Crush the Infamy!

If we support the separation of Church and state because Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, then what do we do with these quotes?

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs. ~Thomas Jefferson

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their
children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. ~Thomas Jefferson

The system of banking [is] a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction... I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity ... is but swindling futurity on a large scale. ~Thomas Jefferson

The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution. I am an enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but coin. If the American people allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered ~ Thomas Jefferson

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws our country". ~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Logan, Nov. 12th, 1816.

New Plenary indulgence

Thanks to Fr. Z over at www.wdtprs.com/blog

VATICAN CITY, 10 MAY 2008 (VIS) – According to a decree made public today and signed by Cardinal James Francis Stafford and Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, O.F.M. Conv., respectively penitentiary major and regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary, Benedict XVI will grant the faithful Plenary Indulgence for the occasion of the two-thousandth anniversary of the birth of the Apostle Paul. The Plenary Indulgence will be valid throughout the Pauline Year which is due to run from 28 June 2008 to 29 June 2009.

"With the imminence of the liturgical Solemnity of the Prince of the Apostles", says the decree, "the Supreme Pontiff … wishes, in good time, to provide for the faithful with spiritual treasures for their own sanctification, that they may renew and reinforce … their purpose of supernatural salvation from the moment of the First Vespers of the aforementioned Solemnity, principally in honour of the Apostle of the Gentiles the two-thousandth anniversary of whose earthly birth is now approaching.

"In fact, the gift of indulgences which the Roman Pontiff offers the Universal Church, facilitates the way to interior purification which, while rendering honour to the Blessed Apostle Paul, exalts supernatural life in the hearts of the faithful and spurs them on … to produce fruits of good works".

The means to obtain the Plenary Indulgence are as follows:

"All Christian faithful – truly repentant, duly purified by the Sacrament of Penance and restored with Holy Communion – who undertake a pious visit in the form of a pilgrimage to the papal basilica of St. Paul on Rome’s Via Ostiense and pray in accordance with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff, are granted and imparted Plenary Indulgence for the temporal punishment of their sins, once they have obtained sacramental remission and forgiveness for their shortcomings.

"Plenary Indulgence may be gained by the Christian faithful, either for themselves or for the deceased, as many times as the aforementioned acts are undertaken; it remains the case, however, that Plenary Indulgence may be obtained only once a day.

"In order that the prayers pronounced on these holy visits may lead and draw the souls of the faithful to a more intense veneration of the memory of St. Paul, the following conditions are laid down: the faithful, apart from pronouncing their own prayers before the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, ... must go to the altar of the Confession and pray the ‘Our Father’ and the ‘Creed’, adding pious invocations in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Paul; and such acts of devotion must remain closely linked to the memory of the Prince of the Apostles St. Peter".

"Christian faithful from the various local Churches, under the usual conditions (sacramental Confession, Eucharistic communion, prayer in keeping with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff) and completely unattached to any form of sin, may still obtain the Plenary Indulgence if they participate devotedly in a religious function or in a pious exercise held publicly in honour of the Apostle of the Gentiles: on the days of the solemn opening and closing of the Pauline Year in any place of worship; on other days determined by the local ordinary, in holy places named for St. Paul and, for the good of the faithful, in other places designated by the ordinary". [May bishops everywhere, please God, take note!]

The document concludes by recalling how the faithful who, "through sickness or other legitimate or important reason", are unable to leave their homes, may still obtain the Plenary Indulgence if, with the soul completely removed from attachment to any form of sin and with the intention of observing, as soon as they can, the usual three conditions, "spiritually unite themselves to a Jubilee celebration in honour of St. Paul, offering their prayers and suffering to God for the unity of Christians".

Coincidence?

Curiouser and curiouser.

Prior to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States, the Pope had made clear that he was very much opposed to pro-abortion Catholic politicians receiving the Eucharist.

Despite this, several Catholic pro-aborts received the Eucharist during the papal Masses: Giuliani, Kennedy, Pelosi and Kerry all violated the sanctity of the sacrament so they could win votes by eating and drinking judgment on themselves.

Now, this would not normally be a huge news item, except....

Last week, Rome approved a Marian apparition from 1666. In that year, seventeen year old Benoite Rencurel was tending sheep in the high mountains of the southern French Alps. While among the high mountain caves, she began to receive visions of a beautiful lady who commanded her to build a church.

This by itself is not unusual, but it seems the Blessed Virgin also told the visionary to get a little cheeky with the local Vicar General (the bishop's second-in-command in a diocese). It seems he disliked the visions and planned to close the local chapel entirely rather than expand it as Mary desired. Benoite did exactly as the Virgin instructed and chastised the Vicar General for daring to try to interfere with the Blessed Mother's wishes. She won.

But there's still more.

Benoite was also given the ability to see souls. For the rest of her life (she died at the age of seventy-one) she frequently approached men and women already on their knees at the altar rail during Mass, tapped them on the shoulder and said, "Not today. Go to confession first."

Now, we could say that is was mere coincidence that Rome would approve such a visionary and such a vision just a few short days after American bishops dissed the Pope by refusing to have "a fight at the altar rail" except...

Just eight hours after the news of Giuliani's blasphemous communion hit the pages of the Washington Post, Cardinal Egan specifically and publicly told an unrepentant Rudy that he should not have done such a thing. And, while he could have said this was not acceptable because of Mr. Giuliani's sinful marriage situation, he didn't.

Instead, he told Mr. Giuliani, now a private citizen, that this was blasphemy precisely because of Rudy's unrepentant endorsement of abortion. In short, a man who was no longer in a position of public policy making was told that his support for abortion should have kept him from the communion line.

Now we hear that Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann has directed Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to step aside as well, and for the same reason. She publicly supports abortion.

The disrespect paid to the Pope, the approval of Laus, the reaction of Cardinal Egan and Archbishop Naumann to their local scandals: are these all coincidences?

Perhaps.

But we must remember: God writes the world like men writes words.
Let's just hope the rest of the American episcopate can read the signs of the times.

Update: May 14, 2008 - for the first time in 35 years, a sitting Canadian archbishop has spoken publicly against contraception and specifically told his priests to preach against it.

May Pope Benedict live 100 years!

Catholic Church Right Again

I've spent the last couple of days reading through the papal speeches made last week. Pope Benedict consistently drove home the message:
a) the individual is in the image and likeness of God,
b) the family is the necessary context in which the individual is formed into this image and likeness, and
c) the Faith is the only thing which can effectively enable the family to do its task.

Oddly enough, social science confirms every one of those assertions. As both my book and
George Will's latest column point out, the family is the single best predictor for success in education. On average, if a child comes from a stable, husband-wife family, that child will learn better than children who don't.

This family effect is greater than all other influences combined. Class size, dollar expenditure, socio-economic class, education level of the teacher - all of it pales in comparison to family influence.

Home schooling works primarily because only stable families can do it.
Unstable families don't have the emotional resources, the willingness and ability to sacrifice and to make culturally unpopular decisions, that is necessary to handle the task.

Support for the family has to be paramount. The school, the parish, the diocese exists to serve and sanctify the family - that's how the Catholic Faith survives.

Fallow Land

Thomas Sowell has just written an interesting column on the problem created by government subsidy of higher education. I greatly respect Sowell, but I think his column can be extended just a tad.

Why does the government waste national resources by subsidizing a kind of higher education that results in politically correct drones? If the question is framed in the right way, it answers itself.

Perhaps the government pays people to go to college for the same reason it pays farmers NOT to till their land. It is a subsidy to assure non-production.

