Coren - Fighting the Good Fight

Author and apologist Michael Coren appears in Peter Jackson's extended DVD boxed-sets. He, and others, help to explain the influences on young J. R. R. Tolkien. Now, ZENIT reports, he has a new book that helps to defend the Catholic Church in the continuing onslaught of cultural attacks facing Her today.

A convert himself from Judaism, Coren apparently ranges over a variety of topics and incidents from his life, according to ZENIT. The book, Why Catholics Are Right, may be purchased here.

The No-Men Pt. 4 - Knox

(This completes Knox's essay, "The No-Men")

THAT'S WHY I WANT TO appeal to you all, as you remember the English martyrs, to cultivate jealously and watchfully your own independence of mind ... You live in a frightful age of propaganda; books, newspapers, and above all the wireless are trying hard all the time to influence your mind; and a great deal of that propaganda is directed in a steady stream against the Catholic religion. Not openly, but in a insidious way; the worshippers of the State are always so selecting and so presenting the news that the Catholic Church always gets mixed up with what is unpopular at the moment, always appears as the enemy of liberty and of progress. It's a highly elaborate business and oh, it's boring! But you are going to live in a world which swallows all that sort of dope ... I don't say that you'll lose the faith, but you'll be a passenger; you'll be no use to the Church, when she wants you. Keep your independence of mind; only half believe what you hear; suspend judgement, think for yourself, learn for yourself. If I am privileged to meet any of you later on, I don't very much mind what else has happened to you ... if only you've preserved your independence of mind. God bless you all, and give you grace to do it.

- Ronald A. Knox

The No-Men Pt. 3 - Knox

"Well," you say, "that's all ancient history. It's got nothing to do with us; the sort of problems which bothered people early in the sixteen century don't bother us." Well, in a sense that's true. Nobody bothers nowadays about the King, God bless him, being Head of the Church in England. It tickles the English citizen to read in the paper that their Majesties attended divine worship yesterday at Sandringham. "Sooner it was them than me", he reflects; but on the whole he rather likes the Church of England to be part of the set-up of monarchy in this country; it gives him a solid sense of prosperity. But as to King George being supreme Head of the Church, he bothers about it as little King George himself. In that sense, the whole controversy which cost More and Fisher their lives is a dead controversy now. But in a more general sense, we haven't nearly finished with it. It was all part of that general attack of Satan against the Catholic Church, which started immediately after our Lord's death, and is going on still (emphasis added).

Satan, like so many half-educated people, likes to be thought original, but he's really repeating himself all the time in slightly different ways. You will find that about your own temptations, if you look into them; you imagine at first sight that he's really pulled off something absolutely new on you, and then, when you trace it back a bit, you find it was just the same old story, the same kind of pride, the same kind of carelessness, which had landed you several times before. And so it has been with his grand attack on the Christian Church. For the first few centuries it was the Roman emperors that were the trouble; Christians were persecuted because they wanted to worship God instead of worshipping the Roman emperor. The Roman Empire fell, and there was a pause, a good long pause, and kings began to become important all over Europe; so Christians like St. John and St. Thomas were persecuted because they wanted to obey God instead of obeying the king. Nowadays, kings are at a discount, and the modern world has started to worship a dreadful thing called the State. Fascism or Communism, it's all the same thing really; it's just worship of the State. And because they hold out against this worship of the State, because they won't let the State dictate to them how they are going to worship and how the Church is going to be organized, people are being killed now all over Europe. We heard plenty about it when it was the Nazis who were doing it; we don't hear so much about it now that it isn't the Nazis. But the thing is going on; more and more the shadow of atheism is falling over the whole of eastern Europe. And it is quite on the cards that within your lifetime the main strength of the Catholic Church will lie in the English-speaking countries; the very countries we have been accustomed to think of as Protestant! France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, - you can't bet what is going to happen there. It's quite probable that you, later on, will find yourself having to pull your socks up, and help to save the Catholic Church, humanly speaking, from going under. (The No-Men will conclude in Pt. 4)

