Memorial Day

Below is the only known photograph of Abraham Lincoln at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he gave the following well-known address.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.


Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...

...we can not consecrate...


...we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion...

...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain...

...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Saving Us from Ourselves

Idaho police are going to start cracking down on people who don't wear seatbelts. Idaho law requires people to wear seatbelts, although (a) the cops have to have some other reason to pull you over besides a seatbelt violation, and (b) the fine for not wearing a seatbelt is only $10.00. Citing statistics on deaths related to the failure to wear seatbelts, police all over the state are launching a campaign to make everybody buckle up, or else.

Are there people whose lives have been saved because they wore a seatbelt? Undoubtedly. Are there people who have died because they didn't have a seatbelt on? Sure. Is wearing a seatbelt a good idea? Of course. But does the fact that something is a good idea give the government the right to make it compulsory? The state has the duty to protect the rights of individuals against encroachment by others, and to punish those who commit such encroachments; but who told the state it had the right to interfere with the freedom of individuals to risk their own safety?

It is true that we are not morally justified in unnecessarily assuming grave risks. Whether not wearing a seatbelt falls into that category is debatable: riding in a car is always a dangerous proposition, even with a seatbelt. Just getting up in the morning is fraught with perils, visible and invisible, to which we must either expose ourselves or fritter away our precious time on earth trying to avoid them. But people who don't want the state to be a moral arbiter in the arenas of, say, sex and marriage are prefectly prepared to have the state encroach on our free will when it comes to our personal safety, even where the moral stakes are less clear.

Freedom has consequences that we must be prepared to live with, and one of these is that individuals might choose to do stupid things to themselves. If we are not prepared to live with the consequences of freedom, then the only alternative is tyranny.

Or, as Benjamin Franklin is said to have commented, those who are prepared to trade liberty for security deserve neither and will lose both.

A Gold Mine of Legal History: The Proceedings of the Old Bailey

Diogenes at Catholic World News has uncovered a remarkable website containing a searchable archive of what is known as Proceedings, a sort of magazine published under various titles and formats from 1674 through 1913. It is an informal record of nearly two and a half centuries of proceedings at London's Central Criminal Court (the Old Bailey), containing summaries of trial testimony, verdicts and sentences from selected cases. Begun as a form of entertainment, the Proceedings at first covered mainly sensational or amusing cases; although it always had to be selective for reasons of cost, the coverage expanded, and ultimately came to be relied upon by judges and lawyers, among other things, as a handy summation of cases under review. The Proceedings is a fascinating record of criminal cases, from R. v. Susan Grimes (1725), in which a prostitute was accused (and acquitted) of stealing a gold watch from an Irish customer (whose drunken testimony was recorded phonetically), to R. v. Hawley Harvey Crippen (1910), a notorious case in which an American doctor was convicted and executed for murdering and dismembering his wife for another woman.

The Proceedings also (unwittingly) renders the signal service of testifying to the fortitude of the Catholic clergy at a time when it was considered high treason for a priest to function in England. Plugging the word "Romish" into the search engine brings forth, as Diogenes puts it, a cloud of witnesses.

Padre Pio Today

St. Pio's body on display at San Giovanni Rotondo. His face, found to be partially skeletal at exhumation, is covered by a silicone mask. The local archbishop has confirmed that the stigmata -- said miraculously to have disappeared at Padre Pio's death -- are not visible.

H/T Bunny via Gayle.

More from the Hell-Chihuahuas

When words fall short...

...there are always pictures!

And if you think the still is unbelievable, get a load of the video.

Dipped in Gold

Who knew a 23-cent pizza could cost so much?

When LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers complained about "hard fouls" during a playoff series against the Washington Wizards, a Papa John's pizza franchise in D.C. responded by marketing T-shirts with the word "CRYBABY" over James' jersey number, 23. The shirt was a hit with Wizards fans, but Cavaliers fans were not amused. Amid angry complaints, as well as the realization that Papa John's has a large number of stores in the Cleveland area, the pizza company decided to make it up by offering large, one-topping pizzas for $0.23. It will also donate $10,000.00 to the Cavaliers Youth Fund.

