Why Do Pro-Lifers Lie?

Two headlines have blasted out from CNSNews.com recently, and they are both lies.

In Georgia, 53.6% of the Babies Aborted Are Black:"Although whites outnumber blacks 2-to-1 in Georgia, black babies are aborted at a rate nearly 2.5 times greater than white babies and comprise 53.6% of the total number of abortions in the Peach State."

In Mississippi, 72% of Aborted Babies Are Black: "Although whites outnumber blacks in Mississippi by nearly 2-to-1, 71.67% of the babies aborted in Mississippi are black, while 26.6% are white."

I'm not sure who Michael W. Chapman is, but he sure doesn't know much about statistics, and he apparently knows even less about demographics. In a discussion of pregnancy outcomes, it is not useful to consider only whether whites outnumber blacks. We must consider the number of pregnancies carried by white women versus the number of pregnancies carried by black women. If whites are not getting pregnant to begin with (perhaps they're all men, perhaps they're all too young or too old to get pregnant), then they obviously won't be having either abortions or children.

According to the State of Georgia, 56.6% of all pregnancies are to African-American women. Since they are only having 54% of all abortions, you could make the argument that the black population is actually having fewer abortions, per capita, than other populations in the state.

Mississippi is only slightly worse. According to Table A3, of the 39,825 births in Georgia in 2011 (the most recent year for which I could find statistics), 18,069 (45%) were to black women. So, even though whites outnumber blacks 2-1, black women are having nearly the same number of children white women are.

But, if black women are having so many abortions in Mississippi, how can this be? Simple. The news story only reported percentages, not numbers. Women in Mississippi don't have many abortions. Look at Table F1 in Mississippi's 2011 report. Whites had a grand total of 214 abortions, non-whites had 1757. The women of Mississippi murder their babies at a much, much lower rate than, say, New York City. That's not even a day's work in New York, it's a year's worth in Mississippi.

Two "pro-life" articles, both incredibly mis-leading.
This kind of help we don't need. 

Bishop Olson Does the Right Thing

The traditionalist Catholic blogsophere is all a-twitter over the fact that Bishop Olson of Fort Worth has told the campus of Fisher-More college that they may no longer offer the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. No one knows exactly why the bishop has made this decision, but everyone is guessing and everyone assumes the bishop will eventually "explain himself."

Let's get one thing straight first.
The bishop doesn't need to explain himself.

When you were a kid and your Dad decided you were not going to do something, did he have to explain himself to you? No. No, he didn't. He could if he chose. If he thought you would learn something, or if he thought you were mature enough to take a lesson, he might. But if he knew you just wanted to have a fight, he might even make a point of NOT explaining himself.

Because the location in question is an oratory, bishop has the right to do this by canon law. Given the nature of traditionalists, given their innate tendency to hew more and more closely to the SSPX as it becomes clear that the Extraordinary Form will never again be the Ordinary Form, it is pretty clear why this action had to be taken. Bishop doesn't want yet another traditionalist group to go SSPX in his diocese.

Given the argumentative nature of the traditionalist community, there is absolutely no percentage for the bishop in explaining why he has taken the actions he has taken. Indeed, from the bishop's point of view, it would be uncharitable to do so. Remember, this whole conversation was supposed to be under the veil.

We can safely assume the Mass was forbidden because of some failings at Fisher-More. No bishop - let me repeat this: NO BISHOP - is going to publicly discuss someone's sins or failings. Period. That's just not what ordained men do. You would think "traditionalists" would already know this.

So for all you lay people "waiting for an explanation", I recommend exhaling, taking another deep breath, and moving on with your life. If this episcopal order grounds itself in a problem that needs healing at Fisher-More, you are not part of the situation and you won't get an explanation. Get over yourself. You're not that important.

This whole thing was supposed to be handled sotto voce, but some idiot on the Fisher-More side figured a new bishop could be pressured into reversing himself. So that idiot released a copy of what was supposed to be a private, non-scandalous order, and thereby generated a scandal. The idiots - and here I am being as charitable as I can be - the idiots at Rorate Caeli decided to try to turn this teapot into a tempest.

How successful have they been? Well, let's just say that Rorate Caeli's attitude, and the attitude of all their confreres in this little imbroglio, is precisely why the bishops of the United States have learned to hate traditionalists and oppose everything they stand for. If RC's hope was to destroy the EF Mass in the US, they have made great strides towards their goal.

If anyone at that website, or any similar website, thinks they can win members of the USCCB over to the EF form by ganging up on one of the newest bishops in the nation, they have no understanding of episcopal collegiality. At all. Just as older brothers don't like seeing younger brothers beaten up by the bully on the block, so older bishops don't like seeing one of their newest brethren beaten up in the blogs. If anything, in any diocese where the local bishop was even THINKING of bringing in the EF Mass, the traditionalists have just forced him to reconsider that rash tendency in judgement.

Traditionalists, listen up!
You just screwed yourselves.
Again.

UPDATE:
It just came to my attention that one of the websites leading the nervous nail-biting on this non-story wrote this just yesterday. How incredibly ironic! If one were into conspiracy theories, and if anyone really thought there were people in the Fort Worth chancery office out to "get" the EF Form of the Mass, then wouldn't they quietly release the letter to traditionalist hot-heads, knowing that those same hot-heads would most certainly create exactly this kind of brouhaha and thereby trash themselves with the bishops?

