…oh, there’s some words I want to use…

President Barack Obama will not meet the Dalai Lama during his five-day trip to the U.S. capital beginning on Monday, the first time in 18 years the exiled Tibetan leader has visited Washington without seeing the president.

For crying out loud, at least for once side with right and decency….

Indeed:

The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between. – Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

If we can hold to a lie – that abortion is ok – then we are capable of all manner of evil. It is as simple as that.

Real martyrs – not bloodthirsty murderers pretending to be such, but meek people spreading the word and paying for it with their lives:

A ministry that assists the persecuted Church worldwide is trying to put pressure on North Korea’s communist government, after a Christian was executed there for distributing the Bible.

Activists in South Korea reported recently that communist officials in North Korea publicly executed a 33-year-old mother of three. Ri Hyon Ok…

…Jim Jacobson, president of Christian Freedom International, says the execution signals a major change in the crackdown on religion in North Korea. He believes the house church movement will be strengthened by the senseless murder.

“There’s a really opposite and equal reaction to this that means more Bibles will probably go in as a result of this. Christians will be evermore strengthened in their faith, as unbelievable as that sounds,” he admits. “The more you persecute Christians, the more Christianity thrives.”

My heart falters when I read such things, wondering if I would have the courage to accept such a fate. I simply don’t know – but I do know courage and faith, and this is it.

Putting things in proper perspective:

God doesn’t require us to succeed; he only requires that you try.

Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness. – Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

It is, in a very real sense, upon us – the barbarians are not at the gates, but are amidst us:

I bet it never crossed the minds of many living during the Dark Ages that they were particularly dark, or of those living during the decline and fall of the Roman Empire that it was speedily declining, let alone falling. Since the Owl of Minerva flies at dusk, and hindsight is 20/20, it appears to be an inexorable law of both history and human nature that men recognize the “signs of the times” only after those times have passed.

One of the most astute “sign readers” of today is the reigning Pope. Here is one of Benedict XVI’s most startling yet accurate readings: “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goals one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” If I might put it into less philosophical terms, what the Holy Father is telling us is that Western culture is descending into barbarism.

We tend to associate barbarism with images of primitive savages looting and pillaging villages, razing the walls of cities, and enslaving women and children. However, the Holy Father is suggesting here an entirely new kind of barbarism, one with a distinctly spiritual character. Civility is the quality of soul and society by which we recognize not only that other people exist, but also that they have the right to our courtesy, dignity, and respect. Civilization, then, as the opposite of barbarism, is founded upon the recognition of the dignity and rights of the other. Thus, a culture in which “the highest goals [are] one’s ego and one’s own desires” is the very definition of barbaric.

And so we abort, we euthanize, we enslave – heck, we even vandalize when we consider the plague of graffiti and the installation of “art” which would have made Attila the Hun puke. Future generations will marvel that the bigoted, narrow-minded barbarians who are destroying civilization consider themselves a breath of fresh air – in the strange days of today, the painted savage holds himself to be freer than the dedicated father. Very weird.

But, also, very dangerous. The gladitorial games of ancient Rome didn’t just spring up out of nowhere. They started off slowly and, to a certain extent, even respectably…but time went on and eventually people were being fed to lions for the amusement of a jaded, degraded mob which told itself, over and over again, that it was civilized. We aren’t yet at the point where we are lighting dissidents up as torches at our garden parties, but we’re not too many steps away from that sort of thing…and the oddest turn of all is that it is, once again, Christians who are being prepared for the lions, just as in the old days.

Its going to be a long fight to save the remnants of civilization and then rebuild it, but with leaders like Benedict XVI, we will do it – and there will be, once again, a time when people appeal to our noblest selves rather than pitch to the lowest common denominator.

Freedom is a duty:

When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society. – John Paul II

This will certainly spark a great deal of debate:

Vatican City, Jun 14, 2009 / 07:28 am (CNA).- On Saturday Pope Benedict XVI explained that his upcoming encyclical will not be a massive criticism deeming the market economy to be responsible for the current global financial crisis. Rather, it will be a presentation of the values that have to be “promoted and defended tirelessly” to achieve “human coexistence in freedom and solidarity.”

Pope Benedict made his comments while receiving participants in the international congress “Values and news for a new model of development,” organized by the Vatican Foundation “Centesimus Annus.”

The foundation was named after the last social encyclical of Pope John Paul II.

In his brief message, Pope Benedict revealed that his upcoming encyclical “Veritas in Caritate,” expected for June 29, will be dedicated to “the extensive issue of the economy and labor.”

“The financial crisis that has hit the most developed countries and the emerging economies as well as the underdeveloped countries shows in a very evident manner how much it is needed to rethink some of the economic-financial paradigms that have been predominant in the last years,” the Pope said.