- Ronald A. Knox

The No-Men Pt. 2 - Knox

I HAVE BEEN INSISTING ON THAT, partly because it enormously enhances the credit of their performance. Mr. Belloc has written very well on that point. He writes of St. Thomas - and it was equally true of St. John - as follows: "To allow oneself to be killed, of one's own choice, in full life, rather than pay the price of yielding upon one dry, narrow, intellectual point; having, to sustain one ... neither enthusiasm within, nor the sense of agreement from others without, this is to die alone indeed! He had no enthusiasm for the Papacy; all his life he had been a reformer in the full sense of the word ... Nor was the extraordinary man supported from without ... The average Englishmen had little concern with the quarrel between the crown and Rome; it did not touch his life. The Mass went on just the same, and all the splendours of religion ... To the ordinary man of that day anyone, especially a highly-placed official, who stood out against the King's policy, was a crank ... No, he was not supported from without."

If you want to realize how lonely these two men must have felt in making their protest against the tyranny of King Henry, you have only to look at the sort of way More's wife talked about it, when she went to visit him in prison. "I marvel," she said, "that you, that hitherto have been taken for a wise man, will now so play the fool, to lie here in this close, filthy prison, and be content to be thus shut up among rats and mice, when you might be abroad at your liberty, and with the favour and goodwill both of king and his council, if you would but do as all the bishops and best learned men of his realm have done. And seeing that you have at Chelsea a right fair house, your library, your gallery and all other necessities so handsome about you, where you might in the company of me, your wife, your children and household be merry, I muse what a God's name you mean, here still thus fondly to tarry."

Thus was More's second wife, and she wasn't the ancestress of anybody here, so there is no reason why we should be specially polite about her. But I think it is fair to remember that her point of view was probably the common point of view about the line More was taking. And it was worse when his daughter Margaret came and tried to talk him round, because she was a really good woman and he was very fond of her ... Put this question to yourself for a moment. If your father, or someone you were very fond of, was in prison, and about to be martyred on a point of conscience, would you advise him to stick to his point of conscience? or would you advise him to cave in? ... Life is difficult, isn't it? (No-Men Pt 3 continues here.)

- Ronald A. Knox

The No-Men Pt. 1 - Knox

I'M GOING TO TALK to you about two great saints: St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, the two most influential people, in their day, among the ranks of the English martyrs ... I'm not going to tell you a lot about those two saints. I expect you know a good deal about them already; one of you is descended from one of them. I just want you to seize on one splendid quality about them; their utter independence of mind. You see, the really curious thing about the English martyrs is that there were so few of them. Here you have a completely Catholic country which in a matter of twenty years or so goes Protestant, and nobody seems to mind very much. Why weren't all the other people martyrs too? And the answer to that question is the same as the answer to the question, Why did the Germans ever let the Nazis get into power? - you can give it in four words: MOST MEN ARE SHEEP. You can get them to accept anything, by bluffing them, by bullying them, by applying soft soap when it's needed. But there are a few of the important people in any generation to whom you can't do that. They are not stupid enough to be hoodwinked by propaganda. They are too honest to be bribed with preferment. And they have just that touch of hardness about their minds which won't consent to sacrifice principle for the sake of general peace and calm. You can do nothing with such people, except martyr them. Such were St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More.

Don't run away with a wrong impression of them; they weren't disagreeable sort of people in the literal sense; that is, in the sense that they were fond of disagreeing with their fellow-men. They weren't cranks with a passion for writing letters to The Times every day, not a bit of it. You couldn't have had a more human, companionable friend than St. Thomas More, a jollier host, a more open-minded critic of the world around him. Nor must you suppose that these men, either of them, were backwoods Conservatives, Colonel Blimps, with the fixed idea that what had been good enough for their grandfathers must be good enough for them. On the contrary, they were in the very van of the progressive movement. In the great revival of learning that was taking place just then, St. John Fisher took an enormous part, and kept on building colleges at the university. It's true that he always built them at Cambridge, which strikes some of us as bad taste; but probably Cambridge needed them more.

