To Slaughter

Silence. Silent as the grave. Silence of the lambs to slaughter. My source, an affiliate bureau chief in D. C., says there was mayhem in the halls of Congress today: shouting, spitting on Congressmen.

See that anywhere in the MSM? I think not.

Time was, any news was good news. Why the silence? Why the ....

O'Malley - End of Abortion Neutrality

Cardinal O'Malley gives what for to so-called Catholic groups' support of Obamacare here.

A Pig in a Poke

It is tragic to see persons of moderate intelligence who have bought into the zeitgeist of the age to the point of assuming that anything else is incorrigibly nonsensical. Take for example Nina Totenburg on Inside Washington. A respected NPR reporter, Ms. Totenburg replied to a comment of Charles Krauthammer regarding the polled opinion of the majority of Americans who want Congress to start over on health care rather than pass the present monstrosity. Ms. Totenburg said to this with a dismissive toss of the head that she generally considers a discussion-ending gesture, "The majority of Americans don't know what's IN this bill!" Hmm. Exactly.

Perhaps that is precisely the reason the majority of Americans don't want this health care bill passed, you see. Rather than tittering from on high at Americans' ignorance - an ignorance which Americans would indeed like redress - perhaps the spirit of the agers should ask why they, like Ms. Totenburg, are willing to go along with this pig in a poke health care bill.

But, then her stance like all those who elected I Wun has been one of blind, tittering acceptance and promulgation. It isn't sufficiently well thought-out to be called hubris. It's more like a very long extension of sorority dining room chatting over a low-fat dessert, or a disdainful gathering in the oak-paneled, carpeted locker-room at the country club after 18-holes but before drinks at the bar.

Saddest of all is the absolute forgetfulness of our true condition and deepest needs. Our commander-in-chief, sooner if he continues to smoke or later, will indeed find out this truth about himself, as well all who are promoting this health care bill.

The tremendous attention given this farce is, once again, one of the smoke screens of pop culture to keep us from focusing on the message of the Church, the message of the Gospel, the message of Our Lord:

Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.

Paradise on Earth - Not

THIS is the goal of "submitting" to the revelations of the Prophet, the establishment of the caliphate? Really? Are you serious?

Dark Ages

Morgan le Fay invokes "St. Joseph"

He doesn't have a transcendent sword forged in the dawn of time. He doesn't have a wizard advisor living and surfing the collective unconscious, though he does apparently have a Morgan le Fay (see above). He doesn't have the humility to bow to the Magisterium of the holy Catholic Church (I expect him at any time to say, "How many field agents does the Pope have?") And his popularity, like Uther Pendragon's, is at an all-time low.

He is not The One. The Sword awaits the true King.

Consequences

Francis Beckwith shares the Sen. Tom Coburn's form of laudable “community organizing.”

Barron - Till the Propitious Moment

Ht: Brother Aramis @ Four Mass’keteers:

Renaming Freedom, Excluding Religion

The Resistance - "Hey, like my new header, meshugas?"

(ht: Spirit of Moscow)

George Weigel spoke recently at an international symposium honoring Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger. One thing he said was, "Intolerance in the name of 'tolerance' must be named for what it is and publicly condemned. To deny religiously-informed moral argument a place in the public square is intolerant and anti-democratic." To read his entire address, go here.

It does not take a particularly keen observer to see the grim outline of what is happening in the United States of America under the current administration and their allies in the legislative branch of government. Weigel limns it well.

We are simply seeing the relegation of religious values to the interior of places of worship. This would include the values of the Scimitar, but as René Girard has shown so clearly (and the New Testament long before him) politicians fear crowds and power; a trait so-called "progressivists" share with the Scimitar, structurally speaking. For now, the loud-mouth rantings of the Scimitar are allowed, as long as demographics stay below a tipping point.

But it is obvious that leftist progressives want to exclude the Judeo-Christian voice in general and the magisterium of the Catholic Church in particular from public forum, and they will go to no extreme to make certain this happens. The exceptions, of course, are the Catholic-in-name-only types, those who violate the Church's teachings and leadership as progressivist allies. These will be paraded like loyal lap-dogs, shining examples of the "right kind" (wink wink) of religious thinking.

But for those who are loyal to Mother Church, like the babushkas of Soviet Russian, we are free to "hold" our religious beliefs so long as they do not attempt to intrude into serious social policy. Just sweep the streets, go to church, and keep very quiet.

This is the new "tolerance". This is the new "freedom". Welcome to the late, great American reformation.

P. S. - By the way, the babushkas won (cf. above).

Invitation - Corpus Christianum

It is high time to remind readers that there is a private organization dedicated to praying in a spirit of Marian chivalry for the Holy Father, the renewal of Christendom, and families. It is called Corpus Christianum (read all about it at this link).

I have found it to be a profound asset to my commitment to growing in prayer, sanctification, and practice of the theological virtues ... not that I can in any way separate any of these three. Corpus Christianum costs nothing to join, but you may find yourself a part of a growing international communion of chivalric persons who are devoted to Our Lord and Our Lady that brings out your vocation, your charisms, and your best for God's Kingdom.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Vote

Hadley Arkes gives us the predictable yet saddening news regarding the fading of pro-life Democrats and a punch drunk Bart Stupak.

But it may not matter any way since Speaker Pelosi is considering sliding the health "care" bill through without a vote.