If people are trained in non-production, they will more easily be rendered into indentured servants. And what is someone who owes tens of thousands to the banks if not an indentured servant of those same banks?

Indentured servants used to be tied to the land, because the land was the primary means by which to generate income. Now that income is no longer agriculturally based, but service based, getting people to sell themselves into servitude requires only control of what people know.

This is best managed by keeping them away from real knowledge and feeding them pablum instead: thus the modern liberal "curriculum." And - for bonus points - you get them to pay you for the privilege of being intellectually castrated.

It's a sweet system, if you own the means of production.

Seen in this light, the government subsidies to higher education make a ton of economic sense. Corporations get indentured servants who are made psychologically subservient, forced to pay off huge debts, and are thus unable to start businesses which might otherwise compete directly with the existing corporations.

It is no coincidence that a great number of the multi-millionaires in the nation today are college dropouts.

Update
Walter Williams, one of the leading economists in the nation, wrote a column this week (two months later) that paraphases my point above.

Pope Benedict's address to Catholic Educators

I haven't found much on what the Pope had to say on this subject, apart from this story from Catholic News Service.

I found three aspects of the excerpts I was able to find rather significant.

1) The first involves the Pope's reference to the reputation of Catholic schools in the United States:

"I know from my own days as a professor, and I have heard from your bishops and officials of the Congregation for Catholic Education, that the reputation of Catholic institutes of learning in this country is largely due to yourselves and your predecessors," he said.

Notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say if that reputation was good or bad. He just said that the current instructors and their predecessors are responsible for the reputation Catholic education has now. That's quite a bit less of a statement than one might hope for.

2) President Lazarus, president of the University of Dallas, is reported to have been happy that the Pope emphasized the importance of academic freedom.

Those of you who heard the Guadalupe Radio Network broadcast on the blasphemy permitted on UD campus might recall that President Lazarus hid behind academic freedom. You might think I have egg on my face. Read the excerpt below and decide for yourself how accurate President Lazarus' summary of that portion of the speech seems to be:

He made one specific reference to Catholic college presidents, near the end of his address, telling them he wished to "reaffirm the great value of academic freedom." He also noted that any appeals to academic freedom "to justify positions that contradict the faith and teaching of the church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission."

3) The Pope seems to have read my book (or I seem to have read Catholic documents fairly accurately - take your pick):

"Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students," he said. It also is not "dependent upon statistics" nor can it be "equated simply with orthodoxy of course content." Instead, he stressed that the Catholic identity of a school or religious education program "demands and inspires much more: namely that each and every aspect of your learning communities reverberates within the ecclesial life of faith."

I look forward to reading the whole speech when it is made available.

Living Like Animals

Alright, I don't get it.

According to all the experts,:

• single moms make great parents,
• homosexuals make great parents (remember Heather Has Two Mommies?),
• it takes a village to raise a child,
• rape of underage girls is ok as long as it is an alcohol-fueled lesbian rape (ala Vagina Monologues),
• and we have to be accepting of alternate family arrangements.

But when a village actually tries to raise the children (as in the FLDS Church in Texas), suddenly everyone gets upset. Some of the kids identified multiple women as their mother. And, until 2005, the age of consent in the Lone Star State for a girl to get married with her parents' permission was: 14.

We saw a similar situation play out with the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. The priests implicated in the scandal were simply living a vibrant and active homosexual lifestyle, but the press got upset about it. Now, the lifestyle they were living was, in this case, in direct opposition to the theology they claimed to espouse, but the media outrage was identical.

Why are the same news media who are so insistent on everyone accepting the bulleted principles above now so outraged when they find people living according to the very principles they espouse (pardon the pun)?

Because secular humanists are allowed to live this way, but people who profess belief in this Christ guy are NOT allowed to live this way, even if their distorted version of Christian theology teaches that they SHOULD live this way.

So, the next question is obvious.

Assume we had exactly the same situation, with one difference.

Assume everyone on the Texas compound prayed five times a day, gave alms, and made the hajj to Mecca. That is, imagine an identical situation, the only difference being that the deity references were all to Allah, the women all dressed in burquas, and the men all sported a fistful of beard.

Would a convoy of armed Texas deputies have come after them, separated husbands from their (underage) wives, and shipped 400 children away?

And if they had, who would be yelling the loudest about discrimination, racism, etc.?


Polygamy and pedophilia are crimes against humanity. But no one points out that the FLDS are hardly unique practitioners of these abuses. Over a billion people around the world engage in identical activity. Why doesn't anyone in the media point this out?

Has America Lost Her Salt?

In his most recent column for Catholic Exchange, Mark Shea makes much of the fact that the press has, for the last three years, been intolerably cruel to Pope Benedict XVI. He uses as evidence word searches on Google.

“Benedict XVI” rigid – 52,800
“Benedict XVI” hardliner – 27,100
“Benedict XVI” inflexible – 10,300
“Benedict XVI” dominating – 290,000
“Benedict XVI” ruthless – 126,000
“Benedict XVI” enforcer – 28,800
“Benedict XVI” archaic – 22,400
“Benedict XVI” medieval – 169,000
“Benedict XVI” intolerant – 148,000
“Benedict XVI” backward – 122,000
“Benedict XVI” “Hitler Youth” – 30,700
“pope cracks down” – 1,080,000

The conclusion we're supposed to draw is that all of those terms are being attributed to the Pope. Well, let's test that assumption. We'll compare the Pope's hit count with someone that the press might not be so adversarial towards: Hillary Clinton. The Pope's numbers are in parentheses for ease of comparison.

“Hillary Clinton” rigid – 102,000 (52,800)
“Hillary Clinton” hardliner – 26,100 (27,100)
“Hillary Clinton” inflexible – 31,400 (10,300)
“Hillary Clinton” dominating – 215,000 (290,000)
“Hillary Clinton” ruthless – 125,000 (126,000 )
“Hillary Clinton” enforcer – 47,600 (22,800)
“Hillary Clinton” archaic – 53,300 (22,400)
“Hillary Clinton” medieval – 126,000 (169,000)
“Hillary Clinton” intolerant – 614,000 (148,000)
“Hillary Clinton” backward – 267,000 (122,000)
“Hillary Clinton” “Hitler Youth” – 11,700 (30,700)
“Hillary Clinton cracks down” – 426,000 (1,080,000)

Hmmm... Judging by the numbers, the press is roughly twice as hard on Hillary as it is on the Pope in every area except the Hitler Youth connection and "cracking down".

But maybe everyone hates Hillary. Let's pick someone who has only been in the news for about three or four years, someone not quite so divisive... Hmmm... who could we pick?

“Barack Obama" rigid – 103,000 (Clinton: 102,000, Pope: 52,800)
“Barack Obama” hardliner – 24,500 (Clinton 26,100, Pope: 27,100)
“Barack Obama” inflexible – 37,800 (Clinton: 31,400, Pope: 10,300)
“Barack Obama” dominating – 247,000 (Clinton: 215,000, Pope: 290,000)
“Barack Obama” ruthless – 354,000 (Clinton: 125,000, Pope: 126,000 )
“Barack Obama” enforcer – 93,800 (Clinton: 47,600, Pope: 22,800)
“Barack Obama” archaic – 105,000 (Clinton: 53,300, Pope: 22,400)
“Barack Obama” medieval – 131,000 (Clinton: 126,000, Pope: 169,000)
“Barack Obama” intolerant – 616,000 (Clinton: 614,000, Pope: 148,000)
“Barack Obama” backward – 272,000 (Clinton: 267,000, Pope: (122,000)
“Barack Obama” “Hitler Youth” – 8,500 (Clinton: 11,700, Pope: 30,700)
“Barack Obama cracks down” – 364,000 (Clinton: 426,000, Pope: 1,080,000)

Wow! And that's even without the "Hussein." When it comes to press coverage, it looks like Barack has a lot more to complain about than the Pope does on most scores.

