Reason 11 why the culture of life will win

Yesterday, on her blog I Have to Sit Down, Simcha Fisher wrote a thousand-word apologia/lecture reaming out critics and haters of large families. I've already posted somewhat on this over on The Other Blog; I also linked it on my Facebook status.

Today, she released her promised pregnancy announcement on the National Catholic Register (not to be confused with the National Catholyc Distorter/Fishwrap), which to my sorrow recycled her announcement of Child Number Eight. In the supportive comments was a gem of a conversation a father of four had with a pretentious critic:

Officious, unknown dolt in mall: “HOW can you have so many kids?”
Father of 4: “Because I believe in Darwinism.”
OUDIM: “Wha…what?”
FO4: “Yes. Survival of the fittest means actually reproducing, so your offspring dominate the future. I don’t understand why so many people who believe in Darwinism really, really $uck at following it.”

This was so good I posted it as a comment on the FB link. Stacy Trasancos of Accepting Abundance loved it: "That was so funny it got me to thinking and I 'defended' my large family...TRUCK in my Catholic Free Press article this week. Haha! I read the Darwin comment to my husband over the phone. So funny!"

But it got me thinking ... and then I ran into Marcel LeJeune's post on Aggie Catholic, "10 Reasons Why Pro-Lifers Will Eventually Win".

Reason Number Eleven: Contraception + Abortion + Homosexuality = Geno-suicide. 

People who honestly and fervently practice the "culture of death" meta-religion are contracepting, aborting and buggering themselves out of the gene pool. Those who actually have one or two kids and teach them the "culture of death" story are reducing the chances that their genes will survive. 

Social conservatives who have large families, on the other hand, are playing the long game (if you play chess, you know what I mean). We're already seeing signs of impending triumph: More and more First- and Second-World nations who have adopted the CoD mentality have birth rates that have dropped below replacement levels. The more children you have, the more likely it is that not only your genes but your values will survive to future generations!

Yep, the numbers favor us in the long run, as pro-life people — especially faithful Catholics and Mormons — outbreed the CoD folks. The funny thing is, all the people who are drinking the CoD Kool-Aid consider themselves more intelligent than those blinkered, dumb-bunny conservatives who hang on to outdated religious prescriptions. 

Especially the Brights who sneer at Catholics because they "don't accept Darwin".

If I could tell a story ...

... I think I'd write a sequel to Atlas Shrugged. In my novel, I would explore what would happen in the real world if all the Talented People "went Galt".

Namely, it would stumble a bit, right itself, and go on without them just fine, thank you. 

Some lesser lights would appropriate their places; some Talented People whose ability to achieve was repressed by the absentee talents would finally get a chance to make their marks. Some would find their fortunes in jeopardy, diminished or embezzled because they weren't around to exercise due diligence. Some would be able to recapture their positions only after an exhausting, costly struggle that, in two or three cases, would prove to be Pyrrhic victories. Some would discover how much of their privileged positions depended on the assistance of other people exercising their own unique skills ... people no longer available to them for different reasons. And some would have missed at least one crucial opportunity and find themselves unable to regain their momentum. Only one or two would be able to step back easily into their positions and resume their lives as if they'd never left — leaving them to wonder exactly what their absence accomplished (other than a long vacation).

The protagonist, and maybe three or four others, would be capable of enough growth to understand the moral of the story: In the real world, no one is entitled to their position, not even by talent.

A more realistic novel than Atlas Shrugged would be premised on a virus, administered by agents of a hostile power, that simultaneously struck down administrative assistants, personal assistants and chiefs of staff in key businesses and agencies. The absence of these generally underpaid and overworked geniuses would create an unholy chaos that would threaten to destroy the nation, as the Big Wheels they serve struggled to find critical information and reconstruct their business and social calendars.

Well, it would at least be more realistic than the self-same Big Wheels simply walking off their jobs and disappearing into some strangely uncharted land, to enjoy a nice vacation full of cocktail parties and ego reinforcement while the nation totters helplessly without them.

I don't know what I dread more ...

... the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, or the Lord pointing to certain episodes of my life and asking rhetorically, "What were you thinking?"

