"I Be Concubining" II: Supercharged

A girl must be like a blossom

With honey for just one man. 

A man must be like honey bee 

And gather all he can. 

To fly from blossom to blossom 

A honey bee must be free, 

But blossom must not ever fly 

From bee to bee to bee. 

-- "Song of the King," from The King and I

Five years ago, we heard from the convicted thief in Avondale, Ohio whose bid for leniency in front of the court included the plea that he had been "concubining" with various women and had six babies on the way.  Like the sentencing judge, we thought that was a pretty big jaw-dropper.

But that was because we hadn't yet met the Grand-babydaddy of Concubining, Mr. Desmond Hatchett of Knoxville, Tennessee.  Mr. Hatchett, who must be like the honey bee and gather all he can, has thirty (30) children by eleven (11) different blossoms.  "I had four kids in the same year.  Twice," he says by way of partial explanation.

But it's turning out that this honey bee, not being as wealthy as the King of Siam, is not in fact as free as all that, or gathering very much either, flying from blossom to blossom to blossom.  He's finding out the hard way that (a) the authorities are not going to let him get away with not supporting his children, but (b) you can't support thirty (30) kids on minimum wage, which means (c) half his wages (the legal maximum) are garnished, and (d) he's in constant trouble with the courts.  Yet (e) he fathered nine of these children within the last three years, proving that (f) it still hasn't occurred to him to keep his britches zipped.

Nevertheless, Hatchett is seeking a break on his child support payments.  Some of his kids -- ranging in age from toddler to 14 years -- are collecting the princely sum of $1.49 a month.

Are the taxpayers going to let these kids starve?  Of course not.  Nor should we.  It's not their fault that they were born to such rotten parents.  But thanks to the wanton irresponsibility of Desmond Hatchett and the idiot women who spread their legs for him, coupled with the immorality of the welfare state that encourages them to continue in their follies, these kids start life at great risk for living in poverty, being the victims of violence at the hands of the other jerks their mothers bed down with, getting involved in drugs and other criminal activity, and generally ending up as losers like their parents.

So what's the answer?  Contraceptives are not the answer.  This guy is the product of a society that has eaten, slept and breathed contraceptives for decades, as evidenced by his willingness to use numerous women as masturbatory aids.  Abortion -- the compounding of sexual abandon with murder -- is certainly not the answer.

The answer lies in the last place few people in today's world are willing to look.  Two thousand years ago, a Man born in a stable and crucified on Calvary gave us the perfect system for avoiding situations like Desmond Hatchett's and the dreadful plight of his thirty unfortunate children.  The only trouble with it, from the point of view of honey bees and blossoms like Hatchett and his concubines, is that it compels one to make sacrifices.  But a little self-denial goes a long way, and living a virtuous life is a great antidote to indentured servitude.

H/T Charleston Thug Life.     

Speaking Truth to Totalitarians

The Left is fond of the idea of "speaking truth to power," but what they really mean by it is: leftists destroying traditional institutions, and drowning out the voices of those who support such institutions.  When leftists are in power, and anyone has the temerity to gainsay them, it's a whole different story.

Exhibit A: the European Parliament's responses to British member Nigel Farage, former commodities broker and now leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP).  Here he is last June, addressing the Parliament on the subject of its relationship with reality.  Clearly, they would like nothing better than for Farage to just dry up and blow away.

Here he is again just the other day, on the legitimacy of the EU's authority:

Most sobering of all is this exchange in the Parliament in the wake of the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in 2008:




After discovering this guy on Dr. Sanity over the weekend, I spent some time watching videos of him giving interviews and addressing the European Parliament.  The sight of Nigel Farage telling the eurocrats where to get off, bursting their bubbles, calling out their totalitarian tactics, and even identifying the "ex" Communists among them -- all right to their faces -- is not only first-class entertainment, but also positively bracing in this age of mealy-mouthed political correctness.  Besides plainly exposing Euro-hypocrisy, Farage's trenchant comments have the additional virtue of eliciting reactions from the eurocrats that cause them to betray their antipathy for liberty, their disdain for the hoi polloi, and their dedication to ideology at the expense of flesh-and-blood human beings. 

I don't pretend to be versed on the ins and outs of Euro-politics, but I do know plain speech when I hear it, and courage when I see it.  It is looking more and more as though the sole virtue of the European Parliament is that it provides a forum for Nigel Farage to speak truth to totalitarians.  May this good work of his soon be no longer needed; and until then, may he keep it up. 

A Prophetic Diagnosis

Ever wonder why the religious orders went so far off the rails?  Since the crisis in the religious life is much in the news with the crackdown on the LCWR, it seems worthwhile to focus attention on the thoughts of Jean Cardinal Daniélou (1905-1974).  Forty years ago, this brave Jesuit gave an interview on Vatican Radio in which he spoke frankly about the insanity that was already blatantly apparent in the religious life, its causes and the necessary remedies.  For this, he was ostracized by his brother Jesuits, and his untimely death was permitted to appear as though it had taken place under compromising circumstances.

The crisis of consecrated life is a worthwhile subject of consideration, for the simple reason that the rot and corruption within convents and priories and monasteries spread far beyond their walls.  St. Paul tells us that when one part of the Body of Christ suffers, the whole Body suffers with it; surely no one can doubt that the infirmities of secular society are intimately linked to those in the religious orders.  A sample of Cardinal Daniélou's brief yet powerful interview:

I think that there is now a very grave crisis of religious life, and that one should not speak of renewal, but rather of decadence. I think that this crisis is hitting the Atlantic area above all. Eastern Europe and the countries of Africa and Asia present in this regard a better state of spiritual health. This crisis is manifesting itself in all areas. The evangelical counsels are no longer considered as consecrations to God, but are seen in a sociological and psychological perspective. We are concerned about not presenting a bourgeois facade, but on the individual level poverty is not practiced. The group dynamic replaces religious obedience; with the pretext of reacting against formalism, all regularity of the life of prayer is abandoned and the first consequence of this state of confusion is the disappearance of vocations, because young people require a serious formation. And moreover there are the numerous and scandalous desertions of religious who renege on the pact that bound them to the Christian people.