Why the nasty numbers? Because Google counts a "hit" for every page that has those words, regardless of how the content is arranged. A news page may be talking about two dozen entirely different things (think the Washington Post or Drudgereport web pages), but that doesn't matter to the search engine. It doesn't distinguish between the appearance of Benedict's name in a religion lead and the appearance of the word "rigid" in a story about a new kind of plastic. As long as both words appeared on the same page, Google counts a hit.

The numbers are nonsense. But Mark Shea and Catholic Exchange apparently don't realize that, so they draw conclusions based on essentially no evidence at all.

Now, it may well be the case that the press is opposed to all things orthodox - in fact, I personally I don't doubt that it is. But we should be careful not to take scandal without good reason.

Quite frankly, the press doesn't know much about Pope Benedict, and probably never will. The man bemuses them, as did John Paul II, as does every Pope. In order to hate someone, you have to know them at least moderately well. There has to be a substance to hatred just as there is a substance to love. The press lacks substance, so it really isn't capable of hate or even strong dislike. It can manage only a puzzled shrug.

In times past, the Catholic Faith was, indeed, hated, but no more. Today, orthodox Catholicism is neither known nor considered enough of a threat to merit strong emotions. The elites literally don't know enough about real Catholics to care.

Perhaps we would like them to hate us, if only because that would make us more relevant in their world. We should recognize our desire to be hated as a perverse form of pride. After all, if they hated us, we must matter enough to them, we must hinder them enough, to make us a hated minority.

But what if we don't matter enough to them?
What if we aren't hindering them in any significant way?
That would mean we weren't living the Gospel very well.

Jesus made people angry enough to merit his execution.
Peter managed to proclaim the Gospel so effectively he got himself crucified upside down.
Paul started a fight in every town he entered, got scourged, beaten with rods, stoned and finally beheaded, martyred just like every one of the original apostles. Even John, the apostle of love who died a natural death, managed to make it to old age only by dint of miraculously surviving an attempt to boil him alive.

But when was the last time the holy example and sacred preaching of Catholics in America made our fellow Americans angry enough to burn down a convent, smash up a school or demolish church? When has our witness to the truth been so strong that those who follow demons ground their teeth at us, writhed in frustration, and ultimately martyred one or more of us?

The culture clearly doesn't love Catholics, for the conversion rate is not high enough to indicate that they treasure who we are or how we live. They aren't hot about us.

But at this point, it's not clear they really hate us. They aren't in a cold rage about us either.

Shouldn't we find that a little disconcerting?

Update: The latest Pew Forum survey (released two days after this blog entry) shows fully 32% of Americans know so little about the Pope that they are unable to form an opinion about him.

Third World Thinking

Science News has published the results of a new study on market economies in its March 15, 2008 issue. Economist Benedikt Herrmann of the University of Nottingham, England studied the difference between college students from 15 countries in a "public goods" game.

Students were broken up into groups of four and each were asked to contribute up to 20 tokens to a common pot. The pot total was multiplied by 1.6 and the resulting tokens distributed to the students. This was repeated 10 times, then the students were allowed to exchange their tokens for cash.

After each round, everyone's contribution was revealed. The members of each group could punish each other by paying a token to get the ability to take three tokens from some other group member.

Volunteers from democratic, market-based societies like the UK, the US, Germany, etc., uniformly punished low contributors for their lack of generosity. These low contributors would then contribute more on subsequent iterations of the game.

Volunteers from non-democratic societies such as Saudi Arabia, Greece, and Russia generally punished the high contributors for having the temerity to make the rest look bad. This led to a general drying up of contributions to the general pot.

The results of the experiment seem to have some bearing on various subpopulations in the United States. Where have we seen groups who like to tax high contributors versus groups who like to tax low contributors?

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and their confreres love to strip money from those with lots of it. Of course, they would argue that they are taxing people who don't contribute to the general good at all, and thus the comparison is really not fair. Still, it is interesting to see the parallels.

But couldn't we make the same assertion about Rush Limbaugh and company? After all, if tokens are merely representative of the amount of contribution, then why couldn't we argue that immigrants - who give their entire working lives to this country for a period of weeks, months or years - are making a larger contribution to the general public than people who merely convince others to make contributions on their behalf?

Now, one could argue that the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation is not only giving his time and money to the general public, he is also talking others into giving their time and talent, and putting part of it in his own name, as it were. Instead of simply taxing non-contributors, he is enticing non-contributors to make contributions for him by paying them to do so.

And what do we say of Rush and company when they want to strengthen immigration laws, on the grounds that Mexico's immigration laws are quite harsh, therefore ours should be as well?

They give all they have - themselves - and we punish them because it isn't enough? Isn't this identical to the kind of third-world thinking Barack Hussein Obama and Billary Clinton regularly display in the world of finance? After all, why would we want to emulate any aspect of a third-world country's laws, given that it may very well be this strict immigration policy that, at least in part, makes them a third world country?

There are several ways to argue this, depending upon which economic theory strikes your fancy and how you want to classify the contributions being made. But it is interesting that the very states with the highest tax rates - which tend to be the coastal states - are the states whose economies most closely align to the third-world worldview that Herrmann discovered.

Radio Show

Because I'm not too bright, it failed to occur to me that some people may want to listen to the weekly radio show I do.

The Soundbites program airs from noon to 1 pm every Friday on Guadalupe Radio Network, the Catholic radio station in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Although we are off the air on Good Friday, our most recent controversy involved a piece of scatalogical artwork which depicted Our Lady of Guadalupe as a stripper. It was displayed at the University of Dallas. It was also removed by an unknown gallery patron and not returned.

The president of the University of Dallas called it theft.
We called it virtue.

Forgot About This...

In all the controversy over various things in the last few weeks, I forgot about a letter I received on the subject from Rome a few years ago.

You can read it here.

Crying Your "I"-s Out

How time flies. Just one year ago, I pointed out that when people's lives are full of turmoil, it is excellent news for the economy. Now, a scientific study has been released that verifies the point.

While capitalist societies may be superior to socialist societies, capitalism necessarily creates a culture of death because "thoughts and emotions about death -- [are] feelings that are already known to increase the urge to spend."

Depression-oriented and death-oriented cultures tend to have stronger economies. The more depressed the citizen, the more death-oriented the consumer, the more buying s/he does.

But depression alone is not enough. No, it has to be a narcissistic death-oriented culture. The focus has to be on self: why I feel bad, why me, etc.

Have you ever wondered why the mainstream media primarily reports bad news? Because bad news gets you to buy more papers. Why does the mainstream media focus on self-improvement? Why does it constantly exhort us to "Lose Weight! Look Great!" or "Fit Into That BIKINI!"?

Simple. Narcissists spend more.

And by blanketing the available media outlets in order to target the highest spending group (depressed narcissists), the MSM ineluctably turns everyone into a depressed narcissist.

Now, keep in mind that the decision to have a child is always a decision which is essentially up-beat and other-focused. As one wag said, a child is God's way of saying that the world should continue.

Conversely, anyone who is depressed will not really want the world to continue.

Depressed people get tubal ligations and vasectomies.
Depressed people use contraception.

Now, take this to its logical extreme and guess: who are the highest spenders?