That is, wouldn't it be incredibly ironic if the traditionalists in this instance were caught by the same trap they claim is constantly being laid against orthodox seminarians?

Now, I don't think there is any conspiracy theory necessary. I'm certain that someone at Fisher-More thought it would be a good idea to release this letter to other traditionalists in order to "pressure" the new bishop of Fort Worth. But whatever the case, the brilliance of the EF movement is in its response to the red meat. The result is the same.

I've removed the second update because it may be based on a hoax letter originating from a TLM website that will remain unnamed.

Pope Francis Imitates Pope Benedict

A lot of people who should really know better have been going nuts over the fact that Pope Francis called an Anglican pastor a "brother bishop". Everyone is invoking the fact that Anglican orders have been declared null and void, yada, yada, yada.

There are just two problems with this:

Problem #1: Anglican orders aren't necessarily as null and void as you would think.
Anglican orders were indeed declared null and void. The Anglicans began with valid orders when Henry VIII broke away, but for a period of about a century, the Anglican ordination rite specifically denied the sacrifice of the Mass. By the time they repaired their rite so that it did not do this, there were no validly ordained Anglicans left. Thus, the declaration was based on the fact that Anglican orders had died out.

But Old Catholic holy orders were never declared valid. Old Catholics are another schismatic branch of the Church, sort of the fore-runner of the SSPX and their spiritual brothers in the FSSP. Old Catholics broke off in the 1800s, and they have ALWAYS had valid orders.

The Anglicans have joint communion with the Old Catholics. Anglican ordinations frequently have Old Catholic bishops present at the ordination. If an Old Catholic bishop is present at an ordination, there is a very good possibility that the particular Anglican ordination IS, in fact, valid.

Problem #2: Pope Francis is following Benedict's example.
At the above statement, conservatives around the room are undoubtedly sputtering in amazement. "No, he did NOT! How can Kellmeyer get away with such blatant lies!" Etc.

But Pope Benedict essentially declared a whole raft of Anglican bishops "brother bishops" and in a Church document, no less.

You doubt me?! Hah! Consider the Anglican Ordinariate. Anglican orders are null and void. But in Anglicanorum Coetibus, the document establishing the Ordinariate, Benedict effectively raised the laymen who operate as Anglican priests and bishops to the level of Catholic bishops.

"And, with this virtually schismatic act by the bishop of Calgary, we now clearly see why the Holy Father released the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. If you read through this document, you see a very peculiar thing, which is now clearly explained by the action in Calgary.

AC specifically allows individual Anglican communions within the Catholic Church to be headed by an "ordinary" who is not necessarily an ordained bishop. This is, to say the least, unprecedented. Indeed, given that Anglican orders are not valid, the fact is that every Anglican "priest" and "bishop" is really just a layman who dresses funny.

Yet these laymen, who have baptism as their only valid sacrament, will be treated as retired bishops and ordinaries in their own right - they will be given episcopal powers. The laymen who are the Anglican "priests" and "bishops" will be given their own liturgical rite.
True, they will all have to be properly ordained, but the rite is theirs, promised to them, before the consecrated oils touch their hands or their heads.

Not since Ambrose have laymen been raised to such a high level of authority so quickly."

I don't know why conservative (not orthodox, merely conservative) Catholics are such haters of Pope Francis. The man is following precisely in Benedict's footsteps, but they refuse to see it. Instead of looking for the continuity, they always insist that there is a break with Tradition.  Rightly or wrongly, bishops associate these uncharitable attitudes with communion rails and Gregorian chant. Whether conservative Catholics like it or not, only bishops can accomplish what these lay people want to accomplish. You need bishops as friends. This constant negative attitude is not friendly.

Why the Abortion Rate Dropped

The Alan Guttmacher Institute tells us that the abortion rate has reached an all-time low. They attribute this drop to:

• better contraception, 
• a lousy economy (incentive to use better contraception), and 
• definitely NOT to new laws prohibiting certain kinds of abortion.

Pro-life groups attributed the drop:

• directly to the laws passed over the last twenty years, 
• the controversies caused by graphic descriptions given during recent prosecution of abortionists like Kermit Gosnell and 
• new medical technology which allows people to see inside the womb and understand the horrors of abortion.

Who is right? Since I was teaching a critical thinking class this semester, I took the problem to my college students as a case study in examining factors that might contribute to an increase or decrease in abortion rates. So, here are the list of factors we came up with:

Is pregnancy rate up or down? How long?

Is sexual activity up or down? How long?

chastity and virginity pledges

non-consummation

STD fear

Is contraception use up or down? How long?

Physical: Condom, IUD

Chemical: Pill, patch, ring, shot (Depo)

Surgical: Vasectomy/ligation/hysterectomy

Is fertility rate going up or down? For how long?

Subpopulations

Age

Teens

20s

30s

40s

Race

White

Black

Hispanic

Asian

Man:woman ratio in those subpopulations?

Relation status (married vs. single)

Knowledge

Science (e.g., ultrasound, heartbeat, fingernails (Juno))

Genetic predispositions in parents

genes for violence/psychopaths: spreading or not?

Genetic  abortions

Sex selection abortions

Down’s and other anomalies

Cultural anomalies (e.g., deaf parents sometimes abort normal children)

Religious factors (e.g. Jewish vs. Muslim vs. Hindu vs. Christian)

Laws inhibiting or encouraging

State

Federal

Are laws cause or effect?