From the "Paging Noah Webster" file

If you watch this video from the UC-Irvine/USC-Long Beach Genocide Awareness Project display, near the end you'll see a pro-choice protester throw a nutty:

"You are killing women. You are literally killing women. ... You wanna see pictures of women dead from back-alley abortions? That's a genocide!"

No, actually, it isn't. It's negligent homicide, committed by the abortionist in the process of murdering the unborn child in the first degree (first degree because it's intentional ... "with malice aforethought"). The military would call the death of the mother "collateral damage".

Our would-be spokesperson  isn't only fuzzy on the meaning of "genocide", she's also fuzzy on the meaning of "literally". The folks from GAP would only be "literally" committing genocide if they were physically and intentionally herding pregnant women into back-alley abortion clinics; connecting the dots between abortion and other examples of genocide hardly qualifies.

Now, you may be laughing and shaking your head in disbelief. But here's the kicker: 

This young woman is a college student.

Somebody's not getting their money's worth on the tuition.

[H/T Creative Minority Report]

A shameless plug ...

... for my Café Press giftshop, Outside the Asylum:

Now, see? Isn't this a cool mug? And doesn't this just about say it all. (Well, I could have said, "The Anglicans have tackier liturgical garments.") 

I thought about using the old joke: "Q: What's the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist? A: You can negotiate with a terrorist!" However, that's been overdone ... and Fr. Z already has "Brick By Brick" and "Say the Black Do the Red".

Actually, though, I've been working on another slogan.

Chesterton once wrote, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting: it has been found difficult, and left untried." People want Heaven their way, the way of least discomfort and maximal self-indulgence. Strictly speaking, Catholicism doesn't require asceticism; it simply requires avoidance of sin. However, there are sins people don't want to avoid; if they can't be baptized into virtues, at least they can be written off as "no harm, no foul", right?

"If any one would follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Mt 16:24-25 RSV).

And thus, the design at right. The caption reads: "Step up. Man up. Cowboy up [that's a big one here in Texas]. Put on your big-boy britches and deal with it." And then, "TAKE UP YOUR CROSS!" (If I could put a logo on back, I'd also put on Colossians 1:24: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings ..., and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church ....")

Why go through all this megillah? Because while I appreciate any support you can give this blog (and this blogger), I'd rather you got something tangible for your money. And frankly, right now I'm not wild about posting advertising at all, let alone advertising I can't control, which is all Google gives me right now. (Besides, I don't think I can fit much more on the sidebar!)

So feel free to visit the shop. If you have any suggestions for designs, I'll gladly take them under consideration. Again, thanks for your support!

Your help is greatly appreciated!

SNAPpy comebacks to irrelevant whining

Arch-whiner David Clohessy

On the Catholic Herald website, Fr. Andrew Pinset has a remarkable list of all the contributions members of the Catholic Church have made to Western civilization starting with the sciences. While the list is by no means exhaustive, it's representative enough.

The whole point of the article was to remind people that Catholicism has given a lot to the world, and built the intellectual and cultural foundations from which many people attack it today.

How annoying, then, when David Clohessy, the ethically-challenged director of SNAP, left this piece of irrelevancy on the combox:

It's sad that Fr. Pinsent can't even bring himself to acknowledge, in even one sentence, the church's horrific and on-going clergy sex abuse and cover up crisis.

The next person wrote: "wow the article was not even disc. the abuse scandal and well ... of course you got to bring it up ... Are you hounding teachers and baptist ministers etc in all thier articles as well, no matter if it has anything to do with the topic?"

 Let's ease up on Davie, now. I mean, it's not like anybody else is talking about the scandals. It's not as if people are constantly beating us over the heads with it in the comboxes and the MSM or anything. I mean, heck, if Davie didn't bring it up in posts that have nothing to do with the scandals, I'm sure everybody would forget that it ever happened. Right?

Although I'm not sure why Davie wanted Fr. Pinset to mention it in a column about all the good things the Catholic Church has done. We are all agreed the scandals are a bad thing, yes?

Now, before you all get sarcastic, be sure to beat your breasts for at least thirty seconds in remorse. After all, we're Catholics, and we're all about perpetual guilt.

"Telling Rome to get stuffed"?—UPDATED

I'm not a canon lawyer ... but I play one on TV. (If you're anywhere near my age, you may get the reference.)

