Angela Bassett(hound)

... and her Church Dogmatics class go wild tonight. [ht: Estate Vaults]

Be Not Afraid!

The Velvet Hammer Lady warns - and I admit I agree with her on it - the Axelrod propaganda ministry is employing PsyOps to keep conservatives and Christians away from the polls. The MSM is doing a splendid job convincing voters that it's all over, so, in short, just stay home and cry in your cornflakes, yahoos.

Don't believe it. Go. Vote. Don't be duped by deceptive appearances and propaganda. Don the full armor of God (Eph. 6, 10-24) and vote for life, love, truth, goodness, and beauty.

Krauthammer - The True McCain

Charles Krauthammer: Obama vs. McCain 1 more time.

Hope isn’t a road to retirement...

tip to Dawn Eden

READ Drusilla on hope - hope for today and hope for tomorrow... In the meantime, let's wear out some rosary beads.

Choose Life - Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet

tip to Dawn Eden

Make sure to read the story behind the song HERE.

The New Gay - Conservatives, Christians, Catholics

Alexandra Petri writing in The Harvard Crimson nails what in post-modern parlance can only said thusly: Conservative is the New Gay. [ht: Matthew Archbold, CMR]

The other day, a friend of mine made a heartfelt confession. I’d known it was coming, and I was prepared to offer support. I swaddled her shoulders in a rainbow blanket, played Elton John softly in the background, and reassured her that no matter what, she would always be the same person. This was only one small facet of her personality, and it wouldn’t change the way we thought about her. If anything, we would love her more for her honesty.

But when she blurted out, “Alex, I think I’m conservative,” I realized that I had been deluding her with false hopes. I couldn’t bear to look at her. Clearly, this girl I had always thought of as an intelligent, rational being was secretly a sub-literate moron. All those times we‘d innocently joked about Bristol and Levi, she’d been harboring perverted desires to do things like watch FOX News and vote for McCain. “At least tell me you still think Sarah Palin is Satan,” I pleaded. She shook her head and muttered something about the liberal media distorting things, but I couldn‘t quite make it out over the sound of our friendship crashing to an end. Read all …

* * *

What Ms. Petri admirably thematizes is a par-for-the-course anthropological fact in Girard's mimetic theory; namely, fallen human nature always seeks a scapegoat so as to revitalize our conventional cultural structures of ritual, myth, and prohibition. The act of scapegoating itself, unconscious though it normally is, is a playing out of ritual, rehearsing of myth, and enforcement of the prohibition(s) that is part and parcel with culture.

What is of interest here is that even post-modern naïveté about these anthropological realities cannot abjure the one thing one must never do to maintain culture's rituals, myths, and prohibitions - one must not name the victim/scapegoat.

But Ms. Petri does. Whether or not she realizes it, she is pulling back the mythological curtain and revealing the appalling fact of what gives the primitive sacred its power - the fallacy that the victim/scapegoat deserves to be victimized and scapegoated, and the culpability of his persecutors. In other words, once one sees that the mob is not innocent or righteous and its victim is not a devil or monster, the jig is up.

Conservatives are innocent of the default liberal accusations and attacks, structurally. One may say that the Obama campaign, the vast falderal that is sucking so many into its vortex, is simply the latest expression of the mob feeling righteous in its search for new victims.

Obama is merely the froth on the cauldron. A mob and its leader that are sincere can be sincerely wrong; every hubris-filled humanist utopian project of the twentieth century was wrong, from Stalinism to National Socialism, from the Khmer Rouge to the abortion-ritual "sexual liberation" genocide now underway. Without the true transcendence of the biblical faiths - including understanding of Origin Sin - such projects are doomed to end in sacrificial violence.

Conservatives in general, Christians more specifically, and the Catholic Church in particular are indeed the "new gay." Read: the victim of choice by the default liberal oligarchy of the West. What shall happen in post-election America will be most telling.

Pope Benedict XVI teaching on St. Paul and the Catholic Way to Reconciliation

VATICAN CITY, 29 OCT 2008 (VIS) - In today's general audience, held in St. Peter's Square in the presence of 20,000 faithful, the Pope spoke of St. Paul's theology of the Cross.

The Holy Father recalled how the Apostle of the Gentiles, following his experience on the road to Damascus, changed his life completely. Paul remained deeply marked by "the central significance of the Cross: he understood that Jesus died and rose for everyone. The Cross, then, demonstrated the gratuitous and merciful love of God", he said.

"For St. Paul the Cross had a fundamental primacy in the history of humanity. It is the focal point of his theology because 'Cross' means salvation as grace for all creatures. The theme of the Cross became an essential and principal element of the Apostle's preaching".

Benedict XVI then went on to highlight how "the 'stumbling block' and 'foolishness' of the Cross", of which St. Paul, speaks are to be found "in the fact that where there seemed to be only failure, suffering and defeat, there, in reality, is all the power of God's limitless Love".

"If for the Jews the reason for rejecting the Cross was in the Revelation, in other words in the God of the Fathers, for the Greeks - that is, the pagans - the criterion for opposing the Cross lay in reason. For them, in fact, the Cross was death, foolishness. ... It was clearly inconceivable to imagine that a God could end up on a Cross! And we see how this Greek logic has also become the common logic of our own time".

