On Fr. Corapi

Only three really good things have been said on the matter.

First, Father Zuhlsdorf of What Does the Prayer Really Say? reminded us that a lot of what is being said is uncharitable, we don't really know the truth, and the best we can do is pray for all of those involved.

Mark Shea has decided to be quiet about it, and he has good reasons for this choice.

Jennifer Fulwiler reminds us: We don't have to worry about his previous teachings. I suggest that going forward, we may wish to examine them for an imprimatur before heeding them.

Mary Help of Sinners, pray for us!

Edit: and now a fourth, from Fr. Gordon Macrae.

Advertisers Filter Your Internet

Just in case you haven't seen this yet:


Are you cool with this? If so, why? If not, why not (and what should we do)?

Maybe as this guy suggests?

You Are Being Watched

It is becoming ever more clear that the only time our government cares at all about privacy is when it is ensuring you won't be prosecuted for sexual deviancy, contraception, or abortion. I recently read a description of the internet that certainly seems to apply: a borderless security and surveillance state.

So what has me going on now? I just ran across ZDNet's series on the ever-so-loathesome USA PATRIOT Act. The summary is here, and includes links to the entire four-part series. Another article there quotes Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) as saying "We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says," in an article titled "The 'REAL' Patriot Act is Classified." Here's ZDNet's source link. Apparently, the interpretation which the Department of Justice relies upon is classified, and cannot be debated openly in Congress without violating classification rules. And this thing has been passed more or less unchanged.

So who thinks the US government is nothing like a tyranny? Who thinks we are protected from it? Who thinks the Fourth Amendment is a dead letter?

Instead of Googling...

Duck it!

I was reading DWW today, and a screenshot in the OpenIndiana review showed what looked like a search engine I wasn't familiar with: duckduckgo.com . It has just taken the place of Google Advanced in my bookmarks. It may replace Wikipedia in my bookmarks; I can search wikipedia with DDG just by using !w [searchterms] in the search command line. They've got similar shortcuts for hundreds of sites. They also have a privacy policy that is vastly superior to Google's, and their normal search methodology is to find some specialized search engine suited to your query and use that, which I think is creative, clever, and elegant.

I'm going to investigate the command syntax to see how flexible it is. I think I'm even going to make it my firefox home page. If possible, I may make it the default search in Chromium. Much to do, much to learn.

Check thou it out!

Blogrollin again

Matthew Archbold relates the scariest conversation he's ever heard. He describes a moment when he looked in a metaphorical mirror and saw not the face of Christ, but of the culture of death.

Powerful stuff.

First to Exit the Blegroll

I am taking down the blegroll entry for Free the Notre Dame 88, a defense fund for the 88 protesters arrested when President Obama delivered the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame . . . because all charges have been dropped!!

Culture of Death, World of Lies

So, Planned Parenthood is complaining about hysterically denouncing any attempts to deny them their place at the federal trough, claiming that millions of women won't be able to get mammograms from them any more. But is that so?



Planned Parenthood provides breast examinations, in which the doctor, nurse practitioner, or unlicensed employee feels you up to see if there are any palpable lumps. But that's not the same thing as a mammogram, which is an X-ray of your breast tissue.

Women In Crisis

Go read this. Do it now. There is nothing I can say that will do anything but detract from the message, other than telling you that you will be glad you did.

video blogrollin

So Marc over at Bad Catholic (see the blogroll) has created a video that he's really proud of for a scholarship competition, promoting the Rite of Reconciliation. I like his video, and you can find it on his blog.

But he likes the following video better, and wants it to win. I understand why PERFECTLY. Watch.

Joyously stolen!

From xkcd, alt text and all:

Nolan Chart

Disaster is Disaster

I've seen opinion pieces talking about how nice it is that so much destruction has occurred in Japan and elsewhere; now we can all get rich helping them clean up and repair!

Walter Williams rightly calls that Economic Lunacy. Nope, the people in Japan are poorer now, and as a result, they are going to have to buy replacements for their homes, cars, clothes, and infrastructure, instead of producing other useful goods. More goods means more wealth and lower prices.

Another example of economic lunacy, by the way, is complaints about the trade deficit. The trade deficit is balanced, CENT FOR CENT, with a foreign investment SURPLUS. It means that foreigners are putting capital into our companies. Furthermore, it means that we are richer than the people we're importing from. Here's a sane explanation:

Oh, woe!

How could I live without filing taxes?



The song is available for free download AND BROADCAST from the Center for Small Government.

On Feminine Beauty

for reasons I don't intend to go into atall, I went back to Waiterrant today. I started from the beginning, clicking through his first few posts until I got to one entitled Leftovers. In it, the Waiter discusses what makes a woman beautiful and desirable, and some of the truly horrific damage some of them do to themselves in pursuit of the Main Stream Media norm of physical perfection, which is utterly divorced from reality. If you doubt it, watch the video.