Get the whole thing here.

H/T Fr. Philip Neri Powell, O.P.

How to Suffer

This little boy -- shown here a couple of months before his death at the age of 12 -- was never well a day in his life. 

This is an illustration of the profits that can be reaped by means of suffering united to the Cross.  It is far from the picture of squalid, abject meaninglessness the culture of death paints in order to justify murder.  It is just such lives as this that the culture of death, mired in atheism and materialism, says are not worth living.  It is the Garvan Byrnes, who light the way to the world to come, that are targeted for extermination.  


If we go on snuffing out these lights, how can we imagine we will escape retribution?

Happy Lenin's Birthday!

That's what you're really saying any time you celebrate Earth Day.  Yes, April 22nd is the birthday of Vladimir Ilych Lenin, Soviet thug dictator, mass murderer and tool of Satan.    That Earth Day falls on his birthday is no coincidence.  Any time you refrain from using a plastic bag or a styrofoam cup, or throw out all your incandescent light bulbs in honor of Earth Day, what you are really celebrating is the leading exponent of the most murderous ideology in human history.

I'd like to be a multibillionaire, so I could open up a new oil refinery every April 22nd.  But since I'm not a multibillionaire, I'll just have to settle for turning on all my incandescent lights tonight.

The Home Front, Frozen in Time

Take a good, close look at this picture.  Click on it so you can see it better.  With the sharp detail and superb color, it's almost like you're right there.  Would you believe that every single person in this picture is either dead or very old?

You can't tell by the excellent quality of the photo.  We are used to looking at either black and white or grainy photos from this era.  But if you look closely at clothing, hairstyles and technological devices, you can see that this Kodachrome transparency was snapped decades ago.  October 1942, to be exact: at the North American Aviation plant in Inglewood, California.  These plant workers are watching a lunchtime airshow.  

For more amazing images from wartime America, see here.


H/T Adrienne's Corner.  (By the way, American aviation hero Pappy Boyington was from Adrienne's neck of the woods.)

Fr. Guarnizo Sheds Light

The embattled Fr. Marcel Guarnizo has issued a public statement regarding the lesbian-Communion affair and his removal from public ministry in the Archdiocese of Washington.  The entire text of his statement can be found here.

In my first round of comments on this ugly business, I asked what effect the occasion (a funeral) had on the Can. 915 requirement of "manifest grave sin" to justify withholding Communion.  I pointed out that the daughter of the deceased was a prominent attendee of this particular Mass, rather than just another face in the crowd, and that the congregation most likely knew about her lifestyle.  I think Dr. Ed Peters has now answered my question, based on Fr. Guarnizo's public statement.  Addressing Can. 915, Peters says (emphases and comments added):

Prescinding from rarely encountered excommunication and interdict situations, Canon 915 lays out several distinct conditions that must be simultaneously satisfied before a minister of Holy Communion may (and indeed, should) withhold the Eucharist from a member of the faithful. To justify withholding the Eucharist under Canon 915 according to its plain terms, the conduct in which a communicant perseveres must be obstinate, manifest, grave, and sinful. [In other words, the conjunction "and" tells us all of these conditions must be met.  This principle of statutory construction also applies in the secular world.]These conditions must be understood and assessed according to the Church’s canonical tradition, else, one is no longer talking about the law of the Catholic Church.

Given the very strong canonical presumptions accorded the faithful in regard to reception of the sacraments, and given the strict interpretative hermeneutic set out in Canon 18, the burden is, without question, on the minister of holy Communion to verify that all of the conditions listed in canon 915 are satisfied before he withholds holy Communion from a member of the faithful who approaches for it publicly. Put another way, the burden is not on Guarnizo’s critics to prove that he should not have acted as he did in this case, rather, the burden is on Guarnizo to prove that he acted in accord with Church discipline.

...

Guarnizo did not know, and could not have verified, whether Johnson’s sin (speaking objectively), which could be grave (a conclusion I think a Catholic could reach based on the words used here) was also manifest, as well as obstinate and perseverating. Yet such factors, according to a host of respected commentators writing over many decades, must be verified before withholding holy Communion from a member of the faithful. Consider:

“If the priest … doubts the publicity or notoriety of the crime, it would certainly be safer to give the Holy Eucharist to one who publically asks for it.” Dom Augustine, COMMENTARY (1920) IV: 230.

“Occulto peccatori qui publice accedit ad sacram Mensam administranda vero est sacra communio … si fideles, quippe cum eis indignitas non sit nota, timore afficiantur, ne et ipsi infamentur, si sacerdos ob … ignoratiam, errorem, etc, eos praetereat.” Jone, COMMENTARIUM (1954) II: 100.

“If there is doubt about the notoriety of the sin, the communicant is to be favored in public.” Abbo-Hannan, SACRED CANONS (1960) I: 854.

“Before a minister can lawfully refuse the Eucharist, he must be certain that the person obstinately persists in a sinful situation or in sinful behavior that is manifest (i.e. public) and objectively grave.” Kelly, in GB& I COMM (1995) 503.

“The minister of holy communion should not publicly deny communion to a person who, being afflicted by grave sin and/or subject to a non-declared penalty latae sententiae [e.g., for apostasy] is not notoriously under those situations.” Gramunt, in EXEGETICAL COMM (2004) III/1: 615-616.

I know of no commentator who disputes these views. In terms of Canon 915, and given Guarnizo’s factual admissions above, I conclude that Guarnizo erred in withholding Communion.

So basically, what I understand Dr. Peters to be saying is this: at the very moment that Holy Communion is withheld, (1) the requirements of obstinacy, manifestness, gravity and sinfulness must exist simultaneously; and (2) the minister of Holy Communion must have a subjective knowledge that all these conditions exist.  So even if the four requirements of Can. 915 are in fact in place, the minister who denies Communion is still not covered as long as he has a doubt (which I take it means legitimate doubt, not born of willful blindness) that they were in place.  What the minister finds out afterwards, or what later turns out to be the case, is not relevant: what is relevant is what he knows at the moment of the incident.

