I'm not ignoring you. . .

NB.  If I owe you a response in the combox or a reply to an email, please bear with me!

I will respond today (Sunday) after I finish up with Masses here at the priory and at the Oratory.

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Atheism murders 45 million. . .in just four years!

The next time you hear or read some blowhard like Maher or Dawkins spouting off about how dangerous religion is to civilization, point them to this article, "Mao's Great Leap Forward. . ."

Excerpts:

Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China [and noted atheist], qualifies as the greatest mass murderer in world history, an expert who had unprecedented access to official Communist Party archives said yesterday. 

[. . .] 

Mr Dikötter, who has been studying Chinese rural history from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine, compared the systematic torture, brutality, starvation and killing of Chinese peasants to the Second World War in its magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in China over these four years; the worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55 million. 

[. . .] 

State retribution for tiny thefts, such as stealing a potato, even by a child, would include being tied up and thrown into a pond; parents were forced to bury their children alive or were doused in excrement and urine, others were set alight, or had a nose or ear cut off. One record shows how a man was branded with hot metal. People were forced to work naked in the middle of winter; 80 per cent of all the villagers in one region of a quarter of a million Chinese were banned from the official canteen because they were too old or ill to be effective workers, so were deliberately starved to death.

[. . .] 

So, do not let go unchallenged the assertion that religion has been the cause of the world's greatest acts of violence.  As the Holy Father noted yesterday at Westminster Hall:

Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person.  Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.

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Tea Mug Browsing

Yawn.  Assorted child rape advocates, atheists, pro-abortionists, and science worshipers sign a letter protesting the Holy Father's visit to the U.K.   Folks, he's here.  Get it over it.

Fr. Z. has done his homework:  the nefarious associations of the letter signers.  Sorry.  But when a man who advocates lowering the age for sexual consent to 14 tells me that the Church is evil for covering up the sexual abuse of minors, I get this strange sense of incredulity.  Hypocrite, anyone?

His Hermeneuticalness provides a few random links on the BXVI visit to the U.K.

A down and dirty media guide for covering the Pope's U.K. visit. 

Apparently, our First Whiner doesn't like her job.  No worries, M.O.  You won't have the job much longer.  The White House denies that M.O. hates her job.  Doesn't really matter.

French prez is upset with the E.U. for trying to interfere with his gov't immigration policies.  Note to Sarkozy:  if you hire a nanny to raise your kids, don't be surprised when she tries to interfere in family business.  The only solution?  Fire her.

No More Control.  "Political control is what’s killing us.  It is expressed in hundreds of ways: high tax rates with carefully tailored exceptions, massive bailouts, laws rigged to favor government-controlled industries, restrictions on resource development, and a vast poppy field of subsidies and penalties.  The Democrats have added thousands of pages of fabulously expensive legislation since Obama took office.  Two messages echo through those pages: Obey and be rewarded.  Resist and be punished." 

A most excellent idea!  Give states the power to repeal Congressional legislation. 

Good article on the Nashville Dominican Sisters

Sometimes it's better not to microwave your pet hamster.

Cute pic of the day

Tech support for upgrading to Husband 1.0.

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On London, gossip, food, and being lost

How did yesterday's trip into London for dinner with Fr. Gaine and Anna Arco go?

Well, with company of such fine quality, how else could it go?  Fantastic!

The trip into London was long. . .three hours from Oxford to Victoria Station.  Took me a good 30 mins to find the stop for the 24 bus.  Once on the bus I knew the trip to St Dominic's Priory would take about 50 mins.  About half way through I decided to ask the driver if his bus stopped at the priory.  He gave me a blank look and said, "No."  Just as I was starting to despair, a quiet voice from behind me said, "Yes.  I'll show you."  Salvation!

The quiet voice belonged to a smallish woman with a Irish accent.  She described the priory in detail and told me that I had a ways to travel.  When a seat opened up next to her, I plopped down and started chatting.  I'm from Mississippi; it's what we do.  Within seconds she asked if I were a Dominican friar and told me that she attended Mass at St Dominic's.  She knew all the friars there and ones who had lived there for the past twenty years or so.  

