Soufflé of Doom or Élan of Hope

As even CNN begins to acknowledge that political correctness in the Army contributed to the 13(/14) deaths at Fort Hood, I recalled that friend and mentor, Gil Bailie, recently cited a New York Post story about terrorists in New York: They were filled with rage and wanted to take it out on what they considered the source of all problems in America - the Jews.

The naïveté of everyone educated in the sacred halls of multiculturalism "knows" that humans are not stained with Original Sin. I heard a PhD in Education bemoan not long ago the way that textbooks betray our ethnic and cultural bias in the way they refer, for example, to Native Americans as "savages". Of course, the sentiment not to victimize is admirable, but to ignore the fact that Native Americans were members of the fallen human race and, therefore, ipso facto, as savage as, say the Meso-American Aztecs and Mayans and Clockwork Orange urban youth of today's Paris and London, is as dangerous as a branch of the military ignoring the warning signs of a Army psychiatrist who emailed jihadists overseas to say he was looking forward to seeing them in Paradise and - by the way - when is it permissible to slaughter innocents?

The time is rapidly approaching when two things will become manifestly apparent: first, that those who become "filled with rage" are the problem. And, secondly, we cannot "pussy-foot" around them in feeble, limp-wristed attempts "not to offend" them, but rather call them accountable for their uncontrolled lack of impulse control and immature bent to violent and inappropriate tantrums.

True political correctness is recognizing where the true problem lies. René Girard's mimetic theory and the wisdom to "think with the Church" - sentire cum ecclesia - in discerning truth, goodness, and beauty, as well as disordered passions, fruits of the flesh, and egregious evil is the pathway to survival for humanity.

Anything less, including and inescapably a soufflé of multiculturalism and elitist naïveté, bode only doom.

Not Yet, Stupid!

Do you remember when YOUR Guardian Angel had to work this hard?

Year One

World is going to hell in a hand basket or rather ending as we know it so let us start all over without all this God stuff...

St Odo of Cluny

Lest we forget, today is the Feast Day of Saint Odo of Cluny. Recall if you will that the Holy Father lifted up Odo as a model worthy of our admiration and imitation here. So, if it is obvious that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, recall St. Odo of Cluny.

After all, it won't be too long before our bones will, if the Father wills it, end up in a place like the above ossuary. If, that is, we are so blessed.

Sister Strikes Back

Benedict XVI - Relativism

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 16, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is cautioning evangelizers to be on guard against relativism, saying it infiltrates society and manipulates consciences...

The relativistic culture "enters the sanctuary of the family, infiltrates the realm of education and other realms of society and contaminates them, manipulating consciences, especially those of the young," he said.

"At the same time, however, despite these snares, the Church knows that the Holy Spirit is always acting," the Pope affirmed. "New doors, in fact, are opened to the Gospel, and spreading in the world is the longing for authentic spiritual and apostolic renewal. As in other periods of change, the pastoral priority is to show the true face of Christ, lord of history and sole redeemer of man..MORE>>

In my experience, relativism took a nasty turn during my college years. It merely took a sneer, a curl of the lip, a veiled threat to reject if I stood up for the Christian faith to cast me into the netherworld of relativism.

From a Girardian viewpoint, I feared becoming a victim and so accepted the herd's position rather than chance becoming an outcast.

The Holy Father is right. And there are huge numbers of "trip-wires" set by relativism today.

Bulletin message today

He who angers you, controls you.

Timor Mortis Conturbat Me

A central tenet of my book, A Little Guide for Your Last Days, is that popular culture does its level best to distract us from the fact of our mortality.

Daniel Mitsui does a great service to anyone who is paying attention this month, November, the month of the holy souls. He is staring straight at the realities that so many spend so much time and money trying to avoid. Case in point, a phrase that was common in medieval poetry, timor mortis conturbat me, "the fear of death disturbs me."

Unlike that jingle we all learned from our college English professors, "carpe diem," this phrase was much more on the tongues and in the hearts and minds of the medieval person. Birth, aging, and death were daily and unavoidable realities, unlike today in which all three are dutifully (and profitably) hidden from normal sight.