Who needs representative democracy when you are unassailable? The image that comes to mind is that of the sea serpent in Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader when it thought it had destroyed the ship: a gleeful, self-satisfied attitude among the flotsam and jetsam. Or, perhaps it is more like ouroboros?

Converting Beyond Middle East

Maggie's Farm's Bruce Kesler turns our attention to small but growing victories in the war for hearts and souls beyond the Middle East: Christianity winning converts over the Scimitar.

Belloc - The Heart of Culture

Hilaire Belloc wrote:

HOW CATHOLICISM STANDS TODAY is obviously a vital matter both to the man who recognizes it for the salvation of the world, and to the man who regards it as a mortal poison in society. But it is also a vital matter to any neutral observer who has enough history to know that religion is at the root of every culture, and that on the rise and fall of religions the great changes of society have depended ...

The form of any society ultimately depends upon its philosophy, upon its way of looking at the universe, upon its judgment of moral values: that is, in the concrete, upon its religion.

For whether it calls its philosophy by the name of "religion" or no, into what is, in practice, a religion of some kind, the philosophy of any society ultimately falls. The ultimate source of social form is the attitude of the mind; and at the heart of every culture is a creed and code of morals: expressed or taken for granted.

As I have noted before, a society or culture that expels the Judeo-Christian ethos in particular and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church in particular - regardless of its ostensible self-understanding, as per Belloc above - is not a secular society. There never was and never shall be such a human culture. There may be a momentary void created by the expelling, but into such a vacuum will within 2-3 generations or faster come a new form of our human default religion, paganism, replete with all its usual characteristics (cf. the works of Burke Satinover cited in the link).

I repeat: it does not matter how the expellers see themselves or their themes, which nearly always self-grandize; the surreptitious structure of their behavior, programs, and platform always shows the tell-tale signs of paganism, or what Girard calls "the primitive Sacred." Human instincts and human will always are worshiped in their pantheon and end at the place of human sacrifice.

Our "progressivist" leaders chart this course with its obvious Moloch-like characteristic of abortuarial sacrifice, regardless of stainless steel, latex, and clinical euphemisms. Old Testament prophets would spot it and name it in a heart-beat.

Religion indeed resides at the heart of all human cultures. Can the biblical ethos survive before this neo-paganism onslaught? We must first see the malaise, then ora et labora.

I Support Israel Regardless of this President

From The New English Review's Iconoclast:

Monday, 15 March 2010

Daniel Greenfield On The Obama Administration's Tormenting Of Israel

Barack Hussein Obama vs Israel

The manifold organs of the ObamaMedia are abuzz with outrage over what they are calling Israel's "insult" to the United States. But what was the nature of this awful and outrageous insult? Did Israeli officials pull off V.P. Biden's rug to show off his bald head underneath. Did they ask him why the suit of his pants is so shiny. Did they make him sit at the kiddie table?

More>>

Then, Spengler states that I Wun is in more trouble over Iran than Israel.

Would he even notice were that true?

To the Friends of the Cross

Saint Louis de Montfort, in his Letter to the Friends of the Cross, graces even contemporary hearts with wisdom for these dark days and difficult times. (ht: Fr Angelo at Mary Victrix)

My dear brothers and sisters, there are two companies that appear before you each day: the followers of Christ and the followers of the world.

Our dear Saviour's company is on the right, climbing up a narrow road, made all the narrower by the world's immorality. Our Master leads the way, barefooted, crowned with thorns, covered with blood, and laden with a heavy cross. Those who follow him, though most valiant, are only a handful, either because his quiet voice is not heard amid the tumult of the world, or because people lack the courage to follow him in his poverty, sufferings, humiliations and other crosses which his servants must carry all the days of their life.

On the left hand is the company of the world or of the devil. This is far more numerous, more imposing and more illustrious, at least in appearance. Most of the fashionable people run to join it, all crowded together, although the road is wide and is continually being made wider than ever by the crowds that pour along it like a torrent. It is strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions, and paved with gold and silver.

On the right, the little groups which follow Jesus speak about sorrow and penance, prayer and indifference to worldly things. They continually encourage one another saying, "Now is the time to suffer and to mourn, to pray and do penance, to live in retirement and poverty, to humble and mortify ourselves; for those who do not possess the spirit of Christ, which is the spirit of the cross, do not belong to him. Those who belong to Christ have crucified all self-indulgent passions and desires. We must be true images of Christ or be eternally lost."

"Have confidence," they say to each other. If God is on our side, within us and before us, who can be against us? He who is within us is stronger than the one who is in the world. The servant is not greater than his master. This slight and temporary distress we suffer will bring us a tremendous and everlasting glory. The number of those who will be saved is not as great as some people imagine. It is only the brave and the daring who take heaven by storm, where only those are crowned who strive to live according to the law of the Gospel and not according to the maxims of the world. Let us fight with all our strength, let us run with all speed, that we may attain our goal and win the crown..

Read all of St. Louis de Montfort's Letter to the Friends of the Cross here.

Curt Jester - Peeved @ Piffle Aimed @ Pope

Jeff Miller ('Curt Jester') provides a nice bundle of defenses against the poisonous smears aimed at the Holy Father.

De Heem

Eucharist in Fruit Wreath (1648) - Jan Davidsz De Heem

(Wiki Commons - Click to enlarge)