Attentive readers will realize that capitalism, as a thing, has been on the skids with me of late – actually, for about four or five years. Its not that there’s anything better than the free market but that there is something wrong with people making billions of dollars without producing any goods for the free market. If what we’re doing is just moving money around in a game of economic roulette, then I want no part of it. Always keep in mind, however, that given a choice between Big Government and Big Corporation, I’ll side with Big Corporation…better a dozen idiotically run corporate behemoths than one hideously bad government run behemoth. Freedom is the key for me – if it allows for freedom in the market, it is good; if it doesn’t, it is bad. A “general store” is a good thing; a “general motors”, is a bad thing.

Our liberal friends get it wrong because, of course, they are using 19th century solutions (warmed-over Marxism, that is) designed to fix 18th century problems (most notably the transition from a feudal to a free market) – coupled with this is an insensate desire to have everything come out just-so and, viola!, we’ve got people thinking that a few bureaucrats in DC should manage our health care. What is needed is not the substitution of dimwitted empire-building bureaucrats for venal corporate apparatchiks – what is needed is for people to be allowed to make their own living as far as possible without let or hindrance from any one else, or at least from any large institution. To nutshell it – as Chesterton said, the problem with Capitalism isn’t isn’t too many Capitalists, but too few. We need to have economic power descend down to the lowest level possible. I work for a corporation ultimately headquartered 6,000 miles away from my office…how in heck is that person 6,000 miles away to have even the faintest notion what I’m doing, or what is best for me to do? I’d do better – and the world would do better – if the decisions effecting me were made by me, or at most by a person one or two steps above me. So, too, with all else in the world.

I think what got me working towards this view was the social security debate – the realization came that the government was taking from me the wherewithal I needed in order to be, at least at some point, financially independent of both corporate and government America. I didn’t like working for a corporation (still don’t) and I sure as heck don’t want to wait until I’m 67 for permission from the government to retire. Suppose I were to work hard, save my money, invest it wisely and build up a sufficient nest egg by 55 that I could tell both corporation and government to go jump in a lake? I’ll do what I wish at that point, thanks very much – heck, I might even decide to work until I’m 90…but it will be because I want to, not because I need to…and I won’t quick working because its time for me to get a monthly check from my government masters.

The true test of an economic activity is if it increases the wealth of society – if it doesn’t increase the amount of wealth, then it should be discouraged; if it does, then even if you have to subsidize it out of the public coffers, that is better than leaving it left undone. Quick examples: suing people over car accidents doesn’t increase societal wealth; starting up a landscaping service does – more important, then, to society, is landscapers while less important, lawyers. We should be encouraging people to get into landscaping, discouraging people from getting into law. Plumber, good. CPA, bad. Steel manufacturer, good. Community organizer, bad. Farmer, good. DMV employee, bad (yeah, I know that, as individuals, they are fine people – but, come on, do we really need that many people to register cars even when the ownership doesn’t change in a particular year?).

The reason that increasing wealth is good, and should be encouraged, is because it means there will be, year by year, fewer people in poverty and for those who remain in poverty, more resources to assist them. In point of fact, anything which tends to be a dead weight on wealth creation tends towards the immoral because it keeps more people in poverty and lessens the resources available to help them. Every time someone gets in to a car accident and believes he’s won the lottery and deserves a large insurance settlement, that person (and his lawyer) are stealing food out of the mouths of the poor, in a sense.

I don’t know what the Pope’s encyclical will exactly say, but I’ll bet it will be along the lines of the necessity of economic activity having a positive moral benefit to society. It should provide wealth, health, contentment – if it doesn’t, then not only should it not be done, but it should be positively discouraged. In light of such a desired outcome, I can’t think of any argument against devolution of power down to the lowest level possible – political power and economic power. If we allow people to do, they will do – hem them in with a thousand restrictions and they’ll do that much less, and demand that much more, because they can’t get it on their own. Down with Big Government, down with Big Corporation – up with people, the dignity of work, the honor of independence, the responsibility of liberty.

And, in passing, wonder just how such a man could get appointed to begin with:

Several Catholic leaders have issued a letter to President Obama calling for the ouster of Harry Knox, who has severely criticized Pope Benedict XVI and other Catholic Church leaders, from President Obama’s Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Knox is the director of the religion and faith program at the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual activist group.

Knox’s selection as one of the members of the advisory council stirred an angry response from Catholics, as Knox insisted he stood by previous comments calling Pope Benedict XVI “morally reprehensible” for not supporting the use of condoms…

…In 2007, Knox called it “immoral and insulting to Jesus” when the bishop of Cheyenne, Wyoming instructed that an activist lesbian couple not receive Communion.

The Bay Area Reporter in 2009 also quoted Knox calling the Knights of Columbus “foot soldiers of a discredited army of oppression,” and said they followed “discredited leaders,” including bishops and Pope Benedict.

