Red Red Rose

The main problem with finding the poetry of Robert Burns via Google search is that Google has the temerity to try and correct the (correct) spelling of words in Burns' Scots dialect. But I still got what I wanted anyway.

O MY Luve 's like a red, red rose
That 's newly sprung in June:
O my Luve 's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune!

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry:

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

Robert Burns (1759-1796)

A Hair-Raising (and Not Just on Martin Sheen's Head) Movie

It's 1999. The Fourth Vatican Council has just convened; the Church has repudiated, among other things, the Sacrament of Confession, the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the good of the soul over material goods; negotiations are under way to meld Catholicism and Buddhism. This whole house of cards stands threatened by a handful of monks in an island monastery off the coast of Ireland who calmly continue to offer the Tridentine Mass, to which people from around the world flock. And young Father Kinsella (Martin Sheen) has come all the way from Rome to put the kibosh on the whole thing.

Such is the stuff of The Conflict, originally released on television as Catholics, and based on the novel of the same name by Brian Moore, a fallen-away Catholic (who, ironically, died at the beginning of the year in which the story takes place). Martin Sheen, with his big hair, intense stare, Roman-collar-less black shirt and military jacket, looks every inch the messenger of Satan that he in fact is, both objectively and to the monks of Mork Island who have preserved the Sacraments and the Mass in order not to tamper with the people's faith.

Father Kinsella, plenipotentiary of the superior general of the monks' order, cannot convince the boatman sent to ferry him to the monastery that he is a priest, and so must call in a helicopter to drop him off on the island -- the first landing of an aircraft on that island in history. He is greeted by Father Abbot (Trevor Howard), and then by Father Manus (Cyril Cusack) -- first seen offering the outlawed Tridentine Mass on windswept rocks on the mainland, with contraband vessels and vestments -- who, unable to brook dishonesty even in the name of courtesy, lays into the young know-it-all with a prophetic (in 1973) speech about everything that is wrong with a Mass in which the priest turns away from God, talks to the people, and provides an entertainment. The rest of the monks are downright hostile -- none of which matters much to Father Kinsella, who is so much more "with it" than they. Still, he misjudges Father Abbot -- though Father Abbot himself has an Achilles heel that is not without consequences.

The DVD version of this movie is somewhat spoiled by the lousy editing (some scenes that would have been helpful to understanding the plot are cut out of the beginning) and cheesy credits, and the story is limited by its author's lack of faith, particularly in the inerrancy of the Church and the primacy and infallibility of Peter (it is simply unthinkable that Rome itself would turn Protestant). Then there are the silly and completely unnecessary faux pas (e.g., no one is "ordained a monk"; and the name of the order of monks sounds most uncomfortably close to "Albigensian"). Plus, the company that wrote the copy for the disk jacket demonstrates an ignorance of and contempt for a Catholic audience by propping us up to sympathize with liberation-theology-loving Father Kinsella and his diabolical mission. Yet it provokes thought (albeit imperfectly owing to the author's lack of faith) on the reach and limits of obedience, particularly the obedience owed by religious to their superiors; and on the primacy of conscience, that much-misused doctrine upon which so much abuse has rested since Vatican II.

Most of all, in the afterlight of thirty-five years, the movie overall turns out to be astonishingly prescient. There is virtually nothing in Father Manus' predictions about the results of the new Mass that has not in fact come to pass. And Father Kinsella is a walking prophecy all on his own: the very type of the decades of priests who have given up priestly garb; sacrificed the salvation of souls on the altar of materialism; substituted political activism for the Sacraments; and dabbled in transcendental meditation. In short, he is the epitome of many worldly priests with no faith -- polite and civilized, even affable, hanging by a thread over the abyss of Hell, burdened by the weight of the many souls they are dragging down with them. Nice people can and do go to Hell.

Overall, for all its faults, I have to give this movie a thumbs-up. Hat tip to the Caveman, who first recommended it, thereby getting the Redoubtable Marcus Magnus to order it, thereby giving me a chance to see it. It's worth it.

"I Am the Immaculate Conception"

Thus the Blessed Mother identified herself to Bernadette Soubirous, less than five years after the Church formally defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; Bernadette had never heard the term before, and did not understand what it meant. Yet this simple, uneducated girl was privileged to receive 18 visits from the Blessed Mother at Lourdes, beginning on February 11, 1858, when she was 14 years old, in an area that had previously served, among other things, as a garbage dump.

Although Bernadette did not understand the Immaculate Conception -- at least at the time she first heard the phrase -- she did understand that the healing spring she dug at Our Lady's command was, in the end, not for her; plagued by illnesses all her life, she died of tuberculosis of the bone on April 16, 1879 at the age of 35. Her incorrupt body is still on display in Nevers, France.

