Riding a Bicycle in the Dark Downhill

Riding the sidestreets in this little seacoast town can be quite olfactorally perilous. One has to be especially careful riding bicycles downhill in the dark. For one thing, you don't ever expect a creature to shuffle out of a yard at the bottom of the street's lowpoint as you speed downward. Nevermind that you do need new brakes. And nevermind that at the last minute this creature shuffles out and not only does that, but does something only this creature does. Stops right there in the middle of the road with a bicycle bearing down at just under thirty miles an hour and then the swerve just in time to pass this black and white creature with his tail standing straight up. Then past him, heart beating as fast as the bike's wheels spinning and the smell of the creature follows all the way up the hill to let the bike rider know that the little black and white fella appreciated bicycles passing within an inch of him.

World Council of Families in Dark Dublin

Seeing and hearing Fr. James Martin's keynote address to the World Council of Families (endorsed by Francis) has confirmed to me that the darkness of demons have indeed not only entered the Church but been given the reins of power; and it appears---how can one even say it?---that at this moment the Gates of Hell are indeed prevailing. I am too ever confirmed that Benedict XVI stepping down was an ecclesiastical tragedy, but perhaps it was a necessary tragedy that is now exposing the consummate cloud of demonic dark passing over and into the Church. Mother Miriam has been warning about this World Council of Families and its moral heresies. She, it turns out, couldn't have been more right. On my coming into the Church a few years back I couldn't have imagined such a deadly incense entering the Sanctuary of God. I fear many will fall under its inclusivist enchantment. If this meager post can wake even one from the seductive spell it is, yes, worth even the alienation of some of my Catholic friends---though I hope they will have the truth of the Faith so uppermost in their minds that they will not take offense. And lastly, I hear almost as a shout St Paul's severe rebuke to the Galatians: O ye foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?..." and... "but though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.."

The Serpent of Language is Subtle

This in one of my bird books, 1000 Facts of Birds: "Scientists believe that birds evolved from lightly built dinosaurs." What is the hidden assumption in this declaration? Isn't it that the implication is that all scientists believe this? Isn't it that there is not even one dissenter among all of them? Not even one eccentric critical of the status quo? The propaganda is subtle. One reads such a sentence and the words go uncritically into the mind. Immediately the unconscious accepts the dogmatic science that comes to him as a unanimous agreement. Of course the line could have read, "Some scientists believe..." or even, "Many scientists believe..." but to state it in the way that it has is just the way to engineer the mind. And today's engineering of the mind is continually geared to the secular in most of our media. This is one of the main reasons that even in our churches we have a secular mindset. May we work hard, even in our reading, to make every thought captive to Christ and thereby have such a filter to filter out those thoughts that will make us captive to anyone else.

Is Capital Consequence Contrary to Love?

If capital consequence is contrary to love as many that are following the Pope's decision to reverse what has been both Scriptural and Church teaching that some crimes warrant the severest consequence then I suppose even speeding tickets, any time in prison at all, fines, any repercussions or consequences of any kind must be eliminated. Courtrooms too. And the Nuremberg trials which sentenced the Nazi war criminals for their part in the holocaust must be revisited and perhaps the families of Himmler, Goebbels, et al. should be compensated for the unloving sentence of being hanged. I just wonder about what seems to me to be a confusion concerning love and mercy and consequence. One would think that the Bible condemned the death penalty in no uncertain terms when it appears in my reading to have been just the opposite. The death penalty even early on in Genesis (Gen. 9:6) seems not even just recommended but mandated by God himself concerning the spilling of innocent blood. And the reason given is not even societal, that society will be protected. But it is even deeper than that: that the victim whose blood was spilt was made in the image and likeness of God. It has to do with his very being. It is an ontological reason. And those mandates that seem to associate forgiveness as contra to it confuse what really is its antithesis: unforgiveness. We are called on to not hate. To readily forgive, but the confusion today has made love and forgiveness cross into the realm of jurisprudence. This is quite a false marriage. Otherwise could we even justify incarceration, even a day behind bars if love was the obliterator of consequence? If forgiveness meant this new thing would we even give out speeding tickets? Would we simply allow drug dealers to peddle their drugs for that also should not entail consequences. And is our softness on this latter the reason we have such a society where our 'war on drugs' was so without victory? It seems to me that meek and mild Jesus had a very harsh warning to those who offend these little ones. Something about millstones. Perhaps if there was a consequence of millstones and the depth of the sea, well, perhaps our society would not be so dangerous and a corrupter of the young as it is today. Perhaps when we leave the hard truths of the Bible and go by our own cultural emotions we are going down a road without the consequences that would give us a safer ride. And as to C.P. not being a deterrent: why, for goodness sake, even speed bumps are a deterrent to most. Most don't wish to have their shocks ruined. How much more our lives?