Prominent Catholic figures including House Republican Leader John Boehner, Catholic League Presidnet Bill Donohue, American Life League’s Judie Brown, and members of the Family Research Council have expressed their concern to Obama, citing Knox’s remarks as proof he is “unfit to serve” on an advisory board billed as fostering interfaith cooperation.

Can’t get a lot of cooperation from people you not only hate, but demonstrate you hate on repeated occasions. Just how does a bigot like Knox even get considered for a position designed to foster cooperation? What’s next? The Grandmaster of the KKK to run the United Way?

Knox has to go – and Obama has to apologize for being within a country mile of such a person.

And this is, perhaps, a step towards holding such famed and allegedly Catholic politicians as Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry to account:

According to the Washington Times, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington plans to maintain the pastoral request Kathleen Sebelius’ bishop made in 2007 asking her not to receive Communion.

Governor of Kansas Kathleen Sebelius is looking to move to Washington D.C. to become the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Sebelius is President Obama’s second nominee to the post after Tom Daschle withdrew from consideration after it was revealed he failed to pay $140,000 in taxes.

Gov. Sebelius has both political and religious controversy surrounding her, with her local bishop, Archbishop Joseph Naumann asking her to refrain from Holy Communion for her “30-year history of advocating and acting in support of legalized abortion.” The archbishop told CNA that he came to the point of asking the governor to refrain from Communion after speaking with her over a two-year period at various levels.

Upon hearing that she was nominated by President Obama, Archbishop Naumann wrote in his weekly column in The Leaven that “her appointment to HHS is particularly troubling.”

If Sebelius’ nomination as HHS Secretary is accepted and she moves to Washington D.C., she will face the same request to not receive Communion.

Believe what you want to believe – but if you are to go into your public life and claim the mantle of “Catholic”, then there are some requirements one will be held to. For far too long, in my view, Catholics who subscribe to a decidedly anti-Catholic world view and/or are unwilling to fight for Catholic truth have been given a pass by the Church, thus leading to confusion among the faithful as to what the Church teaches on the crucial issues of the day. Of course, I’m a lot more impatient than I should be, and the Church – by taking its time – might just be acting in a more Christian manner than I’m currently capable of achieving. Be that as it may, I welcome this move.

In an age of lies, in a time of great moral confusion, what is needed is truth and clarity. Better for there to be a smaller Church more strictly faithful to Truth than a larger Church not adhering to any truth at all. Once upon a time, the Church was a dozen men plus a few others…but those dozen men were strong in their faith and insistent upon speaking genuine truth. And so the dozen became millions. And so it will again, if it comes to that, provided we hold firm to Truth.

Setting the record straight on just what is at issue with Sebelius’ abortion position, and what Archbishop Naumann is doing by denying her communion:

Your Excellency: As you know the Governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, is a Catholic with a long record of supporting abortion and has been nominated by President Obama to be the director of Health and Human Services.

Last year you wrote the governor a letter asking that she refrain from presenting herself to receive Holy Communion because she was not in communion with the Catholic Church and its teachings. Can you explain what prompted you to do this?

Archbishop Naumann: I had entered into a rather long dialogue with the governor over many months, trying as best as I could, to make her aware of the seriousness of her past actions as well as her present positions. Following our long conversations and additional actions on her part, such as vetoing a bill that was aimed at trying to regulate abortion clinics, I first asked her, privately in a letter, not to present herself for Communion for her own integrity and for her own spiritual welfare. My intention was not to make that public.

It was only subsequent to that when in March of the following year she presented herself for communion at one of our parishes and the pastor informed me that I wrote her again renewing my request. I informed her that I would make the request public because, in addition to my concern for her spiritual wellbeing, I was also very concerned about others being misled by her presenting herself as a faithful Catholic while holding positions that were completely contrary to our teaching on the sanctity of human life.

In many circumstances the media has tried to politicize the issue saying that you are abusing your pastoral authority to influence politics. How would you respond to that?

Archbishop Naumann: My intention and my aim have not been to influence politics at all. In fact the timing on all of this was really dictated by the governor’s own actions. It was not, for example, juxtaposed to an election. My concern was, first of all, for her spiritual welfare and then secondly, and equally important, to protect the rest of my flock from being misled by her actions.

Frequently I received letters from people who were outraged at how the governor continued to go to Communion and yet consistently over the years aggressively supported legalized abortion. I was not principally concerned with the people who were writing me letters because they understood the contradiction. My greater concern was the larger number of faithful who were not writing letters and who were subject to being confused and might be thinking that perhaps the Church did not really see this as all that serious of an issue. My motivation was primarily to protect the Church and her teaching, as well as to protect our people from being misled.

We Catholics were shocked at the number of Catholics hoodwinked into voting for Obama last year and the determination becomes ever stronger that, at least, no Catholic have the excuse of ignorance regarding such things. After Vatican II and Humanae Vitae there seeped into the Church the false belief that the Catholic Church wasn’t too concerned on matters of birth control and abortion – that, some how, Catholic teaching on such matters was officially the same, but not to be taken seriously. This false understanding was advanced with a rhetorical wink and a nudge by various liberal theologians, some of whom were (and are) ordained priests and bishops. This has led to confusion among many Catholics on these issues, and thus left the faithful open to various underhanded appeals by pro-abortion politicians seeking Catholic support.