Geography

What states are showing drops?

Clinic vs hospital vs telemed (at home)

Geographic distribution of clinics

Where is US population versus clinics? (cf. schools closing )

Number and location of abortionists (cf. surgical vs. chemical abortions – can one abortionist do more if most are chemical as opposed to surgical?)

Economy

cost of children: is cost same today as 1980 (cell phone cost isn’t)

low income vs. high income

Welfare Benefits

Cultural predispositions

child abuse

partner abuse

drug abuse

Political disposition

Feminism rise or fall (number of women working)

Definitions

Has the definition of pregnancy changed?

Has the definition of abortion changed?

Is it an abortion if the child died in utero?

Has the definition of person changed?

Cosmetic surgery advances

Adoption

Surrogacy

Electronic interaction

Distraction from sex (texting, Facebook, games, cf. Japan’s drop in birth rate)

Replacement (porn)

Now, there may be more factors, but this is what roughly a dozen people came up with in an hour. I had the students choose and research a factor of their liking to see if they could find a positive or negative correlation to the abortion rate since 1973.

And here's the thing about abortion in America. The abortion rate hit an all-time high in 1980, but the raw number of abortions hit an all-time high in 1990. Both the rate and the raw number of abortions began a long, steady decline in 1990 that has been essentially constant for roughly the last 25 years. The Washington Post chart is listed here, flipped on its side so it's easier to compare with other charts.

So, for a positive correlation, I would want to see a curve that starts out low, peaks in 1980, stays relatively high until 1990 (perhaps with the little dip in the mid-to-late 1980s) and then a long, steady decline after 1990.

Over the last several days, I looked at every chart I could find: welfare, race comparisons, fertility rates, incarceration rates, mental health rates, immigration rates, welfare rates. Nothing matched. The closest I got was this chart on violence in America (see below). Notice the murder rate: it peaks in 1980, has a dip in the mid-1980s, rises to a 2nd peak in 1990, then begins a long, steady decline. The match isn't perfect, but it has interesting characteristics that are close to providing a positive correlation.

Remember, correlation is NOT causation. The incidence of shark attacks at a beach correlates very nicely with how high ice cream sales are at the same beach, but this does not indicate that sharks like to have their dessert served along with the entree. In the case of the shark, a third factor comes into play. More people are at the beach and in the water when it is hot. More people means more ice cream sales and more possibility of shark attack. Correlation is not causation, but it may indicate that some common factors are in play.

The match between murder and abortion is nice, but ultimately, it doesn't make very much sense. Would a woman really have an abortion simply because someone she knew got murdered? It is quite possible that something in the culture encouraged general violence in those years, but I couldn't see a mechanism for causation. I've heard a lot of reasons given for abortion. I've never heard a woman say, "Yes, I had an abortion because my lover/friend/neighbor got murdered."

But then I ran into this.

When I first saw the graph, I missed it. As you can see from the chart, women aged 40-44 don't get pregnant much. They make up less than 3% of the births in any given year, so it's not like they contribute much to the abortion rate through the abortions they have. I ignored it the first time I looked at it.

Then I looked through all the charts again. Hmmm....  The curve matched so very, very well! It's nearly a perfect inverse correlation. When women 40-44 have babies, the abortion rate for all women is low. When this age cohort stops having babies, the abortion rate for all women is high. When they begin to have babies again, the abortion rate for all women drops. The years match almost perfectly, the correlation is beautiful.

And then I realized it makes an enormous amount of sense. The women in this age cohort are the mothers of the adult women who are actually having babies. These women are the cultural leaders in the feminine world. When older women value children, their daughters have grandchildren. When these older women do not value children, their daughters abort the grandchildren.

The celebrities of the 1980s didn't have or celebrate their pregnancies. The 40-year old celebrities of the 1990s and 2000s do. The baby bumps of these older celebrity women are doing a lot more to curb the abortion rate than the prosecution of Kermit Gosnell (of whom 9 of 10 Americans have never heard).

And this is exactly what the Catholic Church has always taught. What you teach the children doesn't matter nearly as much as what you teach the adults. Even adult children mirror and reflect back the values of their middle-aged parents.

Educating or using contraception or abstinence, passing laws or not passing laws, welfare or wealth, none of it matters. What matters? The culture leaders: the 40-50 cohort. Convince them that abortion is a bad idea, and abortion drops. That's the only way to win. Get the parents.

The 30-Hour Work Week

I read several interesting articles this weekend.

One was not my find. It came from Chris Cain, and it affirmed everything Catholic (and non-Catholic) demographers have been saying for a long time.

The next two were the story of where Obamacare got the idea for the 30-hour work week. Notice why it was originally desired. The point was to avoid layoffs. Hmmm... the fact that it was resurrected tells you something right there, doesn't it? But good Catholics should be interested in getting more time off. We want to return to medieval practice, don't we? Well, that story may not be entirely true.

This is the last one, and it ties up a lot of different things I've talked about on this blog: the aging population, the growth of government, etc.

Those with a keen eye will note that between 1800 and the 1920s, although there are clear periods of faster and slower growth, the rate of growth is consistent and undiminishing (i.e., an approximately straight line on a log-linear plot such as this).  But once the WWII boom wore off, we find a substantial downward curvature in the growth rate after 1960, coinciding with the era of sustained big government without a major war.

Plotting annual growth in real per-capita GDP over time reinforces the case.