Anyhow, this is quite certain - that if these two men took a different line from most of their contemporaries, it wasn't because they were tiresome, cross-grained people, and it wasn't because they were people who disliked everything that was modern, and went about saying, "What I mean to say is, what?" They were men loved by their fellows, and typical of their age. That is why they were martyred. If they had been less representative people, they would have been left alone. (Pt. 2 will continue "The No-Men".)

- Ronald A. Knox

Easter Monday

This joyous Easter Monday, let us call to mind, gentle reader, the Victory which was won, yea, e'en for each of us. In the coming days, I will be reproducing, excerpt by excerpt, portions of Monsignor Ronald A. Knox's little talk on standing firm in a milieu of satanic revolution, "No-Men," from his little volume, The Gospel in Slow Motion. In it, he lauds St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher. He compares the truth that MOST MEN ARE SHEEP vs. the few who are not stupid enough to be hoodwinked by propaganda. About the latter, he says, "You can do nothing with such people, except martyr them."

Rejoice!

Satan - Living Actor in History

Here's a catchy opening:

Some of you may know his work from your studies. (Leszek) Kolakowski was a former Marxist, a very gifted scholar, and a skeptic about many things – but not about the reality of evil or the nature of the devil. One of the disturbing things for Kolakowski's secular colleagues was that he talked about Satan not as a metaphor or legend or the figment of neurotic imaginations, but as a living actor in history. And that deserves some discussion. We'll get to that in a moment, but let's begin at the beginning. (Emphasis added)

Read more here.

Praying for 'This Generation'

When our Lord describes his generation, what simile does He use? He says in Luke 7,32:

"To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the market place and calling to one another, `We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.'"

And that was only His generation. Or, was it only His generation? Elsewhere in Matthew 12, 39b-45, He describes the plight of a man who believes he can, on his own, whisk clean his "house" of evil spirits:

"An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nin'eveh will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here ... "When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest, but he finds none. Then he says, `I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.

Then he goes and brings with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. So shall it be also with this evil generation."

Gil Bailie posits that what our Lord means by "this generation" is "business as usual" in terms of how culture is always generated among fallen human beings, the taxonomy of which is most clearly spelled out by René Girard's mimetic theory, a worthy tool in the hands of the Church's Magisterium. (For example, cf. especially the work and homiletics of Father Raniero Cantalamessa, ofmcap.)

"This generation" is what Satan offers our Lord during His temptations in the wilderness (Mtt 4,8ff).

The staggering thing is to be living and moving and having our being as people who affirm Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church among leaders of nations, industry, and global policy who are plainly and willfully citizens of "this generation." They cannot begin to accept the beliefs of the Church's deposit of faith, the Magisterium, and lordship of Jesus Christ. And so, they are like the cleaner of the evil spirit; like children in the marketplace - all cleaned up and so blindly naive to the realities of Satan in their lives, their thinking, their politics and policies.

Good reason to pray during this season of Lent. Very good reason. And very good reason to join in-arms in Marian chivalry in this godless age in need of the hope and glory our Lord offers.

Lord - Honor and Truth

Friend, Dawn Eden, kindly gave me among other volumes a real treasure: Christ Jesus our King - A Eucharistic Prayer Book, interestingly written by Father Daniel A. Lord, S.J., "Under the auspices of The Knights and Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament." Here is an essay that comes from this slim volume:

IN THE DAY OF CHRIST honor was a forgotten virtue - as perhaps it is today in many quarters. Philosophers had made an art of lying. Diplomacy had become trickery by which great empires absorbed small nations and small nations held by bribery and shameless flattery some semblance of independent rule. Between men and women there was no honor; a man took what he could take; a woman gave what she could profitably yield. The gods were proverbial liars and philanderers. Governors were greedy of hand and ruthless with sword. Armies lived by looting. Justice was a matter of bribery. And truth was to the pagan Pilate a word hardly worth repeating.

Into that world came the incorruptible Christ.

The devil tempted Him to a loss of honor, guaranteeing Him the world.

A little flattery or convenient closing of the eyes - and the armies would have come to His side.

Had He pretended to condemn the woman taken in adultery, the scribes would have admired Him and the Sadduccees would have accepted Him as one of them.

