Down, But Not Out

In western lands beneath the Sun
The stars may rise in Spring;
The trees may bud, the waters run,
The merry finches sing;
Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night,
And swaying beeches bear
The Elven-stars as jewels white
Amid their branching hair.

Though here at journey's end I lie
In darkness buried deep,
Beyond all towers strong and high,
Beyond all mountains steep,
Above all shadows rides the Sun
And stars forever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done
Nor bid the Stars farewell.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Anglo-Saxon Lord Makes a Comeback

Within this barrow they placed jeweled rings,
All the ornaments the brave-minded men
had earlier taken away from the hoard;
they gave to the earth for its final keeping
the treasure of princes, gold in the ground,
where it lies even now , as useless to men
as it was before....

Around the time these lines from Beowulf were composed, a similar scene played out in the ancient kingdom of Mercia, in what would later be known as the town of Peterborough, County of Cambridgeshire. A pagan Anglo-Saxon lord was buried there with his wealth sometime in the 7th century.

After his retainers gave him and his treasure to the earth for their final keeping, time and tide and oblivion swept over the grave. While the lord and his resting place passed beyond recollection, history marched on. Anglo-Saxon civilization would blossom under King Alfred the Great; the Normans under William the Conquerer would depose the Anglo-Saxon nobility and drive the English language underground until the time of Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century. England would carry on through the Hundred Years' War, the Wars of the Roses, Protestantism, the Spanish Armada, the Cromwell protectorate, the Restoration, the loss of the American colonies, and the Napoleonic Wars. She would build an empire over which the sun would never set, stand staunchly and victoriously against Nazi Germany, then lose nearly all of her imperial possessions. Under the leadership of her first female Prime Minister, she would aid in the destruction of the Soviet menace; incredibly, under the leadership of a Labour Prime Minister, she would fight the menace of jihad.

The anonymous Mercian lord would not recognize the world in which his mortal remains would re-emerge nearly a millennium and a half after his burial. In February, 2007, a woman working her allotted garden in Peterborough turned up some human bones. At first it was treated as a murder investigation; but as soon as it became clear that it was not a police matter, the archaeologists streamed in. The discovery of a two-foot-wide brass basin that came all the way from the Mediterranean confirms that a person of considerable importance was laid to rest there. Ploughs and farm implements have worked the site over the centuries and disturbed the bones; metal detector sweeps since the discovery of the basin have thus far come up empty.

Still, the excavation proceeds apace. Perhaps the gold in the ground -- if there is any -- is not so useless to men after all. Get the story here and here. Thanks to The Roving Medievalist for the tip.

He Made a Wasteland Out of Cuba, But It's Okay: He's Deeply Spiritual

At long last, the Washington Post brings us the news the English-speaking world has been waiting for: a joyous end to its long deprivation of the English language translation of Fidel Castro's Cartas del Presidio, the 21 letters the future Maximum Leader (shown here spooning with Nikita Khruschev) penned from the hoosegow in the early 1950s. Gushes Ann Louise Bardach, co-editor of The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro: "[T]his collection of Castro's writings -- virtually the only unofficial writing he ever did -- has become something of a Rosetta Stone for historians, biographers and journalists seeking to understand the man who would become Cuba's ruler for life." She goes on: "The letters amply illustrate Castro's many gifts: his formidable erudition, strategic thinking and natural leadership. They are also an early indicator of his Machiavellian cunning and his genius for public relations. And they dramatize his resentments and rages....What must this intensely proud and private man have felt about the public disclosures of his recent medical travails, in which every inch of his intestines has become fodder for the world media?"

Coming up for air out of our barf bags, we see what it is that passes for deep spirituality in the insane world of Castro and his fawning minions. Immediately after describing how, in 1969, Castro outlawed the celebration of Christmas in Cuba, Barlach, apparently impervious to irony, rhapsodizes: "And yet the letters suggest that Castro was a man of unusual spiritual depth -- and a fervent believer in God." Exhibit A: a polysyllabic-word-laden excerpt from a letter to the father of a fallen revolutionary thug:

I will not speak of him as if he were absent, he has not been and he will never be. These are not mere words of consolation. Only those of us who feel it truly and permanently in the depths of our souls can comprehend this. Physical life is ephemeral, it passes inexorably. . . . This truth should be taught to every human being -- that the immortal values of the spirit are above physical life. What sense does life have without these values? What then is it to live? Those who understand this and generously sacrifice their physical life for the sake of good and justice -- how can they die? God is the supreme idea of goodness and justice.

Castro certainly ought to know about the ephermeral nature of human life, as a life-long specialist in rendering as ephemeral as possible the lives of anybody who gets in his way. As to God being the "supreme idea" of goodness and justice, somehow Barlach misses this clue to Castro's true belief system, pursuant to which it is held that man created God, instead of the other way around. But no matter: at long last, the Left has found a "fervent believer in God" that it can live with -- one who proves his "unusual spiritual depth" by:

-- Being ruled by pride, as when he flew into a rage upon discovering that his wife, Mirta, accepted a modest government stipend in order to keep body and soul together while Castro rotted in prison: "I never imagined that Rafael [his brother-in-law] could be such a scoundrel and that he had become so corrupted; I cannot conceive how he could have so pitilessly sacrificed the honor and name of his sister, exposing her to eternal shame and humiliation...." Meeting life's basic requirements is counterrevolutionary.

