Easy as Grace

Sometimes God's grace just blows you away. Think about this: in order to get to heaven, you need to be holy; in order to be holy, you need grace, and lots of it. Grace transforms you, little by little, until you are finally conformed to the crucified image of Christ.

So how do you get grace?

Just ask.

Pretty easy, huh?

It gets even easier still.

The smallest thing you do, if united to Christ's sacrifice, can merit infinite graces. Anything. People tend to associate suffering and penance with drawing down God's grace upon our heads, and that is certainly true ... but anything can do this.

It's a hot day, you've been working in the yard and sweating, your mouth is dry as cotton ... you take a long, delicious gulp of ice-cold water. Doesn't that feel great?! That pleasure, right there, can be offered to God, for the love of God, and merit much grace.

You're at work, stocking shelves with product. It's tedious and boring ... stop for a moment, say, "Lord, I offer you this task out of love for you, and I unite it to your perfect sacrifice," and lo and behold! Your menial task has just become a continual prayer and won a wealth of grace.

Anything you can think of is a potential prayer and meritorious act. Not that the act of itself is worth anything, but grace is free, so all you have to do is associate that act with your offering to God, and snap! He's ready to dole out graces left and right, far more than what the actual act is worth.

Think of the possibilities!

A really good puff on a premium cigar? That's a prayer.

Taking a shower in the morning? Offer it to God.

Your ride in the car on the way home from work? Also a meritorious act.

How about a 30-minute brisk walk for your health? Offer the physical pain as a gift.

Dieting? A worthy penance indeed.

The first cup of coffee in the morning? Worth its weight in grace.

In this way, the holiest of saints learned - with a little conscious effort and practice - to make every act of every day a prayer, and thus they prayed continually, even if not with their mouths.

Here's an ingenious one: every heartbeat and every breath you take while you sleep. I have a prayer in an old prayer-book which goes something like, "Jesus, I offer you every beat of my heart and every breath I take while I sleep through the night, for the sake of the conversion of sinners throughout the world."

And just like that, you've entered into an 8-hour prayer session - how effective would that be if you remembered to do it every night?

How much easier can God make it? Not only do these graces help you to become holier, but you can (as indicated) offer these little acts on behalf of others as well.

Offer that beautiful sunrise for the conversion of your best friend.

Offer that lovely breeze for the restoration of Christendom in America.

Offer your tooth-brushing for the safety and sanctity of your children.

Offer that piece of French Silk pie in reparation for your own past sins.

Offer your 20-minute nap for an end to abortion.

Mow your lawn and offer it for some unknown priest who needs a bit of help.

Do the dishes and offer it for the guy who cut you off on the road today and then flipped you off.

Be creative! Tell God that you're going to observe total silence for the next 10 minutes and offer it up for the worst sinner in the world today.

Do 50 pushups and offer it for some poor soul in Purgatory.

The great thing is, every time you make an offering on behalf of someone else, your generosity is rewarded with extra graces for you.

Does it make a little more sense now why it has been said that the only tragedy in the world today is that anyone fails to achieve saint-hood?

It's so easy. God's ready to just give this grace away, more than you can handle. You just have to ask. And keep asking.

Why limit yourself? His gift is never proportionate to the request. I have a popcorn kernel stuck in my gums, and it's really irritating me - so I'm going to offer it, not just for one person, or ten people, but this time I'm offering it for the entire world. And when I feel the relief of finally getting it dislodged, I'm going to offer that relief for all of the souls in Purgatory.

Too much? Not unless you think you can overwhelm God with your request, or that your generosity can outshine His benevolence.

Hey - what are you waiting for? Make the rest of this day a prayer and do your part as a member of the "priesthood of all believers" - start interceding for all men, most of all for yourself.

Let the Children Come ...

I don't hate Protestants - I just think they're really inconsistent and (unwittingly) dishonest with themselves.

I am currently in the midst of a debate with a Protestant on a Catholic email list (click to join BattleActs) over the issue of what happens to infants who die - do they go to heaven or hell or somewhere in-between?

My God, I hope they go to heaven (although, by the end of this post, you will most certainly have forgotten that I just said that). I hope He has mercy on all of them.

But I'm not going to say that it is so, just because I hope it is. I try to accept the truth when it shows itself, and not let my humanistic ideas get in the way of what I think "must be" true, or "should be" true, just because I can't imagine anything different.

And the truth of this particular issue is rather chilling and hard to accept.

All human beings are born with the stain of original sin. St. Paul says in Ephesians 2 that we were all, by nature, "children of wrath."

That's what nature gives us; that's what natural birth bestows on us. Which is precisely why Our Lord said that the natural birth was not enough, and that we had to be "born again," only this time, born "of water and the Holy Ghost."

For those who aren't totally anti-Catholic, you can see that being born "of water and the Holy Ghost" means baptism - and if that isn't clear to you, then read the rest of John 3, and ask yourself why, right after this discussion with Nicodemus, St. John records that Our Lord went out and baptized. Coincidence? Hardly.

For whatever bizarre reason, God has chosen to communicate the grace of salvation by means of baptism; it's all over in Scripture. St. Peter tells the crowd to "be baptized for the remission of your sins" (Acts 2:28); St. Paul is told to "be baptized and wash away your sins" (Acts 22:16); St. Peter writes that "baptism now saves you" (1 Pet. 3:21). It doesn't get much clearer than this, and frankly, this is one of the inconsistencies of Protestantism that bothers me: plain texts like these are explained away by means of all sorts of tortured exegetical gymnastics, yet I've seen Protestant theological structures built on verses far, far less clear than these.

Now, if all men contract original sin, with no respect for age, culture, race, finance, etc., then there is no other conclusion than to say that the remedy for original sin is the same for all men as well: baptism.

Original Sin doesn't care how old you are; why would God?

The very fact that even infants need the healing remedy of baptism should be enough for any sane person to say, "then by God, don't withhold baptism from the babies!"

Some people are stubborn, though.

So consider this: St. Peter says that the promise of forgiveness via baptism is also "for your children" (Acts 2:39); St. Paul says that baptism is the new and improved version of circumcision (Col. 2:10ff) - and circumcision was certainly not withheld from infants; Our Lord Himself says that we are not to hinder the little children from coming to Him.

So why, why, why do I get accused of being "sick" and cold-hearted for saying that infants who die apart from baptism (probably) do not go to heaven? I'm not the one withholding from them the only remedy they have! I say baptize them immediately, but you, Mr. Protestant, say they have to wait until they're old enough to have faith - who's sick and cruel here?

Herein lies the several inconsistencies.

Protestants say we're saved by faith; but also that you have to be old enough to comprehend what "faith" is; infants "can't" have faith, so they shouldn't be baptized. In fact, some denominations (the one I grew up in, for example) will not recognize an infant baptism as valid, and will re-baptize you if you want to join their church (forget that St. Paul said in Eph. 4:5 that there is only "one baptism").

So basically, God is at the mercy of human Reason. If I'm not old enough to understand the gospel, I can't be saved, and I can't be baptized.

This is rather an elitist religion, I say - salvation by intellect, eh? Only the smart survive? Darwin, anyone?

And whatever happened to the Protestant maxim that salvation is free and not dependent on anything Man does? Sounds to me like it is quite dependent: it's dependent on my age and my ability to develop mentally. If I'm born with a brain defect, as many people are, and at 35 I still only have the brain capacity of a 3-year-old, what then? Are the mentally retarded damned as well, because they cannot understand the Gospel and exercise an "informed" faith?