That's right. Active homosexuals, men and women who are essentially narcissists interested only in their own pleasure despite, or even because, of the high risk of death it involves, spend more than nearly any other segment of the economy. Why?

Well, take the risk of death. As even leading homosexual activists now admit, AIDS is a homosexual disease:

Matt Foreman, outgoing Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, rattled the homosexual activist community by joining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), pro-family organizations and a growing number of homosexual activists willing to admit that homosexual behavior is both extremely high-risk and primarily responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the U.S.

Addressing the topic of AIDS, Foreman drastically deviated from the "gay" lobby's party line by admitting, "Internally, when these numbers come out, the 'established' gay community seems to have a collective shrug as if this isn't our problem. Folks, with 70 percent of the people in this country living with HIV being gay or bi, we cannot deny that HIV is a gay disease. We have to own that and face up to that."

A little over a year ago, Lorri Jean, CEO of the Los Angeles-based Gay and Lesbian Center, similarly shocked the "gay" community by stating that, "HIV is a Gay Disease. Own it. End it."

What could be more depressing, more narcissistic, than a contracepted/homosexual lifestyle?

So how do you wring the highest level of spending out of a population? Transform as many of them as possible into contraceptive users and/or homosexuals.

Why do so many seemingly sane companies give money to Planned Parenthood?

Because it's good for business.
The business of America is business, and business is killing us.

Supporting Catholic Schools

There are some who, having never read Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America, believe that I hate Catholic schools. It isn't true, of course. I only hate quasi-Catholic schools. Real Catholic schools are great... if you can find one.

But let's consider what it means to endorse a Catholic school.

What is the only thing a Catholic school, or any school for that matter, absolutely has to have in order to survive?

Clearly, the school has to have children. A school without children enrolled in its curricula will not long be in existence.

So, what is the only endorsement that really matters to a Catholic school?
Why, the endorsement Catholic parents make by conceiving children and placing them in said school!

Quite frankly, it matters not one whit whether any particular person says or thinks, whether he be lay or religious, secular or consecrated, priest or bishop.

Anyone can endorse a school with words, extol that school to the high heavens, make the very air about the school glow with the marvelous things that are said about it. None of that matters if no one enrolls a child.

And the only ones who can enroll children in a school are parents.

Now, the only way to become a parent is to throw out the condoms, flush the contraceptive pills, pitch the patches, roll away the rings, immolate the IUDs and conceive children to place in the school.

So, ultimately, the only endorsement that matters is the endorsement that encourages parents to do just that.

Anyone - lay person, priest or bishop - who spends a lot of time praising Catholic schools but doesn't spend any time teaching Catholic parents about the evil of contraception or teaching those same Catholic parents about the wonders of having children is not accomplishing anything substantive. Like the man described in St. James' epistle, he sees the poor, hungry beggar on the street, encourages him with a hearty "Stay warm, get something to eat!" but doesn't actually provide any food or clothes to the impoverished person and is thereby condemned.

Do you want to support Catholic schools? Convince your fellow Catholic parents to stop contracepting. Convince your fellows to stop aborting, to start learning their Faith at an adult level. It is parents who keep schools going, nothing and no one else.

If you need someone besides parents to keep the school going, then you don't understand how schools work and your schools will fail. Period.

I have spent my entire adult life warning and teaching Catholic adults about the evils of contraception and the wonders of having children. I have also spent no small amount of time explaining Catholic doctrine: that the title on a school is no indicator of its Catholicity.

If you claim to be a supporter of Catholic schools, then show me how you have worked to end contraception and abortion among Catholics. Show me what you know about what the Catholic Church actually says constitutes a Catholic school. If you haven't done that work, then you a clanging cymbal, a sounding gong, and you are wasting everyone's time, most especially your own.

An Enormous Appetite

I may not be able to predict presidential elections, but when it comes to the Faith, my track record is quite a bit better.

In my book, Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America, I point out that the Catholic parochial school system, as it has always been implemented in the United States, is an essentially contraceptive system. That is, it is inadvertently designed to undermine the sacrament of marriage. It destroys the spiritual fecundity of Catholic parents and is an essential contributor to the culture of death.

As you may imagine, this thesis has been condemned as essentially heretical by a number of different groups who venerate the Catholic parochial school with a fervor generally only reserved for the Eucharistic Presence.

However, the polling data in this election (and several previous elections, now that I think about it), demonstrates that I'm not off the mark. The areas of the country with the heaviest populations of Catholics are identical with areas that are most pro-abortion. Abortion is the main fruit of the contraceptive mentality.

The Northeast states, New York Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware are heavily populated with Catholics and are overwhelmingly pro-abortion; California is in the same situation. Sixteen Catholic senators and about 65 in the House of Representatives are pro-abortion.

The bishops from these states - schooled in the same parochial schools which produced the politicians - refuse to follow Canon Law and publicly excommunicate them for their public dissent from the truth.

These areas are, of course, also the areas which have historically had the highest concentration of Catholic parochial schools. In fact, even now, the states with the highest Catholic school enrollment are New York, California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida, Louisiana, Texas and Missouri. The total enrollment of 1.4 million in those 10 states is nearly two-thirds of the entire U.S. Catholic school enrollment.

In that same book, I also predicted that the entire parochial school system would collapse under the weight of its own dissonance from Magisterial teaching.

The structure of the system violates the documents concerning how the Faith is to be transmitted. The very curricula, the books being used, the teachers employed, the mix of students in the classrooms - everything about the American parochial school system is in violation of Magisterial teaching.

For this reason, there is no point in attempting to save the American Catholic parochial school. The changes that need to be made are so enormous that any successful implementation would result in the total destruction of the present system.

That assumes the bishops would actually implement any changes, which is, of course, absurd. A bishop who can't even find it within himself to discipline a publicly dissenting Catholic politician is certainly not going to go up against the entrenched hierarchy of the Catholic school system.

So, the schools will be eroded away by the culture and entirely disappear, as every invention of man eventually does. More evidence of this appears before us every day, as this latest bit of news demonstrates.

According to the National Catholic Educational Association, enrollment in Catholic elementary schools has dropped 15 percent nationwide since 2001-02, and more than 212 U.S. Catholic schools were closed or consolidated during the 2006-07 school year.

A fifteen percent enrollment drop in roughly five years is not particularly good news, and the news will only get worse.

One might argue that this merely demonstrates a demographic shift as Catholics move out of the urban inner city and into suburbs, but the numbers don't add up. From 2006 to 2007, 36 new schools opened in the suburbs while 212 consolidated or closed.

“No matter how one looks at it, the fact is that, left untreated, the present condition of our schools will very soon lead to there being no Catholic schools in our diocese,” wrote the Most Rev. Joseph F. Martino, bishop of Scranton, the third largest diocese in the state. “Eventually, I will be presented with a plan which will establish a new governance model for our schools and will determine which schools we should maintain given all the circumstances.”

... “Certainly, we know the baptism numbers are down, so the initial pool is one factor,” the diocese’s superintendent of schools, Joseph Casciano, said.

Mass attendance is only about a third of registered parishioners, said Mr. Genello.

When parents aren't taught about the evils of contraception, they will contracept. When Catholic politicians aren't publically called on their pro-abortion stance, Catholics will abort.

Oddly enough, when you kill your children, you find it difficult to baptize them and even more difficult to enroll them in Catholic schools.

So, the very bishops who decry the erosion of the Catholic schools - the Catholic schools that through their very structure taught Catholics how to contracept - are merely reaping what they sow by their inaction. And what else can it be called when, in every country of the world, the "majority of Catholics have never heard a Catholic priest or bishop speak out against" it?