To reiterate, between 1800 and 1929, the USA was a small-government nation.  While periods of wartime government expansion took place during the War of 1812, the Civil War, and WWI, in each case the pre-war spending levels were re-established in relatively rapid timeframes.  The period between 1930 and 1959 represents a complex transition period for government expenditures.  The rise of big government began, and was coupled with the extreme economic influence of a truly global war and its geopolitical aftershocks.  After 1960, the USA settled into big government and did not participate in any genuinely major international conflicts that exerted anomalously large effects on government spending patterns.

From 1800 to 1929, there is no significant trend in annual real per-capita GDP (p=0.77).  But between 1960 and 2012, there is a significant negative trend... If we consider the running 20-year growth in real per-capita GDP, and exclude any 20-year periods that include a major war (e.g., the War of 1812, the Civil War, WWI , WWII, and the Korean War), the dismal nature of the American economy during the last 50 years is even more evident.  The 22 worst periods of 20-year growth in real per-capita GDP have all occurred since 1985; 31 of the 32 worst periods of 20-year growth have taken place since 1982.  Of note, in 23^rd-worst place is the period from 1866 to 1885, which includes a significant part of the Civil War Reconstruction era.  If we remove this 1866-1885 point based on its major war influence, then all of the 31 worst periods of 20-year growth have occurred since 1982. As generally prosperous as the 20-year period from 1981 through 2000 seemed (incorporating  both the Reagan and Clinton booms), this ranks only in the 33^rd percentile over American economic history.  The USA is in economic decline, and has been declining for over a half-century.  This same 50-year period of decline corresponds to the period of largest sustained government expenditures as a percentage of the economy in American history.  Coincidence?  Not likely.

Of course, it is not coincidence, but the growth of government is not the only explanation. The American fertility rate has been dropping for close to 200 years. It went below replacement rate for the very first time in 1972. Within ten years, America's GDP also began to decline. As government grows, the family shrinks.

ObamaCare Won't Be Repealed

Everyone is complaining that ObamaCare will remove 2.5 million jobs from the economy. They don't realize the ObamaCare reduction in the work force is part of a 200-year long trend.

The "ten-hour" day movement started in 1810, it became the "8-hour day" movement by 1817, granted in England by 1847. The less-industrialized French won a 12-hour workday one year later in 1848. By WW I, most industrialized countries had adopted England's 8-hour day. This cut the effective work force size by at least one-quarter.

1930s child labor laws permanently removed the entire under-16 workforce. 1930s Social Security permanently removed the over 65 workforce. Post WW II government college loans permanently removed 50% of the 18-25 workforce as they were told they needed college degrees to find jobs. Obamacare permanently lowers the work week to 30 hours.

Up to 50% of our jobs will be automated in 20 years. It is not luddite to point out the facts: technology has steadily removed work from human hands for 200 years, and it promises to continue to do so. It will idle the blue-collar work force first, the white-collar last. The people who create the robots (slaves) will become rich while the people who are replaced will not.

The rich are all population control freaks because they realize that their own factories don't need the manpower. The idle poor can be fed, but it would be better if they weren't there at all - people who don't exist don't revolt. The welfare population must remain small and easily controlled. So, it's in their interests to make sure the lower classes don't breed. Free birth control in ObamaCare, destruction of marriage, lousy health care, poverty, females working and/or in school instead of married at home raising kids - these all contribute to a steady reduction in the size of the lower classes.

ObamaCare will not be repealed. The ruling classes can't afford to let that happen.

Analyzing SOTU 2014

For anyone who is interested, I have a virtually word-by-word analysis of Obama's 2014 State of the Union address, with "mis-statements" documented here.

For some reason, the pages look pink in Firefox Adobe viewer, which is weird. If you just download it and view it with Adobe PDF, the pages look much better. 

Why Inflation is GREAT!

This chart tells you why inflation is a wonderful thing: 

For most of human history, right up until 1800, there were far less than one billion people in the world. For most of human history, money was based on some kind of metallic standard: copper, bronze, silver, gold, and that metallic standard was sufficient for the population. Charging interest on a loan was evil because it meant the person charging interest on a loan would get more than their fair share of a limited amount of money. In a subsistence-level society, these interest charges could literally take food away from a family.

But, when the population began to grow exponentially, the money supply had to grow with it. After all, you can't have 7 billion people in the year 2000 all chasing after the same amount of money that only 1 billion people had available to them in 1800. There wouldn't be enough money to go around. In order to accommodate the inflating world population, economies had to inflate their currencies. 

This is why everyone moved to fractional reserve banking and eventually to fiat currency. It kept people from starving, gave everyone a shot at having money. How does it work? Fiat currency means you cannot demand a set amount of metal for a particular unit of currency. In metallic currency, a metal is worth its weight. When paper money was introduced, it was accepted only because it represented metal. Thus, prior to fiat currency, a paper dollar could be exchanged on demand for a set amount of metal: gold or silver. But with fiat currency, this ability to demand a set amount of metal for each unit of paper or electronic currency is taken away. No one can lay that demand against a bank or a government. 

Fractional reserve banking means that a bank or government is allowed to lend out more money than it has. For example, for every dollar it keeps in its vaults, it creates five dollars out of thin air, and lends each of the five newly created dollars to a different customer. The single existing dollar is held in reserve in case one of the five customers is unable to repay the loan. If that happens, the bank can cover that default. 