The amazing thing about this whole affair is not the large amount of money Papa John's is losing by giving away cash and virtually free pizzas. What is amazing is the incredible cost Papa John's customers are prepared not only to absorb but to disregard almost completely in order to get something they neither needed nor probably even wanted only a few days ago. Consider what a $0.23 pizza has cost:

-- Hours of waiting in line. People wrapped up in blankets in Cleveland to wait in a line that wound through the parking lot and across a lawn; lines in University Heights were two blocks long. One guy waited nearly four hours for a pepperoni pizza. Time spent waiting in line is a cost; in order to devote time to waiting in line, it is necessary to sacrifice some other and probably more worthwhile activity.

-- Ill will. People got into arguments about cutting in line. Ill will is costly as an emotional and physical drain; it is also costly in the erosion of good will, and its replacement by an increase in cynicism. As the next point demonstrates, the containment of ill will is a drain on the resources of society.

-- Police intervention. In University Heights and Springfield township near Akron, police had to intervene in line-cutting incidents. One regional manager felt obliged to called the police to help close his stores in Columbus. All of this is on the dime of the thousands of customers waiting in line for their "23-cent" pizzas.

Admittedly, not everybody put up with all this purely for the purpose of getting a virtually free pizza. Some customers did it to defend LeBron James. "I did it for the principle of it, said Jennie Moore (no relation) of University Heights. "The principle of it is he's not a crybaby and Papa John's should not have gotten into it." It is one hell of an expensive principle.

Then there are those who are just plain clueless. "It's worth it,"declared Patrick Mone of Westlake. "All the money is going to charity, and obviously, it's bringing new business to Papa John's. Even though there is a line, I think it's pretty cool ... 23 cents, you can't beat it." Where the "new business" is actually a drain on Papa John's resources, and people are going to such excruciating lengths to get a 23-cent pizza they never knew they wanted before, this is on the order of spending a thousand dollars on lottery tickets and then crowing over winning a hundred bucks.

The most valuable service Papa John's has rendered in this whole business is not providing the hungry with all-but-free pizza, but demonstrating clearly and concretely that there really -- and literally -- is no such thing as a free lunch.

Need Some Help?

The Communion of Saints is the Christian dogma of the spiritual solidarity that binds the Church Triumphant (the saints in Heaven), the Church Militant (Christians on earth) and the Church Suffering (the holy souls in Purgatory) in the Body Christ. Since not even death breaks this union in Christ, we are able to pray to the saints (i.e., ask them for their aid and intercession); we are able to pray for the relief of the souls in Purgatory; and God makes it possible for the Saints in Heaven to hear our prayers and to join theirs with ours. We invoke the saints, not to worship them, but to secure their aid and intercession before God's throne. It is the same as asking a friend on earth to pray for us; but when we pray to a saint, we are asking a friend who already stands before God's throne to exercise his influence with God on our behalf.

Everyone who makes it into Heaven is a saint. The world is full of invisible saints in the making, and heaven is full of saints whose memory on earth is now forgotten; but there are those that the Church holds up to us as examples to imitate, as well as friends to intercede for us in our troubles. Different saints have different areas of "expertise" or special concern, based on their life's work on earth, or extraordinary events or circumstances surrounding them. For example, that roaring lion of two-fisted cool, St. Thomas More, was a lawyer and statesman; he is therefore the patron of lawyers and statesmen. St. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux had a special love for missionaries, though she lived in a cloister; therefore, she is a patroness of missionaries. St. Dismas, the Good Thief whom Jesus Himself canonized as he hung next to Him on the cross, is the patron of condemned criminals.

There is a patron saint for just about any conceivable occupation, pursuit or concern, and against just about every disaster under the sun. Herewith some very interesting ones:

St. Hubert. The patron saint of hunters. St. Hubert was born in Holland and lived from about the middle of the 7th century to the first quarter of the 8th. A dissolute young nobleman, he was out hunting a stag on Good Friday -- a huge no-no -- when suddenly he saw a vision of a crucifix between the stag's antlers, and a voice told him that if he didn't straighten up, he would soon go off to Hell. He straightened up; and when his wife died, he renounced all his worldly goods and became a priest, then a bishop.

St. Genesius of Rome. The patron saint of actors. Genesius had a conversion experience not unlike that of St. Paul. While he was on stage playing a role in mockery of Christian baptism, God knocked him on his ass. He arose converted, and refused to go through with the part any longer. He suffered martyrdom during the persecutions of Diocletian.