Obama is just the strongest example of this sort of thing – a radical, pro-abortion leftist he yet managed to convince a large number of Catholics, including a substantial number of strongly practicing Catholics, that his pro-abortion position wasn’t as important as his positions on other aspects of Catholic social teaching, notably Obama’s support for programs allegedly designed to help the poor. What was missing was the complete understanding that it is morally worthless to provide welfare for the poor if you are also murdering as many of the poor as you can – might as well greedily keep all your money to yourself rather than engage in the hypocrisy of donating money to those you permit to survive the abortion gauntlet.

So, on we go – and Archbishop Naumann has laid it out: we are not concerned here, strictly, with politics but in ensuring that all those who voluntarily claim the Catholic faith for their own adhere to the teachings of that faith. No one is forced to be a Catholic, but if you are to take the label of Catholic and/or seek the support of Catholics, an honest adherence to genuine Catholic teaching is required. Naturally, this is treated on the left as an unwarranted breach of the separation of Church and State…but, of course, leftists who believe that sort of thing believe all sorts of other nonsense, and its best to not worry about what they think on such matters…staring too long into an insane abyss runs the risk of going insane, yourself, after all.

We’re here to impart the truth as we know it, not to curry favor with those who disagree with us.

And a timely warning, too:

Canadians packed St. Basil’s Church in Toronto on Monday evening to hear Archbishop Charles Chaput speak about how Catholics should live out their faith in the public square. He warned that in the U.S., Catholics need to act on their faith and be on guard against “a spirit of adulation bordering on servility” that exists towards the Obama administration.

The public lecture by Archbishop Chaput took place on the campus of the University of Toronto at St. Basil’s Church and was attended by an overflow crowd of more than 700 people.

After giving a sketch of the basic principles in his New York Times Bestseller “Render Unto Caesar,” the archbishop offered his insights on the need for an honest assessment of the situation of the Church in the public square.

“I like clarity, and there’s a reason why,” began the archbishop. “I think modern life, including life in the Church, suffers from a phony unwillingness to offend that poses as prudence and good manners, but too often turns out to be cowardice. Human beings owe each other respect and appropriate courtesy. But we also owe each other the truth — which means candor.”

The Denver prelate then provided his critique of President Obama.

“President Obama is a man of intelligence and some remarkable gifts. He has a great ability to inspire, as we saw from his very popular visit to Canada just this past week. But whatever his strengths, there’s no way to reinvent his record on abortion and related issues with rosy marketing about unity, hope and change. Of course, that can change. Some things really do change when a person reaches the White House. Power ennobles some men. It diminishes others. Bad policy ideas can be improved. Good policy ideas can find a way to flourish. But as Catholics, we at least need to be honest with ourselves and each other about the political facts we start with.”

The Archbishop is being a very good Christian when he says that the adulation of Obama is “bordering” on servility. My concern is that it has, at least for some, gone way beyond that. I never thought I’d see such miserable slaves in my life as I see in some of the people who nearly worship Obama, as if he were other than a snappily dressed, well spoken product of Chicago’s hopelessly corrupt Democratic machine. He’s just a man, and not that great a man, into the bargain. Morally he might be splendid (I cannot peer into his soul, of course), but in his public actions, he’s not done anything which warrants anything more than mild approval of the fact that he hasn’t screwed up royally at this point.

Today is Ash Wednesday, and Catholics will go to Mass and have an ashen cross traced on their foreheads – with the words, “Remember, man; dust thou art, and unto dust thou shall return”. I urge the Obamaniacs, Catholic or not, to attend Mass today…you really need to get a grip on the reality of the situation.

From the Book of Matthew, Chapter 5:

¹¹Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

¹²Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Blessed are you, Biship Naumann:

Denver, Colo., Feb 20, 2009 (CNA).- In a startling defense of legal abortion supporter Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Catholics United has attacked Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, accusing him being more interested in trying to score political points against the governor than in crafting effective abortion policy within the reality of politics.

The salvo from Catholics United comes as advisors to President Obama have told the press that he has decided on Sebelius as his next secretary of Health and Human Services nominee.

Kathleen Sebelius, who professes to be Catholic, has a problematic record on abortion.

In the Spring of 2008, Archbishop Naumann met with Gov. Sebelius to ensure that she understood the gravity of her position. After meeting with her, Archbishop Naumann asked her to stop receiving Communion.

As Archbishop Naumann explained to CNA, he requested that Gov. Sebelius stop receiving Communion because of her “30-year history of advocating and acting in support of legalized abortion.”