Let us remember the One Who gives us - on loan - being, our ontology, as philosophers call it, and begin the arduous work of living into our mortality. I am, if you will permit, an ersatz apostle to those who say with honesty, "the fear of death disturbs me." Those who have the fortitude not to fear death, God bless thee.

But for those who do, and for those who will but do not yet, be comforted. And pick up a copy of A Little Guide for Your Last Days. It is not a sin to feel fear (think about Our Lord in Gethsemane, after all).

UPDATE: My brother-in-arms, Aramis, wrote those words above my book's image in the right sidebar ("Soon to be on the Best Seller Book List"). Timor mortis conturbat me is why it never will be.

Come On Down

Ht: Monsignor Charles Pope:

Passive-Aggresivity

How well do I remember: this is called passive-aggresivity. Taunting. Provoking. YOU feel what I refuse to feel in myself, but I will see it in you and feel "fulfilled".

You have to get up very early in the morning with a passive-aggressive. Psychodramas prevail in their lives. Enjoy the next few years, America. You voted for him.

The Spirit is Never Without Witness

(T)he crucifix, all the different kinds that I remember (from grade school to college) was always a symbol of security for me, a projection of the greatness of the heart of Christ.

Root Cause Fallacy

1986 Time article describing Root Cause Fallacy - term used by Ibn Warraq in THIS previous post.

The Root Cause is always a regurgitation of the violence from our fallen human state that the Middle East mirrors back at us in its ever-so-terrorizing reality. 2 powerful fuels that compound the Root Cause is our adaptation to the very powerful myth that denies our participation in the Root Cause violence breeding "the anti-Western, antimodern, antisecularist movement" and its double, a sentiment that is "anti-Western, but modern and secular, and is thus often at war with Islamic fundamentalism."

René Girard sums up the situation in this quote:

“What is frightening is the conjunction of massive technical power and the spiritual surrender to nihilism. A panic-stricken refusal to glance, even furtively, in the only direction where meaning could still be found dominates our intellectual life.”

I guess I am one who feels that trying to get at this Root Cause without intentional evangelizing and conversion to the Triune God will get deflected by harden hearts and deepen the Root Cause Fallacy. In efforts to shed light by a knowledge not steeped in the Christian Faith, a knowledge that is today our default knowledge due to our culture's embrace of the anti-Christian 'dumbing down' relativism, will inevitably lead one further into the spinning vortex of mass confusion, distraction and violence.

René Girard can be instrumental in helping to grasp Root Cause and therefore help one stand firm and not get thrown into the Root Cause Fallacy.

As Athos put it so wisely in a previous post: Girard's mimetic theory is the hermeneutic for understanding human violence par excellence. It is a shame that it is cast into the "blanket of silence" of Western rationalism where men walk on it and do not know what treasure they unwittingly reject.

Must Reads - Rushing to 'Therapy'

Compliments to Arts and Letters Daily for the following compilation of articles: (a) David Brooks' The Rush to Therapy (b) Tunku Varadarajan's Going Muslim (c) Dorothy Rabinowitz's Dr. Phil and the Ft Hood Killer and (d) Ibn Warraq's Denying Reality, or the Heavy Cost of Political Correctness

Whose Spell Are You Under?

In France, in England, in the States, IT'S there.

A teaser for Gerry Straub's long awaited film on St Francis

Gerry is known as a superb cinema photographer who works benefit the poor. I believe that my friend's gift of weaving a story around and through our hearts is his greatest gift though. Check out Gerry Here to see a few more excerpts of San Damiano films on Youtube.

Pray for all involved in this weekend Cursillo

Please pray for my wife Ann, the rest of the team and candidates who are on this weekend Cursillo.

Chattering Class Folly

For the record: The Anchoress - Elizabeth Scalia - quotes Mark Shea on MSM follies, common sense worthy of G. K. Chesterton, and the balderdash of the agenda to take America into a down-leftward death spiral in this must read post.

One Moment, Please

Photo #2 - ht: Creative Minority Report