A fourteen-page hot mess

Abps. William Lori (BAL) and Salvatore Cordileone (SFO)

For every non-Catholic who has felt the Catholic Church focuses too much on sexual issues, it must have seemed a sweet irony.

According to Religion News Service, a special committee was supposed to produce "a short reflection" on the economic crisis for consideration at this year's bishops' conference in Baltimore.  What they got — and they didn't get it until after they'd arrived — was a fourteen-page hot mess "dominated by spiritual terminology that ignored the roots of the economic crisis and did not suggest solutions provided by Catholic social teaching."

Entitled "The Hope of the Gospel in Difficult Economic Times", reported David Gibson included this critique:

The first draft gave short shrift to a century of social justice encyclicals from the popes, including those of Benedict XVI, and did not even mention the USCCB’s landmark 1986 pastoral letter, “Economic Justice for All” [link mine], which has been hailed for challenging economic injustice in the U.S.

Moreover, there was criticism that the document repeatedly highlighted the church’s opposition to gay marriage and abortion and its support for school vouchers in ways that distracted from the economic issues that were supposed to be at the heart of the message [bold font mine].

What happens when you assume

Meme making its way around Facebook.  Rather than just show the picture, I'd like to tell the story in my own best Reader's Digest fashion:

The British Airways flight had just landed at Orly and pulled up to the terminal.  Amidst the usual arrival bustle, an aged British gentleman was searching his carry-on bag for his passport.

A fellow passenger, a stern French woman, noticed his search, and asked, "Have you been to France before?"

The man, still searching, quietly replied, "I have."

"Well, then," the woman sniffed with stereotypical Gallic hauteur, "you should know to have your passport out and waiting, sir."

"The last time I was here," the Brit shrugged, "I didn't have to show my passport."

"Impossible!" the woman snapped.  "You British have always had to show your passports to go through here!"

Whereupon the Englishman stopped his search, stepped close to the lady, and whispered to her, "Well, when I landed on the beach in Normandy in June of 1944, I couldn't find any f***ing Frenchman to show it to!"

This story, like many good urban legends, must have been circulating some time, because if the Englishman were 83 today (which was the age quoted in my source), he would have been awful young to make the landing at Sword Beach ... fifteen, more or less.  Not impossible, and not unheard-of — I know of one lad in the American Navy who 'fessed up to being underage just before the landing — but unlikely nonetheless.

Baa, baa, baa ...

Am I depressed over Tuesday's results?  A little bit.

We had a choice over how we wanted to start the Great Depression 2.0 — "Would you like higher taxes or budget cuts?" — and opted for at least two more years of legislative dreadlock (as my cuz Greg calls it).  Already, firms that were threatening to send out WARN Act notices to their employees "dependent on the outcome of the election" (read "if Obama is elected to misrule for another four years") are making good on that threat, while other workers are receiving not-so-good news about their health benefits — increasing premiums, increasing co-pays, decreasing HSAs, etc.

But more to the point, the election demonstrated as stunningly as possible the fact that we Catholics are not all stupid, mindless sheep blindly obeying our bishops.  The majority of us are blindly following the liberal mainstream media.  

Honestly, in almost forty years, even in the depths of the Watergate trial, I have never seen the major news outlets so uniformly, nakedly biased in a single direction — to the left.  (Don't tell me FOXNews disproves the rule; FOXNews is a joke even among Republicans.)  Romney joked about it at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation fundraiser: "I caught a glimpse of tomorrow's headlines: OBAMA EMBRACED BY CATHOLICS; ROMNEY DINES WITH RICH PEOPLE."

After four years, the unemployment rate is still higher than when Obama took office, and the rate itself hides hundreds of thousands of Americans who have simply dropped off the radar.  Not only has Obama not gotten us out of the Afghan quicksand, he added to the defense bill by involving us in Libya's revolution (violating the War Powers Act in the process).  The nation is $16 trillion in debt, and is on the path to economic shutdown by 2027.  Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in specific face their direst threat in American history from the Obama Administration, as it chips away from the First Amendment here and there in the name of "progress".  The Democrat National Convention was an intergalactic flippin' freak show, with Joe Biden's wandering, emotive blather, not to mention Sandra Flake's invocation of hordes of misogynists waiting to push women back into the kitchen (while outside the venue women dressed in vagina costumes eked out the lunacy within).  The campaign finished up with ads that ran from the fatuous to the obscene.

And somewhere along the way, American Catholics went "Squirrel!", forgot everything that went before, and voted for Obama again!  For which the Obamination will thank us with full enforcement of the misbegotten HHS mandate.