When the five pay back the loan, the amount of money in the system has now grown by a factor of five. The five have freely given their work to enrich the entire system so that everyone else has a shot at getting money too. Now that new money can be lent out at a five-fold increase. Now twenty-five others can donate their work to the system to keep the system going. The size of the pie is no longer fixed: everyone contributes to growing the pie. 

The money supply inflates to keep pace with the inflating population. The transition away from metallic standards and into fiat currency allows the creation of money. In this system, new money is actually created through lending. Lending is how new money gets into the system. Everyone who takes out a loan contributes to the system by helping create more money through their work. 

And see what has happened! Interest on a loan is no longer a way to consume money, it is instead a way to produce new money so that everyone can have money. In this view, charging and paying interest is no longer primarily an act of rapacity, it is now primarily an act of charity. 

Thus, in the last two centuries, the definition of money changed. By the industrial age, money was no longer something that was primarily consumed, rather, it became something that is primarily created.

"Usury", as the name implies, only makes sense in regards to things that can be used up, consumed. The Church's teaching on usury were formulated when money was a fixed entity that was used up within an essentially fixed population. The Church's teaching assumes money is a consumable good. But when the definition of money changed from something we consume to something we create, the usury teachings concerning interest on a loan no longer applied. Our new definition of money - new value created through loans - had rendered them useless. 

Now, Pope Francis recently denounced usury, a subject I have written on before. But notice what he said. He didn't denounce interest on loans. He denounced bills that kept poor people from even being able to afford food: "When a family has nothing to eat, because it has to make payments to usurers, this is not Christian, it is not human!"

So, if usury isn't interest on a loan, what is it? As Aquinas points out (ST II, II, 78, 1) usury has two components: (1) it is selling something that doesn't exist AND (2) it leads to inequality, which is unjust. He used interest on a loan as an example, but he also pointed out that not all interest charged for a loan was evil. He allowed, for instance, interest on the loan used to buy a house, because a house is not consumed, it is not eaten up, by being lived in.

Usury is the selling of something that doesn't exist that leads to inequality. It doesn't need to involve a loan or interest at all. 

Everyone has an equal right to food. As Pope Francis points out, exacting payment in such a way that people cannot exercise their right to eat food is usury - it is exacting a payment to exercise a right that already exists, a right that no one should have to pay to exercise. Usury is my claiming that I control your right to eat. I have no such control nor any such right. Usury is my charging you so that you can exercise your right to eat. I am charging you for something - my "control" over you, my "right" over you - that doesn't exist in order to create my ownership of you. That is usury. 

When we demand payment from the poor before we allow the poor to eat, we have engaged in usury, even if no loan is involved. It isn't interest on a loan that is the problem. Usury is the failure to recognize each person's inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that is, the pursuit of God. What Pope Francis has said is perfectly in accord with both the current economic system and with ancient Catholic teaching. 

Reverse Signalling

It is well-known that a college degree is now required for jobs that really don't require one. Why do employers do this? "Well," goes the argument, "getting a degree shows a willingness to work - it's a signal for abilities other than education."

Now, let's think a minute here.

Studies have shown that college grads walk out without learning ANYTHING. They score EXACTLY the same on their exit exam that they score on their entrance exam. This is true of both internal and external studies.

For instance, I teach college developmental math. The studies there are QUITE clear. It does absolutely no good. You would think that having more and more remedial courses would eventually push scores up and graduation rates up. What we've found is more remedial courses actually push scores and graduation rates DOWN. Students leave a long set of remedial math courses STUPIDER than when they went in. Which is why some colleges are dumping their long list of "progressive" remedial math courses, and shoving everybody into a single remedial class or getting rid of remedial classes entirely. Ironically, because they have tighter oversight, the "for-profit" colleges are leaders in this movement.

So, if all of that is true, does the credential prove the graduate has a "marginally better" education? Or does it prove the graduate is actually STUPIDER than the non-graduate, because the non-graduate was at least smart enough not to waste the money, while the graduate is actually in DEBT in addition to not knowing any more now than s/he did before?

And, the graduate spent between 4 and 6 years both going into debt AND not realizing that the "education" wasn't helping?

Isn't the college degree "credential" therefore as often a sign of stupidity and inability to learn as it is of any increased ability to learn?

Hitchens Understood

They tell us Peter Hitchens is an atheist. 

Clearly, he isn't.

PETER HITCHENS: The most dangerous idea in human history and philosophy remains the belief that Jesus Christ was the son of God and rose from the dead and that is the most dangerous idea you will ever encounter.

DAN SAVAGE: I’d have to agree with that.

TONY JONES: Just quickly, because I think you can't really leave it there, why dangerous?

PETER HITCHENS: I can't really leave it there? Because it alters the whole of human behaviour and all our responsibilities. It turns the universe from a meaningless chaos into a designed place in which there is justice and there is hope and, therefore, we all have a duty to discover the nature of that justice and work towards that hope. It alters us all. If we reject It, it alters us all was well. It is incredibly dangerous. It's why so many people turn against it. 

Israel Implements A New Holocaust

When we "won" World War II, we decided to show the world how evil the leftists really were. The National Socialists were tried for "crimes against humanity" at Nuremburg. The International Military Tribune started  November 1945 and ran through October 1946. A host of smaller trials followed in both Germany and Japan.