Deo gratias, my wife is sane. She may not be aware of the Photoshop effect, but she does know how her skeleton is shaped. She eats like a human being, not a famine victim. I love her, she is as beautiful as she could be, and our marriage is a deluge of God's grace into my life.

The Military-Industrial Complex In 5 Minutes

Salute to the Western Confucian.


Subsidies everywhere. Blech.

On Fr. Corapi

I'm not really very familiar with Fr. Corapi. I've seen the video of his conversion story/ testimonial regarding Reconciliation. (Search Fr. Corapi's conversion on YouTube; you'll find it.) But I am aware of a lot of people who dearly love his preaching.

Obviously, I'm writing about the accusations made against him. What do I (or anyone not involved in the case) actually know?

Nothing.

Is it possible he's guilty? Of course; consider the case of Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, another priest noted for holiness with a pretty broad following, who confessed to some wrongdoing.

Is it possible he's innocent? Absolutely. My inclination is to think that his innocence is more believable than his guilt. And unlike Fr. Euteneuer, he claims innocence.

By all means, the best advice is that Fr. Corapi gave in his adamant denial of guilt: pray for ALL of those involved.

Entirely a propos of this, Fr. Gordon MacRae has a post about this. Fr. MacRae knows full well what happens when you fight this sort of allegation. Also a propos is this 2003 article, by a man who ought to know more about what goes on in court when one of the clergy is accused. I urge you to go and read them both.

New Site

I've put a new site in my Catholic Links sidebar, the Magis Center of Reason and Faith, which explains how recent advances in cosmology and physics provide strong support for the ontological proof for God, which has been discounted and marginalized ever since Immanuel Kant. Read and enjoy.

The Draft Is Coming

Salutes to The Western Confucian, leading me to Terry Nelson's Abbey Roads and thence to Catholic Citizens of Illinois.

Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt is convinced that the Armed Forces are about to severely curtail the religious liberty of orthodox Christian chaplains, by forbidding them to denigrate or oppose homosexualism in any way, shape or form, except perhaps from the pulpit. He cites this document. On p24 of the memo (30th page in the PDF) we find

If a chaplain is unable to reconcile serving with or caring for gay and lesbian Service members with his or her faith, the chaplain may request that the relevant endorsing agency withdraw its ecclesiastical endorsement for him or her. This would trigger an administrative separation under DoDI 1304.28.

And on pp50-51 of the memo (the 56th and 57th pages of the PDF) we find

• Service members remain obligated to follow orders that involve interaction with others who are gay or lesbian, even if an unwillingness to do so is based on strong, sincerely held, moral or religious beliefs. As expressed in the Manual for Courts-Martial regarding a Service member’s obligation to obey orders: “the dictates of a person’s conscience, religion, or personal philosophy cannot justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order.”
• Ser v ice members may, in appropriate circumstances and within the limitations of law and policy, express their moral or religious beliefs regarding sexual orientation. However, Service members may not make statements detrimental to good order and discipline and must obey lawful orders. Service members who feel that their religious beliefs regarding homosexuality require religious accommodation, may request such accommodation of that belief under DoDI 1300.17.

From this, he concludes that any attempt to counsel gays to abstain from homosexual behavior or suggest that it is a sin will be construed as "statements detrimental to good order and discipline" with the only available recourse being administrative separation (for the chaplain).

Now look at this post from Marc at BadCatholicBlog, claiming 45% of the military is Catholic. And every chaplain ever to win the Congressional Medal of Honor has been a devout and orthodox Catholic.

Insisting that Catholics deny one of the truths of their faith could well blow a giant hole in enlistment and re-enlistment. But this failure to retain volunteer troops will do nothing to dampen our leaders' craving for empire. And when the volunteer army can't carry the load any more, you can bet they will return to the draft.

I am Not Alone

Many years ago, I made the case that "government charity" is an oxymoron. Now Doug Bandow (whom I admire) has made the argument too, and better than I did.

It's About Time!!

National Organization of Women Puts Respect For Women Ahead of Leftist Solidarity

Part of the reason they had to call out a leftist confrere like Bill Maher is that nobody has let ANY right wing commentator or politician get away with stuff like that for a very long time.

I'm A Man

Many thanks to the redoubtable Simcha Fisher, whose blog "I Have to Sit Down" (see Blogs I Like in the sidebar) is always a delight, for leading me to this interview she did. It includes some insight into how to deal in a Catholic, Christian manner, with same-sex attraction. Read and enjoy.

And also to What Lies Beneath, a meditation on the true nature of Reality that is so often hidden from us. Read and enjoy that too.