The inescapable conclusion, then, is that Fr. Guarnizo did not comply with Can. 915 in withholding Communion.  For reasons that he delves into in his post linked above, Peters also concludes that Fr. Guarnizo's action was not covered by canon law on any of the other potential grounds for denying the woman Communion.  In short, Fr. Guarnizo was wrong and stands in need of correction.

But what Fr. Guarnizo doesn't stand in need of is persecution.  He erred, but he erred on the side of love for the Eucharist and for the deluded soul of the woman who provoked him: on that point, he requires no correction.  I have said before, and continue to maintain, that this whole thing was a set-up, and that the penalties visited upon Father are out of all proportion to the offense.  Yes, there has been a firestorm, but Fr. Guarnizo's error was merely the excuse for the firestorm: it is the so-called injured party who has fanned the flames.  The lesson that needs to be drawn from this is that a priest's best defense against attacks of this kind is solid, thorough training in the proper application of canons governing the administration of the Sacraments.

Based on the foregoing, I accept that Fr. Marcel Guarnizo erred under canon law in this incident.  But (a) he has received a vastly disproportionate, and therefore unjust punishment; and (b) the Archdiocese of Washington gives every appearance of throwing him under the bus, all while coddling the woman who put him in such a dreadful position.  To my way of thinking, that is the greatest scandal in this whole affair.      

The Persecution of Fr. Guarnizo Intensifies

I trust that Dymphna will not mind my borrowing this image from her excellent blog: it is a good reminder that faithful priests can expect no easier fate than that which befell Him Whose representatives on earth they are.  And now, one faithful priest who has been suffering before the world on account of his love of the Eucharist, has been given a new and heavier cross to bear.

Fr. Marcel Guarnizo, who denied Holy Communion to an open lesbian (who, by the way, is also an activist and practicing Buddhist) has now been placed on administrative leave, and prohibited from exercising any priestly ministry in the Archdiocese of Washington.  Dr. Peters expounds on what this development means and what it doesn't mean from a canonical point of view.

The March 9th letter from auxiliary Bishop Barry Knestout cites "credible allegations that Father Guarnizo has engaged in intimidating behavior toward parish staff and others that is incompatible with proper priestly ministry."  These allegations are not specified but are described as being of a "grave nature."

I have never been to Gaithersburg, Maryland, and neither I nor anybody I know personally am familiar with the particular ins and outs of the parish where Fr. Guarnizo was stationed.  I must confess to not knowing what exactly gave rise to the allegations that have led to Fr. Guarnizo being put on administrative leave.  However, a few general observations spring to mind.  

-- Firstly, it is interesting that it has taken until now, when he has become embroiled in controversy, to discover the "intimidation" tactics of a priest who has been in the parish since March, 2011.  Even if there are legitimate grounds to place Fr. Guarnizo on leave, the timing of this new action against him stinks.  It looks like the lesbian activist has won.  That the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Washington, D.C. appears to be caving to a lobby of public sinners ought to be a matter of concern to the cardinal archbishop. 

-- Secondly, it has long been my experience that it is the support staff who wield the real power in many organizations -- parishes included -- because very often only they know how to keep them running on a day-to-day basis.  In an age when parish priests are frequently and routinely transferred, and laity are "empowered" pursuant to the "spirit of Vatican II," it seems to me that the parish staff, who are often the only real constants in the parish office over the long term, enjoy an accumulation of influence and thus a certain security not shared by the priests that they see coming and going down the years.  

-- Thirdly, Fr. Guarnizo appears, by all accounts, to be, overall, a man of sense.  It is ridiculous to suppose that a sensible priest who has only been in the parish for a year, is not the pastor, and is, moreover, incardinated in another diocese, should try to "intimidate" the parish staff who are higher on the totem pole than he is.  That he should do so at a time when his own influence is at its lowest ebb, and he knows he does not enjoy the backing of the archbishop, is absurd.  That parish staff should actually feel "intimidated" by a priest in such a tenuous position -- even if the lesbian-Communion imbroglio had not taken place -- simply strains all credibility.

I continue to stand by my previous analysis of this business.  In the light of all that has emerged so far regarding this ugly affair, I am perfectly prepared to believe that someone has been deploying intimidation tactics; but I am not prepared to believe that that someone is Fr. Marcel Guarnizo.    Pray for him and for all embattled priests.

The Persecution of Fr. Guarnizo

In re the campaign to destroy Fr. Marcel Guarnizo in Gaithersburg, Maryland, a few observations:

-- The whole business smells like a set-up. It appears that Fr. Guarnizo has a reputation as a faithful and orthodox priest.  It appears further that the complaining party in this ugly affair is not a reliable source of information regarding what actually happened. Good priests can expect more of this sort of thing.  Bishops need to be fathers to their priests and defend them against unjust attacks.   Catholics in the pews need to pray harder for their shepherds. 

-- Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law provides:

Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.

It would seem that if any part of this canon applied in this case, it would be the language about "obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin."  Not being a canonist, and not being familiar with canon law evidentiary standards, I hesitate to undertake a legal analysis.  I do note that at least one prominent canonist, Dr. Ed Peters, is of the opinion that Fr. Guarnizo erred, and his opinion appears to derive from the conclusion that the requirement of manifestness is not satisfied in this case.  Dr. Peters says:

Unless a substantial majority of the community in question (I’m assuming them to be adults, reasonably aware of Catholic life around them, etc.) knows at the time why a given individual is being denied holy Communion, that’s a pretty good sign that Canon 915 has not been satisfied, and that Canon 912 (and some others norms) has been violated.

However, Peters pursues his analysis as though this incident took place at an ordinary Sunday Mass, whereas it took place at a funeral.  The woman who was denied Communion was not just another face in the crowd, but the daughter of the deceased -- a prominent figure among those assembled.  It is not unreasonable to suppose that those gathered for the funeral were family and friends, and thus knew about this woman's living arrangements.  What I would like to see a canonist address is whether these factors change the Canon 915 analysis, and if not, why not.