Not in my religion, they're not. Salvation is by grace, grace is free, and baptism is one of seven direct conductors of that grace - come and receive it, whether you're 2 weeks old or 80 years old, whether you're a PhD or dumb as a box of rocks, whether you're rich or poor - it's free!

Ironic, isn't it? Protestants are always trumpeting their "free" gospel of grace and contrasting it with Catholicism, in which you have to "work" for heaven - not on this issue, my friend. The grace of baptism is not dependent on anything; not even on the "choice" of the infant.

Still, I was accused of being a monster for suggesting that God takes sin seriously, and that non-baptized infants don't go to heaven.

What, does He make exceptions for them? I certainly see nothing of the sort in Scripture.

If He makes exceptions for them, He must make exceptions for the mentally retarded, too. And if exceptions are made there ... well, where does it stop? I suppose pagans all go to heaven too, because they didn't know any better about the Gospel (and this argument is founded on the question of Reason and Intellect)?

So some suggest that infants are not born with original sin, just a sin "nature" that will cause them to commit personal sin later in life - and it's that personal sin that sends them to hell.

In which case, this means that infants are born pure and holy, and Natural birth is sufficient to get you into heaven, provided you die before the age of reason. Grace is not necessary.

By the way, these are the same people who will then turn around and vehemently reject the Immaculate Conception, little realizing that they've just proposed a doctrine that is somewhat like saying the Entire World is Immaculately Conceived.

Well, call me cruel, but ... I understood that this life has only one purpose: it's a temporary habitation on our way through to Heaven - I'm just a-passin' through and all that. This life is worthless when compared to eternal life in glory. So ... if all infants go to heaven when they die ... I say kill them all. Abortion is a great, great blessing, not a curse. We're sparing these poor souls the risk of someday committing personal sin and possibly ruining their otherwise-pure souls - that should be seen as a work of mercy!

Think about it! Since 1973, we in America have sent over 40 million souls straight to heaven! That's a good thing! So abort them all, do them a favor - sure, you'll have to let one or two of them live just to keep the species surviving, but that's all you need. Two kids, maybe three, then abort the rest and send them to heaven.

Actually ... that kinda sounds a lot like what our society looks like right now, doesn't it? Maybe the rise in abortions is an indication of what society believes about infants and heaven - because I guarantee you 99% of society believes all infants go to heaven. Corrupt faith breeds corrupt morals.

But what if society had to face the awful truth? That the true horror of abortion is that millions and millions of souls are not only being deprived of natural life, but also of the beatific vision? How fast would we rise up as one man and demand that abortion be outlawed?! Folks, there's a reason why abortion is so satanic, so diabolical: and it's not because Satan is interested in immediately sending millions of souls straight to glory.

I know, it's an awful thought. But what is even more awful, to me, is the plague of intellectual blindness that has robbed this society of the truth: baptism is the remedy, and it must not be withheld from our infants.

You say I'm cruel because I consign infant souls to hell? I say you're cruel for withholding from them the cure, insisting that they arrive at intellectual readiness first.

A final aside: when I say infants go to "hell," I mean what the Church has always meant by that. Hell has levels, and the damned suffer various degrees of punishment for their crimes; Hitler is going to suffer a lot worse than your neighbor lady who was basically moral, but wasn't a Christian.

Well, infants have committed no personal sin, so they have nothing to suffer for. They have no fire to endure. The only punishment they receive is that they are deprived of the vision of God - that's the pain of loss, not the pain of tortures.

The Fathers called this level of hell the "limbus," or "limbo" - it means "border." Infants are in hell, technically, but if you think of hell as a city, then they're on the outermost border, as far away from the city as possible. Limbo is a place of natural happiness - not supernatural, but at least natural.

So please, don't think I'm saying that all these babies are burning in torment. They're not, they're just not able to see God's face - and that's horrible enough.

I can appreciate how difficult this opinion is to swallow. What comfort is there for a mother who's aborted her baby? Folks ... that's the reality of sin. It does have consequences, long-lasting and far-reaching - that's why God insists that we stop sinning.

What about mothers who lose their babies in an accident? These things happen - get them baptized before you have to face that problem. I know a woman who lost her baby at about 9 months old ... it was horrible and gut-wrenching, but at the same time, I wanted to scream, why didn't you have your baby baptized?! She was a Protestant - that's why. Think it doesn't matter what religion you belong to? Here's one concrete example of how a wrong choice in a matter of faith leads to a tragic eternal loss of life.

It does matter. It matters a lot.

Lest you think me unusually harsh and cold, let me say a few final words of a more personal nature.

I only know what has been revealed for certain. And three things have been clearly revealed: 1) all men are conceived in original sin, 2) baptism is the only way to get rid of it, and 3) original sin is certainly enough to send you to hell.

It's hard to add 2 + 2 and not get 4 here.

What has not been revealed is something I can only speculate about (see Dt. 29:29) - but I can certainly hope and pray. I hope that God will have mercy on these souls anyway - I hope He has some secret backup plan that I don't know about. And I pray for those souls.

Why? Because I have a vested interest. You may think I'm talking about these things purely in an abstract way, but I'm not: my wife lost a baby in a miscarriage. Our first baby. Only 5-6 weeks old. Enoch David never got a chance to receive baptism, and that was nobody's fault. Not his, not my wife's, not mine. He wasn't the victim of our cruel choice to abort; he wasn't a victim of our stupid choice to delay baptism.

We named him (we assume it was a "him") Enoch David because, like Enoch in the OT, he was suddenly "no more, for the Lord took him," and like David, we experienced the pain of losing a child.

So what do I do now? Do I change my beliefs because it suits me? No. I entrust my baby's soul to the intercession of St. Enoch and St. David, I hope that God has mercy on his soul, and I pray very much that I will see him someday in heaven. What I will not do is lie and say, "well, of course he went to heaven, he was just a baby." I suspect he's in Limbo, enjoying natural happiness with no pain; that's a small comfort. But I'll keep praying that God has mercy on him.

All of this to say "let's get serious." Salvation is not a game; sin is not a fiction; hell is real, and potentially only a few moments away.

So let's treat this with the solemnity it deserves; let's quit delaying baptism for our kids; and let's pray with every ounce of strength we can muster that God will finally put an end to this holocaust of abortion, TODAY, RIGHT NOW. We've sacrificed our children to Satan for too long already ...

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us and for the souls of the unborn.

New Settings

Administrative note: I didn't realize my blog was set up so that only registered Blogger users could post comments in my comment boxes. That situation has been remedied, and now anyone can post comments.

Woe to You, Pharisees

A bit of background history first ...

At the beginning of Israel's life as a nation, they had very few laws. The Ten Commandments pretty much summed it up, and even those could be summed up into two laws: love God, love your neighbor.

So God said, "You are my firstborn son," and He sent that nation out to be a light to all the other nations. Through Israel, all the other nations were to learn what it meant to be children of God.

Of course, the first thing Israel did was worship a golden calf, and so it quickly became apparent that they were not yet ready to be a light to the nations - they were far more likely to be influenced by those nations.

So God imposed a few more laws - more specific stuff, stuff designed to keep Israel separate from the nations until they learned how to stand on their own two feet.