"Why", the Pope asked, "did St. Paul make the word Cross such a fundamental part of his preaching? The answer", he said, "is not difficult:
the Cross reveals 'the power of God' which is different from human power; it reveals, in fact, His love".

For the Apostle "the crucified Christ is wisdom because He truly shows Who God is: the power of love which goes even unto the Cross to save man. God uses means and instruments that to human beings seem to be mere weakness.

The crucified Christ reveals, on the one hand, the weakness of man and, on the other, the true power of God, in other words the gratuitousness of love; and precisely this complete gratuitousness of love is true wisdom".

The Holy Father explained how St. Paul, in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, makes "two fundamental affirmations: the one, that Christ, Whom God made to be sin for our sake, died for everyone; and the other, that God reconciled us to Him not counting our trespasses against us. It is from this 'ministry of reconciliation' that all slaves are ransomed".

"St. Paul renounced his own life and committed himself totally to the ministry of reconciliation, of the Cross which is salvation for us all. This is something we must also do. We can find our strength in the humility of love and our wisdom in the weakness to renounce, thus to enter into the strength of God. ... We have to mould our lives on this true wisdom, not living for ourselves, but living in faith in the God of Whom we can all say:
'He loved me and gave Himself for me'".

Chivalry at the Polls

From the Obama Festival in Denver

But seriously, come voting day, November 4, given the in-your-face thuggery the Big O has come to expect from his devotees, I strongly recommend some chivalric expectations. Meaning? If you see harassment either before one gets to the polling center or as voters leave, discern the situation, and decide on the brave thing: escort and befriend anyone you see being given a hard time.

You don't need to don your rapier - although a rapier wit may be helpful - nor go looking for trouble and throw yourself into the fray. Just keep a weather eye about you.

After all, you never know about these BACCHAE types, do you?

Don't Riot - Just Move North

Reading Ath's post But First Give Me Carmel Macchiato and going over to check out Matthew Archbold's post at Creative Minority Report I remembered the following video that should help those who may feel that they have come to the end of their ropes with the USA.

Are Doomed to Repeat It

As friend and mentor Gil Bailie has shared in his work explicating the mimetic theory of René Girard, Euripides' THE BACCHAE is perhaps the finest pre-Christian narrative depicting the inner workings of the primitive sacred. If you do not feel up to the Greek Tragedians, may I recommend The Dionysus Mandate ? (Reader Discretion Advised - at least that's what my sister said, who couldn't believe I let my father read it.)

Drawing no comparisons with our present political/cultural situation - I name no names (this time) - one sees in TDM how easily moderns are drawn into contemporary expressions of the neo-pagan; even those progressives who believe themselves outstripping the "worn-out" and hackneyed truths of the Catholic faith are apt to fall into the primitive sacred ditch.

Indeed, it is precisely those who feel themselves at the forefront of social justice issues, and for whom it goes without saying that the Catholic Church is a bastion of patriarchal power mongering and superstitious mumbo-jumbo, who most easily fall into the ways of Dionysus, that wrathful young god.

A Prayer to Mary

"Note that Mary is not only the Mother of Jesus, Head of all the elect, but is also Mother of all his members. Hence she conceives them, bears them in her womb and brings them forth to the glory of heaven through the graces of God which she imparts to them. This is the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, and among them St. Augustine, who says that the elect are in the womb of Mary until she brings them forth into the glory of heaven." -- from EXCERPTS FROM THE LOVE OF ETERNAL WISDOM by Saint Louis De Montfort

There have been more than 40 million abortions in the United States since 1973. "Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion." - Mother TeresaLet us join in prayer with Father Mark at Vultus Christi ...

HEART OF JESUS, formed by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, have mercy on this nation soaked in the blood of the innocent.

May that vast army of infants slaughtered mercilessly in their mothers' wombs raise their voices and plead before Thy throne in glory for an end to the crime of abortion that has so rightly merited Thy Father's wrath and caused our nation to become an abomination in His sight.

Do what Thou must, O merciful Heart of Jesus, to reveal to all the horror of this sin and to bring us to repentance.

Immaculate Virgin Mary, thou who didst bear Thy Son for nine months in the inviolate sanctuary of Thy womb, intercede for the United States of America, which claim thy maternal protection.
Amen.

Up Mt. Cithaeron with Big O

From a Girardian view of the election campaign, it is so much fun to be part of the (self-) righteous entourage of the youthful god as he takes them up Mt. Cithaeron (cf. Euripides' THE BACCHAE). Never mind it will lead to more human sacrifice - invalidating all limits on abortion (read: infanticide) as well as eliminate all restrictions on governmental funding of the same. This is par for the course as far as paganism goes.

But, you must understand, the Bacchae following Barack feels righteous; after all, they are opposed to more deaths in Iraq. And the bacchanalia following Big O is soo much more fun than following Moses up Mt. Sinai, or Christ up Calvary.

Oh, yeah, and one last thing: be careful around them. They can get brutal. Just ask Pentheus.

One Vote Can Make a Difference

And a plea to our Evangelical friends [ht: Maggie's Farm]

Let's Continue to Wear Out Some Rosary Beads II

tip to Annuciations

"The most accurate poll prior to the 2004 election continues to report a vastly different picture for the 2008 election, with a wealth of data... "

About IBD/TIPP: An analysis of Final Certified Results for the 2004 election showed IBD's polling partner, TIPP, was the most accurate pollster of the campaign season.