-- Even if the priest erred, the punishment sought by the putative injured party is out of all proportion to the offense.  The high-tech lynching Fr. Guarnizo is currently undergoing is also out of all proportion to his alleged offense, and stands as stark proof that charity has gone cold in the world.  His apparent abandonment by the archdiocese is shameful.  If Fr. Guarnizo did indeed err, then, as Dr. Peters says in one of his posts linked above, it is correction rather than punishment that is called for.

-- Canonists and clergy who opine that Fr. Guarnizo did the wrong thing in this case should not be surprised by the fact that so many laymen are anxious to justify his actions, even on erroneous grounds -- even regardless of what canon law provides.  Such a reaction is the natural and inevitable product of decades of anger at the spectacle of hired hands allowing the wolves to ravage the fold with impunity while putting the smackdown on holy priests.  Monumental injustices continue unabated: national pro-abortion figures continue to be admitted to Holy Communion; certain parishes continue to be homosexualist playgrounds; gross liturgical abuses are still the order of the day in many places, and not a peep out of those charged with the responsibility of putting a stop to all this.  Naturally, the lay faithful are outraged to see the hierarchy straining out the gnat of a priest denying Holy Communion to a lesbian (if indeed this can be characterized as a "gnat") while swallowing all these camels.

-- In my judgment, the person most deserving of sympathy and support in this situation is not the lesbian who rushed into print with a sensational account of this business, but Fr. Marcel Guarnizo.  He, not she, is the real target of hatred in this whole affair.  It must have made him feel sick to be placed in such an awful position -- a situation every faithful priest must dread.  Whether he was right or wrong, he surely did the best he could in very trying circumstances.

Pray for Fr. Marcel Guarnizo, and for all our priests and bishops.

The Barque of Bigots

"Throw back anyone who disagrees with Chris Matthews!"

According to alleged Catholic Chris Matthews, the Catholic Church is a magnet for bigots.  "If you're really anti-gay," declared Matthews, "you become a Catholic now."  Yet another reason for the Westboro Baptists to hate Catholics: we're competition!

When this little item first came out, the memory instantly flashed back to an incident involving another nutjob Matthews statement some years back about the current occupant of the White House -- an incident brilliantly and hysterically illustrated by the irrepressible crusading Canuck, TH2:

 So, yeah, I think we need to consider the source.

This Is Why Mary Gave Us the Fatima Prayer

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins.  Save us from the fires of hell.  Lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy. 

Stephanie at Digital Hair Shirt took this picture of a pro-abortion protester who was demonstrating outside the Basilica after Mass on the day of the March for Life in D.C.  Her behavior showed that she was deeply disturbed, yet she claimed that the abortion she had 26 years ago was the best thing she had ever done.  The woman apparently worked hard to make this convincing -- especially to herself.  But her eyes tell a different story.  She looks like a damned soul experiencing its first few seconds in hell. 

There is a certain amount of disagreement within the pro-life movement about the propriety of using gruesome images of aborted babies to convince people of the evils of abortion.  I myself am undecided on the issue.  But the more I look at this image of a haunted woman, the more I think maybe we should use it instead.

UPDATED Special Prayer Request: Friars Up for Solemn Vow Vote

Reason no. 4,287 to join the Order of Preachers: we do the coolest backyard conflagrations.  (Lay Dominicans are by no means slouches on this front, either.)

Please stop right now and say, devoutly, a Hail Mary apiece for Br. Corwin Low, O.P. and Br. Peter Hanna, O.P. of the Western Province of the Holy Name.  December 20th is the day their community votes on whether to admit them to solemn vows.

Might not hurt also to invoke on their behalf St. Antoninus of Florence.  The local prior told Antoninus he could not take the habit of St. Dominic unless he memorized the entire Gratian decretal (i.e., the entire body of canon law as it existed in his day).  Which, of course, he did.

UPDATE, 12/21/2011 at 07:34: Brs. Corwin and Peter are approved for solemn vows!  They will be locked in for life on April 28, 2012 at St. Dominic's in San Francisco. 

Br. Corwin (left) and Br. Peter (right). Could these be the future founding fathers of Boise's first Dominican priory?  We can certainly hope so!

Throwing Your Heart in the Trash

He who is sated loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.  

Proverbs 27:7

Now that the feminists have made the world safe for neanderthals by clearing away all the rules and taboos and social norms that once kept boorish behavior in check, and put the kibosh on the sexual exploitation of women, all sorts of things are acceptable that should not be.  And now that the unacceptable is not only acceptable but respectable, many women seem unable any longer to distinguish between a good catch and a loser.  It is at once amazing, frustrating and heartbreaking to see what members of my sex are prepared to put up with in the name of Not Being Alone.  In our oversexed world, full of promiscuity, fatherless families and irreligion, we have been trained to view ourselves as nothing.

This is a depressing tide that I cannot stem alone.  But I still want to do my poor bit to shed some light into this overwhelming darkness.  So, for all the ladies out there who are in a bad situation or teetering on the brink of one:

Your Boyfriend Is Probably a Loser If:

...He Is Violent and/or Emotionally Abusive.  Yes, this should be obvious, but sadly, for many, it is not.  Where there is true love, there is peace and trust.  Real love wants nothing but the best for the beloved; in fact, the ultimate goal of real love is the salvation of the other person as well as oneself.  No one who truly loves you is going to use physical force on you.  Period.  No one who truly loves you is going to terrorize you, or keep you in a constant state of frenzy, or belittle you or manipulate you.  Such behavior is repugnant to true love.  True love would rather die than treat the beloved that way.  If that is the treatment you are getting, run, and don't look back. 