A smooth answer to Pilate rather than a harping on the truth - and Pilate might have given Him His freedom.

But to Him truth was above all else. He was the way, the truth, and the life.

He never minced a doctrine to make it easier to digest, nor did He fit a practice to conform to small-minded men. He refused to compromise with vicious practices, even those of long custom and tradition. He broke the taboos of the sabbath in the interests of mercy. He called villains and scoundrels by their proper names, even though He thus won their implacable resentment.

To the Apostles, as He knighted them for their glorious mission, He cried aloud, "Teach!" It was truth and the honorable living of truth that would save the world.

So it has been that, where it might have conciliated a heretic by the shaving of a revealed truth, the Church has declined to lose honor. When practice has seemed hard, the Church might have compromised its honor slightly - on confession, laws against divorce, attitudes toward birth control - and won new adherents or held hesitant ones; but it could not betray its honor or sacrifice its truth.

Has any other age ever needed honor and truth more than ours does?

Can a knight do more for the world than maintain among the debased, the panders, the sycophants, the distorters of truth, among crooked tradesmen, greedy laborers, and unethical professional men the knightly honor of Christ?

- Daniel A. Lord

Knox - 'He Suffered' - Pt. 1

Monsignor Ronald A. Knox, writing and preaching to his war-time (WWII) congregation of school girls at Aldenham, produced for my money the most lucid explication of the Creed in print, The Creed in Slow Motion (readily available from Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, IN).

Chapter by chapter, Knox elucidates bite-sized portions of the Creed in a manner that one reviewer says exhibited "a freedom from ecclesial decorum which is sometimes startling, yet always with a purpose;" namely, to show how the age-old faith resonates with our contemporary experiences.

So, my purpose now is to display Knox's superlative grasp of the Catholic faith in a series of posts in which I will, gentle reader, give you in its entirety chapter IX, "He Suffered." It is apropos for this season of Lent, and, in a few short pages, it brings to us the meaning and purpose not only of our Lord's salvific suffering, but the meaning and purpose of our own suffering in this mortal plane of temporal existence. I hope you will find it as important as I have.

By the way, as friend Gil Bailie notes, good authors always create their own precursors. I lay no claim to being a "good author," but I will say that Knox here gives the foundation for my own book, A Little Guide for Your Last Days that was written, submitted, and published long before I laid eyes on Knox's book.

And so I begin presenting to you, "He Suffered - Part 1, excerpted from The Creed in Slow Motion."

I EXPECT SOME of your will be wanting to complain that I've only given you half a clause out of the Credo there, instead of a whole clause. When you say the Credo, you say, "Sufton Plntius Pilate," and that's that. But, you see, quite apart from the question when or how our Lord suffered, it is important to get it into our heads that he did suffer. Go back for a moment to what you rememeber of the Gospels, and tell me what evidence we have, earlier than his agony in the garden of Gethsemani, to tell us that our Lord did suffer? It's not so easy, is it? I think I'm right in saying that there are only three occasions, before Gethsemani, on which we hear of our Lord as suffering any kind of bodily discomfort. When his temptation in the wilderness was over, we are told that he hungered. When he passed by the fig tree that had leaves but no fruit on it, we are told that he was hungry. And when he sat down by the well and talked to the woman of Samaria, we are told that he was tired after his journey. Elsewhere we hear of his being sorry about things - he wept over Jerusalem, for example, and over the grave of Lazarus - but except on those three occasions I don't think we ever hear that he suffered bodily discomfort - till Gethsemani. (Continues in Pt. 2)

Lev - A Chivalrous Jewish Knight

No display of crucifixes in classrooms? Had the EU cast out not only the last remnant of reminders of Europe's Christian origins, not only the Christ Child in the bathwater but the Savior of mankind upon his glorious throne?

Elizabeth Lev relates how close it came, and how a Jewish "knight" came riding to do battle:

(T)he true knight in shining armor of this story is a New York University law professor, Joseph Weiler, a devout and observant Jew, who represented, pro bono, the governments of Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, The Russian Federation and San Marino against the court's ruling.