-- Learning the wrong lessons in the School of Suffering: "It is a chore to push away the mortal hatreds that seek to invade my heart. I do not know if there is anyone who has suffered more in these past days. It has been a terrible and decisive test, with the capacity of quashing the last atom of kindness and purity in my soul, but I have made a pledge to myself to persevere until death. . . . After such weeping and sweating of blood, what is left for one to learn in the school of sorrow?" Any number of real martyrs could have supplied him with a few ideas.

-- Getting divorced and waging all-out war from the joint for custody of his son: "I do not care one bit if this battle drags on till the end of the world. If they think they can exhaust my patience and, based on this, that I am going to concede -- they are going to find that I am wrapped in Buddhist tranquility and am prepared to reenact the famous Hundred Years War -- and win it! To these private matters, add my reflection on the political panorama -- and it will not be difficult to imagine that I will leave this prison as the man of iron." A paragon of parental love and self-sacrifice.

-- Taking a mistress, Maria Laborde: "The inscription on your card was so beautifully written, I have set my hope on the pleasure of soon receiving a letter from you, with the only variant that you use 'tu' instead of 'usted.' Could this be too much to hope?" Apparently not, since he went on to father an illegitimate child with Laborde.

This is to say nothing of what Castro would go on to do over the course of an ignominious career:

-- Impose Communism on his hapless people and reducing them to a state of grinding poverty

-- Suppress individual liberty, including freedom of worship

-- Threaten the United States with nuclear war

-- Aggress against neighbors, such as the Carribbean island nation of Grenada

-- Imprison and torture political dissidents for decades without a trial

-- Murder political dissidents and other threats to his regime

It's true: the Castro letters from the joint reveal a great deal about the man -- a great deal too much, if his partisans were not too blind to see it.

Sophia Update: Not Out of Danger

Sophia is beginning to resume some everyday activities, but doctors have just discovered a blocked blood vessel. Get the story here.

UPDATE: Sophia is back in ICU. She has several large blood clots and a fever. Little Margaret, pray for her.

Parish Mission Statement: Because Jesus Didn't Get It Right the First Time

For some reason, the pastoral council at my parish is expending considerable man-hours (whoops, I mean, "person hours") and cerebral wattage on concocting a "vision statement" and "mission statement" for the parish. Last week's bulletin laid out the fruits of the council's labor, soliciting comments from the hoi polloi and inviting the same to fill out a survey alleged to be on the parish website (I can't find it; maybe you can). Here is the text of the proposed "vision statement", with my commentary in red (for the unannotated version, click here):

The parishioners of St. John’s Cathedral are a diverse, multicultural community of believers who are Spirit [of Vatican II]-filled and Beatitude-directed[, as this phrase is interpreted by certain parish leaders, based on their private judgment]. Relying upon our foundation of faith and history [ignorant though we may be of either], we continue to build the Kingdom of God to bring all closer to [a socially conscious, protest-marching, aluminum-can-recycling, Birkenstock-wearing, granola-eating, peacenik-hippie] Christ.

And here, if you can stomach it, is the text of the proposed "mission statement," again with my commentary in red:

We, the parishioners of St. John’s Cathedral, recognize our dual identity as a Cathedral and a parish community [and thereby hope to be a shining beacon of kookburger liberalism throughout the diocese]. We are called to build the Kingdom of God in concrete ways, [provided these don't involve appearing distinctively Catholic,] including:
• We will create a welcoming community, guided by the Holy Spirit [of Vatican II], which seeks to know and support all in their faith journey[, unless their journey is taking them in the direction of orthodox Catholicism]
• We will seek out ways to achieve unity while recognizing and honoring diversity in culture, ethnicity, life circumstances, [however scandalous,] and spiritual and temporal needs[, by suppressing orthodoxy, which is divisive]
• We will develop the faith of our diverse members [by focusing on what makes us different, rather than on our common Catholic heritage, and] by strongly supporting [heterodox] parish faith formation efforts and our Catholic school. We will nurture[, by molding according to our tastes,] a community of lifelong learners hungry to know [the liberals' version of] the Catholic faith more deeply, develop a deeper spirituality [by discarding primitive devotions like the Rosary], and spread that knowledge to others[, even if it is laden with error]
• We will promote responsible shepherding of the gifts God has given us [by decrying capitalism, private property and the market economy] and encourage members [of government] to follow Christ’s example by sharing gifts of [other people's] time, talent and treasure
• We will recognize those in need, acknowledge Christ’s presence in that need, and respond with the love and dignity due to all of Christ’s children [by engaging in symbolic acts, such as "raising awareness," in order to make the world's problems seem fun and easy to solve, and to allow us to give ourselves virtuous airs without actually getting our hands dirty]

You have to hand it to the pastoral council for setting the world's record for the most bureaucratic, pop-psychological and pop-sociological buzz words per square inch. How sweet is freedom from the shackles of the Dark Ages, and from even the mention of superfluities like:

Worship and the sacrifice of the Mass
Prayer
Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell
The Eucharist
The Sacraments
Sorrow for sins, penance and purpose of amendment
Making disciples of all the nations
Our Blessed Mother
Being in the world but not of it
The Precepts of the Church
Faith, hope and charity
Distinctively Catholic devotions, like the Rosary
The Communion of Saints
Mercy and the forgiveness of sins
The Name of Jesus
Loyalty and obedience to the Magisterium

A friend of mine, applying his uncluttered mind to the problem with his usual deadly precision, puts the case more succinctly than I have seen anyone else put it up to now: our mission was set by Jesus Christ nearly 2,000 years ago, and there is nothing new to add. Here, for the benefit of the pastoral council, is Matthew 28:19-20:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.

Why do we need any more, or anything other, than that?