Evil consumes itself.
And it has an enormous appetite.

Update: You have to read it to believe it.

Obama vs Romney

That's what I was thinking in the middle of January, and that's what it will probably be.

Too many Democrats don't trust Hillary or Bill.
Too many Republicans don't trust McCain.

If I would have blogged it when I first came to this conclusion, it would have seemed more prophetic...

YOU *CAN* Be A Research Scientist!

Are you qualified to be a research scientist?
Find out by taking our simple quiz!

First, read this new story from Time magazine. It describes a new drug regimen for preventing cerebral palsy, a condition that is strongly associated with pre-term birth.

Next, read through the articles linked here: why are pre-term births, and the cerebral palsy associated with them, considered news fit for Time magazine? Why, because the rate of pre-term births has skyrocketed over 30% since 1981! The rate has increased more than 20% since 1990, and now stands at 12.8% of all births.

Note the sentence in the first article: As the rate of pre-term births rise, so does the rate of "cerebral palsy, mental retardation, chronic lung disease, and vision and hearing loss." The cost of pre-term births is estimated to be 26 billion dollars, with average medical costs 10 times greater than that for a normal birth.

So, are you ready for our quiz?

Here it is! (drum roll please)

What is the number one cause of pre-term birth?

Anyone?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Anyone?

Hmmm... There's a puzzler.

Time magazine is silent on that issue.

The March of Dimes, which supports embryonic stem cell research, fetal tissue research and abortion, also seems to be at a complete loss, although - thank God - they are spending millions of dollars to try and figure it out.

But don't worry!
Here's where YOU can find out if you are qualified to be a real research scientist!

Read any one of the thirty-eight studies listed below, either alone or in combination, and see if YOU can figure out what might be causing the rise in premature births (HINT: the first study is the best, as it shows how undergoing a simple, safe and legal medical procedure can increase your risk of subsequent pre-term birth by a whopping 1155%).

1. Zhou W, Sorenson HT, Olsen H. Induced Abortion and Subsequent Pregnancy Duration. Obstetrics & Gynecology 1999;94:948-953
2. Berkowitz GS. An Epidemiologic Study of Preterm Delivery. American J Epidemiology 1981;113:81-92
3. Lang JM, Lieberman E, Cohen A. A Comparison of Risk Factors for Preterm Labor and Term Small-for-Gestational-Age Birth. Epidemiology 1996;7:369-376
4. Lieberman E, Ryan KJ, Monson RR, Schoenbaum SC. Risk Factors Accounting For Racial Differences in the rate of premature birth. NEJM 1987;317:743-748
5. * Hillier SL, Nugent RP, Eschenbach DA, Krohn MA, et al. Association Between Bacterial Vaginosis And Preterm Delivery Of A Low-Birth-Weight Infant. NEJM 1995;333:1737-1742
6. Schoenbaum LS, Monson RR. No association between coffee consumption and adverse outcomes of pregnancy. NEJM 1982;306:141-145
7. Mueller-Heubach E, Guzick DS. Evaluation of risk scoring in a preterm birth prevention study of indigent patients. Am J Obstetrics & Gyn 1989;160:829-837
8. Shiono PH, Lebanoff MA. Ethnic Differences and Very Preterm Delivery. Am J Public Health 1986;76:1317-1321
9. Pantelakis SN, Papadimitriou GC, Doxiadis SA. Influence of induced and spontaneous abortions on the outcome of subsequent pregnancies. Amer J Obstet Gynecol. 1973;116:799-805
10. Lumley J. The association between prior spontaneous abortion, prior induced abortion and preterm birth in first singleton births. Prenat Neonat Med 1998;3:21-24.
11. Van Der Slikke JW, Treffers PE. Influence of induced abortion on gestational duration in subsequent pregnancies. BMJ 1978;1:270-272 [>95% confident of preterm risk for gestation less than 32 weeks]
12. Richardson JA, Dixon G. Effect of legal termination on subsequent pregnancy. British Med J 1976;1:1303-1304
13. Pickering RM, Deeks JJ. Risks of Delivery during 20th to the 36th Week of Gestation. Intl. J Epidemiology 1991;20:456-466
14. Koller O, Eikhom SN. Late Sequelae of Induced Abortion in Primigravidae. Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand 1977;56:311-317
15. Papaevangelou G, Vrettos AS, Papadatos D, Alexiou C. The Effect of Spontaneous and Induced Abortion on Prematurity and Birthweight. The J Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Commonwealth. May 1973;80:418-422
16. Bognar Z, Czeizel A. Mortality and Morbidity Associated with Legal Abortions in Hungary, 1960-1973. AJPH 1976;66:568-575
17. Martius JA, Steck T, Oehler MK, Wulf K-H. Risk factors associated with preterm (<37+0>European J Obstetrics & Gynecology Reproductive Biology 1998;80:183-189
18. Vasso L-K, Chryssa T-B, Golding J. Previous obstetric history and subsequent preterm delivery in Greece. European J Obstetrics & Gynecology Reproductive Biology 1990;37:99-109
19. * Ancel P-V, Saurel-Cubizolles M-J, Renzo GCD, Papiernik E, Breart G. Very and moderate preterm births: are the risk factors different? British J Obstetrics and Gynaecology 1999;106:1162-1170
20. Lumley J. The epidemiology of preterm birth. Bailliere's Clin Obstet Gynecology. 1993;7(3):477-498
21. * Michielutte R, Ernest JM, Moore ML, Meis PJ, Sharp PC, Wells HB, Buescher PA. A Comparison of Risk Assessment Models for Term and Preterm Low Birthweight. Preventive Medicine 1992;21:98-109
22. Grindel B, Lubinski H, Voigt M. Induced abortion in primigravidae and subsequent pregnancy, with particular attention of underweight. Zentralbl Gynaekol 1979;101:1009-1114
23. Kreibich H, Ludwig A. Early and late complications of abortion in juvenile primigravidae (including recommended measures). Z Aerztl Fortbild (Jena) 1980;74:311-316
24. Zwahr C, Voigt M, Kunz L, et al. Relationships between interruption abortion, and premature birth and low birth weight. Zentrabl Gynaekol 1980;102: 738-747
25. Pickering RM, Forbes J. Risk of preterm delivery and small-for-gestational age infants following abortion: a population study. British J Obstetrics and Gynecology 1985;92:1106-1112
26. Muhlemann K, Germain M, Krohn M. Does an Abortion Increase the Risk of Intrapartum Infection in the Following Pregnancy? Epidemiology 1996;7:194-198
27. Daling JR, Krohn MA, Miscarriage or Termination in the Immediately Preceding Pregnancy Increases the Risk of Intraamniotic Infection in the Following Pregnancy. American J Epi 1992;136:1013 [SER Abstracts]
28. Prof. Barbara Luke. Every Pregnant Woman's Guide to Preventing Premature Birth (1995) [forward by Emile Papiernik], New York: Times Books
29. Gersh ES. Children with Cerebral Palsy 1998; chapter 1:page 14; DD: 618.92836 C53G1, ISBN: 0933149824
30. Paroah POD. Cerebral Palsy and perinatal care. British J Obstetrics Gynaecology 1995;102:356-358
31. Pediatrics 1985;76:154-158
32. Escobar GJ, Littenberg B, Petitti DB. Outcome among surviving very low birthweight infants; a meta-analysis. Arch Dis Child 1991;66:204-211
33. Wright CSW, Campbell S, Beazley J. Second-Trimester Abortion After Vaginal Termination Of Pregnancy. Lancet 1972 [June 10]:1278-1279
34. Rooney B. Racism, Poverty, Abortion, and Other Reproductive Outcomes. Epidemiology 2000;11:740-741
35. Rooney B. Having an induced abortion increases risk in future pregnancies. British Medical J 2001;322:430
36. Potts M. Legal Abortion in Eastern Europe. enics Review7;59:232-250
37. Obel E, et al. Pregnancy Complications Following Lgally Induced Abortion With Special Reference to Abortion Technique. a Obstet Gynecol Scand 1979;58:147-152
38. Levin A, Schoenbaum S, Monson R, Stubblefield P, Ryan K. Association of Abortion With Subsequent Pregnancy Loss. JAMA 1980;243(24):2495-2499

If you are still puzzled, try reading this, this or this.