The conversation turned to the papal visit and her voice dropped.  She glanced around suspiciously and confided to me that she was very anxious about the visit.  The media had been relentlessly attacking the Pope and the Church for several days.  She sounded a but depressed by the whole thing.  I told her to ignore the idiots and enjoy His Holiness' visit.  We parted at my stop and she seemed a little happier.

Fr. Gaine met me at the stop and we went on a tour of the area. . .a sort of trendy/posh/artsy neighborhood called Gospel Oaks.  Another short bus trip took us into the Camden Market and The Stables.  These are a combination of street markets, covered stalls, and specialty shops that sell to the rigorously uniform Bohemian crowd.  Apparently, revolting against The Man is a business, one ruled by the unbreakable laws of Not Bathing, Smoking Constantly, Eating Strange Cuisines, and Buying/Selling Heathenish Trinkets.  All that rebellion amounts to a dress code of baggy pants, commie tee-shirts, vintage shoes, ridiculous hats, and obscure music.  Lots of Buddhists paraphernalia.  Lots of Rasta junk.  Lots of incense, bells, CD's from Africa, and herbal remedies.  

After the markets, Fr. Gaine and I tucked into plates of fish and chips and beer.  In true Dominican style we discussed our latest academic projects and caught up on the whereabouts of several mutually acquainted friars.  A short respite back at the priory and then off to Leicester Square and the required tour of book stores.  Another pub break to people watch at Charing Cross as we awaited the arrival of our hostess, Ms Arco.

Anna arrived on her bike, wearing these knee high velvet boots. . .bright red!  Very striking.  I listened to some gossip about the Papal Visit. . .mostly the ineptitude of the bureaucrats of the bishops' conference and how the gov't's "security concerns" seem to be mostly about restricting the public's access to the Holy Father's appearances.  We headed off to a burger joint and ate these enormous "gourmet burgers."  I gave my American Seal of Approval to these concoctions and then we retired to yet another pub to top off the evening with a few pints.  

Anna loves corny puns and jokes, so Fr Gaine and I were regaled with several.  Groans and laughs all around.  I shared my favorite joke, which was immediately labeled "mean" amid much laughter.  We parted company and I was left at the 24 bus stop to make my way back to Victoria Station.  That was around 9.30pm.  Once at V.S. it took me an hour to find the stop for my Oxford coach.  I asked no fewer than four V.S. employees where the coach picked up and received no fewer than five different answers.  Finally surrendering to a bad sense of direction and near night blindness, I wandered over to the main coach terminal and watched the 11pm coach to Oxford pull out!  The next one was to leave at 11.30pm.  I made it onto this one and arrived back in Oxford at 1.10am.  

Overall, excellent food and drink.  Better company.  A day better than well spent.  Now, back to work!

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Beatitudes and Beads: my new booklet on the rosary

Liguori Publications has published my rosary booklet, Beatitudes and Beads.

The booklet contains an original rosary with prayers and meditations based on the Sermon on the Mount.

It is available in English and Spanish.

Each booklet is $2.50.  Buy in bulk and give them as gifts!

NB.  If you have a blog, please link to this notice.  All the royalties from this booklet go to my province.

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Tea Mug Browsing

Christians rip up an English copy of the Koran.   Why is this a bad thing?  Muslims frequently burn Bibles, crosses, even Christians!  Tit for tat is not the Way of Christ.  The Koran is holy to all Muslims not just the raging, sword-wielding fanatics we see on TV.  (NB.  I'm told that Muslims only revere the Koran in its native language. . .translations are considered bastardized.  But to the fanatics, it's the thought that counts.)

Stephen Hawking doubles down on stupid:  "God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator."  Yes, it can.  That's what science does:  explain stuff w/o reference to God.  What Hawking's science cannot do is explain stuff that science is not design to explain.  Why this is so difficult for him to understand is beyond me.  He's using a hammer to explain how gumbo is made.

Just a few myths about 9/11. 