The Thursday statement by Catholics United, which is mostly dedicated to rebuffing the president of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, marks the first time that the organization has targeted a specific Catholic bishop by name.

Catholics United is but a front for the democrat party, pure and simple. Their website states:

Catholics United is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting the message of justice and the common good found at the heart of the Catholic Social Tradition. 

Apparently, to C.U., the lives of pre-born babies do not figure into their vision of “justice and the common good.”

Hypocrites.

It is my hope that, like Bishop Naumann, more bishops take their role as shepherds of the flock seriously, and fearlessly speak out against Catholics who abandon the sacredness of life in their lust for power.

Not much hope of a turn around, but with Christ all things are possible:

Benedict XVI is urging legislators to uphold the sanctity of human life according to Church teaching, he affirmed in an meeting with U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The Pope received Nancy Pelosi and her entourage briefly today after the general audience, reported a Vatican communiqué.

He “took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death,” the Vatican reported afterward.

The Pontiff added that these teachings “enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.”

Pelosi, naturally, didn’t take the hint – rather than addressing her pro-abortion fanaticism, she opted for lauding the Pope for being a leader on global warming. An issue I was unaware the Pope was leading on. From what I can tell, and pardon me if I haven’t been paying attention, the Pope has been rather on and on about life, morality, human solidarity and such…haven’t heard a lot of pontifical statements on greenhouse gasses.

Be that as it may…

The day of reckoning is coming for American Catholics who presume to have it both ways – be liberal on social issues and remain Catholic. Really, there is no way to reconcile the two. One can be in favor of massive – event socialist – levels of welfare spending and remain a good Catholic, but one can’t be in favor of liberal abortion laws, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, etc, etc, etc and remain a good Catholic. The Pope and other Church leaders are repeating loud and clear the message that a Catholic in the public square must advance Church teaching on the crucial issue of Life, or cease to claim the name of Catholic. Push will come to shove in the next few years, and the Pelosis, Bidens, Kennedys and Kerrys will have a choice to make – renounce their Catholicism, or renounce their culture of death actions.

I do wonder how it will come out – whether our erring brothers and sisters will repent, or whether they attempt to split off and form some sort of “American Catholic Church” where they’ll pretend to be Catholic and then make trouble for the actual Catholic Church in law and regulation? Time will tell.

Obama got his gay supporters fuming by inviting a conservative evangelical to the inaugural, now he’s balancing it out:

Following the row that erupted after pro-marriage and pro-life Saddleback pastor Rick Warren was picked to preside over the main inauguration event, Obama has selected the Episcopal Church’s only openly homosexual bishop to give the main invocation at a Sunday event celebrating Obama’s inauguration, to be held two days later.

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, a central figure in the homosexual clergy controversy that has rocked the worldwide Anglican communion, will deliver his invocation on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

“I’m just overwhelmed and so humbled by this invitation,” said Robinson, who entered into a legal civil union with his long-time partner Mark Andrews in June.

And if that doesn’t satisfy the gay rights movement, I don’t know what will…on the other hand, to have a “bishop” who abandoned his wife to shack up with a guy might cause Christians to be doubtful of the fitness of the Obama event in question.

It does exist, and it is growing:

Bahrain will donate a plot of land to build a new Catholic church in the country. The decision by King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa comes in response to a request Pope Benedict XVI made to the Gulf State when its new ambassador presented its credentials last 18 December.

“Everyone is aware today that because of the rising number of Catholics, it would be desirable for them to have more places of worship,” the Pope said during the audience with Naser Muhamed Youssef Al-Belooshi, first representative of the Arab kingdom to the Vatican.

About 80 per cent of the 800,000 people living in the country are Muslim (60 per cent Sunni and 20 per cent Shia). Catholics represent about 10 per cent, mostly foreign workers from Asian nations.

Bahrain became the first country in the Persian Gulf to build a Catholic church, the Sacred Heart Church, which will celebrate its 70th anniversary this year, since it was inaugurated with a Christmas Midnight Mass in 1939.

Relations between the Holy See and the Gulf kingdom saw significant progress in 2008. Not only did the Vatican receive the first ambassador from Bahrain, but King Hamad met Pope Benedict XVI as well. After the meeting on 9 July the sovereign issued an official communiqué inviting the Holy Father to visit the country.

Over the past year, we’ve had as our associate pastor a foreign priest who has spent time in the Gulf Region and it was he who first brought to my attention the tacit approval given to Christian worship in some of the Gulf States – the Gulf States have imported a great deal of labor and, as it turns out, a lot of it hails from Catholic areas of Asia. Meanwhile, Evangelicals have also been busy and have, indeed, gained converts in the Islamic world. Boiled down, the concept of the Arabian penninsula being entirely Moslem is rapidly collapsing in the face of the demographic facts of Christian immigration. And for these Moslem nations, its either become tolerant or lose their labor force. Most are turning towards toleration – and there is even some discussion about opening a Catholic Church in Saudi Arabia, something which would have been entirely unthinkable even just a few years ago.