...He Is Chronically Unemployed.  Bad times hit us all.  I have been out of work in my life, and I know exactly how harrowing it is to have bills mounting and no money coming in.  But if your boyfriend is out of work, what's he doing about it?  Is he out pounding the pavement?  Is he at the unemployment office coming the classifieds, sending out resumes, making phone calls, visiting potential jobsites, signing up with temp agencies?  Is he taking anything and everything that comes along, no matter how grueling or humiliating, until he finds a good job?  Sending out an application a day is not looking for work.  Devoting ten minutes a day to job hunting and spending the remaining 23 hours and 50 minutes to sleeping and playing video games is not looking for work.  Waiting to be named ambassador to the Court of St. James is not looking for work.  Is your boyfriend capable of holding a job for more than two weeks at a stretch, or has he had six jobs in the last six weeks?  Does he show up on time to work, and do his job diligently?  Or does he party all night and then sleep until 3:00 p.m.?  Is his mother paying his bills?  Are you?  If a guy is not serious about work, how can he be serious about a relationship?

...You Are Taking Care of His Financial Obligations to the Criminal Justice System.  First off, if your boyfriend has constant entanglements with the criminal justice system, don't walk, but run for the nearest exit.  He's not in all that trouble because the cops are out to get him: the common denominator in all his woes is him.  Secondly, if you are constantly bonding his ass out of jail, or paying his fines, or paying for his court-ordered domestic violence treatment that he has to do because he beat you up, that should tell you everything you need to know about what he thinks is your mission in life.

...You Are Constantly Accompanying Him to Court.  This might be your turkey's idea of a date, but it should not be that of any woman in her senses.  Add another three strikes if the reason you're accompanying him is because his driver's license is suspended and you are his ride.

...He Does Drugs or Abuses Alcohol.  A guy who does drugs is not taking care of business.  He is, however, wasting a lot of time and money on his habit.  Habitual drug use does impair your mental faculties over time, and it does stunt your emotional growth -- and yes, this includes marijuana.  Also, if the guy does illegal drugs in your home, or uses your car for his illegal drug activity, you could end up having your property forfeited out from under you.  Plus, people do steal in order to nourish their habit.  A guy who abuses alcohol will be a source of endless domestic misery even if he can hold down a steady job.  Marrying an addict will not cure the addiction.     

...He Asks You for Sex.  Startling -- in this day and age -- but true.  Sex is not merely recreational.  It is the deepest expression of love and commitment possible between two human beings.  It is a total self-giving.  It leads to the creation of life.  It calls for reverence.  That is why it is only for marriage.  Anything outside of marriage is a mockery.  A man who wants to bed a woman down without any sort of commitment is only using her.   Every good father understands this: that is why good fathers are the natural enemies of boys who want to bed down their daughters.  It is a shame that so many girls grow up in fatherless families, and therefore never learn this.  But if you have a good father, or know one, think about this: run from any man who wants to do anything with you that that father would protect his daughter from.

...He Wants You to Shack Up.  Remember this, ladies: shack-up relationships are made to be walked away from.  What else could possibly be the point of playing house without a marriage license?  Moving in with him will not make him marry you.  Repeat: moving in with him will not make him marry you.  All you are doing is providing this jerk with a housekeeper, an economic advantage (is he even working?) and commitment-free sex into the bargain.  And by the way, you will not hang on to the bum by getting pregnant by him, either.  If he really loved you and any future kids, why would he be afraid to enter into a legally binding commitment with you?

Ladies: it is perfectly okay to be alone.  In fact, that may well be your vocation.  It is far, far better to be alone than to live in the captivity of an emotional slave-driver.  If your man is a bum, he doesn't just need the love of a good woman.  If he is a bum, he is incapable of appreciating you or your love, except to the extent you serve his purposes for the moment; you cannot fix him.  If he is a criminal, it is beyond your poor power to reform him.  You will not succeed where the criminal justice system, with all its money and coercive police power and shrinks and probation officers, have failed.  The cube of sugar he tosses you now and then is not worth the gallons of bile you get the rest of the time. 

A man is not a unique fixer-upper opportunity.  If you can't cure a decent man of annoying little habits like leaving the seat up, or throwing his socks on the floor, or filling the bathroom sink with his whiskers, how much less can you expect to succeed in making Sir Galahad out of Al Capone.  

Amil Myshin, R.I.P.

Today, a multitude of family, friends, colleagues, judges, prosecutors and court staff descended upon the chapel at Summers Funeral Home in downtown Boise to pay their respects and say farewell to a great lawyer and remarkable human being.

Three years was all too short a time in which to get to know Amil Myshin.  I enjoyed going up to the fifth floor of the courthouse and watching him on his hind legs, when my own calendar permitted.  But the best thing was the lunchtime conversations.  Amil was a great raconteur.  Whether he talked about old cases, or his sons, or his days in the service, or my first boss who used to work with him, or his scuba-diving adventures, it would have been a delight -- if it were possible -- just to sit and listen to him tell stories all day.  And laugh.  Amil had so much laughter in him that it would have taken a concerted effort not to laugh with him.  It was as much fun to watch Amil laugh as it was to laugh oneself.

The Gospel of Matthew says that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks; and so it is possible to learn a lot about a man as much by what comes out of his mouth as by how he conducts himself.  What sort of a man did Amil's words and conduct reveal?  It was clear that he enjoyed a good fight; but -- if one can trot out a metaphor -- he was no common, swaggering street brawler.  Amil was a gentleman.  And -- to extend the metaphor -- it was not for the sake of seeing blood spurt from wounds or feeling bones crack beneath his fists that he enjoyed a fight, but for the contest of wit and skill and endurance that he carried out with quiet dignity.  And he never forgot that matters of life and death hung upon his skill.  His courage always rose to match the stakes for which he fought, stakes than which there are none higher in the legal system.   