By Friday I should have some further thoughts posted on The Other Blog about what needs to happen in the next four years.  Right now, I still need some time to reflect.  And drink.

Too dumb to go to college? Stoopid! (UPDATED)

Blame it on auto-correct? I think not.

My friend (and fellow wardog) Frank Weathers found this funny little exchange and shared it on Facebook.  Suffice it to say that, while I agree that English is a tough language to learn, one should be fluent in written English before one tries to insult others in it.

However, I need to point out that Garret Herschel's comment is not the first example of the "too dumb to go to college" trope I've seen this month.  Where it comes from I'm not certain; I suspect it's being handed down like an heirloom from senescent hippies to their quasi-liberal grandkids.  Anyway, like heirlooms and hippies, this meme is outdated.  It's also unbelievably bigoted.

Once upon a time — many, many years ago, before TVs, telephones and political action committees — it was true that there were no special intelligence or education requirements to join the Army or Navy, see the world and kill people. Even after the foundations of the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) in 1802 and the U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis) in 1845, both of which have always been premier engineering colleges, for many years afterward you didn't absolutely need a college education to have a long, satisfying and successful career.

Perhaps the last example of this fact still living is Brig. Gen. Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager, USAF (Ret.), who was promoted to warrant officer and then lieutenant when the Army Air Force changed its policies during World War II. [The original version had him promoted on the retired list to major general; while this was backed by Pres. George W. Bush and authorized by Congress, the Air Force hasn't acted on it.] To say his service record and fame were built on a high school diploma is to overstate the case a bit; he also had specialized education as a test pilot, which by his own account was a tough slog without the math and engineering background other test-pilot candidates had. Still, the closest he came to a university was the Air War College, a military professional education program that doesn't confer a traditional degree. [On the other hand, aviation pioneer Gen. James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle earned his master's and doctorate in the then-new field of aeronautical engineering from MIT on the Army's dime (at the time, the Air Corps wasn't a separate service).]

Today, it's a whole new ballgame. If you don't have the intelligence, discipline and motivation to succeed in the military, most likely you'll end up dropping out of college, too.

Sad news ... and an Action Alert—UPDATED

Elizabeth Foss of In the Heart of My Home has some saddening news for us here in the Catholic blogosphere:  Barbara Curtis of Mommy Life, a teacher, writer and recent convert to Catholicism, had a massive stroke on Sunday, Oct. 28, and is not expected to regain consciousness.

You can go to Elizabeth's page and read her and others' testimonials to this formidable woman.  For my own part, I read plenty of her columns whenever they appeared in New Advent (and you could count on at least one a week appearing there; in fact, Kevin Knight in a fit of possessiveness calls her a "New Advent blogger" in his link to Elizabeth).  I always found her sane, sensible, often amusing and with the enviable ability to not take herself too seriously.  We'll miss her voice and her wisdom; she was a true Defensatrix Fidei.

While you're there: Barbara was trying to raise $5,000 to send her daughter Maddy, a promising opera star, back to Catholic University for the spring semester.  Elizabeth has the hat (or the PayPal button) out for that worthy cause; please take the time to make a donation and help launch a potentially brilliant career.

Fac nos, Domine Iesu, sanctae Familiae tuae exempla iugiter imitari, ut in hora mortis nostrae, occurrente gloriosa Virgine Matre tua cum beato Ioseph, per te in aeterna tabernacula recipi mereamur: Qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Grant unto us, Lord Jesus, ever to follow the example of Thy Holy Family, that in the hour of our death Thy glorious Virgin Mother together with blessed Joseph may come to meet us and we may be worthily received by Thee into Thy everlasting dwelling place: Who livest and reignest forever and ever. Amen.

Update — October 31, 2012

According to Elizabeth, Barbara Curtis passed away yesterday afternoon, surrounded by her family.  Her funeral Mass will be held Saturday at St. Frances de Sales Catholic Church in Purcellville, VA at 12:30.  Elizabeth is still accepting donations for the Curtis family, particularly for husband Tripp and to send Maddy back for her senior year at Catholic University.  I wasn't aware that Maddy had been a contestant on American Idol!  Here's a clip of her singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".

Your first time: a love story

I've found a new love.

Oh, I still have a warm place in my heart for Norah Jones.  And Halle Berry.  Oh, and Penélope Cruz.  (However, they won't return my phone calls.)

But this is it.  This is real.

World, meet the love of my life: Julie Borowski.