McCain has cut into Obama's lead for a second day and is now just 1.1 points behind. The spread was 3.7 Wednesday and 6.0 Tuesday. The Republican is making headway with middle- and working- class voters, and has surged 10 points in two days among those earning between $30,000 and $75,000. He has also gone from an 11-point deficit to a 9-point lead among Catholics.

I found the results from the catagory Religion to be most telling.

"Let's get it close and maybe, just maybe we will find out that Obama has been over-polling once again. In the meantime, let's wear out some rosary beads." -- quote from Creative Minority Report

One has to get up awfully early to top Dawn

Catholics and may I add Christians alike, link to and READ the following post from Dawn Eden: Please pray ...

Dawn does not mince words in explaining what is at stake in this up-coming election. If you are at all unclear at what she is saying please follow her links - she does a good job of backing up her comments.

Choose LIFE for "Peace Begins in the Womb"

By Their Fruit - Answering "Steve"

"Remember, my love, you aren't a philosopher and you aren't pure!"

Over at friend and mentor Gil Bailie's web blog, Reflections on Faith and Culture, a flurry of activity has centered on the "old" Gil Bailie vs. the present Mr. Bailie. Admittedly, it has involved two Mass'keteers, Aramis and myself. The gist of our combox activity has been to say that the leitmotif of Mr. Bailie's book, Violence Unveiled, hasn't changed. Indeed, its anthropological intuitions have been proven valid and reliable in light of current political events swirling around candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.

And what did we get for our trouble? The following from one "Steve":

... the Massketeers here so eager to wring from it some purified philosophy of being. That impulse has a predictable trajectory, and it ends in victims.

Note well, following the link, that Steve flings criticism toward Mr. Bailie's literary "inconsistencies" as well as Sen. McCain's and Gov. Palin, so the Mass'keteers are in good company. But this troll has the audacity to criticize the Mass'keteers for (a) holding some "purified philosophy of being." Outrageous! Our wives will tell "Steve" in no uncertain terms that we are NOT "purified", let alone "philosophers", neither of which is suitable for men of action. While trolls like "Steve" sits in his mother's basement writing phrases at the keyboard like "imagining McCain and/or Palin joking and reflexively laughing" (Can't you see them now? Buahahahahahahahaha __ !), the Mass'keteers are lowering their visors and engaged in legitimate defense and other chivalric deeds of daring do.

Then he accuses us of climbing to the Gnostic heights in two little words: "of being." Not only are we trying to wrench some isogetical "purified philosophy" from Mr. Bailie's book, we are exploiting it in some dastardly plot of ontological terrorism! Faa and poo, I say! The Mass'ketters are not rascally minions of the spirit of the present age who have the hubris to sing "I did it MMMMMMYYYYYYY WWWWAAAAAAYYYYYYYY __ !" Nay, we kneel and lay our swords at the feet of Our Lord and his Lady, faithful sons of the Catholic Church's Magisterium and pope's men all.

But the lowest blow of all by "Steve" drips with disdain: our efforts have a "predictable trajectory, and it ends with victims." Not only are we diabolically pure and philosophers, we are busy creating and beating down new victims!

Let us remember who is doing the accusing here, who here is engaged in name-calling and the pointing of fingers: "Steve". That's right, "Steve". "Steve" who plucks dainty sweetmeats like "purified philosophy" with his delicate yet fat, white, worm-like fingers of diction. "Steve" who clearly has NOT read Violence Unveiled with such care that he arrogates to himself.

But let us not bother our heads any longer, gentle reader, on such trolls as "Steve". The Mass'keteers are too magnanimous to let such criticism tarry long on our manly arms and pates and shields! True, we be but humble men-at-arms, ever seeking God's grace to perfect our imperfect and fallen natures, NOT climbing Gnostic heights in "purified philosophies of being." A pox on such Gnostic tripe and piffle. If you want that, "Steve", go read The DaVinci Code.

So, run the good race of faith, fight the good fight!

Not Sherlock's Old Toby

Britain's Bloodhound - capable of 1,000 mph?

Peering Into the Abyss

From New Oxford Review's contributing writer Maria Hsia Chang, Professor Emerita of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Reno, and Adjunct Professor at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Graduate Theological Union, in Berkeley, California, during the 2008 spring semester. When a man looks into an abyss, the abyss also looks into him.

"I THINK THE JOKER KILLED HEATH LEDGER." So writes licensed attorney and former public defender Jay Gaskill in his review of The Dark Knight. Gaskill is not being melodramatic; he is simply stating what other reviewers only hint at.

The Dark Knight, the latest Hollywood incarnation of the superhero Batman, broke records for best opening weekend at $158.4 million. The movie ranked top in box-office sales for four consecutive weekends, pushing its domestic total to a staggering $461 million, and making The Dark Knight second only to the all-time box-office champion The Titanic.

No doubt, many went to see The Dark Knight out of a macabre curiosity because of the untimely death of one of its lead actors. On January 22, 2008, six months before the movie's opening, Heath Ledger was found unconscious in his Manhattan apartment. Paramedics called to the scene could not revive him. The medical examiner later determined that the 28 year old had died from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs -- a lethal brew of sleeping pills, anti-anxiety medication, and the painkillers oxycodone and hydrocodone.