What mark should decades of defending accused murderers -- looking at crime scene and autopsy photos and poring over gruesome reports and listening to witness accounts of unspeakable brutality and witnessing a client's execution -- leave on a man's soul?  No lawyer or his family could come entirely unscathed through such ordeals. Amil was no different: he took some real blows on account of his work.  The danger of taking on hardships is that we may permit the toughness they build up to carry over into callousness.  But during the time that I knew Amil, in the last three years of his life, he was kindly, patient, gentle, modest, self-effacing, understanding, and cheerful.  In fact, considering all that he had seen and gone through over the years, his character was as remarkable for those things that it lacked as for those that it possessed.  Amil's vocabulary was not always the cleanest -- that is unfortunately a side effect of our trade -- but his professionalism was such that I never heard him utter a harsh word all the time I knew him, even in his moments of exasperation.  Even a consummate professional like Amil must occasionally let slip some flaw, whether he wants to or not; yet every time I interacted with him, I was struck by the complete absence in him of bitterness, egotism, pettiness, vindictiveness, meanness, vanity or pusillanimity.  And I could not -- cannot -- help considering how poorly my own behavior and attitude compared with his.  Even the last time I talked with him, when he was obviously ill and weak and distracted, he was uncomplaining and dignified, and still managed a few laughs.

But years and years of high-pressure, high-stakes, high-profile cases take their toll at last.  Amil shone out as a clear beacon over miles of rough seas, but the tower that housed that beacon was crumbling.  He struggled hard to go on preparing his last big case, even as his strength ebbed, until finally even his still-robust spirit had to yield to his physical exhaustion.  By the close of August 6th -- the Feast of the Transfiguration -- all was over.

Greater love than this no man has, said Jesus, that he lay down his life for his friends.  What I saw of Amil, especially toward the end, convinced me that he did indeed lay down his life.  Who were the friends for whom he laid it down?  Anyone who has ever worked as a public defender, as he did, could rattle off a fairly accurate description.  Clients who worked hard to try his patience.  Clients who called him 20 or 30 times a day and left threatening or raging messages on his voice mail.  Clients who tried to manipulate him and play him off against his co-counsel.  Clients who complained about him.  Clients who wrote nasty letters.  Clients who tried to make trouble for him and get him fired off their cases.  Clients who would do and say things publicly that would blow weeks' worth of his hard work all to hell, and create weeks' worth of additional work into the bargain.  Clients who fought him every step of the way, even though he was their only friend in the whole system.  Yet, for their sakes, he was glad to give all he had, even the strength to go on living.  Amil savored the thrill of combat, but in the end, he fought -- and died -- for love.

I do not know whether Amil thought of it in those terms, but with all that he had and all that he did for them, he loved every last societal outcast that he defended, no matter what they stood accused of or what they had actually done.  I do not know what level of commitment Amil had to the Christian faith, but he clearly knew something about sacrificial love.  He clearly knew, and lived, the love that is not a warm, fuzzy feeling, but an act of the will.  He knew, and lived, the love that wills to serve, freely and voluntarily, to the best of one's ability -- and even to the death -- people one knows will repay one with nothing except rank ingratitude.  Can such a love as this fail to cover a multitude of faults?

I trust that, in that supreme moment, when Amil stood before his God in the greatest trial of all, upon whose outcome depend the greatest stakes of all, it did not.  R.I.P.

Amil Norman Myshin, Jr. (1946-2011)

The Weapons of War: Old-Fashioned, But Never Out of Date

In my rejection of the wisdom and truth which the Church has preserved, and which she has used to establish the harmony and order set forth by Christ, I had set myself adrift on an uncharted sea with no compass.  I and others like me grasped with relief the fake certitude offered by the materialists and accepted this program which had been made even more attractive because they appealed for "sacrifice for our brothers."  Meaningless and empty I learned are such phrases as "the brotherhood of man" unless they have the solid foundation of belief in God's Fatherhood.

Bella V. Dodd, School of Darkness: The Record of a Life and of a Conflict Between Two Faiths, Devin-Adair, New York, 1954 at 233.

Thus Bella Dodd -- the Communist Party official who, after being expelled from the Party, reverted to Catholicism under the direction of Bishop Fulton Sheen -- sums up the wasted years of her life as an instrument of the Communist conspiracy.  The Party that preached comradeship and unity in the struggle to build a new world wrung as much work as it could out of her; then, when she ceased to be useful, it threw her naked out into the darkness.  But in the darkness, a door opened, and a friendly light streamed out: the light of Faith.

In her autobiography, Bella Dodd focuses primarily on her involvement in the teachers' union movement in New York, how this led her into the Communist Party, and what then ensued.  She does not discuss the Communist plot to infiltrate the Catholic Church and destroy her from within; she does not mention the penetration of Communist agents into the clergy and ultimately the hierarchy; nor does she discuss the long-range plan to make the Church completely unrecognizable.  She does, however, illustrate the capital importance of taking seriously our obligation to know our faith well, and to be good soil for the seed.  Tracing her path from the cultural Catholicism of her childhood to the slow drift into Communism, and back to the Faith that she had abandoned, Dodd sheds light on some of the methods and tactics of the Enemy, particularly against well-intentioned yet poorly formed Christians.  However hoary these counterfeits and artifices may be, and however many times they have been deployed over the centuries, our own ignorance and short-sightedness still give them devastating effect:

-- False Asceticism.  This was a tactic of the Albigensian heretics that St. Dominic battled in the 13th century.  Observers comparing the threadbare Albigensians to the extravagant priests and bishops wallowing in luxury inevitably concluded that true virtue lay with the former.  So it was with the Communists.  Bella Dodd recounts her first meeting with international agent Harriet Silverman:

When she stood up to go I looked at her threadbare tweed coat, her shapeless hat, and I was moved by her evident sense of dedication....She was the new type of ascetic of our day, a type I was to find prevalent in the Communist Party.  She lived in a small remodeled apartment on the East Side and I climbed four steep flights to reach it.  The room had a cloistered atmosphere; it was lined with bookshelves on which I noticed Lenin's complete works, Karl Marx, Engels, Stalin, Bimba's History of the Labor Movement, and other books on sociology and labor.  There was nothing trivial there.  I noted no poetry.  On one wall hung a large picture of Lenin, draped with Red flags bearing the hammer and sickle.

School of Darkness at 66-67.