This was designed to humiliate Israel, to make them realize how weak they were, to ultimately make them cry out to God for help and grace - which He was ready to give from the start.

So this is the pattern of the Israelite story: sin, receive more laws; sin some more, receive even more laws; keep sinning, keep receiving more complicated laws.

What should have been a lesson in humility became a cause of pride for Israel. Instead of saying, "wow, we must be really weak if God has to isolate us from the other nations," they misinterpreted God and thought, "wow, we must be sooooo holy if God doesn't want us to be defiled by contact with those other filthy nations!"

This was the general attitude of the Pharisees in Our Lord's day, at a time when Ten Commandments had somehow grown to over 600 laws. They had come to love the particulars, the rituals, the purist specifics, and they mistook the means for the end itself.

For example: they had a law about washing their cups, but they got so caught up in washing cups that they missed the point, namely, that this was a ritual meant to demonstrate to them that they were *like* these cups and needed cleansing, both inside and out.

Not that there was anything wrong with the rituals - that's a mistake that a lot of people make, thinking that Our Lord condemned them for being ritualistic. Not so. He condemned them for elevating the rituals beyond what they were intended. That's why He says in Matt. 23 that the Pharisees should have understood what the rituals meant and followed the higher, deeper law which the rituals pointed to, without forgetting to do the rituals themselves. He wasn't anti-ritual, He was anti-missing-the-point.

I see a great tendency among Traditionalist Catholics today to fall into the same trap as the Pharisees.

We can so easily become hyper-critical and in the process, become hypocritical.

We get really cranky about our particulars and specifics, don't we? We insist that will not pray those new Luminous Mysteries; we read articles about how bad an idea the new mysteries are; we look down our noses at those who do choose to use them; we talk about the new mysteries with our parishioners and cluck our tongues; but then, how often do we neglect the 15 mysteries we already have?

"well, no, I rarely pray the Rosary, but darn it, if I was going to pray it, I certainly wouldn't use those new mysteries!" This is Pharisaical.

We can't stand the New Mass. We look down on those who do attend it - those poor "Novus Ordo Catholics." But when it comes right down to it, have we thought about why our beloved Mass is nearing extinction, why we can only get it twice a month, why we can only get it at odd hours on odd days?

If I know anything about the way God works, then I can say with certainty that the reason we don't have the Mass is because we're being punished; your fathers or my fathers or probably both neglected the Mass when it was in full bloom, and they took it for granted; so God took it away. Catholics in this country had grown lax and neglected the treasures of the Holy Faith; so God is taking it away from us.

Somehow, though, like Israel before us, we've taken a punishment that ought to be an occasion for humility and cries for help, and we've made it an occasion for pride. "Sniff - well, I don't go to the Novus Ordo, I only attend the Traditional Mass, with a pre-1962 Missal." Yes, but outside of this one particular ritual, do you live the Faith? Do you practice it? Do you pray the Rosary, do penance, speak often with your guardian angel and patron saints, teach your children the faith, enter into contemplative prayer frequently?

The Traditional Mass is better, don't get me wrong; the new mysteries of the Rosary are a pitiful innovation - but what did Our Lord say? Keep doing the rituals, just don't miss the point, and don't confuse an occasion of humility for an occasion of pride.

If you gripe and moan about these things, but never practice the faith and never do penance for the sins of our fathers which got us into this crisis, then you're nothing but a Pharisee - and believe me, God would rather you be a committed Novus Ordo Catholic who loves the faith and soaks up devotion than to be a by-the-book Traditionalist who only attends Mass on Sundays because it's nice to have a cause to fight for.

Think about these things the next time you're tempted to utter the words "Novus Ordo" with great contempt ...

Potty Mouth

Profanity and obscene speech. I was just noticing how a lot of our modern-day curse words come from the Church - or rather, I should say that the Church made these words hallowed through years of regular usage, and they have now been de-sacralized and made "profane" through flippant usage.

To "damn" someone is to condemn (or con-damn?) them to Hell. An example of condemnding someone might be to so "go to hell" - a curse, but in some cases a legitimate curse.

And how many Catholic prayers begin, "O my God ..." - it's a sad testimony to the state of our culture that I still find it difficult to pray the Act of Faith or the Act of Contrition because I associate "O my God" with cursing.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph" is also a prayer - not a curse.

This all goes back to the Old Testament practice of swearing oaths. In fact, that's where we get the term "swearing" from. When you swear an oath, you invoke the Name of God to help you carry out whatever oath you are taking, because you publicly recognize that this oath is going to require more than you are capable of handling on your own strength.

On the flip side of every oath is a curse, which is why we call obsenity "cursing." When you say "I swear to do thus-and-so, so help me God," you are implicitly saying, "and if I fail to do so, so damn me God." That's why in the OT you could really trust someone's word when they swore an oath - because they were saying, "If I'm lying, then may God damn me!"

The Second Commandment prohibits taking God's name in vain. What does that mean? Primarily it means breaking an oath which you swore in His name. If you have taken His name, invoked His name, but broken your oath anyway, then you have taken His name in vain.

On another level, though, it does prohibit flippant use of oaths. You don't say "so help me God!" unless you really, really mean it. You don't swear oaths for every little thing under the sun. Much less should you invoke oath formulas when there is no oath involved - and that's where cursing comes in. "God-damn you," is one of the strongest oath formulas, and it is entirely serious - to use that term over something so simple as hitting your thumb with a hammer is a gross violation of the Second Commandment.

"Amen" is also an oath formula, and the Latin word for "oath" is Sacramentum. So think of it this way: if you receive the sacraments, you're implicitly swearing an oath before God; and if you receive them unworthily, or fail to live up to the oath you are making, you've violated the Second Commandment - there's more involved here than mere words.

Which brings me to another point: why doesn't our society recognize the sacred anymore? Nothing is holy! Nothing is respected! We have a venerable tradition in the Church of only uttering the Holy Name when we need to, but amongst Christians today the name "Jesus" is dropped like crazy.

We used to believe that names meant something, and that His Name in particular had a holiness attached to it, which should make us think twice about invoking that name for any and every reason. A part of that tradition that I mentioned is bowing your head when you have to use His Name - watch the priest the next time he says the Gloria, and you'll see that he bows his head slightly every time he says "Iesu Christe."

Hence, Catholics have preferred to use the term "Our Lord" when referring to Him - at the very least it keeps us from walking around like bobble-heads because we use His name too much.

At any rate ... Catholics do not use profanity. At least, they shouldn't. We have a pretty bad reputation in that area, though, and it's too bad. I remember when I first converted to Catholicism, I was standing in the vestibule after Mass and talking to a friend, when an older man tried to squeeze behind me (he was in a hurry to get out, apparently) and ended up knocking over a basket full of bulletins - there was a gruff "dammit!" and then he was out the door. I thought that was pretty incredible, that you would say it at all, much less inside the House of God, much much less after having just received Holy Communion.

That's why I was pleased with an experience I had while working with a sincere, pious woman at a Catholic bookstore some time ago. She had walked into the room and tripped over a cord, which elicited a "dammit" from her mouth ... the next day, she came into work, sought me out specifically, and apologized. Feeling emboldened, I asked her if Catholics weren't being taught the importance of holy speech, or if they were being given the impression that profanity wasn't so bad - she assured me that, at least when she was growing up, profanity was forbidden.