Reviewers have lauded The Dark Knight for its fine acting. In particular, Ledger's "electrifying" performance is singled out for praise; there is increasing talk of a posthumous Academy Award. His face caked with moldy makeup, with black-shadowed eyes, a red-smeared mouth, and yellowing teeth, Ledger's character, the Joker, is more than a sociopathic master criminal. Instead, reviewers use the language of the supernatural, calling him "demonic" and "diabolical" -- "a hound fresh out of hell," "a vivid, compelling picture of naked, nihilistic evil…with almost preternatural power," "a truly frightening vision," and "like Satan." Michael Caine, who plays Batman's butler Alfred, said that he found Ledger's performance so terrifying and disturbing that he sometimes forgot his lines.

Read all …

UPDATE: Nicholson says, “I warned him.”

What to Look For -- Always Choose Life

Great article HERE by Amy Julia Becker, "Babies Perfect and Imperfect".

For a long time, I was looking for answers to questions that were hardly worth asking, and I was trying to recreate my daughter according to a cultural standard of normalcy rather than according to a biblical understanding of full human life. We are created in the image of God, recipients of divine love and grace, and we bear the responsibility and privilege of extending love into the world here and now, and forever more.

Has Anyone Asked Where Change Leads Us?

Following up on Athos' post below.

Lisa Benson puts the right question out there in her editorial cartoon.

Choose Life this November 4.

Write Your Own Caption - Via Fr Z

The B - I - B - L - E, Yes That's The Book ...

Until we get the Gloria TV video (below) to keep itself within the bounds of its incredibly important and over-sized message, allow me to offer, gentle reader, a fine essay by fellow convert and apologist Mark Shea, Tools for Thinking Sensibly About Scripture from insidecatholic.com.

For some folks, it takes a lot to dispel the myth of the hyper-controlling Church that only permits Bible study among the faithful after the insertion of the Vatican Orbital Mind Control Laser Platform chip in the frontal lobe of the brain. Indeed, it may come as a shock to such folk to discover that the Church offers us only three measly guidelines when pointing the faithful toward reading Scripture for its literal sense. Dei Verbum tells us:

1. Be especially attentive "to the content and unity of the whole Scripture";
2. read the Scripture within "the living tradition of the whole Church"; and
3. be attentive to the analogy of faith.

That's it. That's all the mind control the Church offers when it comes to reading the Bible for its literal sense. What do these guidelines mean? In part, as we saw last week, they mean that when you read the Bible, you need to pay attention to what sort of literature you are reading. But other things come in as well.

Keep reading …

Obama, Keyes, and the Supreme Court

Benson, Ham, Bailie & Chivalry

Two young conservative journalists not bowled over by the Big O juggernaut and who want John McCain to win the election do a great service in compiling The comprehensive argument against Barack Obama.

Please note in the first video clip featured in the above: Obama is on the record regarding the first thing he'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. Gil Bailie has noted:

The Freedom of Choice Act would Eliminate:

• State abortion reporting requirements in ALL 50 states
It would render null and void:
• Laws in 44 states requiring parental notification when minors request abortions
• Laws in 40 states laws restricting late-term abortions
• Laws in 46 states providing conscience protection for individual health care providers
• Laws in 27 states providing conscience protection for institutions
• Laws in 38 states banning partial-birth abortions

The bill would abolish all restrictions on government funding for abortions. Once signed into law, therefore – as the Democratic nominee for president has promised to do – all restrictions on abortions would be eliminated and they would be funded by taxpayers, like it or not. Doctors and nurses would risk losing their jobs if they refuse to cooperate.

But there’s more: The Born Alive Infant Protection Act – which would require medical personnel to provide medical care to children who survive an attempted abortion – passed unanimously in the U.S. Senate – all the pro-abortion politicians voting for it. But the Democratic nominee for President, then a state legislator, led the fight against an identical bill in the Illinois legislature.

[ ... ]

When the Rip Van Winkles awaken and rub their eyes, they will find that their children and grandchildren are being taught in public schools that the deeply held moral principles of their parents are not only wrong but morally odious and socially hateful – a hint of what’s to come as the modern intermission in the world’s persecution of the Church draws to a close and Christian faith will be once again entail social opprobrium, legal and financial hardship and more.

If the voters elect the presidential candidate who has made his radical commitment to the culture of death unmistakably clear and his acquiescence in the demise of traditional marriage as clear as political expedience allows – the moral blame will fall very largely on two groups: American journalists and American Catholics. History will judge the former for professional negligence, but the latter will be judged morally and more harshly when the whole sordid episode of abortion becomes as clear in hindsight as the Nazi Holocaust is today. The past is prologue. God and posterity will hold us accountable.

KEEP praying. KEEP working. KEEP trusting. This work is about saving the children, our marriages, our families - all the basics of God's Natural Laws against a culture of death and unconscious, ignorant neopaganism.

Our work is that of chivalry. Keep at it, with faith, hope, and charity. In Christ's grace and by his Sacraments sing and work and pray to your last breath.

Let's Wear Out Some Rosary Beads

tip to Athos who pointed us to Creative Minority Report.

"Let's get it close and maybe, just maybe we will find out that Obama has been over-polling once again. In the meantime, let's wear out some rosary beads."