With expert arguments, a mixture of wisdom drawn from the Old and New World and an occasional spark of humor, Europe's modern Galahad, made his winning case.

He compared the cross to a picture of the queen of England hanging in the classroom. "Like the cross," Weiler noted, "that picture has a double meaning. It is a photo of the head of state. It is, too, a photo of the titular head of the Church of England."

"Would it be acceptable," he asked, "for someone to demand that the picture of the queen may not hang in the school since it is incompatible with their religious conviction or their right to education since they are Catholics, or Jews, or Muslims?"

He closed with a warning, one that should echo in the United States: "A one rule fits all, as in the decision of the Second Chamber, devoid of historical, political, demographic and cultural context is not only inadvisable, but undermines the very pluralism, diversity and tolerance which the Convention is meant to guarantee and which is the hallmark of Europe."

Weiler won the day -- the court decided 15-2 in favor of Italy. Much like the Knights of Malta in 1565, who single-handedly held off the Turkish fleet, Professor Joseph Weiler and the nations and advisors who came to Italy's rescue, struck a decisive blow in favor of Europe's religious freedom.

Read all here.

Christian Friendship - Close to Heaven

What a wonderful occasion of providential faith and hope and charity. After an hour and one-half of dealing with a "home health nurse" and my apparent prime directive, who should show up at my doorstep but fellow Mass'keteer, young D'Artagnan, (graphic artist of the above) and Lady Dawn Eden! Each bore not only lunch-for-one (for herself; D'Art and I had eaten) but other fine, fine gifts and delights.

And for the next two and one-half hours, old Athos was bathed and swathed in such milk of human kindness, Christian friendship, and called-out-of-the-world-of-woes extradition that he thought he had somehow missed that rending of soul from body and been taken directly to the third heaven of what our brother Saint Paul speaks:

"I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell." (2 Corinthians 12:2-4)

We chatted about books (ours and others') and new projects, one of which will take one of us far afield. We walked down to a nearby park and strolled next to a meandering stream. And then - the ceremonial exchanging of gifts!

Goodness! Lady Dawn, ever a keeper of what Tolkien called in hobbit terminology, mathom, brought out from her storehouse things old and new. And let us say, gentle reader, that D'Artagnan and Lady Dawn did not leave Athos' humble dwelling empty-handed. The former received in token of the chivalry which all of the Mass'keteers share in common brotherhood, and the latter is covered, though not yet blessed, in four-ways most blessed for her continuous deeds of errantry and pitched battle against the wicked and snares of the devil.

Can heaven come down and touch earth in any way more acceptably and nobly all of a Monday afternoon? Answer: Yes. For, before D'Artagnan and Lady Dawn left, we joined in prayer under the divine sign of the Most Holy Trinity and - gasp! - blessedly in the reliquarial presence (1st order) of Saint Dominic, compliments of a religious' gift to Lady Dawn in the wee hours at Notre Dame. D'Artagnan said he felt the great saint's hand on his shoulder as we knelt and prayed ...

May you have such an encounter with the true, good, and beautiful, gentle reader. And I will recount the deeds of two great friends and their superabundance of charity for long ages to come.

P. S. - Life is sweet and good if besides hosting friends like the above, one can field a phone call of concern on a Sunday afternoon, too, from a great friend, mentor, and all round great guy who now, again, lives in California.

Invitation to Marian Chivalry

Do you want to go beyond pew-sitting membership in the Catholic Church? Hear a call of silver trumpets to give more of your life to serving Our Lord and Our Lady in chivalrous fealty? I recommend that you give attention to Corpus Christianum. From the website:

What do members do?

Relying on the intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, members pray daily for the renewal, unity, and spread of Christendom, for the protection of Christians, for the conversion of sinners and sanctification of all people, for Holy Mother Church, and for the reinstitution of family life. Members pray the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary as well as a short prayer to Mary, Help of Christians, the Corpus Christianum Preces, and a rosary. On Saturdays members also pray the Litany of Loreto. For members who want to expand their spiritual life even more, they can choose to follow the Acta Militum (see question further below)

Where are members located?

