Archbishop Not Scapegoated

It isn't news to anyone straying by and noticing the words "Archbishop", "Not", and "Scapegoated" in the title of this blog post. He has really stirred up a hornet's nest in Merrie Olde. Apparently, Middle England has diametrically opposite sentiments to his eminence, as Adrian Morgan reports (below).

Many would say the Archbishop is being scapegoated, but I beg to differ. That is like saying I am scapegoating the alarm clock by turning it off. The poor fellow woke up a somnambulating populace to the ramifications of its indolence -- "if you don't watch out you'll end up where you're headed" -- and he's tired of being knocked about by the alarum he's raised.

Now, of course he may actually believe what he's said, but the effect is the same. I think Morgan has teased out a very well written article on this episode and suggest you take a few moments to read it in full.

Virtues - Entrée to the Palace

During this holy season of Lent, I want to explore the Virtues, both cardinal and theological in several interspersed posts. The first comes from a little book that Porthos, my fellow Mass'keteer brother, and I both have found useful on our spiritual journeys. It is entitled My Way of Life - Pocket Edition of St. Thomas, the Summa Simplified for Everyone (Confraternity of the Precious Blood):

The world of God as He is in Himself is not a world naturally open or accessible to man. But the infused virtues of faith, hope, and charity open up this world to God to man. It is as if a poor man were admitted to the palace of his king. He can roam the corridors almost at will, inspect almost all the rooms. And if he stays long enough and learns to behave as one should in the palace of the king, one day he will be admitted into the very presence of the king himself.

Faith, hope, and charity set man free in God's palace. By living a life of faith, in hope and charity he is preparing himself to be admitted into God's presence. If he dies with these virtues he will be admitted into God's presence. He will have achieved the purpose of his existence -- the attainment of the vision of God. [239]

A blessed and peaceful Lent to you.

Lego Me

Is there a human right not to be offended? Darcey writes Our feelings are hurt and so we roar. [h/t: Maggie's Farm]

Lifting the Veil

CharmingBurqa claims it does not break sharia -- or, ”Hey, I’m only usin’ my phone, dude. Don’t cut off my hand!”

Goodbye England, Hello Londonistan

Red Planet sums things up in England.

Giving Away the Store

Damien Thompson of Holy Smoke noted that Rowan Williams, Anglican Archbishop, supports sharia law in England -- which is like saying "Let's give away the store." (See for yourself here.)

To which the Times Online Religious news correspondent Ruth Gledhill asks discerningly without putting too fine a point on it, Has the Archbishop Gone Bonkers?

When dealing with a people who will not assimilate and whose unmitigated migration to England assures demographic ascendency, to give them their "law" is to succumb. The archbishop has a peculiar reading of the Gospel.

Bending over back-a**-ward has never had such a cogent spokesman as the Church of England prelate. The allures of dhimmitude must hold special urgency for him.

Monkey & the Tiger

This monkey has a decidely Chestertonian attitude regarding engaging the enemy.

Now, What If ...

Baron Bodissey posts a translated op/ed piece by Dane Mogens Rukow in which light seems to be getting through a crack of PC multiculturalist mythology. And I say high time.

Financial Advice - Buy a Farm

A billionaire and influential financial adviser gives some good Distributist advice: Barton Biggs has some offbeat advice for the rich: Insure yourself against war and disaster by buying a remote farm or ranch and stocking it with ``seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc.''

Would that we could all do what The Yeoman Farmer has going up in Michigan, eh?

McCain for President - Brownback Agrees

In an intensely scandalized political moment, a reassuring word comes from an excellent reference: Sen. Sam Brownback says to pro-lifers, you can trust John McCain:

I am convinced that John McCain is our best hope to advance the cause of human dignity on a broad spectrum of life issues. He is a true American hero, a consistent social and fiscal conservative, and most ready to be commander-in-chief.

Perhaps most important, however, John McCain is the best pro-life candidate to win in 2008.

Sen. McCain has a long, consistent 24-year pro-life voting record. Long before he decided to run for president, John McCain opposed abortion, fought to restrict it and supported overturning Roe v. Wade. He is no Johnny-come-lately to the cause.

John McCain is not pro-life out of convenience, but based on principle.

John supports a ban on all forms of human cloning and will fight to sign it into law. He has been on the cutting-edge of the fight to deal with explicit material on the Internet and protecting our children from a coarsening of the culture. He understands that America needs a culture willing to sacrifice to advance in our long-term struggle with Islamic extremists.

Chronicles of Atlantis is proud to endorse the presidential candidacy of John McCain.

If It Keeps Its Wits About It

Hugh Fitzgerald posts a few facts worth keeping in mind in the confrontation with Islam.

It is not the West, if it keeps its wits about it, that will be disintegrating. It will be the world of Islam.

But it's that phrase that matters, and worries: "if it keeps its wits about it."

Is the trend favorable to Islam? Only if we allow it to be.

