinctive sign of Christian faith” (par. 463). It’s hardly news that this belief is often disparaged or dismissed by some non-Christians. Far more perplexing are attempts by Christians to deny the mystery of the Incarnation by rejecting the singular character of Jesus of Nazareth.
Christians are called to be in the world, but not of it. This liturgical season gives us reason to hope in dismal circumstances, and puts a face to that hope too.
The message Rhianna's music video, perhaps unintentionally, portrays is that this material world is not enough. No level of excitement can ever or truly be fulfilling. Meanwhile, her lyrics look upwards, aspiring for real love. The world she sees is hopeless; but doesn't the love she finds there suggest some degree of it?
“It’s the feeling I just can’t deny/ But I’ve got to let it go/ We found love in a hopeless place/ We found love in a hopeless place/ We found love in a hopeless place,” sings Rhianna. Well, I can’t deny it either: “And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12).
Aquinas finished the section on hope as a virtue by saying, “he who hopes is indeed in respect of that which he hopes to obtain but does not yet possess. But he is perfect in that he already attains his proper rule, that is God, on whose hope he relies.”
So begins a poem, a lament really, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
To us Longfellow is a guy we read in a textbook in high school. I don't even know if they read him anymore. But Henry Longfellow was a flesh and blood man, a man who suffered tragedy as so many do. But his unique gift allowed him to express in such a memorable way.
What Longfellow composed was a lament. A lament for all that was wrong with the world and Longfellow was well acquainted with that.
It was the Civil War and tragedy and loss were the order of the day. Longfellow would not be immune. Hostilities in the war had just broken out and Longfellow had just lost his wife. She did not die in the war but in an equally tragic and horrible way. Frances, a good mother, was sealing envelopes with locks of her children's hair as keepsakes. She was sealing the envelopes with wax from a hot candle. Nobody really knows how, but she accidentally set herself on fire. Henry put out the flames but it was too late. She lingered through the night, but perished the next day. Such a loss would be hard on anyone.
Not too long after this, his son, afraid of telling his father in person for fear he would stop him, informed his father by letter that he had joined the Union army. Longfellow was devastated. Within months Henry got word that his beloved son had been very badly wounded at the Battle of New Hope Church.
To Longfellow the world seemed almost bereft of hope. Almost. On Christmas day 1864, he sat down and composed "Christmas Bells." In it he showed that even in our darkest hour, the light of Christ continues to shine. There is always hope.
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day Their old familiar carols play, And wild and sweet the words repeat Of peace on earth, good will to men.
I thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along the unbroken song Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head: "There is no peace on earth," I said, "For hate is strong and mocks the song Of peace on earth, good will to men."
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,With peace on earth, good will to men."
Till, ringing singing, on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, a chant sublime, Of peace on earth, good will to men!
There is always hope.
This poem has been put to music many times and there are some splendid versions of it including the oddly upbeat version by Bing. The version below captures some of the feeling Longfellow felt when he wrote it. Peace on Earth, good will to men!
This is pretty amazing. A paralympian, who has reportedly been paralyzed since 13 years of age, is out training as a hand cyclist when she crashes. The crash somehow cures her paralysis.
So as you know, I occasionally write here at CMR about running and triathlon training. For me, endurance training has many connections to the spiritual life. As such, I like to write about it sometimes.
However...
Matthew has made it clear that CMR readers have no interest in such things and has banned me from writing about it here. (Not really, although I do get "Oh great, another running post. Those always do so well.... ")
So since in between my day job as a husband, father to five, IT Director, writer for CMR, and writing for NCRegister.com, and training for the Ironman Triathlon, I have so much free time, I have decided to start another blog dedicated to my running and triathlon training and its spiritual benefits.
The site is still a work in progress, but I hope you will enjoy some of the posts and any help you can give me getting it off the ground will be greatly appreciated!!