Sophia: Out of ICU, But Still Not Out of the Woods

Get the latest on Sophia here and here. Keep those novena prayers to Blessed Margaret of Castello coming!

From Another Confused Age

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach"

"Like, War Never Solves Anything, Man"

This post by Marcus Magnus at his new blog Peas and Just Ice got me to thinking about the above burnt-out, washed-up, hippie-era, bumper sticker/protest sign "wisdom," demonstrably false, thoroughly discredited, yet regularly dusted off and trotted out as part of the Left's feeble-minded attempts to discredit the offensive against Islamofascism. This bromide is too often the cue for latter-day flower children to nod sagely and feel morally superior George W. Bush and all his war-mongering minions; yet thirty seconds' thought is enough to blow it out of the water. A brief rundown through history is all it takes to see just how well this house of cards withstands the even gentlest gust of evidence.

ISSUE: DOES WAR EVER SOLVE ANYTHING?

Exhibit A: War Overthrows Tyrants.

The War in Iraq has thus far decisively solved the problem whether Saddam Hussein would continue to threaten world peace. Result: Hussein and his sadistic sons have all assumed room temperature, and will never recapture power in Iraq or anywhere else.

Exhibit B: War Snuffs Out Fascism.

World War II decisively solved the problem whether Germany and Japan would rule the world. Result: Germany and Japan were crushed. Nazism, while not dead, is nevertheless impotent; the Emperor of Japan is no longer considered a god; both Germany and Japan are now peaceful democracies.

Exhibit C: War Abolishes Slavery.

The American Civil War decisively solved the problem of slavery in the United States. Result: The United States remained intact; no human being has the legal right to own another human being in America.

Exhibit D: War Eliminates Petty Yet Insidious Nuisances.

The Barbary Wars decisively solved the problem of whether the United States would go on paying blackmail money to the Islamic pirate states of North Africa. Result: the United States did not go on paying blackmail money to the Islamic pirate states of North Africa.

Exhibit E: War Throws Off Colonial Shackles.

The American War of Independence decisively solved the problem of whether the United States of America would remain under British tutelage. Result: the United States is an independent nation, the world's foremost democratic republic, and has pulled Western Civilization's fat out of the fire twice in the last century.

Exhibit F: Wars Shape the Course of History and Civilization.

The Punic Wars decisively solved the problem of whether Rome or Carthage would rule the Mediterranean world. Result: Carthage was utterly defeated, leaving Rome to shape the course of Western Civilization.

Exhibit G: Wars Have the Potential to Solve Problems for the Wrong People, Which Is Why It's So Important for the Good Guys to Fight to Win.

The Peloponnesian War decisively solved the problem of whether democratic Athens or autocratic Sparta would rule the Greek world. Result: democracy lost.

CONCLUSION: WHATEVER ELSE MAY BE SAID ABOUT WARS, THEY ABSOLUTELY DO SOLVE THINGS.

War is an evil flowing directly out of the deranged heart of fallen humanity. The technology of our time has annihilated the distinction between combatants and non-combatants, and places into the hands of a few or even single individuals destructive firepower unimaginable just a couple of centuries ago. War, especially the total war of modern times, is a horror and a curse. But not all wars can be avoided; and when the enemy cries havoc, and lets slip the dogs of war, as the Islamofascists have done, we have to be ready to fight to the finish.

Wars can be stupid. Wars that are not stupid, such as the one in which we are currently embroiled, can nevertheless be fought stupidly, especially when they are fought half-heartedly. But wars can, and absolutely do, solve things. Few methods of dispute resolution are more decisive than war. Where there is a clear-cut victory of one side over the other, wars solve problems permanently, especially when the winning side makes good use of its triumph.

These are facts we may rediscover if we can ever overcome the Vietnam Syndrome long enough to prosecute the present war through to absolute victory -- a feat well within our power, if only we have the will to achieve it.

Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer. Romans 13:3-4

Sophia Update: Why She Still Needs Prayers

Get the story here.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Thanks to Mark, OPL and Stations of the Magdalen for this image.

Have You Stocked Up on Holy Water for Lent?

I've filled up three bottles: one for home; one for the office; and one for any empty holy water fonts I come across during Lent.

Sophia's MRI Results

The tumor is completely gone. But she still needs prayers, so keep up the novenas to Blessed Margaret of Castello!

A Bit of Humor on the Eve of Ash Wednesday

Paul at Catholic Cartoon Blog hits the nail on the head once again, at a time when we are about to be condemned to sing, over and over again, the ever-loving crappola out of the nonsensical, cretinous, inane, platitudinous, pop-psychological, sophomoric "In These Days of Lenten Journey" by one Fr. Ricky Manolo, a priest who shouldn't give up his day job (but unfortunately might have done, in order to devote time to penning doggerel verse to lousy tunes).

For the music, imagine hundreds of cigarette lighters waving in the darkness:

CHORUS:
In these days of Lenten journey
we have seen and we have heard
the call to sow justice
in the lives of those we serve. [So we'll do something symbolic to make ourselves feel good.]

1. We reach out to those who are homeless, [only for as long as we get something out of it]
to those who live without warmth.
In the coolness of evening we'll shelter their dreams [because this is easier than actually helping them keep a roof over their heads]
we will clothe them in mercy and peace. [much easier than supplying them with actual clothes]

2. We open our eyes to the hungry [unless they're hungry for the Tridentine Mass]
and see the faces of Christ. [so we'll genuflect to them and raise our rear ends to the tabernacle]
As we nourish all people who hunger for food, [and teach them the safest way to root through dumpsters]
may their faith in our God [or Goddess, whichever] be renewed.