Back in the Woods Away from the Scandals

So good to be back in the woods and to get away from the scandals resulting from the infiltration of the seminaries, seminaries without borders, and just the calumny that is cast against our president, prayer breakfasts and anything religious, and even generic goodness that seems, thank God, to be in the ascendancy in of all places: the White House. (We must of course be thankful for this that this abode of the President is a place where the faith of our fathers has room again to grow.) But it is nice to be in the woods and allowing the news and scandals to melt away by way of Jewelweed in bloom with its little orange orchids, jo pyeweed beginning to flower, golden rod, milkweed, raspberry and blackberry beginning to darken, wild cherries black and ripe, and just the thick summer green behind which the redbird whistles merrily.

A Couple of Theses on the Doors of Wittenberg

Beware of the World Meeting of Families coming to Ireland. It is touted as a time to strengthen the family. But the bishops the Pope is bringing, according to Mother Miriam Foundress of Daughters of Israel's Hope, are all 'progressive' bishops, not at all in line with traditional teaching. It appears to me that the Church, by which I mean the status quo Vatican, is doing much to confuse and actually undermine Tradition and biblical mandates. The latest instance of this is the Pope's announcement to change the Catechism saying something the Church never has, to my knowledge, in her long magistorial history said: that Capital Punishment is always inadmissible. Is this not a 'new' teaching, a novel one (also advocated by the Left before the Church took up the cause) which confuses guilty life and innocent life? All this while innocent womb-children are being dumped into dumpsters daily. Where is the outrage on this? But instead it is the rare case of capital punishment that must be the evil to concentrate on. The argument is that man has dignity as the imago Dei. Evidently the Pope thinks this dignity applies to the perpetrator---does this not contradict Scripture (cf. Gen. 9:6) and the magisterial history of the Church? Does it not rather seem that the argument of the dignity of the imago Dei corresponds to the person whose blood was spilled---at least if we are regarding Holy Writ rather than the fashion of our secular times. Otherwise is it that the true dignity of innocent life is not being shown the value it deserves? This respect for innocent in contrast to guilty life the Church has continually taught up until recent days. I think this tragic that such a focus of the Pope's and the world's attention is on the ridding of one of the most valuable deterrents we have for terrible crimes, terrible crimes against the dignity of, not the perpetrator, but the person perpetrated against. Is it not jesuitical to say that you are upholding the dignity of both? Hasn't one of the two forfeited his claim to come under the protective dignity of the imago Dei? And are we not in danger of out mercying God when we extend mercy without consequences in the most horrific of crimes?

The Integrity of the Electoral Process and Russia

When I hear about the integrity of the electoral process expounded by those who bussed in voters, paid street people with cigarettes and a fin to vote their community organizing consciences, enlisted black panthers to patrol inner city voting places to make sure minorities were not intimidated by tea party haters with their heavy King James Bibles, I have to wonder. So now there is this continued concern among them for this same integrity of the voting system---evidently rigged from Russia on the other side of the globe. It seems to be news with an unlimited shelf life---I suppose for the reason no one on the Left can understand: how could their queen not gain the throne? Why, after all isn't she the great patroness of Planned Parenthood, the rallier for reproductive rights, the supporter of no child left behind, the City Planner of the Village to raise the children that are lucky enough to be born? How in the world could such a lady lose? How could such a citizenry educated for generations in Progress not elect such a consummate Nurturer? Why, it can't be anything but the compromising of our electoral integrity. Or, I've often heard that there is something called a scapegoat. Maybe the scapegoat lives in Russia.