For Our Friend

In the Sun - Joseph Arthur (Performed by Michael Stipe & Coldplay)

I picture you in the sun wondering what went wrong
And falling down on your knees asking for sympathy
And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen
And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in

May gods love be with you
Always
May gods love be with you

I know I would apologize if I could see your eyes
cause when you showed me myself I became someone else
But I was caught in between all you wish for and all you need
I picture you fast asleep
A nightmare comes
You cant keep awake

May gods love be with you
Always
May gods love be with you

cause if I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
If I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
You

I dont know anymore
What its for
Im not even sure
If there is anyone who is in the sun
Will you help me to understand
cause I been caught in between all I wish for and all I need
Maybe youre not even sure what its for
Any more than me

May gods love be with you
Always
May gods love be with you

Mother Teresa told us in 1994 the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion

" ... I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.

"And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.

"By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems.

"And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion.

"Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion."

See or better yet listen to her entire talk at the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast HERE.

This up-coming election will determine our commitment to love and peace. Read the candidates' stance on abortion HERE.

Remember it is all about LIFE! Don't get caught thinking overwise.

* In his book, Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads, Gil Bailie makes the point that 'alethia', the Greek for 'truth', is a compound word: a-(not) + -lethia (forget). Here, truth is literally rooted in remembrance. We need to be vigilant about those determined to silence the voices of memory, especially when it involves muting victims when they give voice to memory.

Read another one's post on choosing life HERE (I got the picture from there).

We pray that you remember (not to forget) to choose LIFE. It matters.

Ohh, NOW I get it

British comedians are your best financial strategists. They saw it all coming a year ago.

tip to Mark at Catholic and Enjoying It!

The Rosary is a School of Contemplation and of Silence - Pope Benedict XVI

Truth Goodness 'n Beauty is the Rosary.

tip to Father Mark at Vultus Christi translating the Holy Father's address at Pompei.

Contemplation and Silence

The Rosary is a school of contemplation and of silence. At a first glance, it may seem like a prayer that accumulates words, one that it is difficult to reconcile with the silence rightly required for meditation and contemplation. In reality, the cadenced repetition of the Ave Maria does not disturb interior silence; on the contrary it calls it forth and sustains it.

Joseph of Nazareth Is a Single-Issue Evangelical -- It is Our Call To Be Like Joseph NOW!

tip to Justin Taylor

Russell Moore delivered a most prophetic messages on Joseph, the demon-fighter and patron saint of the Mass'keteers on October 16, 2008 at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. You can download it here. The title of the sermon was, "Joseph of Nazareth Is a Single-Issue Evangelical: The Father of Jesus, the Cries of the Helpless, and Change You Can Believe In" (Matt 2:13-23).

THIS IS A MUST HEAR SERMON - SORRY IT IS NOT IN HOMILY LENGTH, BUT IT IS AN AWESOME MESSAGE ON SAINT JOSEPH AND ALL FATHERS.

One of the most poignant sections of the sermon comes when Moore makes a comparison between “Christians” of a former generation who tolerated the lynching of African-Americans and “Christians” of this generation who tolerate the atrocity of abortion:

And many of them believe that it is missional to speak to people while blunting or silencing a witness about the life of children so that you can reach them with the gospel. . . Some will tell us there are many other issues: economics, global warming—issues I’m very concerned about too. Previous generations have said that as well. Previous generations of preachers have stood in the pulpit and preached until they were red in the face about card-playing and movie-going and tax-policy and personal morality and tobacco-smoking and a thousand other issues, but would not speak to the fact that there were African-American brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus swinging in the trees! And there is judgment of God upon that. And there is here too.

Read more on the fruits of the Democratic candidate to understand what we are voting for in this upcoming election.

Remember it is all about LIFE! Don't get caught thinking overwise.

Abortion - Moral Crucible of Western Culture

With his usual concise candor, Gil Bailie puts his finger on the moral evil being fought by a Christian minority in America this election season; simultaneously, it is a monstrosity being studiously swept under the political platform of the left:

Imagine what life was like for the average German in the 1930s. The Jews were being rounded up and sent first to ghettos and then to concentration camps while respectable German politicians sought “balanced” their hand-wringing on those matters by pointing to how clever and compassionate their proposals were for improving the tax code or public transportation or working conditions in the armaments industry. This is our situation today.

What, after all, was the moral monstrosity at the heart of both slavery and the Holocaust? It was that a whole class of human beings were morally and legally invisible and therefore exploitable or expendable at the whim of others. This is the crystal-clear moral center of the abortion issue.

If western civilization abandons the most vulnerable and innocent to abortion, it doesn’t deserve to survive, and if it abandons the institution of marriage, it won’t.

Read more …

Follow the Petrol Money

Not since Robert Redford's depiction of The Candidate (1972) has such a brazenly cynical approach to the presidency been enacted. But now, it is happening in real time. And, strangely (?), during a financial crisis (??).

The only normative voiced against the single most pro-abortion (read: structurally in favor of demographic winter to western civilization) presidential candidate in United States history is this:

Follow the money, and it reeks of petrodollars.

SBS -- Special Base Support -- Choose Life

A reminder that pit bulls have a tender side, too.



Remember, it is all about LIFE! Don't get caught thinking overwise.

Say Again

Great quote find by D'artagnan.

"Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds."