Phil Lawler over at CatholicCulture.org brings up a very good set of questions over the recent ousters of Bps. Jean-Claude Makaya Loemba and William L. Morris. He refers us back to a post by Dr. Edward Peters written April 1 over the former's privation of office/removal, which is worth reading but doesn't give us any clearer answers ... because he doesn't have full possession of the facts any more than the rest of us do. (His difference — and I applaud him for it — is that he says so, and refuses to go beyond the known facts.)

One thing that struck me in my reading of Bp. Morris' relief and resignation is the comment one Brisbane priest made: according to The Australian, he said "Bishop Morris had brought about his own demise because 'you can't keep telling Rome to get stuffed'."

The style of Bishop Morris's departure [The Australian further notes] is unprecedented in that he has made his disagreements with the Vatican so public. In previous years, bishops who fell from favour have usually resigned on the grounds of ill health, or no reason has been given for their departure.

Ask Tony: Monsignors and cardinals

Growing up an “Air Force brat”, ranks and titles of different kinds interested me. I accepted the existence of monsignors and cardinals as much as I accepted the existence of captains and colonels. But what are monsignors and cardinals all about? We know where bishops, priests and deacons are spoken of in the New Testament; where did these ranks come from?

Technically, no one is really “appointed a monsignor”. Rather, there are three kinds of papal honor conferred on priests who either hold specific ministries within the Church or whom their bishops feel are specially deserving; generally, a monsignor is thought to have “a leg up”, so to speak, when the Congregation for Bishops are looking for episcopal candidates; however, bishop candidates don't have to be monsignors. The three kinds of papal honor, in descending order of precedence, are:

• Protonotary apostolic, which are split into
• de numero and
• supernumerary;
• Honorary prelate; and
• Chaplain of His Holiness.

Nine and a half years later ....

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON — Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is dead and the U.S. has his body, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.

U.S. President Barack Obama was to make the announcement shortly that after searching in vain for bin Laden since he disappeared in Afghanistan in late 2001, the Saudi-born extremist is dead, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Details of the death were sparse. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said bin Laden was killed in a ground operation in Pakistan, not by a Predator drone. The official said it happened last week.

CNN and Reuters reported that the al-Qaida leader was killed in a mansion outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

It is a major accomplishment for Obama and his national security team, having fulfilled the goal once voiced by Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, to bring to justice the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

 Was it worth it? After 114 months and change, hundreds of billions of dollars spent and so many civilian and soldiers' lives lost? I want to say "yes", but ... if the SEALs had gotten him on September 12, 2001, I would still wonder if justice had been satisfied. Sometimes it just seems out of our feeble grasp.

Update: May 2, 2011
My friend Suburbanbanshee from Aliens in This World apparently attributes ObL's demise to the recently-beatified JP2:

Is There Anything Blessed JPII Can’t Do? :)

Frees his country, starts the breakup of the Soviet Union, gets beatified on the same day Communists used to make merry (and which belonged to Mama Mary before they tried to steal it), and spends his heaven getting a prince to quit shacking up and a bad Saudi to meet his maker.
Either that, or somebody Polish-American was feeling particularly festive today.

 Here's a video popout from MSNBC on the SEAL/CIA gun battle that took ObL out. His compound was in Abbotabad ... and as soon as I heard that, I heard in my mind Lou Costello yelling, "Hey, Abbotabad!" [I corrected the earlier misreport that he'd been killed by a USAF drone.]

Later:

Photo essay from TIME.com showing the celebration and reflection near Ground Zero. Alas, as Subvet (below) predicted, Our Glorious Leader is already picking up some political brownie points, though his only real contribution to the matter is keeping our troops over there.

BTW, despite my conflicted feelings, I'd like to express my gratitude to the SEALs and CIA counter-terrorist forces who participated in the op: OOH-RAH!

Later than that:

Okay, so the US doesn't have his body; it's been buried at sea. Apparently the Saudis refused it, and US officials were concerned about a landside gravesite becoming the focus of a martyr cult.

Even later:

 How many people made this mistake?

Beate Johanne Paule, ora pro nobis!

Was it worth staying up until 4:00 AM? I could have just gone to bed at my usual time and plugged everything in later. But yes ... much more interesting than watching Will and Kate get hitched.