I know the odds are against us: a young woman and an older man, a loud-'n-proud libertarian and a reticent independent.  But if we could meet, I just know we'd fit each other, like yin and yang.

Rape is a horrible, detestable crime

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Now what was all that fuss about ...?

In the week or so preceding the 67th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation fundraiser dinner, I got messages from the American Life League, ChurchMilitant.tv and a couple of other organizations fussing over the invitation Cdl. Timothy Dolan extended to Pres. Barack Obama to speak at this event.  Very little was said regarding the invitation Gov. Mitt Romney also received, though his pro-life street cred is almost non-existent.

That Cdl. Dolan would invite both candidates to the dinner is nothing odd; at least every other presidential election cycle the two leading candidates speak, beginning with Sen. John F. Kennedy and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon in 1960.  Candidate pairs since then include Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter (1976), Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan (1980), George H. Bush and Michael Dukakis (1988), veep candidates Al Gore and Jack Kemp (1996), George W. Bush and Al Gore (2000), and Obama and John McCain (2008).

Moreover, the night is hardly devoted to full-fisted politicking or the conferral of honorary doctorates.  The Foundation awards grants to several charities and institutions around the Archdiocese, and the Dinner brings out a lot of the 1%, who pay unconscionable sums of money for overdone chicken and underdone steak, to be entertained by people who don't often get a chance to show their lighter side.  Because while the chicken and steak may be cooked, the candidates get roasted ... first by Al Smith IV (who, I notice, is making sounds that make me concerned for his health), then by each other, then finally by the Archbishop.  I'm sure His Eminence was particularly looking forward to zinging Obama in a venue where the President couldn't fire back.

Look, guys ... just lighten up, would you?  The invitation to trade quips and barbs with Gov. Romney in front of a couple hundred insanely rich people for charity is hardly on a par with the invitation to Notre Dame; you really have to work hard to make an endorsement of either candidate out of the event.  (Though Romney, satirizing the MSM, stated that the headline would probably read "OBAMA EMBRACED BY CATHOLICS; ROMNEY DINES WITH RICH PEOPLE".)  Watch the clip, have a laugh, and for Pete's sake get a grip!

A kid, a Marine, and a magical moment of grace

© 2012 CNN/Ben Kruggel.

I'm sure by now most of you have heard the story of young Ben Baltz, an 11-year-old boy with a prosthetic leg and a whole lotta moxie, and the bad break which turned into the Kodak moment of the week (as well as the kind of PR for the Marine Corps that you just can't buy).  But in case you did just break free of a Turkish prison, or have emerged from a hermitage for a bidecadial convention of anchorites, let's go through it again:

When Ben was six years old, he lost his right tibia and fibula to cancer.  However, Ben is one of life's chargers; he has two legs, one of which is adapted for sports such as soccer, basketball and children's triathlons, such as Florida's Sea Turtle Tri Kids in Pensacola, which took place last Sunday (10/7/12).  Ben was "in it to win it", not just to be a token or a mascot; reporter/photgrapher Joel David, who found himself focusing more on Ben over the course of the events, said Ben "had an inspiring look of determination and I wanted to capture that emotion in a photo."  (For David's photos of Ben competing, the link is here.)

Obama Speaks Truism, Conservatives Dismayed

You know the campaign season is just about over when the two sides have to scrape stuff off the sidewalk to get angry about.  So here we go:

(Source: The Weekly Standard)


Okay, here's the line that causes the fuss: "We don’t believe that anybody is entitled to success in this country."  Even read apart from the rest of the paragraph, it's nothing.  Obama, darn him to heck, is right: we don't believe people are entitled to success.  People are free to work for success, to earn it; you don't get to succeed just by showing up and showing your birth certificate.  And that's what Obama says: "But we do believe in opportunity.  We believe in a country where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded, and everybody is getting a fair shot and everybody is doing their fair share and everybody is playing by the same rules."

Look, you know I'm no fan of the President, and that I have no intention of voting for him next month.  His presidency has been a disaster from Day 1, and I say this as a very vocal critic of his dumb-bunny predecessor.  But do you have to get worked up about everything that falls out of Obama's mouth?

PRES. OBAMA (recorded): "So I took a shower this morning ...."
RUSH LIMBAUGH: "Can you believe Obama said THAT?  Has he got something against taking baths, for Pete's sake?  Is that something only the capitalist élite do?  He's too good to sit down in the water with his washcloth and bar of Zest?  I suppose he has one of those effeminate poofy things you pour [mocking tone] 'body wash' onto.  How did this wierdo get elected President?"

 GET A GRIP!