So, what do YOU think might be the cause?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Anyone?

What's the Difference?

Question:

When I read the Bible I am being taught by the Word (Jesus Christ), is it correct that my Bible contains the presence of Christ? And if I ask Jesus to come dwell in my heart during prayer, He does come to me, correct? So if those things are true then how does receiving Holy Eucharist differ from and why is it better than what the Bible & prayer can do for me?

Jesus comes in His spiritual presence when you read the Scriptures or pray, but only through the Eucharist do you receive His substantial presence (which is NOT the same as His physical presence). Distinguishing between these three ways that God is present to us requires some careful thought and it doesn't hurt to have a grounding in philosophy. Instead of going through the whole philosophy of Aristotle, let's see if we can boil this down a bit. Historically speaking, Jesus permits us to experience His presence in three different ways:

• physically
• spiritually
• substantially

1) Let's begin by comparing the physical and spiritual presence:

Certainly we would agree that Jesus standing in front of us is a much different kind of presence than reading the Bible. The opportunity to experience His physical presence - the touch of His hand, the sight of His face, etc. - is simply not the same as reading the Bible and imagining these things. His physical presence includes our physical sensing of the Body He owns - the caress of His Hand, the sound of the air that He has formed into His Words, etc. When He is present to us in a physical way, our body physically experiences the five sensations produced by His human body (taste, touch, sight, hearing, smell).

It is clear that there is a big difference between the physical and the spiritual presence of God. This is especially true since God does not have a body in the same way we do: although He owns a human body, that human body is not a necessary part of His divinity. Thus, even after the Incarnation, God doesn't have a physical presence in the same way we do - our physical presence is a necessary part of our identities, but God doesn't NEED a body in order to be God. This is why, even though the apostles experienced God physically, they did not immediately or fully understand that they were in the presence of the living God.

2) This leads us to our second comparison: the difference between the physical and substantial presence of God:

Even if I had had the honor of experiencing Jesus' physical presence, God Incarnate standing in front of me, that doesn't mean I would recognize the substance of divinity present. I would see His flesh, feel His touch, smell Him, hear Him, perhaps even be physically healed by Him, but even with all of that, I would not necessarily fully understand that He is fully God, that I am physically in the presence of the substance of God, the substance of divinity. After all, pretty much everyone who met Him, with the possible exception of His parents, physically interacted with Him but didn't recognize the substance of divinity He is.

 The Divine Nature *IS* God. Every time we encounter the substance of divinity, we necessarily encounter God in the core of His Being. So, we can distinguish between the physical and the substantial presence of God as well.

3) Now, here's the question we need to consider: what is the difference between the spiritual presence and the substantial presence of God?

Since the encounter with the substance of divinity is God Himself, if God were substantially present in the Scriptures, then the Scriptures would - by themselves - necessarily *BE* God in exactly the same way that Jesus *IS* God. Now, no one believes the Scriptures are such a thing, not even the most ardent supporter of Scripture. We recognize that the Scriptures are God-breathed, have immense authority, are inerrant, etc., but no one thinks the Scriptures *ARE* God in the same way that Jesus *IS* God. And just as encountering the substance of divinity - even hidden behind the veil of human flesh - is really superior to reading the Bible, so receiving the Eucharist - Who is the substance of Jesus hidden behind the veil of bread and wine - is really superior to reading the Bible.

Now, it would be wonderful if we were able to experience the physical, substantial presence of Jesus in His glorified body as the apostles did after the Resurrection, but that is reserved for heaven. Here, we see as though through a glass, darkly. At His Ascension, He carried His human nature, including His human flesh and blood, with Him into heaven for the eternal, perpetual sacrifice He offers the Father. His Ascension moved His glorified body "beyond the veil", as it were. So, instead of experiencing His physical presence, we experience the glorified Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the resurrected Christ, the substantial presence of God, *as He offers Himself to the Father in the heavenly temple*. 

Because our eyes cannot stand such glory, He presents this to us hidden behind the veil of bread and wine. Even though His Body and Blood are truly present in the Eucharist, substantially present, He is not said to be physically present precisely because our senses do not perceive His Body as a physical human body. In fact, there is no physical (i.e., scientific) test that is capable of detecting His Body and Blood.

As Thomas points out in the Summa,

Reply to Objection 3. As has been already stated (III:75:5), after the consecration of the bread into the body of Christ, or of the wine into His blood, the accidents of both remain. From which it is evident that the dimensions of the bread or wine are not changed into the dimensions of the body of Christ, but substance into substance. And so the substance of Christ's body or blood is under this sacrament by the power of the sacrament, but not the dimensions of Christ's body or blood. Hence it is clear that the body of Christ is in this sacrament "by way of substance," and not by way of quantity. But the proper totality of substance is contained indifferently in a small or large quantity; as the whole nature of air in a great or small amount of air, and the whole nature of a man in a big or small individual. Wherefore, after the consecration, the whole substance of Christ's body and blood is contained in this sacrament, just as the whole substance of the bread and wine was contained there before the consecration.

That is, the substance of His Body and Blood are present, but His physicality is not, at least not in the sense that we normally use the word "physical."  

So, God opens the door to heaven through the veil of His own flesh, yet His flesh is itself veiled in Beth-le-hem (Hebrew for "the House of Bread"), it is veiled under the appearance of bread and wine. This double veiling of the substance of His divinity corresponds to the double veiling aspect of the Tent of Meeting that Paul speaks about in Hebrews 9:1-5. The bread and wine veil the Body, Blood and Soul, which in turn veil the Divinity. This is also why John talks about Jesus having "pitched His tent among us" (John 1:14). Jesus' tent (His Body) is not just the normal, single-veiled tent. Because He is God, He pitches among us the double-veiled Tent of Meeting - the Eucharist. He took human flesh precisely in order to establish the Holy of Holies, He provided the Eucharist in order to create the outer tent within which the Holy of Holies is hidden. And that's the difference between the Bible and the Eucharist. One is a God-breathed book, the other is God Himself.

Follow the Money

Historically, Confirmation is very tightly tied to baptism. Indeed, of the 21 rites of the Catholic Church, 20 of them give baptism, confirmation and first Eucharist all in the same ritual in infancy - this is called chrismation. As you know, these three sacraments are called the sacraments of initiation because receiving all three fully initiates us into Christ.

In the early years of the Church, each city had its own bishop. To this day, in fact, most Italian cities each have their own bishop, which is why there are so many more Italian bishops than there are bishops from any other country.

There really weren't any parish churches until the eleventh or twelfth century. Instead, each city had one church, the cathedral. Everyone would go to the city cathedral for Mass and all the sacraments. There might be some outlying meeting places on the edge of the city, but sacraments only happened in the cathedral.