Dodd describes the power of false asceticism, which helped her persevere in Communism despite the occasional glimpse of the Party's fangs:

Harriet was ill the night I visited her.  She sat in an old flannel bathrobe and talked with intensity of plans to remake the world.  I was impressed by the fact that she was not concerned about her own poverty, and thought only of the working people of the world.  Suddenly I felt that my efforts to increase salaries for a few college teachers were insignificant.  She  made me feel ashamed of having a good job and a comfortable apartment.  So moved was I that I pressed on her all the money I had with me.

Id. at 67.

False asceticism also provided the Communist Party with martyrs, in mockery of the Church.  Consider the tragic example of the girl who spent herself unstintingly for the enemy of her Faith:

I remember especially an Irish "Catholic" girl, an organizer of the unemployed and a leader of mass demonstrations.  Helen Lynch was tubercular, but she never stopped working for the Party until she died.  Then the Communists claimed her as a martyr.

Id. at 71.

Sometimes poverty reflects true detachment from the goods of this world; and sometimes it is the outward manifestation of inward spiritual bankruptcy.  If we neglect prayer and study, how will we ever be able to tell the difference?

-- False Charity.  Whereas true charity demands nothing in return, and even delights in uplifting those who can never repay, Communist "charity" only indebted its victims to the Party, anesthetized them, and solidified its hold over them:

It was true that it was an infectious thing, this comradeship, for so often it helped in dire need such as Rent Parties where Communists gathered money to pay the rent of some comrade.  This sort of personal aid did much to overcome the doctrinaire aridity of orders by the "functionaries," the title given the bureaucrats, the skeleton staff which stand ready to take over when the Revolution comes to pass.

Id.

This is an especially dangerous weapon in an age when the character of true charity has become so distorted in the minds of so many.  Charity has come to mean "handouts," which gives it a bad name.  But even worse, it has come to mean refusing to speak the truth when speaking out is necessary for fear of making wrongdoers feel badly about their wrongdoing.  Like the rent parties that kept Communists and fellow travelers indentured, this false charity keeps people enslaved to sin. 

-- Divide and Conquer.  We see this weapon being deployed right now by means of the clergy sex abuse scandal.  What difference is there between what we are seeing today and what Dodd describes during the first half of the 20th century?

During the Spanish War the Communist Party was able to use some of the best talent of the country against the Catholic Church by repeating ancient appeals to prejudice and by insinuating that the Church was indifferent to the poor and was against those who wanted only to be free.

The Communist publicists carefully took for their own the pleasant word of Loyalist and called all who opposed them "Franco-Fascists.  This was a literary coup which confused many men and women.  Violent communist literature repeatedly lumped all of the Church hierarchy on the side of the "Fascists," and using this technique, they sought to destroy the Church by attacking its priests.  This was not a new tactic.  I had seen it used in our own country over and over again.  When the Communists organized Catholic workers, Irish and Polish and Italian, in labor unions they always drove a wedge between lay Catholics and the priests, by flattering the laity and attacking the priests.

Id. at 87-88.

Now, in the 21st century, we see unprecedented attacks on priests.  What Party functionary sitting in Communist headquarters in New York City in, say, 1938, could ever dream up the spectacle of Western governments proposing laws to effectively abolish the seal of the confessional -- much less imagine that one of them would be then-staunchly Catholic Ireland?

-- The Abolition of Distinctions among Men.  In Federalist No. 10, James Madison declared that the first object of government was to safeguard the "different and unequal faculties of acquiring property." These differences result in the unequal distribution of property, differing interests, and class distinctions.  After years and years of socialistic indoctrination, we tend to think of these things as bad in themselves; yet Madison understood that to safeguard the diversity of faculties is to safeguard liberty itself.  The Communists understood this too, and therefore made the destruction of all this diversity a priority:

A great leveling process was at work in American life and at that time it seemed to me a good thing.  So it also seemed to the Communist Party, but for a different reason.  Their professional leveling would fit teachers better into its class-struggle philosophy and so bring them to identify themselves with the proletariat.

Id. at 102.

For the last several decades, we have seen the same thing going on in the Church.  In the name of Vatican II -- which actually taught the opposite -- we have seen the attempt to abolish distinctions between clergy and laity.  We saw an effort to make the Pope just another bishop, one among many, without any special dignity or distinction.  We see it in the Order of Preachers, elements of which try to change reality by changing the language: abolishing the term "Third Order" and ordering Dominican laity to use the designation "O.P.", previously reserved to those in the religious life.  This is not reform, but destruction.

-- The Subversion of Women. At a couple of points in her book, Dodd gives us some insight into the Communists' use of women to achieve their destructive aims.  The Party made use of the Second World War in its bid to recruit women in re-making American society in its own image:

The Party did all it could to induce women to go into industry.  Its fashion designers created special styles for them and its song writers wrote special songs to spur them.  Use of womanpower in the war industries was, of course, inevitable, but it also fitted into the communist long-range program.  War-period conditions, they planned, were to become a permanent  part of the future educational program.  The bourgeois family as a social unit was to be made obsolete.

Id. at 153.

After the war, on orders from Moscow, an attempt was made to organize women into an international "peace" movement, appealing to their honorable intentions in order to corral them for Communist purposes.  Dodd explains the reasoning:

Since it was supposedly a movement for peace, it attracted many women.  But it was really only a renewed offensive to control American women, a matter of deep importance to the communist movement, for American women do 80 per cent of the family spending.  In the upper brackets they own a preponderance of capital stock and bonds.  They are important in the making of political decisions.  Like youth and minority groups, they are regarded as a reserve force of the revolution because they are more easily moved by emotional appeals.  So the Soviet campaign for peace was especially geared to gain support of the women.

Id. at 194-195.

Nowhere is the use of women as tools in the fight against the Church more apparent than in the creeping feminism that has penetrated parish and chancery all across the country, and that finds its worst expression in the quixotic crusade for women's ordination.  All mothers are women, and many teachers are women: corrupt the mothers and the teachers, and you end up with a new generation corrupted from childhood.  The feminist assaults on masculinity in general and the male priesthood in particular have shipwrecked the faith of many, destroyed many congregations of women religious and crippled priests.  (And have you noticed the disdain of feminists for Mary, the greatest woman who ever lived?)