Coughlin Stays

Andrew Bostom shares good news: Major Coughlin will now be retained by the DOD. And a big thanks goes to USRep Sue Myrick of North Carolina who clearly has her priorities straight stepping into the fray:

While I do not believe there was any foul play involved in this situation, I wish that more attention was given to Major Coughlin’s thesis. The thesis, which supposedly caused this great stir, is titled “To Our Great Detriment: Ignoring What Extremists Say about Jihad”. In it, Coughlin points out several issues. He states we have not listened to our enemies; Osama Bin Laden and his ilk claim that they are acting in accordance with Islam. Our military has not identified and analyzed our enemy’s stated doctrine; that they are acting in accordance with Islamic law. And finally, if we are going to prosecute this war effectively, our military must fully analyze their claim. Only then can they implement the proper strategy to defeat the radical Islamists long-term plan. The ideas and issues presented in his thesis are important. We must understand our enemy.

Read all of her statement here.

Lee Harris - Speaking of Scimitars

Lee Harris weighs in on Speaking of Islam - Liberty and grievance in Canada in The Weekly Standard. [h/t: Dhimmi Watch]

"Something Is Happening"

Today is the second anniversary of the murder of Father Don Andrea Santoro -- the Italian priest stabbed by a group of local youth in his parish church along the Black Sea in Turkey, reports Rocco Palmo at his blog, Whispers in the Loggia.

Something is happening: present at the ceremonies today were the vice mufti of the region of Trabzon, representing the ministry of religious affairs in Turkey. Very emotional, but determined, before the little group of journalists and policeman he delivered a brief message of condolences to all. "Our religion explicitly condemns violence and murder", he proclaimed. "God created us free, and therefore every human being is free to choose his own creed and his own faith. We are here to pray together for peace in the world, dissatisfied with all of the violence that is still taking place in this country. We condemn every form of terrorism, and we welcome all to our city". [h/t: New Advent]

Let's hope. But keep the powder dry.

Convert England to Catholicism, Says Papal Ally

Father John Zuhlsdorf of What Does The Prayer Really Say posts on Father Aiden Nichols' new book, The Realm: An Unfashionable Essay on the Conversion of England. It is so new, in fact, that it does not yet appear in the United States on Amazon or Barnes and Noble (though a pre-order from the UK Amazon is offered).

Father Z quotes extensively from this article in The Catholic Herald, which is quite lauding of Fr Nichols. I am too; his Shape of Catholic Theology (1991) was the text for my first serious graduate level course in the Catholic realm. I'm ashamed I have not yet cracked Nichols' Christendom Awake! (1999) that I bought some time ago. Have a go with this excerpt from the Herald:

Fr Aidan Nichols, the English theologian most closely associated with the thinking of Benedict XVI, has appealed for England to be “re-made” as a Catholic country.

He set out his radical and comprehensive programme for Catholic renewal in a new book entitled The Realm: An Unfashionable Essay on the Conversion of England, published by Family Publications.

In his preface he says that Catholic Christianity should be put forward “not as an occupation for individuals in their solitude but as a form for the public life of society in its overall integrity”.

He admits that the conversion of England is “an absolutely colossal agenda”, adding: “It can only be brought into being, so far as it depends on us to do so, by a coordinated strategy for recreating a full-blooded catholicity with the power to... transform a culture in all its principal dimensions.

“That is what ‘the mission to convert’ and ‘the conversion of England’ mean to me.”
His comments will be seen as an implicit criticism of the direction of the Church in England and Wales. He points to “flagship” Catholic institutions which have “suffered shipwreck through secularisation”.

Swastika & Scimitar - Part 5

Andrew G. Bostom continues his fruitful investigation into swastika and scimitar studies aptly connecting the dots in "Islamofascism? Hitler, Muhammad, and Islam."

Religare - Part 2

Just a reminder of what we are dealing with: a theology based on this sacred text understood in every possible Girardian sense of the word.

First of the Few

First of the Few (Spitfire in the U. S.) is the film story of R. J. Mitchell, designer of -- you guessed it. What is significant is the intuitive genius of Mitchell in seeing the threat of Germany's growing Luftwaffe and his tireless effort to create a fighter to thwart it prior to the war. Directed by Leslie Howard, who plays Mitchell in the film, it contains inaccuracies that can be forgiven because of the overall message: the defense of truth, goodness, and beauty is often a lonely and thankless task.

Churchill's famous words come to mind:

The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day…

The title of the film says that without Mitchell's Spitfire, those fighter pilots would have had nothing in which to defend Britain. Mitchell's brilliance was seeing the paradigm with which the job could done and none other.

Now: what is the equivalent of the Spitfire in the war against jihadism? Who is our R. J. Mitchell?

Britain Rolls Over?

The Telegraph wonders about A deafening silence that betrays our values. [h/t: IBA]

Weigel and Arroyo

Raymond Arroyo of EWTN interviews George Weigel on the theology of Jihadism. If nothing else, Weigel's timely little book reaffirms the power of ideas.