One of the "crimes against humanity" for which we prosecuted liberal Nazis was the crime of abortion. The crime was three-fold. First, Germany had legalized abortion in contravention to its own 1871 Constitution. Second, it had invaded Poland and refused to implement Poland's strong anti-abortion laws. Third, it had compelled those in the camps to undergo abortion.

The Geneva Code, an oath taken by medical doctors, was a direct result of the Nuremburg trials. In it, the doctor pledges to "maintain the utmost respect for life from the time of its conception."

In 1946, we sentenced men to 25 years in jail, hung them by their neck until they were dead, for committing "crimes against humanity." In 1973, little more than 25 years later, just as the Nazis were getting out of jail, America imitated the Nazi example. We did what Germany did - we made abortion legal.

And it wasn't just us. Fast forward to 2014. In less than 60 years, abortion has gone from being a crime against humanity, to being a state-subsidized activity in Israel. That's right - you can kill all the Jews you want now, and the nation of Israel will even pay your expenses. 97% of abortion requests are approved.

Today, it is a crime against humanity to make abortion illegal.

Hitler lost the battles, but he won the war. Even the Jews now agree that he was right to try to wipe them out. Now, the liberals are simply trying to finish what they universally regarded as a noble experiment, the removal of Judaism from the face of the earth. And the Jewish people are apparently so weary of the world that they are now complicit in the work.

This is what happens when a people fails to recognize their Messiah.

The Deathstyle

How destructive is the "homosexual" lifestyle?

Here are two resources from opposite sides of the political spectrum that both say essentially the same thing. Being homosexual kills you quicker.

The Canadian Rainbow Health Coalition (CRHC) makes a summary list of the increased health risks associated with homosexual activity. The story was originally reported here:

http://dailyxtra.com/canada/news/canadas-healthcare-system-homophobic-says-group

Oddly enough, the link at the bottom of their story stopped working. Fortunately, others took a snapshot of it. The Internet never forgets.

http://stevekellmeyer.com/sociology/homosexual_human_rights_complaint.pdf

And here is fully footnoted summary of current research by the Catholic Medical Association. It not only confirms everything the CRHC mentioned in their legal brief against the Canadian Government, it provides additional information, plus a complete list of footnotes and references, which the CRHC brief fails to provide:  http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0075.html

 

Catholic Schools: This Is Embarrassing

Well, this is embarrassing.

“According to data from the Annual Church Statistics given at the press conference, the number of students in Catholic schools has risen from nearly 55 million in 2008 to around 58 million in 2011.”

Now these are worldwide numbers - throughout the entire world, there are around 58 million children in Catholic schools. What can we use to scale that number and give it a little more meaning?

According to the figures found here and here, there were 53 million school-aged children in the US in 2008, i.e., 53 million children between 5 and 17 years of age. 23% of America is Catholic, so assuming Catholics have families the same size as everyone else, that makes for about 12 million Catholic children in the United States alone. 

Now, I'll grant you, the United States is the third most populous country in the world. That means about 21% of the Catholic child population in the world resides here. But less than two million of those children are in Catholic schools - indeed, American Catholic schools tend not to have 100% Catholic student population in this country.  

So, with over 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, only 58 million school children are in Catholic schools? Really? 

That means, world-wide, Catholic schools barely teach the total student population alive in the United States. 

Yet people still insist that Catholic schools are critical to the transmission of the Faith? Really? 58 million kids out of 1.2 billion Catholics? And we're relying on Catholic schools to fix this. Hmmmm.... 

Unbaptized Children and Heaven

The priest in this video is incorrect.

It is NOT the case that the Church teaches that we KNOW all unabaptized people go to hell.

Rather, the Church has always taught that we DO NOT KNOW any way, through our work here on earth, any way by which we can bring to those who die without baptism the grace they need to enter heaven. So, from our point of view, we cannot do a thing to help them avoid hell.

However, the Church DOES NOT teach that souls who have not received water baptism descend into Limbo (the outer fringe of hell). Limbo is not mentioned in either the Catechism of Trent nor in the Universal Catechism that followed Vatican II. It is NOT a concept taught by the Church in a formal way.

A Catholic can believe in Limbo if s/he wants, but no Catholic is under obligation to accept Limbo because the Church does not formally teach that such a place exists.

Catechism of the Catholic Church 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,"64 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."

We hope, not with human hope, but with DIVINE hope, that these children enter heaven. Human hope accomplishes nothing at all in terms of salvation, so having human hope alone is stupid and pointless.

Liturgy is not a human work, it is a divine work done by human hands. Liturgy instills divine hope, not human hope. Only divine hope holds out the possibility of heaven to the unbaptized, and that divine hope is instantiated in the Church's liturgy, as the Catechism attests. So, if that hope is present in the Church's own liturgy, then it must be present in us as well.

We do not pray for the devil because he cannot benefit from our prayers - no one can be prayed out of hell. But we do pray for the unbaptized, that God grants them the grace to enter heaven. The fact that this prayer is not only permitted, but enshrined in the Church's own liturgical prayers demonstrates that those who die unbaptized die with the possibility of entering heaven through means known only to God.

This grace is all the more pertinent on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Their parents knew nothing of Christ, they knew nothing of Christ, they knew nothing about dying for Christ, yet they DID die for Christ as mute witnesses to the goodness of God. And who can look on an infant without seeing the goodness and glory of the life-giving God? Every infant is a testimony to the Life-giving God Who is infinitely Good.