On Sarah Palin and Leftist status anxiety:  "Palin’s success stabs [Leftists] in the heart of their anxiety. If Palin can be a successful political leader, what does that say about the leftists’ claims of intellectual and moral superiority?"  Easy.  They are neither intellectually nor morally superior.

B.O. vs. W. on the War on Terror. . .apparently, B.O. is as bad or worse than W. when it comes to all the things that the Left hated about W.  Um, where the media outrage?

Venezuela's Clown-in-Chief is losing his Shine. . .it's never a good sign for the Prez when the only way you can convince people to follow you is to shut down opposition.

Can you hear the Zombies stirring?  Me too.

Muslims stab and beat Christians. . .expect an outraged editorial from the NYT any second now.  Headline:  Why Didn't They Finish the Job?

Someone, please, nominate this man for the GOP ticket in 2012! 

How to kill a spider. . .all his hopes and dreams.

A new phrase for commenting on politicians' B.S.:  "Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before."  And 19 other puns.

Cute pic of the day

On the perils of putting playground equipment in your goldfish bowl

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Fresh new faces!

This year (and probably the next) the Southern Province and Western Province of the Dominican friars in the USA will share a novitiate at St Dominic's in San Francisco.  The SDP elected its newly appointed novice master as Prior Provincial back in June, thus leaving us w/o a trained novice master.

The novices of the Southern and Western Dominican Provinces. . .

(L-R):  fras. Juan de la Caridad (SDP), Thomas More (SDP), Bradley Thomas (WDP), 

Kevin (WDP), and Dennis (WDP).

Br. Thomas More Barba (a.k.a. Rudy Barba) is a former student of mine at U.D., and he served in Campus Ministry as my intern for a year.  Unfortunately, I do not know the other novices. . .yet!

Please keep this young OP's in your prayers. . .

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Rock beats air. . .everytime

NB.  If this homily seems like it's somewhat truncated that's b/c it is.  When I was assigned last evening's Mass, I naturally starting thinking about it as a vigil Mass. . .thus, a 12 min. homily would be required.  Then I learned that the 6.15pm Saturday Mass here is not a vigil Mass, i.e. it is not celebrated using Sunday's readings, etc.  So, much slashing and burning had to be done!

23rd Week OT(S)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Blackfriars, Oxford

If asked, could you sum up the basic differences between cultural modernism and cultural postmodernism? The difference between T. S. Eliot and Julia Kristeva? Fredric Jameson argues that postmodernism is the "dominant cultural logic of late capitalism,” meaning that the logic of our current cultural enterprises is motivated by a pernicious ideology that privileges textuality over ontology, difference over unity, skepticism over certainty, and intellectual anarchy over reason's authority. My guess is that most sensible people don't spend a lot of time worrying about the postmodernist deconstruction of modernism's grand-narratives of Self, Law, and Reason. Sensible people, including not a few good Catholics, need to reconsider. . .and worry. Why? Take a simple definition of one of postmodernism's most successful spawn, Jacques Derrida's theory of deconstruction. J. Hillis Miller writes, “Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently-solid ground is no rock, but thin air." What's so worrying about how a critic chooses to treat a literary text? If we were simply talking about poetics, there might not be a problem. However, the notion that there is no solid ground, no rock upon which we might construct a humane community is the originating principle of the logic that governs many of our contemporary cultural, economic, political endeavors, including efforts among some in the Church. As a culture, what do we inherit and what do we bequeath? Well, all is thin air. But it doesn't have to be.

Jesus says to his disciples, “I will tell you about the person who hears me and acts on my teachings. . .” He then describes two house builders. The one who listens and acts is like a builder who digs a deep foundation for his house and build on solid rock. The one who listens but fails to act is like a builder who builds his house on sand. When the river rises and bears down on each house, guess which one ends up starring in a Youtube video as it slides gracelessly into the flood? The house with no foundation, the one built on sand collapses. Jesus exclaims, “. . .and what a ruin that house became!” The person who hears but does not act will collapse into ruins when a crisis strikes. One person, then the family, then the community, then the nation, then the whole of one's culture. What will we inherit and what will we bequeath? Thin air. All is thin air.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul warns the Church of Corinth to avoid idolatry not because the idols are real gods but because the idols are not the real God. If we make an idol of the logic of late capitalism, then language is simply arbitrary convention; law is simply violence made legitimate; reason is simply privileged power; and faith, faith is nothing more than a vicious habit, the naive and potentially dangerous habit of believing that there is Something Out There worthy of our trust. It is no accident that the scions of postmodernism target the Church for ridicule and oppression. We are among the last to dig deep and build on a rock-solid foundation.