Currently there are men and women in nine countries (Australia, Canada, Germany, Nigeria, Philippines, Sweden, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States - with members in 28 different states in the U.S.).

What is the canonical status of the Association?

Corpus Christianum is an international Private Association of the Faithful.

The Association's Statutes have been reviewed and a nihil obstat has been granted by His Excellency, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska [USA] on August 2, 2010. His Excellency's reaffirm of support was confirmed again in a letter on January 24, 2011. These letters can be accessed here and here.

The Statutes mention the Acta Militum? What is that?

The Acta Militum is a document that can be used as a "plan" to expand one's spiritual life beyond the general Corpus Christianum prayers. Those persons who follow the Acta may also find it very useful as a discussion tool with their spiritual directors.

Protectress of the Church

On this feast of Saint Agatha, check out pal Frank's post, For Our Lady, the 'Terror of Hell' (and other misbehaving heretical imps, as per above).

Newman's Romance of Truth - Knox

I SAY THAT NEWMAN WAS, as in a measure all converts are, a witness to truth. The martyrs are witnesses to the truth, but for them, it is mixed up with other considerations; with loyalties, with ideologies; the convert sees truth, as truth is represented proverbially, naked. And I say that this witness to truth is all-important in our time. In our lifetime the sovereignty of truth itself has come to be assailed. For the sake of cause or party, for the sake of efficient government, men will silence, expressly and deliberately, that sovereign voice. A hundred years ago our enemies blamed us for thinking wrong; today they blame us for thinking. They hustle the unwelcome metaphysician into the concentration camp, into the gas-chamber. Men are to think as the State wants them to think, whether it is true or not ...

And yet, for us Catholics, truth is something homelier and friendlier than bare intellectual conviction. Revealed truth does not merely claim the homage of our intellects, it satisfies the aspirations of our hearts. What Newman gained in 1845 was not the mere saving of his own intellectual honesty; it was a system of spiritual values which lit up the world for him; not a cold glare but a warm blaze, a kindly Light which made the darkness more congenial than the garish day he loved once. A man of intellect, but very human, he preached to us, not from the rostrum, but from the pulpit. He followed truth, not as one who demands mere leadership; it was a wine he thirsted for, he was love-sick for its romance. His great name lives imperishable in the annals of the Church, a man who lived haunted by the the truth, and died desiring it.

- Ronald A. Knox

Roger Scruton - Half-way Home

Roger Scruton is the Robert Redford-esque staunch defender of truth, goodness, and beauty of our day. We should cherish the fact that in the shambles of western civilization we still have such a knight on our side.

Having said that, he considered once joining the Catholic Church and stopped off instead at the Anglican Church. This reminds me of a story my late spiritual director, Father (and medical doctor and former Abbot) Mark Delery told me of a woman who came to speak with him. She told Father Mark that she had decided to join the Episcopal Church instead of going all the way into Mother Church.

As she reached the door she turned around, startled and stared at him. "What did you say?" she entoned. Father Mark said, "What?" She looked a bit hurt and puzzled. "I thought I heard you say, 'Coward!'" Father Mark smiled at me and said, "I thought it. I didn't know I said it out loud."

Joining the Catholic Church today, especially for one as high-profile and respected as Roger Scruton, carries certain penalties: loss of club membership, parking space, and place at the bar in the Club for Determiners of Terms of Public Discourse and Value. I feel sad and a bit like Father Mark about Scruton.

Particularly since I admire Scruton's work so much. For example: Stealing from Churches. See what you think.

March for Life '11

From pal Frank Weathers at Why I Am Catholic:

Bl William Carter

Remember with me today Blessed William Carter. In a day not unlike his of the sinful, banal, and evil, he - as many of us today still do - tried to keep alive Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

Bl. William, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier

Saint Francis Xavier

Like Father Like Son

Let these words - "you're allowing five out of nine hotshot lawyers to run the country" - spoken by the father of this fellow, who we are blessed to have serving in the priesthood in our neck of the woods, sink in.