Now I'm a member of the Holy Name Society, a society dedicated to respecting and promoting respect for the Holy Name of Our Lord, and also to making reparation for sins against that Name. Part of the pledge that the society recites reads, "I pledge myself against perjury, blasphemy, profanity, and obscene speech."

It's not easy, because part of this obligation means not only refraining from profanity myself, but also encouraging others to do so as well. If the guy in the cube next to me drops the big "G.D.", or a flippant "Jesus Christ," I should go and talk to him, at the very least to tell him that his language offends me and offends God even more. Not an easy task.

To make reparation for sins against the Name of Jesus, this prayer is especially recommended:

"May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and ineffable Name of God be forever praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen."

The Hell There Is

Newsflash: God is serious about hating sin, and people do go to hell.

In fact, most people go there.

I am continually amazed by the way people respond when I insist that outside the Catholic Church, there is no salvation. I'm talking about Catholics here - they can't fathom what I'm saying. It slowly dawns on them that 99% of the people they know and love are not Catholic and are, by all objective standards, not headed for heaven.

You can't be serious! But, but, but ... that means my mom, my dad, my aunts and uncles, my friends, my co-workers - that means people that I have known and loved who have already passed away are ... no, it can't be!

People! Are we serious about what we say when it comes to grace, sin, heaven, hell, the holiness of God, the final judgement, etc.? Are these just nice abstract ideas that we memorized in catechism, but which have no actual application in real life?

Do you need a motivation to get serious about evangelization? Step outside and look at everyone you see. All those people in their cars, walking down the street, shopping in the stores, eating at McDonalds ... most, if not all of them, are going to hell. And they probably don't even know it (mentally they do, but they obviously aren't giving that thought too much credence).

I was talking about this with a friend of mine recently, and - God bless him, he's such a sincere soul - his reaction was, "Then why aren't we pounding on doors, stopping people on the street, telling everyone we know about the Catholic Faith?"

Exactly.

Wide is the road that leads to destruction, and many are those who walk therein.

Many will try to enter into eternal life, but few will find it.

Our Lord said both of those things.

Why on earth do you think He suffered so much, went through such great agony on the Cross? Sin is real! God does not wink at our offenses, and He has given us every opportunity to avoid the terminal decree that all of us deserve.

Who's to blame for the souls that go to hell, then? Certainly not God. What more could He possibly do, short of turning us all into robots and flipping the "salvation" switch?

So do something about it, ok? Start with praying. You can save more souls through regular prayer than you could ever do by door-to-door evangelization. At least one of my Rosary decades is dedicated, every single day, to "the worst sinner in the world today."

Then work on your family. Can't win 'em? Breed 'em. Transmit to your own family such a love and zeal for the Faith that they will do the same for their families someday, until one day, within a few generations, your family of ten solid Catholics becomes an extended family of 300 solid Catholics.

Time is short. People you know and love are getting closer to death every day, and once their time comes, there are no second chances. Write a letter or two. Send a tape. Mail an article. Invite someone out for coffee and tell them about the most important thing in your life, the Holy Faith.

And pray, pray, pray.

Take on a penance this week for the salvation of a friend or family member - and if you're lucky enough that all of your family and friends are already committed Catholics, then take on a penance for the salvation of some sinful soul who is currently unknown to you. Who knows? Someday you may make it to heaven and that person will come up to you and say, "your prayers worked - thank you, I owe you my life."

But for the love of God, whatever you do, do not fall into the complacent trap of believe that everyone you know is "probably mostly ok," and that there is no danger for them.

It's going to be a painful moment on the Day of Judgment when perhaps hundreds of souls, people you worked with, people you loved, people you interacted with on a regular basis, turn to you after being condemned to hell and say, "You knew the truth - why, oh why didn't you tell me?"

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us - save souls, forgetting not to save my own poor soul!

Silence: Golden, but Rare

There once was a time - and it can be recaptured at any time - when silence was golden. Man understood that there was a great value in quiet contemplation, meditation, stillness ... some religious orders even took vows of silence, so well did the understand the power of the Quiet when it comes to prayer.

I am relearning this lesson, ever-so slowly. For the past three days, I have had the utterly joyous privilege of taking 45 minutes alone, by myself, to pray the Rosary in silence. I'm wondering why I didn't insist on this much earlier.

It's been refreshing, every single time. I can shut out the world for a while and touch the face of God, see the saints I've come to love, meditate upon the mysteries of Salvation.

At last it dawns on me ... society as a whole is drifting further and further from sanctity, partly because there is not a silent moment to be found. Anywhere.

Look at your average day.

It begins with the jarring noise of your alarm clock. It continues as you climb into your car and drive to work, with the radio on. Depending on the kind of job you have, you deal with more or less noise for another 8 solid hours; the elevators play muzak; customer-service jobs keep you talking and listening; if you work in retail, no doubt the store plays a constant stream of in-house music; even in my line of work, with computers, there are noises at every turn: alerts, beeps, ringing phones, cube-to-cube conversation, new mail sounds - perhaps you even plug in your headphones and continue to fill your head with music.

On the drive home, there is more radio noise. When you get home, the TV goes on, or you go out to watch a movie and have dinner at an establishment which, of course, pipes in non-stop music to eat by.

Of course, you carry a cell-phone, so there is no end to the interruptions of ringing and conversation. Machines hum, jack-hammers pound, trains roar, engines rumble, and somewhere in the distance a car drives by with the radio so loud the trunk is vibrating.

What is this? Are we afraid of silence? Yes. Because in the silence, you have nothing but your thoughts. You have to face yourself. You get that sense of Something Bigger out there, and you know you have to confront Him - because in the silence is the only place you will hear that still, small voice, calling you.

But since hearing that voice means acknowledging that voice, and acknowledging that voice opens up a whole can of worms, we'd rather just drown out the voice.

Bring on the noise.

Here's an idea: try to go without the radio in the car for seven days. The first time I did that, the silence was deafening. I didn't know what to do. I actually (gasp!) started praying on the way to work and back.

Another radical idea: sometime this week, lock yourself in a room with no radio or TV, and listen to the silence for 30 minutes. That's all. Just 30 minutes.

See if something valuable doesn't come out of that experience.

What's in a Name?

Here's a sad trend in society today: the loss of the sacred when it comes to naming our children.

Used to be that you'd name your new baby after a saint or an angel, with the intention of placing that baby under the patronage of the same. Kids were named Margaret, Joseph, Francis, Theresa, Mary, Andrew, Thomas, Gabriel, Michael, Rita, Christopher, and so on.

Not only did we place our children under the protection of these saints and angels, but we gave those kids a role model to look up to in the future. A name to live up to, a reputation to protect. Little Catherine would grow up hearing stories about all the saints named Catherine, and would naturally feel like she "owned" that saint - after all, we share names! That's important to a kid. Little Anthony would grow up hearing about St. Anthony of Padua, and he would wish to imitate St. Anthony at every possible turn.

True heros. True role models.

Now? Well, the venerable tradition was eroded ever-so slightly when we started using the short-form of names. Anthony became Tony, Francis became Frank, Peter became Pete, Elizabeth became Beth, Catherine became Cathy, and so on. It was subtle - but still a step in the direction of secularization nonetheless. It was a way of ever-so-slightly distancing the children from the saints whom they were named after.