Our foundation is Christ and him crucified and risen; therefore, we cannot eat and drink with Christ in the Church and at the same time eat and drink with demons. Through the Church, we have inherited the faith of the apostles, and we have been charged with bequeathing this treasure to our children. They are no less endangered by the raging floods than we are. And they are no less entitled to the riches of an authentic faith than we are. After all, Jesus says to his disciples, “There is no sound tree that produces rotten fruit. . .we do not pick figs from thorns.” With constant prayer, charitable works, attention to the sacraments, and obedience—listening—to the voice of divine love and acting on His love, we dig deep, rock solid foundations. The thin air of late capitalism's cultural logic is no match for a Church built on the rock of Christ.

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Additions to W.L. not working. . .

A HancAquam reader tells me that the changes I made to the Wish List have made things worse.

With Amazon my shipping address is automatically included.  The Book Depository additions to the Wish List do not. 

So, I've switched most of the recently added books on the list back to Amazon. 

Ah well, it was worth a try!

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Archbishop Di Noia at the John Carroll Society

The John Carroll Society announces. . .

Most Rev. Joseph Augustine Di Noia, O.P., Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, will offer a lecture, “Why do Catholics go to Mass?”

The Cathedral of St. Matthew, Washington, DC at 6:45 p.m.

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On not spending $40K a year to get a degree in Gender Studies.  As a holder of several degrees in "useless majors" (philosophy, history, English, and theology), I can attest to the wisdom of both a liberal arts education and the need to spend your young adult years studying more practical subjects (NB.  my first major was International Banking!).  However, some of us simply aren't made for the practical world. . .ya know, where math and stuff is required. . .

On the persistence of Presidential petulance: "Messianic disappointment with an unappreciative lesser world can explain a lot."

The Ground Zero Mosque imam:  Making us move the mosque will increase threats to US national security.  Ummmm. . .veiled threats to our national security will not garner you much sympathy.

Another one of our Black Robed Masters orders us to do what's best for us.  NB.  the DoJ did nothing more to defend the law than present its legislative history, i.e. they called no witnesses, produces no evidence, made no arguments.

Wonder how many stories we will see about this revelation in the MSM:  Castro admits that communism/socialism has failed in Cuba.

LA cathedral will the site for the campaign kick-off of CA's pro-abortion/pro-gay "marriage" Democrats.   In all of CA, is there no where else for them to go?  Surely, the Vulcan Princess statue (a.k.a, the Blessed Mother) will be frowning.

This is why you shouldn't play with Ouija boards. . .

Fido just finished watching Inception. . .he'll never be the same.

Cute pic of the day

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On tolerance & love

A fantastic quote from Dominican legend, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. . .

"The Church is intolerant in principle because she believes; she is tolerant in practice because she loves. The enemies of the Church are tolerant in principle because they do not believe; they are intolerant in practice because they do not love."

H/T:  Mark "The Gravitationally Enhanced" Shea

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Yes!  Because going on strike creates money!  No doubt after today's "worker action" gov't budgets all over the E.U. will magically balance.  Geez.  Someone put the adults back in charge, please.

Catholic dinosaurs in the U.K. are thwarted in their ridiculous attempts to foist a Spirit of Vatican II liturgical agenda onto the Holy Father's visit.

OK then. . .Time Magazine is no longer simply hinting at its barely disguised antisemitism.

The Eternal Shrug of Rome. . .wow, she nails it perfectly!  Trust me on this:  orthodox Catholics do not want the Vatican to be in any city other than Rome and we want no one else to be running things but the Italians.  God is in charge and the Italians in the Vatican seem to understand this.