We cannot know with certitude that these children enter heaven, but we can hope with divine hope that they do, and the Church requires us, through Her liturgy, to maintain in prayer this divinely-founded hope.

The FSSP teaching on this is quite, quite wrong.

Pray for every FSSP priest, that they may one day begin to teach what the Church teaches on this point.

Catholics Created the World

Phillip Carey has an interesting non-Catholic commentary on Genesis, but one of the side-points he makes could be elaborated on in another way:

"In something close to a pun, the curse falls not on Adam but on the adamah, Hebrew for the ground. Humanity is not cursed because of Adam’s sin."

That is certainly the Jewish and Muslim understanding (neither system accepts original sin), but that is most certainly NOT the Christian understanding. Because Adam was made from the clay of the earth, not only did this sin affect the ground, it affected everything which finds its origins in the ground - both Adam and all of creation.

Precisely because the sin mars the ground, it mars Adam, who came from the ground; Eve, who came from Adam; and all of their descendants. In fact, it mars the entirety of creation. Which is why St. Paul points out that the whole universe is groaning with anticipation for the redemption.

As an historian, I am often asked why we say Columbus "discovered" America, given the irrefutable facts: the American Indians and the Vikings were here first. 

My answer: Columbus discovered the Americas in the sense that he put them into communication with the rest of the world. No one before him did that. In fact, we can say that Christianity discovered the entire world because it was European Catholics who first sailed around the whole world and put all peoples into communication with each other. We did some nasty things while we were accomplishing this feat, but in this sense, at least, there is no question that Catholics created the world as we know it, just as there is no question that Catholics created most of the major languages that the world's citizens speak.

What is true of Christianity and the modern community of nations is also true of creation as a whole. The universe may have existed prior to man, but it's existence had no meaning until man appeared and "discovered" it. In that sense, it is proper to say that the universe comes into existence when man does. Precisely because God chose to give the universe a particular meaning by creating and placing man into it, man's sin affects not only himself, but all that has meaningful existence because of him.

Great Quotes From Bishops

Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote about the orthodoxy of the Faithful during the betrayal of the Faith by bishops during the Arian crisis. He wrote:

‘ THE episcopate, whose action was so prompt and concordant at Nicæa on the rise of Arianism, did not, as a class or order of men, play a good part in the troubles consequent upon the Council; and the laity did. The Catholic people, in the length and breadth of Christendom, were the obstinate champions of Catholic truth, and the bishops were not. Of course there were great and illustrious exceptions; first, Athanasius, Hilary, the Latin Eusebius, and Phœbadius; and after them, Basil, the two Gregories, and Ambrose; there are others, too, who suffered, if they did nothing else, as Eustathius, Paulus, Paulinus, and Dionysius; and the Egyptian bishops, whose weight was small in the Church in proportion to the great power of their Patriarch. And, on the other hand, as I shall say presently, there were exceptions to the Christian heroism of the laity, especially in some of the great towns. And again, in speaking of the laity, I speak inclusively of their parish-priests (so to call them), at least in many places; but on the whole, taking a wide view of the history, we are obliged to say that the governing body of the Church came short, and the governed were pre-eminent in faith, zeal, courage, and constancy.

This is a very remarkable fact: but there is a moral in it. Perhaps it was permitted, in order to impress upon the Church at that very time passing out of her state of persecution to her long temporal ascendancy, the great evangelical lesson, that, not the wise and powerful, but the obscure, the unlearned, and the weak constitute her real strength. It was mainly by the faithful people that Paganism was overthrown; it was by the faithful people, under the lead of Athanasius and the Egyptian bishops, and in some places supported by their Bishops or priests, that the worst of heresies was withstood and stamped out of the sacred territory.’

About A.D. 360, St. Hilary says: “I am not speaking of things foreign to my knowledge; I am not writing about what I am ignorant of; I have heard and I have seen the shortcomings of persons who are round about me, not of laymen, but of Bishops. For, excepting the Bishop Eleusius and a few with him, for the most part the ten Asian provinces, within whose boundaries I am situate, are truly ignorant of God.” De Syn. 63.

A.D. 360. St. Gregory Nazianzen says, about this date: “Surely the pastors have done foolishly; for, excepting a very few, who either on account of their insignificance were passed over, or who by reason of their virtue resisted, and who were to be left as a seed and root for the springing  up again and revival of Israel by the influences of the Spirit, all temporized, only differing from each other in this, that some succumbed earlier, and others later; some were foremost champions and leaders in the impiety, and others joined the second rank of the battle, being overcome by fear, or by interest, or by flattery, or, what was the most excusable, by their own ignorance.” Orat. xxi. 24.

A.D. 361. About this time, St. Jerome says: “Nearly all the churches in the whole world, under the pretence of peace and of the emperor, are polluted with the communion of the Arians.” Chron. Of the same date, that is, upon the Council of Ariminum, are his famous words, “Ingemuit totus orbis et se esse Arianum miratus est.” In Lucif. 19. “The Catholics of Christendom were strangely surprised to find that the Council had made Arians of them.”

St. Hilary speaks of the series of ecclesiastical Councils of that time in the following well-known passage: “Since the Nicene Council, we have done nothing but write the Creed. While we fight about words, inquire about novelties, take advantage of ambiguities, criticize authors, fight on party questions, have difficulties in agreeing, and prepare to anathematize each other, there is scarce a man who belongs to Christ. 