A good deal of this progress is resultant upon the quiet diplomacy of the Holy See – patience and tact do go a long ways. But, additionally, there are also the winds of change blowing…including those winds brought forth by the US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The times, they are a-changing, and wise Moslems know they have to bend a bit with the wind, or break. The Islamo-fascists, of course, refuse to bend – but they are more and more being marginalized as Islam begins to develope hope for a better tomorrow, and becomes ever more familiar with the inhuman and, indeed, un-Islamic savagery of the Islamo-fascists.

There should be no turning back from this, and only the most cowardly surrender on the part of the United States can undo the good work well begun.

But not the sort of fight against poverty, perhaps, that we think of here in America:

Presiding over the celebration of Mass for the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God, Pope Benedict XVI re-emphasized the need to fight poverty to build a society of peace. Violence, hatred and mistrust, which he called “forms of poverty,” must be brought to an end, especially in the Holy Land, he exhorted.

The Holy Father began his homily by commemorating the Incarnation, “a light which will not go out and which offers the faithful and men of good will the possibility to construct a civilization of love and of peace.”

“The Second Vatican Council said, in this regard, that ‘by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man,’” the Pope noted.

With his birth in Bethlehem, Benedict XVI said, Jesus reveals to humanity that God chose poverty for himself in his coming among them. “The scene that the shepherds saw first and that confirmed the announcement made to them by the angel is that of the stable where Mary and Jesus looked for refuge and of the manger in which the Virgin laid the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes.”

Turning to today’s celebration of the 42nd World Day of Peace, the Pope explained that its theme– Combating poverty. Building peace– contains two elements: “the poverty chosen and proposed by Jesus and of combating poverty to make the world more just.”

The second consideration is that “there is poverty that God does not want: a poverty that impedes individuals and families from living according to their dignity; a poverty which offends justice and equality and which threatens peaceful coexistence,” the Pontiff said. In addition, he pointed to forms of spiritual poverty: “marginalization and moral and spiritual misery.”

“To combat unjust poverty it is necessary to rediscover sobriety and solidarity, those evangelical and at the same time, universal values,” Pope Benedict asserted.

We wrap ourselves up so much in income levels and judge peoples’ wealth or poverty by the amount of things they have. Now, to be sure, there is actual, physical poverty which we must, as far as possible, end. Those who lack their daily bread, and a roof over their heads, and clothes on their back – they must be succored by a world which does not pause to count the monetary cost of such aid. But while such physical aid has its vital place in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t attack the real poverty of our modern world, which is spiritual.

Most of the people in the world today are poor. Most of the people who have ever lived were born in to poverty and never rose out of it. And yet with poverty being the normal condition of Man, it has only been in the past century or so that we’ve gone down into the depth of human degradation.

In the last century, at least 100 million people were murdered for political reasons. We abort millions of our children every year. Pornography has become mainstream and the objectivication of our fellow human beings – mostly women, but a large number of men, as well – is considered a right so important that we daren’t place even mild restrictions on it. We think people have a right to lie on our streets in their own filth. We’re teaching our children to massacre their school mates. People set off bombs to kill the innocent. These are the actions of people who are spiritually impoverished – people who may, especially in America and the larger West, live in the greatest of ease and surrounded by wealth kings of the past couldn’t dream of, but who are so morally bankrupt that they can’t bestir themselves to even so much as see evil, let alone do anything about it.

We’re given the simple solutions – just give the Palestinians some land. Just provide sex education. Just withdraw from Iraq. Just ban racial profiling at airport security. Just control guns. Just increase foreign aid. Just go through the UN. Just to this. Just to that. Just do the other thing. But almost nowhere in this world is there the leader who doesn’t merely give lip service to the concept of hope, but who seeks to make it manifest. In other words, the leaders who understand that the problems of the day are fundamentally spiritual are few and far between. You could give the Palestinians all the land you want – give them Alaska and throw in half of Canada for good measure, and it won’t change the fact that the people who strap bombs on themselves don’t really need land, they need a moral revival. Provide all the birth control and sex education you want, and it won’t cure the person who has been degraded to the point where they say, “yeah, give me some money and I’ll allow a stranger to f**k me on camera”. Triple the budget for Head Start and develope the most comprehensive anti-violence education in school and it won’t do anything to sway a kid who is learning, step by step, that its cool to take guns to school and massacre the student body. We’re bleeding to death and we keep trying to put a band aid on the societal lacerations.

Sobriety and solidarity are, indeed, the keys to a revived human society and the restoration of an advanced civilization. Sobriety – not just not getting drunk and stoned, but a set of mental attitudes which refuses excess and which places self indulgence on a much lower plain than self sacrifice. Solidarity – an understanding that we really are our brother’s keeper and that even those who are doing the most wicked deeds must not be allowed to make hatred and despair grow in our hearts. Naturally, as a Christian, I believe I know where one can get this – tap in, that is, to the wellsprings of sobriety and solidarity. But not all my brothers and sisters are Christian. But, still, it remains something we must do – Christian or not – in order to survive as humans rather than die off as a failed experiment, or regress entirely into savagery.