In early Christianity, the one receiving the sacrament was typically an adult (i.e., over the age of twelve). No unbaptized person was permitted to attend Mass beyond the homily - after the homily, all unbaptized persons would be escorted out of the Church, the doors would be locked, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist would then commence.

The Eucharist was considered so sacred that no one was permitted even to be present in the building unless they were fully initiated into the Faith. Remnants of this practice are still found in the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom: after the homily, the deacon will call out "The doors! The doors!" - a reminder to get the unbaptized out of the building and lock the doors.

So, anyone seeking to enter into the Church wouldn't know about anything except baptism. They would spend years being instructed about baptism. Then during the night of Easter Vigil they would be taken into the baptistry (which was an eight-sided building external to the Church), stripped naked (men in one group, women in another, and separated by a screen so they couldn't see each other and be scandalized) and there be baptized.

Incidentally, the two roles the deaconess performed in the ancient Church was the anointing of naked females with baptismal chrism (it was deemed unwise to let men see the women naked) and the barring of the doors after the homily. Deaconesses were never considered to be part of Holy Orders.

In any case, after baptism, the newly baptized would be clothed in a white garment. The bishop would now confirm the newly baptized, who would in turn then run across the lawn in their white garments, smelling of the fragrant oils of baptism and confirmation, and enter into the Church where the Catholic faithful had been praying all night. At that point, the Mass would begin.

As the newly baptized (called neophytes, which means "new plants") ran in, everyone present would remember the time when THEY had gone through the same ritual, running across the cold, snowy lawn and into the warm Church filled with men and women praying for them. They would remember the excitement of the congregation, the cries of "Hosanna" and "Alleluia!", the heady fragrance of the oil mixing with the incense and the smoke from the candles and the torches in their sconces, at their own initiation. It was an exuberant joy that no one ever forgot.

But there was more. The neophytes knew about baptism, but only during the homily would they find out about and be instructed in the mystery of the Eucharist. Then, immediately after the homily, when the doors were locked and barred, the gifts would be consecrated, and the newly baptized would would be brought forward and given the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ for the first time.

So, that was the order of sacramental reception: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist.

But two things changed.

First, as all the adults in western Europe were brought into the Church the emphasis switched away from adult baptism and towards infant baptism. Second, as the Church spread, the number of cities each new bishopric had to oversee increased.

Because of this switch in emphasis, the bishop found he could not be present at every baptism. For obvious reasons, infants don't need instruction, they can be baptized at any time. Indeed, Origen said (185-253 AD) "The Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants" (Commentaries on Romans 5:9). The Council of Carthage (A.D. 252) condemns those who postpone baptism until the eighth day after birth. Baptism perfects Jewish circumcision. St. Cyprian of Carthage wrote to Fidius, "As to what pertains to the case of infants: you said that they ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth,... In our council it seemed to us far otherwise. No one agreed to the course which you thought should be taken. Rather, we all judged that the mercy and grace of God ought to be denied to no man born."

And because of the both the number and the size of cities to be overseen had grown, using just the city cathedral for sacraments became difficult. Monasteries out in the country tamed the land (monks were always built in wild forests, swamps or desert places - monks were the European equivalent of the American pioneer/cowboy), people moved out to farm the newly cleared land and those same lay people started participating in the sacramental life of the monastery instead of always making the long trek into the city.

This is where the concept of the parish church really arose. A place that wasn't the cathedral but you could still get sacraments there - that was unusual at the time.

But now you can see the problem. While adults had always been brought in as a batch on Easter Vigil in the single city cathedral, infants were being baptized literally every day of the week in several cities and monasteries simultaneously throughout the diocese.

There were only two ways to solve the problem: have the priest do both baptism and confirmation or have confirmation await the appearance of the bishop. In the East, the bishops decided to let the priests confirm as long as they used oil blessed by a bishop; the oil was called myron. In the West, the bishops chose to reserve confirmation to themselves.

But the number of cities and parishes each bishop had to oversee kept increasing. Consequently, the time between (1) baptism in infancy and (2) confirmation followed by First Eucharist kept increasing.

By the time Bernadette Soubirous was having her visions of Our Lady of Lourdes in the 1800's (and for several centuries prior), it was not uncommon for confirmation and First Eucharist to be administered as late as the age of fifteen or sixteen.

This wasn't good. It was not uncommon for people to marry by that age and they needed the grace of the sacraments (remember, the Blessed Virgin Mary herself was believed to have accepted the Incarnation somewhere between the ages of 12 and 14). Pope Pius IX didn't like delaying full initiation for so long, so he introduced First Eucharist at the age of seven with the directive Quam Singulari in 1910.

Now, he assumed that all of the bishops would realize that if the age of First Eucharist was lowered, the age of confirmation would also have to be lowered in order to precede confirmation as it always had. Unfortunately, most of the world's bishops failed to take the hint. They moved the age of first Eucharist but didn't do anything with the age of confirmation.

Thus, about 1910, many areas of the Church began doing something extremely odd from an historical point of view: they began giving confirmation AFTER first Eucharist. The practice has continued in some areas right up until this day.

This is a really weird new innovation, and Rome doesn't particularly like it. She keeps hinting to the bishops that Confirmation should really be coming before First Eucharist.

So, if you read through the CCC or any of the other Magisterial documents, you will always see the sacraments of initiation listed in this order: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist.

At Easter Vigil, the order of sacramental reception is always: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist.

If you read Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical on the Eucharist, Sacramentum Caritatis, he hints in #17 and 18 that the order of sacraments should really be looked at and established so that the emphasis is always on the Eucharist.

This is a very quiet way of prodding the bishops throughout the world, since every bishop has studied philosophy, and philosophy always insists that the last thing done in a process is the point of the whole process. Thus, if you want an initiation process that is centered on the Eucharist, the Eucharist should really be the last sacrament that is received.

The bishops of Scotland have taken the hint and restored the order as have several other small countries, but there are a lot of bishops in the US, so it's a lot more difficult to get all the bishops in America to get on the same page.

Since the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) was newly re-established in the 1970's, Rome had the opportunity to establish the regulations for RCIA in such a way that it forces the American bishops to do things a little more like they are supposed to be done, tying all three sacraments of initiation together very tightly and in the proper order. Thus, it says:

"Since those who have the faculty to confirm are bound to exercise it in accord with canon 885:2, and may not be prohibited from using the faculty, a diocesan bishop who is desirous of confirming neophytes should reserve to himself the baptism of adults in accord with canon 863." (RCIA Appendix III, #13)

A priest who baptizes anyone who has come through RCIA or RCIC (the rite for children) must confirm in the same ceremony. He has zero choice in the matter. It doesn't matter what the diocesan age for confirmation is or whether or not the candidates have gone to all the retreats, done all the service hours, etc. They have to be confirmed if they are being baptized.

Unfortunately, we lay Americans (even some bishops) don't have much historical sense nor much knowledge of history, so we tend to be under the false impression that confirmation is supposed to be last. The only reason we think this is because that's how our parents and grandparents did it. We've forgotten that this practice really doesn't go back farther than our great-grandparents, and is really not what happened throughout the whole history of the Church nor is it even what happens throughout the entire world today.

Today, many bishops realize that the sacraments are not properly ordered, but they don't feel the backlash they would get from the laity in the diocese to be worth the trouble of changing the sacramental reception ages back to the correct order.

Worse, some bishops actually tend to use the sacrament as a carrot to force children to go through excessively long preparation. At this point, many dioceses actually force children to go through a confirmation process that is FOUR TIMES LONGER than the process engaged adults are asked to go through in order to get married and raise a family (two years for confirmation, six months for marriage).