A.D. 382. St. Gregory writes: “If I must speak the truth, I feel disposed to shun every conference of Bishops: for never saw I Synod brought to a happy issue, and remedying, and not rather aggravating, existing evils. For rivalry and ambition are stronger than reason,—do not think me extravagant for saying so,—and a mediator is more likely to incur some imputation himself than to clear up the imputations which others lie under.”—Ep. 129

Why Yoga Became Popular

The Huffington Post has an article that attempts to explain why yoga has become so popular. As usual it gets everything backwards. 

Yoga is a chick thing. 83% of yoga practitioners are women. Yoga is also highly linked to sexual activity - it was initially designed to increase sexual appetite. According to the New York Times, yoga began as a sex cult.

80% to 90% of American women are on hormonal contraceptives.
Hormonal contraceptives almost uniformly decreases libido. 

So, for all those women whose libido has been reduced by the Pill and other artificial hormonal chemicals, yoga is the only way to stay sexually interesting enough to snag a man. Thus, the marketing of yoga via the young, slim, sexually desirable woman.

The popularity of yoga really demonstrates nothing more than women thinking with their gonads.

Pope Francis Prophecies About America

56. ...A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules. Debt and the accumulation of interest also make it difficult for countries to realize the potential of their own economies and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power. To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits....

Here is America's debt as a percentage of GDP over the course of its history:

What comprises America's debt:

 


Here is America's government debt as a percentage of GDP, compared to other countries:

America, Europe, Canada, Sudan, Eritrea: how long do you think we can keep this up?

Woman, Meet Reality. Reality, Meet Woman.

Some interesting facts:

• 60% of divorces are initiated by women
• 90% of divorces between college-educated spouses are initiated by women
• 88% of single parent households are headed by women
• 29% of single-parent households live in poverty (only 6.2% of married couples do)
• 70% of all criminals are raised in single mother households
• 60% of rapists are raised in single mother households
• Women kill their own children more often
• And mothers get lighter punishments for child murder.
• Women were instrumental in making the Holocaust work.  

So, women deliberately create their own hells. They create the single-parent environments that impoverish and victimize them. 

Women raise their own rapists. 
Women raise their daughters' rapists. 

A woman, especially a mother, needs a man like a fish needs water.
A woman needs a man like a breathing creature needs oxygen. 

Without men, women commit long, slow, painful suicide.
They really aren't very good at being independent.
Those are the facts.

Pope Francis Condemns Distributism

According to the Distributist Review

 A family that owns its own land or its own tools can make its own way in the world without being dependent on someone else for a “job.” Thus, Distributism seeks to extend property ownership to as many as possible, and end the concentration of ownership by few capitalists or state officials. 

The ‘means of production’ are the land, tools, and equipment needed for labor to transform raw materials into goods and services. As wealth (goods or services) is only possible by the combination of the means of production, labor, and raw materials, we believe it is best when these are owned cooperatively (worker-owned) or entirely operated by the family.

Here is Pope Francis' response to that idea:

222. A constant tension exists between fullness and limitation. Fullness evokes the desire for complete possession, while limitation is a wall set before us. Broadly speaking, “time” has to do with fullness as an expression of the horizon which constantly opens before us, while each individual moment has to do with limitation as an expression of enclosure. People live poised between each individual moment and the greater, brighter horizon of the utopian future as the final cause which draws us to itself. Here we see a first principle for progress in building a people: time is greater than space. (emphasis added)

223. This principle enables us to work slowly but surely, without being obsessed with immediate results. It helps us patiently to endure difficult and adverse situations, or inevitable changes in our plans. It invites us to accept the tension between fullness and limitation, and to give a priority to time. One of the faults which we occasionally observe in sociopolitical activity is that spaces and power are preferred to time and processes. Giving priority to space means madly attempting to keep everything together in the present, trying to possess all the spaces of power and of self-assertion; it is to crystallize processes and presume to hold them back. (emphasis added) Giving priority to time means being concerned about initiating processes rather than possessing spaces. Time governs spaces, illumines them and makes them links in a constantly expanding chain, with no possibility of return. What we need, then, is to give priority to actions which generate new processes in society and engage other persons and groups who can develop them to the point where they bear fruit in significant historical events. Without anxiety, but with clear convictions and tenacity.

He doesn't seem that keen on land ownership being central to the economy. His emphasis is on time, which distributists don't discuss at all. Other remarks lead in the same direction, away from a focus on distributist land ownership and towards the urban environment:

71. The new Jerusalem, the holy city (cf. Rev 21:2-4), is the goal towards which all of humanity is moving. It is curious that God’s revelation tells us that the fullness of humanity and of history is realized in a city. We need to look at our cities with a contemplative gaze, a gaze of faith which sees God dwelling in their homes, in their streets and squares.  

72. In cities, as opposed to the countryside, the religious dimension of life is expressed by different lifestyles, daily rhythms linked to places and people. 

While he had a whole section devoted to the cities and urban life, he had absolutely nothing to say about the rural areas and the countryside. Not a lot of people in cities own land. You might answer that cities are the source of guilds. Fine. But Pope Francis also had nothing to say about the need for guilds or anything like it. He doesn't even mention unions, much less guilds.

What Pope Francis has to say is at least as opposed to distributism as it is to capitalism.

But you won't hear the Catholic League admit it.