After too long, the whole enterprise was more-or-less forgotten, and now kids are subjected to all sorts of names, which may or may not belong to a saint - and even if that happens, it happens by mistake.

Little boy is named Michael, not after St. Michael, but after Michael Jordan. Little girl is named Mary, not after the Blessed Mother, but after her great-great grandmother, for purely sentimental reasons.

Any more, then trend is to pick exotic names which have no relation to a saint at all: Destiny, Summer, Jordan, Parker, Trey, April, and so on.

At least those kids can choose their own patron saint at Confirmation, should God someday grant them the grace of receiving that sacrament.

There's more to choosing a name than simply picking something that sounds cool, or pretty; there's more to it than sentiment; a name (Scripturally speaking) describes who you are, what is your essence. In a certain sense, the name is you, and you are your name.

Choose wisely ...

Spontaneous Verbal Combustion

There is no coherence here, and no theme. Just a bunch of random things I'm thinking on a Friday morning.

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Stop talking about the war already. It's on all the radio news talk-shows every single day: the Hawks arguing with the Doves ... Should we be in Iraq? Do we as a nation really have the right to be policing what we deem to be "immoral" or "evil" dictatorships? Where are the WMDs? What about 9/11? Why didn't we go after Korea instead? Can we defeat terrorism? Are we only provoking it to get worse?

I have a different set of questions entirely. We believe it is ok to forcibly end the reign of a dictator who terrorized his subjects and brutally murdered his own citizens. Will we concede that it would be morally right for some other nation to forcibly end the reign of our government for brutally murdering 4,000 unborn US citizens every single day? After all, I know we have WMDs ...

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This is not a free country. I wish we'd stop pretending otherwise.

I work 40+ hours every week. I work 12 months every year. For the first three of those months, I work exclusively for the government - that is to say that I pay the government roughly $13,000 every year in taxes. The serfs had it better.

For those three months, that $13,000 - a "war tax" introduced during WWII, which war our government apparently thinks is still going - goes to support, at least in part, the funding of doctors who will butcher live babies today. How else did you think women who have no medical insurance were able to pay for such a "medical procedure?"

Now, personally, I can't in good conscience send my money to people who are going to use that money for immoral purposes. How free a country is this? Try not paying into those tax-funded abortions and see just how free you are.

So cast my vote in November, right?

Wrong.

Neither of the major party candidates are Catholic men who are committed to establishing the reign of Christ as King of Society. Neither candidate is committed to saying publicly that abortion under any form and for any reason is an absolute evil, prohibited by Divine Law, much less putting an end to this holocaust once and for all.

I know, I know. Bush is "more pro-life" than Kerry. Bush is slightly "better" than Kerry in this area. He'll save more babies than Kerry - not all, but more.

What kind of choice is that?! You may as well put it on the ballot for me: Mr. Michael, would you like us to slaughter 2,000 babies in the next year, or 20,000? I'm not giving my permission for either, thank you very much.

My only admissible candidate isn't running right now: a truly Catholic man who will not shrink from letting his Catholic faith dictate how he runs the country; a man who isn't afraid to say, with the full weight of his office behind him, that there are such things as false religions, and that this nation has a Divine obligation to worship the one true God.

That will not happen any time soon.

Why?

Because it runs against the very principle upon which this nation was founded: religious liberty.

Yes, we are so religiously liberated and free that I have no option to vote for a president who truly embodies my religious beliefs, because my religious beliefs are excluded from the very "liberty" clause that ensures my religious freedom. That's how "free" I am.

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There is no such thing as religious liberty for all.

It's a logical impossibility.

Just ask the Buddhists who got tossed out of St. Adalbert's by the SSPX last February. They think the SSPX should be charged with committing a hate crime. Apparently they believe in acceptance and tolerance of all religions, except those religions that cherish exclusivity as part of their creed.

Let me explain by means of a short grammatical demonstration.

The Constitution says, essentially, "no religion shall be given preferential treatment."

But there is no such thing as "no religion." You either worship God, or you participate in the essence of Satanism, which is refusing to worship God. The truth is that "no religion" describes an absence of religion, but there is no such thing as an absence of religion. Absence of the True Religion means the de facto presence of False Religion.

So let's change that statement to reflect the positive presence of "no religion," instead of absence: "No Religion shall be given preferential treatment."

That reflects the truth more clearly. No Religion, as a positive entity, shall be given preferential treatment in this country.

Actually, there's another name for "No Religion." It's called "Atheism."

So let's read that Constitutional statement again: "Atheism shall be given preferential treatment."

Balk at that if you will, but the current state of society proves me right. Atheism is given preference time and again in this nation. Christian symbols must be removed from the public square; no more Manger Scenes at Christmas, and "Christmas" will become "Happy Holidays"; no more Ten Commandments on the walls; no more prayer in school; sooner than you think, there will be prohibitions against publicly preaching that Sodomy is a sin; Atheism shall be given preference.

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Bush is Skull and Bones. Kerry is Skull and Bones. Both have admitted as much. Both are, by virtue of their membership in this secret society, sworn enemies of the Catholic Church and of the Catholic principle of the Social Kingship of Christ.

There is no "lesser of two evils" here as far as I'm concerned.

I don't think I'm going to vote.

"Oh, but Bush is a Christian, a man of faith!"

Horse-puke. He's a Protestant, and maybe in the 1600s that might have meant something about what you could expect of a man, at least in terms of his morals (the first generation of Protestants were anti-Divorce, anti-Contraception, pro-State/Church union, anti-Sodomy, etc.) - but in American in the 21st Century, being a "Protestant" means nothing. It means you can pretty much make up your religion as you go along.

Don't believe me? Look at the Anglicans who are ready to throw open the gates to Sodomite priests. Look at the many denominations who are ordaining women pastors. Look at how no major Protestant denomination teaches that contraception is still, after all these years, an offense against God and an abominable wickedness. Look at how many Protestant scholars in the mainline are starting to reject the inspiration of Scripture.

John Shelby Spong is still a bishop in the Episcopal church.

No, saying that Bush is a Protestant means nothing to me, except that he is objectively an enemy of the Church - and somehow I think his Skull and Bones allegiences outweigh any creed he supposedly professes.

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My daughter is a better Catholic than I am, and I think I'm going to start trying to follow her example.

She gets up in the morning and the first thing she does is say hello to "Sheh-sus" (Jesus), "May-mee" (Mary), and "Say-oo-see" (St. Lucy); the last thing she does before bed is kiss images of all three, and says "na-nye" (goodnight) to them each by name.

Not a bad to "book-end" your day.

If I could remember to do that myself, I'd be in really good shape.

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My guardian angel is fantastic. I lost control of my car on the freeway yesterday, and losing control at 75 MPH is really a dangerous thing. Somehow, I avoided hitting anything, and got things under control with no damage. "And he shall give his angels charge over you ..."

Thank you, Guardian Angel.

On the Fast Track to Sainthood

True confession time: I do a lot of stuff I shouldn't do. And I don't mean really obvious stuff like lying, stealing, illicit sex, etc.

That's too obvious.

I'm talking about the subtle stuff that most of us don't think about very often, stuff that isn't inherently bad, but stuff that we shouldn't be doing all the same.

Let me give you an example: a few nights ago, I spent nearly two hours on the computer, playing a Tetris-style video game. Big deal, right? What's wrong with playing a video game?