3. We open our ears to the weary [unless it's crappy music at Mass they're weary of]
and hear the cry of the poor. [caterwauling to Marty Haugen tunes]
To the voices that echo the song of despair,
we will show our compassion and care. [except if they despair of ever again hearing Gregorian chant in church]

4. We call on the Spirit of [peace and social] Justice
and pray for righteousness' sake. [as we define it]
We will sing for the freedom of all the oppressed; [except those living under Marxist dictatorships and Saddam Hussein]
we will loosen the bonds of distress. [unless it involves repealing the minimum wage]

I guess it's just one more thing we can offer up this Lent.

Where Do the Souls of Aborted Babies Go?

A recent conversation turned to the character of baptism as essential to salvation, and from there, to the fate of unbaptized babies -- and particularly the souls of aborted babies. A friend and fellow Dominican posited the following for consideration:

a. The Catholic Church teaches that baptism is essential to salvation.

b. Aborted babies are not baptized, and there is no desire on the part of their mothers that they be baptized.

c. The ferocity with which Satan fans the flames of abortion – with roughly a million and a half in the United States each year – suggests that the souls of aborted babies may be lost to Heaven. Otherwise, the reasoning goes, the Enemy would not be so keen for Americans to favor abortion, and for the abortion mills go on churning out so many dead babies year after year.

This gave me pause. Everyone seems to assume, unquestioningly, that babies who die in the womb -- whether of natural causes or otherwise -- go straight to Heaven. This is to be expected from those who do not accept the necessity of baptism for salvation, but a good many Catholics also seem to make this assumption. Surely, the necessity of baptism for salvation indicates that a mere lack of personal sin, without more, is not enough to gain Heaven; therefore, this question deserves more thought than it is given, lest we suffer an erosion of our faith, and take a position that makes the horror of abortion more comfortable for us to live with.

It is clear that aborted babies are deprived, through no fault of their own, of the opportunity for sacramental baptism. It is also true that they are not guilty of personal sin. The idea of eternal separation from God, with or without suffering, seems insupportable where personal sins and even free will are absent. After considering the matter, I personally cannot come to the conclusion that the souls of aborted babies definitely go to Heaven; however, neither am I persuaded that they are definitely excluded from Heaven. The only thing I can thus far be persuaded of is that there are good and reasonable hopes for the salvation of the unborn, but that, this side of Paradise, we cannot know for certain.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church at 1250 declares:

Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth.

At 1257, the Catechism underscores the necessity of baptism:

The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation. He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them. Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament. The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are "reborn of water and the Spirit." God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments. [Italics in original.]

With this last sentence, the Catechism launches into a discussion of baptism by blood (undergone by the unbaptized who die for the faith, the prototypical example of which is the Holy Innocents) and baptism by desire (available to those who desire baptism but die before their desire can be fulfilled). These are exceptions to the necessity for sacramental baptism, and suggest that, in the absence of sacramental baptism, and under certain circumstances, baptismal grace may nevertheless find some other channel in which to flow to the soul.

As for the souls of unbaptized infants, the Catechism states at 1261:

As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them," allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

Without a definitive teaching on the subject of the fate of unbaptized babies, we are free to form our own opinions on it. The speculation of theologians down the ages has yielded the concept of Limbo, a state in which the unbaptized soul is deprived of the supernatural happiness of Heaven, but enjoys perfect natural happiness. The Church has, however, never defined Limbo as a doctrine to which all Catholics must adhere. I do not know whether there is really such a place or state as Limbo. I do feel sure that unbaptized babies do not suffer, being guiltless of actual sin; in fact, wherever they are, I am willing to bet that their happiness far exceeds anything we can attain on earth. I certainly hope that they find this happiness in Heaven, and the passage from the Catechism that deals with this affirms the reasonableness of such a hope. But we do not in fact know to a practical certainty what their fate is. God has not revealed this to us.

The Church clearly holds out hope for the salvation of the unbaptized who are capable of reason, the full exercise of free will, and the commission of sin. The Catechism at 847-848 teaches that God has ways of saving those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel:

This affirmation [there is no salvation outside the Church] is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

"Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men." [Quote source omitted.]

Surely, miscarried, aborted and unbaptized babies are ignorant of the Gospel through no fault of their own. It is not clear why the outlook of those who are capable of sinning -- and who in all likelihood have in fact sinned -- should be more hopeful than those, such as the unborn, who are as yet without free will and therefore have on their souls no personal sins whatsoever. But just as we have a duty to go out and make disciples of all the nations, we have a solemn obligation to baptize our children. If we knew for sure that God has some way of offering salvation to unbaptized babies, we would very likely neglect to have them baptized.

There is precedence, by the way, for God allowing us to remain ignorant for our own good. When you read the Old Testament, it becomes clear that God allowed the Israelites to go on thinking for a very long time that there was really nothing to the afterlife but gray bleakness. C.S. Lewis wrote that this was to train the Israelites to love God for His own sake, rather than for what He could do for them. Similarly, since God has not given us to know for certain what happens to the souls of unbaptized infants, it is clearly more important for us to obey His command, through the Church, to have our children baptized as soon as possible, than it is for us to know where their souls would go if they weren't baptized. When we baptize a child, we can be absolutely certain that that child has received the gift of sanctifying grace; since we know the child has sanctifying grace, if he dies before reaching the age of reason, we need not suffer the pangs of uncertainty about his eternal fate.