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

McCain - Messiah Is Above My Pay Grade

Badabing! [ht: Creative Minority Report]

Is a sign of worry a sign of who you serve?

Can it be said so clearly?

A Bright, Shiny Object to Behold

I know you think the outcome is inevitable; that is part of the dismaying power of the primitive sacred at work. It smells of fear and cabal-like conspiracy, but it is actually (merely? too light a word) caused by tapping into our cultural hard-wiring, if you will, which is vvvery hard-wired.

Take for example such a simple fact of Natural Law as the need for offspring. Why, for pity's sake, would the anthropological record with near universal agreement say that firstborn were routinely sacrificed? Why, to insure more offspring, of course. Huh!? Sure! Offer the gods our first as a token of our supreme obeisance, and more kids will come.

( It's like the guy who got tired of his neighbor playing his trumpet every morning at 6 a.m. "Joe, JOE!" "Yes?" "Why the heck are you playing the trumpet every morning at 6?" "To keep the elephants from stampeding." "Whu ... Joe, what elephants? There aren't any elephants!" "See how well it works?" )

So, why then is the messiah-esque candidate so chuck-full of contradictions, doubts of U. S. born-citizenship (why can't we see the actual birth certificate?), infanticide proponency, and many more question marks swirl in his sacred precinct - yet he just keeps smiling, bemusedly, and his juggernaut campaign keeps rolling on?

The mighty O has tapped into, unconsciously to be sure, but tapped into just the same, the depths of the primitive sacred this Season of Broken Flutes. He is Tezcatlipoca. And the voice of the people is the voice of god. Vox populi, vox dei.

Broken Flute Season

Even the NYT admits it: Obama prepares how? Style over substance. Of course, that is what the MSM and his devoted Obamessiah-niks want. It is the age of "We watched Starsky and Hutch, the Smurfs, and Fresh Prince growing up. To hell with you Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best jerks."

On a more sophisticated level of discourse, our age desires Tezcatlipoca, not the fuddy-duddy Quetzalcoatl: the fascinating, irresistible, razmataz of the "observed of all observers."

If this is sheer gobbledegook to you, I apologize, and I guide you to Bailie's Violence Unveiled, or, for a fictional didactic version, The Dionysus Mandate.

Either way, you and I find ourselves in the maelstrom of the primitive sacred, this masculine "season of the witch," called the presidential campaign '08. Hang on to your hat, and pray

A Prophetic Voice

Wow - this man has something to say, and I have not heard it said better. Watch him carefully when he refers to Planned Abortions-R-Us Parenthood [ht: IBA]

Object of (Disordered) Desires

Alice Ramos, a philosopher in the field of aesthetics, opines on the human need for beauty, which Alexander Solzhenitsyn thought that in our time would be called to soar to the place once occupied by truth and goodness and thereby 'complete the work of all three'.

Martin Sheen - Nix I1000

Martin Sheen does his bit against Initiative 1000: [ht: Mark Shea]

Mark Steyn - Indefinable Messiah

Speaking personally, I’m not looking for a messiah in the White House. My favorite Presidential heritage site is the Coolidge homestead in Plymouth Notch, Vermont: I have seen the mausoleums of mighty kings, but none compares to the row of headstones on a snowbound hillside cemetery, seven generations of Coolidges lined up in a row, all buried under simple, bald granite markers with only an all but imperceptible small American eagle to distinguish the 30th president from his forebears and descendants. The American ideal: the citizen-president.

Read more of Definable Only by His Vibe

C'mon, Move to Canada!

Ever dream of that land of Rousseau-esque dreams? Tired of Republicans in the White House four more years? Mark Shea offers this for the discerning members of Expatriot Liberal Intellectual Theocracy Escape Plan! You betcha!

St Denis Patron Saint of Possessed People (also patron saint of France)

Here is the word for the day: Cephalophoric - literally means head carrying. According to the Golden Legend, after his head was chopped off, Denis picked it up and walked two miles, preaching a sermon the entire way.

Saint Denis, whose feast day it is today, is also patron saint against headaches.

Enough of This 'Devout Catholic' Thing

Catholic Exchange explains:
If you are not Catholic, and you are trying to sell yourself to Catholics, simply describe as “devout” any supporter of yours who is a carbon-based life form with a pulse that shows up in Mass now and then because, well, that’s the AP style manual term for “Catholics who have been to Mass sometime in the past couple of years who support abortion, gay marriage, and like to talk about being green.”

Truth be told, the Culture of Death has done a stunningly good (sic) job of shutting down discourse on abortion and other satanic, de rigueur events enervating the remnants of Christendom during this presidential campaign season. The supporters of at least one of the candidates think that if he flatulates, it's Mozart.

It isn't "leftist" or "rightist" agendas we are struggling against. Humans succumbed to "luciferian logic" are under the influence of forces far greater than puny human reason, regardless of PhDs, etc. The blinders of such conventional reasoning literally turn a blind eye to the sacrificial elements involved ('abortion and other satanic events' above) ipso facto. Of course - it is part of conventional human culture whose origin is directly linked to the primitive sacred. Our enemies are legion.

Existentialist Football

Somebody get help to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Or, in the words of Cab Calloway to Jake, ”You get to choich!”

Aña and Mike Tie the Knot

A super duper batch of photos and a vvery proud pop: Gil Bailie shares wedding pictures of his daughter, Aña's and her new husband, Mike Orsi, here. Joy, blessings, and "Here's hail! for the rest of the road," from the Mass'keteers!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T One Another - Do we know how today?