On the surface of it, nothing. But for two hours? What else might I have done with that time? Prayed an extra Rosary. Played with my daughter. Helped my wife with the dishes. Cleaned up the living room a bit. Read a chapter of Scripture or some other devotional book. Spent some time in contemplative prayer. Any number of things that would have given me a much greater return on my investment of time.

When seen in that light, it makes sense to me to say that playing a video game for two hours was something I shouldn't have done.

As I said, I do a lot of those things that I "shouldn't do." I'm betting you do a lot of those things too.

Allow me to pass on a few words of advice from my spiritual director that made a lot of sense: if you want to be a saint, do 50% less of what you do all day. Do less each day? Now that's something I can live with!

But here's the catch: the difference between becoming a saint here on earth and stumbling through sinnerdom as a perpetual spiritual midget is knowing which 50% of your activities to cut out. This is the tricky part.

Again, I'll pass on the advice I received: start by cutting out activities that could be described as "brainless." Then cut out the ones that are more-or-less "useless." Finally, cut out the ones that are "silly."

What about having some fun, though? Therein lies the deception: that you can't have fun while doing activities that exercise your brain, or activities that are useful, or activities that aren't silly (in the grand scheme of things).

So do an inventory of your average day and ask yourself which of your usual activities are mere deadweight, and which of them might be better replaced with activities that will have a more, shall we say, "eternal impact."

Modern Man Can't Dress Himself

From the "Fr. Smith Says" department ...

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Few have commented on the power exerted by women over the ages by virtue of the old saying “clothes make the man”. This is less an issue of clothes making the man than of the woman making the clothes. From infancy, women dress men to suit their tastes. It is Mommy who chooses Junior’s jump suit. It is Mom who sewed his first pair of pants or brought him clothes shopping before kindergarten. It is fear of underwhelming the girls in the sophomore class that prompts Junior to have Big Sis show him which jeans to buy at the mall. His lovely bride picks out the wedding tux, vetoes the striped-and-polka-dotted tie he wanted to wear to the office, and burns those old jeans that are so yesterday’s cool. And she will have Grandma knit a new jump suit for Junior Junior just like the one in Junior’s baby pictures that make him look so adorable.

Feminists, however, are abdicating almost all of the power that women once wielded over the closet. Women do not sew. Women are at the mercy of designers and department stores when it comes to sizes and styles available for themselves, their children, and the men for whom they shop. Women dress like men – either looking like slobs in the home, or mimicking men in the corporate boardroom where they claim to want to bring a feminizing element to humanize business. Women dress not like ladies, but like ladies of the evening when it comes to socializing, and then wonder why men treat them like so much flesh whose only purpose is for the pleasure of men, free to discard any woman – girlfriend, wife, or mistress – when something fresher comes along.

When women did sew, they chose the fabrics, designs, colors, and styles of the clothing for everyone in the family. The one exception to this would be tailored men’s suits, which change their overall appearance about as often as the moon changes its mind about which side should face the earth. Now that women do not sew, they, and everyone else, must buy clothes. Clothes, as with all other consumables these days, are made to the order of mega-corporations. These corporations are dominated by men. These men decide what “decisions” are available for women to make when dressing themselves and dressing their men.

A slight tangent is necessary here. The kind of men making these choices are not the kind of men that would satisfy most women. The fashion “industry” is not noted for its emphasis on the masculine. This would not be remarkable were women to dominate fashion as they dominate nursing. What should concern more people than it does is the fact that America is being dressed by men whose primal urges tend in directions that healthy people would find disturbing, distasteful, and disoriented.

Here is a slightly different tangent to the tangent. The mega-corporations producing the clothes no longer sewn by women do so in most unwomanly ways. Slave labor makes production costs very low and profit margins very high, while doing little or nothing to reduce retail costs. A large proportion of the slaves laboring for these corporations are children. Women in America buy clothes for their children made by other women’s children whose monthly income would be insufficient to purchase a pair of shoes. The ability to make such purchases, rather than the necessity of providing such items herself, makes it possible for the American mother to be away from her family and at work (although this work is no longer in the American garment and textile industry, now virtually extinct). This is a reality she does not share with the Third World slave mothers because their children are just a few benches down in the same sweat shop, happy that the family has attained full employment.

Women are told that they should aspire to be mathematicians and scientists. In happier, healthier days of western civilization, a far higher proportion of women excelled at dressmaking and sewing – highly skilled arts – than their husbands were able to find success as rocket scientists or doctors. Women are encouraged to go into business and politics. They often pursue careers in business wherein they appeal to women’s homemaking skills; in politics they frequently emphasize the importance of the home and family; and in both instances they miss the irony that they no longer nurture their own nurturing skills and hire some other mother to mother their children. Women in the workplace and in government are supposedly the repositories of a mystical feminine key to universal beatitude. They discard the very things most readily recognizable as feminine – dress, homemaking skills, and empathy – in favor of participating in the very things that destroyed the traditional husband and father – unprincipled competition, displaced priorities, and exile from the home. Blurring the line between men and women has not brought a more feminine touch to commerce nor a stronger masculine presence in the home, but has dehumanized most aspects of modern public life and has all but crippled the modern family.

“Dressing for success” has come to mean that women wear pants-suits and that men have forgotten how to put – or keep – their pants on. Women now see men as competitors and men see women as threats. Women have ceased to look to men as providers and companions while men no longer seek wives for themselves or mothers for their children. Women are replacing men in office suites and the corridors of power and men have absented themselves from the home and the responsibilities of fatherhood. “Unisex” does not mean that sex roles are interchangeable; it means that one of the sexes, the female, has come to usurp the position of the other, the male, and the male has taken advantage of the situation to be as demanding as the female has become. Women are demanding a right to help rule the world. Men are demanding the right to live in a world without rules.

This is a world without real men or real women. Females now lack husbands, fathers, and helpmates, having instead bosses, employees, and clients. Males now lack wives, mothers, and helpmates, having instead one-night stands, mistresses, and old girlfriends. Children are thus taught never to grow up, continuing the childish insistence on having one’s own way in imitation of the females in their lives, or continuing the childish insistence on instant gratification in imitation of the males in their lives. Somehow, this does not seem what St. Paul had in mind in Galatians 3:26-29 or in Ephesians 5:22-24.

Modern Man is both Bored and Boring

More wisdom from the pen of Fr. Smith...

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The most oppressive rule in that most oppressive of rule-making bodies is the Catholic Church’s enforcement of God’s Third Commandment:  Remember to keep holy the Sabbath.  This means that one may not do servile work on Sunday, including dashing off that little report left over from Friday needed for Monday’s meeting.  This means that Holy Days of Obligation are to be observed in the same manner as Sundays, including the prohibition of servile work, such as doing the week’s shopping instead of going to Mass.  This includes understanding that the Lord’s Day is not an odd celestial phenomenon in which a rotation of the earth occurs within the fifty-nine minutes of the early Low Mass with Father’s abbreviated sermon; but the acknowledgement that twenty-four hours do a day make.  This means, on pain of mortal sin, that you will pray, you will rest, you will enjoy your family and yourself and not tucker yourself out on needless work and worry! What tyranny!