What of the argument that Satan would not be so keen to push abortion if the souls of aborted babies went to heaven? Nothing so delights the Enemy as depriving God, for all eternity, of a soul that He created for Himself, and that He loves as though no one else existed. But Satan likes all sorts of things that do not necessarily result in damnation for the victims: murder, rapine, wars of aggression. And for each aborted soul, there are many other souls hanging by a thread over the Abyss: the mother; the persons who encouraged her to procure the abortion; the doctors and nurses working in the clinic; everyone who cooperated materially in the deed. A rich potential harvest, from the Enemy's point of view, in exchange for the loss of the aborted.

Are we, then, to be deprived of the consolation we might otherwise have had in this life if we knew for sure that a miscarried or aborted baby went to heaven? It appears so. But this is where the mercy of God, Who loves babies infinitely more even than their parents do, must be allowed to make up for what we lack. For the present, we may hope, but cannot know for sure, and should therefore not presume.

UPDATE: To the ladies of the Daily Strength forum: a reply.

Life-Teen-Mass-Free Zone

This is my favorite image from the Cathedral of Our Lady of Stasbourg, among the many posted on Wanton Popery!, a new blog run by a military gentleman convicted of...what else? Wanton popery! This is the pipe organ from the beautiful and staggeringly intricate Gothic cathedral, begun in the late 12th century and finished toward the middle of the 15th century. For more, check out the blog.

Lest anybody have any doubt about whether the Islamists are at war with Western Civilization itself, the German police busted Al Qaeda amid a plot to destroy this lovely house of worship in 2000. How twisted and evil do you have to be to look at something like this and feel moved to destroy it?

Sophia Update

Get the story here.

Now is not the time, however, to give up the prayers. Keep praying that Novena to Blessed Margaret!

UPDATE: Here is why we need to keep praying. Bl. Margaret of Castello, keep interceding for her!

Before They Were Famous: The Answers

I know the world has been waiting for the answers to "Before They Were Famous," so here they are. I tried to post the original pics, side-by-side with these, but, well, Blogger has its limitations.

"Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains that victory."

Gen. George S. Patton

"I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."

Albert Einstein

"Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker."

J.R.R. Tolkien

"The ways of the Lord are not comfortable, but we were not created for comfort, but for greatness, for good."

Pope Benedict XVI

"Life is passing, Eternity draws nigh: soon shall we live the very life of God. After having drunk deep at the fount of bitterness, our thirst will be quenched at the very source of all sweetness."

St. Therese of Lisieux

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

Abraham Lincoln

"The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is."

Winston Churchill (rather a handsome devil in his youth, wasn't he?)

Alas That He No Longer Has France

My lord, for one bishop of your opinion I have a hundred saints of mine; and for one parliament of yours, and God knows of what kind, I have all the General Councils for 1,000 years, and for one kingdom I have France and all the kingdoms of Christendom.

St. Thomas More on trial, July 1, 1535, five days before his execution

Sophia Update: Second Surgery Went Well

Get the story here and here.

Before They Were Famous

How many of these famous figures can you identify (without cheating)? Feel free to post your guesses!

"Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains that victory."

"I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."

"Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker."

"The ways of the Lord are not comfortable, but we were not created for comfort, but for greatness, for good."

"Life is passing, Eternity draws nigh: soon shall we live the very life of God. After having drunk deep at the fount of bitterness, our thirst will be quenched at the very source of all sweetness."

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

"The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is."

Bl. Margaret of Castello, Pray for Her

Please continue to pray for little Sophia, pictured above, who goes in for her second round of surgery today. This time, the doctors are going after that part of the tumor that is wrapped around her pituitary gland and her optic nerves. On top of all the other risks that naturally attend brain surgery, she is in danger of emerging blind from this ordeal. See here for more information.

Now is the time to get down to brass tacks and pray for the intercession of Blessed Margaret of Castello. Little Margaret was hunchbacked, lame, a dwarf (Sophia is very small for her age, because of the tumor) and blind (Sophia's vision is threatened): a fitting patroness for this little girl and her doctors. Despite her physical handicaps, and the cruelty of her parents who kept her imprisoned for much of her life so that no one would see her, Little Margaret led a life of such sanctity that she was given the gift of performing miracles, both in life and after death: a little crippled girl placed next to her body shortly after her death was miraculously cured. And I can personally attest to the fact that she still works miracles today.

Novena Prayer to Blessed Margaret of Castello

O God by whose Will the blessed virgin, Margaret, was blind from birth, that, the eyes of her mind being inwardly enlightened, she might think without ceasing on You alone: be the light of our eyes, that we may be able to flee the shadows in this world, and reach the home of never-ending light. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, glorify your servant, Blessed Margaret, by granting the favor we so ardently desire. This we ask in humble submission to God’s Will, for His Honor and Glory and the salvation of souls. Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory Be…

A Preview of Our Sun's Eventual Fate

Behold the Helix Nebula, a planetary nebula in the constellation Aquarius. It is about about 700 light years from earth, so that we are seeing it now as it looked at the time Dante Allighieri, Robert the Bruce, Guillaume de Machaut and Blessed Margaret of Castello walked the earth. This infrared photograph from the Spitzer Space Telescope shows the spectacular remains of a star that was once very much like our own Sun. The dying star expanded -- engulfing any nearby orbiting planets -- then expelled its outermost layers of gas. These now hang loosely and brilliantly around what was once the star's core, a white dwarf, extremely dense but no longer capable of nuclear fusion, that will eventually fade from view as its heat dissipates. The nebula will disappear in about 10,000 years -- compared to the lifespan of a star, a mere puff of smoke.