Obama holds out the smallest of olive branches to those Evangelical Christians who are his strongest political opponents, and this infuriates those who scream loudest for tolerance:

Barack Obama’s choice of a prominent evangelical minister to perform the invocation at his inauguration is a conciliatory gesture toward social conservatives who opposed him in November, but it is drawing fierce challenges from a gay rights movement that – in the wake of a gay marriage ban in California – is looking for a fight.

Rick Warren, the senior pastor of Saddleback Church in southern California, opposes abortion rights but has taken more liberal stances on the government role in fighting poverty, and backed away from other evangelicals’ staunch support for economic conservatism. But it’s his support for the California constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage that drew the most heated criticism from Democrats Wednesday.

“Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans,” the president of Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solomonese, wrote Obama Wednesday. “[W]e feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination.”

The rapid, angry reaction from a range of gay activists comes as the gay rights movement looks for an opportunity to flex its political muscle. Last summer gay groups complained, but were rebuffed by Obama, when an “ex-gay” singer led Obama’s rallies in South Carolina. And many were shocked last month when voters approved the California ban.

I wonder – are gay rights activists really shocked by the California results? Perhaps – maybe they were believing the propaganda about how gay marriage is becoming more acceptable. But really, when you ram something down the peoples’ throat IN DIRECT DEFIANCE OF THE VOTE OF THE PEOPLE then you have to expect a massive backlash. Gay marriage advocates have no one but themselves to blame for Prop. 8 – no judicial usurpation, no Prop. 8; its really as simple as that. Now, rather than slowly work to convince the people of California to support measures bringing gay marriage ever closer, gay rights advocates will have to fight for the hardest thing they can attempt, amending the California Constitution to repeal Prop. 8. This was an act of political suicide and stupidity which has few parallels in history.

Now comes this – Obama making a gesture, slight as it is, towards those who oppose him. All Warren will do is offer a prayer – he won’t be sitting in Obama Administration meetings as Obama works out his approach to gay issues. In short, his presence is meaningless except as a gesture – where the political rubber meets the road, Warren and those opposed to gay marriage will be nowhere to be found in the Obama Administration. Gay rights advocates, in Obama, have the whole ball of wax, yet they’re angered over a triviality.

Nothing of late has so effectively demonstrated the shrieking, hate-filled bigotry which is prevalent on the left these days – really, boys and girls, the path to tolerance cuts both ways. Get over yourselves.

A man of great faith and great intellect has gone home to Our Lord:

The death of Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, “brings home to God a great theologian and a totally dedicated servant of the Church,” Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), said of the cardinal who died December 12 at Fordham University at the age of 90.

“His wise counsel will be missed; his personal witness to the pursuit of holiness of life as a priest, a Jesuit and a Cardinal of the Church will be remembered and will encourage the Church to remain ever faithful to her Lord and his mission,” Cardinal George said.

“I am deeply saddened at the loss of a personal friend; but I rejoice in the hope that now he sees clearly what he explored so well in his studies on revelation, on grace and on the nature of the Church and the papal office. May he rest in peace.”

Cardinal Dulles, who served as a professor of systematic theology at The Catholic University of America and later as the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham, assisted the USCCB as a key contributor to the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue and to the committee on doctrine.

“For a generation of priests, scholars and faithful, Cardinal Avery Dulles has been a reliable and faithful interpreter of the Second Vatican Council. A number of his books have become classics in theological education, such as Models of the Church,” said Father James Massa, executive director of the Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the USCCB and a student of Cardinal Dulles. “In some ways, his life bears comparison with another great cardinal-theologian, John Henry Newman, on whose birthday, 200 years later, Avery Dulles was created a cardinal of the Catholic Church.” The first U.S. theologian and U.S. Jesuit to be elevated to the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Dulles was, at his own request, not consecrated a bishop, a rare distinction for a cardinal.

I’ve read a bit of Cardinal Dulles’ work, and I stand amazed that he was 90 – as recently as February of this year he was writing this:

Nothing is more striking in the New Testament than the confidence with which it proclaims the saving power of belief in Christ. Almost every page confronts us with a decision of eternal consequence: Will we follow Christ or the rulers of this world? The gospel is, according to Paul, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith” (Rom. 1:16). The apostles and their associates are convinced that in Jesus they have encountered the Lord of Life and that he has brought them into the way that leads to everlasting blessedness. By personal faith in him and by baptism in his name, Christians have passed from darkness to light, from error to truth, and from sin to holiness.

That is the faith of a man fresh to Christianity, and Cardinal Dulles kept it right up to the end, it would seem. No worries about Cardinal Dulles – if faith in Christ brings one to salvation, then I know precisely where he is.