It is ironic to the point of hysteric bitter laughter that Holy Mother Church is accused of impinging on men’s freedoms.  She requires that at least one day in seven be spent in quiet, rest, recreation with the family, and communion with the All-Loving God.  She has as one of her primary obligations the comforting of those whose lives are disordered, burdensome, and hopeless.  Her highest law is that of charity, which commands that whatever a brother in need asks, for mind, body, or soul, must be given, at the risk of the selfish being damned for all eternity.  She calls her children to imitate her Lord, who teaches that perfect love offers all of life and receives the reward of endless life, complete joy, and the vision of infinite glory.

This, however, does not satisfy the modern sophisticate.  He would rather have his boss insist that he miss his daughter’s fifth birthday so that he can play golf with the big client being wooed in New York.  His equally sophisticated live-in mate, the mother of his daughter, is upset, not because her unhusband is missing their child’s birthday party, but because she can’t find a new job.  She wants to quit her current job because the couple’s two-week old “accident” can’t get into daycare until he’s three months old, and her boss won’t give her paid leave to stay with the baby until he’s older.  Without the job they can’t afford daycare, which they need so that she can work.  And she’s not thrilled with her boyfriend right now, not because he’s going to New York to play golf on their child’s birthday, but because he wants her to have her tubes tied but refuses to have a vasectomy.  She thinks it only fair that both of them end up mutilated.  He thinks that even though she might not want to bear more children, he might still want to make some with another woman some day.  That part about another woman bothers her less than him missing their daughter’s fifth birthday.  After all, she can always get another guy, but their daughter will only turn five once. 

Other examples of liberated, freethinking modernism include the hordes of people walking around with wireless chains attached to their ears.  Butlers to the King of England answered bells at odd times, in inconvenient moments, and for strange demands.  This is considered servile and undignified in contemporary society.  No self-respecting, twenty-first century empowered citizen would willingly stoop to such depths of servitude.  Instead, in the middle of meals, a bell goes off and they leap to respond to whatever command issues forth on their text-messaging service.  A different bell goes off, the opening strains of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, for instance, and the modern freeman rushes to find out which out-of-state client desires him to leave the orchestra concert to discuss what was discussed in the conference call this afternoon.  Yet another ring happens, and an emancipated denizen of modernity stops her friend in mid-sentence to speak on the telephone to the friend who isn’t speaking to the friend that she is speaking to over coffee.

In the home, the family exercises a newfound freedom unknown before electricity.  “Daddy, tell me a story.”  “Sure, sweety.  Bring me the DVD box and let’s choose a movie.”  “Mommy, sing me a song.”  “Of course, dear.  Let Mommy find our favorite CD and pop it in the computer.”  “Big Brother, come and play with me.”  “Sure, squirt.  Let’s go downstairs and get out the video games.”

Some demur and say that not everyone, for example, sings well, thus, recorded music is a real help for them.  To this I respond: Then stop doing anything for your children!  If only the best is good enough for little Jane and Joe, then they will hear nothing but the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for bedtime lullabies, Sir Laurence Olivier must act out the Brothers Grimm on rainy days, and Julia Child will prepare their afternoon snacks.  I am firmly convinced that every child believes that his mommy’s voice is the prettiest, her face the most beautiful, and her cooking the tastiest in the whole wide world!  The only children who think otherwise were taught such lies by their own parents mouthing foolishness like, “I can’t sing” or “I’m too fat” or “My cooking is awful”. 

A bizarre phenomenon is occurring in our day.  Everyone mouths platitudes about family values, but when it is suggested that people actually spend time with their families unimpeded by electronic devices, admission fees, or interstate-highway travel, suddenly the members of the family bear a familial resemblance to a herd of deer staring down a pair of headlights on the aforementioned interstate.  No one has anything to talk about with their loved ones.  No one has any common interests with their loved ones.  No one knows their loved ones – and everyone shows very little interest in curing their mutual ignorance. 

Why not cook a meal from scratch together?  How about a game of tag?  Perhaps it would be fun to pop popcorn – in a skillet with oil on the stove! – and tell ghost stories in the dark.  When was the last time you built a neighborhood of card houses?  Wouldn’t it be great if Mom, Dad, and the kids spent more time enjoying each other’s company than in the company of ogres at work, bullies at school, and strangers in the living room?

If the USA was a Christian Nation...

I heard the following news story on NPR last week, and later found the printed text of the original story ...

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In Ohio, Supreme Court Considers Right to Procreate
A Man Behind on Child Support Got Orders Not to Beget
By Robert E. Pierre
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 11, 2004; Page A02

MEDINA, Ohio -- Sean Talty fathered seven children with five women and fell $40,000 behind on support payments, once going two years without making a payment. When he appeared in Common Pleas Court on felony charges for not paying child support, Talty found himself before one fed-up jurist: Judge James L. Kimbler ordered the 32-year-old Akron resident to take "reasonable efforts" not to get anyone pregnant for five years -- or go to jail.

That was two years ago, and today the Ohio Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Talty's case to decide the constitutionality of what has come to be known as "pay up or zip up."

... Medina County prosecutors have argued in court papers that the judge's order meets a three-part test established by previous court rulings: It aids rehabilitation, relates to the original crime and helps prevent more criminal activity because Talty -- also deep in debt -- will not create any new obligations.

Kimbler said the rights of people on probation and parole are routinely taken away. They can be forced to take drug tests, remain at home under house arrest or be searched without probable cause. "We interfere with fundamental rights of probationers all the time," the judge said in an interview.  "This has to be seen in the context of parolee and probationer rights."

... Talty's case could set a significant precedent: What would stop the government from forcing a mother whose child would be born with spina bifida or cystic fibrosis to have an abortion? What would prohibit a judge from requiring a mother who receives welfare to get contraceptive implants? (A decade ago, a California judge did just that, but a state appeals court overturned the order.) 

... A case similar to this one, however, has held up to scrutiny. In 1999, a Wisconsin man was sentenced to three years in prison and five years of probation on three separate counts of failure to pay child support.  The man, David Oakley, was also ordered not to father any children during probation "unless he could prove to the court that he could support them all." The decision was upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

... Laura W. Morgan, who headed the American Bar Association's committee on child support, said such cases set a bad precedent for society. She said she wishes more people tailored their family size to their budget, and she noted that Talty does not inspire sympathy. "He should have to pay," she said.  "There are, however, lines that government can't cross," Morgan said.  "I would hope that we are well away from the line where the government can tell you how many children you can have."

... On the day Talty was initially supposed to be sentenced, Kimbler considered putting him in jail but first had a question: Could he require Talty not to have any more children? The prosecution and defense said they did not think it was legal, so Kimbler ordered briefs from the lawyers and ended up with the language that Talty should make "reasonable efforts to avoid conception." "It was the first time I had imposed this particular condition," Kimbler said. His ruling was upheld by the 9th District Court of Appeals in Akron.

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Aside from the fact that this is a truly frightening precedent, and serves as a sign that we cannot be far away from government-imposed restrictions on the sizes of our families (not to mention forced contraception/abortion in the future), I found it interesting that the Judge felt free to regulate the man's use of contraceptives, but not his sexual activity.

In a Christian society, the Judge would have said, "I order you to cease and desist from committing the sin of fornication."  In a Christian society, the Judge would never have allowed the man to divorce his first wife in the first place. 

But because this is not a Christian society, the Judge says, in effect, "have sex, just make a reasonable effort to use contraceptives and prevent future pregnancy."