But it now turns out that something else surrounds the dying cinder: comet dust. Comets in the outer fringes of star's system, far enough from the star to survive its cataclysmic death throes but knocked out of their orbits, now collide, pounding each other into dust. Comet dust falling onto the white dwarf at the heart of the Nebula provides a possible explanation for high-energy X-rays detected coming from it, despite its not possessing the heat ordinarily necessary to generate X-rays.

About five billion years from now -- barring the Second Coming -- the Sun's core will run out of fuel for hydrogen fusion. Its outer layers will expand, engulfing the terrestrial planets, or else pushing them farther out into space. The Sun will then expel its outer layers, leaving a white dwarf surrounded by a brilliant planetary nebula like the one shown above.

All of which will put a serious crimp in everyone's evening.

Sophia Update

She came through the first surgery very well. Get the story here.

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare

Not Yet a Breach, But an Expansion

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

John Donne, "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning"

...Then You Will Know For Certain...

If you hear that a thousand people love you
remember... saavedra is among them

If you hear that a hundred people love you
remember... saavedra is either in the first
or very last row

If you hear that seven people love you
remember... saavedra is among them,
like a wednesday in the middle of the week

If you hear that two people love you
remember... one of them is saavedra

If you hear that only one person loves you
remember... he is saavedra

And when you see no one else around you,
and you find out
that no one loves you anymore,
then you will know for certain
that....saavedra is dead

Guadalupe de Saavedra

Pray For Her Today

Sophia, a 7-year-old student at St. Joseph's in Boise, goes in today for the first in a series of surgeries to remove a brain tumor. She is expected to lose most or all of her vision. Pray for her and for her surgeons.

Nothing Beside Remains.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Couldn't We Waive Article II, Section 1 Just This Once?

Under Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, only a natural-born citizen of the United States is qualified to be President. There are good, sound reasons for this restriction, but sometimes, it makes me sigh. Consider the quality material we are deprived of, for instance, in Vaclav Klaus, current President of the Czeck Republic, who recently gave an interview on the subject of "global warming." The good President delivers one haymaker after another:

President Klaus on why "global warming" is a myth:

Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses. This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.

President Klaus on why other European bigwigs don't express similar opinions about "global warming":

Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice.

President Klaus responding to the notion that mankind is demolishing the planet:

It's such a nonsense that I have probably not heard a bigger nonsense yet.

President Klaus on whether he believes we are ruining the planet:

I will pretend that I haven't heard you. Perhaps only Mr. Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person can't. I don't see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don't think that a reasonable and serious person could say such a thing. Look: you represent the economic media so I expect a certain economical erudition from you....[W]e know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It's clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa. It's also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago. That's why I ask: how can you pronounce the sentence you said? Perhaps if you're unconscious? Or did you mean it as a provocation only? And maybe I am just too naive and I allowed you to provoke me to give you all these answers, am I not? It is more likely that you actually believe what you say.

When are we going to get politicians that lay it on the line like this?

Gardeners and Their Trees

Herewith an extended quote from The Law, by Frederic Bastiat (pp. 30-31). This book should be required reading for every schoolkid, starting at least in the fourth grade.

How did politicians ever come to believe this weird idea that the law could be made to produce what it does not contain -- the wealth, science, and religion that, in a positive sense, constitute prosperity? Is it due to the influence of our modern writers on public affairs?

Present-day writers -- especially those of the socialist school of thought -- base their various theories upon one common hypothesis: They divide mankind into two parts. People in general -- with the exception of the writer himself -- form the first group. The writer, all alone, forms the second and most important group. Surely this is the weirdest and most conceited notion that ever entered a human brain!

In fact, these writers on public affairs begin by supposing that people have within themselves no means of discernment, no motivation to action. The writers assume that people are inert matter, passive particles, motionless atoms, at best a kind of vegetation indifferent to its own manner of existence. They assume that people are susceptible to being shaped -- by the will and hand of another person -- into an infinite variety of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic and perfected.

Moreover, not one of these writers on governmental affairs hesitates to imagine that he himself -- under the title of organizer, discoverer, legislator, or founder -- is this will and hand, this universal motivating force, this creative power whose sublime mission is to mold these scattered materials -- persons -- into a society.

These socialist writers look upon people in the same manner that the gardener views his trees. Just as the gardener capriciously shapes the trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, vases, fans, and other forms, just so does the socialist writer whimsically shape human beings into groups, series, centers, sub-centers, honeycombs, labor-corps, and other variations. And just as the gardener needs axes, pruning hooks, saws and shears to shape his trees, just so does the socialist writer need the force that he can find only in law to shape human beings. For this purpose, he devises tariff laws, tax laws, relief laws and school laws.

Do You Know Who You're Dealing With?

You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

-- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Where the Motu Propio Went

My friend Marcus Magnus at Dominican Idaho sent me a quote today from Alexander Pope. That got me thinking about something I had read years and years ago that struck me, about all lost items being on the dark side of the Moon. So I deployed my search skills on the works of Alexander Pope, and re-discovered the following from The Rape of the Lock:

Some thought it mounted to the Lunar Sphere,
Since all things lost on Earth, are treasur'd there.
There Heroe's Wits are kept in pondrous Vases,
And Beau's in Snuff-boxes and Tweezer-Cases.
There broken Vows, and Death-bed Alms are found,
And Lovers Hearts with Ends of Riband bound;
The Courtiers Promises, and Sick Man's Pray'rs,
The Smiles of Harlots, and the Tears of Heirs,
Cages for Gnats, and Chains to Yoak a Flea;
Dry'd Butterflies, and Tomes of Casuistry.