Interesting article in Prism magazine by Bruce Wydick that I found over at The Dawn Patrol.

Below is how Wydick explains his goal in writing about this subject.

My goal here is to help us understand why sex outside of marriage violates God’s laws and to reconnect it to some of the basic guidelines we find in Scripture concerning love for our neighbor, social justice, and a respect for the welfare of other human beings.

I will attempt to demonstrate why I believe sex outside of marriage violates these core values and is not an arbitrary rule imposed by a God who wants to ruin all our fun. On the contrary, I believe that the more closely we study this issue, the more we discover that God’s laws reveal his deep love for us as a creator who desires genuine happiness for us.

He builds a good case however I have to agree with Andie, who left this comment on Dawn's blog;
The analogy is very good, but would be better if it were extended to men and women (who are both exploited, both in industry and in our sexual culture).

I've often noted that arguments for chastity focus on the emotional well-being of women while ignoring that of men, as if men are impervious to harm from extramarital sex. This seems, to my admittedly unstudied mind, to deny the critical truth that men are human too, and as such carriers of the same dignity (and emotion) as women.

It also seems to indirectly make chastity a matter of taking care of fragile, emotional women, which is selling it short. Chastity is about women and men respecting and looking after each other, mutually and with charity.

To me we commit violence on both women and men when we over-simplify the biological differences the way that Wydick does however his connection of the "love your neighbor" macro and the micro with a sense of social justice is solid. I also like his analogy:

—consensuality is an insufficient condition for social justice. But many male college students today will sleep out on the steps of the Capitol protesting sweatshop labor and then sleep with their girlfriends, completely unaware of the inherent contradictions of their beliefs and lifestyle.

and his closing argument...

...sexual purity is at its root an act of social justice, and understanding this can help us to steer clear of sexual landmines. Because God is good, walking in obedience to his ways is what will ultimately give us the most joy.

Can you imagine all the "liberal" social justice crowd realizing that sexual purity is at the root of their cause and in fact at the very root of their being?

Obama Youth - Sing for Change - As History Repeats Itself?

They sing, "We're going to spread happiness...we're going to spread freedom..."

Our Lady of the Rosary

The Battle of Lepanto - Paolo Veronese

Pope St. Pius V established this feast in 1573. The purpose was to thank God for the victory of Christians over the Turks at Lepanto - click here for survey of the battle - a victory attributed to the praying of the Rosary. Clement XI extended the feast to the universal Church in 1716.

The development of the Rosary has a long history. First, a practice developed of praying 150 Our Fathers in imitation of the 150 Psalms. Then there was a parallel practice of praying 150 Hail Marys. Soon a mystery of Jesus' life was attached to each Hail Mary. Though Mary's giving the Rosary to St. Dominic is recognized as unhistorical, the development of this prayer form owes much to the followers of St. Dominic. One of them, Alan de la Roche, was known as "the apostle of the rosary." He founded the first Confraternity of the Rosary in the 15th century. In the 16th century the rosary was developed to its present form—with the 15 mysteries (joyful, sorrowful and glorious). In 2002, Pope John Paul II added the Mysteries of Light to this devotion.

- Americancatholic.org

The greatest retelling of the victory at Lepanto is by G. K. Chesterton in his epic poem of the same name.

Fr Barron - Religulous

I have set before you life and death... Choose life!

Deut 30:11-20 "For this command which I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you. It is not up in the sky, that you should say, 'Who will go up in the sky to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'

Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?' No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.

"Here, then, I have today set before you life and prosperity, death and doom.

If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.

If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods, I tell you now that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land which you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.

I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land which the LORD swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."


We are given a choice: life, from conception through to natural death, where all prosperity and good come from or death where greed and evil dwell in our hearts. We have a choice THIS election and we pray that we, in this country, "heed the voice of the LORD, your God, and keep his commandments and statutes" (Deut 30:10a).

See THIS LINK for a clear remembrance* of life for these are real babies.

* In his book, Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads, Gil Bailie makes the point that 'alethia', the Greek for 'truth', is a compound word: a-(not) + -lethia (forget). Here, truth is literally rooted in remembrance. We need to be vigilant about those determined to silence the voices of memory, especially when it involves muting victims when they give voice to memory.

Lord, in Your Mercy

Hear Our Prayer

It is becoming clearer that a majority of United States citizens do not, unlike orthodox Catholics, see things like Archbishop Charles Chaput, who writes, "Many social issues are important. Many require our attention. But some issues have more weight than others. Deliberately killing innocent human life, or standing by and allowing it, dwarfs all other social issues ... "

They would, it seems, rather vote for an inexperienced junior U. S. Senator with a sterling record voting pro-abortion for President.

From this falling stone of murdering the God-given new life in a mother's womb, comes an avalanche of succubi all highly fashionable and tantalizing to the denizens of modernity: freedom from responsibility, a pipe dream of financial security, euthanasia, degeneracy, false transcendence of paganism - a veritable worshiping the pantheon of the worst elements of fallen humanity's instincts, drives, and passions - all under the aegis of luciferian logic, a hierarchy of secular academic degrees and other verisimilitudes of sanction that the world offers.