Can you imagine America as a Christian society?  I'm trying to envision some of the headlines ...

"Former President Clinton Sentenced to 6 Months of Prison for Committing the Sin of Adultery"

"California Abortion Doctor Receives Death Sentence for Murdering 5,000 Innocent Babies"

"Supreme Court Bans Latest Halle Berry Movie from Theaters, Rules Immodest Images Dangerous to Nation's Youth:

Oh well.  I can dream ... 

Bin Laden, Kerry, Bush, and the Pope

Some thoughts from a dear friend:

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1. The Pope calls our world the "Culture of Death";

2. Prominent among the ills of this deadly culture is the scourge of abortion;

3. The Pope, our Bishops, and countless priests have exhorted politicians and governments to curtail and/or cease the barbaric practice of legalized child murder;

4. Senator John F. Kerry, candidate for the Presidency of the United States, a baptized Catholic, claims that he agrees with the Church's teaching on the objective evil of abortion, but that he is not bound to obey the teaching as a legislator or as the Chief Executive;

5. The Holy See has not publicly corrected this opinion, countless Bishops agree with this opinion, and precedent was set 44 years ago when John F. Kennedy ran for and won election as President of the United States predicated on public and explicit denials that he was bound to govern with his Catholic Faith as his primary moral guide(Pope John XXIII was as silent then as Pope John Paul II is today);

6. Catholic voters are being told that President George W. Bush, an evangelical protestant less pro-abortion than Senator Kerry, is the lesser of two evils and that in conscience they should cast their votes for the incumbent;

7. Why, pray tell, should protestants, pagans, or the indifferent listen to Catholic Church leaders exhort them to change their opinions and change the laws of nations to reflect Catholic orthodoxy when Catholics themselves are not bound to make such changes, nor will the same Catholic leaders use the fullness of the powers of their offices to ensure the Catholicity of those laying claim to that affiliation in seeking public office? In short, if Senator Kerry does not need to listen to the Pope, why does Senator Hilary Clinton have to? If Senator Kerry does not have to listen to the Pope, why does Osama bin Laden have to listen to President Bush?

-- If there is nothing wrong with impaling a child in the process of being born, as Senator Kerry believes, then there is nothing wrong with flying airplanes into skyscrapers and killing thousands of born people.

-- If a member of a religious faith need not adhere to its tenets nor fear criticism from political oponents for his heresy, as Senator Kerry obviously fears nothing from President Bush on this count, then a radical member of a wholly different faith need not fear that he has no moral standing to fly airplanes filled with "infidels" into skyscrapers, regardless of how often his opponents call him "evil", "terrorist", or "murderer".

-- If Senator Kerry is wrong for disavowing the Pope, then President Bush is wrong for not denouncing Senator Kerry for it.

-- If Senator Kerry is entitled to his opinion and President Bush must respect his rival's religious convictions, then Osama bin Laden is not to be faulted for pursuing his religious beliefs to their ultimate conclusion.

-- Is Osama bin Laden a bigger heretic against Islam for having engineered the deaths of maybe ten thousand people than Senator Kerry is a heretic against Catholicism for legislating the deaths of a million babies each year in the United States alone?

-- Is President Bush the moral bastion many claim that he is if he can not see the quantitative and the qualitative differences between the magnitude of the crimes committed by bin Laden versus the crimes given sanction by Senator Kerry?

-- Who amongst the American electorate is willing to take this nation to task for its inconsistency, its hypocrisy, and its treason against our Sovereign Lord, Jesus Christ?

Epilogue

... Talk is cheap. Kerry may SAY that he is against abortion, but in 100% of the votes taken while he has been in office, he has favored abortion. Actions speak far louder than words. Kerry is not pro-life, he is pro-abortion, AND a hypocrite.

... Kerry is also a liar. If I said that I "believed" that my water had deadly poison in it and gulped it down anyway, no one would place any credence in my supposed "belief". If Kerry "believed" that abortion is wrong, an offense against the divine Majesty punishable by an eternity in hell, he would act on that belief. What he believes is that it is permissible to kill babies. The proof is that when he has been asked several times while a Senator of the United States of America whether or not he believes so, he has responded with a resounding, 100% "Yes!"

... If neither the Pope, the Bishops, nor you are trying to get others to change their thinking about abortion, supposedly "forcing" your opinions on others, what is the point of all the rhetoric about "the Culture of Death"? Why all the Rosaries prayed at the aborturaries? What is the rationale for all the lobbying of Congress? If we are not actually trying to get people to do something that at present they do not want to do, what is all the bother about? Why continue any efforts at all?

... Senator Kerry is complicit in MURDER every bit as much as Osama bin Laden, though Kerry never touched a fetus and bin Laden never flew a jet. Each bears responsibility for encouraging others to commit heinous actions resulting in untold numbers of innocent lives lost. We attacked Iraq in part because there might have been a link, albeit admittedly tenuous, between Hussein and bin Laden. If President Bush does not see in his pro-abortion opponents a like threat to innocent life, then he is every bit as much a reprobate as he wanted to call the French and the Germans last year. AND so are all the Americans who continue to elect MURDERERS to govern themselves. AND so are the prelates of the Catholic Church, up to and including the Pope, so quick to show how often they helped Jews escape the Nazi death camps, but so slow to stop their own subjects from enacting laws from satan himself.

The Naked Woman in my Mailbox

Ok, so she wasn't completely naked. She was in skimpy underwear, with her arms crossed and positioned ever-so-carefully across her otherwise topless chest, smiling at me from a glossy flier from Victoria's Secret.

The flier was addressed to the previous residents of our home, so please don't write to me and tell me I deserved this.

Someone explain to me how this sort of thing is legal. Explain to me how it is that a corporation located within these United States can send me soft-porn, right out in the open.

Just another indicator that this country is becoming less and less a safe place in which to raise children or try to live a holy life.

Political Breakfast

I read this fun little tid-bit, believe it or not, on the back of a carton of "Silk" soy milk, whilst eating my morning bowl of Kashi.

Great American Heroes

Amelia Jenks Bloomer, 1818-1894

Believe it or not, there was a time when women couldn't wear pants. During Amelia Bloomer's time, the clothing of the day had women in whalebone corsets and tremendous hooped skirts over layers of petticoats. This was constricting, inconvenient and heavy (weighing 15 pounds or more!) But Bloomer was an activist for women's rights. She founded a periodical that was used as a platform to disseminate her ideas about suffrage, abolition and dress reform. She did not invent the Turkish-style pants that eventually took her name, but she did popularize them. Wearing "bloomers" was a symbol of a woman's right to self-determination that aroused indignation and controversy. So if you're a woman who wears pants, remember Amelia Bloomer and stride with pride.

I about choked on my bran twigs.

From hooped skirts and petticoats to Britney Spears-style low-riding pants and sheer tops that leave little to the imagination. Because of this wonderful and liberating "dress reform," men all over the world today have to exert very little effort to get their lustful fantasies boiling. Because of Amelia Bloomer and her activism, it is now easier than ever for men to view women (no pun intended) as little more than sex objects. Way to go, Amelia, I think that's an accomplishment of which any feminist can be proud.

You know what? Keep your political and social opinions off my milk cartons and let me eat my breakfast in peace, ok?

First Post

I christen thee ... a new blog.

Just what the world needed.