Being interviewed by Hugh Hewitt, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver states clearly the need for injecting faith into politics:

HH: Now Archbishop, let’s dive into the book. Again, for the benefit of people tuning in, it’s Render Unto Caesar: Serving The Nation By Living Our Catholic Beliefs In Public Life. And I want to emphasize, it’s not just for Catholics, though that’s obviously the intent of this. I was trying to figure out your motive, and then I came across a quote from a Vietnamese bishop, later made a cardinal, which was, “The greatest failure in leadership is for the leader to be afraid to speak and act as leader.” Is that part of the motive, Archbishop?

CC: Well, I have a responsibility as a bishop to clearly proclaim the Gospel in its entirety, even when people don’t want me to do that, and even when it’s difficult. So I wouldn’t claim to be particularly courageous, but I feel responsible. And if I don’t speak on the issues that I think the Lord calls me to speak, I feel guilty about that. So for me to be quiet on these issues would have been a harder burden for me to carry, perhaps, than speaking about it. Actually, I mentioned two reasons why I wrote the book. One is some Catholic political folks asked me to, people who ran for office, and were having struggles because of that. But more importantly, I’ve grown tired of so many people in our culture saying to believers that they ought to be quiet, that there’s no place in the public square for the voice of faith. I wanted to make a distinction between separation of Church and state, and separating our faith from our politics. You can embrace the concept of separation of Church and state, but that’s not at all the same thing as separating our faith from our actions, from our political actions.

Bravo, Archbishop! All of the people must be allowed to bring their beliefs into the public square and be allowed argue that their worldview should be adopted, in whole or in part, in law and custom. What the secularists of today are trying to do – especially through such things as the ACLU’s war on Christmas – is to say that the believer, especially the Christian believer, must check his beliefs that door to politics. This attitude is unjust, un-American and, fundamentally, a fascist point of view, and it must be fought against tooth and nail.

I don’t have a right to insist that my fellow citizens worship in the Catholic Church or believe any of the dogmas of the Church. We are free in our consciences. But it is not an imposition of my religion if I convince a constitutional majority of my fellow citizens to enact into law some thing which also happens to be in accordance with Catholic teaching. If what I advocate seems good and true and appears to meet some need identified by the citizenry and the resultant law is enacted under whatever constitutional reguirements prove necessary, then all I’ve done is creat a law – not established a religion or imposed a particular religion on everyone.

Outside of that, I also argue that our secularists are not just wrong to attempt this separation of faith and politics, but are also foolish. The plain fact of the matter is that our way of life is built upon a Judeo-Christian base. The fundamental concept that we, as individuals, are valuable and have endowed rights is a Judeo-Christian concept – cut our politics off from its wellsprings and it will dry up and die. At bottom, if you wish to live your life as an agnostic secularist, you desperately need the cooperation of believers who sustain the concepts which allow you to live as you do.

In our faith we find our true political beliefs, and as long as our political beliefs are grounded in our faith, so they will be healthy and beneficial to the world. Seperate the two and faith will continue to thrive, but politics will die – and with it many of the liberties we cherish.

That was one of the questions at Saddleback, and McCain just flat out answered it – the way he failed in his first marriage. How many of us, I wonder, have the courage to go on television and give that clear a statement? Its on my mind a bit now – of course, the first thing I have to do is go through that mental Rolodex O’ Errors and try to sift down decades of sin into something which is clearly a great moral failure. In the context McCain used, it would have to be something I did which I knew in advance was the wrong thing to do, and yet I went right on and did it, anyways; or something that you know you should of done, but you slunk away from it like a coward. Its one thing to acknowledge in public one is a sinner (heck, from time to time we Catholics even do that in Church – “I confess to you, Almighty God and you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned…”), but there is a gulf between a generalised statement of error and a specific acceptance of responsibility for failure.

Among my errors, I have these two things which weigh upon my mind:

1. Back when I was in the Navy, I stumbled across an attempted racial discrimination against a shipmate, and did nothing about it. Just happened to go into the room just as two very senior white enlisted men were in the process of attempting to screw out of a plumb assignment a black shipmate in favor of a white shipmate. I can take the excuse of youth, but that really doesn’t cut it – I should have done something specific about it, but I didn’t. The screwing failed, probably on account of my interruption of it, but that doesn’t lessen my failure an iota.

2. For very many years, I refused to forgive members of my family for their many failings, as if I were perfect and not in need of forgiveness, too.

As noted, there are many other errors – but my sins of commission pale in comparison, at least in many cases, with my sins of omission. You wish you could go back in time and do it right – but, you can’t; while your sins can be forgiven, they can’t be unmade. Always better to strive to get it right from the start, and forgive those around you who fail, because if you didn’t fail today, then its really more a matter of God’s grace rather than any perfection on your part.