Come On: A Little Classic Poetry Won't Kill You

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle —
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me —
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

-- Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses"

The Rosary at War

I used to attend a certain parish in another city where, during the prayer of the faithful at Sunday Mass, the people in the peanut gallery were encouraged to call out their intentions (which I hate, but that's a whole other post). Every Sunday, without fail, this one woman who sat in the front of the church would pray for the strength to continue the fight against abortion.

And every Sunday, without fail, I thought the same thing: this is the stupidest, most lily-livered, limp-wristed thing in the world to pray for! It's not as though we can't know which side God is on in the fight against abortion. If we're really serious about ending abortion, then we shouldn't want the fight to go on and on indefinitely, while babies go on getting chopped to pieces in their mothers' wombs. We should want victory -- and victory is what we ought to be praying for.

I think the same thing about the Fourth World War in which we are now engulfed. We always pray for peace, by which too many of us mean laying down our arms; but the only path to peace without servitude is victory. Why aren't we praying for that? Why can't we recognize the evil of what we are fighting, and pray for it to be utterly vanquished? Where is the spirit of St. Dominic, who routed heresy with the Rosary? Where is the spirit of 1571, when Pope St. Pius V (a Dominican) deployed the Rosary as a critical weapon in the Battle of Lepanto, where the outnumbered Christian fleet routed the Turkish navy?

It's high time we quit pussyfooting around the war, and got down to the serious business of praying for the things we really need in these dangerous days. It occurred to me recently that the Five Glorious Mysteries provide an excellent opportunity to do this. When I pray the Glorious Mysteries, here are the intentions I offer each decade for:

First Glorious Mystery: The Resurrection

Mother, obtain for us the grace of the complete and utter defeat of Jihad, from your Divine Son, Who conquered death itself.

Second Glorious Mystery: The Ascension

Mother, obtain for us the grace of courageous and steadfast leaders in these dark times, from your Divine Son, Who sits at the right hand of the Father.

Third Glorious Mystery: The Descent of the Holy Spirit

Mother, obtain for the world the conversion of our Muslim brothers, especially those most hardened in hatred and violence, from your Divine Son, Who inundated His Church with the Holy Spirit.

Fourth Glorious Mystery: The Assumption

Mother, obtain for those who offer their lives for freedom the grace of final perseverence and protection from unprovided death, from your Divine Son Who preserved you from the corruption of sin and death.

Fifth Glorious Mystery: The Coronation

Mother, obtain for us at last the triumph of your Immaculate Heart from your Divine Son, Who has given us such a Queen and Mother.

C.S. Lewis once said that "if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak." Now is a very bad time to prove him right once again.

P.S.: Please pray for the little girl at St. Joseph's School in Boise who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, and who goes in for her first surgery in a few days. Get the story here.

Separation of Church and State, Except for Kookburger Liberals

Like many-eyed Argus, the Great, Self-Appointed Guardians of Civil Liberties never sleep. Day and night, rain or shine, mud, flood, Hell or high water, these lidless eyes ceaselessly look out for the slightest encroachment of sinister Christianity on the inalienable right of impenitent sinners to a totally undisturbed conscience. Prayer must be muzzled in the public schools; city seals must be cleared of crosses; courthouses must be rid of the Ten Commandments; even Christmas vacation must be banished from campus and workplace, all in the name of the alleged wall of separation between church and state (a phrase nowhere to be found, by the way, in the Constitution). But when the barbarian hordes come with torches, pitchforks and battering rams to attack Christian institutions -- like, say, marriage -- the First Amendment rampart watchers put away their bows and arrows and cauldrons of boiling oil, and raise the portcullis.

Witness: Washington state Initiative 957, filed with the Secretary of State by an organization bearing the Orwellian name of Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance in a bid to pave the way for gay marriage in Washington State, and ultimately the normalization of the homosexual lifestyle. The initiative, allegedly provoked by the Washington Supreme Court's ruling last July upholding a ban on same-sex "marriage," would, among other things, make fertility a prerequisite to obtaining a marriage license, and render illegal the marriage of any couple who fails to document reproduction within three years. Anyone in an "unrecognized" (i.e., illegal) marriage applying for "marriage benefits" such as insurance would be guilty of a gross misdemeanor. From dizzying heights of unreason, the "Defense of Marriage" Alliance at once admits to and seeks to justify the stupidity and pointlessness of this exercise:

Absurd? Very. But there is a rational basis for this absurdity. By floating the initiatives, we hope to prompt discussion about the many misguided assumptions which make up the Andersen ruling [upholding the gay marriage ban]. By getting the initiatives passed, we hope the Supreme Court will strike them down as unconstitutional and thus weaken Andersen itself. And at the very least, it should be good fun to see the social conservatives who have long screamed that marriage exists for the sole purpose of procreation be forced to choke on their own rhetoric.

Earth to WDOMA (and to the lawyer who drafted this proposed legislation despite having sworn to uphold the Constitution): ever hear of this little thing called the First Amendment? Here, for your benefit, is the full text of the Free Exercise Clause:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

And then there is Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, which applies the rights enumerated in the federal Constitution, including the First Amendment, to the states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This initiative -- if it garners enough signatures to make it onto the ballot, and then actually passes -- would be a brazen assault not only on the institution of marriage, but also on the Christian faith in which marriage in America is grounded. By no stretch of the imagination is any legitimate government interest served by this intrusion on faith freely exercised by a couple living out a marriage recognized as valid in that faith, with or without children. It is precisely this type of aggression against religious faith by government that the First Amendment was designed to prevent -- not protecting squeamish liberals from the sight of a distant cross on a hill.