So, my Mass'keteers and I will continue our vigilant efforts of Catholic chivalry - prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action - in devotion to Our Lady and her great Lord. And we will proffer the following, hoping against hope that the Holy Spirit will move more hearts before the fateful vote.

NYT - Liars

Nice try, pagans dissemblers.

St. Francis & Radical Lady Poverty

Image by Sr. Kay Francis Berger OSF

Excerpt from Poverty of Spirit

by Johannes Baptist Metz

The innate Poverty of Humanity

When we encounter Jesus Christ, we become sharply aware of our innate poverty as human beings. We see then the dire want of a person who lives on the bread of eternity, whose food is to do the will of God (ch. Jn 4:54).

Did not Jesus live in continual dependence on Someone else? Was not his very existence hidden in the mysterious will of the Father? Was he not so thoroughly poor that he had to go begging for his very personality from the transcendent utterance of the Father?

We are all beggars. We are all members of a species that is not sufficient unto itself. We are all creatures plagued by unending doubts and restless, unsatisfied hearts. Of all creatures, we are the poorest and the most incomplete. Our needs are always beyond our capacities, and we only find ourselves when we lose ourselves.

We cannot rest content in ourselves. In the elements and experiences of our life, to which we give meaning, we do not find satisfying light and protective security. We only find these things in the intangible mystery that overshadows our heart from the first day of our lives, awakening questions and wonderment and luring us beyond ourselves. We surrender ourselves to this mystery, as a person in love surrenders to the mystery of the beloved and there finds rest. We are creatures whose being is sheltered and protected only insofar as we open ourselves up to intangible, greater realities. We are at peace in the open, unconquered precincts of mystery.

If we leave our dreamy conceptions aside and focus on our naked poverty, when the mask falls and the core of our Being is revealed, it soon becomes obvious that we are religious "by nature," that religion is the secret dowry of our Being. In the midst of our existence there unfolds the bond (re-ligio) that ties us to the infinitely transcendent mystery of God, the insatiable interest in the Father that captivates us and underlines our poverty...

The unending nature of our poverty as human beings is our only innate treasure. We are unlimited indigence since our very self-possession, the integrity and lucidity of our coming-to-Being, spring not from ourselves but from the intangible mystery of God. The ultimate being is the ecstatic appearance of Being, and becoming fully human is an ever growing appropriation of this ecstasis of Being. This demands an attentive receptivity and obedient assent to the total claim and inescapable quandary that the mystery of God poses to our human existence.

Although we do not choose to be religious or nonreligious in regard to our innermost Being, nonetheless we are faced with the choice implied in self-acceptance or self-alienation. We can surrender to the ecstatic poverty of our Being, through "poverty of spirit" abiding in it... But we can also dissemble our dependence on God, close in upon ourselves, "take scandal" at our innate poverty. The temptation to do this is great. The radical indigence of our humanity has something repulsive about it. It devastates us, tears down self-created defenses and jars us out of the familiar, routine horizon of everyday life.

All too easily, we live alienated from the truth of our Being. The threatening "nothingness" of our poor infinity and infinite poverty drives us hither and thither among the distractions of everyday cares. We run away from the "night," with its fear and trembling before the truth of our Being, into the bright lights of easily understood platitudes. St. Paul termed this as seeking the security of the "Law," a security that distorts the elusive mystery and open authenticity of our Being...

Left to ourselves, we still remain the prisoner of our own Being. We cannot successfully hide for long our mysterious Being. If we attempt this, the truth of our Being haunts us with its nameless emissary: anxiety. This becomes the prophet of the repressed mystery of our Being; with its alienation, anxiety takes the place of the scorned poverty. In the final analysis we have one of two choices: to obediently accept our innate poverty or to become the slave of anxiety. (pp 25-28)

Cantalamessa - Vineyard Then and Now

Gospel Commentary for 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

By Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap

ROME, OCT. 3, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The immediate context of the parable of the murderous tenants of the vineyard is the relationship between God and the people of Israel. It is to Israel that God first sent the prophets and then his own Son.

But similar to all of Jesus’ parables, this story has a certain openness. In the relationship between God and Israel the history of God’s relationship with the whole of humanity is traced. Jesus takes up and continues God’s lament in Isaiah, which we heard in the first reading. It is there that we find the key to the parable and its tone. Why did God “plant a vineyard” and what are the "fruits" that are expected, which God will come to look for?

Here the parable does not correspond to reality. Human beings do not plant vineyards and dedicate themselves to its care for the love of the vines but for their own benefit. God is different. He creates man and enters into a covenant with him, not for his own benefit, but for man’s benefit, out of pure love. The fruits that are expected from man are love of God and justice toward the oppressed: all things that are for the good of man, not God.

This parable of Jesus is terribly relevant to our Europe, and in general to the Christian world. In this context, too, we must say that Jesus has been “cast out of the vineyard,” thrown out of a culture that proclaims itself post-Christian, or even anti-Christian. The words of the vineyard tenants resound, if not in the words at least in the deeds, of our secularized society: “Let us kill the heir and the inheritance will be ours!”

Read all …

Francis Beckwith - Return to Rome

This looks like good reading come November: Return to Rome – Confessions of An Evangelical Catholic.

"It's About Real Babies"

Amy Welborn reminds us of what we wish was obvious in this season of straw men: Remember: it’s about real babies.