Catechists like later confirmation ages because it forces children to stay in front of them: they typically aren't competent enough as teachers to hold most children's interest otherwise. Once a child is confirmed, the child is finally freed from any sacramental motivation to continue to attend religious education classes. A child who hates these classes generally never returns to learn more. Most children apparently hate the classes, because most don't come back after confirmation.

But if children don't come back, directors of parish religious programs have very little rationale for the existence of their job. Instead of having hundreds of children in their programs through eighth grade or high school, they have a dozen or so that stay on past third grade. The only way to keep their phony-baloney jobs is to keep confirmation age as high as possible. They all get together and lobby the bishop to make sure this happens.

The only way to stop the madness is to follow the directive found in the Rite of Confirmation #3:

"The initiation of children into the sacramental life is ordinarily the responsibility and concern of Christian parents. They are to form and gradually increase a spirit of faith in the children and, at times with the help of catechism classes, prepare them for the fruitful reception of the sacraments of confirmation and eucharist. The role of the parents is also expressed by their active participation in the celebration of the sacraments."

As you may imagine, this is a passage which is never quoted by bishops or parish religious staff. The idea that parents should fulfill their sacramental vows of marriage and teach their own children is anathema to the power structure of most parishes. It is a positive danger to the paychecks of thousands of youth ministers and directors of religious education.

So, parishes actively attack parental rights and responsibilities instead of assisting parents in doing what parents are ordained by their marriage vows to do: teach their own children about God. Until this situation changes, the parish will be but one more contributor to the breakdown of the American family.

Quote of the Day

"So there are three places where the pope cannot go: Moscow, Beijing, and the university of Rome", comment from one of the young people present at the January 16, 2008 papal general audience.

Read the address Pope Benedict was going to give here.
And yes, we only find this kind of thing reported in the Asian press, never in the American press.

That Good Night

Bishop Matthew Clark is closing thirteen schools in Rochester, New York, with several more to follow, and it couldn't happen to a nicer group of people.

As I pointed out in Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America, the Catholic school system doesn't have much longer to live. Indeed, in the couple of years since I wrote that book, it has become clear that not only will the Catholic parochial school disappear, but that technology is even going to push most public schools to the brink of extinction within the next couple of decades.

The Catholic schools are just the canary in the coal mine.

Today, most major universities offer on-line courses (some for free), and now Michigan requires all high-school students to take at least one on-line learning course.

As sexual and homosexual rights advocates increase the "nasty" quotient at primary, middle and high schools across the nation, Christian families are bailing out of the public school system in droves. No school, not even a publicly-funded school, can stand the loss of one-quarter to one-half of its population. Just ask the Catholic parochial school systems.

But there is something fitting to the extinction of the Catholic school system - it has lost its reason for existence. Just talk to the principals of these schools:

"We felt (Catholic education) was the prime reason for the Catholic Church existing," said principal Michael Macaluso. "The school is necessary to evangelize and bring youngsters into the church."

Catholic schools were "the prime reason for the Catholic Church existing?"
The school is necessary to evangelize?

Silly me.

I thought the Catholic Church existed primarily in order to bring all men (including women and children) to salvation through participation in the sacramental life. Last time I checked, the school was not considered a sacrament, despite the way that same school is treated by some groups.

And if "the school is necessary to evangelize", how on earth did the Church get along for the 1.5 millennium in which she did not maintain any schools for children? Does the principal not realize that Martin Luther was the man who first insisted all children attend mandatory schools? Does he not recognize that parents are the primary educators of their own children when it comes to the Faith?

When even the people running the schools don't understand why they exist, it is time to go quietly into that good night.

Different Standards

Well, there's the difference between Golfweek and the Dallas Morning News.

Golfweek fires editors who make references to black men being violently attacked.
The Dallas Morning News doesn't.

Not Until We Say You Are

What do these headlines have in common?

Obama Pledges Support for Animal Rights

Tyranny grows in the Golden State

Microsoft seeks patent for office "spy" software

Well, Barack Obama distinguished himself as an Illinois legislator in being one of only two who opposed treating born children as persons who have constitutional rights.

He voted against the Illinois Born Alive Protection Act because, he argued:
10) Babies born alive are not protected by the Constitution
9) Babies born alive are burdensome to their mothers
8) This was a purely political bill
7) There was no proof it happened (pace all the state and federal testimony to the contrary)
6) It is a doctor's prerogative to let babies die
5) Abortionists always save children born alive during an abortion
4) It's a purely religious issue
3) There's nothing really wrong with letting babies die
2) Letting born babies live is just a tactic to trap Democrats
1) Letting born babies live would undermine Roe v. Wade

But now, he's concerned that animals may be mis-treated. Apparently there IS a universal principle to care for animals.

Even more, "I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other," he said. "And it's very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals." I think he is absolutely right.

How we treat our animals IS a reflection of how we treat each other.
If we treat our animals as persons, we will treat each other as animals.

Consider two points:

1) As Walter E. Williams points out, California is preparing not only to monitor the electrical usage of every house in the state, it also plans to create a way for the government to override how the owner of the house uses electricity in his own house. The house, ahem, the kennel we live in will be controlled by our masters.

2) At the same time, Microsoft is planning on handing both government and corporations the keys to complete monitoring of its employees, right down to blood pressure, heart rate and facial expression. Thus, our masters will be able to watch over us and care for us as every good pet deserves.

Could it be that Barack Hussein Obama is interested in treating animals well precisely because he is part of the governing elite?

From all indications, it looks as if the governing elites see the rest of the nation as animals - objects to be monitored, cared for, and overseen by government agencies who will lovingly watch over us, mercifully euthanizing us when our useful lives (as defined by the state) are at an end.

When God is gone, the only ones who can define personhood are those with power: the government and the corporation.

Either we accept that God exists and order our lives according to His laws, or we deny He does and have our lives ordered for us according to the laws of the state and corporation. We either rely on the beneficence of an all-loving God or on the beneficence of the loving masters of the state.

If we choose the latter, we must admit that none of us are persons deserving of care and respect unless our loving masters say we are.

Protecting Who?

Ok, I don't get it.

There is an AP photo with this byline at this link on Yahoo! News:

This image released by the US Navy Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2008, and shot Sunday, Jan. 6 from the bridge of the destroyer USS Hopper, shows 2 small boats, alleged to be Iranian, purportedly racing near the wake of U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf. The incident, which President George W. Bush denounced Tuesday as a 'provocative act,' was videotaped by a crew member on the bridge of the destroyer USS Hopper, one of the three ships that faced down five Iranian boats in a flare-up early Sunday.

(AP Photo/U.S. Navy)

Why are they only "alleged" to be Iranian? Is the AP afraid that Iran will sue them for defamation of character?

Does the AP hold out hope that the boats are really just filled with native fishermen out for a pleasure cruise through eel-infested waters?

Why are they only "purportedly racing near the wake of US Navy ships" (sic - I always thought plural ships left plural wakes, but maybe that's because I'm not an ace AP reporter).

So, the boats that we can see with our own eyes in the photographs are only "alleged" and "purportedly", yet the film itself was most definitely shot by a crew member (whom we don't see with our own eyes in the photo) on the bridge of a ship (which we also don't see in the photo) that definitely faced down (no question of a conflict there) definite Iranian boats (now we've decided they ARE Iranian, apparently) in a definite flare-up (and not nice Iranians either) on a day that was definitely Sunday (although evidence of the day of the week is also not present on the film).

I know that taking shots at the MSM is not fair, as they can't think clearly enough to shoot back, but every once in a while the kettle boils over a bit.