But there's no need to take my word for it. Here is where the phrase "separation of church and state" originated, in its context:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

Thomas Jefferson said that in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association on January 1, 1802. Let the attackers of Christian marriage and Christianity take note.

How Many Things Can You Find Wrong with This Picture (Besides Who It's Of)?

If the answer you come up with is "zero," then you need to read this. Right now. Immediately. Run, don't walk.

Hat tip to The Cafeteria Is Closed.

Moonbat Milingo Moons Mother Church, Becomes Moonie

Talk about passing up a Thanksgiving feast in order to dine on rat poison: former Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo has gone over to the Moonies. According to a Catholic News Agency report, Milingo -- who "married" a member of the Unification Church around 2001, and whose excommunication was publicly announced after he ordained four married men as bishops without a papal mandate -- has secretly taken up residence in Seoul in order to learn Korean and devote himself to the study of the Gospel According to Sun Myung Moon, the character pictured to the left.

This former prince of the Church has leaped off the Barque of Peter and into the turbulent waters of an ersatz church that teaches, among other things, that:

-- Adam and Eve had sex with the devil in the Garden of Eden.

-- Jesus failed in His mission because He was rejected by His contemporaries.

-- The Cross needs to be taken down and replaced with a crown.

-- Sun Myung and Mrs. Moon are the first couple ever to bring forth children without original sin.

-- Moon is the Messiah.

After all: why would you want the Catholic Church, with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Blessed Mother, the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come -- when you could have a pruny-looking Korean guy in a tuxedo?

And then if any one says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'Look, there he is!' do not believe it. False Christs and false prophets will arise and show signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect.

-- Mark 13:21-22

Nope, No Slippery Slope Here!

To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.

Formerly a part of the Hippocratic Oath

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life....

Deuteronomy 30:19

Another emanation from the Brave New World of post-Christian Europe: Switzerland's highest court has ruled that the nation's physician-assisted suicide law may apply to the "seriously" mentally ill.

According to AP, a 53-year-old man with bipolar disorder sued for the right to get a lethal dose of the anesthetic pentobarbital without a prescription, so that he could do away with himself. The court refused his petition, but stated that "It must be recognized that an incurable, permanent, serious mental disorder can cause similar suffering as a physical (disorder), making life appear unbearable to the patient in the long term." The court also declared that before a mentally ill person can be provided the means of throwing his life away, "a distinction has to be made between a death wish which is an expression of a curable, psychiatric disorder and which requires treatment, and (a death wish) which is based on a person of sound judgment's own well-considered and permanent decision, which must be respected."

It is not clear how someone who is mentally ill -- by definition impaired in his ability to make decisions regarding his treatment -- can have the "sound judgment" to make a "well-considered and permanent decision." But back when the first stirrings of legalized euthanasia began, didn't the physician-assisted suicide people repeatedly assure us that it would be permissible only in hopeless cases of agonizing terminal illness? Now, within the space of a few years, is there any agony -- or ache -- or slight inconvenience -- that will not justify killing oneself?

On January 22, 1975, William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote a column about Charles Pinckney Luckey, minister of the Congregational Church in Middlebury, Connecticut, who died, at the age of fifty, within two months of being stricken and ravaged by Kreutzfeld-Jakob disease. This excerpt from his last message to his friends should be required reading in an age in which so many of us would rather kill ourselves than unite our sufferings to the Cross.

What does the Christian do when he stands over the abyss of his own death and the doctors have told him that his disease is ravaging his brain and that his whole personality may be warped, twisted, changed? Then does the Christian have any right to self-destruction, especially when the Christian knows that the changed personality may bring out the horrible beast in himself? Well, after 48 hours of self-searching study it comes to me that ultimately and finally the Christian has to always view life as a gift from God, and every precious drop of life was not earned but was a grace, lovingly bestowed upon the individual by his Creator and so it is not his to pick up and smash. And so I find the position of suicide untenable, not because I lack the courage to blow out my brains but rather because of my deep, abiding faith in the Creator who put the brains there in the first place. And now the result is that I lie here blind on my bed and trust in the succeeding, loving power of that great Creator who knew and loved me before I was fashioned in my mother's womb.

This Is What REAL Global Warming Looks Like

The Hubble Space Telescope's main camera may be off-line -- perhaps for good -- but it's not down for the count yet. Turning its gaze toward an extrasolar planet in the constellation Pegasus, Hubble has detected evidence of an extraordinary phenomenon: the planet's atmosphere is boiling away.

Even without the gradual loss of its atmosphere, this planet is unique in the annals of astronomy. HD 209458b, a gas giant with a mass about 0.7 times that of Jupiter, was first discovered in 1999, orbiting a 7th-magnitude star of the same name (without the little "b") about 150 light years from earth. It is the first extrasolar planet whose atmosphere has been analyzed, and the first to be directly observed by means of the infrared radiation it emits. Amazingly, this planet's orbit is so close to its star that it takes only 3.5 days to complete one revolution, giving it 104.29 years for every year that passes on earth. This nearness to its star raises the temperature on HD 209458b above that of our Sun -- and is causing the atmosphere to boil away.

Even under these extraordinarily harsh conditions, HD209458b has plenty of life left in it, at least by human standards. Astronomers calculate that it can afford to keep shedding matter for at least another 5 billion years or so.

And not one single smokestack or internal combustion engine on the whole planet.

Greenpeace could not be reached for comment.