The last of the weapons on this list is by no means the least, and seems particularly relevant in the United States:

-- Making Somebodies out of Nobodies.  Bella Dodd uses herself as an example of how and why the Communists advanced unknown figures to overnight prominence:

The "progressive" bloc at the State Federation convention that year decided to run me for a position in the State Federation of Labor.  It seems ridiculous to me now that one so newly come to the labor movement should have been pushed forward against the established machine.  But this, too, was a communist tactic, for Communists have no hesitation whatever in bringing unknown people forward into leadership, the more callow or ill-equipped the better, since they will therefore more easily be guided by the Party.  The weaker they are, the more certainly they will carry out the Party's wishes.  Suddenly and dramatically the Communist Party makes somebodies out of nobodies.  If tactics change, they also drop them just as quickly and the somebodies again become nobodies.  

Id. at 81.

Remind you of anybody you knOw?

Ever since the days of Senator McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee -- neither of whom, by the way, were mistaken -- it has been fashionable to ridicule "conspiracy theories."  But there is nothing theoretical or hypothetical about the great conspiracy of the 20th century on which Bella Dodd shines a spotlight in School of Darkness. Nor is there anything hypothetical or mythical about the ultimate author of this conspiracy -- or the war he continues to wage, using perhaps different tools but the same tactics that have served him so well and so often in the past.

P.S.: Keep praying for priests and bishops.

A Warrior for Life Passes from the Scene

I don't know what Phoebe Snow's political affiliation was, or whether she voted for Obama, or what her views were about abortion on demand.  I can't recall ever hearing that she marched or picketed or made speeches or was otherwise active on the political scene.  

But I do know that she sacrificed everything for her little girl.

Phoebe's classic "Poetry Man" reached the top 5 on the pop charts in 1975.  But when Valerie Rose was born that same year with severe brain damage, Phoebe chose to care for her at home rather than put her in an institution.  Through lawsuits, financial distress, and even desertion by her husband, Phoebe kept Valerie with her -- until Valerie's death in 2007.  Under her mother's care, the baby whom nobody expected to survive more than a few years lived to be 31.  "Occasionally I put an album out, but I didn't like to tour, and they didn't get a lot of label support," Phoebe once remarked in an interview. "But you know what? It didn't really matter because I got to stay home more with Valerie, and that time was precious."

Phoebe Snow's name may not have come up much at pro-life rallies, but she was still a giant in the war for life.  She lived it.  For 31 years, she kept her daughter safe from the vultures of "compassion."  With every fiber of her being, Phoebe Snow beat back the assault of the culture of death.  After so many decades of sacrificial love, it is perhaps not surprising that this devoted mother should not long survive the daughter for whom she poured herself out.

I don't know what Phoebe Snow thought about Roe v. Wade.  But I think I can guess.  R.I.P.

As for Me and My House...

...we could care less about the Royal Wedding.

As you can see, my cat, Spike, is not pleased about anything that has the potential to interrupt his beauty sleep.  After all, lying around looking cute all day is hard, hard work.

Color Me Unsympathetic

So Live Nation's attempt to cash in on Charlie Sheen's continuing implosion by getting people to pay to watch his drug-induced rants is off to an inauspicious start.  Sheen's "show" at the Fox Theatre in Detroit ended prematurely amid boos, jeers, and a steady stream of walk-outs.  People who paid anywhere from $49.00 to $84.00 (and God knows how much more from scalpers) are demanding their money back.

Articles on the bombed-out performance quote audience members as saying they expected a comedy show.  Baloney.  Whatever other kinds of expectations these sharks may claim, the fact is, they smelled blood in the water.  Spurred on by Charlie Sheen's prior embarrassing conduct, they paid for front-row seats to his continuing meltdown.  As far as I'm concerned, they can consider the loss of their shekels a down payment on the penance they deserve for exploiting a fellow human being in his affliction and demeaning his dignity -- however complicit Sheen himself might have been in it.

Besides which: these vultures got exactly what they paid for.  They bought their tickets in the hopes that Sheen would behave like a drug-crazed jackass, and that's precisely what they got, however unrealistic their idea of such behavior might be.  The reality of addiction bears no resemblance to a sitcom: scripted and predictable, with every crisis neatly resolving within half an hour.  The reality of addiction is perpetual chaos, frenzy, injustice, selfishness,  manipulation, insecurity, unpredictability, bottomless consumption, and an endless series of catastrophes, one after the other, punctuated by fines and terms of imprisonment.  These people paid to see all this, and now they're not happy; whereas anyone who has ever had to live with a substance abuser could have described it to them for free.

I for one have no sympathy.  In fact, I hope these hyenas don't get their money back, just as I hope Live Nation loses huge on this disgraceful speculation of theirs.  

Devastated Japan

What a penance the people of Japan are called upon to endure, just two days into the season of Lent.  The horrific earthquake has been upgraded to magnitude 9.1, one of the greatest in recorded history.  And, as anyone knows who has ever experienced a major earthquake, the shaking never stops.  Sometimes the aftershocks are as bad as, or even worse than, the main shock.  May St. Emedius, patron against earthquakes, obtain stillness for Japan.

May the Martyrs of Nagasaki intercede on behalf of their homeland, hallowed by their blood, in her agony.

And may St. Maximilian Kolbe, who loved the Japanese and worked to win them for the Church, fly to their aid.

Prayer Alert Update: Bill Gross

Please continue to pray for Bill Gross.  He has been moved to a hospice facility.  He is now unable to speak.  

Please stop right now and say a Hail Mary or a chaplet of Divine Mercy for him.

UPDATE: Bill's pneumonia is gone.  He is out of hospice and back in hospital for treatment.  However, he is still very weak and still has serious medical issues.  He is not out of the woods yet, so please keep praying for him.