Why They Call It "Practicing" Medicine

When 35-year-old Michelle Stepney of London, England went to the hospital showing signs of having miscarried her twins, the doctors discovered cervical cancer. So far from having miscarried, the babies in their vigor had kicked loose a tumor in their mother's womb, thereby cluing doctors in to a condition they might not otherwise have discovered in a timely manner.

So naturally, the docs told Michelle she would need to abort her twins in order to survive. This she refused to do. "I knew I could have an operation straight away and it would cure me of the cancer," she said, "but that would mean getting rid of my babies and I couldn't do that. I had two lives inside me and I just couldn't give up on them -- especially after they had saved me like this."

And events bore her out. Instead of undergoing an abortion, Michelle opted for reduced chemotherapy to prevent the cancer from spreading, with constant monitoring of the twins' health. Alice and Harriet Stepney were delivered by C-section in December of 2006, underweight and hairless, but otherwise healthy; they are thriving today. And their mother, who underwent a hysterectomy a month later, has been cancer-free ever since.

Thus is proven wrong yet another authoritative pronouncement by doctors on the side of death -- and they do frequently seem to err on the side of death in our post-Hippocratic-Oath world. This is an age of astounding advances in medicine; yet doctors are still fallible human beings with faulty moral compasses, just like the rest of us. And so there is no need to accord unconditional obedience to doctors, whether they are telling you you must die in six months, you must have embryonic stem cell research to live -- or you must abort your child. There's a reason they call it "practicing" medicine: they haven't got it right yet.

For Those Troubled in Mind

Please offer this prayer up for a friend of mine who especially needs it.

Prayer to St. Dymphna, Virgin and Martyr

Lord God, Who has graciously chosen Saint Dymphna to be the patroness of those afflicted with mental and nervous disorders, and has caused her to be an inspiration and a symbol of charity to the thousands who invoke her intercession, grant through the prayers of this pure, youthful martyr, relief and consolation to all who suffer from these disturbances, and especially to those for whom we now pray. (Here mention those for whom you wish to pray.)

We beg You to accept and grant the prayers of Saint Dymphna on our behalf. Grant to those we have particularly recommended patience in their sufferings and resignation to Your Divine Will. Fill them with hope and, if it is according to Your Divine Plan, bestow upon them the cure they so earnestly desire. Grant this through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

An Unfortunate First

This morning, an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department SWAT team was shot and killed while responding to a hostage crisis -- the first Los Angeles SWAT officer to die in the line of duty in the team's 41-year history. Officer Randy Simmons, 51, was shot in the neck by a man who had just murdered his father and two older brothers in a house in the 19800 block of Welby Way in Winnetka, just west of Reseda. The shooter, a gang member with a criminal record and a history of mental problems, was himself later shot in the head by a police sniper. Another SWAT officer, James Veenstra, also 51, is in critical condition after taking gunshot wounds to the face and jaw, but is expected to live.

I was born and raised in these suburbs, and in the 25 years I lived there before moving to Idaho more than a dozen years ago, I watched them, and all of Los Angeles, deteriorate steadily under entrenched liberal leadership. During that time -- and especially since the Rodney King riots in 1992 -- it is the Los Angeles Police Department, and not the establishment liberals at City Hall, that has been taking it on the chin for everything that has gone wrong in that city. Whenever cops use any kind of force in the line of duty, however justified, both they and the Department are going to be descended upon by a swarm of drive-by media types, idiot actors, race hustlers, leftist lawyers, and even the very officials who are supposed to be backing them up. Commissions are going to be convened; lawsuits are going to be filed; and pretty soon, the Department is going to be buried under a fresh avalanche of stupid rules and regulations, saddled with new oversight committees, and smothered in new layers of bureaucracy. The cops are treated like criminals, and the criminals are treated like saints; then everybody wonders how the criminals dare to ply their trades so flagrantly and so fearlessly.

The LAPD gets so much bad press that everybody takes it for granted they're just a bunch of Brownshirts. It is a wonder, in such a climate, that anyone should be willing to go out and take on the dangerous job of beating back the assault of crime and street thuggery. Yet despite all the flak they take day in and day out, guys like Officers Simmons and Veenstra still get up, go to work, put on their uniforms, and go out and put their lives on the line every day. And some days, like today, they lose their lives.

Officer Simmons leaves behind a wife and two children; Officer Veenstra is also a family man. Pray for these brave men and their families.

Requiescat in Pace

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Jim Donoghue, the brother of Fr. John Donoghue of the Diocese of Boise, who succumbed yesterday after a battle with esophageal cancer.

V. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.

R. And may perpetual light shine upon him.

V. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace.

R. Amen.