St. Dymphna. The patroness against mental illness. St. Dymphna's mother died when she was a teenager. Her father, a pagan Irish chieftain, driven mad by grief, made advances on her, which she refused. She fled, and he pursued her; when he caught up with her, and she continued to resist his advances, he swept her head off with a sword. Miraculous healings of the insane and mentally ill have taken place on the spot where she died.

For more on the saints and their special areas of expertise, check out the Patron Saints Index.

April 28-30: Dominican Triple-Hitter

We have had three -- count 'em! -- THREE Dominican feasts/memorials in a row this week! This week's gallery of distinguished children of St. Dominic:

St. Louis Marie de Montfort (1673-1716), Dominican tertiary and, like St. Dominic a great apostle of the Rosary and of the Blessed Mother. His two greatest works are The Secret of the Rosary and True Devotion to Mary. His great contribution to the faith is the total consecration of oneself to the Blessed Mother as the greatest act of devotion to God and the surest path to Heaven. All the great saints, he points out, have walked this path; it is the surest, because Mary keeps nothing for herself, but gives to God everything that is offered her -- and she knows how to give gifts to God free of imperfections, and in the manner that He will find most pleasing. St. Louis' writings are clear, straighforward, engaging and easy to understand. The cause to declare St. Louis de Montfort a Doctor of the Church is underway; he would be the fourth Dominican to be so honored (the tenth, really, if you count St. Thomas Aquinas in all his fullness).

St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), Dominican tertiary and Doctor of the Church. She was the 23d of 25 children; she had a twin who died at birth. She was a mystic and stigmatist. When there were three claimants to the Throne of Peter, Catherine adhered to the true Pope, who was then at Avignon, and convinced him to return his administration to Rome. She left a great body of literature, of which the greatest work is the Dialogue of Divine Providence.

Pope St. Pius V (1504-1572), Pope and Dominican. The Council of Trent, convened in response to the Protestant break with the Church, ended just three years before Pius ascended the Throne of Peter; upon his election as Pope, it became his job to enact the Council's reforms. Under his leadership, a new breviary and missal were published; his great legacy was the Catechism of the Council of Trent, whose value five hundred years have not diminished. A small yet highly visible legacy: it was Pius V who began the papal tradition of wearing white, owing to his white Dominican habit.

Time Warp

Four things from the '70s that have come back to haunt us:

Jimmy Carter

Peace creeps

Bell bottom trousers

Liberal energy policies

Weren't these things bad enough the first time around?

Three Years on the Throne of Peter

Having just celebrated his 81st birthday, the Cowboy of God now celebrates his third year as Supreme Pontiff and Chief Thorn in the Side of Satan's Legions. Three years ago today, the salvos from the sewer began, and they haven't stopped; but Pope Benedict continues forward, undeterred. Long may he reign!

Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense

Fifty-five years ago today, Queen Elizabeth II made Winston Churchill a member of the Order of the Garter, the United Kingdom's highest and most exclusive order of chivalry. It is also the oldest order, founded about 1348 by King Edward III. The motto of the Order, "Honi soit qui mal y pense," is medieval French and means "Shame on him who thinks ill of it." There are only 24 members ("Companions") of the Order of the Garter at any given time, not including the Sovereign and the Prince of Wales. Winston was the fourth Churchill to receive the high honor of admittance to this Order.

It is said that Winnie refused the honor the first time it was offered him -- after his election defeat in 1945 -- explaining that he could hardly accept the Order of the Garter when the nation had just given him the Order of the Boot.

Happy Lenin's Birthday!!!

Whoops! I mean, Happy Earth Day!!! Surely it's only a coincidence that Earth Day should fall on the birthday of the patron "saint" of the Communist revolution, pictured above in a mugshot taken in 1895, looking every inch the punk kid brother of Satan.

In another stunning set of coincidences, today also happens to be the birthdays of left-wing radical and convicted murderer Nicola Sacco, of Sacco and Vanzetti fame, and Manhattan Project director Robert Oppenheimer, who had to have his security clearance revoked on account of his-- shall we say -- "anti-fascist"activities.