Ouch!  Priest slaps young man for desecrating the Blessed Sacrament.  Not sure I could do that, but I have often wanted to smack some people for wearing halter tops and hunting gear to Mass.

On burning the Koran in FL. . .remember:  just because you have the right to do something doesn't make doing it right.

The definition of insanity:  doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  This is what happens when you don't or won't understand history.  I repeat:  someone please put the adults back in charge!

The definition of irony:  school named after Pope Gore I built on toxic soil.

Finally!  Universities are teaching something our citizen-students can use:  Zombies 101.  I hope there is a lab on the use and care of machetes.

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Why does Jesus flee?

23rd Week OT (T)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Blackfriars, Oxford

Sometimes, he grabs a boat and rows out to sea. Other times, he heads out into the desert, fasting and praying. He usually goes alone, but occasionally he takes along a select group of disciples. This time, with a largish gang of students trailing behind, Jesus goes out into the hills. There, among the rocks and sage brush, he spends the whole night in pray to God. We might wonder what's so special about the sea, the desert, and the hills when it comes time for Jesus to pray. Surely, he could just as easily find a quiet coffee shop or nice bookstore. Maybe a side chapel or park bench. What do seas, deserts, and hills have going for them that a serviceable college library carrel doesn't? Setting aside the anachronisms loaded into this question, let's take seriously the idea that prayer needs a location, a location specific to listening. If, as Aquinas teaches, “Christ's actions are our instructions,” what do we make of Jesus' tendency to flee to remote places in order to listen to God?

First, there's the obvious advantage of silence. Being in a quiet place is a kind of fasting, a sacrifice of music and noise. Whether your preferred noise is Mozart or Moby, Johnny Cash or Johnny Rotten, filling your ears symphonically or cacophonously can push out the Word you need to hear. Patterns become familiar. Rhythms become predictable. Lyrics repeat what you already know. Silence has no pattern, no rhythm, and its lyrics never repeat. It is the surprising strangeness of no-sound-at-all that smacks us awake to the long, novel reach of every possible sound.

When it comes time to pray, the second advantage that deserts and hills have over parks and malls is solitude. Like silence, chosen solitude is a form of fasting, sacrificing the company of family and friends in order to clear a time and space to entertain the presence of God. Filling every space in our days with someone else, with just anyone else, edges God out, leaving Him aside like an unfashionable handbag or a particularly ugly hat. The presence of people in our lives, however well-meaning and precious, can become too predictable, patterned and repetitious. Their familiarity and our comfort with them can distract and disarm, leaving us unable or unwilling to risk the dangers of being alone with God. What might He ask us to do? What truth might He reveal? Without family and friends to normalize these potentially bizarre revelations, we are left to wrestle single-handedly whichever angel God chooses to send. 

Time alone with God in silence demands responsibility. Not just the moral kind, the kind where we are held morally accountable, but the kind where we are compelled to respond, seduced into answering Him. Without noise and companions to distract, disarm, normalize, and comfort, we have nothing and no one to fall back on when the weight of a decision presses in. What we say is ours alone to say. What we do is ours alone. Note well, however, Jesus always returns to the crowd; he always goes back to his disciples. He never just abandons the people he loves. He takes the silence and solitude of the deserts and hills and seas back to the madness of the crowds and to his questioning students. He shares out the fruits of his prayer, knowing that every mountain good for contemplation comes complete with level ground for preaching. Christ's actions are our instructions; therefore, pray alone in silence and then tell the Church what God has revealed to you. It just might be that the rest of us, noisy and busy, haven't been listening.

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On Catholic charities and cockroaches

Q:  Father, it seems like all the major Catholic charities are giving our money to groups that promote various sins.  Is it possible to give money to these charities and justify the donation by saying that the good they do outweighs the evil?

A:  Let me answer your question with a question.  You discover a large cockroach in your bowl of soup.  Do you just eat around the cockroach?  Or do you believe that the cockroach swimming in your soup has tainted all the soup in the bowl?  Unless and until you can conclusively prove that the cockroach's diseased presence has inflected only a small, removable portion of the soup, I say:  throw the whole thing out and start over.

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